Nappendixia Campaign Session Report
Session #- 32 Session Date- 2/8/23 Time Passed- 3 days 2/18-2/20
Roll Call- Boneripper- Half Orc Fighter 6
Zellmax- Gnome Thief 6
Hellenna- Human Druid 7
Thanquil- Elf Magic User 6
Adventure Log- the party secures itself in the tower atop the hill for the night, secures the door, sets watch, and the night passes uneventfully as they rest, rememorize spells, and heal. They enter the dungeon entrance in the morning, leaving Chance, the fighter from Fort Turjmir, and the animals on top of the hill to wait. They walk up the main entrance corridor, past the alcoves and the triggered magic mouth warning from Zelligar. They get to that main first intersection where they found the desiccated bodies. They realize there are 3 different passages to the north, and one each heading east and west, both of which promptly turn south. They elect to go east and south, and come to another alcove on their right and passages leading east and continuing south. Curious as to why there are so many alcoves in this place, they do a more thorough search of the intersection, finding a secret door at the back of the alcove. The door leads to the back wall of one of the sets of alcoves in the main hallway. Again they search, and again they find a secret door, this time in the alcove opposite the alcove of the other secret door, heading west. Behind this door is a corridor that runs parallel to the main corridor, it must be some kind of defensive system or escape route. After figuring out the corridors and secret doors of the main entrance, they go back to the intersection they originally searched, and continue south from there, and then east down a long corridor ending in 2 doors. The first door revealed a northern corridor and a room that only revealed stored furniture and some woodworking tools and a workbench. The other door revealed an ornate but ancient and untouched bedroom, with a matching bed and headboard like they found in the wizard’s chambers. Many old but fine items, furniture, tapestries decorated the room, and Helenna cast detect magic, but nothing magic was revealed, although a search of the dresser revealed a silver hairpin. Beyond the woodshop room, a series of twisting corridors landed the party in a large open chamber lined with pillars and smooth stone slate floor, one set of pillars is carved as 2 beautiful women, and beyond that is a dais of red stone with 2 marble thrones atop it. Behind that 5 skeletons in ragged chainmail and rusted weapons stand at the back wall as if placed there. Zellmax crept forward to examine the thrones, and when he passed the pillars carved as women, they came to life, becoming flesh, and drew razor sharp scimitars by their sides and attacked! Zellmax was on his guard so not surprised, but the party lost initiative, and he was struck. Also Thanquil cast web on the skeletons at the back of the room, but they moved first and were only just caught in the edge of the web, immobilized but still poised to strike into the melee. Helenna cast barkskin on boneripper, and he quaffed a giant strength potion and waded into melee, striking before the potion took effect, but hitting. Upon striking the statue lady, his weapon made an unearthly noise as if it struck something hard enough to break it. He becomes cautious to strike her again with his magic weapon. Zellmax is able to strike a statue lady with his mundane dagger, it also resists breaking, but for some reason does little damage. Tranquil is able to get off a magic missile and it seems to have its full effect, and boneripper punches one after gaining his giant strength, dropping one, but the other is able to wound Zellmax again. A second magic missile and a shillelagh spell and strike from Helenna’s club manage to take out the outer one. The webbed skeletons are peppered with missile and reach weapons and are taken out. They find 3000ep and 6000sp in a drawer in the marble throne, and consider returning to Fort Turjmir, wounded and depleted of spells. The small party must act with prudence, as one false move could spell disaster, and they egress from the dungeon with their treasure, and safely make the 1.5 day journey back to the fort.
Session Notes- So I made the decision to move forward in the timeline despite the party already being “out of pocket” due to last week's session taking them 17 days out. However, we left the party last week in a temporary resting place in the ruined tower above the dungeon, so resuming this week, I figured it would be sensible to let the party delve the dungeon one more time, then end the session in a permanent resting place. Sort of a part 2 of last week's session. This party is currently the only one on the map active, the main party is still finishing A1, and no patron activity is happening that is time sensitive to the party so I figured it seemed allowable. I’m sure you could make the argument I’m just making excuses, and what’s the point of running 1:1 time, but it’s a process, and this was an opportunity to get a party onto the map and explore, so it felt like the right move for the campaign. I’m trying to keep the prestocked dungeon I had placed on the map “living” by rolling for other creatures that may have entered the dungeon over time so the inhabitants of the dungeon change a little as different inhabitants vie for space. That has been going good not overdoing it just adding/tweaking a few things with random tables/common sense. It was a shorter session as I had a long work week, but no excuses, I was a little loosey in the interest of moving things along. Sometimes I think I’m being much more time sensitive than the players. I guess most players don’t mind/don’t notice a slower paced game, especially since I already take pretty good effort to keep things moving along. I suppose the next stage in my growth is to be more precise, get things right more consistently without tons of rulebook searching. I think one thing I’ll do to that end is to add the DMG and PHB to my reading list, really read them cover to cover (slowly, over time) to let them marinate into my brain. I know the rules pretty well, and have made several good homemade dm screens, but a deeper connection to the original texts will up my game.
Treasure and XP- monster- 2 Caryatid Column, 5 Skeleton- 655xp, treasure- 1885xp =2540 xp / 4 PC+ 635 xp each. Add % bonus if applicable.
Graveyard- Larry the Caveman- died from orc crossbow bolts in the Slavers Hideout. #29
Captain Caveman- died in combat with an Aspis Drone in the Slavers Hideout #30
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