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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 7813651" data-attributes="member: 6801286">During the last session of my pirate campaign, my players finally confronted a gargantuan octopus/beholder hybrid in a lake on the island of Stoneoar. This creature (named Cyratophobia) summoned forth several Callers of the Deep (water elementals), and Horrific Vasuthants (undead oozes that have an aura that consumes light).For the last few sessions my players had been preparing and over-preparing for this encounter. Each night that they delayed their inevitable fight with the creature, I escalated matters by having Cyratophobia do more and more horrible things to the surrounding lake town and its dwarven people. Meanwhile the players were playing a clever cat and mouse game with the creature, by trying to make secret preparations, and deliberately feeding the beast incorrect information. Birus the Traveler, the current leader of the dwarves, had instructed his men to dig a trench in secret. This trench was cleverly hidden behind dummy market stalls, and covered with a sail. In this trench his best riflemen waited for the creature, while cannons were hidden inside some of the houses near the lake behind closed shutters.But one night the water of the lake became poisoned and black with some sort of putrid ink. Loud splashing sounds could be heard from the lake, and it was clear that an attack was at hand. But because it was a clouded night, it was very dark on the lake...<img src="https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/549600152500043798/620301954232352778/DSC_0841.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The assault started with Cyratophobia flinging petrified dwarves at the shore, thus obliterating these former dwarves in front of their people, and intimidating the dwarven riflemen. It also used its telekinesis to collapse a house on top of the players, while chanting and summoning more minions. The players quickly rallied all their allies and begin targeting the front line of the creature's minions and the riflemen opened fire. The huge clouds of white smoke made it hard to see their opponents however. The players split up to deal with individual minions, some of which made their way into the houses where the cannons were hidden. The captain of the party leaped into his steam powered diving suit, which for the last couple of days he had modified to carry a powerful lens-weapon.As the players were distracted by the minions, Cyratophobia used its Jet ability to flink itself forward into melee. Its huge tentacles immediately spread in all directions, and dozens of eyes opened up on each tentacle to unleash beam attacks, just as a beholder is known to do. It also opened a massive central eye where normally the mouth of an octopus would be, which much like a Beholder cast forward a cone of energy that suppressed magic (including all magical buffs that the players had casted on themselves).The captain of the party had been waiting for this moment, and fired his lens-weapon directly at the central eye, knowing that the creature was sensitive to light. This dealt a large amount of damage, but it also exposed him to a barrage of melee attacks by the creature. Meanwhile the other players were hacking away at the tentacles, and were able to sever 3 of them. But it was the Druid of the party whose sunlight spell was able to end the fight in a spectacular fashion.The best moment in this session, was when the captain decided to hand back the holy hammer of the dwarves to their leader (Birus), shortly after the battle. Although the hammer was a powerful artifact, the player reasoned he didn't need it anymore, and it belonged to the dwarves. I made a note of this action to give bonus exp later.Now with its sinister guardian dead, the players can finally explore the ancient dwarven temple that lies on the bottom of the lake. Will they find a solution to the curse that has haunted the dwarves for centuries?</blockquote>

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