Ghoul Smashing Time.

Last night in the MOG campaign the party decided to (once again) go raid the ghoul tunnels to go cash in on 30 silver shekel bounty placed on ghoul heads. Before descending into the domain of the ghouls armor was repaired or upgraded, large shields were obtained, a few silver arms were acquired, and a supply of oil was secure.

A pair of miner's helmets with lamps were obtained for a par of zombies the party has had under their control. Luckily the expense of the helms was not wasted as the zombies were found secure in their hiding spot in the dungeon, even if surrounded by a small number of devastated bogloid corpses.

The party reach the back entrance (discovered weeks ago) to the ghoul tunnels. Zombies were lowered down the trapdoor entrance to the ghoul tunnels with miner's helmet lamps lit to illuminate the way.  One of the zombies was mauled (but not destroyed) by a pair of ghouls lurking near the doorway to the dining hall. the pair was dispatched as a small pack was heard moving up behind them. The fighters rushed up forming a shield-wall as they engaged the ghouls, all the ghouls were quickly destroyed and heads taken.

With the sounds of a large number of ghouls moving in on them, as experienced in the past, the party grabbed one of the dinning hall tables and retreated to the chamber leading to the exit. In the chamber with the ladder and trapdoor out the southerly passage was partly blocked by nailing the appropriated dinning hall table in place with six spikes before the ghouls came charging.

A shield wall was setup just in time along the northerly passage just in time to meet the ghoul advance. The party's first level magician stood at the shield wall with a tower shield in hand desperately hoping to add more to defense then his current selection of spells would allow. The shield wall held against the first wave of ghouls with the spear and polearm proving more effective then the morningstar wielded by the party bruiser (Shep the Cyclops warriro decked out in plate, with a new great-helm and morningstar) missing as he stood firm against the assault of withered necrotic claws.

More ghouls came assaulting the party at each entrance. Flaming oil was deployed only with limited success, the pygmy scout manged to set himself on fire briefly while lobbing his set of prepared firebombs.  Hatfield the 1st level fighter, holding the ghouls off at the table across the passage way, was grabbed and pulled over the table into the host of ghouls to disappear in a spray of strewn equipment, blood and body parts.  Hammering could be heard on the trapped overhead. The pygmy scout rushed up the ladder to deal with that threat.

Even more ghouls assaulted the party, there was a shuffling of combatants to deal with the loss at the partially blocked passage and the party held off the ghouls. In all that fighting only two of the party blew saves vs paralysis and they were quickly relieved of the affliction by one of the two zealots in the party before the ghouls could press the advantage. Between waves the shield wall moved forward and ghoul heads were fetched for their bounty before moving the shield wall back to a better defensive point.

The pygmy scout managed to crack the trapdoor above during the last of the fighting but wisely decided he wasn't tough enough to deal with the threat above so Shep was called on. Shep in plate and his new great helm and not too bad for wear climbed up to the trapdoor smashed it open with his head, there was a flash and he was seized by a magical force that locked his muscles rigid, as he was in motion up a ladder he tumbled back down. Throwing caution to the wind the pygmy scout rushed up the ladder to discover no one guarding the trapdoor so the okay was called for the party to retreat up the ladder. During the escape out of the trapdoor the magician Vaelock noted an broken and smudged magical symbol on the trapdoors edge: this confirmed to most of the party there was a necromancer working with the ghouls. Egress for the dungeon met with no resistance and there was much rejoicing that only one of the party met ruin in The Undercity of  MOG.

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I was happy to see the players actually use some tactics, they actually paid attention to the house rules and deployed them to advantage.

A lot of experience point were gained  by the seven surviving PCS and two NPC hirelings as they dispatched sixty-nine  ghouls in all at 200 exp each (I'm going with 100 exp per HD). Three characters gained a level.

The bounty on the 40 odd heads they fetched turned out to be lucrative, it was high enough the bounty is going to be rolled back by the town... surely there can't be many ghouls left.