Monday 23 March 2015

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 6 - Gelatinous Cube!


While it looked like the party might take their first journey to the city of Adamas at the end of last session, the lure of gold keep them at Dwimmermount. They buried their treasure further down the slope amongst some Thulian and then set camp once again near the entrance. During the night Bittersalt was broken from her meditative trance by far off sounds and the distance glow of a fire. Reaching for her sea captain’s telescope she saw at first what she thought was a very pale man walk down the slopes of the mountain past Dwimmermount clutching a burning torch. She then realised the torch was infact a tree, and the man none other than a frost giant! He was a long way away and no exactly heading towards the party, so while this event was alarming it didn’t appear to be an immediate threat.

Once back in the dungeon the group went hunting to see if the giant rat poison Bittersalt laid out had an effect. Although the salt fish was gone, there weren’t any immediate signs of dead rats.

At this point the parties map started to prove it’s worth. They decided to try and join some sections up, and in so doing discovered some slight inaccuracies, but now have a much better overall view of the dungeon surround the entrance. They then backtracked to the corridor which had ended in the locked room with the Wight and all the glorious loot they found last session. Here they went the other way and found another door, which opened into what clearly was a chapel to Mavors. Once again it had defiled, but more importantly the Termaxians had left more Eldritch Dead to guard the chamber, and a fight with the black skeletons ensued. The party felt like they were beginning to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and relatively quickly put down these six undead. Two handed swords, wielded by strong fighters are great at doing a lot of damage.


The party search the frescoed chamber thoroughly, and discovered that the age worn altar had a mechanism that swung a secret door open behind it. With slightly more trepidation than previously displayed, the door was opened and the party discovered a small sack of treasure, including a magical scarab. Also in the secret room was the head of the statue of Mavors that they suspected was from the defiled statue in the entrance room. With great gusto they immediately set off back towards the entrance with Zoilus leading the way.

Horror met them within a few short strides, for in the darkness a huge cube of living gelatinous biomorph acid had been following behind them for sometime. The translucent thing was almost impossible to spot, and the normally hyper aware barbarian was completely taken by surprised (rolled a 1) and engulfed by the Gelatinous Cube mid sentence. At this point there were hoots from the players, who loved coming up against such an iconic D&D monster. The barbarian was badly injured by the acids that smothered him, and would have killed a lesser mortal but he fought his way out and was pulled back behind the rest of the rapidly retreating party. Retreating all save Brother Spenzar, who having seen the danger the party was in the deep concentration of a Bless spell. The Gelatinous cube squeezed forward and grab the priest, who after a brief tug of war was pulled back out of it’s jelly. The party hurled all their available missiles, both magical and mundane into it, and were successful in destroying it’s essential form, turning it into a puddle of inanimate bioacids.  

After healing the barbarian and priest as much as they could they cautiously made their way back to the entrance and set the head of Mavors back in its rightful place. They watched in awe as the cracks disappeared and the statue returned to it’s original glory. Then a glow came about them, and the each felt blessed by the god of war as a reward. This manifested as everyone getting an inspiration point.

We left it there. It was a shorter session than usual, but everyone including me had a great time and I certainly look forward to the next session.

In club news, a new roleplaying group has moved their games night to the club and since it is partially made up of old school friends and a group I played in a long time back it's doubly nice to see. Zoilus' player Ed is also going to running a Dungeon Crawl Classics game in the near future which I'm very excited about. 

Monday 9 March 2015

5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 5 - Undead unleashed!

The party, along with their torchbearer and lock picker Paulo, descend once more into the ancient halls of Dwimmermount. Bittersalt wished to put out some her giant rat poison, and thinking she knew the way, headed south from entrance hall, this however wasn’t a way they’d been before (your humble DM was at fault here). However her keen hearing detected footsteps approaching, things were marching in step and headed her way, so she retreated back to the main hall where the rest of the party were once again commenting on her recklessness.

From the gloom approached six horrific animated skeletons. They clutched antique khopesh swords or spears and bronze shields, and moved like well trained soldiers. However it was their bones that drew the most interested, for they were covered in the magical silvery-black metal Azoth. even with the warnings from Bittersalt the party failed to maximize their circumstance and attacked as individuals rather than as a team. A few blows were traded, and Tyche the luck goddess seemed to have deserted them, with the barbarian Zoilus taking a critical blow. His incredible fortitude saw him recover and beat back these Eldritch dead. To his horror though he saw his weapons were less effective than they should be.

Brother Spenzar, seeing that the party might be in trouble called upon Typhon to turn back these undead spirits. Throwing all his will and might into the exorcism, his holy power was deadened by the protective Azoth. At that moment the desecrated statue of Typhon that he’d cast down in anger days before stirred and rays of white light shot into the undead, temporarily flaying the power from the metal and allowing Spenzar’s turning to drive some of the skeletons back. Typhon’s reward was forthcoming after all. The battled continued, and still Tyche was in a cruel mood, with Errol charging down and wilding overshooting the skeletons so that he became trapped between their front lines and those who had retreated in the face of Spenzar’s fierce righteousness. It was a tough fight, and the party were exhausted at the end of it.

Realising ‘their’ mistake with the map, they explored the two new doors that southern corridor present. Behind the first was an odd room that had a large iron face of Turms Termax attached to the far western wall, and mouldering benches lined up facing it. When the party approached a strange sound murmured from face. After applying a little oil to the jaw, it spoke out in Old Thulian “Ask a question, if you have one. I’ll answer truthfully, but then you’re done.” Wishing to have nothing to do with cursed Termaxian magic, the party left without speaking to the face.

Seeing that the chamber from the other door contained the disturbing black basalt monolith they’d already found they amended their maps and saw how everything joined up. They then found an empty set of ceils, and rested for an hour to regain some of their powers.

After debating the next steps the decided to push north, away from where they’d spend much of their time so far. Going through the doors leading north from the entrance they discovered a round chamber lined with six fearsome demon masks. Remembering something from history, Brother Spenzar correctly identified them as Thulian Warmasks, used by the ancient Thulians to cower their beastmen armies. Bittersalt, after a cursory check to see how the masks were attached to the wall pulled one off, to be rewarded by cloud of biologically corrosive poison gas! With her lungs burning from the poison, Bittersalt collapsed to the floor after falling a save versus poison, followed by a series of tense death saving throws. Thankfully she survived, and was dragged backwards away from the room and was healed by Spenzar. Using mage hand cantrips, the masks were pulled from wall and tossed into the parties loot bag.

Reaching yet another junction, the party go west and find the corridor ends in a heavy locked door covered in protective iron. The door is successfully unlocked and pulled open. A terrible sight welcomes the party, as stood in the room is menacing figure silently screaming at them. The pale skinned, once human thing looks ancient and a blackness surrounds it, sucking the energy from the very air. It launches itself on Bittersalt, grasping her head with it’s two frozen hands. Bittersalt feels the very life drain from her, as the horrible Wight attacks.

This time however Tyche is very much with party, as swords and spells slam into the once living guardian. It goes down very quickly and fails to drink anymore life force from the elf. As the shadows recede and the Wight dies again, the party spy a large metal chest. While Calphis fails to pick it’s complex lock, Paulo’s small and nimble fingers prove their worth and the heavy padlock is removed. The chest contains a fortune in treasure! Golden candlesticks, bowls and other items lie on top a pile of old Thulian coins. The parties eyes widen as they spot the beautiful longsword, untouched by age that also rests within the chest. After searching through, an ivory and silver wand is removed along with a magical broach.  

We finished the session here, with the party considerably richer than they were and with talk of a trip to the city of Adamas to sell the items they have discovered.