After about four months, I got to go behind the DM screen once again last night. My party is in between larger adventures - one took over a year, and the upcoming one will probably be a substantial amount of time to complete.
But for now, I'm doing 1-2-session adventures to give the party some variety.
The party was introduced to the Tourachian Priests of Tarrensar, an organization that they didn't really read into much before taking a job for them. The Tourachians (which are a shameless MtG reference) worship Tarrensar, the God of Destruction, who has yet to be born - he's in an embryonic stage. But when he is born, he will march across the cosmos and destroy all things (at least that's what his worshippers believe.) But because he is not set to do so for millions if not billions of years, the priests work to preserve the world so that their god will not be denied his feast.
As such, it's an organization of Chaotic Evil demon cultists who nevertheless wind up coming back around to heroism.
So the Tourachian representative who hired them sent them after a group of heretics - former Tourachians who have attempted to escape their obligations to Tarrensar by serving a different demon lord called Kegari.
The party tracked them down to a drow village in the undead-infested swamps of Greenmarch, where they found the domicile the heretics had stayed in, and where the first combat encounter of the adventure would take place.
The domicile was essentially a three-bedroom house build into the caverns of the village - in my setting, most drow aren't evil, but suffer from racism. They prefer to live underground, and their villages are generally one above-ground building that leads to a cavern where most of the people actually live.
Inside, the cultists had sacrificed a bunch of tieflings (who also suffer from racism in this setting) in order to commune with Kegari and summoned a trio of Bulezau demons to guard the domicile while they were away.
The Bulezau have an aura that deals necrotic damage to anyone who fails a Con save if they're nearby - so when the Wizard in the party turned his familiar into a spider, the aura killed it before it could spy them.
However, the big challenge in this fight was that the domicile was desecrated. The Hallow spell, used by Clerics and Paladins, can consecrate or desecrate an area, and bending the rules a bit, I made it so that anyone entering would need to make a Charisma save or be silenced while inside (the effect was limited to the area of the desecration, but it would last a day, so they couldn't just exit and re-enter to until they succeeded.
The players present represented a Paladin, Rogue, Wizard, and Druid. Only the Paladin succeeded. Now, you want to know how many spells require verbal components? Practically all of them.
I was really excited to see the solutions that they came up with. Largely it involved casting spells outside of the house that would continue to work once they went in. The Druid used Conjure Animals to summon a bunch of Giant Owls, and just let them do the fighting for her (as large creatures in a rather cramped area, I had to make some limits on how many could attack a given target.) The Wizard eventually polymorphed himself into a Giant Scorpion, and managed to get the killing blow on the last demon with his pincers.
Finding a map and a journal, the party realized that they'd find the heretics at a tower in the marshes called Folsom's Folly. When they arrived, they realized that, much like most of Greenmarch (which is dotted with ancient towers,) the small island on which the tower stood was totally covered with skeletons. I had twelve regular skeletons and four minotaur skeletons. Additionally, the soggy ground was difficult terrain - but only for heavy, flesh-encumbered beings - the skeletons could move freely.
To be fair, I actually expected them to just rush this one - they're level 8 and skeletons aren't a huge challenge. But they played it smart - the Druid, being an Air Genasi, could cast Levitate on herself, and the Rogue has winged boots, so he pushed her along. Meanwhile, the Wizard cast Dimension Door to take himself and the Paladin to the top of the tower. The Druid cast Hallucinatory Terrain over the island to make the skeletons (who are not that smart, though the Druid actually has the same intelligence as them) think that there was a cave ceiling above them and not a Wood Elf pushing an Air Genasi through the air.
At the top, they found two of the heretics - a pair of Deathlock Wights. While they didn't manage to totally bypass all the skeletons, the Paladin waited at the top of the tower (there was a door down into it on the roof where the rest of the party hid behind the Druid's Gust of Wind spell) and then used his Turn the Unholy once the skeletons climbed the tower. That cut 18 monsters down to 5 - a much more manageable number.
Most entertainingly to me was that there was one regular skeleton who managed to stab the heavily-armored Paladin and also survive longer than any of the other monsters. Either the Wizard or Druid (they both have the spell) cast Ice Knife at him and not only did they miss him, but he made the saving throw while the other monsters got hit. He was one of those randomly badass mooks, like that one guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark who climbs into the cabin after Indy takes over the truck and then throws him through the windshield. I mean, he's evil and he does eventually get killed (the skeleton died to the Druid's Shillelagh) but you've got to respect him.
Anyway, I was really happy with how it turned out, as we had every party member forced to come up with clever solutions to the problems that went beyond simple combat. So great to get back to DMing and have such a good session.
The party is now getting ready to descend into the tower, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they decide to do when they get to the bottom.
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