Ptolus: Midwood - "The Dark Waters of Moss Pond"

[Gnome Quixote]

That's a terrible, terrible pseudonym that poor Renraw's been saddled with. I wonder how he pronounces it?

He'd probably be amused to know his new surname means 'bumblebee' in Czech.

 

[Renraw Kem]

How dare you! I loved that alias!

Seeing the arrow was the only immediate danger, Renraw clears his throat and straightens out from where he'd crouched behind Ragglus.

"I thought I saw skeletons for a moment. Must've been some sort of illusion. Let's hurry up and finish this, shall we?"

I don't know if anyone besides our group is reading this, but I'm to blame for a number of groan-inducing metagame cracks...

The above line was the result of an accidental cross-posting in our two PBP games...the skeletons from the Abbey adventure wound up appearing before the fugitive group in the dungeon before Whizbang realized and deleted the post and moving it to the correct spot. It still works as pure cowardice on Renraw's part, but I figured if we're providing a bonus commentary I'd let everyone know where it came from.

 

[Renraw Kem]

and it kind of pissed off the players a little bit

Maybe Ragglus' player, since he was the one in front, but I think the frustration was mainly just kept in-character, which only makes sense.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Last post retconned to include Katadid discovering an object that I forgot to address in his search earlier. Kat correctly jumps to the right conclusion as well.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The werebadger in the original module isn't a dwarf, but I'm a big fan of the classic Ravenloft monsters, including their variant lycanthropes and vampires. And in Ravenloft, werebadgers are dwarves and are unable to infect non-dwarves, hence Tock's lyric.

 

[Trench]

Aw, really?

I was really looking forward to the day when Ragglus turned into a werebadger on a full moon...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The 3E Ravenloft book is my favorite book of monsters. I assure you, horrible things await in your future.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, pressed for time, I really wasn't sure what the dwarf zombies would do. The options were three, as I saw them:

1) They'd stop at the edge of the pit and attempt to thrust their spears across. But that would require they'd know the pit was there and react to it.

2) They'd lose one to the pit, turn around and go back to their room, unable to complete their commands. That seemed to require an awfully sophisticated set of commands for that to work, or rudimentary reasoning on the part of the zombies, which seems counter to how they work in 3E.

3) They'd fall in the pit and reward the players for smart use of terrain.

So I chose #3. I'm still not sure it was the right choice, but it was fun, and that's what matters most.

 

[Trench]

Having the Delvers play "Shoot the Zombie" was one of the best and funniest moments of the campaign for me.

 

[Renraw Kem]

Oh, no doubt! Muy fantastico.