At the end of the prior session, the party had finished their explorations of the Gatehouse and the canyon beyond and had descended into Stonehell proper. Those prior explorations were relatively haphazard rather than methodical and there are areas that remain unexplored…perhaps for the next party to come to Stonehell to explore. We pick up with their initial foray into Stonehell itself after the break.
Todd was missing this session so Jano Jingleberry was missing.. There are, of course, potential spoilers for Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls below. There are also quite a few things that have been changed. Some of these changes have been made ahead of play (e.g., Duke’s) and some come about during play in reaction to what is going on with the party.
My GM comments, as usual, are in italics.
4 Spring 1023
- Finally reaching the bottom of the long stairs, the party finds themselves in a chamber with multiple exits, some archways, some doors, and a simple passageway. Various trash and debris is scattered about.
- Listening at one door, they can hear what sounds like someone stirring a pot…when listened at again later, other sounds of cooking are heard. These doors are locked.
- Another set of doors has a sign above them which reads, in simple letters, “Duke’s.”
- The party elects to explore down through the southern archway. The passage beyond is short with another set of double doors. Listening at these, the party hears a faint sound of wind. Beyond the doors is a relatively small chamber with six skeletons in various locations on the floor. Old bloodstains are on the walls, floor, and even the ceiling.
- The skeletons all have various deformities and, as discovered later, have cracked skulls.
- A rusted and closed portcullis is to the west and more double doors to the east.
- Korgath forced open the doors. Almost immediately after doing so, a voice booms in the room, “Fools! Duck before your head is taken off!” This is followed by the same sound of wind heard previously.
- Everyone ducks and…nothing happens.
- As the exploration/examination of this room continues, the voice booms out again, repeating what it said before.
- This time, Brielle does not duck and she is struck by some unseen force in the back of her head. They depart the room after this.
- The party starts out the door. Korgath takes the lead and stumbles into a pit. He drops his torch and it goes out. As he waits for the others to come save him, he can feel something clatter in a slithery manner across his feet.
- As Korgath starts to panic a bit, a rope is lowered down and illumination provided. The pit bottom has a number of skeletal snakes slithering about with a clattering sound. Korgath climbs that rope faster than he’s ever climbed anything before.
- The party returns to the entry chamber and elects to visit whatever “Duke’s” might be.
- Opening the doors, a scorched and sooty room is found, smelling heavily of smoke. Standing in the center is a small individual, a bit over three-feet tall. He has midnight blue skin, coppery hair and eyes, and a tail that ends in a stinger. He is dressed in a snappy suit and welcomes the party to Duke’s asking, “How many will be dining?”
- Korgath answers five and this “host” escorts the party through another set of doors to a dining area. There is a long table with chairs and a smaller table off in a smaller section of the room. A pair of canine-headed humanoids, pug heads to be exact, are sitting at one end of the long table and eating some sort of roast shank.
- A single individual is sitting at the side table, in a shadowed corner, with a hood over their face and head.
- The host asks if the party has brought their own meat or if they will be having the special. As the special changes rather regularly, the host must go check with the chef.
- The party decides that they should leave as they have very little coin and aren’t really sure to make of this location. As they get up to leave, the figure in the corner suggests that they wait until Claude returns before doing so unless they want to risk being banned from Duke’s.
- Before Claude, presumably the host, returns, the party engages in a bit of conversation with the individual in the corner from their seats at the long table. This individual offers its services as a guide in Stonehell for a “small” fee of thirty-percent of all treasures found.
- The party balks at the fee, negotiations follow. Eventually, the individual offers to provide the party a bit of information. If they find it to be true and valuable, perhaps they will reconsider and offer the recompense of thirty-percent for his services.
- He offers directions to a location called, “da Spa,” but notes that the Korvad call it this as something of a joke. (What’s a Korvad? Why ask me? It is the first time that the players and characters have heard that term. I’ll tell you later once the characters learn about it/them/whatever. “
- After Claude returns (okay, yes, he is the host), the party gives their regrets, are told they are welcome to return, and they head out.
- The party decides that they should leave as they have very little coin and aren’t really sure to make of this location. As they get up to leave, the figure in the corner suggests that they wait until Claude returns before doing so unless they want to risk being banned from Duke’s.
- Opening the doors, a scorched and sooty room is found, smelling heavily of smoke. Standing in the center is a small individual, a bit over three-feet tall. He has midnight blue skin, coppery hair and eyes, and a tail that ends in a stinger. He is dressed in a snappy suit and welcomes the party to Duke’s asking, “How many will be dining?”
- The group follows the directions provided. They find an intersection with a metal signpost, written on it is “da’ Spa! Ha ha ha!” Just as individual’s directions had indicated. In the direction the sign points, the worked corridor turns into a natural (cave) passage.
- In the opposite direction the sign points is a chamber filled with various debris. The debris looks to be moving as if something (or things) are moving within it.
- Sticking with the directions provided, the party explore a group of caves.
- The first cave is empty except rock and debris. Another cave off of this one has dozens of bats within, the floor covered with guano and the stink of ammonia.
- Another small cave has a well within. It drops deeper than the party’s light extends and appears to be dry. A faint breeze, with no hint of moisture, rises from the well.
- Another cave has a section covered in phosphorescent mushrooms. Beast, remembering something about psychedelic mushrooms from his failed shaman training, picks a couple, being sure to note actually let his flesh come into contact.
- This mushroom cave has worked passageway leading south from it.
- One other tunnel was left unexplored. It has soot marks on its floor and walls.
- The party exits out the south of the mushroom cavern to continue their own explorations.
- This passageway leads to an intersection with additional tunnels leading east and west. The passage ends shortly to the south in a set of double doors.
- Most of the party heads to the west except for Korgath. He checks the doors…locked…and then heads east. (Splitting the party, eh?)
- To the west is a chamber with a good bit of stone and dirt on the floor. There are cracks in the ceiling. Although not likely to collapse anytime soon, Brielle is pretty sure it will come down at some point.
- Ivy heads in as Korgath is open some doors in which the passage to the east ends.
- As she passes under a large crack, a massive centipede, blood-red with black markings, drops down and bites her. She is paralyzed. Another one comes from another crack and starts to chomp down on the unmoving witch (dropping her to zero hit points).
- Beast, Brielle, and Clara come to the rescue. They kill one of the centipedes and injure the other. The injured one retreats up a wall and into a crack.
- Clara attempts to tend to Ivy and save her from death, but her spell fails! (Jen failed, spent a luck token, and then rolled a 1! Rachel had rolled a one on Ivy’s death timer. She only had one round left since Ivy has a +1 CON modifier.)
- The others rush to Ivy’s aid and are able to stabilize her and keep her from dying. (Odds were against them as no one has a particularly high INT or relevant background, but they did it with a lucky roll.)
- Ivy heads in as Korgath is open some doors in which the passage to the east ends.
Unfortunately, RJ had something unexpected come up and had to jump off. That meant that Beast and Korgath were gone. We still had a bit over an hour left in the session, but Jen and Rachel decided that caution was a better option than pressing on with one unconscious character and no cure wounds spells available. They retreated back to the entrance stairway and made their way out. They then headed back to Hawk’s Nest for the three Rs…rest, recuperate, and re-equip. We all decided to go ahead and call it a night at that point.
Before we really got started, we had a bit of a discussion about an event from the prior session…scene of the murder of the camping adventurers and Judith. I explained that although their characters had not actually seen what Judith removed from the cloak of the last of the slain adventurers, we were going to go ahead and brainstorm it a bit now. They know as players, but their characters do not.
The item was a ruby, a magical ruby. The gem contains some sort of being within. A djinni was suggested, but I nixed that idea and we left it undetermined for the moment. This ruby, of course, is related to why Judith came here to Stonehell without even a goodbye to her friend and fellow acolyte, Clara. It appears that it was also something that Judith and Lilith, whoever she might be, were more than willing to kill to get…or to kill and leave no witness behind who knew of the ruby. I’m sure we’ll find out at some point.
I’m not sure if I shared that we’re using, of course, a few house rules. One of those is an adaptation of 3d6 Down the Line’s Feats of Exploration. I’ve made some tweaks to fit us better and it is replacing the normal Shadowdark rules for advancement. The more the party “adventures” in a session, the more XP they will typically get. Four of the six characters who are now more than halfway to 2nd level. A few more sessions like this last one and we’ll probably see our first level up!
