Online RPG Thing: Shadowbrook Manor - Completed

Last year I ran Shadowbrook Manor as an online one-shot thing. I never wrote down what happened, but basically this:

The party oooh spoilers, more under the cut:

Checklist: Online Sandbox Thing

• Write description about the city Roanoke and its rumors
• Also describe main families of Roanoke, and the different districts
• Write up some important NPCs. Stats? Who cares?
• Create starter packages.
• Write email to players.

It doesn't look like too much work, to be honest. This thing is happening, hopefully start next weekend.

Online Auctions

I can't visit eBay or similar sites (Yahoo Japan's auction site, for instance) without losing money. Or I guess it's more "spending" than "losing", since I actually get stuff. Japanese auctions are interesting; most people aren't really willing to send stuff internationally (kinda like American auctions, but with an added language barrier), so it usually ends up with me hiring a proxy service, which makes everything cost that much more.

My brief visit to eBay ended with me winning a Japanese dice set -- I was looking for d6 mainly, but I'm not one to say no to one of each. Besides, they were purdy. I ended up paying ~$3 for each, which is kinda expensive for dice, but what can you do about it, am I right? I also ran across, and just now won, The Book of Lairs 1 & 2, which ended up costing me ~30 bucks. I think that's a fair price? They'd be about $23 on Amazon, before adding on shipping (which definitely won't be $7). I don't really know what they're for, but inspiration is always nice, I guess.

I have one bookshelf left to assemble, for now, and after that I'll start comparing AD&D GM Companion to the AD&D GM Companion Manuscript. The manuscript was like, 300-400 pages I think? So they cut a lot of stuff, but the text in the published book is also really small, so it could be that they just squeezed everything in. If I find myself with absolutely nothing to do and a scanner at hand I might scan the thing too (not the book, of course), but don't count on it. Dunno what I'll do with it once I've listed differences. Maybe some collector will want it? Then again, not sure I want to sell it. Meh.

You've got mail!

My latest Lulu order finally arrived, 21 days after it was dispatched. Now granted, there has been a good amount of holidays between then and now, but 21 days? I guess it takes that long for a package to go from France to Sweden. UK to Sweden takes about 7 days with their regular mail, and Denmark to Sweden takes what, 3 days? Maybe there was a strike? It wouldn't surprise me, last time I was there they had three strikes in two weeks. No, wait, four.

This post is not about unionizing your dungeon inhabitants, however (although a friend did manage to do just that with a tribe of goblins working for a dragon, but that's another story). The books that arrived were Dyson's Delves, 1 & 2. My current review list:

1. Forgive Us
2. Qelong
3. Scenic Dunnsmouth
4. Isle of the Unknown
5. Carcosa
6. Fuck for Satan (maybe)
7. Dyson's Delves I
8. Dyson's Delves II

With maybe some other stuff in between. It depends. Stay tuned, updates come whenever I remember I have a blog.

Current plans: Online gaming

(I will ignore the fact that I've not updated this in four months, because I'm that kind of guy. I have been moving and busy with other things, however that isn't really an excuse.)

Aight, so I'm planning a thing for online gaming. I'll write more on it later, but it's going to be interesting to say the least. The idea is that since the group won't be the same members every time, I need to approach it differently than usual, so I'll write it down as I go along. Right now I'm sketching out the starting area and all that jazz, but to begin with, here're Jeff Rients' 20 Questions:

1. What is the deal with my cleric's religion?
2. Where can we go to buy standard equipment?
3. Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?
4. Who is the mightiest wizard in the land?
5. Who is the greatest warrior in the land?
6. Who is the richest person in the land?
7. Where can we go to get some magical healing?
8. Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, alignment change, death, undeath?
9. Is there a magic guild my MU belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?
10. Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?
11. Where can I hire mercenaries?
12. Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?
13. Which way to the nearest tavern?
14. What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?
15. Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?
16. How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?
17. Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?
18. What is there to eat around here?
19. Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?
20. Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with Type H treasure?

1. There will be many different religions available, with two or three major ones in the starting city.
2. Standard equipment is available in most cities -- of which the group only knows their starting one to begin with. Gunpowder weapons will be harder to come by. Laser weapons and beyond nigh impossible.
3. Again, the starting city is your best bet; it's the most civilized, has the largest population.
4. Agrippa the Undying, a woman transported to this place centuries ago. She keeps to herself, and nobody alive knows about her.
5. Grimwulf Fourfingers. A raider, can sometimes be found carousing in a tavern.
6. Ssyth, a lizardfolk woman, runs the largest merchant house on the continent. What she doesn't trade in isn't worth bothering with.
7. Find a cleric. You'll pay outta your ass though, or be indebted to some god or other.
8. There is a "hospital" run by the city of Roanoke, but the technology level isn't very high and some practices are really weird, see those for poison and diseases. Curses might be dealt with by the clergy, lycanthropy you need to find a wise woman who actually knows the cure (Saral, a halfling); polymorph you'll need to dispel, alignment change is permanent, as is death. Undeath can't be cured.
9. No, you gain spells on level up with the Inspiration rule. You must still spend gold for the spell as if you had researched it though.
10. Roanoke.
11. Roanoke.
12. No, although swordfights are heavily fined in Roanoke proper.
13. That way. Most villages have a tavern or some other kind of community gathering place, too.
14. TBD
15. TBD
16. There are unarmed combat competitions held throughout Roanoke, the biggest one is held during the Harvest festival. Basically just slugfests.
17. TBD
18. The standard fare. No potatoes though. Stews. White bread is expensive, as are eggs.
19. Yes, definitely. Have a look around some of the ruins and dungeons littered all over the place.
20. There are no dragons here. Or are there?

Yeah, so I have some stuff to write up obviously. It's gonna be great.

When Murderhobos Attack, part 2: Dealing with it.

Today we played some stuff. Gregor couldn't make it, but the group was instead joined by former tavern wench-cum-magic user Estonia, played by someone that has never in their entire life played an RPG before (except WoW).
Estonia
Human Magic-User
Cha 11, Con 9, Dex 10, Int 13, Str 10, Wis 11
Spells: Read Magic, Summon, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic
When asked for a description, the player asked "so can I do whatever I want?" to which I said sure. So Estonia is 17, has purple hair, eyes that glow in the moonlight, and wears too much make-up.

Massive spoilers yadda yadda.

To get the new character into play ASAP, it was decided that the group had travelled to Denethix since they forgot the gunpowder, and stayed at The Wailing Claw inn, located on the Street of Lesser Men. During the discussion over breakfast, Estonia overhears them talking about needing barrels of gunpowder and since she knows Ott, the owner of a gunpowder store (this was decided by the player, I just went along with it because hey that works) could show them the way. "So, will you guys pay me to take you to the best gunsmith and gunpowder place in town?" They agreed, Estonia quit her job as a tavern wench on the spot.

Gregor seem to have left the inn sometime during the night. Quote from Dinah and Fenriz: "We'll have to hunt him down and silence him, I don't like people that betray me like that." so Gregor's player will have his hands full next time he's with us.

They get to the store, strikes a deal with Ott (Estonia gets a cut on each sale she brings in, apparently!) and purchases two barrels of gunpowder (they pay much more than what it's actually worth). Estonia and Fenriz (the thief) goes to buy a buckler but gets chased by slave traders that want Fenriz's body for their nefarious trade (Estonia goes free because she has a large, aggressive dog and also papers that proves that she's a free citizen), but the slave traders eventually gives up. Estonia is hired to drive the wagon with gunpowder to Chelmfordshire. "You'll get paid later."

Arrive, stay at the inn over the night (GM thought: some of the adventurers lodging in Chelmfordshire have taken an interest in them now, since they leave and return and are bringing back gunpowder?), make their way to the cave entrance. Still no bear, but they don't seem unduly worried. They store the gunpowder barrels in the Officer's Bathroom (room 6?) and start looking for the Sergeant and his two automatons. They find him (seriously, they walk through the entire level and don't get a single encounter), walk back with him and his two men after convincing him that it's finally time to kill the Abomination, pick up the gunpowder barrels and make their way to the Abomination's lair. At the reactor Dinah gets attacked by radioactive stirges and nearly falls off the ladder, but winds up hanging upside down. Dinah nearly gets eaten alive by stirges before they're all killed.

Arrive in the corridor before the lair, set up gunpowder barrels, taunt monster and run for it. Explosion kills Abomination neatly, but the loot is strewn all over, and nobody bothers trying to pick up small fragments of gold wire. Fenriz tries to open the chest guarded by two statues, but bolts as soon as they start to move. They make their way back to town after stripping the God Eye frame of stones and having found some stuff in the reactor room too. Still no bear.

Not much happened this time, but the Abomination obstacle has been dealt with so that's a huge thing. There was some roleplaying between Dinah and Estonia in the form of "You're not the boss of me!" and "Now listen here young lady, while I pay you I AM your mother." bickering. She said she had fun, but the lack of actual spells might be a bit of a turn-off.

Chances that campaign world will be fucked went from 10% to 90% on account of the Summon spell. That's fine. Whatever happens, happens.

When Murderhobos Attack, part 1: Into the Anomalous Subsurface Environment

Wheee~

Okay, so a group of players got together to do some dungeon crawling. Most of these guys and girls aren't that used to actual OSR stuff, but come from a more modern era of roleplaying games, where it takes a huge amount of time to create a character. One guy already had his character made; Gregor the Cleric, from the Shadowbrook Manor episode. Well the village of Talb... Tolb... whatever just got its name changed to Chelmfordshire and some caravan guards just entered The Grotesque Cousin lookin' for some help about some merchant family getting attacked.

Let me introduce the new characters:
Fenriz
Human Thief Specialist
Cha 6, Con 16, Dex 15, Int 18, Str 10, Wis 12

Dinah Mantorande
Human Fighter
Cha 10, Con 14, Dex 11, Int 13, Str 13, Wis 11

Being the kindly souls that they are, and Terry and Phil (the caravan guards) also mentioning something about a chest full of gold, they decide that they should probably see if there's something they can do about it all.

They get there, notice that the dead caravan guards had much better armour than they themselves and immediately strip them of their armour. Totally not unhinged at all. They find the obvious track of the moktar attack, and follow it to the dungeon/lair. Fenriz immediately falls into the pit trap, and seconds later gets a visit from a fairly confused wolf that he proceeds to drown, but only after Gregor jumps down to help him. Dinah suddenly comes to think about the fact that nobody brought a rope, immediately goes "you guys hang tight, I'll fetch some rope. Be right back!" and before anyone can reply she's off. So Gregor and Fenriz have to sit in that disgusting, star wars-esque trash pit for two hours and some (the Moktars come by and look for their wolf, but they're all too sick to make an effort and they figure it's run off or something, they never check the pit itself). Dinah returns and helps the guys up. They dispatch of the lone guard, then kill the 6 moktars in the guard room (I actually switched that and the common room around), barely. Retreat to the Kennel room and hole up for the night -- Terry and Phil have been more than useless up to now, so they're put on guard duty.

Next day they clear out the rest of the dungeon -- most everyone is almost dead or actually dead from the sick stone, but Fenriz finds the map. Dinah realizes what the stone actually is, and drops it into the refuse pit. I had the chest moved from the crab spider room to the Chieftain's room because I felt like it, and when they find it and see that it's full of gold they immediately go "splitting it three-ways is much better than five-ways..." Commence operation murder caravan guards. Phil bolts, but forgets about the pit trap and gets caught in it. Fenriz kills him from above (with bow and arrows).

They find metal plate, when Fenriz finds the small switch and flips it to "up" position. Dinah and Gregor nearly dies, but nobody gets squished. Fenriz actually thinks twice and pads the floor with dirty rags and stuff, so that they don't take damage when he puts the switch to "down" position. They debate for a while, then quickly checks the spider crab room, but decide that fuck it, it's not worth risking our lives for. Drop steel pyramid, get the hell out of there. Fenriz volunteers in fetching the sick stone, because he don't want the others to know how Phil died.

They get to the Gatehouse, waltz around for a bit and Fenriz finds the pit/cage trap (above room... 17?) -- I go with the "traps only go off on a 1 on 1d6" for some stuff, because they're only three and I can be kind at times -- nearly dies, again. But they have a rope with them, so they haul him up. They draft the automatons in room 5 and force them to lead them to the Sergeant, after having shown them the golden wings pins. They muck about a bit and take the money in room... 31?

They've expanded on the Sergeant's squad with some lesser automatons that they forced into service (because otherwise: violence), and have gotten many of the rooms mapped out by the Sergeant's guys... It's always a good idea to act like you're actually the guy running things around there. They haven't found room 14 and 15, nor the secret corridor, and they've yet to visit 29, 24 and 25. They flip the lever opening/activating the ASE, as a final gesture.

Hoping to find awesome laser weapons that the Sergeant said might exist in the lower levels (he actually didn't say anything like that, but they thought he did and I didn't feel like correcting them) they go downstairs into Level 1. They find the letter in room 1, found the corridor of bones (and opted to NOT enter it), then found room 4 but didn't trip any traps, before they decide that maybe later.

They quit the place and go back to Chelmfordshire to get some kegs of gunpowder because the Abomination sounds like something they can't deal with. So they get to Chelmfordshire, noting the searchlights and all that jazz (since it's just an hour or so since they opened it, nothing much have had time to happen yet), buy a new horse for their wagon (which they bought earlier) and off to Denethix. They sell some of their phat lewtz, and return to Chelmfordshire the day after-ish, drunk as fuck on their wagon (they rented a coachman in Denethix), only to find that the inn has become super popular (because you know, something's afoot in Mount Rendon and adventurers might wanna check that out), but for some sexual favours from Fenriz the innkeeper might let them have their old rooms back.

When they wake up, with the hangover from hell, the first thing the cleric says is "Fuck! We forgot the gunpowder!" and that's where we ended today's session.
--
A few thoughts: might move from LotFP to LL; not a huge difference but I feel that I might you know? Gonna check to see what they take for printing it at the local print shop. LotFP rules are still very fast to create characters, and combat is fluid enough. Not very good at integrating other races into the game, although there were some "this cave [the moktar one] must have been made by dwarves." (with the response "fucking dwarves, always ruining something") and other shit going around. Gonna have to work on that. Need a name list so I can just grab a name for an NPC, because I fucking suck at coming up with names on the spot. I'm not amazing at describing combat either, but on the plus side Dinah's player is so much better at it and revels in providing gory details. I feel comfortable leaving it as it is -- that is, players describe their shit if they want to, or I give them a generic battle-ish description -- but I definitely want to improve on that. NPCs in Gatehouse could have acted better, but they were super lucky with encounter rolls. Group will need to learn to check for traps better than they do, but pit traps made sure they remembered to do so for a while afterwards and that's good enuf for me. Their searches are also not really that descriptive, but I'm fine with that for now -- it'll come in time.

Next time we'll hopefully also have a completely new player with us, and Mother Russia might also join and I think that's a pretty good line-up: 2 fighters, a cleric and a thief, with one slot for newbie and whatever she wants to play.

Lost in Shadowbrook Manor

We were supposed to play board games yesterday, but one player didn't show up. I guess it's feasible to play boardgames between three people, but nobody felt like it. Instead they wanted to play a roleplaying game. Since I just so happened to have Shadowbrook Manor available, we rolled up characters.

Allow me to introduce the cast:
Mother Russia
Neutral Fighter
Cha 9, Con 12, Dex 15, Int 10, Str 13, Wis 7

Gregor the Cleric
Lawful Cleric
Cha 7, Con 14, Dex 11, Int 7, Str 11, Wis 15

Gear is an assortment of odds and ends: armour, donkeys, 10' poles, tents. You know, useful stuff.

They start out in the main hall of the inn The Grotesque Cousin (an unfortunate misspelling of cuisine that nobody bothers with fixing). Backstory, what's that? They make small talk and overhear a couple of mud farmers talking about how Shadowbrook Manor suddenly reappeared on top of that hill don't you know? And it's totally haunted so nobody dares go there. "Well well well well well" our intrepid adventurers think, "maybe there's some stuff there that we can sell?" After some inconspicuous inquiries ("hey you, what's this about Shadowbrook Manor?") and some warnings from said mud farmers about triffids in the forests, they leave the village of Tolb... Talb? Something like that. Who cares? But not before buying the worst liqour they can find and stealing a dress hanging to dry; in case they need to "make fire arrows" or "burn down the village... I mean, clean wounds with."

Our mentally stable adventurers make their way without incident to the manor proper, notices the WHOA SPOILERS, let's use white text instead:
So they notice the stone gnome, think "that's an ugly statue", knock on the door (making the connection between the Medusa head and the gnome, but not bothering about it for now) and it swings open. Seeing the light from a fire in one of the room they move there, sees the fire burning without smoke, gets interrupted by zombie maid. Zombie maid punches Mother Russia in the face, and gets a sword through the chest in kind.

They check the library but don't enter, since they can see the banshee floating about in there. I suppose I could have had them walk in and then run into her, but they're two PCs in a place for 4-6 PCs. They find a magnifying glass in one of the rooms, gets scared away by a familiar in another, and notices the magic runes above a door but don't dare try opening it. They find the lavatory and the zombie maid's room. Just as they're about to go through her footlocker the Zombie Butler attacks. He goes down easily. Mother Russia fixes the pocket watch to her armour, announces it to be "Fashion!" They look outside, but don't bother with it, move to the big room... and someone knocks on the door.

It's a neighbor! And he's drunk! Not terribly so, but we take a break and socialize a bit. Apparently he's gonna go on tour with Bam Margera next year? After some hesitation he joins us, and
Àri
Chaotic Magic-User
Cha 12, Con 5, Dex 8, Int 12, Str 12, Wis 11
Floating Disc, Mending, Read Magic
shows up at the manor.

After some "who are you?" and "what're you guys doing here?" the party moves on. They return and kicks the familiar's ass, pick up a black rock and a quarterstaff they named "Death." Since they've been taking a beating they decide to head out into the forest and take a rest, but not before Gregor and Ári decide to scout the grounds. They get almost killed by the groundskeeper (Ári at -2, Gregor at 1) but manage to take him down. Hasty retreat to erected tent, where Mother Russia is already sleeping (the nerve!).

For Gregor's watch (since Ári is unconscious) nothing much happens. A vampire bat tries to attack, but a trusty baseball swing takes care of that. When Mother Russia takes over she's attacked by a werewolf that proceeds to rip her face off. She dies, and wakes up at The Grotesque Cousin, together with Gregor and Ári. (Yeah, I made that call. Sue me.) They decide to call it a day.

The musician guy that played Ári was the first to ask when we were gonna play again. So that's a win for RPGs/OSR, I guess. All in all, the group is happy although they admit that OSR (none of them had played osr-style games before) is muuuuch more lethal than what they normally play.

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 6

Day 6: Favourite Deity
This is a rather boring topic, since I usually just make my deities up on the spot. Like Brotherhood of the Twelve Spokes; they worship the dinosaur ape Yaldu, that in the beginning of time destroyed one of the two moons in a fit of rage. From the remnants the world was created. This is also why there's only one moon, and why it moves across the sky: it's obviously trying to avoid the dinosaur ape. Duh. I don't think I have a favourite one though.

I'm not even familiar with any sort of "official" deities. I guess I've read some of them, but they all seemed pretty bland?

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 5

Day 5: Favourite set of dice
Horror of horrors! I don't have one! Dice aren't anything special for me, so they just pile up in a weird collection that happens when I think "oh yeah, I forgot my dice" or "maybe I need another d4 to step on?" So the answer would have to be: none. There are fancy sets out there though, but I don't own them, and for me they're just things.

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 4

Day 4: Favourite gameworld?
I assume we're talking about settings here? I'm really fond of Shadowrun, at least the stuff until FASA sold the license. Everything after that is the beginning of the end of that world, I'm afraid. I also liked Traveller and Castle Falkenstein. But the most evocative setting I've ever heard of has to be Dark Sun. I've never played it, but the description alone makes me love it. That's how good it is.

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 3

Day 3: Favourite playable class?
I absolutely loved the assassin in Chronopia. Awe~some. Of course, I was a wee kid back then, but the image (I might scan it for you guys but then again that'd be copyright infringement) is just awesome and really good to get your imagination going.

If we're talking "strict" osr stuff I'd probably go with Magic-User. There's something about rolling to see what spells you get.

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 2

Day 2: Favourite playable race
For a long time I loved elves and half-elves, but that was the munchkin in me. I never quite liked half-orcs or orcs, and dwarves... hmm, nah. However, I'd have to say it's definitely human. It's easiest to imagine, and humans are kinda awesome.

That said, I find myself stuck on the wrong side of the GM screen to really answer this very well. I am all the races. At the same time.

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 1

I've decided to do the D&D 30-day challenge. I don't know where it originated, but that's alright. Here is a list of what it consists of though. Yes, I just grabbed the first result when searching for "D&D 30 day challenge" on google.

So the first day is today. Totally not because I should be tidying up the apartment because the realtor is coming tomorrow to take photos.

Day 1: How you got started.
It's been so long now that I barely remember it, but here's what I do remember. In 5th or 6th grade one of my school mates brought along a table top game where each player controlled a miniature and explored a dungeon. You already know the characters: a dwarf, a barbarian, a magic-user, an elf... I can't actually recall the name of the game, or many details about it, but I distinctly remember that it was in Swedish, because we were pretty bad at English back then. No matter.

The board game was a huge hit among a few of us, and we continued playing it between classes. Cut to the summer before 7th grade. A friend called me over for trying out this new "roleplaying game" he'd bought. It wasn't D&D, but a game called Chronopia. It's pretty well known in Sweden, but mostly for being so bad. That didn't matter though, because we didn't know better (and I still argue that whining about how bad Chronopia was is useless. I can't even remember the rules any longer, but the game sold us on RPGs, so it had to have had something). The book was also cheaply made and fell apart after a few uses, so you could basically ask for the equipment list and you'd get the pages but not the book itself. I kinda liked Chronopia -- the basic setting was this huge, old wooden tower-City. We never used it.

I recall an introductory adventure where my assassin (haha, yes -- my first character ever was an assassin) snuck into a room on the second floor and slit the throats of 20 sleeping guards. Or something like that. Maybe not 20. But yeah.

In other news: I had hoped to finish Death Frost Doom yesterday, but one of the players got sick and so we had to cancel. It happens, we'll play some other weekend. I'll write a short review sometime this week, I think.

On Goblin Fashion

The Wailing Mace was mentioned in the book "On Goblyn Fashionne", part of a series of journals describing anthropologist Acks Nynsay's stay with a goblin tribe. For over five years Acks stayed with the tribe and took part in their daily life and their raids; she learned their language and observed their mating rituals. The Wailing Mace is mentioned briefly as Acks describes the goblin chieftain prior to a raid:
"The goblyn chief was dress'd inn combatt garb, with the usual warrior painting of the face that is commonn inn these tribes. Behind her stoode her slave-husbandes, four inn all (as these tribes preferres the number four). Withe a screame so as to heighten our fighting spirits the chief raised her flail -a weaponne she said screamed inn her mynde- and led the charge toward the merchante camp atop her dire wolve. The battle was short, and I killed two guards myself, earninng a place at the chief's table at the feast afterwardds."

Nynsay was hanged when she returned to civilization, but her journals became widely popular as a sort of post-modern take on adventuring.

Death Frost Doom, part 1

So today the group, after creating characters, set out to find the Screaming Mace, until the EQ player complained about the name and the wizard looking for it remembered that the name was the Wailing Mace instead. The group consists of:
Toger Ilfhem, Magic-User
Cha 13, Con 10, Dex 13, Int 16, Str 15, Wis 9.

Filip, Cleric
Cha 10, Con 15, Dex 13, Int 12, Str 11, Wis 14

Plax, Specialist
Cha 12, Con 15, Dex 9, Int 12, Str 11, Wis 12

Iam Toast, Gnome
Cha 9, Con 10, Dex 16, Int 13, Str 15, Wis 9

After some research and travelling, they thus reached the Mountain, where apparently the mace was last seen. Plax and Filip were freaked out a bit by the old man and then even more freaked out by the stuff in the cabin, the Magic-User picked up everything he found. Spoilers follow, highlight to read: They found the body, they're a bit disturbed by the mirror (only one is invisible) and think it's because the Magic-User stole stuff in the cabin. The painting freaks two of them out a bit too. They made their way down into the temple proper. They found the basins with teeth and promptly went up and kicked the dead guy's face in for the sacrifice. Before that the gnome played the organ but nobody died and the Magic-User picked up all the other loot in the room. They found the (first) book and the Magic-User took it. Plax and Filip are totally freaked out, the Magic-User thinks he's lost his soul already and the Gnome is acting as tank (AC 19).

So yeah, I suspect that this group of intrepid adventurers won't live for very long.