My Campaign Update

[Scott]

I skipped a few play session reports. The party did retrieve the three weapons from White Plume Mountain. The discovered the entrance to the Indoctrination Center early, and mentioned coming back to try to open it, but they never did. After the adventure we gave the kids the boot, and picked up one more player.
The party still had the treasure map found on Heckazar from the Cairn of the Skeleton king. Since Heckazar was a follower of Orcus, and his treasure was hidden in a graveyard, I thought Rappan Athuk seemed like a perfect fit. I placed Rappan Athuk on the Wild Coast, on the long stretch between Fax and Safeton. The party decided to head home, Fax, and stop at the dungeon on the way to try to find the treasure.
Rappan Athuk was not hard to find. The party poked around the graveyard for a bit, fought some gargoyles, and found a key in a secret compartment on a grave marker/statue close to the main mausoleum. The key opened the door to the mausoleum, and inside, after defeating a suped up skeleton guardian, they found a trap door that lead down to the dungeon. After searching through some empty rooms, and fighting a pack of wandering ghouls, the party found a large cavernous area. It was obviously a place of torture and death. All the classic torture devices were there, and many gibbets suspended from the ceiling containing corpses in various states of decomposition. The gibbets were suspended over a large pit where the victims excrement, rotting corpses, etc would fall into while the occupants died and rotted.
In the published version of the adventure there is a mutated killer mimic dung monster disguised as a toilet. My version of the dungeon has a monster inspired by the gulgathan shit demon/extremental from Dogma.
As the party was searching the room, a bubbling, gurgling, reeking blob rose from the pit and assumed a humanoid form and one of the foulest battles in my gaming history commenced. The party beat the demon, but did take some heavy damage. They then had to decide who would go into the reeking pool to find the treasure a detect magic revealed was in there. There were a couple of failed attempts, but they finally managed to retrieve the goods: a magic dagger +3, a bag of holding with gold inside, and an efreeti bottle. The party left the dungeon after this to shower and rest.

[Scott]

The closest settlement to the dungeon is Grey Heron Creek, or just Grey Heron. The party is resting at the Siren’s Song Inn. There’s also a small chapel dedicated to Xerbo. The lord of the place is a vassal of Safeton and is responsible for patrolling the coast road to keep it free from bandits and humanoids.

[Scott]

1/26/2019 Session Notes

The Party:
Plāsolder: 7th level human fighter
Corbek: 8th level human cleric of St. Cuthbert
Jastra: 5th/6th level gray elf fighter/magic-user
Ember: 2nd level cleric of Pelor
Mironin: 1st level human magic-user, (Corbek’s henchman)

Starday, Patchwall 15
Some clouds and breezy, but Grey Herron on the Wild Coast, is about the same latitude as Savannah, Georgia, so even this late in the fall it still reaches almost 80 during the hottest part of the day.

After resting in Grey Herron for several days the party headed back to Rappan Athuk in search of Heckazar’s treasure.

The main mausoleum’s door was locked again, so the party went back to the grave marker/statue of the dwarf and retrieved the key again from the secret compartment. After unlocking the door, the key disappeared again.

The party returned to the dungeon and began exploring the northwest portion of the level. After searching several rooms that appeared to be previously looted the party headed towards the southeast portion of the level. On the way they discovered (triggered) two traps. A collapsing stair/foot catcher trap with poisoned spikes. Ember discovered this one, but she saved vs. poison and only took 1 HP damage from a spike. There was also a covered pit that Plāsolder and Corbek fell into, but they were quickly retrieved with help from Jastra’s rope of climbing. Eventually they discovered a large natural cavern. A stream cut through the center of the room going west to east, there was enough headroom to walk down the east exit. In the cavern there were piles of fresh supplies. And a large number of rats, normal and giant. Six giant rats attacked the party, but they were quickly put to sleep by Mironin. The next round a dozen more giant rats emerged from a burrow and attacked. The party dispatched them quickly.
The party investigated a passage heading west and encountered more giant rats. They could see steps going down past the rats. While the party was finishing off the rats, 6 wererats emerged from small tunnels in the passage wall in rat form and surprised the party from behind. The party killed the wererats without taking too much damage. Corbek then decided to explore the tunnel they came out of. It was about 3’ in diameter so he had to slither through with no shield, pushing a torch along in front of him. It led to a small cavern that the ratmen were using as their lair. Amongst the heaps of garbage and bones he did find several large lacks of gold (5,000 GPs total).
The party then descended the steps. The came out in the middle of the east side of a 20’ wide, north/south passage. There could see two doors on the west side of the passage. The decided to go through the southernmost door first. After following a winding corridor they came to a room. Inside they found a badly wounded human, a thief they guessed by his weapons and armor. There was also an open stone sarcophagus in the center of the room with a corpse on the floor next to it. Both the body in the sarcophagus and the body on the floor were blackened and burnt. Another passage headed north. The human introduced himself as Felborg, and said his party was ambushed by ghouls in the 20’ wide passage. Him and a companion escaped here, but his companion was killed in the passage heading north. Looking up the 10’ wide passage they could see a 3’ diameter metal ball, covered in spikes, rolling up and down the hall. There was a large patch of brown mold along the west wall, and a mangled corpse close to the east wall.
Corbek cast a cure light wounds spell on Felborg and told him he could come with them until they left the dungeon. The party wasn’t too keen on trying the north passage just yet, so they decided to head back to the 20’ wide passage and try the other door. Another winding passage led to another room with an empty sarcophagus and a passage heading south. As part of there normal search routine they did find a secret door in this room. Upon opening the door they were rushed by four 7’ tall skeletons, each with a large ruby embedded in its forehead. Jastra tried a cone of cold, but it had no effect. The skeletons reached the party and attacked with swords. They also belched forth a cloud of black vapor into the face of their opponent. The vapor made the target drowsy and suffered a -2 penalty to AC and to hit. Corbek summoned the Efreeti and had him join the fight. Corbek, Jastra, and Ember were close to being killed by the skeletons while Plāsolder was knocked into a magical sleep by the black vapors. But thanks to the efreeti they did destroy all of the guardians. Searching the room confirmed this was Heckazar’s chamber. Corbek cast a find traps spell and discovered several chests were trapped. Felborg successfully removed them.
Heckazar’s treasure: 5,000 CP, 5,000 SP, 2,000 EP, 21,525 GP, 1,000 PP, six gems (10 x20, 50 x 10, 100 x 5, 500 x 2, 1,000 x 3, 5,000), Jewelry (wrought gold bracelet: 1,000), Jewelry (necklace, gold and gems: 5,000), Ring of Free Action (unidentified), Chime of Opening (unidentified).
The party scooped up as much of the loot as they could carry, with help from the efreeti, and headed back to Grey Herron.

[grodog]

Are you using the RA treasure straight-up, or adjusting it for your game, Scott? I don't recall how well NG hewed to the CR rules of 3.x, but if they did, it's quite possible that the loot might be too little/too much for your campaign.

Allan.

[Scott]

I have a couple versions of RA, and the treasure doesn't work for 1E in either. Heckazar's treasure is based on the description given for it in Cairn of the Skeleton King where the map is found.

[Scott]

NG treasure is out of the 2E miser DM playbook. Nowhere enough to handle the experience progression in 1E. They redid the dungeon with stats/mechanics more compatible with OD&D/AD&D, but I think they actually got stingier. That's with the monetary treasure. The magic items are OK.

[Scott]

They had to leave about 15,000 GPs in the dungeon. I'm sure that will be first on the agenda next session. Felborg is a 5th level thief, neutral grateful, that will offer his services to the party, probably as a henchman to Plāsolder. If treated well he will end up as a loyal follower.
The denizens of the dungeon are chaotic in the extreme, fighting amongst themselves, coming and going, etc, so the party's activities really haven't drawn any attention yet. The original plan was to get the treasure and then continue to Fax., but I think the dungeon has caught their attention. If they hang around I may have a spy from the dungeon leaders show up in town.