Family Tegel Manor Game, Session 3
Appropriately enough for Halloween I got another session of our family Tegel Manor game done.
Session Recap
Trying to get to the tower the trio explore the adjoining bedroom to the huntsman's one, finding a fancy shield and a corpse of a lady animated by a golden fungus. Deciding not to stick around too long to see what it can do, the group duck into one of the wardrobes, which happens to be a secret hallway leading up to the staircase into the tower.
However they first explore the study next to the base of the tower, gathering various magical scrolls. Jokel ends up teleported into another part of the manor, a damp stony laboratory filled with body parts and strange instruments. Luckily for him he teleports back without any problems.
The group then head into the games room, with an invisible musician playing the organ and some shadows engrossed in a game of chess. They also run into a skeleton that introduces itself as Raw Ribby, one of the Rumps, and asks if the party are unscrupulous criminals willing to kill Runic Rump and bring his body back, in exchange for Ribby's magical axe. The group point out that they actually have quite a bit of scrupuls, so they eventually make their exist as Raw Ribby gets increasingly agitated at them.
Finally, the group makes it to the tower's second floor, filled with skeleton guardsmen and a trio of wights that act as captains. Jokel naturally takes command of them, enlisting one of the wights and three skeletons as his personal guards. The characters briefly discuss going down with their extra manpower to evict Raw Ribby, but decide against it for now. Instead Jokel opens up the trap door into the floor above, which triggers a trap. Due to his fast reflexes he avoids harm, but the fancy shield he got gets ruined by the spears launched at him.
In the next room they find a plush and lavishly decorated bedroom, inhabited by some homunculi which try to bite the party, but are quickly dispatched by Jokel's undead guards. With the place being nice and cozy the group settle in for a short break.
Observations
Between life, burnout and this last week being sick there has not been a lot of Tegel Manor going on. I feel bad about it, as we made this game so the kid has something to do, and she does enjoy it (she's been very excited about using this tower as a base of operations for the party!), but considering I only barely keep my Stonehell game going, this was a bit too much even if the sessions are only an hour.
However, despite being quite sick today I decided that it's been long enough and it's time to run another session. After all, it's been over a month since the last one. This was a shorter one than usual, but the group at least made it into the tower proper. I ended up just giving the players the map of the manor, because mapping it is a pain in the ass and not something I wanted to try and do while being this sick. It worked out fine, frankly the map is so sprawling and chaotic that even having it all available doesn't do much to prepare someone for what nonsense they will run into when they go into a room.