NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 8729210" data-attributes="member: 6809274">32nd session of Monte Cook's 3E Banewarrens campaign run with Shadow of the Demon Lord on Owlbear Rodeo.Five player characters at Level 6:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dwarf Berserker/Warrior. Heir to a lost kingdom. His trinket is half of a treasure map.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Elf Wizard/Magician. Outcast from elven lands, raised in Ptolus, keeper of a dark secret. His magical traditions are Arcana, Teleportation, Chaos, and Fey.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Goblin Oracle/Magician. Responsible for the destruction of his tribe. Specialized in the Fire and Forbidden magic traditions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Changeling Spellbinder/Rogue. Created by House Vladaam to replace a child they kidnapped and held in servitude. Naturally, she wants revenge. Two weapon fighter with the Battle tradition.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Human Paladin/Priest. Cleric of Lothian, the primary god of Ptolus. His magical traditions are Life, Theurgy, and Battle. His wife was murdered by undead and now he seeks answers.</li> </ul>The characters are raiding the underground headquarters of the Pactlords of the Quaan. Their goal: Destroy the Quaan--the magical font that binds the Pactlords in common cause. With it destroyed, the pact will break, and the evil Pactlords will turn on each other. This session began with the characters locked in combat with a balhannoth -- a tentacled monstrosity with the ability to extract your greatest desires from deep within your mind and bring them to life. (Originally, I was planning to adapt the stats of the 5E balhannoth. But I ended up reskinning a 4E roper. The roper's a great creature and with increasing frequency I'm using 4E monsters in Shadow of the Demon Lord. I use bloodied hit points as health, convert all damage dice to d6's, and eyeball the rest of the numbers.) Early in the battle, most of the characters were still trapped in their vision. The other characters worked to free them from the balhannoth's tentatcles and bring them back to the real world. The changeling actually wanted to stay in her dream -- she was infiltrating the estate of House Vladaam and uncovering its secrets. Improvising, I decided that the balhannoth's psychic powers had somehow connected her into the psyche of the Vladaams and that the information she was learned was genuine. In the attic, she found the patriarch of the family locked away by his children. She thought he could be a powerful ally. Touching the bars imprisoning him, however, set off a magical alarm. Aliastar, his son, appeared. The changeling stabbed Aliastar. He sunk to his knees, mortally wounded. With his dying breath, he told her to find him in the real world. Together, they could double cross his sister. Some family!The balhannoth hit hard. It took most of the characters' resources to defeat it. In its gizzard they found the gruesome remains of previous victims and a small fortune in coin.At this point, the characters were depleted. They couldn't rest, or even return later. They had to push forward. But they lacked the resources to accomplish both their goals: 1) free the wizard's mentor from the Pactlord's prison 2) destroy the Quaan. They had to choose one or the other. The dwarf proposed they destroy the Quaan first. In the chaos that would inevitably follow they could sneak into the prison. Good plan!The characters continued to deeper into the lair. They encountered a displacer beast guarding an intersection, but the elf successfully charmed it. Rounding a corner, they neared a massive cavern. They couldn't see into the cavern yet, but they could hear strange chanting and speaking from within. (I played the iconic heart rip scene from Temple of Doom to communicate the vibe.) It was a ritual to convert a monster into a Pactlord by submerging it into the black liquid of the Quaan. Next session: The Quaan!</blockquote>

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