Okay, this one started with a plan from Foam the Gnome:
Here’s the plan. I know it’s complex, but I have faith in you Jeffro. Pewter, Garamond, feel free to adjust.
Foam has been invited by Goldenrod to come to the tower to take possession of the Illusionist scroll: (See General Channel)
While he’s there he has agreed to go around the tower and inspect for secret tunnels, trap doors, chalk markings and other things a thief would notice.
A gathering of women appears to protest a short distance from the tower. Three of them will break off and approach the tower.
Phantasmal Forces will go off. In the egg room, a cloud of mist will appear (reminiscent of the one in the viney manse) and will almost obscure the room. The perceptive will notice the three eggs (or their container) rise as if lifted by invisible creatures and dash to the window and appear to feather fall out of it.
The women, who are each carrying a basket, will sprint away toward the protesting crowd, and once inside the whole crowd will swirl and then break off by twos running in all directions. Each pair of women has a basket.
While all of this is going on, our man on the inside has been passing the eggs out of the opposite window to three burrow owls (none of them Lenny) who will silently glide the eggs down to Pewter and Garomond on the other side to take them where they will.
Foam will not leave Goldenrod’s side while this occurs and will give every indication of trying to help her pursue the women with the baskets or whatever.
If the owls are spotted, Foam will explain that they live in the Mega Dungeon and only Lenny is loyal to him.
Foam will helpfully try to retrieve the eggs, even to the point of suggesting that Elbrecht may have a locate object spell that they could use to see which women had the eggs, or where they are now.
If it all falls to crap and Foam is apprehended, he will admit that his friends haven’t been the same since returning. He was so happy to have them back that he didn’t stop to question if they had been charmed. If they let him live, he will promise to help make it right, and remind them that his friends may not be at fault if whoever was behind the FailSnail has them in his thrall.
The session was at a game store and the players were made up of Goldenrod’s player and a new guy (5e type guy) and another dude that was totally familiar with the AD&D rules.
I sketched out the tower and kicked off Foam’s plan. It took forever to get it rolling, though. Every detail of the positioning of the forces was hashed out over and over. As each new development transpired, a horror overtook the players due to their being inside of an insidious plan which they didn’t quite understand. It was completely wild and totally unfair.
After the game, I would release the public account of these events which read thus:
As you know, there were a set of three Dragon Eggs in Elderbrecht’s Tower.
These were being guarded by a group of PC’s lead by Goldenrod during downtime.
Rumors are currently flying in Urgrecht about what has happened the past two days.
The general facts known to the general populace are as follows:
1) Foam the Gnome paid a visit to the tower, ostensibly to pick up an illusionist scroll that Goldenrod offered to give to him.
2) During the visit, a group of women began protesting nearby– baring their breasts, causing a disturbance, and calling out the evils of Humanocentric societies.
3) Witnesses report that a group of three women approached the tower carrying baskets.
4) The women were accosted by the female elf Goldenrod from the second story of the tower, told to stop.
5) I believe it is commonly understood that at this point, to guards at the entrance of the tower went inside to bar the door.
6) Concurrently with this, three eggs were seen floating out of said window, drifting to the ground as if by feather fall.
7) At a range of about 30 yards, women approaching the tower made a break for the eggs. Two of them were shot dead, but the third one placed the eggs in her basket and ran into a maze of teepees.
8) Shortly thereafter, Foam the Gnome was escorted out of the tower, illusionist scroll in hand.
9) A short time later– maybe 20 minutes or so, the captain of the Guard, Urglebrechtenburglebrechtenmecht arrived with a large contigent of troops.
10) Urglebrechtenburglebrechtenmecht took Goldenrod into custody, sent her to await trial for DOUBLE HOMICIDE, secured the tower, and banished everyone not part of the town guard from the tower and its surrounding area.
11) The next day, it has become known that a certain Garamond is wanted for questioning regarding these matters.
12) The hideout of the so-called Cult of Zobleb as also been raided, however it was evidently deserted by the time the town guard got there.
This only covered about a third of the session. The players went out into the wilderness, ran into a Lamassu which manage to overbear the monk, knock him unconscious, and then carry him away without the party being able to intervene. The players wanted to check the cave she was near and I thought I had made a mistake. But the treasure table indicated that she only had jewelry. So we now had a very dangerous and very rich monster loose in the wilds… with crazy valuable jewelry around her neck!
The players had this scheme to use chickens to set a trap for giant weasels in order to acquire spell components for Elderbrecht. I allowed this to work out, but rolled for number appearing and got only one. This could have been very dangerous for the party with nearly any other roll! They killed the thing narrowly and came away with 3,000 gold to split. So far so good.
Upon returning to town, the monk was replaced with a Paladin. Goldenrod had already been replaced with a ranger, I think. They all wanted to go to the dungeon and quickly found an obvious trap in the form of a golden idol with the head of an octopus and ruby eyes. The 5e guy managed to get it and played the rest of the session as if he were insane. Ah, yeah… I remember now. When they touched the idol these short jibbering monsters arrived, but could not attack the party due to the presence of the paladin.
Anyway, the players went on and found their way to the “blue men” area. They charged the speaker and overran him, but in the next room the players found themselves under fire from people shooting from arrow slits. The players considered fighting or getting the treasure and running out, but the paladin got shot so they ended up abandoning this scenario.
News of the theft of the eggs lit up the discord. I was immediately hashing out the game with the cult members and trying to figure everything out. Goldenrod’s character was also after me with heavy rules questions. I told him that even if there was a rule violation, I would not retcon it because I had already spent several hours playing with the cultists. This was not taken well. So finally, I checked to see if Foam could have cast the spell under the circumstances of the session and determined that by the rules, nothing happened that would have spoiled his concentration. Crisis averted! For the moment, anyway.
Every day for the rest of the week saw my phone lit up with text messages. I then had the idea to do a court room game and had players write up legal briefs. These were very amusing.
Finally, Saturday arrived. I handed out the legal briefs– the first time I had ever had props of this sort. Goldenrod’s player had lit up the phones of these people as well and it was unclear how to proceed. Finally I just made them read the stuff and we started hashing it all out. I think after a good two hours, it was basically decided that there was nothing obvious to do. The hints were too vague and there was nothing that seemed like could save Goldenrod.
At this point I released some more bombshells, there was some more discussion, but it was then decided that the patry should go to the haunted manse. Without any prompting, the fifteen year old guy at the table declared that this was in fact his family estate. They opted to split up– two clerics removing vines that blocked the main entrance and then the fighter and the elven thief exploring the house.
They quickly found a monster in the mists that knocked the thief down to exactly zero hit points. Very scary! It was decided that they should search the house a bit more. The basement seemed to scary to them, but the attic… well that might be better. Up there were these blood sucking bird-bats, though. They fled and shut the attic back up, but they still had these monsters on them. The dwarf cleric died, but the other two player characters narrowly survived.
From there they made it back to town. I can’t even remember if they had gotten treasure or not. At this point, for some reason it was determined that the party should go and find Foam the Gnome. So they went to Lothrivengrove, paid a troll toll of 30 gp, and then did indeed find the gnome. They started talking to him and the elf thief’s player gave such a convincing argument for why Foam would feel so much better if he came clean, I just went ahead and had him spill his guts– because the player did in fact feel guilty for the disaster. We wrapped it up there with most of the answers of the mystery given out.
But the game STILL was not done.
I went home and posted the following news bit:
Intense courtroom drama
Cult women give tearful, charged testomonies in cross-examanation
Goldenrood’s character defamed in every possible media outlet
Testimony from some pieced together by the prosecution used to paint a picture of Goldenrod as behaving VERY SUSPISCIOUSLY, inviting a known illusionist to the tower. Acting strangely immediately following the events of the murder, etc– “hmmmmm… are these eggs real or fake– huh huh– hmmmmm who can tell? Wink wink”
General opinion is swayed to the view that Foam the Gnome, Goldenrod, Garamound, and the entire cult of Zolbleb are clearly in league
At the very fever pitch of the intense courtroom debate, it is revealed that the eggs are IN FACT missing
Town criers are out in force reading the most negative framing of these events conceivable and dragging Goldenrod and co through the dirt
Garamond is wanted by the city. Foam is wanted by the city. Goldenrod is all locked up
SO HORRIBLE
MEGA MONDO NEGA CRISIS
Very distressing
Very sad for all the players as I don’t even know how they are going to get out of this SURPRISING TURN OF EVENTS
I am Marlon Brando every day here
THE HORROR THE HORROR
Clearly there is NO WAY OUT OF THIS MESS AND THE TOWN IS DOOMED
This resulted in MORE questions and more attempts to discuss the details of the court case which I was already done adjudicating. I shut it down sayind Goldenrod’s character was in jail and could not discuss this but that players should PLAY THERE ROLES. There was still some pushback, but the constant play for something that was not going to make a good game in my opinion was too much. So I put my foot down:
We have already bled Goldie dry to cover legal costs. This journalism war is one that she cannot effectively win
I have used the face-to-face group to gauge what would be a reasonable outcome for what most people would think in regarding the courtroom sequence
The public knowledge revealed above represents what would be reasonable for everyone to know regarding this episode
Some of you may have performed more elitely had you been involved in the session, nevertheless… having four human beings kick this around for 2-3 hours tells ME everything that I need to know about this
My honest opinion based on observing them is that you all PROBABLY would not have done any better
The complexity of the situation was too much for it to be unraveled. In fact… adding more players to the proceeding would likely have made the intelligence of the group much lower
(Committee effects and so forth)
Debating this to death is not fun so per referee perogative I am putting a pin in this
The real question now is what you guys as a group of adventurers would even do on a Thursday night delve
Time is of course a tremendous factor in all this
If there are any questions about the broader campaign state that would pertain to the probably Thursday night session, feel free to ask and/or discuss
Finally I was free from this this constant always on game that would not leave me alone.
But it was now time to set up another session!
Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog 
Recent Comments