Trollopulous Adjusted Session 141 (Machodor #92): Return to the Tomb of Kistomerces

 

The boys are back in town

 

Introduction

Between session #82 and now, certain things have been happening behind the scenes—so much, in fact, that it has been split out to a separate downtime report: Bumblebore in the Future.

Reader(s) will probably have concluded from previous session reports that the Tomb of Kistomerces is a barely reskinned version of the classic Gygaxian module, S1 Tomb of Horrors. As sufficient time has passed from the events of this session, I can weigh in with some editorialising on that module. I will give as much information as possible, however you will probably find it useful to read along with the module, available on archive.org and elsewhere.

Timekeeping

This session began on December 11th 2025, with the player characters adventuring until the 13th. Downtime for these characters begins on the 14th.

Player Characters Present

Sever the Wrathful (Level 9 Pegasus Corps Ranger of Machodor, wielder of Were'shbane and wearer of the Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, rider of Mustang) with henchman Thomas (C6), and Rabbit (FMT 445)

Fluid the Druid (Level 9 Druid, "Scourge of Trollopulous", former wearer of the Ring of Kings, current wearer of the Cloak of Druidish Awesomeness)

Giuseppe (Level 8 Paladin of Rome, Brovenloft, wielder of the Dragonslayer and the Shield of Protection from Missiles, rider of Bonecrusher) with henchmen Rhoikos (M5) and Steelvein (F5)

Sheamus (Level 8 Irish Fighter from Brovenloft, rider of the Rocket Cycle and wielder of the Drewblade) and henchman McScales

Gurt the Green (Level 6 Paladin of Machodor, wielder of the Liberator, bearer of the Fabled Ice Jewel of Frigia, wearer of the Armour of Most Superior Defence, rider of Artax) 

Downtime

While the heroes were in Brovenloft, the Dragon Cult Leader made a move—details to follow. Instead of dealing with this directly, however, the adventurers chose to follow Giuseppe's lead back to the Tomb of Kistomerces. In the remaining downtime they staged in Guarda for the expedition.

Session Report

With the lift capability available to the party, they chose to fly directly to the outskirts of the area leading into the Tomb, finding a canyon near the "Snake Cave" to stash the Rocket Cycle with McScales to guard it. They soon retraced their steps from previous expeditions and approached the tomb proper.

A note on running this module. One of the difficulties of running S1 is that there are a great many unspoken assumptions about how the party is expected to go about exploring the dungeon. Many rooms contain binary outcomes that must be adjudicated with analogue inputs, with the result that a lot depends on players giving DMs instructions about what their characters do.

Despite its fearsome reputation for fiendishly difficult traps, a patient party can relatively easily move through the place, unless they are unfortunate enough to commit certain acts that Gygax has pronounced a death sentence on. 

The expected route is apparently for the party to go through the depiction of a door hiding a real door at (4) down the hall in area (10), through the hidden tunnel into area (13) to pick up the Ring of Protection +1 from one of the chests—to later use that ring to open the secret door at (15).

In sessions #79 to #81, our party of Machodorian adventurers initially became split; with some going to room (7), pulling the levers there in the correct direction and avoiding certain death (thank you Giuseppe) before returning to (3) via a hidden tunnel and then meeting up with the rest of the party in 11. They then followed the first hidden crawlspace tunnel and missed (13) entirely, passed the secret door at (15) using Sever's prize Ring of Warmth before they camped in the corridor beyond, and then found the way south and eventually confronted and defeated the "fake" Kistomerces in (18). When faced with the fake collapsing tomb, the party had no apparent means of egress—an awkward situation to adjudicate, but one that was managed by chasing them as far as the chapel at (14). Later they continued their retreat along the black line until returning to corridor (10) and finally making it out via the route marked in red.

You're going to want to click this one.

This time around, having already been made aware that adventurers from Sidon were exploring the place, the party carefully proceeded along looking for tracks and signs of these others. As they suspected the enemy had moved through the hidden door at (4), they avoided that route and—after a period of trial and error to remember the combination—went via the misty archway teleport (5) to (11). Upon reaching the long corridor (10) they did search around it thoroughly, finding the route to room (13). Here they handily avoided the traps and retrieved the Ring of Protection from the silver box—Fluid pocketed it—while a Ring of Delusion gained from the Sidonian party some sessions back was sacrificed to get past the secret door at (15). The party confirmed things were as expected in the fake lich room (18), before readying their stock of Dispel Magic spells for the secret door at (17)—which they had discovered previously but had not been able to open. Gygax does not specify what level the sealing spell is; I assumed level 18, that being the minimum for the process of becoming a Lich.

However, here was the first sign that someone was ahead of them: the door popped right open. Even though it was protected by such powerful magic, there is nothing to suggest it would be magically re-secured after first being opened, at least in the short term.

The party cautiously advanced into room (19), the Laboratory and Mummy Preparation Room. I really dislike all the time-wasting measures in this room—perhaps of some utility in a tournament setting where real time is at a premium, but in a normal campaign session they are mostly tedious. 

Unbeknownst to the party, the only useful item in the room—the Gold Key—had already been taken by the Sidonian party (with Bumblebore in tow), and the grey ochre jelly guarding half of it had already been killed by them. Later in the session the Machodorians returned here and experimented with the vats enough to discover that something key-shaped had been taken from them, which was an interesting turn of events—part of the conceit of having the Sidonian party ahead of them in the tomb was to mitigate some of the timewasting in rooms like this. However, because the party chose to come back and fiddle with the stuff in this room, and thus had agency, the effect was entirely different.

Next they came to (20) the huge pit filled with 200 spikes. 

This 10' deep, open pit completely fills the passageway and extends so as to make jumping across it totally impossible for most creatures. Ergo, the pit must be crossed by climbing down and walking across it, then climbing up the other side.

Well, not when you've got Sever and his Wings of Flying—or quite a number of other possibilities from spells and items. First, Rabbit scouted ahead invisibly and drew a round of magical spikes for his trouble. Once the danger was known, Sever ferried the party over one at a time to the far side.

The party explored the full length of the corridor and took their time to search it thoroughly until the secret door to (21) was found. This room's trap(s) are another head-scratcher for me; it is difficult for the players to interact with the room in a way that makes sense and while still presenting a meaningful risk. In this case, as soon as the vibration issue was known, players hugged the floor to avoid the danger of falling down. 

The Sidonian party had already come through here ahead of them, triggered the green slime tapestry on the left wall, and exited via the secret door hidden behind it, leaving the Machodorian adventurers a warning about the main threat in the room.

The tapestries, which appear to feature weed-grown rocks and green and golden tan scenes of undersea life, are specially anti-magic treated creations of green slime and brown mold. If they are torn, they instantly turn into green slime and cover each and every player character/character standing before them, each covers a 20’ long by 10’ deep area of floor when it falls. Covered characters are turned to green slime and gone, with no recourse possible due to the amount of slime. Note that the tapestries can be handled normally, just not yanked so as to tear them (and they are well affixed at the top); however, if any character is holding one when the room becomes agitated, it is 75% probable that the jerking motion will tear the thing. 

Sever discovers a spear trap

In the event, after a brief period of cautious exploration, Gurt strode into the room and immediately began messing with the remaining tapestry on the right wall—just as the room started agitating wildly. Lucky for him I rolled over 75%!

Crawling on his belly, Fluid led the way out of the room through the secret door and into the curved corridor beyond, stopping at the descending stair. However, the rest of the party were not content to move on, as Sever's sword Were'shbane had detected precious metals in the various containers in the room.

Taking full advantage of the lack of random encounters in the tomb, the adventurers crawled around the room—to avoid any chance of falling—and slid the containers out of the room to loot them, leaving those in which the sword did not detect anything behind. This meant leaving the empty trunks—and the coffers which contained one to three angry asps, which was half of them. The party didn't know it at the time, but Were'shbane really saved them from a nasty and venomous surprise.

The heroes caught up with Fluid and moved on. Searching thoroughly, they avoided the pit trap at the four-way intersection using Find Traps, but were unable to discover the secret door at (23). Suspicious that further secret doors must exist in the area, they nevertheless moved on to find area (22)—a magical cavern of gold and silver mists.

The mists are silvery and shot through with delicate streamers of golden colour. Vision extends only 6'. There is a dim aura of good if detected for. Those who step into the mist must save versus poison or become idiots until they can breath the clean air above ground under the warm sun. At the centre of the cavern is a beautiful grotto in which dwells the siren. 

Encounter #1: Aeoline the Sylph

Rounds: N/A

Result: Freed by the party

Highlights: There was a long-outstanding quest that a couple of the adventurers had been separately tasked with—to find a missing Sylph. This seemed like the perfect place for her to be, in lieu of the module's siren. Half the party failed their saves and "became idiots", though some of the crueller of us remarked that with Gurt (the 8 Intelligence Paladin) this was not a noticeable change.

Fortunately Fluid made his save, and the druid is always prepared to "parley" with exotic females in out-of-the-way places. Barely had the Sylph's situation been conveyed before he said, "Oh, you should come with us!"—and I'm not sure the party even had time to notice the two sacks of loot that disappeared when he did so.

The grateful Aeoline healed the stupefied party members, and all were persuaded that her grotto would be a fine place to rest and recuperate before exploring further—in downtime, and next session.

Session Statistics: 

Wilderness travel:  64 Miles

Downtime begins on: 12/14
Combats: 0
Rooms mapped: 4
Combat rounds: 0
Losses: none

Treasure & Items

N/A

Monsters

None

0 XP & 0 GP Assignment

Sever (E)

and Rabbit (E)

and Thomas (E)

Fluid (E)

Giuseppe (E) 

and Rhoikos (E) 

and Steelvein (E)

Sheamus (N/A)

Gurt (E)

the real treasure was the Sylph we freed along the way.

Graveyard

Oblate (Illusionist Level 3), killed and eaten by the Nathruk in the Skalrath in session #140

Eniac (Magic-User level 1), killed by a poisoned Grothak spear in session #137 

Rhoikos (Henchman Magic-User level 4), smashed by a Mummy fist in session #126. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Thomas (Henchman Cleric level 6), Killed by a Symbol of Death in session #126. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Josef Ironbeard (Dwarf Fighter level 1), Killed by a Symbol of Death in session #126.

Matthias Steelvein (Henchman Fighter level 4), Killed by a Symbol of Death in session #126. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Sever the Wrathful (Ranger level 9), Killed by two pains in the Annis in session #122. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Anri (Henchman Magic-User level 4), found dead with a ghastly chest wound in the Ice Castle, with her heart missing she was unable to be revived, in downtime after session #122 

Symeon (Henchman Cleric level 2), Only strong enough to wear studded leather, he was torn to shreds by Troglodytes in session #121

Paul (Henchman Paladin level 3) Effected by the Imprisonment spell touch attack from a Styx Devil in session #117. Might not be dead, but is definitely at least six feet under for all intents and purposes.

Gurt the Green (Paladin level 6) killed by a poison needle trap in session #114 RAISED FROM THE DEAD (with a roll of 94!)

Solaire the Fallen (Henchman Fighter (paladin) level 3) killed by Stone Giants acting as catapults in session #114

Paul (Henchman Paladin level 1), reduced to 0 hit points by white dragon breath when climbing down a rope ladder in session #108. Killed not by the fall; but by the sudden stop at the bottom. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Ignatius the Smiter (Cleric level 1), horrifically mutilated and killed by double hit from a Shoggoth in session #106

Domby (Henchman with Dex 5), double surprised and turned into a pin cushion in session #87

Luke (Half elf Fighter/Cleric level 1), tragically killed by a normal hydra while trying to cauterise one of its neck stumps in session  #86

Gurt the Green (Paladin level 3), killed by a hydra bite in session  #86 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Pleasance (Footman level 0), killed by a phase spider bite in session #81

Siegward (Henchman Fighter level 1), killed by a phase spider bite in session #81

Tawadros (Henchman Fighter level 4),  killed by a phase spider bite in session #81 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Patria (Footman level 0), killed by a two headed snake bite in session #81

Deltacron (Dwarf Fighter/Thief level 1/1), threw his last flask of oil at, and was level drained to death by, a Vampire in session #76

Petrov the Prestidigitator (Magic-user level 1), wrong place, wrong time; killed by Sever the Ranger in session #72 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Petrov the Prestidigitator (Magic-user level 1), killed again by the toxic gas of an Achaierai in session #72

Red (Paladin Level 1), always popular with the ladies, he was eaten up by a female Roc in the Pizza Slice of Doom during session #67

Jacques Ocular (Magic User level 1), a fat green worm burrowed into his head and turned him into a Son Of Kyuss in Brovenloft in Session #43

Pino (Dwarf Footman level 0), Killed by a Frost Giant axe to the head in session #39

Paro (Dwarf Fighter/Thief level 2/2)  Killed by Winter Wolves and frozen in session #39

Zabib (1/2 Elf Fighter/Magic User level 1/1), Killed by Frost Giant rocks in downtime prior to session #39