A New Friend

Another entry from Kyla Cox.

The group, still recovering from their encounter with the raptors, is awoken during the night by the sound of someone running through the jungle towards them. It doesn't take long for the source of the sound to reveal itself: a tiefling Druid, named Chance, being chased through the wildnerness by a pack of angry goblins. A pack of angry goblins from the village the group was searching for, no less!

The would-be killers were quickly routed save for two prisoners. They didn't have much to offer in the way of information. They ranted something about "undead will eat humans, and then Bhatiri will rule" (much to the conternation of the party's human members). They revealed the location of their village and that their queen, Queen Grabstab, carried the amulet to make the construct work. They also mentioned something about ants.

That would prove to be important later.

New found friend Chance in tow, the group soon came upon the village. It wasn't much to look at: a few ramshackle huts, an empty cage of to one side, and ant hills along the other edges. There was also a tree bent low so its top almost touching the ground for some reason. It was quiet at first as the group approached.

At least until Jane attempted to plug the anthill s with honey from the Jug of Alchemy. Then things got very loud. And very violent. Remy and Jane soon had their second brush with death in one day. Jane would have died if not for a quick intervention.

Goblins emerged from the huts, carrying their possessions as if about to flee for their lives. It was only then that the team noticed the rope tied to the tree. The rope that was also looped around the village like a giant slingshot. Some quick thinking (and even quicker talking) defused the trouble. The team left one way, medallion in hand. The goblins?

The goblins left the other way, at high speed, when Jane triggered their slingshot trap.

A few days' trip downstream back to Port Nyanzaru, and the group spent some time gearing up for their return to the wilderness. For their trouble, the casters in the group were gifted a wizard's spellbook chock-full of useful spells for them.

...And Games!

Once more, curtosy of Kyla Cox!

The temple itself proved a problem for the group at the start. Between spike traps spearing anyone trying to make their way down the main hallway, and a pit trap right smack dab in the middle of the ground, our heroes took a few bumps and bruises along the way. The key to avoiding the danger came from their gladiator friend, Taban. He regaled them with a folk story of a man who caried a crocodile on his back after a deal to cross a river.

Being short of crocodiles, the group improvised the next best thing: Remi standing on Brynne's shoulders. Despite their bickering, the duo managed to solve every puzzle and trap left between them and whatever treasure lurked at the heart of the temple. The first impression wasn't much to look at: a sealed jug of some kind. But it wasn't just a jug. It could create any sort of liquid its owners requested, as Remy found out when she asked for some beer.

Returning outside, the group rummaged through the ruins of Camp Righteous for any more clues on Artus and where he may have gone. The road led only to Camp Vengeance and the military outpost there. They rowed upriver for a few days to the gates of Camp Vengeance in search of answers. All they found was a garrison under siege by the undead and an exhausted group of soldiers.

The commander, a pompous windbag if ever there was one, quicky press-ganged our heroes into serving as a scouting party in the woods. Artus was gone, last seen heading west of the camp and seemingly veryconfident about his ability to survive the jungle alone. The group, in a show of cunning, quickly used their "scouting" mission to also check on the construct they were hunting for Wakanga back at Port Nyanzaru.

After a few mishaps involing giant spiders (and a stegosaurus nearly trampling Brynne during an attempt at befriending it), the group then ran across a Cyclops making his way through the woods. Despite no one speaking Giant (and the cyclops not speaking Common), they did manage to get quite a bit of information from him before he set out to find his family. Namely, a reference to a medusa with a connection to the lost capital city of Omu. The same city Artus had been searching for...

Trouble, however, reared its head when the group managed to locate the construct. It came in the form of a pack of velociraptors. A pack of velociraptors with Pack Tactics. They quickly tore through both Brynne and Jane, and only luck (and the raptors' cowardice at being stabbed) kept them from killing Remy as well.

The group, exhausted from their close brush with death, chose to rest for the night at the construct. They'd found half their prize. Now for the other half...

We've got fun...

Once again, thanks to Kyla Cox for keeping the notes and doing the write up!

Things pick up right where they left off: with the party slowly making their way through the dense jungles of Chult. Their progress forward was halted by the smell of death in the air. The smell was soon joined by the sound of heavy footsteps slowly dragging their way through the brush. And then came zombies.

Quite a few zombies, in fact. All of them had a blue triangle painted on their foreheads. A warning? The party didn't know. Between their efforts (and the timely use of Spirit Guardians by their cleric follower), the party made quick work of the pack of undead. Taban, the fighter, made mention of blue triangle-marked zombies typically being found deep in the jungle.

The threat concluded, the group continued their slow progress. But it wasn't long before trouble found them again, this time in the form of a albino dwarves laying in wait with an ambush. Only some quick talking (and some just as quick bargaining for food and water) kept the encounter from getting violent.

The dwarf and his fellows proved surprisingly useful as a source of information. The triangle-marked zombies the party met earlier, he said, were marked as part of an undead army from the time of the Spellplague. He also warned them about a red dragon that had driven the dwarves from their home.

Curiously, he also mentioned that a man named Artis Cimber was seeking the Soul Monger just like the party was. The man had been last seen at Camp Righteous, before it was destroyed by zombies...

After nearly having their supplies stolen in the middle of the night by a pack of goblins, the party ran into another group of people wearing the blue tirangle. Only THESE ones were still very much alive. The sole survivor they took as prisoner spent his time rambling about a "Night Serpent" and the lost capital city of Chult known as Omu.

A few more days of journeying deposited the group at the ruins of Camp Righteous. The place was a wreck, with no sign of anyone living in the vicinity. (The canoes moored at the river bank, however, were a welcome sight after so long spent hacking through the underbrush.) The camp was constructed outside of what looked like a temple. A statue of a man with a crocodile on his back stood just outside the entrance.

Confronted with the lure of gold, our adventurers did what they do best: crept their way inside to see what riches lay ahead. But that is a tale for next time...

Welcome to the Jungle!

This blog post come courtesy of my best friend and partner in crime, Kyla Cox. Read on, adventurers!

Our adventure begins with a motley crew of adventurers entering Baldur's Gate one by one. Some of them have come to strike it rich, and some have come as punishment for breaking the law. Here's the line-up:

Alec, playing Jane Cena, a half-orc bard

Shannon, playing Remy Wiseflaw, a halfling monk (an old friend from Tomb of Horrors)

Laz, playing Orly Owlface, a gnome wizard

Jeff, playing Khungror Earthhide, a dwarf druid

Will, playing R. Frick (yes, his first name is literally R), a goliath cleric

Joseph, playing Grim Buckman, a human rogue (from Storm King's Thunder)

Kyla, playing Brynn Rennock, a human ranger

The party has been hired by Syndra Sylvane, a wealthy noble living in Baldur's Gate, to mount an expedition to the Chultan Peninsula in order to uncover the cause of a mysterious illness racing through the world: the Death Curse. It afflicts those previously restored to life by magic, and those afflicted by the curse waste away bit by bit every day until they die. And once dead in any way, no one can be revived. Not even by clerics or paladins of holy faith.

Syndra herself is suffering from the curse. She greets the party while wrapped up under a blanket, sounding raspy and sick. She offers them wine (Jane chugs an entire bottle and bounces the cork off of Brynn's head with one good spit). Syndra herself doesn't know much about Chult; much of the area is unmapped and is no doubt full of dangers. The curse is believed to originate with a relic of necromantic power knows as the "Soulmonger".

After a bit of haggling, the group convinces her to pay them 50 GP each as spending money for supplies. She also offers them 1 magical item each upon completion of the hunt for the cause. They have approximately 79 days before the curse kills Syndra.

After teleporting to Port Nyanzaru, the main settlement on Chult, the group joined Syndra in visiting the villa of merchant prince Wakanga O'Tamu. He give the party the lay of the land in Port Nyanzaru: explaining the merchant princes and the Flaming Fist patrols out of Fort Belaurian. He also offers a quest to give the group the lay of the land: locate the control amulet for a shield guardian called Vorn and return it to him.

Most of the party spent the first day in preparation for the trip. Mostly. R Frick negotiates the purchase of a hadrosaur for half of the offered price. A sizeable chunk of the party bets on the local dinosaur race (and promptly loses because the odds are decidedly not in their favor). Brynn takes on an odd job as a bookie's hired muscle, promptly loses when the target of the debt, a gladiator named Taban picks a fight, and walks out with a new friend and a splitting headache. In Brynne's defense, gladiators are challenge 5 NPCs with buckets of hit points and high damage potential.

Jane and Frick, showing what real friendship looks like, bet against her success.

Remi, however, has a moment of pure heriocs in rescuing a Chultan man's husband from being mauled to death by raptors in a fighting pit. Jane helps by casing Sleep on the dinos (and providing a distraction while the others slip away unnoticed).

Orly remained in Wakanga's villa, studying in the library, and eventually learns of a ruined city upriver, said to be guarded by a wise and generous naga...

The group meets a representative of the Order of the Gauntlet who requires an escort to Camp Vengeance, further inland. So, with a priest, a gladiator, and a dinosaur in tow, they set out.

Not long after leaving, however, they meet a Flaming Fist Patrol requesting their exploration permit. After some quick negotiations with the Flaming Fist mercenaries, they are allowed to pass unhindered. The next time, however, may not end as easily as the first.

This is where we leave our party: cutting a path through the jungle towards Camp Vengance, meeting the local homicidal fauna (a constrictor snake) and flora (a mobile, poisonous flower called a tri-flower frond) and all-too-aware of the time that's slipping away from them with every day...

Undead suck, demons suck, dragons suck

So shit continues to happen. But on a more personal front, this company wants to publish my novels. I've been focusing on writing those, and I'll be focusing on them for a while. But this blog will continue. I already have some help.

So, we started exploring the undead infested portion of the forge. We managed to find a dwarven shrine containing Durgeddin's body, as well as a wight and some skeletons. Life drain sucks. Usually the life out of you. Ask Phox. Kyla seems to have the worst luck with these: first Tathora now Phox.

Then we found a ghostly dwarf when Hoggle peaked into a room. It used a feature called horrifying visage to age Hoggle and Phox 40 years. Hoggle, being a gnome, didn't care so much, but Phox is now 60. Then the ghost possessed Hoggle. And started attacked Hiro. We used some percussive exorcism to knock the ghost out of him. After we banished it, we took a short rest.

Most of the rest of this area contained smashed furniture and and dwarf skeletons. Rooms full of nightmares are best not gone into, so we left them alone. We came upon a nice, fancy bedroom with a suspiciously well described rug. Lydia nudged it with mage hand and of course it sprang to life. Hiro watched Aladdin too many times as a child (How is that possible? Reasons!) and tried to ride him. So it did what rugs of smothering do: wrapped him up and tried to smother him. We beat the rug and moved on.

The next interesting thing we came across was a library where a suspiciously beautiful woman was reading at a table. Phox talked to her, and learned her name was Idalla and that she was trapped in that room by a wizard living somewhere below us. She wanted us to go and kill the wizard and free her. In the meantime, Phox and Squiz examined a few books. Lydia, feeling a little deceptive, told Idalla we already had killed the wizard. Whether or not Idalla believed the lie, she chose that moment to reveal herself as a succubus and cast charm. Lydia was a little miffed at her friends hurting her new BFF, but she laid a deadly smooch on Lydia, knocking her out. Phox got a little miffed by this, and grappled the demon. The demon just charmed Hiro, instead. Hoggle handed out some bardic inspiration, then dropped silence to prevent Hiro from casting spells. But Phox finally dropped the demon.

After we recovered, we found a series of secret doors that ended at a natural cavern at the lip of chasm with a rope ladder leading down into it. We climbed down to a muddy waterfall pool. Lydia identified the tracks in the mud as belonging to a dragon.

We probably should have taken a long rest before continuing. But screw that, we're adventurers! Also, Alec let us level to 5 and granted us the benefit of a long rest for leveling. A narrow beach around an underground lake with an island heaped with treasure. Seems totally safe. We crossed a crumbly bridge, separating the party when it collapsed after Squiz crossed. Then the dragon, a black dragon, struck by sticking it's head out of the water and breathing it's line of acid. It dropped Vrinn and Hoggle on the first round.

Alec just made an unconsciounable number of recharge rolls on that breath weapon. It was able to use it almost every round.

Lydia used a scroll of spider climb to use the walls and ceiling to get around the bridge. Hiro made everyone invisible again after another wild magic surge. This included the dragon. It didn't last long, the dragon breathed again. The most beneficial effect we got, however, was when Hiro's surge cast fly on Squiz. He flew to the island and found a wand of magic missiles in the dragon's hoard. Then Hiro got breathed on and got dropped. Phox and Tog managed to use a Healer's Kit and potions to revive or stabilize people, getting Hoggle back on his feet, who was able to get Vrinn back on his feet. Then the dragon breathed again and killed Hoggle outright.

Lydia broke out a new spell hunger of Hadar, to create an area of icky, tentacly, whispery blackness that finally smoked the dragon out of the water. Tog finally got the killing blow, and Hiro stabilized on his own.

We hauled Hoggle back to town for resurrection, since we had the money now, thanks to the dragon's hoard.

Next week, Tomb of Annihilation begins. It's gonna be fun!

Dig, dig, dig!

Tragedy seems thick on the ground these days: but you can help here!

Also, we're no longer AL. We moved to la Casa de Yaeger, and it was pretty nice. Quiet dinner table and not having to shout over a crowd of people. Of course, Calvin no longer felt he could make it. So we were down Bruenor.

So, as I predicted: Herman died again as he unlived: being a meat shield. He opened the door and got sprayed with all the alchemist fire. Enough it overwhelmed his Undead Resilience. We didn't have time to pour one for our deader buddy. The room beyond contained nothing of interest, however: just some reservoirs of alchemist fire and the trap mechanism. The door did start to close, presumably resetting the trap, but Phox wedged it open.

We explored the southernmost door in that same room and ran into an orc shaman and some body guards. Once again, Vrinn got to open up, but I scored a critical hit on the follow-up.  Hiro got to use another spell out of Elemental Evil: Snilloc's snowball swarm. It hits an area with snowballs. Phox but the finishing hit on the shaman, Shannon tried a new, and effective tactic, in this battle. Hoggle opened with bane and supplemented it with Cutting Words. The notion being that a bard's de-buffs are more effective than their healing. In this case it did prevent Squiz from having a new axe-hole being torn in him. Once again, Jeff decided to hit the RNG button for a wild surge. Summoning some flumphs, which scared poor Phox.

We did find some alchemists' tools in the shaman's lair. Which would have been nice for harvesting that alchemist fire. If anyone had the proficiency. Instead we climbed down.

The stairs were cut into the stone and lead to some natural and excavated caves. At one point, a stream crossed them: a rill! D&D is good for your vocabulary, kids! Because we all want that 100% Map Completion Trophy, we followed the stream.

It led to a little side cave that served as a lair for more stirges. They had managed to exsanguinate another adventurer, and we looted the corpse. We continued down the stream, and Lydia fell heels over ass down into a larger cavern, where the stairs would have eventually led us. Now, with several passages to traverse, we went for left-hand most one first, coming upon a group of troglodytes, stinky subterranean lizard people in D&D monster terms. The real fun was a locked gate in their lair.

Phox loudly proclaimed, "There's no bears in caves" before we opened it. Of course there was a bear. This, apparently, made out barbarian angry. So she raged and grappled it. In effort to help her pet human, Lydia used hex on the bear's Strength, to give it disadvantage on the checks needed to escape a grapple. This gave Vrinn the opportunity to sneak attack it in the hit points, dropping it.

We continued on, finding ourselves in a forest of fungi. Some of it glowed, of course. We came to a side ledge, an iron gate, and a grand stair case. Since we just had to have that 100% map, and Hoggle volunteered to go first, Phox hoisted him up onto that latch. Only for a couple of gricks to attack. These ugly things are resistant to non-magical attacks. So, pretty tough on their own. But then a giant subterranean lizard attacked us, too. It put the bite on Phox, holding her in it's jaws. Once again, Lydia used hex, not wanting the funny human to die. Jeff mashed the RNG button again with Hiro using a wild surge, turning everything and everyone in the fight invisible. This did allow Vrinn to end the fight with a sneak attack on the last remaining grick after everything else was dropped. Unfortunately, Phox and Hoggle both got dropped. With the healer down, we had to use a potion of healing.

We found some dead adventurers in a back cave past the ledge. We looted the corpses, then barricaded ourselves in for a nice long rest.

Then we climbed up that long flight of stairs, coming to an unlocked iron door. We heard the sound of hammers on anvils beyond. Seems someone or something was still making those weapons! It lead into an octagonal room lined with doors and more statues or armed dwarves. Hiro went up to a door and a statue attacked him. To add insult to injury, the door was false. Hoggle searched around for more traps, but some poor rolling led to the conclusion that nope, there were no more traps! Then Squiz tried to open another door and also got hit by a statue. Again, the door was false and trixie. Why did we send the arcane casters, the squishiest party members, to check for traps? Reasons.

So, Lydia, another arcane caster, but slightly less squishy, looked around and found a secret door with her drow eyes. She, however, exercised a little prudence and opened it with mage hand. It led to a pillared throne room. As we arrived, we heard a voice, possibly an alarm, shout something in dwarvish about intruders. We moved in cautiously and were confronted by duergar. These subterranean dwarves aren't generally regarded as altruistic, but are willing to treat with other races from time to time. So we opened with parley.

The dwarves told us they were reactivating the forge for their own business, which was none of ours, thank you. They told us there were undead roaming some rooms to the north that needed clearing, and also let us know that a dragon lived in the lower levels of the complex on top of a treasure hoard. They offered to take us to the dragon for 200gp. Hoggle tried to barter with a potion, that was in fact poison, but failed. Then Lydia offered to clear the undead for them for half that fee, and they agreed.

Alec really wanted us to just go to the dragon. He wants to take a break from running, even though he's pretty darn good. He wants to go to Chult and fight Acererak.

But, we took the undead option. In return for the promise that we could keep any treasure we found. Looks like he'll have to run another week or two. I'll be good to go.

LEEEEEEEEERRRRROOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYY JENKINS!

Before we get started: this is happening. If you or someone you know (or someone who's blog you read!) has a pre-existing condition, this will devastate them economically. Call the congressional switchboard and tell you senators to vote no: 202-224-3121.

So Joseph made it back to our table. He rolled up a half-orc fighter named Tog. Tog is a little like Thok, Shannon also brought a new character named Hoggle. Yes, based off of that Hoggle. The race was a home-brew mixture of dwarf and gnome. And he's a bard.

So we had crossed the bridge, our new PCs fell through a plot hole and joined us. We did have some debate over have Tog along. Lydia did speculate that his ear might be worth 12gp and 5sp in bounty. Once the playful banter passed, we found that we had a door.

Phox kicked in the door!

There were more orcs. We had a particularly deadly opening turn before the orcs closed with our mostly ranged party and did some damage. We still managed to drop them without severe casualties, however. It was a barracks for the orcs and included a cage full of human prisoners. We freed them and sent them on their way back to town. Then we leveled up!

We moved on, finding a storage area and well. We passed that area and into more corridors with lots of options for doors. One of those doors had a cool statue of a dwarf holding a sword and a hammer in front of it. Hoggle went forward to examine it. It was, of course, trapped. The mouth opened and sprayed poison gas. That poisoned him. Vrinn disabled that trap while the poison wore off, and then took a listen at the door. There was some raucous shouting and cursing behind the door. We all positioned ourselves in the corridor outside. Except Hiro, he position himself way in the back so he had clear sight and access to another door.

Fuck.

We kicked in that door by the trapped dwarf statue. It was another orc barracks, and one of them was the bigger, meaner orog variety. But by this point, we were a well oiled monster killing machine. "We got this!" we all said.

Then Hiro set that door behind us on fire using the bonfire spell. It turns out there were more orcs behind that door, and they were upset that their door got turned to kindling, so they charged through, getting a little burned in the process.

Back on the western front (you know, the only one everyone cares about in American pop culture), Lydia and Hoggle discovered that shatter is a good crowd control spell on the second level list.

Hiro, however, tried get the RNG to help him conjure a fireball on that horde of orcs out of wild magic surge. Jeff, has, apparently, no experience with the RNG. Instead he had spend the rest of the session shouting. He did pull back.

Then, because in table-top games sufficient loud noises will pull more encounters, another door opened. Out stepped an ogre with a small hunting pack of dire wolves.

Hiro DID make a good speed bump for that horde of orcs. And they did make a decent roadblock for that pack of dire wolves and the ogre.

While they were busy killing Hiro, we killed the orcs in, then re-grouped in, the original orc barracks. You know, the encounter we had planned to pull in the first place and not the other two. Kyla went with path of the totem warrior for Phox, and chose Wolf as her totem. And let me tell you, giving the pack tactics feature to your allies while raging is amazing! And speaking of Phox, she blew that whistle and turned one of those orc corpses into a zombie, which, because Kyla is that kind of person, she named Herman.

Using Herman as a speed bump and the corridor as a bottle neck, we cleared the second pack of orcs and killed the ogre. With their boss dead, the dire wolves fled.

Bruenor drunkenly stabilized Hiro and we took a long rest. During that period Phox found some money and a potion of healing in the orog's bed. Then, in the ogre's room, we found more money and a +1 rapier. Finally, we visited the third orc barracks and found more money. Hiro, of course, just said, "Your welcome."

We finally got around to investigating the well. No gray oozes. No black puddings. Just normal, brackish water. We came at last to a stairwell with a locked gate nearby. Vrinn picked the lock and we found a swarm of stirges.

Hiro triggered another wild magic surge with a casting of ice knife, this one causing ethereal music to follow him around. Phox was in the explosion's area, but managed to uncanny dodge it.

At the north end of the stairwell chamber was an ornate stone door. We spotted spouts around it and a pile of charred bodies in front of it. When we left off, the rest of us stood well back while Phox sent Herman to open it.

Herman will die (again) as he unlived. Or will he?

Orcs, orcs, orcs!

So the new adventure, Tomb of Annihilation is out. It's got everything: undead, dinosaurs, pirates, undead dinosaurs, undead pirate dinosaurs. It's gonna be fun!

Shannon wasn't feeling well, so Auryx took a hiatus. But three younger players were orphaned, so we adopted them into our table: Douglas playing a wood elf rogue named Bruidist; Victoria playing a wood elf druid named Nyalda; and John playing a human wizard named Rein.

Jeff also decided to restat Hiro as wild magic sorcerer. And Will restatted Squiz as a dwarf wizard.

We returned to Waterdeep after getting our reward from the Sunless Citadel. There, we learned the tale of Durgeddin the Black and Khundrukar, a redoubt he had taken his clan to after their homeland had been invaded by orcs. From this fortress he declared war on orc-kind. He and his clan were renowned weapon-smiths. This news alone got Phox's interest. Lydia, who's developed a habit of reading her book and muttering to herself in in strange languages, felt this was a good portent to follow. We haggled for a map to Khundrukar, under a mountain called the Stone Tooth near small town called Blasingdell.

Our newest recruits and Squiz went shopping. I had done some before leaving Waterdeep: acquiring a rapier for a better melee option when forced into it. Squiz got a potion of healing while the new recruits bought some weapons. I also bought a potion of healing, depleting the town's stock.

The local militia had captured an orc raider, but it didn't have much in the way of information. The militia did offer us a reward of 25 gp per orc head. We walked to the Stone Tooth and camped at it's base, hiding but still able to view the trail leading up. During third watch, the watch Lydia took, a group of orcs were bound up the trail. She woke up everyone. The rogues managed to ambush the orcs while the rest of the group rushed them.

This degenerated quickly into a running battle. Hiro used an unusual tactic: setting a twig in the midst of the orcs on fire with fire bolt, then causing a blinding flash with pyrotechnics. Then Nyalda hit a bunch with faerie fire. The non-blinded ones made a break for it.

Phox did what any good barbarian would do: she took off after them screaming at the top of her lungs. Lydia finds her pet human too interesting to let her die, so she followed. Vrinn and Hiro didn't want to watch us both die, so they followed.

So everyone else finished off the blinded orcs, and Squiz started harvesting orc heads, in the form of left ears.

When Phox, Lydia, Vrinn, and Hiro finally caught up to the fleeing orcs, they only managed to pin one of them, and the rest continued running up the path. At one point Vrinn even took off through the forest to skip the twitch-backs climbing the hill. Here though, Alec did some clever DMing. Orcs have a feature called Aggressive, which lets them use a bonus action to move up to their speed toward a hostile creature. They moved toward Vrinn, then used Dash and their normal movement to move past him.

Incidentally, PC orcs also get Aggressive. If something ever allows a creature to use 2 bonus actions on a turn, an orc monk or rogue could theoretically move up to 120ft (rogue) or 240ft (maxed out monk) in 6 seconds. That's a 27.28 miles an hour sprint for the monk. That's just shy of Usain Bolt's current record. We all know what has to happen: Wizards needs to release that rule. I suppose, as the rules stand, you could put haste on that maxed out orc monk. Which, even with only one bonus action (for either Aggressive or Step of the Wind), adds up to 480 feet per 6 seconds. That's 54.55 miles an hour. Highway speeds for a car. Nice! That is, of course, assuming haste doubles speed after the Unarmored Speed feature is applied and not before. I'm sending that one in to Sage Advice. Incidentally, assuming a monk's Unarmored Speed applies directly to an aarakocra's flight speed, a maxed out monk, hasted, would make 73 miles an hour or so flying.

At this point, we did catch up with the fleeing orcs. Because they had run into reinforcements near the top of the path. Vrinn managed to get surrounded and dropped by those orcs before we got in enough support to kill the lot.

Then, after healing Vrinn's wounds, we did the only ethical thing: sent him ahead to scout again. He spotted a stone door and several arrow slits. Not satisfied with that information, we sent him back for more. This time, however, he was spotted and had a few crossbow bolts to show for it.

We made another plan. We used Squiz as bait, since he can get his AC up to 20 with shield going, to lure out the orcs' attacks then shoot back while they're firing. This only sort of worked. So Lydia dropped her Quaal's feather token in front of one of the windows. It blocked the attacks out of one, and provided and convenient way to climb into the other windows. Squiz climbed on up, then used Aganazzar's scorcher on a line of orcs. Parkour! and Fuego!

After dropping these sentries, we took a short rest. We found a secret door out of the arrow slit corridor and into the main gate area. The orcs had barred the inside of the stone door. Opposite the door was a deep chasm crossed by a rope bridge. We heard water gurgling up from the depth. Phox unbarred the door while the rest of us poked around for secret doors, finding an entrance to another arrow slit corridor on the other side of the stone door.

Someone lit a torch and dropped it into the chasm to test the depths, attracting the attention of orcs on the other side. We easily dropped them. The bridge held up under our weight, but the crossing wasn't without incident. It turns out Phox is scared of heights. So Lydia had to encourage her while crossing.

We broke at that point. Next week: more orcs? Probably.

Kill All the Trees, No-Tongued Bastards.

Again, shit is happening. Always be aware of what's going on. Shit will affect you sooner or later.

So after resting in the fire snake den, we returned to where we fought the goblins and moved on. We continued to find infestations of bio-luminescent fungus in the corridors. We did find an intact wall mural depicting a dragon doing dragon stuff: burning down stuff and pillaging. We ran into another bugbear, this one apparently a fungus gardener. I got to viciously mock it out of my new Warlock Book of Shadows. Shannon suggested a Shakespeare insult generator to accompany this spell. Sounds legit. Phox took it out with a crit. Hopefully this breaks Kyla's bugbear curse?

During this scene we learned that Bruennor is meta-aware that Calvin re-statted him from a Knowledge Cleric to a Life Cleric, and has taken up a new hobby in response: drinking. We found ourselves in an area of plant-filled rooms. After opening some more doors we came to a different room.

It held a dragon statue with the eyes glowing blue and a circle of runes in the in front of it. As we moved to attack it, a shadow ambushed us. As you may recall, these incorporeal undead are weak to radiant damage. Auryx used moonbeam. I also used another new one out of my Book of Shadows: sacred flame. Bruennor also used that spell. But Calvin decided that being drunk reduces Wisdom (as well as Intelligence, Charisma, Dexterity, Strength...), so Bruennor kinda sucks at it, now. Once she had her moonbeam, Auryx became a giant honey badger. The thing had a bad habit of hiding behind that statue, so I broke out the drow racial ability to cast faerie fire, and it failed. Fortunately, Vrinn was finally able to sneak in and get a sneak attack off. Once we had beaten the shadow, we read the runes in the circle. It said in Draconic, "Sorcererous power illuminate my spirit." We tried putting some sapphires in dragon eyes again to no avail. Then Bruennor just said it out loud and got advantage on Charisma checks for a while.

Moving on we found a modest library. We took a short rest there. Vrinn poked around, finding a spell scroll of Melf's acid arrow. Phox tried to read by holding a book upside down. I helpfully flipped it right side up. Bruennor, in addition to his drinking problem, has also decided to take up the hobby of destroying and belittling knowledge. So he tried to vandalize books before the rest of us subdued him.

Beyond that we found some descending stairs! But dang it if we aren't players and we don't want that 100% map completion achievement (it unlocks a new skin for characters!), so we back-tracked to open more doors in the plant-filled area. We found a room of skeletons clearing scorched plant matter. As we engaged them, some twig blights appeared. We did have short discussion about Harryhausen, then moved on.

We found an octagonal room with more scorched plant matter and several holes in the walls. Squiz decided to stick his arm in one of the holes. He got attacked by another fire snake. Hiro used a new trick: charging his bow with psychic energy before attacking it. Needless to say, we won. Sqiz was rewarded for searching its lair, though, finding some sapphires.

Last, we found some goblins collecting edible lichen. We totally face murdered them, then moved back to library for another short rest. One of the fun features of the warlock: a short rest tops off their tank of spell slots.

The stairs led down, under a room we had explored, and then back up. It led down another corridor. We opened some stone doors, finding big old room full of goblins and twig blights. Another opened into another rift. Vrinn tried to pick a locked door, but failed. We fought the goblins, and they called for the Protector of the Twilight Grove, which summoned more twig blights! Hiro covered the area of that swarm of twig blights in darkness. Surprisingly they started moving away from us. Auryx dropped a flaming sphere to burn out the twig blights. Hiro also summoned up a pair of shadow beasts to block their retreat.

Squiz, once again proving he just exists to try different things, started throwing tridents. As Hiro's shadow beasts started killing blights, we had to check some rules. Apparently, if they kill a non-evil humanoid, it will raise a shadow in 4 hours. So we need to be careful with those. Once we had cleared the mob, we got to explore.

There was a back door to the locked room Vrinn failed to pick. It lead to a study with a soil floor. I found an interesting book written in draconic: Treasures of the Firelord. I opened it. It was trapped with a cold damage glyph of warding. Haha. Looking around we found some more spell scrolls: entangle and protection from poison.

We took a short rest back at the stairs. We decided, even though it would end with us running late, to go on to the final battle.

We came to a walled clearing: the site of the Gulthias Tree. We found Belak, and some humans: Sir Braford and Sharwyn Hucrele. The last two weren't looking good: a little bit like Zerg-infested Terrans but with wood. We got Belak monologuing about the tree: it grew from a stake used to kill a vampire. He using the fruit to "spread it's seed" as it were. Plus, he had turned Sharwyn and Sir Braford into "supplicants" of the Tree.

We concocted our plan: grab a red apple off the tree and use it to, hopefully, cure the transformed humans. Vrinn snuck around to the flank. Or tried to. This was the last straw, and Belak started fighting. Auryx finally got to use her entangle to tie down some of the enemies. Vrinn did manage to sprint up the tree and grab that apple as we were fighting twig blights, Belak, and the "supplicants." We managed to knock them out. I did helpfully remind newer players that you can decide to knock out a foe when you drop them to 0 hp in this edition. Yay more cinematic play style! Hiro got to score the killing blow on Belak.

While everyone else was trying to secure the humans for restoration, I listened to the strange voices in my head and poured lantern oil onto the Gulthias Tree and set it ablaze. Fortunately, the apple did cure the humans of their tree-infestation, and we were justly rewarded.

Next week, we move on to the Forge of Fury.

Sometimes It Sucks. Other Times It Blows.

So a lot of stuff happened between blog posts that you shouldn't ignore. But Harvey is big. Here is a list of places where you can donate. What can you do on that other stuff? Lots, actually. But on to D&D.

Unfortunately Kiana failed to make it again. She was an awesome player, but life is life. Just hoping she can come back again.

Since AL allows it, I restated Lydia into the Warlock class with the Great Old One as her patron. This actually facilitated a change in her backstory that I think would be more interesting. Want more details? That'll be a Patreon donors only thing from now on. Tell me you'll sign up for a Patreon for this blog in the comments, I'll set it up, and add that backstory to the available rewards.

I'd also like to take a moment to point out that Shannon is an awesome artist. She painted some tokens and crafted and painted some custom minis for the game. She even painted minis for Auryx, Phox, and Lydia. Wanna see? Again, I think that's another good thing for Patreon donors.

We took the goblin chieftain's head back to Yusdrayl, and she let us have more of the treasure.

After that, we took a long rest and went back to exploring. We found another locked door. Phox, being Phox, tried to bash it open with her sword. And damaged her sword. Vrinn came up and picked the lock. We found an empty pit trap and nothing else.

So we went back to the well. We lowered Phox on a rope, like a worm, into the deep well where we fought the chieftain. She found a bit filled with bio-luminescent fungus and other plants being tended by some skeletons. The skeletons moved to attack her. I supported her from the top of the well with some eldritch blasts. One even cause a skelesplosion, getting some bone dust in Phox's hair. Poor baby complained about getting bone dust in her hair. She's got so many worse things in there. Once the skeletons were dead, a bunch of twig blights. The other melee characters joined her by climbing down some convenient Legend of Zelda vines on the walls of the well.

We explored further down one corridor and found some well fed, well-groomed, and strangely behaved rats. It turns out they were pets for a bugbear with a thing for antlered head wear. The thing (of course) went for Phox, and nearly killer. Poor Kyla and bugbears, ever since one dropped her first character on her first session on a critical hit. DM tip: That should have killed her character, and she was a good sport about it. But don't let dice kill a first time players character. That's just bullshit.

Hiro burned a psychic blast to kill a rat. Apparently Mystics take on quirks, and one of Hiro is needing to know the name, or name his kills. We learned he killed the rat named Grip. And Auryx was the one that ultimately dropped the bugbear.

Phox did get a consolation prize: she found the bugbear's treasure in his bed. Plus we found a weapon rack where Phox found a new sword, and Squiz found a bunch more random weapons to haul around. We found a long tunnel into the Underdark but left well enough alone.

So we took the other corridor and found an ancient rift, remnant of the cataclysm that sunk the citadel. The floor was filled with small holes. When someone suggested I look in one, I pointed out that this is how people die. Instead I chucked a pebble down one. It went down the hole, and we didn't hear a landing sound.

Further up the rift we found an alcove containing a resting fire snake. Although thanks to the likes of Squiz and Bruennor, we failed to sneak up on it. But we did swarm it. Its nest contained a pair of sapphires.

We continued on the other side of the cleft corridor. It ended at a stuck door. Squiz shoved it open. It was room covered in mosaic tile with a dragon statue holding an empty tray. We pulled out some archaeological excavator picks and searched that thing up and down. We put the sapphires in the tray. We dumped in a bunch of gold. We put some magic items in. We even put some oil in it and lit it on fire. Nothing happened.

We continued exploring along the rift, finding another corridor lined with doors. Me, the player, got up to use the bathroom at this point. While I was in there, the rest of the group decided to line up in front of the doors and have Bruennor use Thaumaturgy to slam them all open at once. We should have thought that through a bit further. I did raise an objection when I sat back down, but the character on auto-follow doesn't get a say.

The rooms had goblins in them.

First of all, one of our tanks, Phox, found an empty room. Then some of our softer characters, like Auryx and Hiro, stood in front of doors containing three goblins, while tougher characters, like Squiz, only stood in front of a room with two. Yes. It sucked.

First, Squiz got dropped by not one, but two sequential critical hits. Not since the era of DJ have we seen the dice this furiously against the players. I did get to use a cool, creepy spell called arms of hadar, but then got swarmed by the goblins I was hoping to kill and got dropped. Auryx also got dropped by a swarm of goblins. Later, so did Hiro. And towards the end, they even got Phox. In keeping everybody up, Bruennor and Auryx managed to burn through our healing, including a potion. Afterwards Bruennor got dropped. I kept myself on my feet by ducking in and out of an empty room while firing eldritch blast. Fortunately, what was left of myself, Squiz, Auryx, and Vrinn managed to finish off the goblins, including the last one that we pinned in a corner, and we got everybody stabilized.

Alec had taken into account we were a big party, and had buffed the goblins hit points, accounting for how hard they were to kill. And they rolled way too high while we rolled way too low. FATE points, people!

In the mean time, we retreated to that fire snake's alcove for a long rest, and Alec told us we hit level 3. I took Pact of the Tome, so they found me perusing a book with cover seemed to be made of moldy rose petals stitched together with rotting, thorny vines, a green sigil on the cover resembling an open hand, palm out, with a mouth in the center. Poor, curious Phox asked to look. I clutched it closer, warning the foolish human that the book's contents would break her mind.

As I close out: I set this up. It is my contribution to Walmart's annual Children's Miracle Network drive. I do not yet know how to tie it back to the company and my store in particular. Even if I can only tie it to Walmart, we'll see if we can't get the donated totals distributed to stores from participating and contributing associates. Gaming for the kids, internetland!

A Little Passion Project

So I recently dug out a battered old soft-bound book. It happens to be a copy of The Palladium Fantasy Role-playing Game. While perusing it, I remembered it had a starter adventure at the end, like a lot of games do. It's a decent adventure, using a combination of site-based and event-based encounters with multiple factions for the players to interact with.

I re-read the credits, and it was written by none other than Erick Wujcik, creator of Amber Diceless Role-playing. It is fair to say that game was highly influential. Not to me directly, but to game designers whose products I admire.

Since it's not the adventure's fault it got saddled to a, let's be honest, bad rules set, I think I'd like to write an adaptation of it for 5e. The goal is to make it available sometime next year as a free download.

A Very Special Post

I hate to say it readers, but it's come to this:

I work for an evil corporation. And even though the branch I work at is one of the most successful in our market right now, they're squeezing us for hours. My managers rock (part of why we're so successful!) and are trying to get Corporate to back down. But it's stressful.

Put it simply: I need money. I have a car to pay off. I have D&D books to buy. I need to get a new wireless router. Hell, I need to contribute money towards improving the internet speed at the place I'm living. Plus food. Food is good.

I've resisted putting ads on the blog. And that doesn't seem like a viable option for income for much longer anyway.

So readers: I'm pondering setting up a Patreon for this blog. But I don't want to spin my wheels for nothing. I wasted time going to school for useless pieces of paper. I waste time volunteering and networking only to still lose out on better jobs and promotions.

IF I set up a Patreon, WILL YOU contribute?

Comment yes is you will.

Goblins, Dragons, and Trolls

A new player joined us: Kiana. She made a Wood elf finesse/duel weapon fighter named Rat-eyes. This is the third time someone has made a character using the Urchin background: Temerity from Kyla, Remy from Shannon, and now Rat-eyes from Kiana.

In any case, the party opted to take another long rest. This seems to be to restore Phox's rage and Bruenor's spell slots. Or something. I could advise Kyla and Calvin to just conserve these resources better, but 30 minute workdays have always been a thing in D&D.

The new character joined us during the long rest. Alec also summarized more of what we had learned from Erky. When we were ready to continue: we found the goblins' larder, filled with all kinds of disgusting things like something called "wine" that smelled like vinegar and something called "elf pudding." Erky tried a bit of that and found it tasty. Gnomes.

Past the larder were more goblins! Phox raged and used her reckless attack to crit one to death. This happened a lot, actually. Hiro also managed to get a killing blow with one of his psychic powers. Yes, that happened. Once the goblins were dead, further exploration revealed the barracks they had come out of. I also managed to find a pit trap with my face, but it was only 10 feet deep. The only thing injured was my pride.

We came to a locked door. Rat-eyes just walked right up to the thing and unlocked it. Rolling natural 20s is great for that! Behind that was room lined with mounted heads and antler trophies, including a few kobold heads. We spotted a white dragon taking cover behind a busted table. I walked in and, speaking Draconic, said, "Calcryx, we're here to take you home." It hissed at me and attacked. For some reason my dice do not like rolling high on initiative with Lydia, so Phox and Rat-eyes were first through the door.

Jokes on them, though. white dragons breath cones of cold! And they got struck by it while I was out of reach. Rat-eyes tried a neat trick, using a length of chain in the room to try and hold the dragon's mouth closed. She failed. At this point we had it surrounded, then it used it's special skill: burrowing. It came up next to Meepo and tried to kill the poor kobold, knocking it to 0 hp. Then Vrinn knocked it out. Erky provided healing to Meepo and Phox.

In the meantime, we found some valuables in a nest the dragon had made for itself: a figurine, some silverware, and a scroll case marked "Khundrukar," and containing a cryptic message on a water-damaged parchment. This, incidentally, is the breadcrumb to Forge of Fury, the next adventure in the book. Originally they were the first 2 in a linked path published for 3rd edition. The path of adventures was meant to bring a party to 20th level. They were not very well linked.

There was another locked door in the dragon's room. Again, Rat-eyes opened it, proving to be a better rogue than Vrinn. At this part of the job, anyway. There was a corridor lined with columns carved in the images of dragons. Torches set in sconces lit the place. We decided now would be a good time to return Meepo and the dragon.

Yusdrayl was true to her word and gave us the key. We examined more of the treasure she had. I offered the jade figurine we had found in exchange for an intriguing looking feather. It turned out to be a Quall's feather token (tree). Now I can grow an insta-oak tree, while out doors. Like most greedy murder hobos, we started bargaining for the rest. Ultimately, she would give us some scrolls and a potion for handling her goblin problem in the form of returning with the goblin chieftain's head.

But first we back-tracked with Erky, showing him the way back to the surface. He thanked us and went on his way. Then we opened that locked door. We thus began a classic: the gauntlet of trapped rooms.

The first one seemed innocuous enough. The north wall held alcoves containing cracked glass orbs. The south wall had a similar alcove containing an intact orb glowing with a pale blue light. Hiro decided this obviously dangerous thing would be good to touch. It started playing brooding music, probably along the lines of this. It constantly cast a charm person effect, and Squiz and Phox were the first hit by it. While charmed, they decided that leaving the citadel would be a good idea. Eventually, Bruenor threw the damn thing on the floor, breaking it.

Next we found a corridor, containing a trap we quickly spotted. Throwing a rock down the hall we found it was a pressure plate attached to an arrow trap. We had pitons! We wedged that pressure plate open and continued onward.

We found a dust covered room with a dragon statue at one end. As we moved in, the dragon statue spoke a short riddle:

We come at night without being fetched;
we disappear by day without being stolen.
What are we?

After answering this painfully obvious riddle, we found another long corridor, lined with alcoves filled with statues of robed elves, members of the dragon cult. There was a spike filled pit at one end. Auryx made an ice bridge (hopefully with guard rails) crossing the pit. Before we reached the door on the other side of a pit, an invisible quasit, a tiny minor demon, appeared, attacked, then fled, laughing. It apparently discharged it's duty.

We now found ourselves in a mostly purple room with a sarcophagus in the middle. The sarcophagus was clamped shut. We're adventurers. Schmuck bait is what we live for! We unclamped it and slid it open. There was a troll inside dressed in the robes of a dragon priest. It didn't like being in there, so it thanked us by trying to kill us, as is their way.

Trolls in D&D aren't cute little naked people with colorful hair. Their mean giant-like monsters that regenerate. It takes fire or acid to shut down that regeneration. For whatever reason, everybody forgot to bring a fire or acid spell. So Squiz and Hiro poured lantern oil on it and set it on fire. That works, too. We looted it's stuff, then found a secret door with a crawlspace, letting us know that this was where a disgraced dragonpriest had been interred.

Great! We went in through the back door. Dungeon design doesn't always have to make sense.

We decided to get back on task with goblin killing. We passed through the columned hall and found a room full of goblins. They were mostly noncombatants. I decided to play Drow matron mother and stepped into the room, acting like I was in charge, and demanded the goblin slaves show us where their chieftain was. It worked. Sort of. The goblins did show point us toward their chief. But as we started toward it, the noncombatants backed off and the warriors came forward. They started attacking us, because, yeah.

So, in an MMO, when doing a dungeon, while you're clearing one room, whatever you do, you don't pull another. Jeff must not have played MMOs. Hiro opened the door to the next room as we were clearing the first.

It was okay. Squiz and Hiro took on that room. Squiz, proving that Will is playing a WWE character and not a straight-up fighter, tried to grapple the chieftain and throw him down a deep well in his room. Unfortunately, he failed. But he sure did pull all the aggro in that room!

Jeff did whip out one of Hiro's big guns: a psionic blast attack that does 2d8 damage. There's no attack roll. No saving throw. Apparently, the designers did this on purpose. It is a single-target, and limited use. Still felt a tad over-powered.

We managed to clear both rooms. A party of 8 characters can do that, even at low level.

What happens next? What's at the bottom of the well? We'll find out next time.

Traps Suck!

While I was drafting this, a gathering of Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, VA turned violent, leaving at least 3 dead. Remember, these are the people who voted POTUS 45 into office. So he couldn't very well be seen condemning them. So he didn't. He tweeted something non-committal about "many sides" and how we should "come together."

There are not many sides. There are two sides, the right one and the wrong. The wrong one carried Confederate, KKK, and Neo-Nazi flags. They also carried torches. The right one was attacked by a terrorist in a motor vehicle, leading to a death.

I normally like to save the political bits for my other blog, but this has my blood boiling. You done messed up bad POTUS 45. When Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Orrin Hatch, and Lindsey Fucking Graham tell you that this is evil, terrorism, two-sided, and you need to distance yourself from one side, maybe you should listen.

Know this, everyone at my table condemns the actions of the Neo-Nazi Terrorists in Charlottesville. This makes us all, in their eyes, snowflake SJW libtards. They'll also call the guys in the group virtue-signaling beta-cucks. Thanks for letting us know we're good people and trying to turn it into insults, Neo-Nazi Terrorists!

On to D&D!

Seems Blake and Hillary have found a D&D group of kids their own age. More power to you, kids! Wish I could have done it when I was your age. Have fun.

So we played adult D&D, where the adventurers get day jobs, pay bills, live lives of quiet desperation as their childhood dreams die on the vine, and try to contribute the best they can to society.

Ha! No. We got our murder hobo on. As in we were hobos that wandered into a murder basement.

Meepo led us to the backdoor into goblin territory: another empty room. We checked for traps on the door and found none.

The room beyond was empty except for a dry, ruined fountain carved in the form of a diving dragon. Opposite that was a door carved in the form of skeletal dragons. Auryx examined the fountain more closely and poured some water in. It caused a reddish liquid to pour out of the dragon's mouth. We left that alone and examined the door. Runes in Draconic said "Rebuke the dead, open the way." Bruenor couldn't do it yet; in 5e Clerics can't turn undead until 2nd level.

Further down was a corridor lined with partially open, musty-smelling doors. Bruenor used the cantrip thaumaturgy to slam those doors closed. An unsubtle way to substitute for mage hand. We went through the corridor and found another dry fountain and a pair of jammed-open pit traps. The whole thing exuded a smell of rot.

Before going forward, we opened those slammed doors one on one. They were jail cells, and few had giant rats in them. We easily slaughtered them.

In the meantime, I continued examining the fountain, spotting some faint lettering in Draconic: "Let there be death." Don't say words aloud, apparently. It caused a cloud of poison gas to emerge from the mouth of the dragon. Vrinn examined the mouth and found some canisters containing more of the poison. Then he examined the other fountain, finding faintly carved letters in Draconic: "Let there be fire." We decided to leave that alone. While we were doing that, Auryx tried to open the cold, bony door and got hit by a scything blade trap.

Then we reset one of the pit traps, and opened a door passed the poison fountain. We found more rats, including an extra-large, apparently diseased rat. They charged at us, then Bruenor used another casting of thaumaturgy to slam the door behind a rat, knocking it across the pit trap. Then Squiz decided to shove the poor thing into the pit trap. With that, we were able to handily slaughtered the other rats, then leveled up!

Once we were done with all the paperwork, we explored the rat room further, finding some corpses. One of them was human equipped as a ranger. He wore a gold ring on his finger bearing the name "Karakus," one of the adventurers that went missing. We took his ring, and (of course) his stuff. We cleared out some kobold and goblin corpses, and found their stuff in a stinky rat's nest.

We decided to open one more door before trying the scary, scary bone door. We found a field of caltrops in front of a ramshackle crenelated wall. There were some goblins behind the wall. The shot bows at us, hitting Squiz with a critical and dropping him. I got the door closed. Auryx froze the locking mechanism, and we took a short rest. We peeked in afterwards, finding the goblins still on guard.

So we decided to go back to the scary, scary door. Vrinn tried to disarm the trap and got a scythe-blade to the face for his trouble. Bruenor finally just used turn undead on the damn thing, and it opened. It was a small, cold room. The walls were lined with stone sarcophagai with an altar on the far wall. Bruenor called for another short rest to recharge his turn undead.

Then we started messing around in the room that just so obviously contained undead monsters, somewhere. Squiz looked for secret doors. Meanwhile, the rest of us examined stuff on the altar: a candle with a blue continual flame spell cast on it. A crystal whistle shaped like a dragon with the name "Nightcaller on it." There was also a crystal flask containing a red liquid similar to the one from the fountain. We thought it might be a potion of fire resistance. Bruenor picked it up, causing the sarcophagai to open, with more angry skeletons. Bruenor turned some of them, making it a little easier to fight them. Afterwards, Auryx and Phox started wailing on the altar, revealing a secret compartment with more rich stuff inside.

Bruenor cast identify on the whistle, learning it could cast animate dead. The idea of animating the ranger or one of the goblin corpses was floated, and Phox was clearly not on board with this idea. Honestly, neither should Bruenor, and Lydia wouldn't have been on board either. Eventually, Phox was convinced the whistle didn't do anything, and we pressed on.

We went back to kill us some goblins. Auryx used thunderwave to push the caltrops back against the wall. Phox finally used the barbarian signature ability to get mad and raged. During the charge up, at one point both Squiz and I were standing on the wall, Wuxia style, killing goblins. We found another, abandoned guard post past that one, this one set up with archery targets. We found an empty corridor, and, finally, a little prison.

There were a bunch of kobolds there along with a gnome named Erky Timbers, an acolyte. Erky told us about a human named Belak, who apparently lived in the deeper levels of the fortress and tended something called a Gulthias tree, the source of the fruit the goblins sold. He confirmed that the adventuring group including the Hucreles, had been captured by the goblins. Eventually Belak had taken Sharwyn and Sir Braford into the keep depths for some unknown purpose.

On that note, we packed for the night. Next time: dragons, trolls, and goblins, oh my!

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...

...For you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

Alec couldn't make it. So I volunteered to run a boss rush. Everybody broke out their high level characters, and I set up an encounter with an adult blue dragon. For those of you unfamiliar with D&D dragons, blue dragons live in deserts and breath lightning bolts. In past editions, they had affinity for illusions.

Not a lot to tell. But for a DM running a high level "boss" like this:

1) Dragons need room to use their maneuverability.
2) Legendary actions and lair actions are your friend.
3) Players are jerks.

After letting my dragon fly around, Jornath trapped my dragon in a forcecage with Maveith. Maveith jumped onto the dragon's back and chained himself to it before the cage was cast. I managed to kill most of their summoned berserkers with breath weapons, legendary actions, and lair actions. I also buried poor Tathora at one point.

The next dragon will be higher level, and I think I will use the spellcasting variant.

Next week Alec will be back. I can continue my DMing hiatus. Whew!

A Drow Walks Into a Bar...

I prepped a couple of characters for this: a drow monk follower of Eilistraee, the good drow goddess of nature and the moon, and a deep gnome artificer. When I saw people's other choices for classes, it became apparent we had a thing front line, so I opted for the monk. Granted, I'm using the Sun Soul build out of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, which is a skirmish build, designed to move back and forth between the front and back lines. I feel she needs a more proper introduction:

Lyrrad Z'Draudei was raised in an enclave of Eilistraee followers in Cormanthor. Among humans, she goes by "Lydia," because humans are like 'Muricans and can't pronounce f'rin names. She went out into the world seeking portents showing the will of gods in the world. She believes it will all work for the better and evil will be defeated. She followed portents to Waterdeep and the Yawning Portal Inn. In this case, following signs posted by Kerowyn Hucrele, who needed some help.

Who else joined her to help this woman? Vrinn, a wood elf rogue played by Lazaro. Phox, a human barbarian played by Kyla. Bruenor, a hill dwarf cleric played by Calvin. Hiro, a human mystic played by Jeff. Auryx, a water genasi druid played by Shannon. Bobby Jay, a forest gnome bard played by Hillary. Squiz, a human fighter played by will. Amnon, a tiefling sorcerer played by Blake.

She was from a nearby village called Oakhurst, close to a ruin called the Sunless Citadel, a fortress that sank into the earth during a mysterious cataclysm. He brother, Talgen, and sister, Hucrele, went adventuring in the citadel and disappeared. She wanted us to go down and search for them, offering 125gp if we could find evidence of their fate, specifically their signet rings and double that if we could return them alive. Lydia knew that the gods would provide good fortune and we'd find them alive and return them. The rest of the party eventually agreed with varying amounts of optimism and pessimism.

We traveled to Oakhurst and asked around for additional information. We learned why adventurers might be interested in the ruin: every year around the summer solstice goblins living there come to the surface and sell an apple. Those that eat it have their ailments cured and are restored to full health and vigor. Like most drow, Lydia was suspicious of goblins. After some more digging, the priest at the local shrine mentioned the goblins sell a corpse-white fruit as mid-winter that is deathly poisonous. We learned that townsfolk would plant the seeds, resulting in only twisted seedlings that would eventually disappear. This piqued Lydia's interest, and she knew Eilistraee had guided her to the town to learn the secret of these apples the goblins sell. A few of the others had their interest piqued as well.

Otherwise, we learned that the citadel was built by a now extinct dragon cult.

We set out for the citadel, finding some columns in a wasted plain just off of an old road near the town. We found a knotted rope still tied off to one of these columns on the lip of a chasm leading to the Citadel. Although weather worn from a few weeks, the rope was still sturdy enough to climb. Staying in character, Lydia climbed down first, doing a super-hero landing when she reached the sandy ledge below. Of course, there were monsters! Some giant rats. It took a while for the rest of the party to reach the ledge, Except for Squiz, who decided to do a "people's elbow" off the ledge and onto one of the rats. It didn't really work out so well. Squiz landed prone and took about as much damage as the rat. At first level, risky moves are much more likely to end poorly.

We continued on, following rough stone steps down into the chasm, coming to a crumbling masonry courtyard that was once a crenelated balcony. While crossing it, Phox was kind enough to find a pit trap with her face. Aside from Phox, it contained some dead goblins, one very freshly dead. It also had another giant rat. Phox handled it quite quickly, chopping it in half with a greatsword.

The door leading deeper in had runes in draconic written over it spelling the word "Ashardalon." This was probably the dragon the cult "worshipped."

Past that we found a ruined tower, again containing only some goblin corpses, one impaled on a spear. After searching around, we found a flagstone sticking up from the ground with an obvious needle trap on it. Vrinn failed to disable the trap, but Hiro used a psychic ability of the Mystic to "borrow" Vrinn's thieves' tools proficiency and disabled it. We triggered this floor switch, opening a secret door into an archer's post containing three skeletons.

Did they animate and attack us? Of course they did strawman reader asking ridiculous questions. Did we dispatch them with alacrity? Again, of course. Stop asking rhetorical questions. We searched through the room and found 3 +1 arrows in special slots on their quivers.

We took a southerly route further into the dungeon, finding another crumbled room. The way forward was a stone door with a dragon carved on it in relief, a keyhole in it's mouth. It was locked, and resisted our attempts to pick it. While some of us were looking around the room trying to find other ways to unlock the door, including Auryx trying that old "peer through the keyhole" trick, Vrinn went off down another corridor, finding another empty room and an old cistern. Laz decided to hold the idiot ball this session, and had Vrinn bring out his crowbar and bash at the cistern, breaking it open and releasing two mephits: a steam one and an ice one.

Mephits are small imps made of para-elemental materials. That is to say, something that is a combination of the four "cardinal" elements. In this case, water and fire (steam) and water and air (ice). The ancient builders of this place probably summoned and bound the critters to the cistern for limits less water. The steam mephit constantly produces steam while the ice one constantly condenses said steam into water. Mephits, like more traditional imps, are malicious little critters, so they attacked their "savior." Vrinn called for help, and we naturally helped.

Mephits are a good thing to challenge a larger, but low level party. They have breath weapons, a fairly large amount of hit points, and explode when they die. Bruenor managed to keep us alive, though. After that fight, we retreated to the empty room and took a long rest.

We moved on, finding a room filled with wrecked furniture, a busted open cage, and a table covered in cloth like an altar. We heard something sobbing under the altar. We peered under there to find a sad kobold. Seeing a large group of well armed adventurers, it cringed, but we decided to talk to it, learning that it's name was Meepo, and it was the clan's dragon-keeper. Meepo explained that the goblins had stolen their dragon: Calcryx. We mentioned we're not fond of the goblins, either, and Meepo took us to see Yusdrayl, the clan's leader. On the way, Meepo taught us a password to let the kobolds know we were friendly as we moved through their territory.

She had arranged some rubble into a throne, part of which featured a rearing dragon. In it's mouth was a key. We surmised it probably unlocked the door we had passed earlier. We bargained to retrieve Calcryx from the goblins in exchange for the key. Yusdrayl also let us know that the adventurers we were looking for had passed this way and gone into goblin territory before disappearing. Yusdrayl was happy to have Meepo guide us into goblin territory to find the dragon and missing adventurers. We reached an accord, and then we broke for the evening.

Tomb of Horrors, Part Two

Here's some free DMing advice: if a player comes up with a clever or creative strategy, give it a chance to work. I almost forgot this.

So, back in the room with the vats. Blake thought Ghesh could try drinking the acid in the middle vat. I had to explain to him that the vat was made of stone, fixed to the floor, four feet high, and seven feet in diameter. He would need to drink a lot. And each drink would be doing some acid damage. Dragonborn are resistant, but not immune.

So they debated ways to poke a whole in the vat. Meanwhile, Remy and a few others, grabbed some of the empty vessels and started moving the acid into the empty vat. Finally, Tathora handed over her over-priced Barovian shovel, and they fished the magic item out, damaging the shovel. It turned out to be the other half of the golden key. They put them together and found they melded into a whole key.

They continued past that room through a corridor and down a set of stairs and to a 20-foot long, 10-foot, empty deep pit. They did spot a pressure plate on the last 5-feet of the pit and lots of spike holes (spoles?). They did some more wedging with pitons, and climbed out of the pit, coming to a 4-way intersection with another covered pit trap in the center. They wedged that one shut, then turned left, in this case going north.

Tathora (of course!) found another secret door and followed it down another hallway. This led to a door and corridor trapped with sleep gas. It knocked Tathora out, but Remy dragged her back and explored further. She found a stone juggernaut shaped a little like a steam roller, but with cool spikes on the big wheel covered in blood, gore, and bits of bone. They pulled back to the secret door. Dang it!

On the way Glawen spotted another secret door. This one in the floor.

It led to a narrow spiral staircase, down to a narrow corridor, which ended at a metal door with three slots in it, each perfectly-sized for sword blades. After some trepidation, they put three swords in, and the door opened into a pastel-colored hall filled with columns. Jornath, with an invocation granting detect magic up, saw that the columns were magic. So they avoided touching them. At one point Remy did wing a copper coin at one, and it levitated up to the ceiling, where a gentle breeze started pushing it to the northwest. Dang it!

They went to the south of the room where a black throne with skulls carved in it sat on a raised dais. A crown and scepter sat on the throne. The crown itself was gold. The scepter's shaft was electrum with a golden knob at one end and a silver cap on the other. Incidentally, electrum is an alloy of gold and silver. Jeff decided to do what Blake usually does and had Jornath put on the crown. It caused him to perceive the dungeon as if it were brightly lit by sunlight. He also intuited that he could take off the crown by touching it with the scepter. He examined it with detect magic, discovering the golden had an abjuration aura while the silver end had a necromantic one. He decided to touch the gold end to the crown, allowing him to take it off. Dang it!

Tathora spotted a crown symbol inlaid into the throne. Kyla, again, remembered a bit from the poem they found at the entry and touched the scepter to the crown, causing the throne and dais to lower, revealing a passage into a hall beyond.

It led to a set of stone steps, each step crafted of different materials resulting in a rainbow effect. The steps led up to a massive set of mithral doors. Sitting on the steps was a bronze key with an antipathy effect on it. After a few failed saves, Tathora used dispel magic to shut down the antipathy effect.

The examined the doors, and found a concave depression with a hole within. They tried their keys. Glawen used mage hand while Maveith just walked up and stuck the key in. In both cases, a shock traps activated and zapped the hand out of existence and Maveith had a few more hit points chipped off his tankish pile. They floundered for idea. At no point did anyone considering trying to break the doors open. Dang it!

Since games stalling sucks, I allowed another "get a clue" roll to realize the scepter might also work as a key here. The doors opened into a large square chamber. A large, smoking, bronze urn stood in the center. Massive statues holding wicked looking weapons poised to strike were in each corner. Along the far wall was a smashed open sarcophagus with ACERERAK written on it flanked by two iron chests. They left the urn alone. Dang it!

Jornath examined the sarcophagus, finding the inner coffin smashed open as well with some rotting bits of bone and and a broken staff of the magus within. Yves disabled the traps and opened the locks on the iron chests, finding a pile of valuable gems in one and a pile of platinum pieces in the other. Will had Yves "make it rain" Scrooge McDuck style.

Incidentally, Shannon is awesome. She was keep track of party treasure, so I passed her a note about a trick of the stuff they had just found. She kept it secret and out of character knowledge.

The rest of the party wasn't so convinced. They eventually spotted a pull ring behind one of the statues. Grom, Maveith, and Remy teamed up to move the sucker (it merely required a combined Strength total of 48 to move), and the opened it, revealing more corridors.

Tathora spotted a hidden keyhole on a wall just south of the secret door they had just emerged from.

Glawen set up a Leomund's tiny hut, so they could take a long rest before progressing. Jornath and Yves refrained, however, spending the time counting sweet loot.

They tried the first key, lowering a secret door made of stone-sheathed adamantine (because this dungeon is for filling out metal, minerals and alloys, mythical and real, bingo!), revealing an empty room with a small concavity in the floor. Searching there, they found another keyhole. They used the second key, and floor started to rise. Since these are savvy players, they got out of the way. Dang it!

In any case, they found a room with treasures and a skull on a low bench, the skull studded with gems in the eye sockets and teeth. They started examining the treasure, finding weapons, armor, potions, scrolls. A ghostly figure appeared and looked menacing, but disappeared. Then someone cast a spell at the skull.

Acererak had awoken. Hot dang I love a final boss battle: play for full effect. Acererak, like Strahd, has those handy Legendary and Lair actions. Plus a special soul devouring power. I missed a little something in the demilich stat block, however: their lair actions only go off on 11 or better on a d20. I ignored that on the first turn. It was a doozy.

A lair action makes it so that no one can recover hit points. The demilich has a "breath weapon," in D&D 4e and up terms, it has a recharge roll, called Howl. For a Con save, the victims are either at 0 hit points (failure) or frightened (success). I knocked out the healers with it. Finally!

I wasn't as effective with the Legendary actions, but Legendary resistance did come in handy. And my d20 refused to roll 11 or better on subsequent rounds to let him keep up the Lair action goodness. And Howl failed to recharge.

Grom did summon up those berserkers again. But their weapons aren't magical, so their attacks tickled Acererak. Plus he used an area of effect life draining action to injure them and heal himself, since he's also resistant to damage from magic weapons.

Then Alec got clever. Bastard! He had Glawen use telekinesis to put that crown on the demilich and then sent the scepter at him silver-end first.

Okay. Two options: Acererak is clever enough to make this trick not work on him. Fair enough. It was the first reaction I went for, having it laugh. Then I thought: or is he the kind of hubris-filled asshole that wouldn't expect that from puny adventurers. And the ghost of Gygax did whisper: reward clever and inventive players.

So, I had Acererak do bleached skull version of eye-widening instead, and dodged with a Dexterity save against Glawen's spell save DC. In any case, the PCs got a maniacal gleam that let's a DM know he's done his job: they're going to do this interesting!

The plan, such as it was, involved a portable hole from the treasure pile, trapping the skull, then hitting it with the scepter. Remy set up the hole, then used her monk powers to push Acererak into the hole. Then Maveith grabbed the scepter and thrust it at the skull. So it turned the skull, and those valuable, valuable gems, into a fetid powder.

Is Acererak dead? Who knows? The best bad guys always work by comic book rules and keep coming back. They found some awesome loot: a defender shortsword, some other cool weapons, some elven chain, and animated shield, adamantine full plate, a staff of the woodlands, and a lot more. Plus, because sometimes a GM needs to drop a golden apple saying "The Fairest" on it, they found a deck of many things. Adventure hook established!

I montaged a few other things. Like finding out that those valuable gems were basically bits of somewhat valuable glass and those platinum pieces were in fact copper. Plus a vrock came along and said, "Look, we could fight each other, but I just want to take the crown and scepter back to the tomb. I'll keep coming back from the Abyss until I do. Just do a brother a solid and let me have it."

So that's it for now. I get to take a hiatus while Alec runs the updated Sunless Citadel out of Tales from the Yawning Portal.

Tomb of Horrors, Part One

We're back, bitches!

Will had to take a break from running. So I ran Against the Giants out of Tales From the Yawning Portal.

Holy shit. Ghost of Gygax, it's called box-text. It's okay to write it for a DM running your adventure. Plus, they just killed so many giants. It was satisfying. So being a glutton for punishment, and having players eager to see their characters die, I am running Tomb of Horrors out of that same book. So here are our victims heroes:

Tathora, half-elf cleric, being played by Kyla.
Remy, halfling monk, being played by Shannon.
Maveith, goliath fighter, being played by Calvin.
Glawen, human cleric/wizard, being played by Alec.
Ghesh, dragonborn sorcerer, being played Blake.
Pusheen, human druid, being played by Hillary.
Jornath, tiefling warlock, being played by Jeff.
Grom, human fighter, being played by Lazaro.
Yves, human rogue, being played by Will.

Tathora was lured to guided to the tomb by visions of the demilich Acererak and the power of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind. It can do other things, too! Who says it can't? She brought the others as patsies to take some of traps and monsters infesting allies to assist her in navigating the dangers of the tomb.

I decided to put the Tomb on the outskirts of the desert of Anauroch, linking Acererak to the long dead magical civilization of Netheril. So they came to a lonely, flat-stopped hill, covered by nothing but scrub and dry grass. Black rocks rested on the top. Investigating, they found a cliff of loosely packed sand and gravel under a stone overhang on the north side of the hill. Upon closer inspection Yves found someone scratched "Parzival and Art3mis 4 eva" into the hillside.

They dug through the loose dirt, finding three possible entry corridors: two relatively short ones, and longer, highly colorful one. Because players are players, they went into first the shorter one on the east side, triggering a trap in the form of a huge stone slab meant to seal them in. Maveith wedged it open with a crowbar. Then they went to the short one of the west side, using mage hand to try and open some false doors, triggering a collapsing ceiling trap. That one wouldn't have been fatal, but it would have hurt.

So they (finally!) went down the right path, a hallway covered in frescoes with mosaic tiling, mostly green with a narrow path of red winding through it. Some of the party avoided walking on the red path, others walked along it.

So, as I kinda forgot, Tathora found a tome of understanding at the end of Curse of Strahd. So she is now walking around with 22 Wisdom, and proficiency with Perception with a +5 proficiency bonus. She found all the pit traps. They're ten feet deep and lined with poisonous spikes. Although in 5th edition falling damage gives you a "grace height" of 10 feet, I decided to rescind that for this adventure. Gravity may have changed in new editions, but it now works different in this dungeon, dammit! (This will matter later)

And then there's Maveith. Maxed out Strength (in this edition, at 20), proficiency in Athletics and with a class feature that gives him advantage on Strength (athletics) checks. And the party has approximately all the pitons between them. So they were able to wedge those pit traps shut.

That done, walking along the red path reveals a poem written with all the skill of middle-school creative writing student (sorry Ghost of Gygax, you just aren't that good at poetry):

Acererak congratulates you on your powers of observation, so make of this whatever you wish, for you will be mine in the end no matter what!
Go back to the tormentor or through the arch, and the second great hall you'll discover.
Shun green if you can, but night's good color is for those of great valor.
If shades of red stand for blood, the wise will not need sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal-you're well along your march.
Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall.
These keys and those are most important of all, and beware of trembling hands and what will maul.
If you find the false you find the true, and into the columned hall you'll come, and there the throne that's key and keyed.
The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer's eye.
You've left and left and found my tomb, and now your souls will die.

Toward the entrance of this hall, there is a fresco of jackal-headed humanoids holding a bronze chest coming out of the wall. Yves fooled around with it, finding a catch to open it with an obvious poison needle trap. He had a caster use mage hand to press the catch, opening the bottom of the chest. He found it empty, except for a lever, which he left alone. Dang it!

They followed the red path to the arch, cloudy and with three stones along it lighting yellow (left base stone), orange (right base stone), and blue (keystone) in that order. They messed around with the stones, but had no apparent effect. They left the arch alone. Dang it!

The red path also forked, leading a green mosaic of a leering green devil face, it's mouth gaping. Blake started messing around with it, sending a mage hand into the mouth, where it vanished. Then the others had to be buzzkills and told him to leave it alone. Blake actually listened. Dang it!

They purposefully triggered a pit trap, and found a hidden door at the bottom of one, but found it was one-way, so they re-wedged it.

Since no one likes it when things stall, I had Kyla roll a "get a clue" check for Tathora, leading them back to a fresco of a monstrous creature trapped behind an iron prison door. They started breaking away the stucco, finding a door.

It lead to a room with an apparent statue of a four-armed gargoyle. It came to life an attacked. The poor thing stood no chance. It was dead in less than a round. Didn't even get to attack and do damage. Surprisingly enough, Kyla got a little murder-hoboin' on and asked if it had anything: it did! a color studded with ovular 100gp blue quartz gems and a hidden compartment with a small scrap of parchment with gibberish written on it. A casting of comprehend language on it revealed it to read "Look low and high for gold, and on your way you'll wend. -A"

One of the exits from that room lead through a series of 10-ft by 10-ft chambers that terminated at a false door.

The other exit lead to an apparently empty 10-ft by 10-ft room. Until Tathora looked in and found a secret door. This lead to a series of secret doors in chambers where bolts were constantly raining down on the group like the diseased fever dreams of a Nintendo-era platform game designer. But Tathora, with help from Maveith and Remy, eventually found all of the secret doors, each of which needed to be opened in a different fashion. The original intent of this was for the players end up doing this forever while the bolts chipped away at their hit points. Since most of the party were jerks, and Tathora was the one mostly getting chipped, I let her figure out pretty quickly how to open all the doors.

Except for the last one. It was a door with seven studs. Upon reaching it, Tathora called the rest over for help. Only Maveith responded. Calvin and Kyla are not allowed to play games with these kinds of puzzles. Calvin just had them press all the studs at once, opening the door. Then the rest of the party followed, Yves even doing a Megaman slide to try and avoid the bolts. They found another hallway lined with color frescoes, this time of figures holding orbs of various colors. The door closed behind them, being a one-way passage, but I reminded them they could disintegrate it or open it with knock.

I drew up the hall, indicating the color of the orbs along the walls, because I wasn't going to describe it 50 times. Anyways, any game designers wanting to make a retroclone of something like Zork or Myst, have Kyla playtest that thing. She will show you how laughably dumb your puzzles are.

She remembered the scrap of paper she just found, and examined an orb colored gold being held high up, discovering a crawlspace beyond it, which she went through. There she found another four-armed gargoyle statue, but one of it's arms was on the floor. After closely examining the other hands, she found that they had indents in them perfectly sized for those quartz gems she just found. She put one in, and the hand animated, crushing it into dust. No one objected when she did it with the rest of those things, probably remembering how she solved the dancing puzzle in Curse of Strahd. Once all 10 were crushed, a magic mouth on the gargoyle added more bad poetry: "Your sacrifice was not in vain. Look to the fourth to find your gain." So Kyla found a gem of seeing in the hand of the broken fourth arm, just covered in a substance rendering it invisible.

While she did that, the party found some more crawl spaces behind a black orb and a red orb. They also found another cloudy arch. This time the stones lit up in colors of olive, citron, and russet. Why use $5 color words when $125 ones are available. Once again, they left the arch alone. Dang it!

Kyla, correctly, went through the black crawlspace, arriving in a chapel. Alec went through the red. Glawen fell through the foor, taking a little falling damage and finding three chests: gold, silver, and wood. Alec fell for the schmuck bait and used mage hand to open the wooden chest, summoning a giant skeleton into the room. He had to fight it by himself for a round before Shannon, being a team players, had Remy show up and help. The rest of the team were hard on her heels, but by then the giant was dead. It was vulnerable to bludgeoning damage, something monks are good at dealing with fists.

Alec did not learn his lesson, and opened the other two chests. The silver one only held a crystal box containing a ring of protection. The gold one just had a swarm of poisonous snakes. The swarm didn't last long, getting, well, swarmed by the rest of the party. But getting the box out of the silver chest did trigger a dart trap.

Pressing on in the chapel, they found the pews were hinged, and some were trapped. Yves disabled that trap. They avoided the altar and yet another cloudy archway. Dang it!

They did find a section of wall containing a slot big enough for a magic ring. Ghesh put in his ring of fire resistance. Blake hoped he could retrieve the ring after using it for this. It was cute. The ring is gone. This opened a hidden door leading deeper in. They followed some steps down to another corridor. For some reason, Glawen lead the way and fell into a pit trap. Tathora gave him a heal, and they pressed on. They shimmed that pit trap and found another.

Then fricking Kyla remembered a line from the poem. They found a third pit trap, and found a secret door on one of it's walls. Thinking smart, Glawen sent an arcane eye with true seeing on it down that passage, finding a secret door. Pusheen had to use a dispel magic to open the door.

They found a room filled with stuff for preparing mummies. Yves examined the unguents and herbs, but found nothing of value. After learning a vat contained an acid, Ghesh decided to drink some. He learned that resistance is not the same as immunity. Then Jornath poked at another vat containing an opaque liquid that turned out to be an ochre jelly. Once again, this fight was very one-sided, and the jelly died. But there was half of a magic key in there. We broke for the night. They know there is something magical at the bottom of the acid vat. Who will brave putting an arm inside to grab the magic item within? Find out next time.