Serpents of Chaos - Delve 15 - The Lost Ziggurat

Serpents of Chaos is an AD&D 1e campaign set in the lands of Hyperborea, a vast region of steppe, inland seas, deep mountains, horse-hordes, fierce barbarians, and hardened adventurers. The current events surround the return of the Serpents of Chaos, elder wyrms who had been chained in Tarterus, now brought to the material plane by a dark magic known only to ancient Ashurian astromancers.

During this adventure, Yalaru the Hero (Fighter 4) and Attila the Theurgist (MU 4) wandered north across a frozen Lake Svarn, then northwest into the Black Marshes to search for the Lost Ziggurat. Rumours had it that a Queen of Ghouls had recovered a dark artifact and was on the rise to gain power and followers amongst the dead.

Mathias Zamecki

 

The journey across the frozen lake was uneventful. The party stepped around brown spots of ice and treaded carefully over the Sunken City. They made it into the frozen mud of the shore. Ahead of them were char-black clouds of mist clinging to the land, as well as pitch-coloured ponds and puddles dotting the fen-lands.

They explored for a day without losing their way, passing by a rune-pole of the old Svarnic priests. Then, when they tried to enter a certain area that was in the heart of the marshes, they kept getting turned around for two days. The first day they witnessed a troop of 80 hobgoblins that made their way to the Serpent's Shrine (these hobgoblins proceeded to pillage and raze it).

The second day they stumbled across a sarcophagus that held the bones of Tsverog the Bloody, recovering his Hyrcanian whitesteel scale shirt as well as his unrusted, finely-made sword with a bejeweled pommel. The scale was given to the "healthiest looking man-at-arms" and Yalaru took the sword.

They finally found the lost ziggurat after another day of searching. There it lay, a stepped pyramid of black basalt. They climbed to the top after losing a couple men-at-arms to the sliding stairs (one died, one extra stayed with the horses. The top of the ziggurat had four cursed head statues, ancient wards against evil erected by the Sytherians. One was tongueless, one eyeless, one earless, and one noseless.

They descended in, paying no attention to the heads. Reaching the bottom of the spiral staircase, they found a room containing four braziers. They opened up a further section of staircase going down another level by lighting the braziers.

 Down here, they encountered 3 cannibals chasing a half-eaten man, a room full of skulls filled with platinum charon-obols, and a half-mummified woman about to sacrifice a young girl. The mummified woman (presumed to be the Queen of Ghouls) was slain, with much difficulty and fire and luck. 

Everyone died in the combat except for Yalaru, who survived with 1 hit point and gave a final blow that killed the Queen! (reducing her to exactly 0) A very, very close call. Probably the closest I've seen a TPK that didn't turn into a TPK.

The Hero didn't waste any time. He grabbed the girl from the altar and returned to Svargorod. The girl turned out to be a daughter of the ruling House of Svoth. She was kidnapped but no one knows how or why...

Serpents of Chaos - Delve 14 - The Serpent's Pit

Serpents of Chaos is an AD&D 1e campaign set in the lands of Hyperborea, a vast region of steppe, inland seas, deep mountains, horse-hordes, fierce barbarians, and hardened adventurers. The current events surround the return of the Serpents of Chaos, elder wyrms who had been chained in Tarterus, now brought to the material plane by a dark magic known only to ancient Ashurian astromancers.

Tonight's session was manned by Prosulius (Gnome MU 2/Thief 2) a hired guard of five men-at-arms. He ventured to the Serpent's Pit, one of the three locations in the mountains southeast of Svargorod that the Great Serpents and their Serpent-Men had taken over. Later, they were joined by Talon the Courser (Ranger 4).

Serpent-men!

 

Prosulius made good speed on the road east, camped for the night at the feet of the mountains, then headed south in the morning. He came to the ruined fortress and tower that sits above the cursed tunnels of the Serpent's Pit. He found a hole in the wall and clambered in with his men.

Soon, he was approached by a serpent-man greeting party. Two soldiers and a serjeant attacked Prosulius, who defeated them while losing one of his own. The serjeant started running back to the tower in the middle of the ruins. Prosulius cast an illusion of a freezing cold interior in the doorway to the tower, then backstabbed the confused serjeant. Blood poured from the monster's back but he managed to run away while serpent-men archers and soldiers attacked from the tower.

Great Mosque of Samarra

Prosulius gathered his men and they fought their way up the tower. Meanwhile, the ranger Talon showed up and put his magic arrows to use. He showered a quiverful on the fleeing serjeant (who managed to get away on a dromedary) as well as the archers up in the tower.

The attack was not successful. Prosulius, his men-at-arms dying around him, decided to make one final act of intelligence gathering. He took a slain serpent-man and body-surfed him down into the hollow interior of the tower (which led waaaaay down into a black pit). What he saw there, only he knows.

Talon, seeing as his arrows could not do enough to help his fellow adventurer, drank a potion of gaseous form and floated away to join a Svarnic patrol and tell them everything he saw.

Serpents of Chaos - Delve 13 - The Copper Circle Round 2

Serpents of Chaos is an AD&D 1e campaign set in the lands of Hyperborea, a vast region of steppe, inland seas, deep mountains, horse-hordes, fierce barbarians, and hardened adventurers. Largely inspired by Howard, Leiber, Frazetta, and Dunsany.

Our intrepid adventurers this game were Talon the Courser (Ranger 4) and Lorb the Theurgist (Magic-User 4).

This group entered through a different route than the last party did. They entered from the top, going down a staircase into the middle of the copper circle, where there was a courtyard with three doors. The doors spoke with their magic mouths, telling the adventurers to "make my statue whole again," "read the paper full again," and "count the coins again."

They made their way north, moving past the pool with the dead guy floating in it and off towards the psionic pygmies first. They chatted about the pygmies' search for Thenzur but didn't get any farther than that.

Personal illustration

The next room had a central shaft with a squished dead guy at the bottom. Talon and Lorb helped themselves to his gear, finding a potion of heroism and some magic arrows. They saw a piece of paper (with "SHA" written on it) and carried on, finding a laboratory (already pilfered) and a room full of what they decided were traps.

They opened a final door that lead to a small but tall circular room. A pool of brine water lay in the center of the room and seven thick copper rods hung down from the ceiling. Some dark shape moved on the ceiling, which turned out to be gray ooze. A gray ooze that was hungry, and moving towards them. 

They dumped oil in the doorway, but waited to light it until the ooze came through. As soon as it climbed (along the top of the portal) they threw a torch down. The flames did nothing. A burning hands spell was cast. Which also did nothing. Lorb and Talon chose discretion over valour and ran away.

While on their way out, they saw a thief, levitating over a pit in a hallway. He disappeared around the corner and the adventurers did not give chase.

They left the copper circle, returning to Svargorod with a few baubles.

Serpents of Chaos - Delve 12 - The Copper Circle Round 1

Serpents of Chaos is an AD&D 1e campaign set in the lands of Hyperborea, a vast region of steppe, inland seas, deep mountains, horse-hordes, fierce barbarians, and hardened adventurers. Largely inspired by Howard, Leiber, Frazetta, and Dunsany.

This session, Zanuptra (Magic-User 3) and Sufthul (Fighter 2) with two bowmen and two footmen venture to the south, to climb a mountainside and enter the Copper Circle, a massive floating circular structure about 200' wide and 60' tall. A structure/vehicle built by the long-dead wizard Thenzur.

They saw two entrances, one on top and a trapdoor on the bottom. They decided to go in the trapdoor and managed to swing a grapple rope up! After testing for weight, they climbed in.

Immediately they came face to face with the large head of a dragon peering at them from lightning rimed-smoke. It was a friendly young female bronze dragon named Reshah, greeting them aboard. Once they started talking to her it became evident that there was an evil presence aboard the "ship." Some manes demons had snuck into Thenzur's laboratory and made a home. She was contracted by the pygmies to come help but didn't have any luck rooting out the manes. Reshah offered a rod of cancellation in exchange for a box of fine metal powders from the laboratory.

Next, Zanuptra and Sufthul met the grey pygmies, in a trance around a one-armed, headless statue. Their leader, a pygmy psion with a big boxy hat and a bejeweled bandolier, told them to go root out the demons. Anything in the room was theirs to take.

They traversed the hallways, passing by weird rooms of water, statues, navigation thrones, and talking archways. 

Finally, they entered a large round chamber full of interesting things. A sparring automaton made of wood and metal. A shelf of potions protected by glyphs. A stone spellbook floating in air under the watch of a copper gargoyle. And a large heap of paper fragments, which yielded the bite of a couple giant ants, a fragment of paper with "BOO" written on it, and a scroll of unseen servant. The two adventurers decided to grab these two things and leave the rest for now. 

David Sutherland

Time to kill the demons. The two kicked opened the door to the laboratory, cast sleep (I forgot manes are immune to it, but they were already weakened and couldn't teleport/gate so we will say that was the reason), and poured a flask of acid down the throat of the single manes demon. There was only one, but no more showed up.

They cleared the laboratory of all its contents, taking the box of metal powders to Reshah (and receiving the rod of cancellation).

Saddling up, they rode home with a haul of light treasure.