Game Session Thirteen

Game session Thirteen: Saturday February 23, 2002

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The game session started on the afternoon of Reaping 2, 3080 YE with the party still in the caves of Tsathogga, the Frog God's, temple. All party members except for Eldon are afflicted with some sort of disease that has covered their bodies with oozing, scabby sores. This has been developing for several days now and is starting to affect their abilities.

The party continued up the passageway they were in until they came to a large chamber that was filled with coffins. The earthquakes and aftershocks had left this room in a shambles. The walls were collapsed and masonry was scattered across the floor. Several coffins were strewn about, looking as if they were thrown about haphazardly by the quakes. Many of them laid open, shattered or overturned. Bodies in various states of decay laid scattered about. They could see standing inside the room what looked to be six zombies and four skeletons, all holding various weapons and a large shield. As the party looked into the room the creatures started toward them.

Unfortunately the party had come upon this room by a narrow passage that forced them into single file, thus limiting just who could attack the creatures. After a sharp battle at the entrance the heavy fighters finally managed to push into the room and make way for the spellcasters to attack. Rhino tried to turn the low level undead but failed to impress them at all. It was a long battle but the party finally managed to prevail with little damage to themselves.

In searching the room afterwards they discovered that one of the large shields was magical along with a shortspear. The shortspear had the word Agni written in elven along it's haft. When Cebo held the spear and said the word aloud the spear burst into flames at it's head. Both of these went into the general booty.

They also noticed a large heavy wooden door at the west side of the room, listening at the door they could hear faint sounds of splashing water from the other side. Opening the door a crack and peering in they saw a grand chamber unmolested by time or quakes. Plastered tiles with mosaic's of amphibian grandeur were still clinging to the walls. In the center of the 50 ft x 30 ft chamber was a bathing pool filled with an olive-colored substance that was seeping out of cracks along it's sides. Inside the pool was several undead creatures engaged in some sort of bathing ritual. At the far end of the chamber they could see another door. Noticing the door opening, and the light coming from the party, the creatures started climbing out of the pool. The party rushed inward to attack, finding out that the undead creatures were ghouls, along with a foul ghast. After a fierce battle the party finally destroyed the undead.

Looking about the chamber they could see that the mosaics depicted a colossaly-bloated humanoid frog with spindly, elongated limbs and fingers. His body seemed to be exuding all manner of foul oils and fluids. He was depicted lying in a foul swamp with a dark river feeding slimes and filth into his gaping, toothy maw. The pictures showed a host of some sort of frog-creatures crawling over his body. Ulfgar looking at the mosaics recognized the pictures as being of Tsathogga, the Demon Frog God and showing him at the mouth of the River Styx. A search of the room turned up no treasures at all.

After carefully checking the door for traps the party slowly open the door at the far end and looked within. They could see a room barren of furnishings. All over the walls, images of amphibians and half-frog, half-humans are shown worshiping Tsathogga. The room contained also four stone coffins and at the far corners two unmoving skeletons were standing, each holding a clear glass sphere in their bony hands. Nothing was moving within the room. The party readied themselves and began to enter the room. As they started entering the room a shadowy shape rose up through the lid of the coffin along the farthest wall. It swiftly formed itself into the shape of a man with long flowing robes and red pin-points of light where it's eyes would be.. The ghostly figure raised it's arms, and at the same time, the lids on the other three coffins exploded off their bases. With horrifying speed, the mummified remains of three humans clamber out. A wispy voice echoed from the shadowy figure, "Destroy the Infidels!"

At the sight of the mummies the majority of the party, with the exception of Cebo, Rhino and Eldon, were paralyzed with fear. As the mummies started forward Cebo quickly shut the door and Eldon spiked it shut. With the mummies pounding on the door, they dragged their comrades back away as fast as they could. They were half-way to the other end of the room and still had some of the party paralyzed when the doors at the far end burst open with a crash. As they picked up speed just trying to flee as fast as they could while saving their comrades they all made it to the far door out of the bathing chamber. As they went through the door they noticed that the they were not being pursued by the mummies of the shadowy creature. After spiking this door shut they decided that they need to rest, re-spell and make some plans before returning to do battle. So they set up camp just outside the bathing chamber in the room with the scattered coffins.

They never made it as far as first watch when a they luckily saw the shadowy figure come thru the doorway and attack Rhino. The party managed to drive off the creature, even though most of their attacks just passed right through it's body, forcing it to flee back through the closed door. After this attack they decided maybe farther away from this room might be better for resting in, so they backtracked to an alcove in the passageways leading to these rooms. Here they spent a fretful night resting. They gathered all their resources and made plans as to how they would attack these mummies and whatever the shadowy creature was. To their dismay they discovered they only had two pints of oil among the entire party. With their plan in place they returned to the rooms to destroy the evil creatures (and get whatever loot was to be gotten).

Coming back to the room they were surprised to discover that there were four skeletons standing within the bathing chamber room, this messed up their plans as they were planning on an assault of the end chamber, not a battle in the more open area. As they started attacking the skeletons the mummies charged out of the chamber through the broken doors. With enchanted weapons (both melee and arrows) along with a small supply of flaming arrows they engaged the foe. Ulfgar and Corian cast flaming sphere and were trying to damage the mummies, Cebo and Rhino tried to hold off the mummies (and skeletons) in melee, while the rest shot arrows. The shadowy figure had not made an appearance but the two skeletons holding the glass spheres had walked out of the room and split up, one to each side and then just stood there. As the combat went on the mummy attacking Rhino was taking a lot of damage (so was Rhino but he was holding his own), when the skeleton holding the glass globe on that side of the room dropped it, shattering the sphere. As the it broke a wave of negative energy could be seem coming off from it. Rhino took some major damage and it seemed that the mummy was actually being healed by this energy. At this point Rhino broke and ran, actually jumping into the greenish water of the bathing pool in order to escape from the mummy. Rhino waded toward the far end of the pool, leaving the mummy able to advance on the archers along that side. He also took the time to drink his potion of heal that he had been holding for just such an emergency. This not only restored all his hit points, but also cured him of the oozing affliction he had.

While this was happening Cebo was doing great damage to the two mummies attacking him. Especially since Ulfgar and cast magic weapon upon his greataxe. The other skeleton on his side dropped his glass globe also but Cebo just shrugged off the damage and continued attacking.

So with the mummies attacking the shadowy wraith finally came flying out of the crypt, it flew straight down the middle of the room and started attacking the people at the back. The mummies started to fall as the party tried to concentrate on the wraith, especially those able to use magic. Finally they managed to overcome all the monsters with only Cebo down any significant hit points.

The party carefully looked over the crypts of the mummies and the wraith and found a cache of booty in the coffin that contained the mummified remains of the wraith. Besides some incidentals like some gold, a small emerald, a scroll and a small magic shield, they also found a wand carved in the likeness of a frog, two more of those glass globes that caused so much damage to the party, a large emerald statue of Tsathogga (which Eldon appraised at 6000 gp!) and another statue of Tsathogga carved out of a substance that looked like soapstone.

The group decided to end the night here in the crypt. The session ended around noon of Reaping 3, 3080 YE. No one has rested, regained spells or hit points.

Link to Next Session:

Unanswered Questions:

• You know the location of the forgotten Dwarven Stronghold "Glitterhame", are you going there?
• How are you going to get out of this place?
• What is this disgusting disease most of you have? If it is a disease and not some horrible curse of the Frog God.
• And, if it is a curse, how are you going to get rid of it?
• What effects is it having on you? All but Eldon have been infected for 4 or 5 days and your entire body is now covered with oozing scabby sores. Rhino is now cured but it took a heal spell to do it.
• Who, or what is Tsathogga, besides the most obvious, some sort of Frog God?
• Just what else is in this ancient temple worth looting?

Session Thirteen Experience

Page Last Updated Monday, April 29, 2002