AD&D Session 17: Dealing with the Gnomes

This session our heroes decided that they didn't like the Gnomes to the north and that they would very much like their treasure. Since Sir Goldborn's player couldn't make it, they didn't have anyone stopping them from exercising some gray morality. In the party were Kai the Druid, Soldier Number One, and Kleptos the thief plus his bodyguard. In Borgogazze, the party again hanged around the barracks borough to search for some hirelings. They manage to find a sizable company of crossbowmen and hire a few of them to their service.

The party now make their way through mostly hilly terrain and come at the ruined village where the entrance to the Gnomes' lair was. They warily make camp and wait for the next day to come. This time there are no monsters in the night.

Next morning, the party goes into the dungeon. They move quickly toward the room where they remember the shrieking giant mushrooms being, being careful to hold their light back as much as possible.

As many ranged fighters as possible are let into the room and take position in the dark. Then a light is lit, a Faerie Fire goes off from Kai, and the silouettes of four giant mushrooms come into view! The mushrooms start shrieking! Everyone starts firing! While this happens, the thief checks the exits of the room to make sure no-one is coming, eventually hearing steps coming from the north. He alerts the party, who are just finishing off the last giant mushroom with missiles.

Tipped off about the enemies coming from the north, the party position themselves into the corridor and prepare for a fight there. They get charged by 8 angry Gnomes! A melee ensues. The party employ rank-based hit and retreat tactics: when the fighters in the front take damage, they get swapped with fresh characters.

An Insect Swarm spell goes off, which is relatively ineffective. But Gnomes are dropping left and right, with no casualties for our heros. The Gnomes make their first morale check at 75% strength, morale is good. The fight goes on and a second morale check is triggered. At this point, the Gnomes completely surrender.

The druid can speak Gnomish, so he mediates. He gets the Gnomes to hand over all their treasure: 100 p.p. and 750 e.p. Also they are questioned about who else is inhabiting this dungeon and how big the Gnome colony is. The Gnomes answer that there are some marauding Orcs this dungeon level. The Gnomes are just the vanguard of a much larger Gnome community of about 250-300 individuals (DM filling in here... I didn't have a cogent answer at the time of the session) spread throughout the lower levels of the dungeon. The Gnomes are primarily fungi-cultivators.

The party decides to not harass the Gnomes further and goes home with their treasure.

AD&D Session 16: The Tomb of the Serpent God

This session, Soldier Number One, Kai the Druid, Sir Goldborn and Kleptos the Thief enter the hidden Tomb with Trapunctus the NPC Thief showing the way to the group. They are accompanied by Soldier #2, Shaggy (Kleptos' bodyguard), Neckless and Happy Bob (two henchmen from the previous session), and the promising Fighter Frieda.

Near the entrance, there are alcoves where lesser functionaries of the snake men are buried. The party uncovers clay statues inside wooden coffins. One wizard-looking fellow  is wearing a ring on his hand. Someone yanks the ring off and the whole finger goes off, revealing that the statue was hollow but filled with some kind of poison gas. Saves vs. Poison are made, and the party continues, ignoring the other clay statues.

They come across a door barred by a heavy stone resting on a pair of iron pegs. As they lift the stone, I describe that the pegs are slowly going upwards in the direction of the top of the door. Since I get no response, a deadly trap is triggered. A giant stone hammer swings down from the ceiling and many characters must make saving throws. All our PCs survive but many NPCs die right there: Soldier #2, Neckless, Happy Bob, and Frieda. The party mourns them shortly and delves on.

Having understood the mechanism of the trap, they can now pass through the door without further danger. They come to what seems like the main tomb, finding caskets belonging to some serpent king and a giant statue of a serpent god to the south. The caskets turn out to contain skeletons, which the party fights. At some point they use a technique of only opening a casket a little and bashing whatever skeleton is in the inside in this way. This is highly effective.

The party discovers a passage under the statue of the serpent god. They go down it and along a short corridor. They come into an octagonal room with several exits, one for each wall. They explore a bit the variously-styled burial sites. One of them has a pressure plate which the thief detects (failed Search for Traps roll but since the thief was looking I reveal the irregularity without saying what it does). One is empty apart from scrolls with strange writings on the floor, one contains 18 menacing clay statues of snake warriors.

The party now searches a bit the shallow pit of black water in the center of the room and gets attacked by two mummy hands. They deal with them with not much issue, and then fish out whatever was in the pool. Some miscellaneous items of treasure, a black cloak, and another ring.

The party goes on and down some stairs. They activate a trap which makes the stairs transform into a ramp and they slide down. They come into a large room where an angry Stone Snake Guardian with four arms awakens and attacks them. Trapunctus the guide is KO'd (and maybe someone else too) but then the stairs go normal again and the party hurries up back again, tying their downed teammates with some ropes and hauling them up. They barely make it up since the monster is too large to fit in the stairway passage.

The party decides that they have taken enough of a beating and head back to town. Trapunctus is unconscious and needs to convalesce. The party decides to leave one of the rings by him and quietly leave the town, hoping that that would be enough for his share. Otherwise there's some treasure to identify: a ring, the black cloak, and the weird scrolls. For the first two, Kai and Sir Goldborn use the favour that the mage Waltalf in Borgogazze owes them and have them identified. The ring is a cursed ring of Poisoned Fingernail and the cloak, a Cloak of Flying which is potentially worth a lot IF the party finds the command word to activate it.

The rest of the treasures are brought to the Museum Custodian in Borgogazze. The scrolls seem to be the ravings of madmen in an ancient language. The demon "Baltoplat" is named multiple times. They are not magical but have historical value. The rest of the treasure gets sold to the Museum for a respectable sum and the gratitude of the Custodian.