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. 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 38 (Day 35)
In the Temple of the Crushing Wave …

1. 

   Thuluna Maah‘s horrific appearance terrified William, though Moony was not as affected. The two of them, though, managed to dispatch her with surprising swiftness.

2. Thuluna’s room included a Dragonbone Sword, a couple of magic potions, and an Immovable Rod.
3. Checking out the two rooms off of the Market Hall, the party went to the room where folk were inside talking in Common. This turned out to be full of various cultists, as well as the fled Morbeoth. Regardless of various banter and offers of cooperation, all the opposition was killed, and the party spiked the doors for a Short Rest. During that time, the Dragonbone Sword was revealed to be able to detect dragons at 120 feet (leading to much triangulation around where it glowed, indicating a dragon (?) might be to the northwest of the city quadrant.
4. The room to the south end of the Market Hall turned out to be full of Lizardfolk, who actually sent out a flanking party. That still didn’t end well for them.
5. The party retreated to Morbeoth‘s old workshop to settle down for a Short and/or Long Rest.

Player Recap

“If I’m Stabbing People with Weapons, We Are Fucked.” — Theren

The hideous visage of Thuluna charges the door. She claws at William and Moony strikes back. The horrid brain twisting creature turns Williams’ bowels to jelly. He is frightened and steps back. He succeeds in moving the bonfire between Thuluna and the doorway. As the others race to join the battle, Moony strikes true with his arrow and defeats the monstrosity. Moony and William toss the room and the bodies. The room was once opulent, but the tapestry and furniture was severely scratched. In the far room by the remains of a once ornate bed is a wooden chest with gold and platinum. There is also a two headed rod with a button on one end and figures of horses. There is also a curved longsword leaning in the corner. It appears to be made of bone with glowing rubies in the hilt. There are also some potions on the body. They are a Potion of Hill Giant Strength and a Potion of Fire Resistance. 

They decide to take a short rest but do not want to use Thuluna’s room. Moony listens at the door in the southeast corner of the market room. He hears multiple creatures hissing and growls.

Wanting rest they decide to try the northeast door. There are human voices talking about “Shatterkeel” … “torrents” … an angry voice and clattering noises. Inside are a number of people who turn around and look at Moony. “Hey, what are you doing here?” “Hi, I’m Moony, I wanted to talk to you about the Crushing Wave.” The cultists start to grab their weapons. Moony steps back and Theren tosses a Fireball into the center of the room. Morbeoth steps up and Moony says “Surrender and our cleric may have mercy on you.” “Your cleric is a cold bitch, but I may still make a deal with you.” Nala and Theren enter the room and confront the remaining Reaver. “You fools, I was probably your only hope against her.” He flees the room, only to run into Faith. 

William asks “Which her? We have already defeated Thuluna” “I don’t believe anything you say.” he responds and blasts Faith with a blast from a gem inset into his eye. Proving his point, Moony, Faith, and Theren continue to pound on him. He has nothing more to add before he is defeated. The gem in his eye is actually a chunk of ice that is slowly melting as the body warms. 

The group decides to hole up in the kitchen and take a Short Rest. They regain hit points and identify the magic items that they recovered. Feeling refreshed they decide to return to the southeastern door. Before they enter Moony notices that the creatures are speaking draconic. Nala can hear them and understands them. They sound like fighters bitching about their job. They hear the party outside and the battle begins. 

Several lizardfolk sneak out the back door to come from the east. Moony calls out “I see you”. No one responds. It becomes a battle on two fronts one at the main door to the room and the other in the rubble along the canal.

When the battle is over they explore the barracks and find human remains on the fire spit. Disgusted, they move back into the market square to plan on a Long Rest. 

Their walk back to the brewery section is mostly uneventful. The aqua troll Ninetooth appears at the dragon bridge scowling. He lets them pass when they again praise Olhydra. 

Game Notes

Battles a-plenty

Thuluna turned out to be a bust. Yes, horrifying creature, but a bit of a glass cannon. If they players aren’t Frightened by her (and DC 11 is not a huge barrier at 7th level), then she’s toast. In this case, the Rogue was able to plonk a couple of sneak attacks while the Druid shook the Fear off. She never even got to use her insta-kill Terrifying Glare or whatever it is. Sad.

Lesson Learned: critters like that need their backups. She should have gone after them while she had her ogres. Of course, the party bottled the ogres up nicely, so maybe that wouldn’t have worked. 

The folk in the galley were pretty easily handled by a Fireball from our running-on-fumes Sorcerer. That’s where I had stashed Morbeoth, figuring he had more of an in with the Human cultists (Thuluna being the one controlling the non-humans — the Trolls, Ogres, and Lizardfolk). It made sense, but, again, he couldn’t handle the party on his own, especially when his Fear didn’t work this time. There were attempts by him and the Druid to calm the battle down (which I appreciated), but the players generally just wanted to have done with.

The Lizardfolk were more of a challenge, especially when they went out the back door and started flanking the party through the ruins. The Druid’s Spike Growth locked down most of the Lizardfolk inside though, with the Fighter at the door holding them in so that the spell-casters and Rogue could snipe around them.

They weren’t in any great danger, but the margin was not as easy to overcome as with the previous … and it left everyone out of spell slots for the most part.

Leveling

I realized that, at this point, they’d basically “won” this Temple — Morbeoth and Thuluna were dead, and Gar was fled to the Fane. In at least one point, that was described as the victory conditions, though another place (at least in my transmogrified notes) said that the temple/altar room also needed to be cleared.

Since “winning” the Temple was the Milestone for leveling, this was not just an academic matter.

I decided on the latter target — I wanted them to spot at least one more exit from this place — and so I skipped over their leveling to 8 during their Long Rest. I’d encourage another day of adventuring (or withdrawing) before they could Long Rest and ding to the new level for this milestone.

I’ve always tried to do leveling up as part of a Long Rest, as it seemed starting the new day at a new level made the most “sense.” I though I’d read this once, but it’s not Rules as Written.  Which means that every DM is kind of on their own as to how they handle it — instant video-game level-up, level-up at end of session, level-up after a Long Rest, etc.

The most sensible answer I’ve seen is that (a) class features and ability increases and the like happen immediately, (b) intrinsic things like additional HPs/HP Max and spell slots get awarded immediately, but (c) no recovery occurs (i.e., if you are down 25 HP, you are still down 25 HP; if you have used all your 1st level spell slots, they are still gone, as is the new one you just got). 

That makes sense, but it’s also full of tangles for each and every bit, especially for all the different spellcasting classes, which have their own variations of how spells are stored. Also, the Roll20 Charactermancer doesn’t really support it.

So I’ve stuck with the “Long Rest” approach, which not only gives the characters their abilities, but restocks all the shelves, so to speak. I will let them know when they are ready to level, but not until they Long Rest (which gives everyone a chance to pre-plan).

Treasure

The party found the “Dragonbone Sword” in Thuluna’s quarters, and after their Short Rest figured out the whole Dragon Detection thing. Which, as they’ve wandered around a bit, has let them triangulate that the putative dragon is somewhere in the direction of the shadowy end of the “Starry Lake.”

Will they actually go after the dragonturtle there? Hmmm.

The Cleric took the first step toward attuning to Windvane, Aerisi’s prophet weapon. Everyone, as players, was deeply suspicious (and with good reason), and as GM I good-naturedly played along with that (“Don’t worry how everyone else is the next morning, they’ll all be dead with spear-shaped wounds in the heart”), but I was also quietly mentioning how good and liberating it felt to wield it, and I will doubtless begin whispering more clearly to her once she actually starts using it.

It’s nifty weapon … but it comes at a cost.

I added in one more reward item than was written out — the Immovable Rod, which was originally a treasure item in the “Villa” in the Air Temple sector. It’s just too useful an item (for spiking the door, if nothing else). They eventually found some good uses for it down the line.

Bits and Bobs

I mentioned before how this Temple does have more of a D&D Dungeon vibe in layout than previous locales visited in this campaign.

That said, the whole central zone of this map makes for a very maneuverable environment, with lots of side passages, back doors, etc. That made the combat with Morbeoth’s crew and with the Lizardfolk a lot more fluid than they were used to, with attempts to flank and split forces much more likely.

As a DM, of course, the fact the opposition knows this place like the back of their hand should be exploited, tactically. On the other hand, splitting up too much rarely ends well.

Side note: I realized late in the game that the party was searching willy-nilly through the Market Hall without any Perception rolls from the groups in the adjoining rooms. I also forgot about the decoration on the Lizardfolk room. Ugh. I hate missing details like that.

---

<< Session 37 | Session 39 >>