I apologize for falling off the writing wagon. My only excuse is that I’ve made another stab at playing Owlcat’s Pathfinder: Kingmaker CRPG after buying it on sale many moons ago. I had started a game with a magus (with the eldritch scion archetype to be Charisma-focused) as a main character, but fell away from it around the end of the troll part of Rivers Run Red. Now I’m taking another stab as an Aldori duelist modeled after our own game’s Emperor Satampra Zieros, and have just gotten to the House at the End of Time. So the end is in sight? I think? Owlcat has added a lot to the adventure path, so it’s hard for me to say.
The game is, I have to say, an amazing accomplishment. It is truly massive in terms of areas to explore, plots to discover, character arcs to play out, text to read… and it also manages to be a pretty faithful adaptation of 1st edition Pathfinder, or at least a substantial subset of that sprawling ruleset. It also has all the major beats and characters from the original adventure while adding substantially to them. And it has its own version of the kingdom management rules.
I’ve gone on about the failings of the 1st edition kingdom rules at length already. Owlcat wisely simplified the kingdom management in certain areas, for example by splitting up the Stolen Lands into large regions (North Narlmarches, South Narlmarches, etc.) that have to be annexed in their entirety rather than hex by hex, and then letting only one settlement per region be built. But then, presumably in an attempt to make it more of a minigame, they introduced a whole new problem with their changes to how the kingdom roles (what they call “advisors”) work. And the result, at least for me, hasn’t been very fun.
To avoid overwhelming the new ruler, they only present half of the ten roles to the player at kingdom inception. Which is fine, except they immediately give you a bunch of tasks that only the Magister can work on, where the Magister is one of the roles locked away at start. Then the game tells you nothing about how to unlock the other roles. It’s not trivial, either; you have to very specifically build your towns up in some very particular directions. Most of the additional roles unlocked naturally for me, but to get to the Magister and Spymaster (the latter of which the game terms “Minister”) you have to prioritize the few structures that have particular kinds of bonuses on them, which you would otherwise have no reason to prioritize.
Only certain characters can fill certain roles, I suppose depending on each character’s inclination rather than their ability scores, which can create problems if you don’t pick up certain NPCs or companions. Jhod (an NPC here) can only be High Priest, for example, and the High Priest can only be Jhod or Harrim, a nihilistic dwarf cleric PC/companion you get automatically. One bit that sunk my first game is that if you fail to find Jubilost the famous gnome explorer, or can’t convince him to join the kingdom, you’ll have no Treasurer for a long time! The game doesn’t tell you this either, of course. Though it does tell you on the loading screens that the Treasurer position is a vital one! 😠😠😠
To make kingdom events more interesting, each has to be handled by one of a particular subset of your advisors. Only certain advisors can handle certain events or kingdom improvement projects, and such endeavors take at least 1-2 weeks to complete. So if your General is busy with bandits over here, they can’t be tasked with dealing with training militias over there. This is a real headache, especially in the early game, before the additional roles are unlocked – the General, High Priest, and Treasurer are all spread very thin and there’s never time to do everything. Or much of anything. Even my current kingdom, at the very end of the game, has about a dozen or more improvement projects that I was never able to accomplish, either because the needed advisors are busy putting out fires (i.e. kingdom events) or because of lack of funds. I’ve found this facet of the kingdom management to be more frustrating than anything.
Finally, the outcome of each kingdom event is determined by your advisor making a d20 check, which is based on their relevant attribute modifier (the General uses Strength, the Treasurer Intelligence, etc.) and some kingdom-derived bonuses. But the DCs get ramped up to insane levels around the time of Varnhold Vanishing, to the point where many of my advisors would only have a 30% chance of succeeding at best (and while there is a Kingdom Difficulty slider in the options, it appears to do nothing). Failure on these checks means taking a big hit to your kingdom stats and possibly also losing BP.
After watching helplessly while failed event checks were sinking my kingdom, and having my entire treasury stolen twice, I finally said screw this and downloaded a mod that lets you cheat on kingdom checks and give yourself as much BP as you want. And I don’t feel bad about it at all! My advisors are still tied up putting out fires, and I still have a zillion kingdom improvements that I couldn’t make headway on. Owlcat made a valiant effort here at fixing kingdom management and trying to make it engaging, but still fell well short of the mark in my opinion.
On the bright side, the non-kingdom gameplay is pretty fun! The game could have just been the character creation & leveling, plus the turn-based combat, plus all the story/character content and it would have been plenty. Or, arguably, better.
The previous post is here. The chapter starts here. The campaign starts here.
The party retreated to the tower trapped in ice (location H6) for a long rest. The time passed without incident, though in the “morning” everyone saw each other with rapidly blackening skin and worms crawling out of people’s now-empty eye sockets! But just as the group was freaking out, the facades faded and everyone returned to normal. Vellynne the necromancer NPC theorized that these hallucinations, as well as the whisperings heard in other parts of the caves, could be psychic remnants of the Netherese who died here when their city fell from the sky.
Once they had calmed down a bit and had some breakfast, the adventurers went back to the room with the magic tour guide (location H8). They were very curious about the giant, smooth tunnel located in the cavern to the south (location H10), and hoped they could use the guide a second time to explore it safely. The device was still inoperable, however, and in fact would remain so; they had used the last of its magic already.
With that plan blocked, the party decided to explore the rest of the current level before going down the gaping hole. They trekked back through the resting place of the golem head (location H9), where Hjolgram the dwarf bard prominently winked at the golem for no real reason, and then into the cave that had been inhabited by undead shadows (H11). From there they marched south, down a sloping passage with a large domed ceiling and exits to the southwest and east (H15). The PCs took the eastward path and found an empty cave that led up to where they had been before (H16); they then traveled south and found a larger space with another 15 foot wide round hole in the floor, which was the entrance to a perfectly smooth tunnel that curved out of sight (H22).
While investigating some deep niches in the eastern cavern wall, Madoc the ranger heard more whisperings, as some had in the other “hole” room. He could make out no actual words, save for his name. The other PCs had heard nothing, which to Hjolgram was evidence that this tunnel “belonged” to Madoc and perhaps there was one hole for each member of the expedition. Vellynne’s “haunting” theory seemed more likely to the rest of the party.
The Thing
In any case, the group gave the opening a wide berth, and continued to the south. After some distance, the path opened up into a humongous 40 foot tall cave, the far side of which was a rough wall of thick ice (location H31). Some giant tentacled thing could be glimpsed within the ice, but it was not frozen – its dimly-perceived appendages drifted this way and that as if swimming languidly in the water! While studying the hypnotic movements, each viewer felt a heavy weight press upon their mind; the unnerved party quickly retreated. Save for the bard, who foolishly walked forward until he could touch the ice with an outstretched hand.
The others called out for the dwarf to come back, and when he did not do so, asked him what was going on. Hjolgram, for his part, had succeeded on a Wisdom save and was now trying to “talk” to the monster with his telepathy. “This friendly creature is having trouble communicating,” he finally called out. “And there’s another passage around this bend.”
To reach the bend, one would have to get perilously close to the unspeakable thing. Madoc named the monster his slayer’s prey so as to get a bonus on any saving throws it might force on him, and the bard inspired the other PCs for potential boosts of their own. And so the group nervously ran past the terrible wall of ice without anyone failing a Wisdom save.
The passage past The Thing in the Ice went south before leading to a cavern with many offshoots (location H32). The icy walls of that central chamber had been polished (by time? by hand?) to a mirror-like finish, which created distorted reflections of the adventurers over the uneven surfaces as the group cautiously stepped into the space. The reflections had no obvious effect, neither boon nor bane. Hjolgram did see one benefit, though: “At least we know that none of us are vampires!”
The mirror cave was empty save for a regular percussive sound that the group followed down the western branch. There they discovered a humanoid trapped behind (not within) in a wall of ice that it was steadily tapping on (location H33). The figure was dressed in black robes and a golden mask, which Professor Skant identified as the dress of a Netherese priest. While the others held warily back, the bard recklessly moved towards the ice wall and tried to communicate with the being beyond. It responded to movements, but its speech, naturally in ancient Netherese, could not be understood. With Skant serving as a translator, Hjolgram established that the creature desired release, but the dwarf could get little else out of it.
“Well now, buddy,” Hjolgram admonished, “We gotta get a little more information out of you before we do that.” Eventually it disclosed that it was a Netherese repository of knowledge, which brought back the memory of the elven mummy that the PCs’ had once encountered, whom had had a similar purpose.
“If we release you, will you tell us your tales?” Skant was instructed to ask it, but its response was in the negative. “‘My knowledge is not for you,’ it says.” Its immediate purpose, Skant translated, was to seek out “the library.” To the PCs, that sounded like they had finally found a guide through the caves, someone who could lead them to the Netherese city buried within the glacier, and so Omm the tiefling sorcerer summoned flame to melt the ice wall.
Follow the Leader
The mummy (as the PCs assumed the creature to be) wiggled through the hole made by Omm as soon as it could and marched out of the cave. The party followed. It crossed the mirror cave, traversed the east passage and took the fork south, and cave to a cave that had bits of broken walls sticking out of the ice in the ceiling (location 34). After looking at the ruins above for a bit, the mummy turned and backtracked. Apparently it didn’t know the way any better than the players did!
It tried the other fork and came to a smaller cave that held an eight-foot cube of smooth stone, strangely free of rime (location H35). The bard assumed the block must be magically warmed somehow, and to demonstrate this, decided to lick it. His tongue was nevertheless stuck fast, because the stone was not a stone at all, but a mimic.
Next: never lick a mimic!
The previous post is here. The start of the adventure is here. The start of the campaign is here.
After the group recovered from the ghoul attack, they moved on to explore the western arm of the dungeon.
A short stair went up from the ghoul room and led to a short hall that ended at a door (location 21; I’m not sure a short stair and a door deserved their own keyed location on the map). Opening the door revealed a long room that was broken up by two five-foot wide gaps, one near the entrance and one near the exit on the far side (location 22). The walls, floor, and ceiling looked unnaturally smooth and had a silvery sheen to them. Peering into the nearest gap revealed that it was a ten-foot pit whose bottom was lined with rusty razors.
Another bizarre puzzle trap! It was soon confirmed that the floor was nearly frictionless, and that an object placed on it would slide without stopping, bouncing off the walls with no loss of momentum, until it fell into one of the pits. Naturally, Sadir the warlock’s fly spell did not work, nor did Jheronimus the gnome cleric’s dimension door. Some other means of crossing would have to be devised.
Fires the tabaxi fighter/rogue tried to bypass the nearest pit by climbing on the walls, but his claws could not find purchase on the smooth surface. His momentum propelled him past the first pit, then he slid to the floor – and kept sliding towards the far pit! He scrambled to get his rope out of his pack, and threw one end back towards the others, but it fell short. The others, meanwhile, were hurriedly getting out their own ropes. Jheronimus the gnome cleric handed one end of his to Sadir the warlock and then the brave gnome quickly leaped over the near pit, grabbed Fires’ rope, and pulled.
The tabaxi’s movement away was halted, but then he started sliding back towards the near pit and the entrance, even as Jheronimus was heading for the far pit! The gnome cast blink, which had a chance of shifting you to the ethereal plane each round and gave you some latitude as to where you reappear. Luckily he blinked out right away, and when he reappeared, he did so on the far end of the room, past both pits.
Sadir and Theodoric the fighter jumped over the first pit to and grabbed Fires to check his slide. Now they were all moving in the same direction, towards the second pit. When they were near, Wave the trident used its cube of force ability to create a bubble around them that was impervious to non-living objects – like the rusty spikes at the bottom of the hole before them. In this way they were able to safely clear the gap. Perhaps they could have also jumped, but we were concerned that it would be hard to do so while sliding on a perfectly slippery surface.
There was one final surprise awaiting the group, that they discovered as they impacted the far wall – there was no far wall! Or rather, the wall that they saw was an illusion, and the actual wall was ten feet past that. There was no trap past the illusion, so the purpose of this was lost to the adventurers.
Once everyone’s momentum had been checked, they carefully made their way to the room’s exit. Thankfully, the corridor beyond was made of normal stone.
Nope!
The 30-foot hall ended in a T-intersection, with doors at both ends. The party took the right path, which was shorter, and came to a large room with a stream flowing through it (location 23). Only the stream was like a tube of flowing water suspended in the air by no visible means! Also in the chamber were six canoes, neatly arranged in rows on either side of the door.
There were no other exits, so it seemed that the floating river was the only way forward for this branch of the dungeon. The players contemplated getting in the canoes and riding in a claustrophobic water slide to who knows what, and promptly left to try the path south.
If one were to chance a river ride, the water’s path goes in a circle that passes through another room, where a “Sir Bluto” and his band of evil knights wait to jump the group.
The PCs went down to the other side of the T-intersection and opened the door at the end. Past that portal laid a truly massive chamber that was so long only Sadir (with his 120′ darkvision) could see the other side of (location 26). The room was hard to describe, constructed in 10-foot wide tiers or rings, where each subsequent level was inside of and 10 feet below the previous one, with the entrance serving as the top level. Tiers 2-4 (counting from the PCs’ tier as #1) additionally had 10-foot tall clear glass-like barriers that kept their inhabitants penned in. For each tier was inhabited! Tier 1 was empty save for the PCs, tier 2 was filled with water and held giant crayfish, tier 3 was made to look like a sandy desert and had several giant scorpions, tier 4 also was an aquarium but for sea lions (the D&D monster that’s part lion-part fish, not real-world sealions), and stewing in tier 5 was a pair of manticores. There was also an exit on the bottom level. This was the “inverted ziggurat” of the weapon thief’s taunting poem, and it also functioned as a kind of monstrous zoo exhibit. Perhaps the animals would be friendly?
Next: perhaps not!
The previous post is here. The chapter starts here. The campaign starts here.
Having disposed of a kobold vampire, the party was off looking for its buddies and master. Hjolgram the dwarf bard had seen a number of kobolds while taking a magical tour of the caves, and was leading the others to where he had spied them.
The group navigated a twisty tunnel that sloped downwards before widening and placing them in yet another large cave (location H11). The place felt unusually dark, and hungrily swallowed up the light shed by Madoc the ranger’s sword. The reason for this was soon apparent, as the shadows were alive! Or rather, they were animated undead shadows that now swarmed the party!
But even a dozen CR 1/2 creatures were little threat to the party. Twiggy the druid invoked a moonbeam that blasted apart many of the shades, while Flint the half-elf rogue (the only one with a magic weapon that could hurt their incorporeal forms) and Omm the tiefling sorcerer mopped up the rest.
The adventurers continued to head east, into a smaller cave dotted with pillars of ice (location H13). From here, they could here the yips and barks of other kobolds, which turned out to originate from a tunnel on the opposite side. Omm tried a stealthy approach while the others hung back in the hopes that he could get off a surprise fireball. But instead he slipped on a sloped section of the passage, and made enough noise in doing to to alert the diminutive vampires (who were in H17).
Hearing the yelp from Omm and the resulting yips of alarm from the kobolds, Twiggy rushed in an summoned another moonbeam to block off access to the tunnel she and the young tiefling occupied. Some of the vampires responded by heading north, where, unbeknownst to the PCs, there was another path through (via H14). Vellynne the NPC necromancer heard the kobolds coming around, and sniped the first to appear with her wand of magic missiles.
Omm did manage to lob a fireball at the few kobolds that had not gotten their turn yet, but they were unfazed by the burns. One ran up into the moonbeam, leapt onto Twiggy, and chomped down on her shoulder! But she was saved by Hjolgram, who used dissonant whispers to force it to flee, and Madoc, who rushed forward to guard her from further attacks.
The battle ended up having two fronts: Madoc, Twiggy, Omm, and Hjolgram occupying the far end of the east-west tunnel that ran from H13 to H17, and Flint and Vellynne holding the tunnel that went from H13 to H14. As the former group slowly ground down the vampires on their side, the bard switched over to the other and helped the rogue and necromancer push into a cave full of kobold-ish ice sculptures (location H14). After most of the kobolds had fallen, the rest tried to flee but it was too late; they were blasted and cut down before they could get far. Then they were staked and beheaded.
The group was in fairly bad shape at that point, but Madoc wanted to push on and destroy the master vampire before it had a chance to summon or create reinforcements. The others weren’t willing to charge into danger, though, and so the group retreated a bit and took a short rest.
Do You Wanna Build a Golem?
From H17, the group explored to the northwest, where they found an open area with numerous icicles above (but luckily no mephits) and slippery, uneven floors below (location H18). There were two other passages leading out, and a peek into the southern one revealed a cave filled with six bipedal snowmen, crude smiles etched onto their round heads. As creepy as that was, it got even worse when the snowmen started to move towards the PCs!
These were snow golems, and unfortunately for them, or fortunately for Omm the phoenix sorcerer, they were vulnerable to fire. But the group did not know that yet, and in a display of caution, Omm used a wand of web to gum up the passage to the snowmen’s cave. The foremost golem got stuck in the sticky strands, and was then sliced apart and melted into nothing by Flint’s flametongue sword. The other snow golems hurled snowballs at the rogue, some of which hit and… did no damage, as Flint possessed Auril’s blessing since his petrification and was now completely immune to the cold.
Omm and Twiggy hurled fire again and again, first setting the web alight and then pelting the snowy automatons until they had been reduced to water.
Disappointingly, there was nothing else of note in that area, so the PCs backtracked to H17 and then moved south. The tunnel inclined downwards, turned left, and opened up into the stinking, bone-littered den of some awful creature that was not currently home (location H19). To the south was two more sizable caves; one had a bunch of skulls arranged around a wide pillar of ice with a big hole in it, as if something had broken out of its core (location H20), while the other displayed a giant that was frozen within the ice under the explorer’s feet (H21). The ice had plenty of scratch marks, as if some clawed thing had tried to reach the corpse, but the digging had not gotten very far.
The were no other exits from this branch, and so the PCs headed back to the magic tower that was stuck upright within the glacier to rest and plan (H6). And in that time of reflection, Hjolgram had an idea.
During his magical tour of the caves, Hjolgram had seen a bloody, mangy-looking gnoll in the bone-strewn cave, and he thought he might be able to glean some information about it from the giant golem head (location H9). But Hjolgram, the others reminded him, the golem head cannot speak, only “blink” its glowing eyes. “Aha! The golem can’t speak with its mouth,” declared the bard to his confused audience. His plan was to use sending to communicate telepathically with the giant iron head (Hjolgram had previously tried talking to the golem telepathically before, just using his innate telepathy from the Telepathic feat, and that hadn’t worked because they didn’t share a language; sending takes care of the language problem). He put his hands to his temples and concentrated on connecting his mind with the golem’s.
“Hey there Mr. Golem!” he sent. “It’s Hjolgram, from the Agency of Heroes. We met earlier, remember? Seen any vampires around?”
There was a long pause, and the dwarf grew uncertain that the golem was able or willing to respond. But after a time it replied with a question of its own. “What does a vampire look like?”
Sending only gave one a single exchange, but luckily the bard had two more slots that he could use for the spell. “This vampire looks like a hyena-man,” he sent in response. “Or a dog-man, if you don’t know what a hyena looks like? So, did you see anything like that?”
After another long pause, the golem’s telepathic answer was, “I did see such a creature.”
The bard, now grinning, used his last spell slot to bring it all home. “Great! Now, when did you see it? Has it passed by you today?”
Pause. “There is no day. Only night,” came back the golem’s eventual answer. “What is a day? I saw it in the dark.” Naturally, the unliving automaton had no sense of time after sitting in a pitch-black cave for thousands of years. The dwarf’s smile turned into a frown, and he had to inform the others that the golem head still could not aid them.
Next: the thing in the ice!
The previous post is here. The start of the adventure is here. The start of the campaign is here.
Having successfully retrieved the trident Wave and the warhammer Whelm, the adventurers headed back to the sphinx and then took the one remaining branch from the entrance.
The first obstacle they encountered was an open pit (location 18), which they easily jumped or climbed across. When the halls were filled with water, this might have been an issue, because one presumably wouldn’t be able to see the pit. But even if you fell in, you’d take no falling damage because it was filled with water. So it’s not clear what the point was, other than to stay alert.
The long hall turned north, and as the group rounded the corner they pulled up short. The way forward was lined with big copper discs on both sides of the passageway (location 19), for a full 70 feet, which just screamed TRAP! But what kind of trickery awaited them?
Sadir the warlock tried throwing a dagger down the hall, thinking that might trigger whatever was supposed to happen. But there was no obvious effect. So he invoked the armor of Agathys (which gave him 20 temporary hit points) and started to jog down the foreboding hallway. At first, nothing happened, though Wave complained of feeling strange. At about 20 feet in, he felt the metal shaft of Wave grow warm. At 30 feet holding the trident grew painful, and he quickly passed it from hand to hand. At 40 feet it burned! Wave commanded Sadir to turn back, but the warlock was grimly determined to reach the end without losing the priceless weapon. And so he held on, trusting in his icy armor to protect him until he reached the end.
Once clear of the copper discs, Sadir promptly dropped the red-hot trident, which did not take kindly to being treated so! Sadir knelt and buried his burned hands in the cool muck covering the floor, and tried to apologize to Wave. But he was interrupted when the wall behind him slid open and a pack of ghouls rushed out!
So here was a clever trap! The plates pushed one to discard armor and weapons, but then at the other end there were flesh-eating undead waiting to feast on those who made it through unarmed and unarmored. The ghouls swarmed poor Sadir, taking him from full health down to 14 hit points and paralyzing him, with the first ghoul getting tagged by a burst of cold damage as it tore away the last remnants of the armor of Agathys.
The other PCs couldn’t see what was happening as their darkvision did not extend far enough, but they could hear Sadir’s cries and the ghouls’ slavering howls. Jheronimus the gnome cleric tried to dimension door past the hall, but not knowing how far to go to overshoot the monsters he guessed at 120 feet, and briefly ended up in a wall before being shunted back to where he began. Theodoric the plate armor-clad fighter jogged forward, getting badly burned as his armor’s temperature reached intolerable new heights. Fires the tabaxi fighter/rogue had more than enough speed to clear the heat induction discs with Cunning Action and Feline Agility, and he hoped to avoid the fire damage by keeping his blades sheathed until he was clear. But they burned through their scabbards and he had to zip back to pick them up, getting hurt in the process. Still, he managed to arrive at the fight with his weapons.
The paralyzed Sadir was soon being feasted upon by one ghoul while the others turned their attention to the new arrivals. As Theodoric cleared the copper discs, he grabbed his white-hot greataxe and cleaved the head of one ghoul, used his Action Surge, and then cut another in half at the shoulder. Fires followed suit, eviscerating two more and then a third with a Riposte. Jheronimus braved the hallway, going as far as his little legs could carry him, and then buoyed the group with a mass healing word. The last few undead were sliced up by Theo and Fires as the cleric made it past the discs.
A prayer of healing restored burnt skin while metal weapons and armor were cooled in the muck. Then the stinking ghoul gibbets were dragged into the secret room where they had been lying in wait (location 20), and the group took a short rest. Phew.
Next: slip’n’slide!
The previous post is here. The start of the adventure is here. The start of the campaign is here.
After a short rest to recover what few resources had been spent in the silver spheres room, the group was ready to face the dwarf vampire Ctenmiir once more. But before they moved in, Jheronimus the gnome cleric prayed for a beacon of hope, a ward that would give everyone advantage on Wisdom saving throws. The hope was that this would keep the vampire from charming anyone, as he had charmed Jheronimus previously.
The group left behind the boiling mud cave (location 7) and cautiously advanced down the hall to the vampire’s crypt (location 8). There was no opposition. Sadir the warlock, the only one who could see through the magical darkness that filled the tomb, opened the door, and… looked right into Ctenmiir’s eyes and got charmed after flubbing both chances at a Wisdom save! Wah waaaaah.
The others saw the warlock calmly walk into the impenetrable night without a word and disappear from sight. Jheronimus came to the rescue, however, and attempted to dispel the magic darkness, upcasting the spell to 4th level just in case. And it worked! The black fog lifted and finally, everyone could see their foe!
Theodoric charged into the room, greataxe held high, and swung it at the dwarf. The first swing but grazed the undead and slammed into the floor tiles, but the soldier quickly recovered and connected with a solid blow. He then used Action Surge to go again, and his axe bit deep into the vampire once more! The vampire seemed unconcerned though, as the wounds were already closing, and with a legendary action he grabbed hold of the fighter and drew him close for a drink of blood.
Fires the tabaxi fighter/rogue raced in and basically repeated Theo’s combo, attacking and Action Surging and attacking again. Ctenmiir switched targets to the catman – “I’ve never had the blood of your kind! What a treat!” – and clawed and grabbed and bit him, too.
While the warriors dueled with the vampire, Sadir broke free of the unholy compulsion (which, looking at the vampire’s charm, technically wasn’t possible given the circumstances) and lightning bolt‘d the bastard. Ctenmiir failed the saving throw but used legendary resistance to make it, taking only half damage. The undead dwarf then used his legendary action to run away, avoiding opportunity attacks in the process. But in doing so, he moved into the hall where Jheronimus had been standing.
“I’ve had enough of these motherf@#$ing bats in this motherf@#$ing tomb,” the little gnome sneered as he drew his wand of magic missiles and pointed it at Ctenmiir. He then shot the vampire with every charge in the wand, launching nine darts into the creature’s heart. Which was redcuded to shreds, and the vampire expired.
Talk to the Sack
The cleric promptly burned the body with divine light, and then scattered the ashes in the lake of boiling mud. Good riddance! There’s nothing PCs hate more than a NPC who had forced them run away.
The crypt was basically featureless aside from the coffin, and the coffin only held grave dirt. That was tossed in the mud as well, just for good measure. The party tapped and searched the box, expecting maybe a false bottom but not finding one. There was a hollow space under it, however, and after moving the coffin aside they discovered the treasure: sacks of gold and silver (totaling 9k and 10k respectively), a potion of mind reading, scrolls of magic mouth, dispel magic, and conjure minor elemental, and… Whelm!
The warhammer was initially happy to be rescued, though its attitude soured when it learned there were no dwarves in the party. As it demanded to be held only by the strong, firm grip of a true dwarf, the legendary weapon was ignominiously tossed in a sack for the time being.
Next: too hot to handle!
The previous post is here. The chapter starts here. The campaign starts here.
After “talking” to the giant iron head, the group backtracked to the tower entombed in the glacier (location H7) and took the passage heading south and down. At the bottom they discovered a large cavern that extended beyond the edges of their light and darkvision (location H10). As they entered, the most prominent feature was the upper spire of a tower laying on its side, surrounded by rubble. But as the adventurers moved further in, they noticed that off to the side was a large and very odd hole in the ground.
The hole was almost perfectly round, 15 feet wide, and its sides looked as smooth as fine glass. It curved as it descended such that no bottom could be seen. Vellynne the NPC necromancer placed a light spell upon a rock and tossed it down; it clattered against the side and then slid down and out of sight. Soon no hint of its light could be seen.
A search of the collapsed tower was interrupted when several of the adventurers began hearing indistinct whispers. The words could not be understood, though those that could hear thought they could pick out their names among the susurrations. Hjolgram the bard weakly took credit for it, using his telepathy, but the PCs knew what he “sounded” like in their heads, and this was much different. When a frozen-over wooden chest was discovered, it was broken free from the ice and pulled out of the ruin before any further investigation.
Once the chest was thawed and opened (and the whisperings were deemed to have ceased), it was found to have many broken bottles inside, though two intact ones still remained. Both surviving bottles held a viscous, magical liquid that was gingerly tasted and determined to be superior healing draughts. Score!
At Least They Wouldn’t Have to Eat Fish Anymore
As they group moved westward to explore the furthest reaches of the cave, they came across a shocking sight: an emaciated kobold hiding behind a cluster of rocks! When it realized that it had been spotted, it sprinted off to the north, towards a passage leading upwards. The PCs took off after it, the bard calling on the dragon-dog-man to stop because they just wanted to be friends, but the little guy was surprisingly fast. The passage led back to the room where the group had fireballed the pack of mephits (location H5), and the kobold made for the curved wall of the tower (H6), which had once been full of holes before Twiggy the druid had sealed them up.
When their quarry realized that it was cornered, it spun around and hissed, “Leave me be!” Madoc the ranger tried approaching, his hands held out before him to show that he didn’t mean any harm, but nevertheless when he got close the creature bit him! Then a hold person from the druid immobilized it (although it shouldn’t have, for reasons about to be revealed), and the party moved to bind it.
As they worked, Vellynne examined the paralyzed kobold with interest, and then pronounced that it was undead, in thrall to a vampire. “Does that mean that Madoc is going to turn into a vampire, since he was bitten?” the bard asked, and Madoc became greatly alarmed at the prospect. But Professor Skant, who was an expert on vampires in addition to Netheril, said the ranger had nothing to worry about.
“This kobold is a weaker sort of vampire; the spawn of a true vampire,” Skant lectured. “Only if the true vampire that bit it were to be destroyed would it gain the power to make more of its kind.”
“Or, hear me out,” Hjolgram began, and everyone inwardly groaned. “What if we all got bit by its master and we all turned into vampires! Wouldn’t that be great?!”
Omm the tiefling sorcerer frowned. “Not really,” he replied. “We’re trying to bring the sun back, remember? Don’t vampires burn up in the sun?”
The dwarf was undeterred. “Well, it’s a good backup plan, right? We can go back to the Ten Towns and say, hey, we couldn’t get the sun back, but we came up with a different – and better – solution!”
Interview with the Vampire (Spawn)
While Hjolgram made plans for converting the population of the Ten Towns into blood-drinking undead horrors, the kobold was evincing signs of movement. As the spell holding it wore off, it snarled at those who stood over it and then barked, “Let me go, or my master will have his fill of your blood!” Attempts to pry any information of the kobold’s master from it were fruitless. “There is no point to telling you his name. You will never leave these caves. The master will drain you soon enough.” Finally the PCs gagged it.
Skant told the others what was needed to kill it. Flint the half-elf rogue staked the kobold’s heart with the sharpened end of a torch, and then cut its head off with his blade.
“So, does that mean that the other kobolds that Hjolgram saw on his tour were also vampires?” wondered Madoc. For the bard had seen several kobolds in one of the caves to the east. “We should destroy them before they attack us.” Flint and Omm agreed, and the bard was pressed into serving as reluctant tour guide. They ventured up the passage that lead to the east side of the magic tower (location H7), headed east to the room with the iron head (H9), and continued on from there.
Along the way, Hjolgram nonchalantly inquired of Skant and Vellynne how one could force a vampire to “turn” someone, “asking for a friend”. The Professor was not amused by the concept. “Why would anyone wish to be cursed to survive only in darkness, drinking the blood of the living, for evermore?”
Ignoring the orb’s query and intent on the promise of immortality, Hjolgram turned to Vellynne. “You’re a necromancer, can’t you compel the undead to do your bidding?” But she could not, in part because Vellynne is mostly useless. But also because there did not appear to be any sort of wizard spell for controlling undead in 5th edition? 14th level PC necromancers have a class ability that allows them to try, but it isn’t very effective against intelligent undead, and in any case Vellynne, who is once again mostly useless, did not have that ability.
Next: vampire hunting!
The previous post is here. The start of the adventure is here. The start of the campaign is here.
After barely escaping the vampire Ctenmiir, the group was stranded on opposite sides of the boiling lake of mud. Jheronimus the gnome cleric had revived Fires the tabaxi fighter/rogue on the north end, while Sadir the warlock and Theoderic the fighter were at the south end. There was some question of whether the northern half should come south or vice versa, but as the group was in rather bad shape and the cleric was out of good spells, it was decided that a long rest was needed. And that meant a retreat from the vampire’s domain.
The warlock and fighter could cross the unstable platforms as they had done before, though it was slightly riskier this time because both were badly life-drained (i.e. their hit point maximum had been reduced). Fires came up with the idea of stringing a rope through the series of chains that the platforms hung from, allowing one to pull the platforms closer together and thus eliminating the jump. But first someone had to string up the rope. Fires started on the job from his end, and Theo from the other, and they met and joined their ropes in the middle. Then they, and Sadir, easily crossed back to the northern ledge.
Key Party
After a day spent playing cards with the sphinx and a good night’s rest, the group headed back down the same hall, but at the first juncture went the other way, in hopes of finding a different path to the vampire’s lair. Instead, they found a dead-end room filled with nine silver spheres suspended from the ceiling (location 4). Fires entered first, intending to search for secret doors that might lead to location 8. But the door slammed shut behind him, and could not be opened!
Careful to avoid disturbing the spheres, Fires did search the walls for hidden openings, and found none. The door was stuck for him as well, but he did notice there was a keyhole on his side of it. His attempts to pick the lock were fruitless, so he assumed that it was necessary to interact with the hanging globes. One was gently prodded with the tip of his blade, and there was a clatter of metal inside. The tabaxi guessed that the needed key was in one of the mirrored spheres. Presumably the ones with no key were dangerous.
With a grimace on his face, the rogue swung his scimitar at the “white” globe on the map, the one nearest the door, and jumped back as he heard the painted glass shatter. But all that fell out was a scroll and a key! He had guess correctly! Or, maybe not – the key did not turn the lock.
That wasn’t so bad. Fires broke the center sphere with less trepidation; that one contained a handful of gemstones and a key. He pocketed the stones and tried the key, but it too did not work. Next he chose the bottom-center “block” orb, which held a ring and a key. When he picked up the ring, it spoke!
“Stop before you put me on. I confer the following powers upon my wearer: invisibility, haste, immunity to charms, fly once per day, detect magic, and one wish. I also provide the benefits of protection and spell turning. The only drawback is that once a year I permanently eat a small part of your life. I must be worn before I can leave this room; merely carrying me away is not possible. If ever I am removed from my wearer’s finger, however, all my powers are lost. So you must decide right now who will wear me forever.”
As the catman was the only one in the room, the last part was an easy choice. But for fear of the ring being cursed, Fires did not place it on his finger. He did try the key though, and it opened the door!
Without leaving the room, Fires held out the ring so that Jheronimus could examine it. And it was magical, and did have the sorts of auras one would expect from the powers it claimed to have. Still, no one was willing to put it on. To the warlock’s mind, the ring’s claims were too boastful. “If its words be true, it is a greater artifact than the legendary weapons we seek, and yet I have never heard of it. Does it even have a name?” Well, did it? But the ring was now silent.
Tabling the ring situation for the moment, the group figured that the three broken spheres all had good stuff in them (the scroll was of fear), so why not break the rest? The first one they smashed held a key, hundreds of lead coins, and three shadow monsters that promptly attacked the group and were promptly destroyed by the cleric’s Turn Undead. So they weren’t all good. Nevertheless, they kept going, and snagged a potion of flying, a scroll of hold person, some fancy jewelry, an air elemental that Sadir easily banished, more gemstones, more jewelry, and finally a greyish ooze!
Luckily, the ooze had been in the last sphere that the party targeted, so instead of fighting it the group ran and locked it in the room. That had the unfortunate side effect of removing the mysterious ring from the room without anyone wearing it, and after a re-examination the cleric stated that it was now non-magical. We would never know if the ring’s promises were real or not (they were not, it only has powers until it is removed from the room).
It appeared there were no other possible paths to the vampire’s crypt, so the PCs reluctantly trudged back to the lake of hot mud, crossed over on the ropes they had strung up earlier, and made ready to face the monster once more.
Next: shot through the heart!
The previous post is here. The start of the adventure is here. The start of the campaign is here.
The party was in dire straits! Jheronimus the gnome cleric had disappeared, Fires the tabaxi fighter/rogue was unconscious, and the remaining PCs were stuck on a ledge overlooking a lake of boiling mud, with the only way forward being to cross on a series of platforms suspended from the ceiling. And on top of that, the mud regularly erupted in geysers that spattered nearby platforms in burning slop!
Sadir the warlock and Theodoric the fighter put their heads together and came up with a plan: they would tie a rope around Sadir’s waist and the warlock, buffered by the armor of Agathys (which bestowed 20 temporary hit points), would leap to the first platform. Once he had successfully made the jump, he would tie that same rope to his platform’s chain. Then he could make the second jump, and if he fell, he could pull himself up and try again. Once he had reached the third platform, he could use the rope to pull the second one closer, untie the rope, and tie it to the third chain. In that way he could safely, if slowly, make it across the mud.
Or, kind-of safely, anyway. There were two mud geysers, one that went off about every five minutes, and one that erupted every three. The slow progression meant that the person crossing was going to get hit by the mud at least a couple of times.
Interestingly, the 5e version of the adventure contains no rules for making the jumps from disk to disk. They are three feet apart (though at different elevations going by the art?), and characters in 5e can jump their Strength score in feet with no check. Is the assumption that the leaps are automatic, and avoiding the geysers is simply a matter of timing? Given the setup, it does feel like there should be some chance of failure; the platforms are very unstable, and they and the chains they’re suspended from would be slick with moisture and mud. To land on one properly and also get a firm grasp on the chain would be quite the feat. But the text only states that a check is needed to climb the walls (Athletics DC 15) owing to their slipperiness. Our DM ended up using that same difficulty for each individual jump, making the journey practically impossible for anyone without a high bonus. I believe Sadir had a +7 Athletics and Theodoric had a +8.
Sadir easily made it to the first disk, but then had a string of bad luck trying to hit and stay on the second (I’m picturing a jumping failure montage set to some upbeat music). Because of the time required to haul himself back up before he could try again, he got caught in a blast from the nearest geyser. That involved a Dexterity save and damage based on how far away one was; he made the save and took 8 fire damage from that eruption. Then he had a streak of good luck that faltered when he was between and in range of both geysers! Then another good rolling streak, and he made it to the far end having suffered 25 damage. Most of which had been absorbed by the armor of Agathys.
Once the warlock was fully across, Theodoric commanded Number 9 the flesh golem to guard Fires and began his own American Ninja Warrior run. Many rolls later, he had made it to the other side with 32 fewer hit points.
He’s Just This Guy, Ya Know?
It was now up to the two PCs to locate and possibly rescue the wayward cleric! They passed through the door and into a 50 foot long hall, and cautiously crept up to the far door. When that door was opened, Theodoric could see nothing but a wall of the deepest night. The warlock, however, had the Devil’s Sight, an invocation that let him see through magical darkness. And so Sadir could see Jheronimus with a pale dwarf dressed in archaic finery, both of them lounging near a coffin (location 8).
The dwarf gazed directly at the warlock with unadulterated smugness, while it was clear that the gnome, despite the apparent smile on his face, could not see a thing. Nevertheless, Jheronimus must have heard Theo and Sadir, for he called out, “C’mon in! Don’t be scared. You guys gotta see this!”
A hesitant Sadir called back, “Well met, Jheronimus. Who is your friend?”
The cleric tried turning towards the dwarf, but being unable to see, ended up speaking to the coffin. “Oh hey, you know, I never caught your name.” There was a pause where no one spoke aloud, and then the gnome turned vaguely back towards the other PCs. “Come meet me friend Ctenmiir! He’s a great guy.”
The warlock whispered what he was seeing to Theodoric, and advised the warrior to be ready. Sadir then summoned his pact weapon, a rusty trident draped in seaweed, from the aether, and once it was in hand he aimed its prongs at the mysterious Ctenmiir. The intention was to shoot the dwarf with eldritch blasts. But before Sadir could complete the arcane words, the dwarf moved with blinding speed to close the gap! Ctenmiir locked the warlock in an embrace, and then sunk his teeth into Sadir’s wrist (being a dwarf, he couldn’t quite reach the neck).
A surprised (and now weakened) Sadir invoked the Trickster’s Escape, which made him as slippery as an eel and allowed him to slide free of the dwarven vampire’s grasp. But he could not survive another round of attacks, and needed to draw his foe out of the darkness so that Theodoric could join the fray. So the warlock risked an attack of opportunity to flee back up the corridor, and the vampire’s attack hit, leaving Sadir with only 8 hit points!
Alarmed, Theodoric also backed up, tossing one of this throwing axes into the darkness as he did so. The vampire scuttled up to the ceiling and thus bypassed the fighter completely, dropping down behind him and landing on the warlock, who was knocked out by the blow.
At that moment, Jheronimus stumbled out of the darkness. “Hey, what is going on?!” Seeing his buddies trying to kill each other, he called for everyone to calm down and used a healing word (3rd level) to bring Sadir back to consciousness; he rolled three 1’s and the spell only restored 7 health on 3d4+4! Sadir called on the Father to hide him from this threat, and made himself and Theodoric invisible. Unfortunately Ctenmiir had truesight, which was how he could see in the magical darkness, and the invisibility had no effect on his ability to kill them.
Theo struck the vampire for little damage, used his Action Surge, struck only once more, again for little damage, and used his Second Wind. Jheronimnus tried another 3rd level healing spell on Sadir, but again rolled three 1’s and again only restored 7 health. Ctenmiir turned his attention towards the fighter, and as the two battled it out the desperate cleric tried a prayer of calm emotions to stop the melee. But only Sadir failed the saving throw. 😦 Jheronimus grew so frustrated with his inability to end the violence that he just gave up. He muttered an apology and then ran back into the mud cave, where he dimension door‘ed back over to where the golem guarded Fires. 😮
Sadir and Theodoric were now in a very bad position! The warlock maneuvered himself behind Theo, with the fighter placed between him and the vampire. Then Wave created a bubble of force that blocked non-living things, such that it surrounded just the two PCs. The 15 foot radius sphere filled the hall and prevented the non-living vampire from attacking or getting past them. Phew!
Get Thee Behind Me, Vampire
After pounding on the magic barrier for a bit, Ctenmiir backed off and called forth the creatures of the night, causing swarms of (living) rats to appear and scamper inside the bubble! The two humans ran for the door to the mud cave, slammed it behind them, and started to wedge it shut with daggers, axes, and whatever else they could find in their packs. The rats scratched at it but could not get through.
After a minute, the bubble had collapsed and the vampire’s fists joined the rats’ claws, but Sadir and Theo threw their bodies against the door and held the portal fast. When the pounding stopped, they thought they had won a reprieve. But then a green vapor began to filter through the cracks. The vampire had turned to mist and was trying to gain entry that way!
Thankfully, Wave’s cube of force abilities could block gasses as well, and the trident erected a new bubble to keep the gaseous vampire out. While that barrier remained, the two used mud to patch up the cracks in the door as best they could. Then they leaned against the barrier and took a fretful short “rest,” which was sorely needed to recoup enough hit points to survive crossing back over the hanging disks. Thankfully, the vampire had finally backed off, and the anxious hour passed undisturbed.
Next: run away!
The previous post is here. The chapter starts here. The campaign starts here.
After taking a brief rest in the ice-buried wizard tower (location H6) and in the process recovering some of their magic, the adventurers explored eastwards.
On the other side of the tower was a rubble-strewn cave with tunnels going north and east and a download slope going south (location H7). The party headed into the northern passage, which ended in a sizeable cavern, the most prominent feature of which was a frost-rimed 8x4x4 foot block of stone that looked to have been broken off from some larger structure (location H8). Flint the half-elf rogue activated his flaming blade and used its heat to remove the frost from the slab, revealing runic script and a raised carving of an eye.
Vellynne the NPC necromancer held Professor Skant’s orb near the writing, and the sentience within the sphere translated the ancient Netherese script. “Take the free self-guided tour of Ythran,” Skant recited. “Press the eye to cast the spell.” Hjolgram the dwarf bard didn’t need to be told twice; he eagerly smacked the eye symbol, causing it to sink into the stone. Nothing outwardly occurred, until the others noticed that the dwarf was just standing there with an unfocused gaze.
“Am I dead?” wondered Hjolgram aloud. “I can see myself from outside myself. And you, Omm. And Flint, and Vellynne, and Twiggy, and Madoc… Oh! I can move!” And yet he remained still. Gradually it was revealed that the stone had created a flying invisible sensor that the dwarf could control and was seeing through. With that, he explored the eastward tunnels, finding:
- a giant iron head with glowing eyes
- a dozen frozen headless skeletons
- a hall where the icy stalactites had met the stalagmites to form pillars
- a collection of two dozen vaguely kobold-ish ice sculptures
- a cave with five ashen-looking kobolds that were sitting in a circle and speaking
- a crazed-looking gnoll gnawing on a large bone
- a thick column of ice surrounded by a dozen skulls
- the corpse of a giant suspended within the glacier
…before the “tour” came to an end. Hjolgram yelped when he realized he had returned to his body, and frantically tried to re-push the eye symbol. But it had not reset, and he was unable to trigger the magic a second time.
Don’t Lose Your Head
According to the bard, the iron head was nearby and as it sounded rather intriguing, the explorers headed over to check it out. It was resting on its side in a long, tall cave (location H9), and its eyes glowed with a golden light. Hjolgram marched up to the massive face and, with a grin, “bopped” it on the nose. The huge glowing eyes “blinked,” in that their light was extinguished and then rekindled, but otherwise there was no response.
“Hello???” called the bard, and he then concentrated on sending it a telepathic message. But still there was response other than the blink.
“I don’t think it can talk,” Skant suggested. “But it might be able to respond by blinking. Let me try to ask it something.” And the orb spoke to the head in the Netherese tongue, which sounded a bit like elvish to Flint the half-elf rogue. Skant spoke, and the statue blinked, and it repeated like that for a little while. Finally, the Professor related his findings to the group. “It could once speak, but it was damaged in the fall. It doesn’t know where the city is, though. It’s been stuck here in this cave for all of that time.”
Hjolgram desperately wanted to repair the iron golem somehow so that it could serve him as the shield guardian had, but (after getting Skant to ask it) the head did not know where its body was located. With nothing more to glean from the strange artifact, the PCs pressed on.
Next: the bottomless pit!
Daddy DM 