T-minus 14 hours

So, I've had 2 sick kids the past 2 weeks and an anniversary. The last post was mostly written, but I had to finish that up before updating. Now I have a moment of free time.

I'm going to use it to make sure I don't forget anything. I head to Gary Con in less than 14 hours.

1st Mord Mar Session of the Year

So, I ran the first Mord Mar session of the year last Saturday. The players had a blast. We started at level 5, and here's the PCs:

Khyron: Elf Wizard 5
General Wranth: Gnome Master Summoner 5
Moran the Mighty: Human Spy 4, Fighter 1
Abraxes Onyxheart: Dwarf Barbarian 5
Adrax Onyxheart: Dwarf Cleric 5
Hatch: Human Mindchemist 5

Gonn Inkweaver was the party's handler from the Adventurer's Guild. I do love that part of MM, not having to wrangle everyone to a cause. "You are part of the AG, you've been assigned to this team." Simple, sensible, and easy.

Anyway, they were assigned a secret task, finding the king's kidnapped daughter, Jayella Greybeard. The AG was sealed off for the appearance of the Hellevator (an uncommon, but not unheard of event.) They climbed inside and away they went.

They stepped out of the Hellevator into a 10' wide corridor. 2 doors on each side and the corridor continues into a room. They open both far doors. The door on the left has nothing but a set of footprints in dust leading to the NW corner.

Meanwhile, Moran steps into the right hand door, and gets attacked by 6 treasure chests. They mostly miss, push him out the door and shut it.

Khyron enters the room at the end of the hallway, and gets attacked by a gargoyle who just throws rocks from about 20' above. Each character that enters seems to awaken another gargoyle, all of whom throw rocks. The group hustles through the room to avoid rocks (leaving the footprints mostly unchecked.)

The passage splits, continuing forward and cutting right. Most of the party goes to the right. Due to positioning, Hatch steps into the forward passageway, and notices 'neato lights.' Failing his save, he heads toward them.

Meanwhile, the passage to the right led to a room with 3 aquariums. Adrax steps on a pressure plate, dropping a Gibbering Mouther onto himself, releasing 3 more from the aquariums, and dropping one next to Moran.

Quick recap of combat: Khyron maxes out a Fireball. General Wranth opened a pit to divide the battlefield. Adrax was enveloped by a Mouther, and Abraxes did lots of damage. End of this combat, Adrax was down 4 Con and a few HPs were lost around the party. Adrax used 2-3 Channels.

Meanwhile, Hatch has walked under water and into a far corner of a room. Fortunately, General Wranth saw which way he went. As soon as combat with the Gibbering Mouthers was over, he headed to find his lost friend.

This combat was brutal. There were 2 Corpse Candles from Tome of Horrors (PDF and Print). I didn't use the Con drain aura mainly because of the simultaneous fighting. That said, Hatch was brought down to 3 STR, and Moran was brought down to 1 STR before they killed the first one. The second Corpse Candle fled (presumably to guard something or warn someone.)

This is where the session ended for the night. 

New stuff this week

So, these past two weeks have been a good one for acquisitions:

1. 3 Dufex prints all about 6" x 8"."Gods of Lankhmar, (Kieth Parkinson?" "Lord Soth's Charge, (Kieth Parkinson)" and the cover of Unearthed Arcana (Jeff Easley).
2. Cyclopean Deeps Volume 1 from Frog God Games came today.
3. My Bones came in! 
4. Unearthed Arcana, 1E Player's Handbook, and Oriental Adventures came in today. I traded some Bones for these!
5. Necropolis (3E) showed up last week.
6. I found the 3E Ravenloft and Relics and Rituals at a local store for cheap.
7. Gary Gygax's Hall of Many Panes was bought on Ebay and delivered.

That's not bad for a couple of weeks. And more on the way.

CotMA 12

When last we left our intrepid adventurers, they were neck deep in trolls. We had 2 character deaths, and we were in trouble.

Feran: Ranger 6 (me)
Chance: Cleric 5/Rogue 1 (Ian)
Clip-Clop: Centaur Fighter 5 (Jake's character. Played by Dustin. 'Cause Mangonel is dead.)
Inquisitor 6 (Rob)
Mangonel: Human Barbarian 3/Druid 3 (Lion Shaman something or other) (Dead)
Tiefling Magus 4/Rogue 2 (Dave)

It is amazing what a difference 1 character makes. That centaur is brutal. Having him in combat we had a fighting chance.

We returned to combat on Feran's action. He immediately readied an action to hand the centaur his Flaming Axe. This quickly turned the battle. Doing 1d12 +10 + 1d6 will do that. Trolls have low AC, so Clip-Clop was dropping one a round. Add to this, the tiefling dealing acid damage, and Feran tripping the foes. And the Inquisitor was using bane. The red d6 is a Spiritual Weapon. The green die is a 'smoke countdown.' Opening the lane into the room actually was a benefit to us. We could attack several instead of one. Add to all of this the DM's dice were cold. We prevailed in a fight we were very close to losing.

Searching we found a secret room with 13 sacks in it. But, we also attracted a wandering monster. This guy showed up again. And again we ran. Straight back to the sphinx. We found it deactivated. But, it woke up after someone put themselves in the 'betting ring.' We gambled for a way home. And we won!

Coming out of the dungeon, we sold pretty much everything (in Greyhawk). We each had somewhere around 16k in gp. Feran bought a +1 enchantment on his Mithral Large Shield, a +2 enchantment on his Mithral Chain Shirt, and a Goggles of the Night.

Now we take a break so I can run some Mord Mar. Should be about 12 weeks and we'll be back to CotMA.