Bodak in a Bag

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Here's an interesting -- my group found it quite humorous -- conundrum that came up in today's game:

The party is raiding an illithid prison ("Spirals of Manzessine," Dungeon 92) to rescue a party member who had been captured. In the course of the adventure, the cleric accompanying the party is slain by a bodak's gaze attack. The cleric's cohort, a paladin, insisted that the cleric's body be brought along to be given a proper burial (Knowledge:Religion and Knowledge:Undead being scarce at that point -- and as this was the party's first encounter with bodaks, no one knew, in character, that an individual slain by a bodak rises again as a bodak 24 hours later), so into the bag of holding the cleric's body goes.

In due time the lost party member is rescued. He's been tattooed by the illithids with a tattoo of dimensional anchor so the party, average level 12th, can't just teleport home -- they start walking. The rescued party member, a cleric, fills them in on bodaks, but due to his imprisonment lacks the spells to deal with the problem. A day passes ... and the party now has a bag of holding containing on each bodak.

So what do you do with a bodak in a bag?

Spoiler

What my group did: For whatever reason, they were unwilling to open the bag and face the bodak, so they eventually decided to seal the bag of holding and wall it up in a cavern, abandoning both the bag and the bodak in the Underdark.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

What do you do with the Bodak in the bag, the bodak in the bag taa raa raa.

If anybody else know The Body in the Bag...

The Auld Grump

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Pin a note to it that says 'Chocolate Covered Brains' and leave it behind. Illithids are suckers for chocolate.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

If there's anything in the bag that isn't waterproof, write it off as a loss.

Pour as much holy water as you can afford into the bag and shake it up for a few minutes. There should be a good chance, with an explanation of the situation, that you can get a discount on the holy water, since Good churches generally share the destruction of dangerous undead as a goal.

 

[Andor]

Send it to an enemy with a note that says "With Love from..."

 

[Richards]

We had something similar happen, in a party of two PCs. One, the cleric, was slain by a bodak, and his body was stuffed halfway into a Heward's handy haversack, which was then worn by the sorcerer. The problem came when she was wearing the haversack and flying back over the mountains they'd been traversing (returning to the cleric's home church so he could be raised), using a pair of wings of flying. The 24-hour point came while she was in midair; the dead cleric, now a bodak, started climbing out of the haversack and trying to kill the sorcerer while they were both several thousand feet in the air...good times!

Johnathan

 

[howandwhy99]

As a player I just wanted to add a few other details.

Earlier in the session the cleric who died to the Bodak's gaze, Valgrim, touched a strange corpse's bodypart which had fallen from a destroyed flesh golem. It had a bizarre tattoo and when Valgrim touched the tattoo it crawled up onto his arm. This of course, was the same kind of dimensional anchor tattoo that the prisoner we rescued had. To keep things straight, the prisoner is also a cleric (named Darian) of the church of Lathander. The Paladin and Valgrim were along to help us spring Darian.

So, Valgrim dies, we rescue Darian, and after running out of the Mindflayer prison we teleport home. Or so we think. Neither Darian nor Valgrim's corpse arrives with us. So back we go. Darian then tells us what will happen to Father Valgrim by next morning. --Suggestions of cutting off Valgrim's arm and Darian's shoulderblade were quickly put down.--

The paladin, Valgrim's protector insisted on burying his liege without desecrating the body. Essentially this meant leaving the +1 Moderate Fortification Full Plate which our party had lent him on the corpse. Seeing as only one PC was very effective against the bodaks (mine ) we weren't going to simply fight the bodak when it formed the next morning. (as I understand it).

To further complicate the matter, Darian was the only one capable of "removing curse" the tattoo. And of course he had no spells until prayer next morning. And that would be after the bodak would have formed.

Here is how we dealt with it:

Spoiler

Soooo...we emptied out the bag of holding the night before. One PC sewed the bag shut with leather, while mine (a dwarf) chiseled out an alcove in our offshoot sleeping chamber cave - about a 1/2 mile from the prison. The bag was placed in the alcove and Valgrim's protector paladin placed an everburning torch next to it (for Lathander's light).

The next morning, Darian prayed and "stoneshaped" the alcove over leaving a pocket within. Then he "removed curse" his tattoo to prepare to leave. At the paladin's urging, my PC chiseled in a symbol of Lathander over the pocket and we *popped* back home.

What had us in stitches throughout was the thought of the next poor slobs who found that spot a half mile under ground. The symbol of a SUN god would surely mean goodness within, right? Even the bag had Lathander's holy symbol upon it as Darian is the party's item crafter. We howled envisioning the next group of upworlders to find such a "fortune" in the dangers of the underdark. It was a complete encounter in itself. As good as Orc and Pie. Kill the Bodak : get the bag of holding and 16K armor. Beautiful.

EDIT: "hey look what's in this bag!"

 

[diaglo]

my character stitched the bag shut with his infinite sewing needles and infinite slings.

now i have infinite needles and slings minus the ones i used up...

we lost weeks of iron rations too. too much weight to carry.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Sounds like a K.O.T.D Comic storyline. I can just see Brian convincing the group to use the "Bodak in a Bag" technique as a legal and easy way to farm "free" XP.