Session 21: Team Tundra Returns!

Team Tundra heads back to the BP dungeon in Gnoma Scotia to help fix the global oil crisis.

SESSION LOG

Platinum

2/4/202411 min read

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

R.J. MacReady - Level 2 Human Ranger, Neutral Good

Regulus Tharn - Level 1 Half-Elf Fighter/Magic User, Chaotic Good

Mule, "Arse-Face" (MacReady)

2 Spearmen: Danial & Ulrich (Tharn)

Standard Operating Procedure Doors: set canary down at door crack to detect gas, slide mirror under the door and check the room and back of the door for trip wires of traps. (Assume this is happening at every new door.)

2/3/24 Team Tundra starts in Halifax. They are really needing some money so they prepare to plunder deeper into the BP dungeon. Since they do not have a cleric, they return to the church to put down the second captive troll in hopes of earning another healing potion. The cleric’s offer the same deal as last time, so the party fletches blunted arrows and goes to subdue the troll in the second pit. This troll heard what happened to the other, so he isn’t surprised by the party and is ready to sling rocks to defend itself. The party whittles away at the troll with arrows. The troll throws a basketball sized rock at the half-elf, damaging him for 10. The party manages to knock the troll out before he can score another heavy hit. After a bit of recovery, and wound curing they stop by the adventurers guild before setting off to the BP dungeon. The enchanter sees the half-elf’s wicked sick sword and warns them about taking the flames to the lower level while the oil is flowing

2/6/24 The party takes off first thing in the morning, with no encounters. They make camp at dark and apply yeti oil so they do not freeze to death over night like Isaac did, RIP.

2/7/24 No encounters during the day. They make camp at night. During the ranger's watch, a pack of 19 gnolls approach close to the camp. The ranger expertly avoids giving away their location thanks to his surprise bonus and the gnolls do not notice the party.

2/8/24 The party goes into the door of the BP dungeon, and finds upon the altar a broadsword, spear, wand, and pick. They take the items and disperse among the party so that everyone has a magic item, (since the southern archway will reject anyone without a magical item, similarly, the floor below that one will not accept level 0’s.) The lobby gnomes ask the party to shut off the oil flow downstairs so that they can do some maintenance. They allow the half-elf leave his flame sword in the fireplace since it would be dangerous to take it down to the oil level.

They go through the archway and find themselves on a set of stairs leading down into a large room that is cut in half by an artificial oil river. The oil is flowing into a large portal. With the bullseye lantern, the ranger can just barely see the end of the oil river. As they walk down the stairs, they see that it drops off 6’ to a small area with a door. As the party contemplates how to get down, dozens of errant arrows are shot at them from across the river, and the ghost lion steps through the door. The bottom stair becomes a chute and everyone but the half-elf fails a dex save and slides down next to the lion. The half-elf ties a rope to the railing, and shimmies down to join the party and go through the door the lion came from

They enter a room with jerry cans and dry wall sheets set against the southern wall. They remove the drywall sheets and discover a gnome sized door. In order to get the mule through, they must feed it a carrot while hitting it from behind with a stick. The mule kicks the ranger in the knee, but goes through the door into a diagonal hallway. The party sees what would be a concealed pit trap, but it’s not concealed because the pit has overflowed with oil. They are able to sneak around the edges but the mule slips in and gets covered in oil, dog paddling with its head barely in the air (hooded lantern is mounted on top of the mule, if it falls in they’re toast) The ranger is 17 strength and thus able to grab the mule and pull it out. The mule is now covered in oil, so the ranger will take the lantern and hold it.

They come to a room with a desk, they rummage through the BP accounts papers and find a key ring with two rings on it. They continue west to a T with direction arrows. Left says jail, right says control room. They go into the control room and turn the main handwheel which turns off the pump. They spike the door so that they don’t get bamboozled by someone turning the flow back on.

They now go towards the jail, but activate a pressure plate trap In the first room on the path. An empty cauldron drops from a hidden door on the ceiling, but only a couple drops of oil drip down since the oil has been turned off. They find a Gucci purse with 200 silver inside. They go west through a portcullis to a big T hallway with a portcullis on the other side, a big locked door to the north, and a big locked door to the south with a transparent skull on it. They walk up to the skull and look through, seeing a statue with an afro and a guitar covered in crude oil. They turn back and go to unlock the other portcullis. This portcullis leads to a 4 x 5 room.

Flipping the switch activates a pit trap that collapses the other side of the 4 x 5 room, enjoining it with a dining room where 6 ankous are feasting on roasted mushrooms. They are surprised by the pit trap, and the ranger snags 3 turns of surprise, which the party uses to climb down the pit, and back up on the side with the ankous. Battle ensues and the leader ankou begins screeching, and an ankou gets a high damage punch off on the half-elf, The mule gets bopped badly as well. The party goes ham with their electric weapons and clean up the ankous. The “leader” ankou was dawning an ornate set of silver chainmail. In the heap of bones, they find 10 blood runes and 2 death runes, along with a scroll of protect from gas and a scroll of protect from illusions. They take these along with the silver chain.

They head south to an empty room and then south again into a winding hallway when they hear a gelatinous cube coming. It seems to shimmer as it slithers up next to them. (There is an illusionary door that only the lion isn’t fooled by) With the bullseye lantern, they can see armor floating in the cube. They are able to kill the cube with range before it can reach them. They gather up the pieces of armour from the cube and discover a magical set of field plate that shoots out a burst of lightning when they give it to Ulrich. They travel down the winding hallway and find the chute the cube comes from. They turn back to the last room and go east, which leads to a 4 square hallway that ends with a door.

The ranger slips a mirror under the door and sees a gnome fiddling with something. They open the door and no one is surprised. They ask the gnome who he is, and discover he is a maintenance worker that has been trapped due to the heavy flow of oil, and the oil trap leading to the control room. He thanks them for turning the oil off and shows them a small iron chest he found while stuck down here. The party tries the keys from the desk on the box and discover a nice looking pair of bracers. He explains the general layout of the dungeon and the party sets off towards the north.

They enter a room with beds, and one of the beds has someone snoring under the covers. They pull off the blanket and find an ogre child who fights back but is slain easily. This ogre has 11k copper which the team ignores and they find a key.

They go across the hall from the bedroom and find the kitchen. There is a kettle on a range and a pantry with swung open doors and bowl of stew labeled “stew that blinds for a day” The party pours out the stew because that sounds evil and they are good guys. Then the ranger goes to pour out the kettle. However, the kettle is empty, save for a large spider! Neither the ranger nor spider is surprised, and the ranger wins initiative. The ranger smashes the bug with his pick, ruining the valuable venom, but not being insta-killed.

They go back to the jail door and try the key they found with the ogre. It opens. They come into a room with 4 small cells and one large cell with a yeti hunched over in the corner. In one of the small cells, they see a gnome with a really nice looking belt buckle, worth at least 1000 gold certainly. The gnome tells them he is Randall, the foreman, and that some troglodytes imprisoned him. The party fails to bend bars, and none of their keys work to open the cell, so they give him some food to sustain himself, and go back to the lobby.

The lobby gnomes open a secret door to the gnome hotel which they will now let you stay in for free as a reward for turning off the oil for maintenance. But they are perplexed – they don’t use the term foreman, and don’t know anyone named Randall. The party will go back to see what the deal is, but the henchmen are at 1 hp, so they are left to sleep at the hotel.

2/9/24 They go back, and Randall explains that he was just an adventurer that was jailed for stealing from BP and was willing to say anything to get out of here. (They did stop feeding him when the oil got out of control) The party is sympathetic to his situation, and get a lucky roll to bend the bars and set him free. He tells them there is a key to that skull room behind the yeti.

The party doesn’t trust the yeti to be fully dead, (wisely so) and they chuck some oil flasks at the corpse, hitting for a ton of fire damage, which is enough to finish it off since it was on its last legs anyways. It slumps over and reveals a hand dug tunnel behind him. The party goes through the tunnel and There’s a pit trap that party has to negotiate around, and leave the mule behind. The tunnel leads to a small 2 x 3 enclosure with 4 sacks of gold. The party takes the time to count out the gold, and they find a really nice looking key with a skull on it while counting it up. Randall contemplates a backstab at this time, but since he doesn’t get surprise he thinks better of it. They count 1600 gold in the sacks, and bring it to the mule to haul out.

The party takes their skull key to the skull door, and unlocks it. They approach the statue, who starts laughing yo ho ho ho! The statue shakes like a dog to remove the oil on him, and the party can now see it is a skeleton man with a guitar who starts playing “Bink’s booze” which charms the party under his suggestion.

He explains that he is a bard named Brook who goes by his stage name “Soul King”. He had one bad show and the elves locked him away in this oil room a longggg time ago. Which was an especially cruel punishment, since he is cursed to live forever as long as he stays out of the sun. He had been locked in this oily room for at least 200 years, he’s lost track. He’s ecstatic to hear that gnomes have taken over Gnoma Scotia because he hates elves. He Suggests the crew accompany him to his belongings, which he hid away with a continuous illusion spell that he cast with runes.

Brook leads the way to the room with the oil river, laughing and slicing through the dungeon. The party runs into the skeleton archers from earlier, and manage to slay them without anyone dying. They find a gold pipe and one of the bows looks especially nice and has a blue string.

Brook pulls out a handful of runes and disillusions the stairway to level 3. As the party goes to level 3, Randall takes an opportunity to draw his buckle knife and stab the ranger in the back. But the party wins initiative, and rips the ac 8 illusionist thief to shreds. He attempts to cast color spray to take control of the situation the next round, but again is too slow and gets creamed by the party, Zapped. Along with the fancy buckle knife that says +3, they find 20 water runes in his pockets, and the illusionists spell book he was trying to read from.

Brook leads the way through level 3 into a spear trap that shoots 8 spears at him, which he expertly dodges. The party follows him until he finds an old trunk the size of a coffin with a large gold lock on it, and slings it over his back. “let’s head back” he suggests while strumming along. The party collects everything from the lobby and puts on yeti oil after spending a night at the hotel.

1/10-13/24 Team Tundra sets out to return to Halifax. They can only travel at night since Soul King is with them. He will have to hide in a tent throughout the day. The journey will be 3 nights of travel. The only encounter is 7 groundhogs they get on the second day. The ranger feeds them and wrangles one with a lasso. They happily follow them home as they get fed and a gnome offers to buy them shortly after they get to town.

Brook sings a song of warmth the third night into town, protecting everyone from the cold even though their yeti oil had worn off.

Treasure & XP: No XP due to both PCs being XP locked.

2" gold pipe 2' in length - 850 gold (425 ea)

200 silver (5gold ea)

Gucci purse - 200 gold (100 ea)

potion of clairvoyant treasure seeking - 2500 gold (1250 each)

1600 gold (800 each)

fine silver chain 1600 gold (800 ea)

Bracers that blocked skeleton punch - worth 1000 gp if sold

Buckle knife +3 worth 3000 if sold

scroll of protection from gas - 800 gold if sold

scroll of potection from illusions - 400 gold if sold