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Actual Play

Castle Xyntillan – Session #2 – Killer Clouds

The Company:

  • Anna (F1)
  • Fernando (T1)
  • Robain (C1)
  • Michelle & Raul (porters)

Casualties: All of the above. That’s right, the session ended in a TPK. Read on for the sordid details.

Loot: None, obviously.

Report:

Resuming the action immediately after last session’s demise of bowman Mattia, the company takes a moment to debate where to go next. Ultimately Anna decides to try her luck once more with the locked door in the galloping hallway. She rushes across, bashes the lock to bits and tumbles into the room beyond. An armory!

While Anna takes stock of the armaments on display, the remainder of the company gingerly crosses the hallway, taking care to avoid the horses. The armory contains a generous amount of weapons (although, to Robain’s disappointment, none of them blunt). There are also four well-oiled chain hauberks on display, and a badly pierced suit of plate. From behind one of two closet doors something can be heard trying to bash it down.

They search the armory for exceptional weaponry, but none can be found. Anna inspects the plate armour, and although it is badly damaged, she decides to exchange it for her chain mail. Robain boldly opens the closet door from behind which no sounds can be heard, and is confronted with a bizarre monstrosity!

Real D&D heads know (Tony DiTerlizzi)

Robain immediately smashes the thing in the head with his mace and is surprised to see a glass eye fly from its head, stuffing protruding from the empty socket. The monster turns out to be a stuffed specimen. Puzzled and somewhat amused the company proceeds to investigate the thing and the closet it inhabits.

While they are thus preoccupied, the door through which they entered opens and six gaseous clouds, each with an iridescent nucleus, enter the room and proceed to suck blood from the company through remote osmosis. Horrified at the sight of blood streaming from their pores and flying off to the monsters, the company hesitates to engage.

Robain makes for the other closet, and flings open the door. An animated suit of armour emerges and immediately flies off to attack the armour that is now being worn by Anna. Fernando ducks into the closet that previously held the armour, followed by the retainers. Anna, meanwhile, barely manages to jump into the closet containing the monster and shuts the door in the proverbial face of the animated armour.

Panicking while blood continues to be sucked from their bodies, Robain attempts to push over a rack of weapons on top of the clouds but the thing won’t budge. Fernando takes aim with his crossbow and obliterates one of the clouds. The porters remain in their closet, terrified and near being exsanguinated. In the other closet, Anna begins to shed her plate armour, as the animated plate continues to hammer away at the door.

Fernando pushes over another weapons rack on top of the clouds and manages to eliminate a few more. Robain swipes at the evil things with his mace and deals some damage as well. But the clouds slowly but surely continue to suck blood from all the company’s members. The porters begin to collapse.

Having removed the plate armour, Anna flings open the door and dexterously sidesteps the animated suit. It flies into the closet and proceeds to assault the discarded plate in the corner. Fernando proceeds to fling daggers at the clouds. Robain succumbs to the clouds’ attacks and collapses.

Anna emerges from the closet and begins to bash away at the clouds as well. The two remaining companions persist for a while longer, eliminating clouds left and right, but ultimately are overwhelmed. Both Anna and Fernando fall to the armory’s floor, as the last of their blood is drawn from their bodies and consumed by the evil, killer clouds. Thus ends the company’s first expedition into Castle Xyntillan.

Referee Commentary:

Well, there you have it, the first honest-to-god TPK of my refereeing career. When I rolled this encounter I did not expect it to be quite so deadly. But a number of factors conspired to produce the regrettable fate of our player characters.

Classic D&D characters are indeed quite squishy. The party was rather limited as well, with only three 1st level PCs and no combatant retainers. Upon reflection this should have been reason enough for the players to terminate the expedition and return to town. Furthermore, the players found themselves in a cul-de-sac, with the only escape route leading past the clouds and through the hallway with the racing phantom horses. Despite this, again in hindsight, they should have probably still risked running for it, because they were squarely outmatched. The fact that the clouds’ attacks can only be averted through a save (effectively circumventing AC) also probably made a bit of a difference, although the players rolled very well on their saves throughout the battle. So it goes, I guess. We finished the session rolling up new characters.

The joke with the stuffed monster was lost on my players because most of them haven’t been playing classic D&D for that long. It still sort of worked as a puzzling oddity.

The moment when the animated suit of armour emerged from the closet and proceeded to attack Anna produced more than a few smiles around the table. It’s this kind of serendipitous mayhem that CX appears to be engineered to produce. I absolutely love those moments and can’t wait for the players to return to the castle to once again try their luck.

4 replies on “Castle Xyntillan – Session #2 – Killer Clouds”

Going into it I had not realized it’s a bit of a trap with the horses outside in the hallway and the animated armor in there. I love how Gabor does not spell that out, as a ref I get to experience the surprise along with my players.

A perfect storm of unfavourable circumstances and bad luck! Still, sounds like quite an event. (These are the occasions where hitting the Table of Terror might be a wise idea, but many players would rather have their characters die than risk it. Mine never EVER touched that thing, and would rather have PCs die again and again and again.)

Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Gabor! It’s interesting, I’d never consider the table of terror as a device players can engage if they want to try and make a quick escape. I’ll be sure to point it out as an option the next time a situation like this develops. (And thanks again for creating CX, I’m having a lot of fun with it.)

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