Champions of Krynn - The Next Groggy Adventure Thing

[airboy]

With the dwarf "nocturnal noise" no rest is really "safe."

[Sir Slash]

That evil cleric wasn't much of a fighter but he sure dressed snazzy. Our guys aren't too bad either. Kind of like a really bad 60's Rock & Roll band.  :hide:

[BanzaiCat]

Give me a couple of days for the next update - I have some stuff I'm trying to finish for work before a long off-site team-building thing next week. Plus, the monsters are awfully depressed that Hilly lost, so they want to curl in the corners of their dungeons and have a good cry to work it out before these guys smash their heads in and steal their steel.

[Sir Slash]

Take your time BC. Nothing worse than a sad Hobgoblin.  \m/

[mirth]

Nothing worse than a sad Hobgoblin.  \m/

Happy, sad, they all need to be eradicated.

[BanzaiCat]

7. Let's Hurry This Area Along; I'm Running Out Of Throtl Puns


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Once rested, there's more ruined city to explore, so we get right back to it.

It doesn't take long before we enter a room where a bunch of Hobbos are talking about a 'plan.'



I dunno, Chauncey. They don't look like Demorats.

Quite, Whitaker. Hey, are you gentlemen here to install the glass ceiling effect?

Wh-wh-wh-what're you talking abou-about?

Glass ceiling. You know, for when SHE walks out to claim victory.

We're not here to parlay. We're here to murder, loot, and pillage. We don't have time for some stupid elaborate political joke set-up.

(sigh) Just like the last group of adventurers, Blaine.

I'm not Blaine. HE'S Blaine. I'm Lennox.

But...you CAN'T be Lennox. He's over there. You're Finley, aren't you? You came over here complaining that the 'blasted Owlbear chintzed on the whip on your Gelatinous Cube Frappe.

That was Leighton. I'M Barron.

But...you just said...you're Lennox.

You saying we all look alike? Huh?!?

...



It doesn't take long to bring down this group of look-alikes.

And as usual, they're carrying a bunch of copy-and-paste generic crap.

(Funny how my taste for loot has already escalated.)



Moving on, we cross through an intersection. Apparently, a large battle happened here.



'The heraldic device of a Solamnic knight?'

Kind of vague. I mean, that could be ANY knight's device, right? I mean, you've got your KNIGHT knight, Dark Knight, Knights of the KK...oh, sorry, we're not going there, not even for a bad joke.

We move on past this pile of corpses and knight droppings, entering a room where more damnable Clerics are at play.



Do we leave?

Seriously?



The Clerics are flanking the ends of their second line, meaning they won't be reachable by our Whiffing Warriors in the first few (or thirty) rounds.



But, a few well-placed Sleep spells do wonders for adventuring parties as much as Bill Cosby.



Just to be different, Sir Slash uses a Charm Person spell on the other Cleric. Sleep spells only affect the targeted enemy and each of the eight surrounding enemies (but could also include OUR characters if not targeted properly).



"Hi Charmed, I'm Dad!"

A-ha-ha-ha



A few well-placed blows manage to heroically dispatch these helpless creatures to the next level of existence, and we're ready to move on.

Especially move on to that door that the others so bravely escaped through earlier when we barged in.



HEY YOU, DAMMIT, GET BACK H-









We keep going, out into a hallway, but our quarry is nowhere to be seen.

There are a few more areas in this part of the city to check out, so we get moving.

We turn down a dark hallway that we hadn't been down yet, only to be greeted by the sounds of muffled Draconian voices:



Edging closer, we eavesdrop through a doorway, and they continue to spill details...



Hoo-boy.

Eggs means, of course, there's more Draconians lying about.

But a damned Death Knight?

Sounds like a protagonist to me.

Death Knights are right bastards to deal with. According to the Adventurer's Journal:

A type of liche that cannot be turned, Death Knights are dangerous and frightening opponents who are immune to most magical attacks. They can reflect some magic attacks back on the caster, gate in monsters to help them in combat, cause fear in those around them and cast a massive fireball attack once a day.

Lovely! DEFINITELY sounds like a protagonist. You get a feel for these things after a few dozen of these kinds of games.

We continue to eavesdrop, but the door is kind of in the way. MetalDog helps by removing a hatchet and before any of us can stop him, he loudly whacks a hole in the door.

It'll help us here Floyd better, bro...wait, you can't hear 'Comfortably Numb' coming from out of this room?



Gee...no kidding!

Welp...HEEERRREEE'S JOHNNY!





Turns out they're at the other end of the room, which isn't great.

There's fighters, Hobbos, and Draconians mixed together, which isn't TOO bad.

Even better, there are no spellcasters.

So, I just have everyone stand in place as our flanks are secured, and let the enemy sword-swingers come to us.

Once they do, a Sleep spell or two helps lower the already rock-bottom odds even further.



The bad guys get in more than a few licks on us, and since we have wounded, are down several spells, and are far from that 'safe room' on the other side of the city, I take a chance and Encamp us where we are, after we win (natch!), and attempt to heal.

Goodness forbid that THAT plan actually work.



More random encounters come along to interrupt our healing process (we're feeling awfully triggered by now, not being allowed to get to our SAFE SPACE!!!), but fortunately they're fairly weak and we clean them up nicely.



And I try again, and again we're interrupted.

Now, we're starting to get down in HPs.



I decide to head back to our SAFE SPACE to safely build back up again. It's quite the journey.

Wish I could show the rest of it at the present time, but apparently the TinyPic site is now giving me a ton of Shockwave Flash Not Responding errors and running about as well as Photobucket, so I'll continue this later.  O0

[BanzaiCat]

8. Throtl Rocket...okay, that was dumb


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As I was saying in the last chapter, when we were rudely interrupted by the vestiges of an ancient Adobe program going medusa-t*ts up, we were trekking back to the safe room but were getting ambushed a LOT.

Makes me question the whole 'fixed number of encounters' thing and made our party feel like The Ten Thousand.



We finally make it, still barely hanging on HP-wise. It wasn't that there were a lot of tough encounters; it was more that there were a lot of them, like something had it in for us or took umbrage to a bunch of civilized schlubs invading their town and murdering/looting their inhabitants. Gee whiz.





In our wanderings of the now quickly-shrinking unexplored areas, we find a secret door...but not before we're hit by a trap.



'Tis but a scratch!

Mirth has had worse, I'm sure.

As we enter, we happen upon a soldier that apparently just wants to talk.



Despite how that usually goes down, there's only one of him and Parlaying will probably bring him in close, so why not?



Journal Entry 35:

"I was with a party of knights and others under Caramon that came in here to explore. We haven't really found anything. Caramon's already left to report. I guess you must have missed him.

"Oh, one thing we did find out was that there is a treasure left over from the previous occupants of Throtl. We got word of it from a hobgoblin who was sneaking in to claim it. Before he died, he told us that it was located in the south-central area of the city. Tell you what, if you help me find this treasure, I'll split it with you. All right?"

Hmmm.

On the one hand, "gee whiz, you just missed him, all convenient-like...yeah, that's the ticket, you just missed him."

On the other hand, treasure.



Well, he could be leading us into a trap...possibly one that might have gotten the guy we're looking for. If that's the case, it'll bring us right to the people we want to destroy, so...win-win I suppose?

But still, this is the same portrait as some of the soldiers that has been jumping us. Not that it matters, as this was in the days of computers with 256K of RAM.

Nah. Screw this guy. Off with his head!

We choose to decline the honor of his company.



Yep. He was full of Hobgoblin offal.



This is pretty much like any other weak-ass Hobbo party, with a human Fighter. They succumb to Sleep spells real purty-like.



It doesn't take long to clear these guys out.



Not bad XP-wise, I guess, especially for a fight where we barely broke a sweat.



We continue our explorations, nearly having visited all halls and rooms of this...uh...town.



Somebody's leaving their broken toys about.

Given the limited memory of these games, they don't post messages like this without it having some importance.

So, I'm guessing we're getting close to the droid we're looking for.




"He"??




Journal Entry 82:

"So! At last, you've come to rescue me. You know these things are quite clever. Not clever enough for me of course. I've just been improving them somewhat. Oh dear. I do hope you didn't come through from the North...oh, sorry.

"I suppose you'll be wanting to get me out of here now. Oh, there are more people back there. Strangbourn is around here somewhere, He's looking for Caramon. Oh, you want to find him, well that's an interesting story, you see when we first got together about two weeks ago...

"Uh, I can help, you know. Caramon was taken somewhere south of here. I've been trying to reset traps in case more draconians and hobgoblins get here.

"Why don't we team up, OK?"

...

Sure, why not. If he's going to ambush us, we have a Kender ourselves, so it'll be Mutually Assured Kenderstruction if "he" decides to lead us into another laughable ambush.

With traps, probably, but meh, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs!



Like I said, fine.

Welcome aboard, Pat!



Err, I mean, Kildirf!

(Sounds like a Norwegian heavy metal band's name...)



Oh, terrific.

Well, Pat? Have anything to say about this?

'Well, what?' This ain't one of mine; don't look at me!

Trust me, I'm trying not to.

Speak for yourself, sailor. Grrrr-oowwll.

Get outta me way, y'perverts...



Airboy saves us from certain d6 damage!

Soon, we FINALLY find the sir dude we're looking for...



Journal Entry 67:

"I was with the patrol that followed Caramon in here. We ran into trouble almost immediately. We were not really expecting much opposition but...We were ambushed by a large force of hobgoblins and draconians. I was knocked out by a blow to the head early in the battle. I awoke in a dark corner, alone. It took me a while to get my bearings but I finally went out in search of my companions. I overheard from passing patrols that everybody except Caramon was killed.

"You must help me find Caramon. He must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the leaders of this band."

Jeez, guys. What have we been trying to do for the last several chapters? Find Caramon. We're really trying, here.

I'm CERTAIN you are.

What's THAT supposed to mean?

Your bags are fairly weighed down by coin and loot.

Yeah...you got any, mate?

And you've been wandering about this dank, dark town for close to several days, now.

What're you doing, following us around?

And you've just picked up this androgynous hitchhiker.

An...groggy...nous?

Where are you getting at, exactly?

Don't play coy with me. Everyone knows Throtl is pretty much the truck stop of all of Krynn.

Best restrooms in hundreds of leagues!

WHAM!

We're never going to get on with this, are we?

You gotta have fai-CRACK!-UGKCKK ...

Wot? He fell accidental-like. Funny how 'is 'ead jus' turned 180 degrees like that, eh?

[airboy]

After: "But, a few well-placed Sleep spells do wonders for adventuring parties as much as Bill Cosby." we really needed to find some safe space.

You guys owe me for preventing us from being WHAMMED!  Was the "trap" I disarmed an endless loop of "careless whispers."  Remember Mirth, guilty feet have got no rhythm.  And how can you bust ghosts without rhythm?

PS - I finished posting scenario 1 on the Finns vs. Commies war.

[Sir Slash]

I bet I don't need to waste a "Charm" spell on George there. Maybe a "Bane of Perversion" spell instead.

[BanzaiCat]

To anyone (still) reading this: I gotta apologize for the George Michael joke in the above post. That was done about a month before his death, and like many his passing took me completely by surprise. By that point I had forgotten that I did that joke (as I do most of them), and I don't ever read my own AARs (except to catch up with them and restart them if possible, as I am doing now).

Since it was done as a parody, and since most of the regulars here know my sense of humor is pretty bad, I just wanted to post this in case you're a drive-by reader and are gasping with horror. Again – note the date on that post, and note the date of GM's passing. It wasn't intentional.

Okay, enough of the spin doctorin'. Time to get back to the monster killin'.


9. STOP! Throtl Time!



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As you may recall, because you so thoroughly read the above posts (you did do that, didn't you?), our party of stalwarts was slumming around Throtl, having just rescued a Knight with some rather awesome facial hair. This Knight apparently had the know on how we could get to Caramon, the person we were searching for among these ruins...



Do you want me to join you?

Is this a trick question?

Trick...question...?

Wot 'e means, mate, is, is 'e don' like th' way yer eyein' our bags 'o booty...

I ASSURE you, "sir," I have no reason to ogle thy booty. I only wish to find Caramon-

And ogle HIS booty?

...what? No! I-

MMM CARAMEL! WE GONNA GIT ICE CREAMS?!?!1

Oh, goodness! It's been an Elf's age since I've partaken! Unless we gotta go through *gulp*...m-monsters t-to get there!!

ME TOO! IT'S BEEN AN ELF'S ASS HAIR SHAMPOOIN' SINCE I HAVE!

Wait, I think I've changed my mind. You're very silly people and I don't want to roll with you.

Wait, good sir. Such folly-isms are merely jests, humor usage of a sort to fill a giant empty void in our lives, alongside good deeds-

An' treasure, mate.

...well, okay, true...FOR TITHING. Yeah, for...tithing. That's the ticket.

'Sides, w'r th' guys y'hire when y'need some arseholes on yer side.

I suppose I could do worse right now. Very well, I shall join you.

...It's...not...quite that easy, good sir.

Uh...excuse me?

Well, there are certain considerations to pass into membership within this fine troupe of heroes.

(sigh) Not this gobshite again...

...MUSTACHE CHECK!

Don't you mean, "FACIAL HAIR check?"

...grumble grumble Yeah, okay, whatever.

Then, CHECK!

CHECK!

Duuude!

are you lookin' at meARE YOU LOOKIN' AT ME?!? AHAHAHAHAHA!

Err...same here! I'm ALL hair on MY face! CHECK!

...

...well?

...din'nt we say SIR SLASH'S facial hair makes up fer a lack on my visage?

Brother, we all braid to the gods to have follicles as holy as yours, man.

Well, then! It's settled. And as for you, sir...

Uhm...

I guess that'll do. You may join us, sir...just brush these puns off.

I think Metaldog might have curled up and dyed a little.

Yeah, better...c-cut this short before we shave it too close and the audience recedes...





Journal Entry 7:
"Listen, Sir Karl is the most honorable of men. I would follow him anywhere. But there is something very dark and strange going on around him. He seems obsessed with a young girl named Maya. The fact that he's about 40 years older than she is isn't really the problem; if they'd just settle down and declare themselves! All that would happen is that a few gossips will snicker and that'll be the end of it. But they won't do that. Maya is extremely valuable to us. She has sources of information that are astounding, especially for one so young. But whenever the two of them are in the same room the tension is so obvious that...

"Ah, never mind. You say that he seems to be all right. I will go on that hope, and let troubles find me in their own good time. Let's go."

I think STRANGBORN is the last piece of the puzzle, as it were, to find Caramon, and finally get this Throtl thing wrapped up so we can move on. He's not all that great a warrior compared to some of us, but it will be good to have a (hopefully) decent sword-arm in the party.

We search out the remainder of the city that we haven't explored yet (of course, that's where the endgame would be...). It's good to have this newcomer with us.



...so we're not getting nickeled-and-dimed by silly little traps (or super-dangerous ones, for that matter).

Though he doesn't help with this monster-dropping trap:





A buncha Disney park alligators and Black Robe Mages apparently "dropped" out of the ceiling to ambush us. They have us surrounded, too.



Yikes, this looks like a pretty imposing encounter.

So what do we rely on?











Heh-heh-heh.

AIRBOY even gets into it a little bit, using his 'YELL' ability, which is a Kender's Taunt skill. It only works against intelligent(ish) opponents and they must save against magic or they go into a berserker rage, directiny most most of their efforts against the Kender while suffering a -2 THAC0 and +2 AC for the duration of the combat.



Join the club, BAAZ...though AIRBOY will probably kill them first!



The fight gives us some lumps, including the usual AD&D Gold Box game standard number 14 ("Concentrate Against the Cleric"). His zero HP means no healing happens post-battle, so we'll have to find a safe spot and rest for 24 hours to get him to 1 HP and band-aid-box status.



Soon, we're healed and re-spelled, and go back to the other side of the city. We must have taken out all of the random patrols, because we go untouched.

Soon, we find a mysterious figure...could this be Caramon? Finally?!?

[undercovergeek]

who are you and what have you done with Banzai Cat?

[bob48]

Yeah - own up, or we'll set about you.

Here, 'geek - I'll hold your coat.





....nowt worth havin' in the pockets....

[undercovergeek]

hands off my hairy mint

[bob48]

....splurp....no hairs on it now mate, ye can have it back.

[JasonPratt]

 <:-)