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.