Team Adventure - Fun and Fungus

Alagon dived into the pool, using his ability to breathe underwater that he had acquired in the Tomb of the Holy Avenger. Alurax joined him and they investigated the silver disc. Gullhar checked the room for secret doors but found nothing. Then Larsh the polar bear joined the swim party.

Gullhar called Elysia into the pool to see if casting a Reduce spell would help. She did just that and together with the water, the entire party (sans Lydia) fell a hundred feet down a shaft into another room, forty feet high. Just below the ceiling of that room was a passageway, but they could not (initially) reach it. Elysia used a Fly spell to take Gullhar up to the opening. Unfortunately there were two large iron doors blocking the way, leaving only a five-foot ledge on which to stand. Alurax was flown up next and together with Gullhar, took hold of the rings on the doors and pulled hard. The doors fell forward and both characters leapt out of the way to avoid being crushed – only to fall over the edge and back into the water again.

Elysia then flew the party back up to the passageway again, taking Gullhar a little way beyond the doors. Larsh was turned back into a figurine so that he could more easily be carried. Some way down the passage, there was a pit, fifteen feet across. From it came a dull red glow and – so Alagon sensed – a strong feeling of evil.

Lydia suggested using both of the iron doors to narrow the gap so that they could leap across. This they did and moved ever onward, finding two alcoves that at first they thought were side passages. Through a process of experimentation, they discovered that the alcoves were zones of complete silence.  There did not seem to be much point to the alcoves, so the team ignored them and moved onwards. Meanwhile Alurax seemed to come over all weird but nobody else noticed.

At the end of the passageway, they came to a large octagonal room, with one other exit. In the middle of the room was a large pillar at its centre. The pillar was attached to the floor and ceiling and had pieces of jet and sapphire embedded all over it. Alagon sensed evil again but it was unfocused and he couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. Using triangulation, he managed to locate its source somewhere beyond the wall of the chamber. How to get to it was another matter.

They took the exit passage and slowly moved along it. They came to what appeared to be a curtain of bronze fabric hanging from the ceiling and gingerly edged past it. Beyond that was another curtain, this time of silver fabric. Again, the party carefully slipped past, concerned about a trap. Finally, ahead Alagon saw a gold curtain hanging down and took out his ten-foot pole to probe it in case it was a danger to the party. Unfortunately for him, it was – a curtain of yellow mould which sprayed its spores straight at him as he poked it with his pole. His reaction was too slow to avoid the spores, which flooded into his lungs, killing him in a choking agony of sickly yellow sputum.

The party was horrified but had little time to react before Gullhar took out his time egg and used it to wind back time to the point at which Alagon was just examining the bronze curtain. He explained what had/was about to happen. Realising that they faced a grave danger, Elysia proposed that they retreat to the pillar room to consider their options.

Team Adventure - Nobody's Home

Saved from certain death by the time egg, Alurax began to investigate the contents of the library, finding the books on the evil Outer Planes very interesting. Gullhar made his way down one of the corridors that, according to the very artistic map he had been making, had not so far been explored. The rest of the party followed along and found that it led to a room that was completely filled with water, to a depth of about thirty feet or so. Beyond that room was another corridor, at the end of which were two golden doors.

Alurax, who had now rejoined the party, decided to swim across the pool but halfway there, a water weird materialised and attacked. It missed due to Alurax’s high armour class, but had another go – and missed again. Alurax, having found that his trident had little effect on the weird, climbed out of the far side of the pool, none the worse for wear. The rest of the party followed suit, Alagon swimming across and Elysia flying everyone else. The water weird did try to catch itself a victim but was simply unable to get anywhere near them.  On his crossing of the water, Alurax spotted a large metal disc in the middle of the floor of the pool but had no time to investigate it.

Alagon led the way to the golden doors, but found that he couldn’t open them as they appeared to be locked. He called on Gullhar to deploy Larsh, and the polar bear began to hammer on the doors, shaking them but not opening them. Finally, with the assistance of Alurax, the doors were pulled off their hinges and the party peered through the opening.

Inside was what appeared to be a bedroom of sorts. There was a huge fur rug on the floor, a large four poster bed, a bedside table with some paperwork on it and on the far side of the bed, a large metal chest. Nobody could decide whether to enter the room so Gullhar took the initiative and went in, heading for the chest, which – if the examples of the other rooms were anything to go by – was where the goodies would be found. However, he noted that there seemed to be no lock to the chest and its lid seemed to just slide off. He was about to do so when there was a flash of magical power and before the horrified eyes of the party, Gullhar crumbled to dust.

At once, Alurax deployed his time egg to wind back the previous five minutes and the party found itself on the far side of the golden doors again; Alurax explained what was about to happen and the party resolved to be more cautious when investigating the chest.  They tried various means of getting it open without touching it but found that it was impossible to do so. Having reached what appeared to be a dead end, they retraced their steps to the laboratory and took the other narrow passageway.

Alagon took the lead and after a couple of turns in the passageway, which was only five feet wide, he noticed a symbol on the wall ahead. He moved closer to see what it said and it suddenly glowed with a sinister magical power. He began to feel very confused, seeing weird visions of the rest of the party without faces, the walls sprouting tentacles and other strange hallucinations. Gullhar dragged him away and back to the laboratory, where he crawled into a corner, whimpering and gibbering.

Using her magical knowledge, Elysia deduced that what Alagon had seen was probably a Symbol of Insanity and there were only three ways around it – a heal spell, a wish or a restoration. She decided that the only way to get clerical help was to find Ferros and that meant a teleportation to Vergez.  She held on to Alagon, told the party to await her return and vanished.

She arrived in the city safely. Unsure as to where Ferros might be, she sent Relic to find him but the pseudo-dragon had no luck. Elysia then asked the guards at the city gate if they remembered a cleric and a horde of zombies and skeletons leaving at all. The guards at the western gate said that they had seen him leading his merry band up the western road and Elysia set off, having hired a couple of horses and tied Alagon safely onto one of them. 

Two days later, she arrived at a site where a large number of zombies and skeletons were working hard on digging foundations, clearing trees and transporting stone blocks. She swiftly found Ferros, consulting an architect on the progress of the new temple of Foik. He was pleased to see her but when she explained what she needed, he told her that he was not a high enough level cleric to cast any of the spells she was asking for. He recommended a friendly cleric in Vergez and after bidding him farewell, she rode back to the city again.

By now it was October 16th,  which meant that she’d been away for four days. She hoped that the rest of the party had been okay in her absence and had not wandered too far from the laboratory.  She found the cleric and after explaining the situation and mentioning Ferros’ name, they agreed a sum of 10,000 gold pieces to heal Alagon. The spell was swiftly cast and Elysia teleported back to the laboratory. To her great relief, the party was still there, having spent their time exploring the safe areas of the dungeon and reading the scrolls and tomes in the library.

The party decided that it would be best if they explored the passageway at a crawl so that they would not see the symbol that had caused Alagon so many problems. This approach worked, but as they neared the mid-point of the passage, Alurax crawled over a glyph of warding and it exploded beneath him, causing him a great amount of burn damage. The lead was taken by Alagon, who was keeping a keen eye out for suspicious looking glyphs and symbols. Thus it was that he spotted one ahead and managed to trigger it with a ten foot pole. It sprouted sickly green fronds, replete with barbs and thorns, which shimmered in the air for a few moments, before dissolving into nothingness.

The far end of the passageway debouched onto a long hallway, off which opened five doors. At the far end of the hallway, there was another five-foot wide passageway. Alagon tried the door nearest to him and found that it led into a bedroom which, from the state of the furnishings, had not been used for a long time. He searched it but found only perfumes and women’s clothing.

Gullhar sent Larsh through another door and the sound of clanging and crashing was soon heard. Once Larsh had come out, Gullhar went in and found that the room was a disused kitchen. A small passageway, only three feet high, led off it; he followed and found a low-ceilinged room where the withered skeletons of eight hobbits were chained. In the eighth compartment, a violet fungus waited for victims but it failed to hit the doughy elf and he – along with Alagon – soon hacked the malevolent plant to pieces.

The next door led to a large dining room with an oaken table, at which there was a large silver chair. Too big to be easily portable, the party noted it as treasure and moved on. They also investigated an old bathroom, but there was nothing of interest there.

Finally, they found another bedroom, in which were two beds and more female clothing. Alagon, whilst searching the bedside tables, found a large sapphire in a pouch, but sensed great evil coming from it. Alurax looked into the gem and sensed a malign intelligence therein, trying to establish mental contact.

With his elvish abilities, Gullhar detected a secret door in the wall opposite the door, which – when followed – led back to the bedroom with the metal chest.

There was only the narrow passageway to investigate now, and Elysia sent Relic up it to see what he could find. He reported that it led back to the library, and that there were two dangerous glyphs there, which the party wisely decided to avoid. 

Returning to the library, the party pondered their options. Finally, they decided to look again at the water room, where the mysterious silver disc suggested that there might be something underneath. But what?

An Adventure for Every Monster - Djinni

Otherworld Miniatures do it again!

Frequency  Very rare    
No appearing  1
AC 4
Move 9”/24”   
HD 10
% in lair Ni1
Treasure type Nil   
No of attacks  1
Damage per attack 3-24   
Special attacks  See below
Special defences Nil
Magic resistance Standard
Intelligence Average-high
Alignment Chaotic Good
Size  L (10.5 feet tall)
THAC0  13
XP value 725 + 5/hp

Abilities include
Create nutritious food for 2-12 persons
Create water/wine for 2-12 persons
Create soft goods or wooden items with permanence
Create metal items of up to about 1000gp in weight for a short life span
Create an illusion with both visual and audial components which lasts until dispelled
Become invisible
Assume gaseous form
Wind walk
Form a whirlwind (doing 3-18 pts of damage)


Alzabir, city of adventure, danger and mystery!  A city on the edge of the desert, the terminus of a hundred caravans, home to a dozen races, the air thick with the heady scent of a thousand spices, the cries of prayer, the music of exotic dances and the screams of the dying. Ships from every port imaginable, crammed full of riches, put into its harbour; alluring houris ply their trade from marbled courtyards, masked assassins prowl the alleys. In the palaces, the sheikhs live in unimaginable luxury, in the slums the poor fight for every last scrap of food.

The city has recently been the scene of a battle between two creatures who share an ancient and inimical enmity – djinn and efreet. Nobody knows how they entered the city but enter it they did and their battle crackled through the air above the houses and the palaces before exploding like a second sun.

Whilst the efreeti was destroyed, the djinni was gravely injured and although it was able to recover its abilities, it had suffered total loss of memory in the process as a result of the magical energies to which it had been exposed. Now it wanders the city of Alzabir in human form, unable to recall who or what it is, but nevertheless curious about the environment in which it finds itself.

Normally djinn would limit the number of wishes they give to three, along the lines of strict agreements brokered with humans but this djinni, having no memory of the existence of agreements, has started to spontaneously grant wishes when it overhears them being made. As such, some very unusual occurrences have been noted in the city, both good and bad. Nobody knows why this is happening but some people have a shrewd idea of what might be causing it.   

There are several interested parties who would like to find out what’s going on and turn it to their advantage. The party may find themselves being hired by any one of them or perhaps making a grab for power themselves.

1. City Administration who would like weird things to stop happening in their city.
2. Cult who think that an angel has fallen from heaven and is performing good deeds (or taking revenge on evil doers) and believe this to be a sign that their time has come.
3. Cult who thin that a devil has risen from hell and is using wishes to corrupt people and lead them astray) and believe this is a sign that they must take arms and fight said devil.
4. The mainstream city religions who don’t want anything to upset their little world and would quite like things to go back to the way they were.
5. Rich merchant who wants the mysterious wish-giver for his own.
6. The city folk, who have got wind of the mysterious wish giver and are trying to seek him/her out so that they too can get what they want.
7. Agents of the Efreeti who want the djinni killed to finish the job their efreet bungled
8. Sages who would absolutely love a real live supernatural entity to examine, probe, dissect…
9. Thieves’ Guild who don’t know what is granting the wishes but can be fairly sure there’s a good market for it.
10. Agents of the Djinn who are looking for the lost djinni.

The DM should ensure that as many of these factions meet and clash as possible and that the party is stuck in the middle of said clashes.

Team Adventure - Catching Fire

The party’s first action was to knock on the bronze doors; well, it was worth a try, but there was no response. Then Alurax decided to see if they would yield to the party’s default solution of throwing oil bombs at them. Again, there was no effect – apart from some smoke marks on the bronze (that’ll take ages to get out!)

At this point, Gullhar decided to make use of Larsh, the polar bear; with Alurax’s help, the doors started to yield; they were barred on the far side but that was no obstacle to the bear’s formidable strength. Finally, they gave way and flew open. The party stumbled in and found themselves in a large room, at the end of which were two sets of green curtains. Halfway down the room on each side was an alcove, in which was a large stone statue.

Elysia was wary about moving into the room without checking it out thoroughly; she sent an Unseen Servant to pull the curtains aside and Relic to fly in and see what lay beyond them. He reported back that there were two rooms there; one had a red stone floor, the other a pale blue one. 

As the party moved towards the alcoves, the inevitable happened – the two statues animated and moved to attack. Gullhar and Larsh were facing one, Alurax and Alagon the other. Larsh tried to swipe and bite at the statue but his claws broke on the enchanted stone and he fell back, growling in irritation.

Alurax attacked with his trident, Alagon with Whitefyre and they damaged the statue that they were facing. Lydia tried to attack it but her sword bounced off the stone without doing any damage.

Gullhar took damage from a nasty stone punch. The doughty elf returned the favour and sent chips of stone flying off as his sword hacked into the statue.  The next round, he scored another hit and managed to dodge the return punch from the statue’s stony fist.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, Alurax and Alagon attacked again; Alurax’s trident missed its mark but Alagon hit with Whitefyre and the statue shattered into hundred of chunks of rock.

Now the party’s attention switched to the statue that was facing Gullhar. Elysia fired a salvo of Magic Missiles at it but they bounced off the stone, having no visible effect. Alagon launched his attack, hitting the statue; it missed Gullhar, who was trying hard to avoid being hit. Unfortunately, his efforts were in vain as a crushing blow sent him sliding across the obsidian floor.  Alagon used this opportunity to hack again at the statue and this time, he succeeded in destroying it.

The party picked itself up and started to search the alcoves in which the statues had stood. They found several long-dead bodies and a collection of adventuring gear and magic items, which were squirreled away for later identification and use.

The party split up to explore the two rooms at the far end of the hall. Lydia and Alagon went into the room with the red stone floor and found that it was warm, whilst Gullhar and Larsh investigated the blue-floored room and found it to be very cold. The far end of the room was revealed to be not stone, but ice. As Gullhar and Larsh ventured onto it, the ice cracked and fell in, plunging them into a pit lined with brown mould. Alagon and Lydia rushed in to see what had happened. As the brown mould started to suck the heat from Gullhar, Elysia flew in and pulled him to safety; Larsh clambered out on his own. Alagon used his healing hands to repair some of the damage that Gullhar had taken.

They then decided to try the other room. Gullhar, ever adventurous, went down the passage on the far side of the room and found a strange dial mechanism which he began to turn this way and that. Unfortunately for the rest of the party, who were still in the main room, the floor vanished underneath them and they fell into a pit of white phosphorus. Due to the heat of their bodies, it ignited and they were all set on fire; Elysia flew out of the fire, taking Alagon with her. Alurax and Lydia clambered out of the pit, having been badly burned; the fire was also starting to affect Gullhar, who was rescued by Elysia, still using her Fly spell.

Having taken quite a lot of damage in the three rooms, the party decided that they would camp in the main hall while Alagon recovered his ability to lay on hands. They were now starting to realise the disadvantages of exploring dungeons without a cleric.

Eight hours later, they woke; in the outside world it was now October 12th.  Alagon and Lydia tried to use their healing powers but found out, to their discomfiture, that they could only heal half the damage that the party had taken in the phosphorus pit. The party, being down on health and the ability to take damage, needed to tread warily as they explored the rest of the dungeon. Gullhar tried the door past the ice room. He failed again to get the lock open but Alurax had better luck with the door beyond the hot room.

Beyond this door was what appeared to be an old abandoned laboratory. There were various shelves, flasks, jars, racks of manuscripts, scrolls and the like. A large metal cabinet proved irresistible to Alurax but as he opened it, a fire trap went off and he started to jump about, trying to put the flames out. Inside the cabinet were hundreds of glass bottles of various shapes, sizes and colours. All seemed to be locked shut by something.

Being elves, Gullhar and Elysia managed to find two secret doors but as they were examining them, something invisible tried to strike at Alurax. It missed but the party were now alerted to its presence. They tried to hit it but failed dismally. The invisible creature struck at Lydia, doing her significant damage. The party lined up across the laboratory to try and isolate it but it moved towards Elysia and attacked her. Relic then used his ability to see invisible objects and creatures and stung their attacker, putting it into a catatonic trance. As the party watched, the little pseudo-dragon perched on top of the comatose attacker, and – now being aware of its location, Alurax, Alagon and Gullhar hacked it to pieces. 

Believing the laboratory to be secure, the party investigated the secret door that Elysia had found. It led to a hidden chamber, in which there was a desk and a lever on the wall. Not being a man who can resist a lever, Alurax pulled it and the door slid shut again, sealing them in. On the desk was a mace, which – when touched by Alurax – tingled with magical power. Alagon got the impression that there was something evil about it.

In a drawer of the desk was a folded vellum sheet, which Alurax picked up and read. The explosive rune on it went off, blasting both Alurax and Alagon. Almost miraculously, the sheet was still legible and they realised that it was a guide to the bottles in the laboratory cabinet.

As well as the vellum, the drawer also contained a lump of amber with a black pearl inside it and a silver jar full of a strange liquid; Alurax took a sip of it and felt an incredible strength and power course through him.

Having seemingly exhausted the hidden chamber’s possibilities, the party decided to try the secret door that Gullhar had discovered. They moved down a passage, past a side branch and found the rear of another secret door that led them into a library. As they entered, a loud and continuous barking sounded, coming from nowhere in particular.

Alurax decided to move into the room but as he did so, something attacked him from behind, knocking him over and ripping into his armour. He very quickly fled the room and the barking stopped. A bit of experimentation revealed that the creature (whatever it was) only attacked its targets from behind. The rest of the party entered, kept their backs to the walls and began a search which soon revealed another secret door.

Beyond this one, there was another hidden room; this too had a desk in it but as well as that, a large rock in one corner. There was also a helmet on the desk, which Alurax picked up and tried on. There did not seem to be any immediate effect from wearing it.

Investigation of the rock soon revealed that it was hollow and it yielded to a few heavy blows from the party. Inside was a large collection of books and scrolls, which Elysia moved in to investigate. She was reluctant to examine them further because she sensed they might be magically booby-trapped.

Meanwhile, Alurax had got a bit bored and had wandered off down one of the corridors out of the library. Unfortunately for him, he walked straight into a fire trap which went off and killed him. On realising what had happened, Alagon decided to use his time egg that he had received at Christmas to wind back time five minutes so that he could prevent Alurax from going down the passageway in the first place. The impetuous fighter was admonished for splitting the party and getting himself killed. The party got the distinct impression that there were going to be many more opportunities for Alurax to do himself some serious harm before they left the dungeon.

Team Adventure - Turning Turtle

We rejoin the party having just finished the Tomb of the Holy Avenger.  Lydia the somewhat aged paladin (now in her forties as opposed to eighteen) got word that something called the Chrysalis was awakening. This was clearly serious enough to arouse her intense alarm and she at once declared her intention to set off south to the city where her order of paladins was based.  It was called Vergez and was a coastal city on the shores of the sub-tropical Southern Ocean.

It took them a week to get there and they arrived on October 3rd.  Although back home, it might have been autumn, here the climate was a pleasant Mediterranean one, with blue skies, sunshine and warm waters.

Lydia headed straight for the headquarters of her order, suggesting that Alagon accompany her as this was a matter that concerned paladins and all warriors of virtue.  On the way, Alagon had the strange experience of hearing a voice inside his head, urging him to attack and destroy anything evil. He realised that it was his sword, the Holy Avenger, talking to him telepathically. The sword identified itself as Whitefyre and told Alagon how much it was looking forward to smiting evil.

At the paladins’ HQ, Lydia vouched for Alagon as a fellow holy warrior, and they managed to get the others admitted. The senior paladin was surprised by Lydia’s appearance; he realised that she had encountered some serious undead and promised that if she survived the forthcoming mission, he would see if they could find some rejuvenating magic for her. This came as good news for Alagon; he had been forming a close relationship with Lydia but now had to come to terms with the fact that she was old enough to be his mother.

The senior paladin explained that nearly a thousand years ago, a powerful magic user had embarked on a process that would eventually lead to his becoming immortal and acquiring the powers of a devil. This process involved a chrysalis which would complete his transformation over a period of nine hundred years, a period that was now almost up. The party’s mission, if they chose to accept it, was to find the chrysalis, believed to be on an island in the Southern Ocean and destroy it. Lydia, of course, accepted immediately and Alagon was keen to join her quest. The rest of the party decided to go along for the ride.

Before they left, the senior paladin told them that the order had attempted a divination to find out more about the location of the chrysalis. It had not been particularly successful, but he gave them the short verse that had resulted from the spell. It read:

Ancient guardian lies in wait
Mongst the weeds, hard by the gate
Snapping mouth and vap’rous breath
Bring a searing, grisly death
Mighty Shassar is its name
Known by men as Sailor’s Bane

They made their way down to the docks to hire a boat and crew. On the way, they bumped into Ferros, who they had not seen since entering the city. He explained that he had not been allowed to bring his zombies and skeletons into Vergez and had eventually decided to leave them outside. Once he was in the city, he was contacted by a representative of the church of Foik, who informed him that he had been selected to set up a new temple nearby. He would therefore be leaving the party forthwith and would not be accompanying the party on their latest mission.

(DG note – this arrangement had to be made because Ferros’ player had chosen not to rejoin the campaign after the exams break. Along with Garry the Gnome’s player, they now had other commitments; we wished them well and thought it best not to NPC their characters, since they might want to come back at some point).

The party managed to find a ship for hire and a crew to go with it. After some argument about whether to pay a crew or steer it themselves (quickly abandoned when nobody had the right skills to do so), they set off on the journey into the Southern Ocean.

A week later, the lookout in the crow’s nest sighted land on the horizon; not a very large piece of land but land nonetheless. As they got closer, it became clear that it was a rocky island and waves were breaking some way from its shores. Alurax sent Eristar off to see what she could discover and send the results back to him. He reported that the island was surrounded by a coral reef, apart from one narrow entrance. There was also a small area of beach on one part of the island which suggested the party’s landing point.

Elysia was keen to use her Fly spells to ferry the party across the reef-enclosed lagoon but Alurax took the initiative and ordered the captain to sail through the gap in the coral and head for the beach. The ship slipped into the lagoon and as it made its way towards the beach, Alurax’s Trident of Warning started to pulse an alert. The fighter concentrated on what it was sending and soon realised that a huge dragon turtle was heading straight for the ship.

Awesome Mini or what?

Alurax fired arrows at the incoming target and Elysia blasted it with Magic Missiles but it seemed that this did nothing to deter the attack; the dragon turtle hit the ship and nearly knocked it over in the water. Gullhar and Alagon were thrown into the water and the dragon turtle turned and began another run. As the paladin and the elf scrambled to grab the ropes that had been flung to them (and the sailors who had shared their fate), the ship was hit again and this time it completely tipped over. Alagon and Gullhar were flung across the ship by the ropes and landed near one of the longboats that had become detached. They swam as fast as they could to get out of the water.

Elysia and Alurax clambered up onto the side of the ship as the dragon turtle headed towards them for a third attack. This time, it reared up its head and blasted Elysia and the sailors with scalding steam; because of the damage that it had already taken, this was not as bad as it could have been.  The sailors leapt into the water, as did Elysia. Alurax ran along the hull of the ship and leapt onto the dragon turtle’s head, trying to stab at it with his trident. He missed. Meanwhile, Elysia used a Polymorph Self spell to turn into a smaller dragon turtle so that she could communicate with the monster.  She pleaded with it to allow them to pass because they were trying to destroy an ancient and evil magic user. The dragon turtle declared that it was loyal to Maldred, who had given it the lagoon for its own and refused to aid the party. As it prepared to blast Elysia in the water, Alurax stabbed at it again with his trident and this time, he was successful. The dragon turtle sank down into the waters of the lagoon, taking the doughty fighter with it as he struggled to pull his weapon out.

Regular readers will recall that during the adventure in the Tomb of the Holy Avenger, the party had managed to gain several handy new powers, one of which was water breathing. This stood Alurax in excellent stead as he managed to pull his trident out and return to the surface.

Meanwhile, Gullhar and Alagon had managed to use the longboat to rescue Elysia and Lydia and as many of the sailors as they could fit in. They rowed the longboat to the beach and returned to pick up the rest of the crew. As they rowed in, they spotted, about forty feet beneath the clear waters of the lagoon, the wreck of an older ship that had clearly not been so lucky when it came to the attentions of the dragon turtle. Whilst the crew, Elysia, Gullhar and Lydia dried out on the beach, Alagon and Alurax decided to go down and see if they could bring up whatever it was that the ship had been carrying. They had a profitable time, with some precious metal ingots, jewellery, gems and magic items recovered.

Further up the beach, there was a cave entrance in the cliff. The party decided to investigate. Beyond the cave was a passage into the interior of the island. At the far end of the corridor, Alagon found a heavy iron door but beside that, there was an eerie obelisk made of a sickly green stone with sinister runes carved into it. He sensed it was evil but as soon as he approached, he found his strength leaching away and he could barely stand up in his armour. The party dragged him back and he found himself recovering, albeit slowly.

Nobody wanted to pass the obelisk after seeing what it had done to the paladin and Gullhar even tried to lasso it and pull it over, hoping that by doing this he could drag it down the beach and into the sea. However, it was firmly fixed to the floor and refused to budge, despite Gullhar giving it his best shot.
Lydia then suggested that if the loss of strength was all that happened if they approached the obelisk, perhaps they should just crawl past it and out of its influence on the far side. This is exactly what the party did, with Alurax going first, followed by the others. They found themselves in a large room faced with glassy black stone.

Probably the wrong Obsidian Chamber picture.

 A deep trench ran across the middle of the chamber, bridged by a slab of rock. Alagon approached the bridge and glanced down into the trench to find that there were two bodies at the bottom; one a human and the other a gnome. Knowing better than to move across the bridge without checking it out, Alagon and Gullhar decided to test it. Gullhar rolled a gold coin across the bridge and as it passed the five foot mark, it vanished, reappearing at the bottom of the chasm. They then threw another coin across the bridge, and this time it hit the far side with no problem.

Gullhar, in a flash of inspiration deduced that the bridge was an illusion beyond five feet and that this was clearly what had happened to the two adventurers whose bodies had been seen. Elysia flew the party across and they regrouped on the far side.

Unfortunately for them, the far side was already occupied by a pack of hungry shadows, eighteen in total who came swooping out of the darkness, eager for battle. Alagon and Lydia stepped forward and tried to use their ability as paladins to turn the undead. Alagon succeeded in turning six of them, but Lydia was less successful. Elysia used her Wand of Illumination’s Sunburst facility to reduce four more of the shadows to virtual impotence; they fled back into the darkness.

"Ooh look lads, they've got no cleric!"

The other eight attacked, but stiff resistance by the party and another Sunburst managed to wipe them out and the party took stock; only Lydia had been hit and had some of her strength drained but she soon started to recover again. Whilst Alurax climbed down on a rope to investigate (and loot) the bodies in the chasm, the rest of the party waited at the head of a long passageway lined with glassy black stone, sloping downwards into the dark.

Once Alurax had finished, he led the way down the passage, choosing to slide all the way down on the glassy stone. The rest of the party were a bit more circumspect and as such found a skeleton in the passage about thirty feet down. They checked it out and found some more magical items and money on it.  Alurax, in the meantime had discovered that at the end of the passage were two large bronze doors, which did not seem to open when he pushed at them. He decided to wait for the rest of the party so that they could try and get the doors open together. What was beyond them?  There was only one way to find out.

An Adventure for Every Monster - Displacer Beast

Frequency Very rare    
No appearing  2-5
AC 4
Move 15”   
HD 6
% in lair 25%
Treasure type D   
No of attacks  2
Damage per attack 2-8/2-8   
Special attacks  Nil
Special defences -2 on opponent’s attack dice
Magic resistance Save as 12th level fighter +2 on die
Intelligence  Semi-
Alignment Neutral
Size  L
THAC0  13
XP value 475 + 8/hp

The party is approached by a man who needs their help urgently. He explains that following a terrible magical accident, a friend of his has been lost in the ever-shifting interdimensional vortex that surrounds the planes of existence. He needs to get her back before she becomes insane and mutated by the powerful energies that crackle across the dimensions. To do this, he needs to create a Displacer Beast King. Just like a Rat King, the Beast King consists of a number of Displacer Beasts joined together at the tail; they then acquire power beyond those of normal Beasts and can rip holes in the fabric of reality when they jump.

If the party can find and capture sufficient Displacer Beasts to make a Beast King, the party’s new friend says that he can join them together. All they have to do then is wait for the Beast King to make its first jump and then enter the vortex.

All is as represented; the party’s first big task is to find and capture a number of Displacer Beasts. That’s not going to be easy, considering they can displace themselves at will.

If the party can complete this stage of the mission successfully, then they will find their new friend more than able to carry out his part. When the appropriate magic is used, the tails of the Beasts will fuse and they will become a Beast King. The first displacement that the Beast King makes will indeed rip a hole in reality, allowing access to the interdimensional vortex.

This is a wild and frightening place where the laws of physics and indeed, reality in general do not work, or work in very different ways. Matter itself can be distorted and warped. The party’s friend will use possessions of the missing woman to try and locate her which should work well enough. What she will be like when she is found is another thing. The DM can decide or roll a d6 to find out.

1. Relatively unaffected; traumatised and with perhaps a phobia or two. Will return to normal once brought back to the Prime Material Plane
2. Temporarily insane due to the things that she has seen; this will last for 1d12 weeks once she returns to the Prime Material Plane, during which time there is a chance, albeit small, that her ravings will reveal important information about dimensional travellers and goings-on in other planes.
3. Permanently insane – as above, but there is no recovery possible (unless it be by wish). The party’s friend will be upset but will still pay the party their fee.
4. Mildly warped; will have randomly decided body part twisted or moulded into a new appendage, or will have acquired an ability similar in character to a mutation.
5. Severely warped; will be different in body shape (but still human in flesh) or may have acquired extra appendages, limbs or heads. Very unlikely in this instance to be sane. 
6. Transformed; has become a different substance, perhaps rock, jelly, slime or similar. What little consciousness there is left will be wholly mad by now. There is a good chance that she will attack the party and her old friend.

The DM should also keep an eye on how long the party stays in the interdimensional vortex; too long and they too will start to exhibit the same symptoms. They may well see things whilst there which will affect their mental stability; the DM can be inventive and use whatever sanity rules exist in his/her campaign.

The boys are back!

Trampier - the master

Very sad to hear of the death - at such a horribly young age - of Dave Trampier. For my money, he was the best artist D&D had; his illustrations summed up how I visualised my dungeons and the one above is for me, THE archetypal dungeon scenario. He was a man who helped to make my memories, and is now a memory himself but what images he's left behind for us to remember him by.

An Adventure for Every Monster - Dinosaurs!

(with thanks to Arthur Conan Doyle)

The party is in a frontier town when they are approached by two rough, tough adventurers (at least a couple of levels higher than them) who explain that they are in the business of running hunting trips for bored nobles. Their previous security detail was seduced away by the lure of a large dungeon complex and they are in need of fresh volunteers to provide the weaponry and combat expertise for a new trip that the adventurers are planning.

Provided that the party is up for this, the two men arrange for them to meet up at the town gates in two days’ time, with their equipment, weapons, armour and supplies. The trip will probably take at least a month, the adventurers advise.

Two days later, the party is met at the town gates by their two new friends and a gaggle of rather uninspiring individuals, clearly wealthy and rather indolent, with their servants and retinues in tow. The nobles in question are diffident and will not speak to the party, seeing them as ruffians and too uncouth to bother with.

The voyage begins rather uneventfully; the town is in an area which, whilst technically wilderness, has been cleared out of any menacing monsters some years ago. However, once the party has covered the safe part of the journey, the terrain becomes rather more difficult; the hills become steeper and the going much tougher. Eventually, the two adventurers announce that they are nearing their destination. The next day should show where they are headed.

And indeed it does. Coming up over a rise in the trail, the party can see ahead a huge plateau rising above the wilderness. It looks big from where they are standing but it must be absolutely massive close up. The distance to the plateau takes at least two days to cross but when the party arrives, they will be scratching their heads about how to get to the top.

The two adventurers have the answer; they have been here before and know a way up the towering cliffs. They explain to the nobles that there will be no chance of carrying up all their equipment, so everything non-essential will be left at the bottom for their return. The nobles will balk at this but the two men know a cave in the cliff face that is easily concealable and suggest that all their equipment is placed in there.

With that out of the way, the ascent can begin. The path is steep and difficult but nothing that an experienced party can’t handle (rolling 1 on a DEX check is probably the only thing that can go wrong here). The climb will take the best part of the day – if the party has started any later than mid-morning, then the sun will set while they are still on the path. The DM can inflict penalties on the group but chances are the servants and retinue will pay the price, rather than the party.

And so the party will reach the top. The interior of the plateau is a tumbled mass of jungle, rocky outcrops, rivers and lakes, the sort of thing that it will be practically impossible to negotiate by horse. The two adventurers now explain that this is the hunting ground – the prey are dinosaurs, which seem to have survived here by some inexplicable chance. The nobles seem very excited by all this and start to unpack their weapons. The party may be quite eager to try their skills out against huge beasts from the dawn of time.

But all is not as it seems. The two adventurers have indeed been to this plateau before – as part of an adventuring party of their own. Whilst there, they stumbled across a temple complex inhabited by a native cult worshipping eldritch gods and were swiftly captured.  One by one, the captives were sacrificed in horrible ways and the experience drove the last two adventurers completely insane. They in fact became members of the cult and pledged their souls to the horrifying entities who were worshipped at the temple. To prove their worth, they suggested that they should return to the outside world and lure more victims to the plateau with the promise of hunting and wealth. This has worked twice already and now the third group of unsuspecting victims has arrived.

The two adventurers will contrive to lead the group closer to the temple but not so obviously that they raise suspicion. The natives will shadow the group to ensure that nobody escapes and then, when they ‘stumble across’ the temple, the trap will be thrown.

The natives will be skilled in bushcraft, armed with bows, arrows, spears, small knives and clubs. They will be wearing next to no armour. They will, in all likelihood have a shaman or priest (who will be the equivalent of an 8th level cleric) as well as tribal champions, probably 5th level fighters.  Their tactics will be to try and incapacitate rather than kill their enemies – this means they will reduce enemy parties to unconsciousness (minus hit points if you’re using that rule) and then bind them securely and use healing magic to bring them to perhaps 1 or 2HP.

The DM is encouraged to map and plot out the temple complex, although it will not be that large – perhaps a couple of levels. Being a lair of eldritch horror, it will have mysterious and eerie carvings all over the place and the holy of holies will cause detrimental effects to characters of strongly good alignments.  It may have guardians along the lines of Lovecraftian entities.

If the party is captured en masse, it may seem as though there is little that can be done to save them. However, it is possible that one of the nobles or one of their servants has managed to escape and could try to free one or more of the party. It is unlikely that they will be able to recover their armour and weapons unless they want to provoke a battle with the entire tribe. A tactical retreat into the jungle and some canny tricks and traps a la McGyver may be the best tactic.

There is of course treasure in the temple, but it will mostly be in the form of gold idols and artefacts which have been fashioned in the image of the eldritch nasties, so making them unsellable to any but the most dedicated scholars and collectors. They can be melted down for bullion value, of course. The property and belongings of previous duped parties were stored in the cave at the foot of the cliffs and later sold for profit by the two adventurer cultists.

If the party ends up due to be sacrificed, the ceremony should tax the sanity of all those present; those who do go insane may well end up as demented servants of the eldritch entities themselves and may join the two adventurer cultists on their next trip back to civilisation in search of more victims.

The City by Stella Gemmell

Yes, Gemmell as in David’s wife. She worked with him on some of his books and completed his Fall of Troy series after his death. This is her first solo novel and by heck, it’s a cracker. This is, for me, the equivalent for fantasy of what Hawk Quest was for historical fiction. I don’t think she put a foot wrong in this one – it’s so well written, inventive and plotted that it was a joy to read.

What’s it about?  Well, it describes the efforts of a motley assortment of characters to bring down an apparently immortal and thoroughly decadent emperor who rules over the eponymous City. Some of them are fighting in an incredibly long war between the City and its enemies, others are inhabitants of the gloriously intricate under-City which is like some kind of mega-dungeon, slowly flooding and causing the city above it to sink. They are tied together by some truly brilliant plotting that is immensely satisfying when you finally realise how it all falls together.

The prose is realistic, particularly the combat scenes, gritty without being nihilistic or bleak in any way, with characters that you really come to like and want to see succeed. One of the main characters, in my mind at least is the City itself. There’s no map but by the end of the book you feel you could probably draw one. It’s a huge, sprawling place, amazingly real, and – as I mentioned before – built on so many levels, it’s a bit like Gormenghast. The world-building is sans pareil, and could give many DMs a lesson in how to make something at the same time familiar and yet strikingly new in its exoticism.

It’s 560 pages long, so as fantasy epics go, it’s rather mid-length. I could have done with more pages, to be honest as at no point did I feel that the pace was flagging. I’d recommend it if you like David Gemmell’s work but I think Stella should be read on her own merits – of which, if this is anything to go by, she has plenty.

An Adventure for Every Monster - Devil, Pit Fiend

Frequency   Rare
No. appearing 1 or 1-3
Armour class  -3
Move  6”/15” 
Hit Dice  13
Percentage in lair 65%     
Treasure type J, R
No. of attacks 2
Damage per attack  5-8/7-12    
Special attack  See below
Special defences  +2 or better weapon to hit
Magic Resistance 65%
Intelligence Exceptional
Alignment Lawful Evil
Size   L (12‘ tall)
THAC0  9
XP value 7900 + 18/hp

The devil’s abilities include:

Pyrotechnics
Produce Flame
Wall of Fire
Detect Magic
Detect Invisible
Polymorph Self
Hold Person
Gate in 1-3 barbed devils (60%) or another pit fiend (40%) (70% chance of success)
Once per day, the pit fiend can deploy a Symbol of Pain.
Shed Fear in a 20’ radius.
Charm Person
Suggestion
Illusion
Infravision
Teleportation (no error)
Know Alignment
Cause Fear
Animate Dead


Many years ago, a high-level party was adventuring when they came up against a particularly tough opponent. The magic user, high in intelligence but not quite as well-endowed in the Wisdom department, used a Polymorph Other on his trusted henchman to turn him into a Pit Fiend. The plan worked but the magic user got separated from his polymorphed henchman and was then killed elsewhere by another opponent.

Left on his own, the henchman struggled to come to terms with what had happened to him and what his fate would now be. He was horrified, particularly as he was a nice chap to begin with, but slowly his predicament and his isolation began to eat away at his sanity and he started to believe that he really was a Pit Fiend and that his human memories were just delusions.

Succumbing to his diabolical urges, he began to go on rampages, slaughtering parties of adventurers sent to finish him off. After each combat, he would remember his former self when looking at the bodies of adventurers and this drove him even more insane. His rampages grew worse, including atrocities more in line with demons than devils.

In time, this came to the attention of Asmodeus himself and he despatched a real Pit Fiend to destroy the impostor and restore the Lawful reputation of devildom.

Into this situation comes the luckless party, hired by a local nobleman to accompany his rather weedy son on his first mission as a member of a holy order of knights (he got the job through generous donations by his father). The party will get a bonus if they finish off the ‘pit fiend’ but the penalty if the son dies will more or less wipe out that bonus.

The party will get wind of the trail of destruction pretty quickly as the ‘pit fiend’ is not subtle about what he does. Only when the party are closing to engage will the real pit fiend show up and he’s not fussy about stuff like collateral damage. In fact, if he can garner some more souls for his diabolical master, he will do so.

An Adventure for Every Monster - Devil, Lemure

Frequency   Common
No. appearing 5-30
Armour class  7
Move  3” 
Hit Dice  3
Percentage in lair 100%     
Treasure type Nil
No. of attacks 1
Damage per attack  1-3    
Special attack  Nil
Special defences  See below
Magic Resistance Standard
Intelligence Semi-
Alignment Lawful Evil
Size   M
THAC0  16
XP value 65 +3/hp

Lemures regenerate at a rate of 1hp per melee round so they are not usually destroyed by the wounds inflicted on them. They can be destroyed permanently only by blessed things (holy water, holy swords, etc). They are not subject to any form of sleep, charm or the like.

The party have been hired to (or perhaps have become involved with the efforts to) destroy a temple which worships a particular devil prince. Rumours abound of human sacrifice, sinister manifestations of diabolical power and an even darker secret at the heart of the temple.

The party should have little trouble defeating the cultists. They are mostly misfits and losers who saw the cult as a path to personal gratification. Their leader, however, is a different matter; a mid-level cleric who will give the party a hard time before ultimately being defeated.

But that’s just the start of this adventure. The dark secret at the heart of the temple is accessed through a hidden door behind the altar, and it is through this that the priest will dart. Down a shaft lies a network of tunnels, at the centre of which is a pool of oozing, festering slime, complete with semi-dissolved faces and slimy hands reaching out of it, etc. This is the pool into which the sacrificial victims’ bodies were dumped and now it has achieved a sort of semi-sentience.

If he is still alive, the priest will lead the party into the lower levels and once they are down there, he will throw a switch that causes all the passageways out to be sealed by sliding stone doors. This is the signal for the slime pool to start disgorging horribly melted humanoid figures – the lemures, who will hunt the party down through the network of tunnels and seek to drag them back to the pool, where – if they are drowned in the slime – they will rise again as lemures themselves.  If the priest has been killed, then there will be a booby trap which will be triggered as the party explore the lower levels.

The lemures are, despite their weak stats, ineluctable in their efforts to capture the party and drown them in the slime. There are ways in which the slithering menace can be defeated but will the party survive long enough to find them?

After a long absence...

Just to advise that I am still alive. However, I need to inform my readers that because of the demands of schoolwork on Junior Grognard, we have had to take the decision to suspend Team Adventure for a couple of months. It's not a decision that we took lightly, since we know that the players really enjoy it and were looking forward to it starting up again after Christmas.

I am still working on the Adventure for Every Monster series, which will be continuing soon. Since I'm not gaming (apart from running the CoC pbem), I've not got that much game-related stuff to blog about. But this blog is not closing down - posting will be intermittent until further notice.

An Adventure for Every Monster - Devil, Ice

Frequency   Uncommon
No. appearing 1 or 1-4
Armour class  -4
Move  11” 
Hit Dice  11
Percentage in lair 60%     
Treasure type Q, R
No. of attacks 4
Damage per attack  1-4/1-4/2-8/3-12    
Special attack  See below
Special defences  +2 or better weapon to hit
Magic Resistance 55%
Intelligence High
Alignment Lawful Evil
Size   L (10 ½ ‘ tall)
THAC0  10
XP value 4400 + 16/hp

The devil’s abilities include:

Fly
Wall of Ice
Detect Magic
Detect Invisible
Polymorph Self
Gate in 2 bone devils (70%) or another ice devil (30%) (60% chance of success)
Cause Ice Storm (once per day)
Charm Person
Suggestion
Illusion
Infravision
Teleportation (no error)
Know Alignment
Cause Fear
Animate Dead

The ice devils have been having a bit of trouble recently.  The city in which the adventure is set has recently come under the domination of a fire cult, whose clerics have been strengthening their power until they are on the verge of being able to wield fireball spells, a feat usually reserved for magic users. One particular cleric, a Priest Prince of the city, has been very effective at eliminating ice devils whenever they appear to try and restore the balance between fire and ice. This is also affecting the balance of power on the lower planes.

Hitherto, the ice devils have been using the manifest-fight-destroy model of operations but one particular ice devil, who is perhaps a little smarter than his fellows, has come up with a cunning plan that has resulted from a careful study of the opposition.

His plan revolves around the character of the Priest Prince, who is an arrogant and short-tempered man, handsome but violent. His shortcomings are tolerated because of his skills at devil slaying and his clerical powers. His looks have made him a hit with the ladies of the city, including one who has become perhaps slightly more obsessed with the Priest Prince than others might be. This is due in no short part to the efforts of the ice devil, who has used his Charm Person and Suggestion powers to convince the lady, through dreams, that she is destined to be the Priest Prince’s one true love. She is not particularly comely and, in reality, has no appeal for the Priest Prince. 

Now the ice devil has prepared his arrow, he merely needs to let it fly. The lady will begin to obsessively stalk the Priest Prince, who will brush her off brusquely, causing her to become even more determined. Eventually, he will lose his temper and either assault her or kill her to be rid of her. This will cause problems for him and the Fire Priests since the lady’s family is a powerful merchant clan who wield great influence in the city. Clashes between the spiritual and secular may well spill over into civil strife as there are many who resent the dominance of the Fire Priests.

The party will walk into this situation with little knowledge of the behind-the-scenes machinations.

There are several options for them to be dragged into this scenario.

1. They are hired by the Priest Prince to ‘deter’ the lady from making any further advances towards him. This can involve diverting her if one of the party has particularly high Charisma, ruining his image in her eyes by staging some sort of sham scandal, that sort of thing.

2. Maybe another party had tried option one before and had no luck. The Priest Prince does not need this sort of distraction at a time when he is due to lead a crusade against heretics in the northern wilds and so wants the lady out of the way – permanently. The party need to have her eliminated in a way that will not lead back to the Priest Prince and which will keep them out of prison as well.

3. The lady herself realises that on her own, she stands little chance of getting anywhere near the Priest Prince, so she approaches the party to see if their superior planning and intelligence can achieve what she has failed to do. The party need to come up with a way of getting the Priest Prince to see the lady’s obvious (to her) virtues and concluding a successful match.

4. The lady’s family are getting more than a little concerned about her infatuation and think that it’s for the best if she forgets about it. This is of course not going to happen whilst the ice devil is working his wicked plan. The party are hired to provide diversions aplenty (both social and personal) for the lady so that she has no chance to pine for her (clearly) unsuitable beau.

5. As with option four, but the family have already tried many different ways to break the lady’s infatuation and nothing has worked. Her father now suspects that something fishy is going on and wants the party to find out what. This will require the DM to devise the means by which the ice devil has managed to influence the lady’s mind. It will be no easy task to find and combat him, as he is a cunning and subtle fellow. 


If the ice devil thinks it has a chance, it may lure the party into the fire temple and somehow contrive for them to desecrate it (albeit unwittingly). This will enable the ice devil to gate in infernal support which will give the party a hard time.

Assuming they survive, the party may well become embroiled in the civil strife that follows any clash between the Fire Priests and the merchants. If the ice devils make a comeback following the weakening of the Fire Priests’ power, the party may well become a target for revenge attacks.

Team Adventure - The Ghosts and Christmas Presents.

Three ghosts down, one to go. The fearless phantom swept into the room and headed for Gullhar, who the party had pushed to the front, figuring that the age attack would affect him the least. Garry the Gnome stepped up to support the elf and Ferros came in from behind to joint the fray.

Ferros and Gullhar’s attacks missed, as did the ghost. Garry weighed in with his magic daggers and scored a hit. The ghost had been badly weakened by Elysia’s Sunburst and succumbed to the gnome’s attack, dissolving into a cloud of ectoplasm.

As the party gathered its forces, and Alurax went to pick up and bring back the ancient Elysia, Alagon’s paladin-sense began to tingle and he felt that there was certainly something worth checking out down the staircase in the middle of the room. Elysia cast Leomund’s Tiny Hut so that she could shelter therein, whilst the rest of the party headed down to see what they could find.

At the bottom of the stairs, Garry and Lydia went left, following the passage through an empty room. Whilst they were doing that, the rest of the party, ignoring Adventurer 101, went right and ended up in a room where there were two large stone heads carved into the north and west walls. As Ferros and Alagon stepped into the room, the northern head animated and told them that they must not, under any circumstances, waken the western head or they would be overwhelmed by doom. The cleric and the paladin crept very carefully out of the room, managing not to make any noise. However, Garry, who had been called back by the party managed to trip over his own feet and fall, clattering to the floor. At this point, the western head woke, opened its mouth and from it poured a sea of squirming, slithering and crawling insects, which headed straight for the luckless gnome. 

He hurled an oil bomb at them, which took out a fair few, but the rest just headed round the fire and continued to advance. He used more oil to lay a fire wall which held them up whilst the rest of the party scurried through the room and down the corridor on the far side.

At the end of the passageway, the party found a room in which an ochre jelly lived. It had been a long time since the jelly had eaten a square meal and so it headed straight for Alagon, who was first into the room. Garry rushed into the room and with a combination of arrows, swords and oil, they managed to drive the jelly back until it was against the far wall. Garry watched as it squeezed itself into small cracks in the wall. He deduced that there must be a secret door there and hammered at it until it began to open.

Beyond it was a narrow passage into another room, in which lay the corpse of a long-dead adventurer. While Ferros started to animate it, Garry noticed that there was a barred window on the far side of the room. Beyond the window was another chamber, in which could be seen two suits of armour, each holding a sword. Garry tried to bend the bars with his hammer, but failed miserably and suggested that perhaps Larsh might want to lend a paw. The polar bear lumbered up and ripped the bars from their fittings.

As the dust settled, Garry clambered through the hole and found that there were in fact four suits of armour, one at each corner of the room. A passageway led off both east and west; the eastern passage emitted a faint blue glow that interested the party. Meanwhile, Garry had decided to try throwing a stone at one of the suits of armour. This was greeted with dismay by the party but they were on the far side of the window and could not interfere.

What do I have to do?  Put a warning notice on it?

As soon as the stone hit the armour, it – and its three fellows – animated and advanced on the hapless gnome. Alagon clambered through to help his fellow party member, but the attackers had soon brought the gnome down, assisted by the fact that the wounds dealt by their swords continue to bleed after they had been inflicted. His increased dexterity following the incident with the iron throne helped Alagon to avoid the deadly swords but Lydia and Gullhar were less fortunate, although they did managed to whittle down the animated armour, with some key bowshots by Alurax to assist them.

Once their opposition had been overcome, the party moved down the passage towards the blue light. They had already discovered that Garry’s wounds could not be healed with magic, and so they left him behind, bandaged and semi-conscious. At the end of the passage, they were confronted with a figure, sitting on a crystal throne, a sword across its knees. It was bathed in a column of blue light.  Whilst they tried to work out how to get the sword without disturbing the light, Alurax edged around the outside of the room, finding that on the far side a gateway had appeared that had not been there when they originally entered the room. Fearing a trap, he returned to the party.

Nobody wanted to be the one to enter the blue light, so they used the zombie that Ferros had just animated. The zombie shambled forward into the light and picked up the sword. As it did so, the blue light flickered and went out. Simultaneously, a deep rumbling sounded from somewhere in the dungeon.  As if that were not bad enough, eight identical swords landed on top of the zombie, causing him to fall to the ground with the original.

Soon, water was pouring into the room, swirling around the knees of the party. Ferros ordered his zombie to throw the swords to him, one by one. As the water rose, the luckless zombie did just as instructed and Ferros passed the swords to Alagon to see if they were the Holy Avenger. The second sword turned out to be the right one and the party began to struggle their way back upstairs to Elysia. The water was rising all the while and once it had got to the chests of the gallant band, they decided to make use of Larsh to carry Garry and lead them to safety.

Making it back to the room where they had left Elysia, they found that the water was coming full force through one of the passages that led off the chamber. Leomund’s Tiny Hut was now a bubble of water-free space into which the party piled hurriedly. The torrent was roaring down the shaft up which they had come, and they realised that it would probably not stop until it had filled the entire dungeon. They only had about an hour or so before the spell failed and with that, they imagined that they would swiftly drown.

It was at this point that somebody remembered that the party had acquired the ability of water breathing during their encounter with the statues that sprayed golden dust, way down at the (now drowned) bottom of the dungeon.  With the urgency suddenly off, the party waited until the dungeon was completely filled with water, then moved the Hut to the influx point and swam through it into the bottom of the lake (you will remember – if I put it into that session’s write-up – that there was a lake behind the hill into which the dungeon was built.)  They managed to struggle ashore and lay there for a while, catching their breaths.

When they had recovered, they walked round the hill to find the old ruined temple, with their horses still waiting for them (and, presumably, Ferros’ zombies and skeletons). They pitched camp for the night and the next morning woke to find that Garry’s hearing had returned. His wounds were also slightly recovered.

Whilst they were getting breakfast ready, Elador returned. He had left Wolf at the town to see if the Council of Elders could do anything for him, and had now popped back to see how the party was getting on. Quite how he knew not to teleport into a flooded dungeon is anyone’s guess but he’s a high-level wizard; he knows a lot of things.  Shocked to find his sister an extremely elderly woman, he hit upon the plan of using Polymorph Other to turn her into an elven version of herself. She would then be a 113-year-old elf, which is the equivalent of a human teenager.

As this was taking place, a strange shimmering globe appeared, floating above the ground. It halted just outside the ruined temple and out stepped a very special visitor. It was the extremely high-level cleric from the Christmas-themed adventure.

This lovely little mini painted by Brian from Lead Legion.

He had come to visit them and bring them a special gift – an egg box. No, not an Xbox – a box with six crystal eggs inside it. He explained that there was one for each of them and that they were in fact crystallised time from another universe outside our own. If the members of the party were ever in a situation where they needed to reverse time, they could crush the egg and that time would be released into our universe, forcing the party back five minutes into the past. The party realised that this was a very effective present, and made a mental note to be frugal with the eggs.

As a special gift to the party, the cleric also invited them to visit his winter world for a day or so, to recuperate from their wounds and recover their strength. He then dropped them back at the ruined temple again. 

As the cleric was leaving, he suddenly remembered that he had a message for Lydia. He told her “the chrysalis is awakening”.  She suddenly appeared very alarmed indeed.  When the party asked her what it was all about, she explained that in her homeland, far to the south, there was a legend that an evil magic user had constructed a chrysalis to give himself immortality in his bid for power. Many had discounted the legend as mere fable but the paladins of which she is a member took it seriously and warned about the awakening. Now that day is close at hand and she needs to travel to her homeland and seek out the chrysalis so that it can be destroyed. Is Team Adventure up for it?  We shall have to wait and see.

Team Adventure - The Phantom Menace

The giant slug (for such it was) emerged into the room; Elysia fired a Fireball at it and although it damaged the monster, it didn’t stop it. Alagon swung into action, moving in to attack the slug as it got a volley of arrows from Alurax, Ferros, Gullhar and Garry. It tried to bite at Alagon but missed; the party then fired their second shots and Elysia let rip with a Magic Missile; at 9th level, she could deliver some powerful blasts of magical energy and those, combined with the arrows that had been fired, finished the horrible thing off for good.

The party now had to decide where to go next; after some indecision, Ferros took the initiative and led everybody off down the passageway from which the slug had emerged. He was accompanied by Alagon, Garry, Gullhar and Wolf, with the others bringing up the rear.

As they reached the corner of the corridor, Alagon suddenly sensed a strong feeling of evil from the darkness ahead.  Reluctant to enter, Alagon slowly edged round the corner, with the rest of the party providing back-up. Gullhar scanned the room with his infravision but could see nothing.

As the party stepped into the room, four sinister figures came out of the gloomy corners. They were almost transparent and radiated sheer malice. Nobody knew what they were but Ferros knew that they were undead and raised the holy symbol of Foik, which drove them back into the darkness again.
 

We'll be back!

Having cleared the room of opposition, Ferros spotted a dead body lying in one corner and before you could say ‘Foik’, said cadaver was part of the Undead Army. The party headed off down the passageway again, making sure that the sinister undead figures were not waiting for them.

At the end of the passageway, they came to a room where they saw two more bodies on the floor. Again, Ferros stepped in to animate them but this time, there was a nasty surprise waiting. As the two new zombies stumbled towards ‘Master’, Ferros and Alurax noticed that there were white worms writhing in the putrescent flesh. Ferros promptly turned them, which destroyed them and Alurax hurled an oil bomb in, roasting what was left of the bodies and the worms.

Ferros' new zombie henchmen were destined for a short unlife.

The team decided to exercise caution from thereon and checked the room out thoroughly. Alurax, who’d had experience of nasty things lurking on the ceiling, looked up and saw that there was a shaft opening directly above their heads. It was thick with cobwebs and darker objects moved within it. Alurax fired an arrow up into the webs and by chance, hit a spider which dropped down onto the floor, dead.  Alagon reached up and managed, by use of a torch, to burn the first few feet of cobwebs. 

Having explored the only other passage leading from this room, which took them back to the clay jar chamber, the party thought that they had run out of options and decided to do what they had done on the previous level – send Gullhar round to see if he could find any secret doors. The elf set off back up the passage but he had only gone a little way when he met the four sinister undead coming towards him. He shouted out and alerted Ferros, who ran down to join him. The cleric raised the symbol of Foik again but this time, either his faith was lacking or the undead had grown bolder. They were not stopped and Ferros decided that discretion was the better part of valour. The party beat a hasty retreat to the room with the spider shaft, where they decided to make a stand.
 

Told you so!

The party deployed for action, with Wolf, Alagon, Ferros and Garry in the front row. Elysia and Elador were thinking about using their Teleport spells to take the party out of danger but then realised that with the weight restriction of the spell, they could only take one person each.

As the undead came drifting into the room, Elador recognised them as spectres. Ferros tried to turn them again but he had no luck this time either.  Elysia readied her Wand of Illumination and cast Sunburst which damaged but did not destroy the spectres. They closed in on the front rank of the party and battle was joined.

The spectres failed to hit Garry and Alagon but poor Wolf was hit and drained. As his lifeless body hit the floor, an eerie mist rose from it and started to take on the shape of a spectral wolf. 

Bet you're wishing you'd taken me for more walks now, eh, FORMER master!

Just as one of the spectres loomed in with its claws to drain Ferros, Alurax fired a magic arrow from the back rank and the undead predator dissolved into the darkness, destroyed in a very lucky hit.

The next round, Alurax used the same tactic to destroy the spectre that had killed Wolf as it was moving in to attack Lydia. Elysia fired another Sunburst at the spectre that was trying to hit the very nimble Alagon and destroyed that.  The final spectre closed in on Garry and everyone thought the gnome was about to be drained but he managed to dodge the chilling grasp; Elysia tossed her wand to Elador who fired Sunburst again at the spectre and destroyed it. 

That left the problem of the spectral wolf – Elysia took back her wand whilst Elador grabbed the fallen body and teleported out with it. It was his aim to return to the town, many miles distant and see if the Council of Elders could do anything for the fallen familiar.  A final Sunburst took care of the spectral wolf. The party had triumphed but not without cost. 

Disturbed by the prospects of other monsters lurking on this level and waiting to attack, Elysia fired a fireball up the spider shaft, clearing it of cobwebs and other debris (including some human bones from less than fortunate previous adventurers), then cast Fly and carried the party up the thirty feet or so of shaft to a small room with a narrow walkway around the opening. A passage led off it and they followed this until it came out into a room in which there was a flight of descending stairs and two other passages. There were also three dead bodies in the middle of the room.  Ferros wondered who they were and decided to use Speak with Dead to find out. The corpses revealed that they were low-level adventurers and had been killed by the spiders from the shaft (Ferros had not really thought about the questions he was going to ask and only had two to use).  Satisfied that the bodies represented no threat, he decided to animate them. Unfortunately, not all threats are visible ones and as the bodies rose from the floor, their ghosts emerged from the mouldering bodies and advanced on the cleric who had the temerity to disturb them.

Ferros took one look at the advancing phantoms and shrieked, taking to his heels in terror – down one of the passageway that the party had not yet explored. He also aged ten years but that was the least of his worries. One of the ghosts followed him and the others homed in on Elysia and Lydia, who had assumed that their cleric would sort out this latest undead problem.  Elysia resorted to her usual tactic of Sunburst but unfortunately this did not destroy the ghosts fully. They struck at Lydia, turning her from an 18-year-old to a paladin in her mid-forties.  Elysia was touched by the second ghost and became 73.   She still had her wits about her because another Sunburst finished off the ghosts. 

Meanwhile, Ferros had fled into a room where the first ten feet of floor was black and glistening. He failed to jump it and ran through it instead. His boots started to char and corrode and as he ripped them off, he realised that he was in a dead end. His plight concentrated his mind and he recovered his wits, only to see one of the ghosts drifting down the corridor towards him.  He attempted once again to use the power of Foik, but said deity must have been busy elsewhere, because the ghost just kept on coming.

Just as Ferros thought his number was up, Elysia appeared in the room, having teleported in. She fired a Sunburst at the ghost, who appeared weakened, though not destroyed and used a Fly spell to pick up the cleric and soar past the ghost. As they did so, the ghost reached out and made a grab for them. He touched Elysia, who went from 73 to 113 in an instant. She crashed to the floor and Ferros ran into the main room to alert the party to their magic-user’s predicament.  Elysia, in her dotage, now lay on the floor whilst the ghost decided to attend to the rest of the party who were a greater threat; he could always come back and finish off the extremely elderly magic user for afters.

The party prepared to defend themselves against what they now recognised as some of the deadliest adversaries they had ever encountered.

Too funny not to share

This.

Legend by David Gemmell

 There’s late to the party and then there’s only reading this book this year. It was published in 1984, when I was just 19 and Joe Abercrombie was 10 (or possibly 9).  All this time, it’s been off my radar and only now, having read stuff that’s been compared to it did I decide to find out what all the fuss is (was) about.

So what is it all about?  Well, Legend can best be described as what might have happened if a 60-year-old Conan with a bad back and a gammy knee was drafted in to defend Helm’s Deep against the Mongols. If you feed that combination through the directorship of John Ford, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Of course, with a summary like that, and it being fantasy, you’ll probably be expecting action of the most military sort. To tell the truth, Legend has plenty of fighting but there isn’t an overwhelming amount of it. We get battle scenes in which named characters participate but the fighting isn’t where the real story takes place. That is reserved for the sections of the book where Gemmell peels back the outside of his characters and looks into their souls.

Having done this, he reveals that his characters are just as fallible and human as the rest of us. There are no larger-than-life heroes here, unless you count Druss, and even he has his shortcomings, although as a paragon, personifiying the virtues of nobility, sacrifice, duty and honour, he has few equals.

In essence, what Gemmell has done with this book is to humanise Tolkien, giving us people with whom it’s very easy to identify, rather than Kings and Princes with Destinies and magic swords.

There are flaws in the book, of course; Rek’s romance with Virae seems to progress very fast indeed whereas it might have been a better idea to have had them meet at Dros Delnoch and there find each other. The length of the book is perhaps not quite enough for us to witness the fates of various characters, some of whom are killed off-screen, as it were. But given that Gemmell is no longer with us, we’re unlikely to get a Director’s Cut of the book and so must be satisfied with what we have – and thankful for it.

Gemmell is lauded by those who came after him – less charitable souls than I might dub them epigones – and he has an annual fantasy awards ceremony named after him. There are many debates as to his legacy on fantasy with many claiming his standard and marching forward with it. 

I suppose that rather than the vanguard of gritty fantasy as it is now defined, Gemmell was in fact the rearguard of heroic moral fantasy, where there was something larger than the character to which they could give allegiance, be that a principle or a cause.  It seems odd that he has been beatified by a genre which seems, over recent years, to have drifted away from the underlying values which made him such a popular and enduring author.