Enter the Thorn

 

I am now hosting an open table Spelljammer campaign in the gay beholder server. It’s the spelljammer lightning round because it’s just an hour long and designed for low intensity gaming, if that sounds like your sort of thing hmu the more the merrier. I am playing through this adventure I wrote a few years back.

We had:

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• Mightier than a sword playing Sleve Gurpin the Wizard

• Mistah playing Azrak the Black (a wizard)

• Skymall playing Roscoe the Cleric

• Brwagur playing Ogden Twix the Wizard

• And Dinge/Dwari/Narder/Ames being played by goodbye to a shoe

The crew of the ship had two problems that needed addressing, the first was a burning curiosity. Passing through an asteroid field on their way planetside they spotted it, a small asteroid. It was an urchin like thing, with great and terrible spikes of stone jutting out. A bright red wax seal covered up something on the surface of the thing.

The second problem of course was that it was that 9 people always seemed to win any gamble they were put up to.

So a plan was concocted, send those lucky few to explore what it is. Either they luck out and it all ends well, or they do not and maybe the rest of the crew could stop losing cards so much.

A harpoon was lodged into the side of the asteroid and soon the adventures were climbing along the rope. Prying open the wax seal and lighting a torch the group was greeted by a trap door and an old rope bridge leaving down into the blackness below. The air had an unmistakable quality to it, staleness lingered in every breath but at least for the time it was breathable. They didn’t know how much longer this would last.

Whelp lead the way torch in hand and was greeted at the bottom by the mummified upper half of a goblin. From above Azrak poked out it with a stick, hearing nothing but a slight crunch like the rustling of dry leaves as the stick pieced through the dry rotted skin of the goblin.

A breath lingered in the air but no movement. Quickly the wizard descended in full force, arcane vultures with no remorse. Azrak stealing the fingers for potential spells, and Whelp pulling off bits of the skin to start chewing on, egging on his apprentice Dinge to do the same “Goblin skin is good for casting spells”.

During this scavenging Ogden noticed something, there was a clean break in the vertebrae, this goblin had been pulled in half. 

They all steeled themselves as they headed down the hallway deeper into the asteroid.

Soon they found themselves in a room lined with coffins. Each white stone coffin lid stood out like a bonfire against the black stone of the asteroid itself, each adorned with a carving of a naked man or woman with a long wavy five pointed star for a head. Seeing gold Whelp and Sleve began hauling off the lids to the entrance, hoping to have it be easy to remove later and sell to someone down the line.

As that is tended to the rest of the group begins to investigate the set of simple bronze doors at the end of the hall, Ogden scans the doors for any signs of traps before opening it up. The are greeted with a pill of bones, dozens and dozens of skeletons piled up neatly and organized, except for a pile of loose skulls, each missing the jaw bone. As they gave idle investigation to the bones they began to hear a squealing coming from the hallway out, panicking they all ran into the coffin lined room, closing the doors behind them.

Listening at the door they heard the squelching continue. Whatever it is it doesn’t sound like it’s interested in the door. They decide to press this advantage, immediately they kick open the door, Whelp throwing planetary dirt into the air in a whirl, creating two shimmering shields in front of him.

The torch light cast upon the things revealed two head sized white worms, bodies lined with human eyes. Azrak rushed in just beyond the shields and in a blaze of arcane light fried the things before the even had time to react. They were safe. By the time the fray was over Ogden has freed himself from his hiding place in one of the coffins with a remaining lid and the entire group was ready to press on.

Exploring deeper they soon found themselves in a small cell room, the bars oxidized and hardly held together, in the corner a small piece of bar had been broken free, it was too small for a human to escape but something hobbit sized easily could have.

Turning another corner the group found themselves over a rickety wooden bridge, just at the very edge of the torch light they saw it, a pair of emaciated humanoid feet, skin same mummy brown as the goblin they had seen earlier.

“What are you?” Azrak shouted out to the figure in the dark

And in an instant it began running; the light slowly showing more and more of it until the remains of the head came into view, the lower jaw was all that remained, but the tongue had grown massive as it writhed in the air.

Pouncing onto Azrak it dug its terrible splintering nails through the robe and into his flesh, Sleve panicked and began chopping at the bridge itself with his axe. Whelp panicked and yet again called upon the arcane dust to create a wall totally blocking passage between the bridge and the hallway they were in. The party was split watching in horror as the chaos unfolded in front of them. Dwari and Ames threw themselves at the creature trying to pull it off of the flayed Azrak, just barely managing to wrestle it off they threw it off the now shaky bridge.

From the unseen depths below they heard a splash.