Pool of Radiance AAR: A GrogHeads™ Experience

Started by BanzaiCat, August 20, 2015, 10:46:03 AM

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BanzaiCat

Entry 23-c:
A Fate Worse than a Thousand Deaths.


Now it's time for your favorite "reality" show where the only thing 'Real' is the plastic bits holding up their saggy skin and droopy old woman bewbs, or the collagen injections in their lips making them look like wrinkly Muppets from Hell...it's...

The Real Housezombies of Phlan County

And nooowwww, for the Biggest Douchebag Announcer on BravoTV or anywhere else...

We can attest to this.

...it's that Forgettable Leering Guy!

(breathes heavily)

Someone hit him...

WHACK

Hello, it's me, The Douchebag Announcer. You're probably wonder who I really am. Who could I be? Could I be the innocent looking KYZBP? Would you trust a girl who looked like Prince Valiant in a plum sweater?

Jeepers, mister!

Maybe I'm MIRTH, a "man" who was once arrested for corrupting the morals of a hooker.

Hey, he SAID he was a woman...

Then there's B_C, with an I.Q. of a handball and the personality of a parking meter: violated!

I can neither confirm nor deny this. (*ding*)

Could I be the rogue BARTHHEART, a man who keeps cheese in his underwear to attract mice?

Cor blimey, mate...wewll...it gets awful lonely, y'know? Oi, don' judge now...

Let's not forget BBMIKE, mage by day and mage by night. Ah, BBMIKE; he eats 12 prunes a day and nothing happens.

...well, I wouldn't say NOTHING happens...

And then there's GUSINATOR, a man who sleeps with his nuts in between horse head bookends.

They're already the size o' bloody cannonballs, laddie...the horse head bookends keep me level!

But we're here to talk to the REAL stars of the show, the REAL HOUSEZOMBIES!

Eww-Mah-Gerd, I thought yew'd NEVER get to us...(tries to flip hair, hair comes out in clumps with rotting skin attached)

So you guys REALLY hate this party of adventurers, eh?

Yas! They, like, totally, like, came up the street and were all, like, "OMG, give us your loot," and we were all like, "OMG, no wayyyyyy..."



Yaaaa, one of them, like, toootally flipped out when Lexi was all like, 'bring it on,' and Sharpay was all, "Gurrr-OWL."



But they totally couldn't hit the broad side of like, a...a...umm...like, where the stinky farm animals live...?

Yaa, and then Brook'Lynn came running out of the Chanel store still like totally half in her dress. Ahahahaha!

So, Brylee...

Nooo, I'm Joplyn! OMG.

Sorry, all you Housezombies look alike...

OMG, Yankee, he did not totally just say that.

He totally did, Joplyn! But, like, anyway, some of the other girls got in on the action...



Gosh-darnit all to fizzle-fazzle!

And they got a few good licks in too, didn't they?



Well, that blonde one could totally get HIS licks in anytime he wants (giggle)

OMG, Harvest! You're such a rotten slut! (tee-hee)

So, for the adventurers...is it true it took you MORE than 30 tries to get past these Housezombies?

...

Umm...

Well, they WERE a bunch'a bloody undead, innit?

Yeah, well...our guide rage quit at LEAST 30 times because the damnable Wights kept getting hits in and draining levels.

And we DID finally, eventually, get rid of them all. No thanks to DIRTEN.

At one point we dumped DIRTEN, but that actually made things worse, so we tried again with him and FINALLY beat those annoying bastards.



Well it looks like you got kinda screwed on the XP after having to futz with that one encounter so many times...maybe we'll find out more next time on the REAL HOUSEZOMBIES OF PHLAN COUNTRY! Or maybe not, because this bit probably just wore out its rather long welcome.

mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Sir Slash

Congrats on the win against these very tough enemies. How well I remember getting my living ass handed to me by these un-dead without any asses.  O0
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

BanzaiCat

Entry 23-d:
Graveyards Suck.


I really wasn't kidding in that last post. I actually stopped counting after 30 tries at defeating the Wights et al at that bend. I did drop DIRTEN at one point but strangely, things actually got much, much worse. So I went back to the save point and didn't drop DIRTEN and maybe three tries later, we finally beat their butts. I remembered the underlying feeling of why the Graveyards were something I really didn't want to go through, but the lure of XP and treasure was too much to pass up. Our average level right now is 5th, so imagine trying this as 2nd or 3rd-level characters!

After the damnable Wights were defeated, we turned towards the huge black marble crypt the undead had fought so hard to keep us out of. The doorway was straight out of a Vlad the Impaler nightmare, but you know D&D...treasure!

Inside it wasn't very impressive; piles of broken marble and underlying brick and trash strewn throughout the large, single-room interior...with a coffin, of all things, right in the center.



So it looks like some ghost hunters used the coffin as their trash can. Either that, or the dust could mean the remains of something far more frightening, especially with the broken holy stuff strewn about inside. Though...why would the holy symbols be broken? If they were effective at doing their job(s), wouldn't they be whole?

Then, of course, there's the scroll itself.



Of course we read it. There is no such thing as a right to privacy in the D&D world.



Journal Entry 43
A loosely wrapped scroll.

'Aramalg-the-Good, paladin and brother of Taimalg-the-Invincible, and Sarasim of Teshwave, the high priestess of Sune, attacked the denizens of the Valhingen Graveyard with a holy vengeance. They cam in search of Taimalg and his mercenary band, who assaulted the graveyard and did not return.

'Sarasim used her holy power to dissipate and turn the undead that confronted them. Aramalg wielded his vorpal sword and slew the few that fought her power.

'Together, Aramalg and Sarasim penetrated the graveyard to an evil marble crypt.


Uh-oh. That sounds familiar.

'They found and splintered an empty coffin, blessing the remains and sprinkling it with holy water. Then they confronted the owner of the coffin, a creature of great evil and the leader of the undead in Valhingen, an ancient vampire. The three began a furious melee.

'The vampire was swayed by Aramalg and Sarasim's power, but would not be turned. The vampire shouted, "I have defeated Taimalg and his warriors, I will defeat the brother of Taimalg as well!"

'The vampire summoned an army of rats and tried to charm Sarasim to his side, but to no avail. Sarasim resisted his charm and Aramalg charged through the massed vermin. The vampire fell before the mighty blows of Aramalg's holy sword and Sarasim's enchanted mace.

'Defeated, the ancient vampire dissolved into gas and fled to his coffin. Finding the coffin destroyed he returned to solid form and screamed. Seizing the moment Aramalg grabbed the vampire and held him with all his strength. Sarasim ran up and drove an oaken stake through the vampire's heart.

'Aramalg and Sarasim performed the proper rituals to banish the vampire forever. Then, wounded, Aramalg and Sarasim left Valhingen Graveyard. It was beyond their power to completely cleanse the evil place, but they had extracted proper vengeance for the death of Tiamalg and his troops.'


Okay, so the black marble crypt has to be this one, and this trashed coffin has to be the 'ancient vampire's,' so...what in the lower planes is holding the undead rooted to this graveyard? Usually it is a single creature of great power (D&D cliche alert!), but if these two destroyed the vampire, then surely its hold on the undead would have evaporated?

Surely then, something even worse must be in charge. Or something of equal worse-ness. We could only guess, though we felt we were close to the end of this unholy place.



Well...it doesn't look like we can really do anything with this coffin that wasn't already done, other than turn it into toothpicks or perhaps little souvenirs to sell to the shops of Phlan. (Note to selves: we should start an adventuring LLC when we wrap up this mess. Yes, yes, I know it's technically been done before, and by people far, far more famous, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't invest in our future.)

Sure, why not? Let's...uh...do something to the coffin.  ^-^



Examine it, I guess...?



Well alrighty then. Thanks, D&D, for getting my hopes up and making me think there's treasure in there. Fargin' bastiges!

I try again, and this time we go ahead and choose to Sanctify it, even though it's already been Sanctified. I think. If the game is giving me this option, this means there's probably something out there using it.

Also, since the Journal Entry stated that the adventurers had 'splintered' the coffin...and here, we have an intact coffin...hmm. Sounds like another Creature Of The NightTM has taken up residence, here.



So that's done, then. We continue.

We are now in the northeast part of the graveyard, where the roundabout path leads. We found several other, smaller crypts strewn along our path to this point, but we'd ignored them as they were probably strongholds of some very nasty, level-draining undead.

This time, though, we couldn't resist to examine one of the crypts.



Normal doors = normal treasure.

Huge doors = more treasure.

Metal doors = METAL TREASURE! \m/

Except it's just a crypt, and there's ghostly ghost type things taking umbrage to our unannounced entry.



Turns out it's a couple of Spectres.



Our hatred of the movie by the same name is channeled through our array of magical weaponry, going off on their undead behinds.



Two "SPECTRES" are worth 580 XP. Not great, not bad.

We exit the crypt. There are a few other structures here in this part of the graveyard, and we figure the thing we're looking for is here, somewhere. So we pick another building and head inside.

A short hallway ends in a set of stairs, which we climb to find another short hallway that has a dead end.

'Dead' end. Get it? Because there's totally something dead talking to us there.



Treasure?



TREASURE!

The scrolls have Restoration spells on them. I'll have to get the equipment identified in town, but the Plate Mail is surely magical (as is the rest of it). B-C puts on the Plate Mail, of course. :)

After this building, we found another one with a lone Spectre and a lot of coin treasure...a nice find. I'd show you a screenshot but Photobucket is once again being a PITA and making me do chicanery at this point to get my screenshots uploaded.

Don't worry though, we're near the end of this. The next post will wrap things up. I hope.


airboy

Another exciting adventure of "Poking around the dead is not a good idea in D&D!"

BanzaiCat

Entry 23-e:
"e" as in "ending, finally"
Cleaning Up The Town.




Down to one final building - this one of course in the far northeast of our northeastern area - we approach the building with the solitary, unassuming door.

No doubt a perfect place for the Head Dead to hide out.

Opening the door, we're greeted with a blank wall. Being a master of cartography (or, in other words, graph paper), it's easy to tell there's a hidden space, so we press against the walls until one gives way to a dank passageway...



Not the most ostentatious of surroundings...it speaks more to a Buffalo Bob type than a Head Dead type. But be that as it may, we head down the wooden steps into the darkness.

And, sure enough...



He's nothing like the storybook vampires, thank goodness. No preamble, no sparkling, no long-winded poetic speech, just straight to the combat.

Well, straight to the combat with him and his hell-beast doggies.



The funny thing...the REALLY funny thing...is that this guy is a pushover. After ALL the grief the rest of this damned graveyard gave me, this vampire went down pretty easily.

And so did his little dogs, too.



No sooner than his hell-dogs shuffling off this mortal coil does Mr. Vlad turn into a giant fart and float away on the breeze. Or whatever counts as a breeze down in a pit.



Of course, there's really only one option he has...and that is to float his gassy ass back to the crypt where the coffin was located.

So, we high-tail it back there, arriving just in time.



Yeah, we kind of figured that part out.

He wasn't happy with us having recently decorated his coffin in shades of Vatican Violet, and he started another battle with us.

And he went down just as quickly and easily.

I do recall from previous play-throughs that there's a message displayed saying something about how the air itself seems to lighten and relief floods through the graveyard upon the vampire's passing. However, nothing like this happens in my game. The place remains dark and foreboding.



As a test I go through some of the crypts, but find absolutely nothing. I have the party traipse through the gravestones shouting all kinds of insults in various languages, and nothing. The place is still creepy as hell, but instead of being D&D creepy, it's more middle-school-urban-legend-rumor creepy now.

But we do get credit for clearing the graveyard, as events in Phlan will prove. I will show what happens in the next post, but for now, consider the graveyard to be cleared.


Sir Slash

Yaaahhh. Now we can start selling real estate here for some real treasure. "BC Estates".  :coolsmiley:
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

mirth

 One thing about living in Phlan I never could stomach: all the damn vampires.
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

KyzBP

Quote from: mirth on March 28, 2016, 09:28:29 AM
One thing about living in Phlan I never could stomach: all the damn vampires.
O0 +1

airboy

At least the Vampire was not 500 years old, ruggedly handsome, and trying to date obnoxious teenage females.

Twilight - the real horror story.

JasonPratt

Quote from: airboy on March 28, 2016, 12:39:46 PM
At least the Vampire was not 500 years old, ruggedly handsome, and trying to date obnoxious teenage females.

Twilight - the real horror story.

No, he was 50 years old, ruggedly handsome, and trying to... date, for want of a better word, obnoxious teenage males.

(...um, we're talking about Lost Boys and not the game, right?)
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PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
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BanzaiCat

Entry 24:
Interluuuuuuuuude


After returning from the riot of insanity that was Valig Valin VanHalen the Graveyard, we hesitantly step into Phlan's City Hall, second-guessing ourselves and wondering if we'd actually cleared the place out.



Oh yeah, Proclamation CXXIX...well, that's a little weird, because it has to do with the poisoning of the river, which we've long since dealt with. I think the Phlan City Council needs to hire non-union labor to put their posters up, because these guys be slackin'.

Anyway, we stride into the City Clerk's chambers like we own the place.



Turns out our/my fears were totally unfounded, it seems. We did clear the place up.

And no, I'm not going to go back to see for sure. Fook that place.



Wow...that almost makes it worth it.

But she offers us no treasure in the deal. Just as we're beginning to go all 'WTF...'



Well, that's more like it, then!









At this point, I'm pretty certain we could all move the hell away from this Gods-forsaken place and buy most of Greyhawk, populate it with gold highways and taverns with serving wenches and huge...tracts of land...

...but no, that's the Dark Side calling to us, and as Good characters (well, mostly Good anyway), we have to finish what we started. It's a nice thought, but doesn't make much for an entertaining AAR unfortunately. Or moderately entertaining.

Now, it's time to go level up, because we just got a slew of XP and have more than enough gold to pay for it all, ten times over. :)

First up, we have BBMIKE.



Boom.



Nope, not feeling any of those...moving down the list...



YES.

LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT!

And the rest of the Gang Of Idiots:














BanzaiCat

#177
Entry 25-a:
Buttoning Up The Next Spoolish Mission.


We're running out of things to do, but there's still several choices. I decide to keep it in the Slums and go after the Cadorna Textile House next.

We were tasked by Junior Councilman Cadorna, the last heir to the original Cadorna family fortune (and gee, who DOESN'T know about that), to go and fetch something.

He had sent an adventurer (yes, singular) to the ruined remains of his family's holdings, but the guy hasn't returned. (Go figure.) He wants us to go in there and find both the hired adventurer (or his remains) as well as the Cadorna family treasure. He offers to pay us generously for the return of both.

Money really isn't a huge desire at this point, but hey, cash is cash. Plus good deed for rescuing/scooping up the innards of the deceased single adventurer he sent in there in the first place.



The thing is, there's really not much here to be worried about. It's a standard block with standard monsters that, at this point, pose very little challenge for us.



As these hobgoblins are about to find out, starting a fight with us at a distance isn't necessarily a better choice than starting one up close and personal. Just for funzies, I create a line between the walls, and these distant Hobbos charge us.

The results are pretty much what I expected. As soon as they get within reach of any of our characters, they're turned into Swedish meatballs.





MIRTH and his faaaaabulous +1 Scimitar even get in on the act, as you can see above.

I won't even bother showing you screenshots of the so-called "treasure." A few hundred pieces of copper and a few dozen silver...it's hardly worth the encumbrance to pick it up! Funny how things look different from this end of the level spectrum as opposed to starting out at 1st level and picking up every sword to sell for a pittance back at the shops of Phlan.

Cadorna Textile House is a maze of buildings and alleyways, not making much sense in structure; we wander around and pick up some random encounters that are hardly worth the effort, eventually making our way to the southernmost building. In our wanderings, we get a lot of screaming, charging Hobgoblins. Each time, I just line our guys up and put them in 'Guarding' status, so when the Hobgoblin wave hits us, it pretty much fizzles before it does anything of value.



We enter from the far east side and make our way deeper into the structure, eventually finding what looks like a kitchen.



A closer inspection reveals some rather ghastly items intended for the local denizen's menu:





Moving into a hallway off of the kitchen...



Dark objects = VALUABLE TREASURE, right?

Not in this case.



Wow. That's just nasty. Crushing a monster's skull and using his bloody head like a marker to write his name on the wall. I guess whomever SKULLCRUSHER is, he at least spelled everything right.

This could be our missing adventurer. Maybe. I mean, even an adolescent can crush a Hobgoblin skull, so that's hardly impressive. Still, it's a clue.



Okay, really?

Searching it reveals nothing, of course. Leaving us an option to destroy it is somewhat baffling, because...why would you want to destroy something as random and minor as that? As opposed to leaving it? And possibly allowing Tiamat or something major to drop a turd bomb on the Textile House and leave a smoking crater a mile wide?

This is how paranoid D&D minds think, you know.

Eventually we head to the other side of the square, exiting the southern building, to explore the structures on the western side. We haven't cleared the entirety of the southern building yet.

Stepping into one on the west side, we find a sh*thole hostile hostel.



And guess what?





Advance!



Parlay! (snicker)



Gee whiz. We tried to spare their lives. Maybe not too hard, but we tried!

Since this is a barracks, there's a LOT of the boogers here.



That pretty much just means more target practice for us.

It doesn't take long to clear them out.

Exploring the rest of the building, we find a door off of the barracks that leads into another, even larger room.



'Disquiet' is pretty much what I feel when I have to go into my son's room for any reason, let alone adventurers in a pig-pen of a building overrun by Hobgoblins.



Why, don't YOU have a purty mouth, boy! Err...girl?

I AM THE MIGHTY GRISHNAK! HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT! FEEL MY...MY...

UH...

MIRTH?


...Hmm? Who? Wait, ME?!?

UH, HELLO? GRISHNAK?

...

GRISHNAK. YOU KNOW. VELVET SPIKE CLUB.

...

RADIGAST CITY. YOU KNOW. YOU COME TO CLUB. YOU BUY GRISHNAK DRINK. YOU ALREADY IN THE CUP.

Oh, wait...uh...maybe?

REALLY?!? YOU TELL GRISHNAK SHE...SHE HAVE PRETTsniff...PRETTIEST GREEN EYES...

Oh...green...sure...?

YES. YOU TELL GRISHNAK PRETTY GREEN EYES THAT MAKE ALL LANDS LOOK LIKE GRAY-HAWK. YOU USE PLAY ON WORDS.

A pun, eh? No doubt that's you, mate.

Please. MIRTH has left his mark up and down the Nyr Dyv.

GRRRRRRR

'Scuse me, barkeep...five orders of popcorn, if you please...

YOU SAY YOU COME BACK.

Well, you see...uh...babe...?...Uh...I kinda got busy with this here adventurin' gig, you know how it is...

YOU TELL GRISHNAK YOU MARRY HER!!!

Whoa, whoa, whooooaaa, darlin'...you know, I, uh...that can't be me, 'cause MIRTH gotta be free...

Free. FREE?!?!?!

Golly, Mister MIRTH! I'd be GLAD to perform the ceremo-

Not NOW, goody two-shoes...!

YOU SHOW GRISHNAK NIGHT OF PASSION AND LOVE UNLIKE NO FOUL BEAST EVER GIVE GRISHNAK BEFORE!

(snicker)

YOU MAKE GRISHNAK'S LADY PARTS QUIVER LIKE GELATINOUS CUBES

Well...y'know, that does sound like me, but...

DADDY?

OMG WTH

HERE IS RESULT OF BOUNTIFUL LOVE UNION TRYST THAT BROKE ALL RACE BARRIERS

'Scuse me, barkeep...better make that another five rounds of popcorn, we might be here a while...

WHOA now honey...hey, hey now, we can talk, in private, right?

NOOO YOU HAVE CHANCE BUT YOU RUIN BEST THING IN YOUR LIFE MIRTH NOW FACE BATTLE WITH BROKEN HEARTED GRISHNAK!!! RARRRRRG

(draws sword) Is this going to be a habit throughout our adventures, MIRTH?

(shrug)



GRISHNAK is kind of an uber-powered Hobbo, so she's pretty much going to get the bulk of attention. She's a Cleric, I believe, and the last thing we need is her casting Hold Person spells and actually possibly causing a casualty or two among the party!



Since Hobgoblins suck at combat, though, I'm not worried about any of the rest of them.



One solid hit...



...and then another, with GUSINATOR landing both blows to bring her down.

The rest of them fall pretty quickly after that.

The reward for clearing these monsters out (and removing one more skeleton from MIRTH's closet, to boot) is pretty decent.



I'll continue our adventures in the Cadorna Textile House later.

Just as an aside note, I really don't plan any of these silly asides; they just occur to me as I start to write these up, and it's all by the seat of my pants as I create it. I imagine it would possibly be funnier if I actually planned the jokes out, but I'm happy enough with being able to post regularly to this and to provide a modicum of entertainment to y'all as it is, so...if you're not complaining, I'm going to keep it up.






MetalDog

Quote from: Banzai_Cat on March 28, 2016, 07:34:17 PM
Just as an aside note, I really don't plan any of these silly asides; they just occur to me as I start to write these up, and it's all by the seat of my pants as I create it. I imagine it would possibly be funnier if I actually planned the jokes out, but I'm happy enough with being able to post regularly to this and to provide a modicum of entertainment to y'all as it is, so...if you're not complaining, I'm going to keep it up.

That's the best I've read yet!  Even better for being off the cuff  O0
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus