Deep Carbon Observatory adventure log - Session 17

What happened in Session 17

Friday the 12th Player

Characters and Retainers:

• Ash - Xiaverine, Level 1 Grimalkin
• Freddy - Trunchkin, Level 5 Friar
• Marcus - Melysee, Level 5 Human Knight
• Ythan - Clement, Level 5 Human Enchanter
• Peter - Albert, Level 4 Woodgrue
• Trunchkin is folowed by Gunter the dog
• Melysee is folowed by Lizzy, a giant geko
• Clement is followed by Max Kosciusko - Level 1 Hunter and owns Elain the dog.
• Albert is followed by Petra, a Level 1 thief and Ella, a Level 1 Bard.

The explored section of the Observatory

The session opened with the aftermath of the previous day’s bloody struggle in the profundal zone. The immediate danger had passed, but the consequences were already unfolding. Zaratusa’s sailors are making their way toward the dried lake bed, and the kapeks, having lost too many warriors to the reed people, no longer have the strength to oppose them. For now, only scouting parties will venture ahead, but it is clear that the entire crew of the Laputa will follow in time. Their plan is simple: secure the abyssal zone, then descend into the dungeon. The magpies are working against the clock if they hope to plunder the place before their rivals arrive.

Kapek scouts reported something more unsettling still. Strange, low shapes had been seen slipping out from the Dam itself. Light bent around them in unnatural ways, as if they were negative images cut from the world. No one knew what they were, but all agreed they were deeply wrong.

Preparing to avoid open conflict with the sailors, the kapeks have begun migrating upriver. They will leave traps behind to delay pursuit. In gratitude to the magpies, they offered to resupply the party and agreed to store whatever burdens the Magpies did not wish to carry. Among these were crates of documents dating back to the court of Ambatorana, prophet of the Pluritine Church.

From the spoils of the defeated army, the party also claimed a remarkable haul.

They acquired three jars of Amber Nectar, each a small sphere filled with thick, honey-like liquid. A dose restores a measure of vitality and brings a rush of euphoric clarity, though it risks plunging the drinker into a heavy, dream-filled sleep.

Melysee gained a giant gecko as a mount, a powerful creature capable of charging, climbing sheer surfaces, and lashing out with its long tongue to snatch objects or trip foes. Along with it came a magical lance whose properties remain unknown.

Xavierine received a Ring of Vanishing, which allows its wearer, once per day, to teleport a short distance and vanish from sight along with all carried gear. The invisibility lasts only so long as the wearer refrains from violence or spellcasting.

Turchkin claimed the Bracelets of Passage, a matched pair through which sight and touch may pass regardless of distance, allowing objects to be manipulated from afar.

Albert took up the Wizard’s Pipe, a red clay instrument inscribed with astrological signs. When lit, it produces smoke that can be shaped into perfect, motionless illusions.

Clement received the Amulet of Density, a talisman that allows its bearer to become either a drifting cloud of vapour or a statue of iron for a short time, gaining near-immunity to mundane harm in either form.

The pit

Thus equipped, the party approached the black pit from which a column of steam used to rise. The shaft was searingly hot and utterly dry. Around the lake’s edge, mirrors caught the sunlight and cast it downward into the depths. After a long descent, the magpies reached a heavy yet perfectly balanced door. By manipulating its counterweights, they opened it and left it ajar behind them.

Beyond lay a narrow spiral staircase. It began carved in black stone, shifted gradually to white stone, and finally became metal. At the bottom, they emerged into the fulgarium, a vast chamber shaped like an inverted ziggurat or a funnel, with its lowest point at the centre where they stood. Broad ten-foot steps rose in tiers around them. On the first tier stood three white statues on each side, four on the second, and five on the highest. Two exits opened at the lowest level—an arched corridor and a rough hole in the wall—while two doors stood above, one obscured by a coiled metallic serpent. 

The calcite guardians

The party recalled Sorla Ghyll’s prophecy.

In the deepest part of the pit lurks a pale, vile giant. It will try to trap you and eat you.

The calcite statues bow to no-one who does not address them correctly.

The Vault is sealed by a serpent-shaped door. It demands a sacrifice you may not want to make.

When the magpies attempted to climb to the first tier, the statues there began to descend toward them. They withdrew at once, fleeing through the arch and along the corridor.

This brought them to the Nightingale Hall. Here, they realised the stone guardians would not follow. The chamber contained two stairways leading downward, a bronze sculpture of a grinning mouth set into the floor, and a shattered piece of transparent quartz resting upon it. Nearby stood a great mechanism: a ribbon of animal hide wound around a colossal wheel; it was further connected to a massive chain that disappeared into a hole in the floor. A final exit spiralled downward into darkness.

The party split. Some ventured down the spiral stairs and discovered a titanic scale equipped with an intricate calibration system and thousands of weights of varying shapes and materials. Unfortunately, none among them could read Laxian, and so the glyphs on the gauges and the labels on the weights remained an enigma.

Elsewhere, Turchkin and a retainer employed a bit of magical ingenuity to gain access to a chamber above the bronze mouth. There, they pulled a lever that opened the bronze sculpture into a pit, revealing a blade and the heavy chain below.

The gravity knife

At the same time, Xavierine used Fay magic to teleport onto the chain itself. He descended in total darkness before swinging toward a faintly illuminated balcony many tens of feet below.

A salt dryad

There, he encountered a group of salt dryads, kin to Nacla, who had lost her heart and longed to recover it so she might return to her post in Zeernebooch’s service at the Slime Embassy. He vowed to return the heart to her.

XP for session 17 

Treasure recovered and hostile encounters: 

None 

Feats of explorations:

• Entered the Observatory
• Explored 5 rooms
• Applied lore (Sorla Ghyll’s prophecy)
• Solved a puzzle (Opened bronze mouth)
• Made contact with faction (Salt dryads)

Totals:

• Melysee gains 2712 XP and reaches 22584 XP; they have 25% of the necessary XP to progress to level 6
• Trunchkin gains 2034 XP and reaches 17391 XP; they have 24% of the necessary XP to progress to level 6
• Xiaverine gains 2712 XP and reaches 3712 XP. LEVEL UP! Character ascended to level 2
• Clement gains 1356 XP and reaches 21107 XP; they have 50% of the necessary XP to progress to level 6
• Albert gains 1356 XP and reaches 16716 XP. LEVEL UP! Character ascended to level 5

• Elain (dog, level 2) gain 678 XP and reach 5798 XP.
• Gunter (dog, level 2) gain 678 XP and reach 4967 XP.
• Max (Hunter, level 1) gains 678 XP and reaches 2387 XP. LEVEL UP! Character ascended to level 2
• Petra (Thief, level 2) gains 678 XP and reaches 2387 XP.
• Ella (Bard, level 1) gains 678 XP and reaches 2387 XP. LEVEL UP! Character ascended to level 2

Join my Discord Server. We only play in person, but you are welcome to pop in to say hi

All the details about Deep Carbon Observatory belong to Patrick Stuart - Buy the module - His Blog - My Review - Video Review

All the art belongs to Scap Princess - Buy her stuff - Her Blog

All the elements of Dolmenwood belong to Gavin Norman - Buy the system - Video Review

Deep Carbon Observatory adventure log - Session 16

What happened in Session 16

Thursday the 11th

Player Characters present at the beginning of the session: 

• Ash - Xiavorin, Level 1 Grimalkin
• D. - Oobl, Level 5 Mossling
• Freddy - Trunchkin, Level 5 Friar
• Marcus - Controlling the Undead army
• Peter - Controlling the Undead army

In the fiction, the Magpies had just passed the Dam. Between them and the entrance to the Deep Carbon Observatory stretched the profundal zone: the dried basin of Reed Lake, where the Kapeks and the Reed People were beginning a war.

The kapeks army

The Magpies were steadfast allies with the Kapeks and committed themselves to the conflict. To determine the outcome, we resolved the battle using a one-off wargame. The result would decide who controlled Reed Lake—and, crucially, whether the territory immediately outside the dungeon would be held by allies or enemies.

Download the wargame rules here. 

Before the fighting began, the Magpies witnessed a grim portent. The Laputa, Captain Zarathusa’s ship, obliterated the last remaining golem with cannon fire, then advanced toward the Dam accompanied by several lifeboats. Simple victory was not enough: the Kapeks would need to survive in sufficient numbers to resist the sailors once they arrived.

The wargame supplies

The Reed People were significantly altered from the source material. Their forces consisted entirely of undead, animated by an inherently unstable necromantic binding. This magic would only hold for a short time - six turns in game - during which they intended to complete a great ritual. Scattered across the lakebed lay the colossal bones of an ancient corpse, embedded in the mud and represented in play as control points.

If, at the end of the sixth turn, the Reed People controlled a majority of these bones, the ritual would succeed, and a vast undead monstrosity would rise, annihilating the Kapeks. If they failed, the necromantic binding would collapse, the undead army would crumble into dust, and the Kapeks would be left in sole control of the field.

The battlefield

The battlefield itself was treacherous and asymmetrical, shaped by several key terrain features:

• Shallow ponds, freely navigable by Kapeks but difficult to navigate for the undead
• Scalding geysers, hazardous to Kapeks but ignored by undead units
• Dense fields of detritus that blocked charges and reduced the effectiveness of ranged attacks
• Zones infested with rotting, explosive pufferfish that endangered any unit passing through at speed

Initial kapeks lines

The battle opened with a bold Kapek cavalry charge on the eastern flank, intended to seize the colossus bones in the opening round. The attack badly underestimated the undead archers, who inflicted severe losses and enabled a rapid counterattack. By the end of the first round, the Kapeks had lost roughly twenty per cent of their force and were already being driven onto the defensive.

The failed cavalry attack

The fighting soon shifted toward the centre, where the main bodies of both armies became locked in a grinding melee. Throughout the engagement, undead archers continued to harass Kapek units, steadily eroding their numbers.

Xiavorin revenge

Several figures distinguished themselves in the chaos. Xiavorin the grimalkin killed an undead commander and then broke through the enemy line and charged into the archers, disrupting their fire. Elsewhere, Kapek heavy units disengaged from the central struggle and regrouped, preparing for a coordinated push elsewhere on the field.

The battle for the centre

By the beginning of the sixth and final round, the undead army held a decisive numerical advantage, fielding nearly twice as many units as the Kapeks. Yet numbers proved less important than position. The undead had concentrated their strength in the east to defend the bones. The Kapeks, recognising the futility of that front, abandoned it entirely and committed everything to a desperate assault in the west.

All remaining forces - including the characters Xiavorin, Oobl the Mossling, and Trunchkin the Friar - were thrown into the attack.

The final showdown

The final moments were tense and finely balanced. Against the odds, the Magpies succeeded in destroying two undead monstrosities, capturing two control points at the last possible moment, and interrupting the necromantic ritual before it could be completed.

When the dust settled, only fourteen Kapeks remained from an original force of ninety. As they looked out across the Dam and the approaching sailors with grim resignation, the Magpies pressed onward toward the entrance of the Deep Carbon Observatory.

Dungeon delving will begin next session!

Join my Discord Server. We only play in person, but you are welcome to pop in to say hi

All the details about Deep Carbon Observatory belong to Patrick Stuart - Buy the module - His Blog - My Review - Video Review

All the art belongs to Scap Princess - Buy her stuff - Her Blog

All the elements of Dolmenwood belong to Gavin Norman - Buy the system - Video Review

The wargame rules are inspired by hell march by Alchemical Raker