Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Stonehell: Taking Chances

 Session 165 was played on 8/30

Boris, Cleric 9 (Jeff)
Joho, Mystic 6 (Chris)
Ool, Mystic 3 (NPC)
Morgana, Mage 7 (Reggie)
Borumar, Thief 8 (Josh)

In the trade hall, the party encounters a wide variety of colorful characters, and groups more powerful than tend to show up in the Korners. Borumar ends up befriending Bashuk the Crimson, leader of a troop of orcs. She’d never seen a half orc so handsome, and was taken with him immediately. She was also on her way to the casino, and so the 2 groups traveled together. On the way, a group of 2 dozen kobolds were heading from the casino. One of them was excessively drunk and friendly, and insisted on hugging *everyone* before he could be convinced to continue on his way.

Once at the casino, the priests of chance collected everyone’s weapons, informed them of the rules, and traded cash for chips. Games were played, drinks consumed, karaoke sung. Karl and the silent albino he met at the bar signed up for “I will always love you” 

 

Everyone is moved to tears.

Boris and Morgana meet with the head of the casino, Fortunate Dram, and they discuss the casino, the chasm, healing/restorative magics, and make an offering to the gods of chance. Boris’ silver hammer gains a magical enchantment, and Morgana’s staff gains the power to detect evil. 

Morgana also spends time with the casino’s security wizard, and finds out that he’d been duped by his lover, a woman named Devona. She’d tricked him, turned him into a frog, and stolen one of his spellbooks. The wizard asked Morgana to get it back for him, and he’d reward her with new spells.

Gains: Winnings in the casino, enchanted weapons
Kills:  
Losses: Losses in the casino

Monday, March 29, 2021

Stonehell: Looking for Answers

 Session 164 was played on 8/23

Boris, Cleric 9 (Jeff)
Joho, Mystic 6 (Chris)
Ool, Mystic 3 (NPC)
Morgana, Mage 7 (Reggie)
Borumar, Thief 8 (Josh)

A messenger arrives for the party. Esmalia wants to meet with them. The party is suspicious, but agrees.

Heading into the dungeon, they go directly for Rocky, rather than the meeting with Esmalia. After their usual chat and catchup, they get to the questions
Q1 What’s the most valuable treasure on the 5th level?
A1 The Hammer of Laghrin

Q2 What’s the most dangerous thing in the 5th level?
A2 Song of Night’s Screams

Q3 What does Esmalia really want?
A3 The head of Gamlegor Olga

They thank Rocky, and head down to the 4th level, turning a wraith that dared poke it’s head out. Down to the Neutral Grounds, they find a troop of kobolds talking to a couple of ogres. The ogres want beer from the Korners, the Kobolds want Nolti and the fairies gone. The party agrees to check in on Nolti to see what’s up, and try to arrange for some beer to be brought to the ogres. The kobolds and ogres depart, and the party waits for Esmalia… And waits… and waits…

Getting bored, they head down a level, coming to the Hydra pit of the Vrilya. The hydra keeper demands either gold, or battling the hydras to pass. They decide to pay the exorbitant 100gp each to pass. They head to the north, get blown over by a wind obelisk, and then interrupt a meeting between some Vrilya and some humanoid tigers. Moving on, they get directions to the elevator down to the main trade hall. Right off of the elevator, they come to a stall selling some Vrilyan blades. Borumar buys as many as he can.

Gains:
Kills:  
Losses:

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Reaper's Squarg

 The Squarg is an angry, violent, hungry but dumb beast. I decided to paint it up for the Reaper Challenge League Limited Palette category. This month's colors were Green, Purple, and Gold. 

And yes, you can see some of the other minis I'll be working on. 


After giving it a wash and scrub with warm soapy water, and taking care of a bit of flashing on the side, I started with Blue Liner all over the whole mini. 


Since I was limited in paints, I did a bit of blending and mixing to get some additional shades. I also decided that while I was painting him, he needed more than just green skin. I added some spots of both light green and purple.

Painting the eyes I started with the purple, but then kept lightening it so that it wouldn't just all look black. The teeth have a touch of purple mixed in so that it wouldn't look too clean. I don't think the Squarg has a dentist. 

It was then I realized I hadn't used any gold yet. Problem? Nope. Opportunity!

I decided that the Squarg does in fact have a dentist, and I gave him a gold tooth. 

For the base, I thought about cutting him off of the integrated base so that I could glue it to a textured base, but settled on some sand. 





Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Stonehell: Dinner with the Ghouls

 Session 163 was played on 8/16

Boris, Cleric 9 (Jeff)
Joho, Mystic 6 (Chris)
Ool, Mystic 3 (NPC)
Morgana, Mage 7 (Reggie)

Back at Lady Eiric’s estate, Boris decides to interrogate the (dead) dragon. It’s discovered that the dragon wasn’t always a dragon, and was, until recently, a large croc that lived in the swamp… no giant unprotected pile of treasure to be had.

Gathering the clothing ordered for the Ghouls, the small group heads down for dinner. Conversation is enlightening, including learning more about Song, the black dragon that lives in the dungeon, as well as various other tidbits about the dungeon. Unfortunately they don’t know much about the tombs of the dead that might heal the ability damage that various members of the party have suffered.

After dinner, the party makes its way back up to Rocky, and asks him about the tombs, their protections, and treasures to be found within them.

Rocky confirms that the tombs do have restorative magics, that the tombs themselves are unguarded, and that they contain the power to change the world.

Returning to the surface, they mull over the info they’ve collected.

Gains:
Kills:  
Losses:

Monday, March 22, 2021

Stonehell: Dinner Invitation

 Session 162 was played on 8/9

Boris, Cleric 9 (Jeff)
Joho, Mystic 6 (Chris)
Ool, Mystic 3 (NPC)
Morgana, Mage 7 (Reggie)
Borumar, Thief 8 (Josh)

Returning to the dungeon, and heading down to the Ghouls, the party pauses briefly in the Hobgoblin redoubt to squash an ooze that attacked them. Down in level 4, they head back to where the hellhounds had laired. The firepit was still burning. Exploring around they went up a flight of stairs to what looked like the Ghoul’s back door. Rather than being rude, they circled around back to the front door, and with some slight hesitation, knocked.

The Ghouls answered, happily surprised to see the party, and invited them in. They were offered seats in the sitting room and drinks. They chatted with the party, and apologised that they wouldn’t be allowed to join them for dinner as they were not properly dressed. Discussion veered to clothing, and the threadbare and out of date nature of the Ghouls’ wardrobes. The Ghouls offered to pay the party if they would return with new fashionable clothing for them to wear, including hats. Knowing that it would take weeks, the party planned a 6 week delivery time and dinner reservation.

Taking some cash, the party heads to town, and places their orders. Boris begins to train with a grand master for throwing hammer, and the Karl’s hat shop going into high production.

During a break, the party gears up to make another delve, and heads to the dungeon… but they don’t make it. While passing along the raised walkway through the southern end of the swamp they hear a roar, and from out of the water a black dragon emerges! The party wasn’t surprised, and they had just a tiny bit of space before the dragon would be on them. Boris cast bless, Borumar crits with his force bow, Morgana casts lightning bolt, Joho hits with a dart, and Ool chucks a spear that goes right into the dragon’s open mouth as it was about to spray them down with acid. The dragon went crashing down in front of the party, dead.

With their hearts still pounding, they cheer and laugh, then get to the business of getting the dragon’s body back to the estate. Thankfully Borumar has his elephant statue, so they didn’t have to wait to get a big cart. Back at the estate, they have the dragon skinned and butched.

Gains:  Dinner reservation, black dragon body
Kills:  Black Dragon, ooze
Losses:

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Rappan Athuk: Mouth of Doom: Bees, Wolves, Slimes, & Snakes

 Session played on 3/14

Nick the Pike, Fighter 6 (Me)
Darryl, Cleric (NPC)
Biffin, Fighter (NPC)
Ulmo, Halfling (NPC)
Cassandra, Sellsword
Cory, Sellsword

Wanting to continue to explore the Mouth of Doom, but finding that both Borumar and Karl were off doing… something, Nick rounds up who he could and heads out. Shortly after leaving the village, the party hears a loud buzzing coming from the tree line, and then giant bees are spotted flying straight for them! Panic sets in and most of the party is swinging wildly and ineffectively for what feels like hours, but was in total around a minute. The bees on the other hand were deft with their stingers and managed to pierce even the thickest armor the party had.

Eventually… the bees were killed, and the party collapsed in exhaustion and embarrassment at how badly they’d panicked. Tending to their wounds, they collectively agreed that the bee’s poisoned stingers had done enough damage for one day, and the party returned to the village to recuperate.

2 Days Later they set out again.

Once again, before reaching the dungeon, they were attacked by wild animals, this time a pack of wolves led by a warg. Nick directed the archers to focus fire on the warg, while having Darryl and Biffin ready vials of flaming oil. Several arrows hit the warg, and it dropped back to the rear of the pack. The flaming oil hit 2 of the wolves, causing them to howl in pain, and Nick killed one with his ax just as it reached the party. The pack quickly decided that this wasn’t a fight worth having, and ran off.

Reaching the Mouth of Doom without any other encounters, the party headed in, and immediately began exploring the southern section. As they open the door to that section, a mouth forms on the door and exclaims “

The party takes a deep breath, and pushes on. Beyond the magic mouth is a corridor with several doors. Taking the nearest, they find a room lined with battlefield tapestries. Upon them are scenes of human archers battling against ogres and horned robed figures with skull headed maces. “Orcus cultists” Darryl informs the rest of the party. “Total buzz kills…”

Beyond the tapestry room is an irregularly shaped room that hides a pit trap. Ulmo finds the pit trap, with his feet, and falls in, landing badly. Darryl quickly grabs a rope and drops in after him, using his healing magics to save the halfling. There’s another body, long dead, with some adventuring gear, some gold, and some fancy boots. The boots are tossed into the backpack and the backpack tied with the rope and hauled out after Darryl and Ulmo are pulled out. Some giant centipedes crawled out of cracks in the walls, and the party fled, rather than fighting vermin.

Backtracking they try another door, which leads to another corridor with a single door at the end. The door was nailed shut from the inside, and within were 3 skeletons, 2 in bedrolls, 1 leaning against the door. There was an air of peace and safety in the room. Nick checks it out, and begins to feel sleepy. He recovered the bags and chest of clothing from the long dead adventurers, and handed it off to Cassandra and Cory. He also finds a secret door. Ulmo checks the door, and opens it, revealing a large green slime clinging to the ceiling of the smallish room. As it seems otherwise empty, they close the secret door, and check out the regular door. It leads to a long winding corridor. Following it to the west (generally) leads to an old large and long abandoned barracks. Beyond that, to a large ritual space. 3 rows of pillars carved with horrific gargoyles (demons?) with a pair of large brass brazzers burning merrily away. Carefully making their way along the wall, approaching the brazzers, they’re a little surprised when a brilliant emerald cobra snaps out of the fire and bites Ulmo, whose scream is cut short as he flops twitching to the floor. The snake was killed, but not before it managed to bite Nick too. Thankfully the cobra seemed to have used up the venom when it bit Ulmo (or more likely, Nick made his save). Taking the corpse of the snake and stuffing it in one of the bags of adventuring gear they’d recovered, they check the rest of the room, discovering a secret door that led to the back side of the skeleton statue with the 2 wolves. Nick, while checking it out, gets bitten by another damned leech.

Deciding enough was enough, they gather up Ulmo’s body and head back to the village. There they sell a copy of the map to the owner of the general store for 2,000gp, and the snake for 1,000gp. Back at the keep, they’re offered a 25gp reward for Ulmo’s body. Nick felt bad about that, and donated the cash to the temple at the keep.

Gains: fancy boots, 3203gp
Kills: Leech, emerald cobra, bees, wolves
Losses: Ulmo  

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Stonehell: Dogs and Cats

 Session 161 was played on 8/2

Boris, Cleric 9 (Jeff)
Karl, Dwarf 8 (Julia)
Joho, Mystic 6 (Chris)
Ool, Mystic 3 (NPC)
Morgana, Mage 7 (Reggie)
Borumar, Thief 8 (Josh)

Returning to the 4th level of the dungeon, the party continues to explore the area around the Ghoul’s lair. They return to the room with the defaced statue. Karl tries to push it over, feels a tingling in his arms, then sends it crashing to the ground. The noise attracts a pair of depraved berzerkers who rush the party and are cut down. Not finding anything of value, they move on.

“DO NOT OPEN!” is written all over the door. Do they listen? Of course not, and they release an animated amber sabre-toothed tiger statue. It hits hard, but the party hits harder. Karl lands the killing blow with a crit, smashing the cat into chunks with his hammer.

Avoiding the stairs down to level 5, they investigate a room with bas-relief carvings of a dwarven funeral rite on the walls, a mosaic of the world tree on the floor, and geometric patterns carved into the ceiling. There’s also a 12’ ladder on the floor leaning against the wall. In the center of the room is an empty stone bier. Fussing about with the ladder draws the attention of 4 hellhounds!

The scary demon dogs cause the party to use their horn of Valhalla, and the war mammoth. The berzerkers summoned by the horn are only a little effective (mostly as meatshields) but the evil dogs are killed. Some gems are collected from the burning bonfire in the adjoining room that the hellhounds came from. Having made far too much noise, and feeling some pain from burns, the party heads back to town.

Gains: 5 gems
Kills: Amber Golem, Hellhounds
Losses: