Daniel Herz

Slug House – End of Investigation (session 26)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG ,

Lot happening in the adventuring guilds’ world. The city council wants them organized under a single entity. Also, the Green Imps have been forced to give tribute to the stronger Ravens, angering the Battle Brothers and Protectors when they learned about it. The Black Axes have apparently lost their leader but are now back in town after being away for a while, with rumors of them having been lost in Ganfal swamp. Speaking of Ganfal swamp, it’s expanding through farmlands at an alarming rate, day after day, with only the retrieval of the Scepter of Harvest from Gunderholfen having the power to stop it, it is said. For the moment though, the Battle Brothers are still investigating a wizard’s manor in town.

4 hours session

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/491255/slug-house

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, rather enjoys his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: back in Longfeft, complain that they’ve been preyed upon by the Ravens
  • The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt, Delevan convalescent
  • Black Axes: back in Longfeft, Kegan the Black is dead (left behind?)
  • The Musers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

Longfelt

  • The Battle Brothers start the day at the Hare & Hound inn. They take time to listen to rumors and hear about the plight of the Green Imps whom have forced to give tribute to the Ravens. They talk to innkeeper and ex-adventurer Maeve and they learn a few things about the Ravens and their leader, the dwarf Runfurly the Depraved. They go talk to the Protectors and ask for their support for teaching a good lesson to the predatory guild as soon as they can.
  • Having done that, the PCs start their adventuring day and access Uzul’s manor the same way they did previously, through the window on the eastern side.
  • They see that the corpse of the Giant Slug is no longer there and there’s a fresh trail of mucus on the floor leading through the door and then north. They follow it.
  • They get into a library. There’s tiny floating motes of light in the room, some hovering above a wrting desk, others around… the Giant Slug. The creature is alive apparently but is visibly afraid of the adventurers. It exits the room as soon as it can. A floating mote starts to follow Grimoire.
  • The PCs follows the Giant Slug. It goes at the end of a long corridor and up a set of stairs. Into another long corridor with another staiway at the end that goes down. And again… These two corridors are connected by magical stairs!
  • The PCs stop following the Giant Slug in its perpetual circuit and explore a side door on the newly-discovered corridor. They’re in a large, dusty room and with the view through the windows they can see that they’re on the west side of the manor. With that revealed, they backtrack and resume exploring the eastern side of the 1st floor.
  • They get into a room in great disorder with a strange array of furnitures and scraps made into a « fortress ». They hear small creatures scampering away to another room.The PCs search the « fortress » and find two teared papers, notes from Uzul Balashi no doubt, in the same vein than the previous one, of him whining that his wife badgers him on his mistreatement of the staff and his reckless experiments on himself.:

« Thou shall drink one too many potions my dear » she said « and find thyself crawling around like an overgrown earthworm. »

  • In the next room they find homoncubolds hiding under the bed. They reassure the frightened creatures and barter for another note from Uzul. They find more clues of the wizard’s demise on the bedside table. They also find a secret door behind a cupbpard.
  • It leads to the manor’s tower and into an Herb room, wherein Torch gets a strange sensation but is fine due to his natural goblin resistances.
  • Going up the stairs they get into a wizard’s laboratory, with a complete set of alchemy and many potions. They don’t touch anything.
  • Going up again, reaching the top, they get into Uzul’ Sanctum and find his spellbook on a pedestal. They take it and this activates the Wood Statue from the room’s corner. The Wood Statue is very resistant to Forka’s hammer blows and Aracyne’s arrows doesn’t do much either, but Jedri’s sword slashes and more so, Grimoire’s fireballs do good damage and with some work, they defeat the dangerous guardian (forgot to activate the Splinters final detonation as per DB monster ability, oops).
  • With the wizard’s spellbook in hand and acting with all the clues they got, they go downstairs and manage to find the Giant Slug again, still on its circuit. They show it the spellbook, it seems to recognize the thing but doesn’t seem to be willing or lucid enough to get a clearer reaction than that.
  • The adventurers leave the Giant Slug, the unfortunate wizard Uzul Balashi most likely, behind and start to explore the western side of the floor.
  • They soon get into the presence of some manor’s ex-staff, now ugly, all lizard-like and having the most horrible stench to them.
  • They’re having a lot of fun rummaging through their ex-employer haversack, they’re clearly intoxicated and in very good mood. They’ll trade Uzul’s journal in exchange for the best tacos in town, from Biffro’s Bistro.
  • The adevnturers proceed to get out of the manor and buy some tacos from Biffro. On their way back they get pestered by the inivisible imp but mostly ignore hi and try to evade his tricks. They give the tacos and get the journal. One final search nearby reveals a secret door and a treasure chest in a small room. The chest has a decent amount of coins.
  • Satisfied with their gains and the clues they found, the PCs decide to leave the manor for good. They take an appointment with Merrick the High Constable and present him their evidences. Uzul Balashi foolishly experimented on himself and was turned into a Giant Slug. He probably killed his wife but no proof was found about that. Their investigation is concluded. Merrick would have liked a bit more but he’s okay with their work and he upholds is part of the bargain, giving them a nice knight’s great helm.

Closing Comments:

  • That’s the end of Slug House for this campaign. They explored about 2/3 of the mansion (82 keyed entries), missing several secrets and treasures.
  • At the same time they did accomplish their objective and taking more time outside of Gunderholfen was out of the question for them.
  • For me this adventure module was near-perfect, I would barely have any quibbles to hold against it and that doesn’t happen often at all. I’ve checked another published adventure by the same author: the heretic’s grave, and it’s also very good. An author well worth to keep an eye on for sure.

Slug House – Slaying of the Giant Slug (session 25)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, my kids, Nature, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG ,

Nature interlude, a few hundreds meters from our home in Québec City. No Giant Slugs were slain on this specific expedition.

The real-life Battle Brothers.

And now, back to our program:

Some negociations, some shopping, a big fight and that’s all the Battle Brothers could squeeze in this session.

2 hours session

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/491255/slug-house

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, rather enjoys his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt, Delevan convalescent
  • Black Axes: somewhere in Ganfal swamp, lost?
  • The Musers: in Longfelt, resting
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

Longfelt

  • The next morning at the Hare & Hound inn, the Battle Brothers find out that Dominguos (with some of his men and a woman named Phrynia) was waiting for them in the common room.
  • Dominguos talks about starting on the wrong foot but offers to come to some kind of understanding with the adventurers. How about they share some of the plunder if his gang don’t interfere with their investigation? The Battle Brothers accept, not committing to any set share though.
  • The PCs go find their thief friend Tlali, now mostly cured from her rat-form curse, and ask her if she could discreetly find out if the window form which they got out the day before (and left not quite closed) was still the same. It was still open, but it was also trapped with poison needles (which she removed).
  • Forka orders a custom, a bit heavier, warhammer from a local blacksmith used to provide for adventurers. Half the money now and should get the new weapon in three days. The PCs buy a crowbar and some other gear.

The Mansion of Uzul Balashi

  • The Battle Brothers reach the wizard’s manor and enter the front courtyard and ask Dominguos if they can explore his gang’s side of the manor. He reluctantly agrees and shows them around except for his own room (that he shares with Phynia). The adventurers manage to spot a secret door that the bandit leader swears he knew nothing about. Unfortunately the door doesn’t seem to open from this side and there doesn’t seem to be another way to access the rest of the manor from this aisle.
  • The PCs are tempted to break the door open but finally opt for the window.
  • Forka is the first to enter into the dining room and is surprised to find a strange creature already there: a Giant Slug!
  • Forka’s 2h hammer don’t seem to do much against the slug but piercing and slashing attacks from his companions, and fireballs from Grimoire, ultimately do the job of slaying the beast. The monster did spit acid on Forka, hurting him (but his magic chainmail was okay). It also produced a powerful lighning bolt that downed Torch and badly hurt Jedri and Grimoire at the same time. Once the Giant Slug was slain Grimoire proceeded to heal his companions with his magic. The Battle Brothers chose to be cautious and leave the manor without further exploration.

Closing Comments:

  • The Battle Brothers rested for the night at their usual inn, a big advantage of adventuring in the city proper for sure. But their habbit of using always the same inn also means that ther’re easy to find if someone wishes so… Plus, they were followed by a footpad.
  • The eponymous Giant Slug was obviously a big deal, could cast some spells (in my modified Dragonbane version) and was hard to defeat. It had 8 possible starting locations (and moved around afterward), at random, here it was at the dining room, their chosen entry point.
  • 3 days for this mission to date and more to come as they still don’t know what happened to Uzul Balashi.

Slug House – Curiosity Room (session 24)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG ,

The adventurers have rested in the mansion’ safest place, surrounded by floating candles, they’re now resuming exploration of the missing wizard’s home.

2 hours session

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/491255/slug-house

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, rather enjoys his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt, resurrection of Delevan succeed (convalescent)
  • Black Axes: somewhere in Ganfal swamp, lost?
  • The Musers: back in Longfelt, resting
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

The Mansion of Uzul Balashi

  • The PCs go back inside thew darkness-engulfed room. Checking their map, they’re convinced there should be a secret door in this room. Slowly, carefully patting the walls, they manage after a while to find the contour of an hidden door. With a bit more efforts they find a keyhole. It appears to be impossible to lockpick unfortunately.
  • They get out and go to an unexplored room nearby. It’s a taxidermy workshop. Among the paraphernalia they spot a blue opal key.
  • They immediately set out to test the key in the just-found keyhole and it’s a fit! The door opens into a small corridor with its walls covered in glowing runes. Tests, with some stuffed animals from the taxidermy workshop, reveal that intruding in the corridor activates powerful electricity discharges. Not seeing any easy way past that, the adventurers decide to go elsewhere.
  • They decide to go back to the ground floor. Forka picks up a small silver ringbell on the altar of the shrine of Death.
  • Back into the Banquet room, they find four more ringbells and start to try them one by one. Several have no apparent effects. One rings everywhere in the mansion all at once (they hear a door opens somewhere not very close). One puts some kind of beneficial effect on Aracyne. Another makes every PCs deaf!
  • Deaf as they are, the PCs still continue exploration and open a door to the east.
  • They enter the curiosity room. There’s shelves and cabinets filled with various assorted items. There’s a demonic-looking statue in one corner. The PCs move one cabinet aside and find a secret door behind it.
  • Torch enters a small vestibule and finds a trapdoor on the floor, he opens it, revealing a ladder. He starts to descend but the ladder breaks under his weight (he’s a goblin but in full armor), making him fall 15′ below. Torch is dazed (condition) but not too badly hurt. He’s in some kind of natural cave below the mansion and something is moving nearby. The tentacled beast just glimpsed at before, a Carcass Crawler..
  • Forka throws a rope down but at this very moment there’s a commotion behind him – Jedri is being attacked by the statue, it’s a gargoyle!
  • Jedri is severely wounded by the gargoyle’s claws. Torch manages to climb the rope fast enough (but get exhausted, pushed his roll) and slam the trapdoor shut before the wall-climbing creature got to him.
  • Forka switches place with Jedri to fight the gargoyle and he starts with a big attack with his 2-h hammer that does good damage to the monster. The gargoyle’s claw attacks doesn’t get through his magic chainmail. A mighty hit of his hammer and the gargoyle is now severely damaged but it counters with a claw attack on forka’s face (crit) and another one (another crit!) and the knight is down!
  • Fortunately, the gargoyle is near-death enough that Grimoire and Aracyne can finish it in no time. Grimoire casts Heal Wound on Forka and the dogman gets back on his feet.
  • By now though the adventurers are worried, their mage has depleted his mana and can no longer heal them. Following an intuition they open a door n-e, into a dining room and find a shuttered window that they can open from the inside. They get out of the wizard’s mansion and go rest at the Hare & Hound inn.

Closing Comments:

  • They spent nearly an hour of in-game time in the dark room. Something is obviously important in this area but they can’t go further for the moment.
  • Torch falling on the Carcass Crawler lair and Jedri being attacked by the gargoyle SIMULTANEOUSLY was a indeed a dire situation for the PCs. (I « activated » the gargoyle at this moment as it made sense for it to do so) They came out on top but it was a close call.
  • I was a bit suprised that my description of a demonic-looking statue didn’t elicit more suspicion from the players but I guess it’s a mistake they won’t do again.

Slug House – Forced Entry (session 23)

David Skelector Dragonbane, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

A nice change of pace as the kids chose to do a mission outside of the megadungeon for once. Working for Longfelt’s high constable, they have to infiltrate a wizard’s house and find out what happened to the owner who hasn’t been seen in public for half a year at least. (And as everyone knows, probing into a wizard’s home without invitation is a surefire way to get into trouble, better to send foolish adventurers!)

3 hours session

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/fr/product/491255/slug-house

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

  • Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
  • Jedri, Ratman Thief, he rather enjoys his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
  • Grimoire, Goblin Mage, frail but smart (Isaac)
  • Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
  • Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

  • Green Imps: adventuring in Gunderholfen
  • The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt, resurrection of Delevan succeed (convalescent)
  • Black Axes: somewhere in Ganfal swamp, lost?
  • The Musers: back in Longfelt, resting
  • The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

Rumors:

  • Uzul Balashi’s garden has many wonderful herbs and flowers, including spicy Purple Habanero, an exotic and much sought-after delicacy.

The Mansion of Uzul Balashi

  • The Battle Brothers arrive at the wizard’s mansion and are stopped by two guards at the main entrance. The guards are members of the Olores Domago gang, enforcers hired by Uzul Balashi a while back and now mainly into gambling & drinking & womanizing & banditry on the side.
  • A talk between Aracyne and Olores Domago’s leader, Dominguos de Bellehache, quickly degenerates as the latter refuses acces to (their side of) the mansion (they’d be welcomed to the courtyard though) and Aracyne calls him a « thug ». Seconds later, Dominguos’ men are on their feet, weapons in hands and the situation is within an hair’s breadth of getting violent but the adventurers finally choose to leave. (Unbeknownst to the PCs Dominguos orders a footpad to follow them at distance afterward.)
  • The Battle Brothers then go around the block, get on the back of the mansion and throw a rope over the outer wall (in broad daylight) to acces the overgrown courtyard. Forka climbs first, attach another rope and get down on the other side. Grimoire joins him soon with a levitate spell. There’s a large, sinister tree shading the area. There’s something going on with the weeds, forcefully entangling Forka and Grimoire. Forka lifts the goblin on his shoulders and start to cross the courtyard, fighting the weeds strenuously all the way over there. Grimoire then casts levitate on his three other companions, one by one, so they can reach the mansion without going through the weeds. (a lot safer but costly in magic points)
  • Forka smashes an adjacent window with his hammer and everyone extirpate themselves from the weeds as fast they can and get inside the mansion.
  • They’re in a large banquet room but don’t really explore it, they open a door west and get into an ominous room dedicated to Death, with a Grim Reaper in a stained glass window and an altar with a skull on it and some other stuff. Aracyne takes a book from the altar.
  • The PCs don’t linger and open a door south that reveals a set of stairs going down. After some hesitation they choose to descend.
  • They’re in a large room with many crates. They try to open a door west but it’s locked and a few seconds later they hear banging and howling coming from the other side.
  • They leave it be and go north through an ossuary. There’s six standing skeletons but they don’t react to the adventurers’s presence when they cross the area. They open a door north.
  • The PCs are now inside a smaller room from which emanates calmness, serenity, with candles gently floating around.
  • Forka inspects a brick wall and finds a secret door. It leads to a small corridor with an acrid smell in the air. The source is soon apparent as a Gray Ooze attacks Forka and inflicts a burning wound on him. Grimoire does massive damage to the ooze with a (crit) Mental Strike. Jedri damages his light mace with a left-handed attack on the acidic monster but his magic sword, Perseverance, is fine after it finishes it.
  • The ooze slain, the adventurers find another secret door at the end of the corridor and get into a room with a dry fountain and a corpse with a badly-damaged armor and a broken sword.
  • There’s furnitures blocking the door from their side and they remove it all and enter a room littered with bones. They see a tunnel carved high on the wall and going east but they choose instead to open a door south into a fetid room with a small hole on the ceiling (they found the latrines yikes!).
  • They get back and they hurry away as they see a large tentacled beast exiting from the tunnel.
  • They leave this area and get back once more to the storage room and open a door east.
  • They enter a room engulfed in darkness, Torch’s torch is barely visible. Something is moving in the dark, a cackling laughter and then Torch yelps in pain as sharp teeth plunge onto his leg. A chaotic fight ensues as Torch and Jedri (who can still fight decently without seeing much as a Ratman) go against two monstrous wolves with skulls for heads. Jedri quickly kills one with a sword through the heart. The other beast tries to rake Torch with its claws but fail to get through his armor and the combined efforts of Torch and Jedri are enough to dispatch it.
  • The PCs get out of darkness by where they came and enter a room to the south. There’s a diminutive creature half-organic half-mechanic (an homoncubold) sitting on a carpet. It’s mute but it gestures at some wares it’d like to sell. Aracyne buys a dagger and a folded paper from this odd merchant. The paper turns out to be a note written by Uzul Balashi – the wizard is complaining bitterly that his wife doesn’t approve of the experiments he’s doing on their house staff (they’re starting to get ugly and smelly…). The PCs also manage to learn from the merchant that Uzul Balashi can be found somewhere above, not underground.
  • Going in another room close by, they find boxes filled with women clothes and some jewels, They also find a music box and Aracyne turns its lever until the music ends and then the box explodes in a powerful fireball! The three closest adventurers suffer greatly, jedri is badly wounded and Aracyne and Grimoire are both down and in a critical state. The Elf’s face is a charred mess and Grimoire has one leg nearly torn off (injuries). Forka manages to revive Grimoire and then the mage casts his recently-learned Heal Wound on Aracyne, saving his life and then on himself and Jedri.
  • The Battle Brothers, a bit discomfited by this ordeal, get back limping to the Floating Candles room and get a good rest without any interruption.

Closing Comments:

  • I have about ten modules attached to the Gundeholfen tentpole at the moment. I was really impressed by Slug House when I came upon it and was eager to run it. A really nice urban dungeon, there’s not many of those that are so well-conceived. Highly recommended.
  • The kids did a pretty good job of exploring. They still rush things a bit too much and don’t ask questions nearly enough but they’re getting there.
  • The music box was one brutal curveball I must say. It does make sense in context though.
  • The kids guessed quite rightly, and by themselves, that the candles room was a great place to rest.