Role-Playing Guild

With the illustrious visit to campus by Primogen Andy K., and because he
wanted to, a role-playing game was hastily put together. This is the result of
that enjoyable adventure which lasted from 8pm to 4am the next morning. It
should also be noted that this adventure was based on
Dungeo Crawl Classics #5: Aerie of the Crow God (d20)
adventure that was modified for enjoy ability by Andy K.

During character creation which lasted from 8pm to 10pm ish some interesting
things happened before we even started to play:

• Kate F.'s idea of a Halfling Rogue with a Pike
• Andy K.'s BEST EVER demonstration of two weapon fighting
• The foreshadowing fact that our characters had been adventuring for 8 years and only met 4 years ago.
  To top that off they had only advanced to level 8 in those 8 years.

The Cast of Characters

The group all arrive in Carnelo in dark and stormy weather. They quickly
take refuge from the weather in the local tavern. While there they overhear two
old fellows talking about a Lady Pendour, and her need for someone to find the
key to her dead husband's locked box. After some questioning, the party
determines it shall go forth to find out if they can help with unlocking the
box, which might potentially contain moldy bread.

The party makes it way to the 'mansion' of Lady Pendour, where the stop at
the gate keeper's house. There Dylan finds a deck of cards, and proceeds to
play by himself and lose. The dwarven gate keep arrives, to see what is going
on. The party proceeds to tell him that have arrived to offer help to Lady
Pendour. With some doubt as to the party's abilities and mental aptitude the
Dwarf agrees to let them talk to Lady Pendour, and pulls a rope. He then
proceeds to explain to the party that the rope is magic and lets the people in
the 'mansion' know someone is coming to the door.

When the party reaches the door, it slowly open to at first nothing. As they
slowly proceed in the hear the sounds of little children suddenly followed by
two kids jumping out from behind the open door, wearing wooden toy armor, and
wielding wooden swords. In an attempt to impress the kids Ariel convinces one
of them to give his sword to her. She then tries to proceed to light the wooden
sword on fire, but fails.

• Kid - "Mommy says not to play with fire"
• Ariel - "I'm not your mommy"

The kids then direct the party to the stairs, but before that the party
wanders into the Kitchen. After a brief discussion with the cook, to learn that
they cook their bread fresh so there is no need for them to store bread in a
locked box. The cook returns to cooking, and the party investigates the pantry
and the cooling cellar. After a brief worry about possibly find human corpses
hanging in the cellar, which they were not, the party heads up the stairs in
search of Lady Pendour.

At the top of the stairs the party meets the butler who leads them to Lady
Pendour's room. In the room they find Lady Pendour in bed, wearing a wedding
dress and sobbing loudly. Next to the bed in front of a large dresser is a
locked box. The party tries various things to unlock the box while Lady Pendour
continues to cry and wail on the bed. Derni is at first suspicious of the large
dresser, but is distracted by the group who insist she pick the lock. Derni
fails to pick the lock, and Ariel's magic also fails to open it, along with
Sway's greatsword.

Having failed in their attempt to open the box, they talk to Lady Pendour.
She tells them she has no idea what is in the box, and has serious doubts it
would be bread. She proceeds to tell them about her husband who left to
Creaton's Head. Creaton's Head is the tall mountain just off shore, which at
low tide can be reached by a narrow sand bar. Creaton's Head is home to
harpy-like monsters that have been terrorizing the town.

• Lady Pendour - "He left to go fight the harpies"
• Sway - "I think he left to get away from one."
• Lady Pendour - "WAAA!!! You Brute"
• Sway - "That is one of my best qualities"
• Alcar - "Don't mind him, he is an idiot"
• Sway - "That is one of my best qualities"

Lady Pendour also shows them a note she received. The note
states that she has three days to give up the contents of the box or else she
and her kids will be murdered. The note is signed with an X. When the party
questions her on whom X is she sobs louder and cries into her pillow. The group
than leaves, and when Ariel points out that there are too many X's living in
this town to go ask them all about this, it is decided to go to the Creaton's
Head.

Without even thinking of seeing if the Creaton's Head can be reached via the
Sand bar, they take charge of a row boat and proceeds to row through heavy seas
to Creaton's Head. After a harrowing row boat trip that nearly takes an hour,
what usually takes a few minutes, they find a low ceiling water entrance into
Creaton's Head. After Sway hits his head on the ceiling, they row into the entrance,
which opens up into a wide open cavern, where there is shallow water, and a
beach the can land at.

As they row towards the beach, they spot the wreckage of another row boat in
the water, as well as two chests. Sway reaches in to try and pull up a chest
but can't get it, and nearly falls out of the row boat. Suddenly four scrags
attack the row boat.

The four scrags seriously hurt the party and while fighting them off Alcar
and Ariel fall out of the row boat into the water. One of the Scrags tears into
Dylan leaving him bleeding and unconscious in the row boat, but Derni manages
to bring Dylan back around. Alcar meanwhile flounders in the water on the verge
of drowning.

Dylan then is knocked out of the boat and into the water, but he fights
better in the water, and using his trident knocks one of the scrags out. Derni
nearly decapitates another of the scrags with her dart. Alcar continues to
flounder in the water closer to drowning. Sway meanwhile stands up in the boat
and takes a swing at one of the scrags with his greatsword, who he misses at
first, but slices in half with his second swing. Sway then tries to bring his
greatsword down on another scrag, but misses and falls out of the boat, leaving
Derni left in the boat alone.

Ariel manages to get out her whip and lashes one of the scrags. Dylan coup
de grace's the knocked out scrag and swims over to help Alcar. Derni continues
to toss her returning-dart at the scrags.

Before Dylan can help Alcar finally manages to stand up in the two foot deep
water and stop from drowning. Alcar then knocks one of the scrags unconscious
with his flailing mace. But before the scrag's body reaches the bottom it
suddenly wakes back up and rips a severe deep cut into Alcar. Sway steps up and
kills the scrag before it can do any more harm to Alcar.

The last scrag is lashed by Ariel, and stabbed by Dylan's trident before it
is killed by Derni and her returning dart.

Sway drags one of the chests to the beach, while Alcar drags the other.
Dylan pulls the row boat to the beach since Derni isn't big enough to row the
boat herself and in the walk to the beach Dylan finds a shiny blue pearl. The
rest of the part opens the chest to find that they contain 7000 silver, 2000
copper and 500 gold pieces.

They then proceed up the stairs, with the order: Derni, Sway, Ariel, Dylan
and Alcar bringing up the rear. After an uneventful climb they end up outside
standing on top of the mountain in front of a four story tower. Derni doesn't
find anything around the outside of the tower, so the group climbs the stairs
leading to the entrance on the second floor.

They enter a room with destroyed bunks, broken bones and herbs all over the
floor. Dylan examines the herbs, while Derni walks towards the fireplace, Ariel
lights herself up in order to light the fireplace. But before Ariel can set
light the fire a naked old crow lady flies down from the ceiling at the party.

It scares Ariel, still flaming, and Dylan who start running around panic
stricken. Derni flings her dart at the naked old crow lady and hits it, and
Alcar hits it with a crossbow bolt, but the monster is still alive. Sway takes
out his silver dagger and throws it at the old crow lady, and catches it under
the beak causing it to fall out of the air and landing hard on its neck,
breaking it.

While Ariel and Dylan continue to run around screaming, Derni finds a rook
egg in the fireplace. Alcar picks up the egg and casts light on his hand to get
an idea of what is inside of it. It is still undeveloped so he packs it up. The
panic stricken few calm down while the others search the room for whatever is
there, which is nothing.

The group than proceed to the stairwell at the back of the room and debate
on which way to go.

• Dylan - "Which way smells better?
• GM - "Up smells better"
• Derni - "Then lets go down"

• Dylan - "Isn't advantageous to have the high ground"
• Sway - "If we go down the stairs, that means we have the high ground when attacked"
• Alcar - "Then let's go up!"

After much deliberation the group goes down the spiral staircase, as opposed to up.

At the first floor they find a smithy that hasn't been used in a long time.
Finding nothing of interest, they walk through it to another room with
intricate tiling on the floor, a nightstand and dresser in it. Derni manages to
disable a trap on drawer to a nightstand where she finds a scroll, a silver
scimitar with blue silk hilt (given to Sway), as well as a crystal decanter.
The tile work displays a battle between wizards. With nothing else of interest,
the dresser contains just old clothes; the party goes back to the stairs.

The group continues to go down the stairs. On the way Ariel flames up again.
The group ends up in a room with a barren dirt floor with various fungi and
mushroomed covered crates and barrels. In some of the crates is found various
furniture, rusty weapons and other sundries. Amongst the items there is a
chewed bag with violent fungus essence, which Ariel states is used as a poison
to kill rats and other vermin. They also spot a well, a dumb waiter as well as
a rotted door slightly hidden by bags.

The group moves the bags out of the way of the rotted door and open it to
find a cave. With Derni and Sway in the lead, followed by Ariel then Dylan with
Alcar at the back, the group proceeds into the cave. After a short walk the
group stops at a deep chasm, with a narrow bridge across it.

Dylan sends Steve, his badger across the narrow bridge, which manages to
make it to the other side. In the darkness, on the other side of the bridge,
group watches as a centipede crawls out from the shadows and bites Steve nearly
in half. Steve survives the attack but is now lying unconscious on the other
side of the chasm.

Derni tosses her dart at the centipede nicking it. Dylan quickly manages to
crawl out across the bridge in order to retrieve Steve. Alcar fires a crossbow
bolt at the centipede but misses. While Ariel tries to hit the centipede with a
fire bolt but misses as well.

The Centipede skitters over to Dylan and bites him hard, in the process
nearly blinds him when it bites into one of his eyes. With Dylan near death,
Derni rushes across the bridge to help Steve, but doesn't manage to revive the
badger.

Sway tries to crawl across the bridge to help fight the centipede. Along
though he slips off the bridge and ends up hanging from it by one hand. Dylan
meanwhile manages to grab Steve and put him in his backpack, and retreats
across the bridge. Unfortunately he steps on Sway's hand in his hasty retreat.
Sway loses his hold and falls to the bottom of the chasm, where he lands in a
pile of guano and bones, and is very slow to stand up.

Alcar quickly heals Steve, bringing the badger back from the brink of death.
While Ariel hits the centipede with a fire bolt singing it. The Centipede turns
on Derni, who is the only person left on that side of the bridge, but Derni
manages to hide in the shadows from the Centipede.

After Alcar heals him of his wounds, Dylan crawls back across the bridge.
Ariel sends another fire bolt into the Centipede scorching it a bit more.

Despite being hidden from sight in the shadows the Centipede finds Derni
with its sense of smell and bites her causing her to collapse unconscious. The
Centipede then begins drags Derni's unconscious body away. Dylan makes it back
across the bridge in time to strike the Centipede with his trident. Alcar then crawls
across the bridge to help against the Centipede. Ariel hits the centipede with
another fire bolt, causing it to scream and drop Derni's body. It then goes
after Dylan, but misses. Dylan on the other hand does not miss the Centipede
and kills it.

While waiting at the bottom of the chasm Sway finds a pouch with 55 gold and
a ring in it, as well as a shield. With the Centipede dead, ropes are dropped
down the chasm and Sway is pulled out. Alcar heals Derni and Sway back to good
health.

The group continues on through the cave, where they go east along a side
passage. There they come across a room of 12 empty sarcophagi. They leave that
passage and go south and take the eastern fork. Where they find an empty old
jail with a door in the southern wall that is stuck. Sway tries to kick the
door in but only manages to kick the door frame. It takes Alcar to kick the
door down. The room behind the door contains a black stone dais of a Rook. It
also has a humanoid with burning red eyes and a coat of chains.

Sway charges the creature but it manages to catch Sway's leg with a chain
slamming him into the ground face first and him to lose his grip on his
greatsword, which slides across the floor. The creature then rounds on Alcar
but misses him. Dylan then rushes in hitting the creature for some
"pokey-pokey" damage. Ariel moves into the room and launches a fire
bolt into it, singeing it. Alcar then steps in, and almost gets tripped by the
monster, and kills it.

While in the room Ariel and Alcar are overtaken by the evil and become
weakened before the others drag them out of the room.

They then continue down a southern passage, where the find a side passage
leading to some stairs leading up, but at the base of the stairs is a sign of
Melkor, flanked by black monoliths. Ignoring this stairs for now the party
continues south where they come across a door with a skull capped pile of
stones in front of it. Ariel proceeds to set the door afire with a fire bolt,
causing the skull capped stones explode in the fire. As the door burns a blade
slides out from the door, but fails to hit anyone.

Walking through the charred remains of the door, the group to finds a 60
foot deep crater with a black tar pit in it. Above the tar pit are balls of
fire. A few of the party coughs from the fumes, but they quickly recover in
time to see a creature of tar rises from the pit, and attacks them.

The Tar monster smacks Dylan around a bit. Dylan then swings back hitting it
twice with his trident. Sway swings and slices the Tar monster for some damage.
Derni flings her dart hitting it once. Alcar then hits the Tar monster killing
it.

As the party leaves the room, Dylan, with his one good eye, is the only one
to notice that there are pipes leading up through the ceiling. In the hallway
the party heals up and sleeps through the uneventful night. (Although in the
night, Sway has a dream, where he is holding the scimitar in front of a pool of
water. The scimitar is glowing blue, while in the pool another glowing object
approaches. Before he can make out what the other object is the dream fades.)

The party then proceeds to sally forth to the western passages. They take a
northern passage which leads to a room with a turgid pool of water that is
being filled from water dripping from the ceiling. Mold and fungus and bat
guano cover the floor.

A quick flash of the dream fills Sway's mind, but before he can do anything
about it a globby tongues comes forth from the pool and slams into Dylan, and
quickly disappears back under the water. Then the giant undead monstrous frog
rises from the water and with its tongue slams into Alcar. Alcar suddenly
stiffens up and is dragged into the water by the tongue that is stuck on his
armor.

• GM to Ariel - "You can now take your pot shot"
• Dylan - "Burn it! Burn it!"
• Jules (out of character) - "No! I'm in it!"
• Rachael - "Screw it!"

Derni hits it with her dart, but when she goes to throw the
dart again she twists her ankle. Dylan pulls out his sling and whips a bullet
at it, missing. Sway pulls out the scimitar which promptly glows blue-green,
which causes something in the water beyond the monstrous frog to glow
similarly, so he just stands there looking at the glowing objects. Ariel fires
a fire bolt into the monstrous frog.

With Alcar paralyzed, the frog lets Alcar go to sink to the bottom of the
water, and misses an attack against Ariel. Derni proceeds to fling her dart
into the frog, missing with the first toss, but killing it with the second.

Dylan quickly dives into the nasty water to rescue Alcar, but has trouble
swimming to get to him. Once Dylan gets to Alcar he manages to pull him to
shore and out of the water. Dylan then goes back out into the pool and brings
back the glowing object. It turns out to be an 8-inch diamond bladed punching
dagger, with spring-loaded adamantine tiger claws to appear.

• Andy is explaining why Derni's weapons only do 1d3+1 as opposed to the normal 1d4+1
• Andy - "Little people have little weapons"
• Lionel - "But they have lots of love"
• Andy - "We are not talking about midget sex here"
• Karl - is reading a book suddenly chimes in - "That is a beautiful picture"

Not wanting to spend the whole time cleaning out pockets of rats and the
like, the group sends Steve to go forth to clean out the vermin population
level in the rest of the passages. The party goes back and goes up the
staircase marked by the black monoliths, they ignored earlier.

At the top of the stair the party made a left and ended up in a cavernous room with
a glowing ceiling and lots of birds and one Rook. A large eagle swoops by and misses Ariel,
while a swarm of crows dive in and attack Sway and Dylan just barely scratching the
two of them. Derni hits the Rook with her dart twice. Ariel swings at the large
eagle with her flaming hand but misses. The Rook flies at Alcar and with its
dagger cuts him leaving a small gash. Sway swings his greatsword around enough to kill the
swarm of crows and then swings into the large eagle killing it as well. Dylan then
attacks the Rook killing it. After scouring the room and finding a ring a protection +1, Ariel
lights the room on fire. She then puts on the ring.

Having struck upon an easy way to clear rooms out, the move back down the hallway to the next room.
Instead of investigating it they just set it afire. After the fire dies down,
they investigate the room and find the burned remains of an evil cleric.

While stumbling through various rooms and passages, the party comes across a room
with a lean gray dwarf who at an anvil. The dwarf looks up from his work to look at the party.
Suddenly from the forges behind him spring forth 6 hell hounds which begin to attack the group.

The first hellhound goes after Dylan but fails to connect, but another hits Ariel
for some damage, and another hurts Alcar. Sway and Derni manage to dodge the hellhounds
attacking them and escape the surprise rush without any damage.

Ariel with her new punching dagger hits one of the hellhounds. Alcar manages to strike the
hellhound attacking him twice, and Derni only manages to punch the hellhound attacking her once.
Dylan on the other hand kills the hellhound attacking him. Sway tops them all but killing the
hellhound on him and then cleaving into the one attacking Alcar killing it, but fails to cleave
into the one attacking Ariel.

During this round the Dwarf casts a spell and suddenly disappears.

The remaining hellhounds fail to land any bites on the party.
Ariel, though, manages to punch one of the hellhounds attacking her, but not enough to kill it.
Alcar helps Derni by attacking the hellhound on her.
Dylan then attacks the hellhound attacking Ariel killing it.
Derni using her dart kills the hellhound in front of her.
Sway finishes off the hellhound in front of him.

From hiding in invisibility the enlarged dwarf attacks Dylan, killing him.
Ariel fires a fire bolt into the dwarf, singeing him.
The dwarf then swings at Alcar, hitting him for a good deal of damage.
Alcar then lets loose with two arrows from his longbow which hit the dwarf killing him.

Amongst the dwarf's remains they find the key to his locked chest. Opening up the chest
reveals a raise dead scroll, as well as a potion of healing moderate, plus several other
scrolls. Also in the room is found a leather satchel holding 300 gold pieces and 4 gems worth 50 gps.
Using the scroll that was just found Dylan is raised from the dead.
Then it is noticed something from the forge is glowing.

• Ariel - "I'll move the flames out of the way"
• Derni - "I'll go look for the glowing object"
• GM - "You find a rod...-under his breath- it is a vibrator."
• GM looks up the stats
• GM - "It is a 12-inch rod. Oh God! It is a wondrous 12-inch rod."
• --insert Stats and picture--

The party wanders about some more and fry some Clerics "hanging-out" in a room.
They also kill a ghost and get a key to the black temple which they enter.
In the black temple is a large ghast in armor with big mace, two clerics,
two zombies and a large eagle.

Sway swings his greatsword and manages to kill the first zombie but misses the second zombie.
Derni tosses a bead from her necklace creating a huge fireball killing a cleric, and burning the others.
In retaliation, the large eagle swoops at Derni but misses her.

The ghast begins to laugh and starts talking about how it will rule, but before it can get into
the full swing of his evil-speech, Ariel kneecaps him with a fireball, that takes off its leg.
Alcar then charges past the zombie and cleric unmolested and swings at the ghast hitting it.
Dylan kills the last zombie as it lunges at him.

With Alcar standing right next to it the ghast tries to smite Alcar but misses.
The last cleric heals the ghast for a little bit of help. It doesn't help because
Derni tosses another bead causing another fireball that kills the eagle, cleric and ghast.

Before the bodies can hit the floor, in wanders Steve the badger. In Steve's mouth is the key
to Pendour's locked box. It turns out that the dire rats in the caverns had scavanged Pendour's
body, and took the key back down to the caverns.

The group quickly returns to the Pendour mansion. There they find Lady Pendour still in her
wedding gown on the bed and still crying. The group hands the key to Lady Pendour, as she
opens the box to reveal a living helmet all pulsing and gorey. She picks up the helmet and
laughs an evil cackling laugh and then vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Derni finally decides to slate her curiosity and look in the large dresser.
There Derni finds the rotting remains of the real Lady Pendour hanging.