Gorgon Bones

Zandan Megadungeon, Session 7 - The Goat

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Characters

Session Recap

Over the previous downtime the Domovoi Camp was hit with terrible news - some of the hunters had been attacked by The Goat on their way back to camp, with only one surviving to return and tell the tale. The horrible beast had clearly now become more aggressive with its followers slain, and so the camp council felt it was only right to make the party go deal with the problem which they had caused.

Arming themselves the best they can, the group headed out. Right off the bat, barely outside the safety of the Camp's protective enchantment the darkness of the dungeon surged and grabbed at Borg, paralyzing him in place for a turn. An ill omen of what was to come.

Waiting for him to get better the characters made their way towards the former territory of the Goat cultists. Along the way they found a curious sight of four skeletons in rough work outfits just hanging out by one of the hallways, one chilling. The party stopped to chat, but could not get much useful information from the bony quartet, and soon once one of them had finished its flask of unknown drink they wandered off.

The party finally made it to the now cold and dark cavern of the cultists. Dried old blood was spilled everywhere - some from the fight, but some clearly later. It was apparent The Goat had feasted well that day.

Probing deeper they found a large natural cavern - on one end of it a sort of overlooking ledge, and on the other a zig-zagging switchback that disappeared higher up. The trail of blood and goat fur clearly indicated that the beast lived that way. Trying to climb the switchback did not prove the best of times. Borg, Leda and Brick all ended up slipping due to the unsure footing and tumbling down back to the cavern floor. Luckily their armor prevented them from getting seriously hurt, but the party were now split. With the three talking animals now finally making it to the mouth of another cave, they threw a rope down to help Leda get up, but just as she did things turned for the worst.

As Leda was being helped up and untied from the rope, everyone's hearts began to pound madly, their ears ringing as the adrenaline rushed through their veins. Panic and terror, so primal that the characters were on the verge of having a panic attack. The source of this sudden and unnatural terror soon made itself known - the Goat was slowly heading their way.

"Run down!" yells Hoot and in his speed ends up just tumbling down off the switchback, landing right by Brick who was trying to catch him. Flake manages to grab Leda as she slips too, and eventually everyone makes it back down to the large cavern. Varg the Wolf uses his magic to create an invisible cloak around the party, and they sit quietly and await the goat.

The foul beast soon made itself known - a giant buck, over two and a half meters tall at the peak, covered in gore and reeking of death. Part of its skin flayed open and dragging behind it, as the raw meat shines underneath. In a deformed and weird voice, it calls out to the group. "I saw you. I know you are here. I was butchered, yet the task was not finished. I was skinned, but I am still whole. Where I bite, I rip off meat. Where I pierce with my horn, I draw blood. I know you are here, and I shall rip you apart lest you leave."

With every fiber of the character's being screaming at them to run, they steel themselves and unleash a powerful magical blast at the goat, disintegrating a good chunk of it. Borg attempts to follow that up with a granade blast, but the Goat is covered by unnatural darkness and so he overshoots, the shrapnel seemingly not even harming the thing. Flake, Brick and Leda all decide to just rush out of their invisible spell and attack it, but they can't. They try yet their bodies simply refuse to perform what their nerves decree are suicidal actions.

The Goat then starts to thrash through the party, biting and goring at them. They are beaten up, but still standing, however the beast itself apparently regrows and regenerates its mangled flesh, effectively undoing all the harm done. Borg decides on a desperate measure - he wrestles the Goat and shoves a granade into its mouth. Unfortunately he can not disengage from it fast enough and the explosion takes out a good chunk of the Goat's head...but also about a solid third of the side of Borg, killing him instantly. The Goat tries to flee back to its lair, but the party push on, again raining magical attacks on it, yet not quite able to overcome its incredible regenerative power.

With this the party break off and flee. The Goat does not pursue them, being hurt itself, and so the fight ends. Varg manages to grab Borgs shotgun, ammo and helmet along the way, but the group retreat back to camp, bloodied and defeated. Anya, the camp's healer restores their wounds, and the group are left unsure what to do. They spend the rest of the session escorting Gargarom the Orge, the camp's chief magician, back to Depth 0 where he and some of the characters drink from the black ooze in the shrine of some forgotten goddess. With their connection to the dungeon now firmer, they gather some odds and ends (like some mattresses an bedding from the former home of the ghosts on the level) and retreat back to rest and recuperate.

Observations

Man I gotta stop writing these so long lol. This whole session was just one protracted fight and then a fairly harmless expedition back to Depth 0 of the dungeon to pick up some supplies.

However the fight definitely felt a lot more impactful compared to last week's one against the Basilisk. The Goat itself has a significantly lower Monster Rating only 66 compared to the 85 of the Basilisk, however it has absurdly high armor and supernaturally strong regeneration, meaning that the party simply could not outpace it. Had they managed to concentrate enough damage on that first surprise attack it likely would have fallen in one go (again, a bit of a question mark with T&T combat is how swingy it is).

Borg's stunt with the grenade was truly cool, and unfortunately he failed his roll by only like 2 points. Had he succeeded the grenade would have hit full damage (and that's 9d6 so 54!) to just the Goat, but so it goes.

Overall the party did not succeed, but they did learn a lot about how to fight this enemy, with plans to simply assault it from afar with magical blasts and just keep their distance.

This, incidentally, is also now the third character in only 7 sessions who has heroically sacrificed themselves to save the party from either the Goat or its cultists. My players seem to have a knack for heroic sacrifices hah.

All in all, a good session if rather short one. After throwing so much at the enemy, the party could not reasonably do more exploring so they instead used the time to run some errands in the relatively quiet and safe Depth 0.

This persistent issue with T&T enemies being quite weak to single-target high output attacks like blast spells however is becoming a bit of an annoyance for me, so that is something I am making a note of and keeping an eye on as the game progresses.

Session Stats

Rooms Explored: 1

Enemies Defeated: None

Characters Dead: Borg

#Campaign #Megadungeon #OSR #Session Report #Tunnels and Trolls #Zandan