Ran the second and last session of Catoblepas Stew tonight for our group. It turned out to be a 2-shot, but pretty fun overall. The wizard rabbit was pretty nasty in the end, but both sessions were very eventful. They tied up and practically tortured the wizard prince not believing his story (even with wedding band and badge of office in hand). Two players were nearly petrified with the Medusa head trap. Another two nearly firebombed themselves when they fireballed the hippo and trapper secret room. Then they left the trapdoor unlocked after the thought they had killed the poor beast. (q.v. Even adolescent trappers, 8hd, are powerful threats)
More Medusa antics occurred when they tried to find it the second session. They all closed their eyes and one PC circled around with the head outwards to "clear" rooms. They started with the 1st level and the bearer opened his eyes. He had a reason and was averting them, but rolled a 1 on his save. Petrified PC (don't worry, he rolled up another). What was hilarious was 10 minutes of separated PCs stumbling about in random directions trying to find each other with their eyes closed. One nearly fell into an open trapdoor in the floor. In the process, the bound prince who did not trust the PCs at all did not follow their directions to close his eyes and ended up petrified as well (the poor mermaid).
Chasing after the invisible turning white rabbit (the evil wizard) the party managed to burn his spellcasted web only to nearly torch every sub-level of the tower. And meanwhile, it escaped. Not until the last couple hours tonight did they encounter the mermaid and give her the bad news... which didn't go over too well. So much more happened in both sessions, but it ended in a drawn out pursuit against a cigar-smoking white rabbit up and up the tower stairwells with spell combat all along the way. Great fun and a great time in the end.
They actually complained there wasn't enough treasure until I pointed out they hadn't searched everywhere and had 4 magic manuals, a library and laboratory of a high level M-U, a Medusa head weapon, and a whole, newly unclaimed tower at their disposal. When they looted the silverware and china in the first 30 minutes of the game they weren't complaining then. What do I have to do?
