Into the Tombs of Asthar Rho

Party at the start:
Mace Blackstar (Mike D.; Human Fighter)
Wilbered The Silent (Shawn D. (normally Bob); Human Cleric)
Castor Bean (NPC; Human Bard)
Trygvie (Steve G.; Elven Wizard)
Kane (Al G.; Human Monk)
Zuran (Chris L (special guest appearance!); Human Fighter)

Note:  This was the first session done with 1st edition rules.  The story all remains the same; we just moved back to the 1e rules by DM request.

The group decided, after some discussion, to camp in the ruined temple of Muir. While Kane and Castor were on watch, they saw a figure stealing up to the Temple of Teyr, next door, and so they awoke their comrades and armed themselves while the monk in the party crept over to check it out.

The monk saw a figure in a threadbare cloak kneeling before the broken altar in the ruined temple. The monk ran back to his companions to alert them and the group decided to confront the visitor.  When they entered the abandoned temple it was empty.  Wilbered was calling out to the "worshipper of Teyr" that they were a lawful party that meant no harm. The woeful, bedraggled figure of an old man crawled out from behind the ruined altar and introduced himself a Cleric of Teyr named Omidahl who occassionally snuck down to this temple to pay his respects.  When Omidahl discovered that the group was on a quest to bring grief to worshippers of Tsathogga and Orcus as well as lay the bones of a Paladin of Muir to rest in the tomb, he became very appreciative of their efforts despite some prosletyzing by the irrepressible Wilbered. Omidahl provided a rough sketch map of the tombs as well as a few potions and scrolls from a store beneath the Temple of Teyr.

Omidahl revealed to them that the triune virtues of Muir were "Truth, Honor and Courage." He also answered some of the player's questions about the current situation in the Valley of the Shrines.  The "master" was named Horan, Omidahl said, and was a wizard with the powers of fire and ice.  Horan served as a mediator between the "snake peoples" and the worshippers of Tsathogga and Orcus.  Without Horan's prescence, the followers of Orcus and Tsathogga would be at one another's throats.  The players tried to speak the words "Truth, Honor and Courage" in order to gain access to the area beneath the temple of Muir but failed.  Omidahl cryptically hinted that only persons of the proper alignment who were also worshippers of Muir would be able to enter the area below the shrine.

The group then decided to finish out their rest and retired back to the Temple of Muir.  The invited Omidahl to sleep under their protection that night.

The next morning the Bard, Castor, felt even worse than he had the day before. His CON had dropped another point. Various spells from the cleric Omidahl failed to help.  So they parted ways with Omidahl and travelled along a slim path that led north through the woods.  Four spiders (one gigantic and four small) confronted them. Thanks to some very accurate slinging by the cleric and a sleep spell from the elven magic user, the spiders were quickly sent to their demise.

Soon they found the shattered obelisks and the enterance to the tombs with suspicious looking markings upon the keystone of the archway. The players had bad experiences with the glyphys in the temple, so they used detect magic to determine a magical glyph was there and dispel magic to erase it. They
entered the tunnel and went north, passing by an open doorway and some rubble.

Along the way they saw more mysterious runes scribed on the wall (over an as-of-yet undetected secret door).  Mace used a dried out old Troglodyte hand (a trophy of a previous expedition) to discharge it by throwing it at the glyph. The glyph, not surprisingly, destroyed the trog hand as it exploded in flames.

The players heard a clatter of bones from the hall ahead where it opened up into a room.  Mace pushed forward and illuminated a portion of a large room with his glowing sword.   Thirty feet away, several skeletons dripping with blood were climbing out of a fountain with murderous intent.  A brief fight ensued and Wilbered raised his holy symbol, sending the bloody skeletons skuttling back into the fountain with a blessing.  Omidahl had told them that several burial chambers were located off to the side of the chamber with the cursed font, so they ran off to the left and stumbled down a short flight of stairs as more skeletons climbed out of the font.  This repreated several times with nearly comical results as each group of skeletons was rebuffed by Wilbered.

The room they had entered proved to be a small burial chamber with several stone sarcophagi.  The chamber was empty of dead.  While Wilbered laid the bones of Tayleen to rest and Castor played a song to bolster their courage, Kane, Zuran and Mace fought off hordes of bloody skeletons that came hopping down the stairs.  At one point Zuran blundered horribly, accidentally wounding Kane with his sword.  Wilbered had apparently hoped for dramatic proof that his service was appreciated by Muir or Tayleen.  Since the bones of Tayleen just laid in the crypt and no voice of Muir thundered down from the heavens to thank him, Wilbered assumed this was not the proper place to lay the bones and gathered them up again.

After turning the undead several more times, the group headed back to the tunnel to the surface.  While battling skeletons once again, Zuran blundered AGAIN, accidentally throwing his sword eight feet down the hallway.  After Zuran had retrieved his sword and Wilbered had chased the skeletons back into the font once again, Trygvie noticed the outline of a secret door in the wall.  A brief hunt found a stone which, if pressed, opened the door.  The party saw a dark stone hall, ten feet wide, leading off into the darkness.  An iron lever was on the wall beside the secret door.  Kane checked the area and found what looked like a covered pit trap door in the floor ten feet down the hall.  After considerable debate, Mace agreed to pull the lever.  Other than a metallic grinding noise, nothing happened.  Zuran retrieved a large chunk of rubble from the enterance and threw it on the pit door.  With the lever in the down position, the pit remained closed; with the lever in the up position, the trap door opened and the stone fell into the pit.

Having figured out how to disarm the pit, the players crossed the trapped area safely and proceeded down a set of steep stone stairs that wound their way north.

The stairs ended in a high ceilinged and irregularly shaped cave.  A large pool of dirty water filled most of the front part of the cave, leaving only a narrow ledge arround one side, and several iron torch cressets were hammered into the walls.  Kane has bad memories of undead leaping forth from dirty pools of water in the Temple of the Frog God up near Feldspar village and gave the pool a wide berth.  Some sort of disturbance in the water caused many ripples, setting the group's teeth on edge.

A large rusted iron door and a small hole in the wall, 3 foot in diameter, were found beyond the pool.  The iron door was marked with engraved hawks, eagles, swords and other symbols of Teyr and Muir which had been partially obliterated by curses and cruel boasts written in Goblin, Orc and other languages.  The hole sloped upwards, 3-2 feet in diameter as far as the eye could see when Mace thrust his glowing sword into it for a better look.

Kane listened at the door but heard nothing.

The session ends here.

XP:  XP awards were a little light this time because we spent time on conversion from 3e to 1e.  There was no treasure obtained by the party so no treasure XP was awarded either.

name:	class/level:	XP at start:	Base XP award:	bonus:	XP at end
Mace (Mike D.)	human FTR 7th	76,868	466	96	77,430
Wilbered (Shawn D.)	human CL 6th	51,069	466	46	51,581
Castor (NPC)	human Bard 6th	28,649	233		28,882
Trygvie (Steve G.)	Elven MU 6th	49,721	466	46	50,187
Kane (Al G.)	Human Monk 5th	41,993	466		42,459
Zuran (Chris L.)	Human Fighter 3rd	5,534	466		6,000