The Dungeon Game: Telperion's Regret, session 20
Telperion Desh dreams of how things would have gone with Fabien's Atelier if he had been there.
Party Members
- Tina the Titanic - Level 6 Fighter
- Vaco Adjacent - Level 6 Paladin
- Telperion Desh - Level 6 Magician
- Sneaky Jan - Level 5 Thief
Followers
Zorrel "Captain Nasty" Gnast (Fighter 5), Tiny Tina (Cleric 6) and Rutger (Robot 6)
Session Recap
As Telperion Desh learns of the rather disastrous results of Tina the Titanic and Vaco Adjacent's expedition to Fabien the Wizard's Atelier he goes to bed with his mind filled of regret of all the possible wizardly treasures that could have been had (including the very island itself).
In his dreams he, Captain Nasty, the Tinas, Vaco and his robot and Sneaky Jan the thief all stand at the foot of the invisible staircase leading up to the floating island. As they ascend the steps they find themselves in the lovely front yard of Fabien the Wizard, with the man himself sprawled out dead in the grass, his body beaked into wizard jerky by the harsh summer sun.
Taking the scintillating robe off the body, the facial features on it change. As Telperion puts on the robe (being up until this point naked, as is the way of dreams), his features warp and change too, turning into the harp and hawkish image of Fabien. Tina the Titanic gently places the wizard's shoes at Telperion's feet (Telperion wakes up, shakes his head and goes "nah that would never happen...") Tina the Titanic throws the wizard's shoes at Telperion, muttering "Take these you bitch" and the party head inside the Atelier.
Inside the toucanet greets them with its warning of the eminent danger and the party get to work. They use Doorknocker to unlock the control room (the guardian statue not paying any mind as to it appears Fabien is guiding some guests around), and they turn off the statues. They check out the kitchen, but the elementals duking it out in there simply attack anyone who goes in, so they go back and use the last energy left in the control machinery to vent the kitchen, getting rid of them. They loot the wand of fireball from the kitchen's trash incinerator, along with a very fancy chef's knife, then use Doorknocker again to break the magical seal holding the Engine Room shut.
Going in there they confront the dream gremlins trying to free the sleeping Djinn from its glass vat and kill them. They clean up the gunk clogging up the engine room and use a magical sealing foam that Sneaky the Thief had bought months ago to seal up the crack in the glass tank.
Deciding to go upstairs to the library, Telperion rummages through the books and ends up finding a folded up map of the atelier. With this fortuitous find in hand they realize they need to head into the rat tunnels on the side of the building to fix the power to the control room and use that to restart the engine, as a small explosion in said control room underscores the urgency of the situation.
Running down stairs they go into the room with the magical cabinet and the doll house. They awaken the sleeping dragon and talk to it. It is courteous enough as it sees his friend Fabien and is rather distressed to hear that the island is in danger. It grabs some of its tiny treasure hoard and flies out, leaving the atelier. The party shrink themselves using the magical cabinet, and call for Captain Nasty to come pick them up and carry them to control room. Captain Nasty is left to stay behind, slaughtering the dream gremlins as they materialize in the entryway to make sure they do not go back to messing with the machines and trying to awaken their sleeping master.
Within the rat tunnels the party consider using some of the cable tubing to walk on the outside of the island, but between the wind and a trio of angry looking seagulls they decide better of it, though Telperion uses his wand of fireball to destroy the birds. Leaving through the door instead the group are met by a wounded mouse wearing a tiny helmet and sword. As soon as she sees Fabien she stands up and salutes him, introducing herself as Lieutenant Calendula and reports that the dream gremlins have managed to break through the rat defenders' line. As Tiny Tina and Vaco both rush to heal the rat warrior, she thanks them, kicks down the adjacent door and rushes in with a shout "To Arms!" With the help of the party the rats manage to defeat the overwhelming odds of the incoming gremlin horde.
They find the damaged bit of hose leaking dream fluid, and Sneaky (with help by Rutger the Robot) manages to patch it up using some glue and a sleeping bag.
With power restored to the control room the group decide it is prudent to move the island off the garden and land it safely to the ground, before they do any more exploring. They then proceed to check out the rest of the atelier, finding various treasures such as a bag of holding full of gold and the stone egg of a fire elemental, or curious trophies and stuffed animals, another sparkling robe in the wizard's bedchambers (which Sneaky puts on, having now two identical Fabiens going around), as well as the wizard's memoirs. They all take turns pondering the rob in the trophy room, each seeing a vision of their own futures (or, really, Telperion's dreaming idea of what their futures are), and soon Telperion wakes up from his dream. After his morning routine he travels north to the garden, now destroyed by the destroyed and smashed island. He searches around valiantly for the corpse of a small rat with a helmet and sword, but can not find anything intact.
Observations
After how poorly exploring this dungeon went last session, both of the players that participated as well as Telperion's player (who was away at the time) insisted they wanted to give it another go. As The Dungeon Game is going to go on break for August, we decided this would be a fun session to have before said break.
This is where the idea of this being all Telperion's dream came to mind, and I found the general setup of a dream episode (and one centered on the regret of all the cool shit the party could have had) to be a funny one and so did my players.
Having at least a better idea of what type of dungeon this was, the party were a lot more careful in their exploration and in the time they had to do it. Luckily for them the engine failure only reached level 2 before they restored it to normal operations and had plenty of time to finish exploring.
I basically abstracted combat away from the session, as this was both a dream sequence (and thus nothing was going to kill them anyway) and also this is intended for characters half the level of the party, and so any real combat was mostly just the two fighters rolling dice to see how many enemies they kill.
I really really enjoyed this module, and this time so did the players. They enjoyed the wizard bullshit going on, they absolutely fell in love with Calendula the mouse, and I think this was a good way to wrap up the campaign until we pick it back up September. It was also interesting to redo a dungeon that was already at least partially explored by the same players, and they were quite a bit more thoughtful in what they did and when they did it.
I continue to be impressed by Brad Kerr's writing, and between this and Temple of 1000 Swords I am seriously thinking that if I was to run some kind of side-campaign it would be a mini one focusing on Hideous Daylight, possibly also incorporating Fabien's Atelier too (since the two are so strongly linked).