Session 39
OOC:
So.The Grim Fist has cleared and secured about 40 hexes at this point (they have over 60, but many of those were “freebies” from the dwarven highway), and over 200 lairs, although a lot of the lairs were handled with “typical” results. It was a lot of fun, but … once the realm starts to get to the size it is, each lair offers substantially less of a high. Especially when it’s the umpteenth ogre village.
That ACKS made the fun last as long as it did is a testament, but at this point, the hex clearing is a chore on both sides of the Judge’s screen.
Also, I’ve been doing magical research wrong, abstracting it in months rather than actually adding up the days involved. This has given the casters in the group a major edge over the non-casters in “what gets done.”
So we’re doing some revision: paring back one unintended house rule, and adding an intended one.
Magical research cannot be performed during a week that hex clearing, dungeon delving, or similar major tasks takes place. Each month has four weeks (and two interstitial “non-week” days).
On average, a single proper hex lair takes the Grim Fist a day of prep, a half-day of activity (including travel), and one day of resource and hit point recovery, although they’ve managed significantly more (and less). For each week devoted to lair clearing, then, they can clear 1d6-1 lairs. For each lair, the treasure is determined by 1d10+1d8-2: 0 is None, 1 is A, and so on. Q & R hoards can never be found this way - only “interesting” lairs and dungeons have them!
If the whole party does not participate, the lairs cleared is reduced by -1 per missing party member.
XP for cleared lairs is a flat 1,200 + treasure, divided normally.
Summer, Months 7, 8, and 9
Population 64,000 profits (total) 855,000 gp. Vulfelind begins throwing the syndicate profits into the party gold pile.Galswintha achieves Elven Spelldancer 11!
Chlodomer achieves Aristocrat 13! His personal domain’s value goes up by one at the end of Summer.Summer has 13 weeks. The party expends 3 on lairs and clears 13 lairs (after party XP division, they end up with 6,000 XP each). They successfully clear five hexes (#0705, #0706, #1311, #1603, #1604).
They also dedicate 1 week to Jade’s catacombs (covered after everything else).
Chlodomer, the Blue Duke of Galaufabonne, receives a visit from Iamanu at the beginning of Summer, bearing three tidings:
- Notice that Chlodomer will be requested to serve as adjudicator on Iamanu's behalf, in Iamanu's domain, for the three months of Fall. (This will take up two weeks of each month.)
- Iamanu noticed that the tepui far to the west had new construction. This is most excellent! Please ensure that there is a stronghold sufficient to hold the tepui entire soon - i.e., one worth roughly 45,000 gp.
- An ancient, elven mithril sword. Iamanu knows that it is ancient, because it was ancient when he - a youth at the time - took it from the hoard of another dragon. And in the dragon's mind, at least, the sword "pays" for the required stronghold.
When Chlodomer draws the sword to examine it, it flares, briefly, as bright as the sun, and the leaf pattern on the hilt … is now also visible as a silver-gilded tattoo wrapping his right hand and wrist.
A voice sounds in bright tones: “I am she called Tears of the Willow, rightly feared by the unrighteous. Cast aside that nameless trash, that I may inflict grief and despair upon all who dare your wrath in battle!”
Chlodomer, knowing that Galswintha has been practicing with swordplay, lends her his dwarven kukri. She makes big, big eyes at him and suggests that maybe she should have elf-forged Tears of the Willow, and he could keep the nameless dwarf sword, but he points at his new tattoo, “Sorry, I think it likes me.”
Chlodomer also devotes some time to hand-managing merchant caravans.
Merideth completes two resurrections, binding them into diamonds. She gives them both to Galswintha, saying, “You expended one such as these to save and restore my mentor. I thank you, and hope these find as good a use in your hands.”
Merideth also oversees some upgrades to the temples scattered about the realm, and re-organizes her Knights slightly to take vassalage of the newly cleared hexes, and promote a few promising squires for adventuring.
Galswintha’s fairy settlement, Oak Spring City, boasts a Class IV market … if just. The neighboring human settlement has swelled to Class V on the strength of gnomish and pixie goods.
Vulfelind, Beggar Queen of Bone Temple, sets up two smaller syndicates in Oak Spring City (Galswintha’s Class IV Galaufchulis settlement, run by a gnome named Gibble, with 50 members) and Fey Dale (Galswintha’s adjacent Class V human settlement, run by a greek thief from Iamanu’s realm named Abraxas, with 30 members), sets her people to spying on Atanung and Orléans, and begins working on hiring ruffians of all sorts to fill out her ranks.
Bone Temple is now larger than Atanung and just barely smaller than Orléans. This creates a rousing trade in silk (Orléans -3, Bone Temple -3, Atanung +2) and ivory (Orléans +2, Bone Temple +0, Atanung +1). Since there is no obvious source of ivory, we rename that to “Galaufchulis bark.” The Bone Temple Syndicate of the Beggars’ Guild has 559 members by the end of summer.
Catacombs of the Serpent King
Chlodomer arranges a meeting with Jade the Undying, and she resolutely refuses to put resources towards assisting them - they have not proven themselves worth the risk yet. Leaving the stairway alone, they return to the door Vulfelind failed to unlock during the Spring.It isn’t locked.
They check the nearby rooms, but nothing has moved in. The dust on the floor still shows only their footprints from the previous month and now.
Chlodomer cautiously opens the door, Merideth blesses him, and he steps in.
Nothing happens.
A sigh of relief and the party and henches trek in. It is a reasonably long hallway, with fourteen doors on each side and a double-door at the far end: only one near the entrance is locked, the others open into inn rooms. Galswintha wizard-eyes the locked room, and stares at a similar inn room through the eyes of a rat. Nothing in the room moves, and no corpses are visible from the rat’s position.
Vulfelind: It’s a trap.
Chlodomer: The door or the room?
Vulfelind: No, I mean demon mist corpse unlocked front door, hid here. We go deeper, it locks stuff behind us, horde shows up, everyone dies.
Galswintha: Except me. I can teleport.
Wordthief: And me. I’m a sword.The party ponders this for a bit, then stake the bedroom door shut, and shove a pair of beds from one of the other inn rooms to block it further.
When they open the double doors at the end, they see a truly odd thing. A 15x15 foot room, with one wall taken up with a series of large gears, and a gearbox labeled with an odd dialect of dwarven. There are no exits, and Vulfelind examines the room carefully.
The most important thing she finds: the entire room is an automaton of some sort, and it is not firmly attached to the walls around it. Galswintha’s apprentice, Adalswinda, burns a spell to read the labels. In order is written:
The Light The Messenger The Lover The Mother The Warrior The Gardener The King The Merchant The Father The ShadowThey puzzle over that for a while, and then Chlodomer copies down two of the labels and steps outside for a bit … checking the walls and doors for symbols.
When he returns, he’s smiling, “It’s a method for moving between floors. We’re the third from the top.”
With no other options deeper, they review Jade’s map in silence, trying to line up her scribbles with reality, before Merideth finally points, “Here. There must have been a secret door Jade and we missed.”
Chlodomer harumphs, “Well, we were rushed.”
Vulfelind, pusher of buttons, states loudly and clearly, “The Light.”
The room rocks slightly, the doors lock, and with a faint grinding squeak, the room begins its ascent. A bell rings. The doors unlock.
Catacombs Level One
Cautiously, the Grim Fist step out, then all but Merideth suffer a choking fit from the dust and charnal ash they’ve stirred.Within the dim, flickering torch, they can see charred walls and torched corpses in a hall much like the one they just left: presumably a series of inn rooms. The corpses within sight stand awkwardly, and gleaming eyes betray more in the darkness beyond.
Unfortunately for the boogie man, the Grim Fist has had time to think since the last time they faced this particular threat.
A gout of dragons’ breath clears a path and the Grim Fist charge down the hall, Vulfelind running point to find the center, Chlodomer close behind to chop down those who get too close to her. The mist-bloated corpse is easy to spot, and Vulfelind tackles and pins it while Merideth and her two accompanying Knights laboriously sprint the distance to get in range.
And then dispel evil, from Merideth and both Knights. The red mist fails to resist one, and erupts from its host corpse in a vain escape attempt … before divine wrath shreds it to nothingness.
A hundred or so bodies fall to the floor.
Merideth begins cremation rites.
They go room by room, turning the few remaining undead (all more normal) and wiping out those who survive the initial divine force with brute steel.
The restaurant at the end of the hall is the worst, with two demonic corpse legions working in tandem to puppet hundreds of former staff and customers … and careful to keep their visibly bloated bodies out of reach. Here, Chlodomer, Haramer, and the polearm squad form a beheading machine, until they manage to get the Knights close enough for dispel evil.
One of the red mists erupts from its host just before that happens, abandoning its companion to the Knights and fleeing faster than most can follow.
Except Vulfelind. She sprints furiously ahead of it, skids to a stop and turns, brings Wordthief high over her head, and shouts “I wishes that Wordthief could blast evil on impact!”
… and as she brings the sword down through the red mist, the sword flashes bright. The red mist releases a screeching sound and tatters to nothing.
… and then Vulfelind looks dazed. She had discussed this type of wish with Wordthief, but it had been theoretical - Wordthief had not been prepared for the emotional impact the action would have.
At last, he had a worthy master. At last, he had an imaginative master. Someone he could serve. Someone he wanted to serve. Someone who would put his name in legend.
And so he connects telepathically with his new master for the first time, granting her insight into his abilities and workings.
Blast Evil: As dispel evil, but with range 0', affects a single target, and must make a successful attack. Divine 3.Wordthief, shortsword +1, luck blade (4 wishes), holy avenger (blast evil on striking once per day, must be declared), sentient (INT 12, EGO 6, WIL 19; AL N; can detect enemies, evil, and good; telepathy 3/day as helm of telepathy)
Vulfelind sits down, abruptly, amidst scattered tables and chairs to contemplate her new partner.Wyrmtooth: Does this mean I have to leave?
Wordthief: … Only if you want to, old friend.And then it’s back to business. Cremation rites. Clearing the rooms.
And when they find the Altar holding this floor hostage, they break and bless it, and then Merideth uses her last dispel evil to cleanse the floor entirely.
They search thoroughly, and finally find the secret door Jade missed, and return to her lair.
Jade: How go your efforts?
Chlodomer: AUGH.
Jade: …?
Chlodomer: I have to tell you that there is a secret door deeper in that might not block you.
Jade: !The secret door does not block Jade, and she races through the restaurant and then hall … but the moving room still blocks her: she gets no further.
Jade: I suppose I will have to continue to rely on you. Thank you.
Catacombs Level Two
The party rests for a day to recover spells, then flicks The Messenger. The same shake and grinding squeak, and then the doors open. Another “inn room hall” faces them … but there are no bodies, nor dust, nor the faintest sign that anything once lived here. Even the doors and hinges, torch-brackets, and tiniest bits of metal have been carefully removed from the cold, stone walls.The party cautiously tosses a glow stone down the corridor. It illuminates nothing.
With Chlodomer and Merideth at point, the Grim Fist march in as quietly as they are able … and several hundred feet in, an avalanche of slime, a vivid pulsing green and awakened from ancient slumber, falls from the ceiling to digest everything that isn’t stone.
The clerics cure disease on themselves first, wiping out a small patch, while Galswintha immolates herself free. Chlodomer shrieks for his beloved armor before Merideth kills the parasite.
Vulfelind, unarmored and unprotected, loses a sizable chunk of flesh to slime before a Knight reaches her with the cure and healing. Moist sound come from the now-active ceiling as green slimes, now awake, slowly try to maneuver themselves over the party.
Merideth: I don’t have enough cure disease for that.
Galswintha: Oh, but I do.The elfmaid flies to the ceiling and sights along the edge, then breathes a gout of flame, clearing 90 feet - the party sprints, and as she reaches more slime, she breathes a second time, then lands and runs.
After that, it is fireballs, staggered along the ceiling and wiping out whole ecologies of green slime until they make it back to the doors.
From that point of safety, Galswintha breaks out her wand of fireballs, and with two divinely ordained Knights to guard against accidents, begins working her way down the hall, clearing the ceiling of slime, before finishing with her own spells when the wand runs dry.
The entire level is empty save for the slime and a few gems. No coin or good survived, not even an altar is available to smash.
They take two days to recover - mostly for Vulfelind’s healing - and set the catacombs aside for Fall.
Demon Legionaire
Demon Legionaire: AC 10*, Move fly 150', HD 12**** (54 hp), attack ghoul paralysis and energy drain 2; gaseous form; immune to mind-affecting and poisons; half damage from magic; immune to fire; regenerate 3 hp/round. SV F12, ML +0, AL C. XP 4,800 + 13 per animated corpse. Treasure: Mx2.Demon legionaires can possess a corpse, losing their gaseous form, but gaining a bash 1d10 attack which inflicts ghoul paralysis and energy drain 2. While possessing a corpse, they can simultaneously “puppet” up to 120 HD of corpses around themselves as zombies or skeletons. The puppets are not particularly strong, but cannot be Turned or destroyed unless the demon legionaire would be.
Demon legionaires are almost never found outside of the most horrible sinkholes of evil - they usually require a Chaos altar and substantial death to maintain their tenuous grasp on this plane of existence.
They Turn as infernal creatures, because that is what they are.
More powerful demon legionaires exist. Each HD above 12 grants one level of mage spell-casting ability, but they can only cast while possessing a corpse. They can puppet a number of HD of corpses equal to their HDx10.
Demon legionaires hate everything, including each other, but will sometimes work together against a greater threat.