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.

Table of Contents. The Party.

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!

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GM Recap

Session 21 (Days 26-27) 

1. Jolliver Grimjaw railed at them for the misfortune of Rivergard Keep, then offered them jobs. They offered not to kill him, and battle was joined. He turned out to be a wereboar and, in hybrid form, fought the team until finally taken down. He had on him the Necklace of Jolliver Grimjaw to match the Necklace of Hellenrae.
2. An inspection of the castle found various bodies (both bandit and civilian) and charred destruction. They also found a secret door that led to a landing on an underground river, that flowed from the darkness into the castle’s harbor.
3. There was concern, esp. after a dream he had, that Moony had become cursed with lycanthropy, being the only one to have taken a personal attack from Jolliver. Fortunately, Faith had Remove Curse.
4. After an uneventful night (other than a dire dream for Faith), the party tried the boats at the underground landing, only to be attacked by ghouls rising up out of the water. After getting very wet, they defeated them and proceeded upstream, William as a shark. The stream was blocked by an impassable door Crushing Wave symbol on it. The twin necklaces definitely resonated with the door but … not completely.
5. The party set forth for Feathergale Spire to “report in.” They were greeted with open arms by Savra Hanadroum and Thurl Merosska, who offered them a place in the Feathergale Knights. He was then introduced to the new member of the group, Aldrik — at which point an Air Elemental landed atop the spire, in the middle of the group, battering them and throwing them all twenty feet distant, Savra over the railing, and Thurl crashing into a Giant Vulture. A woman’s voice said in elvish, “Now the prize is mine!” and the elemental carried Aldrik off to the east and out of sight …

Player Recap

Swoop There He Goes

Jolliver first blames the party for the destruction of Rivergard and then asks us to join him. When the party stops laughing. Moony suggest that Jolliver surrender and show them around the keep. There is more to Jolliver Grimjaw than initially meets the eye. He appears in a were-boar hybrid shape. The group soon discovers that he only takes damage when attacked with magic (or silver), but manage to do a number on him anyways. As the tide turns against Jolliver, he leaps from the balcony as he tries to escape. This does not end well for him. 

Jolliver has the Necklace with the Water Symbol, which a match to the Earth Necklace of Hellenrae. There is also a small carved stone shaped into a tiger. Nala finds a semi-hidden door leading out of the main hall. A quick search of the main hall reveals only dead bodies and stacks of papers. There is a staircase down to a dock alone on an underground river.

Theren and Faith stay in the keep to investigate the papers. The other explore the rest of the keep. 

Paper Chase: There are a lot of reports about loot acquired and gang movements. There is one note in distinctive handwriting about a “Group of Troublemakers” in Red Larch. It sounds a lot like the party. 

Room Rumpus: These rooms were previously locked, but are all broken into. There is a small library with charred furniture and a few burned scrolls. Moony collects the books together and William puts them in the duffle Bag of Holding. William looks around the rest of the library and discovers what looks like a hidden door in the corner, which leads into Jolliver’s room, which had been spiked but blown apart. There are multiple chests there, but all have been largely emptied out.

The remaining rooms have little else of notice. A guard barracks, a raided kitchen, servants quarters with wash tubs. A number of bodies, both guards and in civilian drudgery wear.

The chapel is in ruins. The barracks and wooden towers are mostly destroyed. It is getting towards late afternoon. The groups explores the keep for about an hour and a half. They find more destruction, dead bodies, and not much else. When it’s dark they have dinner and hunker down in Jolliver’s room. William reads some of the books from the library. They do not appear to be Bruldenthar’s books. They are mostly nautical in nature and include logs from the Savage Tusk.

Faith has a dream: She is walking through a storm wind whipping up all around her and grit striking. She can see the eye of the storm above her, but in the center of the eye is a triangular iris. Deneir.”Heads. Trophies. Do you know that in some faiths (wink), humanoids take the heads of their enemies and keep them as trophies? In other faiths (wink), they build stone heads of their heroes — their gods — their demons — and bow down in worship to them. In either case, to steal such a head is to gain power. Finding it will be most urgent, lest that power tip a very delicate balance, where an errant gust of wind can spell ruin for all.”

Moony has a dream: He is used to dreaming of hunting but there is something wrong about this dream. There is a puddle ahead of him. When Moony looks into it he see Jolliver.

In the morning Faith collects the heads of Reash and Jolliver. William insists on putting them in a chest or pot before they go into the bag of holding. William is attuned to the tiger fetish has a one use a day Jump spell on it. He gives it to Nala. Moony attunes to the water and earth pendants and determines that they still the other pieces. Faith casts a Remove Curse on Moony, just in case he was infected by lycanthropy, as he’s the only one who took physical (tusk) damage from Jolliver.

Going down the stairs to the underground river again, they take two of the row boats. Moony, Theren, William in one and Nala, Faith, Aldrik in the other. Nala spots a creature in the water near her boat. Faith casts Spirit Guardian calling forth angelic forms to protect the party. The ghouls tip over the boats, dumping everyone into the dark water. Despite that, the fight ends quickly with only minor damage to the party.

William changes into a reef shark and accompanies the boats up stream. The water ends in a stone wall with the Crushing Wave symbol on it. The water is flowing through the stone. The necklaces from Helenrae and Jolliver seem to resonate with the wall, with a sense that something more is needed. 

It is late morning when they head out to Feathergale Spire. They soon see a giant vulture tracking them from high above. Shortly before they arrive, the vulture leaves and heads toward the spire. 

The Feathergale Knight Savra Hanadroum greets them warmly. William introduces Aldrik and explain that he was a captive of the monastery. She is thrilled that the group has succeeded in destroying the cultist in the monastery. She leads them into the castle and up to the roof to see Thurl Merosska.

“My friend you have accomplished so much in less than a ten day. What should I offer you as a reward. I offer you freedom … and membership in the Feathergale Knights.” Nala demurs because she has not fulfilled her original task of finding the delegation. Thurl asks after the new party member and when introduced he says, “Aldrik, Aldrik, that name sounds familiar.”

There is an abrupt, sudden, sheer force of air, a whirlwind lands centered on the group. Everyone on the roof get thrown back. Savra tumbles off of the parapet. Aldrik is swooped up by the air elemental and a female voice says in Elvish “Now the prize is mine!“ The air elemental heads towards the East / South-East, leaving everyone stunned.

Game Notes

Bon voyage, Jolliver

After a chance to vent his considerable spleen over the setup of a lifetime — being the pirate king of the Dessarin River while seeming to be its protector — he takes a very pragmatic, piratical approach: Would y’care t’join me crew? When they say no, he gets Action Economied to death …

… but not before wounding Moony, and, by gosh, I rolled all the right stuff to infect the Tabaxi as a were-boar … and then discovered how freaking easy it was for the party cleric to cast a Remove Curse. Darn.

The keep had already been ransacked by the Eternal Flame attackers — no big treasure windfall for the party, since they didn’t take the place down. But they got a few good things out of the mix, and that Jump trinket would be tactically helpful almost all the way to the end of the campaign.

The Underwater River

The whole setup with the underground river heading into the Water Temple portion of Tyar-Besil was kind of cool. Alas, the water ghouls didn’t turn out to be very much of a threat, in part due to level, in part due to that ridonculous Spirit Guardians spell (or “The Fairy Buzz Saw of Death,” as I tended to call it), which the cleric used to great effect for the rest of the campaign.

It was also my first real opportunity to dive (see what I did there) into how kind of goofy the 5e water combat rules are.

The river — which fits into the keep very neatly once you get to it — is supposed to lead into the Water Temple — which would have been a very dangerous adventure for the party at this point. As mentioned previously, I’d blocked all these entrances until all the “key” necklaces were collected — including the one they picked up this session, the Necklace of Jolliver Grimjaw.

Up, up, and away!

What the hell is going on with Aldrik at the very end?

Well, for one, thing, my son was headed back to college, so I had to do something with his character while he was away. Having him kidnapped by an Air Elemental, and having everyone hear Aerisi Kalinoth’s voice say something ambiguous but threatening, seemed perfect.

(Nobody knows it’s Aerisi, of course, except for Thurl … which will have implications next time.)

But the idea that there was more mystery to Aldrik, such that Aerisi would want to kidnap him … started to build some campaign lore and plotting on my part that would play off in several ways in future sessions. Once the son was back, of course.

Bits and Bobs

The letter in Jolliver’s office (information about which letter is scattered in multiple places in the book) is from Justran Daehl, the cellarkeeper of the Highsun Tavern back in Red Larch. Yes, it is referring to the party; Justran is Jolliver’s spy in Red Larch and on the Long Road.

Strangely enough, it’s one of the few documents of that sort which is not actually spelled out, so I never did a facsimile of it as a hand-out.

In retrospect, I have no idea what Faith’s dream was about. I’m sure it was very clever and foreshadowing. It might be a warning to about finding Aldrik after gets kidnapped later, but I’m afraid Deneir is smarter and more cryptic than I am.

I actually played the knockback from the Air Elemental’s landing Whirlwind attack completely legit. All the players legitimately ran into stuff along the Spire’s parapet (or made a save and didn’t get thrown back). Thurl really did get knocked into a Giant Vulture, and Savra really did get knocked over the edge …

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