Um . . . Hello. And . . . ah . . . welcome to the GM’s commentary of the DESCARTE adventure log. My name is Ben, the current GM of the . . . ah . . . of the . . . campaign.
This is the log of the 29th session and it was written by um . . . Noddy, this time.
Then we wyr attakd by a mynotaw waryng a chanmal bukyny.
This runs on directly from the last session, which ended in something of a cliff-hanger. The party had been knocked about a bit and were heading to the exit of the mine, only to find their way blocked by a minotauress.
Something of an advantage in ending a session in this way is that, not only are the players scared for their characters for a whole week, but they can also vainly formulate plans – or at least imagine they’re making plans. On Friday, Geoff, who plays Hero Tops, told me – at Murphy’s I think it was – that he had plans for dealing with the minotauress. But he also spoke about what character he would play if Hero Tops died, so I knew that behind his confidence was honest fear for his character.
I wakd hyr from behind (coz I woz scowtyng ahed). But she ignawd mi mite blow, and charjd towards HT, goryng him and then pikyng hym up, and carryng hym off. Then she dropd hym arownd the cawnyr, and charjd into awl the hobgoblyn archers.
Noddy is here trying to describe things that were out of view. The error in identifying the hobgoblins is understandable.
And so much for all the players’ plans.
HT saw the ballysta fir shoot, and then she ran bak towards HT. HT waked hyr, and then she wakd HT and he waz nokd out, and she pikd hym up agen.
I so loved the idea of that ballista being used. The players relinquished their opportunity, so I had to use it myself. Luckily for the characters, it was the minotauress who was the target of the ballista. She was never in any danger however, as she was just moving too fast – something that unfortunately isn’t adequately expressed in Noddy’s log.
We caym arond to see her runnyng back to the myneachyr kep. The rest of us chas them.
She dysaperd from sit. We awl chas. We cam acros a room of yung hobgoblins, but left them. I scowtd into the big cavyrn. Fyrst tim I got the crap shot owt of me, so I drank my poshin of exta helyg and went bak in maw carfule.
I fownd three tunils of the cavyn, down the otha end of the cavyn, but no sin of HT or the minotawress. Then I went a third tim, and down the first tunil, saw HT with the minotauress.
Noddy neglects to mention that the minotauress was undressing Hero Tops. The players cracked a few about how the minotauress was going to mate with Hero Tops. Who could have guessed they would understand minotauresses so well.
We ran off into the cavyn thru a hal of arows to reskew HT. We got to the utha end of the cavyn, and the minotawress charjd me, and I had to honour purge to avoid death. She charjd past with HT again bak towards the keep.
As the characters could only stand and watch, while the players looked at me bewildered. A beautiful moment.
We chasd afta her, and had the carp owt of us and Cedar had to honour purge to avoid death. We reachd the safte of the corydaw. Then we wyr atakd by a hol lot of hobgoblins again. Big Ears kild wun, and the rest got owt of our way.
We went upstairs, and met the too pak aps, hoo had got owt of the bard room.
Sigh. No mention here of what I thought was a clever dramatic trick. As they were heading up the stairs, Noddy’s carrot was thrown down the stairs at him. But no reaction from the players or characters. Noddy just ate the carrot.
Cedar tried to charm them, but it didynt work, and wen he torked to them, they seemd vere angre, and afta a lot of tork thay atak us.
Thay kild Cedar, but we kilt them.
And so tragically Cedar Animalfriend is killed by animals. And it happened just when Cedar was actually doing sumthyng, I mean something that could well have worked. His efforts to charm the apes failed because they were lucky with their saves. And then they were lucky with criticals. To the rest of the party however, Cedar's fruitless efforts to convince the apes to rebel against their captors just looked like he was jumping up and down and hooting.
Luckily Big Ears had the presence of mind to pick up Cedar’s body. Cam seemed convinced that this was the end of Cedar, but with a little thought, he should see that Cedar’s salvation is at hand – if they can get his body out of the mines, of course. Cam then disappeared downstairs for a while. I was concerned he was sulking but he came upstairs to tell us that his new character was a double amputee, with no ears and missing two facial features.
We advansd again to the exit, but at the exit were some hobgoblins battling to keep owt sum atakyng orcs. We went to try to find anotha wa out.
We went into the corridaws and got completely lost afta being too scard to go into a room fild with spida webs, and two cocooned bodes. We stumbled upon a big heap of cow dung, with wall sconces and a small wooden box. Big Ears and Noddy went to get the box and were atakd by huge beetles. Aseravb Color Sprayd, knocking out 2 betils and Big Ears.
Tim took it quite well as Big Ears fell into the dung and the beetles started nibbling on him. For myself, it was just a little tiring. After having the party stepping in front of charging minotauresses, repeatedly running through missile volleys and willingly going toe to toe with pack apes. Having dung beetles run all over them well and truly punctured my faith in them.
We kilt them all, without serious injurre, and movd on into the caves (now triyng to find our way out).
I don’t know how much the players enjoyed it, but I had a wonderful time bamboozling everyone with my descriptions of the cavern’s passages. They even started blaming each other for not mapping properly.
Then we stumbled upon a weird skeletal bedroom, with HT manacled to the bed. We started to cut him down, wen the minatawess came up. She shockd Big Ears & bakd up, and then went to anutha entrans, were Noddy was guardyng. Unseen Noddy snuck up toward hur, and drilled her between the eyes and kilt her ded.
And Noddy does it again. Unbelievable! But then Angus’ expletive, “Suck on that, Ben,” showed just how much I had managed to get under his skin.
We revivd HT, and this week leav him half-freed.