Are you a new reader of the Asheraven Play Report? Consider reading from the beginning with part 0.
Good morning readers. Last week’s report left off with Gandolfo giving commands to his circus performers that clearly were for nothing good, although they were given vaguely. The party overheard this while hiding around the back of his trailer, waiting and listening in the pouring rain. Before that, the party performed their siege and invasion into the fortress of the slavers on the island in the river, making sure that the slavers would think twice before resuming their operations; the masterminds behind the group of bandits were left alive, although the procurers were eliminated, so they were not stopped permanently. Let’s resume with what the party did outside Gandolfo’s trailer.
After the party heard what Gandolfo said, the clowns, acrobats, and beastmasters exited the trailer and broke off into separate groups. The party waited for the performers to gain some distance and then went to the tavern that they had originally seen the smaller group of performers at. They reconnected with Stinky, Justice, and Plate Guy who told them that the clowns and acrobats in the bar had left several minutes earlier. (Justice, the former slaver, also accompanied the other two at the tavern, which I neglected to mention in the previous issue. Even in-session, I often forget about Justice’s existence. He’s just forgettable to me, I suppose.) Before any extensive response could be formulated, the party felt the ground shake and people outside shrieking as the entire stock of circus animals - elephants, monkeys, lions, and more - came crashing through the town’s gates and barreling through the streets. The party remembered the corpse robbery of Narwell’s cemetery occurred during a similar rain storm, and. after hearing what Gandolfo said coupled with the stampede of circus animals, the party was sure he was behind it. The party waited for the animals to pass, so they didn’t get trampled, and ordered their three NPC henchmen to stay in areas already passed by the stampede to help the townspeople. The PCs followed the stampede and noticed the circus’ acrobats jumping into buildings and coming out with wriggling and thrashing bundles of burlap as they expertly parkoured out of sight again. The party eventually caught up with an elephant elephant from the stampede and noticed there was one of the circus’ beastmasters trailling it. However, rather than attempting to corral it, the animal handler seemed to be suggesting - nay, commanding - the elephant to act the way it had been. They got into a brief combat with him, but while the man only held a knife, he was also armed with a 5+ ton bull elephant, so the party turned tail and ran to the cemetery, avoiding the path the stampede was taking. They climbed up onto the wall of the cemetery around the temple, and saw two things of note during lightning flashes. The first is they saw the patrolling paladin struggling to maintain his route in the heavy rain while is lantern fought with the torrent and winds as well. The second is they saw around half a dozen clowns digging up coffins and removing corpses into wheelbarrows with alarming speed, almost as if they were aided by magic. The guard ambled hopelessly in the rain. Between the weather, his helmet, and his barely-lit lantern, he couldn’t see anything.
The party took advantage of their surprise on the clowns with Figlar firing off a Sleep spell that put all but two of them to sleep. Laurana and Logar attacked with missiles, and Asora climbed over the wall to engage in melee with her maul. The two clowns, now aware of what was going on, ran to two other clowns, clearly their superiors in some way, and woke them up. Those two “superclowns” turned out to have casting capabilities themselves, so they used some of their spells as more clowns were awakened. Some of the normal clowns were able to escape with wheelbarrows of corpses, running over the paladin who stood guard at the cemetery’s gate like a steel carpet runner. Figlar cast another Sleep spell, which put the two clowns asleep who did not fall asleep before, but the superclowns got away, and any other normal clowns either did the same or were killed. At some point during the combat, the party noticed the stampede - more specifically, the elephant - had reached the central square of town, which was where the front of the temple was. Logar broke off from the fight with the clowns to try and catch the animal handler off guard. Instead, the druid got into a game of tag with him as they both chased each other round and round the area. The elephant was unable to maneuver with the agility required to partake in the fun, so it simply smashed more buildings. The party joined Logar, who was the one being chased at that point, and ended up routing the beastmaster with his elephant. The sleeping clowns were delivered into the temple to be held for their acts of desecration. The party went to Narwell’s north gate, where the stampede was headed, to see if they could locate where it went afterward. They did not see any animals or people around, but they could see that the ground showed clear tracks of the circus’ wagons. With the deluge still coming down, the party would have to try later once it had lessened if they were to make any meaningful attempt to follow them.
The party did what they could to help the townspeople be sheltered from the rain for the night. They met back up with Stinky and Justice but saw that Plate Guy had apparently been trampled. Worse than that, when they inspected his body more closely, they saw that his armor and helmet were empty and that his body seemed to have been turned to black liquid. They disposes of the armor and helmet, knowing that at least the latter item was cursed, and remained sheltered themselves until morning, which gave way to a gray, quiet day but one without rainfall. Most of Narwell was in shambles, and dozens of people were missing, so an immediate reconstruction effort was begun by Lord Tarban for the town. The temple was also among the people, providing shelter for some and caring for others. Otherwise, it was a drab and depressing sight. The party went to the temple to interrogate the two clowns they had captured the previous night to learn where Gandolfo and the rest of the circus would go. They were not very helpful, even when they were being truthful, but the party learned that Gandolfo had a constructed fortress about two days northwest where all the circus performers and the ringleader stayed at. The party surrendered the clowns to the Narwellian guard and rested for several days, since they had taken some hits from the previous night’s encounters. During this period of rest, Figlar performed a familiar-creation ritual. (I modified and added in my own Familiar spell and rules with it. Figlar was allowed to channel some of his Magic-User experience points into the fabrication of a creature resembling an amorphous mass of mercury about the size of a baseball. This would cause him to lose levels, but, in exchange, the familiar would give him extra spell slots, extra HP, and a higher effective Magic-User level, all of which would depend on the HD of the familiar, which itself depended on just how much experience points were spent on the endeavor. Those benefits would be present so long as the familiar was alive. Additionally, Figlar would have telepathic empathy with it if they were both on the same plane of existence. The creature itself would benefit by higher HD by having greater fighting capability and HP itself. The great downside would be that if the familiar ever perishes, the spell slot, HP, and effective M-U level effects as well as the XP cost would be applied in a reverse and permanent on Figlar. There were also some effects specific to this particular familiar, namely that it would give Figlar a bonus to saves against toxins and an sensitivity to “big” creatures that would give him a chance to become supernaturally aware of their nearby, but not exact, presence. Maybe someday I will give this a proper supplement with the exact details.)
With all of that out of the way, the PCs, along with Stinky, Justice, and a hired dwarf thief mounted on their cow-drawn cart to go to Gandolfo’s fortress, using the tracks in the mud as a guide. They found the fortress on the first fringes of the mountain range that was in the same direction. The lower part of it was obscured by short trees, but they could see once they got closer that it was a three-story structure, with the top floor covering a smaller area, similar to a tower but much shorter. They could also see a tall metal rod resembling a flagpole, about 50 feet tall, standing on the top of the tower, although there was no standard flying from it. Since the party did not actually encounter Gandolfo the previous night, they thought to maintain the investor ruse. They left the cow cart hidden in the trees as they approached the structure on foot. They noticed there were no visible patrols around the fortress, so they went to the large door at the front of it and gave a loud knock on it. A couple full minutes passed as the party knocked a couple more times, and an acrobat finally answered the door asking the party what they wanted. They were allowed entry into the fortress, coming into a hazy mess hall. They saw an open kitchen in one corner of the large square room, a door going out the wall opposite of the one they entered on, and a staircase that went both up and down. The smell of salt, sweat, and meat hung in the air, coming from the kitchen. Gandolfo met the party several minutes later and the two parties went back and forth on an “investment interview” while Gandolfo in particular tried to convince the party to drink the tea and coffee he had specially prepared for them by the cook. Some of the party drank, and they were led on a very guided tour of the fortress. Many of the areas, Gandolfo said, were off-limits to protect the privacy of his performers, but the party was shown a means of entering the basement of the building, which was where the animals were shown to be kept. There was no sign of the freaks, but there were plenty areas not shown that they could have been hidden away into. The party eventually requested to stay a night in the fortress before traveling back to Narwell, as they said they were satisfied with Gandolfo’s operations and willing to make an investment in the enterprise. Gandolfo allowed them such accommodation but essentially charged them a few hundred gold pieces “to prove they really were investors” for the privilege. He showed the party to a room next to the entry door and allowed them to settle in. The ringleader, who was also a rather high level illusionist, went upstairs to his own quarters and cast ESP, moving his consciousness about the party’s room and hearing, through the detection of their thoughts, what they were planning to do.
Eventually, Figlar decided to send his familiar, which took the shape of a rat - a metallic silver rat, but still a rat - up the stairs they saw to scout what the area looked like. It eventually found Gandolfo’s quarters, but he was ready and put a lead cup over the blob. Moments later, Gandolfo, along with all of his performers, entered into the party’s room and demanded their immediate surrender. The party, of course, refused, entering a combat they were doomed to lose. Their hired dwarf thief immediately bailed, jumping out of a window in the room and fleeing back to Narwell. The rest of the party got as far as putting Gandolfo at under half health and taking out most of the performers in one way or another, but, in the end, they were defeated, although they were not killed. No, Gandolfo had greater plans for them. At this point, Logar and Asora went on a recess from the campaign for the time being, and the party gained a human ranger named Robin. Thus the unconscious party consisted of Figlar, Laurana, Robin, Stinky, and Justice. When the party finally reawakened, they immediately knew something was not right. They had the sensory capabilities of newborns, barely able to see or hear clearly. They were numb all over and could not move effectively. They were able to see their own bodies with relative clarity. Figlar had a massive torso and pair of arms belonging to someone of great physical ability, but puny legs. Laurana had a normal torso and legs, but she had eight arms at her shoulders that, if viewed from above, would have the appearance of an hourglass shape like a spider’s legs. As for Robin, his face was elongated forward with a mole’s nose on the end, and his human-looking arms stopped at the elbows, where giant mole paws were located in place of forearms. Justice had the body of an anaconda and head of a humanoid, and Stinky had the legs of a strong man that matched Figlar’s torso but a puny upper body that matched the gnome’s legs. If nothing else was clear to them, it was that they had been turned into freaks. They also saw that they were kept in cages, likely in an area in the basement that Gandolfo kept them from seeing, separate from each other but housed with other, dumb freaks. Gandolfo made an appearance some time later to gloat both about his victory over them and that he would soon coerce the king to allow him to marry the princess, since it was he who had her held somewhere in the fortress. He gave a series of demoralizing statements to the party before leaving their presence with the echo of his trademarked cartoonish cackling.
The party noted the routine that would follow through the day. They were fed nutritious but foul-tasting slop at three mealtimes. They were allowed out of the cages two times in the day, one for exercise and one to have their cages clean. Figlar distracted the guards at this first exercise period, and Robin was actually able to escape, rolling and flip-flopping away, but the mole man returned once night started to set in and made him realize he would be hopeless trying to survive in his current state. The next day, Figlar regained the use of his unspent 1st-level spells, and he cast Sleep on the clowns that came to remove them from their cages for exercise. He was able to take the keys to the cages from him and unlock the rest of the cages. Once all the freaks were free, they just bumbled about, but the party managed to whip them up into a frenzy and send them to the ground level of the fortress above them to cause mayhem to all the circus performers. The party spied a dumbwaiter that went upward. It was large enough to stand in comfortably, but they could contort themselves into the space and send themselves upward one by one. Anyone who would have seen them on the ground level was busy trying to calm and contain the freaks, and the room the dumbwaiter stopped at was empty. Unfortunately, it also contained an uncovered Mirror of Life Trapping close by to the dumbwaiter, and every single PC both looked into it and failed the save to resist being pulled out of it. Fortunately for them, by the time the last party member had been taken by the mirror, Stinky and Justice were both there to witness it. I gave them a chance to decide to break the mirror, and they rolled within that value, breaking the mirror and freeing the party and a few other unknown people from the mirror. Most of the strangers immediately fled the room and the fortress altogether, but two other magic-users stayed behind and were convinced to aid the party. One wanted the satisfaction of seeing Gandolfo get done in and the other wanted any magic items that would be discovered in the fortress. The room they were in was Gandolfo’s, so at least the second magic-user was immediately paid his due, and his goal was then turned into also making Gandolfo suffer and pay for trapping him.
There was a staircase going upward in this room, and they followed it upward into a laboratory. In the center were two operating tables, one which had a woman on it and one which had a large glob of clear-blue slime on it. Gandolfo stood nearby, connecting wires which hung from the ceiling to the two entities on the tables. Once he became aware of the party's presence, he threatened them to back off or he’d zap the princess with his Wand of Lightning. Figlar ended up blinding him with the Light spell, and one of the unknown spellcasters shot Magic Missiles at him. Gandolfo wound up fleeing out of the laboratory facing the back of the fortress, finding his way through memory of the lab’s layout, and used his Wings of Flying to go… somewhere. On the levels below the lab, the freaks had been settled, and Gandolfo called for his followers to flee with him to exact revenge at a later point in time. The magic-users that accompanied the party made their departure at this time, stating intention to increase their power to get back at Gandolfo. The party was left with the princess as well as the device he used to turn everyone into freaks. With access to all his tools and manuals, on top of having no external pressures, the party was able to figure out how to reverse the operations on themselves. Even if the other freaks were still around, too much time had passed to succesfully return them to their original bodies. The princess, as the woman on the table was identified as, was unconscious but unharmed. They searched the fortress quickly for a meager reward of treasure and thought about what to do with the princess. They were definitely going to return her home, that was not in question. The choice they had to make was whether they would obey the social rules of honor and ettiquette by letting Lord Tarban take the credit and, therefore, the glory in the rescue of the princess or if they were going to deliver her to the King themselves, thereby snubbing Lord Tarban but gaining great favor from the King. In the end, they decided it would be better to give the honor to Lord Tarban in hopes to regain his lost favor from the clumsy slaver attack. (A note on the module scenario. It rewards varying amounts of XP at its conclusion, depending on how quickly the party completes it. They have up to five days to complete the adventure and be able to revert to their original forms. Once the sixth day begins, they are permanently freaks. The XP reward ranges from 6x the “normal amount” on day one when they are as useful as babies to just the “normal amount” on day five and later. The only issue is that it doesn’t mention what the “normal amount” of XP should be. The party completed the module’s events on day two as freaks, which is five times this elusive “normal amount”, so I just gave them 5,000 XP.)
Once they’d returned to Narwell and completed the formalities with Lord Tarban, they were invited to accompany the detail returning the princess to Asheraven, although they would be under the command of Captain Oliver Farrier for the duration of the journey and festivities that would surely follow. The PCs agreed and had no other pressing deadlines to meet. (I also opened the party up to allow each player to control more than just a single character at a time, since they had become proficient enough in Basic Fantasy and the way I run the game to not get overwhelmed by it. They are also seemingly allergic to hiring henchmen and other hired help, so the only option to pad their party number would be by adding more PCs.) The party then added two paladins to the group. A dwarf named Bhelrum and a human named Stanley; Stanley is Plate Guy’s brother. The party thus consisted of Bhelrum, Figlar, Laurana, Robin, Stanley, Justice, and Stinky. (I’m not sure if I explained some time before why Justice is still with the party. He is an opportunist, so, even though the Charm on him wore off weeks ago, he will follow the party as long as he is making decent coin in their adventures. Should the party at any point leave him behind while they adventure, it is unlikely he will be waiting for them when they return.) The party gathered itself and made its way to a cave nearby their shithole that they had discovered a month or so back. They entered and saw that it was a mine. It had four branches off a large central chamber, and the party found a crack to squeeze through into a natural cave system down one path before turning back. The second had a natural river bisecting it, and the party turned back once they reached that. The third path came to a T-intersection with a patrolling Hulk Wickhead. It went down one way empty-handed, came back about a turn later rolling a barrel full of liquid, operated some equipment that sent the sound of turning gears echoing throughout the tunnels, and repeated this process for as long as the party waited and watched it. When the party returned to the main chamber again, they noticed an approaching light coming from the fourth, the unexplored, tunnel, and the end of the session was called.
Fellas, this is finally the end of playing catch up with the ongoing events of the campaign. Okay, technically the two sessions that happened after the end of the events I just recounted have already happened, but I’m just going to roll all of that into the end-of-May play report, #12. Feels good to be at this point, and I look forward to writing about something else next time. I’m not sure if it’ll be next week. I’ve been focused on getting the play reports finished, and I haven’t given much thought to any other topics of intrigue. I’ve been reading portions of the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg again, so maybe it’ll have something at least tangentially related to that. We’ll see. Until then, stay blessed and have a good day.
Next: Play Report #12 (To be published…)