Notably, Elin, who had large portions of her body melted by the chaos of Anarus Kalton and was also blinded by the experiment.
Enter the wizard Uuthak and his marvelous Regen-O-Pod!
I had been working on a special random table for eyes, but I left it on my desk at work... Ugh! I rolled with the punches. I handed each player other than Elin's player a card and I asked that they put three things on it.
- A type of eyes
- A location for the eyes
- A magical power
I then asked RF to roll 2d6. I told him that his target was "7" but he could add or subtract Elin's CON bonus (18 CON = ±2) to get there. If he got to "7", he could choose the answer to the question. If he didn't, he had to ask one of his fellow players for the answer off their card... (insert diabolical laugh here)
His first roll was a 10. Nope. Ask someone... he asked JW who said "compound eyes". Ack! The one kind of eyes he didn't want. I told him that Elin now had a +1 on saves relating to dodging or movement.
His next roll was 2. Bummer. Where are her eyes? He pointed at LB and she said, "on your hands". This is a tough crowd...
His next roll was a 6 and that was modified to 7. What power? "the Evil Eye" RF told me. We agreed to "figure it out" cuz I don't know what I want that to do yet...
Needless to say, RF is a little disappointed, but this is a sandbox campaign. You want to get your eyes moved? You can find a way!
Two new adventurers, Torn and Asp joined the crew for this foray. Torn rolled a sidekick, Marus, on Michael Curtis's Character Snowflake table and the old warrior joined the crew.
On to the dungeon! The adventurers busted out their maps and decided that they were tough enough to head to the third level where they'd encountered hobgoblins and white apes so long ago... They figured that they were tougher now and that they'd give the hobbos the old what for.
On to the dungeon! The adventurers busted out their maps and decided that they were tough enough to head to the third level where they'd encountered hobgoblins and white apes so long ago... They figured that they were tougher now and that they'd give the hobbos the old what for.
Down they went on staircase B. It's a long one with lots of loose shale tiles/steps. Almost impossible to be stealthy in descent. They arrived at the portcullis to discover it was damaged and jammed in position. Kalen was prepared to use Knock, but the fighters threw their backs into it and were able to drag it three feet off the floor before it was soundly jammed in place. The group entered the old hobgoblin lair...
They found it completely abandoned and cleared out. No clues presented themselves as to where the hobgoblins went. The party didn't do a thorough search, but decided to leave via a door in one of the known corridors.
The corridor wound around for quite a distance, but eventually the sounds of an explosion could be heard in the distance. The party closed in and could hear chittering and shouting in a strange tongue... as they drew closer still it was determined to be kobold!
The party came upon a group of about 20 kobolds fighting something(s?) that were around the corner out of sight. Every round a few basketball-sized motes of smoke and fire would fly into the kobold ranks and explode.
Once the kobolds spied the party, they split their attacks. Kobold slingers, archers and potion lobbers all bombarded the party to little effect. The party closed in...
... to find three pyro-manticores! (here's a quick mashup!)
The PCs didn't know it, but they were in for quite a battle (with a few twists)
[Editorial: I've said this before and I'll say it again -- I LOVE RANDOM STUFF! You'll find out why a little bit later in this post!]
As the adventurers closed in on the kobolds, the little lizard/dog men scrambled to fight on two fronts. Many died and some ran away. Eventually the party had to deal with the pyro-cores.
I should have written this down, blow by blow, but that system has proved to be cumbersome. Perhaps I'll drag it out again and use it for combats vs. big bads like this. :)
In the end, three or four PCs had been rolling on the Death/Dismemberment chart. At one point, Oryx waded through about five kobolds through the use of the Chop when they drop rule. Torn was blinded by a plasma ball (another trip to see Uuthak!) and several PCs, including old Marus, had been hit DEAD ON with a plasma ball, but took NO DAMAGE due to the eccentricity of the random D,D and DD table! Priceless!
Old Marus was riding on Roberto the mule when the plasma ball hit... the ball careened off the reinforced steel shields the characters are strapping to the mules sides as backups. All that happened was a gout of flame, a whoosh of sparks and the smell of burning hair. Awesome!
Kalen busted out the scorpion poison and applied it to his darts. It was discovered that the poison wouldn't kill the pyro-cores outright, but it did hurt them AND short circuit their plasma ability. It took about ten rounds, but the PCs were eventually triumphant. They gathered some monster bits for Uuthak and searched for treasure. They found a rotting chest with a strangely preserved medium crossbow under a pile of bones.
Back to town for healing and restoration!
Once back in town we repeated the Regen-O-Pod eye trick for Torn. He was much luckier than Elin. He has a ±1 CON bonus, but he didn't need it for his first two rolls; 7's on the dot.
NC declared that his eyes were human AND they were placed normally. Possibly one of Uuthak's most successful regenerations! He bombed his third roll and pointed at JS who informed him that he had "darkvision". Not bad at all...
(More to come!)
They found it completely abandoned and cleared out. No clues presented themselves as to where the hobgoblins went. The party didn't do a thorough search, but decided to leave via a door in one of the known corridors.
The corridor wound around for quite a distance, but eventually the sounds of an explosion could be heard in the distance. The party closed in and could hear chittering and shouting in a strange tongue... as they drew closer still it was determined to be kobold!
The party came upon a group of about 20 kobolds fighting something(s?) that were around the corner out of sight. Every round a few basketball-sized motes of smoke and fire would fly into the kobold ranks and explode.
Once the kobolds spied the party, they split their attacks. Kobold slingers, archers and potion lobbers all bombarded the party to little effect. The party closed in...
... to find three pyro-manticores! (here's a quick mashup!)
 |
| The pyro-manticore hurls balls of plasma with its tail instead of iron spikes.... Yikes! |
[Editorial: I've said this before and I'll say it again -- I LOVE RANDOM STUFF! You'll find out why a little bit later in this post!]
As the adventurers closed in on the kobolds, the little lizard/dog men scrambled to fight on two fronts. Many died and some ran away. Eventually the party had to deal with the pyro-cores.
I should have written this down, blow by blow, but that system has proved to be cumbersome. Perhaps I'll drag it out again and use it for combats vs. big bads like this. :)
In the end, three or four PCs had been rolling on the Death/Dismemberment chart. At one point, Oryx waded through about five kobolds through the use of the Chop when they drop rule. Torn was blinded by a plasma ball (another trip to see Uuthak!) and several PCs, including old Marus, had been hit DEAD ON with a plasma ball, but took NO DAMAGE due to the eccentricity of the random D,D and DD table! Priceless!
Old Marus was riding on Roberto the mule when the plasma ball hit... the ball careened off the reinforced steel shields the characters are strapping to the mules sides as backups. All that happened was a gout of flame, a whoosh of sparks and the smell of burning hair. Awesome!
Kalen busted out the scorpion poison and applied it to his darts. It was discovered that the poison wouldn't kill the pyro-cores outright, but it did hurt them AND short circuit their plasma ability. It took about ten rounds, but the PCs were eventually triumphant. They gathered some monster bits for Uuthak and searched for treasure. They found a rotting chest with a strangely preserved medium crossbow under a pile of bones.
Back to town for healing and restoration!
Once back in town we repeated the Regen-O-Pod eye trick for Torn. He was much luckier than Elin. He has a ±1 CON bonus, but he didn't need it for his first two rolls; 7's on the dot.
NC declared that his eyes were human AND they were placed normally. Possibly one of Uuthak's most successful regenerations! He bombed his third roll and pointed at JS who informed him that he had "darkvision". Not bad at all...
(More to come!)
