Brain in a Jar

The third session of the Castle Xyntillan, 1E Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game that I'm running had me sweating at times. The finalization and implementation of my custom dungeon masters screen that I have detailed in my previous blog post has been delayed because it's just a lot of information and layout to sort through. This missing game play aid had me sweating at times. Although, other factors may have been at work as well.

In the Forgotten Realms, the group of players were still at the meeting with the caravan driver and guard no more than an hour up the road to the mountainside village of Savoy. Waiting until the lawful good Paladin was out of earshot, the guard offered to sell a couple of the other characters some opium. The players were absolutely uninterested in this, which surprised me. Reardon Gray, the half-elf ranger, then asked the guard and driver if they knew anywhere to buy slaves. This was another surprise to this referee and after a bit of thought I had the guard deny any knowledge of slave trade within a thousand miles. With that final exchange, the caravan began moving north up the Old Road again and was soon out of sight.

Heading south, the characters continued on their there way into Sayoy where they struck up a barter with the blacksmith that works out of the back of Findar's stable. The smith took a barely used banded armor rig and a halberd in "future trade" to resize a suit of plate mail to fit the human paladin of Torm, Naill Ravenwing. Furthermore, Nedd the smith purchased 4 spears and the other halberd for 20 gold pieces and promised the plate mail job would be finished in two weeks

From there, the group visited the Chimera Apothocary for the first time. The proprietor Jacques, offered to identify potions, dusts, or other possible magical components for 50 gold pieces but it seemed that the price was too costly for the crew. Once the business owner discovered that the adventurers had already been to, and returned from the the infamous Castle Xyntillan, he offered them a half price deal as incentive for the acquisition of their future business since it seemed that they might survive longer than others that had come before them.

Again, it seemed the discounted price was too steep at this time and that the "fiery wine" which had been found during the first castle expedition would just have to be identified in the heat of the battle. In truth, the whole party was pretty short on funds.After some condemnation of the greed of the villagers, the crew decided to turn and leave town, preferring the wandering monsters on the roads to the castle over the dangerous prices in town.

Along the way the boys made camp and once on the road again the next morning they spotted two giant, venomous man-sized centipedes north of the traveled road in the forest. Apparently the invertebrates were hungry because they quickly closed the distance between the crew and themselves. Honestly, short work was made of the creatures because they barely had finished crossing the 80' distance before they were struck dead without even being given the chance to attack once. This was probably for the best because monster venom is deadly stuff.

Alighast the magic-user got busy successfully harvesting two poison sacs from the centipedes while Reardon the seemingly expert tracker began his nearly 3 hour long trek into the woods before discovering the centipede nesting cavern. The arcane magician cast Unseen Servant and bade his creation to climb into the cavern with a torch in one unseen hand. The conjuration obeyed it's master and after rummaging for a bit, discovered 70 silver pieces and 40 gold.

As a quick side note out of game, this whole encounter was extremely unsettling to me. It seemed the entire time that I was constantly fumbling with rules knowledge and implementation of combat actions. The encounter mapping using the Webex whiteboard is weird and clunky to me as well. I must either be better prepared next time with the completion of my dungeon master screen and some other aide, or perhaps the solution is just more experience with running combat in 1st edition.
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Back in the game world, the adventurers returned to this increasingly familiar road to Castle Xyntillian and sometime near late afternoon, a shadowy figure was glimpsed by Gunner Tarneson, the dwarf fighter. Soon it became obvious that there were five undead wraiths pulling themselves along the ground in broad daylight. The group panicked because they had some out-of-game knowledge about how deadly the wraith could be, even in daylight. Initiative to attack was a tie indicating both sides would go simultaneously.

The group made a run for it and the wraiths could probably have caught and killed the slowest in the pack but I made the call to make a check to see if the wraiths would even pursue. The Dungeon Masters Guide calls for a check on 1d6 after consideration of some variables. The wraiths failed the check, partly because of the daytime encounter factor. This random situation also left a bad taste in my mouth. I know I will need some quiet reflection later to determine why.

The adventurers broke through the line of trees to once again lay eyes upon Castle Xyntillan. Pushing past the fork in the road and moving straight through the castles' bailey the explorers opened the double doors just past the guard post to reveal a long 20 foot wide corridor with murder holes on either side and another set of double doors on the far end. Midway between the 2 sets of doors there was another door in the south wall, which the group opened noisily and began to enter..

Just inside, the doorway was the animated corpse of a rotting, water-soaked, sack of evil dressed in oversized wooden shoes and an outmoded tailcoat. This disgusting visage reached into his pocket and pulled out several foul looking pieces of candy and offered some to the always purely good paladin. Detecting the evil emanating from the thing, Naill leapt forward and attacked.

Unfortunately, this encounter was yet another learning lesson for myself. Hopefully, these will begin to become less and less as time passes. The group attempted to strike the creature down but he was able to survive long enough to deal some damage to the paladin by bite and by claw. Afterward, his body was searched and the crew took the candy, a live fish, pearl cuff links, a sapphire locket, and a bag of severed and rotten-black fingers.

Once the group finished celebrating their loot and discussing the possibility of popcorn flavored rotten fingers, they made there way farther down this newly opened hallway to find the statue of a zombie standing on a 2 foot tall pedestal. There was a cube of incense burning on top of the pedestal as well. Reardon and the dwarf cleric, Fulgoth Tarneson discovered a secret compartment in the back of the pedestal containing a glass jar 18 inches tall by 24 inches wide. Inside was a preserved brain larger than the head of any party member.

The group seemed to be in shock at the idea of the thing. Eventually, Alighast redistributed the items in his backpack to other party members to make room for this new, unusual item and onward they all pushed into the castle through another door. Next, a hallway was found that was overfilled with spiderwebs. One of the party set it alight with a torch.

It was at about this moment that, deep inside his mind, Alighast heard a voice that said "I am awakened". The mage then asked the voice if it was coming from the brain in the jar to which the voice replied yes. Alighast the Prestidigitator was quick to ask if the curiosity had a name and the answer was "no, its name has been lost to time". Another inquiry was put forth about if it had any knowledge to share and the brain replied that it had access to nearly endless knowledge. Alighast asked a further question but the voice simply stated it was tired and would rest now. Soon after, the magician heard snoring in the deepest recess of his own consciousness..

At this point, time in the real world had run out for the players and they decided to backtrack and rest in the stables they had visited during their previous expedition. Before, there had been a floating hammer working in the enchanted smithy immediately adjacent to the stable, none of the group were surprised to hear rhythmic hammering coming from the next room. No one was tempted even a bit to open the door and interrupt the hammer because they thought it would just attack again. So, there among the putrid hay and offensive excrement observed before, our wanderers made camp for a while to rest before pushing onward.

Outside, the sun was setting on the horizon, bringing to an end this 21st day of Tarsakh, 1367 DR or Dale-Reckoning. Nearly six days have passed in game time since the beginning of the campaign.

Non player characters encountered, Jacques - owner of the Chimera Apothecary and Nedd, blacksmith at Findar's stable.

Loot gotten, 70sp, 40gp, 2 large centipede poison sacs, 3 pieces of candy, a live fish (dead now), pearl cuff links, a sapphire locket, a bag of severed rotten-black fingers, and an oversized telepathic brain in a jar.

Monsters killed, 2 giant centipedes and a Malevol (- 4 - 6 -) family member.

Number of times the DM sweated - approximately three.