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[DnD 5E] Barrowtown - A 5E PbP (Game's done! Post-game discussion is open!)

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  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Between the three of you here's what you puzzle out:
    • The mind flayer himself was not the source of the far realm incursion. He was just facilitating it. How he was accomplishing that is still unclear, but it had something to do with the girl. For now, nothing new is coming through to this plane, but it could if someone or something were to start the process again.
    • The mind flayer has a small orb in his pocket made of something like glass, but not glass. I'm going to assume that you don't touch it unless you say otherwise.
    • Other than the door you came through, there are no other entrances to this room that you can see. There are a series of levers on the side of the raised platform (accessible from squares L20-21 on the map) that probably do or did something.

  • am0nam0n Registered User regular
    edited November 2014
    Lakor, propped in the corner, drools on the girl. Poor thing, she's going to wake up drenched in dwarf-drool.

    I'll just, ummm, sit here while you guys do your thing. Don't do anything Lakor wouldn't do!

    am0n on
  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Seamus drags the bodies of Theresa and Sophia to the corner as well. "I'll see you two a proper burial, if we can't fix your missing brain problem." He turns his attention to the unconscious girl. "I was never good at first aid, but without a cleric, I'm as good as anyone else here."

    Attempt to diagnose the girl, and see if any any basic first aid will help her.
    Geth roll 1d20 for Seamus' Medicine check

    Seamus' Medicine check:
    1d20 19 [1d20=19]

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    edited November 2014
    After we rest, anyone up for touching the orb or pulling levers?

    E: In case it wasn't obvious, I'm retrieving my shield.

    silence1186 on
  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    Infidel wrote: »
    Denada wrote: »
    But the 20 was your first roll anyway so you got lucky.

    FYI there is no "first" since there are two rolls, and the 20 is shown first because it was the highest and kept. You always get them in descending order (or ascending, for keep lowest).

    It is the same as rolling two d20s on a table, there isn't any one you can count as being the solo die unless you designate and agree to it beforehand, and no way to do that on the roller online. You'd have to reroll for a fair result as, for example, there was a 20 and a 1 rolled and you can't just choose one to be the "real" roll after the fact.

    You could just d2 it. Then you don't have annoyed players when they have to reroll after rolling a 15 and a 20!

  • InfidelInfidel Heretic Registered User regular
    So long as you have an agreed upon method, yeah you could do that.

    OrokosPA.png
  • MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    touch all orbs and levers.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Seamus, the girl doesn't have any obvious physical injuries (other than the marks on her head), but her body has been stressed to the point of absolute exhaustion. She's going to need to rest for several days at least before she'll be able to wake up - if she's able to wake up. She's beyond the capabilities of a Cure Wounds spell, but magical healing of some kind would probably help to keep her stable until you can get her out of here.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Oh, I'll just ask our cleric then... oh wait. There's nothing else I'd like to do, so I'm ready for Long Rest when the party is.

  • NealnealNealneal Registered User regular
    Halath will give the girl a drink from the healing potion he received from the townsfolk and then prepare for first watch.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    After finding a good place for the various bodies that you have to deal with, you settle in for a long rest. It's eerie here, without the sound of battle to fill the room. Underneath the alien creep covering the walls, you can see what must have been a very holy - and solemn - place. You get the sense that living people were never really meant to be in here for very long; perhaps long enough for ancient funeral rites to be performed for particularly important dwarves, but then it would be left alone. In a way this temple is a tomb all its own, where the echoes of the living could be laid to rest along with the dead.

    Halath, a few hours pass before you hear something that troubles you. At first you think perhaps it's just the rain or the wind, but then you remember that you're too far underground to hear those things anymore. There's something moving in the tunnels.

  • NealnealNealneal Registered User regular
    Halath alerts his two remaining companions to the commotion.

    "Folks, I don't think this is over just yet."

  • am0nam0n Registered User regular
    Good news, guys! You don't have to go too far to make it to your final resting place. We're already in a tomb!

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    @denada I'm guessing that doesn't count as a long rest for me, but can I spend hit dice like a short rest? Also, did we rest long enough for Melding to finish her elf meditation 4 hour long rest?

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Seamus stirs from his slumber, mumbling "Grammy, I've only had two dwarven stouts, that doesn't even count as breakfast!"

    "Huh, what? Confoundit! Can't a dwarf get any sleep around here!" Seamus rouses himself, straps on his shield, and gives a listen.

    "I'll see if I can make out what's coming by its sound."

    Geth roll 1d20+2 for Seamus's Perception (Listen)

    Seamus's Perception (Listen):
    1d20+2 8 [1d20=6]

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    @denada I'm guessing that doesn't count as a long rest for me, but can I spend hit dice like a short rest? Also, did we rest long enough for Melding to finish her elf meditation 4 hour long rest?

    It was just over 2 hours, so not a long rest but definitely a short rest.

    Seamus, it definitely sounds like something is moving in the tunnel. You can't tell what it is or how many there may be, but something is coming closer. You don't think it's very big, whatever it is.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Geth roll 2d10+6 for Short Rest Hit Dice recovery

    Short Rest Hit Dice recovery:
    2d10+6 12 [2d10=2, 4]

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    edited November 2014
    Geth roll 1d10+3 for My last die because Geth hates me

    E: note to self, Geth does not like "because"

    My last die for Geth hates me:
    1d10+3 9 [1d10=6]

    silence1186 on
  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    "Ugh, I've slept on softer rocks." Seamus pulls out his warhammer and walks in to the middle of the room, hoping to intercept whatever is coming towards the group before it gets to Halath and his magical bow.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    After a bit of tense waiting, eventually you see it: a swarm of what look more-or-less like spiders, but fleshy and pink. Oh also their bodies look like brainstems with flaps of skin where a brain would be. Their ooze-covered bodies have no visible eyes or mouths.

    There's a few hundred of them, about 60 feet away, stumbling clumsily toward you.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    dot dot dot

    We are all gonna die


    "What in the nine hells?"

    Seamus mutters some spell words and hurls a bubble of acid at the arriving swarm.

    Cast Acid Splash on the front of the swarm. @denada make a DC 12 Dex save for up to two creatures within 5 ft of each other.

    Geth roll 1d6 for Acid Damage

    Acid Damage:
    1d6 4 [1d6=4]

  • MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    edited November 2014
    "Well, who still has area of effect spells? or perhaps bombs."

    I forgot i have spell recovery, that seems like a thing I should do, to recover two first level spells slots.

    Melding on
  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    "I just cast the only one I have left."

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    A handful of brain-spiders (they're about the size of, oh, let's say an average human face) drop dead from your acid. Several of the nearby brain-spiders trip and fall as they clumsily try to avoid (or fail to notice) the ones that died. From a few moments of quick observation, here's what you notice:
    • They're slow.
    • They're fragile.
    • They're not very intelligent.
    • They can't climb.

    But there's a lot of them, and they're still coming toward you.

  • MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    Is now a time to touch the not-glass orb? also, would we be safe if we just climb up the small ledge the mind flayer was on when we came in? If the answer is yes to any of those i grab the orb and climb up the ledge.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Help with the bodies!

    Noting the acid plan not going well, Seamus dashes back to the camp and begins moving the bodies towards the high ground of the altar. Stunned comrades -> Unconscious MacGuffin girl -> Brainless corpses. One of you lightweights grab the girl while I handle the rest

    Geth roll 1d20+4 for Athletics (hauling bodies is hard work)

    Athletics (hauling bodies is hard work):
    1d20+4 11 [1d20=7]

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    I'd say once the bodies are safe, make with the touching of the non glass orb, Melding.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    If you work together you can get the bodies to high ground before the brain-spiders make it to the room.

    Assuming that happens, does Jelenneth touch the orb?

  • MeldingMelding Registered User regular
    That seems like the best time to touch the orb, yeah.

    either it's fine, makes everything better, or everything worse.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfUM5xHUY4M

    I'll update tomorrow. Which I just realized is today.

    I need to go to bed.

  • am0nam0n Registered User regular
    Melding wrote: »
    That seems like the best time to touch the orb, yeah.

    either it's fine, makes everything better, or everything worse.

    You forgot one. "Or makes everything much, much worse."

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    I'd like to think the first Law of Narrative Causality is in effect, i.e. something needs to move the story forward (it's going to summon such horrible things from places best left to the darkness).

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Side question @denada The swarm of brain stems can't climb, right? Is there anything stopping us from just attacking them from range from the top of the altar?

  • am0nam0n Registered User regular
    Them piling up on one another until they make it to the top?

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    edited November 2014
    With everyone moved to higher ground and the brain-spiders crawling toward the room, Jelenneth grasps the orb in her bare hand.

    Jelenneth, for a moment, nothing happens. Then, suddenly and painfully, your hand tightens around the orb and your vision goes white. You blink and look down at your hand, still clutching the orb, but it's not your hand. You're staring at the hand of the mind flayer...

    "It was an accident," you say to someone that you're not looking at. "They never meant to find us. But you pitiful creatures never stop your exploring. You never stop digging, or climbing, or swimming. Do you know that at one point in history you were even flying?" You look to the girl, strapped to the table. Her eyes are closed. Her face is contorted in pain. "No matter what dangers you find, no matter who's home you invade, you wretched humanoids just keep going. It's your dreams of a better place that drive you forward. But along with those dreams," you say, caressing her forehead with one of your tentacles, "You have such beautiful nightmares."

    From there, you begin seeing scenes of the mind flayer probing the girl's mind. You see it using her nightmares to create the monsters and the storm that have been keeping people away from the barrow. You see it tearing through her memories, looking for something that she's seen. You see it looking at Theresa and Sophia approvingly, pleased at the intellect devourers' choice of hosts. You see visions of a portal deep beneath the barrow, below this very temple in which you stand. You see an ancient dwarven mechanism that is tapped into the heart of these mountains. You see it bringing molten rock from deep beneath the earth and flooding the tunnels and chambers, destroying the temple, the barrow, and everything inside it. You feel the mind flayer's intense sense of urgency in finding what it's looking for.

    There's another flash of white, and then you find yourself standing over the girl again. She looks worse than before. "She is still alive," you say to yourself, or more accurately to the Memory Orb in your hand, "Though her condition worsens. I almost have it! She has seen the key to the portal. It's in her mind somewhere, but she resists me!" You feel something in your mind. A flash of annoyance and a glimpse of oozes on a bridge. "They're coming back. I will devote all of my attention to this now. I cannot risk them finding the secrets of this temple. Not if that damnable elf manages to escape again." You glance down at the levers for a moment before looking at Theresa and Sophia. "Call for two of your clutch-mates. Keep them away from the levers. Keep them away from me!"

    Another flash of white brings you back to your own body and mind.

    Denada on
  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Hmm, it looks like we found a clue! Sadly, clues do not defend us against swarms of brain stems.

    So we know there is a portal of some kind, below the room we're in. The girl has the key to opening it, though we've no way of bringing her around. She is the source of the storms and nightmare creatures. There is ALSO a self-destruct mechanism for the barrow, which would destroy the temple with molten hot magma.

    Big question: Do the levers trip the self-destruct sequence? Or open the way to the portal room?


    "Hmm, so there IS a way to burn everything to the ground? Personally I'd just like to get some rest so we can reassess and figure out how to revive our cadre of corpses of varying conditions. Oh well, back to pest control." Seamus hurls bubbles of acid on any brains that get too close to the platform.

    @denada make a DC 12 Dexterity save for up to two creatures within 5ft of each other

    Geth roll 1d6 for Acid Splash damage

    Acid Splash damage:
    1d6 6 [1d6=6]

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    A few more brain-spiders die, causing a small pile-up before the others figure out how to get around them.

    They've reached the door to the room now.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    This is going poorly. Riding the crazy train may be the only way out. And if it summons lava, well, we were going to die anyway.

  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Do any of you have specialized knowledge of dwarven architecture? You could roll a skill check related to that if you'd like to puzzle out some more information.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    edited November 2014
    I have proficiency in history and stonecunning to boot. Would that count?

    silence1186 on
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