Dubzaron Session 91: Spontaneous Heroism
Time: Travel started 1/21/23 to kick off session play 1/26/23 at Turos Spen. Delve 1/27/23 5 hours, rest overnight, aim to delve 1/28/23.
PCs: Bob Lawful Explorer 1 Mariner, Tuck Neutral Barb 4 pit fighter, Daria Lawful Bladedancer 8, Gront Coldsky neutral Barb Housecarl, Edelweiss Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6, Neutralio Neutral Fighter Level 2, Arminius Lawful level 4 Nobirian Champion, Vince McMaximus L11 Pugelist, lawful
Hench: Dina, L5 Fighter, lawful, Torquemada L5 Paladin lawful, Julia, L5 Thief lawful, Davian Cruise Dwarven Machinist Engineer lvl 2, Lily Bladedancer Bringer of Mercy lvl 1, Azalea Shaman Druid lvl 2
Hi. I’m Brigadine. Bdubs had to take a break for a bit due to IRL. He announced that this past weekend and had the Discord server all atwitter. He’s temporarily passed the reins off to a few subDMs for downtime shenanigans and keeping the game moving forward. Several of us split up the responsibilities to keep up with downtime while the chatter continued on the server.
Somehow, the boys got excited enough to jump into a spontaneous session to start on a Saturday evening. Buncha players and 2 or 3 DMs on hand so someone was gonna do somethin’ hell or high water. There were tons of hooks, but Bdubs had just recently dropped this nugget:
Blood Rain Torrential Downpour: This morning began a massive downpour of Lamalla's blood rains down across the lands. During the entire day and through the weekend it doesn't let up. Lawful dreams are haunted by the watery cackles of Lamalla during this time. "Soon!" she laughs "Soon all will be under my sway across the multiverse!"
This drew out the big guns. Vince (Patron Pugilist 11) went to his long-time best friend or exasperated ruler (depends on who you ask) Prefect Drakon (Patron Fighter ???) with a plan to strike at Lammala and hopefully rescue some of his captured henchmen from a botched delve a month or two ago. The Curse is nearing its end and no one knows what to expect when it’s over, but why be the nail when you can be the hammer?
Drakon used his Deck of BroSR Trumps (See: Nine Princes in Amber) to contact every single PC in the Campaign on what amounted to a Zoom call where Vince pitched the mission. A pool had been discovered in the wilderness a few weeks ago that had been corrupting any elves in the hex to Lammala's cause. The Legate that had discovered it was offering rewards to deal with it and Vince and Drakon piled on.
Players picked their PCs, among them some of the heavy hitters of the campaign that have been idle or doing domain stuff, and worked out logistics to be where they needed to be to kick off the adventure. They got with the Captain of the Guard at Turos Spen for intel and did a little shopping and off they went. Wilderness travel was miserable and a little slower than planned due to the rain and differences in mount speeds, but they got there with only a few wild animal encounters that were easily avoided. It was a big party with more than a company of mercs so the few encounters that they saw really didn’t want none o’ that smoke.
They arrived amidst the aforementioned downpour to find a company of Light Cav stationed on guard who were just as miserable or more than the party. Vince spoke to Sergeant Schlepo (memed into Schlepius Maximus because ACKS) who was a bit of a smart ass but accepted their purpose for being there and showed them the pool.
It was perfectly circular, 30 feet in diameter, and perfectly clear despite the heavy downpour of blood. After some tinkering and experimentation including Vince trying to lure a mermaid with an old pumpkin spice latte, Bob the Mariner displayed great 1st level courage, tied a rope to himself, and jumped in. The rope elongated and eventually lost connection and Bob was never seen again. OR WAS HE?! Cue dramatic scene break.
The party was worried and discussed various other plans to try to cautiously enter the pool, settling on jumping in with water breathing potions handy just in case. The notoriously cowardly Edelweiss (mage) noped pretty hard on going in until Neutralio just shoved her in and dove in after. Eventually everyone made it through the portal and into the dungeon, Edelweiss hyperventilating until they proved that they could enter and exit at will.
They were in a long, narrow room where the ceiling, walls, and floor were the color of the deepest darkest ocean, the last of which was rolling gently in mimicry of the ocean’s surface. Two rows of columns made of pink coral stretched the length of the room, several of which held magnesium torches giving off a harsh green light and sickly fumes. Bob the Mariner realized after a while that the rolling of the floor actually tilted to the northwest, kind of like they were standing on a bit of a wave and not flat water. Vince and others shared out a bunch of loaner magic items. Lammala’s Curse makes watery critters immune to normal weapons.
While the party discussed the various exits to the room, Tuck the Barbarian in his power armor tried to pluck a few torches from the columns, getting two and passing them around for folks to hold. One of the paladin henchmen detected evil and reported everything was evil. The whole place. Fun.
They settled on heading west down a passage close to the entry, arriving at a door made of sand and seashells with a white plastic door ring shortly thereafter. Not a lot of discussion was had about how to approach doors, their confidence swollen with the presence of mid to high level characters, and they served up a no-knock warrant on the underwater realm, piling into the room and immediately triggering a trap.
The room had dappled greenish light like just under the surface of a scummy pond. About half of the large party entered the room before the trap sprung, flooding the space with murky pond water and causing swimming checks for everyone. Except Tuck. Because power armor. Sigh.
The presence of the power armor trivialized the threat of this drowning trap and the party was eventually able to swim or be towed through the water to the clear hallway on the other side. They found a short passage that led into a large chamber with an 8 feet tall pile of sea snakes writhing in the middle of it. Some discussion about how to attack and kill the snakes led to eventually persuading Edelweiss to drop a fireball on it. She did and all the sneks exploded leaving behind a spirally coral column that they had been clinging to.
I’ve never seen a group so eager to smash an evil altar, with several PCs talking over themselves on mic and explaining to the newer players that chaotic altars give a bit of XP to lawful PCs that break them. PCs only ever want one thing, and it’s disgusting.
Some elbow grease and holy water later and there were cleansed altar fragments all about the place. As they dusted off their hands, two medusa burst into the room from the west wearing mottled green and blue robes and disposable paper slippers. Unfortunately for the monsters, no one was surprised and immediately turned to stone.
The combat that ensued was pretty one-sided, all of the adventurers having fought medusas and well-familiar with the averting your gaze mechanics. I don’t even think the enemy got a chance to act. They went into the room that the medusas came out of fully expecting to fight more of the same. What they actually found was a large circular room with a swirling whirlpool of gore, bones, and screaming faces in the center that made a loud roaring sound. The edge of the room was a ten foot band of sand with a few more exits.
They talked about what to do about the pool, eventually testing it out by throwing a vial of holy water in which burst and caused a massively loud ear-splitting shriek to echo throughout the complex. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to happen or respond to it. Shortly thereafter the walls seemed to absorb about half of the light emitted by the party’s stolen torches, but it didn’t appear to them that the two events were related.
They threw a couple more vials in, more shrieking, and the paladin cast Detect Evil. It was extremely evil in that pool. Daria the Bladedancer and OG dropped a Dispel Evil on it which caused its whirling motion to cease and stop, leaving just a pool of gore with bits floating in it. Cheers were had by all. The violently loud shrieking will definitely not come back to haunt them.
The party decided to rest here and let Daria meditate to recover her expended spell slot. A whole hour chillin’ in the dungeon, NBD. Turns out it was indeed NBD. The lights even corrected themselves.
So off they went, aiming at a northern door where they found a large square chamber filled floor, wall, and ceiling with weird veiny organic pods of some kind. They noped right out of there and kept poking around, finding a much more turbulent room where they could hear waterfall sounds coming from an angle that they couldn’t see without entering the room. Again, they backtracked, opting to check a hallway off of the whirlpool room that they were confident would lead them back to the entrance and out.
Along that hallway was another shell and sand door, so they stacked up and kicked it in, rushing into a confrontation with 7 Sharkotaurs. Yep, minotaurs with shark heads. They even had hooves. A bold charge by the front line of Gront, Tuck, and Neutralio set the battle’s tone, supported by the rest including the Summoned Hero Mandonio. A mix of high AC and poor rolling left the party with little damage received beyond a strike against Bob the Mariner which felled him to exactly 0 HPs. The medic hench jumped on it quick and a solid mortal wounds roll had him back on his feet.
They captured and interrogated the last sharkotaur and learned some small or vague details about the dungeon. Ultimately they decided to kill it when it outlived its usefulness. The critters’ room had a bit of loot which they shared out between them and boogied for the exit. They still hadn’t achieved their primary objective and it was getting late so they determined that securing the loot then calling it was the best play. But they couldn’t shake the thought that maybe Vince’s lost henchmen were in the pod people room, so they jumped back in and risked another encounter to check it out. Fortunately they made it there without incident and tried to see what they could learn about the weird cocoons.
Some failed proficiency checks to try to surgically remove a whole pod left them with the choice to cut one open or just leave. They cut one open, revealing a motionless, hairless, featureless, smooth-bodied humanoid creature that either wasn’t alive or was in a coma or something. Tuck stepped up with his Axe of Galeforce and uttered the secret to Fryer Tuck’s franchise: “never fresh, always frozen” and touched it to the… thing… which froze over like a popsicle. A podsicle, if you will. They took the podsicle and a piece of one of the cocoons and destroyed the rest, resting up top in the torrential bloody rains with the intent to come back ASAP.
Grading: Dubzaron runs a class grading system ported over from AD&D. I look for aberrant behavior from the class’s obvious role within the party. From the AD&D DMG pg 86:
Bob Lawful Explorer 1 Mariner: Bold, direct, courageous, Lawful. Fighter archetype E.
Tuck Neutral Barb 4 pit fighter: Bold, direct, courageous, helpful. Fighter archetype E.
Daria Lawful Bladedancer 8: Dropped spells in key points, healed when able, engaged in melee as Bladedancer. Martial Cleric archetype E.
Gront Coldsky neutral Barb Housecarl: Bold, direct, violent. Fighter archetype E.
Edelweiss Neutral Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6: Cautious, cast in key points. Mage E
Neutralio Neutral Fighter Level: Bold, direct, courageous, Fighter E.
Arminius Lawful level 4 Nobirian Champion: Bold, direct, courageous, flexible, Fighter archetype E.
Vince McMaximus L11 Pugilist, lawful: Bold, direct, courageous, leader, Fighter archetype E.
Musings: This was my first online session that I’ve run. I’ve got a handful of games under my belt as a Judge in person, so I’m not completely lost, but it’s a different dynamic for sure. The excitement throughout the day talking about it fed the session emotionally as much as anything that happened in the game I think. Had a freshman caller in Vince on the mic, which was fun. The legacy Dubzaron players really like to put callers on the spot. But it’s all done with love. Iron sharpens iron and the rising tide and all that.
I threw the dungeon together once it looked like I was on deck for the spontaneous session. I’m not as great working from absolutely nothing as some, so I like to at least have an outline. I’m sure the PCs will throw me as time goes on with some gotcha session plans, but that’s how we get better. Push that envelope! This one was easy due to all the lead-in conversation.
We paused time again. I don’t really care as long as the timeline matches up. I think it’s proven that it works fine. There is some concern over the spontaneous session leaving players out of the loop which is unfortunate. Could also FUBAR some assumed actions and contingencies with a game with this many moving pieces in 1:1 time. We’ll endeavor to be more considerate of that in the future, but hey strike when the iron’s hot, right?
This is a temporary thing. Bdubs will be back. In the meantime, look for some filler DMs to keep the game rockin’. Hopefully we’ll continue to keep things fun for everyone. See you next session!
Session 91
Xp from Kills: 2730
Xp from Loot: 14805
Total XP: 17535
Cuts: 22
PC: 0% 1,594 5% 1,674 10% 1,754
Hench: 0% 797 5% 837 10% 877
Lawful Only
Xp from Kills: 1100
Xp from Loot: 0
Total XP: 1100
Cuts: 12
PC: 0% 183 5% 193 10% 202
Hench: 0% 92 5% 96 10% 101
Session 92: 1/27/23 Return to Lammala’s Pool
Time: 1/27/23 Delve 4 hours, 1/28-1/30 Travel, Rest 1/31, Active 2/1/23
PCs:
Tuck, Barbarian 4th level Pit Fighter
Daria Vaylas, Bladedancer, Lvl 8, Lawful, Bringer of Mercy
Bob the Mariner L1 explorer. Lawful.
Vince McMaximus Pugilist L11 Lawful
Neutralio Neutral Fighter guard Level 4
Bulwark Adieu, L1 Paladin (Temple Guard)
Edelweiss Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6
Hench:
Dina Fighter L5 Lawful
Torquemada Paladin L4
Julia Thief L5, Lawful
Davian Cruise Neutral Dwarven Machinist Engineer lvl 2
Lily Lawful Bladedancer Bringer of Mercy lvl 1
Azalea Neutral Shaman Druid lvl 2
This session the group was committed to continuing its attack on Lammala. After Session 91, they had camped topside with the troops and some of the loot that they had pulled off of the sharkotaurs. The PCs were fairly sure they were zeroing in on the target, they just weren’t exactly sure what the target might be.. Some of the PCs thought there was going to be an altar to destroy, some that they were going to kill Lammala herself.
Vince was calling again. They got organized and went back into the portal, acting on intel acquired from a captured sharkotaur that the action seemed to be to the north in the dungeon. They carefully approached a large stone door carved with scenes of predatory ocean animals which Tuck eventually heaved open with his Power Suit. He stumbled into the room beyond with others of the front line to reveal a whole heap of fishlocks (morlocks with gills) and white apes.
Battle ensued with the enemy trying to keep them hemmed up in the hallway, but super high ac and some overruns and cleaves opened space for the boys. Daria in traditional Daria fashion cut a hole to the leader in the back while the rest did the work up front. Cleaving was designed for this fight and was on full display, the fighter-heavy group choppin’ and stabbin’ their way into the room and eventually winning the day. They found some meager loot, rested, and then carted it back to the portal. On their way back, the gently rolling ocean wave of the floor turned suddenly violent, disordering their march and tossing them all about, a few people taking damage from twisting ankles and such.
At this point Vince established a breaching formation for tackling doors. They followed a hallway off of the fishlock room and found a door to practice on. Bursting through, they were met with an opaque red mist and a much warmer environment than the cold, clammy rest of the dungeon. They backed out after hearing some snuffling sounds to discuss options. Edelweiss the mage cast invisibility on Vince and the high level pugilist crept along the walls in the room due to miserably poor visibility, eventually nearly tripping over some emaciated giant boars in one of the corners. Daria dropped a speak with animals spell and the PCs foolishly waited for me to affect a silly animal voice like they make Bdubs do. I live to disappoint.
After some discussion with the hungry animals, they led the boars back to the portal and out. There was an attempt made to corral them outside but the terrible weather and lack of enthusiasm from the mercs allowed them to escape. Vince thought they might have been his captured henchmen but it was just a hunch and they let them go.
Another rough storm surge tossed them about but they kept on, breaching the next door that led into a hallway beyond the fishlock room. There was a door to the left, hallway to the right, and another opening off of that hallway. They crept up and peeked the corner of the opening, revealing a large room with a crushed sand floor. Two excessively oiled cloud giants in neon green speedos were wrestling while a dark shadowy figure of some kind watched from the watery ceiling above them. They wore old school football leather helmets and had crazy sickly green magic over their eyes.
The party huddled up and discussed fighting, evading, or trying to dispel whatever was affecting the giants. Eventually they settled on dispel. Daria presented and Ianna was able to lift the magic veil from the giants’ eyes long enough for them to toss off the helmets. Unfortunately they also tore off the speedos, leaving the party faced with a couple of Dr. Manhattans.
Vince stepped up and let them know that he was kind of a big deal with the WGE and all, but a minimum roll on reaction made the giants pretty apathetic. They just brushed past and looked around, eventually asking where the exit was. The party escorted them out so that there wasn’t a bloody one-sided battle topside. The giants thanked them for freeing them and offered them ½ of their lair treasure at some hex number far to the south east. The party just had to go get it. Bob the Mariner tried to tag along with them, but another poor reaction roll meant that they just ignored him and left.
Back in the portal, back to the giant hallway and they continued north down a long corridor. Took another offshoot hallway leading further north and ending with an unoccupied guardroom. Tuck explored it first and eventually the crew stacked in, noting the awful smell but nothing else of note besides some boring low level government furniture. The large party piled into the next hallway, following it even further north until it started to curl in on itself.
The last branch of the corridor pointed south and sloped downwards, with clawed marks in the sand on the floor as though something or someone was dragged down and thrown into the gaping portal at the end of the hallway. It was the pitch black of squid’s ink and burbling with the same kinds of bone, gore, and screaming faces as the evil pool that the party had dispeled in session 91.
They talked a bit about how scary this looked until Daria started buffing herself and jumped in the portal. The braver members of the party followed, with Neutralio threatening to throw Edelweiss in again. They buffed and jumped in, where they were deposited in the air in front of 8 Aspects of Lammala, each different and representative of whatever Lammala looks like in other BROSR campaigns. They were all screaming into the void of a large dome overhead where scenes of the various tragedies caused minute to minute by the Curse flashed overhead.
Hard to see against the scenes were dozens and dozens of captives held in sickly green magic bubbles with strands of neon green fishing line stringing them together through their cheeks. As the party floated down they watched a handful of elves sacrifice themselves to the foremost aspect of Lammala, a giant sized humanoid with a too-large mouth full of shark teeth, leaving behind piles of offered treasure that were being slowly absorbed into the black volcanic sand of the floor.
Lammala lowered her head and fixated on the adventurers, materializing a shadowy flickering aspect of the demon blade Stormbringer and smiling. She tried to speak, but the party only heard the jarring static of an off-air TV channel.
Battle was joined, but the party’s high AC and my poor rolls put the enemy behind early. Her devastating attacks were likely one shots to most of the party between her poison bite that was save or die and Stormbringer’s massive damage mod in this form. She only connected once on a paladin henchmen, killing him with poison, before the uberbuffed party wore her down. The lighter/lower level members of the group were focused on rescuing captives rather than punch above their weight while the heavy hitters beat her down with their buffed attacks.
On the killing blow, she fell and exploded in a wave of crackling black lightning, dealing damage to everyone and I think knocking someone down. The large party split duties of rescuing as many captives as they could while securing what loot that they could, including quite a bit of magic items and gems but leaving a ton of coins behind due to weight and the fact that the entire complex was roiling ominously.
They rushed through some interesting rooms filled with loot on their way out but had no time to investigate, reaching the final portal as the entire realm collapsed. They were violently thrown outside to land in the blood-mud of the torrential downpour that had been happening for days. The pool itself turned into a geyser that went on for quite some time before petering out.
The group immediately noticed the mercs standing around staring at the sky where the ever present rain had stopped, leaving behind an ominous overcast of blood red clouds and heat lightning. They took stock of their situation, having recovered Vince’s missing henchmen and a few of the other captives, Lawful elves of the Istrith forest who had their Eamon Aure holy symbols nailed to their chests with iron stakes. They performed some triage and shared out the load for their stockpile of loot between all of the mercs who were happy to stow it just to get out of the creepy location.
Some uneventful travel back to Turos Spen followed, where they ended the session to lick their wounds. There are rewards on offer, but there’s also a war on and two of the primary entities offering rewards are leading bits of the army.
Grading: Dubzaron runs a class grading system ported over from AD&D. I look for aberrant behavior from the class’s obvious role within the party.
PCs:
Tuck, Barbarian 4th level Pit Fighter Bold, frontline, aggressive E
Daria Vaylas, Bladedancer, Lvl 8, Lawful, Bringer of Mercy Versatile, proper application of spells, warrior. E
Bob the Mariner L1 explorer. Lawful. Bold, engaged with the fights, E
Vince McMaximus Pugilist L11 Lawful Bold, leader, E
Neutralio Neutral Fighter guard Level 4 Bold, engaged, E
Bulwark Adieu, L1 Paladin (Temple Guard) Bold, frontline, rescued helpless captives, E
Edelweiss Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6 Cautious, utilitarian use of spells, E
Musings:
So ends my first dungeon run for Dubzaron and online. All in all I think it was a success, with solid feedback on the vibes of the place. I think I underestimated the power level of the party when generating it, but that’s part of it. I don’t particularly believe in “balance” in a BROSR dungeon. What’s there is what’s there. But I would have liked for it to be a little more challenging for the party for this once in a year, multi-campaign event. Ultimately it came down to the dice during the Lammala fight. It could have truly been devastating, so I’ll call it fair play and a win for the good guys.
Session 92
Xp from Kills: 6930
Xp from Loot: 67514
Total XP: 74444
Cuts: 20
PC: 0% 7,444 5% 7,817 10% 8,189
Hench: 0% 3,722 5% 3,908 10% 4,094
Session 102: 3/15/23: TF is an Ides, Anyway?
Time: 3/15-3/20, rest 3/21, active 3/22
Pcs: Brolly (Explorer), Vhailor (Fighter), Edelweiss (Mage)
Henches: Azalea, Davian, Gilford, Lily
Mercs:
87 Horse Archers
90 Light Infantry
48 Slinger
30 Bowmen
24 Longbowmen
16 Light Cav - 8 Killed
15 med cav
11 Hvy cav
9 Cataphract
With a lighter than usual roster and no real plan, the Players loaded up on Edelweiss's army and decided to help her travel to Azen Radokh and hunt for lairs. Discussion during the week was more about Muppetlantis, but they're terrified of the place. Or maybe Edelweiss is just terrified of everything. At any rate, off to clear some lairs.
They traveled easily past Siadanos and into the hills east of Azen Radokh where they started tooling around for lairs. They found evidence of Rocs which they chose not to interact with since the giant birds were known to be Lawful. Then Brolly found some giant tracks and followed them to a cave in the hills.
Using Invisibility from Edelweiss, Vhailor crept up and discovered six hill giants eating dinner deep in the cave. They hatched a plan to try to lure them out and ambush them with the army. Hill giants are retarded and the dice abided, so when Vhailor made some racket and ran, the giants were hot on his heels.
They were quickly murdered by the army due to not realizing there was an army since it was hiding to either side of the cave mouth. Pretty easy score for the boys.
Brolly and some hirelings continued to search for lairs and try to determine if they'd found all of the lairs for the hex. They discovered a chimera lair next, high up on a ridge where the army couldn't really get to it. Edelweiss summoned his own chimera and cast growth on it, thus the Swolmera was born.
It roared into the skies like a beast of mythical terror, but it must have been too unfamiliar with its new form to function well, as the native chimera shot it down. The creatures, realizing they were outclassed, swooped down and grabbed easily toted valuables from their nest and skeedaddled.
The explorers found a path up to loot what was left in the nest, some gold and a magical suit of leather armor. Again, easy score, but not as much as coulda been gotten had Swolmera brought the thunder.
The next day, the party tracked a huge group of beastmen to a fortified palisade area guarding a valley. Some recon revealed orcs and giants of unknown number. Brolly scratched out a rough map of the camp and Edelweiss chose to avoid it.
Still unsure about number of lairs, they continued to search. A small group of Frost Giants surprised the party at spitting distance but had a really high reaction check. They demanded to know the group's purpose in the hills and repeated that "dwarves are shit" anytime dwarves were mentioned. Their leader had a belt of dwarf scalps. The giants demanded that the army just leave. Edelweiss was happy to oblige.
Fortunately their cartographer learned that there were no more lairs in this hex and the party could move on to the next, so they did. The recon group was surprised by some skittering maws and suffered the only casualties of the night before the army was able to defeat them.
The Cartographer hit his roll early in this hex, letting the boys know that there were four lairs for sure here. They sniffed out the first one before dark, some Pegasus that again they chose to leave alone due to their Lawful nature. Such noble adventurers.
While they camped there was a raid on their supply line by some bandits. I ruled that whoever was on watch had to roll the SA for it, and the good guys won so the bandits were unsuccessful. Losing supply to your army is big bad so whew.
Next day they found a grizzly lair "they don't have loot" so they dodged it. They found a stirge lair that they just obliterated because Stirges suck. Got a small score off of them. Then they found more beastmen.
Brolly tracked them to their Ice Castle at the foot of a massive, unusually icy mountain. There was a company of the big furry goblinoids manning the parapets. Theories of white dragons and frost giants and I forget what else were thrown around, but the ever-cautious Edelweiss weren't about no frontal assault so the party opted to take their wins and head on towards Azen Radokh to end the session. Grades: Edelweiss: Hard to grade a mage in these conditions, leading an army. Played cautious, used spells when it made sense. E Vhailor: Got involved where able, but first level dudes in army fights are fodder. Used the opportunities available. E Brolly: Explored when he could, kept his head down otherwise. Did Explorer things. E. Musings: Frost Giants shoulda demanded tribute. Even if the army had them in BR, they had the party at a disadvantage with encounter distance. Missed opportunity for the bad guys there, bad DM play. Otherwise solid session. My groups in Oberholt do a bit of lair hunting so I was looking to run a dungeon just for a personal change of pace, but it's not my call as DM to dictate the session. Players seemed to have a good time and made some scores. Also dropped some interesting bads on the map. That Ice Castle is a thing. Dubzaron House Rules for XP are interesting. The low levels really aren't going to get much xp here, as the General of the army dictates splits, but may come out with some magic items or something. Who knows, they'll figure it out. General racked up in XP, but not a ton of GP to go around. Good session, looking forward to the next. Vhailor and Brolly each get 22xp and 22gp as their splits from the "troop" spoils. Plus whatever Edelweiss splits with them for gold. They are not eligible for xp gained in that way since they do not qualify for Lieutenants at this scale per House Rule.
Session 103: What is Love?
Time: 3/22/23-3/23/23, rest 3/24/23, active 3/25/23
Pcs: Samson, Tuck, GC, Guvnor, Scamicus, George, Lyros
Henches: Scamora, Scaman
Downtime talk was about hitting Muppetlantis with Scamicus the Thief interested in trying to find a *big score*. Cue the session and we’re covered up with PCs and everyone seems to be in agreement that Muppetlantis, the acid trip induced combination of Muppet Treasure Island, Atlantis, Barbarians of Kanahu, and other things I can’t recall, is the target of interest. The PCs had moved themselves in downtime to the closest civilized location to launch from and were ready to go pretty quickly.
Muppetlantis is designed to be a randomly generated dungeon using AD&D’s Appendix A. This is advantageous for a few reasons. First, it is truly random. Second, it helps test a theory that Bdubs has about passing a single dungeon off to multiple DMs. If the next DM picks up where the first left off, generating everything randomly, then it’s a fresh run for everyone involved. If you’re looking for bespoke plot devices or contrived hooks and such, this ain’t that.
The party checked out of Turos Tem and headed along the road that had been established towards Krak de Chevalier, formally Fort Apache, by Madeye and Gaius during the development of Tem and the New Badlands. They ran across a handful of mules that through some coaxing George was able to bring on board. “Every party needs mules for all the loot we’re going to get!” No one ever got saddlebags or packs for the mules and I was eager to spring that on them if it came up.
Next they found an icy patch on the road and in the badlands/muddy area. Now, it’s not summer or anything but there’s no way it should be frosty so they knew something was amiss. After some consideration they opted to skirt the area which was wise, as three frost salamanders burst from the mud and attempted to ambush where the party should have been. Because the big lizards were surprised, they didn’t catch on that the party had skirted them and were easily evaded.
Our stout adventurers continued on, next dodging a pair of Manticores that were engaged in some kind of play or mating ritual in the air. Again the enemy was surprised so the party was able to skeedaddle. They made it safely to Krak de Chevalier and introduced themselves to the corporal on duty. Some of the party had been through before and Scamicus greased the skids with a bit of Dilbert’s whiskey and soon enough they were cozied up for the night. They convinced the guards to let them leave their livestock at the fort and determined to go on foot to the dungeon.
The next day they set out early for Muppetlantis and hit the search rolls right off the rip. Basically walked right to the place like they never left. A big 20’ wide 30’ tall cavern mouth descended into the ground, flanked by worn columns of indeterminate architectural origin. They set up marching order and light and whatnot and in they went.
They followed a 20’ wide hallway covered in algae and slime from being in a swamp for ages to a T intersection where they discussed where they thought maybe they had killed some kobolds. They knew that some kobolds escaped with loot previously and endeavored to try to follow them. They found a big room filled with rats eating kobold corpses, but George of the Jungle was able to navigate the party through the delicate social situation to the door in the back where they knew kobolds had fled to.
They searched the end of a dead end hallway until accidentally triggering a trapdoor that dumped them on a ramp and into the room below. This is where new generation of the dungeon started, giving the party a few exits in the form of doors and a hallway. Scamicus stopped to listen and rolled very well, hearing no bad guys but a high frequency piercing kind of noise just at the edge of human perception that set his teeth on edge. Direction wasn’t clear so they picked the hallway and off they went.
And went. And went. Turn, hallway, intersection, more hallway. Rest. No random encounters. Repeat. As they traveled, they realized the hallways were lined with columns that popped and sparked randomly but otherwise were not seeing anything threatening or more importantly valuable.
They came to a stream crossing one hallway with a rope set to swing across so George, you know, of the Jungle, swung across. It was exhilarating. But the party decided to take a door on their side of the drink, so he had to swing back. Dissatisfied with the door leading to yet another long hallway, they back-tracked and eventually found an unusual door, solid metal that dropped from the ceiling as though used in defense.
Samson on the first rank easily raised the door high overhead where it *clicked* into the ceiling, revealing a cavernous room that seemed to eat their light, reducing it to only its brightest radius. The dim light they’d normally get was gone. A squeaky, pubescent voice addressed them from the shadows demanding to know why they were here.
Like adventurers do, they lied. Oh we’re just passing through, got turned around, no big deal. Squeakers told them to leave a bag of gold on their way out, or else. This was accompanied by a gaggle of laughing voices from the darkness. Scamicus threw a torch at them and it was on. Now, humanoids in Muppetlantis are muppets. Yep, those ones. Felt puppets. So the party got into a deadly serious fight with 5 felt puppets that looked like Rizzo and the boys. Blows were exchanged, fire was hurled, Lyros was bitten, and ultimately the party prevailed, tackling one of them after convincing him to surrender. While they interrogated him, they realized that the “slain” muppets were gone. Eh? Whatever, there’s no gold in that.
Squeakers had a coin in his uh, cavity, that Scamicus eagerly went elbow deep in to search for. It was a Kennedy half dollar, each side showing heads but one scratched up. He bit the coin because that’s what you do. Squeakers told them that if they flipped the coin dramatically in the air they could cast Darkness once per day. Not satisfied, the party tied him up and forced him to show them to treasure which he had no idea about. They then asked about the weird noise when they realized that he was subtly bobbing his head to some unheard beat.
The captive ratmuppet led them to a sekrit door and back through some hallways towards the noise that only he could truly hear, all the while bobbing his head. At one door, the party listened and heard more rats like the ones above. Desperate for some kind of treasure they opened the door to dozens of giant rats in and around rats nests who weren’t particularly put off by the party. They simply looked at them, every single rat bobbing its head in time to the mystery beat. George the Beastmaster was up again, dancing his way through the room bobbing his head like Chris Kattan in search of valuables, coming back with a handful of silver and certain that there was quite a bit more.
They discussed a minute then George used his beastial cry whereby all the already friendly rats gathered in a group around him, staring eagerly at him and ready to help. He led them out of the room while the thieves ransacked the place, coming out with piles of silver coins and other odd silver bits. I ruled that as long as George matched time with the rats, then he would be able to keep their attention and pied piper them around, sacrificing his first round of combat to do so.
They carried on, reaching a location that they had been to previously. They checked a big room to the north and found many coffins that had been broken out from the inside, but no valuables or undead to slay. Searching the coffins revealed a handful of spent power crystals, but none that were active. They took some anyway.
Squeakers led them back the way they had come, eventually, once very near the trapdoor that they entered from, wincing in pain and asking to go no further. Scamicus wasn’t having it and forced him on, where at the next intersection he started to howl and shriek in pain. The rats following George would not pass beyond that intersection either, so George stayed behind with them while some others went up to scout ahead.
They found a metal plinth with a disco ball of mirrored glass hovering above it. Scamicus pitched Squeakers into the room before entering to test for traps I guess? where blood poured out of his ears and the rat muppet was no more. Investigating the pedestal revealed a wide slot in one side with inscriptions underneath it. Scamicus stuck some coins in the slot and the whole thing popped and sparked and smoked and the disco ball fell and rested on top of the plinth. Once this happened, the rats by George immediately stopped bobbing their heads and scattered, fleeing into the dungeon corridors.
They knocked it over and stole the ball, got after a compartment in the bottom of the plinth and tore out some colored wire, eventually pulling loose a metal box. Deciding their recon mission was concluded, they exited the dungeon the way that they had entered, through the trapdoor and rat room and out. They walked back to Krak de Chevalier with a story to tell and a little coin for their trouble.
Grades:
Samson: Little to fight, little to heal. Threatened to intervene if they executed a captive without cause. As cleric/crusader as he could be given the circumstances, E
Tuck: Fell asleep before the only real fight of the session where the barbarian could do barbarian things. Just got in from overseas, jet lag’s a thing, no aberrant behavior. E
GC: Greedy coward, hid and tried to flank during the muppet fight, E
Guvnor: Berzerked and engaged muppets, E
Scamicus: All focus on profit and scores, E
George: Did beastmaster things more than anyone really thought possible in a dungeon, E
Lyros: Flanked out, sneaked, engaged muppets, E
Musings:
First run at Muppetlantis for me and I wasn’t in the previous sessions, so tried to put some flavor in it. I hope some of it came across well but with how hallway heavy the generation was it maybe left the players a little wanting for some action. Random be random, though. I had fun taking suggestions and nodding along when the party jumped on the flavor bits they found interesting. The disco ball started as a plain plinth that evolved as more got heaped on it, eventually turning into a disco cd player. Looking forward to seeing how the dungeon develops as more DMs put their stamps on it.
Session 110: Damsels in Distress
5/10/23-5/13/23, rest 5/14, active 5/15
PCs: Brolly (Explorer), Miles (Paladin), Aelways (Machinist), Nezra (Sporecaster)
Henches: Alejandro, Bob
Edelweiss the Mage (PC) spends a lot of downtime playing solitaire. With the always on nature of the campaign, that player has gathered enough resources to recruit some mercs and venturers and such and has a network across several markets. In Azen Radokh, primary home of the dwarves in Dubzaron, she tripped over a rumor during one of her passes through town.
Davian, her hench Machinist, won an arm wrestling match against a drunken Delver who couldn’t really pay up in coin but offered the location of a cursed dwarven vault that he scribbled on the back of a napkin. It was said that the dwarves who were building it out ran across some other construction that might have held a library or something. They continued their original plans for their vault with the intent to explore the discovered area later but were stricken with misfortune, death, and even inefficiency, the cruelest calamity to a dwarven endeavor.
This location was tied to another rumor that Edelweiss had of a scroll with ever-changing script. This was enough for the curious mage and while in Dubzaron training for her next level, she put out the call to adventurers to investigate for her and the other players answered. For gold, of course, this ain’t no charity.
Some of the boys from the Fishton and Guido sessions were out of training, new and improved and big swole, so they signed on. Add in a 1st level and a few henches and you’ve got a party. They touched base with the Delver in Azen Radokh, felt alright about the info that they gathered, and off they went.
The entrance to the vault was dwarven construction with warding runes of protection around the edges, relatively new in dwarf terms but they might have realized this had been around longer than it seemed. Dwarves ain’t on a normal timeline. There was some talk about making the 0 level henchmen open all the doors in the dungeon but they realized that wasn’t really gonna work out loyalty wise, so one of the dwarves pushed it open, revealing a wide entry chamber and a stairway leading down.
The first door told them a little about the place, a finely crafted archway that some stoneworker took great pride in. The door itself was plain stone that opened away from them into a room with three giant monitor lizards vibing in a pile in the center. The lizards looked at them and squinted a little in their light, but otherwise were not aggressive or overly concerned about the group. Brolly, tonight’s caller, decided to try to hug the wall and avoid a confrontation. The dice cooperated and they exited through a doorless, finely crafted archway to the south into a T intersection.
West led to another door which they fiddled with and established an SOP for tackling, with the machinist investigating for traps and such. Brolly slid this door open once it was cleared and narrowly dodged a poison dart trap that bounced harmlessly off of Miles’ shield, who blinked once and chuckled. Brolly would not open another door the rest of the evening without some contrivance to avoid poison darts.
This was a large chamber that had several giant centipedes nomming on the corpses of humanoids. They barely seemed to notice the party who carefully closed the door and backed away. East turned south and the party spotted several humanoid shapes laid flat against the corridor walls in front of them as though hiding from the light.
They watched a minute with no change to the situation while Miles detected evil because Paladin. Nothing registered so they approached cautiously, realizing that these were the withered bodies of various humanoids staked to the wall by an unnecessary number of iron spikes. Dark pools underneath showed where the captives had bled and drained away over time. Gross.
The crew kept on, turning back west and arriving at a locked door. It took a while but John Aelways was able to pick the lock eventually, revealing a massive chamber that had to be some kind of great hall or something. It was cluttered with rugs, carpets, pillows, couches, all of poor quality, and lit by hooded lanterns with red cloths thrown over them giving the place a very red light district vibe.
It became immediately apparent that there were people here, chained to the floor and distraught. Once it was clear that the party were not monsters, they started pleading for freedom. There were five females, one human, two elves, and two dwarves, scantily clad and looking quite the worse for wear. Miles the Paladin detected evil again and all five of these captives radiated with Chaotic energy.
After some discussion, the party determined that these ladies were probably cursed or something. They were going to free them but didn’t really trust them either. Brolly of the Big Strength flexed a little and stepped up to pull their chains loose from the ground, but groan and pull and yank as he might he couldn’t make headway. Aelways, on the other hand, quickly freed the bolted chains with some nearly magical application of tools and dwarven bullshittery, quickly becoming the hero to the ladies despite his low charisma. The group made sure the manacles stayed on, leaving the girls like a weird chain gang following the party.
The girls told them about some loot that “wolf men” came and stowed away in the room but the party didn’t seem to care much. They also told them about a secret entrance that their captors used, which the dwarves and Brolly found pretty quickly. They opened the secret door which swiveled from the middle, making a little awkward doorway on either side to fit through. The chain gang was apparently Miles’ responsibility so he led them carefully into the next room which was pretty large and floored in finely crafted hexagonal tiles that the Machinist appreciated professionally.
On the eastern wall were more humanoid corpses staked to the wall, three on either side of another arched doorway. Brolly rigged a rope to the pull ring so that he could open it from a distance and this time his big strength mattered, having to tug the stuck door open. It revealed another room nearly identical to this one, except the tiled floor had been smashed and churned to rubble in a big circle. As they proceeded through the doorway, BAM surprise attack!
So they failed to check these corpses on the wall at all which would have revealed them as zombies. They were going to trigger like a trap and happened to trigger while the chain gang was being led through the door. Meanwhile, in the next room, the rubble began to rumble and out popped a Caecilian. Now, I’m an uncultured swine who does good to talk like real people, so pronouncing that during session play ain’t happenin’. That there’s a Gray Worm.
Party is now split with Brolly, Miles, and the gals in the room with the gray worm and the rest blocked off by zombies. Miles protects the ladies while Brolly stabs the worm. The henchmen and dwarves in the back engage the zombies and it’s a real fight. Miles joins in once the ladies are tucked in a corner, the worm beats on Brolly until he backs out to play with zombies instead, and then Miles gets swallowed whole!
Meanwhile, the henchmen are hangin’ in there with the zombies, the dwarves getting in some shots here and there. Alejandro goes down, but Bob weathers the storm while Brolly starts killing them from behind. Eventually the zombies are dead, but the worm attacks the girls in the corner! Now, Brolly doesn’t really care about the girls but he wants to save his homie that got nommed, so he charges back in. Nezra the Sporecaster animates some of the defeated zombies and sends them in and the party is able to beat the worm down and extract Miles, who had succumbed to the digestive juices of the creature.
With some solid mortal wounds rolls, the fallen paladin and henchman are able to get to walking wounded status. None of the girls were eaten thankfully, and the human girl even had worm goo under her fingernails like she fought back. Fierce. The group knows they’re out of steam so they cut open the worm and pull out some loot, scoop up the loot the girls told them about in a hidden compartment in the red room, and are able to escape with no further complications.
They limp into Azen Radokh with a string of chained women and talk their way past the guards, crashing with exhaustion for the night. They got decent loot and saved some damsels in distress, so I’d call that a win if I was them, but they did not find the target of the search, the mysterious scroll.
Session 111: Damsels in Absentia
5/17/23-5/18/23, rest 5/19, active 5/20
PCs: Brolly (Explorer), Miles (Paladin), Aelways (Machinist), Nezra (Sporecaster)
Henches: Bob
After last week’s delve, the party rescued a handful of fair maidens of varying racial stock and snuck them into Azen Radokh while still chained together. The gate guards were confused and a little concerned but the group was able to convince them to look the other way.
When the group woke up, the damsels were gone! Brolly tracked around and found the chains and manacles lying seemingly untampered with. They asked some questions and the house frau of the inn that they were staying in mentioned a group of drunks stumbling out in the wee hours that none of the staff could remember serving. They left peacefully enough so no one thought anything of it.
Confused and a little concerned since the ‘girls’ detected as chaotic, the crew spent a little time asking around town, rumormongering, etc. They got no real hits though and decided that this wasn’t what they wanted to do for the session so they bounced, heading back to the dungeon, a cursed dwarven vault that had been abandoned some time ago. They ran across an ominous lair on a shelf above their heads during their travel, but they sneaked by and arrived with no further issue.
They made entry much like before, with the beef up front, and descended the wide stairway into the dungeon. The first room still had the giant monitor lizards coiled together in the center and the party was happy to hear that the lizards still weren’t particularly concerned by them.
Once they skirted that room, they proceeded through the dungeon back to the place where they rescued the damsels. It was a very large chamber with poor quality rugs, cushions, and couches haphazardly occupying the space. They went south through a previously unexplored door and discovered another entry into the space where they fought and killed a gray worm the previous session. It was all laid out and decomposing, smelling up the joint.
They had Aelways checking their doors as they proceeded and this time he heard the kind of wretched sobbing that only comes from countless hours of despair through the next one. They debated what to do about it but ultimately decided to confront it in case it was another damsel in distress.
This door opened into a long dining hall with a massive stone table dominating the center of the room. Whatever seating had been there before was smashed to bits and strewn all over. There was a giant fireplace in the center of the western wall that was lit and burning brightly. Above the mantle was a strange abstract painting of a roughly humanoid shape that emitted the weeping sounds.
The party looked around while Miles detected evil. They discovered the fireplace logs did not pop or crack like wood and were not being consumed. They also discovered other doors leading into the room further down the hall. Miles did not detect any chaotic energy or harmful intent from the area around the portrait.
Nezra stepped up to the plate like Kramer taking notes from Newman about talking to the ladies, Aelways making dumb suggestions and having them repeated to much laughter. Once we settled down, they got some info out of the portrait lady. They were supposed to have had a new clan here, a safe and happy place to live, but they released something from below. Oh the horror, oh the madness, oh the vague tales of terror. Her senses were compromised and dulled, she wasn’t quite sure how long she’d been there, etc.
As this discussion went on, some sounds of entry alerted the players to visitors in the southern portion of the room, where an ogre and his buddies were bumbling through one of the doors and chit chatting among themselves. Ogres ain’t particularly worried about alarming anything ahead of them, particularly when there are seven of them.
Discord was all aflutter with RUN and RUN? And RUN!, but the party pushed someone out front, I think Nezra again with the charisma, to make nice with the meat pulverizers. Marvel of marvels, the big dudes weren’t hostile at all, more shocked to see the group than anything else. They chit chatted for a bit where the party tried to learn about the dungeon. Og the ogre put his hand out in expectation of a bribe of some kind, which they joked about throwing a copper piece at and running but Brolly ponied up 100gp which did the trick. Og put it into the douchy shoulder-slung fanny pack that the ogres were all wearing.
The ogres knew about the ‘damsels’ which they apparently had been visiting on the regular, but they said they were mean and showed scratches and claw marks on their arms and legs from previous interactions. They were in fact heading there now and were disappointed to learn of the escape.
The ogres didn’t know anything about any scrolls unsurprisingly, but said deeper in there was nerd stuff like that. They didn’t go that way much, with the ladies being present on this level. Of key significance, they told the group they were going the wrong way if they wanted to go deeper. The stairs were the other way. This is when Brolly offered to hire them and for 400gp they did so, with Og agreeing to escort them to the stairway down and guard that room “for a while”.
So off they went, with the ogres insisting the party lead the way. When they got to the gray worm corpse the ogres stopped to poke around, obviously looking for the treasure known to be within the creatures. They got in a fist fight when there was none and made quite the ruckus and wasted some time while the party looked on uncomfortably. Eventually they settled and moved on to a room with a portcullis and the picked over remains of humanoids. The party recognized this room as having giant centipedes in it on their first trip and were glad the creatures were gone.
Brolly stepped up to the portcullis to show the ogres how strong he was and failed to lift it, which they all chuckled at. Og lifted it for them and held it in place while they staked it open, then sat back with his boys to wait for the party’s return. The crew descended the stairs just beyond the portcullis onto a landing carved with a maddening labyrinth along the floor, walls, and ceiling. Miles detected for evil and found none, but his training and experience told him this carving was the antithesis of Law and Order. The longer he looked at it the more offensive it became, but the group didn’t want to spend the time to deface it now, claiming that they would do so on the way out.
They carefully crossed the pattern and didn’t burst into flames, coming to an archway. This one was still masterfully worked, but carved in a much more severe fashion than those on the level above, with sharper angles and fiercer strokes of chisel. It opened into an empty room that had a couple of doors, one west and one north. They picked the northern one and after a while Aelways was able to pick the lock, opening into a larger chamber with curtains hung horizontally along the ceiling and billowing with the new activity.
Tracking revealed to Brolly that there was quite a bit of traffic here, specifically some large slithering trail leading towards one door. They didn’t like the smell of slithering things so they went another way, through an archway carved with various laughing faces and into an empty room with another couple of exits. Mental fatigue was wearing on the theater of the mind session with the many options being available in each room causing a bit of headache for the caller.
In this room they could hear a faint knocking against the southern wall with no discernible pattern to it. They listened for a bit then moved on, into another large room, this one strewn with much debris in the corners. Brolly tracked again, picking up more slithering trails leading to an archway to the southeast and also hearing the knocking sound. The party wanted no part of it so they went west, pulling open a stuck door to reveal two fierce chickens with lizard tails that were not happy to see them.
The experienced players groaned and hollered to close the door, but the group had to win initiative to do so. Fortunately the front liners won, Brolly able to slam the door shut just as the cockatrice barreled towards him and slammed its beak into the door. They even staked that door shut for good measure.
It was getting late and they hadn’t found a lick of loot so I think their next decision was “fuck it, let’s go look at the noise where the slithering trails are that we’ve been avoiding all night.” That might be paraphrasing.
Looking into that room, they discovered two hideous giant grub creatures with wildly flailing feelers coming from their heads. One was pointed in their direction, drawn by their activity, the other was banging the armored corpse of a dwarf against the northern wall in that same chaotic cadence. It apparently was getting some catharsis from the dwarf’s helmet ringing from the stones.
The fight was on and Miles the Paladin stood tall in the doorway with the rest of the party intending to shoot or fight from over his shoulder with spears. The first one rushed him and flailed at him with his feelers, missing all eight of its attacks. The party responded by stabbing it and shooting around it towards the one in the back. When shot with an arrow, the wounded creature started banging the dwarf’s head against the wall more rapidly as if saying, “ow ow ow!”
Miles was eventually paralyzed by the creature’s feelers, but the party was able to stab it to death before it bit his head off. They defeated the other one after it threw the dwarf corpse at them and closed. They used their healing potion to restore Miles to action and searched the room over, finding a very fine dwarven foreman’s chain in a pile of disgusting remains. It was getting late so they backed out, heading up to the first level and the waiting Og.
The ogres were sitting around playing slap-fight championship. Coming as no surprise to really anyone, Og demanded another payment to let them leave which Brolly balked at. Reaction checks went the PCs way so Og said, “If you big bad, you slap. If you survive you can leave.” Brolly, not being a little bitch, stepped up and took the first slap which Og grinned at. Og reared back and decked the much smaller Explorer, but Brolly was not in fact killed so the ogres cheered and congratulated the adventurers for not being punks.
The party was able to return to Azen Radokh with no further encounters and plan for their next delve with quite a bit of downtime as far as these things go.
Session 112: Wheelin’ and Dealin’
5/24/23-6/6/23, rest 6/7, active 6/8
PCs: Tuck (Barbarian), Gront (Barbarian), Samson (Cleric), Proteus (Mage), Edelweiss (Mage)
Henches: Jeev, Nonus, Ziggy, Gudvar, Hafgrim, Beavis, Frostweave, Davian, Azalea, Gilford, Lily
Tuck picked up some leads in downtime from Kyle O’Conner (Patron Barbarian) and Vince McMaximus (Patron Human Pugilist) about a crashed spaceship somewhere in Kyle’s domain. This crash site was contaminating the surrounding area with radiation and had mutated the ship’s crew into various deformed monsters, most notably Melman the Fire Giant and Zed the Radiation Dragon.
Kyle wanted them off his land so that he could expand and would have blitzed them himself but the radiation made it extremely dangerous for low levels to approach, so sending soldiers in wasn’t gonna cut it. Vince had helped broker a deal of sorts with Melman on Zed’s behalf. If they could bring offworld technology to Zed to prove they actually had access to it, then Zed’s crew would train them on how to use the things they found in exchange for leads on a working ship to get them off of the planet.
Once the PCs got wind of it, they gathered to see what they could leverage. They had a spaceship from a previous session that they didn’t know how to operate. It was stuck way out in the Istrith Forest and guarded by some bandits loyal to Tuck. And by loyal I mean if Tuck returned by the end of the month then they wouldn’t put the spaceship on blocks and pawn the parts for extra arrows kind of loyal.
The party chose to hit up Kyle and Zed first, with the former promising to provide escort and introductions. Apparently there was a system for this, with one of Kyle’s men launching an arrow as far as he could in a specific direction and then waiting. After a while, a few gnolls showed up that were mutated with strange growths and deformities. The weird creatures did not behave as the usual beastmen would, moving with jerky motions and clearly not having violent intent. Kyle had apparently seen this before but Samson wanted to kill them on sight.
The Warchief read the message that they delivered and nodded as though it was expected, then led the party to a neutral ground kind of site where they’d had a parley before. The adventurers waited by a big weird rock with a small tree growing from the top of it and eventually the other side arrived, more deformed gnolls kind of scouting ahead. The party this session was huge with tons of henches, which kind of surprised the gnolls so it took them a few minutes to call up reinforcements that menaced the area from the woods to the north. Finally, Melman entered the clearing once he felt like each side was on an equal footing.
He was a fire giant, which many of the PCs had seen before, but he was also deformed, with arms much too long for his body. This gave him an apelike quality, including a habit of sometimes walking on his knuckles. He greeted Kyle respectfully and then spoke with the party for a bit, fighting through some mental issue by shaking his head or knocking over a nearby tree randomly. It was a little off putting but they powered through.
At this point I learned that the party had knowledge of a second ship that had crashed somewhere to the south. Apparently they’d visited “the moon” in a previous session, but it was just a desolate spot of land south of Kyle’s domain. They insisted that there was a crashed battleship there, and ok sure whatever you say gents. These kinds of things happen when swapping around DMs and you’ve got to trust that everyone’s playing it straight or your head will explode.
The group requested an aside to discuss their options, wherein Edelweiss made it clear that she wanted both ships and didn’t gaf about these guys. Most of the party, however, were on board with a plan to trade the abductor ship guarded by Tuck’s bandits for the knowledge to operate and repair the bigger, badder battleship that they knew about. They felt that this resolution would solve most of their problems by getting Zed out of Kyle’s hair, gaining knowledge to operate this future tech, and oh yeah taking the treasure left behind by the dragon and fire giant who made it abundantly clear that they didn’t care about the primitive trinkets of this world.
Back with Melman, they asked for the knowledge to fly the ship so that they could retrieve it. Unfortunately, their smooth, monkey brains could not understand the knowledge without the machine itself as a learning tool. What Melman could offer, however, was one of his crew to travel with them. He left and returned with a basilisk with a blindfold on named Orville, much to the consternation of the party who have serious flesh to stone PTSD.
Proteus the mage was big into transmogrification magic and spent some time asking questions about Zed’s crew’s afflictions. He even convinced Edelweiss to cast Dispel Magic on them to try to break the spell. Unfortunately it didn’t work out, but he wasn’t done yet. He offered to Polymorph Orville into a human and started to prepare the spell, but Orville panicked and insisted that Melman draw a picture of their race’s original form. “Don’t let them turn me into a monkey!”
With a reasonable idea of what they were supposed to look like, Proteus advised Orville to picture his true form to help. Idk if this was bullshit or not but it sounded good so Orville the basilisk tried to relax and picture his actual self. The spell fired off and there stood a little gray man, big bulbous head and big eyes and all. The barbarians in the group snickered at his tiny alien junk and no one offered him any clothes. They did show him how to mount a horse though so they weren’t complete animals I guess.
They left Melman and hustled back to Kyle’s capital city of Claymore Crossing, which for some reason I kept calling Cavalier Crossing and I still don’t know why that stuck in my mind all night. Edelweiss stayed in CC with her mercs that needed rest, apparently too good to run errands with the rest of the party. The plan was to head towards a portal that they had a vague idea of somewhere northeast of Siadanos that was under the supervision of the elves of the Istrith. This fairy portal is what brought Tuck and Samson, among others, home from the Istrith the first time. They knew it worked, they just didn’t know where it was exactly.
Proteus hired a scout to help them find the portal and they got to searching. They were on a real tight deadline to get back with the bandits. They did not want their spaceship to get chopped up into spare parts. It didn’t take them long to find the portal spot, where they were stopped by two elves who demanded to know why they were there. After a short conversation, they convinced the elves to let them through in order to get rid of the bandit problem. One of the elves took a dance around the fairy ring to engage it and they sent the party through. I may have used the phrase, “The portal will take you where you deserve to be.” Maybe the elves were fucking with them. Maybe it was lost in translation. But it made me laugh and the group a little nervous, enough that Samson cast Augury with a blinding flash of Ammonar’s holy light and a giant thumbs up emoji setting them at ease. I think Proteus’s player commented “Man the Empyrean in Dubzaron are way more laid back than those Olympians.”
Fortunately the portal let out into a forested glen that was guarded by many more elves, all of whom were a little sour at the intrusion. One of them recognized Tuck and Samson from their previous trip and called off the goons. The elves insisted on blindfolding the party before leading them away from the area, releasing them and indicating that their bandit camp was a ways to the southeast. The group found it easily enough and got to work. Queue training montage.
Tuck convinced the bandits to help dig the ship out of the mud while the crew was taking tutoring from Orville. I forgot to roll the days it was supposed to take for this training, but the bandits were gonna take a few days to dig the ship out so we’ll pretend I did it right. Shh, don’t tell anyone. They learned that Proteus could pilot the ship, Gront could act as gunner, and Tuck or Samson could act as engineer. What they didn’t have was anyone that could be a navigator because it required the Navigation proficiency. Orville filled in for that role and they were in business. Now to get the bandits out.
Their camp was deeeep in the Istrith. The shortest distance to freedom was towards Turos Veren to the northwest, so the ship took off with Tuck leading the bandits out. It took a little while but fortunately there were no crazy encounters and they were able to land back in human civilization. It had been a minute for the bandits, but the merry men were game for whatever Tuck had planned due to a massive loyalty roll. Turns out Tuck chartered them as a mercenary company and promptly hired them out to Turos Veren’s captain of the guard due to some recent trouble out of the forest north of the fort. That’ll serve to keep them busy and cushion some of the cost while the boss deals with adventurer stuff.
The group flew the spaceship back towards Kyle’s domain with some pretty tame random encounters. This was one of those nights where nothing much of significance was hitting in that regard, but that’s ok. We’ve seen the alternative a few times. They arrived and parked outside of CC, where Kyle looked askance at the ship’s goofy bright green paint job that the bandits had applied. Kyle had been on this ship before for Operation Musclethunder and was not impressed with the new appearance. They also picked up the well-rested Edelweiss.
The Warchief agreed to escort them back to Melman, where they met again and concluded their business. True to their agreement, Melman, Orville, and their crew taught the boys the basics of alien technology. As they taught, more and more of them showed up, deformed creatures straight out of the random encounter tables, all able to talk and all carrying portions of the treasure which they called “useless monkey trinkets”. By the time Future Talk with Melman was concluded, all the treasure had been delivered. The monsters started piling on the craft, apparently unconcerned with their deformities, until they realized that Zed, the huge brownish dragon, couldn’t fit on the ship.
Never fear, Proteus the Transmogrificationer was on the scene. He offered to ensorcel Zed the same that he did for Orville, which the offworlders agreed to. Zed landed a ways off so as not to kill everyone with radiation aura and Proteus poofed him into a little gray dude. He thanked them in Sean Connery’s voice that I simply cannot do an impression of so I was blessedly saved from that indignity. “Your asshishtance was invaluable, monkeysh. Well done, and please take this garbage, I mean these valuablesh as reward.” The offworlders boarded the ship and took off, their mutated gnoll thralls just kind of standing around and watching them go.
It was at this point that the party realized this could be a problem. They furtively discussed some options while Samson sharpened his blade and muttered, “Kill them all.” There were over a hundred of them and they looked a bit tougher than normal gnolls. As they started to regain control of their minds, Kyle’s cavalry charged and rode them down, suffering some losses but not nearly as many had they waited. Wiping green mutant blood from his greatsword, Kyle asked them, “20% seems fair, doesn’t it?” The group agreed.
The weird green glowing core piece was left behind, but the PCs asked Kyle to pull some mules in to help them dump it into the dungeon entrance that was gaping open from the abandoned dragon’s fort and then pull down the entrance and cave it in. They had some environmental suits and power armor that they used to protect themselves, but unfortunately they had to put down the sick mules. Some kind member of the party fed them apples and things before doing the deed. Ole Yeller vibes.
They packed up and bounced, returning to rest and figure out loot splits with Kyle.
Session 114: The Search Continues 6/7/23, 6/8 rest, 6/9 active PCs: Brolly, Nezra, Aelways, Miles, Thane Henches: Alejandro, Bob #ACKS
Session 115: Surgery with Sledgehammers
6/14/23 - 6/15, rest 6/16, active 6/17
PCs: Samson, Edelweiss, Xanthos
Henches: Koite, Potami, Ulysses, Frostweave, Davian, Azalea, Lily
We’re back with another thrilling installment of Dubzaron Does Dungeon Delving, this time deploying some big guns in the hopes of gaining precious resources for our fledgling Domain leaders Prelate Xanthos of Turos Telle and Edelweiss the Mage. With an average level of 5 or 6, the boys were stacked.
There were hooks to go around but Edelweiss had done an impressive amount of investigation into the location of a source of power crystals, or a crystal refinery, or some other Visitor related industrial shenanigans over several months, leading him to found his domain in the hex that allegedly held the site. In Dubzaron, everything unique or interesting that gets “memed” into the world must be in a dungeon. Prevents solo players from gettin’ silly, not that they would. Anyway, that’s where they wanted to go and who am I to protest?
The first part of the session was the PCs getting organized and traveling. Generally we encourage that kind of thing to happen in downtime or at least pre-session but schedules were wonky that evening so we powered through. In short order, the crew and a boatload of henchmen were at the yet to be named construction site of Edelweiss’s stronghold. They struck out and searched for the site of the dungeon using the lair finding rules from L&E, finding the site around lunch time.
It was a small island in a small lake with some kind of fort or structure acting as a pedestal for a very tall statue of an elegant, robed woman holding a torch aloft. The torch did not burn and the statue was covered in a heavy green patina. From the bank they could see a door leading into the structure.
ACKS helpfully lists the time it takes to build a crude raft in the equipment section of the core book as 1-3 days, presumably depending on material and expertise. If they could produce from their stable of characters a sufficient proficiency throw I’d rule a day, otherwise it’d be longer. No surprise someone had something, engineering or survival I forget, and they put together a raft by mid morning the next day.
They paddled across the small lake with nothing attacking their precarious position of ten adventurers on a makeshift raft. While the party as a whole was large, there were only three PCs, with Edelweiss being elected as caller and Xanthos volunteering to map. I think Samson’s player needed a break from dungeon responsibility as he does heavy lifting in both Dubzaron and Oberholt so for this delve he was acting as frontline muscle.
There was a wooden door banded with rusty iron that led into the structure. Attempts were made to make level 0’s sacrificial door openers but when prompted to make loyalty rolls the crew thought better of it, rotating door opening responsibilities throughout the session. Coincidentally, Edelweiss never opened a door.
A stairwell covered in moss and algae led downwards into a dank tunnel of hard packed soil reinforced with timber, almost like a mine shaft or trench. They had no tracker surprisingly, but they could tell that the center of the steps were worn from traffic by the differing thicknesses of moss through the center and along the edges.
They descended carefully, some of the scrub hench holding lanterns and torches for light, into a long tunnel with a couple branches. They have a habit of choosing a direction in dungeons and just going, which helps with decision paralysis I think, so here they chose west and kept at that most of the night.
They busted open a stuck door, but this one was steel. Unfamiliar to some of the hench and Samson but Edelweiss and Xanthos had seen some shit in Dubzaron’s weird ass dungeons so they knew steel when they saw it. The room was empty though, with more doors leading in each direction. West!
The next room they came to was a bit larger and supported by four heavy wooden posts carved in what Edelweiss recognized as Visitor runes. The mage cast a spell to read the language, learning that it was some kind of manifest or log depicting delivery or production. It was hard to parse in its current format but given a few days he was pretty sure he could recreate it on paper to learn more. I have no doubt the fastidious player made a note of that before they moved on.
The hench Davian acted as their thief this session, listening at doors and searching for traps. At the next door he heard bubbling water but no threats so they entered, finding a large pool of clear water bubbling away in the center of the room. There was no coping or lip to the pool, the water seemingly right against the dirt, but it wasn’t muddy. They didn’t investigate the pool any further, assuming it to be some kind of ore rinsing installation or something, and carried on.
The party traveled through a few dead end hallways, eventually discovering a small room filled with crude stone containers. As the crew started investigating them, they realized they were filled with treasure! We love treasure! Oh and Potami died. Contact poison. But look, silver pieces!
This weren’t Xanthos’ first rodeo, so he calmly cast delay poison and then neutralize poison, curing the henchman and leaving him at 1 hp. High level magic can cover up some blemishes on the session for sure. He might have cast a heal spell too I don’t recall, but he was taking care of business.
They took their loot which was clearly too primitive for Visitors and split it out for weight, continuing on. The next room that they encountered was small, and unlike the rest of the muddy dungeon was walled in red bricks. Seemingly at random, some of the bricks were gilded in Visitor runes, shining golden in the light. Samson chose to touch the runes of two bricks at once, triggering a flash of light that struck through him to his core. It results in raising his dexterity score by 1 point but forcing a roll on the Tampering with Mortality table. This resulted in an affliction that causes him to mutter to himself and impedes his initiative when casting spells (he’s a cleric).
While the party collected themselves to continue, Samson muttered to himself about them being cowards for not touching the bricks. They laughed at him, he enjoyed his higher dex score, and a good time was had by all.
The next room was smallish, with a smelly cot in one corner and a few exit doors. The party poked around for secret doors while Samson checked the cot. Out sprung a startled wolfman ready to fight, biting the cleric despite his high AC. A fight ensued, eventually the summoned hero Mandonio and spiritual weapons puttin’ a whoopin’ on the creature who could only be hit by magic or silver while Samson just kept getting bit.
A failed morale check had the creature throw his hands up, surrendering, and he and Samson immediately began to argue, Samson denouncing the fiend for biting him and the wolfman claiming Samson was rummaging for his unmentionables. A few minutes of this and some discussion about what to do with him led to the creature trying to escape. Mandonio the summoned hero pursued but the party was uncertain of the results.
Samson took petty revenge on the creature, pissing all over his cot and breaking his mess kit and various other small embarrassments, while the party finished searching and chose a different door to leave from than the wolf had. Xanthos cast cure disease on his fellow cleric, certain that the creature was a werewolf and concerned about Samson contracting the foul taint of lycanthropy.
Running low on session time they chose to investigate one more door before leaving, discovering a small 10x10 room with a little hidden tunnel towards the base. It was very small, such that a female or elf or something would have to attempt to crawl through it. They opted not to risk it and extracted, crossing the lake uneventfully and resting at Fort TBD.
Musings:
This session was driven by another of Edelweiss’s goals. The players seem happy to indulge him so hey rock it out. This dungeon was a randomly generated Appendix A dungeon originally discovered by Bdubs and his sons in their own sessions offline, so I had a hand-drawn map and some horrendous scribbles that allegedly were notes of some kind. It was fun to put my take on it and poke fun at the OG for his handwriting on the Discord later on.
This is another dungeon that we are able to hand off back and forth because it’s generated live. There’s no fore knowledge to be compromised so multiple DMs can have a hand in it. It also ties in offline games and our Dubzaron games within the same campaign which is pretty interesting.
Session 116: VincentLost.gif
6/21/23-6/22/23, rest 6/23/23, active 6/24/23
PCs: Nezra, Aelways, Miles, Standing MtnHenches: Dwargon, Samwise
#ACKS
The boys were back after the Uberscroll, suiting up to delve the cursed vault outside of Azen Radokh. During downtime, the statue of Thane that the party brought back after being petrified was emitting a mental racket to everyone around it. At first the public thought it was a novel thing, chuckling over the bad dad jokes or finding some comfort in the sounds of a dinner party in full swing, but after a few days it started to bother them. The party made note of this but took no action to address it.
Standing Mountain the elf arrived, having heard late about the adventure but willing to throw in with the party for success. The Spellsword was big for an elf and wore a very fine suit of plate mail. The others picked up a few replacement henches and outfitted them then went for the dungeon.
Brolly the Explorer was absent for this session so Miles took over calling duties, leading the party easily back to the dungeon location. They avoided the shelf that housed some unknown threat that overlooked their usual path to the dungeon by catching a lucky roll. Otherwise DOOM AND DESTRUCTION or something.
Into the wide vault entrance they went, with Nezra’s disgusting partially decomposed fungal zombies in tow. They settled into an SOP for doors and things and kept it moving, reaching the second level with ease. Deciding to poke about more on this level rather than descend to the next, the party discovered a lounge style room filled with couches, chaises, chairs, and the like. The thick carpeting on the ground was dusty and mildewy from the gross nature of the dungeon and concealed a hidden trap door that Aelways narrowly escaped while heading to inspect one of the other doors in the room.
The next room over had an iron chandelier with eight flames lit and dancing, none of which emitted smoke. The party chose to return to the lounge which had many exits and choose a different path. A portcullis barred the next choice and despite Standing Mountain’s high strength and success in bashing doors so far, he and Miles were unable to lift the obstruction. Aelways the machinist could discover no obvious mechanical solution to the mechanism so again they chose to go another way.
The next bit they confirmed an alternate route back to the stairway. The party also discovered a small room filled with fetishes. Miles was able to detect evil and reveal a hidden ouroboros that only glowed to his divine sight. They very cautiously inspected the room and uncovered a hidden compartment. Inside was a five-headed hydra statuette with gemstones for heads. It definitely radiated evil to Miles but inexplicably he allowed the spellsword to scoop it into his backpack.
As the party continued through the dungeon intent on continuing to a lower level, Standing Mountain heard in his mind a chorus of feminine voices impressed with his strength. To the rest of the party the elf’s audible response of “Damn right” was pretty weird and out of the blue. He made a successful saving throw to avoid… something… and was granted the effects of a Commune spell, three yes or no questions to be asked and answered immediately.
The party discussed this for a bit and settled on the following:
"Is the scroll on the third level or lower?" Yes
"Is there special danger with the door with the runes to the east?" No
"Will you attack us if we try to retrieve the scroll?" Laughing no
I think this reaffirmed their position to delve deeper since the scroll was the goal after all. Off they went down the stairs, burning some fresh spider webs on the way but finding no spiders.
On the third level, a door that was previously scrawled with arcane runes could now be inspected by an arcane caster who determined that the language was more a shorthand for notes in some weird cipher than actual spell material. They noted this and moved on.
A lever activated portcullis blocked their way forward, but as the party poked around the room, Standing Mountain discovered a false wall that lifted like a small rolling overhead door. The group proceeded through and into a room that resembled a workshop of sorts, with an old kiln and a coal bin along one wall. To the north was scrawled, “Praise Sinmabi” in common on the wall. Standing Mountain was able to recall that Sinmabi was an orcish warchief that was a footnote in the history of Auran expansion. He should be dead in battle for many hundreds of years.
Again they poked around, again the elf found a secret compartment, this one sliding open to reveal a huge statue of a troll archer set within the wall. The group immediately identified that trolls are not typically archers and found that very strange. Aelways carefully examined the statue and discovered that the arrows in the quiver were freestanding rather than having been carved as part of the whole. By removing one he gained a silver tipped arrow and activated a mechanism that caused the statue to pivot, opening a narrow passage into the room beyond.
This room was dominated by a huge pile of broken glass. It also had spiderwebbed cracks all over the ceiling. Some of the group carefully poked through the glass with spears which took quite a long time, but this was one of those sessions where random encounters just would not hit, so eventually they discovered a pile of treasure underneath. One of the satchels was quite heavy so the two henchmen were detailed to tag team it.
While trying to open the lock on the next door, Aelways’ picks became stuck and broke when he tried to free them. Standing Mountain was able to force the door open anyway, revealing a corridor and another locked door. Without lockpicks Aelways could offer no solution, so the spellsword again tried to force the door, this time triggering a javelin trap that shot out to inflict a solid hit on him. Miles quickly healed the damage and the party was up one javelin but down one pathway, opting to backtrack and take a different path.
In the next chamber, the group found a fountain of three dwarven women holding jars over their heads. On the fountain’s basin was scrawled “4, 10, 2, 10”. They didn’t really have anything to go on for what the numbers might mean but took a note anyway. Then Nezra the Sporecaster cemented my hatred of the class by regaling us with a description of how he was “secreting” into the fountain to foul the waters and potentially convert other creatures to fungal zombie thralls. Just disgusting.
They rapidly left that room for another that smelled faintly of patchouli which the elf recognized immediately because elves are the closest things to filthy hippies we’ve got. On the northern wall the phrase "Lukhak fell here, her song has ended" was scrawled and another magically sealed door like the one on the level above blocked their passage forward.
They turned back to regroup for the next delve, again finding no random encounters while moving out of the dungeon and back to town.
Musings:
Weird session with no action, but we abide by the dice. I was surprised that the crew didn’t go directly for the lower level but it led to some interesting discoveries. First time we’ve broken some lockpicks. Had some challenges with mapping. I’ll endeavor to be more clear in my descriptions but without the Mapping proficiency it’s all gotta be verbal and if there’s confusion well, it’s a dark and dangerous place down there. This will be the second blatantly evil item this group has picked up. Starting to wonder about that Paladin. And finally, I fucking hate Sporecasters.
Grades:
Nezra - Just. Whatever. Gross. He did the thing but I don’t have to like it. E
Aelways - Thief-ish role that was played straight E
Standing Mountain - Weird dual role of fighter/mage. Upfront and assertive as fighter, curious about arcane stuff, super intrigued by weird statue. E
Miles - Only aberrant behavior is abiding the evil item for the sake of greed. Would expect more assertiveness in the future for blatantly chaotic things. Otherwise up front, leader/caller, laid on hands when needed, S.
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