Chronicles of the Adventurers Guild #12

On the 9th day of Ostar, guild members Francis, Kelso, Moonshadow, and Partha (see PC profiles here), with the bearer Karl in employment, returned to the underground chambers, with the purpose of recovering the grave goods from within the chamber of salted corpses.

They overcame the undead in the first chamber, and recovered the grave goods within.

Exploring the next chamber in the corridor, they found a silver statuette upon a plinth in the far end, and the bodies of three tomb-robbers upon the floor, which was covered with a thin layer of fine silt. The party surmised that the tomb-robbers had perished from some trap within the chamber, and with the means of a rope with a loop made in the end, successfully dislodged the statuette from its position, whereupon a stone door descended over the doorway, and the chamber began to be flooded by water that came from a hidden port in the wall. After a period of time has passed, there came sound from behind the door, and when it stopped the door opened, and they party found the room drained but still wet.

Exploring the next room in the corridor, they came upon a strange portal in the far wall, which appeared as a vertical surface of a dark pool of water. The party was able to gather water from the portal, but were unable to determine if it led to some other locale.

Therefore leaving the portal, they came to the next room, and found within several plinths, upon which were embalming tools. In the corner of the room was a pile of salt, which too the form of a giant man and attacked them when they entered the room. The party resolved to transport the water from the portal to the chamber, which eventually caused the salt to dissolve, and were able to recover the implements within.

Passing then to the corridor to the north, they came upon another chamber of salted undead, which they overcame, and claim the grave goods within.

Passing further north, they broke into three more chambers, which appeared similar to the one before, but the remains within which did not rise to attack them.

Finally, turning west and then south, they came upon a chamber with decorated doors. Within the chamber was a single sarcophagus, the occupant of which rose to attack them when they opened it.  Unable to overcome the undead, the party retired to the guild.

Grave good recovered were assessed to be 525 Gros (!) in value, of which 175 Gros was disbursed to the members, according to the terms of the contract.

On the 10th day of Ostar, guild members Kimly, Tamira, and Erik, with tbearer Karl in employment, explored the chambers underground. Returning to the chamber with the decorated door, they vanquished the undead within, and recovered much grave goods.

Turning then north they passed along a long corridor that eventually turned east, and entered a flooded chamber with a doorway on the south wall. When they entered the chamber with the purpose of passing through the south door, they were attacked by animated skeletons which had hid within the water, which they were able to vanquish.

Passing then through the southern door, they came upon a large flooded chamber with faded frescoes upon the walls, which suggested that the chamber was used for some religious rites which involved the immersion of the worshippers into the water. Here the water took the shape of a giant and attacked them, but it was defeated.

The party then retraced their steps, with the purpose of exploring to the east, but passing a junction guild member Erik discerned a hidden portal upon a wall. Entering the portal, they found themselves in a long corridor leading to the west. The party passed into the corridor with caution, and were able to defend themselves against skeletal warriors that issued forth from hidden niches along the walls. 

Overcoming these undead, the party came into a large chamber, the walls of which were painted with figures of men and ships. At the far end of the room sat an undead warrior upon a throne of stone. As they were already wounded and weary at this point, the party left the room, and returned to the guild.

Grave goods recovered were valued at 5 Gros, of which 18 Gros was disbursed to the party according to the terms of the contract.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was the last one before our Chinese New Year break, which means there are a projected 6 more sessions to the end of the campaign.

The two days of exploration took place during the same session, with the first day garnering the PCs the largest haul in the history of the campaign. This happened partly because I made a mistake in my planning, putting four identical rooms stocked with the salt mummies. It seemed like a good idea when I was planning the dungeon, but when I realised that the repetition was going to be boring and tedious, I removed the undead and granted them grave goods of lower value instead. It took them some time still to break into and sift through the grave goods and pick out the valuable bits though.

The room with the water trap was initially supposed to be sealed, but I realised that as it stood it would not have been an interesting encounter for the players. I needed to 'telegraph' the existence of a trap, and I figured a good way of doing this was to show the remains of others who had fallen prey to it. This worked, and gave the players a way to bypass the trap and still claim the treasure within.

The magical portal of water actually leads to a pool in one of the barrows overground, but the players were wisely wary and did not attempt to pass through it, although they did tie a rope around the waist of one of the dead tomb-robbers and throw him inside. What I did not expect the players to do with the portal was for them to use it as a limitless reservoir, which they used to flood the subsequent chamber and neutralise the salt golem which had a high Challenge Rating (and hence more treasure). This clever weaponisation of a feature of the dungeon was partly responsible for the huge haul they made.

Their abnormally large haul meant that we now have more characters at level 4, which will be important for the next phase of the campaign.

The expedition on the second day was more typical. I revealed the existence of a hidden door to a section of the dungeon here by having one of the dwarven PCs notice that there was a part of the map that was blank, which did not make sense. Hopefully this will prompt the players to start looking at 'blank' sections of the map and searching for secret doors more carefully.

I ended the session by having Gamdar, the orc tavern-hand who is secretly in league with the dragon cultists approach the non-human, non-dwarven, and non-Kellos-worshipping members of the guild to arrange a meeting with the head of the dragon cultists.

The dragon cultists, posing as merely common tomb-robbers, offered the PCs an alliance: they knew the location of the death cultists' lair within the dungeon, and proposed a combined attack on them to eliminate them, and thereafter they and the guild members could partition the dungeon between themselves to avoid conflict.

I then gave the players the two weeks until our next session to discuss among themselves which PCs if any would take up the offer. This means that the next session may see a large and challenging battle, and the levelling up during this session would put the PCs in a better position to fight that battle.

The reason why I want the battle to be challenging is because I want the PCs to level up quicker over the next few sessions, ideally with most if not all PCs reaching level 7 as they enter the finale session so they can have their second class feature.

With the approach of the end of the campaign I face the question of what to do with the PCs who survive the final battle. Five Torches Deep is rather limited in PC progression, especially in the list of available spells, which I feel is an important part of any fantasy RPG game. Perhaps I will let all the PCs convert to their equivalent class in 5E, retaining the number of XPs that they end the campaign on.