Escape from Animal Island

This is from the session last Friday.

Z - F
    Pita - hireling
    Mika - hireling
Spike - F
Darkyo - F
Derrick - F
    Jimbo - hireling
    Zigfried - trained baboon
Athydas - MU
Gessup - DP

G's player decides to try out a cleric (divine petitioner) so his one-eyed fighter and hireling are shelved for the time being.  The rest of the session is essentially one tense battle.  The party realizes there is a room with bent bars that no one has ever gone into.  Spike and Athydas then impulsively enter said room to get the action going.

In the room is a puma-pheasant, the most beautiful of all beasts.  Just the sight of it charms Spike, Athydas, Darkyo, Derrick and his hireling Jimbo.  Zigfried the baboon saves but runs off in terror.  Z and company are outside.  Gessup doesn't look.

First round the creature drops Athydas to 0 with one blow.  Next round it drops spike to -1.  Next round it breaks poor, faithful Jimbo's neck.  Gessup has saved and gotten off a few sling stones in the meantime wounding it. 

Z manages to drag Derrick outside, his hirelings trying to rouse him.  Gessup is then mortally wounded.  Darkyo broke the charm and begins to flee.  Then Z puts on his beautiful cap and re-enters the hall (the cap worked the last time one of these was encountered).  There is a tense "charm-off," but both Z and the creature save.  A few rounds and Z slays it in combat.  Gessup cries out to his god for aid and is answered!  The party tends to Athydas.  Spike's player doesn't want him saved, chooses to roll up a new character.

After discussion and poking about, the party finds a passage heading down, a boarded up door, some shining objects on the ground.  Derrick falls into some soft, burrowed-out earth in front of a door injuring himself. In the chamber they find a chest.  Z has suspicions that it is similar to one they saw long ago, they test it and it teleports each of them back into some catacombs in the Maw, next to Nidus.

Some thoughts
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The last time the party saw the other of the pair of chests was almost a year of real time ago, Nov 25th, 2010.  The last time they've been in Nidus was in February this year.

There is unexplored stuff on the island, I wonder if they'll go back, now that they know they have a way.  Though, I think they are sick of it.

The mage, who just died last session, reaches death's door again!  In talking with him about it, he feels someone has to do something or the rest of the timid/undecided party will never move.  They need to work this out as a group or play will never be fun, bursts of annoyed action that results in deaths because it was incautious.

I didn't like so much that Gessup managed to escape a mortal wound the way Athadys did just last session.  Maybe this mortal wound thing isn't a good idea after all.  Although, it was just a chance.  His petition had to be answered and he then had to roll enough hit points healed to live.  Both happened.  Maybe I'll let it ride.  I think it's much less likely to work again.

I really like the charming monster, that thing is dangerous.  I also like Z's cap.  I thought it would be too powerful, but when I started making all his hirelings and party members roll to save or just following him around dumbfounded it limited greatly when he can use it to good effect.

I screwed up with Spike's character.  She didn't want to play him any more so, sure, roll up another character.  But the one she rolled up was a total scrub with multiple stats below 7.  I said, sure roll another character.  This one got multiple 14s.  I should have made her stick with the scrub, if she wanted to switch, but I was distracted with the rest of the game (still ongoing) and wanted her to have fun (but thinking high stats will make play more fun is the wrong philosophy if you ask me, she could still fail her save versus the puma-pheasant with this new character if she's just going to run into rooms willy nilly).

Have no idea what they'll want to do tonight in Nidus.  I'm trying to make some NPCs and rumors.