So after more than 18 months, finally got back together with my Fantasy Trip group (okay, it is a dad & his two boys). We are all vaccinated, which is important to him as three in his family have pretty bad asthma, and get sick all to easily as it is. And important to me as my wife is immuno-compromised from barely surviving cancer a few years back. But they showed up at my house (after a frantic house cleaning!) and we got to play for about three hours. And we only made it to the 3rd room...
So, playing with live people who don't know what is going to happen is a lot more fun than a solo play test. The Lamia shows up towards the morning, and the person on guard is our very paranoid werewolf scholar (he is paranoid as the player had a previously killed in battle character, so is a bit more cautious now) The Lamia asks for help and at first he refuses, but does wake up his companions. But when "missing children" were heard, Nova stepped in and made the decision. Nova is now an NPC/2nd character played by a player, as the original player had a hard time with the game (she is about 11, and keeping a game exciting for teenage boys and a pre-teen girl was a juggling act I could not maintain. Though we did have a good dragraff that we rescued).
Anyway, they get to the hole in the sand, and the Runt Gubler, our Goblin Mage, was oddly the first one down there. The others showed up and they search the room. A golden cockatrice statue to Crut's attention, and a successful search for traps showed him the trap, but a failed disarm got Agaric, our werewolf scholar, hit with a poison dart! Fortunately Nova is a master physicker so the damage was immediately bandaged up and healed. Then there was a lot of discussion as to what to do, too much discussion so that a wandering yellow slime dropped in on them. The Runt made his dodge roll, and as slimes are not fast, they went on to the next room.
The next room had the giant spider. Crut, with his blur ring and enhanced armor, first backed away while Nova attacked and Agaric turned into a werewolf. In the Fantasy Trip, the werewolves double their strength but decrease their dexterity and intelligence. And you need to roll under your intelligence to turn back from a werewolf! However, in the previous adventures, he had gotten the werewolf ring that allows him to keep his admittedly high intelligence. It is that -3DX to hit that causes problems!
Meanwhile, the Goblin mage, realizing that their only exit was now blocked by that yellow slime, manages to blow him up with a lightening blast from his staff. Oddly, there was a smell of fresh cinnamon after this occult attack. The werewolf claws at the giant spider and misses, as does Nova. The spider managed to bite Nova, but with her armor and a successful parry, no damage, so no roll against strength for poison! Crut decides to attack, and somehow, with his enchanted blade, rolls an 18. So that he not only drops this wonderful enchanted blade, but it breaks! Normal daggers do not do a lot of damage...he still retains his enchanted leather armor but without that blade he is no longer quite as formidable. The battle with the spider lasts a fair amount of time: the Runt has limited power left, so remains watching as the three finally kill off the giant spider. After eating an eyeball, the Runt is ready to move on. Nova collects some spider venom and blood, and they enter that long corridor.
Crut takes the lead, checking for traps. Alas, he actually missed the first one but makes his save roll, doing a graceful flip over the now revealed spiked pit. Using his labyrinth kit, they use a rope and the other safely cross. The next trap he finds, and they manage to walk safely around that.
They enter the large circular room, and the Goblin mage grabs the book before the thief can stop him. Several traps suddenly re-engage, including a bladed pendulum that manages to cut into Nova and Agaric. And the room starts to flood as the main door closes. They all scatter to the 3 different rooms with the water coming up fast. The mage tries to run back & put the book back, but that has no effect. And being of a small stature, the water is soon above his head! Unfortunately, he does not know how to swim. Fortunately, he has the clean air spell, so manages to walk to the room under water.
By now the water is close to head level for everyone, and after some pointed hints, they finally shut the doors, and the water no longer flows into their 20x20 foot rooms. Another couple of turns and the water recedes. And they start poking around the rooms they are in. Crut heard the voices in the room he was in via small ducts in the walls; Nova and the Runt found the wolf summoning crystal and the zombie key, having to fight the skeleton. Agaric got Crut to his small chamber, then went to check up on Nova and the Goblin mage, but hearing stone sliding on stone as Crut started poking into the three tombs.
The fight against the skeleton was successful, and though Nova got cut her master physicker skills healed her right up. Getting back to Crut, they started poking into the 3 raised stone coffins. Crut, despite the mage's warnings, used a knife to pry the green jewel from the staff of the mage's coffin. It did two points of damage that was easily absorbed by his leathers, and he now has that gem. They also picked up the dragon egg, and our scholarly werewolf knew that it was a dragon egg. To hatch it would require a dragon's fiery breath or the magical equivalent, something they could not do. But they also realized it could be worth some real gold. Noa took the egg at that point, her being a vet and animal lover. Not sure where they will go with the egg yet. Crut also pulled off the 4 rings from the final corpse. One is a ring of detect life, and will glow when there is life, other than the bearer, is around. Not sure how to exactly handle that when they are part of a group and so yes, there is life nearby!
And that is where we left them. No lasting wounds after healing, but the mage is out of spare power and the thief lost his prized enchanted dagger. Hopefully we'll be able to continue next week. Though the temple is a bit more dangerous than I thought, especially as they are basically 1st level characters. I'm going to have to generate their guide and probably have her join the group. For a cut of the 50 gold the Lamia offered for her charges' rescue.
No comments:
Post a Comment