Lamentations of the Flame Princess – Better than Any Man, part 4

Another round of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and another crack at Better Than Any Man. Each of us rolled an Elf with roughly similar attributes:

THARCUCCI WINDWEASEL | middle-aged male elf searching for his brother Thilvos
AGAINN WINDWEASEL | elderly male elf with a peg-leg, seeks a bounty for lost Thilvos
ILIPHAR WINDWEASEL | youthful elf with threadbare clothing, seeks any gold he can find

On the trail of his missing brother Thilvos, Tharcucci and his compatriots, all elves of the House Windweasel, trudge through the wilds of old Bavaria.

We find a short-cut across the swamp in the hopes of finding Thilvos. However, as we're trudging our way across this god-awful swamp, we hear an explosion in the distance. How odd. We arrive at the Mound, and see thick smoke pouring forth from the entrance. Did Thilvos pass this way?

"Oh, my God! What was that?" An aging bald tubby human dressed head-to-toe in bizarre finery meets us near the standing stones, flabbergasted and upset.

Tharcucci--"Are you okay? What happened here?"
Man--"Oh, merciful gods! I don't know! I had a feeling the oil would be a problem at some point, but I didn't think someone would bring a lit torch into the ... Who are you? What are you doing out here?"
Tharcucci--"We heard a noise and came to investigate."
Man--"I hope you're not looking for anyone... There are three torched saps in there."

He pulls out a rotted child's head on the end of a rope. He uses it to see in the dark. "What idiots carry torches into a barrow?"

Againn--(unfazed) "Did you live in the Mound?"
Man--"Yes! Far away from prying eyes, for the sake of my experiments! Things men were not meant to know!"
Tharcucci--"You'll be pleased to know that we are not men, then!"
Man--"Hmm, yes, yes. You don't look like you're from around here.

We chat with the man for a time, and learn that Vilibald Schwartz is a necromancer. He's a learned man with absolutely no scruples, but he IS interested in saving his own hide. To that end, he tells us of the Cult of the Insect God, and the threat is promises.

"I know of the cult of the insect god and its rising. I fear, truly fear, they are close to their goal of waking the insect god and bringing an end to mammalian life. Of course, should he awaken, it will mean the death of every human on the planet. Unfortunately, I am powerless to stop it. A rare problem for me to have. Hmm. Ah! I know something that the cultists also know: The god can only rise with the help of a specific ritual, involving a specific item, but it's been lost. I have a solution to this problem, but I need others to do it for me. I'm too valuable to do it myself, you see. I want to send you three back in time to the exact moment when the item disappeared from history, and then, once you learn what happened to it, tell me where it went."

The morning when "The Gem of the Insect" disappeared was July 14, 10,000 B.C.

There's a place nearby called Goblin Hill that's stood as a shrine to the insect god since that long lost date in history. Vilibald warns us that it's exceptionally dangerous, but tells us it's the only way to learn what happened. He hands us a magic scroll, and tells us that if we go to Goblin Hill and read it aloud, we'll spend 3 hours in the past, in whatever Goblin Hill used to be. If we can find the gem there and destroy it, we'll save the world.

We banter back and forth for a while, discussing matters of payment and logistics and possible apprenticeships before coming to the conclusion that, eh, fuck it, we're adventurers! Let's go do the cool thing and save the world!

GOBLIN HILL

It's a big-ass hill. If you lit a fire atop it, you'd be able to see it burning in Hammelburg, Werneck, and Thuntgen. There's a little wood sign on the southern slope that says Velkommen, which we notice as our horses approach it near dusk.

We search for an entrance. It takes some time. 40 feet from the sign, up the hill a bit, is a cave opening obscured by shrubbery and hanging moss. Dead leaves and branches have been piled here to camouflage it.

Swarms of mosquitoes. Ants. Wasps. The earth is writhing with insects. Ugh, gross.

Dozens of slimes. Inside each is a gemstone. Againn walks up to one and pokes it with his spear. The tip sinks in. The ooze doesn't seem to care. Againn pokes more aggressively, hoping to snare the thing, and drags it back into the torchlight. The ooze is still moving; it flops onto the floor like a gross pancake and keeps crawling around.

Tharcucci reaches in and yoinks out the gem. It comes out with a pop and a wheeze. Green gas blows out. It's acidic. Saving throws versus breath weapon, and all Againn pass - but that glove Tharcucci was wearing is wrecked. The gem's worth about 130 s.p.

In another room: Mold. Ew.

Another: A small, naturally occurring spring. The water tastes tingly.

Another: A large black sphere of darkness 50 feet in diameter. Againn shoots an arrow into it. It makes a thwoomp sound as the arrow hits it and ... hits liquid? The arrow is floating. Iliphar fishes it out with a spear.

Another: A dazzling glowing light off to the right. It's dazzling. An entryway. A series of statues depicting human-insect hybrids, all entertwined. The shining light emanates from the eyeholes of each statue. The bugs absolutely swarm this place.

The eyes aren't stone - they're writhing giant firefly larvae.

We're going the right way, at least. We press on through the entryway.

Another room: Giant insect statues. Along the north, ant bee cockroach cricket. Along the south, dragonfly earwig horsefly moth.

Another: Scurrying cockroaches.

Another: 14 columns support a 60' roof. An altar at the far end. Something sparkles on the roof, just out of the range of our light. Upon the altar is an open book. Carvings of wasps and cockroaches along the sides; texture reminiscent of a paper wasp's nest.

Tharcucci casts Read Magic and reveals that this book Summons the Buzzing Demon. He takes it.

There's a door on the east wall. Againn opens it, and finds a room filled with fountains. Barely a trickle of water flows from them. There are places to sit. A cleaning room? Bright butterflies also. Murals of bugs and humans gettin' freaky really tie the room together. Gross.

Tharcucci drinks some of the water. It's fresh.

Another: More of the same, only this time the butterflies swarm us, trying to get inside our mouths. We search it, and find nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sigh.

Ahead, three doors. More choices. We start to clear them one at a time.

Door 1. A sparsely decorated room. Stone table. Skeletal body. A bright gold scarab on a chain around it's "neck." Tharcucci grabs it. 500 s.p.

Door 2. Broken down furniture. A finger-sized jade carving of a caterpillar. Againn takes that one.

Door 3. More busted-ass furniture. Nothing else.

A horsefly the size of a Great Dane attacks us! We loose a volley of arrows at it, but to no avail. It slams into Tharcucci, buzzing angrily as Againn shoots again, hitting it in the eye. Iliphar hits it in its filthy neck with a perfect strike of his sword, and the monster's legs twitch with hydraulic shock as it dies horribly on the cold stone floor.

We make our way to another intersection.

The door to the west looks weird. Insect heads and mystic symbols are carved on the door. Four heads form a square pattern at human chest level; the fifth is at floor level. Againn puts his sword in one of the hand-sized holes in the insect heads' mouth. It taps the back. We look more closely. There's a handle inside each of the mouths. The hole at the bottom has a pedal.

Againn presses the pedal. Thunk, thunk. Something's going on inside the door. We figure out a scheme whereby we pull all the levers simultaneously while Againn presses the pedal down; the door opens. A deep hum comes from behind us.

Deeper than the horseflies. We run into the opened chamber and turn to face our attacker: A giant bee! Fuck. Iliphar manages to one-shot it with a perfectly aimed arrow.

Back to the awful chamber: Oh god it's full of sarcophagi. The central one has a praying mantis motif; there are fifteen others are surrounding it. All covered in insect motifs. Uggh...

Tharcucci pushes it open and there's a large, open space within. No body. Just a void. There's an odd vibrating chirp coming from... somewhere below...

A giant zombie praying mantis the size of a horse pops out, swings with one of its claws, and takes Againn's body apart in a brutal slashing attack. We draw steel and attack, but to no avail. It's over in seconds. Tharcucci's clavicle is rent in a single attack; he goes unconscious from blood loss. Iliphar charges in with a yell, hits the creature, but barely scratches its hide. It crushes his head.

Less than a minute after encountering the elves, the undead mantis scoops up its pray, drags the elves' bodies down into the darkness, and covers the lid on its lair.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess – Better than Any Man, part 3

Bob - The Referee
Me - Hildigard, an impoverished murderhobo [Fighter]
Andrew - Thilvos, a wood elf [Elf]
Dave - Dieter, a Benedictine monk [Cleric]

Although our progress at the Infinite Tower has been meaningful, we decide against pressing our luck. We retreat from the Infinite Tower and head back to Neustadt, arriving there around noon. We buy 3 horses and a rapier for 1,260 sp. We say farewell to Otto, who is bed-ridden with his injuries still, then we travel east to Karlstadt. The roads aren't well maintained, and they're partially flooded.

Outside Steinfeld, we spy a group of ten or so travelers in all-white clothes, walking behind a small standard depicting a dove over a broken sword. They tell us that Karlstadt is being protected by angels, and that there's no war there, and we should come with them - all it requires is that we surrender our weapons. Hildigard kindly but insistently explains that she'll surrender her sword over her dead body, and the pilgrims get uppty and come after us with mancatchers and lassos. There was a bit more nuance this encounter, truth be told, but the gist was that those white-robed freaks threatened us with capture and we booked it back to Neustadt on horseback.

From Neustadt, once again, we decide to head back north to Lohr. Lower chances of white-robed pilgrims on the road.

Along the road to Lohr, we hear a scream, then chanting in the forest. Uh oh. Hildigard grabs the reins as Dieter and Thilvos slink off into the wood to investigate - they can see two dozen black-robed figures chanting and a young girl being burnt at the stake, screaming at them to stop. They can't recognize the language. Dieter and Thilvos deliberate on what to do next...

"Maybe she's Protestant?"
"Maybe she's a witch?"
Thilvos. "I don't know what to do."
Dieter. "We can watch or we can go talk to 'em."
Thilvos. "Uh... let's just get a little closer, non-threateningly, and see if anyone says something to us. And if we do, and we don't like it, we can run back to the horses."

Thilvos approaches. A man in a mask, who is leading the whole procession, sees Thilvos and shouts, "Outsiders! Get them!"

Thilvos and Dieter make their way - quickly - back to Hildigard, and the trio mount up and flees from danger for the third time today. We decide to settle in Lohr for the night, and while we're at it, hit the rumor mill.

Click this thing to see our "progress"

Rumor 1. Some drunk farmer claims there's a lion roaming the fields. Claims he's seen it in the swamp and he was lucky to get away. This is apparently an old wives' tale. The lion's been around for a while.

Rumor 2. An old man says Urspringen was wiped out by the plague. He can't verify it, but he's heard of no one from Urspringen in ages.

Rumor 3. "Shame they filled up the smugglers' tunnel leading into Karlstadt. I made a tidy business smuggling liquor, once."

We decide Rumor 2 seems fruitful. If Urspringen was rapidly evacuated, perhaps there are a few sets of silverware and valuable antiques unaccounted for...

We rest the night in Lohr, then ride south to Urspringen in the morning.

We investigate the spot where met those black-robed folks... There's a blackened spot where the pyre stood.It's huge. Piles of ashes are laid out in a specific patterns around it. It's eerie. We move on.

South of Neustadt am Main, we hear something moving in the underbrush. A group of riders appear about 80 feet west of us; they're men with pistol belts and their blue-and-yellow uniforms are soaked. They stare at us.

Excuse me," the captain says, "Are we near Rothenfels, by chance?"
Dieter - "Uh, a little south, actually."
"Ah, perfect, perfect. Have any of you seen Imperial soldiers? There weren't any left in Lohr, by chance?"
Hildi - "Uh... There were some Frenchmen. West of Rothenfels."

A bit more banter, and then

Hildi - "What do your maps say about the giant ants?"
Captain - "What do you mean, giant ants?"
Hildi - (shows chitin)

A bewildered look from the Captain. He dodges the matter of the ants, and comments

"We've talked to some people about the horrid monsters here. The witches of Karlstadt will not be allowed to live. Your leaders know that there are witches in Karlstadt, and they've done nothing to stop them."

Which seems like an important thing to know, but we have little to say about it in the moment.

At the end of our amiable conversation, we're paid 3 s.p. apiece for our troubles, and the soldiers ride off.

We arrive in Rothenfels around noon. It's a small farming community, several hundred, with an inn. It's pretty quiet. People here are choosing to stay here; they don't think the Swedes will come this far south. We ask about odd things happening - folks complain that late in the day a shadow falls over the town, as if a great tower to the west were blocking the sun.

Urspringen. We arrive around 2 p.m. We can't tell if it's inhabited. Nobody's out in the streets. No horses. Nobody in the fields. This place seems abandoned.

We hear shouting. Distant, but in town? One of the houses? The infirmary! We hear screaming and begging. A group of voices, actually. Fear and confusion. "By god, he's gone mad! What's he doing? Why's he doing it?"

Hildigard quickly ties the horses, draws her rapier, and shoulders her way into the building. It's an infirmary, all right, but half the folks inside are lying very quiet, very still. There's a man with a scalpel and a rag full of ether, covered in blood, standing like a vampire over the still corpses of half of the patients.

Us - "What's going on here?"
The doctor - "Wha? Oh, we have... visitors. Lovely. Great. What's going on here is my hospital."

I stopped taking close notes here because it got pretty intense. The short version is this: We tied up the doctor, and assessed the situation. All of the living patients were terminally ill or significnatly crippled. The doctor had been mercy-killing. A search of the premises revealed little of value except for a vial of ether and a scalpel, which we took, then deliberated what should be done next. We questioned the doctor who was, understandably, quite strung out. He said he'd been killing them gently so the Swedes wouldn't ravage them for sport. He just wants to be left to finish his work, then he promises he'll kill himself. Grim stuff. We assess the patients ourselves, and ask them what they want to do. There's an old man whose legs no longer work, and he wants to live, as does a wounded soldier and a mental invalid. We decide that the better option is to bring them to Rothenfels and leave them at the church. It's not a perfect solution or anything, but it's a lot better than the certain death awaiting them in their hospital beds. We do so, and when we return to the infirmary a few hours later, the doctor has loosed his bonds and escaped. We find the remaining two patients strangled, and see him hanging from a tree out back...

Following this depressing scene, we rested for the night in Urspringen. The next morning, we looked at Thilvos' elf-map again, and noticed a place called the Mound. With nothing to show for our time in Urspringen except bad memories, we headed off to investigate this fae-touched landmark for ourselves.

The Mound is a literal dirt mound protruding from the surrounding swamp. Eight standing stones encircle a pair of double doors built into the mound, one of which is open, as if beckoning us inside. Each stone has a carving on it: ant bee moth earwig cockroach cricket dragonfly fly.

Interesting... We light a torch and go in. There's an inky opaque substance covering the floors. It's black and thick. Hildigard steps into it, holding the torch, and dies before she has a chance to realize that it's highly flammable crude oil. The others die an instant later.

Yep. The first trap in the Mound is a save-or-TPK.

I didn't love it, but I must admit, I did have a pretty good laugh.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess – Better than Any Man, part 2

Bob                        The Referee
Me                          Hildigard, heavily armed lunch lady [Fighter]
Andrew                   Thilvos, 6’ tall blond wood elf [Elf]
Dave                        Otto, German bounty hunter with a mancatcher [Fighter]
and also Dieter, a Benedictine monk [Cleric]

Session Two

Despite many less dangerous, more secure options, we decide to head out to the Infinite Tower. Thilvos the Elf has an elf map with a cool landmark on it. Why WOULDN'T we?

It takes us a couple hours to get out there.

It's a big-ass cylindrical tower that's got a pond at the base. More of a drainage ditch, really. It's been sitting there for ages. The villagers aren't even sure where it came from. Scholars say that it's been here since the time of the Romans. There's a single stairway coming out of the water up to the only door. There are no windows. This thing is hugging a clifftop, so we could theoretically enter through the top?

We check out the top. It's about five stories up, so it takes us about an hour to scale the cliff. There's a six foot gap between the tower and the clifftop. Four spined adornments atop the tower make it resemble the beak of a giant leech. There's a trapdoor in the center of it. Hot damn.

We haul ourselves up the lip of the tower and Hildigard uses a crowbar to crank open the trap door. Success! We decide to venture down inside. The uppermost chamber is around 40' wide. It's all white, dilapidated stone.

Moreover, there's a trio of filthy peasants from yestercentury with garden tools talking to one another in a small semi-circle; they look up fearfully as we prop open the door. They start screaming in French.

Clearly, they are spies! One runs to the stairwell! Otto pursues with his mancatcher. Two attack Thilvos, and Hildigard shoots a man with a hoe with her short-bow. Thilvos stabs one of the Frenchmen with his spear and gets him right in the throat. Otto captures his target, but there's a dozen or so French peasants in the layer below.

We coup-de-grace the peasant in Otto's mancatcher, and then Otto takes up a tanking position on the staircase. Thilvos and Hildigard take two bow shots and fell two peasants. A peasant lunges at Otto with a gardening trowel, but his attack is deftly parried. They're fighting two-at-a-time against Otto, but Otto is an impenetrable fortress! Thilvos and Hildigard kill two more! Then Otto takes a mallet to the head and goes unconscious. Uh oh.

Close-quarter fighting on a 20' tall spiral staircase without railings?! METAL AF!

Little known fact: Frenchmen are even more blind at night than other men. You can sneak up on them quite easily, knock them out, and steal their eggs.

We kill eight Frenchmen before their morale breaks. Hildigard fireman-carries Otto out of the jaws of defeat and up into the open air. Thilvos loots a couple bodies on the way out:

Treasure: Silver cross necklace [100 sp] and a sack full of 4 coins. Gold with the image of the Emperor Claudius, worth 50 sp each.

We book it back to Neustadt am Main. Otto wakes up an hour or so into being fireman-carried by Hildigard. That wooden hammer hit to the head was brutal. He's gonna need to rest and recuperate. Back in town, we spend a gold coin and hire a new face: Deiter, the Cleric, a Benedictine monk at the monastery, who notices the cool cross we found and decides he needs more adventure in his life. We set up Otto in the local inn for some much needed bedrest.

We go back. There are 6 French peasants this time, waiting for us, waving trowels and shit. We open fire! We kill none of them before they rush back into the darkness. We create a little phalanx with Hildigard as the spearhead and the other two slingin' arrows, and proceed down into the dark. It isn't long before we meet another mob of Frenchmen.

Thilvos the Ready, his elven hair thrown behind him as though blown by an unseen breeze, knocks another arrow onto his bowstring. The reeking Frenchman before him gawks as the arrow flies directly to him striking at an 18 for 5 damage! The stunned frog stumbles back in shock, how could someone so beautiful be so deadly?

They attempt to press us back into the open space, pushing hard against her unbreakable shield. But they can't hurt her. Arrows thin their numbers until they break, and flee down the stairs into the murky gloom of the floor below. We pursue... but not until we've looted the bodies.

Treasure: 1400 sp, in a combination of coins across various mintings and cultures. Also, a weird dial with a graven face in the middle? 100 s.p.

Why are they so loaded? Hmm... The mystery deepens. We hear shouting from the rooms below, and so, we go exploring.

A door. We open it. There's nothing. Common storage. Utility items, but not a whole lot else. The noises from below intensify, but unfortunately, that's where we gotta call the session for tonight!

Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion! Dahnt dahnt daaaaaaaaaa!

Lamentations of the Flame Princess – Better than Any Man, part 1

Bob                        The Referee

Me                         Hildigard, heavily armed lunch lady [Fighter]

Andrew                  Thilvos, 6’ tall blond wood elf [Elf]

Dave                      Otto, German bounty hunter with a mancatcher [Fighter]

Session One

Hildigard is traveling south. An army of invading Swedes pursues her. Not her specifically, but it’s not exactly a friendly army of invading Swedes, now is it? This is 1630s Bavaria. Shit’s about to get fucked.

Carrying most of her worldly possessions on her back, Hildigard stumbles across a band of travelers inspecting some termite mounds by the side of the road. They are two fair-haired Germans named Thilvos and Otto, and a pair of merchants bound for Venice, along with their three hired men.

Thilvos asks her, “Have you ever seen termites before?”

She answers, “No.”

Otto goes to poke the mound. “Do you really want me to take a look at this? Can we just leave instead?” We leave it instead.

We are all adults.

The caravan is headed all the way back to Venice to sell their inventory of dried fruits, as the market here has apparently dried up, what with the impending violence.

We arrive at the village of Lohr without further ado. It’s a large town, about the same size as Karlstadt. It’s known for its witch hunters’ fervor. There are people hung up on trees as we enter the town; they wear signs around their necks that say “WITCHES.” The folks here are very loyal to the Holy Roman Empire, and the city is full-up with soldiers. A couple hundred, easily. Not enough to handle 30,000 Swedes, but it’s a sizeable effort all the same.

Thilvos asks a soldier about the current situation, trying to gauge where all of us should go next. “Are you heading up to Neuendorf? Isn’t there a large army coming from the north? Supposedly the Swedes are coming from the north, and they’ll be here in days!”

Given that advice, we head south, down the river to Neustadt am Main, and somewhere along the way, we see a group of twenty unarmed people running panicked along the road. They came from the west. And they’re being chased by six ants the size of ponies.

“I hear ants are good eatin’!” Hildigard says, unslinging her bow and nocking an arrow.

https://sketcharound.wordpress.com/2017/07/31/attack-of-the-giant-ant/

Hildigard shoots at it with her bow and rolls a 1. Thilvos fires his bow and strikes one in the leg. The guards take aim with their muskets. People stream past us, screaming and begging that the end has come, so on and so forth. The ants close the gap – they’re quickly within thirty feet of us!

Hildigard fires again and misses. Thilvos rolls a 13 and it’s no good – it bounces off the ants’ chitin without effect! Otto grabs his mancatcher, wrings his hands, and waits. The guards open fire with their muskets. They connect and deal a bit of damage, but nothing lethal. Egads!

The ants crash into our wagon and begin to bite at us and harass our horses. Hildigard stabs one pretty good, and it’s almost dead, but not quite; she gets locked into a deadly shoving match with the beast. Thilvos kills in a deft attack, then charges in and slays another (12 damage on a charge! Woo!) One of the guards follows suit. The combat transforms into a deadly shoving match.

Then, an opening! Otto beheads one of the ants with a perfect strike from his broadsword (Nat 20 for max damage). He took a little bite (2 damage) but he’s otherwise unscathed.

The frightened townsfolk witness our act of bravery. They cheer us on, and inform us that their village was destroyed by these selfsame giant ants, and that their friends and family members were carried off. Off to where? Nowhere good, that’s where!

We decide to book it to Neustadt post-haste.

At the inn, Hildigard remarks of the giant ant leg she’s roasting, “They taste like what you get if you cross a pig with a lemon.”

An internet expert added: “It’s the formic acid. Gives ‘em that citrus tang.”

A grizzled, prophetic old woodcutter tells us some rumors over a flagon of ale:

“Water dragons out east, in the swamp. Ate my dog. I liked that dog. Giant insects claimed the village, and we started running. Most of the people weren’t killed. Poor wretches. They were headed to some place else… The Mound. An old pagan site of worship. I don’t know what’s out there. I don’t want to know.”

Thilvos has a map, and he’s really curious about a few places on it. He wants to see The Infinite Tower before the Swedes sack it. Hildigard, who has a copper piece and a bent spear to her name, is really curious about the abandoned village that the frightened townsfolk left behind. Surely, in their haste, they left behind some gold coins?

The prophetic old woodcutter says, “Swamps are a horrible place. Terrible, awful places, swamps. Not recommended.” Naturally, the abandoned village full of giant ants is in the swamp.

We try to convince the merchants to let us borrow their hired men for a little expedition, but they’re not really excited about the idea. Bavaria sucks. They want out as fast as their legs can carry them, and honestly, if we weren’t pathetically broke and psychologically unbalanced people, we would definitely be doing the same thing. They tell us they’ll be in Venice for about six months, once they get there, and after that they’re going home to Turkey. They let us know we’re all welcome to visit if we ever make it out of this godforsaken wilderness.

Who knows? With any luck, we'll be sipping espresso on a gondola by summer's end. But we're probably all gonna die in a swamp. We'll find out next time!

Hildigard's first-level character sheet
http://character.totalpartykill.ca/lotfp/