Uz Returns! Session Highlights

Map courtesy of Mike D

Friday I ran Uz again for the first time in several months.  I've decided to run a minicampaign in which the PCs explore the undercity beneath Uz's acropolis.  For this session, I had only one "point completed," and I let them know that upfront.  Luckily, they didn't find any of the level's exits so it was a non-issue.  Anyway, here are the good bits from the session:

• There were two expeditions: one really short one and then one longer one.
• The first expedition saw the party capture a large number of slaves - forcing me to reevaluate how I'll be giving xp for treasure in the future.  One of the characters that had participated in the previous Uz sessions managed to level up.
• The short one ended when the PCs were trying to get their captives to the surface.  They were accosted by a small party of men and decided to just climb up the rope rather than deal with them.  One of the PCs threw a hireling down the shaft to buy them some time.  They then heard a his, a strangely electrical noise, and then the shriek of the hireling.
• Nundar tried to silence the captives by breaking their jaw so that they couldn't defend themselves in court.  This resulted in several of the slaves' deaths.  These were thrown down the shaft.
• Many of the PCs spent the lucre they gained from the sale of the captives on carousing.  Those that lost money did so due to gambling debts.  Must've been a wild night at the Wine House of Barahm-Sin.
• The second expedition saw the party enter with quite a few more hirelings including Antiochus the peltast and "Dave" the slinger.
• When they returned to the dungeon, they didn't find any of the captives' corpses, but they did find their old hireling - entirely skinned!
• After exploring around what seemed to be a strangely well preserved city street, they bumped into a nest of Maggot Men!  This continues my habit of trying to kill people with monsters they told me about (or drew, in this case).
• One of the PCs tried to light the maggot men on fire but only succeeded in lighting up his boots.  He was then killed when Nundar misaimed a rock and hit him in the back of the head.  Alas, poor Balzac, we hardly knew you.
• The party then started exploring an area which Eshimur quickly realized was the Temple-Tomb of Uz of Uz himself!  The whole thing was made of a strange, red rock unfamiliar to all present.
• They saw pictures of pickup trucks, martians, and glyphs telling them to CONSUME and OBEY.
• The last encounter came when they were investigating a lesser tomb that branched off the inner hall of the Temple-Tomb.  This was filled with dead bodies, and the bodies they soon found were filled with corpse worms.  They ended up fleeing from these rather than fighting them.

Anyway, I had fun and I hope the players did too.  This session has made me rethink some (fairly minor) things about my presentation of Uz, and I think that's a good thing.  Hopefully I'll be running another session next Friday.