Here are all of the sessions eaten by the lost data -
Session 18 – Into the Crushing Wave Domain
It has been quite a while since we last played, but we were able to play this session for about 4 hours (3 players and 1 extra pc controlled by the group).
The party's row boat continued down the Dark Stream and came to an opening into a larger chamber. Pate realized that this was also part of Tyar-Besil, the part controlled by the Cult of the Crushing Wave. About 100’ ahead, Hundar could make out a landing area with about half a dozen humanoids including reavers, a fathomer and a stately female knight holding a lance.
As the boat got closer, the female knight called out to the group asking them to announce themselves and their purpose. The boat drifted closer and closer as the adventurers decided how to respond. Meanwhile, Pate decided to sing and play a tune for the female knight. His music actually piqued her interest and bought the adventurers a few more seconds of decision time. At about 15’, Hundar stood and took a jump toward the landing with Windvane in hand. So much for diplomacy or subterfuge. Hundar landed amidst some reavers and started doing what he does best, kill. Seeing the Half-Orc rage into battle, Tornade called upon motes of meteors to strike down upon the foes as Foo stood and tried to fire his short bow into the fray, but he was unable to connect.
The female knight yelled out to one of the unengaged reavers and told him to get help. She said, “don’t bother Shatterkeel. Warn Thuluna Maah!” Then the knight banged her lance on the platform and dove for the water. Hundar attempted to shove the knight as she went by, but he was unable to stop her as she dove expertly into the dark green water. Then, the party saw a fin appear in the water and a large shark swam directly under the knight named Eyon. She readied her lance and on shark back, rode towards the boat. Seeing Pate in front of the boat, Eyon pointed her lance and him, but he was able to dodge. Then Pate, Tornade and Foo felt the shark hit the side of the boat. Pate and Foo kept their balance, but Tornade fell off the boat into the water. The shock was not quite enough to stop his concentration so he maintained his meteor spell as he tred water. Since he could breathe in water, he was not as concerned as the others while in the water.
When Pate got a chance, he targeted Eyon with Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, and succeeded. The laughing knight fell from the shark and began drowning. The shark, circled around to try to buoy his master, and then bumped the boat once gain. This time Foo fell off, but Pate kept his feet. By now, Tornade had swam to some stairs up to the landing platform and he assisted Hundar take down the fathomer and the reavers. More reinforcements arrived soon after including a Crushing Wave priest. Seeing the shark in the water, Hundar dove off the landing platform on top of the shark stabbing it mightily. The shark swam around and eventually bit into Hundar with its deadly jaws. Hundar finished the shark and swam for the landing.
Eyon could not stop laughing for 2 rounds…then, on the 3rd round when she would have started dying from suffocating, she broke the spell and started swimming to the north to escape. She almost got away, but Tornade was able to redirect some meteors in her direction, killing her. Hundar, Foo and Pate eventually all made it to the platform and fought with the priest and reavers.
The party defeated this group of foes (Hundar unaffected by the priest’s attempts to hold person), and they found a small room that seemed to be a make-shift prison up the hall to the north. Hundar kicked in the door, but other than some straw bedding the room was somewhat bare. Further to the north, they found a barracks room. They spent some time searching it and found some gold and silver. Then they went back to search the bodies of the fallen cultists because they were hurt and realized they were low on healing. Unfortunately, the other foes had very little other than a handful of gold. That’s when they remembered Eyon, so Tornade dove into the water to find her body. After a little while searching, Tornade found the body and fished it out. In addition to some coral stones and some gold, the group found 1 potion of healing.
Hundar, not waiting around, crossed over a bridge and found some dwellings on the west side of the first canal. He went north and burst into one of the structures to find a small clan of lizardmen responding to the clatter. The party engaged these monsters from the doorway and after taking more damage, it looked as if they were going to end it when one of the lizard men left out of another door to the north. A few rounds later, some cultists and another fathomer (there was a great joke about a named monster called “Fat – Homer”) and then from the south the party heard the loud, heavy footfalls of some other menace.
The adventurers fought the rest of the lizardmen, the sneaking cultists, “Fat-Homer” as an ogre turned the south corner. It swung its gnarly club at Foo, but missed. Meanwhile, one of the last lizardmen was able to both club and bite Pate, who went down bleeding out.
Another ogre joined the fray as Tornade, Hundar and Foo tried to clear the area so that they could help their downed friend, Pate. The ogre’s were quite clumsy, missing and barely hitting when the attacked with their huge clubs. Hundar took minimal damage from one grazing wound, and then he killed the first of the two ogres with a spear to the gut.
From behind the ogres, the group saw and heard an ugly, gnarled woman. She threatened the party with death and offered them a bargain. She wanted to know why they were there and she seemed as if she might speak with them. Hundar did not stop killing so the woman, a sea hag who turned out to be Thuluna Maah, moved closer. The adventurers felt a wave of fear pass over them. Both Tornade and Foo started to shake with fear. Hundar resisted. Since Foo and Tornade were fearful, they both ran into the dwelling to get way from Thuluna Maah. Out of her sight, eventually they broke the fear. Hundar stood and fought bravely. Before Pate expired, Tornade was able to take a healing potion from Hundar and administer it to the fallen Bard, who immediately stood and run for cover.
The adventurers defeated the other ogre, Fat Homer, the others and Thuluna Maah, but they were feeling the scrapes and cuts of battle so they decided to dump all of the dead bodies into the canal, attempt to clean the area a bit, and back-track to the makeshift prison where they would attempt to rest for about an hour. Inside the prison room, the group held the door and bandaged their wounds. They were able to get in a short rest and rejuvenate slightly.
End of session –
Comments
Yes, the 5th level adventurers are quite powerful, but this session, about 4 encounters worth of combat, has taken its toll.
Hundar is eager to find Gar Shatterkeel, who was responsible for sinking the ship Hundar sailed on prior to his adventures. The others want to deal with Shatterkeel because they found that he was seen swimming back up river after Goldenfields was flooded by a devastation orb that the Crushing Wave cultists had detonated just a few days ago.
Lots of xp -- over 5,000 to share.
Session 19 – Confronting Bronzefume and Shatterkeel
After a short rest, the group let Foo sneak ahead to see if they could double back to the room where they fought with the Lizardmen. With expert stealth, Foo scouted, and reported back to the group. There were no encounters.
The party checked the room only to find crude weapons and rags of clothing in addition to straw bedding. From beyond a northern doorway, the group heard the ringing of a loud gong strike three times. They positioned themselves next to the northern doorway, pushed open the door slightly, and Foo blended into shadow to investigate.
This room was a very large open area, like market place with tables, trade goods, crates, barrels and the like. There was a larger lake area to the west and at the edge of the lake area stood a Lizardman who had just rung a very large gong held up on a wooden frame. The Lizardman was staring off to the west over the lake, waiting for something to arrive. The rest of the party stepped into the room quietly and stood behind some crates near the door waiting for a signal from Foo, but Hundar started banging his shield, walking toward one of the tables in the middle of the area. Meanwhile, Foo heard the sloshing, scraping sound of footsteps on the other side of the tables, and he sensed some movement from the southwest corner of the room as well.
As Hundar stepped up to the table, a javelin jabbed at him from under the table striking him for minimal damage. Hundar, not wanting to duck down to attack the Lizardman under the table, raised Windvane and plunged it through the table to stab the foe. At first, his spear was stuck in the table, but calling upon some bardic inspiration that Pate had granted Hundar, he was able to pull it free. Then Pate used his magic to make the Lizardman convulse with laughter, and Hundar was able to take him down in short order. As this was happening, a crocodile walked around the table toward Hundar. Tornade made a spectral hand appear, touching the croc to deliver some horrible necrotic damage. Foo hid behind pillars and then some boxes. He saw that the movement in the southwest corner was another hidden Lizardman, and all the while the one Lizardman who had struck the gong was looking out over the lake to the west, then shouting in Draconic back into the larger room.
Hundar guessing that there might be other Lizardmen hidden under the tables, peered at the middle table and saw some green scaly legs under it. He ran, jumped on the table and thrust his spear down threw a sack of grain and the table to injure the hidden foe, then the others attacked and killed the croc as another croc appeared, which they also took down.
At that moment, a huge form surfaced in the lake and swam toward the room they were in. A huge turtle crawled up onto the platform toward the Lizardman that hit the gong. The dragon turtle smashed the ground, shaking the entire room. It seemed as if the dragon turtle could, given time smash the floor right out from under everyone. Both the Lizardman and the dragon turtle spoke Draconic, which none of the heroes could understand. But from the expressions and body language of the Lizardman and the dragon turtle it was clear that they were arguing. The dragon turtle did not seem pleased. Within seconds, the dragon turtle opened its mouth and a gout of steam blew out over the Lizardman in a 60’ cone that luckily nobody else was within. Even though the Lizardman seemed to dodge, it still was burnt to a lifeless mass that slumped to the ground. Then, the dragon turtle walked toward the center where Hundar was standing, smashing tables and squashing trade goods as it bashed the floor again with a thunderous crash.
Hundar and Pate both realized that this creature was incredibly dangerous even though it was still only a young specimen. The fear was palpable. Meanwhile, the last Lizardman from the room decided to bolt to the south through an ally way. Tornade hit it with a Ray of Frost damaging and slowing it, but it seemed intent on running. Foo had decided to exit the room back the way they had come to circle around in an attempt to intercept the fleeing Lizardman.
With few options other than to run, Pate took a gamble and walked calmly up to the dragon turtle and tried as best he could to communicate with it using gestures and body language, mime and smiles. He tried to tell the dragon turtle that they would help it and they would destroy the gong so that nobody could bother the dragon turtle again. The dragon turtle was somewhat confused. Usually it was Gar Shatterkeel that would bang the gong to summon the Bronzefume, but this was not the case now. Perhaps these intruders could help Bronzefume gain freedom?
Not knowing if the bard’s attempt made any sense to the dragon turtle, there was a moment of silent terror as the dragon turtle brushed its head against Pate. It took a deep breath and smelled the half-elf, then it made a demur moan and turned back toward the gong. Hundar and Pate breathed a sigh of slight relief and they both walked over to the gong. Pate examined the gong and saw no magical runes or inscriptions of any kind. He grabbed some skins, furs and rags and wrapped the gong up to dampen the sound in case it fell or rang out again. Then Hundar grabbed the bronze gong and yanked it from its frame, throwing it 15’ into the lake. As it sunk to the bottom, Pate tried to communicate once more with the beast. He told it his name and from behind, Tornade yelled out to Pate the word for “name” in draconic to help Pate in his efforts. Before crawling back into the lake, the dragon turtle said, “Bronzefume,” and then submerged itself into the lake where it seemed to live.
As all this transpired, Foo saw the escaping Lizardman run past him only 30’ away. From the shadows, he took aim with his shortbow and hit the creature in the side of its neck, killing it as it ran. Then Foo found his companions and the group checked a room to the north that seems like a galley with stoves and cooking supplies, and five beds, but no inhabitants.
To the north of the great room with the trade goods, the party saw a stone bridge crossing the canal leading to two great stone doors. They approached those doors and saw that about 15’ on either side of the doors were some spillways that poured water into the canal, and on the door itself was the painted symbol of the Cult of the Crushing Wave. Foo checked the door for mechanical traps and found none. Tornade checked the symbol itself to determine if it was magically trapped, and it was. Although he knew it was trapped by some type of ward, he could not tell exactly what it was nor could he dispel it. After a brief discussion, Hundar volunteered (or was persuaded – it was hard to tell) said he’d open it. The others ran back and hid on the far side of the bridge as Hundar used his Half-Orc strength to push the doors open. He succeeded, but there was a deafening blast of thunder that did considerable damage to Hundar as he was too slow to jump back. Inside was a larger area with another bridge behind it that led to another large area that had an alter and some pillars. About a half-dozen Lizardmen formed into an attack formation as a voice from the alter spoke out. It was Gar Shatterkeel who told his minions to kill them. Then as Shatterkeel walked forward, closer to the party, he said that he had seen this group and what they have done. He mentioned that he knew that the party had encountered the Cult of the Howling Hatred, and although they think they were able to disrupt that cult, they would be mistaken. He intimated that if the adventurers return to Red Larch, they will find out more about their failure. He also asked them to join him and pledge to finish off the Cult of the Howling Hatred once and for all.
The adventurers had no intention of joining Shatterkeel. Hundar was enraged since Shatterkeep had sunk his ship many months before, and all of the heroes were bent on vengeance for the destruction that the Crushing Wave Cult wrought upon Goldenfields. Tornade bestowed haste upon Hundar and Hundar began killing a number of Lizardmen who blocked his way. Pate stepped up into a group of Lizardmen and a clap of thunder injured all of them. Both Pate and Hundar took some damage, and then Shatterkeel conjured an ice storm to harm Pate, Hundar and Tornade. Another one of those spells would spell certain doom for the party, but they continued to fight. Tornade produced a scroll and read it aloud. A ball of flame streaked toward Shatterkeel and detonated around him injuring him, but not too badly.
In the next moments, the group killed off nearly all of the Lizardfolk, but Shatterkeel strode even closer and offered them one more chance. “Leave here, fight the Air Cult, and I shall let you live.” Then he uttered some magical words, and Hundar was paralyzed. Foo, sneaking up behind Pate and Hundar, successfully fired his shortbow from the shadows and struck Shatterkeel a damaging blow. Then, Pate remembered he had a wand of magic missiles tucked into his belt. He pulled it out and unloaded all 7 missiles at the Crushing Wave Cult Prophet. The missiles hit Shatterkeel and did serious magical damage, breaking Shatterkeel’s concentration. Hundar, released from paralysis, hacked at the prophet and connected twice. At that moment, Tornade fired three scorching rays at the injured prophet. After a few of the rays hit, Shatterkeel turned to water and splashed to the floor, his trident clattering on the ground beside Hundar. The prophet was dead.
Pate tried to get the remaining Lizardman to tend to him and become his follower, but he was unable to communicate with the less intelligent creature so he knocked it unconscious. Then he took some time to identify the trident and found out that both this trident, Drown, and the spear that Hundar used, Windvane, were evil artifacts that were somehow attuned to the elemental nodes that Pate had long conjectured were hidden somewhere below Tyar-Basil. Pate began putting pieces of knowledge and history together to ascertain that the elemental temples in Tyar-Basil somehow led down to another area called the Fane of the Eye where an Elder Eye helped the prophets see and plan their conquests. Somewhere further below that there were branches that led to each of the elemental nodes – air, water, earth and fire. It seemed as if each cult was attempting to unlock the full power of the elemental nodes to call forth their respective gods into Faerun. The evil and destructive nature of any one of these entities would spell certain doom.
With the new knowledge, and the feeling of accomplishment, the group rested near the alter, keeping guard on the door to the west and the bridges they crossed to the south.
Comments
This was a 3 hour session
Just a note, if the party attacked Bronzefume, they would become dead meat. As it was, they were in a tough situation, but Pate did well (player rolled a 24 for persuasion) so even though I imposed a -10 penalty to his roll, somehow he was able to get Bronzefume to listen (DM rolled a 6 on wisdom check vs. Pate’s 14).
As for the battle with Shatterkeel, I had planned for him to stay one more round and then flee to get to the elemental node. We all forgot that Pate had a fully charged wand of magic missiles, and that turned the tide. I had no opportunity to use Shatterkeel’s Legendary Resistance since all the spells that the group used against him used “to hit” rolls. That worked out great for the party.
During the session, Namfoo was controlled by the other players since his player was not at the game.
The players did a terrrifc job making interesting decisions that were quite cinematic and exciting.
Each of the PCs is now level 6. (Notice how they are below the suggested level for the dungeon. With careful play and access to some magical items like Windvane, scoll of fireball, wand of magic missiles it is much easier for a group to take on much more powerful foes like Shatterkeel).
Session 20 – After Shatterkeel’s Death
Beaten up and exhausted, Pate suggested that the group look for a place to take a longer rest, but Hundar pushed forward, positioning himself next to the westward stone doorway. Tornade and Namfoo remembering the exploding glyphs earlier, moved back behind the alter before Hundar pushed open the door.
In the next large t-shaped hallway, Hundar saw a number of cultists led by two that wore robes and carried unholy symbols of the Crushing Wave Cult. One mentioned that they had to get to “The Eye.” The other finished some sort of ritual or calling and four shadowy figures began to rise out of the ground near him, about 15’ away from Hundar. Once the ritual was complete one of the cultists told the shadow figures to protect them.
Hundar ran into the room and said that they had already destroyed their leader. He placed Windvane, the magical spear, in a non-threatening position and told the cultists that his vengeance had been sated.
Many of the cultists just ran to a doorway in the southwest corner of the room, but the two priests remained behind with another cultist. They spoke with Hundar for a short time, but it was clear they were devoted to The Crushing Wave, and again one of them said they needed to get to “The Eye.”
By this time, the rest of the party had come to the open doorway and the fight began. The group seemed to be handling these foes even though they were exhausted, but eventually, shadows grasped both Hundar and Pate, sucking the strength from their bodies. Soon after, Tornade, Foo, Hundar and Pate were able to dispatch the foes.
Completely exhausted, drained of strength and spellpower, Pate took some time to recite a ritual he had just learned, creating an impenetrable dome around them that blocked the two doors in the south and southwest corner of the hallway. Inside the dome, they took turns watching and sleeping to restore their vigor. Fortunately, no foes happened upon their dome so when it disapaited in 8 hours, they were not surrounded by enemies.
The group let Foo sneak ahead through the southwest doorway to scout the path. He found that a corridor wound south and west until it came to a door on the south wall, and a dead end further to the west. The stone door was typical of this place, quite thick, so Foo could not hear anything on the other side, but he could tell that the fleeing cultists had gone this way. With that news he returned to the group.
Before the group ventured forward, Foo told them of a strange dream he had while they slept in the dome. In his dream, he saw Queen Aerisi standing in front of some type of large orb on an alter. She was waving her hands and peering into it. It seemed very life-like, but he was unsure what the orb was or where the scene was taking place. The group thought that perhaps that was the Elder Eye that the cultists were talking about, but they were not sure. Pate, still smitten by Aerisi’s beauty, wanted to find her. He thought that maybe she was in trouble. The others were more doubtful of this dream and the message it imparted.
Hundar led the group through the south door with Foo, Pate and Tornade behind him. Inside they saw another room decorated with friezes of Dwarven merchants and caravans traveling across landscapes. They also saw a dark stone staircase leading down with a creature standing guard at the top of those stairs. The creature looked like an insectoid carrying a two-tined fork. It asked who the party served. Then when Hundar responded speaking about defeating Shatterkeel, and Pate spoke about Bronzefume, the creature struck out at Pate, but did not hit the mark. In the back, Tornade realized that this creature was a mezzoloth; he also told the creature that they served Olhydra, which quickly caught the mezzoloth’s attention. Then, looking over Pate directly at Tornade, the creature asked “What are you?” When Tornade answered, it was clear that his answer was not what the mezzoloth wanted to hear so the creature began casting a spell. Before the spell could take effect, Pate played a few notes and weaved a powerful incantation that counteracted the mezzoloth’s spell, which would have filled the area with noxious, deadly fumes. Pate smiled having used a new spell to save the party untold harm.
The fight continued for a while, but pretty quickly the group dispatched the guardian that disappeared into a puff of smoke, returning to the abyss. Tornade made magical light as the party descended into the darkness, Hundar in the lead.
At the bottom of the stairway, the group found themselves in an ancient underground cavern, a waterfall plunging down into a pool about 15’ from them. A few tunnels meandered to the south, and a walkway continued north alongside a flowing stream tward the north. Foo searched the ground for tracks and found that a number of footfalls seemed to travel by the stream to the north. He also looked into the pool from the stairway, but all he could see was the water from the falls splashing down into the pool.
Hundar seemed as if he wanted to go to the south, but Foo and Pate told the Half-Orc that they thought that a magic axe was definitely toward the north, and besides that was the way the cultists ran. Hundar turned and made his way to the north and the others followed. Just then, a watery creature leapt from the water and engulfed Hundar. It smashed the Half-Orc for some bludgeoning damage, grappled and restrained him and then dragged him 5’ closer to the water. Another watery creature did the same for Foo, but it did not hit the dexterous Gnome. The group fought the water weirds and found that they were resistant to many of their attacks, and the one that had Hundar grappled kept consticting him, and dragging him closer to the water. Tornade splashed one of the weirds with acid and found that it did full damage. Then Pate did some psychic damage against the same one. The other weird that missed Foo, dove back into the water. In the water, the weird was all but invisible, so it was very difficult for the group to see or damage. Foo tried to help Hundar, but the creature still gripped Hundar. Hundar did some damage to it even though he had to make some awkward attacks while being grappled, and Tornade tried to use his Thunderwave, sculped to avoid Hundar, to damage the creature and push it away from Hundar. Unfortunately, the weird was stalwart and did not get pushed back. As a result, it dove into the water still holding on to Hundar. In the water, the weird pushed Hundar under and held him down as it swam down stream to the north.
The fickle hands of fate, a wild surge, played with Tornade after he unleashed his Thunderwave, and instantly he grew frightened of his ally Pate. Tornade moved away from his friend and tried to hug the wall as he moved up to the north. Pate did some psychic damage to the weird that was holding Hundar, and Hundar was also able to jab at it with Windvane, but the thing would not die or let go of the drowning Half-Orc. Fearing that the weird and Hundar might flow further down stream, Foo dove into the water in front of the creature and tried to assess the situation. He was not strong enough to stop the creature so it continued to drag Hundar further down stream pushing him along as well, but he was able to stab it with “Razur” his magical dagger. At this time, the other weird lashed out at Pate, but the bard sung a song that distracted the creature at the last instant, which saved him from being bludgeoned and grappled.
Hundar was suffering badly so he took a deep breath and gained second wind; then, he finally dealt a killing blow to the creature and was able to climb out of the stream. Foo also managed to swim and climb out and pretty soon they took care of the other water weird.
Hundar, now on high alert from any water creature in the stream continued to lead the others north, but when he got to a narrow walk way, he slipped and fell back into the stream. Ready to face other dangers, he thrashed in the water, but was able to pull himself out without further incident. To his left he saw a very narrow passageway and the stream and path beside it continued to the north. Hundar tried to duck into the narrow passageway, but he was so large that he knew he’d be hampered if he continued down it so he came out again. That’s when Foo took over and stealthed his way along that narrow passage to see an interior cave with almost a dozen Lizardmen, one of which sat on a wooden bench surrounded by humanoid skulls. The Lizard men were resting, not sleeping, but they didn’t notice the hiding Gnome. Before inching back to the group, Foo also spied two chests beside the bench and another Lizardman who was dressed in robes, holding a staff with a skull on one end of it.
When Foo returned to the group, he told them what he saw and the group decided to follow Tornade into the narrow passageway. He’d try to sneak up and fireball the room before the others went into battle. The plan worked well, although Hundar, right behind Tornade, did make a little noise trying to squeeze through, which alerted the Lizardmen just as the fireball streaked into the middle of the cave. Tornade’s magical fire killed all of the Lizardmen except for Drexa the chief and the shaman. The chief tried to stab at Hundar, but could not connect. The shaman casted some type of protection spell and his shape seemed to blur in the dim light. Foo ran into the room and tried to sneak attack the shaman, but he was unable to hit the blurring form. Then Pate viciously mocked the chief, but to no avail. Hundar killed the chief quickly and then moved closer to the shaman. To stop Hundar, the shaman casted another spell that held Hundar in place then the shaman ran to a passage in the south. Tornade was able to hit the shaman with an icy ray, slowing it, but it still made it into the darkness of the southern passage. Foo moved after it and found it as it unleashed magic missiles that struck Hundar mercilessly. Hundar broke the paralysis and within seconds, the group dispatched the shaman and opened the chests to find piles of copper, silver and gold, along with a golden chain.
These last two fights left the group slightly fearful of other dangers that would lurk in this deep dungeon, but they felt as if they needed to find “The Eye,” so they took a short rest. While they were resting, Foo spotted some flying squidlike creatures entering from the south passage. These darkmantles interrupted the party’s rest.
As soon as one got near Foo, a magical darkness engulfed both Foo and Hundar. Then, the creature bashed Foo and enrapped itself around Foo’s face and head. Foo could not see a thing nor could he breath. Another darkmantle did the same on Hundar. Four more of the creatures entered the area some using magical darkness others not. The party struggled mightily in darkness and constricted by some of these creatures. When Foo got one off of him and ran, the creature re-attached itself, but at least Foo had run from the darkness. Pate and Tornade helped kill that one as Hundar killed the one on him. Other darkmantles used darkness to envelop Pate and grapple his face as well. Tornade, alternately seeing and not seeing these face-huggers messing with his companions used firebolts when he could, but he made sure to stay way back. The others, Hundar, Foo and Pate took lots of damage from these creatures and had to fight with them in melee to eventually kill each one.
With these threats neutrolized, the group continued their rest.
Comments
This was a 3 hour session.
The party is only 6th level and they are in the Fane of the Eye (which the adventure states it is for PCs of 10th level). Obviously, the balance is a little off, but it does not interfere with our fun. The one thing we are all worried about is that some time in the Fane, the PCs will be up against a very powerful encounter which might cause TPK, but so far, they are doing ok.
Certainly it is getting more dangerous, but strangely the creatures they faced were more dangerous than their CR level would suggest. The water weirds were CR 3 and the darkmantles were a wandering monster only CR ½. The combination of darkness, which blinded the PCs and the way the darkmantle constricted doing bludgeoning damage made them very tough.
Also, only getting back ½ HD from the 8 hour rest did make the players feel more vulnerable, which is great.
One thing we noticed was that the suffocation rules may need clarification or redesign. It seems too lenient to allow for PCs to hold their breath for 1 minute plus 1 minute per point of con bonus. This does not make suffocating scary at all. We suggest that any time a creature/PC needs to hold breath, but is under stress, like when he or she is injured while trying to hold breath, or surprised by something that strangles, etc that creature/PC gets to make a DC 15 Con check. If succeess, it can still hold its breath. If it fails, it now has stopped holding its breath and has to suffer the consequences in the PHB – 1 round/Con bonus rounds later (min of 1 round) the creature/PC slips to 0 hp and starts dying.
Session 21 – Deeper into Caves Below Searching for Escaping Cultists and “The Eye”
After a short rest in the cave where they defeated Drexa and his lizardmen and the darkmantles that came to feed on them while they were resting, the heroes decided to turn back south and follow the tunnel that the darkmantles came from. Foo scouted ahead, but after about 40’ he noticed that the next cave had a thick mist obscuring the floor. The mist seemed natural as condensation glistened off of the walls and ceiling. With a little more perceptive effort, Foo saw three beaten and unconscious humans chained to the wall about 65’ away from him on the other side of the cave. He returned to the others to tell them what he had seen, and they sent him back in, as they followed 15’ behind.
Foo slowly made his way across the cave, but then he disappeared into the fog, falling into a 10’ pit. He thudded to the floor taking a small amount of damage, but then he felt the bump of something that was in the pit with him, and he grimaced with pain. Whatever was in there with him had taken a bite out of him and then tried unsuccesfully to brush his weapons with some sort of antenna. Hundar waded through the fog to find the pit. Once there, he jumped down into it without mishap. After locating Foo, he stabbed out blindly and was able to hit the creature twice with Windvane, and that was enough to kill the rust monster. Not satisfied, Hundar spent a few more seconds traversing the bottom of the pit, preparing for any attack although nothing else came a calling.
After Foo and Hundar climbed out of the pit, Foo, Pate and Tornade walked over to the chained men. Tornade could tell that the tattered robes on two of them had a symbol of the Cult of Eteranal Flame upon them. The third man was dressed in ruined boating gear, maybe just a local boatman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Foo unlocked the manacles easily and the group decided to pull the unconscious bodies over to the stairway that led back up to the Cult of the Crushing Wave temple. When the men did not regain consciousness, the adventurers decided to leave them there and explore further to the west of the fog filled cave.
Foo scouted again and saw that this cave had a pedestal in the center with a small orb resting upon it. All about the room were scattered remains of armor and weapons, but none of the debris was within 10’ of the orb in the center. Inside the orb, Foo thought he saw some swirling smoke, but he was still about 60’ from it. When Foo reported to the others, the others moved to the lip of the cave. Hundar peered intently at the debris and notices a few swords and scimitars about 15’ from him, as well as a rapier and a greataxe 40’ away from him on the other side of the pedestal. Pate walked closer to the pedestal and told them all that he would need 10 minutes to conduct a detect magic ritual. The others granted him the time, and after the ritual, he could sense that the orb was magical, but to his surprise so were 6 of the weapons including the rapier and the greataxe. That’s all Hundar needed to hear. Immediately he walked across the cave to get to the greataxe as Pate stepped closer to the orb. Foo remained in shadows to see what might happen, and Tornade was just about to say that this looked like some kind of magical trap when Pate grabbed for the orb, which dissappeared as soon as he touched it releasing some type of air whirlwind that began to pick him up and spin him around. Additionally, as the whirlwind spun, the 6 weapons animated and begain whirling around the room too along with some other debris.
Over the next 30 seconds or so, both Pate and Hundar battled against the animated weapons taking damage from their attacks. In addition, Pate was raised up 20’ in the air and he was taking damage from flying debris. Eventually, when Hundar misstepped and entered the 10’ radius around the pedestal, he too got caught in the whirlwind. Tornade and Foo fired firebolts and arrows respectively incapacitating about half of the animated weapons. As they watched Pate take damage round after round, Foo pulled out a rope, made a lasso and threw it to Pate in an attempt to help pull Pate free of the whirlwind. After a few tries, he finally pulled Pate free, and Tornade used featherfall to keep Pate from suffering falling damage as he drifted gently to the ground outside the whirlwind’s radius. After all of the animated weapons were incapacitated, Foo threw the lasso to Hundar, and Pate inspired the Half-Orc with song. Hundar was able to break out of the whirlwind, and Tornade, using his Air Genasi innate powers of levitation, levitated Hundar so he too could land gently on the ground without suffering any damage. In 20 more seconds, the whirlwind died down and Pate was able to detect that only two of the weapons were still magical, the rapier and the greataxe.
Pate tried to take another 10 minutes to cast an identification ritual, but from the north, the party heard an alluring song. All of them except Foo felt the compulsion to walk toward the song. As Hundar entered the next cave, he saw three harpies. The one furthest from him was singing the most beautiful song so he strode right up to her and stared with rapt fascination. As he passed by one of the others, it lashed out at him, but did not connect. Eventually the heroes were able to shake off the song’s effect, but each time they did, a different Harpy sang so as they tried to battle these creatures, they had to struggle to remain unenthralled. Eventually, they were able to defeat these creatures and identify their newly found weapons.
The rapier was a dancing blade which Pate kept. Then he had to tell Hundar that the greataxe although magical was also cursed. Hundar asked to hold on to it anyway, but Pate with urging from Tornade as well would not give the Half-Orc the weapon for fear that Hundar’s use of Windvane might weaken his resolve and push him to use the greataxe to the detriment of the party. That’s when Hundar reminded the group that Gar Shatterkeel said something about how the next time they return to Red Larch, the adventurers would see how they had failed to disrupt the Cult of Howling Hatred, led by Aerisi, who they had captured and imprisoned for Tury and Kippipop to guard back in town.
The heroes decided to go back to the stairway, take the unconscious men with them and try to exit the Crushing Wave Temple. Hundar, carrying two of the men, the others dragging the third climbed up the stairs. They checked one of the eastern doors they hadn’t tried and found that it led to a quay next to the canals, close to the lake where they had encountered Bronzefume the Dragon Turtle. They decided to skip this way, seeing no boats for easier passage, and then they back tracked through the hallways until they got to a T section about 120’ from the stairway. As they crossed that hallway, tracing their steps out, three dark figures materialized from a southern doorway that they never checked. The shadows looked menacingly at them and prepared to attack.
Comments
Another 3 hour session.
The Windprison trap was really interesting and it ended up doing considerable damage to Pate. It was really interesting seeing the group problem solve at that point.
Again, the adventurers are only 6th level and both Pate and Hundar were at ½ hp so since they felt as if the cultists they were chasing down into the Eye, had most likely gotten away (basically with short rest and a few uses of ritual magic they had given the cultists over 1 ½ hours to bolt) they decided to take the prisoners out and head back to Red Larch to see if Gar Shatterkeel’s warning was true. In Pate’s heart of hearts, he seems to want to see Aerisi again in hopes that he can turn her from the cult and develop a more substantial relationship. It also seems as if Hundar wants to find a way to acquire plate armor and somehow get a wizard or priest to remove the curse on the Berserker Greataxe. Foo, missing his kinsmen, Tury and Kippipop, wants to reunite with them, and Tornade wants to figure out a way to get the ritual horn he recovered back to his clan. He also has some worries about the growing involvement of all of the elemental cults including the Cult of the Eternal Flame.
