Charles Plemons' Blog

Game summary for March 15, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel “Legend” Telemnar (elf swashbuckler-enchanter), Meriwen Arnatule (elf swashbuckler-enchanter), Nicholae Dragos (cleric elder), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf myrmidon).

The room of horrors disgorged nearly a dozen shrunken hideous corpses with long sharp claws!  The creatures swarmed around Meriwen, tearing into her flesh and poisoning her with the venomous bile dripping from their talons!  Nicholae, too, was afflicted.  The poison sapped their strength, making them slow and ponderous.  Thinking quickly, Ma’Kala blessed most of the party while Legend hastened the group.  A fierce battle was joined, and devout Nicholae began driving the undead back through his pious faith.  While they went back, the rest of the team closed in and picked off the small monsters one by one.  Elasha proved especially effective in the battle, her skills with the short sword shining!

Theobald ran (hastened) about the battlefield hurling his spear and recovering it, only to hurl at another opponent.  Meriwen spent most of the fight in flight from pursuing topis, which would have killed her but for the healing power of Ma’Kala.  Soon, however, the fight was over with the Conquerors of Chaos victorious.

The group then searched the areas and found a secret door.  When “opened” it revealed a trap—a crushing 15-foot slab of stone!  Several of the party were injured but all survived.  They then followed booted tracks down a three-quarter mile corridor they hastened down in short order.   At the end, they discovered and threw open a door.

Within the massive room rubble littered the floor.  A gaping tunnel disappeared into darkness, and an enormous purple worm writhed in agony, a scorch burnt down its side.  It lunged for the party in rage and hunger!  The group reacted more quickly, however, and charged into the fray.  Meriwen launched a fireball on its flank, burning it even more.  Nicholae hammered it and Elasha came in swinging with haste.  Then, the mighty Legend charged in and slew the beast with his terrible swift sword!

Searching the rubble, they found a scroll and a torn black cloak like the one worn by the missing pig cult leader.  The group opened two other doors exiting the room to reveal identical hallways and a choice of direction.

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for March 8, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf swashbuckler-enchanter), Meriwen Arnatule (elf swashbuckler-enchanter), Nicholae Dragos (cleric elder), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf myrmidon).

After waiting for Nicholae to become unheld, the team moved into a glass room occupied by two displacer beasts!  The creatures attacked viciously but were not match for the party’s blades and arrows.  Legend lead the charge with his magical sword, and the rest of the team dished out punishment on his heels.  Each slain creature wore a jeweled collar.

Moving on, they discovered a storeroom and a room of utter darkness.  They then found themselves back in the room of hanging crystals.  The team then moved back into the pillar room and found a chamber with a lectern and cawing crow.  Meriwen blasted the feathered creature with a magic missile in case it was a familiar.  Upon the lectern, they discovered a locked spellbook they were able to open with the key found on the body of the slain elf.

The team then found a secret door and spent time wandering around lost in the hallways trying to make sense of their maps and what they were seeing.  After some debate and consternation, they figured out they may need to head down the corridor unexplored leading away from the throne/lab room.

The group found this corridor to extend for close to a mile before continuing up a flight of steps to a door.  Legend cast invisibility and haste.  On the other side, the team found four purring displacer beasts gnawing on mounds of bones!  Meriwen quickly dropped a fireball into the room while Nicholae and Theobald held the front lines.  One of the displacer beasts went down in the blaze, and the others fell to arrows, hammers, and spears.

The team moved in to the three doors in the room and threw them all open at once.  One seemed to head to a dead end while another was a large room with a strange red circle on the wall.  The third room contained a charnel house of corpses that rose up to attack!

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for March 1, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf hero-magician), Nicholae Dragos (cleric curate), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf hero).

The Conquerors of Chaos continued their interrogation of Maerie until convinced she was a captive held for ransom.  They then proceeded into what appeared to be a bedroom and discovered a large pig costume stuffed into a chest.  The group then discovered a ransacked magical lab with a strange stone throne in the center.  When Theobald plopped down on the throne, he could suddenly see (and be seen) in the volcano room where kara-kara began throwing spears at him.  He jumped up and “returned” his consciousness to the lab.  Searching around, Legend discovered a secret passage leading to a room glowing green, then blue, on through the rainbow.

Cautious, the party moved in and busted open the door across the room, which triggered some sort of trap striking Ma’Kala and Maerie blind.  Nonplussed, the group advanced through the open door and found a haul of treasure from the raided pirate ships.  Nearly mad with gold-lust, they stuffed their pockets and a bag of holding with platinum, gold, gems, and jewelry!

The Conquerors then moved into a massive room with four crystalline pillars from which emerged deadly shadows.  The party charged the shadows and engaged in melee.  Out of thin air (cloaked by invisibility), an elf appeared and fired a magic missile.  A rapid exchange brought the elf dead to the ground.  As he died, a voice cried out, “Geldered!”  The sounds of armored men running could be heard.  Meanwhile the shadows began to drive the party back as Nicholae’s attempt to turn them failed.

The charging sounds materialized into two more armed men attacking Legend, one of whom wounded him terribly.  The elf ran back to blind Ma’Kala for magical healing and found himself pressed by three shadows trying to kill him and the healer!  Elasha hurled her spear but missed, and Theobald moved up against the fighter and cleric revealed from hiding.  Nicholae cast a hold person, freezing the fighter in place.  Theobald hit him with several spear blows before killing him.  The cleric proved more dangerous, casting his own hold person on Nicholae, making him fodder for the shadows in the moments to come.

In the meantime, Legend shielding himself with protection from evil only to discover the shadows could no longer touch him.  In a few moments, they realized this as well and turned to drain the strength from Nicholae.  Legend destroyed one shadow and charged into the moving group with his arcane sword.  In moments, two more were destroyed.

Elasha and Theobald tried to defend Nicholae from the remaining shadow and cleric, finally slaying the last shadow using the magical sword dropped by the evil fighter.  The group pressed the cleric into a corner, still taking hit after hit, until Legend slipped in a blow laying the man out.

Quickly, the team ransacked the bodies and gathered several magical items of note as well as a key hidden in the elf’s dagger pommel.  Now, four unexplored doors face the adventurers.

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for February 23, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf hero-magician), Meriwen Arnatule (elf hero-magician), Nicholae Dragos (cleric curate), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf hero).

The Conquerors of Chaos proceeded into the hallway, the pounding of drums louder than ever.  They followed a branch of hallway to discover an empty room garishly painted in reds, yellows, and greens.  After looking around, they found they had circled back to the room previously containing the wood golems.  The team then explored the other branch with the drums growing louder with each step.

The group opened a door at the hall’s end to find themselves beside nine drumming kara-kara warriors near a pair of manwu-papas beside a drop down into the fiery heart of the volcano!  Across a swaying bridge danced and chanted hundreds of kara-kara!  Overlooking the scene sat a pig-faced creature on a stone throne.  As the party entered, the drumming stopped and hundreds of kara-kara charged forward in a rage, hurling spears and guttural curses.  The pig-creature stood off the throne and vanished from sight.

A brutal fight ensued, with Meriwen shooting one of the kara-kara off the swaying bridge while the rest of the team fanned out to interfere with the approaching orcs.  Legend ran forward brandishing his ancient sword of power and sliced through one of the support ropes, toppling the swaying bridge and dumping a dozen kara-kara into the flaming lava!  From the far side came hurled spears, and the manwu-papa from near the throne closed in.  They unleashed hold person spells that Nicholae shrugged off before he succumbed to a cause fear.  He bolted for a doorway while kara-kara tried to maneuver around the party to close them in on two sides.

Meriwen, seeing Nicholae compelled to bolt, grappled with the priest to try and keep him from running into the kara-kara down the hallway.  Ma’Kala, knowing the cleric’s deep infatuation with her, flung open her bodice to distract him and help shake off the magical compulsion.  It took several moments for him to clear his mind, but the shock was sufficient to break the spell!

Regrouping, the party laid out several kara-kara warriors and surrounded the manwu-papas, cutting them down with swords, arrows, hammers, and spears.  They then spiked the doors shut and blocked them with the massive drums.  The party then ran to the throne to investigate.  Finding no sign of the pig-man, they ran down a hallway discovered behind the throne.  Beyond the throne was a confusing room filled with hanging crystals that caused intense disorientation.  However, the party overcame it by each party member going to one of the six exit doors and opening them at the same time.  They then proceeded out of the short southern exit to find a room of mirrors.

Nicholae discovered the mirrors were flexible when he struck it with his hammer, getting it stuck halfway through.  Meriwen saw this and ran face first into the mirror, finding herself able to pass through to the other side revealing another mirrored room.  The team found several such rooms and continued going through southern exits until they stumbled upon a lavish bath.  Past this room, they found a bedroom with a toppled chair to which a beautiful woman was bound.

Legend ungagged the woman who revealed herself to be named Maerie, a hostage from the Lady’s Triumph captured two weeks ago by green-skinned pirates.  The group untied her, and she revealed the leader of the pirates to be a man in a pig costume named KalnaKaa.  She said he came in, tied her up and fled right before the party arrived.

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for February 16, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf hero-magician), Meriwen Arnatule (elf hero-magician), Nicholae Dragos (cleric curate), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf hero).

Following the dark hallway, the group proceeded to find a room filled with four wooden pig-headed statues and the pounding noise of ritual drums echoing from deeper within the complex.  The group crept in and was attacked as the statues revealed themselves to be wood golems!  The menaces proved impervious to mundane weapons, making several of the party ineffective.  The elves unleashed an onslaught of magic missiles once this was discovered.  Legend used his ancient sword to cut down one of the golems in a single swipe.  Theobald’s trusty spear proved the end of all the rest.

The group then moved into another room occupied by eight kara-kara warriors and a rotund kara-kara manwu-papa!  The kara-kara began chanting and working themselves into a frenzy as the party swarmed in and cut down several of the green-skinned orcs.  The manwu-papa caught Borislav and Theobald in a hold person spell but was unable to lay a curse on Nicholae.  The warriors proved fairly ineffective, but the manwu-papa and his iron mace were of tougher stock.  The pig priest fought like a dervish, smashing his mace into Legend, driving the elf into retreat.  He then found a clear shot on paralyzed Borislav and slaughtered the mighty warrior with a single blow.  The party closed in around the witch doctor and brought him down, but only after suffering several more injuries.

Nicholae performed a quick ritual over the fallen body of their companion while they waited for the hold person spell to dissipate.  Once it did, they found a large chamber with thirty-foot deep pits spiked with sharpened bamboo around the edges.  Within one were three naked kara-kara males cowering in a corner.  Enraged over the recent death of Borislav, Meriwen rained arrows down on the three, killing them in the hole.  The team then recovered some skeletal remains from the other pit and found a platinum belt worth a king’s ransom.

Faced with two exits from the pit room, the team decided to follow a trail they believe cuts back close to where they came.  What dangers lie down the dark hallway?

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for February 9, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf hero-magician), Meriwen Arnatule (elf hero-magician), Nicholae Dragos (cleric curate), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf hero).

Following the tomb looting, the Conquerors of Chaos decided to go through the far door and into a short angled hallway.  Examining the apparent dead end, Legend discovered a hidden catch to swing open a secret door!  As the opening pivoted, they gazed upon a silent tomb filled with corpses that suddenly sprung to life!  Five ghouls and two agarats charged into the group paralyzing Borislav!  Legend may have fallen victim to the ghouls as well, but his elven blood proved impervious to the undeads’ touch.  Then, the agarats began screaming.  The unearthly wail ripped through the souls of the adventurers filling them with despair and self-doubt.  Rattled and shaken, the party tried to engage.

A brutal melee ensued, and Meriwen planted an arrow right on target, but the agarat she hit didn’t seem to mind.  Meriwen and Legend swapped to silver-tipped arrows for the next volley.  Theobald landed a telling blow before succumbing to paralysis as well.  Desperate, Nicholae read a scroll of hold person that didn’t seem to affect the creatures.  The ghouls were very ineffective against the teams’ armors, but a claw here and there started to add up.  Still desperate, Nicholae turned the ghouls, causing them to cower in the back of the tomb while the party finished off the agarats.  Then, they moved up and hurled the ghouls back into the grave and the end of a blade.

After nursing their injuries and mustering their courage once again, the party went through a secret door found by Legend.  This lead to a room with three stone plinths, two holding crystal vials and another a crystal skull.  Meriwen scooped up the skull into her backpack, causing a whistling sound to fill the air.  Then, she ran full tilt out the door, causing the whistling to rapidly escalate pitch, shattering potions and other glass items in the group’s possession.

The group got out with several items of value, including the skull and four potions of healing but not without losing several other potions to the breaking glass.  The group then went through another door to reveal a zig-zag hallway heading into the unknown.

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for February 2, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf hero-magician), Meriwen Arnatule (elf hero-magician), Nicholae Dragos (cleric curate), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf hero).

After resting from the tarantella spider dance, the group moved further into the jungle and discovered an old village.  Inside a sturdy stone tower, they found a trio of angry white apes!  A brutal fight ensued, with the apes pounding on several party members.  However, Borislav proved his might, cutting one ape in two with his greatsword.  Nicholae brained another with his war hammer.  The fight was quickly ended.

The team continued through the jungle to discover the Trail of the Dead, a stonewalled ravine lined with crumbling humanoid statues.  The group used a rope of climbing to traverse across the ravine rather than enter and tracked alongside it in the jungle.  Before long, they came across a perpendicular ravine and followed it to a colorful bamboo gate before a cave entering the volcano’s side.

Cautiously, the team crept into the cave and moved forward to find two iron doors held closed by an intricate knot.  Theobald examined the area and discovered the knot system was tied to a trap that would drop the ceiling down on them.  Meriwen used a knock spell to open the doors and reveal a muddy passage with light at the end.  As they moved closer, Elasha noticed a secret door beside the iron doors.  The group opened it and found a half-mile tunnel leading to sunlight.  They moved down this parallel tunnel to see where it would lead.

Down in a valley below the tunnel mouth, the group discovered three stone tomb entrances, each decorated with different patterns.  They began fiddling with the stonework trying to find if something would open the way into the tombs.  Nicholae sprung a flame trap that blasted him with fire.  Meriwen puzzled with another entrance and stumbled upon a sequence of stones to depress that seemed to melt away the blocking stone doorway.  The group quickly moved within.

Once in the area, they found a room with two doors and four alcoves.  From the back two alcoves sparkled the gleam of gold.  Meriwen moved to examine one alcove and walked face first into a gelatinous cube!  A second cube slithered out from behind him, and a battle was on!  Borislav became paralyzed by the cubes, but several attacks and a magic missile later, the cubes were reduced to residue.  The team found golden anklets which they liberated from two bodies.  Meriwen also spotted a secret door.  When she tried to open it, poisonous gas sprayed all over her.  Fortunately, she was able to shake off the effects.  With the alcove lay another interred body and several valuable antiquities which were scooped up and dumped in a sack.

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for January 26, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf swordmaster-conjurer), Meriwen Arnatule (elf swordmaster-conjurer), Nicholae Dragos (cleric vicar), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf hero).

After a night of raucous partying, the group dismissed Symeon Xenakis and Wuldric Mineshield from employment and went to visit Castellan Horvath.  The Castellan thanked them for their services and officially bequeathed them a charter for their adventuring party in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos.  The party chose the title of Conquerors of Chaos and were so dubbed.  Next, he gave them a letter and journal entry sent to him by his cousin from Thyatis, Rollo Bargmann.  In the letter, he asked Castellan Horvath to send the adventurers he had written about (the party) to him in Thyatis to help fight off pirates and the ship-bane in the Sea of Dread.  The Conquerors decided to make the two week journey and boarded a river barge.  They floated down to Kelvin where they paid for passage on a river boat to Specularum.  Once in the city, they sought a ship captain at the Drunken Mermaid tavern.  After paying some gold, they learned of a Captain Krill and his ship, the Windsong.

The party booked passage to Thyatis aboard the Windsong in exchange for 90 gold coins and a daily feeding from Legend’s magical wallet of food.  As they discovered, the sailors were delighted to have the mildly bland but nutritious meal as opposed to the slop served daily by the ship cook, Sloppy Joe.  Legend spent part of every day in the galley alongside Sloppy giving out his crunchings and munchings to the crew.  After a week, the group arrived in the city.

After a bit of harassment by a merchant guild bean-counter, the party was escorted to the home of guildsman Rollo Bargmann.  Rollo welcomed them upon seeing their charter and his letter and spelled out the situation.  He had learned more from the kara-kara captive.  He told of a ceremony about to begin on the kara-kara home island and asked the group to go in and kill the new leader, whom the kara-kara had named their god.  Rollo believes this leader has allied with the ship-bane and caused the upswing in raids at sea.  The party agreed on a sizable sum of coin for their services and set out at dawn after their second raucous party in two weeks.

Following nine days at sea, the Conquerors of Chaos debarked onto the shore of Teki-Nura-Ria island on the far side from the kara-kara village.  The crew then cloaked the ship magically to appear as a great rock.  The party set off into the jungle following a crude map and seeking the Trail of the Dead and a secret tunnel that would lead to the pirate leader.  Their progress through the sweltering jungle was slow due to the undergrowth and their wearing of plate armor.  After about an hour of hacking through the dense jungle, they came upon a circular clearing occupied by a massive tree stump.  Around it the ground was flattened, and Legend could make out numerous bare footprints.

The party moved up close and peered into the stump to see an enormous spider within!  The fast moving monstrosity surged forward and sank its fangs into Legend’s chest!  Filled with poison, Legend began to spasm and twitch, appearing to dance violently.  All those looking upon him felt a compulsion to do the same, and many of the party did likewise.  Fortunately, not all succumbed to the spell and were able to viciously attack the spider.  All three elves in the group cast magic missile, and Theobald and his bug-hating spear stepped forward to finish off the monster.

After finding a string of pearls in the stump, the Conquerors moved on with half their number still dancing and thrashing.  After close to an hour, many collapsed in an exhausted heap.  Will they muster the strength to move on?

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for January 19, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, Keep on the Borderlands adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf swordmaster-conjurer), Meriwen Arnatule (elf swordmaster-conjurer), and Nicholae Dragos (cleric vicar).

After some discussion, the team decided to reduce their retainer numbers to Borislav Petrovic, Elasha, Ma’Kala, Symeon Xenakis, and Wuldric Mineshield.  The group re-equipped and headed back to the Caves of Chaos intent on destroying the gnolls.  They decided to utilize the secret entrance from the store room in the cultist caves but found the gnolls had discovered the door judging by the sooty black tracks Legend found.  They decided the door may be trapped, and despite hearing gnolls talking on the other side, made their way back around to the main entrance.

The group cast light on a coin that Legend put in his pocket while Ma’Kala carried a stone enchanted with silence 15’ radius.  They tried to sneak into the caves in darkness, with the humans guided by the dwarves and elves who could see in the dark.  Unfortunately, the four gnolls standing in the cave could see them too.  An oddly quiet battle erupted with one gnoll running away and three dying to the party’s blades.

The team moved further in and saw the door to the gnoll chieftain’s room had been replaces with some crudely hung planks.  Meriwen concocted a plan.  They sent Legend, under the cover of invisibility and elven boots, down the hallway with a scroll inscribed with fireball.  The elf peered unseen or heard through between the planks and saw two gnolls, two gnoll skeletons, and a thoul!  He stepped back and recited the scroll, blowing all five inhabitants into flaming bits.  They then stole the loot surviving in a smoking chest.

The party then went deeper into the caves and discovered the last remaining gnolls who put up a stiff resistance.  Several blows were traded, but the gnolls were driven back into a corner and cut down.  At last, the heroes had cleared the evil denizens from the Caves of Chaos!

The group found a keg of ale which they took back to Castellan’s Keep and used for a celebration.  Nicholae set off to find someone willing to sell him a farm while the others sold the loot, made deposits at the bank, and settled in.  The next day, they received a summons from the Castellan.  What new adventures await?

Thus concluded 19 game sessions to complete B2: Keep on the Borderlands using BECMI / RC Dungeons & Dragons rules.  Next up, X8: Drums on Fire Mountain.

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for January 12, 2012, In Search of Adventure campaign, Keep on the Borderlands adventure; present characters included Dinendel Telemnar (elf swordmaster-conjurer), Nicholae Dragos (cleric vicar), and Theobald Goblinbane (dwarf swordmaster).

After 24 hours of preparatory madness, the Castellan mustered half his forces, 76 fighting men, and sent them to battle the orcs and undead.  The team worked hard to inspire the troops, discuss tactics, and get ready for the fight to come.  The troops marched to the Caves of Chaos and engaged the massed orcs, skeletons, and zombies!  The fighting was brutal and went on for three days before the army of men proved victorious!  As the sun went down, only the evil priests of Chaos remained and engaged the party in melee.

The high priest coiled his snake staff around Legend trapping him!  The adepts pounded maces against shield and plate but found the party’s defenses solid.  A few blows landed, but the team proved more deadly.  In moments, one adept lay dead but Legend and Nicholae were both badly injured.  Theobald impaled the high priest with a spear-led charge, changing the course of the battle!  Legend got loose of the snake and struck down another adept while Nicholae hammered down the third.

Cheers erupted from the army of men as the last agent of Chaos collapsed on the ground!  The forces of men collected their dead and wounded while the team moved through the now empty orc and cultist caves searching for treasure.  They emerged with thousands of coins worth of gold and magic.

After discussing their knowledge of the caves of Chaos, they deduced only the gnoll tribe remains.  They decided they would eliminate the gnolls before moving on so that the caves would be completely cleared and conquered!

The above summary is for a game session of Dungeons & Dragons BECMI / RC edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.