July 25, Thursday (cont.) - In Search of the Ruby Knight's Tomb.
Part of the interrogation of the captive Farrin was to ask about the location of a place called the Ruby Knight's tomb. He was unable to say with certainty whether he knew of the place or not, but thought it might be at the boat docks in the Noble Tombs area. Across the dock cavern from the Alberneth noble tombs themselves was a passage of dwarven carving that he and the other maintenance crew members were forbidden to enter. There were hints of flaking crimson paint on some of the carved ancient dwarven decorations surrounding the door.
With the guidance of Farrin, the party made their way quickly through the Middle Tombs area, avoiding the temptation to be distracted and loot the tombs. At one point, they heard some sort of creatures howling in the distance. Farrin was concerned that this was the sound of more Stalker Demons. This would be bad, as one Stalker Demon had been a significant challenge.
Passing through a shrine and a series of priests' chambers, Farrin led them the back way to a hidden boat dock that would lead them a few hundred yards down a water passage to the Noble Tombs area. This was a short cut that the priests and their minions used; citizens visiting the Tombs to pay their respects would come to these areas through other ways in.
Arriving at the boat dock, the characters came face to face with a small band of seven lizardmen snooping around the docks and the boat that was moored there.
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| Lizardmen at a boat landing |
The melee characters, with an assist from Melior's creative use of the Wind Wall spell, were able to dispatch the lizardmen with little trouble, although Thalmyr did end up in the water...
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| Fighting the lizardmen |
With Farrin's help, Malachy was able to pilot the magical boat, which was propelled by holding the rudder and guiding the boat with your mind. Think forward, go forward, think stop, stop.
A few hundred yards down the passage, lights were seen ahead, and the passage opened into a larger cavern. Passing into the cavern, the boat passed over a submerged rope strung across the opening, which in turn banged a gong hung near the entrance. After a suspenseful wait...nothing happened. The alarm had been sounded, but apparently there was nobody around to hear it.
Emerging into the cavern, the Noble Tomb entrances were on the left, leading from a well lit dock area. To the right, in the dim unlit corner of the cavern, was a much older dock and a passage opening carved in obviously dwarven style.
The characters docked in the dimness near the dwarven entrance, and started down the short staircase just inside the opening. There was a chamber at the bottom of the stairs, and in the chamber were several heaps of charred remains. Carved in the wall of the chamber, in dwarven runes, was the inscription "only the righteous may pass." Presumably the heaps of charred remains had tried to pass but not been righteous enough...
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| The Ruby Knight's Tomb |
Niam was concerned about the inscriptions (based on some events in his past), and would not continue past the chamber. Mal, Badric and Thalmyr went through the far door, into another chamber, and had a choice of going left or right down a pair of short hallways ending in dwarven doors. They chose to go left, went into a tomb chamber, and had brief but disastrous encounter with a wraith. Courtesy of a critical hit from the wraith, Malachy had a very-near-death experience, but was able to get out alive. Barely. The three fled and were not pursued.
Going into the tomb on the right, they found the burial sarcophagus of the Ruby Knight, an ancient dwarven warrior, and were permitted (by the Knight's spirit) to remove the magical warhammer found in the sarcophagus.
The party then pulled their boat as far out of the way as they could, posted a watch, and settled down for a night's sleep.
Next - The Noble Tombs.
GM Commentary - After the bunch of sessions that revolved around slogging through the Underdark, this session (and the last one) were a nice change of pace. The characters were in a different environment, and their interactions with the captive Farrin were interesting.
Knowing that these encounters were likely to be coming, I had made some custom terrain pieces for them (as well as for some other areas that we never used). I think this helped create a concrete sense of "place" for the players (but I'm not one of the players, so I can never really be sure...). Yes or no, this was an enjoyable diversion in and of itself, and I am sure that I can eventually find a use for the pieces that I made for this that got skipped. [Side note: the most elaborate custom piece of terrain I made for this whole campaign arc never got used...]
Which I guess brings up an important point: the time you spend prepping for sessions as a GM (and also certainly in the crafting arena) needs to be enjoyable in its own right, because you have to do so knowing that some (or much, or even most) of your prep is never going to get used. The trap here is to force the players into doing the things that you prepared for them, which is a bad trap to fall into. Player agency (the ability of players to make meaningful choices for their characters) needs to be real and meaningful. The game loses meaning if the GM forces the events into a predetermined course no matter what the players do. I have many aspects of my GM'ing that I can improve on, but this one point at least is something that I think I have been able to internalize pretty well.
