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The Cemetery Puzzle

We exited the alleys in favor of. . . the graveyard??? Had we never watched Scooby Do? Fortunately for us, the graveyard was not the site of our next ambush, but instead the host of a puzzle-trap.

To enter the graveyard’s mausoleum, the Knights were faced with the task of assembling four discs in the correct order. But the slightest misstep would result in damage and the loss of a team member’s ability to contribute to the solution. The clue read:

The Four Winds howl far and near
Sort them now and place them here
They carry news to every ear
Sewn, they are, of joy and fear

As best I could determine we completely solved this one. Each disc corresponded to one of the four seasons which we had to correlate to one of the four winds. Yet we managed to somehow mis-step a couple times and frag a few party members. But nothing too serious. . .

. . . A Shambling Mound!

Double Doh!

The mound hurled a viscous pile of toxic goo at me and the sticky slime glued my feet to the floor. Trapped! Like rats! (Actually, I think there was a rat or two trapped in the goopey mass at my feet)

As I was unable to escape, the formidable plant creature bared down on me for the kill. I wasn’t too confident my light mace was going to be of much use.

Fortunately, the knights quickly came to my rescue, before their party cleric was ripped to shreds.

As this was our first combat there was a fair amount of confusion, but the Knights soon found their footing. The key moment for me here was when Rone, sensing my somewhat growing distress at being dismembered, decided to drop the vile plant creature with a shocking grasp spell. I shamelessly metagamed and cried out that shambling mounds are immune to electricity. Casting on the fly, he altered his spell into an acid arrow at the last moment. Striking the creature in the throat with a corrosive bolt, Rone’s strike burnt through its neck and its head dropped to the alley with a sickening wet “sploosh”. Headless, the mound blundered randomly down the maze of alleys and sewers where it slowly took its time to die. Fortunately, the sound of its wandering death throws provided exactly the diversion we needed to escape the oncoming watch.

At least for the moment.

I should explain that in order to cast spells, Rone had to memorize a rather daunting looking star chart, which was, fortunately for us, child’s play for Rone. Sparky’s spells were grade-A throughout the game.

. . . and wandered into a shrieker plant! Doh! Now, with the bio-alarm ringing throughout the back alleys the watch was alerted to our presence and time quickly became even more of the essence. Fortunately, the Knights of the Moonlit Cabbage do not need to stoop to stealth.

We don’t, however, as it should turn out, have any particular qualms about stooping to running away. I rallied the knights to follow and lead them away from the shrieker as fast as I could, whereupon I ran us straight into. . .

Gateway to the Sewer

As we began our journey the DM explained:

“There’s an old rusted lock barring the grate to the sewer, it looks like it could be bashed open easily with but a slight application of force, does anyone. . .

Tim: I pick the lock! (Tim immediately goes to work on the associated puzzle box which represents the lock)

DM: But. . .

Tim: Stand back everyone! I need to concentrate!

Time goes by and gradually the nervous Knights lower their guard. Slowly they begin to wander around the sewer entrance reading town posters splashed on the walls.

Tim: Just a second guys, I so got this!

DM: (checking his watch) You know, the lock doesn’t look that strong. Perhaps. . .

Tim (to the DM): Chill! I GOT this!

More time passes as the DM begins to muse how it is a rather long dungeon with a time limit and this is, after all, only the first entrance to the very first room.

Meanwhile Rone tried to organize the Knights into memorizing various information plastered to the walls on posters, correctly deducing that the posters were there to provide clues for future encounters. Unfortunately, by this point my head was already so full with clues, tips, spells and storyline that I could no longer realistically fit anymore – Hey, I’m a child of the television. Fortunately, Rone the intellectual prodigy doesn’t really need our help to memorize the posters. He’s just trying to make us feel included.

DM: The Halfling rogue is confident there’s no trap on the lock, rather than picking it perhaps you could. . .

Tim: (waving everyone away) Dammit! I said I got it covered!

In fairness to poor Tim, whom I love to tease, after the delay with the initial puzzle box he did live up to his boast, he disarmed every trap and lock in the entire Dungeon going forward, and always with time to spare. We had the best rogue of any party in True Dungeon.

KER-chink! With a flick of the halfling’s wrist, the lock at last sprung open. Shortly thereafter we ventured into the cramped sewer way hoping to make up for lost time. . .

Let’s Go Shopping!

That's right people, valley girls got nothing on us Knights!

It turns out one of our best moves of the night, was to hit the True Dungeon shops in advance of the delve itself. We pooled our limited treasure tokens and bought a few handy last-minute items. Most notably, with inexplicable prescience, Rone bought us a scroll of stone to flesh.

I confess I rolled my eyes when I saw how much Rone dropped on that one shot item. Later on, however, you would be able to see me de-rolling them in their sockets.

But enough prep talk: time to get this adventure started!

But Wait! The Sixth Man!

Although he didn’t join us on the journey itself, there was an honorary Knight of the Moonlit cabbage who contributed just as much as the rest of us and bears significant mentioning. That valorous man was Russ Brown. Russ contributed to the group in the form of donating a complete token collection from prior adventures.

For those of you who are not aware how it works, equipment, both mundane and magical is represented by round tokens (what Erik Mona describes as the wooden nickels in his editorial.)

Thanks to Russ we had a lot of short bows and axes and other mundane stuff. Even a few handy scrolls. But seriously Russ, what was the hair gel and copper wire for? Did your group bring along MacGuyver?

Only Five?

Those of you who are True Dungeon aficionados have probably already noticed a key flaw with our party’s composition. True Dungeon is supposed to be composed of seven party members. We are only five.

Two more were supposed to arrive to swell our ranks and protect our flanks. But they did not show (which is bizarre because True Dungeon sold-out again this year and had scalp sales on e-bay. This means that whoever they were, they burned their not insignificantly priced tickets). Once nameless, the two non-attendees soon became known amongst the Knights of the Moonlit Cabbage as, the "Traitorous Two!"

[Insert visual as Mike stoically brandishes his shaking fist, raised against the Traitorous Two.]

Nevertheless, despite being short-handed, the Knights ventured forth, confident that our cabbagey faith would be all we would need. (And Greg, it turns out we really needed Greg.)

Were we concerned? Not at all. Should we have been? In hindsight, yes, definitely, “Yes”.

Introducing the Party:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the “Knights of the Moonlit Cabbage”!!!

Could there have been a more valiant (and ruggedly handsome) party?

As you may have already surmised from the title, our group was recruited from amongst the Were Cabbages, an overly-keen writing collective. The Were Cabbages formed a few years back when Dryder (Tom Ganz) had the idea to form a group from these very Paizo boards to make a collective proposal to Dungeon magazine. Although I can’t claim any involvement myself, I do know that their effort eventually went on to form the popular three-part Seeds of Sehan arc (Dungeon 145-147) which has been the collaboration template for many of the group’s future projects.

So without further ado, here are our knights:

Steve Greer, AKA “Spendric” – A founding Were-Cabbage, Steve naturally took on the role of the party bard. He frequently provided us with buffs in the form of his inspirational singing, which was, and I’m not making this up, most often a song by Queen. It was my desperate hope that “We are the Champions” would come up more often than “Another One Bites the Dust”.

Greg Oppedisano – Greg volunteered to be the party tank, our stalwart fighter. Melee attacks in True Dungeon are made with a device somewhat akin to shuffleboard. Greg joked that because he was Italian and had experience at bocce, he should be able to handle it. What he didn’t tell us was that he was actually phenomenal. Who would have thought it would be handy to bring an actual athlete to one of these things?

Rone Barton, AKA “Sparky” – No doubt you know Rone from the Paizo boards as “The Jade”. I gotta tell you the Jade’s even funnier in person. Rone took on the role of the party Wizard as well as that of a surrogate cleric whenever a certain someone needed help.

Tim Hitchcock – The party rogue, Tim proudly identified himself as “the ringer”. There is, he explained, no trap he is incapable of disarming. As the only one amongst us with prior True Dungeon experience Tim was the default Yoda for our intrepid expedition.

And last there was me (Mike). Although technically the party cleric, surrounded by these bright lights, I at times felt more like my true role was as the party Nodwick.

[The following floats upwards upon your movie screen in bold type-setting, while catchy-yet-overly-repetitive, theme music plays in the background.]

This is a staggeringly true story. The names have not been changed in order to better expose the guilty, some of whom you will know from these boards, but since this tale is based on my memory, perhaps there’s been just a slight alteration of a few of the actual facts.

For the uninitiated, True Dungeon is “live” dungeon experience which is played out at Gen Con with increadible stage setting and props. After True Dungeon was featured in both Dungeon magazine editorial #128 and Dragon #349, once I finally decided to embark on the trip to Indianapolis, I knew True Dungeon was something I wanted to try. (Those were fun editorials incidentally, talk about your free advertising.) What I didn't know until much later, however, is that I would also be chronicling this famed expedition.

Disclaimer:

Before I get any further, be warned: this recap includes several scenes of gratuitous sex, horrific violence and Tim Hitchock.

Though it does sound light on Shoanti.

-Ask

Absolutely,

Definitely try Nick Logue’s “Chains of Blackmaw” in Dungeon # 135. It’s tons of fun – the PCs voluntarily go in as prisoners to protect someone inside. It’s a chance to shed some gear and pull out the wits.

Now if you don’t mind going old school also take a look at Roger Baker’s “Granite Mountain Prison” in Dungeon #36. It’s got one of the coolest map concepts I’ve seen. Love to see those pretty boys in the “Prison Break” TV show try to bust out of Granite Mountain. The PCs have to assault the prison and get a rebel leader out.

How any of this fits into SCAP I have no clue, but I suspect you do and I salute your addition of a prison break scene.

-Ask

P.S. Off topic, but I just thought I would mention that the Shoanti don’t have prisons. When they capture someone they just say “You! Don’t move!” and the poor sap stays there for the rest of his life.

I just wanted to send a “LOL!” to Mothman and Otter77 for their hat of darkmantle and boots of striding and streaking respectively. But as long as I am here:

Hammer of the MC

The wielder of the MC hammer is immune to fatigue and exhaustion. He’s simply 2 legit 2 quit. Once per day the hammer takes the form of a pair of parachute pants.

and here's the clincher:
humans are forbidden weapons, so practice karate at night in secret and with farm implements---hence the monk class!!!

Nice take on it. That's very cool - it all hangs together very well.

Kortes is a lawyer?

Wha?!

I’m pretty sure he’s a Shoanti. . .

We’re making this far too complex.

There is a much easier way to differentiate between Shoanti, Varisian and Chellaxian. Simply attack. If you get your butt kicked, you have just met a Shoanti. (You may perhaps make a Heal check to examine your bruises to see if you can determine which specific clan has torn you a new one).

Great origin for Ezren - the guilt/innocence plot twist especially.

My view may be jaded by playing the delve at GenCon (which I actually managed to survive until the timer bell went).

If I recollect correctly, that was my fault. But oh did I try to kill that Scribe. Oh did I try.

(You're group was abnormally spectacularly successful in the delve, if I am recalling the right group. It stood out as particularly well played - good teamwork especially.)

-MiKe

I still vote that the abreviation for "Second Darkness" be 2DAP!

I'm a huge Underdark fan, so I am looking forward to this one (appreciating potentially only part of the Path is going below).