A Short Tour of the Grell Caves
It was thinking. Maybe. The creature looked like a giant, flesh-colored brain, perhaps three to four feet in diameter floating in the air with no visible means of support; it had to be thinking. The brain-like body was completely devoid of eyes or ears or nose, the body was only marred by a viscious looking beak, clearly made for tearing meat off of bone. Hanging down from the body were ten thick, ochre-colored, barbed tentacles all surrounded by a fringe of smaller tentacles. A spear apparently made of tarnished silver was looped by two of the long tentacles.
The unnatural creature floated near the edge of the small cave near the tunnel mouth. It floated near the mouth because it would have been hard pressed to go much further, for a strange construction it could never have seen before filled most of the cave. So the creature floated, perhaps pondering the structure, perhaps not. The creature was so alien it surely could not have recognized what appeared to be a simple country cottage; could it?
Maybe it was Ashimar who was first out of the hut or maybe it was Kellron. In the years to follow no one could remember, but someone was the first out of their magical hut and was the first to encounter a grell warrior for the first time. The fight was brief and not very exciting, except for the newness of the creature and the discovery that the spear channeled bursts of lightning with each hit.
Afterwards the ones who were there would remember that Ashimar had been outfitted with spells of darkvision and invisibility, and perhaps other spells as well; and then the new-priest scouted ahead. It was only later that they would understand just how close they had actually camped to the grell caves.
--
The tunnel immediately before the grell caves was filled with the broken, glassy stone called razorrock. Upon confronting the tunnel the group had backtracked to the closest side tunnel to spend the night. They were fortunate that they had not attracted the attention of the grell earlier that evening. Instead the grell that guarded the approach had stayed at its post until it had gotten hungry and decided to hunt.
--
The adventurer’s procession through the cavern complex was mostly steady. The soldier grell, armed with the strange lightning lances were little trouble; though Tore’s combat skills were pushed nearly to the breaking point.* Still, even in the main hive-cave where they faced down a half-dozen adult grell soldiers the five adventurers managed to move forward without losing momentum.
It was after the soldiers in the hive-cave that they found the three challenges that tested their worth. The first challenge was in the main cavern, where after the fight they found three smaller grell, obviously immature, hovering in a corner of the cavern. There was some talk but eventually Kellron and Ashimar let Kellrons’ divine senses guide their actions and they destroyed the creatures.**
The second challenge was finding out that the some of the grell could cast spells. In a cavern beyond the main hive guarded by two soldier grell was a third grell steeped in magical power. The fight was short but viscious. Kestral would later remember that some of them had gotten caught in a conjured web surrounded by a stinking cloud; the lightning bolts that came next nearly dropped them all.
The final challenge was the king-grell, or whatever it was (they never would inquire). The creature awaited them in its own cavern, laying atop a monstrous pillar or rock (having heard the combat from the nearest cavern). It was fat in both size and power and proved the hardest fight to date; moreso because the adventurers had already burned through their spells and potions with no chance to replenish them yet.
The king-grell conjured an area of writhing black tentacles early in the fight, forcing the surface-folk to run through them to get close. Kellron and Ashimar were able to fight past the grappling tentacles but Jallarzi was easily caught and was shortly rendered unconscious. Without the intervention of her friends she would have died.
Still, the five adventurers prevailed against the king-grell and found a king’s ransom in treasure, including a shield with a strong magical aura. They then retreated to the same cave they had spent the night before and rested. That night Jallarzi looked up from her near constant studies and announced she had finally learned how to teleport and conjure killing clouds.
--
*Tore is a telepath with a secondary focus on clairsentience. She was designed to give the group a magical information gathering resource, but for flavor she was given a free armor proficiency and one feat was spent on the bastard-sword. As a result the party kept using her to fill a secondary combat role. She ended up getting hurt a lot.
** This gave me pause and precipated me and the players hammering out a code for priests and paladins of Sarath. At first I was against their action, the creatures were infants after all. However from the party’s perspective the creatures were aggressive and evidently evil – additionally the level of intelligence at this point was unclear.
It was thinking. Maybe. The creature looked like a giant, flesh-colored brain, perhaps three to four feet in diameter floating in the air with no visible means of support; it had to be thinking. The brain-like body was completely devoid of eyes or ears or nose, the body was only marred by a viscious looking beak, clearly made for tearing meat off of bone. Hanging down from the body were ten thick, ochre-colored, barbed tentacles all surrounded by a fringe of smaller tentacles. A spear apparently made of tarnished silver was looped by two of the long tentacles.
The unnatural creature floated near the edge of the small cave near the tunnel mouth. It floated near the mouth because it would have been hard pressed to go much further, for a strange construction it could never have seen before filled most of the cave. So the creature floated, perhaps pondering the structure, perhaps not. The creature was so alien it surely could not have recognized what appeared to be a simple country cottage; could it?
Maybe it was Ashimar who was first out of the hut or maybe it was Kellron. In the years to follow no one could remember, but someone was the first out of their magical hut and was the first to encounter a grell warrior for the first time. The fight was brief and not very exciting, except for the newness of the creature and the discovery that the spear channeled bursts of lightning with each hit.
Afterwards the ones who were there would remember that Ashimar had been outfitted with spells of darkvision and invisibility, and perhaps other spells as well; and then the new-priest scouted ahead. It was only later that they would understand just how close they had actually camped to the grell caves.
--
The tunnel immediately before the grell caves was filled with the broken, glassy stone called razorrock. Upon confronting the tunnel the group had backtracked to the closest side tunnel to spend the night. They were fortunate that they had not attracted the attention of the grell earlier that evening. Instead the grell that guarded the approach had stayed at its post until it had gotten hungry and decided to hunt.
--
The adventurer’s procession through the cavern complex was mostly steady. The soldier grell, armed with the strange lightning lances were little trouble; though Tore’s combat skills were pushed nearly to the breaking point.* Still, even in the main hive-cave where they faced down a half-dozen adult grell soldiers the five adventurers managed to move forward without losing momentum.
It was after the soldiers in the hive-cave that they found the three challenges that tested their worth. The first challenge was in the main cavern, where after the fight they found three smaller grell, obviously immature, hovering in a corner of the cavern. There was some talk but eventually Kellron and Ashimar let Kellrons’ divine senses guide their actions and they destroyed the creatures.**
The second challenge was finding out that the some of the grell could cast spells. In a cavern beyond the main hive guarded by two soldier grell was a third grell steeped in magical power. The fight was short but viscious. Kestral would later remember that some of them had gotten caught in a conjured web surrounded by a stinking cloud; the lightning bolts that came next nearly dropped them all.
The final challenge was the king-grell, or whatever it was (they never would inquire). The creature awaited them in its own cavern, laying atop a monstrous pillar or rock (having heard the combat from the nearest cavern). It was fat in both size and power and proved the hardest fight to date; moreso because the adventurers had already burned through their spells and potions with no chance to replenish them yet.
The king-grell conjured an area of writhing black tentacles early in the fight, forcing the surface-folk to run through them to get close. Kellron and Ashimar were able to fight past the grappling tentacles but Jallarzi was easily caught and was shortly rendered unconscious. Without the intervention of her friends she would have died.
Still, the five adventurers prevailed against the king-grell and found a king’s ransom in treasure, including a shield with a strong magical aura. They then retreated to the same cave they had spent the night before and rested. That night Jallarzi looked up from her near constant studies and announced she had finally learned how to teleport and conjure killing clouds.
--
*Tore is a telepath with a secondary focus on clairsentience. She was designed to give the group a magical information gathering resource, but for flavor she was given a free armor proficiency and one feat was spent on the bastard-sword. As a result the party kept using her to fill a secondary combat role. She ended up getting hurt a lot.
** This gave me pause and precipated me and the players hammering out a code for priests and paladins of Sarath. At first I was against their action, the creatures were infants after all. However from the party’s perspective the creatures were aggressive and evidently evil – additionally the level of intelligence at this point was unclear.
) of your (campaign) world, you are certainly entitled to lay down a few rules.
