Vaults of Vyzor, sesh 14

Roster

Rose Royce, trash elf princess (Kiel Chenier)
Pokey the Porcupine (pet) [Was Pokey actually there?  I think we sorta forgot about the pets this session.]
Sneakerly Trull, half-orc thief (Zak S.)
Mozarella, doggie (pet)
Big Gnome, LotFP specialist (Luka Rejec)  [Luka wanted to roll up a gnome but didn't have any old school gnome rules handy, so he made a specialist to simulate a gnome with a glandular disorder.  I may make a Random Advancement Gnome soon.  I was gonna do Druids next.]
Szazsraz, lizard wizard (Chris Wilson)
Lunch, doggie (pet)

How I imagine Szazsraz.

So imagine you're a newly minted first level PC like Big Gnome or Szazsraz and you end up in a party of grizzled adventurers like Rose and Sneakerly.  They've each been in this dungeon on multiple locations and they seem to agree that the Azure Vault is the area that you need to explore.  Surely, they know what they're doing, right?

Now imagine the first door you open has a wight behind it.

Few fights in D&D are as desperate as those against level-draining undead.  Fortunately, Sneakerly had

a silver dagger, but obviously he was not digging being in melee with this baddie.  Szazsraz joined in by holding 4 silver pieces in his fist, like you can do with car keys.  And Rose started gnawing on the wight's ankle with her one silver tooth, hitting multiple times for 1 point of damage.  Big Gnome waived his shovel menacingly at the wight, to no effect.  Meanwhile, I was rolling crap for the wight and didn't hit even once.  Eventually, Szazsraz rolled a crit and punched the wight's damn fool head off, but, being undead, that did not finish him.  Rose ended the combat by biting through the wight's skull and chomping on its shriveled undead brain.  Ain't no one more hardcore than Rose Royce.

The party then committed some grievous animal cruelty on a pack of harmless, cuddly man-eating crocodiles.  When discussing how to best brutalize the poor beasts, Zak repeatedly insisted that the door between them and the crocodiles would keep them safe because "crocodiles don't have hands."  I was sorely tempted to quietly scribble the world "mutant" into my key to justify giving them opposable thumbs on the spot.

The party found another set of monster cages.  It's a pretty well-known fact now that the first level of the Azure Vault is some sort of prison/zoo/torture chamber for the King of the Elves.  One cage contained 8 lady bugbears and their mewling bugbear babies.  They claimed that they were intended as hostages from the Lord of the Bugbears to the Elf King and that they assumed they would end up working as servants in the kitchens or somesuch, but instead they've been locked up.  The other cage contained a pair of beholders named Sidney and Francis.

The adventurers to the Azure Vault have all faced the same basic problem: their miscreant hearts go out

to the imprisoned monsters, but they don't trust that they can release them and not get eaten.  This time negotations breaking down resulted in Sidney and Francis getting into the eyebeam equivalent of a slap-fight and then crying and hugging it out.  Or at least, whatever passes for hugs among beholders.  Holy shit, is that why they're so grumpy?!?  Without arms they can't hug?

While this was all going on one of the Elf King's jailers showed up, an ogre that looked like Ralph Wiggum but 8' and mean.  He was murdered.  Big Gnome started carrying around the dead ogre's big spiky club.

They then took a nearby stairs down to the second level of the Azure Vaults.  There they discovered a large library haunted by the librarian lady from the original Ghostbusters.  The party checked out some books.  Sneakerly fond a book on orcish cruisine, detailing the correct preparation methods for 99 humanoid and demi-human races.  Luka came up with some great useless book titles (Big Gnome was looking for the most expensive-looking bindings), but I can't find where I saved them.  Of course the whole point of checking these books out was to sell them on the surface, which netted them a tidy profit.

The party then returned to the surface and everyone but Sneakerly got good and properly drunk.  My notes at this point are a mess.  I think Rose lost what little money she had left gambling (and she still owes a pile to the local loan sharks).  Kiel, if you are reading this, your character's silver tooth was also lost.  Big Gnome ended up initiated into some sort of sinister cult, but he was so drunk that he can't remember the passwords or secret handshake.  Was it Satanists?  Pan worshippers?  Followers of Cernunnos?  Definitely a statue of someone with horns and a big wang was involved.  And Szazsraz ended up with a tattoo (not sure how that works with lizards, but what the hey) of two beholders arguing.

Roses map of the Azure Vault I

Azure Vault II

ONGOING ROLL OF THE DEAD

Bufo the Wizard (Makali’i F), Beefo the Gerblin Drinking Buddy (NPC), Willy Whats-His-Name (0-level Loser), Poor Brother Rupert (cleric hireling), unnamed serving boy (0-level hireling), Gwalin Rustbritches (dwarf hireling), Jarrod the Magic-User (Ian Reilly), Jonesy (0-level NPC), Little Liam Linkboy (0-level NPC), Limpy the Naileteer (Jeff Call), Engsal the Enchanter (Alex Joneth), Elfbraham Lincoln (Jeff Call)., Littlens (0-level NPC), Biggens (0-level NPC), Stimpy (0-level NPC), Ren (0-level NPC)

AZURE TOWER GUEST LIST

Big Gnome (Luke Rejec), Szazsraz the Wizard Lizard (Chris Wilson), Rose Royce (Kiel Chenier), Sneakerly Trull (Zak S.), Ilse Raagenkampf (Perttu Vedenoja), Persimion Finch (Galen Fogarty), Magic Meryl (Nick Kuntz), Merrill Meadows (Michael Julius), Chef (Richie Cyngler)