DND Blog

A place to keep DND session recaps, from various campaigns.

The Seventy-Third Session

September 17, 2022, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

We discover a batch of prisoners in the temple, free them, and arm them. Then we clean up after some guards, before discovering the biggest baddie yet in the room: A Yuan-Ti Abomination.

Table of Contents

  1. Last Session
  2. In the Temple
  3. The Prisoners
  4. Next session

Last Session

One of the snake peoples was running to set off a gong; we killed them. Then we killed the basilisks and the Giant Elder Lizard. There was some invisible scouting. We set up a killbox and killed a bunch of Yuan-ti, but they pushed past to ring the gong, and now everything is going wrong.

But we're still alive.

In the Temple

And we're surrounded by corpses.

Ryltar loots the warlocks:

Jerry walks down the warlocks' corridor, past an unlocked door, and enters into a room built for blood sacrifice. A blood-stained altar with shackles on the corners, ornamented with skulls, whose gutters run down holes into the walls.

Chanting begins from the alter and the skulls.

Vurguron, familiar with religion, recognizes the chanting language as Abyssal, and that the chanting is a sort of environmental noise from spiritual contamination. It's not actively dangerous.

The room also has another door and a portcullis, with a lever on our side.

The door in the hallway opens to reveal an incense-filled room with bedding, a stone urn in each corner, and a stone chest. We decide to leave the chest alone.

The door from the altar room leads into a large room where steam rises from a thick black liquid. We back out slowly and close the door.

The portcullis guards a room that is unlit. Ryltar's elf eyes see four pits, from which sobs come. Chains from the ceiling descend into the pits, with winches around the walls. Shackles on the south wall; an alcove on the north wall with a raised glowing disk and a faintly-glowing snake. Ryltar realizes that this is a teleportation circle anchor, which facilitates transportation to someplace else.

Jerry is wary of doing anything; Ryltar calls out into the room, "Who's there?"

There's a cacaphony of responses, variants on "help!" and "let us out!"

The Prisoners

Ryltar asks where they're from, and we receive a where's where of cities on the continent.

"Are you able to fight against the Yuan-ti?" asks Jerry, and there are some voices in favor.

So we pull the lever.

Salris runs back out the corridor to grab some weapons, and skids to a stop when he sees a gathering of at least seven entities. He backs down the hallway, and only one saw him. He tries to quietly grab the group's attention.

The pits have grates connected to chains in the ceiling; Jerry and Ryltar are working on them. In the other room, Salris and Vurguron and Percival hide. They feel that they're pretty well hidden.

One of the entities walks down the corridor. Vurguron hears the approaching footsteps; he and Salris prepare some stabs. The Brood Guard walks into the killbox. Vurguron misses; Salris connects, Percival connects. Then Vurguron does some more attacking with his sword. The body collapses, propped up by the stabs, and falls to the floor with a thud.

Salris drags the body into the black oozing whirlpool room, to keep the blood out of the altar's channels.

The first winching pulls the grate off, revealing a female Human, larger than average, with a sailing shirt and mud and scrapes all over. And what looks like a Tabaxi, a Pallas Cat with cracked pince nez and regal robes, fur matted with mud. The Tabaxi thanks us; Jerry gives the woman her spare glaive. The Tabaxi isn't really suited for fighting; he doesn't like the longhammer or crossbow but accepts a Healer's Kit and an instruction to patch up the Human when she looks bad. (He might be a pacifist/scholarly bard not used to fighting.)

One pit has a Human who's curled up, rocking.

Another pit has a large muscular Goliath, a small Human boy with prayer beads, and a Goblin.

The last pit has another Human woman in sailing outfit, a Human man in pompous attire, and another Human man in ceremonial robes.

We start cranking on the Goliath guy, and get him and the goblin and kid out.

Percival's bard ears hear nothing from the corridor. He wanders over to the guy alone in the pit. He gives motivation to the guy. The guy straightens up and says, "I hear her." "Hear whom?" "Her." "Where?" "Fungal. Grove. I cannot know more."

Then we direct them to release the other prisoners, and go off to fight.

Jerry sees a foe peeking down the hallway, and asks Vurguron if he can shoot the guy. He does, and grazes the guy. The guy runs off. Jerry gives chase. Vurguron shoots again with his crossbow, and hits for 5 piercing. Salris does some Eldritch Blasting for 35 damage, and the Brood Guard dies. Salris gains a Cursed Spectre.

We pull out the other people from the pits:

Jerry gives the quick rundown to the nine freed prisoners: we'll get you out; we're here for someone else; don't attack us or we will destroy you. Don't attack each other.

The Spectral Guardian leads the group; it leaves the room that the corridor enters, and moves into the adjacent underground courtyard. The spectre takes three arrows, two hit and it takes 13 piercing damage.

The courtyard has nine enemies in it.

  1. Round 1: Some positioning; Jerry kills a guard who wielded a scimitar by the brutally efficient method of smashing him across the room into a wall. Ryltar does a Slow.
    1. Two run past the spectre to attack Jerry; one takes an attack of opportunity from the spectre and takes 16 necrotic and a net reduction in HP by 16. They approach to within 5 feet of Salris on their way to Jerry, and his Sentinel feat kicks in to allow him to attack of opportunity, for another 16 slashing. Then make bite and scimitar attacks against Jerry. They miss. Then there's a bite and scimitar against Salris, which hit for a little damage.
    2. Brown Cloak makes two longbow attacks against Salris, dealing a lot of poison damage.
    3. Red Cloak shoots at Jerry twice, and misses.
    4. Vurguron attacks the ones who are attacking Salris, and does quite a bit of damage.
    5. Salris attacks the scimitar-wielder next to him.
    6. The Spectre attacks Red Cloak, dealing 11 necrotic.
    7. Ryltar runs up to where he can see most of the enemies in the room, and casts Slow on six of the entites in the room, including Red and Brown Cloak.
    8. Jerry slashes the snake-wielder, again on the snake-wielder, and as a carry-through Horde Breaker her glaive smashes the scimitar-wielder against the wall, killing him.
    9. The Blue Yuan-ti Pureblood, not slowed, moves forward to attack the Spectre, and misses.
    10. Slowed White Pureblood moves to attack the Spectre, misses, and is no longer slowed.
    11. Green Pureblood, not slowed, shoots Vurguron with a shortbow, and fails to pierce his armor.
    12. Slowed Black Pureblood, moves forwards and shots Salris, and misses.
    13. Slowed Brown Pureblood sprints to the gong, but uses all their action to make that run.
  2. Round 2: Salris' Spectre is killed. Vurguron dispatches the snake-wielder. Percival preemptively silences the gong. Jerry kills the Black Pureblood and rebuffs several attacks.
    1. Snake dude attacks Jerry, misses.
    2. Brown Cloak attacks the Spectre with a scimitar, killing it. Then it moves towards the Party.
    3. Red Cloak shoots at Jerry with longbows and misses twice. Then this attacker escapes the effects of Ryltar's Slow.
    4. Vurguron moves up to attack the snake-wielder and kills it, before turning to the Black Pureblood.
    5. Salris stays back and fires off some Eldritch Blasts at Brown Cloak, bringing down his health by a third with 36 force. He drinks his last healing potion for 6 healing.
    6. Percival advances, then pops Silence in the hallway with the gong.
    7. Ryltar casts Ray of Frost and activates the Slipping Ice modifier to knock Red Cloak prone with 20 cold damage.
    8. Jerry kills Black Pureblood and brings Brown Cloak to half, then moves in front of Percival to protect his concentration.
    9. Blue Pureblood blows a puff of smoke at Jerry, and does nothing.
    10. White Pureblood makes two scimitar attacks against Jerry, hitting once, for 2 damage.
    11. Green does the same thing as Blue, dealing a grand total of 1 poison damage to the poison-resistant Jerry.
  3. Round 3
    1. Brown Cloak makes his bite against the poison-resistant Jerry, for 9 piercing and 8 poison.
    2. Look, all the Purebloods miss their bow attacks.
    3. Except one poison arrow, which connects, bringing her down some more.
    4. Vurguron kills Brown Cloak.
    5. Salris fires off three Eldritch Blasts against the Blue Pureblood, killing him.
    6. Percival heals Jerry up some.
    7. Ryltar trips Red Cloak again, for 19
    8. Jerry stacks Hunter's Mark, Whirlwind's Attack, and Horde Breaker to mostly kill White, mostly kill Green, and double attack the marked, tripped Red Cloak to kill him, carefully and precisely impaling Red Cloak while staring Green in the face. Green is intimidated, and picks up Hunter's Mark.
    9. Green and White flee, tripping Jerry's Attack of Opportunity. Green dies. White keeps running.
    10. Brown walks back into the room and fails to read it. He's still slowed, and still in Percival's Silence.
    11. Vurguron walks over to Brown and halves his health with Firebolt.
  4. Round 4.
    1. Salris moves up to where he can see White, and misses the first of three Eldritch Blasts. White goes poof.
    2. Percival throws a dagger at Brown, and keeps the Silence up.
    3. Ryltar trips Brown with a Ray of Frost, and also kills him. Silently.

Some of the prisoners have trickled out of the corridor, and Jerry reminds them not to attack our Party. A very successful reminder.

We spend some time healing up.

Jerry and Vurguon work to take the gong and fold it up.

Bigby's Hand, which was holding shut the pounding door by the blood chamber, is no longer there. Percival was concentrating on other things. The portcullis to the prostitutes is still closed.

From the south door into the big blood room come one snake-bottomed Yuan-ti, two headdress-wearing Malisons, and a Brood Guard. Jerry and Vurguron retreat, but Vurguron is seen by that group.

As Vurguron retreats, he sees that the snake fountain in the middle of the Blood room now has a full Yuan-Ti Abomination atop it. Its scales are shedding, two layers deep. Its tail is wrapped around the head of the statue. A flash of a radiant yellowish glow, appears around it. It points towards us, and casts Fireball.

Vurguron and Jerry make dex saves, and Jerry fails. Vurguron saves and is fire-resistant, taking only 9 damage. Jerry takes 36, bringing her back down 28.

We realize that the heads and lieutenants we've been fighting aren't the most powerful. There is one above them.

Next session

Time to bathe in blood and fire!