Dramatis personae
Xóran, fox-man scout
Kim, thief
Mayhem, short barbarian
Ash, squire
Áttikos, holy warrior of the sun god
Grymalkus, whiny cleric of the war god
Caleb, wizard
Kôštē, cleric of the farming goddess
Quid occurrit
As they walked through the halls, they chatted among themselves as to how to handle the "demon dolls." They thought a shield wall would be best.
They walked back to the room where they had fled from the pudding, and sure enough, they had a chance to put this to work as there was a doomchild there. After the first volley of arrows and fireballs, the little doomchild bum-rushed them.
Mayhem stepped out from behind the shield wall, grabbed the doomchild, and tossed him back to whence it came. Its ass burst open as it landed, making it go boom well away from the heroes. Doomchild handled.
After Kôštē patched up Mayhem's booboo from the doomchild's knife, they pushed onward. After winding through a few rooms and Kim not finding any secret doors in any dead ends, they found themselves looking at five doomchildren.
The opening volley all missed, and sure enough, the doomchildren bum-rushed them again. This time, they all missed, and were now before the shield wall. Ash took a poke (Defensive Attack) from behind the wall, and … kaboom! It hurt, but the shields did take some of the damage.
After some more patching up—Mayhem especially took some bone fragments—they rested for a bit, letting Kôštē get back some oomph. They pushed farther inside, looking for the stairs to lead them down to the Workdesk of Doom or whatever it was, with Kim always looking for hidden doors. After a turn to the north, they ran into six big rats. The rats, however, did little but get a lone tooth on Áttikos, while Mayhem and Caleb (with Acid Jet) each took out a rat and Ash took out two before the not-so-little buggers fled.
So, back to wandering. In one room, which had a rotten drapery in its doorway, six striges flew inside. They must not have been hungry, since they flew back out, squawking.
Mayhem squawked back.
Kim's hunt for hidden doors did pay off not long after this. A big wooden chest was in the corner, but Kim's hand went through the chest as if it were air. Caleb looked at it, and found that the chest was truly three feet to the left of where it seemed to be. Kim figured out how to open the chest, and found 90 copper and 50 silver inside. Grymalkus told her not to take the loot. "It's a tomb! It's burial treasure! We're not grave robbers!"
Mayhem, however, said, "Yeah, we are."
After taking the loot, they wound through even more twists and turns, then stopped at a door. Kim listened at the door, and heard a gurgle behind it. After some chatter, she kicked open the door, and behind it was a grey pudding, much like the one they had seen before.
Mayhem and Xóran wanted no part of this. "Stay away from dookie!" yelled Mayhem. Xóran thought the "whelp" (Grymalkus) should handle this if he wanted to fight it, and ate some snake jerky. As always, Kôštē hung back with them, both because she didn't think fighting the pudding was worth it, and because she wanted to be ready if the pudding hurt someone.
The pudding could withstand their blows, but had a hard time landing blows itself. Caleb's Create Steam on the pudding did slowly sap it of some health, but he ducked back after a few spells. Ash did the most harm, leading Mayhem, while digging in his pack to make a Molotov cocktail, to yell, "Mom, he's poking the pudding!"
At last, however, the pudding landed a blow on Attikos, who fell right away. Caleb scorched it with Acid Jet, but the pudding moved onto Attikos and at that time, Xóran and Mayhem knew they had to help out. They helped Ash wail on it, while Caleb, again trying to hit it with Acid Jet, lost his footing, and stumbled past it trying to keep standing and wound up scorched in his own Create Steam. The pudding smacked Kim, who somehow stayed standing, but had to stagger back a few yards. Xóran tried to grab Attikos from under the pudding but couldn't win a test of strength with the pudding. It was looking bad, and then …
The pudding blinked out.
Stunned from their sudden luck, they healed up, and luckily the striges, which flew past again, weren't hungry.
Res aliae
Did I give them three points or four points? Well, to tell the truth, in all this time since the session I kinda lost track myself. But, considering that I'm the game master and can kill characters for no good reason, you gotta ask yourself one question: "Did he give three points or four?" Well, how many, punk?
The striges kept getting good reactions to the party, being as that they weren't in their lair room. I interpreted that as having eaten. No, I'm not trying to be kind; they could have taken them out easily.
The fight with the pudding was one that only happened the way it happened because folks were playing more than one character. (Well, other than Steph playing Mayhem only.) I'm pretty sure Roman would have had Xóran jump into the fight earlier had he only been playing Xóran, as doing nothing is boring.
Anyways, as Kim had made her Hearing roll and, as the pudding wasn't trying to be quiet, she heard something. As the murderhoboes weren't trying to be quiet, it heard them, and tried to time its coming to the material world with them showing up, but, having only IQ 4 (which is brilliant among slimes, remember), timed it wrong as the gang talked about goodness knows what before opening the door. So it wasn't quite as deadly as it could have been, seeing as that everyone always got defense rolls and, with skill 14 to strike, it wasn't making any Deceptive Attacks. It kept taking damage, but Damage Reduction and high
I do now see Kromm’s comment about how the grey pudding could have taken Attikos with it to the astral plane (I was thinking it had to kill him first), but Joe wasn’t there and so Roman was running Attikos, so I wouldn’t have pulled that on someone not there. But now it’s out there for next time, so don't put missing players' characters in the way of grey puddings. Or your own, for that matter.
I might write an easy overview of GURPS combat for my players, especially Steph, who is having trouble with the whole second-by-second nature. She wasn't happy about taking range penalties at 10 yards, as Mayhem hadn't aimed.
No comments:
Post a Comment