BDubs and Dragons: Curse of Lamalla

Showing posts with label Curse of Lamalla. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Dubzaron Session 92: Return to Lamalla's Pool

does lamalla look like this?

This is the second session where I was not the DM. This was DM Brigadine once again from the world famous Brigadungeon!

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

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Dubzaron Session 91: Spontaneous Heroism

I have recently taken a break from DMing the Dubzaron Campaign. But that hasn't stopped the campaign itself from continuing. In fact, the number of sessions played each month has actually increased! How, you ask? Well, thanks to 1:1 Jeffrogaxian Timekeeping and Patrons, the campaign has the EZ Mode structure to allow for Co-DMs and a stable of fantastic Co-DMs waiting in the wings.

Most of these DMs have been keeping excellent notes on our campaign d1scord during this time and I realized hey why not share these terrific and exciting session reports with you, the people. I'm going to have an accelerated release of these reports since there is quite the backlog.

This session was ran waaaaay back on 01/21/23 by the outstanding DM Brig of Brigadungeon; a campaign where I run Teutch the Alchemist as a Patron. He runs Prefect Drakon as a Patron in Dubzaron.

Brigadine wasted no time in taking the reigns upon hearing of my need for a DMing break. I'm going to cut and paste his report below without adding anything. His DM voice is quite unique and those who haven't checked out his blog are in for a treat.

Enjoy and game on!

Time: Downtime travel started 1/21/23 to kick off session play 1/26/23 at Turos Spen. Delve 1/27/23 5 hours, rest overnight, aim to delve 1/28/23.

PCs: Bob Lawful Explorer 1 Mariner, Tuck Neutral Barb 4 pit fighter, Daria Lawful Bladedancer 8, Gront Coldsky neutral Barb Housecarl, Edelweiss Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6, Neutralio Neutral Fighter Level 2, Arminius Lawful level 4 Nobirian Champion, Vince McMaximus L11 Pugilist, lawful

Hench: Dina, L5 Fighter, lawful, Torquemada L5 Paladin lawful, Julia, L5 Thief lawful, Davian Cruise Dwarven Machinist Engineer lvl 2, Lily Bladedancer Bringer of Mercy lvl 1, Azalea Shaman Druid lvl 2

Hi. I’m Brigadine. Bdubs had to take a break for a bit due to IRL. He announced that this past weekend and had the Discord server all atwitter. He’s temporarily passed the reins off to a few subDMs for downtime shenanigans and keeping the game moving forward. Several of us split up the responsibilities to keep up with downtime while the chatter continued on the server.

Somehow, the boys got excited enough to jump into a spontaneous session to start on a Saturday evening. Buncha players and 2 or 3 DMs on hand so someone was gonna do somethin’ hell or high water. There were tons of hooks, but Bdubs had just recently dropped this nugget:

Blood Rain Torrential Downpour: This morning began a massive downpour of Lamalla's blood rains down across the lands. During the entire day and through the weekend it doesn't let up. Lawful dreams are haunted by the watery cackles of Lamalla during this time. "Soon!" she laughs "Soon all will be under my sway across the multiverse!"

This drew out the big guns. Vince (Patron Pugilist 11) went to his long-time best friend or exasperated ruler (depends on who you ask) Prefect Drakon (Patron Fighter ???) with a plan to strike at Lammala and hopefully rescue some of his captured henchmen from a botched delve a month or two ago. The Curse is nearing its end and no one knows what to expect when it’s over, but why be the nail when you can be the hammer?

Drakon used his Deck of BroSR Trumps (See: Nine Princes in Amber) to contact every single PC in the Campaign on what amounted to a Zoom call where Vince pitched the mission. A pool had been discovered in the wilderness a few weeks ago that had been corrupting any elves in the hex. The Legate that had discovered it was offering rewards to deal with it and Vince and Drakon piled on.

Players picked their PCs, among them some of the heavy hitters of the campaign that have been idle or doing domain stuff, and worked out logistics to be where they needed to be to kick off the adventure. They got with the Captain of the Guard at Turos Spen for intel and did a little shopping and off they went. Wilderness travel was miserable and a little slower than planned due to the rain and differences in mount speeds, but they got there with only a few wild animal encounters that were easily avoided. It was a big party with more than a company of mercs so the few encounters that they saw really didn’t want none o’ that smoke.

They arrived amidst the aforementioned downpour to find a company of Light Cav stationed on guard who were just as miserable or more than the party. Vince spoke to Sergeant Schlepo (memed into Schlepius Maximus because ACKS) who was a bit of a smart ass but accepted their purpose for being there and showed them the pool.

It was perfectly circular, 30 feet in diameter, and perfectly clear despite the heavy downpour of blood. After some tinkering and experimentation including Vince trying to lure a mermaid with an old pumpkin spice latte, Bob the Mariner displayed great 1st level courage, tied a rope to himself, and jumped in. The rope elongated and eventually lost connection and Bob was never seen again. OR WAS HE?! Cue dramatic scene break.

The party was worried and discussed various other plans to try to cautiously enter the pool, settling on jumping in with water breathing potions handy just in case. The notoriously cowardly Edelweiss (mage) noped pretty hard on going in until Neutralio just shoved her in and dove in after. Eventually everyone made it through the portal and into the dungeon, Edelweiss hyperventilating until they proved that they could enter and exit at will.

They were in a long, narrow room where the ceiling, walls, and floor were the color of the deepest darkest ocean, the last of which was rolling gently in mimicry of the ocean’s surface. Two rows of columns made of pink coral stretched the length of the room, several of which held magnesium torches giving off a harsh green light and sickly fumes. Bob the Mariner realized after a while that the rolling of the floor actually tilted to the northwest, kind of like they were standing on a bit of a wave and not flat water. Vince and others shared out a bunch of loaner magic items. Lammala’s Curse makes watery critters immune to normal weapons.

While the party discussed the various exits to the room, Tuck the Barbarian in his power armor tried to pluck a few torches from the columns, getting two and passing them around for folks to hold. One of the paladin henchmen detected evil and reported everything was evil. The whole place. Fun.

They settled on heading west down a passage close to the entry, arriving at a door made of sand and seashells with a white plastic door ring shortly thereafter. Not a lot of discussion was had about how to approach doors, their confidence swollen with the presence of mid to high level characters, and they served up a no-knock warrant on the underwater realm, piling into the room and immediately triggering a trap.

The room had dappled greenish light like just under the surface of a scummy pond. About half of the large party entered the room before the trap sprung, flooding the space with murky pond water and causing swimming checks for everyone. Except Tuck. Because power armor. Sigh.

The presence of the power armor trivialized the threat of this drowning trap and the party was eventually able to swim or be towed through the water to the clear hallway on the other side. They found a short passage that led into a large chamber with an 8 feet tall pile of sea snakes writhing in the middle of it. Some discussion about how to attack and kill the snakes led to eventually persuading Edelweiss to drop a fireball on it. She did and all the sneks exploded leaving behind a spirally coral column that they had been clinging to.

I’ve never seen a group so eager to smash an evil altar, with several PCs talking over themselves on mic and explaining to the newer players that chaotic altars give a bit of XP to lawful PCs that break them. PCs only ever want one thing, and it’s disgusting.

Some elbow grease and holy water later and there were cleansed altar fragments all about the place. As they dusted off their hands, two medusa burst into the room from the west wearing mottled green and blue robes and disposable paper slippers. Unfortunately for the monsters, no one was surprised and immediately turned to stone.

The combat that ensued was pretty one-sided, all of the adventurers having fought medusas and well-familiar with the averting your gaze mechanics. I don’t even think the enemy got a chance to act. They went into the room that the medusas came out of fully expecting to fight more of the same. What they actually found was a large circular room with a swirling whirlpool of gore, bones, and screaming faces in the center that made a loud roaring sound. The edge of the room was a ten foot band of sand with a few more exits.

They talked about what to do about the pool, eventually testing it out by throwing a vial of holy water in which burst and caused a massively loud ear-splitting shriek to echo throughout the complex. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to happen or respond to it. Shortly thereafter the walls seemed to absorb about half of the light emitted by the party’s stolen torches, but it didn’t appear to them that the two events were related.

They threw a couple more vials in, more shrieking, and the paladin cast Detect Evil. It was extremely evil in that pool. Daria the Bladedancer and OG dropped a Dispel Evil on it which caused its whirling motion to cease and stop, leaving just a pool of gore with bits floating in it. Cheers were had by all. The violently loud shrieking will definitely not come back to haunt them.

The party decided to rest here and let Daria meditate to recover her expended spell slot. A whole hour chillin’ in the dungeon, NBD. Turns out it was indeed NBD. The lights even corrected themselves.

So off they went, aiming at a northern door where they found a large square chamber filled floor, wall, and ceiling with weird veiny organic pods of some kind. They noped right out of there and kept poking around, finding a much more turbulent room where they could hear waterfall sounds coming from an angle that they couldn’t see without entering the room. Again, they backtracked, opting to check a hallway off of the whirlpool room that they were confident would lead them back to the entrance and out.

Along that hallway was another shell and sand door, so they stacked up and kicked it in, rushing into a confrontation with 7 Sharkotaurs. Yep, minotaurs with shark heads. They even had hooves. A bold charge by the front line of Gront, Tuck, and Neutralio set the battle’s tone, supported by the rest including the Summoned Hero Mandonio. A mix of high AC and poor rolling left the party with little damage received beyond a strike against Bob the Mariner which felled him to exactly 0 HPs. The medic hench jumped on it quick and a solid mortal wounds roll had him back on his feet.

They captured and interrogated the last sharkotaur and learned some small or vague details about the dungeon. Ultimately they decided to kill it when it outlived its usefulness. The critters’ room had a bit of loot which they shared out between them and boogied for the exit. They still hadn’t achieved their primary objective and it was getting late so they determined that securing the loot then calling it was the best play. But they couldn’t shake the thought that maybe Vince’s lost henchmen were in the pod people room, so they jumped back in and risked another encounter to check it out. Fortunately they made it there without incident and tried to see what they could learn about the weird cocoons.

Some failed proficiency checks to try to surgically remove a whole pod left them with the choice to cut one open or just leave. They cut one open, revealing a motionless, hairless, featureless, smooth-bodied humanoid creature that either wasn’t alive or was in a coma or something. Tuck stepped up with his Axe of Galeforce and uttered the secret to Fryer Tuck’s franchise: “never fresh, always frozen” and touched it to the… thing… which froze over like a popsicle. A podsicle, if you will. They took the podsicle and a piece of one of the cocoons and destroyed the rest, resting up top in the torrential bloody rains with the intent to come back ASAP.

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.

Bob Lawful Explorer 1 Mariner: Bold, direct, courageous, Lawful. Fighter archetype E.

Tuck Neutral Barb 4 pit fighter: Bold, direct, courageous, helpful. Fighter archetype E.

Daria Lawful Bladedancer 8: Dropped spells in key points, healed when able, engaged in melee as Bladedancer. Martial Cleric archetype E.

Gront Coldsky neutral Barb Housecarl: Bold, direct, violent. Fighter archetype E.

Edelweiss Neutral Mage Magical Scholar lvl 6: Cautious, cast in key points. Mage E

Neutralio Neutral Fighter Level: Bold, direct, courageous, Fighter E.

Arminius Lawful level 4 Nobirian Champion: Bold, direct, courageous, flexible, Fighter archetype E.

Vince McMaximus L11 Pugilist, lawful: Bold, direct, courageous, leader, Fighter archetype E.

Musings: This was my first online session that I’ve run. I’ve got a handful of games under my belt as a Judge in person, so I’m not completely lost, but it’s a different dynamic for sure. The excitement throughout the day talking about it fed the session emotionally as much as anything that happened in the game I think. Had a freshman caller in Vince on the mic, which was fun. The legacy Dubzaron players really like to put callers on the spot. But it’s all done with love. Iron sharpens iron and the rising tide and all that.

I threw the dungeon together once it looked like I was on deck for the spontaneous session. I’m not as great working from absolutely nothing as some, so I like to at least have an outline. I’m sure the PCs will throw me as time goes on with some gotcha session plans, but that’s how we get better. Push that envelope! This one was easy due to all the lead-in conversation.

We paused time again. I don’t really care as long as the timeline matches up. I think it’s proven that it works fine. There is some concern over the spontaneous session leaving players out of the loop which is unfortunate. Could also FUBAR some assumed actions and contingencies with a game with this many moving pieces in 1:1 time. We’ll endeavor to be more considerate of that in the future, but hey strike when the iron’s hot, right?

Xp from Kills: 2730

Xp from Loot: 18832

Total XP: 21562

Cuts: 22

PC: 0% 1,960 5% 2,058 10% 2,156

Hench: 0% 980 5% 1,029 10% 1,078

Lawful Only

Xp from Kills: 1100

Xp from Loot: 0

Total XP: 1100

Cuts: 12

PC: 0% 183 5% 193 10% 202

Hench: 0% 92 5% 96 10% 101

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Dubzaron Session 79: Vince McMaximus gets MeTooed (how to generate hooks/dungeons with Patrons)

TimeKeeping

This session was played on 11/02/22 with players adventuring for 3 days until 11/05/22 and needing rest on 11/06/22. PCs can take actions 11/07/22.

Participating PCs

Arya Sorrow (Level 1 BladeDancer) [Grade: S]

Baldwinning (Level 1 Cleric, Crusader template) [Grade: S]

Hakon (Level 1 Shaman, Runecaster template) [Grade: S]

Neutralio (Level 2 Fighter, Guard Template) [Grade: E]

Proteus (Level 4 Mage, Soothsayer Template) [Grade: E]

Henchmen

Proteus: Lykaon (L1 Fighter, Mercenary), Primus (Level 0), Secundus (Level 0), Trimus (Level 0)
Neutralio: Sophie (L1 Bladedancer)

Foreword

I'm going to break down some of the behind the scenes downtime stuff that happened and led to the hook in this session. Since the weird way in which this "story" came together is quite amazing to me.

Firstly Drakon's player, having advanced his Patron up to the high level of Prefect, has decided he will help generate hooks and world-in-motion events for Dubzaron campaign. Each week he's been making a Domain Encounter roll check similar to what Macho Mandalf does for the Trollopulous campaign in Machodor. Drakon analyzes what the encounter is, what the Reaction check is, and brainstorms (sometimes with me) what the dice are telling him.

Recently he had an encounter that was a big lair of Gnomes and their reaction was Neutral-ish. So clearly they weren't trying to attack the Prefect. He decided the gnomes arrival on the scene would have something to do with the Curse Of Lamalla so we brainstormed up an idea that the gnomes Dug Too Deep and came across a portal to Lamalla's plane and octopus tentacles lashed out and killed a bunch of the gnomes, and there was intermittent flooding in their vault-home. So they fled the place, grabbing up as much treasure and goods as they could.

We decided the Gnomes would have copped half of their lair treasure and were offering that as a reward for anyone that could clear out the tentacles and close the evil portal. That would also allow me to explain any other treasure PCs found if they delved the place; it was the other half the gnomes couldn't grab. If you've noticed this means the PCs are taking the gnomes treasure should they cop it during a delve, you're right! Adds a nice story element.

So PCs proceeded to ignore this hook and had no interest at all. However your favorite Sports Entertainment Guru, Vince McMaximus (Patron sleazy syndicate boss, gladiator school proprietor, BROvenloft plane hopper and general) had a BROvenloft hook with the Lawful (kinda) goddess Inanna and he hoped if he could close the portal maybe she'd be impressed with his work. So he came to me and asked if HE could do the hook.

This is the first time a Patron has asked if he could tackle what I'd consider to be a session play PC hook. Because I refuse to do any prep work that will be wasted, I had done no drawing of a dungeon or the gnome's vault or the layout of their camp or anything like that. If the PCs decided they would go there in session play I was going to randomly generate the dungeon using the Random Dungeon Generator which is Appendix A in the first edition D&D Dungeon Masters Guide.

I use this all the time when PCs throw me a curveball on where they want to go.

So what to do when a Patron wants to handle a delve himself? Clearly I'm not going to play by post a dungeon delve that's more than a room or two. I don't have the time or interest for that. So I told Vince he could delve the dungeon and run the random generator himself. I feel this was fair since he'd have no way of knowing what's in the place since it would be getting generated randomly as he came upon the rooms and such.

I've used Appendix A in this way so I could run session play adventuring with my kids and bring a PC of my own.

So what I did is give Vince some unique stipulations on finding the Portal and the encounters he'd meet. Firstly, all the encounters would have a sea creature template overlay. If a random encounter says "goblins" then it's instead the same stats as goblins but they're like guppy men.

Second, each random encounter would have a 25% chance (rolled first) of being dangerous octopus arms coming from the next room, down a hallway, whatever. They'd always be hostile.

Last, the Portal could only be in a Unique room which on the Appendix A chart for rooms only hits on an 18 on a d20. So 5% chance for each room Vince comes across. THEN there was only 10% x Dungeon Level of that particular unique room being the portal portal room. So the deeper you go the more likely you'd find the portal. Also deeper = more dangerous. Vince would need to roll random encounters for travel as well. Random treasure. All that.

So I gave Vince this little mini-game to play and I told him to pause and wait when he came across the Portal room and we'd run it. So he left me alone for a couple days then came back to me and said they found it on level 2. Lucky guy!

We ran the combat with the octopus arms coming out of the portal to the plane of elemental water and Vince killed them all. Then he realized "wait how do I close the portal and claim my prize?" Oops!

He decided holy water would be needed but he didn't have any. Oops again!

So he left the dungeon to buy some holy water in Dubzaron and come back. He informed me on 11/02/22 (the exact day of Session 79!) that he'd be going in for his second delve on that day, going straight to the portal room and tossing holy water at it. He'd get back to me if he had random encounters on the way etc etc.

Cool whatever. I forgot about it. Seems like Vince has this knocked right?

Well as usual. PCs throw a wrench in the whole affair. Read on.

Session Report

Who the h*ck are these PCs?!

Well some of the regular PCs were trapped in TRAINING JAIL after having solid scores in recent sessions. Proteus was kind of the old salty veteran PC even though he's the second PC of Xanthos's player so he the mage doesn't get much play. So it was cool seeing him rise to the challenge and really take control of the session tone and strategy at some points.

Neutralio is a second (or third?) PC of a player and his backstory is actually that (in his mind) Prefect Drakon (Patron) didn't pay him to pick up Stormbringer since the spaceman patron instead used a robot to do it and put it in his spaceship to toss into the sun.

The rest of that story is history. Yet there stands Neutralio without a big Drakon payout which he, Neutralio, planned to buy a mansion for his mom. So sad!

You snooze you lose, PC. Unless...

The PCs started talking on the mics about how "hey we should hit up that gnome vault hook since it's close to the city". Convenience of reaching the location was the Party's main concern. All the other hooks were so far away they didn't want to get 2nd, 3rd, or (for some players!) even 4th PCs trapped in Time Compression or training jail.

At this point I'm muting the mic and muttering to myself "how the heck am I going to do this? Vince already found the portal. Is Vince online? Could a get a copy of his map of the dungeon?" I was freaking out. We had a weird time and story intersection with something a Patron was already on top of and the PCs wanted to go get involved. Thing is, they didn't realize Vince was involved or already started the hook. If they'd known I bet they wouldn't have tried.

But I would never say "no pcs you can't go there because vince is there already" because that would kill player agency. So I used the concept I intended to use with Vince when he tossed the holy water in, namely that the portal would suck in every person in the party and they'd be lost forever inside the plane of elemental water if said person failed a Save Vs Paralysis.

Additionally, so I could run my OWN random dungeon without needing access to Vinces, I decided that the Portal event also caused an earthquake and all the gnome's halls and such were caved in, reflooded, destroyed etc. Thus we could explain why my dungeon is different than Vince's. Done and done. I decided all this while the PCs were debating the hooks. That little 10 to 30 minutes of Player discussion is the perfect time to ponder what the session might actually look like based on what your players are saying they intend to do. Don't just sit there spinning your dice. Think!

Now lets get to the PCs session play.

The party left Dubzaron traveling along the road. On the first night of camp they were accosted by 2 very angry ents who seemed to be mad with the blood rain their roots had been taking in (translation: I rolled a terrible Reaction check). The treants appeared very close to the party at 20 yards so despite the party not being surprised, they would not be able to Wilderness Evade without there being a round of combat (if there were combat). The ents were open to not "break[ing] every one of the softskins in half" if the party made a tribute and buried 3,000 gp worth of valuables in the copse if trees the treants lived among where PCs had inadvertently made their camp that night. The treants were also open to allowing the "softskins" to offer gardening services for that same amount but, with each PC and hench only being worth 5 gp a day in "construction costs" as per ACKS it would take a very long time for them to garden in the amount of 3,000 gp.

Proteus was calling, didn't want to pay or garden, so he just told all the party members to "run!"

I ruled that PCs could be move to a Wilderness Evade check if they 1. beat the treants initiative or 2. did a defensive movement. If they did defensive movement they might still take attacks. Almost everyone rolled a higher initative than the treants but Neutralio, his hench Sophie and ALL of Proteus's level 0 henchmen were slower than the treants. One of the ents lurched forward and grabbed the heads of all the level 0 henchmen and squished their heads like grapes with chained cleave attacks. The other treant stepped on and killed Lykaon. Neutralio nor his hench Sophie were luckily not attacked (or got missed, I don't remember exactly) and made a fighting withdrawal. Neutralio, true to his alignment, decided to flea alone with his henchwoman and leave the somewhat slower PCs in the group to make their own retreat. The treants chased Neutralio but the Fighter succeeded on his wilderness evade, giving them the slip in the dark red mist filled night among the rolling Auran hills.

The two split parties had no encounters during their night of hiding and evasion and both made Get Lost checks successfully and found eachother the next day.

The party trekked off the road some days later going towards where they were told the gnomes had set up to await adventurers. I made a Find Lair check for the party when they arrived and rolled a natural 20 so the PCs walked right up to the jittery gnomes. The party learned that Vince McMaximus had delved the dungeon a week previously and came out to admit he needed holy water to deal with the portal he found. He came back on 11/02/22 (the party was now a few days into the future on 11/05/22) and some hours after Vince went back inside the dungeon with his big crew and holy water, there was a massive explosion and the Gnome's vault collapsed in on itself and there was constantly ominous whooshing come from the place. At this point the PCs were talking about how they might be able to save Vince (which all admitted could be cool and maybe Vince would reward them). The gnomes offered the party 2,000 of the 4,000 gp reward if the party could find proof Vince succeeded, or was dead, or whatever. The party readily agreed.

Going into the rainbow arch into the vault (gnomes, amirite?) and came to a collapsing room with wet floors. There were hallways full of rubble going north and east. There was a fully collapsed little hallway going west. the party chose to go north and was climbing over rocks and ducking from the low gnomish ceilings. They climbed over a very large pile of rocks into a chamber where 9 guppymen ambushed them when only about half the party had finished going over the stones and entering the room, essentially splitting the party and making it difficult for them to help eachother. Neutralio got hit hard by spears but didn't fall but Sophie and Lykoan were felled during the short skirmish. After about half of the guppymen were killed Proteus used an Alter Self spell to transform himself into the visage of Lamalla. Proteous speaks Frogmen which was apparently close enough to speak with guppymen and he demanded they submit to Lamalla's will.

I made a Reaction Check for the guppymen and rolled really Friendly so they totally believed Lamalla was standing there and they prostrated and apologized for killing some of her "human servitors". They were picking and dusting Lykoan and Sophie off but Lykoan was a bloodstain on the floor. I have a dark sense of humor.

Sophie's arms were run through with spears and she reached to the Party for healing help but there was none to be had. She died. The party continued deeper into the northern part of the dungeon and pushed open a stuck door finding 5 mudcrab men who also believed Proteus was Lamalla and they swore service to her. The crabmen and guppymen had some treasure on them which "Lamalla" demanded they turn over to "her". After exploring the northern hallway to two apparent dead ends of collapsing and flooded rooms, the party went back to the first room of the dungeon and ordered their beastmen servants to clear all the rubble from the western hallway. They trekked into the western section of the collapsing vault and found a room with the floor compeltely fallen in on the south eastern side. They set up a rope to climb down the cliff to get deeper since the guppymen told them the room Vince was in had fallen down to level 3 of the dungeon, so the PCs knew they'd have to go deeper in to find him. The guppymen claimed to know "because the portals whisper to us what's happening in the dungeon".

Exiting the collapsed cliff room, and now on level 3 of the dungeon, the PCs found a hallway which was magically flooded up to their waists. They were moving slower but pushed forward into the dungeon and found a room with treasure chests floating on top of the water. Proteus sent the beastmen in to grab it up and they were attacked by 2 giant toads. I ruled the watery beastmen could hit the water creatures (toads) with natural attacks but not with weapons. The Curse of Lamalla makes all sea creature types immune to non-magic weapons and always hostile.

The toads were killed and no beastmen were lost. They offered the treasure to "Lamalla" who thanked them. Proteus at this point sent the beastmen away and back up to level 1 of the dungeon to chase some red herring "good cleric" he made up. He did this since his Alter Self was about to expire and he had no more spells of that level he could use today. So the party was now missing their free henchmen as they went deeper. Lucky for them they found a room with a somewhat closed portal not too much deeper trekking along level 3 of the dungeon. It was a weird purple and black pulsing portal like a lizard's eye against one wall.

The party began to debate what they should do. Some wanted to go back to the surface and try again another day after they could heal and get spells back. But some player(s) pointed out the portal seemed to be slowly closing and might not be open much longer. Also in the room were two of Vince's henchfolk Zelda and Bruchard the barbarian. Among the room were many dead ogres and frogmen.

While Zelda was unconcious with a Mortal Wound, Bruchard told the tale of how Vince's party tossed holy water at the portal and it closed up somewhat but not before sucking hard at all Vince's people, with most flying into the portal and not coming back out. Vince's Ogres and Frogmen did not fly in by the Frogmen apparently turned mad in service of Lamalla and killed the ogres and almost killed Zelda and Bruchard. Bruchard, for some reason, had a Mirror of Life Trapping he was hoofing around and a Wand of Magic Missiles which he let Proteus hold "just in case". The PCs pondered how to turn those resources to their advantage but didn't come up with anything actionable.

Neutralio and Baldwinning decided to enter the portal and had some rope which the party held the other end of (just DND things). On the other side of the portal the Fighter and Cleric found themselves in an infinite ocean as they had apparently crossed over into the elemental plane of water. We had to break out our recent drowning and holding your breath rules as Neutralio swam deeper into the infinite ocean looking for sign of Vince or anything really. He came upon some octopus tentacles which bid him to follow and he did, making a Save Vs Death throw successfully to allow him to swim deeper without losing his breath and drowning.

Deep in the eternal ocean he came upon an aspect of Lamalla which looked like a woman's torso on the body of an octopus. It had Vince McMaximus all tangled up and was discussing... something... with him. In the background the PCs were private messaging with Vince who confirmed he quickly used his charming personality to get a kiss from a mermaid which allowed him to breathe in the Plane of Elemental water for a few days. He had been spending those days distracting and manosphere style gaming Lamalla into not putting a Geas on him, as all deities can as per the 1e Deities and Demigods book.

He also confirmed he did NOT want to work with Lamalla since, with only 11 Charisma, she's an uggo.

Neutralio swam up with the plan to put a looped end of the rope over Vince. I rolled a Reaction check to see if this would concern Lamalla-octopus and it didn't. (I was rolling really high Reaction checks this session).

Neutralio successfully made a Special Maneuver attack against AC 0 to loop the rope over Vince's body and gave three tugs for the PCs to PUUULLL! I ruled that one of the 3 PCs who could manage to pull the rope had to beat Lamalla-Ocotopus's own attack number and the shaman did so. Vince was pulled away from the goddess's tentacle as she screamed angrily. Neutralio swam back following the rope but failed a Save VS Death and began to drown; meaning he couldn't swim or was going to die soon. It didn't take long for Vince to pop out on the Prime Material Plane side. He quickly thanked the party and told a fast story of seducing a mermaid for a kiss to allow him to breathe underwater. I made a reaction check to see if Vince, being able to breathe underwater, would go back into the portal to Neutralio and I rolled the highest (most friendly) check so Vince dove back in and saved the Fighter.

At this point Lamalla was angry and began to flood the dungeon profusely and shake and quake the place to collapse it. The party ran out as the halls and rooms were flooded behind them and most of the rooms fell just as they exited. One PC fell down and began to get sucked back into the dungeon by the elemental waters but Vince jumped in to save him before everyone eventually got out safetly. The gnomes were impressed and vowed to rebuild once the portals fully closed. Vince didn't ask for any of the 4000 gp reward so the party got the whole pot. They decided to stay with the gnomes in downtime to "cash out" their gold for XP right away.

Afterword

Vince was pretty bummed he lost all but one of his MANY henchmen he took into the dungeon. Zelda in particular was a big hit to the one time carnival barker. See here where Vince's right hand man (bear) Smokey the Bugbear waxes nostalgic about his time with Zelda on the Joe BROgan show. It's CRRRaaaazy.

Grading Thoughts

Arya and Baldwinning are Lawful temple folk (Bladedancer and Cleric, respectively) who both allowed the pure evil creatures to walk without demanding they be killed or tricked into being killed. Neither also helped or demanded Lykaon and Sophie's bodies be burned and/or secured and removed from the dungeon for proper rites. Leaving a bladedancer hench's body to rot is especially egregious. So they both failed to catch E for "Excellent" or perfect grades. S is the next grade down.

Hakan the shaman failed to use an available Commune ability which likely could have helped in some way. I consider this similar to the mage grading of having spells available that could have been useful but didn't use them. If I read a book about a shaman who didn't speak to the spirits of his ancestors I'd consider it a missed pulp opportunity. So S.

Neutralio was bold as a Fighter should be and Neutral as he is. E

Proteus the mage was extra clever with spell use and just doing mage things. his "Soothsaying" ability not being used during a session will only impact Proteus's grades if he was meh otherwise, since using it can be dangerous (making the mage insane for 1 to 9 weeks) I don't consider it the same as a "leftover spell slot" for grading penalty. Proteus seemed to use every spell he could think of to help, also. So E.

Deceased

Dama (L1 Venturer) played by RR. Current total xp: 75. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Darius LeVay (L1 Assassin) played by JB. Current Total XP:451. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Donald the Guardsman (L1 Fighter) played by MP. Current Total XP:570. DECEASED. Intra-party justice in Session 3.

Felix (L1 Thief) played by Nicholas. Current Total XP:431. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Hektor (L1 Paladin) played by Moai. DECEASED. Cause of Death: goblin warg rider throat removal surgery in Session 2

Leonidas the Inquisitor (L1 Cleric) played by RR.Current Total XP:498 DECEASED. Frozen undead blistering cold aura left his skin frostbitten and broken in Session 6. Body not recovered.

Mard the Mage (L1 Mage) played by Nicholas. DECEASED. Frozen undead blistering cold aura left his skin frostbitten and broken in Session 6. Body not recovered.

Yolo Baggins "My friends call me Swaggins" (L1 Gnomish Trickster) played by J. DECEASED. Paralyzed and eaten by ghouls in Session 12. Body not recovered.

Jack Filcher (L1 Thief) played by C. DECEASED. Shot full of arrows by Inthorn's brigands in Session 12. Body not recovered.

Swoleous Maximus (L1 Paladin). DECEASED. Captured then drawn and quartered by Inthorn the Brigand warlord in Session 12. Posthumously named "Petty Hero of Turos Tem" by Legate Valerian. Ashes offered a place of pride in the Hospital.

Damianus (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Captured and beheaded by Inthorn the Brigand warlord in Session 12. Posthumously named "Petty Hero of Turos Tem" by Legate Valerian. Ashes offered a place of pride in the Hospital.

Bucky (L1 Barbarian). DECEASED. Became a illegal pit fighter during his downtime. Had two bouts to the death, winning the first and losing the second. Was killed by Young Jack Sparrow who sashayed into the ring, drank rum, and mogged on Bucky before putting a dagger into his ribs, killing him. This happened during downtime between Session 17 and 18.

Broll Wolf-Eater (L1 Barbarian). Current total XP: 1079. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Brother Franklin (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Decapitated by a mad cultist of a Lovecraftian slime thing in Session 19.

Felix the Elder (L1 Bard). Total XP 825. DECEASED. Captured by mad cultists and fed to a Lovecraftian slime monster in Session 19.

Templar Flavius Africanus (L1 Cleric). Total XP 7. Killed by the claws and beak of mad harpies in Session 19.

Xendi (L1 Explorer). Total XP 6. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Yllmeeton (L3 Shaman). Total XP 4,563. Bludgeoned by the corpse of a bowmen by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Longinus (L2 Assassin). Total XP 2,036. Had his face ripped off by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Mandonio (L3 Fighter). Total XP 4,779. Charred to a leprous crisp by diseased Dragon breath in Session 22.

Corydon (L1 Joker). Total XP: 0. Burnt to a crisp by chimera breath so thoroughly his corpse wasn't even fit for the crows. Died with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. that's life and as funny as it seems... some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream... In Session 25.

Donny Keebler (L1 Elven Spellsword). Total XP 2,238. Had his legs burned completely off by chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Marina (L2 Fighter). Total XP: 2,204. Burnt into ash by a chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Gundro (L2 Gnomish Trickster). Total XP: 2,575. Had his mouth and tongue bitten off by a lizardman ambusher in the dank sewers below Cyfaraun in Session 26.

Polydoros (L1 Fighter). Total XP: 0. Had his legs ripped off and eaten by Akira monsters in the dark canopy of the Viaspen Forest in Session 28.

Odrum (L1 Explorer). Total XP: 287. Javelin to the heart from the hands of weird vine goblins hidden in the walls of Ferigno's lair in Session 30.

Garvin the Nutless Wonder (L1 Mage). Total XP: 0. Fell off the side of Ferigno's lair 20 feet to his death in Session 30.

Blackmoon (L1 Assassin). Total XP: 768. Choked to death by BOB from Twin Peaks while stealing treasure from Ferigno's dragon horde in Session 30.

Xanthus (L2 Cleric). Total XP: 2,364. Choked to death by BOB from Twin Peaks while hanging out on the roof of Ferigno's lair in Session 30.

Lord Zyklon (L1 Elven Spellsword). Total XP: 0. LORD ZYKLON DISEMBOWLED LORD ZYKLON upon finding himself on the losing side of the Desolation of Turos Tem.

Turin (L1 Cleric). Total XP: 0. Eaten by Wargs in Session 32.

Rat Face (L2 Thief) Total XP: 1,577. Seemingly grabbed in the dark by a Xenomorph in Session 36. In a sinkhole your party can hear you scream!

Smarticus (L1 Mage) Total XP: 0. Captured by a Xenomorph in Session 36 for all the party to witness. Taken deep into a sinkhole.

Hearticus (L1 Cleric) Total XP: 0. Gored to death by giant horned beetles in Session 39 after projectile vomiting all over himself from the stink of sewer sludge.

Mickey Mouser (L1 Thief) Total XP: 0. Gored to death by giant horned beetles in Session 39 in the happiest place on earth: the Cyfaraun sewer!

Aenes (Level 1 Paladin) Total XP: 62. Swarmed by giant flies in the sewer beneath Cyfaraun in Session 40.

Acianus (Level 1 Mage) Total XP: 0. Chopped to pieces in Session 42 by a six armed demon statue from behind and quickly forgotten about by his compatriots who saved MadEye and lamented Hardar instead. But I'll never forget you Acinanu nanu...nanite... nananaa...

Hardar (Level 2 Mage) Total XP: 2,832. Chopped up in Session 42 by a six armed demon statue as he held his Darth Vader Choking Grip spell long enough for his compatriots to escape an unwinnable battle. His dream to become the most evil being in the universe suffers eternally the indignity of being remembered for self sacrifice and laying his life down for his friends.

Nubbs (Level 3 Thief) Total XP: 4,017. Swarmed by scarabs which bored into his ears and brain in Session 45.

Grummz (Level 1 Dwarven Vaultgard) Total XP: 0. Ripped limb from limb by a throng of skeletons and their undead golem leaders in Session 46.

Grommzs (Level 1 Dwarven Vaultguard) Total XP: 2,168. Torn to bits and eaten by trolls in session 48

Rapunzel (Level 4 Priestess) Total XP: 11,540. Torn to bits and eaten by trolls in Session 48.

Schizo (Level 1 Mage): Total XP: 0. Frozen to death by an assassin's guild ruffian bard wielding a Wand of Cold in session 54.

Marteen (Level 1 Thief): Total XP: 0. Fell to his death in Lamalla's Temple upon a pile of dragon horde gold. Corpse eaten by Sheila the Beautiful, an Ancient Blue Dragon in session 56.

Ambrose (Level 2 Cleric): Total XP: idk. Strangled to death by cursed octopi in a canoe on Lake Laman claiming the Sinister Stone of Sakkara for Law and eventual destruction in session 63.

Traiticus (Level 9 Fighter): Total XP: alot. Head split in half by Froggo's bronze magic "Fren Axe" during Operation Muscle Thunder on 08/09/22.

Alina (Level 7 Mage). Cut in half at her belt line by Froggo's bronze magic "Fren Axe" during Operation Muscle Thunder on 08/09/22.

Olgar McKenzie (Level 5ish Barbarian). Soul eaten by Stormbringer wielded by the Manson the mad assassin during Operation Muscle Thunder on 08/09/22.

Celeste (Level 7ish Witch). Soul eaten by Stormbringer wielded by the Manson the mad assassin during Operation Muscle Thunder on 08/09/22. Said Ancient Soul caused a backfire effect and blasted Manson's face off leaving him dead in the sea foam.

Allen A'Dulles (Level 1 Bard): Petrified by a basilisk in the Meniri Mountains in Session 66.

Cyfaraun (Level 1 Elven Spellsword): Eaten by basilisks in the Meniri Mountains in Session 66.

Tamryn (Level 1 Elven Spellsword): Petrified by a basilisk in the Meniri Mountains in Session 66

Allen the Bard (Level 1 Bard): Petrified by a basilisk in the Meniri Mountains in Session 66.

UnNamed Venturer (Level 1 Venturer): Killed by astral demons and sucked into the vacuum of spacetime in Session 66.

Major Garland Briggs (Level 1 Explorer): Killed by the crossbow bolt of an angry thracian in a dormant (?) volcano dungeon called Queens Rest Mountain. Then his body was eaten by giant chameleons as the rest of the party made their escape in Session 73.

Autumn Leaves (Level 1 Elven Spellsword): Died to lizardman crossbow bolts to the tears of her adventuring compatriots who tried to revive her after absconding with her corpse just outside Queens Rest Mountain in Session 73.

Xanthos (Level 6 Cleric): Cut down by a flaming blade by a very powerful thracian lizardman below Queens Rest Mountain in Session 74. Ressurected about two weeks later.

Stormin' Norman (Level 1 Gnomish Trickster): Captured by the lizardman tribe below Queens Rest Mountain whilst trying to use illusionist tricks to steal a magic spear. Was subsequently fed to their Giant Chameleons for being an annoying gnome in Session 74.

Alexa this is so sad play "Yellow Submarine" by Ringo Starr

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Dubzaron Session 76: First Strike on Lamalla (and why Class Grading is Good)

TimeKeeping

This sessions was played on 10/12/22 with 1 day of delving and 1 day of rest required. PCs can act on 10/14/22 and after.

Participating PCs

[Grades are Practice Grades as we began doing real grades on Session 78]

gary wtf is this

Billy (L5 Explorer)[E]
Edwelweiss (L4 Mage Magical Scholar)[F]
Gront Coldskey (L3 Barbarian Housecarl)[E]
Kortes (L6 Explorer)[S]
Tuck (L1 Barbarian)[E]
Xanthos (L6 Cleric of Turas)[E]

Hench:
Kortes: Ye (L1 Assassin)[F], Mugsy (L1 Thief)[S].
Edelweiss: Bella (L1 Assassin)[F], Lillian (L1 Venturer)[S]

Session Report

This was the first (and so far only) session in which the PCs have used their session time to address the #BROSR multiverse-campaign event The Curse of Lamalla. Prefect Drakon (Patron) was particularly interested in ending the curse in the Dubzaron campaign as soon as possible. Knowing he (and the other campaigns) would need at least 6 good boy points in their favor to end it quickly, he did some downtime Patron play stuff like Divination, rumormongering and the like to think up some things he could do to help the cosmic forces of Law deal with the out of control Lamalla. One quest he dreamed up and ran by me for approval was the PCs delving into the sealed Temple of Lamalla beneath one of his cities of Turos Orn. This is my homebrew kilodungeon which his been a factor in the campaign since around May. The backstory for it was a lost cult of Lamalla used to control the Palatinate out of there some hundreds of years before the Auran empire but it was sealed up long ago by the Tower of Knowledge (Mage Guild).

The PCs already delved the place about 4 times but hadn't been back since June! I was very happy the Curse of Lamalla inspired them to go back because I really enjoy running the homebrew and semi-randomized dungeon.

Drakon (Patron Prefect of Dubzaron) was offering a big payout if they could find and destroy the major altar inside, earning Good Boy Point (GBP) against Lamalla the Lobsterlady Deity. The party arrived in Turos Orn and Kortes met with a shadowy contact of Drakon (or Acton's?) named Mr White. We riffed on him being Waltar White from Breaking Bad but in hindsight I believe Drakon intended him as Mr White from Reservoir Dogs. In Dubzaron canon he's a combination. Walter White in a black suit and tie with pressed white shirt. Dancing to "stuck in the middle with you".

Mr White informed Kortes that level 3 is where the most powerful altar in the dungeon is located, according to his sources. What sources? Who knows! White slipped away with a nod of his bald head and resting nerd-rage face.

The party went to the Tower of Knowledge in Turos Orn into the basement where they met with Seth Rogen the Gatekeeper of the dungeon. It's all sealed up by the Tower some centuries before, when the Auran Empire took over the spot and found it easier to seal than completely clear out the fel horrors below. Edelweiss tried to get the Tower mages to give the party free spell casting help to delve the dungeon but couldn't hit the Reaction Roll. The mages were "Neutral" to the party after hearing her out and were happy to cast spells for cash but not for free. Edelweiss chose not to press her luck. Seth Rogen said a sexist joke at her which he's since apologized for on twitter stating that "times were different then and I regret how my old humor doesn't align with current year woke doctrine please don't cancel me". He was clearly high on pineapple express.

The party delved into level 1 of the dungeon and crossed to the stairs to level 2 with no encounters. The spiral stairs in question continue down to level 3 so they simply kept descending them, coming to a square room with blue velvet curtains along all the walls. No apparent exits since they couldn't see the walls without opening the curtains...

Kortes, whom his player has said is dumb as rocks, marched up to the curtains on the north wall and pushed them open. Behind it was a super ghoul (ghast) which had a nosferatu thing going on, but it's face glowing slightly blue. Neither side was surprised so regular initiative combat began. As the fight progressed 4 ghouls came out from behind the curtains and another ghast. One ghast got a successful bite on Xanthos even as the cleric was turning away 2 of the ghouls with the power of Naurivus and his holy silver ship symbol. Gront sliced through the other two ghouls. Tuck was paraylzed by a ghast attack before the creature was laid low and the other ghast ran from Xantho's holy symbol the next round. The turned undead sprinted through the curtains on the east wall revealing a 20 foot wide hallway with the same curtains going down along either side.

Kortes took to investigating the western wall for secret doors while some of the party guarded the other walls and others were waving their hands in front of Tuck's face to see if maybe the paralyzation would wear off. After 20 minutes it hadn't and Kortes was getting tired of looking for secret doors so the party gave him a Cure Light Wounds potion to remove the ghoul paralysis. Xanthos cast Commune and Naurivus (Xanthos' Deity of Travel, who looks like Captain Silver from Muppets Treasure Island) showed up bemused by the odd blue velvet room. He slapped Xanthos on the back and answered questions about "which was is the safest towards the altar", being told to go south. And some other questions I forget now.

Xanthos then cast Locate Object "altar" and a silver ship came from his holy symbol to fly towards where the ghouls had fled. The party decided to go with Naurivus's advice rather than the Find Object spell's direction and exited the room on a door on the south wall.

The next room to the south had blue curtains as well. On the west wall was a television with an eerie blue glow which was showing video of the past PCs' deaths with a seinfield laugh track and soundtrack. We enjoyed a nice episode of MadEye and Xanthos being thrown to some giant chameleons to be eaten up while the studio audience roared with laughter. "Who ARE these PCs?" Autumn Leaves was shot through with lizardman bolts while the crowd giggled. And on it went. The party didn't investigate the odd glowing video box at all seemingly annoyed with me for inventing a way to dunk on their past failures while I chuckled to myself.

They went east out of the only apparent exit in the room. This was a hallway that went east for a while then south coming to a temple room of some sort with lines of wooden pews.

The pews looked out over a balcony into a massive gallery. The balcony had no railing. It seemed to be designed to view the altar which was on a walkway at the balcony's height but 10 feet away from the balcony edge. Between the balcony the PCs were on and the walkway altar was a drop of about 10 to 15 feet straight down. Below was, on the west wide of the gallery, a stone floor with geometrically carved tiles. Towards the east on the floor seemed to be weird blue water lapping along the walls. The high altar was about 30 fee away from the far west wall of the gallery, which was carved with graven images of whales eating women human sacrifices. The whales eyes glowed and moved to watch the PCs.

The PCs were certain THIS was the altar they needed to destroy and they discussed how to physically get over to it. During the discussion the Ghast and 2 ghouls which were turned came back but didn't surprise the party. Billy charged in to assure the creatures wouldn't engage with the mage/venturer etc. Gront charged in and cleaved through all three of the undead. No problem.

Some considered a rope bridge to cross to the altar and analyzed what the issues there might be. Eventually Kortes broke out a Potion of Fly and gave it to Xanthos who flew over and started beating upon the unholy altar to Lamalla. Immediately strange giant storks made of smoke and haze appeared. They had the faces of humans despite their long beaks, and their wings were the arms of men. Disconcerting!

They surrounded Xanthos in a circle and began to squawk eerily. Xanthos was feeling weak from the sound.

Though the astral storks (or whatever) weren't attacking the party directly they decided it would be dangerous to let them continue to squawk at Xanthos so they attacked. Arrows were launched which simply were not finding the creatures' vitals as it seemed their strange fuzzy hides were uncannily strong. Three of the giant beasts flew at Xanthos and successfully pecked him once despite his crazy high AC as well. One flew over and pecked at Tuck and downed the barbarian. The creature cleaved at Edelweiss the Mage and players held their breath but she only took 3 damage and survived the single hit.

Meanwhile Edelweiss, before being struck, had cast Summon Beserkers and ordered them to smash the altar with Xanthos. The Beserkers hemmed and hawed and wanted to kill rather than smash a dumb altar so I made a reaction check to see if they'd follow such a boring order. They did and went to smashing. Unfortunately they were all killed in a single round of cleaving by one of the crazy storks.

Xanthos for his part tried to attack the creatures once and, realizing how hard they were to hit, did a fighting withdrawal (flying withdrawl?) back to the party. He broke out a Dispel Evil scroll which he successfully cast, despite the beasts chasing and pecking at him, and a blast of holy light went out 30' radius iirc. One of the storks successfully rolled Magic Resistance (yes they had magic resistance) and two made their saving throws. The last one didn't resist OR make it's saving throw and it was blown into red dust. But even the ones that survived were forced to flee from the Dispel Magic, as per the spell and they flew deeper into the dungeon inside the massive gallery.

The party eventually tag teamed and took down the last demon stork. Someone gave Tuck a sip of a CLW potion before his mortal wound roll from the big beak peck he took. He stood up with 1 HP, shrugging the mortal wound roll off like no problem.

Xanthos carefully flew each PC and henchman over from the balcony onto the altar walkway. Kortes's automatic "check for secret doors" roll hit and he noticed a bit of treasure hidden in the smashed remains of the altar. The party bagged it up before heading east along the 10' walkway above the big drop to the weird water below. The walkway made a T intersection north and south with a ladder going down on the eastern portion. The party was still following Xanthos' Locate Object spell, gathering there must be more than one altar. Following it took them north along the walkway before it jutted into the wall and they were traveling down a loooong hallway going north. They came upon a hostile minotaur but Tuck drank a Giant Strength potion and beat the thing down. (with a bit of teamwork).

They went north then west along the hallway, passing a couple doors including a Nethercity style crypt door that Kortes was like "not no but hell no". Checking out some monk cells in one of the doors they were attacked by a weird elephant lion chimera thing. Giant Strength Tuck picked up a chair and beat the thing down easily like Macho Mandalf on a tark. There was much cheering and laughing and e-high-fives.

Eventually the party went in a full circle coming back to the first blue velvet room and traveling down the wide blue velvet hallway, coming to an evil chapel with reverse gravity water on the ceiling. They smashed the altar there and ignored the steel door on the north wall, the only other apparent exit. They went back up to level 1, then out to the Tower basement, deciding not to push their luck with any further exploration.

Afterword

The PCs were really hyped to score a point against the Curse of Lamalla for the good guys. It didn't hurt that Drakon was offering a pretty solid payout for success as well. This newer crop of players is a bit more into the cash money that old Team A and Team B, who were always game for smashing altars even without a major treasure payout on the line.

The Curse of Lamalla has since had some other Good Boy Points scored and Lamalla has become a bit more desperate, offering the multiverse of possible Chaotic/Evil Patrons and PCs to do something big to score her some Bad Boy Points. The Trident of Lamalla could be yours!

It was fun to get the PCs back into my homebrew dungeon and have some fun personally dreamed up ideas to riff off of with the background situation of the Curse of Lamalla.

Grading Explanation

The grades I gave this session were just to practice doing it. To give PCs some conception of how I'm approaching the grading, prior to the houserules being live. I'm basically lifting most of the 1e class grading system whole cloth into the Dubzaron Campaign. I've screenshotted the DMG section with most of the rules here. A little High Gygaxian for your reading enjoyment. My thoughts to the players regarding their grades (in the Participating PCs section) are thus:

Most Explorers are going to have a hard time catching "E" when dungeon delving since it's really just not their thing overall (maybe there are some templates which it is). As such Kortes was about as superior as an Explorer can be on a deep delve without having some exemplary moment, Exploring around for secret doors. Billy copped an E because of his outstanding back rank coverage keeping the mage sorts from getting melee which imo Explorers would do. Explorers with Tracking will do well to keep that ability in mind for future grading since it was never used [not sure if either have it], didn't impact session 76.

Gront caught an E for being a killing machine and bold, which aligns with a Barbarian Housecarl (though he should consider having some hench since housecarls would be into having servants). Tuck would have been S for being bold and brave (despite being level 1) but grabbed the E for the WWE giant strength steel chair attack. Xanthos was absolutely a Lawful Cleric the Empyrean all session and smashed two altars in this session, so E.

Edelweiss caught a Fair grade since she was a bit reticent to use spells at one point and showed no interest in the intellectual, puzzle, historical, and possible arcane stuff in the dungeon (ignore a magic tv?). When the player objected to this I asked the player to name a "Magical Scholar" (Edelweiss's template) Mage/Wizard sort from Pulp Fantasy that would be disinterested in an ancient dungeon with weird magics everywhere.

I found the grading fun (even though this was practice) and I really enjoyed it a great deal when I was a PC in Trollopulous. Mine players may not enjoy it, exactly, but I have since seen at least acceptance of it and, after Session 78 where grading and training was truly instituted, some downtime story elements have come up with finding trainers and such.