D&D 5E [CAMPAIGN] Out of the Abyss – New GM [SPOILERS]

[Boendal2]

Hello everyone,

I am currently running the Out of the Abyss (OotA) campaign with 4 players. We meet roughly every 14 days. The players are also relatively new to 5e, some of them played earlier versions of DnD a few years ago.

I will keep my campaign notes here and share homemade material for others that might be interested. As I am a new GM I will also use this thread to ask occasionally for help/recommendations. English is not my first language btw.


House rules:
Flanking: flanking an enemy gives +1 to attack roles
Exploding crits: the additional damage die from critical attack roles is automatically the highest number of the die (f.e d12 = 12). this works for and against the PCs.
Insight vs. WIS: insight checks don’t have a DC but the GM rolls in secret WIS against the PCs Insight
Variant start: after the ability scores are determined (3 out of 4d6 or point buy) the players can choose a feature and decrease one ability scores by 2 points or two ability scores by 1 point.
UA Feats for Skills: as found here. This replaced the hombrew "variant start" above as it turned out to be way too powerful.
Lingering Injuries: A modified table of the DMGs lingering injuries table. Players roll for injuries when they drop to 0 HP but do not die.
A lot of other homebrew stuff: f.e. totem spirit for the barbarian (=boar), lava spells for the sorcerer

The PCs started OotA at level 3, as we played three one shots before the adventure started:
The Midnight Revelry
Let's give Kobold Peace a Chance
No Peace with Kobolds

"No Peace with Kobolds" offers in my opinion the perfect explanation why the PCs are in the underdark to begin with. I had to make some adjustments to keep the adventure short and simple, but in the end it’s one of the two options: either the party follows a duergar slaver or they let him escape and a drow scout party ambushes them while they try to leave the cave. (my party followed the slaver, because he still held a much liked NPC hostage. They were captured and poisoned after 1h of following the duergar. Shoor and some elite drow warriors shot a round of poisoned arrows at them and brought them to Velkynvelve)

Links and material that helped me a lot so far:
A Guide to Out of the Abyss
Out of the Abyss - DM notes
Out of the Abyss - resource collection
Out of the Abyss - resources

A big thanks to all the contributors of these links/materials! You make gaming easier and more fun!


GM notes:
I changed the kobolds in the one shots to goblins…. Because I realised before the session started that I have no kobold minis (but a lot of goblins). The duergar slaver is called Yume and escaped with Kignos, the leader of the goblins, to the underdark. Maybe I let them appear again close to or in Gracklstugh.

 

[Boendal2]

Player character description (short):

Eearia: female half-orc, barbarian, 13 years old, background: soldier, savage attacker (variant start feat), path of totem warrior (boar), tusks grew bigger than before, has a giant boar piglet (Ebert), favourite weapon: great axe, personality: impulsive, rebellious, stubborn, direct

Stats (rolled): STR 19, DEX 14, CON 15, INT 10, WIS 11, CHA 12

Eeria grew up in a tribe far north that is famous for breeding giant war boars and cutting axe handles. Only 13 years old, she was already part of the tribes militia. After failing a duel with another half-orc to become part of the inner circle of the tribes leaders, she now is wandering the Sword coast to gather skills and one day become the leader of her tribe. She has three younger brothers. She is a hobby woodcrafter.


Thar'den: male half-orc, fighter (duelling), 32 years old, background: mercenary veteran, sentinel feat (variant start), battlemaster, favourite weapons: battleaxe and javelins, personality: honest, brash, socially awkward, caring

Stats (rolled): STR 18, DEX 15, CON 16, INT 14, WIS 16, CHA 4

Thar’den grew up in an orphanage close to Daggerford. As a teenager he joined the Flaming Fist. He served for a few years and eventually became sergeant. That was, when the orphanage was attacked and destroyed (by demons and devils). As soon as he heard of the attack, he left his duty without permission. But he found only rubble and dead bodies. He still hopes to find his closest family members: Avicenna (tiefling paladin), Dunya (aasimar sorceress) and Thorin (dwarf cleric). After the incident he was demoted by the Flaming Fist for leaving his duty without permission and sent to Chult as punishment. There his comrades eventually dropped him off in the jungle. He survived and quit the Flaming Fist on returning. He wandered from Chult to Waterdeep to find more information on his missing family.


Vanya: female aasimar (fallen), looks human, paladin (duelling), 31 years old, background: faction agent (emerald enclave), oath of vengeance, personality: protective, very caring, self-sacrificing, sometimes socially awkward

Stats (rolled): STR 16, DEX 10, CON 13, INT 10, WIS 13, CHA 14

Vanya grew up in a small farming village close to Everlund. As a child she gained healing powers – always linked to dreams of a beautiful blonde lady with a jaybird. When her best friend Vince died after falling from a tree, she couldn’t save him. Silent blame by the villagers followed. Her parents ultimately decided to send her to her uncle Thomas in Everlund. He trained her and they moved later to Waterdeep. There she became a faction agent for the Emerald Enclave.


Veldyn: male forest gnome, wizard/sorcerer, 24 years old, background: sage, sorcerous origin: giant soul (fire), personality: cheeky, easily distracted, speaks without thinking, widely read

Stats (rolled): STR 8, DEX 12, CON 11, INT 17, WIS 14, CHA 17

Veldyns parents were (secret) fire and earth sorcerers. When Veldyn was still a young gnome their village was attacked. His parents stepped up, but in the process most of the village was destroyed. The village afterwards executed his father and exiled his mother. Veldyn never forgave the village for that. After years of secret training he burned down the village completely and left – on a mission to become the mightiest volcano magic sorcerer of all time. On his journey he learned, that also books contain a lot of magical secrets, so he learned magic from them as well. He has a pet familiar called "Demetrius" (black fox).


GM notes:
Ebert the giant boar piglet is used for roleplay only (at the moment). After finding him in the woods (dead mother boar lying besides 4 piglets) and a successful animal handling check, we agreed on a homebrew system for training/domesticating him further: 1d20 per day to make progress on a scaling system for commands. He is roughly 14months old and will still grow substantially, even though he is very large already (approx. the size of a normal boar). When they were descending into the Underdark he roughly listened to his name (10/20 on the tracker = 50% chance).

The skills of the party are above average due to their high dice rolls. Also I am aware of the boost due to the additional feat (variant start). I will have adjust the encounters accordingly.

There is a lot of homebrew stuff going on. I made it clear to the players that we might have to (re)adjust a little later on.

 

[Boendal2]

1st session:
The characters wake up without any equipment, just wearing their common clothes in a dim lit prison cell. Eeria immediately realises, that Ebert is missing. Everybody just levelled up to level 3, but has -5HP due to the poisoning and treatment of the drow.
Veldyn finds out that magic is not working inside the slave pen. After a quick discussion with Eldeth and Prince Derendil two drow scouts appear to put the prisoners to work. As the two drow come closer Eeria and Thar’den decide it’s best to attack them. Together they knock out the first one, by stealing his dagger and sticking it in his throat. The second drow calls for help. 2 more drow and 12 quaggoths arrive and go berserk on all the prisoners. Way to make friends! Vanya tried to hide a crossbow, but fails her stealth check.
The aftermath: On their manacles on the prison wall in front of the cells are now hanging Eeria and Thar’den. Both are down to 1 and 2HP. Illvara arrives really angry to explain to the prisoners how exactly this is going to play out in the future: they are nothing to her and the drow and will follow every single command or be executed or worse. She casts ray of sickness on Eeria and Thar’den, but their relentless endurance brings them up to 1HP. The party is a bit shocked by the whole situation (Illvara essentially tried to kill Eeria and Thar’den with the ray of sickness) but at least now they know a prison break won’t be that easy.


Day 1
The prisoners are put to work: Vanya and Jimjar are on kitchen duty. Jimjar bets who can make more food. Vanya steals a small stone knife (1d2 dmg). Veldyn and Sarith have to empty the chamber pots of the drow at the waterfall (a duty that Sarith has to fulfil every day). The two of them don’t get along very well. Veldyn saw something move down in the water pool. Eeria and Thar’den stay on the wall and are being tortured by the drow guards. Back in the prison cell they started talking more with the NPCs, finding out, that they are here for up to 14 days. Sarith is probably in here the longest (he doesn’t mingle with the others). In the evening Eeria and Thar’den are being tossed in the cell. A drow brings mushroom soup for everybody. They make friends with Stool. Together with Eldeth, Stool, Jimjar, Turvy, Topsy, Prince Derendil and Buppido they decide to attempt a prison break soon. Shuushar is indifferent. Ront and Sarith don’t really care. Turvy and Topsy say they have a plan. On further investigation the plan is “run… really fast, when none of the guards is looking.” The PCs agreed to inspect the waterfall and the (depths of the) pool further, otherwise running sounds good to them.


Day 2
Eeria and Ront were put on lift duty and made a lot of strengths checks. Eerias natural 20s and 18+ rolls seemed to impress Shoor who was today in the barracks and the kitchen.

Thar’den had four drow escort him down to the cave floor, all of them carrying bows/crossbows. They put him against the southern wall and the leader of the four told him to “run, when I say so”. The drow then took position 35m away and let Thar’den run towards them. Every 6 seconds one of the drow released an arrow. Thar’den decided to dash, therefore the drow had advantage on their attacks. Two of them hit before Thar’den reached them. The other two were quite pissed that he was that they didn’t get a shot.

Veldyn and Vanya were sent to gather mushrooms on the cavern floor close to the water pool. Four quaggoths and Jorlan kept an eye on them. Besides the edible waterorbs Vanya found three little fungi (timmask = poisonous). She also saw something move in the water, maybe a fish swimming close to the water!? Veldyn was not very successful haresting the waterorbs and feared punishment by the drow. Suddenly Vanya to decided to check for the depth of the water– by throwing Veldyn as far as she can into the pool. A combat between Veldyn and the ooze in the water followed. Vanya tried to command the ooze, which didn’t work. Veldyn did a bit of damage but was nearly killed, when the third big attack of the ooze kicked him high in the air and out of the water (1d6 fall damage put him at -2HP). Vanya reanimated him and gave him all her waterorbs, which he gallantly took. Jorlan, who watched all of this, scolded Vanya, but didn’t hit her, and told her there are other ways prisoners should try their escape.

Everyone but Eeria was brought to the cells again. She helped a drow patrol come up the lift. The patrol had a tall human slave with them. Shoor talked with Eeria, promising her freedom if she defeated the other slave. Eeria hesitated, but feared further punishment. A fight between her and the human (also barbarian) followed. The drow warriors made bets on the fight, much to Jorlans amusement. Eeria defeated the slave, who was lying unconscious on the floor. Jorlan approached her, gave her a dagger and asked her to finish him if she wants freedom. Not really believing him, but still afraid of punishment/torture she slit the humans throat, screaming loudly. Jorlan laughed and had her escorted back into the cell.

The PCs told each other what they found out (poisonous mushrooms, water is probably deep enough but houses an ooze) but couldn’t really decide on an escape plan. Veldyn tried to craft the small stone knife of Vanya into a lock pick, failed the safe and broke the knife in two. Now he has a very small stone blade without handle, still doing 1d2 damage. Ront bullied Stool but was intimidated by the PCs.


GM notes:
I didn’t describe any of the torture of Eeria and Thar’den, just said “think of a torture that the drow come up with yourself – that happens today to you two”. Weirdly I think that made it worse, at least for Eeria. That’s the power of the human mind I guess…

To differentiate better between the drow, Jorlan is “the one with scars in the face” and Shoor “the one with an especially beautiful face, even for a drow”. Honestly the biggest problem for me during this sessions were all the weird drow names (characters, cities etc.).

Due to the cleaning of chamber pots by the waterfall and simultaneously harvesting waterorbs close to the pool of water the players now imagine the daily mushroom soup way more disgusting than I initially planned. I haven’t corrected them so far.

The skill challenges may sound a bit boring, but I use them to further increase the grim picture of the drow: every time the PCs fail a skill check, a drow hits them with an unarmed strike (or worst case an arrow). Also I felt, that OotA really lacks on content in chapter 1. The text to hard labor is merely a paragraph long and doesn’t offer much for storytelling. I can just recommend making a prerolled list of (interesting) prison duties including skill checks for 3-5 days. Really helped me keeping the game going.

The fight with the ooze: Oh boy, did I make this harder than it had to be…. New GM here… Somehow I spontaneously decided that Veldyn landed exactly on/in the ooze (don’t ask me why)…. Which let furthermore to DEX saving throws to escape the ooze (don’t ask me why)…. Which Veldyn failed round after round! As Vanya threw him really far and all the quaggoths were also far away (don’t ask me why)…. Basically the ooze would have killed Veldyn…. So in the fourth round of combat I let the ooze kick him out of the water. I just didn’t want to kill a (new) player in the first session (also by my kind of own mistake… he could have landed NEXT to the ooze). Well, at least we now have a running gag on the table: “Vanya, do you want to check how deep the water is?” Veldyn steps further away from Vanya

Eerias fight with the human barbarian: Two barbarians fistfighting each other would have taken 10-15 rounds of combat. Even though a well received idea, after approx. four rounds of combat the players became visibly bored (session 1 after all), so I let the drow shoot some arrows at the barbarians, both loosing instantly 12HP. In hindsight it would have been better for the story if Jorlan just hurt them before the fight started (“so you two have a motivation to end this fast”).

 

[Boendal2]

2nd session:

Day 3
In the morning two guards came, looked grim at the prisoners and dragged Jimjar outside. They threw him over the edge into the spider webs. The PCs only heard a single scream and monstrous noises. Then there was silence again. Afterwards more prison labour awaited:

Veldyn was escorted to the temple. While entering he spotted Ebert the pet boar of Vanya on a leash inside the temple. Asha asked him politely to help her translate a letter that her scouts “found” on a duergar trader. She offered him better treatment by the guards, double rations, and even offered to buy him as a personal translator in Menzoberranzan. The letter was covered in blood. Asha knew that Veldyn can help as “comprehend languages” is in his spellbook. Upon agreeing she hands Veldyn his spellbook and he starts casting/translating. Asha is called out of the temple by another drow. Veldyn doesn’t investigate the room further. When Asha came back he claimed, that he needed more time (= lie, successful deception check) and had to come back tomorrow.

Eeria was brought to the cavern floor to carry big and heavy stones from the south to the north. STR checks all the way. She succeeded all of them, further impressing the drow. In the end she found a small stone that she can use for throwing/hitting (1d2 damage).

Shoor took Thar’den and brought him in front of the barracks. There he told him, that he wants to evaluate his fighting skills, as the drow want to sell him as a fighter to a noble house. He gave him a shortsword and signalled a drow scout to attack. Thar’den knocked him out in the first round. Shoor signalling a drow warrior to attack. Thar’den picked up the second shortsword from the scout and also knocked the warrior out easy enough. Then Shoor sent in a drow elite warrior. This fight Thar’den lost and started with death saving throws, as Asha came to heal him. Asha and Shoor had a small fight in front of everybody.

Vanya was left with Sarith alone in the prison cell. After a while Jorlan came and started talking to Sarith. They seemed to fight. Jorlan eventually calling Vanya to join the conversation. He basically begged her to escape with Sarith. Sarith got Shoors key for a day. Then the two had to clean chamber pots.

In the evening everybody shared his or her loot (stones, Turvy& Topsy found more timmasks) and stories. Veldyn made fun of Sarith, Sarith cast “darkness” on him, and everybody went nuts. Thar’den attacked Sarith, but Sarith dodged it and did an unreasonable amount of damage kicking Thar’den. Everybody calmed down and Sarith argued that Jorlan only wants them to escape so he can blame Shoor and catch/kill the prisoners himself. After a lengthy discussion the PCs decided on a plan: poison the food with timmasks, forge a copy of the key, escape during the night, take silently over the guard tower and temple, and then jump into the pool of water. Now everybody, even Sarith and Ront, decided to help with the prison break. As all travel options seem evenly bad, they agreed to bring Stool back to Neverlight Grove (also following Sariths advice where to be safe from the drow).


Day 4
Vanya had to wash the dirty clothes of the drow using buckets and rope at the waterfall. She stole about 7m of silken spider rope (very thin, fits under her clothes).

Veldyn was asked to translate further. He did so, but managed to use “illusory script” on his whole spellbook, basically copying it to the back part of the book and then ripping out the original pages stealthily. He now has his spellbook in single pages stuffed into his clothes.

Asha came to the prison cell and asked who is trained in woodcutting (I imagined Eeria would be the one to answer). Thar’den stepped up, Eeria stayed silent. So Thar’den was brought to the temple as well and had to fix a minor problem on the foot of Lolths wooden statue.

Eeria had kitchen duty with Eldeth. Eldeth cast “heat metal” on a metal spoon, pressing the hot metal in the key shape, thus forming a new key. Turvy and Topsy brought additional timmasks, which Eeria put into the mushroom stew. She saw Ront on lift duty and signalled him to break the mechanism “by accident”. He did so and was beaten by the drow, but not too hard.

Back in the prison cell nobody ate his/her food. Sarith gave Jorlan the key back. They waited a few hours and then silently unlocked the prison door with the new improvised key. Eeria and Thar’den led the majority of the group stealthy into the guard tower and overwhelmed two drow (who had disadvantage on perception checks, being lightly poisoned). Veldyn and Prince Derendil waited outside to deal with the quaggoths. Veldyn cast “mold earth” to make the passage from the quaggoths quarters impassable. Everybody got their (nonmagical) equipment back, took some additional rope, bolts and waterskins from the armoury above the guard post.
The party succeeded on their second stealth check, but Eeria entered the temple loudly (failed stealth check opening the door). In it sat Asha, meditating. Eeria and Thar’den fought Asha, beheading her at the end of round two. Veldyn pillaged the tower completely, taking some damage from the chest traps, and set the quarters on fire. Eeria destroyed the wooden statue of Lolth and Prince Derendil took the polished jet stones from its eyes. He is now cursed.
Vanya knotted two ropes on a stone near the waterfall and all prisoners managed with a successful final stealth check to escape silently. They didn’t encounter the ooze anymore. While running for the southern passage Veldyn shot multiple “fire bolts” at the spider nets enflaming them.

Summary: The 4 PCs and 9 NPCs left a burning drow outpost basically unnoticed. They killed 3 drow in the process, one of them being Asha. They forged a second key, poisoned the drow, broke the lift, rendered the passage to the quaggoths quarters temporarily impassable, and succeeded all their stealth checks. They torched the temple & Ilvaras quarters as well as they inflamed the spider nets. Ilvara won't be happy when she comes back.


Day 5
During the day: The party found a small crystal cave with a narrow entry, where only the small creatures could fit through. Veldyn sent his familiar (Demetrius) to investigate and cast light to see better. Faerzness caused a wild magic effect: for the next minute Veldyn healed 5HP at the start of each turn. Sarith slapped Veldyn for being so reckless and explained the dangers of Faerzness to the party.


Day 6
During the day: Lava vent & 4 orc raiders + 1 orc Eye of Gruumsh (4x50gp gemstones)

Veldyn and Thar’den fell into the lava vent, it took them two rounds to get out. Veldyn was reduced to 0HP but healed by Vanya. The party heard the orc from far away and sent Ront to negotiate with them. They instantly attacked him and fighting ensued. Veldyn killed the Eye of Gruumsh with “burning hands” placed directly on his temples. The lava vent was harder for the party to overcome than 5 orcs.


GM notes:
Oh boy… my stupid ideas again…. Placing Ebert in the temple was not a good idea…. Eeria didn’t want to leave without him, so every escape plan had to include getting inside the temple. That made things 100% harder…. In hindsight Ebert should have been in the guard tower anyway (what does a giant boar do in a temple of Lolth?)

I tried to narrate day 3 as tarantino-esque as possible, jumping from PC-challenge to PC-challenge and linking them all together (Asha healing Thar’den, giving Veldyn time alone in the temple, Eeria hearing the sounds of fighting while carrying stones, Vanya healed Thar’den quickly while walking by). It was in my opinion interesting but needed way more preparation than normal.

For the translation by Veldyn I prepared a handwritten letter. I wrote the initial message (something about a trade caravan arriving soon in Sloobludop) in a very simple code (every second letter was random) on a piece of paper, soaked it in black tea, let it dry and put some red stains on it. Some burning with a lighter, scrambling the paper, and it looked like a pretty used piece of old parchment. I may upload a picture of it later. After all it was quite easy and a nice gadget for the players. After Veldyn cast “comprehend languages” I told the player to mark every second letter and went on to Thar’dens trial outside the temple.

Sarith casting “darkness” in the prison cell was an honest mistake, as I forgot for a moment about the no magic field…. New GM here…. Sarith had to explain that the drow made a specific anti magic field which lets drow still cast magic inside. Also I gave Sarith kind of a promotion. He told the PCs (reluctantly) that he was the lieutenant of Velkynvelve before Jorlan (and therefore before Shoor). This explains in my opinion the rivalry between all three of them a bit better.

But again…. I made the whole thing harder than it had to be…. Why did Jorlan give Sarith the key “just for 24 hours”..... this created a very long discussion on how to copy the key within the next day…. When no one knows exactly where they will be put to work tomorrow…… in the end Turvy and Topsy had an idea: They used dark gnome poop (very hard) to make 4 copies of the key shape….. these 4 poop shapes are distributed between the PCs. Additionally Sarith still has the key…. they now hope that at least one of them can forge a copy. Eldeth told the PCs she is able to cast “heat metal”….. I hardly recommend any other GM to hand out the key indefinitely…..

As the plan seemed to involve more and more stealth roles and taking over the temple I decided to let Ilvara go on a patrol with the drow elite warriors (to investigate why the supply patrol is overdue). So in case a full prison riot starts the PCs still have a chance to escape – not win the fight, but escape. I feel the 19 drow, 12 quaggoths and few giant spiders placed there in the book make it way too hard to escape regularly, especially for level 1 characters. The quaggoths in particular(right next to the prison cells) and also the drow elite warriors are hard to beat. I recommend downscaling or sending some on patrol. (even in a scenario like “demon flight” as proposed by the book the PCs would likely encounter some drow or even Ilvara – and they should sound the alarm…. I just don’t like the mental picture of drow and quaggoths all lining up on the edge of the outpost, strictly looking/firing at the demons, not seeing a single prisoner escape by jumping in the water or using the lift…. there are way too many guards to let that happen, they would run around, get ammunition, everybody would be armed and ready to fight, they would shout commands at each other etc.)

Killing off Jimjar wasn’t originally planned, but I really wanted to strengthen the picture of grim and unforgiving drow. I wanted the PCs to know that failure results in death in the underdark. I chose Jimjar because in the first days I overdid it on the betting and the players started rolling their eyes whenever Jimjar entered a conversation. I didn’t like the obsessive betting myself, but didn’t want to break character on day 4. Anyway, some of the PCs now think Jimjar was “just crazy” – which is also fitting in the overall theme of OotA. Note to myself: NPCs that want to bet are fun; NPCs who bet ALL THE TIME are annoying as hell.

I created a rating system for evaluating the price of the slaves (who knows, maybe we need it someday). Winning against the barbarian: 2k; against a drow scout: 1k; against a drow warrior: 1,5k; against a drow elite/priestess: 2k; killing an unconscious NPC: 0,5k; succeeding on various skill checks: 0,1k. So far Eeria is worth to the drow roughly 3,5k, Thar’den about 3k, Veldyn as a magic user at least 5k (and Vanya still needs to be tested)

Veldyn finding “silken underwear” in Ilvaras quarters (my bad, the book says actually “silken garments”) resulted in loud laughter during an actual tense prison break. I highly recommend describing Ilvaras quarter like a drow sex dungeon. (lots of pillows and candles, maybe some incense, wine… well and the silken "underwear" and silver framed mirror from the book). Also I changed the set up of the temple tower a bit: Shoor has no room here. He sleeps in the elite barracks. The room under the temple is Ilvaras private meditation/storage room; the third and last room in this tower is her bedroom. I don’t think a female drow priestess would actually allow an inferior male drow to live that close to her.

 

[Boendal2]

3rd session:

Very short session, as all of us were busy in real life:

Day 7
Nothing happened during the day
In the evening Ront pushed Stool and complained about the myconid not helping the party. Eeria was close to fighting Ront when the group decided to make an arm wrestling tournament to blow off some steam. Eeria won with 2 victories. (Veldyn didn’t really participate but gave himself 2 points for defeating Stool two times, so there was kind of a draw)
Eeria started carving Stools image in her axe handle. Thar’den asked Turvy & Topsy to teach him some words in undercommon.


Day 8
Nothing happened during the day. The party decided to make camp in a small cave with a huge zurkhwood in the middle. Eeria cut down the zurkhwood and started carving a small statue of Jimjar.
During the last watch of the night Veldyn heard some voices from a tunnel approaching the cave and went to check it out. He saw 6 duergar approaching and started to wake people up (last second). A lengthy battle followed, during which Vanya was nearly killed while trying to help Turvy: two attacks of opportunity brought her down with one automatic failed death saving throw. Thar’den pushed through and gave her a health potion just in time. The last duergar standing tried to flee, Vanya and Thar’den chased him, but lost sight after approx. 10 rounds.


GM notes:
I like the idea of Eeria decorating her axe handle. Fits her character (background) very well. If she proceeds to do so I might give her +1 on the axe after a few successful skill checks.

Vanya was reduced to -5HP by an attack of opportunity. A second attack of opportunity that was triggered at the same time hit her, so I told the player to mark of one failed saving throw immediately. I later looked up the rules – it should have been two (any damage while unconscious is a critical hit, therefore two failed death saving throws). I have to remember that rule for next time. Thar’den was there within a round, so it didn’t matter, but would have been way more dramatic.

Thar’den learns three words in undercommon per night. The player started writing a list with the words learned.

Night watch (for now): 1. Vanya/Eeria/Stool/Ebert; 2. Thar’den/Turvy/Topsy; 3. Derendil/Eldeth; 4. Buppido/Sarith/Shuushar; 5. Sarith/Veldyn/Ront

Marching order (for now): Sarith, Veldyn, Vanya, Eeria/Stool/Ebert, Ront, Derendil, Turvy/Topsy, Shuushar, Eldeth, Buppido, Thar’den

 

[Boendal2]

4th session:

As most of us are busy in real life at the moment I also decided to skip big parts of the “travelling” – otherwise the campaign will last until 2023 (in real life) without reaching the surface.

Day 9-16 (skipped)
Downtime activities: Thar’den learned more words in undercommon. Veldyn transcribed a spell scroll (green flame blade) into his spell book. Eeria trained Ebert (pet giant boar) and worked on the small wooden statue of Jimjar. Vanya spoke to some NPCs and asked Thar’den to carve a small wooden fox for her.

The party slowly turns paranoid. They believe now to be followed not only by the drow but also the duergar. I let them believe it for now, but I think they will avoid Gracklstugh at all costs – I might have to show them some neutral/non-hostile duergar at some point.


Day 17
Nothing happened during the day. In the evening three escaped slaves from Gracklstugh, shield dwarves appeared at their camp. They needed some persuasion to come closer. All three of them had their tongue cut out and a brand mark on their cheek. It’s a duergar rune, symbolising “enemy/slave”. The party managed to communicate with them through Eldeth and hand signs. Ront didn’t want more dwarves in the group, so Eeria told him to leave. Intimidation check was successful, so Ront started packing his stuff and was ready to leave the group.
During the night Eeria and Vanya tried to make Ront stay. Vanya stole a page from Veldyns spell book at night to write a message. Veldyn woke up and shot a fire bolt at her, but was convinced that it’s all a dream. Thar’den and Veldyn discussed if it would be better to kill Ront, as he could lead the pursuing drow in their direction. Thar’den overheard Turvy and Topsy whispering about leaving the group.
Sarith, Veldyn and Ront held the last watch of the night. Ront had his stuff already packed and was ready to leave the group when a painful scream woke everybody up. One of the shield dwarves was dead, stomach opened and all organs outside of his body (arranged symmetrically). Vanya tried to heal him with no effect. The remaining two shield dwarves were in distress and run away as soon as everybody started searching the corpse for clues. The party tried to find clues on the murder, but failed all their investigation checks. Now they are not sure who was it, a NPCs or duergar/drow assassins.


Day 18
During the day Thar’den talked to Turvy and Topsy about them leaving the party. Topsy was impressed by his honesty and compassion and told him they “are not leaving for now as there is no threat for you or us at the moment”.
Camp was made in a small cavern with a water source (small lake). Thar’den and Eldeth had third watch when a chuul attacked them from the water. The fight was no big challenge for the party and everybody was happy about the extra rations (roasted chuul).
Vanya gave Veldyn a secret letter (she wrote on the page from his spell book) with the wooden fox statue.


Day 19
During the day the party came across a small wooden bridge over a pit (roughly 7m deep). The bridge looked very unstable. Eeria decided to climb down and catch anyone who falls down. After half the party crossed (only NPCs) the makeshift bridge collapsed, Vanya failed her dexterity check and fell. Eeria caught her. Suddenly they heard fighting noises. 3 orogs had been waiting for them and booby-trapped the bridge. Sarith held them off until Eeria and Vanya climbed up the pit. Veldyn disengaged. Thar’den and Eldeth took two turns to catch up with the party and jump over the pit (3,5m). The fight was hard even though the players rolled high. Ront and Buppido went down but were healed in time by the party. In the end Eeria beheaded 2 orogs.
At night the party rested in a system of small caverns, connected to each other, all illuminated with red little lights (moss?). During the third night watch (NPCs only) the party woke up to fighting noises – the session ended without recovered HP or spell slots and with a huge cliffhanger.

Magic items found in the orog hideout:

• Dagger of Wickedness (spend a sorcerer point to make additional damage and enemy makes CON svg throw or poisoned)
• Pauldrons of Wailing (fighters second wind ability triggers WIS svg throw on everybody within 10ft. failed = frightened)
• Great Warhammer of Rage (+1 Warhammer and after killing an enemy you get a free attack on an adjacent enemy)
• Spell Scroll Detect Poison and Disease

GM notes:
After last session we had a talk and decided to skip the survival aspect. It slowed the game down tremendously and most players (and me) didn’t really enjoy it. Also, as long as Sarith is with them, I won’t ask them for navigation checks (the party decided he should lead the way). As I won’t ask them anymore about travelling speed I keep the drow pursuit at level 1 and decide later if I let them have an encounter with the drow. Maybe if they goof around too long in a city/place.

Eeria has been training Ebert every night since the party fled Velkynvelve. He now listens to his name (66% of the time), play dead (10% chance) and search for things on the floor (10% chance).

For anyone wondering why the NPCs are helping in the fights: I let each player control one additional NPC. The remaining ones aren’t fighting or just very rarely… when I feel there’s a need for them to have an action for the sake of roleplay. Most of the time they do miss though (no matter the roll, laugsinGM).

Ront (the most boring NPC so far) is now my favourite NPC – as Thar’den and Veldyn are actively discussing to kill him, while Vanya and Eeria do not want any NPC to leave or get hurt. Great potential for the future, especially when Buppido kills again and destabilises the party further… and we are coming closer to Gracklstugh. The murder of the shield dwarf rose big suspicion on Ronts loyalty (though they cannot believe he has done it stealthy enough for no one to wake up).

With the skipped days 9-16 I lost track of Turvy & Topsy turning into wererats. Probabaly 28 days have passed already. I have to start with them leaving/turning next session!

 

[Boendal2]

Attached are the NPC character sheets that I give to the players for combat (1 NPC per person). Feedback is very welcome! (number in brackets is the level of the NPC)

 

[Boendal2]

5th session:

For this session a friend of us took control over Sarith.

Still day 19
We started where we left: With an initiative roll. 100 giant fire beetles were swarming from the ceiling onto the cave floor (10-20 per turn on the battlemap). The party was split up, half was fighting, and half was fleeing. After Veldyn used repeatedly burning hands, the remaining giant fire beetles were retreating to the ceiling of the cave. Still the party decided to sleep somewhere else that night.


Day 20
Nothing happened during the day.
Third watch of the night, Thar’den saw Topsy and Turvy leave their guard post and pack their backpacks. They wanted to leave, he approached them carefully and Topsy told him, it’s for the best of the group if they are not around. She showed him her stomach, where a Duergar stabbed her a few days ago – there was no wound or scar. They hugged, Thar’den let them leave and went to bed visibly sad.

Vanya asked Eldeth during their watch of the night if she also thinks Prince Derendil behaves worrysome (he still is cursed from stealing the polished gems from the statue of Lolth in Velkynvelve). Eldeth cast detect poison and disease on him in the morning, but could not figure out what exactly is wrong with him. After some detective work by the group, Veldyn cast identify on the gemstones and got to know which curse currently affects Prince Derendil. Vanya and Veldyn wanted to give the stones to Sarith which wanted Veldyn to shine his shoes as payment for helping them. Veldyn cast create bonfire under Sarith, which led to a small struggle between Sarith and the party. In the end Sarith took the gemstones.


Day 21-25 (skipped)
Nothing happened. Downtime activities: Vanya tried to reconnect with her angelic guardian. Eeria trained Ebert and started decorating/carving her warhammer handle.

Thar’den and Vanya discussed how to raise moral during night watch on day 25, when the party was woken up by the screams of Ront. Shuushar was lying dead next to him, inner organs outside of his body. After Vanyas investigation the party was sure it had a religious meaning of some sort. They inspected the footprints around Shuushars body as well as the weapons of everybody. The (ritual) dagger of Buppido raised some concern. While the Eeria, Thar'den, Vanya and Veldyn discussed the next steps in private, Sarith tried to sweet talk Buppido. He only got weird and slightly crazy answers. Thar’den had Eldeth cast zone of truth around the campfire and they started to interrogate Buppido. After some more crazy answers Buppido started to run, but Vanya cast command (“Stop!”) on him. Eeria was first to catch up with him. He confessed while grinning at her. She executed him with a single blow of her warhammer. Angrily she screamed at all the remaining NPCs, that whoever is not 100% with the party should leave immedeatly. Ront was intimidated by her and started running away. Thar’den wanted to shoot a crossbow bolt at him, but Vanya pushed his hand down. No one followed Ront into the dark tunnels. The party debated about turning around and looking for other ways to the surface, but in the end agreed to first bring Stool back to Neverlight Grove.


Day 26-27
As the party got closer to Neverlight Grove I had a minimap with “fog of war”, some random encounters and hidden magic items/potions prepared. This should have taken at least a week in game. Sarith has never been in this area, so there were no navigation checks anymore, only guessing which tunnel to take nect. Somehow the players completely broke this mechanic, and found the shortest way possible (1,5 days in game) and ignored all side quest hooks (f.e. dead body next to a giant mushroom). So the party arrived at Neverlight Grove in a record time of 27 days after escaping Velkynvelve. They were attacked by two awakened zurkhwoods, but asked Stool to talk to them (which he did). After this non-encounter encounter, the party was lead by a very excited Stool to the next myconids (circle of builders).

Gasbide, the circle leader greeted them, told them about the big constructions he plans for the Great Seeder and ultimately led them down to the inner circle. There Phylo greeted the party in a very welcoming way. The group saw some tension between Basidia and Phylo and even though interested in the melding and seeing the “holy part of the grove”, decided to first follow Basidia on a tour through Neverlight Grove. They were showed the circle of builders, circle of growers and heard from Basidia, that Phylo and most of the other myconids behave abnormal for a few weeks. He asked the party to investigate further and maybe sneak into the upper/holy parts of the grove. The players agreed to talk to Loobamub (circle of hunters) and Rasharoo (circle of explorers), hoping that they will also know a way out of the underdark. Eeeria asked Basidia for a potion that helps against the spores of myconids (such as Phylo).

In the evening Thar’den wanted to join the myconids in the melding, but was convinced by Vanya not to go to Phylo. So the two took part in the melding of the circle of hunters. Thar’den had a pleasant and nice experience, in which he became part of the shared consciousness of the myconids. He experienced a day of the myconids, hunting through the forest, seeing through their eyes and feeling their emotions. Vanya had a very bad trip, was sweating heavily, saw after an initial “myconid body experience” only flashing colours and couldn’t move until the melding stopped for Thar’den and her. She went directly to bed afterwards.


Day 28
The group talked to Rasharoo, but he only knew a way to Blindgenstone and Gracklstugh. Afterwards they decided to help Loobamub and hunt down a grick. They spent the day searching for tracks and waited in ambush at the southern wall of the cave where they thought the grick would come by eventually. The battle was very short, and they brought the dead grick back to Loobamub. Afterwards Thar’den, Veldyn and Eeria went to the inner circle to take part of another melding. This time Thar’den and Veldyn both had horrible trips, which led to them becoming (indefinitely) insane. Thar’den now sees an altered version of reality and started talking to a mushroom on the way to bed, thinking it was his long lost brother. Veldyn will sometimes slip into a catatonic state. Eeria had a nice melding experience, seeing Stool playing with other myconids etc.
Eeria brought Thar'den and Veldyn home safely, taking especially care of Thar’den who was talking to a mushroom. Basidia came by and asked how they feel. Sadly he couldn’t figure out what is wrong with them, but now urged them to investigate the “holy part of the cave”. He gave them a potion of protection from spores, promising to make another one.


Day 29
The group discussed leaving Neverlight Grove but went to talk to Rasharoo again and was eventually led to a small cliff that they could easily climb up to the "holy part of the grove" (even though Veldyn was catatonic at the time). Ebert stayed with Rasharoo. The party now had good visual on the giant mushroom Yggmorgus. In front of them was a huge field of smaller and mid-sized mushrooms. They stealthily moved forward, following some strange mumbling and whispering noises. Nobody paid much attention to the cavern floor. Suddenly a hand reaching out of the ground held Thar’den back. He realised it was one of the female guards in Velkynvelve. While the body was slowly pulled into the cavern floor, she asked him to kill her, which he did. That led to him failing another WIS save and gaining a level of madness (10min stunned). The party saw him reaching for his axe, hitting the ground between some mushrooms and not moving afterwards.


GM notes:
We lost five NPCs this session and Stool will probably stay with the myconids. Sarith will stay or die in the Neverlight Grove as well, so we are probably down seven NPCs. I didn’t plan for all of that to happen so soon, but honestly: it’s great! Now the party will progress much faster and RP will focus more on the PCs themselves. Also balancing will be much easier.

I made the curse of Lolth a bit stronger than OotA suggests: Basically Prince Derendil had disadvantage on all rolls. That’s because I didn’t roll many random encounters with spiders and also wanted to make the curse more obvious to the party. Also the stones were red gemstones not polished jet. As Sarith is struggling with his belief there is now a 50% chance of the curse still affecting Prince Derendil. Let's see if they remember to loot Sariths corpse or let the stones rot in Neverlight Grove.

The self-made minimap of the tunnels to Neverlight Grove had some major flaws. I have to redraw it for further use. Sadly the party didn’t take any side quest hooks, so they are short of magic items and potions at the moment. That could be a problem in encountering Yestabrod. To make up for the bad equipment and lost NPCs, they already levelled up to level 4 after Day 28.

As Out of the Abyss does not offer any descriptions of the circle leaders, here is a short list I made of them, for easier roleplaying:

• Phylo: 4m, green/yellow/orange, (character: extrovert mayor of a small town)
• Basidia: 4m, yellow with blue cap and fungal growth, vertical hat and claws, see page 85 for picture (character: Gandalf)
• Yestabrod: 3m, green/blue, distgusting larval creature, fungal growths all over his body, multiple orifices, gurgles and spits (character: Evil McEvilface)
• Loobamub: 3,5m, sturdy with very long arms (more than 2/3 of the body length), green/dark green/brown (character: Treebeard)
• Rasharoo: 2,8m, walks on four legs, two heads (only one seeing/hearing/speaking), green/brown covered partially with grey mud (character: slightly paranoid doomsday prepper)
• Gasbide: 3m, sturdy, whole body seems wooden, slow movements, red cap otherwise brown (character: Ross Gellar)
• Hebopbe: 2,5m, thin body and extremeties, head is very narrow, green/brown (character: dry alcoholic)
• Yrberop: 3m, very thick, big head (cap starts at 1m), dark red/brown (character: fat monk who works at a childcare)

I adapted the stats of the grick alpha to a normal grick with double HP and multiattack because the party was still level 3-4. In hindsight that was not necessary, but I felt a CR7 was to much for the group at the moment. Fun fact: the cliff they had to climb on day 29 (DC 15 DEX) caused more (falling) damage to the party than the grick (which had horrible rolls and the players rolled only 18+)

In the end I mixed up the events of the book a little. The first WIS/madness save should be after the encounter with Yestabrod. As Thar’den is now stunned for 10 min, and the party still has Sarith with them (which would turn into a spore servant as soon as Yestabrod arrives)…. I am hesitating to bring up Yestabrod immediately. I do not think the party is able to fight Yestabrod, his servants and Sarith all at once, especially without Thar’den. Maybe I will adapt the encounter (a lot) or not let Sarith turn into a spore servant right away…. Suggestions are welcome! The book also offers a “solution” to losing an encounter later: “The PCs are knocked unconscious. They wake up outside Neverlight Grove infested with Zuggtmoy’s spores.” But that feels unsatisfying.

Next session, if possible the myconids will tell them about a way to Darklake, otherwise the party will probably decide to go to Blindgenstone by foot (which will take roughly 60 days according to the book, omg). Also this would allow passing by Sloobludop and seeing Demogorgon. The chance of the party visiting Gracklstugh is 0% at the moment. I guess, the random encounters with Duergar and the mutilated freed slaves were to frightening. I am not really sad about this, as the chapter “Gracklstugh” is really one of the worst parts in the book (great ideas, but badly written and so many many …. many open ends). Even though I really wanted to meet Themberchaud. I think he is one of the most interesting NPCs in part 1 of the book. Maybe I will write a one shot about helping him by investigating the Keepers of the Flame one day.

 

[Boendal2]

6th session:

Still day 29
The PCs decided to investigate Thar'den. While they did their medicine checks and talked about what to do next Thar'den regained control over his body again. They realized that the ground beneath them contained various dead bodies. They continued and encountered Yestabrod very soon after that. He held a small crazy speech about why the PCs had to die, but was interrupted by a charging barbarian (Eeria). Sariths head exploded and he attacked Vanya. She killed him without taking damage. After taking an unreasonable amount of damage within the first two rounds of combat, Yestabrod started to fall back, called some spore servants and myconids for help while healing himself with dead bodies. The party figured his strategy out quickly and decided to destroy all heads/body parts they could see. After a long fight Eeria dealt the final blow to Yestabrod and the party continued deeper down Neverlight Grove. Thar'den found a cloak of elvenkind and boots of elvenkind on one dead drow. As they came closer to the cliff leading to Yggmorgus 6 more myconids appeared, dancing and "singing" the wedding song of Zuggtmoy and Auramycos. The party was fed up with myconid madness at this point and charged the wedding party, killing all of them rapidly. Prince Derendil was infected by infestation spores in the process.

Afterwards they discussed leaving this place and reporting back to Basidia. Thar'den convinced the party to press on in a moment of self-clarification about his latest hallucinations (madness of Zuggtmoy). The party descended into the lower part where Yggmorgus was located. As they approached a half rotten head stuck out of the ground next to them started to scream. Soon the cave was filled with thousands of screams and the air was vibrating. The party had a vision about the interior of Yggmorgus, seeing a giant creature sitting in it. After a few failed wisdom saving throws Eeria sobbed uncontrollably, Veldyn was stunned and Prince Derendil started to attack the party. Thar'den and Vanya grappled and tied Prince Derendil up to a mushroom. Thar'den comforted Eeria and after the party was feeling a bit better decided to scout ahead towards the giant mushroom. As he approached the giant stalk he saw some spore servants come to form a circle and hold hands. They started to scream and laugh hysterically. Thar'den failed another wisdom saving throw and was now 25% blind and 75% deaf. He went back to the party, which decided to just run towards Yggmorgus, ignoring the spore servants standing outside of it and only defending themselves if necessary. Eldeth and the restrained Prince Derendil were left behind.

Inside Yggmorgus the party saw Zuggtmoy (mediocre history check by Veldyn confirmed, that it was something very bad and ancient and not a normal monster they encounter). After a few minutes looking at the demon lord the bridesmaids starting to push the party out. Thar'den, who tried to interact with the demon lord before by offering her mushroom provisions, was apparently unpleased with the outcome of the situation and fired a crossbow at Zuggtmoy. Initiative was rolled but Zuggtmoy charmed everybody immediately after that and commanded them to "go away from me!". Demoralised but happy to survive the party left Yggmorgus.

Back at Basidia the party reported what they saw, much to the confusion of the myconid leader. After hearing the names Zuggtmoy and Auramycos Basidia ordered his fellow myconids to leave Neverlight Grove. The party had a short rest and accompanied the myconids. As they didn't get any sleep for a very long time, everybody gained one level of exhaustion. On their way to the south-eastern exit Eeria realised that Stool was missing. As she realised Basidia only was taking the circle of hunters and explorers with him she ran off to the circle of sporers. She convinced Stool (and Yrberop) that she would take Stool for a walk. She met the party at the terraces leading upwards to the exit.


Day 30
Thar'den and Veldyn succeeded on their constitution checks and their rash/fungal growth (infestation spores of Zuggtmoy from the melding with Phylo the day before) decreased. Prince Derendil failed his check and a small part of his neck in now covered in red fungal growth.
Nothing happened during the day. In the evening Vanya and Eldeth tried to cut out the piece of fungal growth from Prince Derendils neck and shoulder, healing him afterwards. Prince Derendil is on a leash since he attacked the party yesterday. Eeria and Veldyn convinced Thar'den that Prince Derendil is a threat to the party and should be left behind. Vanya opposed strongly but was overruled. Thar'den then went to Prince Derendil to politely ask him to leave. The Prince understood and started saying goodbye to the party. He thanked Thar'den for his compassion and told Eeria that he understood their choice. He asked Veldyn to visit his father and tell him that his son is still alive and trying to find a way to cure the curse bestowed upon him. Then he hugged Eldeth and finally went to search for Vanya who didn't want to say goodbye at first. They had an emotional conversation where she stated that she did not want him to leave. A successful persuasion check let Prince Derendil reconsider and he agreed to stay with the group for a while longer. Much to the fury of Eeria and Veldyn.


GM notes:
I was really nervous for this session, as I thought Yestbrod might kill the first PC in this adventure (or even TPK). Funny enough the players rolled very high during the fight, Yestabrod on the other side very low and the players figured out very fast to destroy the dead bodies on the ground so Yestabrod couldn't use his legendary actions. So I can just conclude: A very good boss encounter for a party of 4 lvl 4 PCs.

Nevertheless the session was very combat orientated and full of wisdom saving throws. I guess my players actually enjoyed turning slightly mad!?

Prince Derendil does not look very healthy at the moment (infestation spores spreading) and has also a indefinite madness of Zuggtmoy.

 

[Boendal2]

7th session:

Only three players were able to make it, so during battle Veldyn was controlled by me.

Day 31
The session started with Vanya trying to heal Prince Derendil in every way possible: lay on hands, healing potion, potion of resistance, asking Eldeth and Basidia for help, cutting out the infected rash etc. She even prayed to her angelic guardian for help (their relationship is not exactly the best). Sadly Prince Derendil failed his third constitution saving throw in a row and therefore died during the night.

Day 32
As Vanya woke up she saw a dead cold Quaggoth body lying next to her, with already small mushroom sprouts coming out of its skin. As a result Vanya went totally mad. Thar’den tried to calm her down, but as soon as he touched her she started smiting him. She unleashed her skeletal Aasimar wings (first time for this campaign) which caused Eeria and Veldyn to run away frightened. Thar’den continued to try to calm her down. The nearby myconids started to take note and Basidia came to help as well. Vanya attacked him as well, but he accepted the damage calmly. He then started to raise Derendil as spore servant, which infuriated Vanya further. She split the spore servant Derendil in half and nearly took down Thar’den and Basidia, hitting and smiting them like crazy. At last some myconids came to help, grappled and disarmed her. She fell unconscious and was cared for by the party. The next hour consisted of conversation with an understanding Basidia and a very sad cremation of Derendil. Vanya, still unconscious, slept through the whole ceremony. The myconids came to say goodbye and Eeria had a last conversation with Stool. He was asked to join the group but declined, stating that his place was with the myconids. Eeria declined his offer to stay with the myconids. Nevertheless: the party knows they are always welcome at the myconids new place wherever it will be.

After Vanya woke up, she put her old used shield and coat over Derendils grave and took of her holy symbol (necklace with a feather). After failing to save yet another life she wanted to cut all ties with her angelic guardian and left it close to Derendils grave.

Day 32-34
The party left the following day aiming for the Darklake. Eeria fell back, searched for Vanyas holy symbol and took it with her.

After three days of travelling the party reached a stony beach at the Darklake. The giant cave in front of them is nearly completely dark. Thar’den startet to restock their rations by fishing. (Vanya refused to eat mushrooms, which makes survival a bit harder). In the evening a Vrock attacked the party, but was dealt with rather quickly. As soon as the monster was slain a mad Spectator flew towards the party. He kept screaming at the party that they were demons and cannot be trusted, shooting his eye rays at random. The party fled without fighting the spectator. Eldeth, trying to secure their retreat, hit the spectator and he fled immediately, swearing at the PCs and their “demon-powers”.

Day 35-36
During the day a discussion between Eeria, Thar’den and Veldyn ensued, if crossing the Darklake is really the best idea (as there are a lot of dangerous monsters flying over it and are probably also living in it). In the end they decided, that the Darklake is probably as safe as the tunnels of the Underdark and started to cut and carve some taller zurkhwood. Together they managed to make two very decent rowing boats for up to 4 people out of the mushroom caps and stalks they found at the lakeside. This took two days.

The night before the party wanted to depart Vanya, still very quiet, wandered a bit further into the tunnels during her watch. She saw a hooded creature appear and fell back to wake the party up. They waited in ambush, but were spotted by the creature as soon as it exited the tunnel. A voice in their heads told them that there was no need for fighting, and “Grazillax” was not a threat to them. A brief discussion with the Illithid made the PCs aware of an increasing amount of demon attacks and the “society of brilliance”. Thar’den even got some directions to navigate through the Darklake (Duergar runes for North, East, South and West). Nevertheless Grazillax left soon after, as the party didn’t seem enthusiastic over a Mindflayer being present.

At the end of the session the two row boats were nearly finished. Eeria was training Ebert further and working on a small wooden Prince Derendil statue. Thar'den was carving paddles for the boats. Vanya was still very quiet and without magic. Veldyn kept writing and drawing in his spell book.



GM notes:
Ok, time to come clean: I normally rolled all non-combat rolls for Prince Derendil. I rolled a 10 on his final CON saving throw. I didn’t have the Quaggoths stats with me at the time and just declared him dead… only to find out later that he had +3 on CON… which would suffice for a DC of 13. Vanya if you ever read this… I’m sorry… not too much though, as it made for an awesome night of RP, but I do feel quite guilty! Desolée!

At the beachside a Demon attacked, followed up by a Spectator and an Illithid came by two nights later. That was probably too much. The players seriously debated going back through the tunnels... all the way back to Velkynvelve and fighting Ilvara. Note to myself: Do not fill an entry area of a new region with big and famous monsters (stupid metagaming though).

The RP-encounter with Grazillax was very often on the edge of combat. I had to make sure, that the Illithid appeared dangerous and powerful but also not too threatening. In the end I settled for a friendly but arrogant guy that “only had an interest of keeping the balance in the Underdark”. He comforted himself constantly by touching his head with his own tentacles (like a nervous tick) and spoke only telepathically with the PCs.