Rappan: Rocks and Ooze

 Session 324 was played on 3/22/26

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

Exploring the area around the tombs, but away from the spider queen, the party found some charcoal drawings and then a passage leading up… hundreds of feet up, at about a 35 degree angle. With few places left to look outside the webbed sections, the party headed up…  eventually the path leveled out and opened up into a circular cave with a large funnel in the middle of the floor sloping down 30’ to a roughly 10’ hole. Morgana used her wizard eye circlet to look below. 

Down the hole was another rough passage that soon opened up into a massive dark chamber with a very rough rocky floor covered in sharp scree. With nowhere else to go, the party used ropes to get down the funnel and into the large cavern. Moving across the scree was time consuming… but not completely fruitless. A long dead body bearing a signet ring of a notable family from Bardsgate. 

Exploring several of the tunnels out of the large cavern first found some dead ends, but then one that opened up into a second large cavern, this one with less loose rocks, and a still pond in the middle. Blotto excitedly casts a line into the water… except that the line didn’t go into the water, but landed with a plop onto it. A giant ooze! It whipped a psudopod at Blotto, smacking him hard, and the chill feeling that seemed to sap his strength was unlike any ooze he’d ever had the displeasure of encountering, while being more like the attack of a powerful undead!

Koltic held up the thick glass of the bottom of a beer mug and cried out to his god, and the lady of drunken vision answered, dramatically, as the entire lake ooze crumbled to ash

July ‘26 In Review

Starting the month with 100 degree days certainly is a miserable way to kick things off. On the upside, the Dungeon Dwellers RPG kickstarter arrived. Nice big box of new minis to paint and rules to read! Did I actually do any of that? A little. I started reading the campaign guide. I decided to delve into the Painted Wastelands Empire of Bones first, since that arrived last month. As for the minis? Well, they ended up getting checked and then repacked and added to my pile of potential. 

July 4th brought the usual fireworks around the neighborhood. It was otherwise a rather uneventful month. I planted some pumpkin seeds and I’ve got 3 plants that were coming along well. I hope I can get a few pumpkins from them.  2 are still going strong, bur one got damanged on the main stem and it looks like I'm going to lose the whole plant. 

Miniatures
I finished building the main body of the cardboard transport ship, and then paused. I’m trying to decide if I should build the roof of it or get to painting? I’m still unsure, but at this point leaning toward making the roof. 

But it was the middle of the month before I seriously got around to doing much painting, but once I did, I plowed through a trio of Noble Armada ships, a pirate, and a whole cartload of orcs (mostly done)! I experimented a bit with painting the orcs without priming. The paint takes to the 3d printed minis just fine, but color matching against the orcs I’d already painted was a pain, and I ended up going back and using brown liner on the rest. 



Gaming
Summer doldrums, and no work games. I’m really looking forward to getting back to Dolmenwood. 

We wrapped up the beetleknight game, and are back to Stonehell. The party is looking for a way to destroy the Gloom Crown, and think they might have the answer. Of course along the way they stumbled upon some dwarves and kobolds fighting over some cursed silver… 


Media 
Resident Alien season 4
DS9 season 6 rewatch
Letterkenny

Books
Second Suns
Broken Stars
Storm & Quill

Loot
Dungeon Dwellers RPG
4 Alternity books (my collection is almost complete)


Goals for August
Finish the cardboard transport ship

Rappan: Slip N' Slide

Session 323 part 3 was played on 3/15/26

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

“Don’t go down the well!” was the advice heard multiple times around Rappan… It was finally time to ignore that advice and see what was actually down there. About 100’ down the party splashed into about 2’ of water in a rough cave with passages heading out to the north and south. Both were on the tight side, and twisty. Heading north they begin to explore, but reach a slippery section and and up sliding deeper than planned, landing with another splash in a split stream that circled a small island in the cave. A trio of ancient trolls, GurKrang, Wersuch, and Zulbey talk to the party. They’re too old to bother with the “grr-arg” and unnecessary fighting. Adventurers are an unpleasant bunch and it’s easier to talk with them. 

Feeling a little lost, the party agrees to chat, and gets the lay of the land in the area, including some weird burial mounds, and a spell casting giant spider queen. To the best of the knowledge of the trolls, the tombs are untouched… the party give the trolls a gold nugget, and heads off for the tombs, doing their best to avoid the spider queen. 

The first tomb is a secured by a stuck door, and beyond is a single room, with a sarcophagus upon which is carved a face that looks remarkably like the one of the wizard specter in the Temple of Orcus! The name Narosh is inscribed upon it. Morgana smashes the effigy, and the party loots 3 scrolls and some jewelry from inside. They then burn what’s left of the body. 

Onward to the second tomb, it turns out to be much more elaborate! An entire stepped pyramid! Morgana attempts “Knock” on the magically sealed tomb, but the spell fails. She uses Passwall to create an opening into the tomb, but immediately releases a lightning fast creature, barely knee high, that looks like a semi-transparent brain on 4 legs! Even the mighty magical weapons of the party seem to barely hurt the creature, and it takes a frustratingly long time to kill the thing before it can… do whatever it was trying and failing to do. Within the tomb was the treasure horde of a king! Gold, gems, jewelry and a magical cloak of eyes!

Rappan: The Temple of Orcus

Session 323 part 2 was played on 3/15/26

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

Continuing on, the party comes to a barracks chamber, with 6 beds and chests. One of them has a lightning trap, but Borumar takes care of that. Morgana checks and finds all the chest glow with magic, as does the doorway out of the barracks, which is trapped with a glyph of warding, as well as a scythe trap! Nothing good can be beyond it, so Koltic casts Protection from Evil and Bless on the party. 

Beyond the warded trapped door is a hellscape. A 7 pointed star shaped room with a double set of stairs leading up to a platform in the center of the room suspended over a boiling pit of lava. A statue of Orcus dominates the far wall. A small army of orc and human warriors and priests stand between the party and the stairs, in addition to the high priest up on the platform, and several figures shrouded in darkness. 

Morgana wastes no time and drops a fireball in the middle of the mob, dropping most of them. The warriors charge in, spreading out to avoid any retaliatory fireballs or lightning bolts. It doesn’t prevent a nasty teleport effect that grabs Morgana, Koltic, and Borumar and brings them to the underside of the platform, right above the semi-solid lava. Thanks to some magic tokens, they avoid falling into the lava, with Morgana activating her fly spell. The meatsticks hack the remaining fleshy opponents down. The shadowy figures charge in… Demons! Aroon takes the brunt of the charge, but his fancy swordwork keeps their claws from rending him to bits. Morgana blasts the figure on the platform with lightning, but he shrugs it off. 

The high priest then teleports Nick, Lorkoth, and Jameth into the air above the lava. Morgana zips over to knock the trio to the edge of the lava, saving them from a burning hot death. Koltic uses Finger of Death on the figure on the platform, and that he couldn’t shrug off. 

Pausing for a moment, they almost missed the spectres that flew out of the wall and tried to get the party. Koltic turned one, and the others were injured before fleeing into the rock wall. 

Gathering the loot from the room, and tossing the remaining bodies in the lava they find a secret door leading into a small crypt with 4 coffins, and the stairs down to level 5. 

Finishing off the spectres, they loot the coffins, and teleport home. 

With the threat of the Temple of Orcus taken care of, Morgana spends some time in her workshop, creating Tokens of Feather Fall for everyone.Borumar has Koltic make 2 sets of gauntlets of grease, one for himself, and the other for Blotto. While all this is going on, the Meatsticks took the B team and cleaned out the remaining undead from The Mouth Of Doom. 

Rappan: What's in the bags?!?

 Session 323 part 1 was played on 3/15/26

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

The 10’ down (to the next level?) was not far physically, but the sense of dread that pervaded the hallway at the bottom of the ladder was heavy enough to crush a lesser party. The hallway continued before coming to a stair, leading to another hall, a room full of junk, a portcullis and black ooze trap (fireball and oil took care of that), the smell of old body odor, a room full of mud with bubbles stinking of farts. Finding no other path, the party carefully crosses the mud to a crevice in the wall. 

Beyond the crack the party discovered 8 ogres. They failed to land a blow upon the party due in large part to their recently discovered ability to deflect hits! Each of the ogres had a bag, and they had the following within:

1. 3 dead giant rats, a wheel of cheese, 140gp, 3 flasks of oil, large shiny rock
2. Body of an elf with elven chain and sword, 200gp, 6 silver tipped arrows
3. Pot of grease, only kinda sealed
4. 2’ square silver mirror, ring, 30gp, “The wanderings of Helman Hairfoot”
5. Ivory scrollcase w/ 10gp and a map, silver helm, 44gp
6. Body of a wizard, silver dagger, 4 rocks, chewed up spellbook, 60gp
7. Body of a halfling, 3 vials of holy water, 12 xbox bolts, 120gp
8. Cloak, earring, 6 iron spikes, 10 fresh oranges

The bodies were all at least a week old, if not more… where did they get fresh oranges??

Using speak with the dead, they chat with the elf, and decide to bring the elf, halfling, and wizard back to life. Morgana teleports everyone back home and Koltic gets to raising the dead. This took a couple of days, and everyone would be bedridden for a couple of weeks. The wizard was talkative, the elf ready to return home, and the halfling decided to hang out and serve as scribe for the party. Of course they all needed weeks of time resting, so the party teleported back to the dungeon once they were all safely tucked in bed with a host of kobolds at hand to help take care of them.

Upon teleporting back, it turned out the smell of the ogre’s chamber had not improved, and their bodies were crawling with vermin. 

The party pressed on…

Trash Bash Killa Kan

 Do I play 40K? 

 Not anymore

Do I have space orc minis? 

Nope

Is there a single reason I should be working on a Killa Kan for a game I don't play, to go with minis I don't have? 

Yes, Gork and/or Mork inspired me. 

 

And with that, I grabbed an old GW paint pot, and my boxes of trash crafting supplies, and got to work.

I sawed off the threads of the lid, and cut out a cardboard disk to close up the hole. 

Then I used more cardboard, the clasp of a zip tie, and some tubing to make the face. Nothing was measured beyond holding it up and seeing if it looked good. 

Next I had to decide how I wanted to make the legs. I started with a 2" base, and dug through my bits. For one foot I used the inside of a cheap toy car (the interior bit that makes up the windows) that I found on the ground at the playground parking lot, and for the other, a random bit of plastic that was used to secure a toy to a box. Add in some tubing, and you've got some legs!

 

At least the lower half of them. Then it was time for MOAR BITS! and attaching the body to the legs. This did involve some pinning, super glue and hot glue. 

Arms! We need some arms for this bad boy... One side was going to be a shoota of some sort, the other a claw. 

The claw was probably the most work of the whole build. I had to double up the thickness of the card I was using to make it, and figuring out how to make it look like it could actually move involved a lot of looking at reference pics of both miniatures and actual robotic arms. 

As for the gun, it is mostly the corner protector piece from.... something. It was plastic and boxy, and had several holes in it. The shoota barrel is the tip of a marker. The only actual piece from a miniature is the red bit on top from a Reaper Miniature CAV mini. 

What makes an orky vehicle really orky? Rivets! I ordered these flat bottom beads from amazon, and got to gluing... 

Then it was Prime Time! 

This was followed by craft smart "metallic brown" then the real painting began!  It's sloppy, and I sarted it with paint markers, but overall I'm pleased with how it came out. 

I might go back and clean up a few details, but this is good enough to post, and more than good enough to put on the table, if I had any reason to. 

Rappan: Back to the dungeon

Session 322 part 3 was played on 3/14/26

Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)
Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)
Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)
Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)
Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)
Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)

A week after the dwarves departed, the party gears up and heads off to the mausoleum. With no gargoyles in sight, the party heads in and down, encountering a pair of black skeletons. Most of the party falls under their fear effect, and runs. After regrouping they try again, and take them down. Down on level 2 they head to the ghoul and ghast tunnels, and stick Koltic up toward the front, and he destroys them with waves of his hand, while the meatsticks keep him safe. The party then loots their lair, collecting a decent selection of treasure, including some very fancy dwarven plate mail. If only the local dwarves weren’t such dicks. 

Descending to level 3 they encounter some orcs who warn the party to “Go Back!” Needless to say, the party did not go back, but they did collect $200 their treasure. Pushing on, the party reaches the doorway to the Orcus temple complex. The dwarves want the party to take care of it, and they will…. Exploring around some of the rooms only briefly explored, the party finds a trap door in the floor, with a ladder leading down… a mere 10’. 

“Okay, who’s first?”

---

Once again, we were playing together in person, and our game session ran very late the first night, hence why I split this up into 3 parts. Expect the same for the next couple of posts.