Caverns of Thracia - Delve 13: The Big Chris Manoeuvre
What are the limits of immunity to mundane damage anyway?
Players
Players & Characters
Referee - Sully
Bomb, Halfling Fighter 4 - Me!
Dina, Human Cleric 1 - Al
Snubrash, Half-Orc Ranger 1 - Tor
Zema-Zafat, Halfling Wizard 4 - laumry
Events
Sleeping better now. The drink didn't help, it never did if I'm honest. I dragged myself out to the temple of Gede and just sat there for a day. Never took the gods right serious before, 'cept when we were awash in a storm. Something different this time though, a sense of... I don't know. I felt better, stronger. Done with the wallowing. Arete died in her sleep the other night. She was a good kid, she deserved better. I can do better.
Four of us set out, back to those accursed caverns. It was good to be out in the sun again, even if the biting bugs were out. Some new folks with us, a priestess of Athena (and a fellow sailor) and a big fella who knew his way around the jungle, and Zema-Zafat out up to some of his strange business. I like the little freak.
We roped down the small shaft that led to the cult's caverns, the place was pretty empty. We headed north and passed some of their guards - around half the lot of them now serve the Immortal King, recognisable by their split tongues. Mad 'uns. A priest was leading some ceremony at the ravine, a funeral I think. We hung around for a bit and Snubrash, the big guy, learned some chant that the priest was reciting - might come in handy for soothing the unquiet dead.
Out in the main hall we bumped into some of the tongue-split lot. They 'invited' us to see their leader and we agreed - ZZ sent them off to sleep when they turned their backs and we moved on to the Gates of Thanatos, our goal. Apparently the realm of death isn't so bad, and Arete and the others found their way out a week ago. Maybe she found something down there that... Well, no matter.
Split-tongue guards stood outside the door and we tried forcing our way past. One ran for reinforcements and the other struck me with his sword. A trifling blow, and I made him pay for it, ending his life with a single swing of my axe. Prick. We hustled into the dark corridor, dragging his body with us. We stepped out of the far end, wherever we'd been taken to, and the lantern went out - I saw some figure move just before the darkness drew in.
While we struggled to relight the lantern, Dina felt some cold grip drain her. She shook off the haunter in the darkness and called on Athena to drive away our enemy - something scrabbled away and when the light flickered back there was some robed dark figure in the far corner of the room, clawed and bearing a sword. Little white points glowed under its hood where its eyes should be. I hurled my javelin at it and it sunk deep into the creature, though it seemed fine. So we hatched a plan.
Dina kept the thing at bay while Snubrash and I gathered up drapes from the walls. Dina and ZZ blessed us with some kind of magic and we sprung forward, bundling the thing up before it could grasp us. It thrashed around, trying to escape, but we dragged the thing over to one of the heavy stone doors and smashed it closed on its head until it stopped moving and fell apart. The skull on the door kept babbling some phrase over and over, which was weird. We scooped a funny key off its body which opened the other door in the room, and Snubrash spent a bit of time concocting some unguent which he claimed would harm others of its kind.
We went north through the locked door, finding and avoiding a hidden pit trap, and came out into a room with painted faces on the walls - all staring at their opposites - and some sort of writhing dark mass at the far end, dancing like it was hearing something we couldn't. ZZ sniffed out something magical behind the nearest face and we peeled the plaster off to find a stone door. I prodded it open with my pole and all hell broke loose.
Maille-clad skeletons lay inside and a load of other hidden doors burst open, with a proper rattling mob of the buggers pouring out. We retreated to the corridor and a bunch wandered right into the pit. Dina put her talents to use again and a load of them crumbled to dust as she called on Athena's power. The rest fled to the far end of the room - the blob thing didn't seem to notice them. We had enough time to grab a lockbox from the room we'd opened and then headed back south.
We passed through the southern halls of Thanatos' domain and roped out down to a bridge over a rushing cavern stream, the one due south from the temple of Athena. A real big fella, Grassic, was fishing there - we gave him some food and he was happy to chat. Said he was a gnome who got too big and left to find his own way. Most folk down here leave him be, but the lizardfolk are friendly enough to him. They're not having a good time of things - their dear leader is more enamoured with his human cultists than them, apparently. Perhaps they can help us take him down. Grassic's happy to let us pass if we bring him food, and he's not seen anyone in the corridor to the north since setting up shop here. It's rare that we've found anything down here not out for our blood, it's refreshing.
With that, we went south and up some stairs back into the cult's territory, and out back to Minos.
The King's reach is not absolute.
Thoughts
It's good to be back in Thracia. My working patterns mean I play 2 sessions on, 2 off, so I'm always itching to get back in. The other players did some overland exploration 2 weeks back and last week they braved the Gates of Death, finding them not all that deadly. Al's character died during that session and laumry's character Arete died in downtime due to downstream effects from the delve (if your mother appears in your dream clad in a funeral shroud, do not embrace her), but with a cleric able to Turn Undead with us a lot of the key threats became things to manage rather than survive.
We gave Sully something to think about re: how far does mundane damage immunity go if you have the creature completely at your mercy? I made the case that mundane damage immunity makes sense in a combat situation, where you're trying to land the best blow possible while guarding against counterattacks, but it'd be weird (but interesting) to not be able to dismember a physical man-sized thing if it couldn't fight back. Sully agreed and, as such, we ended up Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels-ing it while in tears of laughter:
We've given Sully enough opportunities to break out the patented Referee's evil grin so it was nice to flip the tables!
Overall this was a successful delve, the group was great, and Sully's Refereeing, as always, was excellent - great fun!