Thug Muggers in the caves 5/5/24
Table Talk:
Ropers are a Challenge Rating of 5 with 1,800 XP. This makes them a bit interesting because one of them is technically an Easy fight, whereas two of them at once becomes a Deadly encounter.
Going forward, I think i’m going to focus a bit more on characters/players having to identify magic items. Now that we’re getting higher levels and higher level items, it makes sense to me that the characters won’t be able to recognize everything they find, and will have to spend time either looking it up or using magic to determine what their loot is.
I also handed out Sorin's new Ring of Spell Storing to Ashley, that i forgot last week. I also showed the new figure (found here) for tZulèe that i’ll be using – though i haven't finished painting it yet; and the great little ammo box (found here) i found to keep all the tiny weapons and traps in.
Speaking of miniatures, i finally managed to get my minis sorted out into 3 separate storage boxes of individually categorized compartments. Basically, i have small bins dedicated to Furniture, Lootables, Goos and Oozes, Thugs, Cult Stuff, Creepy Crawlies, Undead, etc. So, now when i am prepping sessions, i can fill one of the removable bins in the Dewalt DWST14121 Flip-Bin Organizer that i carry to each session with everything needed in a given area. Then when we play i only have to dump out one container and arrange everything instead of pulling out 30 tiny things from 5 separate boxes.
Once, Amy and I watched a BBC documentary series about sea life called The Blue Planet, because sometimes you just run out of stuff to watch. There was one scene where the crew tracked a gray whale and its newborn calf up the Pacific Ocean. These whales carry their babies for thirteen months, then after giving birth, they have to laboriously migrate thousands of miles north to find food. So, they’re slowly swimming up the California coast to Alaska, mother and baby side by side the whole way, like characters in a Pixar movie. But then, a pod of fifteen killer whales comes along—a pack of hunters, silently coordinating as they stealthily surrounded the doting mother and her baby. They swam in and started pushing themselves in between the mother and the child, separating them, and then jumping on top of the calf to try to drown it (remember, whales are mammals that breathe air—they’re not just spitting up at the surface for fun). The mother frantically tried to push the baby back up, so it could get a breath. But the killer whales just kept at it, for six hours, pushing the sputtering calf down and down again, while its mother watched. Relentless. Finally, they started biting at the infant, the churning water around them blooming bright red. Then came the twist ending: as soon as the baby was dead, the killer whales just … swam away. They took a couple of bites out of it and just let its dead, broken body sink to the bottom. It turned out they weren’t hungry; they had just killed a child in front of its mother, purely for fun. The final shot was of this mother whale, drifting aimlessly in the middle of the ocean, utterly alone. The killer whales swam off to live the rest of their lives healthy and happy and completely free of any consequence. There would be no justice for what happened, or even revenge. No one would console the mother. She was now completely devoid of purpose, in an endless, cold, uncaring ocean. Amy had nightmares about it for six weeks after.
—David Wong (Jason Pargin), “What The Hell Did I Just Read”
🪨🪨🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 15: A Plain Empty Cave with Nothing Suspicious (cont.)
🪨🪨🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 15: A Plain Empty Cave with Nothing Suspicious (cont.)
“How could this happen!?” Gaibon’s fist pounds down on the desk and knocks over his cup. The last few drops of stale coffee drip onto the desk as the other officers in the room backs away. “Sorry,” the captain straightens up and adjusts himself, “it’s not you.” He looks out the high window at the dirty street below and sighs.
“Nearly three hundred years of honorable guardianship.” He looks at the tiny bust on his desk and reads the words carved in its base; “‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ …the founding line of our charter.
“A hundred years with no issues of brutality…
“Two hundred with no theft…
“Every recruit interrogated in a Zone of Truth…
“Training under the lawful monks of Tyr to root out overly ambitious idiots.
“We spent centuries burying the old bullies and thieves that made up the so-called squads or law…
“Every officer swears on holy and magical text. We swear oaths that can’t be broken without our hearts exploding!”
He plops into his desk chair and it creaks forward where he covers his head with his hands. “And now somehow I have three cells with officers who robbed, stole, threatened, and extorted. How? …how…”
It’s the evening of the 16th Kythorn – and capital Y Yikes. Those are some big and difficult problems to deal with. Fortunately our problems are much simpler: we just have six Roper tentacles creeping towards us in a dark cave. I mean… maybe it's hard in its own way, but just swinging a weapon at them sure is simpler.
Already tired of this fight, Ari casts Burning Hands at the tendrils in the archway. Four of them curl back only feeling the heat, but the other two are baked in the flame (two fail the save and take full damage, but the others succeed and take half damage).
Seeing the open wounds on all of his companions, Cypress reaches for the scrolls tucked in his belt. As Rae readies her crossbow, he pulls the binding ribbon on the scroll of Mass Cure Wounds. Not knowing the original author, he draws a universal arch glyph of healing in the air. Four of the six intersecting points line up with his companions and when he releases the mark with the scroll, the magic lines fly out to glow on the floor for a second as the spell pools life into each of them (21 Hp).
Rae fires off the +2 bolt at the creature in the other room, and instead of attacking again, reloads the weapon to be ready for another shot.
The tentacles of the grinning Roper crawl into our room, wrapping around Rae, Cypress and Sorin. But only Sorin fails his Strength save.
“Wha-”
He’s pulled bodily into the other chamber, and the Roper’s jaws begin to clamp down on his arm for 20 damage, while also preventing him from casting.
Screaming out in pain, he grabs his dagger. Like any orphan kid who grew up in the gutter, Sorin knows exactly what to do – he goes for the eye!
Wooo, okay with a critical hit I'll give you the choice of either double damage, or blinding it.
The stone monster gurgles around his arm and tries to close a rocky eyelid around Sorin’s dagger, unable to see.
Ari slashes out at one of the tendrils with her rapier.
Brooke, disappointed: “Or not… that’s a 2.”
Rae, hopeful: “Can I give Ari my inspiration?”
Yeah, of course. Brooke, roll again.
Brooke, head in hands: “That’s another 2!”
She misses and goes to hide in a corner, mentalling kicking herself.
Cypress’s Spiritual sickle seizes Sorin’s opportunity and lands a critical hit of its own, slicing into the other corner of the Rope’s bowling-ball-sized eye. Seeing this, the hobbit decides they can spare a moment to look around. They look carefully high and low.
Even as Rae fires (and misses) another bolt, Cypress is scanning for Piercers. The walls and ceiling here are lumpy, but smooth, and there are no sharp points that might conceal one of the treacherous underearthly crustaceans.
Blinded now, the Ropes arms all lash and flail – well, blindly – missing everyone.
Sorin screams out a series of curse words that come to life as puffs of ashy gray smoke as the clamp of the monster’s mouth tightens for another 18 damage.
That’s 38 points of damage to that arm… I think 20 more damage and i’m gonna have to say it’s pulled off.
“Helphelphelphelphelp!” Sorin screams, trying in vain to tug himself free. “I can feel it crushing the bones! IfIlosemyarmIcan’tcastandyou’llalldiewithoutme! Helphelphelphelphelp!”
Ari unleashes her own barrage of Magic Missiles, the red-orange bolts appearing from under her pointed fingernails and flying at the corner of the beast’s mouth where Sorin is stuck. He can feel something start to give and tugs, but it’s not enough.
“Almost, I felt something give! Keephittingit!”
As a Nimble hobbit, Cypress is able to rush forward to Sorin, and duck the swinging tendrils without provoking any Opportunity Attacks. They run up to where the wizard is hanging by the living stone, and touch his boot. In a flash, their earth magic floods over the boy’s skin in a crusty dark brown rippling wave, as the Barkskin spell protects him. “That’ll only buy us a second, but your arm will be harder to crush!”
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”
Raelle-the-out-of-ideas runs into the room and punches at the same spot where Ari’s missiles seem to knock something loose.
The Roper shivers with a sound like gravel pouring out of a dump truck, and Sorin drops to the floor. It lashes out, but it can’t see a thing with the blueish blood crushing over its eye and it lets out a roar of infantine stoney rage!
This time, Sorin does use his last third level spell slot. He runs away, not looking as the Magic Missiles slam into his former arm jail. (Is that a good line? Meh, it’s the best i’ve got right now.)
Ari rushes in to join the action, but even bloodied, the Roper’s tentacles get an Attack of Opportunity, and she’s scooped into the air.
Brooke, dismayed: “But… but.. But…”
Sorry, haha, but it does happen. You’re grappled.
Brooke, thinking: “Oh wait, I’m at the top of the order, huh?”
Yeah…?
Brooke: “So if I used my Rewind Button then Sorin would still be-”
Ashley: “Oh god, no, please no!”
Oh, yes please! Do it, do it , do it!
Cypress’s Mace bounces away, but their sickle cleaves through the tendril, and Ari lands back on the floor – still disappointed with her arms crossed over her knees and kicking her rapier with a pouty boot.
Rae hits her enemy in the eye again! Sorin’s dagger is still wedged in the corner of its massive eye, like a thorn. Rae lands her critical hit and her fist punches it like a crowbar! With a loud wet POP, she can now add ‘Roper Eyeball’ to her inventory.
Completely outraged, the Roper’s arms grab wildly at anything they can. It feels the hardness and movement of something and drags it close, biting down hard!
Everything goes quiet and still.
The party all ducked the flailing tentacles, but the Spiritual Weapon – Sheela’s sickle – didn’t know to duck. The Roper’s arm is frozen with the sickle in its mouth, and when Cypress dispels it, we can see a leaky drip from the roof of its mouth. It's the unmistakable green-gray of a dripping brain. It killed itself trying to bite down, not able to see the sickle pointing straight up in its jaw.
While Rae loots the gushy parts of the monsters (eight crystal teeth, one tendril, and one sixth of a Roper shell), everyone decides to take a Short Rest.
Sorin, Cypress and Ari all spend some time healing up their wounds, and to take advantage of my homebrew system to regain spell slots to an… unknown cost… mwahahahaha.
Then, after a short bit, we’re up and back at it again, opening the door to the next section of sewers. I wonder if a helpful chapter title might give the reader a clue about what’s gonna happen…
🗡🐀🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 16: Hostage Negotiations
🗡🐀🛡️🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿Chapter 16: Hostage Negotiations
Oh i see…
We’re through the door now and we take a second to just breathe. We're back in the sewers and that feels so good knowing that the only things we have to fear are… okay maybe less good but at least not as bad as giant rock monsters with tentacles for hands!
This hallway is a very tiny T interaction. Only about twenty feet away is another door to the caves which looks like someone didn’t shut it all the way. Then, in the middle, we know from our map, it goes down maybe fifteen feet to one of the wells and – we know thanks to Guruuuuhckck – a Thug tunnel.
We quickly go quiet as we hear a couple of voices counting.
Ari turns the corner for a peek.
There are two thugs there. One is coiling up a rope they just pulled down from the well, and the other is looking over a row of boxes and bags. They seem to be tallying up supplies. ‘So this is how they’ve been getting they’re gear down here, they’ve been using the wells!’
See! That makes sense, and explains why the constables were watching that well Rae was at so closely, and freaked out over it… hmmm… I really can retcon that into working quite nicely…
Ari creeps around the corner and lets off a sneak attack at the bigger of the two Thugs before initiative can kick in.
Rae rushes forward with a yell and swings her staff into the Thug’s face. She spins to the wall, and Rae’s fist sandwiches her chin into the cold bricks, knocking her out cold before she even had a chance to transform into a Wererat!
Once again using his Nimbleness, Cypress dodges and dances around all the boxes, to close in and swing his Mushroom Mace at the far Thug who staggers back as the blow just barely misses.
With another chance, thanks to a good Initiative Roll, Ari fires another arrow and uses her Savage Attacker feat to hit him in the kneecap for extra damage!
Sorin’s Firebolt flies right for the Thug’s head – as he bends down to clutch his knees – and it hits the wall behind him. Then as he stands up, Akris’s tail whips him in the face.
He spins from the slap, and grabs the rope he was just winding up, then quickly curls it around Cypress’s neck. “Enough! Stop! All of you! Weapons down!” He is holding the rope in a loop around the cleric's throat and we all pause to think. (Something new for the Thug Muggers during a fight).
“Okay…” Ari carefully sets down her bow and nods to Rae, who lets go of her staff and lets it float in the air next to her.
“What, you want me to put down my hands?” Sorin asks with belligerent confusion.
Cypress can feel the rope tightening as the Thug momentary holds both ends in one hand and tosses a handkerchief to the wizard. Then he can breathe again as the rope slackens and the Thug calls out. “Tie up your hands, so you can’t cast!”
“Whu- tie up… tie up my own hands? You know, it won’t be tight or anything.”
The Thug backs towards the door with Cypress, “Yeah but then at least I can see if you’re trying anything! And if you do, I’ll choke out your little cleric here!”
“Fine okay,” Sorin loops the handkerchief over his wrists with a shrug and holds them out.
“So,” the man holding Cypress by the neck takes a deep breath, “This is how this is going to go-”
Ari has been holding her hands up in the air and now she flicks her wrist, casting Thaumaturgy to fling the door open and smack the Thug into the wall – but the locked door only rattles against its hinges.
“I wasn’t playing!” The Thug shouts.
He pulls the rope tight and deals 6 damage to Cypress who croaks out, “Enough of this!” and Wild Shaped out of the noose.
Reader, this led to an argument with Nymbus, in which i think he was genuinely mad at me for only the third time in this campaign (once a year isn’t bad really). I explained that he could Wildshape into whatever, but due to the nature of his changing body shape, if he changed into anything with a neck larger that his halfling one, with the looped rope still around it, he would have to take a significant amount of damage.
Attempting and finding that Cypress-the-Riding-Lizard, Cypress-the-Giant-Poisonous-Snake, and Cypress-the-Spider all dig the rope further into his neck, our cleric goes with Cypess-the-Rat and falls to the ground.
Before he can scurry away, Cypress loses the Dex contest, and the Thug’s boot catches his tail.
The Thug leans down over him dangling a large dagger. “I said, I'm not playing games!”, he said he said, then he says, “Here’s what’s gonna happen now. You’re all gonna stay really still while I pick up your little friend here,” he chuckles at his own evil genius, “Or should I say, littler friend.” He looks at each of the party in turn. “And you’re gonna stay still because if you make any sudden movements, you might startle me. And when I'm startled, I tend to squeeze my fists… maybe I even squeeze them hard enough to pop a rat's head off. Who knows… Then I'm gonna unlock and back into the door behind me here, and close it. And if all you little riffraff behave, I'll toss your friend out the crack in the door before I shut and lock it on you!”
Rae has had enough… again.
Again, here a player got very upset with me when i kept explaining that there was no space for them to move
She drops her hand, and uses the last of her mask’s Spider Climb charges to sprint up and around the walls. She drags her staff behind her, then, with lightning speed, slips the stick between the Thug’s arms and under his jaw.
All the Thug sees is a blur of walls and suddenly he is pinned to the secret door behind him by Rae’s staff, which is pushing into his neck and leaving his feet dangling and kicking trying to reach the cobbles on the floor – and taking 9 choking damage.
“No,” Rae says, "This is how it’s going to go…”
“Quick, knock him out!” Ari shouts! She sees his knuckles tapping some kind of code on the hidden doorway’s hinges.
“You sure?” Rae turns back to ask.
“Hurry!”
Rae judo chops his neck and adds her Ki for a Stunning Strike. When she lets go of her staff, the Thug drops to the ground in a heap.
Bostra finally comes around the corner, seeing Ari change places with Rae to stand over the unconscious Thug and press her ear to the wall. Just when he’s about to say something drolly witty and quite rye, she waves her hands.
“Okay good, I don’t hear anyone coming towards us.”
Looking at the heap of Thug and feeling the need to be sardonic anyways, Bostra looks around, “Where’s Cypress? I thought this was exactly the kind of inflated violence he’s always accusing us of.”
“Squeak!”
Bostra looks at the indignant rat. “Oh.”
And we leave off this time with Cypress-the-Rat pointing at the gash in his rump where the dagger fell on him, then holding up his half-boot-flattened-tail, and lastly circling around the rope circle with his paws around his neck making choking squeaks at Bostra.
To make whatever place you wish unfortunate, so that no one dwells there. Make these figures on a lead plate with the brain of a pig in the day and hour of Saturn, with Saturn rising in the second face of Capricorn, and put the plate in the place you wish to destroy. And the evil power of Saturn will pour into it, and no one will dwell there as long as the plate remains there.
—an anonymous Arab wizard in North Africa or Spain / the notable Sufi and scholar al-Majriti, "Ghayat al-Hakim" ; "The Goal of the Sage" / "Picatrix" (1256 AD) Book II chapter 10
Table talk:
I recently bought a few digital collections of very old magic books, Ancient grimoires, spell books, treatises on Demonology, etc. So keeping in with my idea on quotes about magical mechanics i thought it would be interesting to include some ‘real world spells and magic’ that real peoples in our world all over the globe have used and – perhaps – believe/d in. It’s worth remembering that these earliest ideas of spells and magic have evolved into our old ideas of miracles and witchkraft, and they still very much color how we look at magic and spells in modern culture today. So when we think about something like casting Barkskin, or Firebolt these are some of the very earliest roots of where those ideas came from.
So i just want to say, excellent job to Sorin/Ashley for the thought of going for the Roper’s eye! The disadvantage caused by it being blinded REALLY won the fight for the Thug Muggers! Just about all of my attack rolls after that were broken up with pairings like 3 / 18, 2 / 19, 7 / 11, etc. and since it has a +7 to attack, almost anything over a 8 would’ve hit. Good thinking, and something to remember going forward.
