Session 8: Re-Animator

Player Characters:

Gunther "The Ring General" - Level 1 Human Fighter/Wrestler Lawful Evil

Dr. Bright - Level 1 Human Illusionist Lawful Evil

The Scuba King - Level 1 Half-Orc Fighter/Thief Lawful Evil

10/27/23 It's 3 am in the town of Brightoni, and Dr. Bright is having a smoke outside of "The Worn Boot" with The Scuba King. They have been looking for some work and are more than willing to get their hands dirty for the right price. A strange noise is heard faintly in the distance breaking the eerie stillness of the misty night. A noise that can only be described as a " CHOO-CHOO." A few more moments go by when the bros are approached by a tall man with a thick German accent and what could only be described as unnaturally dark circles around his eyes.

He introduces himself as Gunther, and says he is looking for some capable associates who wouldn't mind doing some rather unorthodox work. What Gunther doesn't reveal is that he has sold his soul to The Train Devil for several things, first being the resurrection of his right hand man, Ludwig Kaiser. (Session 2) Gunther must retrieve his comrade's body from where it is buried and place it in a sarcophagus found in a local dungeon. (Found in Session 5 and Session 6 which Gunther has been to already.)

Dr. Bright and Scuba King are apprehensive about working for this man. Mainly because he will not inform them on how much payment for this job will be. He tries to pickpocket Gunther but fails, which Gunther fails to notice. Together the Dr. and King have five men-at-arms and a guard dog, but they need money so eventually the two accept the gig, but if this guy pulls any funny business he is dead.

Gunther needs a few things before they head out on the quest so they wait till dawn for Gunther to purchase a shovel and two men-at-arms for himself. Gunther, now dead broke, is also desperately hoping to find some treasure along the way to pay these men. He belives all will work and and the party joins up and leaves town fallowing the road South towards Paradiso.

After a couple hours of traversing the still mist shrouded jungle for a couple of hours, Gunther, who is leading, feels his foot tap a strange but familiar flask with the word "Soylent" printed on it. The party rolls for surprise and wins big time. They get three segments of surprise on a group of seven soyjacks wondering aimlessly through the mists at about six feet spaced apart. The party chooses to engage instead of flee. Scuba king gets two major back stabs in with his sword, whilst the rest of the party deals a lot of good hits killing four of the soyjacks and Dr. Bright casts light to disorient the enemies. The soyjacks manage to get a good bite on one of Gunther's men-at-arms killing him, however the party slays two more soyjacks leaving one remaining. The party decides to capture the soyjack and Scuba King manages to to put it into an arm lock via unarmed combat grappling, then the party ties up the thing with rope and gags its mouth.

The party continued South down the road for about six hours. It is about 4 pm when they encounter a group of five ogres wondering North up the road. A reaction roll is made and the ogres decide they want to talk some trash and intimidate the party. They inform the party with thick Scottish accents that they are feeling hungry and are looking for a snack but maybe they could make a deal. The Party offers their captive soyjack as a fine snack for the ogres, again a not so favorable reaction roll so they decide they will need more if they are to satisfy their hunger. They spot the guard dog and say if they throw him in its a deal. Dr. Bright had no intention of giving up Meaty, he is worth more than the men-at-arms! He huddles with Gunther and King and convinces Gunther to sacrifice his last man-at-arms instead. Gunther accepts and King attempts to grapple. King puts the man in a waist lock but the hireling counters for two points of damage. king try's to go into an overbear but fails and the man gets free. He tries to take off, but the team throws javelins and shoots arrows, doing just enough damage to put him down. The other hirelings seem nervous about what they just witnessed but are just glad it wasn't them. The ogres laugh with glee and accept the deal thanks to the entertainment.

After three more hours of traveling South it is dusk. The group finds the wreckage of a cart on the side of the road being reclaimed by the underbrush. Next to the wreckage lays two graves both marked by weapons with no names marked upon them. Gunther says this is it and orders the party to set up camp. He will take care of the digging himself. I have him roll an odds or evens to determine if he chose the correct grave and he did. Gunther dug whilst Dr. Light and Meaty took first watch. Gunther finishes up the digging and pulls out two halves of a partially decayed body. The same body belonging to Ludwig Kaiser's. The scent of his corpse's rotting flesh filling the air. Scuba King awakens to take second watch at this moment. Dr. Bright and King are very confused as Gunther asks for two large sacks to carry each half of the body. Gunther tells the men they must now take the body someplace and then their mission will be a success. Scuba finishes his watch and Gunther takes the last watch. They have no encounters over night.

10/28/23 The party heads North up the road, back towards Brightoni. After three hours they get an encounter, they are ambushed by a pack of wild boar and lose surprise. The boars have four rounds of surprise. This looked like the end of our party as three boars charge the party to protect their young. After a very nerve wrecking four rounds of surprise the party manages to one lose Rob, one of Dr. Bright's two body guards. He only had Big and Meaty left. The party begins to attack and get Dr. Bright out of harms way. Then next round they manage to take a boar down to zero. This is when the wild boars ability activates, which for lack of a better term, is a berserk or rage mode. It will fight after zero hit points for 1d4 + 1 melee rounds, or until it hits negative seven or greater damage. Not good at all!

The party puts down the raging boar but enrages one of the sows and brings another down to one hit point. Dr. Bright has had enough and casts light in an attempt to scare away the pack whilst the others attack. Dr. Bright is able to scare away the young and the sow at one hit point, allowing the melee to make quick work of the enraged sow. Another victory which could of ended much worse.

After about three more hours of travel North the party get another encounter. lacking up for the lack of encounters from last session and then some. Neither side is surprised as they encounter a colony of giant ants.

The party wins initiative and they decide right off the bat they don't want to engage with these things. there are more than twenty of them and they need to get a move on. The party throws some rations towards the ants and slowly retreats away. The warrior ants take up a defensive position between the party and the drone ants. Party wins initiative again and continues to slowly retreat without making any sudden moves. The ants take interest in the rations and begin to feel them with their antenna. The party wins initiative for the third time and is able to escape from the giant ants and go around them.

The party makes it back to the outskirts of Brightoni without any more encounters. They are close to the dungeon they need to get to so they go around town and travel to the dungeon with no encounters. Dr. Bright elects to map and they venture into the dungeon. The party decides and make one short but inconvenient turn at the beginning of the dungeon but they soon find themselves on the right track. They come to a door that has been spiked shut and Gunther realizes what room it is...

Last time Gunther was here with another party, (Session 6) he passed this very door which was still spiked shut at the time. The other party explained to him that there was a gelatinous cube they trapped inside along with a strange sarcophagus. The party was very intimidated by the cube, only because they were not sure they could damage it or not. After the revelation of what room it is the party is visually perturbed. They spend about ten minutes real time discussing if they could survive the encounter. The cube was the big terrifying monster for the Halloween session. If the party had faced one before, they would realize it isn't the hardest creature to destroy but the dread of not knowing what it does fueled the nightmares of the party. Gunther and the bros came all this way to turn back now. They decide Scuba King will unspike the door, send in two of his hirelings after Gunther and himself throw oil flasks at it and remaining hireling will throw his spear.

They make the play! Scuba king unspikes the door, which makes a loud noise. King passes a roll to hear noise and hears an odd slurping noise coming from the room. No turning back now the party opens the stuck door, revealing a 10" Cube filled with bones from kobold skeletons. The party wins initiative. Oil flasks are thrown, no direct hit but some splash damage is dealt. The spearmen charge and destroy what remained of the gelatinous foe. Whew, that was easy.

Gunther wastes no time. He approaches the stone sarcophagus and begins investigating it. It has carvings of tracks, figures depicting a train moving to run over people tied to the tracks, and the #1 symbol. This was the correct one. Scuba King checks for traps on the thing but doesn't find any. Gunther removes the lid, inside is a pile of dust and jewelry. They take the goods and place both halves of Ludwig lined up correctly inside the sarcophagus. Gunther places the cover back on and they wait. After a few minutes go by the party starts to doubt the plan. they are about ready to turn and leave when something finally happens. A noise breaks the silence of the dungeon. A distorted eerie remix of the Thomas The Tank Engine Theme Song rings out, as steam spills out from the sarcophagus covering the floor of the room. The lid is slowly removed as Ludwig Kaiser claws his way out, now spotting the same unnaturally black circled eyes as Gunther and with a hideous black scar formed where his body was split. Gunther embraces Ludwig, then Ludwig bestows unto Gunther a map leading to an unknown location. The party packs up and leaves heading back to town with no encounters, and sell their map.

Treasure and XP: Note for Halloween session 20% bonus XP was awarded if costume worn. Bonus XP Awarded to Scuba King and Dr. Bright. Treasure and XP split three ways.

• Golden Clasp with #1 engraved on face - 900 Gold Pieces - 900 XP

• Set of Golden #1 Ear Rings - 900 Gold Pieces - 900 XP

• Golden Medallion engraved to resemble the face of Train Devil - 1,800 Gold Pieces - 1,800 XP

• Golden #1 Pin - 1,000 Gold Pieces - 1,000 XP

• Dungeon Map - 200 Gold Pieces - 200 XP

• 7 Soyjacks - 280 XP

• 2 Wild Boar - 74 XP

• 1 Gelatinous Cube - 145 XP

Rankings:

• Gunther "The Ring General" - E - Protected the party in combat, got kills, resurrected his right hand man.

• Dr. Bright - E - Used his light spell to save the party from the wild boar ambush.

• Scuba King - E - Dealt massive backstab damage, attempted to steal from party, fought bravely in combat.