Navigation

• Introduction
• The Gits
• The Mood
• The Characters
• The Adventure
• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• Week Four
• Week Five
• Region A Wrapup

Introduction

The Gits

• Jason Warchol: inexperienced DM, running this for us.
• Adam Thornton: paleogamer, the party's usual DM, on sabbatical while Jason runs WLD. Also, Your Humble Narrator.
• Amy Horton: Adam's wife, not-quite-paleogamer, occasional DM: favors bizarre themed variants on published modules (e.g. Against the Giants as American Indian myth).
• Aimee Lortskell: Jason's wife. Likes hacking. Doesn't like slow, methodical play.
• Keith Klein: has an enormous collection of beer-and-pretzels games, card games, and dice, but wasn't really a roleplayer until we came along. Has a disturbing affinity for chaotic evil characters.
• J.B. Anderton: actually does some acting in real life. Roleplays much more deeply than most of the rest of the group. Has not yet joined this game. Update: J.B. joined us for Week Four.

The Mood

The Characters

J.B. hasn't joined us yet; he'll get Sneaky or Gröøt when he does.Update: J.B. came in for the fourth week, playing a surprisingly evil Gröøt.

Character Name	Character Description	Player
A'hz'klauwn the Startling	Chaotic Good Half-Elf Sorceror	Amy
Areo IV	Lawful Good Half-Elf Paladin	Adam
Gröøt Hammerpecs	Chaotic Good Dwarf Cleric	Adam/J.B.
Olanna, Mistress of Magic	Chaotic Good Elf Wizard	Aimee
Sneaky Peekbottom	Chaotic Good Halfling Rogue	Aimee
Urgh, the Horrifyingly Flatulent	Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc Barbarian	Keith
The Army Of Dorkness	Assorted Monstrous Humanoids	Adam

The Adventure

Spoilers, of course, will abound.

Week One

It didn't take long to find the beaten-up orcs. They weren't very helpful, but Areo did convince Urgh not to kill them out of hand. The Stinky Room was quickly dispensed with by slamming the door. Why the orcs wanted to hang out in the smelliest corner of the room was not explained.

Sneaky Peekbottom's Ten-Foot-Pole got quite a workout as he found the Burning Hands trap but couldn't disable it. Then everyone got to make a bunch of saves as black mold went everywhere. After that we got better about poking moldy-looking things with the Ten-Foot Pole.

That pretty much wrapped up what we could do with the northern doors in the first room, so we tried the north door on the east wall; this led to a darkmantle and a bunch of rats. To the north we found an ominously stinky pit that made us very uncomfortable, and to the south a bedroom with a secret door on the west wall that we spiked shut. Exploring to the north gave us trash and darkmantles, and then a series of rooms with a fight with some stirges that eventually led into a pair of long halls headed north, and some doors that we left alone for now.

The sourthernmost door in the initial room let us into, apparently, troglodyte sleeping quarters, where we found a toad idol, and a secret door to a Game Room, where we found cards, a ring, and another secret door to the bedroom we'd come to earlier. This seemed like a good time to rest up, since we were down a few hit points, and the bedroom was fairly easy to secure. The door to the east out of the game room took us to a rocky rubble room; the door at the far end led to a corridor that eventually proved to contain the other side of the secret door in the bedroom we'd spiked shut. Two empty rooms of ruins led north, and then we opened the door at the end of the northern corridor.

Yikes! A Kobold Wizard, a krenshar, and some other Kobolds. We traded Sleep spells with the Kobold Wizard, and Urgh ran off into the corner and wet himself after the Krenshar pulled back its foreskin, or whatever it is that they do. Gröøt also got scared and ran away. A mighty tough battle ensued, in which Olanna and Sneaky were knocked out, but luckily Urgh and Gröøt got it together again and made mincemeat of the Krenshar and Kobolds. Areo decided to carry around the Krenshar's head for a while, although just why is unclear. Two prisoners were taken. They were dubbed Syphilis and Crackhead and pressed into service. Here we decided to stop for the night, having just levelled up, and lick our wounds.

Week Two

Next the party set out to the north again. We ignored a long passage to the east, and found a mysterious and apparently useless pillar. There was a secret door in this room, leading into a strangely-shaped torture chamber, with the—alas, too-rotted-to-be-useful—skins of weird creatures. By symmetry, we deduced that there was a secret door to the east analagous to the one to the west. We did not open it.

To the south: prison cells and more darkmantles, a storage vault, and kobold weapons. I think this vault was where we found our continual flame torch. To the south: rat swarms and a weird foggy room. These caused some damage, but Urgh made short work of many rats, dissolving them into a fine red mist.

As we had reached the edge of our graph paper, we went back to those long corridors on the east side and the rooms between them. We found a magically silent room, a room with an illusion that could be controlled by our thoughts—Areo thought of a pretty pony, but Crackhead and Syphilis kept thinking about snakes and darkmantles, the dorks—and then a room with fresh running water and a reasonably friendly (after a little intimidation) ogre named Bragdor, who told us that he sort of worked for an orc leader named Oghar. This place, dubbed "The Showers," was a great place to rest, so we did.

Back through the rat-and-fog rooms, we emerged into a former prison, with a spike in the middle of the floor. It appeared that creatures had been chained to the spike and then burned to death for someone's sadistic pleasure. To the north, two rooms full of nasty moldy crates.

To the east and south a bit, we found a big room with a glow in the middle, and a whole crapload of stirges. We went in and fought the first five, and then Olanna took the ring. Big mistake. A huge battle then occurred, and Olanna was knocked unconscious and reduced to 3 Constitution. If not for the truly heroic efforts of Gröøt's enraged summoned Celestial Badger, the party might have met its doom. Urgh's rage, and humongous damage when striking with a 23 effective strength and a greataxe, also helped win the day. Eventually the party prevailed, grabbing the ring of warmth and then retreating to The Showers to rest.

We made our way back to the east, and a bit north of the stirge room found a box on a pedestal, which just screamed TRAP! at us. With some clever Search and Disable Device rolls—and the Ten Foot Pole—no harm befell us, and we got nearly as many experience points for opening the Yellow-Mold Filled Box as we had for killing 20 stirges. Here we decided to stop for the night, as we'd levelled again, bringing us up to third level.

Week Three

Then we encountered a bunch of orcs. Parley was sort of successful, as we tried to convince them to join forces with us. They went and got their leader Oghar, who was totally whacked-out and decided to attack us because we were stealing his orcs, or something.

Battle ensued. Syphilis was knocked unconscious, as was Gröøt when he went to stabilize him. Areo was grievously hurt stabilizing Gröøt, and things would have gone very badly for the party had not Oghar been distracted by the celestial eagle Gröøt summoned first thing, and had the potion Urgh swilled not turned out to be Cure Moderate Wounds (or Extra-Healing, as us old farts prefer). Oghar was put down, his Battle Axe +1 was taken, and three captives ("Eight," "Nine," and "Olaf") were taken. They agreed to join our fast-growing Army Of Dorkness, and we, after a little resting, retreated back to The Showers to convince Bragdor that Oghar would not, likely, object to his coming with us. This we accomplished by using his severed head as a hand-puppet, who voiced his enthusiastic approval of Bragdor's joining the party. Thus we now have a six-creature Army Of Dorkness: three orcs (one a berserker), two kobolds, and an ogre.

That's where we wrapped up today.

Week Four

J.B. has joined us this week. He's playing Gröøt, who suddenly seems to be a lot more, well, evil. That means that Adam is playing the Army of Dorkness.

So today, from the Showers, we headed North. There was a room with a big but apparently useless pillar in it and some cool loot, including something that an Identify spell revealed to be a Whip Feather Token, which will come in handy when and if we find the Boss Monster. There was a door with Toerag the Orc cowering behind it. Areo of course extended the olive branch of friendship to Toerag, who joined our party, and then Urgh, who is really bucking for Chaotic Evil, murdered him, to the general approval of the orcs and Bragdor, who felt that he was a snivelling coward anyway.

To offset this, Areo began preaching the virtues of Lawful Goodness to his Army of Dorkness. Since Areo has a ridiculous Diplomacy skill, and the Army has very crappy Will saves, he was making some progress until Urgh smacked him in the face with his greataxe. Sigh.

Anyway, a bunch of wandering around in smelly labyrinths ensued, and killing without any real problem some hapless and stenchy troglodytes and rat swarms. A bit to the east, we found four large rooms with stirges who had to vomit up their stolen blood before attacking us and who were all killed before their bulimia was complete, and a room with an exploded furnace in which we found a Short Sword +1.

We also found a room with a Glowing Red Crystal which Spellcraft told us was some kind of trap, so we left it alone. There was also a Throne Room, and those characters who pried the gems from the throne or sat on it failed a save. Something nasty was sure to happen to them...

More wandering led us to room off the east end of the Big-Ass Corridor (the Corridor is A49, I'm told by my DM), where we were set upon by six, count 'em, six, equally big-ass fiendish darkmantles. This was a fairly epic battle, especially since our barbarian, who had sat on the throne, went into a catatonic cower rather than fight. So did Sneaky Peekbottom, but he wasn't much of a fighter anyway. After some tribulation and a lot of damage, the Fiendish Darkmantles were put down, everyone gained a level, it was ruled that the cowering would be cured by the next session, and we called it a night so we could play poker. Your humble narrator immediately lost his stake when his pocket kings were destroyed by Urgh's player drawing to an inside straight and hitting it. But that's another story.

Week Five

So this week began with the big nest of darkmantles having been destroyed. From there we went south and found more darkmantles, and south again and found still more darkmantles. This was pretty irritating.

Next we came upon a trapped entrance to an armory that had almost nothing of actual utility in it (lots of armor and weapons, none of it representing a significant upgrade). To the southeast, beyond a secret door, a small room with a skeleton with a magical amulet (Health +2), a cloak (of Resistance +1), and three scrolls. Also some alchemical stuff that didn't do us a whole lot of good.

Heading north up a long, long corridor from which east-bound corridors went off the edge of the world (presumably to Region B), we came upon a room with a rune that required taking 20 to read, and it turned out to say "Thunder." Areo checked for evil, and finding none, stood on the rune inside the room; it healed us and made us feel nice. Cool. Areo took this opportunity to proselytize to the Army of Dorkness and converted all of them except Crackhead to Lawful Goodness.

Around the corner was a set of cells with electrically-crackling shackles that seemed to grab hold of stuff put in them. Oghar's head, which wasn't smelling too good at this point, was left here. A bit north was a door with the "Water" rune on it. Since we were all pretty tanked up, it was deemed betst to leave this alone. Farther north still along the eastern corridor was a room with fog and electrical flashes. Tossing a coin in there zapped it, and we left this one alone. A little further north still was a room with floating fist-sized colored spheres that drifted towards each other when anyone entered the room, and which made Areo very, very nervous. We left this one alone too.

Further north, the "Fire" rune, a room with spikes and skeletons impaled on them, and a bizarre teleporter leading to an airless room full of dead orcs, who collectively had three silver daggers, which Sneaky grabbed after hyperventilating and charging into the room (there was a similar teleporter on the floor which let you out; not sure why the orcs couldn't figure this out).

Then we circled back to the big-ass corridor. North of the room which had held the big darkmantles, we found debris and more, much weaker, darkmantles. North from the corridor brought us to a room inhabited by a couple of Lizardfolk. Before Urgh could screw things up, Areo Diplomatized them into the Army of Dorkness. Good thing, too: they're a Rgr3 and a Drd3, with impressive hit points and skills.

Farther north we came upon two rooms full of dead orcs and kobolds, and then a long skinny room with pillars, and a swirling vortex to Somewhere Else. Spellcraft told us that this was likely the gate allowing all the fiendish whatevers into the dungeon, and that Concentration would close it. Olanna concentrated. It closed. Then it opened up. A'hz'klauwn concentrated. It closed. Then it reopened again. A quick Detect Magic showed, besides the expected magicalness of the vortex, two magical patches, presumably containing invisible creatures. Battle ensued, and it turned out we were fighting an imp and a wererat. They were put down, with some difficulty, surprisingly little loot was snaffled, and we went off to rest in the wererat's room to the south.

Next we went to the northeast corner, and found a huge fiendish owlbear. Battle was joined. Crackhead and Syphilis were soon downed, and Urgh took a lot of damage, but no one else was seriously hurt. After killing the owlbear, and just barely levelling, it was decided that the weaker members of the Army should be let go, because after all it was much too dangerous for them to continue to adventure with us (and they were really slowing down combat). So we'll be saying goodbye to the slowly-convalescent Crackhead and Syphilis, and the more-or-less useless Eight and Nine. Bragdor, Olaf, and the two Lizardfolk, Kalhiss and Slissith, will be staying with us when we continue into either Region B or Region E.

That may be some time.

Region A Wrapup

Also, we have no real idea what the hell was going on here. Obviously all the fiendish whatevers were coming through that vortex, and obviously the wererat and the imp were somehow behind it, but we have no idea why or what they were doing, and as far as I can tell we never found anyone who could tell us who they were, why they wanted a Vortex to Hell, or what they planned to do.

So, basically, this turned into a too-long, too-monotonous, unmotivated dungeon crawl. I hope that there's more sense of a goal for the next regions. Or at least an infodumping NPC who can tell us what's supposed to be happening.