"According to Mighty and Illustrious, Xyzzifax"
Our Heroes:
- Braeden (Human Ranger) played by Battletech Terry
- Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
- Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon
- The Mighty Xyzzifax (Human-ish Wizard) played by Blaster
- Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will
- Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David
All are level 4 at this point. We begin on Day 51 of the campaign.
The party sleeps, telling stories, with Minion Kentor cooking more of his disastrous chili, which once again incapacitates minion Malice.
This has become the accepted cover story when a player is absent - bad chili renders them out of action. Inigo misses most sessions so he doesn't get a specific cover story. It's just assumed he's lurking somewhere nearby with his own agenda and just pops up now and then.
In the morning, Xyzzifax attempts to utilize his new artifact, the crystal ball of true sight! Attempting to scry their old foe, the hobgoblin (or was it a bugbear?) chief from the moathouse, and finds that he has been killed. Good, such fate befalls all who dare cross the mighty Xyzzifax.
As the group reenters the tower, they proceed through the trapdoor, and continue exploring. A secret door opens into a small passageway with an ascending staircase.
The party finds a broom.
Minion Samson touches it.
The party holds their breath but nothing bad happens.
The party proceeds through the passage and up another trapdoor which opens into a circular shaft, covered in very old spider webs. The room is searched, but no spiders are found.
A singular passageway leads off. Minion Bubo surveils the passage, finding a door, and another passage to a room with statues of monsters.
The party moves up to investigate the door. The door opens into a triangular room, with eyes depicting various negative emotions of hate and fear painted on the wall.
A stairwell, and 4 doors are present, with a fire pit and large gong dominating the center of this strange room.
 |
| Party approaches from the south. The gong is in 314, giant is in 318, and the rest are scattered about the other rooms. |
Minion Kentor hears deep voices behind one of the doors, but fails to recognize the language. Minions Lantor, Braedon and Samson move up to quietly cut down the gong, wrapping it in Xyzzifax’s cloak. More low voices are heard at 2 more doors, although Minion Braedon listens at the final door; and hears snoring. Xyzzifax advises his minions to quietly enter this door first, and dispatch the evil that no doubt lies within.
Xyzzifax unlocks the door, and upon opening it, the party sees a hill giant sleeping in the corner, and a dire wolf that is awake and alert, gnawing on a bone! The wolf howls, immediately waking the giant and alerting the forces of evil to their presence. The party retreats back into the triangular room, with Xyzzifax loosing a fire bolt at the dire wolf.
In short order, all hell breaks loose.
In mere seconds, all 4 doors are sprung open, the giant and his wolf being joined by 2 bugbear chieftans, 6 bugbears, and 4 ogres, the shortest of which is some sort of shaman.
Minion Samson is struck down by a mighty blow from an ogre, but is quickly healed by the cleric, and thrown behind the frontline of fighters. Blows are exchanged as the party retreats further to a bottleneck hallway. Xyzzifax reads a scroll of stinking cloud, causing many of the misters to begin retching and reeling, while proving cover for Xyzzifax and his minions.
The ogre shaman summons a spiritual weapon to beat on minion Jaric. Who in turn sends his spiritual weapon after a retreating bugbear chief.
I do love the idea of two spiritual weapons being summoned by opposing casters the zooming around a room beating on things ...
The stinking cloud allows the party to focus their efforts, with the 2 ogres and their shaman, as well as the giant and the wolf retreating as they retch from the noxious fumes. In short order, all but the ogre shaman, a single ogre, the giant, and his wolf are left.
Minions Kentor and Lantor sprint through the cloud, having consumed potions of speed, ambushing the shaman, felling him in seconds with a flurry of blows.
The cowardly giant, his wolf, and the remaining ogre flee from the might of the mighty Xyzzifax (and his minions).
The party elects not to pursue, and falls back to the tower.
This session was mostly one big fight but it started with some cautious exploration and then escalated dramatically from there. A lot of the fun I am having is watching the guys poke around an old school dungeon waiting for death to leap out from behind something.
Stinking could is remarkably effective in this version of the game. I will need to pay more attention to that in the future. In fact a lot of this campaign is the DM re-learning how 5E-type spells work - often at the expense of that session's monsters. I am making notes for my own lurking spellcasters though so there will be payback one day.
Another thing I am being reminded of is that one of the biggest brakes on combat resolution time is when the DM has to run a bunch of different monsters. In this case I was running:
- A hill giant
- A worg
- An ogre shaman
- Some ogres
- A bugbear chief
- Some bugbears
No comments:
Post a Comment