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 49 (Day 40)
In … the Temple of the Black Earth!

1. 

   The party made short work of the Black Earth Guards and Priest in the guard room (aided greatly by a well-placed fireball from Theren). One guard grudgingly surrendered and was fed to Ko.

2. Moony scouted north, finding a large double-doorway with defaced figures on it. The party realized (some sooner than others) that religious (in particular) artwork, sculptures, reliefs, mosaics from the dwarvish days of Tyar-Besil had been systematically defaced.
3. This seemed true with a sculpture they found that Theren identified as possibly being of Ogremoch –seemingly carved from an older statue at that location. 
4. Choosing to head east, rather than confront Marlos Urnrayle before a long rest, the party found and cleared a trophy-festooned barracks, including defeating a burrowshark named Dynath.
5. At the far end of the barracks was an additional door. The party (wanting to still be able to make use of Faith‘s demonic faeries) barged in, finding a large, pillared hall — and several hostile figures staring back at them.  

Player Recap

Roll Initiative – The Arrow Slots Open

Mooney starts things off and tries to attack through the arrow slit. William steps up to the other side of the arrow slit and cast Entangle into the dark. The guards continue to try and attack. Faith casts Sacred Flame and Nala uses her new magic missile wand through the southern slit. Theren moves to the door and tosses off a fire ball into the room. A fighter emerges from the room wielding a morning star but wearing no armor. Nala makes short work of them. The rest of the battle is mostly clean-up. When the battle ends the group takes stock of the room. It is a neat barrack room with an exit to the West and North-East. There is not much in the room of value. After healing Nala, the group continues North. 

Mooney finds the double doors with the faces and returns to the group. They decide to head East to look at the lieutenants. There is a room off of the East-West hallway. When they enter, they find two fighters. The first cultist goes down with a magic missile from Nala. Ko moves up to menace the second cultist. The cultists jumps up and yells “Intruders!” and lunges at Ko. Moony steps up to intimidate the cultist. He falls back over the bad and Moony takes him out. The room has beds and bunks. There are weapons on the walls, both ancient and new. An unknown creature is mounted on the wall. 

There are steps coming from the halls beyond both the curtains to the East and South. Dynath comes from the South and an earth guard comes in from the East. Faith casts spirit guardians and engages Dynath. The room to the South is a room with a single bed. The walls are in disrepair with spears and a pair of boots nailed to the wall. There is a large stack of leather tack that appears to be Buelette size. Another curtain leads out of Dynath’s room. Dynath’s spear is nothing special, but he does have a heavy pouch of gold and some gems. 

The room to the East contains a couple of beds, a body, and a table with stone dice on it. A door to the East leads into another sleeping room that wraps around to a doorway into Dynath’s room. There is another door to the East of this room. A women’s voice can be hear complaining and a murmur of voice responding. 

Game Notes

I was feeling disappointed in this session, until my wife emphatically and unsolicited told me, afterwards, “That was fun!” So it goes to show you that, as a DM, getting feedback is important.

My concern had been that it was, mostly, two grindy (if successful) melees against fairly mookish types, a little scouting, and … that was it. No real advancement of higher plots, no schemes being penetrated, etc. But sometimes players seem to want that. Or, as G’kar once put it:

By G’Quon I can’t recall the last time I was in a fight like that! No moral ambiguity, no hopeless battle against ancient and overwhelming forces. They were the bad guys, as you say, and we were the good guys! And they made a very satisfying thump when they hit the floor!

There were some color notes I enjoyed. For example, finding the (map-labeled) statue of Moradin that Marlos had recarved (poorly) into a statue of Ogremoch was nicely creepifying. 

The party’s decision to put off running into Marlos until they’d had another Long Rest was understandable (and wise), but did send them off in a somewhat different direction than expected. That still left things free for Aldrik’s petrified form to be discovered,  if my son decided to rejoin the game shortly.

Some of the stuff in the upper right quadrant of the map had been weakened by the reinforcement down in the bullette room, the ambush that had whomped them seriously a few sessions ago. The campaign book provides for shifting around reinforcements like that, which I think is the right thing to do. It does mean making weaker challenges later on, and part of me wanted to restock the next encounter, but I also didn’t want to unbalance what folk were facing overall. 

A lot of new territory explored on the map, though nothing too extraordinary uncovered …

---

<< Session 48 | Session 50 >>