Castle Xyntillan Session 31: The Countess' End

In the last session, the party dealt with strange changes to their cleric's magic, acquired a posse of phantoms, and reached the throne room of the Beast himself. Now, their lord Claude's rule is legitimated, the vampire Countess Maltricia's role in the subversion of the lich Aristide's will has been revealed, and her crimes are set to be punished. Will the party try to take justice into their own hands? How will they get back to safety from the heart of the dungeon? And what shall be the consequences? 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.

Jorg, Lightbearer

Yessica, Arbalist

Kaleb, Arbalist with a nose for booze and a magic pipe

Eric, Light Footman and cart driver.

Oscar, Arbalist of unusual strength

LaBeouf, Camp Cook.
Raymond, Mule.

Casualties

None

Loot

8 pairs of mountain crystal eyes, 1600gp 

Emerald bracelet, 4500gp  

Malevol signet ring, 600gp

1060gp cash

Gold-rimmed spectacles, 100gp

Jewelled snuffbox, 400gp

Ivory-tipped walking stick, 150gp

Stuffed crocodile, 340gp

Silk women's undergarments, 50gp

1 silver coin from Father Chlodowig

Potion of extra healing, as plum wine

Two unidentified potions, as amaretto

The Game

• The party sat outside the golden doors to the Beast's throne room, plotting out their next move. They didn't want to go after Maltricia before the Beast got to her; that would make their entire journey to his court moot. They decided to exfiltrate and rest up outside the castle, but not before further exploring the maze.
• They passed through a room filled with portraits, and from there into a drawing room with a well-stocked liquor cabinet. They plundered some plum wine and amaretto bottles, and noticed crumpled political and philosophical treatises on a desk, with a peacock-feather quill.
• Beyond, they found an interior garden, decorated with the trophy heads of various animals. The trophies' eyes followed them around the room, and the party realized that the eyes were carved from crystal.

Party: Which of these heads looks the least dangerous?

GM: The white rabbit.

Party: What about the second least dangerous?

GM: The honey badger.

Party: ...

• They scavenged the crystal eyes from the trophies, each of which cried pitifully, but the party's greed was unmoved. They then noticed that the far wall of the garden... just didn't exist. Instead, a forest path meandered deeper into trees, which gradually took on the colors of autumn. The party had located another entrance to the Indoornesse.

'Trees beside the River...' JMW Turner

• The party resolved to enter the demiplane again, leaving their phantom allies behind. Boroth noticed that, as he entered, his awareness of the castle's vampires diminished, then disappeared entirely. 
• They took the fork in the road leading east, and came upon rolling hills in a huge clearing. A great flock of sheep grazed as a young shepherd slept in the shade of a boulder, but on closer inspection, the sheep were not what they seemed. In fact, many had sharp teeth and evil eyes, while some were, plainly, wolves disguised as sheep.
• The party used a whistle to wake the shepherd from afar as his flock stalked towards them. The flock immediately went back to grazing, and the party engaged the shepherd in conversation.
• Noting the strangeness of the flock, the shepherd insisted they were simply foreign breeds; the Rhodesian Longear, well-known for its fine wool. He informed the party that there was a chapel populated with monks, as well as a pair of hermitages. The monks seemed odd to him, as they always spoke of chastity, peace and brotherly love, but never followed their advice.
• Longo inquired as to the wool, and purchased some; he promised to come back soon, and asked for enough wool to make a sweater by the time he returned.
• They followed the shepherd's instructions to reach the closest hermitage. On the way, they came to a bridge, and as they were about to cross, were confronted by a troll which clambered out from underneath.

Troll: I demand booty!

Party: ... excuse us?

Troll: Gold! Gems! Your mother!

Idred: How distasteful.

• Idred made a bet with the troll, saying that he could give the troll more coins than he could carry. The troll scoffed, as the wizard clearly didn't have very much coinage on him.
• To which Idred pulled out his Cornucopia of Coins, and used a couple charges to blow out over a thousand copper pieces. This amounted to quite little in the way of gold, but, the troll couldn't keep all the loose coinage without spilling some. Idred declared victory, and the troll allowed them passage. But he also swore vengeance on the tricksy wizard.
• They finally arrived at the hermitage, a cave not unlike that of the satyr Bumble. This one, however, was inhabited by a human, who welcomed the party.

'The Hermit' Gerrit Dou

• Corby recognized him quickly. This was none other than Father Chlodowig, the former parish priest of Tours-en-Savoy, who was excommunicated and went missing months before. They asked him questions at length, which he answered noncommittally. He offered the party a chance to rest the night in the cave with him; the sun was perpetually overhead in the Indoornesse, which was altogether exhausting.
• Estimating that they had spent a good deal of time inside the demiplane already, they agreed to take the opportunity and rest. They received a great deal of strange advice from the hermit, and Corby spent time speaking with him alone. It turned out that Father Chlodowig was able to shine a great deal of light on the changes in faith Corby was experiencing. He even offered Corby a silver coin, apparently an item of some significance to his sect.
• The next 'day' they awoke, but the quality of rest in a demiplane where the sun is always shining is quite poor. They bade Chlodowig farewell and travelled further into his cave. At the end, there were a set of rough stone steps leading up. As they climbed, Boroth recovered his vamp-sense.
• Triangulating his location using the positions of the entombed vampires, he determined they were in the northwest sector of the basement dungeon... and that Maltricia was on the dungeon level as well, to the southeast.
• They discovered a huge theater, with pews filled with skeletons, apparently inanimate. They ransacked the bodies and the lost-and-found box, recovering a wealth of valuable items, including a stuffed crocodile that Idred immediately claimed for himself.
• As they were leaving, however, the exit was blocked by a party of undead gentlemen, at the head of which walked a ghost in frilly costume. This was Frederic Malevol, the family thespian. As it happened, Longo was a great fan of the theater, and managed to distract Frederic from their intrusion with talk of the theater. Then Frederic offered Longo a chance to perform on the stage.
• It turned out to not be a request. Frederic jumped into Longo's body, and the thief failed his save. Frederic puppeted Longo about, reciting bits and pieces of various plays while prancing about to the amusement of the undead gentlemen. Then he did the same to Idred.

"Tristano, wherefore art thou Tristano?"

• The affair came to an end when the ghost tried the same trick with Boroth, but the save succeeded, and he bounced off the fighter like he was a brick wall. The party excused themselves politely with their loot, and ran off.

• They recovered their bearings, and found an exit to the ground floor, discovering a secret door that led them back to the perfumed giant frog.

Longo: Was this the frog Ranucci pretended to speak to?

Idred; No, that was the other giant frog.

GM: loves this module

• Back in familiar territory, the party wound their way back into the dungeons, sneaking towards Maltricia's position.
• She was imprisoned in the dungeon cells, which the party had discovered before, but had been unable to pick the lock and enter. This time, Longo earned his keep, and the door to the cells swung open.
• There were several people imprisoned here, all of them humans from outside the Castle who tried to loot it. One of them, Melvin, desperately offered to tell the party all about the cells and their occupants in exchange for his freedom. He was ignored. 
• Then they found Maltricia. She was in terrible shape, her clothes torn, half her face petrified, and locked in a cell warded against her gaseous form. When the party made their presence known, she hissed and cursed at them, and they responded by tossing a few of their sunstones into her cell. 
• Unable to escape the sunlight, she tried to throw them back out, and Idred tried to stop her. That was when the wizard failed his save vs hypnosis. He already had his deadly Wand of Cold in his hand, the same weapon that destroyed Maltricia's husband, and it was now trained on the party.
• Corby came to the rescue with a timely turning, cowing Maltricia into submission and forcing her to break the hypnosis. Still, the party had no intention of letting her live. Carefully avoiding her gaze, Idred pulled out his Wand of the Marshlands, and summoned a Shambling Mound inside Maltricia's cell while their hireling Kaleb used his magic pipe to summon a swarm of rats.
• Maltricia responded with a summons of her own, a swarm of vampire bats, which harangued the party, but the deed was done. She was a vampiress, but her regeneration was nullified by the sunstones, and her cell prevented her escape. She was a powerful sorceress, but her most potent spells would have no effect or would outright heal the mound, and in any case, unleashing them in the cell would surely destroy her instead.
• It wasn't a fair fight. The Vampire Countess of Xyntillan fell under the tentacles of a shambling mound and the gnawing mouths of thirty rats. The party finished her off with time to spare, staking, decapitating and burning the body. They saved one of her femurs, though, as Claude had requested they bring a bone from a Malevol family member if the opportunity arose.
• Only after disposing of Maltricia fully did it occur to the party that they had three witnesses to their killing.
• That was where we left the session, with the party debating what to do about Melvin and the other witnesses in the cells. Objective after long-sought objective have been accomplished, but the end to their journey remains elusive. What will come of Maltricia's slaying? Why does Claude want a Malevol bone? And what was that silver coin? All this and more in the next session of Castle Xyntillan!

Takeaways

Their hireling Kaleb had the Pipes of the Sewers, apparently an actual magic item in the S&W book. It summons a whole lotta rats. I happened to have no idea how to adjudicate that many rats. Are they a swarm? What are their stats? In the end, I just decided that I wasn't going to roll out the whole combat. The party had taken all their precautions, their journey to the Beast had resulted in their target being trapped and weakened, and they had her trapped with creatures she couldn't reasonably destroy. It was over.

I remarked on this when the party fought a shambling mound, but holy crap they are tough. Not just that, but their resistances make them excellent mage killers.

I wish that I had started the campaign keeping track of alignment in some rigorous way, maybe with pips. The business with the trophy animals and their eyes was nasty, but their decision in the next session about what to do regarding the witnesses to Maltricia's death will test the party's fiber.\

Next Chapter: Relics of the King