I’m going to start a solo playthrough of Stonehell using the Errant system.
I made four characters.
Gerod The Zealot Elf
Elaine the Violent Goblin
Fortessa the Deviant Tiefling + her dad
Veg the Occult Orc + his two buff cousins
I’m going to play through the Stonehell mega dungeon as I read it, and then I’m going to write up a journal entry made by one of the characters, as Veg is going to document and publish their explorations.
Veg
Stonehell. It was a prison, now an ancient ruin built into the ground. I am leaving my academy for the first time. I have found myself some companions. Garod, a religious elf who drinks without end and has a... smell to him. Elaine is a savvy goblin warrior. Fortessa, a tiefling that is smarter with her hands than with her mouth.
Along with them, my cousins Barg and Darf have decided to tag along.
We have heard that goblins have been raiding from the Old Gatehouse. Failing to acquire any funding for my expedition, we are hoping to collect the bounty on their heads to get us started. According to Elaine, the local goblins have a hatred for orcs. There's also rumored to be an endless chasm somewhere in the dungeon. I hope to discover the truth behind some of these legends the locals so frequently pass around.
We set out for Stonehell. Half a day's walk from Stonehome, we stopped to rest and wait out a downpour. Another four hours of travel and we eventually made it to the valley. Steep granite walls littered with caves tower over a grassy meadow dotted with ruins. A ruined gatehouse guards entry into the valley, we will head there first.
Approaching the Old Gatehouse, we noticed graffiti all over the ruined walls. One in particular claimed that the dungeon had already been emptied. Fat chance. The great banded doors were busted open, and the rusty iron portcullis had been hacked away at enough that Fortessa could find us a hole to squeeze through.
We startled a group of rats in the entryway, and Fortessa was brave enough to peek through the murder holes in the hallway. She spotted some bat-mosquito creatures to the North, and piles of their droppings through the Southern murder holes. We continued down the hall through the second portcullis.
Fortessa has been leading the way. She jumped when we opened the door to the room with the stirge droppings. Peeking in, we saw five transparent adventurers sitting around a cold fire pit. Garod assured us they were harmless and trotted into the room. Deftly, he picked up the bones around the spirits and set us to work assembling the bodies as best we could. My experience at the Academy assisted us here, and we had five nearly complete sets of bones in no time. Gerod spoke a long prayer about the hedonism of heaven. He then pulled out a jewel encrusted chalice and drank deeply from it, kissing each of the skulls in turn. The spirits slowly faded.
