Goblin Campaign

[Steerpike]

G      O      B      L      I      N      !

or,

A Minion's Tale: A Worm's Eye View of the Great Below

[note]On page two, you'll find a synopsis of the story so far.[/note]
Cast of Characters:
[ic=Dramatis Personae]In Order of Appearance

 Kraashgar '" Our hero.  A young goblin warrior from the Great Below, his tribe has been slaughtered by adventurers.

 Ysshera '" Ettercap merchant.  Gave Kraashgar a lift to Ool-Nacha.

 Rancid '" Troglodyte and wealthy merchant.  Runs Ool-Nacha.

 Shub '" Unusually friendly roper.  Bartender at the Blind Beholder in Ool-Nacha.

 Alastor '" Tiefling bounty hunter and assassin.  Kraashgar impressed him by killing a derro in a knife-fight at the Blind Beholder tavern.

 Grognash '" Orc minion of Obraxus, in charge of recruitment.  Poor speller, but smart for an orc.

 Veth '" Barghest Ranger.  Minion of Obraxus.  Helped Kraashgar kill some magmins and escorted him to the Lair.

 Obraxus '" Ogre Mage.  Kraashgar's Boss as of Episode 11.  Rents the top five levels of a former dwarven stronghold from Illithids.

 Caustic '" Drow Wizardess.  Obraxus' second-in-command.  Specializes in acid magic.  Hard-ass.

 Kurlok '" Irritable kobold weaponmaster.  Minion of Obraxus.

Skelus '" Absentminded kobold trapsmith.  Minion of Obraxus.

 Thollom '" Gray Slaad.  Sublets a laboratory in Obraxus' Lair.  Had Kraashgar catch an escaped grig he was experimenting on.

 Yoggshabboth '" AKA Yoggy.  Thollom's excitable Ethereal Marauder familiar.

 Shez '" Imp familiar of Obraxus.

 Morkoth - Unctious troglodyte sycophant and minion of Obraxus.  Named after a slimy fish-like creature.

 Chalsezce the Mad '" Cantankerous Beholder that rents the dungeon levels below Obraxus' Lair from the Mind Flayers.  Germophobe.

 Tul '" Half-orc Fighter/Rogue and adventurer.  The party strong-man and skill-monkey.

 Kenneth '" Half-elf Sorcerer and adventurer.  Party mage.

 Cal '" Human cleric and adventurer.  Party medic.  A trifle grumpy.

 Nhazgar - Taciturn duergar.  Minion of Chalsezce - his "servitor" or major-domo.  Gave Kraahsgar a small Ring of Protection.

  Mr. Pincer - Umber Hulk, enslaved by the Neogi Zetch.

  Zetch - Neogi raid-capatin.  Minion of Obraxus.

  Wrask - Gnoll given to fits of high-pitched laughter in battle.  Minion of Obraxus.

  Xug - Troglodyte adept and minion of Obraxus.

 Brogg - Dwarf from the Gearhead Clan, taken captive  during a raid.

Svaroch - Worg whose pack, mate, and young were slaughtered by a human hunter.  Lives in the forest outside the Lair.

Ulfgar - A dwarven ghost that haunts level two of the Lair.

Skabrat - Cyclopean goblin rogue and gambling addict.  Minion of Obraxus.

Morbog - Burly orc warrior.  Big meanie.  Minion of Obraxus.

Szor - Drow guard.  Chess-player and minion of Obraxus.

Cromn - Ogre minion of Obraxus.  Chess-partner of Szor.

Lucian - Gray elf wizard and adventurer.  One of the four who destroyed Kraashgar's tribe.

Viola Horsenettle - Halfling rogue.  One of the four adventurers who destroyed Kraashgar's tribe.

Magnus - Human fighter.  One of the four adventurers who destroyed Kraashgar's tribe.

Pyotr - Dwarf cleric.  One of the four adventurers who destroyed Kraashgar's tribe.

Klet - Hill giant bard.  Later, minion of Obraxus.

Borl - Hill giant druid.  Later, minion of Obraxus.

Mordant - Drider necromancer.  Also Caustic's older sister.

Ithilax - Skum overseer.  Servitor of Holsuth Phagn'Neysugg.

Holsuth Phagn'Neysugg - Aboleth, Second Stage Savant, Consul of the Primal Empire.  Mordant's employer.

Draug - Bugbear thrall enslaved by Holsuth Phagn'Neysugg.  Longs for "Union."

Syrgos - Kuo-toa fleshcrafter in the service of Holsuth Phagn'Neysugg.

The All-Mother - Principal goblin deity, presiding over the cycle of life and death, fertility, energy, and earth.

Granny Greenblood - Sea Hag of the Unseelie Court in the employ of illithids.

Queen Medb - Queen of the Unseelie Court in Faerie.

Nodd - Unseelie satyr bard with a penchant for sleep magic.  Consort of Medb.[/ic][ic=Prologue]His tribe's village has been decimated by the invaders '" tall, alien creatures, the friends of dwarves and worse; the home-cavern lies in ruins, the shrine to the All-Mother desecrated, the treasure-stores looted, and his kin slaughtered where they stood.  The monstrous Above-landers came with flashing blades and hissing bows and terrible sorceries and slew every goblin they set eyes on.

Except for Kraashgar - this tale's hero.

Out of sheer luck an early magic missile flung from the fingertips of their magus left the goblin merely unconscious rather than a bloody, smoking smear on the cavern floor like so many of his fellows.  Our hero's last memories are of an iridescent explosion of light and pain, the smell of blood, the screams of his ilk as they died.

He awoke in the aftermath of the battle, while the invaders searched the bodies, chatting with cavalier nonchalance over the spoils of their victory, jovially debating tactics and bickering over the choicest pieces of booty while their warrior-priest whispered his blasphemous prayers and closed the few wounds they'd sustained in the brief, one-sided battle.

Kraashgar waited till their backs were turned and slunk away, into the unending darkness that outsiders call the Great Below, and which he merely calls home '" though many regions of the lightless cavern-realm are quite foreign to him.  He scuttled at first through familiar passages, foraging for food and regaining your strength, before passing into stranger places.  He passed some markings that indicated kobold territory a while back, but he doesn't know if he's still on reptile-turf; though goblins and kobolds often form loose alliances against stronger foes kobolds rarely welcome uninvited guests.

Some time has passed.  Now Kraashgar is lost, hungry, thirsty, penniless but for the few coins of bone and silver in his purse, lacking any equipment save a leather jerkin and a jagged bone knife.  He stands in a long, low cave with a slick, uneven floor.  At the edges of his Darkvision he can discern a narrow passage, winding away into dense, impenetrable blackness.[/ic][ic=On Setting and Races]Most of the campaign takes place in a vanilla Underdark, the 'Great Below,' which contrasts with the Above-land or Overworld, the surface.  Politically, the Great Below is dominated by two factions: the illithid nation-state and the Primal Empire of the aboleths, both located deep in the lower regions of the world-spanning caverns.  These two factions are at an uneasy stalemate, balanced precariously against one another, neither willing to risk full-scale war.  These tentacled puppeteers delight in shadow-games and manipulation, using other creatures like game-pieces in their subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) struggle.  Additional powers of note Below include dwarves, neogi, drow, kuo-toa and Unseelie fey.

The dwarven subraces include hill dwarves, mountain dwarves, and gray dwarves, i.e. duergar.  Hill dwarves are primitive hill-folk without technological or architectural inclinations who tend towards druidism and are much preyed on by the simplistic, oafish hill-giants; these dwarves are a dwindling group that live solely on the Overworld, and have ties to the prominent Faerie factions.  Mountain dwarves, such as the Gearhead Clan featured prominently in the campaign, are technologists and industrialists with a penchant for clockwork and steam-power.  They have discovered firearms and often modify their bodies with steam-powered augmentations, and tunnel huge strongholds out of the earth.  Finally there are the duergar '" a generally despised group that nonetheless have found a niche as the middlemen of the Great below, working as merchants and moneylenders; duergar trading outposts dot the caverns.

The neogi fill a similar niche as the duergar though they specialize in the slave-trade.  There are a few permanent neogi settlements and Umber Hulk farms, but for the most part the abberations travel in caravans of slave-takers.

The elves are likewise split into three primary subraces.  The world's high elves have entirely departed for planes unknown, leaving behind only the residual gray elves, a haughty, magic-inclined breed who secrete themselves in quasi-monastic isolation.  The drow, on the other hand, maintain a series of brutocratic, matriarchal city-states throughout the Great Below, trading with duergar, flayers, and aboleths.

Kuo-toan civilization takes the form of a series of feudal theocracies dedicated to the squid-god Dagon, scattered about underground seas.  These theocracies are closely linked to the Primal Empire, serving as glorified vassal states or puppets for the aboleths; shrines to Dagon can be found throughout the Great Below, with the religiously inclined kuo-toans commonly providing healing and other clerical services in settlements.  Kuo-toans feud with the tribal sahuagin and distrust the drow.  Like the aboleths they loathe the illithids.

The fey are divided into Seelie and Unseelie Courts, with the Seelie Court (ruled by Oberon) occupying the part of Faerie that corresponds to the Overworld  and the Unseelie Court (ruled by Oberon's banished ex-lover Medb) occupying those portions of Faerie parallel to the Great Below.  The fey are powerful but restricted, their capabilities tied to their realm.  However, Faerie itself contains many portals to the mortal world, some of which allow a traveler to pass great distances in the latter while moving only short distances in the former.

Gnomes are either forest gnomes '" closely linked to the Faerie '" or svirfneblin, a race of nomads who wander the Great Below.  Surface halflings are gypsies, while deep halflings are fungus-farmers and have a symbiotic relationship with the peace-loving myconids.

Orcs, gnolls, bugbears, and ogres tend to work as mercenaries and warriors.  Troglodytes and sahuagin run a smattering of towns and incline towards ill-defined clannishness.  Grimlocks are the hound-creatures and serfs of the illithids, bred like cattle; Skum form the backbone of the aboleth armies, while mentally dominated slaves form the work-force.

Nycter, kobolds, and goblins, the least of the Great Below's races in terms of size and power, can be found in tribal clusters, usually working as subsistence agriculturalists or as hunter-gatherers.[/ic][ooc]This is the closest I get to a 'beer & pretzels' game.  I'm mostly just improvising, rather than writing out scrupulous, hyper-extensive notes (as I usually do): I wanted to jump right into a game, without spending a week or more preparing.

The campaign is a 'worm's eye view' experiment inspired by the Commoner Campaign DMed by Hero's Backpack on the Wizard's Boards and by the comics Downer and Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes and the computer game Dungeon Keeper.  There's only one player, and he begins as a 1st level Goblin Warrior with stats identical to those presented in the 3rd edition Monster Manual.  I'm going to consider allowing PC classes later in the game '" we'll see how it goes.  The world is pretty much a straightforward D&D Underdark.

Plus, I'm drawing cartoons to accompany each Episode.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ic=Episode 1: Running and Hiding]Our protagonist '" Kraashgar the goblin '" begins by exploring the surrounding caves, first locating a huge chasm, bridged by a stone slab which, for now, he ignores.  He continues his exploration and eventually locates a cave with some green fungi (which he knows are edible), with some reddish-purple toadstools, which he does not recognize, growing about its base.  In an effort to scrape some of the fungus off the wall for sustenance he inadvertently perturbs the toadstools, which emit a high-pitched shriek!  Our hero recoils and ducks behind a nearby stalagmite, trying to figure out a way of obtaining nourishment without activating the shriekers.

As he waits something large and ornery, with warted green-black skin, lumbers into view '" a troll!  It sniffs the air, searching for the creature it smells.  The troll is far too strong a foe for our hero; yelping with fear Kraashgar runs full tilt into the darkness, back towards the chasm.  He crosses the narrow stone slab (nearly falling into the pit below) and scampers further into the cavern, only to come across an underground stream, which flows through the cave and then over the chasm lip.  He plunges into the frigid waters, swims feebly to the other bank, and scuttles into the black, hiding in a side-passage in the smallest niche he can find.  The troll, deterred by the goblin's brief dip, investigates the far bank but eventually lumbers back to its lair, disappointed, thrown off the scent.

After catching his breath Kraashgar returns to the stream and drinks from the icy waters; he wasn't immersed long enough to have acquired hypothermia, though this is, of course, a risk with subterranean rivers and the like.  After a few tries he manages to catch several small, blind fish with his bare hands '" the current is sufficiently sluggish.

As he guts the fish on the riverbank he is startled by the brief appearance of another creature, a hunched, orc-sized humanoid on the opposite bank '" eyeless and gray-skinned.  It hisses and shambles back into the dark when it sees him.  Kraashgar finishes his task quickly and stealthily creeps away; moments later, secreting himself in the same nook by which he evaded the troll, he hears footsteps, words in a grotesque, alien tongue (as if spoken by some non-humanoid mouth), and glimpses another of the creatures briefly, though he remains hidden, waiting for the creatures to pass; another close call.[/ic]

[Steerpike]

[ic=Episode 2: Kobolds!]Having filled his belly and drank his fill Kraashgar sets off to explore the tunnels on the far bank.  He doesn't get far before he discovers two oddities: a kobold territorial marking (a cave painting of a reptilian visage) and the remnants of a battle between kobolds and the eyeless gray-skins.  The bloodstains are dried '" the battle is old, not recent.  He retrieves an intact javelin from one of the gray-skins' corpses, also noting that, curiously, this particular creature bled badly from its well-developed, almost bat-like ears.

Further into the tunnels Kraashgar accidentally trips a wire '" a kobold trap! '" and a small, monstrous centipede, cantankerous from imprisonment, is released from a hidden cage atop him!  He scurries back the way he came, all the way back to the river, the bug in hot pursuit, then jumps into the cold, clear flow, making his way to a hitherto unexplored bank, having lost the centipede.

Continuing his exploration Kraashgar uncovers the remnants of what appears to be a small, hidden shrine of some kind, the walls well-worked, adorned with strange scriptures; bones, shattered and dusty, of some amphibian creatures are in evidence, with a grotesque, four-armed, frog-like idol dominating the shrine.  Our hero scrounges a tarnished silver icon from one of the skeletons and returns to the tunnels.

Growing fatigued and looking for a place to rest, or perhaps some sign of what passes for civilization, Kraashgar stumbles upon a crossroads.  Yellow eyes peer at him, suddenly, from out of one tunnel-mouth and a small, reptillian humanoid with a halfspear steps into the range of his Darkvision - a kobold scout!  The scout notices him and screams a yapping battle-cry!  Our hero, startled by the kobold, misses his initial javelin-throw by a hairsbreadth; in return, the kobold lands a vicious blow with its halfspear, nearly felling Kraashgar!  The two duck around each others' blows before the goblin finally stabs the kobold through the neck with his bone dagger.  The reptilian foe gurgles and dies.

Exhausted from the fight, bleeding from the wound at his shoulder, Kraashgar stumbles down the passage the kobold was investigating, deeper into the eternal dark'¦[/ic]

[Ghostman]

Pretty entertaining and easy to read. Love the drawings!

[LordVreeg]

My kind of game.  I love this.  

[LD]

Nice drawings. What program are you using?
Are you actually playing this game; or just imagining it?

[Steerpike]

[ooc]I am playing the game (it's not just a story... I'd DM better if it was just a story, heh).  I know, I know, sending a troll after the goblin right away was very mean, but I wanted to emphasize the "you are nothing" mentality right away, and the fact that running and hiding are sometimes going to be inevitable.

Drawings were down by hand, scanned in, and then quickly retouched and coloured with Paint and then (when my brother told me that was stupid), a program called Gimp; I wanted a flat, minimalist colour palette so Paint actually worked quite well, though maybe I'll experiment more later... I don't know a heck of a lot about computer graphics/art though, so this is just me dabbling, though I'm pretty pleased with the kobold one.

Thanks everyone for replies![/ooc]

[Tillumni]

you know ya screwed, when a kobold is a danger one on one, in a straight up fight, in melee.

looking forward to see where it goes, and mining it for ideas while I'm at it~

[Steerpike]

[ic=Episode 3: The Fungal Village]After improvising a bandage for his wound from some cloth torn from the slain kobold's clothing, Kraashgar picks the rightmost passage and ascends a long, spiraling tunnel, which after some time opens into a broad, echoing cavern dominated by an enormous grove of florescent fungi and other mushrooms '" vivid bluecaps, shriekers, and mutlicoloured toadstools of many varieties.  He hears insectile chittering sounds all around him and takes care to be as stealthy as possible as he navigates the mushroom thicket.

As he continues to press on the fungi grow in height from merely dwarf-sized mushrooms to truly enormous growths.  Our hero begins to discern that some of the mushrooms have actually been carved into architectural forms '" stairs, windows, doors '" and realizes that he's in the midst of some sort of immense fungal village.  A glimpse of a kobold patrol down a side-path confirms his suspicions '" he's strayed into the center of a kobold territory, into the very heart of the reptiles' tribal home!

Giant centipedes are kept as livestock and pets in pens of bone here, while well-tended mushroom crops fester in the verdurous, pungent gloom.  Kraashgar crosses a small stream and skirts the edge of the village cemetery, where mounds of kobold skeletons have been colonized by moulds, become part of the fungal super-organism.  He is nearly spotted by a well-armed kobold patrol, but musters his goblinoid stealthiness and dodges aside into an 'alleyway' between two gargantuan mushroom-structures until the patrol passes by.  It seems to be past curfew in the village; the only kobolds left in the streets are guards.

Creeping through the kobold settlement Kraashgar performs as thorough a reconnaissance as he can, eventually detecting two distinct exits: one large and well guarded, the other small and narrow, with only a single guard.  Opting for the latter he sneaks as close to the exit as he can, then dashes past the guard while its back is turned.  Unfortunately, in his haste, he kicks over a stray rock and alerts the kobold to his intrusion!  The creature squeals and hurls its small spear, and while the weapon connects, the attack is so weak that it merely clatters aside.  Kraashgar merely squeaks some Undercommon curses in return and runs pell-mell down the passage, even as the guard alerts some of his fellows.

Our goblinoid hero can near hear yelping Draconic voices behind him, cries of alarm and anger.  Three pairs of yellow eyes follow him as he sprints on short, crooked legs down the narrow cranny, eventually emerging into a much larger tunnel running perpendicular to the passage.  This tunnel has a natural ceiling craggy with stalactites but has hewn, roughly even walls and a smooth, flat floor of worked stone '" a road through the Great Below!

Kraashgar's pursuers are close behind him, and the goblin is nearly out of breath.  He presses on, straining his small, cramping muscles.  Two of the kobolds drop out of the race, yapping in rage; a third continues the chase.  Finally, when he can run no more, Kraashgar slows his pace, while the kobold, incensed at the filthy greenskin's transgression, closes in upon his quarry!  The creature's fervor, however, overwhelms its patience, and its clumsy throw misses by a wide mark.  In response Kraashgar hurls his own javelin (still clutched this whole time), catching the kobold high in the chest!  The reptile is hurled off its feet and lands on the road with a sickening crack.  Hastily Kraashgar retrieves his weapon and presses on down the subterranean highway; he hears  a few echoing cries behind him, but appears to have evaded the kobolds' wrath '" at least for now.[/ic][ooc]I was going for a sort of demented smurfs thing.

Also, turns out fungi are really, really hard to draw Mignola-style (went through like 4 versions till I settled, grudgingly, on the above)... though ettercaps are really easy.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ic=Episode 4: Hitchhiking]Kraashgar is fatigued, wounded, and still quite lost, trudging the seemingly endless length of an Underdark highway.  Just as he was beginning to give up hope of ever seeing another living creature, a wagon crafted from humanoid bones materializes ahead of him out of the darkness, drawn by a bloated arachnid and driven by a gangly, eight-eyed creature with silvery fur and a squat, fleshy body '" an ettercap.  Too tired for caution, the goblin overtakes the peddler and introduces himself in as good Undercommon as he can.

The ettercap merchant answers back, introducing itself as Ysshera.  The two converse and Ysshera is eventually persuaded to let Kraashgar up onto her wagon, lured by the promise of items to trade.  When the goblin shows her the icon he found back in the abandoned shrine, the ettercap's eyes alight with a glint of greed.

'A Kuo-Toan holy symbol of Dagon!'  The ettercap hisses, unable to wholly disguise her interest.  'I'll tell you what '" I'll give you four coins of dwarf gold for that, plus a trip to Ool-Nacha.  That's where I'm headed; a town, run by some trog named Rancid.  I'll tell you what; I'll even throw in this spiffy hat!'  She extracts some floppy, faded bit of leather.

Kraashgar considers.  He senses something of the icon's worth; it might be worth more to the right buyer, but he's in no real position to haggle, and he needs to get his bearings.

'Sure,' he squeaks, donning the hat and pocketing the coins '" more gold than he's ever possessed in his life.

Even as they complete the transaction they come to massive rift running through the tunnel, bridged by a slender arch of carved stone in the same style as the road itself.  A trio of small, pallid, bald creatures of roughly goblin height with veiny skins and black eyes guard the bridge '" duergar, or gray dwarves, cousins of the accursed deep dwarves who live on the upper levels.  Duergar permeate the realms Below, proliferating as merchants, laborers, spies, and mercenaries.  Likely these three are trying to exact a toll.

While Ysshera haggles with two of the duergar the third demands a gold coin from Kraashgar.  He shrugs '" the cost of travel, he supposes '" and hands over a coin.  He's had enough trouble for a lifetime, and is in no mood to pick a fight.

Tolls paid, the wagon continues on into the dark.  The pair chitchat in Undercommon, then lapse into silence.  Presently they pass another pair of wagons, parked to one side of the road in a temporary camp.  Two gray-skinned, eyeless creatures, one with a club, the other with a spear, stand guard.  Inside, perhaps half a dozen kobolds are visible.

'Grimlocks,' Ysshera mutters.  'Flayer slaves.  Filthy creatures.  Pay them no attention.'

The wagons rumble by; the grimlocks turn and 'stare,' but do nothing.  Kraashgar makes an obscene gesture, secure in the creatures' blindness.

After some time the highway stops at a huge archway, carved with what might be drow script.  Beyond is some sort of massive, vaguely cylindrical room that has been dug out of the living rock.  Scrawled on the wall in Undercommon are the words 'Mazinkor's Shaft.'  Underneath this someone has etched the words 'oo-er!' and some crude, pornographic graffiti.

Beyond the arched doorway the road continues, but now winds up around the edges of the enormous shaft, like a colossal staircase.  The wagon rumbles up the coiled ramp, Kraashgar in tow, towards the settlement of Ool-Nacha.[/ic]

[Nomadic]

HAHA! that rude gesture made my day.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Much more Goblin! on the way very soon (just have to draw the illustrations).  In the meantime, here's another illustration, this time done by the player, of the kobold scout he killed in Episode 2, in a very similar style as the one I've been using:[spoiler] [/spoiler] [/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ic=Episode 5: The Shrine of Dagon]Ysshera's wagon rumbles down Membrane Street, The entrance to Ool-Nacha appears to be a large, high-ceilinged tunnel with hewn stone walls.  Carved into one are the words 'Membrane Street,' in Undercommon, as well as in some blocky runes that look Dwarven, some cursive, flowing letters that might be Drow, and some snarled-looking glyphs that Kraashgar recognizes as Draconic, tongue of kobolds, troglodytes, and dragons, amongst others (of course, he cannot actually read these letters).  Evidently a cosmopolitan settlement.  There's also plenty of graffiti, most of it unintelligible or merely obscene, such as a graphic depiction of a kobold or troglodyte and a mind flayer fornicating.

'Ool-Nacha's a trade-town,' Ysshera explains.  'Used to be a duerger outpost during the Mithral Wars.  Not huge, but all manner of things have moved in, including a band of trogs led by a guy named Rancid.  Nasty piece of work, if rumor's believed, but he keeps the town in working order."

Kraahsgar stays on the wagon and they ride into the central bazaar of Ool-Nacha, a rough chamber of relatively even ground crowded with merchants of every race hawking their wares.  Duergar and troglodytes are the most common, with a smattering of drow, goblins, kuo-toans, and orcs; more goblins and kobolds are evident mostly as slaves used to fetch and carry.  The goods are multifarious: on one corner a frilled, reptilian trog hawks fresh fish, next to a duergar and his two kobold slaves, who sell fungi from a cart that advertises 'Mushrooms for Food & Poison.'  There's also a kuo-toa trinket peddler, another duergar who sells blades of various descriptions, a drow selling deep-fried spiders (a dark elf delicacy), and a trog armorer selling hides, leathers, and even a few pieces of what looks like dwarfish mail, in addition to a general hubbub of merchants selling things like clothing, ore, bones, and tools.  Packbeasts are evident here as well, everything from huge, albino lizards to giant beetles and centipedes to bound earth elementals.

'This here's the main bazaar,' Ysshera says.  'Slave market's down Oozetongue Way.'  She parks her wagon, pays a local trog a bone coin to watch it for her, and tells Kraashgar she's heading to the temple of Dagon to try and pawn that holy symbol he sold her.  Our hero follows the ettercap down Gris-Gris Street, a narrow, winding alley dedicated almost exclusively to shrines of various sorts, carved into the walls, some of them mere niches, the others small clusters of rooms.  At the end of the street is a larger temple guarded by a pair of hydra statues.  Other idols include a spider, many-armed horror, a thing like a reptilian whale, a pair of intertwined snake-like things, and a squat, obese frog-like deity.  Kraashgar even notices a tiny statuette set in a miniscule, unattended niche that looks a bit like the All-Mother Herself.

Priests and worshippers throng the streets: amphibious kuo-toans, kobolds and trogs (who seem to congregate about the larger temple), duergar in grayish cowls, and she-drow in filmy black robes like lace.  He follows Ysshera into the shrine of Dagon, where which features a central pool and an altar to the four-armed frog deity.  Three kuo-toans tend the shrine, each carrying an ornate pincer-like staff.  While Ysshera haggles with the high priest Kraashgar approaches one of the other priests, who seems to take him for a slave.  After waiting politely for a moment he introduces himself in Undercommon and asks if his wounds could be tended to here.

'A wound, you say?'  The kuo-toan croaks.  'Very well; I can heal it for ten gold pieces.'

'I don't have that much, sorry.'  Kraashgar shrugs and turns to go, perhaps to find some way of making a few gold pieces.

'Wait, not so fast '" perhaps we can work out some sort deal.  Are you skilled at all with that thing?'  The kuo-toa gestures to the javelin Kraashgar carries.

'I can handle myself okay, I guess.'

'Well, this won't require any great warrior.  We've got something of a stirge infestation in our sublevel fane.  We don't use it much except for storage, but one of our new recruits got drained dry by the pesky little things, and we get swarmed every time we head down there.  I'll heal you now, and in exchange, you can deal with our stirge problem.  Deal?'

Kraashgar ponders.  On the one hand, this sounds sort of dangerous.  On the other, he could really use the healing, and if the stirges can't really injure him'¦

'Deal,' he says, finally.'

'Good.'  The kuo-toa mutters a swift prayer to Dagon and Kraashgar's wound from the kobold halfspear closes with a prickling of divine magick.  'Now remember, don't let those buggers attach to you.  They can't do any proper damage, but they'll suck your blood right out of you.  You'll recover from a bit of blood-loss pretty quickly, but too much and you're done for.'  The kuo-toa leads him to an arched doorway near the rear of the shrine and pushes him towards the staircase, nearly tripping him.  'I don't know how many of them are down there, but make sure you get them all,' the priest calls down as Kraashgar descends into the fane'¦[/ic]

[LD]

not a very smart goblin, is he?

>>'Well, this won't require any great warrior. We've got something of a stirge infestation in our sublevel fane. We don't use it much except for storage, but one of our new recruits got drained dry by the pesky little things, and we get swarmed every time we head down there. I'll heal you now, and in exchange, you can deal with our stirge problem. Deal?'

Kraashgar ponders. On the one hand, this sounds sort of dangerous. On the other, he could really use the healing, and if the stirges can't really hurt him'¦


I think the frogfolk painting is very well done! :)

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Well, stirges can't deal damage; only ability damage.  Kraashgar is way better off relying on his Con (11) than his hp.  Ironically, he stands a ridiculously better chance against stirges (1d4 Con maximum damage before flying off, 1d3-4 damage) than against, say, orcs (1d12+3 damage).  He managed to defeat 6 stirges, tempoarily losing only 7 points of Con.  No way he could have taken 6 orcs.  The XP from these stirges, plus the kobolds, also allowed him to level up, and even with a -3 Con penalty (temporaily) to his HD he had 6 hp leaving the shrine, as opposed to his 1 hp upon entering.  All in all, not the stupidest move, really.

I changed "hurt" to "injure," in the write-up, though, to try and better reflect what was going through the player's head.

Glad you liked the kuo-toa![/ooc]