I gave the players a bit of background on their characters’ situation: They’d recently been hired to escort a trade caravan on a route that took it through the small village of Mudar, on the edge of a great desert. However, after a misunderstanding between the characters and the caravan leader (something about some coins and items that had gone missing), they’d been left in Mudar while the caravan continued on without them. After overcoming the villages initial distrust by blowing all their cash in the village taverns with their generosity and good natures, the players learned a couple of things about the area: (1) there’s supposedly an old abandoned temple of a long-dead water deity hidden in a canyon, full of treasure, and just a few hours ride out in the desert; and (2) several villagers have gone missing in the night recently, and no one knows what’s happened to them.

Since we didn’t have a whole lot of time, we didn’t play out any of the town scenes, the journey to the canyon, or finding the tomb. I just placed the party at the entrance, and mentioned that they’d only found it because of all of the footprints leading in and out. A full session report would make this already lengthy post even longer, so here are some of the highlights:

The thief entered first, staying close to the walls and trying to be quiet. That’s how he noticed how all the footprints went around a section of floor about 10’ down the passageway (area 1 on the map). The party investigated a bit, thinking it might have been a trigger for some sort of arrow trap, but moved on before figuring out it was a pit trap, with a recently reanimated corpse inside

The searched the entire main hall (area 2), and a little bit down each passageway before I rolled a 1 and the seven bandits arrived from the western passage. The party won the surprise roll, and quickly set up an ambush. The combat lasted only a couple of rounds, before they took the last surviving bandit hostage and got some exposition out of him.

Buoyed by this early success, the party made it’s way down the western passageway, through the now-abandoned sleeping quarters (area 3) and oil storage room (area 4). As they entered area 6, three mummified crocodiles emerged from their sarcophagi and attacked. This was a tougher fight than the one with the bandits, and the party had a tough time with their attack rolls, but eventually Zur managed to turn back the crocodiles, who retreated to the far side of their chamber. Xanders and Sticky Fingers improvised a trap in the entryway using a large jar of oil and a torch, reasoning that the crocodiles weren’t intelligent, and would likely knock over the jar and set themselves on fire if they tried coming after the party again.

Still feeling pretty confident at this point, they entered the burial chamber (area 7), where the module’s boss monster laid in wait. As they drew near the sarcophagus to get a better look at its hieroglyphics, Kutan Tahkmet, the titular Mummy Priest whose tomb the party were robbing, burst out and started attacking Jora. The module actually boosted the mummy’s stats from what the BFRPG manual lists, giving it darkness, cause fear, hold person, and resist fire spells. I just went with the base mummy stats from the Swords & Wizardry manual instead, figuring that would be challenge enough.

It turns out I was right, because after a few rounds of combat, the characters hadn’t managed to do very much damage to Kutan, but he’d reduced Jora to 0 hit points (unconscious, but stable) and given him a bad case of mummy rot to boot. After Zur’s cure light wounds spell failed to heal Jora, they started making escape plans. Xanders cast a web spell at the mummy, while Zur and Sticky Fingers pulled the comatose fighter to safety. They decided to head back to town to get some help for Jora, which ended up costing them the only treasure they’d found so far: a 600gp set of ruby earrings.

When the party returned to the tomb after a couple of days, they found that the bodies of the bandits they had killed had been dragged from the main hall, down the eastern passageway. Scouting ahead, Sticky Fingers saw that the trail turned to the south, into area 8, where he noticed movement in the dark pool from the balcony above. Assuming it was more crocodiles (it wasn’t), and not seeing any obvious treasure, he decided to check to the north instead. In that direction, he saw a lit chamber with a bearded man at an altar, preparing to sacrifice a villager, and surrounded by robed figures.

Since they had the element of surprise, Xanders cast a sleep spell into the ritual chamber from the intersection just north of the pool room, which worked on seven of the twelve robed figures, and then the rest of the party rushed in to battle the remaining acolytes and their leader, Aram. After just a few rounds of combat, Aram was down to just 3 hit points and all of his followers had been slain. He surrendered to the player characters, who bound him with a rope, and were just about to start searching the room when Kutan Tahkmet made his entrance though the secret passage between areas 7 and 9.

The second battle with the mummy priest went only slightly better than the first, Jora and Zur were both afflicted with mummy rot, but still standing. Meanwhile, Xanders and Sticky Fingers tried to figure out a way to knock down one of the large oil lanterns that hung from the ceiling on top of the rampaging mummy, and they were all wondering just how many hit points it could possibly have. (It was 25.) Aram started shouting at the PCs, trying to get them to untie him so he could join the melee with his battleaxe +1, which they eventually agreed to do.

After a few more rounds, they managed to destroy Kutan, and the players all gave a sigh of relief. Aram immediately tried to run away down the secret passage to the burial chamber, Xanders hit him with a sleep spell before he could get very far. They searched the room and found all the treasure that had been stashed in the corners, and then discovered the five other prisoners still chained up in area 10. After a bit of discussion about what to do with Aram, they decided to turn him over to the captives, who dragged the bandit-turned-cultist down to the pool in area 8 and threw him in. The bodies he had been disposing of in the pool had returned to life, and tore Aram to pieces as the party gathered up all the treasure they could carry and made their exit.