Nábrókarstafur

No matter how creepy I think my ideas are, the world surprises me in it's creepiness:

"you must dig up his body and flay the skin of the corpse in one piece from the waist down. As soon as you step into the pants they will stick to your own skin. A coin must be stolen from a poor widow and placed in the scrotum along with the magical sign, nábrókarstafur, written on a piece of paper. Consequently the coin will draw money into the scrotum so it will never be empty, as long as the original coin is not removed."

 Go here for latex replica of said pants and more context.  So much for my October of light hearted blogging.

via tywkiwdbi

Creepy Coins

**My players stop reading here**

The sodden temple has 50 brass urns in a certain room. I rolled on the chart you helped me make an, lo and behold, I got entry 30.  That was The Rubberduck's contribution and is reminiscent of a certain recent pirate movie's gold.

So, I went hunting around for some coin images that aren't photos and aren't too simplistic (I really like handing out stuff to players).

Now, keep in mind that I have been stressing to the players over and over that all the statuary and all the reliefs in this temple have had their heads systematically effaced.  Why?  I don't know, seemed creepy, as if the original temple was so bad that the forces of good went through and defaced it before sinking it purposefully under the waves of the bay.

Check out the coins I found:

No faces.  I know these have been rubbed off, but I can say they were patiently, purposefully rubbed off.  Think of the work that would take, hundreds of monks sitting quietly, rubbing evil faces off coins.

Here are a few more that could be useful for ancient terrors:

That first looks like some winged-tentacle thing and the second looks like a two-headed creature, or perhaps a creature that shifts from one form to another.

Of course you'll kind of tip off players if you only throw them a print out of coins when they are significant, but as I mentioned, I tend to do it anyway to signify different ancient culture's coins, different region's coins, etc.

The coins are from here.

John D. Batten - XV

I'm a little late posting today. I guess this is dedicated to the folks in Europe. Anybody in Poland reading?

This sword is clearly doing 1d8 damage :) I kid, I kid.

Return to the Sodden Temple

We return to deep in the Sodden Temple where we left our party.  They had just finished a battle with a group of fly cultists.  Hurt, magic spent, and numbers reduced they had to decide what to do.

Only 3 of the 7 players from last session could make it.  I couldn't think of anything creative to do with the missing folks and didn't want to run their characters with them gone.  So, I just handwaved them away.

The party:
Toral (unconscious cleric)
    his two hirelings Tori and Lorea, both fighters
G fighter
Z fighter

I literally had the questions from this post in my hand.  But I waited and they did a good job of deciding what they wanted to do without my intervention-- basically get out alive.  G only had one hitpoint and Toral was out already.  They finally decided to put on the silken robes of fly cultists.  They also each cut off a cultist fly arm and held them in their robes as if they were their own.

They cautiously decided to head back the way they'd come in.  Entering a room that had doors and a ledge a level above them G decided to throw a grapnel up and climb to the ledge.  The ledge was slippery and muddy and he had to try and force open the swollen door while balancing.  He fell, but in a supreme feat of lucky dexterity managed to flip over backward and land on his feet.  This helped the party to decide to leave the ledge and continue back the way they originally came.

A corridor and some stairs and they were back in the large room where they had killed the Brundlephant, the room's floor covered with copper coins.  G filled his quiver, Z grabbed the backpack off of the body of a hireling that had died in this room and filled it with coins and they made their way back towards the entrance.

Through four doors, they found themselves at the entrance of the temple and (with some lucky reaction rolls) walked right past fly cultists milling about there waiting for interlopers.

Back to Nidus, they managed to find a room to stay and commenced shopping and exploring the city's wonders for about a week.  G and Z both managed to acquire the services of guilded hirelings.  G's hireling speaks no common whatsoever.  Party healed up, they headed back to the temple cash poor but sack rich.

With no one about in the entrance they made their way to the room with the pedestal.  They couldn't remember how to open the door they needed to get back to the coins!  In trying every combination G was struck with temporary amnesia and an unbearable lust.  After causing some problems with the hirelings, his lust was abated when Toral asked the Allfather to intervene.

The proper door opened, they headed back into the copper room.  To their consternation they surprised a single fly-headed figure.  Dressed in the robes of the cultist, this is the first they've seen with a fly head.  Remembering the fiasco with the Brundlephant, Toral said cautiously "I start grabbing coins."  Everyone laughed. Then G who had shot the Brundlephant in the eye, remembered he had amnesia and said "I shoot it in the eye."  Probably the best line of the night.  We all laughed.  He missed.  Toral took a swing with his mace and scored a natural 20.  I described the effect: The creature flew back, its hand snagged one of their sacks and filled it with coins as it came to a stop.  They thought that hilarious.

Thousands of coins in tow, a few wandering rats dispatched and back to town they went.  They seemed quite happy.

Some Thoughts
I don't know that I've ever had to make so many rulings on the fly.  But it went alright.  I tried to say yes if I could, or have them roll under their attribute, or roll dice for reactions to see what happened.  I don't think anything came off as arbitrary.

One huge change was I decided to switch to a silver economy.  I'm too tight a DM.  I'm always trying to save gold and big treasures for the big scores, knowing there is nowhere to go up from there.  But then players never feel rewarded.  This seemed to work well.  Every thing costing silver meant the copper coins were worth fooling with.  I also adjusted so that every silver piece spent is equal to one experience point.  My long time player was very happy he has more XP than he's ever had.

Encumbrance was becoming an issue.  I think my idea of having coins slop across the simple encumbrance lines was a good one, otherwise you end up with hirelings toting 300 pounds of coins around.

Rolling to open stuck doors was somewhere between annoying and comical.  There were a few spots where the party loaded with treasure, almost had to turn around and try to find another way out.  That might be worth keeping the OD&D idea of all doors being stuck, but I'm not sure.  It could get tedious.

Searching in Nidus is interesting, but, like the doors, might become a chore.  G said the wonders made it interesting.  And they did see some weird stuff.

Now this subset of the original party has four fighters and a cleric in plate with shields!  I think they will be better able to challenge the temple or whatever they choose to explore.

John D. Batten - XIV

Sorry for the lack of substantial posts.  Work is very hard right now.  I might have a session tomorrow to write about and maybe a long piece this weekend touched off by JB's discussion of d6 damage for weapons.  But in the meantime, my all time favorite Batten piece.  Look at that eagle.  And they're talking to it.  Awesome.