So 2 years ago I talked about a GM called Cornelius, fake name obviously, and I talked about how it took us 4 hours to find out how to get the adventure started. It was full of frustration.

But I didn't talk about the dungeon part of the adventure, so I decided to make a short post about it.

The dungeon starts with no obvious way in, but you get teleported in if you touch a protruding part of the mountain. I don't remember much of the dungeon itself, it was fine I suppose. However most of us were level 1s, and Cornelius sent wights on us during the night when the PC on watch decided to go investigating.

Wights in our version automatically kill on hit, no saving throws. Yes, they're really dangerous. Cornelius had the wight cast some sort of curse with its attack instead. Now, this might cause some of you to say "good GMing not killing a PC", but that's not how we played. I wanted to see that playing stupid games wins you stupid prizes, but now that PC who left to investigate didn't really cost us anything.

We find 2 scrolls of animate dead, one for clerics, one for wizards, and we don't really know what to do with them. All characters take a look, freely transferring them from one PC to another. Our group views necromancy as extra evil, so we decided to get rid of them, at which point Cornelius informs us they are cursed and we feel like we don't want to get rid of them.

So of course we do the only logical thing. We try to knock out the PCs carrying the scrolls, then burn their backpacks. Cornelius says "Everything burns to ashes, but the scrolls is till there". Why even bother with insulation in this world? Just use these scrolls!

Also, once the PC regained consciousness they immediately wanted to have the scroll again. Luckily, my PC activated a trap in the necromancer's office and was killed so he didn't have to suffer in that world anymore.

So we navigate the dungeon all the way to the Necromancer's bedroom and once we are there, we find out there is no way out. We never came in through a door. We look for secrets doors everywhere, pulling on books, torches and whatnot. A player even says "we search through every literal nook and cranny for a switch", and one player in frustation decides to sleep in the Necromancer's bed, and after he falls asleep, he teleports......... We all get in the bed, but no... it only works one a time. Not to mention he insists on describing each PCs falling asleep and teleporting instead of just saying "after doing this for x amount of time, you all find yourselves outside".

If I recall correctly, that was the end of the session, and I decided to not to show up for the next session, but I told them they could use my other PC as an NPC.

The other players later told me that it turned out the Necromancer had a small army of undead, and the scrolls were to be used to take over the undead and fight against him. Unlucky for Cornelius that planning something is not an ability he possess. The scrolls were not "by the book thing" which is fine, but he gave each scrolls a D20 of undead taken over. We all know that D20 are precarious things, and the group managed to gain control of very few undead leading to Cornelius making the Necromancer friendly misunderstood villain.

I'm sure one of the players will comment on this further, but the one story I remember most is Cornelius put an easily triggered trap (even if you know where it is and how to avoid it) on the back entrance of the inn. You know, where deliveries and staff walk through several times a day. So when the group was trying to leave through that door, they triggered it. Luckily they are hardy adventurers so they didn't die, but RIP all staff who accidentally died there.

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TL;DR

Don't know how to summarize it really.

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That was the last time I played in a Cornelius adventure. He was a player for a few more until we had to stop inviting him.