Into the Tomb of the Serpent Kings - Part 3

They're all dead! (Except the Duck...)

Alright, session happened some time ago now but I was too busy to write the report.

We had a full party again, with six players, only one needing to roll a new character as he lost his sheet.
(He rolled a Repressed Psychic with magnetism powers!)


If you missed the last report or need a reminder, The Characters:

• Daffy the Duck Barbarian returned for a second delve into the Tomb. The others used Failed Careers:
• Kōri the Alpha Tester
• Erik the Paid Fighter, and her snake pet-weapon
• Euphorialice the Estate Squire, who understands the language of horses
• Marik the Urchin Pack (actually two kids in a long coat)
• Bobbydick II (no relation) the Wall-Born, proud owner of a pack of rust-flavoured gum
• Bobbydick III, the Repressed Psychic with magnetism powers

What Happened

• The party went to Blightburg, a nearby town, to resupply and get their wounded some rest.
Euphorialice "negotiated" with a gnome jeweller and some treasures were sold back to him, though by the end of the exchange it was clear the shopkeep was not happy about rude adventurers cramping his business.

• After considering their options (including the famous CASTLE REDVALD) they decided to keep exploring the Tomb. On their way there they heard strange cries in the woods, and sent one of the kids to investigate.

• The kid did not come back. So Erik and Daffy went to see what was up, found a creepy cabin with a creepy lady and decided to leave quietly and tell the rest that the kid was dead. They moved on.

• Back to the room with all the stone doors, the crew breached a few of these, grabbing some treasure through clever use of magnetic telekinesis. Then they opened a coffin filled with a giant black slime.

• Running down the stairs to the east towards the chasm, then going north, the party quickly ended up stuck between a giant devouring black pudding and a bottomless pit. Kōri heroically sacrificed himself by shooting at the beast to give some time for the others to try and run past the monster on the ledge. Though they still needed to pass a DEX save as the ledge was quite narrow and they were running while dodging a giant black tar monster.

• Everyone but Bobbydick III and Daffy fell. Well, Daffy fell but he glided down and actually got out from the dungeon after going through a dark maze. Bobbydick III fell while fighting a strange skeleton monster made up of jelly while running from the black ichor.

Some Thoughts

• This group has a lot of energy, so much so that a lot of time here was spent yelling and repeating myself, which is untenable. People are definitely having fun and seem to be into the game, but I need to enforce a few rules to make it viable. No Cellphones, as they need to realize that the game is also (mostly?) about listening to each others, not just speaking when something happens to your character speicfically. And beyond the cellphones, they also need to listen to each others more and negotiate the group's next move instead of argue about it as that kills momentum very fast. If needed, I'll have a talk with the gang next time before the game. But some if not all of them are reading this so it probably won't be necessary. Yo!

• A TPK is a rare thing to see in Bastionland. I had grown to doubt the potential threat of combat in ItO but nope, all you need is a big monster and little planning to screw even a big party. "Unconventional" creatures also seem to be way more scary to new players as they don't necessarily find them cliché yet.

• Next time, though maybe not next week depending on scheduling issues, we'll play some cyberpunk using Jason T's 2400 - Inner System Blues.

And it's just about time for my Traveller game. And I've got another one tomorrow so, stay tuned for more posts over the weekend.