The Eight Points of Chaos [unlucky session 13]

So.  There were eight heroes who awoke in Quasqeton.  Eight characters trying to pick the best direction to adventure.  Eight voices fighting to be heard.  In short, a cacophony.  Thus started the day, and the chaos rarely clarified.

Still, progress was made.  Leaving the security of the secret door-ledge guardroom, the party happened upon a wandering carrion crawler.  The mob of adventurers made short work of it, and scored a happy windfall of visceral jewelry upon dissecting the disgusting beast.  Then it was back across the pit-trap, and on into uncharted territory.  A large cavern contained a giant spider, which Robinhood slew with a well-placed arrow [editor's note: i think this was actually a well-placed javelin thrown by the party gnome, Wilfred].  A horde of seven screaming skeletons then descended upon the group, and a general melee ensued.  Sadly, the party forgot their previous hard-won knowledge about the futility of trying to stabby-pointy a fleshless construction of bones, so the combat went less-well than it should have.  Eventually, however, the undead had their “un”s bashed into dust, thus returning them to a more properly dead state.

From there, the group followed Mossmullet’s misguided musings that, since the dungeon was only rumored to have two levels, taking the passage which went down (rather than one of the two which remained level) would likely lead to a quicker off-shoot of the caverns.  That advice proved quite wrong, as they found the largest cavern yet (which is reportedly filled with bats).  Exploring brought them to a low-roofed passage inhabited by four rat-folk.  Some pointless discussion devolved into threats and then blows, and the rattlings were quickly subdued.  But not before Robinhood inexplicably attempted to bite one of them while in combat (perhaps he’s rabid?  Should we be concerned?).  The lone surviving critter begged for mercy, promising to show the group the “rat-king’s treasure”.  The heroes decided that the survivor deserved some leniency for ratting out his king, at least until the treasure was in hand.  But the dirty rat led them into a rat-trap instead!  Attacking in groups, seven giant rats beset the adventuring party.  Meanwhile, the ratting ratling slipped out through a rat hole, and made good his escape.  The party defeated the rats, and explored another cavern filled with columns and not much else.   And thus ended the slowest of dungeon crawls to date, notable primarily for endless debate, disarming a shrieking skeleton, attempting nibbling on a murderous ratling, and a general disorganized shamble of an exploration.

But great minds are already working upon a top-down reorganization of the mob of dopey do-gooders, and forming them into a more efficiently effective team.  Hopes remain high that the reign of cacophony, chaos and confusion will come to an end, and be replaced by motion, direction and leadership.  And if not, well, it was still fun, and there really isn’t any great urgency in getting to whatever awaits us at…White Plume Mountain!
   

Area Map

Here, at long last, is the map of the area we are adventuring in.  Sorry I can't draw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And, if you really want it, here's an even bigger version (brace yourself, it's close to 5 mb) suitable for printing.

The Treasure Map!

The adventurer's finally recovered Nuno's treasure map, and it has a poem written on the back.  Here they are:

[click to embiggen]

[click to embiggen]

Seek & Destroy [session 12]

Bilbo, Mossmullet, Orsek, Red Shpee, and Wilfred Fizzlebang set off into the heavy forest in pursuit of the fleeing goblinoids.  They used their many skills and abilities to chase down first one group of goblins & spiders, and then another.   There was also evidence (in the form of deceased corpses) that the woods are alive with goat men, who are attacking the goblins on multiple occasions.

The first group of refugee goblinoids consisted of 4 goblins, a bugbear, and 2 giant spiders.  Bilbo and Orsek launched into destruction mode, slaying all 4 goblins and grievously wounding the bugbear in fairly short order.  A group effort was required to finish off the spiders, while the bugbear continued on the fight for multiple rounds, the last goblinoid standing.  Eventually, Fizzlebang Chilled him right into the grave, ending his life despite the fact he still had so much to live for.  In a rather grizzly but ultimately fortunate turn of events, Orsek took the goblin captain's head as a memento of the encounter.  (This came in useful later, when the group happened upon a couple of the goat people who live in this strange forest.  Presenting the decapitated goblin head, the party was able to charm their way out of any violent encounter with the restless natives.)

The heroes were briefly confused when investigation revealed no continuing path to follow.  But a little back-tracking and successful tracking revealed that another group had split away (with the heavy object the group was dragging).  So the intrepid party of five continued on, avoiding spider web traps and walking into a rear-guard of 2 goblins armed with shortbows.  The battle began, with goblins shooting Bilbo, and then stabbing Fizzlebang to (near) death before being taken down by arrows and chilling spells.

After a quick regroup and healing of Fizzlebang, the group then set off after the final grouping of goblin folk.  They were eventually located, as the group came upon them in a clearing.  However, the long-anticipated final showdown with the big goblin boss did not play out as the group had anticipated; even as the group surged into the clearing to take on their goblin foes, all concerned were confronted with...a green dragon!  Before any member of the group could so much as sneeze, the dragon breathed a cone of poison gas upon their erstwhile prey, immediately killing the lesser goblins and damaging the bugbear bossman to the point of driving him into a killing fury.  The bugbear then charged the dragon, and the group was treated to these two deadly enemies waging war upon each other!

While these mighty monsters made mutual melee, the heroes had the luxury of picking which target to punish first.  They wisely chose to attack the dragon, while letting the bugbear serve as a proxy victim for the dragon’s deadly attentions.  Arrows, spells and even some desperate unarmed grappling by Orsek ensued.  "I will lose (g)no(me) more, I’ve already lost too many!"  Orsek yelled at the dragon, in an inspired fit of (unintentional?) punning.  Gnome Fizzlebang smartly skirted the skirmish, and instead turned his attentions to recovering and safeguarding the bug-boss’s discarded treasure chest.  As Orsek grappled and choked the young wyrmling, many spells and weapons proved ineffective against its draconic defenses.  The bugbear, possibly coming to his senses and smelling certain defeat in the air, took to his heals and surrendered the battlefield to the others present, taking his pet spider with him.  The embattled dragon took to the air, first shaking Orsek off and throwing him for a fall, and then turning his deadly-bad breath against the Ungart cousins.  Thankfully, the dwarven resilience allowed them to survive the deadly oral attentions, and a further round of moderately painful attacks convinced the young dragon to turn and run.  Well, more "fly" than actually "run".  As the beast attempted to flee, and gust of Varga’s windy will proved effective in preventing the flying fiend’s untimely departure.  With a final heroic effort, the party managed to slay the slippery serpent.  Which actually exposed a potentially fatal flaw in the group’s plan: the dragon nearly fell upon Mossmullet (shout out to Orsek for a dashing flying tackle/save!), and did fall upon Fizzlebang.  Crushing him to (again near) death.  The surviving party members pulled Fizzlebang from under the downed dragon, and Sparing the Dying and Cure Wounds brought the wizard back to the world of the living.

Taking only the time for some quick victory discussion, and to scoop up the treasure from the goblins' chest, the intrepid adventurers set out after their fled bugbear foe.  Although tired, injured and dangerously short on ammunition, the heroes caught and killed the hapless bugbear, who’d stumbled into yet another encounter with the indigenous goat-men of the forest.  The goat folk appreciated the groups spirited sacking of their mortal goblinoid enemies, and allowed the party to recover the fabled Treasure Map from the deceased bugbear’s corpse, and to dismember the dragon for trinkets and trophies, before (somewhat pointedly) escorting them out of their woodland retreat.

And so the party returned once more to the tunnels of Quasqueton, where they settled in once more for a long and well-earned rest.  They examined their booty, and discovered good value in the gems and gold from the chest, as well as a glowing ruby with unknown magical properties (which they can hopefully suss out with sufficient examination).

Thus ended the immediate quests which had brought the heroes so far from their comfortable homes and civilized surrounds, and out into the dangerous forests and caverns.  But with Nuno's Map in hand, and a half-explored dungeon still awaiting their explorations, it seems clear that the group’s adventures are far from complete...

   
   

Some Impressive Combat [session 12]

The brave heroes chased the goblins escaping the caves of Quasqueton.  The goblins split up, and naturally the adventurers followed the wrong bunch.  After they defeated those goblins (splitters!), they backtracked and caught up to the head goblin.  At the same time as a horse-sized green dragon did!

Wisely, the adventurers let the two of them wear each other down before joining the fray.  When the Big Bad goblin decided discretion was the better part of valor and beat feet, the dragon turned it's attentions toward our adventurers.

The dragon opened with its deadly poisonous breath.  Luckily it targeted the hardy dwarfs with their poison resistance, and there were no casualties.

The battle continued and Orsek jumped on the dragon, attempting to grab its mouth, alligator-wrestling style.  This was surprisingly effective when the clumsy dragon tried to claw off the pesky dwarf and ended up hitting itself instead.  The dragon took flight, and finally managed to knock Orsek off (he survived the fall).

The rogues got some sneaky ranged attacks in and, feeling they had the upper hand, they didn’t want their 'prey' to escape - the adventurers had to think fast.  Mossmullet called up a Gust of Wind to blow the dragon back down towards our short heroes.  Wilfred Fizzlebang cast a Tenser's Floating Disc and hid under it (he was hurt.  And first level).  Orsek jumped on on the Floating Disc, and was able to just reach the dragon with his great axe to deal the killing blow!  But now they faced a falling draconic corpse...

Orsek dove off of the Disc, knocking Mossmullet out of the way.  Alas, Wilfred was not so lucky.  The dragon fell on the no-longer-floating Disc, crushing the poor gnomish mage into unconsciousness.  A little bit of healing magic can go a long way, so the little guy survived to cast spells another day.

They tracked down the Giant Goblin Leader, slayed him and took back Nuno's treasure map as well as his chest of gold (and one spell scroll - i bet that Grease spell is going to come in super-handy).  They were then escorted back to Quasqueton by some not-quite-friendly goatmen (with a stop at the dragon corpse to pick up some grisly trophies) for some well-earned shuteye.

Running Away (on Both Sides) [session 11]

Bilbo, Mossmullet, Orsek, Red Shpee, SMASH, Robin Hood, Wolfy, and Wilfred Fizzlebang went down the corridor indicated by the Sleezestacks lizard-folk.  They went almost directly into (what turned into) something of a trap.  Coming upon an intersection with paths leading onward and to both sides, they paused a moment to think over which way to go.  Before any decision was reached, a barrage of arrows came flying from either side passage, as 4 goblins made good their surprise attack.

Things went reasonably well for the goblins for a brief time, with Mossmullet fumbling and dropping his mace in a bumbling attack, and many of the party's spells and arrows going awry.  While the group thereafter recovered and managed to slay those four, they were immediately replaced by 6 more goblins sneaking in from the rear.  While the party attempted to deal with this new threat, things went downhill.  Some of the tactics employed by the party proved a bit ineffective.  After multiple attempts to grapple and subdue one of the goblins, Robin Hood had to be rescued from death on two separate occasions.  Fizzlebang apparently experienced a psychotic break, and took the opportunity to thrash the grappling fighter within an inch of his life.  As things devolved into a general melee, the goblins received a serious reinforcement, 5 more goblins accompanied by a bugbear and 2 giant spiders.  Things looked a bit dire, when the goblin hordes proceeded to put up a pretty good fight.  The fight was a reasonably matched one, although the party was probably the more powerful group.  But Wolfy went down in combat, and multiple requests to the two-headed hamster god went unanswered with any type of aid.  And requests for assistance from the cave bats met with no greater success.

And so began ... the running away.  A motion carried to abandon the intersection, in favor of safer ground.  Unfortunately, with multiple members of the party unconscious and defenseless on the ground, some party members refused to retreat and leave them to their fates.  As first two, then another, then another, and then yet another of the party fled from the increasingly lopsided battle for the intersection cavern, things began looking a bit grim.  Also, those who fled may well have gone just a bit too far, for they soon found themselves face to face with ... another cavern holding 5 more goblins, all danced out and ready for a feast on dwarf stew.  The initial confrontation with Bilbo and Red Shpee went not-so-well for the rogue-runners.  Bilbo was bleeding and unconscious post-haste, and only Red Shpee quick-witted quick talking kept the encounter from becoming a total disaster.  Stalling the gnoshing goblins with tales of tasty-fresh dwarf down the hallway, Red managed to avoid imminent death until help could arrive.

And the help which did arrive was an acrobatically gifted hobbit healer!  Springing spritely over the goblins' noggins, Wolfy Spared the ailing Bilbo, sacrificing his own health to ensure his fellow hobbit's survival.  The goblins attacked, but were surprised to find that Red the elven backstabber was NOT their friend!  Murdering two of the distracted humanoids, then withdrawing silently to Sneak Attack two more into the afterlife, Red managed to contain the brewing disaster and save the imperiled hobbits.

Meanwhile, back at the intersection, Orsek and Mossmullet battered the spiders, bugbear, and remaining goblins down, with the help of the sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious Robin Hood.  Loot was hard to come by, but Mossmullet did find a few gold on the bugbear.  He magnaminously shared it among the party, giving a double share to Red Shpee for his battle prowess.  He then gave his own share to Orsek because "a kinsman who stays and fights with you is worth more than gold."

With the melees finally concluded, the party rested and recovered in the goblins mess hall.  A mostly grisly and unsavory stew of Nuno Rockhead was sadly discovered in the goblin stew-pot.  Well, sadly to most...SMASH decided that cannibalism wasn't so bad ... and neither was Nuno (Ick!).

After the clerics healed themselves and the party, they re-focused their quest.  Saving Nuno no longer an option (except as left-overs), the party set out for the less-noble task of saving his treasure map.  Unfortunately, all they found (thanks to the one-armed goblin they Spared from Dying) was that the big boss-man goblin had fled the destruction and slaughter in the caverns, taking everything of value with him.

The party raced to locate the disappearing dastards, and managed to catch a glimpse of goblins making good their escape in the forests below the secret-exit cliff.  It remains to be seen if rappelling down the cliff and pursuing the goblinoids is within the party's powers, or if they've come up short in their secondary quest (for treasure) as well.

February 29th [session 10]

Bilbo, Mossmullet, Orsek, Red Shpee, and Smash awoke from their slumbers, to find that they'd be (re)joined by Robin Hood, Wolfy, and a gnome Wizard named Wilfred Fizzlebang.  Fresh from their (for some rather troubled) dreams, they picked up where they'd left off the day before, and began exploring and mapping.  They met with a small mischief of large rats, whom they quickly dispatched without difficulty, other than Bilbo almost being gnawed to death by them.  Then it was on to a quick pratfall in a pit-trap, leading only to a fake door.  Then some more exploring, retreading old ground where previous battles were fought days before.  Remains of pies and orcs were found, but nothing else of interest or value.  The party did find another pack of giant rats, but remembering Bilbo's prior near-death experience, they wisely decided that this time parley and interpretive dance were the best paths to take past the rodent-ious roadblock.  Finding little more of interest (other than grabbing that superior mace from the day before), they descended down to the natural caverns below the dungeon proper.

Once descended, our heroes found things a bit more exciting.  Pits and bats and doors without traps led them to...a dimly lit cavern containing denizens of the dead!  Undead, that is.  A quick melee with a ghoul was immediately followed by a massed charge of 8 skeletons.  The group being in rather shaky shape after losing initiative and having three members with 2 HP or less, the clerics of the group did their thing:  6 of the undead were sent packing, Bilbo was spared from dying, and a powerful second level Prayer of Healing powered up the battered heroes to previously unheard-of levels of health.  Fully restored and re-armed for battle with blunt-damage weapons, the party quickly dispatched the 2 braver skeletons, then pursued their scaredy-bones brothers.  A flask of oil was splashed upon them by a resourceful and vengeful Bilbo, and then flash-fried by a powerful blast of Burning Hands!  The only skeleton not immediately charred into powder was quickly blasted with Sacred Flame, as Smash picked up the Spare.

The heroes pressed on into an extra-large cavern, where they met and squished two unpleasantly large (150 lbs) spiders.  Despite being bitten by one, Bilbo continued his rampage by dispatching the first.  The other Nast-rachnid quickly joined his mate in death.  A quick trip down a side passage revealed two goblins playing cards.  After a brief and unproductive discussion, things turned ugly, and the heroes resorted to violence.  The goblins fell quickly.  The door they guarded proved to be a hidden spy-perch, opening into the outdoors, and a narrow ledge 40' in the air.  Confirming that the ledge led nowhere, the party went back inside and discussed their options.

The decision was made to back-track to see if the rope still hung down from the first level of the dungeon (which it did), and the group then made the acquaintance of three unhappy lizard-men.  These sssneaky fellows were less than cordial, but proved willing to set aside their dislike of us, to express their even greater dislike of the colony of bug men (bugbears?) which were invading their living areas and causing them havoc.  Upon our solemn word that we'd help them out with their "bug" problem, they spilled some of the details of where we should go next, to locate these mutual foes.  They also (maybe) decided to give us free passage to that area, no doubt so that two of their enemies could meet, clash, and end at least one of their problems for them.  What happens when these various forces connect and clash...is the story for another day!