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canyonwalkerMy D&D group playing my adventure story The Collector's Menagerie spent much of the last session doing battle in the basement. After fighting the owlbear in the Hall to rescue the butler and get some sense of the challenge at hand the group decided that they would clean house bottom to top. Especially because they heard faint cries for help wafting up the servants' staircase from the underground level. Though first they checked out the chirping coming from the Conservatory. Finding there were stirges there, they closed the door on them and left. Then it was time to head downstairs and rescue the servants calling for help.
"The room is sumptuously wood paneled but otherwise Spartan except for a large table sitting slightly askew in the middle of the room," I told them. "The table is quite stout, and about 8 feet by 4 feet across the top. A raised lip surrounds the table top. Below that lip the table is covered with green fabric. Several white, stone balls are scattered across the surface, and two light maces site among them."
"It's probably a torture chamber," one of the players scoffed with a laugh.
Dipshits. Did we not already establish that this mansion is like the one in the game of Clue? It's the Billiard Room! 🤣
(BTW, my description of "light maces" on the table comes from a quick bit of research I did about the history of billiards. I didn't want it to be an anachronism that a wealthy person in this game world owned a billiard table. I'm giving my world a technology level roughly corresponding to 1600. I found that billiards had been around for upwards of 200 years by then. It had been adapted from croquet, though, an outdoors lawn sport that used mallets. Thus the indoor version used small mallets, called maces. The modern version with cue sticks would evolve later.)
As the group descended the narrow stairs a sense of foreboding grew. Occasional cries for help, in a weak but deep man's voice, continued. "Help, help me." The air cooled to a chill as they descended and an awful spell of rot and decay filled everyone's noses.
A wide, plain stone corridor stretch into darkness at the bottom of the stairs. Its end was beyond the reach of the group's lights. The magic lights provided by Ryuu-Han, who had a seemingly endless number of small but useful gadgets in his magical man-bag.
First they peered through an open portal on the left side of the corridor. With their enchanted torchlight they saw a crypt: a chamber with stone pillars and stone coffins, and at the center a bier atop an alabaster dais. There appeared to be a body under a light drape on the bier.
Satisfied that nothing in the crypt seemed to be shaking, the group moved on without checking out its deep shadows.
Herran the ranger entered the kitchen first. Herran had taken the brunt of damage from the last two monster encounters, the owlbear and the stirges, so it made sense to send him in first again. 😣
"Guys, it looks clear in here!" Herran announced just before he turned around and saw... a 8-foot long centipede-like creature with a mount full of sharp teeth crawling down the wall behind him.
The monster, a carrion crawler, swatted at Herran with one of its tentacles. It hit, stinging him with a contact poison that caused paralysis. 😨 Herran was unable to move, unable even to speak, as the monster moved around behind him to start eating him.
Fortunately for Herran he wasn't alone. Leoghnie wasn't about to let some overgrown arthropod make a meal out of her friend, even if it was thematically appropriate for being in the Kitchen. 🤣
Leoghnie stepped up, braving the crawler's waving tentacles herself. Sword already in hand, she lost no time joining the fight. With an mighty overhand blow, still aided by the strength enhancement from Kiarana's divine blessing, she chopped a big chunk out of the crawler's side.
Ryuu-Han acted next. Speaking words of magical conjuration he thrust his hand forward and launched a glob of acid at the monster. The acid sizzled and burned the creature's slimy hide.
Otonio stepped up to fight, as well. The group had been skeptical of him. With his foppish attire and noble lineage they suspected he was just cosplaying as a guard officer for his two-days-a-month duty. But he plunged his rapier deep into the monster's body, killing it.
Kiarana stepped forward to cure Herran's temporary paralysis with one of her spells. But the danger wasn't over.
The group's focus on the battle in the kitchen created a perfect opportunity a pair of ghouls hiding in the darkness in the crypt to attack. Yes, there were monsters hiding in the darkness the group didn't detect! And with the group's big warriors fighting the carrion crawler toe-to-... hundred toes in the kitchen, the ghouls attacked from behind against the unarmored Ryuu-Han.
The ghouls were human-like forms dressed in clothing hanging in rags over their mottled, decaying flesh. Bones poked out, mouths were full of sharp teeth, and eyes burned like hot coals in their sunken sockets.
"Zombies!" shouted Ryuu-Han.
Otonio once again rushed forward, defying his typecasting as the idle rich kid. One of the ghouls lunged and bit at him. Its sharp teeth tore through his handsome doublet but— CHUNK! couldn't penetrate the thin layer of mail hidden underneath.
As Ryuu-Han and Otonio started to fight back, the cleric Kiarana— still in the kitchen— spun around in anger at the report of undead. She raised the holy sunburst medallion from her neck and called upon the power of Reema, Goddess of the Sun and its Life-Giving Warmth. Rays of light burst from her medallion, passing between the arms and over the shoulders of Ryuu-Han and Otonio, and striking the ghouls. The power of the sun lit their undead bodies. Their skin glowed and started to crackle. Their eyes flared from smoldering orbs to burning flames. In a split-second flash that seemed to play out in slow motion, their bodies burned to ash.
Kkarana hadn't just invoked her power to Turn Undead, she made it a Greater Turn Undead.
To be continued....
A Little 9-Ball Torture, Anyone?
On their way around to the stairs the PCs peered through a wrecked door (the owlbear had damaged a lot of things in this part of the mansion) into one of the rooms along the front façade of the mansion."The room is sumptuously wood paneled but otherwise Spartan except for a large table sitting slightly askew in the middle of the room," I told them. "The table is quite stout, and about 8 feet by 4 feet across the top. A raised lip surrounds the table top. Below that lip the table is covered with green fabric. Several white, stone balls are scattered across the surface, and two light maces site among them.""It's probably a torture chamber," one of the players scoffed with a laugh.
Dipshits. Did we not already establish that this mansion is like the one in the game of Clue? It's the Billiard Room! 🤣
(BTW, my description of "light maces" on the table comes from a quick bit of research I did about the history of billiards. I didn't want it to be an anachronism that a wealthy person in this game world owned a billiard table. I'm giving my world a technology level roughly corresponding to 1600. I found that billiards had been around for upwards of 200 years by then. It had been adapted from croquet, though, an outdoors lawn sport that used mallets. Thus the indoor version used small mallets, called maces. The modern version with cue sticks would evolve later.)
As the group descended the narrow stairs a sense of foreboding grew. Occasional cries for help, in a weak but deep man's voice, continued. "Help, help me." The air cooled to a chill as they descended and an awful spell of rot and decay filled everyone's noses.
A wide, plain stone corridor stretch into darkness at the bottom of the stairs. Its end was beyond the reach of the group's lights. The magic lights provided by Ryuu-Han, who had a seemingly endless number of small but useful gadgets in his magical man-bag.
The Crypt
The group moved in close formation, wary that there might be a trap or a monster crouched in hiding, and not wanting to be split up.First they peered through an open portal on the left side of the corridor. With their enchanted torchlight they saw a crypt: a chamber with stone pillars and stone coffins, and at the center a bier atop an alabaster dais. There appeared to be a body under a light drape on the bier.
Satisfied that nothing in the crypt seemed to be shaking, the group moved on without checking out its deep shadows.
The Kitchen
Through a wide door on the other side of the corridor the group found the Kitchen. Prep tables, hearths, and storage barrels were lit at weird angles by enchanted torches knocked to the ground. Here the air reeked of spoiled meat, a different olfactory offense than the stench of trash and waste out in the corridor.Herran the ranger entered the kitchen first. Herran had taken the brunt of damage from the last two monster encounters, the owlbear and the stirges, so it made sense to send him in first again. 😣
"Guys, it looks clear in here!" Herran announced just before he turned around and saw... a 8-foot long centipede-like creature with a mount full of sharp teeth crawling down the wall behind him.The monster, a carrion crawler, swatted at Herran with one of its tentacles. It hit, stinging him with a contact poison that caused paralysis. 😨 Herran was unable to move, unable even to speak, as the monster moved around behind him to start eating him.
Fortunately for Herran he wasn't alone. Leoghnie wasn't about to let some overgrown arthropod make a meal out of her friend, even if it was thematically appropriate for being in the Kitchen. 🤣
Leoghnie stepped up, braving the crawler's waving tentacles herself. Sword already in hand, she lost no time joining the fight. With an mighty overhand blow, still aided by the strength enhancement from Kiarana's divine blessing, she chopped a big chunk out of the crawler's side.
Ryuu-Han acted next. Speaking words of magical conjuration he thrust his hand forward and launched a glob of acid at the monster. The acid sizzled and burned the creature's slimy hide.
Otonio stepped up to fight, as well. The group had been skeptical of him. With his foppish attire and noble lineage they suspected he was just cosplaying as a guard officer for his two-days-a-month duty. But he plunged his rapier deep into the monster's body, killing it.
Kiarana stepped forward to cure Herran's temporary paralysis with one of her spells. But the danger wasn't over.
The group's focus on the battle in the kitchen created a perfect opportunity a pair of ghouls hiding in the darkness in the crypt to attack. Yes, there were monsters hiding in the darkness the group didn't detect! And with the group's big warriors fighting the carrion crawler toe-to-... hundred toes in the kitchen, the ghouls attacked from behind against the unarmored Ryuu-Han.
The ghouls were human-like forms dressed in clothing hanging in rags over their mottled, decaying flesh. Bones poked out, mouths were full of sharp teeth, and eyes burned like hot coals in their sunken sockets.
"Zombies!" shouted Ryuu-Han.
Otonio once again rushed forward, defying his typecasting as the idle rich kid. One of the ghouls lunged and bit at him. Its sharp teeth tore through his handsome doublet but— CHUNK! couldn't penetrate the thin layer of mail hidden underneath.
As Ryuu-Han and Otonio started to fight back, the cleric Kiarana— still in the kitchen— spun around in anger at the report of undead. She raised the holy sunburst medallion from her neck and called upon the power of Reema, Goddess of the Sun and its Life-Giving Warmth. Rays of light burst from her medallion, passing between the arms and over the shoulders of Ryuu-Han and Otonio, and striking the ghouls. The power of the sun lit their undead bodies. Their skin glowed and started to crackle. Their eyes flared from smoldering orbs to burning flames. In a split-second flash that seemed to play out in slow motion, their bodies burned to ash.
Kkarana hadn't just invoked her power to Turn Undead, she made it a Greater Turn Undead.
To be continued....
