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Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 8425601" data-attributes="member: 6809274">30th session of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. By now we are waaaay off track. Previously, the 3 player characters had chopped down a dozen members of the city watch and become Waterdeep's most wanted. Realizing this was bad (a classic case of too little, too late) they decided to break into the mausoleum, steal the watchmen's corpses, and bring them back to life with an artifact procured in a previous adventure.It's times like this I love this game.As this session opened, the PCs had the corpses in their portable hole. They took the bodies to a warehouse obtained by the rogue's underworld associates. There they conducted a dozen rituals and slowly brought back to life each of the watchmen. The PCs drugged them to ensure they woke up later, after the ritual was complete and the PCs had time to escape.It was right about this time that the rogue's player had a notion. He was worried that one of their enemies might sneak in after they left and murder all the watchmen -- again -- thereby keeping the PCs on the wrong side of the law forever. My DM brain thought: "What a great idea! Yoink!" In truth, I'd been looking for the right moment for one of the campaign villains to try one last screw job, and this was it. So the PCs made a big show of leaving the warehouse, then doubled back. The rogue and wizard hid in the warehouse. The fighter donned a disguise and circled the street outside.After an hour, an imp manifested inside the warehouse. This imp belonged to an evil mage of the Arcane Brotherhood, one of the major antagonists of the campaign. As the PCs watched, the imp conducted a brief summoning ritual. For some reason, they did not try to stop it. Eventually, a glabrezu demon sprang forth. With truesight it quickly spotted the rogue and wizard. Initiative was rolled. The rogue won. The first thing he did was run outside to alert the fighter, leaving the wizard to face the demon alone.Outside, a cadre of boggles ganked the fighter. They were attempting to steal the artifact that powered the resurrections -- a silver chalice blessed by the demigod Siamorphe. The evil mage desires this artifact because reasons. The fighter used action surge and dropped several of the boggles. But one boggle managed to steal the fighter's backpack. It teleported to the roof to flee. The fighter slipped through the boggle's own portal and fought it for control of the backpack. With backpack in hand, the fighter jumped through a skylight into the warehouse.The rogue finished off the remaining boggles, then slipped back inside.Meanwhile, the wizard had been locked in solo combat with the glabrezu. I decided that the glabrezu would use melee attacks to kill the wizard, saving its spells for the tougher fighter and rogue. Unfortunately, I was rolling terrible, and most of its four attacks per turn were missing. The wizard (with two levels of cleric) critted on an upcast inflict wounds and bloodied the glabrezu in a single hit. Soon both of them were in single digit hit points.The fighter missed his attack, then was incapacitated by power word stun. Confusion caused the rogue to attack the downed fighter while the wizard lost all actions for a turn. As the final round started, the initiative order was rogue, demon, wizard, fighter. Whoever got in the first hit would score a kill. The rogue got a lucky roll to shake off the effects of confusion. He fired his crossbow at the demon -- miss. He used a bonus action to strike with his short sword -- hit. The demon fell.All of this was witnessed by the watchmen, returned to life, roused from their drugged slumber. As one, they stood and applauded the heroes.Next session: The Arcane Brotherhood!</blockquote>

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