D&D 5E A playthrough of The Shattered Obelisk (spoilers)

[Rabbitbait]

We restarted our game last night. The party went into the redcloak hideout and cleared out the right side of it. They found the prisoners and took them back into town before deciding to take a long rest in the stonehill tavern as they were hurt and out of spell slots. They were worried about repercussions so they took turns keeping watch in the main bar. In the middle of the night the door was burst in by 4 bugbears and 5 redcloaks. "Glasstaff sends his regards". A massive battle ensued, first with the 3 on watch, then with the rest of the party as they were woken and joined the battle and finally by Tolben and Sildar.

They killed all but one of the baddies - one bugbear was subdued with non-lethal damage

The heroes narrowly won just as other townsfolk arrived to join the battle. "About time someone did something", shouts one of the townsfolk.

I left it there. But this changes things:

• I think Glasstaff will flee the hideout now. He would realise that he cannot stand against the group. I will probably place him in the lost mine somewhere. Or maybe have him gather some more troops to try and ambush the party.
• The bugbear will eventually either give up where Cragmaw Castle is, or where the Wyvern Tor hideout is
• The group are now heroes in the village. Everyone will want to talk with them, invite them to dinner, fete them.

Lots of fun, and one of those encounters where I thought I may have thrown too much at the party but they came through narrowly.

 

[MerricB]

I hope this campaign will start again in the new year?

Next Monday!

(Monday 25 = Christmas, Monday 1=New Year's Day, Monday 8=Player's Wife's Birthday.)

Monday 15 - resume! Hooray!

I just posted the fuller write up of Sesson 5 on my blog (https://merricb.com/2024/01/10/the-shattered-obelisk-session-5/)

There may be one session I haven't reported on; I'll have to check. So, so many disruptions!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[MerricB]

Session 11 - Monday December 18, 2023

I realised that I left this session out.

Basic highlights: The party went back to save Simeon. We were missing a player, so the two remaining players had henchmen (controlling two characters each).

This time, they went through the third option, the vent. (Which isn't described well, but provides the safest entry). They skirted by most of the goblins, and found a broken lift.

Then they found an old duergar forge staffed by undead duergar who didn't like them much. Battle! Oh look, lots of buckets leading deeper into the mine. Hmm. They needed something to repair it.

Back to deal with the rest of the goblins - fairly easily accomplished as most of the Really Tough goblins were now gone (either dead or on patrol). They found an old bedroom - and a jar holding the spirit of a friendly duergar who they released. It turned into a semi-corporeal form that could advise them. And there was a Big Boss Goblin further in the mine who was really obsessed with something.

Repairing the lift - the reason the artificer was in the party - they progressed downwards. They chose a path through the mine that avoided most of the monsters. Hooray! Still a few undead to deal with. And a fiendish auger - an animated mining tool that doesn't make that much sense, but did get one good hit in.

Finally, they arrived at the pathway to the Big Boss's lair. A few undead guarded it, but half of them would listen to reason - or at least to the reason of Hjoldak, the undead duergar they'd rescued. And the good undead pushed the bad undead into the lava, allowing the party a way forward. (We were getting towards time, so no need for a fight when I could demonstrate the rewards for good play).

And so they braved the lair of Ruxithid, psionic goblin extraordinare!

Unfortunately, he had a shield guardian. And the combat went very, very poorly. By the end of it, Nymia and her henchmen were down, while Syzoth (artificer) and his rogue henchmen escaped. Fog cloud for the win! Not that it helped Nymia!

Back to town... we'd almost had a near-TPK, with the "near" bit being the player who wasn't there surviving!

I guess now they had to rescue THREE characters on their next expedition!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[MerricB]

Session 12 - Monday January 15, 2024.

Velrari was back, and Nymia's player had chosen to create a new character - a NG earth genasi paladin (Oath of Ancients) following Mielikki. Syzoth and Jake the rogue henchman made up the rest of the group to rescue Simeon, Nymia, and the others.

So, back to the goblin hideout. They were able to completely bypass the main goblin room (where a few returning goblins were on watch) and make their way using the lift to the lower level. Hjoldak met them there, still wanting Ruxithid gone. He advised them that most of the tunnels were still dangerous, and took them through the safe path to the lair.

And there they fought Ruxithid and his shield guardian. Prepared they might be, but Velrari foolishly used misty step to cross the chamber and expose his poorly-armoured self to the goblin. Who tried to stun him (unsuccessfully) and hit him (successfully) for significant damage. Killin, the new paladin, engaged the shield guardian in melee as Syzoth threw cantrips at the goblin and Jake looked for a place to hide - and found the prisoners as well!

Velrari sacrificed a turn getting to safety, while Syzoth used a magical gem to summon a fire elemental that engaged the goblin leader. He was then quite surprised when the goblin leader took an Attack of Opportunity to move into melee range! Meanwhile, Jake unlocked Simeon's bonds and handed him his rapier. Simeon leapt into combat, running quickly to engage Ruxithid in melee.

Killin couldn't get away from the shield guardian, but casting blade ward as a bonus damage, and having extra temporary hit points from the artificer's construct, meant that she wasn't taking significant damage. And the guardian fell inactive when the group finally took down Ruxithid.

Strange words echoed from the crystals in Ruxithid's cranium - a strange set of orders. (In one of the weirdest religion checks ever, the success meant "You realise that the commands are from creatures pretending to be gods (paraphrased)". Very odd.

Nymia was dead, her skull cracked open by Ruxithid in his quest for "enhancement". (This was agreed upon by her player, who thought - probably correctly - she'd do a better job as a paladin). The party helped three farmers who were also captive back home.

But, before I forget, they also discovered notes showing the locations of three more shards the goblins sought!

Back in Phandalin, they shared their information with Gwyn, (I still don't know why Sister Garaele couldn't have this knowledge. I'd prefer an existing character rather than introducing a brand new one while ignoring the rest!) She was quite interested in this lore, and was able to give them pointers on what they might find. But not that much help.

As the sun set, the innkeeper's wife came up to them, worried. Her son, Pip, had been playing in the eastern field and hadn't returned. Could they find him?

Yes, they could - after two miles of trekking across the hills, where they found him observing some really odd creatures - small pyramids with pseudopods - that had fallen into a ruin. The party lowered themselves into the ruin, and found it the old home of a famous dwarven paladin of Dumathoin. And while the small creatures seemed harmless, just bouncing about, when eventually Velrari got too close, they psychically attacked her and grabbed her, the pseudopods digging into her flesh!

This was quite a challenging fight. Didn't seem that way, but these fleshy d4s had quite a few hit points and hit hard. Eventually the group was successful, and recovered the old paladin's journal, which had some interesting notes about the first place the goblins were looking for a shard.

They returned Pip, much to the delight of the innkeeper's wife and her husband. Pip was scolded for putting himself in danger.

The next morning, they encountered The Cow Of Doom. (a.k.a. Daisy).
This one:

Tentacle, vomiting up psychic oozes, what's not to love?

After the oozes were vanquished and the tentacles disappeared, Killin used speak with animals to learn that Daisy had eaten some clover that made her feel funny. Going to the spot, they found it was near where some goblins had rested - with one of the shards.

(I'd like to point out that at this point, Killin's player has finished Baldur's Gate 3 five times, with over 550 hours of play. Speak with animals will likely be in our campaigns a lot at this point!)

The party discussed the matter, and though their start was later than they wanted, started heading off to the first of the locations the goblins were interested in!

And that was it for this session. Pretty happy with how this one went - good role-playing and combat.

With luck, we should be back to a regular weekly schedule at this point. See you next week!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Rabbitbait]

Phew. A big game. The group now have all the sidequests from the townsfolk but decided to make their way to Cragmaw Castle after finding out where it is. On the way the group were ambushed by Glasstaff and a cohort of hobgoblins. They killed the hobgoblins and captured Glasstaff taking him back to justice. They then made there way to Cragmaw castle, spotting bugbear scouts along the way but avoiding them. The druid managed to convince a bird to carry him (as a spider) and fly around the castle, looking in all the arrow slots. He saw part of the negotiation for Gundren. After he reported back the group decided that attempting to enter the castle was too risky. They set an ambush and waited for some goblins to come out. They killed them and then hoped that more would come out so that they could whittle down the numbers.

I've decided that what will happen next is that they will see Vyerith heading down the trail towards them with Gundren. As she gets closer, she will look behind her (as if to make sure she is not being followed), lean down and whisper something to Gundren and then slit his throat. She will think that the way to WaveEcho Cave is not completely secret, not knowing that King Grol still had a map.

That will leave the group in a difficult position. If they return with Gundren's body, Sildar will ask them if they found the map that he had with him when he was captured.

This could easily go off in a random direction now, but everyone is enjoying this game a lot.

 

[MerricB]

Session 13 - Monday, January 22, 2024.
This was an interesting session. One of our players (Vel'rari) had lost his voice. So he communicated to us throughout the entire session with posts on Roll20 chat. While we talked on skype. Worked surprisingly well.

I'm just going to mention this here: I keep forgetting the goblins kidnapped townsfolk. The party had rescued a few in the last chapter, and it's mentioned at the top of Chapter 6, which we were now playing. Upon review of the adventure, I've discovered why: It is never mentioned in the investigation in Chapter 5. Only once the players reach Zorzula's Rest does the adventure start talking about kidnapped villagers and not in information presented to the players.

It's mentioned in the overview of the entire adventure that the goblins have kidnapped villagers, but somehow once we get to Chapter 5, all the villagers care about is the damage to the town the goblins caused. (One villager during the abuse of the townmaster mentions his missing wife, but that's it).

This is such incompetence in adventure writing and editing.

Back to the Wilderness, Briefly
The players decided to travel to the first of the locations marked on the goblins' maps: Talhundereth. The adventure does not update the wilderness encounter tables despite the significant distances involved (and with the original tables now being obsolete). I considered using Uncharted Journeys, but eventually I just hand-waved away the travel and took the characters straight to the dwarven temple.

Entering Talhundereth
Despite my problems with previous elements of the adventure and its structure, Talhundereth is pretty neat. My players were rather taken with a number of its encounters. Making their way into a wide passageway ending at pair of double doors, one of which was ajar, they discovered several branching passageways and a great staircase, twenty feet wide, leading down. Statues of long-forgotten dwarves flanked its landings, and of course the players thought they might be animate. For once, they weren't!

Heading to the first of the eastern doors, they reached an old sparring room. As they investigated the old weapons and armour, three of the suits of armour animated and attacked! (They were surprised by this - as opposed to the non-animating statues). It didn't take them that long to deal with them - 2 rounds, 13 minutes - but shortly after the suits lay in ruins, Syzoth the artificer realised what they were: Sparring partners!

This was nice.

Into the training master's quarters, and this time it was a special treasure: a greataxe whose shaft was actually an immovable rod. Once again, my players - especially the artificer - were charmed. Such a lovely touch.

The ancient armoury was looted, but a wight and six dust mephits still lurked here. Dust mephits might be in the Basic Rules, but they're not used that often, and the players were very happy to discover they were vulnerable to fire damage. (It makes sense!) The battle took slightly longer - 3 rounds, 21 minutes - and was a bit challenging with the mephits occasionally blinding party members. One or two had to check spell descriptions to see if it say "a creature you can see".

The final area in this branch of the dungeon was a locked vault. After removing the dust, the rogue (the artificer's henchman) was able to open it and discover quite a large hoard of unlooted treasure! This was a great surprise - we're quite used to poor rewards in WotC adventures.

Other Inhabitants
The back of the vault had collapsed, revealing a very narrow passageway to another section of the temple. No-one was small enough to go through, that was, until the artificer reduced the rogue in size and allowed him to scout... an old bedroom. He could also hear conversation from a nearby room, but knowing the danger he was in, he quickly returned to the others, and they decided to continue exploring elsewhere.

Elsewhere meant west of the main staircase. They shortly came to a large area of which the main features were a blood-soaked chair and the bones of a goat.

Unusual, they thought.

Checking the other doors from this chamber, they discovered several bedrooms, one of which was inhabited, by a human horribly mutated. That mutate attacked the party, babbling about the Far Realm and about a stone that disgorged young. The mutate was accompanied by one of the small fleshy pyramids they'd fought earlier in Phandalin. It was a fairly simple battle (2 rounds, 8 minutes), and the mutate and his companion were dead by the end of it. There was nothing in his chamber that gave a clue to his identity.

Heading south, they came to a ruined chamber where once mind flayers and dwarves had fought. The image of a victorious dwarf beckoned them to the west, but it was a lure by a new creature known as an intellect snare. I like this creature, and the lure was nicely thought out. It tried to eat Syzoth, but the party objected. (3 rounds, 12 minutes).

Vel'rari's final guiding bolt with an attack roll of 22 for 22 damage was a nice touch!

Other Explorers
Investigation of a kitchen and pantry led to the discovery of a secret door, which slid up to reveal a pair of drow poring over old books.

In the resulting battle... no wait, they actually talked to each other. (I really would have liked to know if the drow had a patron deity at this point, since the party did make a point of asking them if they worshipped Lolth). They were neutral guards of the Henlifel family, whose father had joined some of the crazed cultists that were living there. They would very much appreciate help getting him away from the cultists.

Just on an information presentation note: there are two rooms here, T14 and T15. Half of the information you need to run the encounter is in each room. Except my players entered T15, so I wasn't referring back to T14 during the negotiation. While you may write your adventure in a linear form, it won't be run that way, and DMs are concentrating on running the session and not trying to look for other places information might be stored, even if they've read it before.

The drow have an inferiority complex, believing the cultists too strong, so they didn't want to rescue their father themselves or accompany the party. (The adventure didn't say they have an inferiority complex, but I've seen their statblocks. They're not weak!)

I happily ignored this, and the drow ordered their retainers to stay behind while they accompanied the party and led them to the cultists.

Cult of the Obelisk
Another mutate and four of the gemmules - the fleshy pyramids - were defacing a statue and barring the party's way onwards. The battle didn't take too long (2 rounds, 12 minutes) after Vel'rari started by fireballing the foes.

The next chamber held the main body of cultists. And, guess what, the drow elves' father was their leader! He lured them in, and the cultists attacked as the party looked on. It wasn't great for the drow, and Vel'rari was forced to step in and heal the one who took the most damage.

But with this ambush, the cultists had shown their hand and were soon slain - except for the drow elves' father, who Simeon carefully rendered unconscious. (3 rounds, 16 minutes). The drow rewarded the party with a periapt of health, and took their leave of the group, taking their father to a place where he could be cured of his dangerous obsessions. Probably.

An Obelisk Shard
The party discovered a puzzle door they couldn't unlock on their way to the point of their expedition: another obsidian shard.

They finally got to see what all the gemmules would become if allowed to mature: an encephalon cluster, which was guarding the shard. Looking a lot like a giant brain or lots of eggs stuck together - I'd really like a text description rather than relying on images - this was a CR 10 foe. It started the battle by spawning a lone gemmule near them. Three rounds later (11 minutes), it was dead. It has some nice attacks and effects, but the party were too much for it.

They retrieved the shard with some care. It was quite heavy, and the artificer took possession of it.

With that, it was quite late in the evening, and we finished for the night. Most of the temple was explored, but the locked puzzle door deserved further investigation!

 

[MerricB]

Session 14 - Monday January 29, 2024
The characters started by examining the puzzle door that led to the crypt underneath Talhundereth. It's a fairly nice puzzle, completely derailed by three features: One, it's unclear. Two: It needs art. Three: The text says that a DC 13 Intelligence (Arcana or Investigation) solves the puzzle.

Sigh.

My players actually solved it properly based on my imprecise descriptions - it was only after they solved it that I realised how it was meant to work. Which is why ACTUAL ARTWORK OF THE PUZZLE would have been great. (If you can afford poor artwork for the damaged buildings in Phandalin, you can afford artwork of the puzzle).

Into the Crypt
The Crypt was desecrated (by the old mind flayer invasion) and was full of "hauntings" that felt like mind flayer attacks. Not quite sure what to make of this; I ended up explicitly telling the players what they were, and that if they could cleanse the place, the hauntings would stop. I think the DM needs some intervention of that sort, or it's just a bunch of unexplained phenomena.

The first chamber they entered had four crypt guardians (use revenant stat blocks) with the special abilities that they treated every living intruder in the tomb as being their vengeance target. Every single one. Revenants do a lot of damage normally - to do it to EVERY character?

Simeon the fighter, who has toughness and heavy armour mastery (near 90 hp), and temporary hit points from the artificer, was taken down in a SINGLE ROUND.

Sigh.

That we managed to win this combat shows how much the temporary hit points from the construct helped, and that Vel'rari was able to keep healing word or otherwise heal the downed party members. The artificer used entangle successfully as well. Both Simeon and Jake (the rogue) were knocked unconscious, and Killin (the paladin) was under 20 hp by the end of the fight. (Vel'rari won initiative and immediately scarpered! Smart!)

This was one of the longest combats we'd had: 6 rounds and 40 minutes. We took a short rest after.

Preparation Rooms and Water Hydrant
Going down a corridor that gave them the eerie feeling that mind flayers were at that very moment attacking Phandalin, they investigated side doors to find rooms where the dwarven priests once prepared the corpses of the faithful for burial. Of most note were the complete pieces for a suit of plate armour, which Simeon snaffled.

They then found a playful hydra and water weird in a pool where the floor had collapsed. It's a nice little set-up for the encounter, with the water weird and hydra playing with each other. Vel'rari tried to use infernal to talk to the two creatures, but the hydra only saw him as dinner, so we got another combat.

The water weird was completely ineffective. The hydra less so, but the party were very effective against it! (2 rounds, 12 minutes).

Remnants of Old Battles
The group found the skull of a mind flayer, then a decapitated skeleton. Clearing both away, and repairing a damaged door (it helps having an artificer in the group), they were able to dispel two more of the haunts. (Unbeknownst to them, killing the water creatures had cleared the initial haunt they'd experienced).

They also found a clay golem which gave Syzoth (whose player is VERY experienced) pause. However, he recognised that there was only a five-foot-wide gap in the wall, and that if the party could trap it there, it'd have disadvantage.

Even so, it was a risk - but one that paid off, with the party killing the clay golem in 2 rounds before it could land a blow. Syzoth was very relieved.

It guarded nothing but more crypts. They returned and tried a more central passageway.

Actually Roleplaying
There's a friendly NPC in the dungeon! An elderly svirfneblin, who was young when he entered the tomb (but before he encountered some angry ghosts). He was very happy to find people to talk to, and let them know about the great emerald he suspected was hidden here, which he wanted a chip of to show to other followers of Dumathoin, the dwarven god of secrets.

He gave warnings and advice about the other areas of the crypt, as well as where the ghosts were. He also revealed that they needed to pull two levers simultaneously to reveal the hidden areas of the tomb. One of the levers was in the room he was investigating, the other somewhere else!

They wished him well, and promised to return.

Revenge of the Dwarves
More crypts led to dwarven skeletons - lots of them. They weren't much of a threat, dying swiftly to spells and swords.

The ghosts? The party found their lair, cast protection from evil and good on the paladin and fighter, and charged in.

One of the ghosts got an opportunity to use frightful presence, of which only the sorcerer was afraid (failing the save by 1). No other ghost got an action before all were cut down in the second round.

In the ghosts' chamber, they found the second lever. And there was a suspicious blank wall where all the other walls were carved with reliefs!

It was time to pull the levers! But as it was getting late, we'd handle that next week.

Merric's Notes
It was an okay session, but I'm not as much in love with it as with the exploration of the temple above. It felt very combat-heavy - though it was nice to have some role-playing as well - and the "puzzles" of purifying the tomb weren't all that great, especially as the benefits for the purifications generally required you to defeat the threats first before the purification came into benefit!

A few nice ideas, but not that enthralling.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[pukunui]

Merric's Notes
… especially as the benefits for the purifications generally required you to defeat the threats first before the purification came into benefit!

I was confused by the whole purifying the hauntings thing, since you can’t purify a bunch of them without triggering the combats first … at first glance, it made it seem like the repeated text on purifying them was wasteful.

But then it clicked! The purpose of purifying the hauntings isn’t to avoid combat. It’s to prevent the undead from coming back and having to fight them all over again!

 

[Rabbitbait]

I'm just going to mention this here: I keep forgetting the goblins kidnapped townsfolk. The party had rescued a few in the last chapter, and it's mentioned at the top of Chapter 6, which we were now playing. Upon review of the adventure, I've discovered why: It is never mentioned in the investigation in Chapter 5. Only once the players reach Zorzula's Rest does the adventure start talking about kidnapped villagers and not in information presented to the players.

I've really appreciated your in detail breakdown of your sessions. I'm quite a way behind you and it has helped me with avoiding issues in the module. Villagers and Harbin have mentioned to my group several times now about an unusual number of villagers disappearing. They've said that given the nature of it being a frontier town that it is not unusual for people to leave, but there have been a high number of people just suddenly being gone.

 

[MockingBird]

I'd like to second the tip about the villagers. I'm a bit behind you as well and I've noted to make sure to communicate this to the players next session.