Tomb of the Serpent King 5e, session 3

Only two players once again, so they decided that that best course of action is to go and pick fight with the biggest thing they've found in the dungeon so far.

Dramatis personae:

• Gour-Gash, a goliath barbarian. Strong of muscle, weak of head. Collector of various weapons.
• Trollin, a hill dwarf cleric. A red-robed inquisitor who curiously surrounds himself with outlanders and strange types. Definitely has a hidden agenda.

This session's recap was kindly provided by Trollin's player, so it contains no spoilers. Don't read the GM Commentary, players!

From Mythical Archive

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From the diary of Trollin, 25th day of Harvest, 198 Aureum Diem
Zeru and Gour-Gash have left me and Toxin to wallow in our filth rather than properly treat us, then returned from the depths of the tomb like beaten dogs. What else could they expect when they brazenly braved such a god-forsaken place without a warrior of the faith? Anyway, I healed their wounds and we rested in this village's excuse for an inn. By the next day, my bowels were fine, but Toxin was still in a bad shape and magister Harant wasn't feeling too good himself, so we agreed that Zeru would stay behind and watch over them, and only I and Gour-Gash would continue with explorations of the tomb.

Before, though, we visited magister Harant in his room to get any intel he might have. He told us, among frivolous ramblings and a lot of unnecessary chatter, that somewhere in the tomb, he had lost his satchel of notes, alchemical equipment and most importantly money. For us, it meant that we had to find his bag and also pay for his temporary accommodation in the inn. In addition to all this nonsense, the innkeeper wanted to rip us off, but a little intimidation was enough to make him backpedal like the blathering little man he is and from now on, we have a free room for as long as necessary.

Magister Harant also sent his assistant Schmee with us. Gour-Gash tried to persuade the magister to join our exploration himself, as his experience with the Dark Ones, their magic and mechanisms might've proved most helpful, but he's apparently "not feeling well enough and needs some rest". We could all tell right away that he was shaking with fear under his covers at the thought of once again entering that monster-filled darkness of the tomb. We however received an unexpected thiefly support in the form of Janek, the innkeeper's son. He claimed to be skilled in the lock-picking arts and would help us disable any traps, for just a few silver pieces even! So the four of us went underground again.

In the entrance hall with the sarcophagi, Gour-Gash remembered that one of the statues had a ring on its finger and wanted to get it. He swung with his maul and shattered the earthenware statue and we immediately regretted it, because the room was filled with poison and we had to leave post-haste. Any further ideas of smashing were promptly forgotten and instead we headed further and deeper.

We entered the octagonal room with water in its center and took a peek behind the western door, standing slightly ajar. Behind it were stairs - where they lead we don't know yet. Instead, we continued along the proven path through the room with a lot of granite statues. An impressive sight, all those petrified souls that will never wake up again. Gour-Gash opened a secret entrance to a narrow staircase and we went down to a great hall. But even before we entered, we could hear the clatter of a chain as it slid across the floor. It was immediately clear to us that this is the tell-tale sign of the huge lizard they encountered here yesterday being awake. The magister gave us some tips on how to take down the beast - a basilisk, we were sure - so we prepared our weapons and vowed silently to take down the monster, now or never. After all, such an abominable creature does not belong in our blessed world.

Gour-Gash lured the basilisk closer with a torch thrown into the center of the hall, then thrust a spear into its side. Its bulk was horrible and hideous, yet I didn't hesitate and charged out of the corridor to deliver a necrotic strike to the reptile's tail. The basilisk writhed in pain, screeching, with a spear stuck in its groin and its flesh rotting away. Inspired by the courage of his warrior role models, young Janek fired his slingshot, aiming to snap shut the monster's eye-covers. Unfortunately the stone just bounced off the helmet, but so close! Shaking at the knees, Schmee proved what a coward he is and dropped the axe he was clutching in his sweaty hands rather than actually trying to hit the lizard with it.

But the basilisk had had enough! It swiped with its tail, back and fro! I kind of dodged away, but Gour-Gash bore the full brunt of the blow and flew to the side. I'm going to have to ask him about his forebears sometime; though coughing up blood he landed gracefully on his feet like it's in his bones. He immediately tried to return the favour and jumped at the basilisk, but staggered and missed and wasted his attack. However, I didn't leave anything to chance and through the grace of the great Sun Lord caused further wounds to this affront to natural order. Its body couldn't take it anymore and its flesh turned putrescent, rotting before our very eyes. Not even his head could be saved, just the clean skull and bones remained. The beast was no more.

We caught our breath and searched the room and dismantled the false wall on the south side of the hall. It opened up to an unknown corridor. To the west, the corridor turned to stairs and went up and upwards, until a collapse ended it abruptly. We found a tunnel, though, through which Schmee voluntarily went after a short round of persuasion. It led out of the tomb, to a hole somewhere deep in the forest. Stuck here on a root, we found the magister's satchel!

Then there was no other option left but to turn around and head east. Again, the corridor ended in a collapse, only this time with a hole in the floor. From below, a lot of goblin eyes were peering at us, glistening in the light of our torches.

GM Commentary
A big part of this session was spent in the inn, talking with the magister, the innkeeper and also Janek, whom Trollin eventually hired as a part-time linkboy, part-time trap tester.

Also spells in 5e deal mean damage. Poor basilisk never stood a chance. However, Gour-Gash decided to take its skull with him, unaware that the basilisk is one of Xiximanter's experiments into immortality...

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Tomb of the Serpent King 5e, session 2

A session of lucky stealth rolls, unexpectedly extensive exploration and only two players.

Dramatis personae:

• Gour-Gash, a goliath barbarian. Strong of muscle, weak of head. Big, big maul in his hands. Probably compensating for something.
• Zeru, an air genasi warlock. A gentleman and a scholar, sent by his genie patron to learn about the barbaric customs and traditions of the far West.

If any of the players have by sheer chance found this recap, do not read any further, please.

From The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I hate that movie just as much as I like the book.

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In the last session, the party had some interesting goulash at the local inn, but now it turns out it doesn't sit so well with Trollin and Toxin. They have to rather rapidly excuse themselves and stay behind in the side-tomb of Sparamuntar whom the party has just destroyed. Gour-Gash and Zeru leave them to their retching.

They move on to the room with cracked-open doors they wanted to investigate. Peering inside, they see statues. A lot of statues. Statues of warriors and robed scholars or magic-users, of rogues and other never-do-wells, all of varied races but of the same panicked expression. There is a total of eighteen of these statues, all stacked carelessly over each other and all made of granite, unlike the carefully crafted serpent-men statues of marble they have been seeing until now. The hint is obvious enough.

At the very end of the room, two serpent guard statues stand in their alcoves. Zeru recalls the secret entrance to the guard room that they found in the last session and pulls at the statues' spears, opening a secret door. The two adventurers take the narrow staircase behind the door and soon reach the other end, with another door that Gour-Gash carefully pushes open with the end of the battle-axe he took from the remains of Sparamuntar. Luckily for them, the door don't creak.

They stare into the darkness of a large, columned hall and hear the sounds of heavy, animalistic breathing and the occasional rattle of a chain. Wary and nervous, they nevertheless decide to take their chances and explore the hall.

In the middle of the hall, they find a massive iron chain hanging from the ceiling and then snaking its way between the columns to the other end of the hall. They follow it and at the end, a massive lizard is sleeping, curled up by the wall. It has an iron collar and a helmet with open blinders. It is snoring and swishing its tail. They carefully creep back.

After some deliberation, they sneak along the wall to the east. Through a tall, arched doorway, they find a vestibule. The northern wall is completely covered by a moth-eaten tapestry and multiple mouldered benches line the walls. First, they try the corridor to the east, but they notice several thin gaps in the stonework running all across the corridor. Suspicious, they take a plank from the benches and push it over the first gap. A whiff of a hidden blade later, the plank is cut in half.

Instead, they take the path to the south, bringing another plank with them because you never know. There is a room with a strange, uneven, cracked floor. They throw their plank on it and the whole floor collapses, except for a thin walkway around the walls.

The next room is similar to one they've already found - just like in the tomb atrium, there is a circular well-like hole of runed stones in the middle of the room, except this one is not flooded. Deep at the bottom, they can see a cold, blueish light flicker faintly.

Going south, they enter a domed hall with door on each wall. The southern door is more of a gate, massive and reinforced, with a single small keyhole. Listening by each door, they only hear something behind the western ones - two high-pitched voices chatting in a language they don't know and a set of dice being rolled.

They hide behind the door and then Gour-Gash opens it and immediately closes it again. A pause and then a set of footsteps approaches. As someone opens the door, Gour-Gash slams them back closed, then they both burst into the next room. At their feet, a goblin is lying with a bloodied nose, and another is getting up from the single table in the room, reaching for his spear - a silver fork attached to the end of a broom handle. Half of the room is collapsed, a heap of stone blocks mixed with loose earth, rotting wood and roots. There's a lard lamp on the table and two piles of silverware, apparently used as currency in the goblins' game of dice.

These are also not the same goblins as Schmee was - while Schmee would fit right in at Gringotts, these goblins are more like from the Unexpected Journey - grayish-white, cancerous and disfigured, clothed in rags and mud.

Zeru tries to de-escalate the situation and parley with the goblin guards, but then Gour-Gash picks up the one at his feet and yeets him across the room, shattering the table. The second goblin stabs his "spear" in Gour-Gash's shoulder, but the fork comes loose. He is quickly pacified, but the thrown goblin has disappeared.

They tie up their captive and find crawlways hidden among the rubble, but let them be for now. Instead, Zeru takes a silver spoon as a souvenir. They then try to interrogate the goblin, but as he speaks only a stuttered Imperial, they only learn that no one is allowed to visit the goblin king and that there is a spell-slinging boogeyman in the tomb that the goblins are afraid of.

Suddenly, goblins start pouring from the crawlways. Gour-Gash starts raging but the goblins keep coming and the adventurers are forced to make a fighting retreat. They manage to get a little bit ahead of their pursuers and once they are back to the vestibule, they barricade the south door with the benches.

Not wanting to wait for the goblins and the ruckus that might wake the lizard, they immediately go and cross the columned hall to the west. The corridor beyond ends with a lavishly decorated, runed gate that has a handle in the shape of an ouroboros - but half of it is missing. The door right next to this gate is locked, with bubbling sounds coming from behind them. They then take the corridor to the south.

At its end, a tall arch is guarded by two statues of serpent scholars, both holding up a golden globe. Beyond the arch, the smooth corridors of the tomb end, replaced with a cavernous slope. Gour-Gash tries to poke one of the globes with his maul and lightning zaps his hand. Still, they decide to walk through and get zapped even more.

Climbing down the slope, they get to a thin cleft smelling of sweat, rot and urine. They squeeze through and find a small cave with a low ceiling, full of goblin nests but thankfully no goblins. There are two other exits - a chimney to the south which wafts of unwashed bodies, rotting meat and fresh plants, and a tunnel to the east which smells of smoke. They search the room and Zeru rolls a natural 20 on Investigation - he finds a small locked box and in a deep crevice in a wall, a beautiful crown as if braided from gold and silver serpents. Then they go east.

There is a much larger cave with a bonfire burning in its centre. In addition to a few goblins lounging around the cave, there is someone tied to a chair by the fire. The adventurers withdraw and go back through the thin cleft, resting on the other side for a short while. They want to get a better look at the goblins' captive, suspecting they might be close to their quest's goal, but they really needed that rest.

Once they go back to the goblin warren though, there are a few goblins sleeping and sleeping together. A confused skirmish ensues and the adventurers nearly manage to subdue them all without much hubbub, but a single goblin slips away from them and runs to the bonfire cave. They chase after her even though that Gour-Gash is getting seriously battered, fearing they might get no other chance like this one.

In the bonfire cave, the goblins were warned and they immediately beset the adventurers, but Zeru and Gour-Gash burn through their last reserves of power and quickly slaughter several of their opponents. Their foes' morale is broken and they flee.

In the meantime, the figure tied to the chair has revealed itself to be magister Harant. They free him and drag him back to the warren, just as the sounds of many goblins are starting to draw near from deeper in the caverns. They get to the arch of serpent scholars with a wave of goblins nipping at their heels and run right through. Both Gour-Gash and magister Harant are on their last legs, but the first few goblins who try to get through the arch are completely fried and the rest give up the chase, slinging only insults and silverware at the retreating party.

They get around the lizard and up the secret path, collect Trollin and Toxin from their sick room and stagger out of the tomb without further trouble.

It's just past midnight when they get back to the By the Oak inn. They ignore the stunned looks of the few late patrons, get a room and collapse on their beds.

GM Commentary
This session, the players had a lot of morale and stealth rolls go in their favour. On the way back and out of the tomb, we were already ending the session, so I gave them the last stealth check to circumvent the basilisk for free, but otherwise the players were lucky they left their clanking armoured dwarf behind - both Gour-Gash and Zeru are rather stealthy and they were relying on it a lot. Still, Gour-Gash once again ended the session nearly dead (1 hp this time).

A ruling I want to remember: Gour-Gash managed a very nice Intimidation check against the oncoming flood of goblins, but there were way too many to break their morale so easily. Instead, I pushed the goblins back on the initiative tracker, which actually helped Gour-Gash to act before them and retreat more easily.

The players very wisely retreated both times the goblins kept pouring - the first time there were 22 and the second 26 goblins.

Speaking of goblins, I've misread their AC at first and made them harder than intended. I didn't notice that the default goblin stat block assumes they are fully armoured, while these goblins couldn't have less clothing even if they tried. On the other hand, I've inadvertently made it easier for the players in the warren skirmish - the cave is low enough that they probably should've been fighting with a disadvantage.

When Zeru rolled his natural 20 on Investigation, I've decided to make it a properly cool moment and moved the Crown of the Serpent King from the goblin farms the the warren. The adventurers realized it's magical, but they actually think it's a key rather than an artifact - I've placed a crowned statue in the false king's tomb and they found the missing ouroboros handle, so they are now looking for a place where the crown might fit and open something.

The golden standard is taking its toll - even though the goblins were literally flinging silver at the PCs, the players didn't bother to collect any silverware when they had the chance, even though it would've been a nice sum for all the forks and spoons.

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Languages of the Amir Steppes

Here is a conversion of the standard D&D languages to the world of Althan, or more specifically the Amir Steppes in West Althan.

In addition, a new house rule is in effect: You may take an expertise in language, just as you can in any other proficiency. See the expert effects in the table below. Also the Linguist feat now lets you pick an expertise in one language you know.

Any effects that require a saving throw have a

DC = 8 + double proficiency bonus + Charisma modifier

 

d20	Language		Expert Effect	D&D Equivalent
1	Low Imperial	Various dialects of Old Imperial, spread throughout the fallen Aunian Empire. All mutually intelligible, though with many funny accents.	You can speak High Imperial with no accent. High Imperial is the language of imperial nobility, so people will generally assume that you are either a scholar or a noble.	Common
2	Nymbian	Language used in Nymbia, a great southern empire beyond the Trollish Mountains, and also by the southern barbarian tribes.
3	Taalish	Language used in the Thirty-Three Kingdoms.
4	Khazum	Old dwarven language once used in Khelek Dur, the dwarven realm beneath the Trollish Mountains, and now used by the dwarven clans who fled when Khelek Dur was destroyed. Useful as very few non-dwarves can understand it.		Dwarfish
5	Kanish	Language of the ashen elves from the triplet city of Kani. Related to Substratal.		Elvish
6	Trollish	Language used in Trollamor, the city of trolls. Related to the Dark Speech.		Giant
7	Pflecian	Language used in Pflec, the gnomish dictatorship. Related to the Dark Speech.		Gnomish
8	Skurut Tongues	The many dialects of various goblin tribes, all at least a little bit mutually intelligible. They often incorporate various body sounds.	Gain scent. You also become a little more ugly and green, slowly starting to turn into a goblin.	Goblin
9	Hinnish	Language of Hins, the tiny savages from the Hin Highlands.		Halfling
10	Ugrathish	Language of Ugrathi, the nomadic orcish clans who travel far and wide in their caravan wagons, wheeling and dealing.		Orcish
Rare Languages
11	Golden Gospeltongue	Language of clergy of the Triune Divinity. Said to be also used by the Empyreal Host of the High Heaven.	You can detect lies told in Gospeltongue. No save from the liar, but there must be intention behind the lie.	Celestial
12	Draconic	Also used by the dragonborn races and many sorcerers.	If you know the True Name of a dragon and call it in Draconic, they will always hear you, no matter where they might be. Their reactions may vary.	Draconic
13	Druidic	A secret language, forbidden to the uninitiated.	Animals understand your pleas or demands perfectly, even if you do not understand their replies.	Druidic
14	Dark Speech	Language of the Dark Ones, dead since they exterminated themselves in endless civil wars.	You can speak ancient words of command that still hold sway over the many races created by the Dark Ones. All creatures of such races* in earshot must make a Wisdom Save, or they must choose one of a) kneel immediately (as Prone), or b) cower in fear for [Charisma bonus, min 1] rounds (as Frightened). You may use this ability again after a short rest.	Deep Speech
15	Hereafter Speech	Language used by psychopomps, demons and the dead.	Any demon, undead or psychopomp must answer you one question thruthfully. Mindless undead get no save. Every creature can be affected only once.	Abyssal, Infernal
16	Djinnish	Language of the Elemental Lords. (Not an otherworldly power, they live around Lake Siva to the east and waged a long war against the Aunian Empire.)	The elements understand and try to help you. When you speak Djinnish, wind will blow when you command, fires will dim when you are whispering, earth will shake when you laugh and water will flow according to you will.	Primordial
17	Fey Speech	Language of the fickle Folk.	You can speak in endless riddles and allegories. Only the people you designate (who must know Fey Speech) will understand the true meaning of your speech.	Sylvan
18	Substratal	Dialects used in the various settlements around the Sunless Sea. Contains a lot of clicking sounds.	You can very, very poorly echolocate by clicking your tongue. Handy in the dark.	Undercommon
19	Thieves' Cant	A combination of code words, hand signs and markings used for covert communication. Originally developed by the Insurgency when they were fighting the Dark Ones, but later adopted by thieves all over the Amir Steppes.	You can sign with a single hand at the speed of normal speech. You can place marks that only you will find.	Thieves' Cant
20	Lip Reading	Works for any language you are proficient in.	You can lip-read even in languages you don't know. You will not understand the words, but can perfectly replicate the sounds for someone who does know that language.

*) Dark Ones specialized in biomancy and necromancy, leaving behind many half-human, half-animal races and hybrid monsters.

Tomb of the Serpent King 5e, session 1

I have committed an unforgivable heresy. I run a D&D 5e game.

A group of friends has recently tried kicking off a new game, but their GM fell through at the last possible moment, so I offered to take over. With their characters already made and everyone comfortable with 5e, they weren't really keen on switching to a different system, but they didn't (yet) object to my intention of slowly adding house-rules to OSRify the rule set.

And so with no time to prepare, I skimmed the converted version of my favourite starting dungeon, the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, and off we go.

Dramatis personae:

• Gour-Gash, a goliath barbarian. Strong of muscle, weak of head. Big, big maul in his hands. Probably compensating for something.
• Toxin, an owlin alchemist. Once a familiar who became an apprentice, then an adventurer when his master has met an untimely end.
• Trollin, a hill dwarf cleric. A red-robed inquisitor who curiously surrounds himself with outlanders and strange types. Definitely has a hidden agenda.
• Zeru, an air genasi warlock. A gentleman and a scholar, sent by his genie patron to learn about the barbaric customs and traditions of the far West.

If any of the players have by sheer chance found this recap, do not read any further, please.

 

At the southern edge of the Amir Steppes, where the Trollish Peaks start to rise, there lies Balalán, the city of thousand races. Should one venture from there up to the mountains, to the deep valleys and deeper forests, they will eventually arrive to the Halfway Hamlet, a village known to few and only because of its inn. Yet here's where the party was sent by their benefactor, one viscount Lucián Malévol, on a rescue mission.

But let's start from the beginning. One and a half months ago, the viscount had received a message from the Halfway Hamlet, it being a part of his estate, speaking of heavy storms that damaged the crop and caused a landslide that not only blocked the road, but also revealed an old, broken tunnel disappearing into the mountain. And that might have been it, with the road fixed and the mysterious tunnel left alone, but viscount Malévol is a great lover of mysticism and the occult arts. And right at that time, he had a well-renowned alchemist and archeologist Kryštof Harant staying at his manor.

To cut the long story short, magister Harant went to investigate this wonderfully mysterious tunnel and promptly disappeared the first day after arrival. The party was then contacted and sent to retrieve the magister and any invaluable artifacts he might have found in the depths.

***

The party arrives to the Halfway Hamlet by a stagecoach. The village is as backwater as can be - a single inn, named By the Oak, standing, wait for it, by a huge oak, then a handful of cottages, some fields and a lot of pastures with sheep. The party goes in the inn to find the local elder and innkeeper, mister Jan, to hand him the letter of authority given to them by the viscount and to question him. They learn nothing much except that magister Harant had been lodging in the inn along with his famulus, and then just never came back from the tunnel. No one in the village was foolhardy enough to search for them inside.

The party has some passable mutton goulash and then make the innkeeper's son Janek lead them to the tunnel.

Once they climb over the broken trees and ground torn apart by the landslide, they consider using Janek as a torch-bearer, but eventually decide to just leave him at the entrance to watch for any outside threats. They also promise him a whole gold coin for his help, so he's quite giddy to help.

They creep inside, coming to the first junction and investigating both guard tombs, but they don't dare to disturb the sarcophagi inside. They continue to the second junction, finding that that scholar's tomb was already opened - the tracks suggest two people, likely magister Harant and the famulus, had recently moved the lid. Inside, they find a terracotta statue of a snake-headed scholar, and one of the statue's fingers is broken off, revealing the hollow inside. Gour-Gash promptly smashes the statue. (The party was lucky that the gas was already gone from this statue.)

Toxin collects a golden pendant in the shape of a rune-inscribed cobra from among the terracotta shards and ancient bones, then they move on to the last side tomb. There they push the lid off of the sarcophagus and spy the silver ring on the hand of the terracotta sorcerer. They discuss at length whether or not to smash all the statues for the loot, but (rightly) fear that a hollow statue might contain a nasty surprise, like a gas. Eventually, they agree to came back later.

As Zeru puts it: "The statues were here for hundreds of years. They will not run off now." (Now that I think about it, they might. They might.)

And so they go deeper, to the barred stone gate. More serpentine designs can be found on the gate and Trollin recognizes them as belonging to the Serpent King, a god-sorcerer of yore. They find further tracks of the magister and his famulus, but no other signs of them nor any clue where they might have disappeared to. The party wonders for a bit about the fact that the gate is barred from the outside, clearly containing something inside of the tomb, and that magister Harant couldn't have easily gone through the gate and close it behind him. They even bring up searching for an alternate entrance (Good idea!), but then they just say "Screw it, maybe they got inside with magic." and go to unbar the gate.

They notice the pegs starting to rise, they can hear a faint clicking noise from above, but they shrug and believe in their saving throws and hp pools. The swing of the huge hammer trap nearly catches Toxin and Trollin, but they roll out of the way. Gour-Gash, on the other hand, is caught square across the back and rammed through the gate, opening it in the process. Good thing that his player thought to use Stone's Endurance ability; Gour-Gash still picks himself up with only 2 hp left. Cue nervous laughter around the table.

The false king's tomb is expansive, its walls covered by murals of snake people experimenting on other races and warring among themselves. More importantly, there are three thrones of dark stone, with a terracotta statue seated on each - two snake-princesses on the sides and a (fake) serpent king on the middle throne, with a crown and a sceptre of real gold set into the statue. The party scours the room, with Toxin even flying up to the ceiling and searching for secret doors or compartments there, but they refuse to touch the statues. Tempted as they might be, they reason that they are on a rescue mission, not a tomb-robbing one, so they should prioritise exploration over looting.

They continue to the false temple and find the collapsed secret door under the pedestal of the Serpent King's statue. Trollin at the front, they go deeper, down the circular stairwell.

They creep through the statue hall, expecting a monster behind every statue, but instead they find two other things - a statue twisted out of alignment and a collapsed figure on the floor, still breathing but bloodied and unconscious. They approach the figure carefully, expecting a jump scare, but it's really just lying and dying there. They turn it face up and realise it's a goblin, albeit one in an uncharacteristically nice (blood- and mud-streaked) clothing. They discuss whether they shouldn't just coup-de-grace it, but then Toxin reaches into his pocket and pours a healing potion down the goblin's throat.

Which is when Gour-Gash learns that Toxin had a healing potion and Trollin has healing magic, yet nobody has bothered to heal him and he is still shuffling around battered by the hammer trap. They still don't heal him, despite his grumbling.

The goblin sputters and coughs, then sits up. Trollin grabs him, pulls him to standing, then violently shakes him and screams questions right into his face. When the situation is de-escalated by the rest of the party, they learn that the goblin's name is Schmee and that he is a famulus to magister Harant.

They were indeed investigating this tomb when they were ambushed and knocked unconscious by a group of other goblins. Schmee insists that these goblins were hideous, unhygienic and overall barbaric. They took Schmee and the magister to some cave, likely deeper in the tomb, where they made Schmee work their mushroom fields while chaining magister Harant to a throne and insisting that he is now their king, irrespective of his objections. Also the goblins have no soap, their living conditions are atrocious and their cooking unpalatable, according to Schmee.

Eventually, Schmee had seen a chance to escape when his goblin guard dozed off and he seized it. Unfortunately, the guard woke up and a scuffle ensued, where Schmee managed to get away but not without injuries. Bleeding and with no light, he got lost in the tunnels and eventually passed out right where the party found him. When he hears that the party is on a rescue mission to free his master, he is overjoyed.

As the conversation with Schmee drifts from his misadventures in this tomb to bonsai trees and various types of tea - Zeru has apparently found a soulmate in the goblin - Trollin fiddles with the tilted statue and quickly learns that pulling on the snake-guard's spear opens a secret door in the alcove. He goes to the hidden guardroom, rummages through the debris and retrieves a gold serpent pendant, but leaves usable two spears behind. When he returns to the rest of the party, they are still engaged in a lively debate with the rather chatty goblin. However, as Schmee has no more actually useful information to offer, he is sent to retrace the party's steps back through the upper tomb and away to the village. He disappears into the dark, alone.

Finally, the party moves on to the tomb atrium. They eye the pool in the middle of the room mistrustfully and want nothing to do with it. Instead, they search the rest of the room. Two doors out of the seven in the room are slightly ajar - the door directly across from the entrance and the first one to the right from the entrance. Without Schmee, they have no easy way to determine which were the ones he used, but there are a few blood splatters which point to the right door. It screeches painfully as Gour-Gash pushes it open and a sudden pounding can be heard from the northernmost door on the opposite side of the atrium.

Unsure what to do, the party approaches the door as the pounding continues. They are loath to leave a possible threat behind their backs, so Gour-Gash carefully pushes the door open with the end of his maul. That saves him from a surprise strike of a great-axe as a skeleton steps through.

The first initiative of the game is rolled and the skeleton wins it easily, immediately taking down Gour-Gash with a single blow. His player grumbles, but the rest of the party descends upon the skeleton. Toxin and Zeru pelt the skeleton with sling shots and magic, Trollin steps up to tank the skeleton's assault and get Gour-Gash back on his feet with some healing, then Gour-Gash gets a quick revenge by demolishing the skeleton with a lucky strike.

Now chuckling about how the first monster nearly meant the first death (It really didn't, 5e offers way too much leeway when dying. That will have to be house-ruled.), the party returns to the door they wanted to explore and we close the curtain until the next session.

GM Commentary
The "less rolling, more descriptions of actions" way of playing has been well-received, it seems.

It was nice that some combat happened at the very end of the session, as all the players were eager for some hack and slash action. I fully expected them to find and fight the skeletons in the false king's tomb, but the quest of rescuing a kidnapped magister has turned out to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the players were really keen on having a clear goal within the tomb. On the other hand, they prioritised pushing deep into the tomb as quickly as possible, so they favoured the way forward over poking at fun things. I've added the cracked scholar statue and then the extra treasure in the false king's tomb in hopes of them taking the bait and smashing open one of the fun statues, but no luck.

Magister Harant and Schmee were actually kidnapped outside of the tomb and taken in through the alternate entrance directly to the goblin caves, but the party has dropped the idea of tracking the magister and Schmee too quickly to notice that. Speaking of Schmee, he was inspired by the converted TotSK and he worked great for giving the players vague warnings of the dangers to come.

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