Primal/Within Chronicles: The Crypt of the Thief-Prince, Part 2

See part 1 here.

Mines of Shadows.

The PCs took the Teleportal and found themselves on a Magic Circle in what was obviously a Mine (I used D&D’s Fantastic Location Mithril Mines map).

As soon as they arrived, they knew something wasn’t right. Broken bodies of workers and guards were lying everywhere.  The magical light globes lighting the mine were flickering and some dimmed noticeably every few seconds or so.

After investigating what seemed to be the foreman’s office (and finding a report indicating that humanoid raids were sharply rising in the vicinity) some sort of dog, apparently made of shadowy stuff, popped right beside Korg and bit him!  Howls and barks were heard throughout the mine and the PCs heard the war cry of something very very large lumber toward them.

The encounter was one that Yan proposed when I mentioned that we would be playing on Friday.  He had looked for a brute and a few Skirmishers to make a throwaway encounter should I be low on ideas and he proposed a Troll (level 9 Brute) and a pack of Shadow Hounds (Level 5 Skirmishers).  Since I had only 3 level 7 PCs I settled for a Cave Troll (Level 6 Brute from Dungeon Magazine) and 3 Shadow Hounds.

As I mentioned in this post, I wanted the Dungeon to act as a campaign villain.   To this effect, each dungeon encounter had to have a special ‘Dungeon’s touch’ to it.   In the case of the Mine encounter, I had the lights of parts of the mine dim on a random basis.  This made the Shadow Hounds’ “Shroud of Night” aura a lot more efficient (making them invisible when in a dim part of the map).

As for the Cave Troll, it was branded with a glowing ‘tri-whip’ symbol that granted it the following power:

Stoneburst:  Encounter (recharge: 6).  Close Burst 3.  +10 vs Fort, Hit: 2d6 damage and target falls prone.

Of course, since that power was written in my game notes and I referred to the D&D Compendium’s of the Cave Troll Stat block during the fight, I totally forgot about it and never used it.

Which is just as well since PCs had a hard time in this encounter.

The hounds dealt a lot of damage, focusing on the Shaman and the Invoker, teleporting in and biting with combat advantage every turn.  Jaiel (The Avenger) rushed the Cave Troll and kept it busy.

When the troll finally fell, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and everyone focused on beating the hounds… except that the Cave Troll rose again on the next round and grabbed Jaiel!

After 2 rounds of dropping the troll only to see it rise again, I asked the PCs to roll some skills and I told them that trolls can only be killed with certain types of attack, traditionally Fire or Acid damage. At this point, players grabbed their power cards and Jaiel found one last power with the fire descriptor.  She attacked and… hit the troll who fell dead and well done.

The Hounds were soon chased away and the party breathed a sigh of relief.  At that point I described that the hounds seemed to have a symbol dyed on their fur: some sort of triple Skull design.

Korg wrote a report about what had transpired here and left it on the desk of the Foreman’s office.  The party moved on, climbing down to the mines deepest level and into the dungeon.

Knock, Knock!

It bears mentioning that while the PCs had a map, the players didn’t.  Even if the campaign is set in a huge sprawling dungeon, we don’t currently plan to play the ‘explore this large level before going deeper’ campaign model.

After a short walk, the PCs found the crypt’s door, a large stone slab with no apparent opening mechanisms.   It had some sort of clay-like square on it.  A marble tablet was placed on the wall with heavily scratched dwarven runes on it.  The tablet was an account of the crimes of the Dwarven noble, accused of stealing from his clan (The Stoneaxes).  The scratches spelled out ‘LIES’ over the  runes.

Looking closer, the PCs found that the tablet was actually stuck on the wall over some, more ancient, writings.

Perception aside: I had set the perception check to ‘hard’ for level 7 PCs (DC 23) as this was a clue that would make the rest of the adventure much easier. However, it so happens that the PCs, being all high wisdom characters, had very high passive perception scores (i.e. 23) so they were in fact allowed free access to the clue . 

In retrospect, I’m cool with that as it made the whole adventure much richer from the  story perspective.

Removing the tablets, the PCs found runes in an archaic form of dwarven that said that the Dwarven prince was exiled “for a putting the dream of the Goddess before his loyalty to his clan” and that he “was betrayed by the very people he wanted to help”.  It also said  “If you are a true friend of this prince among thieves, profess your trust, enter and fight for the truth”

At this point, my players gave me this most delicious of gifts, they started talking about the prince’s story, trying to piece together what this message implied when compared to what they learned in the City and what the removed marble tablet said.  Pure joy!.

Spending 20 minutes in front of a closed door, having fun, that’s good old Dungeoneering!

After a few minutes, Jaiel put her hands very near the clay-square (which had a hidden vicious Glyph Of Warding) and professed her trust in the Thief-Prince, in clear unaccented Dwarven.

The door slid open soundlessly. Evil exploding Healing Surge eating trap averted.

Den of the Undead Blood Spiders!

The door opened up on top of stairs leading down to an open space with 3 exits.  All surfaces of that area were colored blood red from a thick carpet of red web strands.  Thousands of diminutive red spiders were crawling everywhere! Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the spiders were undead.

I like spiders! I like undead, what better than Zombie Spiders?

The room could be negotiated a few ways.  Acrobatics checks could allow moving without disturbing the webs. Using a Radiant power could freeze the spiders for a few seconds and allow movement, etc.

The PCs went for the obvious solution and chucked a torch in the room.

Ahh Fire!  What won’t it fix?

As fire spread in the room all spiders moved to the room’s corners and formed into 3 undead spider swarms! (Same stats as Bloodweb spider swarm with Resist Necrotic 5 and becoming dazed if hit by radiant damage).

The encounter was as interesting as it was short. The PCs had to deal with both the spiders and the spreading fire (I ruled that burning webs burned for 1 round before spreading to adjacent squares and dealt 1d8+5 damage to creatures in the square).

That’s when Mike’s Invoker, Usul, really shone:

Mike:  Okay, I move here and I rebuke (Rebuke Undead) the swarms (rolls dice), I hit 3 times (rolls more dice, I add the swarms vulnerability to burst attacks) for 37 points of damage each!

What????? I’ve heard said that the Invoker puts the wizard to shame as a controller.  I think that’s pretty accurate.

After the short scuffle, the PCs explored the side chambers (all empty) before moving in the royal Crypt.

Part 3 will go up at Noon EST today.