Belswick session 2 - more tomb raiding

Last Friday, we played session 2 in my Belswick campaign, a delve into the Tomb of the Serpent Kings. Clever questions about the map and smart tool use by the players. Also, the Cleric stole a fungal goblin sprout.

PREVIOUSLY

Our heroes live in the hamlet of Crossroads. After an attack by goblins and an owlbear:

• the local hedgehogling lord Haine Kerjules offers a bounty of 100 gp for the owlbear's head, and the return of the swanling Dinadan's servant Guy.
• the goblins seems to come from an unexpected direction: the out of town herb garden of Annabelle the potion maker. The innkeeper Orbat the hawkling is very interested in learning why and Orbat offers 100 gp for Annabelle's secret. Those goblins burned down his inn and he wants to know why.
• Dinadan confesses he was carrying a triple-locked chest as a secret package on his way from Mount Gale (the direction of both a small mine and the legendary cursed castle of Dread Sir Ulric). Dinadan offers 50 gp for the chest returned safe and unopened.

In their first outing, the group manages to kill the owlbear and almost themselves, and find a tomb complex under the hill that sits right on the border between domains Kerjules and Cullfield. They investigate Annabelle's herb garden and shed and liberate some potions, one of which makes you shrink.

OUR HEROES

• Aju - a fishling herbalist and barbarian. Carries a keg of fresh water so he doesn't dry out.
• Tilbørd - a human cleric of the Authority's Order of the Scroll. Careful; out here for info not healing.
• Lomin "Call me Mr. Mor" Mor - an elf gambler and rogue affiliated with the neighbouring Lady Olga Cullfield.

Not there for the session:

• Guy - a human diviner wizard of the Lodge. Finds thieves and smugglers for his lord Haine Kerjules.
• Mike - a midwifeman*, human* fighter* and local hero* (we assume for heroic midwifery). Animal lover.

* all rolled randomly: midwife profession, race, class and background.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Just when I wanted to write a session log, whatsapp came alive with one of the absentee players asking how the session went, and there the log was! I translated the discussion from Dutch to English and added my comments in between.


MIKE: So what did Mike have to miss out on yesterday? He had to feed his animals. And yeah, that's more important than helping the party :')

AJU: A lot happened.

For instance 10 mins discussion on which local lord to ply with the taxes on the loot they found, then deciding to just stash the finds in their hut, and 10 mins more discussion on who goes first in the marching order.

Then a quick look at the terracotta statues in rooms 2-4. Lomin opened one from a distance and got just a whiff of poison gas. Didn't look inside, didn't pry off the tempting magic golden ring from the sorcerer statue in room 4. At least they have enough torches and ration.

AJU: We went back into the dungeon. Remember the last chamber with the water? Where you almost chopped off all my limbs. It had a hallway down that we followed to a big room with a big living stone statue. When we were in the doorway it held up its hand and said STOP.

"THIS WAY IS SHUT", in the necromancer language Du'van. Which Tilbørd speakscould somehow puzzle out because he's a cleric of the Order of the Scroll, praise the Authority, move along now. Tilbørd also tried to hack the golem's instructions but didn't get far. Even the name of the complex's lord Xiximanter, found on a scroll in room (15), didn't help. At least the thing can't get out of the room it's in.

The party then reasons that if the goblins can't pass here either, and they can't cross the basilisk room, how did the little assholes circle round? Good thinking!

AJU: Went back up, found a secret corridor that the goblins use to get from the collapsed room back to their lair. Followed it, got chopped by an axe trap from the ceiling, ...

I had previously narrated how the goblins came out of both exits to TotSK, and added a narrow squeeze between (16) and (34) for extra gobbo mobility in the dungeon. Party followed, found and left behind weird carved stone eggs in the meditation room 34, with Du'van script again that said "Comfort, Protect". I've changed these things from the hot water bottles they were in canon TotSK, but no-one read the inscription out loud..

AJU: ...chopped up goblins, then set a whole bunch of them on fire and smoked out their lair. Found a heap of treasure and saved little Guy!

Including picking the difficult lock to the treasure room (29), then having to improvise with unwieldy barrels and chests to move the 500 gp of treasure. The shrinking potion came in handy when they had to move the barrel of treasure through a narrow crawl to the surface.

Encountering 20 sleepy goblins could've turned deadly really fast, but Aju improvised with lamp oil and a torch to make a huge smoking fire that drove out the goblins. Then set everyone coughing. Little Guy they found trussed up on a throne with a woven crown: king of the goblins, at least until full moon. Then he'd have been dinner.

MIKE: Nice job! Aju needs to learn to leave trapfinding to fighters :')

AJU: Tried to, and I have great perception, only there was a basilisk on a chain that I wanted to get away from.

So weird. You describe the thing as wagon-sized, with a gaze that turns torches to stone and their flames to stained glass, and suddenly the party is afraid to go near! Smart. Also hinted that the basilisk is lonely, curious and quite willing to get scratched and fed. Tilbørd was trying to get it to heel in Du'van, which seemed to work.

AJU: Oh yeah, and at the end there was a revolving door [leading up from the gobbo lair to rooms 43-46, not explored yet...] with nasty spear traps.

MIKE: Bwahaha

TILBORD: The fighter wasn't there so we used the barbarian as trapfinder and doorstopper.

After 15 more minutes of debating who would go through the door first... Behind the door they found a staircase, at the top was the basilisk room again and a series of rooms with bubbling noises, weird lights and the sound of lots of bones clacking on the tiles. They did not explore.

MIKE: You didn't send the cleric?

AJU: Our cleric is a bit of a pussy.

I don't blame the cleric. My random encounter table (bottom of post) dished up no monsters, but lots of signs: a woman's singing from unexplored rooms to the east, the clacking of bones, goblin chittering, weird gusts of lifeless air or fungal stench..

TILBORD: Cleric received 0 damage, as it should be. Also dealt out 0 damage and 0 healing, of course. I'm not the Order of the Lead Mask ;)

But did find out that the basilisk is focused on smells (it knows Tilbørd now) and can't petrify you in the dark.

LOMIN: While one of these two was shopping for a new pet and the other was juggling torches and axes, yours truly was looting everything he could get his mitts on. It was a beautiful evening...

MIKE: Right you are. (y)

Every gp brought home safe is 1 xp, is the rule. We decided to share all XP evenly, so even people who can't make it don't get left behind. Ditto for the actual loot, except for stuff explicitly stolen by one PC such as the GOLDEN CROWN OF THE SERPENT KINGS. Right, Lomin?

Also, Tilbørd finds a room filled with filth and fungus...that is slowly shaping itself into Even More Goblins. Rather than hauling in oil and flame as I expected, he plucks a juvenile fungus goblin and packs it away carefully with some crumbs and wet soil. The cleric wants a pet.

TILBORD: The barbarian got frustrated and took it out on the environment, the rogue kept back and took care of looting in and out of combat, the cleric amused himself reading a book, chatting with goblins, a ghoul and a basilisk. Typical.

At the start of the session, the group chose to spend the night and got visitors. Tilbørd chatted with goblins who promised to bring out Guy, their new king. (Too bad: the "Guy" that showed up was just two goblins on each others' shoulders, wrapped in a cloak.)

A bit later, there was the smell of rotting meat and grave dust when a local Ghoul popped by to ask what all the fuss was about. If you ever want to get in contact, track down the nearby gravestone of famous cook Jacques Corbieres.

TREASURE AND EXPERIENCE

The party recovered valuables worth 897 gp and xp.
Previous session: 698 gp and xp.
Total: 1595 xp = 319 xp each --> enough to gain level 2!



Rooms 2-4
Cursory glance. Lomin breaks one statue, gets whiff of poison gas. Does not inspect other statues. Golden ring on sorceror statue's finger still sitting there.

Room 11 -> 12-14
Party looks at and shies away from: soft electrical crackling behind door 12, raging skeleton with greataxe behind half-collapsed passage to room 13, and acid bubbling noise behind door 14.

Room 34
Lomin finds three carved stone eggs with Du'van inscriptions. Leaves behind.

Room 33
Not entered

Room 30
Blazing fire of marsh gas in central pit, skeletons on spikes show that it was sacrificial. There are gems down there. Left them to stew until someone learns Mage Hand.

Room 29
Treasure hoard, total value: 500 gp. Gems, jewelry, statuettes. Prize piece is a great silver drinking basin with ornamental cups hung on the rim. Gems and fine craftmanship make this a precious piece of art.

Room 49/47
Found Guy, the merchant's boy, and the merchant's wares! 100 gp in reward waiting at Crossroads.

Room 48
Tilbørd recovers a juvenile fungal goblin. Value 50 gp to a collector of eldritch oddities.

Room 50
Another treasure trove - the goblin garden, full of discarded golden cups, coins, silverware and even a crown. Total value recovered: 347 gp.