We began in the Seven-Pillared hall. It had been two days since they received a mysterious note in the Hall:
Your actions against the crew of the Ashardalon are commendable. I was in a position to observe the proceedings, and I believe I noticed some secrets of the ship that you may have missed. I cannot move in concert with my brothers, due to attitudes that you must have noticed by now. Follow the attached map so that we can meet in secret.
Well, this seemed suspicious, but also a good (lone?) avenue to explore. The vikings followed the map into the Road of Shadows, then a mile into the Labyrinth. Half the party had low-light vision: Hermiad, Varin, and Rurik. Their demi-human eyes scouted ahead, while Bartix, Erik, Mendas, and Oddny stayed back with a sunrod. The scouts followed the map and came to the cascading light of a campfire, set in an opening in the caverns. Rurik poked around and saw the fire-light glint off something bronze. Something bronze and lurching towards him! We rolled initiative!
The two creatures on the map were Bronze Warders, big construct-type things. They were presented in the adventure as minotaur-shaped statues, but I had different miniatures I wanted to get out. I reskinned them as hulking gold giants using the Sun Titan from, uh, Dreamscape? Nightbane? Sandman-Fight? Whatever that WOTC collectible miniatures line was that no longer exists and is being sold cheap (note: it was Dreamblade). They functioned as written in the adventure, though, a Level 7 Elite Soldier.
Varin had the high initiative, and he hit one of the Bronze Warders with his new Far Realm Phantasm spell that damaged him and caused him to spend his next attack going after an illusion. Cool!
Erik, Mendas, Oddny rushed onto the battlefield, but couldn't make it far enough to attack. The Warders moved up... one finished fighting his pantasm and based Rurik, and the other charged Oddny and missed.
Next, three figures came out of magically-created shadows on the ledges surrounding the battlefield. These Lizardfolk Warlocks lit up the battlefield with their Balefire, focusing on the armored characters to support the Warders.
Hermiad couldn't let that stand, and he quickly climbed the nearest ledge and went after the lizard-lock. He hit with one of his two strikes and drew blood, but the warlock teleported away immediately afterwards!
Now, as written, these magic users (Tiefling Heretics in the adventure) get to teleport away as an immediate interrupt when hit by a melee attack. Cool, several of the players can do that as well, once a day. But these guys do it at will! That's total crap; overpowered, and as far as I can tell, complete immunity from melee attacks! I met them halfway, making them take damage from the attack and then teleporting. That's also annoying, it doesn't let melee types lock down their foes, but it also lets the party do something besides ranged. So, this lizardfolk warlock teleported to another ledge near his buddy, and Hermiad was left alone on his rock.
Rurik finished up the round, dishing out a daily power... and critting! Matt has calculated crit damage incorrectly in the past, so we dug into the math for this one. I think his 3W came out to 49 damage. But the Bronze Warder wasn't bloodied!
This set the scene for the rest of the battle. Rurik and Erik worked on one Warder, Oddny and Mendas on the other. Hermiad chased two of the lizardfolk warlocks, and Bartix worked on the other. Here are the highlights:
Hermiad made his Athletics roll to vault over to the next ledge. He charged the warlock he had harried, hit him, and forced him to slide a square. I had the lizard teleport away, then be slid... which put him off the ledge! Bam, falling damage, though the guy was safe. Sadly, Hermiad had hit him with his axe's daily power, and the ongoing damage would kill him as soon as his next turn rolled around.
Rurik had hit the Bronze Warder with an attack that gave the party +4 to hit it for a turn. So he was lit up by Varin and Erik and Bartix and went down before causing too much havoc.
Bartix used Dimension Door to pop across the battlefield and come up right behind the mostly-unmolested lizardfolk warlock. He then Thunderwaved the guy off the cliff! And with minor falling damage, the guy was dead.
The Bronze Warders were pretty cool. Their Fist Sweep power, burst 2, made them a well-designed elite monster, able to fight three or four characters at once.
Hermiad was up on the ledge, facing the last lizardfolk warlock. He had backed the guy up against the edge... and on the other side, a bottomless cavern! "Use Bullrush!" Marcus yelled out. Hermiad tried it, and success! The warlock was pushed over the edge! He tried to teleport away, but blew his roll. Insta-kill!
We ended the combat with one surviving Bronze Warder, and everyone gathering around and whacking it. My die rolls took a turn south and I couldn't hit anyone. The vikings were triumphant!
Among the lizardfolk bodies they found a +2 leather armor suit (taken by Hermiad) and a +3 orb (for Bartix). The Warders contained about 1000 gold worth of residuum. Additionally they found two letters and a scroll. The letter read:
I don't care how you do it, but deal with these aliens. Take some of the Iron Warders if you must. If they remain in the Labyrinth, they could disrupt my plans. Once you've dealt with them, deliver their bodies to our gnoll friends, along with the enclosed scoll.
- Paldemar
One scroll was a map of the underdark, leading to this Well of Demons. The other scroll was sealed with a "P" in wax... not a Draconic "P," a Common "P." Mendas jimmied it open with his blade, and read the following:
To Maldrick Scarmaker, Exalted Chieftain of the Blackfangs and
Chosen of Yeenoghu: Paldemar offers you the corpses of these
champions as a gift of ongoing friendship, that our arrangement
might continue to be mutually beneficial. May you savor their
blood.
Your friend and ally, Paldemar
Intriguing. The vikings had some ideas about following the map immediately, but decided to return to the Seven-Pillared Hall with their new information. They went to the Customhouse and spoke to Orontor, still on duty for the Mages of Saruun. He perked at the mention of Paldemar. "That asshole!" he exclaimed, "no one has seen him for weeks, and now he tries to have our guests assassinated!" Orontor asked the vikings to follow the map, poke these gnolls, and try to recover the silver keys that might allow them to teleport to Paldemar. This was actually a matter for the Hall and the Mages, he explained, but the Ordinator Arcanis was still in Rivershard, and the town's forces were all busy guarding their citizens as they returned to their homes. The Mages of Saruun wanted to police their own, but they were left without the resources to do so. This was probably why Paldemar felt safe to act.
Orontor also mentioned that the Blackfang gnolls were a threat to both of their communities. Rivershard was protected by the mountains, but the coast and the underdark beneath was a constant source of threats from the east. The Blackfangs were probably behind a few of the dragonborn disappearances during the madness, and could doubtlessly work through the tunnels and reach the viking clan on the shore.
The group thought about it, and agreed to help, on the condition that the Hall provide thier people with shelter for 10 winters. Orontor agreed. I have to say, this was awesome on the part of the players; this is the campaign structure working, that the characters are taking responsibility for something larger than adventurer's treasure. So thanks to everyone for rolling with this stuff.
The vikings set out again, taking the Road of Shadows into the Labyrinth. They had a map, but the twists and turns required a skill challenge to get through. Two Dungeoneers would get them through a test, and others could assist, but an unsuccessful assist would bring the primary skill roll down by 2. This was an idea on the WOTC site this week, and it really worked.
Mid way through their trip, Mendas was scouting ahead and smelled smoke. The passageways were filling up with it! The tunnels opened up into a wide area where someone had stacked lumber, probably stalks from giant mushrooms! But the lumber had been set on fire by a flock of fire bats! The group sprang into action to defeat the firebats and, uh, conserve their oxygen, I guess. You see a bat, you kill it. We ran this combat as part of the skill challenge, Tiny Adventures style, and it worked pretty good. I allowed the players to pick any power for one roll and make an attack roll: I then compared it to a DC a bit higher than the Skill Challenge norm. This was a random encounter out of the adventure book, and keeping it abstract was a great way to handle it.
A bit later, Mendas, still the scout, was surprised to come around a turn in a tunnel to see the ghostly form of a minotaur! It disappeared immediately, but as Mendas contemplated the event, his mind clouded. He snuck back to the party and made a sudden stab at, we'll say, Rurik. Strange! The vikings restrained their rogue, but quickly puzzled out the possession and kept moving. Hmm, looking back on the adventure text, I didn't run that right at all. Oh well, my players didn't seem to mind.
One more Dungeoneering roll, and the vikings found themselves at the entrance to the Well of Demons!
You see a large, square chamber. Five columns, three set near the
room’s corners and two in the middle of the chamber, rise up 15
feet to the ceiling. Each column has the face of a leering, fanged
minotaur carved onto it. You notice a well in the southeastern
corner of the room, and two passages lead away, one to the east,
the other to the south.
Mendas, Rurik, Hermiad, and Erik cautiously made their way into the chamber. Suddenly, the faces on the pillars came to life, speaking in unison!
Greetings, seekers of Baphomet’s boundless glory.
Those who prove unworthy of his attention
Shall be claimed forever as his slaves.
Those who prove worthy
Shall be granted power beyond mortal reckoning.
Mask, bell, blade, and tome
And then the ghouls ran at them! Two ghouls leapt from behind the pillars, surprising the vikings and taking a swing. No one was hit, but ghouls! We rolled for initiative.
The creatures went first... but not the ghouls. Three cavern chokers crawled along the ceiling and dropped behind the adventurers! All three hit with their Reach 2 grab, pulling Rurik, Hermiad, and Mendas towards them and away from the melee. Now they were all grabbed, one step from being strangled, and Erik was alone facing the two ghouls!
The ghouls went again, and Erik survived. The cleric then pulled out one of his implement powers, doing crazy radiant damage to both of them. As an action point, Erik them Turned Undead, hurting them and pushing them back. This killed one and put another near death. Awesome!
Oddny moved up and took out the other ghoul with her radiant attack. Mendas and Rurik broke free of their cavern chokers and struck back. But Hermiad was still stuck.
Varin and Bartix spread some fire around, and then, out of the well, came a flurry of tentacles. A phalagar extended its tentacles up through the pavement and worked towards the players... just close enough to hit most of them with its Reach 4 attack. Now more of them were grabbed!
Oh, and a note for Wizards... there's no such thing as a phalagar miniature. I made one, but why did I have to? I run a WYSIWYG game, and believe me, WOTC is benefiting. I mean, I love how in an RPG you can create something new, like a monster, with just a picture and a half-page of text. But what I love about D&D is the bells and whistles, the extra stuff. It's the plastic, man, the plastic!
This set the stage for the battle. The vikings sped through this combat, taking out the cavern chokers and then ganging up on the phalagar. If anyone did anything really cool that I missed, let me know. But this combat was over really fast, given that it was XP-balanced at the party level. I think everyone's getting plenty efficient at the killing.
We ended here. There's a passage to the right, a passage in front of them. Where shall we crawl?
Casualties:
Three Lizardfolk Heretics
2 Bronze Warders
5 Firebats
2 Ghouls
3 Cavern Chokers (level 7)
1 Phalagar
20 beers, therabouts. I already cleaned up.
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