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

1. 

   The party charged into the hall of the Great Gates to Tyar-Besil, dealing with a small guard party led by Yarsha, a Stonemender lieutenant. Yarsha surrendered, providing the party information on Miraj Vizann, the Mud Sorcerer, and the real leader of the Black Earth cult, as their next target. Faith made Yarsha swear that she wouldn’t catch sight of her again for a week and she agreed, heading out of the Temple of Black Earth.

2. After a Short Rest, the party went to check out the passages to the north, only to have Ko ambushed by archers. The party attacked the chamber to the east–stuffy, hot, filled with Duergar. After shifting the bodies aside, peering through arrow slits, and playing with a brackish basilisk fountain, they dossed down for the night.

Player Recap

Why we don’t like hostages!

This was once an impressive hall. Now the ceiling and walls are cracked and patched. There are exits north, south, east and west. The group attacks and defeats all of the minions. Yarsha calls a truce and wants to destroy the mud sorcerer. She is a bit snarky but gives significant information. She is willing to leave the temple of Earth and leave the party alone to deal with  Miraj Vizann, the mud sorcerer. After additional negotiation she agrees to to leave and stay way for one week. 

The group takes a short rest back in the room where they fought the Bulette rider. They explore the rooms and look at the weapons and trophies on the walls. After the rest they return to the great hall. Ko explores to the antechamber to the north. The room is heavily carved with scenes of dwarven battle. No matter where you are you have a sense of menace. Ko gets shot at from the arrow slits on either side of the room. They quickly return to the group and describe the attack. 

William recommend that they go through the door in the East wall of the hall. Unfortunately, there are several Duergar hiding in the room. The party is bottlenecked in the entrance and the guards unleash their javelins at Moony. After the initial constraint, the party moves into the room. Even after the Duergar magically enlarge, the party quickly defeats all nine guards. The room is crumbling with age. To the North is a hall to the arrow slit and to the South is a rubble strewn alcove with a chamber pot and a fountain with a basilisk carving and stagnant water pooling in a cracked basin. William takes some water from the fountain and drips it over one of the dead Duergar. It doesn’t appear to have an impact. 

The party moves the bodies to one end and begins a Long Rest.

Game Notes

More grinding. The party in the Great Gates hall was easier than in the book, largely because that’s where the ambush down at the bulette chamber was staffed from. Which is fine — I kinda want to get the players moving forward, as we headed into our 6th session in this zone.

Yarsha, Yarsha, Yarsha

Had fun playing Yarsha, being mean and sarcastic. She didn’t get a chance to gack one of her own guys (they all went down too quickly), but she did successfully surrender,  aim the party at Miraj Vizann next time, and get out of Dodge. Faith extract an oath on Ogremoch’s name that I listened to very carefully:

I never want to see you here.

Yarsha anticipates won’t be a problem because Faith will never see her coming ….

I think. I was not sure what to do with her. She wasn’t someone I necessarily want to make a recurring baddy. The choices seemed to be (a) yes, she backs off for a week (hobnobbing with the Lich up at the Monastery), (b) she sneaks back down for some reason. She might have already done that, or might do it tonight while the party snoozes.

But what reason? Go warn Marlos? Wait to see if the party takes down Miraj? Recover some treasure of hers? Did I really want the party to encounter her again and take up that time?

(I could imagine their breaking into her chambers and finding her there, dead, throat cut. Didn’t explode like she’s supposed to, but the party really didn’t know that piece of lore yet.)

The Duergar

The Duergar were a bit of a disappointment. They did an initial ambush of the party breaking into their room, being Invisible and in hiding. I didn’t really run that properly, juggling the hiding and invis and ambushing and surprise and perception and initiative order, but it  worked out fairly satisfactory. They got in some good licks, but the party really did take them apart pretty fast. The ones who took an extra turn to embiggen to Large Duergar never got a chance to attack.

I did go ahead and put in the brackish basilisk fountain as an optional means to un-petrify Aldrik when they get around to finding him in Marlos’ quarters (while prepping some nice write-ups for all the statuary there). The son confirmed he was ready to get back into things. I just needed the party to get to where they need to go.

But now they were aimed the opposite direction, at Miraj Vizann, the Mud Sorcerer …

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