In a rare bit of luck and planning, the boys settled on a location for their adventure AND a target! Hot damn. The Tower of Helsja and the scried eeeevvvil within called to our band of mighty heroes.
They made friends with gate guards, scouted the area, talked to the Duke, and READ HIS MIND. Sorta. But enough to verify Ojisan the Spirt Theurgist's suspicions that the visions he viewed in the definitely fair and not game-breaking in anyway Palantir was indeed the Duke making some heinous pacts with a devil lady. Ojisan was nearly hanged for witchery but narrowly passed suspicion by the Duke's Elite Guard.
Broderick marched directly to the Tower of Helsja with the intent to knock and gain entrance, but runes above the door flared to life and paralyzed him! In what would be a series of advantageous rolls related to this session, there were no witnesses to this and the party pulled him free. A very rude servant woman opened the door, bitched at them in weird monosyllables, and slammed it in their faces. Ormr tried to scale to a balcony high above their heads but failed to throw his grappling hook and thought better of it.
The night is for scouting, which they went to with gusto, coming up miraculously with Fitzerg the Warrior, a known associate? Employee? Consort? of the witch Helsja. Ormr was able to gain a favorable reaction with the drinking fighter and introduced him to the rest of the party. An attempt to gamble magic short sword for magic longsword was rebuffed, but then a different offer was made.
Broderick the Neon, Hersir of Bloodfall wagered to the warrior Fitzerg that the witch was evil, and not only that, that the witch would attack Broderick ON SIGHT. Fitzerg, knowing the witch to some degree, claimed otherwise and accepted the bet. A deal was struck to meet at the same tavern the following day and Fitzerg would introduce the party to Helsja, but that would never come to pass. They were also able to get the password to the front door protection runes from and share Raylan's endless supply of deer jerky with their new best friend.
The scheming paladin had a different plan and used the bet as a ruse to keep Fitzerg from the location as a potential enemy combatant. This was very clever, but one may recall that the last time the paladin was clever didn't go great for him in almost exactly the same type of scheme. While Fitzerg was distracted, the party used their friendly contact on the gate to gain entrance to the Keep's compound and access to the tower.
The password worked like a charm and in they went. A round foyer and big spiral staircase greeted them, but no defenders. Up they went where they discovered a caged elemental of each of the four primary types being dusted incongruently by feather dusters in the hands of the rude maidservant people things. When the creatures struck out like Plastic Man, the party knew something was amiss!
Protection from Evil is a powerful ability, especially when confronted with devils and outer planar things like these creatures were. The fight was over quickly, but the things looked to regen from every sort of damage the party could offer. Some time was spent on ways to deal with that, settling on throwing half of them down the stairs and the other half into the cage with the earth elemental who was happy to pound it into silly putty.
Ormr moved up the stairs to discover what other foulness laid ahead. A dungeon grossed them out and they passed that pretty quick. The next level held wispy curtains flowing in an unknown breeze and a bajillion beautiful spirits meant to entice. Ormr, running ahead, got got. The rest were able to resist again due to Protection from Evil. They collected Ormr, who was irresistibly dancing to an unheard tune, and continued their climb.
The final level of the tower was larger than logic could account for, clearly some sort of pocket dimensional space. There was a massive ritual design in the middle and nerd stuff on one wall. Personal affects were opposite and everyone spread out to search. The waiting invisible Erinyes and plastic lackeys struck, targeting the apparent weak link in the magic-user Ojisan.
Thorgal noticed a puff of dust from a foot print and warned the party, avoiding being surprised. The fight was on, but the plastic things could only fight Thorgal who was far enough away from Broderick to be vulnerable to their touch attacks.
Helsja deployed her whip of entanglement which nearly spelled disaster, but she had suffered enough from the slings and arrows of valiant warriors that Raylan's brave wardog Ole tore out her throat and Ojisan finished her off with her own wicked poisoned dagger. The rest of the devils disappeared in inky puffs of black putrid smoke.
Miroslav and Broderick destroyed the ritual circle, breaking the containment spell on the pocket dimension and shrinking the room to normal size. They found a hefty haul of treasure and a bunch of scrolls detailing the bargains made by the Duke with Heljsa, sacrificing mostly heinous criminals but some pickpockets and tax evaders to her for her fell magicks in exchange for repelling evil beings from Sland.
The group marched to confront the Duke only to find him dead in a pile of ash and them "guests" of the seneschal of the keep until the issue could be investigated. Again the 2d6 went their way and they were released shortly thereafter. A moot is scheduled to take place among the landed noblemen of Sland's territory to see who will take the throne.
Musings:
Another successful city adventure. Am I a city DM? Idk, I think my strengths are executing, if not designing, dungeons, but the players seem to enjoy these. Maybe the change of pace is it? Whatever the magic is, this one went well. They knocked over the evil, freed the town from the horrible pall of boringness that was smothering it, and developed some interesting flavor and contacts. I don't know what any of that means yet but welcome to emergent play.
The paladin was docked in a previous session for making a deal and then not holding up his end of the bargain. He did the same here and will be docked as a repeat offender. Much has been said about Paladining around, but the core of the issue as an observer is A) the party needs ideas in the moment and 2) whoever matches the idea best, preferably he who presents it, should act on it. I dropped hints in the tone of "are you sure you want to do that" a few times and the rest is history.
This is the kind of magic that comes from playing out of your comfort zone. It's easy to always play one role because you know how to respond to basically everything, especially a role that best fits your personality. Be brave, play outside your box, grow. Yeah you'll take some lumps sometimes but that's part of the fun.
Grading:
Thorgal: Excellent. Recon gathering, bold in combat
Raylan: Excellent. Recon gathering, bold in combat
Ormr: Excellent. Recon gathering, bold in combat, LOL's with RP RE: witch love
Ojisan: Excellent. Creative/effective use of notably limited spell list. Stupid Palantir.
Broderick: Poor. Repeat offender of breaking his word once given. Bold in combat, queller of evil. Paladins designed to fight devils man.
Miroslav: Excellent. Used what spells were called for, busted up evil circle, flavor of Ukko the Finnish deity? tf? Idk, it's Norse adjacent I guess.
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