A couple of her commandments are even more interesting, like commandment 55, "thee shall not refer to or inquire about the noodle incident within my presence", or commandment 25 "Remember to remove thy spiked armor before intercourse, especially if thy spiked armor is of Numerian make, sentient, or if thee just fought an Omox."
Ardran delivery is utterly deadpan.
Jokes aside, I have heard that the Shadowsworn tribe pledging fealty to her considerable increased the average sanity of her followers, which is surprising given the difference in population between our tribe, which numbers a few thousands, and Alyushinyrra which has about 5 million.
Morana chooses to leave Ardran to his "harvesting" and moves in behind Farod. She quips "I though Farod would be the one going for the light?" and gives a short chuckle.
This room contains a row of four marble busts with a strong family resemblance. Each bust rests atop a narrow stone pillar. The bust farthest to the north—of a proud man with a wide mustache—wears an elegant wig of actual hair. An archway opens into another room to the north, while a set of stairs descends to the west.
Morana shifts her sight to see if there are any magical auras. Especially from the wig.
Morana cannot see the wig from her location.
Hearing the conversation below and behind him, Wulfgar raises an eyebrow, but keeps his attention ahead. As the others come up the stairs, he moves into the room keeping a keen eye out as he heads towards the door. Moving that direction, he's intent on being able to defend the group if anything untoward enters. As he nears the doorway he asks, "Do you think anything might be contained in the pillar bases?"
As Wulfgar moves into the room....
there is a high pitched scream and a dart flies past him. Three other critters come out of hiding behind the pillars.
Round 1
Wulfgar 12/13, Morana 10/10, Ardran 10/10, Farod 10/10
Morana <=====
yellow
Farod
red, blue, black
Ardran, Wulfgar
Yellow casts doom on Wulfgar before moving. Will DC 10 negates.
Morana (holding)
yellow
Farod <=====
red, blue, black
Ardran, Wulfgar
Farod takes a step forward, dropping the lantern and pulling an arrow from the quiver. Taking aim swiftly, he fires a shot at Black.
Farod drops the black critter.
Blue takes a five foot step and stabs at Wulfgar with a small dagger.
Red does the same.
Morana (holding)
yellow
Farod
red, blue
Ardran, Wulfgar <=====
Ardran moves forward to take out Blue, seeking to secure Wulfgars flanks.
No idea what they are, but I have heard of a race of small blue bipedal things that turn you into them, should you say their species designation so I shall not! Lets just kill them!
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Ardran kills blue.
Surprised by the little blue creatures, Wulfgar, asks, "Who are you?" Feeling that they were intent on attacking, Wulfgar realizes Farod got the same impression as he nailed one of the little guys to the wall with an arrow. "Well shot Farod!"
Having taken his eyes off the others for a moment admiring Farod's shot, he raises an eyebrow as two of them rush forward trying to stab him with their steely knives. Asking "Really? You fellows probably should have ran." Stepping back as Ardran smashes one of the little blue men, Wulfgar slashes with his glaive at the other one.
Morana takes a step forward then remains in place so as not to crowd Farod. She then drops her longspear and draws her light crossbow and loads it in case she is needed.
Round 2
Wulfgar 12/13, Morana 10/10, Ardran 10/10, Farod 10/10
Yellow takes a step and stabs at Ardran.
yellow
Morana, Farod, Ardran, Wulfgar <=====
Raising an eyebrow as the little blue thing moved closer and slashed at Ardran with his dagger, Wulfgar drops his glaive and as he draws his morningstar, tsks. "You have to give it to the little fellow. He's brave." Lifting the morningstar high he swings it down at the last opponent, "But he should have ran."
End initiative.
"You did great guys" Morana Beams as she makes her way up the stairs. She wishes she prayed for the ability to see magical auras. But next time she prays for her daily spells she will make sure she corrects that mistake.
"Well, at least there's only one exit here...no deliberation on where to go this time.", Farod mentions, aiming a reflexively drawn fresh arrow towards the door.
Once the others seem ready to move on, he will switch to holding the arrow with his bow hand and pick up the lantern again.
with detect magic
He also magehands the toupee, to safelane investigate it from a 15ish feet distance.
As the last blue thing dies, Wufgar nods in agreement with Morana, "Yes well done," As he returns the morning star to his belt he asks, "Does anyone know who they were? I'd like to know who I'm picking a fight with. Normally where there are four there are more."
As Farod points his bow towards the door Wulfgar gathers his glaive, again keeping one eye on the door and the other on Ardran, as he magically inspects the toupee.
22nd Commandment of our Lady in Shadows: Thee shall not put things found on a dungeon floor on either thy vital or thy private parts, without first performing an intensive investigation, ideally followed by a degree of disinfection. Adran announces smugly.
It could well be an accursed toupet of hair stealing! And why would I, who is blessed with the same hair color as the lady, need a Toupet anyway?
This insistence on being black haired, and wait, just above the right ear there is a single partly blond hair! ARDRAN IS ACTUALLY BLOND AND IS COLORING HIS HAIR!
The only loot is 4 small daggers, 12 small darts and the wig you are mage handling.
Ardran knows these critters are mites. They are fey.
There is nothing magical in the room.
Wulfgar could use a minute or so of a break for that spell to wear off.
These are fey, stealthy, mildly resistant to everything not cold iron, but they go squish if hit. Pretty chaotic, even more my standards.
"Well, fey or not," Wulfgar points at the last living mite, "That one did something magical and I feel shaken, so let's just take a moment." Letting out a slow breath he gestures towards the 'wig' "What do you intend to do with that?"
why is there a Toupet here? Like, I had the least fabulous hair among my squad, and now I find a completely fine toupet in a dungeon? That is fully intact and almost shiny, inspite of not being magical, and a crypt filled with Mites and Ostovites and Firebeetles?
I detect no magical energies from this thing, yet it is in almost pristine condition inspite of being organic matter? In a dungeon full of mites, firebugs and Ostovites, none of them being known for their tendency to preserve things?
He mages hands the toupet down, and readies a strike against it!
My Hair is better then this!
As Ardran pounds the floor beside the wig it animates and moves to him drawing an AoO.
KILL IT
Ardran lashes out with sheer primal fury, at his true enemy, evil toupets!
"What? What's going on?" Morana cries from the stairs.
Ardran kills the wig.
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) to identify if anyone has that.
This wig just tried to kill me? A wig? Empty night what the flying dretch rear what?
He pauses, after some pretty creative multilingual swearing escapes his mouth.
Qlippoths beneath bugger my lovelife, what would have happened if
one of us put it on?
Ardran seems shocked.
Gathering his wits, he drops to his knees and prays
Oh Lady in Shadows, I thank thee for thy gift of fabulous hair
and excessive paranoia, for thanks to these I hath avoided a most
humiliating death. Blessed be thee who watches from the shadows,
and perhaps blessed be me, who strikes down whatever the f$%$ that
thing was in thy name.
Ardran is praying to his Lady until Wulfgars bane is gone.
Turning from his attention towards the door, Wulfgar watches Ardran get in a fight with what appeared to be a wig. Scratch his head asking, "So weren't you just manipulating that with your magic?" Then he poked at the 'dead' wig with his glaive. "Then you pretended it attacked you, then you stabbed it with your Bec de Corbin and now you're thanking your god that she delivered you from it?" He raises an eyebrow as he looks at Ardran, "Or am I misunderstanding the situation?"
Shaking his head, he continues. "I'm feeling better let's proceed and hope we don't find any more of these 'man eating wigs'." His glaive at the ready, Wulfgar moves towards the exit and steps through the doorway into the next room, keeping a keen eye out as he goes.
That thing moved and attacked me! After I was done manipulating it!
Go and check it for yourself if you feel like it. I am not actually capable of magehanding something and attacking at the same time, I wish I was.
Also, My Lady in Shadow is a Deity of assassination, pledging a kill to her that is not actually a kill would be massive heresy on my part, which would result in swift and humorous retribution.
Ardran replies, pretty testily.
"Oh, that thing? I think thats a...", Farod explains what he knows, or thinks he knows about the animated wig, but maintains his watch on the door until Wulfgar is ready to move on.
Realizing Ardran was getting a little testy, Wulfgar raises a hand, "Ok ok, if you say you were playing with the wig and it attacked you, then I'm sure that's what happened." He looked at Farod and rolled his eyes hoping the half orc could construct some story about how terrible the 'wig monster' was to calm Ardran fragile psyche. In the meantime he continued carefully proceeding ahead.
Morana enters the room and pokes the wig with her spear "This little thing attacked you? Are you ok?" She giggles and pokes it again to make sure it doesn't come back to life.
Farod knows this to be animate hair. Animate Hair: What looks like a pile of shorn hair twitches almost imperceptibly, as if the locks were moving in an nonexistent wind.
Defensive Abilities ooze traits; DR 5/slashing
Weaknesses vulnerable to fire
Empathy (Su)
Animate hair can communicate empathically with a host it is attached to. This empathy allows the animate hair to encourage or discourage certain actions by communicating emotions and urges. It does not allow verbal communication.
Infestation (Su)
Animate hair can climb onto and attach itself to a willing or helpless Medium or Small humanoid as a standard action. The animate hair shares the same 5-foot square as its host’s space. This doesn’t negatively impact the host or the animate hair. Attacks that hit an attached animate hair deal half their damage to the animate hair and half to the host. The animate hair can be removed from its host with a successful grapple combat maneuver check against the animate hair’s CMD.
Murderous Whispers (Sp)
Animate hair can use the murderous command spell (DC 13) on its host at will with a caster level equal to its Hit Dice. A creature that successfully saves against this effect is immune to the animate hair’s murderous command for 24 hours.
"...an animated wig. They crawl onto sleeping people and force them to wear it. Then try to empathically control them. And the worst thing, besides the look, they can cause you to violently lash out at others. It's VERY good that you violently murdered it before it got a chance to be mage-handed onto your head...but you safely defended yourself against a wig. Next room, coming up, grey hair - then a boss fight against hair loss."
Farod snickers as he explains.
The creature, possibly, was real enough. But with Ardran's previous handling of the thing, it was too amusing to pass up.
You feel the ground underneath you shake. It looks like the entire structure is wobbling and giving way.
Knowledge (Engineering) might give you a clue.
You feel the ground underneath you shake. It looks like the entire structure is wobbling and giving way.
Knowledge (Engineering) might give you a clue.
Morana moves in behind Wulfgar and says "We should probably make haste and get out of her as soon as possible. This place might be collapsing."
I thought its some type of facehugger. There are some critters that can cause hair greying and hair loss, but anything that directly messes with age is drastically beyond our current capability to defeat. Ardran deadpans.
Interesting, pretty sure this shaking is due to...
Shaking his head, he continues. "I'm feeling better let's proceed and hope we don't find any more of these 'man eating wigs'." His glaive at the ready, Wulfgar moves towards the exit and steps through the doorway into the next room, keeping a keen eye out as he goes.
Nodding in agreement with Morana, "Yes, we should make haste, but we still need to keep safe." Glaive in hand, Wulfgar moves into the new room.
Morana follows Wulfgar closely longspear in hand. "I have your back friend. And so does Pharasma." As she moves forward she scans the room.