WARNING: Taken from Dunwich SpoilersHere's the Dunwich piece of my group's campaign journal. It's not a review, but I think it may still be of interest to those looking for reviews. In short, I would say that we all enjoyed the adventure very much. The lair itself was unusual (smooth metal walls, technology elements, hints of an otherwordly lifeform) and the bad guys were fun and challenging. I wouldn't really change anything, but there are ways to expand it if one wanted. For example, there are images of multiple of the Great Race scattered throughout the lair, but the group encounters only one - that leaves the door open for other levels or locations where the rest might be encountered. Notably, the four-armed white ape was far more of a challenge than the Great Race of Yith creature who was running the show, but I kinda liked that. Sometimes the guy running the lair may not necessarily be the most dangerous thing there. Keeps my guys on their toes.
White Dragon Run Campaign: Session 12 (May 6)Players/PCs and Hirelingsligedog: Tavro the half-elf fighter/thief (level 4/5)
ligedog: Malthus the halfling fighter (level 4)
capitalbill: Paxton the human magic-user (level 4)
capitalbill: Brother David the human cleric (level 5)
fridgeghiz: Foldgarb the human cleric (level 4)
Hireling 1 – Patch the Mule Caretaker
Hireling 2 - Krantz the Boatman
This picks up at the point where the group has gone south to Dunwich to find a missing cleric.
Enter Dunwich After an uneventful boatride south (man, I was hoping for random river troll attack), the party spies a smoldering fire on the shore. They investigate. Lil' Wayne, Paxton's weasel familiar, follows a scent into the woods, discovering a lone villager hiding in some bushes. The group coaxes him out, makes friends and asks about Janra. The villager tells them she went missing while helping defend his village against some beastmen that attacked a week or so ago. He leads them back to the village, where the town elder offers them land and title for rescuing kidnapped villagers. Malthus demands a great ram as well. They agree. The party interviews a fur merchant whose arrival seemed to coincide with the attack, but learn nothing they deem useful. A local boy offers to show them where the beastmen fled after the attack and they follow him.
Beastmen under Mind Control? After a day's hike into the mountains, the party arrivals at a steep cliff, where, 200 feet up, they can see a ledge and an opening. Tavro scales it easily, then drops a rope down for the rest to use. They ascend and peer through the opening, discovering a room with smooth metal walls and light panels in the ceiling. The room also contains two sets of six beastmen, all wearing metal circlets with blinking lights and all standing at attention, but seeming not to notice the party in the doorway. Afraid that entering the room might trigger an attack, the party stands in the doorway, casting web on one set and hold person on the other. Most are immobilized, but they're left to fight a couple that dodged the web and charged them angrily. Afterward, they try to remove the circlet from a held beastman. He dies as a result, so they resign themselves to killing the remainder.
The Lair They exit the entrance room through an unusual door that opens (and closes) automatically, make their way through a series of sloping passageways, and explore various rooms. One room has metal crates, barrels and boxes (they find some krill packets, an electric torch, syringes and a few ampoules), another seems to be a living room of some sort (huge concave pedestal seats, a hearth, firewood, a soapstone plaque depicting a strange cone-shaped figure with four appendages - two with clawlike nippers, one with trumpet-like extensions and one that ends in a tentacled head with three eye stalks), another has a huge table and chairs, another has several lockers (they're attacked here by more beastmen, but triumph and find a pterodactyl skin satchel with a portable hole) and another seems to be a laboratory, where they discover a great four-armed white ape strapped to a table..
Friend or foe? Begging for his freedom, promising to flee back to his clan, appealing to their sympathies, the great white-furred ape desperately pleads his case to the party. Suspecting a trap, but unwilling to strand or kill the imprisoned ape should he be an innocent captive as he says, the group decides to free him by pushing a big red button underneath the table. The table's metal restraints click open and the beast springs forth to attack, screaming that he hates mankind and he'll kill them before returning home! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :mrgreen:
Four Arms of Fury and a Laser Pistol The party wins initiative and has a good first round, dealing significant damage to the ape, but then he gains the upper hand, smashing Tavro into negative territory, beating Brother David negative and then taking up Malthus in his four arms for an ape hug of doom! Paxton casts invisibility on himself, wondering if it's not time to hit the road (as Tavro did way back in Session One). Foldgarb casts Plane Shift from a scroll, hoping to transport the ape into another dimension - but he misses with the touch attack! Somehow Malthus manages to fire a round from his laser pistol, but the ape shrugs it off and keeps fighting! Foldgarb attempts another touch and hits, but the d**n ape makes his saving throw. Out of spells, with two men down and a third suffocating, the party may have finally run out of luck - except Malthus fires one more amazing blast from his laser pistol, mortally wounding the ape! First aid and curing spells revive the severely injured, but the party, still badly wounded and running low on resources, wonders what its next step may be...
White Dragon Run Campaign: Session 13 (July 8th)Players/PCs and Hirelingscapitalbill: Paxton the human magic-user (level 4)
capitalbill: Brother David the human cleric (level 5)
fridgeghiz: Foldgarb the human cleric (level 4)
fridgeghiz: Mokred the Pure, paladin (level 1)
Hireling 1 – Patch the Mule Caretaker
Hireling 2 - Krantz the Boatman
The one that got away. After their near death experience with the four-armed ape in the laboratory, Tavro the half-elf fighter/thief and Malthus the halfling fighter fled the complex. The remaining party members searched the laboratory and discovered a secret cell holding a young paladin, Mokred the Pure, who was more than happy to join their ranks. Bloodied and out of spells, the group then returned to the more defensible Back Door room, camped, healed and camped again. Delving back into the unsual lair, they were met in the very next room by seven beastmen. Paxton webbed two, Foldgarb held three, a sixth was cut down in battle and a seventh escaped - though badly wounded by a couple of Mokred's arrows. From here, the group traveled back through the laboratory to a new room where they found eighteen caged townspeople and Janra, the cleric from White Dragon Run, all wearing circlets. Not sure if the prisoners were dangerous, the group opted to free them later.
The Great Race of Yith. As the group headed back to unexplored areas, it passed through the storage room and came face to face with a member of the Great Race! Apparently the beastman who escaped earlier had alerted him to the intruders. Paxton cast sleep on a couple of the beastmen who accompanied him and one of the clerics cast a prayer. Almost immediately the creature used his crystal-tipped iridium rod to fire a beam of light at Mokred the Pure. Luckily, Mokred made his saving throw and shrugged off the rod's effects - a disintegration beam they would later learn! Paxton put the last beastman to sleep, then Brother David cast Command, causing the otherwordly creature to fall asleep for one round (can't believe he failed his save). In that instant, they set upon him and carved him up.
Computers and Plants. Exploring further, but wary of more of the Great Race, they passed through several rooms, including a hospital, a kitchen, a study, a library and a guard area before discovering a room where the walls were lined with several large, rectangular metal boxes, covered in knobs, buttons and glass panels. The controls on one were lit and blinking. Believing this device might be related to the circlets, but unsure how to operate it, Paxton cast shrink on it and they pushed it into their portable hole. Some smoke then drifted out of the hole. From here, they headed back to another unexplored passage, this one ending in stuck door that defied all attempts at prying. Paxton used the Great Race's iridium rod to disintegrate the door, revealing a hot, humid room overgrown with vines and plants (Ghul's weed garden, no doubt!). Fearful of strangling vines, Paxton tossed a coin inside to see if the vines responded. He then noticed a mass of plant growth in one corner. Rather than leave, he hurled a flaming oil at it! Suddenly the mass stepped toward them - a shambling mound! Unwilling to press their luck after surviving the four-armed white ape and Yith, the group ran away and headed back to the captives.
Liberating the Townspeople. They freed the captives and Janra, then headed back to town, where they were welcomed as heroes. Janra told them she'd come here to look for a powerful weapon to help Count Ontos break the siege of Ontosopolis (the war had gone poorly). They also learned that a seedy, pirate-controlled port town to the south might hold adventure, as well as that the tomb of the evil sorcerer F'Chelrak lay nearby.
And gorgeous, too! 
