Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 28 - The Fire Temple

 

Our Heroes:

• 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
• Braeden (Human Ranger) played by Battletech Terry
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

 The party is level 5-6 at this point. This account is mainly written by Malice. The Cleric and the Mechanist are out this session. We begin on Day 73 of the campaign.

Malice rejoins the group at Hommlet, and we briefly discuss whether we should engage the Earth temple or the Fire temple. As Jaric and Samson are staying behind for a few days to take care of the prisoners, we opt to go and fight what we are expect to be our way to the fire temple. Before our journey, we eat the traditional bowls of breakfast chili, and Braedon tells Malice stories of what she’d missed.

Entering the the temple goes smoothly, and we get to the doors we were wanting to use to start our exploration without running into any denizens of the Temple in transit. We try the doors, and find a small unoccupied room, and a stairway leading down. We don’t take it yet, but it is always good to have another path. Instead, we take a side hallway, that doubles back on itself, but over its length inexorably leads further into the part of the temple where we expect to find the cult of elemental fire.

We get to a door, which with Samson gone, it is Xyzzifax that examines it see if it is trapped. It is not, but then the door’s lock bests the mighty wizard. Malice recommends walking around through the main hall, and try the door that seems to be on the other side of the room. Bubo is sent to check a side passage, where there are a number of objects blocking the hall – a folding screen and hanging lines. At the other other door, the lock once again is more than Xyzzifax can pick, so we go to Sir Lantor and trust in his brute strength. And, the door withstands it! Then, Sir Kentor tries to break the lock, charging with his magic shield. That too is stopped! Even Braedon helping isn’t enough. Finally, Malice has enough of the doors, and casts Shatter on them, to blow door open.

The room has a floor of white marble, and vaulted ceiling sheathed in alabaster. A cloudy crystal substance is set into the northern portion of the east wall. Xyzzifax opens his arcane senses, and the whole of the room has a minor magical effect, but it is stronger where the sheet is. Malice tosses a copper into the room – it clatters to the ground and lays there. And then Braedon shoots an arrow at the crystal, and it doesn’t do much to it. Then, Xyzzifax sends a skeleton in.

As the skeleton approaches the crystal, it glows, and there is a calming sound. Two radiant creatures appear, and can see us. They ask what beings like us are doing in a place like this. Sir Kentor strides in, and says that we are here to protect the land from the evil that is growing here. The angelic beings claim that this place was put here by the gods as an area of respite. While Malice just suspects them on general principle, Xyzzifax’s sense of the magic is that the room is a place of safety, and Sir Kentor can tell that the beings are serious. Xyzzifax asks where they are, and the respond that they are on another plane. Sir Kentor says that they offered aid, and they offer a short ritual enchantment to just might to enhance our weapons – for seven hours. And they can only help like this once per seven days. Xyzzifax asks how much they can enchant, and they say anything in the room. Xyzzifax has the skeletons deposit their bows in the room. Braedon puts in both of his short swords, and a bandolier of three daggers. We put in the spare suit of plate armor. Malice puts in a vial of poison. Sir Kentor puts in his hammer, and Braedon tries to put in all of his arrow, but Malice takes half and gives them back.

We close the door, and wait for the seventy seven seconds that the ritual will take. And then we open the door… to an empty room. “It’s so evil, you have to respect it.” Xyzzifax says. The suit of plate armor and the one of Braedon’s short swords that was magic are the greatest losses. Sir Kentor knocks on the crystal. Malice attempts to cast shatter, and the spell doesn’t go off. Sir Lantor strikes it with his blade, and it bounces off – the blow having no effect. Before we head out, Xyzzifax gives Braedon a magical and a silver dagger, so he can have melee weapons if it is important.

This is one of the more hilarious, triumphant moments of the campaign for me as a DM. Through my clearly amazing DM skills I managed to convince a party with people who have been doing this for 20-30-40+ years (almost as long as I have) to trust strange beings a couple of levels down inside a ruined temple of EVIL enough to leave a bunch of weapons and armor in a room and walk out for the chance of them being "enchanted"! For a few hours! I think the paladin blew his check to look for deception here too which helped. They all kind of knew it was probably a scam but they still left a pretty good pile of stuff. This is one of several very old-school kinds of things that I never expected to amount to much with a group nowadays but it did and watching their reactions was a lot of fun. 

On the possibility of getting more information on the room, we make our way down the side hallway that has some items blocking the path. We push our way past, and come to a sizable room. There are a group of bugbears, and a human sitting in a large and ornate chair. They start by each hurling a multitude of javelins at Sir Kentor, and his magic armor and shield are enough to fend off all but two. Then, the melee is joined, or, as it happens, the missile fire continues with Braedon shooting the armored man, and them continuing to hurl javelins, this time with Sir Lantor taking a hit. And melee waits longer as Xyzzifax lights up the room with a fireball, seriously wounding a majority of the bugbears.

I don't know if we go a single session without a fireball from this point forward unless the wizard misses a game

Malice gives them the opportunity of not quite surrender – if they swear allegiance to Lord Xyzzifax they might survive. She does call out a few to beware of to her allies, and coaches Sir Lantor’s attacks. Then, at long last, melee is truly joined as Sir Kentor then Sir Lantor charge into the room. “Judgement falls upon you this day.” Sir Kentor booms as he swings his new magical blade “Zwei Hinzufugen” at the human in plate, and he too is terribly wounded. And Sir Lantor swings his mighty blade, and kills a quartet of them. That leaves only the strongest bugbear and the terribly wounded leader. The evil leader proves to have a flaming sword, and he slashes Sir Kentor – who is healed by Malice.

Then, the man in black plate takes an arrow to the eye from Braedon, and is slain quickly. A second arrow finds its way home in the bugbear as well. Then, that bugbear makes a run for it, and though Sir Lantor swings at his back, the creature is fast on his feet as he flees. Xyzzifax darts into the room, and to the door where the bugbear had ran. There is another room that the bugbear probably fled into, and though he can’t see the bugbear, he hurls a fireball into that room. The skeletons move up to where they can see him, and throw javelins. Malice races forward just far enough to get a glance at where the bugbear had run.

Hey they were moving fast so I had to draw quick! My lines are usually straighter than this!

This lavishly furnished chamber is lit by many candles that were lit by the fireballs. Tapestries on the walls show travesties committed with fire. An ornate chair is in the room, and a trio of doors on the far wall. Sir Kentor charges after the bugbear, and then does a short range teleport to get in front of the bugbear. Then, he goes to work with Zwei, and the bugbear is slashed as well. Then Sir Lantor charges it, and by the time he is done the bugbear is killed.

Malice presses her friends to keep it going, there is only a limited time left on her magic. Braeden sprints into the room, and gets to the far west door, and finds that it is locked. Xyzzifax sends skeletons to check the other two doors, and finds that they are both locked as well. So, we pause, and search the rooms. We find the bugbears have gold coins on their persons, and the human leader has a gold chain. Then, Sir Kentor sheathes the flametongue sword, and takes it himself. Zwei may end up in somebody else’s hands.

The paladin will use this for the rest of the campaign

Xyzzifax picks the westernmost lock, and Sir Kentor opens the door. It is a smaller room, and Xyzzifax enters and reaches out with his arcane senses. He finds a book that describes the elemental plane of fire, and a bone scroll case with a scroll of protection from fiends within.

Then, the middle door is unlocked by our wizard, and once again the paladin opens it with the warrior watching his back. The smallish room looks like a siting chamber, with a small brass bound chest. A quick check of the chest reveals some worthless garments and some coinage, as well as a potion. Xyzzifax hands what turns out to be magical poison over to Malice.

The process with the door is repeated at the final door, revealing a bedroom, there are boxes, chests, wardrobes, and a desk to investigate. In total, they reveal a partially written note, a sack with gold, an expected amount of clothing and some non magical equipment. Surprisingly, there is nothing magical to be found, but there is an extravagant robe. Xyzzifax finds the red silk robe with golden skulls on its black and sleeves, with the eight pointed symbol of the fire cult embroidered on the front pleasing. He takes it for himself, and puts it on.

Xyz will relentlessly troll the higher-ups of the temple with stuff like this throughout the campaign, taking their ornate robes and wearing them and calling it out regularly. Again, imagine this kind of thing in The Mighty Monarch's voice.

We check the final door before making our way back to the double doors that very likely lead to the heart of the fire temple. It turns out that it takes a long run to the south, most likely part of that long run that Bubo explored some time ago. Xyzzifax sends Bubo down this long hallway, so we can confirm that this is the other side of it.

And so it is time! We head to the double doors that we expect to lead to the grand hallway to the fire temple. We take a few minutes to prepare, and while we’re there we can tell that the hinges are well greased and look to have seen much use. The long hallway to the next set of double doors leading to the temple itself. The temple is huge, and its south side is dominated by an altar and a giant fire pit. Tapestries adorn the northern wall. A brass tube is suspended from the ceiling, and there are stands of brass with charcoal. There are a pair of cauldrons with ladles. Atop the altar is the eight pointed fire symbol inlaid in gold. In the room are two ranks of bugbears, elementals, priests, and even the hill giant.

The fire temple knew they were coming. This is one of the bigger fights of the campaign.

We prepared poisoned weapons and fire resistance, and they prepared for us as well. The fire fanatic moves forward, and unleashes an unholy bolt at Sir Kentor, but his magical shields are too strong. The hill giant flings a huge bag at Sir Lantor. It hits with a thud, and he is covered with a foul smelling goo. And, the bugbears hurl spears at the knights and the skeletons. Only one is able to graze Sir Lantor, another damages a skeleton, and Sir Kentor weathers the barriage unharmed. Malice calls on the magic of her voice to empower the group, as Braedon casts protection from elementals on Sir Lantor. Xyzzifax casts haste on Sir Lantor.

The fire elementals charge, one Sir Kentor and the other on the short line of skeletons. One of the skeletons ignites, and then he continues forward, leaving a trail of fire behind him. And while Sir Kentor fends off the creature’s blows, he is surrounded by a bonfire. One of the clerics moves forward and blesses the Hill Giant, the High Priest, and the Fanatic. Sir Lantor has one of the fire elementals right in front of him, so he tears into it with the greatsword. The damage to to it is evident. But, engaging a being of pure fire is a painful experience, and Sir Lantor’s skin blisters. The High Priest walks forward, calling a swirling orb of fire around himself. His mace bursts into flame, and he looks at Xyzzifax and accuses him of wearing his robe in his own temple!

See?

Sir Kentor drives Zwei into the damaged flame elemental, and disincorporates it. The fanatic attempts to Hold Sir Kentor, and his faith is too strung. The Hill Giant charges Sir Kentor as well, and he is powerful enough to ward off its blows. Then, the bugbears try to close up with us, but the fields of fire created by the elementals make it more difficult for them. Still, they are able to destroy a skeleton. More bugbears throw javelins, and another skeleton is felled. But, the three bugbears that close with the skeletons, but he is able to fend them all off.

Malice casts greater hold on the Hill Giant, and he is paralyzed! Braedon misty steps away from the fire elemental, and puts a pair of magical arrows into it. Though one of the arrows was right dead of center, the elemental is still standing. Xyzzifax takes to the air, and uses the wand of fireballs. They seem more resistant to it than normal, here in the temple of fire. Many of the bugbears are lightly damage, and some take no damage at all. The giant is the only one that seems to take full damage from the fire. Neither the fanatic nor the high priest are harmed at all by the fire. The two remaining skeletons throw javelins at the Fanatic, but its armor protects.

I asked him what he was expecting using a fireball in the Temple of Fire and all and he snarked that it still did some damage

The fire elemental makes a burning charge at Malice and Braeden, but only Braeden is set ablaze. The cleric rushes across the temple, just in time for Sir Lantor to charge the paralyzed giant. He is a blizzard of slashes with the massive blade, and in a fountain of blood and grievous slashes of meat, the hill giant is slain. The high priest walks up slowly. Xyzzifax is too near to the ceiling for the orb of fire to hit him, but both of the Knights and the lone remaining skeleton are within its blaze. Even with the fire resistance, Sir Kentor is fairly damaged, though Malice’s magic does provide some healing. Then, he closes with the high priest, calling forth the judgement of vengeance on the servant of evil fire. And, with a stroke of luck, the blow from Zwei finds its way home.

The Fanatic closes with the Paladin, swishing a glowing, curved dagger in an intimidating manner. The bugbears charge in, except for a pair that throw javelins at Xyzzifax. He casts shield, and in the instant is protected. The bugbears continue to fail to be able to get through the Paladin’s defenses, but one is able to hit Sir Lantor. But, he parries the blow, so only is left with a strained wrist. But, a skeleton is destroyed by their effort.

Malice checks with Braedon to see if he can handle this fight with the elemental. He says yes, so she turns invisible, and moves into position to be able to lightning. Braeden casts protection from elementals on himself, and moves back to give himself range. Xyzzifax drops to ground level, and sends a lightning bolt across the back rank of enemies – hitting the High Priest, the Priest, the Fanatic, and two bugbears. Those bugbears are badly damaged, and the shock was enough to break the priest’s concentration on the bless that he had been maintaining. More than that, he is bloodied as well.

At least someone was thinking. With two arcane casters in the party it was bound to happen ...

The fire elemental streaks through the last skeleton, destroying it, and clubs at Sir Lantor from behind, and then engulfs him. Sir Lantor is on fire! The cleric drops back and attempt to cast Hold on Xyzzifax, and he simply counterspells the attempt. Sir Lantor fights his way to the High Priest, deflecting blows from the bugbears. The priest fights like a demon, but Sir Lantor lands a blow, and the man is looking wounded. More than that, the orb of fire around him is disrupted. Then, in a burst of action Sir Lantor pushes through all of the enemies, putting distance between himself and the fire elemental. The High Priest swings at Sir Lantor with his burning hammer, but both of the blows are blocked. Sir Kentor takes advantage of the opening and stabs between the priest’s plates with Zwei.

Sir Kentor pauses for long enough for Malice’s magic to close some of his wounds, then feeling refreshed he lunges with Zwei, and slays the high priest. So much for the priest teaching Xyzzifax humility. The Fanatic screams in rage as his leader dies, and tries to slay the Paladin with a furious storm of blows with the dagger, but he never is able to find an opening in Sir Kentor’s defense. The bugbears swarm Sir Lantor and Sir Kentor, and Sir Lantor ends up somewhat the worse for the wear. One bugbear gets the sword batted to the side, but a second hit manages to bite deeply and draw far too much blood. Visibly whitening, the knight keeps his feet, but he is barely standing.

Malice moves into the room, into a position where she is able to put a lightning bolt through three bugbears and the fanatic. She kills one of the bugbears, and leaves the other two badly singed, and the Fanatic is in poor shape as well. Braeden moves back to where he has a shot on the fire elemental. The arrow finds its mark, and the fire elemental makes a crackling howl. The enemies are just a mass, so Xyzzifax hits them with a fireball. Even with their resistances, the battle had been enough that they suffer massive losses. After its carnage is ended, all but four of the bugbears are dead, as are the Fanatic and the Cleric.

The Fire Elemental engulfs Sir Kentor, and moves to where it can throw firebolts at Xyzzifax. But, this gives Sir Kentor an opening that he can take advantage of, and slashes with Zwei. It is not enough to end the beast, but it is enough to throw its aim off for one of the blasts. The other, though, is enough to slam into Xyzzifax, not only burning him, but lighting him on fire.

Sir Lantor swings at the bugbears. Even with Malice’s healing, he is not looking in great shape, so he is reluctant to go toe to toe with the Fire Elemental. So, he has to satisfy himself with slaying a pair of bugbears. Sir Kentor starts in the blaze caused by the fire elemental, and it is good that he is resistant to fire, because it does not harm him nearly so much. Then, fighting his way past the bugbears, he drives Zwei into the elemental one more time, and that is all that it can take. The fire winks out of existence, naught left but a wisp of smoke.

The fight against the last of the bugbears is hardly worth mentioning. Malice slays one with her poisoned glaive, and Braedon kills the other. And, as soon as they fall, like a flock of vultures the Valiant Swords begin to loot the temple (to be done next session, after which we will withdraw).

DM Notes

After the initial exploration and encounter with the Angelic Beings the fire temple fight was roughly 20 combatants versus the 5 party members and being down the cleric, especially, made it closer than it might have been.  It lasted 5 rounds and took a fair amount of time but everyone had a good time doing it.

And no, they never did figure out what was going on with the Beings and their disappearing items. If you have the adventure you'll know but once they found the fire temple and surroundings they did not go back to investigate. 

You can't always tell in advance what's going to be the fun or memorable parts of an adventure - and that's part of the fun of playing them! I knew this would be a major fight but the window room was a bigger thing than I had expected. 

There is always some RP during combat with our group but the wizard took it to another level here. I don't think that was fully captured in this account but it's not the first time and it will not be the last. The paladin also likes to get in a lecture as he makes a final judgement on an opponent - even if they do not share a common language. Samson being a halfling and punching with magical gauntlets ... well you can guess the comments when he connects, especially when he criticals. The ranger is the cool professional - unless someone gets u on him and then there is a bit more energy as he jumps back and whips out the twin shortswords and gets to work. The cleric gets some words off at times but mostly just charges up the staff of striking and blasts foes out of existence if it gets thick. Malice is the wild card being a) a 5E style bard and b) being played by the most experienced player in the party and c) not having a lot of alignment or honor type rules on fighting fair. She buffs the party much like a 4E Warlord and then looks for a good position to start hurting people .. a lot.

Final observation - I can't believe I didn't get a picture of this fight! I got one of the preamble, but not the main event! I do get better at this as we go. 

Kickstarter Catch-Up: 2023

 

I made a post in April that talked about Kickstarters I had backed in 2023 and how those had gone. Now that we are nearing the end of 2025 I thought I ought to follow up on that and share some updates. Here is the list from that earlier post:

For 2023 here's what I backed in rough chronological order:

• Cities Without Number - Sine Nomine cyberpunk (Hardcover Book)
• Battletech Mercenaries - Their third big boxed set (Boxed Set)
• Pew Pew No Disintigrations - Fainting Goat's light RPG of space bounty hunters (Softcover Book)
• Stickman Battlegrounds - a card game of fighting stick figures (Card Game)
• Tome of Essential Horrors - OSE monster book from Necromancer Games (Hardcover Book)
• Comic Crawl Classics - superhero game based on DCC (Softcover Book)
• Tales of the Valiant - alternate 5E rules (Hardcover Book x2)
• Dolmenwood - OSR game and setting from the OSE people (Boxed Set)
• Dragonslayer - OSR game from Greg Gillespie of Barrowmaze, etc. (Hardcover Book)
• Worlds Without Number (Reprint) - Sine Nomine fantasy (Hardcover Book)
• Deadlands Night Train - An update of a classic Deadlands adventure (Boxed Set)
• MicroDungeons Halloween - a set of small 5E adventures (PDF only)
• Necessary Evil - an update to the classic campaign run through Pinnacle's "Game Changer" (Boxed Set)
• Old School Tactical Vol IV Italian Theater - An expansion for one of my favorite wargames
• Fever Swamp - An OSR big adventure (Boxed Set)
• Scientific Barbarian Magazine #6 - An ongoing supplement series for MCC (Softcover Book)
• Adventurer Conqueror King 2E - An update of an OSR game I liked a lot (Hardcover Books)
• Reaper Dungeon Dwellers - Reaper Miniatures' OSR RPG rules (Boxed Set)
• How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox - A supplement on D&D style fantasy campaign building (Softcover Book)
• Dungeon Domains Riven Catacombs - another set of small adventures (PDF only)

Bold means I had received it when I posted, italics means I had not. Progress since that post?

• Dolmenwood 
• Fever Swamp
• Scientific Barbarian Magazine #6
• Adventurer Conqueror King 2E 
• Reaper Dungeon Dwellers 

So out of 20 projects I backed that year 15 had come in when I posted about them. Out of the remaining 5 ... 2 have come in since: 

• ACK 2E arrived pretty quickly after that post so it was about six months later than its Estimated Delivery of November 2024. 
• Dolmenwood arrived ... last week. So more than a year after its Estimated Delivery of September 2024. Beware KS campaigns for games with a lot of extra trinkets added on that have nothing to do with the game - they do not help with completion.

What about the other three?

Fever Swamp - This has just been a fulfillment disaster netting out to "I have received nothing" when it was supposed to deliver in March 2024. I have zero trust in the Melsonian Arts team now and I doubt I will ever see what I pledged for with them.

I mean, it looked like fun ...

Scientific Barbarian Magazine #6 - Originally supposed to deliver in February 2024. Yeah. Here is a screenshot of one of the three most recent Updates:

So in April it was, in the creator's words in this update, "99.5% complete".

In May we got an update that Tariffs were not going to be an issue for this campaign, dispelling one of 2025's great Kickstarter bugaboos for this effort at least. Of course if it had fulfilled anywhere close to it's original promise, say within a year, they wouldn't have been an issue anyway.

In September we got an update - the most recent update as of this writing - that the creator had a health issue that started back around the time fulfillment was originally supposed to begin and this was why he had a) been unable to finish the work and b) gone silent for 4 months. He did mention that he was on the mend and had returned to part-time work. 

Since September we have heard nothing.  It's incredibly disappointing as I have multiple Jim Wampler books on my shelf and this was the sixth issue of an ongoing product line so I figured there was no real risk here. Having missed the prior issues I went ahead and jumped in for the first 5 as well and even though those 5 exist and some of us signed up for Print & PDF versions of all of them none of them have been sent out, not even PDF's of the first 5 issues.

Once it finally fulfills - if it ever does - I won't be doing any more Kickstarter/BackerKit/Pre-Ordering from Jim and Mudpuppy Games.

Title does not lie ...

Reaper Dungeon Dwellers - Estimated delivery July 2024. The campaign mentioned their experience and success on prior Kickstarters and seemed legit because I was very aware of those and while there were some delays they did seem to come through in the end. I knew that delivery date was probably too optimistic but how off would it be? Well ... we still don't know. At least 18 months now and this is from people who know what they are doing!

I wrote about the major issues on the prior post. Since then they have been posting updates at least monthly, so that's something, The content of those updates has been debatable. An update in September: At this point, all books are near the finish line, with tables of contents to be added and just some cleaning up to do. All books will be printer-ready within the next 1-2 weeks at the most. An update at the end of November: Books are at the printer! Just waiting on a file check from them to see if we have any problems (fingers crossed).
In between we had updates about ReaperCon and how they would have pre-print samples to see if you were going to their in-house convention. They also hoped to have the books at the printer by the end of August which clearly didn't happen.

The miniatures do appear to be on track so that's a plus. I mean they're still way late but Reaper is a miniature company so I would expect them to have a handle on that part at least. The major stumbling block here appears to be the rules/books themselves.

As you may have picked up I have really soured on this one. Reaper is a local company to DFW, they've been around for a long time now and have had a fairly decent reputation but this whole effort has been just so poorly executed that I have zero interest in any future crowdfunding/pre-order efforts from them. 

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 27 - Prisoners!

 

"According to Mighty and Illustrious Xyzzifax"

Our Heroes:

• The Mighty Xyzzifax played by Alex
• Minion Samson played by William
• Minion Jaric played by Dave
• Minion Lantor played by Brandon
• Minion Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve

 The party is level 5-6 at this point. The Bard was out for this session. We begin on Day 72 of the campaign.

As the party attempts to return to the second level of the dungeon, they are once again met with reinforcements in the triangle room where they had previously fought against bugbears, ogres, and a giant, and on a separate occasion trolls. This time, the room has been reinforced by 4 ogres, which pose very little threat to Xyzzifax and his minions, and are quickly dispatched.

Continuing their slow march through the Temple, the party proceeds down one of the few remaining hallways on this level they have yet to clear. Discovering a locked door, minion Samson moves forward to pick the lock.

Inside the group sees what appears to be a small jail, inside are an ogre and bugbear in the midst of a meal. Minion Lantor rushes forward, unleashing a whirlwind of death with his magical greatsword, felling the ogre in a single turn. With his much more imposing counterpart slain in seconds, the bugbear throws down his beer mug and surrenders.

The group moves into the room, and Xyzzifax instructs his four minion skeletons to hold the bugbear at spear point.

While interrogating the bugbear, the group learns that the bugbears take orders from Hedrack, an Ettin in the big temple down two levels below. They also learn that there is a powerful Wizard on the level below.

This is a hilarious garbling of what was said but I let it go ... Hedrack is definitely not an ettin ...

Once the information is extracted Xyzzifax tells the bugbear he is free… to die, and the skeletons stab him to death mercilessly. Xyzzifax laments that malice is once again incapacitated due to dubious chili from the paladin, as she would have loved to torture this ugly evil creature.

The jail contains 4 prison cells, 2 of which are unoccupied.

In the first are 4 elves, including a Countess of Celine and her consort.

They were captured on the road, offer to send help once they return home in exchange for help getting out of the dungeon.

The second cell contains 3 male humans, two shell shocked merchants, and one battered but defiant mercenary hired to guard them.

The mercenary is named Khan.

The other two are JD and Two-Bit, merchants from Verbobonc.

Much like the elves, they were also captured on the road, with Khan lamenting that there were too many spellcasters, and that it wasn’t a fair fight.

The party agrees to pull out of the temple, and escort the former prisoners back to Hommlet. They encounter no resistance on their journey.

Upon returning to the town, Xyzzifax disburses some gold to buy some fresh clothes for the former prisoners, and plans to send each group home using the mirror of mental prowess.

Xyzzifax sends the elves through the mirror to the tower of the moon, and the merchants to Verbobonc the next day. He then offers employment to Khan, and leaves him in the Inn with some money to drink, contemplate, and consider his options for a few days. Next he purchases more robes and bows for his skeletons, 

Kentor commissions dresses for his betrothed from silk found in the temple.

After inquiring about Azin, the inkeeper informs the group that he flew into town a few days prior, and having missed him, the party elects to return to the temple via the mirror the next day.

As they return to the temple, they are met with several ochre jellies slorping around the great hall. The party easily disposes of the smelly creatures, but elects to return to the tower due to the horrific smell.

DM Notes

Lots of fun here with prisoners. who they are, where they are from, what is the temple doing to capture these people and do we need to go do something about it, and then of course "what do we do with them?" This was a chance for the party to branch out a bit and handle a different kind of situation - no combat, no haggling or deal-making as these people have nothing of value on them, and with no actual alignment in this version of the rules, it was completely up to them as to how to handle it and they easily agreed on the course of action. This recruiting of more capable prisoners would become a thing and add a lot of fun to the game down the road.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 26 - Bandits, Minotaurs, and (more) Fireballs

 

"According to Mighty and Illustrious Xyzzifax"

Our Heroes:

• The Mighty Xyzzifax played by Alex
• Minion Samson played by William
• Minion Jaric played by Dave
• Minion Lantor played by Brandon
• Minion Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Minion Braedon played by Terry

 The party is level 5-6 at this point. The Bard was out for this session. We begin on Day 71 of the campaign.

Continuing in their quest to explore the second level of the temple, the group proceeds down a hallway branching off from the main hall.

After scouting with Bubo, they proceed to the first, door which opens into a room with a large cistern.

Activating his arcane sense, Xyzzifax senses a magic item deep in the pool, casts mage hand, and pulls up a +2 shield emblazoned with a symbol of the Knights of Veluna. As the resident knight, Minion Kentor takes possession of it, passing his current +2 shield to minion Jaric.

Bubo is sent on another scouting mission, as 4 hallways branch off in various directions.

Moving to the next door, it opens to a room filled with mismatched furniture and various junk. Xyzzifax senses nothing magical, the paladin moves aside a drape on the south walls, revealing a door. Minions Lantor and Jaric promptly smash the door open, revealing a small L shaped side chamber with a curtain and another door. A stool sits in this room, along with some scattered supplies, and a barrel of crossbow bolts.

Through the next room lies a crooked corridor. It is lined with 10 bunks. A single sconce lights the room.

A beam with sharp spikes and some sort of trap is rigged up, with a not so secret door in the western wall. Minion Samson disables the trap, while the paladin and cleric light the remaining sconces. Minion Jaric notices that one of the sconces seems to move, after activating it, another secret door opens into the room in which the party eradicated bandits the day before. After searching the bunks, the party scrounges up some gold.

Samson opens the not so secret door, which opens into a large reception hall revealing a horde of bandits which loose a volley of crossbows at little Samson! 12 bolts fly, 11 plink off of Samson’s mighty magical armor, with one finding a home in a small chink. Samson returns fire with his returning javelins, slaying the bandit who landed his shot. Lantor fires his crossbow, wounding one.

The all powerful Xyzzifax fireballs the room and kills all 12 of them. This is the fate of all those who oppose him.

It helps if you imagine him screaming this - as he throws the fireball - in a voice very much like The Monarch from Venture Brothers. 

In the room is a single door, and a passageway to the North, which Braedon investigates and finds that it contains a spiral staircase going upward. The door connects to a previously explored long passageway which appears to ring around this level of the dungeon.

The party proceeds to hallway #3 with the room with wood and sacks. A large oaken door secured by a well oiled padlock stands in the eastern wall. Samson picks it open easily, and inside finds what appears to be a stash of armor and supplies taken from intruders. Several sets of armor, flasks of holy water, and a valuable mirror are commandeered by the adventures. Satisfied, the party proceeds to hallway #4.

While exploring, Bubo is intercepted, and destroyed. Moving down a diagonal hallway to investigate, the party moves into a room occupied by 4 Minotaurs!

Braeden moves forward, firing a pair of arrows, Lantor moves forward and sets to receive a charge, of which he does, as two of the Minotaurs charge, baring their horns and swinging greataxes. Slowly but surely, the minotarus are no match for the party, and fall to the mighty Xyzzifax and his minions,

Amongst the wreckage from the fight, several shattered jars and junk litter the floor. The room has scattered bunches of supplies and a stash of hand weapons in an alcove. The group takes a 10 minute break to bind wounds, replenish arrows, and remove the Minotaur horns to turn them into signal horns.

The next room discovered appears to be a room filled with refuse and other garbage. Xyzzifax Senses nothing magical, and the party moves on down the hall.

Minion Samson unlocks the next door, which opens into a small room containing 4 bugbears. Braedon fells one instantly with two well placed arrows, Lantor cleaves through another with his great sword. The remaining two gang up on Lantor, wielding spiked clubs, one misses to which Lantor ripostes and slays. The remaining bugbear flees in terror as his 3 allies have been felled in mere seconds. The door through which the lone bugbear retreats contains 13 more bugbears.

After a fireball from the great and powerful Xyzzifax, most of the bugbears are dead or close, and are quickly dispatched by the minions.

The group retreats back to the tower for another night of rest.

DM Notes:

They are roaming all over the northern half of level 2 this session and I am trying to keep it interesting. Room 234 by the book contains one su-monster. This is one of those encounters I mentioned previously where it's not particularly interesting, doesn't tie in to or set up anything else,  and all it's going to do is activate the combat sequence for one round and expend almost no resources. So I changed it to a group of minotaurs which have some interesting abilities for the DM at least and actually make the combat potentially consequential for the party. 

As far as the bandits (240's) with all of the fireballs going off, plus battle cries and general armed smashing of things they figure out what's coming and retreat into the one room. It doesn't help them but it is understandable. This party is absolutely not stealthy in any way. They don't sneak, they don't use invisibility - the one thing they do is use the wizard's familiar to scout out everything in advance until it hits a door or gets blasted by somethings that's alert enough to see it coming and has an attack that can hurt it. Occasionally this frontal assault approach hurts them but it works pretty well most of the time.

40K Friday: Terrain!

 

So it's that time of year where I start to think about what I -did- get done this year and probably think even more about what I -did not- get done this year when it comes to miniatures. The pile does not feel much smaller, despite a year of work, but that may be because more frequent bursts of consistency in 2025 helped remind me just how much there is on the shelves and the workbench and in the closet. "Yes, you've finished that squad but what about that entire army you picked up last year which his still sitting in its boxes? 

One thing I did to combat this was to try taking a purchasing sabbatical this year. After January I have not bought a single miniature for myself. That is probably the first time I can say that in at least 40 years. I do aim to complete the full year - mainly so I can say I did it. It's not a money decision it's a "let's see if we can work down the backlog/pile of shame to any significant degree" decision. Right now I'm not sure it made a real dent but I am knocking out some things that have been lurking around here for a long time.

Over Thanksgiving I decided to finally build some of the terrain that's been gathering dust. The main objects of attention were the 3 Imperial Bastions and the Skyshield Landing Pad I bought a couple of years back when they had a "made to order" run for them. They have been out of production for years but I've always loved these things, the pad in particular, so I went ahead and grabbed them ... and promptly let them sit for ... a year and a half. That's not too bad actually. It took them over 6 months to fulfill the order - which is apparently normal for them - so it feels like it's been a much longer time from "hey I should finally get one of those" to actually cutting things off of a sprue. 

I ordered 3 of the bastions  because I already had one that I had picked up somewhere built and painted. I liked the idea of having 4 to spread out on the table. I also liked the idea of doing the single-story and double-story options I had seen others make with this kit and that's what I have done:

So now I have the funky short one I think of as a command post, and then a pair of the normal sized ones, and then one bigger type. Should be enough flexibility there to keep things interesting.

The landing pad is still in sub-assemblies because I want to paint it that way, at least for the base coat, and the weather has not been cooperative these last two weeks. 

These are the big accomplishments for November alongside putting together some Dark Elves for The Old World. More about armies etc. next week and once I get these somewhere close to "finished" I will put up some pictures. 

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 25 - fireball Fireball FIREBALL

 

"According to Mighty and Illustrious Xyzzifax"

Our Heroes:

• The Mighty Xyzzifax played by Alex
• Minion Samson played by William
• Minion Jaric played by Dave
• Minion Lantor played by Brandon
• Minion Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Minion Braedon played by Terry

 The party is level 5-6 at this point. The Bard was out for this session. We begin on Day 70 of the campaign after a trip to Hommlet at the end of the last session and then an uneventful trip back to the Temple at the beginning of this session.

The party awakens in the tower, ready to venture into the temple again, only to find that Malice has once again contracted an illness from the Paladin’s chili. At this point Xyzzifax is convinced that she is either not very bright (despite her magical prowess) or simply a glutton for punishment. Braedon tells the story of his brother being eaten by a werewolf in gruesome detail. Again.

Under Xyzzifax’s masterful tutelage, the group elects to return to the air temple room from which they retreated from the day prior.

Upon opening the door, the group sees that the room is now occupied by 4 trolls.

The trolls rush forward, with two of them charging up the stairs, raking with their claws, at the fighter and paladin. After repeated arrows from Braedon, Magical javelins from Samson, multiple sword blows from Kentor and Lantor, sacred flames from Jaric, and two fireballs from Xyzzifax, the 4 trolls are but smoldering remains.

Jaric says a prayer of healing while Bubo is sent up the vertical passage previously taken by the fleeing Vrock. The passage is long. Very long. hundreds of feet long. It eventually opens up into a large chamber filled with columns covered in what can only be described as elementally evil markings. The now familiar flaming eye symbol adorns one wall. Several passageways lead off from this room.

Having seen that the passageway itself is very long an perilous to climb up (for the minions incapable of flight) The adventurers decide to continue exploring the floor that they currently occupy. As they move out of the air temple into one of the many hallways leading off, the first one evidently ends quickly in a dead end room. The room appears to have been some form of living quarters, with smelly bedrolls and rotting meat littering the area. Likely some of the bugbears the group has slain made their beds here.

Continuing in a clockwise motion, the party continues down the next nearest hallway. This short hallway ends in a locked door, with a peephole. After unlocking the door, minion Samson activates his magical goggles, seeing 5 humanoids standing in the room: evidently they have seen the group coming. Armed with this knowledge, Future Lord Xyzzifax engages his unmatched tactical wit to instruct the group that he will launch a fireball into the room the very moment that minion Samson opens the door. On the count of 3, the group does just this, instantly incinerating 4 of the humans inside. The one remaining bandit flees down an adjoining hallway, while Xyzzifax and his minions pursue.

As minion Jaric is the first to pursue, he bursts into a room full of adversaries standing around in various states of readiness. In this room are 6 bandits, 2 captains, a rogue of some sort. The bandits are incinerated by the 4th fireball of the day from Xyzzifax, leaving just the captains and the rogue, who stabs Lantor as he enters the room, and promptly loses his head for it. Braedon kills one of the captains with a well placed arrow shot. Kentor tells the remaining captain that he is very guilty and should be ashamed of himself.

The crew is always happy to see enemies in "fireball formation" ...

In response to this, the last remaining captain steals Kentor’s returning hammer, and slashes at him with a sword and a dagger. A door next to the rogue’s corpse opens, and a human in ornate black leather armor steps out next to Lantor, wielding a glowing sword. He swings it at Lantor, who easily dodges, and counterattacks, slicing into the man with his greatsword. Jaric moves in and launches a guiding bolt at the newly emerged foe.

Xyzzifax engages his masterfull intellect to consider hundreds of possible courses of action, and then responds to this new foe with yet another fireball from his wand, felling the remaining captain.

Now missing his hair, the ornately armored man is put down with an arrow through the eye by minion Braedon

(Behold Xyzzifax’s masterfull artistic rendition)

(and yes, I had passed out a paper copy of the illustration and yes he did "update" it to this)

DM Notes

At this point in the campaign I am really feeling the differences from the old school AD&D that this adventure was designed for. I like to think that D&D is still D&D for the most part, but there have been so many changes in design assumptions over the years that at times it jumps out pretty dramatically.  In this session it was the fireballs - AD&D wands had roughly 20-80 charges when found but were finite - by the book there was no way to recharge them. This meant that you felt every one of those things being used. Even if you had 50+ charges every magic-user I knew (including me) tended to hoard them because each charge was irreplaceable and you couldn't just go buy -or craft- a new one when you ran out. 

I have more to say on this but I will save it for a separate post.

At this point the campaign is going well and everyone is having a good time exploring their abilities as they explore the Temple.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 24 - The Missing Episode or "Wiping Out the Air Temple"

 

Somehow both of my main player-chroniclers missed out on writing this one up despite at least one of them being there so we will be going solely off of the DM's notes for this one and it will not be a first-person narrative.

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

 The party is level 5-6 at this point. This account is written by the DM. The Bard was ill and stayed in the tower for this run. We begin on Day 64 of the campaign.

The party returns to the set of rooms where they fought the bugbears and ogres the day before. Nothing new is waiting for them - as happens sometimes in this place - but some of the bodies are missing. Xyz decides to animate some of the bugbear bodies and this prompts a discussion as Kentor the Paladin is not totally comfortable with that. The wizard gets an assist from the bard in making the case that animating deceased denizens of the Temple of Elemental Evil and using them to fight other denizens of the Temple of Elemental Evil is a) prudent use of resources and b) poetic justice and the paladin decides he's OK with it for now as long as they are used in the temple and are not permanent additions to the party. With this settled they now begin poking around the various corridors, doors, and secret doors in this area.

DM note: I love it when a party generates their own internal moral debates - this totally sprang up on it's own and some of us have been playing together a very long time so I knew Paladin Steve was going to raise an objection. That said Tales of the Valiant doesn't use alignment so there is more wiggle room here, and it also allows paladins to follow a cause or something similar and not a particular god so there was no god-specific proscription against undead in play here. I believe one of the opening lines of the discussion was "I'm trying to kill them and you're bringing them back!" and then things developed from there. It all worked out though and Xyzzifax would have a small band of undead minions lurking around the back of the party for pretty much the rest of the campaign.

Soon enough they backtrack to the Water Temple and open the great brass doors to the east.

Let's talk about the layout here with a map:

• The 220+ rooms in the upper left are where they fought the ogres and bugbears etc. last session
• 213 is the Water Temple they attacked in Session 18
• 211 is the "Corridor of the Elements" where various magical elemental effects kick in as one moves through the hall
• 210 is the Air Temple

Yes, many of the temples are packed right on top of each other on the second level of the dungeon. Yes, I would have spread them out more, possibly one per level, and though that might seem a little obvious now I'm not sure it would have been cliched back in the early 80's when this was coming together.

Back to Our Heroes ...

They move from the Water Temple into the large corridor and start getting buffeted about by various elemental blasts as the walls glow in different colors and strange smells fill the air. Being experienced and resourceful adventurers though they quickly make their way down it and open the doors to the north, entering a large octagonal chamber. Here's the flavor text straight from the adventure:

Illumination in this large, octagonal room seems to come from everywhere-ceiling, walls, floor-a milky radiance which gives a dim and eerie glow to the whole scene. The floor of this place is 15 feet below the level of the normal dungeon floor, with short, broad stairways leading to it. The ceiling vaults to a height of 40 feet. The walls and floor of the room are of polished, gray stone with whorls of glittering mica; the floor is partially obscured by swirling, eddying mist that glows softly.

In the center of the area is a great, pierced square of bronze, 10feet on a side. A dome is pierced in the ceiling, a circular shaft some 20 feet wide opening directly over a pit of the same diameter and 5-foot depth. Immediately to the south of the pit is a block of alabaster measuring 2 feet wide, 4 feet high, and 8 feet long. Atop it are two knives and a bowl of finest crystal. Ranking the pit are two crystal braziers, suspended from tripods by chains of silver. Each emits a faint, sickly-sweet, perfumed smoke.

The party starts investigating the room - Bubo flies around, Samson uses his various vision options to look for invisible or hidden things, and the Wizard sends a zombie off to examine the crystal implements. Eventually they cannot resist and have the thing pick up the items and that's when it gets interesting as 3 Vrocks fly down out of the ceiling shaft and engage.

A furious fight develops as while much of the party is clustered up in the doorway and the stairs some of them have spread out and the speed of the flying demons lets them engage as they please. The clustered characters get multiple face-fulls of spores and have to deal with that for a round or two as well as some horrific screeches  Xyz shows just how expendable the zombies are as he fireballs a pair of demons even though his minion is caught in the blast as well. During the fight one of the creatures is turned and flees up the shaft. The team focuses and brings down the other two then waits out the return of the third one and hits it hard when it does, slaying it outright.

More thoroughly exploring the area after the fight they discover, among other things, a censer of controlling air elementals which ended up going to Samson which made him very happy. .

Having suffered various batterings and blastings the group decides to head back to the tower to pick up Malice and then head to Hommlet for some R&R

DM Notes

Vrocks are fun. They are reasonably tough, they can fly, they can make 3 attacks a round, and they have some other tricks:

This is not how the encounter was originally set up but I am well-into modifying things in this temple at this point as my party is capable of blowing through a lot. So I dropped the single drelb that waits in one of the side rooms which is no threat at all to my group and amped up the Vrock encounter by adding a third one and having them summoned if any of the implements are disturbed by someone not wearing a symbol of the air temple. 

There is a fair amount of this in the temple with a single not terribly strong creature (in modern terms, not necessarily AD&D terms) is lurking somewhere by itself and versus a 6 or 7 person party all it's going to do is trigger a one to two round combat during which the party is in no danger at all. The Drelb in this case is a single CR4 guardian monster and I have six 5th or 6th level characters walking into that room. You can't negotiate with it and its one attack per round is not going to cause significant harm to anyone. 

Some of this is just the modern game - hit point bloat, roll to save every round when hit with an ongoing condition (like paralysis) or damage (like poison) - so that the party doesn't even have to expend a spell or a potion to undo something. In my opinion it's better to avoid these random "nothing" combats and ensure the ones that do happen are more dangerous, meaningful, or can lead to something interesting like taking someone prisoner or negotiating a surrender. 

Anyway there are some thoughts from the DM side of the campaign - next time back to the player perspective. 

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 23 - The Battle of Air and Ogres ... and Bugbears

 

 Our Heroes:

• 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
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

 The party is level 5 at this point. This account is mainly written by Malice. The Ranger was out for this session. We begin on Day 63 of the campaign.

We make our way back to the water temple, after a meal of Sir Kentor’s chili, which is enjoyed by Malice and Jaric, and Sir Lantor’s stories – Malice notes to herself that she’s come to recognize most of his tragic tales – brace the spirits of Samson and Xyzzifax. Then, we proceed through the single door into the unexplored region of the dungeon. And, it is just a small room meant for water temple functionaries. It smells rank in here, and something appears to have been sleeping here for some time, though its now gone. There is a small keg of wine, and a large barrel of water, and a quartet of green robes. We give the room a quick once over, then take a door to the left.

It leads to a short passage, and we continue, not taking particular care to be stealthy, instead paying more attention to our defense. It leads to a square room with heaps of old carpeting that look like they have been piled into crude beds. Though there is another side doorway to our right, we instead push forward, possibly towards the edge of this level of the temple. Or perhaps not – it leads to a hallway that goes to our left and our right. There is a hallway that dead ends into a wall – the architecture that Malice refers to as “the hall with the obvious secret door.” We send Bubo to scout off down the hallway – there is a whole lot of hallway, it is easily hundreds of feet of hallway that wraps around the water temple, and there is a single door off to a side, eventually is a door behind which he hears clanking chains and growling noise.

We take the secret door, Once again, there is a lot of hallway. Maybe we have reached the edge of the temple after all, and there is a loop around it. There is a door nearby, that leads to a rectangular room. There are a group of bestial humanoids, speaking what we assume to be goblin – Malice is certain that it isn’t orkish. The room is full of them, half wearing the green robes, the other half wearing gray robes.

Jaric is the first to charge into the room, spiritual weapon springing into being as he slams into the bugbear. But, against the bugbear leader in green, Jaric is the worse for the wear – the exchange leaves our war cleric bloodied. Malice calls out commands, her words laced with magic, and the knights push into the room as Jaric retreats. Samson is next to join the fray, punching with his magical gauntlets. Sir Kentor is the next in, concentrating on the bugbear that seems to be leading group on gray. And then, Xyzzifax blasts the room with a fireball from the wand. Though none of the creatures fall, many of them are looking in significantly worse shape. Then, finally Sir Lantor barrels into the room, and the Gray Leader is slain! The troop of bugbears engage with spiked clubs and thrown javelin. Only Sir Lantor is wounded, though, and he’s stunned by the exchange.

The green leader keeps the heat coming onto Sir Lantor, who is slammed down onto the ground. Sir Kentor, Malice, and Samson all pile blade, firebolt, and fists clad in magical gauntlets into the leader in green, who is showing the effects of so many hits. Jaric's wounds close, and he is looking no where near so bad. One of the great things about having a wand of fireballs is that Xyzzifax can keep using it. After this second explosion, two bugbears are dead, and the rest are all terribly wounded. Instead of fleeing, the bugbears attack in a rage. It is only because Sir Lantor is off of his feet that any of them hit at all, and Sir Kentor’s defensive prowess allows him to block every blow.

Once they found the wand, given the way fireball wands work in 5E and onward, there was no lack of fireball usage in this campaign. 

The Bugbear leader in green, still in his cold, deep rage, manages to slam with his shield powerfully enough that Sir Kentor’s arm is bruised. Malice utters the dark words to call a firebolt to kill this bugbear sergeant of the water temple. And the battle turns, Samson gruesomely kills another bugbear with his gauntleted fist. Sir Kentor cuts another down, then sprints across the room to the ones that had been throwing javelins. Xyzzifax launches a firebolt as Sir Lantor climbs to his feet. Swinging his mightly blade, he slays the last of the bugbears that were in melee, and then drags himself across the room, and cleaves another in twain. The bugbears, snarling, and losing control, stay in the fight – and in their rage they manage to hit Sir Lantor again. Then, Jaric’s spiritual hammer hits again and again, clubbing one of the last bugbears into a bloody mess, and then it springs to the other one, crushing its skull as well.

We quickly check the bodies of the bugbear leaders, Malice and Samson finding a total of 20 gp from them, as Xyzzifax orders the skeletons to grab a javelin. Jaric and Sir Kentor, quickly tend to Sir Lantor’s wounds, and then we retreat to the Water Temple, with its doors that we’ve arcane locked. That is secure enough that we’re willing to give Sir Lantor proper time to bind and bandage his wounds. While we’re taking this time, we don’t hear anything, but there is some distance between us and where the bugbear fight took place. We discuss which way we should go, and return in the direction of the bugbear fight, taking a door that we’d passed by before. It opens to a room that is unoccupied. There are pair of beds and chests, and a trio of barrels. Samson quickly gets them open, and we find 419 copper, 282 silver, 23 electrum, 133 gold, and 4 platinum within. And, a candlestick and rusty saw that we leave behind with the apparel. The clothing is large enough to fit ogres.

We push back to the room where had the bugbear fight, with Xyzzifax leaving Bubo to watch the long hallway. We loot the fallen bugbears, so the skeletons are now set with javelins. We manage to pull 35 gold from the bodies of the bugbears. But, there is nothing else of value in the room, we continue – revealing a hallway with a doorway to our right. We form up on it, and burst in… only to reveal a pair of ogres. We probably found the owners of the chests we rifled through. And, Jaric hears tearing down the hallway, from around a curve, what he thinks sounds like the sound of tornados.

Xyzzifax flies over Sir Kentor and Sir Lantor, and casts slow on the pair of ogres, and has his skeletons form up to prepare for what we expect to be incoming air elementals. And then the expected elemental tears around the corner, and blasts a skeleton to bone shards. Malice steps into the room just long enough to hit the ogre that was still moving at normal speeds with the wand of binding, and then she retreats to the hall. Jaric moves in behind her, and with a pair of mighty blows with the staff of striking causes the ogre to have his guts completely blown back against the far wall. Sir Kentor charges the air elemental, to keep it from closing on the Valiant Swords. As expected, Verminax finds its target. The elemental crackles lightning back at him, and backs away down the hallway. Another air elemental bursts into the room with the ogre. It flings debris at incredible speeds at Sir Lantor, a broken sword jabbing into him and drawing blood. Samson makes use of a magic spear that darts into that elemental, and tears at it by rotating the opposite direction. The ogre, wounded, lumbers out of the room. Sir Lantor steps up to the air elemental that so grievously struck him, and is a beast of a man. With a series of slashes that shows off the mastery of the great swords that he has developed over the time battling the forces of the temple, he completely destroys that second air elemental.

Xyzzifax gives chase to the ogre, and throws a fireball into the room he is in, in case there are even more attackers waiting. And, he has the skeletons join him, and throwing javelins at the ogre as well. The air elemental in the hall charges forward, and engulfs Sir Kentor, but he braces himself, and his enchanted armor and shield hold fast – he is undamaged by the assault! Then, an armored figure comes out of a secret door in the hallway, likely from the room where the ogre had retreated. The armored figure points at Sir Kentor, and says in the Common Tongue, says, “You, Freeze.” and utters a word of magic. Quickly, Xyzzifax utters a countering word, and the hold spell fails. “Alrim sent you, didn’t he? Always sending his minions to do his dirty work.” the cleric says. “I don’t know who that is, but I am better than him!” Xyzzifax retorts.

This is the DM attempting to remind the players that they do have some intel about this place but they mostly didn't care.

Malice can’t help but do the most ironic attack. Knowing that her own hold is weaker than the wand of binding, she uses it to hold the cleric, and is successful! Jaric walks up to the evil cleric, staff of striking crackling, and he crushes the evil cleric’s head. Sir Lantor swings Verminax through the air elemental, and Samson throws the magical javelin, and after it jabs the air elemental again and again, it is looking notably weakened. The ogre charges back into the room, and swings his club completely through one of the skeletons, and spraying the bone shards into both Sir Lantor and the last remaining skeleton. From within the room, though, Sir Kentor hears the sounds of many hob nailed boots retreating.

Sir Lantor takes a pair of steps, and slashes deeply into the ogre. Bleeding terribly, he keeps his feet. Xyzzifax flies in, and hits it with a firebolt, and a skeleton stabs it with a javelin, and the hulking monster is managing to stand, even though it looks in very rough shape. The Elemental continues to tear at Sir Kentor, this time the knight is beginning to bleed from many lacerations, some of them deep. Malice steps into the door jam, sending a pair of scorching rays at the ogre, and she smiles as it falls, dead. The last ray blasts through the elemental. Sir Kentor declares the Air Elemental a Foul Wind, that shall face Judgement. And with the mighty Verminax, the Air Elemental is dissipated. Then, he goes back through the secret door, into the room that the cleric came out of. It is a spartan room painted gray, now all singed by the fireball. He pushes across the room and looks on the hallway that what we expect were more bugbears fled. There is a fountain on the wall, and a large number of weapons are stockpiled against the wall, and a chest as well. A stairway leads down. This is the hallway that we used to come up to this level from below.

Malice asks Samson to check the cleric – and he has plenty of magical things. +1 chainmail, ring of protection, +1 ridged mace, a dagger of venom, and a spell scroll of darkness. We give the ring to Sir Lantor, Xyzzifax takes the scroll and Malice takes the dagger. The chainmail and mace go into the bag of holding. Samson checks the chest, and without breaking a sweat he disables the trap, and finds 176 silver, 28 ep, and 11 gold. In a wardrobe, there is a robe of crystal beads and jet, a ceremonial robe of the temple of evil, worth 1500 gold. Then, since we found our way back out, we pile as many weapons as we can into the bag of holding, and we retreat to the tower. Xyzzifax sends the last skeleton chasing after the bugbears on a suicide mission.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk: Session 22 - Pool of Evil

 

Our Heroes:

• The Mighty Xyzzifax played by Alex
• Minion Samson played by William
• Minion Jaric played by Dave
• Minion Lantor played by Brandon
• Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve
• Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

 The party is level 5 at this point. We begin on Day 62 of the campaign.

At the appointed time, Xyzzifax opens the portal to Verbobonc, and Malice and Sir Kentor step through to Hommlet. The duo are are ready to tell the story of all of the different steaks they had tried, and the new recipes that Sir Kentor has learned. The rest of the party’s story of defeating a pair of juvenile green dragons, admittedly, is much better. Malice agrees, she would have loved to have been able to kill a dragon. Given the option of a long trek back to the Temple itself, we can instead use the Mirror itself to step right through…. tomorrow. We do feed upon the dragons that were slain first. Over dinner, we have a conversation about planar travel. On our way back into through the temple on our way to the water temple, the Arcane lock is still holding.

Bubo is sent to confirm what we know about the level of the water temple, and rather than going directly there, we head first to the great hall, which has much aged and hacked apart furniture, many skeletons, and ruined equipment. Xyzzifax takes the time to animate dead, and now how a skeleton minion. He has the skeleton don black robes. Then, he does this three more times. And, he makes a strong speech about using these skeletons against the temple to Jaric and Sir Kentor, with Malice taking his side. Samson finds this all intriguing! Sir Lantor is concerned that, even though they’re all wearing uniform back robes, that he may confuse them for enemies in the heat of battle. Sir Kentor finally decides that this is too far, and that the skeletons must be destroyed. Xyzzifax argues that these are all skeletons of former cultists, and that it is poetic justice that they will now rise to fight on the side of righteousness. And finally, Sir Kentor relents, for now.

Xyzzifax posts up Bubo in the great hall, and the Valiant Swords re-enter the water temple, curious about what we will find. The door is still off of its hinges. The room looks much the way we left it, but there is a lot of water on the floor now. The fountain on the far wall is still gurgling, but somebody has damaged it, and it is spilling out onto the floor. Shapes begin to rise up our of the water as we begin to cross the room. Four water elementals form in the corners of the room, advancing with hostile intent.

There was a swirling combat of melee and magic! Sir Lantor was able to bring into action before they were able to attack. It turns out metal beats water, at least when the metal is enchanted sufficiently. Xyzzifax’s Wand of Fireballs, however, is less impressive than normal. Sir Lantor lands the final blow on the first of the elementals to fall. One of the water elementals almost dropped Malice, flinging shards of ice. But she and Jaric worked together to keep her standing. But, that same elemental closed, engulfed Jaric, and is doing its level best to to kill him. They’re also proven to be resistant to the Wand of Binding. Perhaps its just wands. With Samson’s help, Jaric emerges from the water elemental like a flully grown, armor clad baby. A second fireball is sufficient to destroy the second, already seriously wounded water elemental. Jaric and the staff of striking are able to team with Sir Kentor and Verminax, and between the two of them slay a barely damaged one. The last Water Elemental manages to drop Sir Lantor into unconsciousness with a pair of terrible blows. Sir Kentor saves Sir Lantor on his way to defend Malice from the last of them, and then Sir Jaric disincorporates it with a Guilding Bolt.

After the excitement, it becomes clear that the three clerics we killed are no longer living. We press on, venturing behind the curtain to the two doors we know are there, and the double doors that we don’t know where they are. We take a moment, and bandage the wounds on Sir Lantor before we venture into areas of the dungeons that we don’t know. Samson reveals that his goggles now have many new powers, and he is able to see through the door – and into the room in darkness beyond.

The mechanist class in ToV gets some interesting abilities to build or enhance objects. The goggles-of-ruining-the-DM's-surprises are one of these.

Sir Kentor opens the door, revealing a richly furnished bedroom. A greenish light flickers into existence as the door opens. Jaric casts the light spell, so that we can more clearly read any parchment on the desk. The party goes into the room, and begins searching. The table service is fashioned from fine malachite, worth 2000 gp. We carefully load it into the bag of holding. Xyzzifax magic senses, and only finds the multitude of items that the party is carrying themselves. Malice takes the blank writing paper. Behind a curtain, we find a hidden door to a much lesser bedroom, likely for the underpriests. There are a pair of chests, both of which Samson is able to clear of traps and unlock. The first contains clothing, 4 texts on the Elemental Evil of Water – they may have some value. A sack with 87 gold, a bronze mace – which is given to the first skeleton , and a gold ring with a green pearl worth 555 gold. The second chest has more books on the nature of evil water, 21 platinum, and a potion.

We withdraw to the area behind the curtain, and Samson looks through the door, and he can see that it is a salon. We move into the room, and search the room to see what we can find. A green silk robe encrusted with gems, worth 6400 gp. 200 gold worth of incense. A suit of plate armor worth 1500 gp. An ivory tray is worth 50 gold, and notable table services worth 24 gold.

We find a private domicile behind a hidden door, and it too is laden with treasure. The volume on the writing desc deals with the rituals of evil water. The 32 gold dishes are worth 1900 gold for the set. A coral box worth 100 gold, with 1000 gold worth of pearls inside. And, a fish smelling cloak is a cloak of the Manta Ray. The trident… is cursed. And Samson gets the urge to immerse himself in as great a depth as possible. Being a halfling, he hurries to the fountain in the next room, and dives in. Jaric reveals that he will need to pray and rest to be able to remove the curse, so with Samson being hostile about staying submersed in the fountain.

The mechanist also has the annoying ability to identify magic items by touch. The occasional cursed item keeps this interesting. He had an item that let him breathe under water so it was not fatal, just annoying to the party - for a change.

Xyzzifax puts arcane locks on the four different doorways that we know of to get into the temple. So, it looks like we’re staying here for 8 hours. Malice begins wearing the Cloak of the Manta Ray that we took from the water temple. Over the course of the night, Bubo sees a group of bugbears that are on patrol – but that is one patrol over the course of eight hours, so this is not a lot of activity. Jaric finally removes the curse, Samson is able to let go and jump out of the fountain, leaving the Trident behind.

Finally, it is time to examine the double doors past the curtain. It is neither trapped nor locked, so Mer-Samson can use his goggles to peer through it. A blue green light illuminates what is beyond. There is a pool in the center of the room. We open the door, ready for more water elementals. There is a humanoid chained at the bottom of the pool. It makes mental contact with all of us, begging for it to be freed before the kraken depicted on the wall materializes and attacks. Sir Kentor senses evil within the pool, but still, he is sworn to try to help – even if he is certain this is a trap. Xyzzifax says wait, and sends in one of the skeletons to try to free merman. The skeleton jumps into the water, and quickly dissolves. Sir Kentor reconsiders his distaste of the skeletons. Xyzzifax gets a stronger mental push of Please, Jump Into The Pool And Save Me.

Yes, this is a illusion and a trap. Yes they were properly suspicious. They still desperately wanted to figure it out. Especially after failing some Will saves.

And Xyzzifax jumps in. Samson is fast on the reaction, though, and grabs Xyzzifax before he even fully submerges. The anklets of alacrity he was wearing are dissolved by the evil water, along with his shoes. Malice is quick to shout “Everybody out!”, and as we’re retreating the thing in the pool attempts to compel Jaric to jump in, but the Cleric’s will is too strong. We discuss a plan, and send Xyzzifax back in, anchored with a rope, being held by Sir Lantor and the skeletons. Samson, Jaric, Sir Kentor, and Malice are ready to react to strange, evil, supernatural effects. Magic Missiles fly forth, but dissipate as soon as they hit the water, though some pass clear throuogh the chained merman, leaving him unharmed. Xyzzifax senses magic, and can see that the pool itself is magical, and so too is the merperson and the chains. Xyzzifax tries fireballing it, but the pool and merman beneath does not seem to care about the fireball. Then, he attempts a dispel magic, but that does not work. The merman continues is pleading via telepathy. The merman says that the barrier can’t be hurt, you have to jump in and free him with his own hand. Xyzzifax sends in a Mage Hand down to the bottom. Then, he has it try to poke the Merman in the eye, but the mage hand sort of blends with it, it does not feel anything solid there. The Merman says that you can’t free him with spells, you have to jump in and use your own hands.

Malice grumbles that we may need to wait until we’re high enough level to just disintegrate the pool. We discuss a bit more, and swap out Xyzzifax with Jaric, who tries various radiant damage spells. The spiritual fire doesn’t do anything to the water, nor does spiritual hammer. As the water doesn’t seem to be effected, and neither does smashing up the mural of the kraken. Sending the spiritual weapon into the water, it looks like it phases clearly through the merman and the chains holding him. We all suspect an illusion, or something like it.

We pull back, closing the door, and finally leaving the temple once more.

They were pretty frustrated with this one. Not complaining, just puzzled. It stuck in their heads to the point I was still hearing about it months later. I need to keep these oddball illusion things in mind for the future because it was a lot of fun watching them exploring the situation.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - The Temple Campaign - Finished!

 

I know I'm still catching up on the session recaps - I will get back to those next week - but last weekend we finished playing through the Goodman Games revision of The Temple of Elemental Evil. Everyone hit 10th level by the end and somehow NO ONE DIED?! That is a first for me in any ongoing D&D type campaign so I'll have to mull that one over. Maybe I'm getting soft. They fought through hundreds of opponents, travelled a lot of miles, stood face to face with three gods, and utterly destroyed the temple in the end.

We have a wrap-up session this weekend in Hommlet where land and noble titles will be awarded, high-fives will be exchanged, and the Paladin will be getting married. All of that will be a lot of fun and a nice wrap to the campaign. 

After that we will put it on the shelf for a while. We've already started tossing around ideas for the next game and I expect it will be a) not a D&D type game and b) a shorter run with something, maybe even a tryout. Supers is finally a leading contender and it may just turn into finally finishing Time of Crisis!

I suspect we will return to this campaign again down the road though. Everyone likes their characters and this system too much to just forget about it. The long term vision was to run though the Giants series and then do the Drow series all the way through to their conclusion while working in Barrier Peaks somewhere too so we could say we've run that classic campaign and that's probably where I would start whenever we pick things up again.

Anyway I will have more detailed breakdowns on stuff down the road - the rules, the campaign, my players, things I could have done better, and what was going on with that no one dying thing. For now though I'm just going to enjoy the victory lap.