Monday, January 7, 2019

M.A.G.U.S. - the temple of the Filth King (1)

Introduction


The session was off to a rough start. We had previously just managed to restart the game for the year and had the first session, and agreed upon a 2-week interval for new games. Then immediately the next time, we had to postpone due to everybody having some other thing to do. We rescheduled. I made room for it in my calendar. I gave up another activity for it. And on the day of it, two players decided they couldn't come. I was furious. After a heated discussion, we decided to play for the first time without everybody present.

Enter Shamil and Felgrin, sneaking into the warehouse.

Pre-game


I'll never forget (and I'll never let my players forget) how the session started. It started with the following conversation: 
'Do you think we'll progress faster with fewer players?'
'Honestly, that depends on you guys.'
'OK, well I have a technical question before we start.'

It took about 30-40 minutes to get past the technical question and get into the game. At this point I was already laughing inside. This will be a fun one.

What about the other PCs


Until now, we had only every played with everybody present. Being a vengeful DM, I explained the absence of Biznard and Athosian by stating that they had a sudden rush of diarrhea. And syphilis. And AIDS. And pneumonia. And asthma. And whatever other diseases I could think of at the moment. I graphically described how they were puking and shitting their insides out in a nearby alley while the other two went in.

Sneaking in


Two PCs sneaking into an abandoned warehouse in the dead of night. Easy-peasy, right? Dead wrong.
The assassin tried scaling the walls of a neighboring building to look in, while the wizard did teleporting shenanigans. He managed to land on the remains of the broken floor of the first story of the warehouse, which underneath him and he was at a die roll away from serious injury. He managed to teleport out in time.
And then he realized his magic can alter space and simply made a temporary hole in the door, so they could simply walk in.

They located a fake looking mound of rubble with a trap door underneath. The assassin used psychics to boost his agility, but still managed to fail the roll and got hit by falling debris, also bitten by (possibly) diseased rats hidden in the debris. But at least they could then open the trap door and crawl through.

They got into this comfy looking antechamber of what must have been a house before being buried in the earth. The first floor was missing, with only a few wooden platforms jutting from the walls and standing precariously. This is what Shamil landed on when crawling through the tunnel. The floor downstairs was filled with spikes looking upwards.


The wooden platforms had rags on them, which of course hid a bunch of beggars in waiting. The fight was Benny Hill-esque, with Felgrin redirecting projectiles back at the shooters, and Shamil swinging and jumping from platform to platform, stabbing people.


They did managed to capture the last beggar, and Shamil tortured some information out of him. Looked like they found the underground sanctum of the beggars, and there was some sort of religious ritual going on.

Deep underground they found a whole buried city party excavated by the beggars. Around a corner, they noticed two guards standing in front of large doors. From inside, evil sounding chants came through the windows.


Unable to conceive a fair fight, they took care of the guards silently.


Then they tied the door with a rope, broke the windows and threw burning hay inside.


This will absolutely work guys, I promise.

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