Time: 10/9/22 - 10/22/22, active 10/23/22
PCs: Blair, Bigtoe, Benjamin, Braylen
Surviving Hench: Abyan
Team B was up this week and they weren’t really sure what they were going to do. Teutch, as ever, had a few hooks out there most notably the Fallen Castle Dungeon so the team went to Deinwick to try to pick up some henchmen and resupply. Bigtoe was able to land a cleric of Pelor who happened to already possess a treasure map worth quite a bit! Turns out it led to the burial tomb of Lothander the Mischievous, an elven adventurer of old. It was also quite a few hexes through true mountain terrain but that did not dissuade our heroes who saddled up and rolled out to rob the dead, departing from Teutch Tower and picking their way through very rough terrain.
The first few days were surprisingly uneventful, but on the fourth day they ran across a few platoons of orcs. Fortunately distance and terrain gave the party the advantage and they were able to evade them, but the next night while camping the orcs caught up to them. Due to amazing reaction rolls the orcs simply demanded that the party leave the mountains, indicating that they should do so immediately or be killed. The orcs pointed North and waited while the party got their things and departed. Benjamin crept back after a few hours and found the orcs had camped in that location overnight. The party waited for them to leave and then resumed their original trajectory, unconcerned over breaking their agreement with the orcs to leave the mountains.
A few days later they found the location of the tomb, having combed the hex in question and using the map and Braylen’s Mapping proficiency to zero in on the spot. Two large trees were carved into the flat side of a mountain, the branches framing a double door of Ironwood. Two emaciated Caecilians were compelled in some way to guard the entrance and attacked but the group beat them down and cut them open for their riches. Astartes (Braylen hench) was eaten during the battle.
The front door was locked but they were able to disable it and gain entry into a short stairwell leading into a marble chamber. They hit it with the old Daggerfall/Diablo always take a right strat and found another long chamber with a seated figure in the middle of the floor. They eventually discovered it was a stuffed taxidermy of a man holding a potion bottle after shooting it and poking it. Benjamin lifted the bottle and tucked it away. While they searched some crazy lookin’ albino humans with filed teeth crept up on them and attacked. The party put them down and kept moving, taking the next (you guessed it) right hand turn.
They found a crack in a wall and looked in to see a dwarf named Jogrim just chillin’ in his cell, having been imprisoned by the morloks by dropping him through a grate in the ceiling. The crack was pretty small but Benjamin was able to squeeze through. He climbed a rope to inspect the grate but couldn’t find a way to remove it, so they decided they’d try to widen the split in the wall. Bigtoe did some calculations and then started chiseling while the rest of the group kept watch. Eventually, after much noise and dust, they were able to widen the hole for the stocky Jogrim to escape.
They tried to hench him but he wasn’t interested, mostly wanting to just recover his party’s remains and escape. Benjamin gave him a sword to use and Bigtoe notified him that he could take the bodies of his friends but the party would be keeping any valuables that were found. Jogrim did not respond.
When they came out into the main room, there was an additional larger group of Morloks poking around the entry chamber. They attempted to parley but with the morlok bodies laying around that devolved pretty quickly into violence. The party was victorious but lost their new Pelor cleric Farnaza in the tussle. One of the morlok’s got away and they followed him across into an opposite wing of the complex. They found him in another fungus room and gave him an ultimatum to show them the loot (what loot who knows) or die. The morlok agreed using charades and then made a break for it. They chased him down and killed him.
They found a locked ironwood door in this wing that they were able to pick which led to a burial chamber that had another tree motif on the wall framing an elven sarcophagus. They didn’t want to mess with it just yet and went to the RIGHT to search another chamber that was filled with glass columns that crowded the room pretty close. These columns would have played the opening riff to Heart’s Crazy on You if touched, but they were careful not to touch them. Their loss.
The opposite chamber to this very symmetrical tomb contained more glass columns but they were broken and spiderwebbed. They would not have played anything, RIP. At the end of this room was a statue of an elf in a superhero crouch with a mischievous grin on his face. The party guessed this was Lothander and took it to mean they were in the right spot. While investigating the statue they touched it and it cursed. Each time they touched it, it let out a different curseword in elvish which Blair, being an elf, could translate. She immediately fell in love with it.
They inspected the coffin and eventually Benjamin opened it, catching a trap in the face that dyed his skin black for an indeterminate amount of time. This was followed by a low chuckle emanating from the interior of the vessel. Lothander’s body was revealed, having been buried with his very fancy elvish armor, a cloak, and a pair of boots. They had no qualms stealing this dead adventurer’s gear and even his statue, lugging it out to put it on their cart.
They traipsed the long way back to Teutch tower, seeing no more orcs but finding a Storm Giant Castle complete with flying griffons overhead that they avoided and a nest of small rocs. They avoided that too but were careful to map the location of each.
Musings:
1:1 time got ahold of them this session as Bigtoe was certain there was a lair of the Morloks within the tomb, they were just unable to find it before needing to skedaddle so as not to be caught in the dungeon at session’s end. The overland travel was interesting, particularly having a mapper for once who could locate the lairs again if necessary to sell them to Teutch who is usually hunting this or that for magical research. It’s interesting as the choice to take mapping as a proficiency was informed by their previous interactions with Teutch. The world lives by the actions of its players and every week is something new.
Xp from Kills: 1280
Xp from Loot: 9209
Total XP: 10489
Cuts: 9
PC: 0% 2,331 5% 2,447 10% 2,564
Hench: 0% 1,165 5% 1,224 10% 1,282
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