The Important Lesson
Several sessions ago the players decided to ditch my carefully prepared dungeon for some wild goose chase. I want to emphasize that this is totally fine and I am not at all mad about it. This campaign is now aimed at player autonomy, and this is the sort of play that is normal for us.
The players knew of a series of rumors from a patron player who generated domain encounters. One of these led to a growing werewolf problem. Other situations led to the entire coast of the domain being attacked and destroyed by a sea dwelling race of fish-people, aka the fishfreaks. The government posted rewards for any destruction of the fishfreak cults in the area and thats what the players now sought to cash in on.
At first, since I had no idea where they would go, I had only a sparse description of the intended target, which at the time was just a band of hyena-men. Quick cash grab! thought the players, and maybe they would continue to the coast for the fish cult bounties.
I had to quickly come up with the heyana-men numbers, stats, layout, etc. I also came up with an idea as I was laying out the place on a map for the players. What if they hyena-men were actually working with the fishfreaks. That might explain why they were here in the first place. I also added a detail about the village having several deep wells, which became the impromptu dungeon.
In a previous post, I described how the first few rooms were generated. I want to point out that this was done almost as the player were exploring. This is certainly not a comfortable experience. At any minute I know the players will look "behind the screen" and expose me as a fraud. Since this was a remote game via Discord voice chat, that was impossible, of course. But that old fear never leaves me.
In any case, just a few rooms was sufficient to lay additional clues about the rest of the place. For one, the first level down was half filled with water. The players knew the fishfreak priestess fled into these caves. They wanted her treasure as well as her as proof of their work. They also knew they she commanded about 40 zombies, so she had access to animate monster spells.
In the second session I added more rooms ahead of time, but also reviewed previous rooms. An rooms previously empty were rechecked (again, in Appendix A, using the room contents table) and "restocked". I added more details in some area, including hidden rooms and so on.
The players said they would come back. I knew that it was possible they would just forgot about this horrible watery death-hole, too, and never come back. That was always an option.
Go Fish
The StomHawk joint task force marched again from Fort Westop to the ruined village. Scouts reported that some men on horseback swung by but did not stay. The players were not concerned about this development. They had a fishfreak priestess to take care of.
They were concerned about flash flooding in the watery tunnels below. The weather was cool and drizzly, leading the players to decide to delay for another day. They marched back to the fort losing a day of valuable looting time.
The task force returned the next day. They decided to set camp for the night around the village with the entire force. Again they investigated the wells, seeing no movement or any sign of the creatures they met previously. The main force of all the PCs plus 22 hirelings to carry lanterns and provide a little more security. After almost half an hour, the group was assembled in the first cavern. Moving to the east, they encountered a group a armed hyena-men and a fight was on.
The players opted to run up and hurl flaming oil. The hyena-men elected to fire great bows into the mass of men, aiming mostly for the light bearers. A cascade of flaming oil immolated a few of the hyena-men and now the players decided to close rather than charge on the next round. The players lost initiative, so another volley of arrows were fired at them. One arrow was sure to hit Jeremy the monk. Another player reminded Jeremy'y player about how monks can catch arrows, and a quick check indicated that he had done so. The other players were now ready for melee, as more hyena-men burned to death. The hyena-men held their ground despite a morale check, ready to give as good as they got.
At this point Maximus the Minotaur began to assert total sword dominance, killing a heyena-man with each attack. Ove decided to use his helm of telepathy to scan the thoughts of the surviving hyena-men. What he learned was a series of desperate images of the flight path they intended to take, which included jumping down into a the water and swimming a distance to a room with air. After another round of attacks and more deaths, the heyena-men finally fell back, but soon only 1 was left, and then all were dead.
The players chose to explore in familiar areas, looking for the "escape route" Ove scanned from the mind of the hyena-man. The players had written down the rough directions. They soon realized that the directions were not clear, and they were now "lost" and unsure about how the route was supposed to go. They did end up finding the same chamber that led down where fishfreaks emerged from last time. Now Max volunteered to dive into the water, without armor, and try to swim along the suspected route.
Max was gone underwater for merely a few minutes before he popped back up, claiming to have encountered fishfreaks down the shaft in another room 1 level down. The players debated a course of action, realizing that perhaps there was something to the containers of eels they burned up before. How else would an air-breathing hyena-man make such a long route underwater? Another player quoted the DMG:
Of course I could neither confirm nor deny any of these allegations.
Back topside, the players decided to camp out a the site and try to explore the first level more thoroughly tomorrow.
Again on Day 1018 the weather was fair and they group descended again. They elected to head east this time, and try to fully map out the area. They found the square room with the rock piles and cobwebs. They began an exhaustive search for secrets doors as well as dismantling the rock piles. At this point some aquatic beast slithered into the room and the hirelings became alarmed. The players ordered an attack. Missile flew and swords flashed, killing to enormous eels. One eel survived and discharged a shock that killed all the Nighthawk infantry, knocked Tasso the cleric unconscious, and wounded Gerolt.
They did manage to kill the eel before it could do more damage, but now they sought out a nearby well chamber to pull their dead and wounded out.
The group continued to the north, looping around to a great cavern where some sort of religious service was being conducted. A massive black status of some female/octoped form with blurred edges stood at one end, with a masked priest conducting rights for a group of fishfreaks.
Checking for surprise, the players got a segment of free action. They advanced for that segment and hurled missiles. Then the next round, winning initiative, completed a mass charge into the fishfreaks. The fight was bitter but short. The priest withdrew behind a screen of fishmen, but soon enough of the fishmen were dead that Jeremy had a clear path to the preist, now a priestess as the PCs were close enough to determine is was female.
On the next round the players won initiative again and Jeremy blizted the priestess, pile-driving her into the water. Stunned, she was an easy target for a grapple by Max.
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| Jeremy, ILB, Order of the Golden Dragon |
They pulled the priestess back upstairs, but not before several men went insane trying to tear down the strange statue. Ove, who was attempting to douse the statue with holy water, lost his mind and attacked and slew another hireline. Max returned to grab and bind Ove, dragging him out of the room. At least 3 hirelings were now dead, killed by their friends in fit of madness.
At this point the whole group fled back to the surface, ready to mind-grope the captured priestess.
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This family tree does not branch.
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TREASURE: NONE
EXPERIENCE POINTS: 992 for defeating monsters
GRADES and SHARES:
Gerolt F1 192XP
Franz I2 192XP
Charles T2 192 XP
Tasso C1 192 XP
Max F1 192XP
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