ASE: Session 15 (Coming out of Hiatus)

Date: Aries 23
Weather: Sunny

Party:
Arduunal (Expert 1)
Cloud Nine (Invoker 3)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer 3)
Mia (Vowed / High Mage 1)

Cohorts:


Summary:
It's been several months since Mt. Rendon was cracked open, prompting treasure-seekers and adventurers to plumb its depths. A certain group of adventurers managed to make a living from it, being among the first to discover the secrets lying under the mountain, before they suddenly became homeowners. After clearing out their spooky haunted mansion, it was soon made into a spooky haunted guild hall. All was well and good, up until the mountain blew up. Nobody knows how or why, presumably either a wizard did it or someone activated a powerful artifact, but a big chunk of the mountain had been blown up. This left the entrance to the third floor (now the first) exposed, and allowed for easier access to the box canyon in which it resided in.

However, when the party was planning out this new excavation, snags were hit when the Iron Fist was sent from Denethix to stop people from actually going in for several months, to ensure nobody would activate any more explosive runes. Additionally, a certain lich (who came with the place), Dr. Elias Fenwick, chimed in. He had apparently divined the location of one of his rivals by the name of Xiximanter, and he put in a... Forceful request for people to head to a ruin down south, thought looted and forgotten, in order to find out what his potential rival could be plotting and make sure it didn't interfere with his own plots.

So now, a party of faces both fresh and weathered stand before a rocky cave, sunlight filtering through the dusty halls as stone serpents flank the entrance.

Welcome to the Tomb of the Serpent Kings.

The party starts by investigating the hall. They manage to get inside the false tomb without any incident, and easily discover the upper tomb. They caught on quickly that secret passages were behind statues. After dealing with mummified hands attempting to choke them, they began to investigate room after room. Adruunal, a blacksmith and craftsman by trade, managed to help disarm many of the traps, while Laguna and Cloud Nine provided magical support. Mia was mostly happy to be there.

Here comes the boy.

After a fresh amount of looting and a conspicuous amount of not disturbing any coffins, the party finds themselves in a large arena, face to face with an animated statue!

(Theme of Tower Knight plays here)

... A liberal application of The Decree of Lithic Dissolution took care of it, along with a few lucky Elemental Blasts. The thing crumbled, though it took quite a bit out of the spellcasters.

Mia then went to the opening at the end of the room, now standing on the precipice of a void of inky blackness. The party follows the path south, finding a door, disarming its trap, and finding themselves in a room where they can rest... For now.

Monsters Defeated:
-Mummy Hands * 2 (40 xp)
-Snake Guardian Statue (60 xp)

Treasure:
-Silver Icon (5 gp)
-Bangles (14 gp)
-Electrum Disc (10 gp)
-Emerald-Silver Icon (20 gp)

XP Banked: 590

Rumors:


Crafting:
-Quick-Draw Mechanism for Aria's Sword (Progress: 14/14) (Complete!)
-Hurlant Repair (Progress: 7/7) (Complete!)

Experience:
Arduunal (lv 1, 148 xp)
Aria (lv 3, 9000 xp)
Cedar (lv 4, 14000 xp)
Celica (lv 3, 8000 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 3, 6148 xp)
Firion (lv 2, 4000 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 10,148 xp)
Mia (lv 1, 2148 xp)
Nanashi (lv 1, 1000 xp)

My Thoughts: We're back, baby! Except not quite the same as before. I've completely redone the way I'm going to approach this campaign, with less of a rigid schedule and more of an open table structure. I've gone completely with silver for XP and replaced spending money for additional XP, and I now count enemies defeated for XP purposes at the rate of 10 XP per hit die. Additionally, I've replaced the entire dungeon of Anomalous Subsurface Environment with Stonehell, making this somewhat of a soft reboot of this campaign. Maybe I should retitle this Anomalous Stonehell Environment? I adore the surrounding area of Denethix and the factions, but I don't feel confident enough to finish the rest of the megadungeon.

Anyways, to ease back in, I offered to run Skerples' Tomb of the Serpent Kings as a dungeon for newer players (and to give myself time to prep the maps for Stonehell, as I run on a VTT still). I'm not sure if I like the upper tombs of the dungeon, but the players seemed to have fun figuring out the traps. I hope the lower portion of the dungeon will add more dynamism to the dungeon, as the upper tomb felt far more like a modern-style dungeon to me than anything else. I may have to write more on this, as I have been running the Abomination Vaults adventure path from Paizo, and boy do I have some criticisms (it's okay for Paizo writing but it completely fails to be the megadungeon it claims to be, for one).

ASE: Session 14

Date: Lapin 19th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Aria (Priest / Duelist)
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer)

Cohorts:
Jenny
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
As the party explores the manor, they come to a conclusion: The death knight who keeps following them more than likely has a black candle they need. After finding the death knight, they directly confront him. This results in an exciting duel on the front stairs between Aria and the Death Knight while the painting of the former owner of the house looms over them. Cedar manages to steal the candle off of the knight and tries to run off, but gets trapped in a bone cage! Laguna then uses his elementalist talents to light the candles, causing the knight to boast about how it will take more than that to seal him away! He raises his immense axe and slashes at Aria, a fatal blow that would surely kill her.. Except the magic of the house keeps her soul here, like with everyone else.

Aria shakes off her sudden incorporeality, managing to distract the knight just enough, then manages to possess the magic sword she acquired and plunge it straight into the death knight's heart. Cedar manages to hack his way out of the bone cage and Laguna stabilizes Aria's body. Aria then tries to get back into her body and succeeds, and the party figures this would help Lisbet and Helmut.

Before that happens, they decide to blow up the sarcophagus and subsequently the museum.

Lisbet's and Helmut's bodies are healed up and their souls are reunited, and are both told that as soon as they can move they should leave and never come back here. Both agree. As that's settled, the party moves to the last mystery: The bandaged man who happens to be in all the portraits and even in the mirrors. They slowly tracked him down to the smoking room, watching through the mirror as he's seen slicing off bits of his fingers into a jar, then placing it on the shelf. Laguna then reaches for the jar, and becomes possessed! Dr. Elias Fenwick was now in the bird's body, and he was about to go for a pleasant jaunt before Aria stopped him. A casting of Hold Person froze her in her tracks, but Cedar managed to wrestle him to the ground! He acquiesced to their demands to let Laguna go, but gave them a stipulation: Learn when the next Blood Moon is happening, and bring him there. He then goes back into the mirror world, always a reflection in the bird's eyes.

The manor is now theirs, but they have new problems to face...

Treasure:
-The Manor of Willowby Hall and all its deathly servants

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside

Crafting:
-Quick-Draw Mechanism for Aria's Sword (Progress: 4/14)
-Hurlant Repair (Progress: 5/7)

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 9 xp)
Cedar (lv 4, 14 xp)
Celica (lv 3, 8 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 3, 6 xp)
Firion (lv 2, 4 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 10 xp)
Mars (lv 2, 4 xp)
Mia (lv 1, 2 xp)
Nanashi (lv 1, 1 xp)

My Thoughts: It's a shame to put this campaign on hiatus right when something like this happens, but life is getting in the way a little too much and I'm feeling rather burnt out. I hope to pick the game back up in the future, but I will be focusing on other things and possibly other future campaigns!

ASE: Session 13

Date: Lapin 19th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Aria (Priest / Duelist)
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer)
Mars (Healer / Thought Noble)

Cohorts:
Jenny
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
The party returns to Willowby Hall for another go at it. With the giant dead, his corpse is an unsightly lawn ornament the party strolls past as they enter the double doors to the manor. They decide to start moving the harpischord from the music room to the guest bedroom, as the ghost of Lavinia requested. As they get upstairs, they're stopped by a ghostly apparition. It's soon revealed that it's the ghost of Helmut Halfsword, whimpering and confused. The party reassures him and moves his body to one of the servant quarters as they finish moving the harpischord. As the door closes, they can hear soft music playing throughout the hall.

The noise drew the attention of the death knight, which started its way upstairs. The party hid in one of the servant rooms until the knight left, then started to investigate the dressing room and bedroom, where they saw that same figure in the mirror going about his day. Cedar mused that the balcony would make a great place for him to stay when the place was cleared out, but the party wanted to move on and started to investigate the library. The ghostly librarian allowed them to check out a book on ritualistic alchemy (and a picture book for Mars), the former book allowing them a wealth of information, including notes written in the margin on the black candles being able to seal away the death knight and the owner's progression to unlife. It seems like he hadn't been able to keep his body together, so he took to bandaging and embalming his body to preserve it.

The party investigates the house, finding one of the black candles, heading downstairs to the dining room to see skeletal servants preparing meals for the day. Pushing past them, Mars found a ghostly apparition who would play blackjack, and he managed to win a strange key which he gave to Aria. They then moved on, finding the hunting room. Giving the stuffed owlbear a wide berth, more investigation was done, Mars finding a way up to the roof via the chimney. He checked it out, lit a fire, and while that happened the party got into a scuffle with some zombies. After the scrape, some investigation revealed a secret door behind a weapon cabinet, revealing a room covered wall to wall with mushrooms. This shroomy shelter showed a shadowy shpectre, which upon later inspection was the ghost of Lisbet. As they agreed to help her either move on or somehow return to her body, Mars then ate a mushroom and got incredibly drunk, rendering him useless when the party fought more zombies, finding Lisbet's body atop several tombs.

As they explored upstairs, they run into the death knight once more, who gives them chase! The party ran out the back of the mansion, regrouping in a safer spot. Once they felt they were safe, they started to inspect the roof a little more, discovering that they could climb up and down the chimneys. Laguna fell into boiling hot soup, but as the bird was inured to the elements he found it more an inconvenient location for a spa. Aria got deposited into the pantry, but Cedar somehow found his way into a secret room! He managed to throw down a rope to let Aria climb into it, discovering the inner sanctum. They found the magic circle drawn in chalk, and Aria managed to open the locked cabinet. Now the party has explored nearly all of the mansion, they have two of the black candles, and they know the death knight has the last. They'll have to figure out the mystery of this bandaged man and the death knight before they can have a swanky manor to call their own!

Treasure:
-A book on necromantic alchemic rituals.
-A picture book, of The Little Prince variety.
-30 sp
-An old brown cloak
-A wand of lightning bolt
-A grappling hook
-A rifle (unloaded)
-Herculium potion (Effects unidentified)
-Liquid childhood (Effects unidentified)
-Gift of the Worm potion (Effects unidentified)
-A strange diary that writes the past of the person holding it
-Two black candles

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside

Crafting:
-Quick-Draw Mechanism for Aria's Sword (Progress: 4/14)
-Hurlant Repair (Progress: 5/7)

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 8 xp)
Cedar (lv 4, 13 xp)
Celica (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 3, 6 xp)
Firion (lv 2, 4 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 9 xp)
Mars (lv 2, 3 xp)
Mia (lv 1, 2 xp)
Nanashi (lv 1, 1 xp)

My Thoughts: My players enjoyed the haunted house a lot more without the giant present. It went from a frantic race against time to a more interesting and thematic haunted house dungeon. I think if a referee wanted to run a haunted house, Waking of Willowby Hall could work wonderfully well if they removed the giant and instead made it so the hall would slowly wake up and get restless as the players explore. As it stands, I'm getting at least three sessions and a player hideout from this module, which I would say is excellent value.

ASE: Session 12 (plus a review!)

Date: Lapin 18th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Aria (Priest / Duelist)
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Celica (Necromancer / Skinshifter)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer)
Mars (Healer / Thought Noble)

Cohorts:
Jenny
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
After a bit of time away from the party, Aria comes into possession of a deed to a mansion in the town of Tarryfield. All the party had to do was exorcise the spirits within and it was theirs. Of course, things rarely work out that way.

The party arrives at the mansion, starting to poke around. One discovers a ghostly apparition playing piano, and after some questioning they feel a bit more at ease... Until three people come running through the front door, with a giant chasing after them.

Helmut Halfsword, Apocalypse Ann, and Lisbet Grund, at your service.

The party is confused, until the giant catches up. After learning that the adventurers stole the goose of this giant named Bonebreaker Tom, they set out to try and find the thieves before this giant brings the roof they just got down on their heads! After splitting up to search through a few rooms, Aria finds a small locked chest underneath a bed, Laguna and Celica get ideas to fashion dummies to distract the giant, and Cedar goes off searching the upstairs. Aria eventually opens the door to where two adventurers, Apocalypse Ann and Lisbet Grund. Celica catches up, and while Lisbet tries to explain the situation the goose Ann was holding bites her and runs off.

What follows is a wild goose chase.

Honk.

The party is split once more attempting to locate this goose. Cedar even tries to communicate with it, but is told by the goose to, in no uncertain terms, "Feck off." Aria, distrustful of the two adventurers, brings them to the main hall by sword-point, about ready to push the two out into the giant's mercy. Cedar and Celica find the last adventurer, Helmut Halfsword, but they're stopped by a death knight rising from its tomb. A fight ensues, but they're forced to run as the knight cackles and begins raising more skeletons to fight for it.

Amidst the chaos, Lisbet and Ann go missing. So does the goose. The party forces a whimpering Helmut to help them look for the other two, but Helmut ends up meeting the business end of a rather angry-looking owlbear.

The party decides to take their chances with the giant.

Incredibly enough, with some choice poisons, they actually succeed, felling Bonebreaker Tom. Amidst the chaos, Ann escapes with the goose and kills Lisbet, but the party, weary, is glad they only have to deal with an exorcism now.

Treasure:
-A golden egg worth 300 sp
-Set of traveler's clothing
-Grappling hook
-4x bombs (3d6 damage in 10 foot radius)
-A red alchemy book
-Xanthippos' Incontrovertible Proof of Diagonal Commesurability
-A pigeon nest with three chicks
-Fist-sized ruby worth 2000 sp
-A magical blade with "Patricia" etched into it
-A stolen church bell

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside

Crafting:
-Quick-Draw Mechanism for Aria's Sword (Progress: 4/14)
-Hurlant Repair (Progress: 5/7)

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 8 xp)
Cedar (lv 4, 13 xp)
Celica (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 3, 6 xp)
Firion (lv 2, 4 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 9 xp)
Mars (lv 2, 3 xp)
Mia (lv 1, 2 xp)
Nanashi (lv 1, 1 xp)

My Thoughts: This was a chaotic session. The party split multiple times, with lots of different actions being taken and lots more details being forgotten. The time limit Bonebreaker Tom inflicts pressed the players into urgency, so they didn't really seem to have much interest in checking out any of the fun things the mansion could offer. WWN PCs definitely have a higher power level than straight B/X PCs, as they managed to shred the giant in two rounds.

The adventure itself, The Waking of Willowby Hall, was fairly fun to run, though I kept getting mixed up on details such as when and where the giant would move when he activates. I feel the PDF would have benefited greatly from bookmarks, though the room numbers being page numbers and the spacious layout helped quite a bit with "at a glance" information. I'd be confident in running this module with no prior reading done at all.

With my attention split three ways and a lot of different things going on, it was hard to have the NPCs assert their own agency, and thus they were threatened to submission in short order. Additionally, the PCs even tried to negotiate with the giant, though that didn't go quite as well. The goose was a lot of fun to roleplay, and I used her to hint at various things the PCs could also do (going down chimneys, grabbing one of the black candles, poking at secret passageways, etc). Were the giant not their greatest concern at the moment, the hall would have provided a lot of fun puzzle-solving, and I believe I will be using it in a follow-up session as well!

Additionally, I felt like some of the magic items seemed a little bland. I spiced up the staff Apocalypse Ann carries, if you'd like to use it for your own WWN game:

Apocalypse Staff. As a Main and Move action, charge the staff by taking a minimum of 3 System Strain. It then fires a high-impact blast to any point in sight within 60', exploding in a 20' sphere of hellfire. This destructive force deals 1d6 damage per system strain committed (Evasion save for half), and can even punch through structures lesser than solid stone. As a consequence, this also knocks the user back an amount of feet equal to the damage dealt, requiring an Evasion save to avoid being knocked prone by the blast (and taking the resultant fall damage). For battlemap grids, round up to the nearest 5 feet.

ASE: Session Eleven

Date: Lapin 18th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Cloud Nine (Invoker)
Firion (Warrior / Thought Noble)
Mia (Vowed / High Mage)

Cohorts:
Jenny
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
Mia joins the party under dubious measures! Not only that, roads are starting to be established, shortening the amount of time it takes to travel to Mt. Rendon! The party is now able to get there by late afternoon.

Delving back to the spot where they found the throne, the party investigates that area. Mia touches a glowing purple God's Eye, gaining apocalyptic visions of the past and turning on the party, but the other two manage to pacify her. Pressing on, the party finds a massive hall. They start to investigate alcoves, but have to hide from a strange creature patrolling the halls. Once it leaves, they're beset by hostile spiders! Firion nearly dies to their bite, and the party decides it prudent to retreat to a safe place and recuperate, holding out in a closet. After about an hour, they leave, only to hear breathing behind them...

 

The party decides they had enough adventure for one day, and retreat back to the cave entrance to make camp.

Treasure:
-None

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside
-A few adventurers are planning on raiding a cloud giant's castle for treasure

Crafting:
-Quick-Draw Mechanism for Aria's Sword (Progress: 4/14)
-Hurlant Repair (Progress: 5/7)

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cedar (lv 4, 12 xp)
Celica (lv 3, 6 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 3, 6 xp)
Firion (lv 2, 4 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 8 xp)
Mars (lv 1, 1 xp)
Mia (lv 1, 2 xp)
Nanashi (lv 1, 1 xp)

My Thoughts: Invokers with WWN's sleep spell are extremely potent. I'm really happy with how the chase at the end turned out! I really hope the players still want to explore more, though they're getting dangerously close to starting on level 2. I'll have to prepare more statblocks and token art...

ASE: Session Ten

Date: Lapin 16th-18th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Cloud Nine (Invoker)
Firion (Warrior / Thought Noble)
Mars (Thought Noble / Healer)
Nanashi (Warrior / Expert)

Cohorts:
Jenny
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
The party explores the throne room, finding a storage closet to the southeast. Surprise! Balloons drifted down and ambushed them, trying to suck their lifeforce out. Popping the balloons, they search the room and found a worn brochure for DynMat in a coat pocket.
Going north, they encounter giant earwigs, to which they're put to sleep and killed. The party leads the way down the winding halls and find fire beetles scratching on the door. They seemed to want the rotting fish smell from the other side of the door. Cedar and Nanashi pry the door open, finding gaunt, sickly troglodytes on the other side. The beetles immediately rush in to try to eat the trogs, but the party figures that potential allies were worth more than giving bugs a meal.

A fight ensues, and the troglodytes are mostly saved. As the trogs weren't quite in the position to fight the party, they shared their thanks to the party by giving them some information on the dungeon: The level they're on is the Dungeon Highway, they were part of a raiding party from the lower levels, there's a secret passage behind the throne, and they revealed the existence of Under-Miami on level 5. The party leaves the troglodytes to their own devices, the lizard creatures harvesting the fire beetle glands to use in Under-Miami glowsticks.

The party continues to explore, coming across a massive pile of treasure out in the open! Mars, being the convincing sort, makes his cohort Jenny touch it. This causes the treasure mollusk to attack, nearly killing Jenny! Another fight ensues, the mollusk being pelted with arrows and bolts until it keels over. As Jenny considers re-negotiating her contract, everyone else moves onto the next room to check the note on a mummified corpse, seeing something about a skull that can bring people back.

Deciding this was enough for now, they retreat to the surface, only stopping to check the throne passageway before heading back to Chlemsfoldshire. Cedar gets wind of his tribe needing help to stop some poachers, so he leaves the party temporarily. Meanwhile, yet another enterprising soul is eager to join up...

Treasure:
-Two shortswords
-120 sp

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside
-A few adventurers are planning on raiding a cloud giant's castle for treasure

Crafting:
-Quick-Draw Mechanism for Aria's Sword (Progress: 3/14)
-Hurlant Repair (Progress: 4/7)

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cedar (lv 4, 12 xp)
Celica (lv 3, 6 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 2, 5 xp)
Firion (lv 2, 3 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 8 xp)
Mars (lv 1, 1 xp)
Nanashi (lv 1, 1 xp)

My Thoughts: A series of unfortunate happenstances caused this game to be delayed multiple times. I was afraid the spark and momentum would be gone but my players seemed to enjoy it. I'm still worried I'll tire of the game, but it's largely the prepwork I put on myself (as I run on FoundryVTT) that hinders me.

ASE: Session Nine

Date: Lapin 15th - 16th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Cloud Nine (Invoker)
Firion (Warrior / Thought Noble)
Mars (Thought Noble / Healer)
Nanashi (Warrior / Expert)

Cohorts:
Jenny
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
With Chelmsfordshire being a bustling hub of activity, the party decides to start splitting up jobs. Laguna and Celica rent a workshop to work on both modifying Aria's sword and repairing the hurlants. While the seven rifles are unusable beyond repair individually, their spare parts can still be fixed up into a single working rifle. Aria, in the meantime, looks around for leads on any places that could be fixed up and used as a hideout. This left the rest of the party to take the trip to Mt. Rendon... Until a curious creature started to talk to them about joining up on the expedition.

With Mars (and his cohort Jenny) in tow, they make their way up the mountain. In the cave to the gatehouse, the group runs into a familiar duo trying to fleece a mysterious stranger. The former caravan guards, Phil and Terry, run off after being threatened, leaving the party to introduce themselves to the wandering bird Nanashi.

Rex is left to guard the wagon and the group heads in, discovering the destroyed bodies of two automatons. They decide it best to hurry along, heading down to the first level. As Cedar is the only one who had been down there before, he has to get his bearings and guide the party. They open up a door only to find a red monster staring back at them, that soon climbs onto the ceiling and scurries into the darkness. The room they open is found to be newly trapped because of this, which they leave well enough alone. Checking to the south, a hallway full of bones is found. Intimidated, the party instead retraces their steps as best they can, coming across a goblin corpse and grabbing the necklace off of it, avoiding disturbing some mushrooms that seemed to want to shriek, and finally finding themselves in a dimly lit throne room. There they find one of those odd oily-skinned dogs. Cedar manages to befriend it and bond it as a companion and a guide.

Treasure:
-Gold necklace worth 15 gp

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside
-A few adventurers are planning on raiding a cloud giant's castle for treasure

Crafting:
-Quick-Draw Mechanism for Aria's Sword (Progress: 1/14)
-Hurlant Repair (Progress: 2/7)

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cedar (lv 3, 10 xp)
Celica (lv 2, 5 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 2, 4 xp)
Firion (lv 1, 2 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 8 xp)
Mars (lv 1, 0 xp)
Nanashi (lv 1, 0 xp)

My Thoughts: This session had to end early. We're bringing on quite a few characters now! Unfortunately, group B fell apart, but it was a good experiment while it lasted.

ASE: Session Eight, Group A

Date: Lapin 14th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Celica (Necromancer / Skinshifter)
Cloud Nine (Invoker)
Firion (Warrior / Thought Noble)

Cohorts:
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
The party figured things had settled down just enough to go back to Mt. Rendon. They didn't. They met back up with Laguna and realized that things were ramping up even harder. Despite being gone for a few days, adventurers, survey teams, and people just wanting to try their luck have all arrived alongside the Unyielding Fist troops.

After checking in with Laguna, Celica tries to poke around for information and ends up finding an adventuring group calling themselves the Divine Comedy. Choice words are exchanged as their leader determines the party seems to have their own entrance to the megadungeon, but an exchange of information does not occur as he had hoped. Regardless, Celica does get information that what seems to be the third level of the dungeon has also opened up - as long as people are willing to brave the moktar hordes that have shown up.

The current members of the Divine Comedy crew.

After the meet and greet, the party heads up the mountain to try to get to the first level once more. They see the lobby to the gatehouse is now empty, with an X painted over one of the doors. After a bit of deliberation about what it could mean, they head to the stairs of the first level before realizing the place was completely empty. No robots or anything. Getting suspicious, they start to search the Gatehouse, suspicious that the abominations may have gotten out. To their relief, they found a robot guarding another door, but they also learned that the abominations react mostly to sound. With that information, the party decides to utilize the blueprints they found to access a secret area. Within the secret area, the party finds multiple rusted rifles and ammo containers and decide to loot it.

Coming back to their cart, Firion soon realizes the door had been opened. They rush to the cart, followed by multiple smaller abominations. One of them opens up an ammo canister and drops it to buy some time, the abominations all stopping to consume the bullets. As all the loot is quickly loaded into the cart, the abominations catch up and a fight ensues... Only with the corroded ammunition the abominations are slightly more explosive than usual. Despite this, the party succeeds in dismantling all the abominations, putting the broken scraps in the cart.

They go back to further clean out the secret area. Cedar finds a room full of mold, wakling in to pick up a shield-looking object he found. The mold spores erupted all around him, leaving him choking and unable to speak. A brief moment of panic ensued before Cloud Nine cast the Decree of Ligneous Dissolution, eliminating the spores choking the kobold (as well as most of his equipment). They decide to head home instead of going deeper, leaving to figure out what to do with the old rifles they found (and replace Cedar's equipment).

Treasure:
-7 rusted-out hurlants
-2 drums of corroded bullets

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside
-A few adventurers are planning on raiding a cloud giant's castle for treasure

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cedar (lv 3, 10 xp)
Celica (lv 2, 5 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 2, 4 xp)
Firion (lv 1, 2 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 8 xp)

My Thoughts:  Hope nobody minds me using parties from previous games as the basis for all the rival adventurers. Also, this is the closest I've gotten to killing someone in Group A! Good thing they had that spell handy.

ASE: Session Six, Group B

Date: Lapin 7th
Weather: Drizzling rain

Party:
Jace (Expert)
Kla'ir (Warrior)
Sebastian (High Mage)

Cohorts:
Alucard (Warrior / Vowed)
Melzgar (High Mage)
Gil (Axebeak)

Summary:
Jace and Kla'ir meet back up with Sebastian, who has been talking with the academics. They learned that the goblins are trying to move their hive mind here, along with the existence of a shroom lich possibly lurking deeper within the structure. They decide to deal with the cleaning robots, heading further into the complex. Their plan was to get the robots to chase them so they could fend them off at the stairs, but it didn't work out so well as Kla'ir was caught and left bleeding out in the ensuing chaos. The rest of the characters ran, and only Sebastian could get to Kla'ir and try to resuscitate her. Thankfully, Sebastian has the Lucky focus, and once per session he is able to avert the tides of fate and possibly even make sure everyone gets out alive! Just so long as he does not roll a 1.

Unfortunately, his plan to stay invisible while doing so didn't work. The party was split up, and while most of the robots got scrapped by Jace and Alucard, Kla'ir perished and Sebastian was found hiding in the corner of a room, beat up and scared. The party decides to retreat from the Molybdenum Tombs and go back to Lugosi to lick their wounds and figure out their plans for another day. That obelisk looks interesting...

Treasure:
-None

Experience:
Jace (lv 3, 6 xp)
Kla'ir (Perished)
Sebastian (lv 3, 6 xp)

My Thoughts: First PC death of the game! A combination of bad luck and risky tactics spelled doom for one PC and almost killed a second. The short session length means I may have to speed things up and go for shorter adventures in the future.

ASE: Session Seven, Group A

Date: Lapin 10th-13th
Weather: Overcast, with drizzling rains later on

Party:
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Celica (Necromancer / Skinshifter)
Cloud Nine (Invoker)
Firion (Warrior / Thought Noble)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer)

Cohorts:
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
With research done on a previous day, the party starts to set up their trap for the man with no shadow. Celica starts to scout out an abandoned building with where they will lay the trap, Cedar starts to work on making sedatives to hopefully knock the murderer out, and Cloud Nine does more research on how to contain and banish shadows. Laguna is a bit nervous, deciding to leave the city for a little bit and go rumormongering in Chlemsfordshire. While the party deliberates on their next action, a new critter emerges to provide assistance.

A self-described himbo.

With Firion's help, they assemble the ritual components and the trap. Celica assumes the shape of a goblin merchant to trick the murderer into walking into the empty building they repurposed into a shop, but the man felt it too good to be true and kept walking. Cloud Nine still manages to lure in the shadow with the promise of blood, to which the party manages to trap the shadow in a well-lit room with very few shadows. The shadow feels like it's been lured into a trap, and gets very violent.

I originally drew this for a Shadow of the Demon Lord adventure parodying Garfield.

A scuffle ensues, the shadow flailing around and attempting to murder the party. The party manages to keep it away from Cloud Nine as she finishes the ritual, managing to banish the demon with the party sustaining only minor scratches. With the shadow removed, they chase down the murderer, finding him just in time about to murder Madame Verrona who had went out by herself, making poor decisions to head out without her guard due to sleep deprivation. While they fail to stop him in time, they manage to take the murderer out and revive her just in time.

Back at Verrona's manor, they receive the thanks of the noble lady, as well as an interesting trinket she meant to use against the shadow creature - a congealed paradox that can temporarily enforce the laws of mundanity in an area. Cloud Nine seems nervous about them, but the rest of the party takes them. Laguna comes back, giving news about all the adventurers heading into the mountain, the party deciding to head back to Chlemsfordshire, and the Anomalous Subsurface Environment.

Treasure:
-5000 silver
-3 strange bead-shaped objects called "Congealed Paradoxes"
-A favor from a minor noble

Rumors:
-Odd cultists are gathering in the nearby forest
-A hole has opened up in a large oak tree, with a lot of strange things within
-There's a strange bottle being sold with a sandy coastal beach trapped inside
-A few adventurers are planning on raiding a cloud giant's castle for treasure

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cedar (lv 3, 9 xp)
Celica (lv 2, 4 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 2, 3 xp)
Firion (lv 1, 1 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 8 xp)

My Thoughts: I went pretty hard on the skill checks this session. I fear I might be leaning on them too much as a crutch. Regardless, the players all seemed to have a lot of fun solving the mystery.
I'm sprinkling around a few adventures I found or bought along the lands of Denethix. I enjoy adventures that are simply location-based adventures as it makes it easy to slot them in as side treks.

ASE: Session Six, Group A

Date: Lapin 8th-9th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Celica (Necromancer / Skinshifter)
Cloud Nine (Invoker)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer)

Cohorts:
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)
Zord (Zard)

Summary:
The players wake up to see more of the Unyielding Fist troops amassing near Chlemsfordshire. They keep with their decision to Denethix, stopping by Retennis as Aria has other business to tend to. At Denethix, most of the party is appalled by the state of the city and its slums, but it's there they find a new party member, Cloud Nine.

She takes them to a convenient spot where the party can stable their animals and get a run-down of the city. They learn about the wizard Feretha, the vizier, and the Unyielding Fist. As they figure everyone else is distracted with the mountain, they decide to go rumormongering to see if anyone needs anything done in the city.

The party finds a majordomo of a petty noble's estate lamenting about his mistress' paranoia. They question him, finding out that a man with no shadow has been slaughtering nobles in their estates, and after a few negotiations they agree to see the noble in her estate about the issue. There they find out that petty nobles that meet to determine various taxes levied have been targeted for assassination.

 

Madame Valerie Von Verrona, heir to the Verrona fortune.

The party splits up, one half goes to research magical beings while the other goes to find information on the last person killed. The research team finds that there are shadow entities people pact with, and that they have hungers that must be sated with regular sacrifices. The investigation team manages to worm their way into the crime scene, finding that the killer had no other way into the room aside from being able to warp between shadows. They put two and two together and investigate the Bazaar Incomparable, as the recent taxes affected merchants from outside the city.

There, they find a gang of goblin merchants who dealt in recreational goblin substances and inevitably discover that their target is both a repeat customer and that he didn't seem to happy that the merchants had to raise their prices due to the new taxes. With all the facts gathered, all that's left is to lay a trap that can capture the man with no shadow, and hope that any creatures he made a dark bargain with aren't too much for them to handle...

Treasure:
None, so far.

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 7 xp)
Cedar (lv 3, 8 xp)
Celica (lv 2, 3 xp)
Cloud Nine (lv 1, 1 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 8 xp)

My Current Thoughts: This session was entirely off-the-cuff. I had to call for a 15 minute break for the hook they chose to pursue, as they had a choice between three rumors to investigate into and the man without a shadow was the most pertinent to them. I used the time to generate a few details from the Investigation Challenges and NPC chapters of the Worlds Without Number book and found myself impressed with how coherent the resulting investigation turned out. Even though I'd rather be running dungeon crawls, the advice for running other kinds of adventures is very welcome, even to a veteran referee such as myself.
The players are also making backup characters, I'm excited to see who they'll bring into the fold.

ASE: Session Five, Group B

Date: Lapin 7th
Weather: Drizzling rain

Party:
Jace (Expert)
Kla'ir (Warrior)
Sebastian (High Mage)

Cohorts:
Alucard (Warrior / Vowed)
Melzgar (High Mage)
Gil (Axebeak)

Summary:

 

The party flees the hydra as it attempts to murder them with high-velocity jets of water. They decide it best not to return to the cavern and double back to the gardens, trying another way. Ignoring the obvious bridge and trudging through the small river, they head another path and investigate the halls surrounding the garden. Jace discovers more large crustaceans, following them to a barren room. There the party discovers a balcony overlooking the cavern, to which they climb up with their grappling hook. 

They meet the rest of the expedition team, a not-so-friendly looking professor and his own party of students, who had seemed to be on friendly enough terms with the goblins. Jace and the expedition leader exchange some barbed words but it escalates little more. They head north and discover a secret passage in a fountain, following the tunnel to a small beach area full of crabs. The party spends some time combing the beach for treasure, with a particularly scuttley crab wearing a jeweled helm proving to be very difficult to catch. After another close run-in with the hydra, they head back.

Sebastian, being tired, decides to rest with the expedition team while the others explore further. Jace, Alucard, and Kla'ir check around the winding corridors, beating back some goblins who wanted to eat them before running into some automatons. After some door shenanigans, they manage to scrap one of the robots before heading in further.

They look cute, but they'd still take a bite out of your arm.

Heading deeper in, they come across a flurry of activity as automatons were cleaning a room until it shined, even going so far as to clean the party as they tried to move in. It was funny until the robots began to glitch out and replace scrubbers and mops with buzzsaws and dangerous implements. They manage to push several robots away and run, deciding to regroup with Sebastian before heading in any further.

Treasure:
-Jewel-encrusted helm (worth 140 sp)
-100 silver coins

Experience:
Jace (lv 2, 5 xp)
Kla'ir (lv 1, 1 xp)
Sebastian (lv 2, 5 xp)

My Thoughts: I find it really hard to bring enemies to be actively hostile. I'm not sure if it's my inexperience with running these sorts of games or what. Regardless, I feel I'll have to shake things up for further adventures.

ASE: Session Five, Group A

Date: Lapin 7th
Weather: Drizzle

Party:
Aria (Priest / Duelist)
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Celica (Necromancer / Skinshifter)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer)
Smith (Warrior)

Cohorts:
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)

Summary:
The party began to investigate further into the anomalous subsurface environment. Not wanting to run into any more freakish abominations, they wandered into a cross-shaped room and immediately ran into freakish abominations.

"What in the fresh hell is THAT?!"

As these screaming humanoids were alerted, more of them came running in. The party started to make a break for it but were cut off by two zombies shuffling in, attracted by the noise. They were forced to fight, with Francis discarding his disguise to reveal their true form. After a bloody battle, the party decided it prudent to retreat before more of those screaming creatures caught up with them. Along the way they ran into a hunting party of morlocks who were surprisingly friendly despite their gruff mannerisms. They managed to pass through without much incident and head up the stairs back to the gatehouse.

Knife to meet you!

Once in a relatively safe position, the party began to question the being formerly known as Francis. Celica introduced herself and explained her reasoning for disguising herself as a merchant. They figured as long as she was still willing to fight alongside the party, she'd be handy to have around.

Who put this chuuni edgelord into my gritty gonzo swords & sorcery game?

As the party was still cautious about the abomination up above reviving itself, Laguna set about disassembling the corpse of the creature into constituent parts.  Afterwards, Cedar experimented with a lever, discovering a hatch that led deep down back into the dungeon. They then retreated to the entrance cave, relieved that the animals were still there, though concern was raised as Laguna's axebeak showed signs of stirges feeding on it. They also see pillars of light rising up the mountain, illuminating even in the midday sky. As a precaution, Smith was left to guard the animals while the party decided to explore more of the gatehouse.

Everyone heads up to the second foyer, going into a door that was marked with "Authorized Personnel Only". Aria went first, discovering a potential pit trap. She then walked over and stood on the pressure plate, seeing it swing open behind her. Easily defeating the pit trap, the party crossed one at a time to try prying open the door at the end of the corridor. Several unsuccessful attempts later, they then decide that heading back was a better idea, especially as Rex was getting harassed by the wandering automatons.

They then realize the problem of the pressure plate for the pit trap being right in front of the pit with no other way out.

What followed was an extremely convoluted sequence of events where the party had to pass a rope around, tying it around their waist and attempting to hop over the pressure plate, hoping the pit trap doors would hold their weight. The doors buckled underneath Laguna's weight, but the party still managed to slowly make their way across without incident.

Heading north, several filing cabinets were discovered, full of papers of scientific jargon and blueprints of the Gatehouse facility. They cross-checked it with the map Cedar was drawing and finding it to be quite accurate, along with discovering areas they did not investigate yet. Flickering lights signaled the arrival of ghosts surrounding the party in a whirl of electrostatic ectoplasm. Cedar is revealed to possibly have phasmophobia, while Celica manages to banish the spirits from whence they came.

Thoroughly shaken, everyone decides it best to retreat to Chlemsfordshire. They load up onto the wagons and head down the mountain, only to be greeted by the town being abuzz with activity and patrols of the Unyielding Fist setting up in the streets. With people talking about exploring the mountain that came alive, everyone decides it best to lay low for a while and possibly head to Denethix instead...

Treasure:
-Several papers full of strange scientific jargon (Possibly worth 150 sp to someone interested in that sort of thing)

Experience:
Aria (lv 3, 6 xp)
Cedar (lv 3, 7 xp)
Celica (lv 1, 2 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 7 xp)
Smith (left the party)

My Current Thoughts: I believe I may have made the dungeon more horror-oriented than the silly gonzo flavor it was originally going for. The terrifying abominations immediately made the characters (and possibly players) want to escape, despite the fragility of the monsters.
With Smith's player leaving the group, it's interesting that group A is now entirely made up of mages and partial mages. I feel it's more due to Worlds Without Number having very interesting partial mage traditions rather than feeling like one needs to be magical to get anywhere like in later editions of D&D, as the various traditions impart a lot of interesting flavor when combined with other classes and magical traditions.
Aria's player continues to have extremely poor luck. At level 3 her hit points rival that of a first level warrior's at 7. She also managed to roll a 1 for initiative for each and every combat encounter, a statistical improbability! Thankfully shock damage has saved her bacon more than once.

ASE: Session Four, Group B

Date: Lapin 5th through 7th
Weather: Overcast, then sunny, before beginning to drizzle on the 7th day.

Party:
Jace (Expert)
Kla'ir (Warrior)
Sebastian (High Mage)

Cohorts:
Alucard (Warrior / Vowed)
Melzgar (High Mage)
Gil (Axebeak)

Summary:
(Slight retcon, as a new player had joined, one player opted to drop his hireling to bring on Kla'ir)
As Jace and Sebastian discussed their next plan, they bump into another mercenary looking for work. She introduces herself as Kla'ir, a barbarian from far-off lands. They quickly reach an agreement following the inn's requests to immediately vacate from the premises.

Despite wielding that branch like a club, she prefers to chop first, axe questions later.

The party travels past Lugosi to the shanty town of Tarryfield, resting for the night before traveling through the forest in search of the Molybdenum Tombs. With the forest being oddly quiet save for some errant wildlife, they make camp and decide to explore the tombs in the morning.

Looking around the domed buildings, they spot two entrances with a river between them flowing into a grate leading into the tombs . Immediately wishing to go in the more difficult route, the party latches onto this watery entrance, getting themselves wet in knee-deep water as Kla'ir spent time bending the bars of the grate open. Everyone save for Sebastian, whose wizardly grandeur allowed him some protection from the elements.

Inside, they discover a strange peaceful garden with crystalline plantlife. Sebastian elects to check under the bridge for anything hidden, only to find old graffiti of a troll, to which he leaves an offering of a silver piece. Kla'ir wanders around the garden, taking in the strange iridescent sights. As they lingered in the room, a thrumming noise began to reverberate in their head, Sebastian seeing ethereal tendrils probing at their heads and causing a sensation not unlike a migraine. Jace goes to open a door and the party immediately goes through to escape the strange head-pounding sensations.

There was also a crab, just hanging out.

 

A cursory examination of the rooms reveals they're in some sort of art gallery. Jace leaves everyone behind to inspect a statue of a woman, shattering the priceless art to take the shiny necklace that was around her neck. The party catches up to him and they head into a room labeled "Historical Works". There, Jace and Kla'ir see an image of a white-clad warrior holding a banner in the middle of a starry wasteland and a painting a man standing in a boat as others row across an icy river. Sebastian, however, sees the images for what they actually are: the Apollo moon landing and Washington crossing the Delaware. He ends up having a breakdown due to this, much to the confusion of his compatriots.

While Sebastian tries to figure out why this fantasy world has imagery of historical events, the rest of the party moves on. There they discover a lost group of explorers from the Academy of Thought who explain their situation. They were exploring the tombs when a monster appeared and scattered them all, now they're holed up in the art gallery figuring out their next move. Jace doesn't seem to care much about their plight, moving on as the party finds imagery of a more idyllic future of the time Sebastian came from.

The party soon comes to a massive dimly-lit underground lake. They see the river from the garden terminates here. Inspecting large grooves made into the walls of the cavern, they deliberate on what could have done such a thing. As Sebastian finally catches up, the creature that made those grooves shows up, and it is hungry.

It even came with its own combat theme.

Treasure:
Ruby-inlaid necklace (worth 150 gp to a collector)

Experience:
Jace (lv 2, 4 xp)
Kla'ir (lv 1, 0 xp)
Sebastian (lv 2, 4 xp)

My Current Thoughts: This is the first dungeon larger than ten rooms that I've actually stocked. It turned out to be an enjoyable experience and didn't take me much longer than 2 hours to actually make. I'm finding that the majority of my preparation time is in drawing those postage stamp-sized tokens. This slips me into a habit of laziness as I constantly look to the tokens I've already drawn to find monsters that could fit, but I only have so much time and energy to prep from week to week.
I find it interesting that my playerbase tends to bring in OCs from their other games or RPs. This is honestly a new concept for me, as I've always just made new characters for new campaigns instead of holding onto a stable of character ideas. I'm not sure how to feel about it. Perhaps I should try bringing back a character from an unfinished campaign if I ever get the chance? I suppose I already am doing that in my solo game, as Daichi is a fighter from a D&D 5e campaign I was a player in that fizzled out and died.
As one of the players had to leave early, I took two of the players and ran them through a combat scenario to get used to the combat. Kla'ir and Alucard are scarily potent in combat, taking on four Dober-Men and two wolves before succumbing to a single frenzied survivor. My players seemed to be satisfied by Worlds Without Number's combat system, as the mechanics of Shock, Screening, Snap Attacks, and Delays seemed to provide that bit of tactical depth they enjoy.

ASE: Session Four, Group A

Date: Lapin 6th and 7th
Weather: Sunny, then a downpour of drizzle

Party:
Aria (Priest / Duelist)
Cedar (Warrior / Beastmaster)
Francis (Warrior / Expert)
Laguna (Elementalist / Healer)
Smith (Warrior)

Cohorts:
Raymond (Axebeak)
Rex (Wolf)

Summary:
As rumors start to spread about some sort of treasure on Mount Rendon, the party plans their next move. They pay Niberius for his work and he leaves, but as soon as he walks out they soon begin to smell a rat. A merchant named Francis del Grok, sixth son of the Grok family, offers his services in exchange for a share of the loot. Seeing as they need all the help he can get, they allow him and his 'zard to join.

The journey up Mount Rendon was relatively uneventful, save for the next day when it began to rain. As they got to the cave, they deliberated hiding the animals in the cave to protect them. There they discover stirges, only mutated and glowing green. They decide to dispose of the stirges and keep them far from the animals.

Oftentimes described as a "mosquito's wet dream".

 Getting inside, there is a larger, more humanoid robot waiting for them, who informs them that the western wing of the gatehouse had been closed off, refusing to explain why. Unsatisfied, the party regardless makes their way back to the broken frame, to which Aria correctly identifies it as a god's eye. They deliberate on restoring it (or prying it off the wall and selling it), but decide to explore the rest of the gatehouse, heading south.

 

 

The party stumbles upon automatons hiding from the abomination, and they start to realize the scraping noises are getting louder. In a panic the party rushes through the automatons, leaving several behind to get destroyed by the abomination, finally stumbling upon the guardians of the gatehouse, the greater guard automatons. There is only a few moments to prepare for the abomination as it busts into the room, metal screeching and sawblades whirling in frenzy!
 

"The church has a point, technology sucks!"

 A fight ensues, the party making copious usage of all the metal bodies between them and the abomination, wearing it down before it could do any lasting damage to anyone still living! With multiple instances of percussive maintenance applied, the autobomination finally stops moving, for now. The party is able to loot the body and gain the respect of the surviving automatons, as they allow them to pull the lever to the south.

They pull the lever, causing Mt. Rendon to quake and rumble for several minutes, loud klaxons sounding off throughout the facility before the door opens to a set of stone stairs leading down into the darkness. Aria takes point, descending slowly, freezing in horror when she sees a giant spider-like creature looking back up at them at the foot of the stairs. It skitters off, leaving the party unsure if they want to delve deeper. Regardless, they press on.

 

The party explores around the first level, discovering an old note Laguna translates as a farewell message. Not long after, they set off a dart trap:

"I tap around the room with my pole."
"You discover a loose floor tile."
"Great! I press it."

They see a strange, spindly birdlike creature exit a room as soon as they enter it, and almost have a run-in with doglike creatures gnawing on a goblin corpse, deciding better than to bother them. Instead they go to experiment with the giant pillar with carved faces in the center of a room. Aria pokes her 10' pole into one of the eye sockets, which culminates in the stone faces crying out corpse jellies. Francis and Rex get smeared, but the jellies are all defeated and the paralysis the two suffered quickly wore off. The party now deliberates their next move...

I am skeleton jelly, I am skeleton jelly...

 

Treasure:
-50 sp (split equally, 10 sp to each party member)
-Gold and Emerald necklace (worth 75gp)
-Several hundred feet of gold wire (20 gp total)
-String of blue quartz gems set in tarnished copper (worth 30 gp to a collector)
-Metal bar (used to open up a previously locked door)

Experience:
Aria (lv 2, 5 xp)
Cedar (lv 3, 6 xp)
Francis (lv 1, 1 xp)
Laguna (lv 3, 6 xp)
Smith (lv 3, 6 xp)

My Current Thoughts: I ended up taking on two more players, bringing us to five for group A and three for group B. Exciting! My players have been making several remarks about how lethal the game apparently is, how the game emphasizes setting up an advantageous position or avoiding combat rather than duking it out with foes in a straight-up fight. I'm happy they're discovering this, but with the party's current focus on combat defense and survival it is unlikely much on the first level will threaten them if they continue to play smart. Well, unless they trip into some green slime...

ASE: Session Three, Group B

Date: Lapin 4th
Weather: Overcast

Party:
Jace (Expert)
Sebastian (High Mage)

Cohorts:
Gil (Axebeak)

Summary:
The duo finally get into Denethix. Checking into the Wizard's Repast, they stay for the night and figure out their plans. Jace wants to find work while Sebastian wants information on the Quiet God's Star. After almost getting pickpocketed by the vicious halfling street gang the Lollipop Guild, they split up with Jace going north along the Street of Temples and Sebastian going to the bank. Sebastian manages to deposit his gold without much incident, while Jace passes by odd people worshipping gods of cutlery and also strange white-robed men attempting to send grunkies into orbit with bottle rockets.

While Jace seemed to have no luck looking for work, Sebastian gets suckered into almost joining a cult, as the Church of Starry Wisdom welcomes him with open arms. They usher him into the facility and make him wait in a plain room with a chair. Meanwhile, Jace has a run-in with a band of urchins who call him out for a favor, and ask him to check in on one of their friends who had, completely coincidentally, been taken in by the Church of Starry Wisdom.

Clearly not a sinister cult.

Using a convenient tree and finding an open window, Jace sneaks in and manages to disguise himself as a cultist. In another part of the tower, the door opens for Sebastian and he's asked to wear a helmet, one that his ability to read magic tells him is a Helm of True Sight that allows people to "see forever". Finally sensing danger, he casts a spell to make the cultists fall asleep and get out. The two bump into one another, with Jace telling Sebastian off and giving him directions to leave, as he goes deeper into the compound.

Discovering a cellar with large bulky objects in sacks being moved, Jace discovers the room where the sacrifices are being held and discover the person he's supposed to save. With some finesse and a few concussions given to the cultists, he manages to free the girl and rescue her, meeting back up with Sebastian and fulfilling the request for the urchins. He tells them to keep half of the reward and requests a favor in the future instead, to which the urchins agree.

With that side trek having been resolved, they check out the cult of science who were currently discovering the effects of terminal velocity on grunkies. Very scientific. They get to talking with the pair and the scientists become really interested in the idea of a rocket ship. They mention places where there could be scientific materials and artifacts that could make such a thing possible: The Dimming Cave and the Molybdenum Tombs. With this new information, they spend the rest of the day taking on hirelings to head out to investigate the Molybdenum Tombs in the morning.

 

Left to Right: Alucard (Warrior / Vowed), Melzgar (High Mage/Expert), Brilena (Warrior)

Treasure:
25 silver
A favor from several street urchins
A Helm of "True Sight" that allows you to "See Forever"

Experience:
Jace (lv 2, 4 xp)
Sebastian (lv 2, 4 xp)

My Current Thoughts: Having a duo allows for a very swords and sorcery dynamic. This session was far more improv-heavy than others and resulted in a lot of page flipping. I probably should have called for a 15 minute break to draw up the temple of starry wisdom's compound, but the players did not seem to mind the loose improvisation.

The oracular adventure adjustment tables in WWN beta v.20 were very handy. I can see myself using just this for adjudicating solo games, along with the adventure seeds.