The last room on this level is dominated by a large treasure horde and an equally impressive guardian.
Red dragons were promised all the treasure in the former Dwarven kingdom. This Red Dragon is the last of their offspring. He is not as crafty or as strong as his forebearers, but he is still challenging.
He has H x5 treasure. There are a couple of chests of holding as well.
I have a soft spot for Obscure RPGs. But I think one of my favorites, warts and all, is Lee Gold's "Lands of Adventure."
The game has some flaws, but it is such a fun concept and a great idea. Plus, the art and design are fantastic.
I reviewed it a couple of years ago but have only played once or twice since then. It really is an old-school gem from the ancient days of Dragon Magazine.
Continuing on past the Queen's broken throne room, the party turns a corner to the left and sees a horrific sight.
Trapped inside a magic circle is an ancient Chaos Hag. Though it is hard to know which kind she is, but she tries, and fails to shift her shape to that a beautiful elf maiden.
She croaks out, her voice dry and cracking, to be let out. She is in a panic. These are the first people she has seen in centuries.
She will make a weak attempt to claim she is an elf polymorphed into a hag. This ruse though can't last, since she is so hungry. Her's is a similar tale to other creatures here.
IF the party says they are hunting for the Vampire Queen then she will say she was trapped here after the Queen took over. This is true. She also says that there is only one seal left holding her in. Also true.
If the party agrees to free her she will give them the Hand of Glory at her feet and that will allow them to sneak past the guard of this level. Mostly true. She will give it to them yes, but the Hand is so old it won't work very well.
Also there is 50% chance that if freed she will attack the party and eat them.
Hello. My is Tim, and I am addicted to dice.
It began innocently enough. I got a set in my D&D Basic. Then another in my D&D Expert Box. Then B. Dalton's Bookseller in White Oaks Mall had Dragon Dice in full sets and percentile genators.
Then I got clear sets. Blue sets. Discover more. Now...well, now I have no clear idea how many I have. I have sets for characters, a set for each game, and sets for DMing certain campaigns. Metal dice, tiny dice, huge dice.
So what did I get in the mail yesterday? You guessed it.
These retro dice were made by Threshold Diceworks. Which you can find on Facebook and their Etsy store. He was taking pre-orders a while back and mine finally came in yesterday and I am very pleased with them!
They compare very favorably to the sets I had with my Expert set, the Dragon Dice polyhedrals, and the sets that came with the Mentzer Basic boxes.
Yes. Those are my Mentzer dice still in a bag and unopened and unmarked.
I even have some Armory Dice Markers for them! I might swap a d10 in each set for a proper set of percentile dice. I can even use them for Star Frontiers.
Now. I just need a good dice bag for them.
These will likely be my Old School Essentials dice or my Wasted Lands ones.
In any case, I am really happy to have them. When they start selling more I need to snag an orange d8.
It would have to be the first time I encountered a Lich in the AD&D 1st Edition days. I think it was the summer of 82 or so.
The DM read the monster's description, and she decided that it had all these new spells because it was a former high-level magic-user. She played the monster as we would have today, but back then, that was kind of a new thing. Not only that she had poping in and out of the Ethereal Plane more or less at will.
Needless to say it kicked our 6th to 7th level asses. That lich kicked our asses.
While I was annoyed, I later looked back on it and thought about how well she had done with it all.
So yeah, freaking Liches are dangerous.
Since that day, my undead have all been way more powerful.
The cave continues. Further ahead is an open area. There is what appears to be a broken stone throne.
This appears to be the queen's throne room, but it appears to have been destroyed. There is subtle magic on the throne.
If a dwarf or female character sits on the throne a scene is played out of the throne room in it's glory days. All the PCs see dwarven courtiers with gnome, human, and even elven dignitaries. All enjoying themselves as scenes through the years are shown. One scene shows what appears to be an informal gathering interrupted as the figure of the Vampire Queen comes into the room ridding on the back of some demonic hell-beast. Demons soon overrun the room and kill everyone in sight.
Characters must save vs. Paralysis or feel the death shock of those victims. Failing, they take 2d6 hp of damage, save for half.
Characters gain 45 xp each for seeing this scene.
If a female dwarf sits on the throne, then she sees the same tableau, but does not need to make a save and she takes no damage. She also gains The Blessing of the Dwarf Queen for the remainder of this level. This is a +1 to hit and +1 to all saves.
I interrupt my regularly scheduled Monstrous Monday post for our monster harvest we worked on over the weekend.
Long-time readers will know that my wife has a huge garden. She has over 115 tomato plants and somewhere north of 120 peppers from sweet to super hot.
We brought in tomatoes, peppers, carrots, garlic, some onions, okra, beans, basil, and even some potatoes.
We spent Sunday processing them all.
I processed about 3 gallons of Tomato sauce and we also made tomato soup to freeze.
This was our third harvest this year so far and we have least two more. With all the picking (and you have to do the weeding then too), processing, and freezing, we hit the couch last night, and both of us crashed. This was all a lot easier 25 years ago when she started her garden.
Honestly, I should have made a "Tomato Monster" but was too beat.
Now to convince my chef son to make me something will all this garden fresh produce!
