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Robert Conley Referee
Running The Citadel of the Emerald Sorcerer written by Joseph Goodman

Al Krombach
Bing the Witless, 2nd lvl Dwarf
Figin "Not a thief", 2nd lvl Thief

Tim Shorts
Richard of Greyhorn, 2nd lvl Fighter
Dilgar, 2nd Lvl Dwarf
Chuck, 0th Lvl Peasant

Greg Hofmann
Wilfred, 2nd Lvl Fighter
Erik the Scoundrel, 2nd Lvl Thief

Jason Sholtis
Danidrun, 2nd Lvl Elf
Derillus the Enchanter, 2nd Lvl Wizard

John Larrey
Brother Bombast, 2nd Level Cleric
Bazul the Mad Cleric, 2nd Level ClericThe Adventure
Everybody was scattered throughout the Kingdom of Zamora and heard their home village of Greyhorn was in trouble. They gathered at the village and found out that the Emerald Sorcerer was kidnapping villagers with his minions.

The party went up the ridge and scouted the entrance to the Sorcerer's citadel. The spied two strange emerald statues one carved into a perfect likeness of a guard and the other a misshapen lump of a man. Danidrun the Elf fired at the door but missed badly and hit one of the statues. At which point they came to life and attacked the party. The party moved in to fight the statues and within three rounds dispatched both of them. The final blow struck by Figin "Not a Thief" with a massive backstab. When the finely crafted statue was smashed it was transformed into a body of a dying villager. While healing the party Bazul the Mad Cleric found that his patron god, the God of Riddles, had taken personal interest in the adventure and commanded Bazul to unravel the strange mystery of the statues.

The party then examined the strange pewter door that stood as the entrance to the citadel. Dilgar checked for traps and strange constructions. After some discussion it was decided to let Derillus the Enchanter burst the door out of the frame with his Enlarge. As the spell required the wizard to touch the object the party tied a rope around Derillus. At the moment of casting they would yank him back if the door burst forward. Then Derillus cast the Enlarge spell.

Unfortunately, the door burst towards the wizard. While the party succeeded in yanking the wizard back it hit him hard and killed him. After a moment of stunned silence, Dilgar quipped "Well I can say this is the first time I seen somebody killed by a door.".

After the party collected themselves and buried Derrilus under a rocky cairn they looked inside. There they found a hall with tiled mosaics lining it's walls depicting a green skinned sorcerer and his deeds. Carefully probing their way through the hallway they came to another pewer door like the first one. Once again Dilgar looked it over carefully not realizing that behind him tiles starting flying off the walls and forming into a humanoid monster!

The tile monster attacks the rear of the party only to stumble. The tiles making up its arms whirling away. The party won initiative and started attacking the creature smashing chunks of tiles away. The creature roared and more tiles come pouring out of the wall forming themselves into 4 dog like tile monsters. One of them leaps on Figin "Not a Thief" and smashes into his head leaving him deafened and gravely injured. However despite the reinforcement the tide turned against the monster and two rounds later the party emerge triumphant amid littered and smashed tiles. Danidrun noted some strange peepholes near the ceiling and investigated them. Behind which he could see narrow corridors.

Angered by the cowardly magics thrown against him Dilgar attacked the door with his crowbar. It took a few tries but he wrenched it open revealing a ornate lounge with a 20' long table made of solid emerald! Danidrun was second in the room and started searching. Quickly finding secret doors they find the entrances to the corridors behind the peepholes in the entranceway.
No sooner after finishing exploring these corridors when the emerald table started glowing. Out popped two emerald skulls sporting wings! They flew crazily around the room out of reach. Then the Emerald Sorceror himself stepped out. Brother Bombast told everybody to stand their ground and turned to the sorcerer. "Please stopping stop taking villagers. What has angered you so?" . The Sorceror replied "No." After making a gesture towards the skulls, he stepped back into the table and disappeared. At first the party was on their guard with the skulls. But the skulls just hovered there not attacking.

Bazul the Mad Cleric, carefully examined the table and found that it was a variant of portal magic. With enough effort he could wrest enough control to send the party to wherever the sorcerer went. However it was decided that they would be better off using one of the doors leaving the room.

Bazul the Mad Cleric, 2nd Level ClericThey decided to take the northeast door. There they were best by another emerald guard, one that was finely crafted. The fight was over quickly and when the guard was shattered it transformed into the broken body of a peasant from the village. Brother Bombast, and Bazul tried to save him. They failed. With his dying breath the peasant uttered "Ask Thesdipedes to save my wife"

In the aftermath of the peasant's death the party noticed the skulls entered through a round hole high on the ceiling. They looked around and spotted similar holes next to many of the doors in the corridor. After a quick huddle they determined that the wizard is using them to watch them and decided to launch a surprise attack. In a single round they shattered both skulls.

The party then decided to check the first door. After carefully checking it over they opened it revealing a small library with eight round book stands. Only two books could be seen although there was clearly room for more. When approached the books disappeared, only to appear in a nearby stand. After a few minutes of fruitlessly chasing the books the party positioned themselves so everybody was next to a bookstand. This only caused the books to repeatedly teleport across all the stands. Teleporting so fast they were a blur and could not be grabbed.

Bazul the Mad Cleric squeezed himself into one of the stands. It took him a while and he got hit with a book twice. When he pulled his last foot in, he started teleporting across the various stands. It was all he could do not to throw up Finally several the party members stepped away from the book stands bring Bazul to a stop and he shakily crawled out of the stand.

At this point the book also came to a stop in other stands. Bing hoisted his 10' pole and found he was able to touch one of the books. With some more effort he knocked it off the shelf. Then he did the same for the second book. Upon examination the books proved very interesting the first was Thesdipedes' Book of Transmogrification and the second was set of blueprints and instructions for creating the emerald warriors. At this moment the floor started vibrating slightly and they heard the hum of machinery revving up.
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The party continued down the corridor and found a bedroom behind the second door. They threw a golden bust of a dragon head and a sack of silver coins into Erik's Large Sack. At this point the corridor turned, and turned again. At another turn, Bing fell nearly into a 10' deep pit with spikes. After debating about what to do the party went back to the bedroom and grabbed the bed to make a bridge with.

After a shaky crossing the corridor continued before ending in a short turn with a door at the end. After a careful check they opened a door to reveal a strange corridor with dark grey stone. Also the party found another secret door leading back the way they came. It was the way the Sorcerer used to avoid the pit.

After looking they could see something moving within the walls. Sending Richard of Greyhorn and Danidrun (with bow drawn) the motion became more frantic and human shapes started to emerge! The two quickly moved back into the corridor but not before Danidrun noticed a secret door next to the door they entered in.

Danidrun shoot one of the creatures while Bing threw an ax at it. They appeared to have killed it and were aiming at the others when they withdrew into the wall. The party then decided to make a mad dash to the secret door. They succeeded and found themselves in another corridor when a finely crafted emerald guard attacked them. After a quick fight they succeeded in shattering the guard which formed into the broken body of another villager. This time Brother Bombast was prepared and dashed to heal him.

While he was working on the villager's broken body, three other doors opened up the corridor and six more emerald guards came pouring out. Two of them were crudely misshapen and the other four finely crafted. While the party engaged, Brother Bombast was able to bring the villager back from the brink of death.. But the fight grew more desperate. Dilgar went down, then Danidrun, even the last minute aid of Chuck, the revived villager, (Tim rolled him up as a zero level character), could not turn the tide as Bazul died. Bing and Figin fled. Wilfred and Erik both went down and when Chuck left with Bombast, they saw Richard of Greyhorn going down fighting midst a hail of blows from six emerald warriors.

Using the secret door as a shortcut they spiked it shut and fled the citadel. The last thing the survivors saw was new emerald warriors taking up guard positions outside the citadel's entrance. That where the game was called at the convention. If this was a campaign we would have undoubtedly recruited new characters among the villagers. Character generation for 2nd level characters was fast, zero level character is even faster as Tim was able to roll up Chuck the Peasant up in between rounds of the fight.

Note that during the fight when Danidrun when down, Jason was offered the use of one of the other characters. He waved it off. Stated he was OK with it and that how the dice rolled. Tim quipped, "No problem it would like wearing somebody else underwear anyway." It took a while before the table stopped laughing.