DCC#77 The Croaking Fane World Tour 2014

[DCCfan]

I ended up with 8 players this time with two being newbies.
Eula: elven falconer/ peaches the falcon dies
Josh: warrior
James: warrior grave digger
Eric: wizard butcher
Joe: cleric smuggler
David: thief squire
Alex: Halfling chicken butcher
Joey: dwarven apothacarist

A quick overview of the toad war was given and then we went straight to the temple doors.
1-1 Josh takes the lead and opens doors with polearm. People light torches and look at frescoes. Stand around for awhile not sure what to do.
1-2 They finally head into the church and find the water. I was actually afraid that no one would touch the water given the fact that water equals death in every DCC adventure I have ever run. Joe surprised us all by sticking his face into the basin of water! He loses his tongue and 5hp for his foolish action. The party scatters away from him as he tries to pull the tadpoles off his shredded face. The thief uses some stolen candles to burn them off like leeches while the elf has her falcon peck at them. The cleric gets frustrated with the healing efforts of the group and lays hands on himself to grow back his tongue.
1-3 After searching for traps and trying to read the writing on the sarcophagus the group works together to remove the lid. Wizard casts spell to read message on lid and is not sure what to make of it. Toads are grabbed by David, Alex, and Josh. One is cut open to look for hidden treasure.
1-4 The thief explored this area alone while the rest of the group watched the cleric dunk his head into the basin. He loots 12 candles and lights two as he runs over to help the cleric.
1-5 The group heads deeper into the church. The thief climbs the wall to get a closer look at the toad in the niche and takes a face full of swamp vomit. The toads go last in initiative so everyone takes advantage to position themselves and fire off a couple of ranged attacks. The toads take this round to spit at the party and everyone is hit. They all make their save and recover. This round the toads dive bomb the group and start melee combat. After a couple of rounds the toads are smashed and the pieces are collected for later use. The door is opened and used as cover during the battle with the toadgoals and now the party descends down to the undercroft.
2-1 The wardrobes are looted and about half the party puts on robes while the cleric and the rest refuse. Dwarf picks up book and wizard casts spell to read it. Wizard tries to say a prayer and play instruments to open door. Cleric and thief hide behind wardrobes in case something bad happens while Halfling looks at items on shelf. Nothing happens and the dwarf in frustration grabs book and hurls it at the door setting off trap. Most of the party ducks out the door and avoids the flames the other three in the room take damage. The stuff on the shelves are destroyed but the door is now open.
2-2 The bed is torn open and searched inside and out. The table however is not moved or searched in the same way so the hidden treasure is missed. The items on the table are looted and the wizard finds the note about the transmutation. They are not sure what the hand written message is supposed to be telling them and move on.
2-10 The thief picks the doors lock and they move up to the bars. The wizard uses a pole to draw a pentagram on the other side of the bars and summons a snake to attack the frogs. It is loses badly and is eaten. Initiative is rolled (frogs almost last again) because the smell of fresh blood from the wizards mercurial effect has attracted the frogs. After a short battle that kills 5 frogs the bars are broken down. The party retreats and the thief rolls to force the lock while the warriors hold the doors closed. They head back upstairs to explore the church more.
1-7 They head straight for the idol and ignore everything else on the way. The thief and the dwarf climb up onto the idol and pry the stone eyes out of their sockets.
1-6 The group now wants to explore the alter and strange indent in the floor. The dwarf ends up using a mighty deed hammer blow to sunder the frog and safely retrieves the gold inside. The triptych is also looted at this time. The lever is found after the wizard mentions reading about ceremonies in some of the holy texts that he has been reading. The hole is opened up and the dwarf looks down and sees the frogs that everyone hears croaking. He is lowered down on a rope and smells gold on the island below. This gets the thief climbing down the rope to help search for loot. Two of the pc's head down to pound on the doors and attract the frogs while the island is searched. They take a long time and find every last piece of treasure but the frogs start to come back. Four make leaping attacks and two score crits as the thief and dwarf try to escape. The thief is dragged down off the rope and the dwarf is knocked prone. The pc's above see this and start reeling the dwarf up fast. He reaches out to try and grab the thief but he shocks us all by running further into the darkness telling the dwarf to save himself. This draws the frogs into a chase through the dark undercroft as the dwarf escapes to the temple above.
2-14 The thief runs into the ominous passage and the frogs stop chasing him and slowly turn and leave. He lights one of his looted candles and moves deeper down the passage.
2-15 The thief finds the living toad thing's lair and we stop here for the night. The group up above assumes the worst and starts to mourn the thief's passing. At this point Joey makes a joke about going down to rescue the other half of the treasure that the thief was carrying and we all end the night with a good laugh.