FrankenFourth: Deep One Dungeon Crawl, Part 1

Cast

• Arras (2nd-level human wizard)
• Jovan (2nd-level human fighter)
• Rosalind (2nd-level human fighter)

Summary

The characters entered the portal, which led to another, similarly sized cavern.

Much of it was covered by a brackish stream. On the far side of the chamber they could see a gaping hole that had been carved through the wall. They took note, but decided to explore the rest of the chamber and see what else they could find.

They quickly discovered a pile of rubble, but before they could remove it a landshark suddenly burst from the ground and grasped Jovan in its powerful jaws. Its many rows of teeth tore through his armor with ease, and to make matters worse one of his arms was pinned inside, preventing him from bringing his maul to bear.

As he struggled to free himself, Arras exhausted herself blasting it with her magic before fleeing towards the portal, while Rosalind frantically hacked away: miraculously, she was able to finally slay it just after Jovan was rendered unconscious and it turned its attention to her.

Rosalind and Arras hauled Jovan and the landshark's carcass back to town, and after spending a week recovering, repairing their equipment, pawning loot, and buying more supplies they returned to the grotto.

The rubble concealed a narrow passage which led to another, smaller chamber that was packed with stalagmites. One was oddly surrounded with a smattering of shining gold coins which, when they went to examine the gold more closely, revealed itself to be a roper.

It snared Rosalind and Jovan with a pair of viscous strands: this not only prevented the pair from fleeing, but pulled them closer to the roper, or more specifically its circular mouth...which didn't particularly matter since they both excelled at melee and would have done so anyway.

Once the roper was destroyed, they gathered up the coins before spotting an ominous entrance.

As far as they could tell it wasn't trapped or magical in any way, so they ventured inside.

The first room was small and rectangular, constructed with irregularly shaped blocks of stone. Near the center was a filthy, square pool. They couldn't see anything inside, but nothing attacked, so they proceeded past it and through a nearby door.

In flickering torchlight Rosalind thought she saw shadows moving in the darkness. Jovan hung back while Rosalind carefully explored the room, but all she could find was a gruesome, bloodstained altar, a larger pool of water, and a few doors.

When Rosalind went to examine this pool, however, a slimy, fish-like humanoid leaped out. She beheaded it with a single sword stroke, but three more emerged. They raked at her and Jovan with long, sharp claws, but once they slew two of them the third retreated into the pool, dragging one of the floating corpses with it.

As they considered which door to take, something smashed against the door behind them. Something big. Unsure what to expect or what to do, whatever it was smashed into the door again. They stood their ground, as they'd faced several massive creatures thus far and managed to prevail.

The third attempt shattered the door: the creature was a shapeless mass of some dark, gelatinous substance, flecked with dimly glowing orbs of various sizes. It glistened only faintly in the torchlight, which fortunately was insufficient for them to behold the creature in its abhorrent splendor.

They were wrong: they had never faced such a thing as this.

Announcements

A Sundered World is out (and also available in dead-tree format)! If you for some reason don't want the entire setting, you can just snag the races and classes.

The Ghost has manifested!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print.

Lichfield is available for public consumption. If you want a concise adventure with a Silent Hill feel, be sure to check it out! Primordial Machine is also out, so if you want to catch a glimpse of A Sundered World, now's your chance! Finally, we've updated If These Stones Could Scream.