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Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Under the Giant's Shadow: Resources, Surprises, Maps, and Magic Items

Had another session of my B/X game Under the Giants Shadow, where the PCs were able to prevail upon Edmund and his horseclan to stay an extra week in the city ruins so they could recover from the injuries in their camp. These injuries were earned hopefully dealing a crippling blow to the cult of Brother Blade (one of the various Brotherhood of the Stars cults that are run by individual charismatic leaders for individual gods). Blade and his men somehow got into Galmagia's undercity and are stripping the cathedral of the Matriarchs of the Moon (the organized polytheistic religion), leaving the human members of the party incensed. (Since Dwarves are atheists after their gods went mad, the Dungar the Dwarf didn't care, but wants the loot.) 

Despite the party members at-best-average Charisma - Oland Seven-souls the thief is deliberately average with his 10, where as Athyera the Magic-User is closed off, harshly critical and sometimes dismissive at her 8, and Jessethera the cleric is overly evangelistic and passionate at her 7 - Oland manages to close the deal with two of the three horseclan youths, hiring them on for them to split a share of the treasure (and minimum of 10 GP each per delve) and, once back in civilization, be outfitted with steel swords rather than their current spears. 

This was the first time we had really made use of the recruiting rules - last time the Pcs offered something insanely valuable for the use of some of Edmund's men, Edmund lowballed them an offer and they took it - and the players got into the mini-game aspect of it. And despite the Dungar's player's die hard belief that having henchmen just meant you were sending them to do your cool things, Oland's Player immediately grasped the "have these two guys guard doors/our backs while we do stuff" utility of them. Never mind how useful they were when the fight against the animated dead happened. 

Yes that's right, when you obliterate the fighter-type members of the evil clerics cult, he will just bring them back. Maybe not in the same fashion, but in the same wrapping. The fight with the zombies was quick but impressive, with a Zombie scoring well enough with their first attack to activate their special power of "lob target across room for extra damage" on Jessethea. Fortunately for the party she was not incapacitated and was able to Turn Undead (also the first time we got to play with my new Acts of Faith rules) and 2 of the 4 zombies off into a stairwell where the stairs collapsed under them. The remaining two were dispatched by Dungar and Oland (with his two henchmen). Oland then sent arrows into the zombies trapped in the stairwell until they collapsed. 

But I get ahead of myself. Once they were back in the cathedral they found all of the corpses they made last time gone and the room cleaned up. They better mapped the room, discovering one corridor they didn't expect to be there and doors exiting on the narrower sides to the East and West. Opting for East as based on what they knew of the above ground floor plan should be a smaller area, they find the Abbess' private study, which Brother Blade was now using as his quarters, which contained 4 reanimated cult members guarding the doors to the flanking water-destroyed libraries that had stairs down to the crypts. There was much ganishing of teeth that the libraries water-wards had broken and a quarter century of fluid coming through the giant-created cracks in the ceiling. as my room notes stated "the shelves contain nothing but bitter disappointment". 

Aethrya had fortuitously prepared Read Languages, so when they found Brother Blade's personal journal they were immediately able to collect a lot of information on their opponent, and that he is looking for The Swords of the Soul of the City, which are Behind the Last Door in the Ancestral Crypts. Blade is assuming these are inside the Cathedral's crypts and he has been using his group of zombies to explore the crypts for them, but Atherya knows from the journal that they found of the head clerk of the custom's house that the Last Door is under the custom's house vault. There was a brief moment of "He's digging in the wrong place!" 

This was when the players surprised me by saying they were following him into the crypts, which I had not mapped yet. Time to hit the internet and find maps, in this case Dyson Logos' Iseldic's Drop, which I decided was mirrored on both sides of the Abbess' study room. The players really appreciated the multi-level circular interconnectivity of the space. The internet: so helpful. I don't have it stocked with monsters, but I can say that any of the spaces they are entering now have been cleared out by Blade and his zombies. 

Winging it madly based on the maps and my own knowledge of what I intended to find down there, the players pieced together more of what was going on, found a spell book in a secret compartment inside a desecrated sarcophagus - and until you have seen B/X or AD&D magic users find a spell book with new spells in it you have never seen a player truly happy - and had an encounter with a haunt, the 27th Abbess to is pissed about her grave being desecrated. 

Fortunately Oland Sevensouls has a possessed grappling hook that lets him summon his dead colleague Azric to act as an intercessor with other ghosts. Sol Atherya was able to tell Oland to ask Azric to ask the Abbess x questions, and then the chain used for response. Nearly forced the players to actually play Telephone but in the interest of time I decided to just keep it open, and everyone had a lot of fun with the absurdity of the scene. Especially since Jessethea's player played the killed-by-a-dragon Azric, so it was a three player chain. The Abbess gave them more information on Blade's activities, told them to reference the library archives for the location of more information on magic in the crypts ("we can't! They're sludge!", identified the dodecahedron they found earlier as a Stone of Controlling Earth Elementals, and finally possessed her silver caduceus amulet for Oland to carry. He's at 4 souls now and counting!

The amulet gives him perfect knowledge of the crypt's labyrinthine layout (in other words I can print all the Logos maps for him), and gives him the Abbess' Divine Favor Score (17) rather than his own for saving throw bonuses (+2 rather than +0) when he's wearing it. Another unique magic item for him to carry. Now the group is setting up an ambush for Blade when he returns from this trip, hoping surprise will overcome his 7 zombies +1 acolyte + him as a 5th level Cleric. Their fallback is Aethrya using the 2nd level iteration of "floating disk" (which mirrors the 1E "Push" spell) to shove him down the 16 level open well. 

Yes, please please please send the higher level antagonist to his "death" where you can't see the body after. That would be perfect!



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