This session saw the largest party in this campaign yet, something that seems to be essential at low levels in BX, if a success is to be expected. The party go into the dilapidated elven temple of Omiron, to hunt the demon worshipping cultists of Trazn’grozan.
Characters
Vahan – Fighter 1
Andros – Cleric 1
Davy – Fighter 1
Aetos – Magic-user 1
Malik – Fighter 2
Retainers
(Andros)
Guludad – Magic user 1
Tully – Magic user 1
Hestia – Cleric 1
Kull – man-at-arms
(Aeotos)
Sharaf – Thief 1
Zont – fighter 1
(Malik)
Thalzir – Barbarian 2
Farrow – Thief 1
Cornleia Nerva – Paladin 1
2 light foot pirates.
The party had been resting at the villa of lord Blanbot for four days. Resting from their wounds. During their downtime a visitor came to the villa seeking audience with the lord. All the party were welcomed into the feast hall for the visit. Here is the pbp text the players received:
A dark rider arrived at the villa last night. He called out to the guards upon the tower, who sent a herald to parlay with him. He entered the villa and was given a chamber. Today you are all called into the feast hall of Blanbot. Maloni is there, and ushers you to stand along the walls of the vestibule. Blanbot is his sat on his throne, dressed in sparkling plate armour with a large cape of blue and white coiled around him. The heavy horsemen are all present, they look very neat and carry their lances on one shoulder. This feels very much like a show of strength. A horn is blown and the doors are opened to the vestibule, a roar echoes from outside.
“I am Mongke, son of Dax, Herald of Lord Sabe, exulted warlord of the Deshi Hill, Overlord of Castle Takova, Immortal warrior, chosen child of the deity Wei To, and most superior under all of heaven.”
The man enters the chamber, he is wearing leather armour pitted with razor sharp spikes, he has a helmet of bronze, lined with fur and two ram horns. His face is dark, bearded, and serious. He bows very incrementally towards Blanbot.
“Honour to you, and to house Hondo.” He says.
Blanbot nods, “good stead to you and your lord. What beckons a herald of the powerful warlord Sabe to my villa?”
The barbarian herald smirks, pulls a scroll from his belt, which also holds a sabre, a flail, and a dagger. He opens it and reads aloud. “Word has reached the mantle of the chosen child of heaven, Lord Sabe, that the one named Blanbot has driven off a deadly beast of the underworld. A dragon. Splitting his hide like a swine’s, and has stolen his hoard of treasure. Good tidings. Lord Sabe offers his approval and puts forth the invitation for the one named Blanbot to join His Golden Hoard in the crusade against the apemen of Thoru Fa. Spring fast approaches; so does War”
There is silence in the court for a moment. Then the barbarian smiles and adds, “Muster in one calendar month at the walls of Castle Tokova. Fight well.”
Blanbot stands, a darkness over his face, and he nods. He approaches the barbarian and shakes his hand in the fashion of the Easterling, gripping the forearm and touching his forehead against the barbarians.
“A celebration then, bring wine and music, and a our finest dancers.” The rest of the evening there is a banquet, but Blanbot seems sullen and moody.
Malik then talked to the lord discovering that he felt slightly trapped, and that he must go to war or incur the wrath of the warlord in the south. Blanbot would soon make preparations; having his court wizard seal the villa with wizard locks, and then seek out a sherif and magistrate to govern whilst he is away.
In the mean time the player party had grown large, far larger than the amount of mounts available. So the first thing that needed sorting out at the start of the session was transportation. The party have been moving around the two hexes on horses for a little while, but they didn’t have enough for this number. So Davy, Vahan, Andros, Thalzir and Malik rode to the town of Ronton on Fie to buy more horses with their treasure.
When they arrived it was around 2 pm. They knew the horse breeders and tradesmen of this town well by now, and went straight to the stables. The deal was about to be made for five extra mares. Andros lifted his sack of coins to find it had been switched with a bag of rocks! He looked around the market, noticing a hooded figure at the edge of the market attempting to hide under the eaves of a shop, poorly. This figure had strapped to their chest a heaving satchel.
The party first tried to close on the man calmly, but as they moved towards him, he moved away in a panic.
“Grab the horses!” Yelled Andros, desperate to get his six hundred coins back. The mares were mounted, and whipped down the market, peasants flailed aside to avoid being trampled. The party caught up with the man and encircled him.
“The money, now!”
The thief looked about wildly, “certainly,” he said, and threw his heavy satchel into a stall. It burst open with coins. Andros dashed for the gold, Davy threw a lasso at the man, but missed. The thief made away into the markets many stalls.
“Close call.”
The horses were bought, then the riders went back to the villa. By the time they arrived it was after dark and the horses were tired.
The next day the party readied an expedition roughly twenty four miles east, up into the hills of Omiron. They set off just before dawn and arrived just after two in the afternoon. The temple was before them, a huge columned thing atop a hill. This time its large double doors were pinned open with spikes.
“Another adventuring party must have come here.”
Inside the doors was a huge chamber lined with columns. Two lanterns were lit, and the party formed up in an imposing battle line. This was their marching order:
(Left to right)
1st rank: Malik, Thalzir, Andros
2nd rank : Zont, Davy, Vahan
3rd rank: Sharaf, Farrow
4th rank: Aetos, Tully, Guludad
5th Cornelia, Hestia, Kull
3 hirelings guard the horses 300 yards outside the temple.
All was ready. In they went. Inside the columned vestibule there came a cackling laugh from outside the range of the lantern’s light. The voice was gruff and mocked them.
“They said you would return, they paid me to kill you. But I am kind, leave me the fat ones for dinner and the rest of you can leave unharmed.”
“By the sword!” Vahan cried. The party wheeled its formation to face the voice in the dark. Initiative was rolled, the monster won. Out of the shadows a eight foot tall beastman with greasy white flesh launched itself at the front rank. It was naked and had a huge maw and massive talons. It smashed into Aetos and with its claws ripped open his chest. The holy man fell to the ground bleeding out.
Guludad had already begun reading from his scroll. The two thieves, Farrow and Sharaf moved out of formation, encircling the beast and loosed arrows into its back. One of the arrows found purchase.
“It bleeds, we can kill it!”
Guludad’s scroll erupted in eldritch flames, the spell was cast: haste.
The assault from the first two ranks was absolutely ruthless. Steel flashed again and again, the polearms of the second rank battering the creatures pale flesh.
It lay dead on the ground.
Andros was aided with the use of a bandage, and he limped his way back to the horses, he would need days of rest to recover from this. The party would continue onwards.
The battle line went through the eastern archway into the room that was lined with minotaur columns around a huge pit. To their surprise (literally) the monster they had just killed stood up, reattached its arm and head, and charged their back rank.
Unfortunately the princess Cordelia Nerva was the one who took the brunt of the assault, falling dead under its talons.
The still hasted party won initiative on the next round and surrounded the creature, making light work of him.
“Let’s throw its corpse down the pit.”
“But that will feed whats down there.”
“Lets burn it then.”
So that’s what they did.
With the smell of burning flesh at their backs the party went into the next colossal chamber. It was domed and held in the centre a far older black ziggurat. Last time they were here they had entered the rear of the ziggurat and found a hatchery of the bird headed beastmen. This time they went through the southern door.
The first room inside had obviously been cleared out. There were poles hanging that would have hung tapestries. There were scrape marked on the floor where some very large piece of furniture had been removed.
“Oh well.”
There was a door in the north and they went through this. The room beyond was large and had two doors in the east, and two doors in the west. The rooms walls were covered with magical frescoes that let off orange light. The frescoes changed; one minute showing elves in battle, then mist, then elves in meditation.
They listened at all the doors before going inside them, also checking for traps. The south-western door was tried first. They found a smashed room with an obsidian statue that had been cruelly defaced. Th head of the statue had been cut off, the arms removed, and all over it, written in the dark tongue, was graffiti lambasting law and promoting chaos.
The party noticed that the fresco room changed colour as they went into the door; from green to red.
Next they tried the south-east door. When the door was opened sand poured out of it. There was a huge pile of sand within. After a little discussion, Davy made the decision to begin scrapping out the sand. Over the next thirty minutes most of the characters started removing sand, wondering if a trapdoor might be underneath.
Hidden below they found a fallen statue of a burly elf with bull horns. After they tidied it up it the statue seemed to smile, and it its hands appeared many gems and a vial of red liquid. Gifts of the gods.
The room outside now turned blue.
The party approached the north-west door. They found it very cold to the touch and decided to not open this yet. They went to the north-east door and opened that instead. Inside was a wet room, sodden with puddles, in the centre was a pink corral statue that held a golden trident. The statue had been seriously eroded by water, so much so that no features were present.
Only five characters were brave enough to enter the room: Vahan, Davy, Malik, Farrow, and Kull. As they entered, the trident crackled with energy, and from the statue strings of magical seaweed grew about their feet, stickling them to the ground. They couldn’t move an inch and began panicking. Within seconds a cloud began forming above the trident, and this rapidly spread out of the whole ceiling. It began to rain inside the room. The party tried to hack at the seaweed, but their weapons stuck to the material rather than cutting it.
Malik pushed Farrow to see if he could free him, but the thief fell like a broom pole onto his back and was completely stuck. Davy tied a rope around his waist and threw it to the characters outside the door. They managed to heave him out. Vahan lit a torch and put fire to the magical seaweed. It erupted into flames, burning him horribly, but his feet were free!
In the next round the storm overhead was getting violent, and thunderclaps were growing loud. The rope was loosed onto Malik who was pulled to safety. But poor Farrow was caught in the burning weeds and died in agony. In the next round the rope was thrown over Thalzir and the blue skinned barbarian was pulled to safety, just as a huge lighting bolt hit the ground behind him.
“This room, this bloody room.”
The door was closed.
The party tried the last room. Inside were sheets of ice on the walls. A frozen birdman was on the ground. The statue in this room was a crab clawed elf with a large crown.
Davy stuck some cheese on the edge of his halberd and pushed it through the doorway. It froze, then his weapon turned blue, suddenly a blue wave of magical light washed over them all. Each character had to save vs spells, only two succeeded, Malik and Kull. The rest were assaulted by a powerful vision.
In the vision they were an elf carrying a silver halberd with a crescent moon blade. They had elven allies aside them, and they were fighting terrible demons in a dark hallway. Eventually the elves were pushed back into a holy chamber. The elf pulled out a lion headed wand and thrust it into the crystal altar. When the demons breeched the door the lion wand spat a flute of flame at them, killing them. The elves then opened a secret door in the wall, where there were thousands of gold coins. They then went inside the hidden chamber, and stood inside crystal sarcophagus that sent them into magical sleep.
The details of these rooms were explained in detail to the players.
The party then gathered up their treasure, and left the temple discussing theories on where the hidden altar room, guarded by a lion wand, might be.
They mounted their steeds and went back to civilisation.
Judges note: I am finding it quite satisfying using random targeting for monsters, and monster attack repertoires only being able to target one character. I copied this ruling from AD&D and it makes for a far more fair and interesting game. Malik just scraped enough xp this session to reach level 3. Well done.
Dreadlord Games 