Final Showdown, Part 2

So remember how yesterday, I talked about the 8 different paths, one of which would sequence break the next part of the dungeon?

Yeah. They took that path.

Unfortunately Alec couldn't make it, so Cugel was out for the final battle. But his wife was awesome enough to bring Blake and Hillary and trusting enough that Kyla, Joseph, Will, and myself were responsible enough adults that we could watch them. Fortunately she fell for our ruse, so Sarra and Amrus got to contribute (in a huge way) to that final fight.

They climbed up out of the torture room onto an observation balcony (because what else are the kind and queen going to do for entertainment?), passed through a heavy curtain, and into the next room.

In the center of the room was a brazier with a white flame emitting no heat. Around the base were seven indentations containing seven gems of the prismatic colors. Over the brazier was a giant hourglass with a verse written on it in common. In two alcoves flanking this brazier were giant metal statues of knights on horses. Aside from the door they came in through, there were three other doors out on the opposite wall.

The verse on the hour glass read:
Cast a stone into the fire:
Violet leads to the mountain spire
Orange to the castle's peak
Red if lore is what you seek
Green to where the coffins hide
Indigo to the master's bride
Blue to ancient magic's womb
Yellow to the master's tomb

The party took a little bit longer pondering this than I originally expected. While right away the realized that the yellow stone ought to lead to Strahd's Tomb, but then started second guessing that maybe it was green. Since the session is over, I'll spill the beans: that green one would have taken them to the basement of the coffin maker's shop in Vallaki. I DID NOT want the party back-tracked that far.

I did what any good GM would do when you don't want to seem like you're railroading, but you still want to convey your desires to the players in a subtle way: I had them make "Idiot" checks. Or what WoD players might call a "Common Sense" check. I set it as a DC 15 Intelligence check, and Kyla made it (over Lop, which surprised me), so I told her outright: the yellow one will take you to Strahd's Tomb.

They through the stone into the fire, and over the course of 5 rounds (the timer on the hourglass), stepped through. Lop, who still had locate creature going, knew Strahd was in the coffin in the center of the room. They had Sarra approach first, hoping to have her impale the poor bastard with her sun sword.

Of course it wasn't that easy!

Strahd's bride's, Anastrasya Karelova, Ludmilla Vilisevic, and Volenta Popofsky, emerged from the earth in three alcoves on the south end of the chamber. I'm re-reading the encounter know and they should have come out of the east wall. Oh well. C'est La Vie. They rolled well on their initiatives. Strahd and most of the party, however, did not.

Still, Ap opened strongly: dropping a storm sphere to keep the ladies hemmed in and damage them. Kasimir, being controlled by Joseph, also used a cone of cold to get an early strong hit in. Ludmilla and Volenta put the bite on Amrus, while Anastrasya went for the already anemic-looking Tathora. She even rolled a critical! (I beginning to think Kyla is right: the dice ARE trying to kill her character.)

Of course the party had a good counter offensive: Lop used that staff of frost to create a wall of ice to pull the brides off their victims and isolate them. Then on her turn, Tathora turned on the sunlight feature of the holy symbol of Ravenkind. She also cast spiritual weapon because that spell really is awesome.

When Strahd emerged, he found old Damian Martikov in his face. But more importantly, Amrus and Sarra were there. Amrus managed to get a sneak attack in before retreating. Then Hillary used Action surge to hit four times with that sun sword. Strahd spent most of his time trying to put the bite on Sarra to recover from that. He rolled three 9s in a row. His attack modifier was +6, and Sarra's AC was 16.

Ap actually scored the killing blow: if reduced to zero hit points while in sunlight, Strahd dies. While Ludmilla and Volenta expired that same turn, Anastrasya got lucky with her saving throws and had enough hp to stand up to the sunlight for two more turns.

She wasn't going to break through the wall of ice that quickly, so I called it.

The book kind of calls for Rahadin, Strahd's major domo to put in an appearance at that point to avenge his master. I wanted the team to have a clean victory, so we cut to the ending montage:

Kasimir eventually did find his sister and resurrect her. But she seemed awful interested in the Amber Temple and the secrets he and the party found there...

Ezmerelda offered to lead the PCs back through the Mist to Faerun. She did as the first truly sunny day in centuries dawned on Barovia. However, she found that she was unable to get back...

What's next? Storm King's Thunder, of course! Will shall be running that, and I will get to play.

Since the party skipped the catacombs, they missed all the nifty puns. I'll put them in a future post. I'll also put up some information about the party we're creating for the next adventure. It looks like it's going to be fun!