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video of the physics experiment discussed above... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2A9MEQyi2U

Joining us for this session: Jackie, an elf, who has been in the boat all along.

The Crab-vs-Zombie battle: blending in with the zeds, the Crows watch as the Pcs approach with their army of crabs. As the
crabs meet the zombies in battle, the Crows flee in their skiff to a safe distance to watch; the PCs see the Crows fleeing but decline to chase.

The zeds defeated, the crabs victorious, the PCs gather the crabs and lead them upriver to the area of the buried golden heaven-ship. Around the large rock outcropping upriver floats some bits of crab shell not yet washed away. Realizing they have to sleep, they being to circle the spot of the boat's burial, sleeping in shifts, avoiding the crabs who endlessly pursue. During their circling Chad sees a floating crystal of ambergris some yards off. He brings the boat over, reaches for the crystal, and is snagged by a 3-meter pike waiting underwater. Unconscious, he is almost dragged from the boat if not for Roger grabbing him. The party flees from the pike who relents given the encroaching crabs.

During second shift, Sigourney hears an approaching Golem. She independently makes the decision to have the (sleeping) party abandon its position, and its crab army. They float downriver, through the (cleaned out, due to zombification) town of Pollengum, back down to Carrowmore.

In Carrowmore Snail-Shell Zarathustra, a hearty captain of 30, has brought some civilization back to the town. He gladly welcomes the party, and has his ship's doctor attend to wounded Chad. Interrogating the party, Zarathustra pays them 500sp for their knowledge of the river, and furthermore, offers them a position as guides. They accept.

Two days pass and Chad is fully healed. They party guides the ship and its crew upriver. The lungfish which guard the initial fork in the river are unable to climb the steep walls of SSZ's ship. They head up past Pollengum village, and find that they must breach the golem's scratch-built dam to pass. The party, "guides", advise against this. The ship heads back downriver to the fork, and camps for the night.

Up the other side of the fork, the party sees a few sights that they advise the captain to ignore: a house-sized horeshoe crab*, a strange log with several people frozen upon it, and a tree of knotted bodies, some of which are apparently undead. They come across a sight no one can ignore: a golem stands in the center of the river, unmoving. To pass it, the large ship would have to basically scrape the side of the creature. No one wants to do that, so the party is sent in their skiff to investigate.

The party discusses several tactics and settles on pretending to talk to the golem. The come up close and wave at it as if to dialogue; however, their foolery attracts the golem's attention! It begins to walk towards the party's skiff. The party flees downriver, as it passes SSZ they tell him that they've successfully dialogued with the golem, it's going to be friends! SSZ calls for his men, "to arms!", unfooled.

The party escapes the ensuing battle wherein the golem destroys SSZ's ship from below using his drill-hand. Sailors leap overboard. The party departs from view.

The party in their regained skiff (it was carried on ZSS's ship) goes back up the river on the other side of the fork, past the golem's scratch-built dam, to the buried heaven boat. Finally having all the tools they need, they set up a pulley system to dredge the ship.

This pulley system seems physically dubious to me, so we draw a real tub of water, manufacture a boat w/ pulley, and sink a buddha statue to test out the physics. Pulling on a thread that runs over the boat (a bowl)'s pulley (a carved carrot) to the buddha, my friends are able to draw the sunk statue out of the tub. So I rule that the plan works with the heaven-ship too.

Unfortunately, as they draw the heaven-ship on to the rock outcropping, and see the treasure's value and beauty, a huge crab falls out of the sky and crushes half the party to death. Jackie and Sigourney are able to jump off the rock in time. It seems a Roc uses this rock to crack the shell of giant crabs. The roc feasts on its exploded prey as the remaining party members recover their skiff. The heaven-ship slips off the rock back into the muck.

This was one of those "lamentations" moments. I felt pretty bad.

The party retreats to Carrowmore. Many mercenaries have arrived in the flooded town. New party members are recruited. Large buoyant barrels are obtained. One new party member, Eddy, decides to start killing people and harvesting their bladders. Having succeeded on one poor soul's life, Eddy is rebuffed by Sigourney when he offers the dead man's organ. Rejected, Eddy makes plans to burn the entire inn full of mercenaries as the session ends.

*Roger attempts to draw the Horsehoe Crab in a chase similar to the crab army's, but SSZ declines.

COMMENTARY:

I had some wandering monster rolls that actually came up with monsters this time, thus the horsehoe crabs, several of the golems, the pike that almost killed Chad. The Crows have by this time breached the dam, using the crabs that the party abandoned as a means to take down a golem. probably.

Given the amount of days that have passed, the Crows have probably or are about to make away with their book of Psychology.

So from this point forward, the adventure is going to be about dealing with the profusion of mercenaries that have arrived at the Drowned Lands. Maybe the lands will become less drowned over time. The Observatory is still (mostly) unexplored.

The giant crab killing half the party: pretty much a huge "fuck you" but I think a fair one, it's pretty funny I think, it'll probably seem that way among everyone sooner or later

DEEP CARBON OBSERVATORY SESSION 2

First off I had to decide what the Crows did. Essentially: They captured Pollengum village and turned everyone in it into a zombie. This zombie hoard would guard the town which would be their base. Morning of Day 2: the Crows send Zolushika Von Der Linth (for complicated logistical reasons) with a boat of zombies and one bound child to scout upriver.

..After encountering the giant Platypus upriver and losing a zombie to it, Zolushika lays a trap at the river crossroads: the bound infant is tied to a pole above knee-high water. Beneath the water lay the four remaining zombies of the boat. At anyone's approach, the zombies would stand and attack. Also of note is that Ghar Zaghoun of the Crows has induced an eye hemorrage in the bound child which due to magic will allow Ghar to see through the child's eyes using a small mirror.

Zolushika heads back to Pollengum village to report on the Platypus; to defeat it, the Crows will move the entire zombie hoard to confront it, and will reestablish a base at the Platypus's former home. Because zombies are slow in flooded silt, this operation will take 12 hours to complete.

..the cast of players starting in the second session:..

M. plays Sigourney Weaver, a 1st level specialist.
A. plays Cha Male, a 1st level cleric, with two dogs.
R. plays Chad, a 1st level fighter.

..the actions of the players starting dawn of day 2:..

The players wake up on the hill of farm animals and wolves and attempt to escape the squid ceaselessly circling the island. The players, first, tie a rope to their skiff. Then, they fish and hook the squid using a rope, a dagger, and some eel meat as bait. They have tied the line to their skiff; as a result, the skiff is pulled off the hill and begins circling the island with the squid. They are also mostly in the skiff while this happens; Sigourney Weaver, a specialist, ends up in the water, but quickly climbs aboard.

The party's boat is immediately attacked by the squid; Cha Male's two dogs are both captured by tentacles. Cha Male suicidally jumps overboard to rescue her dogs. Sigourney jumps ship too to go back to the island and Chad stays aboard. After a short battle the squid claims Cha Male's life.

Chad steers the boat to beach. He and Sigourney attempt to pull the boat inland so that the squid will be beached as well. However the squid successfully pulls the boat back in the water, with Sigourney inside.

Chad swims back to the boat, but the squid is waiting. Attacked by the squid, Chad wrestles with it underwater. Flayed nearly to death, he manages to climb back aboard with Sigourney's help. The squid satiated with 2 dog corpses and Cha Male, begins to idly tow the boat again.

At this point a bushwacking halfling by the name of Glipna arrives. She advises the party to flee their skiff to her canoe. Chad and Sigourney instead cut ties with the squid and the new party escapes the scene.

Glipna attempts to organize the villagers of nearby Pollencrum (not Pollengum, which is on the other branch of the river) to send out hunting parties for food; Chad and Glipna investigate the Golem who is slowly tearing Pollencrum apart. The Golem is apparently trying to build a dam upriver; there is a lot of difficulty among the players and I in describing what a partially working dam in a flooded area would actually look like.

Chad and Sigourney head further upriver past the dam and the nonhostile golem while Glipna hunts fish with a recruit from Pollencrum. Chad and Sigourney discover Zolushika's trap, and fall into it. They approach the bound child by skiff and four zombies stand up out of the murky water around them! Luckily they are able to escape, and in fact lead the zombies off into the river (zombies are slow). They decline to rescue the child, however.

Chad and Sigourney head further upriver and meet the hostile giant Platypus. They flee, and come back downriver to find Glipna, who has not successfully caught anything yet. They all head back upriver, and find Pollencrum attacked by the four zombies from earlier, who must have swum downstream! Glipna attempts to engage the zombies and loses her life as they grapple and bite her.

Fleeing the scene, our heroes head upriver again, giving the Platypus a wide berth this time. They come across the source of the murky smoke which they have seen emanating  upriver this whole adventure: a crypt on some small dry land. Entering they find a father and daughter burning scrolls to survive, along with a Fighter named Roger who holds the family under the iron grip of his violent abuse. None present are able to detect the magical nature of the scrolls, and only two of these scrolls are left.

The party rescues Roger and the father and daughter onto their skiff, and see nearby two more children floating on a grey log. Rescuing these children as well, Sigourney notices that the log is no log at all, but a curiously floating grey length of stone. Briefly taking it aboard they clear off the mud to see that it is indeed an ancient sarcophagus. Wanting no truck with such devilry they dump the anomaly off the ship.

Continuing upriver, Chad spots a gleam of gold under the water. Diving to investigate, Roger sees that there is apparently a large golden statue of some kind almost completely buried under the river's silt riverbed. Unable to clear away the silt faster than the river renews it, the party uses a nearby above-water outcropping to try to pull the statue up; they are unable to do so by their strength alone.

The party hatches a plan; to recover this treasure, they will build a pulley system using the central gear of the windmill they passed yesterday. Returning to the windmill, and giving both the Platypus and the zombie-attacked Pollecrum village a wide berth, they see that the crab-sieged windmill has been overtaken. Large meter-wide white crabs are fighting with each other to climb into the windmill's small above-water window, some are inside already. The woman formerly defending the structure is gone.

After some experimentation, which involves the shameful death of one of the rescued children, the party is able to lure the majority of the crabs away from the windmill using the second rescued child as bait, dragging her behind the skiff. As the skiff is faster than the crabs, the party is able to drop off Roger who climbs the windmill (after some trouble- he finds his weight is enough to pull down the windmill's arm which he has grappled onto).

Inside the windmill's window Roger espies the large metal gear they need along with a scene of bestial horror: 13 white child-sized crabs amok among the destroyed bloody remains of many humans. Unable to get to the gear without crossing the floor of crabs Roger instead uses one of the two scrolls he recovered to set a fire in a crack of the wall of the wooden windmill.

Fleeing before the main mass of crabs returns, Roger quickly climbs aboard the skiff which picks him up. Continuing to circle the windmill, the party watches the structure burn along with the crustaceans and corpses in it, as a team of 87 white crabs follows the party's skiff in an infinite loop.

After some hours pass the party skims by the burned windmill to pick up the needed large metal gear along with some roasted crab which they use to feed the hungry father and daughter.

Bearing in mind the utility of the "army of crabs" following their boat, they slowly (crabs move as fast as a man can walk in silt) head back to Pollengum village, intending to use the "crab army" to defeat the giant Platypus. They swap the role of bait between the remaining sarcophagus-child and the father, who bravely volunteers in stead of his daughter.

When they get to Pollengum village, they discover that the villagers have managed to kill the zombies but not without some potentially infected injuries. Saying better safe than sorry, the party feeds the remaining survivors of the village to the encroaching crabs.

By this time the Crows have succeeded in moving their zombie-hoard-base to the site of the platypus, who likely fled. The session ends as night begins to fall; unbeknownst to either the players or the Crows, an immense battle of zombies vs. crabs is undoubtedly in store.

Player deaths: 2

Commentary:

Everything is working out grand. One important thing to note: the player deaths which occurred happened "fairly", Cha Male was suicidal in her squid-wrestling intentions, and Glibna definitely overestimated the challenge 4 zombies posed. There was a close save too: Chad managed to escape from the squid's grasp at 2hp. Sigourney, unharmed, has apparently has learned how to evade death well.

The idea of clever solutions and large scale power levers like the "Crab army" are well represented in this session. It is even good that the windmill/crab solution seemed plausible; I demanded that it was.

I'm not holding back on the players: the Crow's plan was the most tactical I could come up with, squid/crabs/zombies dealt full damage and used full attacks.

Some criticism: Deep Carbon Observatory's maps do a bad job of representing what water levels are like. This is critical information for understanding the terrain of the game, where everything is flooded. The biggest flaw cropping up today was the golem scratch-build dam, which seemed to pose a difficult visualization problem: how do you imagine a dam which blocks some water, if the area behind it is still flooded? What shape is that?

I'm also worried about the area behind the dam proper which isn't exactly well described. Moreover, the larger geography of the maps: are the vague lines to the left and the right of the rivercrawl map the coastline? Also, the larger geography of the plateau: is it surrounded by a mountain ridge or something?

I'm also confused about what the exit from the top of the dam looks like.

The criticisms of the maps are an old criticism of the module though. Things have worked out well by using the vague orientation of the river for my players. I think that the approach to and through the dam will also make sense.

It seems like the approach of "throw 1st level PCs at an adventure full of powerful monsters" is working well. have to say being very clear about imminent dangers, and about the expectations of this kind of game, is probably the most important factor, after finding players who actually want to do this kind of thing.

BETTER THAN ANY MAN, EXCEPT THE SWEDISH ARMY IS REPLACED WITH "A HORDE OF ZOMBIES" AND ALSO KARLSTADT = VORNHEIM

The PC's walk in on the left side of the map, get ambushed + killed by a pack of ghouls.

New PC's walkin on the right side of the map, meet the Glass Tiger, the PCs decide to wrestle and tame the Tiger. They manage to wrestle and pin the Tiger and bind it with rope, incredibly enough.

They bring the Glass Tiger to the refugee camp, and try to leverage their way into the city. This ends up in a riot and a duel between the Tiger and a PC which ends in the PC's death. There's also a lot of random refugee killing.

After all that, with a new PC, the players go looking for a smuggler's tunnel they heard about. In the process they link up with a gang called "The Bandits" or "The P.I.'s" and after some shenanigans they end up at the Abandoned Farmhouse, which in my version of BTAM, is the terminus for the smuggler's tunnel into the city. After some more shenanigans involving fake zombies (particularly appropriate because of the encroaching zombie hoard) they link up with the OTHER gang hiding in the farmhouse. That's where the session ends.

Player deaths: 4 total

Death Frost Doom part 2
----------------------------

Ok, I drank a glass of whiskey before. They went back to the dungeon, I took the effort to keep track of time with the torches, that was a good move, because they had to pay attention to how much fuel they had, and that was a constant source of tension.

Basically they explored the empty rooms, took the cursed dagger and necklace, didn't touch the organ. I made a mistake: the hanging skulls aren't supposed to have teeth, but I forgot that, so they used a hanging skull's tooth to open the door. They take the flesh golem book, the eyepiece, decide not to explore the crypts, mess around with the Eye of Many Eyes. New magic user decides to take coins, welches on the con 4 penalty after I tell him they're copper coins.

Then they get to the vine room, which I'm a little too tired to describe properly, but I show everyone the included picture. They attack the vine, but flee before it can damage them. End of session.

Notes: shouldn't drink b4 games, fucked up that they got thru that door without giving up a tooth. But this was a real good session.

Good things:
- drawing the map with a magic marker, new room by new room, not to scale, on a larger poster board as they explored:: best way to map I've used so far.
- keeping track of the torch timer and the rations is paying off well, it's a source of tension to go up the mountain. Practically though I haven't found a good way to make sure they're keeping track of encumbrance. For torches I mark 10 min increments off on the map, and for rations I tell them to mark it off on their sheet. Also keeping track of encumbrance means referring to a confusing table I have to distill down more I guess.
(Like maybe I just say, anytime I want I can say "give me your character sheet!" and I'll tell you slow you are, so make sure to not have too much stuff)

THE TOWER (by j. raggi, from The original DFD publication)

One shot with a man named D.

D. plays a pregenerated specialist, who has received the map + key to the Tower. D goes to the vale, sees the weary guardian, attempts to sing lullabies and make a bed for this guardian to go to sleep. Reaction roll says this does not work. Eventually, D. sets up a grappling hook, swings it up to the window at the top of the tower.

However, the guardian takes notice of this, plods over to the rope. D. flees, eventually is able to sneak back to the tower and climb up the rope into the window. Note this is a case where I'm giving the player the "benefit" of the doubt, bcuz I'm assuming the window isn't within sight of the guardian.

At the top of the tower, the magical darkness prevents D. from seeing inside, even with a torch and sunlight reflected from a mirror. D. goes inside, puts his whole weight in, takes damage from the sharp stuff on the floor, falls in, takes more damage, goes unconscious, presumably dies.

D. next plays a Magic-User who subsequently finds the same key + map. This time, D. uses unseen servant to distract the guardian, gets inside. He listens to the statues, leaves all his weapons, puts on the robes, gets past the guardians, goes up to the fourth floor. He clears the glass from the floor, checks behind the curtain, finds the bones, finds the bone dust, examines the carvings on the sarcophagus, then opens the sarcophagus, gets killed by the wight inside who wins surprise + initiative. THE END.

THOUGHTS: I didn't plan to run this, D. was just sleeping over so we ran it. Took about 30-40 mins and I served breadsticks. The impromptu nature and one-shot made the essential fuckery aspect of this adventure not so bad. Plus D. is a man of good humor.

DEATH FROST DOOM
(original edition)

Specialist kills Zeke, decides they're gonna use his body as rations. Drag his body up the mountain. Have the insight to sleep below the freeze line, suffer no ill nightmares.

Go up to summit, find dead climber. Specialist begins pushing over grave markers. Go inside cabin, find painting, harpsichord, climber's stuff, lotus powder. Specialist snorts lotus powder, begins thinking everyone else is lying. They find the book, open up the trapdoor. End of session.

Next session, Cleric drops down only torch down trapdoor, it goes out. He climbs down to get it. In the dark he touches his hand to the ground, immediate screaming begins. He get spooked climbs back up. Specialist is still drug-hazy so they go back down the mountain to camp (3 hours to below freeze line).

At base camp Specialist eats part of Zeke's body, which has gone bad. Loses 5 Con & 1 Dex temporarily. They decide to go back down the mountain to buy more rations + recover. At nearest town, a day's travel away, they buy rations. Specialist decides to steal rations.

Specialist decides to kill town guards and rob town landlord. First guard sees him sneak up, Guard raises alarm, starts combat. Specialist heavily damaged by guard, manages to scare Guard away with crossbow bolt wound, chases guard and kills with a crossbow bolt. Steals + hides Guard's things.

Town in alarm, Specialist turns self in, essentially, trying to trick the Landlord into consuming the locust powder. This plan doesn't work. Specialist is executed the following morning, other party members flee, go to next town over (Carrowmore, dumb of me to put it here considering potential future zombie spread).

At next town over they buy more rations, I have to explain encumbrance system. They recruit a new party member, a Magic-User, the sister of the dead Specialist. End of session.

NOTES:
Keeping track of time + Making people use rations --> limited adventure days--> making people keep track of encumbrance (because they want  to bring a bunch of rations) ---->> ??

Keeping NPC interactions simple and deadly: pretty good.

Should teach players the encumbrance system so they can keep track of it.

A lot of nickle and diming this session... seems sorta like I'm being an asshole, but there's good reasons for it...

ALSO the wizard killed the Three Vampire Knights by casting "hallucinatory terrain" to create a landscape with a rising sun which Ihad no choice but to rule as Daylight

Everyone freaked out this session and killed a lot of clergy (Not inside the maze)

BACK TO THE FUTURE: A 8TH LEVEL MOTBM REPORT***
>LICH ENCOUNTERED... DEFEATED???
>CHAMELEONS STOMPED, TEAPOTS SUBDUED
>CHASED OFF BY MAGIC-RESISTANT MUMMIES... UNFAIR??
>TERRIBLE JOKES... A "LAVA DOG"

So back to the 8th level PCs... they're stomping around the archive, which due to the (now retconned) actions of the 1st levelers, is full of ANGRY mummies who are all coming off a "sleeping chime" high.
The thing is mummies are resistant to all but magical attacks & so this's a general issue for our fighter who doesn't feel physically enabled, they get chomped by some bites
The chameleon ladies/man don't stand a chance though... many teapots are destroyed.

THEN COMES THE GOOD PART: DRACO SCABRIUS, THE LAUGHING LICH intervenes when the PC's try & pull up the "Emperor Rose"... summons floor marbles which give everyone reflex saves (vs. paralysis) or u fall _everytime you move_... many laughs...

The thing is with Draco that I can't rip out good puns so I do an anti-humor thing which is neatly counteracted by the ACTUAL puns that Our Players can do, thus Draco is beaten to a pulp with nary a PC slain... much action occurs around the EMPEROR ROSE which enables some strange mid-battle fighting over a Charmed PC.

Suffice to say Draco teleports out of there with 3hp left and they consider it a victory. Lava Dog, aka A Crack Beast, latches on to the fighter in a way that is perfect and adorable and also sinister! Good touch by me, Patrick Stuart for writing this, i.e. the crack cocaine reference. Makes me wonder who smokes crack in the lives of the author.

8TH LEVEL PCS CONTINUE TO "STOMP", EVEN OVERCOMING A LICH... HOWYAVER, PERSISTENT DIFFICULTIES I.E. WITH "IMMUNE TO NORMAL WEAPONS" MONSTERS TENDS TO BE AN ISSUE... POSSIBLY ONE OF THEM WILL DIE, I SURE HOPE SO?? 'KILLLER DM' MODE ON, COME AT ME HATERS!!!

part II

all the Oku are totally dead
while the Sphere buzzes the last surviving PC skins the bear and wears it as a coat
more PC renewals later and they're setting off giant Chalcedony balls which roll thru the Archive
destroying important artifacts and walls as they go
at this stage we're at full Time Paradox
b.c as you see in Session Two a later group of PCs investigates the Archive *after* the earlier Session Three group destroys much of it
annnyywayyy b.c. of the third Orb of Dangerous Spells they're all invisible and can do whatever they want
they destroy some needlebirds and set things on fire
they get to look at the Nyctocaust Memorial using a clever turn of the rules
because light held by Invisible people doesn't show up for noninvisible folks their light source does not destroy the Memorial
I give them the 'ol razzle dazzle re: destroyed lizard empires
that's it

conclusions:
>Third Session 1st level pc's, although experiencing like four or five deaths, made it out with a lot of treasure
>8th Level PCs are perhaps too powerful
>Mapping using index cards as per Zak's method works really well, I can quickly jot down
>LOTFP manages to be fun! The maze manages to be fun!

This module is Maze of the Blue Medusa!

Also, idk, I think my relationship to player frustration is pretty odd. First off, there's the plausible deniability that the text gives me. It's a thing that Chronia's Tears of Time can reverse past events. Chronia is also in love with the Medusa. Thus if she sees that the maze is falling apart, draws the logical conclusion that the Medusa has been killed, it follows that she might use the Tears to reverse the Blue Medusa's death.

Using this logic behind the curtain where the players can't see it has the advantage that, when the players do realize that the Medusa isn't dead, and after I reassure them that the time when they killed the Medusa is still canon, they will be curious about why the Medusa is still alive.

The other advantage is that I'm deepening the story between the Medusa and Chronia, should that ever come to light, wherein it's probably the case that Chronia has kept The Medusa alive unnaturally long using this technique. This is probably why Chronia is so valuable, because she can keep empires alive.

THE DISADVANTAGE is that because the players don't have a credible means to negotiate the maze (combat ability) they're never gonna find out about any of this so it's just gonna seem like a dumb trick. But against this logic is player ingenuity itself.

I'd also say keeping a lot if information in your back pocket is o.k., because it gives you something to reveal to the players; a hidden drama in the folds of the dungeon. They'll have something to explore! And in any case, I'm hoping that giving everyone like 8th level PC's will solve the combat ability issue.