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After Action Report: Strata Under the Temple Sessions 6

Session 6

Previous AARs:  

Case of Characters

Player Characters

  • Beep - Thief 4, Halfling, she/her, played by Soddentowel 
  • Hivara - Thief 4, Hagamido Saurian, she/her, played by Gwenchant
  • "Red" Kolva - Thief 4, she/her, played by Socrates
  • Steve - Wizard 4, Human, he/him, played by Soddentowel
  • Zago - Wizard 4, Goblin, he/him, played by Socrates
  • Zaphiel - Cleric 4, Elf, she/her played by Gwenchant

NPCs

  • Gasatano - Fighter, Hagamido Saurian
  • Polima - Wizard, Hagamido Saurian, partner of Hivara
  • Malita - Cleric of Bufamela-Sa, Hagamido Saurian

Events

At the end of last session,  they defeated the semi-lich, a failed Hagamido that had tried to become a full lich.  There was enough loot there for the party to advance to fourth level.  Beep got the pair of magical boots, as a concession for not getting an uncursed magical weapon earlier.  Red Kolva pocketed some of the gems, handing three to Polima, while Malita and Gasatano took custody of the coins, and then went to the Author's Hall to... stack bookshelves. 

While Zaphiel, Zago, Steve, and Hivara (on Polima's behalf) negotiated for who got which of the remaining items (two rings, an amulet, a tiara, and a wand), our active thieves Beep and Red Kolva, attempted to find the secret door through which she had come through to surprise them, but failed.  Polima watched them, then applied some of her intellect to examine the places that, in her own estimation, the rest of them had failed to check properly. [None of them broke a 9 in their "impossible" search checks, and Polima rolled an 18, just making it. -DM]  

After divvying up the magical items, Steve tried out the breadbox brainbox by putting his own head in it and touching the copper knobs on each end.  This gave him a crushing headache.  He then tried it on Hivara, with her permission, and he found that worked fine.  He then asked her to touch the copper knobs, which caused her to pass out for three hours. 

The two thieves and Polima entered the room, which seemed to be a laboratory with stone shelves on the walls filled with reagents and lab equipment.  It was spartan compared to the finishing touches of the catacombs, down to the floor being raw rock without tiles.  A large table took up the middle of the room, and was set with three burners which use lamp oil for fuel.  A taxidermied alligator was suspended from the ceiling, and a skeleton with roughly the size and body-plan of a chicken was running in a "hamster wheel" which was, in turn, connected to a ceiling fan kept moving by the wheel spinning.  A recliner with a slot in it to allow for a Hagamido tail was in the northeast corner.  A tea kettle and containers of tea were on one of the shelves.  To the east was a door to a library absolutely filled with book shelves, and with another Hagamido recliner.

Steve took ten books, and Polima took six more.  We agreed to figure out what that would be offline.  Two of Steve's books turned out to be in Elven, and one in Infernal.  Steve then returned to the Hall of Scholars, where the semi-lich's remains were, popped it into the brainbox he'd taken from the Author's Hall, and confirmed that he could experience parts of its life existence.  He put them in his knapsack [six slots.  Maybe I should have had them turn to dust, but I didn't. We'll see how that turns out -DM].

Between last session and this session, I rolled for happenings in the catacombs. I actually do this after every session, but like encounters, things don't always develop.  This happenings roll indicated dreams came up.

Hivara has enough going on with her developing relationship with Polima, and that involved an informative brain dump that was more than enough to digest, so I skipped giving her a dream for now.  The two of them are working on building their own dream.

The rest of them were each about to have their own dream, after divying loot and having a rest.  I'll mention what dreams were shared, in the future--most of them didn't come up in this session.  

Once quick looting and division was done and reunited in the Hall of Scholars, Malita started a conversation about what she would like to do next:

  1. Start a Hagamido colony in or near a community they could trade with.
    • Hivara is partial to this.
  2. Help the Overguard defend the temple and catacomb complex against both the fire goblins and the giant ants.
    • Zago is not sure how he felt about opposing the fire goblins.
  3. See if other survivor's of Bufamela-Sa's dream can be found to join their colony.
  4. Find more treasure, so that the Hagamido, with their share, could further the first three goals.

Zaphiel and Red Kolva in particular care about finding treasure.  

Then we had an out of character conversation about what each player really wanted for their character, in part since each character had grown their own desires, and in part since I wanted to know what kind of game the players wanted to play.  On the one hand, we have a group of treasure seekers with Beep, Red Kolva, and Zaphiel.  On the other hand, Steve wants to study the secrets of eternal unlife, Hivara wants to start a family, and Zago is always thinking about metaphysics.

We decied to hand-wave the party leaving the catacombs and going down to the village of Tressagros, and continued with the treasure hunters, because Red Kolva had a dream, in which the location of a significant stockpile of gold was shared with her, down below the ant's nest.  The leaner part of Red Kolva, Beep, Zaphiel, and Zago went to the section where the ants were trying to get into the catacombs.  A pair of Overguard shards, along with twelve zombies each were all prepared for battle, and watching a hole in the Barracks of the Enlisted, ready to slaughter ants as they came out.  The carnage in this room had previously been brutal.  There were dozens of dismembered corpses on the ground, some Hagamido, some parts of ants.

Beep moved quietly towards the hole, which was apparently melted out of rock, and had a bend in it.  She very stealthily came around the corner, and saw a pair of giant soldier ants, each about the size of a small pony, and four workers beyond, each about the size of a sheep- or war-dog.  Being a hidden thief in striking distance, she did what any thief in her situation would do, and struck with her quadruple damage of her cursed dagger, managing to inflict 5 damage, which Soddentowel re-rolled by using a luck token to get 8 damage to its rear.  The poor soldier ant was bleeding out of a large hole in her rear.

The quarters were tight enough that none of the non-soldier ants could join in, while Beep's companions were able to come around and assist.  Beep, being a halfling, was short enough that Red Kolva could basically strike over her, and Zago and Zaphiel could strike at a higher level.  They were fairly lucky and took little damage while dispatching the soldiers.  The workers fled.

The room they found themselves in was a chamber melted out of rock, with passages to the northeast, north, and northwest.  Zaphiel then cast an augury to determine if the northeast passage would lead them down lower, and got a "weal" result, so they did.  Meanwhile, the first of the Overguard shards entered with its compliment of a dozen zombies, and went to the northeast.

The next room seemed to be some sort of larder.  There were no ants present, but there were around two hundred little nooks, most capped with some sort of brown wax or paste.  Four were open, three with Hagamido remains, and the fourth with what looked like the remains of a goat, including fur and a visible horn. In the northwest part of the room, an opening leads down to a tunnel passage, about 5 ft. in diameter. 

Beep volunteered to scout the tunnel, 5 helical downward loops, about ten feet in inner diameter with a forty-five degree downward slope.  

Came out at about half way up a wall in another large room.  This room also had a pair of soldiers and another six workers--two spitting acid at the west wall, and four others dismembering corpses in the middle of the floor--while another ant, about the size of a Scottish Terrier, but also with wings and pouches on its body was examining the corpses, and occasionally pulling tools out of the pile.  

The soldier ants immediately turned towards Beep, who scrambled back up the wall surprisingly easily.  She raced most of the way up the tunnel, with the soldiers in pursuit, then turned around and managed to slide down and between their legs without being struck.  They paused for a moment.  Zago, who had been listening and heard the clacking of the soldier ants up the tunnel, heard the pause and then the sound of them getting quieter, and jumped down the tunnel.  Zaphiel and Red Kolvo waited at the top of the tunnel.

Beep continued back to the bottom of the tunnel, and jumped out, turning invisible as she did so.  She managed to do this quietly enough to avoid arousing the other seven ants in the lower chamber, while using her halfling ability to turn invisible for three rounds.  The soldier ants dropped out of the tunnel moments later and--not detecting Beep--took defensive positions, as they did hear Zago coming down.

At this point, Kolva went back to the last catacomb room, where there was still an Overguard shard standing guard, and asked them to come and support their attack. It agreed, and charged down the tunnel with its compliment of a dozen armed Hagamido zombies.

Zago tumbled out of the chute, landing significantly less gracefully than Beep had, causing the two soldier ants to whirl around and close on him.  Beep, having gotten into position behind the relatively tiny winged giant ant, and grabbed it in a wrestling hold.  It started very high-pitched chittering, getting the attention of all eight other ants in the chamber, seemingly ignoring Beep.

Then the second Overguard shard dropped into the room, followed by Zaphiel and Red Kolva. 

Evaluation

What Went Well

  • Broke the party down into the core current tomb robbers, versus those looking to build something larger, without preventing them from switching the party up when they go "back to base".
  • There is now an implied base, even though we haven't worked out what it is.
  • Left Malita as an ally, but don't have her directly driving the party anymore.
  • The current adventuring party made their entrance into the giant ants' nest.
  • Had a good expectation setting discussion, making sure the campaign has buy-in from everyone at the table.
  • Steve is playing with the brainbox.
  • Polima started advocating for the Hagamido future.

What Could be Improved

  • Still have to play out what's going on with their home-base.
  • Need to start finding music to tie to particular characters, settings, and moods.  I might have to tie into Jon's BT soundbar, or just bring my own speaker.
  • I need to get some mood setting art.

Unresolved Threads

  • What happened to the other Hagamido?  (3 session now)
  • What are the fire goblins up to, beyond setting up a colony outside of the elemental plane of fire?  (3 session now)
  • What happened to the crypt?  (3 session now)
  • What's up with the giant ants? (2 session now)
  • The totality of the party has made contact with the village of Tressagros, and have been asked by the village's priestess what they intend.

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