Rappan Athuk: Horn of Flies

Session was played on 7/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)

Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh) & Fido

Joho, Monk 7 (Chris)

Morgana, Magic User 8 (Rob)

Karl, Dwarf 8 (Julia)

Koltic, Cleric 6 (NPC)

Nick stomps his way dripping swamp water back to the party. THey find a door that the key ring doesn’t have a matching key for. Joho tries knocking, and gets attacked by the invisible thing. Nick manages to stab it and it attacks Joho again before running away. Morgana ‘Knocks’ the door open, and tosses in a lightning bolt at the invisible monsters, then follows it up with a magic missile. Nick gets critted, and Koltic provides some much needed healing. 

Morgana attempts to dimension lock one, and Nick gets hit again, dropping. Joho, in a feat of martial prowess, finishes off both invisible monsters. Beyond the 2 dead invisible things is a chest in a warding circle. Morgana investigates the circle, Koltic and Borumar check the rest of the room, finding a small chest full of silver shavings. The party attempts to take the chest from the circle (successfully) and through the door (unsuccessfully). Morgana uses a knock scroll to open the chest revealing an ugly pitted horn covered in flies. Joho, touching the horn, has his lips turn black. 

Departing the upper cloister, they return the horn to Bill the Cultist, who gives it to the abbot, who blows it, summoning a swarm of flies that is promptly eaten by the frogs on the columns. 

Given a room to rest, the party beds down for the night to recover. For an hour and a half, at midnight, a procession of ghosts move along one of the walls of the room. The ghosts becoming more substantial as the procession moves on. The next morning the party heads back to town.

Gains: 

Kills: Invisible Stalkers

Losses: 

#Dungeon23 #DoomGate #TheSilos April Overview

After the 4 map January, and the 4 map February and March, having only 2 maps for April feels a little weird. It shouldn't, since both February and March were basically 2 maps each, but because they were part of a single complex, and April is all by its lonesome, it feels different. 

This section is the local ICBM launch site that's connected to the larger complex. 2 of the 3 missiles are gone, but one remains, and remains active. 

There are no intelligent inhabitants of the upper level of the Silos, but it isn't without its dangers. A demonic hydra and several packs of hellhounds roam these halls. 

The lower level has more demonic threats, as a small family of bugbears that found the open silos and climbed down to check them out. They didn't expect some of the demonic energy to influence them in weird and amourous ways. 

#6MMPC 2023 Early June Check In

May finished successfully. And in spite having visited 2 different gaming stores, I didn't buy a single mini. Go me! Of course I'm saving up everything for ReaperCon, so I don't really want to waste a joker on something before then. 

In May I managed to paint up 4 mutants, 2 cultists, an Oni, and a balustrade. I'm exceptionally pleased with the Oni. 

He isn't perfect, and the base still needs work, but he was a lot of fun. 

The cultists were a pain, as I had custom mixed the yellow I'd used on the cultists I painted last year and I DIDN'T WRITE IT DOWN. Must do better about that...

Coming up for the next month I've got a pair of spiders (done) and a whole bunch of mushroom folk (in progress). 

May ‘23 In Review

It was an exceptionally busy month at work, and a bit on the home-front too. We installed a new heat pump system, so at least we’ll have AC this year. An improvement over last year, though thankfully last summer was very mild. 

I got the bookshelves all built, and all my books unboxed and up onto the shelves. They aren’t really organized yet. At some point I’m going to need to take a little time to do that. 

I also, after much dithering about will I or won't I, attended Trek Long Island and had a blast. I'm already planning on picking up a uniform to wear for next year.

Gaming
My players are back in Stonehell! They faced Song, and came out ahead, twice! Then, when trying to figure out how to get down to level 6 without paying off the Vrilya, they decided to head back to the Lost Level, which I haven’t looked at in… a couple years? Players, always throwing curve balls!

My #Dungeon23 is coming along nicely, but I really need to work on filling in the notes sections for each level. They’ll help tell the story more than just the sparse room descriptions.

Miniatures
Decently productive month. I’m a bit behind as far as the minis I wanted to get done this quarter, but I can catch up…. I think…



I’m really pleased with the green mutant, and annoyed with the yellow on the cultists. I custom mixed the color I used for the last batch, and couldn’t quite match it.

Media
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Star Trek Discovery season 2 rewatch
Letterkenny

Goals for June
Continue #Dungeon23
Keep up with the session reports
Play the next scenario for Stargrave
Survive the in-laws visit

Rappan Athuk: Tossed off the cloister wall

Session was played on 7/10

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh) & Fido
Joho, Monk 7 (Chris)
Koltic, Cleric 6 (NPC)

Nick, still feeling drained from an undead encounter months before, uses a wish he’d been holding onto for years for ogre strength (18!).

Hoping Drucilla has some useful leads for them, they set off to find her. While wandering around they are stopped by a talking wolf who promises to relay their request for an audience. Turning north, they head for the cloister, talk to bill, get a map of the inner cloister, and head over to begin their investigation.

They move slowly and carefully, keeping to the walls to limit the avenues of attack. Investigating the tower to the northwest, they find a flour mill that has most recently been used to grind bones. Borumar digs through the hopper and finds 10gp. From there they head south to the walled garden. The plants animate when the party enters, so they pull back and toss in a bunch of oil, and light it up. While it burns they check out the North East tower, which had been the site of a fire. Nick gets konked by some falling stones while poking about inside.

South of that tower is a corner with some bushes, and after ensuring they aren’t going to attack, they find a torn apart body with a key ring with several keys on it. Back to the garden, they poke about the torched and still smoking remains, and find a little change in the fountain. Heading into the main building using the keys to unlock the doors, they find themselves in the kitchen & pantry. There they find a wrapped parcel with 3 potions and a note that the “cross was secured in the observatory with the unblessed skin.”

A ladder in the kitchen area went up, so Nick checked it out. Opening the hatch above, Nick gets a dresser thrown at him. Nick tries to hit whatever it was that attacked him, but hits nothing. Nick comes back down, and Morgana casts Detect Invisible, but sees nothing, even going back out to the courtyard.

Further exploration find several more bodies, and up on the 2nd floor, Nick steps out to a balcony/lookout wall, and gets tossed off of it by an invisible attacker. Luckily he’s tossed out on the swamp side, and while it hurts, there’s no permanent injury.


Gains: keys, note, potions
Kills:
Losses: Nick’s Dignity

#Dungeon23 #Doomgate #TheGarrison February & March Overview

Like The Core, I did the maps for The Garrison out of order. This wasn't an intentional choice exactly, just sort of the way it worked out as I was going. The Garrison is closer to the DoomGate and so shows more effects, and has a different population, although, as with The Core, the AI system is still active and attempting to keep things running as it was programmed to do. While working on this section I hit on the idea that in each facility there's a problem the AI needs fixed, and if the players help the AI, things will be a little easier for them in the next section, and if they don't things should be as I write them. If they actively piss off the AI, it will make their lives harder. 

Below are the levels in order, top to bottom, but not in the order I made them. 

The upper level of the Garrison has 2 exits onto the surface (imagined as a mountainous area) that has a troop of Hobgoblins that have recently moved in and started to make themselves at home (middle left side) a flooded area with various degenerate mutant creatures and natural hazards, and up top the lair of a young red dragon.   

The second level's largest feature is the zombie infested cryo lab and med bay. More otherworldly creatures lurk in this area.  

A small clan of Dark Dwarves have made there home here and the bottom level. The main computer core is here, and the dwarves have taken an important component. 

The final level of The Garrison has some warped architecture and weird effects resulting in part from a device taken from The Ark (October's section). I still need to ink this level.

Rappan Athuk: Frog God Cloister Basement

Session was played on 7/4

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh)
Joho, Monk 7 (Chris)
Koltic, Cleric 6 (NPC)
Gimble, Fighter (NPC)
Mog & Gorf (Meatshields)

Heading toward the stairs the party is attacked by a wererat who tears apart Gorf with a glowing dagger, and then drops Mog before it’s cut down. Mog is healed.

Down the stairs, into a cool damp, moldy room with stacks of ancient wine barrels, and a long thing box. Joho takes the box. Back up the stairs to the next staircase down. At the bottom were 4 sets of rusty armor with a lantern with a magical flame lighting the room. As soon as the lantern was touched the room went dark.

Standing in the dark, 4 cultists with mops and brooms appear at the top of the stairs and call down. They invite us up to the temple to chat with the head of the order and get official permission to clean out the old dungeon areas. The party took them up on the offer, and they trooped up, chatting with Bill the Cultist along the way.

In the outer cloister the party mets with Abbot Grosso, get permission to delve the dungeons, and even the old inner cloister that has been taken over by invisible spirits. And should the party find the horn of flies, a mighty reward was offered. The party decides to head back to Nick’s castle and plan their next moves. Mog is cured of his lycanthropy, and decides that this life isn’t for him.


Gains: magic dagger,
Kills: wererat
Losses: Gorf