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 46 (Day 39)

In … The Temple of the Black Earth!

1. The party fought two more previously chained bulettes, without further damage. The massive chamber they were in was split in half by a huge crevasse, which post-dated its construction.
2. To the west, the party found a large chamber apparently owned by an ettin named Broog-Norb. Moony, in Black Earth cult garb, avoided combat with him, er, them.
3. Going along a ledge on the crevasse, they found a hallway leading to a highly decorated chamber and a pool of water. To the north, they found a smithy. Theren fireballed a couple of duergar through the door, and then was confronted by the imposing figure of Xharva Deem, who said that she was forging weapons “under contract” for Marlos Urnrayle. The party moved in for the attack, and a lengthy melee ensued, with Xharva casting a number of spells (including summoning an Earth Elemental) as well as smiting mightily with her hammer. She was particularly interested in something Nala was carrying — “Lizard Fleshling! You dare possess such a thing? What is your price? I will meet it, to half of my fortune!” In the end, before the party could vanquish her, she walked through the stone wall and was gone.
4. The party retreated to the Water Cult room of the Gargoyle Fountain and spiked themselves in for a good Long Rest (and investigating some Magic Items they had picked up).

Player Recap

Two Fireballs No Waiting

A second Bulette races toward Moony and comes up short as its chain stretches tight. As the group attacks they hear a sounds of screeching metal. A third Bulette charges from the right. Faith notices that this one has some leather tack on it. Bulette Two breaks its chain. Nala steps up to attack it. The group is able to take down the Bulettes without getting bitten.

They explore the large room that the Bulette were chained. There is a corridor to the west and a large chasm to the North. It looks like the earth split open a long time ago they can see neither the ceiling or floor of the crevasse. There is a ledge along the west side of the crevasse. Some natural pillars form stepping stones across the chasm 

Moony goes ahead and encounters an Ettin arguing with itself. He talks his way out of it and returns to the group. They decide to take the ledge path. There is a hallway going west from the ledge. It leads to a beautiful courtyard. There are frescos along all of the walls and fountain in the middle. The sound of hammering comes through a door. Moony takes a peek and tells the group that they are in fireball formation. Theren lights them up and takes out the duergar guards. 

Unfortunately the smith Xharva Deem is not amused. She is a great stone-skinned figure in rich clothing and decorated with rings and gold. From the waist down, she is a swirl of sand. Her great hammer is massive, but strikes with incredible precision. After the initial flurry of attacks she calls forth an earth elemental. As she does, she stares at Nala. Speaking Auran in a very heavy elemental accent: “Lizard Fleshling! You dare possess such a thing? What is your price? I will meet it, to half of my fortune!” 

When the battle turns against her, she steps back says “Our bargaining has not ended” then walks through the wall.

Game Notes

So this was another of those schizophrenic episodes where the players acted unpredictably and inconsistently. Which makes me think I need to plan things more than I do.

Bulette Time

First off, yes, the party dealt with the two bulettes quite successfully. Part of that was due to some random factors in when they broken free from their chains, and Nala unexpected charging one of them (which meant it couldn’t do its leap attack). But a bigger part was that they were rolling like demons — great hits, amazing damage.

That would not be the case later in the evening.

Must have been something I Ettin

The encounter with Broog-Norb was not handled my best. Part of it was a deadly DM sin: falling in love with my own cleverness. I had written some additional dialog for the two of them, and really, really wanted to deliver it. So I did, beyond the extent that die rolls should have allowed, at which point the party kind of decided, y’know, we don’t really need to check this out, so we’ll back away. Which they did.

As self-punishment, I will leave my dialog in the bowels of my campaign notes, never to see the light again.

I did appreciate the rogue actually using a costume and pretending to be a cultist. Even if only an Ettin wouldn’t question a Tabaxi cultist.

I was curious to see if the party would ever circle back. In point of fact, they never did. Broog-Norb may be there still …

There are encounters, and there are encounters

The encounter with Xharva Deem was … again, not what I expected.

As written (and this is true for way too much of the campaign), the party politely knocks on the door, opens it, and engages the folk within in conversation.

What this party tended to do was either (a) sneak a peek and then back off, daunted by what they saw, or (b) charge in, spells blazing, and kill everything in their path. What decided (a) vs (b) surpasseth all understanding (at least mine).

So the party peeked in, and sees Duergar. Duergar are, they remember (from the Sacred Stone Monastery) Bad Guys. So, hey, perfect opportunity for a fireball!

Which killed the duergar assistants, but fortunately didn’t impact Xharva.

She, in turn, moved over to see the sorcerer, declared she works under contract for Marlos Unrrayle, decried his action in costing her assistants, and cast Phantasmal Killer on him as a punishment, then slammed the door.

Now, given that, the party might have given it up as a bad idea, or at least approached matters more carefully.

Nah. They kicked open the door and charged in.

Xharva, as a Dao, could probably kill multiple of them. But she’s a mercenary, and not interested in dying herself, so she retreated when her HP are getting down in the “I might die soon” range, even after she’d unleashed an Earth Elemental on them (which levelled out the Action Economy wonderfully).

Three things of note:

The Powerful Weapon That Wasn’t

First, the cleric wielding Windvane — which was begging to be used against a foul Earth creature — ended up rolling for crap during the melee, which did not do her relationship with the weapon any good.

(I mean, sure, it’s not fair to criticize the weapon when the player is doing the dice-rolling, but the player character was understandably put off by her failure to score a hit, which frustrated the scheming DM to no end.)

The One-Off Bad Guy That Wasn’t

Second, I decided that, in addition to the other canned motivation for Xharva, to give her one more bit of schtick to play with. And it would be, ahem, canned, too:

The players had rolled up trinkets at the beginning of the game. I’d found some fun stuff to do with the little silver raven the druid carried, making it the inspiration for some of the spells he’d used, or the preternational things that happened around him. This time, I played with the “metal can that sounds like it’s filled with sand” that the Dragonborn fighter had, which I decided was (for whatever happenstance reason) a incredibly valuable (and addictive) drug for those from the Elemental Plane of Earth.

Xharva, engaged in combat with the cleric and the fighter, basically turned to the fighter and said, “You have what on you? I will pay you up to half my fortune for it!” The fighter didn’t speak Auran (which the Dao used of surprise), but the cleric did — and promptly interpreted it aloud as the Dao wanting the fighter’s weapon: a magic sword taken from Thurl Merosska (the Feathergale Knight leader), renamed after his tragic assistant Savra, that (I decreed, to give the fighter a magical weapon) was a +1 Greatsword (+2 vs Earth Element creatures, +0 vs Air Element Creatures).

The fighter was very confused about this, since while it’s a good weapon, it’s not spectacular. It was only later that she considered that, relistening to the quote, it might not be the weapon she wanted …

Xharva Deem turned out to be a fun recurring character, motivated by that bit of improvisation to not be as nasty as Dao are, personality-wise. Not that she wouldn’t be interested in enslaving all of them and carrying them off as gifts or trade, but she’s also both bound by her contract here with Marlos and kind of bored with it.  Recurring characters — especially dangerous and mysterious frenemies — are a Good Thing.

The Grab Bag Marginally Useful Magic Item That Wasn’t

One of the objects in the Dao’s workshop is a set of Claws of the Umber Hulk.

I would come to regret that.

Dossing Down

That the party retreated for their Long Rest was no surprise.

There weren’t really any good places they’d found to camp, and, frankly, the map notes they had from the Pyramid Map were a bit scary, with added lines and text that had been etched in by others as Tyar-Besil began to fall.

That they decided to camp out in the Gargoyle Fountain room is a bit more surprising. And would lead to a couple of interesting results, in terms of what they would find there, and what they would find when they returned ….

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