Death Frost Doom on the Borderlands, Part II:
We just finished the second (and final) session of Death Frost Doom. We decided to rewind the action a few moments and take it from there.
Character roster:
Alissa, 2nd level Lawful Cleric, player character
Derrick, 2nd level Chaotic Magic-User, henchman
Luke, 1st level Neutral Fighter, henchman
(3 hirelings previously deceased)
Exiting the temple, the party was shocked to find a torrent of crypt things hungry for living meats. Derrick hastily read his scroll of protection from undead, and the horde stopped just short of the party, furiously clawing at the unseen force holding them back.
Alissa ordered Derrick to remain in place holding the dead at bay while she and Luke investigated one of the side tunnels. As they headed down the passage, Luke reminded Alissa of the door next to the altar seen in the painting of the temple upstairs. They found the prayer room, and after Luke retrieved the eyepiece from Derrick, Alissa read aloud the engraving on the bronze plaque, and Luke commenced with attempting to tattoo the Dead Sign in the flesh of his arm. Alissa called out instructions to Derrick and pushed Luke into the hallway, where Derrick's sorcery left Luke lying in slumber. Alissa broke the inkpot, bent the needles, and roughly dragged Luke into the temple, with Derrick following.
Luke awoke disoriented, and Alissa explained what had transpired. Checking for any way to seal the temple off from the corridor, they found the shaft leading up at the doorway. Not wanting to part with their bulky armors and treasures to escape, they decided the shaft would be their last resort and continued to seek another exit. Derrick remained at the doorway to hold the dead back and keep the shaft accessible. Once again in possession of the eyepiece, he busied himself studying the Book of Unspeakable Shame and the Grimoire of Walking Flesh but failed to find any information of immediate value. Alissa and Luke set about tapping and probing the wall where the door had appeared in the painting, but could find no sign of it. Appraising the giant skeleton statue and thinking of the jawless skulls in the chapel, Alissa climbed the statue and found the jaw was hinged. Pulling on it resulted in a loud click from the wall next to the altar, and Luke confirmed the wall could now be moved with ease. Alissa yelled to Derrick and the party retreated through the door, dead flooding after them, filling the temple, piling up, many even plummeting into the pit. They closed and latched the door, and drove two spikes into it for good measure.
Wondering at their new situation, they tentatively investigated the side tunnel, and found the door of the Grand Inquisitor's Tomb. Hearing familiar scratching and pounding on the door, they declined to open it. However it did not sound like there were more than a couple of creatures on the other side, and based on their map the party suspected a way to the chapel might lay beyond.
Returning to the main passage and exploring further they found the door to the Mausoleum of the Guard. Luke opened the door and shone the lantern around seeing nothing but a plain sarcophagus with its lid askew. The party cautiously entered the mausoleum, and noticed a stair on the wall. Following it upward with the lantern light they were confronted with a grisly visage which leapt upon them. Its expression of hate briefly changed to confusion, then rage, as it belly flopped onto the protective radius of Derrick's magical barrier and slid to the floor. Confident and relieved, the party brashly insulted the dead thing while searching its sarcophagus for valuables before backing out of the mausoleum and barring the door.
Proceeding down the corridor they encountered the door to the Mausoleum of the Honored Sacrifice, which they declined to open in consideration of audible violence being performed upon the other side. Next finding the door to the Mausoleum of the Builder, Derrick placed and lit some incense in the censer over the door. Finding the censer performed adequately but unexceptionally, Luke chipped the paint from the edges of the door and opened it. Assessing the pyramid within, Luke cracked the glaze around the top section, looped a rope about it and affixed it with a spike, then retreated to join everyone just outside the door. With a mighty heave the top of the pyramid toppled off, releasing a chill mist of human shape which rushed at them, shrieking. With the enraged spirit stopped by Derrick's continuing mystical protection, the party barred the door.
Continuing onward, they opened the door to the Crypt of the Exalted Interrogator. Derrick stood on the threshold while Luke crossed the broken floor to reach the ornate sarcophagus. Intent upon the sarcophagus, no one noticed the chimney above it. Luke opened the sarcophagus to discover a tunnel within, and the floor behind him buckled and surged with the appearance of something trying to break free. Believing Derrick's continuing enchantment to be his only shield, Luke rushed around the side of the chamber to avoid the broken floor and leapt for the doorway. As his feet left the floor, a powerful arm thrust upward, clutching where he had just been. A powerful, frustrated bellow echoed up the tunnel from the sarcophagus as the party barred the door.
Hearing scratching and moaning from the door to the Crypt of the Blessed Blasphemer, the party continued on. They opened the door to the Mausoleum of the Ancient, observed the hazy mist, entered, observed the carving on the sarcophagus, and left, shutting the door. Proceeding to the end of the corridor, they observed the ancient bloodsoaked surfaces, and Derrick declined to share the carving on the wall with his companions after reading it with the eyepiece.
They decided to return to the temple and explore the first tunnel they had neglected. They found the two spikes had fallen to the floor, as the entire door to the temple was now giving an inch in its frame as the dead beyond continued to surge against it. They followed the tunnel to its end at a deep pit with a strange glowing pattern within. Someone read aloud the inscription on the wall and Luke rushed into the pit, saved at the last moment when Alissa lunged forward to grab his arm. Luke immediately regained his senses and was pulled up by Alissa and Derrick.
Determined to fight their way out, they returned to the Grand Inquisitor's Tomb. Unhappy to find the immediate area obscured with hazy mist, Luke prepared to unbar the door. They were surprised by a commanding voice behind them suggesting that would not be a good idea. They found themselves facing Cyris Maximus, and demanded to know who he was. Maximus introduced himself and demanded to know who the party was. After their inoffensive reply, Maximus informed they were out of options and must bargain with him for their lives. Alissa rudely declined but Maximus did not react as the party opened the door and found themselves facing the hungry corpse beyond. Blows were traded, and the unliving foe fell to axe and hammer without giving injury. Now able to clearly see within the tomb, the party was crestfallen to not find a passage beyond. Investigating the sarcophagus, Derrick retrieved a wooden box. Finding it locked, he pried it open with his dagger. As the lock gave, a needle sprang forth, but did not prick him. Inside he discovered a vial of liquid and a goblet.
Exiting the room, Maximus again confronted the party and repeated his offer. Again declined, he stepped aside and let them return deeper into the tombs area. Stopping at the entrance to the Mausoleum of the Honored Sacrifice, they opened the door and were confronted by dead outnumbering them. Battle ensued and Alissa suffered a deep wound to her shoulder. She attempted to turn the abominations confronting them, but the light that shone forth from her holy symbol died in the gloom of the ancient mausoleum. Their dead opponents cackled dryly, and the monster confronting Alissa dug deeper into her wound, extinguishing her life.
Maximus immediately commanded the dead to stop their assault. Even before Maximus could utter his command, Derrick, now free from Alissa's restraining presence, agreed to assist Maximus.
Maximus lead Derrick and Luke to the Crypt of the Blessed Blasphemer and they all swore oaths. Maximus waited while Derrick and Luke collected items of value both material and sentimental from Alissa and cremated her remains. Under direction from Maximus, they conveyed his coffin from the tombs to the cabin, then waited while the dead under his command overran the dead victims of the cult. The graveyard appeared as if turned by a great plow, and they observed a macabre battle of withered forms wrestling and clawing, endless rotten flesh torn and bitten, the snow littered with dismembered black limbs.
The opposition waning, they carried the coffin through the graveyard and down the mountain, passing the gnawed remains of both their mule and Zeke. Sometime after midnight they reached exhaustion and Derrick informed Maximus they must rest. Maximus gave them permission to rest as necessary, but no more. Cautioning them against breaking their oath, he dismissed the undead still following them, and retired to his coffin. The undead faded into the deep night and an exhausting sequence of forced marches and brief rests followed. On the second day they encountered a mounted patrol from the keep, but upon identifying themselves and claiming to carry Alissa's remains, they were allowed to continue on strength of their heroic reputation.
Coming within sight of the keep near dawn of the fourth day, six skeletal figures on winged skeletal horses descended from the sky. One of the riders gestured at the coffin and beckoned for it to be brought to them. Derrick was confused, so the ominous figure repeated its gestures. Derrick protested that he was oath bound to convey the coffin to the keep, but Maximus' muffled voice from within instructed him to give the coffin to the riders. Derrick was grief stricken, as he'd hoped to become Maximus' favorite minion. The riders left with the coffin, and Derrick and Luke returned to the keep.
At that point play transitioned from the module back to the regular campaign. The little retcon at the beginning of the session allowing the party to explore the side tunnel was agreed upon as we were both somewhat fatigued and befuddled as the previous session had wrapped up. I was fairly generous with rulings in the session, most of all with the effects of the protection from undead scroll. I felt this was fair given how dire the circumstances and the party not having much else going for them. The various evil compelling inscriptions did not make so much sense to write down with a single player. Instead, I told the player what the character with the eyepiece read, and then asked if they told the rest of the party what it said. In both cases of inscriptions read out loud, Luke failed his save, but the other characters were allowed opportunities to react, and the dice were with them as he dove into the pit. I was worried the party would jump at the chance to escape via the chimney and as a result not enter the greater tombs, but an unwillingness to part with equipment and treasure kept things interesting. Finding the secret door in the temple became frustrating. The characters knew it was there, but failed their rolls to find secret doors, and I had some difficulty improvising the nature of the door's secret. I liked the player's line of thinking regarding the jawbone, and made it so. Really, I was glad to have the party gain entrance to the greater tombs, and was not satisfied to have that thwarted by their inability to find their way in. The dead falling in the temple pit did not awake the giant as I have the pit eventually connecting with another dungeon instead of a nose. The player seemed somewhat grim and disheartened by the party's predicament, and the comic relief of the ambush in the mausoleum of the guard helped get things moving again.
I won't go too much into details about the ongoing campaign, but there will be consequences and they seem surprisingly unanticipated. Maximus will now have a presence, and its effects will be felt sooner or later. More importantly, no one at the keep realizes the party encountered anything more than a couple dozen zombies, and the party seems to have assumed an out of sight, out of mind disposition to the thousands of undead roaming the wilderness only several leagues to the north. Everyone will have an unpleasant surprise when the keep is surrounded by undead in maybe a week. On the character side of things, Derrick is now the PC and party leader. He is utterly depraved, foolishly rash, gleefully unsupervised, and yet for the moment has the trust of the keep's inhabitants. In the near future there will likely be more deaths within the keep than without. Discussing the module with the player, he enjoyed it but definitely wouldn't want to experience anything like it regularly. I shared with the player " . . . let's face it, how many characters will volunteer to go anywhere else they see the Dead Sign after the first encounter?" and he agreed his characters would never set foot in such a place again.