Looks of horror, part 2 (Aramia game)
Jun. 5th, 2005 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenSo, it was my turn to GM yesterday. After the requisite shopping spree and division of loot (somehow Tharnor, John's dwarvish-elvish druid, had managed to end up getting *both* the magic items the party has so far acquired, leaving him with 1900 GP worth of a 3600 GP haul that needed to be divided among six), they set off northwards through hill country with half a dozen merchants who had promised food and beer in exchange for an escort.
The weather was cold and grey, and it soon started to rain. The PCs stayed alert for danger; at one point they saw a goblin peeking at them from behind cover, but it immediately run away. They later met a Shields of Mavri patrol travelling the other way, who told them the goblins were unlikely to attack twelve well-armed people and gave them information about the road ahead. The next town was two days away, but by early afternoon they should come to a little valley, and a little way uphill and off the road to the right there'd be a cave, a popular stopping-stop for travellers. The Shields recommended resting there rather than pushing on and trying to find shelter at dusk.
As they headed on, the rain got heavier and heavier, and the cave seemed like a very good idea. They reached the aforementioned valley, and found that a landslip a little way down the valley had jammed it with debris and fallen trees, blocking the outflow and causing water to back up across the road. Although not flowing very fast, it was by now about three feet deep, so the PCs had to be careful crossing it; Tharnor's horse went over (perhaps because it was carrying Tharnor *and* Vananna the gnome), but nobody got swept away and they eventually made it up to the cave.
There were enough sensible people in the party to make sure they searched the cave thoroughly before making camp for the night, but there were no lurking monsters or secret doors to goblin cities, just the rubbish and debris left by previous travellers. The rain was just getting heavier and heavier outside, so they made a fire with the wood they had and set a watch.
About half an hour later, when everybody else was asleep by the fire (except for a couple who were with the horses at the back of the cave), the two on watch spotted something moving up the hill towards them, something dark and shiny. Rather than wake everybody up (three out of six party members are now arcane casters who need eight hours' uninterrupted sleep to refresh spells, which makes watch duties interesting), they waited until it got closer: a centipede about nine feet long. Elsard the ranger took one swing at it, scored a critical, and rolled enough damage to kill it outright. (Extra rejoicing because in our other game we've been facing so many elementals, undead, and other immune-to-criticals of late that I had to reassure them that yes, centipedes do indeed have vitals.)
At this point, behind it, they saw five smaller centipedes coming up the hill, each about three feet long. (What with the rain and the dark, visibility was appalling, which is why I'd been having them make Spot checks to see the beggars.) Tylis the fighter/sorcerer (whose player will undoubtedly correct me on any details I get wrong here) moved out from the cave to engage the nearest one, killed it with one blow... and realised that behind the four remaining small centipedes were eight tiny ones, each about one foot long. ('Tiny' being a D&D size category here; a foot-long centipede is still indecently large for me.) In case anybody's wondering, the centipedes had been living in the mess of debris formed by the landslip, and were flooded out by the rain, so they were looking for shelter.
It being the centipedes' turn, they went for him and Elsard. Each of them was pretty feeble on its own, but by weight of numbers and lucky rolls, they scored a lot of hits; none of them was capable of doing more than 1 HP damage, but they were also venomous, and their victims were starting to take Dex damage. Tylis in particular was getting badly bitten, and between loss of HP and poor Dex (making him an easier target for later attacks) he turned tail and ran, waking up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
edward_dujean the cleric.
Meanwhile, Elsard was dealing with a lot of centipedes, and the players were getting rather uneasy because I was still asking for Spot checks, and they were getting pretty low numbers. But eventually he managed to see what was coming up behind the tiny centipedes.
PCs: "Let me guess, the first big one was Papa and this one's Mama?"
Me: "No, no... guys, what has the size progression been so far?"
PCs: "One large one, then five small ones, then eight tiny ones, then..."
Mmm, looks of slowly dawning horror :-)
Elsard backed towards the cave as Edward came out to aid him. Both got bitten some more by the bigger centipedes, and retreated through the cave mouth, Elsard breaking a flask of oil in the doorway. Edward dropped a torch in the oil, but in my game, lamp-oil is not gasoline. It takes a while to light, and meanwhile the centipedes came through it, the remaining tinies - I think all the smalls had been killed by now - and part of the swarm. Edward healed himself; Elsard was swarmed and took nasty, nasty damage, dropping his weapon and trying frantically to brush the swarm off him before falling unconscious.
At around this point the oil finally caught, and started crisping centipedes. The yelling had woken the rest of the party, and they started to contribute; the tiny ones were now dead, but enough of the swarm had made it through the oil before it caught to pose a serious threat. Tylis dragged Elsard away from the swarm as the others tried to fight it; Edward got swarmed again, bitten back down to 0 HP, and fled. The party had little that would hurt the swarm besides torches and a few 0-level spells; as it came closer, one of the merchants had the presence of mind to get on the other side of their campfire and kick it at the swarm, and between that and the oil and the torches and spells they finally managed to kill it.
Nobody died, but the party was very badly mauled, and several of them had taken serious ability damage from poisoning - Edward had lost 6 points of Dex, and Tylis 5. It might have been slightly easier on them if the watch had woken the others earlier, if Tylis hadn't charged out of the cave, and if the centipedes hadn't rolled as well as they did, but I planned it to be a close-run thing, and it certainly was.
They holed up in the cave for two days; the weather outside was still filthy, and they had no magical way to heal the Dex damage, so the most badly afflicted characters needed to rest. (This meant, incidentally, that there were only enough healthy characters for one person to stand watch at a time, but with all the rain, there wasn't much moving.)
By dusk on the second day, the rain had finally stopped. Seeing this, Tharnor decided to slip away to - as he put it - " go prancing around outside for a bit". Without telling anybody where he was going.
Allow me to recap: they're in hill country. It's been raining heavily for two days. They have already seen evidence of a recent landslip in the area. And Tharnor, who has no Dex to speak of, goes nancing around the hillside like Julie Andrews with a beard.
He failed a Balance check, and went sliding down a slope, taking a point or two of damage and winding up in a stream swollen by the rain. In armour, with a shield. I had him making Swim rolls, most of which he failed, due to having no Swim skill and wearing armour. Any time he actually *made* one, I let him try a Climb check to get out, all of which he failed, due to having no Climb skill and wearing armour. ("Can I have been prancing around naked?" "NO.")
I let him hold his breath for 13 rounds, that being his Con score, and then (as per the PHB swimming rules) asked him to make a Con check to avoid drowning. He failed. I went to the DMG to check what came next: drop to 0 HP, unconscious the round after, effectively certain death for a lone character. (I wasn't going to pull out a deus ex machina to save him from the consequences of his own stupidity.) But I also noticed that the breath-holding rules in the DMG were twice as generous as in the PHB, and since his player had the shiny special-ed PHB with the latest version of the rules we checked there, confirming that the more generous rules were correct. He got 13 more rounds, and somewhere in that he managed to pull himself out.
Dripping wet. The stream was cold as hell, and it was cold and windy out. He'd gone quite some way downstream, and as he staggered back to camp he failed a couple of Fort saves, taking subdual damage from hypothermia; he had to use a Cure Light Wounds on himself to recover enough to get back to the cave. When he did, he wouldn't tell anybody what had happened (I think out of embarrassment), and just said "I'm going to go sit by the fire for a bit."
"No you're not, you're on watch, remember?"
So, still chilled to the bone, and soaking wet, he tromps outside to sit in the cold and the wind keeping watch.
"Roll a Fortitude save, difficulty 15."
"Nope."
"OK, you take 1d6 subdual damage."
One hour later:
"Roll a Fortitude save, difficulty 16."
"Nope."
"Take another 1d6 subdual damage."
One hour later:
"Roll a Fort save, difficulty 17."
"Nope."
"Take another 1d6 subdual damage."
"Okay, I'm unconscious."
Meanwhile, everybody *else* was curled up asleep by the fire as Tharnor slowly froze outside.
One hour later:
"Roll a Fort save, difficulty 18."
"Nope."
"Take 1d6 lethal damage."
*Very* fortunately for him, the character set to take second watch got a very good roll on a Wisdom check, so was cluey enough to realise he'd slept more than his allotted time, and the fire was getting low, and Tharnor really *should* have woken him up to take his shift. They found Tharnor, not *quite* dead, but cold and blue like a Smurf, and hauled him inside and managed to save him thanks to healing spells and hot drinks. (Nobody was willing to bundle up with him and share body heat, funnily enough.)
When told off for falling asleep on watch, he replied: "Well, it wasn't my fault", and I lost it, threw back my head and laughed out loud.
They made it through to morning without anybody freezing to death, and set off northwards. The rain had stopped, and some of the water had run off, but it was bitterly cold and getting colder, foggy enough to dampen clothes as well as spirits. As the day went on it just got colder and colder, and the wind picked up, blowing through the pass. By two p.m. the party were still about four hours away from the next town and didn't think they were going to make it; people were on the verge of falling, even with all their clothes and blankets wrapped around them. They agreed to get off the road, look for shelter, and try to make a fire; off to one side, they could see a stand of trees on a hill.
As they got to the top of the hill, the fog parted for a moment, and they saw lights down below on the other side. They sent Neil's familiar (a raven) down to investigate, and it reported back that there was a village about a mile away. Our friends plodded down the hill, into the village, and were *very* relieved to find shelter at last. It was market day, and because the weather was miserable business had moved inside, with all the merchants and entertainers gathered in the town-hall-cum-tavern. PCs stabled their horses, stood by the fire, ate warm food and drank hot cider, and all in all were *very* glad to be out of the cold. They were offered a place to sleep in the kitchen, by the stove, and gratefully accepted.
They were still just paranoid enough to keep a watch. *pout* The first watch went without incident; during the second watch, both characters on duty failed Will saves against something unspecified, and fell asleep.
At this point I handed out notes to each of the characters:
Edward's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are lying on a wooden floor. You feel limp and woozy, as if somebody had beaten the stuffing out of you… although you don't actually feel sore.
Tylis' Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are crammed into what feels like a wooden box. Your hands are clenched tight around something, and you cannot open them; your head is pressing against the top of the box, and you can feel a claustrophobic pressure building up inside you. You can hear the others talking, but their voices sound muffled, coming from outside the box.
Vanana's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are lying on wood. Your arms are spread wide, and there's something strapped to each of your hands, and something hard sticking into your back. You can hear, and you can speak, but you cannot move your limbs at all; you feel paralysed, as if you had no energy at all.
Stiekem's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are somehow trapped. You're lying on a flat hard surface, and something flat and hard is pressing down on you. You feel like you've been squashed into a pancake, and the weight stops you from moving an inch… although somehow, you still feel you could talk. You can hear the others' voices, but they sound muffled.
Tarnor's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black beyond even your darkvision, and you are lying on wood. Your mouth feels furry, and you cannot feel your fingers.
Elsard's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are standing on what feels like wood. Standing? No, bent over on all fours, and for some reason you don't feel able to straighten up, as if there's some restriction on you.
They started talking, and ascertained that they were all in the same place, although Tylis and Stiekem found everybody else's voices muffled and they sounded muffled to everybody else. Vananna wanted to cast Dancing Lights, but was unable to because she was paralysed; Edward tried to cast Light, but botched the spell, the words coming out wrong because his mouth felt somehow odd.
At this point I got them to make Wisdom checks; the ones who did well realised that they weren't breathing, and hadn't been for a while. The others, when they heard this, realised they were in the same state. And they could smell a faint smell of earth...
At last, Tylis managed to burst out of the box he was in, and found himself flying up into the air, crashing into the ceiling, which shifted a bit... and light came in from the ceiling on three sides, and I showed the characters where they were. They were in a big room with wooden floor, wooden walls, and a vaulted wooden ceilng... and at this point I put down miniatures for them, which I'd been carefully painting up all week without Rey realising what they were for.
Elsard was now a pretty little glass unicorn. ("Unicorns? I HATE unicorns!")
Tylis was a jack-in-the-box with a sword in each hand.
Vananna was a wind-up monkey with a key in her back and cymbals strapped to her hands. (Once the key was wound, she could move again, but found herself unable to do so without bashing the cymbals together.)
Edward was a rag doll with button eyes, badly understuffed and floppy.
Tharnor was a teddy bear, made of wood with woolly 'fur' stapled over it.
And Stiekem... well, Stiekem was nowhere to be seen, but they quickly realised he was *under* Tylis, and moved the box to reveal an exquisitely-crafted origami doll.
...Oh, how I've missed appalling my players :-)
(And I gave them each a Shiny Brain at that point, because I was feeling so warm and fuzzy.)
I had to think a bit about the pacing on this one. Originally the plan was just for them to head north along the road and come to the village, but then I think they would've been *too* suspicious. Players expect to be menaced every so often, so I decided the best way to do it was to shake them up badly enough that they'd be thinking of 'town' as their goal, rather than another potential danger. I think I did pretty well in the end, if they were even *considering* going to sleep without setting a guard :-)
I also like to keep a reasonable balance between Meaningful Stuff that the PCs have to think about, and a bit of hack-and-slash without deeper implications, because it just feels too forced if *everything* ties into some sinister design.
One thing I do need to work on, though, is making the bard feel a little more useful - she hasn't had a lot of opportunity to do more with her abilities than busk for a few GP, and I don't think she's very happy about her new clockwork body. A bit more social interaction might be in order, methinks.
The weather was cold and grey, and it soon started to rain. The PCs stayed alert for danger; at one point they saw a goblin peeking at them from behind cover, but it immediately run away. They later met a Shields of Mavri patrol travelling the other way, who told them the goblins were unlikely to attack twelve well-armed people and gave them information about the road ahead. The next town was two days away, but by early afternoon they should come to a little valley, and a little way uphill and off the road to the right there'd be a cave, a popular stopping-stop for travellers. The Shields recommended resting there rather than pushing on and trying to find shelter at dusk.
As they headed on, the rain got heavier and heavier, and the cave seemed like a very good idea. They reached the aforementioned valley, and found that a landslip a little way down the valley had jammed it with debris and fallen trees, blocking the outflow and causing water to back up across the road. Although not flowing very fast, it was by now about three feet deep, so the PCs had to be careful crossing it; Tharnor's horse went over (perhaps because it was carrying Tharnor *and* Vananna the gnome), but nobody got swept away and they eventually made it up to the cave.
There were enough sensible people in the party to make sure they searched the cave thoroughly before making camp for the night, but there were no lurking monsters or secret doors to goblin cities, just the rubbish and debris left by previous travellers. The rain was just getting heavier and heavier outside, so they made a fire with the wood they had and set a watch.
About half an hour later, when everybody else was asleep by the fire (except for a couple who were with the horses at the back of the cave), the two on watch spotted something moving up the hill towards them, something dark and shiny. Rather than wake everybody up (three out of six party members are now arcane casters who need eight hours' uninterrupted sleep to refresh spells, which makes watch duties interesting), they waited until it got closer: a centipede about nine feet long. Elsard the ranger took one swing at it, scored a critical, and rolled enough damage to kill it outright. (Extra rejoicing because in our other game we've been facing so many elementals, undead, and other immune-to-criticals of late that I had to reassure them that yes, centipedes do indeed have vitals.)
At this point, behind it, they saw five smaller centipedes coming up the hill, each about three feet long. (What with the rain and the dark, visibility was appalling, which is why I'd been having them make Spot checks to see the beggars.) Tylis the fighter/sorcerer (whose player will undoubtedly correct me on any details I get wrong here) moved out from the cave to engage the nearest one, killed it with one blow... and realised that behind the four remaining small centipedes were eight tiny ones, each about one foot long. ('Tiny' being a D&D size category here; a foot-long centipede is still indecently large for me.) In case anybody's wondering, the centipedes had been living in the mess of debris formed by the landslip, and were flooded out by the rain, so they were looking for shelter.
It being the centipedes' turn, they went for him and Elsard. Each of them was pretty feeble on its own, but by weight of numbers and lucky rolls, they scored a lot of hits; none of them was capable of doing more than 1 HP damage, but they were also venomous, and their victims were starting to take Dex damage. Tylis in particular was getting badly bitten, and between loss of HP and poor Dex (making him an easier target for later attacks) he turned tail and ran, waking up
edward_dujean the cleric. Meanwhile, Elsard was dealing with a lot of centipedes, and the players were getting rather uneasy because I was still asking for Spot checks, and they were getting pretty low numbers. But eventually he managed to see what was coming up behind the tiny centipedes.
PCs: "Let me guess, the first big one was Papa and this one's Mama?"
Me: "No, no... guys, what has the size progression been so far?"
PCs: "One large one, then five small ones, then eight tiny ones, then..."
Mmm, looks of slowly dawning horror :-)
Elsard backed towards the cave as Edward came out to aid him. Both got bitten some more by the bigger centipedes, and retreated through the cave mouth, Elsard breaking a flask of oil in the doorway. Edward dropped a torch in the oil, but in my game, lamp-oil is not gasoline. It takes a while to light, and meanwhile the centipedes came through it, the remaining tinies - I think all the smalls had been killed by now - and part of the swarm. Edward healed himself; Elsard was swarmed and took nasty, nasty damage, dropping his weapon and trying frantically to brush the swarm off him before falling unconscious.
At around this point the oil finally caught, and started crisping centipedes. The yelling had woken the rest of the party, and they started to contribute; the tiny ones were now dead, but enough of the swarm had made it through the oil before it caught to pose a serious threat. Tylis dragged Elsard away from the swarm as the others tried to fight it; Edward got swarmed again, bitten back down to 0 HP, and fled. The party had little that would hurt the swarm besides torches and a few 0-level spells; as it came closer, one of the merchants had the presence of mind to get on the other side of their campfire and kick it at the swarm, and between that and the oil and the torches and spells they finally managed to kill it.
Nobody died, but the party was very badly mauled, and several of them had taken serious ability damage from poisoning - Edward had lost 6 points of Dex, and Tylis 5. It might have been slightly easier on them if the watch had woken the others earlier, if Tylis hadn't charged out of the cave, and if the centipedes hadn't rolled as well as they did, but I planned it to be a close-run thing, and it certainly was.
They holed up in the cave for two days; the weather outside was still filthy, and they had no magical way to heal the Dex damage, so the most badly afflicted characters needed to rest. (This meant, incidentally, that there were only enough healthy characters for one person to stand watch at a time, but with all the rain, there wasn't much moving.)
By dusk on the second day, the rain had finally stopped. Seeing this, Tharnor decided to slip away to - as he put it - " go prancing around outside for a bit". Without telling anybody where he was going.
Allow me to recap: they're in hill country. It's been raining heavily for two days. They have already seen evidence of a recent landslip in the area. And Tharnor, who has no Dex to speak of, goes nancing around the hillside like Julie Andrews with a beard.
He failed a Balance check, and went sliding down a slope, taking a point or two of damage and winding up in a stream swollen by the rain. In armour, with a shield. I had him making Swim rolls, most of which he failed, due to having no Swim skill and wearing armour. Any time he actually *made* one, I let him try a Climb check to get out, all of which he failed, due to having no Climb skill and wearing armour. ("Can I have been prancing around naked?" "NO.")
I let him hold his breath for 13 rounds, that being his Con score, and then (as per the PHB swimming rules) asked him to make a Con check to avoid drowning. He failed. I went to the DMG to check what came next: drop to 0 HP, unconscious the round after, effectively certain death for a lone character. (I wasn't going to pull out a deus ex machina to save him from the consequences of his own stupidity.) But I also noticed that the breath-holding rules in the DMG were twice as generous as in the PHB, and since his player had the shiny special-ed PHB with the latest version of the rules we checked there, confirming that the more generous rules were correct. He got 13 more rounds, and somewhere in that he managed to pull himself out.
Dripping wet. The stream was cold as hell, and it was cold and windy out. He'd gone quite some way downstream, and as he staggered back to camp he failed a couple of Fort saves, taking subdual damage from hypothermia; he had to use a Cure Light Wounds on himself to recover enough to get back to the cave. When he did, he wouldn't tell anybody what had happened (I think out of embarrassment), and just said "I'm going to go sit by the fire for a bit."
"No you're not, you're on watch, remember?"
So, still chilled to the bone, and soaking wet, he tromps outside to sit in the cold and the wind keeping watch.
"Roll a Fortitude save, difficulty 15."
"Nope."
"OK, you take 1d6 subdual damage."
One hour later:
"Roll a Fortitude save, difficulty 16."
"Nope."
"Take another 1d6 subdual damage."
One hour later:
"Roll a Fort save, difficulty 17."
"Nope."
"Take another 1d6 subdual damage."
"Okay, I'm unconscious."
Meanwhile, everybody *else* was curled up asleep by the fire as Tharnor slowly froze outside.
One hour later:
"Roll a Fort save, difficulty 18."
"Nope."
"Take 1d6 lethal damage."
*Very* fortunately for him, the character set to take second watch got a very good roll on a Wisdom check, so was cluey enough to realise he'd slept more than his allotted time, and the fire was getting low, and Tharnor really *should* have woken him up to take his shift. They found Tharnor, not *quite* dead, but cold and blue like a Smurf, and hauled him inside and managed to save him thanks to healing spells and hot drinks. (Nobody was willing to bundle up with him and share body heat, funnily enough.)
When told off for falling asleep on watch, he replied: "Well, it wasn't my fault", and I lost it, threw back my head and laughed out loud.
They made it through to morning without anybody freezing to death, and set off northwards. The rain had stopped, and some of the water had run off, but it was bitterly cold and getting colder, foggy enough to dampen clothes as well as spirits. As the day went on it just got colder and colder, and the wind picked up, blowing through the pass. By two p.m. the party were still about four hours away from the next town and didn't think they were going to make it; people were on the verge of falling, even with all their clothes and blankets wrapped around them. They agreed to get off the road, look for shelter, and try to make a fire; off to one side, they could see a stand of trees on a hill.
As they got to the top of the hill, the fog parted for a moment, and they saw lights down below on the other side. They sent Neil's familiar (a raven) down to investigate, and it reported back that there was a village about a mile away. Our friends plodded down the hill, into the village, and were *very* relieved to find shelter at last. It was market day, and because the weather was miserable business had moved inside, with all the merchants and entertainers gathered in the town-hall-cum-tavern. PCs stabled their horses, stood by the fire, ate warm food and drank hot cider, and all in all were *very* glad to be out of the cold. They were offered a place to sleep in the kitchen, by the stove, and gratefully accepted.
They were still just paranoid enough to keep a watch. *pout* The first watch went without incident; during the second watch, both characters on duty failed Will saves against something unspecified, and fell asleep.
At this point I handed out notes to each of the characters:
Edward's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are lying on a wooden floor. You feel limp and woozy, as if somebody had beaten the stuffing out of you… although you don't actually feel sore.
Tylis' Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are crammed into what feels like a wooden box. Your hands are clenched tight around something, and you cannot open them; your head is pressing against the top of the box, and you can feel a claustrophobic pressure building up inside you. You can hear the others talking, but their voices sound muffled, coming from outside the box.
Vanana's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are lying on wood. Your arms are spread wide, and there's something strapped to each of your hands, and something hard sticking into your back. You can hear, and you can speak, but you cannot move your limbs at all; you feel paralysed, as if you had no energy at all.
Stiekem's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are somehow trapped. You're lying on a flat hard surface, and something flat and hard is pressing down on you. You feel like you've been squashed into a pancake, and the weight stops you from moving an inch… although somehow, you still feel you could talk. You can hear the others' voices, but they sound muffled.
Tarnor's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black beyond even your darkvision, and you are lying on wood. Your mouth feels furry, and you cannot feel your fingers.
Elsard's Awakening
The last thing you remember is feeling five pinpricks – one in each elbow, one at the back of each knee, and the last one in the back of your neck, and then nothing.
And then you wake. It is black, pitch-black, and you are standing on what feels like wood. Standing? No, bent over on all fours, and for some reason you don't feel able to straighten up, as if there's some restriction on you.
They started talking, and ascertained that they were all in the same place, although Tylis and Stiekem found everybody else's voices muffled and they sounded muffled to everybody else. Vananna wanted to cast Dancing Lights, but was unable to because she was paralysed; Edward tried to cast Light, but botched the spell, the words coming out wrong because his mouth felt somehow odd.
At this point I got them to make Wisdom checks; the ones who did well realised that they weren't breathing, and hadn't been for a while. The others, when they heard this, realised they were in the same state. And they could smell a faint smell of earth...
At last, Tylis managed to burst out of the box he was in, and found himself flying up into the air, crashing into the ceiling, which shifted a bit... and light came in from the ceiling on three sides, and I showed the characters where they were. They were in a big room with wooden floor, wooden walls, and a vaulted wooden ceilng... and at this point I put down miniatures for them, which I'd been carefully painting up all week without Rey realising what they were for.
Elsard was now a pretty little glass unicorn. ("Unicorns? I HATE unicorns!")
Tylis was a jack-in-the-box with a sword in each hand.
Vananna was a wind-up monkey with a key in her back and cymbals strapped to her hands. (Once the key was wound, she could move again, but found herself unable to do so without bashing the cymbals together.)
Edward was a rag doll with button eyes, badly understuffed and floppy.
Tharnor was a teddy bear, made of wood with woolly 'fur' stapled over it.
And Stiekem... well, Stiekem was nowhere to be seen, but they quickly realised he was *under* Tylis, and moved the box to reveal an exquisitely-crafted origami doll.
...Oh, how I've missed appalling my players :-)
(And I gave them each a Shiny Brain at that point, because I was feeling so warm and fuzzy.)
I had to think a bit about the pacing on this one. Originally the plan was just for them to head north along the road and come to the village, but then I think they would've been *too* suspicious. Players expect to be menaced every so often, so I decided the best way to do it was to shake them up badly enough that they'd be thinking of 'town' as their goal, rather than another potential danger. I think I did pretty well in the end, if they were even *considering* going to sleep without setting a guard :-)
I also like to keep a reasonable balance between Meaningful Stuff that the PCs have to think about, and a bit of hack-and-slash without deeper implications, because it just feels too forced if *everything* ties into some sinister design.
One thing I do need to work on, though, is making the bard feel a little more useful - she hasn't had a lot of opportunity to do more with her abilities than busk for a few GP, and I don't think she's very happy about her new clockwork body. A bit more social interaction might be in order, methinks.
