World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]

[erucsbo]

The party had several fights with the Cloakers in the area and a few Gricks. At the end of the last game they found the Dark Naga (S' something). I had fun with this one. The kids had been watching one of the Rescuers cartoons and I gave her the speech characteristics of the white female mouse in the those movies. She called everyone 'Darling' and was just as friendly as can be. The party refused to enter her home and eventually moved off (it was getting late). The Naga let them know she is willing to work with the party... she'll give them information and advice and she'll ask them to do tasks for her.

rv

Ah - yes - Eva Gabor - better known for her role as Lisa Douglas in Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Can just imagine her deploring the atrocious conditions that she has to live in with all the icky things about, and it does absolutely *nothing* for her complexion, plus the opportunities to shop are virtually non-existant.

 

[rvalle]

Hah, yes. The party offered her gold.

"I have no need for gold Darling, where would I spend it?".

Man, that is just a great voice.

At least I was able to get her though one encounter without the party just attacking her outright.

rv

 

[erucsbo]

Region I, room descriptions and random encounters

Had a 6 week break from playing (we normally play 1/fortnight, but lack of numbers one time and me being away for Tech Ed Oz the other has restricted when we could play).

Party is in Region I and we resume after having had a tough encounter with chokers (I10 and I3) - including draining quite a bit of strength from one of the fighers and consequently running the clerics out of lesser restorations.

They decide that they are still OK and are trying to make their way east so that they are aware of all the escape routes back to Region E when I read out the room description for I16. The mention of 'purple slime' seems to freak them out and after the sorcerer lobs a fireball into to the room and I say that the slime is still there but now steaming they decide to back away and try a different tack. ?!?!?!?!

Next stop - I5 and the Disciple of Madness. This ended up easier than I thought it might, though the Exotic Fighter lost a +1 adamantine spiked chain on her first strike at it
Lots of arrows split it and eventually there were 6 puddings, but copius firespells that managed to beat SR eventually did it in, with the last one being killed with a pummel from the aforementioned Exotic Fighter (who had Resist Energy - Acid active). One of the characters did succumb to the chanting so I will be dredging up visions in the future and at inappropriate times.

They discovered the secret door to I4, but had the random encounter of the iron door clanging shut, so there was a mad race around trying to find where it came from, then paranoia set in and they were thinking about bugging back to the Celestials. I have a drow NPC with the party now (for search checks as the only other rogue with the party ran off) and he refused to go to E, so they didn't head back to Celestial Central and instead holed up in I12 before tackling the door to I4.

They were brown trousering themselves with misassumptions about the glyph on the door, but eventually made it through and also eventually found Eight Strike Fang. All of the fighters in the party are Chaotic in alignment. The only Lawful character is the sorcerer, and 3 Neutrals are a Mystic Theurge and 2 clerics, so an axiomatic weapon is a bit of a mixed blessing to them. There was serious discussion between those with item creation feats (including Craft Magical Arms and Armour) that they 'melt the sucker down' to use it to create other magic items <sigh>

This is where we broke for the evening, and there is a distinct possibility that it will be 2 months before we get to game again (once again due to people being away).

I am seriously thinking about having a rebel drow group enter I4 at the beginning of the next session - 1 - to speed up the pace of the game, 2 - to provide some intel as to major plot hooks in the region (the drow NPC is playing cards very close to his chest), and 3 - to take the focus off the special effects (room descriptions and sounds) which seem to just freak the party out and send them haring off after red herrings.

Thought or comments anyone? Especially from those of you who have been through here before - what made Region I memorable?

 

[Hussar]

Sounds pretty groovy as it is Eruc. Reading your guys' descriptions of I makes me wish I had picked a different route through things. Almost. Two, maybe three more sessions to the Pyrfaust. Woot!

 

[rvalle]

Wow, I think that Deciple of Madness fight is going to be seriously hard for my group.

I think the region descriptions ARE what is making I memoriable so far. I love the players getting freaked out by the envionment. Its better then them going "Are we taking damage from it? Eh, whatever... keep going."

rv

 

[erucsbo]

Wow, I think that Deciple of Madness fight is going to be seriously hard for my group.

I think the region descriptions ARE what is making I memoriable so far. I love the players getting freaked out by the envionment. Its better then them going "Are we taking damage from it? Eh, whatever... keep going."

rv

tips on Disciple of Madness.

I had the deeper darkness already going, and sprinkled some motes of light floating about the room. They didn't know it was a pudding. It was just an amorphous black blob from which the low sonorous chanting came with shadows being cast along the back wall. I actually used the chant of making from the movie Excalibur in a low gutteral (which from memory was sorta like "Annal Na'thrak, Ootvan bethood, Dockian Denvray" or something like that - over and over again). Requesting will saves from those that ended up within 30' helped up the tension. The mystic theurge threw in a Dispel Magic - which I had disrupt the chanting for a round, clear the deeper darkness, and make some of the motes of light disappear. At that point they could see the features of a drow moving through the rippling surface (a face, fingers, etc). Also up to this point I had kept it stationery. When its turn came around again it started up the chanting again and started moving. With its size and reach it started causing problems. I allowed a Knowledge Dungeoneering check or Knowledge Arcana after it had destroyed the first weapon, and now that they could see it clearly in order to identify it as a black pudding (though not a normal one). The first split (I tracked slash/pierce separately from bludgeoning) in to 2 large puddings freaked them out a bit too, but the splitting worked in their favour as the fireball and other multiple target firespells effectively did more damage (because the HP were now spread over multiple targets) - the ones that beat the pudding SR at any rate.

Afterwards they wanted to check for treasure
I reread the room description about the floor being spotless, and reminded them that puddings dissolve metal and wood.

 

[Dracorat]

One of my players kept an adventure log of last session.

Enter section C...

Party:
Jigger - Door listener and Backstabber Extraordinnaire!
Silinu - Webs and Fireballs. What else is there?
Rodash - You haven't FELT pain until you've felt my greataxe!
Amy - If you need healing and you know it, clap your hands!

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September 2nd Gaming Session (Online)

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We started this session by advancing into section C and almost immediately found a room with 4 undead creatures of which three of them *seemed* to be gnolls, one of which put a negative level on Rodash. After defeating them, we found a circlet on one of them that radiated magic and we also found 15 GP as well.

The circlet is a Minor Circlet of Persuasion (+2) to charisma-based checks (but doesn't help a sorceror with better spell casting).

Level 5 : 560 XP So far this session: 560 XP
Level 6 : 490 XP 490 XP

Next we fought a Gnoll leader and his 6 gnoll warriors. The leader was *very* adept with his longbow and from the party's point of view, he rolled crits a bit too often in our opinion. ;-) We defeated them after taking quite a bit of damage, (Jigger went negative TWICE!). After the battle, we found the following left behind:

6 sets of studded leather armor
6 heavy steel shields
6 battle axes
6 shortbows
2 quivers
6 masterworked arrows
1 great axe
1 masterwork comp longbow
1 set of masterwork studded leather

Level 5 : 340 XP So far this session: 900 XP
Level 6 : 250 XP 740 XP

We had one more battle with a few more gnolls to the north where we found a group of four rooms. The first of the four rooms (SW) seemed to be almost a barracks and apparently was the source of the 6 gnoll warriors whom we fought in our last battle. The next room (NW) had a couple gnolls that were no contest for us. After taking them out we searched the room. There was a fireplace in the SE corner and the table near it had some jars on it. Additionally, we also found:

A Dagger, (which turned out not to be magical) but it was very decorative (and worth about 100 gp).
29 gp in loose coins
154 cp in loose coins
6 dice (valued at 5 gp each)
1 Masterwork Warhammer

Next we checked out the other 2 rooms of the 4-room arrangement and found no other foes. We did find 9 gp more though.

Finally, we decided to head west. After passing thru a large room whose walls and floors were literally painted in blood, we worked our way south through a twisty maze of passages and found a secret door that revealed a trail of blood leading to 3 badly pulped bodies that seemed to have been beaten against the stone or else with stone. Additionally, we found a dead body much like the unique undead creature from the first room in this session.

We worked our way back to the start of the blood trail to a small room with two doors. Behind one of them Jigger heard some breathing and when Rodash knocked the door open we found a small goblin called Ratul. After befriending Ratul we let him go and found out where the "Dog King" resides. We questioned him about the surroundings (he seemed to be a sneaky goblin scout) and he was able to fill in a few gaps on our maps. In fact, he told us about how he was hiding out from the Goblin King and also from the Dog King (Gnoll leader). He also mentioned the fact the the Dog King had some stone statues fighting for him, too. At any rate, we gave him instructions on how to get back home. For doing so we received:

Level 5 : 150 XP So far this session: 1,050 XP
Level 6 : 150 XP 890 XP

We then went directly there to where the Dog King was and confronted them. --- And got our butts handed to us. The Dog King had a bunch of warriors including some crossbow-men (crossbow-dogs?) and they peppered us until we were well-seasoned and low on hitpoints. Silinu first tried Fireballs and amazingly it hardly hurt them at all. He also mouthed the words and Web spells appeared to try to slow the gnoll warriors down. Though some were immobilized, others were still able to move slowly towards us. All during this, the Gnoll King move about and he turned one and then another statue into a living (?) engine of destruction that moved towards us intending to make adventurer meatballs out of us.

We tried to keep them at bay and let only a couple attack at any one time, and with this strategy we DID inflict some casualties on them. Unfortunately, the Gnoll King came up on Rodash and with the previous damage Rodash had taken, the Gnoll King was able to knock him out. Thus, Rodash went down in combat and shortly thereafter Jigger went down while trying to run from combat. (Doing damage is apparently not his forte ..). Silinu and Amy were lucky enough to get away to lick their wounds. They rested up that night intending to make an assault the very next day.

For this partial battle, we each got the following:

Level 5 : 600 So far this session: 1,650 XP
Level 6 : 525 1,415 XP

In the meantime, Jigger and Rodash were taken and thrown into cells with none of their possessions at all (except for a hidden lock-pick set that Jigger had probably kept hidden someplace that would be unmentionable in a typical family conversation). He used them to get the door open but it appeared that they were being guarded by at least two other gnolls who seemed to be nearby and watching to closely. At that point, Jigger decided that discretion was the better part of valor and chose to wait until after a bit of healing rest. The next morning things weren't looking any better so he did his best to sneak out and see what was what. There were the same two gnolls but they were busy just talking and watching the fire. That gave Jigger a chance to sneak down the hall and check the other cell doors.

Also that morning, Silinu and Amy readied their spells for an attack designed to help find Rodash and Jigger. With a fierce array of Fireball, Web, and Magic Missles they went back to the Dog King to beard him in his den. Their hope was to find their companions and take them back so that all could be healed up.

After a false alarm, Jigger seemed to find Rodash's cell. He quietly opened it. Fortunately Jigger is short so the round-house punch that came thru the opening went flying over his head. (Half-Orcs are pretty big and tall and strong, especially with no Right-Guard that morning!) They knew that Silinu and Amy would be looking for them so they had to defeat these gnolls and find their way out of here. Rodash and Jigger then decided on a plan to try to get one or both of those gnoll's weapons away from them but today just wasn't Jigger's day. One of the gnoll's caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye and grabbed his weapon. Jigger dove for the other weapon hoping to throw it right to or near to Rodash. But again the fates (the DM's dice) were against him and the second gnoll grabbed his weapon before Jigger. Rodash charged the second gnoll but was unable to get close enough to inflict any damage. In the meantime, the first gnoll stepped around the fire and triple-critted Jigger with his greataxe. Again, Jigger died. Rodash then had his turn to make lemon juice out of lemons and was working his way through the slower gnoll. BUt after a round or two the first gnoll got a big chance to pound on Rodash and critted him. Rodash fell bleeding to the ground.

Meanwhile the other combat with the spellcasters didn't fare too well either. Things with Silinu and Amy started out okay, considering it was just two against 5 times their number. And again, fire didn't seem to do much to them and they soon started taking way too much damage. Even with Amy healing and Silinu's offensive attacks, they died as well this time. Still, for the attempt, we got:

Level 5 : 500 XP So far this session: 2,150 XP
Level 6 : 500 XP 1,915 XP

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[Hussar]

Sigh.

Shadows of the Dragon, where I host the World's Largest Dungeon Project is having some serious difficulties. I'm not even sure if it can be salvaged at this time. Anyone looking for room descriptions or die rollers, give me an email and I'll see what I can pass along. Most of them are saved as doc's on my compy, so, there is room for salvage.

On that note, if anyone has the room descriptions for Region J, drop me a line please. I didn't do the writeup for that region and I'll be heading there this week.

Definitely not happy.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That sucks, Hussar. I wish you the best of luck in restoring your data.

RC

 

[Jim Hague]

tips on Disciple of Madness.

I had the deeper darkness already going, and sprinkled some motes of light floating about the room. They didn't know it was a pudding. It was just an amorphous black blob from which the low sonorous chanting came with shadows being cast along the back wall. I actually used the chant of making from the movie Excalibur in a low gutteral (which from memory was sorta like "Annal Na'thrak, Ootvan bethood, Dockian Denvray" or something like that - over and over again). Requesting will saves from those that ended up within 30' helped up the tension. The mystic theurge threw in a Dispel Magic - which I had disrupt the chanting for a round, clear the deeper darkness, and make some of the motes of light disappear. At that point they could see the features of a drow moving through the rippling surface (a face, fingers, etc). Also up to this point I had kept it stationery. When its turn came around again it started up the chanting again and started moving. With its size and reach it started causing problems. I allowed a Knowledge Dungeoneering check or Knowledge Arcana after it had destroyed the first weapon, and now that they could see it clearly in order to identify it as a black pudding (though not a normal one). The first split (I tracked slash/pierce separately from bludgeoning) in to 2 large puddings freaked them out a bit too, but the splitting worked in their favour as the fireball and other multiple target firespells effectively did more damage (because the HP were now spread over multiple targets) - the ones that beat the pudding SR at any rate.

Afterwards they wanted to check for treasure
I reread the room description about the floor being spotless, and reminded them that puddings dissolve metal and wood.

As always, I'm watching the fun in Region I - despite the difficulties, I had a lot of fun writing it, though on retrospect perhaps I should have ramped up the difficulty a bit. And originally, the description of the Drow champion was of a 'standard' raging demon, sans eight arms. for the sake of more brown-trousers moments, I'd change it back to that.

Dig back a bit in the thread, and you'll find a link to the nasty positive-energy undead that I cut from I as well. Always good to ramp up the difficulty, those. My players were gibbering in terror after battling the gricks, only to have them 'heal', mutate and come back in hot pursuit later on.

Say, has anyone gone through the region with the Elven garrison? Haven't seen anything on it, and I'm veddy interested in how it shakes out for folks.