Epiro: Episode 103
Cast
Since Kamon was unable to play (and we did not have access to his character sheet), we decided that despite a newly uncovered hidden passage leading away from a false tomb, his character would just head back to the surface to make sure that Perseus's horse, I dunno, did not run off with the cart full of precious, precious bounty-heads.
Paranoid, probably due to recent events involving ambush-ghouls and greed-curses, Randy's druid, now able to wildshape intorats ferrets, took the opportunity to discreetly and adorably scout ahead. Without a source of light he was only able to determine that after the passage turned north, that there were two leading east; one around the middle of the hall, and the other at the far end.
They decided to tackle the furthest passage first. Randy’s druid took point, scampering ahead while everyone else followed close behind. I was kind of confused why Perseus stuck so close to the ferret, as a heavily armored man shadowing a Tiny elf-turned-mustela kind of defeats the purpose, but since the only immediate threat was a trap, it was kind of a moot point.
The ceiling collapsed, which dealt a bit of damage to Perseus, pinned Iola under some blocks of hewn stone and dirt (because she failed the Dexterity save), and separated them from Randy-the-ferret, as he was not heavy enough to trigger the trap (and fortunately was outside of its area of effect when it was triggered). It would take a bit to dig Iola out, which would be only slightly inconvenient if the noise had not attracted the attention of a carrion crawler.
Given Mustela-Man's size and Stealth bonus (something like +8, I think), I decided that even though he technically had no cover that the carrion crawler failed to notice him as it moved towards the pile of rubble. Unable to get through, it retraced its steps and went through a southern entrance, where a burial vault linked to the other side of the collapse. As it, well, crawled by this time, Randy changed into a bear to try and grab it.
At the time I was not aware if grapple rules were in the game (they are, page 13 of the How to Play document), but since our d20 results were eight apart in my favor I felt safe in the assumption that he failed.
Even so he still got its attention, which meant numerous paralyzing tentacles and teeth. At this point Yllian's light spell, coupled with whatever noise a bear wrestling a monstrous, tentacled scavenger-worm makes, made it very easy to determine where they were (about 15 feet around a corner, as it turned out), and Perseus went to Randy-Bear's aid while Yllian helped dig Iola out of the mess. It took only a few rounds of clawing, stabbing, and punching before the crawler fled through one of several tunnels riddled throughout the vault.
Their short exploration of the vault turned up a handful of silver pieces, so they headed north before the crawler returned or skeletons started popping out of the walls (a reasonable assumption, in my games). The way was blocked by another stone door, with another boar crest. They tried their hand at checking for traps, a habit which players will temporarily develop after just stumbling into one, but came up empty.
Randy, in a fit of boredom, maybe acceptance, eventually just bear-punched the door open, revealing a grant hall. Unlike the rest of the tomb, torches brilliantly lit piles of shimmering gold and jewelry that were heaped against the southern walls of the room. A dining table, almost as wide as the room, bent under the weight of a seemingly endless array of food and drink. Before it all sat an obese man wearing a golden crown studded with jewels, which contrasted sharply against his robes, which were studded with chunks of old food.
The characters approached, and between noisy bites and gulps the man motioned for them to sit and eat. Yllian introduced himself as a member of the fey courts, Perseus and Iola as his concubines, and Randy as his dancing bear. Being an illusionist and all, he asked if he could try disbelieving, well, everything. I had him make a Wisdom save, and an 18 or so result later told him that if he concentrated he could start to peel it away, but that it continued to reassert itself. In other words, he knew that there was powerful illusion magic at work, but even he could not reliably see through it.
Presuming the man to be King Orsos, he told him that he knew about the curse, and that they were there to help him break it. Of course Yllian had no idea how, or even if he could, but he guessed that performing an act of charity would do the trick, and told the king as such. Orsos stopped eating, if only for a moment, to clearly state that he could not. Yllian told him that he could, and they went back and forth like this several times before Orsos finally started moving for his sword.
It was then that Yllian realized that he was being magically compelled to sit in this tomb, rotting, yet always eating, and that they would need to kill him before he could rest. Iola lobbed a vial of holy water, which despite only dealing a paltry 2 points of damage causing the illusion to falter: Orsos's, stomach had exploded long ago, and everything he ate simply spilled onto the floor beneath his chair, the food was rotten and infested with vermin, the drinks covered in carpets of mold, and the piles of gold were just rubble.
Well, rubble and four skeletons.
Orsos leapt up onto the table while the skeletons closed in. He slashed at Yllian, cutting him badly and forcing him back. Yllian blasted a pair of skeletons with a color spray, causing one of them to attack Orsos. It nailed him with a critical hit, severing his sword arm, which landed next to Iola, who picked up the sword and lobbed it at one of the skeletons, shattering it. As for the other two, Randy changed back into his human form so that he could crush them with an entangle spell.
Which just left Orsos. His rotten flesh peeled apart as tusks grew from his skull, and his feet fused into hooves. He charged at Yllian, knocking him across the room (and at least unconscious). This was pretty much the highlight of the fight, as Perseus proceed to polish him off like he did with most of the undead in this dungeon with a cure wounds spell.
After the fight they gathered up all the loot together so that Yllian could cast detect magic on it, and discovered that only the sword--the Boar King's Tusk--was magical (of course, the coins and gems were not, but you cannot blame him for trying...maybe at some point I will make a magic coin just to throw them off). Since we could not identify any sort of identify spell, I just gave Josh the mechanics of it: if you move at least 10 feet before attacking, roll a d10 instead of a d8 for damage.
Thoroughly drained, they eventually voted on resting outside, which was good because it allowed me to leave the game on a cliffhanger. When they got into the fortress level, they could hear the sound of someone softly piping coming from outside. They go to check, because that is where they left the aforementioned horse and bounty-heads, to find Corvus unconscious and bound. Sitting above him, nonchalantly feeding Perseus's horse an apple, is a satyr.
He spots the characters, tucks his pipes away, and stands up. After a few moments of everyone staring at each other, he finally speaks up.
"So, you killed the Boar King."
Behind the Scenes
Not much to report, here. I mean, I made a magic item and a wereboar skeleton, but to use Josh's words "I am having fun, but not necessarily due to anything inherent in the system or mechanics." It is pretty much isolated to hanging out with friends and creating a story on the fly, which are unfortunately things that I can do in a lot of games.
- Yllian Faraday (high elf wizard 2)
- Randy's As Of Yet Still Unamed Druid (wood elf druid 2)
- Iola Talmiel (wood elf monk 2)
- Perseus Eurymedon (human paladin 2)
Since Kamon was unable to play (and we did not have access to his character sheet), we decided that despite a newly uncovered hidden passage leading away from a false tomb, his character would just head back to the surface to make sure that Perseus's horse, I dunno, did not run off with the cart full of precious, precious bounty-heads.
Paranoid, probably due to recent events involving ambush-ghouls and greed-curses, Randy's druid, now able to wildshape into
They decided to tackle the furthest passage first. Randy’s druid took point, scampering ahead while everyone else followed close behind. I was kind of confused why Perseus stuck so close to the ferret, as a heavily armored man shadowing a Tiny elf-turned-mustela kind of defeats the purpose, but since the only immediate threat was a trap, it was kind of a moot point.
The ceiling collapsed, which dealt a bit of damage to Perseus, pinned Iola under some blocks of hewn stone and dirt (because she failed the Dexterity save), and separated them from Randy-the-ferret, as he was not heavy enough to trigger the trap (and fortunately was outside of its area of effect when it was triggered). It would take a bit to dig Iola out, which would be only slightly inconvenient if the noise had not attracted the attention of a carrion crawler.
Given Mustela-Man's size and Stealth bonus (something like +8, I think), I decided that even though he technically had no cover that the carrion crawler failed to notice him as it moved towards the pile of rubble. Unable to get through, it retraced its steps and went through a southern entrance, where a burial vault linked to the other side of the collapse. As it, well, crawled by this time, Randy changed into a bear to try and grab it.
At the time I was not aware if grapple rules were in the game (they are, page 13 of the How to Play document), but since our d20 results were eight apart in my favor I felt safe in the assumption that he failed.
Even so he still got its attention, which meant numerous paralyzing tentacles and teeth. At this point Yllian's light spell, coupled with whatever noise a bear wrestling a monstrous, tentacled scavenger-worm makes, made it very easy to determine where they were (about 15 feet around a corner, as it turned out), and Perseus went to Randy-Bear's aid while Yllian helped dig Iola out of the mess. It took only a few rounds of clawing, stabbing, and punching before the crawler fled through one of several tunnels riddled throughout the vault.
Their short exploration of the vault turned up a handful of silver pieces, so they headed north before the crawler returned or skeletons started popping out of the walls (a reasonable assumption, in my games). The way was blocked by another stone door, with another boar crest. They tried their hand at checking for traps, a habit which players will temporarily develop after just stumbling into one, but came up empty.
Randy, in a fit of boredom, maybe acceptance, eventually just bear-punched the door open, revealing a grant hall. Unlike the rest of the tomb, torches brilliantly lit piles of shimmering gold and jewelry that were heaped against the southern walls of the room. A dining table, almost as wide as the room, bent under the weight of a seemingly endless array of food and drink. Before it all sat an obese man wearing a golden crown studded with jewels, which contrasted sharply against his robes, which were studded with chunks of old food.
The characters approached, and between noisy bites and gulps the man motioned for them to sit and eat. Yllian introduced himself as a member of the fey courts, Perseus and Iola as his concubines, and Randy as his dancing bear. Being an illusionist and all, he asked if he could try disbelieving, well, everything. I had him make a Wisdom save, and an 18 or so result later told him that if he concentrated he could start to peel it away, but that it continued to reassert itself. In other words, he knew that there was powerful illusion magic at work, but even he could not reliably see through it.
Presuming the man to be King Orsos, he told him that he knew about the curse, and that they were there to help him break it. Of course Yllian had no idea how, or even if he could, but he guessed that performing an act of charity would do the trick, and told the king as such. Orsos stopped eating, if only for a moment, to clearly state that he could not. Yllian told him that he could, and they went back and forth like this several times before Orsos finally started moving for his sword.
It was then that Yllian realized that he was being magically compelled to sit in this tomb, rotting, yet always eating, and that they would need to kill him before he could rest. Iola lobbed a vial of holy water, which despite only dealing a paltry 2 points of damage causing the illusion to falter: Orsos's, stomach had exploded long ago, and everything he ate simply spilled onto the floor beneath his chair, the food was rotten and infested with vermin, the drinks covered in carpets of mold, and the piles of gold were just rubble.
Well, rubble and four skeletons.
Orsos leapt up onto the table while the skeletons closed in. He slashed at Yllian, cutting him badly and forcing him back. Yllian blasted a pair of skeletons with a color spray, causing one of them to attack Orsos. It nailed him with a critical hit, severing his sword arm, which landed next to Iola, who picked up the sword and lobbed it at one of the skeletons, shattering it. As for the other two, Randy changed back into his human form so that he could crush them with an entangle spell.
Which just left Orsos. His rotten flesh peeled apart as tusks grew from his skull, and his feet fused into hooves. He charged at Yllian, knocking him across the room (and at least unconscious). This was pretty much the highlight of the fight, as Perseus proceed to polish him off like he did with most of the undead in this dungeon with a cure wounds spell.
After the fight they gathered up all the loot together so that Yllian could cast detect magic on it, and discovered that only the sword--the Boar King's Tusk--was magical (of course, the coins and gems were not, but you cannot blame him for trying...maybe at some point I will make a magic coin just to throw them off). Since we could not identify any sort of identify spell, I just gave Josh the mechanics of it: if you move at least 10 feet before attacking, roll a d10 instead of a d8 for damage.
Thoroughly drained, they eventually voted on resting outside, which was good because it allowed me to leave the game on a cliffhanger. When they got into the fortress level, they could hear the sound of someone softly piping coming from outside. They go to check, because that is where they left the aforementioned horse and bounty-heads, to find Corvus unconscious and bound. Sitting above him, nonchalantly feeding Perseus's horse an apple, is a satyr.
He spots the characters, tucks his pipes away, and stands up. After a few moments of everyone staring at each other, he finally speaks up.
"So, you killed the Boar King."
Behind the Scenes
Not much to report, here. I mean, I made a magic item and a wereboar skeleton, but to use Josh's words "I am having fun, but not necessarily due to anything inherent in the system or mechanics." It is pretty much isolated to hanging out with friends and creating a story on the fly, which are unfortunately things that I can do in a lot of games.
In point of fact, I was not guessing that an act of charity would remove the greed curse from King Orsos, I was just trying to con HIM into believing that, so he'd let us leave with his treasure ^_^
ReplyDelete@Joshua: lol
ReplyDeleteI love ferrets.
XD