Today, a player dropped the campaign just a few minutes before commencement of the session. I wasn't too surprised, as I'd sensed his pleasure in the game was waning, but it still hurt to feel he wasn't having fun. In his abence, we recruited another player who had previously been an observer, who rolled an apothecarist named Nedi who had been part of the heretics from last week's Coming of Sorg (pdf). She slotted into the party and we were off.
The gang had been gifted magic sand by Entropus, which would allow them to instantly transport to the mouth of the Buried Pyramid should they wish to return. They used it, a fist-sized leather pouch filled with a solid pyramidal stone surrounded by sand, by sprinkling it at their feet. (Mechanically, this meant using one of its three charges, represented as Quality in Knave. The sand swelled and rose, consuming their forms, before deposting them magically at the mouth of the pyramid, under a dark sky lit only by stars. I figured since the pyramid is opposite the globe from Pithole Village that it'd be night this time.
They found evidence of activity at the mouth, and an extra rope. I kinda wish I hadn't done this as I wanted to give the party a chance to encounter a set of halfling triplets, fellow adventurers, but I never settled on where they'd be in the complex, nor did I roll them as a random encounter. But all the same, it happened.
They descended into the skull room, which formerly was silent, except a random encounter with Ash Imps who love pranks caused them to animate and nip at the party, drop empty skulls on their heads, try to trip them like whack-a-moles in the floor, and so on, chuckling dryly all the while.
Soon they reached the scarab door, and unlocking it with the copper key, revealed a mummy burial chamber, with four of the foul creatures on plinths, each with its golden coffer, one of which buzzed ominously. Pressing his ear to the buzzing coffer, Viktor alerted its attendant mummy, who slowly stood from its plinth. He also sensed a cold rage from somewhere above in the pyramid. All the same, the party destroyed mummy after mummy, gathering the golden coffers. The buzzing one revealed a cloud of bees who awaited orders from Nedi; she told them to return to the box, and they happily did so. The others contained various quantities of valuable mineral dusts.
For what it's worth, I've glossed over the details of this encounter, but it played poorly at the table. Most of the misses of the session were around it; I gave everyone advantage on basically every roll, and no one suffered harm at all. Not a thrilling encounter. I hand-waived the final mummy, but should have done so sooner. Also, I totally underpowered them: I should have skimmed the stat block first. Mummies by the book in Old School Essentials (B/X D&D) are significantly tougher than I played them. This was a good lesson, as it means I can step up the difficulty of combat encounters in the future; at least to the actual, recommended level!
Dispatching the mummies, the party descended further to a ransacked store room, where a cowering ghost called Ezril was hiding from demons he claimed were hunting him. He wanted help to get out of the pyramid, and became by turns paranoid and trusting of the party. By chance, I rolled random encounter 11 on a 2d6, which is a demonic apparition, whom the party had encountered here before. This complicated the encounter a bit but I feel made it more dynamic.
In fact, many of the session's hits were around this roleplay, especially Ezril, who the party was never sure they should trust. They were in search of a wraith who they suspected as being a trickster, who could in fact have been tricking them to get help out of the pyramid. Luwang asked a few good questions of Ezril, who claimed to have crawled out of a portal to hell "just a few minutes ago," when the party knew they'd destroyed the portal several days prior. Further, Ezril appeared not to know Prospero, despite having grown up in Tilliton Village. So the party destroyed him, and he died in a sparking, greasy electroplasmic vapour.
Going further down into the pyramid, the party emerged in a grand entry hall painted with grosteque murals: the lair of Ujharu, the lamia, with five dogmen attending her. Nedi used her spell, Frenzy, to cause a rottweiler fellow to attack Ujharu, and the party left the snarling chaos and fled.
At this, we wrapped early. Going forward, Zain would like a magic tongue, and I felt he was way in the background during this session, so I couldn't agree more. I think they'd also like to explore the Veins, which I've seeded with another crack in the earth. I hope the game is still fun for these guys, and I'd hate to lose another player to ennui or boredom. I'd also like to discuss my departed player's feelings but I haven't heard back from him since.
Comments
Post a Comment