A Sundered World: Grimlock Cave, Part 2

Cast

• Dymlos (level 1 human monk/level 3 spellsword)
• Miyoshi (level 4 nekobito shaman)
• Severus (level 4 human battlemind)
• Yao Lao (level 4 human monk)

Session Highlights

Miyoshi frees the water spirit from its gruesome totem prison; it gives her a large, valuable pearl before departing.

Lao and Dymlos guide the rest of the party to the dire bat lair. With the mist gone they can see three other passages. Examining the floor, Lao notices that the right passage has numerous shit-prints, the left slightly less, and the one straight ahead looks to be completely clean.

Wondering what's up with the clean passage, Miyoshi transforms into a cat, and they tie a fireshard to her tail so she can see. She doesn't get too far before she runs afoul of an otyugh: it easily spots her due to the light, and chases her all the way back to the bat-room.

Lao grabs one of the otyugh's tentacles, preventing the beast from using it effectively, and after a few jabs manages to disable it. The rest of the party carves up its body with sword and spell, and it soon barrels through them to flee down one of the side passages.

It doesn't get far before Dymlos freezes it solid with his sword and shatters it, but when the rest of the party shows up they notice more mist. Suspecting another tormented spirit that will probably reward them for rescuing it, they proceed down the passage.

They soon come across a lake, and while they don't see a totem Savatar does spy gold glittering on a stalagmite jutting forth from the water. Before he can go diving in, Dymlos freezes the water with his sword, and a raspy voice thanks him for the "gift".

Dymlos tries to yank his sword free, but its entangled with hair and kelp: he wills it to manifest flames, burning through the bindings and allowing him to move away from the shore, just as a figure concealed with more hair and kelp emerges from the shadows and slowly approaches.

It's offended that he would try and take the offering back, but Miyoshi mollifes it by offering up the pearl she received. While creepy it doesn't seem intent on attacking them, so they ask it a few questions. Namely whether it's killed any dwarves. It has not, but admits to killing some of the other creatures that infest the caves. They give it trinkets in exchange for water, for a time...but sometimes they fail to pay proper tribute.

This confirms what Miyoshi suspected: the creature is a spirit, and so is probably bound to the lake. She asks if it can help them out. It will not leave the lake, but it cryptically explains that if they bring her something nice, she'll give them something nice in exchange.

Continuing on, the party reaches another crossroad; as before they choose the passage where the mist seems to be the thickest. As expected they soon find the totem, but this time it's almost completely overgrown with numerous types of fungi.

Design & Development

Nothing much to report this time around. These sessions tend to be pretty short due to a player's limited timeframe.

Classes seem to still be working as expected (almost got the shaman nailed down). Even the spellsword was fine, as Adam was able to use two spells in a single fight this time around, bringing him up to I think four in a given adventuring day, so far, which is more than what a wizard could have reasonably done.

With the otyugh fight I was able to use my rules for climbing on creatures and attacking them in specific areas, so that was nice. Worked out pretty well.

Something I should note: we're also considering Kickstarting Dungeons & Delvers: Red Book. This post has more information, and Melissa started up a poll on G+ to see what everyone thinks: feel free to vote, and if you choose maybe or no, we'd like to hear why (and, if possible, how to swing you to a yes vote).

Announcements

You can now get a physical copy of Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book in whatever format you want! We've also released the first big supplement for it, Appendix D, so pick that up if you want more of everything.

If you want more adventures, we just released Escape From the Flesh Catacombs: a bunch of 0-level characters need to escape from the catacomb-lair of a gorgon that was slain, causing everything she's petrified to revert to flesh and rise as undead.

Our latest Dungeon World class, The Ranger, is now available.

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, 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).