Rift City Campaign - 54-56 Lair of the Spider Demons

Background
A nostalgic dungeon delving Moldvay Basic D&D game which we have now been playing once a month for several years. It is an open table format with who ever turns up heading into the dungeon.  The game is currently socially distanced being playing using Discord.

Chapter 54 Jan 2022 - Finding a new cavern

Party: Inarra the Wizard, Gibbet the Thief, Fron the Elf, Halvor & Brigham Clerics.

Having returned from his religious convention Brigham once again joined the party.  We headed down the hill going past Salamander cave and on to a new frontier.  Finding a large arch further down the path our magical light illuminated passageways to the south and east.  Taking the lead Fron headed east to an iron door.  Listening with his mind (helm of telepathy) Halvor sensed animals behind the door.

Opening the door we were confronted by giant spider-like creatures.  Fearful of their venom Inarra chucked in a fireball and Fron finished off the lone survivor with a magic missile spell.  In the corner was a demonic idol and stacks of coin given in offerings (over 3500 gold in mixed coinage).  Gibbet prized out the gemstone eyes and then Halvor smashed the statue as part of cleansing these caverns of evil.

Leaving via an arch in the western wall we found this leading in an empty round room. As Fron stepped through the doorway she triggered a trap and was zapped with a bolt of lighting.  Gibbet attempted to disarm the trap.  Which was somewhat difficult as it was on the ceiling.  Good job we had a ladder in the bag of holding.  Fron also pinned the door open in case closing it would reset the trap.

Looking at the exits the door to the west was stuck.  Halvor and Fron kicked it so hard it fell off its hinges!  This led to another, almost identical, circular room.

Reaching out with his mind Halvor sensed another creature trying to hide nearby.  Moving around he determinded the location and we all headed through the northern door.

A large tapestry hung across the northern wall of this square room.  Pulling it down, and putting in the bag of holding, revealed another door.  Halvor sensed the creature thinking "I hope they take that and leave".  Knowing it was in the room he called out for the creature to reveal itself so we could talk.  

The party started searching the room trying to catch an invisible person.  After a couple of failed attempts we started using rope as a large skipping rope swinging it up and down between us in pairs.

Unable to escape the Goblin Wizard, for that was the invisible creature, started casting spells at us.  Brigham managed to avoid being turned into a bunny rabbit.  We battered at the Goblin with blades but his next spell was a fireball engulfing us all.  This proved fatal for Fron as well as the Goblin himself.

At this point Brigham was so taken with getting the ring of invisibility the Goblin had he forgot about having a raise dead spell.  This meant we burnt both the Elf and Goblin bodies to prevent more undead.

Behind the next door were the wizards pets.  A pair of large crocodiles waited for their master.  As we were all injured Halvor tossed sticks into the corridor uttering a small prayer to Yrt.  This time they turned into 20' long constrictor snakes and crushed the crocodiles.

Exhausted we staggered out of the cave and returned to the city.  With all four of the survivors now invisible (3 rings and a cloak) it was easy to evade any wondering monsters.  We then sold the gems and spent our new found wealth clearing out the shelves of the potion shop.

Chapter 55 Feb - Fireballs and Snakes win the day

Halvor, Inarra and Brigham returned to Lair of the Spider Demons this time accompanied by a new recruit - Ugli Grummpssen the Dwarf.  The three experienced adventurers were all invisible as they possessed early prototypes of the one ring.  

First we went south to make sure the passageway linked up with where we had battled the wizard a week ago.  Carrying on south we found a large circular chamber containing a giant scorpion, that Ugli chopped up.  Carrying on south we encountered a Hydra living in a small chamber surrounded by gold.

A fireball softened this monster up.  Halvor called upon Yrt, his god, and summoned snakes while Ugli and Brigham when in with weapons hacking the creature to bits in moments.  Despite the size of the creature it had been quite weak.  Perhaps from a earlier battle?

Trekking north we encountered another mercenary company resting up and recovering from battling the hydra.  Ugli said hello and when these men said they were impressed by us defeating the Hydra Inarra gave them a warm welcome with her second fireball - killing most of them.

The last two veterans charged in with swords attacking the Dwarf and Wizard.  Both quickly died to the poison bites of the pit vipers who were protecting them.  Halvor was most upset at the unprovoked attack.  Ugli agreed it was cowardly and said we should have challenged them first.

Returning to the scorpion lair Brigham found a secret door which lead to another circular chamber that was half covered with yellow mould.  We set this alight and headed home leaving it to burn.  Next time we can explore further.

Returning to the city Halvor detected magic on the loot we had found.  Ugli got the enchanted shield of the Hydra.  Inarra and Halvor each got a magical ring from the mercenaries.

Halvor put on his ring and instantly new it was a powerful ring of spell storing where as Inarra once again got a magic item she could not figure out what it did.  This added to the growing list of glowing junk she was carrying around.

 

 

Chapter 56 March - A Text Adventure!

Party: Ugli  the Dwarf; Brigham Cleric of U'ta (shining shield, invisible); Inarra the Wizard (invisible)  Halvor Cleric of Yrt (shining shield, invisible) 

Returning once more to the Lair of the Spider Demons this ended up being a bit of an odd session as the DM was suffering from Covid.  He wanted to run the game but was struggling to talk so it turned into an old style text adventure with typing out what happened.

In the large circular cavern [area 3] we encountered a wild man.  Halvor read his mind using his helm and found he was wanting to get us out of the way so he could do something with a bottle in the next chamber.  When we asked him about this he turned into a tiger and attacked! 

After he was dispatched we went east into the room and found the bottle (and a ring).  Ugli opened the bottle and released a magic user who had been trapped there.  Her name was Amay and she was wanting revenge on her husband.

Leaving her to rant we carried on searching for monsters but were struggling to find any.  Enter a new room to the west we found some demonic masks hanging on the wall.  Halvor tried to rip them down and set of a trap that lowered the room down a level.  After some work we managed to get the mechanism to reset and ascended back to our original position.

Deciding to give up on the cave and look for somewhere we headed out and saw three large snakes coming towards us.  Inarra quickly roasted them with a fireball. (phew snakes are deadly)

Game notes

In Lord of the Rings there is a single ring that turns the wearer invisible whereas in Rift City they seem rather common place.  After all we have found three thus far.  The joy of random treasure tables Sauron's ring and cursed shields are the most common items we have uncovered.

In the game we are using a house rule for the amount of XP given as an exploration bonus.  It is in fact the only reason we level up as about 80% of what we get is from exploring and only 5% from slaying stuff (the rest is from treasure).

Image Credits
Deviant art from javiergonzalezart.