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PHDungeons Nentir Vale homebrew
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<blockquote data-quote="PHDungeon" data-source="post: 5568375" data-attributes="member: 86320"><p>Wherein the heroes find themselves in Acererak's Shadow Tomb and continue their explorations.</p><p></p><p>Melek's journal:</p><p></p><p>Smar has been incredibly despondent for the last couple of days. The encounter with that undead monstrosity has obviously come close to unhinging his mind. Or perhaps something happened to him in the pit that he fell into, something that we don't know about. He seems to be getting a little better and even showed some signs of life in the room with the tapestries. I'm a little bit hopeful that he'll soon snap out of it.</p><p></p><p>We stepped out of the gateway and found ourselves in a small chamber with a single exit. The chamber itself was some 25 feet by 25 feet in size, with 4 columns of exceedingly hot magical fire about 5 feet from each corner. We ourselves were either in the columns of fire or between them. The fire was hot enough that even I felt a small amount of pain, my companions found it exceedingly discomforting.</p><p></p><p>Beyond the small chamber was a bubbling pit of acid some 15 feet across leading into a larger chamber. At the end of that chamber was a throne and sitting upon that throne was a skeletal figure with crown and scepter starting to stir.</p><p></p><p>It brought flashbacks to mind of my earlier experience so many years ago. Or, perhaps, fevered hallucinations caused by my madness. </p><p></p><p>Kanis was the first to recover from the shock of arrival and he bounded forward, easily leaping the pit. I admit to being a bit surprised that the floor immediately beyond the pit was actually solid and not a trap. But as he moved forward the trap became apparent as the floor just beyond the acid fell away revealing a great hole. We heard crackling sounds and saw the discharge of lightning, followed by a sickening thud and cries of pain from far below.</p><p></p><p>Harbek then ran forward, ignoring the fact that he was aflame. He leaped onto the small platform between the acid and the pit and looked down, calling out that Kanis was alive but surrounded by a multitude of undead. And there was a lightning trap only a few feet below the lip of the pit.</p><p></p><p>The magics of this place made it fairly difficult to open an Arcane Gate to the ground beyond the pit but I managed to successfully open it and stepped into the liches chamber. I was followed immediately by Ardyn who managed to open a similar kind of gate called a Root Gate down to nearly the floor of the pit. Next time we have to plan things a little better since my gate has more range and would have reached the bottom. Ardyn also tossed his rope of climbing over to Harbek</p><p></p><p>For once even Turak chose to be a little discrete and used the Arcane Gate to pass the dangers and then charged the Liche.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately Kanis managed to escape the undead before they could do much damage to him by first extracting himself from the spikes and then leaping into the air and through the Root Gate up into the main chamber.</p><p></p><p>During the fight with the liche we managed to immerse him in the acid several times. I managed to teleport him in once with my Flitting Shadows and controlled his mind another time to get him to throw himself back in.</p><p></p><p>Although his magics were strong and he even had the ability to teleport we managed to prevail fairly quickly although all of us were quite damaged in the process.</p><p></p><p>His Sceptre turns out to be the equivalent of a Rod of Corruption, an item highly prized by warlocks. His crown, from all appearances, is just a highly valuable piece of jewelry.</p><p></p><p>During a reasonably short rest filled with many Runes of Mending we searched the room and the throne. The throne could be pushed aside. Underneath the throne we found what is obviously an Iron Flask, complete with what is presumably the command word engraved on it. Both Harbek and myself believe that the flask is probably full but neither of us knows of any means of determining what is inside except to open it. Not being quite that foolish or desperate we decided to not open it except under the most dire circumstances. Harbek has been carrying the flask ever since.</p><p></p><p>Our search for the Liches phylactery was unsuccessful. Unfortunately he was not so stupid as to leave it in the throne room. Pity, really.</p><p></p><p>Behind the throne was a very low passageway cursed with some apparently moderately weak necrotic energy. Kanis went through the tunnel as he is small enough to be able to move unimpeded. Beyond he found a chamber with no obvious exits and above him he saw a great gelatinous mass where the ceiling should be. In the short instants that he stayed there a few fragments of the ceiling fell to the ground, bubbling away acidically. Although there are likely ways to remove the danger we decided that now was not the time to go there.</p><p></p><p>After some discussion we decided that we should rest in the throne room for a day despite the fact that it was only a couple of hours since we had rested in the Bole. But this place has already convinced us to be very, very cautious.</p><p></p><p>I spent the time mastering yet another ritual from Belladonna's book. Kanis and Smar spent a lot of time talking together. While there was some snarling from time to time they didn't kill each other so all must be at least reasonably well. </p><p></p><p>Eventually we all managed to get some sleep although while I was on guard I noticed that everybody seemed to be twitching and moaning in their sleep. </p><p></p><p>That night, my dreams were even more vivid and disturbed than usual. I kept running the procedure to get by those wards in my head. I kept seeing that foul undead monster in my dreams. But in my dreams it talked to me, or some of the spirits that composed it talked to me. They told me much of the wonders of Moil when it was alive, much of the time before my people were cursed to become Tieflings. I have only vague recollections, but I believe that I was on the cusp of some great epiphany when I was jolted awake by Smar screaming in his sleep.</p><p></p><p>Somewhat refreshed, or at least no longer able to pretend to sleep, we decided that the time to press on had arrived. I again cast the Endure Elements and Sustenance rituals before we started out.</p><p></p><p>I cast Arcane Gate to allow us to reach the bottom of the pit trap. There we found a chamber, a level, and a trap door . After some discussion everybody returned back to the top. I then used a mage hand to pull down the lever while jumping through the gate. This caused a great stone block to fall in the place where the lever had stood. It would have been near certain death for anybody there.</p><p></p><p>Where the block had been there was now a tunnel. We proceeded along that tunnel and soon found ourselves looking into a long room with perhaps 20 or so human skulls on pedestals. Some of the skulls had gems for eyes or teeth, some were just skulls. The one directly opposite the doorway was the only one that had both eye sockets and teeth engemmed. All very reminiscent of the final confrontation with Acerak so many years ago.</p><p></p><p>We proceeded moderately cautiously and systematically but it turned out the entire room was comparatively harmless if reasonable precautions were taken. There were some spear traps at either end of the long hall, triggered when the main skull was lifted. But we had already noticed the trap and, at any rate, were lifting all the skulls via mage hand prior to smashing them to pieces.</p><p></p><p>Although we searched high and low we were unable to find any other exits from the chamber and so returned back to the bottom of the pit and the trap door.</p><p></p><p>Raising that door, we descended into a corridor leading into a large room with tapestries lining the walls and many tapestries hanging from frames within the room blocking most of our line of sight. What smelled like good, wholesome food was waiting for us atop many tables. I hastened to point out the obvious to my companions that the food should not be touched or sampled in any way but I believe that even the more feral of the group had already come to that conclusion.</p><p></p><p>The tapestries showed scenes of life and battle from long ago including fights between Bael Turath and the Empire of Nerath,</p><p></p><p>As we examined the tapestries we noticed that there was a figure in one of the tapestries close to the door, an anachronistic figure of a paladin of Rao stared out from a tapestry showing a scene centuries before Rao was even known. </p><p></p><p>As we entered the room, 2 ghostly figures appeared and transformed into beautiful women dressed in the garb of noble women of Bael Turath. Kanis called out to one of them in Skanzi that she should stay away and then shot her when she approached . I called out to her in the language of Bael Turath that we were not necessarily enemies but she replied that she was so hungry, so hungry. I perhaps imagined the very sad look in her eyes as she said this and the despair in her voice.</p><p></p><p>A third spectral undead then appeared and a general battle was joined. I wish that there had been some means of dealing with this problem more peacefully. </p><p></p><p>It wasn't a complete surprise when the tapestries also joined in, trying to engulf any living being that got too close to them. Although they managed to strike one or two of us during the battle they had little effect.</p><p></p><p>The battle was another hard fought battle with incorporeal undead. I don't mean to sound jaded when I say that, from a tactical point of view, it wasn't particularly different from the other battles we have faced here. The most significant thing by far from my point of view was that the Maiden extended her boon to me and dazed one of the ghosts when it struck me from surprise. </p><p></p><p>Eventually we prevailed over the ghosts. I was the one who put in the final blow against the woman that I had been talking to. I will swear by both the Maiden and by Odin that, as my eldritch blast of flame blew her apart, that a smile came to her lips and she mouthed a quiet thank you.</p><p></p><p>We then proceeded to examine the room, especially the tapestries, in great detail from a safe distance. In only 2 of them did we say anything that seemed out of place. There was the Paladin and a female figure that would appear to be some form of sorceress in another. I then proceeded to burn all of the other tapestries from a safe distance with my eldritch blast. Behind one of the tapestries a corridor was revealed.</p><p></p><p>Neither Harbek or myself were able to come to any conclusion as to whether or not a Remove Affliction ritual might be able to restore these people to life from their tapestries. When we have more time we should return here and see if my Aria of Revelation combined with his magics will allow us to come to a better understanding of the situation. I am fairly sure that a Remove Affliction will, at worst, accomplish nothing. While destroying the tapestry may free them it is at least as likely to slay them. </p><p></p><p>[ This has not yet happened. It describes the next extended rest. All is flavour to describe his retraining and new feats ]</p><p></p><p>After awhile I managed to fall asleep and my dreams returned.</p><p></p><p>In some of them I was present in the scenes shown in the tapestries that I had burned, participating in the life of my ancestors. As can happen in dreams time passed slowly. It was as if I managed to spend days or even weeks in a single night. </p><p></p><p>I also clearly recall having a long discussion with the shade of the woman who I had talked to in the tapestry room and then had put to rest, a woman called Phelaia. She told me that we had done her a great favour. She was a seer in life. She was able to fortell that it was possible for me to redeem the Tieflings, or at least some of them. That I had to continue by proceeding along the path along which I had taken the first faltering steps. I had to put all my infernal heritage behind me, I had to control the bloodlust and anger. I had to give up any and all abilities granted by the devils so long ago. Only then would I be able to again become human and only then would I be able to redeem my people.</p><p></p><p>I also had a long conversation with Perrinne. I was right, she was a female. I saw her as a young woman in her late 20's but I don't know if that is what she looked like when she died or if it just how she thought of herself. During the conversation she pointed out that it was often possible to use a little of ones own power when casting Rituals and use far less components and cast the ritual far more skillfully to boot. To do so is a somewhat dangerous and quite tasking undertaking and should only be undertaken on Rituals that are quite basic and straightforward and it should never, ever be done more than once in a single day regardless of the circumstances. </p><p></p><p>When I woke up and again cast Endure Elements I could see what she had meant. Although I did not actually do so due to the fact that I might need it for a far more important ritual I was absolutely certain that I can now take advantage of this new technique.</p><p></p><p>It seems more and more likely to me that my dreams are true. But it is definitely still a possibility that they are just a construct of my own insanity and I am only remembering long lost fragments of knowledge from my days at the Academy.</p><p></p><p>But whether the dreams are true or not I am going to act upon them. The Tieflings deserve better than they currently have. And, longshot though it may be, I am going to strive to give them that chance.</p><p></p><p>Listen to me. It is almost as if I've forgotten that I am currently in some dark, cursed place of incredible danger and am quite likely to perish here. Its almost as if I've actually got some hope in my heart.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="PHDungeon, post: 5568375, member: 86320"] Wherein the heroes find themselves in Acererak's Shadow Tomb and continue their explorations. Melek's journal: Smar has been incredibly despondent for the last couple of days. The encounter with that undead monstrosity has obviously come close to unhinging his mind. Or perhaps something happened to him in the pit that he fell into, something that we don't know about. He seems to be getting a little better and even showed some signs of life in the room with the tapestries. I'm a little bit hopeful that he'll soon snap out of it. We stepped out of the gateway and found ourselves in a small chamber with a single exit. The chamber itself was some 25 feet by 25 feet in size, with 4 columns of exceedingly hot magical fire about 5 feet from each corner. We ourselves were either in the columns of fire or between them. The fire was hot enough that even I felt a small amount of pain, my companions found it exceedingly discomforting. Beyond the small chamber was a bubbling pit of acid some 15 feet across leading into a larger chamber. At the end of that chamber was a throne and sitting upon that throne was a skeletal figure with crown and scepter starting to stir. It brought flashbacks to mind of my earlier experience so many years ago. Or, perhaps, fevered hallucinations caused by my madness. Kanis was the first to recover from the shock of arrival and he bounded forward, easily leaping the pit. I admit to being a bit surprised that the floor immediately beyond the pit was actually solid and not a trap. But as he moved forward the trap became apparent as the floor just beyond the acid fell away revealing a great hole. We heard crackling sounds and saw the discharge of lightning, followed by a sickening thud and cries of pain from far below. Harbek then ran forward, ignoring the fact that he was aflame. He leaped onto the small platform between the acid and the pit and looked down, calling out that Kanis was alive but surrounded by a multitude of undead. And there was a lightning trap only a few feet below the lip of the pit. The magics of this place made it fairly difficult to open an Arcane Gate to the ground beyond the pit but I managed to successfully open it and stepped into the liches chamber. I was followed immediately by Ardyn who managed to open a similar kind of gate called a Root Gate down to nearly the floor of the pit. Next time we have to plan things a little better since my gate has more range and would have reached the bottom. Ardyn also tossed his rope of climbing over to Harbek For once even Turak chose to be a little discrete and used the Arcane Gate to pass the dangers and then charged the Liche. Fortunately Kanis managed to escape the undead before they could do much damage to him by first extracting himself from the spikes and then leaping into the air and through the Root Gate up into the main chamber. During the fight with the liche we managed to immerse him in the acid several times. I managed to teleport him in once with my Flitting Shadows and controlled his mind another time to get him to throw himself back in. Although his magics were strong and he even had the ability to teleport we managed to prevail fairly quickly although all of us were quite damaged in the process. His Sceptre turns out to be the equivalent of a Rod of Corruption, an item highly prized by warlocks. His crown, from all appearances, is just a highly valuable piece of jewelry. During a reasonably short rest filled with many Runes of Mending we searched the room and the throne. The throne could be pushed aside. Underneath the throne we found what is obviously an Iron Flask, complete with what is presumably the command word engraved on it. Both Harbek and myself believe that the flask is probably full but neither of us knows of any means of determining what is inside except to open it. Not being quite that foolish or desperate we decided to not open it except under the most dire circumstances. Harbek has been carrying the flask ever since. Our search for the Liches phylactery was unsuccessful. Unfortunately he was not so stupid as to leave it in the throne room. Pity, really. Behind the throne was a very low passageway cursed with some apparently moderately weak necrotic energy. Kanis went through the tunnel as he is small enough to be able to move unimpeded. Beyond he found a chamber with no obvious exits and above him he saw a great gelatinous mass where the ceiling should be. In the short instants that he stayed there a few fragments of the ceiling fell to the ground, bubbling away acidically. Although there are likely ways to remove the danger we decided that now was not the time to go there. After some discussion we decided that we should rest in the throne room for a day despite the fact that it was only a couple of hours since we had rested in the Bole. But this place has already convinced us to be very, very cautious. I spent the time mastering yet another ritual from Belladonna's book. Kanis and Smar spent a lot of time talking together. While there was some snarling from time to time they didn't kill each other so all must be at least reasonably well. Eventually we all managed to get some sleep although while I was on guard I noticed that everybody seemed to be twitching and moaning in their sleep. That night, my dreams were even more vivid and disturbed than usual. I kept running the procedure to get by those wards in my head. I kept seeing that foul undead monster in my dreams. But in my dreams it talked to me, or some of the spirits that composed it talked to me. They told me much of the wonders of Moil when it was alive, much of the time before my people were cursed to become Tieflings. I have only vague recollections, but I believe that I was on the cusp of some great epiphany when I was jolted awake by Smar screaming in his sleep. Somewhat refreshed, or at least no longer able to pretend to sleep, we decided that the time to press on had arrived. I again cast the Endure Elements and Sustenance rituals before we started out. I cast Arcane Gate to allow us to reach the bottom of the pit trap. There we found a chamber, a level, and a trap door . After some discussion everybody returned back to the top. I then used a mage hand to pull down the lever while jumping through the gate. This caused a great stone block to fall in the place where the lever had stood. It would have been near certain death for anybody there. Where the block had been there was now a tunnel. We proceeded along that tunnel and soon found ourselves looking into a long room with perhaps 20 or so human skulls on pedestals. Some of the skulls had gems for eyes or teeth, some were just skulls. The one directly opposite the doorway was the only one that had both eye sockets and teeth engemmed. All very reminiscent of the final confrontation with Acerak so many years ago. We proceeded moderately cautiously and systematically but it turned out the entire room was comparatively harmless if reasonable precautions were taken. There were some spear traps at either end of the long hall, triggered when the main skull was lifted. But we had already noticed the trap and, at any rate, were lifting all the skulls via mage hand prior to smashing them to pieces. Although we searched high and low we were unable to find any other exits from the chamber and so returned back to the bottom of the pit and the trap door. Raising that door, we descended into a corridor leading into a large room with tapestries lining the walls and many tapestries hanging from frames within the room blocking most of our line of sight. What smelled like good, wholesome food was waiting for us atop many tables. I hastened to point out the obvious to my companions that the food should not be touched or sampled in any way but I believe that even the more feral of the group had already come to that conclusion. The tapestries showed scenes of life and battle from long ago including fights between Bael Turath and the Empire of Nerath, As we examined the tapestries we noticed that there was a figure in one of the tapestries close to the door, an anachronistic figure of a paladin of Rao stared out from a tapestry showing a scene centuries before Rao was even known. As we entered the room, 2 ghostly figures appeared and transformed into beautiful women dressed in the garb of noble women of Bael Turath. Kanis called out to one of them in Skanzi that she should stay away and then shot her when she approached . I called out to her in the language of Bael Turath that we were not necessarily enemies but she replied that she was so hungry, so hungry. I perhaps imagined the very sad look in her eyes as she said this and the despair in her voice. A third spectral undead then appeared and a general battle was joined. I wish that there had been some means of dealing with this problem more peacefully. It wasn't a complete surprise when the tapestries also joined in, trying to engulf any living being that got too close to them. Although they managed to strike one or two of us during the battle they had little effect. The battle was another hard fought battle with incorporeal undead. I don't mean to sound jaded when I say that, from a tactical point of view, it wasn't particularly different from the other battles we have faced here. The most significant thing by far from my point of view was that the Maiden extended her boon to me and dazed one of the ghosts when it struck me from surprise. Eventually we prevailed over the ghosts. I was the one who put in the final blow against the woman that I had been talking to. I will swear by both the Maiden and by Odin that, as my eldritch blast of flame blew her apart, that a smile came to her lips and she mouthed a quiet thank you. We then proceeded to examine the room, especially the tapestries, in great detail from a safe distance. In only 2 of them did we say anything that seemed out of place. There was the Paladin and a female figure that would appear to be some form of sorceress in another. I then proceeded to burn all of the other tapestries from a safe distance with my eldritch blast. Behind one of the tapestries a corridor was revealed. Neither Harbek or myself were able to come to any conclusion as to whether or not a Remove Affliction ritual might be able to restore these people to life from their tapestries. When we have more time we should return here and see if my Aria of Revelation combined with his magics will allow us to come to a better understanding of the situation. I am fairly sure that a Remove Affliction will, at worst, accomplish nothing. While destroying the tapestry may free them it is at least as likely to slay them. [ This has not yet happened. It describes the next extended rest. All is flavour to describe his retraining and new feats ] After awhile I managed to fall asleep and my dreams returned. In some of them I was present in the scenes shown in the tapestries that I had burned, participating in the life of my ancestors. As can happen in dreams time passed slowly. It was as if I managed to spend days or even weeks in a single night. I also clearly recall having a long discussion with the shade of the woman who I had talked to in the tapestry room and then had put to rest, a woman called Phelaia. She told me that we had done her a great favour. She was a seer in life. She was able to fortell that it was possible for me to redeem the Tieflings, or at least some of them. That I had to continue by proceeding along the path along which I had taken the first faltering steps. I had to put all my infernal heritage behind me, I had to control the bloodlust and anger. I had to give up any and all abilities granted by the devils so long ago. Only then would I be able to again become human and only then would I be able to redeem my people. I also had a long conversation with Perrinne. I was right, she was a female. I saw her as a young woman in her late 20's but I don't know if that is what she looked like when she died or if it just how she thought of herself. During the conversation she pointed out that it was often possible to use a little of ones own power when casting Rituals and use far less components and cast the ritual far more skillfully to boot. To do so is a somewhat dangerous and quite tasking undertaking and should only be undertaken on Rituals that are quite basic and straightforward and it should never, ever be done more than once in a single day regardless of the circumstances. When I woke up and again cast Endure Elements I could see what she had meant. Although I did not actually do so due to the fact that I might need it for a far more important ritual I was absolutely certain that I can now take advantage of this new technique. It seems more and more likely to me that my dreams are true. But it is definitely still a possibility that they are just a construct of my own insanity and I am only remembering long lost fragments of knowledge from my days at the Academy. But whether the dreams are true or not I am going to act upon them. The Tieflings deserve better than they currently have. And, longshot though it may be, I am going to strive to give them that chance. Listen to me. It is almost as if I've forgotten that I am currently in some dark, cursed place of incredible danger and am quite likely to perish here. Its almost as if I've actually got some hope in my heart. [/QUOTE]
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