Tomasz does RPGs

Play report: Kala Mandala and Stirring the Hornet's Nest at Het Thamsya, part 2

Read part 1

It took a few weeks to wrap up Het Thamsya and then another week to write up the notes. Unfortunately, I don't remember all the details as closely as when I wrote up the first one immediately after. We're running Kala Mandala weekly now, so hopefully I'll speed up with my reports.

Preliminaries

A new player showed up to the open table this week and he took a pre-gen.

Mo Bawan: Monkey folk. STR 13 DEX 14 WIL 9 HP 5. Skills: Thieving (Flute Rogue), Fighting (Workout Meal). Random item: betel nut set. Heirloom: immortal pet gecko.

On with the adventure

When we last left our Meddlers, they had fought off the two half-wasps in R17 and having rested up but they hadn't engaged with the larvae yet. Things got weird right off the bat when Mongolang (a lizard folk) decided to play to type by eating one larva and Mo Bawan swaddled the other like a baby, correctly predicting that saving larva would endear the wasps to them. The dilemma was what they would do upon noticing that Mongolang had eaten one!

R15: the PCs noted Satur as seen through the gaps. They briefly considered using a water scroll to dissolve some of the nest, but I ruled that this would slosh into the meditation room and disturb Satur.

R18: the PCs arrived and encountered Bzziza and the workers. I ruled that the workers would look favourably on the players because they had saved one larva and the wasps would cherish that. PCs used the insect speech scroll to negotiate with Bzziza, getting the story of how Waji had perverted the Queen and was giving birth to half-wasps instead of real wasps. They persuaded the wasps, who cherish their "babies" (the larvae), that Satur was their baby and needed to be saved. They struck a deal: if the wasps would help them retrieve Satur, they would help the wasps stop Waji. I think there might have been a WIL save here. I can't remember how it game about but the players also figured that the wasps would be able to cut though the hive wall, and asked them to do so.

Ruling and kind of a mistake: I think I made a mistake by interpreting the the map has having doors on four sides, with three blocked by the hive material. Because of this, I told the players that the wasps would be able to tunnel through the end of the open passage in R15 and enter R16 from the west. I also told them there was a doorton and they used a command strip on it.

R16: upon seeing Satur, the players realized what the child carrier was for. Rolled and succeeded a DEX save to mount Satur in the child carrier and left

On the way back to the front exit, passing through R18, R15, R17, and R14. I rolled random encounters more often on the way back. In R14, they met a tortorton and promptly dispatched it.

Through R9, R12, and R11, where another random encounter had them bump into 4 roomtons. This is where things went bad! Sur Luruang was downed and the other PC leapt onto the beds to avoid them. Ruled that DEX saves were required and Kingee Hok, who was carrying Satur, dropped him and that woke him up!

Then through R10 and R7, where they clued that the tarantuton was being rebuilt. The fed it three command strips:

I had already ruled (privately) that these commands wouldn't have worked to make the taratuton hunt down Waji, since it wouldn't have any way of knowing who or what Waji was.

Then finally to R2, R1, and out of the temple complex to return Satur to Sumgan and get the reward. Sur Luruang slipped out Kin's secret exit in R3 because he didn't want to give up his golden statue, so he wasn't there to receive his share.

At this point, to my incredible surprise, the PCs decided to go back into the temple to help the wasps after all.

Didn't bother with random encounters on the way back in, didn't think that would accomplish anything for the narrative.

R19: uneventful because the PCs had already made a deal with Bzziza (they didn't ask him or the workers to come with him).

Coming out of the hallway, they turned right to discover R21. In R21 they figured out the purposes of the camphor pretty quickly. In R20 they lit the camphor to knock out the 5 half-wasps present.

R22: here they found Queen Bzzelor. Using another scroll of insect speak, they tried to engage her in conversation. None of the conversational gambits were convincing so she called for Waji per the adventure's instructions. Waji came and, per the instructions at R24, he summoned half-wasps to defend the nest.

In a fatal mistake, the PCs opted not to light the camphor in the first turn of combat. One kept trying to reason with the Queen and only that this point succeeding in sowing doubt about Waji's loyalty and motives. I ruled that this would have been successful in making the Queen question Waji and acting against him, but combat had already started with Waji and the two half-wasp attendants already in R22. I suppose that, if I were still being a softie like in the previous session, it would have been possible to have the Queen break up the fight but it didn't seem plausible to me that Waji could be dissuaded from his course of action with words alone. One PC whacked Waji with his staff, declaring that he wanted to hit him in the head, but failed to destroy the nest.

Up to this point, combat had been a breeze as the PCs always outnumbered their opponents. Now, one player went down in the first turn and then 5 more joined the next. The players quickly went that turn and, with no one to save them, all died.

Afterwards

This took only half the session so, after debrief, the players each rolled new characters or picked pre-gens again so we could launch into the next adventure. Thankfully, no one was so traumatized by the loss of the party that they didn't want to just keep going! Since the PCs had convinced the Queen that Waji was subverting her rule, she banished him and the wasps departed after some time. I ruled that the Automata Path would gather the belongings of the slain Meddlers and return them to the Association, allowing the new players the possibility of inheriting possessions per the Legacy table (core book, p. 34).

In that same session, we started Tragedy at Zaya's Theatre and wrapped it the follow session (today) - that report to come.

GM observations

This was a blast to run and the players seemed to like it as well. I would definitely recommend it and would run it again with new players. Here are a few observations and questions I'd think about if running it again:

|

Subscribe to posts via RSS feed

  1. so handy that, in starting both Zaya's Theatre and Drizzle Distillery, the players now ask every quest giver for a map of the location!↩

#Het Thamsya #Kala Mandala #play report #rpg #ttrpg