Time: 3/25/23 - 4/4/23, rest 4/5/23, active 4/6/23
PCs: Blair (nightblade),, Bigtoe (machinist), Braxton (explorer)
Hench: Selena, Andy, Jahanary, Isabel, Kissare, Goda, Platt
Mercs: 1 platoon light infantry, 2 platoons mixed cav #ACKS
A lot was made over the mysterious door found in the Mad King’s Grotto during downtime, with Teutch the Alchemist doing some research and discovering that it housed a rock dragon (?) of mythical prowess named Dufrense the Condescending. Ole Dufrense was said to have killed a Frutzii (notviking) warlord, his whole army, and pillaged his entire domain before retiring to slumber in some hidden lair. Evidence pointed to this location as his abode.
The party got excited, certain that they were going to catch some fat dragon hoard. They hired Augustus the sage to learn about rock dragons and were extremely disappointed to discover that the sage was not all that certain about what a rock dragon was. Red? Yep. Gold? Certainly. Rock? TF? He speculated on some likely traits of a rock dragon to which the PCs responded “Well no shit we coulda guessed that” and claims of “this is bullshit”, a phrase oft repeated during this session by one explorer eager to be murdered by something devious. We are above petty revenge, however, and leave justice to the dice.
Teutch explained to the party: "The sealed door has draconic text which states to not disturb 'Dufresne the Condescending'. This fellow is a rock dragon of at least 100 years of age who long ago killed a fruutzi lord around that mean years back. Mine research tells me he is in hibernation from a powerful blow placed from the hero at that time. I believe the dragon absconded with such viking treasure behind this door. To open the door you are to make a blood sacrifice of a sapient creature near it. This could be an orc so no great loss or evil required. The payment I ask for this information is 100% of all scrolls and/or spell books or wands/staves you find beyond the door. If such items are found and left behind due to laziness or cowardice I will know and consider this a refusal of mine payment."
He also offered a bunch of loaner magic equipment including some pretty useful consumables. The opportunity to score some scrolls or wands or something is apparently of great value to the Purple Mage.
This information prompted Bigtoe to take his recently hired mercs out and try to find some poor beastman to sacrifice at the door. With a few platoons of fresh recruits, he fortunately stumbled across a kobold raiding party which he easily dispatched, capturing half of them. They also had a chance to confirm with Father Sebastian (hench of Issac the Paladin) that the shrine to Heironeous had been completed in the first level of the dungeon, counteracting the previous sinkhole of evil that had persisted there. Sebastian and his crew were en route back to Riverstride after their successful mission.
At the Grotto, the recently departed armed force had left things cleared out as far as anyone could tell. The party visited the shrine to see how the work had ended up and allowing their clerics to ooh and ahh, then continued deeper into the dungeon to the hidden door. The PCs themselves are murderhobos and not prone to religiosity.
Issac’s specifications of the shrine: The rather small temple will have a facing with 4 ionic columns flanking a wide doorway with no door. The columns are inscribed with swords and lightning bolts. Inside the altar of white marble stands center room. On the back wall a bass relief depicts Heironeous slaying two demons. He stands on the throat of one while the other is impaled upon his sword which emits lightning bolts.
The large bronze door lined in draconic runes was still closed. The party unceremoniously executed the kobold that they had brought and slung its blood all over the door and waited. Nearly at the edge of their patience, the door began to absorb the blood and slide open to the ceiling, revealing a chamber beyond. They sent a single 0 level henchwoman back through the dungeon to grab another kobold in case they got trapped inside, entering to explore in the meantime.
I’ve been using Appendix A of the AD&D DMG for a little while to generate dungeons randomly, but at the encouragement of fellow DMs decided to try it live during the session. I am clumsy and need practice for sure, but I definitely see the value of it. It’s exciting to have everything unfold for everyone, including the DM. It can also lead to a bunch of hallways and/or empty rooms which are much less exciting.
The first chamber had a bunch of fire beetles who eagerly ate the kobold corpse that the party delivered to them and otherwise remained passive. The floor was also covered in gold and silver pieces which the PCs ignored much to my confusion. They inspected a large set of double doors embossed with a massive dragon before a teeny tiny army, giving it a cartoonish scale, but decided to take an open hallway instead that happened to loop around into the chamber beyond the doors. This was the first of many observations that dungeons don’t make sense. They aren’t built with logic in mind. They are the darkest depths of the subterranean underworld, dank and dark and filled with horrors. Like empty rooms and hallways.
They explored a bit more, poking into several empty rooms before discovering a large round chamber filled with a great bellows in the center connected to what appeared to be a smelting apparatus of some kind. Scouting of the room beforehand had them sure a great beast was beyond, but once they could clearly hear the bellows Bigtoe the Machinist easily identified the sound for what it was. Upon inspection, the molten metal in a wide basin gave off hardly any heat and was in fact some kind of dense smoke that swirled when Bigtoe ran an unlit torch through it. Utterly baffled, Blair and Braxton tracked around, discovering some sort of scat that they could not identify.
It turns out that Selena the hench that they had left behind had the Naturalism proficiency, so Braxton scooped a double handful of turds into his pouch and they returned to the door to discover that the hench had not returned! Some quick tracking showed them a blood trail which they followed to the old high priests’ chamber of the cult that previously inhabited the dungeon. They kicked the door in and engaged the ghoulish hobgoblin creatures beyond, desperate to save the hench that was crumpled in the back corner of the room.
Dice were rolled, only one person was paralyzed by the Throghrin, and the good guys won. It was a close quarters fight where Blair’s summoned berserkers tipped the scales in the party’s favor. They recovered the henchman with notoriously awful stats and miraculously rolled the highest mortal wounds rolls possible so turns out she like bumped her noggin or somethin’ and was back in the fight.
She successfully identified the pouch full of turds as Stirge droppings and then the party escorted her out to the merc camp to chill. They returned with two more kobolds which they killed and propped inside the first set of double doors “just in case”. Then they continued to the bellows room and beyond, finding a wide stairway leading down into a chamber flanked by two large bronze urns. Bigtoe inspected the urns for traps and discovered some sort of film on the lids. He used rope to tip them over where they spilled electrum pieces over the ground and the party scooped the cash up, leaving the sketchy urns behind.
Down the stairs into the next level, the party entered a large room with a single door leading out. What followed was a series of passages, hallways, and doors of no great importance and yawns from the table. There’s only so much aesthetic flavor one can add to a series of empty spaces. I’ll need to practice making these stretches more interesting, but even the random encounters weren’t hitting.
Eventually they discovered a man cave with a foosball table, poker table, and a hole in the floor that exposed a cool stream wherein several bottles of beer rested. Tracking revealed many humanoids made regular use of this room. There were a few doors leading out, one of which the party stacked up on to enter.
Braxton threw the door and stepped aside, revealing a waiting handful of dude bro bugbears with backwards caps, tribal tattoos, and besocked feet in rubber slides. They also had a few flasks of flaming oil and two handed weapons.
The two groups exchanged oil volleys then the bugbears engaged, the doorway acting as the limiting factor. Despite his amazing AC Bigtoe took some big hits due to my absurdly hot d20. It was a tough fight with a few losses on each side, but holding them at the doorway was a smart tactic and the room beyond was a deadend so the bugbears, despite gradually depleted numbers, had nowhere to retreat to and no belief of quarter.
Again Blair’s summoned berserkers turned the tide of this fight and eventually the team prevailed, discovering a den beyond with some frat boy couches and tie-dyed bean bag chairs. There were also several glass jars sitting in one corner that as I described them I could tell the players expected to be filled with something gross. However, they were just copper pieces with a dragon’s head stamped on them. While not jars of piss, copper could be considered pretty gross by mid level PC standards so maybe that was fair.
The party decided after some more amazing mortal wounds rolls not to push their luck and checked out, again no random encounters to be found on their way out. They finally collected the coins from the beetle room. Gathering their mercs and making a big deal about their expended resources, they headed for Teutch tower. Nearly back, they saw at a distance a lone stone giant ducking into a cavern carrying some meat or something. Bigtoe, eager to utilize his new troops, declared “We set an ambush!” I was confused, the other PCs were confused, but ok, let’s see what happens.
Unfortunately it was a meager Stone Giant lair, only 3, which is not that tough in terms of battle rating. Bigtoe had enough troops to set it up that way so we did. The party opted not to take any Heroic Forays considering their battered state and I rolled a fistful of d20s just to add to the tension but really I knew it was a done deal and was just hoping for a lucky hit from their 1 or 2 BR or whatever. It was not to be and the party scored big on a random lair encounter at the end of the session limping back to safety with few resources left.
Musings:
I need to streamline my Appendix A usage. It’s fun but a little slow yet. I’ll get better with practice. We had our first real BR encounter, unfortunately very lopsided. Targets of opportunity are a thing so grats to them for taking advantage. So far our treasure maps and hooks and things have led to relatively small dungeons/lairs, but the party is discovering not everything is a quick hit/score. Dungeons take some commitment to get the most out of, but you’re not likely to find anything unique or cool in a random lair. Overall fun session with a bit of a dead spot in the middle with all them hallways. We’ll see if they keep up the pursuit of Dufresne the Condescending next time!
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