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From last night’s game – Whispering Cairn - Session 4
This happened towards the end of the evening and the party has had a difficult session. One party member almost got sucked in and drowned by the Water Elemental vortex in the shower area.
Another party member who subsequently used an elixir of swimming to scout the showers and locker room got hammered by the Ghoul, paralyzed in the water and was staggered at zero hits. It was touch and go there – but he survived.
Having recovered the red lantern and placing it on its chain, the party did not light the lanterns and the Face in the Darkness trap went off sending all the party tumbling out the tunnel in their own private hurricane Rita. The wind put one party member at the bottom of the cairn with 3 hit points, the other smashed down at -7 and dying, the last three were dangling on the chain like flies on flypaper. They recovered with a glare at me.
Lastly, the rogue was picked off by several of the iron spheres as he ran across the petrified beam and was sent plummeting below to be dropped to -6 and so much grick food. Magic missiles saved the rogue from the tentacles of the grick – but it was only just.
While death was averted in all four circumstances, taken together with a death from the swarm & slasher encounter and a bizarre death from the brown mold in the previous session, the players were prodding every corner and certain that death lurked every time I picked up the D20.
So there they were in the old Land Family Homestead. The blood on the floor and chunky bits did not make anyone happy, but “there might be treasure” and the healing potion supply was looking low.
With the rest of the party gathered around outside the main door to the farmhouse, the rogue (played by Kevin) inches in to the farmhouse and moves to look around the stairs. So I opened a small white cardboard CCG collector box where I have my monster miniatures for the session. I drew out a prized mini I’d been waiting to place down: A very rare and precious Harbinger owlbear. I placed it just around the corner from the rogue, 10 feet away.
“Dave: Woah Woah Woah. What’s that?
SW: It’s an owlbear.
Dave: No. No. No. I know what the miniature looks like. I mean what is it supposed to represent?
SW: <patiently with a grin> It’s an *owlbear*.
Dave: *picks up the mini looks at the bottom of it* You mean this mini - right here - isn’t there to be …say…a large mini representing something else? It means *runs finger over raised writing on bottom of mini* O-W-L-B-E-A-R???
SW: Yup. It extends its claws and hisses through its beak in rage. You spot a small baby owlbear in the corner who mewls plaintively. Initiatives please.
Dave: Protecting its cub. Oh. Great.
Kevin: *Looking incredulous*. I’m only 2nd level.
Dave: And never going to be third. You are soooo dead.”
I love the doom-sayers. Had a player like that myself for a while. Everytime something mean looked at him he would wail, "That's it. I'm dead. Yep. I'm dead, for sure." It became his catchphrase.
We have a doom sayer in my group too... out note taker started tracking the number of times he predicted TPK in a session and started adding it to the end of the next weeks summary reports!
Then we started tracking the hit miss ratio of the party monk and lets just say that nobody in our group will ever play a monk again!
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We have a doom sayer in my group too... out note taker started tracking the number of times he predicted TPK in a session and started adding it to the end of the next weeks summary reports!
Then we started tracking the hit miss ratio of the party monk and lets just say that nobody in our group will ever play a monk again!
Our paladin tongith: "WHOA. That Ghoul, I think it really IS evil....I jump back"
...
Then we started tracking the hit miss ratio of the party monk and lets just say that nobody in our group will ever play a monk again!
Monks are much better at tripping and grappling their enemies anyway.
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To funny. My vetern group has tried to the face twice now. They actually made a poor copy of the red lantern with prestidigation to color the lenses. Then they tried the face a second. Of course I would not allow it to work and open the door so they got blown out. They only sent up the half-orc barbarian and half-elf rogue. The rogue ended up grabbing the chain and hanging on for dear life. The half-orc had tied a rope around himself that was spiked to the floor at the tunnel entrance, and jumped off as the winds built up. He took a couple points damge from that fall as he was slammed a couple times against the walls.
The first time they did it, the rogue, barbarian and the human scout were up there. Fortunately they thought something was wrong and the barbarian and scout had taken the prcautions as above. The rogue did the grab for the chain to save her life thing. The funny part about this is they had a mule with them tied to a rope spiked to the floor just at the top of the stairs to the sarcophagus room. I decided that the winds would strong enough (think hurricane Katrina) and the mule started to blow away. I rolled to see if the winds broke the rope, and it came up a one, so it didn't. The poor mule ends up flapping in the wind at the end of the rope and hangs it self. The party was quite distressed to find this out.
It cracked me up.
We have a doom sayer in my group too...
IF it wasn't for a group's doomsayer, I'd think we'd all be DMing Kender look alikes (act alikes... whatever...)
Speaking of kender-like behavior...
I had to save my group from the crushing trap in WC...
Party: "Ooo... Another elevator!"
Rogue: "I enter the elevator with the lantern!"
Me: "Before you enter, you notice a large amount of crushed bones in the elevator"
Rogue: "Oh, I'll crouch when I go in!"
Me: (getting desperate with unexpected lemming-like behavior) "You also notice reddish stains on the ceiling".
Rogue: "There is probably an exit that everyone missed"
Barbarian: "Umm... I don't know... Maybe use a pole to brace the roof"
Druid: "Send the cleric in" - The cleric's Player had missed all sessions to this point.
Cleric (Me): "Oh, hell no!"
Barbarian: "Maybe if I put this pole in and lean on it - put an apple in"
Me: "It goes down, and comes back up - applesauce"
Rogue: "Still the pole might stop it! I'm going in"
Barbarian: "Try just the pole then"
Me: "The masterwork staff with 6 groves comes back shattered"
Druid: "Maybe a death trap is just a death trap"
Me: (Next time, you aren't going to be so lucky...)
Inattentive players, combined with cursed dice, have made TWC a very deadly place for the group I'm currently running through it.
They tried tackling the face a second time, within moments of the first debacle. No searching for traps, plenty of failed saving throws, and lots of wind later... and "Rat," the party's rogue, was beyond the pale. He had tied himself off at the bottom of the shoot, only to be buffeted to death by the winds when he couldn't land a hit on that flapping rope of his.
The green mold was especially deadly, as the party had an oblivious psychic rogue. She didn't get the hint when she got close to the mold, nor when she lit her torch, nor when she stood there wondering what to do, nor even when she threw it into the mold itself.
The horses they used to turn the sarcophagus were decimated by the acid beetles.
The paladin didn't fare much better - he is without armor now.
Here's the kicker... The adventure was designed for four first-level player characters, right? I'm running it, almost unchanged, with six forth-level characters! I have only added a second acid beetle swarm to the one that comes out of the hole left by the green elevator's collapse. That's it!
And, they haven't found any of the treasure. They looked at it. They saw it lying there. They didn't touch it! Oy vey!