Tourney Details - SPOILERS THREAD!!! You've been warned!

[fathead]

****SPOILERS FOR THIS YEARS TOURNAMENT!!!**************

Alright, here is the beginning of the spoilers thread. I'll try to post more later tonight.

My most memorable encounters were in round 3. The unique settings truly added depth to the combats.

At a lake of fire, the spirits of the turtlemen grant us passage using a magical fire resistant boat. They told us that we would come to a split in the river. To the right was the water that we needed to drink (part of the ritual...I'll try to explain later). To the left was a creature that held a magic weapon to defeat the guardian of the axe. The middle held the guardian of the axe (who we must defeat).

Traversing the rivers of fire and molten metal (one of Ben's maps) required a check to steer the magical boat, and one person was needed for spot to avoid pockets of fire gas. Eventually, we came upon a split in the river, where combat ensued with a fire elemental and an electrical creature (they flanked either side of the boat). This combat was GREAT! Very memorable. The only person in our party who could steer the boat was the cleric/wizard, who was the person who could rebuke the fire elemental. It took him 3 rounds before he had a roll that would rebuke it (he needed a 13). In the meantime, Jason Little (our GM) would roll to see what direction the boat would go without someone to steer. Of course, this meant floating into pockets of fire gas while we were trying to fight. After finishing combat, we headed right.

We came to a fleshy tunnel that was constricting. If you left the boat, you were immediately squeezed by the fleshy walls and dumped into a stomach (another of Ben's maps). The stomach room was terrific...albeit a little gross. I felt dirty. Anyway, combat ensued with a creature on a throne of puss. Immediately after defeating him, we were attacked by a black dragon, who had been interrupted from his treasure counting. The barbarian (our only warrior) was close to death. One more round would have finished him. The druid hit the dragon with a poison, and the barbarian finished it with a full round attack. It was VERY close though.

We found the dragon's lair a short way from the stomach room. Inside, we discovered a replica of the palace of the wastes. Upon close examination, it was apparent that the front pillars of the palace were missing. We searched the dragon's hoard for the pillars. We found several plastic pieces, each with a different animal/creature. Luckily, I take meticulous notes, and knew the exact order in which they were in (from the description in round 1). After assembling the pillars and placing them in the replica, a pool of water appeared (from which we drank).

We returned to our boat, and took the passage to the left (to get the weapon that would help us defeat the guardian).


****I'll post more later tonight!!! I'll also try to post favorite encounters from other rounds************************

[jfrenia]

Probably one of the most memorable moments from my group "Glen Eagles" was the encounter with the spider and the cave crickets.

We had almost skipped the room althogether and with the "elevator" room reading trap to most of us, we decided to go back and check out some other rooms. Our rogue decided to sneak out of the cave and take a look and before we know it *zing* off Rella flies through the air and down into the chasm. I say to the barbarian to hold his action and I will throw a rope down from the cave and hopefully Rella can grab it and he can pull him up and no sooner did I split that out and the barbarian runs up to the edge and throws a rope down. Doh! Also grabbed by the spider and thrown into the chasm. We managed to get out of that encounter within an inch of our lives, but definitely pushed us to our limits.

[N'Haaz-aua]

When you are posting your stories, let us GM's know what characters you took. We had a bet (I lost) on how well parties would do with the different characters.

Dan, Adrian will be very proud of your notes. That was a little easter egg that is required to get to the end. You have to know the order of beasts on the pitted pillars at the beginning room on level 1...and you don't get the info unless you ask to study the pillars.

[jfrenia]

We (Glen Eagles) took Rella (rogue/bard), Ulfsek (fighter/paladin), Landeron (barbarian/ranger), and Issele (cleric/wizard)

[brogan_a]

'We Flunked Flank' - Cleric/Wizard, Rogue, and Fighter with the heavy repeater. We had the Druid for all of part 1 and most of part 2. What dumb luck that the guy who had to leave played the Druid and not the Fighter or the Rogue. When not playing with the Druid and dropping to 3 players we entered 'Exploration mode'. It is amazing what you can map when you basically avoid most encounters. Of course we were playing not to die in round three, but when push came to shove my crossbow was firing hot and heavy.

-Andy Brogan

[Mouse]

Ahhhh, notable moments from the GM's side.

Ordo's room

The room with Ordo was tuff (The Transformer/Borg on top the pyramid). But one group did exceptionally well. They new something bad was gonna happen but weren't sure what. So everone but the Rella left the room. Rella went to the top and snatched the ring. Ordo activates, shuts the door and attempts a beat down. The Grace of God and bad dice let Rella survive the 1st round and good initiative kept her going as she tumbled down the pyramid in an attemt to escape. One smart teamate (Iselle) kept opening the door and had a held action to repeat if needed. When Rella got to the bottom, she held an action stating "when Ordo shuts the door I dive through" . They were all cheering and happy when she made it out "Indianna Jones style" but were equally dissapointed when Ordo
re-opend the door and pursued. It quickly became apparent Ordo was after the ring and Rella did her best to stay away while the PC formed the AoO conga line of doom. Eventually Ordo got the best of Rella (despite all the AoO's), and she actually chucked the ring to keep from getting killed "go fetch". Eventually Ordo got beat down, but that was totally awesomely played.

The Water Spider/Earthquake room.

I think every player in the tounament could tell this one was a big fat trap. One team decided that it was just too dangerous. Then the druid Kaila says "hey I got all these level 1 summons". Enter Coco the monkey. Wow after the trap is gone (exactly 1 Coco later) that room was sooo much easier. They liked Coco's performance so well, he got summoned 2 or 3 more times. I loved it when the whole grooup screamed in unison "no Coco nooooo". Good Job Coco.

The Scrub Bot

I think many people were a bit scared of the cleaning construct. I think the fear increased when I kept referring to it as a scrub-bot. Ahh the mental scars from playing too much PARANOIA still run deep. My best team had just cleared the Chapel of the Sword and was hell bent on finding the Gems. When they saw the scrub-bot there first actions was to go see if it had one. They were not happy when all they found a scroll instead. "just a scroll, what no Gem..... gosh dang stupid scrub-bot".

More later, these were just some of my best memories.

Erica

[fathead]

We took the rogue/bard, barbarian/ranger, cleric/wizard, and the druid.

[fathead]

Probably one of the most memorable moments from my group "Glen Eagles" was the encounter with the spider and the cave crickets.

We had almost skipped the room althogether and with the "elevator" room reading trap to most of us, we decided to go back and check out some other rooms. Our rogue decided to sneak out of the cave and take a look and before we know it *zing* off Rella flies through the air and down into the chasm. I say to the barbarian to hold his action and I will throw a rope down from the cave and hopefully Rella can grab it and he can pull him up and no sooner did I split that out and the barbarian runs up to the edge and throws a rope down. Doh! Also grabbed by the spider and thrown into the chasm. We managed to get out of that encounter within an inch of our lives, but definitely pushed us to our limits.

Ahhh, yes....the cave encounter. We nearly died there in round 2.

We spent 2 hours in the first 2 rooms...no kidding. The first room seemed innocuous...but it was a PAIN. That stupid will o' wisp kept wisking around (which made it difficult since we didn't have any decent ranged combat) and trying to lure us into a blighted area. We finally got fed up and sicked the air elemental on him (from the elemental gem).

In the 2nd room (the cricket room that you mentioned), we wished we hadn't used the air elemental, because he would have come in handy. It was one of Ben's maps - a chasm filled with large crickets and 4 cave fishers waiting to snag us. The room nearly killed us.

[jfrenia]

We spent 2 hours in the first 2 rooms...no kidding. The first room seemed innocuous...but it was a PAIN. That stupid will o' wisp kept wisking around (which made it difficult since we didn't have any decent ranged combat) and trying to lure us into a blighted area. We finally got fed up and sicked the air elemental on him (from the elemental gem).

That room was a breeze for us; the ranger casted resistance to electricity on me, Ulfsek (figher/paladin) and I used detect evil to keep pinpointing his position to take him out.

[fathead]

That room was a breeze for us; the ranger casted resistance to electricity on me, Ulfsek (figher/paladin) and I used detect evil to keep pinpointing his position to take him out.

Did your group enter the blighted area? Did anything happen when you entered it? We were afraid to even go in it, since it seemed the will o' wisp was trying to lure us there...

[jfrenia]

Did your group enter the blighted area? Did anything happen when you entered it? We were afraid to even go in it, since it seemed the will o' wisp was trying to lure us there...

Well there was some nasty "mud" over there that would have been very bad to step in, but luckily we noticed it before we did. The "mud" was actually reaching out for us.

[fathead]

Did your group enter the blighted area? Did anything happen when you entered it? We were afraid to even go in it, since it seemed the will o' wisp was trying to lure us there...

Well there was some nasty "mud" over there that would have been very bad to step in, but luckily we noticed it before we did. The "mud" was actually reaching out for us.

We took a couple swipes at the guy, and then he darted over to the mud section. I'm pretty sure he was laughing at us too...or maybe that was just the GM...

[jfrenia]

Yeah, I think he was trying to fall back to the mud when we took him out; luckily for us the combat started on the non-mud side, so he had a ways to go.

[jfrenia]

We finally got fed up and sicked the air elemental on him (from the elemental gem).

btw, where did you find this? I think we missed this one...

[fathead]

We finally got fed up and sicked the air elemental on him (from the elemental gem).

btw, where did you find this? I think we missed this one...

It came with the druid.

[jfrenia]

oooooo, ok, that explains why we didn't find it

[Jeff LaSala]

Well there was some nasty "mud" over there that would have been very bad to step in, but luckily we noticed it before we did. The "mud" was actually reaching out for us.

I humbly apologize for creating that...

[jfrenia]

Yeah, I bet, LOL, perhaps we should apologize for not stepping in it!

[Rick Maffei]

This thread is like ambrosia to me ... keep it coming!

[fathead]

This thread is like ambrosia to me ... keep it coming!

Will do.

Some stories from ROUND 1:

At the front of the temple, there were two pillars carved with all manner of beasts. We spent some time writing it down, asking questions, and searching the pillars, but it just seemed like decoration (until round 3...which I mentioned earlier).

The first room was ladden with traps, many of which had gone off due to other people exploring the palace. A door was slightly open to the right. With tracking, we determined that other creatures had been in here and probably went through the open door (so we opted to avoid that for the time being). At the back of the room were murals. The murals were of the "triad" (we weren't able to get the full story on them). The traid consisted of a contemplative figure gazing into a ring, a woman surrounded by plants and holding a ribbon, and a man with a torso of stars and a plain iron rod. Checking the corpse impaled on a spike trap, we found a gem and a piece of paper saying "1 is 350. 8 is 2800. Worth it?". On a appraisal, we determined that the gem was worth 350 gp. Those gems were used later in round 1, in another room. We searched the room on the left hand side (because the drawing of the palace seemed to indicate a passageway there). We found a secret entrance.

After travelling down a hallway, we decided that we should probably close the secret door (after all, what would happen if the other creatures returned and saw it opened). The barbarian ran back to close it...unfortunately, the sound of his footsteps echoed, and the creatures found us. A brief combat ensued, in which we felled the large creature. The remaining members of his pack surrendered. We offered them food, and a place in a "new" pack...our adventuring group! We questioned them about rooms they had been in, and then continued on (with them following at the back of our newly expanded adventuring party).

The room that we had the most difficulty with in the 1st round (combat wise) was the pyramid room (the room Erica mentioned). In the center of the room was a pyramid. Instead of immediately approaching the pyramid, we threw down a detect magic and found a secret box in the wall with a scroll. The rogue (me) entered the room to retrieve it. I was almost out of the room...when the top of the pyramid suddenly rose and a huge metal construct lumbered down after the only person currently in the room (the rogue). I won initiative, and decided to tumble out of the room, while the barbarian (our only fighter) blocked the entranceway. This creature took a LONG time to drop. Later, we searched the construct and found a ring placed into its' back (like the one in the mural).

[Jengenritz]

The murals were of the "triad"

Aw, yeah. I don't want to ruin any surprises (even in a spoiler thread), but let's just say that Harley, Jeff, and myself colluded quite a bit on some elements of the backstory.

And since no one reached the Well of the Axe, oh yes, there are surprises to come...

[jfrenia]

Very cool, can't wait to buy the full module!

[gargoyle]

This thread is like ambrosia to me ... keep it coming!

I agree there is nothing like reading peoples reaction to the rooms you "created"... I have read the stuff about my stomach room a couple of times and it charges me up to write more every time!

I am curious is anyone here played through the shearing room trap/elevator - the trap where you had to jump or duck?

[jfrenia]

I am curious is anyone here played through the shearing room trap/elevator - the trap where you had to jump or duck?

We did; first of all we got to the mouth of the room and saw the 2 grooves extending down the hallway and the different types of walls that we didn't want to step in. We thought for sure a large blade was going to chop the room in half, so we left the room to explore elsewhere.

After some more exploring, we returned to the location and crawled below the groove all the way back to the room, making sure we stayed under that groove. Once we were in it, luckily the rogue hit the button in time and we stayed with the bottom to take us to the next level, but the room definitely had us on edge!

[N'Haaz-aua]

And since no one reached the Well of the Axe, oh yes, there are surprises to come...

Yes, no one knows the final secret. We all had minis ready to go for the last room and it would have been bloody.