Viper Archipelago Session Report - Game 5 - 26 / 03 / 23
Apr 4, 2023 9:46:45 GMT -6
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Post by diogenes on Apr 4, 2023 9:46:45 GMT -6
Hello everyone, here is the fifth “Session Report” from the ongoing Viper Archipelago campaign. Regular readers will know that the players in this campaign have made it four full sessions without sustaining a single death from amongst the ranks of the player characters. An impressive feat, and one to be applauded, but any old-school player will know that such a “winning streak” is difficult to maintain, and the party found that out the hard way in this fifth session.
The players for this fifth game were:
J: A relatively new player, who has played in one prior OD&D game. This is their second session of old-school gaming, and the second time they have played in this campaign.
L: A semi-experienced OSR player, who has played in the majority of sessions of this campaign. Just like with the last session, L was the most experienced player out of the party assembled today.
S: A relatively new player, who has played in this campaign once before, as well as an introductory OD&D one-shot that I ran previously.
In this game, J was playing Marco Verma (M-U 1), L was playing Egrus the Frail (M-U 2), and S was playing Jeff Jefferson (F-M 1).
No pre-game rumours were provided for this session, as the party notified me in advance that they intended to investigate the marble temple-like structure to the south. During downtime, Egrus the Frail had hired Barlow as a retainer for the remainder of the month, so he would be accompanying them for this session. Egrus had also paid for Barlow to be cured of the lingering effects of exposure to Violet Fungus by a ship’s surgeon, who was passing through the pirate encampment.
Other developments that occurred during downtime included the hiring of a small group of mercenaries, who were sent to occupy the now-vacant lighthouse to the north. The intention of the players was to use this lighthouse as a stronghold, which they could operate out of in future. Another interesting event that occurred during downtime was the discovery that the ornate sword they had recovered from the lighthouse was a magical weapon. Since this situation was resolved through text, I’ll copy the relevant parts of the exchange below.
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“So, you've basically heard that one of the pirates who's currently on the island used to be an apprentice to a proper barber-surgeon back in the city he grew up in, before he ran away to join the crew of a sailing vessel. Anyway, you're walking along the beach with Barlow, heading towards the little temporary shack this guy has set up with his crew while they unload some cargo and take on some supplies from the island, when Barlow pauses, scratches at his bandaged arm, and says "this arm-rot hurts like you wouldn't believe, almost makes me wish that it would just drop off altogether". As Barlow says this, he lets out a yelp, and starts grabbing at his sword belt. It's almost like he's being electrically shocked by the magic sword that hangs at his waist. He pulls it out of the scabbard, revealing that the blade is glowing with strange blue light. As he looks at it, his eyes become strangely transfixed, as if completely hypnotised by the blade. His sword-arm starts moving, bringing the blade closer to his infected, bandaged left arm. What are the rest of you going to do as you as you see this start to happen?”
From here, the characters who were present, that being Jeff and Egrus, immediately leapt onto Barlow, and began grappling with him, seeking to disarm him. When the outcome of the grapple was being resolved, both Jeff and Egrus got the maximum possible result when rolling their hit die, so I ruled that Barlow was successfully disarmed. The second part of this downtime event resolution is copied below.
“Alright, you guys pile onto the distracted Barlow, and with a mighty display of strength, you not only prevent him from injuring himself by grabbing his sword-arm, but you succeed in wrenching the sword out of his madness-fuelled grasp. The sword spins out of his hand, and lands on the sand about a metre and a half away. As soon as the sword leaves his hand, the blue light stops, and Barlow sort of stops, shakes his head, and looks around him in total confusion, like he's not sure why the two of you are holding onto him. He looks at the sword on the sand, and it's like his memory suddenly comes back. He says "I don't know what the hell came over me just then, it was like I was possessed, I wasn't in control of what I was doing. Keep that d**n sword away from me, I don't want anything to do with it, I'm sticking with my cutlass from now on."
There was some more tentative experimentation with the sword during downtime, without much success, but the party didn’t want to mess around with it too much, so they elected to bury the weapon for the time being, along with some of their excess treasure. With that downtime activity taken care of, we’ll return to the events of Session 5.
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The party were about to head off to the south, when the pirate who they had saved from the harpies in the previous session comes strolling up to them, heavily bandaged on their limbs. I rolled for their name, and got a female-sounding name, Marya, so I decided that this pirate was actually a woman, who had been mistaken for a man at first glance due to having a lean frame and close-cropped hair. This pirate mentioned that they had been abducted by the harpies while investigating a strange ruin a short distance into the jungle, a ruin dominated by great carved stone heads that protruded from the ground, like the Moai statues on Easter Island.
The players found this interesting, but decided to stick to their initial plan, and headed south to the temple. On the way there, they passed by the place where the beached whale had washed up previously. As they continued south, the party noticed a cave mouth, located high up on the cliff face. It looked possible for someone to climb up to the cave mouth, as there were craggy ledges and rough slopes that could be traversed to reach the cave mouth.
However, the party stuck to their initial goal, and continued south, reaching the base of the cliff below the temple. With Jeff serving as a lead scout, the party cautiously ascended the winding, narrow, zig-zagging stairs that had been cut into the cliff face. The party reached the top of the cliff, and saw a series of ruined structures, made of white marble. There were crumbling remnants of beautiful marble archways, columns, domed enclosures, and so on. A good visual reference would be the Ayleid Ruins from the Elder Scrolls franchise.
At the centre of these scattered ruins, there was circle of columns. It looked like these columns had once held up a domed ceiling, but this had long-since collapsed, leaving the view to the sky open. In the centre of this circle, there was a circular fountain, with a statue of an Elven woman atop the centre of the fountain. The fountain was dry, and the Elven woman was depicted as wearing a white robe, with one hand outstretched, palm-down, and the other hand holding a spear.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed that this statue had been constructed in separate parts, and had been fitted together at a later time, instead of being constructed from a single piece of marble. Egrus reached up to the statue’s outstretched hand, and twisted it around, so that the hand was now palm-down. As soon as this alteration had been made, there was a grating, grinding sound of stone on stone, and the base of the fountain began to descend downwards, gradually forming a narrow, spiralling marble staircase that led down into darkness.
Pleased at this discovery, the party lit a torch, and descended into the dungeon. They seemed confident, and eager to acquire some treasure. Little did they know what lay in store for them.
At the bottom of the stairs, the party found themselves in a rectangular room, with a passageway leading south, and a passageway leading west as they only two exits, other than the ascent back up the stairs. The room was made of white marble, and was eerily devoid of furniture and other decoration. As the party made their way west down a passageway, they noted that the walls and ceiling were made of that same white marble, and the passageways seemed to have been deliberately constructed in such a way that they appeared identical to one another, as if the intended purpose was to mislead and confuse any interloper, leaving them to get lost in this labyrinth. A maze of twisty little passages, all alike, indeed.
Before too long, the party came across a room filled with large amphora and urns, but these vessels were seemingly all made of some kind of bone-white marble or clay. Jeff went up to one of these urns, and opened the ceramic lid. Looking inside, he saw that there was a strange silver coil of metallic-looking rope, which began to move. As Jeff quickly retreated back to the centre of the room, a silver snake with metallic scales emerged from the urn, just like how an ordinary snake might emerge from the basket of a flute-playing snake-charmer. All around the room, there were more of these metallic serpents emerging, their eyes unblinking pinpoints of bright white light, almost like LED diodes.
The party grouped up in the centre of the room, and began a retreat back down the corridor they came from, pursued by the metallic snakes, which had now slithered free of the urns that were holding them. The party seemed unnerved by the appearance of these metallic snakes, and seemed intent on returning to the surface, despite having made little progress so far. As they hastily made their way down the corridor back to where they entered, their flickering torchlight fell upon a humanoid figure, standing stock-still in the centre of the corridor. This figure was covered from head-to-toe in what appeared to be glittering chainmail of marvellous quality, making it impossible to discern anything about their appearance. The figure held a gleaming silver sword by their side, and seemed regarded the party impassively. The players were unsettled by the figure’s unnatural stillness and total lack of reaction to the party’s approach, and so they didn’t want to get anywhere near this creature.
At that very moment, however, there was a steady metallic scraping coming from further down the corridor, where they party had just come from. Looking back into the darkness, the party saw the glowing white eyes of the metallic serpents, quickly slithering closer, as the scraping sound grew ever louder.
Here, the players were forced into making a hard decision. Face the quickly-approaching snakes, or somehow try to get past the strange figure? The players chose the latter, sending Barlow and Marya charging in first, with the intention being to “overbear” the creature and barge it to the side, allowing the remainder of the party to pass through. Barlow and Marya threw their weight against the creature, but they may as well have tackled a brick wall, with the creature remaining totally unmoved. In response, the creature shoved back Barlow and Marya, sending them stumbling into the remainder of the party as the other members tried to rush past the creature while it was occupied with Barlow and Marya.
The party’s desperate rush stalled, those in the rear ranks crashing into the front runners as they were shoved backwards. Confusion reigned, and the party’s cohesion broke. Marco hadn’t resolved his attack yet, and so lashed out with his quarterstaff. The blow struck the creature hard in the head, sounding a metallic clang, but seemingly having no effect. Jeff loosed an arrow at the snakes behind them, but this time, his arrow went high, hissing into the darkness and clattering off a distant wall, out of sight.
The next round rolled around, and the party were fleeing in panic now, pressing against the walls of the corridor as they tried to squeeze past the creature. Since the corridor was a classic ten foot wide old-school dungeon corridor, I ruled that this would be possible, but that the creature would be able to resolve an attack against the party members as they tried to slip past. I rolled to see who this attack would be resolved against, and it was Jeff on the chopping block this time. I rolled the attacks of the creature, and the outcome wasn’t good for Jeff. As the rest of the characters rushed past, the creature’s arm mechanically jolted forward, and delivered a brutal, dragging draw-cut right across the bottom of Jeff’s torso, spilling his guts onto the floor.
The party who had managed to get past the creature looked back in time to see Jeff collapse to the ground in a pool of his own blood, desperately trying to hold his guts in even as he goes down. The creature that had just slain him turned stiffly towards the remainder of the party, moving like a robot or an animated stone statue, and began to walk steadily towards the party, Jeff’s blood dripping from the creature’s sword.
Frightened by this creature, and not wishing to engage it in open combat, the party continued to flee, scrambling back up the stairs and emerging back onto the surface. The party took a break to catch their breath and plan a new approach. The players were still keen on exploring the dungeon, but they wanted to wait a bit, banking on their theory that the humanoid creature was in fact some kind of mechanical construct, just like the mechanical snakes they had encountered. The party hypothesised that if the creature was indeed a mechanical construct, it was likely to return to a pre-programmed “patrol route” if given some time to reset.
While the party discussed their gameplan, I created a “graveyard” channel on the Discord server, a tradition I maintain in all of my old-school games. I have the players add all of their fallen characters into this channel, and their cause of death, so we can have a proper record of the “honoured dead” of each campaign. For this campaign, S had the honour of posting the first “death notice” in the graveyard, his character Jeff having been slain a few minutes previously. Embracing the old-school spirit, Jeff quickly rolled up another character, a Fighting-Man called Kyrie Eleison, who promptly joined the party. Thus fortified, and with a concrete plan of action in mind, the players readied themselves for a second delve into the dark depths below.
The party headed back down the stairs, and noticed that there was a stone switch on the east wall of the room at the base of the stairs. The party reasoned that this switch likely operated the mechanism that controlled the stairs. Looking around, the party saw no sign of the mechanical snakes, or the creature that had just slain Jeff. Cautiously, the party moved west, back into the corridor where the creature had been. As the proceeded west, they saw no sign of the creature, or Jeff’s body, but there was a bloody “drag trail” that led further west down the corridor, as if Jeff’s body had been dragged away in that direction.
The party followed the blood trail, and saw that the blood trail turned south, down into the room where the party found the urns full of metallic snakes. The corridor continued west, and the party saw that there was a flight of stone stairs, leading upwards and further to the west. The party didn’t want to head back down into that room, so they decided to ascend the stairs.
As they stood at the foot of the stairs, they saw that the stairs seemingly led up to a complete “dead-end”, a blank and featureless marble wall, which had a mask-like metal face attached to the wall at about chest-height. The metal face decoration had golf-ball sized sapphires for eyes, which enticed the players to try to climb the stairs. The party also suspected a secret door behind the “dead-end” wall. Just as the party hit the top, there was a “click” underfoot, and the stairs suddenly transformed into a steep ramp, and the party fell back down the bottom in a heap.
The metal mask's jaw dropped open, a metal pipe emerged from the mouth, and began spraying the players with some slightly-sticky, slightly-coloured watery substance. Nothing happened immediately, so the players stood back up, and Kyrie threw a grappling hook at the metal mask. The character got a good roll here when determining the success of this throw, so the tine of the grappling hook snagged onto the open lower jaw of the mask, and held firm. The whole time, the party are getting sprayed with liquid from the mask's mouth, so by now they are all soaked to the bone, and are currently standing in a big puddle of liquid.
Perhaps our learned readers can see where this is going.
Kyrie manages to climb up the rope and the slippery ramp, and manually forces the mask's mouth closed, shutting off the liquid flow. Upon beginning to tamper with the mask, Kyrie begins to feel a sense of static electricity around him, as his hair starts to stand on end. Despite this, Kyrie persists in tampering with the mask, trying to dislodge the glittering sapphire from the mask’s eye socket with the point of their dagger. All the while, the tingling, electric sensation is continuing to increase. Finally, Kyrie manages to lever the sapphire out of the statue's eye socket, and is immediately struck by a massive electrical discharge. This electrical discharge also chain to the rest of the party, who are still standing at the base of the stairs in a large puddle of water.
I called for a Save vs Death from everyone, and not a single party member or retainer managed to pass. In an instant, the entire party of three player characters and two retainers were electrocuted on the spot by 3d6 worth of damage. In the end, the damage total came to 13, more than double the hit point total of even the most robust of the party members. This represented the first TPK of the campaign, but the players seemed far from dispirited by this turn of events. Instead, they were keen on doing a “corpse run” down into the dungeon with new characters, in a last-ditch attempt to recover their accumulated treasure and magic items from the dungeon.
New characters were quickly rolled, as a new party prepared to set off into the wilderness. From an “in-character” perspective, all that was known by these new characters was that a party of known tomb-robbers and treasure-hunters had struck out into the wilderness, seeking the white temple to the south, but none had returned. Around a full day and night had passed in the game world since the previous party disappeared, and now this new group of opportunists were striking out in that same direction to try their luck.
This new party consisted of Vishan Durnas (M-U 1), played by L, Brother Hamiltan (W-P 1) played by S, and Hamiltin (F-M 1), played by J. So now, we have a Hamilton, a Hamiltan, and a Hamiltin amongst the player characters. Hopefully, a Hamiltun and a Hamilten will also join the party at some stage, and potentially a Hamiltyn as well.
The new party headed south along the coast, passing by the previously-mentioned cave in the cliff face. This time, however, the party caught sight of a pale humanoid figure standing in the cave mouth, looking down at the party on the beach below. This time, the party decided it was worthwhile taking a look. Vishan climbed up alone, ascending the craggy ledges and rough slopes towards the cave mouth. As he approached, the pale figure turned and darted back into the depths of the cave, vanishing from sight. Vishan reached the cave mouth, and cautiously advanced inside. He saw no sign of any living creature, but on the north side of the cave, there were three huge stone heads carved into the cave wall. The stone heads were about the height of a man, and slightly broader than a dungeon door. There were a couple of rough sleeping mats pushed against the south wall of the cave, made of natural vegetation. Deeper in the cave, towards the west, there was an opening that led further into the darkness, but no sound could be heard.
Seemingly seeing nothing of interest, Vishan turned right back around, and began to descend the cliff. When I asked him why he went up in the first place, only to turn around and come right back down, the player, L, informed me that he had rolled “Charm Person” as the starting spell for his Magic-User, and he had been hoping to use that spell to enthral the pale creature, and have them as an ally for the temple dungeon the party were heading to.
After this short and fruitless detour, the party reached the white temple once again, and like the previous party before them, they ascended the stairs cut into the cliff face, made their way over to the statue of the Elven women, and descended down the stone stairs into the dungeon. After confirming there were no lurking creatures in the immediate vicinity, the party looked down the corridor to the west. Curiously, the blood trail from before had seemingly disappeared, as if cleaned up. Seeing this as an ominous sign, the party decided to head down the south passageway this time.
They passed through into another rectangular room, that had a circular pool of crystal-clear water in the centre. As the players approached the pool, they saw that there was a skeleton sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the pool, surrounded by silver coins, as if people had dropped these coins into the pool like you might do with a wishing well. The skeleton was also wearing a variety of silver jewellery, like rings, necklaces, bracelets and so on. Finally, there was a short, slightly curved sword in a ornate scabbard sitting in front of the skeleton’s crossed legs, the sword being similar to a Japanese wakizashi.
Brother Hamiltan and Vishan removed their armour, and their outer layer of clothes, and prepared to enter the pool, determined to retrieve the treasure from the bottom of the pool. As soon as they touched the water at the edge of the pool, the water suddenly coalesced and rose up into an undulating column. This pillar of water suddenly bent, and turned towards the players, like a cobra rearing up. The top of the watery column shifted into the shape of an impassive, human-like face, looking very similar to the metal mask decoration that the previous party encountered. This creature, perhaps some kind of water elemental, swung its head back and forth on its long liquid neck, seemingly eyeing up the player characters.
I checked the alignment of the player characters, and it so happened that Vishan hadn’t written down his alignment yet. L decided to roll a die to see what his character’s alignment would be, and through a stroke of luck, the dice came up with Neutral as his selected alignment.
As the party watched, the short sword located down at the bottom of the pool began to move, as if it was being buffeted around by swift-moving water at the bottom of the pool. The sword began rising up towards the surface of the pool, before ascending into the column-like body of the water elemental, finally coming to a rest in the creature’s midsection. While this occurred, the water elemental was intently staring at Vishan. Cautiously, Vishan stretched out a hand, reached into the flowing body of the water elemental, and withdrew the sodden sword.
A static-like tingle ran up his arm as he took hold of the blade, identifying it as a magical weapon. Vishan passed the blade to the only Fighting-Man amongst the party, Hamiltin. The party put their clothes back on, and prepared to move on, and not a moment too soon. Just as the party were deciding which direction to move off in next, three shambling humanoid figures came shuffling out of the darkness, emerging from a passageway to the west.
This trio of creatures began to move towards the party, who responded by retreating to the south of the room. There was a marble door there, and the party quickly wrenched it open. As the lurching creatures were in close pursuit, the party didn’t pause to check for traps or other hazards before they rushed into the room to the south. As the last of the party crossed the threshold, they turned and slammed the heavy door in the face of their pursuers. The sturdy stone door seemed like it would hold firm against the creatures, who didn’t seem to be making much effort to force the door open or batter it down. If anything, the creatures only seemed to be lightly pawing at the door in confusion, rather than making a concerted attempt to gain entry.
The party moved away from the door, and for the first time, took a proper look around at the room they had blindly rushed into. In the four corners of the rectangular room, there was a statue of an Elven woman, that appeared similar in appearance to the statue the players encountered in the surface.
In the centre of the room, there was a marble plinth, with a polished human-like skull sitting on top, surrounded by a transparent glass box. The glass box is easily large enough to contain the skull. Floating in the air around the skull are a variety of small coloured gemstones, cut in a variety of shapes and sizes. These floating gemstones circle the skull in a slow, lazy orbit. There is a small brass plaque attached to the plinth, just below the glass case, but the text is written in an ancient, unknown language.
The players inspected the box carefully, as well as the surrounding statues, but found nothing further than what was already described. I informed the players that we would have to finish up the session soon, as we were coming up to the cut-off time. This particular session ran a bit longer than usual, lasting about two hours and 45 minutes in total. I didn’t have anything planned for the next morning, so I was happy to have a chilled-out, late-night game that ran a little longer than usual.
Spurred on by the imminent end of the game, the players took action. Brother Hamiltan boldly strode over to the plinth, and smashed the glass box with a rough blow from his cudgel. Immediately, there was a grinding sound of stone on stone, and the door to the north immediately swung open, seemingly in response to the glass being smashed.
For reference, this was the same door the players passed through previously. The three creatures from before rushed into the room, seemingly galvanised into swifter movement, and began a headlong rush towards the party. The party braced themselves, and prepared to fight, but were horrified by what they saw as the creatures came into view more fully, and were properly illuminated by the party’s torchlight.
The creatures were the re-animated forms of Marco Verma, Egrus the Frail, and Jeff Jefferson, and each of them had several metallic snakes bursting out of their death-pale flesh, and writhing beneath their skin, as if each of these re-animated creatures were “hosts” to a nest of these metallic serpents. The creatures closed to melee, and swarmed around Brother Hamiltan, who had bravely stepped forward to protect his allies.
Brother Hamiltan drew back his cudgel, and with a single brutal strike, he crushed the skull of the creature that had once been Marco Verma. However, even as the abomination went down, the metallic snakes that infested the creature’s body lashed out, striking Brother Hamiltan. In the same moment, the two other creatures fell on Brother Hamiltan, dragging him to the floor screaming. The metallic serpents moved like darting blades, striking again and again with incredible speed.
The remaining party members took advantage of the creature’s momentary pre-occupation with the writhing, struggling form of Brother Hamiltan, declaring that they would all be making a “Full Retreat” back in the direction of the exit. The exit was only two rooms away, and it was in a straight line northwards from the players present position, so making a swift escape wasn’t exactly a Herculean task.
The party carried out their hasty retreat, making it back to the stairs back to the surface with Brother Hamiltan’s screams echoing in their ears. The players climbed the stairs and returned to town without further incident, having recovered only one piece of treasure for their troubles, and losing another character in the process.
Overall, this wasn’t the most successful session for the player characters, but hopefully the players themselves had an enjoyable time. In any case, the game world awaits, and we will see if more characters meet their grim end in the next session, or if the players can rally and get back on their winning streak.
Until next time, readers.
The players for this fifth game were:
J: A relatively new player, who has played in one prior OD&D game. This is their second session of old-school gaming, and the second time they have played in this campaign.
L: A semi-experienced OSR player, who has played in the majority of sessions of this campaign. Just like with the last session, L was the most experienced player out of the party assembled today.
S: A relatively new player, who has played in this campaign once before, as well as an introductory OD&D one-shot that I ran previously.
In this game, J was playing Marco Verma (M-U 1), L was playing Egrus the Frail (M-U 2), and S was playing Jeff Jefferson (F-M 1).
No pre-game rumours were provided for this session, as the party notified me in advance that they intended to investigate the marble temple-like structure to the south. During downtime, Egrus the Frail had hired Barlow as a retainer for the remainder of the month, so he would be accompanying them for this session. Egrus had also paid for Barlow to be cured of the lingering effects of exposure to Violet Fungus by a ship’s surgeon, who was passing through the pirate encampment.
Other developments that occurred during downtime included the hiring of a small group of mercenaries, who were sent to occupy the now-vacant lighthouse to the north. The intention of the players was to use this lighthouse as a stronghold, which they could operate out of in future. Another interesting event that occurred during downtime was the discovery that the ornate sword they had recovered from the lighthouse was a magical weapon. Since this situation was resolved through text, I’ll copy the relevant parts of the exchange below.
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“So, you've basically heard that one of the pirates who's currently on the island used to be an apprentice to a proper barber-surgeon back in the city he grew up in, before he ran away to join the crew of a sailing vessel. Anyway, you're walking along the beach with Barlow, heading towards the little temporary shack this guy has set up with his crew while they unload some cargo and take on some supplies from the island, when Barlow pauses, scratches at his bandaged arm, and says "this arm-rot hurts like you wouldn't believe, almost makes me wish that it would just drop off altogether". As Barlow says this, he lets out a yelp, and starts grabbing at his sword belt. It's almost like he's being electrically shocked by the magic sword that hangs at his waist. He pulls it out of the scabbard, revealing that the blade is glowing with strange blue light. As he looks at it, his eyes become strangely transfixed, as if completely hypnotised by the blade. His sword-arm starts moving, bringing the blade closer to his infected, bandaged left arm. What are the rest of you going to do as you as you see this start to happen?”
From here, the characters who were present, that being Jeff and Egrus, immediately leapt onto Barlow, and began grappling with him, seeking to disarm him. When the outcome of the grapple was being resolved, both Jeff and Egrus got the maximum possible result when rolling their hit die, so I ruled that Barlow was successfully disarmed. The second part of this downtime event resolution is copied below.
“Alright, you guys pile onto the distracted Barlow, and with a mighty display of strength, you not only prevent him from injuring himself by grabbing his sword-arm, but you succeed in wrenching the sword out of his madness-fuelled grasp. The sword spins out of his hand, and lands on the sand about a metre and a half away. As soon as the sword leaves his hand, the blue light stops, and Barlow sort of stops, shakes his head, and looks around him in total confusion, like he's not sure why the two of you are holding onto him. He looks at the sword on the sand, and it's like his memory suddenly comes back. He says "I don't know what the hell came over me just then, it was like I was possessed, I wasn't in control of what I was doing. Keep that d**n sword away from me, I don't want anything to do with it, I'm sticking with my cutlass from now on."
There was some more tentative experimentation with the sword during downtime, without much success, but the party didn’t want to mess around with it too much, so they elected to bury the weapon for the time being, along with some of their excess treasure. With that downtime activity taken care of, we’ll return to the events of Session 5.
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The party were about to head off to the south, when the pirate who they had saved from the harpies in the previous session comes strolling up to them, heavily bandaged on their limbs. I rolled for their name, and got a female-sounding name, Marya, so I decided that this pirate was actually a woman, who had been mistaken for a man at first glance due to having a lean frame and close-cropped hair. This pirate mentioned that they had been abducted by the harpies while investigating a strange ruin a short distance into the jungle, a ruin dominated by great carved stone heads that protruded from the ground, like the Moai statues on Easter Island.
The players found this interesting, but decided to stick to their initial plan, and headed south to the temple. On the way there, they passed by the place where the beached whale had washed up previously. As they continued south, the party noticed a cave mouth, located high up on the cliff face. It looked possible for someone to climb up to the cave mouth, as there were craggy ledges and rough slopes that could be traversed to reach the cave mouth.
However, the party stuck to their initial goal, and continued south, reaching the base of the cliff below the temple. With Jeff serving as a lead scout, the party cautiously ascended the winding, narrow, zig-zagging stairs that had been cut into the cliff face. The party reached the top of the cliff, and saw a series of ruined structures, made of white marble. There were crumbling remnants of beautiful marble archways, columns, domed enclosures, and so on. A good visual reference would be the Ayleid Ruins from the Elder Scrolls franchise.
At the centre of these scattered ruins, there was circle of columns. It looked like these columns had once held up a domed ceiling, but this had long-since collapsed, leaving the view to the sky open. In the centre of this circle, there was a circular fountain, with a statue of an Elven woman atop the centre of the fountain. The fountain was dry, and the Elven woman was depicted as wearing a white robe, with one hand outstretched, palm-down, and the other hand holding a spear.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed that this statue had been constructed in separate parts, and had been fitted together at a later time, instead of being constructed from a single piece of marble. Egrus reached up to the statue’s outstretched hand, and twisted it around, so that the hand was now palm-down. As soon as this alteration had been made, there was a grating, grinding sound of stone on stone, and the base of the fountain began to descend downwards, gradually forming a narrow, spiralling marble staircase that led down into darkness.
Pleased at this discovery, the party lit a torch, and descended into the dungeon. They seemed confident, and eager to acquire some treasure. Little did they know what lay in store for them.
At the bottom of the stairs, the party found themselves in a rectangular room, with a passageway leading south, and a passageway leading west as they only two exits, other than the ascent back up the stairs. The room was made of white marble, and was eerily devoid of furniture and other decoration. As the party made their way west down a passageway, they noted that the walls and ceiling were made of that same white marble, and the passageways seemed to have been deliberately constructed in such a way that they appeared identical to one another, as if the intended purpose was to mislead and confuse any interloper, leaving them to get lost in this labyrinth. A maze of twisty little passages, all alike, indeed.
Before too long, the party came across a room filled with large amphora and urns, but these vessels were seemingly all made of some kind of bone-white marble or clay. Jeff went up to one of these urns, and opened the ceramic lid. Looking inside, he saw that there was a strange silver coil of metallic-looking rope, which began to move. As Jeff quickly retreated back to the centre of the room, a silver snake with metallic scales emerged from the urn, just like how an ordinary snake might emerge from the basket of a flute-playing snake-charmer. All around the room, there were more of these metallic serpents emerging, their eyes unblinking pinpoints of bright white light, almost like LED diodes.
The party grouped up in the centre of the room, and began a retreat back down the corridor they came from, pursued by the metallic snakes, which had now slithered free of the urns that were holding them. The party seemed unnerved by the appearance of these metallic snakes, and seemed intent on returning to the surface, despite having made little progress so far. As they hastily made their way down the corridor back to where they entered, their flickering torchlight fell upon a humanoid figure, standing stock-still in the centre of the corridor. This figure was covered from head-to-toe in what appeared to be glittering chainmail of marvellous quality, making it impossible to discern anything about their appearance. The figure held a gleaming silver sword by their side, and seemed regarded the party impassively. The players were unsettled by the figure’s unnatural stillness and total lack of reaction to the party’s approach, and so they didn’t want to get anywhere near this creature.
At that very moment, however, there was a steady metallic scraping coming from further down the corridor, where they party had just come from. Looking back into the darkness, the party saw the glowing white eyes of the metallic serpents, quickly slithering closer, as the scraping sound grew ever louder.
Here, the players were forced into making a hard decision. Face the quickly-approaching snakes, or somehow try to get past the strange figure? The players chose the latter, sending Barlow and Marya charging in first, with the intention being to “overbear” the creature and barge it to the side, allowing the remainder of the party to pass through. Barlow and Marya threw their weight against the creature, but they may as well have tackled a brick wall, with the creature remaining totally unmoved. In response, the creature shoved back Barlow and Marya, sending them stumbling into the remainder of the party as the other members tried to rush past the creature while it was occupied with Barlow and Marya.
The party’s desperate rush stalled, those in the rear ranks crashing into the front runners as they were shoved backwards. Confusion reigned, and the party’s cohesion broke. Marco hadn’t resolved his attack yet, and so lashed out with his quarterstaff. The blow struck the creature hard in the head, sounding a metallic clang, but seemingly having no effect. Jeff loosed an arrow at the snakes behind them, but this time, his arrow went high, hissing into the darkness and clattering off a distant wall, out of sight.
The next round rolled around, and the party were fleeing in panic now, pressing against the walls of the corridor as they tried to squeeze past the creature. Since the corridor was a classic ten foot wide old-school dungeon corridor, I ruled that this would be possible, but that the creature would be able to resolve an attack against the party members as they tried to slip past. I rolled to see who this attack would be resolved against, and it was Jeff on the chopping block this time. I rolled the attacks of the creature, and the outcome wasn’t good for Jeff. As the rest of the characters rushed past, the creature’s arm mechanically jolted forward, and delivered a brutal, dragging draw-cut right across the bottom of Jeff’s torso, spilling his guts onto the floor.
The party who had managed to get past the creature looked back in time to see Jeff collapse to the ground in a pool of his own blood, desperately trying to hold his guts in even as he goes down. The creature that had just slain him turned stiffly towards the remainder of the party, moving like a robot or an animated stone statue, and began to walk steadily towards the party, Jeff’s blood dripping from the creature’s sword.
Frightened by this creature, and not wishing to engage it in open combat, the party continued to flee, scrambling back up the stairs and emerging back onto the surface. The party took a break to catch their breath and plan a new approach. The players were still keen on exploring the dungeon, but they wanted to wait a bit, banking on their theory that the humanoid creature was in fact some kind of mechanical construct, just like the mechanical snakes they had encountered. The party hypothesised that if the creature was indeed a mechanical construct, it was likely to return to a pre-programmed “patrol route” if given some time to reset.
While the party discussed their gameplan, I created a “graveyard” channel on the Discord server, a tradition I maintain in all of my old-school games. I have the players add all of their fallen characters into this channel, and their cause of death, so we can have a proper record of the “honoured dead” of each campaign. For this campaign, S had the honour of posting the first “death notice” in the graveyard, his character Jeff having been slain a few minutes previously. Embracing the old-school spirit, Jeff quickly rolled up another character, a Fighting-Man called Kyrie Eleison, who promptly joined the party. Thus fortified, and with a concrete plan of action in mind, the players readied themselves for a second delve into the dark depths below.
The party headed back down the stairs, and noticed that there was a stone switch on the east wall of the room at the base of the stairs. The party reasoned that this switch likely operated the mechanism that controlled the stairs. Looking around, the party saw no sign of the mechanical snakes, or the creature that had just slain Jeff. Cautiously, the party moved west, back into the corridor where the creature had been. As the proceeded west, they saw no sign of the creature, or Jeff’s body, but there was a bloody “drag trail” that led further west down the corridor, as if Jeff’s body had been dragged away in that direction.
The party followed the blood trail, and saw that the blood trail turned south, down into the room where the party found the urns full of metallic snakes. The corridor continued west, and the party saw that there was a flight of stone stairs, leading upwards and further to the west. The party didn’t want to head back down into that room, so they decided to ascend the stairs.
As they stood at the foot of the stairs, they saw that the stairs seemingly led up to a complete “dead-end”, a blank and featureless marble wall, which had a mask-like metal face attached to the wall at about chest-height. The metal face decoration had golf-ball sized sapphires for eyes, which enticed the players to try to climb the stairs. The party also suspected a secret door behind the “dead-end” wall. Just as the party hit the top, there was a “click” underfoot, and the stairs suddenly transformed into a steep ramp, and the party fell back down the bottom in a heap.
The metal mask's jaw dropped open, a metal pipe emerged from the mouth, and began spraying the players with some slightly-sticky, slightly-coloured watery substance. Nothing happened immediately, so the players stood back up, and Kyrie threw a grappling hook at the metal mask. The character got a good roll here when determining the success of this throw, so the tine of the grappling hook snagged onto the open lower jaw of the mask, and held firm. The whole time, the party are getting sprayed with liquid from the mask's mouth, so by now they are all soaked to the bone, and are currently standing in a big puddle of liquid.
Perhaps our learned readers can see where this is going.
Kyrie manages to climb up the rope and the slippery ramp, and manually forces the mask's mouth closed, shutting off the liquid flow. Upon beginning to tamper with the mask, Kyrie begins to feel a sense of static electricity around him, as his hair starts to stand on end. Despite this, Kyrie persists in tampering with the mask, trying to dislodge the glittering sapphire from the mask’s eye socket with the point of their dagger. All the while, the tingling, electric sensation is continuing to increase. Finally, Kyrie manages to lever the sapphire out of the statue's eye socket, and is immediately struck by a massive electrical discharge. This electrical discharge also chain to the rest of the party, who are still standing at the base of the stairs in a large puddle of water.
I called for a Save vs Death from everyone, and not a single party member or retainer managed to pass. In an instant, the entire party of three player characters and two retainers were electrocuted on the spot by 3d6 worth of damage. In the end, the damage total came to 13, more than double the hit point total of even the most robust of the party members. This represented the first TPK of the campaign, but the players seemed far from dispirited by this turn of events. Instead, they were keen on doing a “corpse run” down into the dungeon with new characters, in a last-ditch attempt to recover their accumulated treasure and magic items from the dungeon.
New characters were quickly rolled, as a new party prepared to set off into the wilderness. From an “in-character” perspective, all that was known by these new characters was that a party of known tomb-robbers and treasure-hunters had struck out into the wilderness, seeking the white temple to the south, but none had returned. Around a full day and night had passed in the game world since the previous party disappeared, and now this new group of opportunists were striking out in that same direction to try their luck.
This new party consisted of Vishan Durnas (M-U 1), played by L, Brother Hamiltan (W-P 1) played by S, and Hamiltin (F-M 1), played by J. So now, we have a Hamilton, a Hamiltan, and a Hamiltin amongst the player characters. Hopefully, a Hamiltun and a Hamilten will also join the party at some stage, and potentially a Hamiltyn as well.
The new party headed south along the coast, passing by the previously-mentioned cave in the cliff face. This time, however, the party caught sight of a pale humanoid figure standing in the cave mouth, looking down at the party on the beach below. This time, the party decided it was worthwhile taking a look. Vishan climbed up alone, ascending the craggy ledges and rough slopes towards the cave mouth. As he approached, the pale figure turned and darted back into the depths of the cave, vanishing from sight. Vishan reached the cave mouth, and cautiously advanced inside. He saw no sign of any living creature, but on the north side of the cave, there were three huge stone heads carved into the cave wall. The stone heads were about the height of a man, and slightly broader than a dungeon door. There were a couple of rough sleeping mats pushed against the south wall of the cave, made of natural vegetation. Deeper in the cave, towards the west, there was an opening that led further into the darkness, but no sound could be heard.
Seemingly seeing nothing of interest, Vishan turned right back around, and began to descend the cliff. When I asked him why he went up in the first place, only to turn around and come right back down, the player, L, informed me that he had rolled “Charm Person” as the starting spell for his Magic-User, and he had been hoping to use that spell to enthral the pale creature, and have them as an ally for the temple dungeon the party were heading to.
After this short and fruitless detour, the party reached the white temple once again, and like the previous party before them, they ascended the stairs cut into the cliff face, made their way over to the statue of the Elven women, and descended down the stone stairs into the dungeon. After confirming there were no lurking creatures in the immediate vicinity, the party looked down the corridor to the west. Curiously, the blood trail from before had seemingly disappeared, as if cleaned up. Seeing this as an ominous sign, the party decided to head down the south passageway this time.
They passed through into another rectangular room, that had a circular pool of crystal-clear water in the centre. As the players approached the pool, they saw that there was a skeleton sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the pool, surrounded by silver coins, as if people had dropped these coins into the pool like you might do with a wishing well. The skeleton was also wearing a variety of silver jewellery, like rings, necklaces, bracelets and so on. Finally, there was a short, slightly curved sword in a ornate scabbard sitting in front of the skeleton’s crossed legs, the sword being similar to a Japanese wakizashi.
Brother Hamiltan and Vishan removed their armour, and their outer layer of clothes, and prepared to enter the pool, determined to retrieve the treasure from the bottom of the pool. As soon as they touched the water at the edge of the pool, the water suddenly coalesced and rose up into an undulating column. This pillar of water suddenly bent, and turned towards the players, like a cobra rearing up. The top of the watery column shifted into the shape of an impassive, human-like face, looking very similar to the metal mask decoration that the previous party encountered. This creature, perhaps some kind of water elemental, swung its head back and forth on its long liquid neck, seemingly eyeing up the player characters.
I checked the alignment of the player characters, and it so happened that Vishan hadn’t written down his alignment yet. L decided to roll a die to see what his character’s alignment would be, and through a stroke of luck, the dice came up with Neutral as his selected alignment.
As the party watched, the short sword located down at the bottom of the pool began to move, as if it was being buffeted around by swift-moving water at the bottom of the pool. The sword began rising up towards the surface of the pool, before ascending into the column-like body of the water elemental, finally coming to a rest in the creature’s midsection. While this occurred, the water elemental was intently staring at Vishan. Cautiously, Vishan stretched out a hand, reached into the flowing body of the water elemental, and withdrew the sodden sword.
A static-like tingle ran up his arm as he took hold of the blade, identifying it as a magical weapon. Vishan passed the blade to the only Fighting-Man amongst the party, Hamiltin. The party put their clothes back on, and prepared to move on, and not a moment too soon. Just as the party were deciding which direction to move off in next, three shambling humanoid figures came shuffling out of the darkness, emerging from a passageway to the west.
This trio of creatures began to move towards the party, who responded by retreating to the south of the room. There was a marble door there, and the party quickly wrenched it open. As the lurching creatures were in close pursuit, the party didn’t pause to check for traps or other hazards before they rushed into the room to the south. As the last of the party crossed the threshold, they turned and slammed the heavy door in the face of their pursuers. The sturdy stone door seemed like it would hold firm against the creatures, who didn’t seem to be making much effort to force the door open or batter it down. If anything, the creatures only seemed to be lightly pawing at the door in confusion, rather than making a concerted attempt to gain entry.
The party moved away from the door, and for the first time, took a proper look around at the room they had blindly rushed into. In the four corners of the rectangular room, there was a statue of an Elven woman, that appeared similar in appearance to the statue the players encountered in the surface.
In the centre of the room, there was a marble plinth, with a polished human-like skull sitting on top, surrounded by a transparent glass box. The glass box is easily large enough to contain the skull. Floating in the air around the skull are a variety of small coloured gemstones, cut in a variety of shapes and sizes. These floating gemstones circle the skull in a slow, lazy orbit. There is a small brass plaque attached to the plinth, just below the glass case, but the text is written in an ancient, unknown language.
The players inspected the box carefully, as well as the surrounding statues, but found nothing further than what was already described. I informed the players that we would have to finish up the session soon, as we were coming up to the cut-off time. This particular session ran a bit longer than usual, lasting about two hours and 45 minutes in total. I didn’t have anything planned for the next morning, so I was happy to have a chilled-out, late-night game that ran a little longer than usual.
Spurred on by the imminent end of the game, the players took action. Brother Hamiltan boldly strode over to the plinth, and smashed the glass box with a rough blow from his cudgel. Immediately, there was a grinding sound of stone on stone, and the door to the north immediately swung open, seemingly in response to the glass being smashed.
For reference, this was the same door the players passed through previously. The three creatures from before rushed into the room, seemingly galvanised into swifter movement, and began a headlong rush towards the party. The party braced themselves, and prepared to fight, but were horrified by what they saw as the creatures came into view more fully, and were properly illuminated by the party’s torchlight.
The creatures were the re-animated forms of Marco Verma, Egrus the Frail, and Jeff Jefferson, and each of them had several metallic snakes bursting out of their death-pale flesh, and writhing beneath their skin, as if each of these re-animated creatures were “hosts” to a nest of these metallic serpents. The creatures closed to melee, and swarmed around Brother Hamiltan, who had bravely stepped forward to protect his allies.
Brother Hamiltan drew back his cudgel, and with a single brutal strike, he crushed the skull of the creature that had once been Marco Verma. However, even as the abomination went down, the metallic snakes that infested the creature’s body lashed out, striking Brother Hamiltan. In the same moment, the two other creatures fell on Brother Hamiltan, dragging him to the floor screaming. The metallic serpents moved like darting blades, striking again and again with incredible speed.
The remaining party members took advantage of the creature’s momentary pre-occupation with the writhing, struggling form of Brother Hamiltan, declaring that they would all be making a “Full Retreat” back in the direction of the exit. The exit was only two rooms away, and it was in a straight line northwards from the players present position, so making a swift escape wasn’t exactly a Herculean task.
The party carried out their hasty retreat, making it back to the stairs back to the surface with Brother Hamiltan’s screams echoing in their ears. The players climbed the stairs and returned to town without further incident, having recovered only one piece of treasure for their troubles, and losing another character in the process.
Overall, this wasn’t the most successful session for the player characters, but hopefully the players themselves had an enjoyable time. In any case, the game world awaits, and we will see if more characters meet their grim end in the next session, or if the players can rally and get back on their winning streak.
Until next time, readers.
