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!

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GM Recap

Session 40 (Day 36)
In the Temple of the Crushing Wave …

1. 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.
2. 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. 
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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. 

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.

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.

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.

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!

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