This week’s session was another small group, with only Mazrim the assassin, Silbahn the paladin, and Willis the cleric (Dodger and George Foreman, men-at-arms, and Blazer the torchbearer were also tagging along).
The trio decided to look for another statue, this time Garmin’s, which was said to be the Scriptorium, the old wizard’s council hall and library. The tower had sunk completely into the earth, so that only the ramparts were visible, level with the street.
The party was disconcerted by the sunken tower, and spent a while trying to make sure it was stable, before finally forcing their way in. In side they found the top floor mostly empty but for two ballistae, which were in remarkably good condition.
The next floor down had some snake-man guards, as well as a giant guard-snake. I like pulling out my ‘themed’ collections of minis at time like this, when I’m completely winging it, and tonight it was the snakes! The party dealt with them pretty handily, and began to delve deeper into the rooms on that floor. They eventually found a laboratory with a cloaked, hooded figure and two oversized snake-man archers. They made pretty work of these guys too, but when the cleric looked under the hooded figure’s hood –
One stoned cleric.
The party, undeterred, decided to try ‘one more room’ to ‘clear the level’ … you know how this must end.
The next room had a couple more snakemen and spirit naga. The naga used its charm ability on the paladin, taking him out of the first half of the fight. The assassin charged, but only managed to get entangled in the naga’s terrible coils, and then slowly crushed. The paladin, seeing his friends fighting, was granted another a saving throw, which he made, and he managed to slay the thing, but not before the assassin was dead. Not a TPK, but two out of three isn’t bad.
At this point the paladin and his hirelings hauled the assassin’s body, and as much booty as they could carry, out of the tower, and the paladin scraped together all of the assassin’s money to get him Raised. The cleric’s player elected to roll up a new PC, this time a monk. So the party officially has no spell-casters whatsoever.
A dwarf, a barbarian, a paladin, a bard (C&C style, no spells, not they he ever shows up), a rogue, an assassin, and now a monk. Huzzah!
I didn’t really feel like there were any big difficulties or quandaries for me as a DM this week, so there’s not much to add.
One thing I did learn was that “Dragon’s Milk” beer is indeed quite good. I’d never heard of it before but one of my in-laws gave me a 22 oz. bottle the last time I saw them and it sort of kicked my butt. It is rather high in alcohol content for a beer — I think 10% — and my only gripe would be that it actually tastes pretty strongly of the alcohol. So that big bottle and few bottles of other beers and by the time we were closing shop I was actually intoxicated, which is not how I prefer to DM, but I managed. 
Also, either the beer or the pizza or the combination gave me gas so terrible today that I have almost certainly alienated everyone in my office. Just an unending amount — I must have gone to the bathroom, just to get away from my desk, six times today and every time I had gas again when I finally got back to my desk. Just embarrassing. Especially when more than half your coworkers are women.
Tagged: DMing, session report
