The Dungeon Game: Weekends at Stonehell, session 7
The party do some more mapping, have a tense fight on two fronts, encounter a potential friend and finally find the stairs down to level 2.
Party Members
- Tiny Tina - Level 2 Cleric
- Telperion Desh - Level 3 Magician
- Vaco Adjacent - Level 2 Paladin
- Sneaky Jan - Level 3 Thief
Followers
Sparkles (Porter and Torchbearer), Packet and Loadwell (Porters), Medium Sized Marta (Woman at Arms), Sinthia (Woman at Arms), Duchess de Capitaine (Woman at Arms), Konan (War Dog), Kurgan (War Dog), Krull (War Dog)
Session Recap
In-Universe Date: March 28th, 3017
Venturing once more into Stonehell, the party decide to try and explore some more of the dungeon and fill out their map. While they try and do that, they get accosted by a group of orcs. Being stuck in a hallway the party attempt to retreat into a wider room. That plan does not work out - the room they bust into has a pumpkin-headed bear-like creature standing in the middle of it, surrounded by a cyclone of noise and wind. As it sees the party, its hypnotizing gaze stops two of the fighters in their tracks, and its vicious claws almost rip apart Kurgan the War Dog.
Being found stuck between two enemy forces, the party try and shuffle people around. Close the door in front of the bugbear and getting Telperion within line of sight of the orcs so he can put them to Sleep. It works out, and the fight concludes with no casualties, but the party being down quite a few spells and badly bruised and battered. For their trouble they get to loot the orc corpses, and also find a strange magical gem in the burst open head of the bugbear.
The Crownless Company regroup back in their camp in the valley, and decide to spend a few days healing up before they venture back down. While they do that, Telperion, Sneaky Jan and some of the others go explore the source of the waterfall outside of stonehell, finding a cave full of hot water seemingly spouting out of nowhere near a bronze hemisphere. While they do that, crossbow bolts fly out of the nearby grove, hitting some of the war dogs. Everyone scrambles to go back to their secured camp and regroup. They rush the trees, and realize that the grove is actually under an enchantment, making anyone inside it appear like a tree and thus unseen to anyone outside. As they are about to attack the brigands that had taken potshots at them, a mountain lion decided to join the mess.
After some false promises the party end up with several dead brigands and one dead and skinned mountain lion. The rest of their healing goes uneventful, save for a second mountain lion trying to have a go at them, but being overwhelmed by the party's war dogs.
Going back once more into the dungeon the group use a plank to go over a pit trap they've been trying to navigate, and explore several rooms, eventually finding one with some friendly people for a change. Snorri Broadshoulders, an architect and scholar from the south-western reaches of the empire, along with his bodyguards. The groups exchange pleasantries and notes (Tiny Tina being particularly excited to show off her map!). They tell them that they had set up a safe camp for people such as Snorri, who appreciates the invitation and returns the favor by pointing out a nearby secret door.
Vaco Adj. detects enemies behind it, and so Snorri and his bodyguards leave the dungeon, while the party rush in an take the orcs on guard duty by surprise, slaughtering them in a round of combat. After further exploration the party end up in another part of the dungeon, with a room containing a strange stone wheel. Telperion and Vaco decide to try their fortune and spin it. Telperion gets permanently amazing hair. Vaco gets really bad and painful cramps. Unfortunately the noise from the wheel's old bearings attracts some skeletons that approach the party. Tiny Tina however steps up and gives them a fat dose of shaming for their appearance, which is enough for the skeletons to turn and run away from her.
Some more exploration and mapping later, the group avoids several large gatherings of large rats (wisely remembering the death of their War Bear) and find a strange glyph, a room of broken statues and most vitally - the stairs leading down to the second level of Stonehell. After a giant ferret tries to pick a fight with the party and fails, they decide to call it good and head back out, traveling back to Zorb along with their new acquaintance Snorri and his companions.
Observations
Another very combat heavy session this time around. That big fight right from the get go with the bugbear and orcs was quite tense, with the group not really losing anyone, but getting very very close to it, mostly being saved due to Sleep being an OP spell, and some lucky rolls. The gemstone in the bugbear's head is actually a scroll with the Unseen Presence spell detailed in that section of Stonehell. I wanted to somehow introduce it to the players, and I really liked the image of a bugbear that had absorbed the spell into itself so I went with that.
My bugbears are quite a bit different than the oversized goofballs they are in most versions of D&D. Visually I go with the illustration I posted above, a homage of mine to the pumpkin-headed depiction of them from Supplement I: Greyhawk, and also from the related Jack O'Bear from GLorantha. The Jack O'Bears magical eyes attack is also what inspired the hypnotizing gaze of my own bugbear, making them quite a bit more dangerous, but also...like actually interesting? I might just have to make sure I don't field them in multiple numbers at once at least in early floors of the dungeon, lest they just result in a TPK due to bad rolls.
I am always split on the characters retreating back to their fortified location above ground and staying several days to heal. On one hand, it feels kind of cheap. On the other hand, they are right by the entrance of the dungeon. This is way less of a viable strategy when they're, say, on level 5 or something. And they also have put in a lot of downtime of work, money and effort to build that place into a secure location.
In fact, their current plan is to fortify and secure the entire valley, repair the Gatehouse and basically build a small keep right outside the dungeon, host other adventuring parties there and in turn tax them on the way out (making a deal with Lord Krofax back in Zorb to simply do the tax collecting on his behalf). So I suspect the above ground section will become more and more secure as the game progresses. It's a good plan, and not an easy one, and so I don't want to punish the players for coming up with this approach and working towards it as a long-term project.
I have mixed feelings on that whole thing as well. While I enjoy the idea of the domain game, I did not have any particular interest in having that in this game. There's a reason there's literally a town and a dungeon with nothing else going on. But one of my players (who is also my partner) is very, very invested into the idea of building a base, so I didn't want to shut her down either. We've reached a compromise of some very stripped down and simple domain rules that do not overburden me in week to week prep for the game, and offload as much of it onto her to deal with.
I have been wanting this game to be much more of an arcade-style game than it currently is. I am debating cutting out a bunch more of the already barely existing elements and just focusing even further onto the dungeon delving. Then again...this session, while not bad by any chance, did feel a bit flat for me. I don't think I am doing an amazing job at running the fights as well as I could, though I do make sure that orcs use sensible tactics. I think part of it is that it's also mostly just been a lot of orcs, and the encounters are starting to feel kind of samey. But since I am trying not to deviate more from Stonehell than I already am, I also feel hesitant to make significant changes that then require additional tracking on my end.