D&D 5E OotA: NPCs Fate (Spoilers)

[Raunalyn]

A continuation of my group's story.

Derendil died during the escape, along with Stool and Buppido.

So, the group is now about 17 days in the Underdark...they just got past the bloodbath in Sloobpidop and are still about 7 days from Gracklstugh. One night, Topsy and Turvy disappeared (along with Shuushar). The group decides to find out what happened and followed the tracks of some creatures that had clawed feet. They wind up in the tunnels of the Hook Horrors and run into the Gnoll hunters. Thinking it was the Gnolls that stole their friends, they start trying to clear the tunnels of the gnolls. Eventually, they find the remains of Shuushar's body, and are attacked by the two wererats. So now, the party is down to just the 5 PC's, Sarith, Jimjar, Eldeth, and the duergar they saved from sacrifice in Sloobpidop (who is currently guiding them to Gracklstugh).

 

[feartheminotaur]

Stool was the favored sprout of Rashaloon who gave us a way out (skipping the deep gnome city) who gave us a map to a portal out - guarded by the drow. After we killed them we escaped to the surface and stopped the adventure there.

Our NPCs:

Buppido: Beaten to death by drow guards as an example when a natty 1 ruined the first escape attempt
Ront: Killed in the escape
Sarith: Forced into the spider webs by a poorly placed thunderwave during prison break.
Topsy and Turvy: Confused by wild magic surge and fled into the dark, never to be seen again
Prince Derendil: Sacrificed himself in Sloobpidop allowing the rest of the group to escape
Eldeth: Dragged to her death by a plesiosaurus on the lake
Jimjar: Killed as the party fought our way out of Gracklstugh - the dragon noticed we stole from him and everyone almost died.
Stool: One PC died, and two knocked unconscious protecting him. We left him at Neverlight, on our way to face the drow
Shuushar: Became a PC. The barbarian died protecting Stool in Sloobpidop. She picked Shuushar to play instead of rolling a new PC because she loves using the WoW fish man voice. He abandoned his pacifist ways after Demogorgon wiped his home and family off the map.

 

[Iosue]

Lessee...

Ront and Eldeth died when the group's escape from Velkynvelve went pear shaped.

The group picked three escaped dwarf slaves, all of whom had Demogorgon madness. One was killed by another, and the other two bought it against a rocktopus.

Sarith didn't make it out of the destruction of the Kua-toa city by Demogorgon. Shuushar stayed there to help his people. The group picked up Hemeth, the almost sacrificed duergar. At this point Hemeth is a full on PC with a level in fighter.

The group picked up Glabbagool in the Oozing Temple. They also picked up three non-mad dwarves.

Stool stayed with the non-mad denizens of Neverlight Grove, setting out to find a new home.

The group briefly scattered when the guards tried to arrest them in Gracklstugh. Buppido could not be found afterwards. Later they came upon him in the Whorlstone Tunnels and killed him.

Derendil, Jimjar and Topsy and Turvy are still with the group. They've also picked up three new (non-mad) escaped dwarf slaves.

 

[MarkB]

I thought I'd add my own casualty list, now that the party have escaped Velkynvelve and are making their way toward the Dark Lake.

On their first day, the rogue Davin was caught attempting to rob a guard's footlocker whilst on laundry duty. His punishment was to "gather some silk for rope-weaving", which involved him being lowered off one of the walkways down onto the spiderwebs, where he was to gather as much webbing as possible, and if he did really well they'd pull him back up before the spiders arrived.

Eldeth, who had been on watch during Davin's pilfering attempt and had failed to spot the Drow returning, volunteered to go in his place. His friend, the dwarven fighter Captain Bouldershoulder, did likewise. The Drow officer Shoor was delighted to have volunteers, and promptly ordered that all three of them be lowered down.

Each of them adopted a different strategy. Davin tried to very quietly and subtly gather in strands of webbing without alerting the spiders. Captain Bouldershoulder pulled up great armfuls, trying to focus any arachnind attention on himself. Eldeth ignored the web-gathering exercise, and simply tried to attract the attention of any spider that appeared, keeping them away from the others.

Two spiders emerged from the shadows, scuttling towards Eldeth and Bouldershoulder. At the last moment, the Drow declared that enough silk had been gathered, and hauled them up off the webbing with a sound like a thousand strips of velcro being torn asunder.

As the three were hauled up, the Drow had a discussion in lowered voices, then Shoor casually drew a dagger and cut Eldeth's rope. As she plummeted back toward the spiders' waiting claws, he simply commented, "she didn't gather enough silk."

That litttle event set the tone for the adventure quite nicely. The other two deaths were less memorable.

When the party, with some having been freed from their manacles, finally kicked off a fight in their holding pen as the Drow were administering breakfast, Ront was slain by the one Quaggoth servant who was also present. He was not mourned.

Having taken the watch tower and acquired rope, the prisoners proceeded to climb down toward the poolside, where the waterfall caused a gap in the webs. I guesstimated it as a DC 10 athletics check, and allowed anyone without a Strength penalty to succeed automatically so long as they were taking it slowly and carefully. That left Buppido, who proceeded to roll a natural 1, and slipped from the rope.

I had the player who was running him make a Dexterity save to see whether his fall was broken by either the webs or the pool, but with a total of 6, he was heading for the rocks, and arrived with a wet splat.

Not wanting to leave Buppido's story entirely untold, I allowed the party to find a small pamphlet, part diary and part religious treatise, that had been secreted somewhere on his body, and described his ascension to godhood and the detailed plans he had for each of the prisoners as and when the opportunity arose.

Aww, my group loves Stool.

Two of my players each wanted to basically adopt Stool. He's currently the companion of the party's halfling rogue Bree, who rides him as a mount and has adapted a set of Drow size chain shirt so that when she wears it while riding, it hangs down around him as barding.