Continuing their search for the undeath curse’s origin, the party presses deeper into the sealed imperial base beneath Kaligan fort. Having been attacked by wight’s with masks that can mimic anyone the wearer touches, sodden sheets that attempt to strangle, and assorted creatures that refuse to stay dead, it is unclear how much longer their luck (such as it is) will hold out. Perhaps the secret passage from whence a group of zombies issued will provide some answers …
Character sheets for Brice and all hirelings have been updated/added on Roll20. I have not transferred equipment from the hireling ledger to individual sheets (the party can decide if that is worthwhile). The following is a listing of which player is responsible for which NPC (as decided last session):
Just wanted to mark the passage from this life of Terry Pratchett today. Although I came to his Disc World series late, I have come to consider Pratchett one of the best fantasy novelists (period) and a very sharp satirist. If you look closely at Midmark — including its politics and police force — there’s a little bit of Ankh-Morpork, Sam Vimes, and especially the wonderful book Night Watch in its DNA.
Thanks to Thorfus’s experiment with the wight that struck Finklemur, the party finally knows one way to permanently destroy the monsters infesting the sub-basement of Kaligan’s fort. Great danger still lurks below, though, since the party has yet to discover the source of the curse or encounter either the great snap-jaw or mysterious floating merman that Carchus described to Chuq. Finally, what dark and mysterious circumstances could explain the odd mixture of secret imperial agents, merfolk, and devil-fish sorcery in these sealed tunnels? Can the party survive long enough to find out?
Finklemur recovered the broken Inquisitor’s mask from the wight. In it’s current condition, it is worth 1,000XP (divided by 6.5, that’s 154XP for each party member and 77XP for Brice).
– The session concluded 2:10pm on the 23rd of Denrilden; Thorfus, Arus, and Finklemur were burning the wight’s body, the remainder of the party was guarding the workers building a crane.
– The party spent a total of 2 hours and 10 minutes (13 turns) exploring the dungeon; that finishes off the pint of oil from last time (7 turns) and leaves three hour (18 turns) of burning time on another pint (update inventory accordingly).
Tragedy has struck the Starchie Boyz beneath the old imperial fort in Kaligan! Ashton, the half-orc scout and cleric rescued from Grimtooth in Merchant’s Haven, has fallen prey to electric eels while exploring a flooded chamber. After burying their comrade in the village’s cemetery (with its picturesque view of the harbor), the party returns to the underground complex strengthened in their resolve to clear these deadly passages — or at least exact vengeance on their denizens.
The party did not recover any treasure, although they did discover a large number of poor quality weapons along with several trophies (mounted animal heads and war standards/banners from Curabel) in the eel room. The group discussed looting the room later.
– The session concluded 3:10pm on the 22nd of Denrilden in the sub-basement of the village of Kaligan’s old imperial fort
– The party spent a total of 3 hours and thirty minutes (21 turns) exploring the dungeon; that finishes off the pint of oil from last time (4 turns) and leaves an hour and ten minutes (7 turns) of burning time on another pint (update inventory accordingly).
– Deaths: Ashton (giant electric eel) and a bunch of monsters
– Knocked Unconscious: No one (although Uthruk came close)
The reaction bonus number provided by Dexterity is applied to surprise to negate some or all of the surprise segments granted by the surprise roll. Each point of difference between the opposed sides’ surprise rolls is a segment.
By default, this means that each side rolls a d6 for surprise and the difference is the number of surprise segments. A character with a Dexterity reaction bonus can negate the surprise if that bonus exceeds the die difference. In that case, that one character is not part of combat (i.e., neither attacks nor is attacked) until after initiative in the first normal round.
For combat involving creatures or characters that use other dice or percentages to determine surprise, we will need to roll percentile dice. The article linked below from Dragon Magazine #133 explains how we will resolve these situations.
For example, the Starchie Boyz have a 2-in-6 (33%) chance of being surprised while Chuq is a monk who can be surprised only 30% of the time. Let’s assume the opposing side surprises on the normal 2-in-6 chance. If the party rolls under 29%, Chuq can be surprised if the opposing side rolls 68% or more (5+ segments, minus 2 segments for the party’s roll, minus 2 segments for his reaction bonus which equals 1+ surprise segments). The remainder of the party in this situation would be surprised if the opposing side rolls 34% or more (3+ segments, minus 2 segments for the party’s roll, which equals 1+ surprise segments).
