This is part of a series about my DMing Princes of the Apocalypse, a D&D 5e adventure by and copyright Wizards of the Coast.

There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. 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 16 (Days 21-22)

The party fought a room of orcs and an ogre who apparently ran things down on the lower level. The ogre provided some serious bonks, but all ended well.
They found cells with sixteen prisoners within, various folk swept up by the Black Earth cult and enslaved to dig in the mines on the lower level. One was Bruldenthar, a dwarf scholar who had been part of the Mirabar Delegation. His story echoed that of Aldrik, whom he had thought had been killed. He pointed to where various members of the delegation had been taken, to the best of his knowledge.
1. Teresiel, the moon elf, was captured by the raiders on flying mounts and taken away.
2. Rhundorth and Deseyna Majarra were brought here, but taken somewhere else.
Stashing the freed prisoners up in the kitchen, the party further explored the mining area below. They battled a Grick, found a collapsed tunnel through air was flowing, found a battered door with an ape-beetle monster behind it (quickly shut).
They also found stairs leading down to a magical stone door that seemed paired with the Necklace of Hellenrae in some fashion, but there was still more that was needed to open it. That necklace, btw, reminded some folk of that hazy Necromancer’s Sigil that they saw in Oreioth’s lair.
They found a large crypt full of zombies and (after the zombies were dispatched), a large sarcophagus labeled for Samular Caradoon, founder of the Knights of Samular. Inside it was the body of Narl Elrok, which Faith insisted they take with them.
The collapsed tunnel turned out to link to the outside, a quarter mile away.
As the morning started, the party gathered up the freed prisoners, the body of Narl, supplies, and headed out. They encountered an illusionary presence of Renwick, who wanted to know what they were doing with the body, and seemed pleased they were returning it to the Knights of Samular. He discussed his relationship with and origin from his brother, Samular, and said he would keep the monastery clear from other disturbances, though he advised them to not return and bother him in his studies, opining that other interesting things were going to be happening soon.
As they found the path northwest out of the depths of the Sumber Hills, the party encountered two scruffy individuals who asked William if he was “the Druid,” then said, “We’ve been looking for you …”

Player Recap

Who knows what evil lurks below?

They walk quietly through the dark monastery. On the stairs to the well room, Moony scouts ahead and lets the party know that there are several orcs and some larger humanoid. Aldrik enters first and sees Drool the Ogre, two orcs and Jerl? He steps up to Jerl and … begins the combat. Nala and Moony join in with the remaining heroes blocked on the stairs by one of the Orcs. After Orc One goes down, Drool and the others fall quickly. Aldrik finds a bag of coins under a loose paver by one of the bunks. He complains about the craftsmanship. There are doors out to the north (where one of the orcs tried to flee before being cut down) and south.

Moony scouts ahead south. The passage is rough hewn with passages branching left and right. There is the smell of damp earth and death. A chill breeze blows towards group. Moony hears some soft voices down the passage to the left towards the Lich quarters. The group finds several cells with 15 prisoners. One of their prisoners is a Dwarf, Bruldenthar, from the Mirabar Delegation. He tells them of their capture and the passage across the river. Several of his valuable tomes were given as payment to a green-skinned captain, possibly Shoalar.

After freeing them, the group escorts them to the kitchen and wash house to hole up until we can return and escort them out.

The group returns to the tunnels below the monastery. There is a lot of excavation twisted around but no clear pattern. Occasionally they find an old paver, but the excavation doesn’t follow their path. The continue to follow Moony through the tunnels.

A tentacle reaches out to try and grab Moony. He stabs at the Grick and then backpeddles. Aldrik moves towards the disturbance, but can’t reach it to attack. William creates a bonfire down the hall to light the area. Nala steps up and throws an axe at it. The fight gets a little more difficult when the Grick hides and most of the party can’t see it. But the fight is still short.

Moving on Moony finds a cave-in that is less solid than the previous examples. There is a breeze coming through the debris. Moony tries to climb through, but is not quite nimble enough. The team decides to finish exploring and area before attempting to move the rubble.

Continuing on there is a room with a large door beaten out from the other side. One of our keys fits the lock and Moony takes a quick peek. It is a monstrous beetle ape with metal claws. Dodging out, he closes and locks the door again. They decide to leave it there any move on.

The end of the hall is sealed with a iron gate and there are ancient dwarf stairs leading down. The stairs continue down several levels. At the bottom there is a wall with the Black Earth Symbol. Moony determines that it is a door, but that he can not pass. They try the amulet from Hellenrae. The door/portal appears to recognize the amulet but it is only part of the key. After racking their brains, William finally realizes that Hellenrae’s amulet looks like a portion of the sigil that they saw back in the Necromancer’s cave outside of Red Larch.

The passages start heading back towards the well room and they come across a ancient bronze covered door. The door is stuck, but Faith is able to push it open and enters the large barrel-vaulted chamber. There are several sarcophagi in the room. When the group enters the room, they hear some rustling from the alcoves. Zombies converge on the heroes. The alphabet zombies are easily defeated. There is a large sarcophagus on the eastern wall. It is dedicated to Samular Caradoon. Samular co-founded the Knights of Samular with his bother Renwick Caradoon … the Lich! Faith respectfully opens the lid and finds the body of Narl Elrok, the dead member of Knights of Samular that Faith has seen in her dream. Faith casts Gentle Repose on the corpse and readies it to bring back to the monastery.

There are doors to the south that are locked and sealed. None of the keys fit. When Mooney picks the lock it is still magically sealed. It feels like the garden door into the Lich’s stairs. The group decides to leave it alone. They think it likely that the door will lead to the other stairs to Renwick’s domain. The door to the west appears to be the other door into the beetle ape iron claw monster. Faith, Aldrik, and William take a cot from the well room and move the body of Narl to it. They will bring it with them when they return to the main floor.

They return to the collapsed corridor that had the breeze coming from it. On consideration, Moony realizes that the breeze travelled all the way to the door in the lower level. After some work on moving the rubble Moony wiggles through to the other side. With him working on the far side, they are able to move enough rubble for the others to pass through. The path continues for about a half a mile to the west. When it ends it opens on a ledge above the monastery looking down on the valley.

After returning to the monastery kitchen, the group and the refugees discuss what path to take out. They decide to head for the path north through the mountains that meets up with the Larch Path. They raid the stores for food and weapons. They make it to the path through the crevice. A vision of Renwick appears and asks “What are you doing?” Faith: “I need to bring this body back to Samular Knights. My dreams insist that I take him.” Renwick “Oh, good! That is where he wanted to go, but I don’t get out much.” The conversation continues until Renwick promises he will keep the Black Earth from reoccupying the building, and bids us farewell. “For I have eternity and nothing but hope.”

Continue down the trail to where they battled with Drosnin and the assailants from Rivergard. Here they turn away from the river heading deeper into the Sumber Hills. As the evening approaches and the group contemplates finding a place to camp for the night, there are a pair of figures ahead. “Are you the Druid? Yeah, I think he is.” They head towards William. The other says, “We have been looking for you.”

Game Notes

The Mirabar Delegation Returns!

As has been noted earlier, the Delegation is sort of the MacGuffin of the campaign … they tee it up, they show up now and again, the party has an interest in them … but they are almost utterly unimportant in the context of the Real Threat and What Must Be Done About It.

In this instance, we find Bruldenthar, the dwarvish librarian who isn’t actually part of the Delegation, but was traveling with them to Waterdeep with his chests of books. We already saw what happened to some of those chests a few episodes back, at the Ambush Site. And we learn here that some of the books, at least, were used by the Black Earth cultists to pay Shoalar the Genasi pirate captain and Crushing Wave merc to pay to get them across the Dessarin River.

We also get clues as to the actual Delegation members and their fates. Teresiel was captured by Howling Hatred fliers out of Feathergale Spire (at the Shallow Graves site), but the other two members (Deseyna PickALastName and Rhundorth) were (eventually!) brought here — but have since been taken away. They will all show up waaaay toward the end of the campaign.

Aldrik

There’s also some handwaving going in about Aldrik’s story — Bruldenthar thought he was dead. What I think happened (or what I was thinking at this point) was that he resisted when the other two delegates were hauled off, was beaten soundly and dragged off himself, never to return to the cells. He was tossed out of the Monastery to the trash heap out back, but his amazing constitution eventually let him get back to his feet … memory gone … to wander down the road to meet our party.

That doesn’t quite line up with what eventually comes to pass, but I could tack the pieces together well enough to make sense.

Narl-y, dude!

And we settle some other outstanding lore and backstory here, too. Renwick Caradoon was one of the founding brothers of the Knights of Samular. How he came to become a lich is not terribly clear, but here he is. And when the Black Earth cult hauls in the body of a Knight of Samular, Narl Elrok, which was being taken down to Summit Hall for burial in the same party as the delegation …

(Wait, why did the Black Earth folk bring a dead body with them, all the way cross-country, even after being attacked? Um … as an offering / bribe / peace token to their co-tenant at the Monastery, Renwick? “Hey, look, Mr. Lich! Dude here was being carried in a fancy sarcophagus. That must be of some interest to you!” Uh, sure.)

… he took the body, but rather than experimenting on him, instead offered up a sarcophagus he had crafted (!) for his younger brother, Samular, which was sort of the highest honor he could give Narl.

That said, he was happy enough to hand off the body to the party to take to Summit Hall, where it could lay in the tombs of the Knights of Samular.

The Passage Below

So like all the Haunted Keeps, Sacred Stone Monastery has a passageway that leads down to the Temple of Black Earth (Front Gate quadrant of Tyar-Besil. And this would have been the perfect opportunity to … kill the party, sitting at 5th Level, I believe, and about to descend into a 10th Level setup (and one that starts off with mooks, so it might not be immediately obvious).

Fortunately, as previously explained, I had sealed off the Temples until all the Keeps were dealt with. They had the Necklace of Hellenrae, which basically magically hinted at what they needed to do, once they finished trying to get down the stairs.

Oreioth's vision of the Evil Elemental Eye — Oreioth’s vision of the Evil Elemental Eye

And either through a forced “Roll in INTelligence to see if you remember something,” or because a player really did remember it (I don’t recall), the party ended up realizing that this all tied into that blurry image in Oreioth’s Lance Rock abode. Which … continues building brick of information on brick of information …

The Path Above

The party now found itself saddled with a dozen civilians (including Bruldenthar), most of them 0th Level fodder. They agreed to bring them back to civilization, especially since the cleric was insisting on bringing Narl’s body back to Summit Hall, per her dreams.

That would have a few interesting implications in the coming session or two.

It also meant a hike through some new areas of the Sumber Hills — — and a session-wrap encounter with two mysterious gents looking for “the druid” …

Bits and Bobs

What is the point of the twisty-turny tunnels under the Monastery that the cultists have the prisoners excavating / digging through? Absolutely no idea. Never explained. A bit silly.

But it did give give me a chance to have some weird Underdark critters, like Violet Fungi and the Grick show up, so that made me happy.

The tortured ape-beetle monstrosity in the cage was a mutilated Umber Hulk which, for some unknown reason, was being kept in a cage (which could be turned to a death trap with the ramp from the main temple). Alas, no good drawing was provided with the campaign (I believe the token was a text one that read “Maimed Umber Hulk” or something dorky like that). Never really well-explained, either. Because they’re eeeeviiillll, I guess.

The reference to alphabet zombies has to do with the my usual propensity to number the faceless mooks (“Okay, Cultist 3 is coming at you waving a dagger …”), but occasionally shake things up. In this case, there were enough zombies that I decided to label them A-Z.

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Princes of the Apocalypse, Session 16: “Delving Deeplier”