Session 19: Go Team Tundra!

Player Characters, Henchmen, Hirelings, & Animals: Team Tundra

R.J. MacReady - Level 1 Human Ranger Neutral Good

Regulus Tharn - Level 1 Elven Fighter/Magic User Chaotic Good

Mule, "Arse-Face" (MacReady)

3 Spearmen: Isaac, Daniel, Ulrich (Tharn)

1/21/24 Party is heading towards Gnoma Scotia to investigate the oil supply chain disruptions. Gnoma Scotia accounts for about a fifth of the world’s oil, so the disruptions are raising oil prices around the world and the crew is sent from Paradiso to investigate.

Their first sight of land as they sail south with a favorable wind is the Gnoma Scotia lighthouse, jetting above the Northwest coast of the mainland. To the East, they see rocky, cliffs and slopes, to the South, a large hill. They travel south and come to an aquatic cave, with a large arch overhead and a banner reading: Welcome to Gnoma Scotia, they fail to see the sign that says to dawn your bat nets before entering.

They sail into the mouth of the cave then switch to rowing as there is no wind in the cave and the water is still. First encounter roll, it’s a 1! There is a group of brown bats sleeping on the roof of the cave. The half-elf is able to see their infravision, and directs the party to be quiet and row gently around where he sees the heat signature.

Another roll is made, 1 again! Another group of bats is flying into the cave, this time they’re awake and notice the party. Party gets a slight surprise due to the ranger’s ability to hear the bats coming. He uses this turn to light up his bullseye lantern while the half-elf takes some shots at the bats. The bats swoop in after the surprise and clamp onto the party, scoring hits on the mule, a spearman and the half-elf, who fails his poison save. This disease will cause the sufferer to lose a hit point of health every night instead of gain 1. Is permanent if not cured by the second night. The party does not know this, for now it looks like a bee sting that’s a day old. A melee ensues, and the bats and party fight it out for a few rounds before the bats decide it’s hopeless and attempt to flee. The last bat is slain by an opportunity attack.

The party comes to a giant Portcullis that leads out of the cave and into a larger bay surrounded by the city of Halifax, a settlement the South pole elves abandoned and now lease to the Gnomes who pay a fee to ensure the elves do not attack them. The party informs the guards of their intention to help solve the supply chain issues and they are allowed to pass in. The ranger guides the crew to an appropriately sized dock, and the dockhand waves them in saying it’ll be 2 silver to dock your boat, and we’ll provide a bat net for you since you don’t seem to have one. He’s surprised you made it through the cave without one. He advises you find a Neosporin dealer in town before the disease takes hold. The crew decides to go to the local church, which is a sect of Gnoma Scotian Lutheran.

Neosporin cannot be smuggled out of Halifax, but BP subsidizes it so it is free for those who get bit by the bats which hibernate in the city's entrance cave. The clerics apply some to the wounds and the swelling subsides, the half-elf gains a hit point from the application.

The cleric’s have two trolls held captive, and need help subduing them so they can harvest their blood to make healing potions. They offer you a 4 dose healing potion and to heal your wounds from the bats if you can subdue a troll long enough for them to get some blood. They’ve had the trolls there for years, but haven’t gotten more blood in months due to the risks involved.

The half-elf casts sleep on the troll and the party shoots blunted arrows at the troll, who takes the arrows they shot and hurls them back damaging the half-elf a little bit. He then starts blocking until he gets enough arrows to throw back again. After the crew runs out of blunt arrows they jump down to the troll and go in for the kill, luckily finishing off the rest of his strength due to -2 max hp bonus the troll got from atrophying in the cell. The clerics are able to get some of his blood, and give the party a 4 dose healing potion for the trouble.

The party goes to the adventurers guild and learns of the BP dungeon built on a huge oil spring, but is having issues with monsters, slowing down production. They offer you a magical reward if you can clear the first level, which the gnomes had been living in before the monsters took over. The crew spends the last of their silver on yeti oil which protects from cold for a day, and half protects on the second day.

A young gnome sees the adventurers and tries to join the crew and offer his assistance extra yeti oil, (etc.) but the crew being of good alignment, doesn’t exploit his naivety. He should be in school right now!

1/22/24 It’s a 2 day journey to BP dungeon, but since it’s particularly sunny, the crew doesn’t need to apply yeti oil until night time. The next morning they run across some giant owls, who the ranger hear’s from far away. He sees them set up an ambush, and the party decides to ambush the owls from another angle instead. The party sets spears and takes shots at the owls who swoop in and get hit by set spears, and decide to flee based on how it’s going. They get opportunity attacks and shots at the owls, which escape with 1hp and the other at half health. They fled to a nest nearby with 8 owls total, had the ranger successfully tracked them.

1/23/24 The party comes to a hill with a giant stone door and a stairway that wraps around up to the top. They decide to take the stairs and come to a fountain on the top of the hill. The fountain is frozen over but still have the same shape as if water was running, but it’s all ice. The party doesn’t get door vibes from the fountain and goes down to the bottom of the hill. The half-elf swaps from sleep to protection from evil, and the party prepares to enter the dungeon.

As a note – This dungeon was designed to be entered from the top, and the bottom entrance was supposed to be a speedy exit and “checkpoint” to be able to return to later. But the party decided to go through the door at the bottom. I first planned for this entrance to not be enterable, but they got a 1 with a strong character (not exceptionally, but still strong) I wanted to let the party decide how things happened, so I gave it a quick run through and reasoned that there weren’t any glaring issues with letting them start at the end, so I let the door swing open for them. We were about to experience this dungeon backwards!

Now this dungeon is unique in that it offers adventurers cursed yet powerful items, but they cannot leave with these magical items. This is potentially related to the third level of this dungeon, which does not allow level 0’s or characters without a magical item to enter. The party learns about these cursed weapons as soon as they enter the dungeon because they enter into the gear room, which is where the dungeon’s cursed magical weaponry returns to when adventurers are done using them.

However, the altar the weapons lay on is bare, somebody must be using them at the moment.

The party notices the lobby, a magically protected diner the gnomes run that has gnome tunnels leading to other BP establishments. They won’t let you sleep here, but the party can short rest, grab some food, drink, warm up, or flee from monsters to the lobby. All but the most powerful monsters are magically resisted from entering the lobby without permission. The gnome waiters tell them that the three doors on the other side of the room all lead to floor 1.

All three of these doors lead to 15’ hallways that end with a locked door. The party luckily chooses the middle path, which leads to the only wooden door they can easily break down. But before they can even see the door, a gelatinous cube comes through it. The ranger can hear the echoes through the hall and is far enough away to surprise the unaware cube. The party volleys arrows at the cube, hitting some nice hits even with the -5 to hit, draining it of life essence before it has a chance to trap them in the hallway. They approach the heap it left behind, and find a glowing spear has pierced an exceptionally light set of chainmail, both are concluded to be magical and are thrown onto the mule. The mule’s hairs stand up as if by static. The party doesn’t know this, but the spear is cursed to not leave the dungeon and the chainmail is damaged +1 chain mail that was owned by someone who brought their own magic armour into the dungeon. The magic-user plans to use “mending” on the chainmail but does not realize magical items cannot be repaired with that spell.

The party busts through the locked wooden door and find the stairs to lvl 1. They go up the stairs. This room has a locked door, a secret door, and a door concealed behind a large vanity set mirror. After checking the locked door, the half-elf searches for secret doors and rolls a 3, meaning he can find the concealed door, but not the secret door. The party moves the mirror to the western wall, unknowingly covering up the secret door, which will be important later!

The party enters into a treasure room through the concealed door. There’s another secret door hidden on the north wall. This treasure room had a 1/3 chance of having a single monster from another room with one of the dungeon’s cursed weapons in hand, which the party rolls. They encounter a lone troglodyte with a lightning military pick. They make short work of the Troglodyte and kill him before the can emit his stench and spook the mule. The ranger is a pick user, and takes the pick, noticing a similar static effect as the spear had.

The half-elf then gets lucky and 1/6 chance finds the secret door to the north. They go through the door and discover a hallway and the stair leading up to the fountain, with a lever that makes the fountain become an entrance. They come back down the ladder and go south down the hallway. They come across a secret door, but they fail to notice anything but the sound of a shrieker. They continue to a door and fail to open it, so they decided to continue down the hallway. They find another door that leads into a small hallway full of troglodytes. The half-elf casts protection from evil on the ranger and the ranger leads the charge into the mass of troglodytes. They fight back and the leader throws a javelin but hits one of his own guys in the melee. The troglodytes stench starts to sap the party’s strength and the mule begins to walk away while the party continues fighting. The troglodytes flee after 4 die, and run into the door behind them. The ranger goes to retrieve the mule, sips some health potion, and the party gives chase to the troglodytes.

They open the door first try and find themselves behind the troglodytes who are now fighting a party of 6 humans. Half the humans have clubs, half have broad swords, and I chose a 4% chance for one of them to have a flaming broadsword when I made the dungeon. The party rolls a 1, so there is a guy in flame retardant padded armour with a flaming broadsword and a large protective gauntlet. The party is able to kill most of the troglodytes from the surprise flank, and the humans finish the last one off with an opportunity attack using the flame sword. The humans are evil, and were supposed to be hostile when I chose them for the room, but due to the circumstances with the party helping kill the troglodytes, and I rolled for reaction and got a roll in the 90s, the evil humans behaved neutral to our good aligned party.

There is a map of the second floor on the wall, which the party takes and copies. Behind the map they find a key made of nickel.

The humans decide to go their separate ways and one of them reaches to flip a lever and open the portcullis to the north. The party was weary of this, and luckily kept their distance expecting some sort of trap, which activates! The ballast for the portcullis were some barrels of refined fossil fuels, which began flooding into the room as the portcullis opened. The party dashes through the stone door they entered from. Being good alignment they do not spike the door, but despite making way for the humans to escape too, the humans are horribly burnt to a crisp from the fossil fuels due to the flame sword igniting the vapors. Had the party not stood back, they would have suffered the same fate. The ranger must recollect the ever uninterested mule and the party waits through two encounter rolls in the small hallway before stepping back into the room with their strength recovered from the troglodyte smell.

They find the flaming sword in the middle of the room, and see that the flame retardant padded armor is now empty due to the wearer’s flesh being combusted completely. They take both, and find a silver ring with an emerald inside the gauntlet. The half-elf realizes the sword does not ever extinguish, and must be very careful with it. He must hold it in his main hand even though he doesn’t have proficiency because it will burn through any pouch he puts it in!

They see shriekers in the room with the now open portcullis, (they are noticed at 40’ away, not triggering them by 1 square) The party decides to avoid the fungi and go through the door the humans came from. They follow the long hallway until they come across a skull that is stapled to the ground with a spear. To the left of the skull they find a portcullis. The lever for the portcullis looks to be in reach. The party pays a spear guy to hit the lever with his spear, which he must be pressed up to the bars to reach. When he does, it activates a trap, but due to smart positioning the spears hit no one, (the trap shoots spears behind where the opener would be essentially) The crew thinks, “hey free spears” and continues into the open portcullis into a circular 2x2 room. The only things in the room are two levers, and two portcullis. The crew pays a spearman 20 silver to open the port on his own with the rest out of the way. It opens with no traps.

This leads into a short hallway with doors to the left right, and center. The left and right doors are connected in a very fancy geometric stone pattern with what seems to be gold plating and purple accents with rotational symmetry. The party pays a guy to open the door fancy stone door to the west. The door opens, and a crashing sound is heard from the other fancy door. The party comes into a treasure room with a mannequin dawning an exquisite necklace. They pay a henchman 40 silver to take it, and wear it, fearing strangulation or something similar. Nothing happens besides him looking absolutely baller in his gold chain so they put it on the mule. They open the other fancy door but it leads to nowhere, and hear another clap, this time from the first door. The party is a little concerned with the sounds they’ve heard, and could use some a rest, so they takes step outside for a long rest at the fountain, leaving their magical gear at the altar. ranger sips a health potion which gets a good roll and heals him to full, and they get no encounters.

1/24/24 They reenter the dungeon through the gear room and up the stairs to level 1, (half-elf fails 1/6 passive chance of detecting the secret door behind the mirror again) and start giving the locked door a go with their nickel key. It opens! It’s the shrieker room, but this time they are close enough to sound the alarm. The half-elf is just barely missing the shriekers over and over due to the lack of broad sword proficiency but Miraculously, the party doesn’t get encounters from the shriekers until the 5th 50% try, right before finishing them off. The shriekers alert 6 rats with their dying breath, who come in from the portcullis to the south and attack the party, landing a few hits but not getting any disease hits. The party cleans up the rats swiftly with some chad rolls.

They deduce from their map that there is only one more room they need to clear to complete the mission. It must be the living quarters the gnomes were using when it was safe here. They make their way towards the final room.

This room was written to have 6 monsters eating at the table with their weapons near the door But If the party knocked first, the monsters would instead ambush the crew, and be entitled to a surprise roll against the party that they couldn’t lose. The room was also written to have a wandering monster sleeping in the beds. The party rolls a 100 for the wandering monster that is on the beds, which made this very interesting. This roll could have been different depending on the alignment of the party, and since they were more good than anything, they got the “good” variant of the dungeon’s familiar: a large ghost lion, which has a silver harness and chains.

Luckily the party opens the door on the first try, catching the ranger’s trademark 3 turn surprise on 6 beefy troglodytes. All but the strongest commander gets taken out in the 3 turns of surprise by the flanking spears and obliterating electric discharge from the ranger’s enchanted pick. The Troglodyte releases his vile stench as he ducks under the table, but at the cost of some opportunity strikes. The next turn the troglodyte flips the table at the crew to create a barrier and runs to mount the ghost lion. The party chops the table and the half-elf slices through the wood like butter with the flaming sword. The troglodyte wins initiative and manages to escape out the door riding the lion before the crew could attack again. The party decides the lion would be an invaluable prize to have and roll to pursue the fleeing troglodyte.

They pass the pursuit roll, which becomes interesting quickly because they catch up to the troglodyte as he reveals and dashes through the secret door into the stair room that the party unknowingly blockaded with the mirror. The troglodyte smashes into the mirror from behind, and the lion is unable to phase through due to the silver holding it back, so they end up on the ground laying on top of the toppled mirror. The party swings at the troglodyte and leaves him on his last legs as he and the lion stand up. He tries one last time to leap for the stairs but is burnt to a crisp by the flaming sword.

The party gets extremely lucky here as I roll the reaction from the ghost lion. With charisma boosts, the ranger scores over 100, meaning the lion is enthusiastically accepting and positive feeling towards the party. This is huge because the “secret” to getting the ghost lion to befriend you was supposed to be a turning by a cleric, (which the lion would accept even from a lvl 1 cleric) The ranger tries to ride the lion like the troglodyte was, but the lion is a little unsure so the ranger eases off. With the first floor cleared, the group gathers up the silver and discarded arms they left behind and went back to the lobby.

The gnomes in the lobby point out which magical items they recognize and are therefore cursed to remain in the dungeon, the pick, and spear are singled out to be left behind at the altar. The gnomes saw the human bring the fire sword in, so it’s safe, and they say that the only cursed magic armor they’ve seen here is plate, so the chainmail must be good to go. The party is disappointed to find out that the ghost lion does not want to leave the dungeon, but instead curls up on the altar as if to wait for them to return.

1/25/24 They set out to leave but encounter a blizzard, which forces them to come back inside and wait 4 hours in the lobby for the blizzard to die down. They warm up with some gnomish hospitality and then embark.

It’s still snowing, but not so aggressive they can’t handle it with a little yeti oil. They use up the last of their oil but do not have enough to share with the spear guys for the trip back.

1/26/24 The party does not get any encounters returning to town, but all three spear guys take cold damage during their nighttime shift, which tragically results in Isaac freezing to death just hours away from the city.

Treasure & XP: Split even 50/50

Now Enchanted Gold Jeweled Necklace - 12,000 XP

Silver Emerald Ring -1,000 Gold Pieces - 1,000 XP

5,000 Silver - 250 XP

Flaming Broad Sword "Shishkarob" - 900 XP

+1 Chainmail - 600 XP

1051 Monster XP

Rankings:

R.J. MacReady - E - Surprised enemies, tracked mule, tamed ghost lion.

Regulus Tharn - E - Cast Spells, lead men bravely, got kills, never failed a door open check.