Another Session in my Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign. Much to my surprise the group actually manages to clear a couple rooms further into the dungeon.
The Cast:
Sir Fredrick Jones (Magic-User) played by Mahilani. -A meek old art collector stumbled into the occult by accident. Has become a wallflower amongst the men.
Coen Delgado (Specialist) played by Bruno – Master woodsman, tracker, and Wiseman. A pillar for the Band of the Cawk.
Sir Gludius Maximus (Fighter) played by Joey – The ex-knight slowly regains his self-work as he pushes against the unknown of Bavaria.
Dr. Frunkenstein (Magic-User) played by James – Has used his charisma to rise to leadership and influence the men to do his bidding.
Fiddlesworth (Fighter) played by Pedro – Is starting to realize strange things lurk in the woods and a whip may not be the best defense.
BumBuff, Bearslayer (Fighter) played by Bryant – Survived & killed a monstrous bear. He wears the pelt as a symbol of honor.
Marcus Aurelius (Fighter) played by Alberto – Former officer of the Lupus Corps and Disgraced “Hero”. Was excommunicated due to corruption.
Having defeated the undead snake-skeleton men with guile and wit, the men decide it’s time to don a mercenary company name, for branding purposes. A couple names are thrown around but eventually the men settle on The Band of the Cawk. Afterwards they begin preparations for the fortification of their camp. The hunter Delgado is sent hunting when the group notices their food stores are getting low.
While hunting the woodsman notices the forest is eerily quiet and can’t seem to find any tracks. Before giving up he sees a large dark brown hare a couple yards ahead, he levels his family musket but the critter seems to stare straight through his soul. Creeped out, he gives up the hunt and returns to camp empty handed.
The band is forced to use more of their already dangerously low provisions to prevent hunger and low morale among the men. The camp fortifications will take 10 days of hard work, but the men deem it worthy to protect their source of income The Tomb of Azi Dahaka (Referee notes: I had the players name the dungeon)
Most of the men toiled away cutting down massive pines for construction of a wall to secure the entrance to the tomb. Delgado prepared to hunt for the day & Fiddlesworth volunteered himself to assist. The other men hurled veiled homophobic insults at the pair as they left camp. Before dusk, and without success, the two began the trek back to camp when they came across the same rabbit Delgado had run into the previous day. The woodsman warned his comrade that the hare is unnatural and they just should be on their way. Just then a rustling was heard in some bushes to the men’s right. When Delgado returns his gaze to the rabbit, it’s gone as if it wasn’t there at all. Fiddlesworth unwinds his whip as the rustling grows more intense. Two great wolves leapt from the bushes, one lunges at the fighter sinking its fangs into his arm and sprays blood on a nearby tree as it rips away flesh. With quick reflexes the hunter fired his musket at the other, instantly killing it. The fighter attempts to flog the last snarling beast but is tangled in his whip and falls to the forest bed, prone. Seeing a opportunity, the wolf attempts to rip out Fiddlesworth‘s throat. While the he wrestled with the animal, the woodsman is able to come behind and crack the wolf’s skull with the butt of his rifle, extinguishing it.
The troupe gathered around the campfire after the day’s manual labor and begin swapping stories with one another while Delgado skinned and prepared a stew with the afteroon’s hunt. The ex-merc Aurelius claimed one of the pelts to wear for intimidation and the spellcasters Frunkenstein & Sir Jones excused themselves to study their spellbooks away from prying eyes. The rest of the night passed uneventful.
It wasn’t until the seventh day of construction that the Band of the Cawk received a visitor, the female trapper Sir Jones had charmed the week earlier. She(Marasil Sweet) had brought her charmer three dead rabbits as a gift, the now almost starving group cheered and thanked Sir Jones for his cunning and magic. The rest of the camp construction passed uneventful and on the tenth day the men wiped the sweat from their brows and looked upon their work with pride, a 10 foot high wall with sentry points at the top. With the camp secure the men were free to delve the tomb without fear of flanking. Fiddlesworth was tasked with guarding the camp, and Delgado was ordered to take Sweet with him on the day’s hunt. Frunkenstein, his bodyguard Aurelius, Bumbuff, Maximus and Sir Jones mustered their will and entered the tomb.
The delvers returned to the last room they had explored before retreating to the surface. A hideous stone effigy to a snake-man god, 15ft in height stood guard at a dead end. Bumbuff noticed dripping water from the surface had worn away a corner of the statuette revealing a hidden passage descending deeper into the tomb. The light from outside didn’t pierce the darkness, so before lighting a torch Sir Jones decided to save supplies and cast a Light spell at the end of a long stick. After the men heaved the enormous statue aside they descended roughly 30ft until they found themselves in a dank corridor with more snake-men replicas, three on each wall spread out evenly, one of which seemed to be out of alignment to the rest. Sir Jones used his lit stick to search for a piece of debris and chucked it down the corridor. The others watched holding their breath for movement, but nothing happened. Satisfied the monstrous simulacra wouldn’t animate Bumbuff slowly approached the misaligned statue with Jones illuminating the way. The rest of the men watched from the rear. The bear slayer attempted to push the crooked icon but it only budged slightly sending echoes of stone grinding against stone throughout the tomb. With the assistance of Aurelius & Maximus, the three men are able to slowly push the statue aside revealing a small passage to a hidden room. The stench of old musk and decay secretes from the opening.
Back at the surface, Fiddlesworth paces the top of the wall watching diligently for thieves & any danger to the camp. His hair stands on end as he sees the rabbit from the wolf attack perfectly still and seemingly watching him from the woods. Unnerved but not one to be intimidated, he picks up a rock and hurls it. The stone rips through the air striking the hare in one of its legs, it darts off and is once again unseen.
Deep in the woods Delgado & Sweet are able to track down a pack of boars and silently come upon them. As the boars rout and dig into the earth, Sweet readies her musket and fires into the beasts. She seems to miss dispersing the pack, but Delgado notices some rustling from behind some shrubs and finds a dying meaty boar soaking the forest floor red. While returning to camp with their kill, the trapper warns Delgado of VVitchhunters back in town that were demanding the people of Gethsemane present the spellbook of the sorcerer killed weeks earlier. This greatly worried Delgado as he remembered the terrible vvitch slayers back home and the horrendous acts they would inflict as long as the stain of malificarum was cleansed.
Down in the depths of the Tomb of Azi Dahaka, Bumbuff the Bearkiller after psyching himself up, is the first to enter the hidden passage. Using the light stick Jones had given him the bum discerns two sleeping rolls piled with old straw almost four feet high and a silver polearm hanging on the far wall.
Gludius enters just as Bumbuff begins sifting through the hay. Suddenly two dried decayed hands reach out and grip the startled man and attempt to pull him under. The others in the corridor hear a timid shriek as Aurelius ponders how thankful he is his only job is to protect the magic-users who do not enter moldy, dark ridden rooms.
The disgraced knight watches in horror as the other hay bed begins to stir and a man rises from beneath. A low groan is heard as old, stale air and decay caresses the deadman’s vocal cords.
Luckly Bumbuff is able to free himself from the grasping hands and steadies himself, he quickly unclasps his crotch dagger and positions himself facing the undead. As the second corpse rises from its grave, Gludius charges the first and is able to cleanly decapitate it, the head hits the floor with a sickening thud and rolls forward snapping its teeth before locking shut for it’s second death. The other walking corpse lunges at Bumbuff but is lombersome and easily sidestepped tripping over itself and falls to the cracked stone floor. Gludius saunters over and easily stomps his leather boot straight through the putrid man’s skull, crushing it. The limps twitch as the disgraced knight wipes his boot on the cadaver’s rags. Bumbuff catches his breath and remembers the silver polearm hanging in the room, he removes it from two rusted iron hooks and tests its weight. Its seems to be made of pure silver and is ice cold, almost painfully so. Satisfied its combat ready, Bumbuff & Gludius ransack the rest of room (finding some gold coins) before returning to the corridor.
The combatants relayed the events to the magic-users Frunkenstein & Jones as thier sentry Aurelius kept watch. Frunkenstein suspects the polearm is magical as he gives it a once over before returning to it’s new owner Bumbuff. The men agree to return to the surface to camp for the night, but first, the good doctor orders his manservant to retrieve one of the cadavers for “medical experimentation.”
While the men scarf down wild roasted boar they prepare a shopping list of supplies and order the defunct knight Gludius to take the trapper Sweet to the colony and gather the listed provisions.
Stuffed & exhausted the men agree to the usual watch schedule and the rest retire to bed, except the magic-users who begin cast animate dead on the body they returned to the surface. Low chants and sickening sounds of knife against bone are heard throughout the night. At dawn Frunkenstein wakes the camp as he screams madly about creating life. The men gather around and are shocked when a blood stained skeleton wonders out of the magic-users room. Sir Jones walks out shortly after and washes his red stained hands in some standing water. Frunkenstein names the monster Bub and gives its orders, to guard the camp from danger.
The men see Gludius and Sweet off as they begin the three day trek back to Gethsemane. The magic-users immediately begin work on a magic scroll for emergencies and the rest of the men decide to rest until their provisions are restocked.
Thanks to Sweet’s familiarity with the area, the pair are able to arrive at the colony avoiding any trouble. The trapper tells Gludius she knows some people in town and may be able to get the Band of the Cawk a good deal on some horses. She also gives him some rumors of the vvitchhunters currently residing there. The pair immediately make their way to the general goods store and the fighter engages in intense bartering with the owner. After settling on a price for the supplies Gludius pays the owner and begins to leave when he sees a blonde man in a black buff coat enter the shop. The man throws a large bag of gold on the counter and shoves a rolled up piece of paper in the shop owners face, telling him to have the goods ready in the morning in a low rough tone. As the man begins to leave he shoulders Gludius, (Referee Notes: whether on purpose or accident only I know) not wanting to start a fight but also very insulted the ex-knight makes a innocent comment and the yellow haired man stops, and after a silent tense moment, apologizes and leaves.
(Referee notes: earlier Delgado’s player threw out the idea that the vvitchhunters were blonde and Russian esque and I ran with jt.)
With Sweet’s help Gludius is able to secure two horses, as well as twenty chickens from an animal handler the charmed trapper was acquainted with. The disgraced knight also hired a fifteen year old stable boy named Nathaniel Draper to tend to the livestock and horses back at camp. He neglects to hire an obvious vvitchunter posing as a potential animal handler to employ. Once finished with double checking their list the pair watch the retainer latch the horses to their wagon skillfully and with ease. Sweet jumps on one of the horses eager to leave the coast and return to her charmer Sir Jones. Gludius prepares for the now only day and a half ride back to camp but is unable to shake the feeling the vvitchhunters may be a problem.
End of Session.
(Referee Notes: Hot damn, someone actually hired a retainer. Now I can cross that off my D&D bucket list.)
Psycho Psionic Assembly 