Eccentric night
Last week we started up what Nick dubbed the Menagerie campaign. I've explained the characters briefly before, but I don't think I recapped the game night. As I've mentioned before, the thing is supposed to be a pass it around story. Each DM heads it once and SHOULD start from the point the party left off (that way those of us that don't have time to prep a full adventure don't have to). Last week, Nick ran us through a published adventure. This week it's my turn.
Lacking much direction for our characters at this point, we started in some no name, medium sized town in an area that's civilized enough to have supplies and information, but savage enough to not blink much of an eye over a satyr, kenku, thri-kreen and man-dragon (ie, winged kobold) snooping around for info and buying the entire stock of mirrors. We had a map and rumors to a cave that laired a medusa. Well, sort of a map. It had two rooms.
We get there, and the first room is just as drawn on the map and full of nice stone statues, neatly arranged in two lines forming a natural hallway. Nothing else of interest was in the room, so we headed down the hall. We promptly reached a cavein, but there was a shaft leading way up formed by a disintegrate spell. The crew new it was gonna be tough going then, as a medusa's hard enough, but when the ugly bitch is disintegrating you AND turning you to stone, things aren't fun anymore.
The shaft presented a bit of a problem, as grasshopper man couldn't make the jump up. So, the kobold flew up, fortunately the kenku had a rope (what the hell does a thri-kreen that can easily jump 14' straight up need a damn rope for?), and strained his back holding while the kenku climbed. Satyr followed and the three of them managed to hold the Bone Painter's (thri-kreen) weight. We moved on.
The tunnel descended into the lair of the medusa, and everything was sized to accomadte her gaze attack. The stealthy kenku scouted ahead, but she spotted him right away. I think the satyr charged first and missed. The thri-kreen rushed in as the kenku retreated and cast a Blindness spell on the medusa, hoping to thwart her gaze attack. She seemed to resist the spell. Kobold popped greater invisibility, and we all set to square off. In that mix, a web trap shot out of nowhere and missed Marlibaut the satyr, but a ray of enfeeblement trap hit the thri-kreen full on, ensuring he would just cast spells this battle.
On the next round, Marlibaut shrugged off the medusa's gaze attack and nailed a fearsome blow into her, which negated that illusion. Doh! A lightning bolt whipped into the thri-kreen from nowhwere, and the kobold dispelled the Greater invisibilty and levitaion from the drider that had cast it. A summon Ogre skeleton and angry satyr made short work of the drider, but a couple more webs and lightning bolts were whipping around the room. We managed to locate one of the driders and dispatch it, and we're pretty sure a third one fled. Megauba, ever the environmentalist, recycled the two dead driders into skeletons.
Good thing, too, because after discovering an illusory wall, we quickly found a 90' shaft leading straight down. There were handholds, but none good enough for us to safely climb down, and we had only 50' of rope. So, one drider and the thri-kreen held the rope. The kobold glided down, while the other drider waited at the bottom of the rope for the satyr and kenku to climb down, then carried each down in his turn. The drider up top then carried the thri-kreen down, emperor style. Smooth. (At least, I think that's the order we went in. It was kind of convoluted)
The tunnel we found ourselves in led to some sort of sacrifice room that we didn't explore much. We moved on and came to a huge chasm with ledges pockmarking the sides. One ledge clearly had a tunnel leading from it, but we had no idea how to get there. There was a glowing, odd fungus at the bottom of the chasm, and I sent one drider onto the ledge to see if would react to movement. It didn't. The roper around the corner from us did, though, and quickly lashed onto the drider. The ledge was too narrow for us to make much of an assault on the roper with out being picked off one by one. The kobold flew out of grapple range and tried to fireball it, which failed (rules wise, Wendy had no hope. Even rolling a 20 would only get her a 28 on the caster level check, and a roper has spell resistance 30.) We reconnoitered, weighed our options, and decided that without knowing what was ahead or even if there would be any treasure at all in this damn place it wasn't worth risking. But what about saving the people of the surrounding villages from whatever turned those others into stone? Well, if the driders could cast Greater Invisibilty, maybe it was them. But that didn't really come up.
On the way back, we did happen to notice something awry in the sacrifice room, and that led to another illusory wall. The tunnel behind it circumvented the roper and took us to a ledge farther up and closer to the ledge we wanted to get to. Close enough, in fact, that the thri-kreen stuffed everyone into his bag of holding, and ran and jumped the chasm. On the other side, he quickly deposited the rest of the party before they suffocated.
Lacking much direction for our characters at this point, we started in some no name, medium sized town in an area that's civilized enough to have supplies and information, but savage enough to not blink much of an eye over a satyr, kenku, thri-kreen and man-dragon (ie, winged kobold) snooping around for info and buying the entire stock of mirrors. We had a map and rumors to a cave that laired a medusa. Well, sort of a map. It had two rooms.
We get there, and the first room is just as drawn on the map and full of nice stone statues, neatly arranged in two lines forming a natural hallway. Nothing else of interest was in the room, so we headed down the hall. We promptly reached a cavein, but there was a shaft leading way up formed by a disintegrate spell. The crew new it was gonna be tough going then, as a medusa's hard enough, but when the ugly bitch is disintegrating you AND turning you to stone, things aren't fun anymore.
The shaft presented a bit of a problem, as grasshopper man couldn't make the jump up. So, the kobold flew up, fortunately the kenku had a rope (what the hell does a thri-kreen that can easily jump 14' straight up need a damn rope for?), and strained his back holding while the kenku climbed. Satyr followed and the three of them managed to hold the Bone Painter's (thri-kreen) weight. We moved on.
The tunnel descended into the lair of the medusa, and everything was sized to accomadte her gaze attack. The stealthy kenku scouted ahead, but she spotted him right away. I think the satyr charged first and missed. The thri-kreen rushed in as the kenku retreated and cast a Blindness spell on the medusa, hoping to thwart her gaze attack. She seemed to resist the spell. Kobold popped greater invisibility, and we all set to square off. In that mix, a web trap shot out of nowhere and missed Marlibaut the satyr, but a ray of enfeeblement trap hit the thri-kreen full on, ensuring he would just cast spells this battle.
On the next round, Marlibaut shrugged off the medusa's gaze attack and nailed a fearsome blow into her, which negated that illusion. Doh! A lightning bolt whipped into the thri-kreen from nowhwere, and the kobold dispelled the Greater invisibilty and levitaion from the drider that had cast it. A summon Ogre skeleton and angry satyr made short work of the drider, but a couple more webs and lightning bolts were whipping around the room. We managed to locate one of the driders and dispatch it, and we're pretty sure a third one fled. Megauba, ever the environmentalist, recycled the two dead driders into skeletons.
Good thing, too, because after discovering an illusory wall, we quickly found a 90' shaft leading straight down. There were handholds, but none good enough for us to safely climb down, and we had only 50' of rope. So, one drider and the thri-kreen held the rope. The kobold glided down, while the other drider waited at the bottom of the rope for the satyr and kenku to climb down, then carried each down in his turn. The drider up top then carried the thri-kreen down, emperor style. Smooth. (At least, I think that's the order we went in. It was kind of convoluted)
The tunnel we found ourselves in led to some sort of sacrifice room that we didn't explore much. We moved on and came to a huge chasm with ledges pockmarking the sides. One ledge clearly had a tunnel leading from it, but we had no idea how to get there. There was a glowing, odd fungus at the bottom of the chasm, and I sent one drider onto the ledge to see if would react to movement. It didn't. The roper around the corner from us did, though, and quickly lashed onto the drider. The ledge was too narrow for us to make much of an assault on the roper with out being picked off one by one. The kobold flew out of grapple range and tried to fireball it, which failed (rules wise, Wendy had no hope. Even rolling a 20 would only get her a 28 on the caster level check, and a roper has spell resistance 30.) We reconnoitered, weighed our options, and decided that without knowing what was ahead or even if there would be any treasure at all in this damn place it wasn't worth risking. But what about saving the people of the surrounding villages from whatever turned those others into stone? Well, if the driders could cast Greater Invisibilty, maybe it was them. But that didn't really come up.
On the way back, we did happen to notice something awry in the sacrifice room, and that led to another illusory wall. The tunnel behind it circumvented the roper and took us to a ledge farther up and closer to the ledge we wanted to get to. Close enough, in fact, that the thri-kreen stuffed everyone into his bag of holding, and ran and jumped the chasm. On the other side, he quickly deposited the rest of the party before they suffocated.
posted by Amazing Shafeman at 9:48 AM
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