Time: Dungeon Delved on 05/01/2024. Travel on 05/02/2024. Rest on 05/03/2024. Actions can be taken 05/04/2024.
PCs
Bloodletter: L6 Barbarian, Death Dealer, Neutral.
Doc: L1 Thief, (Alignment?).
George (of the Jungle): L5 Beastmasterm Lawful.
Rory: L6 Barbarian, Death Dealer, Neutral.
Tuckonidas Bulk: L6 Barbarian, Neutral.
Tulsa Doom: L2 Shaman, Snake Handler, Neutral.
Hench
Bloodletter: Magos the L4 Mage
George: Fido the War Dog
Tuckonidas: Duck (L? Fighter), Ye (L? Bard)
Experience
XP for Treasure: 4,000
XP for Kills: 5,270
XP for Magic Items: 32,250
Total XP Pool: 41,520
Cuts: 16
PC Cut: 0%: 5,190 5%: 5,450 10%: 5,709
Hench Cut: 0%: 2,595 5%: 2,725 10%: 2,854
Session Report
The main parties of the campaign took a brief excursion the last few weeks to lift the Evil Muppet Curse (which they caused) back at Muppetlantis. This was mostly handled by the Dubzaron co DM Brig and he did some session reports about the curse and its lifting that I'll drop in this space soon.
Today I'd like to talk about Session 151 of Dubzaron. 151 sessions. Good heavens can you imagine. Do the critics of the brosr have campaigns that even go into double digits? Maybe here and there. But even those flounder and die when their PCs levels go into the double digits. Because they don't know how to run real D&D. What a shame.
If only they'd use 1:1 Jeffrogaxian Timekeeping, Patrons, and Braunstein play they could have real D&D campaigns like the BROSR. Like me, BDubs; the greatest long running DM with a current campaign still going.
While this amazing feat of 151 sessions is mostly due to mine general greatness; I would be remiss if I didn't celebrate the many players who have made this possible. Primarily my Co DMs who kept Dubzaron going for about 6 months when I was dealing with some irl stuff: Brig, Ambrose, Vince, RM, and JB. Thank you!
Also, I'd like to thank all the players, current and former, whose excitement, passion, and engagement in the world of dubzaron kept us all ready to come back for session after session. Thank you!
I would have said all this in the session 151 session report but I had some irl stuff come up last week and had to bail. They broke the curse of muppetry without me! This is fitting since the curse itself happened without me. Once again, Mr and Mr Black Lodge Games, this felt foolishness was not my fault!
With the muppetry out of the way and all the medium size or smaller bipeds of the world no longer made of felt; the party gathered again in the Sepia Hills to tackle the new tentpole dungeon of the campaign: Queens Rest Mountain!
They set off for the volcano on May Day, ignoring rumors of shamans and druids of the hills (in the more hidden villages) celebrating this druidic holiday with human sacrifice. I decided Patron Kyle OConner who runs this region isn't so into that part of druid faith system but turns a blind eye if it's practice is not too publicly celebrated in the deeper hills and hollows. I found this to be interesting worldbuilding but, as is the case with most all worldbuilding the DM does, the players DONT CARE.
Within a few game world hours they were at the dungeon inside a volcano. They passed by the entry room which is now controlled by a Storm Giant named Permanti who is friendly to them. He advised them that last week, during some lava floes on the outside of the mountain, the various chaos monsters he had to yeet had unnatural fiery aspects. Fiery hair and fur, breathing fire, things like that. Be careful if you delve the dungeon during a floe!
The party has explored this place a bunch so it was a quick rundown of going three rooms north, two rooms east etc to get where they were going. Althought a made a couple random monster encounter rolls nothing hit so they got to the area they wanted to check out with no danger. Sad.
They passed through a room with a broken wall and into a hallway going north towards their assumed goal. They came upon an evil altar in a cubby with fire giants and the necromancer queen depicted on the side of it in bas relief. No one had any holy water or "Bless" spell to cleanse it so the Lawfully aligned members of the party didn't cop their nice 800 xp bump from doing so. And perhaps took a grade hit from not at least physically defacing it, stay tuned for grading below to find out!
Searching the wall behind the altar Tuck realized it was all cracked up and could be broken by someone with some strength so Bloodletter busted through it like the Koolaid man. On the other side I rolled up a random encounter of 4 vampires (lol, lmao) which I made a 30% chance was Bloodletter best from from Barsoom: Slenderman! and it was!
Bloodletter was charmed by this slightly altered version of the ACKS vampire (I won't tell you which of his abilities are changed; fog of war!) way back on Barsoom and he was happy to see his pal. The reaction roll wasn't great but Slenderman gave Bloodletter a ring, long ago, which improved his reaction with Vampires. So it was enough to make Slenderman simply vaguely annoyed.
You see, Slenderman had made this nice crypt room his new lair in the world of Dubzaron and he was enjoying some personal time with his 3 lady friends (the other 3 vampires in the encounter number roll). Surely they were up to nothing prurient, perish the thought! Slenderman was teaching them the Lindy Hop! Yes he has come to Dubzaron to spread the word of social dance; most especially swing dancing!
While Bloodletter advised Slenderman to hit the gym more to bulk up his spindly arms, the party notes 2 sarcophagi in the room with one piled high with Lair Treasure. Bloodletter made nice with his "friend", letting him know the part was in search of an Orb and Slenderman telling them it was in a room to the north. He saw it but decided to leave it be "but bring it to me for study when you acquire it".
The party realized they revealed to much and Bloodletter made excuses. They really didn't want to give a vampire the Orb they've been trying to bag for like 4 months. So Slenderman said bring him some dwarves or other smaller slaves to rebuild the wall they broke and help him expand his lair and it was left at that. The vampire gals wanted to keep some of the party members but reaction rolls from the party deemed that Slenderman said "nah". He instead struck up his phantom Big Band and they all got back to Lindy Hopping as the party left.
The party traveled north and found a room which very clearly looked like a trap. It was huge with a magic circle in the center, a big fireplace with an Eternal Flame (magic) inside, braziers all around the room, and a big disgusting statue of a pregnant crone (thanks alot, Macris). The Orb was floating in the eternal flame.
I went to get a drink while the party discussed their plan to deal with it. Magos used ESP to read surface thoughts in the room and heard "Burn, Kill, Rest" and Tulsa asked the ancestors through Commune if an elemental was in the room "yes". and some other questions I forgot.
The eventual plan was to tie a rope to Doc the Thief (???), let him pop off a Ward against Elemental to go in and grab the Orb.
This plan took a while to develop with some back and forth between the thief being scared and Rory stating they were "[redacted]ing dead without a Cleric".
But all said and done the thief was sneaking into the room, secure in the knowledge he couldn't be attacked by melee from elementals. He checked out the magic circle and saw 4 reliquaries around it made of gold worth about 1,000 each. He mentally noted that and went to the fireplace. He tried to use his sling to rope the Orb out of the fireplace. Before he could try the eternal flames burst out and lit the braziers around the room and 6 Hell Hounds (2 large, 4 smaller) all about the room. And a massive earth elemental rose from the magic circle.
In my kindness I made surprise roll for the party (who were "set to ambush" from the doorway) to see if they could get a free round of attacks on the monsters. They could and downed one of the big hell hounds. Sadly a brazier blast out fire and healed it back up at the end of the round.
Upon normal combat, the barbarians started attacking and beating down dogs and Bloodletter shifted focus to knocking over braziers so the dogs couldn't be healed back up. Doc tried to get out of the room with Duck shadowing to hopefully protect him. Magos put 2 of the smaller hell hounds to sleep which made them unable to be healed back up by braziers; taking them off the board.
The elemtal smashed Fido the wardog, then Ye and George. He was not able to attack Doc as per the scroll of warding and the dogs (despite chasing the thief) never got an attack off on him because he won initiative at the right times.
The combat took a while but that was most of the content. When all was said and done the party had a few beat up and beat down members. Upon triage all the fallen members (iirc) were able to get back up as walking wounded.
Doc, during the battle, had escaped back down the hallway. As this was very close to where they had encountered Slenderman I made a wandering monster check to see if he'd mosey along to check out the proceedings. The answer was yes. So he popped right next to Doc and used his charming gaze on the thief. Failing his Save Vs Spells, the thief found Slenderman to be his best pal in the world! So they went back to practice some swing dance and Slenderman pocketed the Orb.
Tuck's player was heard on mic "I [redacted]ing hate Queens Rest Mountain".
While the party triaged the fallen comrades Bloodletter went to see if he could convince Slenderman to give Doc and the Orb back. Generally the reaction rolls favored the party so Slenderman said "this Orb isn't even magical, it's junk! But my ladies would like to eat the thief" to which Bloodletter replied "that's fine as long as you give me the Orb".
As the ladies approached to kill Doc I allowed him to try and talk his way out of it and the Reaction Roll dice were kind again. They decided he was "too weak to eat yet; let him level a bit and come back". Doc agreed to that plan.
Upon returning to the big battle room Doc noticed a small gold key in the fireplace and Bloodletter reached into the flame to take it out, taking 3 damage. That would have killed the thief.
They opened a door on the north wall and came to a room with a magic furnace anvil thing and shelves full of magic items. They bagged those, making nice XP, and left the dungeon. They traveled all the way back to the city of Claymore Crossing to have the items identified and split them up among the party. They were as follows:
Staff of Healing, Wand of Fireballs, Shield +2, Shortsword of Light +2, 5 crossbow bolts +3, 24 arrows +1, 27 crossbow bolts +1.
So what will they do now that they have the Orb and Scepter? They believe it will open the door to the Twin Peaks curtain quest that Kyle Oconner gave them like a year ago. Will it? Will they die in the attempt? Find out next time!
PC Class Grades
Bloodletter: L6 Barbarian, Death Dealer, Neutral. E for Excellent. Dealt death and played up his charmed friendship with Slenderman.
Doc: L1 Thief, (Alignment?). S for Superior. Failed to try and grab a little something extra for himself from Slenderman's lair or the magic circle room.
George (of the Jungle): L5 Beastmasterm Lawful. E for excellent. Didn't back out of battle. Tried to set ambush. Attempted to track.
Rory: L6 Barbarian, Death Dealer, Neutral. E for excellent. Dealt death and didn't flee from combat.
Tuckonidas Bulk: L6 Barbarian, Neutral. E for excellent, bold and didn't flee from combat.
Tulsa Doom: L2 Shaman, Snake Handler, Neutral. E for good healing and using commune.
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