We’d just defeated a dragon and our next foe is…
Isaac: A butterfly!
Me: Really, a butterfly!?
Isaac: A Giant butterfly.
Me: Okay… What does it do?
Isaac: Poison. And it got lots of blades *mimes slashing*, it’s a robot butterfly!
Me: Oi!
Isaac: Also, it’s surrounded by (non-robot) butterflies and it can control people too!
Damn, that’s one badass butterfly!
By now we have many adventuring threads open to us but the Mindthief have his own idea what we should do next. Frowning, he whispers: « abandonned sewers« .
His « enthusiasm » is contagious:
-It sounds like a wonderful place!
-I heard it’s full of riches!
-Let’s skip breakfast and go at once!
Scenario 18
Goal: Kill everything
Cragheart (level 4), Elementalist (level 3), Mindthief (level 4), Spellweaver (level 4)
Difficulty: 2
Those aren’t big fat turds with fangs (sorry Math!), no! They’re Giant Vipers…
The vipers aren’t very threatening, they don’t do a lot of damage, but they poison as a basic feature. The oozes, surprisingly, are range attackers, very slow, and they sometimes summon more of their kind (they seem to have a few of those cards in their deck).
I open the second door and flings fire orbs at yet more giant vipers, killing the nearest and damaging 2 others. The Mindthief then takes on him to protect me.
The Cragheart moves fast (for a plodding rock-person) and throws a devastating boulder attack unstable upheaval, killing 2 vipers and an ooze and damaging some more.
The Mindthief badly misjudge the ability of his hated foes to deliver damage and pays in blood. I try to help the Mindthief without stealing his kills, with a low damage forked beam, but I picked 2 good attack cards and ended up killing 2 vermlings instead… (sorry Dubs!)
The Cragheart did a LOT in the second room but he’s now near exhaustion.
The third and final room features a cistern in the middle, more vermlings and a strategically-placed Wall of Oozes. The Elementalist begs for elements. When he does it, this can only means….
He zaps the hell out of the oozes, inflicting a whopping 19 damage (total) to 4 targets!
I do an Icy Blast to further soften the oozes, They then try to split but only one have the space. The Mindthief and Cragheart are out but there’s not much left to do at this point, so no worries.
Except for the battle goals…. (Damn, this feature of the game can be annoying at times)
I need to be at 2 hp or less at the end of scenario to succeed. As for the Elementalist, he needs to kill 5 enemies (which I don’t know at this point). I want to be hit by the last remaining ooze. He wants to kill it so he has his last kill. Confusion ensued, bickering and… we both failed our battle goals…
Oh well…
Victory nonetheless!
We’re back in town, Exile is boring and uncomfortable.
This time we use the Power of Foreknowledge and actually have a *gasp* PLAN!
Scenario 11
Goal: Kill the Commander
Team: Cragheart (lvl 4), Elementalist (lvl 3), Mindthief (lvl 4), Spellweaver (lvl 4)
Difficulty: 2
First room, we all attack the Elite Archer and ignore the guards.
The Mindthief’s psychic powers convince the Cragheart that he’s not, despite contrary evidence, a plodding rock-person, and he moves all the way to the next room. That obviously takes the garrison by surprise – its much more lightly-defended than in our previous attempt.
I kill one normal archer with a well-placed (2x) manabolt. The Elementalist kills an Elite with a ranged attack of his.
One round later and we’re all re-grouped at the fountain’s room (or is that the eponymous square?). I ride the wind and freeze nova 2 archers. Next is our only hassle of the scenario as the archers pick a 2 targets deck card, severely wounding both me and the Mindthief with their ranged attacks.
Blissful Victory!
Sweet Revenge!
I had a cold and was dead-tired but it was still a worthwhile session, if a little of the filling sort. Guillaume had to look after his baby son (the joy of parenthood!) but he managed to join us halfway in the session.
The previous session had the PCs in a fight against a small patrol from the Canopy Drummers (batiri goblins) and they had emerged victorious. Next, they tried to put some distance before nightfall between themselves and their goblin foes, and had crossed into another tribe’s territory. This, apparently, did not suffice to deter pursuit, or at least not from some fast-moving skirmishers: Spider Riders.
A (spider) Swarm descended from the trees upon the poor, terrified Kalohan, while 3 Spider Riders moved to attack the PCs from a distance. Shin, quick to assert the main threat, let loose 2 magically-charged shadow arrows, killing the leader of the skirmishers, a goblin warchief wearing a weird spider hat. The cleric of Tymora and the Elf wizard blasted to bits the spider Swarm with magic bolts and divine fire while the bard tried in vain some mind-trick on a Giant (medium) Spider.
The 2 remaining spiders failed to catch anybody with their webs. The goblins threw venom-dipped javelins and one downed Kalohan and the other wounded Philleas. However, the adventurers still clearly had the advantage after these first exchanges and they finished the skirmishers despite their annoying shoot-and-hide tactics.
A few antitoxin vials and healing spells from the cleric later and the PCs were good to go.
On top of a huge fallen tree stood a Giant Mantis. Eerily still (2). Already upset with her recent encounter with giant spiders, Kalohan immediately hurled a fire bolt at the thing. The Giant Mantis dashed towards the PCs but their combined attacks forced its transformation into its true form, that of a disgusted-looking goblin shaman. The latter didn’t wasted time and transformed back into his more threatening Mantis-Shape and attacked savagely Philleas with spiked forelegs and ferocious bite.
The Mantis Warrior proved to be a worthy adversary but he was alone against 4. His wild shape once again used up, he tried to flee but the adventurers shot him in the back and killed him.
Later the same night, the PCs were alerted by some ruckus, something was approaching. In fact, it was Corpos and Goro-Tso, running away from a pack of ghouls (3). Scavo, the ghoul they’d freed (and tortured) earlier, told them that he wasn’t such a big fan of goblin flesh after all…
The 5 ghouls caught up with the 2 they were pursuing, but the cleric of Tymora intervened and his Turn Undead sent 3 of them sprinting wildly the way they came. The PCs had no intention to let them go however and they used their (always efficient) ranged attacks to mow down the flesh-eating monsters.
Scavo attempted a pathetic plea for mercy (yet again) and Philleas the bard responded with the quote of the day: « indeed, I know, i know, I totally agree, it’s just a big misunderstanding », then he lopped the ghoul’s head off…
Now near exhaustion from back-to-back fights, the PCs saw goblin scribblings on the trees that Lucky deciphered as a warning to Batiri, that further ahead laid a dangerous area. That certainly posed a conundrum, it would mean a place away from the goblins but at what risk? What if whatever it was that rendered this area dangerous for the goblins proved too lethal for the depleted adventurers? They tried their luck…
But what was that they heard? A giggle? (4)
They were fortunate to have stumbled (5) into the territory of a friendly and somewhat over-excited Dryad. After some chatter to satisfy the socially-starved fey, the PCs could finally have a decent rest. Next day, after offering them a delicious breakfast of berries and nectar, the dryad asked if they could solve a problem of hers: a burrowing monster was damaging the nearby trees’ roots to her great dismay. She had gifts for them if they would be so kind…
The PCs accepted gladly. Following her advice, they baited the monster with dead animals placed near its lair. The thing did showed itself and combat ensued (6). The well-rested adventurers had many tools at their disposal. The Tabaxi blinded the (Large) Centipede with a special arrow. The beast’s tremorsense couldn’t detect the levitating Kalohan, Shin perched on a branch, nor Corpos and Lucky whom were too far. It left the tough Goro-Tso and nimble Philleas as targets. It did managed to grab the bard between its fearsome mandibles, grievously wounding him, but it soon succumbed under the combined onslaught of its attackers.
The Dryad was overjoyed with this victory and gave the PCs well-crafted bows and magic mu-ngyengyue bracelets.
My 6 y-o son is too young for D&D but hey, look at this!
After our failure to kill the commander of the guards, we needed to hide from justice some fresh air. We followed hints, provided by a strange coin that we’d found earlier, that led to the Temple of the Eclipse.
The Temple of the Eclipse’s main gimmick is its link to both light and dark. And it has a Boss: the Colorless, who also follows this thematic. All other elements are weaker than usual and that is, of course, a major pain in the ass for our Elementalist…
Scenario 81
Goal: Kill the Colorless
Team: Cragheart (lvl 4), Elementalist (lvl 3), Spellweaver (lvl 4)
Set difficulty: 3
In the temple’s parlour, we are greeted by two pairs of Night and Sun Demons. The Cragheart charges head on and, in his recklessness, he gets many grievous wounds. I patch him up and he’s back in combat shape but the demons are very dangerous and are hard to outmaneuver. It’s not easy but we defeat them and get a special scenario item, something we can use against the Colorless.
We open the door and see 3 hulking Stone Golems blocking our way (no pic, wut?!). They have Shield 2, that’s a real bother. Me and the Cragheart try to set up a shield/retaliate combo. That would have been very nice and efficient, if only the stone golems had friggin’ attacked! Total waste of a turn… At least, the Elementalist could demonstrate impressive damage-dealing with his level 3 Chain Lightning.
Jumping over the Stone Golems and simply ignore them would have been a viable plan, as they’re turtle-slow, but we feared the long-ranged Ancient Artillery‘s firepower in the back. So we finished the golems and also got a second scenario item nearby. Once we got close though, the artillery were easily dispatched. Unfortunately, by then it’s obvious that we don’t have very long before we’re all exhausted and we still have the Boss to slay…
The Cragheart has a very good plan, stop the Colorless from summoning by blocking all adjacent squares!
But time isn’t on our side and the Colorless makes it worse, he alternates between getting invisible and healing himself. We know that dumping the 2 special items on the altar will deal him good damage but it’s hard to do without getting eviscerated by the demons.
The Boss had 10 hp left but we failed to kill him. The Cragheart managed to take the treasure and got a very nice healing ring.
Bitter Defeat!
I don’t think I’ve ever used myconids, but that’s something I want to remediate soon enough. However, if I were to stick to D&D canon lore (which I won’t), myconids are supposed to be found exclusively in the underdark, the subterranean world home to the iconic drow. This was set in stone, so to speak, by Gary Gigax’s D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth (1e), which of course, borrowed heavily on established hollow earth fiction (Jules Verne’s Voyage au centre de la Terre). More to the point, Gigax also borrowed the myconids, which were created in the earlier module A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, which was an subteranean adventure (mostly) but in no way deep in the bowels of the earth-subteranean.
Leaving the myconids out of most of the more typical (surface) encounters is both sad and needless, in my opinion. Put in any setting, the potential is just mind-blowing…
Re-reading the rulebook and checking the FAQs, we now know that we’ve messed up a whole bunch of rules. Among them is the difficulty level. It appears that contrary to what we’d thought, we’re not that good… So, for the time being, very hard is beyond our capacity, as the actual post will make clear..
Scenario 11
Goal: Kill the commander
Team: Cragheart (lvl 4), Elementalist (lvl 2), Mindthief (lvl 4), Spellweaver (lvl 4)
Difficulty: 3
Our short mercenary career have, somehow, led us to side with the merchants in an attempt to overthrow the military rulers of the city of Gloomhaven. That doesn’t sound that bad, does it? That’s until you learn that the leader of our faction is also a necromancer…
Our role is to kill the Commander of the Guard. He has many men at his disposal but we’re not alone on this risky endeavor, undead troops fight on our side! Cannon fodder, yay!
Things starts smoothly, two guards and an elite archer in the first room. One of our lousy Living Bones is killed, and then we wipe the floor with the guards.
Next room: some archers and half a dozen guards. There’s also 2 Living Corpses on our side but they’re immediately cut down by the archers’ arrows. The useless stinking wretches. But here comes the Cragheart, RUTHLESS, he crushes our foes under tons of rocks. Me and our new friend, the Elementalist, finish the survivors.
The Elementalist opens next door and… there’s a SHIT TON of folks over there.
We do see that the right side is weakly defended and maybe we could dash to the final room? But, oh no, that’s not what we do…
The Cragheart and Mindthief are exhausted, leaving a wounded Spellweaver and a raw recruit to face the Boss… That dude has 56 hp. We fight ’til the end. It’s mercifully quick in coming.
Bitter Defeat!
That’s a hard blow to our pride…
See second (and succesful attempt) Here!
I recently read the first of the Dying Earth books and was much delighted by the inventiveness of these short stories, with so many colorful characters…
Of course Cudgel the Clever is the most well-known, but here’s another, at least as unforgettable in my opinion:
You could easily be deceived by his looks, this guy is, in fact, a bonafide murderhobo!
I mean, beside being an overconfident jerk…
Killing the denizens of the Plane of Elemental Power got the attention of their master, the Prime Demon. He offers us a choice, kind-of, we can go retrieve an ancient artifact for him, or we can die…
-Uh… Give us a minute…
The Prime Demon frowns as we get in circle and debate together.
-An artifact!
-Yeah, but I want to kill demons, says the Brute.
-I want to help with that, I say.
-But seriously, demons? Again?
*Collective groan*
-Give me your answer NOW! booms the Prime Demon.
-We choose to die? err…
Scenario 21
Goal: Kill the Prime Demon
Team: Brute (lvl 3), Cragheart (lvl 3), Mindthief (lvl 3), Spellweaver (lvl 3)
Difficulty: 2
So yeah, more demons, even if we’re sick to death of fighting them, but the Brute is really close to accomplishing his Life Goal so we endure…
First room isn’t impressive, with only a Frost and a Sun. Those 2 dead, I open the left door, revealing 2 Wind and 2 Night. The Cragheart opens the other – 2 Earth and 2 Flame in the right. I joyfully hurl Fire Orbs at the demons near me and then we regroup in the first room. The Mindthief and Brute deal with the left while I support the Cragheart with the right.
We’re under pressure, dealing with 8 demons simultaneously, but things aren’t that bad. Except that the Brute tries and tries to finish a Night Demon and it takes an awfully long time before he finally succeeds. I and the Mindthief both had to heal him, as he was really battered.
The two hallways cleared, we got further in the Prime Demon’s abode. The Brute finds His Evilness in a room with a strange altar. The Prime Demon boasts of his invincibility, yadda yadda yadda, but hey, we have some sort of intuition (!) that he’s somehow linked with the altar.
There’s a twist though, the altar changes location, jumping around clockwise and summoning demons at the same time. Not too inconvenient, as we had cleared the place prior to this. The Brute have the Prime Demon on his back, and that jerk hits hard! So we bash the altar as fast as we can, except the Cragheart who’s too slow, too far, and has his eyes on the treasure anyway.
The Brute and Mindthief get exhausted but the altar is almost destroyed. I’m in good shape but can’t finish the altar as it jumps too far from me. But the Cragheart, sporting a new piece of jewelry, is right there to finish the damn thing, dissolving the Prime Demon at the same time.
Victory!
Streets & Spores 