The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 60

Attending:
FULL HOUSE
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable

Monsters Mashed:
Double Barreled Bulette – Stabbed repeatedly then plummeted thru floor in Von Himmel’s decanting room.
2000 EXP/7 players = 285 Exp apiece.

Discovered mysterious cave below the sub-basements of Castle Von Himmel. Currently battling stone gargoyle/dinosaur/fish monsters after trying to approach the steps to loot the armor & shield off the skeletonized corpse lying there.

Commentary:

Well, it probably comes as no surprise that they beat back the bad Baron's birfuricated beastie, but in doing so they cracked a huge hole in the tiled floor of Von Himmel's lab and revealed a vast cavern in the dark depths below. 

Rappelling down, they discovered a vast, circular, door-like contraption set with 100's of copper disks at the eastern end, fronted by a set of steps silently guarded by a quintet of gargoyle-like creatures on pedestals with the heads of my favorite scary predatory primordial fish, the dunkelosteus. The party was lured in by the promise of loot from an armored skeleton lying on the steps. Of course the statues started moving, and the battle was joined. 

Stay tuned for more on Wednesday, as the sub-subterranean shenanigans continue.

P.S. I evoked these monsters in miniature form very recently. I think I have a tendency to do that, recreate monsters I've used in play as minis long after I've fielded them at the table. Guess my mini OODA loop is a bit backwards. Ah well, s'fun either way.

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 59

FULL HOUSE
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus 
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable

Henching: Mr. Exeunt, a Lvl 8 Homanculus whose torso has been grafted centaur-style on the body of a gorilla.

Monsters Mashed
Von Himmel’s proteanoid: Ripped up by Mr. Exuent, stabbed, and shot.
790 EXP/7.5 Players = 105 EXP apiece.

Monsters being managed… maybe?
A double ended bulette, now currently under the effects of a permanent Speed potion.
Good luck with that on Monday.

Double the pleasure, double the fun, double the reason to scream and run!

Commentary:

Back at Von Himmel Manor the party was asked to descend into the basement lab levels once more to help corral a specimen that had gotten loose from its big glass tube. I'm afraid I'm not 100% certain what Von Himmel's proteanoid was, 'cos I can't find reference to it in my notes. I probably just went with a flesh golem or some kind of ooze. Maybe a dopplelganger. Or maybe a flesh golem crossed with an ooze or a doppelganger. I dunno. Anything was possible in Doctor Von Himmel's laboratory.

While that was being dealt with, with the help of Von Himmel's lab level doorman Mr. Exeunt, the good Doctor's rival Baron Ünterlöb sent another one of his custom built bulettes to attack the very heart of Von Himmel's operations, and this one was equipped with jaws on both ends like a pushmi-pullyu gone even more horribly awry. 

They fought the beast in Von Himmel's potion mixing room, attempting to use the mixing apparatus to wage some magical/chemical warfare on the burrowing monstrosity. Alas, when you mess with devices and especially potions you don't understand, you usually wind up making things worse, like giving a double headed bulette a permanent Speed upgrade. 

And it was here that we wrapped up, with the next session coming preternaturally fast on the party's heels. 

See you on Monday. 

Bonus: 
Here are the stats for Von Himmel's loaner ape bodies, that the party's homanculi were forced to pilot around as disembodied brains in jars for many of the prior sessions goofing around a mad scientist's mansion: 

Loaner Apes: HD: 4, AC: 6, Atk: 1d4/1d4, use character’s attack rolls -2, Saves: Breath Wpn: 15 Poison: 12 Petrify: 14, Wands, Spells as character. Mv: 120(40) On a natural 1 in combat or natural 20 on an attribute check, roll save vs. Wands or the brain jar pops loose, requiring a round to reattach. Brain jar is AC 4, and takes 10 pts of damage to shatter. In that event roll save vs. Death to see if the brain survives long enough to be transferred into another receptacle, preferably one filled with a sterile solution of healing chemicals laced with painkillers. Handle with care.

Brought to you by Medical Monkeys, LTD.

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 58

Session 58
FULL HOUSE
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable

Monsters mashed:
1 of Baron Ünterlöb’s landsharks: Stabbed, magic missiled, and pinned to a rock with an awesome sword strike.
1000 EXP/7 players = 142 EXP apiece

Madmen met:
The Von Himmel brothers’ great great great great great great great Grand Uncle Nukus. He’s a spry old bird.

Commentary:

On the journey back to Von Himmel Manor, the players were confronted with the sight of a scrawny little old man clad in a nightshirt and furry hat, pelting furiously toward them up the trail with something huge and horrible burrowing hot on his heels.

As the sprightly senior citizen rushed past them, giggling madly to himself, the party were suddenly thrust into battle with a bulette that burst up from the road and attacked.

After defeating the creature with a measure of difficulty interspersed with a couple natural 20's, by the look of it, they headed on toward the mansion. The old man didn't speak beyond gleeful cackling and rude gestures, but they allowed him to follow them as they continued on their way.

They were met at the edge of the estate by Alexi Von Himmel, who introduced them to his Great Uncle Nukus. Mad as a bucket of beetles, but also a 20th. Level Fighter, Uncle Nukus liked nothing better than to seek out the biggest, scariest monsters infesting the woods and mountainsides and getting them to chase him.

The aggro he'd pulled when he'd met up with the party was the product of one of Dieter Von Himmel's rivals in the mad science biz, one Baron Ünterlöb. Whether this was a random encounter, or the beginning of a new subterranian assault, was yet to be seen.

Tune in Friday to see...

Note: The picture above is the monster Gabora from episode 9 of the original Ultraman TV series. I am firmly convinced that it was the original model for the little plastic toy monster that Gygax & co. turned into the bulette back in the early days of AD&D.

Jeff Rients covered the history of this monster pretty well in his classic 2005 article on the subject. Look at the picture he's got of the first bulette, look at Gabora up there, and tell me I'm wrong.

Shuwatch!

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Sessions 56 & 57

Retaking Ghoulardia pass from Granny Maw and her bugbears. (Attempt 1)

 

 

(Image may not be 100% Accurate)

Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable

Monsters Mashed:
3 Bugbears – Zapped thru the battered chunks of the siege machine
300 exp/ 7 players = 43 Exp apiece

1 Hill Giant – Ingloriously magic missiled to death.
560 exp/7 players = 80 Exp apiece

1 Troll – Autobeheaded, pinned to a cave wall and roasted to death in burning Web spell. Head now in stone urn, not happy.
600 exp/ 7 players = 86 Exp apiece

Total: 209 EXP per person.

Commentary:

This pair of sessions saw a sortie back to Ghoulardia Pass to attempt to liberate the catacombs and Cardille Keep from a new set of interlopers, the horrible hag Granny Maw and her army of goons. They didn't really follow thru, for whatever reason, preferring to just harry the defenses a bit before they trekked back to their new patrons, the Von Himmel Family.

They made a frontal assault on the Keep, and tangled with a bunch of bugbears at the gate who were manning a ballista. These they killed, but backed off when the resistance didn't show any signs of weakening.

They also used that confounded Big Red d30 to one shot kill a hill giant that was stationed on top of the tower. (Honestly, I'm still ambivalent about this rule. The players loved it though... Feh.) 

Finally, they tried entering one of the crypts in the graveyard and ran afoul of a troll that had been set to guard the underground chamber beneath (where the giant rat creature had once been kept by Doctor Von Rattschmidt). They snicker snacked its head clean off with one of their magic swords and torched its body after immobilizing it in a Web spell. 

They took the loudly complaining head back to the Von Himmels in a stone urn, probably hoping to cash in on his prior offer of money for troll blood (known for its uncanny (and nasty) healing properties). The juice from this cranky cranium would come in handy in future sessions (in a certain liberal definition of the phrase.)

The journey back was a bit fraught, as you will soon see...

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 55

Attending: FULL HOUSE!
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus – Temporarily installed in donor monkey.
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus – Temporarily installed in donor monkey.
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable

Monsters Mashed:

Mongo Ritzy: Monkey rushed, silenced, and subdued.
500 EXP/7 players = 71 EXP apiece.

Abilities gained:
Ritzy has gained Lvl 3 spellcasting (2 1st lvl, 1 2nd lvl, starting spell: Charm Person)
Greed & Ritzy have both gained improved armor class and 4 arms.

Arongoth has continued taking Mandrake powder, and has gained rubbery, boneless arms that can extend out to 20’ and some sharp toothed buds that bite for 1d4 and may grow bigger over time.

He’s also learned the recipe for Krenshaw Powder, which requires a copious amount of Greenishghoul plant, sulfur crystals, powdered bone, and over a pint of the user’s own blood if they wish to wrest control of the undead abominations instead of just making them murderously free willed.

Commentary: 

Back to normal, hour long (give or take) sessions, in this one the party, now full strength due to being rejoined by Arongoth and Tarvinir, tracked down Ritzy's errant body and took it down with as little damage as they could manage. Arongoth used the old standard spell-killer Silence 15' Radius to keep the battling body from casting its Charm on them, and they wrestled it into submission. 

They took the inert hulk back to the operating room, where Doctor Von Himmel got back to work and hooked up the safeguards that would keep Mongo, the Terror of Belgravia, from ever taking Ritzy's body over again. (Probably. It didn't come up again in the campaign, alas. But believe me, it would have...) 

Arongoth explained his absence the prior megasession was due to both doing research, and downing a couple more doses of Mandrake Powder. The resulting mutations were striking, to say the least, and to this day I'm pleased with the progressive en-weirdening I got to pull off on this character. (Not the weirdest, though. Stay tuned for that in the future. Hee hee hee.) 

He also did some research in the Von Himmel family's extensive library of forbidden and obscure lore, discovering the recipe for the horrible green powder that had been used to such dreadful effect against his mini-hordes of shambling skeletons and zombies in the past. 

Consider adding Krenshaw Powder to your campaign, DM's, especially if you've got a cleric or mage who likes to abuse Animate Dead. Just a pinch will turn basic, automata style undead like zombies and skeletons against their users. (Or against everybody if the user hasn't mixed in the requisite pint of blood.) Whether more powerful concoctions of this formula exist that could turn created undead minions of vampires, ghouls, wights, and specters against their masters, and just what grisly ingredients that might entail, is an exercise best left up to a more sinister mind than mine...

Heh heh heh...

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Megasession 54

Will YOU be Mongo's Friend?

Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus – Temporarily installed in donor monkey.
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus – Temporarily installed in donor monkey.
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter

Indisposed:
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable
These characters were not active participants and thus do not get EXP for this session.

Monsters Mashed:
Fire Elemental – Blasted and banished.
2800 EXP/ 5 Players = 560 EXP apiece

Nurse Oso – Werebear – Restrained and knocked on the head.
1070 EXP/5 Players = 214 EXP apiece

Grimling work detail – stomped, run off, and threatened with a blunt excrement
80 EXP/5 players = 16 EXP apiece

The Cleaner – Hosed, burned, magic missiled, and stabbed into loose plasma.
245 EXP/5 players = 49 EXP apiece

Total: 839 EXP per attending player.

Commentary:

This session is notable because we scheduled it as a Friday night long play session after work, rather than the usual lunch hour play typical of this campaign. I recall it was a blast, literally. 

Wouldn't you know it, in an appallingly ironic (heh heh) bit of timing while Greed and Ritzy were de-brained and under the knife of the horribly skilled mad scientist Doctor Dieter Von Himmel, just as the good doctor was connecting the spellcasting shrunken head of Mongo, the Terror of Belgravia, to Ritzy's nervous system, something in Blutarch Von Himmel's slowly exploding attic lab exploded extra quickly, releasing a Fire Elemental onto the roof of the manor house and shaking the foundations of the building all the way down to Dieter's basement laboratory. 

With the slightest tremor of Von Himmel's scalpel, the wrong nerve was connected, and Mongo awoke, took command of Ritzy's body, burst the straps on the operating table, decked both his surgeon and an observing Tarvinir, cast Charm Person on the attending Nurse Oso and suborned her to its cause, and escaped into the maze of corridors and labs under Von Himmel Manor. 

Meanwhile, the party was up above having tea in the conservatory, while the Greed and Ritzy waited in the recovery room as brains in glass jars mounted on anencephalic gorillas. The party hastily assembled at the sound of the tremendous BOOM, their first order of business was to keep the rampaging Fire Elemental from burning the whole place down. 

They did battle with the creature using the Hydro Pump, and I think they summoned a Water Elemental to fight it with the Hook (I guess it still had some charges) that took forever to slush its way up the side of the manor house.) I think a few spells were tossed and desperate gambits were attempted as well.

Once the fiery foe had been extinguished, Doctor Von Himmel staggered up the basement stairs dragging an unconscious Tarvinir (who's player was absent), and told the party the bad news about the little peccadillo on the operating table.

The rest of the session played out as a hunt thru the catacombs under the manor house, searching for Ritzy's powerful new body, now under the control of a wily shrunken head with magical powers. 

They fought several of the Doctor's servants, including Nurse Oso, who had been ordered to attack anyone coming down the stairs, a squad of Grimling diggers expanding the east wing of the facility, and The Cleaner, a tame gelatinous cube that routinely scoured the hallways outside the labs. 

The session concluded before they laid eyes on their quarry, so tune in Friday to find out how they corralled Ritzy's crazed, customized corpus.

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 53

Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter

Henching:
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable

Significant Events:
Journied to Castle Von Himmel

Met the brothers Von Himmel: Alexei, Blutarch, Caspar, and Dietrich (Huntsman, Explosives&Ballistics Enthusiast, Airship Pilot, Monster Surgeon)

Met Caspar and Dietrich’s lovely wives Hyacinth (a velociraptor in a dress with a surgery scar under a blonde wig) and Illiyana (a predatory looking woman with a fondness for knives and garrotes whom Caspar met in the courts of the Sultan of Kalabad and who doesn’t speak any common)

Met Mr. Jumbles, Miss Escher, and Mrs. Nesbitt (The Von Himmel’s butler, chambermaid, and head housekeeper, respectively)

Re-encountered Professor Klaus Von Rattschmidt, made peace and agreed to A: Reclaim his lab B: Pay his medical tab with Von Himmel (8500 gp) in exchange for murdering him and his specimens and trashing his lab.

Greed & Ritzy have negotiated extensive body modifications from Dr. Von Himmel. (Would you guys send me your parts manifest and final cost estimates please.) They have since been tranqued, tanked, and are now mounted on gorilla loaner bodies while the Doctor works on them.

Ritzy has agreed to let Von Himmel graft the shrunken, pickled head of Mondo, the Terror of Belgradia, to his shoulder with the possibility of gaining some spellcasting ability.

Tarvenir is observing this operation and will be taking notes for both Von Himmel & the Occluded Society’s benefit.

Blutarch has taken Tysis shooting on the Von Himmel’s private range, testing a variety of dangerous explosive projectile throwers. He’s also shown him his slow-exploding laboratory.

Caspar and Vlad have been enthusiastically discussing the prospect of designing and building an airship for Vlad. Perhaps without the crew of chimps in sailor suits controlled by a pipe organ.

Arongoth is presumably off somewhere up to something, possibly mandrake powder related.

Tao is curled up in the gardens trying not to think too hard about the clock headed apes on the battlements, or why that squirrel just quacked at her.

Snap Snap

Commentary:

In this session, the party journeyed from Strangeldorf thru Ghoulardia Pass to the remote manor of the Von Himmel family. Having earned enough gold to contract his services, the party's homanculi Greed and Ritzy presented the good Doctor with a list of additions to be added to their unnatural physiologies. 

Both opted for extra arms (with extra attacks), improvements in Strength and AC, and I think Greed got a bite attack out of it by having a shark's teeth installed somewhere. Suffice to say, when all was said and done they became even more terrifying mayhem machines then they were before.

I also offered a discount on either one's body mods with the promise of possible spellcasting ability, so long they agreed to get a bizarre, shrunken head grafted to their shoulder. Ritzy's player took the bait offer.

While spending time as guests of the castle, they re-encountered Doctor Von Rattschmid, who they'd run out of the catacombs in Ghoulardia Pass. The doctor was currently convalescing as a swarm of rats who all spoke in unison in a vaguely Prussian accent. 

Taking pity on his plight (that they caused), our heroes agreed to make good against Von Rattschmid's legitimate grievances by paying for the mad rat-ologist's reparation bill from his colleague. (8500 gp might seem like a lot, but stitching a 10'x10' carpet of rats together into a vaguely human shape and then performing enough cosmetic surgery for that mass of rodents to pass as human enough in broad daylight requires a lot of precise handwork.)

Thus with deals done and downpayments made, we embarked on the next phase of wacky hijinks in the maddest castle in the land. 

Stay tuned. Watch out for monkey bites.

The Texts Have Been Unearthed!

At long last, Book 1 of the Thousand Year Sandglass is now available in Print on Demand softcover paperback format at DriveThruRPG.com.

You can get it here!

Consider adding this handsome volume to your collection. Lavishly illustrated, full of adventure and intrigue, you can take it anywhere, from the burning sands of the desert to the shady galleries of the soukh to your next session around the gaming table with some pita chips and hummus.

I would be most honored and grateful if you did. Sim sim salabim!

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 52

Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tao – Lvl 5 Druid
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter

Monsters Mashed:
3 Owlbears – Stabbed, Zapped, and otherwise summarily murderdeathkilled
1050 EXP/ 7 Players = 150 EXP apiece.

Significant Events:
Tao joined the party with her trusty dire wolf Wolf#1.
There’s still one more Owlbear somewhere out there between Strangledorf and Lake Moguera. You heard it calling in the distance.
Everybody went back to Strangledorf for a couple days, found out the town’s locked down and something scary’s moved into Cardille Keep in Ghoulardia Pass. Granny Maw and her bugbear minions, who’ve been terrorizing the area and kidnapping people.

Commentary: 

This session saw the introduction of Rael's player's new character, Tao the Druid. 

They fought owlbears, and made it the rest of the way back to Strangeldorf, where they found all was not well. 

Never a heavily populated town, the dreary mountain hamlet was even more deserted. Stopping in at the tavern, the party received the bad tidings that a new menace had moved into the cleared out catacombs under Ghoulardia Pass and Cardille Keep, a fearsome hag known as Granny Maw and her army of bugbears and other dreadful goons of various sizes and configurations. 

Tune in next week as a new brew of shenanigans ensue.

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 51

Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Rael – Lvl 6 Thief/Werewolf
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter

Henching:
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus

 

R.I.P.

Casualties:
Rael the Thief. Killed by cloud of poison released from hideous idol in underwater catacomb at Lake Mogeura.

Then re-killed when an attempt to animate her corpse resulted in her shifting to wolf mode and attacking.

Ritzy the Homanculous. Also poisoned by cloud from idol. Brought back with lightning and cure spells.

Monsters Mashed:
Rael the undead berserker werewolf – Cut down by Tysis and Greed’s magic blades.
700 EXP/5.5 players = 127 EXP

10 Corpse Jellies – Crushed up by summoned giant squid.
300 EXP/5.5 players = 54 EXP

TOTAL: 181 EXP apiece

Significant occurrences:
Jellies absorbed summoned squid, resulting in a large, tarry mass of black goo that oozed along the shore of the lake.

50’ wolf accompanied by chilling cold and snow dug up Rael’s corpse and carried it away toward the Northern horizon while rest of party cowered in the bushes.

Someone or something seems to be stalking you through the underbrush as you make your way back toward Strangledorf.

Commentary:

Well, a lot happened in this session. Not all of it good. The party suffered the loss of its lycanthropic lass Rael (aka TrapDog, as the players nicknamed her), brought low by a poisonous gas cloud from a hideous idol in the depths of the sunken keep at the bottom of Lake Moguera. The cloud also got Ritzy, but as a homanculous he was easily brought back around with a Cure spell and a Lightning Bolt.

There was some unfortunate interparty shenanigans in the wake of this tragedy, as Arongoth attempted to raise her corpse as a zombie, resulting in an undead werewolf rampage. With heavy hearts, the party had to re-kill her before she tore them to shreds.

Now, in prior Halloween celebration Creepy Crawls, raising a dead former comrade as a zombie is just part of the fun and makes for some boffo laffs. You just don't have that level of investment in a one shot character, so nobody takes it personally. In campaign play, I kinda think it was a dick move. Rael's player wasn't happy about it while it was happpening, and I had to have a word with Arongoth's player about it afterwards. Roleplaying is roleplaying, but there are some lines you don't cross with the actual people you're sitting around the table with. 

Anyway, they laid Rael to rest, and in the middle of the night her body was dug up by Isingrim the King of the Werewolves, a 50' tall white wolf who brought his own personal blizzard with him, and then carried off in his freezing jaws over the horizon to parts unknown. (My plan had been to have her return as an NPC. Since she'd conjured and eaten the magical heart of one of Isingrim's sons, she would now take the son's place as a possible patron or antagonist. Another plot thread that didn't get to go anywhere before the game ended. Alas.) 

Also of note, the party took care of the corpse jellies haunting the lake shore by using up the last of the Hook's charges and summoning a giant squid to crush them in its loopy tentacles. This had a mixed effect, as the bone bereft jellies ate into the squid's mass, mixing with its flesh and a cloud of ink it discharged to become essentially a black pudding. 

Wanting none of that, the party mounted up and headed back to Strangeldorf. 

I've been remiss in not posting the key to the submerged dungeon in Lake Moguera, so I'll do it here in honor of the memory of Rael. 

I used two Dyson Logos maps for this one. The upper level used the Red Willow Tower map. 1 is the area with dead trees to the E, the the rooms are numbered 2-6 going N to S, with 7 being the long wall facing W outside. (Again, I'm afraid you'll have to do some guesswork as to how the maps come together, 'cos I don't feel right posting Dyson's work here on my site. These maps are from his "Dyson's Delves" Books. Pick them up today, for all your on the quick dungeon mapping needs.)

A giant undead sturgeon swims around this sunken keep. HD 10+2, HP: 36, AC: 10, Bite: 2d10, Swallow on 18+ (Save vs. Paralysis or paralysed. Otherwise, atk -4 vs. AC7) Sv: F5
Morale 12, Mv: Swim 180(60).

Several Strangle Weeds lurk around the perimeter, each marked by a W. 
(Anyone using this key will just have to place them as they see fit.) 
HD: 3, HP: 12 Apiece, 10 fronds with 10 str. AC: 6.
Grabs out to 10’ with fronds. If fronds combined str more than victim, they do the difference in damage. Victim has 10% chance per point above frond’s Str to break loose. Those caught in fronds -2 to hit. They will squeeze until victim stops moving.

1: Undulating forests of greenish brown kelp wave in the area between the two rotted, mossy tree trunks that jut from the lake bottom. The door is concealed by the kelp from a distance, but can be found easily up close. It is held shut by water pressure, requiring a 1-2 on d6 to open. A stronger patch of Strangle Weed lurks by the door. HD: 4, HP: 18, AC: 6
12 Str 14 fronds.

2: This 20x30 room harbors a bubble of air that stays intact even if the door is opened. The room is damp, and spotted with mildew and decay. A corroded metal bedframe lies in the SW corner. Sprawled across it is a skeleton in a rotted canvas bodysuit and a spherical bronze helmet with a hinged glass panel hanging open in front. The left side of the suit is blackened with a splatter of mildew that looks as if it might have been blood at one time, with a shredded sleeve  dangling empty around a shattered arm bone. In the other hand it holds a broken shortsword. There are pouches on its belt, the contents of which are rotted and useless, save for a couple of gold pieces and a small clay tablet with broken off corner, inscribed with the words. “Tell them “Stone men of old, bring me the...””  The last word is lost with the missing corner of the tablet.  The helmet is magical, and generates breathable air from a white gemstone set in the  back of the dome. If the helmet is closed the air in the chamber will become stale in 1d10 days

3: This 50’x10’ hallway is full of air as well. Along the W wall is a flaking, chipping fresco depicting a lightly forested plain with a small lake. The hills in the background resemble the ones that surround the lake you are currently at the bottom of. There is a stout oak door held shut by chains and a padlock leading to 4. At the S end there is a secret door, disguised as a decorative arch with a wrought iron torch holder. If the torch holder is grasped and pulled on, this will open the secret door to 5

4: This room is full of air, with a 15’ wide staircase leading down that’s flooded up to the edge of the door with black, murky water.

5: Water will pour out of the door if this room is opened, leaving ankle deep water in 2,3, &4.  Roll Dex to stay on feet in initial wave. There is a copper plate on the floor, which when stepped on will cause a 3d6 dmg electrical shock every other round they remain on it. Several large, tar coated barrels are stacked in the E end of the room. Two contain a weak acid solution and some rods of copper and iron, and are attached to the copper plate in the floor via hidden wires. There are 16 barrels in total. They contain: 1: Vinegar, 2: Rancid Lard, 3: Moldy Flour 4: Fermented Fruit, 5: Half Rotted Salted Meat and Hunks of Bone 6: Fresh Water. There is an earthenware jug concealed among the barrels that contains  a Potion of Extra Healing. The door to 6 is unlocked but swollen shut with moisture, requiring a 1-2 on d6 to open.

6: More water will pour out of this door, flooding 2,3,4&5 a couple more inches. Inside is a modest bath, with a well in the NE corner and a stone washbasin with a drain in the SW. There’s a torch holder in the wall and some rotted pegs for clothing. By odd trick of physics, whatever is said in this room can be heard on the lake shore and vice versa, coming from the well.

7: Row of moss and weed covered stone soldiers lined up along the long wall. 14 of them intact, with others smashed and broken. If a magic phrase is spoken “Stone men of old, bring me the gold.”  they will animate and trudge off into the deeps of Lake Moguera. 1d8 turns later they will return bearing chests, which each contain 1-3: 200 gold pieces, 4: A golden crown worth 1200 gp 5: Empty 6: Green Slime (HD: 2, HP: 10, will digest on contact in 6 rounds (1d4 rounds before victim unsaveable) Affected by fire. Killed instantly by Cure Disease)

For the fateful, fatal lower level accessible via the stairs down in 4 I used The Hall of the Ghoul Prince, with numbers 1-6 being the hall and side rooms along the lower edge leading to the statue with 7 being the adjoining hallway, 8 being the room to the W from 7, and 9-14 being the upper row of rooms and halls, with 15 being the caved in room in the bottom SE corner. (Again, sorry to have to present it this way.) 

1:  At the bottom of the stairs you find a 20’ long, 10‘ wide corridor with an archway in the SE corner and a large stone block blocking a portal to the E. It has a circle with 9 squiggly lines ending in triangles carved in the face of it. You can see the end of two carved grooves sticking out from under the bottom of the stone. It requires at least two to push, requiring a 1+str on d6 to open. Checking for traps will find there’s a slot above the block that‘s large enough for a sword blade to pass thru. If a sword isn’t left in the slot, a clay jar will drop from a hole in the cieling and fill the entry with a stinging gas that will blind anyone who fails a save vs. paralysis (-4 to hit, 1/2 move, no range/spells)

2: Beyond the arch you find a small 10‘x10’ chamber with a dias at the center. A round coffer sits atop it, its lid sealed in wax with a large, lustrous pink pearl set in the center (250 gp). Inside you will find 110 gold nuggets of roughly coin size. Sitting cross legged behind the coffer against the wall is a four armed skeleton. It is wired together with bronze wire and bolts, and holds a quartet of bronze blades in its bony hands. It will attack if the coffer is touched. Bone Golem: HD: 8, HP: 36, AC: 2, Dmg: 1d8x4 (Cutlasses) up to 2 opponents, Mv: 120(40), Sv: F4, Ml: 12. Immune to ordinary weapons, cold, electricity, & fire, immune to hold, charm, sleep.

3: This 20’x20’ room is lined with marble, and there are two verdigris covered brass pillars in the NE corner, which have ring attachments for manacles at arm and ankle level. A corroded iron gong lies against the S wall, its mounting ropes long since rotted. There‘s a roughly carved staircase leading down in the NW corner and a hallway leading 40’  to an doorway S leading to 4. A corroded helmet of ancient design lies on the floor in front of the alcove. The hall is decorated with a hideous bas relief carving of chained captives being led toward a large, circular, fanged mouth surrounded by long necked serpents.  Beyond the doorway is a set of bronze steps leading down to 5.

4: This 10X10 alcove is empty, save for a broken bronze sword and a bronze disk shield painted with a stylized tooth motif. The sword‘s point is wedged in a chink in the wall by the doorway, while its top half and hilt lies on the floor. The shield is propped in the corner. It will need rope or leather straps added to be useful.

5: This 20’x20‘ room is plated in verdegris green bronze. There’s a 5‘x15’ recess along most of the S wall, which contains a row of bronaze statues depicting female figures with oddly reptilian features, their hands raised and mouths open in song, revealing forked tongues. They‘re built into the platform and can’t be removed. The floor is tiled in black marble, and each tile stepped on will cause one of the statues to let out a muted tone. (This would be louder if the chamber wasn‘t flooded.) It’s still appreciably loud and cacophonous, causing Confusion for 1d4 rounds if more than a turn is spent here and a save vs. spell is failed. There are serpent decorated archways to the N and E.

6: This hallway is 20‘ long, and is in black marble decorated with green bronze serpents. At the end is a green bronze idol with an alter in front of it. The idol is a horrible, hunched body resembling a cross between a lion and a crocodile, with a shark-like maw set in its chest ringed with 9 hissing serpent heads. You see the glint of silver inside the central maw. There are 700 sp worth of fish shaped trinkets inside. If the altar is stepped on (which is the only way to examine or access the maw) the serpent heads will vomit forth an inky cloud that is deadly poison, Save vs. Poison or die in 1 turn. The poison will spread down the hall 10’ a turn until it reaches 5, where it will dissipate harmlessly. The cloud will disappear in 1d4 rounds after it‘s achieved its full spread. (This is what got Rael & Ritzy. Save or die poison is a helluva way to go.)

7: This roughly carved corridor curves slightly to the NE, ending in a set of rough steps down to 9. A stone slab blocks a doorway to 8 (1 on a d6 to move). There are large gouges in the narrow part of the curve that could be claw marks of some kind.

8: This room is 15’X15’, with a set of stairs occupying the NW corner that lead down into what would be some kind of pool if the chamber weren’t flooded. The water in this area is greenish and glows slightly. If entered, human characters will experience a permanent transformation  every round until they leave. Lose 1d4 pts Charisma until bottom out at 3. Only a Wish can reverse this transformation. Roll d12 for each change.
01: Scaly skin (natural 8 AC) 
02: Slitted eyes with nictating membrane (can see in dark 60’) 
03: Gills, can breathe underwater, 
04: Claws: 1d4 dmg, 
05: All hair falls out, 
06: Finned Tail (Swim: 180’(60’) 
07: Spiny crest on head and down back. 
08: Lose 1d4 pts Int. 
09: Gain 1d4 pts Con, 
10: Gain 1d4 pts Str, 
11: Develop Throat Sac (holds 10 lbs), 
12: Unhingeable, sharp toothed jaws (1d6 damage). 

9: This large, natural cavern is roughly 70’ EW by 30’ NS. Shards of clay pottery and broken partial skeletons litter the floor among the coating of dull moss being fed on by small, blind cave fish and crawfish. More claw marks like the ones in 7 can be seen on the walls. At the far E end you see a set of crude stairs leading down. Just before it (where it crosses with 10 above) there is a pit trap that will set off if the entire group walks on it. (less than 3 people can cross safely). It drops victims 20 ft (2d6 dmg) and snaps shut above them. The underside of the doors are covered in sharp spikes, that will do 1d6 damage to anyone attempting to push it open.

10: The hallway is plain worked stone for the first 30‘. After passing a decorative arch, the following 20’ features a mosaic tiled floor featuring some sort of monstrous reptilian mermaid earth goddess of smooth river pebbles, with several gemstones set in the design. The largest is a dazzling blue jasper set in the creatures chest worth 750 gp. The others are worth (25gp, 50 gp, 75 gp, 10gp, 10 gp). Beyond the mosaic is a stone door that opens in either direction when pushed on.

11:  This 20’x25’ room contains a bronze smithy, with a long cooled forge occupying the SW secttor. There are clay molds for making swords, spear points, and shields, corroded tools for working the metal, and a stack of copper and tin ingots in the NW corner. There are also 2 large clay jars, one sealed in wax and marked with the alchemical symbol for arsenic, and one stoppered with a clay plug that holds 800 SP worth of silver nuggets.

12: At the bottom of the steps you find a 10‘ entry hall with the twisted, verdigris green wreckage of a portcullis laying on the floor. It looks as if it were shoved open from inside based on how it was bent. The area above the arch is unstable, and will cave in on anyone who first passes thru it (Save vs. Paralysis or take 2d6 dmg). Beyond is a vaulted chamber 90’ NS and 20’ EW. There’s a crumbling archway directly across from the entry and a stone door in the SE corner. Shattered, ancient bones and bronze adzes and pickaxe heads are scattered across the floor. A triumphant arch carved with fish tailed serpents spans the middle of the chamber. The keystone is set with three lozenges of lapis lazuli (75 gp apiece) surrounding a large, stunningly clear quartz crystal (500 gp). At the base of the serpents are open topped stone chests each containing 400 gold trinkets in the shape of human faces contorted in fear (800). The stone door in the SE is set with a similar design to the keystone of the arch in large, polished malachite chunks (25 gp, 25 gp, 100 gp) The crumbling doorway, jingling the coins, or prying out the stones will attract the Devourer from its lair.

13:  A mound of bone gnawed to shards and bits occupies the center of this claw marked  20’ x 20’ chamber. At its center, 1d4 of its heads unsleeping in a state of ravenous hunger, is The Devourer (Thessal Hydra), HD: 9, HP: 72, AC: 5, 9 bites 1d10 victims must save vs. paralysis to break free or be dragged in close to center maw for bite (1 per round, if miss can attempt again), Central Maw: 3d6, swallow whole on 18+ those inside belly take 1d8 per round, can atk with dagger at -4, Each head has 8 hp, Mv: 120(40), Sv: F9, ML: 9. In a 10’ alcove beyond the beast’s main nest is a stone slab blocking a doorway. The edges of the slab show years of wear from the creature’s horrible teeth.

14:  There is a small chamber beyond the door, 10’X10’, that features a 1’ lip around a bottomless seeming pit in the floor. It goes down at least 100’, and becomes increasingly colder the deeper down you go, doing 1d4 dmg per round at 50’, 1d6 dmg/rnd at 75’, and 1d8 dmg/rnd at the bottom. A 20’ diameter round chamber of rough, natural stone lies at the bottom, with a stony shelled egg about 3’ across sitting in a hollow in the floor. If brought to the surface another Devourer will hatch. It is 1/3 the HD/strength of its sibling.

15: This chamber was richly decorated, judging from the bright mosaics and bronze tiles on the intact part of the floor. A cave in has crushed much of the contents of the SE corner. There is a bronze serpent with a fish’s head and gaping mouth in the NE corner, which transmit sounds from 5 into this room. You see the shattered bones of a humanoid wearing an ornate headdress and carrying a staff, both destroyed, crushed beneath the stones of the cave in. 

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 50

Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Rael – Lvl 6 Thief/Werewolf
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter

Henching:
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus

Monsters Mashed:

Morgus the Malevolent – 9th Lvl Magic User – Teleported into the party’s sights and exploded with Magic Missiles
1000 EXP/6.5 players = 153 apiece

Morgus’ Manticores – Chopped, zapped, shot in the tail resulting in a perforated cranium, winged with an arrow, brought down over Lake Moguera
1960 EXP/6.5 players = 301 apiece

The Bone Golem – Chopped up and magic missiled.
2065 EXP/6.5 players = 317 apiece

Loot Gained:
2nd amulet bearing Morgus’ mark.
1 poisoned dagger.
1 Coffer with a large pearl in the lid (250 gp) containing 110 gp worth of gold nuggets.
360 EXP/6.5 players = 55 apiece

TOTAL EXP: 826 EXP apiece
Remember. If your character hunched, they get ½ that amount.

Commentary:

After the last session's calamitous sundering of the party, the players turned everything around with the marvelous power of their one remaining Wish spell from the rose decorated ring. After considering the best wording for what they wanted, they decided to wish that the party, at full health and spells and totally unpetrified, as well as their long distance antagonist Morgus the Malevolent, were all together on the shores of Lake Moguera. (Serves me right for granting wishes to a player group composed of 90% computer programmers.)

With a sparkle of magic and a canned harp sound effect the party appeared in full fighting trim along with Morgus, who barely had time to summon a couple of manticore minions to his aid before the party dropped him like a mis-flipped pancake and ended his threat once and for all. (Actually, I later laid some groundwork for his return, but the campaign ended before I could act on it.)

The battle with the manticores was brief and decisive. The tail shot/head strike was a particularly heinous natural 20, I believe. 

Having spent their wishes and wasted their enemies, the party scrummed up and went back under the lake, this time in a full group, to plunder the sunken ruins. They got down the submerged stairs and battled the bone golem guarding a coffer full of treasure before the session ended. 

Stay tuned for more. Things ain't done bein' bumpy yet.
 

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Sessions 48 and 49

Creepy Crawl 48
Attending:
FULL HOUSE!
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Rael – Lvl 6 Thief/Werewolf
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus

Monsters Mashed:
7 Corpse Jellies – Magic Missiled, Arrowed, and Fireballed.
210 EXP/4 Players – 52 EXP for Vlad, Rael, Arongoth, Tarvinir

Creepy Crawl 49
Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Rael – Lvl 6 Thief/Werewolf
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr/Lawn Ornament
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter

Henching:
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus

Items Acquired by Greed, Tysis, and Ritzy: A bronze helmet that seems to generate air.

A clay tablet that bears the cryptic message: “Tell them: “Stone Men of Old, bring me the…” The end of the message is obscured because it’s broken off.

And speaking of not getting the message:

Events of note:
Arongoth, Rael, and a petrified Vlad are galloping more or less in the direction of Strangledorf, having encountered an owlbear and a medusa sent by Morgus on the road.

Tarvinir is lurking in the bushes above the basin of Lake Mogeura.
Greed, Ritzy, and Tysis have descended the stairs deeper beneath the sunken keep and are now faced with either pushing open the stone slab to the E or messing with the coffer and its 4 armed skeletal guardian.

Commentary:

I have never been so ticked off at a table full of players as I was at the fustercluck that ensued over these two sessions. 

Sometimes hints don't work, I guess. Or maybe I was just operating on assumptions and that made an ass out of my umptions. 

There's a rule of thumb, mostly kind of meta-functional, that old schooley types like to repeat, and I think that was one of the suppositions I was operating on: 

DO NOT SPLIT THE PARTY!

Your characters are weaker alone than they are as a team. The rules are generally not calibrated such that a lone person or a small group of 3 or less can take on a lot of the threats you'll encounter. You have to be very smart, or very lucky, to be able to solo it.

Also, you're sitting at a table full of people. It makes it harder on the single guy who has to serve you the world if you're splitting up the team like the frikkin' Mystery Patrol from Scooby Doo. It's bad form. It makes things confusing and slows down the game. Whatever segment of the group who's not in the spotlight of the DM's attention is sitting unoccupied and possibly bored as they wait their turn. 

Plus it breaks immersion (pun semi intended), because if you don't split up the physical, real world group around the table, then their characters are privy to stuff they just wouldn't have knowledge of without telepathy or some kinda remote TV feed.

It's a bad idea. Don't do it!

 So anyway, what happened is the party had this map leading to a treasure under the surface of Lake Moguera. So the party's offensive line, namely Tysis the fighter and the two Homanculi Greed and Ritzy get set up with Water Breathing spells from the magic Hook and the Mermaid Cutlass and wade in to check it out. 

The rest of the party decides to camp out on the lake shore and wait for them. Even though there are plenty of Water Breathing spells available. 

So already we're in "What are they thinking?" kinda territory. Okay, lets explore the dungeon. Half the group will wait here by the door while the rest of you go in. 

What frikkin' game are we playing here? 

I think part of it was an irrational stinginess I've occasionally seen from players about magic item use. I've seen players hold on to item charges and potions and scrolls and never use them even onto the point of being masticated by monsters because they don't want to "waste" them.

They're there to be used! The DM put them there as possible answers to the questions posed as they explore the various scenarios they find themselves in. If you sit on this stuff and never use it it's pretty much the same as if it had never been introduced into the game at all. 

If you stock up your pantry, you gotta eat the food eventually, or else you're just setting up an elaborate and expensive compost heap.

I think that was part of what was going on. We don't want to waste Water Breathing spells, even though we're here on the edge of a lake that holds an amount of treasure, even after we've left the coastal city and are halfway into a trek up into the frikkin' Alps. As in the mountains, where lots of water isn't. Oy gevalt.

The other factor was that some members of the party had chosen... counterproductive characterizations for their characters. Arongoth had committed to playing an amoral scumbag who didn't really care about his companions. (Always a charming pose to take when playing with a group who are ostensibly your friends.) Vlad had decided his character was a coward, strongly inclined to not going into dangerous situations. Thus he chose a characterization that made his character not inclined to do the main thing the characters are supposed to be doing. Kind of like playing Scrabble but deciding you hate spelling. 

So anyway, to nudge the group on the shore into maybe joining their companions down under the lake, I send some monsters at 'em, since the hard, fightery types were all below while the squishy spellcasters and thieves were up top. A bunch of corpse jellies, essentially oozes piloting skeletons around, came ashore and menaced our campers. 

BTW, the corpse jellies are the throbbing brainchild of Patrick Wetmore of Henchman Abuse, the mad genius behind the Anomalous Subsurface Environment, which is a fantastic gonzo megadungeon campaign and one of very few campaign worlds not originated in my own brainpan that I would jump at running if I had the chance. 

So anyway, rather than taking the hint that it was a bad idea for the delicate subset of the party to separate from their meatshields, the shore side group decided to mount up and make a run for Strangeldorf, which I clearly informed them was still a couple days away. All while the rest of the team was exploring a dangerous dungeon under a lake. 

Which is about as split as a party can get. 

Even worse, the player playing Tarvinir the mage kinda grokked my displeasure at their proposal to scatter the party all over the map and decided to stay, and so wound up as a solitary mage hiding in the shrubs from the shambling skellies in jelly that would occasionally patrol the shore. 

Nothing I threw up in their way could deter our errant party members (I use the term party member here very loosely.) They rode past a medusa from Morgus, who petrified Vlad in the saddle as they thundered past. They blasted past a frikkin' owlbear. Every thing I could think of to say "Stop! Turn back and regroup!" was being met with "We must keep running home!"  

*Sigh*...

Tune in next week as we scrape up the scattered pieces of the campaign and put it back on track... 

Happy Independence Day!

Remember to leave some milk and cookies out for Captain America tonight!

Not really my joke, but I read it on the 'net somewhere and thought it was good enough to use here!

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 47

Attending:
FULL HOUSE!
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Rael – Lvl 6 Thief/Werewolf
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 5 Dampyr
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus

Monsters Mashed:

Morgus’ Monetary Manticore: Zapped with lightning bolt and slashed with sword.
980 EXP/7 players = 140 EXP apiece

Giant Sturgeon:
850 EXP/7 players = 121 EXP apiece

TOTAL:
261 EXP apiece.

1 Wish has been used, with Rael acquiring a huge, half frozen wolf heart which she promptly ate.

You acquired a small steel amulet with a symbol of a skull with a curled snake’s tail on it from the dead manticore.

Commentary:

In this session the players made their way back to Strangeldorf, but got side tracked quite a bit.

Morgus the Malevolent sent another monstrous collection agent to wring the long spent cash from Count Gore De Vol's crypt out of them, and yet again they torched it in pretty short order.

They somehow realized (I don't recall how, perhaps DM prompting.) that the rosebud ring was actually a Ring of Wishes, and used one of them up on Rael's desire to have better control over her werewolfly transformations. It's not often a Wish conjures a colossal chilled canine coronary muscle out of thin air and this is seen as a good thing. Or is it?

Finally they took a side trip to Lake Moguera to check up on a treasure map they'd acquired that claimed to point to a large treasure beneath the murky waters. An excursion sub-party waded into the lake and discovered a sunken keep guarded by a gigantic sturgeon, which they fought and defeated.

And that's where this session wrapped up.

Tune in Friday for some sturm and drang.

The Creepy Crawl Chronicles - Session 46

Attending:
Greed – Lvl 5 Homanculus
Rael – Lvl 6 Thief/Werewolf
Vlad Draculastein – Lvl 4 Dampyr
Tarvinir – Lvl 5 Magic User
Arongoth of Hogendaus – Lvl 6 Cleric/Vegetable

Henching:
Tysis – Lvl 5 Fighter
Ritzy – Lvl 5 Homanculus

No monsters mashed or new loot gained.
Arongoth purchased 2 more doses of Mandrake Powder from a dubious Lew Kelp, and you passed on buying an awesome (slightly damaged) used hearse for your travels back to Strangledorf.

What we learned:
Having turned the staff over to the Occluded College, Tarvinir is now a fully accepted member in good standing. He may get any items identified for free, and is expected to keep notes of his travels and record any magical phenomena for the OC’s libraries.

Rael is still a champion boozer, Arongoth can hold his own and anyone looking directly at his face will just pass it off as DT’s, Tarvinir should stay away from the hard likker and don’t turn up drunk where somebody might id you as an accessory to a magical axe murder.

Items identified.

Lord Bragg’s Sword and the two swords labed “Knowledge” and “Enterprise” are all +1 swords

Arongoth possesses a set of Bracers of Armor (AC 8)

The mermaid sword is +1 and bestows Water Breathing as long as you keep it clenched between your teeth.

Tarvenir’s fancy cloud embroidered boots are Boots of Levitation

The Hook has 14 charges, and can bestow Water Breathing (1 Charge) Summon 1d4 Great White Sharks (1 charge, immerse in salt water) Summon 1 giant squid (2 charges, immerse in salt water) or summon 1 Water Elemental.

The citris smelling potion in the china bottle is a Potion of ESP. The cut-grass smelling one is a Potion of Plant Control. The two potions you have from Von Rattschmid’s lab are a Potion of Giant Strength and a Potion of Super Heroism. The walking stick with the secret compartments you found in the Spider Wolf’s lair has a flask containing Oil of Slipperiness.

The “hydro-pump” is a Decanter of Endless Water. It can be set to give 1 gallons/ round, a 5’ stream at 5 gallons/round, or a 20’ long, 1’ wide stream at 30 gallons/round. You can select between salt or fresh water, and you can shut it off as well. The water jet blast can kill small creatures like rats or insects.

Commentary:

So not much action in this section. The party got back to Kroenenberg, turned in Koendar's Staff and Tarvinir got inducted into the Occluded College. Immediately he used his membership privileges to get everybody's accumulated stuff identified, so this email was mostly a breakdown of the party's magical junk.  

Otherwise, the session saw some Carousing to round out their visit to Kroenenberg, and the party made ready to head back to Strangeldorf.