Does anyone look at these posts at Paizo or the email I have sent. It would be nice for some sort of acknowledgement.
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It's a bit of a long shot but here it goes. I was playing the PCG Skulls and Shackles with my friends, which we have been playing for a few weeks. It's my friend Dave's set and he has included a few expansions. We have just started the Raider of the Fever Sea expansion. While we were getting set up and about to start when the accident happened. I was pouring myself a drink when you can guess what happened. Yes I spilt a small amount of Pepsi onto the table. Even though we were quick to clean it up a handful of cards absorbed some Pepsi. I feel wracked with guilt. I'd like to replace the damaged cards but I can't see anywhere that I can buy individual cards. So this brings me into why I am writing this email. Do you sell individual cards or know somewhere that I might be able to buy replacements to ease my conscience. I would really appreciate any help you can provide. Kind regards,
My group dimension doored across. Can anyone tell me if there are our adventures in the path which have similar problems to this one after a gathering of winds.
I'm running this adventure and just about finished it. For those who have read it I'm the DM for Deree's diary. My players nearly revolted after this. The issues:-
I'm running Age of Worms and I have a player who is playing a straight Monk and is complaining that he constantly feels ineffective. I'm currently upto Gathering of Winds and they've just fought the dragon. Has anyone else had the same problems?
I think a lot of it has to do with your sense of humour. Some films I find hilarious my friends don't. I really liked this film moreso than Shaun. I'm English by the way if it makes a difference. An example of this is I think Van Wilder and Freddy got Fingered are so funny but other people don't like them. So in short Hot Fuzz will not be to everyone's tastes.
Even so it's still a difficult DC to pass. I use a spellgen for choosing spells. Its really handy especially for cleric spells. Worth using if you can get your hands on it. I would offer to help people but my computer that has it on is in storage while I move house.
I would have taken the PC back to his lair for extraction. The change in spells might help. I would have him high up say 60ft so his mindblast will cover the whole room. When the PC's enter mindblast them with a DC of 23 it will take out a fair few party member (mostly the fighters) and next round the same again. I would look at these messageboards, if you enter Zyrxog under search it may give you some ideas(that is if you haven't already). I really don't think it will be that easy. 23 is a difficult save to make
I really had difficulty with this part. I had Zyrxog levitating when the players entered. A couple of mindblasts later 2 of the 6 players were left. It was so close to a TPK. I think its one of those encounters were a DM if not careful could wipe out the party. With the high SR and if you levitate so the melee characters can't get stuck in, does make this really challenging. My advice is be careful. If you'd have remembered the fire resistance it could have been a different story. The room is also shaped for a mindblast if he levitate's.
If the DM makes you REALLY despise Auric & co., then ever since the 1st adventure, you'd be dreaming of the day when you could show them up, and the games are just that chance! It makes things that much cooler if the ulgustatsa breaks into the action and you're forced to fight side-by-side with Auric. Even so to go against someone who hired a mindflyer who nearly wiped out the party, who also runs the games. Then there's the fact you have to stay in the arena as well. Too many chances for assassination for my liking. If it were me playing I'd have major concerns too.
I think that depends on your players. My group tends to analyse everything.
I'm British and live there and every other person swears. I don't know what the c would someone mentioned apart from c##t referring to a woman's anatomy. I guess I'm just used to it. Regarding swearing in game the best advice I'd give is to use a different accent so players would realise your talking in character.
My players thought why should they enter the games knowing Raknian had try to kill them. They thought he would rig the games so they'd get killed or othered. So they scouted out his mansion. Then the halfling rogue(Deree for those who read the diary) went into the sewers and found the shaft next to the 3 spawn's of Kyuss. They've just got to level 9 and there's 6 of them. Also, they thought Bozal's chest was more than a CR10 trap and the writer put it in there just because he could. They said they felt railroaded into doing the games but I went with it so they didn't do them.
If I felt I was getting screwed over all the time I'd just stay at home and put a pencil in my eye instead.
I wasn't trying to rally support I was just looking for other peoples opinions. I totally go with the DM's decision but because I'm a DM myself and I've DM'd a lot of 3ed I will analyse what goes on and sometimes I would do something differently than the DM. I'm a believer in trying to give the players what they want to a certain degree as they come to the game to enjoy it. If I felt I was getting screwed over all the time I'd just stay at home and put a pencil in my eye instead.
You've not offended me in any way.
It's not business, it's real life ;-)
He might have foolishly allowed this "darthloser" kid to goad him into saying something rash and objectionable, in which case the Lords of Paizo would have smited his post with "dispel flames" and hidden the remains with invisibility. Who's a kid. I'm no kid and I'm not goading anyone.
Being an Englishman myself I'd like to know what you mean by this and maybe I can answer that.
Which I 'believe' to be the same +1 CR. So my 'argument' still stands. I think the word believe means quote from dictionary.com:- to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so:
As has been discussed I mistook savage zombies for ravenous zombies but same difference. Which I 'believe' to be the same +1 CR. So my 'arguement' still stands.
Man I'm glad I don't have any players like this. I'm actually quite a reasonable player and I was just curious on how these creature's worked out. I just don't like being screwed over. I don't game to get the feeling I'm being screwed over. I get enough of that at work lol.
I didn't do any digging I know the xp table off by heart. I don't do things like that as I wouldn't like it if my players did that. I used information that was given to me. I've been roleplaying for 20 years so you could say I'm quite experienced. I've also DM'd for about 14 years and know a little of the rules. I don't need to resort to digging through source material. I generally have a good idea myself.
If you hate your DM so much, quit that group and find another game. But, sorry, D&D pretty much requires a DM with more power than the players; that's just how it works. No you don't understand I was referring to TwilightKings answer. I actually like my DM.
But to xp I don't think so. If it were my game I'd give the players 1 + half CR for an encounter as such cause otherwise its it stiffing the players and causes unrest.It's just a game. When you're the DM, you can bend the rules to give out extra XP all you like. As it is, your DM chooses not to. Also, advancement in 3/3.5e is like twice as fast as in previous editions, so be thankful you're not back in 1e. Unless your playing eberron where advancement seems so slow. Been playing for 9 weeks and not hit 4th level yet. Anyone else had this problem. I like the advancement quickly up the low levels cause generally your crap to start off with. Getting back to the original point I don't like being screwed for xp/items its just not right and not fair. I'd rather make my players happy and give them what they want to a certain degree. It is as you said a game and people are there to have fun not get screwed.
In fact, if I were DM, i'd penalize the character for accessing metagame information and using it as leverage. The DM told us. So by your statement players are not allowed an opinion or can disagree with adventure writers. I'm sorry but that stinks of dictatorship and we all know what happened to certain famous dictators.
Page 304 of Player's Handbook.Where does it say that?Not on the table, no. Its simple maths. Where does it say it gets rounded down.The basic rule for 3.0 and 3.5 is that ALL fractions are rounded down in ALL cases unless otherwise specified in writing. But to xp I don't think so. If it were my game I'd give the players 1 + half CR for an encounter as such cause otherwise its it stiffing the players and causes unrest.
Not on the table, no. Its simple maths. Where does it say it gets rounded down.The basic rule for 3.0 and 3.5 is that ALL fractions are rounded down in ALL cases unless otherwise specified in writing. Where does it say that?
Not on the table, no. Its simple maths. Where does it say it gets rounded down.
Are you mixing your templates up? The Savage Template can't be applied to undead, they are Ravenous Zombies under Parrot Island. Same difference. I'm not a power gamer I'm a DM as well as a player and I've been DM'ing AOW I know the CR for zombies and know that the CR for tweaked zombies is 1/2 + x where x is the level of tweakness.
The savage template has +1 CR to creature/npc so if it was added to a zombie wouldn't that make it a CR1 + a half and hence 450 xp for 1st to 4th level characters. The reason I ask this cause I really do believe this to be the case is our DM just gave us 1CR for savage zombie's. I believe he was wrong to do so. Any thoughts? I don't have bad feelings its just that sometimes I think the adventure writers try to screw you out of xp. As an example I'm in an Eberron game we're we went into a mine and there was an awakened wolf in there who asked us to free his brethren from a wolf abomination, which we did. It turns out that for doing this you get less xp than just killing the wolves, it seems to me in that situation your getting penalised for roleplaying and thinking your way around the problem. In my original point I was just trying to ascertain whether it was the adventure or the DM.The problem with your line of thought with xp being too generous certain adventures assume you to be of a certain level so you can fireball and so on and without these skills your party can be wiped out.
I'm in dmaple's group this is our current party:-
The savage template has +1 CR to creature/npc so if it was added to a zombie wouldn't that make it a CR1 + a half and hence 450 xp for 1st to 4th level characters. The reason I ask this cause I really do believe this to be the case is our DM just gave us 1CR for savage zombie's. I believe he was wrong to do so. Any thoughts?
I'm a big Dark Sun fan. I love the history and all the fluff. Can be a bit overpowered though. My favorite campaign was city by the silt sea. We had an ongoing joke in my group. I did a couple of the flip book adventures and all the bad guys had dodgy hats. So it was easy to pick them out.
Thanks
Hmm - not the product I thought you had. I guess their where two releases of the Dragonlance material in 2nd edition. I have a version with a red cover released in three volumes. Yeah the dragonlance classics. I've seen the 3 books which I think were originally released in 1st ed. Saw this on e bay didn't think it'd be a problem getting the first one. Has anyone tried to the the 3.5 version Dragon of Autumn. I fancy running it for my group and wanted to know if they've been upgraded and improved the problems with it or just simply copied it across.
This is what I have
Thank you. I've since received said item and its miniturre versions of the adventure. Quite novel really but I'm still trying to get hold of the first volume. I've also ordered Dragons of Autumn, the 3.5 version to have a look at that.
Warforged is also a cheesy way of Dm's throwing challenging encounters at the party for little or no monetary award. Lets just p#!s the players off.
You could just get a potion. A wand of repair light injury would cost 750gp I believe not that expensive really.
Their special bane (anything) attack works but compared to a rogue's sneak attack is sucks in most situations. Rogue's sneak attack ONLY works in certain situations. Artificer can infuse when THEY CHOOSE TOO. Big difference. Yes a rogue's sneak attack is potent but limited to certain creatures and certain situations and there's the balance.A warforged barbarian doesn't get fatigued, but he also only gets half the healing of a human barb who also gets another feat. Yes but they also can get healed normally its just not called Cure light Wounds but its a healing spell all the same. Compare warforged to a half orc I know what I'd pick every time.
Sorry about that . . . Dragons of Spring should be coming along soon though, which will then reprint all of the old DL series for 3.5. Thanks any idea on the other.
I think artificer's are unbalanced as do some of the people in my group. No matter what foe we come up against the artificer can infuse their weapon to defeat it. Our Dm uses action points, so by spending an action point the casting time changes to a full round. I personally don't like action points either. I don't think an artificer compares with other base classes and should be a PrC. I also think warforged are broken. They should have an ECL. For example I'll go a Warforged BrB I'll rage and when I come out of it I'm not fatigued. The people who wrote Eberron are clearly powergamers(or munchkins as I prefer to call them) who designed a world to get their fix. I thought some stuff in FR was bad from what I've seen in Eberron is much worse.
I've just bought off ebay a compendium of Dragonlance adventures. DL9-DL16 to be precise. Supposedly released in 2000 as 1 vol of 2 books. I've searched the Wizards sight and can't find any sign of it. What I'm after is vol 1. Can anyone help me?
My players thought why should they enter the games knowing Raknian had try to kill them. They thought he would rig the games so they'd get killed or othered. So they scouted out his mansion. Then the halfling rogue(Deree for those who read the diary) went into the sewers and found the shaft next to the 3 spawn's of Kyuss. They've now killed Bozal and the Alkilith just the Ulgurstasta to do.I'm a bit concerned they're too low level. They've just gone to level 9 and there's 6 of them. Also, they thought Bozal's chest was more than a CR10 trap and the writer put it in there just because he could. They said they felt railroaded into doing the games but I went with it so they didn't do them.
Which is the other forum and I will add the new entries
Thanks Sol thought that was awesome and if you don't mind I'll use it in my campaign. My PC's are just coming up to Zyrxog's lair.
4 of them drank the worm-laced potions from Encounter at Blackwall Keep. Within rounds I had 4 dead PCs arisen as Spawn of Kyuss, a Doppleganger-controlled PC and 1 badly wounded PC. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the worm laced potions have an incubation time of 1 day.
I like it! Two things, though. Firstly, you've exceeded the character limit per post - it gets cut off midway through a word in the middle of the Filge battle. For another thing, there's a whole forum devoted to this sort of writing - the Campaign Journals. It'd probably be more appropriate a location for this. Thanks
Waterday 5th Planting 595 Well I’ve been here in Diamond Lake for a few months now and basically, I’m bored. So in order to help relieve some of the hum-drum I’ve decided to write a diary about me and my experiences (I’d write about someone else but I’m by far the most interesting person here). I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Deree Silentfoot and I’m a Halfling. I’m here in Diamond Lake to complete a very important mission on behalf of my race, but I shouldn’t really write about that in case one of my powerful enemies should find this book and discover my secret. I’ll tell you what I can though. I’m currently working at an inn called “The Feral Dog”. I’m employed as a knife thrower, barman, official greeter; whatever needs doing basically. The owner of the bar is a guy called Tak. He’s got a pretty good set up what with the knife throwing contests and the dog fights, although I think I’ve become the driving force behind its popularity since I’ve arrived. Tak’s alright though: firm but fair. Speaking of fair, someone who definitely isn’t fair in any sense of the word is Grim (Gimgrim Iron twister to give him his full title). He’s one of the bouncers. If you hadn’t guessed it already, he’s a dwarf. Some would describe him as stocky. Me I prefer to use the word fat! Now this guy loves his drink. The only time I’ve seen him sober is when he’s hung over. His cure for this malady? Hair of the dog, or more specifically, hair of the Feral Dog. He’s working on the door for drink, food and a place to sleep… did I say sleep? I meant pass out. Many’s the time he’s been woken up by the door hitting him as the first customer of the day comes in. He excuses his drinking by claiming to worship the dwarven god of drinking and merriment. Only the dwarves could have a god whose main dominion is getting pissed. The other bouncer there is a completely different kettle of fish. This guy doesn’t touch a drop of ale. He’s a human called T’shan (when he introduced himself I thought he’d sneezed, apparently not, he’s a bit touchy about his name for some reason). Anyway Sneeze is quite quick with his hands, which comes in extremely useful, especially when catching Grim when he trips, stumbles or staggers as he is wont to do. Grim didn’t like him at first.
At the moment I’m living on my cart at the back of the inn with my mule Lavender. I tried staying in the inn a couple of nights on the patches of wood that were visible through the bloodstains but for some reason decided against staying there full time. Nope I much prefer it here on my cart. It’s what I’m used to having grown up in a travelling community. Besides, Lavender would get scared and lonely. I think he’s afraid of the dark. Yup he and I are both better off under our canvas roof. 1. Taproom
Earthday 6th Planting 595 Tira was in again tonight. She’s a really nice bit of elven totty who takes part in the knife throwing competitions. I feel a bit sorry for her ‘cause she’s got a bit of a thing for me but I just don’t feel the same way. It’s due to this that I let her beat me anytime we come up against one another. She hangs around with two real losers. One’s a weird guy called Kellick who I think is a wizard and the other’s some arrogant piece of orc dropping called Auric. He’s a guy with more muscle than Grim has fat but less brains than Sneeze has alcohol in his drinks. This guy claims to be champion of the free city, even walks around with a stupid championship belt on all the time (probably to remind himself what his name is). I think you’ve got to be really small to have to talk so big all the time. Anyway, Tira wasn’t the only elf that came in tonight. A male elf with dodgy blue hair came in looking for her. Grim, surprisingly, let him in but only after he promised to buy a drink. The other unusual thing about him other than he was an elf with blue hair was that he wasn’t carrying any weapons. Grim loaned him a dagger. Quite generous for Grim! He must have been half cut already. Anyway this elf had one of the less vile spirits from the top shelf and introduced himself as Selanor. Well being the polite host that I am, I took Muffin over to where Tira was. Then being exceedingly rude they both started speaking in elven. Well I wasn’t going to stand there whilst people talked about me in a foreign language so I left. It’s weird but a sad desperate man trying to chat up a woman who is not only completely out of his league but also besotted with someone else looks equally pathetic no matter what language it’s done in. Anyway, I was heading back to the bar when Kullen and the group of in bred morons that follow him around barged their way in. Now there’s a character you don’t want to bump into on a dark night, or even just a normal night. In fact bumping into him is sub-optimal at any time of night or day. He’s an albino half-orc who acts as an enforcer for one of the mine bosses, probably that power hungry sadist Balabar Smenk. I managed to avoid them and went to serve another customer, a young lady whom I hadn’t seen before. It was clear from the outset that she fancied me but I remained professional. I asked what she wanted and she said that her name was Insalla and she was a scout looking for work and a place to stay. I offered her the blood soaked floor of the common room but she declined. I felt really sorry for her. She looked down on her luck so I kinda let slip that I camp out behind the inn. She asked if she could stay. Now normally I wouldn’t lead someone on like this, you know, inviting them back to my place when I have no intention of taking it any further, but Salty didn’t look like she could afford to pay for a meal let alone a room. As chance would have it, it was at this point that Muffin came back from speaking with Tira. He said that she’d turned him down (no surprise there then) so he was looking for some people who wanted to earn 50gp. Now it was at this point I was wondering what kinky stuff I’d have to do for this money when Muffin clarified that his master, Alisten (a reputedly powerful wizard who lives on the outskirts of town), was looking to hire people to check out some ruins and bring back anything archaeological looking. Apparently Tira couldn’t do it ‘cause she and her hangers on were going to investigate Stirgenest Cairn. I don’t know why, everyone knows there’s nothing there. Saying that, everyone’s pretty sure that there’s nothing in any of the cairns so why Alisten would hire us to look into one is beyond me. Still 50gp is 50gp. Myself, Grim, Sneeze and Salty said that we’d be interested in doing it so Muffin said we’d have to meet his master. I told Tak that we were taking our break and we all ambled off to a ruined house to meet the guy with the ponsiest beard ever. I’m telling you, you’ve got to be extremely dangerous to go around with rings and flowers weaved onto your face. Either that or want to earn 50gp the hard way. Anyway Shrub-beard said that he wanted us to check out the Whispering Cairn, so called as it emits strange noises that sound kinda like whispering.
Anyway Shrub-beard said that he wanted archaeological stuff from it. Basically he wanted anything that looked older than Muffin. We agreed and got given 10gp each in advance but only on the assurance that it wouldn’t get out that it was he that was funding us. A thought has just occurred to me: if he’s funding us to look into the Whispering Cairn, maybe he’s also funding Tira’s lot to look into Stirgenest Cairn. I mean if he had the same secrecy clause in their agreement Tira may not even tell me about it. If he is funding all these expeditions into so called empty ransacked cairns then he must be looking for something of great value. Spend money to make money as they say. Anyway long story short, we accepted and went back to work. Muffin moaned about not having enough money to buy a longsword and out of nowhere Sneeze just handed him over the excess! I’ve known him for three whole weeks and the only thing he’s given me is a leg up to the top shelf. It’s decided that we’ll start off in the morning. I offered to do all of Grim’s shopping for him first thing as he’d probably still be unconscious but the round one declined. He had the gall to say that I might short change him! The bloody cheek! That’s the last time I do him a cooked breakfast… I mean lunch. Freeday 7th Planting 595 Kicked Grim awake harder than normal. That’s the least he deserved after calling me a thief. Checked my stuff before Salty woke up and found that she hadn’t lied when she’d said that she’s trustworthy. Made her a bacon butty as a thank you for not stealing my stuff… and because it would probably be the first thing she’d eaten in a week that hadn’t been trapped in a spider’s web. We went shopping. First we went to see Tagon at the general store. Grim bought a sunrod and some rations. Now as Tagon is a close personal friend of mine I could have got Grim some money off, but not after what he said last night. We then went to see Tyrol at ‘The Captain’s Blade’ so that Muffin could pick up his precious longsword. I also purchased a kukri whilst we were there. Can’t use it yet but they look cool so I’m gonna learn. Then we had to travel to Osgood’s the smithy to pick up Grim a shield. I don’t know why; he’s that wide that he’d need at least three on his arm to gain any kind of cover over his girth. Finally we set off for the Whispering Cairn. Didn’t take long despite the constant breaks for Grim to pour himself another ale. He should just get it over with and strap a keg to the top of his head and have a tube running from it to his mouth. It’d save a great deal of time in the long run. We found the entrance and just as we were going to go in Muffin cast a spell. So now he’s a wizard!. I did suspect what with having a well known wizard as a master but I have to be honest, I thought he was just a stable boy. He doesn’t seem to have the brains to be a proper wizard. Anyway the spell that he cast outlined him in blue. Sometimes I wish I’d become a wizard so that I could outline myself in a colour of my choosing. Oh the thrill that such power would bring… We went in and almost immediately discovered the cause of the ‘whispering’. It was nothing more than holes bored into the walls that the wind blew across. Kinda like a giant flute I suppose. As we were checking these holes out I spotted a greenish glow in the distance. I tried to point it out to everyone else but it disappeared before they could see it. Salty said that she’d seen it as well but I think she was just trying to impress me. The corridor broke into an alcove on either side. One side was collapsed but we found something odd in the other. There was a marble platform on which stood what looked like the remains of a dressing mirror. There were arcane glyphs carved into the base and shards of a black glassy material strewn across the floor. Grim said that it wasn’t obsidian so we don’t know what it is. It should however worth a bit of dosh to the right buyer. Muffin then spotted some more runes that had been etched onto the inside of the frame where the mirror would sit. He and Grim said that they were runes of transportation. So we’ve possibly discovered a broken teleportation device. Great! Now only if we could fix it and get it out of the ruins. Maybe Muffin can use some of his powerful
As we came back out of the alcove I spotted that greeny glow again from the north. This time everyone said they saw it, apart from Muffin. So much for the legendary elven eyesight! At this Grim took another swig of ale and then Sneeze said the most obvious thing ever: ‘If you fill yourself with poison, you will get poisoned.’ Thanks for that insight. Then as if competing in the dumb statement stakes Muffin comes up with: ‘If you dig to deep into things you will find yourself in a hole.’ Colour magics and insightful comments. No wonder Tira gave him the brush off. Anyway, we made our way towards to glow which led us into a very wide room. The glow was coming from behind some very thick cobwebs in front of some stairs. Before we went down we decided to check out this room. The western side of the room had a large marble dais which led up to a picture on the wall behind it. The fresco depicted a room with chains hanging down from the roof that held lanterns of different colours. Going clockwise they were: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. As the others engrossed themselves in the painting I heard something behind me. I turned around and saw three of the biggest wolves you’ve ever seen coming towards us. I informed the others and made ready to fight. The wolves were obviously very intelligent as they all headed straight for the most dangerous member of our group: me! I managed to hit one and dodge two of their vicious attacks but the third one took a huge chunk out of me and tried to trip me up but I managed to keep my footing. Then the others decided that it was safe to get involved. Salty got tripped up by one after it bit her. As she got back up it bit her again and she collapsed in a heap. Muffin, who had been using his bow to little affect, decided to show us the range of his spell casting ability. He did this by walking up to one of the wolves and pointing his hands at it. Nothing happened. Great! We have the world’s worst wizard with us. The three people left standing that could actually do anything to the wolves continued to try and hit them. I managed to slay one with a well aimed throw of my dagger. It was then that Grim showed his true colours (and it wasn’t blue like the elf). It turns out that he doesn’t just worship the dwarven god of getting drunk; he’s a cleric of him and as such is given some spells. He used one of these to heal me up and then another to heal Salty. Between us we took down the last two, but it had been a struggle. We went to where the wolves had come from and discovered a small hole that led to their den. As the others were too tall or fat to go in, I bravely volunteered. Sneeze stuck his head in after me so that he could make sure I’m safe. Personally I think that he just doesn’t trust me. Inside the den I found lots of bones, both human and animal amongst which I discovered an old backpack. In this was a lantern that was coloured indigo and an armband of what we assume is elven design (it was all leafy). Muffin cast a spell and said that neither of them were magical. We reckon the armband is worth around 50gp, possibly more to an elf. I may get it for Tira. When I came out Salty showed me a marble finger she’d found in some rubble. She seemed very pleased with herself, bless her. She mustn’t get out much. We decided to head back to Diamond Lake to rest up and heal. Starday 8th Planting 595 We spent the day resting. Tira and the other two had gone off to Stirgenest Cairn already. Grim cast some healing spells and we managed to sell the dead wolves for 10gp. Sunday 9th Planting 595 We headed back to the Whispering Cairn and went straight to the cobwebs and burned them. This made the green glow so bright that even Muffin could see it. We went down the stairs and discovered the chain room depicted in the picture on the wall. There were seven large alcoves with a chain hanging down from each. At the end of the chains hung the lanterns apart from the indigo one (which we hung up) and the red one. The green lantern was the only one that was lit. In the centre of the room stood a sarcophagus on which was a statue of what looked like a large human lying down. The human was bald and it was difficult to say whether it was a man or woman (much like trying to tell a dwarven man from a dwarven woman). There was an amulet carved around its neck that had a glyph emblazoned on it. Muffin said that it related to the ones we’d found by the mirror and depicted a person’s rank. He said that this one was of a lower rank though. How crap was this guy? A lower rank than a piece of furniture! How depressing would that be? Muffin said that the glyphs weren’t from any known alphabet. The head of the statue lay in the point of an arrow that was currently pointing towards the orange lantern. It was then we noticed that the statue was missing a finger. Muffin said that he’d given the one Salty had found to Shrub-beard as an archaeological find. Whilst he ran back to get it we had a look around the alcoves. All of them were the same apart from the one with the blue lantern. The lamp light reached the ceiling of all the others but not this one. After a few attempts Salty managed to climb up the chain (I had a go but deliberately failed. I don’t want to show her up too much… not yet anyway) and discovered a passageway leading off that had a skeleton at its entrance. The owner of the skeleton when it was alive looked like they’d been killed by a great fall, which is a bit weird considering where we found it. She tied a rope off and we all went up. Shining the torch down the corridor we saw that it ended in a thick stone door that was in the shape of a large screaming face. It looked the same as the face of the statue on the sarcophagus. It was at this point that Muffin arrived back. As we continued down the corridor we spotted scrape marks on the floor as if someone had tried to dig a knife into the stone but failed. We decided to leave it for now and went back to the fingerless statue. Muffin put the finger back on the statue but it just fell off. Then he showed some more of his magical prowess by casting a spell that reattached the finger to the statue. So now he can make a blue glow around himself, see if something’s magical, wave his hands in front of enemies and repair stuff. I might ask him to have a look at my other pair of trousers, they’ve got a hole in the knee he might be able to do something about. Anyway, nothing happened so we went back up to the screaming face corridor. As we got towards the face I spotted a pressure plate. Salty tried to help me disarm it but in truth all she did was put me off. Whatever she did made the trap go off and suddenly a strong wind started coming from the mouth and its eyes started rolling around in their sockets and producing weird, pretty colours. I was just thinking that Muffin would love to have a spell that made multiple colours when I was brought round by the fact that the wind had gotten so strong that it blew me backwards down the cave. People were desperately trying to force any kind of pointy thing they had into the walls to brace themselves with but nothing seemed to be working. I was blown back again but this time I managed to grab onto a rather large looking Grim. He told me afterwards that he’d cast a spell to enlarge himself. I’m surprised that he hadn’t gotten himself wedged in the corridor with the size of his waist when he’s normal sized so Yondalla knows how he managed to fit in when he was bigger. The wind kept getting stronger and stronger until Muffin couldn’t hold on any longer and was blown off the edge. Luckily he managed to grab onto the rope before falling to his death. I decided that his luck was my opportunity. I let go of Grim and controlled my tumbling and grabbed onto the rope and climbed down. Sneeze followed and lastly Salty. Grim obviously had got himself stuck in the passage as he stayed up there for the ten minutes it took for the trap to disarm itself. When the wind had died down we decided not to try and disarm it again but simply jumped over it. We got to the door but found no way to open it. No lock, nothing. Grim tried to batter it with his axe but to no avail. We went back down to the sarcophagus and had a closer inspection. I managed to find a magical trap on this and decided not to risk letting Salty put me off again. We tied a rope around the lid and from a safe distance pulled it off. It smashed on the floor and a burst of flame shot into the air. The sarcophagus was empty. No body, no treasure, nothing. It was at this point that we decided that the arrow on top of the sarcophagus must be more than simple decoration. Grim and Sneeze put their backs to the sarcophagus and started to push it. They turned it until it faced the yellow lantern. At this point we heard a huge rumbling from below us and slowly a cylindrical chamber rose from the floor in the yellow alcove. The cylinder was hollow but only big enough for one person to go in at a time. We were just deciding whether to go down the yellowvator or not when I heard a sound that reminded me of when Grim falls down the stairs in his armour after particularly heavy nights coming from the upper level. We prepared ourselves for battle but we needn’t have worried as it was only one bloke in armour. As an honourable gentleman I was about to issue a one-on-one challenge to this intruder when he pre-empted my offer saying that he’d been sent by Shrub-beard. He handed over a letter of introduction to Muffin who read it out. Apparently Shrub-beard was worried (for the others obviously) as we’d been battered when we came back to town so he’d arranged for this guy (apparently a holy warrior of Heironeous named Gorram Tabin) to add a bit of muscle to the group, which, from the dopey look on his face, looks like all he’s going to add. Dubiously I let him join us despite his dodgy permed hair and weird red mark behind his ear. I figure if he’s any trouble I’ll just put him right back into place. Anyway we tested his so called muscle by letting him turn the sarcophagus in a clockwise direction (that was the reason I told Grim anyway… in reality the old souse looked like he was about to have a heart attack). It took him a while, and several attempts pushing it in the wrong direction, but eventually Curly managed to get the arrow to face the green lantern. We then heard another rumbling like the one that brought up the yellowvator but this time instead of a cylinder coming up, the floor at the end of the green alcove collapsed. As the noise of rock collapsing disappeared it was replaced by skittering sounds. Lots of skittering sounds! The smart members of the group plus Curly tactically moved on top of the sarcophagus until we could gauge our latest enemy. Muffin decided it would be best to remain on the floor (his stable boy background coming to the fore). From the hole appeared a mass of beetles followed by a huge abomination of a beetle that walked on its hind legs like a weird beetle like elf. Salty and Grim shot at the big creature but it nimbly evaded their projectiles. The mass of f beetles approached and Muffin decided that this was the time to show us his wavy hand trick again. Remarkably this time flames actually appeared from his fingers. These flames burst into the swarm of beetles the result of which seemed to have the same affect as when he’d just waved his hands at the wolves, that is to say nothing. Some might say bravely, I’ll use stupidly, Curly jumped off the sarcophagus and ran to engage the giant elf beetle. As he hacked a fair chunk out of the creature I realised that Curly might be useful in the future, so I decided to save him by engaging the creature myself. It was then that the swarm of death acid beetles from hell turned on us. Salty, her obvious infatuation for me coming out, took a risk and poured oil from her lantern over the swarm which Grim then lit. This did slightly more damage than Muffin’s flamey finger spell (I might suggest to him that it might be worth him just carrying a few flasks of oil and a flint and steel instead of wasting what little brain power he actually has on difficult things like spell casting), but still the swarm came on. Sneeze managed to finish off the job I’d started with the elf beetle just as the death swarm overcame me. When I woke up the swarm was dead and Sneeze was picking bugs out of my hair. I’d say that was nice of him but I’m pretty sure I saw him put some in his pockets for consumption later. Salty decided to peak down the hole and saw a glyph that was in the shape of an arrow carved into the floor. The room was filled with statues that looked the same race as that on the sarcophagus. There was a corridor that split off to the left and right as well as continuing straight on. I was all for going on but the others in their weakened state were a bit scared so I decided that it’s be best of we rested a day. I thought it best that we didn’t go back to town again as Shrub-beard would find out and probably realise what a gang of wimps he’d saddled me with and ditch them. As needy as they are, I’ve kinda got to like them in the past couple of days. Besides, I can’t be bothered spending another couple of days training up another group, not when I’ve got this one pretty much the way I want it. We headed for the ruins where we first met Shrub-beard and spent the night. Moonday 10th Planting 595 We spent the day in the ruins whilst people recovered from their injuries, whether they be physical, mental or alcohol related. Godsday 11th Planting 595 Remind me never to go on watch after Sneeze. I’ll explain more later. We headed back to the Whispering Cairn and I immediately noticed that there was something different. The green light was somehow brighter. When we got to the sarcophagus room I realised that it wasn’t the green light that was brighter but that the blue light was diminished. On further inspection of the lanterns we discovered that the green lantern was lit with a magical ever-burning torch. After explaining to Curly that “ever-burning” meant that the torch would never go out, we decided to investigate the room in the green alcove. We went down and searched around the statues but found nothing. We headed for the intersection and glanced in all three directions. Straight ahead there were some stairs leading down into water so deep that it would have covered Grim even when he was lying down. To the left was a room in which stood what looked like eight sarcophagi in two rows of four. On the far right one lay a humanoid figure. At the far end of the room stood a statue of one of those giant genderless humans but this one was carrying a huge club. The room on the left caused a bit of alarm. We spotted what looked like a nest of those acid death beetles and another one of the big ones. Everyone wanted some payback for the mauling we’d gotten upstairs but I persuaded them that we could take them out more efficiently if we came up with a plan. Bowing to my superior logic we left the cairn and went shopping. Muffin went to report back to Shrub-beard and, under instruction, asked if he could give us some Alchemist’s Fire (a very potent form of oil that bursts into flames when its vial is broken). Give him his due, Muffin not only came back with four vials of that stuff but also three healing potions. I’ve figured out why Salty is so poor: she knows nothing about saving money. We were going to buy some flasks of oil for which the entire group was going to pitch in but before we know it she’s handed over a gp to Tagon and bought all ten herself. Shouldn’t surprise me, she is a woman after all. At least she’s spending her own money instead of some poor blokes though. Another reason for me not to take it any further, despite her obvious feelings for me. Well, the shopping done we headed back to the acid death bugs room and set our plan into motion. We poured two vials of oil in the corridor as a retreat line so that we could light it as and when something came to attack us. Muffin then cast a spell which allowed him to move objects through the air to a specific point which he was going to use to move the alchemists fire to one part of the nest. At the same time myself, Salty and Sneeze would use the traditional way of moving objects through the air to a specific point (known as throwing) to hurl vials of oil onto other parts of the nest the idea being that the alchemists fire would ignite all the oil and thus destroy the nest. I asked Muffin why he wasn’t throwing his vials and he came up with some story about not having the right angle to get it to the correct spot. Personally, looking at his arms, he didn’t want to prove correct what we’re all thinking: he throws like a pansy. Anyway, that aside, the plan went off without a hitch. The nest was destroyed and the giant beetle came to attack us. Grim lit the oil when it scuttled into it and we managed to batternate it to death. Saying that, it did manage to spray acid at Grim and Curly which caused some fairly serious injuries. Give them their due though, they only cried a little about it. Plus during the fight Muffin showed us some more of his powerful magics by shooting a tiny little dot out of his fingers which managed to hit the creature causing almost as much damage as his wavy hands spell. After the creature had been killed, we entered the room. At the far end of it stood a basin that had this weird horrible orangey stuff oozing out of it. We checked the remnants of the nest and found some mummified human remains. What was left of the bodies were dressed in now mouldy leather armour that had an eight pointed star emblazoned over where their heart would have been. We cut out the insignia and with further prodding we found three vials, a pearl and a ring, all of which Muffin detected as magical. We also took a vial of the orange sludge for Shrub-beard. With nothing else to see we exited that room and went straight across into the sarcophagus room. On closer inspection it turned out that what someone had mistakenly told me were sarcophagi weren’t. They were just stone slabs. I was just musing that this must be some form of barracks when I felt a wave of fatigue come over me. Some of the others felt it as well but a couple of the group obviously hadn’t been pulling their weight (hard for Grim I know) as they remained very much awake. Sadly there was no time to berate these slackers as another one of those giant elf beetle things appeared from behind one of the slabs. Despite my weariness I took up the fight and threw a dagger that nearly impaled it. The others joined the battle (although I’m not sure why, none of them could cope with the fatigue as well as me and as a result they all became as useful with their weapons as Muffin’s wavy hands) just in time for it to spray its death acid on myself and Curly. I’ll let the others off for screaming when it happened to them ‘cause even I have to admit it smarted a bit. Grim healed me up whilst we finished it off. We then had a closer look at the body on the slab. Grim said that it was only a couple of months old and had been killed by a really hard blow around the head.. It was wearing exceedingly fine leather armour (which we decided to take and sell) which had the same eight pointed star symbol on it. The owner was also wearing a ring which we decided could be put to better use than adorning a corpse that no-one was going to see. With the only other passage flooded, we decided to go back up and turn the sarcophagus to a different colour to see what happened.
We then turned it to indigo and another lift rumbled up from the ground. This one was different however as it had something, or more precisely, the remains of someone in it. Carefully we dragged the crushed corpse out and found some money and a ruby. We decided that due to the crushed bones inside the lift it probably wasn’t the best idea for one of us to go in (although I’m sure I heard some people muttering about how the smallest person wouldn’t be crushed as much) so we decided to place an empty vial in. We turned the sarcophagus full circle and sure enough when the lift came back up, the vial was smashed. We then turned the sarcophagus to violet, red and orange at which points less happened than what goes on in Curly’s head. We decided to do the vial trick with the yellowvator. This time however the vial didn’t smash. Sneeze offered to be guinea pig and go into it first (I’d have offered but being the leader of the group I can’t put myself in that kind of risk as my death would certainly cause the group to fall apart). We turned the sarcophagus all the way around but when the lift came up there was no Sneeze. I figured he must have gotten out and may be in need of help so I went in. The yellowvator brought me down into a room that has some more of those weird statues in. Sneeze was there and looking ok. We discovered a button that allowed us to control the yellowvator from here so we sent for the others. Grim used his head for something other than consumption of alcohol for once and secured the sarcophagus at the top by wedging a piton in its base. Once he finally managed to squeeze his enormous girth into and then out of the yellowvator we inspected the room more closely. The only other exit to this room was blocked by a huge stone slab. I was just about to suggest that we search it for traps when Grim, Curly, Sneeze and Salty decided to push it over. Low and behold, they set off a trap. A thick oily gas came spurting out and drained our strength (and bear in mind, Muffin doesn’t have a lot to spare). We moved out of the gas and found ourselves in a corridor that had three statues in alcoves on either side. It was then that people thought it would be wise to check for traps. Well done! Only a few minutes too late. It was whilst myself and Salty were searching that she let out a very girly scream that shocked even me for a second. The reason for her obvious terror was a pair of floating eyeballs connected together by what looked like bare muscle coming out from behind the statue. One of the eyes fixed on me and shot out a ray. Now I’m not sure whether it was the ray or Salty’s scream, but something shook me up fairly badly. The other eye fixed on Salty and she immediately decided that this was the time for a nap. We fought back but the eyes (I’ve no eye-dea (get it) how) managed to dodge our blows with great dexterity. It was at this point that Sneeze decided that Salty should wake up. Instead of bringing her a cuppa and a bacon butty like any normal person would, Sneeze decided to hit her. Fair enough I suppose due to the fact that it’s hard to put the kettle on in the middle of combat but his punch didn’t so much wake her up as knock her out. I’m telling you, if that’s how people wake each other up when their on watch I’m going on after Muffin; he barely has the strength to shake you awake. Anyway, despite Sneeze’s best efforts, we all managed to survive the encounter with the (what Muffin called) Lurking Strangler. Apparently they are created by wizards for some unfathomable reason (maybe all wizards started off as stable boys). What’s even more unfathomable is that when these things have put you to sleep with their ray, they strangle you to death (hence the name). Why? It’s not like they’re going to be able to eat you. Wizards! They must have far too much time on their hands what with creating floating eyes and wavy hand spells. Anyway we continued on and the corridor opened up into a room with a huge pillar in the middle. There was an archway on either side of the room leading to other chambers but the one on the right was filled with more of that orangey gunk only this time a fair whack of it had turned brown. We headed around the left of the pillar and discovered that there was a door on the back wall of the room. We had a closer look at the pillar and discovered that it was some sort of weird shower. There was a large basin type thing underneath a water pipe although both of these were now covered in that orange sludge. We checked the room on the left and discovered that it was a very ornate bedroom. There was a large bed which had a carving of another genderless being above it. This one also had a glyph depicting its rank on it although this one was very high ranking. Something about this glyph struck a chord with me. It reminded me of something I’d seen in a book I’d borrowed from a library ages ago. I’m sure it’s an ancient language called Vaarti or Farty… some kind of arty anyway. Pah! No known alphabet indeed! Muffin looked like he didn’t believe me when I told him but I’m pretty sure he’s just jealous of my superior intelligence. Feeling very smug I tried out the bed itself and discovered that it was covered with a thin layer of air that made it very comfortable and also made me very sleepy. I managed to keep awake though and we continued with our expedition. The door at the back of the shower room led to a place that stank worse than Grim (hard to believe I know). It was an old abandoned toilet. We quickly shut the door and through teary eyes Salty said she saw something on the back of the shower. On further inspection we saw that it was a catch. We decided to flip it and at once a stone slab on the side of the pillar was lifted from the ground. Underneath it was a very squashed body wearing very fine chainmail. On the wall behind the slab hung a set of very nice looking tools. There were also some statuettes on the floor, some broken but three of them were in remarkably good nick. There was one of a palace, one of a giant stadium and one of a set of towers. Having concluded that the trap was safely disarmed we took all of the nice items and moved on. We went to where the sludge was blocking the entrance to the other room and had a look in. It was weird but the room looked like it was lit by natural sunlight. In it was an unfinished statue of what looked like a warrior holding a staff and a large black egg with some glyphs on. Salty walked up to the sludge, shivered and then collapsed. Apparently she doesn’t like to cold which surprises me a little as she surely must have gotten used to it what with having to sleep in doorways all the time. Grim dragged her away from the sludge and as he did got a better look at the brown stuff. He said it was a poisonous mould. He said that burning it would be bad but he could try and purify it with a spell. What I want to know is if he’s had a purify spell all this time, why hasn’t he used it on himself? Anyway, his spell didn’t work so we decided to rest in the bedroom until Muffin could recuperate from his long day of casting spells… all three of them. Grim did have one more spell left which he cast to determine if anything we’d found was magical. Turns out the tools are. Wizards! Far too much spare time! I, as the leader, naturally got the comfy air bed. Just a quick thought; I guess this helps prove my theory that the stone slab room was a barracks. Or is it just coincidence that this place of rest should have a fatigue magic put on it? Waterday 12th Planting 595 Muffin woke up fresh and ready for another full day of casting his spells. He must have a had a really good sleep as the first spell he cast (one that produced a ray of frost from his finger) completely destroyed the mould by the door to the sculptors workshop. If he’s had a spell of such power all along, why hasn’t he cast it before instead of waving his hands about and throwing tiny magical dots at our enemies? I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again: wizards! Once the mould had gone we went into the room. Muffin immediately went up to the egg and started to take some rubbings of the glyphs that had been inscribed in gold on its black surface. As he started suddenly the egg began to change shape. We all took a few steps back to see what would happen. A mouth formed and let out a shout in a language none of us recognised. Salty and Muffin tried to communicate with it but the egg beast ignored them and flung itself at Muffin. It dropped him quicker than Tira had which meant that for the course of the battle we were denied his mighty offensive spells. Curly showed me why I’d been right to save him by walking up to the creature and killing it with one mighty swing of his sword. Grim cast some healing magic on Muffin who leapt up like nothing had happened. We searched the rest of the room and found nothing of interest apart from the staff that the warrior statue was holding. It was of extremely fine quality but had six grooves along its length that seemed to divide it into seven parts. We pulled out the staff and decided to take all the stuff we’d found to Shrub-beard to see which of these finds he wanted and also to see if he could tell us the properties of the magical items we’d found. Muffin claimed he could do it if he had the correct components but going on his record so far I’m betting that’s just an excuse to cover the fact that his brain can’t cope with the complexity of a decent spell. Shrub-beard took the statuettes and the staff but said he wasn’t interested in the tools. He did however tell us what each magical item did. Two of the tools turned out not to be tools at all: they’re wands. One creates an invisible helper that can lift and move light objects around the other can cause brittle things like glass to shatter. Shrub-beard said the third tool was a pair of goggles that allowed you to see things close up with more clarity. The magical ring let you fall long distances as lightly as a feather would and the vials contained potions of healing. The magical pearl turned out to allow a spell caster to cast another low level spell (are there any others?) per day. At this announcement Muffin’s eyes lit up. Not sure why. The prospect of having one more opportunity per day to humiliate myself is not something I’d particularly relish. Anyway we left Shrub-beards and headed over to Osgood’s where we sold the really nice leather armour and then we headed to Tidwowd’s (a gnome jeweller) to sell the silver ring and the ruby. We also tried to sell him the goggles but the cheap little garden ornament didn’t even offer us half of what it’s worth. We also managed to get rid of the wands to some poor unsuspecting spell casters. We then split all the money up and people went off to spend it. Salty bought a weird curved blade called a scimitar and a chain shirt and Curly bought some banded mail. The day only half gone we decided to head back to the Whispering Cairn to continue looking for the red lantern. On the way we dished out the items we’d found. We each got a healing potion; Grim got the nice chainmail; Salty got the ring; they foist the goggles onto me but worse than that Muffin got the pearl. Arriving back at the cairn we went to the one place we hadn’t searched: the water. No-one seemed particularly keen to go in but after I volunteered people suddenly found their courage. Grim, Salty and Sneeze all said that they’d come along. Salty suggested that if we emptied our waterskins and filled them with air then we could stay under the water longer (it’s probably something she’s done before when hiding from her creditors). It was decided that Muffin and Curly we to stay at the top so that they could pull the ropes we’d attached ourselves to (two to a rope) back up if we needed to. Salty, bless her aching heart, asked if she could be on the same rope as me. I decided to give her a thrill and said yes. With Grim and Salty having taken their armour off, we made our way down the stairs and into the murky depths. Grim pulled out a sunrod so that we could at least see a little. The room we entered looked like a large shower room. It had two archways, one on either side of the room, and a door on the far wall. We headed for the archway on the left but as we approached Salty, who was at the head of the group, spotted a weird shifting in the water by its entrance. Suddenly this shifting water started to approach us. Some of this water seemed to form into a humanoid like appendage and struck out at Salty injuring her. We managed to surround the living water and killed it with great expediency. The fight took a bit out of us so we went back to the surface to catch our breath before heading to the archway on the right. Inside this room there was a curled up body. As we approached the body unfurled and stood locking gazes with fearsome red eyes. It then showed us exactly how fierce it really was by turning and fleeing when Grim held up his tankard (later he claimed that the tankard was his holy symbol and that he’d channelled the power of his god through it in order to scare away the ghoulish creature. Personally I think that the creature simply detected Grim’s odour through the water and was trying to get as far away from it as possible.). We surrounded the creature and proceeded to lay into it. This revived the creature from its stupor and it managed to fight back. It slashed Salty with one of its claws and suddenly she became paralyzed. Sneeze felled the creature with a blow almost as massive as the ones he uses to wake people up. I tugged on the rope so that Muffin would know that someone was in trouble and with what little strength he has in his arms, he pulled us in. I’m not sure whether I should have done that as saving Salty’s life will probably only solidify her infatuation with me. Anyway, Grim and Sneeze followed us back after they had searched the room. They came up with some platinum, gold and silver coins as well as a ring with the eight pointed star emblem on. When Salty could move again we headed back into the water and went through the left archway. In this room (which looked like some kind of steam room) was another body. We carefully approached but the body was just what it appeared to be. It was wearing leather armour that had been torn to shreds and had on it a very nice looking short sword. This body looked like it had been down here for about half a century which is weird ‘cause the one we’d found in the stone slab room looked like it had only been here for a few months. Maybe the fatigue spell on the barracks somehow helped to preserve the body better. Anyway the underneath the body was a backpack in which was the red lantern. We headed back to the surface once more to catch our breath before heading for the door at the back of the room. Grim joked that it was probably going to be a toilet. Many a true word is spoken in jest. The door opened to reveal a toilet that had been blocked up with various bits of debris which is what has caused this level to flood. In shifts we cleared it out and slowly the water started to drain away. I’ve just thought: we’ve just spent a good part of the day swimming in toilet water! I feel dirtier than Grim’s underwear! Although this is probably as close to a bath as Grim’s had in who knows how long. We headed back to the lantern room and hung up the red lantern. We lit them all and immediately heard a scraping noise of stone on stone coming from the screaming wind corridor. We headed up and found that the door had opened to reveal a room strange room. It was a long room whose floor we couldn’t see as it was covered in head sized iron balls. The top of this ball pool was some ten feet below where we stood. There was a rotted wooden beam stretching the full length of the room that led to another door at the other end. The walls were covered in a strange honeycomb design. Being the bravest, smartest, nimblest and hardest member of our group, I cautiously went out onto the ledge. I’d gone about ten feet when a load of iron balls shot out from the honeycombed walls at me. I managed to dodge all but one of them which struck me hard. I kept my balance and made my way back to the group so that we could re-think things. We decided that we’d see how firm the iron ball pool was so I was lowered down to it. I sank into the pool up to just above my knees. I was about to signal for the others to come down when I felt a rumbling coming from underneath. Grim, obviously worried what he’d do without me to guide him, quickly pulled me up. Despite our best efforts, Salty and I couldn’t find anyway to disarm the iron balls and even Curly and Sneeze couldn’t lift the wooden beam out of its niche. Grim, not known for his patience, decided that this was the time to bring out the big guns, or more precisely, his big axe. With speed which I never knew he had, he chopped through the wooden beam causing our end of it to fall onto the iron balls. This caused the trap to go off sending wave after wave of bullets shooting from the walls. Eventually the trap ran its course and the sound of metal ringing on metal faded into silence. We climbed down to the beam and started to climb our way up to the door. We got half way across when I felt the rumbling once more. Before I had time to warn people a huge worm with four barbed tentacles rose up from the iron balls. Sneeze, Salty and Grim all tried to strike the creature but their blows simply bounced off the creature’s thick hide. It was at this darkest of hours that the most unlikely, improbable, in fact some might say impossible, thing happened. Muffin! He started casting spells with an energy that no-one could possibly have predicted he’d have. The creature reeled from blow after blow of his magical bullets until finally it succumbed. Grim, who had been busy pouring beer over his axe (he said that it was his faiths holy water and that he was using it to temporarily make his weapon magical), came out of shock first. But even then all he could do was complain about wasting his ale. In order to give us time to recover from the unbelievable even we’d just witnessed we decided to search through the iron balls to see if we could find anything. We did. Some decomposed bodies, some money and some very nice looking banded mail. Whilst this was going on I had a look at the door at the end of the beam but could find no way of opening it. It was then that I heard a faint voice coming from the walls “Wow!” it whispered “I thought you were dead that time!” Then a ghostly apparition appeared from the wall. It was the ghost of a boy whose neck looked broken. It had huge claws at the end of his fingers. Seeing our horrified looks the boy seemed to try and hide its grotesque appearance from us. We tried to ask it who he was and why he was here but it didn’t answer. It tried to approach Sneeze but we warned him back. The boy signalled to us that it couldn’t speak out loud and that it wanted to enter someone’s body. No-one was particularly keen so yet again it was down to me to be the brave one. I let the boy enter my body and I felt the strangest feeling. It was like I was pushed to the back of my own mind and this boy had taken possession of my physical being.
We agreed. Grim and Sneeze found the bones and went off to the Land’s farmstead to bury Alastor’s remains. When they returned Grim and Sneeze told us that they’d found the abandoned ruined farm but that the graves had been recently dug up. They had buried the remains beneath a headstone that Alastor’s name had been carved in. It appeared that Alastor’s family had all died when the plague had swept through the country some nineteen years ago. Next to the graves they found a shovel and some wheelbarrow tracks that headed off in the direction of Diamond Lake. I let Alastor take possession of me once more and he told us that his curse hadn’t been lifted as his family was no longer on the burial site. Knowing that we had no choice but to find his family’s remains, we all set off for the Land farmstead.
As we entered I spotted fresh flesh and blood on the floor by the entrance. We rounded a corner into the main room and saw something that took all our breaths away. A huge bear like creature with feathers around its head and a beak like mouth. Grim shouted that it was an owlbear just before myself Sneeze and Salty attacked. The owl bear grabbed Sneeze in its huge grip and started to squeeze. Muffin then waved his hands in front of the beast but
Grim, who had just finished pouring beer on himself, doubled in size and then proceeded to moan again that he’d wasted some more ale. Through his grumbling I heard a small chirp coming from the corner. On investigation we found a baby owlbear which, for some unexplainable reason, took a shine to Grim. Obviously its sense of smell doesn’t develop until later. “Aw, isn’t it cute?” Grim said lovingly before shoving it in a sack. Apparently baby owlbears can fetch a couple of thousand gold on the open market. We searched the room and found a whole severed human arm. The interesting thing about this arm, apart from the fact that it had no body attached, was that it had a tattoo on. It was the same symbol as the brand that was on Kullen’s (the albino half-orc) head. The symbol itself was originally used by one of the old mine managers called Garavin Vesst
With nothing else to be found, and as night was fast approaching, we headed back to the Feral Dog in order to try and find Kullen. I apologised to Tak for not being there for the past couple of days but said I’d make it up to him by working for free that night. Grim and Sneeze did neither and simply quit their jobs. Pah! No loyalty that’s their problem. “After tasting the sweet thrill of adventuring” Sneeze announced “I can no longer abide the foul odour of mundane work.” Well lardy dar! Anyway we only had to wait a few minutes for Kullen and his crew to come in. Unsurprisingly they were one down. Skutch was missing from the party. Serving them drinks I managed to pry some information out of him. Apparently they were attacked by an owlbear whilst out on a job in a nearby farmstead that killed his lackey. I told Grim this and he fell over and for once not because he was pissed. This time it was due to laughter. I tried to get out of him who he was working for but Kullen refused to say. He only intimated that it was a person he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. Despite spiking his drinks all night and giving him a tip on the dog fights, he still wouldn’t tell me. At the end of the night, when all subtlety had been used up, we decided to bring out the blunt instruments. We followed Kullen and his group when they left and confronted them in a quiet part of town. Despite our obvious superiority over them (we had after all killed the owlbear easily), Kullen still refused to give us the name of his employer unless we gave him two hundred gold. Personally I’d have liked to have beaten the information out of him but I was out voted by the others so we all coughed up our share. This particularly annoyed me as I’d been saving up for some really nice armour I’d seen in Osgood’s and I told people so. It was then that Grim just up and forked over fifty gold to me! This gesture really choked me up (either that or it was his B.O.). I guess I’ll have to reassess my opinion of him as a miser. Anyway, with the money in his greedy white mitts, Kullen told us his sob story; a guy called Filge had come in from the Free City and started to boss Kullen and his group around. He treated them like servants and ordered them to get him some skeletons that he was going to use as guardians. Kullen said he’d taken the Land family’s remains up to where the necromancer was staying: the old observatory. As we left the scumbags, Kullen had the nerve to request something from us; he said he wanted Filge’s eyes brought to him. I’m not being funny but for two hundred gold he can make the trek up there and get them himself. Earthday 13th Planting 595 Start off the day with another shopping excursion. We split up as people wanted different things. I went to Osgood’s to sell the nice chainmail and buy myself a suit of fine studded leather armour but Ozy said that he needed to adjust a set as he had none in my size which I think is disgraceful! Anyway, he said it’d be ready tomorrow so I guess I can’t complain too much. Met up with the others and found that Sneeze had bought himself, what he called, a siangham. He said it’s some sort of exotic weapon but to me it looks like a fire poker. Tried to pay Grim back the money he’d lent me but he wouldn’t take it. He said that he’d consider my debt covered if I could get him some proper dwarven ale so I’ll have to have a word with Tak and get him to order some in from the free city. Anyway, shopping done we headed up to the observatory where Kullen had said Filge and, more importantly, the family Land skeletons were. We snuck up to the building and, having checked the empty tool shed under the back steps, peered in through the mucky glass on the backdoor. Inside was a small room with a door on the in which we spotted three skeletons all carrying crossbows. We all prepared for battle before Curly and Grim put their considerable weight to use by barging through the warped door. The skeletons immediately shot their loads… that is, shot their crossbows at the door but with little effect. Everyone charged in at them, including Muffin. The shock of this sight slowed me down a bit and as a result he managed to get ahead of me and stopped me from joining the battle due to the size of the room. Wouldn’t have minded so much if his hand to hand combat ability wasn’t even worse than his spell casting ability! Anyway the battle was over very quickly despite Muffin’s interference and we exited through the other door after collecting up the bones, which we’re hoping belong to the Land family. If they are then it does mean that we’re one set of bones missing but hopefully they’ll be somewhere in the building. The door led onto a corridor with four doors that led to small bedrooms plus two others at its very end. The door on the left led to an old and obviously unused office but the one on the right brought us to a sight stranger than Curly’s hair first thing in the morning. This room was a dining room that had a large table at its centre that had place settings for ten people. The weirdness begins (and I suppose ends) with the diners. The head place of the table but the other nine were taken up by zombies. The food in front of them remained untouched and the zombies themselves immobile. They didn’t even move when we went right up to them. What’s the point in creating zombies that don’t do anything? Wizards! Is there nothing they like more than wasting time? Anyway, other than the motionless undead, the ground level was empty so we cautiously climbed the stairs. They brought us into a huge bedroom that had several pieces of strange decoration. Firstly there was a long dead Halfling sized corpse standing up dressed in a very fine suit complete with top hat that was holding a silver tray on top of which was a woman’s head on whose out poked tongue was a platinum coin. There was also a statue of an angel holding a harp in one hand and a sword in the other. Engraved on the statue’s base was the word “Filge”. We checked out the rest of the room and discovered that this guy has very limited fashion sense. In his wardrobe we found multiple sets of the same outfit. We didn’t spend too much time musing over this as Muffin had gotten himself into a debate with Sneeze and Grim over a book he’d found. It turned out to be Filge’s spell book. Muffin said he wanted to take it in order to learn more spells but Sneeze and Grim said that we should burn it as it belonged to someone whose main domain was the creation of undead. Personally I’m not sure why they’re so worried; haven’t they seen Muffin cast spells? He’d be lucky if he could create an undead mouse. Anyway Muffin said that he was unable to use dark, foul, necromantic spells (surprise, surprise; another limitation on his spell casting ability) and that he only wanted to learn any nice spells that might be in there. Nice spells? Come on! Seriously, how many does he actually expect to be in the spell book of a foul zombie creating maniac? I’m guessing he ain’t gonna have Muffin’s patented wavy hands spell. We were just about to head up to the next level when Curly spotted something on the desk. On further investigation we discovered some vials that contained a weird multi-coloured soupy substance that were labelled “Necroturgent”. Grim mused that it was probably an aid to making undead. We left the vials there for the time being and headed up the stairs. This time they lead into a strange room that had a slit across the centre of its domed ceiling. In each corner of the room stood a large mirror but stranger than that was the sunken area in the centre of the room. In each of its corners stood a large cylinder filled with murky liquid in which could be seen vague silhouettes. In the centre lay a human body whose skin had been peeled back and pinned down to its own body. We had no time to ponder on these things as in the far corner stood our main focus; a man wearing the same outfit that we’d seen in the wardrobe . Around his neck hung a necklace adorned with a birds skull and in his hand he held a syringe.
“Arise my beautiful monstrosities!” Suddenly the four cylinders smashed open. Out of three of them stepped undead creatures that looked like bipedal lizards but out of the one next to me stepped a seven foot tall bear like zombie that immediately hit me with a clubbing blow that sent me flying (for which I have to say I was grateful as I really did not want to spend anymore time next it than necessary). I recovered from that blow and took a swig of my healing potion before continuing towards the necromancer who had now summoned up a skeleton to guard him as well as two of the undead lizards. The rest of the group started to try and take care of the large (what I was told later was the zombie corpse of a bugbear) zombie and the other lizard. As we were occupied with his minions the necromancer took the opportunity to inject himself with the syringe (with no visible affect) and cast a spell that created a ghostly hand. It was then that our wizard stepped up and cast his magic dot spell at the hand. The hand seemed to reel a bit but still continued on and hit Muffin around the face. Muffin grimaced slightly as he fought off whatever spell Filge had focussed into the hand. Muffin regained his composure and cast another missile at the hand which obliterated it. Meanwhile I wa Nerdzul has not created a profile. |