Episode 13

I apologize for the lateness of the posting, but sometimes life gets in the way.

I had anticipated about 3-4 different paths the party would go down at this point.  I always try and figure out what the most likely and least likely options are for where the party is going to go.  Once I have that figured out I spend energy planning accordingly.  This was not the #1 thing that I expected from the group, but I did have something in store if its how things went down.

Episode 13:

At this point the party started the night in Wisthaven.  They had spent a few days gathering information and following up on leads.

Tian Primrose, the half-elf information dealer, caught up with Lina at the Smoking hound (the Inn they are staying at).  I decided to make Tian kind of a creep, he hits on the little gnome Lina and in general acts like a jerk.  But he has the information that Lina is looking for and has found out where Kong, the beardless dwarf is.  At this point Lina also asks for information on Eric Erinson (Sam's nemesis) and on Vlaad the Dark Knight Anti-Paladin/Bounty Hunter from the week before.

Once the part found Kong they met back up with Ismana, the elven wizard, at her trans-dimensional Tower that has at least 1 entrance in Wisthaven and 1 in Osht.  They were reminded that she was looking for some White Yew from the mountains.  Kong knew of some other beardless dwarves who were interested in some work.  So with a ahdnful of dwarves in tow the rest of the party decided it was time to go and do this little fetch quest for the addle-brained wizard.

They spent a little extra time getting making some purchases and once they were ready, they loaded a bunch of horses and their dwarven allies.  With that they made the 2 day trip to the mountains and began cutting down trees.


After a few days the party had most of what they needed.  But, each day they were there added to the possibility that a local group of bandits was going to notice them and attack.  As it turned out, on the 4th night they decided to lay an ambush.

The way I ended up doing this was to have them write out their order of watch and have each one roll their perception check for their watch.  Once I had that I rolled randomly to see who was on watch when the bad guys snuck in.  If our heroes perception beat their sneakiness, they had a chance to act before getting hit.  As it turns out it fell on Lina's watch, the best possible result for the party since she had the best perception roll.


By the numbers this was a CR8 encounter.  In reality it was probably close to 9/10.  they fought 3 rogues (level 2 rogue, level 2 warrior) 3 archers (level 4 warriors), 1 fighter (level 3), 1 ranger (L3) and 1 Wizard (L3).  Over all no individual enemy was more difficult that a CR2, but the bad guys were buffed up and the goodguys were off guard and mostly unarmored, which was overcome with a pretty ingenious unseen servant spell to help the inquisitor and the fighter.

This was a fun battle. The wizard was using his familiar to deliver chill touch, the archers were pulling the party in different directions and Kong got sneak attacked by two rogues when he tried to skip out the back of the tent.  I was honestly really happy with how this turned out.  Sam made some judicious use of the Create Pit spell (which may be the best 2nd level spell...period) which really cut off the enemies mobility.  Sam ended up getting downed, but not killed and Damone swung in to save him.  After about 10 rounds of difficult combat the elf wizard managed to get away and Typhus decided it was time to get to his "Dark Work" of questioning the still living bandits.  As a side note Lina calls it his "Dirty Work", which I think most of the group has started to pick up on and kind of makes me chuckle.

Typhus found out that the bandits had a fortification built about a days ride away.  They spent the next couple of days finishing up their lumber work and sent the dwarves back south to Wisthaven with the prisoner.

The fortress was basically a wooden pallisade 25' tall 50' long and 40' deep.  about 10 guys were inside, including a 5th level cleric and a 6th level fighter.

The party came up with a plan to get inside: Sam would make a silent image of the guard they rescued while Lina would throw down Ghost Sound to make him call for help.  From Ismana's bag of Tasty Treats they pulled 3 flying candies and handed those out to the melee fighters.  Once the guards opened the gates they would all throw down the buff spells and the up front fighters would fly up top while the sneaky guys/casting guys would come in from the bottom. 

The plan worked like a charm, they hit a couple of snags (Kong was flying 50' in the air when the cleric dispelled magic on him.... which caused him to hit -8... but he was fine).  The Hsted flying combatants had not trouble moving around the battlefield and within 12 rounds they cleaned up the bad guys.

The only sad news is that between these 2 fights and a little role-playing we chewed up the enitre night.  It was fun though ran some enjoyable combat and we have a good place to pick up from next week,  Now I just have to dish out the treasure for all that...

Until Next Time!

-Ubercroz

Episode 12

This week nearly went without any combat at all, which is kind of neat since last week was a very combat intensive night.  As a result of that I have no combat maps to upload this week!    Over all it was a good night.

Episode 12:

The party started off the evening at the top of a dwarven fortress with a bunch of dwarves outside the main keep.  Now the dwarves were currently unaware that the heroes had slipped into the temple, slaughtered a bunch of guys, stolen 15 bars of mithril, released all their slaves, and freed their friend from captivity.  The part quickly looked around the room they were in, grabbed Durn's gear and a book written in a cypher, and booked it.

This gave me a nice opportunity to add some tension.  They could hear the dwarves discover what happened and then they could hear the tread of running dwarven feat as they ran down the steps to stay just out of reach of their stubby little feet.


The party then bolts out the secret door at the rear of the cliff and managed to get out before the dwarves knew where they went to.  Outside they met with all of the folks who, only a few short hours before, where about to be slaves of the dueregar.  They ducked back into the trees and slept from dawn to the evening so that they could be full rested and move in the night time.  Before that point the party was fatigued due to pulling an all nighter.

Under the cover of darkness the party managed to move out of the valley, and with tremendous luck and good decision making every potential combat was avoided.  This was partly due to Whoden, Sam's 1 eyed raven, and just being careful, and of course tremendous luck over and over.

The party then met up with some roving dwarven patrols from Garrets Reach.  These were not bad guys and when they realized that they had saved a bunch of their citizens from slavery escorted them back to Garrets Reach.  At this point the party decided that they were not going to go IN to Garrets Reach due to the heat that they were under.  Durn went in, since he was not with the group, and agreed to meet up with the party 1 day later with potential news about the other missing party member, Kong.

Once the party had rested Durn came back and explained he would work to help clear their name, but he needed to stay and help take care of his father who agreed to testify against the Stoutfellows.  In regards to Kong he had been tried and his sentence executed.  His fate was the worst a dwarg could suffer, he was banished, had his beard shaved off, and his hand was clamped in the "Black Gauntlet", a device that caused searing pain so long as it was worn.  Kong left several days before, with the party believing that he went to meet them in Wisthaven to the southeast.

The party then continued to Wisthaven.  Wisthaven is the largest, oldest, and most corrupt city in the area.  I should mention that at this point an NPC noticed that Sam the Salesman had his gender changed.  This is something that I had not mentioned in previous posts due to in game knowledge of other players.  Sam picked up a cloak with from the doppelgangers a few weeks back and when he put it on he began to slowly change gender- and his party failed to make perception checks to notice (which was staggering).  Once Urz realized Sam was now Samantha he immediately groped him, causing Sam to look ashamed and confused.

Once on ground the party had a lot of loose ends to tie up.  They looked for information on Kong- paying information dealers, gathering information on their own, trying to pick up hints.  They needed to locate the next Seal Tower and find out where Belfast had gone to- so they went to the temples and asked around about where the tower might be and if the death cultists had been heard from.  Urz decided to find out if someone could enchant the green dragons wings he had been carrying around for weeks so that he could fly- This one was interesting.  It turns out Ismana, from Osht who sent them on a previous quest, has a tower in a pocket dimension with entrance points in more than 1 location, and that is who Urz ran into, and picked up a another quest from her as well.  Sam had a personal quest to deal with and looked into that as well.

Speaking of Sam, for the first time since the beginning of the game he ran into the guy who brought him into this dimension.  On the streets of Osht Sam Simmons ran into a man who called himself Eric Erinson.... though Eric did not recognize "Samantha".

That evening the party ran into a black knight wielding a Lucerne Hammer with a bowl of incense hanging off of a chain.  This was an Anti-paladin with spring attack (stealing some inspiration from a podcast).  His incense gave let him use his cruelty in any square he had stood or swung his hammer.

This was not designed to be a hard fight.  Just challenging and making the players work around him some.  So he bounced around hit a bunch of people, fatigued the group, and then ran away as soon as he could to avoid being killed (with a hp total of 7 at the end of the fight).I


Vlaad the Black Kngiht took off, but made sure to leave his calling card and now the party has 1 more thing to worry about (like they needed that).

We did a lot of role playing, the party spent a lot of time shopping (something they had little chance to do for the past many weeks).  And they really had a chance to wind down from the past few weeks and put together all the details of what they needed to do.  The game could have gone the whole night without combat, but I know that not everyone would have liked that so I made sure to include that here.

Well, we have 2 more villains to contend with - Eric and Vlaad, a couple of new quests, and they have a dwarf friend missing somewhere in the city.  It looks like next week is going to be good.

Until Next Time!

-UberCrozier

Episode 11

Tonight went pretty well all in all. Everyone showed up with a little bit of last week on their minds. I think that’s good. We had a lot to do tonight and tight schedule to keep. A couple of my players have to work some weekends, so the night can't go too late. Typically we start around 7:30 (lol 8:00) and we strive to finish at 12:00-12:30. Its a tight schedule and with kids and breaks we actually get a lot accomplished every night we get together. Since last week focused so much on roleplaying I wanted tonight to be much more problem solving and combat focused. Its less stressful than moral decisions and when you succeed you can walk away from the night feeling pretty good.

Episdode 11.

The party started off in the woods near Granites hidden fortress. They had ambushed him and now found themselves in the predicament where they had to figure out how to get from their small encampment into the temple. I built a few skill checks into this, history, engineering, geogrpahy would all help to point the party towards knowing that the cliff at the back of the mountain range looked strange and out of place somehow.

The party started the night a little on edge, they didn't want to screw anything up. They moved very carefully, at night, towards the back of the woods, crossed a stream, and got up to the cliff. A lot of time was spent making sure that they crossed that stream safely. I'm glad they did that, shows they want to stay safe but are willing to take risks when necessary.

Topographical map of the valley.  Yellow is the low ground red is the high ground

I did another word puzzle here. After searching they found a stone puzzle box they could plug into the wall tat said “more valuable than gold”, the letters I had included one to make STONE, FAMILY, MITHRAL, TRUST, HONOR. The answer was trust. They had 4 chances and using the right skills (perception, knowledge (history, local, dungeoneering) they could eliminate some letters. It took 3 tries and around 15 minutes but they got in.

Once they snuck in they found some slaves, and Durns mother who told them to travel upstairs to find her son. After wards they very quickly got into a fight with some dueregar and some mountain dwarves. I'm torn on what maps to include here, this was a pretty straightforward fight (CR7) but had a giant pit in the middle that led down to the underdark.

The only thing I really wanted out of this fight was for someone to get knocked into the pit and killed as a result. As it turns out Urz bullrushed a Dueregar over and dropped him. I was very happy to see that. One of the Dueregar they were fighting did manage to slip out the back and run back towards the underdark.... who knows how that will turn out.

The party found a few bars of Mithril here, I don't give my parties a lot of money over time, so this Mitrhil may be one of the few major sources of income they get for a while. Once they had explored the lower level they climbed over 9 stories to reach the next level where they found... nothing of note.

I do this sometimes. There was nothing to find there, but one of my players today asked me what they missed, and I said- “I dunno, I guess not much.” Its good to have areas where you don't anything from time to time. It makes it so finding something that much better.

The two bottom pillars shot acid arrows at anyone standing in green

Next they moved up another level into what, I think, became the best of the three encounters that the party had that night. There was a forge, anvil, and toolset they passed as they entered into a CR8 fight. A Level 3 Dueregar cleric, 2 Level 4 dwarf fighters, and 2 level 3/2 dueregar Warrior/Fighters... Oh and pillars that shot acid darts whenever someone got near them. The pillar ended up being great. It made my players have to worry about where they could stand and where they could end their turn. The fight itself took around 10 rounds and really used a lot of resources.

When it was over they had killed everyone except for 1 dueregar who was willing to trade information for his safety. He explained that the dueregar were trading mithril for slaves to give them cheap access to labor and to give the Stoutfellows the Mithril they needed to have the best equipped Clan in the

dwarven hierarchy.

When that was over Typhus- the Judge Dredd of the country of Proveria- determined that this Dueregar was guilty of his crimes and threw him into the red hot coals of the forge. Typhus is an inquisitor and LN, it also fit his character. He considers himself to be judge, jury, and executioner as such he found the dueregar guilty of slavery and meted out his punishment.

The party at this point was pretty hurt. Their APL is 6.4, which I rounded up to 7. Well given that the 7 and 8 enounter were tough and a lot of resources were expended on those fights...and up next was the big daddy of the fights. A CR 10 fight to save their lost comrade Durn.

Upstairs they found a number of mountain dwarves and dueregar waiting for them. Over the next 12 rounds the party expended the majority of their resources. Typhus was dropped to -8 at one point, Lina spent a good portion of the fight running from a dueregar, Urz was laying waste to the dirty dwarves with cleaving power attacks, Sam was creating pits under anyone foolish enough to stand, and Damone was buffing everyone into the extreme. When all was said and done, all the parties spells were spent, and there were no remaining rounds of abilities left.

I like fights were people get the chance to stick and move. One of my gripes about the OGL system of combat is that it tends to be more beneficial for people to standstill and swing than it is for people to move around the map. I like dynamic fights and this was one. I don't pull punches in my games, and there was a legitimate chance for a TPK here, but when the party is willing to throw themselves at the fight with all they have then I am happy with the result.

Now the Party has Durn, they are at the top of a fortress filled with angry dwarves and near a town where they are wanted for murder and potentially killing the Mayor. As the night drew to a close the party found themselves barricaded behind a stout door to rest as they plotted out their next move. It was a night filled with combat. The nice thing was that at the end of the night they felt like they succeeded. They broke into a stout dwarven fortress, snuck up several levels, put down the resistance, and saved their friend.

They are sequestered away in the top level of this fortress behind a thick iron banded wooden door and are resting up to face whatever foes are still in and around the keep.

Until next time!

-Ubercroz

Episode 10.2

This is the session that actually made me want to start tracking this game.  Like I said before there were a lot of strange things that happened and I don't have a lot of GM's around to talk to that don't play in my game.  So I wanted to get a chance to get some feedback (I am sure it will be biased since this is written from my perspective) and to let other people get some feedback from my game.

Episode 10.2

The Party headed up north towards Garrets reach, around 2 days away.  Half way there they find a raided caravan.  No bodies, but there are signs of a fight there.  They find Durns holy symbol here.  They pick up the trail and begin to follow it.

I wanted them to have a possibility of finding this Hidden stronghold I made were Durn is right off the bat.  It would be tough (6 skill checks of 22+) but they could do it.  I like my games to be sand boxy.  It keeps me on my toes and forces them to have to think and have consequences in the world.

They got about halfway to the fortress and lost the trail.  So they went to Garrets Reach and talked to Durn's father, a man I named Dangit Brewhammer (I thought that was funny).  After some convincing (and a charm spell) Dangit tells them that he asked Durn to help him rescue his kidnapped wife and daughter.  Granite Stoutfellow (the Stoutfellow that runs Garrets Reach) is involved in the slave trade and Dangit wasn't keeping up his part of the deal, so Granite took his wife and daughter as payment.  The party decided to go and meet with Granite.

I've said before I try to give my NPC's motivations.  Dangit is scared something worse is going to happen to him.  Granite deals in a secret slave trade with the Dueregar swapping mithril for slaves.  So he really wants to keep the city in good working order so he can do his dirty deeds behind the scenes where his family’s name won't be dirtied.  This is important when my players talk with Granite.

They get a meeting with Granite and they open up by essentially asking him to sell slaves to them- they don't just come right out and say it, but they mention that Draggard recommended they meet Granite and buy slaves from him.  Granite gets nervous hearing this and tells the players he doesn't deal in that kind of thing and basically tells them to get out- The players notice Kong's axe on Granites belt.

Its easy as a GM to design a dungeon or an encounter that has a solution.  What is somehow both easier and more difficult is building an encounter with no preordained solution.  From a certain perspective, you just put it out there and lean back while the players play with it.  On the other hand, we tend to WANT to have an answer ready as a GM, and to think how we would do it.  I made Granites Keep a place that existed with something the players wanted inside and that was it.  If you don’t have a particular answer you open yourself up to letting the players make up something better than you ever could have.

Now the players decide to wait for a guard to leave Keep and follow him to an alley where Lina sneak attacks him with a blackjack.  They invisible him and take him to Dangits house and tie him up in the basement.  They find out that Kong is in the dungeon of the keep and that the guards do shifting rotations keeping people up on the wall at almost all times.  Lina and Damone decide to go scout out the keep at dark while Sam says he and Urz will take care of the guard.  At this point Sam makes a noose and strangles the guard to death.

I had something of a problem with this.  I was super surprised that one of my more experienced players playing a LG character would do that.  This is partly my fault.  I have caused other NPC's they let go come back to haunt them and this is the over reaction to that.

Lina and Damone find a small window they can climb up to unnoticed at the keep and peek inside and find some stairs.  Given these two are both new players they got a little nervous about being alone and booked it back to the party.  Sam and Urz drug the body outside and were caught by a guard.  They bluff and convince the guard that the body is just drunk; the guard offers to lead them back to the "drunken" guard’s house.  When he turns around they hit him with color spray and the guard saves.  Now the guard calls the other guards and Sam and Urz have to book it and get out of there.  They manage to invis and get away.

This was the repercussion for killing the guard.  Now this party of heroes is wanted for murder in Garrets Reach.  It will certainly make things harder and I don't know what is going to happen to Kong.

The party all gathered up and rather than going after Kong that night before news spread about the dead guard they waited until the next night... when the guard was doubled on the keep.  They decided to wait out Granite and follow him to his secret fortress.  They found the way, managed to get a little ahead of him and caught him in an ambush where things finally went the player’s way.  They dismantled him and his guard and now are camped out 1/2 a day’s ride from Granites hidden fortress.

Well, the night started out rough and had a few bumpy moments, but the players got where I hoped they would.  They have less information than is ideal, but that’s okay.  I was pretty frustrated at several points in the evening; I didn’t like some of my player’s choices.  In retrospect this was the kind of stuff I want to happen.  I want my players to muck around and do things with lasting consequences.  When I get put in an uncomfortable spot as a GM that’s when I have the chance to really shine and make my game better.  So that’s a lesson I will take with me, next time things are going awry, sit back relax and let the good times roll.

Until next time!

-Ubercroz

Episode 10.1

There are times when it seems like a game comes off the rails quite a bit, and this was one of those nights.  There was mystery, murder, bar fights, confusion, and despair.  That may be an exaggeration but there was confusion at a minimum.  Enough happened here that I think I am going to break this into 2 posts.  The reason is that I don't want to overload anyone and so much role playing happened that to go into it all would be overwhelming- I think.  So here is part 1

Episode 10:

The party started off the evening in Owls Roost, the northern most city that is still within the confines of the country of Proveria.  Owls Roost is a merchant city, it’s where a bunch of traveling merchants and nomads set up shop and it stays a large city, mostly made of tents.  I didn’t exactly have a basis for this but I wanted it to have the feeling of 1840’s mining town.  Owls Roost is a city of convenience, it’s right in the middle of some major traffic ways from the dwarven trade cities to the north and the country of Proveria.  It is also the gateway to the one pass that would take them north of the Dwarven Highlands into the Northlands.


The party begins asking questions around town looking for their buddy Durn.  Urz asks "Have you seen a Dwarf with nine fingers anywhere?".  I caught myself right before the guy answered no and paused.  so Urz says "I intimidate the guy".  The lowly merchant tells Urz about a Dwarf in South Town named Draggard is probably who he is looking for.

This is where improv skills can come in handy.  Whenever your instinct as a GM is to say no, try to stop yourself.  The game will be much more fun if you say "Yes, and...".  This was one of those times, it ends up completely changing the adventure that I said yes to his question about the 9 fingered Dwarf.  I also noticed my party had been abusing the intimidate skill recently.  It seemed like the party preferred using that skill over diplomacy.  So on the spot here I made 2 decisions: 1- I was going to make a 9 fingered dwarf who ran things in town, He is the seedy underbelly.  2- If they keep intimidating people they are going to let Draggard know that the money they pay him for protection doesn't seem to be working.

Typhus went to the local constable and found a drunk constable who seemed to be completely disinterested in managing the law in town.  However, he recommended that they look at the bar next door for info, after Typhus intimidated him.

I have a simple rule when I name a tavern: the (adjective) (noun).  it works pretty well.  In this case it was the (fallen) (wheel).  In my world I have essentially made Inquisitors like a separate branch of the government.  So when Typhus rolls in and shows his badge people listen.  Not all inquisitors are on the same level… and to be honest I have not really worked out all the details, but I liked the idea of the roving law man.

After a some more looking around Sam finds that Durn and Kong went north with a merchant group a week ago.  Lina found out that the thieves guild was located in South Town, and Damone found out that the north gate is where records of merchant travel are kept.  All with done with a couple more intimidate checks.

So when all the information is gathered they decide its time to go meet.... Draggard.  So for whatever reason this NPC caught their attention, and I obliged.  They found his tent after intimidating a Madam at the brothel across the street and intimidated the bar tender to get back in and meet Draggard face to face.

At this point I couldn't really have a party of 5th level characters bullying everyone they run into.  So I pulled out a premade 12th level fighter NPC I had and made him Draggard.  They were not going to be able to bully this guy around, he ran the place.

The party now demands information from Draggard on their 2 dwarf friends.  Draggard recommends they go up north and look.  Somehow the party has convinced themselves that Draggard is a slaver and they don't like him.  At this point everyone they intimidated shows up and lets Draggard know these guys have been causing trouble in town.  Draggard say "pay these people for their trouble and we will call it good."  Once again the party says "Fuck off" and Sam enlarges Urz to intimidate Draggard.  Draggard now demands that they pay for his ruined tent as well, since Urz burst through the top of it.  So the party decides it’s time to fight this fool. 

The comical thing to me about this situation is that Draggard was demanding payment of only 100 gp.  Each one of these characters has nearly 1000 gp on them.  And if they hadn’t wrecked his tent he would have taken 50!  All Draggard cares about is making sure that the people in town know he is not weak and that he runs things.  He doesn’t honestly care about the money or the people; he just wants to stay in control.

I won't go in to details, but they barely managed to slip out the back by laying down grease spells and webs spells and having a summoned snow leopard drag Urz's bleeding body out the back of the burning tent.  I think it’s safe to say things didn’t go the way the party planned.

Fleeing from South Owls Roost with an entirely invisible group they head up to the north gate.  Literally exhausted from their run they find out that their friends left a week ago.  Unfortunately their horses are on the other side of town.  Lina stealth’s back there and uses her masterwork disguise kit to dress up as a green (rather than purple) haired male gnome with a large twisted mustache and led the horses up north to meet with the party at a fireless camp as they prepared to head up north, tired, depressed, and wondering what was coming next.

Until next time!
-Ubercroz

Episode 9

Tonight was a big change for the gaming group.  Durn's player finally decided to switch characters.  He is now playing a heavy armor wearing inquisitor named Typhus, on a mission from God (Tyr).  Typhus has the Sword Crissus the PC's found in Doomsward.  Also I decided to stop running Kong as an NPC.  Nothing that hasn't been dealt with before, but it always throws a kink in the works.

My concept for the adventure this evening stemmed, partly, from the fact that my players had been enjoying their fame.  Now there is nothing wrong with that, they should enjoy it.  What it let me do was take something that my players enjoyed (being recognized as good) and take it away from them briefly.

Episode 9:

Durn and Kong head up north to Garrets reach to deal with the problem with Durn's father.  The rest of the party stayed a few days to gear up, rest, and prepare to head out to Wisthaven to chase down Belfast.

As they got on the road they started to notice that the townspeople they were running into were scared of them and more than happy to do what the PC's wanted.  Well this clearly struck  a chord with them and they decided to investigate.  At the first town the people are scared, but subservient.  They won't accept money from the pc's, but insist they have seen them before and they are willing to do whatever they need to so that the pc's get on their way again.

 Here I gave the players a little information. I could tell they were nervous.  They actually took watch in the tavern they were staying in because they thought the townspeople had it out for them.

They left the first town and caught made it to a second the next day.  This town was much more angry with the PC's, the constable came and spat on them and told them to leave.  At this point Typhus showed up with his big war stallion and his shiny inquisitor badge.  With some diplomacy checks (and a few intimidate checks) the party figures out that the group that was here was there old group- including Durn and Kong.  And that these guys were here only a few days before.  With a few more diplomacy checks (and maybe another intimidate check) they are pointed in the right direction the bad guys took off.  Oh, and they got spat on 2-3 more times.

This was cool part to play, I got to show the gamut of reactions to being bullied.  And it let me take the players in a more roleplaying direction.  Role playing sections can be difficult, because your party can often surprise you.  I was not 100% that they were going to take the hook here.  So I had some predetermined consequences ready if they went the other way.

After 3 days of tracking the party finds a sinkhole in the middle of the woods the bad guys dropped into.  

What they found was as classic a dungeon crawl as I could come up with for a 1 session game.  I am in the military and spend a good amount of time on the road.  So most all of this dungeon was created in a hotel room with horrific internet.

The guys they are after are a group of doppelgangers.  They have made their home inside of this cavern and have a few pets they use for defense, or whatever else they need.  The players enter at the bottom of the map.  I have a series of traps here that the players could get caught up in.  The room to the left is a Dire Wolf and her two cubs.  The room with the chests in it is guarded by two assassin vines past a dead fall of rocks, a poison dart trap, and a 20' pit trap.

The pit trap made for some comic relief, so Lina was disabling it and Urz says "I'm going to peek around the corner", at which point he falls into the pit.  He was mostly fine.  He then climbs up on the other side and is immediately grappled by the first vine.

To me this ended up being the most fun encounter of the night, the party had to figure out how to get past the pit, kill the vines and then get into the treasure room.

They made it into the treasure room... the chest with a lil' cloud on it is poison gas.  They triggered it, they were fine.

The room labeled "body room"  is exactly what it sounds like, a room of dead bodies.  They have parts cut off and butchered- this was used to feed the monsters.

The back left room had a Giant spider and two baby spiders in it.  Again, not a difficult fight, but it was interesting with the spiders web and a little poison.

Lastly the Doppelgangers.  There were 6, 1 of them had a few PC levels.  he was a 2nd level wizard.  no big deal.  The party had purchased a amulet of fireballs and used 2 of the balls in this fight in the first 2 rounds.  That really turned the fight easy.

The interesting thing in this fight was that the players thought that they were going to face mirror images of themselves, stat for stat, so they came in ready to kill.  So while the fight was easy, it also forced them to use resources that have value- and in the long run that's just as good as challenging.

Once the dungeon was clear the party head out and let the townspeople know the doppelgangers are dead. As they head north there is a familiar blond 1/2 elf in a black cloak.  Leanna, the assassin was waiting for them.  There is a little unfriendly banter and right before the party is ready to kill her she says that she has information they may be interested in.  At that point she throws a bag with Durn's finger in it in front of them. "Look after your friends, or come after us".  Now the party has a choice, up north to save Durn and Kong, or east to Wisthaven where the search for Belfast continues...

Until Nest Time!

-Ubercroz

A Puzzle for your Enjoyment

I mentioned a puzzle in a previous post I made.  I wanted to describe it, but thought it would take away somewhat from what I was saying there.

Set up for the puzzle is as follows:

There is a stone plate with 7 1 inch depressions in a row and a series of stone letters that can fit into the depressions.

Above that is written a sentence (my example is below).

The door in front of you has visible gears at each of the top corners that seem to be connected to some unseen mechanism.  There are 3 notches below the gears as well.

So this can be a tough puzzle, if you want it to be.  I mean the word can be any length.  In the picture above you can see there are some black squares and there are some with X's over them.

The squares are to indicate a blank letter.  So I was making options for a 5-7 letter word.  The X's indicate places where the Characters had successful skill checks that let them make the puzzle easier.

In this case I gave them the possibility of making History, Knowledge (nobility, local, religious), or an Intelligence check.  Each time they would eliminate a stone tablet.  I even let them use a very high perception check to eliminate a square because it didn't "look like it fit right".

The notches under the gears are to show that there are three chances at the puzzle.  Once they put the letters in place they push them in to the plate.  If they get it wrong a metal sheet slides down to the first notch, if they get it wrong twice to the second, etc.

The reason I came up with this is that I like riddles, but they can be very frustrating at the table, and it challenges the players, but not the characters.  This, I thought, was a way to make a riddle where the characters skills, intelligence and knowledge would be able to help them out in a real tangible way.

The other thing that nice is that this is a puzzle the players can know exists and it can never be spoiled.  Because you come up with the riddle, the options, and the answer.

I hope some of you out there can use this.

-Ubercroz