Rolen had to touch one of the arcane tomes. He just had to.

They’d defeated the vampiress, her armor and sword left in the hallway when she turned to mist and fled to her coffin. The group was delayed in putting a stake through her heart by a heavy, hard-to-find pair of nesting lids on the sarcophagus. Spotting the books at the head of the coffin, Rolen reached for the most compelling volume.

A spherical, tentacled alien appeared, regarding them enigmatically through slitted eyes.

What we’re playing:

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (S4)

1982 … Two 32-page booklets + 3-panel cover … Gary Gygax … TSR 9061 … ISBN 0935696725

This is our group’s session report / walkthrough / playthrough of Tsojcanth, one of the all-time classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons modules.

One of my favorite dungeon crawls. Not only do you get a clever adventure written by Gygax himself, but the second booklet is entirely devoted to new monsters and magical items.

Check Wayne’s Books Inventory

Amazon | DriveThruRPG (PDF $5 / Reprint $9)

Aliens and Vampires

The party was drained from their fight with the vampire (in some cases literally).

The alien Xeg-Ya levitated 10 feet up, looped a tentacle around Wil-Li, nearly killing the gnome henchman, setting his clothes afire, and melting his magic hammer.

The fight was on.

They got some hits in, but it was immune to non-magical weapons, and was out of reach from all but the longest melee weapons. Wil-Li rushed over to the corpse of Rol-Li to replace his hammer.

Tagren managed to hook the Xeg-Ya and dragged it back to ground level, and the party proceeded to open a can of Whoop-Ass on the alien. Del-Li went around delivering healing potions to the wounded.

The Xeg-Ya attempted twice to free itself from Tagren’s pike, but was unable. Delmar, with one final bowshot, killed the alien. It promptly exploded, wounding them further, and slaying Wil-Li.

At that, the coffin burst open, and Drelnza arose, literally, as she floated in the air. Entirely naked. And not fully healed. The vampire reached out, and her sword flew into her hand.

Both Delmar and Rolen attacked, by arrow and magic missile respectively. Drelnza howled, flying over to Delmar, slashing him with her sword, and charming him. Definitely mixed signals there.

Wilhelm Pembroke had enough of this, tossing a sculpted fireball in their direction. The vampire screamed as she caught fire.

Tagren rushed up the slope of the sphere, jumping up to the overhang in a feat of athletics. The Half-orc put down the vampire in a flurry of blows. She once again turned to mist.

The party waited for the vampire mist to return to her coffin, but she went in a different direction.

Rolen surmised that Drelnza had a back-up coffin stashed somewhere.

I’d added one in the Bodak lair that they never encountered.

The party hurriedly grabbed the loot, careful to not put skin contact on any of it. Drelnza’s +4 bastard sword howled obscenities telepathically at Delmar as he stuffed it in a bag.

They hoisted the gnome corpses on their shoulders, and evacuated the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth before Drelnza re-formed once again!

Denouement

Back in the civilized lands of Perrenland, the party healed, and couldn’t help looking over their shoulders, fearing a vampire in pursuit of Iggwilv’s treasure.

Speaking of treasure:

The magic lamp turned out to be Daoud’s Wondrous Lanthorn, a near-artifact. Wilhelm and Rolen studied it intently, conducting research, knowing it’d be months or a year to unravel its mysteries. But it could cast powerful spells by use of different colored lenses.

The small cage was Prison of Zagig, apparently with the power to trap foes. It would need more study.

Plus there were the gems and jewels inside, several pieces of platinum jewelry studded with diamonds and rubies:

  • a tiara worth 27,000 gp
  • a necklace worth 20,000 gp
  • a bracelet worth 12,000 gp
  • earrings worth 9,000 gp
  • a ring worth 6,000 gp

Combined with the other loot they scored, they were quite wealthy.

See Also:

WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN: [Final] Session 11 – Nix and Nox