Umbros Ep30: “Poor Mr Zord, I knew him.”

You’d be surprised how often I hear, “Well, this is a Dunder dungeon” anytime the players come across an oddity, a bit of whimsy, or something “extremely deadly.” It reminds me of when I ran filler sessions for Umbros and Dunder joked about how we share very similar tastes. Recent conversations have also lead to, “Man, Jeffro would hate this” and I can only chuckle wondering whether he reads these and if I’ll get a flogging at some point.

He’s not wrong; an introductory area should be a training grounds of different knowledge, skills, and design intent. A talking skull is far and away something that shouldn’t be part of “Level 1,” right? Here in the Purple Hills where the Immortal Wizard Tootch resides, though… who knows?

PCs

Traigon P1 (E)
Flumic HE C1/F1/Mu1 (E)
Brodrin Dw F1 (E)
Jerik C1
Flir E F1/Mu1 (E)
Nanor P1 (E)

Phteven Mu1 (-)

Chaz F1 (E)
Schwarz Mu1 (E)
Thumbs C1 (E)

“Poor Mr Zord, I knew him.”

The lion’s share of the opening session time was spent deciding what to do and where to actually go. The players had some of their PCs join up with Hibobu the Shiny Merchant’s caravan for passage to Firsthaven. They’d intended to research the hooks over there and look for “safer pastures.” Prime vibe of “Screw the Heldungeon, I quit.” However, at least two of the PCs wanted to go back to the Heldungeon, particularly with the Promos of the Gods timer ticking away. Free XP is free XP!

Adventure from Tootchville or Firsthaven? They went back and forth for a while with a few intermittent suggestions: one of the other players offered to run something out of Firsthaven later in the week, and someone else offered to do some more dungeon testing. After a very long debate, a vote was held and “explore the Heldungeon for the free XP” won out. How did it go?

The party gathered themselves, had a chat about the Heldelver Adventuring Guild dues, joinees, etc, and set out to the Moonpool Mound. Upon arriving, Traigon took the lead and focused his mind on Detect Evil. As he scanned the entry chamber, he spotted a light black flame; the faintest hint of evil embers were coming from the Hel symbol at the center of the chamber. In previous sessions, this thing had served as a means of animating corpses and a sign that Hel’s servants are trying to claim the mound. This, coupled with a PC becoming a wight and his body disappearing, set the group on edge. They did not want to return only to be caught beaten and weak (again).

Nanor and Traigon set to Detecting Evil and “scenting the trail.” We hunted down the original Moonpool Mound map and the game was on. The black embers trailed east to a locked double door. Locked, not stuck. They lacked a thief that could do the picking and were left with two options: hack it down or force it open with a rule I forgot the citation to (Edit: I found it. PHB 9, Bottom of Strength Table). Luckily, the party brought with them someone who could wield the Stone Cold Axe! Magic Axe vs Wood and Iron Banded Door!

Surely all that racket from violently hacking through a door would draw something, right? Turns out, it did. It also turns out that this intro area doesn’t have an encounter table so I split the odds between the DMG’s and the Heldungeon’s first level, landing on the former and rolling up a… Human? Check subtable, roll again, and I get… An adventuring party? I skimmed the process laid out, tossed a few more dice, and ended up with a group of six: C1, F1, Mu1, 3 MaA. The DMG notes that the party should be rounded out to 9. Due to recent events in Umbros, this was cut by 1/3. Everyone has trouble finding recruits, and these guys are no different.

The leader of this group shouted a “Who goes there?” and a conversation was struck. Traigon took the lead and introduced himself. Through this back and forth, we (myself as well as the players) discover the names of the crew and a few quirks. Chaz, valiant leader that works for the pay and not much else. Schwarz, the nerd with a pamphlet, probably a Tootch apprentice. Thumbs, the mute cleric of Coralynth and all around chill guy! Their three extras were cavemen with flint hammers and shoddy wooden block-shields. “Yeah, found them beating some tiger thing to a pulp and convinced them to come along.”

Thumbs also stood out as, this past week, Traigon the Paladin of Coralynth had recently set up a shrine for his Lady. Turns out, Thumbs was one of the attendees during the speech! This, and the usual Paladin charisma bonus, shifted the reaction in the player’s favor. Traigon convinced these new arrivals to join up with their delve for a proper cut. Chaz agreed, but noted his job was to protect Schwarz and wouldn’t be leading this charge. With that, the party gained more members and the last few chops from Stone Cold forced open their path.

Zombies! Detect Evil was spot on and a small group of rotted, animated corpses were shambling about down the hall. The archers stepped forward with their fancy VOID Arrows (AVOIDs, the exploding things) and let loose. A display of rent bone and colourful flames quickly cleared the hall of the threat. There was a successful Turn on one of the zombies, but he did not survive long enough to flee.

With the large hall cleared, and the benefit of a glorious light show, the party spotted two doors and the exploration began. The first one was a sealed stone arch, forced loose and slowly opened by Nanor, the 18/99 STR Paladin! Inside the room was six stone sarcophagi and a skull upon a pedestal whose eyes glowed. Detect Evil determined that it, and nothing else in the room, was evil (?!). Flumic stepped forward and cast Detect Magic, learning that nothing but the skull was magical. He immediately fired a VOID arrow at the magical skull and BOOM! A quick check at the item saving throws and… it saves! Traigon then stepped in to pick it up. There is certainly a pair of curiosities here in terms of grading; Flumic being part Mu1 not hesitating to destroy something magical? He believed it was a trap or ward, but what if it wasn’t? No Magic User curiosity throws up a flag, but is tempered by the Cleric half. This is one of those weird things that crops up with multiclasses, but a discussion for another time. Meanwhile, Traigon has detected no evil so the “slaughter all things evil” may not apply. I have digressed!

As Traigon picks up the skull, he fails his save vs spell and becomes mute! Then the skull speaks with his voice! What followed is both the highlight of the session and a good test on whether I’ll get along with the people I play with. Through a complicated bit of ventriloquism and a long set of conversations with nonanswers and proper comedic timing, Traigon quickly learns one simple thing: “If you put me down, you and everyone in this place will explode!” It turns out Traigon’s new friend, Mr Zord, is attached to his new pal and separating them will result in catastrophe! A few things are floated during this: “Well, he could be lying.” “We could just close the vault and have Traigon put it down, then destroy the skull after.” “I dunno, I kinda like this guy.” After some time, Traigon pops Mr Zard into his backpack and the sarcophagi are opened one by one.

Traigon, Nanor, and Brodrin are tasked with the heavy lifting while Flumic and Flir follow them to check for secret compartments and goodies. One by one, I throw the dice and go over the results. The party discovers a silver key inside a dried corpse; lifts up a secret compartment to discover a large locked music box with some platinum; old dust; a sludge pool from a rotund and rotted bloat-thing (Flumic sloshed in it and avoided parasites); a rotating block connected to a brick compartment and a sack of ornamentals; a silver tiara whose ward paralyzed both paladins, and the corpse of a knight with burial sword, armor, and helmet.

Chaz was pretty happy to see there was some money in this endeavour, but wondered about the paralyzed pair. Thumbs gave a thumbs down when asked if he had a spell that could remove the paralysis. Was it time to retreat? There was still the Promo of the Gods and another door, surely they wouldn’t leave without at least that much? The Paladins were dragged aside and left while the party pressed on.

The next room opened into a ruined chapel with Hel’s mark painted on the wall in blood. The residents were a skeletal knight and his squires that immediately charged the party! Initiative went in favor of the skeletal warriors, closing the gap before VOID arrows could be fired! Jerik promptly fell but Brodrin and Flumic stood resilient. However, Flir spotted the opening left by Jerik and fired a shot into the swirling melee. The VOIDs being essentially grenades, Flir wanted to “shoot the floor in the mass.” If we look at DMG 63, there is a section about discharge of missiles into a melee which serves as a solid reference. Melee is a chaotic, shifting mass; particularly in a dungeon hall, door, or similar tight space. It is also why attack targets are randomized.

Oh right, Flir’s shot. He gave the most Elven line before taking that shot and Chaz (Elf Lord) would have been proud! The blast veered slightly off-course with deadly results! All but a couple of the skeletons and the knight were obliterated, but Jeric’s wounded body was put to rest while Flumic dropped to the ground. Brodrin, by Cointhrall’s beard, stood defiant! Better yet, Thumbs had brought forth his symbol of Coralynth and forced the skeletons to flee! Flir grappled the knight and began thrashing it around, biting and “gouging its eyes” while Thumbs patched up Flumic and the cavemen beat down the remaining skeletons. Finally, the knight was thrown down and battered until it stopped moving. With that, the party took the coin and Hel statuette from the bloody shrine and Thumbs splashing holy water around to wash off the blood symbols.

The group hurried to dip their toes into the Moonpool and get that Promo XP and I asked: “What are the odds of a paralyzed or unconscious person drowning?” This question did not get an answer. Flumic’s unconscious body and the paralyzed paladins were left at the corner of the pool room while the others popped in and out. The retreat was finally called proper and the slow trek back to Tootchville commenced.

Monster XP

500 (Skeletal Knight, Skeletons, Zombies)

Treasure

Hel Statuette (50gp)
Silver Tiara (450gp)
Bag of Nice Stones (960gp)

25pp
100gp
100sp

Two-Hand Sword (Nanor)
Plate Armor (Nanor)

Totals

98 GP per share (party uses a 2 share system)
266 XP

+1000 XP if Neutral or Good (Promos of the Gods)
+250 XP if Good (Destruction of a HelShrine)

Helbound

Jerik: Killed by friendly fire, both the literal and figurative kind (Thanks, Flir!).