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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5376089" data-attributes="member: 59082">OK, we finally finished off chapter one - it took a total of five sessions, ranging from 3-5 hours each, although there was a bit of detour in one session after two characters died and they had to go back to town for reinforcements. I'm thinking that overall the chapter could take 15-20 hours to complete, depending upon how fast you play.Last we left off, the PCs had just defeated the lamia and her scarab swarms in session 3. In session 4, they managed to grab the platinum key in the water serpent trap, although one character was teleported into the stream but managed to swim to the shore before falling over the falls. The party was torn between a vocal minority wanting to go back to face the gray angels again and hopefully recover the bodies and booty of their fallen comrades, and the majority that wanted to go to the tapestry room. The latter won out.It was interesting seeing them try to figure out the sundial/shadow wraith trap. One player figured it out and I gave him a secret hefty XP bonus and told him "This is the right answer, but you can't tell the others - just try to convince them." They got it right and didn't release the shadow wraiths.They entered the ivy heart's lair and released the zombie knights and firbolg shell, and then a round later the ivy heart appeared. This combat wasn't as tough as I thought it would be, at least at first, probably because the firbolg and zombie knights were quickly dispatched and the Ivy Heart wasn't quite as tough on its own. I adjusted mid-combat by changing the recharge on Burst of Brambles from six only to pretty much whenever I felt like it (effectively an at-will, although I probably used it once every two or three rounds). This put the fear back in them, especially after I rolled a crit and did 35 HP of damage on three PCs at once.We had to pause mid-combat as it was 1AM and many of us had to work the next morning, so we continued on with session 5. They almost lost a couple characters but eventually defeated the ivy heart. I found the treasure in this adventure to be rather slim pickings, so I added in a bunch of magic items into the ivy itself, evidently the possessions of a past adventuring group (I described dessicated remains with ivy growing through and out of orifices...fun stuff).As they had solved the tapestry lock puzzle (although didn't know they had at the time), they quickly gained entrance to the final chamber with the fey engine. When the ivy heart died, there was a text box describing Acererak's wail of anger echoing through the chamber; I though that was a bit cheesy but I wanted them to understand that this was part of something much larger, so when one of them rolled a 35 Arcana check I described his consciousness following flows of fey energy through the device into some other realm, and a powerful dark presence with glowing eyes. The PC pulled back and they destroyed the engine. Then, to give a sense of immediacy, I pulled an Indiana Jones on them and had the complex start falling apart; I figured this made sense as the cairn stones must have been held together by magic to sustain the buildings.The night ended with them camping outside the complex. My plan is to have them visited in the night by that reaper guy from a later chapter - Moghadam, I think his name is? Basically, black monoliths will appear from the earth around them, denying them flight, and then Moghadam is going to kick their asses and they're going to be pissed (especially one guy, who absolutely loves his character, the only surviving member of the original party), but then they'll wake up and realize it was a dream sent by the "Dark Presence" to warn them to stay away from his machinations.I'm thinking of running Tomb of Shadows and Skull City continuously, so maybe will take the approach of beefing up the former so that they're about 16th level when they start. That gives me about five or six levels before then in which I can build up some hints about Acererak (I might also put them through Demon Queen's Enclave, which I've heard good things about and fits into some plot threads they encountered previously. But I will continue with Tomb of Horrors as it has been great fun, and I think they're going to want to find out more!</blockquote>

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