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| Finally, ripping off Desert of Desolation pays off |
Timekeeping
Player Characters Present
Introduction
Session Report
The Amber Light faded and the party, augmented by Giuseppe and new character Verdana, took stock of the situation. Having navigated the and escaped the Maze of Tupacman, they had explored series of worship rooms and found a secret area, which appeared to have already been plundered. The Amber Light had returned them the the Main Worship Hall.
After confirming they had pretty much explored everything else, they went down the last unexplored corridor and found another worship room. The 30' square room was filled with dervish worshippers being lead by a cleric performing a ceremony involving another huge statue of Kangsta Wrapper. In its outstretched arms it held an altar bowl about chest high, or 15 feet off the ground. Within the bowl was a low flame. As they watched, the priest threw an offering into the bowl; the flames leapt up high and completely consumed the offering, then died back an instant later.
There were 12 dervish worshippers in all, including the priest, and the party narrowly decided to parlay. The priest introduced himself as Uminum, in the service of Kangsta Wrapper. There was some mystery solving now; to cut a long story short, these guys had been locked in the pyramid since last Brovenloft, and their numbers had dwindled over that time, along with their faith. Some had even literally disappeared without trace. They party's arrival, and subsequent reveal of the secret doors behind the other Kangsta statues, threw them even more. After a short scuffle with the strongest adherents, most of the dervish, but not the priest himself, agreed to accompany the party through what they now believed to be a teleporter (the bowl of fire).
Although there was some trepidation, at length everyone stepped into the fire; each experienced a feeling of being burned to ashes and then rematerialising elsewhere. Elsewhere took the form of a hexagonal room 30' across. There were four equidistant exits, all unadorned archways; but beyond them it was impossible to see more than a few feet.
The module describes how the exits to this first room are filled with swirling sulphurous orange mists; these mists temporarily disorient those who enter them so they cannot determine how long they were inside, how many steps they took etc. A bit weird really, but this was one thing that I thought could easily be moulded into something more suitable to Kangsta Wrapper. I decided to change it so that, instead of mists, entering the maze would lead to a Rave, the effect of which was pretty much the same level of disorientation. The flashing lights could be seen, and pulsing music could be faintly heard from where the party now stood.
After choosing a direction at random and passing through the first archway, the lights became blinding, and the music deafening; at some indeterminate time later the party emerged into a small corridor and realised for the first time that this maze would be very difficult to navigate. I stupidly suggested they could still give me compass directions for their movement; but I immediately had to reverse on this and insist on only left-right-straight etc instructions from the PCs. At least that way I would know which direction they were going. Soon they had no little where they were in relation to where they had started, the maze appeared to go on endlessly with every new area much like the rest. Sever had the idea of marking numbers on the floor so that they could recognise when they entered an area they had been to before.
Eventually they arrived at a T-intersection (15 on the map) where there had been a battle of some kind. Dead gnome bodies were strewn about along with those of some humans. It seemed neither side had won since a sled bearing several chests was left behind; there was also a sword, the weapon detected as magic (and then evil), it was thrust through a body right into the floor. The party wisely ignored the cursed blade, but unwisely set off a trap on the chest which sent out a barrage of poisoned needles, one paralysing Shaemus for an unknown duration.
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A check of the other chests found 500gp in each; but the trapped chest, which sat on top of the others, held only smelly orc socks. They spent the time waiting for Shaemus to recover in repairing the sleigh and transferring some of their loot to it. The dervish now had the task of dragging the sleigh with them. They continued on and found Room 31 held a giant scythe blade hanging like a pendulum, the obvious trap was carefully skirted by the PCs, and, noticing a narrow ledge at near the domed ceiling, they climbed up and investigated.
In the original module, trap rooms (mostly all the 30' square rooms around the outside of the maze) all had observation platforms where priests from the next level could watch "plundering thieves meet their death". This effectively meant that every one of these rooms was an exit to the maze, and that, along with the next level itself, didn't fit with what I wanted. Instead I leveraged the idea that these rooms held viewing frames similar to those the party had encountered last session in Tupacman's maze. These allowed observation and communication to and from the room, but not movement.
The frame on the ledge was active and they could see, as though simply looking through a window at them, the Robopriest and another figure. Before this pair were a great number of active frames, presumably showing other parts of the maze; it looked as though they had been trying to monitor them all at the same time. The PCs yelled to get their attention and woke the other figure who had been asleep. He introduced himself as a Priest in the service of Kangsta Wrapper.
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| Weird al-Hotep. |
In a brief info dump, the pair explained that alien creatures from another dimension, known as Githros, had invaded the pyramid and tampered with the teleportation devices. Perhaps in their haste to establish control the creatures had neglected to disable teleportation to and from the Rave Maze. To escape then, they would have to find a room (28) which held a teleportation well, guarded by a sphinx, which was a match for the fire brazier they used to get into the maze. From there they could teleport to the actual tomb of the Kangsta located elsewhere within the pyramid. Doing so and restoring the teleport system was the only way to get out and return home.
The party asked about how they could more easily navigate the maze and eventually they instructed the dervish to link arms as they moved through the Rave areas, with the guys at each end keeping a hand on the walls on either side as they did so. This method was effective in giving them an idea of which directions they had taken while inside. Combined with observing the numbers they had marked on the ground, they made some progress.
Then they were surprised by a group of 4 elves moving silently. Immediately it was suggested that this was a cross over with my solo play group, and that they should kill them while they could. However, although the names were similar, these were different elves; survivors of a force sent by the King of Elfland to try and eliminate Kangsta Wrapper (in the original module, they were in fact doppelgangers). They had been stuck in here for a year and did not know their enemy was long dead. No one in the party bothered to fill them in on that fact.
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| familiar looking elves |
One other curious item, the Elf leader wore headphones they had acquired and identified as Headphones of the Kangta. Wearing them it was possible to block out the sound while navigating the Rave, allowing the user to determine how long they had been inside.
The elves were keen to help once they got the idea that the party were heading to the true tomb of Kangsta Wrapper. So, with the dervish stretching out in a row to touch each wall, and the Headphones, they were able to navigate back to the elf's hideout and pick up their other two companions. From there they headed north, coming to a four-way intersection (8). The elves had not previously explored further than this area due to hearing the roar of a ferocious beast from beyond.
They went left and found a door with a crude sign affixed to it, on which the words "Knock first" were written. The party decided to do just that and found inside (room 26) a group of Brovenloft Irish tomb robbers (in the module they were normal bandits), lead by one Paddy O'Leary. Immediately impressed by the presence of two Paladins in the party, and no less by the fact they had a plan to escape the maze, these worthies also threw in with the group and now the "party" had swelled to a small army of 5 PCs, 10 Dervish, 6 Elves, and 10 Irish.
Once they realised that Paddy had with him the Sunglasses of the Kangsta, which permitted him to navigate the maze without the flashing rave lights effecting his ability to discern the directions he was taking, their confidence soared and they zeroed in on room 28; the one with the Heiracosphinx and the well that would allow them to escape the maze.
The sphinx sat on a ledge beyond the well on the opposite side of the room (which, incidentally, glittered with coins): "I have just one question, has my lord returned?"
The players rightfully surmised that this was not a riddle; but a prelude to the creature attacking them. I forget now what they actually answered, but they won initiative and killed the Sphinx so quickly that it was not a memorable fight. The loot was good though, thousands of gold coins and a Topaz. They added this to their collection and lined up their huge party to step into the well. As they did so it felt to them like they had become one with the water, and, travelling quickly through channels within the Pyramid, popped out, dry again, in a large room filled with 16 pillars in a pattern of four rows.
Now they were in the tomb of the Kangsta proper.
The place had been the scene of a violent and destructive battle. No sooner did they make a move to investigate when they were attacked by six Githros; these were the creatures Weird al-Hotep had warned them of (originally this particular group were minotaurs in room 25, but in this form they had been smart enough to find their way out of the maze). Three of the red leathery attackers were in the form of drones; lizard like, they could run on all fours and now did so to charge up to attack the dervish swordsmen who were bringing up the rear of the party. Of the remainder, one looked like an Elf (in fact resembling one of the elves' former party members they had lost), one a Gnome, and one a Human.
The one thing the creatures had in common were large bulbous eyes that seemed to emit some sort of sub-visible light. This had the effect of a Cloak of Displacement, which caused all of the initial attacks on them to simply miss their targets. The ensuing battle was tense; the layout of the place, with all the pillars and the nearby wall, made if difficult for the party to bring their superior numbers to bear. But a great deal of luck went their way; attacks and damage were spread so evenly around the dervish that none of them fell, and eventually the party's return attacks against the six enemy took their toll. As each one was dispatched, it dissolved into a gooey red paste then faded out of existence; gross. While this was going on, Deltracron decided to explore down the south west exit; I rolled on Appendix A and came up with a spiked pit trap, which he promptly fell into. His dwarven constitution saved him from death, if not embarrassment, and the rest of the party were able to finished the battle and pull him out before the trap closed him in. Then the Amber Light returned once more to keep them safe until next week.
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