Tag: Temple of Orcus

The Lost Temple of Orcus

After defeating its denizens, destroying its altars, and consecrating the complex with a
powerful ritual, the party has conquered what once was an ancient temple to Orcus which
had lain mostly forgotten beneath the Bad Water / Fargum’s Well neighborhood of
Sanctuary.

The party is currently considering making the complex their future home base, or at least
occupying the lands above it.
 1. Well bottom / Octagonal Cavern (Entrance)
2. West Annex Ramp
3. Hall of Statues / Reception
4. Annex
5. Guard Room
6. Pool of Despair (Blood pool)
7. Small Altar Room / West Altar
8. Southwest Annex Ramp
9. Small Passageway / Storage Hall
10. Linen Storage
11. Armory
12. Northwest Annex Ramp
13. Main Foyer
14. Throne Room (some light entering from above)
15. Northeast Annex Ramp
16. Guard Room
17. Male Slave Quarters
18. Female Slave Quarters
19. East Annex Ramp
20. Eastern Threshold
21. East Altar Room
22. Ritual Storage
23. Ritual Storage
24. Intersection
25. Southeast Annex Ramp
26. High Priest’s Quarters
27. Archive and Scrying Room
28. Guard Room
29. South Annex Ramp
30. Main Ceremonial Chamber / Main Altar

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Neil Aitken / March 22, 2018 / Ruins / Temple of Orcus / Leave a comment

Episode 8: Rolling the Bones

Faced with one final room, the party gathered at the southern entrance and listened
intently to see if they could detect any creatures awaiting them on the other side. Not
hearing any movement, Dazz and Hulmer opened the door and found themselves
immediately confronted with what appeared to be a belligerent talking suit of armor who
called them intruders and infidels. When it chased them out of the room, it soon revealed
itself to be not one creature, but three: an angry sentient flameskull, a lumbering suit of
gleaming armor, and an animated ax.

Barely shutting the door in time, the party gathered their thoughts, healed themselves up,
and plotted a new plan of attack. This time, Dazz and Xan were sent to quietly sneak in
through the other entrance, while Hulmer, Myev, and the rest of the party sought to
distract the flameskull and its animated companions. Hulmer and Myev proved
particularly successful in drawing and holding the flameskull’s ire — and this gave the
party a welcome opening. Using Detect Magic and excellent perception, Dazz and Xan
were able to locate a hidden compartment in the central pillar of the room, all while
sneaking behind the flameskull. Inside the compartment was some sort of box containing
two gems and vial of dark liquid, overlaying a magical circuit, which appeared to be the
means by which the animated armor and ax were controlled.

While Dazz and Xan were conducting their investigation of the pillar and its contents,
Hulmer and Myev were busy fighting the animated armor, the ax, and the flameskull
which by now was aware of the other party members in the room. Soon the flying skull
was raining down fire upon the party, with a particular interest in Hulmer. Dazz
attempted to sneak attack the skull by leaping up and trying to stuff it into the bag of
holding while it was being restrained by Hulmer‘s ensnaring effect. Sadly this bit of
dramatic daring-do went completely wrong — Dazz wrong-footed the leap, missed the
skull completely, and thudded soundly into the wall. At this point the flameskull had
broken free, and now showered down more fire and pain from above.

Things were looking a bit wild and uncertain, but fortune smiled upon Myev at last and
she swung mightily at the skull and smashed it to pieces. As for the ax and the armor, Dazz
discovered when she put the control box into the bag of holding, they both stopped
moving — presumably because what they were supposed to protect was not within range
having disappeared into an inter-dimensional pocket. The bag also seemed a good place
to put the skull’s remains.

Hulmer was pleased that he did not have to destroy the magical armor — instead, he was
able to take it and don it as a replacement for his old battle-scarred armor. It became clear
that it had been enchanted to retain a perfect brightness that resisted rust, grime, and all
manner of decay.

Searching the rest of the room, the party found a fancy steel shield inlaid with gold and
onyx, depicting a tree. They also located +1 crossbow bolts (20), various bits and pieces of
weapons, and the dark gloomy helmet which made its wearer’s eyes glow a fiery red.

With their last foes vanquished and the final room looted, the party headed back to the
surface with a sense of urgency as they realized the flameskull’s powerful enchantment
meant that it would soon regenerate fully and be active again (albeit stuck inside of the
bag of holding). They rushed to the Temple of Boccob, and there enlisted the help of
Galdrin Goodtree, one of the temple’s senior priests, to trapped the flameskull in a circle of
protection before it fully reassembled. Seeking information about the temple, its original
occupants, and the skull’s former identity, the party and Galdrin pressed it for answers. As
it turned out, the flameskull seemed to be experiencing an existential crisis, not knowing
how to continue on, having no purpose now that it had been severed from the temple’s
ritual bonds and its former duties. It revealed that it had once been a wizard named
Thanadir, but over the long centuries of being trapped in the armory, the skull had lost
many of its memories and recalled only slivers of its former life and world.

With the assistance and encouragement of the party, the flameskull began considering
now options for its future. It confessed wanting to see more of the world, to be a part of
the city in some way, and seek out more knowledge having been lost and forgotten for
centuries beneath ground. It decided it would take on the name “Flanadir Flameskull” and
as a 5th level wizard, seek permission to register with the Adventurers’ Guild.

Satisfied that Flanadir’s aspirations for a new life were sincere, the party left him to his
thoughts and took counsel with Galdrin on other matters, namely on the possibility of the
priests of the Boccob to aid the party in interrogating some of Clarissa’s fallen party
members using the Speak with Dead ritual in order to solve an eight year old murder
mystery.
 Neil Aitken / February 28, 2018 / Episodes 01-10, Recaps / Boccob, Flameskull, Flanadir Flameskull,
Galdrin Goodtree, Interrogation, Temple of Boccob, Temple of Orcus / Leave a comment

Episode 7: Blood, Bones, and Pudding

Our heroes returned once more to vanquish the few remaining evils of the now broken
temple to Orcus. Door after door, the party pressed on, revealing the temples forgotten
secrets, discovering rooms where slaves were kept in chains, men separated from
women. In the far southeastern corner, they stumbled at last upon the high priest’s
chambers filled with furniture fashioned from the bones of the sacrificed slaves and
animals, and lined with dusty shelves heavy laden with scrolls and books that crumbled
upon touch. After searching the space carefully, the party found a secret compartment in
the stone floor which resisted efforts to pry it open. Combining keen eyes and sharp
intellects, the party located the locking mechanism, a set of carved bookends on one of the
shelves, and were able to remove the lid revealing a bag of carved jet eyes (presumably
for some of the animated dead and statues in the temple), a magical dagger which glows
in the moonlight, and a book of metal pages written in an unknown language, but
radiating a sense of evil.

After completing their search of the high priest’s room, the party pressed on and found
another large room which appeared to have once been an archive, but whose contents
had since been removed. A terrifying mural filled the ceiling, depicting Orcus’ future
conquest of all living beings. In the center of the room was a large indented pool where
all the blood would collect from the sacrifice altars. Seeing the chair placed before it and
considering its relationship to the altars and the missing archive, the party concluded that
this must have been used as a scrying room or for some sort of divination ritual.

Next, the party moved on to the western section of the temple where they had previous
fought a carrion crawler and had defeated zombies and a wight in order to rescue Petunia
(now Clarissa). After some debate, the party decided to open the door they had passed by
earlier in their explorations — a door which had radiated a strong sense of evil and dread.
When they stepped inside, they found themselves in a large room facing 4 skeletons and a
strange darkness that filled a sunken pool that they stood in front of. As the battle
commenced, the darkness in the pool rose as a foul-smelling and fearsome black blood
pudding. It was a hard fought battle. Dazz valiantly fought the skeletons, but soon found
the pudding too dangerous to engage in melee combat. Spiffy too was largely thwarted in
his attempts to combat the pudding. Hulmer and the new half-orc cleric Myev had to bear
the brunt of the attacks, although Myev found herself caught up the swirl of battle doing
more dancing then striking. Still, the party bravely fought and eventually as a team they
emerged victorious with the help of a few miraculous strikes and at the cost of the
durability of some of Hulmer’s armor and weapons.

The battle ended, the party continued their exploration, pushing through a narrow
passage that brought them through another set of storage areas and old vessels, and
landed them before a final door. What still awaits them in the final room of this temple?
And what will they do next when they leave?

Neil Aitken / February 23, 2018 / Episodes 01-10, Recaps / black blood pudding, skeletons, Temple of
Orcus / Leave a comment

Episode 6: To Dust Return

After a victorious smashing and rather improbably lucky escape from a collapsing 40 foot
tall statue of Orcus, the party took the opportunity to head back to their dorms, heal up,
and celebrate with numerous rounds of Dwarven Holy Spirits. Rinn set their escapades to
music and the party was indeed a rousing party. The party’s laughter and song were loud
enough to draw the attention of one of their neighbors, a socially awkward half-orc cleric
named Myev, who knocked on the door and promptly began to inadvertently insult or
offend each party member in turn (including Rinn, who she noted did an impressive job of
faking playing the lute since there’s no way he could do it with his paws), while asking if
she could join in the merry-making. Despite some initial misgivings, the party (perhaps
predisposed to taking in misfits and outcasts — or perhaps, more pragmatically, aware of
the need for a good healer), somehow found it in their hearts to make room for Myev.

The next morning, bright and early, the newly expanded party returned to the temple, but
this time even more prepared to face the vampire spawn awaiting in the throne room.
Shai and Rinn searched above ground for the opening into the throne room that Clarissa
had mentioned. After almost 40 minutes of searching, Rinn miraculously located the tiny
opening on the surface that sent light into the throne room below. The bard spent the
remainder of the hour breaking down a wall to ensure that the light could stay in the
room a few hours longer. Meanwhile back in the remains of main ceremonial room,
Hulmer performed the ritual (using the correct vial of baby’s breath) and was able to
finally break the desecrated ground curse thereby greatly reducing the taint of evil in the
area. The rest of the party searched through the rubble from the collapse of the giant
statue of Orcus and the walls that it smashed. Although they were largely unsuccessful in
their search, the statue’s pupils were discovered to be made of some sort of enchanted
onyx which burned exposed hands and flesh with icy necrotic fire. Dangerous stones, but
also very large and valuable.
After weakening the evil of the temple, the party finally approached the throne room.
Dazz, under the enchantment of an invisibility spell, slipped into the throne room while it
was still daylight and very stealthily (other than some awkward footwork on the altar)
managed to sneak all the way to the twin thrones at the front of the room where the
vampire spawn sat sleeping. With astonishingly good luck and remarkable courage, she
stabbed it with a stake through its heart instantly destroying it before it had a chance to
even register that its domain had been invaded. As the spawn shrieked and crumbled into
dust, two large unseen swarms of bats crashed to the ground dead from where they had
lain in wait in the shadows above, their bond with the creature severed. The party quickly
joined Dazz in the throne room, impressed and astonished at how quickly she dispatched
what could have been a very fearsome foe. After some searching, the remains of a jeweled
belt were found, and an underground river was discovered to lie beyond the far right
wall. The party concluded that when their explorations were done, they would flood the
entire temple and restore the well to working order.

Neil Aitken / February 8, 2018 / Episodes 01-10, Recaps / Lucky kill, New Party Member, Temple of
Orcus, Vampire Spawn / Leave a comment

Episode 4 – The Horns of Battle

Returning to the subterranean depths of the secret temple of Orcus, our intrepid party
made their way to the eastern altar room where they discovered their presence had been
noticed and heard two huge figures approaching, their towering skeletal forms
thundering and scraping through the north and south passages toward them. Dazz, who
had scouted ahead into the altar room, found herself cut off from the remainder of the
party who held their position at the room’s entrance using the stone doors as cover. The
minotaur skeleton guards advanced noisily, but slowly due to the fact they actually did not
fit well in these narrow halls. This provided the party with some important openings
which they took advantage of. Rinn, the lupine bard, tricked the minotaur skeletons, not
once, but twice into attacking each other by creating the image of Hulmer, the dwarf
paladin, on the back of the other skeleton. Dazz made use of her acrobatic skills to leap in,
attack while perched on the minotaur’s back, and then leap away.

While the battle raged, Xan discovered that someone new had followed the party down
into the temple — an attractive androgynous human who appeared to be another wizard
from the Arcane Academy, and who quickly offered their services in the fight. With their
new friend, Shai, the party fought on and ultimately defeated their formidable foes with
surprisingly few injuries. In the battle’s aftermath, Rinn and Dazz studied the minotaurs’
breastplates and discovered that the engraved symbols of Orcus they bore on their chests
with their gleaming eyes and glowing wands– were comprised of valuable gems that could
be pried out. The other ritual storage room was searched next and Xan found a strange
spellbook which seemed unaffected by the centuries, its contents apparently necromantic
in nature.

Once the eastern altar had been smashed, the party scouted ahead in both directions,
before settling on heading further south and west to an oddly shaped room from which a
number of short passages extended out, each ending in a set of doors. The temple has
returned to its eerie silence – no new noises have been heard. What lies beyond these
doors? Treasure? Traps? Mysterious artifacts? Demons? Ghouls? Or worse and far more
nefarious things? The party voted to leave the temple’s secrets to slumber a little longer,
while they returned to surface, pursued some further study and training, and readied
themselves for whatever remains to be face in the deep, dark places of this forgotten
realm.

Neil Aitken / January 20, 2018 / Episodes 01-10, Recaps / Minotaur Skeleton, New Party Member,
Sanctuary, Temple of Orcus, Undead / Leave a comment
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