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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tolamaker" data-source="post: 9605105" data-attributes="member: 7031495">Sessions 106-108: What sits under the Mask106The party lands among Innenotdar, where they are greeted by the Taranesti of the forest rebuilding their village. Trilla remembers some of the elves among them as those who helped hide her, and pledges to protect them. The party thinks this is a good idea, because of the delicate situation with Shaaladel's eye on the formerly burning forest.Talking with the elves, the party discovers they were in the dream realm for six months, and that the war has stagnated along the borders of the Alliance and Ragesia, with Alliance forces largely returning to their own countries. After a visit to Mishka's mother in Gate Pass, the party decides that Seaquen is the best place to regroup and decide what to do next.In Seaquen, they meet with a tired and worn out Simeon, who is happy to see them. He confirms the state of the war as a deadlock. "Without the power of the Torch, we are simply two large combatants hacking away at each other. Small victories mean nothing, as moving troops from one place means enemy reinforcements will try to exploit the now defenseless area."Simeon outlines the state of the war and the pressure points he sees. Gallo's Fend has been captured by Ragesia, and Dassen's new king is eager to take his old castle back. Shaaladel has a large battleline along his northern river. Sindaire is performing its own insurgency against occupying forces. Ostalin is one of the few places that has largely expelled the Ragesians, but other than their airship providing supply support, they have not ventured out to help the other Allies. Simeon says that the only Ostaliners outside of their country are here at Seaquen, a set of East and West Wind Monks who are establishing a new temple where the fighting pits once were. The party decides to investigate.107With Mishka and Gruz distracting, Eluriah and Aripos sneak into the quarters of Su-Ilgon. They find nothing of interest, but when Su Ilgon returns, they hide, (as a spider and invisible respectively), and see the masked master's form shift and warp into that of a gray, featureless humanoid. He then retrieves a hidden sending stone and sends a message relaying progress on "the gate." The party enters and subdues the creature, but before they can get information from him, the other monks attack. IN a fight that has the party and monks breaking through walls and blocking off pathways, the party prevails, defeating the monks and capturing the one impersonating Su-Ilgon. When they kill combatnats, they turn into a strange goo, which both Mishka and Gruz recognize as the smell of biomantic fluid. They believe the gate referred to be the portal to the plane of fire below Seaquen. Simeon confirms that the monks had been spending time down there, allegedly to find another power source to strengthen The Tempest.108Delving back into the dungeon, they face more gray monks, as well as a pair of strange tentacled beasts that radiate necrotic energy. They find the real Su-Ilgon, a heavily aged man without his mask, and investigate the portal. They find that the gray beings were altering the portal in a way, changing out arcane Ignan runes with a different alien script. Whatever they were doing was unfinished. As best as they can tell with Simeon's aid, the gray monks were attempting to change the end location of the portal to another location or plane. Among the gray monks' belongings, they find a scroll of teleportation, that will bring them onto the Tempest as long as they are within a few miles. Su-Ilgon says that even after all that he has learned, he cannot act against his brother. However, he urges the party to do what they must. Until they can find more evidence that Su-Pli is working against the Alliance, the party decides to head to Gallo's Fend to help the Dasseni.Post Session Thoughts106: I forgot Ycengled had been freed, and so had Trilla set up shop in Innenotdar. I feel like it still worked thematically for her coming back and finding a new home. Returning to Seaquen, I had thought I was just laying hints to keep an eye out on the temple, but my players have better memories and noses for plots than I gave them credit for, because they immediately remembered the tomb and the portal. I was planning 0n having changes happen to Seaquen in between missions, but they went straight for it, so good for them as I scrambled to get the encounters ready.107: The map I found for this had very tight hallways, so I decided that this old fighting arena had weak walls, allowing for the monks to open up walls with their shatter spells. That led to the players breaking their own walls and then throwing up magical walls for some fun positional choices.108: I remembered a bit late that I had the temple map set up for Roll20, not Foundry, and had to fix it up quick at the start of the session. I don't know if I didn't know how to run the gray monks well, or if they were undertuned, but their fight was grindy, but very easy. Two CR 16 Star Spawn Larva Mages, with their abilities reskinned as radiation, were also too easy, so they were a good gauge for CR in the future.Changes to the ModuleThis is the first time I'm pulling almost entirely away from the provided adventure. I had been feeling like I needed a bit more connective tissue between adventures 11 and 12, and decided that I wanted to draw out Pilus' betrayal a bit longer. So, I scrambled 11 and 12 together a bit, with the plan being to have the airship dungeon happen closer to Ragos or the Opaline Wastes. I also set up mini-dungeon plans for each area, allowing the players to pick where they would be most effective as we approach the end. Players also made requests for monsters and other D&D experiences they wanted to have before we finish the game. I'll point them out as they come along.That said, these sessions were largely played straight. What's funny is that I had originally planned to change some things about the conspiracy encounters, to fill out the old dungeon a bit better, but then they ran straight to it so I played it mostly as written. I kind of twisted the idea of harnessing power of the plane of fire to fit with the future Star Spawn/Pilus lore I came up with from Gruz's requests. Basically, I plan on working in some sort of eldritch angle, to fit in with the body horror of his biomantic final form.</blockquote>

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