Griffin O'Callahan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icastsword) wrote2025-06-13 06:30 pm
icastsword) wrote2025-06-13 06:30 pm
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Session 194: The Divine Lady Murzit
We’re gonna go follow up on the gerblins and the Oculorb. Crimeny peeks in the gerblin room. The Aberrant Zealot we left in there rolls a 4 to care that Crimeny is peeking. It doesn’t care at all. Crimeny enters the room and goes over to peer down the corridor.
Moldbrain, Strangegob, and Wriggler are all extremely dead. The Oculorb is hanging around. There is zero percent door here. Crimeny is in range. They are going to shoot. They hit with an unnatural 20 and do 31 sneak damage. It’s definitely hurt, but it’s still floating.
Crimeny is going to move out of the way and let the tanks do their tank job.
Bulk and Skull come in to the room to hang out by the careless Aberrant Zealot.
Griffin can’t see into the room past the dead gerblins, so he backtracks, spots Crimeny, and makes an "After You" gesture to the party rogue. Crimeny heads in and rolls a 24 Perception.
Aside from the dead oculorb and dead gerblins, there are two Aberrant Zealots who don’t seem like they have much going on upstairs. There’s a door up and to the left, a door across the way, and a door to the north-east, kitty-corner across the room.
Crimeny moseys along the south wall to check out the open doorway across the way.
Beyond is what looks like another superimposed room. It looks like parts of someone’s study have been plopped down in the sewer.
Crimeny backtracks and peeks into the first door along the western wall. The door is broken off its hinges. They peek in and espy an active magic circle on the floor. Crimeny photographs that and sends it to the group chat. There is also a shelf in that room. Crimeny rolls Self Control: They’re going to go see what’s on the shelf. They roll a 22 Investigation.
It’s filled with weird bits and bobs that look like spell components at first. Now Crimeny rolls Arcana and Nature: 23 Arcana and 20 Nature. These are potion-crafting supplies, but they don’t recognize what any of these things are. This looks like it might have been an apothecary’s den at some point. Crimeny photographs that, too, and moseys past the Aberrant Zealots to investigate the final door.
This next room doesn’t look like it belongs in this dimension. Now Crimeny has to roll Stealth (33) as they crack open the door. They see a statue of a very "beautiful" radiant goblin goddess. The statue is being tended to by a gerblin.
What does a radiant goblin goddess look like?
Like a gerblin in a wig.
Crimeny shuts that door. That’ll be a later problem. We have enough to look at for now. They return to the group and report their findings.
Quick meanwhile as Crimeny investigates: The spellcasters in the previous room get their group chat notification with the photo from Crimeny. Shane and Nellie roll Arcana. Shane rolled a 10. He’s distracted by the potion shelf. Nellie rolled a 24.
Shane’s seeing a lot of really cool potion ingredients he might want to just steal.
Nellie’s great magic brain is noticing something worrisome about this magic circle: It looks like a teleportation or gate circle, but it is all wonked up. It’s like if Vicious Mockery were Viscous Mockery. Nellie reports this to the group.
Jericho asks what does it do? She says it’s normally a teleportation circle - she doesn’t know what it does now. Can we scrub it off the floor? Nellie’s concern is someone might have gone through it, so we might not want to close it just yet.
We go explore the room more thoroughly. Shane rolls Medicine (12) and Nature (22) on the potion supplies. He sees a number of monster parts, weird fluids, and reagents, definitely for potion crafting. Whether or not Shane can identify what these things are, it’s hard to tell. A number of them look in the glitchy realm of fucked up. Serra helps with the Medicine side of things: 21. We still don’t know what these are, but there’s definitely some medicinal quality to a lot of these ingredients, but she doesn’t recognize any of them.
Griffin rolls a 15 to Investigate the desk. He sees lots of papers and writing in a language he doesn’t recognize. He shows them to Nellie. She can’t read it. She turns to Shane. He doesn’t recognize this language either, so he puts on his helm of bullshit that lets him read any written language.
The writer of these notes is looking to create a type of rare medicine to prevent scale rot. Shane rolls a 1 Insight. Serra rolls Insight (16) and Medicine (22).
It looks like these are just a rando apothecary/medicine maker’s notes. There’s extensive research. He’s just been trying a bunch of different known ingredients in order to create a salve to treat scale rot.
Serra has no idea what scale rot is.
Though it sounds pretty self-explanatory.
As we hang out, the magic circle springs to life. Griffin draws his sword. Shane leaves the room, creeps around the corner, and he hides.
A very large red slaad comes through the portal.
Jericho asks Nellie how to make the circle not work. She rolls a 19 Arcana to know how to delete the circle. Generally, a circle needs the sigils to be broken to render it inert, but this circle is wonked up. This would be like trying to cut the blue wire to diffuse a bomb, but you’re color blind.
What’s the circle drawn in? Shane rolls 21 Arcana. Crimeny rolls a 24. Upon closer inspection, the circle is etched into the stone. It’s been painstakingly carved and then filled in with molten mythril.
Jericho suggests Dispel Magic? Shane has that. He casts Dispel Magic at the 5th level. He still has to make an ability check to attempt the dispel: 24.
The magical glow starts to fade and there is a sharp CRACK as the embossed circle starts to fall to pieces.
Griffin picks up some of these chunks of corrupted mythril. He gathers 6lbs of the stuff.
We’re going to check out the other, non-gerblin room. Crimeny rolls a 28 to Investigate. It looks like the desk and some of the flooring came over from someplace else. They find some writing that they can’t read, but the characters seem familiar. So Crimeny calls over the person who reads languages.
Shane looks through the pages. They’re journal entries, but they look very old, like they’ve been sitting for a while. It describes some of the afflictions of what appears to be a pandemic. Scale rot is mentioned two or three times. Time for some Insight. Serra rolls a 27, Griffin somehow rolls a 24.
Judging from the paper, these look relatively old, maybe about 10 or so years. Whatever this is, it’s detailing something unfamiliar to the known realms, but we know there are unknown realms out there. These characters look familiar to Crimeny, but...
Griffy has a Polymorph Potion moment: Hey Crimeny, do you think these notes are written in Draconic?
That would make sense, what with all the concern about scale rot.
Serra feels the need to take these notes. They seem like they might be important. She also collects the notes from our previous room.
Well, let’s proceed. Shane straightens his tie. He and Jericho are going to rehash their Tormon schtick. Shane knocks on the door. There’s no answer. He peeks in. He rolls Stealth: 7. CREEEEEEAK!
There is no one in the room, there is just the statue. They can see the door to the right. They can see the statue with the mop-headed goblin woman. Jericho rolls Investigation. So does Crimeny. Jericho rolls an unnatural 20, Crimeny a 25. Shane rolled a 21. Jericho and Crimeny do not know Goblin. Only Shane can read this plaque.
It is to the divine lady, Murzit.
To the right of the statue is a doorway leading to a new chamber, which is kind of full of gerblins, who appear to be milling about at some long tables. They haven’t noticed the crew, they’re busy with something. Shane asks what should we do? Other than Fireball? Should we ignore them and just go, or should we take their tables?
Jericho says we probably shouldn’t provoke them. But the problem with leaving them alone is, they are goblins, and they’ll likely fight and kill any innocent people who wander down here. Jericho asks Crimeny what kinds of spells they have loaded in their ring? They’ve got the Brain Lightning spell.
Time to backtrack to discuss the best course of action with the crew. It is decided Jericho is going to cast a fireball in there. He asks Crimeny if they’re feeling up to commiting a war crime? CRIMENY: There is no law down here.
JERICHO: And we’re not actually at war, so this is just a regular crime.
Time for Ant to roll six dex saves. 10, 12, 5, 10, 22 - Scott asks if they have disadvantage because they’re not on alert? Yeah. Yeah. SO that’s a 5, and a 14.
None of the gerblins save. They all take 32 fire damage. Jericho steps in the doorway and fingerguns to cast his spell. One of the gobbos turn to look at him before the fireball goes off. All six scream in unison, and they die. They had 31 HP.
Jericho blows the non-existent smoke off his finger gun. Then he rolls Investigation: 23.
The explosion has upset the tables. Jericho notices fluttering bits of paper. They were in the process of putting together some sort of offering or celebration to Murzit.
ANT: You may have just absolutely obliterated six innocent people.
INKY: Wouldn’t be the first time!
They see no weapons in this room at all. It’s like the baby mushrooms all over again!
We’ve failed Ant’s racism puzzle with flying colors.
Jericho will come back to deal with those six souls in a professional matter, later.
Sal the scythe speaks up. Is Jericho sure he didn’t just kill six innocent people? Maybe, but Jericho does not know what lurks in the hearts of men. Sal calls bullshit. They dig into a long philosophical conversation about the ends justifying the means. In the background of this chat, Crimeny steals bones.
What kinds of bones does Crimeny find? They roll Medicine: 7. There is a plethora - a cavalcade - of pristine-looking kneecaps. They get 12 kneecaps. They found every kneecap of the six obliterated gerblins.
Griffin rolls some hit dice. He recovers 35 HP.
We leave off on this high note of innocent gerblin murder.
Moldbrain, Strangegob, and Wriggler are all extremely dead. The Oculorb is hanging around. There is zero percent door here. Crimeny is in range. They are going to shoot. They hit with an unnatural 20 and do 31 sneak damage. It’s definitely hurt, but it’s still floating.
Crimeny is going to move out of the way and let the tanks do their tank job.
Bulk and Skull come in to the room to hang out by the careless Aberrant Zealot.
ROUND 1
Crimeny moves a little closer again. This Oculorb is made of eyes, right? You know what hurts when it gets in your eyes? Lots of things! Like bleach! But spraying bleach isn’t going to get much here. Luckily Crimeny has these forge bellows. They use their action to load up the bellows with bleach.
They use their bonus action to hide.
They use their bonus action to hide.
Skully is inspired by Griffin. He walks up to Jericho and casts Expeditious Retreat on him. Then he steps five feet back.
Griffin delays his turn to keep an eye on things before making his move.
Serra also delays.
Jericho delays as well.
Shane is going to fucking shoot the Oculorb. He’s not a pussy. He’s goin to shoot the Occulorb. He hits with a 19, a 25, and a 20. He does 33 damage. Now Shane has to make a Wisdom Save. He rolls a 9 total. He takes 12 Psychic damage as the Oculorb hits him with Obsessive Rebuke.
Bulk tries to squeeze past Griffin so he can throw Doomerang, but Griffin Persuades him to stay put with a 17 versus Bulk’s Unnatural 1.
Griffin has blocked off Bulk and Skull. He slips around the corner into the corridor leading to the Oculorb room. He can only see Jericho and Shane, which means Bulk and Skull can’t see him. So he uses his action to cast the Chill Touch cantrip. He crits to hit. He does 18+8 = 26 Necrotic damage. Griffin kills the Oculorb with his Cantrip! :D
He uses his bonus action to put his glamor back on.
He uses his bonus action to put his glamor back on.
Griffin can’t see into the room past the dead gerblins, so he backtracks, spots Crimeny, and makes an "After You" gesture to the party rogue. Crimeny heads in and rolls a 24 Perception.
Aside from the dead oculorb and dead gerblins, there are two Aberrant Zealots who don’t seem like they have much going on upstairs. There’s a door up and to the left, a door across the way, and a door to the north-east, kitty-corner across the room.
Crimeny moseys along the south wall to check out the open doorway across the way.
Beyond is what looks like another superimposed room. It looks like parts of someone’s study have been plopped down in the sewer.
Crimeny backtracks and peeks into the first door along the western wall. The door is broken off its hinges. They peek in and espy an active magic circle on the floor. Crimeny photographs that and sends it to the group chat. There is also a shelf in that room. Crimeny rolls Self Control: They’re going to go see what’s on the shelf. They roll a 22 Investigation.
It’s filled with weird bits and bobs that look like spell components at first. Now Crimeny rolls Arcana and Nature: 23 Arcana and 20 Nature. These are potion-crafting supplies, but they don’t recognize what any of these things are. This looks like it might have been an apothecary’s den at some point. Crimeny photographs that, too, and moseys past the Aberrant Zealots to investigate the final door.
This next room doesn’t look like it belongs in this dimension. Now Crimeny has to roll Stealth (33) as they crack open the door. They see a statue of a very "beautiful" radiant goblin goddess. The statue is being tended to by a gerblin.
What does a radiant goblin goddess look like?
Like a gerblin in a wig.
Crimeny shuts that door. That’ll be a later problem. We have enough to look at for now. They return to the group and report their findings.
Quick meanwhile as Crimeny investigates: The spellcasters in the previous room get their group chat notification with the photo from Crimeny. Shane and Nellie roll Arcana. Shane rolled a 10. He’s distracted by the potion shelf. Nellie rolled a 24.
Shane’s seeing a lot of really cool potion ingredients he might want to just steal.
Nellie’s great magic brain is noticing something worrisome about this magic circle: It looks like a teleportation or gate circle, but it is all wonked up. It’s like if Vicious Mockery were Viscous Mockery. Nellie reports this to the group.
Jericho asks what does it do? She says it’s normally a teleportation circle - she doesn’t know what it does now. Can we scrub it off the floor? Nellie’s concern is someone might have gone through it, so we might not want to close it just yet.
We go explore the room more thoroughly. Shane rolls Medicine (12) and Nature (22) on the potion supplies. He sees a number of monster parts, weird fluids, and reagents, definitely for potion crafting. Whether or not Shane can identify what these things are, it’s hard to tell. A number of them look in the glitchy realm of fucked up. Serra helps with the Medicine side of things: 21. We still don’t know what these are, but there’s definitely some medicinal quality to a lot of these ingredients, but she doesn’t recognize any of them.
Griffin rolls a 15 to Investigate the desk. He sees lots of papers and writing in a language he doesn’t recognize. He shows them to Nellie. She can’t read it. She turns to Shane. He doesn’t recognize this language either, so he puts on his helm of bullshit that lets him read any written language.
The writer of these notes is looking to create a type of rare medicine to prevent scale rot. Shane rolls a 1 Insight. Serra rolls Insight (16) and Medicine (22).
It looks like these are just a rando apothecary/medicine maker’s notes. There’s extensive research. He’s just been trying a bunch of different known ingredients in order to create a salve to treat scale rot.
Serra has no idea what scale rot is.
Though it sounds pretty self-explanatory.
As we hang out, the magic circle springs to life. Griffin draws his sword. Shane leaves the room, creeps around the corner, and he hides.
A very large red slaad comes through the portal.
ROUND 1
Crimeny shoots the Slaad. Griffin is right there, so this is sneak attack. They roll a 26 to hit, and do an even 40 damage. They use a bonus action to hide.
Griffin is right there with a sword pointed at him, and the Slaad isn’t a fan. He hits Griffin with a 27, a 25, and a 25. Griffin has to make one constitution save for each attack. (21, 15, 16). He saves on all three, somehow, but takes 30 piercing damage.
Griffin hits with a 29 and a 21 to hit.
Hit 1 = 15 slashing, 3 cold (halved from 5)
Hit 2 = 15 slashing, 3 cold (halved from 5)
Grand total of 36. Then 21 Survival - this slaad is bloodied. Griffin doesn’t use a bonus action Blade Ward, because Jericho, Nellie, and Shane all get to attack before the Slaad goes again.
Hit 1 = 15 slashing, 3 cold (halved from 5)
Hit 2 = 15 slashing, 3 cold (halved from 5)
Grand total of 36. Then 21 Survival - this slaad is bloodied. Griffin doesn’t use a bonus action Blade Ward, because Jericho, Nellie, and Shane all get to attack before the Slaad goes again.
Jericho steps to the Slaad and makes his three attacks. He rolls an 18, a 25, and 16, all of which hit. Jericho does a total of 54 damage. He cuts the slaad to ribbons.
Jericho asks Nellie how to make the circle not work. She rolls a 19 Arcana to know how to delete the circle. Generally, a circle needs the sigils to be broken to render it inert, but this circle is wonked up. This would be like trying to cut the blue wire to diffuse a bomb, but you’re color blind.
What’s the circle drawn in? Shane rolls 21 Arcana. Crimeny rolls a 24. Upon closer inspection, the circle is etched into the stone. It’s been painstakingly carved and then filled in with molten mythril.
Jericho suggests Dispel Magic? Shane has that. He casts Dispel Magic at the 5th level. He still has to make an ability check to attempt the dispel: 24.
The magical glow starts to fade and there is a sharp CRACK as the embossed circle starts to fall to pieces.
Griffin picks up some of these chunks of corrupted mythril. He gathers 6lbs of the stuff.
We’re going to check out the other, non-gerblin room. Crimeny rolls a 28 to Investigate. It looks like the desk and some of the flooring came over from someplace else. They find some writing that they can’t read, but the characters seem familiar. So Crimeny calls over the person who reads languages.
Shane looks through the pages. They’re journal entries, but they look very old, like they’ve been sitting for a while. It describes some of the afflictions of what appears to be a pandemic. Scale rot is mentioned two or three times. Time for some Insight. Serra rolls a 27, Griffin somehow rolls a 24.
Judging from the paper, these look relatively old, maybe about 10 or so years. Whatever this is, it’s detailing something unfamiliar to the known realms, but we know there are unknown realms out there. These characters look familiar to Crimeny, but...
Griffy has a Polymorph Potion moment: Hey Crimeny, do you think these notes are written in Draconic?
That would make sense, what with all the concern about scale rot.
Serra feels the need to take these notes. They seem like they might be important. She also collects the notes from our previous room.
Well, let’s proceed. Shane straightens his tie. He and Jericho are going to rehash their Tormon schtick. Shane knocks on the door. There’s no answer. He peeks in. He rolls Stealth: 7. CREEEEEEAK!
There is no one in the room, there is just the statue. They can see the door to the right. They can see the statue with the mop-headed goblin woman. Jericho rolls Investigation. So does Crimeny. Jericho rolls an unnatural 20, Crimeny a 25. Shane rolled a 21. Jericho and Crimeny do not know Goblin. Only Shane can read this plaque.
It is to the divine lady, Murzit.
To the right of the statue is a doorway leading to a new chamber, which is kind of full of gerblins, who appear to be milling about at some long tables. They haven’t noticed the crew, they’re busy with something. Shane asks what should we do? Other than Fireball? Should we ignore them and just go, or should we take their tables?
Jericho says we probably shouldn’t provoke them. But the problem with leaving them alone is, they are goblins, and they’ll likely fight and kill any innocent people who wander down here. Jericho asks Crimeny what kinds of spells they have loaded in their ring? They’ve got the Brain Lightning spell.
Time to backtrack to discuss the best course of action with the crew. It is decided Jericho is going to cast a fireball in there. He asks Crimeny if they’re feeling up to commiting a war crime? CRIMENY: There is no law down here.
JERICHO: And we’re not actually at war, so this is just a regular crime.
Time for Ant to roll six dex saves. 10, 12, 5, 10, 22 - Scott asks if they have disadvantage because they’re not on alert? Yeah. Yeah. SO that’s a 5, and a 14.
None of the gerblins save. They all take 32 fire damage. Jericho steps in the doorway and fingerguns to cast his spell. One of the gobbos turn to look at him before the fireball goes off. All six scream in unison, and they die. They had 31 HP.
Jericho blows the non-existent smoke off his finger gun. Then he rolls Investigation: 23.
The explosion has upset the tables. Jericho notices fluttering bits of paper. They were in the process of putting together some sort of offering or celebration to Murzit.
ANT: You may have just absolutely obliterated six innocent people.
INKY: Wouldn’t be the first time!
They see no weapons in this room at all. It’s like the baby mushrooms all over again!
We’ve failed Ant’s racism puzzle with flying colors.
Jericho will come back to deal with those six souls in a professional matter, later.
Sal the scythe speaks up. Is Jericho sure he didn’t just kill six innocent people? Maybe, but Jericho does not know what lurks in the hearts of men. Sal calls bullshit. They dig into a long philosophical conversation about the ends justifying the means. In the background of this chat, Crimeny steals bones.
What kinds of bones does Crimeny find? They roll Medicine: 7. There is a plethora - a cavalcade - of pristine-looking kneecaps. They get 12 kneecaps. They found every kneecap of the six obliterated gerblins.
Griffin rolls some hit dice. He recovers 35 HP.
We leave off on this high note of innocent gerblin murder.