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 23 (Day 28)

The massed forces of Feathergale Spire attempted to storm the room where the party was sleeping. A bloody, intimate, and AoE battle later, the party was thoroughly victorious. Savra Hanadroum died trying to protect Thurl Merosska, who in turn was cut down.
Howling Hatred symbol

Thurl seemed to be revived by some sort of Air Magic, muttering about proving himself and defying fear. Faith put an end to that by Dispelling Magic. On searching him, getting past the cultic self-cutting and scarification (in Yet Another Symbol), they found an interesting ring and the Necklace of Thurl Merosska.
The party investigated the tower in a cursory fashion to confirm who might still be about. An Initiate on the rooftop leapt to his death. Heading downward, they encountered The Captive that William (and Moony) had encountered. They shortly recognized her as a figure from Rivergard Keep, a member of Jolliver Grimjaw‘s band of pirates, a magic-user named Urshnora.
The party hunkered down on the first floor of the Spire for the rest of the night, hoping desperately for an uninterrupted Long Rest.

Player Recap

Epic Battles and Power Outages

During Moony’s watch he hears movement outside the room’s door. He wakes William up before the noise escalates into a bounding at the door. Thurl bashes open the door. “It’s morning” he bellow.

An epic battle occurs. The Feathergale Knights have numbers on their side, but the party is more skilled, has a good position, and makes use of area of affect spells and weapons to their advantage. There were thorn spikes, ball bearings, fire balls and ice breath creating destruction outside the room and heals, air/storm magic, smiting and thwacking inside the room. Multiple crits and some truly awful DEX saves assured the party’s victory.

More of the battle would be written down and sung by the bards, but the power went out and the notes were not saved.

Game Notes

It’s the Action Economy, stupid. Except when it’s not.

In an open field, the party would have been in big trouble. The FKs had them by sheer numbers, with some contender-worthy opponents as well (Thurl, Savra, the Ascetics). The sheer number of attacks they could have managed would have been overwhelming.

So, really, Thurl’s best opportunity would have been to wait until everyone was sitting down for breakfast, then launch an attack from all sides.

Thurl wasn’t really thinking straight on this one.

Instead, the party was concentrated in the quarters they had been given (and in just one of the two rooms), guarding the doorway, dealing with any individuals who slipped in (or teleported in, like Thurl), and the rest of the outside could become an AoE killing ground.

Which is essentially what happened. The druid dropped a Spike Growth that slowed and did steady damage to the (relatively low-level) bad guys. The rogue threw down their ball bearings, to further great effect. And a Fireball from the Sorcerer and a breath weapon from the dragonborn fighter both did their jobs, too.

Basically, 80-90% of the foes were defeated without ever being able to bring weapons to bear on the player characters.

Amazing.

The End of the Triangle

Poor Savra. She charged into the room and gave her life to save a guy who really didn’t care for her. The party tried, even in mid-battle, to talk her down, but when it came to it, the party cleric chose (rightly) between friends and foes.

Thurl’s “clever” tactic to breach their lines from inside turned the Action Economy upside down for him, letting party members concentrate on him. Bad idea.

Thurl’s mini-resurrection was something I’d come up with (an enchantment to pump AIR into his lungs) to let him say a few final words … which were cut short by the cleric Dispelling Magic. So be it.

Urshnora

So the backstory here:

Urshnora is a Fathomer, one of the named baddies at Rivergard Keep, and Jolliver’s top lieutenant (in her own mind, at least). She was there when the party first arrived and fast-talked their way with Jolliver, and was on the periphery when Drosnin called out an all-out attack on the party, driving them to escape.
Drosnin took her along with the ambush party, knowing the characters were planning on going to Sacred Stone Monastery. Seeing the plan go pear-shaped before she even had a chance to get involved in the attack, she stayed invisible and slipped away.
By the time she made it back to Rivergard Keep, it had been wiped out by the Fire Cult.
Heading for Scarlet Moon Hall to take her revenge on the Eternal Flame cult, she’d been captured in the Sumber Hills by the Feathergale Knights … and tortured by those Howling Hatred cultists to reveal the secrets of the Crushing Wave. She was willing to play the long game to get back at Thurl — but guessing the player characters will have things well in hand, kills her guard (which she could have done a while back) and lets herself be “captured” by them. Her interest will be further piqued as she learns more about them.

Necklace of Thurl Merosska (accept no substitutes!)

The only part that didn’t go according to her plan was the party recognizing where they had encountered her before. She offered her help in return for them having freed her (or, at least, taken down Thurl), and, for reasons I don’t really recall, they didn’t just kill her, but invited her along (perhaps because she said she had info about the Necklace of Thurl Merosska, et al.).

Urshnora’s role in all of this was completely my own doing. I hadn’t yet made up my mind what her story arc would be, but I thought she might make for useful complications down the line, and someone who could occasionally voice things for the DM.

Favorite Moments

I shared these with the players later.

Moony – The Keystone Kops scene that nobody could see outside the door after he threw down his ball bearings.
Theren – Shooting a Fireball through a narrow corner of the door and trusting that it was a target-rich environment outside … which it was, but not afterward.
Faith – Using Dispel Magic to “pull the plug” on Thurl.
William – Best. Thorny. Floor. Thing. Ever. Not only screwed up the bad guys’ tactics, but weakened, trapped, or (in one case) killed people.
Nala – Inadvertently stepping on the Thorny Floor thing (and taking damage), before taking out the Knight there with a puff of cold air.
Savra – Charging in like an avenging angel to save Thurl. And refusing to be talked down while people were still stabbing him.
Thurl – Deciding, “screw it, I’m not gonna walk through this Spike Growth thing I’m in the center of” and Wind Walking / teleporting into the room.
Urshnora – ~~Watching the whole battle through her scrying pool and planning how best to~~ Running into everyone on the stairs.

Bits and Bobs

The boffo success of the ball bearings had the rogue jonesing for more. Alas, it’s not something you’re going to find at the five-and-dime in little rural Dessarin Valley towns. The player never quite forgave me for that one.

The battle actually took most of the session, which worked out fine in terms of the party finding a place to hole up and rest (down in the ground floor barracks). Enough time to ransack things tomorrow …

<< Session 22 | Session 24 >>

Princes of the Apocalypse, Session 23: “Blown Away”