Merric Blackman
Australia
Waubra
Victoria
Ramping up my reviewing.
Happily playing games for many, many years.
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Once again we had five players for this session - such a relief after so many 3 and 4 player games.
The Group
Maximilian the Bard - Adam
Geran the Cleric of Zodal & Pelor - Chris
Drakuld the Paladin - Rich
Kurgan the Ranger - Josh
Riardon the Psion - Martin
Frath the Thief - NPC Companion (hired & controlled by Adam)
The characters are now 14th and 15th level.
This session began with the group chasing Archibald through the sewers of the buried city; a chase where there were some time behind thanks to the delaying tactics he'd used against them. They were accompanied by Cade, one of the Oklu warriors who had befriended them.
Eventually, they reached an entrance to a building, which Archibald had blocked with various pieces of furniture, but Drakuld had no difficulty in raising the trapdoor and pushing the furniture away. The building above was surprisingly well-kept, and the corpses of three giants were kept under sheets nearby, seemingly well-cared for.
Max and Geran considered their options, and opted for Speak with Dead, with Kurgan to translate Geran's questions into Giant. After about 10 minutes of working out what the questions should be, everything went pear-shaped: Chris rolled a 1 on his Religion check (only 1 question), and after he instructed Josh to ask "Which way did Archibald go?", Josh actually asked, "Have you seen Archibald, and which way did he go?"
"Yes," was my answer, and the game paused for five minutes as most of us fell about laughing. Chris wasn't as amused by this, of course.
At this point, the group noticed that there was only one exit from the building, and - coming onto the street - noted a brighter-lit section of the buried city with a number of Oklu moving around. They made contact with the Oklu and found that they were servants of the goddess Kaima, and they were trying to raise an Exarch of Kaima, but they hadn't been able to penetrate the trapped building where the exarch's body was. Feeling that they'd need allies against Archibald, the group agreed to help the Oklu.
(The Oklu are lizard-like humanoids that have an amazing capacity to mimic, and were the servants of the giants that once ruled the city).
Descending into the trapped vault, the group were attacked by a possessed dwarf who was infused with elemental fire; he begged them to kill him, whilst striking them with great power. The combat was extremely difficult, not least because the dwarf had a fire aura (vulnerable 10 fire, 10 fire damage) that had its radius increase throughout the combat. It began at a 5' radius - it ended at 35'! Towards the end of the combat, the group were staying away and throwing missile weapons. The group was really saved by Drakuld's ability to daze the dwarf, which allowed the dwarf more control over his actions, and thus he was able to stay away from the group and not attack them fully.
The chamber he had emerged from was once a library, but now all the books and scrolls were burnt and destroyed. A shattered glass dome once held "trignotarb" beneath it, whatever they are, but it seemed like they'd escaped and burrowed out of the room. Perhaps the group will discover them later, perhaps not. Meanwhile, the main chamber had a great inactive magic circle in it - possibly a teleportation device.
The next hallway possessed three trapped dragon statues which would breath fire, poison and acid on the party if they stepped on the floor. The group considered this, and decided to send Frath the Thief in using a Tenser's Floating Disc! This session was a big one for ritual use - once that was summoned, Frath floated over to the first statue and disabled it with ease.
Getting to the other two statues - some 80 feet away - was more of a problem, as they were out of the range that Max could extend his disc to. So, Max once more delved into his ritual book, and came up with familiar mount - it turned his parrot familiar into a large size so he could ride it, and then he flew down to the end of the hallway and towed Frath along behind him...
Once all the traps were disabled, the group found a hidden sigil that activated one third of the magic circle in the entry chamber. (I was loving the use of rituals this session - and the co-operation between Chris and Adam was great).
The next room - after they (easily) got past the locked doors - found another trick: two symbols on the ground - one of a triangle and one of a sphere. The group determined that one would be good and the other bad, though not which was which. Max, after a little investigation, just picked the right one and activated the second third of the magic circle. I remained astonished.
The final room they discovered this session had two foes in it: an eladrin and an ogre mage. Both were possessed by elemental forces, but after Drakuld dazed the ogre mage, they discovered it still wanted to kill them - the eladrin was more sympathetic, but unable to fight his possession. This was another tough fight, with the group taking down the ogre mage first and the eladrin second, who with his dying breath urged them to take news of his fate to his family in Celene.
Further searching revealed treasure (yay!) and the third sigil to activate the magic circle with - and also a set of stairs leading up. We were now out of time this session, so we ended it there for the fortnight. I'm really looking forward to that session, as this adventure has been fantastic so far - a great mix of exploration, role-playing and tough combats. I'm changing a few things around from the adventure-as-written to better fit my campaign (like the addition of Archibald), but it's very easy to do that with the sandbox-style of the adventure.
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Ramping up my reviewing.
