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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Musing Mage" data-source="post: 8437787" data-attributes="member: 7025552">AD&D 1e, Cormyr.Well! 'Team Evil' had their first excursion together. Though Team 'evil' is a slight misnomer as half the group is neutral, but they ARE in the employ of the Assassin's guild.A Chaotic Evil Dwarven Assassin, Neutral Evil Half-orc Fighter, and two Chaotic Neutral elves - all of whom owe a debt to the Assassin's and/or Thieves' Guild - were tasked with breaking into a crypt on the property of a prominent noble family to recover evidence of nefarious deeds by previous generations of the family. Of course, crypt raiding carries a capital sentence, so getting caught would be bad.After tooling about town for a bit, looking for marks to rob and fund their mission, they themselves are attacked by a group of ruffians (Love them DMG random city encounters!). Easily dispatching all but one of the ruffians, they keep the leader alive and demand his services in exchange for his life. Figuring they'll need extra muscle and a possible fall-guy if things go south. Reaction rolls are done and given the option they gain a new conscript. The day of the great crypt robbery comes. The Assassin has spent almost a week in disguise observing the estate, successfully noting guard patterns, composition etc. He has also marked the quickest way from the estate wall to the crypt, and approximately how long they will have between patrols.Using a rope to scale the estate wall, they manage to get to the crypt entrance where the thief immediately begins work to pick the lock, only to discover that it's already open! They scramble in and shut the door behind them. The body of another would-be thief is immediately inside (dead by falling into and unfound pit trap) hence the unlocked out area, but the deeper crypt is sealed shut with a keyhole molded in the shape of the Holy Symbol of Bhaal! Dun dun dunnn! They are disappointingly unfazed by this revelation and continue...There are two other doors here, though, and the group explores discovering an area with various books of record of the noble family, among them are books with the names of recently interred family members, but the pages completely blank. They take the blank books for further study, and check out the other room where they find a fountain of clear, delicious looking water. 'Yeah, no.' they say and leave without touching it.The thief picks the lock leading to the deeper crypt. Here they find 8 sarcophagi, each sealed in a chamber behind firm, well wrought bars. Another door with the symbol of Bhaal emblazoned on it leads further into final part of the deep crypt. In the centre of the area is a statue of a warrior holding out a blank book, similar to the ones they found.Obvious trap seeming obvious, the group opts to use brute force to pry open the bars to one of the areas with a sarcophagus. Moving down the line, several attempts fail, until finally the brutish Half-orc manages to pry a few apart. They pull open the sarcophagus behind the bars and to no one's surprise the occupant isn't entirely dead. A zombie emerges and attacks them, but is readily dispatched. Correctly theorizing that each of the occupants is not entirely dead, the group opts to find a way to release them one by one rather than risk springing something that opens everything at once. For the first few they use the brute force method of prying the bars, until someone thinks to try the blank books on the statue which releases the bars and opens the sarcophagus with ease, allowing them to set up a killzone. Some mishaps with some bad rolls result in an injury or two, but ultimately they dispatch all of the zombies in the crypts, finding a key along the way that opens the deeper crypt. Their NPC conscript (spontaneously named Erik by the DM) is proving very useful and die rolls are indicating loyalty thus far, funny how these things go, no?In the deep crypt, they are attacked by a ooze type creatures, similar to grey oozes, but with some other nasty features. This proves problematic, as normal weapons do reduced damage... our Fighter/thief elf is enveloped and starts suffocating. Using a flash of oil and a torch the group immolates the first of the two oozes while the Elf struggles to free herself of the ooze. The others refrain from attacking but none help either, instead backing away. Finally the half-orc decides that she's likely dead either way so readies to toss the torch and light up the ooze that's got her. Initiative is rolled, as is the elf's chance to free herself (1 in 6) and she rolls a 1 bursting from the goop just as the torch lights it up for the finisher. Down to only a handful of HP from being stuck inside, being immolated as well would have spelled curtains but the dice have said to the God of Murder, 'Not today.'Two final sarcophagi, and the group triggers them both as they pull the one lid open - this time ghouls emerge, not mere zombies. What follows is a knockdown-drag'em out fight where the orc bruiser is paralyzed from the get go, the injured elf and the NPC conscript are savaged into critical condition and taken out of the fight, while the dwarven assassin and elven Fighter/mage are left standing. The dwarf was also paralyzed early, but shook off the effects and re-entered the fray. His Chaotic Evil desire to simply flee and leave the elf to her fate was hampered by the fact that she and the ghouls were blocking his exit. He deals a blow, but is paralyzed again... leaving the elf (played by an absolute newcomer to D&D, the real life GF of the Half-orc's player) on her own to save the group...  the injured first ghoul is taken down by a nat 20 sword swing, she takes a lick but not enough to kill her, and doubles down with a good solid not, not a nat 20 but a high damage roll finishing the final Ghoul earning her a cheer from the rest of the table whose characters have now all been spared and with epic beginner's luck rolls! (Her whole first D&D experience was marked with complete beginner's luck, starting with rolled stats of 18, 17, 15, 15, 12, 10)Clearing out the crypt of loot buried with the inhabitants, they also find a hidden alcove wherein lies another book with blank pages. They take this and prepare to leave (the magic user later uses read magic to reveal the hidden magical text and finds what they are looking for.)The problem of having two immobile party members proves a challenge, as they have to scale a wall to escape the estate compound undetected, but some good rolls and no patrols during their egress means they clear out without incident.So team 'evil' aka The Guild game has been christened... we'll see how well they are able to keep their more nefarious instincts in check, or if they will eventually devolve into a quagmire of backstabbing that many evil groups do... time will tell! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f608.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":devilish:" title="Devil    :devilish:"  data-smilie="29"data-shortname=":devilish:" /></blockquote>

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