Tales of the Table: Crabs and Chair-shots

And now to debut the first installment of the fourth and final of the planned segments here on Delves and Shelves, Tales of the Table, where I recount to you stories, songs, and sagas of the various shenanigans that have gone on in my game groups, as well as publishing actual (system-agnostic, but somewhat D&D-styled) adventures that you can run at your table if you are so inclined.

With all that said, let us proceed to today’s inaugural Tales of the Table, which will start the segment off in the only adequate fashion, as a two-fer. Below you will find not only an amusing anecdote of my RPG experience, but also a fully functional mini-adventure which you can run, adapt, or even just idea-mine from as you see fit.

“The Chair is Mightier than the Sword”

Today’s Tale comes from a fairly recent (about a month ago) session played on a rainy Friday night in my friend’s basement, over a mountain of drunken noodles and spicy steak salad from the cheapest local Thai place, and perhaps one too many cans of Blue Moon. The game in question was a playthrough of  Deep Carbon Observatory (warning, minor spoilers ahead), another excellent OSR-styled adventure and setting supplement by the dynamic duo of writer Patrick Stuart and masterful line-artist Scrap Princess, run in Shadow of the Demon Lord by the host of my Friday night group. As to be expected, it’s a very solid module with plenty of little details to engage both players and game masters/mistresses alike. It is focused around a fun, deadly romp of a dungeon crawl through an ancient underground complex created long ago by a civilization who studied the Underdark. As such, our group consisted of a hardened party of three largely amoral, treasure-and-glory-minded adventurers with swords, stats, and spells all arranged to try to survive the horrors of a deadly, mysterious, and at times confusing dungeon crawl.

All of that mentality went out the window the second the adventure began, as our characters’ first instinct upon seeing stranded children while heading up a flooded river to the dam where the dungeon proper is located, was of course to save as many as we could. It is due to this that our story today properly begins.

On our way up the river, after saving numerous survivors already, and having fought a reanimated mummy of a long-dead king and noble protector of the dam, as well as a cow-sized killer platypus (yes, that’s the exact description of it in the book), we were ready to make a beeline for the dam so that we could get into the thick of the adventure the module promised. Unfortunately for that goal, yet more children stood in our way. In this case, it was a heavily damaged windmill full of them, as well as the proprietor of the orphanage where they all lived. This, understandably then, was something we simply could not ignore, not only because of the flood waters that had yet to abate which were trapping them in the mill, but also because of the hundred or so meter-wide white crabs that had the place encircled as well…

These crabs were a fight and a half. Each one was weak, and went down with one swing of my character’s mighty weapon, an Executioner’s Sword imbued with life-draining magic.  Regardless of how easily one could be dispatched, the fight quickly turned into a real struggle for the party and the refugees alike, given that there were so many of them, and that each round a few more of them would manage to grab hold of one of the windmill’s fan blades, riding it up to the second-floor window to threaten the children and schoolmarm within.

Being a physically-gifted fighting type, my character was the one selected to climb up to the second floor of the mill and assist with the rescue operations (and beating back the crabs) from up top, leaving the party’s magic user and holy paladin below to take a few whacks and blast a few spells into the seemingly near-infinite biomass of angry crustaceans. For several rounds this struggle went on, the crabs failing to ascend to the upper level of the mill, and the party failing to make much of a dent in the giant pile of crabs. We had come to an impasse. Three of the four fan blades of the mill were broken by my sword or by crab claws and chitinous carcasses, the ground level was too flooded and the door too blocked by sediment to be a viable means of egress, and the crabs, though bloodied, were still coming. 

 It was at this point, that I had a bright idea in and out of character, for how I might do some damage to the crabs while they were beyond the reach of my blade, mighty as it was. This room in which my character stood, surrounded by huddled children and their legal guardian, had within it one small table and two chairs. What my character did next was to stride over to the furniture, lift one of the chairs, and have visions of being not just the local Lord’s executioner, but also his Undertaker (or perhaps his “Stone Cold” Steve Austin), and delivering a chair-shot to the head of some poor, unsuspecting crabs. 

 What followed was, through the GM’s choice to interpret my character’s dropping of the chair as a simple attack roll versus the crabs’ abysmally low agility, and the 20 foot height of the second-storey window, an unintentional discovery of what may well be the single most efficient way of slaying a monstrous crab in the collaboratively-built setting into which my friends and I had inserted the locations and events of the module. Another chair, and two halves of the table later, enough of the crabs lay dead on the deck of our raft, that a small path was cleared for a rope to be passed so that the refugees could climb down -and perhaps more importantly, that the remaining crabs, not intelligent or well-fed enough to be above cannibalism, descended on their fallen fellows and began paying more attention the now-sufficient cumulative total of crustacean carcasses as an easier meal than the fifteen children and their caretaker.

I have no doubts that my character must have told a fancifully-embellished version of that day’s events to any bard who would hear of it when the party returned to town that day, much as I have just done for you now.

“Let me show you how to really take a chair shot”

“Palace of the Pincered Prince”

Now for part two of the inaugural Tales of the Table, an actual piece of gameable content, in the form of a mini-adventure designed to contain a night’s worth of gameplay for a mid-level party, with plenty of room for modification, and side hooks that can be used to integrate it into your own campaigns. Today’s adventure draws its inspiration from one I’ve run in the past, and from the story above. Without further ado, I present to you, The Palace of the Pincered Prince.

Background: 

 The town of Wetepi-Hi’ilo is in turmoil. For months the raids have plagued the surrounding volcanic coasts. Travelers have been waylaid in the channels between the reefs, fishermen have been slain, yet their catches untouched, boar have been slaughtered by peculiar clawed hands, and inland plantings of taro and yams have been ground to compost by strange implements. Yesterday, came the greatest raid of them all, and the one which has cost the town the dearest. Chieftain I’rah Kalonga’s twin sons, Repang and Pengongke, have been stolen by what she could only describe as “foul men with the heads of groupers and bulging squid’s eyes.” The only other person to have witnessed the perpetrators of the stealthy midnight raid is an old mute elder, who merely pointed in the direction of a sea-cave that the locals always avoid, though none can come to a consensus on the exact reason for this.

Whether locals, traders or warriors from a neighboring island, or travelers from afar, you and your companions are the ones that have been chosen by Chieftain I’rah to take Wetepi-Hi’ilo’s sturdiest war-canoe and venture into the cave to bring back her sons, or perish within.

The Shunned Sea-cave:

None in Wetepi-Hi’ilo can seem to agree on why it is that the townsfolk always avoid this place. Some say that it is home to a Kraken or other great sea monster, others suggest that it contains an accursed shrine to a dark god that the most wicked and vile of their ancestors once venerated. The chieftain’s sister, the mystic I’rah Wese’maati claims that in her visions, she sees it as the final resting place of an army of Dwarven ghosts, drowned when their miners tunneled into the sea. Whatever the reason, you cannot shake a sense of extreme foreboding upon entering, as the echo of crashing waves resound off the basalt walls and even the best-seasoned sailors among you can imagine dreadful horrors of the deep in the inky depths beneath the surface of the choppy black waters…

Points of Interest:

1. The Ambush

“Almost immediately upon entering this place, your worst fears are confirmed, It is inhabited, and those inhabitants are hostile, and armed…”

This is a simple combat encounter with a small number (between 1d4 and 1d10 depending on party size and strength) of the Tua-Loa tribe that inhabit the cave, and the party’s first real chance to get a look at them. The Tua-Loa will hide in the shadows, content to sit back and sling javelins until the party are all dead, or they run out, at which point they will slink back into the tunnel that branches to the east, and return to the village to alert the rest of the tribe. These warriors should have stats comparable to the D&D Fish-men with a similar sounding name, or the equivalent in whatever system you might run this in. 

The Tua-Loa warriors are upright-walking Fish-men with thoroughly piscine features, including the heads of barracudas or goliath groupers. Each stands slightly shorter than an average adult man, and each wears a simple cuirass of woven kelp fibers and a pair of simple seaweed sandals. They are each armed with a shield made of lacquered crab chitin, four light javelins, and an obsidian dagger. One of them will also possess a small horn made of a nautilus shell. This horn, when blown, is silent to humanoid ears, but emits a psionic frequency which can be heard by the Pinctagrex mentioned in entries 8 and 11, signaling it to open or close the door in entry 8.

If caught and questioned by a party member who can interpret their language, they will provide little coherent information, as they have all been whipped into a frenzied fervor over the prospect of “slaying in the service of the Pincered Prince, Aakumo’deo’o.”

2. The Circle of Silver Flame

“An ancient circle of silver-colored lacquer or shell is inlaid into the otherwise natural stone cave floor here. How long it has been here, nobody can quite work out, but a careful investigation suggests that the runes carved within seem to be Dwarven in origin. Its purpose is unknown, but the Tua-Loa seem to be avoiding it…”

This circle is a magical trap created by ancient Dwarves. When more than one sentient being stands within the circle at a time, jets of silver flame will shoot out of concealed holes in the ground, forming a ring around those inside, burning them, blinding them, and cutting them off from the area outside the circle (damage may be halved and temporary blindness avoided by a saving throw if you so choose, but it should be more difficult than those for the surrounding room). The Tua-Loa will avoid the circle should it become part of the terrain for the battle between them and the party (and it should). You may also consider having the trap activate once each round during combat to make it more of an active hazard. Additionally, having a Dwarf in your party should considerably reduce the difficulty of identifying the circle as Dwarven in origin, but not in discerning its function.

3. The Unusual Statue

“Before you stands a truly unusual sight. Atop a green-hued metabasalt pedestal stands a life-sized statue of a Dwarf-sized humanoid, but where its head should be, there is instead the chitinous form of a meter-wide red crab. Unusually, unlike most living crabs, the statue’s head seems to possess a claw at the end of all ten of its appendages…”

This is a simple curio to be examined, though it may potentially become a source of cover, or even deal massive damage if knocked over (requiring an immense strength check), should a battle ever spill into the room. Closer investigation by the player characters (an easy check) will reveal that the statue was of a Dwarf, the head of which has long since been chiseled off and replaced with the boiled and varnished shell and forelimbs of real crabs of about a meter in width. The eyes of the statue, held onto the front of the shell by a simple glue made of fish bone paste and crushed limestone, are pearls the size of a Gnome’s fist. One is black, one is white, both are natural, nearly flawless, and worth a considerable amount.

4. The Bridge of Peril

“Ahead of you, on the natural stone causeway which crosses over the tidal pools that form the base of this cavern chamber, stand several more Tua-Loa. They are not armed as warriors, but each bears a sodden net, a dreadful trident, and worst of all, a conch shell, which they blow as a whistle to call their “livestock” from below…”

This is a slightly more difficult and dynamic combat encounter. The number of Tua-Loa should be similar to, or slightly less than the number of Tua-Loa Warriors that ambushed them near the entrance (no more than 1d8). For each of these Tua-Loa farmers, there should be about 1d4 monstrous crabs of small size (about a meter wide) which can be called to climb onto the bridge and attack the party. Tua-Loa farmers are slightly smaller than Tua-Loa warriors, and are clad only in a simple kirtle or kilt woven of kelp fibers. Each is armed with a weighted, throwable fishing net, a bronze-headed trident, and an obsidian dagger.

5a./5b. Tua-Loa Crab-farming Pools 

“Watch out! Clawed terrors lurk in the water, tread carefully, lest ye be truncated by their pincers or drawn in and drowned…”

In the water below the bridge mentioned above in entry 4, there are two truly giant crabs (about 2-2.5 meters wide, or the size of a small horse), which will surface when battle is joined, in order to attack from the water, or climb onto the bridge if their side has the advantage. These crabs are prodigiously-sized individuals of the same species as the smaller crabs, but are unique in their characteristics. They are:

(5a.) “Lefty,” a male crab with a massively oversized left claw which can be used to deliver a bludgeoning attack that does twice the damage of his right claw’s pinch, and may grapple an opponent to pull them into the water. Any party members slain by this formidable natural weapon may be graphically bisected, instilling terror in (and likely prompting saves against fear from) their allies.

(5d.) “Roeback” a she-crab nearly-completely covered by massive sacks of roe, which provide her with a damage-reduction ability, and when attacked (or once per each round she is in the fight) will have a chance to hatch 1d6 new crabs of the smaller variety. They are capable of inflicting the same amount of damage as those that the Tua-Loa farmers are tending, but in their teneral, newly-hatched state, they are soft-shelled and weak to physical damage, having only half the number of hit points as the more mature farmed crabs (or a single hit point if the crabs are numerous enough or your party’s damage output isn’t truly devastating to anything they come across). She also possesses a spit attack, with which she can shoot a concentrated burst of water at a single target in the room, causing some damage and knocking it back (if it fails its save), potentially even off the bridge and into the water...

6. Passage to Doom

“A strange, sucking current beneath the surface of the pools betrays the location of a hidden, submerged passage. Do you dare go in? I thought you were smarter than that…”

This is a hidden passage by which creatures of the large crabs’ size or smaller may pass between the farm pools and the Grand Pool of the Pincered Prince (entry 13). A brave, or foolish party member may attempt this, but the currents are strong against them (a very difficult skill check to swim through), and on the other side they will find themselves face to face with the Pincered Prince Aakumo’deo’o himself...

7. The Dwarven Temple

“What is this? Some kind of ancient temple-hall built here long ago by...well, surely not the Fish-men…”

This is an old temple to an old Dwarven god built here by a population of Dwarves who dwelt (or may still yet dwell) in the mountain range that runs along the coast. This temple was built to mark the border of their kingdom after their miners tunneled into this sea-cave centuries ago. The room is empty, and deathly quiet, but those who enter will hear a strange, magical whirring, as the slab of a strange metal alloy in the center of the room seems to animate.

The object is a Dwarven Battle Cube, much like those detailed by that master of the RPG room-design craft, Hankerin Ferinale of Runehammer. This one, however, is hundreds, if not thousands of years old, and as such, is limited in its abilities, perhaps only possessing one or two functions, which it is hard-programmed to repeat over and over. Thus, it can be avoided with some care by those wishing to further inspect the room. On the altar at the far end can be found 1d4 small bits of Dwarven treasure from the table below (roll once for the number, then again for each piece, items with an asterisk (*) in their entry are one-of-a-kind, re-roll any duplicate results for them). Additionally, wrapped in the remains of what was once a fine velvet bag, there is a small egg-shaped ingot of Osmiridium. It is roughly the size of a Gnome’s fist, and is engraved with Dwarven runes. Further inspection by a character who speaks Dwarven will reveal that the object is a standard weight measure for a unit which is still in use. It is magically enchanted to be able to dramatically alter its own weight when the name for the unit of measurement is spoken as a command word, and thus functions as a key for the Dwarven door in entry 8). The runes on the ingot itself do not explicitly state this use, but it should not be too difficult to infer or even guess. Perhaps standard weight measurements are a key component of most common Dwarven idioms and sayings?

Small Dwarven Treasures (1d6)

1	A heavy corselet of mail, completely untarnished by age (will provide the wearer resistance to attacks or spells that would attempt to knock them back or move them around)
2	An orb of solid brass, carven with strange runes for some unknown purpose (this one’s not magical, it’s just a Dwarven bocce ball)
3	An orb of clear glass sitting on a tree-shaped stand made of malachite (a crystal ball, but it is broken and only shows the user events which happened within a half-mile radius up to 10 minutes ago.  The stand is pretty valuable though)
4	A mushroom and a moth preserved in amber (these are the only two examples of the species’ whose stems and scent glands are required as reagents for the best known potion of lichdom, and whose caps and wings are components of the antidote for said potion.  Their life essences would be extremely difficult to extract, but they’re already pretty to look at…)*
5	A golden penannular brooch with an amulet wrought in the shape of a crab (eerie foreshadowing much?  What Dwarfstradamus made this thing?...)
6	A crown of a strange silvery metal (a platinum-palladium alloy) and inlaid with imperial topaz in the shape of an open eye (provides its user with a superior ability to see in the dark)*

8. The Dwarven Door

“Before you stands a mighty structure, an immense doorway of Dwarven make. An ornate bronzen door stands stoic and steadfast, surrounded by a lacework of carved whitish stone, perhaps alabaster or a kind of coral. Beneath the cold metal glare of the carved door arch, there stands a pedestal of travertine, topped with a brazen bowl, in which there is a roughly egg-shaped depression.”

This is an ancient Dwarven door with a locking mechanism that is part mechanical and part magical. On either side, there is an identical brass font atop a travertine pedestal (much like an ancient Dwarven bird-bath), and in each one there is an egg-shaped depression. These are meant to receive a Gnome fist-sized egg-shaped ingot of a dense metal alloy (such as the one found atop the altar in entry 7) which, once inserted, may be activated to dramatically increase its own weight, causing enough pressure for the font and pedestal assembly to sink into the ground partway, and activating the mechanism to open the ancient door, which will remain open as long as the key is in place, and until the command word (the name of the Dwarven unit of measurement that the egg-shaped ingot is a standard for) is spoken again, at which point, the pedestals and fonts on both sides will return to their resting positions and the door will close.

It is worth noting that the Tua-Loa, despite lacking anything approaching ancient Dwarven magical or technical know-how, are able to open and close the door. They do so by enlisting the help of Blub’ossh Yik-buar, a Pinctagrex, or giant psionic oyster (akin to the one presented here), which the the Tua-Loa Threshers confer with. To do so, the Pinctagrex, whom the tribe call “Bo-bo-yii-bo,” will temporarily transfer its consciousness into a an egg-shaped iridized pearl the size of a gnome’s fist, and dramatically alter that pearl’s weight, allowing it to activate the opening mechanism on the Tua-Loa tribe’s side of the Dwarven door.

The party may open the door either by acquiring the key from the Dwarven temple mentioned in entry 7, or by utilizing a combination of the nautilus horn and the black pearl “eye” of the statue mentioned in entry 3, or by simply entering the cave during a high tide while the door is open. If this is the case however, the nautilus horn will be blown in the initial encounter with the ambush party, and the door will quickly be closed preventing the players from passing through unless they are quick enough, or can find the key later on).

Using the white pearl “eye” from the statue in area 3, or any other object lacking a significant enough iridium content, will case the pedestal and font to sink into the ground as though correctly activated, but will not open the door. Instead, it will activate another ancient Dwarven trap, causing silver flames to issue forth from the font, which then returns to its default position and begins to fill the room with a toxic cloud of osmium tetroxide, causing severe damage to any exposed, as well as blindness on a failed save, or near-instant death by pulmonary edema on a critical failure (or on a regular failed save if you run a very high-lethality game).

9. Tua-Loa Village

“Before you sits a motley collection of squat, round huts, loosely cobbled together though not without some strangely piscine sense of artistic sensibility. It seems the Fish-men have built a whole village of these crude dwellings here. Let us hope by the gods that none of them are home…”

Four of the huts are currently inhabited, and should the party end up in combat in the village (the most likely outcome as diplomacy with the Tua-Loa, while not impossible, should be difficult), one new Tua-Loa warrior or farmer will issue forth from each hut every round. If a hut can be destroyed, it will not spawn any new combatants, and combat will end if all four are destroyed, or the party manage to enter the Threshers’ hut.

10. The Ritual Stones

“In the center of the village stands a circle of assorted stones, arranged in an unusual pattern and painted with strange shamanic symbols using a putrid pinkish gunk. In the center sits a repulsive cauldron of the stuff. Surely only one afflicted by anosmia would go any closer, even if there is a glint atop one of the stones…”

In the center of the Tua-Loa village stands a circle of ritual stones that serves as both a shrine to their god, the Pincered Prince Aakumo’deo’o, and as a graveyard. When one of the Tua-Loa dies, or when any part of a sacrifice to Aakumo’deo’o is recovered from area 13, the remains are placed in the vat in the center (which was once an ornate bronzen cauldron of Dwarven make that used to stand in front of the statue in area 3) to decompose. The rendered good from the vat is used by the tribe’s Threshers to paint the holy symbols upon the ritual stones.

Atop a low stone next to the vat is an old Dwarven relic, a copper circlet set with four chrysoberyls and three sunstones. If recovered, it would surely be valuable if recovered, and cleaned off… (this circlet allows a properly attuned wearer to cast a blasting spell up to seven times a day, at three different intensity levels by touching the stones. Each blast is of a level corresponding to the number of stones touched, and once a stone is touched, it may no longer be used that day, ex. touching a single stone produces a blast of low intensity (equivalent to a cantrip), two a medium blast (equivalent to a low level damage spell), and three a high intensity blast (equivalent to a mid-level damage spell). In a single day the circlet can cast any combination of blasts totaling all seven stones, such as two high and one low intensity blasts, three medium and one low, or seven low intensity blasts.

11. The Threshers’ Hut

“That hut looks bigger than the others, and has a sort of vestibule to it. Do you think the chieftain’s sons might be in there?”

The largest hut in the village belongs to the tribe’s three priests/priestesses, known as Threshers, Blii, Boh, and Bopp. Bo and Bopp are male, and have the heads of swordfish. Blii is female, and has the head of an anglerfish, with two distinct “lumps” on either side of her glowing lure. Tua-Loa Threshers should have comparable stats to the similarly named priests of the similarly named Fish-men in official published D&D.

Additionally, inside the hut is a large pool of water that serves as a throne of sorts for the Pinctagrex Blub’ossh Yik-buar. If the party chose to explore the eastern branch of the dungeon first, Blub’ossh Yik-buar will be in the pool, and Chieftain I’rah’s sons, Repang and Pengongke will be bound with kelp fiber ropes right in front of the pool. If the party went west first and have only now reached the Thresher’s hut, Blub’ossh Yik-buar will have been carried to his grotto behind the grand pool in area 13, and Chieftain I’rah’s sons will have been taken to the sacrificial pillar (entry 12) to be offered to Prince Aakumo’deo’o.

The Threshers are all clad in robes made of the rainbow-scaled hides of a local species of fish, and reinforced by armored girdles of crab chitin plates. Boh and Bopp each bear a quadrident in one hand and a barbed, ten-tailed lash whip in the other. Blii is apparently armed only with a small jade club. In combat, Boh and Bopp will fight ferociously with their dreadful weaponry, and their sharp bills, battling to the death if necessary to protect their mother and Bo-bo-yi-bo.

Blii is the most senior of the Threshers, mother to the other two, and is possessed of psionic powers due to her communing with Bo-bo-yi-bo. In combat, Blii has a wide arsenal at her disposal, but prefers to let her sons do most of the fighting. The club she carries is made of solid jade, and, as a gift from Bo-bo-yi-bo, been imbued with an innate psionic power to magically sunder an opponent’s weapon twice a day. She also possesses three psionic invocations, as detailed below. She may use these at will, but in any given round may only use either Alter Mass and Angler’s Lure, either one of those twice, or Drowning Doom once.

Psionic Invocations

Alter Mass	Can dramatically increase the mass of a weapon for a split-second as it hits a target, doubling its damage.  Blii can use this on herself or her allies.
Angler’s Lure	Causes Blii’s lure to glow an impossibly color, transfixing a single target and causing them to be stunned for a round on a failed save.
Drowning Doom	With a flick of her hands, Blii can cause a single target’s lungs to begin filling with seawater, causing death by internal drowning in three rounds unless stopped somehow.

Additionally, Blii possesses two biotic symbionts. The “lumps” on her head, are in fact, the last remaining vestiges of Blip and Blop, the elder Threshers who taught her the craft. In their current state, they are shriveled and withered away to nothing more than a set of gonads that allowed Blii to breed the next generation of Threshers, Boh and Bopp. Blip and Blop, however, do still retain fractions of a mind, and can perform two functions, granting Blii a minor Psionic ability, and a suicidal attack that can be used as a last resort. Blip provides Blii with an extra attack per round, and Blop grants her a preternatural sense for incoming damage that allows her to dodge one otherwise successful attack against her during the course of a combat encounter.

If Blii’s own survival seems to be at risk, Blip and Blop may resort to their emergency mechanism, suicidally shooting forth from Blii’s head to burrow their way into a target and explode, filling the host with a swarm of parasitic worms that will (on a failed save), eat their host from the inside. In three rounds time unless stopped somehow, this will kill the host in a burst of escaping worms that can infect other targets nearby.

Blub’ossh Yik-buar, if present, will remain in place as it is largely sessile and incapable of significant locomotion. It will instead make efficient use of psionic suggestions and force pushes to attempt to control its enemies in such a way that the Tua-Loa Threshers may fight them off more effectively.

12. The Sacrificial Pillar

“Before you is an enormous cavern chamber with high ceilings lined with numerous tooth-like stalactites. Within the chamber is a subterranean tidal basin the size of a small lake, over which a single promontory of basalt is perched. Atop this outcropping stands a single pillar of greenstone, fitted with bronze eyelets into which thick ropes of kelp fiber have been bound. Next to the pillar, on a stand made of driftwood, sits the meter-wide lithified shell of an ancient ammonite, iridescent, glistening, and apparently intended for use as some sort of aerophone…”

This is the place where living sacrifices to Prince Aakumo’deo’o are bound to await the arrival of the Tua-Loa’s revered god-being. The horn (which itself is an ancient shell that has fossilized and lithified into a substantial quantity of gem-quality ammolite that would be very valuable if its immense weight can somehow be removed from the cave), can be blown to summon the Pincered Prince to consume the offerings bound to the pillar.

13. Pool of the Pincered Prince

“The grand pool occupies nearly all of the cavern chamber, with the outcropping upon which the pillar stands, and a small cave opening on the opposite side being the only areas of note which are not submerged. The water is oddly still, but then there is a ripple, then another, and soon the entire surface is roiling with seething spray, heralding the imminent arrival of the great and terrible beast…”

Prince Aakumo’deo’o, for all the praise and fanfare that the Tua-Loa give him, is not a divine being except in the Fish-men’s understanding of the concept. He is, in fact, simply a giant monstrous crab of truly immense proportions. He does, however, possess two mighty pincered claws, each of which is over 2 meters in length and easily capable of chopping a Human-sized creature into small bits, or knocking several of them into the water of his pool at once. Additionally, Aakumo’deo’o is capable of rapidly inhaling great quantities of water, and once per round can create a whirlpool that will draw smaller creatures toward the Pincered Prince. His massive carapace is as hard as steel plate armor, and three times as thick, rendering him impervious to damage from most normal weapons unless part of his shell can be pierced or crushed first (such as by a falling stalactite, or some other means…)

Prince Aakumo’deo’o will attack the party almost immediately , and will attempt to knock any of them, or Chieftain I’rah’s sons into the water at the first chance. He would be loath to lose such a quality meal. Nonetheless, it could be possible to rescue the chieftain’s sons without having to defeat the Pincered Prince if the party can manage the right combination of quick maneuvering and sheer luck.

If Aakumo’deo’o is slain and the party decide to explore the grand cavern more, they may find that the bottom of the pool is home to a large biomass of ordinary crabs from area 5 that swim through the passage detailed in entry 6 to gather in the grand pool, where they become the main source of food for Aakumo’deo’o when he is not feeding on offerings left by the Tua-Loa. 

 Additionally, the cave opening at the other side of the room, which can be reached by swimming across or traversing the pool in some manner of watercraft, leads to a small grotto. Inside, there is a pool of water fed by a thermal spring, from which the heated water, rich in iridium salts, bubbles forth. By making offerings to Aakumo’deo’o, the tribe of Tua-Loa are able to placate the Pincered Prince and pass across the pool to the grotto without being attacked. This allows them to periodically carry Blub’ossh Yik-buar to the thermal pool, wherein the Pinctagrex can synthesize the iridized pearls necessary to act as key analogues for the Dwarven door, as successive uses will degrade them. If the party happen to defeat Blub’ossh Yik-buar and rescue Repang and Pengongke, then proceed on to also defeat Aakumo’deo’o, they will find the pool in the grotto empty, save for one slightly misshapen pearl, which is useless as a key for the door, but valuable in its own right.

From the grotto there is also another cave opening, from which a passage leads beyond into unknown depths...

Onward to Adventure:

If the party successfully complete their mission and rescue Chieftain I’rah’s sons, they may well find themselves wrapped up in one of several other local goings-on. A table of further hooks is below for you to choose or randomly roll a seed for the next adventure in the area around Wetepi-Hi’ilo

Additonal Occurrences (1d8):

1	Recently, a beached whale was seen on the other side of the island on which Wetepi-Hi’ilo is situated.  A great being of nature should be assisted if it may yet live, and if it dies, its meat would feed the village for a month or more.
2	In the wake of the raids, food production in Wetepi-Hi’ilo has been decimated.  Chieftain I’rah needs someone to help remedy this situation, whether by finding richer fishing grounds, new fruit groves, or a potential trade route with a neighboring island village. Who better, the chieftain proclaims, than those who saved her sons.
3	Since being returned from their captivity by the Tua-Loa, the chieftain’s two sons haven't been the same. Pengongke has been in a trance, asleep for several days, though floating above his bed mysteriously.  Repang has been getting into fights with other children, and, possessed of strange powers, nearly killed one of them. Chieftain I’rah is worried that something tragic will happen if nothing is done about this.
4	Banten Issho, a local fisherman, claims to have seen large ships with black sails on the horizon the last sevral mornings. He believes that they may be here to hunt him down for cooking as sacred fish.
5	Wen’an Jaka, the most revered canoe-maker in Wetepi-Hi’ilo, is working on his greatest masterpiece of craftsmanship, but lacks the wood necessary to build his new design. He is looking for someone who can travel to a nearby island where the mightiest of koa treed see said to grow in order to retrieve suitable materials for the craft.
6	Word around the village is that a large foreign trade ship has recently wrecked off the coast of the island. It is said that there may be valuable goods to be salvaged or stranded survivors to rescue if anyone can brave the rocky waters where it sank.
7	I’rah Wese’maati, town mystic and sister to Chieftain Kalonga, tells of a vision she had in which an army of Dwarven ghosts sailed a charred ship put of the crater of a volcano to wreak fiery havoc upon the land.
8	What mysteries lie beyond the cave opening at the back of the grotto behind the grand pool. Ever since you have returned, you can't help shake the urge to venture further within. Adventure beckons, will you heed the call?

So, there you have it, an ungainly beast of a post, but hopefully a decent way to start off a new segment. From now on, I’ll likely only be posting once or twice a week, so that enough thought can go into each segment. I may end up following a formula of posting each of two columns one week, and the other two the next week, but we’ll see. It mostly depends on what kinds of inspiration come when. Either way I’ll see you in the next one.

As always, may your road lead you ever onward to adventure, 

-Armstrong