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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sgtscott658" data-source="post: 6419627" data-attributes="member: 6777632">Howdy all-Continuing with my ongoing AAR of Hoard of the Dragon Queen we last left off with the players having been tasked with the mission of ridding the Stargazers Sanctum (tower 3E) from Castle Nearytar. The players had defeated a real nasty Otyugh, ya know, those organic garbage disposals every wizard keeps deep down in his castle. Anyway, the players come across a trapdoor above them that leads into the Stargazers Sanctom. Written on the trap door in dwarvish but partially obscured by time, is a Warning of powerful undead above. The players take a short rest on the stairs below the trap door and prepare for the coming encounter.Once rested, the Rogue Badger Bob, opens the lock from the trap door and stealthily takes in the area he see's. What he does see from the moonlit room are a rack of rolled charts. An antique desk in one corner and a large table in the middle. on the floor he notices five piles of  humanoid like remains in various areas of the room with the only exception being a translucent figure of a comly human female with soft facial expressions looking over and studying several charts on the table.Badger then slowly closes the trap door and whispers to the players what he has seen. Marty the Claric along with Mr. Boggles the Warlock consult the party about maybe talking to this ghost instead of killing it out right. Yes, even in a dungeon you can still offer RP opportunities to players that think outside the box. In the actual adventure, it was expected to hack and slash the Spectors inhibiting the tower, but I spun it a bit differently when I  described the Spector in a more positive light.The players emerge from the trapdoor and the specter turns to face them,  The players in unison tell the specter they wish to parley plus see'ing that these people are not the hated bully wogs or Dragon Kneelers that the specter has seen around of late she nods in and affirms that she will not harm them.The Specter introduces herself as Anna, a teacher from Silverymoon and the piles of bones around the room were her students. She had been possessed by the ghost of an escaped criminal named Bootstrap. Now for hundreds of years they have haunted this area of the castle and also continued with their study of the stars. Hence the reams and reams of charts.  Anna tell's the players that her and her students would like nothing better then to go home, to that end the players strike a deal and take the bones of her and her students back to Silverymoon to the temple of Mystra for proper burial. Anna then goes on to tell the players of the Farseer of iilusk- a telescope like contraption she designed that was useful for observing the stars but the current castle overseers have used it for more dastardly ways. By spying on distant area's of Fearun! Anna then tasks the players  to destroy the devise which is in the observatory but is guarded creatures she says that are both horrible and frightening. The players agree to this task and at the same time SGT Carter and PVT Pyle come banging on the trapdoor asking what the hell is going on. The players pull in SGT Carter and the Spector kills him without remorse while PVT Pyle runs down the stairs going "shazam shazam" and "Golly they killed SGT Carter"Now its a race to both complete the Specters mission and get to Rezmirs room to find clues on how to get into the caverns beneath the Castle and find where the treasure is going.  First thing everybody does is race to the observatory but what they find are two Gibbering Mouthers guarding the Farseer, they quickly shut the door and turn to the Warlock who has a staff that can cast a nice fire ball inside the room. The Warlock then opens the door up makes his imitative roll and casts the fireball, now all hell has broken loose. The Farseer is destroyed but the Gibbering mouthers are only slightly hurt, the door to the observatory is too damaged to shut, so the players make their way down to the banquet hall, all around them bull wogs, Lizard men and cultists are running about in confusion. This is further compounded by high d20 rolls by the players in convincing them that they are under attack from inside and out.The Banquet Hall  As the players run from the Gibbering Mouther, they make a bee line to the Banquet hall, but before they can shut the door on the Gibbering Mouthers, three of the players fail to make their wisdom rolls and attack their fellow party members. Hearing the commotion the two trolls guarding the Cavern entrance enter the banquet and see the two Gibering Mouthers in the Court yard slaughtering the bully wogs. The two trolls take off after the Gibbering Mouthers and Marty the Claric shuts the Banquet door behind them. At the same time, the players suffering from the Gibbering Mouther mind effects attack each other for 1 round (that was funny)  Once everything settles down, a bloodied Troll enters the Banquet hall.  The Claric Morden (Bob's Character) Thinks outside the box and cast a Cause serious wounds on the troll, dropping the troll to the ground. IE killing it. Still the only way into the cavern is to get to the top floor of the castle and search for Rezmir or find somekind of key to get past the force that blocks their way into the cavern. From what the players have gathered only Sputtergoo, Delmar and Rizmar have some kind of way to enter the caverns and spirit away the loot.Rezmirs lairThe players do find a way to get to Rezmirs quarters without having to hack and slash their way through. They do this with plenty of doses of deception. Remember, the Bullywogs dont want to really fight if they dont have to, and the Lizard Folk would prefer if the players killed the bully wogs, so they will tend to take a more neutral stance with the players.The players make to Rezmirs quarters only to be confronted by her two guardians a Flesh Golem and a Clay Golem whom stand guard over her quarters. Rezmir is not there.A huge fight ensues and the players had a most difficult time trying to take down two Golems. Everybody was casting spells or hacking away. By the time it was all said and done, the players had taken some serious damage but had dispatched Rezmirs guardians with much difficulty. What the players find is a letter from Someone named Talis demanding Rezmirs presence, the letter goes on to accuse Rizmer of a lack of dedication to the cult.  Thus a summons to the Greypeak Mountain Hunting Lodge for a proper dressing down. The players also find a small black dragon statue worth around 2500 gold and yes the Rogue did activate the Acid trap but the statue made its object save. And the players do find the code word to de-activate  the wall of force blocking the cavern and to activate a portal to the Greypeak mountains.As usual we all had fun, hopefully some of the above is understandable and give perspective DM of this adventure some ideas for their own HotDQ campaign. As of now, the players are resting up in Reznirs chambers and will once more venture out to confront the cult and make it into the caverns below. If I missed something, it probably due to forgetting a detail here or there.Scott</blockquote>

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