pukunui
Legend
Hi all,
I recently shared my group's experiences playing through "The Sunless Citadel" from Tales from the Yawning Portal. We've now finished the next one, "The Forge of Fury". It took us only two and a half sessions, but that's partly because they skipped a bunch of things.
From the top: After describing the layout of the Stone Tooth, the players ignored the trail and made a beeline for the source of the smoke, believing they would find the orcs' camp there. They were suitably surprised to find the fissure and decided to go exploring.
This was a wise move on their part, as they were able to bypass the impregnable front door and take out the orcs bit by bit. Neither Great Ulfe nor Old Yarrack posed much of a threat. Not even Burdug the orc shaman, whom I had turned into a Claw of Luthic (from Volo's), was able to withstand the PCs' onslaught for long. They cleared out the whole of the Mountain Door level with just a single short rest.
They had fun exploring the Glitterhame, but they avoided the troglodyte warrens like the plague. They did find the big lizard, though, and since they were trying to kite it from beyond its limited reach, I gave it a Strength check to yank its chain out of the wall. It succeeded and charged at them and managed to swallow the wizard whole. Fortunately for him, they killed it and got him out before he died.
Later, the gricks almost got the party rogue. They took a long rest in the gricks' lair after killing them.
The Sinkhole was fun. I included some piercers in the room before the roper as foreshadowing. They freaked out when they saw the stalagmite in the next room but, after I had the roper fail to react to a sacred flame, they assumed it was safe and weren't expecting the attack. Sadly, while the roper had a great time wrapping them up in its tentacles and reeling them across the stream, it couldn't get any of them into its mouth! It died hungry.
The rogue PC had already picked the lock on the door leading to the Foundry, so the key on the dead dwarf in the jail wasn't needed but they took it anyway. On the way out, they explored the flooded room and found the potions. Here I experimented with rolling the Con saves vs disease for them so they wouldn't know. Only the wizard failed, so after the next long rest, he came down with a fever. That was more satisfying than asking them for Con saves and then having the one who failed ask the cleric for a lesser restoration spell ...
Anyway, after they cleared out the Sinkhole, they went up to the octagonal room. They figured out the trap, jamming the statue's axe-wielding arms before opening the fake doors. They then found the secret door, but didn't bother to look for any traps on the stairs so triggered the magic mouth warning. They got my clues about the invisible duergar expecting a bribe and gave them the right amount (100 gp) and then rolled well enough to get them talking.
They chose not to interfere with the duergar and went hunting undead instead. They beat the undead in the chapel easily enough, found the secret passage, beat the dwarf skeletons and the ghost (who briefly possessed the dwarf PC), and then had a long rest in the chapel. This is where I told the wizard's player is PC had a fever and a level of exhaustion, and then we all promptly forgot about it.
The next day they finished exploring the dwarf halls and found Idalla the succubus. She managed to charm the fighter into staying behind with her while the others went to look for the non-existent wizard. (Once again, I rolled the save against her charm for him so as no to spoil the surprise.)
The rest of the group went down into the chasm, saw the dragon tracks, and went straight back up. They found the fighter dead on the floor, drained dry but with a happy look on his face. Idalla was nowhere to be found. (I had her go ethereal ... only after it was too late and the others had already discovered his remains did I have a better idea: she could've hidden the fighter's body and then taken on his appearance so as to infiltrate the party. Oh well. Maybe next time!)
While searching for the succubus, they stumbled into Nimira's room via the closet. She told them to go away and they did. The dwarf PC decided that while he didn't like duergar much, he'd rather they were living in Khundrukar than orcs. When the others decided they'd seen enough, he agreed to leave with them. And so we ended the adventure with the troglodytes, duergar, and dragon undisturbed. I've kept them at 4th level as a result.
All in all, it was a fun adventure. Taking the back way into the Mountain Door level definitely made that section easier. The orcs didn't stand a chance. The roper, on the other hand, felt like a credible threat; I just had bad luck on the dice with its bite attacks. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't go fight the dragon, but then I was fairly certain it wasn't going to end well for them, so it's probably for the best. At least I can say that I've finally killed a PC through hit point drain! (They got hit with it plenty of times during Curse of Strahd but always managed to survive long enough to get rid of it.)
If you want to read my session recaps for this adventure, you can find them all here.
Cheers,
Jonathan
p.s. This one's for you, [MENTION=7151]Dax Doomslayer[/MENTION]!
I recently shared my group's experiences playing through "The Sunless Citadel" from Tales from the Yawning Portal. We've now finished the next one, "The Forge of Fury". It took us only two and a half sessions, but that's partly because they skipped a bunch of things.
From the top: After describing the layout of the Stone Tooth, the players ignored the trail and made a beeline for the source of the smoke, believing they would find the orcs' camp there. They were suitably surprised to find the fissure and decided to go exploring.
This was a wise move on their part, as they were able to bypass the impregnable front door and take out the orcs bit by bit. Neither Great Ulfe nor Old Yarrack posed much of a threat. Not even Burdug the orc shaman, whom I had turned into a Claw of Luthic (from Volo's), was able to withstand the PCs' onslaught for long. They cleared out the whole of the Mountain Door level with just a single short rest.
They had fun exploring the Glitterhame, but they avoided the troglodyte warrens like the plague. They did find the big lizard, though, and since they were trying to kite it from beyond its limited reach, I gave it a Strength check to yank its chain out of the wall. It succeeded and charged at them and managed to swallow the wizard whole. Fortunately for him, they killed it and got him out before he died.
Later, the gricks almost got the party rogue. They took a long rest in the gricks' lair after killing them.
The Sinkhole was fun. I included some piercers in the room before the roper as foreshadowing. They freaked out when they saw the stalagmite in the next room but, after I had the roper fail to react to a sacred flame, they assumed it was safe and weren't expecting the attack. Sadly, while the roper had a great time wrapping them up in its tentacles and reeling them across the stream, it couldn't get any of them into its mouth! It died hungry.
The rogue PC had already picked the lock on the door leading to the Foundry, so the key on the dead dwarf in the jail wasn't needed but they took it anyway. On the way out, they explored the flooded room and found the potions. Here I experimented with rolling the Con saves vs disease for them so they wouldn't know. Only the wizard failed, so after the next long rest, he came down with a fever. That was more satisfying than asking them for Con saves and then having the one who failed ask the cleric for a lesser restoration spell ...
Anyway, after they cleared out the Sinkhole, they went up to the octagonal room. They figured out the trap, jamming the statue's axe-wielding arms before opening the fake doors. They then found the secret door, but didn't bother to look for any traps on the stairs so triggered the magic mouth warning. They got my clues about the invisible duergar expecting a bribe and gave them the right amount (100 gp) and then rolled well enough to get them talking.
They chose not to interfere with the duergar and went hunting undead instead. They beat the undead in the chapel easily enough, found the secret passage, beat the dwarf skeletons and the ghost (who briefly possessed the dwarf PC), and then had a long rest in the chapel. This is where I told the wizard's player is PC had a fever and a level of exhaustion, and then we all promptly forgot about it.
The next day they finished exploring the dwarf halls and found Idalla the succubus. She managed to charm the fighter into staying behind with her while the others went to look for the non-existent wizard. (Once again, I rolled the save against her charm for him so as no to spoil the surprise.)
The rest of the group went down into the chasm, saw the dragon tracks, and went straight back up. They found the fighter dead on the floor, drained dry but with a happy look on his face. Idalla was nowhere to be found. (I had her go ethereal ... only after it was too late and the others had already discovered his remains did I have a better idea: she could've hidden the fighter's body and then taken on his appearance so as to infiltrate the party. Oh well. Maybe next time!)
While searching for the succubus, they stumbled into Nimira's room via the closet. She told them to go away and they did. The dwarf PC decided that while he didn't like duergar much, he'd rather they were living in Khundrukar than orcs. When the others decided they'd seen enough, he agreed to leave with them. And so we ended the adventure with the troglodytes, duergar, and dragon undisturbed. I've kept them at 4th level as a result.
All in all, it was a fun adventure. Taking the back way into the Mountain Door level definitely made that section easier. The orcs didn't stand a chance. The roper, on the other hand, felt like a credible threat; I just had bad luck on the dice with its bite attacks. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't go fight the dragon, but then I was fairly certain it wasn't going to end well for them, so it's probably for the best. At least I can say that I've finally killed a PC through hit point drain! (They got hit with it plenty of times during Curse of Strahd but always managed to survive long enough to get rid of it.)
If you want to read my session recaps for this adventure, you can find them all here.
Cheers,
Jonathan
p.s. This one's for you, [MENTION=7151]Dax Doomslayer[/MENTION]!
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