The Keep on Yeoldelands – Session 81 – There Could Have Been Snakes

Reprieve from Castle Amber shenanigans.

Expedition 52a

23 Nov 2023

Alfredward (Dwarf 5) and Baldwin (Knight 1)
Koko (Cleric 5)
Mandras (Dwarf 4)
Rarder Brete (Fighter 6) and Konrad Claver (Cleric 3)

Leaving their mercenaries behind in Ximes to enjoy the week’s worth of accommodation paid for, the party left the city and ventured into the wild woods. Following the road, they came across a figure sat leaning against a tree, their head cowled and a hand outstretched. Baldwin, an Averoigne local with limited adventuring experience, quickly handed the figure a gold coin and urged the party along. As they went past, he found a vague memory bubbling up to the forefront of his mind indicating that it be a good idea to search for ‘the fifth level’.

Eventually they came across a small pyramid in the middle of a marshy clearing in the woods. Cautiously entering, they came into a room with three tall statues, atop wide pillars, of a bearded lightning-wielder, a sun-clutching cherub and a wheat-bearing female warrior. While most of the party loitered in the doorway, Alfredward poked around the pillars, dropping through a trapdoor into a room teeming with large fire beetles.

Several colleagues leapt down the hole to his aid and they cleared the room. Determined to find a way further down they began exploring the corridors, cutting their way through some giant salamanders and rodents and turning back only when they could make out voices on the other side of a door, seeking instead a stairwell of some sorts. Coming across a sizeable room, probably the former quarters of a head priest, with a corpse in the middle covered in swellings, they backtracked again a tried a small side door to reveal stairs leading down further into the darkness. They descended.

GM Notes

I’d inserted B4 The Lost City into the Averoigne section when expanding upon the Castle Amber framework, only to find out that one player had already played through it in its entirety, and another had read through it at some point in the past. They’ve declared they’ll take a backseat approach to decision making and largely contribute to hitting things, so it will be interesting to see how it affects the adventuring dynamic. I had already modified some of the module to account for a different aesthetic, but may take a few steps ahead to alter some more structural elements to maintain an element of discovery for all concerned. Can’t be quite as much fun going through a whole play session knowing what’s coming.