Checking In

Greetings, readers!

It's been a little while since I've posted, but fear not: The blog hasn't been forgotten. I've just been busy with work, taxes, and all of that sort of unpleasantness. I'm hoping that things will clear up in the next week or so, and I'll be back to more frequent posting. Please, bear with me until then.

Peace.

MGoU-H: Mysterious Temple of The Serpent God, Final Session

Well, we finally finished up this monster of a module. All in all, it wasn't nearly as deadly as it probably should have been. +Gabriel Perez Gallardi has already blogged about it, over here. I am going to steal shamelessly from his descriptions and add a bit of my own to them, as well as some thoughts about the the first playthrough of this module.

Our players this week were +Adam Muszkiewicz, +John Iverson, +Gabriel Perez Gallardi, as I've mentioned, +Bear Wojtek, and +Wayne Snyder, each with 2 characters. +phil spitzer had a time conflict, and was not there for the final session, but we've got a bit of treasure for him. Phil, talk to the guys about your fabulous parting prizes.

The characters were:

Denny: 2nd level Thief
Jerkal: 1st level Wizard
Vane: 2nd level Warrior
Abel: 1st level Wizard (Abel was paralyzed. Bear went with Vane, only)
Banvha: 1st level Halfling
Aram: 1st level Cleric
Doug: 1st level Warrior
Chuck: 1st level Warrior
Formerly Ian: 1st level Wizard
Morfans: 1st level Dwarf
4 Urchins, a.k.a. "The Blue Vaners" (Don't ask me; I didn't name 'em.)

The PCs had ascended from Level 3, and had emerged once more from the secret door that led down to that level. Now on Level 2, they were in a corridor just outside of the Brooding Chamber. They had no idea what they might find, but something nasty was behind Curtain 2, or at least behind another high tech door. They crept up to the door and found another panel. Using the proper buttons, they somewhat recklessly opened the door. Occasionally these guys just do things. I blame Vane, the chaotic fighter (and now a youth mentor to four Urchins). 

The door opened on a truly frightening scene. There, before them, stood a monumental machine with a vast, central, egg-shaped chamber (about 40 feet high) full of swirling red plasma, atop a high platform, surrounded with six smaller chambers, also red and egg-shaped, but only six or seven feet high. A vertical pipe of black metal stretched from the central chamber up through the ceiling of the chamber. One of the players speculated that the pipe might lead up to the altar's drain. That was the correct answer. The blood of those children was fueling the fearful apparatus, which, now it can be told, was being used to create serpent men. The other monsters, like the Degenerate Serpent Men and the Chaos Serpent Blobs were mistakes, created before the Eternal Egg had been repaired and tuned properly. And who was doing this repair?

The Serpent Lich! This is the high priest of two-headed snake god of cyclopian visage, Sssaa'a Laasss (sounds snaky, doesn't it?). The Serpent Lich, of course, had plenty of minions on hand, including several True Serpent Men, 2 Chaos Serpent Blobs, and 3 Hunter Automata. Things looked grim indeed for the gang. Nonetheless, they (or at least Vane) were game.

Vane charged into the room. The Serpent Lich cast Spider Web to great effect. Vane was entangled, and the stair and hallway behind him were filled with webs. Some advocated to close the door and escape. The True Serpent Men were also spellcasters, and it could get ugly. Ultimately, though, they relied on... team work. What the hell? How did that happen. A combination of Strength Checks liberal application of flaming oil, Flaming Hands spells, and the span of only a couple rounds, and the webs were pretty much gone. So much for my early successes. It would only get worse for the bad guys after that. The players' rolls were just ridiculously good. Mine were, at best, mediocre, at least after the Serpent Lich went. However, not everyone was quite as lucky, or at least not just lucky. Occasionally things when the other way, and the PCs became their own worst enemies.


Gabriel said:

The Wizard Formerly Known As Ian cast 5 Sleep spells in a row, sending into a deep slumber between 2 and 4 serpent men each time. And grew five inches of hair too! That streak granted him the nickname of "The Sandman".

This was just sad to watch. After the wizard had Slept most of my bad guys, it was up the the Serpent Lich to hold down the fort. Unfortunately, he got made dead, but not before he had paralyzed Chuck. The Serpent Lich went POOF! and disappeared upon his defeat. If the Eternal Egg hadn't been destroyed, he would have respawned the next day, and resumed his grim work. I wasn't that lucky. Formerly Ian continued to Sleep the bad guys, and Jerkal the Blazin' lived up to his name by rolling criticals with his Flaming Hands spell. Fabulous! He was like a fucking napalm strike on a whole group of three enemies. Eventually Jerkal was taken out by a Hunter Automaton, and paralyzed.

After wiping the floor with the remaining enemies through a combination of swordplay and spellcasting, the PCs approached the Eternal Eggs, seeming instinctively to know What Had to Happen to Fuck It Up. Aram the lawful cleric wound up and smacked the shit out of it with the Frosthammer of Graki Deathstalker. It erupted in a gout of plasma, burning Vane pretty badly, but he rolled (yet another) saving throw, halving damage. Aram was protected from fire by the Frosthammer's magic. The Eternal Egg lay in ruins, and the threat posed by the Serpent Men had been averted. And they made it look easy. All my hard work had come to naught.

Curses, foiled again!

Wayne observed in a comment:

I was feeling pretty kick ass last night when I maxed out the rolls for Jerkal the Blazin's Flaming hands spell. Twice! Dude was a virtual walking flame thrower. Awesome. Only to be completely side lined later in the same turn when The Wizard Formerly Known As Ian cast Sleep and his mighty dice had him sleep every enemy in the room (5) who wasn't already asleep from his previous Sleep spells. The blood fueled sci-fi and sorcery birthing chamber of the hideous serpent men was looking like "serpent man sorcerer sleep over party" and we calmly walked through poking holes in the sleeping snake men like it was nothing. Ian is the sleep master. When it's good, it's so good, and when it's bad, he's in a magical coma for a week.

The party could, at this point, have left the Temple behind and returned to Samsara. They did not. This proved consequential. Entering another passage to east brought them to another sci-fi door. They opened it and found more enemy. It was a little crazy for a short while, but they eventually defeated them. This was, I believe, when The Wizard Formerly Known as Ian had a bad outcome with his final Sleep spell, putting himself into a coma until magical healing could be effected. On top of this, Aram the cleric had some trouble Laying on Hands, and incurred Deity Disapproval, putting his healing checks at -4 for the rest of the session. He was out of commission, and Vane who had (once again) charged into a meat grinder, was badly wounded. Banvha the Halfling also had depleted her Luck supply for the interim. Things were starting to turn my way again. Mwahahaha!

Then it got better. They opened another room, finding a large chamber with rows of Serpent Man-sized holes about 3 feet off the floor on opposite sides of the chamber. At this point we lost about 5 minutes to jokes about glory holes. I observed that the holes were pretty damned big, and they were about to get fucked roughly by the now-enraged True Serpent Men. This was, it was now revealed, the barracks for the True Serpent Men (and an Armory, as well, though the PCs had to run before exploring it).

The problem started when Vane decided to throw flaming oil into one of the holes. This activated about nine more enemies. They fled the chamber, and kept heading north. They found a locked door and activated the panel to open it. A tunnel led toward a chamber they'd been in before, the one with the first machines they'd encountered. Unfortunately, there were also two hidden rooms that suddenly opened, revealing 6 Hunter Automata. Things were pretty grim for our PCs, at this point, and they started getting a little whiny about it. After killing my guys and destroying a very, very expensive machine? The gall!

I reminded them that they could have gone through safe areas to escape, but they'd gotten greedy. Not satisfied with the treasure they'd gained already, they wanted MORE. Now faced with overwhelming odds, they ran away.

Yep, pretty much like this.

They broke the electronic panels on two of the doors, and escaped through the safe areas of the temple. Then they used Ward Portal to block the other entrance, from under the Snake God Statue cum Laser Turret, in the main temple. This was pretty awesome, as their result on that spell made the door simply disappear for several weeks. WTF? So, the pursuit had been neutralized for all intents and purposes. That's what you call lucky.

Gabriel observed:

Having defeated the serpent men and destroyed their wicked breeding machine, the party, instead of leaving the place (Chuck and Jerkal were paralyzed, and Vayne badly wounded), decided to keep exploring for more treasure. That's when Wizard Formerly Known As Ian ran out of luck or lost the favour of the Metal Gods. He fumbled a Sleep spell and fell into a coma. With the serpent men closing in the group grabbed their out-of-action comrades and ran the hell out of the Mysterious Temple of the Serpent God. 

We sailed all the way back from Samsara to Ur-Haddad avoiding a huge storm. Upon arrival, we handed the Eyes of the Serpent to Amor Ba'Gish, the wizard who employed (and poisoned) us, along with the chest  full of platinum bars we were supposed to give Balas Forktongue (who we found dead, tortured and killed by the Serpent kin) as payment for the Eyes. After receiving the antidote and a succulent reward we headed to celebrate, with the promise of more jobs from the wizard.

They got their treasure. Instead of keeping what they knew to be 50,000 gp worth of platinum bars (and this is a silver standard monetary system, mind you), they returned the unused payment to Balas Forktongue. This was the right choice. The Wizard, Amor Ba'Gish, would have killed them if they'd attempted to hide it from him. They got their payment in silver from the Wizard, for which they'd already been contracted. In addition, they were given 25 of the platinum bars with a total value of 2500 gp. That's a shitload of money in this world. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it. 

I think this would be a really, really good time to continue working on the faction rules we've only playtested once. Adam, please send me your notes from the playtest.

So, that was The Mysterious Temple of The Serpent God. This is one of the most intense projects I've worked on, and I got a chance to do some really fun and interesting (to me) things. Once again, I used the "song titles to name your scenes" method to write this. The band High on Fire were the stars this time. It was incredibly challenging to conceive a story that only used those titles as prompts. It often drove the story in ways I hadn't intended, to begin with at least. For example, this was going to be in the frozen north, but "Snakes for the Divine" precluded anything but a jungle adventure, in my mind, conjuring visions of blocky, jungle temples, huge snakes, high priests and sacrifices, and other neato stuff like that.

I'm not really "done" with it at this point. There are a lot of rough patches in the written material, partly because I had some better ideas as I went along. I also forgot to do some of the things I had planned, or had to adapt the plan a bit to make sense of things that I hadn't anticipated. All in all, I think the module has a lot of promise. I'm going to continue to polish for the inevitable Kickstarter (Yes, I'm kidding). However, I will actually try to get it into shape for other people to try out. I had fun running it, and I hope my players enjoyed the experience of running through it.

Next up: Adam will run a zero-level funnel for us. We're all gonna die! Fun!

MGoU-H: Mysterious Temple of The Serpent God, Session 7

As we began the 7th session of this adventure, Aram the lawful cleric had taken possession of the Frosthammer of Graki Deathstalker. The PCs had looted (to the extent that they could) the Vault of the Frosthammer and the associated treasure room. The PCs consisted of:

Denny: 2nd level Thief
Clave: 2nd level Warrior
Vane: 2nd level Warrior
Abel: 1st level Wizard
Banvha: 1st level Halfling
Aram: 1st level Cleric
Vergil: 1st level Warrior
Klaus: 1st level Thief
Doug: 1st level Warrior
Chuck: 1st level Warrior
Formerly Ian: 1st level Wizard
Morfans: 1st level Dwarf
4 Urchins

Everyone showed up for this session, so we were rolling with a large PC contingent. Resistance was futile before their might. Nonetheless, Van managed to get himself nearly killed a whole bunch of times.

The first thing that they did was to return from the Vault. They decided that the urchins and the characters not running with the party this session would loot the Vault and take the treasure up to the main temple. Denny the Thief decided that he'd skin some of the dead giant snake for later, and someone else took snake teeth. There was some discussion of just taking the Eyes of The Serpent and heading back to Ur-Hadad, but a combination of greed, murder-hoboism, and a tiny amount of concern for humanity got them to stay around. They decided to explore the passage leading east from the room with the Vault entrance in it.

The way east was blocked with a cell-style barred gate. They proceeded through it and discovered a 4-way intersection a feet yards further on. To the east was a barred gate, beyond which were two of those giant lizards with the brillant blue and yellow striped hide. There was also a nest of eggs. A few potshots were taken, and then fire was applied liberally through the use of Flaming Hands. It worked out fabulously. One Spike Lizard was killed outright, and the other fled down the passage to the east. At this point, Denny decided to go check for more treasure, finding 1d6 Spike Lizard eggs. The number was 6. Those could be fun later.

Another portion of the party proceeded to the south, finding a passage ending in a cave-in, and containing a nest of these guys (7 of them):

Claw Wyrm of Sssaa'a

Init +1; Atk claw +3 melee (1d8+1) or sting +3 melee (1d6); AC 13; HD 1d10+2; MV 20’; Act 2d20+1d20; SP If it manages to hit with both claw attacks, it will use its Sting- if it makes a successful sting attack, target must make DC 13 Fort save or take 1d4 damage and be paralyzed for 1d6 rounds; SV Fort +1, Ref +1, Will +0; AL N.

These guys were both unlucky and lucky in the encounter. The Claw Worms were pretty tough, and the party didn't roll particularly well. As a result, Vane got nailed a couple of times, as did others. Vane took the most damage of all. The were lucky in that the Claw Worms failed to get a sting attack against anyone. Eventually, a combination of fire, melee and missile damage did the trick, and the foes were vanquished.

They went back the intersection and headed north. By this time, Denny and Klaus had finished with the Spike Lizard nest and found the gorge-side entrance partly hidden by the waterfall. Denny had disarmed a trap, and was prepared to open a door he'd found to the north. The party opened the door and found 12 of the villagers, the only remaining group of the hundreds taken by the Serpentkin. The village of Samsara has been much depleted by their losses. The party sent the villagers topside to wait for the trip back.

Before leaving, the villagers warned that a Hunter Automaton was nearby, through a door in the same chamber. The door was locked, and controlled by a panel with four buttons on it. I let the party mess around with it for a while, but eventually they found the "open" combination, and the door did a Star Trek "whoosh" to open into a wide corridor. Only one Hunter Automaton was here, and they managed to dispatch it before it did much damage. They opened the next door, and entered a very strange chamber.

Here's the description:

These are holding cells of bizarre design, made of jade glass and black metal. Inside of each one is a black metal table with a vaguely humanoid depression in it. Some tables lay flat, and some are elevated. Each has an integral system of manacles and other restraints.

3-6a: This cell has been damaged, and the "glass" portions are shattered in their frames, but the glass hasn't spilled out onto the floor. There are signs of fire within the chamber, and a charred, dwarven skeleton. Close examination will reveal that the skeleton is heavily infused with black metal.

3-6b through 3-6d: This cell is empty. The front of it consists of an empty doorway in the shape of a long, hexagonal lozenge. Peculiar knobs of black metal protrude from the inner frame of the doorway at intervals of about six inches, all the way around.

3-6e through 3-6f: Holds a human being, immobilized by restraints, and surrounded by a greenish glowing aura. The victim's eyes blaze with greenish yellow light, and plasma of the same color arcs like flailing whips around the interior. Whereas the fronts of the empty chambers are open, a glowing wall of pure magical force blocks the entrances of these chambers, and the metal knobs blaze with whitish-green energy, crackling almost like lightning. Any attempt to touch this will cause 1d8 damage, though a DC 15 Fort save will reduce damage by half.

The human prisoners are undergoing the first stage of conversion into Hunter Automata, wherein their bones and sinews are infused with black metal. 

So, the first thing that happen was that Vane decided to break the glass on one of the active chambers. He make a saving through, and took only half damage as a mighty gout of greenish-white plasma vented through the hold and out of the chamber, pretty much right in his face. He took a lot of damage (again), but not enough to kill him. This guy is running low on Stamina, though, due to repeated... miscalculations.

The other PCs figured out that you could turn off the active chambers by pressing the lighted buttons, and shut down the other one. The prisoner was beyond help at this point, with metallic bones and sinews, and the beginnings of a bizarre, ophidian transformation. They killed them, of course.

So, at this point, the party has pretty much explored the lower levels. It took a little while, but they remembered that there was more of Level 2 that they haven't seen. Could it hold the secrets of the temple? Will they be able to derail the fell machinations of the Serpentkin? Only time can tell.

Oh, and speaking of time, the Hourglass poison is still active in their systems. They've been gone about 10 days at this point, and only have about 20 days to finish their business, return to Ur-Hadad, and seek the antidote. There's also the small matter of what to do with the chest of platinum bars they left on the ship sitting back at Samsara's wharf. The man they were to pay, Balas Forktongue, is dead. So, who gets paid? There are 50,000 gp worth of platinum bars (and this world is on a silver standard). It seems like they've had an incredible windfall, doesn't it? Surely Amor Ba'Gish, the wizard who has employed them, would understand if they kept it for themselves, wouldn't he?  Surely he is the soul of generosity, and would agree that they'd earned it, once they return with the The Eyes of The Serpent. Of course he would.

So, next time we'll see if the PCs can avert the unseen apocalypse that's about to be released on an unsuspecting world. Or maybe they'll fuck it all up, and we'll be hip deep in Serpentkin bent on conquest, thereby reversing the man's ascent, and throwing into doubt the true power of the Metal Gods. That would be... unfortunate.

DCC Characters, Ordered Off of A Menu

+John Carr  just posted something yesterday that I found interesting: various versions of the Ranger class for DCC. He didn't just put his own up. He put up others' versions of the same thing. They did have some distinct, and distinctly interesting, differences. The post got me to thinking about DCC classes, and how they might be tweaked to allow for some wish fulfillment to occur.

What if we took every power from every class in the game and stuck them into boxes. In this box over here we have something we'd call "Powers," things like the ability to use Deed Dice or cast spells or whatever. These are core mechanics that allow for doing damage or achieving large, in-game effects.

Over in this other box we have something we'd call "Expertise" (or whatever). These are supplemental mechanics, like thief skills, that allow the PC to do things other than cause damage or achieve large, in-game effects. They are incredibly useful, at times, but not really as useful as the Powers, nor as powerful in terms of their in-game effects.

In this last box, right over here, we'd have something called "Advances," which would determine how the character should improve over time. This would be pretty simple, and would depend (to some extent) on the selected Power and Expertise. So, if a PC had Spellcasting as a Power and Thief Skills as an expertise, he'd be tied to one of Wizard  or Thief as an advance. If he wanted to get better at one of those, he'd have to spend a level advancing as one of those. Everything that comes with it would occur.

Example, let's say I want to make a guy who's an arcane assassin. I'd need some thief skills in the Chaotic flavor. I'd need some spell skills to add illusion magic of some kind. Now, just thinking this through, I have a choice. Do I advance first as a thief or as a wizard? Or, alternately, do I choose limited powers from each and advance as a hybrid of both? For simplicity's sake, let's take the first version. I take thief to start, and advance as a thief. Then, when I reach 2nd level, I can choose to advance as a wizard instead of a thief. I probably shouldn't get what a 2nd level wizard gets, but I could get what a 1st level wizard gets. This also means that my hit dice at that point would be d6+d4 (or we could split the difference and call them both d5).

In the alternate version, the d5 hit dice make more sense. I advance as both a thief and a wizard at the same time, but I have to limit what I take from each class. So, maybe I get 2 spells instead of 4 (Powers), and I get half of the the thief skills (of my choice) but not all of them. Then I advance as normal in terms of XP, but my hit dice are the average of the two classes (d5). I also only get half of what I normally would from each class.

Another example of this: a hybrid Warrior/Thief. Call it a Bounty Hunter or something. Maybe if I took warrior Powers, I'd get a Deed Die. But it would only advance at half the rate of the regular Deed Die. If I took thief Powers, I'd get a Luck Die and the ability to regenerate Luck. If I took warrior Expertise, I could choose the warrior's critical hit table, but advance on that more slowly. If I took thief Expertise, I'd get thief skills, as above. If I chose to Advance as a warrior first and then as a thief, then I'd improve things like my initiative as a warrior and/or my attack bonus OR  (if alternating) I'd improve my Luck Die. If I'm doing a hybrid Advance, I'd advance with a d8 hit die, advance more slowly in my warrior stuff and with limitations on my thief skills. Something like that.

It would be important that the two boxes stay pretty well-defined and separate, because the character building process would otherwise give rise to the worst of the power-gaming tendency. I'd also require that the player who wants to do this declare the intention at 1st level. Thereafter, the choice is made. That's how your character works. You don't get to change it later.

So, Hive Mind, what do you think? Is this workable? Also, did I just replicate somebody else's idea and I'm just ignorant of it?

MGoU-H: Mysterious Temple of The Serpent God, Session 6

Oh, boy, did we have a hell of a session tonight. The players who were able to make it were Adam, Bear, Wayne, and Phil. John had to work, and Gabriel was on vacation. James is in school till May, and won't be able to rejoin us until then, which is sad because we found some stuff he might find... interesting.

So, we joined the party at the bottom of a long tunnel leading from the surface to the second level of the temple. They'd found the High Priest's secret entrance in the ruins on the surface, and, rather than face the stiff opposition they'd seen going down through the main tunnel, they went in through this backdoor. When we joined them, they had just finished killing a true (not degenerate) serpent man and a chaos serpent blob. The PCs consisted of:

Clave: 2nd level Warrior
Xalto: 1st level Cleric
Vane: 2nd level Warrior
Smolken: 1st level Cleric
Banvha: 1st level Halfling
Caifenn: 1st level Cleric
Vergil: 1st level Warrior
Klaus: 1st level Thief
4 Urchins (More about them, later.)

Immediately, I asked the PCs closest to the bottom of the stairs to make a Luck check. Two of them succeeded well enough to spot an older trail of blood and shit emerging from the western wall at the bottom of the stairs. They figured out that it was a secret door, and quickly learned how to open it by manipulating a wall sconce, Scooby-Doo style (as someone mentioned at the time). They didn't spend too much time exploring the corridor they were already in before opening the secret door. All they learned: The corridor went east quite a ways. They could hear water trickling down from above. So, they opened the door.

They found a long sloping passageway that led down to a landing with an arched doorway, about 30 feet deeper. The doorway led to a staircase that wound around and around to the left in a series of right-angle turns. It probably dropped another sixty feet. Along the way, Klaus the thief did a good job scouting and checking for traps. He found none, and no damage was taken. Eventually, the stairs ended and they found themselves in a long corridor leading to the east, and ending in a secret door. It wasn't so secret from this side, as a lever in the wall made the mechanism for opening it quite obvious. They checked for traps, found none, and opened the door.

The door opened into a large, square room with three major features: a gate of black metal bars in the east wall, a large, black metal grate in the floor, covering a cistern (the water they'd heard in the corridor upstairs dripped down into the cistern in a steady stream), and, most importantly, a large, black metal panel in the floor. The panel was about 10x10 feet, and marked with a dwarven hammer being constricted by a large, two-headed cobra-like snake. They had found the Vault of the Frosthammer! (musical interlude)

Songs about ancient relics make for great DCC fodder!

So fucking metal!

I was not, however, going to make getting inside easy for them. Vane, the big, dumb, chaotic lummox of a warrior decided to touch the door. He got zapped with electricity and knocked back about 10 feet, but made his Fort save. He took 3 points of damage. "Maybe it's discharged now," they guessed. Nope. Vane (or someone--can't remember who--got zapped again). After watching (with much amusement) as they attempted to figure out the trap, Bear (I think) came up with a plan: They would soak some rope in the cistern, and use it to draw the power from the trap. They soaked the rope, left one end in the water and threw the rest of it on top of the metal trapdoor. ZAP! The rope more or less vaporized, only the smoldering end emerging from the cistern surviving. The trap was disarmed. They opened it, and found a ladder descending into the depths, leading to a landing about 20 feet below. They descended.

Side note: Up to this point, there had been lots of jokes about throwing the urchins on the door to discharge it. They were kidding, of course, but the urchins were just sort of... there. We decided that they (for whatever reason) think Vane the chaotic warrior is The Shit. Strangely, he welcomes their attention, and clearly could be source of many wholesome teachings about life, love, and proper adventuring technique. Also, he could explain the facts of life, especially if those facts include hacking the testicles from giant apes and using them as trophies. It was decided that this could make a really cute family comedy on, say, the CW or ABC Family. We started thinking of names. Someone said "Vane in Charge," and then a meme was born: Witness this exchange from Roll20 chat:


Edgar J. (GM):Who's the Balls
Bear:"Who's the Balls?" Oh, fuck.
Wayne S.:check that shit out

Oh, how we laughed. I managed to choke out, at some point, "Failed... Will Save... versus... Funny." and then laughed some more. And this morning in my feed, Bear said, I'm going to sleep, dreaming of writing the pilot for "Who's the Balls?"


So, yeah... we now have a role roll model for our urchins, it's just that, well... it's fucking Vane fergawdsakes! This is going to be a running theme, I can tell already. I have so much fun in this game.

Anyhow, moving on...

There were more stairs, lots of them, leading down through a series of 90 degree turns to the left. Klaus the thief, once again, scouted the stairs and checked for traps. There were none. The stairs went down a long way. No traps, no distinguishing features, and eventually let out into a corridor leading east to a stone door, which was mortared into place.

At this point, I really have to pat myself on the back for designing this adventure the way I did. All of this time without traps had made the players just a little incautious. Three of them rushed down, including Vane (who led the charge), Smolken, and Xalto. Note: those last two were two of the party's three clerics. Well, of course they walked straight into the worst of the traps they would encounter (at least to this point). Even more hilarious... Oh, just read the description from the adventure text:

This trap is likely to be deadly, though it is, potentially pretty easy to spot, due to the sheer scale. The floor and ceiling both look oddly "constructed" compared to the rest of the natural stone which surround them. This is especially true of the ceiling, which might keep the PCs from looking at the floor. If the PCs look, they could see that both are a bit "off" pretty easily. DC 5 to spot (Intelligence mods apply).

The trap itself consisted for a 20' pit below, and a whole bunch of falling rocks from above. Vane (the guy who triggered it) managed to jump back at the last second, but both clerics dropped, got rocked, and I rolled for damage: Dead as doornails, the both of them. Here's the thing, though. They didn't actually die. Because of this rule (from DCC Core Rules, p. 93):

Recovering the body: If the body of a dead ally can be recovered, there is a chance the ally may not be truly killed. He may have been knocked unconscious or simply stunned. If a character reaches a dead ally’s body within one hour, the dead character may make a Luck check when his body is rolled over. On a successful check, the dead character was badly injured but is not permanently killed, and the ally is able to keep him alive. The “dead” character was simply knocked out, stunned, or otherwise incapacitated. Once an ally shakes the downed character awake, he recovers to 1 hit point. The character is groggy for the next hour (-4 penalty to all rolls) and sustains a permanent injury of some kind, reflected as a permanent -1 penalty to Strength, Agility, or Stamina (determine randomly).

*sigh* They both made their Luck rolls. They both survived 5d6 points of damage that should have smashed them like bugs. They totally deserved to die for being stupid, yet they survived. IIn most rulesets, they would have been dead, but not in DCC. This doesn't seem very Metal to me. From now on, new house rule: Recovering the body is not going to be a thing in my game. If you die, you die. The other players can quest to resurrect you or get you reincarnated or whatever, but recovering the body is just ridiculous in this context. I mean these fuckers were smashed to Hell and back, and they really, really deserved it! I really don't mean to be a psycho GM, but fair is fair. Playing dumb should get you killed, and from now on it will.

In a spirit of fairness, the players decided that those two were not going to be able to continue the adventure this evening, and they were sent upstairs to meet up with the rest of the party, up in the main temple. Denny the theif and Abel the wizard were sent down to replace them.

The party crossed the pit, and were able to chip free the sealed, stone door. Inside they found an altar surrounded by a bluish glow. On top of it... THE FROSTHAMMER OF GRAKI DEATHSTALKER!

Go listen to that song again. I'll wait. ... Okay, now on with the adventure.

This was a very, very special trap. It more or less created a sort of Spell Duel situation, but was not a spell duel: It was a test of wills. From the adventure text:

This altar has a magical trap. If triggered (This will happen if someone attempts to force it), it will do Chain Lightning damage to all within 30 feet of the door. This version is more deadly than the spell of the same name.

Chain lightning! A single lightning bolt that jumps between up to six targets. The lightning bolt cannot loop back to a prior target. The first target takes 4d8 damage, the second target takes 3d8 damage, the third target takes 2d8 damage, and the fourth target takes 1d8 damage. The final two targets take 1d6 and 1d4 damange, respectively.

Once triggered, it will take 1 hour to "reset," at which point it will be fully armed, once again. Only a wizard may attempt to disarm this trap. Treat the attempt by the wizard to unseal it as an opposed casting test with the door itself: The door's check is 1d20+6, and wizard may act to counter with a straight casting roll of 1d20+Personlity Mod+Caster Level. The wizard will be hard pressed to succeed without either help or Spellburn. He must make three rolls in this Spell duel, and the door makes three opposed rolls. Each other spellcaster helping adds his or her caster level and Will mod to the total. If the door "wins" after three rolls, the spell is triggered as normal, plus the wizard (and any helpers) takes attribute damage of 1d8+total difference in rolls made.

In the end, two wizards took it on. Abilities were spellburned. The halfling added two points of Luck, and they succeeded in disarming the trap. Whew! It could have been ugly.

Host: Edgar! Tell our players what they have won!

Me: It's a handsome Frosthammer of Graki Deathstalker!

The Frost Hammer of Graki Deathstalker:

Warhammer; Atk +1 (+2 against coldblooded creatures); damage 1d8+2 (+1d4 against cold-blooded creatures); AL L; Bane: Serpent People; SP  natural 20 and the target must make Fort Save or be frozen solid. Only useable by Lawful PCs. If not Lawful, take 1d4 cold damage per round.

The hammer is about three feet long. The haft is made of a grayish, ivory-like material (actually frost giant bone), and set with a head of opalescent star metal which ripples with colors like the aurora borealis. It is clearly a masterwork of dwarven make, and designed such that each striking surface of the hammer is in the form of screaming dwarven warrior rendered in a compact, blocky style, almost like a tiki, but more, well… dwarven.

But there are some complications. Did I mention that everybody in the party is chaotic or, at best, neutral? That's a problem. I rolled some stats and alignments and HP for the urchins. Two were Lawful. Crisis averted. Francois the (French) Elf is also Lawful, but has a Strength of... wait for it... 5. Oof. Better leave it to the urchins, then.

Also in this chamber, they found a secret door. After entering the door, this time, they remembered to check for traps. Good thing. Spike trap was disarmed. Inside they found the following:

Inside the treasury is the corpse of a gigantic snake. Mummified and inscribed with arcane writing like that which covered the body of Balas Forktongue, the creature's belly bulges with its contents. If investigated, the PCs will discover that it contains the mummified corpse of an armored dwarf. These are the remains of Graki Deathstalker, still in his armor.
By freeing the body of Graki Deathstalker, the PCs each gain 1 point of Luck, permanently. Lawful characters gain 2 points of Luck, permanently.

The writing on the snake's body is a spell. If Read Magic is cast it is revealed as the Binding 3^rd level Cleric Spell.

The Armor of Graki DeathstalkerThis armor allows the wearer (who must be a Lawful dwarf) to receive an automatic "3" result on a mighty deed of arms once per day, and to reroll (without penalty) a "1" on an attack roll once per day. Otherwise, it's a suit of dwarven plate mail made from an unknown, nonferrous metal of bluish-white opalescent hue, which gives it the the encumbrance effects of banded mail (+8 to AC, -6 to Checks, -5’ movement, d16 fumble die).

If the wearer is not a dwarf of lawful alignment, the metal will affect the wearer as if it was iron and the wearer was an Elf.Other treasure

There are several metal caskets here.

Casket 1: This is the largest one. It contains ingots of black metal (weight: 250 lbs). There is twice as much of it as in Casket 3.
Casket 2: This is the smallest one. It contains 5d30 cut gemstones worth 1d100 silver pieces each (weight negligible).
Casket 3: This medium-sized casket contains ingots of mithril (weight 100 lbs).
Casket 4: This one is flat and just a bit larger than Casket 2. It contains a grimoire made of thin plates of black metal. The cover is decorated in blood-red gemstones and graven with enchantments in the script of the Serpent Men. ... However, anyone who attempts to pick it up and read it must make a Will Save at DC10, or will be put in stasis (duration as per 3^rd level Cleric spell, Binding—assume the maximum result of 34+)

The wizards, Jerkal and Abel (bless their hearts) tried to read it and failed their Will saves (hehe). They are in stasis for 7 and 8 days, respectively. Once again, impatience leads to bad outcomes. Yep, the wizards are furniture now, at least for a while, and will need to be carried by someone. At the end, the players were trying to figure out if a period of rest would be wise. I'm gonna go with, "Yes."

So, they're gonna be rich, but first they have to get a whole bunch of really, really heavy treasure out of here, through the jungle, and back to Samsara. They'll have to be carrying the static wizards. Also, they need to avert the impending Serpentkin Crisis. Please also remember that these Serpentkin are spellcasters in many cases, and now the party is down some wizards. Oops. Oh, and don't forget, they're on an "Instant Death Countdown" due to the poison with which they are infected.

They set the urchins to carrying treasure up to the main temple, where the rest of the party is, and that's where we ended.

Research article on OSR/ConstantCon

Just in case you didn't see this post over on Google+, here it is:

Okay, so here's a thing I might be doing in the very near future. I was contacted about a retro-gaming panel for a professional conference. Basically, I am to write an article (in the area of rhetoric/media studies) about the OSR generally, and ConstantCon in particular. If I'm going to do this thing, I clearly will have lots of resources available from blogs and the various new publications like Playing at the World. What I'd also like to have is some support from this community.

I'd really like to be able to put together a list of questions for you about the G+ hangout communities, your relationships to them, what you get out of this, and so forth. I post them, maybe more than once, just so they get seen, and you send back your answers.

The answers will be included in a larger body of data which I'll sort and code and more or less put into some sort of taxonomy of responses. That way I can determine some sort of structure of meanings that feed into what people collectively are doing/feeling/experiencing. I also probably will quote particularly poignant or interesting points made by members of the G+ OSR community (very broadly defined).

The payoff, for me, is the ability to talk about how this particular community has taken something old (retro games of various sorts), something new (social media and other technologies), and used them to do new an interesting things. I'd also like to start getting a sense of the history of this thing, and how it came about. Part of that is about origins and originators, I guess, but the bigger story to me is the fact there was fertile ground for such a phenomenon. It got pretty big, pretty quickly, and has been remarkably resilient and flexible. It's a Cool Thing, and I'd be incredibly honored if you would help me in this endeavor?

So, who's in?

Here's a prospectus for the article.

Title: Welcome to ConstantCon: New Media and The Old School Renaissance in Tabletop Role-playing Games

Since 1974, the table top role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons has gone through many different editions and iterations. In 2000, the copyright holder, Wizards of the Coast, established the Open Game License for the third edition of the game. The OGL allowed third-party publishers to use the games rules and product identity as open source content for the production of game modules and other derivative works. The OGL not only covered the third edition of the game, but all previous editions, leaving open the possibility of creating new products for what was, for all intents and purposes, a defunct product line. One largely unanticipated result of that move was the rise of what is now called the Old School Renaissance (OSR), which marked a return of old school gamers to older editions of the game, but also to production, through the OGL, of new “retro-clones” of the original Dungeons and Dragons editions. Retro-clones like OSRIC, Swords and Wizardry, and others were successful both commercially and in establishing the basis for a whole new gaming community, one particularly suited for emerging trends in social media and online publishing.

These developments also have fueled the emergence of a variety of blogs dedicated to old school gaming, and opportunities for members of the community to become publishers in their own right. The success of these publishers has been driven, to some extent, by use of Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaigns to pay for art and publication, and other costs of new projects, though with varying degrees of success. Now, what is called the OSR is a loose affiliation of gamers and publishers. Recent moves by Wizards of the Coast to reissue their original products has spurred some to proclaim the death of OSR gaming, but the community has been able to maintain strong connections between its various factions through adaptation of the table top style of gaming to new media, especially on the Google+ social media platform, and gaming applications like Roll20. The result has been the birth of Google+ Hangout gaming, which some members of the OSR community refer to as “ConstantCon,” a reference to face-to-face gaming conventions like GenCon and DragonCon, which have traditionally been the means for gamers to gather, to mingle with publishers and vendors, and to game with strangers. This paper explores the development of the OSR on Google+, as well as the means by which OSR community members have used new trends in media production to produce new games, gaming platforms, and gaming supplements for the OSR community.

Zehra

I'm on the road today, in lovely Dalton, Georgia, CARPET CAPITAL OF THE USA! No, seriously, they make a LOT of carpet here. But... does it match the drapes? In any case, I thought I'd introduce you to my newest character: Zehra the Thief. She's nifty, and managed to avoid almost certain death last night.

One of the greatest things about this era is that I can stay in just about any hotel and there is wireless. I brought my laptop, as well, so I got to game last night. +Adam Muszkiewicz was at the helm last night, as I wasn't sure how much time/bandwidth I would have to work with in running The Mysterious Temple of The Serpent God adventure for the Metal Gods campaign. He agreed to pick up the slack. "Bring a 1st level character," he told us, so I brought Zehra.

Zehra was an absolute gem on an otherwise uninspiring sheet of zero-level characters made with the awesome utility over at the Purple Sorcerer site. I believe +Jon Marr wrote that utility. It's great. Anyway, behold my sweet Zehra:

Occupation: Burglar
Alignment: Chaotic
Strength: 7
Agility: 18
Stamina: 9 (now 8, after her near-death)
Personality: 11
Intelligence: 14
Luck: 18

How could I not make this one a thief, I ask? How not?

She also got a nifty artifact from Doom of the Savage Kings: A +1 bronze buckler that allows her to dual-wield. She could do it with that Agility, anyway, but can have a shield bonus at the same time. Coolness. Otherwise she's a pretty standard thief: Leather armor (Don't you love a girl in leather?), short-sword and dagger (though I may have to upgrade to two short swords at some point), and a short bow (she's much better with missile weapons, anyway).

The way I envision her is this. Zehra was a streetkid in Mustertown who drifted into a life of crime. Her natural skills allowed her to move from petty filtching to break-ins and other larcenous pursuits. Eventually, she caught the adventuring bug, probably from hearing about the exploits of The Divine Order of the Purple Tentacle. She managed to hook up with another crew for a while, and acquired some skills as a thief. So, now that's what she does.

Zehra is always ready to do her job. She's a very driven person. If there's a lock to be picked, a trap to be found, a person to be stabbed in the back, there you will find our chaotic little Zehra. She does try to avoid melee combat though, as her childhood has left her scrawny, and not particularly strong. She also has a somewhat delicate constitution. That's why she went adventuring with one of my 1st level warriors, Thumpy McStabsalot. He is her personal meat shield. Thumpy doesn't mind. He likes her spirit. He is somewhat concerned that she's a bit bloody-minded, and would just as soon kill a person and take their stuff as help them out. Hey, man, life on the streets has made her what she is, right? Don't judge.

In my mind she reminds me of nobody more than Alice Bag of the infamous Alice Bag Band:

She's pretty badass. Anyway, she almost died last night, but was saved by the Xalto, cleric of the Liquor Lord. Thanks, Xalto! I'm really, really looking forward to playing this one.

MGoU-H: Mysterious Temple of The Serpent God, Session 5

When we last left out party, the group was light two players, Phil and Gabriel. Tonight they were back. This left us with a group of about 20 PCs. This wasn't so much a party as it was an armed mob of murderhobos. Very murdery murderhobos with snake murder in their hearts. A lot of them. So, we split the party, sending some of the guys outside of the main temple building. That happened a bit later.

In the interim, we found the PCs pinned down by two-headed laser snake fire. Their monkeying about with the jewels from which the beams emanated had paid off handsomely in the last session. Though Scrum burned off an extremity (You really got to hand it to that guy...), one of the laser snake's eyes seemed to have shorted out a mechanism and one of the jewel fell into the PCs' greedy little hands.

This left them under fire from just the one, remaining, functional head, pressed up against the base of the statue. I, of course, had forgotten this fact due to... well... why don't we just say, "circumstances involving a rich assortment of hoppy malt beverages," and leave it at that. In any case, they went to search the unexplored rooms in the main temple building, and didn't come under fire until after the first room was explored. It was opened. It was full of shit and piss. Apparently lots of prisoners had been held here very recently. Next room... more poo and pee. Next brought a surprise: Four Urchins! This was an Easter egg for the party, as its supply of urchins had worn somewhat thin in recent days. The last room: more sewerage.

Recap so far: Laser snakes? Check. Piss and shit? Check. Urchins? Quadruple check.

As all of this is happening, John's characters are investigating the other door on the bottom of the snake statue's dais. Inside he saw a series of glass tubes filled with a glowing red liquid. It didn't look like blood. After a few moments of discussion, somebody thought it would be a good idea to break all of the tubes. First, there was a terrible roll, and no tubes were destroyed. So sad. Next strike was a bit better, and the person taking the shot avoided the gout of plasma that vented from the pipes. This also had the effect of powering down the serpent idol. Laser snake disabled? Check.

It was time for the split party to do its thing. One group would go back down the stairs under the statue, and the other would explore the temple grounds. We followed the exploits of the latter group. They investigated the ruins to the north/northwest of the temple. A successful search turned up a partially blocked tunnel, leading down and back in the direction of the temple. What they actually had discovered was the High Priest's private entrance to the underground portions of the temple.

The PCs immediately encountered resistance in the form of several degenerate serpent men. They were dispatched pretty quickly, and the group continued downward though a series of turns, downslopes, and stairs. They encountered a trap or two, but took no real damage. As they reached what seemed to be the bottom of the stairs, they were confronted by another chaos serpent blob, this one accompanied by a true serpent man. While these creatures fought hard, they did not fight for very long.

This was where I had to call the game for the night.

All in all, they resistance they're encountering has been pretty stiff, but that back entrance at least seemed to be marginally less well-guarded than the main temple entrance, at least so far. They also still haven't turned their attention to the other opening they saw below the temple, down in the gorge. They'd encountered a giant lizard which presumably came from that opening. There could be more, but that also could have been the last one.

Next time, we'll pick it up from the end of the last fight. We also have the option of following the other part of the split party back down into the bowels of the temple via the main entrance. Of, if they choose to do so, they also could try they gorge-side opening. Lots of choices, but plenty of PCs to make them.

Tune in next week for more.

Faction/Domain System Test, pt. 1

Well, last night +Adam Muszkiewicz and +Wayne Snyder joined me for a test of the Faction/Domain rules I cobbled together for our DCC characters.

We began by deciding which of the stable of characters were going on adventure and which would remain i garrison. I said something about "adventure on the high seas," and we selected accordingly. Thieves, lots of thieves as they aren't quite as sinkable as warriors. We ended up selecting the characters on the voyage based on what we thought made the most sense at the time, taking no more than two PCs per players. The rest became the garrison contingent, and would represent us in the faction game.

At first I think we had a difficult time figuring out just what this mini-game was "about" for our party, and discussion quickly devolved into repetition of the same things over and over. The substance of the disagreement wasn't so much about how the the game was played, but rather about how the game meant something more than, "First you do A, and then you do B, and then you roll dice, and then you play cards." Adam was growing frustrated because I was repeating myself ad infinitum at that point, and I was growing frustrated because I, frankly, didn't quite understand what the point of contention was. We were lucky that Wayne was there, frankly, because it provided an opportunity to show rather than tell. He and I played a round, explaining in narrative terms what the dice and cards signified. After that, I think we were all pretty much on the same page. Then it started to get interesting.

Several problems emerged.

First, as designed, the card game could be too one-sided. If the players always go first, they will always play their strongest suits in the Card Game. If the GM represents the opposition, the opposition would always simply be responding to the players strongest plays.

We decided that there were two problems, really. One was that the GM needed to have some agency in the deal. This led to the second one: There was no one to exercise that agency. The GM really needs to have factions to represent. We used some part of our time noodling on that, and the result, frankly, is that we need more work there. I think part of the problem is that we still don't know who's who and what's what in Ur-Hadad and, more importantly, the Mustertown locale which we've adopted from the Purple Sorcerer modules. We know it's there, but not who is there. So, one thing that needs to happen is that I need a quick way to generate faction stats and NPCs to populate them.

The next Big Problem was translating what each class of characters brings to the card games. There are seven classes in DCC (Warriors, Clerics, Thieves, Wizards, Halflings, Elves, and Dwarves). There are only four suits in the deck of cards. While it's pretty easy to match Warriors to Swords (Spades), Clerics to Hearts (Cups), and Thieves to Clubs (Wands), the suit of Diamonds (Coins) was less easy to fit. Though we all agreed that it represented riches and wealth in some way, it was hard to determine exactly how. As for the demi-human classes, my original ideas were pretty much an ad hoc attempt to "make it work" as Tim Gunn would put it. I needed to get the draft of the system in place before I could tinker with it, so I did.

We resolved the problem to some extent by deciding that we wouldn't worry about the the classes not tied explicitly to the suits, at least for a bit. Instead we would focus on the suits themselves, and what they represent as narrative modes. As-written here they are:

·         Spades (Swords): These represent war-making ability. If you physically attack or defend, this is what you use. This is not combat in the sense that the PCs will die, but it will affect your faction's abilities in the art of war, and their skill at using it in ways that can intimidate or dominate foes. Common Actions: Attack Forces of enemy, defend against attacks.
·         Hearts (Cups): These represent diplomatic influence. This may take the form of making friends, soothing enmity, advancing one's own political position or undermining that of an enemy faction. Common Actions: Bolster own reputation, forge alliances, undermine reputation of enemy faction.
·         Diamonds (Coins): These represent material resources. This represents the ability to do a variety of things including monetary investments, ability to engage in mercantilism or trade, ability to secure specific material goods and ensure their quality. Anything you'd do with money is represented by this suit. Common Actions: Buy an asset, enhance an asset.
·         Clubs (Wands): These represent the ability to engage in subterfuge. You use this to accomplish or resist spycraft, thievery, assassination, and so forth (and to get away clean afterward, or to detect what was done to you and whodunit to you in the first place). Common Actions: Hide an asset, steal an asset, infiltrate a faction, assassinate a leader, etc.

I think this needs to be tweaked a bit to capture all of the nuances. For example, we discovered (as Adam insisted and I eventually came to see) that Influence, as such, is not just about the above-board talking and diplomacy. It's also about the underhanded shit, the bribes, the threat of war, etc. What emerged from this discussion (which mostly took place as we messed around with the Card Game) was the idea that multiple suits could be played toward the same objective, provided that there was an acceptable narrative to accompany it. This will ensure that our faction game will lend itself to the development of our in-character worlds.

We tested the establishment of particular types of assets. In this case, we built a military encampment (Level 1 War Asset)  began to fortify it (working toward Level 2 War Asset) and began to secure a source of income (Level 1 Material Asset) in the form of Crag Beerbeard's brewery/tavern.

In each case, the players used a couple of different suits of cards to describe what was happening. They used Influence (Hearts), supplemented it with some bribery (Clubs/Subterfuge), and so forth. The players paid an ante to be able to use particular suits of cards, played them. The GM responded in turn. The differences in the outcomes are the "Faction Point buy" toward the desired assets. So, for a 1st Level asset, we used a cost of 10 points, 25 for 2nd level. We're not certain if the level are where they need to be, but they seem to work okay so far.

We also worked out a way for the GM to push back against the players. At the end of the player turn, the GM plays for an opposing faction. This was more difficult, as we don't really have any factions made up at this point. That could emerge through faction play. The players accumulate assets and drawn attention, gain enemies/allies, etc. As this happens, the GM is responsible for filling in the gaps with specific factions and information about them (NPCs, strengths, weaknesses, etc.). I think I'd like to brainstorm with my players a little bit before designing these from scratch. I may have to push a little bit to get everybody to tell me how they imagine Mustertown and Ur-Hadad. Right now, it's all very hazy except for The Soily Dove and Tenkar's Tavern (of course it's the bars they know). I'd like to establish some merchants, priesthoods, etc., and basically make a map of the town. Maybe I can use the Vornheim stuff for ideas about what to do.

One potential obstacle to having that sort of clarity is that, while I'm an OCD control freak and need to nail things down concretely, Adam is reluctant to do so. He prefers to have a bit more openness in the setting. We'll have to arrive at an accommodation about this at some point. I'm thinking that maybe a very, very sketchy map of various districts of Mustertown and the surrounding environs would be a good place to start. Maybe Wayne and/or Adam could provide some map art for this. (hint, hint) Yeah, it's real easy to ask that of other people, isn't it?

Anyway, the system is just barely playable at this point. There's a lot of kinks to work out, but I think the brief play session suggested that it has great potential. I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of things Wayne and Adam recommend after they've had a chance to think about it a bit.

MGoU-H: Mysterious Temple of The Serpent God, Session 4

Update: Blog Post #100 for Edgar's Game Blog! Here's to meaningless milestones!

For this session, we lost the services of two players. One was on vacation and the other couldn't make it for some reason. We gained the services of a new player, John, who typically plays in my face-to-face group. He seemed to fit right in with everyone else, and particularly so with Bear. They both have characters with the surname "Jenkins." (a la "Leroy Jenkins" of Internet fame. Just Google it, if you haven't seen it before.)

Despite our discussion after last session about limiting the number of PCs per character, the loss of Gabriel's PCs, the wizard formerly known as Ian, in particular, must have daunted the players. They didn't want to leave anyone behind, so we had sixteen PCs for this session:

+John Iverson
Doug Fleagle-1st level Warrior
Scooter Jenkins- 1st level Cleric
Sophia - 1st level Thief
Chuck Smidgeon - 1st level Warrior

+Adam Muszkiewicz
Banvha - 1st level Halfling
Absalom - 1st level Elf
Aram - 1st level Cleric
Caifenn - 1st level Cleric

+Wayne Snyder
Clave - 1st level Warrior
Denny - thief
Jerkal - wizard
Xalto - cleric

+Bear Wojtek 
Vane Barbute - 2nd level Warrior
Smolken, zealot of Ahriman - 1st level Cleric
Scrum Jenkins - 1st level Thief
Abel Ashencamp - 1st level Wizard

Question: Could Scrum Jenkins and Scooter Jenkins be related? Inquiring minds want to know!

Yeah, so these guys were fresh from combat with some god-awful monsters including degenerate serpent men and chaos serpent blobs, the the former of which can be pesky and the latter of which are some tough sons-of-bitches. Everyone was pretty much healed, but some of the clerics had increased their disapproval ranges and some of the wizards had lost spells. Ol' Sucker the egg-sucking hound was paralyzed. Magical healing did the trick and put him back in action.

I began by providing them with a reminder of their options. You can continue downward into the depths of the temple, or you can head back up to rest and/or check out those doors you ignored last session. They (of course) charged ahead, right into more peril. Peril, of course, was in good supply for this session.

Denny and Scrum (the thieves) crept ahead of the group to check out a corridor leading off from the room they started in. One of them managed to fumble at being sneaky. This draw unwanted attention from some creatures in the next room. A degenerate serpent man crept into sight, then another. They thought maybe it'd be a good idea to fall back into the other room so they wouldn't end up with another bottleneck situation in the narrow corridor. In fact, this time they came up with a Clever Plan: Instead of getting strung out in the corridor, they'd fall back into the room they came from and lay in wait until their enemies arrived, catching them in an envelopment from all sides. Then, of course, the Clever Plan fell apart.

A new and even more fiendish foe came on the scene, the True Serpent Man.

True Serpent ManRun True Serpent Men as intelligent creatures with knowledge of the terrain. If they feel the tide is turning against them, they will attempt to flee into the jungle to rest and recover, using Degenerate Serpent Men that might have survived to cover their escape. They also will wait for opportune times to attack (e.g. night time, from ambush, etc.).Init +3; Atk bite +4 melee (1d4 + poison DC 15 Fort to avoid paralysis) or as weapon +4 melee; AC 14; HD 1d10+2; MV 30’; Act 1d20; SP Infravision 50 feet; Venomous Bite (paralytic); 1d3 Spells (roll d6 for each, ignoring repeated results): (1) Curse (2) Darkness (3) Ray of Enfeeblement (4) Scorching Ray; (5) Force Manipulation; (6) Binding; SV Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +3; AL L.

I ended up running them as stupider than the description, but at that point we'd been in battle for about 2 hours it seemed like. Here's why.

One of the TSM cast Darkness in the corridor where the thieves and, by then, Vane had congregated. This cut them off from the rest of the party. So, everyone pretty much abandoned the Clever Plan and went with their usual strategy of running toward the enemy in a mob, and cutting them into little bits. This worked, mostly, but Ol' Sucker the egg-sucking hound got done like Ol' Yeller (i.e., put down like a rabid dawg, for you youngsters). Similarly, Vane got critted by one of the degenerate serpent men. It was ugly. He totally got aced by that pathetic creature. Luckily one of the clerics managed to resuscitate him before the clock ran down, so he will live to fight again, but with one less Stamina.

The true serpent men couldn't cast a spell to save their lives and the only real trouble lay in killing the chaos serpent blobs. Eventually, they managed to kill everything in sight, and entered the next room. There, they found an empty sarcophagus and some weird machinery. Vane played with some of the levers on one of the machines, but it didn't seem to do much (that he could tell) beyond changing the pitch of the humming coming from the equipment in the room. Denny investigated the sarcophagus and found that the interior showed evidence of claw marks--shallow, but gouged into the stone. He also located the chest in which Balas Forktongue had found the Serpent's Eyes, which now were upstairs in the Serpent God statue.

They also found two doors. The first door led to a partially collapsed room with some odd, roundish platforms with partly hollowed-out tops. These were roughly eight feet across. They also found some human corpses, and looted them of treasure. There wasn't much else in the room. The other door was a massive double door. Denny checked and found a trap. He disarmed it and pushed open the door, revealing a downward sloping corridor. At this point I made it clear that they had other options besides heading downward. Surprisingly they decided to head back up to the main part of the temple.

Once upstairs, Denny and Scrum decided it would be a good idea to steal the Serpent's Eyes from the giant, two-headed statue of the Serpent God. Denny (I think) tried to pry one of them out of the silvery metal socket in which it was fitted, using the ceremonial blade he found at the site of Balas Forktongue's ritual murder. This... was a mistake. He got a nasty shock and activated the statue. From the adventure as-written:

Giant, two-headed, cyclopean snake idol. Looks like twin cobra heads, but with only one large eye in each head. The eyes glow with a baleful red light. Any attempt to remove them... will result in activating the statue's defensive eye beam weapons.Stats for Serpent God StatueRange 80 feet; Init +3; Atk eye rays (Missile +3, dmg 1d6+5); AC 20; HD 2x 8d8 (36 hp each head); MV 0; Act 2d20; SV n/a; AL n/a.
Each head covers a 270 degree arc of the Main Temple. While they can be brought to bear on anything within those overlapping arcs, the base of the pedestal and the doors leading into the pedestal and down to Level 2 are not targetable.

Using a mirror, Scrum attempted to reflect the eye beams. He lost that hand and took damage. So, mirrors do not protect from these. John sent his characters toward the other set of doors, the ones they had not opened the first time they visited this room. Everyone else tried to run/hide.

One good thing came out of this, though. The statue fumbled a to-hit roll, and the result was damage to the weapon wielded. I determined that the socket Denny had pried at had overloaded, and, in a spray of sparks, the head shut down, the eye falling from the now-melted socket.

And that was where we left off.

An observation: This is still far, far too many PCs to manage. We really ought to do something about that.