Magic Shop Owners Session 16

Session Notes

Calendar Date: 26-3-596

AI Podcast Overview (From NotebookLM)

A Rude Awakening

• After resting in Stagbrook the party were awoken by the tentacles from Geog's armour trying to strangle him
• Stinkcat quickly woke up and cut off the tentacles at each of the holes in the armour
• Breadwig then tied ropes around the nubs to see how quickly the tentacles would grow. They were growing about an inch every twenty minutes
• While the party were experimenting and deciding what to do about the armour. Gary the runner from Stonehaven/Stonehell showed up
• Gary reported that they had ran into a few issues during expansion such as spike traps, paralysis chests and oozes but it was nothing they couldn't handle. The one thing that could become an issue was that the Lizard Folk to the west weren't happy about their expansion
• Gary then refused to leave and began demanding extra payment for his efforts. No agreement was struck so he stuck around. Geog and Breadwig briefly considered if their capitalist endeavours had gone too far, but decide it was okay and even considered creating their own currency just for Stagbrook so they didn't have to pay real money to Gary.
• The party briefly surveyed the village and discovered that some supplies they needed could no longer be obtained from Whiterock as the illusionists had been overthrown and the thieves guild had thrown the town into lawless chaos. They decided to ignore this for now and deal with the armour
• Their first port of call was to visit Sarzan. He was enthusiastic as he had finally gotten chance to read the research notes they had given him when they visited Stagbrook Keep last.
• The notes were the original Sarzan's logs on his attempts at eternal life, or at least some of them, many pages were missing and the writing became less legible and more frantic as it went on
• It seemed the original Sarzan had failed at all of his attempts for eternal life and was digging deep into the ground to find some source of power that he believed could help. He briefly had an identity crisis as the other him had become so different and he didn't know what was real. Maia consoled him
• After Sarzan had told them about his findings, they asked him how they could remove Geog's armour. Sarzan had never mentioned the armour because he didn't want to be rude, but did know it from his Keep.
• He said he believed there was a wand of unbinding in Stagbrook Keep somewhere that could potentially work. He pointed on the map they had found in the Magic shop at the living quarters where he thought it was likely to be. He also told them where the secret doors were
• He also said there was a tribe of shamans in the mountains that may be able to help but they were many days travel away and may not even still be there
• The party decided it would be a good idea to go into the Keep and deal with the armour as soon as possible
• Gary joined them having still not received payment and also wanting to see Geog's pain as he seemed to hat dwarfs

Return to Stagbrook Keep

Annotated map the players had from Lucinda (pre Ignid Explosion):

Map from this session:

• The party navigated the stair traps easily and made their way through the dinning hall with the tables they had previously chopped up
• They then reached the hole and were debating using Derek as a plank to cross the hole when a Giant Ant began climbing out
• Geog attempted to kick it back down the hole, but missed and fell down himself, luckily Maia was able to catch him
• Breadwig also attempted a kick and Jatumal a whack with his Ignid scale shield but the ant was unfazed
• Gary and Stinkcat ran to grab a table to try and throw over the hole but missed
• The ant attacked Jatumal with its giant pincers but he was able to jump out of the way
• Now out of the hole Stinkcat cut off the ant's pincers, but it was still attempting to headbutt so Gary picked up a pincer and drove it into the ant's skull killing it
• Reading the map the party believed they could find a secret door to the vault if they headed south
• They reached a dead end and shouted 'NEPO' and the stone wall ground open
• It revealed a room with 10 alcoves all with a single chest inside.
• Breadwig tipped open a chest with a ten foot pole form a distance to be careful, but the ceiling started to slowly close upon them.
• Everyone decided to frantically run and open more chests since the ceiling was not closing inside the alcoves. This resulted in the floor also beginning to rise, a toxic gas being released, Stinkcat almost being shot by a fireball and Geog almost stabbed by a spike. Each acquired a magical item from a chest
• After opening her chest Maia ran to the east door smashing it open. the others ran for the door, meanwhile Stinkcat tried to open another chest and began choaking on the gas, but did get an item
• Jatumal and Stinkcat had to crouch run to get out before the ceiling and floor closed upon them. Geog slammed the door behind them to trap the gas
• The items collected included a two-handed sword with a demon head pommel by Maia, a box of ants by Jatumal, a plain looking ring by Geog, a roughly carved black rock ring by Stinkcat, a manual of planes by Gary, and a wooden hand with runes carved into it by Breadwig
• They listened to the room closing in upon itself through the door and then opened it again to check it didn't reopen. They realised they would need to find another way back
• They were now in a pantry, but the food was rotten and the barrels and crates broken. There was also rocks from a recent cave in to the north of the room
• Maia tried to use the demon head pommel to cut the stubs of tentacles off growing from Geog's armour but missed dramatically. The head screamed and everyone had an uncontrollable urge to run from the sword apart from Jatumal and Gary. Maia threw the sword away. After a few minutes the urge wore off
• Everyone began trying to batter down the east door to get into the library but it was stuck solid. During this time an amber golem that had been hidden behind crates in the corner woke up and began stamping towards them
• Jatumal ran up jumped on the golems shoulders and shot an arrow into its head. The arrow from his magical bow imbedded itself into the skull of the golem cracking its head
• Gary tried to attack with the pincer from the ant to no effect before Jatumal threw him the gem encrusted sword he had found in the harbour of the Obsidian Keep
• Geog swung at the golem with Darkfire as Jatumal jumped off
• Maia tried to use her cause wounds spell but it missed
• The golem hit back at Jatumal with a devastating near lethal blow
• Maia swung at the Golem with the the sword with the demon head, but missed dramatically. The sword screamed shocking both Maia and the golem. The golem began running for the vault door and Maia threw the sword to Jatumal
• The party quickly ran to the library door, broke it down and ran inside before the golem returned
• In the library they searched through the books collecting some books of interest including five books about tyrannical rulers, an index of wands and a book on getting the most out of cleric spells for Maia
• Jatumal searched the index of wands for the wand of unbinding, it had an explosion symbol with two triangles on either side. It was able to unlink two things from each other, but often worked in unique ways
• Next they moved into the room with mutoid cells to the east. Inside were mutoids who had lived in this room for centuries but never been fed. All they knew was the room and their hunger
• Maia offered one food, which it gobbled down. Apparently the mutoids had been experimented on by Sarzan and could not die from hunger.
• The secret door the party needed to use was at the back of the mutoid they had fed's cell. They shouted 'NEPO' and it opened. Geog then convinced the mutoid to go through the door by saying they would feed him
• They heard moaning and groaning from the mutoid
• The party broke the lock to the mutoid's cell and looked through to find a graveyard of sorts with zombies of various deformed creatures. The mutoid had been attacked by them
• Geog threw a stone to the other end of the room distracting the zombies. He and Gary rushed for the north door and battered it down pushing each other through the door. the other's closely followed
• They slammed the door behind them to find a massive empty room with a disintegration wand mounted on a pedestal in the centre
• It began firing at Gary who was closest. He just dodged the bolt which created a large hole in the wall behind him
• The part began frantically running around the room. They ran to the north to try to use the wand to break through into the living quarters but the holes were small and the dodges difficult
• Then Jatumal ran in and grabbed the wand attaching it to the top of his shield and putting it on his head. It fired at the next closest person who was Geog. He managed to avoid the bolt.
• Jatumal dived at the hole in the wall head first shoving the wand and his shield into it. The wand stopped firing
• Jatumal tried lifting the shield but could see the wand beginning to charge again so put it back. The party then hefted the pedestal over and swapped shield for the pedestal
• They then entered the winding corridors to the west with one Ignid shield in front and on on either side and kept the party inside. As they did arrows peppered the shields from the sides but the party were unharmed
• Eventually they got out of the way of the traps but came across a bone golem. They held formation and batted at it with their weapons from behind the shields. It made some heavy hits on the shields and took a long time to go down, but Jatumal was able to identify a weak point causing the golem to begin to crumble and then Maia finished it off with a mace to the face
• The room to the north had six huge vats with dead, mutated, half-grown creatures inside. The party watched their lifeless stares for a little while before getting creeped out and entering Sarzan's living quarters
• There was a huge contrast to the previous room. There was an ever burning log fire, soft furnishings, tapestries on the walls and it was all very homely. There were also two display cases, one of which had a wand inside
• Gary identified the wand as having an explosion with two triangles on either side and used the wand on Geog. He didn't seem to really care if it hurt him
• Geog felt skin peeling from himself, his armour split in two falling to the ground and the tentacle creature fell with it melting into a purple puddle. Geog was left with suction rings all over his body and felt drained but was okay
• After a tiring journey into the Keep they were all tired, so moved some book cases up against the door and rested in Sarzan's old living room

XP

100 xp = 1 x Giant Ant
2300 xp = 1 x Amber Golem
140 xp = 7 x Zombie
650 xp = 1 x Bone Golem
200 xp = 1 x Armour Monster
3390 xp = total
3390/5 = 678 xp each

Published Content Used

• OSE (Classic and Advanced)
• The Monster Overhaul
• Creature Compendium
• Knock (Various issues for magic item ideas)