Beauty is (in) the eye of the Beholder

I'm in New York this week doing product delivery agile training in which none of the product team seemed to be paying any attention. Towards the end of the day we had to sketch persona faces and then have others in a training group vote on which one the thought the most interesting. I was a little tired and bored, never a great combo, and went off piste. However the beholder got the most votes none the less, proving the old staying beauty is in the eye of the beholder is true in more than one sense. 

Day 2, Hidden paths, deep and dangerous

So having defeated the wicked goblin cook and his rabble of staff, the brave adventuring party set about searching the large and chaotic kitchen of the Purple Bruise clan. A floor to celing wardrobe or cabinet yielded the first interesting find, in the form of a bound and gag human male. After some discussion as to what to do, the first instinct was to shut the cabinet again, the party release the prisoner, who is a tall, well muscled man named Druss. Druss is played by our Belgium Javascript Engineer Julien.

Druss remembers nothing about how he came to be found in hidden in a goblin kitchen, but was once a guard captain and the last thing he does recall is being a battle. Druss was rolled randomly using 4d6 for each stat in turn and produced a very physically strong character. The slayer subclass of the fighter fitted nicely and I suspect will decidedly help the party take down foes more quickly.

Helja the dwarf knight decided to search the cabinet some more, and it proved wise to do so as it had a false side. When he pulled away the hinged panel a delicate glass bottle of green gas slipped out from the top, but in an amazing piece of luck he caught the bottle (I rolled a 1). The high elf wizard, Riardon who seems to be rapidly becoming a pyromancer, found a box and layered it with material to transport the bottle, which is a suspected poison gas trap, around for later use.

Behind the panel Helja found a magical warhammer, his favourite weapon and two bags filled with gold coins and silver jewelry. It seems the cook had been hoarding things from his boss. Later Helja tried shouting the rune names found on the hammer and discovered it was a warhammer of thunder which could unleash lightning and thunder when it struck an enemy. He gave his precious old hammer to Druss, who also donned the chainmail vest of the goblin cook. Also stuffed into the area was old parchment map of what must be the surrounding area.

 

CC3 map

Then the party must have been blessed by the god of eagles, for they found not one but two well concealed secret door, going north and south as well as a silver dagger that the thief Lucan like the look of. He recounted a tale about how, when he was working as a fence, a thieves guild were buying silver weapons to fight against lycanthrope rivals. The secret doors were definitely too well concealed to be goblin made. Exploring the door to the south, the elven thief Lucan stealthy made he was along a rarely used narrow corridor that ended in a flight of steps upwards. Here he heard a screeching sound and out of the darkness shown many pairs of small red eyes. Then suddenly huge rats, some the size of dogs flew down and attacked. After putting an arrow into the first, biggest rat, Lucan retreat and a battle with giant and dire rats was joined. The party made a good tactical choice and boxed them in so that they only had to fight one at time. They dispatched the pack quickly, and remarkably none of the party succumbed to the filth fever the rats carried.

Rats in the walls!

After burning the bodies, the party explored further, finding the corridor leading away from the stair led to another secret door that opened into entrance corridor they'd fought in the day before. Then they followed the corridor up the stairs, and surmised that the dead end held a secret door that might lead to the area the goblin mapper had said the boss lived in. Not feeling ready for such a bold fight they decide to check out the northern secret door from the kitchen. It opened onto a short corridor at the end of which the thief could make out was a yet another secret door. The eagle-eyed god, Thurriak, had definitely blessed them, but it's a fickle gift if used without great care. Lucan boldly strode into the corridor and must have stepped on a pressure plate as large block of stone from ceiling fell on top of him, immediately knocking him out and crushing the life out of him. Druss and Riardon rushed forward to try and shift the block off of the body of the elf, but were too late even with Druss cleverly using his heroic effort to re-roll his athletics check. His organs had been pulped and the party had it's first death. I made Adam an award certificate in remembrance of Lucan's ignoble end.      
 

Lucan's death unlocks the second Dungeons & Dragons Essentials book - Heroes Of The Forgotten Kingdom. This means Adam has access to new races - half elves, half orcs, dragonborn and tieflings as well as the the new classes - druid, paladin, ranger and warlock. I'm not allowing drow in this campaign as they are, as intended in the original Greyhawk campaign, unremittingly evil. Another death will unlock further player options.

What the party don't know is that the original members, Thanus, Riardon and Helja have now made it to second level!