by Michael Eckenfels, 18 June 2023
Champions of Krynn AAR: Part 9, The Boys (And Girls) Are Back In Town
We’re back in Throtl and are about as leveled up as we can be for a major confrontation. Or the next major confrontation in this path of heroism and looting and breaking and entering.
Since we just entered the main gates, turning west we can see a door far down the hall. That’s as good a place as any to start looking.
And it just happens to be the right direction.
Hahahahahaha
“Do we attack?”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Our Mage gets to act first. She casts Sleep on the cleric…but it doesn’t work.
The Cleric manages to get off a spell, but it doesn’t affect any of our characters (thank goodness!).
Smashen, our Fighter/Cleric, attempts to Turn and manages to do exactly that to ALL the undead accompanying this Evil Curate.
That’s two Zombies and about a half dozen Skeletons. Hardly a difficult fight, but seeing as how we’d have to hack our way through that wall of rotting bodies to get to the Evil Curate, that means he would have a chance to get lucky with some of his spells.
Fortunately, his little undead goon squad is done, so it’s a simple matter to surround and pummel him into oblivion.
We get a whole 57 XP each for this encounter, plus a Mace, Shield, and set of Chain Mail. I’ve no idea if any of it is magical or not, but just to keep track, I let Wynn shoulder this burden.
Besides the possessions, we find what the Evil Curate had tried to so quickly hide from us before the battle.
Since we know the secret area is in the northeast part of the map, we head over and start examining walls. We get ambushed by six Hobgoblins, but they’re not really worth going into detail on, encounter-wise, at this point. They be pushin’ up e-daisies right now.
It doesn’t take long before we find the wall that was mentioned earlier.
And so, we encamp, save, then proceed inside on a two one six. It’s hot in there, but at least it’s a dry heat.
Now that we’re here, I think we need to try to get right to the heart of things.
Check out the map to the right:
In that area bounded by the red box is where we are – the Throtl Temple. Which means the central part is probably where we’re wanting to go – which is right in front of us. So it’s just a matter of following the walls and hoping for as few encounters as possible so we can be at full strength going into this confrontation.
As we carefully make our way around this suspected central area, we find another secret door just to the west, connecting to Throtl. However, we ignore this for now, with our eye on the prize. Or at least, the prize for now.
Within a few steps, we find a door on the northern end of this central chamber. This must be the place.
Before going in, though, I’m going to have Kimjong, our Cleric/Ranger, cast Bless on the party.
We should take every advantage we have. I figure this is going to be a fight with lots of Clerics and probably more Black Robe Mages.
With that done, we attempt entry.
Go figure, they have the door locked.
That’s going to mean it’s so many matchsticks to our epic heroes! We BASH that thing right down.
Of course, this isn’t exactly subtle, but this is Gold Box D&D, man. We’re not going for subtlety here.
We end up being attacked by six Baaz Draconians.
The fight isn’t much of a fight. They fall quickly.
With that, we can turn our attention back to the little gathering to the south.
Heh-heh-heh. Boy are they in for a rude surprise.
Smashen took some damage in that Baaz fight, so I quickly Encamp and cast Cure Light Wounds from our various Clerics, which gets him back up to full HP quickly. I’m not willing to risk a Fix command nor a Rest here in the middle of Grand Central Cleric Station, so I skip that and just save the game before proceeding.
Soon, we can see the little evil altar in all its 1990 pixelated glory.
Uh-oh.
Cue the Benny Hill music…
And we are blamed for something we didn’t cause. Directly, anyway.
Could be you’re fooling with magic and power you can’t possibly comprehend, so it’s no wonder it blew up. This kind of thing is the D&D equivalent of “here, hold my ale, watch THIS.”
We’re facing five Baaz Draconians (which, when killed, can turn to stone and ‘capture’ your weapon), three Black Robe Mages, and three Evil Curates (Clerics).
That’s a LOT of bad guy spellcasters. I’m already girding myself for possibly having to reload to my saved game point.
Kimjong Unshot is selected to go first. I need to try to negate the spellcasters as quickly as possible; an arrow hit would stop one of them from casting this first round, but I have a better idea. Casting a Charm Person spell on one of the spellcasters is a good way to (a) take one of them out, not to mention (b) getting them on our side.
The only question is, do I try to Charm a Black Robe Mage or an Evil Curate?
I figure the Black Robe Mage might be an easier target, though I really do not know for sure. Regardless, the one Kimjong targets fails their Saving Throw and becomes our thrall. Hahahaha!
Izzie does her usual Yell to taunt the enemy, giving us a bit of a bonus and them a bit of a hindrance, as I described earlier.
Then, our Charmed Black Robe Mage gets in on the action.
That Charmed Mage decides to cast Charm Person on another Black Robe Mage, which is successful. Just like that, 2/3 of their Mages are on our side.
Unfortunately, one of their Evil Curates casts Hold Person on Izzie, which freezes her in place for the duration of the battle. We don’t have any Dispel Magic spells memorized, so Izzie is out for the encounter. We’ll see how it goes.
I have Waxhon cast Sleep, but it only affects one of the Evil Curates. I’m going to try to be safe and have our Mage later cast Stinking Cloud.
Once that hits, three of the four enemies within are taken out of the battle, and are easily dispatched. From this point, the battle is pretty much won.
Once that dust settles, more Baaz run in, but…
Welp. They run away to the “north and west,” which tells me we’re supposed to chase after them.
However, checking the full view of the game, I see three of our six heroes are due to level up. So, I think it’s prudent to end this chapter here so we can proceed back to the Outpost, level up, save, and return to search for wherever it is these bad guys ran off to. And also to just confirm with Sir Karl that this is indeed what we need to do, now.
End of Chapter 9
CHAMPIONS OF KRYNN AAR
PART ONE ~ PART TWO ~ PART THREE ~ PART FOUR ~ PART FIVE ~ PART SIX ~ PART SEVEN ~ PART EIGHT ~ PART NINE ~ PART TEN
PART ELEVEN ~ PART TWELVE ~ PART THIRTEEN ~ PART FOURTEEN ~ PART FIFTEEN ~ PART SIXTEEN ~ PART SEVENTEEN ~ PART EIGHTEEN ~ PART NINETEEN ~ PART TWENTY
PART 21 ~ PART 22 ~ PART 23 ~ PART 24 ~ PART 25 ~ PART 26 ~ PART 27 ~ PART 28 ~ PART 29 ~ PART 30
Thank you for visiting The Armchair Dragoons and saddling up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming.
You can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)
You can support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, also, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.
There once was a game called Krynn,
With warriors, mages, and dragons within,
In Champions of might,
They battled all night,
For glory, for honor, to win.
The heroes were brave and true,
Fighting foes, both old and new,
With spells and with swords,
They faced their rewards,
To vanquish the dark and break through.
From the streets of Solace they roamed,
To the lairs where dragons called home,
With quests to fulfill,
And battles to thrill,
Champions of Krynn, on they’d roam.
