Friday, August 25, 2023

Dubzaron Session 110: Damsels in Distress

This session was ran by DM Brigadine and I was not present. The dungeon had a lot of flavor and it’s my understanding Brig created it with a random only roller a couple hours prior. The party kept delving the place in subsequent weeks to get the big magic item prize but I believe they also enjoyed the vibe of a lost dwarven vault. While reading the session report you can feel the creepiness of the place. 

It was an interesting session wherein the party were able to secure the bag (loot) which was actually a chain gang of tr0llops. This is very un-pc and problematic and probably a thought crime and I’m sorry to the players who were uncomfortable and that DM Brig, shamefully, did not have an X card available for those who may have been triggered. Just kidding idgaf. -DM Dubs 08/25/23

5/10/23-5/13/23, rest 5/14, active 5/15PCs: Brolly (Explorer), Miles (Paladin), Aelways (Machinist), Nezra (Sporecaster) Henches: Alejandro, Bob #ACKS

Edelweiss the Mage (PC) spends a lot of downtime playing solitaire. With the always on nature of the campaign, that player has gathered enough resources to recruit some mercs and venturers and such and has a network across several markets. In Azen Radokh, primary home of the dwarves in Dubzaron, she tripped over a rumor during one of her passes through town.


Davian, her hench Machinist, won an arm wrestling match against a drunken Delver who couldn’t really pay up in coin but offered the location of a cursed dwarven vault that he scribbled on the back of a napkin. It was said that the dwarves who were building it out ran across some other construction that might have held a library or something. They continued their original plans for their vault with the intent to explore the discovered area later but were stricken with misfortune, death, and even inefficiency, the cruelest calamity to a dwarven endeavor. This location was tied to another rumor that Edelweiss had of a scroll with ever-changing script. This was enough for the curious mage and while in Dubzaron training for her next level, she put out the call to adventurers to investigate for her and the other players answered. For gold, of course, this ain’t no charity.

Some of the boys from the Fishton and Guido sessions were out of training, new and improved and big swole, so they signed on. Add in a 1st level and a few henches and you’ve got a party. They touched base with the Delver in Azen Radokh, felt alright about the info that they gathered, and off they went.

The entrance to the vault was dwarven construction with warding runes of protection around the edges, relatively new in dwarf terms but they might have realized this had been around longer than it seemed. Dwarves ain’t on a normal timeline. There was some talk about making the 0 level henchmen open all the doors in the dungeon but they realized that wasn’t really gonna work out loyalty wise, so one of the dwarves pushed it open, revealing a wide entry chamber and a stairway leading down.

The first door told them a little about the place, a finely crafted archway that some stoneworker took great pride in. The door itself was plain stone that opened away from them into a room with three giant monitor lizards vibing in a pile in the center. The lizards looked at them and squinted a little in their light, but otherwise were not aggressive or overly concerned about the group. Brolly, tonight’s caller, decided to try to hug the wall and avoid a confrontation. The dice cooperated and they exited through a doorless, finely crafted archway to the south into a T intersection.

West led to another door which they fiddled with and established an SOP for tackling, with the machinist investigating for traps and such. Brolly slid this door open once it was cleared and narrowly dodged a poison dart trap that bounced harmlessly off of Miles’ shield, who blinked once and chuckled. Brolly would not open another door the rest of the evening without some contrivance to avoid poison darts. This was a large chamber that had several giant centipedes nomming on the corpses of humanoids. They barely seemed to notice the party who carefully closed the door and backed away. East turned south and the party spotted several humanoid shapes laid flat against the corridor walls in front of them as though hiding from the light.

They watched a minute with no change to the situation while Miles detected evil because Paladin. Nothing registered so they approached cautiously, realizing that these were the withered bodies of various humanoids staked to the wall by an unnecessary number of iron spikes. Dark pools underneath showed where the captives had bled and drained away over time. Gross. The crew kept on, turning back west and arriving at a locked door. It took a while but John Aelways was able to pick the lock eventually, revealing a massive chamber that had to be some kind of great hall or something. It was cluttered with rugs, carpets, pillows, couches, all of poor quality, and lit by hooded lanterns with red cloths thrown over them giving the place a very red light district vibe.

It became immediately apparent that there were people here, chained to the floor and distraught. Once it was clear that the party were not monsters, they started pleading for freedom. There were five females, one human, two elves, and two dwarves, scantily clad and looking quite the worse for wear. Miles the Paladin detected evil again and all five of these captives radiated with Chaotic energy. After some discussion, the party determined that these ladies were probably cursed or something. They were going to free them but didn’t really trust them either. Brolly of the Big Strength flexed a little and stepped up to pull their chains loose from the ground, but groan and pull and yank as he might he couldn’t make headway. Aelways, on the other hand, quickly freed the bolted chains with some nearly magical application of tools and dwarven bullshittery, quickly becoming the hero to the ladies despite his low charisma. The group made sure the manacles stayed on, leaving the girls like a weird chain gang following the party. (DubsNote: When did this become Trollopulous?)

The girls told them about some loot that “wolf men” came and stowed away in the room but the party didn’t seem to care much. They also told them about a secret entrance that their captors used, which the dwarves and Brolly found pretty quickly. They opened the secret door which swiveled from the middle, making a little awkward doorway on either side to fit through. The chain gang was apparently Miles’ responsibility so he led them carefully into the next room which was pretty large and floored in finely crafted hexagonal tiles that the Machinist appreciated professionally. 

On the eastern wall were more humanoid corpses staked to the wall, three on either side of another arched doorway. Brolly rigged a rope to the pull ring so that he could open it from a distance and this time his big strength mattered, having to tug the stuck door open. It revealed another room nearly identical to this one, except the tiled floor had been smashed and churned to rubble in a big circle. As they proceeded through the doorway, BAM surprise attack!

So they failed to check these corpses on the wall at all which would have revealed them as zombies. They were going to trigger like a trap and happened to trigger while the chain gang was being led through the door. Meanwhile, in the next room, the rubble began to rumble and out popped a Caecilian. Now, I’m an uncultured swine who does good to talk like real people, so pronouncing that during session play ain’t happenin’. That there’s a Gray Worm. Party is now split with Brolly, Miles, and the gals in the room with the gray worm and the rest blocked off by zombies. Miles protects the ladies while Brolly stabs the worm. The henchmen and dwarves in the back engage the zombies and it’s a real fight. Miles joins in once the ladies are tucked in a corner, the worm beats on Brolly until he backs out to play with zombies instead, and then Miles gets swallowed whole!

Meanwhile, the henchmen are hangin’ in there with the zombies, the dwarves getting in some shots here and there. Alejandro goes down, but Bob weathers the storm while Brolly starts killing them from behind. Eventually the zombies are dead, but the worm attacks the girls in the corner! Now, Brolly doesn’t really care about the girls but he wants to save his homie that got nommed, so he charges back in. Nezra the Sporecaster animates some of the defeated zombies and sends them in and the party is able to beat the worm down and extract Miles, who had succumbed to the digestive juices of the creature. With some solid mortal wounds rolls, the fallen paladin and henchman are able to get to walking wounded status. None of the girls were eaten thankfully, and the human girl even had worm goo under her fingernails like she fought back. Fierce. The group knows they’re out of steam so they cut open the worm and pull out some loot, scoop up the loot the girls told them about in a hidden compartment in the red room, and are able to escape with no further complications.

They limp into Azen Radokh with a string of chained women
and talk their way past the guards, crashing with exhaustion for the night. They got decent loot and saved some damsels in distress, so I’d call that a win if I was them, but they did not find the target of the search, the mysterious scroll.


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