Goodman Games

After a long dry spell, me and my gang got together this past Friday. We divided out the experience and treasure from the previous adventure concluded almost two years ago. Sadly Trevor was unable to make it, but we set aside some of the loot for his elf Occulus.

Here are the participants:
Nightwing’s ranger Greyson. He has risen to 5th level and has 42 hit points. He fights two-handed now with both Whisker the rapier and Fenis the matching duelist dagger. Together they are both +2 weapons.

Ragnar1965’s cleric/magic-user Madriel. She is 4th level with 25 hit points. Ragnar1965 has her melee (when she must) with a magical frost dagger.

JediWife’s elven archeress Alura. She is a 5th level fighter with 45 hit points and is deadly with her new long composite bow made from the horn of a black dragon.

For those interested in what has gone on before with this party, see here:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5147

Since we had a treasure map found in the pummel of the rapier Whisker, that was to be our next quest. With Jonas the gem merchant safe and the Black Pearl in the custody of the Temple of the Eternal Sun, Jonas fronted the money to charter a ship and her crew to take the PCs to the island as shown on the map.

The only clue the party had regarding what they might find there was from an old blind sailor who had revealed to the party Whisker’s secret hiding place. In a previous thread I had related that “the old man requested the ranger pay his daughter quite a bit of gold, perhaps 200 I can’t remember. If they would do so the old man would reveal a treasure map that only the captain and he knew of. This map was to a ‘tropical island [they] once sailed to, where the natives paid tribute to their god by bringing gold and jewels to a temple on a plateau in the middle of the isle.’”

They arrived offshore of the island where the captain asked Greyson if there was anything he and his crew could do. The captain and crew have a healthy dose of respect for this woodsman who has the sea-legs of an old salt and has the famed Whisker at his side. Beyond waiting for their return, no aid is required. They are let down into a row boat and, with Greyson at the oars, they head towards the sandy beach and the small native encampment beyond.

With the stage set, my next post will begin the adventure proper, and the unexpected visitor waiting for them in the water.

[Edit: While the bulk of the party went off to find treasure, the second half of the first adventure in The Coils of Set remained unconquered. Paul wanted to have his thief Mouse do some solo quests so here at work, on occasion during lunch, we will attempt this fun and dangerous adventure. Here is the link: http://necromancergames.yuku.com/topic/11862/master/1/ ]

First up let me say we did not get a lot of adventuring done that Friday. We had a blast, but of the roughly ten hours we were at my house, lots of that time was spent in conversations that went from politics to work to wrestling (Not to mention the time outs for parenting stuff ).

Most of the day, JediWife was not at the dining room table, but was just across the island in the kitchen working up a batch of my mom's tomatoes into JediWife's homemade spaghetti sauce and later baking a cake for a baby shower on Saturday. Later in the evening she would pop over to roll dice for her character, but for the most part she was not involved in the game and her character was mostly an NPC. On occasion, her advice would float over to the boys.

While the PCs were heading to shore in the row boat I had them make checks and one of them spotted a shark fin nearby. Soon there after the boat was struck by the force of a large shark. Several of the planks cracked. No water was coming aboard, but the party was still 30 feet from shore and I expressed the fact they were not certain if the boat could take too many more attacks. One of us muttered Ragnar1965's favorite movie quote, "We're going to need a bigger boat," and we rolled for initiative. They got it, for reasons they were not yet sure of, and Nightwing asked what Ragnar1965 thought. He turned to me and asked how deep was the water, how close was the shark as well as how big it was. I said the water was about 12 to 15 foot deep by your estimate and the shark was about 20 foot long. He then asked if he could dive head first into the water with both Whisker and Fenis thrust out in front of him. The boy's gutsy! I'm sure I looked surprised and dubious, but said Greyson would have no problem doing that. I'm thinking the ranger is going to be shark bait. JediWife chimed in from the kitchen saying her elf wants to put arrows into that large shark. Ragnar1965 has his character stay in the boat and do nothing. The fight is launched.

Nightwing scores two hits on the shark and I let the party know that no blood comes from the wounds and repeat the message when Ragnar1965 rolls a hit for the elven bow fighter. This gives them pause!

As the rounds progress the party rips into the shark for massive damage, for 4th and 5th level characters, but the thing won't die. The problem with no blood coming from the shark's wounds is corrected when the shark rips into the ranger for some fine damage. By round three Nightwing has concluded the shark is a zombie and that his ranger's hope of retirement is getting slim. Ragnar1965 has his cleric/magic-user start pumping rounds from a wand of magic missiles to aid in ending the threat. Nightwing asks if his ranger thought he could swim away or climb back into the boat. I told him the ranger did not think he could out swim the shark and to get into the boat would be tantamount to turning his back to this killer. With grim determination, Nightwing had Greyson continue to attack the zombie shark. The thing finally died, but it had left its mark on the ranger. From the 42 hp he had when he dove into the water, he had only 12 or so left. They were all amazed that the zombie shark had 91hp! I smiled and told them I had toned the monster down by removing the toughness feat. Only Rangar1965 got the humor from that since the other two did not recall the 3rd edition feat toughness that granted an extra 3 hit points.

None of them felt comfortable about the fact that the first encounter was against such an over-the-top beast. I think I may have began to feel the first twinges of apprehension as they completed their journey to the beach and the native buildings beyond. Nightwing made sure I was aware of the fact his ranger DID NOT swim the rest of the distance, but got his bleeding and wounded body back onto the boat.

And the adventure was officially afoot!

Granted I have not been playing RGPs long but I never thought I would fight a shark. An even bigger surprise came later

_________________
Win if you can, lose if you have to but always cheat.

-Jesse "the body" Ventura

All warfare is based on deception

Heh. Can't wait to read how this one goes down ...

//H

_________________
The lucky guy who got to write some Dungeon Crawl Classics.

DCC Resource thread: character sheets, judge tools, and the world's fastest 0-level party creator.

Well Nightwing, that undead shark made two "you never thought you'd see such a thing" in the game. Do you recall the first one you said that about?

The party comes ashore near the longhouses. I map them out, show the small gardens and the palisade.

I forgot to mention the guys had the ranger put a line on the beaten zombie shark with the plan to drag it ashore and pull its teeth. One of those two beamed at the thought of having their PC wear a shark tooth necklace to impress the natives. Was that your idea Ragnar1965?

Ragnar1965 has his spellcaster cast several cure spells on the ranger to get him back up into the upper 30s in hit points. Ragnar1965 has such a love/hate relationship with clerics. I think he likes the cleric spells, but hates being the bandage kit. As a house rule, clerics can swipe out memorized spells for cure spells. So as Ragnar1965 is rolling 8-sided dice to cure the ranger, he mumbles under his breath the whole time about what spell he is swapping out for a cure light wounds spell!

They move carefully towards a close longhouse puzzled about the lack of natives. Ragnar1965 asked if the gardens looked tended to which I said they look like they have been taken care of. I have them all roll a d20 and declare that Ragnar1965's PC could hear a rapping inside the nearby longhouse. The two fellows ponder what to make of the whole thing. I think they took the zombie shark as a clue to what further beings they would encounter and planned on more undead to appear from the longhouses, zombies to be exact.

They came up with an ingenious plan to stop the zombies from emerging and getting into combat quickly. Greyson the ranger used his camp shovel to dig a trench in the sand in front of the door to the first longhouse, the one with the knocking. Once the trench was dug, giving about a two-foot drop from the threshold's edge, they had the lady elf ready an arrow to be shot into anything that may emerge and didn't look "alive." Greyson the ranger was at one side of the door ready to being slicing and dicing with his magic blades into the hopefully tripped up zombies that would come forth to attack the party.

I was impressed with the plan!

Ragnar1965's PC opened the door and they peered into darkness. Nothing emerged. Nightwing had his ranger go into the longhouse followed by the ladies. They found the sole survivor of the native village. From him they learned of the strange lights at night and how something horrible was happening to the island. How soon after the lights began all the small animals, birds, and insects died. The native told them about how these lights seemed to drain the soul or life essence from everything, including the natives. How many of the natives had turned into living dead and how he feared he was to pass away this night or the next. I was asked why the native stayed inside the longhouse and knocked on the wall. I told them the native had heard them come ashore and prayed they would be his rescue. The PCs gave him food and water and asked him what may be at the center of the "X" on their map. He gave them a tale of an ancient temple to the native's god was atop the plateau which is also where these lights seem to originate. He told them that several of the natives had gone to offer sacrifices after the lights began, in hopes of appeasing the gods, but they never returned.

With that knowledge the players had their PCs repeat their tactics on the other longhouses. When the zombies they now knew were in them stumbled forwards, most of them fell head long into the trench and that allowed them to bet the zombies with no damage to the party. While they were doing this, they had begun to hear banging on the gates into the palisade. Fearing more zombies, they had the elf stand on the shoulders of the ranger to peak over the wall. Sure enough, six zombies were without trying to beat down the gate. Using their now tried and true trench method, the ranger dug for about an hour and a half in the sand to create a two-foot deep trench across the gates. They then opened the gates and in came the zombies. Some stumbled and fell in, to which the ranger used Whisker and Fenis with no repercussions. The elf pumped arrows in to assist Greyson. And for the first time in a long time, Ragnar1965 got to try to turn the zombies who were still standing, Castles & Crusades style.

With the party high on several battles with no hit point loss, they were eager to venture forth into the disturbingly quite jungle in hopes of reaching the river by sun down.

One lose end they forgot to tie up was the sole native. He remained behind in his longhouse! Granted, he was terrified of coming out of the longhouse for fear of the lights. . . .

Harley, it has not gone down as I had envisioned it. I was stunned by what they did later on!

We had the tools and the talent!

_________________
Win if you can, lose if you have to but always cheat.

-Jesse "the body" Ventura

All warfare is based on deception

So the party travels along the native path towards the river and the plateau beyond. I describe the utter silence of the jungle they are in. I tried to provoke a sense of the eerie in Ragnar1965 and Nightwing. I'm not sure how well I did.

Rolling for a wandering monster, I wasn't pleased with the roll, thus I picked the best of the lot! (Keep in mind I reduced the hit points from the module and, not really recalling the proper way 3.5 rules work with the ill effects the beast was under, pulled the required material from my old AD&D Unearthed Arcana book.)

Thus I tell the guys, between blasts of loud noise from my wife using the food processor (and frequent "I'm sorry" from JediWife), in the midst of the still and silent rain forest, a loud thrashing of something very, very large could be heard. The head of a horrible, reptilian predator poked out above the foliage quite a ways from them. They had asked just prior to me bringing the encounter to life if there was a clearing nearby to which I had said yes, not thinking anything about it. They had their PCs race to the clearing to get a better view of what was coming. It was a dying Tyrannosaurus Rex! The thing had smelled food, or perhaps heard them, they were never sure beyond the fact that a 20+foot tall dinosaur, that was skin and bone, was coming after them like a pig to mud. I told them they had maybe four rounds before the beast was upon them. One of the rounds was spent in launching arrows and bolts at the beast to soften it up.

Then Nightwing had a plan!

He had JediWife's character and his race to the edge of the trees from which the monster was about to burst forth from. He had Ragnar1965's spellcaster remain in the open as bait while the other two quickly strung his ranger's rope between two of the larger trees in an attempt to trip up the beast. It seems tripping the opponent was the theme of the evening!

I thought it to be a gutsy plan and thought it might have a chance so I gave it a small chance of working out. I don't recall what percentage I gave it for a chance, but the 03 on the percentile dice was not in my favor! The Tyrannosaurus Rex went down in a heap in front of a frightened spellcaster. The dinosaur had, for three rounds, had two magic missiles pumped from a wand (if I recall correctly) as well as one arrow's worth of damage. I called for initiative to be rolled and I lost. All three PCs struck the downed beast with one of the ranger's magic blades hitting for double damage with a natural-20. By the time I got the king of dinosaurs up and ready to fight, he was beginning to bleed all over the place. None-the-less, Nightwing was not happy when in one bite I took his ranger from the upper 30s in hit points to 12!

They had JediWife's elven fighter cause a ruckus and distract the dumb beast since that PC still had full hit points. In the end, they killed the dinosaur with a well-place arrow from the elven fighter and there was much celebration!

There was also much need of healing and a place to sleep and replenish spells. The players opted to travel further down the road several miles away from the dead monster while the sun slipped over the horizon and they began to worry about being caught at night, in the open, by this mysterious lights the native had told them about. It was these same lights, presumable, that had transformed most of the villagers into zombies, silenced the jungle life, and had been sucking the life out of both the remaining villager and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. With little healing left, the party worried about the ill effects upon their PCs.

But before they could even set up a simple camp, the evening came alive with the pulsing lights emanating from atop the plateau and the mysterious "X" on their map. But more about that next time.

The party was being washed over by the surreal lights emanating from atop the plateau.

I had each of the players roll a saving throw against whatever this power was. All rolled high and all felt as if something was attempting to, for lack of a better phrase, "pluck the life" from their bodies. I asked Ragnar1965 to give me an intelligence roll, for which he did. I told him his PC had heard of such dark arcane powers being used in the form of a spell, but let him ponder that without extra details.

Nightwing concluded from the event that somehow a vampire was behind this unholy event.

I stated the rest of the night was uneventful, for the lights seemed to take on a life of their own and the rest of the island remained still and almost dreamlike. in a nightmarish way.

In the morning, the PCs headed to the river and came to the bridge. Nightwing informed me his ranger would cross the bridge first, but that he would keep his eyes on the water, since an island that housed a Tyrannosaurus Rex would undoubtedly have some nasty water monster as well.

Sure enough, a large, serpentine head rose out of the water and attacked the ranger. This beast, also a dinosaur, was similar to the Tyrannosaurus in the fact it too looked like it was skin and bone, as if most of its life had been taken away. Greyson the ranger has not been surprised and used both Whisker and Fenis to cut up the face of the water beast. I rolled very well and the monster bite onto Greyson, lifted him off the bridge and began to move away from the others. I ruled that the bite on Greyson pinned one of his arms, rolling percentiles, I judged it was his primary arm, rendering Whisker useless. Boy did I hear the belly-aching about that!

Anyway, Ragnar1965 did. . . I don't really recall what he had his lady spellcaster do. I just remember the sarcasm regarding Whisker was not usable! He did have JediWife's elf fire arrows into the beast while Nightwing rolled with Fenis to good effect.

The party killed the brute, but I kept up the idea it might still be alive as it slipped into the water with Greyson still in its mouth. Ragnar1965 rolled for the elf to hit with her bow one last time and scored a natural-20. All three of them were HOT at me for "wasting a perfectly good roll" on a monster that was already dead. My folks are a bit touchy about those natural-20s!

That is because we hardly role any! Or in my case Never

_________________
Win if you can, lose if you have to but always cheat.

-Jesse "the body" Ventura

All warfare is based on deception

Nightwing, you need to get new dice! Have your friend in Arizona get those dice you almost forked over the money on!

With the crossing of the bridge, the party was ready to climb the plateau. I brushed past anymore random encounters for the evening was getting on and we really had very little gaming to show for the day. (I did learn all sorts of things about Hulk Hogan's turning to the dark side however )

I drew the map showing the two towers that guarded the pathway onto the plateau and the ancient structure beyond. The skeletons, four on each tower as I recall, began peppering the PCs with arrows. I asked what they wanted to do and called for initiative to be rolled. For some reason this encounter really stumped the players. I think the main reason was it was approaching 10 PM and both Ragnar1965 and Nightwing were in a "wind down" mode, i.e. getting a bit tired. It did not help that JediWife had been working hard on a baby shower cake and had not been able to contribute very much. I was pumped and a-rearing to go. Both the Jedi children were asleep and the encounters on the plateau held much promise for some dogged fighting.

Anyway, after a quick exchange, Nightwing had Greyson the ranger run to the underside of the tower to the right while Ragnar1965 had his lady spellcaster hustle to the underside of the tower on the left. They asked input from JediWife who agreed to keep her elven archer, with full hit points, firmly on the trail to draw the skeleton's fire as she returned arrows of her own. Upon the ranger arriving at his spot, Nightwing asked me to describe the towers in more detail. I told both of the guys the towers were quite simple in construction. Four large tree trucks lashed together at intervals with a wooden ladder to access the flat top at the north, or back, of each tower. For a moment Nightwing thought about having his ranger chop down one of the tower's poles, but I explained it would take a while to do that all the while the lady elf was getting shot at by 8 archers.

Both Ragnar1965 and Nightwing opted to have their PCs climb the ladder, but I'm still not sure if either had the faintest idea what they were going to do when they got to the top of the ladder. Meanwhile, JediWife had completed enough baking, and had clean enough hands, that she began scooting out of the kitchen to roll her PCs "to hit" when it was time to fire her "guided missiles." She was hitting well, but with little damage, while on the other hand, my skeletons were scoring few hits, but when I did hit her, I had two natural-20s and several high damage rolls.

Both PCs climbing made it to the top unmolested. Both players were totally befuddled about the four skeletons firing arrows at the elf on the opposite end of the platform. I did tell them the top of the tower, the platform, had no railing what-so-ever. And the wheels were not moving in either of their heads. We were officially at the "slump" point of the evening. I think we took a quick break, e. g. someone headed to the restroom, another refilled his soda; you know, stuff like that.

When we came back, the wheels had been greased and for the rest of the evening (until midnight), we had the best gaming I've seen in a while. All three of the players began to work off one-another, making a dynamic that was greater that the sum of the whole!

Ragnar1965 decided he was going to attempt a turn on the skeletons and then press in on them, maintaining the official distance needed to keep the undead turned. He knew full well the skeletons would have no where to go but over the side of the platform and to their doom. Nightwing had caught onto the fact that his blades did little damage against skeletal beings and opted for a more mundane approach to ridding himself of the four skeletons. Nightwing asked me if the undead had spotted or heard his ranger ascend to the platform, and in point of fact they had not for he had rolled a great "move silently" check. All four were still firing their depleting arrows into the pin cushion of an elf.

First, Ragnar1965 rolled his turn check and did very well, he than rolled to see how many of the four skeletons on his tower would be turned. His roll was well over four. Over the side they all fled, smashing themselves on the rocky precipice below. Nightwing had his ranger rush towards two of the skeletons and simply shoved them over the ledge to fall below. He then turned to the remaining two on the second round and smacked them, one with the pummel of Whisker and one with the butt of Fenis. Both skeletons were close enough to the edge, since they had been firing arrows at the elf on the path below, they were forced back off the ledge and plummeted to crash on the ground many feet below. Both the skeletons attempted to grasp at Greyson, both missed their attack roles. The players had defeated the skeletons and now proceeded to the main event!

More to come.

I didn't like that part of the adventure. Being pinned down from above is not a favorite of mine. I didn't think I came up with a very good strategy very clumsy but it worked. If I had to do it over I would have stayed underneath the towers a little longer and been more patient. I didn't feel our elf was in that great of danger as she can put an arrow through an eye at about 500 yards with any roll over lets say.......1.

_________________
Win if you can, lose if you have to but always cheat.

-Jesse "the body" Ventura

All warfare is based on deception

The players had their PCs re-group under the tower Greyson went to and some healing was in order. They watched a large dinosaur skeleton patrol/guard the entrance to the ancient temple. The large front doors may or may not have been locked, they were unsure, but one thing was sure: Nightwing wanted to scout the parameters of the temple without engaging in what looked like a bad fight waiting to happen.

The PCs gave the guardian skeleton wide berth and plunged into the jungle underbrush to get a fix on how big the building was. Nightwing asked about the make up of the building (all stone) and Ragnar1965 asked roughly how many stories their PCs thought the temple might be. Nightwing became curious about the apparent flatness of the roof. On that, he had Greyson whip out his ol' grappling hook and the ranger climbed to the top of the temple. The two lady adventures stayed hidden in the flora, keeping an eye and an arrow out for guards.

At the top the ranger was surprised to find a large circular hole in approximately the middle of the temple structure. Nightwing immediately concluded this must be where the evil lights originate from and his PC carefully approached the whole to see what lurked within. I described his ranger saw three hooded figures slowing moving about the large chamber below. I further explained the presence of a large "white arch. at least ten feet tall" erected in the middle if the room. This arch had five rubies "embedded along the length of the arch pulse with dark energy."

Everyone got excited with this information! Nightwing had his PC back away from the whole and return to the rest of the party hiding below. And then, Nightwing had a plan. It was almost like watching an episode of Scooby-Doo. Fred had a plan to catch the bad guys and the rest of the gang gathered round to listen and improve it. That's pretty much what happened.

Before I launch into how the plan was executed, I'll give the others a chance to explain what they had in mind and what they thought was going on in this ancient temple. It involved a broom, a bottle of acid, and Batman like tactics!

(I'll post how the plan was executed tomorrow regardless if anyone has time to elaborate on what the plan was to be and what the players thought was going on in the temple.)

When I saw that hole in the roof and that structure I was pretty sure that is where this energy was coming from. I also figured a structure that important would be well guarded by tough customers not red shirts.

As for the tactics of getting in, I knew we had to take care of skeleton boy outside which I thought wouldn't be hard. Like Wolverine we are the best at would we do and it aint pretty. I look at our group as a Navy Seal team or in more fantastic terms a IMF team from the old mission impossible show or the movies if you like. We all have a role to play. Since we are most often out numbered we have to embrace speed and speed kills.

When I see a building I am always thinking infiltration and misdirection. I love it. I like setting up a plan and then executing it. Much like Batman. Attacking from different angles and directions has always made sense to me. It's like when a pitcher in baseball keeps changing the release point of his throwing arm. Makes it very hard hard for opponents to guess where its going.

_________________
Win if you can, lose if you have to but always cheat.

-Jesse "the body" Ventura

All warfare is based on deception

Wow,

We finished our two-day game fest.

We concluded "The Temple's Tribute" the second part of DCC #14, Dungeon Interludes, and finished up, about 20 minutes ago, DCC #43, The Curse of the Barrens. What a blast!

I'll get back to recounting what we did after Halloween.

Looking forward to the recap. Sounds like it was good time!

//H

_________________
The lucky guy who got to write some Dungeon Crawl Classics.

DCC Resource thread: character sheets, judge tools, and the world's fastest 0-level party creator.

With the information relayed to the others and Nightwing's plan in place, they turned to me and began explaining what the plan was. Color me impressed!

Instead of relating what they planned to do, let me describe what they did and how it worked out:

Nightwing has Jediwife's elf move to underneath the eastern tower they had fought and killed the skeletons atop it earlier. He has Ragnar1965's lady spellcaster accompany the elven bowcaster. When those two were in place, Nightwing had his ranger climb back atop the temple's roof and make his way to the front doors. Once there, his ranger motioned to move ahead with part two of the plan. The female elf prepared her bow and targeted the large dinosaur skeleton that guarded the front doors to the temple. The ranger prepared to repel from the roof to the ground directly in front of the doors. Finally, the cleric/magic-user left the cover of the tower and moved out in the open and attempted to turn the skeleton. Ragnar1965 was hoping for a big number when he released the 20-sided, for if he could turn the beast, they could move to part four of the plan, thus skipping part three-the fight!

Sadly, the number rolled did not cut the mustard, the dinosaur skeleton had a momentary sensation of being uncomfortable and turned its focus to the exposed woman from which the feeling came from. It was time for initiative!

The party got the roll and JediWife scampers over to have her elf shoot an arrow into the skeleton, in the attempt to draw the skeleton's attention away from the exposed spellcaster. [Everyone note that the party is not using blunt weapons against the foe ] She rolls and hits the thing with one of her elf's arrows. Meanwhile, Greyson the ranger is repelling to get into position to attack from the back. The beast ignores the elf in favor of attacking the spellcaster. I hit and Rangar1965 looks to Nightwing with the expression of, "are you sure this was a good idea." He has his PC draw forth her wand of magic missiles, knowing full well spellcasting is not going to be of help.

Round three begins with JediWife rolling a natural-20 and does some great damage, even though it is cut in half. The skeleton's attention is turned towards this source of damage allowing Ragnar1965 to withdraw his spellcaster on his turn, instead of using the wand. As the skeleton moved towards the elf, Nightwing had his ranger charge and attack with both Whisker and Fenis. Both hit and he also did some good damage. And this is how the rest of the encounter went! The skeleton spun about and began attacking Greyson who, with both magic blades has a 20 AC, while the two lady PCs set up flank attacks with the wand of magic missiles and arrows. This three way assault upon the skeletal dinosaur spelled its doom, but not before I got several solid hits upon the ranger.

With the guardian beast out of the way, the players began phase 4 of Nightwing's master plan. Nightwing's ranger was given a flask of acid from Rangar1965's PC and the ranger climbed back atop the temple complex. The elven bowcaster and the human cleric/magic-user both remained by the front door, waiting for the ranger's signal to burst into the complex. Meanwhile, Nightwing rolled to move quietly for his ranger to move towards the hole in the ceiling. He got to the hole and looked below to see if anything had changed. Nope, the three robed figures were still pacing about the mysterious altar. The ranger readied the flask of acid and his animated broom, or as Nightwing calls it "the Broom of Doom." (For those keeping track, he got the broom from the lair of Suto in DCC #0, way back at the beginning of their adventuring careers.)

Nightwing has his PC drop the broom down the hole as one of the figures pass by. It hits the stone floor, bounces slightly and comes to rest. All three figures are puzzled and one looks up at the hole, not seeing the ranger since Nightwing had made it clear the ranger ducked back as soon as he released the broom. I roll the die to see which of the three bends over to pick up the broom, it was the high priest DOH!, while the others approach to see what on earth, or sky, is up with an old straw broom doing falling from above. When Nightwing was sure enough time had elapsed, only a few seconds, to have gathered the three close, he yelled out the command word for the broom to begin attacking, which was the key for the other players to send their PCs rushing through the front door and into the center room, with arrow drawn and wand at ready. As soon as the broom began smacking the high priest, causing all sorts of chaos, the ranger hurled the flask of acid directly to the floor amidst the three figures knowing this would also damage the broom. He was insuring that the other PCs would have an easy go of it for at least a couple of rounds while the enemy was trying to figure out what was going on, i.e.--what was up with the broom and why were they burning from acid!

Seeing that one of the figures was occupied with a broom beating him or her about the face, Ragnar1965 and Jediwife had their PCs focus upon the others in the room. Jediwife had her elf fire an arrow at one, dropping him, and Ragnar1965's PC fired two magic missiles into the other, also dropping him. The high priest did not have a chance. The broom never hit her for damage, but it kept stunning her with the whisk side.

I was amazed at the tactics and what should have been a tough encounter turned out to be a cake walk, all because of planning.

They searched the bodies and Nightwing volunteered to have his ranger remove the gems from the arch. He made all but one of his saves, reducing him to a fourth level ranger for the remainder of the adventure. Ragnar1965 had hoped the level drain was temporary, but as they found out later (and lots of gold) they had to get a high level cleric to restore the ranger his lost level.

That is where they left off on Friday, October 8th. It would be three weeks before they got to conclude this swell little side quest.

!!!

Awesome. Very, very cool. Congrats on a well executed plan!

//H

_________________
The lucky guy who got to write some Dungeon Crawl Classics.

DCC Resource thread: character sheets, judge tools, and the world's fastest 0-level party creator.

Somehow with this party of 3, something tells me that this isn't going to be the last time I get to be the bait!

_________________
Forgiveness is between you and your maker. I'm just responsible for the meeting.

Correct

_________________
Win if you can, lose if you have to but always cheat.

-Jesse "the body" Ventura

All warfare is based on deception

When the gang got together for our 2-day game fest, we picked up with the party in the ancient temple. Rangar1965 attempted to have his lady spellcaster determine what deity or demonic being the unholy symbols on the dead clerics represented. I gave him one wisdom roll for the unholy symbols of the underpriests, and another roll for the expert unholy symbol worn by the high priest. His rolls were, in a word--pitiful, leaving the party in the dark about what was being worshiped here.

They left the evil archway and explored the eastern corridor. They found the secret door and much fun ensued!

Upon opening the door they saw a dark stain on the floor, immediately inside the secret corridor. They also noticed lots and lots of small holes in the walls. Ragnar1965 was not at all excited about what this might mean. Now I don't recall which of the fellows hatched this plan, but the players had their PCs go back and rustle up the high priestess' body. They tied a rope onto the leg of the dead high priestess and pitched the carcass into the secret corridor! A click was heard and many darts flew about to the satisfaction of the players, watching from the safety of the wide corridor.

They dragged the body back from the secret corridor, patted themselves on the back, and sent in JediWife's elf to explore the corridor. Dice were rolled from behind the DM screen and then I informed my lovely wife that she needed to make several saving throws due to the darts that penetrated her elf's skin.

The saves were made, and the elf retreated back to the safety of the wide corridor.

There was a slight pause in the game as the threesome re-grouped! They were stumped momentarily.

It was Ragnar1965 that came up with the plan to use the bodies.

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Win if you can, lose if you have to but always cheat.

-Jesse "the body" Ventura

All warfare is based on deception

Ragnar1965 has the PCs toss the body back into the first part of the secret corridor. They heard a "click" but nothing happened. The three of them breathed a sigh of release. Leaving the body on the floor, the party moves forward to the next section of the corridor. They get the corpse of one of the underpriests, tied another rope on its leg, and toss the body further down the passageway. Darts fire out. [By this time, I'm noticing the trap was suppose to be wall spikes, oops! ]

They repeat the process and are about to send the elf ahead when all of a sudden Ragnar1965 yells out "Whoa, whoa, whoa." He asks the others about the trap, noticing the previous section fired the poisoned darts twice, just like now, but there was that dark stain at the entrance. Was the dark stain the result of an earlier attempt to get to the end of the passageway? For good measure, they tossed the body a third time and was rewarded with a third volley of poisoned darts. Nightwing's ranger had tried, without success, to determine what form of poison was on those darts. He followed in Ragnar1965's footsteps with knowledge checks this day and came up with a very poor roll. Just to be safe, they toss the body a forth time to find no more darts shoot from the walls.

Both bodies are left where they were tossed, the ropes removed from the legs, and the party makes it to the door. Nighwing has his ranger attempt to check for traps. Since Greyson is not a rogue, he has little chance of finding one without setting it off, but I think they figure little chance is better than no chance. He does not find anything nor does he set off anything, so they open the door and see a room beyond. Nightwing has his ranger boldly enter, followed by the two lady PCs. His boldness is abruptly ended when a bladed pendulum slams into the ranger and the party realizes the corridor behind them may not be the only thing trapped in this secret part of the temple!

More to come.

I believe it was at this point that Ragnar1965 cried out to the importance of having all the "core" classes. A thief/rogue was what Ragnar1965 was missing terribly. He enjoys playing a halfling rogue quite a bit!

They waited out the pendulum and proceeded further into the room. The party searched the empty room and moved forward into the passage in the east wall which descended to the treasure vault. They all were very careful, using ropes to keep themselves together. When they finally arrived in the treasure vault, all of them were going to spend a LOT of time and effort in seeking traps, poisons, and other dangers among the gold, gems, and native treasures. I wasn't wanting to spend lots of time on this room, so I told them they searched everywhere and came up with no dangers.

The three main treasures that I encouraged them not to sell were the native treasures: the "gold comb of a stylized triceratops with red garnet eyes," the "ceremonial jade dagger with a ruby set in an ivory pummel," and "a jeweled headdress with gold feathers." To me, items like that can define the adventure and are worthy to keep as mementos of a past adventure.

From here they retraced their steps and began to explore the western portion of the ancient temple.

The party came upon the sleeping quarters of the high priestess and turned the place up-side down. The chest gave them a bit of a problem, but in the end they overcame it. The unusual blackened human skull on the desk puzzled Ragnar1965. He asked if his cleric/magic-user might have any knowledge concerning what it may have been. True to form that day, Ragnar1965 rolled dismally and nothing was gleaned. Thus a heavy mace was used to remove the thing from existence.

Moving further along the area of the temple they found the sleeping quarters of the under-clerics. One of the evil minions was caught laying upon his bed. The villain sprung up and began to cast a spell, but Nightwing had his ranger rush forward and impale the man with both magic blades. A quick search was made and the party went to explore the smaller corridor that went behind the main altar room.

As they came upon the long, wide corridor behind the altar room, they heard the closing of a door off to the right of the party (east). Nightwing had his PC attempt a move silently along the corridor and discovered two doors. The ranger returned to the elf and spellcaster and the three of them worked up a plan. Greyson the ranger quietly dumped a bag of marbles just up the hallway between the party and the first door. Then JediWife had her lady elf ready an arrow. Greyson rapped on the door and scurried off into the shadows and hastened back to the rest of the party. A robed individual opened the door and peered out to spy the attractive lady spell-caster of Ragnar1965's. The NPC moved out of the door way and began to approach the PC. He did not get far, not even among the marbles, for he was struck down by both an arrow and two magic missiles. Sadly the marbles did not come into play. They were gathered up and replaced in the bag for another try later!

With the death of this robed, evil cleric, the players figured the fighting was over and had their players head down to the second door and opened it. What I described was not what they were expecting. Beyond the door are two zombies of native stock and a skeleton with a belt pouch guarding the entrance to the room. Behind them is a frightening man that, to all outward appearances, was a sorcerer or necromancer of some sort. Behind him was an “experimentation” table and all the various accouterments that goes along with such vile studies.

These brave heroes did what any stouthearted band would do when faced with such beings: they closed the door and ran back down the hallway!

In all fairness to my players, they had hoped these villains would follow them, which they did not. So the party returns to the door and opens it with the plan to rush in and attack. Well, the necromancer did not sit about waiting for the adventurers to return. He moved back behind the experimentation table and placed his guards to be covers for him. He also began to cast several defensive spells that would last for a long time. Protection from arrows and mage armor being two of this protective spells. I had made some major changes to the villain using Troll Lord’s The Black Libram of Nartarus to add flavor to the spell-caster.

This fight was a blast. One of the spells the necromancer cast early on was from the Black Libram which caused skeletal hands to spring forth from the ground between the door and the table. Anyone attempting to rush in and attack would have to get through this danger first. JediWife’s killer attack roles from her elf’s bow was completely negated by the protection from arrows and the party knew the longer they allowed the necromancer free time to cast spells, he would become even more dangerous. Ragnar1965 was also aggravated by the fact that his lady PCs magic missiles proved ineffective due to a shield spell. The only option left was the frontal assault to which Nightwing declared his ranger was charging in with the intent to get onto the table. Greyson raced in, but failed to escape the attacks of the bony hands. JediWife had her elf follow suit and was able to avoid the hands so both PCs made it to the table together. If I recall correctly, that was when Ragnar1965 had a bless spell in effect and rolled to turn the zombies which caused two of the three guards to shuffle to a corner of the room and grovel. The following round, Ragnar1965 was able to have the skeleton turned and Nightwing scored two hits on the necromancer ruining his spell mid-cast wiping away more than half of the enemy’s hit points. JediWife’s elf attacked with Lord Tulwar’s cold iron blade, rolled well, the villain had an AC of 20 or 21 from all the buffs, and ended his miserable life then and there.

The party celebrated overcoming this tough encounter, searched the room, as well as the necromancer’s bedroom, and Ragnar1965 was happy to find his PC could add a few new spells to her spellbook.

This completed the search of the Temple’s Tribute.

Thank you for reading my write-up regarding me & my friends exploits. I found this short adventure to be very enjoyable!