Stonehell: Sepulture Raiders

 Session 242 was played on 2/18/24

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

Heading back north from the stepped pyramid, they check out the side passage to the east. The same glowing blue light from nowhere illuminates the 8 floating oblong smooth sarcophagi. Not finding an easy way to open them, the party leaves them alone after doing a bit of pushing and pulling to see if they’d react. They didn’t.

Heading west they find another tomb with floating sarcophagi,  of them open, and a pair of pillars inscribed with weird symbols. Blotto goes to get a closer look and is attacked by a pair of 8’ tall, 4 armed mummies. Koltic is afraid of them, and keeps back. Morgana launches magic missiles, while Borumar jumps back and shoots one with his bow, killing it. Nick and Lor’Koth take out the other before it can do any damage.

Blotto returns to the pillar, and as best as he can tell, it’s some sort of math or maybe magic. Morgana isn’t too concerned about it at the moment, and they press on, coming to a 4 way intersection. Borumar uses his potion of treasure finding. Feeling the pull and checking their maps… they figure that it’s probably pointing to the Casino treasure vault.

Heading south from the intersection a large 4 armed iron statue that looks rather like the mummies they recently fought attacks, hitting Borumar hard. Borumar stabs it with his daggers, and they get stuck. Morgana blasts it with Magic Missiles, and it falls. Borumar pulls his daggers free.

The passage has a pair of side passages that quickly open up into smaller tombs with 4 sarcophagi each. Continuing to the south they come to a T intersection. To the east is a psychedelic room full of swirling colors and sounds. To the west is a room that looks like it’s sweltering due to the wavy air within, but is actually the same temp as the rest of the Sepulture.

Gains:
Kills:  Kion Mummies, Kion Iron Statue
Losses:

Stonehell: Hail Hydra!

Session 241 was played on 2/4/24

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

The party pauses for a moment to let Koltic heal a little from being set on fire, then continue south. The sad looking doors fall open with a loud crash. A long hallway continues to the south, and is still lit by the weird omnipresent blue light. 2 side passages split off to either side, but the party continues to the south where the hall opens into a large room dominated by a black stepped pyramid flanked by a pair of pillars. Climbing the pillars they see 2 small pillars on the top of the pyramid. They climb up to the top, and see an iris hatch on the top of the pyramid. The 2 small pillars shift when pushed down, causing the pyramid to rumble slightly, and the iris to open and close. Within the pyramid the party can see movement.

A hydra begins to emerge from the hole! Morgana quickly drops an ice storm inside the pyramid, and the rest of the party attack it, killing it as the lift shoves the now still corpse of the undead hydra onto the top of the pyramid. Trophies are collected, and the interior is searched, revealing a tidy treasure.

Gains: pile of coins, weird alien jewelry
Kills: diedra
Losses:

Stonehell: Eye Saw That!

Session 240 was played on 1/28/24

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

The dusty halls of the Sepulchure of Kion are lit with a soft blue light with no discernable source. A wide hallway extended south, and side passages extended to either side and ended in a pair of double doors blocking passage to the south. Ahead of them was a large pillar that reached to the ceiling, and was covered in regular scooped out circular depressions, with a smaller hole in the middle. 3 of the holes had 1’ diameter eyeballs looking out apparently sightlessly. Morgana cast invisibility on Borumar and he snuck around the pillar, and checked out the rest of the chamber. He returns to Morgana and suggests poking one with his 10’ pole. Morgana decides to fireball the pillar instead. Once the blast, flames, and smoke clear, the pillar is blackened, and the 3 eyeballs have popped.

The party continues south to the once impressive double doors, but time has been cruel to their oxidized surface. While looking at the doors, the party misses a silent eyeball floating into the chamber from one of the side passages. It blasted Koltic with a red beam that set him on fire! Moragana hits it with Magic Missiles while Blotto strikes it with his fishing polearm, causing it to pop. The 3 amigos put Koltic out.

Gains:
Kills: 4 Floating Eyes
Losses:

Stonehell: Where's the Sepulchure of Kion?

Session 239 (part 2) was played on 12/31/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

After resting and checking the Hermitages archives for any info on the Sepulchure of Kion, the party heads out to find the Scintillating Orb. They take a wrong turn and end up poling around the lost rooms, and get surprised by a Black Pudding that manages to hit Aroon and Koltic. Morgana zaps it with some Magic Missiles, which does nothing but split it in 2. The party runs, not sure what to do with it. Borumar chucks some flaming oil at the closest one.

Continuing to explore around the lost rooms they return to the giant stone hemisphere. Morgana tries on the ring and touches it, but that has no effect. They spend some time investigating the stone hemisphere, and eventually discover that it isn’t attached to the floor, and with enough force, can be moved. Even better, there was a stash of treasure, including some magic leather armor and a shield!

They take the treasure back to the Hermitage, and then get better directions, pay the minotaurs toll for passing through their territory, and enter the Sepulchure of Kion!

Gains: bunch of coin and gems, leather +2, shield +2
Kills:
Losses: 300gp to the minotaurs

Stonehell: Finding the Ring, but how to use it?

Session 239 was played on 12/31/23

Morgana, Magic User (Rob)
Borumar, ½ Orc Thief (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter (Lanse)
Koltic, Cleric 7 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 5 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)
Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

Continuing to explore the upper caves around the box canyon, the party explores some dusty and long abandoned rooms. Borumar finds a secret door, one that apparently hadn’t been opened in a long time based on the dust and stiffness of the door. Thankfully Borumar’s orcish strength allowed him to open the door, revealing a dusty chamber with a large stone table. They immediately search the room, focusing on the table legs, and knowing generally what to look for, find the secret compartment, and the promised ring!

They immediately depart the canyon, and head for the manor. On the causeway over the swamp a swarm of giant bees attacks! Morgana sounds the horn of Valhalla and the vikings are set against the bees, and then sent into the swamp to find and destroy the nest. They do, returning with some honeycomb full of honey and eggs.

Once back at the manor, Morgana researches the ring, finding only that it’s called The Ring of the Scintillating Orb, and that it somehow will teleport the wearer and anyone touching them into Stonehell, but no info on where into Stonehell it goes to, or how to activate it.

To Rocky! They stumble on a group of fire beetles. Morgana sleeps them and the glow glands are harvested. Rocky is given some granite with fools gold flecks, and answers their questions.

Q1 How to get the ring to work?
A1 Find the scintillating orb and bind it to the ring
Q2 Where is the orb?
A2 In the Sepulchure of Kion
Q3 What level is the Sepulchure on?
A3 Near the top of the Majusek Sulcus

Departing Rocky, they take the teleporter in the Quiet Halls down to the trade corridor and around to the Hermitage to plan their next steps

Gains: honey, giant bee eggs, Ring of the Scintillating Orb
Kills: Giant bees, Fire Beetles
Losses:

Star Trek Prodigy season 2

The current batch of Star Trek shows have their ups and downs, like all Star Trek shows. Prodigy, the animated show for kids, made in conjunction with Nickelodeon, may be the best of the batch. And yes, you should ignore that it's a "kids" show. This is QUALITY Trek!

 

It's beautiful

It's 20 episodes per season 

It is accessible for non-Trek fans, but has tons of nods and callbacks to prior shows, and ties into the current shows

Season 2 just came out on Netflix at the beginning of the month.

It took me a little more than a week to binge my way through it, and I'm ready to rewatch it all again. If you haven't already, you should go watch it now! If you've seen it, you know how good it is. 

June ‘24 In Review

What a busy month! 2 weekend trips into the city, a work retreat and vacation in Maine, and all the usual stuff that goes on in a given month. No major work on the house, but we did get fiber internet installed and got a quote for solar panels now that we have a new roof. Oh, and this last weekend of the month was dog sitting a neighbor's dog. I’ll be doing more of that next month too. It’s nice to have a dog in the house again.

Gaming
We played more of the Rappan Athuk campaign, still deep in the blue god’s cliffside/sea cave temple, but that’s now on pause for a few weeks as the DM is on vacation, and it doesn’t make sense to switch back to Stonehell. In its place we’re going to play a few sessions of Mothership!

I also got to run a couple nights of D&D at the work retreat. The party made a foray into the orc caves in the Caves of Chaos, and then decided to go after the dragon living in the old ruined watchtower (actually a wyvern). Session reports for that next week.

Miniatures
Not a super productive month given the big vacation in the middle of it, but I still managed to get a few things done, and I’ve got more in progress.

Currently on my desk are some Frostgrave troops, and a trio of Stargrave characters, and I'm thinking that I want to paint a few GW Bretonnians.. we'll see.

Media
Resident Alien
Letterkenny
Star Wars Acolyte
Star Trek (2009)

Goals for July
Play scenario 3 for Hope Eternal
Try to get at least 2 session reports written per week.