DCCRPG - The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk - Part Seven

The Wreckening 

By the holy might of Aristemis, we made it!  Our crew of crazy Dungeon Crawl Classics players finally finished the Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk.  It only took us six months and seven sessions to get there.

Way to get through an adventure designed for 0-level characters with a crew of 1st, and later 2nd, level characters.  Nice job, guys.  

Okay, I'll take some of the blame.  I added a bunch of side-quests, new creatures, and strange threats to the region.  I also completely indulged the group in their fantasies of Sunken City real estate speculation.  Good times!

The Great SCOT Continues

The Free Company, our adventuring party happily enjoying the Great Sunken City Omnibus Tour, completed Perils of the Sunken City and last month moved onto the The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk.  If you're interesting in starting this story from the beginning, here are the previous tales:

• Perils of the Sunken City, Part One
• Perils of the Sunken City, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part One
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Three
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Four
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Five
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Six

This is an open door campaign, so we can always have new players join our group.  Here are our only rules from game to game:

• Schedule five players for each event
• Hold a sixth seat free for last minute additions
• Players who complete an adventure have "dibs" on joining the next adventure
• Players can bow out, and rejoin later with living or new characters so long as there is a open spot at the virtual table

As always, Die Rodney!

The Free Company Roster

• Nicodemus - Thief, played by +Alex Perucchini 
• Razoul - Psion*, played by +Marc Plourde
• Ssof Rehtaf - Cleric, played by +andrew lyon 
• Imric - Elf, played by +Paul Go 
• Sir M'gordo the Ooze Knight - Dwarf, played by +Thomas Howell 
• Watson - Wizard, played by +Craig McCullough 

*New class featured in UX02: Mind Games

The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Seven

The Free Company returns to Castle Bellows with Jonas Gralk, looking for a reward from the newly self-appointed Lord Manse.  Lord Manse, disappointed that not all of the townsfolk are saved, offers the original reward of six prize hogs and a few basic weapons.  The party pushes for more money, and offers to take out Clotilda Gralk, and recapture the Castle of the Ooze.  Lord Manse agrees to award each member of The Free Company with five hundred gold pieces if they can return with Clotilda's head.

Watson finds out that a strange man is waiting for him in the nearby community room, and goes to investigate.  Inside, the enigmatic Van den Danderclanden makes a request of the wizard.  He asks Watson to travel to Clotilda's Ooze Pits and return with the Dark and Unholy Mask of Rot.  Van den Danderclanden speaks in a very strange manner, referencing future and past events seemingly out of order.  Ssof Rehtaf believes the man to be arcane in nature and casts detect magic on Van den Danderclanden.  The result of the spell leaves Ssof blinded, but Van den Danderclanden quickly reverses this effect by stroking the cleric on the cheek in a somewhat uncomfortable manner.

Van den Danderclanden also offers M'gordo the mighty Beard Salts of Gharkal.  

The New Company spends the rest of the afternoon preparing for battle before approaching the Ooze Pits in the dark of night.  Once there, Nicodemus checks out the northeast tower where Clotilda is said to be staying.  A thatch roof would make for an excellent entrance, but first there were six guards to dispatch.  This is a piece of cake for the crew of six.  

With the last guard dead, the party enters the center of the Ooze Pits to free the remaining slaves.  That's when Clotilda shows up.  But instead of a normal human woman, the party discovers Clotilda to be a thirty foot tall oozy monstrosity...

... it was Clotilda-tron!

Ssof Rehtaf was done with this ooze crap.  The cleric calls to Aristemis, his deity, and paralyzes the mighty Clotilda-tron!  The battle is completely lopsided from that point on.  Magic missile eagles, long swords, daggers, Clotilda-tron is carved up into tiny pieces of ooze.  Once dead, Clotilda-tron dissolves into the ground.  This of course leaves the party without a head to turn in to Lord Manse.

So Nicodemus finds one of the injured guards and cuts her head off while she is still alive.  Then he chars it a bit so that it could be passed off as Clotilda.

The Free Company returns to Castle Bellows and Lord Manse.  Razoul uses some psionics to pass the head of the dead guard off as Clotilda's, thus earning the party three-thousand gold pieces.  Watson brings the Dark and Unholy Mask of Rot to Van den Danderclanden, who offers to become the wizard's patron.  Watson declines.

Looking to gain some fame in the region, M'gordo donates much of his earnings to the castle citizens and as a tithe to Lord Manse.  Lord Manse bestows the knighthood of the ooze upon the dwarven soldier, forever making him Sir M'gordo the Ooze Knight.  

Sir M'gordo also takes his newly acquired pig and mounts a suit of studded leather barding on the beast.  

The Free Company then departs Castle Bellows and returns to Slither's End to check on their cash money. 

Adventure Notes

• The Beard Salts of Gharkal:  Single use.  The user grows fangs and becomes a cannibal for one hour.  For every living limb (still attached to a living creature) they eat they regain 1d4 hp.  The fangs are permanent.  

• Clotilda-tron (Huge, 30' tall).  Init +4, Atk ooze limbs (x4) +5 melee (dmg 1d6+4 + rot), AC 15,  6d10 HP, HP 50, MV 40', Act 1d20, SP: Rot (see Sunken City Omnibus, DC 12 Fort Save), Oozey Verp (DC 12 Reflex Save, 2d5 acid damage in a 20' burst), Splashback (on melee hit DC 12 Reflex save or take rot corruption.) SV Fort +5, Ref -2, Will +5.  

• Holy crap that battle with Clotilda-tron was a beat down!  Andy, who has had a rough time with his 12 Personality cleric, rolled a natural 20 for his Paralysis spell.  Then Clotilda-tron failed her will save.  Poor Clotilda-tron...

• I couldn't get Craig to take Van den Danderclanden on as a patron, nor was Paul interested.  But if you'd like to learn more about this crazy third party Patron, check out Crawl! issue 1!

Quotes?

"Guys, who am I?" - Watson proves to Van den Danderclanden that he's for realz.  

"Ssof!  It's good to see you alive." - Van den Danderclanden speaking.

"Five coins the padre doesn't make it tonight." - Nicodemus made bets all night.

"I have a plan.., Andy's character goes in and says 'hi.'" - Alex knew this didn't work well last game.

"Apparantly Aristemis enjoys humility." - How true.  

Jim - "Andy, what's your part in this."
Andy - "I'm the 'ideas' man."

"... and all the lawful characters head off somewhere else." - Craig, as Nicodemus starts cutting off guard heads.  

Jim - "Andy, you feel a brief burning at the base of your neck, but it goes away."
Andy - "That's the feeling of generosity." 

In Memoriam 

• Ugh... none!

A Week of Star Wars Gaming - Part One

I know the Living 4 Crits blog has been quiet, and I apologize.  Between work, and school, and soccer, and Halloween prep (it's our favorite holiday), getting time to blog, let alone game, is a real challenge.  This is the ultimate curse of adulthood.  I have the cash to buy some awesome games without asking for my parents' permission, and yet I don't have the time to play them all.

I thought I'd showcase how we've been able to squeeze in at least a little gaming, despite the crazy schedule.  With Star Wars Rogue One on the horizon, our house is erupting into full Force Fever.  We watched Episode 7 over the weekend... twice... and are ready to finish season two of Rebels.  Evie and I did some X-Wing dueling on Sunday night, and the entire family decided to give Star Wars - Edge of the Empire a try.  

So here's our Star Wars themed "week in review," part one... 

Sunday

Another grudge match in the Walls household, this time between Evie and me.  I guess technically that's virtually every grudge match, between we are the only two regular Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game players in the house.  Carrie, Cooper, and Jen occasionally play with us, but it's rare.  

Surprise, surprise, Evie showed up with a pair of TIE-Interceptors and three TIE-Fighters.  Originally we were going to go with two 100 point teams, but we scaled back to 80 points because of it being a school night.  Not that we finished, since we ended up pushing way past bedtime...

... I get an F for parenting skills.  

We did get to dust off our medium freighter miniature though, so that's a win!

A view from my side of the table.  Two X-Wings and a Z-95 that managed to get blown up in the first turn.  Go #TeamJames.

I have to say that I held my own pretty well during this game.  It was five on two for a good portion of the session, until I lost an X-Wing in the last turn before calling it a draw.  Technically Evie won on points, but don't tell her that.  

Monday (Halloween)

Not a gaming night, but for Halloween I went out with Kylo Ren (Evie) as my own Star Wars/Firefly/Doctor Who creation: Cyberbacca Cobb!

Tuesday

We gave Star Wars - Edge of the Empire another try on Tuesday night!  I've had the opportunity to play Age of Rebellion several times over the last year, but it's been about eighteen months since I've attempted to gamemaster Fantasy Flight's Star Wars system myself.  I've gotta say, the beginner's box for this game is fabulous!  It's incredibly easy to get a game going, and the first adventure helps guide a GM step-by-step through the process.  

Jennifer and I are trying to make a commitment to play something every Tuesday night, no matter what happens with our schedule.  It just so happens that we almost weren't able to make good on this first promise.  I had to work late, Jen had to work (she usually works Mondays instead of Tuesdays, but took off yesterday for Halloween), and there was some confusion with bath schedules.  But we were committed...

... so we started playing at 9pm!

Again... "F" for parenting.

For Episode I of Escape from Mos Shuuta we had the following players and characters:

• Carrie played Oskara the Twi'lek Bounty Hunter
• Evie played Lowhhrick the Wookie Hired Gun
• Cooper played 41-VEX the Droid Colonist
• Jennifer played Pash the Human Smuggler

A common silly look from Evie for the evening.  All-in-all, we had a much easier time with the dice mechanic than I expected.  I remembered last time having to spend a lot of time working through the results, but these kiddos picked up quickly.  It helped having character sheets that cover and explain all of the details.

I think the high point of Episode I for us was Evie trying to hide from the Gamorrean Guards.    With her brother hiding in a closet, and both her mom and sister behind a stage, Evie decided to have her wookie try and impersonate a rug...

...

... it didn't work.

Furthermore, when Evie yelled "ouch!" I told her that her character did the same.  The dice result made sense as well.  This, of course, led to a fight scene.

Carrie, our clever artist, illustrated the scene with Oskara sniping the guards from behind a doorway.

Reading the character backstories aloud, covering some of the rules basics, and playing the first two encounters took us just over an hour, so we decided to pause the game...

... to be continued.  

DCCRPG World Tour - Beyond the Silver Scream

Yes... THE Bruce Dickinson

"I hate things with curves." - The Nerd Girl Margaret Miller, a Wizard and Initiate of the Dimensional Dogs

Some Stranger Things

After binge-watching Stranger Things on Netflix back in July, I went on the hunt for a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure that could deliver some of the same, nostalgic 1980's "feels."  My quest did not take very long!  After scrolling through some of the offerings on DriveThruRPG, I discovered Beyond the Silver Scream by +Forrest Aguirre.  The description featured was perfect:

"Players begin as high school kids in the mid-'70s - early -'80s who go to the local seedy theater to catch the premier of the new horror flick "Screaming Sorority Girls from Planet Playtex."  But the horror isn't confined to the screen!  And the special-effects are all-too-real.  So take a seat and brace yourself for an adventure where the director isn't the only one doing the cutting!"

That was all I needed... SOLD!

Beyond the Silver Scream is a fast and fun 0-level funnel adventure that starts in a modern world, but quickly takes players into a strange underground cultist lair.  Along with the module itself, the product features some terrific bonus content:

• An occupation list fitting for the '70s and '80s.
• A full patron write up for The Dimensional Dogs, a weird and bizarre "elder god'ish" entity.  

As we got closer to October's DCCRPG World Tour event at Phantom of the Attic in Pittsburgh, I got the urge to run this adventure.  Teaming up with Judge +Michael Bolam, I ran Beyond the Silver Scream as part of the DCC RPG Pittsburgh Halloween Horror Hoopla!  Michael ran The Sinister Sutures of the Sempstress by +Michael Curtis.  

To make things interesting I decided to beef up Behind the Silver Scream and turn it into a 2nd level adventure.  My last two Road Crew events at Phantom Games were both 0-level funnels (The Museum at the End of Time and Escape from the Purple Planet), and I wanted to seem some Spellburn and disapproval!  

I had some tweaking to do!

Adventure Adjustments

Once I start tinkering with an adventure I can get a little carried away.  Here's what I came up with to make Beyond the Silver Scream my own:

Plot

• I totally jacked up the plot of this adventure, injecting both Dungeon Master and Venger from the Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon, as well as a ton of Blue Oyster Cult references.

• My plot went as follows:  
• Venger from the D&D Cartoon, in a quest to gain power, created a ritual to gain the power of The Dimensional Dogs all for himself.  He had collected an entire village worth of souls to use for one aspect of the ritual, including the band Blue Oyster Cult, and needed to make one more sacrifice.  
• Hoping to thwart his nemesis, Dungeon Master would recruit some brave heroes from Earth and set them on a path to intercept Venger.  
• Not wanting to give their power over to Venger, The Dimensional Dogs would also try to sway the new heroes to their side, giving them access to the blessed Blade of Bruce Dickinson.  

• Since there is a point in the adventure where the PC's can either head towards the weird village of time dilation or the scene of the cult sacrifice, I decided that either could be where we ended the quest.  Either way, the PC's would somehow get contacted by The Dimensional Dogs, be given the opportunity to take them on as a patron, and be granted the beloved Blade of Bruce Dickinson.

Characters

• I started all the PC's as 0-level characters, generated using modern-day characters.  Although the adventure features a 0-level occupation list, I used the "Teens out of Time" list on Purple Sorcerer.  This saved me from having to write too much out by hand.  

• Each player received just one 0-level character, but early on in the game I had Dungeon Master upgrade everyone to a shiny new 2nd level character!  

• We only had three players, so I let everyone play a pair of characters.  
• Chris
• Margaret Miller, the Nerd Girl Wizard
• Ron Englehart, the Undercover Cop Warrior
• Christopher
• Eddie, the Metalhead Warrior
• Stacy, the Overachiever Girl Elf
• Richard
• Mark Marnie Smith, the Kleptomaniac Halfling
• Amara Jackson, the Chess Club Girl Thief

• Sadly, three of our PC's didn't make it.  Stacy, Ron Englehart, and Eddie all fell battling evil.  RIP.  

Rules Tweaks

• To set the adventure up for 2nd level characters I made some simple changes to most of the encounters.  
• For difficulty classes, I added +2 where it deemed fitting.  So DC 12 instead of DC 10, etc.  
• The cultists are tough already, with decent HP.  I just boosted their AC's, gave them some additional attack modifiers (another +2 to hit) and some more gear.  
• I tried making their gear extra creepy.  For instance, the guards in area 18 I had their flails be actual biting human heads on chains. 
• I substituted randomly generated Type I demons for the Devilspawn in Area 5.  I rolled up a Hyena-Turtle Demon that was quite fitting. 

• The Abomination in area 25 needed some big-time beefing up!  
• I went with 50 HP, and another +2 to all saving throws.
• I also gave the Abomination a Caustic Spew, requiring a DC 14 Reflex Save or suffer 2d6 damage and get blinded for 1d6 rounds.  
• This Caustic Spew automatically activated in a 20' detonation once the beast was killed.  Pop!

• Venger!  Since he was featured so prominently in my adventure, I had to give him a write-up.  (Init +4; Atk Sword of the 9 Hells +4, 1d8+3 dmg; AC 15; HP 50; MV 20, 50 Flight; Act 2d20; Spellcasting +8, access to all 1st and 2nd level spells.)

• Blade of Bruce Dickinson:  Yes.. THE Bruce Dickinson!
• +1 Long Sword
• Alignment: Chaotic
• Intelligence: 5
• Communication: Simple Urges
• Bane: Venger 
• Power: Wielder gains infravision 120'
• Power:  The sword causes an additional +3 damage if another player spends their entire action drumming.  +5 extra damage if using a cowbell. (I added a cowbell in one of the cultist's closets for just this purpose.)

Richard, Christopher, James, Chris

Carnival of the Damned - Norwin Game Knights Event

"One cannot live a full life without having experienced the legendary Dungeon Crawl Classics Adventure: The Carnival of the Damned by +David Baity.  This is the greatest truth known to mankind."

- Marcus Aurelius 

Other Experiences Pale in Comparison

I am in so much trouble.  Have you ever had one of those gaming experiences that was just 'magical' for everyone at the table?  Of course you all have!  That's what keeps us all in the hobby.  So you also know the challenge of trying to repeat that experience again, and again, hoping to retain the magic of that very first session.  Last night was one of those nights, as I joined forces with my daughter Evie to run The Carnival of the Damned by +David Baity for the Norwin Game Knights.

I've been running Dungeon Crawl Classics with the Norwin Game Knights virtually every month since the summer of 2015.  But what made last night extraordinary was that I ran my first Tournament Funnel.  If you've never experienced a tournament funnel here's how it works:

1. A predetermined number of players sit at a table, and everyone else who wants to play gets in line.
2. Each player at the table gets one character.
3. After each encounter, the surviving player characters get a stamp.  They accrue these stamps throughout the adventure.  
4. When an active player's character dies, they leave the table and their seat is taken by the next person in line.
5. The player who just had a character die can get back in line.
6. This continues until the adventure is over, or the event runs out of time.
7. At the end of the adventure, tally up the number of "successful encounters", and determine which player character (living or dead) had the most successes.  This is the winner!

Our entire family first experienced The Carnival of the Damned as players with Judge +Michael Bolam on Free RPG Day at Phantom of the Attic in Pittsburgh.  For most of the event, my daughter Evie was in 1st place with the most encounters survived, but in the last hour she dropped to fourth place.  While disappointed, Evie cherished the experience, and talked about it for most of the summer.  When adventure author +David Baity found out, he sent Evie a clown-themed care package.

Fast forward a few months, and we were trying to think up some kind of spooky, Halloween themed adventure for our October Norwin Game Knights event.  Given that 2016 seems to be year "Year of the Clown Sighting", how could we not choose The Carnival of the Damned?  Evie offered to supply one of the prints given to her by David as a 1st place prize, and I was still sitting on some extra DCC World Tour swag for runner-up prizes.

Just Clowning Around

Rather than attempt to give a play-by-play of last night's completely bonkers event, I thought I'd just share some pictures and give some commentary on how I ran the adventure.  

I should probably point out that I wasn't able to get through the entire module... which is a good thing!  When you first open The Carnival of the Damned you will realize that there is an insane amount of potential game-time within those 144 pages!  +Michael Bolam ran us through (sometimes quite literally) in around four hours, but I was only sitting on two-and-a-half.  Completionists could take eight hours or more to finish off this monstrosity!  To make matters more complicated, nearly half of our players had never experienced a role-playing game before.  

How awesome that this clown-themed, death trap of an adventure would be their first tabletop RPG experience!

I also had to contend with the ages of the players.  I believe the youngest was around nine, and all but one were under the age of sixteen.  If you've never experienced role-playing games with kids, be aware that this many youngsters tends to generate a level of noise that can be deafening.  Not only does this require a lot of shouting by a now hoarse judge, but it also means that much of the scenario's nuance is left behind.  

That said, I knew we would never get to the main story of the adventure, so I made an easy alteration.  Those of you familiar with The Carnival of the Damned will know the Petting Zoo encounter.  I made the bunny area the end of the adventure, and had the stolen children be the bunnies.  So at the very end, however many bunnies the players save, that's how many children survive the adventure.  I held this encounter to the last fifteen minutes of the tournament.  

Knowing that I would have to do a lot of screaming, I made sure to enlist the greatest Co-Judge of all time: Judge Evie!  Evie was in charge of marking off successful encounters on the character sheets, as well as adding PC's to the Ded Pile.

Here's Ded Rat, our brand new keeper of the "ded".  Yes, we know we spelled it wrong.  Apparently everyone had to point that out last night. It didn't take long for the Ded Rat to make some friends.

Some of the characters died pretty quickly, but we soon noticed a trend: the least experienced players were surviving the most encounters!  Jordan, Abby, Lylah, and Gabe were all playing cautiously, but didn't just sit back and wait for others to get the glory.  They were each brave but not reckless.

We had thirteen total players join us for this event, with eleven staying to the very end.  As I was wrapping up the experience, several of the players were already shouting out requests for "another game".  At this point it was closing time for our monthly event, but I appreciated their enthusiasm!

With a total count of ten successful encounters, Jordan (right) was the victor of the Norwin Game Knights' very first DCCRPG Tournament funnel!  Like all four top-scoring players, this was Jordan's first tabletop role-playing game event, and we hope to see her back at the table soon... maybe running her own events?

Ultimately we only completed about a third of the encounters in The Carnival of the Damned, so I'm sure we'll be running this tournament again.  Perhaps this clown-themed quest shall become our new Halloween tradition with the Norwin Game Knights.  But I know that there is one very important result of this experience...

... I better have another tournament prepared soon! 

Inglourious Dragons of Weird War 2

Where to Place Your Dragons

Earlier this week I jotted down some notes for a new, dragon-themed mini-campaign for our family.  +Jennifer Walls, Carrie, Evie, and Cooper are my favorite players, and I'm always looking for ways to bring everyone to the table with something unique and innovative.  We've played with dragon-PC's before, during Thanksgiving 2014 when we dragged my parents to the table for Council of Wyrms.  That particular game session became legendary as my dad was quite disruptive at the table, and almost warranted a "player time out!" 

Disinterested in running AD&D 2nd Edition for the family again, I grabbed my Savage Worlds books and took to the internet in search of some kind of Council of Wyrms fan conversion.  Just when I thought I was going to have to create some kind of dragon conversion notes on my own, my good friend +Ray Slakinski pointed me towards Savage Dragons!  A Savage Worlds fan product written by +Richard Woolcock, Savage Dragons is full of rules for playing dragon-PC's in just about any setting you could imagine.  The racial rules are completely balanced so that game masters could include dragon PC's alongside any team of adventurers.  

This absolutely free fan project was perfect for my needs!  

With the rules in hand I sat my family down and gave them a pair of options for this game:

Option 1:  The player characters are hatchling dragons.  Breaking through their shells and stumbling out into a beautiful and mysterious fantasy world, the dragons find adventure at every turn!  Magic embraces the lands of this strange new world, and the Dragon PC's must learn to survive and thrive while mastering their own arcane-imbued forms.  A fantastical sandbox, in this campaign the player Dragon PC's will be set along a path to find their parents, unlock their ancestry, and make contact with the enigmatic Dragon Sage.  

Option 2:  Secret British Agent Dragons fighting Nazis in Weird War 2.

It should be no surprise that Option 2 was a unanimous decision.  

The Inglourious Dragons

I've got some work to do on the first adventure still, but over the last few nights we've used the Savage Dragons rules, combined with Weird War 2 Campaign Setting, to come up with a crack team of dragon commandos.  

Stay Tuned

So long as no one else comes down with the cold thats affecting our family, we're slated to play the first game of this mini-campaign Saturday night.  I'll probably discuss more about the inspiration for this twisted take on the Weird War 2 setting in that post, but until then please feel free to share your own thoughts and ideas on this project.  While I'm thinking this will be a lot of fun for our kiddos, I'm also excited to try this same theme with some grown-up gamers!

DCCRPG - The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk - Part Six

Gone Mental

Maybe it's just our group, but we're REALLY stretching out +Jon Marr's The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk to the absolute maximum!  Last night marked our six session with this adventure, and we still didn't make it to the very end.  Granted, we're only playing 2.5 to 3 hour sessions at a time, but for an adventure that you can purchase for just under five bucks we've really maxed out the value of this module.  It probably doesn't hurt that this group of players tends to take the sandbox concept to the extreme.  

We also featured the addition of a new class to our campaign: the Psion.  Featured in UX-02 Mind Games by +Reid San Filippo and Shield of Faith Studios, the Psion class has a feel that harkens back to the old Psionics Handbook from 2nd Edition D&D.  Weird supernatural abilities, but with a distinctly non-magical feel.

If you're interested in a full review of Mind Games, check out the video I posted last month:

At the end of the session Marc commented that he was enjoying the new class.  We'll see how it progresses as the campaign moves on... provided he survives!

The Great SCOT Continues

The Free Company, our adventuring party happily enjoying the Great Sunken City Omnibus Tour, completed Perils of the Sunken City and last month moved onto the The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk.  If you're interesting in starting this story from the beginning, here are the previous tales:

• Perils of the Sunken City, Part One
• Perils of the Sunken City, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part One
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Two
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Three
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Four
• The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Five

This is an open door campaign, so we can always have new players join our group.  Here are our only rules from game to game:

• Schedule five players for each event
• Hold a sixth seat free for last minute additions
• Players who complete an adventure have "dibs" on joining the next adventure
• Players can bow out, and rejoin later with living or new characters so long as there is a open spot at the virtual table

As always, Die Rodney!

The Free Company Roster

• Nicodemus - Thief, played by +Alex Perucchini 
• Razoul - Psion*, played by +Marc Plourde
• Ssof Rehtaf - Cleric, played by +andrew lyon 
• Imric - Elf, played by +Paul Go 
• M'gordo - Dwarf, played by +Thomas Howell 

*New class featured in UX02: Mind Games

The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, Part Six

Poor Nicodemus is quite surprised.  While resting comfortably at Castle Bellows, taking a break from adventuring, Nicodemus is awoken by Mayor Manse of Slither's End.  The mayor holds a deed to The Free Company's practically new fortification, and declares himself "Lord Manse of the Flow".  While Nicodemus is free to trade at Castle Bellows, he can no longer call the place his home.  Nicodemus leaves in a huff, heading to Slither's End to get some questions answered.

He arrives, and immediately receives some unexpected news:

• The Free Company sold Castle Bellows to Mayor Manse for 17,000 gold pieces.
• The 17,000 "gold pieces" came in two denominations, 7K in gold and 100K in silver. 
• The weight of all that money meant that it couldn't easily be carried around the region, and needed to be protected.
• The Free Company now owned the old, dilapidated Gralk home in Slither's End.
• The Free Company hired some guards to protect the home.
• One of the guards, a dwarf named M'gordo, was way too experienced to just be a guard, and in turn was given a chance to audition for The Free Company.
• M'gordo was on a quest of his own, in search of the Magical Beard Conditioner to make his facial hair silky smooth.  
• Ichabod, the party's cleric of Cthulhu, had a change in personality and now proclaimed himself to be Razoul the Psion.  His personality shift must've been due to a psionic mishap.  

After reviewing the team's "status updates", Nicodemus gets The Free Company back on track, hunting down Jonas Gralk to save the lost villagers.

The Free Company knows that Jonas Gralk has some kind of hideout east of the Unusually Large Tree, so that's where they head first.  A river runs just east of the ULT, and the party starts looking for a way to cross when their new dwarven guard M'gordo goes rogue.  M'gordo decides that he wants some wood from the ULT, and takes out a club to "beat" a piece of the wood away from the structure.  

All this does is piss off one of the Type I Squirrel Demons guarding the tree.

The Type I Squirrel Demon descends upon M'gordo, with a vicious look in all of the eyes that cover its body.  M'gordo flees, but is captured by the squirrel demon, who "pouches" him instantly.  The rest of The Free Company notices this, and comes to M'gordo's rescue.  Ssof Rehtaf's prays for some paralysis power that stuns the Type I Squirrel Demon, and M'gordo is de-pouched beard first.

Noticing that there is a weird fortification on the other side of the river, the Free Company finds a rocky path just north of some rapids and decides to cross.  Razoul proves his worth by telekinetically connecting a length of rope across the water, and each character carefully makes their way to the other side.  

Nicodemus scouts ahead of the group and notices that there is a small party of workers just outside of the fortification.  Eight guards (three humans and five opossumen) direct twelve Slither's End villagers in a crude lumber operation.  The villagers look drugged.  When Nicodemus reports back to the rest of the party, Ssof chooses to parley with the guards.  As soon the Cleric of Aristemis approaches the work crew, he gets pincushioned by the opossumen's javelins, collapses, and starts to bleed out.       

The rest of The Free Company rushes to Ssof's aid... by ignoring him and killing off the human and opposumen guards.  When the battle is over, Ssof is turned over, and revealed to be alive, albeit with some nerve damage.

A guard is also left alive, and he starts to spill the beans about the fortification and the Gralk family.  He is stopped abruptly by the villager children, who demand that the guard be sacrificed to Salissak the serpent.  The Free Company does nothing to stop this, and the guard is carried away by four young children, screaming.

When the children return, the horrible truth behind Slither's End is revealed.  The villagers of Slither's End worship a dark snake god known as Salissak.  Salissak often demands sacrifices, and so victims are lowered into the swamp via the "speaker's podium" in the middle of the village.  One of these victims was Jonas Gralk's sister, and so Jonas Gralk's mother Clotilda has taken it upon herself to enslave the villagers and force them to work in the ooze pits.  There is something in the pits that Clotilda Gralk covets, and it must be uncovered.  

All the party can think about at this point is "there is a possibility that another fortification can be captured, and then sold on the open 'evil lair' market." 

After reconnoitering the fortification, an taking a guard headcount, The Free Company devises a plan to reduce the number of minions within the ooze fort's walls.  First, they wait for a scouting party to look for the first eight guards.  The Free Company slays all of the scouts, taking their gear and equipment.  Returning to the fort, the party hears Clotilda command her son Jonas to lead a team personally into the swamps to seek and destroy the imminent threat.  

Needless to say, especially given all the experience The Free Company has gained in the swamps surrounding Slither's End over the past few weeks, that Jonas and the guards are easily dispatched.  The guards all die and Jonas is paralyzed by Ssof Rehtaf.  The Free Company heads back to Castle Bellows with their prisoner in tow.     

To be continued in the Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk 7, The Wreckoning... 

Adventure Notes

• In my mind M'gordo, played by my friend +Thomas Howell, is a dwarven version of the Zohan.  Not sure if this was Thomas' intention, but come on... a quest for Magical Conditioner?  I'll say this - Thomas sure knew how to create the perfect backstory for one of my games!

• Poor Ssof!  When you roll over a body after combat to see if the PC survived, even if they make it they suffer permanent attribute loss.  Ssof's Agility of 5 dropped to a 4.  

• I debated pushing through to the end scene inside of the Ooze Fort, but I didn't want to give this adventure a hasty end.  We've already received so much value out of the Sunken City, and an ending to this particular adventure deserves a great ending!

• I still don't know how the party is going to leave Slither's End with 107K in actual coinage.

• I'm not sure how we're going to run the next adventure.  A Gathering of the Marked is designed as a 0-level funnel, and although I added meat to The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk to scale it up for 1st and 2nd level, I'm considering doing the next adventure as a funnel.  This would give all of the players a chance to create a "backup" character for later in the campaign.

• I truly believe this campaign is going to end up being a series of fortress, dungeon, and lair "captures", with their subsequent sale on the open market to evil villains with money to spare.

Quotes?

"Dwarves don't float." - M'gordo is wise.

"So what you're saying is that you'r playing a dwarf hairdresser!" - Marc's reaction to M'gordo's backstory.

"Not in the face, it's my money maker!"  - M'gordo begs the Type I Squirrel Demon.

"Oh man, it has the finest pleather ever!" - Alex talking about the +1 Wallet of Shadiness 

"I'm a psionicist, not a squirrel gynecologist!" - Razoul to the party after being asked to check for some eggs.  I tried adding some of my own rap lines to this, but didn't get that far. I know the next line should be "... apologist for all of this..." but I can't get any further.  Feedback welcome.  

"I think we could make a lucrative career out of capturing places and then selling them.  This is turning into 'Flip My Dungeon.'" - Marc has his eyes set on acquiring the Ooze Pit Fort.

"How goes it?" - Ssof asks the opossumen just before they lob five javelins at the cleric's head.  

"Where's your god now, padre!" - Nicodemus to Ssof, after the cleric gets peppered by javelins.

"Let me die!" - Andy after finding out his character's agility dropped to a 4 after getting rolled over post-combat.

"I'm not rolling a die to see what we do." - Marc denies Alex's roll-off.

In Memoriam 

• None, but Ssof Rehtaf came REALLY close!