Session 29: Don’t Start No Shit…

Time: 2/19/13, Rest 2/22/23, Active 2/23/23

PCs: Blair, Bigtoe, Braxton, Martin (hench Issac), Kemini (hench Issac), Sebastian (hench Issac), Hess (hench Issac)

Hench: Jahanaray, Isabel, Goda, Selena (her name changes every session)

#ACKS

Team B was back at it this session considering so little time had passed and they really wanted to get this thing squared away. During downtime they met with Lord Issac’s (patron Paladin) right hand Father Sebastian of Heironeous (cleric) who had arrived at Castle Deinwick with heavy reinforcements and supplies to tackle a significant sinkhole of evil. Sebastian agreed to escort them to the location and take care of the heavy lifting with the sinkhole once the PCs cleared it out. He even offered several of Issac’s henchmen to aid in the clearing. Paladin gonna Paladin I guess.

They scared off the random encounters, I forget what all they were, due to the size of their crew and arrived at the Oasis. The troops secured a base camp while the PCs sent in Blair (Nightblade) to scout. She made her swim checks and secured their safety relays for the heavies to be able to navigate the underwater cave complex later.

At the grotto she found a bit of a different scene than before, with an established guard of blinded gnolls and cultist handlers holding the beach head. She was very careful to surface at the back end of the pool and once she realized it was guarded she immediately left to notify the party who planned their assault.

The narrow nature of the cave system prevented them from storming the grotto in full force, so Blair and Bigtoe landed first with the rest of the assault team streaming in after. One of the cultists ran off to presumably warn the others while the rest of the guard force engaged. It was a pretty standard engagement with Bigtoe’s high AC on full display and the blinded gnolls attacking with elite precision as long as they got commands from a cleric. Blair caught a Cause Fear spell from one of the enemy clerics and swam back through the caves but not before unleashing a clutch of Summoned Berserkers into the scrum. Two turns duration is brutal and she was basically gone the rest of the fight. 

Towards the end of the fight with the cultists, Scott the Cyclops was disturbed from his throne and again shouted down through the window above the grotto. This time Bigtoe shouted something offensive and insulting back. I don’t know if he felt emboldened by the presence of Issac’s henchmen or what. Scott wasn’t having it and stomped off to go squish the little invaders his massive footsteps receding deeper into his side of the complex.

It was gonna take a few rounds for him to get there and the party did their best to finish off the gnolls because they didn’t want a fight on two fronts. They had one gnoll still engaged by the time the Cyclops made his appearance, hurling a boulder and smearing the remaining berserker across the grotto’s floor. I failed to cleave here and it keeps me awake at night.

On the next round, Martin (hench Paladin) took a boulder to the chest but shook it off and charged the Cyclops, landing a solid blow. Bigtoe (Machinist) and Isabel (Fighter) followed, with Braxton (explorer) landing a solid critical hit from his longbow that almost put out Scott’s eye. This is where things took an unfortunate turn.

We’re almost 30 sessions into Oberholt and the PCs have rarely, if ever, fought anything truly powerful. They’re very good about talking their way through things or very lucky in reaction checks. Encounters with Simba, Meowster Mittens, and the like have been narrowly avoided through luck or skill. Flexing their high AC on goblins and orcs has been a lot of fun for them. This was an eye-opening turn of events I believe.

With three engaged in melee, Scott swapped to his massive club and in rapid succession drove Martin into the ground and eliminated Bigtoe with the cleave that I remembered this time. He missed the following cleave against Isabel and Jahanaray’s attempts to blind him with Light spells failed. The next swing pulverized Isabel and he let loose a deep chuckle.

Here I rolled a few morale checks, which Jahanaray the cleric passed but Kemini the mage failed. Kemini dove into the pool and dragged himself to safety while Jahanaray’s maximum morale role had him trying to figure out how to rescue his boss (Bigtoe). Scott was out of rocks so he picked a corpse at random, which was Bigtoe’s, and threw him at the cleric with the intent to kill him. Despite making contact, the damage was low and the cleric weathered the shot.

This development made the decision easy so Braxton dove and Jahanaray dragged Bigtoe’s body into the pool, where they cooperated to extract him. They were pulled from the drop point by the waiting soldiers and morale was pretty low. Bigtoe used a fate point and caught some healing from his cleric to get back in action. The others that fell were left behind.

While they recovered and talked options, Blair shook off the Mylar blanket and hot tea that they gave her for the fear spell and dove back in. She swam into the grotto again and peeked, the light spells from Jahanaray still active. She saw Scott talking with one of the cultists at the mouth of their small corridor, which the evil human was apparently using as cover. They argued back and forth for a second before the human scampered away. The Cyclops grabbed a few gnoll corpses and left towards his side of the grotto.

With the coast clear, Blair took a risk and ran up to grab Martin and drag him back to the pool. She pulled him out using the safety lines where the waiting crew extracted him. Sebastian was able to hit him with Restore Life and Limb on site, but his Tampering with Mortality roll was pretty low so he was down for the session.

Blair returned and listened carefully, not hearing or seeing anything but needing her own light. She drew the dagger that Sebastian had cast continual light on and used it to scout around. She ran for Isabel’s corpse after seeing no enemies but the thudding footsteps of Scott the Cyclops were rapidly approaching. She decided to grab the fighter and drag her towards the water, sinking into the pool with a raised middle finger as Scott came back. The Cyclops noticed corpses missing and complained in a loud stupid voice but did not see Blair slip away.

The party retreated to Teutch’s tower where they laid Martin up to rest and tried to recover. Sebastian was going to Restore Isabel, but needed to rest himself. He chose to hold the base camp rather than retreat. They begged some resources off of Teutch who loaned them some armor. Then they returned to the oasis for round 2.

Again, Blair went in first to scout. This time the lights were out, the corpses were gone, and no one was on guard. She crept forward and after some discussion over the table decided that Scott was wounded and probably had the same healing rules that the PCs did, right? So she started off into his side of the complex, shielding her dagger to carefully limit how much light she was showing. The huge natural corridor led to the northeast and more branching intersections but Blair’s tracking was able to lead her to his primary chamber overlooking the grotto.

She carefully ascended the huge platforms acting as natural steps to his living area, terrified because she couldn’t hear or see him anywhere. Once she got close to the top, the elf could hear Scott’s deep breathing of sleep. Blair climbed up to peek over and see if she could locate him, which she could. She slid her dagger forward for light as carefully as she could and waited, but the Cyclops did not stir. She dropped down and cast Summon Berserkers at the top of the ledge, who howled into existence and attacked the nearest enemy, the sleeping Cyclops.

Blair stayed low and let the Berserkers go to town. She watched one launched over her head into the space beyond the light and heard the rest smashed. She cast another batch of them at the top of the ledge to the same results, with Scott stomping around and exclaiming, “Ow, ow, ouch!” and looking for any other enemies. Blair crept over the edge of the ledge and moved as silently as possible behind the wounded Cyclops where she drew her Laughing Skull sword and stabbed him in the femoral artery. He swung in a rage over her head and fell dead, blood pouring over the platform and by the throne of skulls that he used as his seat of power. 

She cut off his finger and toted it out as proof of the deed, I guess for bragging rights cuz they woulda probably believed her if she just told them. The troops and other members of the base camp were suitably impressed and Sebastian and Hess, the heavier hitters of the Issac henches present, opted to enter as well to make sure this thing got done.

The rest of the dungeon was really mop up. There were only a few enemies left which set an ambush in a storage room deep in the place but were unable to cause any significant harm. There were a few undead by the sinkhole but not nearly enough as there should have been and Sebastian took care of them easily with turn undead. They uncovered some modest treasure from the cult but Scott the Cyclops had some real loot. They also found a madman’s chaotic manifesto from the High Priest’s chamber which they gave over to Kemini to research. A knock spell and dispel magic spell were both tried against the warded door but no results there.

The party left Sebastian’s crew to secure the dungeon and start work on the sinkhole destruction. This crew had the manpower to bust open Scott’s entry to the dungeon and use it for their new base camp. With the first level of the dungeon on lockdown this effectively became a construction site. When prompted during the following downtime about aiding in the cost of building the shrine the PCs were conspicuously silent, responding in discord only in memes of being unavailable. Issac took careful note of names.

Teutch aided the party in identifying their magic items. Bigtoe stayed to continue researching in his workshop while the others left for Deinwick.

Musings:

Missed another cleave, shame on me. It was a good session that had a lot of tense moments. Big monsters are big scary, but Fate Points are a little OP. I believe I’m gonna reduce max fate points to 1, with some recovery options. Seeing Patrons and PCs work together against a world wide event is cool. They definitely struck a blow against the Dark Hymn, if for different reasons. I don’t know what happens next but I’m excited to see it.

Blair, Bigtoe, Braxton, Martin, Kemini
Jahanaray, Isabel

Delve 1
Xp from Kills:	1598
Xp from Loot:	10649
Total XP:	12247
Cuts:	12
PC:	0%	2,041	5%	2,143	10%	2,245
Hench:	0%	1,021	5%	1,072	10%	1,123

Blair, Bigtoe, Braxton, Sebastian, Hess, Kemini
Jahanaray

Delve 2
Xp from Kills:	514
Xp from Loot:	782
Total XP:	1296
Cuts:	13
PC:	0%	199	5%	209	10%	219
Hench:	0%	100	5%	105	10%	110

 

Session 28: Mixed Signals

Time: 2/11/13, Rest 2/12/23, Active 2/13/23

PCs: Blair, Bigtoe, Braxton, Benjamin

Hench: Goda, Doofus, Jahanaray, Isabel

#ACKS

The Dark Hymn Intensifies 2/1/23: The Dark Hymn that has haunted the dreams of everyone in Oberholt has intensified, some swearing that they can hear it ever so faintly during awkward pauses in conversations or other times of social anxiety. Sleep is at a premium, most peasants and commoners running on fumes and struggling with day to day life due to the persistent terrifying dreams. 

Reaction and morale checks, including Domains, during the month of February are made at -2 due to fear, distrust, panic, and despair. Account for these in your dealings both in session and in downtime.

February kicked off with this update on the status of The Dark Hymn. It was apparently getting worse and the Patrons were starting to notice due to the severe morale penalty. Some efforts were made by various entities, with Teutch the Alchemist (Patron Mage) releasing the following in the Discord chat:

Teutch sends a message to Team A with the following information and lets Barbinikus pass along the following information to Team B if and when they are at the Friendship Tower:

Lockleaf has learned of a weirding dungeon many call the grotto of the Mad King. You will find an oasis of sparkling water that juts off from the river south of my tower. Around this possibly magical water are Statues of Tharizdun around the small blue pond which have mostly been defaced. There is an underwater cave there which leads to a beachside grotto where the Mad King long ago built a temple to entreat with his demons. We have reason to believe, now abandoned, a cult of Tharizdun is holding rituals at the temple which are helping to cause the Dark Dreams! Teutch has learned that the ritual is of a Chaotic divine origin and believes if this cult is dealt with the nightmares may stop or lessen. Teutch asks that Team A SUCCESSFULLY tackle this difficulty of which they will be rewarded with his forgiveness and good will. Team B, should they attempt it, will be rewarded with 5,000 gp. Good luck!

Teutch’s henches in downtime had been working on digging up rumors, which is that particular player’s justification for memeing things into the game that sound interesting to him. By stacking rumors together, it adds to the detail of the rumor and provides a more robust opportunity to world-build. In the case of world-altering events, this practice works well to get the ball rolling on responding to it. We saw it across several campaigns during the Curse of Lammala multi-world event over the fall and winter and I expect we’ll see it moving forward.

Anyway, Team A promptly hung Teutch a collective middle finger. They’re officially fed up with the fallout from the trial and felt that the reward of “forgiveness” was insulting. Team B, on the other hand, was offered gold. So that’s who the players decided to run for the mission.

It’s nice to be able to run a dungeon, also nice when it’s relatively close to a launching point. Wilderness travel is fun but can soak up a lot of session time. The team got settled relatively quickly for our table and took off, departing south from Teutch’s Purple Tower in search of the indicated oasis. They had tried to beg resources from Teutch but none were on offer.

They saw a band of troglodytes on the way, but neither group was interested in a roughly fair fight so they avoided each other. Eventually Braxton the explorer was able to dope out the location of the oasis, through a narrow crevasse and nestled in an isolated little cavity of the mountains. They squeezed in and started looking around, Blair and Braxton both tracking and Bigtoe testing water flow from the crystal clear pool in the middle of the spot to see what they could learn. 

The pool’s water was cold and clear, tasted flat and slightly metallic, and filled eight separate tunnels that stretched out in every direction just under the water’s surface. Benjamin stripped down and jumped in, poking around a little and confirming that the tunnels ran off into the distance.

Around the pool were eight statues of Tharizdun, the chaotic god of destruction, which I described as abstract modern art pieces standing on plinths that were scribed with a bizarre mixture of pictograms and runes and random scribbles. They were also vandalized superficially by previous visitors to the site. There was information to learn from the plinths in varying degrees based on available proficiencies, with one of the henchmen coming in clutch with Caving. He was able to dope out a path described through the maze of underwater tunnels and share it with the party.

Using that info, some rope for safety, and a light spell on his dagger, Benjamin dove back in and swam through the first three of the indicated tunnels, confirming that they continued to branch and twist further in. There was a small pocket of air above each branching intersection where he could catch his breath and he continued as far as he could until he ran out of rope. In the last air pocket he saw a lush growth of lichen with some pinholes of sunlight coming through the roof of the small cavern. 

Prior to entering they had discussed a simple code of two quick tugs to pull him out quickly. At this point he tugged three times on the rope, which confused everyone outside. They kind of tugged back and forth for a minute while laughing about codes. I’m still not sure they ever settled on what each series of tugs meant.

He used the rope to guide his way back and the party discussed their options. Several ideas were floated to navigate the cave system, eventually settling on Benjamin swimming back to the lichen room and lighting a torch so they could find him from above and dig through the cavern roof. I think the idea was to shorten the distance to the underground grotto that they sought so their rope would reach as a safety line, but I don’t remember.

The rest of the crew left him tethered to a horse and went to find where the roof of the cavern was thin. Benjamin swam in and rigged a standing loop so he could light a torch that would smoke through the holes. Eventually they found it and used spikes to hammer through the pre-existing cracks and reveal daylight. Benjamin swam out and met them topside where they retethered their safety line and extended it as far as they could with all the rope that they had.

Benjamin rigged a drop line on a grappling hook so that he didn’t get trapped and dropped in from the newly opened roof. The daring assassin swam forward as the water scout with another light spell cast on his dagger. He was able to make it to a much larger pool but ran out of safety rope. He decided to unhook and swim up, surfacing in a very large perfectly circular room with a softly sloping sandy beach area. 

Benjamin could see a towel rack by the light of a burning torch near a corridor to the west but the rest of the chamber was too big for his available light. He immediately ducked back into the water and grabbed the guide rope, pulling himself out. He was very concerned that there would be cultists lurking about.

The party spent a bit more time discussing how to make it to the grotto, eventually extending the safety line by the length of the drop line that was rigged which gave them just enough length. They were concerned over how much difficulty their heavies would have in bigger armor. Swimming in ACKS is pretty forgiving until you miss a throw then you’re SOL, so they started a buddy system, swimming in twos.

Benjamin and Blair, the sneaky folk of the group, took point and made landfall in the grotto, sneaking around and securing the area where there were no obvious threats. The rest of the party followed and poked around. They had a massive natural corridor to the east, a little rat crawl where they found fresh evidence of giant rats with tracking, and then a structured hallway to the west where the walls were tiled with crazy black and white swirls painted in old blood that was brown and flaking.

The party decided to follow the western corridor as they felt the cult would more likely be towards the lit torches and fresh towels. They crept down a long hallway that had burning torches at irregular intervals eventually coming upon some kind of ritual entry chamber. There was blood splatter on the floor, the walls were damaged by many repeated sledgehammer blows, the tools themselves leaning against the northern wall, and several rows of votive candles burned on a cabinet on the eastern wall.

There were a few options here, one a short hallway to a very dark room where they could hear chains rattling, people moaning, and unsettled giggling and the other a door leading east. They chose to avoid the weird dark room despite many BDSM jokes and sneak through the eastern door.

This led into a large kitchen/dining area with a well-stocked prep station and two long trestle tables. Four other exits led from here and it was at this point that one of the players made the comment, “Oh wow so this is probably an actual dungeon then?” I blinked a few times and nodded. They thought the water cave was the raid boss, I guess.

They peeked into an empty hallway and listened at a door but were immediately intrigued by the sounds of ritual chanting coming from an open hallway to the south. Blair the nightblade used her last spell to cast invisibility on Benjamin and the two crept into the poorly lit room, trying to position themselves to greatest effect when the inevitable combat ensued.

A large eight-pointed star dominated the center of the floor’s surface with a human hanging from a meathook at each point. Periodically, the black-robed priest dancing in the middle would slice a piece off of a helpless captive and toss it into the pile in the center. Around him danced eight other cultists to the boots-and-pants beat that only they could hear. I may have demonstrated this dance. I am not ashamed.

Two other chaotic priests waited on the sidelines of the ceremony, hoods raised and hyping themselves up for whatever their part was to be. Braxton shot at the head priest in the center to draw them to the party’s waiting ranks, where the assassin type PCs would then gotcha them from the shadows. It worked great on the mook cultists who charged with wild abandon, but the two of the clerics stood back and cast spells. One of the other waiting clerics had to rush into the circle to keep the ceremony going apparently, which left him out of the fight.

So, Hold Person is really powerful. TPK powerful. Unfortunately, saves have to be failed for it to matter. The party made their saves against a few hold person casts, one of the henches failed a Cause Fear cast, and the battle continued. Blair the nightblade was not invisible and didn’t have a great path to the big dog, so she joined the scrum and cleaved two or three of them down. Benjamin, on the other hand, used the chaos to reposition and backstab the replacement cleric in the middle. Once he realized that the cleric literally could not stop the ritual he just slit his throat.

Meanwhile the main battle was not going well for the cultists. Most of their number were down and the high priest was out of spells. Benjamin engaged him and they traded blows for a bit, but eventually the PCs were victorious. Zealous morale bonuses kept the fight going longer than normal, forcing them to kill every enemy. They went to town destroying a small obsidian altar with deliberately sharpened edges in one corner and the bizarre metal octagram of pulsing red magic in the floor. They also found a weird metal door covered in strange runes behind a satin curtain but couldn’t figure a way to open it so they bounced.

The kinder members of the party tried to rescue the captives, but most expired as the ritual was disrupted. One particularly hardy fellow survived, punching the air and cussin’ at them in delirious belligerence. As they were helping him and some loot from the clerics out of the room, a patrol of enemies showed up from the north. This crew was a little different, with a handful of gnolls wearing blindfolds and two armored clerics at the helm.

Braxton was watching for them and sounded the alarm. He also plugged one with an arrow as they closed but was downed before they moved onto the rushing party. One of the clerics dropped Darkness on the melee, letting their blind gnolls go to town and waiting for something to come out of it. Blair and Benjamin struck out in a different direction, trying to find another way to get to the clerics on the backline without having to go through the darkness.

They found their way around and eliminated the clerics. The melee in the darkness was a slap fight with high ac, attack throw negatives, and no particularly impressive melee PCs involved. Eventually Benjamin fired arrows blindly into the scrum, rolling very high and very lucky as the chance to hit friendlies was high. A fate point (Heroic Fantasy Handbook optional rule) saved Braxton, who got some magical healing from a cleric hench so he didn’t have to rest and they continued their exfil. 

The party got back to the entry chamber and decided to look into the “BDSM” room, shining their lights in and revealing more captives on meathooks who had gone mad. They also discovered an obsidian pillar that radiated chaotic energy. Attempts to save the captives were again not very successful, but two of the dozen or so were walking wounded and potentially able to be rescued. They also smashed the altar but their cleric didn’t think they had done enough to truly cleanse it.

Limping out to the grotto and unable to find a better way out,  they needed a plan to get the freed captives out through the water. While they discussed, a booming voice called out to them from a hole in the wall high above the grotto’s pool. “Hey you! What dis? You tribute!” came from a giant head with a single eye attached to a presumably giant body. The head disappeared a big stomping footsteps could be heard receding.

The party knew they were either going to have to face this new threat or escape and didn’t think they could do so with the captives. The lawful cleric hench gave the punch-drunk one his shield and mace and pushed them into the hallway to hide with promises to return for them ASAP. The PCs then made their escape through the water using their safety line and buddy system, where several of them nearly drowned several times.

They gasped to the surface and climbed out, galloping back to Teutch tower to end the session. The cleric was very distraught at having to leave the captives. They know that they interrupted one ritual and still have an unresolved sinkhole of evil. There’s all kinds of dungeon left there and for once they haven’t gone a week or two into the future. Next week could get spicy.

Musings:

I worry that I’m too easy as a DM sometimes, but then situations happen where the party is a few missed saves away from death. I was a little surprised that NO ONE missed a save to the hold spells. The party has done right by their henches in general and if they go back I think the cleric will relax. There’s no telling how the dungeon ecosystem will change after their raid. It’s fun to consider these things but they may never go back so who knows? Tune in next time to find out!

Xp from Kills:	718
Xp from Loot:	5000
Total XP:	5718
Cuts:	12
PC:	0%	953	5%	1,001	10%	1,048
Hench:	0%	477	5%	500	10%	524