1/28/2-1/29/24, rest 1/30, active 1/31
PC: Gwendolyn, Flynn, Cleet, Galt
Hench: Amadayo, Mahin, Madrof, Chase, Terry, Mike, Freddy, Poe
Our players chose Team A for the session due to Team B being locked in downtime. They still had the dungeon known as Ornaron’s Spear to explore off of the coast of Bellport and this time their ship captain and definitely not a smuggler Cleet was available. It didn’t take them long to sync up in Bellport and then head to the dungeon.
Diving for the entrance of the Spear is an extra layer of security but their seafaring venturer Galt is well-practiced at it especially now that they had magical light to light their way. He overcame the penalties for attempting it in cold water and in short order the group was inside the dungeon, gaining entry through a zipper latch in the ceiling of the first room.
The strategy appeared to be re-clearing each level of the dungeon that they’d already explored in order to cover their asses before heading deeper. They also wanted to recover some copper and heavier goods that were left behind from the last session. After they dried off from the winter ocean water, they systematically explored both the first and second levels of the dungeon, their only real issues being stuck doors of pock-marked coral that needed busted open.
They broke an evil altar near the site of their previous demise and subsequent corpse recovery a la Everquest circa 2001. The Lawful clerics will gain a little bonus xp for it while the rest of the Neutral party eagerly counted their meager treasure. The following efforts to retrieve a couple hundred gold worth of loot was heroic. I was proud of them for properly calculating their encumbrance and how to carry it all out. Just a shame it was a small amount.
Some wandering Troglodytes tried to stop them and take their loot, but a tanky frontline and oversized party handled business pretty easily despite Cleet the Mage’s best effort to hit everyone with Hypnotic Pattern. The PCs stashed their loot right at the entrance then returned, seeking to make their first delve into level 3.
Now this is a reminder that in ACKS dungeon levels cap at 6, where in AD&D they go much higher and increase in difficulty at smaller intervals. So while level 3 doesn’t sound that high, it’s about mid range in power, so they were starting to get into level appropriate content. A horde of zombies met them at the first room, surprising and attacking them right on the stairs, but their beefy front line soaked the hits while the clerics turned em and made short work of the foes.
The following room contained a steel rod connecting floor to ceiling that hummed gently. Cleet naturally had to touch it which resulted in a shock that did a little damage. The party noped immediately out of that room and continued on where they found a circle of like 20 crabs dancing rhythmically in a circle. Gwendolyn the Bard played a tune and disrupted their tempo, which caused them to scatter into little cracks and crevices in the floor.
There was a whirlpool in the middle of the next room, which Cleet immediately dove into. They watched him flounder around for a bit until he was probably gonna drown before fishing him out. He didn’t feel any different and they moved onto the next room, which had the floor covered in skeletons of various aquatic animals. On closer inspection, the skeletons were formed from random bones broken, carved, and glued to make the correct shapes. There was a bull’s head roaring in pain at the head of a whale or shark or something I forget. One of the clerics turned undead and the evil was banished from it.
The crew was very suspicious of a pile of treasure sitting in a pillar of shining white light. One of their thief henchmen couldn’t find any traps and they didn’t expend any resources so when they scooped all the coins into bags there definitely weren’t any obvious or not so obvious repercussions. It was getting late so they made their way out of the dungeon and back to town with nary a random encounter. One of those light sessions.
After a while of shopping and chilling to wrap up the session, Cleet realized that the gold in his pouch had changed into platinum. A firestorm of OH WE HAVE TO GO BACK RIGHT NOW and other ways to immediately capitalize on the likely magical pool were floated, eventually settling on stopping time. While I avoid this practice in most situations, as long as the party committed to playing this group the next session I felt it was ok.
The other options were abstracted dungeon delving, which is an mechanic in ACKS but I don’t care for it for an active party of PCs, or just waiting 2 weeks to go back since we aren’t gonna have a session next week. We’ll see if it was a mistake for our next session.
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