Saturday, March 30, 2024

Nightwick Abbey - Session 89 - "Old Men Crossed With Nude Mice"

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...

Want to learn more about the world of Nightwick from Miranda Elkins? You can follow her blog here and the ongoing development of Nightwick Abbey at her Patreon here.

Session 89 - 28th of Primes, 1398

This week's adventurers:

Mayfly (Magician 5) 

Mechtilde (Fighter 5)

Ulf (Magician 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 4)

Poppy (Fighter 3) 

Voorhis (Cleric 3)

Krupe (Cleric 3)

Thekla (Magician 2)

Hirelings: Niklaus (Fighter 1), Assman (Fighter 1)

Down to the Abbey

This week we decide to play things safe and go down to level 2, to the realm of the Bleeding Baroness. Mechtilde insists that she needs to extract a sample from the Gibbet Cage monsters down there.

We enter Nightwick Abbey through the remains of an old bell tower that still sticks out of the ground. On our was through level 1, we come across a door swollen shut, blocking our path.

We suspect that something is behind the door so Mayfly casts ESP and shifts his focus to behind the door. He detects a group of very simple thoughts on the other side.

Baptize a Rat

Mechtilde forces open the door to reveal several Dregs - short figures that resemble old men crossed with nude mice.

They're grouped up around a baptismal font, trying to push one of their members up into the font to drink from it.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Nightwick Abbey - Session 88 - Battered by Ghouls and Buckets of Gold

 

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...

Want to learn more about the world of Nightwick from Miranda Elkins? You can follow her blog here and the ongoing development of Nightwick Abbey at her Patreon here.

Session 88 - 21st of Primes 1398

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 6)

Mayfly (Magician 5) 

Mechtilde (Fighter 5)

Ulf (Magician 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 4)

Poppy (Fighter 3) 

Voorhis (Cleric 3)

Krupe (Cleric 3)

Thekla (Magician 2)

Hirelings: Niklaus (Fighter 1)

Downtime in the Village

Ulf and Blossom spent the week carousing for XP and both wound up sick. Father Roderick of Nightwick Village offers to request a scroll of Cure Disease from the Bishop (for a price), however St. Samson left us with a bundle of such scrolls after we rescued him and we are able to use those to cure ourselves for free.

Mayfly attempt to do research on the lower levels of Nightwick Abbey, but only ends up losing a lot of cash to bad scholars.

It is a dark and stormy morning as we leave the village and head into the abbey. There's a noticeable change in air pressure as we enter into the crypts on level 3, which throws off Liminal Space's delicate Changeling sensitivities.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Nightwick Abbey - Session 87 - Phantasmal Force is Finally Effective

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey... 

Want to learn more about the world of Nightwick? You can follow the creator's blog here and the ongoing development of Nightwick Abbey at her Patreon here.

Session 87 - 14th of Primes 1398

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 6)

Mayfly (Magician 5)

Ulf (Magician 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 4)

Voorhis (Cleric 3)

Krupe (Cleric 3)

Poppy (Fighter 3)

Hirelings: Assman (Fighter 1), Helusch (Magician 1), Niklaus (Fighter 1)

Downtime in the Village

Flush with cash, several of the party went carousing this week. Most had pleasant expierences, but Mayfly wound up in trouble after a night of drinking and was arrested by a figures known as Fingers who made him fork over a fine of 80gp to avoid arrest.

Swearing revenge against his new foe, Mayfly forks over the cash and remains out of prison...for now.

This week, we decide to return to level 4 for more exploration and hopefully treasure.

Down Into the Abbey

On our  way through level 3, Blossom, scouting ahead, turns a corner a spies a dozen cultists standing in our way, right outside the stairs down.

Liminal pops out of the corner and surprises the cultists with a sleep spell.

The leader of the cultist, in a silver mask, cries out as 6 of his companions drop and hurls a Fire Ball at the party. Mayfly is hit, and screams out in pain! Assman and Niklaus are also hit and drop down, dead!

Weirdly, the rest of the party, who made their saves, takes no damage from the fire and feel no heat coming off of it at all...

Poppy fires arrow off, but misses, and Liminal Space follows up with another round of Sleep, putting the rest of the cultists down!

Not Quite Dead

We inspect our "dead" only to uncover that they are unconscious - the victims of Phantasmal Force apparently, though Mayfly still insists that his burns are real.

On the cultists' bodies (after we kill them), we find 100gp and on the leader, a silver mask worth 100sp.

We continue on, reaching level 4 without issue.

A Game About Doors

We go south, to explore new areas, to the fountain room.

We continue on, and try to force open the next door, but fail so horribly that most of the party gets covered in slime spraying out from the door as the result of poor crowbar usage.

Eventually, we get the door open and come to a 20' corridor leading to a 30' by 30' room, with four pillars made to look like swords - this is where we fought the blind dead last week. Thankfully, there's no more undead here today.

To our west, we see a large room filled with a white fog.

To the east and south are hallways with additional doors.

Fly-Person Industry

We go east, to the first set of doors. Liminal listens south and hears the sound of a hammer hitting metal. Blossom listens north and hears sounds of rushing wind and hissing.

Before we can act, the door east opens up! We scramble into position as a Fly-Person, holding a glaive and a steaming sword in each hand, steps into the hallway.

Mayfly greets him, but he is curt and demands that he has to pass through the southern door quickly.

We see figures in the room to the east, crowding around the door, watching us. Then the northern door opens! And there is another Fly-Person, holding a hot iron rod.

We back up, and the three Fly-People watching us carry new, glowing hot swords to the north, before returning east. The one to the north brings his rod south.

This is clearly a smithing operation, though it is strange that its spread out across at least three rooms.

Mayfly glimpses a particularly large Fly-Person wielding a hammer to the north, banging on swords.

Iron and Tears

We decide to give the smiths some space and go back to the pillared room and go south.

There are doors to the east and west and further along, the hallway branches off to the sides as well.

Blossom listens and hears loud crying to the east and nothing to the west.

We open the door west to reveal a 30' by 20' room filled with crates.

We open the first crate to find it full of bloody, rusted iron rods.

We continue looking through the crates, but only find more iron rods.

After a turn, Poppy, who had been keeping watch, sees a Fly-Person walk around the corner we came from, see us, and turn away sheepishly.

Back to the Village

After a half-hearted, failed attempt to open the door east, to the crying room, we decide to call it for the week, and return back to Nightwick Village.

We return with 1,100sp total, for 137sp each, and we each get 281xp, with our hirelings each gaining a half share. A meager haul, but we also faced few challenges this week. Maybe that will all change next week, as we return to Nightwick Abbey!

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Nightwick Abbey - Session 86 - Giving Level 4 Another Shot

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...

Session 86 - 7th of Primes 1398

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 6)

Mayfly (Magician 5)

Mechtilde (Fighter 5)

Ulf (Magician 4)

Liminal Space (Changeling 4)

Krupe (Cleric 3)

Poppy (Fighter 3)

Thekla (Magician 2)

Hirelings: Two Big Shieldmen

Downtime in the Village

Happy New Year from the Dark Country! With the month of Primes rings in the new year. Anne, Lady of Blackleg is hosting a jousting tournament, and rumor has it that she intends to marry the winner...

...However, jousts do not interest our party and so we return to the depths of Nightwick Abbey, as single and celibate as ever. 

We decide to return to level 4, in an attempt to "milk" some gold out of the fly-men who gave us a bad time the last time we down there.

Happening in Nightwick

Ulf was absent last week and this week he notices we have two new hirelings - two large fellas with tall pavises (tall shields that can be stuck into the ground). He asks Mechtilde and Liminal Space the names of their new hirelings and they simply shrug and don't have an answer. 

Two weeks ago, Krupe had to cast Turn Undead to save our party from being overwhelmed by the undead. In response, the Abbey shifted around us. 

Last week, the party discovered that the graveyard entrance to level 3 in now to the northeast of where it used to be - in the middle of the level currently. Due to the Abbey's peculiar natures, we can enter through that door into the middle of the floor, but if we turn around and go back through the door, it will no longer take us out. We'll have to remap the floor to find the new exit.