Tower of the Archmage

Session was played on 8/14

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh) & Fido
Morgana, Magic User 8 (Rob)
Koltic, Cleric 6 (NPC)
Aroon, Fighter 4 (NPC)
Jameth, Fighter 4 (NPC)
Lor’Koth, Dwarf 5 (NPC)


After resting in town, the party returns to the outer cloister to (hopefully) finish the job. Exploring the 2nd floor, they root around in some mostly empty monk’s cells, find a stash of weapons and armor, a hidden box with 3 rings in it, then in another room another ring, ruby encrusted unholy symbol, and another magic morning star. Not encountering any more invisible stalkers, the party heads to the basement.


In the basement/crypt, they find a body floating in a clear cylinder filled with a greenish liquid. They’re attacked by some ghouls, but Koltic destroys them. They find a secret door, lots of moldy bodies, a rotting map to “the Upper Temple of Orcus”


They make their way back to the surface, make a circuit of the ground level, then head back to see the abbot.


Gains: Ring of Protection, 2 Rings of Protection and Fidelity, Morningstar +1, ruby unholy symbol
Kills: Ghouls
Losses:

Session was played on 8/9

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh) & Fido
Morgana, Magic User 8 (Rob)
Koltic, Cleric 6 (NPC)


Returning to the outer cloister, they check in with Bill. He reports that 6 of his fellow cultists priests were killed checking out the inner cloister. Apparently there are more of the invisible stalkers. They head to deal with them. A big puddle was near the door. Borumar used his force bow on it, to no apparent effect. Morgana crits with her dagger, and then a ‘running’ battle was on with the ooze. Thankfully it was very slow, and the party stayed well out of reach of it until they killed it.


Back to the inner courtyard, they find the bodies of the cultists, torn apart. Checking the bodies, Koltic is grabbed by an invisible foe, and hoisted up. Morgana uses magic missiles on it, and it drops Koltic to flee.


More searching around the inner cloister, an encounter with a gelatinous cube, then another hit and run from the invisible stalker. Nick gets the worst of it. The party makes its way to the observatory where a fancy silver cross, shiny suit of chainmail, and a spyglass are recovered. Taking their loot, the party heads back to town.

Gains: 700gp for spyglass, Chainmail +1, Silver Cross of St. Yara
Kills:
Losses:

Session was played on 7/24

Nick, Fighter 7 (Me)
Borumar, Thief 9 (Josh) & Fido
Joho, Monk 7 (Chris)
Morgana, Magic User 8 (Rob)
Karl, Dwarf 8 (Julia)
Koltic, Cleric 6 (NPC)


Nick stomps his way dripping swamp water back to the party. THey find a door that the key ring doesn’t have a matching key for. Joho tries knocking, and gets attacked by the invisible thing. Nick manages to stab it and it attacks Joho again before running away. Morgana ‘Knocks’ the door open, and tosses in a lightning bolt at the invisible monsters, then follows it up with a magic missile. Nick gets critted, and Koltic provides some much needed healing.

Morgana attempts to dimension lock one, and Nick gets hit again, dropping. Joho, in a feat of martial prowess, finishes off both invisible monsters. Beyond the 2 dead invisible things is a chest in a warding circle. Morgana investigates the circle, Koltic and Borumar check the rest of the room, finding a small chest full of silver shavings. The party attempts to take the chest from the circle (successfully) and through the door (unsuccessfully). Morgana uses a knock scroll to open the chest revealing an ugly pitted horn covered in flies. Joho, touching the horn, has his lips turn black.

Departing the upper cloister, they return the horn to Bill the Cultist, who gives it to the abbot, who blows it, summoning a swarm of flies that is promptly eaten by the frogs on the columns.

Given a room to rest, the party beds down for the night to recover. For an hour and a half, at midnight, a procession of ghosts move along one of the walls of the room. The ghosts becoming more substantial as the procession moves on. The next morning the party heads back to town.


Gains:
Kills: Invisible Stalkers
Losses:

After the 4 map January, and the 4 map February and March, having only 2 maps for April feels a little weird. It shouldn't, since both February and March were basically 2 maps each, but because they were part of a single complex, and April is all by its lonesome, it feels different. 

This section is the local ICBM launch site that's connected to the larger complex. 2 of the 3 missiles are gone, but one remains, and remains active. 

The lower level has more demonic threats, as a small family of bugbears that found the open silos and climbed down to check them out. They didn't expect some of the demonic energy to influence them in weird and amourous ways. 

May finished successfully. And in spite having visited 2 different gaming stores, I didn't buy a single mini. Go me! Of course I'm saving up everything for ReaperCon, so I don't really want to waste a joker on something before then. 

In May I managed to paint up 4 mutants, 2 cultists, an Oni, and a balustrade. I'm exceptionally pleased with the Oni. 

He isn't perfect, and the base still needs work, but he was a lot of fun. 

The cultists were a pain, as I had custom mixed the yellow I'd used on the cultists I painted last year and I DIDN'T WRITE IT DOWN. Must do better about that...

Coming up for the next month I've got a pair of spiders (done) and a whole bunch of mushroom folk (in progress). 

It was an exceptionally busy month at work, and a bit on the home-front too. We installed a new heat pump system, so at least we’ll have AC this year. An improvement over last year, though thankfully last summer was very mild. 

I got the bookshelves all built, and all my books unboxed and up onto the shelves. They aren’t really organized yet. At some point I’m going to need to take a little time to do that. 

I also, after much dithering about will I or won't I, attended Trek Long Island and had a blast. I'm already planning on picking up a uniform to wear for next year.

Gaming
My players are back in Stonehell! They faced Song, and came out ahead, twice! Then, when trying to figure out how to get down to level 6 without paying off the Vrilya, they decided to head back to the Lost Level, which I haven’t looked at in… a couple years? Players, always throwing curve balls!

My #Dungeon23 is coming along nicely, but I really need to work on filling in the notes sections for each level. They’ll help tell the story more than just the sparse room descriptions.

Miniatures
Decently productive month. I’m a bit behind as far as the minis I wanted to get done this quarter, but I can catch up…. I think…



I’m really pleased with the green mutant, and annoyed with the yellow on the cultists. I custom mixed the color I used for the last batch, and couldn’t quite match it.

Media
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Star Trek Discovery season 2 rewatch
Letterkenny

Goals for June
Continue #Dungeon23
Keep up with the session reports
Play the next scenario for Stargrave
Survive the in-laws visit