Thug Muggers in the Tunnels 2/9/24

Table Talk:

I forgot to give this out at the end of last time, but everyone got 650 XP last week, 450 for the mimic, 50 for the first Violent Fungus, and 150 for the two Violent fungus together after that (i rolled this as a set even though the fight didn’t last long enough for the second on to do anything.

Speaking of XP, i have a request. I need one of the players keeping track of XP (Sarah or Brooke), to go through the summaries from your last jaunt in town. I am having trouble finding the time to go through it, but i need a list of everything we did to give out XP. Obviously there’s big stuff, like talking to The Crown, But also small problem solving. Sorin getting the message to Matteo for instance was easy, but it required thinking things through to find solutions and then doing multiple actions/steps.

I want to take everyone behind the current for just a second to explain time. I divide the days into four simple time sections: Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night. Each of our sessions (with a few exceptions), i just rotate that clock forward by one. So if we start on the morning of the 5th, then next time we start at noon of the 5th and so on. The exceptions are of course for things like a session being one long combat, or the backstory sessions we did a while back. For reference it is Evening on the 14th of Kythorn (The Time of Flowers) now.

A question for the players to consider that we last touched on in summer 2022. Would it be easier to have me pre-roll stats for encounters? I could, either when making them, or getting my notes ready that day, roll up health and initiative and things like that. The table pointed out that they actually like it when i do it at the beginning like i have been doing the last few days. It gives them a chance to (try) and focus up and get ready to play. On the other hand, it is a big break in the action when we need to pause after going somewhere i didn’t expect, for me to roll 20 times and do a bunch of math. Not something that needs to be decided today, just something to be thinking about.

Lastly, well second to last; Rae and Cypress, with the Puppeteer parasites on you for this encounter, you will have +1 AC but will take +1 damage to bludgeoning attacks.

And now let’s all roll initiative so we can dive right into the action.

“If animals, any animal could vote for itself, it absolutely would do that. Existence is voting for yourself, everyday.”

-Justin McElroy, “My Brother, My Brother, and Me: MBMBaM 578: Greg’s Upstairs High-Performance Tea Kettle”

🦎🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 9: The Second Smithy

The room is dark, but the forge is hot.

His giant arms pump a simple rhythm in on the fire.

Huff.

His muscles ripple and he moves in front of the furnace. Under the fresh baking coke is the dull cherry glow of the deep embers. At his feet the circle glows. He feels its vibrations deep in his bones as the magic flows through the geometric lines around this little smithy deep underground. He grabs the thick iron tongs from the water tank and draws out the iron bar.

The iron is sparking white and he stares at it before slamming down on the giant anvil.

Ting.

The hammer strikes again and again. It forms a harsh cocoon of noise, the low thump of monotony in harmony with the high peel of uniform perfection.

He wipes the scale from his skin, noticing the white spots of age old burns. In the darkness, he pushes the iron into the water and breathes in the steam as it plumes up in his face. There's a memory there, in a steam of a happy childhood in the damp air surrounded by water and gigantic buzzing flies. He pulls the iron out of the water. He stands there with his massive shoulders hunched for a moment. One hand lifting the tongs up, and the other almost touching the ground. He stares at the metal and waits for the next thought to arrive. He feels the thought burn in his mind and he jumps back to life, straightening his back. He sets the iron rod on the small anvil with the others and goes to the coal box. He grips the shovel tight, anger rising, and slings another heap onto the fire. When he turns to pick up another iron bar he sees the strangers.

Five strangers in this place. Two short ones in finer cloth, a pointy one in armor, a skinny one in a dress, and a tall one with a stick.

Once more his eyes go dim, but the rage bubbles underneath. He waits for the next thought in that same slumped posture. Then as one of the short ones moves the thought arrives and burns through his veins.

He roars and his mouth is like a furnace, no fire here but anger and hatred. When the torches spark to life, he charges.

When Cypress steps forward, with a calm outstretched hand, the gigantic toad man bellows at us. He leaps over the massive anvil on the floor and for a moment we expect him to throw it at us. Either it or one of the carts. Then he picks up his hammer and roars again. He swings.

Round 1

Cypress casts Entangle! The roots spring up from the ground in a ring around the magic circles on the ground. One vine, quicker than the rest, rushes up to snag our attacker’s heel but isn’t fast enough to catch him as he leaps.

Sorin is fast on his feat, casting Chilling Touch! In the blink of an eye, the ghostly hand appears and zips towards the raging Slaad, but he’s too fast. The blacksmith grabs the still red iron bar and throws it. The hot iron and the ice hand meet in the air with a sizzle and a clang as the bar falls to the floor.

On top of us now, the Sladd strikes, Ari ducks out of the way of his teeth as he tries to chomp into her shoulder. Then he swings his massive hammer at Cypress for 6 damage and carries the swing through into Rae for 12! On both of them, the hammer blow smacks the teeth of the leathery parasitic companions deeper into their skin, but in the melee it’s just one more thing happening all at once and they barely notice.

In a panic and unsure what to do, Ari’s blood turns hot (like chilling blood for humans) and her ancestral instincts take over. She arches her back and shrieks out an ancient Infernal curse. Darkness billows from her horns, covering this corner of the room. In the heart of it she crouches and sneaks along the wall.

Rae runs past the Slaad, trying to get out of the darkness when she’s struck by his wildly swinging hammer (an attack of opportunity) for another 10 damage, but the hammer blow knocks her back into the main part of the room. Now able to see again, she readies an attack!

A voice shouts out from the darkness, “This is your fight, just tell me where you want me and what you want me to do. Just remember I can’t fight for you,” Bostra shouts to the group at large.

“Hide!” Everyone shouts back in unison.

“Call me if you need something, then.” Bostra shouts back. Then he throws his giant duffle into the spike pit we just jumped over, lands on top of it, and then pulls the camouflage floor tarp over the hole with him inside.

Round 2

“Cypress, help, I’m hurt bad!”

The cleric follows Rae’s call out of the darkness, and rushes over to her. They cast Cure Wounds on the monk, dumping the jar of engorged Flesh Worms down her leg wrapping as they do. “Sorry, but these will help.” And indeed they do. The little anti-maggots start working on Rae’s cut up feet adding 6 to the 10 HP from the spell.

Sorin also uses Rae’s voice as a beacon out of the darkness. And once he can see, he runs to the far corner of the room and hunkers behind the cart there, readying an attack of his own.

From the center of the darkness we hear an incantation in Slaad, and then two small balls of flame are hurled out from it. Luckily they both strike the far wall and not any of our heroes who are waiting for more surprises with baited breath.

“Everyone ready?” Ari shouts, “Three, two, NOW!” She drops the spell of Darkness!

Able to see the Slaad now, Rae’s readied attack is triggered, and so is Sorin’s. She rushes forward, racing the glowing Magic Missiles as they strike home! The light throws Rae off at first. Then after the second swing of her staff misses, she drops it and punches out in a (non-barbarian) rage! The punch lands for 6 damage on top of Sorin’s magic 13, and she charges her Ki to stun her foe. 9 more damage, but the blacksmith Slaad stays standing!

Bostra pokes his head out the hole, “You guys got this? You need anything?”

“Not unless you have any health potions!”

Round 3

A Greater Potion of Health lands at Cypress’s feet and he swipes it up without question. He runs over to Ari. “Okay, we’ll fix it all later, but what hurts most?”

Ari winces, “Not sure why, but my horns.”

‘No time for examination or questions about Tiefling physiognomy’, Cypress thinks. Out loud he says, “No time to check close, sorry, this might sting.” And he breaks the thin and already cracked glass over Ari’s horns.

Sorin reaches up and (for the first time since he got them like a year ago), flicks one of the lenses of his goggles into position giving him True Strike. Then, seeing the overlay of the frog-toad-lizard-man’s muscles in one eye, he casts again. This time, the Chill Touch lands a critical hit and the ghostly magic ice hand flies through the Slaad’s throat for 26 damage!

The Slaad coughs and seems to choke, then runs at Rae. He knocks her back and over the anvil in a failed half grapple, half tackle. But when they pop back up from the ground behind the giant anvil, it’s now two identical Raes staring back at everyone.

In a moment of pure inspiration, Ari touches her Sending Stone and whispers, "Rae, put your hand up.” Ari aims through the red drops falling from her horns and immediately fires on the imposter!

Rae swings her staff at Rae, cracking Rae upside the head for 10 damage and then Rae punches Rae in the face over and over for 10 more while grunting, “Only. I. Get. To be. ME!” in between each blow!

Round 4

Breathe.

Look.

Breathe.

Something about this doesn’t feel right to Cypress, it hasn’t since the beginning. Calming his mind and clearing his head from the battle fog, he looks at the rampaging Slaad and tries to feel out what magicks or mysticism are lurking around us here.

Nymbus: “I feel like maybe he’s possessed or something like Belgruuse and we shouldn’t kill him. Can I make a Perception Check to see if he’s a Sewer employee or something?”

Hmm… You can… but you’re in a fairly unique position… Tell you what, If you want to figure this whole thing out, I’ll let you, but it will be a series of three rolls, each taking a full action.

Nymbus: “Hmmm… Yeah okay, this feels important so I'll do it.”

First is Arcana.

16.

Sorin peeks over the seat of the cart he’s hiding behind and casts another Chill Touch at the blacksmith. But now he’s back by the forge, and the Slaad just hurls a handful of smoldering embers, dispelling the spell in the air.

As if remembering about fire, the giant toad breathes in deep, expanding and engorging his throat sack. He breathes out in a fast Slaad incantation and the words form simple curved shapes in the air that all spiral around rubbing against each other in a ball. When the last sigil comes out, it crashes into the pile of magic and hurls Fireball Spell across the room.

Cypress and Sorin both save, casting up their own wills against the fire, but still taking 18 damage each.

Ari sees only the bright flames and then blackness as she passes out. Then she sees an even deeper blackness as she crit’ fails her first death save. Yikes, only one more and you gotta choose a backup character!

Rae also sees the bright flames and then blackness as she also passes out.

Round 5

“Sorin! Kill him!” Cypress shouts as they rush and knee-slide to kneel over Ari. They push Sheela’s will into their friend to stop them from bleeding out (Spare the Dying).

“Akris, anything you can do to help, now’s the time!” Sorin grunts as he fires out another barrage of Magic Missiles at the bloodied Slaad.

The ethereal Flying Snake zips over to the hulking blacksmith and wraps his tail around his massive neck. Akris bites his own tail and pulls with his wings flapping madly!

He chokes the giant for 5 more points of damage until the Slaad jerks forward and bites down! He rolls a nat’ 20 and crunches through the familiar snake before charging at Sorin as the Akris poofs back out of existence.

“Nononononono!” Sorin shrieks, trying to run away backwards, but the Slaad keeps coming and his wrist claws drag into Sorin ripping his robes and skin apart.

Ari and Rae are both struggling in the dark to find consciousness, but some part of them likes the cool soft darkness where they aren’t getting trampled on… they both fail to wake up.

Round 6

This time, Cypress runs over to Rae. As he kneels down by her head he spies a red bottle in her bag, “tZulèe help me please, get that red bottle and pour it on her chest.” He casts Spare the Dying on the monk and she comes to sputtering out red droplets. “Thank you tZulèe, but that’s the face, the chest is lower down. Still, I appreciate you.”

Backed into a corner now, Sorin is remembering some of the dirtier tricks he’d learned growing up as an orphan (though to be honest, i suspect most of the dirty tricks we used on him). He ducks down by the blacksmith’s feet, pulling his rope from the top of his bag. He tosses down the coil, then nimbly passes a loop around one of the hug legs as the Slaad keeps on coming. As he runs away he clasps his palms together, closes his eyes, then points to the roof and shouts, “¡ʞɔıɹ⊥ ǝdoᴚ”

The Slaad’s face goes blank as, unexpectedly, his left leg is yanked up into the air. Suddenly he is dangling in the air, upside down over his shop and the annoying little human in the dress is running away from him. He tries to grab at the furry little skin bag, but his hands are too far up. He doubles over, curling up to the rope on his leg.

Ari returns to consciousness, just in time to see the giant spiky humanoid toad fall from the hole in the ceiling. “Am i still alive, is this real life?”

Rae is up now, and slings the string of another Health Potion on the end of her hovering staff. “Hit Ari with this!” Then she rushes over to the prone Slaad. She lands a critical hit, drop kicking the monstrous man-beast! Then she spins up from the ground and punches down at him for 7 more. Her Ki seems to be on fire now, almost pouring out of her as she unleashes a Flurry of Blows!

Ari watches all this, then grunts as Rae’s staff slams down on her chest, breaking the Health potion on her.

Okay so that’s 1D4+2-1D4.

Umm… 5.

She manages not to pass out, from the blow as the potion seeps into her skin.

Round 7, Final Round

With Rae and Ari back up, Cyress can focus on the Slaad again. ‘It’s something with him, something with his mind. I could see something when he was stunned, like he was blank…’

Nymbus, give me a medicine check.

Nymbus, cheering: “Nat’ 20, babeh!”

Awesome! Okay, with that i’ll let you do the last roll at the same time. So that’s one more Perception check, roll good!

Nymbus: “Boom! 18! What do I perceive?”

Okay perfect, you now know what this is. Look up Green Sladd (Control Gem Variant).

In a flash it all makes sense, Cypress can see the prismatic light behind the eyes. “Sorin, Don’t kill him! Just knock him out. I repeat. Do NOT kill him!”

Sorin aims for a final Firebolt. “That’s up to me now, and I am not feeling generous!”

“Sorin!”

The huge Green Slaad blacksmith falls back to the ground….unconscious.

Phew what a fight! I actually wrote that whole thing in one sitting in about one hour… My fingers need a drink, they’re smoking! Reader, I remind you to drop your shoulders and relax if you were getting sucked into the action like i was. I will say though, that the ending with Sorin there was more dramatic at the table. Sorin really wanted to go for Lethal Damage and everyone begged him not to. At one point someone even said “If Sorin wants to stay on the team, he needs to listen to the team's decision!” Yikes. Let's all take a break for a second and relax. Get a cup of tea and a cookie. And after intermission, when we come back; brain surgery!

🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 10: Cypress Witchazel and the Extraction of the Crystal Skull

Okay, everyone back? We all got out chips and soda? Got a good stretch in? Good. So, Nymbus, you know what to do now, but i’ll tell you upfront that this is going to be high risk. You need to roll a Medicine Check with a DC of 20. Bostra will give you Guidance which will add a D4, but anything else you can do to goose the numbers is probably worth it because if it fails he will take 4D10 damage and with his current health, that will probably kill him outright.

Cypress and Bostra go over to the incapacitated Slaad, and Cypress immediately shifts his body to lay his head down on their bag. Then from a side pouch, the little Cleric pulls out a roll of tools and looks at Bostra, who nods. He brings over a torch and uses it to light a lantern before propping it up on the other side.

Looking at his healing tools (bottles, a sharp knife, tweezers, fine thread, needles, a small drilling bit), Cypress is unsure how to go about this.

Rae sits down next to her friend here and pulls out the organ harvesting tools she bought from Devin, and silently hands them to the cleric.

With all the tools laid out, Cypress delicately selects two spreading bars, a fork, and a sleek little tong with an end like a shoe horn. He removes his jar of moss and holy water and dips each one into it with a prayer, Blessing each one. (I allowed Bless to work here even though it's a Medicine Check because it makes sense that a Life Goddess like Sheela would want to help this to happen).

Finally, it’s time, there’s no more preparation to procrastinate with, let the Libotivicisemo begin.

In the bright light of the torches and lantern, Cypress bends over the toad man’s skull which is nearly as big as his chest. He lifts the skin of the outer, and then the inner eyelids and nods to Bostra who carefully holds them in place. Then he uses Rae’s bone separator on one side of the blacksmith’s nose. He very, very carefully lifts the skin and bone of the socket away from the eyeball itself. With no fine tuning screw, every clack of the pawl on the ratchet causes us to wince as we all secretly fear it to be the sound of breaking bone. Cypress clicks the ratchet four times and then hesitates, unsure if this thin but semi-flexible cartilage lip can handle anything more before the semi-hollow bone below caves in. He stops and locks the ratchet, and we all sigh with relief.

Cypress nods to the tools, and Rae hands him the softer organ mover. It’s similar to the bone separator but with soft ends dipped in a rubbery resin to avoid puncturing organ walls and flooding a body cavity with unnecessary juices. Cypress moves down the Slaad head and positions the new tool. From this angle, in the corner of the inner eye socket, he can just start to see the Slaad’s brain. He swallows and pushes the tool in. Ever, ever so gently, he opens the cavity, grateful for the rough turn screw on this one as he slowly pushes the watery sack of the eyeball to the outside and down. The screw turns and the mouth of the organ mover opens and opens… and opens… Phew. Cypress breathes out once he can see the crystal clearly.

The cleric takes out the simple two pronged fork and slides it into the brain cavity over the eye. He knows this is risky with the prongs on this fork as thin as they are, but he doesn’t have a tool more spatula shaped and he doesn’t know how much resistance the crystal will give. Once the tines are arranged on either side of the gem he reaches a hand back and Rae puts the final instrument in his hand. He slides the beak of the spade extractor down the length of the fork and then begins to open it. With the flat and the dome of the extractor around the gem now, he nods to himself and gently begins to pull. The gem pulls away easily at first and then seems almost sucked backwards. This is what Cypress has feared most of all, he swallows hard, and pushes ever so slightly on the fork, gently driving the brain matter back and down, away from the crystal.

It all comes down to this. 1D20 with advantage from figuring this out during the fight + 1D4 from Bostra’s Guidance + 1D4 from Bless + 1 from Rae’s tools + your Medicine bonuses.

TWENTY-SIX!

PHEW! Oh yeah, and ya know, trigger warning for medical stuff by the way. I mean i did say it was gonna be brain surgery.

Cypress hears the tiniest, faintest pop, and can just make out three silver strands letting go of the crystal and then falling back to the brain. Then he carefully pulls the crystal out with the extractor and the fork lifting it up from behind. He drops the gem into the lid of his moss jar and we all relax. Bostra nods and the cleric slowly unwinds the screw and then shifts the ratchet, closing the wound.

Bostra lets go of first the inner and then the outer eyelid. Then with the reverse lobotomy completed, he pats Cypress on the back. “Good job. You’d make an excellent field medic.” Maybe not the compliment Cypress would’ve wanted, but high praise from an old soldier who once dangled a doctor over a river by their feet until they promised to never try to heal anyone ever again.

With looting, we’re gonna be doing something a bit different here and a lot of this loot will come from the standard loot table. Some for hoards and some for individuals.

Avoiding everyone after the argument over non-lethal damage, Sorin goes to the furthest cart, the one closest to where we came into the room. Inside are two normal boxes, and one iron strong box. He opens the first box to see stacks and stacks (900) “Ooo hells yeah-”

-of shiny copper coins.

“Awe copper!”

Ari goes to the cart by where she almost died, and rifles through the bags in there. The first sack contains… That’s 4D6 so 17… Seventeen medium sized stones! “Ooooo awesome! Hey, Sorin, I’ll trade ya!”

Cypress and Bostra move the Slaad into a more comfortable position, sitting on the ground and leaning with his back to the big anvil.

While they do, Rae goes over to the table of weapons by the forge. Mostly it’s covered in broken gear and things in need of repair. Blunted and marred swords, cracked and busted wooden shields, etc. The one thing that does stick out to her is that all of the shields are covered in the same camouflage brick pattern as all the Thugs’ cloaks.

Sorin goes up to the large iron lock box and- “Wait, oh yeah!” He slaps his Pocket Hole onto the side of and goes to reach inside. (Reminder to the readers, the Pocket Hole has a chance of reaching into any container in a given room). As he reaches forward a torrent of water gushes from the hole in the big lock box.

Ari goes to the next bag and this time she finds… 16 large size stones of various shapes. “Really, Sorin, I’m down to trade.”

Rae digs through the broken shields and finds a very heavy pouch full of gold pieces.

Cypress stands up and goes to the last cart. The one in the far corner with the odd harnesses, all the shiny bits and ends sticking out, and the mechanism inside. He goes over to the cart to look in and stops. Not from the side, not with all those blades sticking out. Then he goes to the front and looks in. He picks up the large chest harnesses with some trepidation and moves them to look inside.

The mechanism is simple but fierce. When the wheels turn, so do the blades all along the side. And the wheel of blunt chucks like hammers at the back… The whole thing… Does it look about as wide as one of the sewer hallways? Yeah… it does…

Thinking about this, Cypress goes back to his patient.

Sorin tries the Pocket Hole one more time and this time he reaches in… and pulls out an arm covered in soot and coal dust, clutching a handful of cheap black rocks.

Ari opens the last of her bags to find… 13 small sized stones… and some gems worth about 100 gold, and a Frog Bag of Tricks! “Nevermind Sorin, I’m good.”

Rae is about to give up looting, when Bostra walks up next to her and points to a piece of metal under a broken sword. “You want that. Trust me.”

“I do?”

Bostra nods. “I recognize the etchings, a skilled craftsperson can attach it to a weapon and then the weapon can have a Hunter’s Mark.”

Rae doesn’t hesitate in pocketing the shiny slab of metal.

Cypress sits on top of the giant anvil and looks down. He massages the skin of the Slaad head between his legs, helping it slump into its natural resting place after the surgery.

The last bit of looting is the iron strong box. Ari ends up needing three more uses of her magic chimes and a set of lock picks to open it, but inside are five large emeralds worth 25 gold a piece, a Potion of Water Breathing, a Potion of Growth, and a set of Goggles of Night!

We are all agreed on a Long Rest now, so first-

Ah no, we’ll save that for next time.

Fare thee well adventurer, and i promise to meet you again soon along the path!

“People tell you who they are when you meet them. They show you who they are later.”

-Ezekiel "Zeke" Silver —Jason Murphy, “Killer Candy: Chapter 8”

Table talk:

I do want to point out that Sarah was actually the one who painted the figure we used for the Slaad. When i finally got everything figured out for this encounter, it was too late to order a custom Slaad mini, but we found a dragonborn blacksmith in my box of many things and that was close enough. Big points though and hats off to Sarah for doing an awesome job painting it and helping me get ready for this.

This encounter was Hard rank at 3,900 XP (just over a quarter of your daily budget). Green Slaad have a Challenge rating of 8, which is easily our highest rating to date! For some context, Gelatinous Cubes are a CR 2 (same as Wererats), and a Swarm of Cranium Rats is a CR of 5.

To answer a few questions about the fight, like why Sorin had disadvantage with the damage on Firebolt, or why he kept healing after Chill Touch; Slaad have natural MagIc Resistance, but it’s not very clearly defined. So that was my way of balancing it out; No issues hitting, but disadvantage with the effect or damage.

The custom Frog Bag of Tricks that Ari found breaks down like this:

1: Frog,

2: Lizard,

3: Giant Frog,

4: Giant Lizard,

5: Crocodile,

6:Flying Snake,

7: Giant Toad,

8: Giant Constrictor Snake

And lastly… This is a thing i’ve been working on for awhile now, so i’m nervous, but quite proud of it. This is the logo i made for the Thug Mugger! The art is mostly not mine, with lots of traced reference materials, and the original pictures used for the collage also aren’t mine.