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 45 (Day 38-29)
In … Red Larch!

1. William wandered under the new moon as a Giant Badger. He had something to remember on the tip of his tongue, but couldn’t think of it.
2. Faith dreams of the young woman she’s welcomed to her hut. Nala has a dream of conversing with Aldrik at a bar. Moony has a dream of speaking with a mysterious, grizzled old Tabaxi who asked him questions about hunting and prey. 
3. Pursuing Bruldenthar‘s mysterious Sending, the Theren and Faith sought out Endrith Vallivoe to enquire about what the “Dearest Treasure of the Dwarves,” which Endrith thought might be the Crown of the Silver Keep. William, on the other hand, speculated it might have been the Vale of Dancing Waters, which Bruldenthar was previously known to be searching for.
4. The Shopkeeper sent a half-elf urchin, Vetch, to bring Theren to him. The whole party went. The Shopkeeper spoke to him of powers, spells, and specialization, then offered, as some sort of odd “experiment,” to sell him a Ring of Fire Resistance for half its value (Theren bargained him down further). (This item still needs to be Attuned.)
5. The party traveled toward Feathergale Spire to return to where they’d last been. Along the way, they were struck by a powerful earthquake, which seemed to have a localized effect. While passing the Spire, William left a funerary offering to the dead, hoping that Haeleeya Hanadroum would see it and treat it as an apology for Savra’s death. 
6. Upon reaching the Temple of Howling Hatred, and lengthy consideration of their next path, they chose to enter the “Gates]” area of Tyar-Besil. After dispatching the returned Nothic in the room of the Gargoyle Fountain, they scouted their way forward.

7. 

   Just within the next zone, they discovered the passage was apparently guarded by a large, chained, sleeping bulette. After lengthy debate about what to do, they attacked it from down the corridor, doing it substantial damage before it could even get to its feet. It did managed to take a huge bite out of Faith, before falling, crying out in its pain.
       At which point, other voices of bulettes echoed from deeper in the chamber

Player Recap

Landshark

William heads out to enjoy the new moon on the knoll West of the inn. There is a thread of a memory I had previously. There is an old man escorted by a worker and someone else. He is complaining that everyone has forgotten him. 

Dreams:

• Faith dreams of taking in a man in need
• Nala is in the Glaive ‘n’ Goblin in Waterdeep along the gateway. She is drinking with Aldrick. To keys that open doors and to keys that close them. 
• Moony dreams of an old Tabaxi 

Theren and Faith go to Vallivoe’s to see if he knows anything about “The Dwarves’ Greatest Treasure” Endrith mentions several possibilities but lands on the Crown of the Silver Keep. Eventually he sells Theren a book on the subject. When they leave, a half-elf street urchin, Vetch, gets their attention and says that the “Shopkeeper” has something for his dilemma.

Theren decides to stop by the inn first to collect the rest of the party. When he enters the shop he is greeted by the Shopkeeper. Theren wants to get to the point, but the Shopkeeper insists on that Theren owes him a story and request that he tell of the tower of smoke and fire. Theren gives him a bare bones description of the events leading to destruction of tower.

The shopkeeper offers Theren a Ring of Fire Resistance. He makes it clear that it is only available to Theren. The price is 3,000 gold, but he is talked down to 2,000 gold. The shopkeeper is amused and indicates that the decisions that Theren makes is worth the added expense for the experiment. 

Theren asks Moony to check around back. There is a back door to a yard, which is well traveled.

About an hour out of town, Nala notices that the woods are silent. Suddenly, the earth moves violently. A huge fissure appears near them. The magic users decide that it must be a spell since it is so limited in focus. The rest of the travel to the entrance is uneventful. 

William takes a short detour to leave 100gp inside the Feathergale Spire with a simple note that says “For the deceased”

The rest of the travel to Tyar-Besil and to the Temple of Howling Hatred is uneventful. As the enter the area of the temple, they hear loud piercing sounds of women screaming or birds crying. Williams shouts “We mean you no harm if you do not attack.” The cries stop. 

Moony wins the flip and the group moves to the northeast corner of the air temple. Moony gets to the entrance of the earth temple. Moony is near the entrance and he says “They’re back.” A nothic attacks Nala and it is hit by a telekinetic reprisal. The nothic is running for the door that the group used to entered the gargoyle plaza. Moony retaliates with a short-bow attack. William and Theren finish it off. They poke at the remains and see that it is inherently magic and totally wrong. 

Resuming the path to the earth temple. Moony listens and checks for traps. He see a landshark chained to a pillar. After some debate William does an augury spell that strongly suggests that releasing the bulette and trying to scare it further into the temple would not be a good idea (Thank You,  Faith!) Instead the group clusters in the hall and begins attacking the monster. A lot of damage is done by the party before it is able to get to its feet and charge the party. Faith is the only person within reach of the creature. He takes a chunk out of her and then dies as the acid from the Vitriolic Sphere eats through his hide. 

Game Notes

Filling out the Red Larch dance card

I’d gotten through most of my Red Larch stuff the previous session, but there were still a few items to hit.

First, I really wanted William to remember seeing folk taking bodies out for burial the end of their first visit. But at least two Investigation rolls later, nothing doing. Ah, well. Not critical.

Second, I really wanted someone to read Bruldenthar’s scroll, to see if that would noodge them toward the Vale of Dancing Waters, since I had gone to the effort of making an enhancement pass on the side quest. So I was both kind of excited and a bit daunted when the Theren decided to inquire of Eldrith about what the dearest treasure of the dwarves was. 

Insert quick GM improvising about a lengthy legend of a dwarvish warrior and the quest for the Crown of the Silver Keep, and selling an old book to Theren. (I created a Roll20 Journal Entry for it after the fact.)

That one of the players then picked up on the Vale was kind of cool. Alas, the consensus was “Go back to Feathergale Spire.” Ah, well. 

Third, I had a few more prods to a couple of characters, esp. Theren (whose patron god, unknown to him, was sitting there as the Shopkeeper) and Faith (who was always good for a provocation). I didn’t expect the whole party to attend, and so I focused just on Theren, and offered him at ruinous prices a Fire Prot ring. The question was, would he carry it himself, as a protection, or give it to someone like Nala, who stands on the front lines and could be hit by one of his Fireballs?

(Answer: he wore it himself.)

Dreams!

Plenty of dreams that overnight. Faith‘s was to try to lull her (or have her realized she’s being lulled) by Windvane. Nala was to let Aldrik (or his spirit) drop some clues that might help them (I wasn’t happy by how that one turned out). 

Moony‘s was fun because most of the ones I had crafted for him were “the hunter hunted” type and I wanted something different. So, with the idea that Denier, Faith’s god, is getting shut out from her dreams by the presence of Windvane, I had him manifest as a Tabaxi to talk with Moony. I’ll do that a few times and see what Faith’s reaction is. (The party members tend to discuss their dreams, so I’m not treating them as secrets.)

Two more notes from the dreams. First, I realized at this point I’d done so many that having a single Roll20 journal entry for them was getting unwieldy. So I broke them into separate ones, though public.

Second, Aldrik. My expectation had been my son coming back from college and picking the character (who was currently chained by the altar in the Fane) again. And then (and this is a Good Thing), he got a post-graduate field job on the other side of the country. So on the one hand, yay! On the other hand, awww! 

I had no idea at this point if he’d pick up playing remotely (huzzah for Roll20!). If he did, I might need to scramble, because the party would NOT be at that point by then.

The Sidekick

I actually added to the populace of Red Larch by adding a half-elf  urchin (stowaway on a caravan from Waterdeep) named Vetch. Insert street urchin tropes here. She was working for the Shopkeeper, and it was fun to play her.

I had a stray thought that he would be sending her to follow the party and keep track of them (as a god, he wanted to monitor what’s happening, but the magical interference of the approaching Princes was blinding, even the gods, just as the oracle who first assigned this quest to them to this was blinded).

I would need to do some further thinking on the matter, as there were plenty of opportunities to be saddled with civilians in this campaign. On the other hand, the idea of somehow maneuvering it so that Theren ended up with a half-elven ward was utterly delicious. 

(And I could use the Sidekick rules to create an easy NPC. Hmmmmm.)

EVENTUAL UPDATE: Conceptually, Vetch was a lot of fun. But things were complicated enough already for me and the players, so I dropped the whole idea.

The Slow Road Back to the Action

I skipped over all other random encounters, with the idea of getting them to the action as soon as I could. William delayed things by his touching leaving of a purse of gold coins for Haeleeya, as perhaps the final denouement of the Savra story.

But that was nothing compared to the party arriving, under the mountains, at the entrance to the Temple of Howling Hatred … and trying to decide what to do. Head up to the (presumed) Fire Temple at the “Forges”? Head across two zones to the (presumed) Earth Temple at the “Gates”? Take one of the three or four gates downward that they’d found?

I love my friends (including the dearest friend who’s my wife), but one flaw they all have (which is usually a virtue) is that none of them are pushy, or want to be seen as pushy. So all of them might have an idea, and they might even present the idea, but then they would almost invariably say, “But, hey, that’s just my idea, no obligation to do it, what does everyone else think?”

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So a half hour later, I finally asked the Tabaxi, “So, which path seems the least boring to you?” I’m not sure he legitimately gave an honest answer to that, but he urged the path from the Water Temple toward the (presumed) Earth Temple, and so they did it.

While it slightly slowed things down, I felt obliged to have the Nothic who escaped the party earlier from the Gargoyle Fountain room to have crept back in the couple of days they were gone. Brief combat and defeat, marred only by the player who’s dug up the Thieves Guild Guide to Breaking Down Monsters for Parts You Can sell going through all the things you can sell Nothic parts for …

Sigh.

Meta Mapping Issues and Roll20

I don’t know who adapts the WotC modules for Roll20 — a WotC crew or a Roll20 crew – but I would like to have words.

First, as noted earlier, it would be really nice to have it confirmed that the passages from one Temple zone to the next are really only about the length that actually shows on the maps (combined). (That’s actually a WotC PotA problem.)

Second, it would be even nicer if those bridging passages were not cut off on each map, wasting a good ten feet of corridor, esp. since the far end of those corridors is often dangerous and problem-laden. In this particular case, a fitfully sleeping bulette.

There was no way to fit a party of five into the corridor space allotted without their being in view of the bulette.

(Digression: The History, in D&D Editions, of the Bulette, including, canonically, how to pronounce their name.)  

Of course, I could simply plop characters down into the interstitial space between the edge of the drawn map and the edge of the physical map. But, alas, there’s not only no corridor drawn there, but there’s a light/movement barrier there. So if I put any characters back there, they not only cannot move up the corridor into combat, but they get a delightful “behind the scenes” look at the inside of the walls.

(Rolls eyes.)

And I can’t easily break that light barrier because whoever does the (not always very good) job of drawing the barriers on the light layer in Roll20 does like a quarter of the dungeon at a time. So I can (a) suffer, or (b) redraw a quarter of the dungeon. (Which is a huge PitA, though my redrawing is usually better than the original.)

UPDATE: I eventually discovered the Roll20 PathSplitter API script (yay for Roll20 Pro), which let me  relatively painlessly break that extended path of walls and create a reasonable staging ground for the players. So, again, yay.

Extended problem-solving

I’ve mentioned how much I love my friends, none of whom would ever dream of taking command seeming pushy. So I also loved how it took them half an hour to devise a way of dealing with the bulette. Or not. 

In the end, four things happened:

1. They managed to surprise the sleeping bulette, which meant they’d taken it down substantial HP before it started after them. (In retrospect, I should have been rolling against their endless planning to see if it woke up on its own.)
2. They learned where the chain binding the bulette to the pillar extended to, which meant most of them were safe …
3. … Except Faith, who learned how godawful many HP a bulette could do with a chomp.

And, at the very end, as they congratulated themselves on killing the bulette (except the one player who noticed it was labeled “Bulette 1“), they got to hear the roaring howls of the other bulettes in the hall, who were now awake, enraged, and ready to start working on their chains.

Bits and Bobs

I realized I’d been forgetting about the weather lately (as the party was underground). Today’s roll on the Weather Table, to make up for that, was an Earthquake (the characters are at higher levels, therefore the “weather” was getting worse). 

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