D&D 5E (2014) Keys from the Golden Vault play reports

If you haven't noticed already, Concordant Express ties into Akharin Sangar from Shadow of the Sun (Radiant Citadel). If you have it, its worth reading up on for role playing Omid, since this is quite likely to be a major social encounter.
 

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If you haven't noticed already, Concordant Express ties into Akharin Sangar from Shadow of the Sun (Radiant Citadel). If you have it, its worth reading up on for role playing Omid, since this is quite likely to be a major social encounter.
It's been a while since I read either of those adventures. Since I am running these adventures in Eberron, I will most likely change any connections to other settings, like the Radiant Citadel ones, but I'll still look over it just in case there's anything useful there. (I recall liking the setting of Akharin Sangar but the adventure itself was pretty railroady.)
 

It's been a while since I read either of those adventures. Since I am running these adventures in Eberron, I will most likely change any connections to other settings, like the Radiant Citadel ones, but I'll still look over it just in case there's anything useful there. (I recall liking the setting of Akharin Sangar but the adventure itself was pretty railroady.)
I ran Shadow of the Sun and it went well. I did add in a third ending on a "what would Picard do?" basis that had a trial scene, but my players went all in with team Chaos.

Concordant Express will need quite a lot of work if you are going to turn it into a lightning rail loco. It's very Planescape.
 

I ran Shadow of the Sun and it went well. I did add in a third ending on a "what would Picard do?" basis that had a trial scene, but my players went all in with team Chaos.

Concordant Express will need quite a lot of work if you are going to turn it into a lightning rail loco. It's very Planescape.
I don’t think it will be all that hard. I’ve got a conversion guide from DMs Guild with some good ideas in it.
 

You may recall that I nearly had a similar situation when running "Masterwork Imbroglio", but I managed to have the villain reclaim the painting and run into the cellar with it, forcing the PCs to do a bit more exploration of the hideout. I doubt I'll be able to repeat that here ... but it's possible one of the PCs will get stuck in the window (It is a DC 20 after all!), and they may decide to try their luck going downstairs instead. The players are focused on escaping, not fighting.
OK so I was wrong. This is pretty much exactly how it played out!

One of Vidorant's guards grappled Dimble, who was carrying the bag of holding with the diadem in it. Vidorant then used her Beguiling Whispers to stun him and take the bag off him. She then fled along the hall and down the stairs and through the various rooms on the ground floor before going out her secret door in the external wall (which she closed behind her) and then fled.

The PCs took too long fighting some of the guards before going in pursuit. Vidorant successfully escaped with their bag. Not only that, but we had to pause the game still in combat with the PCs split into three groups!

Nissa managed to get out onto the balcony, where she proceeded to misty step onto the roof of the building across the street. She is now heading back to the inn where they got rooms.

Meanwhile, Dimble went down in Vidorant's office but managed to stabilize. Belwar went speeding after Vidorant and ran through most of the downstairs rooms, finding guards along the way, before using his Fade Away feat by the front door. He escaped outside and went around to the rope ladder, climbed up to the balcony, then shadow stepped to the door (so the guards on the balcony watching for Nissa across the road wouldn't see him), and got back into the office to revive Dimble.

Meanwhile, Catnip is all alone downstairs facing off against some guards. Belwar triggered the invisible stalker when he ran across the library carpet. I told Catnip's player that she'd sensed a presence in the room, so she used faerie fire to illuminate it. Since she was not going into the room with the stairs nor was she taking any of the books in the library, the stalker didn't attack. She asked it what it was. Since it can speak, it told her it was the library guardian. The point is - if she tries to retreat the way she came, by going back up the stairs, it will attack her. But if she follows Belwar, there are the nine or so guards on the ground floor to contend with. She may just have to surrender!

Assuming all (or most) of the PCs do rendezvous back at the inn, the players' plan is to take a long rest, then go to Vidorant's mansion and have Nissa cast locate object on the bag of holding to see if it's inside.

I figure Vidorant, being a master thief, wouldn't go straight back to her own house. She'll either have another place she can lie low in Starilaskur, or she might even hot-tail it out on the next lightning rail - perhaps even going to the PCs' home turf in Sharn. Maybe she has a penthouse apartment there. (She masquerades as a wealthy socialite after all.)

Or maybe she goes somewhere else. Since her ex-partner, Goldenbeard, got her kicked out of the Aurum, she might not want to show her face in Sharn (where he lives).

Anyway, the PCs want to retrieve their bag of holding. I don't want to make it impossible, but I also don't want to make it too easy. This is, perhaps, the consequence for them not even considering her counter-offer.

I've got three weeks till our next session, so plenty of time to figure things out! But we've definitely gone off-script now!
 

Just realized I need to add my Vidorant's Vault play report! Will have to get on that as soon as I can ...

Also, I am prepping to run Shard of the Accursed next, and I'm having some difficulty with the established timeline.

Thousands of years ago: Xeluan the giant and a band of heroes do their stuff. Xeluan builds a citadel for the heroes in a mountain pass. There are earthquakes threatening to destroy everything, so Xeluan sacrifices himself to make some magic wards that protect the area from earthquakes and such. Time passes. The heroes die. The locals die or move away. Everyone forgets about Xeluan, the heroes, and their tomb.

One century ago: Explorers rediscover Xeluan's citadel but not the tomb. A new settlement, Oztocan, springs up around the citadel ruins.

Twenty years ago: An elf named Rilago discovers some old documents in his family archives hinting at the existing of Xeluan's tomb. He travels to Oztocan to search for the tomb, but the then-mayor says no. His preteen daughter, Aminta, overhears and becomes obsessed with finding the tomb. Rilago settles in Oztocan, biding his time.

Years later, the mayor has died, and his son, Tavio, has taken over. Aminta, meanwhile, has joined a criminal gang and become commander of Oztocan's town guard, corrupting all but two guards who are still loyal to Tavio. Aminta is able to strongarm her brother into allowing Rilago and her (who may have become lovers in the intervening time) to look for Xeluan's tomb, which they believe contains fabulous treasures. It doesn't, and so for "reasons" they decide to try carving up the giant's petrified body instead ... but it turns out to be indestructible! Until, that is, Rilago happens to strike the giant's body in frustration while wearing a ring belonging to his ancestor, who was one of the ancient heroes. This "breaks" Xeluan's heart, which results in Rilago's death!

Regardless of which adventure hook is used, the PCs are told to talk to a playwright named Leandro who is in Oztocan. He tells the PCs that Rilago disappeared "a few weeks ago", around the same time that the earthquakes started.

So Rilago has only been dead for a few weeks, but the shard that killed him has not only already made its way out into the wider world but has also developed a reputation as a cursed item complete with numerous false rumors about it!

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. That said, I'm guessing that the author wanted Aminta's mining operation to be a new thing or else she'd have already carved up most of Xeluan's body.

However, upon reading the text more closely, it doesn't look like Aminta's workers are carving up Xeluan's body. They're "collecting" pieces of his body as they fall off. I'm not sure how that is as profitable as the author claims it is. I also don't see how that would require as large an operation as Aminta has set up in the tomb ... but anyway!

I'm thinking I'm going to have to extend the timeline out by a few months at least. So it's been months since Rilago and Aminta found the tomb and Rilago died, but then Aminta took the shard that killed him out into the wider world to assess its value. Perhaps she ended up selling it or it got stolen, but she realized that pieces of Xeluan's body had magical properties and could be of great value. She then had to convince her Onyx Scar bosses to invest in the mining operation. She then had to get all the people and equipment to Oztocan. And so on. So she's only been actively working at collecting pieces of Xeluan's body for a few weeks by the time the PCs get there.

A few months is probably still not enough time for the shard to build up a reputation in the wider world, but I might just downplay that aspect of it. Knowing my players, none of them will want to attune to it (even temporarily) anyway, so it might as well just be a nonmagical piece of crystal for all they'll experience in the game!


As an aside, there's also a bit of a discrepancy regarding the spirits of the ancient heroes. On the one hand, Edino the evil elf Onyx Scar mage, has been conducting experiments and has "bound the souls of Xeluan's companions" to fallen pieces of his body. And yet, if the PCs disturb their crypt, the companions' spirits manifest as angry wraiths. I'm not sure how that's supposed to work ... unless the wraiths are meant to be like echoes or something and not the companions' actual spirits. This is a bit of a nothingburger for me, though, because Rilago's ghost pops up right at the entrance to the crypt and begs the PCs not to enter lest they anger the spirits. Knowing my players, they'll listen to him and won't encounter the wraiths anyway.
 
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