The Halls of Arden Vul (ACKSen Vul?)

[AsenRG]

I am not sure I fully follow how this "survival roll" mechanic works (or at least differs from standard encounter rolls), but it could be worth a look.

Standard Mechanic is you roll for X, if you get it, there's an encounter. That's, I presume, a random encounter in your game, right? That is, you roll on the table for what they encounter.

With Inverted Encounters, you roll for what the party encounters in the first place. Let's say they're encountering gnolls (no reason why, I just chose them). And if you get the same X result, no difference. Presumably they encounter gnolls and could negotiate safe passage, or might need to fight?

The difference is, if they make their roll, that's an encounter the other party suffers. So in this case, the party sees a gnoll war party that they can avoid (possibly other rolls there, too). Or they can choose to ambush a small group of them and take a prisoner to interrogate. Or they can wait for them, scout them and sell their location to their enemies. Or they can wait for them to settle for the time period when gnolls sleep (were they nocturnal, I think not, but I'm not sure) and try to save some prisoners. Or, you know, they can appear suddenly and still negotiate, but now with a small initial bonus for not trying to pass unnoticed, or for actually approaching unnoticed and announcing their presence.
And if they fail, they'd still need to fight.

...At least, that's how I'm using it. @BedrockBrendan could explain better, it's his game we're talking about!

Retreat is generally pretty viable in ACKS--enemies' choice to pursue is based on a morale check, and the mechanics for chase give decent likelihood of escape. In the worst case, the sacrifice of a henchman or two can enable a withdrawal. In the case of the baboons, the party had chosen to not really guard their flanks, in favor of reinforcement at the front and rear, so escape without heavy casualties would have been more difficult.

Yes, I remember that part was nice, though it's a while since I last read it.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I am not sure I fully follow how this "survival roll" mechanic works (or at least differs from standard encounter rolls), but it could be worth a look. Retreat is generally pretty viable in ACKS--enemies' choice to pursue is based on a morale check, and the mechanics for chase give decent likelihood of escape. In the worst case, the sacrifice of a henchman or two can enable a withdrawal. In the case of the baboons, the party had chosen to not really guard their flanks, in favor of reinforcement at the front and rear, so escape without heavy casualties would have been more difficult.

In Ogre Gate Survival is a skill based on terrain and you use it when you do things like travel 30 miles overland (it can also be requested for other reasons by the GM). If you fail the skill roll, you have an encounter (using an encounter table). But the premise is that the encounter is there regardless, you are just navigating around it on a successful roll, so I wrote up something about the Inverted Encounter Roll for players who want to find specific types of monsters or encounters. I elaborate more later in some books but this is the basic idea: https://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/inverted-encounter-rolls.html

 

[yukiomo]

@BedrockBrendan Interesting! I will have to take a closer look at the system.

 

[yukiomo]

Session XXVII

The cast:

• Justin Nicholas ("Just Nick", "Nick"), fighter 2
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Rodrik Jr., chicken
  • Rodrik, level 0 man
• Baldanders, dwarven fury 1
• Klaren, elven Ranger 2
  • Arbane, elven spellsword 1
  • Tanithel, elven nightblade 1
• Teddy, paladin 2

Defeating or bypassing the undead of unknown quantity in the catacombs seemed dangerous and ill-advised. Thus, the party instead moved to make diplomatic contact with the goblins Gog had mentioned. At minimum, they might gain information, and, ideally, they would obtain allies with which to fight the hated hobbits.

The group descended to Gog's subterranean lake and began to map out its boundaries. To the east, it narrowed into a fast-flowing stream. A side-passage on the north bank contained some number of humanoid bodies. The party positioned themselves to be ready to guard against whatever threat the bodies might pose by placing their archers (Yara, Klaren, Arbane, and Tanithel) on the far side of the stream, using their remainder to form a line of melee defense. Baldanders then crept toward the bodies.

His presence, and then the rocks he tossed into the passage, did not cause the bodies to animate. He gestured for Teddy or Just Nick to join him; however, as he did so, the other half of the party, on the stream's far side, found themselves assailed by three horrid carrion crawlers. The group had been caught offguard, and Yara, Klaren, Arbane, and Tanithel were quickly paralyzed by the crawlers' stinging tentacles.

The party's melee strength debated whether to retreat, jump across the stream to engage the crawlers, or loose projectiles from afar. Baldanders chose to throw military oil at the abominations; he missed, splashed Yara, and, despairing cried out loudly to Gog in hope that the giant would come save his "meat-friends". "Maybe, if Gog saves us, he'll only eat a few of us, and he'll leave at least one person with a tongue", Nick grimly quipped.

Two of the carrion crawlers dragged paralyzed Tanithel and Arbane into the darkness, but Nick's persistent (albeit not especially accurate) arrows drove the third away. Fortuna was comparatively generous, and the remaining paralyzed adventurers regained movement before anything else came upon the party. Klaren advocated for following the carrion crawlers and rescuing his henchmen. Correctly guessing this to be dangerous, Baldanders volunteered to lead the rescue: by surviving the previous battle and letting Arbane and Tanithel be taken into the darkness, the dwarf felt he had shamed his clan and ancestors.

The party was able to follow tracks to a narrow side passage. After tying himself to Just Nick, Baldanders bravely strode through it. One of the crawlers had evidently been lying it wait for trespassers, but Just Nick was able to pull the paralyzed dwarf back safely. Successfully navigating this side passage and rescuing Arbane and Tanithel would be nontrivial. Several ideas were floated, the most fleshed out of which was tying Rodrik Jr. to Klaren's grappling hook and then baiting out crawlers one by one. Taking a mental step back, the party worried that, if this precarious set of plans went even slightly awry, it would lead to all of their deaths. Arbane and Tanithel, loyal followers, were left to their horrific fates.

Switching focus to further exploration of the cavern, the party discovered another ring of stones [e.g., those found in Session 16]. There were no nearby glass squares, but the dust around the ring was light; this area evidently saw somewhat-frequent traffic. Thinking out loud, Klaren wondered if these rings might function as teleportation circles; if the keys could be identified, the circles would enable fast and safe travel throughout Arden Vul.

The party also found a spooky room featuring dead bodies, a pair of vast bronze doors, a looming and masterfully-crafted stone scarab statue, and tiny golden scarabs scattered on the ground. Most ominously, the nearby was the same pebbly oily type, also seen in the Hall of Forty Pillars [Session 8]. "Maybe the goblins will know what this is", Yara noted, and the party collectively sighed in relief and avoided engagement.

Making contact with the goblins, the party quickly won the friendship of the local chief, one Killik, with a large gift of rations. "All these guys care about is food, they're great!" Nick (he of the cursed insatiable appetite) commented. Teddy confirmed that these goblins were at war with Plumthorn's hobbits; the opposing faction could be reached from a nearby tunnel both sides had fortified. Klaren spoke words of inspiration to Killik, envisioning a "great green tide" that would rise and consume the hobbits. Killik was swayed by this verbal painting, but he still requested the party meet with his king, Weskenim, to seal a more formal alliance.

On that note, Killik said he would gladly guide the party to Weskenim's court… for a small price. The group sighed and dug through their pockets for gold. The goblin king's court was reachable through another tunnel, this one leading down another hundred feet or so. With Killik remaining at his station, the party encountered yet another goblin would-be potentate, this one calling himself Reskim, who was guarded by a bobcat and wielded an impressive platinum sceptre. Reskim beckoned Yara toward him, where he showed her, below, what he called "The Great Hall of the Goblin Market", a vast carved-out chamber filled with fires, shouts, flesh, and smells. Nearby was the lair of a creature Reskim called only "Mr. Heads"; the whimsical nature of this name only endeared the goblins further to the party.

Reskim said his king would gladly meet with the party… for a small price. The group sighed and dug through their pockets for gold. Reskim then mentioned that he'd gladly guide the group to Weskenim… for a small price. At this point, the party wondered how many cheerful and friendly goblins would gladly guide them to Weskenim… for a small price. Klaren suggested a better strategy would be to withdraw, defeat Plumthorn's hobbits, and then return to Weskenim to negotiate from a position of power.

Climbing back up to Killik's lair, Teddy extracted from the goblin a promise of military support should the party conduct a general engagement against the hobbits. Most importantly, if and when the hobbits were defeated, (1) the party would be able to freely move through hobbit and goblin territory, (2) Dalton's Darlings would be charged double every time they were seen.

Mortal wounds:

• None!

Deaths:

• Arbane, devoured by carrion crawlers
• Tanithel, devoured by carrion crawlers

 

[yukiomo]

Session XXVIII

The cast:

• Justin Nicholas ("Just Nick", "Nick"), fighter 2
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Rodrik Jr., chicken
  • Rodrik, level 0 man
• Baldanders, dwarven fury 1
• Klaren, elven Ranger 2
• Teddy, paladin 2

The party was guided by some of Killik's goblins up through their territory to the Halls of Thoth. A narrow but lengthy tunnel of no man's land was the division between hobbit and goblin territory. Through the darkness on the goblins' side, Klaren's keen eyes spotted a few hobbit sentries watching intently. Baldanders, with his dwarven senses, made the observation that this connecting tunnel had been carved far more recently than either Killik's territory or the Halls of Thoth: the goblins had been slowly expanding and excavating to assert their domain over Arden Vul.

The accompanying goblin cohort were jumping up and down in glee at the prospect of watching and engaging in ultraviolence against the hated hobbits, but the party now were cautious. With Arbane's tragic demise, they were bereft of arcane support. Assaulting two dozen hobbits in their home base without sleep would yield high casualties (even if concentrated mostly in the goblins). Clearing his throat, Nick reminded the his friends: "You know, those gold scarabs we saw [in the previous session] were probably valuable, I bet they could pay for a bunch of new henchmen. Would make a hobbit assault more feasible." Agreeing, Yara addressed the accompanying goblins: "This was actually just a scouting mission. We're definitely going to return and kill all the hobbits, but just not right now." [I think there were between-session discussions motivating this decision.]

The party retreated to the scarab room and, by tying Nick's pole to Baldanders' shovel (wrapped in a cloak to minimize noise), improvised a scarab scooper. Nick was able to scoop one small golden scarab into a sack; it didn't move, but, to be safe, Baldanders started smashing it with his warhammer. Teddy joined in and the they smashed another scooped scarabs. The damage incurred had certainly rendered the scarabs less valuable, but not unduly. Furthermore, lingering hints of movement in the scarab fragments mid-smashing suggested they were animated with sorcerous energy.

Nick then scooped one of the bodies lying in front of the larger stone scarab, a desiccated human wearing faded red robes. "We know the priests of Set wear red robes, is this one of them?" Klaren wondered. Within the body's pockets was a six-inch ball of dried dung. "More poop! I bet it's connected to the baboons!" Nick excitedly exclaimed. Klaren used his ranger skills to investigate the dung and concluded it had been mashed together from different animals' refuse: it was a ball of "multi-species foeces". Noticing that this ball was heavier than it should have been, were it composed solely of dried dung, Nick carefully picked it apart with the shovel.

It transpired that the dung ball covered another golden scarab, this one larger than those previously smashed. Unfortunately, just as Nick pried off enough dung to reveal the scarab, it animated and attacked! This was a horrific and traumatizing enemy that had the ability to burrow itself into those it attacked. Nick, Baldanders, and Rodrik were penetrated in this manner: the party was able to pull the scarab out of Nick and Baldanders (dealing more damage in the process), but Rodrik was knocked unconscious and scarred. However, the party's superior numbers, combined the scarab's lack of tactics, took their toll, and finally Teddy smashed it apart.

The party left the desiccated (probable) Settite near Gog's lair ("Maybe he'll see it as the flesh equivalent of a fibrous dried fruit snack" was the justification), and they withdrew to the "Luck in the Head". Although, in the current early winter season, today's adventuring had lasted long enough for the sun to set, the party successfully avoided additional encounters.

Inside the inn, their old henchman Hethor had stuck around, and he was engaged in a theological debate with a wizened crone. Upon seeing Nick [his ex-employer], Hethor beat an awkward and hasty retreat to his room. Teddy spoke with the woman—she was a divine spellcaster of some sort in the service of Minerva—but everyone found her constant proclamations of possessing a "heterodox" perspective on the world deeply annoying, and no one tried to hire her (or even learn her name). Nick managed to track Estelle down and ask if she knew anything about "multi-species foeces", but she ignored him. Given his recent near-death experience, Rodrik also reconsidered his employers, but he chose to continue working with the party. Yara's explanation for this loyalty was that Rodrik didn't want "his son" [i.e., Rodrik Jr., the chicken, whom Yara had purchased independently of hiring Rodrik] to be without a father in Arden Vul.

The next morning, Nick cornered Hethor, and each greeted the other with a simple "hey". Hethor seemed potentially interested in rejoining the party's service, but Yara and Klaren successfully persuaded Nick that Hethor's known spells were "pretty useless" (their words), and the strange star-obsessed mage was rejected. [Nick has also not yet paid off his medical debt from having his hand restored, so, had he re-hired Hethor, the rest of the party would have collectively footed the bill.]

Descending again to the Halls of Thoth, the group's scouting, in a narrow corridor, was unable to prevent Teddy (in the lead) from walking into something gelatinous and promptly becoming paralyzed. Baldanders was similarly paralyzed while trying to rescue Teddy, but both were rescued, and the remainder of the party's aggressively waved torches kept the cube from pursuing as they waited for it to move on.

The plan for this delve was to follow up on rumors from a dwarven party of fish-men in the Halls of Thoth. Conversation with this dwarven party [in Session 25] had suggested the existence of a secret door near one of the Halls' statues of Thoth [specifically the one that, when improperly manipulated, opened tunnels leading down to Gog]. Nick bravely offered to fiddle with the statue's arms. He discovered that a (different but still improper) arm manipulation opened a spiked pit in front of the statue.

Past the statue was a short dead-end passage with a Thoth fresco. Klaren suspected there to be a secret door in this passage. After exhausting every other possibility, Baldanders tried to pick Thoth's nose and found a small switch that opened the door. This led to a larger room, shrouded in darkness, with a floor covered in ruins and smashed pillars. In its centre was a vast statue of Thoth, sitting in a brackish pool of water; the party noticed that the statue's eyes had been forcibly pried out. The room's walls were smeared in (mostly human) excrement and covered in vulgar and unimaginative graffiti ("The Ibis has been Shorn", "Where is your power now, Bird-Brain?", etc.), as well as amateur drawings of crocodiles eating ibises, all of which the party suspected had been left by followers of Set.

The brackish pool of water was judged to be dangerous, and so the party attempted to skirt past it to a door; however, unpleasant slimy tentacles shot out from it and attacked Teddy. The paladin was nearly poisoned, but his fortitude prevailed, and everyone was able to beat a hasty retreat. "This must be the entrance to the Settite territory, so how do they safely and consistently get past this monster?" Klaren wondered. Avoiding the reach of the tentacles, the party explored a few other passages. One had another secret door (this one activated by poking a mosaic woman's eye), but this led only to a small side-room covered with a strange silver paint that made the walls ripple in light. This room had another door on its opposite end, but it was locked and made of stone; Yara said a quiet prayer in memory of Tobios, who could have unlocked it had he survived.

The party had not uncovered an obviously-safe way of bypassing the slime monster, and so they withdrew from the Settite territory. Nick cleared his throat and proposed a plan: "If we can find a bunch of shit, I bet we can quiesce a bunch more of those golden scarabs by rolling them up in it, and then, undamaged, they'll be worth so much more to merchants. We're gonna be rich!"

Mortal wounds:

• Rodrik, notable scarring

Deaths:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session XXIX

The cast:

• Justin Nicholas ("Just Nick", "Nick"), fighter 2
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Rodrik Jr., chicken
  • Rodrik, level 0 man
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Baldanders, dwarven fury 1
• Klaren, elven Ranger 2
• Teddy, paladin 2

The party invested some time searching through the Thothian burial halls [partially explored in Session 26], where Nick happened upon a silver ankh in one of the burial niches. This discovery was treated with great excitement but was tempered when they recognized that the ankh was noticeably smaller than those believed to activate the obelisks of Arden Vul [e.g., Session 15].) During the continued search, Yara's keen senses detected a group of armored humanoids approaching their location; the party was able to hide and watch as a group of red-clad humans activated the secret door and entered the desecrated Temple of Thoth. Klaren quietly argued for making contact with the Settites—"We could enlist another faction in our war against the hobbits!" he said—but the others advocated against this.

With night approaching, they returned to "The Luck in the Head". Upon query, Kronos noted that the ankh was one of Thoth's holy symbols (the party knew this but appreciated having it confirmed) and suggested that some ancient Thothian rituals in Arden Vul might key off of an ankh being presented. He also pointed out two newcomers to his inn, a brother and sister sitting in the corner, who were looking for adventurers. Baldanders promptly ignored Kronos' suggestion and went out to the stables, where he began stuffing donkey foeces into one of his sacks. "We're gonna capture so many scarabs with this shit" he muttered to himself repeatedly, while a stablehand looked on in disgust and slight concern.

Teddy and Klaren introduced themselves to the inn's newcomers. They were named Agia and Agilos: the sister was a learned scholar of some sort, while the brother was a taciturn and tan man, of dubious intelligence, missing a number of teeth. It transpired that Agia was seeking employment for her brother, a thief of some ability; in exchange, they were prepared to share the secret of how to safely evade the undead that infested the Thothian catacombs [which the party had retreated from in Session 26].

After deciding Agia and Agilos were of (reasonably) trustworthy character, Yara brought the thief into her employ. Agia then divulged that the floating white ostrich feather outside the catacombs [seen in Session 21] was a sacred symbol of Maat, a long-forgotten guardian of the dead. If held, such a feather would protect the bearer from the catacomb's undead; furthermore, the enchanted pedestal upon which the feather rested could supply feathers for every member of a party.

Agia's research had also uncovered a name for the salamander-like creatures the party had seen depicted in carvings and mosaics [e.g., the cavemen's idol in Session 24]. These entities were called the heqeti, and they were very nasty. Agia seemed, honestly, far more useful a henchman than her boorish brother, and Yara tried to entice her as well, but she professed a desire to return to her books in Noviomagus. (Nick and Baldanders, however, immediately developed a deep bro bond with Agilos: "He's just what the party culture needed", Nick said that evening, after he had regaled Agilos with tales of their past exploits.)

The next morning, the group recommenced their searching of the Thothian burial halls. Klaren came upon a few ancient silver coins, but the party decided that most of the sconces had been robbed long ago. Thus, the party chose to venture again into the desecrated Temple of Thoth. They first had Agilos try to unlock the stone door in the silver room; he failed to do so. [This was with the punitive "A thief who fails to pick a lock cannot retry until they gain a level of experience" rules of ACKS 1e, which I think we're going to change going forward.]

Baldanders then tried something daring. First he donned the faded red robes, probably those of a Settite, that had been recovered from the desiccated corpse the golden scarabs had killed [in the previous session]. Then he walked nervously toward the brackish pool containing the slimy tentacle monster. To everyone's surprise, it did not attack him! Even more excitingly, it appeared that the Settite garb protected both the wearer and those nearby from the slime beast. Thus, Agilos was tasked with climbing up the temple's far wall, where a ledge had been seen previously. However, halfway up, two voices called down from this ledge and sternly bade the party withdraw from this area. Klaren, still hoping for another member of the anti-hobbit alliance, tried to negotiate, but he was unsuccessful. The group retreated rather than risk conflict when the voices bade their "brothers" to prepare to repel intruders.

The hour was again growing late, so they prepared to return to the inn. En route back, they successfully surprised a group of six hobbits on patrol. Wasting no time, Baldanders rushed forward to block the hobbits' retreat, and the remainder of the party leapt to violence. Although a lucky hobbit sword thrust scarred Rodrik, Teddy laid into the hobbits with his enchanted baculus, and soon four of them lay dead. The two survivors threw down their weapons and begged for their lives. "Yeah I don't think that's going to happen", Yara admitted frankly.

The hobbits might have useful information to be gained from interrogation, but staying too late in Arden Vul could prove dangerous. Finally, Nick hit on the idea of bringing the hobbits to the goblins [befriended in Session 27] and staying there overnight. He was taken aback when his brethren treated his suggestion as a serious possibility. "A dungeon sleepover with the goblins!" he cheerfully proclaimed. The two survivors were bound and gagged, ears were cut as trophies from the slain hobbits, and one body was taken to give to Gog.

Killik, the local goblin chief, was delighted to be presented with the hobbit prisoners. "You all are true servants of the goblin king", he said; the party diplomatically remained silent in response. He immediately ordered the hobbits to be taken to the goblin city (before the adventurers had even had a chance to conduct their own questioning) and was happy to let the party rest among his warriors. This was not a comfy bedroom: the goblins were packt like sardines into too small a room, they had no bedding and used each other as cushions, and they were constantly getting up and going back to bed, but it was sufficient for one night.

In the morning, the group decided to make use of Agilos' information, and they planned to enter the catacombs of Thoth. "Bunking with the goblins is so efficient!" Yara noted. "We can skip the morning commute and get right into the dungeon before everybody else shows up!" Maat's feather worked just as Agia had said, and everyone soon clutched a ward. Unnervingly, undead were still awoken by the presence of intruders in the catacombs, but the feathers hid their bearers from the corpses' awareness. Safe for now, the party was able to map out the bulk of the catacombs, where they found what looked like the exit side of a one-way door.

The group had previously noticed that the floors of these catacombs were uncannily clear of debris, and so they wondered if another gelatinous cube might dwell here. These worries proved warranted when Teddy (in the lead) poked something clear and squishy with his pole. This cube was far larger than the other the party had encountered [during the previous session], and it seemed to contain within it coins and gems. The party was tempted by this wealth to fight, but they bravely ran away.

The final area of the catacombs of interest was something Agia and Agilos had discovered during their initial foray: on the far end of the catacombs, there was a hole in the ceiling leading to a cave. Agilos clambered up and pointed out to the party where, the day before, he had had his sister carve "Agilos was here" into the rock (he was illiterate).

Following this cave passage, the party saw in the dark distance what looked like a torch being quickly quenched. They promptly followed suit, and, scouting forward, Agilos thought he heard the tread of iron-clad feet and a smelled lingering lizard scent. "Have we somehow found the lair of Craastonistorex?" Klaren wondered [referring to the dragon encountered by the party's first iteration all the way back in Session 2]. Baldanders was fairly confident the group was still hundreds of feet below the ruins of the city of Arden Vul, so this was somewhat implausible but not impossible.

Not wanting to invite hopefully unneeded violence, the party fell back to "The Luck in the Head". Hethor was still hanging around hoping for a new job offer. "He looks so sad, maybe we can rehire him and somehow find a use for his lame spells", Baldanders said, "or maybe we could even take him to a master wizard to teach him something useful, like a spell capable of burning that cube." Yara refused to bring on another henchman, and Nick was still broke, but Klaren floated the possibility to Hethor. However, the neurotic star-obsessed mage refused to treat with the elf, and so he remained sans employer. Baldanders gleefully reminded everyone about the sack of donkey foeces he'd been carrying around and advocated for a return to the scarabs.

Mortal wounds:

• Rodrik, minor scarring

Deaths:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 30

The cast:

• Justin Nicholas ("Just Nick", "Nick"), fighter 2
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Rodrik Jr., chicken
  • Rodrik, level 0 man
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Baldanders, dwarven fury 1
• Klaren, elven Ranger 2
• Teddy, paladin 2

Start time: Evening, 11 December, AEP, the 8th year of Basileus Constans XXV

[Even though Arden Vul presents its own sets of cultural calendars, we use the Gregorian calendar, primarily to reduce the proper nouns everyone needs to internalize. For reference, the campaign began on 1 July 2993 AEP. Due to heavy party turnover, the first sixteen sessions took place within July, but additional months have passed as survivability has increased.]

Before they rested for the night, Klaren sought out Agilos' sister Agia to try and to acquire additional lore about the ancient Archonteans. She didn't have any deeply compelling answers, but she suggested the party seek out a sage named Astableon, who dwelt in Vetucaster, if they wanted to conduct meaningful research into Arden Vul's history. Klaren's persistent tendency to refer to Agilos as "Aglios", even when talking with Agia, perhaps did little to endear him to her and or incentivize her to answer more loquaciously.

The next morning, the party returned to the caverns about the catacombs. En route, they noticed that their Maat feathers, which had dimmed the preceding day as they left Arden Vul, now regained their lustre (and undead-repelling abilities). Before entering the catacombs, they left a row of dirt in its entrance, so as to see if the giant gelatinous cube happened to wander into the Halls of Thoth proper.

In the caverns, Yara and Agilos slowly crept forward under cover of darkness. On the far side of a large cavern, they spied a group of guardsmen in clad red scale armor watching over the cavern. On the cavern's floor, some twenty feet below, hunted a giant lizard, iguana-like in body but the size of a grizzly bear. Klaren identified this as the (aptly named) giant cave lizard: agile and trainable, but bereft of supernatural powers. The natural inference was that these Settites used it to help guard their domain.

The party deeply considered loosing a volley of arrows at the Settites and then attacking, but they stopped when they realized they weren't sure what they'd hope to gain out of such an encounter. Set was an evil god, with worshipers known to engage in kidnapping and torture, so Teddy advocated just violence. But they suspected the lizard, if supported by the guards' archery, would prove deadly unless attacked with a plan. They settled on scrawling "Eat shit and get lost! This is Phlebotomas' territory now!" on a piece of paper and then affixing it to an arrow for Klaren to shoot at the Settites. After Klaren successfully pierced a guard's armor with his shot, the party quickly withdrew out of the catacombs.

With the portcullis to the catacombs left open, the gelatinous cube had indeed wandered out. More pressingly, (1) when the party discovered it, it was blocking access to the other parts of the Halls of Thoth, and (2) it was hostile. Baldanders thought quickly and dumped the remainder of the donkey foeces he carried on the ground, and then Yara set it alight with her torch. This impromptu barrier was sufficient to dissuade the cube from immediate pursuit.

Rather than simply wait for the cube to wander elsewhere, the group now made the courageous/foolhardy decision to use the staircase near the catacombs and reascend to the Howling Caves [last visited in Session 21]. No one wanted to fight baboons with the cube potentially blocking a general retreat, so the strategic decision was made to investigate those hallways that were opposite in direction from where the apish calls had been heard on their prior visit.

After pulling another lever to open another portcullis, the party found themselves in a room that deadened all magic; in its center had been placed an ivory coffer. Appallingly, the coffer was inscribed with deeply unpleasant carvings of tongues lasciviously licking humanoids of all appearances. "This is a very evil coffer", Teddy the paladin noted, but everyone had honestly already inferred that. No one felt like touching the coffer, even with a pole.

Looking around further, one nearby room contained a cadre of ghouls wearing the faded orange robes of Thothite priests (the door was quickly slammed and spiked) and another led to a closet holding two long-dead bodies and some varied treasure. Several other doors were locked, and Agilos broke his picks trying to unlock one. "I swear I'm normally better at this!" he said. Yara reassured her hireling with "It's okay, this is a very high-stress environment, and we're all pretty scared right now". (Rodrik, who had never received such emotional reassurance despite his consistently solid performance in combat, quietly sulked in the background.)

A final door led into a dormitory containing an array of wooden cells in which Thothite monks of old must have prayed and slept. Despite the room's deeply rank smell of baboons, none were currently present. Even more excitingly, the carved walls and doors were observed to be of teak, and they had endured the ages without significant degradation in quality and value. If skillfully disassembled and sold, the party guessed they'd be collectively worth thousands of gold pieces, perhaps even ten thousand. "Okay we've actually definitely made it this time" Nick commented. "We just need to drag a carpenter up here and oversee a lengthy deconstruction project without getting attacked by baboons, and then we'll be set for the rest of our lives."

At this point, the anticipated baboon howls became louder and began to draw near. The party concluded they'd been discovered and successfully retreated back into the Halls of Thoth. A lack of disturbance in the (now burned-out) foecal barrier suggested the gelatinous cube had ventured elsewhere. Following the gelatinous cube's tracks suggested it had entered into the territory of Plumthorn's hobbits into a (currently) closed door, leading the party to hope the cube had consumed each and every hobbit.

With the catacombs free of threats, the party dedicated the remaining hours of daylight to searching its burial niches. This, unfortunately, yielded little treasure of note. The bulk of the burial niches had not yet been opened, so it was possible that more targeted investigation, or a time-consuming exhaustive search, would prove more fruitful.

Back at "The Luck in the Head", the lady of the inn, Estelle, suggested a scroll the party had found in the Howling Caves contained a divine invocation, but she either could not or would not reveal its contents. Nick also asked Agia if she knew anything about tongue-covered coffers, with minimal response. Klaren gave yet another attempt (sans negotiation) at rehiring Hethor and was unsuccessful.

As they prepared to rest for the night, Nick brought up that he'd soon be out of rations. (With his divinely-cursed bottomless hunger, he ate the equivalent of five men each day. Although he'd maximally stocked up in Vetucaster during their previous visit, these provisions were now running thin.) The party also knew that the upcoming winter solstice (22 December this year) would be best experienced in a settlement due to its civic and religious significance in the Archontean Empire.

Thus, the group chose to head back to Vetucaster the following morning. While descending the plateau, Agilos noted the hands of the statue of Arden carved into the plateau's side could plausibly be reached by a careful climb. However, they lacked sufficient length of rope to make this journey safer, and so it was put off until a later visit. After a safe journey to Vetucaster, Rodrik advocated waiting here to recuperate until the solstice, but the others saw potential in journeying further to Noviomagus in order to take advantage of its larger market. [Rodrik had just hit level 1, but no PC is currently close to leveling up.]

End time: Evening 13 December 2993 AEP

Mortal wounds:

• None!

Deaths:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 31

The cast:

• Justin Nicholas ("Just Nick", "Nick"), fighter 2
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Rodrik Jr., chicken
  • Rodrik, level 0 man
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Baldanders, dwarven fury 1
• Klaren, elven ranger 2
• Teddy, paladin 2

Start time: Evening 13 December 2993 AEP

With night falling, Yara sent Rodrik off to train, while the rest of the party made for Vetucaster's cheaper inn. They considered splurging and renting more than one room ("The holiday's coming up, we could experiment with having personal space and try to clean ourselves up" Baldanders brought up), but this idea was summarily rejected with collective laughter.

The next morning, they made their way to the town's market square and sought out Cyneburga, their venturer acquaintance [last seen in Session 24, after which it was decided she should stay in Vetucaster and act as a henchman-on-retainer to help sell things]. According to Cyneburga, no merchants of the town were planning on sending caravans to Noviomagus prior to the Winter Solstice. Some caravans on this route had recently gone missing, and so the collective decision was to wait for the roads to be proclaimed safe again.

The party investigated further by seeking out Wicktrimmer, the savvy imperial goblin [who had hired the party on as caravan guards in Session 23 for their trip to Noviomagus]. Wicktrimmer confirmed that caravans had gone missing; intelligence from one of his scouts suggested that at least two ogres had set up a blockade near where the road briefly went through the New Forest. Wicktrimmer said he'd be happy to pay a reward if the party removed the ogres; otherwise, Vetucaster would have to wait until Lord Burdock, the theme's strategos, sent forces to clear the road, and this might not happen for a month or more. However, due to the party's lack of reputation, Wicktrimmer was unwilling to invest in ensuring their success by lending guards or horses.

Klaren also mentioned to Wicktrimmer the party's discovery of the goblin kingdom within Arden Vul [c.f. Session 27], which intrigued the goblin merchant. He requested the party bring some representative of the goblin kingdom to him to negotiate potential trade opportunities. If such a deal were forged, it would surely be lucrative for all those involved. He lacked concrete advice on how to gain an audience with the goblin king, though, saying that any goblin who claimed royalty was likely to be erratic in unpredictable ways.

The group's next visit was with a sage named Astableon that Agia had mentioned as living in Vetucaster. Astableon noted that he would gladly buy any ancient books and texts found in Arden Vul, which piqued the party's interest. Klaren also hired Astableon to investigate the golden ring they'd found in the Howling Caves [the previous session], in hopes he could ascertain what sorcerous powers it had. Klaren was fairly loath both to leave the ring with someone else, as well as pay for identification, but investigation the night prior had suggested that the ring was sufficiently esoteric that their casual experimentation was unlikely to prove successful anytime soon.

Thinking that Vetucaster's government might be an alternative source of aid against the ogres, Klaren, Yara, and Teddy visited the Azure Keep, local headquarters of the Knights of the Azure Shield and seat of Lady Alexia, Vetucaster's aristocratic ruler. While waiting for an audience with Alexia's steward, they overheard a messenger from Alexia's half-brother, the Lord Burdock, reiterating that Alexia's claim to rule Vetucaster was not recognized by his master. [The party had heard rumors of this conflict from their fellow caravan guards in Session 23.] This encounter perhaps left Alexia's steward in a foul mood, as, when Teddy stepped up to request men and horses, his request was tersely denied. [A double 1 on the initial reaction roll.] Klaren swiftly switched tactics and they caught up with the Lord Burdock's messenger. Not only did this messenger prove to be arrogant and unpleasant, he similarly refused aid.

Meanwhile, Nick, Baldanders, and Agilos had heard from Cyneburga that a new mage had recently come to Vetucaster. Desperately hoping to find a viable alternative to rehiring Hethor, they tracked down this arrival at the local Arcane Practitioners' Club and won entrance by gifting the doorman with one of their feathers of Maat. The new mage was a man of poor health but keen intellect named Pasicrates. He made a good impression on the trio, and so they vowed to consult with the remainder of their group and then return with an offer.

The following morning, they did just that, and Nick successfully hired Pasicrates (borrowing the money from his companions, as usual). Pasicrates then asked when the party would be heading to Arden Vul: during his interviews, he had expressed a keen interest in the dungeon, and its secrets and knowledge. "Yeah about that…" was Nick's sheepish response. Rather than return to the dungeon or hang around Vetucaster until the solstice, the group had decided to "at least scout out the ogres, maybe kill them, you never know". Klaren's proposed plan was to use his skills to make snares and deadfalls to entrap the ogres. After this trap had been sprung, they could finish off any remaining ogres with volleys of arrows from afar.

Baldanders had expressed skepticism about this plan. "We are pretty good at running away, but I don't think I could take an ogre in melee if it catches up to us." Pasicrates jumped in with additional caution: "From what I've heard, there can sometimes be ten or more ogres in a wandering band. That sounds pretty nasty." Furthermore, their melee strength would be reduced, as Rodrik had not yet finished his training, and there wasn't time to look for additional henchmen in Vetucaster and still make it to Noviomagus before the solstice festival. Klaren, Yara, and Nick all agreed that killing some ogres and then being able to spend the solstice in Noviomagus would be pretty appealing ("I'll be able to stock up on so many rations in Noviomagus, maybe even with great deals for buying in bulk!" was Nick's justification), and their argument ultimately carried.

After traveling south for the remainder of the day without encountering anything, the party spotted the ogre's barricade a few hours in the following morning. Cautious scouting by Klaren suggested that the ogres had barricaded the road in at least two places, and the thick forest between the barricades obscured the ogre's numbers and any additional preparation. More troublesome was casually reported by Klaren to the party as "so there are at least three ogres, and one of them looks like a chieftain or something." Yara responded with "That's more than two ogres. I don't know if we can kill three ogres." Nick assented with a simple "Yeah. Hmmm."

End time: Late morning, 16 December 2993 AEP

Mortal wounds:

• None!

Deaths:

• None!

 

[Longfingers]

I ponied up for Arden Vul in the current Bundle of Holding thanks to this epic tale.

 

[S'mon]

I ponied up for Arden Vul in the current Bundle of Holding thanks to this epic tale.

Cool - I got it in the previous 2022 run.

 

[yukiomo]

I ponied up for Arden Vul in the current Bundle of Holding thanks to this epic tale.

Impressed that you find that this campaign's recurring themes ("bravely running away", "dying to ghouls and baboons", "encountering and avoiding beetles", "foeces") somehow make up an epic tale!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 32

The cast:

• Justin Nicholas ("Just Nick", "Nick"), fighter 2
  • Pasicrates, mage 1
  • Tender, chicken
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Rodrik Jr., chicken
  • Rodrik, berserker 1
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Baldanders, dwarven fury 1
  • Jürgen, Uve, Steffi; level 0 men
  • Petunia, Tulip; mules
• Klaren, elven ranger 2
• Pinton, cleric 1
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 2
  • Two level 0 men (thus far unnamed)

Start time: Late morning, 16 December 2993 AEP

Baldanders said "So do we have any good ideas for killing at least three ogres?". Yara's response was "I don't think we have any good ideas." Klaren gamely suggested "Maybe we could try talking to them?" but further discussion failed to coalesce around (1) what leverage the party would have in such a conversation, and (2) what they hoped to gain out of it. The question then was whether to continue onward to Noviomagus, or to return to Vetucaster. Yara spoke up "Y'know, we did some great reconnaissance work here. Plus, if we go to the big city, we'll have to pay import taxes on our treasure. [This follows the presentation of Cyfaraun in Capital of the Borderlands] Maybe we just head back."

Rather than march through the night, the party rested en route in the tiny hamlet of Thorham. There was little of note in this settlement; the only particulars were an unsuccessful attempt to find a carpenter to help deconstruct the teak doors in the Howling Caves [Session 30], and learning from the hamlet's headman that, a week or so prior, a group of pilgrims had ventured into the forest in search of a lost sacred shrine.

Back in Vetucaster, the party began preparation for the upcoming winter solstice. A quick check-in with Astableon revealed that the sage had, unsurprisingly, not yet identified Klaren's ring, but he did provide a potentially useful piece of information: the slimy, pebbly architectural style of Arden Vul (thus far found primarily near Gog's lake and the Obsidian Gates [Session 11]) was thought to have been constructed by or associated with the heqeti, the ancient salamander demons Agia had mentioned [in Session 29].

Nick and Baldanders gave their attempt at requesting military aid from Lady Alexia to fight the ogres; they were unsuccessful, but their plea for help was sufficient for one of Alexia's Knight Commanders, a tough woman named Lucia, to swear that she and her conroi would slay these ogres and free the roads. Lucia demonstrated little interest in the party and calmly refused their offer to accompany her conroi on its quest. "Everyone with authority and power is so rude to us" Nick complained as they left.

The festival of the winter solstice began on 21 December. The party took advantage of the greater number of visitors in Vetucaster to sell some treasure. Nick excitedly paid off the final remainder of his medical debt to the rest of the party. Klaren hired Pinton, a meek cleric of Mithras, and Gallador, a militaristic elven spellsword, while Baldanders and Teddy each procured a squad of infantry. Rodrik also finished his training and, somewhat surprisingly, had become a berserker. During negotiations with Gallador, Klaren presented the others as being his retainers, which Gallador immediately accepted as true. "Great, another elf" Baldanders bemoaned, but then he confided to Nick and Agilos that he actually liked having elves in the party: the drama their arrogance caused was always fun to watch.

As the holiday started, the whole of the New Archontean Empire joined in mourning the death of the weak Old Sun (usually depicted as Mithras' father) and the birth of the New Sun (usually Mithras). Teddy spent the time in reverent prayer to his patron, while Baldanders and Yara hit the town and partied. [We used carousing rules to spend GP to get extra XP.] Baldanders ended up with a lame tattoo on his bicep; it was meant to powerfully depict his prized warhammer but just looked kind of silly; while Yara got in a bar fight after one too many drinks and lost a few teeth.

The party considered waiting around in Vetucaster for another week to maybe hire another henchman and sell some additional treasure, but then they compared their current wealth with their burgeoning henchmen-driven payroll and decided it was time to get back to the dungeon. Camping for the night at the foot of Arden Vul's plateau, Pasicrates took the initiative to boldly ask his employers "So what are we trying to accomplish next?" This prompted pause and discussion.

With their expanded numbers, it might finally be possible to smash Plumthorn's hobbits. Due to her training in military strategy, Gallador was asked to weigh in on the feasibility of such a general action. She brought up that the party had little idea of how puissant a combatant Plumthorn was, or what powers his mage henchman had. "Hmmm" they responded. Another option was to return to the Howling Caves to dig through baboon foeces in search of treasure. "The last time we fought baboons [the horrible ambush in Session 25], it didn't go that well" Klaren noted. "Hmmm" everyone said. Finally there were the glowing letters, O R C U S A I D S P A I R S, hidden in the basement where the giant wolverine had laired. "Maybe we have to use the letters to spell out a phrase?" Pasicrates, a nerd, wondered. "Hmmm" everyone said.

Teddy then brought up the "Chamber of Painful Knowledge", which he, with a previous iteration of the party, had discovered back in Session 10. "The onyx pillar in it zapped you but also answered your questions, so maybe Thoth's knowledge could help us with these puzzles." Everyone agreed to this plan. It was abandoned almost immediately.

While ascending the plateau the following morning, Yara reminded everyone that they now had enough rope to let Agilos safely climb down to the statue of Arden climbed into the cliff wall. They gave this a shot; Agilos couldn't find any traps or hidden doors; however, when he was joined by Yara and Baldanders, the trio discovered that there was a narrow gap between the hand and the rest of the cliff. "It almost looks like this hand could move up and down", the dwarf said. Nothing on the hand suggested how it might be moved, so the party resumed their ascent but went a little bit more slowly to watch for levers or grooves.

Here Gallador's elf-senses found a hitherto-undetected secret door carved into the cliff wall. It was roughly a third of the way from the plateau's top, which the party guessed to be near the elevation of the Halls of Thoth. Klaren gamely pushed on the door and found that it opened, revealing rough-hewn tunnel walls leading further inward. Exploring this passage instantly jumped to the top of the group's priorities list.

The tunnel led to a network of passages. A hundred or so feet into it, an uncanny discovery was made: a pair of large doors that glowed with a purple light. Sigils of Thoth were carved into the doors, and above them was inscribed the phrase "Speak One of the Seven to Enter the Domain of Ptarmis". Luckily, Pinton's training in theology proved helpful here: the cleric wondered if this referred to the "seven secret names of Thoth", which had been lost during the fall of the Old Archontean Empire.

Not knowing any secret name of Thoth ("Maybe we can ask Thoth what his secret names are when we get to that chamber" Baldanders suggested, mostly joking), the party pressed on and came across a band of goblins hiding in a side-passage. The goblins talked quickly and introduced a cavalcade of new ideas and locations to the party.

They had come from fighting in some place called "The Arena", far below this current level. After leaving to pursue some mission (here the goblin leader was purposefully vague), they found themselves in a nearby great fungal forest. They'd heard of this forest: it was said to be ruled by a mad wizard who commanded mushroom men and flew around setting things on fire. However, in the forest, the goblins were set upon by a totally different danger: a band of beastmen scouts. They had fled into the passages and, after accidentally trespassing into the lair of some giant cave lizards, they'd only barely escaped.

"Well this is a lot to take in" Yara said. "You guys want some snacks?" Nick asked the goblins, receiving in response joyful assent. Returning these goblins to their kingdom would certainly be a great way to earn the favor of the goblin king. However, this would mean either circumventing or surviving (at the very least) giant cave lizards and a mad fungal mage, or it would require taking the goblins on a lengthy expedition out of the dungeon, across the ruined city, back into the dungeon, and then past the hobbits and beastmen in the Halls of Thoth. Could it be done? Perhaps. Would it be worth doing? Perhaps.

End time: Early afternoon, 25 December 2993 AEP

Mortal wounds:

• None!

Deaths:

• None!

 

[Grainger]

I have stopped following this thread with very mixed feelings: regret at missing out on the fun, and joyful anticipation because one of my group has bought Arden Vul and wants to run it (so I want to avoid potential spoilers). I wish your campaign long life with plenty of thrills and spills!

 

[yukiomo]

I have stopped following this thread with very mixed feelings: regret at missing out on the fun, and joyful anticipation because one of my group has bought Arden Vul and wants to run it (so I want to avoid potential spoilers). I wish your campaign long life with plenty of thrills and spills!

It'd be great to see your campaign written up here as it happens; Arden Vul has what feels like a surprisingly minimal internet presence.

 

[yukiomo]

Session 33

The cast:

• Justin Nicholas ("Just Nick", "Nick"), fighter 2
  • Pasicrates, mage 1
  • Tender, chicken
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Rodrik Jr., chicken
  • Rodrik, berserker 1
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Baldanders, dwarven fury 1
  • Jürgen, Uwe, Steffi; level 0 men
  • Petunia, Tulip; mules
• Klaren, elven ranger 2
  • Pinton, cleric 1
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 2
  • Two level 0 men (thus far unnamed)

Start time: early afternoon, 25 December 2993 AEP

The party continued their questioning of Bellringer and gained some additional information. The Arena, where the goblins had come from, was far below the Halls of Thoth or the goblin kingdom. Fights were held regularly and could be joined or bet on, but the competition was often fierce and deadly. The Master of the Arena – a mysterious and decrepit figure the goblins thought might be an undead – had magical powers he used to manipulate the terrain and weather of the arena for each fight. For the goblins' bout, he had made things dark and rainy, and this had let them stealthily eliminate the opposing team, some beastmen.

In addition to the cave lizards and mad fungus mage, the goblins mentioned they had also passed through the territory of "some mean guys in fancy red armor", who had taken from the goblins most of the wealth they'd won in their bout. Strangely, one of the rooms the Settites had escorted the goblins through was a cozy lounge, complete with nice chairs and a fireplace.

Switching to more general questions, Klaren learned that the goblins had, perhaps an hour before the party showed up, heard what sounded like an explosion from the tunnels near the secret entrance. Bellringer also mentioned that a human woman, wearing black plate armor of impeccable craftsmanship and calling herself a "Sun-Scarred Knight", had recently arrived and founded an embassy in the court of the goblin king. Bellringer had never spoken with this Knight and knew little else of her.

The goblins were the closest thing to allies the party had found in Arden Vul, and so it was resolved that Bellringer and his fellows should be escorted back to the goblin king, albeit the long way around. Thus, the party withdrew from these caves (ignoring for now the explosion the goblins had heard), finished their ascent to the top of the plateau, stopped by "The Luck in the Head" to drop off Tulip and Petunia, and made for the "chimney house". En route, Bellringer kept boasting about the goblins' famed fecundity, a word that the goblin king evidently loved to use when praising his people.

In the almost two weeks the party had been away from Arden Vul, a nest of giant centipedes had taken up residence in the "chimney house" near the old stirges' nest [destroyed in Session 20]. The centipedes blocked the stairs leading to the Halls of Thoth, and Klaren guessed they would attack if the group tried to pass them by peacefully. Thus, a three-part assault was launched: Pasicrates summoned berserkers into the middle of the nest while the party archers loosed arrows at the vermin while being guarded by their armored brethren. This strategy worked well; of the party, only Teddy was bitten before the centipedes were exterminated. Tragically, he succumbed to its venom and started unceasingly vomiting profusely; Yara's healing ministrations proved insufficient to cure him, even with the help of birthwort.

No one knew how long it would take Teddy to recover, and this prompted a discussion as to next steps. They could all withdraw to wait for Teddy to feel better, send him back by himself, or press on and hope he'd get over it quickly. The paladin was worried he'd be a liability if he stayed with the party but didn't want them to all have to leave, and so he volunteered to go back to the inn, guarded by his henchmen. Everyone was kind of nervous about this, but they hoped he'd be safe. (Meanwhile, Pasicrates had had his vomiting berserkers go into the monkey statue room [originally discovered in Session 13] before the summoning ended. To everyone's dismay, most vocally Baldanders, the room had been looted and the statues smashed.)

Sans Teddy, the party descended into the Halls of Thoth and made for the stairs leading down to Gog and the goblins. They encountered and avoided yet more giant beetles, but then, while skirting the hobbits' territory, Nick turned a corner and was struck by three sling bullets from a patrol of hobbits. "It's them!" one hobbit shouted "go get the others!" A battle was about to begin, vaster and more consequential than anyone realized.

In the first engagement, Nick moved toward the hobbits who had shot him, supported by Baldanders, Rodrik, Jürgen, and Steffi. Nick had been badly hurt by the slings though, and he was quickly cut down, his legs smashed. Seeing this, Steffi lost her courage and withdrew from the thick of the fighting, while Uwe utterly panicked and ran screaming into the darkness of the dungeon. The rest of the party refused to back down and began killing hobbits, although Rodrik too fell after receiving gruesome scarring. From beyond this immediate fight, a hobbit voice called for the party to throw down their weapons, but no one bothered responding. "This is it, we're gonna kill them all" Yara said.

Hobbit reinforcements then attacked the party's rear from a different hallway, where Pinton stood on watch with Bellringer and Pasicrates. The mage safely scampered away, but Pinton led a charge toward these new hobbits, accompanied by the goblins. Here the party had a stroke of luck: Pasicrates was able to drag Rodrik to safety to treat him, and he realized the berserker's wounds were surprisingly minor. Rodrik was able to stand up and limp toward the nearby healing pool [Chansey had purified it back in Session 21]. Throughout all of this, Yara, Klaren, and Agilos held to the centre and took what shots presented themselves in either half of the battlefield.

Pinton and the goblins found themselves hard-pressed by the hobbits; the cleric was brain-addled after getting smashed in the face, and the goblin got stabbed cruelly in the mouth and had his tongue and lips destroyed. However, they had held out long enough for Gallador to come to them and summon her berserkers. The savage warriors turned the tide and then charged out of sight toward more hobbits. One hobbit had thrown down his weapons and pleaded for mercy, but the battle-crazed berserkers ignored this and slew him without hesitation.

The party wondered if they might have carried the day, or at least earned some respite, but then four new berserkers appeared and came running wildly toward Gallador and Pasicrates. [These had been summoned by Plumthorn's mage henchman, a Thorcin with the odd name "Blandveg" whom the party had heard about during prior interrogations.] Meanwhile, Phlebotomas Plumthorn himself took to the field and attacked Baldanders and Jürgen. Gallador and Pasicrates withdrew to let heavy-armored Steffi hold the line against the berserkers (with Pasicrates somehow surviving an errant berserker spear thrust), while Baldanders and Jürgen, joined by a rejuvenated Rodrik, engaged Plumthorn.

Plumthorn was a skilled combatant who outmatched and defeated Baldanders and Jürgen, but the party's attacks were incessant. Pierced by many arrows and with mail rent by blows, he began to withdraw while shouting for more reinforcements. Yara quickly chased after him, violence in her heart. With one last arrow, the barbarian ended the life of the hobbit bandit leader. The violence had finally stopped, but Plumthorn had one last blow to inflict. Rodrik, Baldanders, and Jürgen, all of whom had been cut with Plumthorn's poisoned ax, now felt the effects of the infamous "Mortality". Life left them.

Counting Plumthorn, the party had killed twelve hobbits, which they estimated as more than half of the faction's strength. But with Teddy gone, Nick crippled, Rodrik, Baldanders, Jürgen all dead, and Uwe missing, the group's melee capability had been decimated. Pasicrates and Gallador were also without additional spellcasting. Would the hobbit survivors organize under Blandveg or Roskelly and launch an immediate counterattack? If they made it out of Arden Vul, should Nick retire from adventuring and sit around all day eating? Klaren then brought up the most pressing point yet: "How are we going to ensure people believe us when we tell them we killed Plumthorn?"

End time: Late afternoon, 25 December 2993 AEP

Mortal wounds:

• Nick, lamed legs
• Pinton, brain trauma
• Bellringer, severed lips and tongue

Deaths:

• Baldanders, Mortality
• Rodrik, Mortality
• Jürgen, Mortality

Status unknown:

• Uwe, lost in the dungeon and presumed dead
• Teddy and his men, returning to the inn

 

[Longfingers]

Jesus wept, what a fucking carnage

 

[Bourbonjack]

33 sessions of play and has any PC made it to 3rd level?

 

[yukiomo]

Jesus wept, what a fucking carnage

There is actually a chance the casualties might not be as severe as they seem now. After the end of Session 33, we remembered that neutralise poison (which Yara has access to via the Healing proficiency) can restore to life those killed by poison. So she may be able to save Baldanders, Rodrik, and/or Jürgen (although successfully performing neutralise poison with only two ranks of Healing requires rolling 18+ on an unmodified d20).

33 sessions of play and has sny PC made it to 3rd level?

No PC has made it past second level! I think we are all still enjoying things and not feeling stymied by a lack of progress though.

This iteration of the party has a number of character classes (dwarven fury, elven ranger, barbarian) with fairly steep XP requirements, which slows things down. It has also been somewhat hampered by the fact that the PCs that TPK'd to ghouls in Session 18 had already retrieved a small but nontrivial chunk of the dungeon's easily-accessible treasure in the upper levels, especially that in level 1 (the basement / "the chimney house"). Even with dungeon restocking, this has made getting enough treasure to level up more difficult than it could be.

That being said, I would expect some of the party to hit level 3 fairly soon, as Nick and Teddy are (I think) reasonably close. The ring Astableon the sage is currently identifying is worth a significant amount of XP and GP, for example, and there have also more than a few times where the players have, without fully realising it, gotten very close to a large amount of treasure but then have chosen to go a different way or withdraw. Furthermore, Plumthorn's death will make a number of new areas in the Halls of Thoth more easily reachable.

 

[Bourbonjack]

There is actually a chance the casualties might not be as severe as they seem now. After the end of Session 33, we remembered that neutralise poison (which Yara has access to via the Healing proficiency) can restore to life those killed by poison. So she may be able to save Baldanders, Rodrik, and/or Jürgen (although successfully performing neutralise poison with only two ranks of Healing requires rolling 18+ on an unmodified d20).


No PC has made it past second level! I think we are all still enjoying things and not feeling stymied by a lack of progress though.

This iteration of the party has a number of character classes (dwarven fury, elven ranger, barbarian) with fairly steep XP requirements, which slows things down. It has also been somewhat hampered by the fact that the PCs that TPK'd to ghouls in Session 18 had already retrieved a small but nontrivial chunk of the dungeon's easily-accessible treasure in the upper levels, especially that in level 1 (the basement / "the chimney house"). Even with dungeon restocking, this has made getting enough treasure to level up more difficult than it could be.

That being said, I would expect some of the party to hit level 3 fairly soon, as Nick and Teddy are (I think) reasonably close. The ring Astableon the sage is currently identifying is worth a significant amount of XP and GP, for example, and there have also more than a few times where the players have, without fully realising it, gotten very close to a large amount of treasure but then have chosen to go a different way or withdraw. Furthermore, Plumthorn's death will make a number of new areas in the Halls of Thoth more easily reachable.

As long as everyone is enjoying themselves, game on! Almost all of the groups I've ever GM'ed would have been in open revolt well before session 33.

Is it just a convergence of bad luck, or is this mega dungeon written as a meat grinder?

 

[yukiomo]

Is it just a convergence of bad luck, or is this mega dungeon written as a meat grinder?

A bit of both! I wouldn't call Arden Vul a "meat grinder" per se, but it's definitely a dungeon in which exploration-driven low-level parties can easily find their way into areas where even typical random encounter results are very dangerous. Sometimes these area-transitions are one-way, and so you can't easily retreat and instead need to search for an exit. The faction-heavy nature of the dungeon accentuates this danger: you're mostly not fighting seven random orcs or an isolated wight, you're dealing with a patrol of seven beastmen who use proper military tactics and will, if possible, fall back to their hundred-strong army in order to properly deal with intruders.

That being said, this campaign's player-facing luck has often been remarkably bad.

• When we were using eldritch magic in the first seventeen sessions, the spellcasters barely ever succeeded on their ceremony proficiency throws (including strings of natural 1s and 2s), and so their magic contributed little.
• In the TPK in session 8, the fighters' heavy armor ended up basically not mattering because the ghouls rolled so well.
• We've also had more than a few chance encounters turn needlessly hostile due to getting two 1s on the 2d6 reaction roll.

Comparing to other Arden Vul campaigns I've seen chronicled:

• In Vul Yourself Together (https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/vul-yourself-together-a-halls-of-arden-vul-dcc-campaign-log.8352/) (DCC), the party sort of bounced around the dungeon, mostly avoiding casualties, until Session 15, when they got enough treasure to hit level 2.
  • They were able to capitalize on successes and then achieve level 3 in session 21.
• 3d6 Down the Line (https://www.3d6downtheline.com/the-halls-of-arden-vul) has been running an Arden Vul game for a while now in OSE. I haven't watched most of their episodes, but the PCs seem to have generally leveled up pretty quickly.
  • However, they supplement GP=XP advancement with "Feats of Exploration" XP rewards; I'm not sure how much this has driven advancement.
  • Early on, the 3D6DTL group did survive an unexpected journey to the Howling Caves (which caused a TPK here in Session 7) by carefully thought out surrender and social manipulation.
• The OSE game here (https://www.lookwhattheshoggothdraggedin.com/post/arden-vul-6-months-in.html) has had some PCs hit level 4 after 24 sessions.
  • They seem to have leveled up fairly quickly, enabled by their early discovery and looting of a somewhat hidden but very valuable tomb in the lower levels.
  • The Judge in that game chose to remove the Pyramid of Thoth trap, which caused a TPK in our game in Session 3. This seems pretty defensible to me, as it's very deadly and borderline-unfair.

 

[Bourbonjack]

I ponied up for Arden Vul in the current Bundle of Holding thanks to this epic tale.

I also just ponied up for Arden Vul via BoH.

 

[Bourbonjack]

A bit of both! I wouldn't call Arden Vul a "meat grinder" per se, but it's definitely a dungeon in which exploration-driven low-level parties can easily find their way into areas where even typical random encounter results are very dangerous. Sometimes these area-transitions are one-way, and so you can't easily retreat and instead need to search for an exit. The faction-heavy nature of the dungeon accentuates this danger: you're mostly not fighting seven random orcs or an isolated wight, you're dealing with a patrol of seven beastmen who use proper military tactics and will, if possible, fall back to their hundred-strong army in order to properly deal with intruders.

That being said, this campaign's player-facing luck has often been remarkably bad.

• When we were using eldritch magic in the first seventeen sessions, the spellcasters barely ever succeeded on their ceremony proficiency throws (including strings of natural 1s and 2s), and so their magic contributed little.
• In the TPK in session 8, the fighters' heavy armor ended up basically not mattering because the ghouls rolled so well.
• We've also had more than a few chance encounters turn needlessly hostile due to getting two 1s on the 2d6 reaction roll.

Comparing to other Arden Vul campaigns I've seen chronicled:

• In Vul Yourself Together (https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/vul-yourself-together-a-halls-of-arden-vul-dcc-campaign-log.8352/) (DCC), the party sort of bounced around the dungeon, mostly avoiding casualties, until Session 15, when they got enough treasure to hit level 2.
  • They were able to capitalize on successes and then achieve level 3 in session 21.
• 3d6 Down the Line (https://www.3d6downtheline.com/the-halls-of-arden-vul) has been running an Arden Vul game for a while now in OSE. I haven't watched most of their episodes, but the PCs seem to have generally leveled up pretty quickly.
  • However, they supplement GP=XP advancement with "Feats of Exploration" XP rewards; I'm not sure how much this has driven advancement.
  • Early on, the 3D6DTL group did survive an unexpected journey to the Howling Caves (which caused a TPK here in Session 7) by carefully thought out surrender and social manipulation.
• The OSE game here (https://www.lookwhattheshoggothdraggedin.com/post/arden-vul-6-months-in.html) has had some PCs hit level 4 after 24 sessions.
  • They seem to have leveled up fairly quickly, enabled by their early discovery and looting of a somewhat hidden but very valuable tomb in the lower levels.
  • The Judge in that game chose to remove the Pyramid of Thoth trap, which caused a TPK in our game in Session 3. This seems pretty defensible to me, as it's very deadly and borderline-unfair.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Lots of nuances between various campaigns in Arden Vul.

 

[Bourbonjack]

@yukiomo can you comment on how well the as written Arden Vul integrates with the ACKS ruleset?

 

[yukiomo]

@yukiomo can you comment on how well the as written Arden Vul integrates with the ACKS ruleset?

Short answer: base ACKS integrates very easily with Arden Vul, but eldritch magic ACKS (which we used in the first seventeen sessions) requires a reasonable but not insurmountable amount of conversion. Since we've switched to base ACKS, I use ACKS instantiations of OSRIC spells and monsters when possible and am generally able to do any additional necessary conversion on-the-fly.


Long answer: Arden Vul is written for fairly rules-orthodox OSRIC, and base ACKS hews close to B/X. ACKS characters are numerically stronger and more adaptable than those in B/X / OSE / LotFP (ACKS has cleaving, fighter damage bonuses, proficiencies, spontaneous Vancian spellcasting, not dead at 0 HP). This is helpful as OSRIC characters are also stronger numerically than B/X characters (OSRC has higher hit die, higher ability bonuses, faster to-hit progression).

In our experience thus far, the ACKS rules for equipment and henchmen availability have added depth and player choice to the non-dungeon portion of the gameplay. E.g., you can buy and sell more things in Noviomagus than in Vetucaster, but it's also noticeably further away the dungeon and thus consumes time and rations to travel to. This does slow down game progress, because traveling to town and gaining XP can often take the better part of a session.

ACKS also has more fleshed-out domain-level gameplay than many retroclones, but we haven't yet interacted with this side of the game. If/when the campaign reaches levels where players want PCs to found or conquer strongholds, it will probably require some conversation about how to enable that while still retaining the megadungeon focus. I could also be using those domain-level systems to simulate portions of the gameworld but have, thus far, not been doing so.

 

[yukiomo]

Session 34

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 1
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• -
  • Steffi, level 0 man
  • Petunia, Tulip; mules
• Klaren, elven ranger 2
  • Pinton, cleric 1
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1

Start time: Late afternoon, 25 December 2993 AEP

Yara stared at the corpses of Baldanders, Rodrik, and Jürgen, all killed by Phlebotomas Plumthorn's Mortality poison. She drew upon her talent in healing and tried to neutralize the poison still in their veins. If successful, this would restore them. However, the stress of the lengthy battle and the fickle whim of Fortuna impaired her normally steady hand, and she failed to heal any of the three. Nick also announced that, with crippled legs and no wealth to pay for restoration, his days of adventuring were indefinitely suspended. [Nick's player promoted Pasicrates to PC status. Baldanders' player didn't have a replacement PC ready and controlled Pinton this session. Teddy's player was not present, and the players still don't know if Teddy made it back to the inn safely.]

Klaren suggested that the party retrieve some of the corpses of the hobbits they'd slain, to gift to Gog. However, when Klaren, Yara, and Steffi ventured out of the room where the group had momentarily paused to catch their collective breath, they were greeted by the voice of Roskelly Winterleaf, Plumthorn's chief lieutenant. Tensions were high. As Plumthorn had little on him and so many had died, the group's thirst for blood and treasure was not satiated. Violence was always only seconds away in the ensuing conversation.

Roskelly's conversational tactic was to placate and appear reasonable. He didn't want to fight anymore (with Plumthorn dead, he appeared to have become the hobbit's new leader), but neither would he consent to be pushed around or robbed. The party, understandably, was doubtful that any such agreement would be honored as soon as the situation changed. Thus, Yara adopted a different tactic and acted(?) unstable: "We have nothing left to lose at this point, we're just going to kill all of you or die trying." This was pretty intimidating, and Roskelly agreed to answer some of the party's questions.

Klaren had noted how strange it was that the hobbits had attacked the party on sight. Roskelly responded, somewhat gleefully, that they had asked "the ibis" who had been killing their patrols and trying to incite war with the beastmen. [That is, they'd consulted the same "Chamber of Painful Knowledge" the party had before made use of in Session 11.] The party seethed. Roskelly also claimed the hobbits had little desire to fight the goblins, and it was the latter faction's ceaseless desire for territory that drove the conflict. (Maimed Bellringer, upon hearing this, nodded enthusiastically.)

Roskelly then revealed something actually useful. "The Forum of Set" was most easily reached from the surface world; at the bottom of the plateau and on the river's far side, the Settites had a jury-rigged elevator that could be called down by presenting the right torch signals. Klaren muttered "I knew it" [he had spotted the elevator's upper landing high up on the plateau wall back in Session 24]. Roskelly didn't know how to contact the Settites ("Plumthorn always handled that"), but he was fairly certain they had a presence extending into the towns and cities of the surface world.

The choice now confronted by the party was whether to return to "The Luck in the Head" and drop off Nick and Pinton while (hopefully) retrieving Teddy, or to instead do as they'd originally planned and return Bellringer to the goblin kingdom. Thinking that they could be rewarded by the goblin king and/or get some goblin allies to wipe out the remaining hobbits, the latter option was chosen. (As they headed out, they took Plumthorn's and Baldanders' bodies but neglected to extend the same courtesy to Rodrik or Jürgen. No one even considered chasing after lost Uwe.)

The party made peaceful contact with the band of goblins who lived near Gog's lake [befriended in Session 27 via a gift of food]. The goblins were ecstatic to see the corpse of their hated enemy, Plumthorn and dubbed the party "The true true servants of the goblin king". The local goblin chief ordered his underlings to deliver the hobbit body to the king, and to let all know who had slain him. How vocal this proclamation was made the party somewhat nervous, but they were internally assuaged when Yara said "We're only going to make it big in the goblin world if we act and think like goblins. We need to be brash and boastful." ("Oh, and you brought Bellringer back too. That's nice of you, I guess", the goblin chief said, after the hobbit hubbub had died down.)

As it was drawing late, the party rested with the goblin warband ("bunking with the boys", the goblins called it). Their humanoid roommates were especially chatty during the evening and they learned a fair amount. This band of goblins mostly charged tolls to those passing through, as just past their territory narrow stone bridge leading to "the troll elevator", which apparently was a location of general note. "They also charge tolls", the goblins noted. Reaching this elevator required bypassing a hall filled with enchanted murderous statues ("we normally just run") and a narrow stone bridge. A separate tunnel from the goblin territory emptied out into what they called "The Great Chasm"; the party inferred that Gog's lake likely also emptied out into this abyss.

The next morning, the party gave Baldanders a heroic funeral [in the ACKS sense] by setting the dwarf's body on fire with some of his treasure and then floating him down Gog's lake into the Great Chasm. Then they returned to the goblin kingdom. Word of their exploits had indeed reached Reskim the self-dubbed goblin bailiff, and the party gained entrance to the goblin kingdom by paying only a minimal fee.

The goblin kingdom was now open to the party. Its central element was a vast hall, carved from the stone by the Old Archontean Empire and now repurposed by the goblins. Circling around the floor's upper level was a network of passages and rooms. Within this hall, the most prominent landmarks, in its centre, were a giant bonfire, a human-sized statue, and a fountain. The smells of smoke and flesh dominated this area: hundreds of goblins dwelt here in crowded conditions, and scores of non-goblin visitors and semi-permanent residents added to the general congestion.

The party's first visit was to the embassy of the "Sun-Scarred Knight" mentioned by Bellringer [in the previous session]. She proved to be a tall human woman, her cheeks covered in ritual scarring, who carried a giant two-handed sword. Everyone agreed she was very cool. With some patience but little enthusiasm, she generously answered some of the group's questions. She was in the goblin kingdom to ensure communication between the goblins and her Master (of whom she said little else). Her order sought to preserve the status quo between the factions of Arden Vul, and her counsel was one of the reasons the goblins had not yet mounted a concerted assault on the hobbit territory. Despite her deep loyalty to her order and her Master, she advocated for skepticism toward hierarchies. Klaren pointed this minor contradiction out and she (mostly) ignored him and ended the conversation soon after.

Nearby was the goblin king's court, and so the party decided to drop by and introduce themselves. This room was unexpectedly crowded; besides the requisite dozens of goblins it contained visiting contingents of beastmen and Settites, as well as two creatures roughly similar in size and shape to Gog (i.e., almost ten feet tall and grey-skinned), but uncannily perfect in their appearance. Seeing evidence of this level of societal and diplomatic organization within Arden Vul, the party was pretty surprised and curious.

No one was paying any attention to the party, so Yara cleared her throat and shouted "We're the ones who killed Plumthorn!" She had to repeat this a few times, but it eventually had the desired effect, and a wizened goblin calling himself the king's major-domo greeted the party. After such a vocal expulsion, the party worried they would be captured and given to the hobbits, or enslaved by the goblins, but the humanoid official treated them warmly, called them "knights of the goblin kingdom", and rewarded them with a thousand gold pieces for their services to the goblin kingdom.

Pasicrates and Klaren engaged minimally during this interaction. Pasicrates was deeply curious about the Gog-likes, and Klaren wanted to question the Settites. The adventurers had previously heard the goblins refer to these entities as "varumani", but they had little concrete knowledge. These varumani were not especially interested in being informational ambassadors for their race, but they noted that they saw themselves as the true heirs of Arden Vul; guided by their thegn, they were working to reclaim all of it. The Settites were similarly uncommunicative, but they confirmed that their Forum could be reached via the fungal forest in the Halls of Thoth.

The goblin king's major-domo had no other current commands, although he mentioned in parting that, according to his scouts, the remaining hobbits had already begun to clear out of their territory. This sparked interest and curiosity, but the group deemed it a higher priority to wander into the bottom level of the goblin great hall. They were briefly stymied by how few of these goblin citizens spoke Archontean, but, coordinating with maimed Bellringer, Yara managed to procure the services of another goblin named Ugurk to act as guide and translator.

Guided by Ugurk, the party checked out a corner of the hall where some goblins had penned up some giant beetles [the same species of fire beetle the party had frequently encountered in and above Arden Vul]. After talking with the beetle-minders, Ugurk said that these beetles had been captured on the goblin king's command, but they had not been given any real guidance as to what they might be used for. "So the goblin king likes beetles", Klaren said, "Hmmmm".

A different corner of the hall contained a number of roped off goats. After extensive conversation with the goblin goat-minders, one with unexpectedly emotional tenor and linguistic complexity, Ugurk simply told the party "These are the goats whose ownership is currently disputed." The adventurers moved on.

Having been paid by Yara, Ugurk proved impressively chatty. She noted that the goblin kingdom contained Arden Vul's famed locales: "The Hall of Pillars" and "The Obsidian Gates". After a mixture of interrogation and investigation, the party concluded that these were goblin versions of the actual dungeon landmarks [i.e., where an early iteration of the party had died in Session 8]. Ugurk was proudly mistaken rather than lying, and no one felt it was needed to correct her knowledge.

The goblin kingdom felt like a wondrous place, far friendlier than any other part of Arden Vul.

End time: Afternoon, 26 December 2993 AEP

Mortal wounds:

• None!

Deaths:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 35

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 1
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Esme, level 1 antiquarian witch
  • Steffi, level 0 man *
  • Petunia, Tulip; mules
• Klaren, elven ranger 2
  • Pinton, cleric 1
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1

* not under contract with any current PC but still accompanying the party to maximize her chances of making it back to the surface alive

Start time: Afternoon, 26 December 2993 AEP

After the party made casual conversation with a goblin claiming to be an artist, Yara gave him a few silver and he, somewhat surprisingly, made a quick oil painting of the group standing together. A passing witch happened to stop for a second and so was included in the painting; this is how Esme joined.

As Ugurk extolled the virtues and many attractions of goblin-town, she mentioned that one of its side passages had badgers in it. This offhand reference utterly enchanted the party and they investigated. Despite their excitement, they quickly realized they had failed to appreciate what Ugurk meant. The goblins had tamed two giant badgers that they had named "Stinky" and "White Nose", and they had an elite corp of badger riders used for security and reconnaissance. Every time the group thought they could like the goblins no more, the humanoids found another way to be remarkable. They seriously considered dropping all of their other current objectives to focus solely on procuring more giant badgers to gift to the goblin king.

A different side passage contained what Ugurk referred to as "King Wesky the First, Protector of Goblin Town" (it was possibly relevant that the goblin king's name was Weskenim). When pressed by Klaren, Ugurk was vague on how exactly Wesky protected anything, but this was still deemed worthy of investigation. "King Wesky" proved to be a human bust of bronze, floating in the air. The group realized, with a start, that they'd heard of such things before in Arden Vul. [A similar bust had been discovered in a side room of the Halls of Thoth's primary debouch, near the hobbit territory, back in Session 11.]

Investigating further, Pasicrates found the Mithric word for "speak" carved on the bottom of the bust. After some consideration, in which much of the party withdrew to a safe distance, he said it to the bust. A voice, speaking in eloquent and educated Mithric, emitted from the bust's mouth. "I am a master of folklore and legends and dweomers, give me your questions". The party discovered the bust could only answer questions with "yes" or "no", but they still leveraged this to learn that (1) the very evil coffer found in the anti-magic room of the Howling Caves [Session 30] would not prove immediately fatal if opened, and (2) the floating O R C U S A I D S P A I R S in the wolverine basement [Session 16 and others] were the scrambled letters of two words.

Esme then suggested a question: "Will you continue to answer as many questions as we ask of you?" The bust said "no" and then became silent and said nothing more.

The party decided the bust was probably just resting and might talk again in a day or week ("I'm sure we couldn't possibly have broken or offended it"), and they all eagerly sat down and tried to decode the word scramble. Nothing obvious was popping out, but then Klaren mused that at least one of the hidden words might be a name. Esme, digging through the group's scattered notes, rediscovered that Kronos the innkeeper had, at one point, suggested that the villa in which was found the wolverine basement had, long ago, belonged to one "Isadora". These letters fit within O R C U S A I D S P A I R S! The remaining letters were of non-obvious utility.

The group might have spent the next day puzzling over possibly words ("This is even more important than finding more giant badgers!" Pasicrates proclaimed), but then they saw approaching them through the crowds a troupe of goblin soldiers. The goblin king requested the presence of his most dutiful servants. Shrugging, the party followed these soldiers back to the royal court. The goblin king's major-domo revealed that, contrary to his bold proclamation that morning [the previous session], the goblins lacked clear confirmation that the shattered remainders of Plumthorn's hobbits had indeed withdrawn from Arden Vul. The party was royally tasked to verify that the former hobbit territory was indeed free of foes and safe for the goblins to move into.

With the bulk of the party's melee strength dead or recovering from wounds, they considered themselves in no condition to engage in serious combat. However, they didn't want to offend the goblin king. The consensus reached was to at least peek into the hobbit territory (leaving Nick, Pinton, and Steffi behind) but, if any resistance was encountered, retreat to the surface to retrieve Teddy and his men-at-arms from "The Luck in the Head".

Moving through the dungeon, the party found that a goblin subchief and his band had occupied the outmost reaches of the hobbit area. A winding tunnel led out of this room but terminated shortly after in a seeming dead end. Agilos was fairly confident the cavern wall was unusually thin at the dead end, but no one could identify anything that might open a hidden door. Yara, Klaren, and Gallador dragged some rubble to block off this passage and keep any hidden hobbit reinforcements from emerging and attacking.

The hobbit territory was smaller than expected and, and it did appear to be completely empty of hobbit life. It quickly connected back to the main entrance to the Halls of Thoth [where, e.g., the hobbits typically waited to impose tribute on entering adventures]. As they'd departed, though, the hobbits had left unpleasant surprises. Yara and Gallador stepped on concealed caltrops, and Yara was bashed in the head with bricks rigged to fall. During exploration, Agilos for the first time succeeded in picking a lock, and general rejoicing was had.

More interestingly, some of the rooms in the hobbit territory had incomplete walls that opened into a dark, deep, and wide abyss. This was clearly an upper portion of "The Great Chasm", which was said to cut through much of Arden Vul's interior levels. The group knew that portions of this chasm intersected the goblin outposts [Session 34]. Much of this chasm defied casual explanation. The party had not seen any vast openings cut into the surface, so it clearly terminated within the Arden Vul, albeit an indefinite height above the Halls of Thoth. In addition, the old Archontean rooms were built around it, suggesting that it predated human settlement of the dungeon thousands of years ago.

On the far side of the chasm, there appeared to be another room. By throwing a torch, Yara revealed that this room contained yet another statue of Thoth; this one had the form of a baboon-headed man. No obviously safe method for surmounting the chasm was immediately apparent, so further exploration of this new area of the Halls of Thoth was put on hold.

One room had what looked like the remains of some sort of alchemical workshop. The party inferred that the hobbits had smashed those components of their poison-manufacturing equipment that they could not leave with. "It's going to be so hard to get credit for stopping the flow of Mortality", Klaren muttered.

Also in this room was a solitary chest. Agilos examined it and confidently proclaimed it was free of traps but locked. He broke his thieves' tools [freshly purchased in Vetucaster after he'd broken a previous set in Session 30] trying to open it. Yara sighed and proceeded to crowbar open the chest. This proved to be a mistake: Agilos had erred in his assessment, and the chest was trapped. Forcing it open triggered a crossbow bolt from within (it flew wide and hit no one) but also some sort of acid that destroyed much of the chest's contents, including some valuable-looking codices and tomes. Rooting around, Yara found a sack of coins that had survived the acid. The group called it a day and returned to goblin-town.

The goblin king's major-domo was suitably impressed by the party's accomplishments and "rewarded" them by letting them keep the treasure they'd found. Pasicrates came right out and offered to go questing for more giant badgers, but it seemed the goblins lacked clear knowledge of where more might be. After purchasing a pickaxe from the merchants of goblin-town (for smashing through thin walls), the party rested and awoke, ready for either further exploration or a return to civilization.

End time: Morning, 27 December 2993 AEP

Mortal wounds:

• None!

Deaths:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 36

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 1
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Esme, level 1 antiquarian witch
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 2
  • Pinton, cleric 1
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 2
  • two level 0 men

Start time: Morning, 27 December 2993 AEP

The party spent the morning moving around the newly-expanded goblin territory. Talking first with Killik, they negotiated to have generally permanent use of a now-empty cave (its original inhabitants had moved up to occupy the hobbits' former territory). The party had slept here before when it was full of goblins and had observed that it featured a frieze on one of its walls depicting heqeti (the ancient salamander creatures Agia had mentioned in Session 29) carrying captives and treasure to a ziggurat. Klaren and Agilos were fairly confident the wall behind the frieze was thin and concealed something, but investigation had not revealed any way of quietly revealing whatever was behind the frieze. In the meantime, Esme hired Steffi (Baldanders' single surviving henchman).

Descending to goblin town proper, the group met with the goblin king's major-domo and proposed he send a representative with them when they next returned to Vetucaster. This representative could negotiate long-term trade agreements with Wicktrimmer [the goblin merchant, Session 31]. The major-domo said this would require internal debate and that the group should return the following morning.

The party then made their way toward the surface. They stopped en route in the former hobbit territory, where the goblins were already making themselves at home. Scared of unearthing a buried demon but very curious, Klaren and Yara pickaxed through the thin cavern wall they'd found. They discovered it led only to a small side room in the Halls of Thoth they'd already plundered.

Back at "The Luck in the Head", the party discovered, to their joy, that Teddy and his henchmen had safely made it back to the inn. [Teddy had been bitten by centipedes in Session 33.] However, the centipede venom still afflicted him and was causing him to ceaselessly discharge vomit. Esme, a master healer, quickly and skillfully neutralized this poison while Yara looked on in admiration. Meanwhile, Nick made formal his retirement from adventuring [after being crippled in Session 33] and started brainstorming ways he could work for Kronos the innkeeper in a culinary capacity.

Esme had been busy thinking of what second word (in addition to "Isadora") might decode the scrambled letters in the basement of the ruined estate [Session 16 and others] and now suggested "Crispus". Talking with Kronos, he agreed that "Crispus" was a reasonably common name in the Old Archontean Empire (i.e., the same era that Isadora lived), but his research had not uncovered any relationship Isadora had had with someone named Crispus.

Esme was sure that her guess was right, and so the party hastened to the basement. The witch confidently spelled out "ISADORA CRISPUS" by touching the floating letters. (The rest of the group cowered at a safe distance and held tight to Esme with a rope.) Nothing happened at first, but then some sort of invisible presence brutally smashed one of Esme's legs. "ISADORA CRISPUS" was, it appeared, incorrect. Even after being dragged back to the party, Yara's ministrations had minimal effect: Esme was quickly bleeding out, and none of them had the ability to heal her in time. "My employers keep dying, is it somehow my fault?" Steffi started repeating to herself somewhat manically.

After discussion, the party chose to chance a frantic dash back to "The Luck in the Head". This was risky but, Fortuna shone on the party and brought them back safely. At the inn, Teddy's ability to lay on hands, in combination with some healing herbs stabilized Esme. Briefly restored to consciousness, she muttered "well then it has to be CRISPUS ISADORA…" The party thought for a moment before Teddy said "Yeah it could be worth a try".

Teddy and the others thus returned to the wolverine basement. The party was unsure if the invisible presence was still there, so Yara first sent Rodrik Jr. (her chicken) running around; the chicken was not attacked. As he was the toughest member of the party, Teddy then volunteered to try spelling out "CRISPUS ISADORA". This proved irrelevant though: the invisible presence evidently had sufficient intelligence to know how to bide its time. Teddy's plate absorbed one horrid blow, but he was slow in reacting, and so a second bashed him into unconsciousness before he could be dragged to safety. Teddy was far tougher than Esme had been, and so Yara quickly revived him. As he regained his sense of self, Teddy saw visions of his past colleagues (including Aaron, Hans, Garnell, and Torvi) haunting him.

The party didn't want to incur more casualties and risk their ability to rendezvous with the goblin major-domo the next day, so they turned in for the evening. Chatting with Kronos over dinner, they learned an intriguing rumor: during the Solstice, some theft of holy artifacts had taken place at the temple of Mithras in Noviomagus.

As the party returned to Arden Vul the next morning, Fortuna continued her current high-variance strategy; they were ambushed by a swarm of giant centipedes. Although the centipedes were quickly driven off after Klaren cleaved through their lines, Agilos, Gallador, Teddy, and one of Teddy's men-at-arms were all bitten and poisoned. Vomiting ensued ("Not again!!!" Teddy said between vomits.) The afflicted were dropped off at "The Luck in the Head", but now only Klaren, Yara, and Pasicrates were in condition to explore and fight.

"If it's only the three of us, we'll be so agile. I bet we can still make it to the goblins safely" Yara ventured, and Klaren and Pasicrates agreed. Yara's confidence proved well-founded. With the hobbits removed, there was now a fairly direct path between the Pyramid of Thoth, the Halls of Thoth, and goblin-town, and they encountered nothing en route.

The goblin king's major-domo divulged that the king was receptive toward negotiating a mercantile agreement with Wicktrimmer. The king had ordered the party to escort one of his most trusted advisors (along with said advisor's band of warriors) back to Vetucaster.

Before leaving goblin-town, the three adventurers stopped by the bronze bust oracle [last session]. It proved again receptive to questions, and the party was told that:

• The door surrounded by the golden scarabs [Session 27] was not itself dangerous
• It was possible to bypass the stone guardians of the donjon on the surface of Arden Vul [Session 11] without violence
• Yrtol [the lost husband of the spirit Nyema, encountered in session 15] could be found above their current location

The bust eventually stopped responding; it had also said "unknown" in response to several targeted queries about Isadora and Thoth. Pasicrates wondered from what source the bust derived its knowledge.

The three adventurers and their new goblin guests then withdrew to "The Luck in the Head". Kronos was willing to host the goblins for the night (although the goblins insisted the party pay for their room).
The jolly innkeeper did choose to loudly proclaim to all in the common room "Oh, so you all are goblin-friends now, interesting!" but nothing immediate happened in consequence.

The next morning, Yara successfully neutralized Teddy's poison (but only Teddy's poison), and the party planned a return to Vetucaster. Esme, Steffi, and Nick were left behind, while Agilos, Pinton, Gallador, and Teddy's one still-poisoned henchman were crowded onto the mules, Petunia and Tulip. By quickly hurrying down Arden Vul's plateau and then marching until sunset, the party reached the outskirts of Vetucaster without incident. The following morning, Yara neutralized Agilos' poison and then ventured into town to inform Wicktrimmer of his guests; the goblin merchant was visibly intrigued and said he'd handle things from here.

Yara, Klaren, Pasicrates, and Teddy next visited the court of Lady Alexia to inform her that, by killing Plumthorn, they'd stopped the flow of Mortality in the area. [In a previous session, the party had come upon a notice signed by Lady Alexia promising a reward of 2,000 gold pieces for accomplishing this.] Plumthorn's corpse had been claimed by the goblins, and so the only proof the party had was some fragments of the hobbits' alchemical setup [collected the previous session]. However, the steward seemed to know the name "Phlebotomas Plumthorn" and promised to consult with her Lady. Klaren also took this opportunity to declare to the Lady's court the name the party had adopted: "The Green Machine"!

After that, the group met with a Thorcin known in Vetucaster to be a skilled engineer. This Æthelflæd provided her insight on a number of matters. She confirmed that the teak doors in the Howling Caves [Session 30] would be most easily disassembled if the party hired both a carpenter to supervise the process and a number of laborers to carry the loot.

Pasicrates then cleared his throat and advanced an unorthodox suggestion. The party had previously [Session 11] discovered, on the surface of Arden Vul, a well that led to the Howling Caves. A reasonable but unconfirmed inference was that this well led down to the thick mound of baboon foeces a previous party had attempted to excavate [Session 6]; this party had also uncovered the guidance "They are deterred by light, we should restore the well".

A(n arguably) natural strategy was thus to construct some combination of ditch and aqueduct to divert part of the waters of the Swift River to the well. (The Swift River bisects the ruins on the surface of Arden Vul before the vast waterfall on the side of Arden Vul's plateau.) This cavalcade of water would certainly clean out the well and likely drown some of the Howling Caves' baboon inhabitants. The infamous Gerrilad himself might even be easily slain.

Æthelflæd found this suggestion intellectually stimulating and indicated her interest in supervising it. She noted that the key challenge would be ensuring the safety of the laborers during the construction process, as the ditch/bridge would span hundreds of feet and would take between weeks and months to finish. [This is pretty easily represented as an ACKS: Campaigns at War construction project, and so its cost and duration can be estimated with minimal effort.]

As the party left Æthelflæd's office, they ran into the sage Astableon. The sage's research had proceeded faster than expected, and he'd identified the ring found in the Howling Caves [Session 31] as being one of spell storing (magic rope, silent step, summon berserkers). It was a mighty artifact in and of itself and was worth a komes' ransom (around 20,000 gold pieces). If the party wanted to sell this ring, they knew that, even looking in Noviomagus with Cyneburga, finding a buyer could take months. Nonetheless, this was joyously received.

End time: Afternoon, 30 December 2993 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• Esme, crushed leg
• Teddy, ghostly visions

Death count:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 37

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 1
• Yara, barbarian 2
  • Agilos, level 1 thief
• Esme, level 1 antiquarian witch
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 2
  • Pinton, cleric 1
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 2
  • two level 0 men

Start time: Afternoon, 30 December 2993 AEP

[At the start of this session, we ruled that, contrary to last session's report, Esme and Steffi had accompanied the rest of the party to Vetucaster.]

The Green Machine quickly agreed it was better to sell or gift the enchanted ring, rather than to keep it. This meant a trip to Noviomagus was called for. [Playing somewhat loose with the rules for XP allocation, the ring gave each PC 4000 XP, enough to level everyone up at least once. However, our OSRIC-lite house rules require somewhat expensive training between levels. The party does not yet have the cash to fully realize everyone's potential level, which was the primary impetus for the remainder of this session's events.]

The following morning, the party returned to Lady Alexia's steward to claim the reward for ending the spread of Mortality. The steward was frank and said the party had not provided sufficient evidence to validate their claims. However, she suggested a compromise: Part of the reward would be donated to the local temple of Mithras, and the prelate would commune with her god to ascertain if the threat of Mortality was indeed ended. The party debated among themselves briefly if this would pan out before deciding it obviously would. Teddy cleared his throat and said proudly "We trust in Mithras to verify our accomplishments".

While at the court, the group also confirmed that the road to Noviomagus had been cleared of its ogre threat thanks to the knight Lucia and her conroi [see Session 32]. Lucia had been wounded in the attempt, and the court's opinion was that some external intelligence must be behind the ogres organizing themselves in such a way.

It would take a few days before Mithras could be consulted, during which the Green Machine hung around town. Cyneburga helped the party find a merchant, one Priasson Kaledor, planning to travel soon to Noviomagus who offered to pay them (a small amount) for escort duties. Their last night in Vetucaster, the Green Machine celebrated their successes and threw a party in the Inn of the Yellow Cloak. Nursing hangovers, they spoke with the steward the following morning. To their delight, Mithras had confirmed that the threat of Mortality had at least been slowed, and the authorities handed over 1,250 gold pieces as a partial reward.

The four day journey south to Noviomagus proceeded without incident. The first day, the party crossed paths with a group of armored horsemen traveling north. They chose to give these riders the road and not engage socially. When they passed by the area the ogres had used for their blockade, Klaren investigated and concluded that this gang had consisted of at least ten ogres. "Man it's a good thing we didn't fight them", Yara said.

Throughout the journey, Priasson spoke with the Machine as little as he could manage. It was also clear that the "caravan" he was taking south was small and not obviously bursting with wealth. This raised some concerns among the party that their employer might be serving some malevolent purpose. After pious Teddy looked into Priasson's soul, the Green Machine concluded Priasson wasn't evil; he was just rude.

One day, strategy-minded Gallador used the quiet evening hours to ask what the Green Machine saw as their next main objective. The party decided that their top priority upon return to Arden Vul was to see if CRISPUS ISADORA solved the word scramble. ("How could that not be the answer?" Esme said.) After that, a low-hanging fruit was exploring the other side of the chasm they'd discovered on the border of the former hobbit territory [Session 35]. If that failed to yield significant discovery, then they would hire a carpenter to deconstruct the teak doors in the Howling Caves [Session 30]. The wealth gained from selling these doors would then be the budget for a large-scale engineering endeavor: the construction of a ditch to flood the Howling Caves [discussed the previous session].

At the gates to Noviomagus, the party remembered that the Empire's inspectors imposed customs duties on goods brought into Noviomagus. They weren't sure an inspector would recognize their ring for its value, but they didn't want to risk it. Smuggling the ring into the city would be easily accomplished, but they worried that the process of finding a buyer for such an expensive item would be noticed by the city's government. In such a case, questions might be asked and a hefty fine might be imposed. The decision was made to declare the ring as valuable but nonmagical and subtly scout out potential buyers once in the city.

The Green Machine spent a few days in Noviomagus, attending to various tasks. Klaren, Yara, and Pasicrates sought out experts in their field to train. (Pasicrates first purchased two pet ferrets.) Esme visited the temple of Mithras to have her smashed leg healed. It healed her but at unfortunate cost: the witch found that she was now stunned by sudden bright lights or loud noises. Yara requested that Agilos try to make contact with elements of the local thieves' guilds, as this would bypass greedy government officials.

Fortuna then threw another wrench into the party's success. One morning, Pinton summoned the group before him. The pious cleric of Mithras proclaimed (somewhat pompously) that the Green Machine had proven themselves to be poor employers and were especially lacking in the spiritual and moral sense. As a cleric of Mithras, his perspective was that it was of paramount importance for the bodies of the fallen be burned under the sun. This was crucial for their souls to be released to the gods and not be trapped by demons or turned into undead abominations.

Pinton's diatribe centered around the party's treatment of Jürgen and Rodrik's bodies (which had been left in the dungeon after they'd fallen fighting Plumthorn's hobbits) and their decision to not even try to discover the fate of Uwe (who had fled into the dungeon after losing his courage) [all Session 33]. However, Pinton also revealed he had done some additional digging. Although he lacked personal testimony, he brought up other henchmen deaths and disappearances: Arbane and Tanithel [Session 27]; Tobios and Misty [Session 25]; Nicky Justine [Session 22]; and Theon and Brock [Session 19]. (He also suggested that the party should have provided for those henchmen who had left the Machine's service after receiving mortal wounds, but everyone rejected this out-of-hand.)

Teddy relived each of these past incidents as they were recounted. "When he lays it all out like this, it does sound like he has a point" he admitted. Yara instead focused on the present and sought to counter each of Pinton's accusations (often quite effectively). Klaren mostly ignored Pinton and looked instead toward the future, saying to his peers "We need to make our new hires start signing oaths of loyalty".

End time: Early afternoon, 7 January 2994 AEP

Death count:

• None!

Mortal wounds count:

• None!

Tampering with mortality count:

• Esme, sensitivity to light and sound

 

[yukiomo]

Session 38

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
• Yara, barbarian 3
  • Agilos, level 2 thief
  • Euron, level 0 man
• Esme, level 3 antiquarian witch
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 3
  • two level 0 men

Start time: Early afternoon, 7 January 2994 AEP

The Green Machine spent the remainder of January 2994 and the beginning of February waiting in Noviomagus for Esme to recover from her restoration. When Pinton the cleric's duties for January ended, he expressed uncertainty if he saw a future in the party [an uncertain morale roll, triggered by receiving a mortal wound in the fight with Plumthorn]. Klaren summarily kicked him out for his "betrayal".

Klaren and Yara schemed up a more formal contract for potential henchmen, and they showed it to their peers. The party looked over the contract and noticed some very specific details Yara and Klaren had included ("The henchman assumes all risks… including loss of soul", "The henchman agrees to maintain confidentiality of sensitive information"). These passages served a clear and useful purpose, but they were far stricter than was typical for low-level adventurers to require of new hires and would likely decrease morale. A better strategy was to be more selective in assessing culture before making employment offers ("and also maybe try to adhere to our society's basic norms regarding disposal of the dead" Teddy made sure to say).

Pinton had done his best to let the local adventuring population know of his former employer's supposed perfidies, and this made hiring more difficult than it had been. However, Yara still managed to find a former heavy infantry named Euron willing to join up. The party also encountered some familiar faces potentially interested in work: Ælfwild the explorer [Session 15] and the infamous Hethor, mage [originally from Session 24 and encountered sporadically ever since]. Klaren counseled against hiring Ælfwild ("with me and Gallador, we don't really need another ranged person"), and Pasicrates deemed Hethor's spell selection useless (not totally inaccurate) and said he was a far better mage (this was true). Pasicrates made a connection with and then successfully hired an androgynous shaman named Eurykles, who had a striking goatee and a pet python.

The party also used January and February to look into how they might sell their magic ring. Agilos asked around and learned the New Archontean Empire's official position was that Arden Vul was still part of its territory; as such, it owned any treasure recovered from the dungeon. (The Archonteans, of course, had not meaningfully controlled Arden Vul for more than a thousand years, but the hubris of empire would not be diminished by confrontation with mundane reality.) As such, sharp-eyed imperial tax collectors haunted the selling places of Noviomagus and laid claim to half the value of any treasure of Arden Vul as it was being sold. (They called this being generous.)

The sales in Noviomagus the party had made thus far had been small in scale, and they'd luckily avoided notice. However, the ring's high value (more than 22,000 gp) meant the party would have to be quick and quiet to avoid attracting the attention of an officious official while selling it. Thus, Agilos was also asked to look into less-legal ways of selling valuables. The thief confirmed that the (so-called) Benevolent Brotherhood, an organization of thieves found throughout the empire, did have a presence in Noviomagus, and they were often interested in enabling tax-free commerce. They did take their own cut, but it was less than what the imperials took (typically 30-40%).

The Green Machine quickly decided this sounded like a pretty good deal, and Yara, Pasicrates, and Agilos moved to engage the criminal underworld. In early February, Fortuna gave her blessing to this transaction, and the Green Machine was suddenly far richer than they'd ever expected they might be. Much of this wealth was immediately invested into education and training. [Pasicrates and Teddy advanced from level 2 to level 3, Esme advanced from level 1 to level 3, and Agilos advanced from level 1 to level 2.] Agilos and Gallador advocated for their employers to spend some of this newfound wealth on basic quality of life improvements like bathing, multiple bedrooms, and nice clothing, and the Green Machine was more receptive than in the past to such requests.

Throughout this, the party learned some general information and rumours.

• The goblins of Arden Vul had already made good on their acquisition of new territory [with the removal of the hobbits in Session 33] and were now frequently encountered in great number across diverse dungeon locations. Another party, the Imperial Vanguard, had recently offended them in some way; this party had then been drugged and almost entirely wiped out.
• There was, of late, a new thieves' guild in Noviomagus. Calling themselves The Sand & Bones Guild, they were much more inclined toward violence and murder than the Benevolent Brotherhood. (The Brotherhood mostly tried to stick to mostly-polite extortion and threats.) Yara thought "The Sand & Bones" was a very cool name for a group but figured the party lacked the street smarts to make successful contact with these newcomers.
• In December of last year, the party had heard that the nearby forest was said to have a sacred shrine of some sort [Session 32]. It appeared that the group of pilgrims who had recently quested for this shrine had been successful: the shrine existed and could purify visitors of certain divine curses [e.g., those obtained via rolling on the Tampering with Mortality table]. Esme, with her sensitivity to light and sound, was interested in seeking out this shrine, but her peers suggested waiting on it.

In early March 2994, the Green Machine finally left Noviomagus to head toward Vetucaster and Arden Vul. Wealthy and powerful, their spirits were high; Fortuna of course chose that moment to remind them of their place in the world. While traveling, Klaren saw in the sky a patch of green, moving quickly and growing vaster by the second. The ranger managed to dash into a bush to hide himself, but the remainder of the party could do nothing but watch as Craastonistorex, mighty wyrm and potentate without peer, landed in front of the party. [This was an impressively unlucky wilderness encounter roll none of us was expecting.]

The dragon revealed he'd been watching the party for some time as they ventured in and out of Arden Vul. He was fine with such activities but demanded he be tithed in proportion to the wealth gained. The party eventually offered up a thousand gold pieces and the potions taken from Plumthorn's corpse. The dragon, mercifully, flew away. [Craastonistorex's only prior appearance in this campaign was all the way back in Session 2, when a similarly unlucky encounter roll had forced the party to gift him their precious iron spikes.]

That night, strategic Gallador took it on herself to raise the obvious question: "If we're going to be digging a big ditch through Arden Vul, will that dragon notice and/or care?" The Green Machine's executive leadership team admitted they hadn't fully explored that possibility's implications and agreed it warranted some further discussion.

Thankfully, the Green Machine reached Vetucaster without any additional disruption. They had an additional reality check when the town's guards asked if they were here on order of Dalton's Darlings to fund another orphanage. [The previous session, they'd heard that the Darlings had spent an exorbitant amount of money to support the urban youth of Noviomagus.] This prompted a frank discussion amongst the party, after which they concluded Dalton's Darlings definitely knew of the party's existence and were deliberately targeting them with unfounded rumours and slander. (This conclusion's support by evidence was mixed at best.)

The Green Machine next conferred with Wicktrimmer the goblin merchant. The emissaries of the Arden Vul goblin kingdom [Session 36] had left to return to the dungeon. Wicktrimmer conveyed that the dungeon's goblins were happy with the outcome of negotiations and could expect a reward when next they returned to the goblin king's court. However, the main obstacle preventing sustained trade between Vetucaster and Arden Vul was the New Archontean Empire's patrols: the goblins they encountered were overwhelmingly raiders and bandits from the scattered clans, and so the Arden Vul goblins expected that any large groups they sent to travel between their kingdom and Vetucaster would be greeted by institutional violence.

The Green Machine considered some ways to bypass this issue. Perhaps Lady Alexia could be negotiated with (Esme's idea) or the Arden Vul goblins could collectively adopt a signifying uniform or scarf (Pasicrates' idea). The final decision was to table pursuing this avenue in the short term. Esme, in particular, wanted to confirm that, in the party's long absence from Arden Vul, the goblins had not collectively forgotten about the good deeds the Machine had done for them.

The party engaged in various other minor interactions in Vetucaster:

• Consulting with Astableon, they concluded that tasking him with uncovering the secret names of Thoth [Session 32] would be expensive and without guarantee of success.
• Klaren also asked Astableon if mighty dragons like Craastonistorex had weaknesses. The sage's response that "some dragons can be harmed by mundane weapons and are occasionally slain by volleys of arrows loosed en masse" convinced the Green Machine it was not yet time to confront the wyrm.
• The option of hiring a carpenter to remove the teak doors of the Howling Caves was raised [Session 30], but the consensus reached was that the party needed to be stronger so as to guarantee safety from the baboons during the deconstruction process.

End time: Evening, 6 March 2994 AEP

Death count:

• None!

Mortal wounds count:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 39

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
• Yara, barbarian 3
  • Agilos, level 2 thief
  • Euron, level 0 man
• Esme, level 3 antiquarian witch
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 3
  • Jean, Jimmy, level 0 men

Start time: Evening, 6 March 2994 AEP

The Green Machine set out from Vetucaster to Arden Vul early the next morning. (The prior evening, Pasicrates purchased a bolt of purple silk with the goal of fashioning party insignia.) Their immediate goals were to give the word scramble [Session 16 and others] another go and to claim the reward Wicktrimmer had suggested [the previous session] the goblin king would give them. Pasicrates also thought back to his training in theology. He was not able to recall any secret names of Thoth [Session 32] offhand, but he suspected such names might be given in Thothite holy texts, and these might reasonably be found in the parts of Arden Vul the Thothite priests had long ago dwelt in.

After returning to the basement under Isadora's villa, Teddy volunteered (and/or was persuaded after significant effort) to spell out C R I S P U S I S A D O R A in floating letters. The party all held their breath and waited, but all that did happen was the familiar and fierce attack by an invisible entity. Teddy relied on his study plate armor and retreated. At this point, Esme revealed her backup plan: a judicious summoning of faerie fire outlined the creature and enabled Klaren, Gallador, Yara, and Agilos to kill it after loosing repeated arrow barrages.

The party celebrated their clever tactics and immediately tried the floating letters again. (This time, Klaren and Yara offered to spell out "Crispus" and "Isadora" simultaneously.) However, the letters did not respond to touch this time. They eventually left the basement and ventured to "The Luck in the Head". Esme and Pasicrates tried to engage Kronos in further discussion of what he might know regarding Isadora's villa and its secrets. The jolly innkeeper eagerly listened to what he was told but revealed nothing on his end.

The next morning, Yara announced to the party "Well its time to go meet with our king" (causing the newer hires some confusion and eventual distress when they realized the barbarian was referring to a goblin). They were delighted when the goblins occupying the old hobbit territory in the Halls of Thoth greeted them warmly. However, they were also reminded of the monstrous nature of their friends: Esme carefully enquired what the goblins had done to the Imperial Vanguard and confirmed the rumor that those hapless adventurers had been eaten.

It turned out the goblins had already done some exploration of the Halls and had made an unpleasant discovery. Like some other statues in Arden Vul, the statue of Thoth on the far side of the Great Chasm [noticed from afar in Session 35] was designed such that its arms could be rotated. However, when one goblin had done so, a tall ibis-headed guardian had been summoned into room from a hitherto-hidden door and torn apart the poor goblin with its claws and beak. Klaren and Gallador's elvish senses confirmed that there appeared to be several hidden doors with no obvious means of opening in this room.

The Green Machine left the statue alone for the near future. Instead, Teddy and Yara crossed the Chasm in a separate spot and discovered a room with a floor covered in thick dust. It seemed like nothing had passed through this room for months at least, but a hobbit body, dead for at most weeks, lay in its center. "This is especially weird because this hobbit must have been in the Halls of Thoth even after we killed Plumthorn and drove the survivors out" Yara and Teddy agreed. Had the remainder of the hobbit forces ensconced themselves somewhere nearby in preparation for a counterattack?

The mystery of the hobbit body remained unsolved, but the mystery of the undisturbed dust resolved itself when some of the dust started swirling together in an animated vortex that attacked Yara and Teddy! Yara quickly escaped, but Teddy was caught in the blinding cloud emanating from this entity. From the other side of the chasm, Klaren loosed a careful shot toward the vortex only to recoil in dismay when it passed through and inflicted no damage. "This isn't great", Teddy said, and the dust monster used that moment to stuff a fist of filth into the paladin's mouth. This began to suffocate him.

Sans sight and breath, and alone on the far side of a chasm, things looked pretty dire. The rest of the party thought quickly though and threw hoops of rope around him. They trusted in the gods and pulled. Fortuna blessed this endeavor, and Teddy was recovered, bruised and choking but alive. (Acting as a chorus in a play, the goblins had watched the part of this exchange that they could see with glee. The adventurers had the distinct feeling that their lives had been the subject of goblin wagers.)

After the dust monster disaster, the Green Machine had little appetite for further investigation, so they descended to goblin town. When they eventually spoke with the goblin king's major domo, they were disheartened to learn that the goblin king had already taken and spent their reward! Because the goblins had gained so much status in Arden Vul so quickly, they now sought to entrench their position among the other factions and avoid further aggression. The Green Machine was known to have killed beastman patrols [most recently in Session 26], and the beastmen had evidently demanded recompense. The goblin king had thus paid the beastmen a wergild for the party's past misdeeds. (Ever attuned to language, Pasicrates noticed that "wergild" was a Wiskin rather than Archontean or goblin word, which was surprising and somewhat intriguing.)

One further shock awaited the adventurers. While walking to the goblin king's court, they observed that the "Sun-Scarred Knight" they'd met previously [Session 34], who was visiting to act as an ambassador or diplomat to the goblins, had departed. Asking around, they learned that the goblin king's new "magical ambassador" had taken up residence in the Knight's old room. This ambassador had a name, and it was a familiar one: Blandveg, the wizard who had worked with Plumthorn and his hobbits.

End time: Afternoon, 9 March 2994 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• None!

Death count:

• None!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 40

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
• Yara, barbarian 3
  • Agilos, level 2 thief
  • Euron, level 0 man
• Esme, level 3 antiquarian witch
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 3
  • Jean, Jimmy, level 0 men

Start time: Afternoon, 9 March 2994 AEP

The Green Machine took a bit of time to further investigate the Blandveg situation. By asking around (including a visit to maimed Bellringer [Session 35 and earlier]), they concluded that the general goblin vibe regarding Blandveg was neutral. In particular, the typical goblin citizen did not seem to know that Blandveg had been associated with the hated hobbits. The party was wracked with concern: Had Blandveg ensorceled the goblin king? Had the mage and the goblins been working together all along in some obscure scheme? To Bellringer's knowledge, no hobbits had been seen lately in the goblin kingdom, which was somewhat reassuring.

The party figured it was time to acquire magical knowledge, and so they returned to the oracular bronze bust [Session 35]. Their immediate thought was to seek its perspective on the Blandveg situation, but then they remembered it was a self-proclaimed "master of folklore and legends and dweomers" and thus was unlikely to have up-to-date knowledge on goblin domestic politics.

After consideration, they posed a number of carefully-worded questions and learned the following:

• Regarding the various statues of Thoth found across Arden Vul, there did exist some guide detailing how their arms might be safely manipulated, but it was not found near any statue they'd seen.
• The statue on the far side of the chasm from the new goblin territory [the previous session] could be safely manipulated by rotating both of its arms to face horizontally.
• Some statues had multiple arm configurations that did not yield immediately harmful outcomes.

Deciding that they could stay late in Arden Vul and sleep in the goblin territory ("bunk with the boys"), the party thus returned to the Thoth statue. En route, they palavered with the goblins lairing in the old hobbit territory, where Klaren's probing questions about Blandveg offended the local chief. "Do elves taste good? Do they make for good target practice?" the goblin announced loudly (in Archontean) to his subordinates. (Because this chief claimed to not have seen Blandveg pass through his lands into the goblin kingdom, and the chief was more scattered than before in demeanor, Klaren (reasonably) saw him as someone that Blandveg would feasibly have charmed.)

After much debate and general fear, part of the party then crossed the chasm to stand before the Thoth statue. With much bravado, they'd told their ever-present goblin audience that they knew how to handle the statue. Nervously, Teddy manipulated its arms as the bronze bust had recommended. To everyone's surprise, nothing bad happened! and one of the room's doors slid open to reveal a passage. Within this passage, Yara and Teddy saw an ancient body (carrying some coin and an arcane spellbook). The passageway was long and split into several side rooms.

The first side room had three sealed stone sarcophagi. Everything about this suggested there would be traps, so Yara called Agilos forward. The thief inspected the sarcophagi and confidently proclaimed it was safe. Based on his past performances, Yara had something less than utter faith in Agilos' abilities. Yara, Agilos, Klaren, and Gallador enacted a careful scheme to collectively perturb the first sarcophagus' lid while minimizing the chance anything inside it might suddenly attack them.

Yara's concerns about Agilos' insight proved warranted, and moving the lid triggered the shooting of a flight of darts from holes in the wall. Here Fortuna intervened: Agilos, Gallador, and Klaren all escaped harm, but Yara was struck and rendered paralysed by poison. Esme was summoned to the front line, and she successfully neutralised the poison.

Knowing to look for holes in the wall, the party safely opened the other two sarcophagi and retrieved from each valuable jade and garnet. "I bet that ibis god guy magically inserted that dart trap after I'd already inspected the area just to make me look bad at my job" Agilos muttered as his employer shook off the effects of her poison. For once, Yara had no words of comfort for her employee.

The next room down the passage was large: on each side wall stood statues of the Old Archontean gods. The far wall hosted a vast representation of ibis-headed Thoth; one of its eyes was carved stone, while the other was, bizarrely, a bare socket. Despite lacking spellcasting ability, Yara and Teddy could feel magical power coursing through this room. Interacting with it was probably dangerous, and so the room was bypassed.

Just past this room, a small hallway led south to a room that contained a glowing fountain. (A baboon, carved of marble, spewed forth water from its mouth.) Like the previous statue room, the fountain was clearly magical, and Klaren counseled his companions to avoid drinking from it in the near term. Everyone agreed.

The hallway contained one further room, equally bizarre as those that preceded it. This one had, on its far wall, the carved mosaic of a man. By his pudgy appearance, eye-patch, and ginger hair (styled in a bowl cut), Teddy and Pasicrates recognized this as referring to Larel One-Eye. Larel was a legendary trickster in Archontean culture who featured prominently in folklore and children's stories [similar to Robin Hood or Anansi]. The room was filled with various things: a rack upon which cloaks rested, a stack of weapons, a writing desk, a burial urn sitting on a pedestal in the room's center. It was obvious that everything in this room meant something, but said meaning was not itself obvious.

Inaccurate or incomplete interpretation of this meaning would surely be dangerous, and so the Green Machine decided to wait before touching anything. It was, by this point, late in the evening, and rest was called for. Esme then made an astute observation: the goblins had seen how the party had rotated the statue's arms. If the party withdrew to sleep in safety, would the goblins swiftly move in and plunder this newly revealed part of the dungeon? Would sleeping here (perhaps centered around the fountain room) be even remotely safe? These were good questions, and no one had immediate answers.

End time: Late evening, 9 March 2994 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• None!

Death count:

• None!

 

[Longfingers]

Is that 4 sessions now where there hasn't been a catastrophe? Are they being more cautious, or getting lucky?

 

[yukiomo]

Is that 4 sessions now where there hasn't been a catastrophe? Are they being more cautious, or getting lucky?

All of the above! Being level 3 means that bad choices or poor luck are now much less likely to kill someone. In addition, the players have demonstrated effective play recently: e.g., Esme the witch's use of her spells to "cheese" the word scramble's invisible guardian, the consultation of the bronze bust to learn safe arm manipulations without dangerous trial and error, the continued effort to remain on the good side of the goblins even as they demonstrate their capriciousness, and a tragic (but worthwhile) ferret incident in Session 41. This has been coupled with some fortuitous rolling on their part, most recently during Teddy the paladin's escape from the dust monster.

 

[yukiomo]

Session 41

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
• Yara, barbarian 3
  • Agilos, thief 2
  • Euron, level 0 man
• Esme, antiquarian witch 3
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 3
  • Jean, Jimmy, level 0 men

Start time: Late evening, 9 March 2994 AEP

The Green Machine faced the decision of where in Arden Vul to rest for the night. They verified that the statue of Thoth they'd manipulated to gain entrance to this part of the dungeon reset after around an hour; the party could not discover a way to open the statue-linked doors from the opposite side. Not wanting to give the goblins free access to this area of Arden Vul, the party thus prepared to bunk in the statue room. Before sleeping, Pasicrates used his ventriloquism spell to tell bedtime stories to Agilos.

The party worried about nighttime dangers both from the known (goblins) and unknown (the Great Chasm), so they kept two torches lit throughout the night and leveraged their large number of members to maintain a constant watch of two people. Either these precautions proved effective, or Fortuna smiled on the party, and the night passed without incident.

The next day, the party sought to ward off any conflict with inquisitive goblins. Pasicrates and Yara spoke with the local goblin leader and managed to convince him that this area of Arden Vul was too dangerous for goblin habitation at the moment. The party would dispose of its dangers and identify its dangers, and then they would welcome the goblins in. This seemed sufficient, at least for now. Continuing their exploration, the party found another room full of sarcophagi, a room with a single ornate sarcophagus, a staircase leading up, a giant fire, and a vast and evil stone obelisk.

In the room full of sarcophagi, Agilos skillfully detected a trap—opening a sarcophagus caused spears to thrust upward from holes in the floor. Knowing where to stand safely, the party proceeded to loot. Here, Teddy experienced the extrema of luck. In one sarcophagus, he found an enchanted shield to complement his plate mail. In another sarcophagus, he picked up a pouch of ancient coins, only to discover one had been cursed and left as a trap by the old Thothite priests. This cursed coin, by magical means most foul, set alight a quarter of his wealth and rendered it an unusable slag.

The room with a single ornate room was notable for several reasons. Its walls showed frescoes of a spear-wielding scarlet-armored warrior fighting monsters (including salamanders). The sarcophagus was larger than others on this level, and into its lid had been carved the spear-man himself. The party decided that, because this tomb had lain undisturbed since the fall of the old Archontean Empire, it must be horribly trapped. They ignored it.

Yara approached one door and felt heat emitting from it. When she cracked it open, she saw a vast fire (its flames reaching eight to ten feet above the ground) in the room's center. The fire was surrounded by a marble enclosure inscribed with strange runes, in its center was a large golden key, and, most suspiciously, some roughly human shape (a fire spirit?) stood in the fire's center.

Pasicrates tried to engage the spirit in conversation, and much of the party debated ways of safely retrieving the key. Meanwhile, Gallador mentioned to Klaren (in Elvish) that she'd found a secret door. Her employer responded (also in Elvish) "Don't tell the humans yet, I want to see if they'll walk into the fire." After no one walked into the fire, Agilos investigated the door and concluded it could be opened by the golden key. Reaching into the fire (even via a pole) was judged likely to aggravate the fire spirit, and so this room too was ignored for the time being.

The stairs led up for around a hundred feet before depositing the party in a small room. The only other visible room was lit by torches, and against its north and south walls stood two tall ibis-headed statues. Teddy did not detect evil from them, but Klaren was suspicious, and he convinced Pasicrates to send his ferrets (Null and Void) in first. Pasicrates first tried to command Null to saunter in, but the ferret refused these instructions and meandered in the opposite directions. Void proved less recalcitrant, but this demonstrated poor ferret judgment. As the ferret entered the room, the statues activated and instantly ripped him apart.

"Oh", everyone said, and they tried to run away. All but Teddy succeeded, but the proud paladin was knocked out by the statues' ferocious assaults. [His newly-boosted armor class proved completely irrelevant here due to high attack rolls.] However, Esme swiftly tended to the paladin, and he was resuscitated having suffered only some new scars. From the safety of the stairs, Yara took a few potshots at the statues, but her bow seemed unable to harm them. The party retreated down the steps, chastened but alive.

A door on the far side of the fountain opened into a wide and dark cavern. Cautious investigation (via peering and thrown torches) revealed that (1) the floor of this cavern was covered in bones, and (2) in the center of this cavern was a colossal stone obelisk that reached toward an unseen ceiling (at least a hundred feed above the cavern floor). No one dared approach the obelisk, but they saw from afar that strange patterns suddenly appeared on its surface and then, just as suddenly, disappeared. Teddy drew upon his paladin senses and proclaimed "this obelisk is evil!", but no one needed the confirmation.

The Green Machine had now mapped out all of this part of the Halls of Thoth. Esme cast detect magic and quickly moved through these rooms to scan for enchantment. The various tombs, sarcophagi, and such all, unsurprisingly, bore the traces of magic. More unexpected was that nothing in the room of Larel One-Eye appeared to be magical.

Clearly, this was thus the room to further investigate. A desk in Larel's room was safely opened; it proved to contain several (surprisingly explicit) love letters, written by Larel (or someone claiming to be him) and addressed to various noblewomen of the Old Archontean Empire. The party were prepared to move on when Klaren noticed that, in his letters, Larel frequently referred to his many-coloured patched cloak as being central to what had captivated his lovers. On the rack in this room, there was indeed a cloak patched with fabric of many colors. Esme feared a trap, but Yara took a great risk and donned the cloak. Her audacity was rewarded. The cloak was enchanted to deflect blows from its wearer, make them more charismatic, and also let them become invisible. A wondrous treasure.

Clearly, Esme's detect magic spell had been blocked or deflected by means currently unknown. This suggested that other items in Larel's room were likely to be either powerfully enchanted or horribly cursed. Was there any way to tell which was which?

End time: Late morning, 10 March 2994 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• Teddy, notable scarring

Death count:

• Void the ferret, torn apart by Thoth statues

 

[Longfingers]

Session 41

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
• Yara, barbarian 3
  • Agilos, thief 2
  • Euron, level 0 man
• Esme, antiquarian witch 3
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 3
  • Jean, Jimmy, level 0 men

Start time: Late evening, 9 March 2994 AEP

The Green Machine faced the decision of where in Arden Vul to rest for the night. They verified that the statue of Thoth they'd manipulated to gain entrance to this part of the dungeon reset after around an hour; the party could not discover a way to open the statue-linked doors from the opposite side. Not wanting to give the goblins free access to this area of Arden Vul, the party thus prepared to bunk in the statue room. Before sleeping, Pasicrates used his ventriloquism spell to tell bedtime stories to Agilos.

The party worried about nighttime dangers both from the known (goblins) and unknown (the Great Chasm), so they kept two torches lit throughout the night and leveraged their large number of members to maintain a constant watch of two people. Either these precautions proved effective, or Fortuna smiled on the party, and the night passed without incident.

The next day, the party sought to ward off any conflict with inquisitive goblins. Pasicrates and Yara spoke with the local goblin leader and managed to convince him that this area of Arden Vul was too dangerous for goblin habitation at the moment. The party would dispose of its dangers and identify its dangers, and then they would welcome the goblins in. This seemed sufficient, at least for now. Continuing their exploration, the party found another room full of sarcophagi, a room with a single ornate sarcophagus, a staircase leading up, a giant fire, and a vast and evil stone obelisk.

In the room full of sarcophagi, Agilos skillfully detected a trap—opening a sarcophagus caused spears to thrust upward from holes in the floor. Knowing where to stand safely, the party proceeded to loot. Here, Teddy experienced the extrema of luck. In one sarcophagus, he found an enchanted shield to complement his plate mail. In another sarcophagus, he picked up a pouch of ancient coins, only to discover one had been cursed and left as a trap by the old Thothite priests. This cursed coin, by magical means most foul, set alight a quarter of his wealth and rendered it an unusable slag.

The room with a single ornate room was notable for several reasons. Its walls showed frescoes of a spear-wielding scarlet-armored warrior fighting monsters (including salamanders). The sarcophagus was larger than others on this level, and into its lid had been carved the spear-man himself. The party decided that, because this tomb had lain undisturbed since the fall of the old Archontean Empire, it must be horribly trapped. They ignored it.

Yara approached one door and felt heat emitting from it. When she cracked it open, she saw a vast fire (its flames reaching eight to ten feet above the ground) in the room's center. The fire was surrounded by a marble enclosure inscribed with strange runes, in its center was a large golden key, and, most suspiciously, some roughly human shape (a fire spirit?) stood in the fire's center.

Pasicrates tried to engage the spirit in conversation, and much of the party debated ways of safely retrieving the key. Meanwhile, Gallador mentioned to Klaren (in Elvish) that she'd found a secret door. Her employer responded (also in Elvish) "Don't tell the humans yet, I want to see if they'll walk into the fire." After no one walked into the fire, Agilos investigated the door and concluded it could be opened by the golden key. Reaching into the fire (even via a pole) was judged likely to aggravate the fire spirit, and so this room too was ignored for the time being.

The stairs led up for around a hundred feet before depositing the party in a small room. The only other visible room was lit by torches, and against its north and south walls stood two tall ibis-headed statues. Teddy did not detect evil from them, but Klaren was suspicious, and he convinced Pasicrates to send his ferrets (Null and Void) in first. Pasicrates first tried to command Null to saunter in, but the ferret refused these instructions and meandered in the opposite directions. Void proved less recalcitrant, but this demonstrated poor ferret judgment. As the ferret entered the room, the statues activated and instantly ripped him apart.

"Oh", everyone said, and they tried to run away. All but Teddy succeeded, but the proud paladin was knocked out by the statues' ferocious assaults. [His newly-boosted armor class proved completely irrelevant here due to high attack rolls.] However, Esme swiftly tended to the paladin, and he was resuscitated having suffered only some new scars. From the safety of the stairs, Yara took a few potshots at the statues, but her bow seemed unable to harm them. The party retreated down the steps, chastened but alive.

A door on the far side of the fountain opened into a wide and dark cavern. Cautious investigation (via peering and thrown torches) revealed that (1) the floor of this cavern was covered in bones, and (2) in the center of this cavern was a colossal stone obelisk that reached toward an unseen ceiling (at least a hundred feed above the cavern floor). No one dared approach the obelisk, but they saw from afar that strange patterns suddenly appeared on its surface and then, just as suddenly, disappeared. Teddy drew upon his paladin senses and proclaimed "this obelisk is evil!", but no one needed the confirmation.

The Green Machine had now mapped out all of this part of the Halls of Thoth. Esme cast detect magic and quickly moved through these rooms to scan for enchantment. The various tombs, sarcophagi, and such all, unsurprisingly, bore the traces of magic. More unexpected was that nothing in the room of Larel One-Eye appeared to be magical.

Clearly, this was thus the room to further investigate. A desk in Larel's room was safely opened; it proved to contain several (surprisingly explicit) love letters, written by Larel (or someone claiming to be him) and addressed to various noblewomen of the Old Archontean Empire. The party were prepared to move on when Klaren noticed that, in his letters, Larel frequently referred to his many-coloured patched cloak as being central to what had captivated his lovers. On the rack in this room, there was indeed a cloak patched with fabric of many colors. Esme feared a trap, but Yara took a great risk and donned the cloak. Her audacity was rewarded. The cloak was enchanted to deflect blows from its wearer, make them more charismatic, and also let them become invisible. A wondrous treasure.

Clearly, Esme's detect magic spell had been blocked or deflected by means currently unknown. This suggested that other items in Larel's room were likely to be either powerfully enchanted or horribly cursed. Was there any way to tell which was which?

End time: Late morning, 10 March 2994 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• Teddy, notable scarring

Death count:

• None!

Jinxed it... Sorry!

 

[yukiomo]

Session 42

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
• Yara, barbarian 3
  • Agilos, thief 2
  • Euron, level 0 man
• Esme, antiquarian witch 3
  • Steffi, level 0 man
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 3
  • Jean, Jimmy, level 0 men

Start time: Late morning, 10 March 2994 AEP

The day was still young. The Green Machine deemed it their top priority to identify and retrieve any valuable treasure found in this sector of the Halls of Thoth before any goblins had a chance to wander in and look for shiny things. Because Larel's letter had revealed which of his cloaks was enchanted, the party thought further clues might be hidden in the room. Teddy took a closer look at the wall's mosaics: they consistently depicted Larel wielding a thin knife and carrying a burlap sack.

Esme posited a connection between the knife and the letter opener on Larel's desk; it proved to be a powerful dagger [+3 and conveying a +1 bonus to Dexterity]. Yara opened the chest in Larel's room and found, amidst varied pieces of fine clothing, a burlap sack (discovered to be a bag of holding). Some other items of potential value from Larel's room were stuffed into it, and the party decided they'd collected anything of real value from Larel's room. [Readers of Arden Vul will note that this sack has other abilities not yet suspected by the players.]

None of the Green Machine had yet dared to interact with the burial urn in the center of Larel's room. "If this room is a shrine to Larel, are his ashes in there?" Esme wondered. Everyone really wanted to look inside it, but they agreed it was most likely of anything in the room to be horribly cursed. Consulting either the oracular bronze bust [Session 35] or Eurykles' spirits might reveal if opening the urn would be dangerous.

The party decided that the other room worth investigating now was the one that contained many statues of the Old Archontean gods [Session 40]. If, as they suspected, the power of this room could be triggered by mere entrance, the goblins would surely plunder it when they had a chance. Brave Klaren stepped into the room while waving aloft an ankh (holy symbol of Thoth). Teddy and Yara hung back near the room's entrance, and everyone else cowered in the hallway. [Teddy was still recovering from his mortal wound the previous session, so this was borderline foolhardy.]

Klaren's bravery nearly caused Teddy's and Yara's demises. As the elf stepped into the room proper, wondrous magic occurred, and awful monsters were summoned.

Two of the statues (a crocodile-headed humanoid and a nobly-garbed human woman) animated and walked to the room's centre. The woman opened her abdomen and set on the ground an ebony statuette of a human man, also arrayed in clothing finery. The crocodile humanoid then drew an ax and, with a single stroke, shattered the statuette. It next opened its mouth and spat forth three serpents. Concurrently, a wall of force appeared that prevented movement into or out of the room: Klaren, Yara, and Teddy were alone.

The ensuing battle presented seemingly insurmountable threats, especially after Yara and Klaren were both bitten and poisoned. However, Esme discovered that spells could be cast through the barrier, and so Pasicrates and Gallador reinforced Yara, Klaren, and Teddy with summoned berserkers. Yara, Klaren, and Teddy fell back and let the summoned warriors slay the serpents, which they did. [Letting spells be cast through the wall of force was an on-the-fly ruling because no one knew the definite answer, but I now believe that most iterations of D&D would not allow it.]

The party's hope was that the deaths of the snakes would raise the room's barrier, but this was not the case. Klaren, Yara, and Teddy thus set about reconstructing the shattered statuette. This took some time, during which new snakes were sporadically spat out from the statue, but the summoned berserkers preserved their safety. When Yara deposited the repaired statuette back in the statue's abdomen, the wall of force dissipated. Esme rushed in and, with her skillful training, neutralised the poison in Yara; she failed with Klaren.

No one knew how long Klaren had. The elf entrusted his fate to the gods and ran to drink from the baboon-headed fountain [Session 40]. The fountain's water did not heal his poison, but it did imbue him with a resistance to magic. Other possible sources of restoration were the witch-doctors of the goblins (of dubious reliability), Estelle of "The Luck in the Head" (even if she could neutralize poison, she likely wouldn't), and the priests of Mithras in Noviomagus.

The second and third of these options both required the group to withdraw from Arden Vul, so they did that. The goblins in the Halls of Thoth were naturally curious when they saw the wounded and tired party heading for the surface. Teddy was diplomatic: "We don't want any goblins to get hurt, and this area is definitely still dangerous, so please stay out of it for a bit." Esme was more blunt: "We aren't as fecund as you all, so we gotta hold onto our dudes".

Shortly after the party reached the surface, Klaren's luck ran out. The elf died in exquisite pain from the snake's poison. Aside from this (nontrivial) setback, the party's luck held. They reached first "The Luck in the Head" and then, when Estelle proved as unhelpful as they expected her to be, Vetucaster without any further loss.

With the treasure gained from the Halls of Thoth, Euron, Steffi, Jean, and Jimmy started training [for level 1], and the party procured a suite of mounts. Pasicrates also replaced Void with a weasel he named Rufus. However, he also was cursed when he retrieved from Larel's sack one of the other accessories the party had found in Larel's room; the green cap he picked up was stuck to his hand and weighed as much as a dog. The party mocked the poor mage, as, months ago, the mage's former employer Nick had experienced similar misfortune when he picked up a cursed torch. "You are not cutting off my hand" the mage swore.

The party's mixed stable of horses and mules enabled a subset of them (Pasicrates, Yara, Agilos, Esme, Gallador, Teddy, Gallador, and Klaren's body) to swiftly and safely travel to Noviomagus. Here, Fortuna smiled on Klaren: the elf was restored to life, unexpectedly awakening as a she. Pasicrates also (reluctantly) dished out the coin needed for his cursed green cap to be removed. Klaren would need two weeks to recover, and so Yara began to train [to hit level 4]. In the past week, the Green Machine had encountered but great and awful turns of chance, but they were confident that they'd handled events with poise and were eager to return to dungeoneering as soon as they were able to.

End time: Afternoon, 15 March 2994 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• None!

Death count:

• Klaren, poisoned by summoned snakes

Tampering with mortality count:

• Klaren, gender-swapped

 

[jgshinton]

I guess they will be called Karen now?

 

[yukiomo]

I guess they will be called Karen now?

This was a topic of conversation! Klaren's player's opinion was that "Klaren" worked fine as a name for a female elf; some players of human characters thus decided that most elves in the world of Arden Vul sport Karen haircuts.

 

[yukiomo]

Session 43

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
  • Osmund, cleric 1
• Yara, barbarian 4
  • Agilos, thief 2
  • Euron, assassin 1
  • Victarion, level 0 man
• Esme, antiquarian witch 3
  • Steffi, fighter 1
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
• Teddy, paladin 3
  • Gene, bard 1
  • Jimmy, fighter 1

Start time: Afternoon, 15 March 2994 AEP

The Green Machine spent two and a half weeks in Noviomagus. The talk of the town was that the Archontean Empire's legions were being called up and shipped out. Far to the south and west, a self-proclaimed khagan of the Khummu had united some of the incessantly warring nomadic clans and was now threatening the Empire's southern heartlands. With the Empire needing to finance a mobilization and possibly a war, it was no surprise its tax collectors and customs inspectors had been so avaricious as of late.

Pasicrates, Yara, and Esme each made use of their training in the healing arts to make some money in a city full of wounds. Yara also brought into her service an ex-soldier named Victarion. Agilos tried unsuccessfully to sell, via the local thieves' guild, the golden statuette they'd recovered from the divine statue room. [This had been retrieved and stashed in Larel's bag of holding the previous session; it was worth five thousand gold pieces but was eight feet tall and weighed a hundred pounds.]

Yara also made contact with one of Noviomagus' merchants, a fellow Wiskinga. This clothing merchant told Yara that a group of trappers and furriers she'd hired to venture into the nearby forest had been missing for a few days. She offered what small reward she could afford; the party was more enticed by the opportunity to befriend a skilled haberdasher and thus commission bespoke green party uniforms.

Minor tragedy struck when Esme discovered that another piece of treasure from Larel's room was, like the green cap [the previous session], cursed. Luckily, the party had sufficient wealth to donate to the priests of Mithras and have them break its fell magic. Larel was certainly a trickster.

In early April, the Green Machine ventured north. Via Klaren's skills in tracking, they located the camp the missing trappers had stayed at; there was evidence of a struggle (but no blood), and a trail suggested some number of human-sized bodies had been dragged deeper into the forest. Leaving Victarion to watch over their mounts, the Green Machine walked further into the forest. [As a reminder, recall that they were at half-strength: Eurykles, Euron, Steffi, Gene, and Jimmy were still in Vetucaster.]

Some hours later, they came upon a wide cave entrance leading down into darkness. From within the cave they could smell carrion and viscera. This prompted discussion among the Green Machine. An early hypothesis was that the Thorcin Recovery League's freedom fighters / terrorists [c.f. Session 23 and others] had kidnapped the trappers. However, this awful stench suggested otherwise. Was the culprit instead a large beast? Maintaining a safe distance from the entrance, Teddy's detect evil did not sense anything. Thus, Yara tossed a torch into the cave's entrance to hopefully provoke its inhabitants.

A horrible keening emitted from within the darkness. The party girded themselves and stood their ground, but their worst fears proved inadequate. Close to two dozen slavering ghouls loped horridly out from the darkness, hungry for the flesh of the living.

Speedy Yara and Klaren looked at each other and then took off running; they felt the party could not contest so many undead. The rest of the Green Machine did their best to similarly retreat, but they were less fortunate. Esme, Gallador, and Pasicrates were able to escape safely, but Teddy and Agilos were overwhelmed by ghouls and paralyzed. Teddy in particular defended himself from countless ghoul attacks before a lucky bite pierced his gauntlet. [Four ghouls each attacked him three times. Due to his high AC, only a single natural 20 hit him, but he then failed his saving throw.]

The survivors ran from the pursuing ghouls in shock. Teddy and Agilos were both senior and beloved compatriots, and now they were gone. [Teddy had made his first appearance in this campaign all the way back in Session 11, while Agilos had been with the group since Session 29.] Teddy had also carried much of the powerful treasure the party had recently acquired: the enchanted baculus and shield and Larel's magical cloak.

The Green Machine did not think they could defeat these ghouls on their own. The question was whether to return to Noviomagus and seek aid from the city's institutions or to continue on to Vetucaster and rendezvous with their other henchmen. Although they refrained from truly unbecoming cupidity during the discussion, an implicit worry was that, if Noviomagus sent one of its heroes to kill these ghouls, said hero would (rightfully) claim Teddy's treasure. Could the Green Machine handle this problem themselves? They started going north to Vetucaster.

En route, Fortuna put in their path a band of singing Wiskin berserkers. These fierce fighters, led by one Halgar the Hammer, had decided for their own reasons to travel west and seek out elven champions to test their mettle against. (Klaren and Gallador hunched down and avoided drawing attention to themselves.) Yara saw an opportunity here and proposed a joint offense against the ghouls. Halgar saw merit in this idea and vowed to do so if Yara could defeat him in single combat.

Yara sized up her competition, considered the possible benefits, and then agreed. The two barbarians faced off against each other. They were well-matched: Yara was more agile, but Halgar was stronger. While fighting, both inflicted deep wounds that would have killed a lesser man. The fight could have gone either way, but, this time, Halgar had the better of it. The duel ended when a final vicious smash crushed Yara's knee. (Esme quickly rushed in and treated her companion.) "I like your spirit. Keep fighting, and one day maybe you'll be as strong as me!" Halgar boomed as he and his men marched off, singing once more.

The Green Machine made it to Vetucaster without further incident. With Teddy's tragic demise, Jimmy offered to step in as a core member, while Yara hired Gene. [Teddy's player might still choose to roll up a totally new character, I believe.] Much celebration was had when Steffi revealed she had spent the past weeks training as a legionary and was now a proper siege engineer. (The party had brief visions of marshaling an arsenal of catapults to barrage the ghoul nest into rubble.) That night, they also held a memorial service for Agilos and Teddy.

Over the following week, the group decided that revenge against the ghouls (and retrieval of Teddy's items) was the goal paramount. However, great preparation would be needed for success to be achievable. To boost the party's divine strength, Pasicrates procured the service of a Thorcin cleric of Mithras named Osmund, while Esme made contact with Chansey, the crippled priestess Yara and Klaren had worked with in the past. [Chansey was retired in Session 25 and has only one functioning limb (an arm) but is excellent at turning undead.]

Pasicrates also ran into Hethor yet again [the awkward possibly-evil mage had last been seen in Session 38]. Hethor expressed some interest in joining the party for this ghoul fight, but in a conversation filled with awkwardness and arrogance, he and Pasicrates failed to come to mutually agreeable terms. Finally, the party hired half a dozen laborers. These unskilled peasants would be no use in a fight against undead, but they could potentially construct improvised fortifications and traps.

The newly-augmented Green Machine departed from Vetucaster, hearts and minds seeking nothing but ghoul destruction. A flock of giant hawks espied them one day but did not attack due to the party's great numbers and apparent strength.

[After getting to Vetucaster, the players spent a large amount of time making and discarding plans for an assault on the ghoul cave. There seems to be broad agreement that this is worth doing despite the danger, but everyone recognizes that such a fight will risk heavy casualties. The players have not committed to engagement, and so the next session may feature either a well-planned assault, a judicious withdrawal, or something completely unexpected and likely absurd.]

End time: Afternoon, 14 April 2994 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• Yara, damaged knee

Death count:

• Teddy, paralyzed by ghouls
• Agilos, paralyzed by ghouls

 

[yukiomo]

Session 44

The cast:

• Pasicrates, mage 3
  • Eurykles, shaman 1
  • Osmund, cleric 1
• Yara, barbarian 4
  • Euron, assassin 1
  • Gene, bard 1
  • Victarion, level 0 man
• Esme, antiquarian witch 3
  • Steffi, fighter 1
• Klaren, elven ranger 3
  • Gallador, elven spellsword 1
  • Three level 0 men*
• Jimmy, fighter 1
  • Chansey, priestess 2

* none of the PCs managed to catch the names of these henchmen

Start time: Afternoon, 14 April 2994 AEP

The Green Machine's primary goal was to retrieve Teddy's enchanted equipment. If that could be done without engaging the entire ghoul force, that would be ideal; they did not expect they would fare well in such a fight. The key unknown was if a ghoulified Teddy would still be carrying his equipment. Hoping that he would, Klaren and the hired laborers set to constructing, near the trappers' camp in the forest, a number of spring snares that might grab a ghoul and hold it in the air helpless. [This follows the new rules for wilderness trapmaking introduced in ACKS 2.]

However, each night the party withdrew away from the camp to set up their own camp. Expecting attack, they kept a heavy watch; Esme and Chansey also maintained a constant protection from evil spell during the hours they were awake.

On the second night, a band of six ghouls took advantage of the darkness to surprise the party's sentries. The initial attack was savage, especially for those members of the Green Machine who were sleeping and without their armor. Gallador had her arm ripped off by a pack of ghouls; one of Klaren's new heavy infantry was smashed in the head and received brain trauma, and another had their eyes torn out. As the fighting continued, Steffi and Chansey were paralyzed (the latter before she'd had a chance to turn undead), and Jimmy and Gene both went down (the former with minor scarring and the latter with damaged hips).

However, the Green Machine stuck together and fought back. Their coordination and lack of fear kept the laborers from panicking and fleeing. Esme's protection from evil was for the ghouls an impenetrable barrier, and the party's weaker and wounded members were able to shelter themselves in it. Osmund similarly demonstrated his piety and prowess by turning three of the ghouls. From within Esme's protection, Pasicrates summoned eight berserkers. With such strength, the three remaining ghouls were disposed of.

Chansey, Esme, and Yara rushed in to treat the wounded. Although no one was dead, and only Gallador had suffered major injuries, this process exhausted their spells and supply of herbs. Pasicrates and Klaren wondered if the mage's berserkers could be sent into the forest to chase after the ghouls that had fled after being turned, but they concluded such a pursuit would accomplish nothing.

With so many of their number wounded, morale was low among the laborers and henchmen. The party decided to remain in their current location for the remainder of the night and then return to civilization in the morning. They did take the action to set out a perimeter of torches beyond their main campfire, in the hopes of not being surprised again.

These torches proved crucial. A few hours later, another group of ten ghouls attacked the party's camp, this time in a pincer formation. Watchful Klaren and Yara noticed this attack before it occurred and woke up their comrades in time. However, with so many casualties among their number (and without magical support), this fight proved quite a struggle. In particular, when, early on, Chansey failed (yet again) to turn the ghouls and Yara was paralyzed, the party's collective survival seemed in doubt.

Klaren stood surrounded by a mountain of the undead (her elvish immunity to ghoul's paralysis giving her a crucial edge in endurance), while others of the party wondered if fight or flight was the best option. Osmund evened the odds with another lucky turning, and, with all seeming lost, Pasicrates and Eurykles bravely entered the melee. The fight remained brutal: after Euron had his throat ripped out and Victarion had his mouth smashed, many of the surviving henchmen started to flee. However, this happened concurrently with the ghouls mounting a withdrawal of their own.

The Green Machine saw no merit in waiting around to be attacked again, and so they marched through the night and returned safely to Noviomagus early in late morning. After being wounded, Victarion and the blinded henchman in Klaren's service both decided adventuring was not for them, and they left the Green Machine's service. Klaren's brain-damaged henchman, Gallador, and Gene all chose to stick around (despite Gallador's awful injury).

The party's wounded would need between a day and two weeks to recover from their wounds. The Green Machine's leadership team thought things through and decided they still really wanted Teddy's equipment back; thus, their next adventure would be a return to the ghouls. Hiring new henchmen, especially clerics or elves, was thus of supreme importance. Another option considered was procuring the services of a few squads of mercenaries.

Some of the Green Machine's injuries were severe. One topic of discussion (not yet resolved) was if it was worthwhile to use the party's (ever-depleting) wealth to restore the bodies of Gallador and/or Chansey. This made some sense but would be expensive. [Note that Chansey, because of her hatred of the undead, has chosen to ignore her crippling wounds to join the ghoul expedition as an additional group-controlled NPC. Taking her back to Arden Vul would require either a PC hiring her or a player adopting her as their PC.]

A collectively shared concern was how many ghouls they would find when they next ventured to the cave. Out of the roughly twenty they'd originally seen, they'd killed eight. However, the undead fiends would presumably keep hunting and replenishing their numbers. This was worth further deliberation.

End time: Late morning, 16 April 2994 AEP

Mortal wounds count:

• Gallador: arm ripped off by ghouls
• Jimmy: minor scarring
• Gene: lingering hip injury
• Klaren level 0 henchman: blinded
• Klaren level 0 henchman: brain trauma
• Victarion: lost 6 teeth

Death count:

• Euron, instantly killed by ghouls