When I last discussed the Dwimmermount game, the characters were picking themselves up off the floor after getting horribly beaten by a tomb with mummies, at least until they rallied and destroyed the horrors. This session began with the injured (and infected) characters dragging themselves to the surface with all the loot they recovered from the tomb. Their first order of business (after burying the dead guys) was to head back to Adamas and try to get the curses lifted from everyone suffering Mummy Rot. There's no healing while cursed, with Mummy Rot.
The players recovered some amazing magic items from the mummy's loot - a magic carpet, a flaming sword, and a helm of teleportation. Drev, their Squindian Pirate Bard, now rides everywhere on a magic carpet. Wulfengard calls his new flaming sword, the Kylo Ren sword. Marthanes got the helm of teleportation working in Adamas… his player remarked, "Can Marthanes get any cooler?" Oh, and Bart hired an expensive animal trainer to train a bear for him, in Muntburg. He wants to own an armored bear that he can send into battle. I guess it's like the D&D equivalent of those rich boxers that keep pet tigers around.
Here's how all the characters look after spending time in the city, selling stuff and leveling up:
Marthanes the Summoner, (level 4 Mage)
Tancrede, a level 4 cleric of Typhon (henchman)
Wulfengard,a level 4 dwarf fighter
Sloth the Mook, level 1 fighter (new henchman)
Drev, a level 4 bard
Bud, a level 3 dwarven cleric
Bart, a level 4 fighter
Mumford, a level 3 fighter
Malthena, a level 3 thief (henchman)
Arethusa, Mage 3 (henchman)
Utor, level 3 Elven Enchanter
Before the new dungeon stuff got rolling, the players returned to Dwimmermount (level 3) and went through the portal to Volmar, to try and convince Arethusa to come adventuring; last session, her friend Collothus, died in the mummy tomb. It had been some weeks that they left her stranded in Volmar, and she was starting to adopt their ways. But a good reaction roll and the promise of a hefty share encouraged her to return with them to Dwimmermount.
The emperor was irritated they'd been gone so long without a report, so they needed to make a full accounting. The emperor was very irritated to hear the Eld had returned and invaded "his dungeon", so he declared war on the planet Aeron. Since the players had pacified most of level 3A, the Volmarians would start moving in and taking over the Eld portal. On some level, I think they'd like to see a Volmarian army march out of the front gate of Dwimmermount at some point, just for the chaos and craziness of it all.
With Arethusa back in the fold, and assurance that Volmar would conquer level 3A, the players returned to the dungeon. They knew there was no apparent way from level 3A down to level 4 - they had searched the level with 'Locate Object spells' - so they deemed it was time to return to level 1 and start messing with the elevator shaft. They could use that to get down to 4. No one had figured out how to use the elevator, but they had a magic carpet.
However, rather than going down, the players went up - the shaft went in both directions, implying there was a level up above level 1. In the Dwimmermount book, this is a special level 0, the "Divinatarium". It was both older than anything else they'd explored, and more "high tech" as well.
It was clear to me the players were seriously outclassed, but they persevered regardless. There were battles with slurping algae men, who incapacitated swathes of characters with brutal mental blasts (algoids). They fought muscular grey men, with wickedly spiked plate armor and large two-handed swords (Astral Reavers). There were obviously bad rooms holding slimes and acid monsters the players astutely avoided, and a few rooms infested with terrible fungal monsters, where only a lucky saving throw (and a quick retreat) avoided a gruesome infection. Without a Cure Disease spell available, it seemed that every other encounter was a roulette roll with death.
As usual, the game had a series of interludes that only the kids can author. We may have seen our last "I Bart the Door" from Bart. One of the rooms had a rune covered door, which Bart triggered (explosively) due to his impetuous nature, before anyone could get the chance to warn him that runes could be bad. He staggered back, dying. "Medic!" In ACKS terms, the system is fairly forgiving of characters that end up near death, as long as a cleric can get to them quickly and perform first aid and magic. But Bart would be stuck at 1 hp and bandaged for a few weeks.
Tancrede, their balding and asthmatic cleric with the 8 constitution and the combat death wish, started wearing the armor of an Astral Reaver, spiked shoulders and gauntlets and a crazy helmet. They now call him their "death metal accountant" - the most dangerous accountant in the world.
There were a few signature discoveries on this visit to the Dinivatarium. In the office where Bart blew himself up, they found a centuries old library of conjectural works on the Ancients and the origins of the gods - like the Dwimmermount equivalent of von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods". There was a Book of Infinite Spells in the library, too. But the most mind-blowing discovering was in a large observatory chamber - a full-sized space ship! Assuming the characters can figure it out, they potentially have a way to travel to the stars and planets. The players really want to own a space ship. Dwimmermount continues to push the bounds.
We had to end the session here, as it was getting late, and a half dozen or more slime-covered zombies slurped to their feet and started slowly shambling across the large hangar towards the characters, blocking access to the space ship. There was an intense table debate whether to fight or retreat; the younger kids usually want to fight everything. "You've found the absorbatory, Marthanes, now let us fight these zombies - this is a demarkusry, so we get to vote", said one of the 9 year olds.
The players recovered some amazing magic items from the mummy's loot - a magic carpet, a flaming sword, and a helm of teleportation. Drev, their Squindian Pirate Bard, now rides everywhere on a magic carpet. Wulfengard calls his new flaming sword, the Kylo Ren sword. Marthanes got the helm of teleportation working in Adamas… his player remarked, "Can Marthanes get any cooler?" Oh, and Bart hired an expensive animal trainer to train a bear for him, in Muntburg. He wants to own an armored bear that he can send into battle. I guess it's like the D&D equivalent of those rich boxers that keep pet tigers around.
Here's how all the characters look after spending time in the city, selling stuff and leveling up:
Marthanes the Summoner, (level 4 Mage)
Tancrede, a level 4 cleric of Typhon (henchman)
Wulfengard,a level 4 dwarf fighter
Sloth the Mook, level 1 fighter (new henchman)
Drev, a level 4 bard
Bud, a level 3 dwarven cleric
Bart, a level 4 fighter
Mumford, a level 3 fighter
Malthena, a level 3 thief (henchman)
Arethusa, Mage 3 (henchman)
Utor, level 3 Elven Enchanter
Before the new dungeon stuff got rolling, the players returned to Dwimmermount (level 3) and went through the portal to Volmar, to try and convince Arethusa to come adventuring; last session, her friend Collothus, died in the mummy tomb. It had been some weeks that they left her stranded in Volmar, and she was starting to adopt their ways. But a good reaction roll and the promise of a hefty share encouraged her to return with them to Dwimmermount.
The emperor was irritated they'd been gone so long without a report, so they needed to make a full accounting. The emperor was very irritated to hear the Eld had returned and invaded "his dungeon", so he declared war on the planet Aeron. Since the players had pacified most of level 3A, the Volmarians would start moving in and taking over the Eld portal. On some level, I think they'd like to see a Volmarian army march out of the front gate of Dwimmermount at some point, just for the chaos and craziness of it all.
With Arethusa back in the fold, and assurance that Volmar would conquer level 3A, the players returned to the dungeon. They knew there was no apparent way from level 3A down to level 4 - they had searched the level with 'Locate Object spells' - so they deemed it was time to return to level 1 and start messing with the elevator shaft. They could use that to get down to 4. No one had figured out how to use the elevator, but they had a magic carpet.
However, rather than going down, the players went up - the shaft went in both directions, implying there was a level up above level 1. In the Dwimmermount book, this is a special level 0, the "Divinatarium". It was both older than anything else they'd explored, and more "high tech" as well.
It was clear to me the players were seriously outclassed, but they persevered regardless. There were battles with slurping algae men, who incapacitated swathes of characters with brutal mental blasts (algoids). They fought muscular grey men, with wickedly spiked plate armor and large two-handed swords (Astral Reavers). There were obviously bad rooms holding slimes and acid monsters the players astutely avoided, and a few rooms infested with terrible fungal monsters, where only a lucky saving throw (and a quick retreat) avoided a gruesome infection. Without a Cure Disease spell available, it seemed that every other encounter was a roulette roll with death.
As usual, the game had a series of interludes that only the kids can author. We may have seen our last "I Bart the Door" from Bart. One of the rooms had a rune covered door, which Bart triggered (explosively) due to his impetuous nature, before anyone could get the chance to warn him that runes could be bad. He staggered back, dying. "Medic!" In ACKS terms, the system is fairly forgiving of characters that end up near death, as long as a cleric can get to them quickly and perform first aid and magic. But Bart would be stuck at 1 hp and bandaged for a few weeks.
Tancrede, their balding and asthmatic cleric with the 8 constitution and the combat death wish, started wearing the armor of an Astral Reaver, spiked shoulders and gauntlets and a crazy helmet. They now call him their "death metal accountant" - the most dangerous accountant in the world.
There were a few signature discoveries on this visit to the Dinivatarium. In the office where Bart blew himself up, they found a centuries old library of conjectural works on the Ancients and the origins of the gods - like the Dwimmermount equivalent of von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods". There was a Book of Infinite Spells in the library, too. But the most mind-blowing discovering was in a large observatory chamber - a full-sized space ship! Assuming the characters can figure it out, they potentially have a way to travel to the stars and planets. The players really want to own a space ship. Dwimmermount continues to push the bounds.
We had to end the session here, as it was getting late, and a half dozen or more slime-covered zombies slurped to their feet and started slowly shambling across the large hangar towards the characters, blocking access to the space ship. There was an intense table debate whether to fight or retreat; the younger kids usually want to fight everything. "You've found the absorbatory, Marthanes, now let us fight these zombies - this is a demarkusry, so we get to vote", said one of the 9 year olds.
