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 22 (Days 27-28)

After the vanishment of the Air Elemental (and Aldrik), Thurl Merosska intoned, pale and shocked, “Her voice. She spoke to you …” and stomped downstairs. A Featherfalling Savra Hanadroum was rescued back up to the top, was rather dismayed herself, but more so that Thurl had been upset.
The party was shown down to rooms — except to Moony, who had stealthily followed Thurl, and overhead him going “Why, why,” and screaming with pain, and then sobbing.
Dinner was a tense affair. William told (most of) the story of taking the Sacred Stone Monastery, which drew cheers, but in talking about Aldrik’s origin, Thurl demanded more details, then stormed out when they were not forthcoming. “We will speak of this in the morning.”
The party huddled in one room of the two they were offered, planning plans.
Moony (turned invis) along with William (turned into a spider) snuck through the tower. The roof had the normal vulture guards, plus someone monitoring the telescope, which was trained on a small vale across the Sighing Valley. Down a level, a guard stood outside Thurl’s quarters. Down at the kitchen level, William tried to find something to mask Moony’s scent (which it seemed a vulture on the top level had spotted).
Down at the stables level, bypassing a knight training his hippogriff, they determined that a closed stall with a guard was suspicious. William managed to (mis)communicate his intent to Moony, and dashed past the spider-stomping guard. Inside, he found The Captive, transformed back to human, told her they would rescue her on the morrow, Turning back into a spider, William realized he hadn’t asked her her name. He and Moony returned to their room before the Invis spell wore out.
Savra came to them, and urged them to leave. Theren insighted that (a) she was quite … involved with Thurl, and (b) she was frightened (of him?). The party grilled her about the female voice, about Thurl and his devotions, etc. In the end, she fled.
It occurred to the party (Faith) that elementals should speak Auran, not Elvish, and (Theren) it actually sounded like an actual elvish woman speaking stilted noble elvish.
Hunkering down for the evening, setting watches … and Moony, sometime after midnight, heard sounds outside, and then, as he listened, the bar on the door lifted up, and the door was pushed open, and, behind a mass of Feathergale Knights, Thurl shouted, “It’s morning …!”

Player Recap

Feathers

As the group stands up and dusts themselves off, William and Faith heal the wounded. The others look to where the elemental took Aldrik. Thurl shakes himself and says in annoyance and wonder, “Her voice. She talked to you.” He then storms towards the stairs and heads down.

Sir Carele returns on his vulture with Savra unharmed. She dismounts and bows to him. She looks around and asks where Thurl is. Nala lets her know that he headed down the tower steps. Clearly flustered, Savra greets the group and invites them to stay as guests. She leads them down to the banquet room and guest chambers that they occupied previously.

Meanwhile, Moony sneaks after Thurl and overhears his monologue behind one of the doors on the floor between the roof and the banquet hall, amidst the sound of breaking furniture. “Why? Why?” “Why wouldn’t she take me? Doesn’t she know my devotion? My loyalty? How can I –?” Followed shortly by a loud, tormented scream from Thurl.

The party gathers in one room to discuss the events. Moony joins them shortly. The group can not determine why Thurl was disconcerted by the elemental. An initiate comes and invites the party to dinner. As they join the table, they are welcomed by Savra. Thurl is missing, but joins them a bit later.

Savra and the knights are looking at Thurl with concern, especially Savra. Savra politely asks William about the group’s journey and battle against the Black Earth monastery. When William gets to the part of finding Aldrik and rescuing the captives, Thurl burst out “But who is he?” William tries to explain again. Thurl is disbelieving. He shortly leaves in a huff, vowing that they will continue the discussion in the morning.

Nala questions the hospitality of the Feathergale knights and the group’s safety. Savra gets snarky and follows after Thurl. Moony stokes the flames of discourse and discontent. Eventually, Nala and William join the verbal fray in defending Aldrik. Finally, one of the knights takes enough offense and leaves. Faith calls out after her “Thanks for the inhospitality.” The dinner quickly breaks up and the party retires to their room.

After the group gets settled in and begin discussing the plans for the night and the morning, Savra comes to the room. She tries to get us to leave, then and there. William lights into her about the larger impact of what they are doing. He asks her directly about the missing delegation. She denies knowledge, but William is certain that she knows more. He pushes and asks her directly about Deseyna Majarra, the Waterdeep delegate who was stolen by vulture riders, and describes her. He tries to convince her that what they are doing is not something to be taken lightly and that all of the elements are gathering to bring forth a great evil. He comes close, but she shakes herself and digs deep into her faith.

In the end she again tries to convince the party to leave tonight and get away. That Sir Thurl is not himself and may be dangerous. William asks as she leaves, ” So why does your lady speak Elvish and not Auran?” She gapes and leaves without a word.

Theren shares his insight on Savra. She is deeply attracted to Thurl but is also afraid of him. Moony agrees and gives the group a summary of the tower from his previous exploration. The groups decides that a Long Rest is the best course … but not yet.

Theren turns Moony invisible and William turns into a spider. The two head out to explore. They start on the roof. After a scare with a guard, Moony takes a look through the telescope. It is trained on the mouth a gorge across the Sighing Valley from the tower, though it’s difficult to make out in the fog. He makes a note of the location. As they head towards the stairs, one of the vultures takes note.

As they head towards the aerie on the bottom floor, William pulls Moony towards the kitchen to find an herb to mask his scent. They continue down the stairs.

One of the knights is in the stables but is paying attention to his hippogriff and doesn’t hear Moony. There is an initiate standing guard over a locked door. William tries to signal Moony to wait but he doesn’t really understand. William races down his leg and under the door; the guard spots the spider but his stomp misses William.

Inside there is a captive. When William is safely on the far side he returns to human form. She does not appear to be Deseyna, at least not as described to them. He tells her that they will come and rescue her soon. When asked what she needs she requests a dagger. William says goodbye, resumes his spider form and leaves by the top of the door and the wall to avoid the boot. They make it back to the room and share all of their investigations.

They set up watches and figure out where each person is to sleep in the crowded chamber. Some time after midnight, Moony, on watch, hears something. He goes to the door to listen, and realizes the bar they have lowered is rising upward. Before he can do anything, the door is kicked open, the hall outside full of Feathergale Knights and Initiates, weapons drawn. Thurl shouts out, from beyond the crowd, “It’s morning!”

Game Notes

“As the Spire Turns”

So, to summarize:

Aerisi Kalinoth is the Prophet of Evil Elemental Air, worshipping Yan-C-Bin. We’ll meet her in person later on, but she’s a beautiful winged elf-queen (that’s her up there on the book cover) with a few screws loose. All she asks is that you worship her, as she deserves.

Thurl Merosska is the Keeper of Feathergale Spire, in service to Aerisi. He has his backstory as a Gryphon Racer jock and a terrible accident, but suffice it to say that he worships two things: power, and Aerisi. Indeed, his long-term goal is to take Aerisi as his own, at which point, of course, he would assume the power of the Prophet and she his dutiful, beautiful wife. He clearly has a few screws loose, too.

(To the extent that she notices Thurl as more than another of her servitors, she probably thinks his adoration is both cute and fitting, and would laugh for several minutes if you told her about his dream, and then kill you, and maybe him, for even suggesting it.)

Savra Hanadroum (more on her name here) is a rebellious teenager from Red Larch, smitten by the handsome Gryphon-rider Thurl, and ran away from home with him to be near him, in the process becoming his chief lieutenant. She’s still deeply smitten, but is still a cultist with a heart of gold.

Now … Aerisi just intervened in everything, yoinking via Air Elemental the party’s dwarvish barbarian, Aldrik, from the top of Feathergale Spire, and showing in a few short words that she’s far more interested in him than she’s ever seemed interested in Thurl. (That it’s not necessarily interested in a better way is beside the point for him.)

Thurl, as a result, is furious, jealous, and won’t take “We don’t know much about his background” as an answer.

Savra is appalled at how Thurl is taking this, but feels badly for him, but wants to do the right thing by getting the party out of there, but remains in unrequited love with Thurl, certain if he would just listen to her, everything would be all right.

Hilarity (and, apparently, a big battle) ensues.

Did the players get all of this? As noted, they were getting parts of it, and I think they got enough to feel like there were actual motivations going on, not just mustache-twirling mad cultists. Not that it made the situation any less dangerous.,

Some of this (the fundamentals of the Thurl-Aerisi thing) are from the campaign book. Other parts of it (most of Savra, and her play here, as well as, of course, the whole Aldrik additional bit) were from my own fevered imagination. But it worked beautifully in my mind and it finally appeared to be about to bring the big battle between the party and all the Feathergale Knights that has been hanging since Session 9.

Thurl’s histrionics behind close doors, as overheard by Moony, is part and parcel of his obsession with Aerisi, obviously. He’s also literally hurting himself, cutting open the cult symbol scars on his chest with a dagger, in a desperate bid to either show Aerisi he’s worthy of her devotion, or to distract himself from his emotional anguish.

Kids, don’t try this at home.

Sneak, sneak, sneak

The party had much of Feathergale Spire mapped out by now, and they decided to finish the job under cover of night. Moony checked out the floor with the chambers of the top leadership, including Thurl. Then he and William did some Invisible / Spider creeping about.

They (finally!) looked through the telescope on the top floor, which is used to monitor the entrance to Knifepoint Gully, where the path down to the Temple of Air in Tyar-Besil lies. (Remember that the keeps were originally built to monitor the entrances to the constructions below, both to raid them for loot and to keep monsters from getting out.)

(Smaller hand-held telescopes are used by the lookouts to watch south into the flatlands.)

After a brief scare when one of the Giant Vultures perceived Moony (followed by a clever bid to mask his scent), they went down to the lowest floor, where the paddocks for the Gryphons and Giant Vultures were. There they found a battered woman being kept captive, dressed only in a wet slip.

Now, I knew who the woman was. I was expecting them to think it might be Deseyna, one of the Mirabar Delegates, and the thought did occur to the players, but she didn’t match the description they’d received.

No, the identity of the captive (whom they left there to be “safe”) would be a far more interesting (and non-canonical) sub-plot in the campaign to come.

Bits and Bobs

This was very much a talky-talky episode, the first in a while without any sort of combat. Sorry, guys — we’ll make up for it next week.

A lot of plans were hatched by the party, including (a) yes, running away in the middle of the night, and (b) pre-emptively attacking the Knights. A number of the plans involved, “Well, we have until morning,” not realizing that Thurl was waiting for 12:01 a.m. to act on his promise/threat …

I picture Thurl’s “It’s morning!” (when he told the party they would discuss all of this further) to seem a lot like Jack Nicholson’s “Heeeere’s Johnny!” in The Shining. Thurl’s basically lost it.

I really enjoyed this episode, and my favorite part was William (and Faith, from what I recall) trying to talk Savra into turning on Thurl, or at least helping them. I actually did some Persuasion die rolling behind the DM Screen in there, and it’s possible that, given a few more days, things might have turned out very differnetly.

But … it’s morning.

<< Session 21 | Session 23 >>

Princes of the Apocalypse, Session 22: “An Ill Wind”