Picture, if you would, a pirate. What are the job qualifications for a pirate? Well, what qualities would best fit a life about ship? Nimbleness of foot? Ability to climb rigging in the harshest of winds? Perhaps not needing a lot of living space, since quarters below for pirates or seamen of any sort are little more than a bunk hung wherever there’s room. A ready wit, a keen mind, deadly with blade or blunderbuss?
Now, picture a minotaur. Half man, half cattle. Known in antiquity for spending its entire life lost in a maze, so not very bright. Very heavy. Very bulky. Very clumsy. If you were advertising for pirates for your pirate crew, and a minotaur showed up, would you really hand it a bandanna and a peg leg and welcome it aboard?
No, of course not. You’d have a good laugh and send it straight down to Three Barrel Cove. Three Barrel Cove just has too much barrel to be contained in a one barrel cove.
Three Barrel Cove is a huge module intended for groups from level 4-7. Team Spode (to give us a name) are levels five and six, so we’re in an excellent position. Ulan has, I think, been through this before, but it’s new to the rest of us, so with no little sense of excitement, we boarded the boat in Stormreach Harbor and set off for the pirate-infested waters of the Cove.
I’d gotten there a little earlier, and found a named pirate minotaur right at the docks. He would lumber around and occasionally charge, at which time I would tumble out of the way and hit him from the back. Minotaurs are REALLY not cut out for the pirate life. Well, I guess EverQuest had its Broken Skull Rock with its pirate trolls, and World of Warcraft had its Deadmines with a pirate minotaur (ding!), so, really, Eberron couldn’t be seen without its own pirate monsters.
When the rest of the group showed up (me: Ophiga, drow rogue; Gleek, halfling sorcerer; Ulan, elf favored soul; Spode, human paladin), we soon found ourselves in a fast paced battle to save a ship from being boarded by pirate hobgoblins and pirate troglodytes. We had to save all but five of the defenders, and man, there’s nothing these folks liked better than getting themselves killed. I’d failed on this ship earlier because they would just go looking for ways to die. Trip on a stay; strangle on the rigging; accidentally fall into the water and drown. The clumsy are ALSO not the best crew for your ship, right behind minotaurs.
While fun, it wasn’t very rewarding, and we had bigger plans. We headed deeper into the cove.
A word about Spode. Here is a man who loves gravity like a minotaur loves hay. If there is a point above another point, and the party is at the higher point, Spode will be at the lower point, haven fallen there (or been pushed by Gleek a mysterious arcane force which our sorcerer cannot explain). In any normal party, such a devout student of Newton’s Laws would be a curiosity, but this is no normal party. Where Spode falls, we follow.
His first discovery was Garl’s Tomb. We were on a bridge over a waterfall, headed to the Fire Caves, when Spode fell off and made a discovery: a cave behind the waterfall. The tomb was a trog-infested place where I fruitlessly tried to detect the trap that was flinging fireballs at us while the rest of the party went and killed the trog warlocks who were the actual danger. A series of platform jumps had the usual outcome (Spode swimming below), but soon enough we had destroyed enough of the eggs, and the Chieftain, who was in fact below and encountered first by Spode.
There was a second part to the quest, but since the Fire Caves must be close, we thought we’d knock that off first.
Along the way were several bands of pirate trogs, hobs and minos. One band had barricaded themselves behind a wall of spears, upon which Gleek and I cheerfully impaled ourselves. Oops.
We eventually made our way to the Fire Caves, which was another Super Mario level. Platforming seems to be quite the hobby in Three Barrel Cove. Spode took the lead exploring the lava pools below, single-handedly destroying one of the altars to the Dragon Below which was actually pretty amazingly heroic of him. The rest of us spent at least a little time dead, usually because of a fall to the lava. Platforming. Who would build this? My evil lair will be well-built, with good lighting and no weird traps or stuff, because I guarantee, I’d be caught in my own damn trap while the hero laughs maniacally.
With the Fire Cave quest advanced to its next stage, we headed back to the Cove, taking on the various pirate bands along the way in the search for rare nameds, exploration and slayer achievements.
We didn’t get too far in the module this week, but I don’t think any of us mind sticking around another week or two to see how much experience we can get out of it.
Except, perhaps, for Spode.
Can’t get enough of rockem, sockem, minotaur action? Check this out!
Minotaur China Shop Trailer from Flashbang Studios on Vimeo.
Great post as always, Ophiga! Seriously, the running gags and bad jokes only make it better for me. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some kind of variation on the classic Indiana Jones line, “Snakes, Why’d it have to be snakes?” while we’ve been playing.
“Lava, why did it have to be lava?”
“Minotaur Pirates, why did it have to be minotaur pirates?”
I think one of my favorite moments was when Spode dropped down to accidentally find said Garl’s Tomb, and after a few laughs, the rest of us jumped down. The rest of the story here is that Spode had run off to find a way back up while the rest of us jumped down to inspect what he had discovered. The group zoned in to Garl’s Tomb, seemingly unaware we were minus a Spode. Suddenly, we see said Spode’s health drop to half as he fought his way back to the top of the rock bridge where he originally fell from!
“Where are you guys?” asks our fearless paladin (at half health).
“Um, we zoned in to the instance you found down here! Where are you?” replied the group.
*insert spode’s salty pirate language of his own*
“Hey guys, I just died jumping down here again.”
*giggles*
I’m still upset the wall of spears that killed me was also coded to crash my computer. Glad I made it back for the end of our adventures. 🙂
Scorpions!
Why did it have to be SCORPIONS?
TBC was one of my favorite zones the first time through. Even went all anal and bought a rod of watebreathing so I could get every single exploration point. One of the first zones I truly obsessed on.
Entertaining read!
A nice read, Ive tried repeatedly to get into playing D&D online but I just cant seem to get into it. I love D&D, I like Turbine games, but something just isnt clicking in this one for me. …
What’s made the difference for me is having a static group of friends with whom to play. DDO, or any MMO, really is meant to be a social experience. That’s why it’s a MMORPG, and not just an RPG. MMOs are all about having fun with friends. You pay a company to give you a setting, but the fun comes from you, right?
I never stay with an MMO if I am not playing with friends.