The Lost City, an after-school special
Mar. 9th, 2013 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athorntonB3, The Lost City, went down like a demented after-school special. The players encountered the Gormites, or Jocks, first, and got the basic story of the factions plus the Priests of Zargon (who are goths; I don't think they are well described in the module, so I gave the high priests Zargon masks and underpriests death's-head masks). Then, in between the fighting-the-lizards-and-beetles-and-other-dungeon-trash-monsters on levels 2 and 3 of the pyramids, the party went to the Madaruans (cheerleaders) and the Usmigarians (nerds) and did the whole "give them the idea of cooperating to ambush the priests of Zargon but make them think it was their idea the whole time" thing.
So there was much note-passing (literally) using the party as intermediaries, and a cunning plan, and the DM realizing that in the module as written that either he'd done a shitty job of understanding the layout or returning to the city for reinforcements and supplies, as the factions apparently do, takes you through some really dangerous areas on Level 5 so what's up with that?
Anyway there was that and a well-laid ambush and everyone learned the value of working together except the Priests of Zargon and their guards on account of them being dead, and it was so after-school-special that everyone wanted to hurl. A good time was had by all.
Although we're playing Swords and Wizardry Whitebox, we used some mechanics stolen from DCC. Ber, our elf wizard with more moxie than sense (she started the session covered in white fur, with a different voice every day, and with breath that hangs in the air as smoky runes of the last words of whatever sentence she said), did her usual thing of continuing to cast magic missiles as her failure die crept up and up and up. Finally she failed, and as she's a devotee of The Lady Of The Flowers, well, she lost 2 HP and 2 Charisma as three-inch thorns sprouted from pretty much all of her skin, in what was, I thought, a pretty awesome Patron Corruption event. There was a crit in the final battle when Nas Foullurker, the goblin thief, fired his blunderbuss (looted from Tegel Manor) at the Big Bad, rolled a 20, and the guy missed his save and passed out from the pain, making the ambush a lot less dangerous for the good guys than it was supposed to be.
Also, it turns out that Ber is totally metal. She took out a stirge execution-style: it was sucked on to her and she put her hand on it and Magic Missiled it point-blank, and then it turns out that when she was slitting the throats of the Slept opponents, she was doing it with her thorns.
B3 ties into the larger Vornheim/Gaxen Kane campaign world in that Zorlac the Librarian has sent the party to learn more about the League of Tumultuous Erudition (yes, stolen from the Elric! supplement Melniboné, and he's heard that the Usamigarans have contacts with them.
So there was much note-passing (literally) using the party as intermediaries, and a cunning plan, and the DM realizing that in the module as written that either he'd done a shitty job of understanding the layout or returning to the city for reinforcements and supplies, as the factions apparently do, takes you through some really dangerous areas on Level 5 so what's up with that?
Anyway there was that and a well-laid ambush and everyone learned the value of working together except the Priests of Zargon and their guards on account of them being dead, and it was so after-school-special that everyone wanted to hurl. A good time was had by all.
Although we're playing Swords and Wizardry Whitebox, we used some mechanics stolen from DCC. Ber, our elf wizard with more moxie than sense (she started the session covered in white fur, with a different voice every day, and with breath that hangs in the air as smoky runes of the last words of whatever sentence she said), did her usual thing of continuing to cast magic missiles as her failure die crept up and up and up. Finally she failed, and as she's a devotee of The Lady Of The Flowers, well, she lost 2 HP and 2 Charisma as three-inch thorns sprouted from pretty much all of her skin, in what was, I thought, a pretty awesome Patron Corruption event. There was a crit in the final battle when Nas Foullurker, the goblin thief, fired his blunderbuss (looted from Tegel Manor) at the Big Bad, rolled a 20, and the guy missed his save and passed out from the pain, making the ambush a lot less dangerous for the good guys than it was supposed to be.
Also, it turns out that Ber is totally metal. She took out a stirge execution-style: it was sucked on to her and she put her hand on it and Magic Missiled it point-blank, and then it turns out that when she was slitting the throats of the Slept opponents, she was doing it with her thorns.
B3 ties into the larger Vornheim/Gaxen Kane campaign world in that Zorlac the Librarian has sent the party to learn more about the League of Tumultuous Erudition (yes, stolen from the Elric! supplement Melniboné, and he's heard that the Usamigarans have contacts with them.
