D&D 5E Princes of the Apocalypse campaign recaps

So last night I had another session, and it was quite amusing. I call it 'a Rogue's tale'.

The rogue began the game by sneaking into the Stone Monastery, alone and with the other characters ignorant as to his whereabouts. He entered the garden, and was fairly freaked out by the dark shapes he could just about see - being a human, he was literally in the dark. Approaching one, he activated the magic dagger that he'd taken from the Believers in the second game, and lit the whole garden up, even as he looked upon the distressingly life-like statue he was standing in front of. It was a fun little horror moment, especially when the Gargoyles started crashing towards him. He legged it, without stopping to look at what was chasing him. Seeing that he was about to be cut off by one if he tried to leave, he instead lockpicked the southern door, and hid in the building. He lost most of his HP in the process though, getting hit repeatedly by one of the Gargoyles.

He then wandered around the Monastery, stealing a bottle of brandy and waking up Hellenrae, before leaving via the Dojo (where he saw the same symbol as in the Believers' tomb). He fled back to the Feathergale Spire, covered in his own blood, losing the Gargoyles in the dark. At this point, he rejoined the rest of the party, and gave them a (somewhat unconvincing) explanation as to where he had been.

Meanwhile the party was finishing their feast, having defeated the Manticore, and Sevra had approached the party's surprisingly attractive barbarian to discuss him joining the Knights. Her conversation with Thurl, in which she was lobbying on the party's behalf, was, however, interrupted by the Goliath Monk in the party, who energetically explained that he was a member of the Zhentarim, and that he would love to help out with any problems. Thurl is not happy, especially as the Monk has CHA5 and rolled a 1 on his Persuasion check....

So in the night, the party have all gone to sleep - except for the Rogue. He was still awake, when he heard movement outside the room, and the door opening quietly. He... hides underneath the bed. Without making a sound. He watches two men with swords enter the room. And, uh, he tries to grab the ankles of one to trip him up. He fails. Roll initiative.

One messy fight later, the players managed to knock one Knight out of the window (to float harmlessly down), kill another, and take a hasted Thurl to half hit points, before being entirely defeated. Now, I'd been clear that the knights (really Thurl, who was a beast) took them captive rather than killed them; however I forgot this with the Rogue, who not only got put on 0 HP, but also had a Knight stab him for good measure, putting him on 2 failed Death Checks. Rogue starts his turn, rolls his Death Check, gets a natural 1. Dead rogue. The party wasted no time in explaining to the Rogue that he deserved it, for first wandering off, and then for not waking them up when armed enemies entered the room.

Anyway, the players all get sacrificed the next morning to Yan-C-Bin, tossed from the tower apex to fall 480ish feet to the valley floor. But at the last moment - salvation! As the Aarakocra swoop in to save them from the fall, and take them down valley to find out who they are. The players spend some time swapping information with the Aarakocra, learning some hard facts about Elemental Evil in the process (and giving us a name drop for the storyline in the process).

Next week: the players seem likely to run away from the Spire for the moment, since they are convinced that it is too high level for them. Not having any in-party healing of any kind is probably part of this. The rogue's player is going to roll up an Aarakocra Wild Sorcerer to replace his last character. We'll see how that goes. I'll give PotA this much: it is a highly amusing campaign, with loads of crazy moments so far. I'm really enjoying it, and look forward to seeing what my players decide to do next.

That sounds like a crazy excellent session

It was really good fun, and made me glad to pick Princes for my game this year. I wonder what the party will do next, though; perhaps they'll try the Monastery, where doubtless they'll have some kind of hilarious setback as well.

two days until my group starts POTA! pretty excited lol

Good luck! One resource that I found immensely helpful was this: PotA Quickstart. Quick and simple overview of how to start the adventure, and a super useful checklist to track your progress through the module.

Entsuropi said:

Good luck! One resource that I found immensely helpful was this: PotA Quickstart. Quick and simple overview of how to start the adventure, and a super useful checklist to track your progress through the module.

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very cool, thanks!

I'd thought of most of that but it is really great having it all laid out like that

Entering the Sacred Stone Monastery

Continuing on from the groups non-PoTA related political shenanigans (or a side adventure if you like)

The next morning, they decide that they must do what they can to stem the danger posed by the cults, and that they are unlikely to get any help from the King now. So they decide to head on to the Sacred Stone monastery. They travel for two days through rough terrain until eventually they find a trail. They then follow the trail which leads directly to the monastery.



They arrive at mid morning, and send some time scoping out the building. As they are watching, two people exit the building and begin walking down the trail. They are wearing brown robes and gargoyle masks. They follow and attack the two monks, and take their robes.

Layna and Aimn Lu then don the robes and masks. They pick the lock on the gate to the walled garden at the back. Layna and Aimn Lu walk through without issue, but when Tito and Morythas enter, gargoyles attack them. The gargoyles are easily defeated and Layna and Aimn Lu decide that they should enter the building in disguise and reconnoiter. The pick a door (which is unlocked) and enter.

They find themselves in a large room which is obviously some sort of temple, with wide stairs in the middle of the room leading down into darkness. A dark haired man stand behind the altar doing something with a dagger, while two men in what looks like stone armour stand and watch.

“What are you doing here,” says the dark haired man, “you know you are not to disturb me. Get out”

“Sorry boss,” slurs Aimn Lu, pretending to be drunk, “we were just out there and wanted to come back in. What’s going on?”

“I said get out,” says the dark haired man, “How dare you disobey me. Leave now.”

“Don’t pay any attention to us,” says Aimn Lu, “we’ll just pass through and…”

“That’s it,” snaps the dark haired man, “I will not stand such disobedience.” He looks at the men nearby. “Dispatch them”, he says.

The guards move in to attack. The heroes move into the room and take them on. However as the dark haired man sees the non-disguised halfling and Dragonborn enter he realises that this is not just drunken insubordination.

“Wait, stand down. There has obviously been a misunderstanding” he says as Layna moves towards him. However she notices that he is moving towards a small lever on the wall and starts slashing at him. He runs towards a small door as the guards move to protect him.

He runs through the door and down a small hall, but Aimn Lu is too quick and splits his head apart as he attempts to open another door. The guards are quickly dispatched and the group explore the temple. They note that it was once a dwarven temple, but the runes have been carved out and new carvings of the elemental earth symbol have replaced them.

Aimn Lu is curious about where the dark haired man was fleeing to, so tries the door and sees that it leads to an empty dining hall. He tries another door and sees people in robes and masks cooking in a large kitchen. They see him and stop, staring.

“Well, don’t just stand there”, he snaps at them, “Get that dinner out here now.” The cultists look at him in his servants outfit and then hustle into action. The rest of the party join Aimn Lu for a nice meal.

Part way through the meal, a large number of other cultists enter the room, see the group sitting and eating. Stop momentarily, and then sit and start eating, giving them sideways glances throughout the meal.

When the characters finish eating they return to the temple and decide to go down the stairs. As they descend, Layna notices that there are scrape marks that indicate that the stairs have a mechanical trigger that can turn them into a slide. They descend warily.

At the bottom they find that they are in a room where a mutilated Umber Hulk is held at bay in a cage. The only other exit is through a bronze door which they manage to unlock and open and they find themselves in a tomb where they are attacked by zombies. These are easily dispatched and the group heads onwards through the tunnels.

They try a door, and see an ogre lying on the floor with other creatures in nearby beds. But the ogre is immediately alert. “WHO’S THERE?” he yells, “HEY GUYS, DERE’S SOMEONE COMING IN.” The party shut the door and decide to head onwards, but as they walk away, the door opens behind them….

Full adventure log here: https://deathgrind.obsidianportal.com/adventure-log

Doesn't look like we'll be able to play this week either. It will probably be at least Sunday the 15th. The SSM maps are still waiting!

Adventures in the Howling Caverns yesterday.

The group had no problem circumventing the breathless trap, avoiding the random-event chasm, killing the daemon in his kitchen, convincing the Drow to return to his people (and perhaps show back up to fight the cultists if they want to reclaim the place), and then sneaking by the wind-huggers and killing some more evil outsiders.

The main spectacle was the conversation with Windharrow who pleaded with them to not close the wind node. He... reluctantly "admitted" to being member a greater true cult that only knew a little bit about the long-term implications of his decision - but more than anything he just wanted the party to turn around and leave the node open. He just wanted to buy time.

Now the party seems caught in a debate. The argument that sealing the air node will "unbalance" the war between the cults is valid. He also implied the earth and water cults were likely already taking sides against the fire cult.

I also implied Tharizdun exists and may be a thing.

For good or ill, my party is really big on not trusting anyone. This results in a quagmire where they are heavily debating every decision. I enjoy this, but I don't know how they feel. Also we had some debates I didn't notice because some people are concerned about a balanced share of loot and such. I largely go hands-off on that, and expect everyone to be an adult, but apparently it is a thing.

They're also 8th level, will be 9th as soon as they finish the air node.

Creamsteak said:

Adventures in the Howling Caverns yesterday.

For good or ill, my party is really big on not trusting anyone. This results in a quagmire where they are heavily debating every decision. I enjoy this, but I don't know how they feel. Also we had some debates I didn't notice because some people are concerned about a balanced share of loot and such. I largely go hands-off on that, and expect everyone to be an adult, but apparently it is a thing.

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My group also finds themselves where they can't trust anyone too much, outside of their Red Larch contacts. Windharrow is still alive and well, and they can't decide he's against the Air cult now or just laying another trap of some kind. They don't trust him, but they also don't plan to kill him on sight. IF they ever see him again. He will turn up at some point, I just don't know when yet.

As for loot in our games, they're slowly but surely stacking it up. I hand it out slow, and I often assign a random percentage chance in rooms to find magic on people or in places. For instance, when they found the Immovable Rod, there was only a 20% chance it was there, but they rolled under that. So they've gotten a pretty big list of utility magic that they tend to forget about. I'm VERY stingy about handing out magic weapons, I think there's only 1 in the group so far. Fortunately, my players care more about the story, the strategy of staying alive and outsmarting the baddies, and less about loot and gold, although they do like that too, but it's secondary. What they like more than ANYTHING is absolutely stomping an enemy with a perfected plan and taking little or no damage in the process.