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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AntiStateQuixote" data-source="post: 7096539" data-attributes="member: 30770">Session 2So ... they didn't complete as much as I expected and didn't long rest in the dungeon.One of our players who was missing last week joined the group with a new PC, a half elf rogue (3)/bard (2). In game story: she stayed outside and guarded the camp while the more accomplished adventurers explored the dangerous dungeon. She entered alone when she saw a party of high elves enter the dungeon many hours after the PC party had entered (more on that later).So, having burst the boiling bubble the party took a short rest between two of the pressure doors. During the short rest both of the diviner wizards scribed comprehend languages from Snarla's spellbook instead of taking advantage of the short rest. Ald spent some hit dice to heal from the boiling water, regain short rest abilities, etc.During the short rest, Elyse, the new character, observed a party of five high elves (actually eladrin) make their way into White Plume Mountain. She follows them at a distance. I rolled randomly to determine where the elves went ... they go into the west wing of the dungeon which the party had cleared up to the frictionless room. The eladrin party leader is a Warlock of the Archfey from Volo's Guide to Monsters and uses Conjure Fey to summon an Annis Hag (also from Volo's) in the frictionless room standing beside the far door. The hag opens the door, the eladrin toss it a rope ... they navigate the frictionless room while Elyse observes from the foot of the stairs. Elyse can't figure out how to cross the room so starts to head back out and runs into the rest of the party coming out of the north wing after their rest.Elyse tells them about the eladrin and it looks like they got across the frictionless room. The party decides to try the east wing again. Augi and Amaryllis both cast comprehend languages as a ritual.Room 5: Numbered GolemsAs mentioned, they recognized 9 as the only prime number instantly. Hearing the "riddle" Augi walks across the room, touches the torso number 9 and the party gets a flesh golem servant.Room 6: TurnstileThe figure out how the Turnstile works and Augi commands the golem to destroy it ... done.Room 7: Geysers and ChainsThis room presented a little bit of challenge. They watched the geysers for a bit, but couldn't see where the 2nd geyser was (I ruled vision obscured beyond 30 feet). Ald drinks a potion of fly and carries Amaryllis and Elyse across the room. They took a little damage from one of the geysers, but make it across. He takes some more damage on the way back to get others making a total of 2 round trips plus one more trip across the room flying while carrying others.Room 8: CoffinA vampire! In total magical darkness which they can't dispel ... well, they could have, but for some reason no one thought to use the scroll of dispel magic they had. Anyhow, from out of the darkness the vampire uses charm on Ald. Ald makes his save. A bit later (a few rounds) and he charms Amaryllis successfully. He asks her to come into the darkness and she tries to comply, but the party prevents her. Another couple of rounds (maybe a minute or so?) and the vampire tires of waiting for his meal, steps out and attacks.This was a VERY tough fight that lasted about 15 or 20 combat rounds and probably an hour of game time. Amaryllis, charmed by the vampire, used her action on most turns to distract Elyse imposing disadvantage on her attacks. Ald and Yonni managed to land many damaging blows, Augi's firebolt did a bit of damage fairly often, but Kalista just could not land a sacred flame to save her life (DC 16 to save, but the vampire is +9 on DEX saves ... he used Legendary Resistance to make one save against sacred flame).The vampire grappled and bit Ald ... a lot. He used Legendary Actions to bite as often as he could. Combination of healing from doing bite damage plus regeneration 20 and he was tough. He retreated into the darkness three different times when brought below 40 hit points ... I gave them a chance to try to hit him (1 in 10 to target the right square ... disadvantage on attack if successful) ... but he just kept regenerating.Ald dropped unconscious more than once during the fight and by the end his maximum hit points were down to 20 (out of 86!!!). Yonni took a couple of bite wounds reducing his max hp as well. The vampire used Legendary Resistance to save against a faerie fire that Augi cast.The final time that the vampire retreated into the darkness the player of Kalista asked if she could use channel divinity to locate the vampire in the darkness. I ruled she could ... for two rounds. Able to "see" the vampire, she calls out to others the vampire's location. I give others a 30% chance to target the correct location and then disadvantage on attack rolls ... eventually they take him down.They fumble around in the dark, find his coffin and drag it into the light. Stake the vampire, cut off its head and watch the body decompose into ash.They stumble back into the room find a large box in a pile of thousands of coins. Elyse blindly fills her large sack with coins (1000 coins total; 600 silver, 400 gold) while others drag the box out of the room. A hidden key that Yonni found in the coffin opens the box without triggering the poison needle trap I added to the treasure box. The box contains Whelm (modified somewhat) and spell scrolls.This party is DONE. There is no way they will continue without a long rest. And they are not going to stay inside the dungeon and get transported to Oerth when the convergence of the planets ends.-- That pretty much ends White Plume Mountain, but not the game session. They never got to the west wing where Blackrazor wasn't. --So, they head outside, camp at the base of the mountain. Late in the afternoon, about an hour or so before the convergence ends, they see an eladrin woman come out of the dungeon. She has an Annis Hag with her (I screwed up here. I knew the spell only lasted an hour, but for some reason thought it was one of her 5th level spells and she could cast 3/short rest ... didn't really matter as you'll see).The eladrin makes her way down the mountain side (one hour trip) and the annis disappears before she gets to the party. They try to parley, she casts dimension door and flees.Party rests overnight. Next day Ald uses Whelm to cast locate creature and they look for the eladrin. They manage to find her. Augi casts dimension door to bring himself and Elyse near the Eladrin (house rule: dimension door does not limit your passenger to your size or smaller if the passenger is medium size and you are small). Elyse gets a charm person off and uses inspiration to impose disadvantage on the save canceling the elf advantage on saves against charms. The eladrin is charmed by Elyse and is willing to talk to Elyse away from the others. The Eladrin uses dimension door and takes Elyse away from the party.They talk for 45 minutes or so as the party (locate creature still active) tracks in on them. Elyse learns of the eladrin's adventures in White Plume Mountain and comes to suspect she has the Word of Making on her. The rest of the party arrives. Hold person plus Ald and Yonni grappling and the eladrin is rendered incapable of fighting or fleeing. They take her staff of fire that she got from the Oni and the Word of Making scroll. She is furious, but can't really do anything. They render her unconscious, cast invisibility on her, and leave.Deciphering the Word of Making scroll is easily another hour-and-a-half of game play. I had an eight foot long prop scroll rolled up with pieces of index cards taped to it with various challenges (ability checks, spell casting, channel divinity, use martial class features, etc.) to get to the end of it. They could stop at any point while deciphering.Early on there was a radiant fireball that hurt everyone. One of the "Blessings of the Gods" was +1 to all saves or +1 to all skills permanently (basically everyone got their choice of half of a Luck Stone). Another blessing was +2 to an ability score, maximum of 20. At one point the Word of Making was a wish scroll. They chose to keep going, losing the wish but gaining a "greater wish" .... they now have the power to repair the Ordning ... but if they keep going ... something else?The party is split 3 to 3 on continuing reading the scroll or using it immediately to fix the Ordning. They had returned to their guildhouse in Neverwinter before starting this process, and I injected one of my PCs into the party (it's a shared DM game with three DMs; all of the players, including the DM have 2 or more characters each). Long story short, I tell them each to make a persuasion check, sum the totals on each side, and that's how my character will "vote" about the scroll.They keep reading the scroll. Each character must permanently sacrifice 10 hit points off of their maximum. The scrolls burns away to ash, and they lose the greater wish but they learn the location of five more Words of Making:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Spark of Magic can be found in the Crypt of Acererak</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Power of Death lies in the Den of the Master in the Dungeon of Graves</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nature's Wrath lives in the Warlock's Crypt</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Breath of Angels is held in the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Piercing Darkness holds sway over the Inner Fane of Lloth in Menzoberranzan</li> </ul>They have lost the ability to repair the Ordning (and there will be serious consequences as a result), but they can find another Word of Making to fix it if they want. In the meantime the Eladrin is a member of an ancient race that is returning to Toril to reestablish elven dominance of the North ... and they are pissed. There's likely to be a show of massive, magical elf force at the Sword Coast Solutions guildhouse soon. Current thought: Ceallach Lunachild, the warlock they waylaid, is going to show up at the guildhouse invisible and break a fully charged Staff of Power (retributive strike) in the middle of the common room. That will be the signal for a cadre of eladrin knights and archers to charge into the place and ransack it looking for the Word of Making which is now lost!Oh yeah ... there are demon lords in the Underdark (Out of the Abyss) and the dwarves of Gauntlegrym are about to launch a new mission to find a Word of Making. The dwarves need the Word to recapture Maegera (fire primordial that fuels the forges in Guantlegrym) who was "stolen" by fire giants (Storm King's Thunder).This ought to be fun!Here's Whelm as it exists in our campaign:WhelmIntelligent Maul, legendary, requires attunement<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bonus to attack and damage equal to half your proficiency modifier (game balance deal here ... no +3 weapons to characters of less than 17th level)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Thrown weapon range 20/60; returns on throwing</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Deals extra +1d8 damage to giants</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Shock Wave: once per day as an action, strike the ground; each creature of your choice within 60’ of you DC 15 CON save or stunned for one minute (save at end of each turn to end)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Always aware of secret or concealed doors within 30’</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cast detect evil and good once/day</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cast locate creature once/day</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sentience: lawful neutral, INT 15, WIS 12, CHA 15; hearing and darkvision to 120’</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Communicates telepathically with the owner. Can speak, read and understand Dwarvish, Giant, Goblin</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Screams war cries in Dwarvish while in battle</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Personality: seeks to slaughter giants and goblinoids – protect all dwarves especially the Dankil (Mightyhammer) clan from Oerth</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Drawback: owner develops agoraphobia: disadvantage on attacks, saves and ability checks when outdoors and can see the daytime sky</li> </ul>Attached is a photo of the Word of Making scroll.[ATTACH]83735[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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