Third Game
My wife played her third game last night. Well the party drug their feet through NeMoren's vault and still didn't quite finish it.
Spoilers for NeMoren's Vault ahead
General Comments/Overview
One of my players is back from his visit to Pocatello, and came in with his female druid... I explained that his character was investigating the poisoning of water in the area, and the cleric that was gone last week (that I explained out as being injured) told her what they saw in the vault so she would be encouraged to investigate.
The wizard's player was gone.
So the party makeup for this session was:
- Myrana - Female Elf Cleric 2 (Correllon)
- Elspeth - Female Human Fighter 2
- Tanner - Male Human Rogue 2
- Emerald - Female Human Cleric 1 (of Trycia, mother-goddess-figure)
- Arcadia - Female Human Druid 1
The party fought a couple ghouls, and trounced the ghoul sorceress, did some investigation, and got into NeMoren's vault. I about havled the treasure in most places.
NeMoren's Sepulchure has a Glyph of Warding on it, that the clerics were able to identify as a bestow curse glyph.
But they opened it anyways (greedy bastards!) Myrana and Tanner failed their saves and got cursed with a permanent -6 to strength, intelligence, and wisdom!
This sent them off on a journey to the big city to find a cleric of high enough level to cast
Break Enchantment. This didn't hurt my feelings to much, as it gave me a chance to siphon off some of the party's treasures, which was still considerable even after I halved it (NeMoren's vault has a LOT of treasure.)
While in the city, they consulted with the local ancestor worshipping shamans to research their records to find out more about the NeMoren family history. I related the tales of Kragor NeMoren. As soon as the flaming sword he wielded was mentioned, you could almost see the greed in the party members' eyes (particularly Elspeth). So they are determined to go back to the vault and scour it for the flaming sword.
For those in the know, the Flaming Sword is, per the writeup, in the vault. However, it is also way powerful for characters of this level. I am thinking of having the fleeing hobgoblins have plundered it and run off with it, and use that as an additional work-in with Of Sound Mind.
Psionwife's reaction
Psionwife is getting impatient with the dungeon crawl aspect and wants there to be more of a storyline. I sort of picked NeMoren's vault because I thought it was a nice basic dungeon crawl that I could use to familiarize her with the basics, but it is sort of outliving its usefulness in that vein, as Psionwife pretty much had the basics down after last session (though she did see an actual turning attempt in action by the other cleric this session.)
There is sort of a storyline/mystery in NeMoren's vault, where you learn about the last of the NeMoren line betrayed his lover to marry another, who subsequently became a ghoul. Psionwife wants some closure and for there to be some resolution and/or improvement of the situation.
Now there are some possibilities of tying up this mystery and eventually saving NeMoren's bride if you want to run with it. Problem is, having set my sights on running Of Sound Mind soon, I didn't want to "run with it".
Right now, I am looking at extrapolating from the NeMoren's vault story in a way that will lead the party into OSM. That could serve my purposes and make psionwife happy.
Part of Psionwife's frustration is that she is not as patient as some of the other players. We have short (4-hour) sessions, and we don't always reach the end of a story arc or mystery by the time we wrap up for the night, and she expresses that she would feel better if there was some closure or resolution every session to propel her forward.
This is a bit of a challenge, because when I am lazy/tapped out, I usually just pull out a module (which almost always never has a quick resolution) or throw down a quick dungeon quest (which almost never has a very beefy storyline.)
On the bright side, I guess I should be happy that she is more interested in the "finer things" in roleplaying.
