D&D invades BYOB

We took D&D night on the road this week since Jenny was kind enough to let us invade BYOB game night. I knew a majority of the group would be there, but Earl was in Hawaii and Sunny had emergencies at work to deal with so we didn't have the full group. So I carted my laptop, books, box of dice, notes, journal, white-board, pens, grid-maps, miniatures, and other crap over to Jenny's house. We had some good natured ribbing for being "nerds" and being "anti-social", but for the most part it worked out well. In fact, at least a couple other random folks who showed up to game night recognized what we were doing and came over to share their own D&D stories. It took until 8pm to get everyone together, settled and in character, but then we got 3 hours of solid play time in before we called it a night.

Beornweynne, Sir Andros, and Digna leveled from 5th to 6th last time. 6th level is huge for fighter-types since they get a second attack per round, and they were eager to put their new abilities to the test.

The first encounter the players were presented with was a large iron door blocking access to the basement of the poly-temple. At first glance it appeared to be a simple but effective barrier, although something about it or the temple foundations themselves caused the hairs on the nape of necks of those closest to the door to prickle. The paladin confirmed with his keen human senses that evil was thick in this area. Initial attempts to open the door were met by fierce resistance from the door itself. A gruesome apparition manifested from within the door and howled at the intruders. It's ghostly babbling continued to fray the edges of everyone's nerves while they deliberated on how to get past. Sir Andros and Gignus pooled their divine knowledge and hit upon a possible solution. Together they were able to summon enough holy power to overcome the possessed portal.

Once turned, the door unlatched and swung inward releasing a cold blast of stale and fetid air. Beyond the party discovered a crypt crowded with discarded broken and beastly statues from a forgotten era. The flickering shadows cast by torch-light seemed to give the statues a life of their own. A spiraling set of stone stairs leading up the inside of the temple and a trio of ornate sarcophagi were the only other distinguishing features in the room.

As the party began to search for anything of further interest, a black wraith sprung out of the sarcophagus it was hiding in and commanded the shadows themselves to attack. The party was surrounded and their weapons seemed to be harmlessly passing through their assailants' incorporeal bodies more often than not. Gignus discovered he had a slight advantage, wielding his magical warhammer that struck true against ghosts. The wraith and it's shadow thralls attempted to drain the party of their warmth and life forces, but the evil spirits were turned away by the holy power of the cleric and paladin. The shadows were sent cowering in the dark corners of the crypt and the wraith hid once again inside a sarcophagus. Digna used all of her strength to throw off the lid of one of the stone tombs, but the wraith simply passed into another one. Frustrated, Digna smashed open the lid of the second sarcophagus with her flail of improved sundering. The wraith sprung forth again for a final desperate attack and was soon destroyed by the concentrated efforts of the party. The shadows dispersed soon after.

They party searched the tombs and was very disappointed to find nothing of value, so they continued up the stairs. At the top they reached a short rusty iron ladder leading to a stone hatch in the ceiling. Set in the wall was a horizontal lever which apparently operated the hatch, but the wary travelers were suspicious of such a simple device and searched high and low for hidden traps. When none were found they finally braved the switch. As expected it rotated the stone hatch above out of the way and revealed the ground floor of the poly-temple.

Digna was the brave one to go first up through the hatch. Above she discovered that the hatch was actually cleverly disguised as the stone altar to Wee Jas, a goddess of magic and death. Standing in neat rows on either side of the large room were the villagers of Portyngton, but they were eerily still and quiet, their skin a pale and deathly shade. Digna reached out a curious hand and touched the skin of one of the unresponsive villagers and felt it was cold to the touch.

Just then heavy footsteps were heard coming down the stairs from the second floor and four additional zombified villagers came into view. Digna quickly hid behind the altar and Hildegarde came up and hid in the shadows. A commanding voice from above called down "Bring up the next group!" and a pair of guards escorted four living and very frightened villagers into the temple. The lead guard was a duergar, one of the evil gray dwarves who live in deep caverns of the earth, and was wearing broken iron shackles on his wrists, the accoutrements of an acolyte of Laduguer, an evil god who was cast out of the dwarven pantheon for encouraging the practice of slavery among his followers. The other guard was human and wearing Sir Mortimer Grim's badge of service.

The party ambushed the guards, killing them almost immediately. The surprised villagers were sent into the crypt to hide. The commanding voice from above demanded to know why it was taking so long and more guards began descending the stairs. Another duergar acolyte and human soldier came into view, and behind them followed a heavily armed and armored duergar warrior. Once they spotted the heroes the acolyte commanded the zombies to attack. Digna cautioned her companions against killing the villagers, because something about them struck her as odd and she believed they could be saved. Gignus successfully turned the zombies and they moved away from the party. The first two combatants went down under a hail of blows from the party. The duergar captain stepped up and called upon his races supernatural ability to double their size and mass. As a 10' tall dwarf, he swung his now massive ornate dwarven waraxe, dealing damage to those in the front ranks. Digna called him out and stepped up, relying on her race's innate combat expertise against giant-kin to protect her. The duergar captain quickly changed his tactics and shrunk back to normal-size. He was quickly overpowered and defeated. Digna triumphantly wrested the magical dwarven waraxe from the dead duergar's hands and claimed it as her own.

After looting the bodies, Hildegarde stealthily climbed up to the landing to catch a peek of the upstairs. At the back of the room was another duergar cleric. This one's attention was mostly taken up by a black crystal skull hovering mid-way above the floor in the center of the room. Waves of evil seemed to pulsate out from the unholy skull. At the feet of the cleric was a hell hound and a pair of fiendish vargouilles, vampiric disembodied heads with batwings for ears and tentacles where their necks should be, floated above desecrated statues and watched the stairs. Taking a risk, Hildegarde fired two rapid shots at the cleric, but the arrows were deflected by an entropic shield protecting the duergar.

The rest of the party decided the best defense was a good offense, so they rushed upstairs and into battle. The vargouilles watching the stairs were quickly cut down. Gingus attempted to silence the cleric, but failed. The duergar cast hold person on Gignus, but he resisted. The hell hound belched a burst of flame on the party, burning a few of the member who could not get out of the way. More arrows were deflected by the duergar's entropic shield. Gignus next summoned a spiritual hammer to strike down the evil cleric. The duergar in turn summoned a new pair of vargouilles to harass the party. The vargouilles unleashed hellish shrieks, attempting to paralyze their foes with fear, but only Gignus was affected. Digna finished off the hell hound and a vargouille, Sir Andros killed the last vargouille, while Beornweynne closed with the duergar cleric. The cleric desperately tried to kill Beornweynne with his baleful touch, but the hearty barbarian shrugged off the negative energy damage and quickly defeated the gray dwarf.

The party then turned their attention to the evil hovering skull. It was incredibly hard and resisted their initial attempts to destroy it, but eventually it began to crack and then suddenly exploded, sending dark shards of crystal outward in every direction. The feeling of unholy blight about the area quickly dissipated and from below the party could hear the voices of confused but living villagers.

We wrapped up the game here, and I packed up my gear and headed home with Kat. I think it all went pretty well. We got through the encounters I had fully prepared for the session. If we had gone much further then I'd have been winging it. I thought it was fun to see how the party dealt with the ghost door, incorporeal dead, and the zombified villagers. I'm glad they didn't slaughter the villagers, since they could be saved by smashing the skull (ala the podlings from dark crystal who'd had their essences drained).

The essential stats for the night: 6th level characters received 2100xp, 5th level characters received 2520xp, Gignus received an additional 250xp for destroying the dark skull, Digna received an additional 150xp for role-playing her alignment (lawful good) well and saving the villagers from needless death. The party found 240 gold pieces, 2 red garnets, 5 red spinels, a dwarven waraxe +1, medium chainmail +1, heavy steel shield +1, and a heavy crossbow +1.