The Acts of The Lords of Rannick, LXXIX

…in which an Ankylosaur makes us want to reroll as dinosaurs, Arradin has a costume malfunction and there is a bona fide crazy treasure drop.
 
MD20/20 has long been a staple of my roleplaying habits. While my time with the Edinburgh group during Uni was fueled by fried chicken and Boddingtons, in Govan a loaf of bread, a tub of butter and two bottles of MD20/20 went in on a Friday night and didn’t leave on Saturday morning.
 
I believe that I started drinking Purple Rain while playing World of Warcraft not solely because MD 20/20 is a great drink, but as an enticement for a Rain of Purple items – gettit?- those most sought after treasure drops other than the legendary-but-I-don’t-play-the-game-enough-to-get-those-Orange-items. Purples, Purpz, Professor Plums, call them what you will, I hoped to call them down on our heads by with the sweet anaesthetic properties of Mogen David’s finest blend of fruity flavours and fortified wine.  
 
Adventure Juice!
 
So it was funny that last night started with me drinking MD20/20 again and ended up with what would undoubtedly be a Purple item if this was that kind of game, dropping completely by random.
 
We started by bullshitting a lot. I always feel like I have to make sure the game gets going, since that is why everyone came, but that isn’t to say I don’t like just blethering. This is what happens when we skip a week (several weeks in the case of the Tallens) we have so much nonsense to catch up on.  When we did resume the action we were still in the complex of rooms within the crystal roofed, seven-spired dome building that dominated the Entertainment district.
 
The rest of the party, which I suppose had been following after the lead party caught up with Dagfinn, Halvard, Albedon, Ron and Kerplak. Halvard, Torgor and Dagfinn went to stand guard at the entrance while everyone else decided which door to go through next. They were in a room with three doors and one disintegrated portcullis where they had fought an Invisible Stalker.
 
They chose the left door, Kerplak checking it for traps. It wasn’t trapped, but it was stuck, so rather than taking the time to unstick it manually Tersplink Knock’ed it open. Beyond was a hallway with carved walls that nobody paid a blind bit of attention to and a door, to which Kerplak paid attention. It was a sliding door and sliding it open, he found some kind of interrogation room and a Hamatula, a Barbed Devil.
 
 
Kerplak, Ron and Arradin engaged it initially, Arradin charging forward, Kerplak shooting one crossbow bolt per round and Ron coming in for support. The Barbed Devil didn’t have a whole lot of luck against Arradin, although he didn’t really need it as an errant slice of her sword rebounded off a wall and destroyed her armour. Striking out at her, the Barbed Devil induced fear in her and sent her fleeing back to the entrance, all dishevelled and with plates of armour dropping off her as she went.
 
Tersplink and Albedon arrived, meanwhile, with Albedon frustrated to find this thing had some spell resistance and Tersplink delighted to find that an Ankylosaur fit perfectly in this room. Albedon evoked a Wall of Acid that caught the Hamatula but spared Ron (thoughtful!). As this was happening a door in the south wall burst open and two ogres tried to rush through. The first one charged straight into the Wall of Acid, before Ron swept his legs out from under him in a self sacrificing combo that also laid him out on the floor. It worked, as the extra time in the acid finished off the first ogre and all that open airspace made it no problem for Kerplak to send a bolt through the second ogres’s left eyeball, killing it on the spot. Comedy Pratfall Kung Fu violence!
 
 
The Ankylosaur pretty much kicked ass, thumping the Hamatula once quite hard. The Barbed Devil teleported to the other side of the room where the people were wearing dresses, not three-inch thick scale carapaces. Didn’t matter, after it got one spiky attack in Tersplink stepped beside his cousin and allowed the Ankylosaurus to use its 15′ reach and pummel the devil one more time, this time fatally.
 
Is there a version of Mouse Guard, but with Dinosaurs? No? WHY NOT? Let’s Kickstarter that shit.
When the dust had settled, they checked out this room (nothing interesting) and the small room from which the ogres had emerged. That was only moderately interesting and contained vats of embalming liquid, which smelled bitter and were very definitely poisonous. Kerplak took two amphorae.
 
Dagfinn showed up and Arradin returned (having composed herself and retrieved the suit of armour made from Longtooth that Halvard was carrying arround, (Halvard wasn’t wearing that was he?)).The door to the north was checked out and found to be trapped. Kerplak disabled the hidden scythe and then opened the door, at which point the Stone Golem inside came to life and advanced. This fight’s megafauna was the Woolly Rhinocerous, although the first one was, I believe, poisoned to death by Albedon’s Prismatic Spray. It was either the Rhino or Arradin, so no-one complained too much, although to be fair, no-one speaks Woolly Mammoth. Albedon learned the important lesson that Stone Golems are pretty much immune to magic and found himself too close for comfort. Kerplak whipped out his Bronze Griffon Statuette and rubbed it, causeing it to turn into an actual Griffon. Just because everyone else was crowding the rooms with summoned creatures. The Stone Golem struck out at the party as they came through the door, slamming at Arradin and Ron but was unable to do much damage before Ron somehow managed to grapple her. Tersplink had Haste’d everyone and the Stone Golem failed to Slow anyone so the fight was over pretty quickly when the second Woolly Mammoth appeared and gored the Golem.
 
Get it? Like “Stoned”… like weed, man. Get it?
 
In this room they found an awful lot of dust and a rather splendid red and white marble dragon statue which was, sadly too large to cart around with them. Beyond the single door in the room they found some kind of resting area, with several stone “beds”. After some searching, Kerplak found that one of the stone platforms could be pried loose to reveal a stash underneath. Three extremely ancient cure scrolls and a +1 Basket Of All Kerplak’s Eggs Repeating Crossbow was found.
 
Back through to the Invisible Stalker room, with two doors as yet unexplored, they opted for the door on the right which led them into some kind of dark temple room. An altar against one wall had traces of fresh blood sacrifice on it and the blood ran through channels, creating a profane rune on the floor. On the altar was a small pile of shiny, and everyone rushed to see it. The Griffon accidentally set off the pit trap beside the altar but recovered. Peering down into the spike cluttered depths they saw several precious stones and a small weapon. The altar held a bunch of platinum pieces and another healing scroll. Dagfinn summoned an Unseen Servant to go fetch the items at the bottom of the pit. Very good, sir. It brought up the two stones plucked from the remains of some long dead adventurer and the weapon which was completely insane. Will that be all, sir? Then I shall retire for the evening…
 
It is a Sai. A +1 Vicious, Shocking, Ki-Focusing, Defending Sai of Disruption. Which makes it a +7 equivalent weapon. Which is nuts. But that’s what we rolled. Ron got it.
 
 
We finished there and it’s probably just as well, because the next roll the party has to make is for a Wandering Monster check and I didn’t like the way those random tables were behaving… Next week: Watch Ron fight a randomly assigned monster in a randomly generated dungeon with a randomly generated weapon!
 
 
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4 Comments

  1. That sai is why those random tables have persisted in these games for so long.

    Excited to see if I continue missing Ron’s quarterstaff, which I do every time we play.

  2. The sai was a nice way to offset a number of boring scrolls. Scrolls? Pfft. Learn that shit, don’t just go copying and pasting spells, you hack m%th@f%ck@s. I’m also glad it was a monk weapon. Ron is going to be able to disarm the hell out of our enemies.

    I also want to make a PSA about evocation wizards and bringing-down-the-wrath-of-the-gods to smite enemies. They need space. A little “cone” room, if you will. The death of the wooly rhinoceros was unfortunate. Albedon loves animals. He especially loves animals that gore his enemies. But Albedon has got to bring the heat, and sometimes its get hit by a prismatic spray beam or GTFO. This is why Al likes Scorching Ray and Lightning Bolt. They shoot in a nice line. But daaaaaaaamn, this cone shit is where some of the uber-magic really happens.

    *The more you know*

  3. Prismatic Spray is a great spell, I’ve always loved it. It’s like Colour Spray’s bigger, more powerful brother. Great choice.

    I’ll be interested in measuring your scorn for scrolls when you realise how many fights there are before bedtime.

  4. Albedon’s bag of spells goes deep, Mr. Dungeonmaster. Of course, Albedon really isn’t above using scrolls. That won’t stop him from criticizing the poor penmanship or the use of sloppy grammar while he does so, but he’ll still use them.

    And I also found the perfect gif for Al’s reaction to poisoning Tersplink’s wooly Rhino buddy:

    http://i.imgur.com/DmPFc.gif

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