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Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 8646695" data-attributes="member: 6809274">39th session of my Neverwinter campaign. Three characters: half-orc vengeance paladin, human genie warlock, drow evoker wizard. At the end of the session they all advanced to 8th level.Running a modified version of Hall of Harsh Reflections -- an adventure from the Age of Worms adventure path in Dungeon magazine -- which is part of longterm plotline about a cabal of aberrations scheming to destroy Neverwinter. The players haven't yet realized it, but while sleeping they were abducted by a mind flayer. They are now trapped in a dreamscape constructed by the mind flayer as it attempts to break their will and turn them into thralls. They believe they've somehow jumped into a future version of a post-apocalyptic Neverwinter.The mind flayer is allied with a group of rogue drow called the Night's Kiss. The wizard's sister leads them. When the session started, the characters entered the sister's chambers. She is aiding the aberrations in infiltrating the surface world in order to save her subterranean drow city. She offered her brother an alliance. He refused. The characters attacked. The highlight of the fight was the wizard polymorphing his sister into a sloth. Yeah. A sloth. Only in D&D! The sister's invisible ally hit the wizard twice with a lightning bolt but failed to break his concentration and took a pair of fireballs in return.Moving on, the characters entered a maze and were ambushed by grimlocks. That was over fast.The characters located the final chamber. There, they found the mind flayer leering over three unconscious captives. Who were the captives? The player characters! Only here did they finally realize they were trapped in the mind flayer's dream. If he defeated them in the dream, he would break their will, and they would awaken as his thralls. The battle that followed was a nail biter. It was exactly what I wanted out of a fight with a mind flayer. It hit them with a confusion spell that neutralized the paladin and warlock for one round. It took a hit from the wizard, who only had a few lower level spells remaining. The paladin charged and smited the mind flayer to 2 hit points. But then the mind flayer hit all three characters with mind blast -- and all failed their saving throws. He wrapped his tentacles around the paladin's head. Then extracted his brain. That was the first time in decades of gaming I managed to kill a PC with mind flayer brain extraction. Epic! Moments later, the warlock shook off the effects of the mind blast and slew the mind flayer with her eldritch blast. All three characters awoke from the dream -- alive!Next session: Rude awakening!</blockquote>

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