In Lands Most Forbidden

Athas Open Table Session Report #1

Session 1

Date: 8/5/2025

Players

Location: The Hole in the Oak

Enter the hole in the oak, climb down to the sandy floor below. Not liking the noise to the north, the party travels east towards a green glow. The passage is blocked with grasping roots, but Wispo uses his shield to push through, allowing the party to progress. In the next room, they find the root faces, covered in green glowing moss. The roots groan and whisper, offering information for gold. The PCs pay 10 gold and learn that “a horned ogre owns a treasure whose value he doesn’t understand” and “forgotten treasures lie buried by the river.” The party thanks the roots and continues towards the east, where they smell a rank ammonia stench from the darkness.

As they advance into the chamber, they hear a rustle and squeal from above as bats dive down and flutter around them, focusing on the torch bearer. The light is extinguished and they retreat back into the previous hallway. Grog pulls out a magical lantern of dwarf make, and they cautiously re-enter. The bats seem not to be angered by this magical light source, so they continue eastward into the darkness. A hallway opens to the north, and they cautiously enter. A stone archway narrows the hallway before opening up into a larger chamber beyond. A skeleton lies beneath the archway, which is carved with skulls. Seeing this, they turn around quickly, coming back into the bat cavern and continuing further to the east.

Another 30’ or so into the cavern, another hallway going to the north is spotted, this one much shorter, with a closed door at the end. No one hears any noise while listening at the door, so they enter and find a room filled with piles of sand, with two black skeletons standing near the door on the northern wall. The skeletons appear inactive, however, so they continue through the door to the north.

Upon opening it, they enter into a scene of battle between a giant lizard-man and a human warrior. The party joins the fray on behalf of the warrior, attacking the lizard-man with verve and vigor. Grog, our faithful dwarf, sadly met his end at the end of the lizard-man’s claws. The rest of the party are victorious, but the warrior collapses and whispers “They stole the sword... Save Jorg... Across the river” and then dissipates into mist. The party takes a moment to rest, and are joined by Ryan’s new character, Bran the Fighter. They continue down an eastward hallway and attempt to pick the locked door at the end of it. While they are busy doing so, they are surprised by a blue-robed man, Hazrad the Unholy, who mutters about being late to something, and needing to find some jars. Rhian took this opportunity to cast Charm Person on the man, who failed his saving throw and fell in line with the party.

Thwarted by the locked door, they turn to the east down a similar hallway, and ignore the locked door branching off to the south, instead continuing through the door to the east. They find a store room for fish, and some gnomes inside looking through a cracked door down a hallway to the north. The gnomes are startled, and when questioned explain they are watching out for lizards. Not very entertained in this room, they retrace their steps and decide to re-try the trapped? hallway from before. Hazrad the Unholy is voluntold to venture down, and he does so willingly, triggering the blade trap and taking 2 points of damage. At this point, he was awarded another save vs spells, and succeeded, screaming his indignation at the party. He cast a spell upon himself, turned invisible, and vanished.

In the chamber beyond to the north, they find 7 statues of kings lining the western wall, and hear snoring behind a door to the east. While in the area, 3 gnomes stumble onto the group, carrying another gnome bound, with a sack over her head. With unthinking glee and madness the PCs attacked the gnomes, defeating them handily, and freed the captive. She explained she was kidnapped to be sacrificed to an evil stump, and then fled to the surface. Since the snoring was behind a locked door, they traveled down another hallway on the eastern wall.

Another archway with a dead body, this one a dwarf with a cord of black vines wrapped around his throat. I didn’t read that the ivy isn’t supposed to be flammable, so they were able to use torches to burn black ivy from the walls that grow down the length of the hallway. They moved past the stairs that branch off to the north, continuing east towards a chamber with no door. They see a wavering, black, humanoid form holding gardening shears in the chamber beyond, where the room is filled with black thorny plants and ivy, growing black fruits. This is terrifying, so they pick some black fruit from the wall and flee and exit the dungeon.

Stats

Deaths: 1 (Ryan, Grog)

Treasure Retrieved: Spell scroll of Shield (Rhian), 90gp (group), brass necklace worth 15 gp, scratched leather armor (Rhian), 250gp (Wispo), 2 unknown wall berries. Total XP from treasure: 355