Session 15: Our First Death

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

A single Fiendish Dire Rat falls out of the portal, which Orrin easily bashes. Then the Fiendish Owlbear falls out of the portal. Led by Arren the Unlucky, everyone heads in to cast spells and beat on the thing. They manage to take it out, but at heavy cost: Arron the Druid and the two lizard folk are dead and Orrin, Tex, and Arren are all down.

Tthardas starts checking their friends while Zay tries to close the portal. At that point another Fiendish Dire Rat falls out. It takes out Tthardas but Zay manages to finish it off and then get the portal closed before something else goes wrong.

Digging through the lizardman's belongings, Zay finds a healing potion, which he gives to Orrin so he can check on and maybe heal up some of the others. They decide to camp outside the portal room, not trusting it. Moving the lizardwoman's body woke up her snake companion, which refused to let them search her after they'd moved the body out of the room. Leaving well enough alone, they rest. During the night they hear rats coming and move everyone who is still alive inside the room. The rats kill the snake and eat the three corpses.

The next morning dawns and everyone soon feels much better...except for Tthardas who is still diseased, as is Zay. They retreat back to the fire symbol room where they rest again and advance to Level 3!

Session 14: Worth 10 Points When Popped

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

Day 16 dawns with nary a tremor to disturb their sleep. This time they decide to head north. The new room features something they haven't seen before: darkmantles not interested in a fight. Heading generally northeast, they find a secret door into an area without the normal trash and debris they've become used to in the low-rent district of the dungeon. The first room they explore up here features a large stone block and a plate in the floor. They decide to not mess with it. Heading to the north, they find another unopenable secret door.

Wandering to the south of the stone block room, they run into a broken Ginsu blade trap. Tex eventually fixes the trap so they can get through. The next room is rather warm with a plate on the floor and a celestial fire rune on the door. They decide to camp here.*

On the morning of Day 17, they need to get the door open. Sadly neither Zay nor Tthardas has a fire spell, so Tex takes 20 to pop the lock. They explore the long corridor, finding many exits to the east that have electrical barriers blocking the path.** To the south they find a foggy room within a room. Nobody is shocked when the metal Continual Light rod thrown into the room is zapped by lightning multiple times. They send Tex in to try to retrieve it but he turns back.

To the north they find a room with many, many bubbles that begin to gather together. They watch as the bubbles merge and a portal forms. Will they survive? Watch next week! Same dungeon time, same dungeon blog!


* Note for the purists: I decided to remove the Extreme Heat encounter condition from this room after forgetting about it when they entered. They needed a base on this side of the dungeon anyway.

** I hadn't put the whole map set in my bag for whatever reason, so I didn't have the Area B map with me.

Session 13

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Day 15 continues!

They wander back into the Trog zone, eventually running into the trog lair. After a short discussion they offer to give the trogs the cowardly orc, who promptly shuffles off into obscurity. They decide that fighting while sick sucks, so they head back to the east, going to the far end of the long hallway and proceeding that way. Sadly, "that way" lies the darkmantle lair. They survive the first attack when some of the darkmantles flee to the south. After some healing and scouting, they go south into the heart of the lair. Out comes the darkmantle mob, and in the ensuing fight Tex and Tthardas are knocked out. The party manages to rescue their unconscious bodies and escape back to the north, where they hide in a side room for the night.

Session 12

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

No surprise, the party decides to rest up after last session's Con and disease spectacular. While resting, more rats attack but they're ready and handle them without too much trouble.

In the SE workroom, Tex finds a short sword but doesn't let the rest of the party know just yet. (I was running Tex for them.) They move back to the West, through the stinky room and run into another pile of stirges. Nearby they find a non-stinky room with a trap which Tex disables after Orrin and Arren set it off. They wait until they're not sick, then head back in...and get sick again.

Session 11

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

They find a cowardly orc in a room near the one where they holed up after the previous session. After breaking down his door, they take pity on him and let him come along. After some wandering they find a very long corridor to the North that ends in a secret door. Unfortunately, they can't find a way to open it so they head back. Heading way back, they find a room that stinks horribly of troglodyte. Beyond it they find rooms filled with forges, workbenches, rats, and stirges. They eventually take a stand in the NE room and survive an assault from the remaining rats and stirges.

Session 10

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

More wandering around over by the ogre's place. Stirges, cold rooms where Tthardas isn't cold, potions, rats, and more disease. Heading back to the North, they take out some rats with a Sleep spell and call it a night.

Session 9: Naptime

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

Weakened by Con drain and Str disease, the party holes up in the stirge room and rests, rests, rests. Various things approach the door, including a rat swarm which the lizardwoman wards off with her Flaming Sphere and a kobold raiding party that flees after seeing the size of the warrior and cleric. They decide to wander back to the West and find large rooms with pillars. After playing (aka beating up) an ogre who lives in one of the chambers, he offers to let them pass unharmed and they accept. They share their knowledge of the dungeon and the politics of this region, filling in things that they didn't learn from the orcs back in Session 3. They stay here for the night, but keep a guard in case their host changes his mind.

Session 8: Two Massive Fights

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They investigate the portal and Longtail jumps them. A magic missile spell takes out the wizard while sleep takes the fighter. The party runs. Longtail sends a rat swarm after them, but they kill it and escape to a safe room.

After some more resting, they decide to search other areas of the dungeon. Unfortunately they select a room filled with fiendish stirges. Tthardas provokes them and the party is swarmed. After a long, tough fight they wind up winning but are extremely weak.

Session 7

Bolstered by the lizardfolk, the party prepares to continue. They head back to a room they'd skipped and once again Tex gets hit by a trap. Thankfully nothing's in that room. Their map has some big holes on it so they spend some time searching for secret doors. All they find is another fiendish rat swarm, which gets the fighter, druid, and the lizard ranger.

They move on to the north past a crossroads and see a doorway. Tex scouts ahead and sees a dark shape. He returns to the party and they debate what to do. The fiendish owlbear makes their decision for them by charging and giving Arren a mighty hug. Tex tries to tumble through its legs but fails and is horrendously chomped. The druid and sorcerer summon things to distract it and the distraction works for a round or two. The wounded darkmantle from the owlbear's room flys in but splats into a wall. After the owlbear mauls the fighter, the party manages to kill it and the darkmantle.

The party holes up in the owlbear's room to rest for the night. The next day Tex checks out the nearby rooms. Not wanting to leave their flank uncovered, they check out the room with the bodies before the one with the portal. Longtail prepares for the coming fight.

Session 6

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

The party rests up for two days to recover from the mold and disease stat drains. Then they head out and in the traditional fashion set off some traps. (Poor Odie had a run of bad Search and Disable rolls.) After wandering some hallways for a while they find a very wide corridor. Deciding that discretion was best, they zipped across into another corridor. Some more wandering and even more bad trap-related rolls leaves three party members Held. The end of the night was upbeat as they find a pair of Lizardfolk and, after some parley, decide to join forces.

Session 5

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

They rest up for an entire day after the kobold fight. During the night, they're attacked by a swarm of rats. Tthardas gets diseased and feels very weak the next day. With no way to cure the disease or restore lost points, they decide to continue on. They head back to the orcs with the head of the kobold wizard. The orcs honor their deal and give back most of their stuff, with a warning to leave orc territory and never return.

The party wanders on: searching through the storage rooms, poking at some moldy sacks, setting off a fire trap. In a spurt of good thinking they use a Mage Hand spell to avoid the mold inside a chest.

Approaching another room Tex warns them of some darkmantles on the ground around a pillar with a dagger on it. Sadly, nobody notices the darkmantles on the ceiling of the room. They move in and check out the darkmantles, back off and buff up, then Tthardas fumbles casting an Acid Splash. The party moves in, taking out the ones on the ground quickly. Tthardas tries to Mage Hand the dagger, but it doesn't work. They spend some time trying to figure out why, then just send in Arren to set off the trap...err...get the dagger. He falls asleep and the last darkmantle dives down for a tasty orc snack. The rest of the party runs in from the corridor where they'd taken cover and eventually kill it and the wounded one who returned to attack the druid who had remained in the corridor alone.

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Soapbox: WLD Design
The first section of the WLD is filled with stat drainers. Low level parties don't have access to Restoration or Cure Disease spells, so you could easily spend many game days recovering from a bad fight against a single rat swarm or couple of stirges. The Darkmantles are bad, but these are worse.

Session 4

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

The next day a ball of light (Lantern Archon) tells the party that it found something they lost. It leads them to a half-orc warrior, another graduate whose party was wiped out. After some more parley, he joins the party:

Arren - Half-Orc Fighter

Once the new marching order was established they wandered on. Yet Another Darkmantle Assault is handled much more easily with the new party member. Scraps of paper, skeletons, a secret door, and then they find the room with the kobolds the orcs wanted them to kill. The krenshar howl and a Web spell hinder the party, but they'd already reduced the kobold's numbers with a Color Spray. Tex and Orrin get up to the barricade and the tide turned. Once the others got out of the Web, it was all downhill for the kobolds.

Session 3

(This is a placeholder so I can catch up to where we actually are.)

The party's half-orc cleric negotiates with the orcs, trading healing and supplies for their lives. The orcs task them to go kill the Kobold leader. Then they wander around for a while in the nearby rooms, not finding much of anything. Eventually they find the prison and the nearby pair of darkmantles. After taking them out, they force the door to the next room, find the treasure, and hole up for the night.