GRAKE take home test

[DM of Doom]

Well, this week the Guys Running Around Killing Everything crew got into a bit of a conundrum. Here\'s the room description:

This hexagonal chamber pulses with otherworldly heat and dismal gloom. Columns near each of the vertices bear carvings of Mariliths, demons with female torsos and six arms, and the lower body of a snake. Each Marilith statue has a weapon in five of its hands, and the sixth hand outstreched to the center of the room. In the middle of the ceiling and the floor are magic circles with silver bowls at the center.

On the east wall is the huge head of a Balor carved into the wall. After a moment, the mouth becomes animated and speaks:

In the room of my passage the toll must be paid
Else the flesh from your bones my maidens shall flay
Each has her liking and each is well armed
Pay them correctly and you may pass unharmed

The mouth closes and falls silent.

Statue Descriptions:

The northwest Marilith can be described as such:
Her hair is long and straight.
She wears hematites and jasper.
Her expression is a smile.
She is armed with:
A broad sword
A long sword
A bastard sword
A double-bladed sword (in two hands)

The north Marilith can be described as such:
Her hair is short and straight.
She wears rubies and pearls.
Her expression is a grimace.
She is armed with:
A short sword
A punching dagger
A light crossbow
A dart
A shortspear

The northeast Marilith can be described as such:
Her hair is long and curly.
She wears gold and amythyst.
Her expression is a frown.
She is armed with:
A spiked chain (in two hands)
A dire flail (in two hands)
A nunchaku

The southwest Marilith can be described as such:
Her hair is long and curled.
She wears amber and onyx
Her expression is a frown.
She is armed with:
A light pick
A scythe (in two hands)
A kama
A heavy pick

The south Marilith can be described as such:
Her hair is long and straight.
She wears emeralds and silver.
Her expression is a wide smile.
She is armed with:
A double axe (in two hands)
A throwing axe
A hatchet
A handaxe

The southeast Marilith can be described as such:
Her hair is short and curly.
She wears jet and aquamarine.
Her expression is surprise.
She is armed with:
A light mace
A sap
A quarterstaff (in two hands)
A heavy mace

SO, here we are. They need to figure out what to give each statue to continue.

Hints: They already figured out that there is a pattern to the weapons.
Page 116-117 of the 3.5 PHB may be useful.

Enjoy!lol

 

[Sithtainius]

okay, we\'ve figured out this so far:

NW gets a shortsword

N probably gets some sort of rogue weapon

NE gets some form of monk/exotic weapon

SW gets a scikle which we were given earlier

S gets an adamantine axe which we have been taking from pretty much all the fiendish Gnoll guards

SE gets some sort of blunt weapon like a hammer or club

we\'re just not sure on the other ones yet

 

[No Such Agency]

Give them all diamonds.

... what? They\'re CHICKS.

 

[DM of Doom]

Originally posted by Sithtainius
okay, we\'ve figured out this so far:

NW gets a shortsword

N probably gets some sort of rogue weapon

NE gets some form of monk/exotic weapon

SW gets a scikle which we were given earlier

S gets an adamantine axe which we have been taking from pretty much all the fiendish Gnoll guards

SE gets some sort of blunt weapon like a hammer or club

we\'re just not sure on the other ones yet

Well, that\'s three right, two half right, and one is not correct. Am I gonna tell you which is which? Of course not.lol

 

[sniffles]

Originally posted by No Such Agency
Give them all diamonds.

... what? They\'re CHICKS.

I\'m a chick, and I don\'t like diamonds!!

Man, I\'m glad I\'m not in that party. I hate riddles! I\'d just stand around while the rest of the group tried to figure it out.

 

[Itchy]

Sorry i couldn\'t be there... working my butt off trying to finish painting the house.

Here\'s what i\'ve cooked up so far;

NW - i agree with Sith
N - piercing weapon... maybe a light pick?
NE - exotic weapons... you guys got that. Whip maybe? All are felxable, not ridgid.
SW - agree with Sith
S - agree with Sith
SE - Bludg weapons... you guys got that. Club? It\'s just like a sap.

Now where do we find all these weapons in a gnoll liar????

 

[Grumb]

Originally posted by Itchy
Sorry i couldn\'t be there... working my butt off trying to finish painting the house.

Here\'s what i\'ve cooked up so far;

NW - i agree with Sith
N - piercing weapon... maybe a light pick?
NE - exotic weapons... you guys got that. Whip maybe? All are felxable, not ridgid.
SW - agree with Sith
S - agree with Sith
SE - Bludg weapons... you guys got that. Club? It\'s just like a sap.

Now where do we find all these weapons in a gnoll liar????

Nick,
Surprisingly, we\'ve already got most of them. Between what we were carrying and what we\'ve found.

It\'s also a matter of what we\'re willing to give up. We have no idea if we\'re going to be able to get back whatever we hand the statue. Some of the things we need are \"primary\" weapons for some of us. It\'s a tricky situation....

Cheers,
Grumb

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Hmm this is most interesting. My players are not big on riddles, but something like this might be fun to run.

 

[DM of Doom]

Well, tomorrow we find out which is which and who is dead. lollollol
And for those of you who are curious as to the answers and not in the GRAKE team, I\'ll throw the solution up after the game.

 

[DM of Doom]

Well, well, well. Typically, when I say stuff like \"we find out which is which and who is dead\" I\'m just trying to be a cocky bastard and taunt the players.

Sorry Mosch.

Poor guy didn\'t know what hit him. (well, being the priest he knew exactly what hit him, but I\'m just going for a figure of speech here)

It goes like this:
Everyone is banging their heads together, trying to decide who gets what and in what order, when the only other exit to the room seals off. Then the room starts getting hotter. Like the depths of hell hotter. Grumb and Mosch are in heavy armor. Grumb (in typical Dwarven fashion keeps his on to tough it out, and Mosch ditches his so he doesn\'t become a human pot-belly stove.
They give the North statue a dagger. It smiles and they move on to the NE statue.
They give it a rope and all get electro fried for a decent amount of damage. Grumb gives it a length of chain instead and it is happy.
They move to the SE marilith statue and give it the broken handle of an axe they found (i.e. makeshift club). THat seems to satisfy it and they continue to the South statue.
They give it an axe they found, no problems, and they move on.
I think it was about this time they all started taking damage from the heat (and double damage to the armored dwarf).
They offer the sickle to the SW marilith, and after I screwed with their heads a bit, everything was fine.
Until of course, the last statue.
They figured a short sword would be a good choice. Nope. It took the short sword and then offered it back to Grumb as a pretense for a sneak attack. It then proceeded to go into a bladed whirlwind of doom routine, hacking on everyone in range until Collum, the NPC monk managed to disarm the short sword.
After a moment of calm, Sith offers his Long sword. Close, as the statue needed \"long bladed weapons\", but it already HAD a long sword, so the melee continued. Everyone had surrounded the marilith, and so everyone was taking regular damage. RedDawn began to feel woozy...
Mosch ran to her aid with healing spells.
Then the marilith\'s turn in the initiative came. The demon saw a holy priest, sans armor in range.
Six blades going into (and through and/or out of) a priest is not a good thing. I believe his HP ended at something like negative 46. I mentioned the use of a bucket to take him to town for ressurection. That bad.
But here is the best part, the part I will remember forever as the coolest PC dying ever:
Mosch said: \"With my dying breath, I curse Games Workshop!\"
How awesome is that? Grumb collected what he could of Mosch\'s priesty, but odds are he\'ll be returning to us not as the priest, but something altogether different.

hehehehe

 

[RedDawn]

My most humble apologies...

...to Mosch! I totally screwed up!!! I got so excited that Collum had disarmed her (and Scott and I had just been talking about a long sword) that I yelled for a long sword, instead of the rapier we\'d already decided we should give her - and she ended up killing Mosch. If we\'d given her the rapier after Collum had disarmed her he\'d still be with us today, cursing GW with every breath in his body.

That\'s what happens when you lose your head sometimes! Maybe Mosch will come back bigger and badder, in a manner of speaking , than ever.

 

[Mosch]

Not your fault, Red Dawn. In retrospect, it was kind of a feeble idea to rush towards a lunatic swordwielding monster. What made it even worse was the fact that I had neither wielded my weapon nor had my armour on. I thought she would be concerned with the dwarf who was hacking away with his axe.
I was wrong
Still, I really liked my cleric. A shame he died, would have wanted to keep him *sniff*

Orginal gepostet von RedDawn
Maybe Mosch will come back bigger and badder, in a manner of speaking , than ever.

Maybe.... in a manner of speaking.

 

[Itchy]

Sorry i couldn\'t be there as a dwarven meat shield guys.