Castle Xyntillan – Session #10 – A Visit to the Countess’s Suite

The Company:

• Heinz (MU3)
• Ynes (T2)
• Buerghedorn (F2)
• Norin & Elsa (light foot)
• Elin (porter)

Loot: 6.000 GP worth of precious stones, pearls and gold buttons

Casualties: Heinz, Norin, Elsa & Buerghedorn — ripped to shreds by two vampire bat swarms

Report:

Offscreen, Bartolomea visit father Brenard and shows him the severed head of Gilbert “the Fox”. Being new in town, the father does not recognize the unfortunate. “Was he a heretic?”

Bartolomea also receives a reply from the bishop of Chamrousse to the letter she sent in which she described her vision pertaining to the oils of cleansing. The bishop has heard of the oils and believes it is one of several relics that have been Malévol heirlooms for ages. The cross-shaped chapel he does not recognize, but he knows there are several chapels in the castle.

Finally, Bartolomea must deal with the aftermath of the accidental nuptials that were the result of her most recent carousing spree. The groom in question turns out to be a butcher’s son named Jürg. His parents are none too pleased, seeing as how a militant nun is hardly a suitable wife. Furthermore, they are terribly overworked and were hoping Jürg would finally begin to pull his weight in the butchery. In addition, Bartolomea may have to deal with the disapproval of her god if the marriage turns out to have been consummated…

Onscreen, during the company’s preparation for their ninth foray into the castle, Jacques Valt tells them that if they bring back an intact and preferably alive goatrice specimen, he may be able to develop a cure against petrification. For a fee, of course.

Upon arrival at the castle, they first head up north to inspect the lakeshore. They are disappointed to not find a boat, and so turn back.

Heinz goes to check on the magic dancing bean he planted along the southern battlements. It being winter, however, not much appears to be growing. Yet.

Heading towards the grand entrance, they spot the decapitated body of Gilbert and the corpse of his bandit companion. Their compatriots apparently left them there to rot. Buerghedorn dumps the remains in the stream to prevent them from being raised by the chimera statue’s magic.

The company decides to head counter clockwise along the perimeter of the castle. They discover a balcony on the eastern end of the castle. Further on, at the lake’s edge, they also see a windowless tower rising from the water, a bridge connecting it to the castle proper.

They return to the balcony and Ynes easily scales it. She drops a rope for her compatriots and proceeds to spy through some murder holes. On the other side she can see a wood-paneled room covered in yellowish slime trails. A sour odor wafts towards her.

There is a door on either side of the balcony. Believing the south door to lead to the count’s room, Ynes tries the one to the north. She peeks inside and surveys another curtained suite holding a casket, a fireplace, a wardrobe and a dresser, and a bulging rolled-up carpet. No one appears to be present inside.

The company sneaks in and begins to sack the room when suddenly the carpet spontaneously unrolls and out pops a badly chewed-on corpse with a mouth full of crystalline teeth. Somewhat disturbed, they decide to tear down the room’s curtains to let in the early morning winter sun. Buerghedorn tries to lift the casket and discovers it is quite heavy.

Then they hear footsteps and bells heading their way from the door to the west. Everyone except Ynes rushes outside. The thief disappears behind some curtains. Someone bangs on the door and calls out for “Maltricia” to “come out and play.” Soon after, the door to the north opens and a pale attractive lady dressed in faded pink silks appears on the doorstep. She cries out in pain when the sunlight hits her and her skin begins to smolder and burn. Almost immediately she dodges back into the room she came from and slams the door shut. “Kent, help me!” she cries out.

The western door is opened with the sound of a large iron mechanism being disarmed. In stalks a wild-eyes figure dressed in a jester’s outfit, with sharp claws and dripping teeth. A smell of corpses and decay fills the room. The thing moves to close the curtains. Ynes sneaks up behind it and tries to backstab, but misses by a hair’s breadth. The creature turns and rips into her with his claws. The rest of the company pile into the room and rapidly eliminate the monster.

While Maltricia continues to cry out for Kent from the other room, the company resumes their looting. Heinz begins to rip gemstones, pearls and golden buttons from decaying dresses in the wardrobe. Ynes discovers a secret exit in the back of the fireplace. Buerghedorn guards the north door. Ynes climbs up the fireplace chimney and emerges a floor up on the room’s roof, which doubles as a balcony.

Maltricia cracks the door and attempts to parlay. Buerghedorn will have none of it, yanks the door open, grabs the countess, and pulls her into the sunlight. She once again begins to smolder and cries out angrily. Heinz casts protection from evil on Buerghedorn. Ynes waits to see what happens. The light foot soldiers run forward to lay into the countess. One trips and falls, the other doesn’t manage to do any damage with their mundane weaponry.

With her otherworldly strength Maltricia wrenches free from Buerghedorn’s hold, and runs for the door. Ynes throws a silver dagger at her. It strikes home with a dull thud and does not appear to harm her. Maltricia summons a pair of vampire bat swarms that stream into the room from its shadowy corners. One swarm rips apart one of the light foot soldiers. Heinz is chewed to shreds by the other. The porter’s morale breaks and she runs for the balcony.

Ynes rushes to Heinz’s aid, pulls a healing potion from his pack, and manages to revive the mage. Meanwhile, a bat swarm tears apart the remaining mercenary. Buerghedorn continues to do battle with the other swarm. Heinz struggles to his feet and is immediately attacked again by bats, and drops to the floor once more. At this point, the company makes for the balcony exit, dragging the lifeless body of the mage with them, and slamming the door shut behind them.

Unfortunately, they fail to revive Heinz a second time. With a heavy heart, Ynes begins to pick through his belongings. Buerghedorn is overwhelmed with rage and runs back into the suite, wildly flailing at the bat swarms. He manages to go a few more rounds against the things, but must ultimately also succumb to their scratches and bites. Ynes shoulders her pack, now stuffed with mage equipment, bids her perished companions farewell, and hops over the balcony’s edge to once more begin the lonely trek back to town.

Referee Commentary:

Another dramatic session, almost entirely taken up by Maltricia’s room. (We generally play for 2.5 to 3 hours, the first 15 to 30 minutes or so are usually taken up by downtime shenanigans.)

Heinz’s player had smugly mentioned more than once that his character was the only remaining one from the original crop. In our previous campaign, they’d also managed to keep their PC alive all the way through. Now, they finally have the privilege to join the Dead Player-Character’s Society. I should admit, however, that the final failed death save was a punch to the gut. I really wanted then to make it.

The session’s turn for the worst was all the more dramatic because the players started out very strong and smart. Taking the time to (finally) survey the perimeter, using the balcony as a way in, catching Maltricia in the sunlight and bumrushing Kent. Maybe they should have known better than to try and grapple a lady vampire. But in any case, that’s when things rapidly went south.

As is beginning to be customary, there are a few referee regrets to cover. These were potentially quite lethal. But the players agreed we weren’t going to do any retconning when we discussed these afterwards. They are real sports that way.

First of all was the fact that I allowed the bat swarms to attack on the round they were summoned. This reduced the players ability to respond to the increased threat before the things were on top of them. I should add that I hadn’t expected these things to be that deadly. I was a bit at a loss actually for what would be a smart move for Maltricia to make. Calling in some reinforcements seemed to make sense. In hindsight, I guess it did. And then some. Anyway, looking back I should have probably waited a round for the bats to attack. In the past I’ve ruled similar situations to work the same way. E.g. when a character is healed back from 0 HP they can’t act that round. And when they used the staff of the woodlands to summon a servitor, it too was not allowed to act the same round.

Then there is the protection from evil spell which I had forgotten also prevents “conjured creatures” from touching the creature it is cast on (we are using OED book of spells). In hindsight, even though the bats are natural beings, I would still consider them conjured because the vampire summoned them. So Buerghedorn should have been completely impervious to their attacks. That would have made quite the difference, too.

So much for the regrets.

It’s ironic too, because I’d just made the rules for death slightly less punitive: In stead of save or die immediately when you hit zero hit points, I added the common rule of having a number of rounds equal to your level to be healed back up. When exceeded, if someone can “flip your body” after combat, you also still get to make that death save. In spite of this, Heinz still bought it. They had no cleric with them, and had brought only one healing potion. So it goes.

Another point that came up in our post-game discussions was initiative. We are currently rolling initiative every round. Players roll a d6 and on a 4+ they go before the opposition. This is reasonably fast, and injects a nice bit of chaos in the proceedings. But if players are unlucky, as was the case here when they failed to roll initiative after the bats had already attacked them for one round, they can really take a beating. We might try traditional group initiative in the next game, where we both roll a d6 at the top of combat and whoever gets highest goes first for the remainder of combat. Would make things a little quicker and easier to keep track of, but a little less perilous and exciting.

And then there was the moment when Ynes’s player discovered they were the sole beneficiary of 6000 XP. This really did add insult to injury for the players who lost their PCs. It was maybe the single biggest XP haul in the game to date. And I think about half of it simply evaporated, because I do not allow characters to increase more than one level per session, as is traditional. Ynes is now 1 XP short of level 4.

Oh, and in case anyone’s wondering, Buerghedorn’s demise was brought on by a classic “it’s what my character would do” moment. The player in question afterwards confessed they weren’t really enjoying themselves with the system and campaign setting and would be sitting the remainder of our run through it out.

So yeah, quite the session! I wonder what will happen next, maybe the players will launch a retaliatory expedition to take out their revenge in the countess. Or maybe they won’t. Only one way to find out.