Session Log: Palace of the Vampire Queen 3

We return to the Palace of the Vampire Queen:

The Party

Giblet. A feathery halfling; leather armour, shortbow and dagger.

Cinnamon. Fighter; chainmail and shield, flail.

Powder/Pollen. Cribswap (Lunar/Solar); chainmail, sword and shield or light crossbow.

Recent Additions

Jeordi-of-the-Orange. Fighter 3. Rescued from the dungeon during Session 1.

Tomelo the Fierce (Dwarf) and Diino (Cleric), allegedly experienced in killing rust monsters, armed with a flint spear and wooden cudgel respectively.

The Delve 

Powder is in her lunar aspect, she prepared Hold Portal. 

The party return to the dungeon, having hired on Tomelo and Diino, and accompanied by Jeordi, repaying a favor.

The party make for the network of secret rooms where the rust monster had previously been encountered. Tomelo and Diino strip their armour, and direct Cinnamon to break vials of oil by the door of the chamber. Powder and Giblet ready the bone daggers retrieved from Leyol's corpse last session. 

Tomelo, bearing scrap metal, heads off through the secret doors. Eventually, she finds the rust monster, and is able to lead it back to the party's ambush.

Diino and Tomelo set upon the creature with their flint spear and cudgel. Powder ignites the oil with a torch, catching the rust monster on fire, but also Tomelo.

[I gave everyone in melee with the creature a 2-in-6 to also get caught in the fire. I also made the rust monster check morale, but it succeeded.]

The burning rust monster makes for Cinnamon. Its fluffy antenae reduce her chainmail to goop, which it laps at with multiple stringlike tongues. Tomelo stops, drops, and rolls.

Jeordi--who was previously ambushed by the rust monster and weakened before being captured by the muppet things--panics. They run off.

[I figured a morale check would be in order for them in this scenario. I determined the direction they fled in randomly, and it happened that they fled towards the room in which the party had talked to some of the muppet-things in the first session: Blood Needle and co.]

The party surround the rust monster and slay it. Diino cracks its head open with their cudgel, but not before it can eat Cinnamon's flail and Powder's armour.

After the fight, the group head out into the main hall to look for Jeordi. A figure leans up against the wall, wrapped in stained bandages, wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a plume. When engaged in conversation, they identify themself as Map Seller, and offer to sell a map. The party can't afford it, so Map Seller leaves, disappearing into the darkness.

[Vampire Queen does not include a random encounter table, so I made one. It provides player maps, and suggests selling them to the players as an option, so I knew I wanted to have some kind of map salesperson.]

The party find Jeordi laying dead, two muppet-things crouching over the body, while a third lies dead. The party have met them before. Blood-Needle looks up: "Our friends have returned," it grins.

A fight breaks out, the party killing the muppet-things quickly. They loot the bodies, finding some gold, rotted flowers on Flower-Ripper, and a stiletto dagger on Blood-Needle.

After taking time to search the room, Powder spots a secret door. The party poke around beyond it, finding a small maze of narrow corridors. They find some bags of nut rations in a supply closet. Eventually reach a makeshift armory, filled with household objects turned weapons, where several more of the muppet-things lurk.

The party attack. Cinnamon, whose armour was destroyed by the rust monster, gets stuck pretty badly with a large carving fork, but lives. The muppet-things are killed.

Searching the room, a secret door is uncovered. Inside is a heavy chest. Diino pops the lid, pricking their finger on a needle in the latch. They step back, vomit profusely, and then appear to be alright.

[passed a saving throw, but just barely.]

The chest contains a large number of copper pieces. The party take these and leave the dungeon.

Delve Summary

Losses:

• Jeordi-of-the-Orange, the rescued warrior.
• Two suits of chainmail. 

Foes Slain:

• 1 rust monster
• 6 muppet-things 

 Treasures Found:

• 17 gold pieces.
• 1,000 copper pieces.

alice's rust monster