Last night’s game -- #13 of the campaign – was extremely exciting despite a complete lack of traditional combats. It was all about the skill challenges! But first, the plot summary:
We had ended the previous game in the Bubbling Fens, one-time gathering place of lizard man forces, and rumored home-base of our enemies Xiras and Aline. Now we cautiously entered the only permanent structure – a large wooden hut up on stilts.
Its interior was way creepy. For one thing, it was unnaturally cold and dark. For another, its central feature was a rumpled, stained bed. Silk cloth hung billowing from the ceiling – as well as a partially-plucked dead duck. Gross. Wardrobes were filled mostly with expensive (and in some cases, centuries-old) dresses, and we discovered an assortment of perfumes. The whole place looked and felt like a nasty lizardish boudoir.
We also found, neatly folded and pressed, the Grey Guard uniforms that had been previously been stolen in the lizards’ “yoink the weapons” ritual. Toiva and Doc Caldwell found some (but not all) of their own pilfered belongings, and we discovered a pair of magic items as well – speaking of “Yoink!”
Beneath the rich carpet on the floor we found a magic circle inscribed with draconic runes. The university-educated Doc read them to us – the wording indicated that we needed an (un)holy symbol of Sklar (the evil Lizard Man god) to open the portal. (It also indicated that non-Sklar-worshippers might be detained in some way…. Hmmm.) The (un)holy symbol wasn’t hard to come by, as Sklar’s symbol is a wet feather from a drowned duck. Caldwell plucked one, soaked it with water from his water-skin, and dropped it onto the circle. The wooden floor warbled and was replaced by a staircase going down into the darkness. (Which was odd, since the hut was on stilts – we should have been looking down at the swamp beneath the hut.) Before anyone could say “check for traps,” Toiva descended. She quickly vanished into the shadows, and wouldn’t answer our calls, so we charged down after her.
Each member of the party found themselves in a tiny isolated prison made from tall weeds. We could hear each other, indicating that our individual prisons were near each other. More disturbing, the air felt wrong – with each breath, we had the sensation that our lungs were about to fill with water. And most disturbing, Caldwell and Toiva, who are more devout that the rest of us in their worship of non-Sklar deities, had taken on the visual appearance of waterlogged cadavers.
Strontium discovered that, beneath the mud of its prison, its perimeter was ringed with runes similar to those around the portal entrance in the hut. After it shouted its discovery, Caldwell, who still had his feather, used it on the runes of his own cell to free himself, and then did the same for the others. We were in a long, dark hallway that contained many of these little weedy prisons. In response to our shouts (in case there were others so trapped), we heard a groaning noise from the end of the hallway. We moved to investigate.
Beyond the prison-hall was a ritual chamber with three magic circles on the floor. One contained a small pile of scrolls, one contained various dragon parts (including the head)... and one contained the feared Dragonborn warrior Xiras, who we had thought was leading the lizard man armies against Floodford.
Xiras, looking horribly emaciated, demanded food. (He licked his lips disturbingly while staring at our halfling companion Yiddin. No, you can’t eat our combat medic!) We were wary of him, given his reputation. Could this be a trap? He claimed that his life-force was being drained and fed to his supposed consort, Aline.
Before freeing him, we scuffed out the circles containing the scrolls and dragon parts. The scrolls went up in flames, and the dragon bits swirled around a bit, but nothing else happened. We searched the rest of the room and found a table in a small alcove, on which rested a number of sapphires and a fancy lidded cup. Cobalt pocketed the gems and flipped the cup open to see what was inside.
Smoke started to stream out of the cup, forming into the massive shadowy form of The Awakening Tide of Sklar, some kind of mighty avatar of the evil swamp god. Oops! It was immediately evident that this towering semi-divine monstrosity was not something we could fight, and that our immediate priorities were a) fleeing with our lives, and b) making sure the Tide of Sklar did not escape to trouble the surface world.
So, we ran. The Tide of Sklar moved slowly but inexorably toward the exit, while slowing us down with rapidly-forming barriers of sharp weeds, as well by tangling us up in seaweed-like tentacles. We shoved through the weeds with brute force, stopping when necessary to free anyone who was entangled. We successfully escaped back up the stairs, and even managed to grab the pathetic Xiras on the way out.
But, when we reached the “safety” of the hut and sealed the portal, the Tide of Sklar started to force its tendrils through the cracks around the opening! We still needed to corrupt the ancient runes inscribed around the portal, and that took some tricky knowledge of nature and the arcane. Some of us concentrated on slashing the tentacles as they thrashed about, while others worked with Yiddin and Strontium to figure out how to seal the portal for good.
We made it, but just barely.
Piratecat ended the session by giving us an out-of-character glimpse at the battle-lines of Floodford. Xiras was leading an army of lizard men against the town, while Aline flew overhead on a headless dragon corpse. It looked grim for the town, when suddenly Aline's mount dropped out from under her, squashing several lizard men where it fell. Not long after, the inspiring and glorious Xiras, commander of the enemy forces, dissolved into a puddle of weeds and leeches. Suddenly demoralized and leaderless, the lizards broke and fled before the resurgent townsfolk. Woo hoo!
Tactical Notes:
- I’m actually going to leave most of this section for Piratecat to explain, since he can provide a more thorough analysis of his skill challenges. (The escape from Sklar and the sealing of his portal were done as a pair of consecutive skill challenges.) I’ll just say this: 1) They were entirely explicit. Piratecat handed out sheets describing every detail of the challenges: Skill DC’s, required successes-before-failures for skill checks, and the ultimate consequences of winning or losing the challenge. They were like little mini-games, and (for me) an entirely new kind of D&D experience. And 2) They were fantastically exciting. The second one was especially white-knuckled, with us finishing up with no failures to spare. For me at least, the mini-game nature of the experience made it more enjoyable.
We did have some ideas for making them more dynamic, after the session had ended. Specifically, the set-up had the effect of making each character focus only on their single best skill. We thought that maybe putting limits on how often any given skill could be used, or how often a particular PC could use a given skill, could make the challenges more interesting. But, regardless, they were an overwhelming success. I’ll comment more after Piratecat has explained them in more detail.
I would like to mention that Cobalt had an atrocious run of luck during the second skill challenge – fortunately while making attacks that didn’t count as failures for the challenge itself. First, needing only a 5 or higher to snap the tentacles with a dagger, I rolled 4, 4 and 3. Following that he used a flask of alchemical fire on all six tentacles, needing an 11 or higher to hit. I rolled (all at once): 7, 7, 1, 5, 8, 7. That’s 9 straight rolls of 8 or less. My chance of failing all of those rolls consecutively was 0.0125%, or 1 in 8000. Argh.
- Skills used this game: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal, History, Insight, Nature, Perception, Religion
