Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Menexenus's Age of Worms Campaign Journal
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Menexenus" data-source="post: 4031345" data-attributes="member: 8951"><p><strong>Sessions 51: Thorash's Bad Day</strong></p><p></p><p><em>5th of Fireseek</em>. Thorash dispelled the domination effects that were still lingering on Alees, Alexander, and Tarric. With the party back to full strength, they debated whether to face the vampires again. Alees had lost many of her magical weapons and wanted very much to retrieve them. Tarric and Killick wanted to destroy the vampires out of general principle. Alexander was convinced however that continuing to face the vampires was distracting them from their true purpose - finding and safeguarding the White Eye. However, in the end, Alexander was outvoted, and the party prepared to return. They reasoned that the first vampire, Narise, had not had enough time to completely reform, and Huvariel would no longer have living servants to protect her. After recuperating and rememorizing as much as possible, the party entered the lion-head door once more. They found Huvariel protecting her transparent coffin. She attempted to dominate Alees and Tarric again, but this time she was unsuccessful. And with the entire party directing its efforts against her alone, she succumbed to the party's might in a matter of seconds. After the vampire misted and returned to its coffin, they staked it in the heart, destroying it forever. They then went through the tunnel to Narise's coffin. They opened it and staked her in the heart as well. Both vampires were dead. The party retrieved its items and also picked clean their opponent's bodies. Alees found a secret compartment beneath Narise's coffin that contained a small cache of items and valuables.</p><p></p><p> The party moved to the next set of doors on the outside of the pyramid. These were double doors made of black metal. When the doors were opened, thick smoke poured out that obscured vision. The party entered the large room carefully. The found a large marble statue of a snake-like creature with three heads in the center of the room. This statue was flanked by two brass braziers that were spewing the room's smoke. Killick sent Grimlock to use his scent ability to investigate the rest of the room. Moments later, the party heard the dog whine. The party moved in the direction of the dog's noise and found itself face-to-face with a spell-casting mummy. However, despite its fearsome nature, it was no match for the combined might of the party and was quickly dispatched. As Killick cared for his ailing and wounded dog, Tarric pulled the braziers out of the room and attempted to cap them to prevent them from releasing smoke. When the smoke cleared, Alees searched for secret doors and found one right behind the mummy's sarcophagus. Tarric came in and opened the door. Inside the secret door were 5 silver statues of gargoyle-like creatures. These creatures immediately animated and began flying in circles near the ceiling of the room. When no one came into the room, the silver creatures flew down to the doorway and each belched a gout of flame out into the sarcophagus room. Then they flew past Tarric and Killick, who each took a number of attacks of opportunity, and then they each entered melee against different members of the party. Although the creatures were resistant to damage, the party was still able to overcome them quickly. When they were destroyed, Alees investigated them closely to estimate their value. It was then that she noticed the same impression resembling a reverse-image of Katawan's Amulet of the Dark Sun. Fitting his amulet into its reverse image caused a small piece of worked silver to be released from each of the creatures' chests. Alees collected all the pieces and examined them closely. After a short time, she realized that the pieces could be fitted together to form a silver key.</p><p></p><p> Finding no other secret doors or passages, the party moved to the next exterior door of the pyramid, which was a single iron door. When it was opened, the party saw a room full of collapsed stone rubble which had apparently fallen from the ceiling. Alees determined that this had been some kind of trap. It was apparent that someone had moved enough of the rubble out of the way far enough to allow the door at each end of the room to open. After a great deal of searching through the rubble, the party found the remains of 5 adventurers who had been stripped of all their valuables. The party opened the door at the far side of the room and entered a completely different room. While the previous room had been gray and dusty and destroyed, the new room was colorfully decorated and well-maintained. Velvet covered sofas and chairs surrounded low mahogany tables. Ancient but delicately preserved tapestries depicting bloody battles covered the walls. Alees pulled back the tapestries and found more of the same small holes she had observed before. The party tensed up, anticipating more vampires. However, Thorash, with his stone-cunning, realized that these holes were merely on the far side of Narise's burial chamber (the vampire that they had already killed). The party relaxed. Alees appraised the items in the room and determined that the furniture was not worth the trouble of moving and that the tapestry was too old and delicate to survive being taken down and transported. The party opened the door leading out of the well-decorated lounge and found another more dingy room covered in a layer of dust. Near the middle of the room was a throughly decayed body that looked like it had been shot with arrows. Alees investigated the room from the doorway and noticed holes in the wall as well as spent arrows lying on the floor across the room from the holes. The poor soul in the middle of the room had certainly fallen prey to a trap. Killick cleared away some of the dust on the floor and discovered a red path in the mosaic tile that constituted the surface of the floor. As he continued to clear away more and more dust, he found that the red path continued all the way across the room in a non-linear fashion. Killick was careful to follow the path until it took him past the corpse. Killick used his quarterstaff to carefully pull the corpse onto the path where he could more easily deprive it of its valuables. He was able to recover a dagger, a ring, an amulet, and a change purse. The coins inside were ancient, having been minted at least a thousand years ago by the Suel Imperium. </p><p></p><p> After recovering the goodies, Killick was startled by some tapping at the iron door on the far side of the room. Since the tapping did not seem particularly ominous, Killick opened the door to investigate. He found Tarric standing on the opposite side of the door outside the pyramid. With a smile, he said, "I *thought* this room would lead to another exterior door!" Killick left the room via the iron door, but the rest of the party went back they way they had come and assembled at the next exterior door of the pyramid. This was a set of lead double doors. Alees checked it for traps. Finding none, she set to work unlocking them, as she had done to many of the other doors in the complex. However, after a few minutes, she threw her "locksmithing" tools down in frustration. She did not like admitting it, but she did not have the skill necessary to pick the lock. Knowing Alees to be an extremely accomplished thief, the party marveled at the level of craftsmanship that must have been involved in making such a complex lock. Having already recovered a copper key and a silver key, many in the group surmised that they would probably eventually run across a lead key that would open these doors. But Alexander did not wish to wait. He pulled out his Chime of Opening and commanded the doors to open. To his surprise, he saw the energy of his spell wash over the doors without affecting them. The very metal of the doors seemed to be resisting his spell. Alexander did not like being denied, so he continued trying again and again. Finally, on the fifth attempt, the enchanted metal could resist Alexander's arcane prowess no longer - the doors opened.</p><p></p><p> Dark smoke began pooring out of the room at a constant rate without seeming to dissipate at all. The smoke reduced visibility to almost nothing. Killick and Katawan entered first, because they were immune to poison, but they found that the gas was not poisonous. Eventually, the party located the source of the smoke - a fountain in the middle of the room. The carving on the fountain was that of a tall thin spell-caster with extended arms who seemed to be lifted up by a mass of giant writhing worms. The dark smoke was pouring out of the carving's eyes, mouth, and ears, and there seemed to be no limit to the supply of smoke. Eventually the party determined that smashing the fountain would probably be the only way to end the magical effect. After a few bashes with mace and quarterstaff, the head of the statue crumbled and the smoke stopped. The party left the doors open and waited for the smoke in the room to slowly dissipate.</p><p></p><p> After the smoke was gone, the party saw a set of large copper double doors at the far side of the room. Alees produced the copper key that the party had found in the copper room earlier. She fitted the key into the lock and felt the door begin to swing open. Beyond the doors was a long room magically lit by runes carved along the walls near the ceiling. On the far side of the room was another set of double doors - this time made of silver. In front of each set of double doors (near and far) was a narrow ledge before a short set of stairs led about 3 feet down to a depression which took up the majority of the room. On the slightly lower level, there were 2 perpendicular passageways on each side of the room. Killick noticed that there was some kind of strange powder on the floor of the depression but not on the ledge. He examined it briefly and determined that it was not a natural substance, but rather an alchemical concoction of some sort. Killick took some back to where Alexander was waiting and showed it to him, but he did not recognize it.</p><p></p><p> Thorash cast a spell on himself and warned the party that they should not bring anything magical close to him because, for a short time, he would have a zone of anti-magic around him. Then he went down the stairs and looked down the first two passageways. Tarric followed a safe-distance behind. Down the passageway on the right, Thorash saw a small room that seemed to be an armory full of weapons of all varieties. Down the opposite passageway, he saw a similar room filled with all varieties of armor. All of the weapons and armor seemed to be of excellent quality. Thorash began heading for the room with the armor. However, when he got 10 feet away from the room's entrance, the image of a room full of armor suddenly disappeared and a wall of liquid was crashing down all around him instead. This wall of liquid was not quite as tall by the time it struck Tarric as well. Alees, who had decided to follow Tarric at the last minute, quickly jumped back up onto the ledge and avoided contact with the liquid altogether. However, a choking mist was rising from the floor wherever the liquid touched it. The liquid burned Thorash and Tarric's skin and they could hear the sizzle as many of their exposed belongings began dissolving away. Scabbards, boots, belts, clothing, and bags were all gone in just a few moments. The contents of Thorash's bag of holding suddenly spilled out onto the floor all around him. As Thorash and Tarric began coughing from the smoke, they realized that they had to get out of the acid and out of the room as quickly as possible. They each grabbed two items that had fallen into the acid and then rushed out of the room along with the rest of the party.</p><p></p><p> Once the party was out in the fresh air, they evaluated the damage. Thorash had lost almost everything he owned to the acid. Tarric had lost his boots and his back-up sword. He also seemed to have inhaled more of the gas than anyone else. After his coughing subsided, he seemed a bit disoriented. Luckily, Alees and Killick had been carrying the party's newly found loot. The party decided to camp, identify items, re-equip Thorash, and wait for the poison gas to dissipate. Out of curiosity, Katawan had Alexander cast Fly on him so that he could fly over the shallow pool of acid to the opposite side of the room and test the silver key out in the far side of double doors. The key seemed to fit. But rather than opening the doors and venturing to face whatever lay on the far side by himself, he flew back to the party's campsite.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Menexenus, post: 4031345, member: 8951"] [b]Sessions 51: Thorash's Bad Day[/b] [I]5th of Fireseek[/I]. Thorash dispelled the domination effects that were still lingering on Alees, Alexander, and Tarric. With the party back to full strength, they debated whether to face the vampires again. Alees had lost many of her magical weapons and wanted very much to retrieve them. Tarric and Killick wanted to destroy the vampires out of general principle. Alexander was convinced however that continuing to face the vampires was distracting them from their true purpose - finding and safeguarding the White Eye. However, in the end, Alexander was outvoted, and the party prepared to return. They reasoned that the first vampire, Narise, had not had enough time to completely reform, and Huvariel would no longer have living servants to protect her. After recuperating and rememorizing as much as possible, the party entered the lion-head door once more. They found Huvariel protecting her transparent coffin. She attempted to dominate Alees and Tarric again, but this time she was unsuccessful. And with the entire party directing its efforts against her alone, she succumbed to the party's might in a matter of seconds. After the vampire misted and returned to its coffin, they staked it in the heart, destroying it forever. They then went through the tunnel to Narise's coffin. They opened it and staked her in the heart as well. Both vampires were dead. The party retrieved its items and also picked clean their opponent's bodies. Alees found a secret compartment beneath Narise's coffin that contained a small cache of items and valuables. The party moved to the next set of doors on the outside of the pyramid. These were double doors made of black metal. When the doors were opened, thick smoke poured out that obscured vision. The party entered the large room carefully. The found a large marble statue of a snake-like creature with three heads in the center of the room. This statue was flanked by two brass braziers that were spewing the room's smoke. Killick sent Grimlock to use his scent ability to investigate the rest of the room. Moments later, the party heard the dog whine. The party moved in the direction of the dog's noise and found itself face-to-face with a spell-casting mummy. However, despite its fearsome nature, it was no match for the combined might of the party and was quickly dispatched. As Killick cared for his ailing and wounded dog, Tarric pulled the braziers out of the room and attempted to cap them to prevent them from releasing smoke. When the smoke cleared, Alees searched for secret doors and found one right behind the mummy's sarcophagus. Tarric came in and opened the door. Inside the secret door were 5 silver statues of gargoyle-like creatures. These creatures immediately animated and began flying in circles near the ceiling of the room. When no one came into the room, the silver creatures flew down to the doorway and each belched a gout of flame out into the sarcophagus room. Then they flew past Tarric and Killick, who each took a number of attacks of opportunity, and then they each entered melee against different members of the party. Although the creatures were resistant to damage, the party was still able to overcome them quickly. When they were destroyed, Alees investigated them closely to estimate their value. It was then that she noticed the same impression resembling a reverse-image of Katawan's Amulet of the Dark Sun. Fitting his amulet into its reverse image caused a small piece of worked silver to be released from each of the creatures' chests. Alees collected all the pieces and examined them closely. After a short time, she realized that the pieces could be fitted together to form a silver key. Finding no other secret doors or passages, the party moved to the next exterior door of the pyramid, which was a single iron door. When it was opened, the party saw a room full of collapsed stone rubble which had apparently fallen from the ceiling. Alees determined that this had been some kind of trap. It was apparent that someone had moved enough of the rubble out of the way far enough to allow the door at each end of the room to open. After a great deal of searching through the rubble, the party found the remains of 5 adventurers who had been stripped of all their valuables. The party opened the door at the far side of the room and entered a completely different room. While the previous room had been gray and dusty and destroyed, the new room was colorfully decorated and well-maintained. Velvet covered sofas and chairs surrounded low mahogany tables. Ancient but delicately preserved tapestries depicting bloody battles covered the walls. Alees pulled back the tapestries and found more of the same small holes she had observed before. The party tensed up, anticipating more vampires. However, Thorash, with his stone-cunning, realized that these holes were merely on the far side of Narise's burial chamber (the vampire that they had already killed). The party relaxed. Alees appraised the items in the room and determined that the furniture was not worth the trouble of moving and that the tapestry was too old and delicate to survive being taken down and transported. The party opened the door leading out of the well-decorated lounge and found another more dingy room covered in a layer of dust. Near the middle of the room was a throughly decayed body that looked like it had been shot with arrows. Alees investigated the room from the doorway and noticed holes in the wall as well as spent arrows lying on the floor across the room from the holes. The poor soul in the middle of the room had certainly fallen prey to a trap. Killick cleared away some of the dust on the floor and discovered a red path in the mosaic tile that constituted the surface of the floor. As he continued to clear away more and more dust, he found that the red path continued all the way across the room in a non-linear fashion. Killick was careful to follow the path until it took him past the corpse. Killick used his quarterstaff to carefully pull the corpse onto the path where he could more easily deprive it of its valuables. He was able to recover a dagger, a ring, an amulet, and a change purse. The coins inside were ancient, having been minted at least a thousand years ago by the Suel Imperium. After recovering the goodies, Killick was startled by some tapping at the iron door on the far side of the room. Since the tapping did not seem particularly ominous, Killick opened the door to investigate. He found Tarric standing on the opposite side of the door outside the pyramid. With a smile, he said, "I *thought* this room would lead to another exterior door!" Killick left the room via the iron door, but the rest of the party went back they way they had come and assembled at the next exterior door of the pyramid. This was a set of lead double doors. Alees checked it for traps. Finding none, she set to work unlocking them, as she had done to many of the other doors in the complex. However, after a few minutes, she threw her "locksmithing" tools down in frustration. She did not like admitting it, but she did not have the skill necessary to pick the lock. Knowing Alees to be an extremely accomplished thief, the party marveled at the level of craftsmanship that must have been involved in making such a complex lock. Having already recovered a copper key and a silver key, many in the group surmised that they would probably eventually run across a lead key that would open these doors. But Alexander did not wish to wait. He pulled out his Chime of Opening and commanded the doors to open. To his surprise, he saw the energy of his spell wash over the doors without affecting them. The very metal of the doors seemed to be resisting his spell. Alexander did not like being denied, so he continued trying again and again. Finally, on the fifth attempt, the enchanted metal could resist Alexander's arcane prowess no longer - the doors opened. Dark smoke began pooring out of the room at a constant rate without seeming to dissipate at all. The smoke reduced visibility to almost nothing. Killick and Katawan entered first, because they were immune to poison, but they found that the gas was not poisonous. Eventually, the party located the source of the smoke - a fountain in the middle of the room. The carving on the fountain was that of a tall thin spell-caster with extended arms who seemed to be lifted up by a mass of giant writhing worms. The dark smoke was pouring out of the carving's eyes, mouth, and ears, and there seemed to be no limit to the supply of smoke. Eventually the party determined that smashing the fountain would probably be the only way to end the magical effect. After a few bashes with mace and quarterstaff, the head of the statue crumbled and the smoke stopped. The party left the doors open and waited for the smoke in the room to slowly dissipate. After the smoke was gone, the party saw a set of large copper double doors at the far side of the room. Alees produced the copper key that the party had found in the copper room earlier. She fitted the key into the lock and felt the door begin to swing open. Beyond the doors was a long room magically lit by runes carved along the walls near the ceiling. On the far side of the room was another set of double doors - this time made of silver. In front of each set of double doors (near and far) was a narrow ledge before a short set of stairs led about 3 feet down to a depression which took up the majority of the room. On the slightly lower level, there were 2 perpendicular passageways on each side of the room. Killick noticed that there was some kind of strange powder on the floor of the depression but not on the ledge. He examined it briefly and determined that it was not a natural substance, but rather an alchemical concoction of some sort. Killick took some back to where Alexander was waiting and showed it to him, but he did not recognize it. Thorash cast a spell on himself and warned the party that they should not bring anything magical close to him because, for a short time, he would have a zone of anti-magic around him. Then he went down the stairs and looked down the first two passageways. Tarric followed a safe-distance behind. Down the passageway on the right, Thorash saw a small room that seemed to be an armory full of weapons of all varieties. Down the opposite passageway, he saw a similar room filled with all varieties of armor. All of the weapons and armor seemed to be of excellent quality. Thorash began heading for the room with the armor. However, when he got 10 feet away from the room's entrance, the image of a room full of armor suddenly disappeared and a wall of liquid was crashing down all around him instead. This wall of liquid was not quite as tall by the time it struck Tarric as well. Alees, who had decided to follow Tarric at the last minute, quickly jumped back up onto the ledge and avoided contact with the liquid altogether. However, a choking mist was rising from the floor wherever the liquid touched it. The liquid burned Thorash and Tarric's skin and they could hear the sizzle as many of their exposed belongings began dissolving away. Scabbards, boots, belts, clothing, and bags were all gone in just a few moments. The contents of Thorash's bag of holding suddenly spilled out onto the floor all around him. As Thorash and Tarric began coughing from the smoke, they realized that they had to get out of the acid and out of the room as quickly as possible. They each grabbed two items that had fallen into the acid and then rushed out of the room along with the rest of the party. Once the party was out in the fresh air, they evaluated the damage. Thorash had lost almost everything he owned to the acid. Tarric had lost his boots and his back-up sword. He also seemed to have inhaled more of the gas than anyone else. After his coughing subsided, he seemed a bit disoriented. Luckily, Alees and Killick had been carrying the party's newly found loot. The party decided to camp, identify items, re-equip Thorash, and wait for the poison gas to dissipate. Out of curiosity, Katawan had Alexander cast Fly on him so that he could fly over the shallow pool of acid to the opposite side of the room and test the silver key out in the far side of double doors. The key seemed to fit. But rather than opening the doors and venturing to face whatever lay on the far side by himself, he flew back to the party's campsite. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Menexenus's Age of Worms Campaign Journal
Top