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Story Hour
(5e) Against the Idol of the Sun (high level, hexcrawl)
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<blockquote data-quote="J-H" data-source="post: 8961119" data-attributes="member: 7020951"><p><strong>Session 32, 9/17/22</strong></p><p></p><p>This was a more exploratory session, with not much serious combat. The party starts heading towards a yuan-ti city, but they are all far away and will require a circuitous route. There is discussion of using True Polymorph to travel via dragonback, but it’s ultimately decided against. They decide to search the hexes they travel through along the way. They get lucky, and only one random encounter gets rolled across several days…and that encounter is a pair of Air Elementals! The Ring of Air Elemental command is now fully powered up. We didn’t bother rolling for 4 19th level characters vs 2x CR 5 elementals.</p><p></p><p>The group heads southwest to 05.05, where they spot an abandoned rock quarry with 5 stone huts down at the bottom. They descend; Saqwam uses Ghostly Gaze to look through the stone huts, and sees 5 translucent, ghostly figures, which he (Nat 20 religion) identifies as Banshees. There’s no obvious treasure to his x-ray vision, but Teador the Paladin wants to smite undead anyway.</p><p></p><p>The party lands and passes all their saves, wiping out the Banshees in about 1.5 turns. The 30’ +5 Paladin aura is very helpful.</p><p>Investigating afterwards, they notice runes of imprisonment and warding carved around the edges of the quarry; the banshees are apparently trapped there, and have been for who knows how long. </p><p></p><p>The group departs, heading southwest, where in the next hex they find some chewed up petrified people (none in raisable condition) with a bit of gold. The basilisk or whatever did it does not seem to be around.</p><p></p><p>Somewhere around this time, a running discussion that lasts the rest of the session off and on begins. I think it started with Saqwam collect a rock from the quarry, and it went through him possibly eating them, the party being in Roc territory, Teador being as dumb as rocks, what rocks taste like, etc.</p><p></p><p>Heading further southwest to 03.06, they find a large opening in a cliff-face over a waterfall. Troudar notices signs of traffic in and out. They fly in, then walk back in the cave. It forks, and they follow the right fork back, where it terminates in a large room. Teador and Ratel walk in, and both pass their saves against a Zone of Truth. In the room is a Quetzal sitting on a nest (snake/bird creature with prismatic stuff, serves Quetzalcoatl). It interrogates them briefly, and asks if they brought tribute?</p><p>PC: “What would be acceptable tribute?”</p><p>Q: “Valuable gems… oh, or the heads of those people that have been giving the Aarakocra fits. I’ve heard the bounty is immense!” </p><p>PCs: “We’ll just be leaving now.”</p><p>They depart in peace from the Quetzal nesting grounds. Troudar’s good Perception rolls let him realize that an invisible Quetzal is following them out.</p><p>Saqwam picks up a rock on his way out to serve as an anchor to teleport back in the future if needed.</p><p></p><p>Southwards, they find an abandoned cliffside dwelling possibly occupied by Gargoyles at one point in the past. Ratel takes a 150# stone stool and stuffs it in a Bag of Holding. More rocks.</p><p></p><p>In the next hex to the south, they find a cave that has an overgrown but clear opening coming up to it. Entering it, it appears to be an abandoned mine. They explore and find an elevator going down. Checking the rest of the floor they are on, they end up going down a hall with four short halls to the right prior to the end. The first short hall contains a headless zombie and a 50’ silk rope. The second, third, and fourth halls all each contain a headless zombie, and a healing potion, 34 gp, and a +2 crossbow bolt. The zombies are dispatched without bothering to roll.</p><p></p><p>The passage continues with a couple of side exits, one containing a non-magical steel shield, and a room that appears to have had something dig through the rock in the past.</p><p></p><p>The party then doubles back to the elevator (fits 3), and take it down while Teador floats down above it. The group makes an Intelligence save, and detects a psychic aura that makes them feel bad…except Teador. He got an 11 and didn’t notice anything.</p><p></p><p>When reaching the next floor down, they find 3 brains with legs waiting for them. Ratel beats them in initiative and kills one, damaging another. He passes his intelligence saves, then Troudar picks up the injured brain with legs and uses it as a weapon (Tavern Brawler) to kill it and nearly kill the other living one. Saqwam uses his crossbow but misses, then Teador skewers the last one.</p><p></p><p>We left off there and will presumably continue exploration next time.</p><p></p><p><em>DM note: Yes, Intellect Devourers. Saqwam’s player specifically said “I feel like this is someone leaving candy out to bait a path for a kid, so they can then come along and kidnap the kid, and we’re the kid.”</em></p><p><em>There’s more if they go deeper….</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 33, 10/1/22</strong></p><p></p><p>The party explores further, having not made any knowledge checks to identify their foes. They proceed down a twisting but clearly artificial corridor, and find a very large (>100’) oval room. There’s one other tunnel leading out of it. They check over the room and find what they identify as a Teleportation Circle (for the 5th level spell), but it’s written in a language they can’t identify.</p><p></p><p>DM Note: Qualith, the Illithid language. History DC 20, nobody made the check.</p><p></p><p>Proceeding up the other tunnel, Saqwam, near the rear, notices a tiny (1’ wide) crevasse that seems to go somewhere. Teador the paladin (INT 8) sticks his head in. There’s an Intellect Devourer inside. INT save, with disadvantage because he failed his save against the psychic aura last session. 6. Roll 3d6, 16. Teador is now Stunned and his intelligence is 0. Troudar moves the drooling paladin-vegetable away while Ratel sets up with a readied attack and flattens the Intellect Devourer.</p><p>Saqwam identifies it, and the connection to mindflayers. After a brief discussion, the party decides to execute a planned retrograde exfiltration of the area.</p><p></p><p>There’s some discussion, including “If you could read his mind, you’d just hear the sound of static.”</p><p></p><p>They tie Teador to his griffon (outside) and continue exploring. It will take 2 more days for the Anyspell Tome to recharge, allowing them to cast Greater Restoration. The only random encounter during this time is a few manticores, not worth rolling out. The book recharges, and Saqwam restores Teador’s brain. After re-orienting him, and giving him several different explanations for what happened, the group moves on.</p><p></p><p>They find a carved opening in a mountainside, and explore it. Inside is a large, clearly artificial room containing nothing but a single stone humanoid figure. It’s features are stylized and blurred so that there’s no clear species model, but it’s continually moving through an extremely long pattern of katas and martial arts forms with perfect precision and placement at every point.</p><p></p><p>Studying and mimicking its form and precision can lead to a greater understanding of how to make unarmed strikes. Anyone who follows its lead for 8 hours gains a permanent +2 to damage with unarmed strikes. This is physically taxing however, requiring a Strength save at the end of each hour. On a failed save, the character gains one level of exhaustion. The DC is equal to 14 minus the would-be martial artist’s proficiency bonus.</p><p></p><p>Everyone except Saqwam participates, and thanks partly to the Paladin’s +5 aura (you can do it!) they all pass the series of saves and now punch and kick more precisely than before.</p><p></p><p>The next hex south contains a pack of Winter Wolves, who follow the party for a while. There’s a brief conversation, but they don’t have anything to give the wolves (the Aarakocra bodies they carry around will still have decomposed some in the Bags of Holding), and don’t think they need the services of the wolves for anything either.</p><p></p><p>Continuing on, they find a path above a cliff. A rope is tied nearby, going down the cliff face to a small, square opening. Entering, they find a small room with a scorched and blackened Goliath body in the middle. Teador walks across the room and sets off an Immolation trap, getting lit on fire (8d6) and taking a round or two of continuing damage before using Dispel to end the spell on himself.</p><p></p><p>Detect Magic and Thieves Tools are used to find and disable the trap, and the Detect Magic also reveals an illusion containing a door on the other side of the room. The door is locked, so Troudar kicks it down. The hallway beyond is full of completely opaque fog. Teador uses Gust of Wind from his ring twice to clear fog, but runs out of charges before they hit the next bend and the 3rd (longest) stretch of fogged corridor. This fog is all from the Guards and Wards spell. </p><p></p><p>Moving down the corridor, Teador trips a pressure plate, and everybody except Ratel gets zapped by a lightning bolt (disadvantage on saves because they can’t see it coming). After this, they all fly (brooms and Ring of Air Elemental Command floating). At one point, Teador fights off a Suggestion to explore openings to the left and the right. He warns the rest of the party, so they get advantage on their save versus Suggestion. At the end of the hall, they find a rotating color wheel they can’t really figure out, and another locked door behind an illusion. They break the door, and go into another fogged corridor. Ratel picks the lock at the end of this one.</p><p></p><p>They enter a large room that is mostly a living area, but contains some statues of elven wizards in heroic poses. Immediately, a gem on the ceiling lights up with Sickening Radiance. They destroy it before it does much damage. A few seconds later, one of the statues points at Troudar and does something, but misses. Teador rolls higher in initiative and destroys the statue after it misses him in turn.</p><p></p><p>The party spreads out to explore the room, and after about 2 more rounds of time, four Helmed Horrors under the effects of permanent Improved Invisibility attack the party. Saqwam the warlock is closest, so he gets two of them on him, and loses about 2/3 of his hit points. Teador gets Ssword to give him See Invisibility. Everyone else spends the whole fight rolling at disadvantage.</p><p></p><p>We stopped here due to time.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: This is a wizard’s study home away from home, and when you’re an elven wizard, you have a LOT of time to make it hard to get into. Everything the party runs into here is on the Wizard list or associated with spellcasters. I don’t usually use traps, but this place absolutely calls for it… and they are, I think, pretty well telegraphed. The Suggestion pointed either to a room with several Symbol<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" />eaths in it, or to a fall into a room with an Illusory Dragon in it.</em></p><p><em>One player made a comment about hoping there’s good loot. We’ll see if they can get it. They already missed the illusion-covered door to the room that the wizard used to arrive via Teleport Circle.</em></p><p><em>Nobody in my party has the spell, but I have left a number of Teleport Circles scattered around the map, including one sealed up in the basement of Huitzopochtli’s high temple.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 34, 11/26/2022</strong></p><p>We are closing in on 2 years! One more meeting this year and then a 4 week break due to the Christmas holiday. Today’s session was only around 2-2.25 hrs due to time.</p><p></p><p>At this point, the party has cleared all of the active threats. They explore the sitting room, and with the Investigation check I mention that the furniture is well-made. “What kind of wood?” “Roll a nature check” as I buy time…. “22”… “umm, Red Ironwood.” It turns out that’s a real wood, and a very hard and expensive wood. Later on, Ratel spends some time cutting up some chairs for wood to sell or use to make stuff because it’s so valuable. Lesson learned: If you improvise an expensive sounding wood, make sure it’s a real one, or that nobody in your party has actually worked with exotic woods.</p><p></p><p>The party cautiously proceeds down one of the two fog-filled corridors after checking the door for traps. They find two guest rooms (nice furniture, apparently untouched but clean), and a partly empty library. Searching the library, they find 1200gp in spell scribing supplies, two empty spellbooks, and an array of 12 wizard scrolls.</p><p></p><p>Exploring the other hall, they found the master bedroom, which contained a Robe of Eyes and Cloak of Elvenkind. Right now, nobody has suitable attunement slots.</p><p></p><p>From there, they proceeded to the wizard’s study, picking up a couple of high-level scrolls, a Staff of Charming, and a Wand of Paralysis. Again, attunement slots. While Ratel starts cutting up some wood, Teador decides to open the other door in the back, ignoring the fact that furniture arrangement indicates it was rarely used. The door is not locked, but is “stuck.” He yanks it open, and a Magic Mouth yells in elven about hating thieves, right before a Glyph of Warding (fire) goes off, destroying all the papers and any un-held items in the room, plus damaging the party.</p><p></p><p>Luckily, they grabbed the valuable stuff before the door was opened, so nothing of value was burnt. A greedy or speedy group may have tried the door first, and lost the items in the room.</p><p></p><p>After this, they decide to take a long rest. Despite having three good, comfortable bedrooms, everyone but Teador decides to rest in the library. Saqwam doesn’t need to sleep, so he reads, Ratel reads and then trances for 4 hours in a wingback chair leaned against the wall, and Troudar just finds a comfortable corner. Paranoid PCs are gonna be paranoid.</p><p></p><p>The party proceeds back to the long fog-filled hallway, making sure to specify that they float to avoid the pressure plates and lightning bolts.</p><p></p><p>However, this does not prevent them from passing through the area with a DC 20 Suggestion effect to check the sides. Unlike when they came in, two PCs failed.</p><p></p><p>Troudar went to the eastern room, a 10’ triangular room. The door slams behind him, and two Symbols light up on the walls… one of Death (10d10 necrotic) and one of Insanity (INT save or insane for 1 minute). There’s a second Death symbol on the door that he triggers when he turns around and sees it in the following round. Before getting pulled out (below) he spends a couple of rounds moving randomly in the room and takes somewhere around 150hp of damage.</p><p></p><p>Ratel, meanwhile, turned west, and walked down a short corridor. The floor at the end of the corridor is an illusion leading to a 100’ fall. He falls, hits the ground unscathed (monk) and has a dragon pop into existence in front of him. He fails his Wis save against fear and his Int save against the breath weapon, and uses his turn to run away back upstairs to tell everyone there’s a dragon. He sees the closed door and opens it, subjecting himself to two of the three Symbols. He fails his save against insanity as well.</p><p></p><p>Saqwam, meanwhile, thinks there’s not much he can do. “I walk farther away.” DM: “You walk further away?” “Yeah.” Pressure plate triggered, lightning bolt saves from everyone except the insane guy locked in a small room.</p><p></p><p>Ultimately, Saqwam uses Bigby’s Hand to grapple Ratel and pull him out of the area of effect, then Teador uses a Paladin ability to end the ongoing spell effect. Ratel wants to go back for Troudar, and insists that he be dropped where he is.</p><p>Ratel was being held right over the square with the pressure plate. Lightning bolt saves from everyone except Troudar…again.</p><p></p><p>Ratel makes his saves and pulls Troudar out, then Troudar is healed by Teador. The Paladin +5 aura (30’) helped a lot with this.</p><p></p><p>They then decide to go back and confront the dragon, triggering Suggestion again. Luckily, the only one who failed was Troudar, and since he’d already checked one side, checking dragon-side was his reasonable choice…and he was headed there anyway. He starts floating down at 30’/rd on his broom.</p><p></p><p>Ratel runs down, punches the dragon, and misses with 20-something and 30-something to hit. This is fishy. He yells something up the 100’ drop about waiting, but the other PCs decide they don’t hear him. </p><p>Teador casts Haste, and then uses a Hasted dash and his flight speed from his ring to Magneto-hover down past Troudar to reach the bottom, coming into view of the dragon at the end of his turn. Ratel then decides to just leave, wall-running/dashing back up the 100’ drop past Teador and Troudar.</p><p></p><p>The dragon breathes fire on Teador and moves. Teador makes his save, then Hasted-floats back up past Troudar.</p><p>Troudar eventually catches up, and the party exits without further issues.</p><p>A triggered Illusory Dragon can be a fun thing. It’s a nice spell.</p><p></p><p><em>DM note: The wizard’s library contained some basic scrolls to refill a spellbook in case of catastrophic loss. I don’t think anyone picked up on this.</em></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Session 35, 1/7/2023</strong></p><p>The December session was cancelled due to sickness.</p><p></p><p>Teador’s player couldn’t make it due to work.</p><p></p><p>Once everyone gets back up to speed after the long break, the party continues south and east, working their way towards the Yuan-ti, but exploring along the way. They find an old giant hideout with a couple of Superior Healing potions and some oversized bandages, needles, thread, etc.</p><p></p><p>They then spot a couple of goliaths heading south while carrying longbows. Introducing themselves, they learn that the two goliaths are named Sadat and Ihtafeer. The group offers to travel with them, but then starts debating it. Saqwam notices himself saving against a Suggestion to travel with the two. Ratel takes him aside and they have a conversation in Primordial (to be sure the two goliaths can’t understand them), but ultimately decide to travel with them. They do notice the two asking a lot of questions. hey are very interested in what the party is doing, and eventually offer to show up when the party is ready to attack the Aarakocra. After traveling close to the giant city to the south, they part ways and the group heads in a more easterly direction.</p><p></p><p>Passing through some already-explored areas, they find an abandoned cliff settlement. Along the way, they also find an overgrown statue of a Yuan-ti Abomination clasping hands with a Giant. Uncovering the inscription, it commemorates a peace treaty between the people of Sseth and the giants, and the giants sending stone-workers to help built Sseth’s main temple, which has now been converted to the High Temple of Huitzopochtli. The Ssword of Sseth thinks this was around 800 years ago. I roll an Int check, and that also jogs the sword’s memory. There was a secret back route…a Teleportation Circle hidden in a small chamber underneath the temple. If someone can cast Teleportation Circle, they have a possible secret way in. Nobody in the party has it, but I do let them know that the yuan-ti should have at least a few wizards who can cast the spell. This is not the first Circle they’ve run across. </p><p></p><p>Due to time and turnover we recap the kraken that may help during the final battle, as well as remind them about the Crystal Sword locked in a stone by a riddle…the party is close to the area.</p><p></p><p>A few days later they find an old fortified cave with a small shrine to Lolth. Everything else there is just scraps aside from a half-shredded backpack containing two Unbreakable Arrows and 3 Acid Flasks.</p><p></p><p>The group continues southeast into the jungle, and spots an Aarakocra patrol about 900’ away. They decide to attack it, and Ratel immediately flies upwards on his bow and starts raining arrows upon them. Once the first guardsman falls, the air-skiff makes a quick U-turn and starts flying away. Ratel pursues, running across the treetops as monks do, while trying to shoot down any that aren’t within the boat for cover. He continues to pursue. After about a minute and a half, he’s 900’ away from the party, and the session ends with the sharp crack as six Aarakocra arrive via teleportation to a point not far in front of him.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Notes:</em></p><p><em>I know none of my players have played Baldur’s Gate II, so I felt very safe naming the Rakshasas disguised as Goliaths after two of the Raskshasas from a quest in that game. They failed one of their deception vs. insight checks, and failed to land a Suggestion, and acted a bit over-interested, but the party never cut them loose or interrogated them more thoroughly. I made sure to phrase a few things with weasel words like “We’d be happy to show up to one of your battles with some friends if we know in advance.”</em></p><p><em>I did have the Rakshasas offer to help with night watch duty. Saqwam has the invocation that means he doesn’t sleep, and Ratel is an elf and only trances for 4 hours, so they specified that there were always two of them awake on watch. If they had not been paranoid, well, Rakshasas do have Dominate Person.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I forgot to roll Random Encounter checks for part of the evening, then near the end did roll the weakest possible Aarakocra patrol. At this point, the party has attacked 3 temples and is very well known to their enemies. There is only one entity in the entire setting that will fly up on a broom and start putting arrows into people reliably from 900’, and that’s Ratel. His character has grown very, very confident. Now he’s going to face a full ambush party by himself for at least two rounds, including several Slayers. He’s solo’d quite a bit before, but it really only takes a failed save against Hold Person. On the other hand – he’s a Monk with high WIS saves, and he can spend a ki point to reroll a failed save. If they kill him, logically they may try to escape with the body for interrogation. I would not want to perma-kill a PC at this point in the campaign, so I’ll probably have him raised and imprisoned, and then let the others find out about it quickly… say, perhaps by Saqwam soul-caging one of the others and finding out that they had a plan to capture, interrogate, and then sacrifice any of the PCs they capture. Saqwam’s a warlock, so Soul Cage is his only spell of that level. I’m pretty sure it will happen.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Assuming the PCs succeed, they’ll get a Helm of Teleportation out of it. I had an ambush marked down for the abandoned keep they’d designated as a “base” but they have not returned to the area since I put that in place.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 36, 1/21/2023</strong></p><p>Teador’s player couldn’t make it due to work. Starting at 7:30 and ending around 10:15 means we are ending up with some pretty short game sessions. RL happens.</p><p>When we left off, Ratel had six Aarakocra teleport in front of him. He wins initiative, turns, and high-tails it back to the party, running across the top of the jungle canopy at 180’/rd (1 ki point per round). They give pursuit, but he quickly outpaces them. Saqwam True Polymorphs into an Adult Gold Dragon, picks up Troudar, and heads to meet him.</p><p></p><p>The Aarakocra pause, group up, and ready an action to Teleport in front of Ratel. Roll 1d100… 05. They Teleport someplace else, and having only one charge left in their Helm of Teleportation, do not return.</p><p></p><p>The group stays in the area, and Saqwam remains a dragon. Unfortunately, True Polymorph specifies that your gear melds into your body and provides no benefit, so he is no longer protected from Scrying. At dawn the next day, the group is on the ground when the same team of Aarakocra teleport in. There are two Slayers, two priests of different levels, a wizard, and one wielding an atl-atl.</p><p></p><p>Troudar flies up to the atl-alt javelineer and reduces him to about 15 hit points. Ratel then shoots him, hops onto the back of Saqwam the Adult Gold Dragon, and starts picking on the next target. Saqwam hits the enemies with Dragon Fear (4/5 fail) and then breathes fire at the two Slayers who, with +14 to hit, missed most of their attacks on Ratel.</p><p></p><p>The enemy priest tries to dispel Saqwam’s polymorph, then eats a full attack routine from a dragon. The Aarakocra wizard gets knocked down to single digit HP by Troudar, and finished off by Ratel again. The remaining enemies leave via Word of Recall as they have lost two of their number without doing major damage (Cone of Cold does not count).</p><p></p><p>Loot:</p><p><u>Atl-atl of the many</u>: When you launch a javelin from this, 1d4 copy javelins are created, each with their own attack roll against the target. Requires attunement.</p><p>Helm of teleportation: Requires attunement. Ratel dropped the Bracers of Defense for this.</p><p></p><p>The group bails on the hex and heads southeast to solve the fey riddle and get the sword out of the stone:</p><p></p><p><em>Useless to the blind,</em></p><p><em>A drinker, a spiller,</em></p><p><em>Chains this crystal blade bind,</em></p><p><em>Until offering is made in kind.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Dryness of ocean,</em></p><p><em>Melting of rock,</em></p><p><em>Color of air,</em></p><p><em>Flow of clock,</em></p><p><em>Hair of the wielder,</em></p><p><em>Place to unlock.</em></p><p></p><p>Their answers, in order:</p><p>Salt</p><p>True Polymorph into a magma mephit and try to fit into the bowl</p><p>Breathe into one of the bowls</p><p>Sand, like from an hourglass</p><p>A bit of Troudar’s hair</p><p></p><p>The sword comes out.</p><p>Troudar is now hairless.</p><p>Ratel succeeds on his Constitution save as the bowl tries to suck all the breath out of his lungs.</p><p>Saqwam is de-polymorphed as the bowl destroys his Magma form, and succeeds on a Con save to not die (improvised system shock roll).</p><p></p><p>The sword is a +3 crystal greatsword. The wielder, when targeted by a single-target spell or ranged spell attack that he can see, can use his Reaction to make an attack roll. If the attack roll meets or exceeds the spell DC or spell attack roll, the sword absorbs the spell, discharging it into the next target struck within 1 hour. It can only hold one spell at a time.</p><p>Yes, you can catch and redirect Disintegrate with this.</p><p></p><p>After some discussion about trapping Eater Goats and releasing them in a city, or using the Helm of Teleportation to conduct city bombardment via 9’x9’x9 rocks 3000’ into the air, the party teleports to the old fort they had dug a hideout under, over in 15.11.</p><p></p><p>We ended the session there. </p><p></p><p>For next time, the discussion question is: What is your action plan and where are you going? I feel like they’ve been muddling around with no clear plan. With scheduling getting tougher and sessions getting shorter, I’d like to see this end soon… but they keep not committing and following through to a single course of action.</p><p></p><p><strong>Session 37, 2/4/2023</strong></p><p>There were two planning periods this session where everyone sat and talked about strategy and next steps. I’m going to consolidate them into one section for clarity.</p><p></p><p>With the player for Teador, wielder of the Ssword of Sseth back, and having Teleported near yuan-ti territory, the group heads north after some discussion about revealing the sword or not (random encounter: big beehive in tree, only a threat if you mess with it). The closest village is actually one of the first yuan-ti settlements they visited, the one where a scarred wizard first challenged them with “Are you worthy?” and set them on the path to finding Ssword in the first place nearly 2 years ago IRL.</p><p></p><p>Once there, they reveal the existence and nature of Ssword to the leader (Ila, a snake-form yuan-ti). I have Ssword drop the “I am the Ssword of Sseth, a fragment of what was once a god and may be again” line. Not being a fan of narrating NPC to NPC conversations at the table, it’s pretty short. Ila calls together the entire population of the settlement after the discussions are all over with, and Ssword talks to them about his history and what he could be. The Ssword of Sseth asks them to get out their old books and records of prayers and rituals, and to believe. Not all believe him, and there is arguing and talking, and a near fistfight (Ratel wanted to put 4cp on “the smaller one” in the fight), but that there would be evidence in the morning of those who believed the strongest.</p><p></p><p>The party is not left alone that evening – lots of people want to see them and talk and ask questions, including Priya, the scarred enchanter. She is sure to come over and ask questions, and promises to help when they need it.</p><p></p><p>The next morning once everyone’s awake, one of the yuan-ti runs out in front of the village, slices her arm open, and then heals it. This is the first clerical magic they’ve had since Sseth was killed. Following this a LOT of Sendings and messages start going out to all the other yuan-ti villages and outposts.</p><p></p><p>For now, the Ssword of Sseth can only grant clerical powers in a 1 mile radius (range based on what I’ve read of the Time of Troubles in the 2nd edition transition). Also, he hits his final power-up and can cast Harm on-hit and Heal once per day each.</p><p></p><p>The team then heads out to begin executing the plans they made slightly earlier in the session. Here’s my summation, which may not be as accurate as what they wrote down and kept for themselves.</p><p>1. Get the giants on-side to participate.</p><p>1a. Provide them with evidence that demands action regarding Huitzopochtli being present in person on the Material Plane, as they’ve stayed cautiously neutral and the yuan-ti haven’t gotten them on-side in 300 years.</p><p>1b. Acquire this evidence by raiding an Aarakocra temple to steal documentation regarding their plans and purpose.</p><p>1c. Deliver the evidence so the giants will help with military action.</p><p>2. Either go destroy the last outlying temple altar, or proceed directly to Huitzopochtli’s high temple and lay waste to it.</p><p>3. Influence the long-term outcome through their discussions with Sseth and plans with the yuan-ti and giants.</p><p></p><p>To that end, they are teleporting to a giant city near the city belonging to Quetzalcoatl, the god of invention. The first teleport rolls for a similar location… “Oops, wrong city”… then they try again and get where they planned. From there, they head north (random encounter: bull elk, pretty, but not the time to hunt) for a day. Approaching the hexes around the city, they determine that they are not stealthy, and spot a number of Quetzals circling the area looking for anything. They do not think they can get past the eagle-eyed giant intelligent magic birds, so they re-route to another hex to approach the city…and run into the same thing.</p><p></p><p>After some discussion, the silver raven figurine is sent to retrieve a small object from some kind of sheltered location a mile or so away from Quetzalcoatl’s city. They then use that to teleport without error to that location. The party will wait there. At dusk, Ratel the stealthy fast monk will don his Boots of Elvenkind and the Nightcloak (we had to look it up, it was from September 2021!), which allows him to cast Invisibility at will. He will infiltrate the city and look for any written documents that could be useful.</p><p></p><p>He doesn’t read the Aarakocra language, but he asked the yuan-ti for some cheat sheets of symbols and words to look for, and with a Headband of Intellect he should be able to pick them out.</p><p>We’ll run that over Discord before the next session, and the plan is to get the documents, exfiltrate quietly, and then go talk to the giants before going on offense.</p><p></p><p>Every Aarakocra city is different…this one has a lot of logging operations around it, and is the main manufacturing assembly line for the air-skiffs.</p><p></p><p>Since the party got the yuan-ti 100% in their corner and and restored Ssword to full power, that’s a major accomplishment, so everyone levels up to 20.</p><p></p><p>From here out we are entering Epic Boon territory.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Notes: Level 20, hurrah! I am definitely glad I let them get the Helm of Teleportation. It might have been good for them to get it earlier, but once you have fast travel, exploration also takes a back seat, and they would have missed a few things. It’s not like they are ever going to see all the content anyway, though.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I didn’t do a statblock for Priya, but she’s around a level 14 enchanter. Easy to throw in if they ask for her specifically.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I am overall pleased with how the Ssword of Sseth subplot has been playing out.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 37.5</strong></p><p>This happened after Session 38, but is set beforehand.</p><p>Ratel waits until dusk, sneaks across the fields, and then up and over the fence with a 34 in Stealth. He approaches the quiet, dark sawmills, explores there for a bit, and then takes some cautious observations of the building to the east. He thinks he sees some Quetzals on the top floor, and skips it.</p><p></p><p>Ratel then slips alongside the troughs that air-skiffs travel along while being assembled.</p><p></p><p>Turning invisible (18th level monk), he crosses to the temple, finds the door shut, and peeks in the top. He decides it’s not safe to go in the temple, and proceeds east past the long buildings. He pauses for a while to listen to talk in the sitting areas around the Fountain of Hues, and hears mostly craftsmen talking. It sounds like there’s a lot of enchanting and work with special materials here.</p><p></p><p>Moving east, and going invisible several times with Empty Body, he ultimately decides to infiltrate what turn out to be priest quarters. He finds an unoccupied room on the 2nd floor, checks it out, then hides in the wardrobe (with a very high stealth check). He waits until the occupant comes back, then listens and waits while the occupant east, changes, and sleeps. He trances during the day to pass the time, and waits for the occupant to leave the next night.</p><p></p><p>He then examines the room, finds some personal letters, and takes them because they have a few of the appropriate symbols. He almost decides to leave, but instead turns invisible and goes up to the next floor.</p><p></p><p>There are four buildings of priest quarters…3 of them have Senior Priests. The other has the High Priest quarters. I roll a 4 on the 1d4, so the top floor is the High Priest quarters…all of it. Ratel looks around briefly for a desk or writing area, and finds one. It’s neat and organized, with blank vellum, parchment, and writing materials on top. There are two locked drawers, but Ratel’s Rogue levels come in handy and he pops the lock with an 18+12=30. </p><p></p><p>One drawer has a number of letters, documents, etc., which Ratel cannot read. However, they do contain some of the symbols on his cheat sheet, so he thinks they are at least some of what he needs. He takes them.</p><p></p><p>The other drawer contains sealing wax and official seals (one personal, one for his position). He takes impressions of both seals and steals one container of the rainbow-colored wax.</p><p></p><p>As he’s finishing this up, he hears a thump as someone lands in the next room over in the apartment. Using his Empty Body ability to turn invisible, he quickly moves to the window and out the curtain, slow-falling to the ground. I call for a new Stealth check for this (it’s been a while), and the High Priest, who is VERY perceptive, beats him and hears Ratel exit. The HP moves into the room, sees his desk drawers open (I didn’t ask/prompt him to close them) and the curtain moving, and looks outside. The High Priest has permanent True Sight 120’, so he sees Ratel… and of course the party’s descriptions are well-known at this point.</p><p>Initiative is rolled, and Ratel wins. He uses his move and bonus action dash to move 120’ north, then activates his Cape of the Mountebank to teleport a further 500’, landing invisible outside the wall. The alarm is raised behind him, but it’s too late for anyone to catch him before he makes it back to the party.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: Document secured for the Giants. He successfully avoided the teaching areas beneath the Quetzals, as well as the main archives and details in the Temple, which would have had a lot more information. This will be enough to persuade some, but not all.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 38, 2/18/2023</strong></p><p>Ratel’s player couldn’t make it. A family member with “some” D&D experience joined while visiting in town, playing Rivkah… Walking in to a high level game with a 20th level bard you’re unfamiliar with and haven’t picked a spell list for is not a smooth transition.</p><p></p><p>I didn’t get the one-on-one recon/infiltration session done with Ratel between sessions as planned. We have “assumed” that it succeeded, and will do minor retcons as needed when I get it done in the next 2 weeks.</p><p></p><p>Assuming success, “What next?” ended up being a plan for the party to go ahead and attack Quetzalcoatl’s temple and destroy it. The city is laid out as a long, thin rectangle, about half of which is occupied by an assembly line for air-skiffs. They decide to go for a night attack, and teleport in around midnight to the sawmill area. It’s vacant, and they find some barrels of corn oil (used to lubricate the trough the air-skiff frames travel down). Heading to the western side where a bunch of logs are staged, they douse them in about 30 gallons of oil, then Fireball the storage lot and immediately Teleport across the city to a concealed point near the temple.</p><p></p><p>(note: They used the Silver Raven figurine to pick up stones from target points for teleportation without errors)</p><p></p><p>They then wait about 5 minutes to see the response, and see some Quetzals flying overhead, which causes Teador to say they should go for the temple at once. They are invisible… but as they round the corner, a Quetzal has the temple ground entrance blocked. I ask how quiet they are, and the results are something like 3, 7, 11, 14… so the group gets Prismatic Sprayed . Teador gets an 8 and then rolls double 7s, but that’s one that does nothing on a successful first save. Wanting to hold on to invisibility, the party changes course and flies up to the top of the temple, leaving the Quetzal behind them to call out a warning. Initiative was rolled with the Quetzals getting a nat 1.</p><p></p><p>The second Quetzal on top of the temple is actively looking for them, but when I say it starts to… I don’t even remember if I said what… “I Banish it!” It succeeded versus one Banish, but not the second one. Teador has a +15 Constitution save, so unless he takes 30+ damage in a hit, it’s still banished. As of writing, we’re about 5 rounds into the fight and that Quetzal is still in never-never land.</p><p></p><p>The group drops into one of the two vertical entry shafts to the top level of the temple, and finds the altar, the high priest, 4 lesser priests, 2 iron golems, and a floating blue golem thing.</p><p>Late in round 1, six more smaller golems, with weapons similar to the staff weapons from Stargate, enter the room as reinforcements.</p><p></p><p>The enemy high priest uses an 8th level Summon Fiend for a Yugoloth that does nearly nothing. The group opens with Chain Lightning (Paladin’s Air Elemental Command ring) and the Lightning Guitar, which ends the summoned fiend due to Concentration failure. Then the two Senior Priests in the room cast Spirit Guardian on top of the party… so anyone who goes anywhere is going to take damage. They stay still, except for Troudar, who starts moving to engage the golems (40 damage from SGs). The Iron Golems get close enough that one of them can breathe poison and does damage.</p><p></p><p>Next round, the High Priest drops a Prismatic Sphere on the party (except Troudar). Saqwam the Warlock tries to counterspell it, but can’t. Two Dimension Doors fix the problem, except that Teador is blinded for the next minute.</p><p></p><p>I don’t have a detailed record of the full fight thus far (it’s on pause until next session), but the dice were terrible. Over 5 rounds not a single combatant has rolled a natural 20. Troudar got reduced to 0 while attacking the High Priest, and used his Samurai capstone in a round where he was also Action Surging, for a total of 12 attacks made at +14 to hit against enemies of AC 22 and lower. I think he scored a total of 4 hits.</p><p></p><p>He did manage to block a Prismatic Ray with his sword, then discharge it into the High Priest.</p><p></p><p>Teador has stabbed the Ssword of Sseth into Quetzalcoatl’s altar, and plans to use his action next turn to cure the 1 minute blindness from Prismatic Wall. He's currently using the Rod of the Sun, which does half its damage as radiant and half as fire...which means it does 0 damage to Iron Golems.</p><p>Saqwam got tired of being beat up by an iron golem and a priest and just turned into a Planetar.</p><p>Troudar is back to full HP thanks to Power Word Heal, but the dice still hate him.</p><p>Rivkah (new player using someone else’s bard) has had a hard time figuring out what to do and doesn’t have a lot of great options.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Notes: Terrible, terrible dice. I feel bad for them. They are facing 3 high level casters, 2 Iron Golems, and 6 CR 2 mini-golems. This is the easiest temple fight by the numbers, yet they are having more trouble than any other temple attack… Ratel the super-mobile death/stun dealer being missing makes a huge difference. They are letting enemies stack up around them instead of staying mobile, and nobody is using any form of crowd control or mobility control.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>There’s a Mind Golem in the room hitting them with Ego Whip (one at a time) at a relatively low DC, but both Teador and Troudar have failed their INT saves and had partial turns as a result. It has low AC and low hit points, but nobody has fired so much as a Fire Bolt at it.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Troudar’s Crystal Sword (+3/+3) is great for blocking rays and spells, but has less damage than the +2/+2d8 maul he was using before. I need to fire more rays at him to let him get the chance to use it.</em></p><p><em>They did have the High Priest down to about 60hp, but he used his one-off “heal 100hp” bonus action and cleared it.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Bad dice, bad tactics… and reinforcements should start showing up shortly.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Debates with Ssword, Continued</strong></p><p>There have been plenty of long rests, and we’re catching up. Ssword is now at Cha 20 and, being aware of his true nature, Proficient in persuasion, so he has a +11. Teador’s arguments:</p><p></p><p>The ends justify the means: Any action is okay if it leads to victory. (Evil; Possibly chaotic) </p><p>Teador’s argument: While I respect a great desire for victory, I can not agree with any action being okay. If the means are more destructive and dangerous than the victory against the enemy you are trying to defeat, it does not make it a victory. Or outside of war, if the means harm innocence or cause issues even less than the problem you’re trying to solve, that doesn’t mean the solution you applied is okay, since you’ve only shifted the problem to something else.</p><p>Teador’s rolls: 26, 26, 26</p><p>Ssword’s rolls : 24, 25, 12</p><p></p><p>Result: The Ssword of Sseth does not believe the ends justify the means.</p><p></p><p>Utility: Altruism is foolish and not worthwhile. Only help those who are useful. (Evil) </p><p>Teador’s argument: That’s untrue more in the idea that you believe that you can’t, with your altruism and helping others, raise those deemed “unuseful” and make a greater society by the end, which simply isn’t the case for even non-sentient beings.</p><p>Teador’s Rolls: 18, 30, 32</p><p>Ssword’s rolls: 12, 25, 19</p><p></p><p>Result: Altruism has a place, at least sometimes.</p><p></p><p><u>Cumulative alignment shift to Lawful Neutral.</u></p><p></p><p>Order: An orderly people with firm laws and codes is stronger than one with more “Freedom.” A few people may be harmed by this, but it’s worth it. (Law) </p><p>Teador’s argument: I can understand that a society with rules, laws, and a fundamental understanding of morals is a good society, however, without giving the people freedom is to box them in and limit them as a species. Many of the advancements in magic or technology in the land I come from is largely due to the freedom those bright individuals were given to invent or express themselves. Not only that but a society boxed in completely and limited by strict laws and codes is a much less happy society, leaving them either depressed and less able to commit to anything, or leaves them outraged and they will lash out against the system limiting them, it’s much more worth it giving people freedom in many areass. </p><p></p><p>Teador’s rolls: 30, 21, 24</p><p>Ssword’s rolls: 26, 22, 26</p><p></p><p>Result: Teador does not convince the Ssword of Sseth of the value of freedom versus a more strict order.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: Changing Ssword’s mind would have been much harder, had the Ssword of Sseth remained in the hands of a Charisma 8 barbarian, instead of being wielded by a Lawful Good character with high Charisma and persuasion proficiency… especially later in the game when Ssword has such a high modifier.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 39, 3/4/2023</strong></p><p>The battle continues! We swap Ratel in for where Rivkah was in the map left over from last time and resume play. I think the fight lasted 3-4 rounds before I called it.</p><p>Teador, blinded from the Prismatic Wall, spent what I think was his first round casting Destructive Wave, a 5th level Paladin spell that I’ve always overlooked. It’s not really that much more damage than Fireball, but it’s in a 30’ radius, so it covers over double the area that Fireball does, and with a more favorable damage type, and knocks enemies prone on a failed save – of which there were a lot. He cleared out 4 or 5 small golems completely and knocked an Iron Golem and a few enemies flat with it. </p><p>Saqwam, changed into a Planetar, went to town with the big sword that does 4d6+7+5d8-ish damage twice a round. He also used the healing ability to clear Teador’s blindness after a round or two. Once he was not blinded, Teador critted an iron golem, then added a 4th level smite, and did 142-ish damage with that one hit. The followup knocked the last 20hp off.</p><p>Ratel killed an enemy priest, then helped go after the high priest. He got counter-struck with the Rainbow Morningstar and had to suffer through 3 rounds of being Restrained by the petrification effect – although that didn’t stop him from landing some stunning fists.</p><p></p><p>There were a couple of more Prismatic Sprays. It’s fun, but all the dice-rolling can be annoying the fourth time the spell is cast. It may be worth making a spreadsheet similar to the one I use for Perception checks… pre-roll a bunch of lines of Prismatic Spray with what D8 is rolled (just going around the table) and what the damage type and amount is for it.</p><p></p><p>The enemy high priest got knocked to sub-30 hit points once or twice more before dying. Reinforcements arrived 3 rounds in a row. First, a senior priest (who cast Heal on the HP) and a couple of acolytes, then the Quetzal from the rooftop after the High Priest used Power Word Stun on Teador, then a few golems came up from the 1st floor.</p><p>The Quetzal’s abilities were mostly saved against, and the one full attack routine it got was just a bunch of misses due to bad dice-rolls. Then it got stunlocked and died.</p><p>Troudar was the target of a lot of abilities and passed almost all his saves (Indomitable and paladin aura). He did get to block a Guiding Bolt with his crystal sword, but after most of the casters were down, switched back to the Maul of Extreme Pain for the extra damage.</p><p></p><p>It was getting late, and there was no doubt that the party, with everyone >80hp, could deal with the last couple of golems. It became “Ok, do you loot the room and leave, or do you explore the rest of the temple?”</p><p></p><p>DM note: There were enemy soldiers outside, but the party made a mostly unobserved approach to the temple, there’s a fire, and most of their leadership is either busy with the fire or in the temple getting slaughtered. I decided that the quetzals would probably end up organizing an ambush outside for when the party left, or would send in a huge mass of soldiers if the party was still there after 10 minutes.</p><p></p><p>I kept rough track of time as the party sped through the top floor of the temple, wrecking the heart & blood storage room, ignoring the room that stores ritual vestments, and saying “Not going to stop” for a room full of enchanting components and reagents – 15,000gp worth, but it’d take 5 minutes to properly loot the room into their bags of holding. They then find a meditation room, a scrying room (crystal ball stolen, and a “That’s how they were spying on us!” discussion), and a library of inventor’s notes on failed and successful inventions, enchantments, etc. Ratel decides to steal about 20% of the room there, shoving shelves of papers into their bags…. Then they light the room on fire.</p><p></p><p>Heading downstairs, they stick to the middle of the building and go through a testing area (measuring apparatus, targets, and a damage ward that didn’t get triggered), opening doors as they explore. The next room was golem storage (1 iron, 1 clay, 1 stone, 1 mind golem). Nobody including me had any doubt they could handle the fight pretty quickly, so I just put down a tick mark for a half minute or so. Golem storage then lead to a room at the center of the temple with no other doors in. They figure out that was probably where they wanted to be, and the high priest had had a key. They were right! It was the treasury.</p><p></p><p>After looting it, they activate the Helm of Teleportation, using a rock from their hideout as a focus, and teleport straight out, completely skipping the blocking force outside.</p><p></p><p>We go over loot, and the choices of epic boons. I have presented each of them with a short list of ~4 boons to pick from based on what their characters have done or focused on, plus a species-based option. They’ll pick.</p><p></p><p>Loot from the Treasury:</p><p>50,000gp</p><p>+3 halberd</p><p>Necklace of Adaptation</p><p>Wings of Flying cloak</p><p>Manual of Golems (Iron). If someone had a way to accelerate the passage of time, they could afford to build an Iron Golem…</p><p></p><p>Loot from the High Priest:</p><p>Breastplate +2</p><p>Shield +1</p><p>Polychromatic Mantle: Legendary cloak that gives resistance to all the damage types Prismatic Spray deals, as well as advantage on saves vs. Blindness and Petrification</p><p>Rainbow Morningstar: Legendary +3 morningstar, 8 charges, regain 1d6 charges per day. On hit, once per round, discharge a charge to deal an effect to a target as though the target had failed a dexterity save against Prismatic Spray.</p><p></p><p><em>DM Note: The endgame draws closer! It’s fun to hand out epic options.</em></p><p></p><p>Now I'm up to current in posting!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="J-H, post: 8961119, member: 7020951"] [B]Session 32, 9/17/22[/B] This was a more exploratory session, with not much serious combat. The party starts heading towards a yuan-ti city, but they are all far away and will require a circuitous route. There is discussion of using True Polymorph to travel via dragonback, but it’s ultimately decided against. They decide to search the hexes they travel through along the way. They get lucky, and only one random encounter gets rolled across several days…and that encounter is a pair of Air Elementals! The Ring of Air Elemental command is now fully powered up. We didn’t bother rolling for 4 19th level characters vs 2x CR 5 elementals. The group heads southwest to 05.05, where they spot an abandoned rock quarry with 5 stone huts down at the bottom. They descend; Saqwam uses Ghostly Gaze to look through the stone huts, and sees 5 translucent, ghostly figures, which he (Nat 20 religion) identifies as Banshees. There’s no obvious treasure to his x-ray vision, but Teador the Paladin wants to smite undead anyway. The party lands and passes all their saves, wiping out the Banshees in about 1.5 turns. The 30’ +5 Paladin aura is very helpful. Investigating afterwards, they notice runes of imprisonment and warding carved around the edges of the quarry; the banshees are apparently trapped there, and have been for who knows how long. The group departs, heading southwest, where in the next hex they find some chewed up petrified people (none in raisable condition) with a bit of gold. The basilisk or whatever did it does not seem to be around. Somewhere around this time, a running discussion that lasts the rest of the session off and on begins. I think it started with Saqwam collect a rock from the quarry, and it went through him possibly eating them, the party being in Roc territory, Teador being as dumb as rocks, what rocks taste like, etc. Heading further southwest to 03.06, they find a large opening in a cliff-face over a waterfall. Troudar notices signs of traffic in and out. They fly in, then walk back in the cave. It forks, and they follow the right fork back, where it terminates in a large room. Teador and Ratel walk in, and both pass their saves against a Zone of Truth. In the room is a Quetzal sitting on a nest (snake/bird creature with prismatic stuff, serves Quetzalcoatl). It interrogates them briefly, and asks if they brought tribute? PC: “What would be acceptable tribute?” Q: “Valuable gems… oh, or the heads of those people that have been giving the Aarakocra fits. I’ve heard the bounty is immense!” PCs: “We’ll just be leaving now.” They depart in peace from the Quetzal nesting grounds. Troudar’s good Perception rolls let him realize that an invisible Quetzal is following them out. Saqwam picks up a rock on his way out to serve as an anchor to teleport back in the future if needed. Southwards, they find an abandoned cliffside dwelling possibly occupied by Gargoyles at one point in the past. Ratel takes a 150# stone stool and stuffs it in a Bag of Holding. More rocks. In the next hex to the south, they find a cave that has an overgrown but clear opening coming up to it. Entering it, it appears to be an abandoned mine. They explore and find an elevator going down. Checking the rest of the floor they are on, they end up going down a hall with four short halls to the right prior to the end. The first short hall contains a headless zombie and a 50’ silk rope. The second, third, and fourth halls all each contain a headless zombie, and a healing potion, 34 gp, and a +2 crossbow bolt. The zombies are dispatched without bothering to roll. The passage continues with a couple of side exits, one containing a non-magical steel shield, and a room that appears to have had something dig through the rock in the past. The party then doubles back to the elevator (fits 3), and take it down while Teador floats down above it. The group makes an Intelligence save, and detects a psychic aura that makes them feel bad…except Teador. He got an 11 and didn’t notice anything. When reaching the next floor down, they find 3 brains with legs waiting for them. Ratel beats them in initiative and kills one, damaging another. He passes his intelligence saves, then Troudar picks up the injured brain with legs and uses it as a weapon (Tavern Brawler) to kill it and nearly kill the other living one. Saqwam uses his crossbow but misses, then Teador skewers the last one. We left off there and will presumably continue exploration next time. [I]DM note: Yes, Intellect Devourers. Saqwam’s player specifically said “I feel like this is someone leaving candy out to bait a path for a kid, so they can then come along and kidnap the kid, and we’re the kid.” There’s more if they go deeper….[/I] [B]Session 33, 10/1/22[/B] The party explores further, having not made any knowledge checks to identify their foes. They proceed down a twisting but clearly artificial corridor, and find a very large (>100’) oval room. There’s one other tunnel leading out of it. They check over the room and find what they identify as a Teleportation Circle (for the 5th level spell), but it’s written in a language they can’t identify. DM Note: Qualith, the Illithid language. History DC 20, nobody made the check. Proceeding up the other tunnel, Saqwam, near the rear, notices a tiny (1’ wide) crevasse that seems to go somewhere. Teador the paladin (INT 8) sticks his head in. There’s an Intellect Devourer inside. INT save, with disadvantage because he failed his save against the psychic aura last session. 6. Roll 3d6, 16. Teador is now Stunned and his intelligence is 0. Troudar moves the drooling paladin-vegetable away while Ratel sets up with a readied attack and flattens the Intellect Devourer. Saqwam identifies it, and the connection to mindflayers. After a brief discussion, the party decides to execute a planned retrograde exfiltration of the area. There’s some discussion, including “If you could read his mind, you’d just hear the sound of static.” They tie Teador to his griffon (outside) and continue exploring. It will take 2 more days for the Anyspell Tome to recharge, allowing them to cast Greater Restoration. The only random encounter during this time is a few manticores, not worth rolling out. The book recharges, and Saqwam restores Teador’s brain. After re-orienting him, and giving him several different explanations for what happened, the group moves on. They find a carved opening in a mountainside, and explore it. Inside is a large, clearly artificial room containing nothing but a single stone humanoid figure. It’s features are stylized and blurred so that there’s no clear species model, but it’s continually moving through an extremely long pattern of katas and martial arts forms with perfect precision and placement at every point. Studying and mimicking its form and precision can lead to a greater understanding of how to make unarmed strikes. Anyone who follows its lead for 8 hours gains a permanent +2 to damage with unarmed strikes. This is physically taxing however, requiring a Strength save at the end of each hour. On a failed save, the character gains one level of exhaustion. The DC is equal to 14 minus the would-be martial artist’s proficiency bonus. Everyone except Saqwam participates, and thanks partly to the Paladin’s +5 aura (you can do it!) they all pass the series of saves and now punch and kick more precisely than before. The next hex south contains a pack of Winter Wolves, who follow the party for a while. There’s a brief conversation, but they don’t have anything to give the wolves (the Aarakocra bodies they carry around will still have decomposed some in the Bags of Holding), and don’t think they need the services of the wolves for anything either. Continuing on, they find a path above a cliff. A rope is tied nearby, going down the cliff face to a small, square opening. Entering, they find a small room with a scorched and blackened Goliath body in the middle. Teador walks across the room and sets off an Immolation trap, getting lit on fire (8d6) and taking a round or two of continuing damage before using Dispel to end the spell on himself. Detect Magic and Thieves Tools are used to find and disable the trap, and the Detect Magic also reveals an illusion containing a door on the other side of the room. The door is locked, so Troudar kicks it down. The hallway beyond is full of completely opaque fog. Teador uses Gust of Wind from his ring twice to clear fog, but runs out of charges before they hit the next bend and the 3rd (longest) stretch of fogged corridor. This fog is all from the Guards and Wards spell. Moving down the corridor, Teador trips a pressure plate, and everybody except Ratel gets zapped by a lightning bolt (disadvantage on saves because they can’t see it coming). After this, they all fly (brooms and Ring of Air Elemental Command floating). At one point, Teador fights off a Suggestion to explore openings to the left and the right. He warns the rest of the party, so they get advantage on their save versus Suggestion. At the end of the hall, they find a rotating color wheel they can’t really figure out, and another locked door behind an illusion. They break the door, and go into another fogged corridor. Ratel picks the lock at the end of this one. They enter a large room that is mostly a living area, but contains some statues of elven wizards in heroic poses. Immediately, a gem on the ceiling lights up with Sickening Radiance. They destroy it before it does much damage. A few seconds later, one of the statues points at Troudar and does something, but misses. Teador rolls higher in initiative and destroys the statue after it misses him in turn. The party spreads out to explore the room, and after about 2 more rounds of time, four Helmed Horrors under the effects of permanent Improved Invisibility attack the party. Saqwam the warlock is closest, so he gets two of them on him, and loses about 2/3 of his hit points. Teador gets Ssword to give him See Invisibility. Everyone else spends the whole fight rolling at disadvantage. We stopped here due to time. [I]DM Note: This is a wizard’s study home away from home, and when you’re an elven wizard, you have a LOT of time to make it hard to get into. Everything the party runs into here is on the Wizard list or associated with spellcasters. I don’t usually use traps, but this place absolutely calls for it… and they are, I think, pretty well telegraphed. The Suggestion pointed either to a room with several Symbol:Deaths in it, or to a fall into a room with an Illusory Dragon in it. One player made a comment about hoping there’s good loot. We’ll see if they can get it. They already missed the illusion-covered door to the room that the wizard used to arrive via Teleport Circle. Nobody in my party has the spell, but I have left a number of Teleport Circles scattered around the map, including one sealed up in the basement of Huitzopochtli’s high temple.[/I] [B]Session 34, 11/26/2022[/B] We are closing in on 2 years! One more meeting this year and then a 4 week break due to the Christmas holiday. Today’s session was only around 2-2.25 hrs due to time. At this point, the party has cleared all of the active threats. They explore the sitting room, and with the Investigation check I mention that the furniture is well-made. “What kind of wood?” “Roll a nature check” as I buy time…. “22”… “umm, Red Ironwood.” It turns out that’s a real wood, and a very hard and expensive wood. Later on, Ratel spends some time cutting up some chairs for wood to sell or use to make stuff because it’s so valuable. Lesson learned: If you improvise an expensive sounding wood, make sure it’s a real one, or that nobody in your party has actually worked with exotic woods. The party cautiously proceeds down one of the two fog-filled corridors after checking the door for traps. They find two guest rooms (nice furniture, apparently untouched but clean), and a partly empty library. Searching the library, they find 1200gp in spell scribing supplies, two empty spellbooks, and an array of 12 wizard scrolls. Exploring the other hall, they found the master bedroom, which contained a Robe of Eyes and Cloak of Elvenkind. Right now, nobody has suitable attunement slots. From there, they proceeded to the wizard’s study, picking up a couple of high-level scrolls, a Staff of Charming, and a Wand of Paralysis. Again, attunement slots. While Ratel starts cutting up some wood, Teador decides to open the other door in the back, ignoring the fact that furniture arrangement indicates it was rarely used. The door is not locked, but is “stuck.” He yanks it open, and a Magic Mouth yells in elven about hating thieves, right before a Glyph of Warding (fire) goes off, destroying all the papers and any un-held items in the room, plus damaging the party. Luckily, they grabbed the valuable stuff before the door was opened, so nothing of value was burnt. A greedy or speedy group may have tried the door first, and lost the items in the room. After this, they decide to take a long rest. Despite having three good, comfortable bedrooms, everyone but Teador decides to rest in the library. Saqwam doesn’t need to sleep, so he reads, Ratel reads and then trances for 4 hours in a wingback chair leaned against the wall, and Troudar just finds a comfortable corner. Paranoid PCs are gonna be paranoid. The party proceeds back to the long fog-filled hallway, making sure to specify that they float to avoid the pressure plates and lightning bolts. However, this does not prevent them from passing through the area with a DC 20 Suggestion effect to check the sides. Unlike when they came in, two PCs failed. Troudar went to the eastern room, a 10’ triangular room. The door slams behind him, and two Symbols light up on the walls… one of Death (10d10 necrotic) and one of Insanity (INT save or insane for 1 minute). There’s a second Death symbol on the door that he triggers when he turns around and sees it in the following round. Before getting pulled out (below) he spends a couple of rounds moving randomly in the room and takes somewhere around 150hp of damage. Ratel, meanwhile, turned west, and walked down a short corridor. The floor at the end of the corridor is an illusion leading to a 100’ fall. He falls, hits the ground unscathed (monk) and has a dragon pop into existence in front of him. He fails his Wis save against fear and his Int save against the breath weapon, and uses his turn to run away back upstairs to tell everyone there’s a dragon. He sees the closed door and opens it, subjecting himself to two of the three Symbols. He fails his save against insanity as well. Saqwam, meanwhile, thinks there’s not much he can do. “I walk farther away.” DM: “You walk further away?” “Yeah.” Pressure plate triggered, lightning bolt saves from everyone except the insane guy locked in a small room. Ultimately, Saqwam uses Bigby’s Hand to grapple Ratel and pull him out of the area of effect, then Teador uses a Paladin ability to end the ongoing spell effect. Ratel wants to go back for Troudar, and insists that he be dropped where he is. Ratel was being held right over the square with the pressure plate. Lightning bolt saves from everyone except Troudar…again. Ratel makes his saves and pulls Troudar out, then Troudar is healed by Teador. The Paladin +5 aura (30’) helped a lot with this. They then decide to go back and confront the dragon, triggering Suggestion again. Luckily, the only one who failed was Troudar, and since he’d already checked one side, checking dragon-side was his reasonable choice…and he was headed there anyway. He starts floating down at 30’/rd on his broom. Ratel runs down, punches the dragon, and misses with 20-something and 30-something to hit. This is fishy. He yells something up the 100’ drop about waiting, but the other PCs decide they don’t hear him. Teador casts Haste, and then uses a Hasted dash and his flight speed from his ring to Magneto-hover down past Troudar to reach the bottom, coming into view of the dragon at the end of his turn. Ratel then decides to just leave, wall-running/dashing back up the 100’ drop past Teador and Troudar. The dragon breathes fire on Teador and moves. Teador makes his save, then Hasted-floats back up past Troudar. Troudar eventually catches up, and the party exits without further issues. A triggered Illusory Dragon can be a fun thing. It’s a nice spell. [I]DM note: The wizard’s library contained some basic scrolls to refill a spellbook in case of catastrophic loss. I don’t think anyone picked up on this.[/I] [B] Session 35, 1/7/2023[/B] The December session was cancelled due to sickness. Teador’s player couldn’t make it due to work. Once everyone gets back up to speed after the long break, the party continues south and east, working their way towards the Yuan-ti, but exploring along the way. They find an old giant hideout with a couple of Superior Healing potions and some oversized bandages, needles, thread, etc. They then spot a couple of goliaths heading south while carrying longbows. Introducing themselves, they learn that the two goliaths are named Sadat and Ihtafeer. The group offers to travel with them, but then starts debating it. Saqwam notices himself saving against a Suggestion to travel with the two. Ratel takes him aside and they have a conversation in Primordial (to be sure the two goliaths can’t understand them), but ultimately decide to travel with them. They do notice the two asking a lot of questions. hey are very interested in what the party is doing, and eventually offer to show up when the party is ready to attack the Aarakocra. After traveling close to the giant city to the south, they part ways and the group heads in a more easterly direction. Passing through some already-explored areas, they find an abandoned cliff settlement. Along the way, they also find an overgrown statue of a Yuan-ti Abomination clasping hands with a Giant. Uncovering the inscription, it commemorates a peace treaty between the people of Sseth and the giants, and the giants sending stone-workers to help built Sseth’s main temple, which has now been converted to the High Temple of Huitzopochtli. The Ssword of Sseth thinks this was around 800 years ago. I roll an Int check, and that also jogs the sword’s memory. There was a secret back route…a Teleportation Circle hidden in a small chamber underneath the temple. If someone can cast Teleportation Circle, they have a possible secret way in. Nobody in the party has it, but I do let them know that the yuan-ti should have at least a few wizards who can cast the spell. This is not the first Circle they’ve run across. Due to time and turnover we recap the kraken that may help during the final battle, as well as remind them about the Crystal Sword locked in a stone by a riddle…the party is close to the area. A few days later they find an old fortified cave with a small shrine to Lolth. Everything else there is just scraps aside from a half-shredded backpack containing two Unbreakable Arrows and 3 Acid Flasks. The group continues southeast into the jungle, and spots an Aarakocra patrol about 900’ away. They decide to attack it, and Ratel immediately flies upwards on his bow and starts raining arrows upon them. Once the first guardsman falls, the air-skiff makes a quick U-turn and starts flying away. Ratel pursues, running across the treetops as monks do, while trying to shoot down any that aren’t within the boat for cover. He continues to pursue. After about a minute and a half, he’s 900’ away from the party, and the session ends with the sharp crack as six Aarakocra arrive via teleportation to a point not far in front of him. [I]DM Notes: I know none of my players have played Baldur’s Gate II, so I felt very safe naming the Rakshasas disguised as Goliaths after two of the Raskshasas from a quest in that game. They failed one of their deception vs. insight checks, and failed to land a Suggestion, and acted a bit over-interested, but the party never cut them loose or interrogated them more thoroughly. I made sure to phrase a few things with weasel words like “We’d be happy to show up to one of your battles with some friends if we know in advance.” I did have the Rakshasas offer to help with night watch duty. Saqwam has the invocation that means he doesn’t sleep, and Ratel is an elf and only trances for 4 hours, so they specified that there were always two of them awake on watch. If they had not been paranoid, well, Rakshasas do have Dominate Person. I forgot to roll Random Encounter checks for part of the evening, then near the end did roll the weakest possible Aarakocra patrol. At this point, the party has attacked 3 temples and is very well known to their enemies. There is only one entity in the entire setting that will fly up on a broom and start putting arrows into people reliably from 900’, and that’s Ratel. His character has grown very, very confident. Now he’s going to face a full ambush party by himself for at least two rounds, including several Slayers. He’s solo’d quite a bit before, but it really only takes a failed save against Hold Person. On the other hand – he’s a Monk with high WIS saves, and he can spend a ki point to reroll a failed save. If they kill him, logically they may try to escape with the body for interrogation. I would not want to perma-kill a PC at this point in the campaign, so I’ll probably have him raised and imprisoned, and then let the others find out about it quickly… say, perhaps by Saqwam soul-caging one of the others and finding out that they had a plan to capture, interrogate, and then sacrifice any of the PCs they capture. Saqwam’s a warlock, so Soul Cage is his only spell of that level. I’m pretty sure it will happen. Assuming the PCs succeed, they’ll get a Helm of Teleportation out of it. I had an ambush marked down for the abandoned keep they’d designated as a “base” but they have not returned to the area since I put that in place.[/I] [B]Session 36, 1/21/2023[/B] Teador’s player couldn’t make it due to work. Starting at 7:30 and ending around 10:15 means we are ending up with some pretty short game sessions. RL happens. When we left off, Ratel had six Aarakocra teleport in front of him. He wins initiative, turns, and high-tails it back to the party, running across the top of the jungle canopy at 180’/rd (1 ki point per round). They give pursuit, but he quickly outpaces them. Saqwam True Polymorphs into an Adult Gold Dragon, picks up Troudar, and heads to meet him. The Aarakocra pause, group up, and ready an action to Teleport in front of Ratel. Roll 1d100… 05. They Teleport someplace else, and having only one charge left in their Helm of Teleportation, do not return. The group stays in the area, and Saqwam remains a dragon. Unfortunately, True Polymorph specifies that your gear melds into your body and provides no benefit, so he is no longer protected from Scrying. At dawn the next day, the group is on the ground when the same team of Aarakocra teleport in. There are two Slayers, two priests of different levels, a wizard, and one wielding an atl-atl. Troudar flies up to the atl-alt javelineer and reduces him to about 15 hit points. Ratel then shoots him, hops onto the back of Saqwam the Adult Gold Dragon, and starts picking on the next target. Saqwam hits the enemies with Dragon Fear (4/5 fail) and then breathes fire at the two Slayers who, with +14 to hit, missed most of their attacks on Ratel. The enemy priest tries to dispel Saqwam’s polymorph, then eats a full attack routine from a dragon. The Aarakocra wizard gets knocked down to single digit HP by Troudar, and finished off by Ratel again. The remaining enemies leave via Word of Recall as they have lost two of their number without doing major damage (Cone of Cold does not count). Loot: [U]Atl-atl of the many[/U]: When you launch a javelin from this, 1d4 copy javelins are created, each with their own attack roll against the target. Requires attunement. Helm of teleportation: Requires attunement. Ratel dropped the Bracers of Defense for this. The group bails on the hex and heads southeast to solve the fey riddle and get the sword out of the stone: [I]Useless to the blind, A drinker, a spiller, Chains this crystal blade bind, Until offering is made in kind. Dryness of ocean, Melting of rock, Color of air, Flow of clock, Hair of the wielder, Place to unlock.[/I] Their answers, in order: Salt True Polymorph into a magma mephit and try to fit into the bowl Breathe into one of the bowls Sand, like from an hourglass A bit of Troudar’s hair The sword comes out. Troudar is now hairless. Ratel succeeds on his Constitution save as the bowl tries to suck all the breath out of his lungs. Saqwam is de-polymorphed as the bowl destroys his Magma form, and succeeds on a Con save to not die (improvised system shock roll). The sword is a +3 crystal greatsword. The wielder, when targeted by a single-target spell or ranged spell attack that he can see, can use his Reaction to make an attack roll. If the attack roll meets or exceeds the spell DC or spell attack roll, the sword absorbs the spell, discharging it into the next target struck within 1 hour. It can only hold one spell at a time. Yes, you can catch and redirect Disintegrate with this. After some discussion about trapping Eater Goats and releasing them in a city, or using the Helm of Teleportation to conduct city bombardment via 9’x9’x9 rocks 3000’ into the air, the party teleports to the old fort they had dug a hideout under, over in 15.11. We ended the session there. For next time, the discussion question is: What is your action plan and where are you going? I feel like they’ve been muddling around with no clear plan. With scheduling getting tougher and sessions getting shorter, I’d like to see this end soon… but they keep not committing and following through to a single course of action. [B]Session 37, 2/4/2023[/B] There were two planning periods this session where everyone sat and talked about strategy and next steps. I’m going to consolidate them into one section for clarity. With the player for Teador, wielder of the Ssword of Sseth back, and having Teleported near yuan-ti territory, the group heads north after some discussion about revealing the sword or not (random encounter: big beehive in tree, only a threat if you mess with it). The closest village is actually one of the first yuan-ti settlements they visited, the one where a scarred wizard first challenged them with “Are you worthy?” and set them on the path to finding Ssword in the first place nearly 2 years ago IRL. Once there, they reveal the existence and nature of Ssword to the leader (Ila, a snake-form yuan-ti). I have Ssword drop the “I am the Ssword of Sseth, a fragment of what was once a god and may be again” line. Not being a fan of narrating NPC to NPC conversations at the table, it’s pretty short. Ila calls together the entire population of the settlement after the discussions are all over with, and Ssword talks to them about his history and what he could be. The Ssword of Sseth asks them to get out their old books and records of prayers and rituals, and to believe. Not all believe him, and there is arguing and talking, and a near fistfight (Ratel wanted to put 4cp on “the smaller one” in the fight), but that there would be evidence in the morning of those who believed the strongest. The party is not left alone that evening – lots of people want to see them and talk and ask questions, including Priya, the scarred enchanter. She is sure to come over and ask questions, and promises to help when they need it. The next morning once everyone’s awake, one of the yuan-ti runs out in front of the village, slices her arm open, and then heals it. This is the first clerical magic they’ve had since Sseth was killed. Following this a LOT of Sendings and messages start going out to all the other yuan-ti villages and outposts. For now, the Ssword of Sseth can only grant clerical powers in a 1 mile radius (range based on what I’ve read of the Time of Troubles in the 2nd edition transition). Also, he hits his final power-up and can cast Harm on-hit and Heal once per day each. The team then heads out to begin executing the plans they made slightly earlier in the session. Here’s my summation, which may not be as accurate as what they wrote down and kept for themselves. 1. Get the giants on-side to participate. 1a. Provide them with evidence that demands action regarding Huitzopochtli being present in person on the Material Plane, as they’ve stayed cautiously neutral and the yuan-ti haven’t gotten them on-side in 300 years. 1b. Acquire this evidence by raiding an Aarakocra temple to steal documentation regarding their plans and purpose. 1c. Deliver the evidence so the giants will help with military action. 2. Either go destroy the last outlying temple altar, or proceed directly to Huitzopochtli’s high temple and lay waste to it. 3. Influence the long-term outcome through their discussions with Sseth and plans with the yuan-ti and giants. To that end, they are teleporting to a giant city near the city belonging to Quetzalcoatl, the god of invention. The first teleport rolls for a similar location… “Oops, wrong city”… then they try again and get where they planned. From there, they head north (random encounter: bull elk, pretty, but not the time to hunt) for a day. Approaching the hexes around the city, they determine that they are not stealthy, and spot a number of Quetzals circling the area looking for anything. They do not think they can get past the eagle-eyed giant intelligent magic birds, so they re-route to another hex to approach the city…and run into the same thing. After some discussion, the silver raven figurine is sent to retrieve a small object from some kind of sheltered location a mile or so away from Quetzalcoatl’s city. They then use that to teleport without error to that location. The party will wait there. At dusk, Ratel the stealthy fast monk will don his Boots of Elvenkind and the Nightcloak (we had to look it up, it was from September 2021!), which allows him to cast Invisibility at will. He will infiltrate the city and look for any written documents that could be useful. He doesn’t read the Aarakocra language, but he asked the yuan-ti for some cheat sheets of symbols and words to look for, and with a Headband of Intellect he should be able to pick them out. We’ll run that over Discord before the next session, and the plan is to get the documents, exfiltrate quietly, and then go talk to the giants before going on offense. Every Aarakocra city is different…this one has a lot of logging operations around it, and is the main manufacturing assembly line for the air-skiffs. Since the party got the yuan-ti 100% in their corner and and restored Ssword to full power, that’s a major accomplishment, so everyone levels up to 20. From here out we are entering Epic Boon territory. [I]DM Notes: Level 20, hurrah! I am definitely glad I let them get the Helm of Teleportation. It might have been good for them to get it earlier, but once you have fast travel, exploration also takes a back seat, and they would have missed a few things. It’s not like they are ever going to see all the content anyway, though. I didn’t do a statblock for Priya, but she’s around a level 14 enchanter. Easy to throw in if they ask for her specifically. I am overall pleased with how the Ssword of Sseth subplot has been playing out.[/I] [B]Session 37.5[/B] This happened after Session 38, but is set beforehand. Ratel waits until dusk, sneaks across the fields, and then up and over the fence with a 34 in Stealth. He approaches the quiet, dark sawmills, explores there for a bit, and then takes some cautious observations of the building to the east. He thinks he sees some Quetzals on the top floor, and skips it. Ratel then slips alongside the troughs that air-skiffs travel along while being assembled. Turning invisible (18th level monk), he crosses to the temple, finds the door shut, and peeks in the top. He decides it’s not safe to go in the temple, and proceeds east past the long buildings. He pauses for a while to listen to talk in the sitting areas around the Fountain of Hues, and hears mostly craftsmen talking. It sounds like there’s a lot of enchanting and work with special materials here. Moving east, and going invisible several times with Empty Body, he ultimately decides to infiltrate what turn out to be priest quarters. He finds an unoccupied room on the 2nd floor, checks it out, then hides in the wardrobe (with a very high stealth check). He waits until the occupant comes back, then listens and waits while the occupant east, changes, and sleeps. He trances during the day to pass the time, and waits for the occupant to leave the next night. He then examines the room, finds some personal letters, and takes them because they have a few of the appropriate symbols. He almost decides to leave, but instead turns invisible and goes up to the next floor. There are four buildings of priest quarters…3 of them have Senior Priests. The other has the High Priest quarters. I roll a 4 on the 1d4, so the top floor is the High Priest quarters…all of it. Ratel looks around briefly for a desk or writing area, and finds one. It’s neat and organized, with blank vellum, parchment, and writing materials on top. There are two locked drawers, but Ratel’s Rogue levels come in handy and he pops the lock with an 18+12=30. One drawer has a number of letters, documents, etc., which Ratel cannot read. However, they do contain some of the symbols on his cheat sheet, so he thinks they are at least some of what he needs. He takes them. The other drawer contains sealing wax and official seals (one personal, one for his position). He takes impressions of both seals and steals one container of the rainbow-colored wax. As he’s finishing this up, he hears a thump as someone lands in the next room over in the apartment. Using his Empty Body ability to turn invisible, he quickly moves to the window and out the curtain, slow-falling to the ground. I call for a new Stealth check for this (it’s been a while), and the High Priest, who is VERY perceptive, beats him and hears Ratel exit. The HP moves into the room, sees his desk drawers open (I didn’t ask/prompt him to close them) and the curtain moving, and looks outside. The High Priest has permanent True Sight 120’, so he sees Ratel… and of course the party’s descriptions are well-known at this point. Initiative is rolled, and Ratel wins. He uses his move and bonus action dash to move 120’ north, then activates his Cape of the Mountebank to teleport a further 500’, landing invisible outside the wall. The alarm is raised behind him, but it’s too late for anyone to catch him before he makes it back to the party. [I]DM Note: Document secured for the Giants. He successfully avoided the teaching areas beneath the Quetzals, as well as the main archives and details in the Temple, which would have had a lot more information. This will be enough to persuade some, but not all.[/I] [B]Session 38, 2/18/2023[/B] Ratel’s player couldn’t make it. A family member with “some” D&D experience joined while visiting in town, playing Rivkah… Walking in to a high level game with a 20th level bard you’re unfamiliar with and haven’t picked a spell list for is not a smooth transition. I didn’t get the one-on-one recon/infiltration session done with Ratel between sessions as planned. We have “assumed” that it succeeded, and will do minor retcons as needed when I get it done in the next 2 weeks. Assuming success, “What next?” ended up being a plan for the party to go ahead and attack Quetzalcoatl’s temple and destroy it. The city is laid out as a long, thin rectangle, about half of which is occupied by an assembly line for air-skiffs. They decide to go for a night attack, and teleport in around midnight to the sawmill area. It’s vacant, and they find some barrels of corn oil (used to lubricate the trough the air-skiff frames travel down). Heading to the western side where a bunch of logs are staged, they douse them in about 30 gallons of oil, then Fireball the storage lot and immediately Teleport across the city to a concealed point near the temple. (note: They used the Silver Raven figurine to pick up stones from target points for teleportation without errors) They then wait about 5 minutes to see the response, and see some Quetzals flying overhead, which causes Teador to say they should go for the temple at once. They are invisible… but as they round the corner, a Quetzal has the temple ground entrance blocked. I ask how quiet they are, and the results are something like 3, 7, 11, 14… so the group gets Prismatic Sprayed . Teador gets an 8 and then rolls double 7s, but that’s one that does nothing on a successful first save. Wanting to hold on to invisibility, the party changes course and flies up to the top of the temple, leaving the Quetzal behind them to call out a warning. Initiative was rolled with the Quetzals getting a nat 1. The second Quetzal on top of the temple is actively looking for them, but when I say it starts to… I don’t even remember if I said what… “I Banish it!” It succeeded versus one Banish, but not the second one. Teador has a +15 Constitution save, so unless he takes 30+ damage in a hit, it’s still banished. As of writing, we’re about 5 rounds into the fight and that Quetzal is still in never-never land. The group drops into one of the two vertical entry shafts to the top level of the temple, and finds the altar, the high priest, 4 lesser priests, 2 iron golems, and a floating blue golem thing. Late in round 1, six more smaller golems, with weapons similar to the staff weapons from Stargate, enter the room as reinforcements. The enemy high priest uses an 8th level Summon Fiend for a Yugoloth that does nearly nothing. The group opens with Chain Lightning (Paladin’s Air Elemental Command ring) and the Lightning Guitar, which ends the summoned fiend due to Concentration failure. Then the two Senior Priests in the room cast Spirit Guardian on top of the party… so anyone who goes anywhere is going to take damage. They stay still, except for Troudar, who starts moving to engage the golems (40 damage from SGs). The Iron Golems get close enough that one of them can breathe poison and does damage. Next round, the High Priest drops a Prismatic Sphere on the party (except Troudar). Saqwam the Warlock tries to counterspell it, but can’t. Two Dimension Doors fix the problem, except that Teador is blinded for the next minute. I don’t have a detailed record of the full fight thus far (it’s on pause until next session), but the dice were terrible. Over 5 rounds not a single combatant has rolled a natural 20. Troudar got reduced to 0 while attacking the High Priest, and used his Samurai capstone in a round where he was also Action Surging, for a total of 12 attacks made at +14 to hit against enemies of AC 22 and lower. I think he scored a total of 4 hits. He did manage to block a Prismatic Ray with his sword, then discharge it into the High Priest. Teador has stabbed the Ssword of Sseth into Quetzalcoatl’s altar, and plans to use his action next turn to cure the 1 minute blindness from Prismatic Wall. He's currently using the Rod of the Sun, which does half its damage as radiant and half as fire...which means it does 0 damage to Iron Golems. Saqwam got tired of being beat up by an iron golem and a priest and just turned into a Planetar. Troudar is back to full HP thanks to Power Word Heal, but the dice still hate him. Rivkah (new player using someone else’s bard) has had a hard time figuring out what to do and doesn’t have a lot of great options. [I]DM Notes: Terrible, terrible dice. I feel bad for them. They are facing 3 high level casters, 2 Iron Golems, and 6 CR 2 mini-golems. This is the easiest temple fight by the numbers, yet they are having more trouble than any other temple attack… Ratel the super-mobile death/stun dealer being missing makes a huge difference. They are letting enemies stack up around them instead of staying mobile, and nobody is using any form of crowd control or mobility control. There’s a Mind Golem in the room hitting them with Ego Whip (one at a time) at a relatively low DC, but both Teador and Troudar have failed their INT saves and had partial turns as a result. It has low AC and low hit points, but nobody has fired so much as a Fire Bolt at it. Troudar’s Crystal Sword (+3/+3) is great for blocking rays and spells, but has less damage than the +2/+2d8 maul he was using before. I need to fire more rays at him to let him get the chance to use it. They did have the High Priest down to about 60hp, but he used his one-off “heal 100hp” bonus action and cleared it. Bad dice, bad tactics… and reinforcements should start showing up shortly.[/I] [B]Debates with Ssword, Continued[/B] There have been plenty of long rests, and we’re catching up. Ssword is now at Cha 20 and, being aware of his true nature, Proficient in persuasion, so he has a +11. Teador’s arguments: The ends justify the means: Any action is okay if it leads to victory. (Evil; Possibly chaotic) Teador’s argument: While I respect a great desire for victory, I can not agree with any action being okay. If the means are more destructive and dangerous than the victory against the enemy you are trying to defeat, it does not make it a victory. Or outside of war, if the means harm innocence or cause issues even less than the problem you’re trying to solve, that doesn’t mean the solution you applied is okay, since you’ve only shifted the problem to something else. Teador’s rolls: 26, 26, 26 Ssword’s rolls : 24, 25, 12 Result: The Ssword of Sseth does not believe the ends justify the means. Utility: Altruism is foolish and not worthwhile. Only help those who are useful. (Evil) Teador’s argument: That’s untrue more in the idea that you believe that you can’t, with your altruism and helping others, raise those deemed “unuseful” and make a greater society by the end, which simply isn’t the case for even non-sentient beings. Teador’s Rolls: 18, 30, 32 Ssword’s rolls: 12, 25, 19 Result: Altruism has a place, at least sometimes. [U]Cumulative alignment shift to Lawful Neutral.[/U] Order: An orderly people with firm laws and codes is stronger than one with more “Freedom.” A few people may be harmed by this, but it’s worth it. (Law) Teador’s argument: I can understand that a society with rules, laws, and a fundamental understanding of morals is a good society, however, without giving the people freedom is to box them in and limit them as a species. Many of the advancements in magic or technology in the land I come from is largely due to the freedom those bright individuals were given to invent or express themselves. Not only that but a society boxed in completely and limited by strict laws and codes is a much less happy society, leaving them either depressed and less able to commit to anything, or leaves them outraged and they will lash out against the system limiting them, it’s much more worth it giving people freedom in many areass. Teador’s rolls: 30, 21, 24 Ssword’s rolls: 26, 22, 26 Result: Teador does not convince the Ssword of Sseth of the value of freedom versus a more strict order. [I]DM Note: Changing Ssword’s mind would have been much harder, had the Ssword of Sseth remained in the hands of a Charisma 8 barbarian, instead of being wielded by a Lawful Good character with high Charisma and persuasion proficiency… especially later in the game when Ssword has such a high modifier.[/I] [B]Session 39, 3/4/2023[/B] The battle continues! We swap Ratel in for where Rivkah was in the map left over from last time and resume play. I think the fight lasted 3-4 rounds before I called it. Teador, blinded from the Prismatic Wall, spent what I think was his first round casting Destructive Wave, a 5th level Paladin spell that I’ve always overlooked. It’s not really that much more damage than Fireball, but it’s in a 30’ radius, so it covers over double the area that Fireball does, and with a more favorable damage type, and knocks enemies prone on a failed save – of which there were a lot. He cleared out 4 or 5 small golems completely and knocked an Iron Golem and a few enemies flat with it. Saqwam, changed into a Planetar, went to town with the big sword that does 4d6+7+5d8-ish damage twice a round. He also used the healing ability to clear Teador’s blindness after a round or two. Once he was not blinded, Teador critted an iron golem, then added a 4th level smite, and did 142-ish damage with that one hit. The followup knocked the last 20hp off. Ratel killed an enemy priest, then helped go after the high priest. He got counter-struck with the Rainbow Morningstar and had to suffer through 3 rounds of being Restrained by the petrification effect – although that didn’t stop him from landing some stunning fists. There were a couple of more Prismatic Sprays. It’s fun, but all the dice-rolling can be annoying the fourth time the spell is cast. It may be worth making a spreadsheet similar to the one I use for Perception checks… pre-roll a bunch of lines of Prismatic Spray with what D8 is rolled (just going around the table) and what the damage type and amount is for it. The enemy high priest got knocked to sub-30 hit points once or twice more before dying. Reinforcements arrived 3 rounds in a row. First, a senior priest (who cast Heal on the HP) and a couple of acolytes, then the Quetzal from the rooftop after the High Priest used Power Word Stun on Teador, then a few golems came up from the 1st floor. The Quetzal’s abilities were mostly saved against, and the one full attack routine it got was just a bunch of misses due to bad dice-rolls. Then it got stunlocked and died. Troudar was the target of a lot of abilities and passed almost all his saves (Indomitable and paladin aura). He did get to block a Guiding Bolt with his crystal sword, but after most of the casters were down, switched back to the Maul of Extreme Pain for the extra damage. It was getting late, and there was no doubt that the party, with everyone >80hp, could deal with the last couple of golems. It became “Ok, do you loot the room and leave, or do you explore the rest of the temple?” DM note: There were enemy soldiers outside, but the party made a mostly unobserved approach to the temple, there’s a fire, and most of their leadership is either busy with the fire or in the temple getting slaughtered. I decided that the quetzals would probably end up organizing an ambush outside for when the party left, or would send in a huge mass of soldiers if the party was still there after 10 minutes. I kept rough track of time as the party sped through the top floor of the temple, wrecking the heart & blood storage room, ignoring the room that stores ritual vestments, and saying “Not going to stop” for a room full of enchanting components and reagents – 15,000gp worth, but it’d take 5 minutes to properly loot the room into their bags of holding. They then find a meditation room, a scrying room (crystal ball stolen, and a “That’s how they were spying on us!” discussion), and a library of inventor’s notes on failed and successful inventions, enchantments, etc. Ratel decides to steal about 20% of the room there, shoving shelves of papers into their bags…. Then they light the room on fire. Heading downstairs, they stick to the middle of the building and go through a testing area (measuring apparatus, targets, and a damage ward that didn’t get triggered), opening doors as they explore. The next room was golem storage (1 iron, 1 clay, 1 stone, 1 mind golem). Nobody including me had any doubt they could handle the fight pretty quickly, so I just put down a tick mark for a half minute or so. Golem storage then lead to a room at the center of the temple with no other doors in. They figure out that was probably where they wanted to be, and the high priest had had a key. They were right! It was the treasury. After looting it, they activate the Helm of Teleportation, using a rock from their hideout as a focus, and teleport straight out, completely skipping the blocking force outside. We go over loot, and the choices of epic boons. I have presented each of them with a short list of ~4 boons to pick from based on what their characters have done or focused on, plus a species-based option. They’ll pick. Loot from the Treasury: 50,000gp +3 halberd Necklace of Adaptation Wings of Flying cloak Manual of Golems (Iron). If someone had a way to accelerate the passage of time, they could afford to build an Iron Golem… Loot from the High Priest: Breastplate +2 Shield +1 Polychromatic Mantle: Legendary cloak that gives resistance to all the damage types Prismatic Spray deals, as well as advantage on saves vs. Blindness and Petrification Rainbow Morningstar: Legendary +3 morningstar, 8 charges, regain 1d6 charges per day. On hit, once per round, discharge a charge to deal an effect to a target as though the target had failed a dexterity save against Prismatic Spray. [I]DM Note: The endgame draws closer! It’s fun to hand out epic options.[/I] Now I'm up to current in posting! [/QUOTE]
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