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The D&D Dynasty: The Path of Alzar the Mighty
Hello all and welcome to my newest dynasty. What I want to do with today’s dynasty is simple, and yet quite complex. I want to take a character from 3rd level to however high he can get before I get bored, or he dies, in AD&D modules and other adventures.
A couple of years ago, I lost my laptop, and one of my greater losses was all of the information I had about a 15th level Necromancer named Alzar. I began to rewrite his character and all of his allies and items, and such – and I just finished a month ago. He is one of my favorite villains and bad guys and I adore him. I’ve been in a D&D mood recently and so I thought, why not roll Alzar back to his earlier days, and try role playing with him as he crashes through dungeons and what not. That sounded like fun, and thus, I created his character and allies to deal with problems and issues going back to level three, when his master and mentor was killed, and he was forced to leave and fend for himself. What actually happened? So, I have moved him to that level, and adjusted various things to have him at his lowest point, right after he left Vorthala’s service. Let’s take a look at Alzar, and then the rules of the campaign. |
Alzar was born the only son of a mayor of a large town. He saw his father regularly use his power to increase his own wealth and holdings, but always did so in a way so as to avoid breaking the law. His father always claimed that truly smart people did not need to break their word or the law in order to gain power.
As Alzar grew in stature and intelligence, his training moved towards the military. He became a professional soldier at a young age, impressing his superiors with his quick mind and strong intuitive command of battle tactics. After several years he was promoted to a high rank, and given the responsibility of controlling a sub-command. It was while in charge of this sub-command that Alzar and his troops encountered an evil necromancer. After his troops overcame the necromancer’s undead forces, they captured the necromancer. Brought to his tent, the necromancer neither bowed nor acknowledged the superior position of Alzar, haughtily informing Alzar that he did not control lives nor did he have power. Alzar was a weak man. Angered, Alzar slashed out at the necromancer with his axe, and the smile on the necromancer’s lips grew stronger and froze in death. Alzar could not escape from the smile. His dreams over the next few weeks were consumed by the necromancer’s claim and his smile. After a couple of months passed, Alzar knew he had to pursue the claims made, and resigned his commission. A few weeks later he returned to the site of where the necromancer had been, only to find him there, waiting on Alzar. Without muttering a word, he motioned for Alzar to sit beside him, and Alzar’s apprenticeship began. Several years later, while Alzar was apprenticed to Vorthala, shortly after Alzar reached 3rd level, his master died in a failed attempt to gain lichdom. Quickly, Vorthala’s old apprentices arrived and claimed his things and tower for themselves. Alzar was not able to get much, only snuck a few scrolls with some obscure spells on them, and a good amount of gold and other valuable items like gems and jewelry. While everyone else was getting tomes, magic items, scrolls and such, Alzar was only able to leave with a few scrolls, some of which he has since transposed into his spellbook. Without a home, and without a permanent resting place, Alzar, his familiar, and his homonculous are going to turn to the obvious place to get the gold needed to start up on his own, away from people and to start a new life for himself, away from his own master and his former apprentices. Alzar has a small number of spells in his spellbook from his apprenticeship, and only a few items. Due to the dual-class nature, he cannot use his knowledge as a professional soldier while still trying to make it as a necromancer, if he wants to learn anything. However, the skills he has learned are still available to him, and using various skills, he is able to survive and thrive in the wilderness. About fifty miles away from Vorthala’s tower, Alzar has arrived at the town of Regalsford. It is small compared to the city Alzar grew up in, but as the center of business for the area, it has a lot of amenities you would not expect for its size. Leaving Lastion outside in a nearby cave, Alzar enters the city with gold in his pockets, fully supplied, but looking for the next chapter in his life. |
Alzar
7th level Fighter (Myrmidon), 3rd level Necromancer (Undead Master) Lawful Evil Human Str: 16 Dex: 12 Con: 10 Wis: 16 Int: 18 Cha: 14 Hit Points: 51 THACO: 13 (Increased with Axe Weapon Master and +1 Axe) or 20 as Necromancer AC:10 XP: 5,050 Gold: 966 Race Abilities: None Taken Class Abilities (Cannot use as Necromancer without losing XP gain): Specialization Leadership (Alzar can command the tactics, strategy, logistics and more that a large force requires) 3 attacks every 2 rounds Non-Weapon Proficiencies: Myrmidon Bonus: Tactical History 14 Fire-Building 16 Riding 11 Swimming 12 Reading/Writing 13 Survival 14 Blind Fighting Etiquette 13 Endurance Heraldry 13 Hunting 10 Fishing 14 Weather Knowledge 10 Orienteering 15 Undead Master Bonuses: Necrology 14 Netherworld Knowledge 10 Herbalism 14 Alchemy 12 Poison Use 11 Ancient Languages 10 Traits: Empathy Fast Healer Precise Memory Weapon Proficiencies: Bonus Kit Specialization: Battle Axe Battle Axe One Handed Weapon Style x2 (-2 AC when using one weapon in combat) Crossbow Battle Axe Weapon Mastery Spear Total with normal battle axe - +3 to hit, +3 to damage, -2 to AC Staff – Can only use this as a Necromancer Class Ability: Alzar can control undead as an evil Priest of the same level, and this ability extends to extra planar beings which are considered undead with the same hit dice for this purpose. In addition to normal specialist mage stuff, Alzar gets a 10% bonus to XP for his high intelligence |
Magical Items:
+1 Battle Axe Necklace of Adaptation Potion of Healing Scrolls of: Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens, Bone Knit and Teleport Spellbook: 3/2 First Level: Animate Dead Animals * Cantrip Charm Person * Detect Magic Friends Identify Read Magic Sleep * Unseen Servant Second Level: Attract Ghoul Blastbones * ESP * Forget Locate Object Ray of Ondovir Speak with Dead Third Level: Dire Charm Searing Serpent Skulltrap Fourth Level: Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity Those that he normally memorizes are asterisked. -------------- Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity Level: 4 Casting Time: 4 Components: VSM Duration: 1 day Target: 1 touched undead creature Vorthala was Alzar’s necromantic master, and passed this spell on to his pupil, the only one Alzar got before Vorthala died. When cast on an undead creature, it is immune to any turning attempts by a priest, whether it would result in turning or destruction. It can be controlled by a rival who could control undead. This spell grants only immunity to turning attempts, and not turning or destruction from spells. The material component for this spell is a sliver of bone and a vial of unholy water. |
Rules:
1). Alzar must take adventures normally designed for a group of adventurers. Can he survive? If he has to pull out his Battle Axe and fighter it up, he will, but that means a loss of XP for that encounter. 2). Alzar is Lawful Evil, and needs to be played that way. He is not afraid to kill to gain power, and he is not afraid to negotiate to gain power either. 3). Alzar knows he is a meat shield compared to his familiar, homonculous and animal skeletons. 4). While doing a module, any magical item other than a + weapon or armor, or any spell in a spellbook has a 10% chance of becoming a random one of the same type from all of those ever made, in order to represent my world, with a diverse set of magic items and spells. 5). In my world, there is no restriction to the number of spells you can learn 6). This includes AD&D modules, D&D modules, 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, world specific ones like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms – whatever works for my world works here. 7). After the initial campaign, any future modules need to be rolled on dice and are determined randomly, except where those modules cannot be done by me doing both Alzar, the DM and Alzar’s allies. 8). I can do a good job being neutral usually, but there are a few places where I cannot, and I will admit that when it comes. |
Let’s look at Alzar’s allies:
Lastion, Ghoul Neutral Evil HP: 15 THAC0: 19 AC: 6 Lastion is Alzar’s familiar, a Ghoul summoned by the Attract Ghoul spell. Lastion is much smarter than the average Ghoul, with an Intelligence of 11. If Lastion encounters foes, he will attack, with its three attacks per round for 1d3, 1d3, and 1d6 requiring any hit to save or be paralyzed for 1d6+2 rounds. Lastion is turned as a Wight, not as a Ghoul, due to his familiar status. Lastion is much smarter than a normal ghoul with an intelligence of 11. If Lastion dies, Alzar must make a system shock roll or be incapacitated for 1d6 hours. Megala, Homonculous Lawful Evil HP: 10 THAC0: 19 AC: 6 Damage: 1d3+ sleep Megala is Alzar’s Homonculous from before Vorthala died, and he had given Alzar much of the ingredients. Megala has no personality, and is merely an extension of Alzar. When he fights, his fangs force a save vs poison or put a person to sleep for 5d6 rounds. If he dies, Alzar will take 2d10 damage. Alzar can use both Megala and Lastion as eyes and ears, and senses what they sense. Animal Skeletons: AC: 8 HP: 3 THAC0: 19 # of attacks/rnd: 1 - 1d4 Additionally, Alzar has 21 animated animal skeletons at his beck and call as cannon fodder and disposable labor and scouts. These are animated from normal animal small skeletons like squirrels and toads and cats and such. Alzar can animate three more of the same species whenever he casts Animate Dead Animals, so if he comes across a dried up pond with some dead frogs and so forth, expect him to add to his numbers. |
Okay, what I intend to do to start is to use the In Search of Adventure book for the early campaign, substituting in Regalsford in my place, for Threshold.
For those unfamiliar with this, it collects the adventures B2-B9 and creates a mini-campaign with them. Initially three adventures will be open to me, and I can select one. After successfully completing it, I open one or more future adventures. All lead to the same end, but if I want, I can come out of a path at any time, to start another one, but one I get to a certain point, I just gotta finish. |
Regalsford:
Situated largely by itself in the foothills of the Feldspar Mountains, lies the 5000 strong citizens of Regalsford. Found just upriver from the junction of a minor river (the Tybartina River) and an unnamed lake, Regalsford is one of the last bastions of civilization before your journey to the nation of Intaria takes you into the wilderness. Although no king or crown claims this land, nor any for hundreds of miles, there is a minor Duke who helps out the locals, but he is upriver in another town. Regelsford is mostly on its own. Things here can be more expensive. Because of the frontier law it has, weapons other than daggers, knives, and staffs must be checked in before entering, and no spells may be cast while inside the city walls. Ignore the name of the town, river, etc.  Inside are inns, temples, stores, houses, a bank, and more. |
I will be reading...
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Awesome!
Alzar has left Lastion and the animal skeletons in a nearby cave while he enters Regalsford at night. His homonculous is on his shoulder, obvious to everyone. As he nears it, he is met by a sergeant in the town guard and informed of the rules here. He agrees to turn over his battle axe +1 to the sergeant while in the town. He does not agree to not cast any magic, he just nods when the sergeant mentions it. Alzar mentions that he is here to restock in his supplies and see if there is any gainful employment for mages like him (he claims to be a mere mage). Alzar pays for a week of rooms at a local inn for 10 gp. He gets a few looks with his homonculous displayed openly, but appears friendly and likable enough, and there are some wizards who openly live in our around Regalsford, so Alzar is not alone. After two days, Alzar has heard several rumors. Three he can act on immediately: 1). A local merchant, Clifton Caldwell, has purchased the Old Antilles Castle five miles west of the town, and needs someone to evict the current residents. 2). A renegade cleric named Elwyn has been organizing raiding parties of orcs three days ride to the east. The mayor of the town wants this investigated. 3). A Qwith merchant named Sindar needs a package delivered to his partner in the town of Selenica, far to the north. Alzar decides to check out the castle, since it is nearby. |
I will be following along. I haven't played D&D for a loooooong time so forgive what may be naive questions here and there. So are these books basically modules that you can play solo?
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Nope, I'm editing them slightly. They are just normal adventures, for starting characters.
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Adventure B9 – Castle Caldwell and Beyond
Alzar arrives at the Caldwell estate on the edge of town, and is let into the estate after mentioning his business. Within ten minutes, Clifton has arrived. Clifton purchased the castle a month ago, and then went to the castle. Within a few minutes of being there, he was attacked and had to run after seeing monsters. He wants someone to go and take care of it. However, he does not think that just one person can do it, so he has doubts about Alzar. While bending down to pick up a dropped object, Alzar casts Charm Person on Clifton. It…succeeds. Clifton will give the assignment to Alzar, and even agrees to pay the full amount he was willing to barter to: 250 gold, and even gets Clifton to agree to give it all to Alzar up front. Having been given information as to what is going on, Alzar begins to look to look for supplies to go to the Castle. Here is what he purchases: 3 horses – 1 riding and 2 draft – 375 gold 1 small wagon – 400 gold Various small supplies: bedroll, tent, food for a few days, sacks, extra axe, torches, etc: 50 gold Total spent: 825 Current gold: 381 Alzar hooks up the draft horses to the wagon, equips it, and then rides the riding horse. Because they will be skittish around undead, he has Lastion lead the animal skeletons far away, but in the same direction. They come across nothing in the five miles to the castle. |
Alzar lashes the horses firmly so they cannot run, and then brings in the undead. They whimper rand try to flee, but his knowledge of horses keeps them from being able to run away. He approaches the slope up to the door with all of his allies in tow.
The doors are made of oak, the castle is smaller and has just four towers, one in each corner, and just one level – nothing above it at all. Alzar wonders at the purpose of building a castle like that, after all, castles are expensive to build. He walks up the door and it is loose on the hinges, and opens easily. In front he sees a T intersection. On each side is a door, and a door is also in front of him, in the intersection. Knowing traps may be present, he runs a squirrel skeleton into the hallway and up to the door in front of him, but nothing happens. Alzar then sends in Megala to fly over and check it out. Alzar can see through Megala’s eyes that the corridor is empty, and goes on in each direction, with a door flanking the one in front, and the corridor’s splitting at the end.  Alzar decides to try the door on his right first. The door opens. With the animal skeletons in front of him, he pushes it open. Suddenly, four goblins freeze and look right at Alzar and his small horde of skeletons, even small ones. There are no other doors from this room, and sense of resignation sets over them as they draw their weapons reluctantly. Alzar tries to address them with Typic, but that fails, they do not know it. As they approach, Alzar sighs, and moves to the front to protect his group. Four goblins should not be as much of a problem for him. Staff in hand, Alzar is hit by one of the goblins for 2 damage from a short sword. Alzar thumps one for 3 damage with his staff, plus one for strength. They swing and two connect for 9 damage from short swords. Alzar thumps with his staff again and doles out two more damage, enough to kill the first goblin. One hits for double damage and deals 4 damage. Alzar misses. Alzar wins init and hits dealing 7 and killing a second one. He takes 6 more himself. Alzar misses. H etakes 2. Alzar hits for 6. He is missed. Alzar misses. The last one misses. It hits, Alzar takes 4 and then Alzar hits and kills the last one. HP: Alzar is at -23 so at 28. 140 XP gained Alzar finds a ton of coins: 3000 copper, 4000 silver, one gem on the floor (50 gold) and 26 electrum. He has the four short swords placed outside in his “Magic” pile which he will cast Detect Magic on later to see if any are magical. The rest are left here except for the pocketed gem. |
Alzar moves to the room on his left. It opens. There are some broken tables and chairs and lots of cobwebs. He sends in the animal skeleton to explore but they find nothing except a sack of under a table with 300 silver, and three gems worth 300, 50 and 50. Alzar takes the gems and Lastion runs the sack out to the wagon. While Alzar is waiting, a group of four goblins arrive in the hallway and see Alzar and his undead animals. They see into the rooms that Alzr has killed their friends, and then they visibly drop their weapons in front of Alzar and run sort of towards him and sort of away. He lets them go. Their four short bows are added to the magic pile.
Alzar then returns to the corridor and he has his animal skeletons walk all the way around the castle, and return, but no traps trigger and nothing attacks them. He then sends out Megala, and again, nothing, and he sees the layout. He has the skeletons investigate the towers rooms, two at a time, each led by either Lastion or Megala, and they don’t find anything in any of them, just dust and such. Alzar decides to just go straight into the door facing him. It opens, and he sees…a man lying on the bed, first asleep, but now wakening. He picks up an axe and addresses Alzar. “Yes, how can I help you?” Alzar is a bit taken back by the normal question, but quickly explains why he is here. The man introduces himself as a trader and raps on the walls adjacent to him. In a minute, two men from the adjacent rooms have arrived, and all three discuss. They agree to leave and begin collecting their belongings. Alzar lets them, and in ten minutes, they are gone. Alzar immediately investigates (rooms 3, 4 and 5 on map) and finds nothing in the rooms beyond some old food, and used, worn, but serviceable furniture. Alzar enters the door that goes inward from the middle room. It is a small, central courtyard, and in it are two wolves that see Alzar open the door and move to attack. Alzar decides to send in the troops and his Animal Skeletons will be taking this one. They go first. Four hit for 1, 2, 4, and 2 damage. The wolves miss and hit for 2 damage, keeping the skeleton alive. The wolves go first next, and kill a skeleton. 20 left. They swing and deal out 2, 1, and 4. The first wolf dies. They attack first, and deal 7 damage in four hits and kill the last wolf. 240 XP gained, cut in half to 120 XP for not participating. |
Will definitely be following along with this. Good start so far, tough little fight with the goblins.
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There is nothing in this room, but five doors out. Alzar starts with the lower left, and it opens and reveals an old bedroom. The animal skeletons and others search and find nothing after 10 minutes of checking.
He opens up the door on the left in the upper area. Again, a used bed room and again, nothing found. He moves to the door in the middle top of the castle courtyard. Inside are three small kobolds ho immediately run at the sight of the group entering from the courtyard, which means they killed the wolves the kobolds know about. Alzar lets them go and sends Megala to make sure they flee the castle instead of warning someone. They do flee. A search of the room finds nothing. There is a door to the hallway, now open, but Alzar goes back to the courtyard. He opens the door to the upper left. Another bedroom with nothing in it. He finishes with the lower left door. After an exhaustive search of this bedroom, Alzar’s minions find a large sack under bed clothes with 300 sp and 50 gp in it. It is run out to the wagon. Alzar and his troops head into the corridor again and decide to finish off the middle section of the castle by hitting the left room on the top side first. It is another bed room and another search finds nothing. Finally, he heads to the right room on this side and again finds nothing in the bedroom after a long search, except a crab spider that tries to attack an animal skeleton and is killed in seconds because it doesn’t do any damage, just poison damage and the undead are immune to it. |
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Since he is here, he decides to go across the hallway and start with the right most door on the back of the hallway and move left. This appears to be an old utility room now empty. The undead find nothing in here. He moves left and opens the door and three humans and a pack mule are in here. They move to the door and begin to speak with Alzar brusquely. They request to be allowed to leave with their items intact. They seem to be doing alright for themselves. Alzar turns around to consider this, and casts Charm Person on the first one to talk to him. Failure.
He knows that he was the target of a spell, and draws his short sword. The other two do not know what is going on, and Alzar turns around, and announces that he will be casting a spell to make sure they are not going to stab him in the back when they are allowed to leave. After casting ESP, Alzar begins to read their minds and discovers that they are bandits. “Bandits, eh?” He says to them, and then they draw their other swords and move to attack. Alzar draws his staff and orders Lastion to assist him. Alzar misses with his staff and Lastion hits twice for 9 damage on a bandit, killing him outright. The first bandit hits Lastion for 2 damage and the other for 5 on Alzar. The bandits swing faster and dole out 3 to Lastion. Alzar misses. Lastion hits once for 3 damage on a bandit. The bandit makes his save. Alzar smacks a bandit for 5 damage and kills it. Lastion hits once for 1 damage and the bandit fails his save and is paralyzed. Alzar allows Lastion to kill him by himself. The three short swords are added to the magic pile. A search finds a bunch of gold. Alzar secures the pack mule with the two draft horses and then comes back. 3000 sp in 6 sacks, taken to wagon while we are waiting. Small wooden box with gems worth 200, 100x2 and 10x3. Two pearl necklaces (400 gold each) XP gained: 150 Lastion is allowed to snack on the one he didn’t kill for now, and can feast later. Alzar is at 23 HP and Lastion at 10. |
Alzar moves to the next room to the west and finds an old storeroom, with ledges and shelves, looking empty. A search confirms it.
He then finishes up the back section with the final room – which appears like it may have been an old guardroom. There is a weapons rack with no weapons, a few beds, etc. An exhaustive search finds a small sack with 100 sp and 20 gp run over to the wagon and back. Alzar decides to move to the left and go the topmost left door. He cannot open it. He tries to hack at it, and does everything in his power to open it, but it will not budge. The next room has another old storeroom. An animal skeleton is killed by a giant shrew after it enters and is ambushed. It is killed by the animal skeletons but not before another dies. 20 XP for Alzar and 18 skeletons left. There is nothing in the room. The next one is the old library of the castle. The old bookshelves are dilapidated and the few books are eaten through and destroyed. There are a couple of large fire beetles in the room. Since Alzar does not know what is in the room, he orders the animal skeletons to attack. They kill the fire beetles and Alzar is down to 16 skeletons. 35 XP gained, and nothing in the room. The next room appears to be a pantry with a dead goblin carcass in here. The animal skeletons find a spitting cobra, which they defeat without any dying. 20 XP for Alzar. The final room on the left has the castle kitchen. The Animal skeletons trigger a gas trap on an empty chest and poison damage is dealt to them and anything near them, but Alzar is not near them, so he takes nothing. The chest is worth 50 gold and can hold up to 2000 coins. Alzar walks over the lower right room and opens it up. It is a utility room except for a statue in the corner of a shepherd, who address Alzar as he opens the door, and tells him how he can help Alzar. Alzar asks about the hidden room, and is told that great mage and danger are behind it. Alzar asks about the next two rooms and finds out htat they are both fully empty of anything, even treasure. No more questions can be answered, so Alzar moves to one of the final rooms. This appears to be another storeroom, and as the animal skeletons move it, three Stirges dive from the ledge and kill one. 15 left. Alzar orders them back and Lastion and him move up. Alzar misses and Lastion deals just one damage to one, but it fails its save and it falls to the ground paralyzed. The other two miss. Alzar slaps one for 4 damage. Lastion misses. One stirge hits Alzar for 1 damage and locks its beak on. The stirges go first. Alzar automatically takes 2 damage from the Stirge. The other hits Alzar for two more and locks on. Alzar hits for 2 damage. Lastion hits twice and deals 7 damage to a strige and kills it. The miss might hit Alzar, since they are very close, and actually does hit, so Alzar takes 2 damage, and passes his save. He orders Lastion away. The final Stirge deals 4 to Alzar. Alzar misses. Alzar hits for 2 damage and kills the Stirge. He immediately casts Animate Dead Animals and they join his crew. 18 now. HP: Alzar is at 12 HP, Lastion still at 10. XP: 525 Nothing is found in the room. The final room appears to be an old chapel, with a female cleric praying and she stands up when she sees Alzar open the door. She is wielding a mace and wearing plate mail. She offers to lead Alzar in prayer, but he rejects, and she asks to leave, which he allows, knowing nothing is left here, but following her with Megala to make sure she leaves, and doesn’t take anything from the wagon. An exhaustive search finds two vials of liquid in a cabinet under the altar. They are taken to the magic pile. |
And with that, Alzar has finished the castle, except for that one room. His minions double check everything, and all of the treasure from the goblins is leaded up into the wagon.
The total treasure in coins, in gp: 883. Alzar spends 33 gold to convert the lower coins to gold at the bank. Gems: 300, 200, 100x2, 50x3, 10x3; Pearl Necklaces: 400x2. Alzar does not convert these, not now. XP gained: 1111 – This is with the XP bonus. He spends the night at Castle Caldwell, and in the morning, has memorized Detect Magic and Identify. Before he gets ready to leave, he casts Detect Magic on the items. A short sword from the bandits, and the two vials of water glow. After a few hours into the Identify spell, the short sword is ID’d as cursed, -1 sword, and Alzar discards it. Lastion has gained two ghoul followers from the two slain bandits, and they will follow later at night back to Lastion’s cave outside of Regalsford. Alzar begins to take the horses and wagon back to town. He sells the extra weapons for a few gold that he uses to replace his supplies and food. Current gold – 1231. XP – 6161 |
Clifton Caldwell welcomes Alzar with open arms. He is distraught to hear of the issue with the hidden door, but news of the newly clean castle makes Caldwell quite happy. Alzar moves the bodies of the dead goblins to a nearby area and had them buried and marked with stones, so he can come back and animate them later if he needs to.
For a week, the three ghouls snack on the dead bandit while Alzar heals up. His two identify spells for the next two days reveal the vials as Healing Potions. He is even able to find some animal skeletons to bring him to 20. Meanwhile, Clifton has paid one of the mages in the area to head over to the castle and cast a Knock spell on the door. It opens and there is a trap door going down. The mage won’t go further so Alzar has been offered the gig by Clifton. Because Clifton is still charmed, he again offers the full amount, and all up front: 200 gold. 1431 gold, plus gems and necklaces. Alzar again heads out to the Castle and a few hours he arrives there, and again ties the wagon just outside the castle. A quick check shows that nothing is here on the first level. Alzar brings in the pack of ghouls. Here are the two new ghouls: 8 hp each, 19 THAC0, same attacks as Lastion. Intelligence low though. Ghouls made by them are not controlled by Lastion, and therefore not by Alzar. Here we go. |
Alzar orders torches brought from the wagon, since it is dark under the trapdoor. The animal skeletons start searching down there, and find nothing, so Megala flies down and Alzar/Megala see nothing. With the path clear, everybody else goes down. As Alzar goes last, the trapdoor shuts behind him. Just as that happens, a man walks into the room from the north corridor and introduces himself. He looks like a mage. He tells Alzar there is an exit at the end of the corridor. Finding this a bit strange, Alzar begisn to question the mage, and he tells him that he lives down here, away from it all, but is happy to show Alzar the way out, and also warns Alzar of difficultly around, includoing some monsters in the area. At this point, I know what the mage is, but Alzar does not, so I make an intelligence check -5 because of the convincing mage. Alzar fails and believes the mage for now, so the mage joins the party. As the mage gets next to Alzar, he immediately shifts into a Doppleganger and attacks! He gets surprised.
 Alzar takes 10 from the attack! That is a free attack, now the battle begins. Alzar’s staff cracks the doppelganger for 5 damage. Only one ghoul hits him, twice, for 4 damage. The Doppleganger is not paralyzed. Even Megala swings and hits for one damage, but the Doppleganger is immune to sleep. Alzar takes another 11 damage. The Doppleganger wins initiatve and slices into Alzar for another 6 damage. Alzar orders his minions to capture the doppelganger, so he attacks and hits for nothing as he misses, but Lastion and one of his new ghouls both hit to capture, and succeed. The doppleganger uses the next turn to try and shift out of their grasp, and meanwhile, Alzar cracks him automatically for 7 damage while Megala adds 2. The Doppleganger, almost dead, fails its break bars roll. Alzar starts talking to it. “You know the exit, huh?” He casts ESP. He has three rounds to extract info from the Doppleganger. On the first, he asks about the exit. Does it work? Nope, the Doppleganger makes its save. 2nd turn, the question is again asked, and this time, it works, and Alzar knows about the teleports, the illusion, and the way out. The third time, Alzar asks it about any secrets in the area it knows about, it fails, and to Alzar is revealed a cache in the wall of this room, very hidden. Alzar thanks the Doppleganger, and then kills it with one final cracking blow to the head. He allows the ghousl to feast while he grabs the gold: 420 XP gained, 500 gold found. Alzar orders a ghoul to carry the chest for him. The door is slammed shut, and will not budge even a bit, and shows no signs of Alzar’s magic axe when he tries to score the wood – this is magically sealed. Alzar is at 24 Hp out of 51. |
Good stuff.....and a very innovative way to solo play D&D. Brings back memories. I used to love playing.
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Reading along and really enjoying. Hope this sticks around for a while!
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Welcome, Welcome!
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I am enjoying it too.
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If it is an Abe dynasty, I'm in!
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Glad to see you both!
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Alzar goes north down the corridor and enters a small cave with two mages. There is a crude laboratory here with pallets, basic tools, candles lit, and so forth. They softly address Alzar, but then move to attack. They appear quite insane. Alzar prepares and casts Charm Person. One of the mages is charmed. The other one moves forward and attacks with his dagger.
The ghouls move forward and kill the mage in one round, killing him easily. The dead one has a 20 gold gem in it. The other one is friendly, but still insane, and cannot speak much. He points to the door to show Alzar the way to go next, and he leaves the mage here and goes. XP gained: 50. The mage will rise as a ghoul, and was killed by another ghoul, so Alzar will let it rise whenever, as he moves on. The door has a faint humming sound around it. Alzar opens the door and there are holes and indentations in it. It stretches for 80 feet, and at the end, the corridor continues. Perfect time for the animal skeletons, as Alzar sends one cannon fodder down. Two giant bluebottle flies fly out and attack, and they ambush and kill two skeletons. These things are pretty beefy, and the Animal skeletons attack. The flies kill another skeleton. Three hit for 4 damage total, and that barely scratches one fly. Alzar recalls the animal skeletons and sends in the ghouls. The flies kill another skeleton before they can retreat. Down to 16 skeletons. The flies attack the ghouls and both miss. The ghouls just miss mostly, but one hits twice for 6 damage and the fly fails a save and it is paralyzed and drops to the ground. The other one naisl a ghoul, , not Lastion, for 5 damage. The one hit nails the fly back for 9 damage and paralysis. The ghouls finish eh stunned flies. 65 XP, 16 skeletons, one ghoul down to 4 hp 10 gold, 50 sp, and 100 copper are on the ground and collected and taken with them. |
Alzar passes an empty chamber on the right, even after a search.
They end at a door, which opens into an antechamber, completely empty. There are two exists to the west and east. Alzar takes the east one. It ends at an area that looks like excavation was still going on when it stopped. A search finds some shiny coins in the rubble, which Alzar orders his minions to gather. 1000 Sp, 250 gp, As he moves to leave, four berserkers wander into the area, see Alzar, and attack! Alzar is in the rear, and his animal skeletons, ghouls and megala are in the room, and knowing he could be in real trouble, he grabs his Battle Axe +1 and moves to attack them. Alzar wins initiatve and cleaves into one for 8 damage. The Berserker is bleeding profusely. He is missed. Because of his AC bonus when fighting with a one handed weapon like a soldier, he gained +2 to his AC. He would have been hit twice if he had been fighting as a mage. The berserkers win init and Hit twice for 9 damage. He finishes off the berserker he already damaged when his axe hews off the head. Alzar wins init and he hits for 10 damage, killing another. He is hit for 6 damage. His minions have arrived and Alzar orders the ghouls to move in as he retreats back. One hits a ghoul for 3 damage. It is the damaged one, and it is knocked to 1 left. The other deals 8 damage to the uninjured, non-Lastion one and it is at 1 hp as well. The berserks are hit three times for 5 damage and are immune to paralysis due to their rage. One hits for 4 damage on one of the inured ghouls and it dies. Dead ghoul. Alzar moves into its spot. The other two ghouls deal 9 damage and kill a berserker. The lone berserker goes first and hits the wounded ghoul for 10 damage (which is not normally possible with a long sword) and it dies. Alzar’s axe misses and Lastion hits for 6 damage and kills the final berserker. No XP gained. Alzar is at 9 hp out of 51, and quaffs a healing potion. 16 out of 51. Two healing pots left. Two dead ghouls. The berserkers three short swords and one long sword are added to a newly made magic pile (along with dagger from mage). |
Alzar goes the other way and they open up into a cavern with bedrolls and such, four of them. This appears to have been the berserkers place. There are a ton of cp here, thousands and thousands, but since they are 100 cp to one gold, Alzar leaves them here for now.
Alzar finds another empty construction area to the north of the cavern. To the south is another cavern that opens up. The animal skeletons and later Megala find a chest at the end of the cavern, and just Lastion is left to open up the chest He does so, and takes 3 damage from a dart that hits him. It contains 700 sp and 100 gp, so Alzar grabs it as well. Alzar backtracks and finds the crazy mage, and convinces him to join Alzar’s party as a porter and carry a chest in the back, just until they are finished, and then the mahge can come back. Lastion is at 12 hp. The cavern has a weird natural hallway at the end, and Alzar stumbles across a Gelatinous Cube!  It kills an animal skeleton before Alzar can order his troops back. This is not going to be an easy kill. He orders all of his minions to the back of the other cavern, while Alzar grabs some bones from one of the dead ghouls. After a few minutes, he returns and the cube is slowly oozing towards him and his minions. Alzar takes a few minutes to drop the corpse of the ghoul and start adding small rocks, shard of bones, and whatever else he can grab. When the Cube gets close, he casts Blastbones on the ghoul’s corpse and runs. The Cube takes 9 damage from the exploding bones and shrapnel. Alzar draws his battle axe +1 and orders the rest of the group to stay back. This is beyond them. If he is paraplyzed, they are to immediately attack the cube all out. Alzar wins initiative and cuts deeply into the Cube for 6 damage. The Cube oozes on Alzar for 3 damage. Alzar makes the save. Alzar hits again and slices off a corner for 11 damage and the Cube has died. Alzar is at 13 HP. He gained no XP. Inside the Cube, Alzar cuts out a dagger, added to the magic pile, and 72 sp which they take with them, plus a gold key. |
Now that Alzar has found the gold key, and cleared out this section of the complex, he goes back to the first room, and takes the west exit, which ends at a locked door. Inserting the gold key causes the lock to open.
It is empty save for an pen corner cabinet in the corner and they are lined with treasure, gems and gold coins. Of course, Alzar knows it is an illusion from the Doppleganger’s info. Alzar knows that the illusion covers a teleport device, and he orders the whole gang there at once. The tomb they arrive in is musty and old. There are 10 stone sarcophagus lining the walls. There are no doors or exits from here. Alzar starts having Lastion open up sarcophagus, starting with the first one on the left. This one switches the teleport so that Alzar can teleport back. The next one has 1200 sp 3 has a wight, which pops out. Alzar tries to control it. Alzar can control it on a 16 or higher. Failure. Alzar orders in the animal skeletons, since they are not subject to the Wight’s attack. It gets a fee attack on lastion, and hits for 4 damage. Lastion is at 9 hp. Combat begins. Only five skeletons can attack at a time because the wight is still in the sarcophagus. The wight cannot be hit by the animal skeletons because it can only be hit by magical weapons, so it kills one. Alzar had forgotten that (failed an INT check). 15 skeletons left. Alzar’s spells are not going to help here (Sleep, Animate Dead Animals are all that’s left.) The mage volunteers to cast his only spell at the Wight, which is convientantly Magic Missile, so he drops the chest and loads it up and casts it. The Wight takes 4 damage. It misses the animal skeletons. Alzar grabs the +1 axe and sighs. Only he can damage the Wight, but if it hits him, he loses a full level. He swings through an animal skeleton in order to get to the Wight, and kills the skeleton, and deals 6 to the Wight. The Wight kills a skeleton and Alzar is down to 13 of them., He orders them back. Alzar wins init. He slices deep into the Wight for 8 damage. The Wight scratches out and…hits Alzar. Alzar has lost a level. He becomes level 2 as a Necromancer. He took 4 damage. Alzar wins init and kills the Wight. Alzar’s new XP is 2501. He gains no XP from killing the Wight. He will still gain all of the XP from this adventure. He loses the ability to cast second level spells and the Ancient Languages proficiency. Inside the sarcophagus is 200 pp which he grabs for one of the chests. Well, suck |
Coffin 4 – 1000 sp as well.
Coffin 5 – Lastion is hit with a ray that affects him as if he were hit by a rust monster, which does nothing. Coffin 6 – 1000 ep Coffin 7 – Inside is a scroll of Tenser’s Floating Disc, a first level spell that could make a platform and carry the treasure out. There are also instructions for how to leave carved into the interior. Coffin 8 – Upon opening it, another Wight attacks! Alzar tries to control it, and this time, he needs a 19 or 20. He rolls a 19! He orders the Wight to open up the final coffins and inside are 2100 sp total. Alzar orders the lights extinguished and lays down to sleep as best he cans. In the morning, he orders one torch to start burning. The mage is getting stir crazy, so Alzar orders him out the teleport and he goes. Alzar pulls out his spellbook and tries to learn Tenser’s Floating Disc. As an evocation spell, Alzar has a 70% chance of success. He easily does so. Most of the day has passed, a few more torches, but he has learned the spell. He naps, and then learns three spells – Animate Dead Animals, Sleep, and Tenser’s Floating Disc. He casts the Disc and loads it with the treasure from this area. They all teleport back out. Alzar goes to one of the corridors that appeared to be excavated and intones some magic words. The corridor disappears. Alzar leads his party out. They are near the castle, and Alzar heads back up to the castle to grab the wagon and steeds. He loads the treasure from the Disc before it expires, and then leads he horses back, while Lastion leads the animal skeletons. Alzar cannot take the Wight with him, and cannot leave it in the care of Lastion, because it would go native again, so he releases it from a long distance, and it does not pursue one who was able to command it. End: XP Gained: 1400 from Wight commanded. Total XP gained 2129. 4630 total. Gold gained in pieces: 2973 – lost 173 to bank for exchange. Total is 2800 Found in coffin with Wight controlled: 2 bracelets, 500 gp and 300 gp, found gems 100x3, 50x2 Lost two ghouls, down to 13 skeletons, no replacements. Down to 2nd level. Gained Tenser’s Floating Disc spell. Total gold now: 4,231 Alzar spends 10 days resting and regaining his strength. He is regaled as something of a bit of a hero. Detect Magic and Identify spells show the dagger from the Cube to be a +1 dagger and the long sword to be +1, and +2 vs undead. |
Talk about a harrowing fight.
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Major bummer losing the level. Reading along, it has felt like you've had a high level of control/comfort most of the way prior to the wights.
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I think it's poor design to have a Wight in the first dungeon. Especially two. It can only be hit by magical or silver weapons, and the only magical weapon so far was a +1 Axe from a trader that Alzar let go, and the +1, +2 vs undeadsword and +1 dagger which were found but not identified yet, and Wights can only be hit by magical weapons. No silver. Poor form.
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Alzar wants to gain the next level before he goes back out again. Thus, he decides to create a 1st level spell.
Because he does not have a workshop, he is going to have to rent one from one of the local wizards. One agrees to rent it to him if he gives the guy the spell after he completes it. Alzar consents. Normally, you would spend 2 weeks researching and making a new 1st level spell, but Alzar’s unfamiliarity with the lab equipment increases that to 4 weeks. Futhermore, Alzar has to spend a bit more than you would normally expect – 1200 gold. At the end, Alzar can automatically learn the new spell, due to his intelligence and class. Here is is: Alzar’s Undead Porter, Necromancy Level 1 Casting Time: 1 round Components: VSM Duration: 8 hours Target: 1 undead One undead creature, which must be under the control of the caster, can carry double the normal amount of weight for 8 hours. This does not impact bulk, strength, damage dealt, or any other statistic. The material component for this spell is a bit of bone. For creating this spell, Alzar gains 500 XP, plus 50 for the XP bonus. Alzar is now at 5180 XP and level three again. He allows the local mage to try and copy it from his book, and she succeeded, so now two people know the spell. |
A month later:
The thieves guild of Regalsford stole the package that was wanted to be delivered, and eventually it was ransomed back. The merchant still wants it delivered to a place long way from here. The mayor sent out a new adventuring party that arrived to wipe out Elwyn’s orcs and the cleric, but they haven’t been heard of for four weeks now, and are believed dead. Alzar is approached by Hakeem, a trader who is working for a local named Jenlar Temlin, who works for an old recluse wizard named Lirdrium Arkayz. Arkayz needs a task completed and Jenlar has heard of Alzar’s exploits in Castle Caldwell and asks his attendance. Alzar can do one of three things: 1) Go with Hakeem to Arkayz’s home and speak with Temlin, about one day’s ride. 2) Go try to find out what happened with the lost party and Elwyn 3) Deliver the package Alzar wants to move the weapons. He can’t use either of them, and can’t give them to Lastion, so he is willing to part with them, but since there is no market in a town this small for a magic weapon, he is keeping them with him, along with the uncashed jewelry and gems. During this time, Alzar has been able to find four more animal skeletons and is at 17 for the next journey. Alzar will be taking the trip with Hakeem. |
B8. Journey to the Rock
 Alzar arrives and Hakeem opens the door to the manor. Alzar steps in and is introduced to Jenlar Temlin, in a room with two fighter guards just inside the door. Jenlar is a man of few words., After a quick introduction and a conversation about thr trip, he gets right to the point. Master Arkayz will pay Alzar 300 gold if Alzar goes to and finds the secret of The Rock. Jenlar agrees to raise the price to 400 gold, half now, after Alzar’s negotiates. He says that master Arkayz is currently in magic research and cannot be disturbed. Alzar inquires about the nature of the research, but he is rebuffed. After some consideration, Alzar takes the gold, is given a map and some info, and will set out today. +200 gold As he leaves, Alzar is given this riddle by Jenlar, who took an augury: Golden dreams can quickly turn to nightmares filled with flames that burn. Dark clouds may not bring you light, but watch for silver linings bright. Strength is not as strength might look; remember falsely-covered books! Simple treasures won’t grow old and all that glitters is not gold.” (I have NOT actually read this module in like 20 years, so I have no idea what is going on, fyi. I am going to read it and do it at the same time). Jenlar mentions that legends say the secret is in two parts, visible and invisible, and wishes Alzar luck. Alzar moves to the Rock. |
Day One – Alzar is traveling at dusk so it is easier on Lastion. He is far and away from Lastion and the skeletons, so the horses won’t be bothered. He runs cross a pack of goblins (4). He puts them to Sleep and then kills them and feeds them to Lastion for food. Their spears are added to a new magic pile.
Day Two – Alzar enters the woods at the end of the day. Nothing seen. Detect Magic reveals spears are non-magical. Day Three – Alzar comes across a rat pack of 20 rats. They swarm out to attack from a log nearby. Alzar grins with delight (I mean seriously, I rolled well for him). He jumps down and enegages them away from the horses. He throw down a spare bone kept in his pocket and casts blast bones, dealing 3 damage to every rat in the radius, and 3 to Alzar as well, since he is right in there. They all die. Alzar grabs their corpses and immediately animates three. Tomorrow he will memorize Animate Dead Animals three times and cast it three times. Then he begins to get close and will resume his normal spells. 5 XP Day Four – He has 29 Animal Skeletons and carrying the 8 extra dead rats in the wagon for later. Nothing. Day Five – Alzar arrives at the area near the rock and enters a trail that goes off the into the bush, not well marked, but Alzar was able to find it based on a landmark nearby. Alzar arrives at a small area where the track is lost. Alzar abandons the wagon and lashes down the horses. He is still a way from the Rock. He grabs Megala and a riding horse and moves forward, ordering Lastion and the animal skeletons to move in closer. |
As always, a very cool dynasty
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Thanks!
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A few minutes along the trail, it widens out and there is a nice grove here. The trees bear in tight and tall and there are many forest animals to be seen. Suddenly, Alzar hears a screech of a bird, or something else. As four harpies fly down from the sky, it definintely looks like something else.
 As they swoop down, they land far away and begin to sing in a beautiful singing voice. They are trying to use their innate power to charm Alzar. Due to his wisdom bonus vs charm magic, he succeeds in saving and moves towards them. He doesn’t remember if harpies can be affected by Sleep or not, so he casts it. One harpy falls asleep. The others stop advancing and look at Alzar with curiosity. Lastion and the animal skeletons will arrive in the grove in three rounds, and get to the harpies in another. Alzar must survive by himself for that long. He unslings his axe. Alzar slices his axe deep into a Harpy for 10 damage and it reels in pain. Alzar is clawed twice and bitten twice for 10 damage. Alzar aims for the wounded Harpy and nails it for 7 damage and it dies. The two remaing harpies go into a rage and every one of their attacks hit, four claws and two bites, for 17 damage. Alzar is at 24/51 The harpies go first and deal 8 damage in three hits. 16/51. Alzar’s axe thunks one for 11 damage. Alzar must survive the next round. He forgoes his ac bonus in order to quaff a potion, which he can do while he attacks, due to his specialization in one handed style. Alzar sails an axe into the wounded harpy for 11 damage and kills it. He quaffs the pot and heals 8 damage. 24/51. The harpy deals 8 damage back. 16/51 Lastion and the skeletons have arrived and Alzar backs away. Lastion deals four damage and the harpy fails its save and becomes paralyzed. Alzar orders Lastion to go over and kill the sleeping harpy and cleans up. Alzar is at 16/51. No XP gained. Used a healing potion. As the last one dies, Alzar hears another screech from the trees and in sails another harpy. “Who dares to attack the Wings of Death?” she cries out, and she drinks a potion, growing to double her size. Alzar orders Lastion back and the animal skeletons forward. There are 29 of them after all. The giant Harpy flies into them and kills two instantly. The other 27hit five times for 8 damage. The harpy goes again and slays two more (25). Four hits dole out 9 damage. The skeletons go first and this time rock six times for 12 damage and the giant harpy is reeling. She manages to slay three more though (22). She wins init and kills two more (20). She is then slain. She has a tiara worth 200 gold and Alzar gets half of 975 XP for the kill. |
Alzar is reeling from the harpy encounter and is questioning whether or not to continue. He decides to do so for now. There is a small path from the clearing that Alzar and his minions follow. This narrow trail leads north into some hills. It gets very narrow and they half ot go single file for a while. Sometimes an axe has to cut trees and brush that fell across the path. There is no way the wagon would have made it this far. Eventually, it leads to small clearing with some trampled grass and a bloody mace. Lastion picks up the mace and brings it with him as they continue. A short while later, they arrive at the hill, where a small cave and a smaller clearing are. The cave has three small, newborn harpies jumping around a nest and hissing as they see Alzar, they are harmless.
In the front of the cave is a dead body, which appears to be a recently killed cleric. Perhaps it was someone sent on the same mission, perhaps not. A search of the cleric finds a scroll with a magical spell on it and three vials with a clear watery liquid inside. They also find 80 gold, 700 electrum and 400 silver here, plus 2 50 gold gems. Alzar decides to mark the area and return through here, on the way back. He hides the coins and takes the gems. There is another small path on the other side of the clearing. Alzar pushes his minions to it, and it appears to go on for a while, so they take it. Like the other one, the going is hard and tight, but they make it intact to a larger path. Suddenly, Alzar’s horse stops and picks up its ears. Within a moment, Alzar can hear the noise too. It appears to be a bunch of Qwith in the distance. Alzar has no desire to introduce his undead to the sylvan creatures, so he orders Lastion and the animal skeletons in the wood, and presses on as quickly as he can, quickly leaving the Qwith behind him. |
After a few hours, nearing the end of this day’s trek, Alzar arrives at a break in the woods. The trail has become a road into a small plains area, with rocks and the occasional tree breaking the landscape, as well as bushes. Alzar follows the road for 20 minutes before he begins to see an intersection in the distance.
As he approaches it, he sees 10 strange looking humanoid creatures at the intersection, and they are waiting for Alzar’s arrival. He closes, and one motions for him to stop, which he does. They look oddly at the undead creatures around them, and then the speaker addresses Alzar. “You have strange travelling companions. “ “They are needed out here.” The speaker nods and continues, “This place is ours. Strangers pass here only by leave of the Lord of Shade. Surrender your weapons and come with us quietly.” Alzar has never seen these creatures before, and does not know their powers or weaknesses, so he relents and hands over his axe and staff. He happily allows himself to be blindfolded, content that he can see out of Megala and Lastion’s eyes. The undead have to stay behind. Alzar’s wounds are bandaged as well. After an hour of going allowing the north track, they arrive at a large cave system, all natural and still quite active – moist. The blindfold is removed and there are torches and more of the strange, thin, awkward, humanoids. Alzar is taken to a place of waiting and waits there for 30 minutes while the people, who apparently called themselves the Omnerubesk, talk about him. Alzar is allowed into a central cavern with dozens of the strange folk here, all speaking excitedly in Typic. There are wooden and fur structures here that designate places to sleep, furniture, and so forth. There is a waterfall in the distance. The king or chief introduces himself as Lemullar. There are a score of armed guards around him. He mentions that Alzar was in the territory without permission and that there are two possible outcomes. One, Alzar can pay a fine. Two, Alzar can try, retroactively, to gain the Omnerubesk’s permission to be here by defeating one of the King’s champions. Alzar asks how much the fee is, and its 120 gold pieces. He agrees to an honor duel, with clubs, to knock unconscious, not to kill. He can use any armor he wants, and cannot cast spells. Alzar decides to try this as amage, and if it goes poorly, to slide into a warrior. Alzar grabs the club and does the guard. As they ready for battle, the guard disappears! Alzar was not ready for that move, and the humanoid gains initiative when attacking (but not anything else). The Chameleon Man misses and Alzar clumsiily misses a swell (massive penalty for mage to fight with a bad weapon). The guard misses, Alzar misses. The guard hits for 2 damage. Alzar misses. Alzar takes one more, and then nails the guard for 2 damage. Both miss. Both hit for three damage. Both miss. The Chameleon tacks Alzar for 4 damage. He is down to 16(7). He misses. The guard misses and Alzar manages to connect for 4 damage. Both miss. Alzar takes 3. Alzar takes 2. Alzar connects for 3 damage and kos’d the guard. He has taken damage down to 3/16, but he will gain it back very quickly, it’s just concussion damage. XP gained: 100 Alzar sleeps in the cave for the night, and in the morning, leaves back for the intersection after being blindfolded again. Alzar is back to 20 hp, after the bandages and some poultices from the Chameleon Men. |
The land on both sides of the trail they indicate is jagged and pointy. Jagged boulders line the trail and it heads up into the hills, slowly and surely.
A winding creek comes through the trail and a stone bridge goes over. An arch made of dull grey stone with runes from an ancient form of Typic are across it. Beyond the bridge the trail continues. Alzar has the ancient languages proficiency so he rolls to check it. Success. Here is what it says: “Let no man cross the bridge without first giving the water that which it is due.” Well, that sounds…menacing. What would the creek be due? A fish? Water? Salt? Alzar tries to think up an answer. I know the answer, because I read the next paragraph accidentally, so Alzar makes an intelligence check. Success! He opens a flask and pours some water onto the bridge where the arch is. The Arch changes colors to a blue and the runes disappear. Alzar orders animal skeletons forward, and nothing, so they all march across safely. Alzar gains 100 XP for successfully passing this without combat. After another hour on the trail, Alzar begins to hear the tiny crack of metal on stone. Its from up on a nearby incline, behind trees and a hill. Alzar sends in the stealthy Megala to fly up and take a look, and Megala/Alzar see a dvergr carefully pounding away at a gem vein. Alzar has three possibilities. 1). Alzar can ignore the dvergr and continue on, and hope that Alzar’s party does not make enough noise to warn the dvergr. 2). Alzar can try to talk or Charm the dvergr. 3). Alzar can try to attack and kill the dvergr. After consideration, Alzar decides to leave the trail and his minions behind and plunges into the woods, and before he can reach the dvergr, it hears him and begins to run away. Alzar emerges right but the gem vein, and the dvergr decides to return after seeing the mage by his gems and tools. “I don’t know how you knew I was here…” the dvergr begins. Alzar shows him Megala, the familiar, and smiles. While Megala circles around the dvergr and gaining shis attention, Alzar casts Charm Person. Success! The dvergr introduces himself as Dunnak, a gem miner for the dvergr tribe nearby. On further inspection, the gems being mined are turquoise, just 10 gold each, but Dunnak already has 12 of them, plus more can be made. Dunnak offers one to Alzar as a gift of friendship, which Alzar takes and thanks him. Dunnak gives information about the location of The Rock and it appears to be just a short distance more. He offers to accompany Alzar as far as The Rock, and Alzar accepts. In a few minutes, the pack and gems and tools are packed away and Dunnak leads him and Megala, with the undead paralleling them in the wilderness. After just forty minutes, the trail rounds a bend and the land changes shape. It appears to be the top of a large hill or small mountain, with boulders and rocks strewn everywhere. The Rock is about a mile away from here, and Alzar thanks Dunnak, and continues on. 10 gp gem gained XP: 50 for casting a spell to get past an encounter |
After a mile, Alzar stands before a solitary peak in the distance that towers above the plain. The undead have rejoined him. This is the goal. It appears to be one hundred and fifty feet tall and with a rectangular base. It’s not that wide, as Alzar can tell as he nears it. Perhaps just 20 or 30 feet. It is circular at the summit, and comes to a peak. As Alzar approaches, he sees a lovely young woman chained to The Rock. Her clothing is purple and frayed hair, with a tiara on her head. Her face and clothes are dirty with grime. She shouts out:
“Flee for your life! An old hag who loathes my beauty has imprisoned me here until I die, old and ugly. Flee before she returns to punish you for daring to come near me!” Alzar makes an intelligence check. He barely fails. Alzar moves to her. As he does, the horse suddenly throws Alzar and runs off. Alzar is stunned and takes a moment before getting up. As he does, a magical dagger, glowing, appears before Alzar and moves to attack him. The woman shrieks that the hag has returned and shouts encouragement to Alzar. The dagger attacks this turn with +2 because Alzar is getting up. Alzar takes 3 damage. 17/51 Lastion is attacked by another dagger. He instinctively lashes out with claws and hits and destroys it. Alzar’s staff is out and smacks the dagger and destroys it, and it dissipates. Alzar makes a save, but Lastion fails, and becomes dizzy and falls down after destroying the dagger and breathing in the mist from it. Lastion is dizzy for 3 rounds, and will be unable to rise. Alzar moves to help the chained woman, and in seconds, the view of her changes as the illusion melts away and an evil hag-ish looking creature is revealed. She launches an attack on Alzar and catches him by surprise. He takes 11 damage from two swipes with her claws. Alzar is reeling and hurt. He backs away and grabs a potion while he orders in Megala and the skeletons. They are a turn away but Megala flies into the Crone of Chaos’s face in order to distract her. She hits Megala once for 4 damage. Megala deals 3 damage back and she makes her save vs sleep. Alzar quaffs a potion and heals 6 hp. 12/51 hp Megala’s claws miss and she hits for another 5 damage. Megala has taken 8 damage and Alzar orders him to fly away. Megala is at 2/10. The animal skeletons have arrived. Lastion is standing back up. Alzar thumps the Crone for 7 damage. She swings and hits him for 2 damage. 10/51. Five skeletons are close enough to attack her, and she takes 3 more. Alzar swings again and misses. She misse shim twice. Another two skeletons bite her for 4 more damage, and she dies. Alzar gains 500 XP As her body collapses, it dissipates. Where she was standing is a crack in The Rock with a glint of metal inside. Alzar orders Lastion to reach in and pull it out, and as soon as he does, he yelps in pain and pulls back his arm. Alzar did not see any flame or feel any heat, so he peers in closely and sees a sword. He reaches in and tries to pull it out, but it burns him when he touches it. Not his arm, but his spirit. He grabs a stick from nearby and manages to pull out the sword and wraps it in his cloak. It has the following inscription on it: “Broad and wide the path to nowhere, thin and narrow the way to true riches. Unravel the riddle and the riches to win.” There are way too many riddles and sayings for this wizard. Alzar doubts the sword is the Secret of the Rock, so he walks around it and see no opening. The Animal skeletons are sent to explore every nook and cranny and they make an interesting discovery. One side is an illusion that they walk right through. They walk through, Lastion follows, and then Alzar and Megala head in. |
I have to admit it, as much as I didn't want it to, this diary is really making me nostalgic for some D&D!
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This a large hall almost meeting the dimensions of The Rock. It is brightly lit by the sun outside. The ceiling curves upward. At the far end of the hall are four raised platforms and seven chests between them. Each platform has the statue of a king on it. The walls and area are opulent, from the floor marble to the reliefs of kings, peasants, crownings, and more. In the floor just in front are the following letters, in the same language as before at the bridge,
Hubrelis Tumassen A name? A place? A warning? A clue? A code? Alzar uses the proficiency and they read: The Pride of Tuma. Interesting. Alzar has one animal skeleton move towards the chests and platforms and suddenly, the four statues come to life and begin to move towards it. Each of the statues looks and resembles one of the kings of Tuma, and they are each intricately detailed. They wield swords. One is made of iron, one made of rock, and the other two of crystal. Those two look like brothers. Alzar rolls his eyes in disgust, draws his staff, sighs, and orders the animal skeletons to create a forward flank. Lastion will be fighting at Alzar’s side, as they try to wade through the statues. Based on his readings, the crystal ones are the easiest to kill. They close to King Delophenes’s statue, the closest one. Alzar misses with his staff, Lastion hits once for 3 damage. All of the five or so animal skeletons miss. The King stabs with a crystal dagger at Alzar but misses. Next round, the other statues have closed, and Alzar orders all of the other skeletons to keep them away from him for now. Alzar thwacks the Crystal Statue for 6 damage. Lastion misses, his claws scpared off it for no damage. The other skeletions hit just once for two damage, but it’s enough and the crystal statue of King Delophenes collapses. The next closest one is King Calobanes, a Rock Living Statue. Two skeletons have died this turn from the Kings. (18 left). Alzar slaps the King with the staff but deals no damage. It swords Alzar for 2 damage with a rock short sword. Lastion manages to claw it and hit, and knock off its crown. (rolled a natural 20). When the crown falls off, the statue stops moving. With that information, Alzar springs into action. He grabs the crowns from the other two statues, but not before two more rounds have passes and three more skeletons were crunched. 15 left. Alzar gains 150 XP The crowns look very valuable, around 1000 gold each. Alzar puts them on his belt. |
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Yay D&D! |
The chests are in a nice, neat little line. One on the far left looks very plain and ordinary. The one on the far right looks very bright, with gold and gems encrusted on it. Each of the five in the middle get progressively more fancy.
As Alzar approaches, he notices the writing on the wall behind the chests, telling him that he has one chance to find the right chest. Remembering the scroll with the note about the value of minor things, Alzar opens the chest on the far left, that looks very poor. Inside are a variety of things: 1). 100 pp 2). 1500 gp 3). 4 gold wristbands each worth 100 gold 4). A ring 5). A rope 6). 2 potions 7). 2 daggers 8). A talisman As soon as Alzar grabs the talisman, him, his whole party, the horses and wagon and pack mule, all of the treasure found including the buried coins by the harpies, the undead, and the treasure here all teleport back to the manor where it all began. This time Lirdrium Arkayz meets Alzar instead of Jenlar Temlin. Arkayz thanks Alzar for his help, and asks for the talisman, which is the Secret of the Rock. Alzar agrees to give it to him. “This was mine long ago, and now you have returned it. You have my gratitude.” Alzar is asked to leave now, however, due to the nature of his minions. The extra 200 gold is paid as requested, but Arkayz is not a fan of the undead. The crowns are only worth 50 gold each. Alzar will keep them. Alzar gained gold: 2870 – 70 for exchange (not as much as last time because most is in gold) 2800. Tiara, 200 gold, wristbands, 100 goldx4, crowns 50 gold x4, gem 50x2, 10 gold XP Gained: 1586 Alzar arrives back at Regalsford one day later and casts Detect Magic. The following things glow: The long sword that was very burn-y Both daggers Potion from cleric Rope Ring Over the next week, Alzar uses Identify to discover that: Each Dagger is a Dagger +1. The three vials of are holy water. The potion is healing. The Ring is a Ring of Protection +1, the long sword is the Sword of the Rock +2, cannot be wielded by evil, and the rope is a Rope of Climbing. He also has animated the rest of the rats in the wagon. 23 animal skeletons. |
Alzar
7th level Fighter (Myrmidon), 3rd level Necromancer (Undead Master) Lawful Evil Human Str: 16 Dex: 12 Con: 10 Wis: 16 Int: 18 Cha: 14 Hit Points: 51 THACO: 13 (Increased with Axe Weapon Master and +1 Axe) or 20 as Necromancer AC: 9 Total XP: 6766 Total Gold: 5901 Race Abilities: None Taken Class Abilities (Cannot use as Necromancer without losing XP gain): Specialization Leadership (Alzar can command the tactics, strategy, logistics and more that a large force requires) 3 attacks every 2 rounds Non-Weapon Proficiencies: Myrmidon Bonus: Tactical History 14 Fire-Building 16 Riding 11 Swimming 12 Reading/Writing 13 Survival 14 Blind Fighting Etiquette 13 Endurance Heraldry 13 Hunting 10 Fishing 14 Weather Knowledge 10 Orienteering 15 Undead Master Bonuses: Necrology 14 Netherworld Knowledge 10 Herbalism 14 Alchemy 12 Poison Use 11 Ancient Languages 10 Traits: Empathy Fast Healer Precise Memory Weapon Proficiencies: Bonus Kit Specialization: Battle Axe Battle Axe One Handed Weapon Style x2 (-2 AC when using one weapon in combat) Crossbow Battle Axe Weapon Mastery Spear Total with normal battle axe - +3 to hit, +3 to damage, -2 to AC. An additional +1 with the axe and +1 damage for strength Staff – Can only use this as a Necromancer Class Ability: Alzar can control undead as an evil Priest of the same level, and this ability extends to extra planar beings which are considered undead with the same hit dice for this purpose. In addition to normal specialist mage stuff, Alzar gets a 10% bonus to XP for his high intelligence Magical Items: +1 Battle Axe Necklace of Adaptation +1 Ring of Protection Potion of Healing 3 +1 Daggers Rope of Climbing Sword of the Rock, +2, cannot be wielded by evil Longsword +1, +2 vs undead Scrolls of: Mordenkainen’s Faithful Phantom Shield-Maidens, Bone Knit and Teleport Spellbook: 3/2 First Level: Alzar’s Undead Porter Animate Dead Animals * Cantrip Charm Person * Detect Magic Friends Identify Read Magic Sleep * Tenser’s Floating Disc Unseen Servant Second Level: Attract Ghoul Blastbones * ESP * Forget Locate Object Ray of Ondovir Speak with Dead Third Level: Dire Charm Searing Serpent Skulltrap Fourth Level: Vorthala’s Undead Turning Immunity |
The town is the same as ever, and now Alzar is hearing of a rumor that caverns in Quasqueton have opened up and there are monsters pouring forth. It is four days ride away to the northeast along the lake front and then into the woods to the east along a major road. Options:
1). Deliver package 2). Find Elwyn and orcs 3). Enter the Caverns of Quasqueton Alzar chooses to deliver the package |
B7 Rahasia
This classic was written by Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura. It was self-published in 1979 and then Tracy moved to TSR and published it in the early 80s as B7.  |
Sinder gives instructions for delivery of a package and offers to pay Alzar 100 gold upon receipt of the package. Alzar tries a Charm Person spell. It works, but Sinder is already giving the maximum amount of money he has. Nothing left to do but journey.
10 days on the main road and Alzar and his wagon reach the spot where they need to turn off. There’s naught been seen except for a few minor monsters and creatures that fled at the sight of the undead. Quickly, Alzar reaches a wood that has a sylvan feel to it, as if magic sparked from the occasional tree or bush. Another day into the forest with its enchantments and dweomers, Alzar arrives at a place where the forest trail meets a cool river, running swiftly. The colors of the plants are sparkling and exact – reds and greens and blues. Even a purple and orange here and there. However, as Alzar and his entourage get nearer the river, they notice the glint of armor in the path. He arrives and sees a dead Qwith. The armor is slashed by weapons and destroyed, and a search of the body reveals a note, in Typic and Qwith. It is very long, too long to quote here. But basically it says that Rahasia is a Qwith princess as the daughter of one of the town council, and a few months ago, a stranger named The Rahib arrived at their Qwith village. He came for Rahasia’s hand in marriage, and despite his handsomeness and presence, Rahasia’s father refused, so The Rahib went and proposed to Rahasia and asked to elope. Rahasia refused him. There was something too intense about him. The Rahib grabbed her and she cried out. Her father heard and drove The Rahib to the gate of the town and drove him forth. Then the stranger intoned an evil, vile curse on the village. Recently, the young men and their mentors did not return from the temple. Upon investigation, the curious were driven away from the temple. Rahasia’s father left to investigate and has not returned. His treasure in the lower recesses of the temple has also been lost. This includes her dowry. Her betrothed in the village, Hasan, knew his family would require the dowry, so he too went to the temple and has not been seen. Two days ago the village council received a note from The Rahib claimed that he had placed a curse on all of the Qwith in the temple. It would not be lifted until Rahasia was given to him in marriage. The Qwith there are under the control of The Rahib, and that night, they broke into the village and stole away two Qwith maidens. The villagers are begging Rahasia to volunteer herself to The Rahib, in hopes that he will leave them alone. This note is a plea for help, sent with her good friend, to find someone to assist. |
Okay, Alzar decides to investigate for two reasons. Will the Qwith welcome his help, even though he is a necromancer? And this seems like as good an opportunity as any to gain experience and items. Plus, the person he is delivering the package too? Rahasia’s father, so there’s no gold until he is found.
A couple of miles away, Alzar’s wagon pulls up to the village, with the undead in their normal area in the distance. He drives up to the gate and knocks, and after he announces why he is here, the gates open. Out from the houses come many Qwith, including a young tear-stained face who asks if Alzar will aid her. He immediately nods, and she risks a smile. He asks to speak with her in private, and she agrees. She provides food for Alzar. They say that the temple did have a powerful guardian, so The Rahib probably slew it. Also, they show sketches of the two maidens so that Alzar will be able to identify them. Rahasia wants to accompany Alzar to the temple, but he declines and tells her why. She admits that she could sense the presence of the undead in the forest, but most of the other Qwith are either not sensitive enough to have noticed, or probably put it down to more of The Rahib’s servants. Whatever it takes. Alzar moves out to the temple, and led to it. Outside and a short way away is a shrine. Here, Alzar ties up the wagon, rests, and incense is lighted to give him luck. He walks the rest of the way up a short hill to the Temple of Gray Mountain, and the undead join him. 23 animal skeletons, Lastion, Megala, Alzar and full hit points all around. |
The gates of the temple are silver double doors, and they open easily. Animal skeletons move into the courtyard beyond them, and investigate. Inside are stables, open air shrines in the lower corners. The skeletons move in and nothing is immediately there so Alzar moves forward. In front of him is a dais and pool, and to the rear are the shrines and stables to the right and left. Animal skeletons move into the shrine areas first, in the front of the temple, in the extreme left and right corners. In the southeast shrine, a sound is heard and Alzar ourder back the skeletons guarding it, as he sees a Gargoyle flying into the main courtyard to engage the skeletons. Only a magical weapon can hit a gargoyle, so Alzar unsheathes his +1 axe and moves forward while ordering his servants away. The skeletons part like waves and the gargoyle carefully advances, seeing Alzar not afraid.
 Alzar swings his axe and it cuts into the gargoyle’s enchanted flesh for 12 damage and rocks are shorn from its shoulder. It recovers and attacks with wings, claws and fangs four times total. Alzar takes 9 damage. Alzar attacks and connects right in the center of the gargoyle, splitting it in two and killing it (9 damage). No XP> Alzar at 42/51 |
A search of the shrine shows that stairs go down, and the gargoyle had killed previous people and they had 80 gold and 4000 copper. These coins are gathered in the small leather sacks around the area and ran back down to the shrine.
The other shrine has nothing but more stairs down, a platform and altar, and a statue that neither moves nor looks anything other than normal. An investigation of the eight stables here by the animal skeletons shows that one has a sack with the word Tithe on it, and 250 copper. Alzar choose to leave it here since it’s just 2.5 gold and could be the temple’s. It’s not worth pissing them off just for 250 copper. As Alzar moves forward, he sends the animal skeletons towards the dais and pool in the north section of the temple. As they approach, a watery creature springs from the brackish water and strikes at a skeleton, but doesn’t kill it even though it hits. Alzar orders the skeletons to take out the Water Weird. Because the Water Weird only does drowning damage, the skeletons kill it in two turns without any dying. 17 XP for Alzar. In the pool are two large jars, and Alzar has Lastion grab both out, and each has 150 cp, 350 silver and 299 gold in them. The bottom is very murky, so Alzar sends in all of the animal skeletons at once, and in just a short period of time, they find 6 gems, each worth 100 gold. There are some stairs leading up to a platform behind the pool and dais, and Alzar flies up Megala to check it out through its eyes. He sees a landing and a Qwith hiding behind a curtain. Is the Qwith hiding because it thinks Alzar will hurt him, and he is not a bad guy, or because he is a bad guy, and thinks Alzar will hurt him. Alzar casts ESP. After a few seconds, it’s obvious that the Qwith is a good aligned guy who came here to take out The Rahib, warrior-mage who has already cast his spells, but is willing to continue the fight. The combination of undead and the battle has left Alki, Qwith Wariror-Seer a little shaken. Alzar walks up the stairs with no weapons ,just just staff. As he reaches the top, Alki jumps out and shouts a warrior’s charge. Alzar drops his staff visibly in front of Alki and holds his hands out in a sign of peace. Alki halts his charge. Alzar, with one round left of ESP, knows the perfect way to get in Alki’s graces, uses it, and Alki agrees to Alzar’s request to join the party, even knowing what Alzar is working with. (he has not seen Lastion, jus the skeletons, which are generally thought of as neutral.). Alzar orders Lastion to hide for now. Alzar escorts Alki down for now and escorts him to the wagon. In return for helping, for the rest of the adventure, Alzar allows Alki the use of The Sword of the Rock. Alki replaces his long sword. He also has a long bow, shield and chain mail. He will fight as Alzar commands, unless it is unusual. |
Alzar finds a cloak room back at the top of the steps. Inside are some brass coffers, which are tested by the animal skeletons. They have 1100 cp and 100 sp in both of them combined. Alzar leaves them here for now. After he leaves, and after the area is cleared, he will have Lastion act as a porter, moving these items back and forth from the wagon to here.
Alzar and his crew go right along a corridor on the upper level. They reach a another shrine, this time a temple that appears to be a room with several praying benches and statues, an alter with a dusty altar cloth, and more typical accoutrements, including candelabras with candles still lit. There are robes of the temple Qwith, called the Siswa, here as well. Alzar makes sure to remember to add them to the magic pile, just in case. A doorway continues to the north and Alzar sends some animal skeletons down the hallway. There are several alcoves here used for study, and all are completely devoid of anything., even furniture. They reach an intersection and the corridor continues forward and right into blank walls, and right down the hallway. Alzar and his crew see some movement from the path down the west. Before he goes down there, Alzar sends one animal skeleton down each hallway to the north and east to make sure that there is nothing there. As they get to the end, they disappear. Since they have not been given further instructions, they remain standing where they arrive. It appears there are portals at the ends of the hallway. For now, Alzar goes west, and sends some animal skeletons down the way to see. No traps are found, but 5 of the Siswa, Qwith priests that are possessed or charmed or something, are there. They have not noticed the animal skeletons yet. They are huddled around a fire, resting. Alzar orders his animal skeletons to return and moves away. He will come back later if needed. They go around back to the dais, and then up the other staircase to the left and move west into yet another temple area. This one has frescoes on the wall depicting holy rites and various implements, but no robes. The alter here looks more like a well, with an open area that goes down a long way. Alzar has Megala fly down, and he sees a well that descends more than 50 feet, and then there is a locked iron grate at the bottom. Rather than risk that, Megala flies back up and they continue north from the hallway here. Once again, alcoves, and once again ,nothing here, except for a black jade statue in the rear of one of the alcoves. On the statue is a golden pendant with a black jade stone, just like the statue. Alzar touches it, and then tries to take it from the statue, but cannot. It is shimmering and beautiful and worth 1300 gold, but Alzar cannot take it, it is sealed there somehow. |
They move north to yet another intersection, to the west of where they did before, and again with pathways to the north and west, and a hallway to the east back towards the Siswa. Alzar sends skeletons north and west, but they do not disappear. Suddenly, a group of four humans appears from the west and nd moves to attack Alzar and his group. At first, they move to attack, but then they realize that Alzar is not Siswa and hold up their attack.
The leader moves forward and introduces himself as Teikus. They came here to loot the temple, but have been confused and lost due to the teleporters. They have robbed five bags of loot and offer Alzar one in exchange for info out. Knowing that he has Alki with him, Alzar gets him to agree to two bags, and then tells them how to get out. They thank him and move off. Alzar makes a show of putting he bags of Tithe treasure in an alcove for the Siswa to find later, but in reality, he issues a command to Lastion to collect them. 100 EP total gained. Alzar now has several options. Jump down the well/altar. Go into the north corridor into a portal. Go into the east corridor into a portal. Go down the stairs in the south east shrine. Go down the stairs in the south west shrine. The south west shrine, where he can keep his bearings. The stairs arrive at a lower level. Alzar moves out and runs into two Siswa guards who charge him. They have gleaming curved blades in each hand, and the qwith move silently. Alki shoots an arrow and nails one for 2 damage before they get near, before switching to a new weapon. Alzar grabs his staff. Animal skeletons nail a few for 6 damage in four hits. One hits Alzar for 5 damage (37/51). Alzar smacks one with a staff for 5 damage and it dies. Alki slices another with the magic sword for 6, and he dies. XP – 40. Weapons, armor, cloaks added to magic pile. This is the prison, with a large number of cells in here. There is also a central room. At the end of a hallway, Alzar can see stairs up to the south east shrine, so both stairs led here. Quick inspections by the Animal skeletons show the cell area to be a squre, with four hallways, each with cells on the outer edge. There is a large compass rose in the floor. There is a door out to the north, and adoor into a central chamber. One jail, when searched, has a chest in it. It shoots darts with sleep poison on them at the animal skeletons that touch it, and they take no damage. The trap spent, it opens to Alzar’s touch and reveals 200 silver, 150 electrum and a battle of wine. Added to the wagon by Lastion later. One cell is darkened, and inside, Alzar makes out the forms of many Siswa sleeping. He skips it. Could be allies, could be a lot of enemies. He comes across more. A check shows the door unlocked, so Alzar thinks these may be guards or a sleeping group. He is glad the fight was over quick and the foes were relatively quiet. |
The door into the central area is opened. There are alcoves to the west and east. Inside is smoking torches, a nd the words Kesini over the west alcove and Kesana over the east. Alzar sends in animal skeletons and one disappears to the east, but not the west.
20 skeletons left with the team. Alzar opens up the north door and he enters a hallway that runs east to west. At the end of each is an intersection, and at each is an animal skeleton from above, that return and rejoin the group. In front of Alzar is a door. Alzar orders skeletons around the hallway, and like upstairs, this is another square. They run into a Gelatinous Cube in a hallway, and Alki pokes it with arrow after arrow until it dies, because it moves so slowly. No treasure in it. (No XP for Alzar, just for Alki) Alzar sends animal skeletons down every alcove, and only in one corner do two disappear down each alcove to the west and north. 20 left. There are doors in the east and west hallways to the center room, but no others. Alzar enters from the east. Strong wooden double doors, ornately carved, open, and a huge, natural cavern the temple was built around is revealed. There is another large compass rose in the floor. A raised platform juts out 30 feet from the north wall, and on it is a clay statue and a black robed figure, burning incense at an altar . As Alzar opens the door, the figure sees the group, his eyes widen, and then he throws his hands in the air and disappears in a puff of smoke. Alzar orders Megala to fly up to where he was, and as Megala gets close, the clay statue animates and begins to move towards them. As it moves, the clay falls off, revealing a walking construct made of bone.  This can only be hit by magical weapons, so Alzar and Alki move forward with their magical weapons. The golem has four arms, each with a long sword in it. It is big, nasty, and won’t take no for an answer. Alzar moves in front of Alki, ready to take the first swing. I roll a 7. It gets +3 for axe mastery, +1 for the magical axe, and +2 for the AC – target 13. However, Alzar’s target with an axe is 14, so he misses, barely. The golem swings four swords at Alzar. Only one hits for 8 damage. (29/51). Alki nips in and rocks it for 10 damage back – a full hit. Alzar’s axe swings in again, and this time he rolls a 19, easily a hit. He doles out 11 damage of pain (a 6, plus 3 for mastery, 1 for strength, 1 for magic of axe). The golem swings again, Alzar is hit twice for 12 damage (17/51). Alki swings with The Sword of the Rock and misses (rolled an 8). Alzar loses iniitave, and the golem swings first, Hitting three times for 14. 4/51. Alzar swings the axe and hits (rolled a 9) for 7 damage. Alki swings again and notches a 15 and hits for 5 damage, and the golem falls dead. Alzar and Alki split 1750 experience. (Aside: In this adventure the Bone Golem is supposed to be so powerful you have to leave and think of a way past it. In this case, we had two magical weapons and were able to bring it down, barely). |
Close call on that fight. Would have been a tough loss to take with the two of you going at it.
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With a severe amount of wounds, Alzar and Alki decide to call it, and head back to the qwith town for
rest. A few hours later, they return. Each will rest tonight, and tomorrow, Alki will have Magic Missile and Shield, Alzar will have his normal five spells, and Alzar will purchase some healing potions. Alzar found the two missing animal skeletons upstairs by the section of the corridor that this not transport, so it looks like one part of the portal sends and the other receives. There is still one missing. In the morning, Alzar purchases the maximum number of healing potions in the village – 5 of them. He quaffs three for 21 points of healing. (26/51). He has three left. He spent 800 gold (they gave him a 20% discount) Alzar and Alki return to the temple and the same room they left. They stayed away from areas they knew had the possessed qwith priests. They also left behind treasure in the village, stored for Alzar (behind Alki’s back) |
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Yeah, would have sucked a lot. |
In the room with the dead Bone Golem, Alzar’s minions find a trap door behind the altar. Alki searches with his special qwith skills and finds a secret door trap door behind the Bone Golem’s stand. They decide to open that door. As they descend the stairs, they come to a fully locked door. Alzar has no way to open it. They go back up and take the trap door stairs down behind the altar instead.
They arrive in an octagonal shaped room with frescos and polygons on the ground. There are doors to the south, wrest and east. Alzar has his skeletons serach the room, and while they do, a ghostly apparition appears. Alki bolts but Alzar halts him. Heis knowledge of the undead is tested (roll a success) because of the unusualness of this Haunt. It is a stately qwith, who identifies himself as ARahasia’s father, and then intones the following message for Alzar and Alki: By The Rahib’s Hand Was I here felled And long awaited You to come Rahasia’s pain I have dearly felt But you have come To free her Hasan is in the dungeon south My gold is toward the north An ally in the dragon guard Warts before the gold The Rahib is but a pawn A darker evil lies below The dragon guard knows the story And guards the way below The haunt fades, its message delivered. |
With that knowledge, they open the door to the south. There is a long dark hallway with locked cells running east and west. A gate of iron blocks the west end. After searching for the keys and finding them, they unlock all of the cells and the gate. The gate is the well bottom. Inside the cells are two people willing to join Alzar’s cause for the dungeon, and Alzar casts ESP to prove it.
Hasan, level two, 15 hp, level 2 elf warrior, unarmed and unarmored, Baik Telor, human fighter, level 4, 24 hp, chainmail, unarmed, Both are lawful. Alzar grabs swords from the dead Siswa killed yesterday and gives them each a long sword. Hasan is given the chainmail from a dead Siswa. Both now have ACs of 5. Because Alki and Rahasia vouches for Alzar, and because the father trusted him, both are willing o join. Plus, all I know is that both are lawful, they could be lawful neutral or lawful evil, and not just lawful good. Alzar and his party go back to the octagonal room and head right, east. The double doors to the library swing open. There are many books on shelves along the walls, plus a table and chairs. Sitting at a table and reading, facing you, is The Rahib. Apparently, the dark cloaked figure did not hear the Haunt;s message, since it was not meant for him. With four people in armor and a score of animal skeletons, The Rahib chooses to flee into a door at the east of the library. Alzar and the party pursue quickly, not wanting him to flee again. The next room is the bedchamber of The Rahib, with plush fabric recently brought in, and more. Here The Rahib waits with two black panthers, and he orders them to attack as soon as the party arrives. The Rahib manages to cast a spell first and Alzar is silenced. He can issue commands to Megala (Lastion is not here), but cannot order the skeletons or cast spells. Alzar draws a staff. The panthers arrive and attack. One hits Baik Telor for 6 damage (18/24). Another claws Alki for 1 damage (11/12). Alki spits Magic Missile at The Rahib and he takes 5 damage. Baik nails a Panther for 2 damage, and Hasan nails the other for 2 more. The skeletons are unable to attack unless they are directly attacked. Next turn, Alzar swings a staff and smashes a panther for 4 damage. Baik hits for 1 damage, and Hasan misses. Alki grabs a longbow and fires at The Rahib for 12 damage, a critical hit. The Rahib chooses to cast Hold Person at Alki and…It succeeds. Alki is paralyzed for now. Baik is missed by a panther, and Alar is nailed for 3 by a panther claw (23/51) Things are not looking good for the home team, so Alzar silently orders Megala to fly at The Rahib and attack him. Alzar swings a staff hard and cracks panther for 6 damage. Hasan hits and kills the wounded one – the other just has 2 damage. Baik misses. Megala misses the cleric. The Rahib choose to swing a mace at Megala for 4 damage (8/12). The panther deals 8 to Alki (3/12) after hitting with all three attacks. The Rahib swings at Megala and hits for 4 more damage. (4/12). Megala claws and misses. The panther bites into Alzar hard for 4 damage and claws him twice for 4 more . 15/51Alzar hits for 2 damage and Baik and Hasan both hit for 13 damage and kill the other panther. Seeing the panthers dead, The Rahib choose to flee, creating one attack of opportunity for Megala. Can the homonculous hit him and perhaps put him to sleep? He rolls a 18 and hits….3 damage and…The Rahib easily makes the save and in another puff of smoke, disappears. XP – Alzar gained 40. A search of this room and the library for the next few turns finds nothing. Alzar gets speech back and Alki can move again. Actually, they manage to find keys in a room to the south – a study. There are drawing of the captured maidens and Rahasia here. |
Alzar takes a look quickly through the library and pockets a few books here and there of professional interest. They go into the west door in the octagonal room and find another room with some teleporters with the same words as before, upstairs over them. There are doors to the north and south. They open the south door and in here are 8 giant rats in a storage room. There are various supplies and broken jars in here, and Alzar moves forward and again uses blastbones to clear them out, and immediately animates three to join his group (23 now) and grabs five corpses for later use.
There is nothing in here. The north door has a snake like reptile glittering in the center of the room, which is otherwise bare except for a hallway in the north. Since Hasan is here, the entity named Ular-Taman addresses him, and tells its story. The creator of the temple long ago created this lawful and good creature to guard the entrance to the lower levels. Recently, it failed, but Rahasia father came and helped it recover from its wounds after being attacked by The Rahib and many guards. It came here to guard the treasure of Rahasia’s father, and gives Hasan a Black Jade Ring. It can get the Amulet upstairs. There is a powerful object in the ruins of the temple’s creatot below the temple, and The Rahib is a pawn of someone looking for it. It tells the group that the Siswa are free of The Rahibs grasp while near it, and to bring any to it to be freed, but they will have to remain until the solution to this is permanently found. They can take the tunnel, enter ht treasure room, and then there is a secret door at the back to take them down. Alzar moves into the treasure room, and they find: 800 gold A long sword A staff A ring A potion 6 inlaid gems in a marble jar – 1000 gold 2 doves made of platinum – 700 gold each 12 gems, each worth 100 gold Instead of going down the secret door, Hasan goes up and grabs the amulet by pressing the ring into its center. Whenever the word, Rahasia, is said while holding the pendant, a circle of power is created and mo evil can enter. Spells cast by evil in the circle fail (includes Alzar). This works three times, and lasts ten rounds each time. Hasan has it. The keys from the study open up the doors in the stairway back up, by the way. With a secret door in front of them, the party decides to head back with the treasure to rest and heal. |
The village welcomes them, and Rahasia takes back her dowry, which are the doves and jar is hers now as well. She also gets the gems and gold.
After a day, Alzar casts Identify on the likely magical items and they come back as: A Snake Staff, a Ring of Animal Control, A Long Sword +1. Hasan takes the sword, permanently. Alzar is offered the staff, but barters for the Ring instead. The potion is id’d as a healing potion by another. Three days later , the groups is ready to return, with: Alzar at 20/51 from herbs Hasan fully heald 15/15 Alki at 10/12 Baik Telor fully healed Megala at 8/12 And 28 skeletons. They arrive back at the treasury room and move to enter the ruins. |
After a short period of time, they have arrived at the gates to what appears to be an old tower. There is a small cavern in front, caused by an old rockfall. It appears that at one time, there was a tower here, perhaps free standing, and this was the entrance. The builder of the temple, Elyas, probably also built this tower as well, long ago. Only this lowest level of the tower appears to still be standing, as the rocks have crushed everything above it. Rocks from the upper level of the tower can be seen in the rock fall and detritus.
The gates are tough to open, and it takes several people pushing together to open them. It opens into a long corridor and as Alzar scouts ahead with animal skeletons, two bandits melt from the their hiding places in the shadows of the corridors and chop two skeletons dead. 26 left. Without hesitation, the group unsheathes their weapons and moves forward. As they two, two more melt from behind the group and stab at those in the back – Alzar and Alki. One…hits Alki for12 damage and kills him! Wow, that was a lucky backstab. Alzar swings a staff around and cracks open the head of a theif for 7 damage. It dies. Hasan manages to hit and carves one for 5 damage with the magical sword and it dies. Baik misses. The two in front manage to kill another skeleton, and Alzar orders the rest away. One thief stabs Alzar for 4 damage (16/51). The other misses. Hasan critically wounds one and kills her. Baik hits the final one for 8 damage and kills him. Alki has died. Alzar convinces Baik to take The Sword of The Rock or the rest of the adventure. Hasan grabs the quiver and long bow. Alki is left behind for later. XP – 30. They find four suits of leather armor, four short swords – for the magic pile, and 120 sp, 200 gp in one’s backpack and an extra dagger, plus two bottles of Sour Wine. They load up a backpack and carry it with them. |
The hallway enters into a large hall, that is now full of rubble from a collapsed ceiling, but which was once beautiful. There are double doors at the south end (They entered from the north end, so it’s across from them)and corridors going off to the east and west. Alzar has the skeletons quickly search the rubble and they find a 100 gp gem he pockets.
While they are searching, the noise summons a large Taurian from the west hallway. It snorts, waves a large halberd, and charges towards the group. Hasan fires an arrow and…crits it for 12 damage, right in the nose. It bellows in pain and keeps coming. Alzar orders the skeletons to converge on it and they hit several times, killing it, but not before it kills another. 24 left. Alzar gets 40 XP The halberd is added to the magic pile. The Taurian has nothing else on it. They decide to go west and see where the Taurian came from. The west corridor continues for a bit, and then two doors on the north and south side ban be seen, and the corridor continues, ending in double doors. The wooden doors in all three places are badly scorched. That’s never a good sign. They go north. They see a long corridor with six doors, three on each side, and then it ends. Alzar has the skeletons run up and down it and see nothing. They start on the right with the first door. This is an empty prison cell, quite nice – much better than the ones above in the temple. There is nothing in here but chains, bedding, etc. The middle door of the right has a human wizard in leg chains, who immediatley casts sleep when the door is opened. Baik falls asleep. Alzar jumps into front of Hasan and casts ESP. After a few seconds, he realizes that the wizard, Merdiz, believes they are servants of two witches that captured him. Alzar orders Hasan to lower the bow and talks to Merdiz, and uses the ESP to talk correctly. In a few moments, Merdiz is freed, and joins the party. Mardiz, Human Mage, level 4, Neutral, Sleep, Light, Web, Wizard Lock, given a +1 dagger to fight with by Alzar. 9 HP. While helping him out and waiting for Megala to fly and get the dagger from the wagon and fly it back it (via the well…) they hear someone coming to check the cells. It’s The Rahib! He has been fully healed. Hasan fires his bow at The Rahib. The arrow bounces off The Rahib’s chainmail armor under the black robes. This time, Alzar gets off the first spell and casts Charm Person on The Rahib. It fails. Another silence spell is cast at Alzar and…Alzar fails, and it works, once again silenced. Mardiz blinds The Rahib with a Light spell. Baik closes and swings, ciritically hitting the blinded cleric for 16 damage. The Rahib fumbles around and swings with his mace at Baik, but misses poorly. Alzar misses. Mardiz’s magical dagger zips by, just hitting The Rahib and scratching him for 4 damage. An arrow thunks into his thigh for 4 damage as well. Baik swings The Sword of the Rock and adds 9 damage, which kills him. The Rahib collapses. His chainmail and mace are added to the magic pile. He is not carrying any gold or other items. Alzar gained 100 XP |
Poor Alki. That's what you get for being a drunk. :D
Fantastic stuff, Abe! |
Thanks!
|
The group moves to the last door on the right. There are thick cobwebs in here, and something moves slowly. It is pitch black in here. Everybody backs away from the doorway, and suddenly, a giant Black Widow Spider leaps out, into the hallway, and gets a free attack on…Alzar. The attack hits and nails him for 9 damage. Alzar saves vs poison or dies. He easily makes the save (whew)
(7/51 hp left). Alzar backs up and quaffs a potion. 15/51. Baik and misses the spider, but Hasan’s enchanted blade penetrates the chitin for 8 damage. Mardiz stands back and risks a throw of his only weapon, because he knows well enough to stay out of its range. It misses and clangs to the floor., The spider tries to fang Baik and…just hits him for 7 damage and Baik…just makes the save (he rolled EXACLTY what he needed to make it). Baik is at 17/24. Alzar’s staff misses the spider, and both fighters miss. The animals skeletons have arrived and peck at the spider twice for 4 damage. The spider misses Baik. It wins init and stabs out at Baik yet again and misses, yet again., Alzar’s staff cracks it for 2 damage, and it takes 13 damage from skeletons and Baik, and dies. Alzar gets 25 XP They take a torch instead the room and find a dead adventurer, with two daggers and leather armor, plus a belt pouch with 50 gold, 20 platinum, and 10 50 GP gems. The daggers are handed to Mardiz, who now has three, two to throw and one to keep. The armor is added ot the magic pile. They move to the rear left door. In here is a woman who claims to be an elf maiden named Miryala, who was just captured an hour or two ago. Hasan vouches for her. They release her, and spend some time escorting her back to the magic guardian in the temple who will watch over her until they are finished here. They arrive back and hit the other two cells – both empty even after searches. |
Next they move south and open the door.
This is a small corridor with a door on the east and west sides. They go back towards the center of the tower. As they enter, a giant Red Dragon raises its head, and belches flame at the party!  Everybody but Alzar believes it is real and “die” to the fire and collapse. Alzar sees that it is just an illusion and chuckles. He slaps awake his companions and they take some time to regain consciousness, so Alzar moves into the next room. This has a brilliant red light at the north of the room, and nothing else. Alzar pushes forward into the “wall” while the other still see a wall and an illusion. Alzar enters Elya’s laboratory. There are ancient beakers, lab equipment, tables, most cracked and all show serious age. In here is a woman’s hat with pink feathers and it appears two more alcoves with teleporters. Alzar confirms this after he tossed a small piece of a chair down one and it disappeared, but the other did not. A quick searches shows that everything in here is broken or aged too much and Alzar leaves. The other room to the east has another illusion in it and Alzar disbelieves and returns to the group mostly recovered. They continue down the west path and reach the double doors. This is the charred remains of a long, elegant library with some shelves and books still in okay condition. A search shows nothing. There is a door to the south and they take it. They ender a map room, with maps on the walls. And map cases into the room. The fires did not touch this room. They start a search and find several bottles of Sour Wine in some of the map cases, and maps old and faded in the others. The wall maps show the local area. |
They head back and take the east doorway from the great hall. There are double doors in front of them, and then passes continues north and south, with a door to the north as well. They go north, and find stairs going up, compeltely destroyed. They open the door and see an old kitchen, with a butcher’s block, and several tables. It appears to still be functioning and in good order, and food can still be smelled her.
A quick serach of the room reveals that there are ups and plates in several cupboards. The shelves are well stocked with meats and cheeses and breads and fruits. As the group finishes their search, one of the captured elf maidens, arrives with a Black Panther. She orders her black panther to attack the party and then runs, casting Hold Portal on the door as she does. An arrow thunks into it for 4 damage and a dagger flies by and misses. It kills two skeletons near the door. 22 left. It kills another two the next turn 20 left. Alzar misses it and drops his staff as he fumbles. Another arrow tags it for 4 damage and another dagger misses. Baik swings into it for 5 damage. It dies. XP gained – 20 20 skeletons left The door is forces open after a few rounds, and the elf maiden is nowhere to be seen. She probably is possessed too. Merdiz says that she is one of the two witches, and that seems to correlate with her being possessed. They head back and take the double doors. There are two alcoves on either side of this hallway, and each one have a statue in it. At the end are double doors made of brass. They all appear to be amazingly lifelike statues of adventurers running, with great detail. They do not animate, and they are made out of platinum. A search reveals nothing more. The double doors are opened, and inside is a 30 foot diameter circular room with a domed celing. There appears to be a another well that drops down into the darkness, and there are statues to the west, north and south of the room On the wall are carves the words Pah and Nwad. After a search, Alzar decides to say Nwad and nothing happens. He then says Pah and a blue glowing disk begins to move slowly up tehwell and arrives in a minute or so. He says Nwad and it begins to descend. Knowing how the mechanism works, the group leaves to finish exploring and scouring the level, in order t onot leave any foes behind. Alzar leaves behind a few animal skeletons to make sure that no one come sthis way. They go south at the junction and arrive in an L shaped inesection just as they roun the corner. In front the corridor ends with a door. To the south are four doors, two on each side, before it ends. They choose the single door and open it. Inside is a darkened room with sputtering torches in blackened sconces and five dark hunched figures orcs. The orcs attack with long swords and scimitars, and are wearing studded leather and carrying shields. Within seconds, they are all fast asleep from Alzar’s Sleep spell. A quick slice of their neck swiftly and quietly puts them out. Alzar gets 50 XP They have 270 silver on them, and there is a box in here with three bottles of Good Wine, and a mace, added to the magic pile, and it has 100 gold, 500 ep, and 50 pp. They are all taken. Hasan finds a secret door in the back of the room while they search, and opens it. Behind is a corridor that bends and goes behind the hallway and rooms back in the hallway. |
They head back and check out those rooms first.. The lower right door has one giant room behind it – two doors. The room has been blasted and is empty save for rubble. A search finds nothing. The lower left door leads to a room with a large number of shelves. Dusty jars and bottle are in here, and the room has a sickening order in it. Alzar sends in the animal skeletons and they run into giant rats and they fight in there, while the people who breathe are far away from the door.
Two animal skeletons die, and then four rats die. The next round, Alzar’s go first and the undead ones kill the giant rats. Alzar animates three immediately and now has 21. The remaining 5 corpses will be gathered later for further reanimation. Alzar gains 20 XP. After a serach, with Megala being the eyes, nothing is found in here. Alzar moves to the last door, and in here is an empty storeroom with unused shelves. Another search turns up nothing. They decide to take the secret corridor and run into a door, and the hallway goes on. They open the door and inside is a wine cellar. A search finds nothing but 125 bottles of Good Wine in here. They continue on and the secret hallway ends at nothing. They search and find a secret door and open it. They see a large square area with a large pillar in the middle. To the north goes a hallway. The skeletons enter and they run into a gelatinous cube. They are order to back out and the bow of Hasan kills the Cube. Inside it are 60 ep, 40 gp and a 50 gold gem. A search of the room finds a secret door in the pillar. When opened, there is a vault in here with a chest on one wall. The skeletons enter, and the cumulative weight of 20 of them on a plate triggers it and a pendulum swings down, but high enough to miss the animal skeletons. Forewarned, the rest of the group skips the stone that triggers the trap. The chest is locked, and there is no way to open it right now, so the Chest is taken back to the blasted courtyard on their way back, which will then be picked up and portered by lastion. (Later, inside is 5000 copper, 100 gold, 20 platinum and 3 bottle of Superb Wine.) They head to the hallway off the room and I goes due north until it ends. They find a secret door and emerge into the east hallway, just outside of the central, crumbling hall. They drop off the chest, and then head south to the double doors. This dark, 30 foot wide hall has a flat ceiling, several small alcoves, and a red velvet curtain on the north side about 50 feet down. Animal skeletons run up and down and find nothing. Thy group moves south to the curtain. Alzar pushes aside the curtain. |
Most of this room is taken by a platform, and if Alzar’s calculations are correct, this room is immediately beside the room with the vault in that pillar in the secret area they found. Three steps lead up to the platform. A brazier, standing in the middle of the platform, is blazing with a bright light and eliminates almost all shadow from the room. Three stone coffins are arranged in a triangle around the brazier, and covered with carvings and runes. There is an ornate cast-iron throne at the back of the platform. There is a metal stand that had an ancient leather-bound book on it with a large quill pen on top that can be seen from the entrance.
Alzar moves to the first coffin. All of the seals on it are broken. It take several to life it and inside is a skeleton with rusted chain armor, rotting furs, and it is holding a damaged sword with a scroll in the other hand. Alzar reches for the scroll and pulls it out and opens it up. “A second chance is seldom found To revenge those beneath the ground On ye this fate I do intone That you ma feel the strength of bone.” The skeleton animates and Alzar tries to control it. He fails, and it attacks. It misses with the sword. 6 damage is dealt by Baik Telor’s Sword of The Rock. Hasan slices off an arm for 5 damage. It is destroyed and falls over. XP 10 They move to the next coffin. It is covered with unknown symbols and broken seals. It is opened and inside is another skeleton with a tattered blue robe, and nothing else. The third coffin is still sealed. Each is broken off and the lid moved. Inside is a skeleton with a ruined and rotting tattered red drew and nothing else. Alzar moves to the book and touches it, opening it up. This it the Book of Years. The quill Windscribe begins to write a tale about Elyas, the one who made this place. There was a Black Opal that Elyas had, and he trapped three witches in a dragon’s eye and yet they stayed alive forever trapped. Alzar takes the book and the quill for further study later. They search the room and find a hidden cache with: 500 gold, 1000 copper, 800 electrum They return to the room with the floating blue disc and the skeletons are unharmed. They intone the magic word, and descend 1000 feet into another circular room. |
This room is identical to the first, down to the same three statues and an westward exit.
They open the door and see another hallway of alcoves and statues, except this time three on each side, and then double doors at the end. Skeletons run up and down it, and find nothing. There are statues exactly like those above in here. Platinum, adventurer types, running, happiness on their faces too. The double doors are opened and they enter a 20 foot square room bathed in golden light. To the west are double bronze doors with ornate lattice work on them. There are arches to the north and south, with rooms on either side. Beyond the north arch is the light and glinting of thousands of gold pieces. The south room appears identical to the north room, but devoid of anything. Animal skeletons are sent north and south, and as soon as the first one crosses each, they turn to platinum and are dead. The rest are recalled. 21 left. They are levitated out of the area and disappear. Without an obvious option, they open the bronze double doors. There is a corridor with normal doors to the north and south, and double doors to the west at the end of the 30 feet. They go north, parallel to where the treasure is, after sending in skeletons. This is an extravagantly furnished bedroom with a gilt framed bed, tapestries, a huge vanity and wardrobe, mirrors, small jars and a large glass vial, and there is a gate that leads to an alcove with a level attached to the wall next to it. After an extensive search, nothing is found here, the level opens the gate and something tossed through it disappears, as expected. They go south and try the door, but it is locked. With no way to open it, the party continues. |
The double doors are opened and inside is a fat statue of a man, and a room with portcullises to the north, south and west, with pathways leading past them. The statue has a plaque saying, “I judge by taste.”
After a search, nothing is found here. They try putting food into its mouth unsuccessfully. They have some wine with them – specially two bottle of Sour Wine still in a backpack, because they never took any of the other. They pour it in the mouth of the statue and the south portcullis opens. They move into the hallways and the skeletons observe that the place ends in a three way intersection with small alcoves to the south, east, and west. The numbers 1, 2 and 3 are carved in each alcove. A quick toss of a copper piece shows that each alcove is a teleporter. Until now, Alzar has just skipped the teleporters, but that appears to be no longer possible. Alzar chooses to move through…( I roll randomly)3. A flash of white light reveals that Alzar and company are on a platform in a large arena shaped area with 5 skeletons on the other side, 60 feet away. Alzar runs in front and tries to control the skeletons. He controls two of them, and they immediately start attacking the other three. In a few minutes, all are dead from the battle, or daggers and arrows tossed in. When the last is destroyed, they reappear in the same room, with their daggers and arrows replaced. XP gained – 30 Alzar choose 1. They appear in a 10 foot room with an alcove on each side marked 1-4. It appears they chose correctly. Alzar choose…1. They arrive back at the area. This time, 5 orcs are on the other platform. Arrows and daggers cut the number to three before they reach Alzar’s group and The others are cut down and only kill one animal skeleton XP – 10 22 skeletons This time, Alzar choose 3. Back to the arena, and more orcs. Three are cut down, and they other two die, but one managed to hit Hasan for two damage first. Hasan is at 13/15. Back, and Alzar choose alcove 4. They move to another alcove, with four choices again. Alzar chooses. 2. They move to another alcove. Alzar chooses three They move to another alcove. Alzar chose 3 again. Back to the Arena 2 Ogres are on the other side. They charge. The daggers miss and an arrow hits one for 5 damage. The ogres attack with giant swords. Each misse,s and one drops his sword accidentally. Alzar staffs one for 5 damage and kill sit. Hasan nails another for 7 damage. Two animal skeletons hit for 2 more damage. Alzar misses. Baik Telor nails it for 9 and it dies. XP 75 back to the alcove, and Alzar chooses 4. Two more ogres in the arena. One takes three from an arrow., The other is daggered for 4 damage. They swing and one hits and crushes an animal skeleton. 21 left Alzar crits one for 11 damage and it dies. The other is hit by Baik for 3 and a skeleton for 2. Alzar swings and nails it for 4 damage. Hasan kills it with his sword. XP 75 Alzar choose 1 and they go t another alcove area. Alzar chooses 2. They go to another alcove room. Alzar selects 2 again. Arena. 2 Taurians are the foes, with 28 hp each. As they charge, arrows plink them, and our resident mage casts Web to hold them. Success on both, and they are arrowed to death by Hasan. Back to the Alcove. Alzar choose 1. They move to another alcove. Alzar chooses 1 Arena. This time they face a….Green Dragon. Holy balls. |
It has 31 hit points and it is pissed.
60 feet away is too far for its breathe weapon, so it needs to get closer. Alzar orders everyone to charge the Green Dragon. They do, and the Green Dragon breathes chlorine gas at them. Baik Telor is caught in it, and takes 16 after making his save. 1/24 (literally). Hasan dodges it, and the mage takes it full and dies. Alzar would take it, but the Necklace of Adaptation keeps him from taking any damage from it. (Gases don’t hurt Alzar). Also failing to get out of the way are the Animal Skeletons, which are just too slow. They all die. This needs a fast answer, so Alzar leans down and picks up some bones fromt eh dead skeletons. Hasan and Baik swing at the dragon. Both manage to crack its AC of 1! It takes 12 damage from the two magical swords. Alzar tosses the bones to the rare of the chamber behind the dragon and casts Blastbones. It takes 5 damage from the spell. The dragon casts Sleep spell. Alzar falls asleep. Baik nails it for 7 damage. The dragon wins initiative and casts Mirror Image and creates three duplicates. Whenever it is hit, there is a chance that it hits the image equal to the number of images -1. Baik misses and Hasan kills an image. Megala flies in and misses. The dragon casts Magic Missile at Hasan and deals 10 to him. 3/15 left. Baik hits and takes out another image. Megala rolls a 19 and actually hits. He hits the dragon for 1 damage. The dragon…makes its save. The dragon rears back and attacks. It kills Baik Telor with a bite that doles out 11 damage. Megala misse and Hasan takes out the final image. Hasan wins init and slashes out, but misses. Megala hits and does 2 damage and….the dragon falls asleep. With just a few hit points left, Hasan grabs his sword, aims it well, and plunges it deep into the dragons neck, and it dies. Immediately, everybody is teleported back to the alcove. Alzar is awakened shortly. Hasan takes one of his healing pots and swallows it. He is back to 12/15. Alzar is awake, with just Megala left. They take back the magic weapons and other weapons distributed to the now dead people, and Hasan takes the better Sword of The Rock. Which to choose? 2 or 3 or 4? (roll a die) 4. And they are out. Alzar gained 875 XP |
Alzar is down to just himself and Megala. He quaffs the last healing pot. He gains 6 life. 27/51. Megala is still at 8 life/12.
Alzar is out of spells. He is out of healing potions. He is out of animal skeletons. He is out of allies except for Hasan. They cannot g o back through the portal maze, but it’s getting to be slim pickens here. Where are they? They are in a 10 foot square alcove and emerge into a room with doors to the north, south and west. In the center of the room is an obelisk, and there are constellations on the walls. Alzar asks Hasan how he is doing. The Obelisk speaks when Alzar asks that question. “Answer me and I’ll answer three in truth, if but to questions three: What is your name?” Alzar answers truthfully, and the Obelisk asks the quest, which against Alzar answers truthfully – to end the shadow over the village, and give them peace. Do you know the name of the last creature you killed? Nope. Alzar asks how he can complete the quest, and gets this answer: Beyond the three temples of the elements The black dragon’s eye waits for thee Findi ts secret through nearby magical ways That have waited for many long years Beware the tricks of old Elyas And return here with the Black Opal Eye to give it power Then, set it in its place and behold The end of great sadness: the beginning of life: The destruction of evil and the end of strife He asks if the Obelisk will it heal them or give them aid? Knowledge is the only aid I have Alzar decides to leave the Obelisk. They can always come back and ask another question if needed. |
Wow, nicely done. Great read so far.
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They go north, after a quick search of the room.
This room;s ceiling arches 50 feet above the stone floor. The ceiling and walls depict raging flames, and firestorms. At the west end of the room, an altar stands atop a platform. Behind it, the life size shape of a human right hand is engraved in the wall. A search finds nothing. Alzar puts his hand in the indentation, and the walls asks: By what name call ye these temples three?” Alzar answers fire, water and earth (he determined randomly) and a column of fire bursts from the ceiling, and hits Alzar for 2 damage. He decides not t try again just yet. 25/51 The south door enters into another temple looking thing, with frescoes of wind, clouds and such, Another altar, and a another indentation. Alzar moves to the middle one to the west. In this is a third temple with earth and rock frescos. There is another Karalena in here. The same person that attacked the group in the kitchen is back. Hasan reminds Alzar that she is possessed by a witch, and he nods and sends in Megala to try and put her to sleep. She casts sleep and Alzar falls asleep (Hasan is immune because he is a qwith). Hasan fires an arrow and misses. The next turn, Hasan has closed, Megala swings for an actual hit (16 rolled) and deals 1 damage plus she makes her save. She stabs out at Hasan with a dagger and hits for 1 damage. 12/15 Megala hits again for 2 damage and she fails the save and goes to sleep (as a possessed, she loses her natural qwith immunities). Hasan ties her up with some extra rope really tightly so that she cannot escape, removes all daggers, weapons and spell components, and binds her mouth. Alzar gets 10 XP Alzar is slapped awake. He puts his hand in the alcove, answers fire, earth and wind, and the wall slides open. There is a hallway back here that all three of the temples lead too. They have entered the Inner Sanctum of Elyas. This circular room sis 30 feet in diameter, has another 30 foot domed ceiling. There is a throne here that mirrors the one above. On each side are three carved dragon heads, with gems in the southern and northern ones glowing dimly, and the one in the west glowing very brightly. There is a black dragons head carved into the throne with one eye missing, and the other one with a black stone. There are alcoves to the north, south and west. A quick search shows nothing, but coins tossed in the alcoves show that two disappear. Alzar tries to pry the eye loose, but it will not budge. He wasn’t sure that was the right eye anyway, since the other is missing. He goes back out and asks the obelisk which way to go. He is told to take the south. |
Quote:
Thanks! |
They enter the south alcove and are teleported to a room with a dais in it, and double doors in front of them. A quick search reveals a secret door to the left, which they open.
This is another opulent bedroom similar to the one they saw earlier, and in there is another of the kidnapped women, just getting up from a nap. She shrieks out and thanks Alazr and Hasan for saving her. She does not know Hasan’s name hwoever, a clear giveaway hat she is possessed and trying to fool them. Hasan plays along and moves to her to give her a hug, and when he gets there and hugs her. He Grabs her and restrains her easily. Alzar helps, quick as a light and she is tied up, all items confiscated, and gagged, There is nothing in the room. After a few minutes of searching, A black panther charges into the room and attacks! It hits Alzar for 6 damage with two claws. 19/51 Alzar twacks it with his staff for 2 damage and Hasan stabs it for 4. It bite Alzar for 4 damage 15/51 Alzar and Hasan finish it off easily. XP 35 They go back south and open the double doors. This appears to be south of the arch in the room that turned those things to platinum. Way up on the domed ceiling is a dangling necklace with a black opal stone in it. It is too high to get too, but Megala flies up and grabs it and flies back down. Stone secured. The only way out is east. Nothing is found in the search. The only thing in here is a teleport room. They arrive back at the inner sanctum, and this time, Alzar pushes them north. They Tp into a room with double doors to the east and a search reveals nothing. They go east, and arrive in that treasure room. A quick search shows 4000 copper, 3000 silver, 5000 gold, 500 platinum, 3 100 gp gems, 10 50 gp gems, and a potion and a scroll with two spells. Once again, they can only go east, so they do, and hit another teleport back to the inner sanctum. Alzar goes to the Obelisk with the stone. The point of the obelisk glows and the stone is placed in an indentation at the top, and then it too glows. Alzar takes it to the dragon throne in the inner sanctum. He places it back in the dragon’s eye. All three witches are destroyed, one still in her prison, and the other two in the bodies of the qwith maidens. Everybody is restored to full health. |
With only two qwith slain in the excursion by us, plus the death of Alki, the qwith are ecstatic about the results. Hasan collects the treasure of Rahasia’s father, and Alzar delivers the package to her instead of her father. He is asked to return the Ring of Animal Control and he gets to keep all of the other treasures.
A week later and Rahasia and Hasan are wed. Alzar has discovered that he has the following magic items: Magic pile has +1 chainmail, 2 +1 maces from The Rahib and the orcs. Potion of Gaseous Form Scroll of Read Languages and Odeen’s Magic Cloud 7 animal skeletons from the rats and see below. Alzar gained this XP: 1802. That comes with the XP bonus. Total: 8478 Now, gold: 15,000 is the total he now has, with the a cut going to the elves for translating it to gold and platinum for easier portability. Gems: 100x10, 50x21 He also got The Book of Years, Windscribe, and took books that will add 1000 gold to the value of his library when he decides to make one. All of the platinum statues came back to life, including the two animal skeleton ones. Most were dazed, but most were also grateful. All were eyed on their way back in order to make sure that they didn’t take anything that was not theirs. Alki, Baik Telor, and Mardiz were the subjects of Raise Dead spells by one of the high level priests in the temple as a thanks. All are recuperating. Baik Taylor is waiting to join a caravan and Mardiz has agreed to come as well as guards. The temple and tower have been fully cleared out of bad guys. Alzar gained a ton of gold and a respectable amount of XP. If he had fought the Bone Golem as a mage, he would have added another 950 XP to his total. |
With the wedding done, the caravan moves into the area and is heading out into the desert, and they are looking for guards. Alzar is introduced by Baik Telor and Mardiz joins the caravan. Alzar has a few options:
1). Head out into the desert with the caravan, and basically leave behind Regalsford. 2). Return to Regalsford for the 100 gold for delivering the package, and then see if there are more opportunities for adventure there. 3). Go and do anything else he wants, of course. Well, 100 gold isn’t much these days, and Alzar can always return to Regalsford later if he wants. Let’s join the caravan. |
B4 The Lost City
 This is a classic – one of the Tom Moldvay modules, which, along with The Isle of Dread and Castle Amber, are some of the best of the best modules, plus A2. A1-4, Castle Amber, The Lost City, and The Isle of Dread all made the Top 30 of all time list published by Dungeon Magazine. In other words, of the Tom Moldvay modules, all made the Top 30 list. This gets us to one of them right now. |
The caravan is slow but steady. One week in, and Alzar has 11 animal skeletons and they are able to be around him, since in the desert, they are so wind bleached that they don’t spook the camels. Lastion follows from a strong distance, and none know of him. He found and killed a few kobolds and feasted on their flesh and is quite content as a result.
A few days later, a number of bandits on camels and horses are spotted by scouts, but nothing comes. Two days later, a wind picks up, and within a hour the storm is fierce. It blows sand to and fro with great power. Alzar is reeling. H hides inside the wagon with Megala and the sand covers much of it. They fall to sleep. In the morning, Lastion has fought through the sand to return to his master, and has clawed through the sand blocking the door so that Alzar and Megala can emerge. The pack mule died, as did Alzar’s riding horse. Both of the draft horses are found easily by Lastion’s nose. They are damaged a bit, but otherwise fine. The animal skeletons were all destroyed or scattered very far. They find two camels nearby and grab it to aid them. Inside the wagon are all of the possessions Alzar has accumulated. He manages to get the horses and camels to pull the wagon out of the sand after lightening the load a bit, and then it can move again freely. Inside the wagon are a large amount of food and water, plenty for days without finding any. The caravan was going east. Alzar sends up Megala to see if they can find anything more. They find a few corpses, and a few dead camels, and a few blankets and clothes, but nothing of any significance. Time to move out and on. East or west? West takes them back towards the qwith woods and the village. East takes them further into the desert. There was supposed to be an oasis up ahead somewhere, but Alzar does not know how far ahead it was. He’s not even sure how far into the desert they are. He figures between 40-60 percent in. Which makes it an even split. He decides to head back west, because he might see some landmarks if they haven’t been buried by the sand. One day passes, and even with Megala as a scout flying in the air, he can’t find anything of any import. No monsters, nobody or things from the caravan, and no landmarks. Just sand hard and soft, and so forth. The ground the caravan moves on is a natural track though the desert, since the ground here is much harder than basic soft sand. The wagon has only gotten stuck three times. Three more days pass and the desert rolls beneath their hoofs, feet and wheels. Still, nothing can be found or seen anywhere. On the sixth day since the sandstorm, the food is thinning and the water getting slim. The desert has gotten a little less hot, and that’s it. Then, Megala/Alzar spy some stone blocks. He turns the group south-ish and moves towards them. There is a stone wall here, and on the other side, a ruined city can be seen, with the occasional head of a building or wall peeking through the sand. Alzar finds a crack in the wall and moves in. He dismounts and keeps going with Lastion and Megala after tying down the horses and camels. In the center of the city is a pyramid that blended in with the sand color. Many lower tiers appeared to be covered with sand, but several continue up. At the top are three giant 20’ tall statues – a bearded man holding balances and a lightning bolt, a winged child with two snakes around its body holding a wand, and a beautiful women with a sheaf of wheat and a scythe. A quick check shows a ramp leading up to the highest tier of the pyramid. Alzar climbs up it and finds a secret door after a quick search. With a need for water and food, Alzar opens the door to investigate what is inside……. |
He moves a dead hobgoblin body into the door to keep the secret door open. It has been dead a few weeks and stinks, and has a crossbow bolt in its chest. All of its equipment has been taken. There are several pairs of footprints in the floor. Alzar spies a crossbow trap but the trap is unloaded and he moves forward.
As he does so, the door to the room snaps shut and cuts the carcass in half. A hissing sounds begin to fill the room. In the center of the room are three large cylinders of bronze, each with a door in it The hissing sound is a toxic gas being pumped in. Alzar doesn’t care. He is immune to gas due to his necklace, and Lastion and Megala don’t breathe. Alzar taps the cylinders and they are hollow. A quick search of the room turns up nothing. He moves to open one of the doors. The door opens and Alzar hears a click but nothing happens. There is a ladder going up and down inside the cylinder and it appears to be the center statue outside. He climbs up and sees gears and levers designed to move parts of the statue from inside. Alzar climbs down the ladder and it ends just 20 feet down. He opens another door into a new room. In here are each of the three cylinders from the statues again. The place is lit by three fire beetles in cages that light up the room. This room appears to have machinery for the statues above, as well as covered clay pots. There is an exit to the northeast and two to the southwest. There is a foundry here for fixing things, with hammers and stuff. Alzar searches and finds nothing. The pots have old oil in them and it could be gathered and used as flask of oil. Alzar does so, and about 30 minutes later, he has collected all of the oil into five flasks. Alzar takes the northeast door. It opens to a corridor with doors to the right and left, and a T intersection. Alzar goes right. This room looks like it might have, long ago, been the quarters of a cleric. There is old and used furniture and an old holy water cistern and a small alter in here, with a holy symbol emblazoned on the wall. A search turns up nothing. Alzar heads out and goes left into the other door. This room contains an old bed, writing desk, chair, chest, and it looks abandoned for a while. Suddenly the head of a large lizard bursts into view from under the bed. It’s a large gecko, about the length of a leg sideways from thigh to foot. It is munching on the skin of a dead creature, which cannot be made out from here. Because it is eating, it is not interested in more food. Alzar needs to inspect the room to see if anything is in here, so he carefully moves to the chest and checks around, but finds nothing and leaves . |
He goes left at the intersection. It stops fifty feet down and he searches for secrete doors and finds nothing. He goes right and after a while hits two doors, and then a statue is at the end of the hallway. Alzar starts out by going into the first door on the right.
This room contains three double bunk beds, and five men are seated on the lower beds talking. Each man is wearing an iron chain mail vest and identical golden masks. The men stand up and approach Alzar curiously. Alzar sees beards under their masks, and they speak an ancient dialect of Typic. Luckily, Alzar knows it with his ancient languages proficiency. This language was thought dead. After talking with the Brotherhood of Gorm for a while, Alzar has gotten the basic picture. This city outside was once great city, Cynidicea, which held back the desert with irrigation but slowly began to become decadent and lost. They formerly worshipped the statues, and slowly, over time, they lost their faith, until the Zargon was found, and became their new god. They don’t know much about what or who Zargon is. A few of the Cynidiceans are able to think for themselves and have formed groups around trying to re-establish the old days. This Brotherhood is founded around Gorm, the one represented by the lightning bolt, the scales and the bearded one. There are two other societies, enemies of the Brotherhood, that also seek to reestablish the old ways. The Cynidiceans are changed by their centuries in the pyramid hiding from the rest of the world. They are albino-ish, with the ability to see infravision – just like qiwth and dvergr. They are not unfriendly, but they are not friendly either. This corner of the tier is Brotherhood territory, and Alzar is kindly asked to leave after an hour of talking with them. He does, and returns to the room with the statue pillars and this time, takes the upper south west door out. This is a corridor that goes forward, then right, and then wraps around left with no doors, before Alzar sees a door to the right, and he approaches it. It contains rotting bales of clothes and dusty crates. It looks like no one has been in here for a long time. A search finds nothing. The hallways continues and takes two more bends before hitting a door on the left. Opening it reveals a dry room that has half a dozen crates on the floor. There are numerous small winged sprites flying about the room merrily. They flit about Alzar and laugh at him. Within a few moments, they tire of him and move on. The crates contain old fireworks that are not known to even work or not They will make lots of smoke and bright lights and noise they won’t explode or anything. Alzar leaves them alone, not knowing if they would work, or backfire, after this long. He finds nothing else in the room. The hallway continues and ends at another room, that Alzar opens. The entire floor of this apparently empty room is covered with a green oozing slime, which moves towards Alzar as soon as he opens the door. It moves very slowly. Alzar opens a flask of oil and pours it on top of the slow moving but dangerous slime. He lights a second torch, and throws the old one on top of the green slime. As it dies makes a nasty acrid odor. Gains 50 XP |
The room is barren. Alzar retruns and searches the corridor for secret doors. He finds one in the long section of hallway where there were no doors. However, while he was searching, he ran into a group of seven goblins moving through the tunnel. Lastion and Alzar bare their weapons, and the group flees the way they came.
 Alzar opens the secret door. Inside are several birdlike/insectlike creatures with large, long beaks like tubes – stirges. Alzar has fought them before. There are seven of them. Alzar throws a bone at them as they fly towards him and casts Blastbones. They each take 5 damage and die. Alzar was caught in the blast and takes 5 too. 46/51. 105 XP. They are too big for Animate Dead Animals spells. A search turns up four gems, worth 1000, 100x2 and 50 gold. Alzar takes the last door from the original room. The corridor bends and hits a door. Once opened, Alzar finds stairs down. There is a door along the hallway still, and Alzar opens it up, and finds another room that looks like it was a priest’s chambers long ago. A dead hobgoblin recently killed is in here, and Alzar takes its full waterskin, plus a purse with 45 gold and 135 silver. A search finds nothing. Alzar sends Megala down the stairs to scout, and then follows. |
He opens the door at the end of the steps and moves into a hallway. It bends twice and is quite long. Remembering what happened above when there was a hallway that wound this long, he begins to search. Finding nothing, he moves on and into a doorway.
Alzar opens the doorway into a most interesting chamber. The room is a complete circle, and opens up, with a pit underneath, stretching far below. There are eight doors around the circle, and each opens into a small platform, and that’s it, except for a panel of eight buttons in each platform There is a walkway currently going from Alzar’s platform to the one directly across. He walks across and sees another panel in the walkway halfway down it. He continues down, opens the door, and enters another corridor that goes for some time. He searches and finds nothing. It hits a T and he goes Right. At the end is a door. Just before he opens it, he hears a noise behind him – something is moving up the corridor he just came. He goes over, and sees a group of five Cynidiceans in brightly colored robes and masks. As Alzar approaches, they scream in panic and run away, shouting that the Barbarian Lord has returned. He chooses not to follow. The door looks like a ruined chapel, with smashed and wrecked pews, and alter, and the word Zargon inscribed hastily on the wall. As Alzar searches the room, the floor in a corner swings down to meet a ramp from the below room and Alzar tumbles into the new room – 44/51 hit points. The new room has beautiful frescoes on the walls depicting a king and queen being entertained by a small jester. The room has a door that opens to the north and a small coffin in it. Alzar searches and finds nothing, and then opens the coffin. It springs off as soon as it is touched and an oversized wooden model of the jester jumps out and scares Alzar. Alzar searches and finds four teleport jars. Any item placed in one will teleport to another, and then items placed in it teleport to a third, and then to the 4th, and then back to the first one. Alzar takes them back up the ramp to the previous level he was on. Due to their fragileness, he takes a walk to return them to the wagon now. He leaves the gems, gold, and waterskin here and comes back in with a few extra torches and returns to the same hallway. While traversing, he runs into one Cynidicean in a wolf mask. She says to Alzar, “Watch out, I’m a werewolf.” She drops to all fours and starts howling, although clearly, she has not changed at all. She sniffs loudly, and when Alzar draws his magical axe, she sees it and flees |
He takes the left branch at the T and arrives at a door. It opens, and like normal, Alzar sends in Lastion first, who is suddenly surprised when the door slams shut and the rooms begins to fill with water. Twenty minutes later, the water subsides and the doors reopens, and Lastion, water logged, retreats. Lastion is ordered back in, but the trap has not reset, so Alzar goes in. A quick search finds nothing. Alzar returns to the room with the switches, then gets on the hallway.
He punches the first button and nothing happens. He punches the second one and the suspended hallway rotates to connect two different doors. Alzar goes back the way he came, into a different hallway, flanked by two statues of women warriors. Alzar triggers a silent alarm in a later room by having Lastion cross in front of the statues, and joining the ghoul on the other side and continuing. The hallway ends at a door, and it is locked. He orders Lastion to start banging on it in order to batter it down. About ten minutes later, Lastion is finished. As they enter, they see a altar with green and white cloth, a 3’ tall state identical to the third one outside, three small braziers burning incense. This is a chime to Bathala, goddess of agriculture and fertility - and the only one of the three statues to be an actual god of Thorasia. Also in the room are a group of seven female Cyndiceans wearing bronze chain mail and an identical bronze mask of Bathala’s face. One steps in front and is quite upset that their door was battered down. Alzar apologizes, explaining that he did not know this was their enclave, and he is new to the pyramid, which makes them wonder at him. After a moment, the awe wear out, and they tell him that men are not allowed back here, especially with that thing and she points to Lastion. They will forgive him this time, and show him where their area is here, but he must go. Facing down seven of them with unknown levels of ability, Alzar agrees. |
He returns to the room and goes across to the new door that his last switch moved it too and opens the door there. There is a short corridor. At the end is a statue that looks like the middle one – the winged child. There is also a corridor heading just south west, and ending at a door. Alzar searches the statue and corridor. He finds nothing. He moves to the door.
This is a storeroom, and active, with crates and barrels in here, and four large brown beetles about three feet long are breaking into them. Alzar attacks the oil beetles. They will spray a painful oily fluid and if it hits skin, it will cause painful blisters. Lastion attacks the nearest one and It takes 7 damage. Alzar’s staff thwacks one for 6. The two attacked bite and one hits Alzar for 6 damage (39/51) The other two spray because they are farther back. One hits Lastion for blisters, and as a ghoul, he is subject to it. Lastion will fight with a -2 penalty for 24 hours. The next turn, the beetles win init and attack. Alzar is bit for 1 damage (38/51) and the sprays miss. Alzar misses, and Lastion misses. Alzar orders Megala to attack the ones in the back. Alzar’s staff finishes off the one he hit earlier. Lastion eats the one he wounded for 4 damage and kills it. Megala flies in and misses. The two beetles both attack Megala, for 4 damage. 8/12 for Megala. Alzar charges in and orders Megala back. His staff misses. Lastion claws one for 4 damage. They both miss. Alzar misses and Lastion hits for 2 damage. Alzar is nailed for 4 damage. 34/51. Alzar takes another, 33/51 and then connects for 6 damage. Lastion bites for 4 and claws for 3, killing the beetle. Alzar nails the final one for 5 damage and kills it. Alzar gains 120 XP. A search of the storeroom shows that the crates and casks have wine and food in them – all good and ready to eat. Alzar decides to have Lastion porter two casks of wine back to the wagon, and he will go on. |
Alzar returns to the switch room and pushes another button, connecting a new set of doors, and goes back the way he came, into a new door. The door swings open and Alzar finds himself in a corridor that ends at a door. This corridor has been painted black with white dots to match the stars above. Alzar moves down and opens the door, causing a bell to ring.
The room he is in has large tapestries of the major constellations on the south west and north west walls. Alzar has apparently interrupted a religious service because thirteen Cynidiceans in identical silver makes, wearing rainbow colored robes, were praying in front of a large star shaped altar. They look up at Alzar. One with a small silver tiara on his head moves to Alzar and begins to address him warmly. This must be the third cult trying to restore the old days. They appear to be wizards and mages, instead of warriors. After an hour of conversation, the Magi of Usamiugaras offer Alzar a place in their order. As a mage himself, he should be honored. Alzar politely declines, and they are visably disappointed, but they can come back any time to this area for rest and study to regain spells. He thanks them, and leaves them behind. Alzar returns to the room and spins again, because the new door in the other side leads to the other side of the warrior maiden conclave. He pushes another button and it spins again. This time, he again goes back to a new door. Behind it is a long corridor, and Alzar checks for traps. None found. He opens the door and looks inside. This appears to be an abandoned ceremonial chamber, with tattered tapestries, a dusty altar, a rooted altar cloth, tarnished candlesticks, and more. On the altar was a sleeping Draco Lizard, with wings between its legs that allow it to glide. It jumps off the altar and launches itself right at Alzar. It misses Alzar and lands gracefully. Lastion and Alzar attack it. All miss. It misses too. It misses, Alzar thwacks it for 3 damage. Lastion misses. It hits for 8 damage on Lastion who is down to 7/15. Alzar hits for 6 damage. Lastion adds 7 with a bite and claw. Alzar orders Lastion to retreat. Both miss. It hits for 5, Alzar misses. (29/51). Alzar cracks it for 6 damage and it dies. XP – 75 Behind the altar is a mostly eaten corpse of what appears to have been a thief. It has a full canteen which Alzar procures, and 400 gold and 2 gems worth 100 gold each on it. Lastion takes the gold in a backpack the thief had, and Alzar pockets the gems. A search of the room finds nothing. |
Alzar returns to the room with the ramp down into the crypt with the jester coffin.
He opens the door on the next tier and it enters and long hallway to the southwest. Eventually a hallway goes to the right. Alzar searches and finds nothing. He keeps going, and another hallway splits off the left with a door at the end. Alzar goes and checks the room. The door to the room is scorched, and the door is ajar. Alzar has Lastion push it open. Inside is a large room with paintings of a high priest serving a King and Queen. There is an open bronze sarcophagus in the center of the room. Three ghouls are here, tearing apart a corpse. Alzar tries to control them. He needs a 10 or higher on a d20, Success. The three ghouls turn and will follow Alzar’s simple commands. He has them search the room, and he searches the corpse. On it are a jeweled necklace worth 1500 gold and two jeweled bracelets worth 600 gold each. There is nothing else in the room. Alzar will have his new minions lead the way from here on out. Back to the corridor and they go on down the halls. As they go down ,they see ghosts of the King and Queen tell them t retreat. The corridor dead ends, and Alzar searches. He finds nothing and he backtracks. He takes the other hallway and it hits a door, so he has a ghoul open it. Inside is a mummified human in plate armor and holding a halberd standing at attention. Grouped around him are nine skeletons holding swords. The skeletons animate and move to attack. Alzar commands 7 of them and they attack the other two and kill them. Alzar now has 7 skeletons with long swords and three ghouls, plus Lastion and Megala. He adds the armor and weapon to his magic pile for later testing. A search of the room reveals nothing. He goes left down the corridor and winds up, after a while, at a door. He searches the corridor and finds nothing. While he does so, a group of six Cynidiceans arrive with their bodies painted black, wearing vulture masks. They seem friendly enough, and are carrying long wooden boards. Alzar has a skeleton open the door. This room has scenes of warfare on the walls and a large upright wooden sarcophagus in the middle. On each side of the coffin are a large white ape that has made this chamber their lair. They attack immediately. They go first and deal 6 damage to a skeleton and kill it. The skeletons hit twice for 10 damage and the ghouls hits for 12 on the other ape, and it is paralyzed. The ape slashes out and misses. The skeletons kill it, and the ghouls eat the paralyzed ape. Alzar has 6 skeletons, 3 ghouls, and gained 20 XP The Cynidiceans go to work and put a coffin around the dead an uneaten ape, and hammer it together in a few minutes. Their task done, they demand 10 gold from Alzar as payment for the coffin making service. He refuses, and they attack. In seconds ,the skeletons and ghouls have cut them down. They have nothing on their corpses. A search of the room turns up nothing. The coffin is opened by a skeleton, and Alzar sees a corpse with plate armor and a sword. They are added to the magic pile. |
They go down the other corridor. It twists along and Alzar searches. It splits into two, forward and left and Alzar choose to go forward. It hits a door and keeps going. Alzar has the door opened. There are ten giant grey rats who attack. With seconds, they are cut down by the skeletons, but not before one is downed. Alzar reanimates three and has the other 7 corpses procured.
5 skeletons, 3 ghouls, 3 animal skeletons. This room is empty except for the rats nests and bedding – straw, cloth, etc. a search by the undead turns up a hole just large enough for a giant rat to crawl into. Alzar sends in some undead rats and they bring back treasure – 300 gp and quartet of 500 gp gems. They leave by the other door. As soon as they enter the corridor, the door magically shuts behind them and a giant boulder starts rolling down towards them. Alzar orders his skeletons to jump in front of it and two die but manage to slow and then halt its momentum. 3 skeletons left. Nothing in a search He goes down the corridor and enters another room. This appears to be a noble lady’s room, with frescoes of a friend of the queen’s. There are flames in jars still burning. A search turns up nothing. The jewelry on the corpse is long since robbed. However, there is a scroll map of this tier, and it shows secret doors and rooms! He follows the maps to the rooms. The first one he hits is the master thief’s burial room. Inside is a carrion crawler that is auto killed by the undead, since the only damage it can deal is paralysis and undead are immune to…paralysis. XP – 20 The coffin here is jewel studded, and as a piece of art, would be worth 3000 gold easily. A search finds nothing. Alzar continues to the Chamberlain’s Burial Room. Inside are six zombies. Alzar fails to command them, and they attack. Swords snick into their bodies and kill one. One ghoul doles out 4 damage, and the other two manage to gang kill one for 10 damage and death. They hit a ghoul for 7 damage and seriously injure it. The skeletons thwack and kill another. Two more fall to ghouls. The last one hits and kills the injured ghoul, and then is killed itself. 3 skeletons, 2 ghouls, 3 animal skeletons XP – 25 A serach find the room ransacked and nothing here of interest. |
The next place Alzar goes is the Slave’s Burial Room. In here are piles of bones with hundreds of corpses of slaves killed and sent there. None are animated. They swing by the embalming room. This has tables, large jars and casks, and concealed in here are five shadows. They attack by secret, and Alzar tries to command them. He needs a 13 or higher. He misses. They can only be hit by magical weapons, so Alzar hands his axe to a skeleton while preparing a spellm and a +1 dagger he keeps with him to another. He flanks with the animal skeletons, and two are killed by the shadows.
His axe bites deeply into the shadow for 7 damage form a skeleton, and the dagger misses. Alzar pushes the various undead to the front lines to protect the skeletons with the magic weapons. Another animal skeleton is dead, and a ghoul took 6 damage and is reeling. The axe hits again for 5 damage and the shadow dies. The dagger misses. The ghoul is killed after getting hit once. The skeletons miss. The shadows Hit twice and barely scratch the skeleton without a weapon. The daggered one hits for 4 damage. One shadow hits for 4 damage and kills the skeleton without a weapon. The shadow takes another 2 from the dagger. The one with the axe takes 1 damage. They attack again and all miss. Both skeletons hit for 7 damage and kill a shadow. Three left. The axe skeleton is hit for 8 damage and dies. Alzar collects the axe and will wield it next round. The Daggered skeleton hits for 3 damage. Alzar cuts into a shadow for 12 damage and kills it. The shadows miss Alzar kills another next round and the final shadow flees away. Should have just done that from the beginning. Lesson learned. No XP. One skeleton left. The room has various spices and such. They find a magical potion and a chest with 3000 silver. They move to the Lady-in-Waiting Burial Room. The coffin and room are empty. The next room is the Councilor’s Burial Room. There are giant shrews that have nibbled a hole in the door and live here. They attack and kill the skeleton, hitting it three times for 9 damage. Lastion, Megala and Alzar move in. Alzar’s staff meets a shrew head for 6damage. It dies. Lastion deals 7 to another and it dies. Alzar takes 4 from one. 25/51 It wins init and deals another 3 to Alzar. 22/51. Alzar kills it. XP gain 60. A search reveals nothing in the room at all. Alzar moves on, avoids a trap marked on the map, and opens a secret door to a secret section of the burial tier. |
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