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| The Machodorian City of Saint Raul |
Timekeeping
Player Characters Present
Introduction
Downtime
Session Report
As the party made their way to the Cathedral at the center of town, the booming voice of a town crier could be heard, his mutation giving his voice the power to carry like a bull horn: "Extray Extray, hear all about it: Saint Raul happenings! Inn of ill repute, the 'Denuded Clam', burnt down over night; the 'Society of Reformed Trollops' believed responsible!"
After some knowing looks, sadly, the players ignored this fantastic and totally original hook and proceeded on their way.
Passing a long line of mutants lined up to receive healing from lower level clerics, they were greeted by Heliophon's men and shown to his chapel. Because he is level 12, Speak With Dead would last 1 turn (10 minutes) and allow for 4 questions. I explained that I would start a timer when the spell was cast (1:1 time for reals). After a bit of discussion, Heliophon cast the spell, the dead man sat up, and Gurt lead the questioning:
- "What is your name?" Gurt asked, followed by, "Do I wait for him to answer before asking my next question?" "Yes," I answered, not believing my luck, "You have two 2 questions left." Ha! What a hoot, anyway, I'm not actually that mean; the dead man's name was Verden. Gurt followed up with;
- "Where are you from": Aboria (a place unknown the party);
- "What were you doing in the PSoD": I was aiding my liege, Prince Barin the Ranger;
- "How did you die?": I got separated, lost, and then eventually killed by spiders.
Sever's ears perked up with this information, it happened that the Pegasus Scout Regiment had tasked him with a mission to locate a certain high level ranger, but the details provided were few. I was pretty happy with these results as the players in the subsequent discussion were able to discern quite a bit from the answers.
There was one more thing the High Priest could do for them, he could read the writing on the magic plate mail the dead man was wearing. "Armati sumus, sed quid ante profuerunt arma ulla contra....armatura?" "We have arms, but what use are they without armour?" This was a common decoration of machodorian armour, and the players guessed that Verden must have picked it up somewhere since arriving in this world.
Gurt then paid to have Verden buried and the party resolved to return to Castle Irish and then on to the Pizza Slice of Doom. Giuseppe arranged to leave his henchman Bishoy to look after Tawdros (his other henchman) during the latter's recovery period from being dead, and the rest set off while it was still pretty early. As the day turned to night Sever spied up ahead what looked like a merchant company making camp. It flew a flag he did not recognise, so he decided not to approach them, but to make camp elsewhere. The night passed uneventfully and in the morning to merchants broke camp and moved off in the direction of Saint Raul. A couple more days travel later the party reached Castle Irish and after resting the night were ready for the Dungeon. I really love this aspect of AD&D play, the players have the agency to target what they want to do, but a few days of wilderness travel means virtually anything can happen on the way.
The Irish camp at the entrance to the Pizza Slice of Doom reported no unusual occurrences, so the party retraced their steps from last session into the maintenance level. They easily made it as far as the broken elevator room without any trouble, but then saw two large reptilian creatures slowly stalking towards them:
Combat #1: 2 Subterranean Lizards (MM)
Rounds 3: Party won, Monsters won, Tied Initiative
Result: Party victory
Highlights: The lizards rolled very well, but not so well that anyone was swallowed whole. These guys were so big that I consider having them try to over bear, but in the end decided to go with conventional bite attacks which certainly took a toll. Injuries were mitigated by party healing after the battle.
Undeterred by this, the party marched down the corridor and into the killing zone of a large family of Piercers. According to Appendix C, level 1 monsters like these on lower levels have their numbers augmented by a like number of the same sort of creatures for each level of the dungeon beneath that of the assigned level of the monster type encountered. So in this case six times the normal number were present. The monsters surprised the party and coordinated themselves so that each PC faced two or even three of them:
Hawken pictured Combat #2: 11 Piercers (MM)
Rounds 3: Surprise 1 segment, Monsters Initiative, Party Initiative
Result: draw
Highlights: The monsters inflicted their damage and, thanks to their numbers, even with their 1" movement rate were able to get back up into the ceiling before the PCs could kill more than a few of them. Hawken was hit by a 3HD piercer and reduced to -3 hit points. Luckily for him, his hearty constitution of 17 prevent this from being a death blow, but he was not in a state for more combat.
Faced with the prospect of another volley of living stalactites, the part chose to withdraw by advancing down the corridor and finding that it joined with another section of the dungeon they had been to previously.
They got their breath back and readied to leave, but, deciding to explore a bit, first mapped out the corridors leading to the toxic waste room (C) and then opening both doors on the west side. Finding no easy way of reaching the exit to the room to the south (all the access ramps to the central platform had been destroyed or were missing) the party decided to retreat back to Castle Irish, which they managed without incident.
Delve 2. After a night of rest and a slight change in personnel, the party returned with what I was sure to be a plan to get past my cunning 'no ramps' puzzle; but I was wrong, instead they explored, and re-explored, other areas of the map. Apart from some repeated encounters with large numbers of Fire beetles (the chances for which were pretty damn low), this part of the session yielded little of direct benefit for the time invested and danger risked; but, by the end, their map was certainly more accurate and complete than ever before. And that will help in future delves.
Session Statistics:
Wilderness travel: 70 Miles
Mapped Dungeon area traversed: 1400/360 ft
New Dungeon corridor mapped: 180/80 ft
New rooms mapped: 2/2
Combats: 2
Combat rounds: 6
Total time in the Dungeon (approx): 11/17 Turns
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