Immersive Ink

OOC: I'll try to make this a speedy turnaround and kick off Adventure Five ASAP. I just made a pot of coffee and I'm working on that long-overdue master map update I promised you.

OOC: Hey guys, I owe you an update, sorry about that. Everything is fine on my end! We've had some gorgeous spring weather and I'm vaccinated, so I've been spending a little less time in front of the computer. I hope you all are well?

Fun things are in store for the Fifth Adventure. With the characters levelling up, I feel like your survival is a little less tenuous, and you can take on tougher challenges. Any thoughts which part of the dungeon you might want to explore next, to help guide my DM prep work?

Finally a reminder that in Delving Deeper rules, experience points for monsters are scaled according to character level vs. dungeon level. A 2nd level PC on dungeon level 1 only earns half xp for monster kills. This gives you an interesting choice: stay on dungeon level 1, or dip to level 2 (or even level 3) taking a greater risk, but hoping for a greater reward?

My understanding is (correct me if I'm wrong) this rule only applies to xp from monsters, and treasure always gives full xp.

mushgnome wrote: ↑

Tue May 04, 2021 2:27 pm

Any thoughts which part of the dungeon you might want to explore next, to help guide my DM prep work?

Frederick expresses his gratitude to Willie for the plate of food. He appears famished and quickly wolfs down Dougal's bangers and Kiplyn's scones. "Mmmm, not bad for amateurs!" he says, licking his fingers clean with gusto.

"Thank you. Can I repay you for the meal with a story? Our toboggan ride yesterday, was a little unusual, and you are probably wondering why. And this is that story." He clears his throat and continues in his best storytelling voice:

"In ancient times, Hornpipe Hill was Mighty Mount Hornpipe! This whole New England landscape was rough, wild, craggy, primordial. Then came the Ice Giants from the North. They ground the rocks to sand and wore the mountains down to nubs. The picturesque, rolling hillsides of the Miskatonic Valley are all that is left today of that contested battleground. You know when you are walking in the woods, and you randomly find a big sitting boulder all by itself? It's leftover ammunition from the Ice Giants.

"You are wondering, what does this have to do with toboggans? Well, the Sluice Chute was not built by Hobbets, as far as we know. It seems to be an artifact of an ancient stoneworking civilization, who mined the precious metals and gemstones beneath the Mountain. The Chute is enchanted with the property, that it does not age. But because the Chute was built when our little Hill was a mighty Mountain, it creates a paradox, that the track should not be the same length as the ground it sits on. Once a year, on New Year's Day, the tension of the paradox becomes unbearable, and the Hill remembers when it was a Mountain. And it makes incredible conditions for tobogganing! Wasn't that fun?!?

"Ursa here is a beast on the toboggan, by the way. Isn't that right, baby?" (He pets her bandaged hand, but she does not respond.)

Experience Rewards

600xp / 5 = 120xp each for destroying 2 ghouls
8400gp / 5 = 1680xp each for treasure and +1680gp in each of your bank accounts!!!

+100xp bonus to Wilbur and Dougal for finding Ursa in the snow
+250xp bonus to Willie and Kiplyn for winning the Toboggan competition!

Rookie Wilbur (adjusted for his high prime requisite) has 2,090xp which is enough to reach 2nd level! He gets 2+1HD plus an additional +2 Constitution bonus. He rerolls all dice (as is our customary house rule) for a new total of 3+6+1+2=12hp, positioning him as the new party 'tank.'

Dame Simonetta also reaches 2nd level with a new total of 2,619xp. 2+1HD rolls 5+2+1=8. This is the same as her current, so she increases 1hp to a new total of 9hp.

Dougal reaches 3rd level with 4,314xp. He gets 2HD and rolls 3+2=5hp, which is lower his old total, so goes up 1hp to 8hp.

Kiplyn has 2,697xp, enough for 3rd level. Playing strictly 'by the book' he cannot gain 2 levels in 1 adventure. He should be 1xp shy of 3rd level. However I'm going to rule that, because the party visited the surface after finding Ursa's camp, technically it counts as 2 separate adventures, and Kip can gain 2 levels. This would account for his extreme courage in the ghoul battle: retroactively, he was already 2nd level, but just didn't know it!

Tough luck, though, for Kiplyn on his hit-dice rerolls. For 2nd level he gets 1+1HD and rolls 1+1=2. That's lower than his total of 4, so he increases only 1 hp to 5hp. And then for reaching 3rd level, he gets 2HD and rolls 2+1=3. Again he increases the minimum 1hp to a new total of 6hp, the lowest of the party members. Sorry, pal!

And how could we forget Willie? At 1802/1802xp, he is striking distance of leveling up in one (if not both) of his classes on the next Adventure.

All the characters wounds are fully healed.

OOC: A quick response to kipper:

This particular megadungeon 'sprawls' horizontally rather than vertically. That is to say, "dungeon level" is measured by travel distance north/south/east/west from the exit (as opposed to depth below the surface).

There are vertically deeper areas to explore (such as the Grand Chasm) but it's best to think of that as a wilderness zone, outside the "dungeon level 1-10" nomenclature. When you are ready to go down there and battle purple worms and such, I have sketched out a few adventure hooks. The transitional areas are well-marked, and you don't have to worry about your PCs ever wandering out-of-bounds by accident. (Unless of course you ever run out of light and start stumbling around blindly; then all bets are off!)

As I was planning out this campaign, I was intrigued by the idea that maybe dungeons have alignments like people. There's this concept of the "mythic underworld," that left to its own devices, the dungeon's natural tendency is to revert to a state of primal Chaos. And then I like to think that the act of Adventuring, of shining your lantern into the darkness, drawing a map, and slaying the monsters, brings Law to Chaos. So therefore logically, Level 1 of a frequently-explored dungeon, would have an alignment of "Chaotic (Lawful Good tendencies)" that could manifest as friendly messages from past Adventurers, written in chalk on the walls, or helpful equipment lying discarded on the ground. As the party explores higher-numbered dungeon levels (not necessarily deeper into the earth, but farther from the entrance) these Lawful echos of past Heroes will fade, and the dungeon will get less "friendly" and more Chaotic. For example there will be fewer helpful hints and 'Easter eggs' to guide the party.

And then the Underdark is something else entirely. It has more of a True Neutral energy, that the creatures down there are just trying to survive, and they see you as protein.