A NEW tale of four of the greatest adventurers to ever exist

Adventurers Present

Glubtubis Wub, Rogue 1

Gorog VIII, Dwarf 1

Pius the Pious, Cleric 1

Pünchinka, Fighter 1

My name is Pius the Pious, your friendly neighborhood Cleric. I’m here to tell you the apocryphal tale of our small party’s first explorations on the Dungeons of the Brink. We consisted of 4 characters of doubtful repute: I, the Cleric, named Pius, Gorog VIII the Dwarf, a brave, but hapless fighter named Pünchinka, and an infamous Rogue with GI problems named Glubtubis Wub.

Our weaponry included a mace for me, a knife and a hammer for Gorog, a longsword for Pünchinka, and two daggers and a shortsword for Glubtubis. Our equipment consisted of a Holy Cross, a few torches, and a rope for me. Gorog had no torches, due to his vision in the dark, a rope, and some spikes. Both the others had fairly similar equipment to mine.

Now that we have gotten the equipment out of the way, it is time for the story. We were absolutely broke and needed money. Our wives had kicked us out of our homes until we either brought back riches or a job certification sheet. We decided to do the first option. We had all heard about a tomb which was told to have near unlimited riches. Obviously, due to our low intelligence levels, we didn’t care about how dangerous it was.

These first few words have exhausted me and my wee Dwarf friend Gorog already, so we will retire to our sleeping quarters now, to be continued soonish.

This is Gorog the VIII, picking up from where Pius left off. We all had met when we were drunk and dancing merrily in a local pub, but little did we know how far our friendship would take us. After about a half hour of walking, we finally stumbled upon the cave that led to the tomb. Using my sight in the dark, we were able to get down into the first room.

The room was very simple and in the very center there was a wooden coffin. Me and Pünchinka went in for a closer look, and saw that there was nothing stopping us from opening it. After a bit of thought we eventually opened it and found an ornate statue of a snake soldier. I detected that it was hollow with my ability to sense stoneworks. Remember how Pius said that we had low intelligence levels? Without giving it much thought, we declared that I should smash it open with my hammer. Lo and behold, a cloud of poison gas floated up and quickly dissipated, But not before I got a slight whiff and was mildly annoyed. Pünchinka probably thought that it was a scented candle and took a record-breaking deep breath. Of course, because of that he lost a whole lot of healthy juices.

This is my farewell to you today, for I must get some sleep. We will hopefully be here to share with you more of our adventure tomorrow.

Hello, I'm Gorog VIII, back again and I’m ready to continue the story. After Pünchinka got well enough that we could stop caring about the gas in his veins, we examined the inside of the broken statue. Inside of it, there was a little golden object that was worth one gold coin. Of course I took it and Pünchinka started complaining about how he “Got a lung full of poison.” and I got money.

We exited the room and went into a hall with five other rooms. We went into the one across from us and noticed that it was the exact same as the last one. This time, we opened the coffin and stood back. I threw my hammer from a safe distance to break open the statue. As it was flying, I asked myself why I hadn’t tied a rope to the handle so I could get it back if something happened to it. A puff of the poison gas from earlier came out of the statue, and quickly dissipated. Inside, there was another golden disk, worth another coin. This one went to Pünchinka, and he gleefully accepted it.

For the other four rooms, we did the same thing but I fashioned a rope with spikes on it to throw at the coffins and open them from a distance, just to be safe. All four of them were the same except for the last two, in which one of the coffins was a snake scholar and the other was a snake wizard. These two were decorated much more ornately than the others. In the room with the scholar, I found a meticulously carved golden ring, and after some discussion, we decided that I should put it on. When I did however, it wouldn't come off! Suddenly the finger nail that it was on began growing, until it took the form of the head of a serpent.

This has tired me, for it is late and I must be getting to bed. My dead mother would be very unhappy if I were to miss my bedtime. This is goodbye to you for today from all of my comrades.

This is Gorog, once again, coming to you from the Dungeons of the Brink. I wanted Pius to write this part, because it’s been a while since you’ve heard from him and the public must get what the public wants. As a recap from yesterday, I got a ring that transformed my finger into what looked like the head of a snake. After leaving that section of the dungeon, we decided to start drawing a map to make sure that we didn’t get lost.

While wandering down the hall, with our torches lit, we stumbled upon a huge, stone door which was blocked by a large stone rod, connected to some chains that went up into the ceiling. There were two hooks that also had chains connecting them to some sort of contraption hidden in the ceiling. It didn’t take much thought to figure out that the chains on the hooks were connected to the chains holding up the giant stone bar. Me and Glubtubis Wub grabbed the chains and pulled down on them. There was probably some pulley network in the ceiling because it didn't take much to make the bar go up and unblock the doors. While everyone else entered the room, me and Glubtubis tied our ropes to the hooks and then to two of my four remaining spikes to keep the bar up. We then entered the biggest room so far.

Now I am done for the day and very much want to sleep. I have had a long day as shown by the previous page or so, and must get my rest and my dinner. This is goodbye from our little group and I will try to get Pius the Pious to start writing again.

‘Sup! Pius again here. Big room, like Gorog said, with 3 tombs on the left and another stone door on the right. Guess what Glubtubis was doing in a corner of this room immediately..? Gah! Ignoring everyone’s else’s bodily needs, Gorog suggested we open the first tomb from a distance to escape the toxic fumes. Some rope and spike contraption was thrown and we slowly opened the lid of the tomb, expecting some vile green gasses to escape. Nothing happened though, and we slowly moved towards the half open tomb. Suddenly the whole lid flew off and some horrid skeletal creature started walking towards us at a surprisingly brisk pace for an undead. Glubtubis, looking for something to wipe I’m sure, was the first to attack the thing with his knife. Brave, yet foolish, since the short knife landed between the skeleton’s ribs, giving the monster a chance to do some serious damage to our fearless rogue friend. Blunt force was needed, clearly! Guess what? Boring ol’ Pius to the rescue with his mallet. One short snappy swing later and the undead one was now indeed dead. You’re welcome everyone!

Let’s just grab the gold from the opened casket and get ready for the next one. Quickly our grubby hands were eagerly feeling around in the dimly lit box. Nothing! What? Stupid sexy casket…

Do we try and open the next one? Of course! This was just a fluke right? Rewind the tape, undead bony creature limping towards us, a mighty blow from Gorog’s giant hammer-thingy, grubby hands, and… Nothing again!

This room sucked!

We had one more tomb to go, but now the other passage started to look more inviting. Do we risk another undead jerk for no gold? No thank you!

Treasure Gained

Various trinkets worth a total of XXX gp (I have to check...)

Experience Gained

Exploration: (I need to figure this out too)

The Yaga Arrangement [session 32]

Adventurer's Present
Bilbo, a hobbit
Orsek, a dwarfley barbarian wizard 
Mossmullet, a dwarfley cleric of winter's bite
SMASH. a dwarfley cleric of root cellars

We left the small storage closet where we spent the night, and miraculously located our cousin SMASH in the halls of the Yaga's hut.  He joined us as we set about exploring again.  Our first stop was the hut's well room.  Once we'd slain or driven off the dozen ratling guards, we discovered that the well descended 100' before hitting water.  Hamster-form SMASH explored the underground reservoir, and discovered a huge sea serpent living in the well's water.  We tried to poison the beast by feeding it poisoned ratling corpses and blasting it with chromatic lightning, but it proved too strong for such tricks.  We also located a storeroom with a couple of gems hidden in it (but, as you'll see, we didn’t get to keep them).
 
Soon enough, the Yaga herself found us.  Instead of immediately attacking, she questioned us about our presence in her home.  Ultimately, she struck a deal with our group, offering us 42,000 gold for the retrieval of a magic spear from the depths of White Plume Mountain.  Figuring that it was better to keep our resale options open, we cut the deal with her.  She gave us some slightly useful information about the dungeon, and supplied us 3 water breathing potions to aid our journey.  She then took back our purloined pantry gems and escorted us off the premises.
 
Orsek's zombified troll servant hadn't yet overcome its undeath, so we set off through the swamp toward the Mountain itself with the rubbery zombie in tow.  Along the swampy tracks we were attacked by some crocodiles, but some quick lightning by the clerics and some axe work by Orsek cut the reptiles down pretty quick.  Poor Bilbo suffered the brunt of their attack, and was then somewhat electrocuted by a stray bolt of Varga's lightning, but the ferocious goddess made amends by Sparing the hobbit from true death.
 
At the end of the day we reached the base of the slope, but not before we stumbled upon 5 cockatrices, which promptly attacked.  Although SMASH had a couple moments of magical sloth, the main victim of the birds' petrifying attack was Orsek's zombie troll.  Completing its journey from life, to death, to undeath, to statue, the troll seems to have finally met its end.  Coming in a close second, unlucky Bilbo found himself fully paralyzed.  In a somewhat unorthodox maneuver, the party decided to have Orsek cut Bilbo's throat and end his life, before the cockatrice's bite could turn him fully to stone.  Varga's divine might again saved the day, as the hobbit was returned to the living.  The much-battered party made camp under the stony presence of the troll statue, awaiting to ascend the slopes and finally enter White Plume Mountain itself.

Party Experience Gained
Combat: 197 each
Exploration: 52 each
plus 175 each for talking to, instead of just trying to kill, Baba Yaga
... and Bilbo got an extra 100 for his brief view of the afterlife.

The Witch's Hut [session 31]

Adventurer's Present
Bilbo, a hobbit
Orsek, a dwarfley barbarian wizard 
Mossmullet, a dwarfley cleric of winter's bite

Travelling through the swamp, we were set upon by a huge, rubbery man-beast.  It was hungry, hungry for our flesh.  We fought it off until Orsek pointed his Finger of Death at it.  The overcast spell killed the fell monster, which then rose up in a mockery of life under Orsek's dark power.

Then, at long last, we came upon the Hut of Baba Yaga.  It stood upon weird twenty-foot tall trees.  We determined that these trees were probably actually the chicken legs of legend.  Wasting no time, our troll thrall lifted us up to the front door, and then grabbed the legs in the hopes that the hut would not wander off while we explored the interior.  And, lo, what an interior!

The main room was totally normal - a table, fireplace, comfy chair, etc.  Nothing to see here, folks.  We took the stairs up to the attic, opened the door, and that's when things got weird.  We kept a map, but I'm not sure how much use it will be - the geography of the place clearly does not follow any physical laws that we are aware of...

In various rooms, we encountered:

• Ratling guards, who we spoke with until relations broke down.  This did not go well for the ratlings.  Only a few escaped with their lives.
• A golden statue of a seemingly young and beautiful Yaga.  When touched, a fire elemental burst forth and attacked us.  We survived, and stole one of the statue's hands as payment for our troubles.
• Dust mites.  These unfriendly little guys make us cough.
• A tool room being guarded by a wind elemental.  Alas, no golden hands as reward for defeating the foul thing.
• Ratling thieves, who were easily duped.

We will continue on, hoping to find the mistress of the house...

Party Experience Gained 
Combat: 966 each
Exploration: 394 each

Swamp Creatures [session 30]

Adventurer's Present
Bilbo, a hobbit
Orsek, a dwarfley barbarian wizard 
Mossmullet, a dwarfley cleric of winter's bite

Setting off from the ruins of Castle Mukos, the party entered the mire of the great swamps of White Plume Mountain. Their immediate goal was to locate and eliminate the evil witch known as the "Yaga". The trio of Bilbo, Mossmullet and Orsek wandered about the damp and mucky reaches North of the mountain in search of the legendary crone, hoping to end the menace and loot her magical treasures.
 
While they did eventually locate the fearsome Yaga, who was posing naturally enough as a harmless old woman traipsing slowly through the swamplands, their ensuing combat produced no clear victor. After a couple of rounds of mutual spell casting, the Yaga chose to make herself invisible and flee the field of battle. Unable to locate or track her, the adventurers decided to continue to scour the swamps for her (chicken-legged?) abode.
 
The most memorable enemies the group found in the day's travels was a dozen serpent-folk. While it might originally have been possible to limit the interaction to discussion and/or trade, neither side was particularly interested in the conversation. The serpents opined about the obvious tastiness of the hobbit, and refused to lead the heroes to the evil Yaga unless the Ungarts agreed to supply Bilbo to the serpents for a meal. Finding the offer unpalatable and the parlay unproductive, Orsek decided to challenge the lead serpent to a one-on-one duel (naturally, to the death). The serpent chieftain immediately accepted, and the combat began. The creature's battle-prowess was considerable, his bite proved poisonous, and his trident quite pointy. Orsek was nearly defeated, but used some powerfully overcast Chromatic Orbs to finally slay the lead serpent.
 
Despite having given their word to lead the party to the swamp witch should they lose, the serpents merely lead the trio around the endless pathways of the mire while plotting upon their evening hobbit-snack. A nighttime attack by the band of serpents proved ineffective, leading only to five of their tribe dying in the attempt. Undeterred by the obvious difficulty of their prey, the remaining six launched a further ambush the next day. It proved even more disastrous for them than their previous attempt; not a one of them survived.
 
The final encounter of the session was an ambush by a swamp slime. It oozed from the waters, slapping Bilbo into unconsciousness (and partially dissolving his precious silvered fry-pan), putting him in danger of being consumed and digested. Orsek stepped in to do battle with the formless foe, and battled until he too was nearly dead. Picking up their fallen comrade, Mosssmullet and Orsek fled the slime, deciding that the dangerous denizen of the swamps was beyond their current abilities. Retiring for the night, the heroes intend to continue their slow circuit of White Plume Mountain, before proceeding inward and downward into the depths of that dungeon.

Party Experience Gained 
Combat: 587 each
Exploration: 10 each
Plus, Orsek gained 69 as a bonus for dueling the Serpent King
 

Clearing Mukos [session 29]

Adventurer's Present
Bilbo, a hobbit
Orsek, a dwarfley barbarian wizard 
SMASH, a dwarfley cleric of root cellars

We awoke in the dank cave and set out to discover our way out of it.  Not wanting to brave the waters again, and not finding any secret passages, we headed up the stairs we did find, only to find they ended at the bottom of the 60 foot deep pit which we had discovered at the end of the catacombs the day before.

We discussed many crazy plans, but finally settled on SMASH, er, smashing a hole in the grate at the top of the pit with his Phantom Shovel and Bilbo climbing the walls and tying on a rope for everyone to climb up.  This plan would have worked just fine, except Bilbo was mauled by giant rats upon reaching the top of the pit.  The rats messed him up pretty good, but he was able to shimmy down the rope to (what he thought was) relative safety a few feet down from the rats.  Alas, one clever rat found it's way down the rope and viciously attacked him, knocking him senseless and all the way down the pit.  A well-timed Grease spell from Orsek caused the rats to tumble from the grate to their ultimate demise.  The spell-casters survived the rat-and-hobbit rain, revived Bilbo, and we continued on our way.  But not before Orsek replaced his animated Flaming Dead Rat companion...

Our trip out of the castle was largely uneventful.  We found the cemetery; the graves were all disturbed -  some from within, some from without - which was disturbing.  We fought some vampire bats in the small mausoleum, and SMASH recovered an ancient shield with powerful protections against undead, which he now carries (his previous magic shield will bestowed upon Mossmullet when that dwarfley priest returns).

Wanting to test out the new shield, SMASH brashly called out for any nearby zombies.  But his calls were only answered by more giant rats, which proved to be surprisingly tough foes.  But we did eventually defeat them and live to delve another day.

Party Experience Gained 
Combat: 170 each
Exploration: 55 each
Plus, we all gained 17 or 34 experience for clearing the Ruins, depending how many sessions the character participated in 

A Found Map

Here is the map of White Plume Mountain that the adventurers found in the ruins of Castle Mukos:

[click to embiggen]

Perhaps it's not as complete as they thought...

The Ruins of Castle Mukos [session 28]

Adventurer's Present
Bilbo, a hobbit
Mossmullet, a dwarfley cleric of winter's bite
Orsek, a dwarfley barbarian wizard

In the steamy shadow of White Plume Mountain, our (reduced) group of heroes began their initial circuit of the environs around that dread dungeon. Setting out from the relative safety of the Dead Gnoll's Eyesocket, they soon located a ruined castle on the eastern slopes of the mountain. They decided to enter the castle through one of the tumble-down walls toward one end of the jagged ruin. Almost immediately, they were set upon by groups of zombies which seemed to inhabit the place. After defeating those, they located a ghast hiding in some of the rubble of one of the half-crumbled tower. He put up a spirited fight, but proved no match for the questing heroes.

Upon closely examining the tower's central support pillar, the group found a secret stairwell leading down into some catacombs. They naturally had to tour this underground wonderland, to see what could be seen. They found a smashed up wizard’s library. All the books were ruined, but they found a hidden MAP OF THE INTERIOR DUNGEON OF WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN! SCORE!!! They also fought off about a dozen ghouls, some rats, a swarm of bats, and other attractions of the catacombs. That accomplished, they rested up from their busy day before going even farther down the stairs to some deep caverns.

The next day's exploration of the natural caverns brought the team to a large well room, guarded by some sort of self-acting suit of armor. After bashing this bellicose plate armor into dust, they scouted the depths of the well water with Bilbo's shadow. They found some underwater passages leading to additional caverns. What followed was a risky, and ultimately unsuccessful, plan to swim to those alluring depths. After nearly drowning Mossmullet and Bilbo, they conceded defeat and began to return to the surface. Luckily, an alert hobbit spotted an oddity of the walls in the stairwell, and closer inspection revealed a secret door. Inside was a chest of gold, and one of the previously shadow-scouted caverns. A slight reworking of the prior plan resulted in underwater success! The group made it to the larger submerged cavern, where they again fought off a swarm of vampire bats.

That was enough adventuring for another day, so the exhausted group took another nap. When they awaken, they'll have to finish cleaning out the ruined castle and its subterranean menagerie of undead and uglies. Then they can get on with clearing out the environs of White Plume Mountain.

Party Experience Gained 
Combat: 1503 each
Exploration: 253 each