Sailing the Starless Sea part 2

Incredibly we completed the entire module in one four and a half hour session. I say incredibly because our game group loves to take its time. We like in-character stuff, we like making jokes, we like getting side tracked and often forget what were doing and end up harassing completely innocent bystanders. For some reason I always have an image of a us as a group of slightly befuddled, cranky, bickering old geezers with ADHD. And weapons.

Anyway I digress. We ripped through Sailors on the Starless Sea in record time, surprisingly the players missed little. They just seemed to be very very focused. Might have been the character death...


Spoiler warning for those that haven't played this!

The players, each with four 0-level funnel characters generated at Purple Sorcerer;

• Todd - Nerista the mercenary, Smint the blacksmith, Daniloth the elven sage, Lance the noble
• Jeremy - Draug the beekeeper, Rubin the rutabaga farmer, Ester the hunter, Bran the barber
• Trevor - Thursby the unnaturally strong halfling, Corren the trapper, Grom the indentured servent , Jenson the squire (Grom and Jenson were Lance's retinue it was determined)
• Sebastien - Four as yet to be named; a parsnip farmer, a dwarven blacksmith, a blacksmith, and an orphan
• John - Daley the incredibly strong orphan, D'tali the elven falconer, Arvin the rat catcher, Chez the gravedigger

So we left off in the last post with the party descending the stairs into the tunnels beneath the ancient keeps mound. They'd had four or five fatalities by this point (poor old Todd had lost three of his four characters, through no fault of his own), so were starting to get more cautious.

The stairs led down, down, down into a dark and dank corridor. Lighting up torches the party stood on the steps none too eager to proceed (visions of traps dancing in their heads). That is until Brand the barber (who was shaping up to be a magnificent bastard) once again saw the glint of gold in the darkness ahead. With a cry of "Worry not! I'll scout ahead!" he scrambled further down the stairs and found a couple of gold coins up against the stairwell wall. Searching about he found a not very well hidden door that opened easily to a small room beyond.

Shining the torch in he spied three upended chest and sprinkling of coins. "Don't come in! Still checking to see it's safe!" he shouted back. The rest of the group, beginning to see a pattern in Brand's behaviour, filed in anyway and dispassionately watched Brand discover a hidden compartment in a chest and then almost immediately loose a couple of fingers when he activated the associated trap. He still managed to stuff a few coins down his pants while wrapping cloth around his hand.

There followed a touching moment when Brand (whose pockets and shirt were now filled with more coin and goodies than he'd ever seen in his life) tried to convince the rest of the group that maybe they should turn back, because, you know, they'd tried their best, and what good was coin if you weren't around to spend it. It was Chez the gravedigger that reminded Brand that they were in fact here to rescue kidnapped villagers, one of whom was Brand's very own son. "Oh yeah..." replied Brand, eyes shifting about.

That doesn't look spooky at all.

Back in the stairwell it was noticed that a draft was coming through from the wall opposite the emptied treasure room. Pushing at the wall opened a second not very well hidden door leading into a rough chill passage. Not liking the look of it but still wanting to investigate, some one distracted Bran as another tossed a few coppers in and announced "Look - are those coins in there?". Bran immediately took the lead and the party soon found itself in front of massive stone door bearing symbols of Chaos that glowed with a faint
magic. Daniloth the Elven sage attempted to read the runes and came away with the impression that it was some sort of limerick involving cold and heat and bad weather. Chez the grave digger took a look and came away with "Fire, Ice, Hate and Storm". The group decided to go ahead and try to force the door. Amazingly no one was killed in the ensuing blast of magical fire triggered by their efforts.

Behind the door was unnaturally chill tomb containing a corpse with savage looking hide armour and a brutal looking waraxe. One of the nameless four run by Sebastien managed to get to the corpse and after much exertion tore the axe away along with a couple of frozen corpse arms and get out of the tomb without freezing to badly. They didn't fancy going after the armour and decided to get back to the main corridor.

Descending the rest of the stairs the party found itself in a curious long room dominated by a central rectangular pool. Of course Brand gazed into its depths and was initially filled with hope as a several golden points glowed back at him. Hope turn to trepidation however as the golden glowing started moving and then surfaced as four ancient and algae covered skulls, eye sockets shining with undead energy. Several tense moments past while the party stood pressed against the wall ready for battle, but the heads seemed content to bob there watching benignly. Growing bold, a few the adventurers threw stones at the skulls, cracking one which sank.

Not entirely convinced that the skulls were harmless the group turned its attention to the rest of the room and examined pair of murals depicting two mighty chaos lords and battles going on around them and some sort of sacrificial ritual on an island with tentacles rising from the waters. Neither filled the party with optimism. Also discovered were four mouldy robes with chaos markings on them, which were bundled into a back pack.

With a last nervous look at the floating skulls, whose gaze turned to follow them, the group departed through the other side of the room and followed the stairs down even further. Eventually the stairwell ended opening up on a wide dark beach overlooking an immense underground lake. At the edge of the beach was a tall 30 foot rock spire with stairs chiseled about it. Out 30 feet or so into the water was a dragon prow boat and in the far distance, near the centre of the great lake, was a sinister glow and the echo of drums and howls.

Brand decided to check out the rock spire and while climbing the stairs noticed some very intriguing chaotic writing that circled around with the stairs. By the time he reached the summit and discovered a partially melted black candle at the flattened top, he had decided that it would be a very good idea to savagely murder Daniloth the elven sage. He wasn't exactly clear on why this was a good idea, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. He ran back down and called the sage over indicating that there was something very interesting at the top that only a sage of his prowess could figure out. Halfway back up Brand gave himself a good shake and realized slaughtering a companion wasn't such a good idea.

Meanwhile the others were trying to figure out how to get the dragon boat to shore. Wading out toward it seemed to prompt something to start swimming about in the water. They beat a quick retreat. Then Thursby the unnaturally strong halfling threw a rope with a hook (not exactly sure where they got this, but oh well) which caught on the boat. They couldn't pull it in but they tied it about the rock spire and tried to cross above the water. Unfortunately the thing in the water figured them out and a radish farmer was torn into tiny little shreds by a violent frenzy of tentacles.

With nothing to loose, Thursby decided to light the black candle at the top of the spire. On his way up he too, after staring at the carved runes, became enamored with the idea of stabbing a compatriot. After a bit of a frantic chase about, he managed to recover himself and get to the top and light the candle. The dragon boat slide gracefully over to shore.

Light the incense!  Light the godamn incense!!

They all jumped on board and the boat immediately set off toward the island in the lake's center. Gearing up to what they figured was the big showdown, the adventurers were horrified when the boat stopped halfway over and those same tentacles emerged from the water and waved expectantly. Suddenly remembering the mural depicting the sacrifice and the tentacles, the party started eying each other. The tentacles were not satisfied with the shoes and other bits of junk tossed at it and it was with sinking dread that they realized that the beast was waiting for someone to be tossed overboard.


Just as mob violence was about to break out it was Jenson the squire that had a sudden flash of insight and figured out that maybe burning the chaos censer found in the temple would placate it. The rushed to do so, and to everyone's relief the tentacles swayed back beneath the waves, apparently satiated. The boat then continued towards the island and the hellish glow and sounds of unholy rites.

As boat beached itself the adventurers saw that a massive ziggurat dominated most of the island. A great number of the beast men where hauling groups of wailing villages up the zagging stairway to the pinnacle where they were being hurled into a pit by a high beast priest. A great and terrifying figure, hard to discern in the waving heat, seemed to preside over the ghastly ritual. They party had lost six members and where greatly outnumbered by the beast men - a frontal assault seemed like suicide. The squire thinking quick again, suggested that four of them don the four chaos robes and pretend to take the rest of the gang up as prisoners. They felt it was their best bet, especially as they didn't have a lot of time to figure out something better.

With mounting incredulity they found their ruse working, passing beast men who were transfixed with the ceremony at the top and who seemed to ignore the robed villagers. They slowly made their way closer to the top, and were nearly there when one beast man turned and focused on them. Suddenly realizing the presence of interlopers it raised the alarm hooting out a warning. The boatmen were galvanized, but spread all the the way along the ziggurat ramp, only a couple were with striking range. As they began to move in, the party made a heroic effort to get to the top of the structure, where it was was relatively empty. They saw a high priest and two beast men chucking villagers and treasure (treasure! cried out Brand)

The following battle was intense and there were many near misses. The giant figure turned out to be an effigy which Thursby cut down. Unfortunately the brilliant plan of cutting it down only resulted in it falling into the giant lava pit in the the center of the ziggurat and seemed to accelerate whatever evil process the beastmen had started. Just as the adventurers seemed to gain the upper hand a towering lava encrusted figure erupted

Crap!

from the pit. The party concentrated their attacks on this new threat but succeeded only in shattering the lava cooled to stone outer layer and a chaos demon emerged from within. Hideous and beastial, with a skull head and single burning eye the monstrosity waved a fearsome flail. D'tali the elven falconeer and Arvin the rat catcher met their doom, but the demon was beaten back and finally felled with mighty blows from Thursby, Rubin and Ester. Lying in a pool of burning remains were the beast's hide armor and terrible flail. Thursby strode forward to claim the flail but the demon had one last surge which engulfed the brave halfling abruptly ending his short but brilliant adventuring career.

With the final destruction of the demon the came a massive shuddering, shaking and roaring as the immense underground cavern began to collapse. The remaining beastmen were in disarray, howling in confusion and frustration. The surviving characters freed the villagers and raced down towards the dragon boat. Brand stopped to scoop up some fallen gems, but even his greed could not hold him as great chunks of rock began falling and crashing about.

The Squire Jenson however, risked his life to run forward and take the fallen holy symbol of Law and cast it as a curse into the evil chaos pit. For this act the Lords of Order took notice and he regained luck spent during battle.

With bare moments to spare the party managed to get themselves and the remaining terrified villagers past the panicked beastmen and into the dragon boat. An enormous wave crashed down and drove the boat out past the island and down a dark cave. After what seemed like an eternity of dark crashing and thundering the boat was shot out into daylight landing in a calm and sun drenched lake.

20 went in. 11 came out...

And so ended our first session!

Next session: Leveling up and Doom of the Savage Kings. Can't wait.