Play report: OSE Session 1 (Tomb of the Serpent Kings)

4^th day of the first month of spring, Year of the Rat

Tomb of the Serpent Kings, ran with OSE, using the Death & Dismemberment Table from Skerples' GLOG hack.

Player characters:

Pier, Magic-User

Jessica, Thief

Priest, Cleric

The adventurers, lured by the prospect of buried riches, followed a map bought by Priest from an old wanderer and ventured a day’s travel distance from the town of Tor's Field, into the hilly wilderness to the Northeast.

They arrived in the early evening. Upon entering the dungeon’s corridor, they investigated the first room to the right. The party huddled around a clay statue depicting a snake-man. Priest decided to do what came naturally to him, as an Iconoclastic zealot, and promptly smashed the monstrous image with his warhammer. As they were placed around pretty tightly, none escaped the toxic poison gas exploding from within. Pier became sickly from the toxin. Jessica, however, was hit hardest – the poison ravaged her body, her left leg and right eye became numb and useless. 

(I made the mistake of having the trap deal lethal damage, which, according to the module - "can only reduce a PC to 0 HP". Anyway the party was not very cautious, despite being warned about the lethality of old-school play - they previously played D&D 3.5 and the related Mangoose Publishing d20 Conan RPG (they were reminded of the Hyborian setting right off the bat with the snake theme))

The party brought her out and stabilized her. Afterwards, Priest scoured the remains, recovering a golden amulet and smashing the skeletal remains within the pile. They decided to hole up in the chamber to spend the next day to recuperate, after gathering enough firewood to keep them with ample light and warmth, and scattering dry wood around the corridor to warn them of anyone who might be approaching. They discuss whether to cut off Jessica’s numb leg, which remained useless, making it necessary for the party to assist her in movement, but decide against it.

The next day (evening) they cursorily investigated the other rooms branching from the corridor and approached the Sorcerer’s Tomb, containing another clay statue with the image of a snake-man sorcerer. Priest wanted to pry off a silver ring from the figure’s finger. Wary of poison gas, he carefully used a crowbar to remove the item, whilst being tied with a rope and held by the others to pull him out at the first sign of poison gas. They succeeded.

After that they used a sling to destroy the statues in the remaining two rooms, removing their amulets and smashing the snake-men bones within. Moving on to the barred door at the end of the corridor, when they figured two of them weren’t strong enough to lift the stone bar blocking the entrance, they decided to move it sideways. After the bar moved past one of the iron pegs on which it rested, it clicked and moved upwards. Upon noticing that, they ran away immediately. Causing the bar to partly fall to the side. However it still partly weighted down on the other peg, so the hammer trap hiding in the ceiling remained unsprung. Then they tied a rope to the bar and working in unison, pulled it off the peg from a safe distance. Activating the hammer trap and smashing the stone door. 

(Nearly avoiding death seemed to teach them some caution, at least)

They entered a large chamber  with another three clay statues to the North, an exit to the South, and piles of rotten grave goods in the middle. After having the limping Jessica check the walls of the room, they pierced the leftmost statue with a sling shot. A skeletal hand appeared in the hole. When they enlarged the hole with another shot, a skeletal Snakeoid head emerged, which was quickly blown off with Pier’s magic missile spell, the skeleton still pursued them, however, but they managed to quickly defeat it. It yielded them no treasure.

After that they went back to the chamber they spent the last day in, and slept the night, enabling Pier to regenerate his spell. They moved on to smash the rightmost statue. The emerging skeleton was promptly turned by Priest’s holy symbol. The skeleton escaped deeper into the tomb. The party heard various loud and intriguing sounds from the direction it went and decided to follow it, ignoring the remaining middle coffin.

(I was surprised they disturbed the second skeleton, seeing as the first one gave them no treasure, and thought that it was the "fight everything" 3.5 mentality - later they commented that they did not want it to rise behind them, giving them trouble later - why leave the third one then? Anyway, this is where a small weakness of the module arised - the upper levels of the Tomb have no wandering monsters, enabling the players to just regenerate their spells after each encounter (the dreaded "15minute workday"), I did roll for wilderness encounters - a creature might wander in through the entrance, but it's only a 1-in-6 chance per day so it did not end up changing anything. A group using rules where the spell regenerate between adventures or only in town would not have this problem however.)

The next small room had a statue of a horrid snake-man god and a hole in the floor, eroded by flowing water. They investigated the statue and the hole, tied a rope to the statue and ventured down.

"giant statue of a hideous snake-man god, resembling a cross between a toad, a heap of intestines,
and a melted candle."

The corridor below was filled with six statues of snake-men warriors, upon noticing that one of them was out of alignment, they moved it so that it stood straight. When that did nothing, they moved it back the way it was, but no further, then abandoned it and moved on.

The corridor led to an octagonal chamber with a black pond in the middle, and a stone door on each wall, except the SE one, that had a wooden door, and the SW one, that had an open corridor. Each of the doors had a pair of snake-men statues on each side, each wielding various instruments of war, torture, agriculture or science. They diligently noted what each of the statues was holding and Pier threw a dagger into the pond (from a safe distance), figuring that one of the statues held a dagger, perhaps throwing a dagger would cause the stone door next to it to open.

(They were convinced the various implements held by the statue were the key to some sort of a puzzle, they wrote down each one of them - they are not described in detail in the module, so I made them up.)

When Priest approached the pond, a mummified hand crawled out of it, but was immediately smashed by Priest’s hammer. However, a second hand emerged from the pond and scratched his leg, before being zapped by Pier’s magic missile. While they were trying to patch-up bleeding and screaming Priest, the turned skeletal snake-man crawled out of the pond and escaped to the SW corridor.

They did not manage to stabilize Priest, he bled out from his leg and died. Jessica and Pier took some of his equipment, including the silver ring and golden amulet, then threw his body into the pond. They were disappointed that this “sacrifice” did not cause any of the doors (which they did not investigate, even cursorily) to open.

Priest’s body was thrown into the pond still bearing his: backpack, waterskin, tinderbox, rations, holy symbol, 12 torches, oil, hammer, dagger, sling, leather armor, 20 pieces of gold, and notably, the map that led them to the dungeon. 

Jessica and Pier decide to return to town. The journey lasts notably longer due to Jessica’s limp. On their way they meet an Acolyte (random encounter), lost in the woods after avoiding a marauding tribe of troglodytes. They talk with him a bit, but remain suspicious.

Finally they reach the town of Tor's Field. Jessica buys a salve to treat her leg, paying with one of the golden amulets, but sees no immediate improvement. Pier makes use of a bathhouse, then leaves the remaining amulets and silver ring to the local wizard, Antymon, to identify whether they are magical. The wizard can keep one of the amulets as payment for the service. The turns out to be magical, the amulets, not.

They wait in town until Pier’s sickness comes to an end. Jessica puts on the silver ring, her finger becomes longer, her nail turns into a bifurcated claw. She is unable to remove the ring. At that moment, Jessica has a blind right eye, numb left leg and a double-clawed right ring finger (cool). The next day they recruit a fighter found in a dark alley, he calls himself Swordsman. While they are talking, the ring’s poison takes effect, inflicting damage on Jessica. She panics and demand Swordsman to quickly cut off the finger, he obliges. While she is suffering from the poison and bleeding from the amputation, Pier and Swordsman prove unable to stabilize her, made worse by the fact that they spent one round on cutting the finger off. Jessica dies. Pier and Swordsman take all her stuff and leave her dead in the dark alley where she bled out.

They attempt to sell the silver ring to dwarven cloth merchants staying at the local tavern, but they’re not happy with the price offered. Swordsman takes the ring to Antymon and manages to sell it, after divulging the magical properties of the cursed ring, that he himself was witness to.

They find the Acolyte that they met earlier to join them on an adventure for their next venture into the Tomb. His name is Bogumił. They also talk with the innkeeper and tell him they are looking for strong young men to hire for their next venture into the dungeon. He tells them to meet up with him in the evening, for he knows two likely volunteers.

Pier visits the bathhouse again, while Swordsman stays at the tavern. Swordsman is approached by five men-at-arms and brought to the local Horka (baron). He is interrogated on the dead girl and answers truthfully, that the death was not his doing, but caused by a cursed ring. However, he admitted to taking Jessica’s belongings, and during interrogation mentioned that he is not a Christian. 

(Instead of making up new religions or anologous to real-life ones, I'm simply using Christianity as the main religion in my setting.)

He is disarmed, stripped naked, and brought to a dungeon. Meanwhile Pier returns to the tavern, and after learning from the innkeeper that Swordsman was taken by the Horka’s men, goes to the noble’s residence, where he is also promptly arrested, tied, interrogated (he corroborates the Swordsman’s story), then stripped naked and imprisoned.

After an undisclosed period of time, Swordsman is brought out and offered baptism, to which he agrees. He is baptized, then brought back to the dungeon. Both characters are taken to the Horka, he states that the local wizard Antymon confirmed what they said about the cursed ring. However, for the crime of robbing a dead person, they are sentenced to have both their hands cut off and then lashed 50 times.

Pier perished during the lashing.

Swordsman perished during the amputation, then was lashed post-mortem.

(Swordsman's/Priest's player seemed eager to test his ground and see how much he would be allowed to do without consequences - whether the PCs will be protected by the GM and so on - he did not seem to be happy with the results - and stated that he will not continue playing in the subsequent sessions.)

Bogumił, not knowing the way to the Tomb, as all the adventurers who have ventured there ended up dead, and not having a map (which was left with Priest’s body), decides to forego adventuring, for now.

Entries into the Book of the Dead:

†Priest, killed by a demonic hand in the Serpent Tomb.

†Jessica, perished from poison and blood loss in a dark alley of Tor's Field

†Pier, perished whilst being lashed for robbing a deceased person

†Swordsman, perished while having his hands amputated for robbing a deceased person