Arden Vul Commentary, Session 2
Continuing my commentary of running Arden Vul, and trying to get into the habit of it. I already struggle to write the recap in the first place, so why not force myself to write additional commentary on top of that? Genius!
As always there are SPOILERS both in the recap and even more SPOILERS in the commentary. If you're one of my players stumbling across this post, BEGONE!
The Halls of Arden Vul, Session 2:
The party awakes early at the Sign of the Broken Head, purchases extra rope, and heads to the Well of Light.
There, they affix the rope to a nearby tree and descend into a chamber, filled with dung and white fur.
The party hears sounds of torture to the north. They see a man presiding on a ruby throne over a court of giant albino baboons while questioning a red haired prisoner.
Arden Vul likes to tuck extra procedural monster movements into room descriptions. The man on the throne has a percent chance to be on the throne, and if he is there, a random prisoner from a different room is there as well. That on top of other characters being in different rooms based on chance really necessitates a strong understanding of the level, as well as pre-rolling the location of several characters before play starts.
They map out the surround area, finding strange mirrors on the walls and ceilings, as well as four religious frescoes of ibises and suns.
Exploring to the west, they find a room with mosaic on the floor, and some dead adventurers, which they loot.
To the south they find a room with a huge pyramid, topped with lapis lazuli. They chip out the lapis lazuli decorations and continue on.
I don't like improvising hard numbers like the value of lapis lazuli during play. I struggle to be fair with it, so I often leave it highly random. I think I rolled 2d100s for the value here or something like that.
They find another room, filled with trash, and after checking the pegs in the walls, continue on.
The next room they find contains a fresco of an ibis, with strange orange eyes, and three giant stone mouths to to the south. The party deduces that the central mouth is the correct one, and Humbert climbs through to find a descending, narrow staircase. They save it for later.
7 months later and I'm still waiting for their return...
Flink successfully pries out the orange eyes of the ibis, correctly remembering that the substance is the rare ore Arcanum, jealously sought by all practitioners of the arcane arts.
This is the introduction to a recurring feature of Arden Vul, an orange mineral that can restore spell slots and recharge magical items. It's pretty video gamey feeling, being a big orange crystal, but is well integrated into the dungeons' history (why do you think the Archonteans were so keen on this place?) and is an interesting bit of treasure.
Flink is hit by a strange effect, which completely deadens him to all magic. Quaffing a potion out of excitement, he gains no effect from it.
A one off effect that gives total magic resistance. I had a dilemma here of being coy about the effect or saying it straight up. Thinking that it would be quickly forgotten if I had to track, and that a practicer of magic would probably notice, I was straight with it. This was absolutely the right call, as the players immediately came up with the plan to scarper off with the giant jade eyes from last session. More information for the players is almost always better!
The party realizes they can now safely take out the gemstone eyes of Thoth at the pyramid, and frantically exit to the sound of hooting baboons. They book it to the Pyramid of Thoth, and Flink climbs the statue.
I believe at this point we were listening to "The Ecstasy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
At this point the players are begging me to stop rolling random encounters, as they have to snake all the way around and climb up their rope to the surface. I'm laying the narration on thick, with sweat dripping off the characters and the glint of the sun blinding them as they climb up the well. I remind the players of the "Maximum XP in one session rule to really get them excited.
The lightning causes him no damage as he pries out the eyes, while the rest of the party waits at a distance.
Flink succesfully removes the eyes, and as he descends the statue, two baboon headed beings teleport in and eviscerate him. They return the eyes to the statue of Thoth, and teleport away.
Just when they thought they had it in the bag, the true weirdness of Arden Vul intrudes in to teach a harsh lesson. One of my favorite moments DMing this campaign. The statue claims one more victim.
Distraught, the party takes his treasure and returns to the Sign of the Broken Head, to much applause.
The party descends the cliff face, seeing strange soldiers appear out of nowhere above them, and head up the cliff.
They rolled a random encounter with beastmen, using a secret door. A small hint to them to search the area more carefully.
The party returns to Gosterwick.
The Party:
Polyphonic Pérotin, Bard 1
Arn GrÃmursson, Cleric of Tyr 1
Pebble Foresthead, Druid 1
Jo-An, Elf 1
Humbert Drogan, Dwarf 1
Rest in Peace, Flink Medingel, Illusionist 1, sliced to ribbons by beings beyond your comprehension.
Treasure: 5 gp, 56 sp, 212 cp, 14 Lapis Lazuli (153 gp), Dwarf corpse reward (500 gp)
Experience: 133 xp each!
Not a terrible haul for session 2, but would have been a lot nicer with two 10,000 gp gemstone eyes.