Session 40: Riddle Me This

Session 40: Riddle Me This

6/25/23 - 6/27, rest 6/28, active 6/29

PCs: Gwendolyn, Luther, Redcorn, Cleet, Caspian, Flynn

Henches: Amadayo, Madroff, Beyza, Eggie, Mulligan, Mahin

#ACKS

Our brave adventurers returned to the Butzkrag, confident that they were making real progress and eager to eliminate the source of the Dark Hymn once and for all. Last session, they had made a Wish to destroy all chaotic entities in the hex and have seen evidence that it worked, coming across random scenes of exploded gore within the dungeon. They proceeded with the belief that all evil things were dead.

With a decent map and a plan, they zipped through the halls of the dungeon pretty quickly, covering a ton of ground and finding three more altar rooms among the notAztec aesthetic of the second level of the Butzkrag. The first was carved in a meadow motif with foxes prancing and frolicking all over. There was a fox statuette on a pedestal crouched waiting to pounce. Flynn and Luther tried to enter to break the statue so Redcorn could cleanse it, but were attacked by the very air in front of them.

Cramped hallways and large parties meant most of the party couldn’t even see the creature, but the first couple ranks were able to defeat it, reducing the large gelatinous cube to a puddle of goo and collecting a couple vials of perfume from it. The holy men then went to work, crushing the statue and cleansing it with a bless spell.

The next altar was hidden behind a secret door beyond a room covered in graffiti. On examination, Gwendolyn was able to learn that words for SHHHHH and Silence and Quiet were written all over the walls in various beastmen languages. The party found the secret door pretty easily and Luther entered to break the altar. He was struck by a curse that stole the strength from his voice, but after cleansing the altar, Redcorn was able to remove it and the crew carried on.

At this point I finally hit a random encounter. This dungeon has been eerily light on randoms so far, so hooray! Scorpions! Digging out of the ceiling right in the middle of the party! It was going to be an interesting and tough fight. I glance at the stat block, they hit hard, poison, all the nasty things. We prep the grid for the fight and get ready for initiative when I glance again and notice that giant scorpions are Chaotic… wait, what? Ugh, that stupid Wish. The way I was running the results of the Wish meant these scorpions should have been eliminated. So, turns out bits of pieces of scorpion dripped on them rather than assailed them with pincers and stingers and the party continued on.

The third and what they believed to be the final altar was a single crane flying away across a horizon, etched carefully into the wall opposite the door. Directly under it was a crane statuette on a pedestal much like the other rooms. Redcorn just blasted this one with Dispel Evil and the statue fell to pieces. 

The party kept exploring, coming across several more gory bits and tripping a few pit traps before they arrived at a large oval shaped room. They searched and found a secret door on the eastern wall. When they opened it, there was an iron statue shaped like the Enderman from Minecraft (no I don’t know why) that only started pummeling them when Eggie approached to search for traps.

The creature was defeated pretty easily, falling to the ground and spewing forth coins from its mouth like a slot machine on tilt. They scooped up the cash and left the dungeon, resting to recover spells and prepare to take on the third level after their long day of delving. They also dropped off the bits of treasure that they had.

While they made their way to one of the staircases that they knew went down, a handful of pit vipers struck from concealment along one of the corridors. The adventurers were easily successful, Redcorn using magic to charm the snakes while Cleet the Tweeker scooped them into a large sack. He held these snakes as some sort of potential grenade the rest of the session, but I think the ultimate goal was to tap them for venom.

The third level of the Butzkrag was walled in a matte black metallic substance with strange runes etched in the walls. The doors were a smokey glass, deceptively strong and impossible to see through. The first chamber that the party came to was a very large circular room, the walls of which were lined with standing sarcophagi. The middle of the room was dominated by a very large dais with an obsidian altar in the center, clearly used for some blood ritual sacrifice by the stains on and around it.

The crew spent a lot of resources buffing themselves before entering, certain that there would be a fight. Once nothing immediately attacked them, they cautiously explored the sarcophagi, eventually revealing concealed mummies who attacked on sight. The room was large and the random displacement of the handful of mummies led to several smaller fights which the party handled with ease. They scooped up various trinkets and grave goods before destroying the obsidian altar with dispel evil, cracking it straight down the center.

The crew traveled along a very wide corridor etched with scenes of destruction identical to those caused by the Dark Hymn, discovering two large stone statues of armored notAztec warriors and a ritual preparation site complete with ceremonial knives and robes. The statues stood to either side of very large glass doors etched with a wolf’s head and followed Eggie the Thief with their heads as he approached to check for traps. He paused and threw his hands in the air when the statues spoke in unison, “It brings back the lost as though never gone, shines laughter and tears with light long since shone; a moment to make, a lifetime to shed; valued then but lost when you're dead.”

The last time we had some riddles in a dungeon was a little more interesting. Redcorn’s player immediately popped off the answer of Memory, which caused the statues to stare straight ahead and apparently ignore the party. Was hoping I’d get a little more hemming and hawing but can’t win them all! The crew pushed open the doors, revealing a very large chamber lit eerily by red torches attached to support columns throughout. In the middle of the floor was a wide magical circle with a bowling ball sized orb hovering above the center. Along the back wall were three sarcophagi carved much more intricately than the standing ones previously encountered.

I was a little surprised when the party noped right out of there, closing the doors behind them. They were convinced that that room contained some nasty stuff, so they wanted to poke around a bit more on the level to see what they could see. They were surprised by a mummy standing in a corner of the next chamber, but they easily dispatched it. Further on they discovered the room that Luther had fallen into several sessions before from a trap above. As they explored deeper in, the party discovered another room lined with sarcophagi, but it was much smaller than the others they’d seen. Never ones to pass up potentially free gold, they carefully searched for more grave goods, triggering a handful of mummies to explode from their resting places all around the room.

The following battle was much more heated than the prior ones, closer quarters and more enemies making things spicy. The party was covered up in clerics throwing protection from evil, so they had improved AC vs the undead creatures, but the protection against touch was broken by the party’s attacks. In the scrum, Jerod the cleric hench was rendered retarded by a mortal blow. He recovered but just wasn’t the same. Luther got beat on pretty bad but resisted the mummy rot and was not felled.

The adventurers were victorious but low on resources, so they gambled on leaving the dungeon to try to rest another day outside. They exited with no random encounters and returned not just to their base camp, but to the Yellow River Base under Lord Issac’s command to have a place for Jerod to rest and have drool wiped from his chin. They reloaded with Mahin the Assassin hench, rested up, and went back after it.

They were able to return the way that they came pretty easily, but once the group arrived at the large sacrificial chamber where they’d broken the obsidian altar and looted all the sarcophagi, they discovered a handful of very large reptiles with red scales lounging in the room. The heat haze of a desert sun on stone wavered around the creatures who were immediately quite hostile to the party, raising their heads and lumbering to their feet.

Luther closed the door after the bards in the party were able to share some information about the creatures from a couple Loremastery checks. They were very tough pseudo-elementals, hit pretty hard on several attacks, and damaged everyone around them with their heat haze. The glass door the party was hiding behind began to grow warm to Luther and most of the party decided to retreat to the entry chamber with the stairs. Cleet summoned a squad of berserkers to throw at the things in case the party had to run away while Redcorn buffed himself with the intent to negotiate with the creatures. Resist fire and Tongues and some other stuff, I think.

Luther the Paladin stuck by his boy and they cracked the door open, discovering that three of the giant lizards had moved very close and were scowling at the them. The two adventurers immediately took fire damage from the creatures’ radiating heat while Redcorn tried to calm them with appeals to good and evil and the nightmares brought on by the Dark Hymn. Unfortunately the elementals were not swayed by the argument and the party opted to extract, probably more due to RL session time running out than unwillingness to keep probing the lizard situation. They got safely back to the YRB before camping for the session.

Musings:

We don’t do AD&D grading here, but if I had to grade myself as a DM it’d be pretty poor this session. I missed some mechanical things which is not uncommon for me but always frustrating. More than anything, though, I damaged player agency with the fire lizard random encounter. The bards had relayed information that was adequate enough to inform the true danger of the scenario to the party and I should have left it at that. When Redcorn the cleric mentioned that he wanted to enter the room with all five lizards I broke the wall and told him that he was definitely going to die if he did that. It was bad DMing and I recommend that you, reader, avoid making the same mistake. Player agency is king. Do not interfere.

Why I chose to do that is hard to pinpoint. It could have been how late in the session it was. Maybe I didn’t want the session to end in a catastrophe.  It could have been sympathy for new-to-the-system players not having seen this creature before. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. It was a disservice to the players and to the game. I will do better.

Session 39: Three Doors Down

Session 39: Three Doors Down

6/11/23 - 6/12, rest 6/13, active 6/14

PCs: Gwendolyn, Luther, Redcorn, Clete, Max, Flynn

Henches: Amadayo, Madroff, Beyza, Eggie, Mulligan

#ACKS

The group might be the most focused I’ve ever seen them on a single goal. It’s also one of the only goals I think they haven’t been able to knock out in a session or two, the other being Dufresne the Condescending. This week we’re back in the Butzkrag chasing the source of The Dark Hymn.

Lord Issac’s Yellow River Base camp has made a solid safe stopping point for the party so far, where they can rest and get back into the dungeon each session since it’s only a few miles away. They’ve been fortunate to not suffer any extensive mortal wounds to slow them down and are starting to pry some of the valuables out of the dungeon, so all in all it’s been a good delving location for them.

This week Caspian the Bard was out, opting to write new sea shanties by the river. He was replaced by a longtime friend but a new player to the campaign in Flynn, a cleric of Tritherion, the god of Freedom and Liberty. Max the barbarian was also back in the mix after a bit of a hiatus. Welcome, gents.

At the top of the huge notAztec pyramid that dominated the hill there was a wide stairwell that descended into the dungeon in a counter-clockwise and irregular spiral. They landed in Gwendolyn’s “Lobby” room and went straight for the brigand camp in the south of the dungeon to “check in” with Antonius and the boys from the last session.

Manlius was still on guard behind the portcullis and shared with them that one of their guys Steve was down bad. Clete excitedly asked whether Steve had eaten any of the black mushrooms and it turned out that he had. Redcorn offered to cure him now if they’d fight with them, but the bandits were pretty clear they weren’t going deeper in the dungeon. The cleric of Ehlonna claimed he would stop back by after the delve if he had spells left to cure Steve’s illness.

They knew that lizardmen waited somewhere on the second level from what the bandits told them last time, but they didn’t know quite where. They had two stairs to choose from, so they avoided the one near the brigands in the hopes of dodging the lizardmen I think. Unfortunately this other stairwell led further down, letting out into a room with familiar style walls of matte black metal covered in runes.

The party was sure that they had gone past the second level and were trying to stay disciplined in their approach to clearing every level. They spent some time for Gwendolyn to Read Languages, learning that the runes detailed a family tree or legacy line of some kind, in several places mentioning the von Malkin line which Clete could tie to the manifesto that he had been working to decipher.

They took that info with them as they left, deciding to risk the rumored lizardman stairwell. Eggie the thief hench picked up some sounds at the door and then successfully disabled the gas trap that they had tripped the previous visit. At this point, Gwendolyn started up a thrilling cover of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” hyping up the party with the bard’s Inspire Courage ability. A joke was made about whispering the opening lyrics to preserve surprise, but one does not play Eye of the Tiger at any volume but 11 thank you.

High on 80’s pop-rock and ready to throw down, the adventurers burst through the door into a forked hallway, not the room that they expected, and kinda uh’d their way around for a second. Determining that east led them to a chamber opening and almost certain combat, they charged off.

A phalanx of lizardmen awaited their arrival, but the front line was undaunted, both Max and Luther charging the set spears with never a care about double damage this or that. Fortune favors the bold, as I understand it, and this was no exception as the bristling spears missed every attack and the lizardmen were shot and chopped down by the group in short order.

From a secret door the lizard chieftain charged, nearly killing Beyza the fighter hench while a witch doctor ooga booga’d a charm at Max which he resisted. Luther ran through the secret door to engage the caster while the party chopped the chieftain down. The door was wizard locked and slid shut behind him, leaving Luther alone with the witch doctor, but it didn’t take long for the party to dispel the door, break it open, and for Clete the Tweeker to dispatch the last lizardman with a magic missile shaped like a flying middle finger.

The loot’s been pretty solid this dungeon, just not so much in liquid and this was no exception, with a decent store of electrum and silver and a few magic items tucked in the storeroom. The party discussed options, choosing to load up their whole crew like pack animals and waddle out of the dungeon at minimum speed. Amazingly there were no random encounters so they escaped free and clear with only Flynn using some comfrey and some healing spells expended on the wounded.

Leaving their new treasure with their backup roster of henchmen and security forces (I’m limiting party size to 12 in a dungeon), the crew dove back into the dungeon and straight for the second level. This level’s rooms and hallways were carved in notAztec whorls and symbols throughout, with stone doors instead of the wooden above, but otherwise had construction consistent with the previous level. 

The next discovery was a chamber carved in a forest theme, with scenes of hunting and looming bears throughout. On the far side of the room was a pedestal that held an ancient stone statuette of a roaring bear. They stopped at the doorway for Luther to detect evil, revealing that the statuette was emitting enough evil to cover the room. The others observed that many of the bears depicted in the scenes on the walls had too many arms or insect mandibles or other deformities. Redcorn cast dispel evil, the statue split as though cut with a sword, and the evil dissipated.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Only challenge was that they were pretty sure there were six of these altars and dispel evil spells don’t grow on trees. That’s later them’s problem. 

Onward through the twisting corridors of a randomly generated AD&D Appendix A dungeon the party trudged and I don’t know why but it still surprises me when they go turn after turn after turn with no encounters. They discovered a small room with an old nasty rug laying over the floor which a couple of the henchmen were detailed to roll up. During this they triggered a pressure plate and spears shot out of the floor and ceiling to obviously kill them dead. Fortunately, their high ac repelled the source of their pointy doom. A quick plan to trigger the spears and chop at them resulted in a disabled trap.

The party found in two separate small rooms murals of nature scenes that were not corrupted with extra limbs or too many eyes, accented by gems inset in the walls. They quickly went to prying them out, collecting quite a little store of precious stones.

While clearing a very large but empty room, Max stumbled across a small stone basin lying in the center of the floor. It seemed to have very old stains in it that maybe could be blood? While the others discussed it the barbarian just pricked his finger and bled into the thing, activating some ancient magic. It swirled to life, filling the bowl with an iridescent liquid completely to the brim, and a woman’s face formed on the surface and gazed at the Lawful members of the party. “What is it that you wish?” she said to them.

You ever want a smoke break or piss break or something, drop a wish like a knife in the middle of the table and walk away. Could probably smoke a brisket before they made a decision if you didn’t press them too hard. Eventually they determined that wishing for all the evil entities in the hex to be destroyed and a pony and a million dollars and some other things I forget was the move, so Redcorn spoke as the premier Lawful PC present.

Somewhere in some ancient folklore that I cannot remember the source for, there’s a warning against using “and” in a wish. If this was a petty entity like a genie or something there may have been some consequences, but fortunately for the party the lady in the bowl was legit Lawful Good by AD&D standards (Appendix A remember) and as soon as the first request of the wish was spoken there was a loud pop, the liquid flashed to steam, and the bowl was empty.

The group kinda stared at each other for a minute, then I think greed got the best of them. Luther bounced and I think Clete did too, hiding outside the room in case of some terrible reaction and discussing what should happen with the bowl. Max pricked his finger again to see what would happen, this time watching the basin fill with a dense liquid metal substance very like mercury. Clete had some ranks in alchemy and examined it, determining that there’s no way that was actual mercury and he noped back outta there.

They fiddled with some ideas, eventually Max determining to get a skin full of the notliquid. He dipped his hand in to fill the skin and felt the world go a little duller. His eyes crossed a bit and his player was informed to reduce Max’s intelligence score by two points. Oof. Fortunately Max weren’t the big thinker in the group in the first place and he was happy it wasn’t his strength score that got reduced.

Max tried one more time with the blood, this time getting cool clear water that Flynn could get no effect from by drinking, dipping his head in, weapons in, I forget what else. They tried to fill a skin with it, but though the water appeared to be entering the skin it never actually filled it. Feeling as though they had run that well dry and having spent quite a lot of time in the dungeon, the party backtracked, stopping at the bandit wing of the dungeon to offer the help that Redcorn had promised.

It turned out that their ill member Steve had EXPLODED just a short time ago. Manlius was aghast and Antonius had had enough of the dungeon. The party offered the humans a chance to leave with them, which they took, slinking off of the back side of the pyramid to avoid the waiting soldiers and uncomfortable questions of Issac’s men. The crew rested their weary heads, got their spells back, and spent the first few hours of the next morning waiting on Redcorn to scout around on his giant hawk. The idea I think was to verify that the wish had killed all the evil entities in the hex, but the results were inconclusive so they jumped back into the dungeon with plenty of session time to spare. Or so they thought.

I still hadn’t rolled a single random encounter but it is what it is. The party started moving pretty confidently through the second level again, sure that every evil thing was destroyed and reassured in that belief when they encountered what looked to be a rotten cow’s corpse or something that had exploded all over the hallway in front of them. They picked their way through and continued.

The next room of interest was one carved with panthers in a jungle, although the panthers’ eyes and heads and figures seemed to be moving in the corner of their eye and they could hear a low growling sound. Concerned about having to use high level magic on each altar, this time Flynn and Luther entered the room to break it physically. They immediately had to make saving throws against the overwhelming feeling that they hated one another and would certainly kill each other, with jokes made across the table about the fresh cleric not lasting long against the leveled paladin.

Fortunately the two Lawful dudes shrugged off the magic and beat the snot out of the altar, with Redcorn casting bless to cleanse the pieces. With a plan of action and no encounters to slow them down, they came across another altar in a swampy motif room and the boys went in to start clubbin’. Unfortunately, Luther failed his save against fear and was paralyzed with terror, shaking and suffering a negative to ac even after Redcorn cast remove fear on him. Clearly this evil magic was of different stuff.

Flynn broke the statue, Redcorn blessed it, and on they went through the dungeon, feeling good and safe and OH SHIT WE’RE STUCK IN AN ELEVATOR GOING DOWN!

The room that they were crossing when it happened was walled in a familiar matte black metal material which started sliding by as the floor descended for what felt like forever. It eventually slid to a stop revealing three doors made of woven bone material. It was the end of our scheduled session time and panic was high considering 1:1 time and particularly Redcorn’s player being unavailable for next week. They searched rapidly through some of the adjoining rooms, which I was randomly generating on the fly since I forgot this trap was in the dungeon, and freaked out that there was no control panel or anything to activate the elevator.

After a while of searching, Redcorn used his high level spell slot to Commune with his goddess Ehlonna, which gives him 3 yes or no questions. It also burns quite a bit of time to cast. He went meta on me with the first question but I let it slide due to concern over his heart rate, “Is there an easy way out of this dungeon before the end of the session?” Yes. “Is the exit north or south?” No. “Is it the elevator?” Yes.

They pondered and searched and looked and felt and smelled everything around there for a while until the elevator reactivated on its own, carrying them back to the second level. It was a timed lift. They hustled out of the dungeon as fast as they could and breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Musings:

This was a fun session, even the tense spot at the end. Uncertainty is apparently a powerful emotional catalyst. I wasn’t too sure what I was gonna do about the trap and 1:1 time. Really the only thing I could do if they didn’t figure out the way out was pause time there. They weren’t advanced enough into the future to warrant it as precedent has dictated, but considering the conditions I felt that I could work with it. I’m glad it didn’t come to that, ole Redcorn woulda had two weeks to sweat it.

The basin was cool and completely emergent. I didn’t really plan for anything to be there, but I described it as a feature of an otherwise empty room that the party decided to interact with. The players rolled the results of the randomized effects which we have fun with for treasure too sometimes. They’ve got a hand in their own fates that way.

Wishes are powerful. Are they powerful enough to kill every evil entity within a 6 mile hex including the super evil den of evil magic giving the whole region evil dreams for the past 6 evil months? I don’t know. We’ll find out.

Session 38: A Complete Map is a Happy Map

Time: 6/3/23 - 6/4/23, rest 6/5, active 6/6

PCs: Gwendolyn, Luther, Redcorn, Clete, Caspian
Henches: Mulligan, Mahin, Madroff, Beyza, Eggie, Jarod
#ACKS

We ended up taking a week-long break due to some unforeseen IRL interruptions, but the party was pretty isolated at the Yellow River Base camp of Lord Issac’s (Patron Paladin) so there wasn’t a lot of downtime action.

The group is dedicated to ending the Dark Hymn and clearing the Butzkrag which was evident as they geared up for another delve into the beastman temple/dungeon/ancient Flannish pyramid. By clearing, I mean clear every room of every level. It’s good to have goals.

Oberholt uses 1:1 time, one day in game is one day out of game. The reasons for this have been discussed and I won’t go into them again here. What’s important to note is that much like weight, gold, and connections, time is a resource. Redcorn had previously left his mercenaries with Lord Issac’s supply train to arrive later because of how slowly they moved. The calendar caught up this session and his mercs arrived with Issac’s resupply, putting the party at full strength with PCs and mercs.

They made their way the short distance back to the Butzkrag, adding their mercs to the security force that Issac had already lent them. As they got organized to enter the dungeon, we discussed party size. I put a cap at 12 members of the party, for now, as it feels a little silly to roll into a dungeon with a platoon. There have been some discussions on the ACKS Discord about specific modifiers to larger or smaller parties, but frankly I’ve got enough to keep up with and don’t feel like taxing my already relatively smooth brain with more modifiers to forget when they matter.

They made their cuts, leaving a few henchmen outside to reload with in an emergency, and made their way down the irregular stairwell into the pyramid, spiraling at seemingly random intervals counter clockwise and into what Gwendolyn dubbed “the Lobby”. It was a large room covered in beastman graffiti of all heinous types and several doors leading deeper into the first level of the dungeon.

Last delve, Gwendolyn had hired Gucci the Berserker and his crew to help the party clear the level and she intended to get what she paid for, so the group started off by heading to the berserkers’ lair to find Gucci. They tried to go in the back door by a spear trap, but Eggie the Thief wasn’t confident that the trap had not reset and urged them to re-route. Clete the Mage was able to recall the location of a trap that Gucci warned the party of so they dodged that and came to the broken portcullis that acted as the front entrance to Gucci’s lair.

The party’s beef put their backs into it to lift the obstacle and stake it into place. They looked around and found that the berserkers had vacated the premises. Vowing a stern talking to, Gwendolyn the Disney Princess marched the party off in search of Gucci in the Morlock wing of the dungeon that they had liberated on the first visit. They had no luck tracking down the berserkers, but they did find a dead body lying among the black mushrooms at the bottom of the eerie metal sphere room.

Clete was keen to get a sample of those mushrooms for you know, reasons, but not particularly known for his courage. The group was curious about the body that was covered in young mushroom growths. This led to Luther surfing down into the spherical chamber on his shield and into the CLEARLY DANGEROUS MUSHROOMS. The paladin hit the mushroom field in a puff of noxious spores, prompting a saving throw versus poison. He passed and coughed and wheezed as he checked the body, revealing it to indeed be one of the berserkers. The party reeled him back in with the safety rope around his waist and Clete scraped the mushroom goo off of Luther’s shield to sample for later.

After a while, Luther’s eyes stopped watering and the party moved on, exploring areas not yet traveled. The next corridor opened into a T intersection where they encountered a handful of ogres headed their way. The ogres weren’t hostile and the party quickly hatched a plan to lead the big dumb brutes out of the dungeon and into the hands of the waiting mercenaries. They learned that the ogres were just roaming around looking for treasure and had seen other beastmen, mentioning goblins and lizardmen specifically. Luther gave them 100gp to help the party find and kill the goblins that chased them into the dungeon, or some other bullshit story I forget, and I started contemplating the paladin’s choices in regards to his vows.

I’m not terribly strict on these things, probably to the detriment of the game, but it felt a little off for a paladin to defeat the enemy by deceit. Cowardly, even. Idk, if it becomes a pattern we’ll talk it out.

Anyway, the ogres agreed and the party gave them verbal directions to the entrance, which the monsters claimed they had forgotten how to get to. The group was going to follow the brutes out and attack them or something. There was some bickering about the plan among the party and I tuned it out to try not to give the monsters any edge, again wondering about the paladin betraying an agreement, even if it was with beastmen. 

Ultimately it didn’t matter. The ogres took the pay off and passed the party by in the direction of the entrance. But when they were supposed to turn at a crossroads they didn’t and chuckled when the party called them on it. Redcorn hit them with flamestrike and a short fight later ended with a bunch of dead ogres and some bruises on the front line that were healed up with holy prayers.

Shortly thereafter, Luther and Beyza the henchman fighter on the front line of the marching order fell into a trap door and disappeared, clearly different from the 10’ pits the group had seen in other places and not making any sound of hitting the bottom. I described nothing to Luther’s player because tension and he threatened to go home if he was dead because tension. The crew talked about options when they discovered the pit went a short ways then sloped into a ramp of some kind, spiraling haphazardly counter clockwise below.

Luther’s hench Eggie the Thief passed a morale check and volunteered to climb down to retrieve the two fallen warriors’ corpses. They dropped a rope and the thief easily navigated the ramp. Good thing it wasn’t greased or something. It led 40ish feet down the spiral and into a room with smooth black walls etched with runes and a couple of smokey glass doors. Luther and Beyza were climbing to their feet and dusting each other off, no bones being broken or anything else catastrophic. They used the rope to climb out and continue the delve.

Growing more confident in their map, the group called their directions systematically, coming to another portcullis barring their way that was manned by two rough looking human males in brigantine armor. The spokesman, fairly confident in the portcullis protecting him, was open to conversation and introduced himself as Manlius, thanks to the random name generator on the app I was using. The two bards in the party tried to serenade the conversation, but Manlius had apparently seen a thing or two and he plugged his ears, not trusting the siren song of the PC. After a short back and forth, the party convinced Manlius to introduce them to his leader. On the paladin’s word, they were allowed inside the portcullis that lifted with some winch inside the room beyond.

Here they met the ex-adventurer Antonius who was leader of the brigand band here in the Butzkrag. They were feeling pretty confident in their position, with a defensible lair and even a morlock captive to negotiate some ransom from the morlocks to the north. Antonius was disappointed to learn of the morlocks’ untimely exit from the theater, but shrugged it off and started trying to figure a way to leverage the captive for something else. The group tried to hire him to their side but he laughed and wanted no part of their crusade. They were able to convince him to show them the few rooms of their wing of the dungeon to make sure they were “clear of evil”. Aside from a heinous stench in the small room they used for a latrine, there was no evil behind them. 

If it was evil that they were looking for, Antonius let them know about a small altar to Grummsh, the one eyed orcish god, a few rooms over. He also let them know about a stairway leading to the next level further on, but warned them it was guarded by lizardmen. The two groups parted on good terms and the adventurers proceeded on.

The party found the oddly shaped room right where they were told it would be and sure enough, there was a small altar with a skull on it. One socket had a wad of stained cloth shoved in it while the other was plugged with a black semi precious stone. None of this mattered much to Redcorn who immediately began smashing the altar to bits. Luther was able to confirm that this was not a sinkhole of evil or an empowered altar of evil so no other action was taken to cleanse it.

Underneath the smashed altar they found a cubby that held a journal bound in human flesh and held closed with a strange clasp shaped like a castle’s silhouette. Neither the cleric nor the paladin were jumping at the chance to read it, but Clete flipped it right open, thumbing through the scribblings of a madman. He would need some time to get real details out of it.

The party scoped out the rest of the floor, finishing their map and verifying that there was a staircase leading to the next level. They tiptoed down and tried entry through the stone door at the bottom after Eggie assured them it was clear of traps. Unfortunately, the thief had missed the gas trap that blew into the frontline’s face as the door pushed in. Beyza made his saving throw but Luther failed, coughing and wheezing again. The party retreated and Redcorn dropped a neutralize poison spell on the paladin before he died.

Low on resources and on edge, the crew decided to back out and rest at the base camp to replenish spells. It also would give Clete some time to study the book, which he discovered was written by a predatory madman who viewed women, particularly vulnerable, unspoiled women, as prey in a very much non-sexual way. The author’s name was Carstad von Malkin and the turns of phrase and writing style used in the lucid portions of the journal pointed to someone trained in an ecclesiastical oration method. Praise was given throughout to the primordial god of destruction Tharizdun, mentioning six different altars devoted to Silence, Despair, Deception, Rage, Fear, and Hatred that were tended to within the Butzkrag. It was a lot to process at the time and their goal remained the same, clear each level room by room.

After recovering from their rest, the party went back in the dungeon and towards the stone door on the next level. Unfortunately, they caught an ambush from two feral looking men with feline features that managed to strike right at the middle of the marching order. Jarod the cleric was felled immediately on one side while Gwendolyn the bard took some serious damage, but fortunately this group had made a concerted effort to get ahold of magic weapons and were able to eventually fight the lycanthropes off.

Redcorn threw some healing spells and cure diseases on the wounded and the party rethought their plan. Jarod was brutally maimed so they were down a cleric and they were running low on session time, so they decided to return to the only room they hadn’t considered “cleared” on the first level, the one with the flock of stirges inside.

A trivial matter for a leveled party, the encounter hinged only on whether they could time the opening and closing of the door properly to cast a stinking cloud before they got swarmed. They pulled it off and dutch oven’d the stirges, executing them after the cloud dissipated but before the flying bloodsuckers could recover. I was confident that the stirges had shit for loot but the team put in the work, let them collect some electrum or something. They got over on me again with a really solid haul, especially combined with the gold that the ogres were carrying, due to a very generous random treasure roll. Well congratulations, I guess, whatever.

They called it there with a finished first level map and a bit of loot, probably enough to level the rooks I’d guess (I haven’t calculated it yet as I write this). We’ll see how they approach the next level next time.

Session 37: Into the Butzkrag

5/21/23-5/26, 5/27 rest, 5/28 active
PCs: Gwendolyn (Bard), Luther (Paladin), Redcorn (Cleric), Clete (Mage), Caspian (Bard)
Henches: Mulligan, Amadayo, Mahin, Madroff, Beyza, Eggie, Jaylen, Jarod, Gucci (temporary)
#ACKS

After the victory over the beastman occupying force of the Butzkrag, a religious or ritual location for the humanoids of the Bone Marches, Lord Issac and Bishop Redcorn put the word out for the famous Team A to clear the dungeon of evil and put a stop to the Dark Hymn once and for all.

The heroes answered the call, adding two new PCs to the group in Clete the Mage described as a sketchy tweeker that you’d hire in a Home Depot parking lot and Caspian the Bard, a swashbuckling singer of sea shanties. They also had a ton of henchmen, putting their party into the comically large range for a dungeon delve. They were taking this thing seriously, which is good. I mean, I abstain from any commentary on the validity of player actions.

The first part of the session was a lot of exposition for the benefit of the newer guys about setting and events leading up to where they found themselves. Clete’s player had a leg up having read the previous session reports so that was cool. Once we got that squared away the party set off from Talston towards Riverstride.

Redcorn introduced some of the party to Lord Issac (Patron Paladin) who hadn’t met him before while others avoided the notorious Hanger of PCs. Issac let them know that he intended to meet them out at his forward base and remain on site while they delved. With access to troops and magic from his retainers, this could be quite a boon for an injured party returning from the dungeon in the form of safety to rest and additional healing to recover.

The team set out towards Northbridge, stopping off at Hakim’s roadside emporium. There was grumbling about him not dealing in magic items but when do PCs not grumble? He was happy to see them as usual and sold them some rope and other normal things.

They had a pretty easy trip aside from having to leave the troops behind, realizing again that armies move slow. They set their mercs to travel with Issac’s supply train and carried on, arriving at the Yellow River Base camp a half a hex or so away from their target location. The mercs would catch up when they could.

Issac flew out to meet them on a giant hawk, wishing them well and sending some troops to guard the entrance to the Butzkrag, a giant Flannish aztec style pyramid with a winding, irregular staircase leading into a dark and evil dungeon. I’m trying to more clearly emphasize the supernatural nature of dungeons and will continue to do so moving forward. These are not mundane mineshafts in the ground, these are dark, dank, cesspools of danger.

They landed deep in the pyramid in a room with several doors. Every surface of the room up to about 8 or 9 feet was covered in layer on layer of foul beastman graffiti. Eggie the henchman thief started checking doors while others tried to decipher some of the graffiti. One door had fluttering sounds behind it and there were more recent symbols showing winged skulls painted on while another had symbols that the nerds in the group were able to determine meant food.

They chatted a bit about options before testing the winged skull door, Luther the paladin pulling it open to peek inside. He was immediately swarmed by winged anteater shaped creatures. One of the henches rolled high initiative and slammed into the door to close it before the creatures could bite anyone’s face off. The party chose to leave that room alone.

They went into what they called the “food” door, discovering dozens of bodies laid out on the floor with rough burlap tarps thrown over them. The group made no effort to investigate, picking their way through the room and out through another hallway. I guess a beastman meat storage wasn’t that interesting idk.

Down a dark hallway to an intersection and another choice of direction. The caller for this session was Gwendolyn who was trying to maintain a methodical approach to exploration by taking all left turns, so they took the lefternmost direction and the front rank immediately fell into a pit trap, Luther and Beyza collapsing at the bottom of everyone’s favorite trap. They didn’t blame the caller, climbed out of the hole, and carried on.

They rounded a corner and saw the door ahead of them closing. Eggie rushed forward to listen but didn’t hear anything. They busted in like big damn heroes to find a room filled with broken crates, barrels, and such but no sign of an enemy. The group checked it over carefully and found some stashed loot but nothing else while others applied a little comfrey to the pit-divers.

The crew proceeded cautiously and arrived at a six-way intersection which was fun to describe to the mapper. I succumbed to a moment of weakness and just showed him that section of the map for him to copy. I will burn that out of myself for next time. True to form they went left here to another four way and grumbling about so many directions to go.

This went on for a while, left, left, left, all the while they learned more about the dungeon’s layout, verified that it reconnected onto the original chamber in several places. They found a door which Eggie checked as was customary and determined there was definitely a trap. While trying to disarm it, he triggered it and took a spear from the ceiling, nearly killing him. He limped back to the group and announced, “Disarmed the trap, boss.” Eggie’s a trooper.

Entering this room and finding nothing obvious, the logic was thrown out that you don’t trap rooms with nothing in them, so they carefully searched over the place before finding a secret door in one corner. This led to another door that was locked. They chose violence on this one, applying a crowbar and the will of Heironeous in the form of Luther leaning on it.

The door popped open to a waiting band of berserkers, clearly unhappy at their back entrance being invaded. Gwendolyn rushed forward to parley and narrowly avoided immediate combat by confusing them with some chatter and then playing some music. The leader of the pack was Gucci, a wiry fellow with a weird tick when he talked and a strange unblinking stare. He was not super impressed by the adventurers but his crew was digging the music so he gave it a chance.

This turned out to be a mistake made by the uncultured berserkers as Gwendolyn’s Magical Music proficiency took hold, charming them into being much more friendly. From here it was a short jump to hiring the berserkers onto their already large party, nearly doubling its size. Gucci was much more forthcoming with information now, telling them about morlocks in the northern wing of the place that simply had to go. He also told them about a wild room just off of this one that would trip them out. He encouraged them to experience it and twitched again in a totally not suspicious way. Despite appearances, the berserkers informed Clete that they were out of mushrooms and pretty bummed by that. So was Clete.

The party investigated to find a very small closet, about 6 feet on a side, with a single coin-sized obsidian disc set into the mathematical center of each surface. Gucci laughed and said yeah touch them, and twitched again. There was much consternation among the players at this point. Luther detected evil and definitely found some glowing around each disc and Clete hit on a Loremastery check, allowing him to recall from his studies that this type of thing smacked of the involvement of the trickster god Olidammara and the god of risks, Norebo, as rites of passage, the effects of which could be virtually anything.

They briefly discussed interacting with it anyway, with the leveled, Lawful players jokingly pushing the new guys to touch it, what did they have to lose? Fortunately it didn’t go any further and no one lost any class powers as the decision was ultimately made to attempt a Dispel Magic from Redcorn, which worked in a shower of black sparks.

Gucci pointed out a few traps and a staircase leading down along their way to the morlock wing of the dungeon. Once nearby, Gwendolyn used her Inspire Courage ability since they were pretty sure the berserkers were going to fight anyway. Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song had the boys so geeked up that they charged off into the room, engaging the waiting morlocks in a rush.

This party was already relatively powerful for the first level of this dungeon. Adding a bunch of cannon fodder didn’t balance the scales any so the fight was pretty short and one-sided. They beat down a bunch of eyeless savage humanoids and white apes, the final one running away to be chased down by one of Redcorn’s tigers, and lost a few berserkers in the scrum who didn’t seem to care one bit.

They proceeded further into the wing, discovering the bulk of the morlocks in a bit of a better position to fight back. Their reaction was high which indicated they really didn’t want to fight. The party gave them the option of relocating or dying and they chose the former, packing their meager belongings and women and children and being marched out of the dungeon. They went down the opposite side of the pyramid from the waiting troops and Trail of Tears’d it out into the wilderness. They were at least lucky that night had fallen.

Back in the dungeon and running low on session time, the group rushed through the morlock wing that was clear now, finding the pen they kept apes in and their treasure trove. There was another pit that I think Gucci fell in, but he laughed it off and climbed out.

Continuing on, the group discovered a perfectly spherical chamber of some matte black metal that no one was familiar with. It gave off serious sinister vibes to the Cleric and Paladin but did not register on a detect evil or detect magic. It was wrong on some primal, instinctual level but did not appear to be actively harmful. At the bottom of the bowl was a crop of black mushrooms which Clete made careful note of but did not mention interest in yet. Maybe next time.

In a couple of these hallways on this side of the dungeon they found chimneys, one up and one down. I think the player reaction was such that they were thinking of a fireplace chimney that’s not really a passage. I need to do better about describing things that I take for granted as these chimneys were certainly large enough for people to pass through, albeit with some effort made to climb safely.

Anyway the crew looped back to the entrance and linked up with the waiting soldiers outside to rest at the Yellow River Base, which I consider safe enough to count as a stopping point for terms of resting and xp gain.

Musings:

New players are fun, glad to have them. Redcorn’s player is very outgoing and talks about ACKS at the local shops and things, so it’s cool to see his excitement infecting others.

This is another dungeon that’s been here for ages, so it’s interesting to see how it changes from what I originally wrote to several generations of restocking/conflict checks. The more or less random exploratory factions appeared to have settled into wings, of which the group has found two so far.

It was generated using Appendix A of AD&D 1e’s DMG. There are conflicting views on if dungeons should be totally random or totally DM generated or some mixture among people in the hobby that I respect. I find that, as in most things, I’m somewhere in the middle. I like the random generation to get something on paper, get a starting place. As I think more about what may or may not be there I can build out from it. It’s worked well in the Grotto and I think it’s gonna be fun here.

An important thing for dungeon delving is patience. Dungeons are often big, multi-leveled endeavors. Sometimes you’re only there to score big and bounce. Sometimes a Patron tasks you with clearing every room of every level, lol. I had no idea that was the case here until the session started, so it’ll be cool to see how the party approaches it, particularly the sessions where they don’t score very much treasure.

Coincidentally, I view dungeons in this manner when I PC. I want to take and seize ground, establish fall back points, continue forward. I am often the minority opinion for this strategy so I was definitely surprised to see it come up here. Hopefully the good guys win and stick it to the Dark Hymn, but we’ll have to see what happens next time.

Session 36: Ghost Ships and Girded Loins

5/7/23-5/15/23, rest 5/16/23, active 5/17/23

PC: Blair (Nightblade), Bigtoe (Machinist), Braxton (Explorer)

Hench: Isabel, Jahanaray, Goda, Platt, Ronin, Rocky, Andi

#ACKS 

A few months ago Braxton the Explorer tripped over a rumor about a magical ship that sails the midnight coast of the Bay piloted solely by cats. You may ask yourself, “Wtf?”, but listen, shut up.

For real though, rumors are a great way to seed things into the game. You may be tempted to use them to gently push the adventurers towards your desired in-game hooks. Or you could write 50 of them in a drunken stupor, drop them in a file, and forget about them until one of the PCs starts searching for a lucrative job opportunity.

I believe that players don’t really care about NPCs or DM generated hooks and while they may seem stupid when solving puzzles or not grasping your brilliant plot, they aren’t. They can smell railroad tracks and abhor nothing more than doing what the DM wants them to do. Players are more likely to latch onto something that they have some personal input into. This is why I have ridiculous rumors and the broadest strokes of prepared environments and locations. When the PCs latch onto something, or come up with something themselves, I’m not scrambling to rewrite all muh preps and force a square peg into a round hole. I’m prepared to improv a session that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy.

So, “cat boat, cat boat” was the chant in the downtime Discord. I stole was inspired by a rule from the Dubzaron campaign that allows using multiple “stacked” rumors to apply to a single topic. As more rumors are hit for the topic, I prompt the rumormongering player as to what they believe the next information regarding the hook should be. Naturally as DM I have veto powers directly and the nature of rumors being inconsistent or unverified gives veto powers indirectly so it doesn’t really matter if they say, “There’s an unguarded treasure hoard tended by kittens in cute hats that has a unicorn horn that grants wishes!” or some other cheesy freebie like that. Sure that’s the rumor that they hear, even down to where this treasure hoard is supposed to be. But what’s actually there is up to me and no one rides for free.

         

Braxton continued to investigate this rumor and the player had determined to use a mutual friend of the table’s online moniker to represent the leader of the Merlantians, an aquatic tribe of fishy naga-like people with a sneaker fetish and “girded loins”. Apparently he believed the cat thing to be misdirection or something. The real target was The Mighty Hammercock, Lord of Merlantis. Again you may ask yourself, “Wtf?” Please, refer to the opening paragraph for any further such questions.

With a target set, the party launched from Deinwick towards the capital of Bellport where they intended to find more information about the Merlantians and buy or hire a boat to take them out on the water. I’ve added a Maps section to the site that might clarify where some things are happening. Anyway, off they went with Bigtoe’s fledgling army as escort. They quickly realized that marching a small army all that way was going to take quite a while, so they traded off some of the mercs with their venturer hench in Talston before continuing on with cavalry for speed.

Once the party arrived in Bellport, several of the group tried to dig up more information about the cat boat, learning that just a week past a lone survivor had washed ashore, telling terrible tales of his ship being attacked in a foggy night-time ambush. Bigtoe wanted to interview this fellow but unfortunately the poor chap had succumbed to his wounds. He had to settle for learning a rough area of the coastline that the fiendish Hammercock might operate along.

Next, the group visited the docks looking for a ship to hire. There were many ships but not many for hire so Braxton approached the harbormaster and greased his palms to keep an eye out for them. We joked around a little about his cheap frugal bribery amounts of like 5 and 9 gold pieces. The harbormaster was unimpressed by the modest offerings but liked the explorer well enough to play ball.

Now they were in a big city which they really had visited rarely and spent very little time in. They wanted to check with the local authorities and get paid for doing something that they were going to do anyway. Adventurers be greedy like that. They learned that Sir Lionel Deinwick, brother to the Lord Deinwick of the West, was acting captain of the guard so they made an appointment and were able to be seen.

He had vague reports of some piracy attributed to this fairy tale and was willing to pay a little for information, but quite a bit more for proof. The party took the mission and slept on it, waiting for the harbormaster to find them a boat.

The next day, after no hits, Braxton decided to poke around in dockside inns for captains that they could approach directly. A solid plan that was supported by the dice because miraculously the first place they went to had a captain’s council of some sort going on. They waited for them to finish before approaching, asking if anyone was willing to carry them out to sea looking for the cat boat. The man at the head of the table, Captain Commodore Victor, seemed to take responsibility for the gathering and asked a few questions, deciding that sure he’d charge them to rent one of his ships and on the absolutely miniscule chance that they actually ran into the cat boat, he wanted half of the treasure that might be recovered. He voluntold one of the attendees to escort the party where they thought they needed to be and the rest kind of snickered to each other about chasing ghost ships.

Captain Newman of The Key was happy to cart the party around for a few days and make a little gold, so off they went, sailing the coast southeast towards a large cove just short of Seafort. They found the cove and looked around a little, but did not find any evidence of past battles. It was night and they were in a cozy spot so decided to chill there and continue the search the next day.

Allowing random results to dictate the game is interesting. The wounded sailor died, bad random roll. Sir Deinwick would see them in a timely fashion and the first bar they looked in was filled with captains, good random rolls. The first encounter rolled out of port was mermen, which was what I had determined would indicate an encounter with the dastardly Merlantians! Let go of the wheel, it’s more dynamic.

Night fell as a dense fog began to roll in. The players got excited, sensing something was afoot. During the midnight watch an eerily silent ship pulled alongside, exchanging arrows with some of the party on duty. The group was finally able to set eyes on the mythical Merlantians, large, broad-shouldered naga-like people armed with bows and tridents and looking disdainfully at the party’s shoddy footwear. Or maybe the Merlantians were the giant sized tabby cats staring disinterestedly from the back ranks of the snake people. Either way, the fight was on.

The enemy stormed the rails of the Key and engaged the party and their mercenary archers that they were able to bring aboard. The naga-like men were obviously trained well and strong, but not terribly threatening on the whole. It was the cats that really scared the group. When the huge animals lept to the Key, they morphed into large beastial humanoids with feline faces and claws.

The bad news for the cats was everyone in the fucking friendly party that had spells had some kind of crowd control options like Light for blinding or Choking Grip. Some really bad saving throws from my end and the powerful element of the enemy’s force was neutered, blinded and/or choking and greatly reduced in combat effectiveness. The cats were able to wear through the dismounted horse archers defending the group, but could only do a little damage to some of the actual party members and henchmen due to high ACs and negatives to attacks from being blinded.

Blair the Nightblade was able to land some solid backstabs with one of the party’s only magical weapons against the catmen and the rest were able to tackle and execute the weakened beasts after several rounds of grappling, including Braxton jumping from the center mast about 20 feet up to try and WWE drop kick one to the ground. There was a lot of build up for this move but he rolled poorly on the attempt and just flopped to the ground, hissing in pain.

The group was ecstatic to have defeated these creatures and captured their ship, but on inspection they realized the Merlantian vessel was in awful shape and probably shouldn’t even have been floating. They quickly searched through it, finding tons of treasure, some magic items, and charts to a mysterious island well off of the coast. They also found an altar depicting a truly fearsome naga-man wearing a wide WWE style championship belt. Offerings around this altar included small lizards, birds, and mice along with candles and incense. Each of the naga-men wore a strange medallion with a man’s face carved into it which the PCs naturally collected.

Bigtoe was all bothered by the Key’s crew not helping in the fight, to which Captain Newman shrugged and said they were transport, they weren’t hired to fight. This was apparently a miscommunication during the deal that Braxton made of such an offensive nature that plans were briefly hatched to murder the entire crew and steal all the loot, turn into a vulture and fly away with most of the loot, etc. These plans were eventually tossed and they opted to tow the captured ship back and offer that as the Commodore’s cut of the treasure.

Captain Newman did not want to tow the ghost ship back to port, but they paid him handsomely and threatened him and other adventurer things until he did so, having his crew lash it to the Key and setting off for home. As dawn broke and sunlight began to bathe the ghost ship, it started to disintegrate, eventually leaving nothing but the towing lines flowing behind the Key. This offended the dwarf Bigtoe even more, renewing his tirade of insulting the ship’s crew as cowards and the Commodore as a con artist.

They stormed into port and marched to the Commodore’s bar, where Bigtoe gave him an ear-full. The Commodore was pissed and not having it and there was a tense back and forth before they eventually agreed to have the magic items identified and they’d split the treasure in half. Victor sent a mage associate of his with the group to get the Tower of the Glowing Hand to identify the items and verify everything was on the up and up. 

Back at the bar, they split the loot and Victor told them to get the fuck out, which the party did. They copped some solid magic items and big ticket jewelry and gems, got paid by Sir Deinwick for returning with the heads of the fish guys, and called it a win.

Musings:

I editorialized during the write up most of my thoughts I think. It was a good session and I’ll reiterate that allowing the players to be involved in rumors and hooks is just tops. They got more treasure than I expected since I just used the recommended ship’s haul for a ship of that type but hey, they could have all died if they hadn't been so ready with the spells. The cats were pretty tough, but this appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. They’ve got charts to an island and a reference to the swolest Merlantian. Let’s see if they care to pursue it.