DF Khoramandu Sea, Session 84 - Return to the Ghoul Catacombs
Not long finished tonight's late running session. There was some inevitable chatting at the start (not least the very recent inauguration of the US president) but we played close to 5 hours.
Session Date: Thursday 21 January 2021
Party roster:
Miao Miao, cat-folk swashbuckler, 486 points (PC)
- Jenkins, human servant, 243 points (NPC Ally)
- Brother Warian, human monk (initiate), 241 points (NPC Ally)
Sir Yvor Gryffyn, human knight, 403 points (PC)
- Manuta, human guard sergeant (squire), 125 points (NPC volunteer)
- Manuta, human guard sergeant (squire), 125 points (NPC volunteer)
Davin Emberwood, human wizard (wizard-thief), 428 points (PC)
Childerbert "Bert" Ingoberger, halfling locksmith (thief-bard), 369 points (PC)
Hemmu Gahrol, half-orc knight, 334 points (PC)
Adam Aesalor, half-orc wizard, 300 points (PC)
The party interrogated the swamp ghoul* they captured from the fight last session. Bert cast a Mind-Reading spell - I think his first use of his new bardic abilities. This was resisted by the ghoul, but Bert's second attempt was a critical roll - no cost to cast the spell, the swamp ghoul got no resistance roll, and I ruled the special effect was the spell lasting longer than 1 minute (I gave them several minutes of questioning).
The ghoul was definitely a reluctant witness, but Bert got from reading the surface thoughts reactions to the questions that the guardsman Claude had indeed been taken alive to the lich. The ghouls had also taken other victims (alive or dead was unspecified) to the lich, presumably instead of simply eating them. The ghoul did not know for what purpose the lich wanted them.
Bert was able to convince the swamp ghoul that it was better off leaving the town rather than returning to the lich-marquessa, as the ghoul had effectively betrayed her/it. I was pleasantly surprised that the party was true to Bert's word - I did half expect them to kill the ghoul after questioning. I guess they knew that one of the ghouls had already escaped the fight, so perhaps they could afford to be merciful for that reason...
The party interrogated the swamp ghoul* they captured from the fight last session. Bert cast a Mind-Reading spell - I think his first use of his new bardic abilities. This was resisted by the ghoul, but Bert's second attempt was a critical roll - no cost to cast the spell, the swamp ghoul got no resistance roll, and I ruled the special effect was the spell lasting longer than 1 minute (I gave them several minutes of questioning).
The ghoul was definitely a reluctant witness, but Bert got from reading the surface thoughts reactions to the questions that the guardsman Claude had indeed been taken alive to the lich. The ghouls had also taken other victims (alive or dead was unspecified) to the lich, presumably instead of simply eating them. The ghoul did not know for what purpose the lich wanted them.
Bert was able to convince the swamp ghoul that it was better off leaving the town rather than returning to the lich-marquessa, as the ghoul had effectively betrayed her/it. I was pleasantly surprised that the party was true to Bert's word - I did half expect them to kill the ghoul after questioning. I guess they knew that one of the ghouls had already escaped the fight, so perhaps they could afford to be merciful for that reason...
The party discussed what to do next for a little while; whether to tackle the lich now, to go and double-check the bricked-up dungeon that previously contained a no-mana zone first, or to gather more intel and/or wait for the inquisitor to respond first. In the end they agreed with Yvor to try and rescue Claude and any other prisoners (assuming it already too late), and only tackle the lich afterwards, or if it was unavoidable.
They got as far as the first level of the ghoul catacombs. Half the party knows from the original adventure (Against the Rat-Men - those sessions pre-date this blog) that the ghoul catacombs is over four levels. Each level is a single 45' square area, divided by walls lined with burial niches.
The first crypt is the midden level and smells horrible. Some of the party were already suffering Sewer Rot from wading in the tunnel water; nausea from the smell of the muck and rotting corpses would only have made things worse. Davin cast a Purify Air spell which covered almost the entire level. That gave them a momentary respite, which would be useful in the fight. Then the swamp ghouls living in the level attacked.
There were almost 20 ghouls, and the fight lasted most of the evening. I lost count of how many ghouls the front line fighters cut down. Those 3 were all bunched together at one end of the melee, and the ghouls there didn't really stand a chance. Sgt Manuta was left guarding the rear with the casters and rogues of the party. Davin cast Create Fire to block off that passage and reduced the number of ghouls which Manuta had to face at once.
The acidic spit from the swamp ghouls does some accumulating damage to the party shields (I use damage to shields optional rule from GURPS, with the shield numbers from Low-Tech), but their unarmed attacks are largely just opportunities for armed PCs to get a free attack from a weapon parry.
The halfling thief stayed on the entrance steps almost the entire fight, only to jump onto the back of a ghoul to grapple from behind for 6 control damage, including the ST bonus from Backstabbing (we use the Fantastic Dungeon Grappling rules from Gaming Ballistic). The ghoul counter-grappled on its turn but was only able to reduce the control by 2 (I ruled half-dmg due to the fact the halfling was on its back), down to 4. Then on Bert's next turn he did an All-out Attack (Double) to transfer his grapple to the neck for 6 more control (total 10 control exceeded the halfling's normal control maximum, but was within the allowed double ST for AoA), then for his second attack he spent 9 of those control points to do an attack to the ghoul's neck for 4d6+1 damage (with 1.5x wounding multiplier for crushing damage). Snap!
Just when the party thought the fight was over, the remaining ghouls that had been cut off by Davin's fire spell, had sneaked around the outside, and attacked what was now the new "rear" of the group, charging down upon Miao's manservant Jenkins. It was already very late for a school night, so we ended there...
Here is a partial screenshot, showing the VTT map of the players' view in MapTool. The map is taken from my PDF copy of the DFRPG box game (I snipped the image as a jpeg, and imported that into MapTool, where I added the visibility and movement blocking lines (which controls what is revealed with the FoW and lighting effects).
The halfling thief stayed on the entrance steps almost the entire fight, only to jump onto the back of a ghoul to grapple from behind for 6 control damage, including the ST bonus from Backstabbing (we use the Fantastic Dungeon Grappling rules from Gaming Ballistic). The ghoul counter-grappled on its turn but was only able to reduce the control by 2 (I ruled half-dmg due to the fact the halfling was on its back), down to 4. Then on Bert's next turn he did an All-out Attack (Double) to transfer his grapple to the neck for 6 more control (total 10 control exceeded the halfling's normal control maximum, but was within the allowed double ST for AoA), then for his second attack he spent 9 of those control points to do an attack to the ghoul's neck for 4d6+1 damage (with 1.5x wounding multiplier for crushing damage). Snap!
Just when the party thought the fight was over, the remaining ghouls that had been cut off by Davin's fire spell, had sneaked around the outside, and attacked what was now the new "rear" of the group, charging down upon Miao's manservant Jenkins. It was already very late for a school night, so we ended there...
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