We played the twelfth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.
The roster for this session was as follows:
- Llombaerth, CG elf thief 3 (Adam)
- Mirkle, N human fighter 1 (Maya)
- Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
- Bronson, human porter (NPC)
- Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)
Last time we played, the party looted the lair of the Stonespeaker orcs, including Quasqueton's trophy room. They gifted some taxidermized giant moose heads to their goblin friends, then moved a massive dragon hide, two pairs of mounted dragon claws, a door etched with religious symbols, and a giant's shield into a secret bedchamber to hide it from the goblins. They built a makeshift litter out of flag poles and a bearskin to carry what treasure they could safely move, then made plans to leave Quasqueton and return to Timbershore.
We picked up from there. Before leaving the dungeon, the party remembered that the orcs' lair contained a stairway down to the lower level, which apparently contained more orcs. To keep the orcs from coming upstairs while they were gone, the party spiked the door shut and barricaded it with the barrels of water they had used to block one of the doors to the orcs' lair in a previous session.
The party also remembered that there was one room in the orc lair yet to be explored. According to Numbnuts' map, it was the room containing the stone which Drak claimed to speak to. The party found the door and listened at it. They detected a smoky, tantalizing smell, like someone had been cooking within. They heard a faint voice, whimpering to itself in an unknown tongue.
They threw open the door and thrust their torch inside. The overpowering stench of roasted meat hit them in the face. In the far corner of the room, a dirty, beaten goblin crouched on the floor, recoiling from the bright light, shrieking at the party to extinguish it. A 6' tall, 4' wide rock carving sculpted from the wall depicted a horned head with a demonic, evil visage, surrounded by religious symbols and runes. A pile of coins lay at its base. The floor was black slate, a 3' deep, 5' diameter pit in its center. The pit was filled with mangled, charred body parts of all sorts of humanoid creatures.
When the party refused to extinguish their torch, the goblin slithered into the pit to hide amongst the gore. When Mirkle moved to gather the coins at the base of the carving, the goblin reached up and pawed feebly at her heels. The party learned that the goblin's name was Tobb, and that he had been left here in solitude and darkness to hear what the Stone had to say. The Stone had told Tobb that he was weak and miserable, and that the Stonespeaker would elevate him by making him a slave.
The party broke the news to Tobb that Drak had been slain, specifically by Llombaerth. This led Tobb to believe that Llombaerth was the master he had been waiting for. He became obsequious, falling at Llombaerth's feet and kissing his boots. Tobb explained that through the Stonespeakers, the Stone would butcher and slay the unworthy and make the rest of the world its slaves.
Curious, Llombaerth approached the Stone and laid his hand upon it. He could sense some sort of deep reverberation inside, ancient and powerful, but dormant, waiting. He felt a malign presence in the pit of his stomach. Llombaerth told Robbernar in Elvish that the Stone was legit, and Robbernar approached to examine the markings around it.
The markings were of no religion Robbernar recognized - not Elvish nor of any local human religion. They were consistent with markings used by pagan barbarian civilizations that once existed in the region, and the Stone itself was much older than the walls surrounding it. The party concluded that the Stone must have been here before Quasqueton was built, and that the room was constructed around it.
One thing was for sure - the Stone was dangerous, and the party would need to deal with it somehow. Llombaerth did not particularly want a goblin slave, so he managed to convince Tobb to stand guard over the chamber and ensure no goblins - or anyone else - came near it.
Finally, the party returned to the secret bedchamber and retrieved their litter of treasure. On their way out of the dungeon, they told the remaining goblins that they had found Tobb, and that he was totally nuts and dangerous. They had left him in the orcs' territory to stand guard, and he should be avoided. The goblins indicated that they would try to reason with him and bring him back into the fold, but would exercise caution in doing so.
Exiting the dungeon, the party found that they had been inside quite a while. It was 10 in the morning when they first arrived, but now it was dark. They weren't sure what time it was. Their mule was also gone, presumably stolen by their cowardly hireling, Booker, who had fled when they encountered the carrion crawler. There was no indication that the mule had been eaten or met with some other grisly fate.
Since it was already dark, the party elected to camp at the mouth of the cave leading into Quasqueton, and to start their descent in the morning. Funnily enough, in preparation for this session, I had erroneously anticipated for some reason that the party would be perfectly fine traveling in darkness, and had already determined when and if they would have random encounters on their way back to town, and what with. They had traveled for three hours in the morning and spent nine and a half hours in the dungeon, so they had three and a half hours left of travel time to use. Since they decided to camp immediately instead, I had to throw those encounters out, which is fine, since it's just rolling a few dice.
So the party made camp outside Quasqueton and passed the night eating and drinking and telling stories or whatever adventurers do around the campfire.
Just as it was time to turn in for the night, the party spotted something at the edge of the dim light of their campfire, which spilled over down the hillside. Farther down the hill, a humanoid shape dressed in tattered rags shambled up the stairway of roots and loose stones towards the dungeon. Llombaerth moved silently down through the underbrush to get a closer look.
In the dim light of their campfire, Llombaerth was able to benefit from his infravision while also making out fine details. The figure was hunched over and moved with an awkward, shuffling gait. It was dressed in what appeared to be tattered wizard's robes. It meandered its way up the stair with difficulty, stopping every now and then to survey its surroundings, as if lost. Most unsettling of all was its lack of a heat signature.
Llombaerth followed the figure. Mirkle and Robbernar readied their bows for the creature to enter into short range, which didn't take long since it was already near. They fired a volley at it. The creature regarded the arrows as it would a swarm of gnats. Each arrow struck without effort, but all shattered upon contact with the creature's body.
The figure lifted its head to gaze upon its attackers. Beneath its hood, a pair of piercing red pinpricks of light shone through the darkness. Mirkle, Bronson, and Walgretor felt an eldritch, unnamable fear stirring in the primal part of their psyche. The sense of dread escalated into a terrifying crescendo, and all were overwhelmed with panic. They dropped what they were carrying and fled as quickly as they could back into the dungeon.
Robbernar, being an elf with 90% resistance to sleep and charm-related effects (which here I interpreted as mind-altering effects, including fear, although I have no idea if that's correct) kept his composure. He noticed that the creature's eyes were not exactly fixed on him. They seemed unfocused, staring through him, as if the mind within was clouded - if it had any mind at all. All the same, he grabbed his and Mirkle's gear and a torch and retreated cautiously into the dungeon with his companions.
That left Llombaerth still in hiding, watching what the creature did. It meandered around their camp, rifling absentmindedly through their belongings. At one point, it walked directly across the burning campfire, but regarded the heat as little more than a nuisance. It picked up the engraved plaque gifted to Erig, Quasqueton's captain of the guard, which the party had plundered from the captain's chambers. It lingered on the object for a moment, caressing the plaque and then touching its face, as if remembering something, then stowed the plaque in its robes.
It approached the entrance to the dungeon, stopped at the threshold, and peered inside for a long while. Then it turned and headed back down the hill. Llombaerth hid in the shadows to avoid being spotted and watched it go. After traveling a short distance, it vanished into thin air.
Inside the dungeon, the rest of the party ran around in panic and terror as Robbernar and the goblins attempted to calm them. It took 15 minutes for them to settle down, during which time Llombaerth rejoined them.
After describing their experience, the goblins concluded that the party had encountered the Ghost of Quasqueton, a terrifying and powerful entity which prowls the hills at night. The goblins told the party that they were lucky the Ghost did not demand that they surrender all their treasure. The party discussed who the Ghost might be. Was it Erig? Zelligar? Someone else? A new mystery to be uncovered, perhaps!
Not wanting to encounter something like that again, the party decided to bunk with the goblins inside the dungeon. Bronson slept beneath one of the giant moose heads and had some nightmares, but otherwise the night passed uneventfully.
The following morning, the party set off down the hillside. A light wind was rustling through the trees, but otherwise the weather was fair. The descent would normally take three hours, but since four members of the party were encumbered by the litter, it would instead take four. It was a strenuous hike down winding switchbacks over the treacherous stairway of roots and loose stone, but they made their way down without incident.
They pushed on through the forest. It would normally take four hours to reach the river at the forest's edge, but at their current pace it would take closer to five. By the end of the day, they were still in the forest, so they made camp.
Once again, just as it was about time to retire for the evening, Mirkle spotted a pair of large, lumbering animals encircling their camp on either side, just at the edge of their campfire's light. They appeared to be bears, but they weren't simply passing through. They were hunting the party. Mirkle alerted the rest of the party, and the creatures broke through the undergrowth. They were huge, vicious bears...with the heads of owls!
The party knew that if they were to survive, they would need to make the creatures flee, rather than fight them. They urged Bronson and Walgretor to brandish torches towards the creatures. Walgretor refused, paralyzed by fear. Mirkle scattered caltrops on the ground between her and one of the owlbears. Bronson proved to be braver than Walgretor. He lit a torch in the campfire and stood with Mirkle, waving the fiery end at the approaching owlbear. Robbernar stood ready to receive a charge from the second owlbear, and Llombaerth flung a flask of flaming oil at it. The flask struck the charging owlbear, setting it ablaze.
The first owlbear stumbled over Mirkle's caltrops, which prevented it from threatening the party this round. The flaming owlbear lumbered towards Robbernar and was cut by his longsword. It retaliated with a claw that struck Robbernar (hitting AC -1!), but did only 1 damage. Robbernar's shield just barely caught the second claw. Unfortunately, the owlbear hit AC -3 (!!) with its beak for 10 damage, rolling two 5s on 2d6. The owlbear fell upon Robbernar, its sharp, hooked beak tearing his throat open in a bloody spray.
For the second consecutive expedition, Nael's character was killed in the forest in the night by a random encounter. He got lucky with the minimum damage roll from the owlbear's claw, but even then, he had 7 hit points left with a 2d6 attack to follow, which would do an average of 7 damage. He didn't have much of a chance. He was a good sport about it. We all laughed at how brutal and absurd the whole situation was.
The following round, I made morale checks for the owlbears. Surprisingly, the more wounded owlbear which was actively on fire passed its check, even with a penalty to the roll, while the barely wounded owlbear with no penalty failed its check by quite a lot. The combination of caltrops and Bronson's torch forced the first owlbear to flee. The second one had a taste for blood, and not even the flames burning its flesh could deter it now.
Bronson once again proved to be braver than is wise, moving to brandish his torch in front of the remaining owlbear. Llombaerth lobbed another flask of oil, which missed badly and set the trees alight, the breeze feeding the flames. Mirkle set to receive the owlbear's charge with her spear, but Bronson was in the way.
The owlbear continued to burn, but was in a frenzy. It lurched forward and with one swipe of its claw knocked Bronson's head clean off his shoulders. Again, brutal and absurd and more than a little funny.
It pressed on and took a wound from Mirkle's spear. Since she was set to receive a charge, it did double damage, but she rolled just 2 and 3 on 2d8.
Finally, the owlbear's morale broke, and it fled. Llombaerth pursued it and put an arrow it the back of its head, killing it as it fled.
With that, we wrapped the session. This was a good one! The party finally found the Stone That Speaks and learned that there's more to it than they initially thought. They encountered the Ghost of Quasqueton and are now pondering over its true identity. They also had their scariest encounter yet and escaped by the skin of their teeth, with yet another elf dying in the forest, and their brave and loyal Day 1 hireling meeting his end as well.
The Stone is an element of B1 that is a nothingburger as written, which I fleshed out, the Ghost is the result of a random wilderness encounter that I decided to riff on, and the owlbears are creatures with a lair elsewhere in the forest, which I added when I first created the sandbox way back in December, so it's neat to see all these elements come to the foreground in one session.
At the end of the session the party had just three surviving members, which is not enough to carry the litter back to town, but they might be rejoined by Rory next session, and I have a feeling that a certain elf is going to come wandering through the forest in search of his father...
No comments:
Post a Comment