It isn't every day that 2 of your players get married, but today happens to be one of those rare and lucky days. In fact, as this post goes live, the ceremony should be starting...
Congrats Kat and Julia!
I'm so lucky to have you two as both players and friends, and I'm so happy you two found each other.
Now, quick poll for those readers I have... should I give them an in game wedding present?
I wasn't really sure what to do with them next, so I started with the fur, figuring that was easy, and then onto the clothing.
Session 179 was played on 8/31
Morgana, Mage 8 (Reggie)
Lada, Thief (Robby)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh)
Gimble, Mage 3(4) (Scott)
Darryl, Cleric (NPC)
Leaving Lady Eiric’s manor, the party heads directly to the main entrance of Stonehell, and to visit Rocky. After the usual pleasantries, they get to the questions!
Q: What do you know about the fog dragon?
A: More than you
Q: What properties does the cauldron on the hidden level have that makes the Sabrine want it?
A: (it isn’t on the hidden level) The cauldron has seen much death and would make a good necromantic focus.
Q: Where is the cauldron?
A: Taken
From Rocky’s chamber they head down to the lost level. Poking around to fill in the map, they stumble on some hobgoblins, who are quickly cut down. Then more hobgoblins show up, and Gimble sleeps most of them, and the rest are killed. One is interrogated, and they learn that it’s another part of the Hobgoblin Occupational Army, a scouting division looking to find out what happened to the legion that was sent before. The still living hobgoblins were tossed in a closet, and locked in. Maybe they’ll escape, maybe they’ll die in there….
Using Invisibility 10’, the party continues their exploration, hearing some awful singing. Gimble thinks the harpies are making the most beautiful music, but is dragged away.
Next they find a crying room. The spirit of a little girl, long trapped, was comforted and released from the curse holding her. In return, the girl shares the treasures she’s collected, including her doll, but also some gold!
Doing a bit more exploring they lift up a stone slab, and find steps down down down to a cave with lots of giant locusts. Running away, as the bugs start to jump up at them, they lower the slab on the bugs. Deciding they’d had enough for one trip, they start to head out. As they reach the gargoyle room, a troop of shadow dwarves is entering the lost level. The groups keep a wary eye on each other, but allow each other to pass without conflict… or even comment.
Gains: electrum from the hobgoblins, gold and a doll from the ghost
Kills: Hobgoblins
Losses:
Session 178 was played on 8/22
Morgana, Mage 8 (Reggie)
Lada, Thief (Robby)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh)
Gimble, Mage 3(4) (Scott)
Biffin, Fighter 6 (NPC)
Borumar drops another 500gp at the spa to help them fund their operation. People are going to be coming from town to go to this spa… Biffin hangs out at the bar, trying to look inconspicuous.
Meanwhile Morgana and Gimble visit the wizard’s school. Lady Sabine meets with them, they chat about the dungeon, see if there’s anything they should know. She asks 2 favors of them. The first, to drop off a letter with the mage’s guild along with a renewal payment to reactivate her membership. The second, to bring her the ogre’s cast iron cookpot if they should happen upon it. She wants it as a potential focus for necromatic magics.
After collecting Borumar and Biffin, they head back to town, drop off the letter, check to see if there are any ranged magic weapons for sale (there aren’t). They then pack up and head to the Lost Level.
Passing through the Gargoyle Bubble room, they circle around to where the thieves had previously ambushed them. Hearing arguing voices from behind the door, Morgana prepared a sleep spell. Throwing open the door, the party was met with an arrow. Morgana let loose the spell, and they heard several bodies hit the floor. Moving in an angry dwarf tossed an ax at them, and then an invisible woman with a short sword stabbed Morgana. The dwarf and Biffin closed on each other, the dwarf seriously wounding Biffin. Morgana lashed out with her staff, and then her Cockatrice bit the unfortunate backstabber and turned her to stone. The dwarf was then knocked out, and he and the two sleeping humans were tied up.
After healing up a bit, they woke the youngest looking human. Another adventuring party, having bought a copy of their map, decided to see what was to be found, but they lost their copy when their wizard was killed by a ‘fog dragon’ in the abandoned library. Feeling a little bad about having basically wiped their party, Morgana offers to help them get out of the dungeon, and he accepts. They leave Rada the stoned thief behind to hopefully return and return her to flesh.
Back in town, Morgana commissions Boris to make her healing potions. Building a new temple is expensive, and the income is welcome!
Gains: New friends?
Kills: Rada the thief
Losses:
Session 178 was played on 8/15
Morgana, Mage 8 (Reggie)
Lada, Thief (Robby)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh)
Gimble, Mage 3(4) (Scott)
Biffin, Fighter 6 (NPC)
After returning from the Crypt of the Bloody Claw, Lady Morgana spends the next 2 months in recovery from the withering assault at the hands of the vampire, and working on some new scrolls to replace those that had been used up. Gimble spends the time learning new spells from Morgana’s spellbook. Borumar mostly goofs off but does hear that the returned scion didn’t recover as well as the other captive brought home, and the family has mostly pulled out of public view while they try to find a solution.
Finally, they decide to head back to Stonehell itself! On the way, while crossing the causeway through the swamp, they spot nearly a dozen ghouls making their way toward the party. Morgana drops a fireball into the group, and they are no longer an issue.
Down through the main stairs, they make their way over to Kobold Korners, killing a giant ferret on the way. Keeper Nolti looks even worse than before, but is thrilled to see the party. Over drinks, they discuss some of the happenings in the dungeon. Lady Morgana asks about Scintillating Orbs and hidden levels, and Nolti tells her what little he knows.
Borumar hangs out at the spa. Morgana plans a visit to the mage school.
Sadly, the pandemic continues. Thankfully work has decided that we don’t need to go back to the office at all this year. Summer weather has broken, and we’re now well into fall. The air has that crip feeling to it, especially in the mornings. And Pumpkin beers are back in stock!
Gaming
While Nick didn’t get any table time this past month, I did get to take Fulhoff out for a spin playing in a game with my neighbors! https://towerofthearchmage.blogspot.com/2021/09/meeting-neighbors.html
Things in Stonehell are going interestingly. It’s fun seeing one of my old school players take a bit of a story and running with it. Maybe what he heard was right, maybe it wasn’t, but his idea was solid and I’m looking forward to it playing out. We’ll see if their plan actually works out for them. It might work spectacularly. It might fail just as spectacularly.
The new supplement for Stargrave arrived! Quarantine 37, which has both zombies and space bugs to play with. I’m gonna need to get some space bugs. I already have lots of zombies. Not space zombies, but… we’ll see.
Miniatures
I’ve gotten some stuff painted, but very little I’m super happy with. I’m actually taking today off, and while I’m not going to paint another dragon, I think I’m going to spend some time working on a mini that hopefully I’ll feel happier about.
Media
Star Trek DS9
Star Trek Lower Decks
Ted Lasso season 1+2 (first half)
Marvel's “What If…. ?”
Clerks 2
Babylon 5, season 1
Come From Away
Schmigadoon
Goals - keeping it simple this month. Again.
Play at least 1 game of Stargrave
Paint some minis
Play some D&D
Enjoy Halloween!
Session 177 was played on 8/8
Morgana, Mage 7 (Reggie)
Lada, Thief (Robby)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh)
Gimble, Mage (Scott)
Biffin, Fighter 6 (NPC)
Leaving the staked corpse and the empty coffin, the party, loaded down with coin, returns to the room with the gargoyles. As soon as the gate opened, they attacked. Lady Morgana webs them in place, and the party runs for it, up the stairs, through the secret door. Morgana then casts Hold Portal on the secret door, followed by Invisibility 10’ on the whole party. They sneak out of the dungeon with their loot, and back to the barn.
As they settle down to count their look, the illusion on the coins ends, and their 10,000 gold turns out to be 10,000 copper pieces. With that disappointment, they bed down for the night.
At about midnight, Morgana is shocked to find someone grabbing her throat. Her eyes snap open to find a pair of jade green eyes looking hypnotically at her. Morgana’s will was strong, and the charm failed. The beautiful vampire drained Morgana’s strength, hoisting her up like a rag doll. Morgana somehow managed to kick herself free of the vampire’s grip, falling on her staff, which she used to summon a water elemental. The thump and rush of water woke the rest of the party who all scrambled to address the threat.
The elemental slammed the vampire repeatedly. She looked beyond shocked (and soggy) before giving up and turning into mist, fleeing the barn into the dark.
After catching their breath, the party discusses what to do. Biffin wants to chase after the vampire and stake it again. Morgana agrees, since she’s already spent the charge on the staff to summon the elemental. They slowly make their way back to the dungeon entrance, and back down to the fancy coffin.
The gargoyles were waiting, and the battle was on. As they fight, the vampire joins in. Biffin gets horribly mauled by the gargoyles. The elemental and the vampire square off against each other. Biffin downs as many healing potions as he can before going back against the gargoyles that had mostly focused on helping the vampire against the elemental. The elemental damages the vampire badly enough to make it again turn to mist and fly away. The last gargoyle finally slays the summoned creature. Morgana kills the last injured gargoyle with a dagger.
Beyond the gargoyles, the staked creature was still on the floor. Searching again, they find a small opening in the wall behind the coffin. Morgana uses her collapsable 10’ pole to poke the hole. Having no way to shrink themselves or turn to mist, they debate how to get through…
Morgana orders the elemental to start digging.
Hours later the mud was ankle deep out to almost the stairs, but the hole was expanded more than enough for the party to pass through comfortably. In a worked stone chamber little bigger than a walk-in closet was another coffin. Within was the regenerating vampire. Because the elemental had so damaged her, and the sun was now up, she wasn’t able to react before she was staked, doused in more holy water, and beheaded… Without even a last gasp, the vampire turned to dust, leaving only a pair of fangs behind. That, and 15 opals.
After collecting the treasure, destroying the coffin, and scattering the dirt that was in it, they start heading back up. The pair of wraiths they encounter didn’t stand a chance. Near the exit of the dungeon they check one more door and find a set of 3 locked cells. Within each was an unresponsive figure, one of which was the missing scion! After opening the cells, and getting the sickly figures out, they suddenly come alive, and with the same unnaturally large mouths, try to bite the people holding them. One is killed, the other two are tossed into the elemental who holds them till they can be safely knocked out and tied up. The captives are brought briefly back to the village, but the feeling of unwelcome sent them packing back to town.
Gains: 15 opals, reward
Kills: 3 gargoyles, vampire, 2 wraiths
Losses:
