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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 9780333" data-attributes="member: 6704184">Gathering Storm: A Trip To The Library(Context since I don’t post most sessions) Previously…Two years ago:  the heroes known in the papers as The Storm Breakers attended a Day of Mourning memorial that turned into a terrorist attack by an aberrant Dragonmarked mutant. The mutant ended up being the old assistant of one Brenn Ir’Gadden, a Brelish noble who some members of the party had saved from an Emerald Claw necromancer’s plot on the Day of Mourning itself. The heroes sprang into action and saved the city from an Eldritch machine that could have temporarily turned off the manifest zone levitation powers in the city, potentially turning the city of Sharn into a pile of rubble. They were given a large townhouse and a pile of money as reward, and went on to work with Brenn on several other jobs protecting regular folks from chaos, including a heist done during a Great Tourney held in Sharn, and a counter-heist on the Lightning Rail. 1 year ago: the team encountered a cult of aberrations with a semi-controlled chuul-drake matriarch in a tower off the coast of Sharn. The tower was ancient and intricately designed with floors and stairs that could be moved and rearranged, and swarms of dolgaunts, chuul-drakes, corrupted plant monsters, and aberrant dragon cultists. Once cleared out (a very fun puzzle-battle-chase) the tower was revealed to have belonged to the draconic master of the kobold wizard, and then to the dragon that killed said PC’s mentor. This lead to a thread that brought them to Karrnath, where the Karrnathi Blood of Vol Vryloka Paladin found that her little sister was acting as a secret operative for King Kaius I, a vampire. Before this could be resolved they found Emeral Claw agents and fought them, leading to a very complex puzzle-ritual to stop the leader’s body from exploding in a necrotic nuke. Lots of research and investigation and weird puzzle adventures later, they have realized that the Lady Illmarrow is Erandis Vol, and that she is working with an ancient red dragon obsessed with using the delkyr (and necromancy) to break The Prophecy and become the progenitor of a new world, and that he may be the father of Erandis Vol, and somehow the Mark of Death is involved. Present day: The team got an airship, and a target on their backs, as this is one of the first generation of non-elemental airships, running instead of magic energy called aether that is collected and channeled through Syberis crystals. On their first outing, heading to the Library of Korranberg, they are beset by marauders on flying wingsuits, flying mounts, and small two person flying craft, and an epic 3d battle ensued. They won the day, using some mechanics for airship combat that I adapted from SW5e mixed with 5e ship combat and some of my own ideas, it was great fun, and they finally made it to the library. Things go well, they are researching under the watchful eye of staff, when alarms go off and they are enlisted to help stop a group of vandalous thieves who end up being some sort of cultists tied to necromancy and a red dragon (sound familiar?) The thing I’m most proud of was managing four PCs all researching their own things without anyone getting bored, and…The fight! I had very few stats for the enemies, and didn’t even have a set number of them. The group is level 11, they had one NPC as backup, and faced a dozen or so enemies. The main one, The Witch, was loosely based on a CR 8 IIRC Death Cultist, but with legendary actions, and the ability to kill her followers in order to heal. Her lieutenants were two “dragoons” with hp and other stats of a similar cr Knight off DDB, but with a Dragoon Leap, Lay on Hands, and Smite. Then there were regular knights, a clutch of archers, and assorted assassins. I had hp, damage, etc, but the fight was almost entirely improvised beyond the basics, and it was WILD. Several PCs came with a good Smite or Death Ray of dropping and would have without proactive healing and great tactics and rolls, and every was totally locked in every turn as things unfolded. Oh! And I had a sort of rhyming motif in the session. During research one party member kept making perception and investigation checks to keep tabs on librarians and track potential points of egress in case they needed to make a fast exist, and this lead to them finding out very quickly as each check on their turn got them more aware of some sort of bad situation unfolding and got them into the fight before all the enemies were in the library. Then during the fight the Paladin caught something off about the witch, and subsequent insight checks and a perception check clued her in that the witch was action the monk’s sister, which lead to the monk keeping her from being killed by the party. Overall, it was great. We lost track of time, everyone got their cool moments, and tension was high. Oh! And the wizard used Feather Fall on a falling Dragoon, leading the second Dragoon to fall onto the first, and both took 30 falling damage. It was fantastic. I love when the PCs hit me out of nowhere like that.</blockquote>

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