This fight was easily the largest set piece battle yet in the campaign, and maybe in all my years of running combats. I don't know if 5e makes it better or worse.
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12/17/20 - PCs in attendance -
Yelrah, Klayton, THE, Albrecht
NPCs in attendance - Kirsten,
Morgan, pseudodragon, Ori, Ulster
This session
saw more cleanup of the Chaos Temple.
That night in Klayton's cabin, Klayton read through those captured papers, discovering a proper map, a verbal map in a journal, a protection scroll, and a curse!
As the curse took hold, Klayton’s skin and muscle became invisible, leaving him an altogether
disconcerting being to look upon. The
retainers whispered among themselves, with glances at Klayton, but otherwise
did nothing.
Their monstrous champion slain, the Chaos Cultists retreated to marshal the last of their
forces. The PCs obliged them, entering
the next day, ready for owlbear. Their
explorations brought them to a small chapel, with four ancient blood-stained
vessels upon an altar. Albrecht moved
forward to investigate and could see waves of pulsating evil emanating from
them. Klayton used Mage Hand and a vial of
holy water to clean off some of the dried blood, but lo! the vessel washed began
to bubble and pop and smoke under the water, dissolving before their eyes! As
this happened, the same bell from last episode tolled again.
Knowing a
good thing when he sees it, Klayton washed the other implements away with holy
water, tolling the bell repeatedly as the items melted and sizzled away. The others readied themselves for inevitable
combat and a probable last stand - and the Chaos Cultists obliged them.
Four
acolytes charged into the room, but were handily dispatched by the party, with
THE Group sustaining little damage themselves.
During this skirmish, Klayton’s pseudodragon flew down the hall and
spied a large group advancing towards the party, and sped back to warn its
master.
The final acolyte fell as a legion of undead (seriously - 20 skeletons and 20 zombies, right out of the B2 room descriptions) led by the high priestess arrived.
Immediately after the DM described the priestess (flaming locks of auburn hair, ivory skin, and eyes of emerald green), an arrow from Kirsten not only hit with a 20, but the damage dice kept exploding, slaying Jolene before she could cast one lousy spell. As the priestess tumbled to the ground, arrow through her black heart, her legions of zombies and skeletons advanced!
While the DM was chuckling and reaching for his virtual dice, THE Svetlo turned all but 5 of the undead!
The turned undead shambled back from whence they came and the
party made short work of the 5 that remained.
Still mostly unscathed, THE Group advanced, leaving Albrecht and Kirsten to loot the bodies (mostly for the priestess’s platemail and a bag of rings (gathered from the crawling claws from last session)).
Advancing, they found the main chaos temple, with its
large iron bell, its undulating paints and overall horrid design. More importantly, THE Group began to grind the
undead down. Despite laying waste to
many skeletons and zombies, the undead kept advancing, and the party began a
fighting withdrawal which damn near became a rout.
This fight took most of the session, to be honest, with little to write about beyond dice rolls and moving about the map.
To the DM’s
chagrin, no party members were slain, though many were reduced to single digit
hit points and out of spells. They now
cower in the woods as I type this, debating their next move.
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As might be imagined, pretty much the entire session was combat. To somewhat speed things along, I broke the undead hosts into groups of five for initiative, but it only helped a bit.
Next time, I am assigning NPCs to each player to run, since they are allied anyhow.
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