The Coils of Set, Part II, continuation My Work Game

[JediOre]

[Edit: I originally posted this over on the ol’ Necromancer Games forum boards only to find out that those boards are getting ready to go down.

This was post thirty one in my thread on those boards and I puzzled about moving the future posts of our gaming of the forum boards at Frog God Games since the module is a Necromancer Games product but I just don’t see a home there for Castles & Crusades gaming.

That said, I hope to complete this here at the Troll Lord’s board. I’ve been away for too long and really have been missing writing these.

A bit of background is in order. This game is one I’m CKing at my work. My friend and assistant manager Paul along with a friend from Student Services, Chris, try to get together once a week to enjoy an hour of gaming over lunch. Due to scheduling I’ve dropped writing their adventures and am trying to catch up to what we are currently doing. Please feel free to chime in with comments.]

Spoilers Ahead!

Well after a very long time I’m going to try and catch this up. I’ve really enjoyed writing these posts and have lamented having to stop writing this thread as well as one I have over on Goodman Games.

Of course we finished this module quite some time ago, so the remaining writings will not have the immediacy of the preceding material. However, I will do my best, with the module at my side, to at least convey the high points.
This module, at least the first third of it, which is what we have concluded thus far, is worth taking your friends through.
Paul’s character is Mouse, a human class-and-a-half thief/magic-user (sorry AD&D is in my blood), I mean a rogue/wizard of levels two and one. Chris’ character is Sayid the Exile, an elf ranger of first level with plans on him becoming a class-and-a-half ranger/cleric.

There previous exploits in Chapter Two of the Coils of Set’s first adventure, The Shadow of Set, can be read here, for as long as the Necro boards remain active:

http://necromancergames.yuku.com/topic/ ... sades-game

They have rooted out the Ophidian Hand’s headquarters and just had nasty go at their leader, a strange man-dog creature named Imin. The players know they’ve got to get out alive and report their findings to Karranis, an underpriest at the Temple of the Eternal Sun. Both PCs are activally trying to find the Chalice of Aldren since it is the only item that can stem and cure a terrible disease afflicting the tropical city of Majoor (the name was changed since I had used a Goodman Game’s adventure set in Majoor first).

Being low on health and high on stealth, both players have their PCs carefully retrace their steps. Chris has Sayid dump the heavy armor by the body of the slain guard he took it from and redressed in his studded leather. They did not waste time in the Old City, moving to get out of here as soon as possible.

When they arrived back across the rope bridge they noticed lights and several of the Ophidian Hand members discussing what was going on, they could hear the concern in the voices of the thugs. Imin was deep within the accursed Old City, invaders had penetrated deep within the secret lair. What to do? Chris had this well in hand. I do remember this vividly. He told LBM to follow Sayid’s led.

Chris had Sayid rush into the room looking haggard, which the elf was, with Mouse right behind. Chris said that his elven ranger cried out that Imin was being attacked and he needs backup. Sayid and Mouse keep running towards the exit and Chris had the elf say something akin to, “We’ll be back for we have been sent to get more aid.”
Anyway, it left the remaining guards and thugs confused panicked, and several rushing out to the rope bridge in an attempt to reach Imin, wherever he might have been.

They got out of the Ophidian Hand’s secret lair in the Morass and Chris chuckled about how clever he had been for weeks after this session.

[JediOre]

As the CK, I am not wanting to move forward with this module since Mouse is a 2/1 rogue/wizard and Sayid a 1/0 ranger/cleric. The second part of this chapter is brutal and they need a bit more hit points. They are both close to moving up a level so over a weekend I rooted amongst my gaming stuff to come up with a nice side quest that would boost them to the next level and stay in keeping with the setting. We divided out experience and I didn’t think to fudge a bit to get them up to the next level at the time. I found a short adventure in Knockspell issue four entitled “Rats in the Walls” by Jeffery P. Talanian. I thought it would be cool for the guys. So with that ready to insert, we got together the next week for our gaming lunch.
Mouse and Sayid return to the Temple of the Eternal Sun and ask to speak with Karranis. The players state that their PCs recount what they did and gave Karranis a list of the major players involved in the theft of the Chalice of Aldren. They list the following rogues:

1. The Snake Mother, slain by Mouse’s earlier companions. A frightening snake-human being. She was in charge of the Smiling Sultan and a fence for stolen goods.

2. Black Leaf, suspected as a high ranking member of the Ophidian Hand. Paul, Little Brother Moose (LBM), suspects it is this person, a woman most likely, that shot at Mouse from a high wire before he met Sayid. Black Leaf is incriminated in the theft from a letter addressed to Hamweather (see below) and signed by Khailbet (see below). Whereabouts unknown.

3. Harles Hamweather, the infamous H.H. found in a ledger entry the Snake Mother’s room. Hamweather is the individual in charge of the archeological dig in the Morass assigned there by the Majoor’s Engineering Department.

4. Imin, a strange human jackel hybrid that was the leader of the Ophidian Hand. He or it was working for or with Khailbet. Mouse and Sayid killed him.

5. Khailbet, the presumed mastermind behind the stealing of the Chalice of Aldren. Location unknown. But the players have an idea that he is somewhere further up the long, long corridor deep within the Old City.

Karranis suggests the PCs locate Hamweather and bring him back to the temple for interrogation. The under priest has the PCs rest and has them healed while he has some of the guards speak to those in the temple for anyone with information about Hamweather. I tell the guys that it is known Hamweather is a gnome and he enjoys eating a big breakfast at one of the several inns and taverns along the docks before going to his office in the Morass. Karranis hopes the PCs are able to intercept Hamweather before he knows what has happened at his office and the supposed collapse of the Ophidian Hand.

With that LBM and Chris have their newly healed PCs head towards the dock to find Hamweather. When they get there they start going into the various eateries looking for the gnome. Mouse is paying the hosts/barkeeps gold for information. They find that Hamweather normally has one of three or four places he enjoys breaking his fast at. They also find out that the gnome usually has another hour or two before he appears. One of the places, in Mouse’s opinion, is definitely part of a thief’s racket, most likely working for the Ophidian Hand. This is the one both figure needs watching. While they are searching they come across a small restaurant that is empty of customers. Its name is the Silvery Eel and the owner, Xill Vuntos, seems desperate. He tells them that Hamweather has never eaten in his establishment but that Vuntos is willing to pay the PCs a beautiful pearl necklace as well as a magical shield if they can permanently remove a horrid rat infection that has plagued his tavern.

At first they dismiss this out of hand, but as they continued to search for Hamweather, only to find out they have about an hour or two to kill, they return to Vuntos to hear more. . . .

[JediOre]

Xill Vuntos begs the PCs to aid him. He chokes out a sob story about how rats have taken over his establishment. He says these rats are not normal rats. He has tried to kill them with traps, the cats he acquired to take out the rats were killed off. They are the size of terriers and have despoiled everything. They killed his baby girl and at night move incessantly to the point of driving him crazy. His wife killed herself and his teenage daughter is growing haggard and ill from the Silvery Eel’s plague. If they can’t solve the problem he is destitute.

Paul and Chris have their PCs say they’ll look the problem over their mind really on the time before they went to capture Hamweather. At the time, they did not know this side quest was not part of the Coils of Set and figured this was, in essence, a wandering monster/random encounter. I smiled inwardly the whole time knowing this little gem was going to give my friends a run for their money. He-he-he.

They asked how long this had been going on and were the rats were often seen. Vuntos to them they are everywhere and are quite bold. Furthermore the PCs could hear the scratching in the walls themselves as the rodents moved up to the first floor and downwards either to the ground level or into the cellar. They examine the holes left by the rats and begin to realize these things are at least dire rats. They head out of the tavern and go up the back stairs to the living quarters located on the first floor. I tell them that they come into a hallway that has a stack of crates and two doors leading into the bedrooms. On the stack of crates are five of the largest rats either had either seen. These vile beasts all look at the PCs without the least sign of fear, as would be expected from a wild animal. Further, I tell them the eyes of the rats almost have a luminescence to them. They almost glow red. Now keep in mind it is still a bit until dawn so the gleaming eyes have a very creepy quality to them.

The PCs closed on the rats but the rats did not back down. They rose to the occasion and initiative was called. The fight was short, and sadly really the only fight I truly remember from “Rats in the Wall.” They bit the PCs twice, once on each which caused them nothing but concerns as the horror of these things continued as the module unfolded. They examined the bodies and I explained that they saw rat droppings “of a deep crimson colour” behind the crates. The excrement was not normal, to be sure!

As I said, both doors went to bedrooms and the PCs started to look them over when all of a sudden one of them, Paul I think, asked if they should get permission to look through the drawers and dressers. Paul and Chris had their PCs run back to the innkeeper to make sure they had free reign on examining the building. They didn’t want to poke through personal items unless given the okay. Vuntos asked to have his daughter, Annesta, follow them to make sure if they had questions she could answer them. She had a greyish pallor that did not make either PC think she was in the best of health. In her room they find a loose floorboard and a diary hidden beneath it. The diary belonged to the previous owner of the Silvery Eel. Here’s what was within it:

“Early pages are dedicated to his [the previous owner] mundane thoughts regarding his work and his admiration for a young woman who works at a local seamstress. Further entries complain of the rats. Then his nightmares concerning a swine-faced daemon woman. His rat problem worsened, so he brought in cats; they howled and ran about baffled before they were eventually killed by the rats. His writings eventually give way to mad ravings, and the convictions that he has fallen victim to some inescapable curse, no doubt bestowed by the swine-faced one.”

This caused Paul and Chris to rethink the problem. It was bigger than rats. These rats were part of something much worse. They had Mouse talk to Annesta and got her to confess she too is having nightmares about a pig-faced woman of terrible evil. She also knows she is being bitten by the rats at night and that she cannot awaken to fight them.

With this, they had back to Vuntos and ask to see the cellar. Vuntos walks them down the stairs to the cellar. It is a large room that’s walls are the foundation of the tavern above. It is filled with all sorts of crates, boxes, sacks, and so forth. The walls are odd. They are made up of large sandstone blocks fitted together seemingly without mortar. Some of them no longer fit to well together, presumably from shifting over time. The floor is made of the same stones. Looking about they hear the eerie scratching of the rats moving up and down the walls. Both fellows asked me to repeat that, I recall this. I told them that the rats seem to be traveling below the cellar. Chris and Paul both immediately begin thinking about the Old City that they had already been in. Is it possible that Majoor’s Old City may be bigger than was originally thought?

They look about and come across a nest of these evil rats and the second fight of the game session commenced. They took the rats down quickly and we wrapped up the session.

[JediOre]

When we got back together both Chris and Paul begin to implement their plan they had worked on all week. They had Sayid the elf and Mouse the thief/magic-user begin a careful examination of the floor and walls. After about fifteen minutes they find a loose floor stone. They pry it up and find an old iron trap door that has rusted shut after untold years of disuse. Both PCs as well as Vuntos all pulled the door open with the use of a rope tied to the large ring attached to the iron trap door. The smell of musty age crept forth from the dark opening.

Mouse lights a torch and dropped it down the hole. It fell quite a bit until it struck the stone floor, heavily littered with animal droppings, about fifty feet below. From the circle of light the torch provided no walls are visible. It seems whatever is below is large, perhaps quite a bit larger than the basement of the Silvery Eel. They hear the chattering of rats far below. The torch sputtered yet stayed alight. The weak, flickering flame cast out a light that I told them quickly revealed movement on the edges of the light. Numerous sets of red eyes, low to the floor, stared out of the darkness at the torch. I told them that, as one, the rats all turn their gaze to the PCs far above and then scamper into the darkness. Quit ensues below. I did my best to give them the willies! The place below is quite frightening to anyone who would have actually been looking down upon it.

Paul and Chris ponder the situation their PCs faced and decided to have them tie off a rope to the staircase that leads up to the kitchen. They then have a second coil of rope tied to the first to insure they have plenty of rope. The PCs are going down into the cavernous room below. They ask Vuntos, the owner, to close the inn and stay in the basement. As soon as the PCs get to the bottom, he is to pull the rope back up, insuring none of the rats eat it through (I think one of them has read Stoker’s The Judge’s House) and trapping them below. Of course neither of them thought about what might happen if the rats attacked Vuntos once they had descended the rope until later after he had pulled the rope up.

Down they went. Mouse went first, with the intent of getting his lamp light before the torch flickered out and Sayid followed. In the light of the lamp, they began to look about. I told them they were in an immense room and the lamp’s brightness only barely reached the edges of the room. It was a massive temple. The floor here is built out of the same sandstone blocks that make up the Silvery Eel’s basement. However, the floor in this temple “are scratched and littered with rat droppings small and large.” They see a staircase that goes down into deeper darkness to the south, again, at the edge of the lamp’s glow. A horrible stench emanates from this stairwell. Both quickly agree this will be the last place that Mouse and Sayid examine. The can see to the north an altar upon a dais with a large statue of some unknown god or patron. It has three faces peering forth from one head; all of the faces are of a woman. No rat droppings can be seen anywhere on the dais. Further, on the floor in front of the dais is a set of shackles bolted into pillars, presumable for unwilling sacrifices of humans, or other humanoid beings. All along the northern part of this temple, the walls are covered in rotten curtains. To the south, on both sides of the staircase, are ancient boxes and crates.

Chris had Sayid keep the blade of Imin, the strange dog-man who was the leader of the Ophidian Hand. According to the Karranis, the under priest at the Temple of the Eternal Sun, Imin’s blade was magical and would glow red in the presence of evil. Now, this sword doesn’t just glow for any evil, no orc or even cruel giant will make it glow. According to Karranis, the red glow only appears in the presence of truly diabolical evil. What that really means is for Chris to ponder on.

That said, Chris had his elf pull the blade of Imin, named Regis, and sure enough, the blade had a faint glow of red about it. So there is something far worse than these nasty rats, or at least something behind the rats’ actions. But what? Paul pointed out the evil could be this temple itself. They move about the room, puzzled that the rats have disappeared. They find two secret/concealed doors behind the rotting curtains and find the boxes and crates seem out of place for this temple. They are filled with ancient, and rotted, remains of uncertain material. They were also ambushed by six of these horrid rats. After killing the rats, the PCs pass beyond the northern secret door.
The room behind the door held a bed and other items that show the room was a living quarters for someone in the dim past, most likely a priest who oversaw the temple. They were attacked by six pole arm welding skeletal beings all dressed in well preserved cloaks and some sort of ceremonial helm. Both Mouse and Sayid bested these undead creatures and examined the room. They found books that shed light upon the deity worshipped here and the proper ceremony to sacrifice beings to her. They took none of it, and planned to burn the whole thing in the hopes it would aid in cleansing the inn above.

At that, we were out of time for our lunch.