SESSION 48C: ENTERING THE TOMB
January 9th, 2010
The 26th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
After perhaps fifty or sixty feet, Tee emerged into a small chamber of unadorned stone. The shadows seemed even deeper here, stubbornly clinging to the corner of the room.
There was a single door of iron. As Tee took her first cautious step off the stairs towards it, Elestra – following behind her – gasped to see the shadows literally dart out from the walls. Catching Tee unaware and from behind, the first shadow clawed its incorporeal hand through her shoulder while the other plunged its own straight through her heart and chest.
Tee gasped, fumbling for a potion to fight off the cloying cold gripping at her limbs. As she stumbled away from the stairs, the supernatural shadows pursued.
Agnarr raced down the stairs. Tor, who had been watching the party’s rear, pushed his way past Ranthir and the others still on the stairs, but couldn’t get past Agnarr without exposing his own back to the shadows.
Elestra, cut off by both of the fighters, instead turned into a bird, flew through a gap in the stone balustrades of the stair, and alighted by Tee’s side. With soothing hands, she helped her shaking friend.
Nasira grasped her holy symbol and raised it high. The nearest shadow fled from her faith, passing through the iron door. This allowed Agnarr to safely back away from the base of the stairs, giving room for both Tor and Nasira to descend.
As Nasira came, she called aloud the name of her goddess – “SAYL!” – and in a burst of holy light the remaining shadow was blasted back into the floor of the chamber. There it remained for a long moment – like a shadow imprinted without an owner – before it faded away into nothingness. The palling darkness of the chamber seemed to lift at its passing.
HAUNTED HALLS
Beyond the iron door was a long hall of dark grey stone that seemed to serve as a crossroads of sorts between four narrow arches. Web-encrusted skeletons lay slouched in a dozen shallow niches that lined the walls of the hall. Tee was taking no chances and stabbed the nearest of the skeletons through its exposed sternum. As she did so, the skeleton in the next niche lurched suddenly to its feet… and then stumbled and collapsed into a broken heap.
Tor and Agnarr did a quick sweep around the circumference of the hall, bashing each skeleton in turn (although they evoked no response from any of the others). Ranthir, inspecting the remnants of their bone-bashing, noted that the skeletons had been covered in small, detailed runes – arcane in nature, but drawn in an archaic style. Some of the runes appeared necromantic, but not all of them, and Ranthir was puzzled as to what their purpose had been.
Passing through one of the arches leading out of the hall, Tee found herself in a huge chamber. Dozens of chains dangled from the ceiling, each tipped with a vicious, serrated hook. On two or three of the hooks she could see skeletal remains hanging limply.
… and many of the chains were drifting slowly in the breeze of a room in which the air was perfectly still.
The effect was unnerving, and after quickly confirming that the room was otherwise empty they went through the arch on the opposite side of the hall. Passing down a short flight of open stairs and through an antechamber of sorts, they entered another large chamber, this one with a wide pit in the center of it.
Carefully approaching the edge of the pit, Tee looked down to find it tightly packed with two dozen or more ancient zombies – their grey and desiccated flesh stretched cross across browned bones. When they became aware of their presence, the undead things began to claw wildly at the walls, although they found no purchase and there seemed little risk of their escape.
“Desiccated?” Agnarr said. “That sounds flammable.”
Tee sprayed some oil into the pit and lit ‘em up. The party backed out of the chamber as it started to fill with thick, black smoke carrying the stench of burning flesh.
Running the Campaign: Undead for Effect – Campaign Journal: Session 48D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index
Two thoughts…
1. ‘ancient zombies – their grey and desiccated flesh … “Desiccated?” Agnarr said. “That sounds flammable.”’
This is a fun little fourth wall break, at least as presented, given that we can pretty clearly see the character in dialogue with the narration itself. 🙂
2. ‘As Nasira came, she called aloud the name of her goddess’
A realistic line that could be transplanted without change to a completely different kind of story, albeit with all sorts of interesting worldbuilding implications given a world in which the gods are real and listening. :p
This reminds me of a trap a lot of DMs fall into. Many DMs get frustrated running higher level games, even at Tier 2 and 3, because they get stuck in the mode of considering the PCs to be ‘scrappy underdogs’ at every level. This is a mistake and leads to a lot of frustration for players and the DM.
Tier 1 characters, especially at level 1, are indeed scrappy underdogs, facing deadly threats without much in the way of power and getting by on pluck and luck a lot of the time. This is where many DM’s fall into the trap, because once the player characters get to Tier 2 play, they are no longer Plucky Underdogs, they are seasoned professionals, and to treat them like underdogs all the time causes friction and irritation. It gets even worse at Tier 3. The DM needs to change their approach and assumptions as the characters level up.
My take on it is basically this:
Levels 1-4 Plucky Underdogs: Expect them to be afraid, desperate, and feeling underpowered and underprepared. A lot of DMs get stuck at this point, thinking that this is what PCs should always be, regardless of level.
Levels 5-10 – Seasoned professionals: Expect them to have a plan, have the power to make it work, and let go of the need to terrify them quite so much or have them feel overwhelmed. It will backfire. Many DMs start to feel a bit frustrated here, as the PC’s stronger or more utilitarian capabilities trivialize parts of the adventure that they’d thought were a challenge.
Levels 11-16 – Big Damn Heroes: At this point, any fear or desperation comes from threats to others, not so much to themselves. “fugitive” stories fall apart entirely around this point, as the PCs feel they can turn and fight and win, and are usually right. Expecting the PCs to be cowed by the might of the villain and fearful for their own lives is just going to be frustrating for everyone involved.
Levels 17-20 – Epic to Cosmic heroes: These are legends whose footsteps shake the world. Threats at this level are demon princes, archdevils, gods, and cosmic horrors, and while they may be reasonably expected to take these threats seriously, the PCs are credible threats to these adversaries, not ‘underdogs’. By this point, the sorts of DMs who get upset when a character can fly or gets salty about Silvery Barbs is going to just throw up their hands and walk away. Villains like Grazz’t or Zariel should react to the PCs the same way as the villainous boss in a John Wick movie reacts when they find out that John Wick is coming for them. If you expect a lv 20 party to tremble at ANYONE’s name, you’re going to have a bad time.
DMs need to lean in to the level of characters at the table, and adapt. Part of that is giving them encounters like the one presented in this Ptolus entry, that would have wrecked the party at the beginning, but now is more set-dressing than threat. They’re not underdogs anymore, and they’ve earned the respect of the villains.