Post by Dungeon Master on Nov 2, 2016 11:24:32 GMT -8
Session 16 - Fountain of Pestilence (03C), Demon's Gullet (02B), Mouth of Doom (01C), Cloister of the Frog God (0B).
Deadmeat's replacement is Freshmeat (Aegis 05 || Soulknife 05), his sixth character.
Sigrunin's replacement is Blitzkreig (Rogue (Unchained) 05 || Arcanist 05), his third character.
The rest of the party is:
-- Ulric (Psychic Warrior 05 || Cleric 05), the only original character.
-- Thor (Ranger 05 || ZenMonk 03 / Inquisitor 02), his second character.
-- Jalaa (Druid 05 || Sorcerer 02 / Barbarian 03), his third character.
They join up with the main group, in the larger room with the four choices. The north choice does not seem to work for anyone. The east choice leads to another chamber, basically identical to the North choice from the previous session. This time however, the hand print works fine. The party hypothesizes that the smaller rooms are isolation wards for the sick and that once you're not sick the hand print works just fine... if this is the case, then a cured Sigrunin and Deadmeat could have escaped on the third day if they had not destroyed the hand print via Stone Shape.
Freshmeat and Blitzkreig decide it should be a priority to escape the dungeon, with the assorted treasures, without surrendering most of the gains to the Vorlak (the Ogre) and his Kobold friends. The rest of the party wants to continue to dungeon, rather than backtrack. Those two decide they're heading out, while the rest of the party decides to not help them but to also not advance without a trap finder.
Freshmeat and Blitzkreig have some issues with wandering monsters on both this level (Fountain of Pestilence) and the one above (The Demon's Gullet), but eventually make it out of the dungeon. They manage to retrieve items from 2 of their 3 "loot rooms", although due to weight restrictions one of the rooms is not entirely cleared. The items and coins are sold within Zelkor's Ferry and scrolls and potions are bought. They manage to return without incident, except that they witness Vorlak's extortion on their way in (flying while invisible).
Vorlak and the Kobolds have slain two people and ten more are surrendering gear (which is recognized as coming from the PCs "loot room" that is closest to the surface). The ten survivors are allowed to leave, while wearing Mithral Shirts (that the PCs had previously brought in as starting gear for higher characters and/or found within the dungeon).
The group carefully checks over the three levels they've been to (Mouth of Doom, 01C), (Demon's Gullet, 02B), and (Fountain of Pestilence, 03C) and cross off each of places they haven't been. Their choices are either to face the puss room to find where the passage leaving the room to the east goes, or to leave the dungeon and attempt one of the other entrances they've heard of (they have heard of the Frog Cloister and an entrance off of a Graveyard).
Deadmeat wants to go through the puss, but no one else wants to... one of the players seems a little green in the face from the adventure's description of the puss and the room, so they head to the surface.
They choose to go to the Frog Cloister. Along the way, they meet a patrol out of a distant city/town which the patrol identifies as 'Bard's Gate'. They claim to be keeping the road safe and enquire politely where the PCs are going and what they're doing.
The group explains they're heading to the Frog cloister, and the Patrol starts to act a little hostile until the PCs make it clear that they're going there to clean the area out, not to join up with the cult. The patrol helpfully escorts the party most of the way (along the roadway) towards the Frog Cloister, and mentions that they'll be in this relative area for a while; it the party has any issues just get to the road and make a lot of noise so the patrol can come to their rescue.
The frog cloister is a fortified monastery, but it is in poor shape. It is situated within a swamp, which the ranger||monk/inquisitor identifies as possibly containing lethal hazards such as quicksand or alligators. The monastary itself is on solid ground and a roadway leads to the monastary upon a solid foundation. This road leads right to the edge of the swamp.
Midway from the swamp's edge towards the monastery, a voice (they surmize either an invisible person or possibly a Magic Mouth) enquires if they've come to pay respects to the cult and the demon lord; it seems excited when it says they'll be sacrificing travellers in the next few nights.
The party vehemently states that they have no interest in the cult, beyond slaying every last member of the cult. The voice goes silent, possibly out-stealthing their perceptions/detection abilities or maybe leaving them alone.
The road leads to the monastery. There are four half-orc priests outside, each with a combination of Skeletons/Zombies. In all, there are 24 undead, so six per Priest. The skeleton/zombies move to engage the group, while the Priests retreat into the monastery and close/bar the doors. The party sets up to take out the undead, with the melee in the front and the archer/caster in the back. The owner of the voice attacks each of them, with a Cleave Attack and hits both easily (very low ACs) and fairly hard. The archer and the arcanist position themselves a square away (shift) and attack, which allows the bad guy to shift closer and again Cleave them both. They eat opportunity attacks to move amidst the rest of the party (who largely thanks to Ulric's channel energy (PsyWar||Cleric) has cleaned up the horse of undead). The bad guy eats a few opportunity attacks to move close to the arcanist and archer, but now has to choose between them due to their positioning... he goes for the Arcanist, who is hitting (touch AC) more often and harder.
The party drops the bad guy, who dissolves into mist and floats towards the Cloister. It flies upwards and enters through an arrow slit. Ulric and Blitzkreig both surmise (knowledge religion) that it was an vampire, and that unless they get in fast, it will reform and come at the party again... more likely than not, at the worst possible time.
The outer cloister is a veritable fort, but the place is run down. The door proves too sturdy to simply back in, but at least the ample archer slits are not manned, nor is oil being poured on the PCs who attempted to smash in the door.
Blitzkreig scouts about and finds the ruins of another structure in between this structure and an even more impressively fortified monastery like or fort like structure further to the south. For whatever reason, this new structure seems to be abandoned, and Thor guesses from the condition of the stones that they've not been maintained for several hundreds of years.
Blitzkreig doesn't find too much of interest, but is under the impression that something is just out of sight watching him... he does find a set of keys, on the skeletal remains of someone who was literally torn into two as if by a massively strong giant...
The session ends here, and we're off next week, but will resume the following Saturday. The party is unsure if they can force a way into the monastery or if they should investigate the graveyard entrance that they've also heard of.
Deadmeat's replacement is Freshmeat (Aegis 05 || Soulknife 05), his sixth character.
Sigrunin's replacement is Blitzkreig (Rogue (Unchained) 05 || Arcanist 05), his third character.
The rest of the party is:
-- Ulric (Psychic Warrior 05 || Cleric 05), the only original character.
-- Thor (Ranger 05 || ZenMonk 03 / Inquisitor 02), his second character.
-- Jalaa (Druid 05 || Sorcerer 02 / Barbarian 03), his third character.
They join up with the main group, in the larger room with the four choices. The north choice does not seem to work for anyone. The east choice leads to another chamber, basically identical to the North choice from the previous session. This time however, the hand print works fine. The party hypothesizes that the smaller rooms are isolation wards for the sick and that once you're not sick the hand print works just fine... if this is the case, then a cured Sigrunin and Deadmeat could have escaped on the third day if they had not destroyed the hand print via Stone Shape.
Freshmeat and Blitzkreig decide it should be a priority to escape the dungeon, with the assorted treasures, without surrendering most of the gains to the Vorlak (the Ogre) and his Kobold friends. The rest of the party wants to continue to dungeon, rather than backtrack. Those two decide they're heading out, while the rest of the party decides to not help them but to also not advance without a trap finder.
Freshmeat and Blitzkreig have some issues with wandering monsters on both this level (Fountain of Pestilence) and the one above (The Demon's Gullet), but eventually make it out of the dungeon. They manage to retrieve items from 2 of their 3 "loot rooms", although due to weight restrictions one of the rooms is not entirely cleared. The items and coins are sold within Zelkor's Ferry and scrolls and potions are bought. They manage to return without incident, except that they witness Vorlak's extortion on their way in (flying while invisible).
Vorlak and the Kobolds have slain two people and ten more are surrendering gear (which is recognized as coming from the PCs "loot room" that is closest to the surface). The ten survivors are allowed to leave, while wearing Mithral Shirts (that the PCs had previously brought in as starting gear for higher characters and/or found within the dungeon).
The group carefully checks over the three levels they've been to (Mouth of Doom, 01C), (Demon's Gullet, 02B), and (Fountain of Pestilence, 03C) and cross off each of places they haven't been. Their choices are either to face the puss room to find where the passage leaving the room to the east goes, or to leave the dungeon and attempt one of the other entrances they've heard of (they have heard of the Frog Cloister and an entrance off of a Graveyard).
Deadmeat wants to go through the puss, but no one else wants to... one of the players seems a little green in the face from the adventure's description of the puss and the room, so they head to the surface.
They choose to go to the Frog Cloister. Along the way, they meet a patrol out of a distant city/town which the patrol identifies as 'Bard's Gate'. They claim to be keeping the road safe and enquire politely where the PCs are going and what they're doing.
The group explains they're heading to the Frog cloister, and the Patrol starts to act a little hostile until the PCs make it clear that they're going there to clean the area out, not to join up with the cult. The patrol helpfully escorts the party most of the way (along the roadway) towards the Frog Cloister, and mentions that they'll be in this relative area for a while; it the party has any issues just get to the road and make a lot of noise so the patrol can come to their rescue.
The frog cloister is a fortified monastery, but it is in poor shape. It is situated within a swamp, which the ranger||monk/inquisitor identifies as possibly containing lethal hazards such as quicksand or alligators. The monastary itself is on solid ground and a roadway leads to the monastary upon a solid foundation. This road leads right to the edge of the swamp.
Midway from the swamp's edge towards the monastery, a voice (they surmize either an invisible person or possibly a Magic Mouth) enquires if they've come to pay respects to the cult and the demon lord; it seems excited when it says they'll be sacrificing travellers in the next few nights.
The party vehemently states that they have no interest in the cult, beyond slaying every last member of the cult. The voice goes silent, possibly out-stealthing their perceptions/detection abilities or maybe leaving them alone.
The road leads to the monastery. There are four half-orc priests outside, each with a combination of Skeletons/Zombies. In all, there are 24 undead, so six per Priest. The skeleton/zombies move to engage the group, while the Priests retreat into the monastery and close/bar the doors. The party sets up to take out the undead, with the melee in the front and the archer/caster in the back. The owner of the voice attacks each of them, with a Cleave Attack and hits both easily (very low ACs) and fairly hard. The archer and the arcanist position themselves a square away (shift) and attack, which allows the bad guy to shift closer and again Cleave them both. They eat opportunity attacks to move amidst the rest of the party (who largely thanks to Ulric's channel energy (PsyWar||Cleric) has cleaned up the horse of undead). The bad guy eats a few opportunity attacks to move close to the arcanist and archer, but now has to choose between them due to their positioning... he goes for the Arcanist, who is hitting (touch AC) more often and harder.
The party drops the bad guy, who dissolves into mist and floats towards the Cloister. It flies upwards and enters through an arrow slit. Ulric and Blitzkreig both surmise (knowledge religion) that it was an vampire, and that unless they get in fast, it will reform and come at the party again... more likely than not, at the worst possible time.
The outer cloister is a veritable fort, but the place is run down. The door proves too sturdy to simply back in, but at least the ample archer slits are not manned, nor is oil being poured on the PCs who attempted to smash in the door.
Blitzkreig scouts about and finds the ruins of another structure in between this structure and an even more impressively fortified monastery like or fort like structure further to the south. For whatever reason, this new structure seems to be abandoned, and Thor guesses from the condition of the stones that they've not been maintained for several hundreds of years.
Blitzkreig doesn't find too much of interest, but is under the impression that something is just out of sight watching him... he does find a set of keys, on the skeletal remains of someone who was literally torn into two as if by a massively strong giant...
The session ends here, and we're off next week, but will resume the following Saturday. The party is unsure if they can force a way into the monastery or if they should investigate the graveyard entrance that they've also heard of.