DND Blog

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

The Hundred and Twenty-Second Session

April 26, 2025, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

With more fighting through the dungeon, we locate the missing Ascendant and save them with a Teleport. Then we exit the temple.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Next session

Last session

We return to the quadroads. We meet up with many NPCs. We discover that one of the Ascendants is missing. We commit to Thrai, captain of the night watch, that we will find that Ascendant. Through the clever use of divination, we determine where we will find the Ascendant: a run-down temple of Oghma.

In that temple, we find a lot of cultists who know Scorching Ray and Fireball at very high level.

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We explore some more, until scratching noises behind a door reveal themselves as a swarm of Shadows. We kill them all.

We go down the hallway that the Shadows came from, and at the end of the hall is a very dark figure. "Sister, I'm glad that you can join us," says the figure, to Percival. He pulls his head out of the sphere of darkness that fills the hallway. She fades out.

We'd heard a story about a magical dark figure looting through a shop which had been broken by a magical bean. And we'd heard of green vapor coalescing into a figure. It's Belladonna!

She disappears, and we exchange fire and spells with a Firebug cultist, who stands at the end of a long hallway. The Firebug ducks around the corner, and Ryltar and Jerry Dimension Door down to the end of the corridor. There's a ton of new enemies there, so Jerry uses Ashardalon's Stride to attack them all with her flaming hotness. At the back of the pack, the leader says, "We need to buy time. They need to get out."

Belladonna emerges from the wall near Salris and Embersia, tripping her Spirit Guardian but Belladonna escapes. Belladonna slashes Salris and says, "Oh Crim, I thought we were done with this. I just need your blood for now." She disappears; he backs up to the middle of the room.

The firebug that Jerry set fire to now moves up, casting Scorching Ray and hitting only three times, for 26. An Executor slashes her for 16 and she can no longer regain HP until the end of her next turn. Someone else casts Hold Person on Jerry, paralyzing her, and two attacks hit her for a total of 12.

In reply, Ryltar carefully casts Sunburst to avoid hitting himself and Jerry, dealing 41 radiant to everyone else in the hall.

Percival moves back to within the range of Embersia's Spiritual Guardian. Embersia moves towards him and Salris. Belladonna appears at the edge of the room, taking 12 radiant damage, and she moves towards Percival, blinded by the light. He is attacking at advantage, with an awakened Mythcarver, and she takes 24 slashing. Then she passes him, moving towards Salris, attacking him, poisoning him, knocking him flat, and then attacking him with advantage and sneak attack. Salris goes unconscious. She reaches into his gut, pulling something out of it, absorbing blood from it. "Stay a while. I have work to do."

Jerry attacks the sun-blinded executioner for 28 and 2 fire from Ashardalon's Stride, then lights up the firebug and a cultist as she walks back to the commander of the cultists. She cracks her knuckles with a sound like falling stones, and asks, "Where's the Ascendant."

The Cultist Commander attacks her with a knife, half-blind, failing. The Firebug shoots at her six times with Scorching Ray, hitting once for 5. Ryltar scares several of them.

Salris fails a death save. Percival tries to do some healing, and stabilizes Salris. Embersia runs down the hallway with her storm boots, damaging many enemies, and also dealing damage through her Spirit Guardian. The Firebug dies. The spare cultist is running away.

Ryltar sends a Cone of Cold on the executor and two new Cultists, killing the cultists.

Jerry smashes the Cult Commander. Still not giving her a straight answer.

The Firebug makes some blind attacks, and hits no one.

Salris has no potions to heal with, but stands up, and staggers over to Percival, asking what he can do. Percival yanks him up the hallway using Dimension Door. The executioner regains his Wail and uses it, frightening Percival, wounding him and Ryltar and Salris.

Embersia stabs the Cult Commander some. Jerry kills the Executioner. Embersia does some healing. Salris Mental Prisons the Firebug; Jerry kills it.

Ryltar explores. Salris attacks a new Cultist. Jerry discovers some empty jail cells. A kitchen is discovered to the north. A new Firebug appears from the south. Salris puts Tasha's Hideous Laughter on it. Ryltar finds a leader's office. Jerry finds a kitchen, then runs down to the source of the cultists, and flanks a cultist. Salris stabs it a lot. Percival Lesser Restorations Salris. The Cultist dies. Ryltar arrives at the scene and runs past, finding an armory. Jerry stabs the prone laughing Firebug, and runs past, into the armory.

In the next corridor, we see the Ascendant being dragged by an executor. Jerry pops Web to restrain them, and Ryltar advances. The Ascendant is alive, bagged and gagged, and Ryltar Teleports them to the Temple of Ioun. Jerry advances into the Web and takes 3 of 6 attacks from a Firebug, instead of attacking the two executioners and one cultist in the webs, she runs over to attack the Firebug and Cultist who aren't in the Web. Salris follows with Synaptic Static on the two Cultists and two Executioners, for 8d6=35 killing one Cultist. The Firebug tries to kill Jerry and would have succeeded, except for her Orcish Endurance. She lands at 1 HP and stabs him back. Then Percival follows with Fireball, which ignites the remaining web around the remaining Cultist and Executioners. The Cultist dies, the Executioners take a lot of damage. They run towards Jerry and Percival; Percival is downed by one's Wail. Embersia survives the wail. Jerry gets hit with one attack, and is downed, and is hit with a second attack.

Embersia heals everyone for 3d8+5=13. Jerry attacks the Firebug and Executioner in front of her, then runs back to the rest of the party and tries to collapse the ceiling behind her. There's a major crack now. Salris follows up with some Eldritch Blasts to collapse the ceiling. There's one Executioner left with us, and he is left hideously laughing.

Embersia casts Mass Heal Wounds at 8th level, for 6d*+5=18, a very low roll. Jerry stabs the Executioner, who has stopped laughing, for 69 damage. The shadows spill from his body. Salris runs up to scout.

From the cracks of the collapsed wall, a shadowy figure crawls through. Embersia doesn't recognize it, but Percival does: If Shadows attacks someone, and they are later slain, a new Shadow comes to life. Their Draining Swipes inflict this, and it's a mass outbreak situation. Embersia kills it with Radiance of the Dawn, and the light of her smite destroys the others which are climbing through the wall.

We don't have any Detect Magic on us, so we run out the way we came in: back out to the Temple of Oghma, and onto the Quadroads streets.

Next session

Next session: June 7, after which we level up.

It's 9 a.m.

New things to look up:

To do: