Red Frontier Session Report
Session #- 35 Session Date- 2/3/23 Time Passed- 4 days 2/3-2/6
Roll Call- Laughing Fox- Druid 7
Ricarda- Assassin 4
Beacon- Cleric 3
Neil Young- Torchbearer
6 Pikemen Men-at-Arms
12 Longbowmen
Adventure Log- During downtime, Beacon the cleric spent time seeking out Boldvay, or some means to contact him, seeking a wealthy wizard who may want to purchase the scroll and wand found in the chambers of the Eyeless Void. With Zappos missing, the economy for arcane items is in turmoil. Cindy the fighter also spent some time investigating during downtime, looking for some mercenaries to hire for the next delve into the dungeon. She was able to locate several bands of men at arms, displaced and without equipment due to the flooding and curse of Lamalla. (More on that in the future, as rumor has it the curse has been lifted, so it’s likely some changes are coming to Red Frontier) All the new adventurers from last time were in training, with Beacons training lasting the longest. While he finished up training, the party spent Friday and Saturday selecting and purchasing equipment for 2 mercenary bands Cindy had located- 6 pikemen and 12 longbowmen. Between Glom and the other merchants displaced from Pottsfort there are ample arms and equipment for sale. Laughing Fox purchases the 2 groups for the month and is hopeful they survive to work on other plans the rest of the month. Neil Young has been hanging out by the shaft opening, manning the ropes and hopeful to return to the crypt to face his fears and get his nerve back. He is pleased when the party, missing 2 members from last time, but now joined by an assassin, returns to the shaft on Sunday, intent on clearing it out.
They descend the shaft, set their marching order and light sources, and check the main corridor upslope. The fixed ropes are still there. Proceeding carefully, they move up the corridor to the first juncture point, intent on checking out the second set of statues they avoided last time. At that point Neil shines his bullseye lantern up at the alcoves containing the statues, revealing the small shadowy shapes of Dark Creepers. The pikemen at the front move forward to spear them, and Laughing Fox casts Heat Metal to damage them with their own daggers. The pikemen kill a few, but then one of the creepers uses his darkness power and all the light sources go out. At the same time, 3 creepers who had hidden themselves at the intersection attack the rear of the party, the lightly armored bowmen. Beacon is able to maneuver into the melee and gets a sneak attack from one of the creepers, slicing his back. The other 2 creepers are less able, and fail to connect with any bowmen. Neil Young is able to light a torch, finding the lantern not working for some reason, and Laughing Fox casts Produce Flame canceling the darkness at the front. A few bowmen are able to get shots off, as well as a few pikemen connect with creepers. Laughing Fox slays one with his spear, and the damage from the heat metal kills a few more. The creepers manage to drop one of the pikemen to 0 and beacon rushes to his aid casting Cure Light Wounds. Just when the last creeper is wounded and at his last hit point, Laughing Fox moves in between the 2 statues with his magical flame to engage it, and the 2 statues come to life, gargoyles waiting to be released by their magical trigger. Right back into the melee, and knowing they likely need magic weapons or spells to face the gargoyles, Laughing Fox begins casting Stone shape, hoping to alter their stony bodies. Beacon takes a shot with the plasma pistol and wounds one, the pikemen hold despite each being wounded, Beacon keeping the morale high, and fortunately the gargoyles couldn’t land a mortal blow. The spell goes off and the gargoyle’s body is altered into a solid block, taking away its senses and means of attack. It staggers top heavy and bangs against the wall, combat ineffective. The assassin in the confusion of the melee is able to sneak up on the gargoyles, and beacon slyly slides the plasma gun across the floor into her waiting hands. The shot goes wide unfortunately, and laughing fox again begins casting stone shape and the pikemen again engage it from reach until it is transformed, becoming a vase with legs and a stone daisy. Laughing Fox intends to take these bizarre attractions and use them as entertainment in his future casino business enterprise. Each creeper has a pocket full of coins, and one also has a green key on him. The party searches the base of the statues and a false stone reveals a valuable piece of jewelry. They elect to return to the surface to drop off the treasure, the gargoyle monstrosities, and to return the fallen pikeman, who spends several rounds in a coma, who is in need of a week's bedrest. They all rest on the surface, and return down the shaft on Monday morning.
They head back up the main corridor, the bodies from the previous days fight missing. They move back to the site of last session's fight with the creepers, at the warped door with the green trim. Having the key, but not needing it on this destroyed door, they look inside the room, seeing the bodies from the last combat again gone. A door on the northern wall of that room opens to a hallway, all the locked green doors now accessible with the key. They proceed 20 feet east down a corridor where it turns north. They are about to continue east where the corridor continues for 20 feet and turns south, with a door at that corner, when the pikemen step headlong into a pit trap, a false floor opens up and they fall 10 feet onto some spikes, impaling themselves and dying at the bottom of the pit. The party begins hauling the bodies out of the pit when they hear snickering from behind the door. Certain the creepers must pay, and be exterminated, Laughing Fox casts fire trap on the door, then the party makes as if more have fallen in the pit, they cry out for help and fall silent. After a few minutes, the door handle turns and bam! The trap goes off and the death flash of 3 creepers pops off from behind the smoldering door. It swings wide, and Beacon promptly tosses an incendiary bomb into the room, and 2 more creeper death flashes emanate from the room. Thinking nothing could have survived, they cautiously enter the room, and from an open door to the north a wall of fog rolls into the room. Beacon yells caution it could be poisonous, but Laughing Fox, throwing caution to the wind and wanting to end this conflict now, pulls out a cockatrice powder thunder corn device, arms it and steps into the fog and hurls it through the door. The fog is mere vapor, not poison, and Boom! The explosion goes off and 5 creeper flashes follow, followed by a 6th larger explosion, stone debris spills from the room and then silence. They investigate to find the room ruined, the remnants of creeper bodies and the stone petrified feet of what could be a larger leader type of the creeper species. Unsure, but only able to guess, perhaps this creature had its own destruct effect that was compounded by the thunder corn. The room is scoured for several turns and 4 medium quality gems are found as well as the filthy bedding and exploded home goods these creatures were living off of. Determined to make sure the creepers are all killed, they search through the remainder of the green rooms, and searching one room the wall comes to life and a sticky pseudopod reaches out, almost striking Ricarda, but she dodges it. The archers and pikemen pepper the wall with puncture wounds killing it. The creature, some kind of cousin to the gelatinous cube looks identical to a stone wall and it was hiding in a recessed area at the back wall of this room. As it disintegrates, the undigested bones of a former victim ooze out of the protoplasm, as well as a fine looking flail. They search the remaining rooms of the green area and find nothing of note, just some former living quarters and debris. They do find 2 doors leading back to the main corridor, the northernmost of which had a passage leading north that had a black x mosaic detailed in the floor. Sure teh green area has been cleared out, and assessing that only the NW corner of this complex remains to be searched, the party decides to return to the surface to rest and plan what they hope to be the final assault of the crypt, unless of course they should discover a lower level. The power station leadership is happy to hear of the success in defeating the evil creatures of the crypt. The flail is identified as a +1 flail and Beacon requests it. The surviving pikemen and bowmen are given their well earned cut of treasure, and they are thankful to have survived. Neil Young gets more experience and may level next delve should he live. The party rests Monday evening and Beacon begins training on Tuesday 2/7.
Session Notes- I wasn’t 100% sure if I should allow non fighters to hire men at arms, I’ll need to see if there is an official ruling, but I figured that the fighter did do the legwork on downtime in finding the groups, and the fact that the population is crowded into the power station made them more willing to hire. Also bringing them to essentially a 4th level dungeon and therefore requiring a % cut of treasure felt fair, and it definitely made the PCs think twice (PCs hate sharing cuts of treasure or xp with anyone!), but it wasn’t totally RAW. I think I’ll say it was a special case based on the cramped conditions at the power station due to the curse of lamalla. I’ll ask the PCs if they’d prefer to play it more RAW and go from there. Also I’m not sure if I should have allowed the So=tone shape to work on the gargoyles. I did describe them as stone statues, but their description said nothing either way. I allowed it because the PCs at the time only had Laughing Fox’s magic spear and Beacon’s plasma gun as effective weapons, so I figured creative spell use was effective and appropriate. I did grant them a save vs spells and both failed. Other than that the combats are going well, players have initiative, announcing actions, and casting time down pretty well. Next time I intend to go over a little better the list of declared options in encounters such as move, charge, parley, etc as per the actions listed in the DMG. good session, more highly skilled play from the group.
Treasure and XP- Session 35- monsters- Dark creepers, Dark Stalker, Gargoyles, Stun Jelly= 3204xp. treasure and magic items- 6306xp = 9510xp 5% to Neil Young- 475xp. 3011xp each for the 3 PCs. add % bonus if appropriate.
5856gp in treasure. the archers are willing to take 5% because they were limited by the confines of the dungeon and you kept them safe. 292 gp for the archers. 10% for the pikemen they earned it- 585 gp.
the party gets 4979 total in gp value of treasure. you can cash out the jewelry and gems to Glom and split how you like.
Graveyard- (Death’s Door)- Robin- brought to -1 by the Caryatid Column, needs 1 week bed rest. #34
3 Mercenary Pikemen killed by a spiked pit trap in the Chambers of the Eyeless void, 1 at death’s door, needs 1 week bed rest. #35
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