All Hail the Slime Spider! *ribbit* *ribbit* (part 2)

Nearly stabbed to death by frog monsters? That aggression will not stand, man.

With only a little deliberation, the party stuck poor Fil under a bush (I prefer to think it was a Fil-odendron, nyuk nyuk) and formulated a fantastic plan to return to the Frog Room of Doom to seek their revenge (for... um... breaking into the monsters' home in the first place).

Indis the elf (my wife, Cori) would animate four long-dead dwarven skeletons from the mine to lead the charge, supplemented by a Phantasmal Force spell depicting several more skeletons.  Next, Elazti (Aisha's magic user) would hide, invisibly, and wait to see if the frog creatures bunched up enough to be taken out by a Fireball spell.  Finally, Ambiorix (Sam), Fil (Ben), the dwarves (NPCs) and Bob the cleric (Andrew) would swoop in to deliver the killing blow if necessary.  (The frog beasts seemed to have a pretty significant number of hit points in addition to three deadly attacks per round.)

To make a rather involved combat story shorter, the party's strategy worked. The monsters rushed to attack the skeleton "army" invading their temple and, after a couple of rounds, were close enough together for Elazti to loose a fireball.  They weren't killed outright, but they were severely wounded enough that the dwarves, Bob, and Ambiorix made short work of them.

Hiya, fellas!

But then the huge stone sarcophagus on the north end of the chamber began to rattle a bit.  And then the lid came off.  And out popped... a big-ass miasmic mess of oily black slime that formed itself into a 20' tall octopus-spider shape.  It shot pseudopods out of its writhing bulk, snapped up the remaining skeletons, and absorbed them into itself. The party members still in the room got the hell out of Dodge pretty quickly as Elazti tossed another fireball at the monster that, it seems, was the "god" of the chamber and the thing the frog creatures were trying to protect.  Fortunately, Aisha rolled really well for damage and the creature exploded into a million little oozy bits.

Cue massive XP award and much leveling by the PCs.



NEXT TIME:
The Breaking of the Fellowship -- Goblins, Gnolls, Bandits, and the long road to Ravensport.

All Hail the Slime Spider! *ribbit* *ribbit* (part 1)

The party stood before the massive iron door and its ominous epitaph. Just as Xanna the thief began to pry it open, they heard footsteps on the spiral stairs above.  Descending to meet them was a cloaked-and-hooded human in fine-wrought plate mail and armed with a mace. He, in turn, was being trailed by... a cheetah?  Yes, a cheetah.

Bob* the cleric and the Rapida the cat**, had independently followed the party's trail of bludgeoned bugs and eviscerated ettins looking for adventure. They were also the characters of our two new players: Andrew, a longtime friend and recording client of mine, and Adeline, Amanda (Xanna)'s super-smart-but-still-kinda-scared-of-the-DM's-monster-voices seven year-old daughter.

Armed with fresh hit points and new allies, the party pried the door open and stared into the blackness beyond. An acrid stench stung their nostrils like acid and the slow, steady drip of liquid echoed along the quiet, finely-chiselled hallways beyond.  At this point, Arda the dwarf drew forth an ancient map that she'd kept hidden up to now. Unlabeled though it was, it provided a decent overview of the main living and working level of the mine:

The entrance is on the bottom of the map.
Click to enlarge. It's a big damn dungeon.

The strongest smells (identifiable thanks to Rapida's keen nose) emanated from the western passages. Never ones to pass up trouble, that's where the party decided to head first.

Winding their way through the labyrinthine hallways, the characters' first encounter was with a handful of deadly Black Puddings blocking their path.  Some oil, fire, and magic quickly cleared the way (once Ambiorix and Fil discovered that smashing the puddings with swords only created more puddings).

And then the party had a tasty snack.

Moving on, the group next found a huge, high-ceilinged chamber lined with intricately-carved pillars and various frescoes and relief carvings. At the far end of the chamber was a massive stone sarcophagus (think the big stone box that covered the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark).  As our heroes moved closer to investigate, two 5' humanoid frog creatures carrying spears and wearing crude loin cloths*** emerged from each of the northeast and northwest passages.  Angry and stabby, they proceeded to spear, claw, bite, and poison the party.  The battle did not go well for our heroes, and this adventure's second TPK almost occurred. In the end, both Fil and Aesopos the NPC cleric (aka "The Intern") were killed while almost everyone else was either knocked unconscious or severely injured. Someone managed to grab Fil's lifeless body and drag it along during the retreat but the remains of the poor "intern" had to be left behind. Thankfully the frog-monsters were more interested in protecting their territory than chasing the characters.

The PCs retreated back outside the mine to hide in the forest and heal. Fortunately, Indis the elf had found a Raise Dead scroll on a previous adventure and it was used to bring poor Fil back to life. That said, being frog-filleted to death takes a lot out of a guy and he would be in no shape to travel or fight for at least two weeks.

Thus, a choice had to be made: hang out in the woods with Fil and risk random encounters and maybe more frog-monsters coming from the mine to hunt everyone down, or go back in with a strategic plan and try again?  I'll give you one guess as to which one they chose.



---
* I have a theory. At some point, nearly every D&D campaign will have at least one quickly-rolled-up character named Bob. That's been my experience over the last 30 years of gaming, anyway.

** Kudos to Aisha (Elazti the magic-user) for the kitty's badass name.

*** Are there fancy loincloths?

Silver, Centipedes, and Sticky Doom

Fee Fie Foe Fum... squared.

In the last installment of our campaign journal, our heroes were offered a chance to help a pair of ettin-mauled dwarves, Arda and Delath, reclaim an ancient silver mine in the mountains southeast of Frostwyk. The prize? An even share of any treasure found within AND a split of the future mineral rights.

Knowing a good thing when they saw it, they readily accepted the offer and soon discovered that the same ettins (brutish and smelly two-headed giants, if'n you don't know what those are) who had attacked the dwarves were also holed up in the "abandoned" mine... along with a nasty array of centipedes, fire beetles, and other vermin. There was a lot of "ewww"ing and "yuck"ing at the table that night.

On the bright side, a particularly hairy encounter also led to the formation of my group's new Old School D&D-themed metal band and our soon-to-be-released debut single:

Props to +Sam Ferguson for the cover design and the name of the group.

In good time, the ettins were dispatched, the bugs got squashed, and everybody gained a fair amount of treasure and XP. Yay!

Spit, stick, fling, repeat.

In the course of clearing the top level of the mine, the party found an ultra-heavy-duty dwarven secret door leading down to what was once the main living and working area of the complex. A steep spiral stair descending into darkness, it was also the lair of a family of cave fishers who had turned the center of the stairwell into a tangled mass of amazingly-sticky webs.  While clinging to the walls, the fishers proceeded to snatch up the characters one-by-one and fling them down into the webs where they had to make very difficult Strength checks to break free. At this point, thanks to the element of surprise and some not-so-great die rolls on the part of the PCs, there was nearly a Total Party Kill. In the end, it came down to severly-injured halfling Fil Fairbarn and one cave fisher. At the very last second, Fil managed to stab his short sword deep into the creature's belly and then slowly cut the rest of his (largely unconscious) party free.

At the bottom of the Stairwell of Sticky Doom was another massive door, this time made of iron. The party gave it a cursory look and, upon discovering the words below etched into its surface, decided that a couple days of vigilant dungeon camping (i.e. healing up) would be a good idea before going any further.

Here entombed is Mjothvitnir

228 - 453

Lord of silver

Master of mithral

Mighty in battle

Wise in craft

Taken With his kin

Nar

Blain

Motsognir

Nyi

Suthri

Nain

An

Onar

Ai

Vigg

Vindalf

Thekk

Vit

Sviur

Frar

Aurvang

Fraeg

Nyrath

Jari

Hlevang

By walking darkness roused 

from deepest depth below

the very bones of earth 

Let forever 

these doors be sealed

leave the dead to their slumbers

and the ichorous dark  to itself

Yeah, I'd sleep on it, too.

NEXT TIME: Frog-Men, Oozy Spider Gods, and a Cleric Named Bob.

Among the Giants

[Edited 4/5/15. Because typos. Holy cow.]

Peering over the edge of the cliff, the party saw a vast pine forest stretching out below them. Far off to the west, Rothslake glittered in its cold enormity. A single brown thread--the road from Ravensport to Frostwyk--snaked across the landscape about a day's journey west-southwest. The late winter wind blew icy cold and a steady snow began to fall.

Using her magical bat-wings (acquired from the Swamp Witch's hut ages ago), Indis began ferrying her companions down the side of the cliff to the forest floor below. Just as she set Fil down and was on her way back up to collect the next rider, a gigantic wild hawk appeared and decided that she looked like a tasty morsel. Streaking up from the forest, it grabbed her with its enormous claws and began to fly away.  A few stray arrows from the party whizzed past or between its feathers but for a few tense moments, it looked like Indis would be taken away.  Fortunately, she had the ability to wrest free her arms and cast a magic missile spell on the bird, as Elazti did the same from the ground below.  Injured and afraid, the raptor released Indis (who deftly employed her bat-wings again) and disappeared into the forest canopy.

A cold night followed, as the group made camp amid the rocks at the base of the cliff. They did their best to sleep sitting up beneath a layer of shared blankets, while Xanna the thief rekindled one of her patented clay-pot-and-candle portable heaters. By the time morning broke, some 14" of snow had piled up around them.

The journey to the road took longer than expected thanks to the heavy snowfall and dense forest, but eventually they did make it. Once on the path, the group struck west in the hopes of making it to Frostwyk before they froze to death or ran out of food. Having grown up in the area, Ambiorix recalled rumors that savage berserkers, dangerous Ursari (bear-men), giants, and other unsavory creatures often frequented the area.

Two more days passed and luck, it seemed, was on the party's side. No one--or no thing--disturbed them. They were about a day and a half from Frostwyk when the sight of smoke from the road ahead gave them pause. Using her crystal ball, Elazti scried the remains of a camp.

Two smashed and overturned wagons lay wrecked on the road, the body of a half-eaten horse plopped between them. A short, humanoid figure stumbled off the road and into the forest to the north while a wide path of broken trees and huge footprints pointed southward. Following the path with her magical sight, Elazti saw a pair of two-headed giants smashing their way through the forest. One carried a dwarf under each arm while the other carried a dwarf and a horse.

Ambiorix, Indis, Elazti, and Panopé rushed ahead to see if they could find any survivors at the destroyed camp while Xanna and Fil sneaked through the woods to try and gain information on (and possibly an advantage over) the two-headed giants.

Two heads are better than... uh, never mind.

At the camp, the first group found a dwarf woman unconscious and bleeding just off the road. Panopé healed some of her wounds and, once she was conscious, the dwarf identified herself as Arda, part of a group sent from the far-off dwarf realm of Arkencairn to try and reclaim an ancient silver mine.

Meanwhile, Fil and Xanna used their stealth to tail the giants.  That is, until Xanna made an unfortunate misstep, tripping over a snow-buried branch and stumbling, face-first, onto the giants' path.  They immediately noticed her and the closest monster gave chase.  Xanna took of at top speed, simultaneously running and rummaging through her pack.  Just as the two-headed beast was almost on top of her, she found what she'd been looking for: a potion of flying! She downed the pale blue liquid and instantly took to the sky.

Safely out of reach, she began firing crossbow bolts at the giant, shouting "death from above!"

Having heard the commotion, the rest of the party and their rescued dwarf friend rushed to the scene. Before the giant closed in on them, Eazti used her Staff of Power to unleash a fireball at it, which severely burned the beast. The monster only got in a single attack (which mildly injured Elazti) before Ambiorix and Indis closed in and finished it with their magic blades.

The Widow Arda

Fil, seeing no better option, jumped from his hiding place and began taunting the second two-headed giant with his own bizarre, two-headed companion: Herbert the Golden Piglet.  The giant, confused, enraged, and hungry, gave chase.  Like its companion, it stumbled headlong into our band of deadly adventurers.  A lightning bolt from Elzati and some melee attacks from the rest of the party and that giant, too, was soon dispatched.

A quick investigation showed that only one of the dwarves, Delath, had survived. The other two (which included Arda's husband) were laid to rest in the forest.

Delath

Once the funerary rights were conducted, Arda and Delath made an offer to the PCs: help them reclaim the ancestral mine and the party members would be rewarded with a full share each of the future mineral rights.  They agreed to do so after a quick return to Frostwyk for healing, supplies, and a visit with Ambiorix's father and half-siblings...

NEXT TIME: Brothers abroad, a merchant and his strange servants, and the beginning of the Abandoned Silver Mine adventure!