Castle Xyntillan Session 25: The Henchman Strikes Back

In the last session, the party delved into Castle Xyntillan's interior gardens and improved their knowledge of the Castle's structure. Will they seek the Grayl? Will they all survive this next excursion? All this and more in this week's session of Castle Xyntillan!

The Party

Longo Lightfoot, Halfling Thief, wears a sky-blue headscarf. Played by CaptainSabatini.
Corby the Joyful, Human Cleric of Sucellus, wears a short, conical hat. Played by diregrizzlybear.
Idred the Most Omniscient, Human MU, wears a full-visored greathelm. Played by David Perry.
Boroth Swinney the Joyous, Human Fighter, wears a masked helm depicting a happy human face. Played by Justin Hamilton.
Francois, Light Footman, noticeably dogless. 

Hubert, Heavy Footman.

Gwynefa, Arbalist.

Emil, Lightbearer, strange obsession with some Malevols.

Karo, Arbalist.

Allan, Arbalist, claims to know a great secret, pursues a Malevol for past crimes.

Clovis, Heavy Footman.

Eric, Light Footman and cart driver.

Oscar, Arbalist of unusual strength

LaBeouf, Camp Cook.
Raymond, Mule.

Casualties

Hubert, crushed by the shambling mound's tendrils

Loot

Pile of silverware, 700gp

Metal wand, unidentified

Bedazzled snuffbox, 1300gp

The Game

• The party turned their attention to the great corridor that spans the east-west axis of the castle... and which is haunted by a giant boulder that rolls up and down its length. They spend a good deal of time figuring out how to deal with it, such as by casting Web and stopping it. They ended up going with a different option.
• Longo jumped in front of the oncoming boulder, magical hammer-and-sickle raised, and yelled 'THE POWER OF LABOR COMPELS YOU!'

• The dice agreed with his chosen method, and a natural 20 on the turning roll sent the boulder rolling in the opposite direction.

Corby: Your attack was not very effective.

• They follow the fleeing boulder east, where it sat, gently quivering, at the end of a rounded corridor. To the north, they spied a high-roofed room filled with varicolored bubbles, which they opted not to mess with.
• While the boulder was still afraid of them, they traipsed to the west. The great double doors at the end were locked, but another route opened to the south. They entered a ruined hunting hall, filled with macabre trophies and inhabited by a herd of disfigured, moss-covered deer. They stuck to the walls, and the deer stalked them from a distance. The first door they tried was locked, and they were nearly backed into a corner, but they managed to escape the deer, even as Idred was nearly run over by the boulder again.
• Nearby, they found a sitting room ruined by water damage. A rocking chair held the fungus-ridden corpse of a butler, which squicked the party out to no end. Longo crept across the room with a pole.

Idred: What are you poking?

Longo: The butler. 

• They breathed a sigh of relief when poking the butler caused nothing more than a rocking of the chair. The nearby wardrobe collapsed when it was poked, revealing a coffin filled with silverware, which Longo sacked. Worried about the fungus, they elected to burn the room down with torch oil. It lit, but the wet wood filled the corridor with horrid smoke, and they fled.

Longo: You were not nearly this concerned last time I started a fire.

• Their next discovery was by the steam bath, where they found another giant frog. Several bottles of perfume sat next to it, which they chose to leave alone.

Boroth: Do you have Speak With Animals?

Corby: No, Speak With Dead?

Boroth: We're going to have to get into a violent altercation with this frog.

Idred: Call it improved interrogation.

• Their mapping indicated the existence of a secret area nearby, but before they could complete their search, Boroth's vampire-sense tingled. Maltricia, who had been partying with Serpentina in the Lake Tower, began moving back to the castle. The party redoubled their efforts, but failed to locate anything. 

Early Autumn Landscape

• In another room, they located what they believed to be another portal to the Indoornesse. A painting of an autumnal landscape had a pile of fall leaves in front of it. Outside, it was still early summer. Longo threw a stone, which passed through and became a part of the landscape. 
• But the leaves concealed a surprise! A hulking humanoid mass of vegetation, a shambling mound, stood and attacked!
• The party fought bravely, but it quickly proved to be a greater challenge than anticipated. Their weapons and Idred's Wand of Cold dealt reduced damage to the creature, but they soldiered on. In the end, they dropped the monster, but not before it seriously injured Corby and Boroth, and crushed Hubert, one of their longest-serving hirelings!
• The morale of many of the hirelings was broken, and they pressed for a retreat from the castle. The party relented, but not before cleanign up the room and placing a statue back on a pedestal, which gave to Idred a strange metal wand!

Longo: Hooray for Zelda puzzles!

• Only one thing remained before the party ended the expedition: Tristano Malevol. They cut back to the four-armed skeleton's tomb and arrayed themselves for battle. Longo and Boroth walked up and placed their hands on the lid, opening it.
• Tristano leapt out, announcing that he had heard their approach, and demanded they all stand and fight. The party gladly complied. A wave of bolts and throwing spears descended on the skeleton, with one of the spears striking him through the eye socket.

Tristano: (pulling out the spear) Last time, it was me doing that to your sister, Karo! Ha ha!

• Tristano's desire for a glorious battle was cut short when Longo and Corby moved away from him, and Idred unleashed his Web. Tristano ended up glued to his own mausoleum, pathetically begging for his unlife and apologizing for his offenses as the party took turns grinding him to dust.
• As the party washed their hands of the matter and looted the body, a sound assaulted their senses. A scream, amplified by the very stones of the castle, from the east. Maltricia Malevol, vampire Countess of Xyntillan, was screaming in rage as she learned what the party had done.

Scream of the Banshee

• The Groomsmen knew their cue to leave, and took it. Until they returned to town, they kept their sunstones handy, sleeping with them.

Epilogue

• The journey to and from Xyntillan takes two days. On the return trip, it takes a day to get out of the Three-Rainbows River Valley and through the mountain pass, and another day of easier travel through idyllic farmland. The party had grown accustomed to the journey.
• But they rarely ran into anyone else on the road. This time, as they exited the mountain pass, they saw a figure draped in a long cloak sitting by the side of the road.
• They hailed this figure with weapons ready, which identified itself in a panic. It was Fernand Bonnel, proprietor of the Black Comedian Tavern, the party's own stomping ground. Between sobs, he told the party what had happened.
• Rel had returned to Tours-en-Savoy with a squadron of orcs and the authority of the Count. He had declared the Groomsmen to be outlaws, and took over the Prefecture. His pet monsters broke into the Black Comedian and kidnapped Claude Malevol and Giacomo. Claude fought like a devil, but they were both dragged away in chains and tossed in the dungeon. The party's favorite shops had been turned over.
• Town was no longer safe.
• Their enemy had struck while they were away, had outplotted them. And the party began to plot themselves.
• Newly declared criminals, with their allies scattered and one of their closest friends imprisoned, where will the party go? How can they bring the fight to Rel? Will they all survive the encounter? Find out in next week's session of Castle Xyntillan!

Takeaways

One of the great pleasures of Castle Xyntillan, descriebd by Kars in the comments here, is the fact that you really don't know what's going to happen next. The downside is that it's more difficult to effectively prep. I neglected to do more reading of the module, even as the party exhausted the sections of the dungeon I was most familiar with, and it shows in this session. I didn't know the rooms in this section well at all, and both atmospheric details and some content escaped me as I tried to read and narrate at the same time. The moss-deer, for example, were supposed to be hostile on sight. Oops.

It's also clear I gave the wrong impression in some places. In the water-ruined fungus-butler room, the party had a persistent impression that the floor might give out under their feet, even though there was solid ground underneath them. The decrepitude of the room was meant as an atmospheric detail, but it was perceived as a gameplay detail which the characters, with their in-world-knowledge, would have dismissed. Something to work on.

In reviewing my own GMing and reading some advice, I've noticed I use the words 'seem' and 'appear' as crutches. From here I'll be working to limit those uses, and try to replace them with better verbiage. I most commonly have problems with narrating when there isn't anything happening, and the party isn't seeing or hearing anything, but I'm conditioned away from saying 'you don't see anything.' Not sure how to fix this one.

The hammer-and-sickle with the ability to turn animated objects is one of the weirdest and most useful magical items the party has found, and they've made long use of it. Usually, animated objects have a listed HD, but the boulder didn't. Still, it would make sense for this to be an animate object, so I just gave it a large HD. Very lucky roll indeed, otherwise Longo would have been squished!

Next Chapter: The Great Count Caper