Vaults of Vyzor, session 17

Roster

Barnabus Sleet, muscle wizard (Maxim Golubchik)

Dale Bidwell, fighter/valet (NPC)

Emma Bright-Eyes, likely lass (NPC)

Yohey the Carpenter, LotFP specialist (Anthony Fournier)

Brutal Pete, dwarf (Aleksandr Revzin)

Adam o' the Dungheap, mercenary (NPC)

Diagast Ratnight, cleric (Jay Murphy)

One day before the most recent expedition to the Vaults a known Muscle Wizard, Library Founder, and possible Wizard War Provoker by the name of Barnabus Sleet throws a massive block party where he sacrifices and then barbecues dozens of goats.  Pretty much all the ne'er-do-wells in the vicinity of Castle Vyzor attend.  Maybe goat's not on everyone's personal list of top 10 barbecue meats, but, hey, a free meal is a free meal.

BBQ enthusiast Ed McBride, pictured above, used to play
a lot of D&D.  He sold his custom dragon BBQ rig for 65 large.

Turns out the sacrifice part of the goat-b-q was used to cast the infamous Lamentations of the Flame Princess spell Summon.  This allowed Sleet to call up a random demon. Ramanan Sivaranjan's excellent online LotFP demon generator was consulted, as was my own goetic demon name generator.  And out of the fire appeared a pile of vaguely anthropomorphic seaweed with the trait "reflective genitalia."  That's LotFP for you, I guess.  A further die roll determined that the genitalia in question were male, and the creature was dubbed Gachos Disco-Wang.

A pair of local clerics protested the summoning.

The next day the now eight strong party entered the Citrine Vaults.  The first real stop was the orc's armory.  No guards happened to be about, so they just helped themselves to some free weapons and armor.

They found the orcish temple (previous looted at least twice!) under construction, a gang of goblin working stiffs building a cage-type reliquary in the west end of the chamber.  The party posed as unholy building inspectors (having a demon along helped this out tremendously).  Yohey the Carpenter inspected the reliquary, hoping to install a secret catch to open it later when it is presumably full of valuable artifacts.  Turns out the goblins were already working on that themselves!

In the rec room they found a bunch of orcs shooting pool and one old orc tending bar.  Gachos the demon ordered drinks and acted like he belonged there and the orcs believed it.  Once again the party bypassed an unnecessary fight.

Following that near adventure, the party visited the pantry via a pair of secret doors.  Turns out the poisoning attempted last session had only killed the boss orc's food taster and now a rigorous system of food inspection has been instigated.  Well, rigorous for orcs any way.  They make a gnome taste all incoming supplies.

Speaking of gnomes, they found a pair of badly beaten gnome women working the orcish kitchens.  They refused to escape with the party, as they feared repercussions against their families.  It turns out that the gnomes of Verdant II recently lost a pitched battle to the orcs and now the badguys are in charge of the areas of the dungeon previously held by the gnomes.  All the gnomes are dead or enslaved.  Barnabus swore to set this matter aright in a future expedition.

The Hexahedron of Erno.  Mostly harmless. 

Taking the stairs down to Citrine II, the party surprised and slaughtered the morloi prison guards, again cosplaying as Jokers and Harleys for reasons that remain unexplained.  The morloi were easy to sneak up on, as they were all fascinated by this strange object one of them had in her possession.

After killer the jailers of the morloi prison, the party freed another prisoner.  He was there last session and the previous party never checked his cell.  The prisoner was a dwarf named Thombur.  He was being tortured by the morloi by having the world's slowest Bag of Devouring placed on his head.  That's why he's called Thombur No-face now.  Dude is a little unhinged.

Emma Bright-Eyes tore a strip of cloth
from her dress to bandage the poor bastard.

The party proceeded down to the third level of the Citrine Vault.  There they captured an old morloi Bishop of Chaos, who they hoped to use as a hostage to get through the temple.  That didn't go to plan, as the high priestess never like him that much.  In the ensuing fight a bunch of morloi cultist were slain.  The high priestess almost got away, but a timely hold person from Diagast spelled her doom.  Barnabus ended up grappling with a morloi mutant with tentacles where his arms should be.  Brutal Pete took the worst hit of the night, a critical hit to the groin with a mace, sending him to the floor in agony.  But he and his wedding tackle survived.  Thombur also went down at one point, but he was revived later.  The old bishop slunk away during the fight.

After looting the bejesus out of the temple of the morloi, the party arrived at their goal: the Red Dragon Fighting Society dojo.  A sneaky suggestion spell from Barnabus allowed the party to negotiate a discount for their membership fee in the society and a bunch of people learned kung-fu, even some of the NPCs.  Emma Bright-eyes, that lovable young lass, advanced to first level in the Muscle Wizard class AND learned some kick-ass martial arts moves!

The party returned to the surface and several people got sloppy drunk while carousing.  While thus intoxicated Barnabus returned to the house of the Ink Witches and professed his love for Gretcha the Half-Orc.  His heart was broken when she revealed that she was in a committed relationship with her two wives, the other witches.

The next day a hung-over-as-hell Barnabus remembers his deal with the Sorcerer of the Blue Mask (details here) and rushes over to the Azure Tower to receive his geas to slay King Elexus.

Thus ends Phase I of the Vaults of Vyzor campaign.  Phase II is Total War Against the Unseelie Court, as Barnabus, Rose Royce, Szazsraz the Lizard Wizard, and Laurantha the Unbeautiful finds themselves the inadvertent lieutenants of the Sorcerer of the Blue Mask.  Most sessions will focus on one of the four leading a party into the Azure Vaults to destroy that jerk the Elf King.

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

Barnabus Sleet (Maxim Golubchik), Laurantha the Unbeautiful (Cullen), 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)