Heathy's Isle of Dread Thread

Game Master Heathansson

*bump*
thread's too low.

"With all the corpses wandering around doing... farm stuff, I doubt that whoever dwells in the tunnels underneath the mansion pays too close attention to what's going on topside. Still, we should be somewhat careful as we approach it."

It looms there, the mansion, a ruined corpse of a building, slowly being pulled down and rolled over by the vines of the jungle.

Beldan will stealth down there and search around for traps, ways in, treasure hiding about, etc.
Stealth: 1d20 + 30 ⇒ (13) + 30 = 43, Perception: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (6) + 14 = 20

Beldan heads for the mansion. Before it is a great skeleton. Reptile's skull, long neck, long tail,.......forearms and legs, and the bones of batlike wings.
Looks pretty well picked over, though ants the size of a halfling's fist even now splinter off bone with wicked vicegrips jaws to get to the marrow within.

Altai will want to look at this, Beldan thinks ... ‘sides, he’s a bit nervous when it comes to enormous skeletons, not to mention giant ants. He heads back to report and get the others before proceeding further, not having seen any other signs of danger.

It's pretty sedate, the muggy early afternoon calls out for siesta.
Nothing but dead bones and men who plod ever on, working far past retirement.
To the left a little ways of the mansion, again, the trio of zombies rakes the beans to dry in a little courtyard before three rundown outbuildings.

"Ooooooooh. A dragon skeleton? Where?" Altai jumps up and makes to run down towards the ruins before someone wiser and stronger than him yanks him back down. "Ah, well, that was probably called for. Why don't we check out the outbuldings first? See where the coffee beans end up. If the local drow have acquired a taste for coffee, they might have left tracks we can interpret or follow."

Looks like there were quite a few dragon tracks around them outbuildings full of primo Amedian coffee, picked and shelled by the infinitely patient if not scrutinizing hands of the animated dead.
Nothing "medium" size, though, besides the sandaled feet of those automaton harvesters.

How big was the dragon?

Altai eyes the skeleton appraisingly. "Hmmmmmm....."

“Just watch out for those ants,” warns Beldan, warily watching for swarms of the buggers.

Dragon was "huge."

Healing check d.c. 20

“Just watch out for those ants,” warns Beldan, warily watching for swarms of the buggers.

One of them clicks it's prongs at you, as if in query or agreement.

"Not much here. I'll burn off the ants before I get the claws and fangs; let's leave the little bastards alone until then. Now, should we check out the main building?"

Oh, no; I meant just "storage buildings." They're not crappers.

I thought they were storage too. But if they are full of coffee beans, there's clearly no secret anything going on there, so I thought we could move on to the main building.

right on....the ceiling's fell in, everything's a pile of burnt detritus. Everything but the massive brass tube. It's 40 feet long, 4 feet wide at the business end; tapers down to a little eye hole on the other side.

Big glass circle on the business end.

“What’s that? Like one of those spyglass things we had on the ship, that Riese kept looking through to make himself look more like a captain, but a giant one?”

"Uh-huh. Keeping an eye on the sky, looking for Boccob knows what. Odd things live out there beyond the light cast by the stars, things best not thought of too closely. If Piltdown was preoccupied with the Great Beyond and its unknowable inhabitants, it's a good indicator that he was crazy."

The Temple of Celestian in the Free City has a way of looking at the stars.

The Temple of Celestian in the Free City has a way of looking at the stars.

do they use a telescope?

"Uh-huh. Keeping an eye on the sky, looking for Boccob knows what. Odd things live out there beyond the light cast by the stars, things best not thought of too closely. If Piltdown was preoccupied with the Great Beyond and its unknowable inhabitants, it's a good indicator that he was crazy."

mwahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!....

"The Temple of Celestian in the Free City has a way of looking at the stars."

"Nutters, all of them."

heh heh......dang religious zealots.....saying the Oerth isn't flat.....

A little cursory poking around in the burnt refuse locates a large, 5 foot by five foot by 6 feet tall stone protrusion with a door on it....looks like the door to the basement after the tornado hits the house.

And a cursory look,....the area immediately before the door seems to be cleared of debris.

Bel has a poke around – traps, locks, other tricky things. Perception:1d20 + 14 ⇒ (4) + 14 = 18

It's not even locked, much less trapped.

The doorhandle is a brass orb; upon closer scrutiny, it looks like an artfully created globe of the moon, dappled with craters and such.

Long ago,....there was a lich, and a telescope, and a Dungeon proposal,....figure I might as well channel some of it.

Good for you! I never got to send off my adventure idea featuring an undead caveman frozen in a block of ice before Dungeon was discontinued.

"Not even locked, eh? Hold on for a second..."

I'm firing up a Detect magic. Any auras, remote sensors or such nearby? Oh, and does anyone want to borrow my Darkvision mask?

I sent it in a couple months before the whole bye bye Dungeon/Dragon thing.....owell.

Faint wispy magic behind the door...

I gotta go stalk and kill some cheeseburgers for the young.
spoiler for if/when you open the door...

Beldan opens the door.

"Lights are on, but nobody's home ..."

“Ah well, let’s see ...” Stealth: 1d20 + 30 ⇒ (8) + 30 = 38 down the stairs, Perception: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (5) + 14 = 19 .

Nothing much animate down here....

There's a wide, 15 foot hallway at the foot of the wide staircase; one runs north around sixty feet and cuts east, and the other runs east about 120 feet and cuts north.
The floor is amazing marblework; at the very foot of the stair is a 10 foot wide relief of the flanaess. There seem to be other such reliefs in the marblework in both directions.

Beldan hears water dripping somewhere; that's about it really.

What were the motives of the defaced paintings?

Altai sits in the stairwell and looks at the murals while Beldan scouts ahead.

some sheer idiocy. some.....perhaps whatever motivates a lower mammal to destroy stuff.
Why does a dog scratch it's ass on the carpet? It feels good.

What were the motives of the defaced paintings?

Altai sits in the stairwell and looks at the murals while Beldan scouts ahead.

Old......Great Kingdom clothing styles from 50-100 years ago (style doesn't change as fast as it does on earth......) mostly of if not minor nobles then at least of very well-to-do types. Van Gogh didn't paint The Gleaners here; these were patron sittings.

some sheer idiocy. some.....perhaps whatever motivates a lower mammal to destroy stuff.

Why does a dog scratch it's ass on the carpet? It feels good.

Ah - this may be a language thing. I was thinking more of what's underneath the defacings, why they were singled out for destruction. Should I have said motifs instead?

Elgan prowls nervously from side to side of the group.

" 'Don' go in deh creepy house Elgan!' " He mutters to himself, peering nervously about.

"Whay is it dat all dese crazies live IN side deh big, collapsing sceery places? Whay cain't dey hide out side in deh outdoors, Lahk natur' 'tended?!?" He grumbles a little later,...

Beldan returns and reports back. “So, north or east?”

Altai peels himself away from the murals and stands up. "Have to start somewhere. How about north, for no particularly good reason?" He flips down his nightvision visor. "Let's go, shall we?"

Beldan shrugs. “Suits me. I don’t know, maybe they hook up anyway.”

Heath, you said there were lights, do the lights continue through these passageways? Are the lights an everburning torch style thing or something different?

Beldan shrugs. “Suits me. I don’t know, maybe they hook up anyway.”

Heath, you said there were lights, do the lights continue through these passageways? Are the lights an everburning torch style thing or something different?

Everburning torches in the stairwell.

dungeonmaster heathy wrote:

some sheer idiocy. some.....perhaps whatever motivates a lower mammal to destroy stuff.

Why does a dog scratch it's ass on the carpet? It feels good.

Ah - this may be a language thing. I was thinking more of what's underneath the defacings, why they were singled out for destruction. Should I have said motifs instead?

Nope; nothing underneath.....random vandalism or creature(s).

Going north, the hall bends right, way down at the other side it meets the other hallway forming a circuit.

Midway down, on the southern wall of this east/west thoroughfare is a set of double doors. They seem to be in the center of a shining dusky red circle, laced intermittently with a web of blue....rivers running north and south on it's face from white covered north and south poles.

Altai recognizes these things; aye, they're like unto globes, but of other planets, and not at all of this Oerth.

Altai shakes his head. "More creepy space crap. Keep an eye open for otherwordly aberrations as we proceed."

Any other doors in the corridor?

At the apex of where the e/w thoroughfare meets the other n/s corridor, there's a door. It's on the "outside" wall, whereas this double doors is on the "inside wall."

There's something written on that door, it's a part of the door, carved into it as it were in common.

"Great. That's possibly one of those 'if you read this, you just died' traps. Could you check if the door's trapped, Beldan?"

Any magic auras on the door?

Yeah...same faint "wispy light" from the globe that the door is a part of. Nothing "evokey splodey" per se.

I guess I'm just nervous about written traps and runes and suchlike. I blame Kobold Assassin and his innumerable explosive runes posts.