These are my archives of Real-Life D&D Excerpts. As the name suggests, these comes from real D&D sessions with me and my friends, and also as the name suggests these are not full disclosure point by point notes of everything that happened. They focus on what I find interesting or humorous (usually the latter), and they are reliant on my shabby notetaking coupled with my memory (and currently I'm a full week behind on these) so I can't claim 100% accuracy. However, I do my best to represent people in the appropriate light; to capture the intent of and impression given by their comments (which is sometimes not the same thing), and believe me - if I am way off in my version of events, they will beat me with a +1 mace, or a plastic lightsaber, or bombard me with copper pieces or something...

[The following RPG gaming-sessions account use CHARACTER names rather than the names of the actual PLAYERS in order to protect their identities, so that I don't have to ask their permission. You may begin to see why I have no trouble coming up with material to cover in AGC (although, AGAIN, my webcomic's characters do not represent any real individuals, but are mixed up composites using traits and manerisms taken from many RPGers I've gamed with over time, sort of like Shang-Tsung fights using the souls of a thousand fallen warriors)]

Excerpt #1

Anyway, at some point after ALL THAT, we STARTED actually playing, at least for a little while before getting into some other "debate". End result: GM feels he is the only one being reasonable, and that he is being persecuted by everyone else. Ahzeron was falling asleep by the end (which, despite how it always offends GM, is less a factor of game boredom than an inevitability of Ahzeron's schedule). Omit is still heavily disenchanted with the profligance of "nerfs" as he sees them, which have caused him to readjust his characters class levels and feats at least 7 times, including 2 full respecifications where GM allowed him to even change his stats. Verian Seth was busy using his character's massive intellect and mastery of all knowledge skills to extract and justify information which it is highly unlikely (but not impossible) for his character to posess in-game, and Balcoth has adopted the new tactic of proposing that obnoxious monster powers are worthy of banning (specifically those which could penetrate his carefully tweaked defenses) and refusing to allow the game to progress until GM either bans them (which he won't do because it is ridiculous) or at least promises to further investigate the issue at a later date. So here I sit, recording this small part of what transpired, and awaiting the Blue Ribbon Comittee on whether or not the spell Blink should be banned for its ability to ignore the Uncanny Dodge class ability.

Oh, and which one am I? [Since the players are referred to only by character name, and none of them is named Demonac] I'll leave you to guess.

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Excerpt #2

[Ahzeron votes in favor of the change (to make Uncanny Dodge defeat the defense penalties of being attacked by a Blinking opponent), as does Balcoth. Verian Seth abstains, claiming it doesn't much matter. Omit, based on his intimate familiarity with the game rulings and errata, votes against the change, because according to the game developpers, Blink should win out. GM gratiously implements the change based on the voting.]

(Ed: Racial Class Substitution levels are alternate forms of basic classes tailored to the specific character race. Found only in "less-mainstream" sourcebooks, they tend to be more powerful for no good reason, but the Dwarven Cleric mod was particularly unbalanced in its all-around superiority. Now, GM would obviously just ban such an aberation, but clearly Balcoth is unaware of such things and would probably be very interested - thus GM is much happier if nobody puts the idea in Balcoth's head. BTW: D4s are the little pointy pyramiddal dice.)

[Later that evening, the adventurers are going through the secret catacombs that they discovered hidden beneath the temple the previous week - yes, we do ADVENTURE sometimes. We come across a room with a 5-foot diameter vertical shaft leading down 120 feet, with ladders down one side. A torch dropped down the hole helped reveal the depth, but struck water at the bottom and went out with a faint splash. Verian Seth (who rarely touches the ground, thanks to his psionic flight powers) and Ahzeron descend most of the way down, and determine that the shaft opens down into a spherical room of about 20' radius filled nearly to the top with water (which our light sources of course do not penetrate).]

[Naturally, faced with this obstacle, they heroicaly declare "screw that" and decide to search for another path through the dungeon. With Omit and the more solid-ground-loving Balcoth safely up above the shaft, however, we have one more thing to do.]

After that, the situation got weird. Ahzeron and Verian Seth yo-yoed up and down the shaft, climbing ladders, having ladders fireballed by the Naga down below us in the water, climbing ropes (dropped down by Balcoth and Omit), having ropes fireballed by the Naga as well, with Ahzeron casting Air Walk on himself to gain elevation, only to have it dispelled again and again. Finally, Ahzeron cast Righteous Might on himself, the divine power granting him increased size (so that instead of falling he more-or-less filled the shaft, allowing him to crawl up or even pause in place without risk of falling. By the time THAT was dispelled, he was in easy range of Balcoth's 30-foot length of heavy chain and the others managed to pull him up. Safely outside the maximum range of the Naga spellcasting, Omit... takes his readied action, and Balcoth... opens the "rear hatch" in his full plate armor.

But that's enough reporting for this week. I need to go to bed.

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Excerpt #3

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts Saturday D&D sessions. I am not responsible for any recurring patterns you may notice.

Here we go again. It is a good idea to get everybody back in the frame of mind and remind people where we were (and sometimes why), since there is a whole week in between sessions.

Omit: I figured I should use it soon, since that DC 20 saving throw won't be good much longer.
GM: DC 20 is pretty good for an item saving throw.
Azheron: Yeah, not like that a Third Eye: Dominate with the DC 12 save, and the item still costs like 120,000.

[Ed: Before doing this writeup I did some fact-checking to make sure, and it turns out that the Third Eye (an item from the Expanded Psionics Handbook) has a more respectable saving throw difficulty of 18 to negate its effect. However, by the time you can afford 120k gp items, most enemies are unlikely to be affected by DC 18 saves, and worse, this overpriced piece of junk only gets to try ONCE per day! Omit's Arrow of Slaying, though only a one-shot item, costs only around 2000 gold.]

Azheron: [Continues] Actually, you can buy a Solar's Bow for 120,000 now. It makes whatever kind of Slaying Arrow you need for each shot. But they're still only DC 20.
Verian Seth: That's not so bad. You're still getting a +5 bow for that price, and that's a pretty good power. DC 20 isn't bad when you get that chance on every shot.
Azheron: Well, a +5 bow would cost 50 thousand...
GM: PLUS the costs of a Masterwork, Composite bow.
Azheron: Yeah, IF you they even bother to keep track of that.
GM: They'd BETTER keep track of that!
Azheron: Well yeah. But you have to figure, at most, a Masterwork bow, with a composite rating of 5 or so would only be like 1000 gold.
GM: That's like TWO PERCENT of the purchase price!!!

[Ed: Apparently 2% of the cost of a magic item sounds like A LOT to some people, and yet seems trivial to others. Nobody argues with GM on this point though, and certainly nobody makes any comment (or stealthily-scribbled changes to their character sheet) on whether they had been properly accounting for the mundane cost of such items, or lazily (and cheatingly) only paying the larger enchantment cost. I know that I certainly paid for my masterwork armor and stuff before paying for their enchantments.]

GM: Alright. Balcoth: could you tell us about your character?
Balcoth: [Surly dwarven tones already kicking in] Why?... Why every week, man?
GM: It helps to set the tone.
Balcoth: I thought we voted this off the island.
GM: ...To get everyone into the game...
Balcoth: ...something about "not swimming back".
GM: Regardless, could you describe your character to us?
Balcoth: I don't know how to say this interestingly. I have 6 levels of Fighter, 1 level of Ranger, and 4 levels of Dwarven Defender.
GM: Well, as a ranger, you have prodigious skills in dealing with a particular type of foe. Which type of creatures do you excel at hunting?
Balcoth: Huh?
GM: You have a 'Favored Enemy' type, against which you receive bonuses to detect their presence, to follow their tracks, to discern their truthfullness, etc.
Verian Seth: And you get a bonus to damage against them.
Balcoth: Yeah, it's Aberations.
GM: But you also get bonuses to all sort of skill checks relating to them, tracking them and stuff, right?
Balcoth: No.
Verian Seth: Mostly +2 damage. [Ed: the ranger's favored enemy power does give all those other bonuses...]
Balcoth: Yeah, +2 damage. [Ed: ...but really, its all about the damage.]
Verian Seth: Because he comes here to smash.
Balcoth: Seriously, this is like being interrogated.
GM: Very much like being interrogated.
Balcoth: Asked the same questions again, and again...
Verian Seth: The difference is that he can't stop you from sleeping during the intervening week.
GM: Well, could you tell us then: what is the most powerful foe you ever faced. [Ed: This is another very common introductory-phase question, though it didn't make the previous posts here.]
Balcoth: Uh...
Azheron: Don't say city guards. [Ed: Some players have expressed annoyance at the way guards have been roleplayed, but they were certainly not powerful. Anyway, Azheron proceeds to take over, and starts listing many of the fights we've gone through over time. This is just the small sampling I remember:] ...the Yuan-Ti Abomination, the Babau, the Vrock, the Dread Wraith, the Hell Wasp Swarm...
Balcoth: Friggin' bug-based immunity to everything. The only one in the entire party who could affect it at all was Verian Seth, and if he'd died we were all gone.
Verian Seth: Or the Cerebrilith on the Astral plane, with its Mindflayer buddy, each blowing away d4 charisma every round.
Balcoth: It was a lot more than d4!
Azheron: Yeah.
Balcoth: Its ridiculous that we could be killed by charisma.
Omit: You can't be killed by charisma loss, only paralyzed.
Balcoth: To die because I'm "not fuzzy enough as a Carebear"? Its a useless stat. It should be ignored... Scratch! Gone. Who cares...
Verian Seth: It is valuable for the classes that use it, for spellcasting and special abilities, but that's all it does. The majority of classes don't have abilities that use it, so for them it's useless.
Balcoth: Spellcasting. Ooh, I'm not attractive enough to screw your mind and drain levels...
GM: Charisma isn't actually your appearance. It represents a poorly defined force of personality.

[From here, I tried to capture a few highlights from later on in the session. My notes are a bit spotty, but I think there are a few bits worth noting. Later on, the topic of Omit's displeasure with certain changes was broached:]

GM: Omit, are you looking forward to the death of your character?
Verian Seth: Actually, I was the one who brought up the subject this time.
GM: But you were looking into backups...
Omit: You'd have to kill me off first.
Azheron: Verian Seth makes more backups than you.
Verian Seth: I just like making characters.
GM: But he refuses to die! I've been so tempted to whip out a Vampire Monk on you, but I restrained myself from doing anything so unfair.
Verian Seth: Well we never fought anything weak...
GM: You f***er!
Azheron: Well, only when "its too weak to be worth XP".
Verian Seth: And whenever we beat something its always "I was robbed, Omit change your character again!"
GM: I so wanted to kill you with a Horn of Valhalla, Verian Seth. [Ed. a mythical magic item which summons barbarians. The 3.5 version summons a greater number than the older ones, but AGC 5-7 and 5-8 feature Joe's Horn]
Verian Seth: I'm unlikely to be killed by any number of non-flying low-level barbarians.
GM: They weren't going to fight you, I was going to drop them on you.
Verian Seth: I'm not sure there are rules for that, I mean, do they have to roll to hit?
GM: I don't know, I'd just drop them all on you in a massive dogpile and have them trip you and yell "It is inevitable!". Ed:
GM: [cont.] ...but the Horn of Valhalla is too expensive. I don't want to give you guys like 60k.
Azheron: You mean 30k, since you only let us sell items for half.
GM: Besides, I don't want to have to keep track of like 20 barbarians...

[Anyway, we decided that we needed to retreat from the dungeons to rest and regain spells. Technically, Balcoth still had all his hit points (he doesn't cast spells), and Omit, with his extremely limited spellcasting ability, was also fine to keep going, however Azheron had exhausted the majority of his divine spells (meaning he couldn't heal the others much more), and after 4 fights Verian Seth was "running on fumes", psionically speaking.]

GM: So you all head back up the shaft into the temple.
Verian Seth: Yes. I figure the resting spot I picked out should be a good hiding place. If our enemies are going to use Scrying, they'll find us no matter where we go, however I figure that if they do not use strong divinations, we should be well hidden for the purpose of any mundane search.
Balcoth: We could just block off the shaft. Then nobody would follow us.
GM: Block it with what?
Balcoth: I'll use my +2 adamantine axe to cut off a big chunk from the top of the shaft and drop it down so it blocks the whole thing. They won't get past 3 tons of rock.
GM: Probably not.
Balcoth: They'll actually never come up.
Omit: At least, not with Teleport and Dimension Door banned.
GM: They aren't banned, they just don't work on this plane of existance. If you go to other planes you can use them.
Verian Seth: ...with a 3 round casting time.
GM: ANYWAY, if you block the shaft, how will you get back down there after?
Balcoth: I'll just start from the top and cut through it. I could carve a 3 ton rock in half in like 10 minutes.

[Ed: well, I find that funny anyway. In the end, we did go and hide where Verian Seth suggested (right on top of the temple, hidden behind the smaller second storey so that we couldn't be seen from in front where the entrance was), and we didn't cut off a giant chunk of rock to block the shaft (probably because Balcoth sensed it would result in a lot of argument with GM about his adamantine cutting power). And no, naturally we weren't able to rest unmolested. That would make life too easy. More on that in the next installment... I plan on skipping past the "introductory phase" next time, so maybe I'll get more actual GAME notes before getting tired.]

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Excerpt #4

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts from Saturday D&D sessions. This time, I tried NOT taking notes from the introductory phase, and thus was able to gather some extensive notes from throughout the session before my arm wore out.

In my closing notes from the last report, I mentioned resting. Well, our resting place was discovered, not by the mindflayers but by an NPC who was theoretically neutral, insofar as he said that if we left he would not give us trouble. It took us a little time to decide, but in the end, we had no pressing need to continue in that dungeon at this time (at least, the more neutral-aligned characters managed to convince the goody two-shoes ones that since there were no more hostages to save, we should resume our greater mission). But, by the time we decided this, the NPC noticed that Omit's character had some traces of fiendish blood/ancestry, and changed his conditions. The REST of us could go, but the "Tiefling" (as they are called) could not. So we fought him until he was forced to run, then we left anyway. I mention all this only because GM was particularly non-plussed by the performance of this NPC in combat (even though he was "not supposed to fight us") and seriously considered doubling the number of pursuers. He did, however, relent on this of his own volition because that amount of enemies would not be considered "fair" within the rules.

So we pickup, a little ways into the D&D session, as a pair of Vrocks (vulture-looking flying demons with a variety of potent defenses, and all-around good damage-dealing abilities) have overtaken us and we begin to do battle. Verian Seth and Omit are lurking around the edges of the battlefield (the former remaining carefully invisible), while Azheron and Balcoth are hard-pressed by the Vrocks' attack. Balcoth uses his Figurine of Wondrous Power, which transforms into a full-grown elephant, obediant to his command.

The chat continues on, more or less as normal, but with many deviations relating to the players' perception that the Vrocks recasting Mirror Image at will (each time creating 4-6 illusory demons that cannot be discerned from the real ones, resulting in many wasted attacks, resulting in a MASSIVE advantage for the monsters who could keep that up all day long). I didn't note all these arguments because they became increasingly... well... argumentative, and moreover not very humorous. Anyhow, Balcoth was beginning to suffer attrition-based damage, and Azheron was forced to stick close to him, attempting to heal him so he could keep trying to kill them.

Omit ponders for longer than usual while Azheron feigns ripping up his character sheet and the rest of us try to figure out how we will survive without his healing powers...

Now, I failed to note the exact details of how it started, but inevitably given that he is dead and has nothing to do except work on his next character) someone has gotten Azheron onto the topic of his many character deaths throughout this campaign. Regardless of whether one considers him to have been unfairly persecuted or simply absurdly unlucky (or somewhere in between), it is a simple fact that the vast majority of deaths in the campaign up to this point have been Azheron's characters...

There was actually a lot more discussion of various Azheranian deaths, but this is another subject that has been repeated a few too many times for those involved, so I didn't take notes. It also may be a bit touchy. But Balcoth wasn't about to let go of the GM-bashing quite yet, since it was looking less and less like we'd be able to overcome the regenerating mirror-images of the two Demons.

Balcoth has one enemy pinned down, although it is gradually edging around him, hoping to get nearer to the "softer" targets presented by Omit and Verian Seth (if he would ever stay visible long enough to be attacked). Throughout the battle, Verian Seth was taking advantage of the ability of players to "ready an action", which meant that he could make his attack on the enemies' turn after they declared their actions, thus allowing him to re-invis on his own action. The other players were not thrilled with this, since he was only taking a useful action every second turn, but he had been running on empty for power points since 2 fights ago, and still badly needed to rest. However, despite Balcoth's valiant efforts and Verian Seth's... cautious... whatever he was doing, one demon was free to attack Omit and the other was going to be able to by the next round...

Omit assures all that he didn't think the situation was desperate until Azheron was lost. It WAS an extraordinarily expensive item, and not to be used lightly...

Anyhow, we didn't get much further. What we did get was bogged down in a discussion of our need for healing. Azheron had made his last few characters with the intention of providing the party with divine healing - not because he wanted that role, particularly, but because nobody else in the party could heal. After all this, he was going to make his next character something different, which no-one blamed him for, but it brought up the issue: what would we do without a magical healing specialist?

According to Omits careful notes, GM suggested that a cleric of any nature was unnecessary and/or advised against having one on twenty-seven occasions, the most recent of which included when the majority of the party was level 10, and even when certain PCs first turned 11, often disuading Azheron's continued and selfless selection of divine-casting classes.

So we are stuck with the healer (and that was the SHORT version of that discussion). The best I could do was to make him myself so that GM wouldn't have to, because if GM built our hench-healer he'd end up with Charisma 12 or higher, 16 strength and memorize god-knows what. GM is going to roleplay him, but actual control (combat and casting decisions) will be passed around randomly to a different PC every week. This assumes that he doesn't mysteriously die in a gorey heap of useful magical items. "Hey! An Amulet of Natural Armor; I was just thinking how much I'd like one of those..."

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Excerpt #5

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts Saturday D&D sessions. This time, you'll have to forgive a certain added level of potential inaccuracies and more paraphrasing than usual due to the EXTREMELY POOR quality of my notetaking last Saturday. This Sat's notes (for the next one) should be much more useful... I think...

[Blank looks from Azheron, Balcoth and Verian Seth. The spell has never been cast (and being a druid spell, probably never even looked at) throughout the entire campaign.]

[Like the players were going to object to making a hated enemy weaker...]

Our dedicated band of cohesive gamers is one again embroiled in THE SAME argument about the brokenness VS irrelevancy (depending on who's talking) of Vrock demons and their Mirror-Image-at-will power. You guys don't need to hear that all again. After a while...

[Ed: I didn't take notes on that part of the discussion, because its old familiar territory and not very exciting. Summary: PLAYERS NO LIKE ARMOR NERF. GM made the change around level 3 because he saw how easily the players could get their AC up high enough that 80% of enemies (of the appropriate levels) from the Monstrous Manual wouldn't be able to hit them. Players think that he slipped through the change with very little complaint from the playes because they weren't yet rich enough for a limitation on expensive magic to affect them much, and now feel that in the level 10 plus game they are being unfairly penalized. GM feels that without the change, the game would now be fairly unplayable as only dragons and elementals would be able to hit certain PCs. And on the argument goes. I didn't expect the discussion to continue on in any direction worth recording, but after a while...]

The implication is that, in order to get the same benefit from the modified (actually d20 L5R setting-style) full plate, the enemies would now be forced to spend more stat points, bringing up their Dexterity ability score to 14 for the +2 bonus, instead of spending those stat points elsewhere, such as more strength.

And the back and forth of "nerf-and-benefit" continues...

Because GM wants to get Azheron back into the action, and because he percieves us as having a great need for a healer for our group to function, on this rare occasion he is willing to Deus Ex the new additions to the party into the game. Even though we are in the middle of the desert. I designed the hench-cleric to be good at his job, but he will be roleplayed entirely by the GM, while a different player (chosen randomly each week) has full control over the cleric's actions in combat. The last step is to name him. Gnomey McGnome, Gimp, Meatshield and "Portable Hit-Points" were all player suggestions that were vetoed, while the GM suggested some long complex gnomey roleplaying name, which nobody wanted to remember... eventually he ended up with the incredibly and intentionally lame Donner Lifesaver which Omit suggested.

Everyone has a laugh.

All the players stare in shock and disbelief.

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Excerpt #6 (Continued from #5)

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts Saturday D&D sessions. This particular installment is the second part of the session started in Excerpt #5 (this past Monday). Once again, you'll have to forgive a certain added level of paraphrasing due to the EXTREMELY POOR quality of my notetaking last Saturday. This part is mostly a Battle Report, so alas there is a lot more narrative and somewhat less of the funny dialogue stuff. I still think it is good for a laugh though!

The Glabrezu, already growing frustrated at our lack of enthusiasm, decides to take this as an insult. Beings of infinite self-confidence and massive pride, Glabrezu enjoy making deals with mortals and getting others to do their bidding (a trait more befitting of Devils), but they are still Demons at heart, (not Devils; in D&D there is a strict distinction) meaning they relish havoc, destruction, and above all physical combat. And so it starts combat by backing up and casting one of our favorite spells: Mirror Image.

[Ed: we previously ruled that Whirlwind attack and Cleave feats should work on Mirror Images, which makes sense, but is still a house rule, because strictly speaking the images, being illusions, do not count as seperate opponents, and as such would not be affected.]

[Azheron takes this okay, and is generally quite good natured about such reasonable changes, but is experiencing some reasonable frustration about "compound nerfs" right about now. And so combat begins for real. Azheron's dice rolls are abominable, resulting in a statistically unlikely streak of misses for his chain attacks (this persists over the course of the entire battle). The gnomish gimp-cleric makes himself useful by casting Prayer to buff the party. GM spends a good minute carefully examining the positioning of the players' models, and trying to plot points on the squares of the map. It should be noted that the demon allowed us to position ourselves however we wanted while talking, due to its supreme overconfidence. After a minute, GM seems a little frustrated but says nothing, continuing to think about the demon's next action.]

Well, that may have been funny to Azheron and probably Omit (although he certainly showed no sign of laughing), but the Glabrezu was not an opponent to be trifled with and began demonstrating this immediately. It flew up and back to get out of the reach of the (now Large-sized) Azheron, and overwhelming physics itself with brute force of magic, it entrapped Balcoth in a column of Reversed Gravity - an effect invisible except for the fact that the hardy dwarf began falling upward off the ground. Omit backed off (very far, very fast), and prepared himself to react to things as they happened. In other words, he did nothing.

The next round, Azheron used his innate levitation (a feature of the Elocator psionic prestige class, which he and Omit both have, and which GM momentarily forgot) and his much reduced and yet still significant reach to continue to attack (and miss) the monster. Balcoth struggled to find a way to escape the rapid (and seemingly endless) upwards falling effect - fortunately, his Ring of Feather Falling was ironically slowing his ascent. Verian Seth (who had been holding back a little) Dispelled the magic that was allowing the Demon to fly (it plummetted, suffering trivial and yet embarassing falling damage), and finally revealing himself to be the Demon's preferred target. It used its strongest power (only 1 use per day) to Stun him with an unresistable Power Word, and Verian Seth, who expected this ever since we first sighted the Glabrezu, threw up a powerful psionic shield in response, knowing that it had no effect on the PowerWord, but apparently hoping it would help protect the party against damage spells while he stood helpless for the rest of the battle.

Azheron moves over to protect Verian Seth, then hovers up 20 feet to attack overtop of the wall. Lifesaver (the gimp cleric) attempted to place himself in the line of fire, saving his spells for healing, not even bothering to attack.

[Ed: Because a different player will be controlling him every week, and I didn't want them to be tempted to do dumb things with him, like make hand-to-hand attacks, I had taken care NOT to give him any weapons, and had gone so far as to spend every penny of his starting money so that GM couldn't just force him to buy one... However, in his infinite generosity, GM had given him a free mace and crossbow, describing it as ridiculous for him to be unarmed, despite his demonstrable lack of physical prowess. Fortunately, though, for this week, Verian Seth was controlling him and he had no inclination to waste any effort attacking (with Lifesaver's pitiful strength of 6...).]

Wisely trying to avoid letting too much physics (especially with big arguments over the calculations involved) overtake magic in the game, GM rules that Balcoth cannot free himself from the 10'x10' column of Reverse Gravity just by jettisoning his ludicrously heavy pack and letting Newton's Third Law do the rest. And it is true that the area is not a vaccuum or true zero-G environment, but rather experiences precisely Earth-normal (1 G) acceleration due to gravity, only severed and redirected AWAY from the planet. But GM does rules that by securing his pack to himself with a rope and hurling it out side the scope of the reversal, it could act as an anchor and yank Balcoth out (and thus Featherfall back down to the ground, angry and anxious to chop himself up some demon). He isn't there yet though, and the demon spends its action attacking Azheron. Azheron strikes back and misses.

Balcoth drops his secondary weapon (though it pains him to do so, since it is a Luckblade - a shortsword that grants a bonus to saving throws and lets him reroll a failed die-roll once per day), in order to use his magic Adamantine Dwarven Battleaxe two-handed and capitalize better on the "Align Weapon" potion Omit used on it earlier. He hits the Demon for pretty good damage, but it has barely been touched before now, and has a LOT of hit points left. Donner Lifesaver expends some holy energy to Good-align Azheron's chain and Omit's bow for the round, but Azheron's abominable die-rolls fail him once more. Omit, for his part, activates his Boots of Speed and fires four arrows into the evil extradimensional beast. His rolls aren't so hot either, but he still hits with two arrows for a more-than-respectable 30 or so damage.

[Note as he says this that he doesn't consider the use of Adamantine arrows to be an option either. They cost a mint and are the only thing that does full damage to Golems.]

Omit has an array of various other expensive arrows, such as silver tipped or even magical Flaming arrows and such, but such things would also be wasted on this enemy, and the current situation (with Wall still keeping the demon away from defenseless Verian Seth) didn't seem THAT desperate yet, at least to him. The demon, seeing the potential to be beat on by 3-4 (depending on whether or not it counted the gnomish cleric or not) enemies with Good-aligned weapons, chose to recast Mirror Image, which should protect it from most of the next 6 to 8 weapon attacks.

[At this point, certain players were beginning to complain about the rising physical temperature in the room. The old fan, having been previously shut off in objection to the inappropriate high-pitched noise it had been making, refused to reactivate of its own accord, so with the button set to "Full-On", Omit was attempting to restart it rather like an old biplane - by manually spinning the propeller.]

Finally the fan restarts - the blades are moving only slightly, but they are moving on their own with slight acceleration. GM gives up on Mirror Image since it is useless against Azheron's new character. The demon attacks Balcoth ferociously, and that it inflicts reasonable damage despite Balcoth's impressive armor class is a testament to its prodigious attack routine.

Balcoth paid back the demon with his axe, and the Glabrezu (possibly put-off by Omit's corny counter-speech) cast an area dispel, removing the Good Hope effect.

[Ed: And you wonder why I didn't give him a weapon.] Then Azheron hits twice, and deals decent damage even at -10 per hit. I think Verian Seth was beginning to suspect that based on Murphy's Law, Azheron would hit much better if his weaponry remained un-blessed. A couple more rounds pass. Azheron and Balcoth inflict harm on the enemy - it is starting to add up, but it had a lot of HP to start with, and it would take a while at this rate. For its part, the Demon found it couldn't harm Balcoth too much, and the cleric had plenty of healing left, so it turned to start fighting Azheron, who was much easier to hit. Then Verian Seth unstunned.

That was about 1/3 of the monster's hit points, and suddenly all the damage dealt by Balcoth and Azheron (plus 1 round of Omit's firepower) had the enemy desperately drinking healing potions. They finished it off just before it could use its Invisibility potion to escape, although Verian Seth pointed out that the Cleric could have cast Invisibility Purge to help us hunt him down anyway.

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Excerpt #7

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts Saturday D&D sessions. My notes were better for this one, so we'll see if that translates into a funnier report than my "reconstructive" work. Remember that our NPC "hench-cleric", Donner Lifesaver, is roleplayed by the GM, but a different player is chosen each week to control him in any combat situation. This week, the dice chose Omit.

[Fast-forward a tiny bit...]

[Ed: Omit's superior skills, Dexterity and Intelligence allow him to Spot, Search, Hide, MoveSilently and Tumble all with average skill checks of 30+, as well as his initiative rolls. Further, his movement speed is around double that of a normal human, not counting his boots of speed, and running a foot off the ground (with his Elocator hovering power) he ignores all terrain penalties. Verian's Ring of Invisibility has unlimited uses, the only limitation being that it takes an action to activate, and that it has to be reactivated every 30 minutes (so no sleeping the whole night invis). Lacking any such options, poor Balcoth and Azheron are stranded within earshot of the cleric.]

The party progresses through the desert for another day of gametime, and are shocked that they are able to rest (and recover spells) unmolested for the second consecutive night. The next day, they come upon a familiar caravan. It had set out in the same direction as the party at about the same time. We had traveled with them for a while, fought off a necromancer and a rare blue dragon, then parted ways to travel on our own. We move a lot faster than a large trading caravan, but we also got sidetracked by many mysteries and dangers and it was funny that we had come full circle and were meeting up with the traders again.

So we ride up into the midst of the caravan and journey with them a little further until it is time to camp down once more. They are provide us with a free meal and some extra rations, since we are all very close to the city of Aberia Del'fayr(sp?), the vicinity of which was kept safe by the city garrison and the protection of the wizard's colledge, and the caravan saw very little need for their emergency rations. We thank them for their generosity.

Somebody, probably Azheron, got us back onto the topic of jerk NPCs, and all the usual culprits came up (unattended children are all druids in disguise waiting to Flame Strike us, blah blah, city guards demanding bribes and then complaining when Balcoth threatens to rip off their heads and... you know...). Eventually...

Finally, the party reaches the desert "Metropolis" of Aberia Del-fayr. The city is ringed by slums, and as the party rides (and/or flies a couple inches off the ground) through the peasants, one comes up and offers to be our guide for a silver piece per day.

GM ignores that particular suggestion. As we turn around and retreat out of the city, the gimp distributes a gold piece (worth of small change) amongst the grasping crowd, who promptly swarm him, leaving the stingier player-characters alone. Soon (with a few "encouraging" words from Donner) the crowd is gushing praise for Pelor and his generosity. We leave the city, go around, re-enter the slums at a different point and get to the central core with no further trouble. As we approach the boundary between the slums and the city proper (aka the rich part of the city), we are stopped by a city guard. More likely it was several city guards, but we ARE supposed to be good guys, and we didn't really evaluate our combat options relating to assaulting the local authorities. We always wait to see how much they piss us off first...

Each party member in turn has their weapons bonded, paying one silver (or in Balcoth's case, 1.3 gold, because it is one seal and one silver piece per-weapon). Azheron's character gets away without the bond, because his chains (wrapped around his characters shoulders and waist) aren't recognized by the guards as the exotic weapons they are, being mistaken instead for some bizarre adornment. As we go, the guard records the name and race of each party member.

[Verian Seth (in this case I mean the character, not the player) is not religious, and his morals may not quite mesh with the more Good-aligned party members at all times, but he is VERY LAWFUL. He avoids lying whenever humanly possible. Now, he is smart enough that he is loathe to give out information which could be used to track him or his companions, but if ever he does give his name, he uses his real name. He has been a little secretive about his species - he certainly looks human, but it is well known to his friends that he hails from a different plane. He is in fact an Elan - a race/secret-society of former humans who have given up their humanity to be reborn with new, psionically engineered bodies, aiming towards perfection. They tend to be physically attractive, but the primary upshot of this process is that they are clinically immortal - they age VERY slowly, can sustain themselves without food or water (if necessary) via their mental energies, and their maximum healthy lifespan is indefinite. No hard limitaton. You may not care much about this stuff, but note that Verian found a way to answer the question without lying, but also without providing such personal information.]

We progress into the better part of the city, looking for an inn before we do anything else. We are also looking for the Temple district in the hopes of pawning off the hench-cleric for the night. We come upon some other guards and ask for directions, and they help us as best they can (in truth, they aren't very specific, but they at least tell us how things are laid out and point us in the right direction). They refuse Balcoth's attempts to tip them. He couldn't be more thrilled. In the end, we find an expensive inn (bear in mind that far weaker PCs than us are still rich enough to afford expensive everything), and unfortunately Donner chooses to room there as well.

Verian spends the whole next day identifying and sorting the magic treasure we had accumulated (using divinations to discern item command words, quantify the power of enhancements, etc), so that they could used or be sold at accurate market prices. Balcoth starts searching around for a place to acquire some item that would allow him to fly when needed, and Omit sets out to find a fletcher. The best fletcher Omit finds (well it's the first one he found, but he had a nice shop) says he can fill Omit's 2000 arrow order within 2 days. Omit elects to get a mere 1000 arrows in one day instead (almost as though that is what he wanted in the first place...). He asks the Fletcher's name, and records it in his notes. All in all, we have finally reached the city, and nothing has gone wrong on our first night here. We break, to take up the quest again next session.

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Excerpt #8

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts from Saturday D&D sessions. My notes were pretty brief on this session - I seem to alternate sessions between taking good detailed notes, and lazy crap. Great, now I'm stuck doing more writing and creating more of a narrative to string things together (and to jog my memory). Let's see how it comes out:

So the party has spent a couple nights in the grand city of Aberia Del-fayr. They need to make an appointment to meet with Dom Arod (I'm told its actually Harod, by I'm keeping the old spelling so as not to risk confusion), who is currently out of the city, but is due back. However, before we could get to making the appointment, and then properly wasting time until our appointment, we had some details to get out of the way...

Anyhow, GM was trying out a new form of the "interrogation phase" as it is coming to be known. The new format, designed by GM to prevent it from becoming excessive or out of control - to prevent any one person from feeling picked-on - was that each player would be asked 3 questions about their character: 2 questions by GM, and 1 asked by any of the other players. I would have noted how this went, but the players sadly showed little interest in the innovation. Not even making fun of the excercise with the amount of effort you have come to expect of us. The players just seemed to be trying to ignore it or hope it would go away, and about the most interesting string of questioning seemed to be a couple instances of "Can you get me a cup of coffee?" and a little debate on whether or not that counted.

So Azheron, Balcoth, Omit and Verian set out from their lavish inn rooms, along with the gnomish NPC cleric, Donner Lifesaver. They make their way through the rich central part of the city to the Wizards' Colledge. The facility featured no moving stairways or other Hogwarts references, being part of a setting created long ago by GM before he was aware of the Harry Potter franchise. There was much studying and little magic going on in the courtyard, although certain non-students did appear to be levitating and such as a convenience, and Unseen Servants (small harmless barely visible workers, distantly related to air elementals) were present in some abundance, fulfilling numerous menial capacities. The Dom was booked up from the time he was due back until about two months hence, but the NPC giving out the appointments (who was friendly, helpful, and not in any way a jerk, and is thus unlikely to be remembered by the players in future discussions) bumped us up to a slot 2 days from now, even though the secret nature of our mission prevented us from giving any proper justification for the urgency of our request. Once our time was set, we had two days to waste taking in the city's abundant marketplace.

[Balcoth sifts through the various options for magic items that grant flight. The Carpet of Flying is very tempting at that price, particularly since the carpet has an unlimited flight duration, however, when in use, it can be targetted by attacks, and you'd never want to risk something that valuable being destroyed in combat - particularly when it could result in large amounts of falling damage. In D&D 3.5, all the other flight items have been changed from their long (typically unlimited) durations to much more limited periods. The Broom of Flying (which sounds fruity, but it does fly into your hand on command from up to 100 feet away) lasts for 9 hours, but seems dubious as a mobility item for a melee character and costs 17000. The Wings of Flying (actually a cape) from 3rd Edition is no longer available, and the Cloak of the Bat sucks now, having both a limited duration, and functioning only at night. Eventually, Balcoth settled on the Boots of Flying after all. For 16000, they are usable 3 times per day for only 5 minutes each time, but they function as the Fly spell rather than the slower Overland Flight used by Carpets, Brooms and Verian Seth. As such, they really are the best option for fighting flying enemies.]

So we showed up two days later for our appointment with Dom Arod, the head of the Colledge (and de-facto ruler of the city), recently returned from business far away.

We progressed through the colledge, up a seemingly interminable staircase, where at one point we felt an odd sensation (recognizable only because we'd done it a few times) of being transported to a different plane of existance. Sure enough, the Unseen Servant we had been following was left behind, and we were met by a new one, which we could tell only because it bore a different sign, simply saying "Follow me". There was no obvious change in the environment except for Omit's extreme sense of uneasyness, which indicated (to those characters with the appropriate knowledge skills, Omit and Verian) this to be a plane strongly aligned with the universal forces of Order and Law. We followed the stairs to the top, where they opened into a hemispherical room multiple football-fields in diametre, then headed to the only obvious focal point, a large desk some hundred feet away with Dom Arod and some others gathered around.

We delivered the letter (which we were sent out with back when we were about level 7), and chatted with the Dom, a gnomish local (in heavy, clockwork-adorned plate armor), and 07 (yes, that's pronounced 'Zero-Seven'), a representative of the system that rules the plane of Mechanus, which is where we now were. So our investigation of an interruption in the regular trade caravans led us to the Clockwork Nexus, which sounds a little ludicrous, but actually makes sense looking back at some things we had encountered on the way. All in all, we had some good interesting revelations and roleplaying, which would of course come across as boring here. Suffice to say, the Dom was thankful for our delivery, and though he is very concerned by the cessation of the trade caravans, he has many even greater concerns, but would be happy to grant us any assistance we need in furthering our investigations. Azheron thought of something clever (and conveniently missing from my notes) for which he was rewarded with 50 bonus XP, and Verian (with some difficulty) managed to extract a little useful information from 07, despite significant barriers created by its programming.

Anyhow, Dom Arod escorter us back to the world we started on, in the Prime Material Plane, and offered us various assistance for the final leg of our journey, most prominantly, the service of an old friend of his to speed us on our journey.

Verian and Omit exchange glances, obviously thrilled to have the opportunity to deal with an intelligent item, and apparently one with an elevated Ego score at that.

Carpet accepts the total, and Balcoth (somewhat uncharacteristicly) relents, paying off the uppity upholstry with a 100gp gemstone. Sepathula complains about the cut, but accepts the gem citing that the size is adequate. Balcoth couldn't stop, actually, and made several more comments which any reasonable person would have ignored, but which of course risked offending the over-proud Sepathula. Verian suggested the use of the spell Silence, "except that it's banned." The Dom, however, wisely placated and dismissed the snobbish shag before any further offense could occur. We had a day to prepare and had recieved a good sum of money as well (held for us by the Dom, but actually from another NPC we saved some time ago). So we went shopping for some last-minute stuff.

We sort out the properties of a Spined shield and how much more it costs than a regular +1 Large Shield, and GM approves it. Effectively, Balcoth will still have a +1 Animated shield as before, but now it can fire spines as a 1d10+1 ranged attack 3 times per day.

After much disgruntled muttering, the players get back to spending... Somehow we got on the subject of buying a tent.

The next day, we show up at the colledge, and are greeted by some of Dom Arod's men, who clothe us in extravagant finery worth over 1000gp per person (except for Omit, whose 7000 gp basic black hooded "look I'm a thief" fashion statement is apparently the finest backalley burglar garb ever produced by couturiers). Verian seemed happy with his, complementing the carpet's fashion sense, since his kept with his primarily red colour scheme, but Balcoth seemed less than thrilled with the 'regal purple' clothes he was issued. In fact, Verian Seth remained extremely polite and cordial around Sepathula, and the rest of the party found it difficult to listen to his "caving in", though it was probably saving them a lot of problems later on. Balcoth could not help but notice that the gem he had paid the other day (in "restitution"), having been only slightly re-cut, was now sewn in amongst the other gems around the edge of the strong-willed 10' by 10' flying carpet.

We flew for some time over the desert. The trip was estimated to take about 3 days at Sepathula's speed - not blazingly fast, but ceaseless, travelling on through the night without any pause...

We flew for some time over the desert. The trip was estimated to take about 3 days at Sepathula's speed - not blazingly fast, but ceaseless, travelling on through the night, and pausing during the day only for the brief rest stops needed by the party.

Actually, before the end of the session we entered a combat situation, but we had to quit about 1/3 of the way through the fight, and this report's taken me too long already. You'll have to wait till next week to find out...

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Excerpt #9

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts from Saturday D&D sessions. I think the notes were better this session... since they took up one-and-a-half full sheets of paper, rather than the usual one-and-a-half SIDES of a single sheet. Let's see if this translates into a more interesting account or not:

If you recall, I cut off the last report just before an encounter, because we didn't get too far into that encounter before it was time to leave. So, I resume where I left off, still the previous week, still flying across the countryside on the self-aware magic carpet, Sepathula.

Something of a guessing game ensued, regarding the possible identity of the shadowy creature. Suggestions included a Roc (an incredibly large predatory bird), a tyrannosaurus on a glider, Batman, Robin, and a Space Shuttle, although the last suggestion was discounted because, obviously, a descending shuttle's thermal tiles would glow red with a luminous intensity.

In actuality, Omit and Verian Seth already knew what it was, simply by comparing the known features (huge, dark, winged) with our current level, an adjustment because GM rarely pits us against even CR [Challeng Rating] fights, and their virtual "lists" of the most obnoxious enemies in the core books. This had no impact on their initial actions, however.

With the enemies far out of range of the PCs abilities right now, particularly with the visibility limitations (Darkvision is usually only 60 feet, and without a good light source, Low-light vision is mostly useless), the others "ready actions against approach", and basically do nothing. Not that they have much choice, under the circumstances. The carpet is descending quite rapidly, but the enemy appears to fly even faster.

This is a reference to a previous campaign in which he cast Finger of Death (this same spell) at Verian's character on two separate occasions. Verian managed to survive both, despite having only a 50% chance to make each of those fortitude saves. This situation was a little different, however, since Verian Seth (the current character, Elan and master of psionics) had very powerful resources available to ensure that he did not fail a saving throw. Nevertheless, as flying solo had made him quite a target, he got his ass back on the carpet right away.

The carpet had been flying pretty high up, and its descent actually lasted several rounds, despite descending at a rate of about 160 feet per 6-second round. There was a lot of tension amonsgt the players, not just in-character. Though demonstrably faster, the Nightwing simply matched speed, keeping safely out-of-range, while bombarding the heroes with first a Greater Dispelling (area version, cancelling some of the party's buff spells) and then an Unholy Blight spell (to minimal effect). GM accidently let slip that there was 3 smaller forms descending as well, although we shouldn't be able to make them out from that far away. The instant we landed (catching up with Omit, who had maintained an altitude of 100 feet below us until stopping himself just 10 feet off the ground), the Nightwing hit us with a Confusion spell. Azheron, Balcoth, Omit and even Donner saved easily...

Balcoth (if you remember, he was stuck controlling the NPC cleric for that session - a task that he didn't like, but he took it seriously nonetheless) looked frantically through the gnome's spell-list but found him to be sadly devoid of countermeasures with which to un-Confuse Verian [Ed: a failure on my part, since I picked the cleric's default memorizations], and in the end he tried to blast the Nightwing with Searing Light, a potent anti-undead evocation, particularly since Nightwings are weak against daylight, but unfortunately we found out that the hench-cleric, being two levels lower than the Player characters, turned out to have very little chance of affecting this powerful enemy (which was actually 2 levels ABOVE the party according to its CR). This is about where we were forced to break off that session due to time.

Next session we picked up where we left off... but first:

By now, GM has no doubt calculated what Omit didn't really think about; namely, that Omit isn't actually all that far from his hastily made up goal: he could already reliably hit a man-sized (albeit utterly defenceless - AC 10) target at his maximum 1800 foot range. Not even remotely useful against the calibre of enemies we deal with (most of which are AC 27-32), but scary. Its impossible for us to tell if Omits off-hand (and fairly sarcastic) answer had any effect on the following:

This pronouncement created some interest. Initial reactions: Balcoth, having no speed boosting items or powers, simply relying on the innate Dwarf power to carry heavy loads and wear heavy armor without the usual speed penalty (an ability which was introduced in 3.5 to compensate for dwarves' low base movement), didn't seem all that interested. Azheron, whose new character features Boots of Striding and Springing (+10 movement) and is heavily concentrated on maximized mobility, looked somewhat distressed. Omit (one of the few people who viewed the movement bonus from his Boots of Speed as more valuable than the additional haste attack) appeared ashen-faced. Verian looked lost in thought, but judging by the way he was glancing back and forth between Omit and Azheron, he was just waiting to see who exploded first.

This comment drew a more significant reaction from Balcoth, who although personally unaffected (he wasn't going to outrun anything at his dwarven speed of 20), suddenly saw a great matter of principle, because not matter how much he dislikes standing and holding off massive beasts while the more pansy-ish characters run around and slowly annoy his enemies to death, Balcoth still holds to the principle of the heroic "tank"-fighter. It matters to him that if the worst happens, and there is ABSOLUTELY no way out, that he could tie-up the enemy long enough for those pansies to escape before he died, and that they would survive to return and avenge his honorable (absolutely-and-utterly-last-ditch, only-if-there-was-no-other-option -possible) sacrifice. Even Azheron, who had been looking at the change mostly from the narrower aspect of his reduction of combat mobility, appeared not to have considered the greater ramification that all battles were now literally "to-the-death".

At this point, Omit excused (recused?) himself from the room, to go to the washroom... or kitchen... or somewhere to steam about Change-that-negatively-impacts-his-character #0734-02A, and thus to restrain himself from shouting out NEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRF! at the top of the lungs (or whatever it is he yells when he loses his restraint. We don't know because he doesn't usually lose his restraint).

GM quizzes Balcoth (and one more question to Verian) about what interesting fights we remembered, and in what fights Balcoth had personally turned the tide where another arcane caster like Verian Seth would not have (technically Verian is psionic, not arcane, but the effect is similar: a fragile guy who uses spells to defend himself and blow up monsters). Now, there have been many (much complained about) battles where Balcoth has been butt useless - any strong melee character is pretty useless when we start 400 feet away from two powerful casters using long-range spells in a huge subjective-gravity room, on the Astral Plane (where they can cast one spell each round as a free action at no extra cost). But that wasn't the question, and we also came up with numerous battles where Balcoth's ability to "tank" an extremely deadly enemy kept us all alive and where some extra nuking capacity would NOT have done the trick, plus a couple of battles where the enemies were so magic-resistant that Verian's powers and Omit's scrolls and wands were entirely useless, and it was primarily Balcoth's axe that saw us through. Anyway, Omit finally comes back, still not looking too happy.

Omit still seems a little shaken up about the whole thing, but we have to move on, continuing from where we left off in the battle started the previous week...

GM recounts the map squares himself, and curses silently to himself. It should be noted that GM does NOT take back his monster's movement (which now appears to have been slightly off) even though it could easily have landed 5-feet over and hit everyone with it's damage spell. GM virtually never takes back any actions, even when he makes a mistake, whereas he is far more lenient with the players' take-backs, IF no more than one action has passed in between, and he even (most of the time) gives players a skill check to change their mind if they decide to do something which their character should know to be stupid (like forgetting which energy types Devils are immune to and wasting a high level spell).

Although certain that his interpretation of the rules is correct, Azheron accepts GM's ruling because he's the GM, and also because the spell is really stupid if it works the other way. But it pains him, because "casting Darkness lets you see" is one of his favorite factoids.

This report is getting long, but I don't want to split it and get another week behind my notes, so here are the highlights:

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Excerpt #10

Here is another in my series of brief excerpts from Saturday D&D sessions. When my notes are sparse like this I usually end up having to do a little more paraphrasing, and if I paraphrase I tend to go for the funnier version of the responses. However, I try very hard not to change the *intention* of what people said (or at least my perception of what their intention was), and when I do make such a mistake, believe me, I hear about it...

Last week, we the players defeated the undead Nightwing and Shadows. There was no treasure, but they managed to rest successfully afterwards. Technically, after that battle, we continued on to the deserted Dwarf stronghold that our kingdom had lost contact with, and encountered a Lich (powerful spellcastor-turn-undead) and some armored mummies and didn't have enough time for the fight. But now it's INTERROGATION time!

There were definitely some strong feelings about, Heironium, the cleric Omit complained about in the first of these D&D posts. GM was not so thrilled, since the cleric was on our side, and was simply being roleplayed by GM. As a preachy priest trying to recruit followers for his deity. Balcoth seconded the motion.

Whether intended by GM or not, this is regarded as an assinine question by most of the players, along the lines of "Hey buddy, died yet today?" Azheron doesn't know what to say, but Omit generously supplies an answer.

So we get back to the battle. It was kindof funny when Omit got to control the cleric and tried to blow up one of the mummies with the spell Searing Light:

I'm sure everyone can see where this is going... obviously, it transitions into a discussion about the Mandarin. I feel that perhaps I've been remiss in not recording many of our off-topic interruptions, so here's an example:

It's possible that Lex Luther could afford a boat or two for the League. Anyhow, getting back on track (as we eventually did), examining our surroundings there were a couple doors and a long spiral stair (ramp actually) heading down. Concerned about the possibility of enemies lurking down the way, Verian suggested that we loose the mine cart (a heavy metal cart apparently hauled up and down the shaft with heavy chains) to clear off any enemies lurking below out of sight. It was pointed out that this maneuver, in addition to not being all that bright, was very random and altogether out-of-character for the ever-lawful Verian Seth. But we did it anyway.

So after Balcoth 'harvested' the chains (to add to his collection, in case we need them), we took the stair down for over an hour, passing and smashing a few skeletal miners as we went, finally coming out in a massive network of mine tunnels. We picked a path and headed down it (for lack of better direction), until Omit pointed out that an ancient dwarven civilization, mining down here for many centuries, the tunnels probably extend for dozens of miles with hundreds of forks, and that exploring at random would take eons. So we trudged all the way back up the stair to check the other doors, while Verian began trying to think of a question with which to cast a Divination (without getting screwed).

Of the other doors, one contained some wounded dwarves, who we were forced to take into our care... unconscious, they could tell us nothing, and would need a couple days recovery before they could. The other contained a volcanic furnace setup used for blacksmithing, populated by two Azers. For anyone who doesn't know, Azers are stocky humanoids from the Elemental Plane of Fire (or some subplane thereof), who look like their heads and torsoes are just a big flame. These particular ones were easily as dumb as their appearance suggests. We could find no trace of magical memory modification, but we were pretty certain that some brain damage or some condition related to planar binding was preventing them from knowing anything except how to smelt ore mindlessly. They didn't know their own names or the definitions of basic words, even though Omit spoke their language (Ignan) fluently. With Verian losing his mind trying (for half an hour, at least) to come up with a question that would not fail to divine the correct direction, Donner had one choice piece of advice for exploring the mines:

At that point we called it a night.

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