Game Report - Ravenloft I

I started the group on the last Pathfinder adventure that I intend to run.  Actually, when it was on sale a while ago, I picked up the PDF of the 3.5 version of Ravenloft.  Oddly, none of us has ever played it.  It having been released at the start of my hiatus from D&D.

     The party having returned to Altdorf from recovering the petrified bear, was contacted by Fanny (the ersatz nun) and told they were tasked with investigating the disappearance of one of Oldenhaller's agents named Jeref Maurgen in a place in the Grey Mountains called Barovia.  Maurgen had been investigating the location of a powerful artifact known as the Sunsword.  Oldenhaller has a customer who was interested in purchasing it.  They do not to recover the artifact, although that would be appreciated, but they do need to recover the signet ring Maurgen wears.

Game Report - Dangerous Statues: Part Deux

8 point buck outside the window as we
started.  Deer season opener is
next Saturday.

 Only three of our regulars made it up for gaming on Saturday.  Had to do an alternate location at Domus Thompsonii, as our usual host, who plays the elvish wizard/thief, was in South Carolina at Honorcon.  After giving the players a choice between continuing where they left off, doing one of two one offs or trying Castle of The Mad Archmage using ACKS, they (as the title of this post indicates) chose to finish off their current adventure.

The elf having inexplicably wandered off the party was reduced to the Tilean fighter, the Dwarf Magus and the dwarf monk with his human henchman of the clerical persuasion.  Prior to starting I informed the monk's player that his henchwoman, when encountering uncouth behavior would use her 0 level 'Create Water' on the offending character, like a squirt gun on a cat.  He asked if she could do it as ice water and I magnanimously agreed.

Faced with a choice of going after the Swamp Witch or returning to the trap door in Crow's Hill, they decided to do the door first.  After an uneventful journey, they returned to the octagonal room with the red granite floor and walls covered with archaic holy symbols.  Lacking the thief they used brute force and a crow bar to open the trap door, discovering a shaft with a ladder  leading down to a stone door inscribed 'Correus, Fidelis Custos'.  Despite the a couple of the players being former altar boys, they couldn't decipher the dog latin.  They did guess had something to do with faith or fidelity, but that was as close as they got.

Game Report - Dangerous Statues

  The party having been half wiped out last time in a massacre that I couldn't face putting down in pixels, safely arrived in Altdorf where they were rejoined by the dwarven magus left behind in Smalplotz and joined by a dwarven monk they had encountered on the road from Nuln.

They were referred to one Conrad Vraßlin, a wealthy art lover. He showed them his collection of statutes, demonstrating the difference between human art and the realism of petrification by basilisk and cockatrice. Having heard of a petrified bear near the village of Rettindorf, he offered the party 2000 gold apiece, 10% up front,  to retrieve it for him.

[I realized that with composition of the party having become elf, dwarf, dwarf, human and one more dwarf who couldn't make it Saturday, that my hopes of running a converted Enemy Within Campaign were gone.  The remaining human has clearly identified himself as Tilean; which makes using the character as the object of the mistaken identity central to Enemy Within, simply too much of a stretch. Such is the fate of all DM's plans.]



After a bit of a false start where the party expected the patron to provide logistical support beyond the earnest money, they split up to equip themselves for the expedition.  The dwarven magus set out to the College of Noble Sorcery, where he encountered a rather bent apprentice, who agreed to sell two salves of Stone to Flesh, the apprentice even agreed to allow the dwarf to purchase them at a 25% discount - of course the dwarf did agree to pay 50% interest on the remainder.  After all the apprentice has assumed the entire risk that his master will discover the shenanigans, he also offered to buy parts and especially any eggs.   The elf went off and purchased a wagon and team and hired a driver.  The dwarven monk, after inquiring on the cost of a wand of Cure Moderate Wounds, decided it would be cheaper to hire a henchman - or in this case - hench-woman, as the die roll determined.  So a yet to be christened Cleric of Myrmidia was added to the troupe.

Arriving in the thorpe of Rettindorf, a half a dozen sturdy houses on the Steinwasser, I proceeded to punish the players for not taking note of the name of the local nobleman they erroneously thought they needed to find by having Old Lanzo the drunken swineherd creatively misunderstand every question the elf and monk asked.  In the midst of that confusion, the village herbalist approached the magus and the fighter from the other end of the 'town' to welcome them.  Which set Old Lanzo off accusing the herbalist of being in league with the 'Swamp Witch', while the herbalist explained that he had driven off a force of bugbears with some 'special knowledge' (keeping in mind that unlicensed magic is a terminal illness in the Empire.)  The elf's player rolled a Sense Motive check and announced that he believed the herbalist, the other players rolled their's and I refused to tell them what the rolls meant - because this is role playing damnit, the players need to decide what their characters believe and do.  Having gotten the players in the right state of uncertainty, I relented and gave them the gist of what the characters had learned.  Most of the adult men in the area had been summoned away to fight with their lord, Freiherr Harderer.  Stone creatures had been reported by some local hunters (who seemed to have gone missing since), but no one was sure if they had been seen at The Table or at Crows Hill.  No one had seen this Swamp Witch, who the herbalist urbanely explained was a figment of the villagers uneducated imaginations.  While the swineherd insisted the herbalist was in league with her.  The party did a little local exploring and then retired to the herbalist's house for the night, despite the warnings from the swineherd that it was a trap.  They were cautious and set watches - the dwarf magus in particular watched the herbalist walk out during the last watch, with the muttered explanation that some of the plants had to be gathered with the dawn.

   A couple of hours after dawn the herbalist returned and after an argument at one of the houses, dragged a sullen lad of some 13 summers by the name of Rupecht, who he announced would guide them to The Table and Crows Hill.  The party having decided not to look into the reports of the Swamp Witch.  As they went along they explained to the lad what sort of creatures could turn animals into stone.  Rupecht suggested that perhaps they should go back instead of hunting them.  But they jollied him into continuing to accompany them with the assurance that they would tell him when to run.  The Table turned out to be a stone slab covered in a blood red lichen, except for an off center patch the size of a hand that was covered with weathered chips and scratches.  Completely non-magical, but searching did turn up a petrified mouse in the rock pile below the slab.

Afterwards they set off for Crows Hill, which turned out to be a barren mound in the next valley.  They did find a number of very lifelike statues, including one of a rather ticked off bear, when the dwarf magus noticed something moving in the grass.  Rupecht willingly took off for home at their suggestion and the dwarf monk tried to sneak around whatever was making the noise so that he could avoid it's gaze.  Unfortunately, he found himself staring into the eyes of the cockatrice; which of course have no effect, the petrifaction being linked to the bite attack.  After a brief combat where in no one was turned to stone, the party had a discussion on how to transport the bear and several petrified deer, as the paths they had come in on were impassible to the wagon while the dwarf magus gutted the cockatrice.  Various schemes to use levitation and Tenser's Floating Disk were discussed, but the party didn't have the spells prepared to essay the task.

The party decided to scout around and see if there were more of the foul creatures they could harvest and of course hope to find a nest.  Which they did in the tangle of roots of a fallen tree at the top of the hill.  A henatrice was sitting in a nest of petrified twigs on a stone shelf.  Again they dispatched it without much danger and even manged to avoid smashing her egg.  The dwarves noticed that the stone shelf had been worked by tools and that there was an opening they could crawl through into the top of the hill.  Crawling through, they found a large domed chamber with a hole in the floor, the elf quickly made it a two-holer, when part of the floor gave way underneath him.  He didn't fall through, but they did hear a scuttling sound from the chamber below.  The dwarves decided that floor collapsed because he was an elf, but weren't sure about who built it.  With choice of really rotten dwarven workmanship or very good human work using imitate dwarven techniques, they opted for 'Pretty good work for amateurs'.

With two humans in the dome, the cleric cast her light spell which revealed the walls are painted with scenes of a man interacting with a horned, bearded man and a woman next to a tree.  First greeting then taking his leave of them.  The party figured out that the horned man and the woman were the Old Gods, Taal and Rhea, their cupidity was piqued by the jeweled torque and bracers the man wore.  About this time, the cleric got fed up with the elf's unsubtle innuendos and the human fighter's suggestion she cast two light spells on her breastplate and have headlights - and left the party in the dark.  The players were a little taken aback, as we've always been somewhat crude, but I pointed out they were treating the henchman as a piece of paper, rather than an NPC they had to deal with.  The fighter finally remembered that he had a sword that shed light, so they didn't need her spell.

Looking down the hole, they found that there were three cave scorpions in the chamber below, the elf considered casting acid fog off a scroll they had found, but decided that the spell level was too high to be worth the risk.  In the end the dwarf magus used the flaming sphere spell he had used to blow up the airship to kill the scorpions.  Descending to the large circular chamber below, they found it had a large exit to the east and a small closed door to the north west.  This chamber too, was decorated with scenes of the same hero, accompanied by a large snake and several companions.

The large exit opened into an odd triangular room, with stone walls and a packed earth roof, which sloped down to the floor thirty feet away.  The walls were painted with scenes of the hero as a young man forging a spear.  There was a glint of gold in the jumble of bones down at the narrow end, the room had an aura of necromatic magic.  The elf cautiously went in to investigate the gold, which turned out to be a pair of gilded ox horns, intact, not hollowed out.  He showed them to the party then thrust them into his pouch, claiming them.  This of course triggered the skeleton of the thief cursed to lust for these baubles, to reform with a rapid clicking and attack.  The elf quickly put it down and backed up, watching the bones, which reformed and attacked and were defeated again.  And then the dwarf magus did something I never expected, he announced he was taking the leg bones out of the room.  I had written in that the skeleton wouldn't pursue out of the triangular room as the limit of the curse - my players probably doubt it, but I really enjoy it when they do something unforeseen.  Temporarily stumped, I decided that the skeleton would reform, but if defeated outside of the room, it would be permanently slain.  Of course, this meant the skeleton reformed on the leg bones the dwarf was holding up in his hands, and since the dwarf was holding it, the dwarf was flat footed.  Alas, it availed the hapless skeleton not, and the dwarf quickly dashed it on the floor.

Deciding to continue their foray into the dungeon, the monk decided at this point he should go and make amends with his henchman, as they didn't have anything but a partially charged wand of Cure Light Wounds which they could occasionally make work.  Afterwards they investigated the door and entered into a chamber containing a sarcophagus on an elaborately carved bier.  The walls in this room were painted with scenes similar to those in the dome, but here the man was only shown as an outline.  Leading to speculation that the painter was attempting to show the being becoming invisible ala Space Ghost. [Damn, we're old. We were talking about the original Space Ghost cartoon series, not the Robot Chicken Space Ghost.]  With trepidation, the party opened the sarcophagus to discover it contained a skeleton wearing a jeweled torque and bracers, with a rusty spear head on a rotting shaft.The party picked up on the disconnect between the scene of the spear being forged and the contents of the sarcophagus, doing a quick appraisal of the jewelry, they determined it was gold foil on lead with paste gems.  [They never checked the skeleton, otherwise they would have figured out it was female.]   This lead the dwarf magus to start searching the bier for secret compartments, what he found was a carved spear that moved, pulling the head out caused the bier to grind out of the way revealing a hitherto hidden staircase.

Fighting the zombie boa constrictor

The door at the bottom of the stairway opened into a round rotunda having open arches to the right and left and a door on the other side.  The dwarves determined that they were probably back under the main chamber and dome at this time.  The left hand arch opened into a room that contained sections of trees wedged between the floor and ceiling, their branches interlocking about five feet above the floor.  Miraculously, the leaves on the branches were just beginning to droop.  The whole room had an aura of necromatic magic.  The right hand arch opened into a room with several coffins and scenes painted on the walls.  The party left the elf to watch the tree room, while they went in and made short work of some zombies.  The paintings showed the hero ad individual companions doing significant deeds and the manner of the companion's demise.  Usually at the tentacles and maw of a strange creature with an ape like body with foxy head and huge ears.  Deciding that the apelike being must be in the room with the trees, the dwarf magus cautiously advanced into it and was surprised when the zombie boa constrictor dropped out of the trees onto him instead. Dispatching it, the party turned to the door, unsuccessful in opening it the old fashioned way, they resorted to spending a charge on their Chime of Opening.  Inside they found an octagonal room, floored in red granite containing a locked trap door in the floor.  At this point they decided they should return to Rettindorf for the night.

It was late and they didn't catch up to Rupecht until moon-rise.  Sadly, what they caught up to was the remains of his tortured body.  They quickly deduced from the herbalist's story of driving off a party of bugbears and bugbears' known proclivity for torture, that bugbears working for the Swamp Witch had done it - and that the herbalist had probably told them where to go!  Hot for revenge, they decided to track the nefarious goblinoids.  What followed was the second most surprising series of die rolls I've ever seen.  The party has no (surviving) rangers, but the monk had a few points in Survival skill.  His player made at least 10 rolls, only one of which was under an adjusted 20.  And that one was a 16.  He successfully tracked the bugbears when the changed paths and when they left the path and cut through the woods to intersect another path at a deserted cabin.

From the spoiled pelts and general lack of cleanliness of the cabin, the party deduced that it belonged to the missing hunters from the area.  Figuring that the path they had intersected went back to the village in one direction, they followed it in the other direction.  Soon, the came upon a stand of pines and spotted two figures with crossbows hiding in the shadows.  The dwarf monk attempted to sneak up and in karmatic justice for his tracking rolls - rolled a one, snapping a dry branch like a gunshot.  The figures didn't react, and they soon realized that they were statues of two hunters that had been smeared with mud to disguise the stone.  Fearing that the Swamp Witch is a medusa they advanced cautiously up the trail to a point where a smaller trail intersected it.  A quick track check by the bloodhound dwarf monk found signs of recent passage on the smaller trail.  Changing direction, they went twenty feet up it until it turned around a dense bush and they saw it came to an end  - or rather the rest of the party saw the monk disappear into the pit trap.

Retracing their steps, they proceeded up the main trail to a group of squalid huts surrounding a large fire ring with prominent roasting spit.  The party immediately decided it was big enough to roast humans, with out my describing it that way - interesting.  At this point the ambushing bugbears launched a salvo of pretty ineffective javelins, then charged into melee.  The elf took out two on the end with color spray, leaving them blinded and staggered.  The rest of the party began trading hacks with the bugbears.  The bugbear sergeant having hung back, immediately charged the elf who had revealed himself as a magic user.  The dwarf monk and his clerical sidekick double teamed one, while two others double teamed the human fighter.  The fighter quickly polished his off, while the cleric fell to her foe.  The monk at this point was completely ineffective, having blown all of his luck for the night on the tracking rolls.  After a few rounds of ineffectively hacking at the elf and being unable to disrupt his casting, the sergeant ducked behind the now no longer stunned bugbears and commenced a fighting retreat with his remaining forces, one of whom was quickly cut down, while the elf kept poking the other with a rapier; several rounds later it died - death from a thousand holes.  When the sergeant fled, the dwarf magus, being without a foe at the time, nailed him in the back with magic missile.  The bugbear stumbled out of sight and was heard crashing in the bushes.  The dwarf magus pursued and fell over the body, resulting in bruised dignity and one point of damage to his beard from skidding along the forest floor.

Out of spells and dinged up, they decided to retreat to the village ad rest - when they realized they hadn't recovered the boy's body.  They had to return to the village and go back out on the trail they had used the day before rather than risk getting lost in the woods.  So about mid-morning they returned to the village with their sad burden.  And proceeded to tell a cock and bull story about having been fighting the bugbears when the boy was killed.  Old Lanzo invited them over for a private chat while they dug the grave and pointing out that the boy's wounds were from knives, not swords or morningstars, asked them to tell the truth.  They admitted they had been fighting cockatrices when the boy ran, but omitted to say that they had told him to, nor did they discuss what they had been doing between the fight and going to look for him.  Still it was close enough to satisfy the old drunk, but he did make a suggestion that they be generous towards the lad's mother as she was a widow, now deprived of her child.

We broke at that point.

Game Report - That Really Burns Me Up or The Witch Hunter Cometh

   Our heroes having spent the night barricaded by the bodies of their foes at the scene of their victory, decided to spend a quiet day within the dungeon; resting and healing.  Having successfully cleared out most of the threats, they managed to do so without incident.  Then they turned their attention to the bronze panels set in the south wall, depicting various fantastic creatures.  They plaques could be slid left or right on recessed tracks and had a hint of conjuration magic.
   Mysteriously, the dwarf who had the midwatch, never woke his relief and was missing when the party awoke. (Player out of state).  One of the panels showed a manticore, thinking that it was somehow connected to the one they had previously slain the paladin decided to begin with that.  Sliding it right, there was a pop and billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke, heralding the appearance of a nine foot tall, vaguely reptilian humanoid with one out sized arm and the other terminating in a spear. ( a Stalker from Infernum)  A brief combat ensued as the party put down the unexpected visitor.
   Regrouping, they decided that next they would slide the centaur plaque to the left; as the elvish wizard/thief reasoned, the centaur was the only one that  might be friendly.  (This completely bypassed a major undiscovered clue I had set up, that I was seriously looking forward to running, such is life as a DM).  They heard a click and found that a panel had opened in the wall above the plaques, leading to a three by three crawl way.

  The elf crawled through to find that he had come out 18 feet up the wall in a large chamber, containing some sort of stone structure and a pit of warm ashes.  After some discussion, all of them ended up in the crawlspace, the hired hand refusing to remain behind, belaying themselves in turn down a rope to the floor.  None of them thought to pound in a spike, so the hireling, who was last had to jump, insisting that his boss, the elf, be the one to catch him.  Let's ust say he didn't stick the landing nearly as much as he stuck the elf on landing.

The stone structure turned out to be a sarcophagus and some tentative stirring of the ashes revealed  a humandoid hand embedded therein.  Mage Hand was unable to dislogde the hand from the ash pit, so they turned their attention to levering off the lid of the sarcophagus.  It fell with a crash to let out a somewhat short and broad mummy armed with a hammer, and wearing studded leather, who had an ioun stone orbiting it's head.  Simultaneously, the headless body of a large red skinned humanoid arose from the ashes.  The armor turned out to be Armor of Insults  Everyone except the Tilean fighter failed their save and started waling on the mummy.  Which allowed the headless Djinn to cast a Wall of Fire separating the fighter from the group - and causing serious burns on all of them.

The mummy went down easier than the fighter, but eventually they were both down, with the ranger also in bad enough shape that the paladin was busy healing him.  The wizard started casting spells at the Djinn, as the paladin went back through the wall of fire to try to save the fighter.  While he drug the fighter's battered body next the wall, the Djinn walked through the Wall of Fire in the direction of the magic user.  Plunging back through the fire the paladin raced to put the Djinn down and dispel the Wall of Fire before the fighter died from the continuing heat.  Sadly, he failed.

They collected the treasure and corpse and decided to head back to Smalplotz.  the hammer was snarky and refused to let any of them wield it, saying "You're not the one that I called."  

On return from the tomb to Smålplotz, there is a letter awaiting Bruce Bucket (the hireling) from Hans Schultz. Bucket was proudly illiterate ('if you can't read, you can't read no Chaos doomed books, my pa says') and puzzled why he would receive a letter. Insidewais another letter with a drawing of a helmeted bearded face (intended for the dwarf). That letter read:

My friends,

My nephew Johann sends word from Bergsberg, a witch hunter is asking about strangers using magic with some beastmen. He told the hunter that the only strangers he had seen passing through Hovelhof was the Fraulein and her companions on their way to Talabheim. It might be a good idea for you to find a more populous area where the pointies won't stand out so.

Passing through Hovelhof, Schultz suggested that if they took the Drakwasser from Bergsberg to Altdorf they might gain on or even catch the nun. He also informed them that Bergsberg was home to a large Temple of healing that might be able to raise the fighter.

Going up the Old Forest Road to Bergsberg, they met a large number of Middenhiem troops heading south to combat the Kurgen Horde that chased our heroes out of Wolfenburg at the start of this mess.  With a hat firmly pulled down over the elf's ears, they proceeded to the temple of Shallya and in exchange for over half of their ill gotten gains, had the fighter's services as more than an occasional cushion, returned to them.  They found a large rowboat for sale and had just set off when a dark figure appeared on the pier.  Ignoring his hail, they quickly rowed downstream.

Having been warned about the marshes of Ente Turm, they decided not to investigate the ruins they encountered there. (Foiling my plans for their next adventure, and wasting a lot of my time in putting it together.) They made a relatively uneventful trip to Altdorf, where the paladin went to the Temple of Sigmar to to turn in the manticore's tail as proof that he had completed his quest.  While he was waiting for someone important to condescend to see him, the elf investigated transportation to Nuln on the river front and the fighter started checking out the inns and coaching stables looking for news about the nun.  This brought the fighter to the attention of one Dietrich Todbringer-Bothner; Witch Hunter and relative of the Todbringer family who rules Middenhiem.  and who is also looking for information on the nun for private reasons. It also landed the fighter in the dungeons  under the Temple of Sigmar for "more rigorous questioning" .  (While I have often enjoyed torturing players, I believe this is the first time I ever tortured a character)  using the Tamper with Mortality table from ACKS, we determined that one of his knees was permanently mangled, leaving him with a limp and a maximum speed of 3* base movement.

The paladin showed up at the docks saying he had broken with the order and after a week the fighter was released from the dungeon.  The party took passage on a small trading boat going up river to Nuln.  Arriving in rain with a cargo of goats, the paladin decided to pay the port authorities to let them land, rather than listen to the argument between the boat captain and the port master or spending a night sleeping with the goats.

A chance met character, they met in a tavern promised them he knew where they could find rooms; instead they were lead into an ambush by some thugs who weren't very competent.  Unable to catch surviving thug or their betrayer, they quick left the area before the watch arrived.  Finally stumbling on "The Reiver's Return", they found beds in a cramped attic for the night.  Carefully barring the door, but not bothering to check the window.  The fighter awoke to find someone leaning over him, the would be thief got away but took the fighter's dagger (embeded in his shoulder) with him.

The next day, the paladin went to the locale temples asking about outbreaks of disease, which no one had heard of while the elf and the ranger went to Councillor Oldenhaller's mansion on the eponymous strasse.  After checking the seal on the letter and getting the party's version of what happened in Wolfenburg, Oldenhaller revealed that all it said was "Albrecth, They may be of some use. Fanny" and offered them employment in his business of trading objects - no questions asked.

Adjourned, pending the party's decision.

Game Report - May We Go Back to the Tombs?

2nd Expedition in Red
Based on a map by Dyson Logos

After a long hiatus caused by tax season, travels and unrelated writing activities, we return to our Pathfinder heroes in a Warhammer world.

After the battle in March, the party decided rather than going back into the tombs they had discovered, instead they would try their hands at a nearby wizard tower they had heard of.  The elvish wizard/thief having hired one of the men at arms he had led in battle and a local guide having been rented, they proceeded to The Gibbering Tower, where they completely failed to die; although the elvish wizard /thief did spend a night in a tree after failing to save vs Fear.

Finding out some clues about the afore mentioned tombs perhaps being the burying place of another magus; the dwarf convinced the party that they should return in hopes of his obtaining a Black Blade.

Before they departed Smalplotz, they spied a dusty figure trudging up the road from Hovelhof, with a scythe over their shoulder.  A young peasant from the Border Princes, now a candidate paladin for the Order of the Fiery Heart, had been sent out on a quest to kill a manticore (how convenient).  [We added a new/old player to our regular group.  New that he hasn't gamed with us before.  Old, that he gamed with me almost thirty years ago and  his college RPG group included players who had played with Dave Arneson's group.]

Having given much thought to the issue of how a party on foot can track an airborne predator, I had prepared NPCs with visions and cryptic clues.  Even going so far as to find a rhyming resource webpage for some close at hand divinations.  Of course they rolled the manticore for their very first random encounter, as it was flying dawn patrol.  It came in and started noshing on the sentries, but they at least managed to wake the camp.  I say at least because they weren't doing any damage.  After a brief discussion where I laid down the law that it doesn't matter if how many people are helping you get your armor on, when you're doing it in a crowded lean-to it takes twice the book time, the party got into gear, rolled out and took the manticore down before it could finish off the sentry or escape.  All that rhythmic prep work gone to waste - I'm sure somebody will say it's poetic justice.

They healed up and pushed on to the tomb, where they noticed that the body of Rumpus, the NPC killed in the bugbear drive by at the end of their first trip, was gone and so were the markings they had placed around the trap they weren't able to disable.  Deciding to deal with the bugbears first, they headed down the stairs and out the back of the tomb.  They easily found the passage dug out of the back into the caverns.  They also noticed a lack of any rubble or large pieces of debris from the digging.  I think they were getting jumpy about encountering any of the slimes or jellies that normally clean dungeons.

Staying to the right in the caverns, they found the shaft back up with a rope hanging out of it.  Despite the rope breaking after the third character to fail their climb check, they managed to get up to the next level.  There they turned right into a large hall and started checking the doors.  This brought the elven thief to the front finally, where he immediately noticed he'd picked the lock before.  They were back at the door to the rock thrower's hall.  Even better at this point they hadn't been discovered.  Of course, as soon as they started buffing, the monsters heard and sent off for reinforcements.

A couple of rocks sailed out of the darkness and through the opened door without hurting anyone.  They entered to find a hill giant and two goblins doing shoot and scoot across the great hall as they advanced, not making a stand until they reached the far door.  Zolda's player figured out where all the rubble from the mining had gone.  He attacked one goblin while the paladin and the wizard/thief attacked the other goblin, none other than the chieftain in the silk shirt.  The fighter (unwisely) decided to engage the hill giant alone in melee, while the dwarven magus cast Flaming Sphere.  The hill giant surprisingly made his save, and stuck it's great club into the flames to get a little extra fire damage going. . A couple of good whacks later the fighter was out of combat, while the giant drank a potion.  The chieftain being dead by now, the paladin (also unwisely) moved into unsupported melee with the giant, just as the first of the bugbears entered in.  It was nip and tuck for the party, the paladin went sailing when the hill giant scored a critical, but the magus? managed to put the giant down with a final burst of magic missiles.  The eleven wizard/thief evened the odds with a well placed color spray, enabling the party to whittle down the ten meatshield bugbears in front of the bugbear leader and the goblin messenger who had fetched them.  The magus ended up going into combat with the leader, who whacked him for a critical with a long sword.  The magus was concerned and surprised when he felt how happy it made  the sword  to hit him.  The elven bard managed to get the paladin back on his feet and the last few bugbears, led by their boss, tried to cut and run.  That didn't last.  The magus, thinking that the bugbear might have been using his destined Black Blade, pursued and killed the boss and the goblin in the next room.  Sadly, the sword, being +1/+2 vs Magic Users and not a Black Blade, rejected him.  Although he did find the boss had a strange triangular shield that weighed practically nothing.  Even odder that shield wasn't magical and no one could identify the metal. [Spoiler - it's a duralloy hull patch from the Starship Warden]

The party decided barricade the entrances and rest; usually this is a recipe for disaster, but in this case they've cleaned out the organized monsters and just need to clean up the loot, kill the odd monster left (if they can) and solve a riddle that hasn't been asked yet.   A fun night.

Game Report - Battle of Smålplotz

When last seen our intrepid party (minus the dwarf) had just entered the settlement of Smålplotz, consisting of a large ornate hunting lodge belonging to Baron Ludendorf, a cousin of the Elector-Count and a half dozen small dwelling of the local hunters and trappers.  Inquiring at the lodge they found that the lodge keeper was quite willing to rent out rooms when the Baron wasn't likely to find out and the dwarf was sitting drinking with a unkempt looking human dressed in a peasant smock, but wearing a beautiful wolf skin, clasped with a copper wolfs-head brooch.  The dwarf seemed none the worse for wear, and based on what the human was wearing, the party quickly deduced that Brother Peter was a cleric of Ulric; a member of an order known as 'The Brother's of the Wolf' or 'Ulric's Dogs' to the vulgar.  The wolf skin would be from an animal that he had slain singlehandedly with weapons he made himself, a la the opening scene in 300.  The bard and the elf had heard the rumor that all of the Brothers are lycanthropes themselves.
     After explaining to the lodge keeper that they had been exploring the mountains from Wolfenburg, which he didn't believe but they paid cash,  the party picked up a few rumors of a hill giant organizing goblins in the mountains, a nearby wizard's tower and had a lengthy discussion about a fox raiding the local chicken coops once a month.  A fox that none of the locals, despite making their livings as trappers and hunters, had been able to capture.  A series of strange killings of animals and an old prospector out by the hills.  Brother Peter told them of his dreams sent by Ulric involving a blood red moon and and a haunting piping.  The party decided to ignore all of the adevnture hooks and to travel on with the nun and the aircrew to the nearest town of Hovelhof where a coach might stop by in a week or two. (You can lead players to adventure but you can't make them follow clues.)  The elf having a financial interest as the nun had promised them money.
    

The following day, halfway to Hovelhof they encountered Sergeant Hans Schultz, his nephew Johann and two other mounted sergeant's at arms and several dozen levied peasants marching up the road to Smålplotz. 
   Schultz questioned them about where they had come from, as he would have remembered such a strange party (two elves and a dwarf) and of course the beautiful Fraulein, had they come through Hovelhof. 
   When the party told him the tale of having come from Wolfenburg, he informed them the province of Hochland was raising it's forces in response to the sack of Wolfenburg and Hans and his lads had been dispatched to deal with a band of chaos beastmen said to rampaging through the area.  He praised them for bravely cutting their way through escorting the beautiful Fraulein and said he needed experienced fighters like them to lead the pimply faced lads in the levy.  This was not greeted with enthusiasm by the party, especially when he offered to send Johann and one of the other sergeants as an escort for the nun and her companions to Hovelhof.  The elf insulted him by questioning his men's trustworthiness;  Hans pointed out that if they hadn't heroically escorted the nun, then they had deserted.  And the Elector-Count was a kind man who would probably let them stay in a dungeon for a long time before, regretfully, passing judgement and having their sword hands struck off. (You can however make the choice just a little bit clearer.)
     The nun offered to write a letter of introduction to her boss, which was accepted in bad grace as she refused to let them read the contents before she sealed it.  The elf is fearful that it's a Rosencrantz and Guidenstern letter.  All they know is that it's addressed 'Oldenhaller - Nuln' and that she sealed it with some sort of housemark.  And so they bid adieu for a time to Fanny, Captain Mario, Dietrich, Volf the Intrepid and Mrs Munchner.  Zilda's player having decided to bring in a new character (Zolda?) to rather than continuing to play Volf.

Nine Virtues of Magnus the Pious - module review and play report

The Nine Virtues of Magnus the Pious is a Warhammer  Fantasy Role Play introductory module, I believe for the second edition.  I know that the stat blocks don't quite match up with the first edition.  As soon as I read through it it I knew that I was going to run it.  It's not your typical dungeon crawl, instead it's a MacGuffin hunt set in the midst of a city being sacked.

In format, it's a copiously and sometimes inaccurately illustrated forty two page PDF.  The first ten pages are illustrations and backstory.  As most of it is irrelevant to the players or the plot, I used it for inspiration and freely changed details to make it fit in with my campaign.

Despite the fact that it has a whole city to play in there are only three set encounters outside of the building where the MacGuffin is held.  The city is divided into four parts:
   The western bank of the river Wolfen, which is held by the defenders;
   'No-Man's Land' - those parts of the eastern bank visible to the defenders where the party can be attacked by BOTH sides.
   'Altered States' - those parts of the city devastated by the magical attack that leveled the city walls
   'Utter Mayhem' - everywhere else in the city.
No details are provided for the western bank, the plot quickly rushes the players across the river.

Each type of the area on the east bank has a short list of random encounters, with a 60% chance pf encounter every ten minutes.  I thought that would be far too small of a selection, but in play it turned out that no random encounter was ever repeated.

The action is divided into two scenes to use the Mythic terminology: getting to the City Hall and finding the MacGuffin inside the building.  There's a climactic fight on the roof before the party exits via a balloon.

    The motivations for the two main NPC's are what makes this module so much fun to run.  The adventure starts off with the party trapped in the doomed city and drafted into it's last desperate defense against the horde of mutant Chaos worshipping barbarians.  Their sergeant volunteers them to assist a nun in recovering a Holy Relic from the other side of the river.  Except she's not a real nun she's a cat burglar who's been truing to steal the relic and sees her chance in current situation.  And the sergeant is actually her accomplice. So the party is being used as dupes and meatshields to begin with.

Even better as the horde gathers outside the City Hall, effectively trapping the party, the cat burglar/nun leads the way to the roof where her accomplices are waiting in a balloon to lift the party to safety.

Except the accomplices have decided to double-cross her.

Play report below the jump.

Seventh Expedition

[This post is courtesy of and thanks to Slick's player +Greg Pariana - RDT]The dwarven team was summoned to the pathfinder’s office. Thunk and the other guy was busy and so Drunk and the cleric and I replied.

There were a couple of female half elves there as well – tall and full of attitude. They were called Sparkle, Dazzle or something like that [Her name is Jewel - RDT] and that was the magic user, she was new to this. And then the other one was a third again our height and always busy blathering about something.

It was suggested that they come with us. We agreed but we would let them step up whenever we could.

We were asked to go back to the library/museum. A Blackcross woman – scout – agent found something on her travels and brought it back to study and then disappeared. They sent 3 guys to go find her and they did not come back. We were to find out what is going on, find what she brought back. If we could bring her back alive, they would like that as well. We do so well under those conditions.

We were led to a ramp and walked down. The she-elves needed light to see – too tall, too skinny, and now giving our positions away.

We went to Storage Room 1, we found a griffin – dead, stuffed and attacking. The magic user hit the young-one and she doubled her size. Between Drunk and her, the griffin went gone again.

Storage Room 2 we found 2 statues that came to life. Drunk hit one with a club that went poof. We then started to attack with metal weapons. The really big she-elf was using her blade. Not the brightest maneuver, but it worked.

In a reading room we found one of the missing guys. Half-eaten and dissolved. We also found key paperwork that I was able to read.

We went to Storage Room 3 and this blob of eyes and mouths came at us. I got spat at and blinded but the team took out another critter.

We found a hidden door and used that and could tell that it had not been used in a while. This part had glowing mushrooms, screaming mushrooms, talking mushrooms and a lot of issues for us, but we survived and found the Blackcross dame’s haversack and the tall she elf found a trap door.

We took turns going down the spiral stairs and the newbie She-elf almost broke her neck, what is worse is that she almost broken our wands. It was a good thing I could use them.

Horrid use of a lower level – a real nasty layout and we found a metal box with a trap and I took care of the trap but then a stone started to scream and I got attacked by a spider swarm. The cleric had bottles of fire and with them and after a couple tries, killed the swarm. We went through a curtain and there was the Blackcross dame with 5 tentacles coming from a dimensional rift. the Metal cylinder was up above acting like a type of key.

She was possessed and suddenly there were 5 zombies. We worked at killing the zombies and then the possessed puppet Blackcross chick magic missile’d our magic she elf and nearly killed her again. We cut the tethers, The big she elf, Dragonthorn or something like that, broke the cylinder per our instructions and partially closed the portal. With a little grief, we took the Blackcross Chick and her papers and trickets back up top. We did good. The cleric did point out, he did not even get a scratch this time. Boy, he sure nows to temp fate.

Submitted by Graven (Slick) Runehouse

Sixth Expedition

Thunk wasn't feeling well today, it must have been the spare ribs.  But Hahdan the wizard said he felt up to going in with us.

Slick did his usual pagan ritual in front of the door, he said he heard voices - at least in his own head.  But he opened it himself, I think because he could hide behind it while he did.  Drunk and I charged in, there were six lippy elves in there, wearing armor.  I thought about letting one of them live, but two of them hit Drunk - that made him mad.  So he hit one back and cleaved the other.  He was really mad, because he did the same thing to the next two.   And then he killed the one in front of me.  Slick killed the last one who had a bendy sword like Slick's, but it was shiny too.  No one wanted it.

We went into a couple of other rooms, with Slick performing the rituals.  The second time he found a pit trap.  - Drunk pulled him out  He found three more halflings, I said we didn't need any more cooks.  Slick said halflings are usually thieves, at least they make all the meetings.  They asked if they could tag along with us while we left, we said sure and went deeper into the dungeon.

We found a secretish door and went through.  There were four kobolds and a dire weasel waiting inside for Drunk.  Drunk killed the kobolds, the weasel bit me while I put it in a bag.  It got chewed it's way out of the bag and bit me again.  Slick brained it with a morningstar.

Slick found another pit trap by the next door, but he didn't fall in this time, I guess his religion only requires him to fall in the first one.  There was a big lizard guy behind the door.  I told him to fall down and he did.  Slick poked him with his bendy sword, not the new bendy sword.  He jumped over, but he didn't jump high enough, it bit his foot.  That what these kids get for not wearing good old fashioned chainmail.  Hahdan keeps splashing things with little acid balls.  Slick killed the lizard guy.

I was wondering why do elves always come in a six pack?  And is there such a thing as a lite-elf?

I asked the halflings if they knew any good jokes - they didn't.

We found a couple more secret door, but nothing interesting except for six hobgoblins.  I charged in, with Drunk behind me.  He  killed one, I killed one and then he killed the next two.

Nothing left to kill, so we went back to town, took the halflings out of the dungeons with us.  We split all the gold we had found.

Met a really weird human(?) woman at a bar.  She talked funny and beardless women don't do anything for me.  She asked me to give something to a guy named Zafar and find a another guy named Sestus.  Why not, she had at least be been buying the booze.  She said we should go to another bar called the Unlucky Sailor.  My uncle told me sailors are like cowboys, they ride in big wooden horses.

We went there and the bar was closed, so we opened it, there were a couple of guys in there with four big rats and a whole bunch of little rats.  One of the guys was beating up the other guys, and there were some people tied up against the wall.

Right a way, Drunk killed two rats and Slick pinned one to the floor with a dart.  He's getting pretty good with those things.  I threw a flask of alchemist fire at the bunch of rats, but missed.  Hahdan cast Flaming Sphere and torched the guy who was beating up the other guy.  Then moved it on top of the rat bunch that was chewing on Slick.

It turned out Kafar was the guy getting beaten up.  I gave him the note, it felt like I was back in Mining School passing notes when the foredwarf wasn't looking.  He said we needed to find a wooden horse called the Prancing Prince.  I asked how we would know the horse's name, and he said it would have a statute of a human dancing in front of it.  And that it would be in the water.

We let the others go the last guy was an auctioneer.  He was so lippy that I'm pretty sure he must have been an an elf or at least raised by them.

My uncle was wrong, the thing sailors ride are called 'ships' and they look like human houses turned upside down with trees planted in them.  Slick used his wand and went invisible, he came back and said they he heard voices at the bottom of the ship.  So we all went down, Slick went down the last stair invisibly, but they must have heard him, because two half orcs hit him.  I threw a thunderstone down the stairs.  Drunk charged down and hit one, killing him.  The other one started punching Drunk with his fists - silly half orc.  I charged down and hit it, then Slick popped back into sight and poached it.  We took a shiny compass off of one of the bodies. 

There were a bunch of people down there who said they wanted to leave, so we led them upstairs.

When we got almost all of the way up, we heard somebody at the top shouting, she didn't sound happy.  There were six humans and two zombies on top.  We charged out, Drunk killed a sailor and Slick hit one with a dart.  Then Drunk said he couldn't see - the shouty human must have cast a spell, because his helmet wasn't over his eyes and I had drank out of the same barrel.  I pushed him at one of the other sailors, the I decided to go for a run, I ran off the ship and then back on.  While I was gone, Slick made one of the sailors at the back of the ship jump into the water.  Hahdan got behind Drunk and told him where to hit.I went up one side of the ship, while Slick was shooting at the shouty human from the back and Drunk and Hahdan went up the left side of the ship.  Two sailors attacked me, I killed them while the zobies were attacking Drunk.  Drunk re-killed one, Hahdan killed the shouty human with a fire bolt and then I re-killed the last zombie.  We found a map to a Cooper's Warehouse and a note about a cult called 'Nature's Cataclysm' - sounds elvish. 

We had to find a priest to take the blindness off of Drunk and get us healed up before we went to the warehouse.  He said extra charges applied for late night service, in other words he wanted a of gold for getting out of bed.

We found a trapdoor in the top of the warehouse, there were three humans and three rats in it.  Slick dropped in, Drunk hurt himself when he dropped in, but killed two rats.  I think he may have landed on one of them.  Hahdan threw in a thunderstone, One of the humans hit Slick,.  I hurt myself dropping in, but I hit the last rat.  Hahdan levitated down - showoff wizards.  Slick, Drunk and I each killed a human.  They looked like they were some  of those elvish wannabes who wander around over our mine and mumble about balance and circle of life.  I helped fix one of their stones once.  They don't bathe very often.

I opened he only door out of the room and was hit by a blade trap.  Slick broke the trap and we went down the hall.  There was a big room at the other end, at first I thought there were three humans in it, but then  I realized there were two huecuvas and one of the stinky druids.  The huecuvas smelled better.  One of the huecuvas attacked me.  Slick stabbed the other, then I did Hanseath's Rage against the one that hit me.  Drunk got mad and hit the stinky druid.  Slick re-killed the one huecuva, Drunk killed the druid and I rekilled the last huecuva. 

There were some people in cells down there, we let them go but Sestus wasn't one of them.  The stinky druid had an amulet that Hahdan and Drunk wanted.

Fifth Expedition

We decided to go into town and get more ale, and bacon. Bacon is important when you're adventuring. We had to go back over the mountains, and the higher we went, the deeper the snow got, I thought it was kind of strange as I'd always heard that snow melted in the spring. But I never was one to leave the mine as long as there was ale, and I didn't want to be made fun of by asking a foolish question. By time we got to the village the drovers said that the snow was getting too deep for the wagon. Humans are silly for living on mountains, this never is a problem when you live IN a mountain.

We went into the inn, they had ale. The humans were very happy to see us, they thought we were somebody else. They had received a note about the snow, they said someone needed to go up the mountain and meet whoever sent the note, then the snow would go away. We decided to go, there wasn't much ale left in the inn. Flash and Hahdan stayed with the wagon and the drovers.

So Drunk, Thunk, Slick and I started walking up the mountain, the snow was more than beard deep on me. Half way up I spotted six humans lying in the snow, trying to surprise us. Silly humans. I told the others to wait until we were within thirty feet then charge. When we got to thirty feet they fired crossbows at us. That made Thunk mad, I wasn't happy either. Drunk, Slick and Thunk each got to kill one, then they dropped their swords and put their hands in the air. That made it easier for me to kill the one in front of me. Drunk killed another one, he's greedy that way. Thunk beat the last one up until he stopped trying to give up, and just gave up. We took their swords, crossbows and clothes, can't leave things like that where any passing murder hobos can find them.

We found an abandoned inn at the top of the pass, it used to be called the Owl's Roost. Now it's called 'For Sale or Lease'. There was big elf in there, at least part elf, the other side of his face was green and scaly. Definitely better looking than the last six lippy elves we had met. Of course they were pretty hacked up after we had parted ways with them. This elf's name was Primus. He said his boss was trapped in a hole and he needed our help to get her out. I told him that if it was a mining job he should have said so in his note, then we would have brought the right tools. Granite is hard on the edge of the axe, picks are better. He also said his boss would make it warm again, whatever. These elves are a flighty bunch. He brought in a big load of fire wood, although there was a bunch of furniture that was dry enough to burn.

The next day he took us along some slippery paths to what remained of an old tower. I'm pretty sure that some wizard had built it. There was a crack in the snow all the way into the ground. While we were looking at it, a huge white centipedey thing burst out of the snow. Primus punched it once and it went back under the snow. We are so going bar hopping with this elf. We went down the crack, Primus was too big, but he gave me a little glowing ball and told me how to use when I was close to thaw his boss out.

We found a hallway leading back towards the ruined tower and followed it until we came to a library. There was a little blue critter there with wings, rummaging through the scraps of books left inside. He said he wasn't supposed to be hard, we figured that he was a water mephit who had caught a cold. We took some scraps of the parchments with us and told the mephit to tag along with us and we would thaw him out. He told us to turn right when we left the library, but we saw that there was a barricade to the left. I thought we should see what they wanted to keep us out of, so we went up to it. Some bugbears attacked us with javelins, hitting Drunk. Thunk killed two before he got mad. I healed Drunk, which made him mad. Of course he might have gotten mad because Thunk killed four more before he killed any. We found some gold and a ring.

Then we went back the way the mephit wanted us to go. It was some sort of laboratory - I said I thought it was a wizard's tower, this is one of the clue you look for. It had cages and snow drifts in it. I started probing the snow drifts with a pole. Three white dogs jumped out of the snow, one bit me. Their breath came out in a big cloud, it was cold, but minty fresh. That's another clue, dog breath usually isn't fresh. Drunk, Thunk and I each killed a hoar hound. We found a potion and a magic short sword.

We found another laboratory, this one with wizards in it. That's an almost certain sign that you're in a wizards tower. One was crushed under a chunk of ceiling. Dwarven ceilings never collapse, well, unless there's a dragon involved or my uncle. The other one was frozen inside an ice giant. I made the mephit promise to provide me with one service if I thawed him out. Then we broke up the ice giant and used the glowing ball. All the ice melted at once and the wizard came out. Slick helped the wizard up, then a big water elemental appeared and smacked the wizard, the mephit made a screaming noise and ran like an elf. I cast Hanseath's Axe and Magic Weapon on my axe, and gave Thunk the short sword we had found. He hit the elemental hard. Drunk was hitting it hard but didn't seem to be bothering it. Slick got the wizard out, then Thunk hit it really hard - Thunk drunk the water [elemental].

We took the wizard back up. We found that Primus had killed the centipedey thing, but sadly it had killed him too. I'm going to let the next elf I meet live out of respect for his memory. I figured that our employers would want the centipedey thing, so I cast Gentle Repose on it and we sent them a message to come with a way to get it out. The wizard gave me a headband.

We then traveled into town to make some purchases with the gold we had extracted from various nefarious dungeon dwellers in the course of our adventures. After ordering various oddments to be made, we went to find another dungeon to ensure that we had sufficient precious metals to pay for our goods.  We took ale and bacon with us this time.  I hope we get back to town before we run out again.

 Slick went back to performing his rituals in front of the doors. I thought heard him saying something about '...put your left foot in...', maybe he wants to be a wizard, because it didn't sound like any divine spell I've ever heard. After his ritual, Drunk and Thunk opened the door. We were happy to find nine zombies behind it! [We were even happier to discover that these creatures are subject to Critical Hits in Pathfinder.] Drunk was so happy he rekilled seven. Thunk and I each rekilled one. We found some silver.

We found two lantern archons in the next room. We offered to kill anything they wanted us to kill in the dungeon. I figured that making the offer counts as a good deed, so it would be an appropriate thing to do when dealing with beings from the upper planes.

Slick said heard grunting while performing his ritual the next time. Catchy little tune. Drunk and Thunk opened the door. A net fell on Drunk. I smashed the ogre, then Thunk killed it. Drunk killed it's piggy. We found some gold and gems and most importantly spare ribs. That's supper taken care of.

Thunk opened the next door by himself. Then he started dancing and waving his axe around. Drunk joined him in the dance. Then there was a dead plant thingy in there with them. Funny I didn't see it while they were dancing. Are all my companions becoming mages? We found some human sized full plate.

 Slick heard some shuffling behind the door after that. Drunk and Thunk found a pit trap. Drunk fell in. We found four halflings behind the door. We told them to go out and take the spare ribs with them. And to have them cooked when we came out, they could use the long sword we found for a spit. The halflings were afraid of some elves they said were in the dungeon. I may have to wait an elf or two before I let one live.

Slick said he heard  'brown chicken, brown cow' music coming from behind the next door or was it 'boom-chick-a-wow-wow' ? Anyway, six orcs shafted Thunk and Drunk with javelins. Thunk killed one, I killed two and Drunk killed three. We found some gold and gems.  We didn't find any chicken or cows.

Then we were hungry and decided to go back out and have spare ribs before looking for the elves.

Fourth Expedition

Thunk was feeling better, but Flash was quiet the whole time, no riddle games or anything fun.
A new member came up on the last supply wagon, his name is Hahdan Lowbeard, the Laughing Mage.  He has a really acidic sense of humor.  At least no one appears to be chasing him, unlike Slick and Flash.

We were also told after this dungeon we can return to town for a bit.  That's good, I'm out of ale for services.

There were a lot of empty rooms in the dungeon and the halls were narrow..  The bigger the room, the emptier it was, it seemed.  Finally, after doing his rituals at one door, Slick motioned that there was bacon inside.  That made me hungry, we're out of bacon too.  When Thunk opened the door, he found six orcs in a very small room, he thinks they were having an orc-gy.  One of them hit him  hard with an axe, that made Thunk mad so he killed the orc.  Then another one hit him.  Thunk came out to be healed, while Drunk went into fight,  the orc hit him very hard.  I channeled energy to heal Thunk and Drunk, while Drunk was killing the next two.  Then another one hit Drunk so hard I had to heal him again.  It made Drunk mad too, so he killed the last two before he calmed down.

There was no bacon, I was disappointed.  Sometimes I think worshipping other gods than Hanseath makes people crazy.  This is a case in point, where's the bacon?

Slick found us another door, eventually Drunk got it open, another very small room, this time full of forteen kobolds.  Hahdan threw something in, but it didn't do anything.  Drunk smashed one into tiny pieces.  Even for a kolbold tiny pieces.   I had to kill one in order to get into the room.  Hahdan threw something again and made one of their faces melt.  That was pretty neat.  One of them hit Drunk, he chopped through it and the one next to in in one blow.  Kolbolds are wimps.Thunk came in and started killing them, and Hahdan half melted another one of them.  Then Drunk, Thunk and I killed the rest.  Thunk said he thinks this is the clown cart of dungeons, the smaller the room the more clowns there are in it.

Thunk and Drunk went into a room with two big centipedes, Drunk got bit.  Then they both killed one.

Thunk and Drunk went into a room with two big ants, Drunk and Thunk got bit.  Then they both killed one.  Getting bit like that would bug me.

We found a room with six lippy elves in it.  I got bored talking with them, so Thunk, Hahdan and I killed them.  Drunk and Slick weren't very happy about that.  But once the elves started shooting at us, thy got over it.  Hahdan and Thunk started singing a song about ...'six lippy elves, FIVE GLOAT-ING DWARVES'...

Then we found a room with goblins, hobgoblins and ale.  Drunk and Slick and Hahdan (I think) killed them.  Then I held a short service for Hahdan until we finished the ale.  I don't remember much of the fight after that.  It must have been that goblin ale.

When the service was over, Hahdan found a concealed door.  It's good to have a smart guy like him along.  This time Slick's prayers worked because the net didn't land on him when he opened the door.  Inside were four zombies, I hit them with the [revised] wrath of Hanseath and they withered before it.  Then Drunk and Thunk went in and re-killed them. 

We went out of the dungeon to rest then.  Still no bacon and no ale, this is a hard life.

The Third Expedition

Slick says his name is Graven Runehouse, I still think he's running from someone.  But maybe he just wants to learn how to be a real dwarf.  The dragon said to call him "Flash", he's definately avoiding someone.

Flash likes to play riddles, I won his contest today.  Thunk wasn't feeling well, he stayed with Flash and the wagon while we went into the dungeons.

Graven continues to perform his rituals before the doors.  We found an old wooden idol, I couldn't figure out which deity it was for.  Maybe I should have paid more attention in school, but they all look alike to me.  Hanseath is always easy to find, there's beer.

In the next room we found a gnoll and a spotted wolf.  Graven fell down after the wolf bit him.  The gnoll hit him with an axe too.  I killed them both.  His axe wasn't as good as mine.  We found some gold and a wand.  It has a faint transmutation glamour. Niether Graven nor I could determine what it does.  Drunk found a sliding panel.

When he opened the panel we saw a pile of coins n the floor.  Drunk thought there might be a hole in the floor.  He suggested that we throw the body of the gnoll into the room.  So we did, it bounced.Drunk went in to pick up the coins, a weird greenish one legged monster with many arms phased in behind him and stole a pouch.  Then it phased out before we could attack it.  I skipped the courses on creatures from other planes to work on my brewing.  Now I wonder if that was as good of an idea as I thought it was at the time.

In the next room we found four zombies, they hit me several times.I rekilled two of them, including the one Graven had decorated with tassels.  Drunk killed the other two.  We found some plate armor just my size.  As I was putting it on that green thing popped back in, I hit it with the greave I was holding, Drunk and Graven hit it too.  It went away again.

We found a cauldron under a haystack.  What an odd place to put a cauldron.  It had a fancy candlestick, some gems and fifty very nice crossbow bolts.  Drunk and Graven split the crossbow bolts.

Then we left and rested a day and two nights.

We went back in and found a room with two lizard men.  I ran in and killed one, Drunk killed the other.. We took their weapons and two gems we found.  Graven said Drunk's lizard wasn't dead yet, so he made sure it was.

Before Graven finished his rituals at the next door, two lizard men opened it and hit him.  When they did a portcullis fell down behind us, trapping the lizard men so they couldn't get away.  I killed them both, then I healed Graven because he wasn't feeling well.

Graven continued with those rituals that keep getting him hurt.  I'm a cleric, but this kid has got what looks to be a terminal case of religion.  We found some scented oil in one room and a secret door in another.  Behind the door were six zombies.One of them hit Drunk hard, I rekilled three of them, Drunk rekilled two of them and Graven rekilled one with nothing but tasseled darts.  We thought that was pretty slick.

We didn't find anything of interest in the dungeon, so we left and looked for another one on the map our employers furnished.  I won another riddle game with Flash.

We found another dungeon.  Graven continues his rituals.  This time there were three lizard men behind the door.  We each killed one, we found some gold and gems and a wand with a faint glamour of enchantment.  We couldn't figure this one out either.  Drunk wasn't feeling good so I healed him.

There was a flaming dwarf in the next room.  He was a real hot head.  He hit and I woke up back at the wagon.  Graven and Drunk had carried me out.  They had the hot head's kilt, it made of some woven metal.

Several days later when I was feeling better we went back in.  The first room had a coatrack, a corpse and a wardrobe.  No light post in the wardrobe, I checked.  The room also had a secret door.

Drunk showed Graven how to open the next door.  He found a hole in the floor, Graven fell in when he tried to cross it.  We went and got the wardrobe and put it across the hole.  All we found in the room were two empty flasks.  I'll use them for holy water.

Drunk fell in the hole in front of the next door.  We used the wardrobe again.  When we opened the door there were two gnolls waiting.  Drunk and I killed them.  We found some gold and a scroll with Levitate and Mage Armor.  Graven found a hidden area with more gold, some platinum and a great axe.  It's better than my old one so I took it.

We found two ghouls in the next room.  One bit and clawed me, I killed it and Drunk killed the other.  I wasn't feeling well, so I healed myself.  While I doing that they found a smoke stick, an electrum dagger with a star ruby in the pommel - not very sharp.  And Drunk found another hole in the floor, he didn't fall in this one.  Graven wen in it and came out with more platinum and a potion, it's brown with a syrupy flecked appearance, tastes salty.

Then we found a room with a corpse in a bathtub.  Pretty old.Past that room we found a ramp leading down.

We opened the first door and found a blubbery thing.  Drunk and Graven ran away, I cast Magic Weapon on my new axe.  The blubbery thing, I think it's called a dretch, made a big greenish cloud it smelled just like my mum's cabbage surprise.  I hit him with my axe and he went away.  I found some gold and a needle sword.  I don't like them they're too bendy.  But it nice and has faint transmutation glamour (+1).  i gave to Graven when they returned.

When we opened the door out of the room, the next rom was too dark for us to see into it.  We decided to come back later.

The next room had a giant skeleton.  It hit Graven and he fell down.  Drunk got mad and smashed it.  It took all my healing to get Graven up enough to walk out on his own.  We waited three days before we went back into the dungeon.  I lost at riddles with Flash.

We went back to the giant skeleton room and found some gold, gems and very nice long sword.  Nobody wants it.

Something odd happened in the next room.  There a=was a halfling named Artifinn Higgy.  He said he'd been trapped in there for over a week.  We took him with us so he could show Graven how to open doors.

We found two troglodytes in a room, they smell just like my mum's cabbage and pickled rat casserole.  Mr Higgy wasn't a halfling, he turned into some kind of a bat and kept stinging Graven. Graven killed it after I hit it with my axe.  I think it was an imp.  I really shouldn't have skipped those classes.

We found a ghoul in the next room I killed it.  Drunk broke his armor.  Then we went back and searched Mr Higgy's room.  We found some gold and a wand with a faint glamour of illusion.

We went back to the dark room, we could see some coins on the floor again.  Two darkmantles attacked us, one grabbed Graven's head and he fell down.  I stablized him while Drunk killed the other.  The one from Graven's head hit me then I killed it.  We found some copper and some smoke sticks. That was the last of the dungeon, we didn't capture anything for our employers.

The Second Expedition

I, Orlin Alesmiter, priest of Hanseath do scribe this account of my journeys in the Lands Above.  Whilst my recollections of the first expedition remain hazy, let me clearly state that I was NOT drunk. The five gallons of ale I had procured at the start were reserved for holy services.  In any case my recollection of our latest expedition are diamond sharp.  Yes, I am aware that a diamond needs be cunningly cut and crafted before it is sharp, stop nattering at me.

  Along with me continued the brothers Thunk and Drunk, all of us hailing from the famous Millwork-Key mine.  I had met Drunk when we were brewer's apprentices; the brothers being eager, alright - the only, members of my congregation.  However, let us remember that Hanseath is present wherever there is booze and a fight and with the brothers I might run out of the first, but never the second.

  We were joined this time by a reticent young dwarf, who requested I not reveal his name until a Statue of Limitations had expired.  This intrigues me greatly as it implies that stone, which I was taught alone of living things does not perish, actually can die.  But I digress, this dwarf we believe to have been raised in a city rather than a mine, because he wears leather rather than honest chain, and is given to outlandish phrases such as "Whoops", "I meant to do that" and frequently "Ouch, that hurt".  For such cause, we shall refer to him as 'Slick'.

  We spent a few days searching for the ruins that were marked on the map supplied to us by our employers.  Thunk amused himself by stepping on a scorpion and searching a corpse we had found.  At this point we discovered just how sick and twisted young Slick became by being raised outside of a good dwarf mine - instead of opening doors like a normal dwarf with a few lusty blows of his axe, he spends much time looking at and, he claims, listening to the doors.  I have used doors all of my life and I never heard one speak in the mine - perhaps doors are different in the Lands Above. 

  At the third door, his strange rituals were proven inferior to common practice, as he uttered one of his strange oaths and turned an interesting shade of mirhow in my dark vision, while claiming a feeling of weakness had come over him after pricking himself on a needle.  We treated the poor lad for poisoning and determined to see what was guarded in such a manner.  We found a large room with a bas relief of a human holding a gong. The gong I should make clear was real, the human being the bas relief.  Thunk sounded the gong several times while I watched the door, sadly nothing came to fight.

  Thunk watched Slick perform his ritual at a door at the far end of the room, afterwards, Slick opened the door and a large net fell on them.  Also two skeletons came out, I prevailed upon Hanseath to drive such abominations, unable to drink ale, back into their room.  Whereupon Drunk and Thunk re-slew them.  We found a small hole in one wall of the skeleton's room.  A careful search of the gong room ended with Drunk finding a secret door.  Five more skeletons tried to come out, Drunk re-killed one; I invoked Hanseath against the Undrinkers and they fled from my righteous wrath.  The others followed them, Thunk re-slew them all, but not before one of them clawed up Slick.  Honest chainmail is your friend in these situations, it's a shame the notions city folk come up with.  We found a fancy glove some human had dropped and a spinel.  This wasn't the room that the peephole looked into, so we went back and levered a block out of the wall with the peephole.  It turned out that it was just a hollow wall.  What's the point of building a hiding place like that and not hiding any treasure in it?

We found another door, Slick performed his ritual and opened it. Four kolbolds tried to stick Thunk with their spears.  That made Thunk angry, too angry, he couldn't hit them he was so mad. I ran in and killed three, Drunk killed the other.  We found one hundred and fifty two gold pieces and a potion - cerulean blue, with a buttery taste and a sort of watery, phosphorescent appearance. Definitely necromatic magic, I felt a flow of negative energy.  Maybe it's Undead Control or Inflict Wounds? I must remember to try when we next encounter Undrinkers.

  There was another door in the room, Slick performed his ritual, opened it and found a pit trap. He didn't fall in, but I heard a female tree hugger warn us not to enter, but we did anyway.  She asked us about baths, I had heard elves were pretty fussy, but you would think that she would have expected to get dirty in a dungeon. After she left, Drunk went to the obvious loose stone in the floor and pulled up a sack with four hundred silver pieces.  The elf had been in the room for a day and a half, afraid of four little kobolds and never noticed. Elves shouldn't be allowed to adventure without some sensible dwarves around.

We found another door, it turned out to be the last one in this dungeon. Slick did his ritual, opened the door and found another pit trap.  He didn't fall in but two of the skeletons that came out did.  After the other two came out, I used the power of Hanseath to force them into the pit, too. We found forty five gold pieces and a bundle of fifty arrows.  When we get back to town, I'm going to buy a crossbow.  I forgot to try the potion.

We searched and found another dungeon on the map.  When Slick opened the first door, we found a grassy gnoll or maybe it was just gassy.  The gnoll whacked Thunk hard, Thunk whacked the gnoll harder. We took the gnoll's axe, but it's not as good as mine.  We found a human sized set of plate mail, when Thunk and Drunk went to carry it out to the wagon, it fell apart and we found six hundred silver pieces and a pearl.

  This room had alot of doors, Slick opened the first and a big cat yowled at him, while it did it's face peeled back so we could see it's skull and bones and everything.  That was pretty cool, usually things have to be dead before you can peel their skin back.  Drunk and Slick ran away.  I killed it with my ax. Afterward, someone asked if this was the sort of creature we were supposed to capture for our employers. I said, "Oh, right, I forgot." And that I'd try to remember next time, but they will take the bodies too.  We found a fancy coffer with gold hinges and ivory inlay, it held one hundred and ten gold pieces.

Slick opened the next door, another one of those cats yowled at him and he ran away again. This time we clubbed it and tied it up so we could take it out to the cage on the wagon. We found one hundred gold pieces and another potion. This one is steely grey, with a meaty taste and a phosphorescent appearance.  Abjuration, maybe  blur or mirror image?  I'll give it to Slick, he gets hurt a lot.

We didn't find anything else interesting other than the hooker throne for a long time, although Thunk claimed he had a vision of spinning straw into gold.  That's foolish, you mine for gold. I told him to cut back on the water he's drinking, it's giving him hallucinations.  The hooker throne had a corpse in it held up by a hook. We took the hook, we didn't take the corpse.

Finally we found the dragon, he's only a little dragon, brass colored. Thunk played twenty questions with him, Thunk lost.  He told us not to go through the next door, so we did.  He tagged along to see the fun.  We wandered through some hallways, but didn't see anything.  Then it got dark, like the time I fell asleep in the brewery and old Torbin put a bucket over my head, so I couldn't see anything when I woke up.  Then something fell on Thunk's head, I helped him pull it off and carried it out to where it wasn't dark, so we could stick in Slick's sack. It got dark again, but we stuffed it in the sack anyway.  I never did see it, but it felt soft to me, no bones. Thunk said it had  tentacles at his end.  We put it on the wagon to take o our employers, but the cat kept trying to eat it, so we tied the sack under the wagon.

  I thought that anyone who could beat Thunk at twenty questions would be good to have around, so I asked the dragon to join us for an equal share.  He agreed, so we gave him the fancy coffer and it's gold to help start his hoard.  He won't tell us his name, I wonder if he's waiting for the Statue of Limitations to die too? I suggested we call him Spunky, but he said no.

We took the wagon to meet some guys our employers sent to collect the cats and the thing in the sack.  They didn't like the cat, but were impressed by the dragon.  They gave us more supplies, but not enough ale.