Summary 6/11/22
Table Talk:
Zevari “Ari” Valros, Raelle “Rae” wood maker , and Sorin have all reached Level 2! Everyone met with me one-on-one this week to update stats, make sure their sheets are up to date, and get the rundown on all the new Level 2 Feats and Skills. Ashley also decided on Sorin’s School of Magic!
After a quick poll of everyone, the group decided to forgo the official D&D 5e system for recovering spell slots on Short Rests and go with a new homebrew mechanism i cooked up. Any magic caster can recover up to half of their spell slots on a short rest, but they do not have to. Why not recover them every chance you get? Well there will be some penalties as a balance that i am excited to reveal as we go. Evil laughter in the distance.
On a Short Rest, a player can use as many Hit Dice (up to there number of levels) as they wish, in order to recover HP. Choose wisely though because you only have those Hit Dice until the next Long Rest. So, you might not want to spend them when you are only 2 HP below full health, and you still have a ways to go that day.
Mechanics:
Resting (players handbook pg 186)
Short Rest: A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds. A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character's level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains hit points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains some spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.
Long Rest: A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity— the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it. At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character’s total number of them. For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest. A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start o f the rest to gain its benefits.
Spell Slots (players handbook pg 201)
Regardless of how many spells a caster knows or prepares, he or she can cast only a limited number of spells before resting. Manipulating the fabric of magic and channeling its energy into even a simple spell is physically and mentally taxing, and higher-level spells are even more so. Thus, each spellcasting class’s description (except that of the warlock) includes a table showing how many spell slots of each spell level a character can use at each character level. For example, the 3rd-level wizard Umara has four 1st-level spell slots and two 2nd-level slots. When a character casts a spell, he or she expends a slot of that spell’s level or higher, effectively “filling” a slot with the spell. You can think of a spell slot as a groove of a certain size—small for a 1st-level slot, larger for a spell of higher level. A 1st-level spell fits into a slot of any size, but a 9th-level spell fits only in a 9th-level slot. So when Umara casts magic missile, a 1st-level spell, she spends one of her four 1st-level slots and has three remaining. Finishing a long rest restores any expended spell slots (see chapter 8 for the rules on resting). Some characters and monsters have special abilities that let them cast spells without using spell slots. For example, a monk who follows the Way of the Four Elements, a warlock who chooses certain eldritch invocations, and a pit fiend from the Nine Hells can all cast spells in such a way.
“I can make every part of something very innocuous dangerous. Not to brag, but i am very bad at nun-chucks, there's documented evidence”
—Jason Murphy, “Homemade Morningstar Flail? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿
Chapter 4: How to Make Friends, and Influence People, Without Fireballs (cont.)
🎲🗡️🔔✨🌿 Chapter 4: How to Make Friends, and Influence People, Without Fireballs (cont.)
We pick up back in the Mechanical room, where we left off last week. It’s mid afternoon on the 28th of Mirtul. Ari, Rae, and Cypress are looking at red-tinted stones in the wall, and Sorin is inspecting the sewer maintenance mechanisms.
After a moment of discussion, Cypress removes a few of the bricks to discover a tunnel behind them. Unlike the well tiled floors and brick walls of the sewer, this tunnel has an earthy rock-strewn floor and the walls are packed earth held back with wooden beams. This tunnel also runs at an odd angle to the sewers tunnels, which all go at perfect right angles north-south or east-west. Cypress heads down the tunnel, only having to duck an inch or two.
A few steps in, hears a THUNK, and a stone spike hits the wall behind him right at the height an average-sized chest would be if someone were bent over in such a small space. He carefully looks around and sees a bend in the tunnel up ahead.
A few more steps, and he can see the torch light up ahead. He decides to turn back and return to the others before continuing on.
As Cypress reaches the tunnel opening, almost ready to re-enter the mechanical room, he hears another THUNK and feels the back of his neck. There is blood there, but fortunately the spike missed his brain and only scratched his neck.
As soon as he is back in the clear, Cypress gets on his hands and knees to search for the trap’s trigger. He finds a few thin tripwires and unhitches his quarterstaff to use as an official trap-poky-stick.
THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNKCLICKCLICKCLICK
Four more spikes hit the earth wall, then the tripwires are limp, clearly disarmed.
“What did you see?”
Cypress explains the tunnel and the light, and proposes a theory that there are more Thugs lurking down at the other end. “I think we should go back and inform Bostra to find out what to do.”
Silence.
“Ummm…”
A cricket chirps in the distance.
“You haven’t talked with Bostra much, have you?”
Raelle proceeds to explain the group's previous conversations with Bostra and how extremely helpful he always is. Yup, helpful.
“He definitely doesn’t care if we live or die, I don’t think he gives a dead-sewer-rat’s-ass what we do down here. All he cares about is us knocking out these Thugs.”
“Go back and ask him for help, if you want. I’ll be waiting here, just to see how far away I can hear him laughing.”
See, helpful.
Everyone decides to sneak down the tunnel, and Sorin rolls a critical fail. He cuts his back against one of the spikes embedded in the wall while trying to do some cartoon sneaking that he clearly read about in a book. Cypress has learned to be careful here and is guiding the party while carefully checking for traps… carefully. He points out the oil slick where the tunnel turns so that everyone can avoid falling over and making a loud commotion. Any Thugs around would definitely hear that.
Once in the room everyone is a bit puzzled. The lantern is on, but no one is home. Ari’s Rogue senses are tingling and she reaches out to snatch the bag of gold coins sitting on an upturned barrel. Cypress whacks her hand with his staff and picks up the 13gp claiming finder’s rights for being the first in the room (a very priestly thing to do i might add).
It’s looting time ba-beh.
Rae opens a sack in the corner to find a rivet repair kit (used during a rest to add +1 AC to next encounter) and a khaki colored folding fan with a red target symbol on it (you’re welcome).
Sorin goes to open a chest and gets stabbed by the needle trap hidden behind the handle. Still, the lid opens and he finds a Sling and a Scroll. Then Sorin goes to open the box next to this chest, only to find it locked.
Ari comes over, but first Rae decides to use the key she found last week-i mean… this morning.
CLICK
It works, but the key is now stuck inside the lock. She opens it up to claim a small bundle of arrows and, oh hey look at that another key!
Zevari is learning to be more cautious after seeing the wizard get hurt and decides to put that rogue training to good use. She inspects the last box in the corner carefully before trying to open it. As she looks around, Ari notices an even smaller tunnel leading away from this room.
She opens the chest, acquiring a pouch of 13gp, and moves the box out of the way to look in the tunnel.
As she moves this chest, the light in the room changes. Now, the yellow-hazy lantern light is mixing with a familiar pink-ish-purple B73DBE glow.
After some back and forth about traps, with phrases like “Well I’m a rogue, WE know about these things” and “Oh, you do? Well WHO disabled the traps in the tunnel?” Ari and Cypress decide that the cleric will be the one to go into the tunnel.
After all, it would be a very tight fit for anyone else.
At the other end of the little crawl, Cypress sees a room we’ve seen before. But this time, we’re looking at it from the back, and from INSIDE of the grate. In the room, the Violet Mushroom is going absolutely nuts. Its tentacles are flailing wildly in every direction like a five year old having a tantrum and trying to fist fight the very concept of ‘bedtime’.
Beneath the Fungus, near the far wall and by the grate to the outside, there is a body. It is partially covered by a brick-patterned hooded cloak. The Thug lays passed out in the dirt, her head bleeding and her arms covered in tentacle shaped bruises (if you don’t know what those look like i’m sure you can find some helpful videos online…)
Cypress calls behind him to inform the others. He hears a collective, “Oooooh…” as everyone remembers the other arrow-butt-Thug calling for help, and then that scream that came from down the hall.
“Can you put one of Bostra’s medallions on them?” Ari Asks.
“Do they actually have to be wearing it or can I just sorta toss it on her chest?”
“Pretty sure the strap has to be around their neck.” Sorin answers.
“Okay, well that’s gonna be a lot harder. But I might have an idea.”
On hands and knees, and just barely sticking out of a hole, we see Cypress Witchhazel, hobbit and Cleric of the first order of life under the goddess Chauntea. He slowly reaches a quarterstaff into a room that is bathed in angry pink light and angry swirling tentacles. The staff reaches out and hooks onto the hood of the fallen body, then slips. We hear a gasp, then a held breath in the tunnel, another try, and then without warning the Mushroom grabs onto the staff attempting to pull it, and the little cleric, into the room. Cypress holds on and tugs the staff back, winning the Strength contest with a 14. He takes a moment and sets the staff safely down in the tunnel out of reach of the violent vegetation. He decides he’ll have to run for it and just be as lucky-footed as a hobbit can be.
The next paragraph is a gameplay summary of some very fast real world events.
Dex contest, success! Dex Contest, 2 damage! Token placed. Do you want to run or loot? Loot. Dex contest, success! Found a hand tool. Dex contest, success! Found a short sword. Run for the hole. Dex contest, 1 damage. Safety.
With Cypress a bit battered, but back in their midst, everyone decides to head back to the mechanical room and figure out what to do next.
Sorin tells everyone it's time to turn the chain-pull in the corner, and see if it opens up any more doors. Our wizard is becoming very cautious about traps and after a close inspection, he is convinced this chain-pull is trapped (rolled a nat’ 1 checking it). He askes Ari for help disabling the trap and Ari snickers with an oH-oK-lEtS-sEe-WhAt-TrAp-It-Is-ThEn face.
Before Ari has a chance to roll, Rae jumps forward. “Oh for Cypress’s God’s sake!” She starts cranking the wheel.
Ari deduces that it was not trapped.
We hear a familiar sound of metal grinding upwards from just up the hall and Ari goes to check.
“Yeah, it was the cages to those mushrooms,” she shouts back, then a tentacle flies out and smacks her.
Grumbling something demonic, Ari walks back and notices her caltrops that she left on the floor in the last fight. “Well I guess they weren’t coming from that hallway.” She bends over to collect them, and when she stands back up she is greeted by a new horrifying sight.
Stirge look like if you crossed a mosquito with a bat, and painted the whole thing by dipping it in a bucket of bright red paint. They have two large trapezoidal wings that attach to their arms and feet. They have clawed fingers and toes, and they have a long trunk-like sucker they use to drain blood out of people who wake them. Stirge can be woken up by lots of things, like, oh i don’t know, loud fighting or screaming down a hallway or the sound of scraping metal doors around all over the place, all kinds of things really.
A Stirge flies at Ari.
Back in the mechanical room, Ari’s best friend in the whole world is staring at the butt of a bandit. It’s an interesting butt, as far as bandit butts go. It has two arrows in it. “He was trying to crawl through here… I bet if we move him… We can go in and see where he was trying to get to…” She says, thinking out loud.
The Strige lands on Ari’s arm and she tries to swat it away. When it lands, its sucker digs in. A slight pinch, a pleasant numbness, and then the thing starts to expand. Ari-blood is now its new favorite cuisine.
Ari gasps and grabs the red flying monstrosity, noticing how much bigger it got and hurling it against the far wall. Then she runs to warn the others.
Rae turns to Sorin, “Here, come help me move him so we can see where this leads.”
A panicked half demon runs into a mechanical room.
“Hello, Ari.”
“Hi, yeah. Guys! Careful! They're these things and-”
Three Stirge fly into the room.
Everyone roll initiative!
The first one Lands on Ari, really treating itself to sewer’s new All-Ari-Blood-Buffet.
Sorin throws a Firebolt but can’t get a clear shot as the little beasts dart around the room.
Ari tears the little bastard off her arm and holds it at arm's length. She stabs a dagger into it, popping it like a water balloon in the world’s worst slow-mo youtube clip.
Cypress smacks a dry Stirge with his mace, squishing it into a dusty jerky pile against a nearby wall.
Rae quickly moves the arrow-butt-thug out of the pipe, being very monkly and reverent by tossing his bleeding corpse in a heap on the ground.
Ari thinks quickly and slams the door to stop anymore Stirge from getting in.
A quick note about locking mechanisms. They are full of springs and carefully placed small metal bits. If you heat them up to break their insides to make them easier to pick or pry open, they tend not to work very well as normal locking mechanisms.
The door slams against its frame, bouncing back and whacking Ari hard in the face.
Ari carefully closes the door, slowly wedging it shut in its frame with a torn bit of fabric.
Sorin casts another Firebolt. The horrifying bat-thing does a barrel roll, and just keeps flying right at him.
Cypress leaps into the air, swinging the mace with all his might. The Stirge is caught and thrown through the now-closed gate. It’s cut into pieces as it goes through, like paper in a shredder.
Rae shouts out to the group, “Quick, guys, let's head down this pipe before more can come in here.”
Pipes in this dungeon will work with Mario-rules, go in one end, come out another. And unless there is a very specific reason, we’re not gonna worry ourselves with what happens inside. So let's take a brief intermission as i change maps.
As an interlude, here is a reading of the diary page Sorin found a while back. I will warn you it is sappy and romantic. So sappy and romantic that Diedrik threatened to block me on discord as i read it.
Alturiak 11th
Oh Diary,
I just don't know what to do. Today my dearest Robertrum told me his heart swells every time he sees me. I was thrilled to know of his desire for me, true, but my heart - it earns still for the cold and clammy caresses of Ooktrect's big meaty palms.
Whatever am I to do? I know that father and mother don't approve of Ooktrect., and father will never get along with his mother, Ka'Huüurkt ever since the northern farm lands declared they were sovereign to the God of small shallowly planted bean pods. Oh, but still to see that pale greenish skin sweating in the heat of the moon light. Even the way his tusk gets in the way when he says my name... It feels like something special, a name only he can give me.
Oh diary, don't get me wrong, I do like Robertrum, my seedy loins even begin to froth when I see him driving those big oxen through the street on market day. I know he loves me truly. Mother even sent a Bullywogal woman-of-the-night as a test, to tempt him away from me. But he denied her and said
"Good lady, my oxen rod is only for purest love. I am a man, not merely a beast made to rut in the mud or to yoke any sow the gods bend over in front of me. Nay, fair frog-wench my rod is meant only to harvest the deep truth found in those wet sticky places where love is at its fiercest."
Can you believe it, diary? His actual words! He said all that, and the Bullywoore started crying and saying she'd never seen a heart or shaft as pure as his. I know his love will be more pure than any of the salty sweat drops Ooktrect splashes on my face. And maybe it will unite our houses if mother can get over her hatred for his father, Jesipson.
Alas, I hear the chambermaid coming with my bed tin so I must stop these fickle reflections. I'll tear out this page so sister doesn't see and report me to mother. I'll toss it in the gutter tomorrow and maybe some God of fowl water will answer my thoughts and bring me guidance.
I’m tearing up all over again, how beautiful! Thank you Ashley for asking me to type up an actual thing for the diary to add more flavor to the world. I think we’re all glad i did that.
When we come out of the pipe we are greeted by a friendly sight. A large friendly grin… can mandibles grin?
A Giant Centipede, roughly 20-30 feet in length (that’s 15 decaliters in metric by the way) stands in the middle of this dark room, looking angry at being disturbed. No need for initiative this time, it’s the order everyone crawled through the tunnel. Sorin and Cypress gaze at this nightmare-beast and remember their visions of it from before.
Rae, you remember don’t you? … Rae?
Rae has been bitten… and poisoned… knocking her unconscious. In fact, between damage points and a failed death throw, Rae actually technically made it to -8HP during this fight. Congratulations!
Ari immediately drags her friend into the corner and out of harm's way, trying to remember that first aid class she took in fantasy high school.
Cypress rushes in! (teehee), eager to try out his new weapon. Cypress whips out his short sword, throws the sheath to the ground, and swings.!The sword sings in the air, crunches in the exoskeleton, squelches through internal organs, crunches out the other side, and drips on the floor. The two halves of the centipede fall, lifeless, to the ground.
Cypress rushes over to the fallen monk and strips her to assay her wounds. No, Sorin you can’t look, come on now!
In a moment Cure Wounds is cast and Raelle the Monk is back in the foul smelling sewers of reality.
We look around the room, and actually, it looks almost identical to the last room. A very similar mechanical room. There is a gate set in the entrance, a large chain-pull, two pies, and a couple crates.
Wait, crates, let's loot! (i wonder if we’ll ever get in trouble for all this looting…)
Cypress gets a rivet repair kit (used during a rest to add +1 AC to next encounter) and a couple caltrops. Ari finds two Dungeon Items, a map of the sewers, and a DM Question (a token that can be used by the player to ask a question of the DM so their character can gain some limited meta-knowledge). Cool!
With that we all agree it has been a very long day. In fact, it's late at night now.
Ari checks the gate is safe and secure, Rae props an empty crate against the open pipes, and Sorin gets out his new bed roll to see if it’s more comfortable than the bricks. It is but the bricks smell better.
We all lay down for a well-earned Long Rest.
“(That was a cinematic trick adapted for print. Death wasn’t talking to the princess. He was actually in his study, talking to Mort. But it was quite effective, wasn’t it? It’s probably called a fast dissolve, or a crosscut/zoom. Or something. An industry where a senior technician is called a Best Boy might call it anything.)”
–Terry Pratchett, “Mort”
Table talk:
Next week i’ll explain ammo, repair kits, and how some of these small homebrews work in the world (mechanically).
We talked a little bit about monsters and how, at this point in the adventure and with the current leveling; most of the monsters are gonna be an odd mix. Either hard to hit but low health like the Stirge, or easy to kill but heavy hitters like the Giant Centipede, or low on AC, but high HP like the Thugs.
