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| does lamalla look like this? |
Time: 1/27/23 Delve 4 hours, 1/28-1/30 Travel, Rest 1/31, Active 2/1/23
PCs:
Tuck, Barbarian 4th level Pit Fighter
Daria Vaylas, Bladedancer, Lvl 8, Lawful, Bringer of Mercy
Bob the Mariner L1 explorer. Lawful.
Vince McMaximus Pugilist L11 Lawful
Neutralio Neutral Fighter guard Level 4
Bulwark Adieu, L1 Paladin (Temple Guard)
Edelweiss Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6
Hench:
Dina Fighter L5 Lawful
Torquemada Paladin L4
Julia Thief L5, Lawful
Davian Cruise Neutral Dwarven Machinist Engineer lvl 2
Lily Lawful Bladedancer Bringer of Mercy lvl 1
Azalea Neutral Shaman Druid lvl 2
This session the group was committed to continuing its attack on Lammala. After Session 91, they had camped topside with the troops and some of the loot that they had pulled off of the sharkotaurs. The PCs were fairly sure they were zeroing in on the target, they just weren’t exactly sure what the target might be.. Some of the PCs thought there was going to be an altar to destroy, some that they were going to kill Lammala herself.
Vince was calling again. They got organized and went back into the portal, acting on intel acquired from a captured sharkotaur that the action seemed to be to the north in the dungeon. They carefully approached a large stone door carved with scenes of predatory ocean animals which Tuck eventually heaved open with his Power Suit. He stumbled into the room beyond with others of the front line to reveal a whole heap of fishlocks (morlocks with gills) and white apes.
Battle ensued with the enemy trying to keep them hemmed up in the hallway, but super high ac and some overruns and cleaves opened space for the boys. Daria in traditional Daria fashion cut a hole to the leader in the back while the rest did the work up front. Cleaving was designed for this fight and was on full display, the fighter-heavy group choppin’ and stabbin’ their way into the room and eventually winning the day. They found some meager loot, rested, and then carted it back to the portal. On their way back, the gently rolling ocean wave of the floor turned suddenly violent, disordering their march and tossing them all about, a few people taking damage from twisting ankles and such.
At this point Vince established a breaching formation for tackling doors. They followed a hallway off of the fishlock room and found a door to practice on. Bursting through, they were met with an opaque red mist and a much warmer environment than the cold, clammy rest of the dungeon.
They backed out after hearing some snuffling sounds to discuss options. Edelweiss the mage cast invisibility on Vince and the high level pugilist crept along the walls in the room due to miserably poor visibility, eventually nearly tripping over some emaciated giant boars in one of the corners. Daria dropped a speak with animals spell and the PCs foolishly waited for me to affect a silly animal voice like they make Bdubs do. I live to disappoint.
After some discussion with the hungry animals, they led the boars back to the portal and out. There was an attempt made to corral them outside but the terrible weather and lack of enthusiasm from the mercs allowed them to escape. Vince thought they might have been his captured henchmen but it was just a hunch and they let them go.
Another rough storm surge tossed them about but they kept on, breaching the next door that led into a hallway beyond the fishlock room. There was a door to the left, hallway to the right, and another opening off of that hallway. They crept up and peeked the corner of the opening, revealing a large room with a crushed sand floor. Two excessively oiled cloud giants in neon green speedos were wrestling while a dark shadowy figure of some kind watched from the watery ceiling above them. They wore old school football leather helmets and had crazy sickly green magic over their eyes.
The party huddled up and discussed fighting, evading, or trying to dispel whatever was affecting the giants. Eventually they settled on dispel. Daria presented and Ianna was able to lift the magic veil from the giants’ eyes long enough for them to toss off the helmets. Unfortunately they also tore off the speedos, leaving the party faced with a couple of Dr. Manhattans.
Vince stepped up and let them know that he was kind of a big deal with the WGE and all, but a minimum roll on reaction made the giants pretty apathetic. They just brushed past and looked around, eventually asking where the exit was. The party escorted them out so that there wasn’t a bloody one-sided battle topside. The giants thanked them for freeing them and offered them ½ of their lair treasure at some hex number far to the south east. The party just had to go get it. Bob the Mariner tried to tag along with them, but another poor reaction roll meant that they just ignored him and left.
Back in the portal, back to the giant hallway and they continued north down a long corridor. Took another offshoot hallway leading further north and ending with an unoccupied guardroom. Tuck explored it first and eventually the crew stacked in, noting the awful smell but nothing else of note besides some boring low level government furniture. The large party piled into the next hallway, following it even further north until it started to curl in on itself.
The last branch of the corridor pointed south and sloped downwards, with clawed marks in the sand on the floor as though something or someone was dragged down and thrown into the gaping portal at the end of the hallway. It was the pitch black of squid’s ink and burbling with the same kinds of bone, gore, and screaming faces as the evil pool that the party had dispeled in session 91.
They talked a bit about how scary this looked until Daria started buffing herself and jumped in the portal. The braver members of the party followed, with Neutralio threatening to throw Edelweiss in again. They buffed and jumped in, where they were deposited in the air in front of 8 Aspects of Lammala, each different and representative of whatever Lammala looks like in other BROSR campaigns. They were all screaming into the void of a large dome overhead where scenes of the various tragedies caused minute to minute by the Curse flashed overhead.
Hard to see against the scenes were dozens and dozens of captives held in sickly green magic bubbles with strands of neon green fishing line stringing them together through their cheeks. As the party floated down they watched a handful of elves sacrifice themselves to the foremost aspect of Lammala, a giant sized humanoid with a too-large mouth full of shark teeth, leaving behind piles of offered treasure that were being slowly absorbed into the black volcanic sand of the floor.
Lammala lowered her head and fixated on the adventurers, materializing a shadowy flickering aspect of the demon blade Stormbringer and smiling. She tried to speak, but the party only heard the jarring static of an off-air TV channel.
Battle was joined, but the party’s high AC and my poor rolls put the enemy behind early. Her devastating attacks were likely one shots to most of the party between her poison bite that was save or die and Stormbringer’s massive damage mod in this form. She only connected once on a paladin henchmen, killing him with poison, before the uberbuffed party wore her down. The lighter/lower level members of the group were focused on rescuing captives rather than punch above their weight while the heavy hitters beat her down with their buffed attacks.
On the killing blow, she fell and exploded in a wave of crackling black lightning, dealing damage to everyone and I think knocking someone down. The large party split duties of rescuing as many captives as they could while securing what loot that they could, including quite a bit of magic items and gems but leaving a ton of coins behind due to weight and the fact that the entire complex was roiling ominously.
They rushed through some interesting rooms filled with loot on their way out but had no time to investigate, reaching the final portal as the entire realm collapsed. They were violently thrown outside to land in the blood-mud of the torrential downpour that had been happening for days. The pool itself turned into a geyser that went on for quite some time before petering out.
The group immediately noticed the mercs standing around staring at the sky where the ever present rain had stopped, leaving behind an ominous overcast of blood red clouds and heat lightning. They took stock of their situation, having recovered Vince’s missing henchmen and a few of the other captives, Lawful elves of the Istrith forest who had their Eamon Aure holy symbols nailed to their chests with iron stakes. They performed some triage and shared out the load for their stockpile of loot between all of the mercs who were happy to stow it just to get out of the creepy location.
Some uneventful travel back to Turos Spen followed, where they ended the session to lick their wounds. There are rewards on offer, but there’s also a war on and two of the primary entities offering rewards are leading bits of the army.
Grading: Dubzaron runs a class grading system ported over from AD&D. I look for aberrant behavior from the class’s obvious role within the party.
PCs:
Tuck, Barbarian 4th level Pit Fighter Bold, frontline, aggressive E
Daria Vaylas, Bladedancer, Lvl 8, Lawful, Bringer of Mercy Versatile, proper application of spells, warrior. E
Bob the Mariner L1 explorer. Lawful. Bold, engaged with the fights, E
Vince McMaximus Pugilist L11 Lawful Bold, leader, E
Neutralio Neutral Fighter guard Level 4 Bold, engaged, E
Bulwark Adieu, L1 Paladin (Temple Guard) Perished, no grade.
Edelweiss Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6 Cautious, utilitarian use of spells, E
Musings:
So ends my first dungeon run for Dubzaron and online. All in all I think it was a success, with solid feedback on the vibes of the place. I think I underestimated the power level of the party when generating it, but that’s part of it. I don’t particularly believe in “balance” in a BROSR dungeon. What’s there is what’s there. But I would have liked for it to be a little more challenging for the party for this once in a year, multi-campaign event. Ultimately it came down to the dice during the Lammala fight. It could have truly been devastating, so I’ll call it fair play and a win for the good guys. (edited)
Session 92
Xp from Kills: 6930
Xp from Loot: 67514
Total XP: 74444
Cuts: 18
PC: 0% 8,272 5% 8,685 10% 9,099
Hench: 0% 4,136 5% 4,343 10% 4,549
Does each PC get the same share of XP? Of treasure? (Prior to PR adj.) Or is it divided by total level? Or what?
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