9/15/18

The Crazy Birthday Dungeon Dive


   If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll remember the megadungeon which required so much effort for my players to schematically map. You can read that post, The Great Halloween Dungeon Dive, in the archives, November 2016.

   In the real world, it’s my birthday. And on my birthday, I like to go big.

   In the game world, the valiant PCs are venturing back into “their” dungeon, because what’s the use of owning a unique map of a multilayered labyrinth if you don’t actually explore additional levels of it here and there?

   Last time, in The Dark Pillar (June 2017 in the archives), the party had to touch one of seven runes in order to “lock in” their next destination inside the megadungeon. At that point, there was only one character left standing: the cleric. So, he selected a rune at random..................

   This time, the party passes through the same old portal, but they appear in a chamber they’ve never seen before: a peculiar L-shaped chamber with remnants of ancient, torn down walls, and three large patches of black moss. The group immediately has to start making Saving Throws. Both magic-users fail to save vs Spell (ironic, I know) and lose all of their memories from the last 24 hours. The cleric of Boccob, Brother Thomas, also becomes amnesic. But that’s not all. The magic-users, the barbarian, and one NPC start experiencing a sudden, powerful thirst – and they are irresistibly drawn towards a lone cask further away in the L-shaped room, close to a pair of dark archways. Those who are not amnesic, or amnesic but not thirsty, try to keep the others from reaching that cask – it can’t be anything good in there, can’t it?

   One of the magic-users, Klynch, has an intelligent +3 dagger named Guthzan, and this cool 620-year-old weapon has seen a lot of dungeons and monsters. Telepathically, it says to its wielder, “Obliviax, also known as Memory Moss. To regain your memories and spells, you need to consume a tiny bit of the moss itself.

   Klynch runs to the nearest patch of black moss and starts to chomp away. But it’s the wrong obliviax, and now he’s stuck with the cleric’s memories and healing spells.

   Meanwhile, the barbarian drinks from the cask while Landa, the cleric of Istus, tackles a thirsty NPC to prevent him from drinking. That is when a rust monster comes bolting in through one of the archways at the other end of the room. After drinking from the cask, the barbarian fails to save vs Polymorph, turning into a huge orc chieftain! That orc runs towards the rust monster and expertly grapples it to prevent it from getting to his (armor-clad) friends.

   The rust monster manages to hit the orc-barbarian’s great axe and the Hobbit bard’s chainmail. The axe is ruined, but the +2 chainmail saves. Brother Thomas refuses to attack the rust monster with a precious +3 mace that he brought back from Hell, so the bard casts shillelagh on his own instrument, transforming a guiterne into a magical wooden axe. With that axe, the bard strikes the rust monster.

   The second magic-user, Heir, drinks from the cask, but since he wears a Circlet of Proof Against Petrification and Polymorph, he’s fine.

   Brother Thomas had had enough of that damn cask and topples it single-handedly with an excellent STR check.

   Klynch drinks from the cask even though it’s now on the floor: he’s still thirsty as fuck, and urgently needs to wash down the vile taste of the obliviax. He successfully saves vs Polymorph, thus remaining his good old freckled, redheaded self.

   Then, a gauth shows up in the central archway – dispelling the two walls of stone masquerading as floors in the second half of the L-shaped room. PCs, NPCs, rust monster, toppled cask – everything and everyone falls down into a pit below, except for Brother Thomas who wears a Ring of Mary Poppins – I mean Feather Falling.


   Inside the pit they are greeted by giant ants, and something else emerging ever so slowly from a gaping cave-mouth.

   “Is that an otyugh?”
   “I recognize the stink...”

   In the adjacent pit, two NPCs are confronted with a fire elemental and a moving wall of fire. Now it’s kicking into high gear – and really feels like old-fashioned AD&D.


   No magic missiles nor lightning bolts available, since the memories and spells of the two magic-users are still trapped inside the two remaining obliviaxes. Anyway, gauths can reflect spells back towards their casters, so it’s probably better this way. The barbarian – the orc chieftain, if you prefer – fires arrow upon arrow at the gauth, hitting home most of the time as barbarians are wont to do. The gauth’s eye-rays cause serious wounds on both Brother Thomas and the barbarian, and telekinesis on one of the NPCs (look for a flying dude somewhere in the next pics). After round four, a comically arrow-studded gauth retreats behind the wall, and human cultists come forth in lieu of their master. They start casting magic missiles down on the party.

   The otyugh is locked in savage combat with Brother Tom while Klynch, Heir and Landa are busy finishing off those pesky giant ants.

   And where is the bard in all of that? Well, he drank his Potion of Spider Climbing and got back out of that pit to collect pieces of the Memory Moss. Oh, and now he’s singing too – a special, enchanted song that can conjure up a wolf and a panther. Those magical beasts appear out of thin air six rounds later, just as the bard prepares to fling the pieces of black moss into the pit for his hapless friends to snack on. He commands the wolf and the panther to run along the top of the dividing wall between the pits, in order to attack the cultists and the gauth at the other end.


   Brother Tom is down to single-digit HP and has to heal himself with the three cure light wounds kept in his Ring of Spell Storing. The otyugh is still swinging, and the orc-barbarian steps in with his spare battle axe. “Damn rust monster!”

   The bard spider climbs back down into the pit and suddenly feels like he’s being touched inappropriately. It’s a stunjelly – appropriately voiced by Kevin Spacey.


   The wolf and the panther surge through the central archway and simultaneously jump right onto the cultists. Screams of terror and pain are heard.

   Heir gobbles up exactly the right piece of obliviax, instantly regaining his own memories / spells. Brother Tom swallows the remaining piece of moss, and gains Klynch’s magic-user spells. The cleric can cast magic missile? Welcome to the Twilight Zone!


   After they finish off that otyugh and the last giant ant, the party can finally breathe a little. They no longer hear anything coming from beyond the archway upstairs. Several cultists may be dead, but the bard’s wolf and panther are nowhere to be seen, either.

   Klynch heals some of his wounded comrades – and actually contemplates switching classes and becoming a cleric. The party breaks down a small wooden door in the corner of the pit, right next to the otyugh’s cave; they enter the corridor beyond, except for the barbarian. With one NPC to back him up, our favorite orc chieftain climbs towards the archway where gauth and cultists were last seen. It’s a ballsy move.

   Glyph of warding – ouch! Barbarian and NPC both take 10 points of damage. And there are more archways back there with (maybe) more glyphs of warding. They hesitate...


   Of all the PCs and NPCs who entered the corridor past the wooden door, any nonhumans are teleported into a room with churning, billowing cloud walls, and an old stone sarcophagus in the center. The other characters are transported into a room with extremely high walls and a colossal statue of a wildebeest in the center.

   The cloud walls apparently allow someone to perceive scenes from the past – or maybe other planes of existence. After a while, Landa sees a clear image of the Cat Lord standing alone in a forest glade, holding a shovel and trying to retrieve some lost treasure. The PCs pry open the mysterious sarcophagus to reveal an old skeleton, a broadsword, a shield, and two javelins.


   In the other location, the Humans soon discover that the room in which they stand will shift ever so slightly whenever they are all near the same wall. Plus, there is an exact, upside-down replica of the big wildebeest statue on the ceiling, about 120 feet above their heads. Only, there is an exit up there – a corridor. Heir casts spider climb and starts making his way up. The room keeps shifting some more as he climbs further up the wall. Soon the entire room becomes slanted enough for the other three characters to “climb” that same wall as if it were nothing more than a 30-degree stone ramp. They keep climbing and the room keeps shifting towards a perfectly horizontal position, with one colossal statue at each end.


   When Heir is just 10 feet away from the “ceiling,” and the rest of the party about halfway, five cultists jump inside the room from that lone corridor – and their added weight suddenly slams the whole room back into a vertical position. Everyone falls headlong à la Wile E. Coyote, except for the feather falling Brother Tom.

   Heir drops from a height of 10 feet and only takes 3 HP of damage. The two others take 12 HP of damage each after a 59-foot fall. Klynch – the party’s healer, for now – is out cold at 0 HP. Martigan the NPC fighter is at -4 HP.

   While peacefully feather falling towards the action, Brother Tom casts stinking cloud on 4 of the 5 cultists. Heir then casts his fireball at the same spot, engulfing all 5 cultists and creating a brand new kind of D&D stench: the carbonized stinking cloud!


   Two of the cultists fail to save vs Spell, and die. The three survivors attack Heir. One cultist charges him with a dagger while the other two cast 4 magic missiles.

   In the “nonhumans’ room,” two more cultists emerge from the eerie cloud walls, accompanied by a displacer beast. They attack the Elf cleric, the Hobbit bard, and a Dwarf NPC. For some reason, the displacer beast avoids striking the Elf...

   And this is where we had to hit pause. Yes, it sucks, and I hate to be Captain Buzzkill. It was 5 PM on a Sunday, and the FLGS was closing – we were literally last out the door.

   Regular readers know that I no longer build my games on the traditional paradigm, with the boss fight at the end, Hollywood-style. It doesn’t work for my friends and I anymore. Our circumstances have changed since the eighties. Many, many times, we didn’t even get to that boss fight. Nowadays my game design model is, 1) introduction; 2) boss fight; 3) role-play + puzzles + lesser fights.

   In this game session, we sailed through two and a half of those three stages. What’s left is a little fighting, and some role-playing.

   The party did pretty well, all things considered. The session ended with everyone still standing except for Klynch and one NPC. The risk management in the opening scene made a real difference. That chaotic polymorph cask / obliviax / rust monster trio could have caused much more harm. When I play-tested it at home, it ended with the two clerics in their undergarments, chain or splintered mail gone, and Brother Tom turned into a hobgoblin. Klynch had been polymorphed into a troglodyte, and Martigan into an orc. The bard was amnesic, without any spells, and his short sword +2 was gone. Landa was also amnesic. It was fun.

   The unremitting mayhem was quite different in the actual game – the cask only polymorphed one PC, and the rust monster only destroyed a single, non-magical weapon, and no armor whatsoever!


   The player characters remained within 8 squares of each other 95% of the time. When they fell into the twin pits they all fell on the same side. Good for them – they didn’t have to fight the fire elemental; bad for me – I built the whole left side of that wicked room for nothing. But it is part of a DM’s job: the players never do what you expect them to do. Role-Playing Games 101.

   Stay tuned for the conclusions – plural, aye, since the party is now split in three!


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