Wandering Monsters: Through the Vast Gate

Before I talk about the foulspawn and gibbering mouther, I want to point out how odd it is that they do not want to tie the origin of aberrations to the Far Realm because it “might not be a part of every DM’s cosmology and campaign”, but are totally fine making assumptions about what other planes exist (Ravenloft), how they are arranged (the Great Wheel), and what goes on there (like the Blood War).

Why the favoritism? What about people who think that the Great Wheel is not particularly interesting or creative, or even simply feel that it is not appropriate for their campaign setting? What about official campaign settings that do not include those things? There is no need to make so
many “traditional” assumptions, which among many other bizarre decisions
is something that continues to confuse and frustrate me.

Anyway, on to something less mind-boggling.

Foulspawn
I never used these guys, but there were a few instances where I wanted to (which is a start). My biggest issues are that they just look like ugly, skinless humanoids (gross, but not too interesting), and that despite being warped by the “incomprehensible” energies of the Far Realm can be easily categorized into four distinct types: just cut out the middle man and give us a table of mutations and powers.

Otherwise I like the mix of abilities: teleporting, psychic screams, cascading rage, and reality distorting blasts (which should be able to teleport creatures hit by it, too). I think what would make both them and other aberrants/aberrations even better is to further establish the Far Realm, giving it its own cosmology and/or demiplanes, possibly even a pantheon, just so that you can give them more thematic powers.

Gibbering Mouther
I like the origin of being created from a mass of humanoids. Gives me an Akira vibe, though you could take a page from Fullmetal Alchemist and have cultists sacrifice groups of people to willfully create them. Of course I see no reason tying them more closely to the Far Realm and have them be heralds of some eldritch god, which could also have the added benefit of giving them something to work with in encounters.

Star Wars As Lovecraftian Horror-Fantasy

I mentioned in my review of Edge of the Empire that I know of Star Wars, but am not really a fan of it. Gamma World came out some three years ago, and I have on occassion thought of running a campaign by taking the Star Wars universe, and cramming everything onto one planet.

In this setting alien species would either be mutants or actual aliens from other worlds or dimensions, while planets would be represented either as geological regions or locations; Tatooine would be a desert, Hoth a frozen wasteland, Dagobah a swamp, Naboo an island chain, Coruscant a bit city, etc.

While playing The Old Republic another thought occurred to me while I watched my jedi smack humanoid-sharks with a sci-fi bokken (that apparently everyone has): why bother with the sci-fi elements at all? Also, what if the world was the battleground for numerous aberrant stars vying for control (making the name Star Wars a literal thing)?

The high concept is a…relatively nightmarish world where mortal races get caught up in the conflict between the denizens of various otherwordly entities, giving rise to many bizarre creatures that you would expect to see from Star Wars, like those aforementioned shark-people or gungans.

Just kidding, even Cthulhu has limits.

If you want to use some 4th Edition flavor, the Feywild could be a major player (though it could have also been destroyed).

In this setting the Jedi would be an order designed to instruct people on the proper usage of psionics (aka, the Force), which in most cases can cause insanity to those “gifted” with it that go untrained, the Sith would be those that have been corrupted by elder gods, lightsabers could be psi-blades, spaceships become airships, and various types of warforged take the place of droids.

Hyperspace would be a method of travel by which travelers exploit distortions in space and time due to the Far Realm encroaching on the world. The Death Star could be a kind of gate intended to allow an elder god to enter the world, or a weapon to destroy the prison of one. Maybe the world is a prison, and it is designed to destroy it? Maybe it will only annihilate all life to pave the way for a new race of an elder god’s design?

Wandering Monsters: Things From Beyond the Stars

Tentacled horrors from beyond the stars? Sign me up.

The aberrant/aberration category includes most of my favorite monsters; mind flayers, intellect devourers, beholders, grells, aboleths, chuuls, fell taints (despite the name), mutated/warped things, and more. I am a huge fan of Lovecraft’s works, my second long-term 4th Edition D&D campaign took place in Eberron’s Shadow Marches, involving a number of star cults trying to summon an aberrant star, and one of my first 5th Edition homebrews were conversions of those very cultists.

In short I really, really dig this sort of thing.

For me the aberrant/aberration definition is spot on. In the game Eternal Darkness there is a part where you play a character who can perform autopsies on the creatures you kill. A lot of the descriptions are great, but I distinctly remember the one concerning a creature that looked like two headless humanoid bodies fused at the waist, where he makes mention of the corpse’s anatomy making no sense (a lack of organs will do that).

I like the mention of psionics–which will hopefully not take a year or two to see the light of day–though I have nothing against some sort of sanity-stripping magic system, especially for the warlock and options like the alienist prestige class/paragon path.

The concept of the Far Realm is something I was pleased to see in 4th Edition, though I was disappointed that it never really got elaboration. I get the reasons for wanting to avoid making certain things official or assumed in everyone’s campaign, but it would be great to finally have one or more optional planes get some decent page-space this time around (not that every aberrant critter needs to have other-worldly origins).

Given that my group virtually never breaches the first 10 levels in any edition, beholders are not something we have a lot of experience with. Despite this we are still very well aware of their eye rays (especially the save-or-die ones), so having a variation among eye rays could be nice for mixing things up and keeping characters on their toes. I also like the variation in size and appearance. The gauth is nice for giving low-level parties a taste of eye-ray volleys, while the hive mother allowed you to challenge epic characters. I also liked the DiTerlizzi drawings in 2nd Edition’s Monster Manual (especially the one with crab pincers for some reason).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.

I always took these variations to mean that beholders were highly mutable rather than prone to wildly unique, isolated accidents. At any rate unique or no, I think having a table or list of optional traits to let you cobble together your own beholder would satisfy both camps.

The mind flayer is in my top ten favorite monsters, and the description is spot on with my expectations; tentacles, mind blast, domination, thralls, eats brains, ceremorphosis…basically everything that you would expect. I like the mention of psionics (crystals or no), which I take to mean that the initial version will not use spell-like abilities.

I am hopeful that the flat math will prevent low-power thralls like orcs, bugbears, and grimlocks from being too weak to threaten the characters without having to inflate their Hit Dice or lump on class levels.

Finally, I am curious as to if/how/when they will integrate past content, such as thoon (including both illithid disciples and the machines), neothelids, alhoon (ie, illithi-liches), and whatever those illithids with really long tentacles were called.

I have only ever used an aboleth once, and that was when we were playing A Sundered World so I did not use it “officially”, though they also rank among my favorites. As with mind flayers they are pretty much what I expect, and again I hope that the flat math will make it easier to employ low-level threats without disrupting encounter difficulty one way or the other.

Aside from 3rd Edition’s Lords of Madness I do not recall much flavor content pertaining to them,  but I like the potential plot hooks that their genetic memory (and, to a point, their ability to go dormant) allows for.

Now that I am chomping at the bits to run a campaign another brimming with eldritch horrors from beyond space and time, hopefully we get some quality, insanity inducing aberrant art tomorrow.

D&D Next: Star Cult Homebrew

I wrote a 4th Edition adventure awhile back in which the players were supposed to take down an aberrant cult in the Shadow Marches that had taken over a dragonshard mining town. I posted all the stat blocks before, but I never got a chance to run that adventure, so I figured that I would convert all the monsters I made for use in D&D Next. Who knows, maybe I will get a chance to run it when WotC sends out the next playtest packet.

Character Concept: The Voice of the Stars

I love aberrants–especially when I get to unleash them on my players–as well as things generally associated with them, such as the star pact and psionics. I figure, why not have both?

This character could have been a survivor from an illithid colony, a failed ceremorphosis candidate, got too close to the Far Realm, read a tome she should not have (if you want to tap H.P. Lovecraft), or was otherwise exposed to some aberrant force. Perhaps her psionic talents attracted the attention of an otherworldly entity, or perhaps psionics were part of the package deal.

At any rate, you start with a hybrid psion/warlock, with the telepathy focus and star pact respectively. The theme is kind of iffy; if you have a background for what your character was all about before this went down, you could go with that (like guttersnipe or outlaw if you nabbed the book-that-should-not-have-been-opened), though seer is good if you want to focus on the whole fate aspect.

Powers are pretty easy to juggle, you will just want to make sure that your Intelligence and Charisma are both set to 16. The telepathy focus works out well, as it is linked to Charisma. I think the only real flaw here is that some star-pact spells are dependent on Constitution, which might be a problem if your DM won’t let you just pen in “charisma” over the power description.

You will probably want to dump your first feat on Hybrid Talent so you can pick up something extra. After that just nab a rod or orb and you are good to go, though if your DM is cool with it you might want to ask about re-skinning a few more things:

• Tentacle Lash: I like the idea of a servant (or slave?) of the stars being mutated by her “gifts”. The tentacle might always be present, or extend from her hand or even mouth. You could even go so far as to have the character have an entire face of tentacles, complete with a lamprey-like mouth or beak ala the mind flayer. This is just a re-skinned basic melee attack, or even eldritch strike. I would have it otherwise function as a short- or longsword.
• Maddening Drone: More of a warlock power, you have lots of little mouths that whisper secrets and prophecies. This would just deal psychic damage within a close burst. Might not be “balanced”, but is thematic and cool. Could have a push effect. If you went with this as a daily I could see it dazing or even stunning.
• Mind Blast: You could simply reskin thunderwave to deal psychic damage and swap out of the push effect for something like a defense or attack penalty, or prevent targets from making opportunity attacks for a turn. Alternatively, save kickers for the augmented versions, up to and including a one-turn daze effect.
• Thought Shackles: The dominated condition does not start until 5th level, and even then it is for one turn. Still you could deal psychic damage, then have the target make a melee basic attack. Or you could have it so that you can make the target use one until they shake the effect off with a save. Like, they get to take their turn, but on your turn you can take control briefly. Something that seems quasi-mind flayery.

As a fan of homebrew content and sticking to a concept, I would consider my patron star’s goals and theme when picking, altering, or creating new spells, as well as how the character’s psionic powers develop. 

I guess the only bad part about this character is that it is seemingly more suited to a villain, though you could go the route of a kind of grim-dark hero. Depending on the complexity of the star’s machinations, the character’s actions could coincide with the rest of the party. Hell, one star might have the character move against the other one.

Updated At the Mines of Madness Adventure

For some reason, blogger kept timing out after my last post, so I had to delete it. Again, you can download the pdf and associated stat blocks for At the Mines of Madness here. It’s been reformatted and updated from the original. I couldn’t get it to properly format with the monster stat blocks and maps in the document file, so just put them in folders to make them a bit easier to manage. Lemme know what you like about it, what you hate about it, and if the idea of an aberrant-centric adventure path holds any appeal.

Dragon: The Aberrant Souls

I’d recently had to shelve an aberrant-heavy campaign due to one of the players quitting, complete with the potential for characters to become corrupted and mutated by exposure to energies from Xoriant. So when I read articles like this it feels like fate is mocking me, because it is both a good article–amidst a dearth of subpar releases–and ideal for my unfortunately expired campaign. It’s mostly about taking primal characters and adding a dash of Lovecraft, with the first four pages going over how your character might first come into contact with the Far Realm, how society handles it, an organization called the Morphic Web, and how the corruption manifests itself.

The how/why section isn’t very long, providing only four generic examples, while society’s reactions are divided into two extremes, summed up as they either like you or hate you. The last paragraph assumes that regardless as to whether you’re loved or hated, you’ll probably just become an adventure and gain a series of increasingly powerful abilities that’ll let you save the world anyway. The Morphic Web was interesting, a group of aberrant souls that try and keep in communication, watching each other to see who is about to crack, but I found the sample dialogue to be weak. If nothing else, it will provide a character with plenty of potential adventure hooks and NPCs. There’s no cost to join, so its something you’ll need to ask your DM about.

There’s a background associated with a bit of Morphic Web story: someone went crazy 20ish years ago and massacred most of his tribe in the process of giving free hand-me-outs. It gives bonuses to Dungeoneering and Insight, or you can pick up Deep Speech. As an added option it also pitches you several personal quest ideas (which I heartily approve of)

The last bit on Far Realm corruption asks how it manifests itself, which has a sidebar on the same page that suggests 10 different mutations you can roll of choose from, such as tentacles for hair, eyestalks, or mouths in your hands, with the option of rolling a new one each level that replaces the existing one…or adds to the mess. The corruption is more than skin-deep, however, and the article provides a few examples for role-playing mental degradation due to visions and dreams from your aberrant totem. These provide another method for the DM to feed you information, with a sidebar recommending you to not overdo it.

The mostly-flavor part of the article wraps up with a new 13th-level Divination ritual that lets you pick an aberrant creature when you master it, and spend healing surges to make Dungeoneering checks to ask it questions. You can spend more healing surges to contact a different creature if the one you talked to doesn’t know the answers you want. The good thing is that members of the Morphic Web can master this ritual without having Ritual Caster.

Last but not least, paragon paths. There are four, with two tied to class features, and the other two specific classes. Most are primal, but one also allows monks and rangers. You can multiclass or hybrid to meet the prereqs, so there’s some flexibility.

Formless predator requires wild shape, and is associated with the chaos beast. 

• 11th-level grants you a damage bonus after using wild shape for the first time in battle, can choose to take on the form of an aberrant beast instead of a natural one, can end an effect and shift when you burn an action point. You also get undulating pseudopod, which lets you shift and make an attack that deals some hefty damage with a daze kicker.
• 12th-level lets you end a polymorph or petrification effect and gain some temporary hit points, all without spending an action.
• 16th-level lets you apply the Beast Form keyword to any one of your 1st-level attacks.
• Finally, at 20th-level you can make a melee attack that deals a lot of damage, blinds the target, and deals ongoing damage that scales up with each failed save.

Herald of madness is for barbarians, monks, and rangers, and is associated with the gibbering mouther.

• 11th-level causes creatures to take psychic damage whenever they attack your Will, force creatures you hit with action points to attack another creature of your choice, and allow allies to reroll failed saves by taking some psychic damage.
• The 11th-level attack deals weapon-based damage, and also causes the target and adjacent enemies to provoke opportunity attacks from you even when shifting or teleporting.
• At 12th-level you gain a stance that causes enemies to deal half damage between you and any other enemy adjacent to them.
• The 20th-level attack, babbling rage, deals a shitload of weapon-damage and causes all adjacent enemies to grantt combat advantage to you.

The ocular adept was from 3rd Edition, though I can’t recall from which book. Unfortunately, its for hunters and seekers instead of wizards (if I recall correctly). I’d be tempted to playing a multiclassed character just to get it. As the name implies, its associated with the beholder.

• 11th-level lets you transform your weapon into a “spiriteye”, which is basically the same thing as whatever weapon you’re using, except it doesn’t require any ammo or actions to load it (if any). You can burn action points when using it in order to make an extra attack that targets another creature, but it has to be a ranged basic attack.
• Also, the 11th-level encounter attack requires the spiriteye, which deals weapon-damage, has a variable kicker, and lets you fly 6 squares by using a move action.
• 12th-level causes you to grow a couple eyestalks, allowing you to fly for a turn and prevent combat advantage from flanking.
• 16th-level lets you use your spiriteye without even using your hands, and when you make ranged basic attacks you don’t draw opportunity attacks.
• 20th-level is a Stance power that lets you make one ranged basic attack as a minor action and you can shift if the attack hits.

Last but not least is the phrenic master, which requires call spirit companion and is associated with the mind flayer.

• 11th-level is really nice: any enemy that kills your spirit companion is dazed for a turn, and attacks you make using an action point take both a -2 penalty on any saves and grant combat advantage for a turn.
• The 11th-level attack power is like a poor man’s mind blast, dealing paltry damage with a daze kicker. It also has a slide effect, and your spirit companion can use it if you want.
• Speaking of your spirit companion, the 12th-level utility lets you force your spirit companion to take a hit for you.
• The 16th-level class feature is sweet: your spirit companion can use any of your ranged or area-effect attacks, and if its not next to any enemies you don’t take opportunity attacks.
• The 20th-level daily lets you dominated a target (or daze on a miss), and if the target is next to your companion when you turn starts, you can slide both the target and your companion 4 squares until they shake off the domination/daze effect.

I really enjoyed this article. It would have been great quite awhile back during my primal campaign, and if I revive it I’m going to make sure my players are aware of this article. I’m not sure what the intended audience for it, however, since its not for purely primal characters, nor is it for psychic characters. If you want to play a primal character that becomes corrupted by the Far Realm, then it will be a nice fit. Mostly, I think it’s best for a DM who is trying to pitch a particular kind of story (Far Realm invasion).

Into Dragon’s Den, Part 4

After holding up the game for about half an hour trying to redraw a map I thought I’d lost, the players re-checked the door for traps, and feeling that it was no longer going to disintegrate anyone else, kicked it in. In my last campaign, the players actually complained that there weren’t any traps–in an ancient, undead-ridden castle, no less–so this time I indulged their paranoia since I could rationally explain there existence (also, it would likely be awhile before I could use them in such abundance again).

In the map I drew the “dungeon” is divided into two halves, with each half basically having two ways to go about it. One is trapped, while the other is clean. For the trapped path, the doors are locked, suggesting importance, with traps setup to trigger once it is opened, or when someone steps on the area just outside (pressure plates). The idea is that no reasonable organization would employ mechanical traps in an area that sees regular traffic. I tried dropping hints, such as that the doors appeared to be rusted, or that the dust, mold, and/or excrement around the door didn’t appear disturbed.

Despite this, they pressed on through a heavily fire-trapped-and-locked hallway, until they kicked in a door to find a scarred orc getting ready to take a cleaver to Moxie. Although I’ve never seen an episode of Doctor Who, Beth got it right in that it was a teleporter and not a disintegration ray. The trap, when triggered, teleports the individual into a chamber where the target is restrained by a magic circle. Moxie tried to talk her way out by pretending to be a “new guy”, but the orc wasn’t having any of it. Besides, he needed some blood for a ritual on there wasn’t any on tap.

When the rest of the gang arrived, he tried in vain to draw one of them into a Khyber dragonshard, summoning some legion devils for support. Heien locked down the devils, while Lwaxana weakened the circle enough for Moxie to attack the orc when he got pushed too close. An imp stung Heien and fled invisibly to warn others when he got damaged. It was an easy battle as I’d banked on someone getting temporarily trapped in the dragonshard or knocking someone else into the magic circle, but thats how the 20-sider rolls.

They tried having Moxie trick more of the thieves, but the imp had already spilled the beans. They tried to go pretend to go along with her story, and while she saw through the ruse, the imp had snuck on on her and stung her, too. The rest of the party sprung into action, feathering the thieves with arrows while Heien and Moxie killed the imp before it could get away (again). Another pretty easy fight, but I didn’t want them to peter out of healing before they got to the end, as I liked the idea of them plowing through a thieves guild without having to stop for a nap.

After looting some beds, they came across a pair of warforged. While most of the party took them on, Lwaxana ran the other way to open a door, adding a trio of minions and a skilled duelist into the mix. Who was also Moxie’s sister. This was a problem. I might not have mentioned this before, but Moxie was looking for her sister, whom she believed had fallen in with Dragon and his crew. The basic story behind Liz’s character is that she got into the dragonshard smuggling trade so that she could get close to Dragon and determine this for herself.

This means that she [Moxie’s sister] is a changling, a race that hinges on the ability to create perfect alternate identities. So, I tried to describe her fighting technique as “very similar to Moxie’s”, what with the graceful flourishes, feints, and two-weapon style, but no one really caught on. I didn’t want to make anyone roll Insight, as once you call for it the players immediately become more paranoid or interested in something than they have any right to be. Kinda like when you ask for a Perception check and everyone fails.

Long story short, they killed her, she turned into a changling, and Liz realized what was going on. After some accusations that I did that to avoid developing the character hook later, or that I’d allegedly forgotten about it, I reminded the players that such a thing as Raise Dead exists in D&D. Since, you know, forever. All they have to do is find a halfling House of Healing and shell out the 500 or so gp (I might up it to 1,000 due to supply and demand, but certainly not out of irritation, so siree. :-P).

With that out of the way, the found a room with tables and gemcutting kits and an attached vault filled with chests and crates. They went after the crates, triggering an explosive trap that also blew up the crates. Which were filled with rocks. When they got around to checking the crates, they say that those were filled with Eberron dragonshards.

The last stop was Dragon’s throne room. Yes, this guy had a throne room, along with an attractive half-elf…well, let’s call her a “mediator”. To the party, Dragon appeared as a big-ass green dragon lounging upon a gem-encrusted throne made of gold. The entire hall glittered with opulent splendor. So, I’m hoping none of the players were surprised when they discovered it was a grand illusion. Dragon was a brain in a jar, while the half-elf was a dolgaunt, with more dolgaunt minions lurking behind illusionary walls.

The battle opened with Dragon dominating Heien and tossing Hawkeye into a dolgaunt infested room. Moxie chucked daggers to no avail, and Lwaxana had a bitch of a time hitting him with any Will spells since, surprise surprise, his Will was his highest Defense. With the ranged guy surrounded, the defender dominated, and the two support characters being directly confronted, they pulled out the big guns dailies. Since none of them had even used daily powers, Dragon lasted a round or two before the head-based puns started rolling.

Next session, it’s off into the Shadow Marches to deal with the orcs, ideally after pawning their shit, doing some research, and gearing up.

Into Dragon’s Den, Part 3

With Red captured and delivered to the authorities, the party–not wanting to leave any stone unturned–insisted on making Perception checks to see if they’d missed something in his hideout. Truth be told, they’d managed to avoid a room that the thieves had neglected due to a wraith infestation. Despite my descriptions of a bone-chilling cold and foreboding feelings, they determined that whatever glinting gem lay at the far edge was worth the risk. The room contained a single stone chair where the previous occupant practiced turning fleshy things into stone and/or horribly disfiguring them. They typically died painfully and were discarded, which is the sort of thing that you don’t want to do in a world where vengeful spirits are a very real threat.

When they approached the room one appeared over the chair, dressed in decaying finery and staring with empty eyes. Moxie tried to lift tactics from Shaun of the Dead in a doomed attempt to trick it into thinking that she was also dead. I don’t care what Dungeon Master’s Book says, sometimes you need to say no. The moment she crossed the threshold, it drew a ghostly blade and rush her. So did four others that were lingering in the discarded rubble formerly known as their bodies. I like the cut of the new wraiths (and sovereign wraith), but I don’t like insubstantial. To be fair, the party was both outnumbered, and one was a level 8 soldier. To their credit, they only had one force attack and legitimately killed the sovereign before I got bored and had the rest drift off after only being bloodied, leaving them with a khyber shard of lifedrinking for their troubles (and patience).

Back at town, they convened on the next course of action, which was to find Dragon, kill him, and take his stuff (aka, Plan A). Through the power of narrative and skill checks they found out that a merchant was accepting payment to use his premises as an access tunnel. They went there, paid his guards off with a combination of monetary incentive, skill, and promise of not progressing to physical incentive. Normally I like to think that paid guards are a bit more professional, but when you’re outnumbered two-to-one and the opposing party is clad in magical armaments, the line has been crossed. They glumly accepted about several weeks of advance pay, and strode off to inform whatever amounts to the Zarash’ak law enforcement (which will be addressed later).

Inside, they were pleased to find increasingly paranoid that the merchant’s house wasn’t riddled with traps, but merely locked. The found the access tunnel, (accidentally?) killed the two archers on the roof, and not feeling larcenous enough stole some knick-knacks off of the shelves in his bedroom. The real adventure literally underway, they ventured into the tunnel to face Dragon. I laid out Dragon’s hideout as a kind of old-school dungeon, deciding that the tunnels and chambers were built long ago before the Gatekeepers did their mojo to sweep all the aberrants under the rug so that a future generation of unlikely heroes could deal with it later. Even so, their influence is subtle and memories are short; people were drawn to this place to build atop the sunken ruins.

The underground passage lead to an iron door, beyond which they could hear talking. Moxie changed into a non-descript human and pretended to be wounded. She got someone to open the door and booked it, which did not cause the thief to give chase (as she’d hoped). Instead he crane his neck around the corner, and upon spotting the rest of the party brilliantly silhouetted by Heien’s glowing shield, shouted a warning and attempted to close the door. Some of the characters won initiative and managed to put a stop to that plan, which was good because it locks from the inside. The combat that ensued involved a close-quarters skirmish that allowed Heien to easily maintain battlemind’s demand on most of the opposition, and Hawkeye to deal lots of area-effect damage (something I’ll need to consider in the future).

The next room had a large hole in the center that reeked of shit and rot. Beyond that they spotted a pair of warforged talking to a hobgoblin. Again, Moxie pretended to be a wounded guard and tried to convince them that intruders had arrived, but that she’d captured them. They told her to toss them in the hole, but she persuaded them that she needed their help. They followed her into a well setup ambush that allowed the party to easily triumph despite all the low rolls. They didn’t kill the hobgoblin, and after some interrogation convinced him to take a handful of coins and a few weeks off. Before he left, he clued them in about a magic item-toting elf that’d shown up recently and got pitched into the hole during a “misunderstanding”, which contained refuse and an otyugh.

Moxie lit a barrel of spirits on fire and pitched it in, lighting up the otyugh and causing it to climb out. Thanks to her smart thinking, she seared off about a quarter of its hit points before initiative even got rolled. To make matters worse, Heien saved against its filth fever. My goal is to one day strip away all 13 or so of his healing surges. It did not–as they’d hoped–eat the bow, which would allow them to easily retrieve it. No, they had to go into the pit and get their hands dirty. Heien couldn’t find anything after some extensive rifling, so Hawkeye went in next since he felt that he had the Endurance to shake off any diseases (or corn) that might “crop up”, digging up both a +2 venomous songbow and monkey’s paw +2 lucky charm.

This made Lwaxana happy, and I didn’t inquire as to if she would use a bow that had poo in the wood grain, +2 or no. From here they had two doors to choose from, and in true Gygaxian fashion one was trapped, while the other wasn’t. They chose the one that was, or rather, had a trap in it’s immediate vicinity. See, Moxie checked it for traps, as per routine, but I figured that a thieves guild wouldn’t keep traps in a room that sees a lot of traffic for fear that something might set it off. I felt it was logical to place it on the other side, if for no other reason than to avoid the cost of rearming it. She opened the door, and lacking a sufficient Passive Perception, stepped on the plate, unleashing a salvo of poisoned crossbow bolts.

They missed.


Everyone.

However, there were also several gray oozes slithering about a stream of water nearby, which proved a minor distraction thanks to lock-down powers and Heien’s high Fortitude.

They found themselves in an illogically large sewer tunnel, built in accordance to high fantasy requirements: about 30-feet wide, stream of water in the center, and the ends capped by metal grates. The only things missing were dungeon-grade rats and/or insects, which the guild apparently skimped on due to economic shortages. Oh, and two more doors. Moxie was smart and found the trap in front of the door this time, but rather than scope out the other door the party decided to go with this one. A botched Thievery check triggered it, causing a circle of runes to appear and zap her with a green ray. She disintegrated, leaving a fine cloud of dust, an ominous note that I felt appropriate to end the game on.

Next Time!


Is Moxie really dead? Just what is Dragon? Will Lwaxana disenchant her other songbow into chainmail that we didn’t know she didn’t have? Will all those paid guards really stop their life of crime, or will they create their own adventuring party,and do totally awesome things that will have repercussions later? Will Randy ever get his very own trained owlbear? Will anyone use Gary’s acid spray attack?

Into Dragon’s Den, Part 2

The session picked up with the continuation of the previous session’s battle. They didn’t have a lot of time to recuperate before other guild members snuck into an adjacent room, but I allowed them all to burn up to two healing surges and regain one encounter power of their choice to reflect them managing to get a small breather. With that, combat resumed in earnest when one managed to hit Heien with both a dagger and combat advantage.

Unfortunately, the only safe route to the party was over a catwalk and down a ladder into a fairly cramped room, which meant that when Heien made his move he was able to get a few backed up against a wall, cutting off their escape and keeping them lumped up for Hawkeye’s elemental spirits and biting swarms. Moxie ran in and got herself stuck between a thug and bugbear, which was unable to strangle her for a few turns due to opening move.

Things were looking up for a few rounds as Heien’s battlemind’s demand and restricted space kept the heat on him, and his elan resilience and whatever the fuck his level 5 daily is shaved plenty of damage off of the continual flow of Sneak Attack-bolstered-clubbery. However, I’d budgeted this battle for slightly above the norm had there been five party members, and there were only four.

It didn’t matter.

With one thief left and only a quarter of her hit points pooled on the floor, she made a break for it. Heien is great at absorbing damage, but his opportunity attacks leave a lot to be desired in terms of attack bonus. Thankfully, Hawkeye is even worse at it. These two factors allowed her to run out of the warehouse entirely, only to be picked off by a ranged sly flourish from Moxie. Oh well, there went my plans to have Dragon informed and thereby be better prepared.

The party explored the rest of the warehouse, discovering a hefty cache of bank notes, coins, bars, and ladder-descending-underground, which is always a plus. Going down they wandered through a series of narrow tunnels both natural and man-carved, before Heien blundered into a gelatinous cube. This didn’t bother him much, as he could teleport quite a bit thanks to his battlemind class feature and disciplines. No, what bothered him were the pair of green slimes dropping from the ceiling behind the softer characters.

Green slimes haven’t changed much between Monster Manual and Monster Vault, except that their opportunity attack deals ongoing acid damage, while engulf deals more. I managed to get Hawkeye caught up in one while the other tried to slither up and over to Lwaxana, but Hawkeye’s encaging spirits kept them both at bay while fire-based elemental spirits polished them off rather quickly, while Heien and Moxie finished carving up the gelatinous cube.

The tunnels weren’t extensive, and they found their way out rather quickly into a massive hall that had been formed from petrified humanoids–mostly orcs and various goblinoids–and inhabited by a pair of warforged guards. Heien ventured out alone, hoping to talk his way past, but once other party members started showing up and failing Stealth rolls they extended weapons out of their arms and rushed him. Once more party members revealed themselves, they called for help, adding a bunch of minions to the fray, which ended up being easy pickings for Heien’s augmented spinning cobra strikes and Hawkeye’s elemental spirits.

Leaving one thug alive, they managed to figure out that Red could turn people to stone, and had a pet owlbear. This didn’t bode well with Randy, who had just recently read up on owlbears from Monster Vault and did not care for their 4d6 + 6 claw attack one bit. Not one to levy player knowledge, they proceeded through the halls until they reached a gallery of disfigured statues illuminated by a crimson everburning torch set within an iron mesh on the ceiling. With a few amazing Perception and Arcana rolls, they determined that aside from an iron door that an illusionary wall was also noteworthy, prompting Moxie to investigate.

The wall wasn’t trapped, and served to only conceal the owlbear’s lair. It tried to maul Moxie, but she was able to scamper out of they way without taking a scratch (or having her body rearranged into inevitably fatal configurations). I applaud Randy’s bravery, having Heien charge to the front with the knowledge that two well-rolled hits could drop is character instantly. Lucky for him, I tend to roll really badly when the star monster enters the scene, and even when I do usually Beth has Lwaxana do something annoying to mitigate the hit. Fucking leaders.

Once the owlbear was bloodied, Red decided to check out what the noise was about and seeing Moxie literally right in front of him, petrified her and had his dog-golems get in front to shield himself. Red was a dwarf that was a bit worse for wear after digging his way into a lost daelkyr ruin, discovering ancient magic carved into the torsos of petrified creatures, and trying to master it. His arm was mostly petrified as a result, though motion caused the stones to grind, causing it to constantly bleed as a result. Still, he had a lot to show for his sacrifice, being able to transmute stone to mud, and flesh to stone.

The party tried to parlay again, but the combination of combat and Red’s own perception that he had them where he wanted them didn’t help matters much. It did, however, give him pause, which is one way to phrase “combat advantage”. Heien teleported behind him, Moxie got in a flanking position, and they knocked him out against Moxie’s protest.

Randy, not being satisfied by the promises of gold or +2 weapons/armor, wanted to befriend the owlbear, and with Hawkeye and Lwaxana on the case he was no match for their Diplomacy and Nature skill bonuses. To add insult to injury, Red didn’t fare any better against Heien’s and Moxie’s Intimidate checks, but instead of conditional friendship they garnered the district where Dragon had setup kip. With pockets full of dreams and twice-stolen goods (and dragonshards!) they turned Red into the authorities and have told me that they’ll probably go after Dragon next, giving me less than a week to prepare.

They’re not quite done exploring the place, so maybe next week we’ll spend some time exploring artifact chairs and haunted quarries.