Monteporte 46 – Celebration with the Disco Gnomes

We follow the underground pathway for a bit longer, and eventually come to a small building area known as Crossroads. We’re met by a gnome in armor, with a golem of some sort, 10′ tall or so. For moral support.  

They discover (because we tell them) that they’ve come home, to Crossroads. A celebration must ensue! 

They take us to their main city, PrinceTown, which +Ken H lovingly rendered in full detail. The primary city is under a large metal dome – defensible and artistic. It is smooth, with no visible seams or joins. It looks like one piece of steel. Each door can be seen opening and closing, but the doors themselves are quite thick, and seem to open themselves, automatically.

We had a party, and the mayor gave a speech. The Hobgoblins came, stole their friends, and these heroes, (for a healthy price), rescued them, yea ha! Bless this food, this gathering, and these heroes, etc. Amen.

+Daniel McEntee arrives. We tell him we’re at a Gnome feast. He asks if we’re on the menu. We say no, and continue.

We gain some knowledge about the map of the Gnome’s territories, a large land, and note that we came through Benn’s house. The map shows Benn’s House to Princetown, and that was about 94 squares. Um. Rough guess about 30 miles, making the extent of the Gnome lands about 10 miles by 6 miles. Making it larger than Rhode Island (kidding. Mostly.)

In any case, we gain knowledge abut the Dwarven Exploration, and the Gnomish History.

Summary of Dwarven Exploration Notes 

The dwarven engineers, builders and miners associated with the Elementalist Monastery left their
exploration notes with the gnomes. Here is the summary: 

1. The elementalist monastery is 5 levels deep. 
2. There have been at least two previous settlements of dwarves: 
• There are remnants of a dwarven city that lie below the fifth level of the elementalist
  monastery. There is no records of this in written dwarven history and the elves simply
  say that the dwarves were stupid to mine and build in such a cursed area. 
• There was a later influx of dwarves. They avoided the ruins of the dwarvish city and
  mined extensively throughout the area. They were a large but disorganized group,
  which many of them eventually ending up quite deep in the earth. They were able to
  mine significant amounts of gold and silver, but it was a dangerous place. The smart few
  left and most of the rest died. There is some belief that dwarves continued to migrate
  deeper and they are still down there somewhere. 
3. The dwarves involved with the elementalist monastery discovered a distant gold mine and, with
   the help of the gnomes, built wagons riding on metal rails to transport themselves and their
   gold. The elementalists discouraged this worldly pursuit of wealth, but some in the monastic
   order began to enrich themselves. 
4. The dwarves discovered several places that were created by outsiders. The first was an area of
   obelisks. The dwarves were banished from this area by the elementalists. Some dwarven
   explorers discovered an area with some of the outsider creatures in tanks near an ancient
   dwarven mining area. This was seen as a very dangerous area and the dwarves destroyed the
   ancient bridge that crossed the chasm, thus severing access from the elementalist monastery.

Summary of the Gnome Chronicles

The gnomes wrote a chronicle of their escape from the elementalist civil war. This is a summary: 

1. The human monks in the elementalist monastery fell apart into three factions. One faction had
   grown rich by stealing from the dwarven miners. Some within this faction fell into the practice of
   demon worship. A second group was enticed by the powerful magic left behind by the outsiders
   who had once inhabited this area. They used this power to bend the universe in unwholesome
   ways. They also became cannibals. A third group wanted to remain faithful to the elementalists’
   beliefs and practices. They were quickly wiped out, despite the capable leadership of Cassius. 
2. The dwarves and gnomes fought alongside Cassius. They were able to drive the demon
   worshippers off, chasing them to the dwarves’ ancient gold mining area many miles to the east
   of the monastery. 
3. The victory had weakened Cassius’ group. He released the gnomes and dwarves to flee for
   safety. Despite overwhelming odds, Cassius and his group was almost successful in their attack
   against the cannibal faction. The cannibals had progressed quickly in their knowledge of alien
   magic and with this magic they defeated Cassius and his followers. 
4. The gnomes fled through the ant colony to their garden area and then down. The dwarves
   helped them flee, but the dwarves were hunted down and eaten. The gnomes who were
   captured were sacrificed in a secret magic ritual known only to the cannibals. 
5. The gnomes descended deep into the earth until they found a large cave filled with a forest of
   mushrooms. They carved a small farming community at the western end of the forest. 
6. Sometime later, a group of stone giants, who also followed in the elementalist way, settled in
   the remaining portion of the forest. They and the gnomes developed an understanding that was
   to their mutual benefit.

The mayor notices that Duncan the Gnome has a hat that gives him a royal countenance. He doffs his hat and bows, revealing the crown of the gnomish king! General amazement ensues, and the gnomes ask if Duncan has returned to be king. 

The mayor leans in, and offers 10 gold bars as a reward for returning the gnomes, but he’ll personally double it if we leave and not come back.

“Oh, well, we didn’t have enemies until you guys showed up.”
“That you knew of. Your people were getting eaten.”
“We have strong allies in the Stone Giants. We give them food, they give us stoneware.”
“But they were eating your people.”
“We had no enemies until you guys showed up.”


I start to wonder if we’re going to have a re-run of “how many five-year-olds can you beat up?” Do you know how mayors and other politicians react when you threaten to take their power away?

Predictably. 

There are wood golems and guys in armor around too. The conversation starts to get heated, pointed, and Luven starts sizing up the opposition. There are about 25 gnomes in armor, in groups of 3, each with a construct per group. . 

Duncan offers that we can ask for the current offer plus a few constructs to help us remove the “menace” and ask if any young gnomes would like to enter service to “our royal self”

Duncan stands up, exposes his gnomish crown, and offers up a mighty speech. He totally nails his Charisma check, +2 for leading gnomes, as the gnomes rename the town Kingstown. The mayor takes off his sash, goes down on one knee, and offers up his sash to Duncan.

“OK, we’ll finish the feast and hold court in the morning! Where can we sleep?”
“Somewhere with really thick walls and squeaky floors,” says Nosphryc, sotto voce.

All hail King Duncan! And Queen Breena! (Wait, what? What about the bear!)

“Yay! We have a king! That’s come to stay with us! Forever.”

We keep expecting Ken to ask us all to roll up new characters. You didn’t get a TPK, it was a TPP – Total Party Politicization. Keeping the TP in politics, as if it needed the help. “If you have an election lasting more then four hours, you should seek Clerical help!”

Duncan decides to retire and become king! First time we have a mid-game character loss due to becoming royalty! He decides to make up a Eldritch Knight at 5th level.

“I want to go to the crappy town where I’m a hero.”  – Hoban Washburne

We each get 3,900 x.p for delivering the rescued gnomes…Duncan gains an extra 5,000 for becoming king
 Nosphryc is about 1200XP shy of next level; a T-shirt appears on the screen: