Reign: 8342 BC - 8392 BC... and for like an hour about 10,000 years later.
The following is a campaign journal where I, the referee, lead my friends in a game of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. For all of us, this is our first venture down the Old School Renaissance style of tabletop roleplaying. Enjoy!
(SPOILERS for Tomb of the Serpent Kings by Skerples)
EPISODE 3: The Reign of Hisziphit
The party consists of:
Harold "Hal" Fling: a halfling who unceremoniously solves all problems. Level 1
Sister Cage: a cleric who identifies as a... thing. Level 1
Jarvey: a specialist who sees more with one eye than the rest of the party sees with eight. Level 1
Zanzibar the Magician: a magic user who everyone is sure is a bad guy. Level 1
McDoogle: a fighter who finally learned how to hit bad guys. Level 1
Hal, Cage, Jarvey, Zanzibar, McDoogle
Franzibar the Ooze monster lunges at the party from its stone sarcophagus! Sister Cage cautions against using fire in such a small place, but the rest of the party argues that this is a bigger place now! Sister cage takes out some lamp oil and gets ready to set it on fire. Zanzibar the Magician and Knower of Snake Serpent Mythography throws rocks. McDoogle the Person also throws rocks. Hal actually accomplishes something by attacking with a bow, hitting the ooze with an arrow. Jarvey does the same. Sister Cage then hurl the lit flask, misses, and burns the floor instead. The ooze monster is afraid of the fire!
Good job Sister Cage for not listening to yourself!
Hal gestures to the 98 candles in his bag and gets ready to light a birthday cake's worth of fire. Zanzibar throws more rocks. Hal suggests using the flaming formaldehyde liquid in the pool, but Jarvey suggests not fucking with the water. McDoogle becomes smart and throws an empty sack over his polearm, dips it in formaldehyde water, then lights it in the flaming oil and plunges it into the ooze monster, killing it. Everyone congratulates Hal on a wonderful idea.
Pictured: Pole dancer with doo-doo fire.
McDoogle finds two rings in the ooze's remains, they both have Snake-Latin script saying, "HOLY FRANZIBAR MAY YOU REST IN PEACE." Zanzibar suggests putting a polearm into the formaldehyde pool to probe for loot, so he uses McDoogle's polearm. Something tugs on the weapon! Zanzibar removes the polearm and finds a severed-snakey-mummy head biting the end of it. Zanzibar can't understand the head's babbling. Probably because there is a polearm in its mouth. The head is mad and confused about his situation. He and Zanzibar start screaming at each other, but everyone else just hears garbage gibberish. The head tells them that he was buried with his stuff, so the party searches the bottom for his stuff, finding a gold necklace and a ring. The party names the head Hiszhiphit (Hissy Fit). Zanzibar takes his quarterstaff and jams it up Hisziphit's neck so he can wave the head around. Zanzibar says that he and his party are resurrection priests for the snakes, and that Hisziphit is the new king who shall reign. Hisziphit reckognizes the amulet as a royal totem worth 35 gp. When questioned about his magic ring, Hisziphit says "Ahhhh, it helps me... peek!" Jarvey states it might only be good for peeking under people's clothes. Hisziphit states he could make people get naked at a command! Hal puts the ring on. His left eye pops out, but he can still see through it.
What a strange predicament!
At this point the party becomes even more suspicious of Zanzibar because:
He's just weird.
There is a tomb in this dungeon marked Franzibar.
There is a babbling snake-ruler's head that only Zanzibar can talk to.
Zanzibar points out that, for all the party knows, none of the Snake-Latin he's translating is even correct because nobody can correct him, and I don't know why he thinks this would make the party suspect him any less. The party then listens against a door labeled "SPARAMUNTER" and hears a monster, they choose not to go through. They examine a door marked "XISOR." Uh oh, looks like someone wearing women's boots already walked through this door! The party leaves that door alone and opens a door marked "CLERGY," finding lots of loot. Zanzibar finds scrolls with Snake-Latin script, and there is a valuable golden icon to Pretzelcouatl. The party finds a door with pictures of snakes raining from the sky on it, but they decide not to open that door. They then find an empty room, and afterwards explore a room full of terracotta soldiers. McDoogle breaks a statue and nothing happens. Hal tries to determine if the Great Zanzibar can actually speak snake by holding up fingers to Hisziphit and getting the talking head to say how many fingers Hal is holding up in hopes that Zanzibar can translate correctly. Hisziphit tells Zanzibar, "I don't take orders from peasants!" Zanzibar finds lots of raving madness on the scrolls.
The party opens the door to Sparamunter. "Sparamunter" is apparently Snake-Latin for "Skeleton-Snake-Monster-With-Greataxe-Roll-Initiative." The party attacks. Jarvey hits it with a polearm. Zanzibar throws rocks. Hal attacks and misses with a bow. Cage attacks with rocks. McDoogle chucks his battleaxe and it misses Sparamunter, clattering on the ground behind. Sparamunter swings at Jarvey, who dodges it and strikes back with a polearm, killing Sparamunter. The party finds 10 gp worth of loot in Sparamunter's tomb. They debate going back to town. They open the door marked "XISOR" and find Arior, their quest giver! Yay! She's dead! She stepped on a lightning bolt trap. The party grieves by looting her dead corpse, recovering 4 gold amulets, a necklace of keys, the Professor Mallet's magic snake ring, 126 sp and 77 cp.
The party then opens a secret door they found in the terracotta room. There is a large, dark room at the end. They peer inside. Cage tosses a torch, which catches the attention of a basilisk that looks at McDoogle. McDoogle starts turning to stone. Everyone attacks and fails. Zanzibar throws Hisziphit instead of rocks. The basilisk eats Hisziphit. Sister Cage puts a mirror over McDoogle's face so that the basilisk might stare at its own reflection. Hal runs up and shuts the door. No more combat! The party now trusts Zanzibar since he fed Hisziphit to the basilisk to save McDoogle.
McDoogle never read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Majority rules, and the party decides to go in and fight the basilisk again. Hal fears the basilisk will get its chain tangled around the pillars in its room because that is the symbol of Pretzel-Couatl. Everyone gets ready to charge in. Hal starts making plans to back to town and find four new adventurers. Zanzibar believes the basilisk might be staring at the secret door. They debate leaving, but McDoogal declares that they must save Hisziphit!
They immediately do none of that!
The party opens the door with the image of the snakes raining from the sky, and they avoid a trap that would knock them down the stairs. They find an arena with the walls and ceilings covered in shields. a snake warrior made of stone sits in the middle. Hal shoots the warrior with an arrow. Cage hits it with a club. The guardian summons a shield to his hand from the wall like Captain America and hits Jarvey and McDoogle for 2 damage. Ouch! They're only level 1, Mr. Guardian! McDoogle makes a loop of rope. The guardian hits McDoogle for 2 more damage! Hal tries to hit the guardian, does no damage, then tries to summon a shield from the wall. Nothing happens. They start to retreat, then they consider letting McDoogle get turned to stone by the basilisk so that he can fight the other stone monster but that idea is quickly shot down because this isn't Pokemon and fighting types do better against rock types anyways. Zanzibar tries talking to it. It doesn't want to talk. Everyone flees to a steep precipice above a spooooooooooooooooky deep pit, and the guardian leaps after them, falling to its doom and almost taking Hal with him!
Loot obtained: 81 gp, 126 sp, 77 cp
4 gold amulet coins (1 gp each, reclaimed)
Magic snake ring (unknown value, reclaimed)
126 sp, 77 cp
Gold chain brooch and necklace (35 gp)
Silver eye-pop ring (unknown value)
Sparamantur's trinkets (10 gp)
Franzibar's rings (2 gp total)
Silver and emerald Pretzel-Couatl icon (20 gp)
Materials and Supplements used:
Tomb of the Serpent Kings (main dungeon)
DonJon Fantasy Town Generator (for creating Narakib)
Vornheim (generating NPC's and town amenities)
Lamentations of the Flame Princess (main rule set)