World of Prime: Campaign Journal #65

The Necropolis: Bard on Ice

The aboleth waits for the party in the center of its lair, holding a torch in one tentacle and a scroll in the other. The threat is clear: negotiate or see the treasure burned.

There is little room to move, though. The aboleth halves its price, and halves it again, but the party is unwilling to part with anything. At least the talking phase has given the monster the opening shot.

It launches a lighting bolt to middling effect while its rangers focus fire on the Bard. Unfortunately he had the sense to put up Protection From Arrows before the fight and his defenses hold.

The Ranger kills a skum with arrows; the Druid and Wizard both cast Wall of Fire, trapping the skum rangers in-between, Unable to see targets, they retreat, taking significant damage. However, the party is also unable to see, and consequently must move to flank their own battlefield control.

They are met at the end of the wall by the aboleth (wearing the scroll as a paper hat) and another lightining bolt. The Ranger appears to fire with deadly effect while the Barbarian and Druid-Bear dish out massive damage, but the Wizard reveals the truth with a well-aimed Dispel Magic the evaporates the aboleth's Projection, leaving nothing but air.

Now the remaining skum rangers close to archery range. They are met by a Fireball from the Wizard and a Cone of Cold from the Bard, and that's that for them. The Wizard has permanent See Invisibility, so he moves forward, searching for the aboleth. It tries to dominate the Barbarian but fails; the bear and swordsman close to melee and demolish the creature despite its multiple layers of miss chances from Invisibility and Displacement.

Searching the lair, they find the real scroll, marked out by a figure with horns on the back. Now they have everything they need; after resting for a few days, they venture into the lich's dungeon.

A surprising amount of caution is used opening the door, but eventually the Cleric and Wizard read their scrolls on the statues. The door grinds open to the tolling of twelve bells. It reveals an empty hallway with three doors leading out, each labeled in the Common tongue: The Hall of the Many, The Hall of the Few, and The Hall of the One. 

After much debate they smash down the door to the hall of the Many. Stepping inside the huge 200x200 hall, they are met by a shower of arrows out of the darkness (as the room is lit only near their door). They go to the hall of the One; this is an underground maze. Before exploring it, they decide to try the hall of the Few, finding it the same as the hall of the Many.

This time they charge in despite the arrows and encounter a wall of skeletal halberdiers. The creatures are not particularly dangerous, but they are numerous, and with the help of the skeletal archers shooting over their heads, they are inflicting small but steady damage. The Bard, in an excess of courage, teleports behind the archers, only to discover several squads of skeletal knights.

Our heroes still fear lances; the Wizard cuts the room in half with a Wall of Fire, saving the Bard's life. This despite all the kvetching about the wall's interference in the previous battle. The Barbarian is in his element, his Great Cleave feat allowing him to dish out uncapped damage against the hordes of skeletons, putting even the bear to shame. One troop of halberdiers flanks the party; the Wizard eliminates it with a fireball. The Cleric vaporizes dozens of skeletons before deciding this is not really a good use of divine power.

When the wall of fire comes down, things get real. The Barbarian is reduced to single hit-points by lance charges, and the Ranger and Druid-bear take significant damage as well. Now the Cleric deploys his magic to good effect, destroying half the creatures in one go, while the others are chopped up in more traditional methods.

After a careful and thorough search, cut short only by the tolling of eleven bells, they determine that the sole treasure in the room is a chest containing 1,000 lbs of obsidian; the party has no use for this. They go through the door at the back of the room, only to find a repeat of what they just fought.

Unable to bear the thought of mindlessly grinding on hundreds of skeletons again, they choose the dangers of the maze.

Following the Ranger's unerring sense of direction, they wander in the maze for an hour. When the bell tolls ten, they find a chest with a half-ton of silver (again: not worth carrying) and a pouch of pearls worth 300 gp. Another hour finds a pouch of jacinth, worth 3,000 gp. Yet another hour discovers onyx, worth 7,500 gp; but at this point the toiling of the bells is beginning to unnerve them. The Druid casts Find the Path, giving up on the remaining chests of treasure, and they arrive at the end of the maze as the bell strikes seven.

Here they find the reverse of the entrance. Listening at the door of the Many reveals a scholarly debate occurring inside; when the Bard knocks on the door, a bearded demon opens it and shushes him, but otherwise the party is ignored by the attractive winged ladies and their demonic audience. The room is well-lit, revealing a large iron key hanging on the side wall. The party decides to investigate elsewhere before lunging for the obvious McGuffin.

The door of the Few radiates cold; the Barbarian smashes it down with his sledgehammer. The Bard illuminates the room with magic; while they can't see everything, they do see an empty room with a large iron key hanging on a side wall. After much banter the Bard and Barbarian race through the empty room to grab the key.

This of course is a trap; once they reach the far wall, the entrance is sealed off by a Wall of Ice. The Druid punches through a few inches of the wall while the Ranger finishes carving a hole with his sword. After hearing a dozen mysterious popping sounds, the Bard decides that running across the room is a bad idea and teleports himself and the Barbarian onto the other side of the door.

Just in time; a dozen chain demons race up to the door. The party has one round to prepare and chooses to retreat down the corridor towards the other demons, on the theory that a long empty corridor is better than being trapped against the wall. The demons teleport through the ice wall, taking up positions on the other side, and a huge ice demon simply smashes the wall down and casts an Ice Storm at the party.

The spell doesn't do much damage, so the chain demons rush into battle, hindered somewhat by the narrowness of the hall. This proves to be a deciding factor, as they are bunched up and perfect bait for fireballs and flame strikes and tentacles. None of these spells affect the ice demon, which answers with multiple cones of cold - the last of which sees the Bard fail a saving thrown and turn into a Popsicle, saved from certain death only by the instant action of the Cleric's healing magic.

Now the Barbarian and Bear charge through the tentacles and close to melee with the ice demon. It should have been a tight fight, but the tentacles have grappled the demon, costing him a significant chunk of his armor class; consequently, the melee attacks prove effective and the terrifying monster goes down in one round.

This battle was less effort than the skeleton battle, but somewhat more dangerous as the Bard and Wizard came very close to freezing to death. Once again, however, the action economy has seen a group of heroes take down a single large foe. But now there is the hall of the Many to deal with; will the winged ladies and bearded demons prove more of a threat? For it is clear the party needs their key, and obvious that the bound demons will not surrender it without a fight, despite their refined politeness. 

 

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #64

The Necropolis, part V: Solving the Gordian knot like Alexander

Faced with a logical puzzle, the party decides to implement their oldest and bestest strategy: brute force.

The fact that these puzzle pieces are iconic monsters from eldritch lore does not inhibit them. Displaying at least a minor adaptation to the nature of this world, they lay in wait until a pair of chuul go out hunting. The ambush is over almost instantly, and the party rushes to implement the rest of their plan before the eye tyrant is aware that war has broken out.

As soon as they are in sight of the tower the Bard Dimension Doors them the top, backed up by the Druid flying in as a bat. However, their reconnaissance was imperfect; the roof of the tower is missing, and the party immediately falls into a pool with several started and hungry chuuls. The eye tyrant aims his anti-magic cone down into the water, rendering the party totally blind as their night-vision goggles shut down.

The Bard escaped this fate with his Cloak of the Bat, but now he and the Druid are dealing with eye rays. The Cleric and Ranger are swimming for the edge of the water while the Barbarian decides that, even blind and swimming, he can still take any number of over-stuffed lobsters.

This might have been mildly dangerous, until the Druid turns into a bear and drops down on the eye tyrant. This legendary creature is a potent foe in magical combat, but not melee; it disintegrates in a burst of gore, shredded by claws and fangs. The Druid-Bear falls into the pool with the Barbarian and the chuul; without antimagic protection, the lobsters are dispatched before the Ranger even gets out of the water. The Wizard arrives in the doorway, having run in on foot, only to contribute nothing but sarcastic applause.

That removes one party from consideration. Now they approach the ghasts and make a deal, trading the Wizard's giant zombie for their half of the secret. They are aware that the now unstable dynamic almost certainly sees the ghasts and the aboleth teaming up against them, so the very next day they attack. The ghasts are still in their camp, having spent the time finishing another bone construct from the bits of the zombie rather than seeking out alliances. However, they are not fooled, and not found unprepared.

Or rather, they thought they were prepared, until the Bard teleports the Barbarian to the back of the line where he instantly executes one of the spell-casting ghasts. (This prompts a bit of discussion about how teleport works, and a general agreement that in the future, being teleported leaves one unable to act until the next round, as the party rather fears the instant assassination technique they've just discovered.)

Meanwhile the rest of the fight is hardly any more challenging. The Druid-Bear melee machine is the perfect antidote to the bone constructs; the Barbarian and Bard in the back lines are cleaning up spell-casters despite several Flame Strikes. The Bard smoothly switches between melee and magic, interrupting the spell-casters and shaping the battlefield with Black Tentacles - even though they are dispelled, they cost the enemy precious time, and time is one thing they don't have as the magic resistant Barbarian is a spell-caster's worst nightmare. Having successfully countered both prongs of the ghast's defenses, the party makes such short work of them that the Wizard and Ranger are reduced to spectators.

They choose to press on to the aboleth before resting, hoping to catch it by surprise. This fails, of course, because the aboleth is literally an evil genius; but at the same time, the creature suspects it is outclassed. Can it negotiate the party into some more profitable outcome - or will it test its magic against them while they are at least partially depleted?