The Adventures of the Knights of Spellforge Keep
- Thread starter Dr Midnight
- Start date
- Status
Dr. M, Glad to see you are back at it.
Your SWD20 story hour caught my attention, and had me hooked the whole time. So when I saw you were starting the D&D back up, I had to go and read all of KotSQ, so I would have the background for this story.
The stuff you did to cover the passing time was great.
Now to hi-jack your thread for a min or two.....
Since you ran all of RTTTOEE, I thought you might be able to answer a couple ?'s for me.....
1. What level should the party be when they head for the Outer Fane? (assuming I want them to have an average chance of surviving)
2. Would you be willing to share your notes on the Eye of Herionus(sp) and other associated groups? These would be great in making this campaign come alive for my group. as yours seemed to for theKnights.
Hi-jack over, back to Nanny and friends.
JDragon
Your SWD20 story hour caught my attention, and had me hooked the whole time. So when I saw you were starting the D&D back up, I had to go and read all of KotSQ, so I would have the background for this story.
The stuff you did to cover the passing time was great.
Now to hi-jack your thread for a min or two.....
Since you ran all of RTTTOEE, I thought you might be able to answer a couple ?'s for me.....
1. What level should the party be when they head for the Outer Fane? (assuming I want them to have an average chance of surviving)
2. Would you be willing to share your notes on the Eye of Herionus(sp) and other associated groups? These would be great in making this campaign come alive for my group. as yours seemed to for theKnights.
Hi-jack over, back to Nanny and friends.
JDragon
Malachai_rose
First Post
lol
<delete question, stoopid invisible 8th page, grr.... lol. That joke will only make sense for me, since I deleted the rather stupid question I posted, needless to say it involved a 'missing' post and the forgetting of the sneaky page 8
lol
<delete question, stoopid invisible 8th page, grr.... lol. That joke will only make sense for me, since I deleted the rather stupid question I posted, needless to say it involved a 'missing' post and the forgetting of the sneaky page 8
lol
Last edited:
Dr Midnight
Explorer
This unlit hallway led to a room beyond that was lit with many flickering candles. There appeared to be a statue in the far room. The center of the corridor became a pool of water, with steps leading down into it at each end.
“There’s magic in here. I wouldn’t trust that pool,” Jamison said.
Kizz looked up to Nanny. “Nanny, walk across the pool.” He would be able to avoid any poison and most magical effects. It seemed the safe idea.
“Hmmzzrt, Nan-ny.” The shield guardian waded into the pool. It was easily four feet deep, but only came up to just above his knees. Suddenly, he stopped, and lurched backwards. He fell on the lip at the edge of the pool and pulled his legs up. His upper legs were made of wood. His lower legs were made of stone. His knees, however, were forged of metal… and were turning orange and melting away. His knees melted away to nothing before their eyes, and Nanny was now separated fully from his stone calves and feet.
“OH, NO!” Kizzlorn rushed around to tend to him. “A damned rust trap! Oh, Nanny, I’m sorry to have sent you into that.”
“Yes,” Vek said. “Just imagine if he’d toppled forward into the water.”
She glared at him. “Your jokes are not always welcome, Mormont.” Nanny lay there as Kizz took out the spare parts kit she carried with her and went to work on his legs. One thing she seemed to have inherited from her father was her talent for repair and clockwork mechanisms.
Jamison flew to the other side of the pool and stood at the lip, looking into it. Vek approached the pool and chanted some words over it. The level of the water lowered to one inch. It was cloudy and brownish, but they could now see the bottom. There were two stone circular discs at the bottom, each roughly five feet in diameter. They were hinged on one side. Only Dartan would remember Jamison Crow’s impulsive drive to touch every trap and open every box. He was childlike that way- he couldn’t help it.
Jamison lifted the stone disc, peered in, and shrieked when a thick green snake lashed out and plunged all four fangs into his face. The others, quite startled, turned to see Jamison slapping at the snake, trying to get it off. “SNAKE ON MY FACE, SNAKE ON MY FACE!!”
Orthos pulled out his mighty warhammer, the Tear of Moradin, and jumped into battle. He landed with a small splash before Jamison and swung at the snake. It smashed into something in the hole that the others couldn’t see. Just then, Orthos whooped and jumped back, wheeling his arms for balance. He’d been standing on the other stone disc, and it was being pushed open. A snake-man began rising from the hole. He was covered in scales and slime. His arms weren’t arms at all- they were writhing snakes with hissing fanged maws.
The snake attached to Jamison’s face clamped down and began gulping with a quick, even rhythm. Jamison moaned in agony. It was draining the blood from him.
Vek pointed a finger towards it and uttered something that sounded like “Hhhhshighorothhhh”. The snake-man attacking Jamison curdled and burst into unholy black flame, then crumbled into blackened flakes- all in the space of three seconds.
“HRRRR!” Orthos smashed the enemy before him against the wall and ducked a snapping bite. Dartan, behind the dwarf and the lich, fired a crossbow bolt into the monster. Kizzlorn hit it with a powerful fireball- allowing for her friends’ safety, of course.Vek approached and was attacked. He grabbed a hissing snake arm in mid-air and whispered a command to its soul. The thing died right there, and slumped to the ground, where it quickly turned white and withered away to ash and bone.
Orthos did what he could for Jamison. Vek looked over at Dartan and said “Nice shot with the crossbow, Dartan.” He laughed with his mocking voice.
Dartan turned red and stared back. “Shut up. I’m wearing full plate armor, and didn’t want a splash of that stuff on me.”
Orthos had healed the wizard as best he could, but it was clear that Jamison had lost life he’d never regain. Jamison sullenly walked over to the altar at the other end of the hallway and turned back. “An etching of a fish on a hook,” he reported. “The only magic over there was in the burning candles. Just a ploy to get us near the damn creatures.” He looked depressed.
They walked back and took a right, leading them farther north.
This large chamber was mostly empty. Across the room from them was a small alcove flanked by two columns, upon which were carved various pictograms of animals and objects. Within the alcove was a small chest and what looked to be a skeletal hand, while below it were the following words, carved into the stone of the wall:
PAVING STONE LAYER, PATCHER OF SHOES
SIMPLE DESSERT, WHICHEVER YOU CHOOSE
While the others studied the puzzle, Vek stepped forward and picked up the skeletal hand. He moved quickly, so the scything blade that flashed out when he broke the plane of the wall just barely missed him. He stood, surprised, thinking “Oh… so THAT’S how that got there.”
“Vek? What just happened?”
“Blade trap. I’m imagining the command word to disarm it is the solution to the puzzle.”
Ziad gestured to the pictograms. “Well, we imagine it’s COBBLER, but we haven’t figured out what the images mean. Look… there’s a chair, and… is that a bar? A pole? What’s it all mean?”
They didn’t dare try to touch the chest until they’d solved it. They were looking for a way to spell COBBLER with the pictures given. It didn’t seem to make any sense… until Kizzlorn just happened to note that CHAIR and HAIR seemed to be lying side by side at the top. Next row down were BOAT and BAT. “Take the one odd letter out from each of the seven pairs and put them end to end,” she said. Sure enough… COBBLER.
Still, no one risked putting a hand towards the chest. Jamison opened it from five feet away and used a spell to float the contents to him. They were potion bottles… which was great, until they noted that each was labeled only with a cryptic phrase.
CRIB DIMPLES
CURE AN END
GENERAL
LION DOES PAY
ONE GUST
REWIND GHOUL CUTS
“More word games,” Vek said with a note of annoyance. “Couldn’t we have gone somewhere interesting? My sword arm aches for action. Surely the Temple of Elemental Evil is ready for another purging by now.”
The others ignored him and thought about the names. Jamison recognized the potion in one of the bottles. “Hey, this is Cure Light Wounds.” He then saw that the label, REWIND GHOUL CUTS, was CURE LIGHT WOUNDS with the letters rearranged. With this knowledge, the potions were divined fairly quickly. CRIB DIMPLES was SPIDER CLIMB. CURE AN END was ENDURANCE. GENERAL was ENLARGE. LION DOES PAY was DELAY POISON, and ONE GUST was TONGUES. These were stashed away and the party looked about.
“There is no door here… What do we do?”
“Let’s go back and explore the room with three doors.” They went back to the room they’d fought the puddings in and went through a door to the south.
This small room had open doorways centered on the south, east, and west walls. Each doorway led to a set of stairs going down, and each had a rune carved above the doorway. There were also words carved above the three doorways, which together formed the phrase "A NIP OF MEAD OR PURE ALES."
In the middle of the room were several barrels and crates filled with various alcoholic beverages. Three glass steins were available as well; they appeared clean but for a light coating of dust.
“Pain,” Kizz said straight away.
Ziad looked at her. “What?”
She pointed to the letters above the door on the left: A NIP. “Pain. More rearranged word games.”
“Well, then, I don’t like the look of the center door… look. OF MEAD OR. I can spell FEAR and DOOM with that. What say we avoid that door?”
Dartan pointed to their right. “This one- PURE ALES- could be PLEASURE.”
“Let’s take that one, then.”
Jamison sipped from one of the steins and remarked “The ale’s pretty good. Anyone want some?”
Ziad gasped. “You drank from those?”
Jamison looked abashed, as if reminded that he was often careless in deadly situations. It was a wonder he’d lived so long.
They walked under the PURE ALES door. The long set of stairs had a gradual slope, ending in a closed iron door with the stylized designs of seven different creatures carved on it. There was also an indentation in the door below the seven creatures, about the same size and shape as the pictures.
Clearly, each little image was broken up into three separate puzzle pieces: One for the head, one for the body, and one surrounding it (containing wings or antennae or a tail, and so forth). There was a space beneath the row of creatures with three empty slots.
“We’re to put together some creature here. But what?” Orthos forbade anyone to attempt to solve it by trial and error.
After a few minutes, Vek suggested “What kind of creature would fill its dungeon with puzzles and riddles?”
The others looked and saw what he meant. They put the eagle’s wings, the mermaid’s head, and the lion’s body together.
The answer, of course, was a sphinx. More specifically, a gynosphinx.
A magic mouth formed in the door. It spoke in a regal female voice. "You've built my body, but all the same, to pass you must first say my name."
It took Orthos’ clever mind just a few moments to think to look to the first letter of each animal’s kind on the seven tiles. A for Ankheg, M for mermaid, A for ant, R for rat, I for imp, E for eagle, and L for Lion. “Amariel,” he said.
The door opened. “Oh, no,” Vek groaned.
The middle of the floor of this room was made up of a giant chessboard. The pieces looked to be carved of black and white marble, with stylized faces on the kings and queens. The board was set up as in mid-game, with captured pieces set in rows along the sides of the board.
The walls of this room contained murals of various animals helpful to the humanoid races: along the north wall, a bee amid honeycombs and a chicken with her nest of eggs; along the east wall, a fish being captured in a net and a hunting dog; along the south wall, a sheep and a goat grazing in a pasture; along the west wall, a horse and a cow.
Click here to view the chessboard's layout
NEXT TIME: “I hate chess.”
Coming this Saturday!
“There’s magic in here. I wouldn’t trust that pool,” Jamison said.
Kizz looked up to Nanny. “Nanny, walk across the pool.” He would be able to avoid any poison and most magical effects. It seemed the safe idea.
“Hmmzzrt, Nan-ny.” The shield guardian waded into the pool. It was easily four feet deep, but only came up to just above his knees. Suddenly, he stopped, and lurched backwards. He fell on the lip at the edge of the pool and pulled his legs up. His upper legs were made of wood. His lower legs were made of stone. His knees, however, were forged of metal… and were turning orange and melting away. His knees melted away to nothing before their eyes, and Nanny was now separated fully from his stone calves and feet.
“OH, NO!” Kizzlorn rushed around to tend to him. “A damned rust trap! Oh, Nanny, I’m sorry to have sent you into that.”
“Yes,” Vek said. “Just imagine if he’d toppled forward into the water.”
She glared at him. “Your jokes are not always welcome, Mormont.” Nanny lay there as Kizz took out the spare parts kit she carried with her and went to work on his legs. One thing she seemed to have inherited from her father was her talent for repair and clockwork mechanisms.
Jamison flew to the other side of the pool and stood at the lip, looking into it. Vek approached the pool and chanted some words over it. The level of the water lowered to one inch. It was cloudy and brownish, but they could now see the bottom. There were two stone circular discs at the bottom, each roughly five feet in diameter. They were hinged on one side. Only Dartan would remember Jamison Crow’s impulsive drive to touch every trap and open every box. He was childlike that way- he couldn’t help it.
Jamison lifted the stone disc, peered in, and shrieked when a thick green snake lashed out and plunged all four fangs into his face. The others, quite startled, turned to see Jamison slapping at the snake, trying to get it off. “SNAKE ON MY FACE, SNAKE ON MY FACE!!”
Orthos pulled out his mighty warhammer, the Tear of Moradin, and jumped into battle. He landed with a small splash before Jamison and swung at the snake. It smashed into something in the hole that the others couldn’t see. Just then, Orthos whooped and jumped back, wheeling his arms for balance. He’d been standing on the other stone disc, and it was being pushed open. A snake-man began rising from the hole. He was covered in scales and slime. His arms weren’t arms at all- they were writhing snakes with hissing fanged maws.
The snake attached to Jamison’s face clamped down and began gulping with a quick, even rhythm. Jamison moaned in agony. It was draining the blood from him.
Vek pointed a finger towards it and uttered something that sounded like “Hhhhshighorothhhh”. The snake-man attacking Jamison curdled and burst into unholy black flame, then crumbled into blackened flakes- all in the space of three seconds.
“HRRRR!” Orthos smashed the enemy before him against the wall and ducked a snapping bite. Dartan, behind the dwarf and the lich, fired a crossbow bolt into the monster. Kizzlorn hit it with a powerful fireball- allowing for her friends’ safety, of course.Vek approached and was attacked. He grabbed a hissing snake arm in mid-air and whispered a command to its soul. The thing died right there, and slumped to the ground, where it quickly turned white and withered away to ash and bone.
Orthos did what he could for Jamison. Vek looked over at Dartan and said “Nice shot with the crossbow, Dartan.” He laughed with his mocking voice.
Dartan turned red and stared back. “Shut up. I’m wearing full plate armor, and didn’t want a splash of that stuff on me.”
Orthos had healed the wizard as best he could, but it was clear that Jamison had lost life he’d never regain. Jamison sullenly walked over to the altar at the other end of the hallway and turned back. “An etching of a fish on a hook,” he reported. “The only magic over there was in the burning candles. Just a ploy to get us near the damn creatures.” He looked depressed.
They walked back and took a right, leading them farther north.
This large chamber was mostly empty. Across the room from them was a small alcove flanked by two columns, upon which were carved various pictograms of animals and objects. Within the alcove was a small chest and what looked to be a skeletal hand, while below it were the following words, carved into the stone of the wall:
PAVING STONE LAYER, PATCHER OF SHOES
SIMPLE DESSERT, WHICHEVER YOU CHOOSE
While the others studied the puzzle, Vek stepped forward and picked up the skeletal hand. He moved quickly, so the scything blade that flashed out when he broke the plane of the wall just barely missed him. He stood, surprised, thinking “Oh… so THAT’S how that got there.”
“Vek? What just happened?”
“Blade trap. I’m imagining the command word to disarm it is the solution to the puzzle.”
Ziad gestured to the pictograms. “Well, we imagine it’s COBBLER, but we haven’t figured out what the images mean. Look… there’s a chair, and… is that a bar? A pole? What’s it all mean?”
They didn’t dare try to touch the chest until they’d solved it. They were looking for a way to spell COBBLER with the pictures given. It didn’t seem to make any sense… until Kizzlorn just happened to note that CHAIR and HAIR seemed to be lying side by side at the top. Next row down were BOAT and BAT. “Take the one odd letter out from each of the seven pairs and put them end to end,” she said. Sure enough… COBBLER.
Still, no one risked putting a hand towards the chest. Jamison opened it from five feet away and used a spell to float the contents to him. They were potion bottles… which was great, until they noted that each was labeled only with a cryptic phrase.
CRIB DIMPLES
CURE AN END
GENERAL
LION DOES PAY
ONE GUST
REWIND GHOUL CUTS
“More word games,” Vek said with a note of annoyance. “Couldn’t we have gone somewhere interesting? My sword arm aches for action. Surely the Temple of Elemental Evil is ready for another purging by now.”
The others ignored him and thought about the names. Jamison recognized the potion in one of the bottles. “Hey, this is Cure Light Wounds.” He then saw that the label, REWIND GHOUL CUTS, was CURE LIGHT WOUNDS with the letters rearranged. With this knowledge, the potions were divined fairly quickly. CRIB DIMPLES was SPIDER CLIMB. CURE AN END was ENDURANCE. GENERAL was ENLARGE. LION DOES PAY was DELAY POISON, and ONE GUST was TONGUES. These were stashed away and the party looked about.
“There is no door here… What do we do?”
“Let’s go back and explore the room with three doors.” They went back to the room they’d fought the puddings in and went through a door to the south.
This small room had open doorways centered on the south, east, and west walls. Each doorway led to a set of stairs going down, and each had a rune carved above the doorway. There were also words carved above the three doorways, which together formed the phrase "A NIP OF MEAD OR PURE ALES."
In the middle of the room were several barrels and crates filled with various alcoholic beverages. Three glass steins were available as well; they appeared clean but for a light coating of dust.
“Pain,” Kizz said straight away.
Ziad looked at her. “What?”
She pointed to the letters above the door on the left: A NIP. “Pain. More rearranged word games.”
“Well, then, I don’t like the look of the center door… look. OF MEAD OR. I can spell FEAR and DOOM with that. What say we avoid that door?”
Dartan pointed to their right. “This one- PURE ALES- could be PLEASURE.”
“Let’s take that one, then.”
Jamison sipped from one of the steins and remarked “The ale’s pretty good. Anyone want some?”
Ziad gasped. “You drank from those?”
Jamison looked abashed, as if reminded that he was often careless in deadly situations. It was a wonder he’d lived so long.
They walked under the PURE ALES door. The long set of stairs had a gradual slope, ending in a closed iron door with the stylized designs of seven different creatures carved on it. There was also an indentation in the door below the seven creatures, about the same size and shape as the pictures.
Clearly, each little image was broken up into three separate puzzle pieces: One for the head, one for the body, and one surrounding it (containing wings or antennae or a tail, and so forth). There was a space beneath the row of creatures with three empty slots.
“We’re to put together some creature here. But what?” Orthos forbade anyone to attempt to solve it by trial and error.
After a few minutes, Vek suggested “What kind of creature would fill its dungeon with puzzles and riddles?”
The others looked and saw what he meant. They put the eagle’s wings, the mermaid’s head, and the lion’s body together.
The answer, of course, was a sphinx. More specifically, a gynosphinx.
A magic mouth formed in the door. It spoke in a regal female voice. "You've built my body, but all the same, to pass you must first say my name."
It took Orthos’ clever mind just a few moments to think to look to the first letter of each animal’s kind on the seven tiles. A for Ankheg, M for mermaid, A for ant, R for rat, I for imp, E for eagle, and L for Lion. “Amariel,” he said.
The door opened. “Oh, no,” Vek groaned.
The middle of the floor of this room was made up of a giant chessboard. The pieces looked to be carved of black and white marble, with stylized faces on the kings and queens. The board was set up as in mid-game, with captured pieces set in rows along the sides of the board.
The walls of this room contained murals of various animals helpful to the humanoid races: along the north wall, a bee amid honeycombs and a chicken with her nest of eggs; along the east wall, a fish being captured in a net and a hunting dog; along the south wall, a sheep and a goat grazing in a pasture; along the west wall, a horse and a cow.
Click here to view the chessboard's layout
NEXT TIME: “I hate chess.”
Coming this Saturday!
Malachai_rose
First Post
poor jamison
so he go level drained huh... life energy that he can never get back ? Does that mean that a restoration spell from Vek or Orthos won't bring him back up to speed? Just wonderin, also the rust pool... that was evil, lol, glad Kizz had a repair kit to hook Nanny back up
so he go level drained huh... life energy that he can never get back ? Does that mean that a restoration spell from Vek or Orthos won't bring him back up to speed? Just wonderin, also the rust pool... that was evil, lol, glad Kizz had a repair kit to hook Nanny back up
Dr Midnight
Explorer
double-post. duh.
Last edited:
Dr Midnight
Explorer
Yeah... I think I enjoy puzzles as dungeon hazards far more than some of them. They can easily defeat my poorly played monsters, though, so it's a trade-off.
Nope, drained CON permanently. I believe he lost 2 points.
That chess puzzle at the very end I think will be the toughest puzzle in the module... Anyone care to take any guesses at the solution? Don't post them here... E-mail your solutions to me.
I'll make this a contest. How? Uh... Hmm... how about the first person to guess correctly will be killed by Dartan in a future write-up.
Okay, maybe it's not a new car, but I've got a REAL contest coming up soon, involving legitimate prizes. Stay tuned for that.
Last edited:
Breakstone
First Post
Heh, I love puzzles...
Hammerhead
Explorer
Can't a greater Restoration, which your party has access to, get rid of the drained Con?
- Status
Similar Threads
- Locked
