I’ve been trying to run Somewhere West of Light in a West March-ish, if not purely West Marches, style. Part of this is giving the players a log of available quests/delves in our Foundry server so they can choose where to go next. The players decided to pursue the following:
Hajnal, the ancient elven witch who lives in Plainwood’s slums, has sought you out. Something or someone is killing any practitioners of her art who enter the lost province. She’s so far managed to remain safe by staying in Plainwood – the responsible parties don’t seem to be able or willing to enter the town. But she would very much like this matter laid to rest.
Her divinations, though hampered by the proximity of so many destinies, have shown her the location of someone who may be able to provide information about these killings. She’s unable to provide more information than that, but she has given you a location: a former holy place of Gede, long abandoned.
The crew consisted of:
- Tulk: marked half-orc, ranger 3
- Vraazox da Pryist: wolfchild goblin, priest of Memnon 3
- Hazel Ravenvale: outcast halfling, thief 2
They entered the delve site expecting a level 1 adventure, and the completion of the first milestone of the quest chain that will unlock the witch class (Cursed Scroll #1) for PC use. The GM should not have taken the module author’s word at face value…
[Spoilers follow for Flooded Crypt of the Necromancer, which appears in Shots in the Dark #1.]
The PCs entered the crypt and found an ancient and long-desecrated statue of Gede. Moving forward, they found that the former temple had long ago been repurposed for the burial rites of the elven empire which once ruled the region. Elven skulls and flowers intertwined in a very Larry Elmore-influenced Dia de los Muertos sort of theme. A mural on the far wall depicted an elven woman with a flowing emerald inset in her forehead addressing an assembled army.
The crawlers discovered a cache of mercantile goods which Hazel recognized as matching reports of recent thefts and caravan raids. Pushing a little further into the crypt, the party encountered Cory and Bella, two of the bandits responsible for the thefts. A not-quite-standoff threatened to erupt into violence, but a good reaction check on Tulk’s part, followed by assurances that the crawlers were not in the baron’s employ, defused the situation. Cory and Bella allowed the group to enter the chamber they were using as their domicile and search the moldering bookshelves for any information that might benefit Hajnal’s cause.
During the search, Vraazox’s enchanted blade indicated the presence of a hidden passageway. Hazel found a narrow slot in the stone behind one of the bookshelves and tripped the latch with the blade of her knife. Before the party could investigate, though, they heard screaming from the next room.
Throwing open the door, the crawlers found the remaining members of the gang, Roric and Lyssa, hard-pressed by four elven warrior skeletons that had emerged from their crypts. Tulk and Vraazox poured into the room while Hazel took up a shooting position. This allowed Roric and Lyssa to fall back, though Roric was gravely wounded. The party dispatched three of the skeletons with ease, though not before Memnon took issue with Vraazox’s incantations and revoked his ability to turn the undead [failed casting roll]. The fourth skeleton, which Vraazox had successfully turned with his first casting, fled into the next chamber. The party pursued it and struck it down, only to be immediately embroiled in combat with a wight that smashed its way free of its sarcophagus. It, too, fell before Tulk and Vraazox’s blades, though the party was hard-pressed and Tulk suffered greatly at its hands [several points of CON damage].
Tulk claimed the wight’s silver longsword as a trophy. The party forced their way into the adjacent central chamber [because the GM failed to set the door to “locked” status when he was setting up the module map in Foundry]. This chamber’s murals featured the same elven woman from the crypt’s vestibule, but now decayed and withered and commanding an army of the undead.
As the PCs contemplated this, a ghost arose from the sarcophagus in the center of the room. Surging forward, it attacked and possessed Vraazox! Tulk and Hazel managed to render the goblin unconscious, which greatly inconvenienced the ghost, but she retaliated by possessing Tulk. As Hazel fell back, Vraazox regained consciousness and was able to knock out Tulk, but the ghost turned on him, slashing at his soul with her wraithly talons. Vraazox fell, bleeding out next to Tulk’s unconscious form. With no weapon capable of injuring the ghost, Hazel fled. In the darkness, Vraazox passed on to whatever fate Memnon had appointed for him.
Spooked by their encounter with the skeletons and further unnerved by the sounds of more intense combat, the bandits were in the process of packing their essential belongings for a hasty departure. Hazel convinced Cory and Bella to stand with her against the ghost, whereupon Bella presented her with a silver dagger that the gang had found in the crypt. Moments later, the ghost appeared and possessed Bella. Seeing this, Roric and Lyssa joined the fray as well.
The battle was hard-fought, but at the end, Lyssa was dead, Roric and Bella were unconscious, Cory had piteously fled, and Hazel succumbed to possession. When Hazel returned to her senses, she was back in the chamber where Vraazox and Tulk lay. The ghost was hovering over Vraazox’s body, doing something involving intense magical energies.
Hazel crawled to Tulk and shook the ranger awake. The two women conferred quietly and determined they couldn’t be assured of taking down the ghost in their current condition [Tulk was at 1 hit point of her max 26, and Hazel only has 3 at full health thanks to a low Constitution and a very poor second-level roll]. They fled, pausing only to revive Roric and Bella and help carry Lyssa’s remains out of the crypt.
Outside, the survivors conferred while gathering wood for a pyre for Lyssa. Tulk and Hazel swore revenge on the ghostly necromancer. Roric, Cory, and Bella thanked them for their aid and promised to return the favor to the best of their ability – if nothing else, perhaps their village’s priest [the reserve PC for Vraazox’s character] would be able to offer some aid. Making a pact to meet here again soon, the bandits set off toward their home [which I have decided is Blackbridge, to keep that community on the map as a possible quest focus], while Tulk and Hazel shouldered their packs for the long, lonely hike back to Plainwood.
Back in town, Hazel set about finding herself a weapons-master who could train her in more effective weapon forms [starting the process of gaining a new weapon proficiency, as presented in the Western Reaches Kickstarter preview]. Tulk, muttering darkly, rented time in an alchemy lab and brewed up a flask of alchemist’s fire.
This session could very easily have been a TPK – to be honest, it probably would have been if I’d played the ghost as ruthlessly as possible. With only 3 HP and CON 6, Hazel would have been dead after only one hit. As it is, the players are fairly certain that they’re going to have to face an undead Vraazox when they return – and Tulk and Hazel, at least, are determined to exact their revenge.
With only minimal treasure – a silver dagger and some loose coins for Hazel, a silver longsword for Tulk, and the dubious boon of a favor from three inept bandits – no leveling-up occurred.