DM: "So, do you guys want to go back after the Spawn of Arach-naca? It killed both your elves but you forced it to retreat last time ..."
"Nooooo!"
"We're going to go to level two so we can find some more old books and stuff and sell them and level up!"
"Hey, I have this new Blindness spell in that spellbook I found. How does it work?"
DM: "Well, it works like your Blur spell did. It affects whatever creature you cast it on."
"So, if I cast it on myself I could blind people."
DM: "Um, no. Remember last time? The Blur spell? You cast it on the big spider-thing and it got all blurry and hard to hit? It works just like that. Whatever you cast the spell on is affected by it."
"Right, so it kind of blinded us?"
DM: "Well, no. Blur made the creature you cast it on appear all blurry--it got harder to see it."
"So if I cast Blind on myself, it'll make me really hard to hit!"
DM: "N ... you know what? ... You can try it out if you want."
After a quick vote on party leader and a bit of shopping (which included the purchase of a couple flasks of alchemist's fire), the crew of seven climbed the Dwimmermount and began their delve. Lately they've adopted the habit of hurrying through previously explored halls at a jog and ignoring / avoiding anything that isn't obviously treasure or which isn't on their planned route in hopes of not getting sucked into encounters with wandering monsters:
DM: "Alright, below the Red Gates, in the entry hall, you notice a trail of fresh slime crossing the ..."
"Ignore it!"
DM: "When you turn the corner, you spy a pair of spectral guardsmen ..."
"Ignore it!"
DM: "In the next room there are six, short, marble pillars with polished plates of ... "
"Ignore it!"
Their focus paid off and the group reached level two without meeting any creatures.
"Where should we go to find treasure?"
"How about here?"
"No, the map shows us places we've already been!"
Once they (more or less) grasped the concept that the map they had made reflected locations that they had already been (perhaps confusion on this point is an artifact of video game play?), the group set out to knock open some new doors, stumbling right into a group of deadites (I always avoid using "the Z-word," which for some odd reason feels too culturally-specific for D&D, but this is entirely in vain since my players pretty much classify all undead as "zombies" or "walkers."
The leader of the ancient dead showed a spark of intelligence, so we had a genuine negotiation on our hands!
DM: "Why hast thou ventured into these halls?"
"We want treasure!"
DM: "Removest thee in haste for I will not that these chambers be despoiled by mere ruffians."
"Okay. I throw my javelin at him!"
A running battle with dead things ensued. The party's wizard, who charged ahead, was shortly laid low, but she was recovered before bleeding out. The party's kitten (who has six lives yet remaining) found a treasure stash, but rather than withdraw they gambled on advancing another couple rooms and were ambushed by a wight. Ferdick the Goon, the party leader, was hit twice and lost 4 hit points permanently (I dock max HP vs levels to reduce bookkeeping without reducing the fear factor). The group's snow golem, however, saved the day. I had described the wight's rage as being fueled by the icy blackness of the interstellar void.
"Hmm ... icy blackness? Does that actually heal me then?"
DM: "Um ... well, okay, it doesn't actually harm you ... and you haven't been wounded yet."
In the end we decided that the snow golem's skinny little dead-branch arms would decay and crumble, but that he was immune to the wight's dreaded energy drain. Armless, he wrestled and blocked the raging undead until the rest of the party could escape with the loot.
Overall, quite a successful little delve!
I have no idea why ... but somehow, this week, my players took it into their heads to track down the Spawn of Arach-naca ... that malign, scheming spirit from the black void between the stars which haunts the depths of Dwimmermount in the form of a vast, bloated spider.
Arach-naca featured prominently in last school year's campaign, with Vale the Grey slowly (okay ... maybe not so slowly) being seduced into serving the unseen whisperer in exchange for knowledge of lost or forbidden spells.
This summer, in my two-week games camp, Arach-naca began seeding the tunnels of the Paths of Mavors with its hungry offspring (giant crab spiders). It was then that explorers first encountered the loathsome creature face-to-face. Those it didn't slay it subjugated or sent dashing headlong from the mountain in panic.
However, the Five Delvers (a powerful NPC party) drove the spider demon off level one and down into the depths of level four, where it slumbered and schemed until awoken again by this year's players when they descended the Great Shaft to poke around in the deeps among the bull-men of Commander Bik.
Crawling back up from the fourth deep, Arach-naca installed itself once more in the kobold caverns of level one, slowly expanding its brood.
With most of the party having recently reached level two (and having acquired enough cash to finally afford platemail) perhaps they were feeling ready to take on terrors that they had previously shied away from.
So two fighters, an unusually mobile tree, a blue dragon hatchling, a cat, two elves, one retainer, and two magic-users set off to track Arach-naca down and defeat the horror once and for all.
They battled through a score of the twisted kobolds that served the monstrous spider-thing, losing one magic-user along the way, before the drums of the diminutive madmen finally called it from its lair on creaking, many-jointed legs.
"Don't lick that stuff coming off its belly or it will enslave you!"
"Wait ... what? Why would you want ... ?"
"That's what happened last summer. It caught a bunch of us and they put us in these webs and then they made us put our faces in its belly and it enslaved us."
"Dude, we're going to put Kermit up front [in his new platemail] and he's going to take them all on and won't get a scratch and then he'll make it lick his belly!"
As Jager the Elf, Kermit the Brute, and the cat charged the up the tunnel to meet Arach-naca head-on, Ferdick the Goon brought forth and brandished the strange, clicky device that he had recovered from a desk in level zero.
"I stare it in the eyes and shout, 'I defy you with the power of the clicky thing!' "
DM: "Okay, make a saving throw. It bids you to attack Salren the Elf."
"Whoops."
"Please don't! I only have three hit points left!"
"Does an 18 hit? ... Wait, I have plus two for Strength ... with my greatsword."
Oblivious to the telepathically-induced carnage breaking out behind them, Jager and Kermit pressed the attack, dealing 20 points of damage across several rounds.
At this point Dilliam the mage decided to experiment with a brand new spell that he had found in an enchanted book on level two.
"I cast Blur on it."
DM: "On ... the spider?"
"Yeah. So it'll be all blurry and won't be able to hit us as well."
DM: "You want to make the spider all blurry and hard to hit?"
"Yeah, so it'll get like all blurry."
DM: "Um ... okay."
Suddenly Arach-naca became much, much harder to hit. Rather than be a total jerk about Dilliiam fumbling the application of a new and unfamiliar spell, I offered him the option to take a round to end it once he realized what was going on. In a panic, he declined, opting to grab a crossbow instead.
DM: "It tells you psychically to that if you shoot Jager it will let you live."
"Okay. Don't worry, I'll help carry you out afterwards."
"No! It's just going to kill you!"
"Um ... I'm going to shoot."
As Jager crumpled, Kermit dealt the spider another fierce blow, sending the creature into ponderous retreat. Rather than press their advantage, however, the nerve of the party members failed and they sped from the mountain with all the haste they could muster, leaving their dead behind.
--------------------------
Whew! I had nine players at the table this session, even after redirecting some kids to chess and Settlers of Catan to keep things manageable. Even then I had Dilliam's player work as party caller to streamline the input, used a minute timer to limit time between turns, and had to be a bit of a tyrant about players missing their turn if they weren't ready or paying attention.
I know the players of the party's casualties were pretty eager to get back in ... Jager's player even rolled up a wizard before we left for the afternoon.
What are your favorite tricks for keeping bigger groups engaged?
Yesterday my older daughter's nameless, 1st level fighter was struck down by a nasty orc chief (4 Hit Dice!), making him the 20th PC casualty she has suffered since first delving into the grim corridors of Michael Curtis's Stonehell: Down Night-Haunted Halls a couple months ago.
That may sound like quite a few, but it isn't due to any tactical shortcomings on her part (she's got six years of B/X under her belt) so much as an unforgiving application of Basic D&D rules.
This was her 13th foray into level one (she's mapped about half of its chambers) and, her torchlight having been spotted from afar by orc sentries, she chose to stand her ground rather than pursue into a possible ambush.
The party kept a clear line of retreat through the northwestern door, deployed oil to deny the enemy the southwest tunnel, readied a Sleep spell, and formed a concave line at the southeastern door where four PCs could rain blows on orcs approaching through that choke point.
As predicted, the crafty orcs attempted a flanking maneuver, but flaming oil held the western group at bay while the tribal chieftain himself joined five warriors and one of his lieutenants in a thrust from the east. The Sleep spell broke their charge, but didn't fell the chief who passed his morale test easily and began kicking his underlings awake and sending them back into the fray.
The melee developed right in the threshold of the southeastern door, with several orcs falling before their boss forced his way through, an arrow already in his shoulder, and entered hand-to-hand. With a vicious spear-thrust, the great brute hit for 4 points of damage, slaying the plate-armored fighter (we use d6 for all hit dice & damage and a strict dead at 0 hit points rule) and flushing 1080 hard-earned xp down the drain!
The chieftain struck again, his +4 attack bonus reflecting his ferocity, but the blow was turned on a shield and the party settled the score with three hits in rapid succession (the last a 20), smiting the wicked creature down.
The remaining orcs fled shrieking into the darkness--the battle was won!
Tempting as it was to probe ahead and scatter the routing orcs in hopes of seizing whatever treasure they had amassed, my daughter chose discretion instead. The group's one spell had been cast, one of the retainers was wounded, and the party had been reduced to only four members, so they looted the dead, stripped their fallen comrade of his armor (I price platemail in the 400-600gp range and this was the very first set they have acquired), and left the rest for the kobolds to scavenge.
Success is hard-won in the dungeon! In fact, we decided at the outset that characters only get a name once they reach 2nd level ...
Here's a list of the party's casualties to date:
1. fighter: decapitated by a skeleton, session 1, room 2 (the skeletons had surprise)
2. fighter: skeletons got him too before initiative was ever rolled
3. fighter: clubbed to death by mad former inmates while trying to escape level 1
4. fighter: inmates got him in the same fight
5. fighter: blinded by spitting cobra near the stairs to the surface--retired
6. fighter: also blinded by a cobra in the same encounter
7. fighter: torn to bits by inmates in the party's 3rd trip to level 1
8. elf: hit by an orcish axe
9. cleric: the original party leader, orcs cut him down on expedition 3
10. fighter: slain by the toxic breath of a stone fish ... shouldn't have messed with it
11. elf: died of crab spider venom at the whistling well (it dropped on his head)
12. fighter: fell in a stupid pit trap during 6th expedition
13. elf: fell in the same pit ... had 1320xp ... ouch
14. cleric: slain by skeletons in a level 1 crypt ... had 18 Strength so was on door duty
15. fighter: skeletons got him too ... should have brought more holy water
16. cleric: skeletons ... losing initiative can be rough
17. elf: killed by orcs when the party was flanked
18. fighter: killed in the same fight
19. cleric: went down in the same orc-ambush
20. fighter: almost lived long enough to see the score settled
