This is part of an a series 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 13 (Day 20-21) 

1. The unfriendly dwarf turned out to be a survivor of the Mirabar Delegation guard, Aldrik Oakhide. Their memory of the ambush, travel, and so forth was fuzzy and incomplete (though they had been friends with the dead Narl Elrok), but they were happy to join up against the party’s campaign against the Black Earth.

2. 

   The next day they reached the Sacred Stone Monastery, and were promptly turned away at the front door. They decided to invade, climbing over the wall into a garden in the rear. On their first break-in to the building they disturbed a lich, Renwick, who occupied a decrepit wing of the monastery. He let them go, as long as they only disturbed the annoying monks.

3. Returning into the garden meant dealing with two gargoyles there.

4. 

   They broke into another door, and investigated winding corridors. They found a room with a chest full of treasure. They also found a scriptorium full of diligent, oblivious monks. They also found a dojo, which led to a dire battle against the martial arts master Hellenrae, four of her students, and a couple of others from an adjoining room who heard the clamor. It was a hard-fought battle, with Nala nearly falling to Hellenrae’s wicked attacks, though in the end, and with much casting of (loud) spells, they defeated her. But … now exhausted, and in the enemy’s stronghold … what next?

Player Recap

An angry dwarf brandishing a large tree branch confronts the group. “All right you murdering cultists. Let’s be done with this.”

Gradually the situation de-escalated. Faith asks Aldrik about their history and intent. Eventually, everyone is introduced and plans are made. The bodies are burned and the group returns to the water cultists campsite. There are supplies and about 10 days rations in the camp. 

Putting the puzzle pieces together, it looks like the Delegation was ambushed on the East side of the river. The delegates and a few others were kidnapped, brought down to the river, boarded boats and landed somewhere on the other side of the river. It is likely that Aldrik was separated some time after crossing the river. A second attack occurred at the site of the shallow graves North of Red Larch. It may have been the Feather Top knights. They did admit that they repelled a Black Earth incursion. 

The night is uneventful. The obsidian dagger is not magical, though it was probably use in magical ceremonies. William attunes to the fist-shaped knob. It is an old artifact that has a single Knock spell upon it. It does not appear to be able to recharge. Faith proceeds with her morning prayer and William prepares his augury ritual. Aldrik looks through the cultist weapons and picks up a few javelins. 

The trail continues in a ever-narrowing draw, where the sides of the canyon are so close that a person could easily touch both sides at once. Abruptly it expands into a wide rocky vale. An old stone temple is there that was recently reborn as the Sacred Stone Monastery. The group plans on approaching to return the stone dagger. Aldrik agrees to stay out of sight by the edge of the building. Theren climbs the stairs and knocks on the door. A panel in the door opens and a woman in golden mask styled as gargoyle. Theren tells the woman that they had found something of interest in the canyons that they might be interested in. She says, there is nothing of interest to us in the hills except our meditations. Faith tries to get her to open a door and the woman refuses: “The abbess does not allow interruptions in our meditations.” She then slams the panel shut. 

Moony stealths around the outside of the building while the others retreat to the shade of the canyon. Parts of the monastery are in disarray, probably the state that the building was found when the Sacred Stone took over occupation. 

Try the front door again and are refused again.

Three choices for entrance: garden with the gargoyle statues, the kitchen door, or the door near the dilapidated section of the monastery. Group chooses the garden entrance. Moony picks the lock on the outside door with a little guidance from William. He moves onto the door in the east wall that lead into the monastery. The lock fights him like it was magic, but he succeeds. There are stairs up to the main floor. On quiet little kitty paws Moony enters. 

A gaunt and skeletal humanoid with withered flesh stretched tight across its bones. Its eyes are points of light burning in its empty sockets. It is garbed in the moldering remains of fine robes, and jewelry worn and dulled by the passage of time. There is a lich in the room. All of the windows are bricked up. Renwick: “I am not the enemy that you seek. They are in the areas of this building that I choose not to inhabit. I have reached an arrangement with them. They don’t bother me and I don’t kill them.” The group agrees to leave him alone and not continue into the area of the temple he claims.

Back in the garden, Moony investigates the gargoyle statue. It does not appear to be a real gargoyle. The party moves onto the door in the south wall. Moony listens at the door and is surprised by the gargoyle near the steps on the west wall. 

Moony takes damage from the first gargoyle and a second leaps from his pedestal and attacks Nala. Faith reacts first and casts Shatter encompassing both gargoyles. A rumbling thunder fills that valley. Nala attacks with her sword. It hits but does not do its normal damage. She switches to her breath weapon doing significant cold damage. The first gargoyle attacks Moony, but only does minor damage. The second screams and attacks Nala, but misses. … Gargoyle One is defeated and the other gargoyle escapes by flying away

After the excitement, Moony returns to the south door and finds it unlocked. Explores the hall and checks several doors. Finally he misses his Stealth roll and opens a door into a monk martial arts practice room. One monk in the middle of the room with four slightly bloodied monks around her. She demands to know who they are. Moony steps back. The master monk comes out a different door and comes at Nala from the side hallway. She does three attacks on Nala. William casts Spike Growth in the dojo. Theren Scorching Ray. Reinforcements from another room. Difficult fight, with Nala going down, but in the end they succeed. 

Game Notes

Sacred Stone Monastery was the first of the “Haunted Keeps” the party really decided to take down. They’d let themselves be intimidated at both Feathergale Spire and Rivergard Keep. This time, they were in it to win it.

Always assume that if there is a non-linear way of doing things — a way that makes no sense when you think about it beforehand, but that the players can find way to rationalize on the spur of the moment — that they will do so. 

Case in point:  the Sacred Stone Monastery has a front door. It has rules about the front door. It has attendants at the front door. It has write-ups of what happens if people try to pick the lock of the front door, kick open the front door, or otherwise insert themselves through the front door.

So, of course, the party went around back.

And, of course, the climax of the location (at least the upper floor, if not both) is a confrontation with the Lich, Renwick. So, of course, the first door they enter (with an astonishingly good roll with lockpicks, not even using the Knock artifact I’d given them) is Renwick’s.

Renwick

I was scared of Renwick.

I mean, sure, he’s a Lich. I should be scared of him. But I was mostly scared of him just wiping out the party. Time Stop plus Cloud Kill, if not Power Word: Kill, Finger of Death, or Disintegrate, are all scary things.

I was able to do a nice reveal of him (initially he’s a hooded figure/token at a work table, then a turn and his token shows up with that wonderful Dave Trampier drawing from the original AD&D Monster Manual).

Even our LG and fractious cleric decided that attacking the Lich, in his own space, was not a good move to lead with, which allowed some conversation to take place and his live-and-let-live (so to speak) attitude to come out. 

Renwick, of course, has a backstory — he’s the brother of Samular Caradoon, the leader of the Knights of Samular. That means he’s enmeshed in the Narl story, as we’ll see. He also has a tie to the Knights, which might come out in the future.

As described, and as I played him, Renwick isn’t that bad of a guy. I mean, yeah, he plays around with necromantic magic and would as soon kill you for science as give you a cookie. But his main motivation is as an academic, and if you just leave him alone, he’ll leave you alone. Unless he runs short of parts.

Gargoyles

The battle with the Gargoyles was fun, and one of their first with non-normal creatures (the Ankhegs some time back notwithstanding). Biggest problem I had was that I wanted the marked garden plants to serve as difficult terrain, and it’s not drawn very well for that.

(I’m a big believer in the difficult terrain rule. The 5e rules RAW note that it can encompass ground debris and the like, but also passing through a friendly person’s square (“Pardon me, excuse me, coming through …”) and (and this is not RAW) into a square with a dead body (especially during battle).

Gargoyles are one of those critters — like Piercers — that are literally undetectable as to what they really are. So a Gargoyle will just look like a statue of a gargoyle, and there’s nothing you can do to prove otherwise, other than attacking every gargoyle statue you see (and battering the hell out of our weapon).

Anyway, they were fun, and they represented a sign of the party’s increasing level. Also, they require magic (or adamantine) weapons to hit, and that did not include any of our fighters. Yet.

Hellenrae

The take-down of Hellenrae is supposed to be a climactic moment as well, as she’s the actual leader of this keep (the high priest in the central chamber notwithstanding). The tangle of corridors where it took place, and with the party intermingled with the monks/troops (including some unexpected reinforcements) was such that it was a tougher fight than folk were expecting, with one player actually knocked down to 0 HP (which hadn’t happened since waaaaaaay back in the campaign, in the Tomb of Moving Stones).

Still, the party was still able to triumph, and Hellenrae got moved to the “trophy case” on the campaign landing page.

By the way, Spike Growth is an awesome tactical spell, at least at this level. It always seriously messes up the oppo forces. Thank Gygax the damage doesn’t scale up. In this case, at least, it seriously hampered the low-level monks, though I gave them some jumps and leaps to avoid most of it (their being monks, after all).

Aldrik

Aldrik’s inclusion unbalanced things a bit. D&D modules are generally written for five adventurers; this brought us to six. It definitely added martial capabilities.

That’s okay. I had some quick and dirty formulae to use to help balance encounters. And having an extra martial took some of the pressure off the cleric. And it was fun having my son play.

Problem is, I had set up Aldrik as a mystery. He had clearly escaped from the Monastery, but how? From/through where? Or had he been thought dead and dumped on the trash heap? I had established (with the player’s consent) that his mind was very muddle, memories hazy since the attack on the Delegation. But I felt like I needed to know what those memories were, both for the player’s sake and for mine.

Eventually, I’d figure it out.

Bits and Bobs

Not all cool looking things have to be magic items. Drosnin’s obsidian dagger, taken from her body after last game’s big battle, turned out to be … just an obsidian dagger, though likely one that had been used in unsavory ways.

One-use magic items (what Sly Flourish calls “relics”) are a great way to provide interesting and fun items that don’t unbalance the game. I thought a fist-shaped door knob with a Knock spell would be fun, and might make the team’s life easier some time — like dealing with getting into Sacred Stone Monastery. So, of course, they didn’t use it until some time later.

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