discodanlives

Mantis-Men: Play Report

PCs:

Session Notes

We began at the blighted village of Marvess on the edge of the Ivory Jungle. The party had been hired by the down-on-it's-luck noble house of Theobald in Schleswig to find the body of their youngest son Griv, who stole a magic wand from the family vault and went off in search of the Black Ruin in the Ivory Jungle. The family wasn’t necessarily concerned with recovering his body, so much as they wanted that wand back. For doing so, the party would be handsomely rewarded.

After a night resting in the ruined chapel of St. Gurgis, the party set off into the jungle, following a worn wagon-trail to a crumbling stone bridge topped with elephant heads over a rushing black river. Right off the bat they ran into trouble, as Jotna dashed across safely, the weight of the rest of the party caused parts of the bridge to collapse and sent Kutz and Mr. Mushroom (along with Jotna’s donkey) tumbling into the rushing water. Arvant nearly held on to the iron urns hanging from chains from the side of the bridge, but he slipped and fell into the water as well. Mrs. Mushroom however was able to pull herself up and shimmy along the edge of the bridge to join Jotna.

As the duo caught their breath, the other three degenerates were swept down the river, washing up on the bank just down the hill from where three colorful wagons rotted in the jungle sun. Kutz used his prodigious nose to sniff out the corpse of a jester in one of the wagons, and the golden pocketwatch it was holding. The group then set off deeper into the jungle, not waiting for their compatriots, who arrived at the ruined caravan shortly afterwards. Jotna and Mrs. Mushroom turned over the rest of the wagons, and found a lacquer box with 100sp and a compass that didn’t point North.

Following the compass, which pointed to your greatest desire (Mrs. Mushroom desiring new bones), they reunited with their comrades at a quiet grotto deep in the jungle. This grotto was dominated by a large black obelisk topped with an elephant head, and around the pond were several White Elephants, strange creatures with six eyes and bowls of black oil in their heads. Arvant spoke with them, and discovered that one of their calves, Ooltac, had been taken by the Mantis-Men a couple days ago while playing near the Black Ruin against his mother’s wishes.

The party promised to recover the calf, in return for sipping some of the strange oil in the elephants’ heads. This was invigorating, and the group set off down an Elephant Path leading from the grotto. Midway down the path, they found a Mantis-Man with a crippled scythe attempting to drag a dead deer. It spotted them first and dropped the deer, taking off into the jungle.

A chase ensued, with Arvant and Mrs. Mushroom catching up to the Mantis and clubbing it to death. Following the trajectory of its flight, the group found themselves finally outside of the Black Ruin, the entrance to which was guarded by two orchid Mantis-Men. In a flash of genius, Arvant went back and stripped the dead Mantis-Man of his chitin, strapping it to himself and putting the head on his head like a helmet.

So armored, he was able to walk right into the temple, the other adventurers his “prisoners.” Were the Mantises just stupid or was something else going on?

Inside, they found an entry chamber with a pile of rotten offerings and white mold covering every surface. Jotna picked her way over to the stone doors while Arvant scooped up a handful of mold, for later.

Through the stone doors was some sort of worship chamber, with two huge pillars with braziers lighting up the place. An altar shaped like an elephant stood at one end, and to the East, a tunnel was bored into the stone. Voices could be heard down the tunnel, headed away from the party, but they caught snatches of conversation, including the words “queen” and “sacrifices.” Arvant charged after the voices, running nearly smack into a tall bald human in an elephant skin cloak, attended by four other humans wearing mantis-chitin armor.

The bald human, some sort of sorcerer, didn’t seem surprised to see Arvant, but did seem frustrated that he had free will. With a quick snap of his fingers, Arvant was enthralled and left to guard the corridor. A few moments later, the rest of the party arrived, and Arvant attacked Jotna, who, being a magician themselves, discerned what was going on and used their spell Enochian Syntax to reassert control over Arvant.

The party continued down the tunnel to a large cavern filled to the brim with massive orchids and the stench of blood. Several villagers were bound and gagged in the center of the room. Arvant marched in, and ran into a pair of orchid Mantis-Men lying in wait. He was quickly gutted and decapitated, and the rest of the party used the distraction of his death to sneak through to one of the other two exits from the room.

The tunnel they chose spit them out in a hallway junction, with an archway leading back into the temple proper to the West and another tunnel leading North. From the North, they also could hear the sounds of chanting and farther off, the sounds of a slaughter.

Taking a quick peek up the tunnel, they found that it split off into a smaller chamber where the sorcerer from earlier was baptizing a mantis-husk warrior in black sludge while 15 other thralls looked on. Jotna, with a brilliant plan, strode confidently into the room and unleashed another use of their Enochian Syntax, commanding the sorcerer to free his thralls. The sorcerer was blasted with angelic magic and broke the spell on his slaves, which… went about as well as you’d expect. A melee broke out in the chamber, and the party retreated down the hallway to wait it out.

After a few minutes of bloodshed, the party crept back into the chamber to find five living husk warriors, in shock, sitting about the room. Mrs. Mushroom used this opportunity to collect some bones from one of the corpses, and the rest of the party except for Kutz outfitted themselves in mantis-chitin armor. Kutz meanwhile ransacked the sorcerer’s “bedchamber” (an alcove with straw and pillows), and found 100sp, a strange potion, a stone key, and a little jade disk with a face on it.

Deliberating on next steps, the party (plus one of the rescued mantis-husk warriors named Manto) decided to head back down to the tunnel to the archway instead of continuing past the sorcerer’s chamber to what they learned was the Breeding Pit.

Beyond the archway was an antechamber decorated with a mural of a sun and elephants marching. Cowering in the corner of the room was a white elephant calf, Ooltac, who they coaxed into joining them. The stone key they found unlocked the large marble doors in the antechamber, and Kutz stepped through into a massive gloom-soaked chamber, where something fired a laser at him, sending him staggering back into the antechamber with a smoking hole in his armor.

As they bandaged Kutz’ wound, 5 Mantis-Men came chittering down the corridor, attacking poor Manto, who was bringing up the rear. A battle ensued, and Manto went down, Mr. Mushroom lost an eye, and Kutz lost an arm. However, with some carefully timed poison powder throws and carefully applied warhammer swings, the Mantis-Men were squished.

Taking time to catch their breath (and sip some elephant oil from Ooltac), the party cautiously re-entered the chamber beyond the doors. In the center, an enormous statue of an elephant sat cross-legged, the corners of the room supported by huge marble pillars shaped like stacked elephants. Behind the statue, a large golden portcullis led out into the jungle, and in the southeast corner, a pile of elephant bones hid a tunnel. Mrs. Mushroom, brave old lady that she was, crawled into the dark tunnel, eventually emerging in a dark fleshy cave, the sounds of slaughter muffled behind the walls.

Realizing they must have discovered a secret way into the Breeding Pit, Jotna crawled through and made an opening in the wall of the small cave (which was actually a pile of corpses), peeking through to a truly horrific sight: the Breeding Pit and Throne Room of the Ivory Queen. Hundreds of adolescent Mantis-Men hatched, slithered to the ground, and began murdering each other by the boatload. The queen herself sat upon a massive elephant skull throne, munching on the severed head of a White Elephant.

The light from the chamber illuminated the inside of the corpse pile, and Jotna realized she was standing on top of a corpse in a blue cape, a wand in his belt. They’d found Theobald at last! Recovering the wand, Jotna made her way back to the party, who had collected the other surviving Mantis-Husk warriors. Seeing no reason to return the way they came, they all heaved the portcullis up and escaped out into the jungle.

(GM Notes/Playtest notes to come in a second blog post!)