S&W Castle of the Mad Archmage: Comedy of Errors

We started off looking for potions. Didn’t see any. Went down the stairs this time, then wandered down a slope. Kicking in a door gave us another hallway, but the other direction led to four giant scorpions. Killing them netted over 2,047 gp, and four pieces of jewelry (250 gp each, for 1,000).


Continuing on, Peter cleverly finds a pit trap by falling into it. Shortly thereafter, we get totally ganked by a bunch of giant apes. Mirado hits one for tiny damage, then two apes rock Rul’s world for 19 HP total, bringing him down to 18 HP. That’s the most damage that’s been inflicted by anyone in one shot since we started. Ouch.

Minister of the God of Quantum 1’s casts some sort of illusion spell, making it seem like the floor opens up beneath the apes. Three of them freak out, the other doesn’t.

Rul gets a critical hit on the ape that’s not flailing around in terror, doing 15 HP of damage. Take that, bite boy. He goes down, and Rul’s cleave does 10 HP on another one, but not dead. We finish up the apes, and Rul gets hit again in the meantime, bringing him down to 10 of 37 HP.

An extra healing potion and two Cure Light Wounds spells later, Rul’s back to 36, which is nice, but significantly depleted.

We kick down another door, and find a makeshift evil shrine. Minister manages to make a Quantum 20 save roll, and we decide we’ve got a shrine to Mephistopheles. Bad smelling evil incense? We decide we’re in Colorado.

Mirado sneakily prances up to the door on the other side of the room in his nancy-boy Boots of Elvenkind, and listens carefully. There’s definitely noise and chanting. Maybe only one voice.

“I think we should interrupt his chanting with an arrow in the back of his head.” We like that plan. We quietly open the door, then rush through. The door itself was not stuck, we throw themselves through the door. Mirado burst through the door, Rul comes up and looses an arrow into his back, which hits.

He’s shrieking in Hobgoblin, and we lose initiative. Mirado, flying through the door, lands at the feet of the shaman . . . his muscles stiffen for a half-second, then loosen as he makes his saving throw. Rul has him eat another arrow, but he’s still up, having absorbed 15 HP thus far. Minister whiffs with his magic dagger. Mirado drops him. Rul guards the hallway, while Mirado and Minister loot the room.

He’s got a well-made morningstar, and a small hidden chest with 112 platinum pieces. 


We send Ogre-boy with his quiet shoes up ahead; and we see stairs up. Lots more stairs around here, all going up. We come to a door, which, and an opening to the north where we see light from a fire and hear hobgoblin voices.

We toss the severed hobgoblin shaman head into the big room, then retreat to a defensible position. The GM hits us with an “are you sure?” moment. He’s probably just messing with us.

The room is huge. At least 40×40. With passageways. And a porticullis, and . . . finally we get told that the Very Large Room is guarded by five hobgoblin soldiers, and a dozen women, children, and other more passive soldiers. This is like hobgoblin Grand Central Station or something. YMHA or something.

The hobgoblins are armed with swords and composite bows; no slouches. And we smell apes too, but don’t see them. We decide to leave the area. Only three of us, and a hard fight with uncertain reward. We spike the door shut and find hopefully greener pastures.

We head down alternate corridors until we find a bunch of doors. We don’t do much subtle, so we kick down the door. Even though it’s slightly ajar. Lots of scrolls in here – Minister is completely interested. He opens a scroll, and a D&D Dire Bookworm, which eats magical scrolls and spellbooks, is in the scroll case. Lots of destroyed scrolls; a Detect Magic spell finds no magical scrolls, but the morningstar detects as magical. It’s a +1 Morningstar, so 2d4+1. Better than his mace.

We kick down yet another door, and find nearly a dozen or so lizard men. Rul greets them with an arrow and our battle-cry, which we decide is Par-laaaaayyy!! which we, as uneducated folks, figure means “wer’e going to kick your ass.”

Minister tries out his new flail, and rolls a natural 20.

Guess it’s a keeper.

11 HP of damage later, we kill one, and Minster scores a cleave. Doesn’t drop him. So we killed one on the surprise round. Mirado wades in and attacks the one I hit with an arrow. Kills two, wounds another. Rul hits, does 10 HP, and he’s still up. Tough.

The various lizard men use their longswords on us. Seven attacks on the three of us later, they all miss. They win initiative the next round, hitting Mirado for 7 HP total.

Our turn. Mirado kills one, wounds one, which Rul kills. Minister misses again. He must have used up his 20 on his first attack. We figure the morningstar’s empty.

We win initative again. Mirado kills one, misses. Rul hits but doesn’t finish him, but Minister does, and does 5 HP on his cleave.

At this point a door opens up and two large lizard-men come out with tridents. Followed by a lizard man in plate armor.

“Treasure!” shouts Mirado.

Minister is hit by one of them for 5 HP; he’s down to 9 HP.

The skrugs turn to attack, and miss. The enemies are intelligent; the king attacks Mirado, in plate dual-wielding a magic sword and an ogre head.

They whiff. Badly.

Our turn. Peter nails and kills a wounded scrub. He cleaves through to the Captain, but only does 4 HP of damage.Rul hits but doesn’t kill a scrub. Minister hits his hard, but he’s still up.

Peter’s rolling badly, so we lose initiative again. The two scrubs, two lieutentants, and the captain. Two misses on Rul, Minister gets hit twice for 11 HP total, putting him down. Ouch.

The captain hits Mirado, and knocks him for 11 HP. Not too shabby.

Rul kills his scrub and lightly wounds the lieutenant facing him. We win initiative this time. and Mirado hits his guy for 7 HP, Rul hits his for 8 HP. We’re down two captain, two lieutenants, and one scrub. The scrub and lieutenant treat the captain – Mirado fight as a single combat. They pile on Rul, hitting for 8 HP. Not too bad.

Mirado is still dueling the chief, and misses AC 18. Rul hits a scrub, downing him. He needs a 16 to hit the two lieutenants threatening him, and misses.  Rul takes one point of damage from the two foes.

We continue to roll well for initiative, and attack first again. Peter hits the chief for 6 hp, killing him. Rul kills one and finishes off his foes.

We heal up Minister. The chief’s longsword is magical (+1, +2 vs mammals). The captain’s room has 5,617 sp and 2,166 gp, and a bundle of 14 gems, at about 120 gp per gem (1680 gp).

We decide we have about one reasonable encounter left in us.

We decide discretion is the better part of valor. We depart.

Total haul is 8,014 gp worth of cash and jewels, a magical longsword, and a magical morningstart. Not

Exploration and combat is 4,270 XP, 2,680 for the gold.

So Rul’s at 27, 658 XP total, still 4,342 shy of 6th level. Minister levels up (yay) in Cleric. So now he’s 4th/4th in Cleric and MU, each. Yay, hit points. And spells.