FrankenFourth: Age of Worms, Episode 505

Cast

• Humal (level 8 wrathful cambion wizard)
• Corzale (level 8 dwarf war cleric)
• Sumia (level 8 elf rogue/ranger)
• Kuhnja'bi (level 8 human w/ devil-in-the-details fighter)

Summary

Not wanting to further explore the ghoul-tunnel, and also not wanting more ghouls to show up, the party replaced the stone disk before returning to the Coenoby. They'd barely been gone ten minutes, so Sumia managed to convince Corzale and Humal to continue exploring other, hopefully ghoul-devoid sections of the arena under structure.

There were only two guards posted. Exhausted and inebriated, all it took was a simple illusion from Humal featuring scantily clad women to lure them away. Even better, it was so late at night that there weren't additional guards posted, so even Corzale clad in heavy armor was able to avoid detection while they ascended the stairs.

Having passed through it several times, the party was familiar with this part of the upper level: they knew that if they continued west, the passage would gradually wind south and lead to the elevator that connected to the arena. Thanks to a continued lack of guards and Sumia's ability to see in the dark, it was easy for the party to gradually scout out the level. Most of it was mundane: a dining hall, barracks, armory, prison, some pens for animals, and so on, but a few things did strike their interest.

Being a dwarf and all, Corzale was able to determine that many parts of the under structure had been relatively recently modified, and that the curved hall actually wound about in a perfect circle. There were also numerous small passages that branched off from the hall, but they lacked any discernible purpose. Corzale was able to roughly describe their arrangement, and from this Humal theorized that it served a ritualistic function, which probably had something to do with the glass dome.

Sumia had discovered it early on. Several halls ran from the circular hallway to a chamber at the center. It's only feature was a large dome that looked to be made from a single piece of black glass. Within she could see a faint green light, and when she showed it to Humal he was able to discern that it was a cyst of necrotic energy, gradually swelling in size as it was fed by a steady stream of necrotic energy from an unknown source.

This confirmed what they already strongly suspected: Raknian was planning something. Something probably big, and definitely bad.

They returned to the Coenoby, and after a few more distractions, a narrow escape, a lie, and some deliberation the party explored another section of the under structure. Unfortunately it was simply a circular hallway: Corzale could tell that it was virtually identical in size as the previous one, and while there were signs of recent construction they couldn't find any secret passages or the source of necrotic energy.

With all other avenues exhausted, this left only one option: the ghoul warren.

Design Notes

I talked with Kelly (Corzale's player) about changing cleric Favor to a daily resource. He seems all for it, but obviously the talents need to be reworked to account for a much more limited resource. On the upside, this will allow clerics to spend Favor to actually heal Wound Points (currently they negate Wound damage, because otherwise you could heal Wounds, pray for Favor, heal more Wounds, and so on until everyone was capped off).

Maria wasn't feeling up to playing, but there wasn't any combat anyway so I guess at least we didn't miss out on seeing how badass the fighter is with the modified damage numbers. Maybe next time.

Announcements

If you're curious about FrankenFourth and/or Dungeons & Delvers, you can find public alpha documents here and here respectively.

A Sundered World: Player Fragments, the first supplement for A Sundered World, is finally out!

The Blackguard is out, so if you want to play a dark reflection of The Paladin that isn't just a lazy flip, check it out!

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 (which you can now do).