Due to folk creating thousands of fake subscribers here on this blog, and various password reset shenanigans (if it came from “wordpress@hill-kleerup.org,” it’s not legit), and similar suspicious stuff, I have …
Deleted all but admin-level users. Sorry if you were a legit user and I deleted you and you want to subscribe here, please contact me at dave and then at hill-kleerup.org, and I can manually add you in.
Blocked automatic enrollment at the site.
The fact is, there are plenty of ways to follow or subscribe to this site without registering with it, so I am not too worried. But if they don’t work for you, please use the process noted above.
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
The Eternal Flame
Session 54 (Day 41)
In … The Temple of Eternal Flame
Moony led a very cautious exploration of the hallway of dwarvish statues. Behind one he found the Crypt of Findon and Gitte, apparently never found by any cultists and undisturbed since the fall of Tyar-Besil. They left the sarcophagi undisturbed at Aldrik‘s insistence, though they did hide briefly in the crypt when a loud axe trap was poorly disarmed.
Razerblast token (official)
An octagonal chamber beyond with lightly glowing obsidian pillars turned out to be a guardpost for three Razerblast fire cultists, as well as a flash-frying magma oven. The party prevailed, but not without Nala and William nearly perishing from vicious attacks and explosive deaths.
The party hid back in the crypt and took and enforced long rest. DING! Level 9!
Player Recap
Sleeping with the Dead and Liking it!
After finishing off the ogres and finding their stash of coins, Moony sets off towards the hall leading out of the room. William and the others continue to look around the room or watch Moony explore the hall. Moony discovers a secret door behind the first statue. He enters the room with Aldrik close behind. It looks like a shrine with a couple of sarcophaguses’. Dust is thick on the ground. It doesn’t look like the cultists have found this room. There are Darvish rune on the sarcophagus “Rest well, Findon Stonemender. Dream of hammer and chisel echoing in your halls.” The second says “Beloved Gitte. Heavy are the hearts of all who knew ye.” Moony looks for traps on the first sarcophagus and asks if anyone would mind if he opens it. Aldrik eventually says that he would rather not have them disturbed.
Farther down the hall, Moony spots a trip wire between the last two statues. Unfortunately, he sets off the trap as he is disarming it. An axe drops across the hall. The group retreats to the crypts. They listen at the door and hear two people coming to the hallway. “I’m not surprised that one of them set off the trap.” “Surprised they aren’t here with an axe in their head.” Take more than that to damage them” “Should we check on them” “Nah” Then the voices retreat. Waiting a few minutes after the sounds stops, Moony creeps back out and explores further.
In a large octagonal room with molten red pillars. Three razerblast fighters, with flaming spears and heavy armor. It is a tough fight, especially when the razerblasts explode upon death.
Game Notes
Check and double-check
The party has gotten high enough in level that the stock DCs on secret doors and traps are kind of getting laughable. I need to either up them, or just assume they will not be triggered.
That said, I watched to see if the party was actually checking out the statues in detail. In anticipation of which, I came up with a description for each of the 8 statues in the “Hall of Remembrance,” because of course I did:
Male, war pick, shield, ringlet beard
Male, axe and shield, long beard with glimpses of chain.
Male, one-headed axe, chain, braided beard
Female, plate armor, two-headed axe
Male, great hammer, stylized beard.
Female, shield and warhammer, hair in braids
Male, great-hammer, ringlet beard
Male, apron, hammer & chisel, plumb line from belt
Again, nothing I couldn’t have improvised … but why burn brain cycles mid-game when you can burn them during prep and not sound like you’re improvising? (“Hey, those descriptions are written down … they must mean something!”)
So the Rogue was able to see the hidden Secret Door to the crypt. Which, inadvertently, became their go-to hide-out for much of this part of the adventure.
Kudos to the players (and a would’ve-been-Inspiration to the barbarian dwarf) that they asked before simply yoinking off the sarcophagus lids inside. And the Dwarf decided, y’know, these two deserve their rest. And the others (banter aside) went along with him. Good on them for not being mindless murder hoboes. This time, at least.
Giving the Players a break
Ogre (from the 5e Monster Manual)
So when the Rogue did poorly with the axe trap, the sound it made attracted guards from further in.
I could have had the guards (who assumed the trap was tripped by the ogre contingent up in the NE corner of the map) go and check things out there (“What are you dolts doing? We’ve shown you how to turn off the trap when you go off-shift!”).
Except (a) the guards probably wouldn’t have wanted to rile up the ogres. And (b) I didn’t want to suddenly turn this into another messy melee, with the guards discovering the massacred ogres and to start running and screaming for help. I mean, it could have happened, but I chose not to.
Beating up the Players
It is always important to remember that the DM and the Players are not competitors. The DM should not get into beating up the Players, or try to kill them. We are all here to create an intriguing and involved fantasy tale that will be satisfying for all.
Of course, part of that fantasy tale should involve beating up the Players.
Last game, after Aldrik rejoined into the party, I went around to the various encounters in the Temple of Eternal Flame and bumped them up a bit. An extra Hobgoblin here, a Guardian not asleep there. That sort of thing. No checking on CRs — I’m a professional! — just a slight bump.
This was not done as wisely as I intended.
First, the Party was a level below the recommendations for this dungeon (they had not Long Rested and dinged up yet). I was so used to them being a leg up on things that I simply forgot to check.
Second, the Razerblasts they were about to bump into are powerful foes, and adding an extra one didn’t help the Party’s calm. They lack effective ranged tactics (unless they want to throw away their weapons), but up close they combine high AC, very high (for this level) HP, and three attacks / turn. Plus I had them hold back a bit so that the party would come after them and they could trigger the heat trap. Once that was done and they closed to melee range, they were murder and, in fact, their saves and HP meant that the Party began to think the Razerblasts had resistance to Radiant as well as Fire damage.
Razerblast – these guys are pretty cool … er, hot.
And then there was the way they exploded when they died, which became very problematic for our heroes. Both the Fighter who charged in and the Druid who was at the edge of the trap (and, when a Razerblast engaged, he scored a hit and two crits) nearly died, and others in the party were bloodied — except the Barbarian, who, damn, is a killing and damage resistance machine.
(Indeed, I concluded I needed to look at the balance between the Fighter and the Barbarian. The former was having problems keeping up, melee-wise.)
It was, even if an ultimate Party success, a pretty wild melee, lots of maneuvering (and hiding), but also a huge bloody nose and reminder that not every opponent could be walked over. Which was not my intent, but … y’know, that’s not necessarily a bad reminder now and again.
Level up!
Especially since the session then ended with the party taking their Long Rest (in the crypt), and getting their ding up to 9, to then sleep with dreams of vengeance.
And, well, other dreams I had in mind …
As well as restocking the two rooms they just cleared …
Amusing moment of the evening
Hey, look at that cool Razerblast spear! Wish I had one!
After the battle, the party spent a chunk of time trying to figure out how the heck to magically ignite the Razerblast spears for their own use, as the added damage was quite nice. Alas, as with the rods of Stonemelders, their extra elemental damage is just an intrinsic part of Razerblasts being highly ranked / initiated fighters in the Fire cult. And none of the players, when they finally reached that conclusion, were that interested in it.
What the party had found so far, and what was on their map.
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 53 (Day 41)
In … the Temple of the Black Earth (one more time!)
The Black Earth
Xharva Deem insisted she did not want a fight, nor Nala‘s soul, but just what Nala was carrying on her. Which turned out to be the Sands of Broken Bonds, a trinket Nala was carrying as a good luck charm. They negotiated an exchange, the can containing the Sands for Xharva reanimating the petrified form of Aldrik.
Aldrik didn’t speak much of his experience, except that he’d seen some sort of conflict between the Crushing Wave cult and the Black Earth cult, and had been petrified by the medusa, Marlos Urnrayle.
Nala recalled that she had been given a letter for Aldrik in Red Larch, but didn’t give it to him.
The Eternal Flame
After a short rest, and Aldrik nicking a crystal glaive from the dead Black Earth Priest in the room, the party headed for the Tyar-Besil – Manufactory Quarter, which they had every expectation would be the Temple of Eternal Flame. On their way, they had a sudden feeling like they were Being Observed from everywhere, the sensation passing after a few, brief moments.
The first room in the new zone they found a guard set against intruders from the Temple of Black Earth consisting of several half-ogres and ogres — who were little match for the party, bolstered by Aldrik.
Player Recap
We traded a can of sand for Aldrik
Xharva Dreem requests that Moony let her negotiate with Nala. Eventually, Nala decides to bargain. After much back and forth it turns out that Xharva wants Nala’s trinket, the can with what sounds like sands in it.
They go back to Marlos’ room where the Aldrik statue stands. Xharva encircles the stone with her sandy form. When she withdraws, an unhappy Aldrik is standing in his loincloth. His manacles are strange stony substance, maybe coral. Once freed the group decides to quickly move out of Marlos’ room.
While taking a short rest, they get a very brief story from the Aldrik. Mostly that the water and earth temples aren’t working together and that he needed more beer before getting anything else out of him. They find some clothes and a glaive from a earth priests.
When the group decides to head towards the northwest door leading to the fire temple. Moony explores ahead down the hall and hears a group speaking in low guttural voices. The group decides to charge in. After a few tense moment against the large opponents, the group of 2 ogres and 4 half-ogres fall.
Game Notes
A very fun pay-off session, with all sorts of things wrapping up neatly.
Unlike Anakin, Xharva loves sand
We finally got the Xharva Deem story resolved, with the mysterious Sands of Broken Bonds earning the party a Wish spell from the Dao to de-petrify Aldrik.
Yeah, with enough time I had neatly expanded the whole sands thing from a rando trinket (#47 “A metal can that has no opening but sounds as if it is filled with liquid, sand, spiders, or broken glass (your choice)”) to an artifact with its own journal write-up:
Sands of Broken Bonds
In the words of Xharva Deem:
The stuff that dreams are made of. In fleshling cultures, they speak of it as though alive, carrying them into the dream world, where all things are possible, all pleasures fulfilled. That is but a crude, meaty misinterpretation of the Dust, the Grit, the Sands of Broken Bonds, of which all creatures long for, even if they cannot use them, and even if their vision is blurred by the sands within their eyes.
As Xharva described it, any creature of the Plane of Elemental Earth would find the sands a combination of a mind-expanding hallucinogenic, an aphrodisiac, a reward pathway stimulant, a Nepenthe of forgetting sorrows, and a rich, powerful, mind-blowing experience. She did not mention any limitations of time or dosage, or any down side or harmful effects of using the substance.
It turned out that one of the party’s Trinkets, a can apparently filled with sand that Nala‘s old guard captain, Brex Gelvain had given her as a good luck charm, actually contained some of these Sands. Xharva, detecting that, sought to buy them from Nala when they met in the Temple of Black Earth, and could not believe that the Dragonborn warrior didn’t realize what she had, leading to multiple antagonistic encounters.
Xharva considered the sands beyond price, however, and, in a final, peaceful engagement, even deigned to cast a Wish spell to reanimate the petrified Aldrik in exchange for the can.
Happy Xharva!
Xharva, at least, had a “happy Gollum clutching the Ring as he falls into lava” look as she vanished from the campaign indefinitely. Normally Dao will only grant Wishes in exchange for personal service (slavery) of some value; in this case, a brief case full of uncut heroin did the trick.
Will she use the Sands herself? Or sell them to someone else for even more treasure? Let’s leave that as a mystery for another day, perhaps another campaign.
Freeing Aldrik
Besides the Dao Wish, I had figured three other ways to free Aldrik by the time the episode came around —
Wait for Faith to level and get Greater Restoration (imminent), or
Play around with the Basilisk Fountain I’d introduced, or
Everything’s better when Windvane is involved!
(A new one) have Windvane pitch a fit about them abandoning a comrade in the Earth Temple (she has abandonment issues, not surprisingly, and is, from the Air perspective, utterly opposed to Earth) and wielding some sort of Wish-like magic from inside the Bag of Holding, which would burn her out for several episodes (and make her all the more fun when she came back).
Aldrik
But my wife figured out the “Oh, she offers to buy the can at any price? Can she do something for Aldrik?” move, as I was hoping, and some nifty negotiating later, everyone walked away from the deal happy.
Except Aldrik, who was near-naked (again) and unarmed (again) and without any ale.
Fortunately as a barbarian, Aldrik didn’t need armor (there was some Duergar scale mail elsewhere in the area, but the only thing worse than Duergar to the Dwarves are Duergar who have been a few days dead.
Crystal glaive
Instead, he armed himself with one of the crystal glaives of the Black Earth Priest in the barracks room where they Short Rested. It’s a fun-looking weapon, it will provoke reactions from anyone in the cults they meet, it counts as a magic weapon for attack purposes (even though it has no particular bonus), and it gave me a chance to learn more about how Reach Weapons work in 5e.
So what was going on with Aldrik?
Aldrik, before he got snatched.
I had already decided that the dwarf was somehow linked by blood and spirit with the old king of Tyar-Besil, such that he had some control over aspects of the city (or could be used for such control). This tied in some strange way to his first appearance as an apparent escapee from the Stone Circle Monastery.
Aerisi had detected it back at Feathergale Spire, and kidnapped him via Air Elemental to serve her (and, when he refused, stuck him into amnesiac slavery).
And then Gar Shatterkeel got wind of it and used a Water Elemental to nab him — and take him with him when he went to the ziggurat Temple of Elemental Evil in the Fane … convinced to either get him cooperating over control of the city, or using him as a sacrifice to the Elder Eye.
Marlos, also getting info about this, led his forces into the Fane, and managed to capture Aldrik for himself, then put him on ice (er, rock) while he figured out his next move.
Gar Shatterkeel and the Ziggurat
It’s 2-3 that Aldrik remembers, with a fair amount of trauma (threats from Gar being less awful than witnessing the horrors of the rituals seen, not to mention being literally petrified). Or so I guess: Aldrik’s player had been very intentional to be gruff and laconic, so a lot of the background I wrote up (or that he wrote up, for that matter) never got brought out at the table.
Which is fine.
None of this is in the campaign, of course. But working character stories into campaign is one of a DM’s main jobs. Plus, as structured, it helped him disappear as a player at various times (as Real Life interfered), which was also helpful.
The Purloined Letter
Bruldenthar letter to Aldrik
Way back on the last visit to Red Larch, I think it was, they were given a letter that Bruldenthar, the dwarvish librarian from Mirabar, had left for Aldrik. Nala had been holding onto it, but for whatever reason, didn’t see fit to share it with him (yet).
Which is … maybe okay (though intriguing), as it was a letter intended to drag him/them over to the Vale of Dancing Waters sidequest, which I think they had outleveled by this point, and didn’t actually need to do.
Now Leaving the Temple of the Black Earth
And praise Ogremoch for that!
Speaking of Whom, I finally gave the party that “Oh, Ogremoch is paying a fraction of their attention to me and what I’ve done and bring me my brown pants!” feeling of wiggins — late, but the party didn’t necessarily know that.
Ogre (from the 5e Monster Manua)l
The rest of the evening was taken up heading into the Fire Temple (the Manufactory Quarter, better known as the Forge) and fighting several ogres/half-ogres. The bad guys never really had a chance, but, then, the guard posts aren’t supposed to be impenetrable, just wearing down and interesting. And if they back out of the Fire Temple, there are rules for how the room gets re-populated shortly.
And back out they might, because that’s the third Temple down, and the Cult Retaliation rules say they will get “Race to Destruction,” a warning that the someone (Fire Temple, most likely) is going to send more mad bombers against … their dear friends in Red Larch. (They will find out they already missed out on the devastation of Westbridge, a town they’ve never been in.)
Presumably this will get them out of the dungeons for a bit. And, sometime shortly, they’ll Long Rest and ding up to Level 9 …
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 52 (Day 41)
In … the Temple of the Black Earth
Black Earth
The party continued their exploration of the Temple of Black Earth. The crevice led to a hidden trail midwall in a great cavern, ending up at an arrow slit in the rocky wall. Moony‘s use of the Claws of the Umber Hulk let the pass from there into Marlos Urnrayle‘s chambers. There they found luxurious treasure and two very realistic statues — one of whom they concluded was the petrified form of their old friend, Aldrik. Which was odd, because Aldrik had been taken at the Air Temple by a Water Elemental ….
Carefully searching the chamber beyond as a giant crab (as they had decided there was a petrifying creature nearby, and giant crabs can use Blindsight), William was attacked by a shadow demon, who viciously struck at him, only to discover that a restored William, with lighting, and a Moonbeam, could do a hella radiant damage.
Spells up and clock ticking, the party left Aldrik behind and rushed down the hall to the shrine that Moony had previously scouted out. Kicking in the door, they interrupted the Black Earth Priestess Erione doing something creepy and mystic that seemed to involve a lot of very fragile cultists and sacrificing a deep gnome named Rukh to a black pudding. A shortlived melee ensued, though Nala‘s armor was damaged by the black pudding’s acid.
Rukh gave Nala some information about he’d come there and what lay below, including about the Fane of the Eye.
The party ran to the “First ???” location on the map, a chamber of great square pillars. Another of the great stone warriors was there, watching to the northwest, but they attacked and quickly dispatched it.
It was time for a short rest, so they decided to take a quick peek at the area that might be the staircase that Rukh had spoken of leading to the Fane of the Eye. Moony found it a great cavern with a pillar and spiralling staircase leading downwards into the dark. Which is the point when Xharva Deem came up around the final turn of the stairs. “YOU!”
Player Recap
Where we once again find Aldrik in a loin cloth!
They leave the room and travel down the rough hall to the North. It ends in a blank wall that with some chicken bones and other human trash. Moony locates a hidden door and concealed latch. Looks like it hasn’t been used frequently. Traversing along a path around a large crevasse leads Moony to an arrow slot. When the group joins him […]
A beautiful appointed room. Lushes tapestry … There is a status of a dismayed elf (holding a cloak) and an angry dwarf in a loin cloth. It’s Aldrick. Don’t […]
William turns into a giant crab and scuttles into the room to the south of the bedroom. In the dark he can sense large immovable object and then senses a presence coming from above. William tries to find. The creature says in Williams head “You don’t belong here” and slashes him. William quickly changes to human form and drops a moonbeam on to the creature. It screams loudly and flees East as the others enter the room.
Pressing on rapidly while Faith’s fairies are active. The cavern was once beautiful, but the natural stalactite’s, stalagmites, and flows have been destroyed. There is a small cleared path through the cave. Around the room are more petrified statues
Trying to maximize the fairy time, the group quickly goes to the door to the South. Next is a large room with a tall domed ceiling. The tiles have been pulled up in the center of the room and a pit is being dug. There is a large dark obelisk in the pit with bones littered around it. There are several earth cultists, Erione – female earth priestess in stone armor and Rukh – Gnome shackled to a smaller stone obelisk. The cultists and Erione go down quickly, but not before Erione hits Faith and Moony with a shatter spell. Nala approaches Rukh asking him in Gnomish, “Friend or Foe?” Rukh is too terrified of black ooze coming up around large obelisk. Nala swings at the chains with her sword and shatters them. She then tries to shove him out of the way of the black pudding. The Black Pudding gets an attack on Nala just before she takes it out.
The Gnome tells us that he was captured below. His people use to have a colony there and he was an explorer looking for them when he got caught and brought up to serve as bait for the black pudding. He lets Nala know that Marlos is a Gorgon.
Continue North and enter room devoid of carvings with a large stone statue in the middle. It is another of the Giant Dwarf animated statues. Faith’s fairies damage and slow the status. Other move into attack range.
Party decides to check out one other hallway before taking a short rest. The corridor leads to a large cavern area with a grand staircase down. A voice in Moony’s head says “YOU” A figure that looks amazingly like Xharva Deem comes charging up the stairs.
Game Notes
Sneak, sneak, sneak
The big crevasse around the northeast of this map means there are a lot of ways to get into Marlos’ hide-out other than the main doors. Given the map marking of “Death,” it made sense to figure those ways out.
The party’s use of the hidden path was great out-of-the-box thinking, especially as they sussed out what its use was (a back door for a guy who can walk through walls).
It also gave me a great opportunity to use Roll20’s new one-way vision dynamic lighting barriers, perfect for multiple layers of “this is above and you can’t see it, but it can see you.” I retrofitted that tech onto the map, rather than have a lot of removable light barriers.
Claws of the Umber Hulk (though I pictured them more metallic and forged)
It was also a completely unanticipated use of the Claws of the Umber Hulk. I wish Moony hadn’t already had Inspiration, because I would have given him one for it.
That said, little did I know how tired I would get of that particular magic item.
Marlos’ hang-out
Marlos has a sumptuous private chamber, which bolstered their treasure supply. It also had (I decided) two statues — one the petrified Aldrik (see below), the other a petrified elvish warrior. On the assumption that he wouldn’t end up revivified, I didn’t bother to work up a backstory on him — at a guess, an adventurer whose near success led Marlos to giving him a place of honor (or to contemptuously use him as a coat rack).
Some (poor) AI renditions of terrified statues
The main chamber outside of it was a bit different. There are a dozen statues placed around the map — very cool, but not a word of description about them, other than that they all look terrified (having been petrified by Marlos). I numbered them all and crafted up some brief descriptions across races, genders, and classes (e.g., “Male human, a bit fat, holding a hammer, squinting as if to see something”) — it’s the sort of thing a DM should be able to improv, but why improv it when you have prep time for it?
Also, the way the place is described, the floor is covered with rock, stalagmites, flowstone, etc. So … there should be paths to allow the statues to be enjoyed (or just to get between the doors). I had to add those on the map.
The main doors into the this area from the south I covered with stone masks — actually, stone faces of still more of his victims. I thought it was a nicely gruesome touch.
Aldrik!
Aldrik
They found Aldrik! Huzzah! And he’s back to being in a loin cloth. And, of course, made of stone.
Now they need to figure out what to do with him. For the record, there are now three relatively clear options (since I put a kibosh on their putting a 1400-pound Aldrik statue into the Bag of Holding):
Cut a deal with Xharva Deem, who has also shown up. She can do a Wish, if persuaded (and bribed with the Can of Sand, which I have finally given a name).
Oh, I made an AI image of the basilisk fountain I made up.
Purify (with the Ewer they picked up earlier) the water of the Basilisk Fountain I had placed at the Duergars’ hidey-hole. Ironically, the party thought that the Basilisk Fountain is evil, and the Gargoyle Fountain might be able to do the job.
Wait until next level-up for Faith to get Greater Restoration, and use that.
My son, who runs Aldrik, sat silently through the game that night, since that aspect didn’t get resolved. Which I felt kind of bad about, but I still thought it was a great re-entrance.
Speaking of which, I (minorly) blew it. I’ve been establishing that each time they fulfill the level-up requirements for the zone they are in, they get a brief sense of Being Observed (as they attract the momentary attention of the Prince/Godling involved). That should have happened when they took down Erione and the Black Pudding, but I completely spaced on it (not helped by the party wanting to rush off to the next encounter) …
What’s the rush?
Rush, rush, rush …
Yes, my current pet peeve is that Faith’s Spirit Guardians (which Moony noticed look a lot more like Aerisi than they used to) lasts for 10 minutes (with Concentration), which has suddenly created a huge motivation for the whole party to run from one encounter to the next to get maximum utility out of them. Which, as in this case, kind of ruins the moment. Rukh had a lot of info to dump (and was an interesting character in and of himself), and I ended up skipping some and rushing through other bits, just because Faith was dragging everyone onward to the next battle.
I decided I was going to have to something about that. I understood the incentive, but it felt artificial and encouraged bad metagaming behavior (i.e., game mechanics were driving behavior that was not good for the game). Maybe being under that kind of pressure should have an impact on the rogue’s scouting — disadvantage on Perception, trap clearing, disadvantage on the party’s Stealth, etc. …
Xharva Deem
Xharva Deem
Anyway, Xharva Deem is back! One of the players said it was the surprise of the evening, which I felt somewhat gratified about.
Running into her again was, by DM fiat, inevitable — they would have encountered her trudging her way back to them whatever exit they went to first. It’s hard to permanently Banish someone who can Planar Travel, even if it’s not that accurate (“Take me back to my Forge” ended up with her being somewhere in the Black Geode and having to make her way through the Fane back to here).
An AI-generated Stone Warrior. I eventually decided I liked the one I had come up with last episode.
Let’s see if she can convince the party to not immediately attack her. At least I was able to reasonably suggest that the party’s internal debate after killing the Stone Warrior (which, honestly, wouldn’t have attacked them if they hadn’t attacked it first) about where to Short Rest was long enough for the Spirit Guardians to have faded.
Hmm. For some reason, I didn’t do (or save) an exploration map for this session. Ah, well.
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 51 (Day 41)
In … the Temple of the Black Earth
Dreams and Visitations occurred for all the characters. Upon waking there was much discussion about how real dreams were, or, in Nala‘s case, could they be an actual communication? The final answer was indeterminate.
Black Earth
The party went south to the laboratory of Miraj Vizann, which was filled with giant stone statues of dwarvish warriors and lab workbenches. Moony pretended to be delivering a message via Yarsha for Marlos Urnrayle, but Miraj was taken in only briefly. After some inconclusive dialog, the party eventually attacked Miraj, who activated one of the Stone Warrior statues to “protect.” It actually didn’t last long under the onslaught of the party’s spells and weapons, but Miraj, escaping, swore vengeance for the destruction of her plans and lab.
The party explored to the north, finding a dining hall full of Black Earth guards, who were quickly dispatched. In exploring further, the party found another partially-collapsed barracks — and the dead body of Yarsha, apparently killed by one of her Black Earth Guards. They took a Short Rest there, with an apparent inclination to follow a crevasse to the north.
Player Recap
Why we don’t like sleeping!
Dreams Dreams Dreams
William
Deeper, darker, every step more terrible.
Once there was sunlight, bright, cleansing. But now, for far too long, it’s been gone, leaving just the chill and shadow.
Once there was air, fresh, brisk, invigorating. But all the wind and breezes have been stilled, the air sterile in your nose..
Once the air carried a dampness, allowed for growth, the sound of creeks tinkling in the air, the drip of moisture sustaining the green around you. But that, too has been cut off …
Now there is only stone, still and dry, sand and earth and the cool of the tomb …
… except ahead is heat, heat to melt stone, heat to dry any moisture, heat to whip up winds.
And after that? Only darkness …
Faith
You are in a great stone palace, the place where you dwell. It’s a grand palace … no, not a palace, the Great Cathedral in Waterdeep, the high church of all gods, the temple complex of all the traditional gods of the great city, a pile of cold stone, distant, hostile to mortals save the wealthiest … the finest … powerful bishops and bombastic prophets and bejeweled hierophants, who sit at long tables, laden with food, gorging themselves, arguing amongst each other as to who is of the highest rank, who is of the greatest power, then purging themselves in gemmed buckets to start the cycle over. Gold and diamonds vie with filth and corruption for what catches most your eye, what turns most your stomach.
You realize you are merely a servant, a drab, bedraggled girl, mopping and sanding the floors, keeping the candles lit, and, most importantly, airing the room out by opening the great windows to let something fresh inside, even as the men and women at the table shout and yell against it, preferring their own reek to an invigorating breeze.
The servant girl next to you, her gray-blue hair barely tucked into the scarf across her hair. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we left all the windows open and wind just swept them out of the room?”
She pulls out an ornate spear from behind her back. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we just killed all of them?”
And … it would be kind of funny.
Moony
The ancient Tabaxi elder with the odd, triangular pupils puffs on his pipe.
“Dimensions. Dimensions and angles and the ways one leaps from branch to branch, or ground, or into the air. The Tabaxi understand dimensions, do we not?”
“Consider one dimension. The layers of an onion, growing in strength, growing in pungency, growing in sweetness as one bites inward.” [illustrated]
Or … The shell of a shellfish — the rough surface, ground down, to a pearlescent layer, and delve further to find the sweet and salty meat [taste!], and, in some cases, a pearl, itself a world of many layers.
“To find what is valuable, drill down, seek what lies within. Beware the sharpness of flavor, the hardness of the hidden gem, but know that what is of value, what must be found, lies deep inside.”
“Those of the Tabaxi know to clean their food well. Wash well. Be thorough. But … as all is cleaned, bite deeply.”
Nala
You are in the Port Market of Waterdeep, a place you patrolled regularly against petty thieves, pickpockets, drunks, disturbances of the peace …
But today it’s nothing but peace. Utterly deserted. Every shop, every wagon, every booth … everything is stocked — fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, spices, and other things — ironmongery, scrolls, toys, anything anyone would want to buy …
… but nobody is there to buy.
And nobody is there to sell.
You hear a small bell, ringing, in the distance.
The breeze blows a hundred scents to your nose, whistles in the buildings about you. But, aside from the bell, you hear nothing. You make your way down Fishmonger Way, into another courtyard. Vegetables mostly here, as you recall, and as you see now.
In a small, not terribly clean booth in the back of the courtyard, its display tabletop covered in crates of multi-colored carrots, you can see, on the table at the back, a small brass bell, sitting atop a folded piece of cloth.
A throat clears behind you after you’ve gone around the table.
Xharva Deem is there on the other side of the table. The customer side.
“Now. I will buy. You will sell. I have traveled many, many leagues to be here. And now, what you have, I will buy... YOUR SOUL.”
Theren
The walls press around you. Stone, some dressed, some rough and jagged, forces you to crouch down, scrape against the walls, scramble down and up and down the floor, as the air gets more and more warm, more stuffy, sweat across your body, salt in your eyes, taste of salt on your lips …
And ahead of you, a crackling sound, a roar of something consumed in flame, generating a hot wind.
“Theren …” you hear within that crackling, that roaring. “You have called to me. Now I call to you ….” as the air blasts into your face, hotter than a furnace, singing to the flames within your mind, the wild magic that burns so brightly, without control, unstoppable, and …
Back in the real world
Nala shares her dream and asks the magic users if Xharva could actually be in her dream. Faith, Theren and William offer suggestions for how it might be done. After the long rest the group heads back to the large hall and explore South towards the assumed location of the mud sorcerer. Half way down the hall their is a T intersection. About 20 feet down the West hall the walls and ceiling have collapsed and block the passage. To the East is a door with a scowling dwarf with maces for hands.
Moony cracks open the door and sees a humanoid, her skin and hair seemingly earthen, though in places slick with moisture, dressed in earth-brown robes. There are statues around the walls all of dwarves’ with maces or clubs for hands. Some have been deformed.
Miraj Vizann token
“Yes, what do you want?” “Yarsha sent me to tell you Marlo wants you right now.” She sighs and then looks more closely at Moony. “Marlos has other means of contacting me. What does Yarsha really want?” “She is not happy with your lack of progress on furthering Marlos’s vision” “I am not surprised, she wants to replace me. But you interest me, your accent is interesting, it might be something with your throat, step closer.” The conversation continues. Eventually, she invites Moony and the party to discourse. Moony asks what she will offer us to switch to her side. She only offers not to kill the group.
Stone Warrior token
About then, Faith gets bored and starts preparing a spell. Moony take a sneak attack against Miraj, who doubles over and calls to the statues to protect her. William casts Spike Growth inside the room and steps back around the corner. Faith casts Bless on the group. One Stone Warrior moves into action. Nala shoots magic missiles at it and Theren tosses off a fireball into the room. The warrior is quickly taking damage. Miraj gets off a shatter spell and then flees into the back wall.
In exploring the room, they find golds, gems and a potion of water breathing. There is also the dwarvish runes for protect carved into the the tables. They appear in various location around the room. William uses his wood working tools to remove the runes while they take a short rest.
After the rest they head back North towards Marlos. At the T intersection North of the Ogremoch statue they turn East. Four Black Earth Guards go down quickly. A cultist comes out from the back room to join the fray. When the room is clear and move on to the room beyond. The body of Yarsha is in the middle of the room. A guard who fled first room tries to ambush Moony and while he scores a hit, it’s not enough to take Moony out. The guard is severally out-classed. It looks like the guard killed Yarsha when she came back to the barracks to get her stuff. Maybe he overheard her selling them out. Either way, one less stone witch to worry about. A Short Rest and the party will be back on the hunt.
Game Notes
More churn and grind, to a certain degree.
Dreams
Since there was a long rest, I did another set of dreams for everyone (recorded by my wife in the player log above). William had basic druidic depression about being underground so long. Moony was told by his Tabaxan god that he should head downwards (while still cleaning the areas above). Theren was given a hint that his invoking the name of Imix (the Fire Elemental Prince) in vain was maybe not a good idea. [I don’t recall when he did it, but it had been recently.]
Nala, the fighter holding the thing that Xharva Deen wanted, was visited by her in a dream and, after appropriate prompting, when she asked what Xharva wanted, was responded with, Your soul!
This led to much discussion over breakfast as to the reliability of dreams — or, rather, the question of how much messages could be sent from another plane via dreams. The idea that this was a combination of maybe a bit of message and a bit of unreliable internal fear never occurred (which is fine). It shook folk up, and it laid the groundwork for some interesting discussion when Xharva reappears, so it’s all good.
Faith, meanwhile, had a dream that meant to suggest that all worship of the mainstream gods was futile and corrupt, and only a brisk wind (and maybe some stabbing with a spear) would clear things up. She was not happy about this.
The Mud Sorcerer
I’d added some lab tables to the map of Miraj Vizann because the color text mentions all the tables and the map itself had zilch. I mean, they had the statues set up in the room, but no tables. I had some Roll20 materials for tables and lab gear and tomes, so that made for a nice, complex room.
Miraj Vizann lab … with furniture!Miraj Vizann
Miraj Vizann herself was an interesting bird. A magical researcher whose allegiance was to the Black Earth (kinda-mostly), but didn’t feel like she needed to restrict herself to just those magics. Call her Crushing Wave-Curious. Thus her disdainful moniker as the “Mud Sorcerer.”
(Yes, “her.” The character struck me that way, and I had this very nice image I found of a stone genasi that looked to be a great fit.)
Marlos still relied on her for her knowledge and power and, being Marlos, her lack of ambition. This didn’t sit well with the other important folk in the temple, thus Yarsha’s betrayal.
I saw her as smart, somewhat distracted into her research on the old magicks of Tyar-Besil (its stone warrior defenders, as an example), and happy to give orders efficiently so as to keep people out of her damp.
Stone Warrior
She was smart enough, I thought, to figure out the party’s bullshitting her, even if distracted, so I thought it would be an engaging, dialog-heavy encounter, at least to start. But the encounter and discussion I anticipated never happened. Moony said many taunting things from the door, Miraj tried to engage in discussion (but not until everyone was willing to come into the room), the Stone Warrior was unleashed, the party quickly whittled it to size (action economy!), and Miraj swore vengeance for the disruption of her experiments before blending into the wall (something she had the spells to do, and which tied into her showing up later in the Black Geode — kinda-sorta).
I always like it when old threats get teed up as future threats. It feels … efficient, and narrative. Miraj Vizann has a lot going for her as an intelligent foe.
Windvane
Some good experience, then, all-around, but the most notable event was Windvane trying to influence Faith to attack with her, and Faith easily resisting, and then shoving the spear into the party’s Bag of Holding.
So, Inspiration for Faith, certainly. But that’s really not fun for me, so Windvane will still talk with her from behind the Bag (because it’s already in her head. And I need to come up with a situation where Windvane will be essential (or maybe have it be repentant and thus turn into a useful tool again).
(We are at session 51. I’ve been treating Windvane resistance as a Wisdom Save of 10+(episode-50), so it should be getting a bit rougher as we continue.)
Further clean-up
Yarsha, Yarsha, Yarsha
Cleaning out the refectory took a short bit of time (I handwaved the cooks down in the kitchen). The party was … surprised to find Yarsha dead in the back room.
Yarsha certainly had the possibility of causing trouble. But her forces were limited (if I wanted to make the level what it was), and I need to get moving onward.
So the idea is that Yarsha, taking advantage of the ridiculously loose oath she was sworn to (that Faith would not see her for the next week) snuck back into the temple while the party was taking a Long Rest, and went for the barracks where her goods were. Maybe she was going to rally the troops, or maybe she was going to bug out with her treasure.
But the crossbow mook who was left in that room was able to hear through the arrow slit the things she said when she was surrendering to the party last session. So at some point in time, while gathering her goods, he whopped her in the back of the head with his morningstar, game over.
(All her treasure was found on a mook that had been sitting in the refectory alone, saw the party, and ran off to the back room, only to be quickly taken down by the party. Fun.)
Not a lot of map left … but a lot of stuff in those unexplored areas.
Temple of the Black Earth (as the party had explored it by this point)
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 50 (Day 40)
In … the Temple of the Black Earth!
Black Earth
The party charged into the hall of the Great Gates to Tyar-Besil, dealing with a small guard party led by Yarsha, a Stonemender lieutenant. Yarsha surrendered, providing the party information on Miraj Vizann, the Mud Sorcerer, and the real leader of the Black Earth cult, as their next target. Faith made Yarsha swear that she wouldn’t catch sight of her again for a week and she agreed, heading out of the Temple of Black Earth.
After a Short Rest, the party went to check out the passages to the north, only to have Ko ambushed by archers. The party attacked the chamber to the east–stuffy, hot, filled with Duergar. After shifting the bodies aside, peering through arrow slits, and playing with a brackish basilisk fountain, they dossed down for the night.
Player Recap
Why we don’t like hostages!
This was once an impressive hall. Now the ceiling and walls are cracked and patched. There are exits north, south, east and west. The group attacks and defeats all of the minions. Yarsha calls a truce and wants to destroy the mud sorcerer. She is a bit snarky but gives significant information. She is willing to leave the temple of Earth and leave the party alone to deal with Miraj Vizann, the mud sorcerer. After additional negotiation she agrees to to leave and stay way for one week.
The group takes a short rest back in the room where they fought the Bulette rider. They explore the rooms and look at the weapons and trophies on the walls. After the rest they return to the great hall. Ko explores to the antechamber to the north. The room is heavily carved with scenes of dwarven battle. No matter where you are you have a sense of menace. Ko gets shot at from the arrow slits on either side of the room. They quickly return to the group and describe the attack.
William recommend that they go through the door in the East wall of the hall. Unfortunately, there are several Duergar hiding in the room. The party is bottlenecked in the entrance and the guards unleash their javelins at Moony. After the initial constraint, the party moves into the room. Even after the Duergar magically enlarge, the party quickly defeats all nine guards. The room is crumbling with age. To the North is a hall to the arrow slit and to the South is a rubble strewn alcove with a chamber pot and a fountain with a basilisk carving and stagnant water pooling in a cracked basin. William takes some water from the fountain and drips it over one of the dead Duergar. It doesn’t appear to have an impact.
The party moves the bodies to one end and begins a Long Rest.
Game Notes
More grinding. The party in the Great Gates hall was easier than in the book, largely because that’s where the ambush down at the bulette chamber was staffed from. Which is fine — I kinda want to get the players moving forward, as we headed into our 6th session in this zone.
Yarsha, Yarsha, Yarsha
Yarsha token, via Hero Forge
Had fun playing Yarsha, being mean and sarcastic. She didn’t get a chance to gack one of her own guys (they all went down too quickly), but she did successfully surrender, aim the party at Miraj Vizann next time, and get out of Dodge. Faith extract an oath on Ogremoch’s name that I listened to very carefully:
I never want to see you here.
Yarsha anticipates won’t be a problem because Faith will never see her coming ….
I think. I was not sure what to do with her. She wasn’t someone I necessarily want to make a recurring baddy. The choices seemed to be (a) yes, she backs off for a week (hobnobbing with the Lich up at the Monastery), (b) she sneaks back down for some reason. She might have already done that, or might do it tonight while the party snoozes.
But what reason? Go warn Marlos? Wait to see if the party takes down Miraj? Recover some treasure of hers? Did I really want the party to encounter her again and take up that time?
(I could imagine their breaking into her chambers and finding her there, dead, throat cut. Didn’t explode like she’s supposed to, but the party really didn’t know that piece of lore yet.)
The Duergar
The Duergar were a bit of a disappointment. They did an initial ambush of the party breaking into their room, being Invisible and in hiding. I didn’t really run that properly, juggling the hiding and invis and ambushing and surprise and perception and initiative order, but it worked out fairly satisfactory. They got in some good licks, but the party really did take them apart pretty fast. The ones who took an extra turn to embiggen to Large Duergar never got a chance to attack.
I did go ahead and put in the brackish basilisk fountain as an optional means to un-petrify Aldrik when they get around to finding him in Marlos’ quarters (while prepping some nice write-ups for all the statuary there). The son confirmed he was ready to get back into things. I just needed the party to get to where they need to go.
But now they were aimed the opposite direction, at Miraj Vizann, the Mud Sorcerer …
Temple of the Black Earth (as the party had explored it by this point)
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 49 (Day 40)
In … the Temple of the Black Earth!
Black Earth token
The party made short work of the Black Earth Guards and Priest in the guard room (aided greatly by a well-placed fireball from Theren). One guard grudgingly surrendered and was fed to Ko.
Moony scouted north, finding a large double-doorway with defaced figures on it. The party realized (some sooner than others) that religious (in particular) artwork, sculptures, reliefs, mosaics from the dwarvish days of Tyar-Besil had been systematically defaced.
This seemed true with a sculpture they found that Theren identified as possibly being of Ogremoch –seemingly carved from an older statue at that location.
Choosing to head east, rather than confront Marlos Urnrayle before a long rest, the party found and cleared a trophy-festooned barracks, including defeating a burrowshark named Dynath.
At the far end of the barracks was an additional door. The party (wanting to still be able to make use of Faith‘s demonic faeries) barged in, finding a large, pillared hall — and several hostile figures staring back at them.
Player Recap
Roll Initiative – The Arrow Slots Open
Mooney starts things off and tries to attack through the arrow slit. William steps up to the other side of the arrow slit and cast Entangle into the dark. The guards continue to try and attack. Faith casts Sacred Flame and Nala uses her new magic missile wand through the southern slit. Theren moves to the door and tosses off a fire ball into the room. A fighter emerges from the room wielding a morning star but wearing no armor. Nala makes short work of them. The rest of the battle is mostly clean-up. When the battle ends the group takes stock of the room. It is a neat barrack room with an exit to the West and North-East. There is not much in the room of value. After healing Nala, the group continues North.
Mooney finds the double doors with the faces and returns to the group. They decide to head East to look at the lieutenants. There is a room off of the East-West hallway. When they enter, they find two fighters. The first cultist goes down with a magic missile from Nala. Ko moves up to menace the second cultist. The cultists jumps up and yells “Intruders!” and lunges at Ko. Moony steps up to intimidate the cultist. He falls back over the bad and Moony takes him out. The room has beds and bunks. There are weapons on the walls, both ancient and new. An unknown creature is mounted on the wall.
I gave Dynath his own token, because the default Burrowshark token is dorky.
There are steps coming from the halls beyond both the curtains to the East and South. Dynath comes from the South and an earth guard comes in from the East. Faith casts spirit guardians and engages Dynath. The room to the South is a room with a single bed. The walls are in disrepair with spears and a pair of boots nailed to the wall. There is a large stack of leather tack that appears to be Buelette size. Another curtain leads out of Dynath’s room. Dynath’s spear is nothing special, but he does have a heavy pouch of gold and some gems.
The room to the East contains a couple of beds, a body, and a table with stone dice on it. A door to the East leads into another sleeping room that wraps around to a doorway into Dynath’s room. There is another door to the East of this room. A women’s voice can be hear complaining and a murmur of voice responding.
Game Notes
I was feeling disappointed in this session, until my wife emphatically and unsolicited told me, afterwards, “That was fun!” So it goes to show you that, as a DM, getting feedback is important.
My concern had been that it was, mostly, two grindy (if successful) melees against fairly mookish types, a little scouting, and … that was it. No real advancement of higher plots, no schemes being penetrated, etc. But sometimes players seem to want that. Or, as G’kar once put it:
By G’Quon I can’t recall the last time I was in a fight like that! No moral ambiguity, no hopeless battle against ancient and overwhelming forces. They were the bad guys, as you say, and we were the good guys! And they made a very satisfying thump when they hit the floor!
There were some color notes I enjoyed. For example, finding the (map-labeled) statue of Moradin that Marlos had recarved (poorly) into a statue of Ogremoch was nicely creepifying.
The party’s decision to put off running into Marlos until they’d had another Long Rest was understandable (and wise), but did send them off in a somewhat different direction than expected. That still left things free for Aldrik’s petrified form to be discovered, if my son decided to rejoin the game shortly.
Some of the stuff in the upper right quadrant of the map had been weakened by the reinforcement down in the bullette room, the ambush that had whomped them seriously a few sessions ago. The campaign book provides for shifting around reinforcements like that, which I think is the right thing to do. It does mean making weaker challenges later on, and part of me wanted to restock the next encounter, but I also didn’t want to unbalance what folk were facing overall.
A lot of new territory explored on the map, though nothing too extraordinary uncovered …
Temple of the Black Earth (as the party had explored it by this point)
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 48 (Day 40)
In … The Temple of the Black Earth!
Black Earth token
The party interrogated the four freed prisoners: Orna, Droth, Wulgreda, Gervor. In the end, they escorted them to the far side of the Water Temple and gave instructions on how to get out of the Air Temple and up to the surface, thence to Red Larch. In return, Orna gave them information about the leadership structure in the Temple of Black Earth, and a few of the locations they would pass on their way to finding Marlos Urnrayle.
The party stopped for a short rest in the Gargoyle Fountain Chamber, and discovered that its waters actually provided a Short Rest.
The party, wanting to use her forge to destroy the Orb of Red Larch, decided to tackle Xharva Deem. A brief but bloody battle ensued, cut off when Faith used a Banish spell to send Xharva back to the Elemental Plane of Earth, her home.
After another short rest, the party continued up the corridor in the direction where Orna had said Marlos Urnrayle was. At an intersection with two arrow slits, an inopportune clatter from Theren looked to be drawing an attack from those at the guard post.
Player Recap
Where the weal takes us, part 2
After they release the prisoners, they each have a different idea of what should happen.
Orna (Angry Human – Former Earth Cultist): One of the fancy ass priests wanted a grope. I broke his hand and ended up here. She offers to tell the group where Marlos Urnrayle is in exchange for her armor and a sword.
Wulgreda (Quiet Dwarf): Quietly she states that she is from XX and was captured and forced to work below.
Droth (Blind Human Air Cultist): I won’t do nothing. I’ve been here for a while and I think (his voice trails off). He turns and stumbles towards Faith and professes his undying devotion and willingness to kill anything she requires.
Gervor (Snobbish Elf): Came with a band of adventurers to loot the temples. He was the last of the band when he got caught.
William casts Augury and the raven shakes his head and claims Weal. However, he knows that the spell becomes less reliable if used frequently. After further discussion they escort the former prisoners to the entrance to the Air Temple. Faith has included a note for the priest serving at the All Faiths shrine in Red Larch. It requests that they give some gold to the group if they arrive together. It also lays out a penance for Droth.
When they return to the Gargoyle room for a rest. Moony notices that the gargoyle fountain looks like the gargoyle on the defaced mural in the healing area. (The religious motif is in the alcove along the southern wall by the door to B14). It is of a Dwarvish woman (her face has been obliterated), towering over smaller creatures — dwarves, apparently injured, being blessed. On the left are priests tending to the injured. On the right, magical creatures — an elemental, a dragon made from gems, a gargoyle — from whose mouths water flows. The words “LADY OF MERCY AND” in Dwarvish script can be made out by her head.) William decides to take a drink from the gargoyle fountain. It is cool and slightly minerally. He feels well rested. The others also partake and gain the benefit of a Short Rest.
The party decides to return to the forge to destroy the orb in the forge. Xharva Deem is there and senses Nala near. Xharva says in her head “I smell it; you have no reason not to negotiate with me. You dishonor me””
Faith enters first casting silence over much of the room. William comes next and transform into the starry form of the archer. He sends a radiant bolt at her. Xharva attacks Faith with her maul and knocks her to the ground. Moony and Theren attack from their respective doorways. Nala joins the battle and gets a great hit on Xharva. Xharva returns the damage with interest. After William heals Nala, he asks What do you want. “This one knows! But now I will tear the sand from her dead body!” As the battle continues Faith tries to banish the earth elemental but Xharva makes her save. But on the next round Faith succeeds and Xharva disappears with a pop.
After much discussion, they decide to destroy the orb in the forge. The group exits the room and Ko pushes the orb into the forge. There is no boom. After a while they return to the room to find the broken orb sizzling in the fire. They then take a Short Rest in the forge room and attune to the wand and the rod from Heldorm and his treasure chest. The wand is a wand of magic missiles. Nala can not discern the purpose of the rod. William decides that the spiked club that Xharva was forging is very nasty but not magic.
To the West where the guttural sounds are contains ogres guarding the gate to the fire temple. They they head up the north passage.
Directions to Marlos: North up the hall past the forge. Continue past a place on the left where you can go down to the Fane of the Eye, brr, further north, then to the right, and the door with stone faces on it.
Game Notes
Various family, personal, medical, and other events led to a six week gap between session, so it took a bit for folk to settle down from chit-chat, recall what was going on, and get back into the swing.
The Prisoners
We chewed up easily 90 minutes dealing with the prisoners — more, arguably, than it was worth. I’m not sure sending them back on their own was the wisest of moves, but there weren’t any very good answers.
(The party was getting a bit tired of freeing prisoners — and, to be fair, I was, too, but it’s not only a good trope to convey information and remind about stakes, but the whole “but what do we do with them now?” thing can be an interesting challenge, not just a grind.)
Orna token
Orna gave them some info about the Temple, including how to get to Marlos, but didn’t have an opening to mention what his nature is. She did get to mention the stairs down to the Fane of the Eye, hopefully with sufficient apprehension to give them pause. Her info will be added to their working map of the level.
Droth token I picked out
I had a lot of fun with Droth, the thug/cut-throat Howling Hatred prisoner, feeling tremendous gratitude toward Faith and perceiving the power of Windvane on her. He did the whole fawning, “I’ve killed whomever you wanted killed, milady! I can kill more for you, as you want!” This came complete with supportive whispers from Windvane in Faith’s head. I need to start leaning on her a bit more.
That damned fountain
Gargoyle Fountain
I finally — through some Passive Investigation — got the party to realize the Short Rest healing power of the Gargoyle Fountain. I thought it should be of some minor help, though they hadn’t yet learned that it only helped them once a day.
That said, this marked one of the last times they marched past it. Ah, well.
That damned Dao
Xharva Deem
The Xharva Deem stuff had taken on somewhat farcical qualities. She was hot after Nala at this point for the trinket “A metal can that has no opening but sounds as if it is filled with … sand” that Nala took on character generation, just a something she picked up in her career — that turns out to be the equivalent of cocaine/love potions for the Dao. Xharva hadn’t actually named it (because she assumed everyone knew that was the most valuable thing the party had), so Nala was originally thinking it was her enchanted greatsword, and then “figured out” that it must be the Devastation Orb from Red Larch that she has in her Bag of Holding.
The Mystery of the Metal Can!
William’s player had a clue, though, and tried to get Xharva to explain it. I talked around it a bit, but actually did end up saying it out as part of a threat against Nala — “I will tear the sand from her dead body!” … and everyone just read it as a Dao metaphor.
Sigh.
This was all something I added into the campaign, because I thought it would be fun, and in fact it was, but it also ended up slowing things down. Still, finding things to do with some of trinkets the characters have is a nice way to add flavor to a campaign. And, honestly, it made Xharva a much more interesting character than Just Another Monster to Slay.
It was very, very cool that Faith, the cleric, finally managed to Banish her. It put an abrupt end to the battle. Banish is a high-level spell for her, so burning it is costly, and hadn’t always worked in the past. This time it did exactly what they wanted.
Of course, Xharva had Plane Shift, so she’d be back. Nobody had really voiced that concern as of yet.
Destroying the Devastation Orb in the forge was probably a terrible idea, but since I allowed Dispel Magic to break its charge, I let the party do it without setting off Earthquake in the Earth Temple and do more map-distorting damage. Yay.
Planning ahead
Aldrik, before he got snatched.
So at this point my son was just settling down in his out-of-state apartment with a new job. It occurred to me that if I wanted to reintroduce Aldrik to the campaign, I had an upcoming hook: Marlos’ cavern. I’d been envisioning Aldrik as captive of Gar Shatterkeel at the altar/temple down in the Fane, but that was too far way. Marlos had to have him.
Why all the interest in this dwarf from the north? Maybe, I’d been increasingly thinking, because Aldrik (in my head) has some nascent power over the Tyar-Besil complex (being either descendent or reincarnation of Torhild Flametongue), which is why everyone has been wanting to get hold of him — maybe Marlos decided to steal him for himself. And, until he could figure out how make use of him, he petrified him. As one does as a medusa.
But how, you might ask, would they un-petrify him (without going back to Waterdeep)? Two ideas popped to mind:
Maybe there was a Basilisk Fountain somewhere that corresponded with the Gargoyle Fountain, and has similar recuperative policies re Petrification (Basilisk, got it?)
Xharva Deem the Dao could, if pressed, do Wishes. Of course, that depended on they not attacking her as soon as she appeared …
Exploration Progress
Temple of the Black Earth (as the party had explored it by this point)
So a bit more information on here — the stuff in green that was intel passed on by Orna. Just a bit of movement up the map to the intersection, though.
So much fun here (from my fevered imagination), including that some dwarf had inscribed “WOE” over the stairs to the New Diggings … as the Fane is where the invasion that threw down the city started from, after the dwarves delved too greedily and too deep and broke into the ancient Underdark there …
It’s not clear why the Cave of Wonders (Marlos’ hang-out) would be marked “DEATH” since these markings far pre-date the Prophets moving in. Perhaps something else sinister moved in there for a time, which would explain why Marlos has a demonic majordomo …
And then there’s the marred set of runes that look like they say “Trumpet” (but most certainly don’t).
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 47 (Day 40)
In … The Temple of the Black Earth! (Mostly)
In the Gargoyle Fountain chamber, the party attuned to various magical items, then took a Long Rest. Dreams were had by Nala, Moony, and Faith. William just enjoyed the tinkling fountain.
Black Earth symbol
In the morning, an Augury bade good fortune to destroying the Orb of Red Larch in the forge of Xharva Deem. The party traipsed back into the Temple of Black Earth, only to be ambushed by a bulette and rider, along with a trio of hobgoblins, who apparently had found the previously slain bulettes. The party triumphed, but William nearly died, and Moony and Nala both took major hits (while Theren got Large)..
The party headed for the forge, only to hear that someone was back at work inside, presumably Xharva Deem. Moony checked out the doors from the pool room; to the south, it sounded like a barracks (someone talking about rotating beds); to the east, something deep-throated and gutteral.
They chose the south, in an area on the map marked for “Healers,” to find the stonemelder Heldorm, who presided over the prisoners and torture chamber there. Moony kept him calm long enough to tee up the team attacking. The cultists went down quickly; Heldorm took longer (and did some damage along the way, not to mention exploding after he died and turned to stone), but was eventually vanquished.
The party freed the four prisoners:
Orna, angry human prisoner in rags, who laid claim to the Black Earth guard armor in Heldorm’s treasure chest.
Droth, tattooed human who was suffering from major head trauma; Faith fixed his dementia, but not his vision.
Gervor, elvish noble, grateful to the little people for freeing and healing him, now, can he have his nice armor and sword back?
Player Recap
Where the weal takes us
The group has retreated to the gargoyle fountain room. After they have dinner and some time attuning to the new magic. When sleep comes it is filled with ominous dreams for all but William. He enjoys the soothing sound of the tinkling fountain.
In the morning William case augury and asks “Should we destroy the orb in the forges of Xharva Deem.” The onyx raven hops out of the gargoyle fountain, shakes it’s wings off and says “Weal! Weal!”
When they reach the hall where the bulette were, the group is surprised by the last bulette with Burrowshark, a human fighter, riding it. The bulette lands on Moony. A hobgoblin also joins the battle wielding a long bow and then two more hobgoblins. The group suffers from the attacks. William is gravely wounded, but the group fights on and finally takes down the bulette, hobgoblins, and fighter.
They move onto the room outside of the forge. There is hammering within the forge. Stepping away Moony checks the East and South doors. At the Eastern door he hears guttural sounds and the other sounds like a guard’s quarters. The group decides not to leave potential enemies at their back and choose to start with the barracks.
Through the Southwest door there is a villain and several prison cells. Holderm: “I’ve told Mallow more than once that they, Yarsha, are not to be trusted.” Opening the door they shout “Drown yourselves water scum.” Mooney calmly explains that he is not a water cultist. They pause long enough for the group flows into the room and attack. They quickly take down the jailer. There are cages in the room occupied by gaunt humanoids. The prisoners include several humans and an elf. Faith and William race forward to heal the wounded while the other check out the rest of the room. The jailer has some gold and is holding a rod. While Moony is searching the body it begins to shake violently. Nala reaches for the rod and removes it from the corpse. Shortly after that the body turns to stone and explodes. Moony and Theren open a treasure chest in the corner. The prisoners claims several of the items in the chest.
Game Notes
Not as much happened here as I expected, though some of that was because of my own actions.
All I have to do is (give) dreams
I had dreams set up for the players, which, of course, took some time. I continued my motif of Faith’s dreamscape with Windvane as a sulky chargirl. Nala had a dream where she was being pursued (Jesus in the “Lepers” scene in Superstar) by people who wanted various things from her (including Xharva Deem). Moony had a weird dream of being in a museum, being lectured by the grizzled Tabaxi (the Library God, Denier) about the history of Tyar-Besil, hinting about the Dwarvish love/healing goddess, Sharindlar.
William the Druid just had pleasant dreams of the babbling Gargoyle Fountain he was sleeping beside.
The Gargoyle Fountain
AI-generated Gargoyle Fountain
I was playing here (and elsewhere) with trying to noodge the players into learning that the Gargoyle Fountain is actually a Short-Rest generator, something that there’s no non-trivial way for the players to figure out without, y’know, taking random drinks, which my naturally cautious group of adventurers was reluctant to do.
One kinda-cool thing I did was play around with the nascent AI image generating tools out there to craft an image for the Gargoyle Fountain. It wasn’t great, but it still felt more interesting than just a verbal description.
The Orb
The party has not forgotten they are still carrying a deactivated Orb of Devastation. They took an Augury to determine that, yeah, melting it down in Xharva’s forge would probably work.
I don’t recall precisely what my thinking was here — the Orb had been disabled by Faith’s Dispel Magic back in Red Larch (and, no, that shouldn’t have worked, but I’d ruled at the moment it did). On the other hand, it’s not necessary that I now, or then, had a coherent story — as far as the party was concerned, they were holding a nuke with the pin put back in the trigger, and making sure that the bad guys didn’t get it back was a fine idea.
And then they did something reckless
Bulette
Wandering back into Earth Temple, I was surprised the party wasn’t more on-guard, having left a room-full of dead bulettes (that had clearly been under some sort of care) for the previous 8+ hours.
But, even with a couple of Passive Perception checks, they just sort of marched in to continue their explorations — and promptly got ambushed. Bingo!
The bad guys were taken down, eventually, but the party knew it had been hit.
(Most amusing moment of the night — the Sorcerer’s Wild Magic finally caught up with him, and he got basically stuck in the corridor coming in by growing too large.)
Exploration
Healing up, they returned to their course, and were disturbed to hear the sounds of Xharva Deem back in her forge. Rather than immediately attacking (the DM quietly applauds), they scoped out the rest of the room with the pool. I had added some decor, or expanded on what was suggested.
As the former dining hall, the walls were full of brag scenes of the bucolic wealth of King Torhild’s domain — echoing what Deneir had been lecturing Moony about that night in his dreams.
By one door were marred images of Sharindlar, the dwarvish goddess of mercy, healing, and love. That door led to what had been the infirmary (and was now the prison/torture chamber). I added in some symbology that tried to hint back to the gargoyle figure at the Gargoyle Fountain (healing!).
Kudos to the party for approaching the next encounter with something other than “We kick in the door and start fighting.” Being able to get everyone into the room before the balloon went up made for a much easier encounter.
That said, I wasn’t thrilled by how the encounter went with Heldorm and the prisoners. I felt like I rushed things, or had too many balls in the air, or something. As a result, I failed to have Heldorm explode when killed (it happened later). I hate it when that happens.
Also, throwing in four NPCs cause my brain to seize up a bit, and some of the reveals with them didn’t quite work right. I knew I’d need to practice a bit before the next game to make them come a bit more smoothly.
Orna token
The NPC prisoners actually get reasonable write-ups in the book, enough to RP them. Of course, they also get generic tokens in the Roll20 instance, so I had to find/craft some for them. I additionally gave them their own journal entries — because, again, if someone doesn’t have a journal entry, the players know they aren’t important and can ignore them.
Heldorm token
I also crafted custom tokens for each of the Stonemelders in the dungeon here, because they are high enough level to deserve them. Not finding anything through a simple search, I used Hero Forge to pull something together quickly, then with variations.
What will the party do with a mixed set of prisoners that wants help out — and likely won’t take “there’s the door, we don’t think there are any monsters over there” as an answer? We’ll see!
Temple of the Black Earth (as the party had explored it by this point)
Not much added to the map this time around, but I was still enjoying how the marred and added inscriptions on the map they’d copied from Aerisi’s pyramid throne room were both informative and obscure.
The 2024e edition is a new set of rules. WotC doesn’t want you to believe that.
Or whatever it’s being called this week
WotC has been insistent, insistent I say, that the new edition of D&D is not, in fact, a new edition. This is not D&D 6e! This is not even D&D 5.5e! This is …
Well, they call it 2024e, because that is not at all confusing with what 5e is being called now (2014e).
But, of course if it were not a new edition, why would we need to refer to it differently?
Or, to look at it another way, why not just call it D&D with new optional rules like have shown up in things like Tasha’s, etc.?
Because then they wouldn’t sell new books, amirite?
But we’re not to call it a new edition. It is simply rule changes that are completely compatible with the older, um, previous, er, differently-numbered-year edition not-an-edition set of numbers.
A Caveat
Note: the changes in rules from 2014e / 5e to 2024e are not necessarily bad. In fact, a lot of them sound kind of interesting. But are they backwards-compatible? Do they not imbalance encounters and conflicts in earlier modules? Will players in a given campaign be able to change to 2024e without making any difference? Will 5e characters be as good against new 2024e campaigns? If some players want to switch but others do not, will that work well? Will various Virtual Tabletops handle mixed parties and/or modules?
Two examples that got a fair amount of play in my reading today:
Surprise in 2024e
In 5e / 2014e, when a group or individuals are Surprised, they roll Initiative as normal, but are unable to take any Actions or Reactions or movement through their first turn, after which they can only React until their next turn.
So that’s pretty harsh. Surprised foes (or friends) are at a serious deficit here. In an Action Economy,
That’s a much simpler mechanic, but it’s also a lot easier mechanic. Rather than missing out on an entire turn, you just tend to come late in a turn.
Either alternative is arguable. But are they the same? Can you have a mix of players choosing a different version, for themselves or their opponents? Can you seamlessly change the rule to match previous challenges? Does it just become another option? Is it a significant enough change to actually alter how an encounter ends?
Inspiration in 2024e
Inspiration is an optional rule in 5e / 2014e. The DM (with input from the players) can give someone up to 1 point of Inspiration. That Inspiration can be turned in (in advance) for Advantage on an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check.
Okay, pretty straightforward. A D20 roll can be rolled with Advantage.
A key here, from the designers, was the sense that too much adds Advantage. That’s kind of ironic, as Advantage was intended as a way of simplifying the endless plusses/minuses of 3e, 3.5e, and 4e. But there was here a sense that too much was being simplified and rolled into a trinary Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic.
In addition to that rather significant change, there are now a variety of mechanical ways to gain “Heroic Inspiration,” including a Fighter subclass that just basically gets their point refreshed every turn.
It’s an interesting design choice, and I can see a lot behind it. It can make for more ways to leverage Inspiration (through broader dice rolls, and also by taking out of the unstackable Advantage bucket). It also makes, through its expanded Inspiration, a more reliable way of getting it.
On the other hand, it introduces Yet Another Mechanic. And it weakens that RP focus of the current Inspiration mechanic.
Good? Bad? I can see arguments either way. But it’s a very distinct choice, and something a table will need to decide One Way or The Other. Unlike the Surprise mechanic, I don’t think it changes balance — but does that make it Backwards Compatible?
Just call it a new edition, fergoshsakes
People who have bought 5e, will have three choices.
Change to 2024e, either mid-campaign, or next time there’s a module change (and upgrade any 5e-era modules to use the new rules).
Stick with 5e, and hope they can “backwards compatible” the mechanics of 2024e-era modules into those rules.
Mix and match — in existing campaigns or in new ones, evaluate the 2024e rules that have changed and depending which ones to pull in and which to continue using (and where players can select different conclusions).
Option 1 is pretty standard for a new actual edition. Option 2 might be possible with an actual edition change, but it would be a bit of work. Option 3 only is possible if that “backwards compatible” notion is real.
These sneak peaks (the first 2024e volume only comes out in September) make me think that WotC has tried to come up with something better enough and different enough to justify getting a new set of books (or virtual add-ins to the VTT … or both!) while pretending that it’s just a set of optional improvements.
I resent that.
I will almost certainly get the new edition of books and rules and use them in the future. I will remain resentful that WotC has been playing games with the whole thing to make money and pretend like they aren’t.
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 46 (Day 39)
Black Earth token
In … The Temple of the Black Earth!
The party fought two more previously chained bulettes, without further damage. The massive chamber they were in was split in half by a huge crevasse, which post-dated its construction.
To the west, the party found a large chamber apparently owned by an ettin named Broog-Norb. Moony, in Black Earth cult garb, avoided combat with him, er, them.
Going along a ledge on the crevasse, they found a hallway leading to a highly decorated chamber and a pool of water. To the north, they found a smithy. Theren fireballed a couple of duergar through the door, and then was confronted by the imposing figure of Xharva Deem, who said that she was forging weapons “under contract” for Marlos Urnrayle. The party moved in for the attack, and a lengthy melee ensued, with Xharva casting a number of spells (including summoning an Earth Elemental) as well as smiting mightily with her hammer. She was particularly interested in something Nala was carrying — “Lizard Fleshling! You dare possess such a thing? What is your price? I will meet it, to half of my fortune!” In the end, before the party could vanquish her, she walked through the stone wall and was gone.
The party retreated to the Water Cult room of the Gargoyle Fountain and spiked themselves in for a good Long Rest (and investigating some Magic Items they had picked up).
Player Recap
Two Fireballs No Waiting
A second Bulette races toward Moony and comes up short as its chain stretches tight. As the group attacks they hear a sounds of screeching metal. A third Bulette charges from the right. Faith notices that this one has some leather tack on it. Bulette Two breaks its chain. Nala steps up to attack it. The group is able to take down the Bulettes without getting bitten.
They explore the large room that the Bulette were chained. There is a corridor to the west and a large chasm to the North. It looks like the earth split open a long time ago they can see neither the ceiling or floor of the crevasse. There is a ledge along the west side of the crevasse. Some natural pillars form stepping stones across the chasm
Moony goes ahead and encounters an Ettin arguing with itself. He talks his way out of it and returns to the group. They decide to take the ledge path. There is a hallway going west from the ledge. It leads to a beautiful courtyard. There are frescos along all of the walls and fountain in the middle. The sound of hammering comes through a door. Moony takes a peek and tells the group that they are in fireball formation. Theren lights them up and takes out the duergar guards.
Unfortunately the smith Xharva Deem is not amused. She is a great stone-skinned figure in rich clothing and decorated with rings and gold. From the waist down, she is a swirl of sand. Her great hammer is massive, but strikes with incredible precision. After the initial flurry of attacks she calls forth an earth elemental. As she does, she stares at Nala. Speaking Auran in a very heavy elemental accent: “Lizard Fleshling! You dare possess such a thing? What is your price? I will meet it, to half of my fortune!”
When the battle turns against her, she steps back says “Our bargaining has not ended” then walks through the wall.
Game Notes
So this was another of those schizophrenic episodes where the players acted unpredictably and inconsistently. Which makes me think I need to plan things more than I do.
Bulette Time
Bulette
First off, yes, the party dealt with the two bulettes quite successfully. Part of that was due to some random factors in when they broken free from their chains, and Nala unexpected charging one of them (which meant it couldn’t do its leap attack). But a bigger part was that they were rolling like demons — great hits, amazing damage.
The encounter with Broog-Norb was not handled my best. Part of it was a deadly DM sin: falling in love with my own cleverness. I had written some additional dialog for the two of them, and really, really wanted to deliver it. So I did, beyond the extent that die rolls should have allowed, at which point the party kind of decided, y’know, we don’t really need to check this out, so we’ll back away. Which they did.
As self-punishment, I will leave my dialog in the bowels of my campaign notes, never to see the light again.
I did appreciate the rogue actually using a costume and pretending to be a cultist. Even if only an Ettin wouldn’t question a Tabaxi cultist.
I was curious to see if the party would ever circle back. In point of fact, they never did. Broog-Norb may be there still …
There are encounters, and there are encounters
Xharva Deem, the Dao
The encounter with Xharva Deem was … again, not what I expected.
As written (and this is true for way too much of the campaign), the party politely knocks on the door, opens it, and engages the folk within in conversation.
What this party tended to do was either (a) sneak a peek and then back off, daunted by what they saw, or (b) charge in, spells blazing, and kill everything in their path. What decided (a) vs (b) surpasseth all understanding (at least mine).
So the party peeked in, and sees Duergar. Duergar are, they remember (from the Sacred Stone Monastery) Bad Guys. So, hey, perfect opportunity for a fireball!
Which killed the duergar assistants, but fortunately didn’t impact Xharva.
She, in turn, moved over to see the sorcerer, declared she works under contract for Marlos Unrrayle, decried his action in costing her assistants, and cast Phantasmal Killer on him as a punishment, then slammed the door.
Now, given that, the party might have given it up as a bad idea, or at least approached matters more carefully.
Nah. They kicked open the door and charged in.
Xharva, as a Dao, could probably kill multiple of them. But she’s a mercenary, and not interested in dying herself, so she retreated when her HP are getting down in the “I might die soon” range, even after she’d unleashed an Earth Elemental on them (which levelled out the Action Economy wonderfully).
Three things of note:
The Powerful Weapon That Wasn’t
Windvane
First, the cleric wielding Windvane — which was begging to be used against a foul Earth creature — ended up rolling for crap during the melee, which did not do her relationship with the weapon any good.
(I mean, sure, it’s not fair to criticize the weapon when the player is doing the dice-rolling, but the player character was understandably put off by her failure to score a hit, which frustrated the scheming DM to no end.)
The One-Off Bad Guy That Wasn’t
Second, I decided that, in addition to the other canned motivation for Xharva, to give her one more bit of schtick to play with. And it would be, ahem, canned, too:
The Mystery of the Metal Can!
The players had rolled up trinkets at the beginning of the game. I’d found some fun stuff to do with the little silver raven the druid carried, making it the inspiration for some of the spells he’d used, or the preternational things that happened around him. This time, I played with the “metal can that sounds like it’s filled with sand” that the Dragonborn fighter had, which I decided was (for whatever happenstance reason) a incredibly valuable (and addictive) drug for those from the Elemental Plane of Earth.
Xharva, engaged in combat with the cleric and the fighter, basically turned to the fighter and said, “You have what on you? I will pay you up to half my fortune for it!” The fighter didn’t speak Auran (which the Dao used of surprise), but the cleric did — and promptly interpreted it aloud as the Dao wanting the fighter’s weapon: a magic sword taken from Thurl Merosska (the Feathergale Knight leader), renamed after his tragic assistant Savra, that (I decreed, to give the fighter a magical weapon) was a +1 Greatsword (+2 vs Earth Element creatures, +0 vs Air Element Creatures).
Thurl Merosska’s greatsword
The fighter was very confused about this, since while it’s a good weapon, it’s not spectacular. It was only later that she considered that, relistening to the quote, it might not be the weapon she wanted …
Xharva Deem turned out to be a fun recurring character, motivated by that bit of improvisation to not be as nasty as Dao are, personality-wise. Not that she wouldn’t be interested in enslaving all of them and carrying them off as gifts or trade, but she’s also both bound by her contract here with Marlos and kind of bored with it. Recurring characters — especially dangerous and mysterious frenemies — are a Good Thing.
The Grab Bag Marginally Useful Magic Item That Wasn’t
One of the objects in the Dao’s workshop is a set of Claws of the Umber Hulk.
I would come to regret that.
Dossing Down
Temple of the Black Earth (as the party had explored it by this point)
That the party retreated for their Long Rest was no surprise.
There weren’t really any good places they’d found to camp, and, frankly, the map notes they had from the Pyramid Map were a bit scary, with added lines and text that had been etched in by others as Tyar-Besil began to fall.
That they decided to camp out in the Gargoyle Fountain room is a bit more surprising. And would lead to a couple of interesting results, in terms of what they would find there, and what they would find when they returned ….
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 45 (Day 38-29)
In … Red Larch!
William wandered under the new moon as a Giant Badger. He had something to remember on the tip of his tongue, but couldn’t think of it.
Faith dreams of the young woman she’s welcomed to her hut. Nala has a dream of conversing with Aldrik at a bar. Moony has a dream of speaking with a mysterious, grizzled old Tabaxi who asked him questions about hunting and prey.
Pursuing Bruldenthar‘s mysterious Sending, the Theren and Faith sought out Endrith Vallivoe to enquire about what the “Dearest Treasure of the Dwarves,” which Endrith thought might be the Crown of the Silver Keep. William, on the other hand, speculated it might have been the Vale of Dancing Waters, which Bruldenthar was previously known to be searching for.
The Shopkeeper sent a half-elf urchin, Vetch, to bring Theren to him. The whole party went. The Shopkeeper spoke to him of powers, spells, and specialization, then offered, as some sort of odd “experiment,” to sell him a Ring of Fire Resistance for half its value (Theren bargained him down further). (This item still needs to be Attuned.)
The party traveled toward Feathergale Spire to return to where they’d last been. Along the way, they were struck by a powerful earthquake, which seemed to have a localized effect. While passing the Spire, William left a funerary offering to the dead, hoping that Haeleeya Hanadroum would see it and treat it as an apology for Savra’s death.
Upon reaching the Temple of Howling Hatred, and lengthy consideration of their next path, they chose to enter the “Gates]” area of Tyar-Besil. After dispatching the returned Nothic in the room of the Gargoyle Fountain, they scouted their way forward.
Black Earth token
Just within the next zone, they discovered the passage was apparently guarded by a large, chained, sleeping bulette. After lengthy debate about what to do, they attacked it from down the corridor, doing it substantial damage before it could even get to its feet. It did managed to take a huge bite out of Faith, before falling, crying out in its pain. At which point, other voices of bulettes echoed from deeper in the chamber
Player Recap
Landshark
William heads out to enjoy the new moon on the knoll West of the inn. There is a thread of a memory I had previously. There is an old man escorted by a worker and someone else. He is complaining that everyone has forgotten him.
Dreams:
Faith dreams of taking in a man in need
Nala is in the Glaive ‘n’ Goblin in Waterdeep along the gateway. She is drinking with Aldrick. To keys that open doors and to keys that close them.
Moony dreams of an old Tabaxi
Theren and Faith go to Vallivoe’s to see if he knows anything about “The Dwarves’ Greatest Treasure” Endrith mentions several possibilities but lands on the Crown of the Silver Keep. Eventually he sells Theren a book on the subject. When they leave, a half-elf street urchin, Vetch, gets their attention and says that the “Shopkeeper” has something for his dilemma.
Theren decides to stop by the inn first to collect the rest of the party. When he enters the shop he is greeted by the Shopkeeper. Theren wants to get to the point, but the Shopkeeper insists on that Theren owes him a story and request that he tell of the tower of smoke and fire. Theren gives him a bare bones description of the events leading to destruction of tower.
The shopkeeper offers Theren a Ring of Fire Resistance. He makes it clear that it is only available to Theren. The price is 3,000 gold, but he is talked down to 2,000 gold. The shopkeeper is amused and indicates that the decisions that Theren makes is worth the added expense for the experiment.
Theren asks Moony to check around back. There is a back door to a yard, which is well traveled.
About an hour out of town, Nala notices that the woods are silent. Suddenly, the earth moves violently. A huge fissure appears near them. The magic users decide that it must be a spell since it is so limited in focus. The rest of the travel to the entrance is uneventful.
William takes a short detour to leave 100gp inside the Feathergale Spire with a simple note that says “For the deceased”
The rest of the travel to Tyar-Besil and to the Temple of Howling Hatred is uneventful. As the enter the area of the temple, they hear loud piercing sounds of women screaming or birds crying. Williams shouts “We mean you no harm if you do not attack.” The cries stop.
Moony wins the flip and the group moves to the northeast corner of the air temple. Moony gets to the entrance of the earth temple. Moony is near the entrance and he says “They’re back.” A nothic attacks Nala and it is hit by a telekinetic reprisal. The nothic is running for the door that the group used to entered the gargoyle plaza. Moony retaliates with a short-bow attack. William and Theren finish it off. They poke at the remains and see that it is inherently magic and totally wrong.
Resuming the path to the earth temple. Moony listens and checks for traps. He see a landshark chained to a pillar. After some debate William does an augury spell that strongly suggests that releasing the bulette and trying to scare it further into the temple would not be a good idea (Thank You, Faith!) Instead the group clusters in the hall and begins attacking the monster. A lot of damage is done by the party before it is able to get to its feet and charge the party. Faith is the only person within reach of the creature. He takes a chunk out of her and then dies as the acid from the Vitriolic Sphere eats through his hide.
Game Notes
Filling out the Red Larch dance card
I’d gotten through most of my Red Larch stuff the previous session, but there were still a few items to hit.
Some days, the dice just do not work for anyone.
First, I really wanted William to remember seeing folk taking bodies out for burial the end of their first visit. But at least two Investigation rolls later, nothing doing. Ah, well. Not critical.
Second, I really wanted someone to read Bruldenthar’s scroll, to see if that would noodge them toward the Vale of Dancing Waters, since I had gone to the effort of making an enhancement pass on the side quest. So I was both kind of excited and a bit daunted when the Theren decided to inquire of Eldrith about what the dearest treasure of the dwarves was.
Insert quick GM improvising about a lengthy legend of a dwarvish warrior and the quest for the Crown of the Silver Keep, and selling an old book to Theren. (I created a Roll20 Journal Entry for it after the fact.)
That one of the players then picked up on the Vale was kind of cool. Alas, the consensus was “Go back to Feathergale Spire.” Ah, well.
The Mysterious Shopkeeper
Third, I had a few more prods to a couple of characters, esp. Theren (whose patron god, unknown to him, was sitting there as the Shopkeeper) and Faith (who was always good for a provocation). I didn’t expect the whole party to attend, and so I focused just on Theren, and offered him at ruinous prices a Fire Prot ring. The question was, would he carry it himself, as a protection, or give it to someone like Nala, who stands on the front lines and could be hit by one of his Fireballs?
(Answer: he wore it himself.)
Dreams!
Plenty of dreams that overnight. Faith‘s was to try to lull her (or have her realized she’s being lulled) by Windvane. Nala was to let Aldrik (or his spirit) drop some clues that might help them (I wasn’t happy by how that one turned out).
Moony‘s was fun because most of the ones I had crafted for him were “the hunter hunted” type and I wanted something different. So, with the idea that Denier, Faith’s god, is getting shut out from her dreams by the presence of Windvane, I had him manifest as a Tabaxi to talk with Moony. I’ll do that a few times and see what Faith’s reaction is. (The party members tend to discuss their dreams, so I’m not treating them as secrets.)
Two more notes from the dreams. First, I realized at this point I’d done so many that having a single Roll20 journal entry for them was getting unwieldy. So I broke them into separate ones, though public.
Second, Aldrik. My expectation had been my son coming back from college and picking the character (who was currently chained by the altar in the Fane) again. And then (and this is a Good Thing), he got a post-graduate field job on the other side of the country. So on the one hand, yay! On the other hand, awww!
I had no idea at this point if he’d pick up playing remotely (huzzah for Roll20!). If he did, I might need to scramble, because the party would NOT be at that point by then.
The Sidekick
Vetch, we hardly knew ye
I actually added to the populace of Red Larch by adding a half-elf urchin (stowaway on a caravan from Waterdeep) named Vetch. Insert street urchin tropes here. She was working for the Shopkeeper, and it was fun to play her.
I had a stray thought that he would be sending her to follow the party and keep track of them (as a god, he wanted to monitor what’s happening, but the magical interference of the approaching Princes was blinding, even the gods, just as the oracle who first assigned this quest to them to this was blinded).
I would need to do some further thinking on the matter, as there were plenty of opportunities to be saddled with civilians in this campaign. On the other hand, the idea of somehow maneuvering it so that Theren ended up with a half-elven ward was utterly delicious.
(And I could use the Sidekick rules to create an easy NPC. Hmmmmm.)
EVENTUAL UPDATE: Conceptually, Vetch was a lot of fun. But things were complicated enough already for me and the players, so I dropped the whole idea.
The Slow Road Back to the Action
I skipped over all other random encounters, with the idea of getting them to the action as soon as I could. William delayed things by his touching leaving of a purse of gold coins for Haeleeya, as perhaps the final denouement of the Savra story.
But that was nothing compared to the party arriving, under the mountains, at the entrance to the Temple of Howling Hatred … and trying to decide what to do. Head up to the (presumed) Fire Temple at the “Forges”? Head across two zones to the (presumed) Earth Temple at the “Gates”? Take one of the three or four gates downward that they’d found?
Decision-making by committee
I love my friends (including the dearest friend who’s my wife), but one flaw they all have (which is usually a virtue) is that none of them are pushy, or want to be seen as pushy. So all of them might have an idea, and they might even present the idea, but then they would almost invariably say, “But, hey, that’s just my idea, no obligation to do it, what does everyone else think?”
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m more bored than this cat
So a half hour later, I finally asked the Tabaxi, “So, which path seems the least boring to you?” I’m not sure he legitimately gave an honest answer to that, but he urged the path from the Water Temple toward the (presumed) Earth Temple, and so they did it.
While it slightly slowed things down, I felt obliged to have the Nothic who escaped the party earlier from the Gargoyle Fountain room to have crept back in the couple of days they were gone. Brief combat and defeat, marred only by the player who’s dug up the Thieves Guild Guide to Breaking Down Monsters for Parts You Can sell going through all the things you can sell Nothic parts for …
Sigh.
Meta Mapping Issues and Roll20
I don’t know who adapts the WotC modules for Roll20 — a WotC crew or a Roll20 crew – but I would like to have words.
First, as noted earlier, it would be really nice to have it confirmed that the passages from one Temple zone to the next are really only about the length that actually shows on the maps (combined). (That’s actually a WotC PotA problem.)
Second, it would be even nicer if those bridging passages were not cut off on each map, wasting a good ten feet of corridor, esp. since the far end of those corridors is often dangerous and problem-laden. In this particular case, a fitfully sleeping bulette.
Bulette
There was no way to fit a party of five into the corridor space allotted without their being in view of the bulette.
Of course, I could simply plop characters down into the interstitial space between the edge of the drawn map and the edge of the physical map. But, alas, there’s not only no corridor drawn there, but there’s a light/movement barrier there. So if I put any characters back there, they not only cannot move up the corridor into combat, but they get a delightful “behind the scenes” look at the inside of the walls.
(Rolls eyes.)
I eventually figured out how to add some extra space onto the map to stage characters pre-bulette
And I can’t easily break that light barrier because whoever does the (not always very good) job of drawing the barriers on the light layer in Roll20 does like a quarter of the dungeon at a time. So I can (a) suffer, or (b) redraw a quarter of the dungeon. (Which is a huge PitA, though my redrawing is usually better than the original.)
UPDATE: I eventually discovered the Roll20 PathSplitter API script (yay for Roll20 Pro), which let me relatively painlessly break that extended path of walls and create a reasonable staging ground for the players. So, again, yay.
Extended problem-solving
I’ve mentioned how much I love my friends, none of whom would ever dream of taking command seeming pushy. So I also loved how it took them half an hour to devise a way of dealing with the bulette. Or not.
Bulette
In the end, four things happened:
They managed to surprise the sleeping bulette, which meant they’d taken it down substantial HP before it started after them. (In retrospect, I should have been rolling against their endless planning to see if it woke up on its own.)
They learned where the chain binding the bulette to the pillar extended to, which meant most of them were safe …
… Except Faith, who learned how godawful many HP a bulette could do with a chomp.
And, at the very end, as they congratulated themselves on killing the bulette (except the one player who noticed it was labeled “Bulette 1“), they got to hear the roaring howls of the other bulettes in the hall, who were now awake, enraged, and ready to start working on their chains.
Bits and Bobs
I realized I’d been forgetting about the weather lately (as the party was underground). Today’s roll on the Weather Table, to make up for that, was an Earthquake (the characters are at higher levels, therefore the “weather” was getting worse).
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 44 (Day 38)
In … Red Larch!
In the aftermath of the battle against the Black Earth cultists, bodies were cleaned up and searched, the priest’s crystalline staff/glaive was claimed by Moony, and the Orb of Red Larch was put back in its custom crate (which appeared to be of new construction) and taken by Faith to the Allfaiths Shrine. There she noted that the crate was inscribed with symbols of the Howling Hatred.
The reaction by the general populace of Red Larch was worry about this attack, how it was connected to the devastation in Womford, and why this sort of thing always seemed to happen with the party was around. The very power of the party appeared to daunt many.
Faith complained at various times that she felt the Orb of Red Larch might be whispering in her ear. Even after it was stashed in its chest in the Bag of Holding, that seemed to be an issue. This was worrisome to the party.
Harburk Tuthmarillar tried to learn what the party knew about the attack on Womford, and how these cultists might be connected. He was concerned about further attacks on the town while the party wasn’t there. They showed him the symbols of the four Elemental Cults as a warning sign.
He discussed his stand-still with the Believers in Red Larch, and how the folk who might be able to break open whatever conspiracy there might have been — Marlandro Gaelkur, Grund, and Baragustas Harbuckler — had all left town.
He also thanked them for their rescue of the captives in the Temple of Howling Hatred.
Elak Dornen followed Nala and Theren, and, after an apology, offered to hire them as a town guard against further incursions like that of the Black Earth cultists. When that failed, he offered to hire them to go after the Black Earth, paying them a stipend, providing them supplies, and letting them keep a generous 40% of any treasure they found. They did not accept the offer.
William visited Haeleeya Hanadroum, who was just leaving town to return to her home in the south, stopping by Feathergale Spire to collect the body of her estranged daughter, Savra Hanadroum. She said she would also deal with the other bodies left there. William gave her a cool trinket from his pocket.
Moony brought the priest’s glaive to the Helm at Highsun to offer as a wall decoration.
Everyone, sooner or later, visited the Shopkeeper at Magister’s Market to buy new items, sell items, exchange gold for gems, etc. It turned out he was holding a scroll from Bruldenthar, left for Aldrik. Nala took custody of it.
Faith used Send to let Bruldenthar, wherever he was, know about the books having been found. His response was grateful, but mentioned a calamity, and also ran out of words.
Player Recap
Elementals Session 44: S*H*O*P*P*I*N*G
Constable Harburk arrives and asks about the disturbance. Nala gives a short explanation and suggests that a more private discussion would be in order. He directs the constables to take care of the scene and agrees to see them in about an hour after the group has breakfast. Faith takes the crate with the orb to the all-faith’s temple. Brother Sand helps her move it to the room that she is using. The crate has howling wind marking on it. The orb is smooth and dark without marking. The inside of the case is plain. The cultists and priest are all wearing black earth symbols.
Faith asks Brother Sand if her presence at the temple is doing more harm than good. He says that if that was the case it would be his jobs to guide them towards understanding. Faith and William rejoin the other at the inn.
While the group is eating, the merchant Trayen comes down. He talks briefly to Kaylessa before sitring at a table by himself. He appears nervous. Nala approaches his table. She asks to join him. After she sits down, they begin to talk about Womford. She relays a summary of the story as she had heard it. He confirms the tell. She probes deeper and discovers that the perpetrators were wearing fire cult garb.
The group, except Moony, go to the butcher to talk with the constable. It is clear that he would like to blame them for the morning’s disturbance, but does not go there. When the air is cleared, the group splits up to shop.
gold to gem exchange 20% over
Game Notes
So this was sort of a filler episode — a chance for them to get caught up with story lines left a-dangling last time they were in town. I was a lot more prepared this session, knowing where the characters were and where they were likely to go. They still managed to surprise me.
Whispers
Windvane
The macro I had for Faith to hear whispers in her head worked like a champ, and her player seemed to have fun with it — though she lampshaded it a bit much, supposing out loud that it was the orb that was whispering to her, and asking others if they were hearing such a thing.
I suspected strongly I would not get a “Frodo slowly being turned by the Ring” kind of vibe going here, but I was slowly making the (unrealiable) case to Faith that, without Windvane, she wouldn’t be able to stop the next Orb of Devastation that comes along.
It’s Magic!
I learned a lesson about giving the players access to a magic store: take orders in advance, so you can figure out the value, likelihood of availability, etc. I spent waaaaay too long calculating costs for stuff, esp. as the players took the opportunity as a “What might you have that would be of interest to me?” kind of thing.
Still, people who had a specific direction got the chance to buy the stuff they wanted, so that was all good.
The Mysterious Shopkeeper
I had a lot of interesting stuff to do with the Shopkeeper, interacting with some of the player — hinting to Faith that he knew of her plight, and to Theren that he was the voice in his dreams. Unfortunately, the fact that I had everyone arrive at the shop at once, and the delays in the pricing, hampered some of that.
I planned to play around with more 1-on-1 encounters next session.
The Message
Turns out Bruldenthar didn’t die in Womford. Whew!
Bruldenthar’s scroll to Aldrik — and his abortive message to Faith — were meant to provide the players with a nudge toward the Vale of the Dancing Waters side quest. But the scroll got tucked away by Nala, who, of course, would never dream of reading it while Aldrik was off at college a mysterious captive. And Faith, having gotten an abortive message back, never bothered to tell anyone.
I mean, it’s not a huge loss if they never go there, but it is kind of a fun side quest. I ran across it in reviewing my “What happens after the next Temple they defeat?” list. And it was at the right level for them. As a bonus, I discovered I had never read through the quest, or the map, etc. Roll20 made some interesting use of multi-sided tokens in the adaptation, though I ended up redoing most of the tokens to make them look like the character(s) they were supposed to.
I kind of hoped they ended up going there (but they did not).
Red Larch as campaign fodder
Red Larch
As I look back on this campaign, I’m glad I invested so much time in Red Larch and its people. It wasn’t the centerpiece of Princes of the Apocalypse, but having it there provided a break from elemental shenanigans (or gave them a new spin), and provided some immediate stakes for the payers as to why they might want to avert the end of the world.
I think without Red Larch as a grounding element, PotA would have been much more of just a series of dungeon crawls. Which some players might have enjoyed more, but would have had me, at the very least, far less entertained.
Bits and Bobs
The scene with Haeleeya was somber-to-sad, which is a fine thing to do with the right players, and a counter to the amusing encounters they were doing a lot of.
Elak Dornen
Best scene of the night, by far, was with the local VIP, Elak Dornen — who I suddenly realized was sort of a Lex Luthor character, the guy who knows he is naturally in charge of everything, who has his vision for how best the town should be served, and is willing to pay off and/or manipulate anyone to pursue both his personal power and that benignly despotic power.
And just like Luthor has a blind spot when encountering someone who cannot be easily bought (or eliminated), Dornen had this week’s tone-deaf approach to Nala and Theren to try to buy the party off into protecting Red Larch, now that he realized that the Black Earth wasn’t going to spare them. Part of the fun was the obviousness of his approach, and part of it was the grotesque local-yokel under-estimation of how much money it would take to buy them. His oh-so-generous offer to let them keep a whopping 40% of whatever treasure they picked up while under contract to the town was … the icing on the cake.
As usual, we didn’t get as far as I had expected, but there’s still a lot of stuff I had teed up for the next go — some dreams (I got a couple down at the last minute before the game started), William connecting the dots that he saw the Believers dragging bodies out for shallow graves back in their original stay, and maybe some of those bits I wanted to do with the Shopkeeper.
But most important, the players should have left here for the next bit with a heightened sense of “Shit’s going down” that would drive some action.
Even though it was pretty late in my campaign, the cleric’s acquisition of Heroes’ Feast prompted a bit more research on my part about spell components, particularly consumable ones.
I’ve never been a huge fan of spell components because they are, in normal usage, a Pain in the Ass. Like Encumbrance rules, they are only of play value in edge cases. So using Holy Symbols and Arcane Foci and Component Pouches are a useful way around that.
Usually.
Components
There are three basic aspects of spell components.
Verbal (V)
Most spells require the chanting of mystic words. The words themselves aren’t the source of the spell’s power; rather, the particular combination of sounds, with specific pitch and resonance, sets the threads of magic in motion. Thus, a character who is gagged or in an area of silence, such as one created by the silence spell, can’t cast a spell with a verbal component. (PHB)
Practically speaking, Verbal components only come into play in circumstances when something interferes — Silence spells, casting underwater, gags, etc. The rest of the time, we ignore them.
Somatic (S)
Spellcasting gestures might include a forceful gesticulation or an intricate set of gestures. If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures. (PHB)
Again, we only worry about this for cases where something is getting into the way of that “free hand” thing — being bound or restrained, paralysis, etc. I’m sure there are gaming tables where a sword-and-shield wielding Cleric would have difficulties, but mine is not one of them.
Material (M)
Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified in parentheses in the component entry. A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus (found in “Equipment”) in place of the components specified for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell.
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell. A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell’s material components — or to hold a spellcasting focus — but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components. (PHB 203, emphasis mine)
Does a spell consume its material components? A spell doesn’t consume its material components unless its description says it does. For example, the pearl required by the Identify spell isn’t consumed, whereas the diamond required by Raise Dead is used up when you cast the spell.
If a spell’s material components are consumed, can a spellcasting focus still be used in place of the consumed component? No. A spellcasting focus can be used in place of a material component only if that component has no cost noted in the spell’s description and if that component isn’t consumed.
Keeping Focus
So here’s the rub. Spell foci / arcane foci do a lot of cool things — no need to collect components — but they do not substitute for priced consumables. There is no gold coin slot in the side of your holy symbol to consume the cost of such spells. The actual component is needed.
Focuses are spelled out here. Note that I tend not to worry about the holy symbol, etc., being something actually manipulated. Rule of Cool fantasy means that the glowing holy symbol engraved on your shield is just fine (as long as a Rust Monster doesn’t consume your shield). But consumables are the edge case.
Consumables
And, in particular, they are the edge case because they restrict “free” use of very powerful and potentially unbalancing spells. Heroes Feast is an example — its effect can be profound and, as such, is not designed for casual, everyday use. “Every day is a Heroes’ Feast day” is not a common D&D trope, for just that reason. Every cleric at 11 has a holy symbol focus, and thus without a consumable restriction, Heroes’ Feasts would (with sufficient treasure) be a daily thing for every hero. It’s not.
Here is a fun database someone worked up of expensive components and when they are consumed. Interestingly enough, while there are a number of spells so identified, most of them use individual items — a diamond, e.g., for Raise Dead.
Note that, again, magic doesn’t let you use 500gp instead of a 500gp diamond. And Heroes’ Feast is special in having a “Gem-encrusted specially crafted bowl” worth 1000gp; you can’t just substitute 1000gp of miscellaneous booty.
A gem-encrusted bowl, for example
(Btw, this also explains why, except in powerful bad guy or rich heroic dude lairs, you don’t find Continual Flame on everything — it literally costs a consumed 50gp ruby.)
But that’s no fun!
It does make a few things more fiddly, which, to my mind, is, I agree, not fun. But the spells we are talking about are — well, if not game-breakers, then close to it. Heroes’ Feast is an incredible spell, as I think everyone admits. Its recipients get for the day (aside from “this complete breakfast”):
Cured of all diseases
Cured of all poisoning
Immunity to poison
Immunity to fear
Advantage on all WISdom saves
+2d10 HP and HP Max
On reflection, that simply can’t be party SOP; it’s effectively a level-up, and could be literally dungeon-breaking (“Module 12: The Tomb of the Venomous Lords of Terror!”). Grinding 1000gp a day for that seems a significant expense, but, at at the level the spell is available, still relatively trivial. The cost (aside from burning your daily 6th Level spell) needs to include a resource restriction.
In fact, it’s more than just “a 1000gp gem-encrusted bowl” which, presumably, one might find in a dungeon stash of royal crockery: the spell notes it must be specially crafted for the purpose of this spell.
I might allow someone in the party with the proper jewelry crafting skills to actually create such a bowl from suitable materials (and, no, the average character can’t just glue some gems to a bowl and call it good).
Alternately, in the proper setting, I can imagine such a crafted item being found in a dungeon or ruined castle. King Flamebeard would, when riding with his knights against their foes, partake of a special magical breakfast meal to guard them from harm … and if you search around real carefully, you might find the hidden crockery cupboard where a Heroes Feast-intended bowl or two were stashed away …
The range and need of line-of-sight is pretty clear when spells are initially cast, but what happens if range is exceeded or line of sight is broken in a spell that lasts more than an instantaneous effect — in particular, with spells that require Concentration to maintain them?
(In the case that came up in my campaign, the party wanted to maintain a spell as they fled; a more common instance is the affected party fleeing the caster and breaking LoS or exceeding distance.)\
The General Rule
It’s pretty straightforward: range and line-of-sightdon’t matter once the spell has been cast. As PHB 203 puts it:
Once a spell is cast, its effects aren’t limited by its range, unless the spell’s description says otherwise.
So, as a general rule (and as confirmed by Jeremy Crawford and also confirmed by Jeremy Crawford), once you have successfully cast a spell on a spot or a target opponent, it will continue until it naturally ends (i.e., with a Concentration spell, until the time limit is passed or the character drops concentration), regardless of what the range or line-of-sight is. You are maintaining the spell, not the targeting.
Spells that say otherwise, of course, are otherwise (the specific overrides the general).
That said, if you and the target are beyond LoS, you don’t know what is going on there. Maybe the guy you threw Heat Metal on ran into the next room, took off the armor, and put it on an orphan waif, and your continuing the damage is killing an innocent. Ah, well …
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 43 (Day 37-38)
In … The Temple of the Crushing Wave
Faced with a Bag of Holding starting to approach capacity, plus the prospect of spending some of their hard-earned loot, the party left the underground city of Tyar-Besil, back to Feathergale Spire, and thence to Red Larch, returning to the town three days (!) after they’d left it.
They found the town that night in something of a panic. A traveling merchant had just arrived from the southeast; immediately after his departure from Womford, there had been a brilliant flash of light and, when he turned, the town was devastated in flames.
Faith brought Bruldenthar‘s books to the All-Faiths Shrine, which was doing good business because of the town’s alarm. Brother Sand offered to watch over them, though he was short-handed as the second rotational priest had not yet arrived. Faith offered to stay at the shrine and lend a hand.
After enjoying good food and good beds (plus a few odd dreams), the party awoke to find the town seemingly under attack by a large group of Black Earth cultists — a priest, guards, and several monks. They were doing something with an odd mystical orb, which was rendered inert by Faith’s Dispel Magic. A big melee ensued, leaving the party wounded and tired, but the Black Earth cultists all dead, their plan, which seemed to be some sort of threat to Red Larch, averted. For now.
Player Recap
Emptying the Bag of Holding
The group heads to town to empty their bag and lighten their load. They each have 2921 gold and 7 silver (Aldrik 2458 gold and 3 silver). When they arrive at the Swinging Sword Kaylessa greets them and tells them about the destruction of Womford.
They ask for rooms and drop off their backpacks, Faith and Nala head to the All-faiths Shrine to drop off Bruldenthar’s books. There are several town’s folks praying. Brother Sand greets them. Faith explains that they have found the books that Bruldenthar brought with the Mirabar Delegation. Brother Sand explains that everything is higgledy piggledy . Right now there is only one of me. The other priest hasn’t rotated in. The second priest was coming down from Triboar to replace. Faith asks if Brother Sand can store the books and offers to stay and help caring for the flock. People continue to arrive until much later than expected. That night she has a vague dream about alarms being raised.
William, Moony and Theren head to the room and clean up. William takes a bath, Moony heads to the Helm to relax and tell tales of turtle dragons. Mr. Kitty does not make an impression when competing against the merchant from Womford. He tells the tale of leaving Womford early in the morning as a religious celebration was starting. There was a bright flash, looked back, and sees the town on fire. When Moony gets a chance Moony describes Imyx and asks him if it looked similar. He says that it didn’t look like there was a figure of fire, but there was so much fire, he did not see a face in the fire.
Theren, Nala, and William head to the Helm for dinner. Garlen treats them to dinner for their past help with Justran. The merchant from Womford leaves a bit later and Moony follows to confirm that he safely entered the Swinging Sword without anyone following.
After finishing dinner the group heads back to the Sword. Falling into their beds, the groups sleep well, except Theren. He dreams of a town in flames full of people dying that he can not help. William wakes up in the middle of the night and has an urge of going outside. He feels much better when he returns to the room. Later he dreams of the stars and being outside. He is at peace. He sees a large person carrying a third person. It is an old man who lifts his head and says “Everyone has forgotten me.”
In the morning, Faith wakes early as usual. The quarters are better than those in Tyar-Besil, but still not great. She plans for a targeted donation for improving the quarters. The rest of the party is also up when they hear, “Hey, what are you doing” followed by the sounds of an odd chant. Racing out of the temple and inn, the party sees an Earth priest with several guards and monks at the end of the road. He is chanting and holding a glowing orb. Faith casts a silence spell on the cultists trying to interrupt the spell casting. Theren adds a fireball to the chaos and the fight gets hot. A dispel magic from Faith stops the eerie glow and humming from the orb. The rest is mostly clean-up.
Game Notes
At the Cross-Roads
As previously noted, I tend to make up cute titles for episodes, based on where I figured they would next go, or perhaps who they would next meet. No spoilers, but something that, if I did my job right, would lead to an “OOOOOH, now I see it …” reaction afterwards.
But for an episode where the party could go any direction they wanted, all I could do was lampshade the ambiguity.
Well, the session was more cross-roady than I was expecting, in a couple of ways.
As also previously noted, there were always three ways for the party to be moving: laterally (to other Temples in the main level of Tyar-Besil), down (to the Fane or to the actual Nodes, which would be a serious level challenge), or out.
I was ready for the first two. For some reason, I was not ready for the last..
I should have been. And, to be sure, I wasn’t totally unprepared. The game talks about what’s going on with Cult Retribution in the outside worlds as the Temples start falling. But as that’s a pretty dynamic thing, I only kept matters sketched out in my head. Plus “out” could mean anywhere, to any destination. I figured I’d have plenty of warning.
“Plenty of warning” ≠
“Okay, it’s the start of the episode,
let’s go check in on the outside world.”
And the fact is, it was something I had been urging, wanting, dropping hints about. Dreams of disaster. Etc. Coming across Bruldenthar’s books, which took up over half the weight of the Bag of Holding was just icing on the cake.
These require a Book Bag of Holding, of course
(Calculation: Weight and dimensions of “nearly 50 old tomes” vs the Bag of Holding. Each book is 0.5 cubic feet, and 6 lbs. (based on my wife’s Italia Cucina tome). So 48 books = 12 cubic feet and 288 lbs. A BoH can hold 64 cubic feet, and 250 lbs.)
So the party decided they were going to return to Red Larch, drop off the books, spend some of their newfound wealth at Ye Olde Magick Shoppe, and generally take a bit of a breather.
Great.
Sic transit Womford
It was a quick decision to make it that word of the destruction of Womford had occurred. Which, on later examination, I realized I had over-estimated in terms of destruction. The Fire-based Orb of Devastation (not Orb of Annihilation, which I kept calling it in my head) only unleashes … a horrible heat wave, which a high chance of fires breaking out. It doesn’t act as a tactical nuke.
Not actually Womford
Oops. I’d already foreshadowed that kind of blast in people’s dreams. Oh, well. And, heck, it wasn’t like I was using Womford any more.
The party had brushed against Womford previously. They almost took their stolen boat from Rivergard Keep down there. They knew that the genasi pirate Shoalar Quanderil operated from there. And they knew that Bruldenthar the dwarvish librarian had headed down there from Summit Hall a few tendays back, with plans to head further down to Waterdeep to tell about his lost books. One of which had shown up in Red Larch last time the party was there.
So it seemed like a fine place to destroy — one they hadn’t touched yet, but one they knew about.
Who’s next?
Red Larch was the obvious next target. Having been cued about the disaster in Womford, the second Cult Retaliation would hit at the place (and people) they knew so well.
Target: Red Larch!
Womford had been hit by the Fire Cult. That was both a “Hey, the Apocalypse is coming, boo-yah” moment, but also an underhanded strike at the Water Cult, which was had been using Womford (along with Rivergard Keep) as a place of strength. A lot of chit-chat amongst NPCs in the Water Temple centered around that.
The Black Earth, on the other hand, the next out the Devastation Chute, went for Red Larch — to strike back against the adventurers who were causing grief to the overall cause, and because the town had already been attacked, through influence, by the Earth cult (remember Larrakh and the Believers), and the effort had failed.
“Join me … or die!” “Wait, what?”
This association will get played up next time, I hope.
The other obvious locales for further Devastation shenanigans are Beliard to the NE (a place the party has also been to), and Westbridge to the NW. We’ll see how that goes.
Haste Makes Wasteland
DMs have to make quick decisions, and I was making far too many for my comfort or efficiency. As soon as they said they were going to Red Larch, I knew I was going to have the Black Earth folk show up there, probably the next morning. That’s sort of hand-wavingly fast from the conquest of the previous temple, but the BBEGs work in mysterious ways, their plot elements to perform.
But … I didn’t have a detailed tactical map of downtown Red Larch (note: you can find these online, but I didn’t at the time). And none of the maps I had loaded in my Roll20 instance were a good match, given that they knew the town layout (so a generic town intersection didn’t seem like the right idea to me).
I ended up finding a basic crossroads map, then drew some buildings, and then realized people could see through the walls, so tried to add light barriers mid-battle and …
Ugh.
The melee, though, had a key moment where I think I made a RAW error.
Faith, the Cleric, saw the BE Priest holding up the Devastation Orb and decided to cast a Dispel Magic to break whatever spell was being ritually cast.
Hrm. I never thought of that.
I never created a Devastation Orb of Earth token, but I did whip up a Devastation Orb of Fire …
So the Devastation Orb is not being cast/invoked by the BE Priest. It’s something created down in the Black Geode Node (where Marlos Urnrayle is currently hanging out). But … it’s got a limited duration (1d100 hours or something), so it’s not like a permanent enchantment on an item.
Can Dispel Magic dispel an Orb?
Well … probably not. You could probably use it, or Counterspell, to interrupt the casting (which is done by one of the Prophet Weapons). The Orb itself, though, is a “Wondrous Item,” and you can’t dispel items. Or so I determined after the fact.
I did say (erroneously, but raising daunting stakes), “Okay, this is a 9th Level spell” … and the Cleric did roll high enough to make it happen. I still wasn’t convinced it was correct, but decided the “Rule of Cool” meant that she succeeded. Which, given the player’s reaction made it worthwhile.
See! It’s helpful carrying a bit of an Elemental Prince of Evil! Amirite?
And, after the fact, I realized that she was also carrying / attuned Windvane — the Prophet Weapon of Air, which can, in fact, create Orbs of Devastation itself. And, so, might have made it possible for her to dispel the same, especially against the “opposite” element. (No, not by the rules, but call it a one-off exciting success.)
Dreams
Faith had a woman’s voice (Windvane, in fact) warning her that the city (Waterdeep, in the dream; Red Larch, in reality) was about to be destroyed.
Theren had a dream that he was being used for the nuking of Womford. Disquieting.
William had a dream about the killing and burial of Baragustas, here in town so long back (episode 7, in fact).
Careless Whispers
No, not these whispers.
Yeah, whispers have been a thing. As in hidden chats in Roll20.
Two sessions previously, I had been typing out a few whispered messages from Windvane to Faith. I can type reasonably fast, but in the middle of juggling everything else, it was just kind of awkward.
For this session, I had created a character sheet so that I could whisper as “Windvane”to Faith. Which I forced myself do to more of, but sometimes forgot to turn back to my DM identity, which meant that sometimes DM public rolls were attributed to “Whisper.” Sigh.
After the session, I created a Roll20 macro that would make it much more straightforward (and one-off for labeling)
/w Faith &{template:default} {{name= A soft whisper in your mind ... }} {{ ?{What message?} }}
These whispers …
This worked great, and I used it for the rest of the campaign (with variants as other Prophet Weapons got picked up.)
Still, even with what I was doing this time, I had an emotional beat success, as Faith’s player called out out in alarm, semi-out-of-character to the others, that Windvane had whispered something really disturbing to her after the defeat of the cultists …
We know how to do that. We know how to create such an orb! We will strike terror across the world, to the glory of Yan-C-Bin!
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 42 (Day 37)
In … the Temple of the Crushing Wave
The party investigated the temple. You feel a sudden presence. An … awareness. The air is thick, damp … you feel like you are being watched, weighed, considered, eyed carefully … found … wanting. A whiff of anger, a glimpse of disdain. Faith had some additional odd feelings …
In return, they stole the offerings on the altar and burned the Crushing Wave symbol on the wall. They also spotted a possible passage where water was entering the temple.
A nearby room was full of priests and cultists, who spoke of the Prophet, and something about towns and annihilation and Olhydra. They were quickly dispatched, followed by a short rest in their comfy quarters.
Less quick was dealing with the Mezzoloth demon down the hall, who guarded stairs downward, and resisted an attempt by Faith to banish it. The demon poisoned and blinded them with a Cloudkill in the tight corridors; they eventually prevailed, but at high cost, requiring a second short rest.
The party checked out that hidden tunnel in the water, with William discovering a chamber with the source of the entire underground canal and water system. There were also chests with treasure, and with what looked to be the stolen books of Bruldenthar.
Having basically cleared the Temple of the Crushing Wave, the party was faced with the choice of … (a) going to the zones believed to be controlled by the Black Earth or Eternal Flame, (b) descending deeper under the earth via the stairs, the skeletal Purple Worm, or the pit in the pyramid, or (c) moving back to the surface to restock.
DING! Level 8!
Player Recap
A Daemon Not Banished
They search the bodies and dump the lizardmen into the water. The demon is too big and would likely clog the culvert. As Moony walks towards the altar. There is a sense of being watched, weighed, and found wanting. And then it withdraws. There is what looks like a small crack in the wall in the corner where the water is appearing.
Room to the west is oddly empty with a wall that appears to have been covered with mosaic but is now bare. There are doors west and south leading out of the room. Moony hears voices at the South door.
The Prophet will soon be back (mutter mutter) the Eye (mutter mutter) great sacrifice in the Fane. He still controls the flow. The lessers here (mutter mutter) their place.
What of the guttering flame? (mutter) vengeance?
They (mutter mutter) we will choose the next town.
(mutter mutter) Annihilation.
Only the prophet (mutter) Olhydra will rise and cleanse the world.
(singing, in some very ugly shifting minor key)
The group decides to proceed through the door. The room contains cots, tables and chairs. The priests and cultists are surprised by the intrusion. Attacks fly and one cultist is killed, several others damaged before their surprise wears off.
Ohydra take your soul! Yan-C-Bin will never win! Says the priest just before he’s killed.
They take a short rest to recover hit points.
Exploring the door to the west of the antechamber.
Demon – Mezzoloth: Faith tries to banish it but it makes its save. It casts Cloudkill, blinds the group, and does lots of damage. Faith does Gust of Wind to move the cloud. Mezzoloth goes down quickly.
Return to the rectory and take another short rest.
Back in the altar room William strips and explores the water passage. There is a pool of water flowing up from below. There is a ledge to one side. William goes back to the others and invites them through. In the ancient crates they find gold and gems, but also Bruldenthar’s books.
Game Notes
The Key Spot
The module basically has a key spot in each temple where one of the Prophets will be. The write-up is all around that happening, their motivations and what they do and BBEG battle notes.
But the module also has the Prophets high-tailing it down to the Nodes or the Fane if one of them is defeated (like Aerissi has been). There is, sometimes, a substitute left in place to hold the fort, but in general these central places are dull, empty disappointments without the Prophets in them.
The Gods Are Watching
I threw in some atmospherics once they approached the altar, sort of to compensate for that. The sense was to be that Olhydra — or maybe the Elemental Eye itself — was briefly aware of their presence profaning that place, that they had defeated the power there, then gave a haughty sniff, and moved on.
(I added an additional note for Faith, since she was carrying and using Windvane. She promptly told everyone about it. I needed to start leaning on her a bit.)
It wasn’t much, but it made for a sense that Some Big Mojo was in play.
Water, water everywhere
The channels and canals of this map have little wavy lines, but I added some arrows on the Roll20 map to show the flow of the water in different places around the Water Temple. This is an environmental clue that would be quite visible to the characters.
Thus, in the temple, they quickly noted that the water was coming from the NE corner of the pool. But having Perceived it, they had to Investigate to find the source, and everyone was rolling (via me) crap, except for the Dragonborn on the bridge. So she got a “good angle.”
They debated investigating, but decided to clear first.
Spare room
The room past the temple chamber is just empty. No description or anything. I made it an inner shrine that had been even more thoroughly stripped by the bad guys — altar demolished, murals totally taken down. Took me five minutes, and made the room 500% better.
Overheard chit-chat
Listening at the Door
I used the priests in the rectory to drop (as the party listened through the door) some final information — hints about Gar being down below in the Fane, a sacrifice (heh heh heh), the Spheres of Annihilation being used on a town, Hail Olhydra!, etc. No pennies dropped, but the information was out there now.
The party handled targets easily — the two Priests were outclassed, and Cultist mooks are practically one-shots. The main value of that encounter was to give them a comfy place to Short Rest. Which they needed.
(Though I did enjoy having the priest smell the stink of Air Elemental magic on Faith/Windvane, and assume that’s who had sent them. Faith started running into that a lot, which I hoped would be worrisome.)
Demon in the Dark
Mezzoloth demon (by James Zhang, 3e Monster Manual)
The Mezzoloth demon in the stairway room looked to be a really nasty challenge. Which meant that Faith’s decision to burn her Lvl 4 spell slot on a Banish sounded like a great idea. And very disappointing when it just barely succeeded in saving (and only because it got Advantage on spell saves).
In retrospect, I should have nudged the dice and have it defeated. The battle that ensued was pretty nasty — Cloudkill in the corridor with attendant blinding effects and its movement catching them on a second round of poisoning — but I was too enamored of wanting to actually play with it. It would have also been a great triumph for a character. My bad.
Cloudkill (Magic the Gathering)
I realized as I got into the encounter that I was kind of confused over the Darkness that the Mezzoloth cast — and, possibly, the Heavy Obscuring that the Cloudkill had. Was either blinding to folk who have Darksight? How did the different light spells in play interact with the Darkness?
In the end, I decided, screw it, and just turned it into a slugfest, which the Mezzoloth lost in a few rounds, even with people taking a time-out to do various Healing things.
Time for another Short Rest.
Lessons Learned:
Result nudges should be considered for their Rule of Cool impact.
Understand the mechanics of the scene you are about to be in.
Everybody into the pool!
It was getting late at this point, but I nudged them into checking out the pool, which was literally the last thing I expected them to explore on the map.
Book Chest (fortunately, Bruldenthar’s were more water-proof)
But their having done so, I wanted them to end with a victorious note, which they did, finding the treasure and a bit of the mystery: Bruldenthar’s books (which Shoalar Quanderill had extorted as the price of ferrying the Black Earth kidnappers across the river, and thus had eventually made their way into Gar’s treasure chamber).
People sometimes argue that the module uses the Mirabar Delegation merely as a McGuffin, and they are not completely wrong, but there are enough breadcrumbs, with reminders, to make it work.
(Note: Despite treasure chests being the most prominent thing in this room, the map shows no such thing. Clip art to the rescue!)
Penetrating Dampness
Finally, after six freaking episodes, we were done with the Temple of the Crushing Wave (with the exception of the harbor and customs house at the south end of the map, but who cared at this point (I did, because there were some cool things there, but not so much I was going to force the matter) and also the Starry Lake, which they were avoiding like the Dragon-Turtle-infested plague).
What they’d learned of the Temple of the Crushing Wave.
I’m not sure why it took as long as it did, save that this is a fairly cautious and conservative group, who were always eager to pull back, and lick their wounds with a rest, before moving on. Adding in some RP and color elements didn’t really slow things down, as I think back on it.
Part of it may also be that we usually ran the game from 7 (read 7:30 by the time weekly chit-chat is done) to 10:30 or 11. So a 3½ hour session; if we were running 4-5 hour matches, we’d have been done much sooner. But, then, we are all of us in the 4-6 decade range, so, on a Friday night, we need our sleep.
I shouldn’t comment on old people playing D&D when I was the oldest one at the virtual table.
Ding!
Level up!
I did want to give folk a final morale boost. While my house rule is to do leveling during a Long Rest, I made an exception and, with the defeat of the map, dinged them to Level 8. That got everyone going for another half-hour, figuring out what they were going to take. It’s been 11 sessions since the last level (yes, yes, far too long for the 5e era, according to all the best people, though shorter than the 6-to-7 gap had been).
The big question was: what now? Logical order was to head into the Earth Temple. It would be easier for them to descend in one of the down-shafts to the Node/Fane level (I still had my “oooooh, spooky!” rules for doing that in place, but going up a level definitely helps them); would they quickly die a horrible death if they do though?
And, with this temple down, Cult Retribution in the outside world would kick up a notch, to the Reckless Hate level. If they decided to step outside, they will learn about Womford, get warnings about Red Larch, and intercept an attack just short of it. If they didn’t … Red Larch takes it on the chin (from, I decide, the Water Cult), but not total destruction. And eventually they would find out, because the next time, the cultists would be taunting them about Beliard …
Milestone unlocked!
From an eventual episode count standpoint, this session marks the half-way point of the overall campaign. Woot!
Our Tempest Cleric had the Wrath of the Storm class ability (strictly speaking, not a spell), and endlessly enjoyed using it. Even when she took a bigger smack than her attacker did in turn, she just enjoyed the free combat.
Also at 1st level, you can thunderously rebuke attackers. When a creature within 5 feet of you that you can see hits you with an Attack, you can use your Reaction to cause the creature to make a DEXterity Saving Throw. The creature takes 2d8 lightning or thunder damage (your choice) on a failed Saving Throw, and half as much damage on a successful one.
So in one game, a Smoke Mephit did its ash breath on the cleric from from the adjoining square. This isn’t a To-Hit roll Attack, but an AoE Affect. Should it trigger Wrath of the Storm?
The answer seems to be NO. Because the AoE weapon isn’t, strictly speaking, hitting with an Attack. The key here is “hits you with an Attack.” And the PHB (p. 194) is clear what that all means:
When you make an attack, your attack roll determines whether the attack hits or misses. To make an attack roll, roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the total of the roll plus modifiers equals or exceeds the target’s Armor Class (AC), the attack hits. The AC of a character is determined at character creation, whereas the AC of a monster is in its stat block.
Attacks are made with a d20 roll against a target’s AC. But that’s not what happens with the Smoke Mephit’s breath, or a Dragon’s breath weapon, etc. Those:
are not targeted at someone
don’t require an attack roll
aren’t defended by AC
Instead, AoE attacks create a condition in a certain area of squares, and if someone is in that area, they automatically have to make a Saving Throw to determine the severity of the conditions that ensue (which may or may not include damage; the smoke mephit’s ashy breath caused blindness).
(This is part and parcel of why an AoE attack from an adjoining square doesn’t trigger any Disadvantage, either — because there’s no attack roll to Disadvantage.)
If there’s no attack roll (and, of course, a hit caused by a successful attack roll), Wrath of the Stormdoes not trigger. That would include attacks with Magic Missile, Hold Person, or even Wrath of the Storm itself:
A consequence of this is that if two tempest clerics are fighting one another, and Ann smacks Bob with her mace, Bob may use Wrath of the Storm on Ann as a Reaction, but Ann cannot retaliate in turn, even though she might have a Reaction available, because Wrath of the Storm does not qualify as an attack.
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 41 (Days 36-37)
In … The Temple of the Crushing Wave, mostly
Before taking a long rest, William and Theren investigated the unexplored shops on the north end of the Temple of Howling Hatred. They only found a cloaker lurking in the shadows and, when they returned to rescue William’s stuff, audible signs of more kenku about. Somewhere in there, they slept and had disturbing dreams.
The party snuck back to the Temple of the Crushing Wave and, using Ko as a scout, determined that the dragon turtle was no longer around. They passed north to a bridge over the canal, under which lurked Ninetooth, the “missing” aquatic troll, who attacked them, grieving for Thuluna Maah.
The bridge ended in tall doors protected by a glyph of warding, which Theren deactivated. Over the roaring water, Moony and then William heard draconic voices talking about a pirate town, a war, and Olhydra.
The party charged into the temple. The lizardfolk guards were pretty easily dispatched, but stench-ridden hezrou demon took a lot of attacks (and heals) to overcome, leaving the party in possession of the desecrated temple.
Player Recap
Another Day, Another Demon
There will be several hours before the groups take a long rest. Faith Prays, Moony naps, Nala does sudoku. Theren and William decide to see if they missed anything in the air temple rooms they cleared before. They pass the cultists that are still tied to the pillars. They do not want to be released. There is nothing interesting in the room with the fountain. At first the merchant area is uneventful. Things go downhill when they enter a jewelers and William picks up a cloak that is actually a cloaker. He escapes death by the skin of his teeth by turning into a war horse to break free and run away. Unfortunately, William left his magic flame and everything he was wearing in the room with the cloaker.
Dreams.
William casts a new spell on Ko. He can see and feel through Ko’s senses. He walks quietly towards the room where the group met the dragon turtle. There is no sign of dragon or other foes. The group moves deeper into the water temple watching the dragon tooth sword as they go. The market square has tables overturned and smashed from when the dragon turtle came aground. Moony approaches the doors and examines it and the wall near the spillways. He notices a subtle magical glyph on the door. Theren is able to disable it with his arcane knowledge. He also listens at the door and hears voices speaking draconic. William sneaks up and can hear one saying something about a pirate town. Several others laugh. When the party is ready, Nala opens the door and charges into the room. There are about half a dozen lizard folks. The round doesn’t go well for the lizards. After they take significant damage an ally Hezrou emerges from the water. A grotesque demon, of mighty strength of limb and stench. The demon causes several party members to double over retching. Teamwork wins the day and the party is victorious.
Game Notes
What to do, what to do?
Something funny happened on the way to the next part of the adventure …
Player rests are always kind of a contentious thing in D&D, especially when their effect is so strong as it is in the 5e rules. For players, it becomes a matter of resource management — I have this many spell slots left. I have this many hit points remaining, and that many hit dice to convert them. That cool ability I have, I can only do once between Long Rests.
The temptation is, when the party’s been taxed and burned their resources, to take that Long Rest and get back up to snuff. Problem is, the rules are clear that you only get one Long Rest per 24 hour period, and it’s possible to burn all your powers well before evening falls.
In this case, after the near-disaster with Bronzefume, the party retreated to the Air Temple to take, yes, a Long Rest. But by my reckoning it was only about 2-3 in the afternoon. They were going to be hours sitting in that little dorm room, waiting to get sleepy enough to start the Long Rest cycle. I was trying, in a soft way, to chastise them for burning time that way.
(The scenario indicates that sleeping in one of the temples is very dangerous, because the Princes and their Prophets can detect their presence and send guards their way. I agree in principle; in reality, though, all the locals in the Air Temple have been killed, and I really don’t want to grind through more play time with parties of Howling Hatred cultists finding them and getting into a fight. Bo-ring. The only useful thing of that sort that I might do is have said parties interrupt their Long Rests so that they felt the need to exit Tyar-Besil altogether, and so deal with the mess out there.)
So I emphasized the “staring at the wallpaper” aspect of camping out, and the players reacted …
… by splitting the party, sending the Druid and the Sorcerer off checking out locales in the Air Temple for clues or treasure.
I had fun with the Cloaker
I could have simply hand-waved it — you find nothing but empty rooms and rubble — but the module is clear about What Lurks in the Shops around the Plaza of Moradin. And I thought it might be some fun lesson-teaching about wandering off in that fashion. (Yes, I am complex in my motivations.)
That the Cloaker almost killed the Druid (and, had I decided not to split attacks to the Sorcerer, too, would have) was just icing on the cake. And it gave the Druid a chance to do his beast form thing, which he almost never does.
Lesson, I expect, learned.
Faithful unto Death
Yes, those air cultists shackled to the pillars on the Air Temple map … are still there. Still starving to death. Still refusing to be released. Still hoping that Yan-C-Bin will teach them to “eat” air. Fanatics.
Rightly or wrongly, the party let them have their way.
Call of the Wild
Kenku
One fun bit I added in was hinting that there were still Kenku lurking in the northern part of the Air Temple. Not only had the bodies of Aerissi’s troops been stripped of weapons, but we got an echoing chorus of women screaming, trying to scare off the intruders.
I don’t know if the two party members would have checked those voices out on their own, but when they fled the Cloaker, it was full gallop back to the hotel room.
Dreams
So time for another round of dreams. The most noteworthy (from my perspective) were for Faith, the cleric who is now attuned to Windvane. How’s that going for you, Faith?
It feels like you’ve returned home after a long journey out to sea. You sit on a chair, looking out over the city, knowing that it is yours to rule, to conquer, to be loved by.
Your god is coming soon. You can feel it. Everything you’ve longed for, coming to fruition. You will be a queen, and all will want you, but will not be able to have you.
Windvane
Your holy symbol — all that represents the power of your god. It is with you. You cannot come to harm.
At your feet, Moony is curled up, deep vibrations, inaudible but perceptible, across your feet and ankles.
Silently behind you, around you, Nala protects you, waiting for your command, should any threat arise.
William sits to one side, hand-picked herbs and spices burning in censors at his feet, the smoke rising up about his head, giving him strange visions.
Theren prances about the floor before you, entertaining, creating fireworks, fountains of sharp-smelling liquids. He tries so hard.
Your wings — your beautiful wings, flicker and flap against your back. You are where you belong. Nothing can stop you now.
Yeah, she’s dreaming she’s Aerissi. Heh heh heh.
The Fighter and the Rogue had dreams around the Turtle Dragon. Unpleasant ones.
Theren the Sorcerer started getting instruction from Faith’s patron deity, Deneir, who was having problems reaching his cleric.
William the Druid, who triggered the Last Laugh magic a ten-day ago, had come to the end of his undead protection from the spell.
A man in black — black mask under a black brimmed hat, black cloak over velvet black finery — stands before you, sword drawn. “The Lord of the Stone. I can no longer protect you — you have delayed and procrastinated. Now I will never find him, never have the last laugh. And I blame –” He extends the sword until its tip is nearly pricking your nose. “– you.”
Valklondar, the hunter of the undead (or at least a dream visage of him), was pissed that William never told him where Oreioth is. Ah, well.
Moving On
There had been, last game, a question of where the party was going to go. After everyone trucked up the shops to recover William’s goods (dropped when he shifted into a horse, so that his continual flame item would continue to light up the room), I was half-convinced they were going to head off to the Fire Temple zone, right near where they were.
But, no, they’d all gotten the resolve to go to the “temple” part of the map for the Water Temple, which is where I wanted them to go anyway (so I could justify dinging them up to next level). (Recall that they are working off of incomplete maps drawn from the city map in Aerissi’s throne room.)
Aquatic Troll (Velrock)
They cleverly (if a bit callously) used Ko the Drake Companion to William (who’d take a Ranger level of three) to scout out to see if Bronzefume was still there. Nope. But they did run into the last Aquatic Troll lurking under the last bridge, loudly attacking them in vengeance for Thuluna.
(I loved bellowing “THU-LU-NAAAAAA!” as a grieving, vengeful troll.)
The Rogue did spot the Glyph of Warding (which would have made the battle in the temple a lot more interesting had it gone off).
Hezrou demon
The battle in the Temple was relatively quick — the party really does outclass Lizardfolk by this point, and the Cleric’s Spirit Guardians remain a buzz-saw of doom. The Hezrou was a bit more of a challenge — the stink/poison effect is delightful, and his resistances were astronomical, so taking him down was a pretty arduous task.
Meanwhile in Roll20 Tweaking
With Roll20 allowing people to put together their own token status sets, I created one myself using things that actually worked for the various conditions and so forth in D&D. I used the free icons at game-icons.net, and they worked out really nicely (with the exception that the PotA‘s Roll20 maps are at half-size, so the status icons come out oversized, old and new, harrumph).
Dave Token Markers
Anyway, the process was easy-peasy, and I was able to name the items for what they were for (e.g., the icon I wanted to use for the Blind condition, an eye with a slash through it, I named “Blind”, which made my Tweak-Status macro a lot more intuitive).
As the DM drums his fingers …
By God, they better finish up this dungeon this next game. The only question will be, will they go down the stairs to the Fane? I will probably do a similar Uncanny Feeling like I did with the Purple Worm — if they can push through it, I may well let them descend, even if they will be outclassed below. More lessons (not too fatal ones, I hope) to be learned.
What the party knew of the Water Temple by the end of the session. Are we there yet?
There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. But if you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!
GM Recap
Session 40 (Day 36)
In the Temple of the Crushing Wave …
The party interrogated Khalt. He confirmed that Gar Shatterkeel was not present, but would return. They threatened him with torturous death (!), until he agreed to take them the temple.
Instead, he took them to a room with a gargoyle fountain … with a door heading north to the domain of the Black Earth … and a pair of Nothics that sucked various memories from Moony, before fleeing, one to the north and one to the south. The latter was dispatched.
Khalt managed to teleport away from Ko’s tether, and away from Nala and Faith, diving into the canal. Faith pursued and, against all odds, took him down by bowshot before he could escape.
The party headed toward the bridge north to the “High Temple” — but entering the marketplace they found the bodies there had been ceremonially arranged, and a pair of Reavers were there, one of whom rang the gong. Though the Reavers were quickly dispatched, the Dragon Turtle, Bronzefume, rising from the lake, was not so easily dealt with. William tried to talk them down, but Bronzefume ended up attacking, nearly killing Faith, Nala, and William, and slaying Ko.
Though they responded with some attacks, it was quickly clear that the Dragon Turtle was a serious challenge. Faith threw down a sleet storm which both slowed Bronzefume and obscured the line of sight between it and them. The party fled, regrouped, and headed back to the Temple of Howling Hatred, fearful of any wide corridor or water channel.
Hunkering down in one of the Air Cult dormitory rooms in the southwest, they resolved to wait out several hours, and then take a Long Rest, before dealing with what to do next:
Head to the “Forges” (presumed to be the Fire cult area)
Head back to the Water cult area, to sneak past Bronzefume to the “High Temple” to deal with Gar Shatterkeel.
Head back to the Water cult area, to sneak around to the “Gates” (the Earth cult area).
Player Recap
Our Clocks Are Steam-Cleaned
Nala questions the captive Khalt. There are threats of fire and laughter as he names off other lead cultists who will avenge him. They are all dead. Shatterkeel is away bargaining with their goddess Olhydra. Eventually the intimidation plays out and Khalt says that Shatterkeel if below in the maelstrom communing with Olhydra. He doesn’t have much other useful information, so they ask him to lead them to the entrance to the down-below.
Moony feels like something is going on in his head. He recalls being in Gemvox’ parlor hearing about the mission that he was sending Moony on. There is a Nothic in the shadows beside him. He has flashes of memories from his home village. Moony also sees a second Nothic to his right. William only sees Moony standing there as another memory flashes — a vision of Aerisi falling to the ground and her wings being stripped away before she disappears.
As the surprise ends, the rest of the group moves into the room. They gang up on the first Nothic (one-eyed wonder-worm). When it is on its last legs it flees the room, entering a corridor to the north descending into darkness. There is an Black Earth cult symbol on the wall.
Ko tries to pull Khalt into the room. The rope breaks and Khalt appears down the hall. Faith and Nala pursue Khalt and a second Nothic appears. Moony takes a shot at Khalt with aid from Ko. Khalt teleports away and dives into the canal. Faith chases after Khalt but doesn’t see him. Nala and Moony finish off the second Nothic. Faith casts a light spell on a pebble and throws it 60 feet down the canal. She just sees Khalt 30 feet up stream from the bridge. She takes an Inspired shot and manages to do enough damage against Khalt to kill him. Faith returns to the group with a big grin. The courtyard of the Gargoyle Fountain is a mess. The walls are crumbling and there are bones and Nothic waste all around. The group decides to take a Short Rest before heading to the High Temple.
In the large room that leads to the High Temple, there are a couple of Reavers preparing the bodies of the dead. A battle ensues and they are taken out, but not before they ring the gong. The water ripples and parts as a gigantic Dragon Turtle rises up from the lake. Everyone holds their actions while William tries to reason with the creature. He assumes that she is a captive like the Djinn in the Air Temple. Alas, she is a young and eager convert to the cult of the Crushing Wave. With a sad eye she exhales a huge cone of super heated steam. It seriously damages most of the party and takes out Ko. When it becomes clear that the party is out-classed, Faith casts Sleet Storm to hide their retreat and slow the dragon.
After a mad dash through the halls of the water temple and into the air temple, the group holes up in one of the rooms in the air temple. They spend the rest of the day taking stock of the situation and planning for the assault on the temple. Nothing disturbs them that night except their dreams.
Game Notes
Tick-tock
So the Water Temple took longer than expected. There are ways I could have short-circuited that here — neither the Nothics nor Bronzefume were essential. But both were fun and different, and, honestly, I wasn’t working on a deadline here. If the players were enjoying themselves (and I was, too), then what’s the harm.
Which comparing the overall length of this campaign, vs. other reports of PotA play, is clearly the case. We took longer. But (I sure hope) we had fun.
“There Is A Hole In Your Mind”
The Nothics were just plain creepy.
Nothic
Everything the players had encountered to this point was (a) evil people, (b) elemental forces, or (c) standard monsters.
Aberrations? Things that do necrotic damage? Things that suck your memories out?
Creepy.
Though, to my mind, also kind of pathetic. They were just sort of hiding out in their corner there, maybe picking off the occasional cultist, certainly stealing some memories, but for the most part willing to live and let live.
The players didn’t quite see it that way.
I did have fun calling up memories for Moony to remember and the Nothics to abscond with.
The Dragon Turtle
The party knew there was a dragon around — the Dragonbone Sword told them. And I’m sure they were expecting something that would give them a challenge.
Bronzefume wasn’t quite this big. Quite. Yet.
They were not ready for Bronzefume the Dragon Turtle.
To be fair, Bronzefume was a case of everything going completely wrong for the party. By coming in from the east side of the marketplace, and without any particular stealth, the party alerted the pair of Reavers random-encountered there (the last two in the complex, in fact, who had been arranging the bodies of their dead comrades on the tables for some ceremonial purpose). And the one down on the west side, near the gong, rolled top score for initiative. And was far enough away that nobody could do anything about it.
And then, even though the party quickly dispatched the Reavers so that they weren’t fighting when Bronzefume showed up two rounds later, William quite rationally chose the “Hey, we’re not with them, we’re on your side” tactic that was perfect for Ahtayir the Djinn in the Air Temple … but very not so much for Bronzefume the Loyal Young Cultist in the Water Temple.
And even though the party had kind of spread out in the market, that didn’t help against the the sixty-foot cone from the Dragon Turtle; nor did the Dodge that everyone was using (the Steam Breath is a CONstitution save, not like Red Dragon’s Fire Breath). The damage roll was just above average, and nearly killed three players.
On the other hand, the party did quickly react to GTFO, and Faith’s Sleet Storm kept Bronzefume from targeting them further (and slowed it down substantially, given its land speed is so low already). It was a second top moment for the Cleric that night.
The Bronzefume encounter may have been the first time the party actually realized they were not going to be able to win a battle. It would be interesting to see how that affected their future actions.
The Stubbornness of the Stubborn Player
The top moment for the Cleric that night was when Khalt, the One-Eyed Shiver they had taken prisoner, chose the Nothic battle as a chance to escape. Misty Step is a wicked spell — verbal-only and a Bonus Action. So he could use it and Dash. Khalt, manacled, also got some great Athletics rolls while in the canal, swimming away.
Inspiration is your friend.
Faith wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t see him in the shadows of the canal, so she cast light on a rock and threw it in that direction, barely illuminating Khalt, who was just about to get out of the water and make good his escape to the temple. She pulled out her bow, which I told her because of the dim light and distance would be at Disadvantage — so she burned her Inspiration … hit … and then rolled a 2 on the damage (groans) … which happened to be how many HP he had left. And another corpse floats down the canal …
I gave her an Inspiration back. It was remarkably played and my expectations about how it would end were thwarted by the player/character’s persistence.
What next?
The players were split at the end — some wanted to finish clearing the Water Temple (aside from the Dragon Turtle in the lake, of course), thinking they need to get to the “High Temple” therein to advance (my preference). Others wanted to progress to the Black Earth quarter. Some were daunted by how the throne room map showed damage and depressing color commentary in that zone, and want instead to go to the Forges, the Eternal Flame quarter (which would be a bit of a level mess, as it’s designed for level 9).
On the one hand, it’s always cool when the players have different ideas about where to go next. It’s a sign I’m not railroading them (too much). On the other hand, it did mean additional prep on my part in case they did go hallooing off in an unexpected direction.
What the party had explored by the end of this session.
Leveling was the other thing I needed to consider here. As noted before, the milestone of defeating the Temple of the Crushing Wave was level-up from 7 to 8. But had they defeated it? With Gar fled and Thuluna and Morbeoth both slain, theoretically, yes — the cult here would not recover (unless Gar succeeded in his quesrt). On the other hand, with the “High Temple” untaken, I’d been reluctant to award the win.
The fact was, unless they went messing around in the Starry Lake, by the time they got back to the Marketplace in 16 hours (it was still around Noon, but they were planning on camping out and Long Resting in their little hidey-hole) Bronzefume would be back at the bottom, watching his (substantial) treasure. They should go back and finish things up. But if they didn’t, wouild I count that as a milestone missed and no level-up? How far would they continue at that handicap?
Bah. If they decided to skip stuff, I’d give them the reward — they had effectively earned it. But not until they made that decision and acted on it — if I could get them to the “High Temple,” that would add some good story moments.
Some Roll20 Moments
As previously noted, I was running this game within the Roll20 VTT which, for the most part, was performing like a champ (and making it much easier for us all to gather together on Friday nights.
Dynamic Lighting in Roll20 is cool. The Marketplace, in particular, was nicely illumined … and when Bronzefume appeared at the far end, just his edge was visible in the dim light (and even that went away when William politely got rid of his Bonfire). Everything was perfectly visible to me as the DM, but it looked nicely creepy over on my wife’s computer screen.
I asked the players to take care of their own token markers this game, and they actually did a pretty good job of it. I further updated my Status-Tweak macro to include Helping and Dodging, both of which were useful.
The only real Roll20 problem, in fact, was that, because the scaling on the provided Roll20 PotA maps was at 50%, the status markers were oversized, obscuring much of the tokens. Mutter-mutter WotC.
I’d learned the technique at this point, for time and ease’s sake, to mass-transporting people along (cluster them together, select their tokens, move them in unison through the map, stopping at key junctions so that they players can see) when going through already-known terrain. It’s just much more efficient than asking people to move their tokens along when it doesn’t matter, and which inevitably leads to someone who is distracted or looking something up finding themselves left behind.
The problem is that it also leads to a predictable outcome. When they were getting back to the Marketplace, I set them down at the Bridge of Victory and asked which way they wanted to approach — through the Court of the Merfolk from the south, through the Bugbear Quarters, or through the ruined area to the east. (Their choice of the latter, “because bad things always happen when we go through the Court of the Merfolk,” turned out to be a tactical error.)
But later I heard the comment, “We should have known something was up, because that’s when Dave puts us down and asks us what we’re doing.” D’oh!
