Melrose Troop 68's
Dungeons and Dragons Game Review
 

Urza's Synopsis on
'Gibberlings and Minotaurs'.
written by: Mike Linnemann
(gamed played on May 27, 2001)
 

Heroes in action

 As I was walking along a trail near Onry, I found some of my adventuring friends. Among them were Mackeli, Lytle, Solomon, Fortunato, Derick, and Hewill. Luckily they needed no help in annihilating gibberlings. I helped in searching for their lair. We found more than we bargained for. A huge war camp of over 200 gibberlings was present in the forest.

 A large storm starts, and gets worse. After discussing the best course of action to defeat the camp, we decided to keep the fighters on the ground with the exception of Lytle who would be shooting arrows from the trees. The rain started to slant diagonally. Groans were evident.

 Eventually a gibberling saw us hidden under brush and decided to let the camp know about us. About, oh, hundredish gibberlings were searching the ground for us. Our “archers” threw their bows or magic to slow down the attack. Hewill tried a stinking cloud but it didn't do much good. The wind was just too strong. 
 So the battle commenced. Slash, twist adjust was the thoughts running in my head. First attack, then two, then one again. The gibberlings soon grew into piles of carcasses. Their battle frenzy was impressive, but their skill of fighting wasn't. I killed in the 40s of gibberlings. Sad, really how they had to die. That's the price they pay for being noticeable as a war party.

 Lighting got worse. So did the rain. It affected other members a little, I didn't seem to care. The blood rushed with the water all the same to me.

 After the carnage that happened we checked out the camp. Not a single gibberling was there. A lightning bolt hit a tree and collapsed some tents. In all, we found about 5,000 gold and 2 gems. Some of it was fused together because of electricity. Being low on health and spells we decided to head back to Onry and teleport to Atad’s Domain which was the party's original destination.

 Once we were leaving the rain and storms ceased. Laughter erupted throughout the forest. The ride back to town just felt that much better.

 The city let us in. Onry was severely damaged. Local rumors said a dragon caused this. We dismissed this for further evidence. It could've been Gary though. The mayor was hurt the most. His entire family was killed in a lightning strike.
 Two guards at the mayors house explained to use what had all happened to the town. A dragon was spotted and the unnatural end of the storm was thought to be a mage’s doing. Which isn't unreasonable. 

 As we arrived at his house we were not allowed to see him. His grief was just too great for us to see him, but an unlikely ally in all this disarray came to help. Silvenestine, a mage,  told us to enter, so we did. He inquired about us and we told him the story about Gary and Soloman and the countless others. He listened for a great while. The sun had set by the time we finished talking, so did the mayor's consciousness. His weary made him sleep involuntarily.

 This mage told us something very important. Gary has overstepped the bounds of ethos. The balance of good and evil has now shifted and that cannot be allowed. He told us of three items we could use to aid us in the destruction of Gary. A wand of Lightning guarded by a golem, a horn of blasting guarded by elementals and a necklace of adaptation worn around a neck of a dragon turtle, these items could help us enough to overtake Gary the green dragon.

 We decided to think on it. The next morning after sleeping in the Gold Piece Inn, we checked the magical shop. It had a scroll that made us protected against water elementals. We bought it for 7,500 gp. We then teleported to Bont. Hewill lost all of his gear along the way. Dumb mages. You'd think they could fix that.

 While in Bont we checked a magical store to find some extremely well made arrows. Lytle haggled with the store owner and received 7 magical arrows.

 The group bought new horses to ride all the way to Atad’s Domain. During the first night, on my shift naturally, we encountered three owlbears. Hatred swelled upon me. Sol and I yelled for the others to awakened and we battled. I slayed mine with ease, for those creatures shouldn't ever live I think.

 The rest of the night was peaceful.

 On the way to Atad’s we continued the next morning. At the gates we opened, only to find some Satyrs. Half man and half goat. We asked them to trade, they denied and we of course mocked them.

 We had the inside of the dungeon pretty uneventful until the third level. I have everything else mapped. We checked the north part of the third level to find some keys in a desk. Other desks were empty. Checking more northern rooms, we found cells. So we decided to open each cell so different people could search them for gold, secret doors etc.

 The second door I unlocked, a hand grabbed me. I hit the hand and jumped back to the wall. The hallway by the cells was only a few feet wide. Mackeli used a tongues spell to converse with the animal. We found it to be a minotaur. He was imprisoned revolting against Gary. Sounded like a powerful ally to us. He hook us up with some warriors and give us passage through Koegdun, Minta’s capital while we loot Gary's lair.

 I used the key and opened the door. He charged through the way and head butted Solomon. I raced to Sol and punched the Minotaur in the head. I stunned him and helped Sol. So the Minotaur, dubbed “Rob” by us, told us the story how Gary used to be on equal terms with minotaurs. As soon as Solomon came along, Gary extended his reaches and basically enslaved the minotaurs of Minta. Rob was one of them who revolted with others. He lost. In a bar he was taken here to fight in the arena we concluded. We felt pity and suited him with an axe that Derick had. The party just became stronger. To the Recreation room we now headed and finally to a locker room. Screaming Devilkin we found out later surprised us. We killed them. Their scream was deafening. Annoying I say. I was stung by their tails a few times, so we naturally thought, poison or disease. Neither of course, but better safe than sorry.

 In a secret room, Hewill proved useful. He had to use his knock spell to open doors. After the doors were opened. In that secret room we found some stuff. Three coffers filled with 500 platinum pieces each, four bags, three filled with gems, the fourth had five pieces of jewelry, one ring and a sword. This adventure seemed to lighten up a little on everyone's faces.

 Inside the locker room was a door, Derick tried to open it but failed. I opened it to be surprised by a Grell we later found out. I severed some of it tentacles on my first swing. The next round I killed it with the double attack. Rob muttered impressive.

 Now we knew we were close to the arena. Because that was our main goal. There was a southern door in the locker room. Derick tried to open it and of course, unsuccessful. So I opened it to find the arena. Three minotaurs were waiting. Rob charged to them and fell almost instantly in melee. We rushed in. Fortunato was struck in the throat and went down. I bandaged him. When I looked up, carcasses were thrown about. Mackeli used his spell which lets him speak with the dead. He made fun of Rob a little and then asked him if he knew any allies that could help when he was still alive. Of course he knew none.

 We made it out of the dungeon easily. On the second day out of Atad’s Domain we came upon men who wanted us to pay a toll of 10 gold each for passing. We said no. The men transformed into weretigers and they were also utterly destroyed. No treasure on them. Must be bad toll keepers we thought.

 The ride back to Bont was peaceful. In Bont we identified the stuff. The items came out to 36,186 gold. But Mackeli and Derick had been bitten by weretigers. We don't wasn't any lycanthropes if we can avoid it. The items were also identified. The sword is a magical Longsword. I decided to let the party keep my gold so I could keep the sword. The ring turned into a ring of water walking. The ring was placed into the party items. Like other potions and various other stuff.

  All in all. The adventurers come out on top.