Sunday Holmes, Session 3 - Everything but the Handbasket

07 Nov, 2026

In the last session, the party:

• Discovered a trapdoor under a saint
• Threw breadcrumbs at a crayfish-headed baby
• Witnessed the miracle of birth

The PCs:

• "Beetrice", Apiary Golem Fighter. 9' tall.
• Dan III, Human Magic-User. Normal human man.
• Pusfegendus "Pusfeg" the Creepy Watcher, Goblin Cleric. Has a tendency to press metaphorical and literal buttons.
• Spoonbreaker, Crocodile-man Thief. Anachronistic detective.
• Kargay, Elf Thief.¹

Play Report

I started the session with the Underclock at 20.

The party decided, after some deliberation, to follow the crayfish babies down the left-hand path. This lead them to a circular chamber with walls covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. 10 feet above the doorway they'd entered through was another entrance. In the center of the room, an ornate tome sat on a pedestal.

As Beetrice pulled herself through the upper doorway, Pusfeg and Dan inspected the book. Entitled the Liber Haeresis, it depicted a wide variety of heretical and taboo practices in great detail. Pusfeg, finding it interesting (and most likely valuable) stowed it in their bag.

Meanwhile, Beetrice had entered a room containing a crayfish baby having a tantrum, wailing and banging its fists on the stuccoed walls. After hoisting the rest of the party up into the room with her, Beetrice simply crept around the screaming child-thing, motioning the other PCs to do the same. Passing through a doorway, the group found themselves on the balcony around the room holding the giant crab baby and made their way to another room.

This contained a mural of the martyrdom of St. Spogden, depicting him delimbed and bleeding surrounded by grotesque creatures frolicking through a blackened sky. Among these horrid visages were some that looked similar to the crayfish babies. Unnerved, the party continued on.

They came to a small room with a cube of sandstone in its middle. Atop the block stood a severed and preserved human arm, which glittered with obvious magic to Pusfeg and Dan's refined senses. Inspecting it, Pusfeg determined it was a holy relic, the arm of St. Spogden. They placed it in the reliquary which rested at the foot of the altar and pocketed the whole ensemble.

Next, the group passed through a room which held a chandelier full of poison gas and containing a golden crown. Choosing to leave well enough alone, they opened a secret door from the backside to reveal a hidden route onto the entrance stairway. Returning to the balcony, Beetrice lowered hereself into the crab baby's room and helped the rest of the party down after her.

Pusfeg decided to poke the crab baby with the arm of St. Spogden on a hunch that it might revert into a normal baby, or possibly explode. As they did this, the Underclock went below zero and a few things happened all at once. Firstly, the crab baby was poked. This had the grand effect of doing absolutely nothing. Second, a shockwave like a low-magnitude earthquake shook the dungeon briefly. Third, everywhere suddenly became very hot. Beetrice immediately ran out to the entrance to see what had happened². What she beheld was a red landcape and a glowering sky of sooty black clouds. Thinking twice, she ducked back down the trapdoor and returned to the party.

Learning this information, the group collectively decided that it might be best to stay down in the complex for a little while. They hadn't even found Abegail, the girl they'd been sent to recover, yet. With that in mind, they decided to explore the only route they hadn't taken: the right-hand path. Passing down a ways they found themselves in a small natural cave that had been incorporated as-is into the shrine. Within this cave sat a skeleton in monks' robes, a few wisps of tonsure still clinging to its head. Moving its skull towards Beetrice's stomping, it asked in a harsh whisper who the PCs were and why they'd disturbed its meditations.

After the party had introduced themselves and the skeleton had given his name as Leofdaeg (noting that Pusfeg was a fellow "man-" Pusfeg delivered an angry stare "...thing of the cloth."³) they got to sharing information. The group wondered where the crayfish babies had come from, which Leofdaeg didn't know, and what the crab baby was. The skeletal monk was able to inform the PCs that the creature served as a hive for what he called "lesser demons". He also revealed himself as the author of the Liber Haeresis which Pusfeg had looted.

Beetrice also asked, persistently and repeatedly, about the way to get out of hell. Leofdaeg had the same answer every time: he didn't know. Hoping the chandelier with the gas inside would prove a clue, Beetrice ripped it from its mounting and brought the whole thing before the monk. He inspected it and confirmed that it was, in fact, a mundane gold crown.

Continuing through the monk's cavern, the party entered a room which contained a three-foot-tall weevil man and a 12-year-old girl in a steel cage. Terrified and overwhelmed by the motley crew before her, Abegail shrank away from the party inside her cage. Dan, soothingly, reassured her: "hello scared child. I am a normal human man. My name is Dan." Shockingly, this did not seem to help. The weevil man, who was attempting to threaten the party into leaving, was crushed with one blow of Beetrice's giant fists, and the key to the cage was retrieved from his gooey remains. As beetrice unlocked the cage, Dan, on an absolute roll, explained, "not to worry Abegail; killing that man was the lesser of two weevils!"

After others gave the sallow child water and honey, Pusfeg daubed oil on the arm of St. Spogden's fingers and anointed Abegail's forehead with it. Her bruises and cuts faded and her eyebags disappeared, although her hunger remained. Healed and slightly less uncomfortable, Abegail asked the party when they were going to take her home to her grandmother. Additionally, she wondered, "why is it so hot all of a sudden?"

Spoonbreaker, giving the girl his plaid coat to hug, said, "we're a bit far from home, but we'll get you back eventually." Abegail, remembering how far from the village the shrine was, knew something was up. Pusfeg revealed the secret, dodging Beetrice's tackle to shout, "we're in hell!" With this new information, Abegail broke down crying in the corner, Spoonbreaker's coat draped over her. And that's where we ended the session!

Reflection

I had an excellent time running the session and introducing these NPCs. Hopefully the players will take a shine to Abegail (and Leofdaeg but he's mostly there to offer mildly helpful advice). I know a few of my players are suckers for a good "dangerous person has to keep vulnerable child safe" plot, as am I. Abegail can provide that! And they'll have their work cut out for them, having to navigate hell at the same time.

Speaking of going to hell, if I can get all my prep done this promises to solve a few issues for me by serving as a soft-restart for the campaign. A new setting means I can actually put some thought into things, as opposed the the last-minute panic that fueled the previous one. But that's all predicated on me making a decent-sized hexcrawl in a fairly short amount of time. So I suppose we will see how it goes.

#play report #rpgs #sunday holmes