Quick Question: Seeking a burrowing Humanoid

[Greenfield]

Regarding dirigibles and golems:

Our game is set in something like the real world, circa the year 500. No dirigibles.

We got called in to help a village, and the message came via something akin to divine intervention. In a world where the gods aren't available. Let that sink in for a moment. Our trip here was accelerated via that same kind of divine intervention (a huge water elemental grabbed our ship and basically ran with it, for days.) That tells us there's some urgency. A goddess not only called for our aid, but took steps to get us there as fast as circumstance would allow.

Running off to buy or craft our army of golems isn't really an option.

So, we're a party of 15th/16th level characters, sitting on a river bank in Ethiopia. The available resources are: Whatever we brought with us, mud, sand, water, and river rocks (not many and not very large).

We have an alchemist (my character), but not a huge supply of raw materials to whip up the thousands of gallons of alchemical fire, or ice, or liquid salt, or copper sulfate (fungicide) needed to carve a path through that purple crap. And it would take months, using the crafting rules, months that we don't have. (Yeah, I know that Copper Sulfate isn't anywhere in the list of Alchemical concoctions, it's just the easiest to make: Sulfuric acid, i.e. alchemical acid, applied to copper. You need to scrape the stuff off because, while copper is soluable in classic "oil of vitriol", copper sulfate isn't.)

I researched all the sources I could find for Alchemical things in D&D 3.5, and it's an impressive list. And as soon as the other players/DMs saw that list, we all agreed that my character had to buy or acquire the recipies for anything that wasn't in the PHB, one recipe at a time. Alchemy can really unbalance a game at the lower levels.

Now my character does have the Awaken Sand spell from Sandstorm. If he wanted to spend days of time and a bunch of Exp he could create some sand constructs that are immune to anti-magic, disease, etc. They're Huge, and are CR7 creatures that would be facing CR 14 guards, and die with incredible speed. And while they would like me, they aren't actually under any kind of control or dominance. I could order them to go in to fight and kill or die, but they probably wouldn't. I mean, if I were the DM, I wouldn't let that work, and I'd probably mark the PC who tried it with a "headed for the dark side" check mark for the effort. I mean, creating sentient, free willed life, just to kill it off for your own immediate gratification? Sounds kind of Evil to me.

So we've got money and magic and levels and power, but we don't have a wide variety of options, resource wise, and without rapid transport spells, we don't have any acceptably quick ways of gathering them.

Oh, and with the DM's refusal to give us even a clue of what this stuff is, we wouldn't know what kind of resources we'd need anyway.

So it's my wits, Fezik's strength, and Indego's blade. And a wheelbarrow. And maybe a Holocaust cloak. And...

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Why exactly do you need to cross this death zone?

Maybe the trick is that everyone has to die to the mushrooms? Perhaps the mushrooms will somehow reanimate your bodies?

Could it be that the DM is telling you NOT to go there (yet)?

AR

 

[Greenfield]

The village got invaded. The people prayed to their river goddess for deliverance. Messengers from that goddess found us, thousands of miles away, appeared in the form of simple villagers and asked for our help. We agreed, and then our ship got picked up and carried at motor-launch speeds for days on end to get us here fast. The messengers were revealed to be animated river water.

When a deity says, "Save that village", and does it with such urgency, yeah, you kind of have to find a way to reach that village. We can see it, we just can't get there.

My own thought: Our game world is perpetually overcast (part of the "big picture" of the campaign.) Fungi don't like sunlight. So we need a way to clear the cloud cover, so the sunlight can kill this stuff.

So all we have to do is solve the major issue that drives the whole campaign, saving life and civilization everywhere in the process, and we'll be able to *try* to save this village.

Yeah, I see that one happening real soon.

 

[MarkB]

Do you have a Druid, or someone who can cast Limited Wish to replicate a Druid spell? Tree Stride would be one possibility for bypassing the barrier, though I'm not sure if it's included in your campaign's no-teleportation restriction.

EDIT: Sorry, this one might not work so well. I was thinking of Transport Via Plants - Tree Stride works too, but only for one person and its range is limited, and Transport Via Plants is too high level to replicate via Limited Wish.

Does the anti-magic effect radiate far outwards as well as straight up? If you can get nearby and still cast spells, casting Daylight would be a way of experimenting with your sunlight theory.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Does the anti-magic effect radiate far outwards as well as straight up? If you can get nearby and still cast spells, casting Daylight would be a way of experimenting with your sunlight theory.

If Daylight doesn't work, Anger of the Noonday Sun (Drd 6) specifically says it damages fungi, mold, oozes and slimes.

 

[Greenfield]

Limited Wish is available. Trees, on the other hand... Like I said, we have mud, sand, water and a few rocks. I could create a tree using a Quall's Feather Token, but I'd need a matching tree inside the village.

And using magic spells on creatures that exude AntiMagic is probably going to fail.

I wonder what Sunrods would do?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Dire Badgers can burrow and leave tunnels. Summon Nature's Ally II. It'd be slow going though at 10'/round.

Is the fungus damaging when inhaled, or when touching the skin?
If only inhaled, what mundane options might you have for not breathing for (2000 feet at 30' per round) 6 minutes, 42 seconds?
Some suggestions:
-But some form of catapult/ranged launcher using the ship for parts. Put party members inside extradimensional storage bags. launch bags over the barrier, they'd be trapped inside while in the anti-magic zone, but able to get free on the other side. Or launch a tree feather token across the other side.
-convert the ship to a sealed vehicle, than find a form of propulsion (not golems, apparently) to cross.
-Is the giant water elemental still available? Perhaps flood the area instead of burning.
-Burn it more, much, much more. Dismantle your ship into timber and build railroad-like tracks that you set fire to, carrying more wood along the way. walk the party between the two burning lines of wood.

Good luck, sounds annoying.

 

[Greenfield]

Apparently the spores can infect you if you get near the stuff. Incubation time is about 12 hours. If you touch an infected person, start making Saves the next round.

There are a lot of burrowing creatures that can be summoned. Hell, Earth Elementals can do a lot.

The question is, will the AMF extend underground, and cause them to wink out? Game rules would normally say no, because the earth blocks Line of Effect. But nothing in this challenge has followed game rules yet, so I'm not making any bets.

 

[MarkB]

Apparently the spores can infect you if you get near the stuff. Incubation time is about 12 hours. If you touch an infected person, start making Saves the next round.

Well, if you can avoid direct contact (even by stilt-walking over the stuff, or laying down a path if it's short enough), then the 12-hours-later part isn't too great a problem. Once you're back out of the anti-magic, there are plenty of methods of curing disease. That's assuming that the spores don't project anti-magic, of course.

Well, if nothing else, at least this thread indicates that there's not some obvious solution you're missing - your DM's presented you with quite a genuine poser.

 

[Greenfield]

It isn't a disease, so removing disease doesn't help. It isn't a poison, so antitoxins and Neutralize Poison don't help. It isn't a curse, so Remove Curse won't help.

A full Heal didn't help. The best result we got on anything was, "Okay, you stopped it for this round." To cure someone, we had to kill them and bring them back, an option that's no longer available since our Healer was killed.

And the only answer we got when we tried to figure out what it was was, "It's something else".

Like I said, the normal rules of D&D haven't applied so far, why should they start applying now?