The Dungeon Game: Weekends at Stonehell, session 16
The Crownless Company go down to level 2 and meet some of the off-kilter locals, make friends with them, and explore a good chunk of the quadrant.
Party Members
- Tina the Titanic - Level 6 Fighter
- Telperion Desh - Level 6 Magician
- Vaco Adjacent - Level 5 Paladin
- Sneaky Jan - Level 5 Thief
- Tobias Little, a.k.a. Lil Toby - Level 1 Cleric
Followers
Zorrel "Captain Nasty" Gnast (Fighter 5), Tiny Tina (Cleric 6), Kurgan (War Dog 4) and Rutger (Robot 5)
Session Recap
With all of floor 1 now finally "done" (the group deciding that they do not want to deal with the Hobgoblins at this time), the Crownless Company ventures back into Stonehell to head deeper into the dungeon.
Along the way they stop at the Wheel of Fortune, with Telperion and Vaco Adjacent giving it a spin. Telperion's luck is clearly still with him, as he got a boon while Vaco got paralyzed.
Heading down the stairs to floor 2, the group find themselves in a rather odd place, the walls filled with scribbles of stick figures. They also meet some of the locals, large and sturdy people (as one needs to be to survive in the dungeon) with ragged looks, patchwork clothing and a weird, almost vacant look in their eyes. They do appear to be friendly and the company spends some time chatting with them, asking them questions and informing them that they can, in fact, just head back out to the surface if they want to. Most of the group appear at least entertain the thought, but are not willing to commit to it.
Nearby they find the common room, filled with more residents, some of them laughing hysterically, other sobbing uncontrollably, most just kind of milling about and not giving the party much notice. They do strike up a conversation with someone cooking a stew, and befriend a woman that introduces herself as Martha. Due to some ambiguity in expression, she believes she is bound to Telperion Desh, and so starts to follow him and the party around, offering information and opening the doors along the way, a feat which the party take note of, as they appear to still struggle to get them unstuck, while Martha just opens them with ease.
In the nearby lounging area, Vaco refers to the locals as "monkeys" which makes them angry, but not wanting to actually start a fight Telperion puts them to Sleep, and calms down the other remaining ones. The group also run into Rythik, a towering man who introduces himself as the King of this part of the dungeon. He is also relatively friendly and when prompted by Lil Toby that kings often offer quests Rythik agrees and tells them of some strange flying tiny people that are jerks. Sensing that there's fey about, Tina the Titanic takes him up on the quest and the party head out.
They spend the rest of the delve exploring the northern part of the quadrant, fighting off evil bath water, a giant spider, attaining mental clarity through a painted labyrinth on the floor of a room, and other bizarre encounters. They discover a hidden staircase heading down into floor 3, but decide to not venture deeper on this delve, instead exploring some more of the area first.
As the party went back to the common room to drop off a beetle that they had killed, Martha decided to stay back so she can have some stew, and the group headed back out to Crownfall Keep.
Observations
This was very much an exploration heavy session, rather than combat or anything else. While Stonehell describes the people living in this part of the dungeon as dangerously insane and violent, I really really did not vibe with the implications that go along with the way they're described, so I have done some light changes to how I interpret their condition and why they are the way they are.
In either way they kept having really good reaction rolls (except the group in the lounge, which rolled a 2 when insulted and were down to fight instantly), and so the are, at least the party controlled by them, became more of a social encounter. The group seemed to enjoy chatting with the off-kilter locals, having a good laugh when they asked Rythik to draw them a map of the area, and him just doodling a nearly useless pile of lines on their map.
Of course, the downside of this is that the group did not find much in the way of treasure, and as a result earned some of the lowest XP they've had in the entire campaign. But they have potentially encountered a friendly enough faction in the dungeon, and that itself can be a big boon.