Gygax & Greyhawk Session #11 - The Fall of Dark Odo

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Ranzel of the Wood (Human Ranger 1)
Solcha (Elf Fighter 1 / Magic User 1)
Skeff Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 1 / Thief 1)
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1)

Balthus (Human Fighter 1) and his wardog Slasher

Jenny the Mule 

[Pinella (Human Magic User ?)]

[Paxon (Human Cleric ?)]

Date/Time

Planting 19 mid-day to Planting 19 late-day

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aY8d49

Without delay, the party quickly searches the cluster of rooms around the central combat zone. All prove to be bed chambers, one larger and more ornate than the others. That one was obviously home to the cleric of Nerull; the others are non-descript. But all are unoccupied, so the party again quickly pushes into the next room where they assume Dark Odo had been lurking. It too is unoccupied, but the still smoking water pipe suggests that it hasn't been empty long. Another door leads into what appears to be Dark Odo's bedchamber, while at the other end is a pool, around the back of which climbs a ramp lit by coloured lanterns. When a few quick checks for secret doors and passages reveal nothing, the party accepts their foe has given them the slip and settle into looting mode. From a hidden chamber under Dark Odo's bed came a spell book, immediately claimed by Pinella as her own. The cleric Mudras' chamber yields a duvet full of gold, and various chests in all the rooms yield another small collection of coin. 

The party's attention now turns to the pool. It seems to be about 10-15' deep, but the bottom cannot be clearly seen. A waterfall tumbles into the pool from the east wall next to the curving ramp, and behind it Skeff discovers a chain attached to the wall, and which leads down into the pool. The party tries to pull it up, but it seems either firmly attached to the bottom or to something of great mass. Closer inspection of the pool reveals two figures swimming near the bottom; more kua-toa is the guess. 

Meanwhile, Solcha discovers a secret door along the east wall. It leads to a narrow passage and ends in a secret door, now bared open by a spike. It looks down over the flooded chamber 15; below. A rope is tied to the spike, and it would seem this is the escape route used by Dark Odo and her henchwoman. Also noted is the absence of the shackled kuo-toa; it's bonds had been carefully cut. Pushing further, Ranzel finds Dark Odo's tracks in the eastern passage. Where they also find their mule, dead and disemboweled. 

Retracing their steps, the party returns to the cluster of rooms and decide to push on rather than pursue Dark Odo. They move into a short passage that ends in a T-intersection. And when Ranzel, walking point, steps into the intersection, a door at the northern end of the passage flies open. Two slathering war dogs rush out, released by a man who himself holds back from combat. As the party turns to face this threat, another comes from a second  door to the south; Dark Odo and a pair of her henchmen. The dark mage immediately drops all the party with a sleep spell, leaving only the sleep-resistant Solcha standing. She immediately interrupts Dark Odo's next spell with a magic missile, then starts to kick her comrades awake. Soon a viable fighting band is re-formed. The dogs and henchman to the north are taken down, as are the pair of henchmen who have charged from the south. Leaving just Dark Odo. She frantically casts an invisibility spell, hoping to escape unseen. But Goro stopped any immediate fleeing with a command. And she did not account for the fairie fire outlining her form, Skeff's contribution to the fight. And the druid also provides the 'coup de grace', charging at the dark mage and bludgeoning her to death with his mighty shillelagh.   

After taking a few moments to recover, the party once more turns to looting. They recover a couple of rings of unknown provenance, Dark Odo's spellbook, and a collection of loose change. Then, feeling chuffed, they decide tackle the monsters in the pool. Skeff casts entangle  on the watery weeds on the bottom, which seems to catch one of the creatures. The party then lowers Ranzel into the pool headfirst, hoping the ranger will skewer the second creature with his spetum. But alas, that does not work, and the party if left wondering how to deal with their underwater foes from here ...  

GAINS

214sp

1650gp

Pearl [523gp]

Ruby [1000gp]

Ring [100gp]

Ring of Protection +1 

Bag of Pale Powder

Earthen Pot of Ashes 

Brass Waterpipe [10gp]

Dark Odo's Spellbook 

KILLS/VICTORIES

1 War Dog

Runas

Jessup

Tuxarra

Dark Odo

LOSSES

Jenny the Mule 

Gygax & Greyhawk Session #10 - Captives and Culprits

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Ranzel of the Wood (Human Ranger 1)
Solcha (Elf Fighter 1 / Magic User 1)
Skeff Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 1 / Thief 1)
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1)

Balthus (Human Fighter 1) and his wardog Slasher

Jenny the Mule 

[Pinella (Human Magic User ?)]

[Paxon (Human Cleric ?)]

Date/Time

Planting 18 - morning to Planting 19 mid-day

The party leaves Vestvale and climbs once more into the mountains. An uneventful day and night bring them back to the tomb. Before delving deeper, they opt to place Jenny and the cart in an isolated room. On their way, they interrupt three kuo-toa, who are tearing  limbs from the men slain by the party days ago. Though the ichthyoids make no threatening moves, the party attack  to avoid leaving any foes in their rear. Two are killed, and one captured. The captive speaks no language common to the party, but rather than kill him they shackle the creature to the wall in the flooded room. Jenny is also locked in the adjacent hallway before the party makes its way through the thus far unexplored door exiting the west wall of the flooded room. 

Goro and Skeff, listening at the door, hear a frightened female voice and a gruff male one. Bursting in the room, the party discovers a young woman, bound and unclothed on a crude bed, about to ravished by her disfigured and ugly jailer.  The party rushes the man and knocks him out. Questioned, he is uncooperative, and after first shackling him in the flooded room, Balthus eventually has Slasher rip this throat out. The woman's name is Pinella, a magic user captured by Dark Odo's henchmen. She states the other surviving member of her party, Paxon of St Cuthbert, is in the adjacent cells. She has no equipment or spell book, but provided with clothing and a dagger she joins the party. The room is otherwise unexceptional except for the jailers gear and a bell rope hanging over the cot. 

Entering the cellblock, they find Paxon and learn it is almost time for the evening meal to be delivered. The party sets an ambush, and kills Erig the fighting man as he comes in with the captive's paltry supper. Recovering and equipping Paxon, the party pushes on down a corridor hidden by secret doors, and then into another room with multiple doors leading off of it. There they surprise the gnome Trob the Black sitting at a table. The gnome call's out for Dark Odo before the party can cut him down.  Half the party rushes through a door the gnome had called out to, while the rest set up defenses in the main room. In the side room they do not encounter Dark Odo, but the female fighter Runas. She holds them off long enough to escape through another door. Meanwhile, in the main room, the party is attacked when  the cleric Mudras of Nerull, and the thief Orwen emerge from two other rooms. There are tense moments when the cleric of the dead god starts casting spells, but in short order the two are dead and the party if left to decide what to do next ...

GAINS

17sp

14 ep

106gp

8pp

KILLS/VICTORIES

2 Kuo-Toa (1 Surrendered)

Foul-Faced Viviok

Erig

Trob the Black

Mundras of Nerull

Orwen the Thief

LOSSES

None

Gygax & Greyhawk Session #9 - The Mighty Fishmen

 DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Ranzel of the Wood (Human Ranger 1)
Solcha (Elf Fighter 1 / Magic User 1)
Skeff Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 1 / Thief 1) and his wardog Spot
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1)

Jenny the Mule 

Date/Time

Planting 15 - midday to Planting 18 - morning

... Listening at the door, Skeff hears an indistinct voice in the next room. Opening the door, the party faces a man in wizardly robes and holding an elaborate staff. But they quickly suspected "The Mighty Amdor" is more sham than shaman. He is friendly and helpful though, explaining he is part of Dark Odo's crew who was 'left' here in this part of the dungeon. She and the rest of her henchmen (mostly thugs but with at least one cleric) are deeper in the complex of room. He also tells them about The Lichway, the long passage where the Salander buried their dead. Devoid of further use, Amdor is told to leave the dungeon and head for the nearby village of Vestvale. Which he does. 

Moving on to the double doors at the end of the rune hall, the party enters a hexagonal room where once more the strange whistling sound is heard and continues to be heard throughout their exploration. To the right is a bridge, with rails of human bone and posts topped with wax-encased skulls. It crosses flowing waters and also leads deeper into the dungeon. To the left is the tall statue of a vampiric figure, mouth open wide and fangs barred, pouring water from a jug into a floor gate. As the base of the statue is an inscription, the language of which changes to the readers native tongue:

Bathe, Salander, and restful

Ease your cares;

Til the Singer stills his song

Then rise to claim your wares 

Skeff searches and finds a silver key under the statue's hinged tongue. Then while searching the flowing stream under the bridge, the party is attacked by 4 ichthyoid humanoid creatures that scramble up out of the water. In a  drawn-out, bloody fight, Spot the Wardog is killed, as are two of the creatures. The remaining two flee back to the stream. 

The party wonders if they should cross the bridge, as they suspect it leads to The Lichway, a name that fills them with fear of legions of the undead. So Ranzel, still under the effects of a potion of speed, offers to run down the corridor beyond the bridge to get a rough idea of what is there, while hopefully being too fast to be caught by anything hostile. The ranger is successful in his sprint down a long wide corridor flanked with stone slabs, noting branch passages at the 1/3 and 2/3 points, as well as a more complex intersection at the halfway point.  At that halfway point he also observes a low platform on which stands a 15' tall skeleton, while at the far end of the passage is a low platform with a silver cage holding a creature that looks somewhat like a gorilla made of coral. But no undead are seen. 

However, the party decides to retrace steps and try another door they'd bypassed. This leads into a large chamber, filled with water to the level of the entrance. Another set of doors is seen on the opposite wall, and on the north wall there are signs that another door has been bricked over. The party surmises this is the other side of the door they saw on the dock when they first ended the dungeon. Careful search and rat abuse revealed the water is shallow around the edge, but in the centre is a deep pit filled with human skeletal remains. From the top of the pit they recover one skeleton with treasure; a weird bone and serpent mace, strange holy symbol (?) and a bag of gold. 

With wounds aplenty and healing spells few, the party decides to retreat to Vestvale to rest, recover and refit. There they find Amdor the Mighty, whom they decide to this time take back with them. They spend a few nights at the Black Stag Inn until fully hale and hearty again, and then prepare the head back to the tomb of the Salander ... 

GAINS

Snake Mace +1 

Weird holy symbol (?) 

364gp

10ep

2pp

KILLS/VICTORIES

2 Kuo-Toa

LOSSES

Spot the Wardog 

Gygax & Greyhawk Session #8 - Goblins and Gold

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Ranzel of the Wood (Human Ranger 1)
Solcha (Elf Fighter 1 / Magic User 1)
Skeff Hawkridge (Half Elf Druid 1 / Thief 1) and his wardog Spot
Goro (Half Orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1)

Balthus (Human Fighter 1) and his wardog Slasher

Date/Time

Planting 11 - morning to Planting 15 - midday

Staying each night in a village along the way, the party's four day journey across the high plains and into the mountains is uneventful. The directions they have ben given lead them to a path and through a pass in the mountains, and eventually to a dark cave entrance. Footprints show others have been here before them. The short passage leads into a huge cavern filled with an underground lake or sea. A bridge over a river leads to a series of docks and watchtowers. A set of double doors, carved with flames bordered in skeletal forms, lies to the south but a permanently barred with iron beans, chains and locks. After looting a sunken barge and fighting a giant lamprey, the party moves through the only apparently operable doors, leading east. Three old and desiccated bodies lie inside the entrance of a room filled with rune inscribed floor tiles. When disturbed the bodies rise to life and attack, but are rapidly dispatched. 

Three doors lead out of the rune-inscribed chamber. Through the one to the south, the party surprises a group of goblins and a hobgoblin torturing a stirge.  These too are dispatched with ease and their coins looted (as well as a valuable gem hidden in a straw-filled mattress). Leaving through another door, the party proceeds down a winding passage before it ends at a set of double doors. They backtrack to see what lies behind another door they passed along the way; beyond it is a ruined torture chamber and a single hobgoblin rooting around. They corner and question him, learning only that other humans may be found in the tomb complex alongside the goblins and hobgoblins.  He tries to buy his life, but Goro the crusader will not take the deal and the hobgoblin is killed. 

Retracing their steps to the rune-room, the party goes to the northern door. The room on the other side, is faintly lit by torchlight. And they startle three men preparing to burst through a door in the eastern wall. These three turn on the party, and after a short combat all three (plus an archer hidden in the shadows) are dead. Looting the bodies of gold and arrows, the party now turns to the eastern door to see what lies beyond ...

GAINS

Onate Golden Goblet [200gp]

Silver Armband [50gp]

Flash of Strong Fishy Liquor [25gp] 

Gem [1000gp]

475gp

40sp

15cp

KILLS/VICTORIES

1 Giant Lamprey

2 Zombies

1 Ghoul

4 Goblins

2 Hobgoblins

Veneman, Luge, Argun, Pipluk 

LOSSES

none