Friday, May 31, 2019

Abyss Modified Session 16: Side Business


The party took their rest while they could within the confines of the familiar tavern. In the morning they were informed that it would be a few days before they could make the trek to the surface. They were given a few options to further help out within the town to help pass the time. Orion, Xanaphia, Thelrum, and Syre weighed their options and chose to check out a strange house in an abandoned part of town. There had been sightings of tall cloaked figures milling about the area recently so they went to take a look.

They came within sight of the building, a hovel carved into the wall, they could see green light emanating from under the door. Thelrum summoned his familiar, a spider, and sent it under the door. It could see and hear two drow talking near a stack of burning mushrooms releasing a green flame. The drow were talking about the “surface folk” and “failing her was not an option”. They noticed the spider in the room and switched into the drow sign language. He called his spider back and the party burst into the room. Syre made her mark by stabbing one of the drow in the head with a dagger. Orion killed the other swiftly and they both heard the sound of rushing water from a connected room. The door opened and a more important looking drow came out wiping his hands and drawing his sword. The south door also opened revealing another important drow. Thelrum had cast blink on himself and was able to move into the south room as well, seeing a drow mage with a spell book knocking on another door. Orion stunned the bathroom drow and helped deal with the elite warrior that had entered the room to only leave it after seeing his broken minions. the drow mage attempted to magic missile Thelrum but fell victim to shield, ruining his attack. The group made good work of the drow but were unable to stop the mage and what they saw was a drow priestess from teleporting away. Syre was able to use her whisper bard ability to steal the face and minor memories of one of the grunts after exploding his head with dissonant whispers. Chaos, duplicity, neck stabs, and lightning breath helping sew destruction. The party took all the armor and equipment from the slain and sold it in town.

They plotted for a bit, healed up, and decided to look into the missing persons reports flooding out of a strangely dangerous part of town. Once there they found what was described as an angry traffic cone, a stalagmite with terrible teeth, a horrible eye, and oh god why tentacles. It grabbed the bard instantly, pulling her closer. The party fought against the tentacles, escaping only to get caught again. Both Orion and Syre got chomped a few times by it, Xanaphia shooting it in the eye with a crossbow bolt did hamper the attacks of the roper. Thelrum used his dragon breath spell to great effect, shaking it with lightning damage often. Syre tried to make an illusion of a broken tentacle at one point to aid in her escape but the beast just tried to catch her with a second tentacle. Eventually they ended the beast and found the bones of many gnomes, orcs, and dark elves that fell victim to the roper. They also found a pile of fluffy yellow debris in the corner, Syre started poking it, releasing spores in a ten-foot burst. She ignored it, being immune to poison, and found a cool ring of water breathing. They headed back to town with their new swag and their new level, Level 7.

Sunday, May 26, 2019

Summer Book Blurbs


So recently I have been modifying my Rob Recommends reading list and now that summer is upon us again it is time to share the short descriptions I use when talking about the books, modified a little bit, for I tend to talk non stop. 

Young Reader Books: ages 9-14 *graphic novels
Amulet, by Kibuishi *
Two kids and their mom move into their great uncle’s house after a family tragedy. The mansion holds many secrets, one of which is a magical amulet, the other main one being a passage into another world. Emily and Navin must uncover the secrets of this other world as well as the strange amulet that seems to have a voice of its own.

Artemis Fowl, by Colfer
Young Artemis seeks to steal money from the fairy folk to strengthen his families weakening power after his father’s disappearance and his mothers declining health. Complications arise when the fairies decide to take Artemis out of the picture.

Aru Shah and the End of Time by Chokshi
Young Aru Shah and her mom run a small museum on the history of India and have many artifacts on display, one of which is a lamp that should never be lit. Once lit the lamp lets loose a bound demon that seeks to end the world and Aru Shah and her new friend must stop him.

Athena the Brain, by Holub
A retelling of Greek mythology, young Athena must attend school with fellow mythological characters. Each book focuses on different goddesses.

Bone, by Smith*
Fone Bone and his cousins are kicked out of their home land for embezzling and end up in a magical valley full of magical monsters, dragons, and talking animals finding a young girl and her grandmother with a secret past.

Charlie Bone, by Nimmo
Charlie and his family all have magical powers. Charlie can look into portraits and see what was happening when it was made. He must attend a magical academy where a few of the teachers are plotting against the kids.

Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder, by Nesbo
Two young kids, Nilly and Lisa, meet the strange Doctor Proctor, who makes strange inventions. One of which is a powder that lets kids fart as much as they want but there never is a smell. He makes a super strong batch and the kids use it to solve mysteries.

Dragons Tooth, Wilson
Kids find out their family belongs to a society of adventurers with ties across the world. They must face off against mythical characters from folk tales to the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Emerald Atlas, by Stephens
Three orphaned children are taken to a strange mansion in the mountains and find a book known as the Emerald Atlas. The book allows them to travel back in time where they must find out why there are no children in the town they were taken to. Part Narnia, part Series of Unfortunate Events.

Fablehaven, by Mull
Kendra and Seth go to stay with their grandparents at their wilderness estate and find out it is a wildlife preserve for magical monsters. After an accident they must face off against terrible monsters and solve mysteries at the different preserves across the world.

Fairy Tale Detectives, by Buckley
Daphne and Sabrina are orphaned when their parents go missing and picked up by someone claiming to be their grandmother. She takes them to a small town called Fairyport landing where the townsfolk are all fairy tale characters, Snow White is a teacher, Prince charming is the mayor, and Sleeping Beauty owns the coffee shop. The kids are descended from the Brothers Grimm and must solve mysteries.

Goblin Secrets, by Alexander
A young boy is searching for his missing brother while working with a strange witch. The boy runs into a group of goblins that work outside the law, preforming illegally in a town with no music or acting. With their help he tries to find his missing brother.

Golden Compass, by Pullman
Lyra if gifted the Olithiometer, a divining device that only a select few can read. She looks into the missing children and finds out many terrifying things about her world and others. I was sold at the phrase Panserbjorn, the species of polar bear gifted with speech and wear armor made of sky metals. 

Graveyard Book, by Gaiman:
Nobody Owens is raised by ghosts in a graveyard. Awesome and creepy, this book is one of my all time favorites.

Gregor the Overlander, by Collins
Young boy Gregor and his sister Boots get pulled into the Underland, the world beneath the streets. They find out there are a grouping of prophecies reguarding surface dwellers solving their problems and Gregor fits the bill.

Harry Potter, by Rowling
Harry goes to wizarding school, chaos ensues.

Hollow Earth, by Barrowman
Twin siblings have the ability to draw creatures to life, and using this ability they must keep a book of monsters away from terrible people.

House of Secrets, by Columbus
A family moves into a curiously cheap house that belonged to a strange author. During an incident the family get trapped inside the author’s books and must work together to find their way home.

How to Train Your Dragons, by Cowell
Young Viking Hiccup and his tribe use dragons like hunting hounds and must deal with rival tribes, dangerous foreign dragons, and a rude dragon with an overabundance of sass. Hiccup can also talk to dragons in the books and Toothless is a small green dragon the size of a cat.

Lightning Thief, by Riordan
Young Percy finds out he is related to the Greek gods and must retrieve Zeus’s master bolt or the gods will go to war with each other. Great blending of modern mythology.

Loki’s Wolves, by Armstrong
Children find out they are part of the Nordic mythology and reenact parts of the myths in their lives. The kids now seek weapons of the gods to stop the end of times.

Magyk, by Sage
A magical family with seven sons adopt a young girl the night their youngest is born and declared dead by the midwife, the same night the royal family is mysteriously killed. When a boy with only a number for a name and the girl who cant use magic meet they will have to work together to save the kingdom.

Maze of Bones, by Riordan
Book 1 of the 39 Clues series, Amy and Dan find out their family tree extends across the world and almost every influential person in history had ties with their ancestors. With this newfound information they must hunt down the 39 Clues to solve a problem that has been in the family for over four hundred years.

Middle School by Patterson
Rafe finds the rules in his new school to be ridiculous, he vows to break every rule in the student handbook.

Narnia, by Lewis
The Pensive family end up in a magical world populated by talking animals, monsters, and a witch.

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, by Foxlee
Ophelia finds a strange boy trapped within the museum where her father is fixing swords for an exhibit. Strange monsters lurk in the shadows and a quest must be undertaken to save her father and her friends.

Peculiar, by Bachmann
After a war between humans and fairies, peace has ruled the streets until half human half fairy children, or peculiars are found hollowed out and dead, covered in runes in the river. After his sister goes missing Bartholomew and a grizzled detective must work together to find her.

Pendragon, by MacHale
Bobby Pendragon finds out his uncle can jump through time and space and together end up on another world in time to help either save or destroy it.

Red Pyramid, by Riordan
Sadie and Carter find out the Egyptian gods have been trapped within the rosetta stone, and after they have been freed their world changes. The divine beings can lend their power to magicians to use their magical powers for their own goals, and Carter and Sadie must come to term with their new powers.

Redwall, by Jacques
In a war between rats and mice young Matthias must put aside his clumsy ways to become a warrior and save his people from the rats and their allies.

Ruins of Gorlan, by Flanagan
Will wants to be a knight, but he is small and wiry, no way he could wear eighty pounds of armor while riding a horse. He does have all the skills necessary to be a ranger, he moves unseen in shadows and he can climb towers with barely any handholds. With his newfound calling he must find a way to safe his kingdom from an old evil.

Scepter of the Ancients, by Landy
Stephanie meets a strange gentleman at her uncle’s funeral, a walking talking fire throwing skeleton that moonlights as a detective. His name is Skullduggery Pleasant, and he is a magical detective trying to figure out who killed his friend and enlists Stephanie to solve the case.

Search for WondLa, by DiTerlizzi
Eva Nine lives in a strange fall out shelter with a robot helper and has not been outside. She longs to travel the world and soon finds more than she had expected. Pursued by strange monsters and a bounty hunter, Eva Nine must rely on her wits to survive her new world.

Seven Wonders, by Lerangis:
Children find their life-threatening illnesses are due to their ancient bloodline. They must work together to find all seven artifacts to save each other, starting the search in Greece. 

Sherlock Cottages by Brinnington
A retelling of Sherlock Holmes filled with fantastic puns.

Sidekicks, by Santat *
With his sidekick retired, a superhero holds auditions for a new helper while villains watch on, waiting for their time to strike.

Spiderwick Chronicles, By DiTerlizzi and Black Jared, Simon, and Mallory travel with their mom to their great uncles house to find it teeming with magical monsters. they find they have to keep the field guide, a book of monster secrets, out of the hands of an ogre, or he might destroy all the other monsters.

Sword of Summer, by Riordan
Magnus Chase has a rough time of things. after living homeless on the streets of New York, Magnus has difficulties with a fire giant and ends up dead. Now in the afterlife of the Viking heroes Valhalla, he must undergo training for the end of times while being assigned missions in the world of the living.

Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer, by Grisham Theodore wants to follow in the footsteps of both of his parents, he wants to be a lawyer. Even for his young age he has amazing knowledge of the inner workings of the legal system and attempts to help his friends with their problems. When one of his friends tells him that his brother witnessed a crime, they are afraid to go to the police, the brother was working illegally. Theodore will have to figure out how to get the evidence to the right people.

Thrones and Bones, by Anders
Karn has no Viking skills, but is the best Thrones and Bones player and has the mind of a master strategist. Thianna is half frost giant, half human and to her people, undersized and in the way. Karn and Thianna will have to work together to save their peoples from an ancient evil Karn may have unleashed.

Tunnels, by Gordon
Will Burrows and his father love digging holes, but when his father goes missing Will finds an underground world full of humans that seek to destroy the surface world.

World Without Heroes, by Mull
Jason finds himself in a strange magical world after falling into a hippo. Rachel just happened to follow the right butterfly, and with Jason’s help they must discover a secret phrase split into many parts and hidden across the known world to defeat the invincible tyrant that has crushed all resistance in the world.

Abyss Modified Session 15: Off Pudding


*OUT OF THE ABYSS SPOILERS AHEAD* 

Our party made plans with the deep gnome council and it was decided they would sneak in and take out the Pudding King and hopefully with his destruction send the oozes into chaos. The rest of Blingdenstone would attempt to fight the oozes in the tunnels. They were granted the use of an earth elemental as a reward for clearing out the deep gnome temple, and with it the party made their way into a secret tunnel section the wererats knew about, coming out near to the Pudding King’s sanctum. 

Dinak scouted ahead of the group and found a larger mass of darkness in a small side chamber and two oddly placed small pools. He cast dancing light on the darkness, which turned out to be a black pudding and the two pools and they turned out to be gray oozes. The ooze slowly rushed the party, attempting to lash out with pseudopods, but the party was too dexterous. Within short order Orion destroyed one of the gray oozes and the party took out the rest. 

They listened the way they came and could hear more things moving in the dark and headed the way the wererats told them to go, Dinak quickly finding another ooze, a gelatinous ooze. He ran back to the rest of the group, letting Godric know about it after placing a few arrows into it. Godric attacked the cube, retreating back into a previous chamber, and from above him dropped another cube from a chute. Godric became incased in the second cube but Thelrum was able to teleport himself along with Godric away from the ooze, leaving a loud blast of thunder where they had been standing. Xanaphia blasted the other ooze with rays of frost, reducing its movements. They made quick work out of both of the cubes, having had previous experiences fighting such a monster, their elemental companion just stood back and watched in reserve.  

They crept along unnoticed by most of the tunnel oozes preparing for war and eventually made it to a chamber that the Pudding King was standing in the center of. his two children dropped from the ceiling and he laughed manically, taunted the party, and slipped through a crack in the floor, leaving the party to deal with his strange ooze children. His daughter attacked Orion with mental magics, but was mostly resisted and his son was instantly engaged by Orion and the earth elemental. The battle went south pretty quickly for the ooze siblings and victory was won for the party. 

They followed the tunnel leading to the Pudding King’s inner sanctum where he was waiting, cackling behind a slime covered throne. With a ramped pit between them and the king they launched a few ranged spells and attacks his way, a couple finding purchase. They sent their elemental across the room and it battered his throne away. The king dropped a cloud kill spell on the party while slithering across the floor as if his bones had become ooze. Hacking and coughing the group ran out of the cloud. Godric got off a hold person on the Pudding King and noticed an ochre jelly approaching him, slowly. The elemental brought down two dense fists against the small delusional gnome. 

As the elemental lifted its hands away black ichor followed, the king had transformed into a black pudding in death and started attacking. Xanaphia noticed a strange dark cloud drifting like mist around the room heading towards the elemental, and recognized Ogremoch’s bane for what it was, casting warding wind and approaching to cut it off, not expecting the wild surge. A new found doubled height came to Xanaphia, as well as reach. The elemental became possessed and the party was now fighting two oozes and the elemental. The oozes were quickly defeated and Ogremoch’s bane driven away and defeated as well. The party returned to town and found only a few gnomes fell in combat, the oozes were driven off when the Pudding King died, and peace for the moment had returned to Blingdenstone. 

Thursday, May 9, 2019

Abyss Modified Session 14: Snakes For Nothing


The party returned to the Foaming mug after collecting their rewards for completing a few of their missions. They met up with a few other surface folk travelers and set out on the next leg of quests. Dinak the drow gloomstalker ranger, Orion the tiefling monk of the long death, Xanaphia the human bard/wild mage sorcerer, Godric the half elf swords college/hexblade warlock, Alcione the tiefling undying warlock/cleric of death, Church Mouse the halfling druid of the moon, Syre the yuanti bard, and Thelrum the turtle abjuration wizard made their way back out into the broken areas of Blingdenstone to bring justice to a medusa that had been killing gnomish scouts. They traveled quickly through the tunnels of Rockblight, trying to avoid any other entanglements, following a map they had been given by Henchie, who chose to stay home. 

They passed two huge statues roughly hewn from stone and entered what they new to be the district the medusa called home. They found dozens of broken drow and gnome statues in a courtyard and snake arrow was shot at them, the medusa was using live snakes as arrows! The party leapt into action, Dinak returned fire, Syre turned invisible, Alcione cast bless on the allies closest to her, Xanaphia launched chill touch the medusa’s way, Godric cast hex on her, Orion got closer, as Church Mouse turned into a dinosaur and charged up to her. the medusa struck out at Church Mouse, biting him with her snake hair. Poison coursed into his veins and his form dropped out of dinosaur and into a halfling again. Thelrum make his way closer to the conflict. The next few rounds went quick, even with Church Mouse conjuring large spiders to help combat the medusa. The party was able to knock the medusa out of the conflict quickly, Dinak scoring the final blow, but not before the medusa called for help, whistling to her unseen children, and calling for them to avenge her. 

The two statues the party had seen while entering the area made their way to the battle ground, as the medusa bled out. The group noticed the medusa had a holy symbol of Ogremoch on her belt, the same symbol that was glowing on the statue’s foreheads. Alcione cackled as she flew into the air and launched a shatter spell at the now identified oversized stone golems. The group worked on blasting away at the golems, Orion getting pummeled into unconsciousness by one of them. Xanaphia used her ice knife spells to great effect and ended up with two different wild surge events, one granted a feathered beard that fell off when sneezed, the other stole hit points from Syre and granted them to Xanaphia. As the party felled the constructs and pulled Orion free from the rubble, Thelrum pulled the symbols from the golem’s foreheads. The magical auras on them detected as conjuration and transmutation and while he studied them the air around them grew cloudy, the essence of Ogremoch possessing them was free. Xanaphia used a gust spell to drive the angry cloud away and into another chamber. Dinak tore apart the home of the medusa, finding some simple gems and five drow dresses that might be worth something. Alcione traded Dinak some coin to keep one of the dresses for herself. They took their findings, consisting of both the drow clothing and the medusa’s severed head back to the gnomes and gained a hefty reward. Syre also befriended the snakes the medusa had been using for ammunition. 

The next morning the group decided to head out and investigate why ooze monsters were attacking more often as well as where they were going. As the group enjoyed their early morning cafĂ© drinks in tiny cups, they noticed a small gelatinous cube about the size of basketball slithering and rolling very slowly deeper into the city. They decided to follow it, which was not difficult, it only moved about half the parties speed per minute. They followed it for about seven hours, only walking a few miles as it led them deep into upper Rockblight area. Eventually they came to an area with a larger basin, that seemed teeming with oozes of all shapes and colors, and in the center of the cluster was a deep gnome. The deep gnome was lost in conversation with his oozy subjects and took no notice of the party. Church Mouse made the decision to approach the gnome in is court of ooze and ask him a few questions. They had a conversation about goals, life, loss, and Church Mouse tried to talk some common sense into this Pudding King, but the voice of Juiblex rang out across the chamber, reminding the Pudding King of his goal. The Pudding King let Churchmouse go back to his friends and the group ran back to the city to talk to the elder about what had transpired here. 

As they were approaching the tunnel that led to the main gate Dinak spotted something. He stopped the party and pointed out a halfling or gnome sized rat creature on the cavern ceiling. He looked around seeing close to fifty other wererats approaching with crossbows drawn. Goldwhisker, the leader of the wererats asked the party why they were in the tunnels, more out of curiosity than anger. Godrick took point, telling Goldwhisker about the ooze problem and how they were hired to solve this. Goldwhisker told the group the non-wererat gnomes did not trust them because of the blessing/curse of lycanthropy, and the wererats had been fighting off the oozes for a much longer time. The party acted as intermediaries for the two groups, the non-wererat gnomes and wererat gnomes, and managed to get the two groups to work together. Having a momentary stable peace, the groups plan their assault on the oozes, where will the party fit into this? Find out next week in the Battle for Blingdenstone!

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Abyss Modified Session 13, Many Missions


Spoilers for Out of the Abyss 

The group was led to a small tavern called the Foaming Mug within the city to recover from their travels, both food and bed was provided for free with Xanaphia preforming music for the owner. The group was watched by a guard that was assigned to them, having only a sketchy magic item vendor vouch for them. The group noticed outward distrust towards Dinak, the gnomes did not care for having a drow in the city, but if Keg vouched for him, they would tolerate it. Dinak also saw a ghost while they were walking. In the morning they were led to the Mattocks, the rulers of the city and were given a slew of quests from various figures important in the city in exchange for transit towards the surface. The gnomes had history with some of the surface folk of Mithril Hall and the like. They were tasked with sanctifying a temple, deal with some of the restless undead in the area, kill another medusa, find out where the ooze creatures were coming from and where they were going, and possibly destroy the wererats.

They purchased some potions, realizing they had little in the way of money or things to trade, and went off to save the temple. They had a guard that traveled with them that was nicknamed Henchie, he proved to be useless in combat. They traveled into more dangerous parts of the city, eventually finding the desecrated temple. When they approached, an earth elemental attacked them as well as two gargoyles, all with strange runes across their brow. Slim Jim almost was flung from the platform into the city below and the combat was fierce. The elemental was eventually brought down and both gargoyles crushed. The temple became sanctified and their goal complete. 

On their way back to the city proper they encountered a specter, which was destroyed by Orion rather quickly, and a ghost, which almost killed Slim Jim, aged Godric forty years, and it fled. The ghost was strange and looked like an elderly gnome clutching its chest. Silm Jim caught up with the ghost, not sure where it was leading him and found some treasure and the ghost’s body, which they are taking back to town to properly bury.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Abyss Modified Session 12, Gnomeward Bound


Out of the Abyss spoilers ahead

After their nights rest the party went to leave their hiding chamber and found a random surface gnome with a poorly drawn map standing in the hallway, very confused. Her name was Thistle and she was very lost. Greetings were had and the group made their way closer to the deep gnome city of Blingdenstone and found a large chamber of murdered mushroom people. As they investigated the mushrooms, they found many of them were crushed and others were cut by some form of freezing blade. They noted none of the mushrooms were edible. 

They made their way to what seemed to be a small outpost of many different underdark outcasts, from orcs, dwarves, gnomes, to elves all living within a small community. The people here also were murdered by something, which the party found out was a drow wight. Battle commenced and the wight called out to something the party could not see. The party charged the undead, the barbarian Kalie threw a wall of water up between herself and the wight, giving the creature a shield against Dinak, whose arrows would have difficulty passing through the wall. Suddenly, a few of the closer buildings exploded as ogre zombies under the wight’s control burst out and started attacking the casters and less protected party members. 

Godric stuck the wight in a holding spell as the ogres tried to muscle down on the rest of the group. Orion leapt through the wall of water to vex the wight. The party made very quick work on the hobbled wight, Orion, Dinak, and Godric ruined his day. The rest of the group worked on the ogres, finding them slow and easy to hit, but they refused to go down. Thistle landed dagger after dagger into the brutes, Xanaphia took a few hits from one of the zombies but filled him full of magic damage. It all came down to one ogre left, and the entire party focusing every attack against it, but it refused to succumb back to death. Eventually a critical hit knocked it down. the party, exhausted finally made it to Blingdenstone, finding a closed gate and disembodied voiced greeting them. Keg vouched for the group, even Dinak the drow, the party was allowed to enter but would have a guard assigned to them while they were in the city. They were led through the tunnels and found themselves finally in a place of safety, but knew the drow behind them were only a few hours away.