Tomb of The Serpent Kings Part 3: Goblin Night!

Player map in sections that are revealed in play. DM map & notes on the graph paper.

This session covered a lot of ground. As it was also a special session with some guests I think a summary of events is appropriate. It will probably still be long.

Since we were running a “Goblin Night” with a few guest players, I thought it would be fun to use Goblin Punche’s very excellent WTF Are Those Goblins Doing? table as well as their D6 Shitty Goblin Traps, so all goblin encounters in this session were randomly determined.

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As a dwarf, Maul was quite bothered by the fact that his party had not yet completed the task for which they’d been hired many weeks ago -eliminating the goblin threat to the farmland surrounding Bebbanburg Keep.

Alonzo Machete was dead. Ramen Nudell was in the clink, and Sister Cletus with the assistance of Effje was trying to unlock the secrets of the jabbering serpent-person mummy which they had discovered. 

So Maul assembled a B-Team.

Joining the dwarf was a halfing named Dilbo, Melrond the Half-Melven elf, and Young Haco who claimed to be a relative of Alonzo. Though his weak mustache implied that this might not be true.

Approaching the Tomb of The Serpent Kings the party heard voices issuing from beneath the roots of a mighty oak. A secret staircase, some surprisingly alert goblin guards, and a secret door were soon discovered. Skulking, bloody combat, and frustration caused by a firmly locked stone door followed. The party moved on.

Travelling deeper into the mountain the party entered a partially collapsed area of the Serpent Kings Tomb that was being used by the goblin tribe as a home. Goblins muck farmers were encountered in the first room (a mushroom farm that was lit by eerie phosphorescent fungus lights) and semi-successful negotiations were followed as Melrond attempted to befriend the goblins. As that situation resolved itself . . .

[DM Note: One goblin named Gus slightly befriended. One not. This one stabbed Gus in the eye for betraying the tribe and ran for it.]

. . . A goblin patrol appeared from a tunnel to the south. A brief and one-sided fight erupted, and as the Party fought in the shin deep sludge of the farm they discovered a fair bit of treasure hidden in the filth. The best piece by far being The Crown of The Serpent Kings made of eight gold and platinum snakes, with emerald eyes, and diamond teeth. Which Dilbo immediately stuck on his idiot halfing head and crumpled to the ground gibbering and hooting in horror. It took several Game Turns for him to recover. Mostly.

[DM Note: Failed Save-vs-Magical Device.]

The party slung a restrained and gagged Dilbo across Haco’s pack and explored a small tunnel leading east. This lead to an outpost at the edge of the crumbling goblin warren where the party encountered a lone sentry. The goblin carried a strange U-shaped crook and despite being rather drunk it’s attention was fully engaged with watching a broken stone door in the east wall. Maul dispatched the creature with a single blow before Melrond could attempt to befriend him as he had with the farmers, then finished the fermented rotten goat’s milk which the goblin had been getting inebriated with. 

Beyond the stone door they reentered a fully intact area of the Tomb of The Serpent Kings, which the goblins were clearly not inhabiting. In short order they discovered several interesting things. An iron door that required a key they did not (yet?) have. A large sacrificial pit with an eternally burning fire within it. A slave chamber containing enchanted manacles. A skeleton covered in dense orange jelly that made it invulnerable to axe, hammer, and Merlon’s casting of The Metamorphoun of Fire from a scroll he carried. Though it did burn quite well.

Retrieving the strange U-shaped polearm from the dead goblin sentry the party managed to shove the blazing jelly skeleton into the sacrificial pit. The fire in the pit probably wouldn’t kill it, but it was hoped it would be unable to scale the walls. The party hastily returned to the relative safety of the goblin warren.

The next dilapidated chamber that the party entered contained a large and obvious lever mounted on the east wall. Scrapes and furrows were gouged into the stone floor, and a locked door to the west impeded the party’s progress. Examining the ceiling they saw only darkness and thick cobwebs, though Maul suspected there was some sort of trap mechanism up there. After some debate they pulled the level which opened the door in the west wall but also unleashed a half-dozen giant bladed pendulums that struck sparks from the floor at the low point of their arcs. Luckily, goblins are dumb as stones and the patern of the blades was simple to discern. However, when the party was only halfway across the room something went wrong with the trap. Several of the deadly pendulums became entangled and brought the entire rig from which they swung crashing down from the ceiling. All 4,000lbs of it. The floor collapsed taking the machinery of the trap, along with Haco, into a dust filled tunnel on a lower level.

[Dm Note: All but Haco passed a Save-vs-Breath Weapon check.]

Amazingly, Haco suffered only minor wounds and a length of rope was sufficient to retrieve him from the tunnel. Which brought the party to their next obstacle: a serpent-person statue holding a blazing torch. In a high squeaky goblin voice it asked, “What number is green?” 

[DM Note:  Magic Mouth was set to go off when anyone approached the statue. The answer was “One”. Because goblins are Number One. Obviously.]

Maul worked out the idiotic riddle but not before Dilbo blurted out an incorrect answer. Oil sprayed across the torch from an unseen spout in the statue’s serpent mouth creating an ad hoc flamethrower and everyone dove for cover. 

[DM Note: Again the party was very lucky with their Save-vs-Breath Weapon rolls.]

Casting The Call To The Unseen Servant, Melrond brought forth an invisible butler who removed the torch from the statue’s hand and plugged the oil spigot with a bit of cloth. As the party congratulated itself on overcoming yet another goblin trap the statue gave a mighty groan before its crotch exploded covering everyone in oil. 

Behind the statue was a short hallway in which they found a closet full of small oil casks, presumably for refilling the statue trap. Beyond that they opened a door to reveal the goblin throne room where almost a dozen goblins and an enraged bugbear chieftain were waiting for them behind makeshift barriers. 

As goblin arrows flew, Dilbo, Maul, and Haco hurriedly made giant molotov cocktails out of the oil casks. In an attempt to buy time Melrond cast The Hypnotic Charm on the bugbear chieftain and convinced him that his own goblins were about to overthrow him! This came at a cost.

[DM Note: We are using James Raggi’s alternate magic rules for LoTFP that allow for Dangerous Casting once a magic user runs out of spell slots. They must make a Save-vs-Magic in order to cast a spell and if they fail, bad things happen. I think the spell also fails to go off, but it was late so I let them work either way.]

While the bugbear began smashing the nearest goblins with his morningstar, a fully functioning third eye erupted where Melrond’s left nipple had once been.

Maul and Haco both threw burning casks of oil at the nearest goblin barricades. They both missed, though a large part of the room was engulfed in fire. Knowing what he must do Melrond again attempted to cast The Metamorphoun of Fire. His right leg exploded in a spray of blood and bone and in its place was a writhing slime-covered tentacle. But the spell went off and a tsunami of fire swept the goblin ranks. As the goblins danced within the fires Melrond collapsed to the floor in agony. His new best friend, the bugbear chieftain, leapt through the wall of fire to aid the fallen elf.

Unable to resist checking one last room, Dilbo entered a chamber that was covered in old guano. The floor collapsed and he found himself in what might have been a deadly snakepit. Deadly if the goblins had not forgotten to feed the snakes. Instead he lay sputtering in a pile of old bat poop and snake skeletons.

Having had more than enough of these shenanigans the group retreated back to the surface. 

Uneasy about killing the bugbear under his charm, Melrond devised a compromise. He told his bugbear friend (and Gus, the lone-surviving mushroom farmer) that they needed to find a new lair far away from the hostile Men of Bebbanburg Keep. The bugbear agreed wholeheartedly. Maul grudgingly agreed to the compromise though his great axe thirsted for bugbear blood.

[DM Note: That ended the evening. Because I did my math wrong, and because I heavily modified the goblin section of ToTSK I gave out nearly 87k worth of experience points. I meant to give out 8,700. When you are rushing that 50/1 silver/gold conversion will mess you up! :) Taking mercy on me for my goof the Players were content to just reach the next Level and call it a wash. Because Maul was already half-way to Level 2 I let him advance to half-way to Level 3.

I’m excited for the next sessing with the regular group. Between the areas discovered during the second delve and this one, they now have two points of entry into the Tomb of The Serpent Kings, two mysteries in the form of locked doors that only Ramen has a real chance of opening, and nine doors with gods-know-what waiting behind them to investigate.]

Tomb of The Serpent Kings - Part 2b

Retreating down the mountainside to an abandoned woodsman’s cabin which the party had first discovered while hunting down goblins in the local area, a basecamp was established and the unconscious Cletus the cleric was made as comfortable as possible. The desiccated and rotten head of a giant elk peered down from the wall above the mantle at the party. In the dancing shadows of the small fire Maul had lit in the hearth the semi-mummified remains seemed to leer at the group, unnerving the dwarf. He eventually took the subpar example of taxidermy and stuffed it through one of the cabin’s small windows in the hopes that it would scare off any unfriendly humanoids in the area.

Cletus had a scroll of healing in her pack, but no one was able to read it. Supplies were low and it would be several days before the cleric was well enough to travel even a short distance. Desperation forced the group to do the unthinkable -they split the party (after much nail-biting and worry). Leaving most of the food and water with Maul, Eefje and Alonzo made the two day trek back to Bebbanburg Keep, while the dwarf watched over the stricken cleric.

It was five days before the fighters returned, laden with as many consumables as they could carry and an item that cost nearly all of their treasure -a single healing potion. It was decided not to use the potion at that time, but instead wait another three days until Cletus was fully recovered.

Once again the iron spikes had been removed (or fallen out?) of the hammer trap. This time nothing attacked as they were hammered back in.

Making their way quickly to the False Temple, the party dropped down into the secret passage and moved into the unknown. Though reeking strongly of mildew, it’s walls streaked with slime, and tiny rivulets of water running west to east along the floor, the superior stonework of the passage compared to the level above was instantly noticed by the dwarf. The cramped secret passage quickly expanded into a 20’ wide, 15’ tall corridor that stretched beyond the party’s meager torchlight. They had reached Room 9 -The Statue Hall.

At this point the party began to get the feeling that they had passed into a kind of mythic underworld. Sounds echoed and reverberated in odd ways. The torchlight felt small and weaker than it had only a few moments ago.

Reverting to a pattern established during the first two delves, the dwarf moved forward beyond the torchlight to where his darkvision could function and acted as a loud and bulky scout.

DM Note: Darkvision does not work when exposed to any light greater than moonlight in my game. So the dwarf is actually visually impaired when moving within a 30’ radius of the human’s torches.

Six 15’ tall statues of heavily armed and armored serpent-person warriors lined the long corridor, beyond which Maul reported a large octagonal chamber, also lined with glaring serpent-person statues.

Back in the Statue Hall the party noticed that the north-west most statue was somewhat askew from the wall. Not wanting to know what horror lurked behind it, Maul quickly pushed the statue flush against the wall and asked for a spike to make sure it stayed like that.

The curiosity of the others (and a not so subtle bit of prodding from the DM) instead had the dwarf pulling the statue back from the wall to reveal Room 10 -Secret Guardroom. Though all of the furniture had long ago disintegrated Maul was delighted to find a silver serpent idol and two miraculously preserved pikes, which the two fighters were happy to add to their inventory. The rest of the statues in the hall were tested in hopes of finding more secret rooms but none revealed themselves.

Down the hall in the octagonal Tomb Atrium the party discovered several stone doors and a large elaborately carved archway directly across the room from them. In the center was what they believed to be a brackish infinity pool that reeked of licorice where the small rivulets of water from the level above were flowing.  

In actuality it was a deep pit that held defenders of the crypt which had filled over time concealing what lay beneath it’s slimy surface.

Alonzo, being of a curious and Chaotic nature, could not resist poking at the water with his newfound pike (though he carried a perfectly serviceable 10’ pole). While Eefje held the torch the cleric and dwarf hung back at the edge of the light. Alonzo met aggressive resistance and three skum coated skeletons lunged out of the water at him swinging rusty blades and jabbing with corroded spears. One skeleton landed a telling blow but Alonzo gave as good as he got, felling one of the creatures as his companions rushed to aid him.

As the party engaged the remaining two skeletons seven more erupted from the water surrounding the adventuring party. One particularly hefty and well armored skeleton got behind Alonzo and nearly cleaved the human warrior in twain, spraying his companions with a geizer of hot blood.

DM Note: A natural 20 on my part dropped the fighter to exactly -5 HP and sticking to my earlier ruling this meant he was killed instantly. Alonzo’s player rolled extremely well during character creation (4d6, drop the lowest) and it stunned everyone at the table when he was punked by a 1 Hit Die skeleton. But his player was fine with it and it was kind of a fun and exciting moment at the table.

Panic gripped the survivors and plans were made to extract themselves from the ambush or die trying. The nearest corridor lead back the way they had come but it was 20’ wide. Impossible for the three remaining adventurers to effectively defend. They decided instead on a fighting withdrawal to the secret room they had discovered where they could create a bottleneck and limit the number of skeletons that could attack them at once. But their chances of making it that far were slim. 

In an act of selfless heroism (or fanatical desire to martyr herself for her god) the cleric decided to stand her ground and cast Turn Undead.

DM Note: In LoTFP, Turn Undead essentially functions as in other versions of B/X but it costs a spell slot to cast, and a 1st Level Cleric has but a single spell slot.

Searing light erupted from the holy symbol embossed on Cletus’ large shield, illuminating the octagonal chamber like the light of the sun. Six of the skeletons recoiled from the divine light and moved towards the archway leading to Area 18 -Stairs. Maul and Eefje leaped upon the remaining three skeletons. They took down one of the creatures while the others were turned by Cletus who was maintaining her light for as long as she could. 

The retreating skeletons activated the trapped stairs in Area 18 (determined by several random rolls) and all eight of them went crashing and sliding deeper into the dungeon.

The surviving adventurers again probed the black waters to see if anything else was waiting there for them. Several small objects were detected but nothing grabbed their probing pole or attacked them. Fashioning a dredge from Alonzo’s helmet and some rope the party recovered a heavy gold chain, a wand of unknown capability, and the upper torso and head of a mummy. The mummy was quite agitated but not exactly hostile. It gabbered insistently in it’s long-dead snake-person language. The party had no idea what it wanted.

Gathering what they could of Alonzo’s gear, they stashed what they could not carry in the secret room and closed the statue/door hoping to recover it in the future. Then, leaving a 80’ long smear of blood and entrails, they dragged mighty Alonzo’s corpse back up to the False Tomb and placed his remains in the coffin of the previously dealt with skeleton king. (I’m sure nothing bad will come of that.)

Eefje slung the still babbling serpent-person mummy across her back and the party returned to Bebbanburg Keep to research a dead language and recruit more adventurers.

RIP Alonzo Machete

9-22-19 | 9-29-19
“He had a sweet mustache.” 

Tomb of The Serpent Kings -Part 2a

Having defeated the skeletons of the snake-man king and his two brides in Room 6 - False Tomb the party explored the southern end of the chamber and discovered the horrific statue of a snake-person god in the wet and mildewed Room 7 - False Temple. Water leaking in from the mountain above ran in small trickles down the walls and pooled around the base of the statue. Over time this had done considerable damage, and the once secret passage down to the second level of the dungeon lay revealed.

Ill prepared and under-equipped the party decided to return home, give the bailiff of Bebbanburg Keep a report on their progress with the local goblin problem and gear up for a return to the Tomb of The Serpent Kings.

A week later healed and rested the party was once again standing on the threshold of the tomb -though without their specialist, Ramen. There were no signs of anything having disturbed the sight since their last visit. However, when they reached Area 5 - Door/Hammer Trap the party found the iron spikes with which they’d jammed the deadly trap earlier were removed and laying on the floor.

DM Note: Although the first level of ToTSK is a very mundane dungeon I wanted to establish early on the idea that the dungeon actively, if slowly, resisted the intrusion of the player characters.

Several elaborate and mildly paranoid theories about how the trap got reset . . .

DM Note: Mission accomplished.

. . .and Eefje was once again hammering the spikes in to hold the trap’s activating mechanism in place so that they party could continue onwards. The pounding of mallet on iron spike awoke a hungry trio of stirges who had taken up residence in the gears and chains of the hammer trap since the party’s last visit.

Taken by surprise, the party was ill prepared for the stirge’s attack and one of the creatures managed to attach itself to the cleric. While Eefje and Maul the Dwarf fought with the remaining two creatures, Alonzo Machete, not wanting to harm the cleric further, dropped his sword and attempted to beat the stirge attached to Cletus to death. Unfortunately he missed and his mailed fist crashed into the back of  the cleric’s head, dropping her to the ground. Combined with the stirge’s bloodsucking ability this dropped the cleric to -4 Hit Points before the party was able to dispatch the aerial threat.

DM Note: In original B/X when a character reaches 0 Hit Points they are dead. In Lamentations of The Flame Princess (the version of B/X that we are playing) at 0 Hit Points a character is incapacitated. At -3 Hit Points they are mortally wounded and will die in 1d10 rounds. At -4 Hit Points they die instantly. While more generous than OB/X, this still feels a little arbitrary and unsatisfying to me. At -3HP a character is doomed. Maybe they live long enough to give a rousing death speech? I don’t know. I thought it was particularly silly that the bulk of the cleric’s damage came from a bad roll by another player who was trying earnestly to help them. So I decided on the spot that -5HP was when instant-death occurred in my game.

Applying medieval first-aid the party dragged the unconscious and blood-drained cleric out of the ToTSK, and the party desperately tried to come up with a new plan of action.