Re: DCC Beta Campaign test: Portland, OR
Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:40 am
When I knew the game was going “overland,” I worked out in advance how far and how long they would be traveling. I also pre-rolled the encounters for the entire trip and started choreographing how things would play out. I have encounter charts for the area they are in, and got Hill Giants, Grondar’s, & a thunderstorm. The Thunderstorm got 1d10 attacks over the 3d24 hrs.
The party had their first experience with the heretofore only rumored to exist Trap-door alligators... 3 to be exact; and they came for Nicks characters. There was some sort of confusion about the schedule (I blame myself) but we had a shorter session than normal after waiting a while for him to arrive. The Trapdoor alligator is my solution to the old “blue hue” or sending folks off on a “spontaneous side quest.” They can create a “trapdoor” into the material plain that allows them to dive out and swallow the PC’s and they strike so quickly that there is no defense against them. If the player returns, then the trapdoor alligators return the characters to wherever the party currently resides then die… allowing everyone to feast on alligator steaks. If the player doesn’t return… then neither do the characters. This way there are no awkward explanations about why their compatriots keep turning into “blue zombies” and then back to normal again, or having a side quest get in the way of the main story. It also forces RP in order to bring the returning characters “up-to-speed” on everything they missed.
We also decided that our official Initiative policy for multiple PC's / player is that they use the highest Agility modifier for the roll; then play one character per round, rotating through them from quickest to slowest.
***
Session resumes in the wee hours of Feb. 12th as they assess the aftermath of the fight. The echoes of battle are still fresh when there are the sounds of muffled screaming as large reptilian forms devour the Dwarf, Sun Cleric and Wizard. They soon realize that Archie wasn’t in the fight, and as they are wondering about this and fearing the worst, Hank approaches them with desperate look on his face and frantic urgency in his gestures. They follow him into the engine through a rear hatch and find Archie stuck in the “bathroom.” Apparently, that’s where he was when the combat started, and in his haste to get to the fight, he bumped his head and knocked himself out. {That’s the kind of thing that happens in my games when someone rolls a 1 on initiative.} This is also the point where they realize that there is “Gnomish plumbing” available in the engine, and they have been “squatting in the snow,” they are less than happy about this considering how much they paid for passage.
They try to take care of him, but the cleric is unable to successfully heal him so they settle for bandaging his wounds. They wait for him to sleep it off and continue to camp in the same place as they cannot operate the engine without Archie; when he regains consciousness they inform him of everything that is going on and their complaints. He thinks for a minute or two looking back down the road, then back at the tiny little wagon (by comparison) attached to his engine. “Well, it’s likely that the Giants are tracking us, and I know that I can travel faster without that cart banging around behind me… As to the other matter, y’all didn’t pay for first class accommodations and ‘Guild law says that no one but Engineers, Pilots, and Road Marshal’s are allowed inside an Engine.’ So, I now deputize all of you as Road Marshal’s with all the rights, privileges, and duties that goes with it; and I name the Cleric of Elyr as witness. Second order of business is the extra wagon… we’re better off busting it up for fuel so we can increase speed and not have to stop again for wood, save the canvas and hoops… burn the rest.”
The party had things taken care of shortly before noon and they set off at nearly twice the rate they were before. They are for all intents and purposes traveling within a mobile fort with a 20ft by 50ft covered battle deck; it has plenty of arrow slits, and roof access to the “missile-launcher” on the “sky-deck.” They take turns at guard duty and manning the fire-box, quickly realizing that Road Marshal = unpaid laborer… but now they have hot running water and a toilet, so they’re happy. They were made much less happy by the fact that the silhouettes of Hill Giants were spotted (though well out of bow range) along the ridge-lines behind them, confirming Archie’s suspicions.
Fortunately for them, the weather took a turn for the worse in the form of a nasty spring thunderstorm. I say fortunate because even Hill Giants & Trolls are smart enough to find shelter when a storm hits. For the players it meant that they were able to keep traveling while their pursuers ran to ground. It allowed Archie to collect enough water to fill the Engine’s reservoir. For the players it was described as a wild ride, but in fact they don’t know that they nearly died. I had rolled in secret before the game started how the weather would affect them, it turns out that the engine was struck 3 /10 times by lightning and the last one actually damaged the drive gears. If they fail, then the engine turns into an expanding cloud of clock-work shrapnel and hot steam…
Narrator-
At this latitude (16 degr.) the climate zones progress from cloud forest at around 5-6000ft, and then temperate zone until 10k feet, then an alpine zone until the permanent snow line at around 12k feet. The Silver vale is a flattened “S” shaped vale on a roughly north south axis, the eastern edge is nearly 10k feet high and the western edge is at a little over 12k feet; the floor of the valley is still 8000ft above sea level. The southern end of the valley is 7900ftt, so all of the many creeks and springs flow in that general direction into a small bog, but it drains into an underground river. Because of the construction of the valley, the sun doesn’t shine directly into the vale except during the middle of the day; the rest of the time being disposed to protracted dawn and dusk conditions… normally.
The storm lasted until early in the morning on the 15th, and by early afternoon they were trekking down from the pass into the eastern portion of the Silver Vale. The old Imperial road that connects the north and south ends of the valley climbing through a series of switch-backs that takes traffic north to Archbridge, or the south road that leads to the Free City of Soulgrave. The storm had left a layer of trapped clouds in the valley. Just before they pass into the clouds they spot an amber gold tower on the opposite ridge (nearly 3000ft above them). It seems to be gathering the light from the sun that is just starting to set behind the mountain; concentrating light upon the valley.
Beneath the cloud layer it is brighter than they expected, warmer too, but still an overcast day from the valley floor. They see that the majority of the mines are to the south, along with the open pit processing areas for the ore. The town is at the north end of the valley, tucked against the lower slopes of the west side of the valley. There appear to only be 2 mines at the north end and there is an unnatural quiet pervading the area. No sounds of industry, or children at play, no workmen toiling in the shops, nor farmers singing in the fields. No prayer bells chime and it is clear to them that everyone in Silverton is either gone or dead.
***
Archie calls back to the crew…
“We’re coming up on the main depot, n’ Marshals or not, I need ya to exit here.” Points to a platform on the left (south-ish) “I’m rather fond of the ale in the Silver Cups over yonder (points to the inn across the street from the platform) “I need to secure the depot and start t’figure out what in the Abyss happened, I'll meet up with ya there.”
The party exits the engine and then it moves on into the gated area of the Guild compound, its ponderously whirring clock-work noise fading from the scene. It’s really quiet now and the party nervously looks about. Noticing that there is mounting evidence that there was a riot or some kind of mass hysteria involved in the towns demise. Shutters and doors are broken or off their hinges, windows are shattered. Everywhere is strewn with debris… but not one corpse. The various temples (Ormazd, Shul, Soleth, & Elyr) seem to be intact, but they head into the Silver Cups first. The door was barricaded from the inside by tables and such, but they pushed it open and entered on the tails of dozens of fleeing rats that disappear into holes and cracks in the walls. The cleric of Elyr and Bob the ditch digger hear muffled sobbing, moaning from the cellar; a feeling that someone is in grave need of her ministrations overwhelms the cleric. Bob and the rest are skeptical, but the cleric is on her way already. The rest move cautiously into the cellar and they all find a rather tall, aging gentleman in multi-colored patchwork clothes, stuffed into a cupboard that you would think to be too small for someone of his size. He is unconscious, but is whimpering and moaning occasionally.
It is a testament to desperation that he managed to stash a small supply of water and to safely store his mandolin behind him in the depths of the cupboard. The cleric successfully heals him, but it is obvious that he’s been several days without food. His clothes are hanging from his frame, but he comes to life when they offer him food and water from their bountiful bento box. After a while he is refreshed enough to start talking, “My name is Ffwylldyr, lowly bard and until recently the court appointed entertainer for the Baron of Bli’Hai. Until last year I’d spent 30 years singing sea shanties and attempting to educate arrogant, spoiled lordlings… Then I decided that I needed to take some time off, so I took a leave of absence to get in some fieldwork. I needed adventure to fire my soul once more… since then I’ve been beaten, robbed twice, and spent most of the last month hiding for my life. The last week and a half of which was spent in this closet sneaking out to pee in odd places to throw off the rats. So be careful what you wish for… because sometimes the Gods are listening!” He goes back to eating for a bit while the players absorb this new information. Then he continues; “I got here in the middle of October and the town had a brittle, stressful feeling in the air and it’s the first time I’ve encountered folks who were not happy to see a bard. At times they were downright rude, but never openly hostile. I just assumed it was because I’d arrived right after the mine disaster. Shortly after that, I started noticing that people were disappearing.
The passes closed around the first of November and that is when Laurence Gannu appeared in the center of town and demanded that they surrender to him all that is due to his family, the valley, the mines, the town and everyone in it he reclaimed in his family’s name. Any who surrendered to him would be spared. The mayor knelt before him and handed him the charter for the town. Without time to prepare, the town had mostly run out of food by the middle of Winterheart; but when that cursed star appeared on the same day as a solar eclipse, & on the Winter Solstice… this thrice damned omen broke their will. Many of the town folk who were left, marched up to the old Gannu Family Mine; I’ve not seen them since. The rat swarms have slowly picked off the rest of us and as far as I know I’m the only one left, but the temples sealed themselves off early on...”
The party decides to go explore the Temple of Elyr to see what fate befell them, but not before a rousing debate between the Cleric of Elyr and Dwight the ditch digger about his lack of respect for the Gods and his unwillingness to act without a profit motive. The ranger, not really being that comfortable in cities has faded into the background to “keep watch” while they talk about the value of hunkering in at the Silver Cups verses the dangers of exploring. Bob the Ditch digger is also pulling a “wall flower” routine keeping an eye on everyone.
Eventually they go exploring and as they climb the front steps of the temple the Bob becomes aware of the power emanating from the doors and recognizes it for some kind of warding spell that he won’t be able to handle… he casually slips behind everyone as he pushes the cleric of Elyr forward. She recognizes the warding instantly: in times of unrest the temples of Elyr can seal themselves off from the trouble so they can come out afterwards and start healing folks. She raises her holy symbol, chants a few invocations and the doors opened; that’s when the smell hit them. Putrescence, billowing fumes of death and decay spill out to cover them, but they press onward into a temple full of dead, bloated bodies.
Bob: “Perhaps we should do something to these corpses before they get up?”
Bard: “They’d be up and about already if they were animated, the dead aren’t generally known for their use of tactics.”
The cleric was deeply saddened to see this desecration and decided that since this was the first day of spring, for her devotions to Elyr on this holy day of new beginnings, she re-consecrated the main altar of the temple while the bard and the rest moved the bodies into the crematorium. When she was done she went to examine the bodies and her healers’ skills told her; “That many died of massive trauma from rat bites, the rest died from disease.”
Dwight: “YOU MEAN I”VE BEEN HANDLING PLAGUE BODIES! Wh-“
Healer: Looking him over “You’ll be fine, just go wash your hands.”
Dwight and Bob go to the holy fountains and cleans themselves thinking that this would offend, but that’s what they are for, so the cleric just smiles.
She turns to the bard who is tossing a ruined pair of gloves into the crematorium; “I’ll be fine, I never touched them.”
The ranger was outside “keeping watch.”
They decide to head to the barracks of the Garrison to see if they can find any clues to what happened. The long twilight is coming to an end and the extra light from the tower has managed to clear most of the clouds, but is for the moment a pillar of sunset fire on the ridge to the west. They find that one of the doors to the fort is torn half off its hinges and most of the doors and windows of the forts structures are likewise destroyed. There is still an intact exterior cellar door attached to the barracks that has several heavy chains and locks binding it closed; and the door to the garrison commander’s office is likewise intact. They decide that the cellar doors are probably locked for a reason, and head to the office. Bob checks the building out first; walking the perimeter, checking angles. The building has the typical grated arrow slit style windows and only one door that is locked. After listening at the door for a while, he hears something shuffling and bumping the furniture inside the room.
{when prepping for an encounter I try to think up as many possible ways that the party can decide to act… but sometimes they can really hit you from left field…}
Bob, knocking loudly at the door: “Oy, open up! Anyone home?!” then jumps back and draws his bow! The rest of the party… assuming something had gone wrong went to full defense mode without any further prompting. {so I think to myself… what the hell…} “Roll Bobs luck…” (I set the DC at 12, he got a 13)….
So the zombie guard captain opens the door as part of some vestigial reflex… or maybe it was just hungry: it had 3HD and some armor & a shield, and was armed with a spiked mace… and rolled a 2 for initiative to boot. The cleric and one fighter went on 0, and the ranger went on 1, Bob and Dwight go on 10 & the bard on 18. Unfortunately the bard was still too exhausted and weak to do anything impressive, but he really doesn’t have much power verses the undead. They spend several rounds being ineffective at each other; the cleric was making her rolls to turn, but had not the power to force the creature to flee or otherwise cause it harm. They did little bits of damage, but at one point the thief (Bob) fumbled an attack which resulted in stumbling: loose next attack. When it came back around to his turn James asks; “can I turn the stumble into a tumble and try to get passed the zombie to set up to flank him?”
DM: “are you kidding?”
James: “Nope.”
DM: “what the hell, roll your luck to see if there is enough room for you to get passed him.”
James: “rolled an 15, but got a 3 on the luck die from spending a point.”
DM: “OK, but you still don’t get to attack, and by the way, undead aren’t subject to backstab, but everyone now gets a +2 on attacks.”
The fight didn’t last much longer. They spend most of the rest of the session poking through the office, looking for records. What they find confirms the bards accounts and reveals that the garrison commander had left a suicide note. Mostly it was a summation of events, + the confirmation that the cellar doors are indeed locked for a reason: to keep the rats and the dead garrison troops from getting out. Eventually it leads to a double apology to his superiors for losing his command, and to whoever finds his body, for not being more devout in his worship of Soleth. It is not signed, save for a splash of blood.
By skimming through the captain's log books, they discover the garrison is the center of an elaborate catacomb network of underground listening posts up and down the valley to give warning if something is tunneling in from below. The rest of the defenses are geared for airborne assault and civil patrol. their research also reveals to them that the commander was either paranoid or insane long before the last few months, as he was obsessing over the idea that the Dwarves had a secret tunnel out of the valley, he'd been keeping most of the troops in the tunnels looking for it. They liberate the captain’s keys and decide that this is the best spot for camping. Ffwylldyr and Dwight go to inform Archie of all that they have discovered, Archie talks to them through a slit in the Guild compound’s door. “Sounds like a good enough place to hole up. No one survived in here either!” spits at the ground, “Rats.” I’ll need more time than I thought to clear things up in here, maybe by noon tomorrow I can send Hank with you guys to help out.”
It is the last night of the full moon, and they can see the pink, glaring eyes of rats everywhere they look, always in the shadows beyond the light source. Just waiting. The two of them are walking into the fort’s main compound when they hear the sounds of a syrinx being played in the distance.
That is where we left off for the session.
***
during the session, I decided to award some "brownie points" to Kasi's cleric for not only performing her duty, but for doing it with style. She got 1d6 x 2 points (6) that are able to offset the next six penalties from casting, healing, etc. or spend them for +1 bonus to any roll.
the write up for the bard that ducaster & I made is here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HIf ... t?hl=en_US
I didn't want to play formatting games.
The party had their first experience with the heretofore only rumored to exist Trap-door alligators... 3 to be exact; and they came for Nicks characters. There was some sort of confusion about the schedule (I blame myself) but we had a shorter session than normal after waiting a while for him to arrive. The Trapdoor alligator is my solution to the old “blue hue” or sending folks off on a “spontaneous side quest.” They can create a “trapdoor” into the material plain that allows them to dive out and swallow the PC’s and they strike so quickly that there is no defense against them. If the player returns, then the trapdoor alligators return the characters to wherever the party currently resides then die… allowing everyone to feast on alligator steaks. If the player doesn’t return… then neither do the characters. This way there are no awkward explanations about why their compatriots keep turning into “blue zombies” and then back to normal again, or having a side quest get in the way of the main story. It also forces RP in order to bring the returning characters “up-to-speed” on everything they missed.
We also decided that our official Initiative policy for multiple PC's / player is that they use the highest Agility modifier for the roll; then play one character per round, rotating through them from quickest to slowest.
***
Session resumes in the wee hours of Feb. 12th as they assess the aftermath of the fight. The echoes of battle are still fresh when there are the sounds of muffled screaming as large reptilian forms devour the Dwarf, Sun Cleric and Wizard. They soon realize that Archie wasn’t in the fight, and as they are wondering about this and fearing the worst, Hank approaches them with desperate look on his face and frantic urgency in his gestures. They follow him into the engine through a rear hatch and find Archie stuck in the “bathroom.” Apparently, that’s where he was when the combat started, and in his haste to get to the fight, he bumped his head and knocked himself out. {That’s the kind of thing that happens in my games when someone rolls a 1 on initiative.} This is also the point where they realize that there is “Gnomish plumbing” available in the engine, and they have been “squatting in the snow,” they are less than happy about this considering how much they paid for passage.
They try to take care of him, but the cleric is unable to successfully heal him so they settle for bandaging his wounds. They wait for him to sleep it off and continue to camp in the same place as they cannot operate the engine without Archie; when he regains consciousness they inform him of everything that is going on and their complaints. He thinks for a minute or two looking back down the road, then back at the tiny little wagon (by comparison) attached to his engine. “Well, it’s likely that the Giants are tracking us, and I know that I can travel faster without that cart banging around behind me… As to the other matter, y’all didn’t pay for first class accommodations and ‘Guild law says that no one but Engineers, Pilots, and Road Marshal’s are allowed inside an Engine.’ So, I now deputize all of you as Road Marshal’s with all the rights, privileges, and duties that goes with it; and I name the Cleric of Elyr as witness. Second order of business is the extra wagon… we’re better off busting it up for fuel so we can increase speed and not have to stop again for wood, save the canvas and hoops… burn the rest.”
The party had things taken care of shortly before noon and they set off at nearly twice the rate they were before. They are for all intents and purposes traveling within a mobile fort with a 20ft by 50ft covered battle deck; it has plenty of arrow slits, and roof access to the “missile-launcher” on the “sky-deck.” They take turns at guard duty and manning the fire-box, quickly realizing that Road Marshal = unpaid laborer… but now they have hot running water and a toilet, so they’re happy. They were made much less happy by the fact that the silhouettes of Hill Giants were spotted (though well out of bow range) along the ridge-lines behind them, confirming Archie’s suspicions.
Fortunately for them, the weather took a turn for the worse in the form of a nasty spring thunderstorm. I say fortunate because even Hill Giants & Trolls are smart enough to find shelter when a storm hits. For the players it meant that they were able to keep traveling while their pursuers ran to ground. It allowed Archie to collect enough water to fill the Engine’s reservoir. For the players it was described as a wild ride, but in fact they don’t know that they nearly died. I had rolled in secret before the game started how the weather would affect them, it turns out that the engine was struck 3 /10 times by lightning and the last one actually damaged the drive gears. If they fail, then the engine turns into an expanding cloud of clock-work shrapnel and hot steam…
Narrator-
At this latitude (16 degr.) the climate zones progress from cloud forest at around 5-6000ft, and then temperate zone until 10k feet, then an alpine zone until the permanent snow line at around 12k feet. The Silver vale is a flattened “S” shaped vale on a roughly north south axis, the eastern edge is nearly 10k feet high and the western edge is at a little over 12k feet; the floor of the valley is still 8000ft above sea level. The southern end of the valley is 7900ftt, so all of the many creeks and springs flow in that general direction into a small bog, but it drains into an underground river. Because of the construction of the valley, the sun doesn’t shine directly into the vale except during the middle of the day; the rest of the time being disposed to protracted dawn and dusk conditions… normally.
The storm lasted until early in the morning on the 15th, and by early afternoon they were trekking down from the pass into the eastern portion of the Silver Vale. The old Imperial road that connects the north and south ends of the valley climbing through a series of switch-backs that takes traffic north to Archbridge, or the south road that leads to the Free City of Soulgrave. The storm had left a layer of trapped clouds in the valley. Just before they pass into the clouds they spot an amber gold tower on the opposite ridge (nearly 3000ft above them). It seems to be gathering the light from the sun that is just starting to set behind the mountain; concentrating light upon the valley.
Beneath the cloud layer it is brighter than they expected, warmer too, but still an overcast day from the valley floor. They see that the majority of the mines are to the south, along with the open pit processing areas for the ore. The town is at the north end of the valley, tucked against the lower slopes of the west side of the valley. There appear to only be 2 mines at the north end and there is an unnatural quiet pervading the area. No sounds of industry, or children at play, no workmen toiling in the shops, nor farmers singing in the fields. No prayer bells chime and it is clear to them that everyone in Silverton is either gone or dead.
***
Archie calls back to the crew…
“We’re coming up on the main depot, n’ Marshals or not, I need ya to exit here.” Points to a platform on the left (south-ish) “I’m rather fond of the ale in the Silver Cups over yonder (points to the inn across the street from the platform) “I need to secure the depot and start t’figure out what in the Abyss happened, I'll meet up with ya there.”
The party exits the engine and then it moves on into the gated area of the Guild compound, its ponderously whirring clock-work noise fading from the scene. It’s really quiet now and the party nervously looks about. Noticing that there is mounting evidence that there was a riot or some kind of mass hysteria involved in the towns demise. Shutters and doors are broken or off their hinges, windows are shattered. Everywhere is strewn with debris… but not one corpse. The various temples (Ormazd, Shul, Soleth, & Elyr) seem to be intact, but they head into the Silver Cups first. The door was barricaded from the inside by tables and such, but they pushed it open and entered on the tails of dozens of fleeing rats that disappear into holes and cracks in the walls. The cleric of Elyr and Bob the ditch digger hear muffled sobbing, moaning from the cellar; a feeling that someone is in grave need of her ministrations overwhelms the cleric. Bob and the rest are skeptical, but the cleric is on her way already. The rest move cautiously into the cellar and they all find a rather tall, aging gentleman in multi-colored patchwork clothes, stuffed into a cupboard that you would think to be too small for someone of his size. He is unconscious, but is whimpering and moaning occasionally.
It is a testament to desperation that he managed to stash a small supply of water and to safely store his mandolin behind him in the depths of the cupboard. The cleric successfully heals him, but it is obvious that he’s been several days without food. His clothes are hanging from his frame, but he comes to life when they offer him food and water from their bountiful bento box. After a while he is refreshed enough to start talking, “My name is Ffwylldyr, lowly bard and until recently the court appointed entertainer for the Baron of Bli’Hai. Until last year I’d spent 30 years singing sea shanties and attempting to educate arrogant, spoiled lordlings… Then I decided that I needed to take some time off, so I took a leave of absence to get in some fieldwork. I needed adventure to fire my soul once more… since then I’ve been beaten, robbed twice, and spent most of the last month hiding for my life. The last week and a half of which was spent in this closet sneaking out to pee in odd places to throw off the rats. So be careful what you wish for… because sometimes the Gods are listening!” He goes back to eating for a bit while the players absorb this new information. Then he continues; “I got here in the middle of October and the town had a brittle, stressful feeling in the air and it’s the first time I’ve encountered folks who were not happy to see a bard. At times they were downright rude, but never openly hostile. I just assumed it was because I’d arrived right after the mine disaster. Shortly after that, I started noticing that people were disappearing.
The passes closed around the first of November and that is when Laurence Gannu appeared in the center of town and demanded that they surrender to him all that is due to his family, the valley, the mines, the town and everyone in it he reclaimed in his family’s name. Any who surrendered to him would be spared. The mayor knelt before him and handed him the charter for the town. Without time to prepare, the town had mostly run out of food by the middle of Winterheart; but when that cursed star appeared on the same day as a solar eclipse, & on the Winter Solstice… this thrice damned omen broke their will. Many of the town folk who were left, marched up to the old Gannu Family Mine; I’ve not seen them since. The rat swarms have slowly picked off the rest of us and as far as I know I’m the only one left, but the temples sealed themselves off early on...”
The party decides to go explore the Temple of Elyr to see what fate befell them, but not before a rousing debate between the Cleric of Elyr and Dwight the ditch digger about his lack of respect for the Gods and his unwillingness to act without a profit motive. The ranger, not really being that comfortable in cities has faded into the background to “keep watch” while they talk about the value of hunkering in at the Silver Cups verses the dangers of exploring. Bob the Ditch digger is also pulling a “wall flower” routine keeping an eye on everyone.
Eventually they go exploring and as they climb the front steps of the temple the Bob becomes aware of the power emanating from the doors and recognizes it for some kind of warding spell that he won’t be able to handle… he casually slips behind everyone as he pushes the cleric of Elyr forward. She recognizes the warding instantly: in times of unrest the temples of Elyr can seal themselves off from the trouble so they can come out afterwards and start healing folks. She raises her holy symbol, chants a few invocations and the doors opened; that’s when the smell hit them. Putrescence, billowing fumes of death and decay spill out to cover them, but they press onward into a temple full of dead, bloated bodies.
Bob: “Perhaps we should do something to these corpses before they get up?”
Bard: “They’d be up and about already if they were animated, the dead aren’t generally known for their use of tactics.”
The cleric was deeply saddened to see this desecration and decided that since this was the first day of spring, for her devotions to Elyr on this holy day of new beginnings, she re-consecrated the main altar of the temple while the bard and the rest moved the bodies into the crematorium. When she was done she went to examine the bodies and her healers’ skills told her; “That many died of massive trauma from rat bites, the rest died from disease.”
Dwight: “YOU MEAN I”VE BEEN HANDLING PLAGUE BODIES! Wh-“
Healer: Looking him over “You’ll be fine, just go wash your hands.”
Dwight and Bob go to the holy fountains and cleans themselves thinking that this would offend, but that’s what they are for, so the cleric just smiles.
She turns to the bard who is tossing a ruined pair of gloves into the crematorium; “I’ll be fine, I never touched them.”
The ranger was outside “keeping watch.”
They decide to head to the barracks of the Garrison to see if they can find any clues to what happened. The long twilight is coming to an end and the extra light from the tower has managed to clear most of the clouds, but is for the moment a pillar of sunset fire on the ridge to the west. They find that one of the doors to the fort is torn half off its hinges and most of the doors and windows of the forts structures are likewise destroyed. There is still an intact exterior cellar door attached to the barracks that has several heavy chains and locks binding it closed; and the door to the garrison commander’s office is likewise intact. They decide that the cellar doors are probably locked for a reason, and head to the office. Bob checks the building out first; walking the perimeter, checking angles. The building has the typical grated arrow slit style windows and only one door that is locked. After listening at the door for a while, he hears something shuffling and bumping the furniture inside the room.
{when prepping for an encounter I try to think up as many possible ways that the party can decide to act… but sometimes they can really hit you from left field…}
Bob, knocking loudly at the door: “Oy, open up! Anyone home?!” then jumps back and draws his bow! The rest of the party… assuming something had gone wrong went to full defense mode without any further prompting. {so I think to myself… what the hell…} “Roll Bobs luck…” (I set the DC at 12, he got a 13)….
So the zombie guard captain opens the door as part of some vestigial reflex… or maybe it was just hungry: it had 3HD and some armor & a shield, and was armed with a spiked mace… and rolled a 2 for initiative to boot. The cleric and one fighter went on 0, and the ranger went on 1, Bob and Dwight go on 10 & the bard on 18. Unfortunately the bard was still too exhausted and weak to do anything impressive, but he really doesn’t have much power verses the undead. They spend several rounds being ineffective at each other; the cleric was making her rolls to turn, but had not the power to force the creature to flee or otherwise cause it harm. They did little bits of damage, but at one point the thief (Bob) fumbled an attack which resulted in stumbling: loose next attack. When it came back around to his turn James asks; “can I turn the stumble into a tumble and try to get passed the zombie to set up to flank him?”
DM: “are you kidding?”
James: “Nope.”
DM: “what the hell, roll your luck to see if there is enough room for you to get passed him.”
James: “rolled an 15, but got a 3 on the luck die from spending a point.”
DM: “OK, but you still don’t get to attack, and by the way, undead aren’t subject to backstab, but everyone now gets a +2 on attacks.”
The fight didn’t last much longer. They spend most of the rest of the session poking through the office, looking for records. What they find confirms the bards accounts and reveals that the garrison commander had left a suicide note. Mostly it was a summation of events, + the confirmation that the cellar doors are indeed locked for a reason: to keep the rats and the dead garrison troops from getting out. Eventually it leads to a double apology to his superiors for losing his command, and to whoever finds his body, for not being more devout in his worship of Soleth. It is not signed, save for a splash of blood.
By skimming through the captain's log books, they discover the garrison is the center of an elaborate catacomb network of underground listening posts up and down the valley to give warning if something is tunneling in from below. The rest of the defenses are geared for airborne assault and civil patrol. their research also reveals to them that the commander was either paranoid or insane long before the last few months, as he was obsessing over the idea that the Dwarves had a secret tunnel out of the valley, he'd been keeping most of the troops in the tunnels looking for it. They liberate the captain’s keys and decide that this is the best spot for camping. Ffwylldyr and Dwight go to inform Archie of all that they have discovered, Archie talks to them through a slit in the Guild compound’s door. “Sounds like a good enough place to hole up. No one survived in here either!” spits at the ground, “Rats.” I’ll need more time than I thought to clear things up in here, maybe by noon tomorrow I can send Hank with you guys to help out.”
It is the last night of the full moon, and they can see the pink, glaring eyes of rats everywhere they look, always in the shadows beyond the light source. Just waiting. The two of them are walking into the fort’s main compound when they hear the sounds of a syrinx being played in the distance.
That is where we left off for the session.
***
during the session, I decided to award some "brownie points" to Kasi's cleric for not only performing her duty, but for doing it with style. She got 1d6 x 2 points (6) that are able to offset the next six penalties from casting, healing, etc. or spend them for +1 bonus to any roll.
the write up for the bard that ducaster & I made is here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HIf ... t?hl=en_US
I didn't want to play formatting games.