DND Blog: An account of the ludicrous trials and tribulations of the SD DND Crew
An Account of the ludicrous trials and tribulations of the SD D&D crew
The stairs have very small risers and the whole thing resembles a ramp more than traditional stairs. Perfect for stubby legs, or the wheels of ore carts and whatever is extracted from the depths below. “Shiny things!” …
Heading east leads to an intersection, some bars and a vast array of polished kobold skulls. The group takes this as a positive sign and treads that path, dealing with the obligatory traps they have grown to expect. They enter into a cavern, dominated by a fortress that surrounds a vast stair that rises into the ceiling. Hey look! An army of kobolds is approaching. …
A Knock is produced, and Fingers eases the door open. He glances left and right and once again, the gnome’s robe-enhanced vision allows him to survey without being surveyed in turn. The door opens onto an avenue of tall buildings in an even larger cavern. The area where the door opens is unlit, but to the right there are many small light sources and the noise of a bazaar. …
The party decamps and prepares to spend another day tooling around the mountain. When Fingers opens the door, a fire trap is triggered. Though the damage is minimal, it does show the kobolds are not entirely cowed. Exit by an alternate route is also trapped, so the gnome takes an airwalk into the hall. …
The fleeing scout vanishes into the city beyond, and the group is somewhat loath to pursue, given their recent arrival and being uncertain of the ins and outs of the place – which seems quite vast. Here the ceiling is hundreds of feet above the avenues and there is a vast square that the buildings surround. The square is the site of a vast battle, and the tattered remnants of kobold bodies litter the stone ground. …
The return to Ptolus is interesting. It seems they have caught the eye of more than one interested party, for their return is marked by contact from the Defense Council that would like them to go disrupt the growing undead threat to the northeast. It seems that the capital of the old republic is either under siege, or has already fallen to an undead horde that is growing unchecked in the wilderness. …
The group escapes the Lothianites and decides not to engage. As tempting as it is, it’ll probably raise more questions and bring more nosey do-gooders. They track the gnome to a barn, where the paralyzed guild leader and his main bodyguard are hiding out. The group enters, slays the bodyguard and makes off with the head honcho. They bring him to a small farm not terribly distant from the scene of the slaughter and get to asking questions. …
The ride out of Ptolus is fine and they barely notice the various eyes scrying them. Or maybe that is just imagination. Or paranoia. Still – just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they ain’t out to get ya. A gentle ride through the countryside and skirting the forest brings them to a town named after a ferry. The ferry no longer exists because some wizard got pissy and changed the flow of the river. Goodbye income stream. Goodbye jobs. Goodbye townsfolk. …
They emerge in the mountains across the bay and clamber down into the foothills. Using flying abilities to bypass the worst of the terrain, they realize they are in the neighborhood of the undead baddy that recruited them to slaughter villages and seed undead spawns, culminating in the wholesale slaughter of the garrison guarding the northern approach to the old capital. …
Northward from the demons and celestials is a very strange place. Flesh covered walls and strangely warm hallways are a vibe unlike the others. There are signs of struggles and HOLY CRAP! They’re attacked by some kind of beholder-spider with machete arms. The struggle is real and Digin is felled yet again, though the helpful Sniffles props him back up so he can take another beating. …
The room of keys is full of keys – most of which are trapped. Taking the untrapped ones and moving on leads them to another room…with more keys. And…another room…with even more keys and finally one last chamber full of keys. At each step, more of the keys are trapped and several are also invisible. Most curious. The party has no time for interesting mysteries and backstory be damned! They just want out. …
The passage through the bugbear complex was simple…not complex at all. It appears there is some sort of territorial feud going on ‘twixt bugbear and goblin. This is confirmed in a rare moment of parley, when the intrepid adventurers entered a massive room used as a staging ground for the core of some kind of goblin resistance. What? Who knows. …