Like many campaigns, scheduling was impacting our game, and this was the beginning of the end. As an important refresher, this game was played via Discord, hence the references to memes and such.
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12/10/20 - PCs in attendance - Yelrah, Klayton, THE, Albrecht
NPCs in attendance - Kirsten,
Morgan, pseudodragon, Ori, Ulster
DM Note:
Yes, it has been about three months since last session, and we had left off not
so much in mid-battle, but in mid-response to battle. Also, we now intend to play on Thursday
nights.
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THE noble
band of adventurers picked up from where they left off, and opted to loot the
large chest, rather than escape and heal up.
Determining no traps upon it (by virtue of a 3 on a d20), the bold
sorcerer Albrecht opened it (and failing a perception check at the midpoint)
and was attacked by a swarm of Crawling Claws! Before falling under the
onslaught of 8 of the 16 desiccated
hands, he noticed glowing rings around many of the fingers.
(DM Note - those blade-armed zombies from last session were foreshadowing! I wish I could cite the appropriate inspirational blogpost to give credit for this idea).
Klayton
responded with a Burning Hands that lived up to its name, toasting 15 of the 16 crawling claws (as well as dropping THE and Kirsten into death saves, alongside Albrecht
- exploding damage hit 5 times from one die).
After desperate measures and surprising dice rolls, the final Crawling
Claw was ripped from Yelrah’s throat by ever-helpful NPC Ulster, who crushed it
in his mighty grip.
Canny application of party healing brought THE to consciousness, and from him, Albrecht and Kirsten. THE band then boldly looted the giant chest, ignoring the chainmail-clad cultist corpses. The chest held numerous sacks, which Klayton fed to the living piggy bank of Albrecht (DM note - at some point this was acquired from Constanzo's shop and not documented in the session logs).
As coins dropped into the slot, the pig grew
into an irascible boar, snorting and being generally hard to deal with, as
boars are. Then Albrecht made an Animal
Handling check (18) and calmed the boar enough to get it to follow the others
out of the caves.
The cataloged treasure in the chest was:
● 500 gold coins (dumped in fleshpig)
● heavy sack full of hacksilver,
dented silver and gold dinnerware, and some jewelry (THE?)
● sack of assorted papers (Klayton
took this and texted the DM about contents once they were safe)
● heavy sack of golden nuggets
(Yelrah?)
● sack containing a fine fur cloak
wrapped around a magic dagger with a tassel on the pommel (Morgan? - Albrecht
has dagger)
● sack containing 3 bolts of silk (Kirsten?)
● a large ingot of Mithril - two person carry, Ori and Ulster carried
Leaving behind two large ingots of Mithril (identified by Ori), the glowing rings on the fingers of the crawling claws, and the unlooted bodies of the fallen cultists, the band retreated to lick wounds and store/identify loot in Klayton’s Cottage (the DM needs to find a way to kill this).
The retreat was contested by the THING from session 15 and
some cultists. Albrecht nobly stayed behind to bar passage (ala Gandalf memes),
and fired off some dangerous snowballs.
In response, the cultists fell back, but the THING advanced, its tongue
whipping out and wrapping around Albrecht.
As the tongue dragged Albrecht closer to its gaping maw, Albrecht fought
back with all his might (and his d30 for the evening, rolling a 29) and escaped
its saliva-y clutches! As always, THE
group’s response was memes, and they were on point!
Albrecht
bought the time the others needed, because they reached daylight and started
for the treeline when Albrecht joined them - grossly wet and panting - with the
THING hot on his heels, it bellowing all the while.
At this
point, THE group made a stand. They
formed a semicircle facing the cave entrance and let loose with everything they
had left (which wasn’t much) when the THING made its appearance! Javelins,
axes, crossbow bolts, arrows, and spells all flew at it, to little avail.
The THING’s
tongue wrapped around Yelrah and began dragging him towards certain doom… at
first, Yelrah used the d30 to escape (barely), but when caught again, used
Stone Cleaver to its best effect and reduced the THING’s initiative to
last place. Kirsten ran up to sever the tongue,
but it was too rubbery and/or her blades were too dull, for it missed.
Albrecht mostly saved the day with exploding (another 4 dice exploded - I love this houserule!) Magic Missiles, dealing 34 damage from one salvo.
Falling to
the ground, the THING began to bubble and pop and melt away, and a ghostly
figure rose out the dissolving remains.
It appeared to be a knight of some sort, who smiled and bowed in thanks
to the PCs before disappearing. As this
happened, THE group heard a bell toll from … somewhere.
A location
was found to set up the carpet-cottage, and the session ended within. What are the odds something will find them
during the night?
DM NOTE: Klayton is going through the sack o’ papers and found 4 leather scroll tubes and three journals - the rest of the papers are just filler.
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Exploding or cascading damage dice make every combat exciting, even when PCs die to them, like poor Avalon under the owlbear claws several sessions back. The d30 rule is also fun as well. I highly recommend both be added to your games, even if they do make combat swingy.
I need to go find my actual notebook, as I have a distinct memory of making a list of magical rings, and want to add them to the DM notes or use them later if the PCs left them behind.
The bell tolling is either lifted from the DnD adventure Hero's Tale or a Pink Floyd lyric about 'the tolling of the iron bell' from the end of Time.
Had this been an in-person game, I would use props for the scrolls, but not the journals, as I am not that creative.
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