They Met at a Tavern 23: Breaking out the Temple of Dynss, once again.

Who graced my table at the brewery?

• Wayne: Pharan, human Sea Wolf
• Chris: Galen, human Priest
• Dan: Kiara, elf Ras Godai
• Seana: Zanegar, 1/2 orc Sea Wolf
• Roger: Drom, dwarf Desert Rider
• Wilson: Gim, dwarf Fighter

Full house. Let's do it. 

The party departed from Zelkor's Ferry to the nearest city of note. What's the town? Let's ask the players for help. 

We have a medium-sized city that is well-established, but fallen on hard times, and a shadow of its former glory. It is run by a council of merchants, with a figurehead of a mayor. The city looks backwards, and makes a good trade in relics. That said, one of its notable landmarks is the old trading hall, once an impressive edifice, but now threadbare. The city is called Bettiholme. 

The party disembarked from their packet-ship, and paid a treasure toll to the harbormaster. Gim, an itinerant dwarf, was met. Fending off a band of enterprising urchins, they reached the shop of Delmar Hevrolug, brother to Kalgor Hevrolug of Zelkor's ferry. After some bitching about the state of his business, Delmar agreed to find a buyer for the party's magic orb. 

The party was directed to the shop of Kashmi Rasam, an artificer and dealer in artifacts. They managed to avoid serious mishaps and petty crime as they were slowed by a small street carnival, with snake charmers, jugglers, and acrobats. As city guards rushed in to apprehend pickpocket jugglers, spilling snake handler baskets, the party made a quick departure...

Rasam was quite enthralled by the find of the orb, pressing the party for information. The orb was demonstrated, although Kashmi warned that it may only have a limited number of uses left. Best not to show it off. Besides, he would act as broker and find a buyer.

But first, we carouse. The party was recommended a modest dwarf-operated inn in the neighborhood. None of that weak halfling beer there. Only one PC woke up in the gutter. 

Cloth Hall, Krakow

The next day, the party was taken to the trading hall, where Kashmi opened bids to three anonymous bidders hidden behind curtains. The device was sold, and the party split the proceeds with Kashmi. 

On the way back to his shop, he mentioned in passing that he might have removed the inner workings.

Anyway, you probably are eager to explore the area... The lizardfolk have been getting a bit active up north in the swamps - might want to check that out. 

Off to a ruined temple in the wetlands. Drom and Gim poked around the statue on the exterior platform, which disappointedly did not fire off. Into the temple proper, where a cobra did fire off. Drom shook off its poison and killed it. Kiara recovered one dose of poison. A jade idol was found.

Into the main foyer, and Gim was dragged off his feet by an undead gecko. Momentary chaos before Galen successfully turned it so well it exploded (nat 1 save by the gecko). Gim now covered with exploded gecko-bits.

yeah, I know it's a chameleon

Down the stairs, where hissing language was heard. The party was spotted by the lizardfolk guards, who attacked. The party dogpiled Guard 1, although Kiara was hit. The second one spit poison, but Kiara made a nat 20 save. Gim, getting into the swing of things, made Guard 2 dead.

Pursuing the lead lizardfolk, they were slowed by magic in the form of serpentlike, ephemeral tendrils. Struggling through, the party confronted the shaman. He stunned the two dwarves with a whistle from his ocarina, then failed a shield spell. Kiara scored a hit, but not before the shaman constricted Zanegar with an incorporeal serpent. Gim shook off the effects of the ocarina, and messily slayed the shaman in a fountain of blood (nat 20). 

Just in time for the pair of undead lizardfolk warriors to arise and put a damper on celebrations. The warriors put a paralyzing hit on the priest, quelling that pesky turn undead. Kiara, Phanran, and Gim hewed through them, with Gim making a killing blow.

For those of you keeping track at home, Gim is now covered with undead gecko bits, various lizardfolk offal, and undead warrior detritus. He is sooo into this.

Loot was looted, and they headed back to town.

DM Notes:

I'd decided to group-think the city creation to give some agency to the party/players. Some of the questions were inspired by Ex Novo, a collaborative city-building game I picked up during a Kickstarter for a print edition. Although I didn't use it as a game itself for this session, several of the game phases inspired the questions I posed to the players, and the players generated a reasonably cohesive town within a round of questions. I'm interested in trying the game as a standalone sometime, perhaps through one of the alternative rpg groups. Outside of its use as a game, Ex Novo has plenty of city-building questions and random tables for a GM to flesh out a city or cities for their game world. I'm currently waiting for the print edition KS of their Ex Umbra dungeon-building game, as well.

The session went reasonably well, although I didn't really feel at the top of my game, personally. I had prepped a few NPCs, and stock locations, and used the Shadowdark random encounter generators for some street events so was able to move things reasonably well. And I have a folder of scenarios to pick. Dynss has been used a couple of times, and I have the flow of the adventure down. I was considering adlibbing through something I only have prepared as far as notes, but those scribbles were sitting on my desk, not in my notebook, so will wait for another time. 

So, I sense that finding the city (probably lost) where the Orb was created might be on the docket. Drom came up with a different name for the city each time it was mentioned, so I'm sure none of us really know what it was called... 

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