Category: Oracles and Tools

 [The First Trap and Wading Through] 

"Well, that answers the trap question," Tom says, pointing out the trap. Which is pretty obviously just sitting there where even the worst trap-spotter in the world would have had to struggle to not see it. Also, it is pretty obviously broken. 

A decayed crossbow, string broken, gives the impression it should definitely be aimed at the door they just opened. The tripod system it is on leaning and half submerged in the knee deep water of the room. Knee deep on Grusk and Rance. Tom and Inar are going are quick up to their chest in it. 

When the Monolith was fully functional, a crisscross of light beams powered every part of this underground complex. Another use for the fuelstones. Now, though, that light is gone. "You can see how it would trigger when someone does this," as the goblin waves his hand in front of the useless sensor. Dramatically. He's disappointed by this. Rance at least studies that the strange twine that seems to have once directed the energy to towards the mechanism. [1]

"This is right outside the main entrance. Should be a guard station first, something to say 'NO FOOLING AROUND'!" Inar seems legitimately disturbed by the fact the very first room they enter is already, in theory, trying to kill them.

Rance looks around, holding up his staff (glowing now with a light spell). The now familiar Marius icon of the setting/rising sun remains just visible on the grime caked walls. During high tides this room is half full of water. Until the Marius retainers behind them can get the tides checked, the party is going to be forced to move fast or swim. As it is, they may have only an hour or two before they will be very wet indeed.

"I think the trap was very late stage, as they were pulling out of here at the end. That bench over there, the one covered in barnacles and trash? That looks like an old work bench. Over there half melted into the wall is the world's rustiest saw...or maybe the world's sawiest rust. This was a repair and stocking station. They would have wanted people to come here at least until the last of the old Keepers fled. Probably though they would come back in a few years..." [2]

They spike the door entering the room open and wave at Nelf and Terk and the Marius folks outside, just about 10 yards away. The siblings twitch. The last time the Keepers sent someone this far, it went south very quickly. The only surviving member lapses in and out of a coma at the Lighthouse infirmary and Brother Olin does not expect him to make it. Tom takes the grease paint stick and makes a mark above the water line. The mark deems this room safe to enter and the plan is to get a places cleared so that the Keepers can have a full base of operations. 

Tom listens at the the door south and the door east. "I don't hear anything to the south," he whispers, "But there's something over here behind the other one." [3]

Almost like in perfect timing, a loud croaking sound can be heard. 

"That settles it," says Grusk, pulling out his axe, "We go and meet the frog prince." 

[Feeling Froggy and the Damned Crocodiles]

Grusk counts down using his left hand in a complicated series of motions: orcish finger counting. And then he slams through the door and rushes on into the darkness on the other side, the other three trying to keep up. A pale, large human sized frog with blind eyes wallows in the muck and mire, frog eggs floating nearby. 

Grusk leaps into the pool of water and brings Bloodlust down on the frog's head. Blood splashes out into the pool as the now enraged mother frog swipes at the half orc and misses. By this time, the others manage to get into position and give assistance. 

The frog whips out its tongue towards the splashing sounds it hears in the distance and just misses Inar. Grusk gets another chop at the head of the frog and more blood splatters but the great beast is not dead yet. 

Rance chants a spell and let's loose a magic missile which pierces the eye of the frog, dropping it into the now blood filled pool. "You know, Grusk, it was just a frog. We could probably have lured it out by convincing it that Tom was a fly." [4]

"Shut up, Uffolt," Grusk and Tom reply at the same time. 

The room they are in looks like it might have been a some sort of store room for papers and notes. "Ah, Cal is going to be sad about this," quips Rance while Grusk and Tom descend into yet another argument. [5]

Grusk wants to pour out oil and set the frog eggs on fire and Tom is pointing out it is a few minutes walk...they could carry the frog eggs out there, not like they are the problem. As Inar is trying to wedge himself into the middle, somehow agreeing and disagreeing with both at the same time, Tom whips around and shouts... "RANNNCE!" 

Unfortunately the warning is too late as a large saltwater crocodile, attracted by the blood and the now unprotected food, erupts from the water and chomps the wizard's arm and starts pulling him under the water. [6]

Tom starts shooting his bow as Grusk once more brings his axe to bear and Inar begins weaving a bless spell. Grusk is too nervous about striking Rance, missing wildly, and while Inar gets the spell off, is unable to find Rance under the churning, bloody water. Tom manages to embed an arrow into the beast but the fight is clearly on a clock. 

The team are not giving the croc any chance to get away with their friend and press the attack with a speed the croc can barely comprehend. Unfortunately, Rance's light spell is currently on a staff slightly submerged so attacks will be difficult. [7]

This time, Grusk does not hesitate and lands a massive hit against the skull of the croc though Tom is having trouble seeing into the frothing water. At least Inar, trying his best to not get swiped, manages to get contact with Rance and heal the wizard back up to enough health that Rance can pull himself free (if quite bloody and very wet).  

Now the enraged crocodile is taking out his anger on Grusk. The first bite glances off of Grusk's plate but the second sinks solidly in his arm. Grusk uses the locked jaws to lift the crocodile out of the water as Rance, still hoarse and coughing water from his mouth, screams as he brings down his staff on the crocodiles back, finishing it off. 

"Alright, Tom," huffs Grusk, "You win. We'll keep the eggs alive for now. Might make good bait to lure these damned crocs." 

While Grusk is gathering up a few frog eggs to act as bait, a recovering Rance looks through the old papers and scrolls to see if anything survived the damp. Nothing did but even among the detritus he finds a few sigils and stamps that he jots down. A stylized skull shows up across some of the communications. [8]

[Down into the Slime]

As the party pushes further south, Tom notes that the water in here, a bit deeper than before, has a particular sheen to it and holds the others back. "That ain't water." 

Sure enough, the team can see portions of the water swirling around as something darker and...gooier, swirl around inside. "Ah," says Rance, "an ooze". 

"Can't fault the name, so let's burn it," says Grusk as he pulls forth one of his oil flasks and gets ready to light it on fire. 

"Nah, don't. Save your oil. According to the books I read, these things won't burn. Also, according to Dendor Morsinbor's On the Nature of Slimes, don't hit them with metal. They eat that." [9]

"Alright, then they can eat one of these eggs," and with that Grusk tosses an egg in. Which the oozes ignore. 

"Maybe they are full," says Tom from the back. 

Grusk pulls out his axe and ignoring Rance's warning, chops down into the middle of the swirl and the water changes color and then dissipates.

"That is very strange." 

The team keep clear of touching the slime in case it still is a danger while dead. [10]

[A Surprise for Sure]

Unfortunately, right past the slime the stairs descend down and that means the water will definitely be too deep for Tom and Inar. Even Rance will be feeling a bit drowned. Considering the dangers they have faced so far, they are not looking forward to stripping off armor and gear and diving down. Instead, the head to the side now trying to loop back towards the surface rather than going too deeply into the Monolith. 

The room before them is the largest of the side rooms that they have seen and it seems to have once been some sort of menagerie. Cages and tanks - empty, rusted, and cracked now - are lined up along the edges with a large table structure in the middle of the room that might have once been an aquarium. Currently filled to the brim with brown sludge. [11]

Once again, Tom's goblin senses pick up the threat before the others and he points to the tank. Grusk trudges through the water and gets close to the tank before the thing in the tank stands up in a rough approximation of Grusk's own shape. 

"Alright. Do. I. Hit. It?" 

Inar steps forwards, still well behind, Grusk, and tries talking to it in a variety of languages, finally finding some recognition when he lapses into Primordial. After adjusting some of the tenor and tone, he makes contact. [12]

The others wait with Rance glancing back down the previous hallway. 

"Blkalkkbl," says Inar, "came here years ago to escape some of the horrors of the Bleak. Well, I think he was talking about The Bleak. It is fascinating is it not that a notion that I am pretty sure that would translate as to 'the long sigh after the noise of insect wings' would mean..."

"Gale. The Point. Find it."

"Yes, well, um...he is...allergic? to water?" 

"A slime. Allergic to water."

"Again, the thing you have to keep in mind is that..."

"No."

"NO?"

"No, I am sorry I asked."

After some discussion the adventurers work out that they would like to help Blkalkkbl but Grusk worries that this slime might eat his armor since, in principle, he will have to carry it. [13]

Rance pokes around at some of the other tanks and barrels and cages in the room and with a little work comes up with a feasible container good enough to get Blkalkkbl out of this flooded dungeon. However, the damage means they will need to go relatively quickly. [14]

"I say we get him in there and then Grusk runs like the devil is on his trail and tries to get him out of here. Give him to Nelf and tell her to take it to Senior Commander Grunkheart because the Lighthouse has lots of dry rooms this...visitor...can hang out in. Cal will love more company."

Grusk sighs deeply but Blkalkkbl aggress to the plan and carefully climbs into the lashed together tank, the acidic skin starts to eat at the edges. Grusk braces as Inar runs north and opens the door, and the half orcs runs to get the slime creature to higher ground. 

Inar grins. "I knew he was a big softy!" 

Tom looks up from digging through some of the piles that Rance has disturbed. "It isn't much, but it's dishonest work," and tosses a jade statue over to Inar. Some holy statue from the Barthic empire. Worth a bit, but not much. 

The three friends follow after their rough voiced companion. Wondering how well Cal will take the new guest.[15]

[Regrouping and Drying Out]

We will skip ahead a few days here. Rance, Grusk, and Tom are going to aid the Marius retainers to work on getting the tide barriers in place since the dungeon will be very underwater without them. They will also help to secure the rooms already explored, building barriers and guard stations. 

Back at the Lighthouse, Blkalkkbl will be given a very dry room and will have some long conversations with Cal and Inar. We will return to what info can be gleamed in the next civilization run. 

Cal does not recognize the stylistic skull icon found but will add it to his list of things to research. Perhaps another party involved in the construction of the Lighthouse (yes, signs point to yes...want me to roll on it? Ok... 14. So yes. That's nice, actually, saves me having to work out another plot thread since the current one is quite....meaty). 

If you look at Michael Prescott's depth analysis on the original Amon Gorloth Post, by the fiction many of the areas in the green and blue in the northeast quadrant will be from pretty deeply underwater to very deeply underwater. The system was mean to let water flow through so it drains off. BUT.. we'll say that after a few days of draining, the green will be knee deep while the yellow will be damp and the red will be [still] dry. This might make some of the more slime and aquatic stuff less friendly. 

Once again, thanks to Dyson Logos for such awesome maps. I've enjoyed getting to use them. And thanks to Michael Prescott for making the depth map because while I will not be sticking to this depth too hard as we get past this initial aquatic style, it really helps me to keep it sorted in my head which portions are most impacted by the flooding sea water. 

MECHANICAL NOTES

1. Room contents 3 --> Trap. Crossbow. Triggered by breaking light beam. Seems a nice time to set some lore/mechanics into place.
2. Checked the oracle and got "Repair Mundane". So it's a workshop. The trap is definitely a poor attempt to protect the complex as the older keepers were retreating a couple of centuries back.
3. Note: Rolled on both rooms. To the east is a solitary giant frog. To the south is a random boss monster who we will figure out when we get there. 
4. This one was quick so I won't go into too much detail on the combat but basically the frog got no hits and Grusk got two but they were relatively weak. Rance got magic missle off to finish it. I gave Grusk surprise bonus on his first swing because he got the door open in a single action. 
5. Room contents are "sneak information" so we'll just say it's a place for missives.
6. Random monster check hit. Crocodile. Tom is a goblin and cannot be surprised but he wasn't the target. Gave Rance an INT check versus 9 to see if he could react in time but alas. Croc hit at advantage doing enough damage to take out poor Rance in a single hit. He has 5 turns to resurface but I'll make his "death saves" at disadvantage since he is submerged.
7. Init was 20 vs 1 so I'm going to roll that essentially a free attack round squeezed in. With the light being dim they would be on disadvantage but I'm having the two cancel out. 
8. SD Oracle, at Disadvantage: "Does anything worthwhile survive?" No, but... used Random Realities to generate a rumor "Secret Societies" and an icon/mark: "Skull". 
9. DC15 INT check to see if Rance knew any information. Got a 21 total so, yeah, quite a bit of information. Knows that Gray Oozes are immune to fire and can eat normal weapon. 
10. After the previous fight, a single gray ooze is kind of a nice change, especially with Grusk one shots it. 
11. The room "clue" was "Reveal Animal". Hence the trappings. So, rolling it up with it locked at a type of ooze, the monster is a level 2 ooze that can change shape, does extra damage from its acidic touch, and... thanks to a quick roll on Random Realities, explodes when damaged. It has AC13, 8HP, +2 to attack, 1d8 + 1d6 damage. When it explodes at 0HP it will do acid attack to everyone in... near. Ironically,  it's threat is *water*. Which is probably why it was hiding out in the tank, eh? It *is* intelligent but is fairly alien in thought compared to humans. It is not aggressive but it is also highly frightened. There will be some good treasure in the room though since this will check at LV5. 
12. Ok, Inar has Primordial which feels right for this. Gave him a DC15 check to see if he can establish some sort of contact. He made it so yes and I'll give him +2 to his Reaction check which is only 5 (rolled) +2CHA +2 for 9. This put's the creature at "neutral". 
13. Rolled 4d6 with 3+ being a vote for yes. Got 3 out of 4 for helping the strange slime being. I'll put Grusk as the practical "nay" vote for a reason related to the just previous encounter.
14. "Can Rance work out a container out of all the animal cages and tanks?" yes, but... they will break and spill out on a roll of 1:6. 
15. Grusk made a DC12 check to run out of there in a timely manner and the tank did not break. On the oracle, rolled a 20 so Cal not only likes his new guest but absolutely loves having this being with some knowledge of the Monolith. Looks like the campaign just got a strange side character.

DOUG'S NOTES

- The Four Pillars and the Six Bowls - 

A quick note about my "Vote Dice" mechanic

- The Four Pillars and the Six Bowls (part 2) - 

- The Beastmen and the Bugs in the Bathhouse - 

- The First of the Marius Dead and the Key - 

- The Return to the Sun Door and Face to Face with Del Marius - 

- Wrapping Up and in Praise of Kelsey - 

One of My Other Campaigns

The Bleak and the Pearl is one my other two main campaigns I am running solo. It is uses the SoloDark rules addon to ShadowDark. The slight tweak/experiment to this campaign is to divide into delve sessions like this one that use SoloDark to handle the general oracle and settings and then civilization sessions that will use Mythic GME 2. This gives an interesting variety of play. All the big threads and characters and such are handled in town, while the delves are simpler. 

I started the campaign before I started the blog and originally the idea was that this blog would cover it but I never got around to doing the "full" recap (being only a single delve session and a single civilization session). Rather than type up multiple pages of stuff I played a few weeks ago, I will instead just bring up the main beats as they go, but let's start with these three quick pieces:

The Bleak and the Pearl

300 years ago, the Barthic Federation was a grand collective of Human, Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, and Halfling kingdoms spread across the island continent of Barthus. The twin to Barthus was primitive and unbroken Silt: a place full of great beasts and massive wilderness. Outside of a few mining and limber towns, Silt was mostly ignored by the Barthic people, left to the Orcs who managed to tame some of the wilder reaches. At least until the Darkness came. It spread and devoured Barthus, corrupting and mutating the land. 

As the Federations was pushed further south and east, the decision finally came to cross the Gray Channel en masse and to try and make a new country in Silt. 

Now, three centuries later, the once great Barthic Federation are a series of city states spread along both sides of the Gray Channel. Civilization is crushed between the primal wilds of Silt and the devouring darkness of old Barthus. In common language, these two continents are now better known as The Bleak (Barthus) and The Pearl (Silt). 

The Blue Grove Boys

Four orphans raised by The Blue Grove, a Pearl temple of Gede in the Cerulean Forest, have crossed the Gray Channel lead by the apocalyptic dreams of Rance, a Human Wizard. He and Inar (Halfing Cleric) were rescued by the Grove from a cult dedicated to the Dark Lady (possibly probably some incarnation of Shune but I'm keeping it vague right now). They were raised alongside Grusk (Half-Orc Fighter, who had been beaten and abused as a sorcerer's apprentice) and Tom (Goblin Thief, abandoned as a baby at the Grove). 

Driven by Rance's dreams, they feel themselves pulled into a quest to stop the unknown upcoming catastrophe. They have found and recovered a strange cloak that drives the wearer mad while also shielding the user from magical scrying. Though they are unsure why they were led to this cloak (currently being housed and protected in the Grove's chambers), they still trust in the power of Rance. They have lately come to the city of Grunce.

[Doug's Note: All of them are currently level 2]

Cal Grunkheart, The Lighthouse Keepers, and Grunce's Troubles

The city of Grunce was the site the last major work of the then crumbling Barthic Federation. Five great families came together and powered the Lighthouse through now-unknown means. The Lighthouse's light drives back the Darkness and makes a barrier of safe passage for those seeking a life in the Pearl. This places Grunce as the greatest city left in the Bleak: a trading ground, a port of call, and a haven. Unfortunately, the Lighthouse is starting to flicker and threatens to collapse. 

Cal Grunkheart - a descendent of Jonias Grunkheart who founded Grunce and the Lighthouse - is trying to find a way to preserve the Light and to restore his family to power. He befriends the Grove orphans and the two groups - Lighthouse Keepers and the Grove Boys - are now working together to solve the mysteries of the Lighthouse. 

Cal has found there are tunnels underneath Grunce which act as a battery to power the Light. However, the Keepers have only gotten to the first fuel stone and have been able to go deeper due to the infestation of the tunnels. Years ago, when these five families had the tunnels constructed, they created a grid using five items of power. Now, as the Darkness presses in, these five items of power must be restored to the fuel stones to recharge them once more.

While all this is going on, two great houses of Grunce - The Marrs and the Allociuses - are fighting with each other and with the Free Merchants' Guild to gain the upper hand in the city. All three are ok with stopping the Lighthouse keepers because such catastrophe can be blamed on the other two.

The first fuel stone found by the Keepers is missing the Diadem of Del Marius. In his lifetime, Mad Marius turned his old family estate into a Citadel full of strange treasures and traps. His diadem was left inside and must be retrieved.

The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur, Part 1

Since you can read the whole adventure as part of the free Shadowdark Quickstart and Kelsey Dionne has made an overview video about The Lost Citadel on Youtube, I am not going to dive too deeply into the mechanics or layout of the dungeon. You can also get a glimpse of the map, above. Instead, I'll focus on a few highlights.

The Labyrinth

Brell, the Ochre Jelly, and the Door

The Beastman Slaughter

The Minotaur Sleeps (and Dies)!

The Darkmantles and Their First Bull Statue

The End of Session 1