Post by Dungeon Master on Nov 2, 2016 11:39:17 GMT -8
Seven Underhill's player cannot attend the session. So we decided his character was taking a pee in the woods, when the ambush occurs... and became separated again. (Einfal's player was quick to point out that a pee is not taken, it is in fact given or left).
The spiders have detected the party and set up an ambush for them. In all, there are eighteen spiders and they approach from every direction at once. Asara hides, and is adamant that Tremorsense and Blindsight only works to 30 ft., so she says there is no way for them to detect her. However, when she snipes at one and then ducks for cover (more than 30 ft. back) is has no issues detecting where she's hiding (but her Vanish does give an advantage). Helmut's tactic is more straight up smash things, while staying close to Jedakya, the healer, and focusing on things that threaten the heals. Acetalyne is directed by Helmut to prevent the spiders from getting the healer; through his long practice with the bow, he has learned to fire whilst in melee but without dropping his guard so being in their face is not a serious detriment to his archery. Einfal uses her magicks to great effect, and the party emerges victorious.
Asara once more scouts ahead, and she reaches a point where the webbing gets so thick that the party will have to cut it to progress. She circles about the thicker area of webbing, and determines the area is close to a mile across. Her guess is that the colony has in the range of a hundred or two spiders, and guesses that they might be too much for the party. When she returns, she convinces them to try something different.
The party pieces together the rumors they they have heard, and each announces what they remember... basically, what the options are.
-- An Ogre with more than a hundred Kobolds ambush groups, as they leave the Mouth of Doom, taking everything except armors.
-- A giant Red Bear resides in the forest, and seemingly hunts travelers actively.
-- A cavern exists, in which reside a colony of Stirges.
-- Bandits have taken over the ruins of a long destroyed castle, it has numerous subterranean passageways that connect to something deep undergroup.
-- The Frog Cloister has a couple of buildings way to the north. Tsathoggan cultists were in a well maintained northern structure, while a southern structure was abandoned. The southern structure had underground passages which were partially explored until four options of travel were discovered, but none of these were investigated. A vampire was defeated, and its' mist form entered the fortified northern building.
-- The sunken graveyard has both a well (which numerous groups have said to avoid... wonder how long the group will avoid it) and a mausoleum entrance. The mausoleum is trapped, but previous groups discovered the secret of the trap; it needs to be allowed to start before it can be bypassed, but wait too long and it's over. From their experience, once you descend you're trapped for at least a few days. The first level has a beast that cannot be hurt (at least not by the first group to go this way) and the level below that has a tough anti-paladin that wiped that first party.
-- The Mongrelman's Inn has passageways that lead to the city of Orcus, or at least a stronghold or temple or Orcus. The means to get beyond the great adamantine gate has not been discovered.
The party chooses to investigate the ruins with the bandits...
Asara scouts ahead and determines that there are four semi-broken or very broken towers on each of the corners. The North-South distance is roughly twice that of the West-East distance. There is broken walls between the towers, sometimes standing for eighty feet or so, and sometimes rubble for a hundred feet. The entire area within is mostly rubble, with excellent hiding positions. The Northwest and Southwest towers appear to be in the best of shape. The NW tower has been reinforced and build somewhat, and there are four groups of people, some in pairs and some as singles that are scattered in the rubble around that NW tower. The SW tower had a very well made trapdoor within the floor and that was reinforced heavily.
Helmut used Metamorphosis and dropped rubble (chest sized boulders) on the door to batter away at it, but it appeard to be very reinforced. He was sure it would eventually break. Einfal was using an acid spell, but they eventually had Helmut use his Corrosive Aura, which went for several rounds and hit rather hard. An earth elemental was sent into the ground to report what was below, but it never returned... With two applications of that psi-power, the trapdoor was reduced enough for the party to force it open.
The party enters the area beneath the trapdoor... it is an entryway foyer, the top level of a flight of stairs. The stairs descend downwards to a room. There is a structure in the room, that forces those coming down the stairs to either head to the right or left. Within the room are several guys who are ready for battle. There is a mixture of guys in lighter armor, with big two-handed weapons.. and guys in robes. Rather than jump down enmass, they decide to negotiate a little.
It turns out that these guys are opposed to the Cult of Orcus worshipers, and are an expeditionary force sent into RA to damage the Orcus cult as much as they can. They offer rewards for maps detailing the levels that the Orcus guys control, a lesser bounty for the head of each Orcus Acolyte and a greater bounty for the head of each Orcus Priest/Priestess, but the party will need to accept one of their acolytes to verify things are above board, and if the acolyte is harmed or killed (or goes missing) all deals are off.
The negotiator heads up and talks with the party, then with invis scouts the area below. The chamber is a fair size, with (closed) exits in two directions. There are six or eight of the heavy melee guys and around the same number of acolytes/monks/whatever the robed guys are, along with the guy who was doing the negotiations (he had a few magic items on him, and was promising vast amounts of gold for Orcus Cultist heads).
The party decides to battle, they plan to occupy both bottleneck positions at the bottom of the stairs... However when they go to enter the skirmisher guys are in position so anyone jumping down is landing amidst them. The battle is joined, but not exactly as the party had planned it to be (weird that intelligent and organized evil guys who were planning to cross you, didn't trust that you'd not try to cross them)... The party forces its way down, until they're on the stairs. Meanwhile the negotiator guy has been blowing on a whistle, and a large number of reinforcements arrive.
The battle is harsh, involving the channeling of negative energy in large doses by the cultist guys in robes. It's pretty clear that the party has dealt a massive blow to the enemy of the group that looks like it controls the dungeon they wish to clear... that said, Einfal and Asara (with Kenny) fell fairly early into the battle and Helmut was not in a position to escape (in the front, engaged in melee with multiple cultists); Acetalyne escaped by running away (with a single hit point left), but Jedakya was too fat to climb the rope (penalty to climb check) out of the cellar/catacombs, and so he died once his invis dropped.
Acetalyne unfortunately ran into a group of Trolls, as he ran back in the direction that Seven had been in... the Trolls charged and killed him before he had much of a chance to do anything.
The spiders have detected the party and set up an ambush for them. In all, there are eighteen spiders and they approach from every direction at once. Asara hides, and is adamant that Tremorsense and Blindsight only works to 30 ft., so she says there is no way for them to detect her. However, when she snipes at one and then ducks for cover (more than 30 ft. back) is has no issues detecting where she's hiding (but her Vanish does give an advantage). Helmut's tactic is more straight up smash things, while staying close to Jedakya, the healer, and focusing on things that threaten the heals. Acetalyne is directed by Helmut to prevent the spiders from getting the healer; through his long practice with the bow, he has learned to fire whilst in melee but without dropping his guard so being in their face is not a serious detriment to his archery. Einfal uses her magicks to great effect, and the party emerges victorious.
Asara once more scouts ahead, and she reaches a point where the webbing gets so thick that the party will have to cut it to progress. She circles about the thicker area of webbing, and determines the area is close to a mile across. Her guess is that the colony has in the range of a hundred or two spiders, and guesses that they might be too much for the party. When she returns, she convinces them to try something different.
The party pieces together the rumors they they have heard, and each announces what they remember... basically, what the options are.
-- An Ogre with more than a hundred Kobolds ambush groups, as they leave the Mouth of Doom, taking everything except armors.
-- A giant Red Bear resides in the forest, and seemingly hunts travelers actively.
-- A cavern exists, in which reside a colony of Stirges.
-- Bandits have taken over the ruins of a long destroyed castle, it has numerous subterranean passageways that connect to something deep undergroup.
-- The Frog Cloister has a couple of buildings way to the north. Tsathoggan cultists were in a well maintained northern structure, while a southern structure was abandoned. The southern structure had underground passages which were partially explored until four options of travel were discovered, but none of these were investigated. A vampire was defeated, and its' mist form entered the fortified northern building.
-- The sunken graveyard has both a well (which numerous groups have said to avoid... wonder how long the group will avoid it) and a mausoleum entrance. The mausoleum is trapped, but previous groups discovered the secret of the trap; it needs to be allowed to start before it can be bypassed, but wait too long and it's over. From their experience, once you descend you're trapped for at least a few days. The first level has a beast that cannot be hurt (at least not by the first group to go this way) and the level below that has a tough anti-paladin that wiped that first party.
-- The Mongrelman's Inn has passageways that lead to the city of Orcus, or at least a stronghold or temple or Orcus. The means to get beyond the great adamantine gate has not been discovered.
The party chooses to investigate the ruins with the bandits...
Asara scouts ahead and determines that there are four semi-broken or very broken towers on each of the corners. The North-South distance is roughly twice that of the West-East distance. There is broken walls between the towers, sometimes standing for eighty feet or so, and sometimes rubble for a hundred feet. The entire area within is mostly rubble, with excellent hiding positions. The Northwest and Southwest towers appear to be in the best of shape. The NW tower has been reinforced and build somewhat, and there are four groups of people, some in pairs and some as singles that are scattered in the rubble around that NW tower. The SW tower had a very well made trapdoor within the floor and that was reinforced heavily.
Helmut used Metamorphosis and dropped rubble (chest sized boulders) on the door to batter away at it, but it appeard to be very reinforced. He was sure it would eventually break. Einfal was using an acid spell, but they eventually had Helmut use his Corrosive Aura, which went for several rounds and hit rather hard. An earth elemental was sent into the ground to report what was below, but it never returned... With two applications of that psi-power, the trapdoor was reduced enough for the party to force it open.
The party enters the area beneath the trapdoor... it is an entryway foyer, the top level of a flight of stairs. The stairs descend downwards to a room. There is a structure in the room, that forces those coming down the stairs to either head to the right or left. Within the room are several guys who are ready for battle. There is a mixture of guys in lighter armor, with big two-handed weapons.. and guys in robes. Rather than jump down enmass, they decide to negotiate a little.
It turns out that these guys are opposed to the Cult of Orcus worshipers, and are an expeditionary force sent into RA to damage the Orcus cult as much as they can. They offer rewards for maps detailing the levels that the Orcus guys control, a lesser bounty for the head of each Orcus Acolyte and a greater bounty for the head of each Orcus Priest/Priestess, but the party will need to accept one of their acolytes to verify things are above board, and if the acolyte is harmed or killed (or goes missing) all deals are off.
The negotiator heads up and talks with the party, then with invis scouts the area below. The chamber is a fair size, with (closed) exits in two directions. There are six or eight of the heavy melee guys and around the same number of acolytes/monks/whatever the robed guys are, along with the guy who was doing the negotiations (he had a few magic items on him, and was promising vast amounts of gold for Orcus Cultist heads).
The party decides to battle, they plan to occupy both bottleneck positions at the bottom of the stairs... However when they go to enter the skirmisher guys are in position so anyone jumping down is landing amidst them. The battle is joined, but not exactly as the party had planned it to be (weird that intelligent and organized evil guys who were planning to cross you, didn't trust that you'd not try to cross them)... The party forces its way down, until they're on the stairs. Meanwhile the negotiator guy has been blowing on a whistle, and a large number of reinforcements arrive.
The battle is harsh, involving the channeling of negative energy in large doses by the cultist guys in robes. It's pretty clear that the party has dealt a massive blow to the enemy of the group that looks like it controls the dungeon they wish to clear... that said, Einfal and Asara (with Kenny) fell fairly early into the battle and Helmut was not in a position to escape (in the front, engaged in melee with multiple cultists); Acetalyne escaped by running away (with a single hit point left), but Jedakya was too fat to climb the rope (penalty to climb check) out of the cellar/catacombs, and so he died once his invis dropped.
Acetalyne unfortunately ran into a group of Trolls, as he ran back in the direction that Seven had been in... the Trolls charged and killed him before he had much of a chance to do anything.