Frontier Bulletin 21: A Trip to the Haunted Castle Part Two

Laurentius (Cleric)

Boldvay (Magic-User)

Mark (Thief)

Whiskey Jack (Explorer)

Plus Boldvay's various henchmen

Oh yeah! A second trip to the spooky castle! For this session, the party is joined by newcomer Whiskey Jack, a level one Explorer. Woo-hoo! The party arrives at Zappos's place and ask about any info he may have gotten from his snakeman prisoner. He replies that he did. The rest of the snakemen are low in number, maybe eight or so left, are lead by a snakeman wizard, and are indeed holed up in the northwest tower of the castle. The party pays Zappos to teleport them right outside of the castle and they soon began their way to find the vile serpentmen. 

Instead of making they're way through the courtyard and castle proper, the party heads to the castle's northwestern tower and decide to climb up and try to find and retrieve the Black Eidolon manual. Moving around the mote, they quickly found the tower they sought. Before scaling it, invisible was cast on the thief Mark who also carried a rock that had Silence cast upon it. He slowly made his way up to the western window on the second story and once inside, placed the rock down and attached his rope to the opened window and threw it down for the others to climb.

While they were taking their time to climb up, Mark saw that the room he emerged in contained four snakemen and what appeared to be human with a grayish pallor and adorned with many stiches sweeping the floor. Out of the four snakemen, the apparent leader, robed in a black cloak with various insignia and zodiac signs, was at a table containing various alchemical instruments and other equipment. He seemed to be preoccupied. The three other snakemen hadn't noticed Mark, but instead had their backs turned away from the window. Another table in the room had a glass dome over it with various magical items inside. The rest of the party finally made it through the window quietly and quickly surprised attack the snakemen. Their surprise was successful and soon all the snakemen were on the floor, dead. The other creature inside just watched as the players hewn the serpent folk down.

Laurentius realizes the creature is a sort of undead type and used turn undead on it. While he made the number he needed, it failed. The creature then tells the cleric that his turn ability has no effect on him as he is indeed alive, but made from various parts of different human corpses. He lets everyone know his name is Frank and that he's a patchwork of body parts brought back to life by the liche Aristide Malevol the Patrician, another member of the vile family that calls Castle Xyntillan home. He goes into the adjoining room and soon the party hears various clicks and buzzing. The glass dome on the table lifts and they plunders the table's contents. The items they recovered are: 1) a journal made of human skin, 2) a spell book with various level spells, 3) a gold and onyx sacrificial dagger, 4) a Ring of Spirits, and 5) a Staff of Commanding. Not bad at all.

Frank then reemerges and tells the group that the fowl liche has been away for some time, and during his absence, the Black Scale gang has moved in. He also tells them that he hasn't helped them much and has mostly stuck to his own business. Frank also let's them know that there isn't as many of the snakemen left. Next, the players move into the side room Frank just left only to find strange metal contraptions, with electric buzzing and humming. They soon left. After that, the party sees some stairs leading down and make their way to first floor with Frank in tow. Emerging out of the stairway, they see two snakemen throwing another one of their kind into what seems to be a pit of acid. Whiskey Jack charges the snake men, who being surprised, all manage to fall into the deadly acid. Unfortunately, the snakemen managed to splash some acid on Whiskey, who took some damage. They're quickly dispatched. After that, they dispose of the bodies by throwing them into the acid pits. Searching around the room, they see a large magical mirror and a pedestal with a black and eldritch tome. Frank clues them in that the liche uses it to go to different places and is usually gone for long lengths of time. 

Before leaving to go back to the teleportation spot, they get a bright idea to deal with the liche. Finding a rug in front of the mirror, the party moved it of over the acid pit, weighted down (or tied down, not quite sure which) each corner to where it was tight and level, placed the pedestal on the other side of the rug (with the book on top), and finally placed the mirror in front of the rug. This was done in hopes that one day the liche would return, climb out of the mirror, and walk onto the trapped rug, and finally fall into the acid pit as said rug collapsed. Here's a picture: 

After all that, they finally left the castle unharmed and returned to Pottsfort with treasure and Frank in tow. Frank was convinced by Laurentius to join the church, and the players, over the next few days of down time, quietly went back to the castle (with help of Zappos's magic mirror) and carefully retrieved the very expensive lab equipment from the second story of the laboratory tower.

Frontier Bulletin 20: A Trip to the Haunted Castel Part One

Laurentius (Cleric), plus his Henchman

Boldvay (Magic-User), his 3 Henchmen, and Slave

Mark (Thief), 2 War Dogs

So with only two players this session (one playing both Boldvay and Mark), and with not much else to do, our team decides to follow up the lead for the search of the Black Eidolon Manual. They sought the aid of Zappos to teleport them to the Castle Xyntillan, which is located on a hill in a swamp northwest of Rivertown. He happily obliged and and charges them the friend price of 350 gold for the whole group. They knew to expect a gang of snakemen, but didn't know what else might be waiting for them in the long deserted castle. Oh, and for this session and the next, I'll be putting Melan's excellent fun house module Castle Xyntillan to use. Also, check out his blog here.

"Wait!", I hear some of you shout. "The BROSR is against the use of modules!" This is mostly true. Most modules or "adventures" are nothing more than premade stories that are the antithesis of what D&D is about. Older modules, and some newer ones are simply that: modular. They're like legos, just something you can plug into your game with no fuss, no muss. Unfortunately, most DMs use models as a crutch, instead of not making their own adventures, dungeons, etc. Also, a lot of modules aren't playtested or are just crap. Castle Xyntillan on the other hand was playtested for two or three years, is totally modular and even comes with a local town the players can visit if you want to use that. It's also a "funhouse" type of dungeon, which is something I normally wouldn't care for, but this one caught my eye. I usually find them to be too silly, but I noticed that Xyntillan seemed to lean more into the Hammer gothic horror, which was a big seller for me. Plus, I bought this before I got into the BROSR and I figured, why not put it to use in my game?

So back to the session. Zappos teleports them into some bushes in front of the castle and the party begins their search. They begin by scouting around the mote of the decrepit keep, and finally take the main road into the structure. The adventurers find themselves in the courtyard and eventually head into the northern of the two ruined gate towers. Inside, they open the door that leads into a hallway. Making their way north, they find another door and before trying to open it, they put their ears to it and listen. On the other side they can hear two snakemen "talking" to one another. They head back a bit, grab a rock from the rubble, have Boldvay cast Silence on it, and hold on to it as they open the door (it was unlocked). They surprise the two snakemen, and quickly take them down. This room was another tower, the so-called Garden Tower. They quickly find another door on the right that lead back into a semi-secluded part of the courtyard. Walking around, they find rose vines growing along the path. It became obvious that flowers were trying to attach themselves to player in order to slow them down. (I read this wrong. In the book, it's the hands of rotting corpses that the rose plants feed off of that try to trip up players. Still though, it worked out.) Realizing what was happening, they set fire to the roses and the plants shrunk back to the wall. The party soon made their way to opposite door. Before trying the door, they looked through the window beside it and saw the inside of a hallway and not much else.

They door was neither locked nor trapped and the adventurers made their way safely into the hall. They soon heard sounds of heavy galloping on the other side of the wall to their north and east, and decided to go through the door in the middle right of the hall. The party make they're through a room with rotting banners, another with a violent whirlwind, and finally, a room just north of the one with the whirlwind. Inside they could hear a woman singing as she was putting up bloody linens to dry. Turning around, it was revealed that she was werewolf! Instead of the attacking her the party decided to parley with her. She responded in kind. They asked her about the snakemen and where they might be located within the giant keep. This seemed to aggravate her and she quickly let them know that the serpentmen were intruders here and have been causing problems. The wolf-lady told them that the snakemen were located in the very northwestern tower. She soon gave them directions to get there, to be careful of one of the undead members of the house and his monstrous menagerie in the north, and that she would also tell the two dream horses (the cause of the loud galloping) to settle down so that the group could get through.

They gave her their thanks as she led them back to the hallway with the dream horses. She yelled to the fantastic mares to stop and told the players that should hurry to get to the other side before the horses started again. Our adventures quickly made their way through the hall and noticed bloodied and torn corpses of snakemen and the two "horses": one a violent storm cloud, the other a burst of light. They made their way to the left door. Not long after, they caught six more snakemen unawares, and with surprise, three backstabs from the thief, and other attacks, quickly killed all but one of the vile serpentmen. not knowing the full numbers of the snakeman and thinking they might not be able to avoid the undead hunter, they decided to head back and leave the castle grounds. They managed to snake their way back through the various halls and chambers, and soon found the teleporter that lead back to Pottsfort. After returning, they told Zappos what they found, and left the snakeman there to be interrogated by the wily wizard.

Session 18: Meatball & The Hypnoblade

Players:

Laughing Fox - Shaman

Quirkus - Elven Spellsword 

With Mummy Rot contracted, Laurentius, Laughing Fox, and his henchman Dogbreath seek help curing their ailment. First they think of Brother Took, who and his knights reside in the keep that the party found the werewolves all the way back in session five. They also believe they could explore more of the ancient city around Crystal Lake once they're cured. Before setting out, they think that maybe the curious wizard Zappos could possibly cure them of their annoying curse. They go to him and seek his aid. Not expecting this, I decide to bust out the Tome of Adventure Design and see what I can randomly come up with. A few rolls later, I've got what I need! 

Zappos informs them that he does indeed have enough Remove Curse potions available to help them, but under the condition that they travel to Rivertown and bring back The Hypnoblade that he's loaned out to a mob boss named Meatball. Meatball has made his headquarters in an abandoned warehouse he's named the Pasta Bowl. He tells them to save time, he will let them use his magic mirror that will teleport them there and back again once they are finished. Zappos also informs them the last time he had dealings with Meatball, the man only had about three thugs working for him. Laughing Fox then contacts his ancestors and asks if they know anything about Meatball, what time would be best to obtain the magical dagger, and how many men Meatball has working for him. They respond with yes, that the party should go at night, and that he does have more than three thugs. With that, they head through the mirror to Rivertown.

Laurentius's player leaves his cleric behind with Zappos and takes his elf Quercus. They also bring with them five charmed black panthers, now dubbed the Jackson 5. They emerge from the portal at the front of the warehouse at night. They split into two groups, with Laughing Fox and his group exploring the east side of the building while Quercus takes the left. Before splitting up, they see a bloodied and wounded man emerge from the west side of the building mumbling about serpent men of the black scales. He soon expires. Laughing Fox takes the east side of the building, while Quirkus takes the west side. They make their way around to the back of the building and Quirkus with his elven abilities, soon finds a secret door. Before entering though, emerging from behind Laughing Fox, a group of Craymen try to attack the reunited party. While the craymen numbered seven, the our two heroes, along with their henchmen, made short work of the walking crustations. The party finds on the craymen four craygod idols made of electrum and thirty silver arrowheads, worth 100 silver each. They soon unlock and enter the secret door.

After they make their way in, the soon find dead bodies of Meatball's men and craymen. Looking around a bit more, they soon find a trap door that leads to a basement level. Inside they find a dead crayman killed by a trap and catch two serpent men and three craymen unawares as the look over the body of a very fat man. Before surprising the scaled folk and their henchmen, the party hears one of the serpent hiss out that "Master Skale wants the Black Eidolon found." The party gets the jump on their foes, and soon emerge victorious, with both snakemen and their (water)bugmen joining the dead. Looking over the dead human that the serpent men were examining, Laughing Fox realizes he matches the description given to them of Meatball. They find three black keys on his body.

Further exploration in the underground level soon reveals Meatball's office, along with three chests made of black oak and black iron. They use the keys they found and are successful in opening all three chests. What they find is an assortment of treasures: folders of blackmail, various gems of high quality, ten gold bars, the Hypno-blade, and what appears to be a footlong, primitively cut, statue of a man. They believe this to be the "Black Eidolon" the snakemen were looking for. Knowing that there's a bounty for the heads of the vile snakemen race, the two adventures take the heads of their downed foes and retreat back to where the were teleported to by Zappos's mirror. They arrive back in Zappos's store and tell them what happened. They turn over the blade and let the eccentric wizard look at the Black Eidolon. He believes this to be an ancient magical weapon that could cause catastrophic destruction but needs to find more information about the relic. Before leaving, Zappos cures our heroes and they soon turn in the serpent men heads to the lord commander for their bounty in which they recieve 1,000 gp for each head.