Session 4 Recap & Experience Points Awards

 They didn’t get far before coming upon still more of the Mud Cave’s ghastly foes: zombies this time, muddled walking corpses clawing mindlessly at life.  They came in waves, did the zombies, indifferent to their fates as the company’s warriors struck blow after blow.  Only when the nature cleric Gambol at last hoisted the Tree of Cygnival and invoked his deity’s name were the terrors at last driven back, with only the god’s holy power cutting through the zombies’ otherworldly ignorance.

 Having survived battles with the skeletons and giant spiders, the adventuring troupe paused to regroup in a sheltered nook deep inside the earth.  They’d come for nightweed cone, and weren’t turning back without it.  But this was also a time for caution, with their magics much depleted and no telling how much further into the dark this quest might take them.  So the group settled in for a tense, uneasy rest, which they only hope would pass free of a visit from the remaining horrors of the Mud Cave.

It did.  And before long, the reinvigorated company rose to its feet and probed the rough-hewn stairway at the east end of the chamber.  A thick wall of masonry divided the flight, however, and this barrier would not budge to even the strongest of blows.  The dwarf Jowdain did manage to crack open a cavity of the wall, in which someone (or something) had concealed a gleaming yellow topaz, but after collecting this treasure the group set off cautiously along the southern passage. 

Their path momentarily clear, the company dashed clear of the zombies.  Yet they would find no relief in the way they chose: a dead-end cave, with only a few modest calcite crystals for their trouble.  And even these crystals would yet exact a stiff toll—for in drawing near to remove them, the dwarven warrior Jowdain was suddenly attacked by a quad-beaked cave worm. This was a “grick,” according to the ranger Tay-Wen, a subterranean rock beast known for surprising its victims and snapping its enameled jaws with alarming power. 

The grick itself proved but a minor nuisance, and was swiftly dispatched by the company’s blades.  Yet this left the party with no way forward other than through the zombie horde.  To this end the mage Greyndalf charged ahead, blasting the undead minions with spells of fire and thunder. 

With the zombies soon defeated, the company bounded down a lengthy, winding staircase to an odd-shaped hall, where suddenly the cavern floor gave way and rocks and gravel –but fortunately none of the party members—plummeted to a hard floor some 50 feet below.  Curious what else might have fallen into the same pit previously, Gambol enchanted a skull he’d retrieved from one of the fallen skeletons with a light spell and tossed it to the bottom, the makeshift macabre lantern revealing the bones of a small man or dwarf encased in chain mail.  Metal battle armor being difficult to come by in the Central Range, the gnome Ossik deftly clambered down to retrieve it.  After safely pulling Ossik back to the surface, the group decided the dwarf Jowdain to be the most logical recipient of the armor, which he promptly equipped.

Not far past this pit, the company came upon a second hidden pit—this one much deeper, and better concealed.  Jowdain, walking point for his comrades, did not see it in time.  Luckily, he fell only ten feet, landing on a ledge before the full drop into the abyss.  Yet in the fall Jowdain’s trusty battle axe came free, and plunged the distance into shadow.  He would carry on without it, the heavy martial weapon replaced unsatisfyingly with a woodsman’s hatchet, borrowed from the wizard Greyndalf.

Having negotiated the pit traps with minimal casualties, the group at last came upon a massive, water-carved vault at the base of the Mud Cave.  Dim light filtered down through the cavern here, water trickled down the brown-black walls, and vegetation sprung from pools and puddles all across the chamber: nightweed, and plenty of it. 

But that wasn’t all.  Also making their homes in the nightweed chamber were four massive, fanged lizards and a fifth beast: a winged lizard bearing a triangular, snake-like head.  This was the stone monster—undoubtedly the same as the courageous heroine Kerlinala had set out to destroy so many years before.  As the creatures moved aggressively forward, the bard Sylvan Rao declared there could be no escape.  The beasts were too quick and the distances too long to retreat: the party would succeed where Kerlinala’s band had failed, or they too would perish in the dark depths of the Mud Cave.

Even a giant lizard yet remains a lizard in mind, however, and the fearsome enemies were soon divided.  Greyndalf’s illusion of scurrying rats drew two of the reptiles to a far corner, before his sleep spell rendered half unconscious.  The remaining foes snapped and chawed at the adventuring troupe, but the lizards managed to inflict only minimal damage while the perilous stone monster proved ceaselessly errant in its strikes.  The beasts were soon defeated in a quick and somewhat anti-climactic battle, leaving the nightweed cone free for the taking.

Adventure Notes:

·      Zombie.  After standing toe-to-toe with the several of the shambling corpse monsters, the zombie is now a known foe.  Slow and mindless, zombies are not challenging targets (armor class 8).  But their sturdy build (about 20-25 hit points), relentlessness, and tendency to travel in packs make zombies formidable enemies.

·      Lesser Grick.  The adventuring company learned of the fearsome beaked rock worm, the grick, in the worst possible way—targets of its surprise attack in a dead-end underground passage—but fortunately lived to tell about it.  This was but a minor version of the species, the ranger Tay-Wen Kiru informed you, vulnerable to your unenchanted blades and featuring only vestigial tentacles—not the terrible barbed appendages of its greater cousins.  As for the lesser grick, you estimate its armor class around 14 and its hit point maximum near 30.

·      Giant Lizard.  Weighing several hundred pounds and stretching a good three meters in length, these subterranean limbed reptiles are a terrifying sight, what with their scales and razor-sharp teeth.  But now having fought several of these beasts in close combat, the company knows the giant lizard is not so fearsome—unintelligent, with soft defenses (armor class 12), modest constitution (about 18-22 hit points), and minimal offensive potency (a single bite attack for d8+2 damage).  Yet perhaps there are more dangerous versions to be found?

·      Winged Stone Lizard.  Fables of the old Zind Desolation tell of terrible winged lizards with a bite that freezes its prey in stone.  Sometimes mistaken for small dragons—and perhaps they are related to dragons after all—these beasts are seldom seen near civilized lands, driven to (or perhaps simply preferring) dark, remote locations.  In scarcity their legend has metastasized—their size greatly magnified and their powers unmatched.  But you have no need of such legends or tall tales; the winged stone lizard you faced was a wiry creature of some fortitude (~ 32 hit points), no greater than four meters in length, and with scales that gave no great protection (armor class 11).  The creature being remarkably imprecise with its strikes, you never did fully witness the monster’s petrification abilities—and this, as you’d say, is certainly no complaint.

·      Nightweed.  Nightweed is s a rare plant that grows in caves, dungeons, and other dim, subterranean locations.  Its distinctive red cone is thought to have considerable healing properties.  As suggested by the Q’in priest Mata Vuvu, you found a cluster of nightweed plants at the base of the Horl Mud Cave.

Experience Points & Inspiration 

DM’s experience award moderation note: In this campaign, experience points are awarded for overcoming obstacles, solving problems, and achieving goals.  Although experience points are typically awarded for defeating adversaries, note that (in this campaign) it is not necessary to actually kill an adversary to earn those experience points if the adversary can be defeated in another way.   Experience points are earned collectively and then divided among the player-characters.  In addition to experience points, individual players can earn inspiration for creativity, superior tactics, and especially strong role-playing.

This leg of the adventure being a protracted combat slog, the party earned 825 experience points for defeating six zombies, one lesser grick, four giant lizards, and one winged stone lizard in battle.  This award is divided evenly among Greyndalf, Gambol, Jowdain, and Ossik, with a fifth share divided between the non-player characters along on the adventure (Tay-Wen and Sylvan).  This amounts to 165 XP per character.

In addition, the party also earned experience for the following accomplishments:

·      Finding a hidden gem in the wall across the stairs out of the spider room (15 XP);

·      Recovering the calcite crystals from the grick’s ambush (25 XP);

·      Retrieving the chain mail from the bottom of the first pit trap (65 XP);

·      Successfully obtaining intelligence from a giant lizard (30 XP);

·      Defeating the stone monster without a party member being petrified (50 XP);

·      Recovering nightweed cone (125 XP)

These experience points (total of 310 XP) are divided among the player-characters only, for a total of 77.5 XP apiece.  Let’s go ahead and round that up to 78 XP each.

As for inspiration, the adventure gods found the highlight of Session 4 to have been the moment the cleric Gambol lifted the mage Greyndalf onto his shoulders, enabling the elf’s mage hand spell to barely scrape the porous ceiling of a vaulted chamber deep within the Mud Cave.  Both characters will receive inspiration awards for this impressive feat—but the high oracle also warns that the gods frown upon those who hoard their favors.  (Inspiration awards may become more scarce until some of the points already distributed have been exhausted.)

Final Session 4 totals:

·      Jowdain acquitted himself well in battle and earned 243 experience points. 

·      Gambol pleased his deity and gained 243 experience points, along with a point of inspiration.

·      Greyndalf remained a cunning and resourceful adversary; he acquired 243 experience points and one point of inspiration.

·      Ossik never saw a risk he didn’t want to take.  But his luck held true, and he gained 243 XP.