Game 1 - 6/15/13
Game 2 - 6/29/13
Game 3
Cast of Clones…
First off, two characters exist in kind of a “twilight” state, dazed and unable to interact, for much of the game, as Alan and Paul were visiting their mom. So the elvish contingent don’t come into the fore until later. And Parlen was omnipresent early on, driving things forward, but vanished later on. Was there a maximum occupancy sign on the room that I missed? Also, happy birthday, Jim. Sorry I couldn’t attend dinner. My tooth (or what’s left of it) has left me in a state of hell until this morning, where I’m afraid to eat or drink because it’s not bothering me right now.
So, to the game…
We wake up in the great outdoors, surrounded by some low hills and we can hear a wagon approaching in the distance. The assembled group are nude but for a tattoo that each of us sports—likely a wizard mark of some kind. Later, Thales would read magic on it and rather than having a name it said simply “Magic-User”. Sneaky Jeb immediately finds a place to hide by rolling into the nearest shrubs and vanishing (his one good trick at this level). Many of the folks seem to have adventured together before. Parlen recognizes Absor, but that’s all for him. Sneaky Jeb knows nobody. Virtually everyone else has worked together. We all feel funny in that our memories are cloudy and our skills are not up to par. Some suspect “level drain”. Blackjay suspects someone named Strahd.
Whoever left us here took our stuff but left us with a bag of gold.
The wagon approaching is that of a tinkerer. He has pity on us and helps make us some clothes from whatever cloth he has on hands, so we’re walking around in ponchos, shirts, etc. He also shows us to the closest town. At the town we meet the guards, who are rightly suspicious of us, but fairly accepting (even with Blackjay trying to antagonize them into arresting him). We get rooms, have food, drink some, go out and hire local workers to make us a few things (leather armor, a few weapons), and next day the local noble, a young lady whose father died not long ago, hires us to look into some thefts. The biggest clue is that one of the guards saw a shadowy figure going down the town’s well. We all know that this is where the fun will be. We still investigate the town before going down the well. There’s some false starts, as Sneaky Jeb gets bit by a snake. Fortunately, Thales and Goju have bought things at the herbalist that will come to help Jeb (First a poison save salve and later a healing salve). The snake is taken out with a bit of sniping from the top of the well.
Down the well there is a secret door and beyond that is a damp cavern. Sneaky Jeb does the advance work; while his spotting of things isn’t great at this level, his hiding sure is. We deal with several traps, some by triggering them and others by actually seeing and avoiding them. We see and defeat a trapdoor spider (this is when the team’s elves snap to full consciousness and Parlen begins to disappear). In the water beyond that is a shiny dagger (masterwork) with a gem in the handle. It’s non-magical. Then someone tries to attack people through holes in a wall while we are trying to move a portcullis. We figure that’s our troublemaker so we follow the walls that head that direction. Eventually we find a lair in which we fight a werebadger who has pipes of the sewers (which he uses to summon rats to impede us). Most hits are bouncing right off him, but Sneaky Jeb’s dagger actually hurts him because it turns out to be silver. He’s put to sleep by Thales. To capture him, Absor sacrifices his shirt as something to tie him up in, Blackjay is doing the tying, and Goju is attempting a coup de grace using Sneaky Jeb’s knife. It takes some effort, but eventually he’s killed. We haul the body back to show our employer who it was.
On the way out we’re still attacked through holes in the wall by someone with a spear. A secret passage is found and we (Feanor mostly) engage zombies on the other side of the wall.
Since I couldn’t reach them and it was time to go, I checked out at this point.
RECAP Provided by Jeff
At the outset of our session, after a merrie period of gamers’ discussion regarding politics, people, and pergamy, the three players present previewed previous plans then set out to explore the only portions of the underground complex that we had not explored previously – the small rat tunnels. The merrie band of adventurers for the day session included: Jim, Joe, myself, and John Sparre. Oh wait – John couldn’t make it. Anyway, we began our tour of the tunnels and quickly realized that the map we had found in the previous foray into the caverns beneath the town well was a map of the rat tunnels. It proved to be useful. I should take note that we first had to bypass the zombies in the long corridor by fighting them, one at a time. We were victorious, and thereby were also able to bypass/disable the remaining traps in the long corridor. From there, we headed deeper into the caves.
Our next encounter was a giant badger in the one remaining (non-rat tunnel) area we hadn’t explored. It was a bit of a tough fight but we defeated it. Forgot what happened immediately afterwards. We then headed to the entry area of the rat tunnels.
Next, we three chose to each drink one of the extended duration Reduce Person potions, promptly reducing us in size to the Tiny category, with all its commensurate attribute reductions (lowered strength, increased Dex/AC, etc.). We entered the rat tunnels and had the following encounters (may have the order rearranged):
Fight with two normal size badgers (but due to our size they were like giant badgers to us).
Brief fight (we won) with a large trout after my character (Goju) slipped while crossing an underground river.
Fight with a cave-dwelling freakish creature (cross between Golem and a goblin) that attacked us as we attempted to traverse a cavern crevasse via rope(s). It got in some good scratches but we were able to knock it off and send it falling to its doom. Presuming is was capable of doom.
We continued to press on since the Reduce Person potions would only last 6 hours and this was our one best shot at exploring the rat tunnels and finding answers (and stolen goods…..and treasure….and experience points….). At some point during the rat tunnel exploration Paul and Alan joined us for the evening session. During these explorations and encounters we would find the occasional bit of treasure (for later).
Final combat was in a large temple-type room. There we did dare to do battle with the animated skeleton of the werebadger we had killed in the last game. Plus there was what appeared as a big half-orc warrior (that was controlling the skeleton) – as soon as we defeated the half-orc the skeleton froze in place (no longer controlled). Additionally, we fought the town Patriarch (forgot his name). This was the guy that did some limited healings on us in the last game. By this time we had returned to our normal sizes. Turns out the Patriarch was the bad guy all along, attempting to hatch a devious plot to eliminate the young leader of the town and take charge for himself. A petty plan given the primitive proclivities of the sleepy town. It was a long fight, and a close one, but ultimately we defeated him. He was a worshipper of some evil deity.
Afterwards, we returned to the lovely town leader and presented her with our findings, returned stolen goods we had recovered, received something of a heroes tribute (such that this little town could muster), some cash rewards, and divided up most of the loot (which we had claimed – items that had not been stolen previously). And tooted our horns.