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add maze of the minotaur

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Eric Woodward
2025-06-06 02:48:29 -04:00
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src/sitePosts/journal/2024/04-27-one-night-on-wpm.md
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@@ -24,13 +24,13 @@ Finally, with just 4 hours left on the clock, the adventurers stepped into the d
### Entering the Dungeon
To start out, I filled them in on some backstory, both from the adventure (the poem) and with my own twists on top. The fire priests warned of the impending eruption, and the white plume was turning yellow, so the eruption ws well-telegraphed. Additionally, they were blessed by one of the priests of Kud (the dwarven god of law associated with the missing hammer, **Wylm, the Eternal Rest**), who told them "as long as one remains, the quest may continue", and gave them a bag of holding loaded with healing potions and scrolls (most of which they never used).
To start out, I filled them in on some backstory, both from the adventure (the poem) and with my own twists on top. The fire priests warned of the impending eruption, and the white plume was turning yellow, so the eruption was well-telegraphed. Additionally, they were blessed by one of the priests of Kud (the dwarven god of law associated with the missing hammer, **Wylm, the Eternal Rest**), who told them "as long as one remains, the quest may continue", and gave them a bag of holding loaded with healing potions and scrolls (most of which they never used).
Their first stop was the (rather soggy) gynosphinx in area #2. Unfortunately for them, their reaction roll with her was a 3, which usually means a combat encounter, but since she was just "doing a job" (and based on some suggestions I found online), I played her as the most disinterested teenager I could, giving the party _zero_ help (despite their frequent attempts at RP-ing something out of her). After much hemming-and-hawing, they chose the central hallway.
Finding the drain room (area #9), they decided to cast light on the party's sole automaton, the thief Dungeon Ken. This turned out to be a good move on their part, as he continued to glow brightly over the rest of the session, serving as the requisite illumination for all of the darkvision-less party members. They found and turned the crank, starting the long process of draining, before continuing down the hallway.
The next room was the kelpie pool (area #10), which, to my mind, has to be one of the oddest encounters in the adventure: a pair shape-shifting seaweed women who can each cast charm only once per day and who use this ability to lure adventurers into the water so they can drown themselves. As far as I can tell, in the adventure-as-written, if said adventurer fails a lone **Save vs Spells**, they jump in the water and immediately start drowning (2d10 damage per round). This seemed... unfair, to say the least. So when Tarin, the dwarven thief, failed his roll and jumped in, I decided to treat it like a death save: he had to make **Save vs Death** each round to prevent himself from [drowning](https://www.planarvagabond.com/rules/adventuring.html#drowning) (taking 1d8 damage per round).
The next room was the kelpie pool (area #10), which, to my mind, has to be one of the oddest encounters in the adventure: a pair of shape-shifting seaweed women who can each cast charm only once per day and who use this ability to lure adventurers into the water so they can drown themselves. As far as I can tell, in the adventure-as-written, if said adventurer fails a lone **Save vs Spells**, they jump in the water and immediately start drowning (2d10 damage per round). This seemed... unfair, to say the least. So when Tarin, the dwarven thief, failed his roll and jumped in, I decided to treat it like a death save: he had to make **Save vs Death** each round to prevent himself from [drowning](https://www.planarvagabond.com/rules/adventuring.html#drowning) (taking 1d8 damage per round).
The other weird thing about the kelpies is that there's only two of them. In an adventure designed for 6-11 players, having at most 2 PCs cursed in such a way just seemed like an odd decision (almost as odd as not even giving them a simple claw attack or something to fall back on). Still, with one PC drowning and most of the rest afraid to jump in the water (lest they drown as well), this sequence took a while before mercifully coming to end (although the still-glowing Dungeon Ken was useful for finding the kelpies' treasure).