In our last session, the PCs had escaped into the Mausoleum of the Raven Queen, which had been warded with a Hallowed Temple ritual. Because she is a lich, and hence undead, Jenna Osterneth could not follow them in. Which was good for them, because they were out of encounter powers and had 3 surges across the party, and multiple bloodied PCs including the fighter/cleric on 4 hp.
Their reason for being there was that the Mausoleum of the Raven Queen - like other lost things - had ended up on The Barrens in the Abyss. And Osterneth, as an agent of Vecna, had gone there to try and learn the Raven Queen's true name from her dead (mortal) body. The PCs were there to stop her - but with various degrees of enthusiasm, because they don't all exactly approve of her and her growing divine power. (Even though nearly everything they do seems to increase this!)
The Mausoleum had three areas: an entrance room, with a large statue and modest altar; a set of stairs with slightly elevated ramps on either side leading down to the principal room - very large (about 90' x 50') with a huge statue and two pools of water, corrupted by the Abyss; and then a smaller set of stairs leading down to the burial room, with a large altar and five statues and 4 side rooms (the sarcophagus room, the room with canopic jars, the grave goods room and the treasure room).
The PCs started in the entrance, where they took a short rest. This let them regain encounter powers, allowed the paladin to heal up to full from his ring, and then allowed some healing involving sharing the surges around the party (the ranger-cleric has the Shared Healing feat; our table convention for short rests and healing powers is to allow spending regained encounter healing at the end of the rest). They studied the murals and reliefs in the entrance chamber, which showed the Raven Queen's victories during her life, becoming the most powerful ruler in the world (crushing her enemies, being adulated by her subjects, etc - I told the players to think of Egyptian tomb paintings, Mesopotamian reliefs, and similar).
The invoker/wizard and ranger-cleric (having the best Perception in the party) then heard a slithering sound on the ramp. With his ring that grants darkvision the invoker/wizard could see a guardian naga. And the sphinx then came out, and told them that they must answer a riddle before they could pass further into the Mausoleum. I had mixed together abilities from a MM and MM2 sphinx, so they could either choose between accepting the challenge but suffering a debuff until answering it; or rejecting the challenge but granting the sphinx a power up. They chose to accept.
I wrote the riddle a few weeks ago on the train:
Appropriately enough, it was the player of the ridiculously zealous paladin of the Raven Queen who first conjectured that the subject of the riddle was the Raven Queen herself - first her mortal life, than her life after death in which she took on a new name ("the Raven Queen") and took control of the Shadowfell and death, of winter, and of fate.
When the players had reached agreement on this, they offered their answer. The sphinx accepted it, but insisted that they also tell him whose pride will be cured. After generic answers ("everyone dies"), which did not really satisfy the sphinx, the fighter/cleric answered "Us". The sphinx replied "Well, yes, you," and this was the clue for the player of the invoker/wizard, who answered "The gods" - because the fighter/cleric is now God of Jailing, Pain and Torture (having taken up Torog's portfolio). The sphinx then allowed them to pass down the stairs to the principal room, to venerate the dead queen.
In the principal room, they identified the Abyssal corruptions in the pools, and used a Tide of the First Storm (to summon cleansing water) enhanced by other water-quelling magic (sucked out of a Floating Shield) to purify one, so that they could safely pass it to get to the doorway to the burial room. The mural in the principal room - also a magical hazard if they got too close, which they made sure not to - depicted the mortal queen's magical achievements - including defeating a glabrezu on the Feywild, and travelling to the land of the dead (at that time, a land of black poplars ruled by Nerull).
The paladin looked in the cleansed pool to see what he could see, and saw episodes from the past depicting the Raven Queen's accretion of domains (fate from Lolth, in return for helping Corellon against her; winter from Khala, in return for sending her into death at the behest of the other gods); and then also the future, of a perfect world reborn following the destruction of the Dusk War, with her as ruler.
I also decided a further complication was needed: so I explained to the player of the fighter/cleric (who is now the god of imprisonment, and also has a theme that gives him a connection to primordial earth) that he could sense the Elemental Chaos surging up through the earth of the mortal world (because (i) Torog can no longer hold it back, and (ii) the Abyss, having been sealed, is no longer sucking it down the other way); and as a result, an ancient abomination sealed in the earth had been awakened from its slumber and would soon makes it way up to the surface of the world. I then filled them in on my version of the Tarrasque (the MM version with MM3 damage and a few tweaks to help it with action economy). This created suitable consternation, and was taken as another sign of the impending Dusk War.
At this point there was much debate: at least an hour at the table, I would say. They couldn't agree on what they wanted to do - destroy the body (mabye by bringing in the sphere of annihilation, which had been left outside when they fled into the Mausoleum); perhaps destroy the whole Mausoleum; or, as the fighter/cleric advocated, learn her name first so they could use that to bargain with her and compel cooperation without her getting to acquire new domains.
The guardians - who could understand all this, given their Supernal tongue, and could follow it, given their high INT and WIS and Arcana and Religion and Insight - insisted that no Sphere of Annihilation might be brought into the Mausoleum, and that the remains of the dead queen, and her burial goods, not be disturbed. The PCs weren't wanting to start any conflict at this point, and at least three of them (paladin, ranger-cleric and invoker/wizard) were happy with this in any event. So they with the guardian's permission they went down the last set of stairs to the burial room.
This room had a statue in each of four corners - the Raven Queen mortal, ruling death, ruling fate and ruling winter. The fifth statute faced a large altar, and showed her in her future state, as universal ruler. The murals and reliefs here showed the future (continuing the theme of the rooms: the entry room showed her mortal life; the principal room her magical life, including her passage into death; this room her future as a god). I made up some salient images, based on important events of the campaign: an image of the Wolf-Spider; an image of the a great staff or rod with six dividing lines on it (ie the completed Rod of 7 Parts, which is to be the trigger for the Dusk War); an image of an earthmote eclipsing the sun (the players don't know what this one is yet, though in principle they should, so I'll leave it unexplained for now); an image of a bridge with an armoured knight on it, or perhaps astride it - this was not clear given the "flat-ness" of the perspective, and the presence of horns on the knight was also hard to discern (the players immediately recognised this as the paladin taking charge of The Bridge That Can Be Traversed But Once); and an image of the tarrasque wreaking havoc.
More discussion and debate ensued. Closer inspection showed that where it was possible the queen's name had once been written on the walls, this had been erased. The invoker/wizard decided to test whether this could be undone, by using a Make Whole ritual: he made a DC 52 Arcana check, and was able to do so (though losing a third of his (less than max) hp in the process, from forcing through the wards of the Mausoleum). Which resulted in him learning the name of the Raven Queen. And becoming more concerned than ever that it is vulnerable to others learning it to.
Asking the guardians confirmed that they also know her name, though will not speak it, as that would be an insult to the dead.
The new plan arrived at - now that it seemed that sequestering or destroying the body wouldn't be enough, and would require fighting the guardians also - was to surround the whole thing in a Magic Circle vs "all" while the collapse of the Abyss takes the whole thing. They thought the Circle would have a good chance of keeping out level 40 or so beings (given the invoker/wizard's high Arcana bonus). But this takes 1 minute per square, and a quick calculation showed the circle would need to be about 30 squares radius, for around 3000 squares area, or 50 hours. (I think during the session someone might have mucked up by a factor of 10, because 20 days was bandied about as the time required - either way too long to do without first dealing with Osterneth.)
So the discussion then shifted to defeating Osterneth. The player of the sorcerer had been very keen on the possibility of a magical chariot among the grave goods, and so I decided that there was a gilt-and-bronze Chariot of Sustarre (fly speed 8, 1x/enc cl burst 3 fire attack). They persuaded the guardians to let them borrow it, as the necessary cost of preventing Osterneth coming in and defiling the body.
The sorcerer then powered up the Chariot with a quickened version of his Enhance Vessel ritual, making it speed 10 (he spent extra residuum after a successful DC 32 Arcana check). And they pushed open the doors and launched an assault on Osterneth, who was still waiting outside.
This ended up being fairly quick to resolve and went the PCs' way. The basic strategy was to have the fighter (on the back of the sorcerer-driven Chariot) drive Jenna to the ground with a prone-ing attack, and then to keep her pinned there. (Which he did via a "death from above" charge where, on a hit, I let him add half the 30 damage he took to his attack vs Osterneth.) A crit from each of the ranger-cleric, the sorcerer, the invoker/wizard and the paladin (wielding the Sword of Kas to get bonuses vs a Vecna-ite and former ally) helped things along. The invoker/wizard was dropped to zero, but was able to Reverse Time and come back with more hp than before and another action (because the ability changes position in the initiative sequence).
Reduced to zero hp, Osterneth turned to dust - but will reform in 1 day by her phylactery, the location of which is not known to the PCs.
The other thing the invoker/wizard was doing was trying to call back the Sphere of Annihilation - which had been called down towards the heart of the Abyss. What exactly the effects are, of having the Sphere go to the heart and then be called back, will have to be discovered next session! Though I suspect the session may start with an extended rest.
Their reason for being there was that the Mausoleum of the Raven Queen - like other lost things - had ended up on The Barrens in the Abyss. And Osterneth, as an agent of Vecna, had gone there to try and learn the Raven Queen's true name from her dead (mortal) body. The PCs were there to stop her - but with various degrees of enthusiasm, because they don't all exactly approve of her and her growing divine power. (Even though nearly everything they do seems to increase this!)
The Mausoleum had three areas: an entrance room, with a large statue and modest altar; a set of stairs with slightly elevated ramps on either side leading down to the principal room - very large (about 90' x 50') with a huge statue and two pools of water, corrupted by the Abyss; and then a smaller set of stairs leading down to the burial room, with a large altar and five statues and 4 side rooms (the sarcophagus room, the room with canopic jars, the grave goods room and the treasure room).
The PCs started in the entrance, where they took a short rest. This let them regain encounter powers, allowed the paladin to heal up to full from his ring, and then allowed some healing involving sharing the surges around the party (the ranger-cleric has the Shared Healing feat; our table convention for short rests and healing powers is to allow spending regained encounter healing at the end of the rest). They studied the murals and reliefs in the entrance chamber, which showed the Raven Queen's victories during her life, becoming the most powerful ruler in the world (crushing her enemies, being adulated by her subjects, etc - I told the players to think of Egyptian tomb paintings, Mesopotamian reliefs, and similar).
The invoker/wizard and ranger-cleric (having the best Perception in the party) then heard a slithering sound on the ramp. With his ring that grants darkvision the invoker/wizard could see a guardian naga. And the sphinx then came out, and told them that they must answer a riddle before they could pass further into the Mausoleum. I had mixed together abilities from a MM and MM2 sphinx, so they could either choose between accepting the challenge but suffering a debuff until answering it; or rejecting the challenge but granting the sphinx a power up. They chose to accept.
I wrote the riddle a few weeks ago on the train:
In the green garden, a sapling grows,
In time the tree dies, a seed remains.
In the grim garden shall that seed be sown,
Among the black poplars a new tree, a new name:
In time the tree dies, a seed remains.
In the grim garden shall that seed be sown,
Among the black poplars a new tree, a new name:
Shade shall it cast,
Frost endure,
Dooms outlast,
Pride cure.
Frost endure,
Dooms outlast,
Pride cure.
Appropriately enough, it was the player of the ridiculously zealous paladin of the Raven Queen who first conjectured that the subject of the riddle was the Raven Queen herself - first her mortal life, than her life after death in which she took on a new name ("the Raven Queen") and took control of the Shadowfell and death, of winter, and of fate.
When the players had reached agreement on this, they offered their answer. The sphinx accepted it, but insisted that they also tell him whose pride will be cured. After generic answers ("everyone dies"), which did not really satisfy the sphinx, the fighter/cleric answered "Us". The sphinx replied "Well, yes, you," and this was the clue for the player of the invoker/wizard, who answered "The gods" - because the fighter/cleric is now God of Jailing, Pain and Torture (having taken up Torog's portfolio). The sphinx then allowed them to pass down the stairs to the principal room, to venerate the dead queen.
In the principal room, they identified the Abyssal corruptions in the pools, and used a Tide of the First Storm (to summon cleansing water) enhanced by other water-quelling magic (sucked out of a Floating Shield) to purify one, so that they could safely pass it to get to the doorway to the burial room. The mural in the principal room - also a magical hazard if they got too close, which they made sure not to - depicted the mortal queen's magical achievements - including defeating a glabrezu on the Feywild, and travelling to the land of the dead (at that time, a land of black poplars ruled by Nerull).
The paladin looked in the cleansed pool to see what he could see, and saw episodes from the past depicting the Raven Queen's accretion of domains (fate from Lolth, in return for helping Corellon against her; winter from Khala, in return for sending her into death at the behest of the other gods); and then also the future, of a perfect world reborn following the destruction of the Dusk War, with her as ruler.
I also decided a further complication was needed: so I explained to the player of the fighter/cleric (who is now the god of imprisonment, and also has a theme that gives him a connection to primordial earth) that he could sense the Elemental Chaos surging up through the earth of the mortal world (because (i) Torog can no longer hold it back, and (ii) the Abyss, having been sealed, is no longer sucking it down the other way); and as a result, an ancient abomination sealed in the earth had been awakened from its slumber and would soon makes it way up to the surface of the world. I then filled them in on my version of the Tarrasque (the MM version with MM3 damage and a few tweaks to help it with action economy). This created suitable consternation, and was taken as another sign of the impending Dusk War.
At this point there was much debate: at least an hour at the table, I would say. They couldn't agree on what they wanted to do - destroy the body (mabye by bringing in the sphere of annihilation, which had been left outside when they fled into the Mausoleum); perhaps destroy the whole Mausoleum; or, as the fighter/cleric advocated, learn her name first so they could use that to bargain with her and compel cooperation without her getting to acquire new domains.
The guardians - who could understand all this, given their Supernal tongue, and could follow it, given their high INT and WIS and Arcana and Religion and Insight - insisted that no Sphere of Annihilation might be brought into the Mausoleum, and that the remains of the dead queen, and her burial goods, not be disturbed. The PCs weren't wanting to start any conflict at this point, and at least three of them (paladin, ranger-cleric and invoker/wizard) were happy with this in any event. So they with the guardian's permission they went down the last set of stairs to the burial room.
This room had a statue in each of four corners - the Raven Queen mortal, ruling death, ruling fate and ruling winter. The fifth statute faced a large altar, and showed her in her future state, as universal ruler. The murals and reliefs here showed the future (continuing the theme of the rooms: the entry room showed her mortal life; the principal room her magical life, including her passage into death; this room her future as a god). I made up some salient images, based on important events of the campaign: an image of the Wolf-Spider; an image of the a great staff or rod with six dividing lines on it (ie the completed Rod of 7 Parts, which is to be the trigger for the Dusk War); an image of an earthmote eclipsing the sun (the players don't know what this one is yet, though in principle they should, so I'll leave it unexplained for now); an image of a bridge with an armoured knight on it, or perhaps astride it - this was not clear given the "flat-ness" of the perspective, and the presence of horns on the knight was also hard to discern (the players immediately recognised this as the paladin taking charge of The Bridge That Can Be Traversed But Once); and an image of the tarrasque wreaking havoc.
More discussion and debate ensued. Closer inspection showed that where it was possible the queen's name had once been written on the walls, this had been erased. The invoker/wizard decided to test whether this could be undone, by using a Make Whole ritual: he made a DC 52 Arcana check, and was able to do so (though losing a third of his (less than max) hp in the process, from forcing through the wards of the Mausoleum). Which resulted in him learning the name of the Raven Queen. And becoming more concerned than ever that it is vulnerable to others learning it to.
Asking the guardians confirmed that they also know her name, though will not speak it, as that would be an insult to the dead.
The new plan arrived at - now that it seemed that sequestering or destroying the body wouldn't be enough, and would require fighting the guardians also - was to surround the whole thing in a Magic Circle vs "all" while the collapse of the Abyss takes the whole thing. They thought the Circle would have a good chance of keeping out level 40 or so beings (given the invoker/wizard's high Arcana bonus). But this takes 1 minute per square, and a quick calculation showed the circle would need to be about 30 squares radius, for around 3000 squares area, or 50 hours. (I think during the session someone might have mucked up by a factor of 10, because 20 days was bandied about as the time required - either way too long to do without first dealing with Osterneth.)
So the discussion then shifted to defeating Osterneth. The player of the sorcerer had been very keen on the possibility of a magical chariot among the grave goods, and so I decided that there was a gilt-and-bronze Chariot of Sustarre (fly speed 8, 1x/enc cl burst 3 fire attack). They persuaded the guardians to let them borrow it, as the necessary cost of preventing Osterneth coming in and defiling the body.
The sorcerer then powered up the Chariot with a quickened version of his Enhance Vessel ritual, making it speed 10 (he spent extra residuum after a successful DC 32 Arcana check). And they pushed open the doors and launched an assault on Osterneth, who was still waiting outside.
This ended up being fairly quick to resolve and went the PCs' way. The basic strategy was to have the fighter (on the back of the sorcerer-driven Chariot) drive Jenna to the ground with a prone-ing attack, and then to keep her pinned there. (Which he did via a "death from above" charge where, on a hit, I let him add half the 30 damage he took to his attack vs Osterneth.) A crit from each of the ranger-cleric, the sorcerer, the invoker/wizard and the paladin (wielding the Sword of Kas to get bonuses vs a Vecna-ite and former ally) helped things along. The invoker/wizard was dropped to zero, but was able to Reverse Time and come back with more hp than before and another action (because the ability changes position in the initiative sequence).
Reduced to zero hp, Osterneth turned to dust - but will reform in 1 day by her phylactery, the location of which is not known to the PCs.
The other thing the invoker/wizard was doing was trying to call back the Sphere of Annihilation - which had been called down towards the heart of the Abyss. What exactly the effects are, of having the Sphere go to the heart and then be called back, will have to be discovered next session! Though I suspect the session may start with an extended rest.
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