BARRIER PEAKS EXPEDITION: Session 5 – Unfazed Spiders and a Neutron Bomb

At the same time as Yebarinscrud spotted the phase spiders, a person popped out of one of the artificial eggs in the entertainment room!

(My eldest son is done with Army boot camp, and is at his A-School in Monterrey, CA. So he can play in games with us again! Soon I hope we’ll get back Navy middle son as well.)

(*The notes are for me, not visible to the players of course!*)

Previously:

What We’re Playing

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

During this adventure walkthrough / playthrough, I use primarily the original module, with some extras lifted from Goodman Games fantastic Original Adventures Reincarnated hardcover.

Check Wayne’s Books Inventory

Amazon | DriveThruRPG (PDF)

Gorgeous hardcover Original Adventures Reincarnated #3: Expedition to The Barrier Peaks at Amazon

NEW! Quests from The Infinite Staircase adapts Expedition (and other classic adventures) into 5e (Amazon)

VTT Maps are by Jon Pintar. He’s kindly extended permission for me to use them in the game and session posts. (Link)

Phase Spiders

The party advanced on the phase spiders, who abruptly vanished!

The new arrival, Schirru the bard, was disorientated, questioning the people around him who were heading into a fight.

The party waited in readiness.

The phase spiders reappeared, surrounding Ada and Wil-Li, who were felled by their venomous fangs.

The party fought back best they could, killing one phase spider and driving another away.

The spiders disappeared again. After a time, it seemed like the phase spiders lost interest in the fight.

The downed PCs were revived, though all jacked-up due to the poison in their systems. Yebarinscrud cast Lesser Restoration to neutralize the venom. Schirru cast Mass Cure Wounds on his new comrades, who were still banged up from previous fights.

With the arrival of another player, I had the group leave their “B-team” PCs holed up in a room to make the number of PCs more manageable.

They continued exploring.

American Greyhawk Pickers

Tagren still enjoyed picking through the junk in the abandoned rooms. Schirru picked up the habit as well.

(I roll on the Gamma World 1e “Treasure List” for all sorts of wondrous and useless junk)

Tagren found:

Leather bag full of miscellaneous knobs and buttons – late model bubble-car parts

Schirru Found:

Pair of retractable detractors – poor condition, batteries leaked

Both finds elicited shrugs.

Then Tagren found:

#303 can of Martian Snovi (regeneration grass) – looks and smells like rot; any creature brave enough to consume this rolls d10: 1-5 no effect, 6-9 add 2 pts to constitution and 2d6 to total hit points, 10 lose 2 pts. from constitution and subtract 2d6 from total hit points; all effects are permanent . Only one dose per character!

Tagren has a reputation for eating anything (including vegepygmies!). But even he hesitated at this unknown substance. The players and myself were cracking up, goading him into eating it. “Do It! Do It!”

And he did!

The gods smiled on Tagren this day. My youngest son rolled an “8“: +2 CON and +2d6 hp. Wow!

No other players decided to try this version of the Deck of Many Things.

Schirru Found:

60cm. duralloy sphere resting on a wheeled cart (time capsule from 2076) – looks like a neutron bomb.

The bard examined the object, found a hairline seam around the circumference, tried using his retractable detractors on it, ultimately deciding it would require further study.

I told everyone OOC about the “neutron bomb” comment. Everyone was cracking up about Schirru messing around with a WMD.

Then Delmar, out ahead, spotted a vegepygmy!