Abyss Modified session 7

OUT OF THE ABYSS SPOILERS AHEAD  

The party searched the remains of the troglodytes finding very minimal useable gear and their lair was full of refuse. The shaman did have some mold and a few odd mushrooms on its person, which Godric pocketed. Shuushar mentioned they would need to cross parts of the waterways and unless they could swim, they might want to find a boat. Dinak called out to the dwarves again and eventually they rowed back to the group. For a few sapphires they bought passage to a shore near Sloobludop. Dinak had seen three dwarves during their first interaction and once aboard noticed two more that were below decks. There were two spell casters, a warrior, and two that knew their way around traps. The party made themselves at home on the boat, Slim Jim wandering underdeck and finding chains covered in blood, sized for both large, medium, and small creatures, it seemed these dwarves trafficked people as well as mushrooms. On their water journey they traveled between large waterways, passing a sunken city, avoiding falling piercers, fended off a scrag troll that grabbed onto the back of the ship, bumped some long eels with the boat, but made it safely to the banks within sight of Sloobludop. 

They thanked the dwarves and started looking around for any supplies to fill up on, like mushrooms. They soon noticed they were being watched and a group of Koa-toa stood up from hiding. Their leader, a priest of some sort invited the party to surrender and be willing sacrificed to the Deep Father. After deliberation Annahatta started throwing spells, sick of standing around and talking. The party made quick work of most of the goons, Shuushar getting caught in most of the net, Dinak sinking multiple arrows into the priest, Godric using booming blade on the priest after running up to him, Orion cutting through the minions, Fione using flame blade, Xanaphia using chill touch, Slim Jim was able to get in a few good sneak attacks, Lady Hestia got in some inspiring words, some mocking words, and some healing words, Annahatta used some magic missiles, and their allies were able to stave off death from taking them. The priest did not like what was happening. He cast spirit guardians, which gave Godric a rough time, the next round lost concentration on the spell by using hold person on Godric and entering melee with the rest of the party. The priest walked up to Lady Hestia and domed her with his electrical crustacean topped staff, knocking her out with one critical hit. There was a slight panic for the party, their wizard bard and their bard warlock were both effectively out of the battle, which was about half the healers. The rest of the party ganged up on the priest and eventually he fell, and Lady Hestia was healed before having to make any death saves. 

After they looked for loot, divvied it up, and healed a bit another priest wearing different colored robes approached them, no visible weapons. He said his name was Ploob, his daughters’ minions had attacked the party and seeing that they had survived they had skills he required. He was a priest of the Deep Mother and was in the midst of a turf war with his own daughter. He seemed trustworthy to the party. If the party would help him, Ploob would give them supplies for the road as well as advice. He would not go into detail out in the open so the party followed him into the city of the fish men and in his house were feasted and offered wine. The food was un-poisoned and the wine seemed to have some kind of blood so the party passed on drinking that. Root, their kobold came out of hiding and ate an entire giant isopod himself, sleeping in the shell afterword. They made plans to overthrow the daughter’s regime of the Deep Father by pretending to be a sacrifice of surrender from Ploob to his daughter’s cause. 

In the morning they made their way to the sacrificial grounds. All was going to plan until the ground and water seemed to shake. Strange evil looking manta rays in the water started grabbing swimming Koa-toa and blueish blood sprayed from the depths. The sound of stomping came from the water and a huge two headed baboon with tentacle arms rose from the depths, Demogorgon had come to Sloobludop. Panic hit the watery street, some of the koa-toa dropped down in worship, some ran the other way. Many of the party succumbed to madnesses from demon lord proximity, Annahatta, Slim Jim, and Lady Hestia were paralyzed, Orion babbled, both Xanaphia and Godric hallucinated vividly and saw dark realms with empty thrones, and Dinak and Fione were fine, just trying to wrangle the rest of the group for fleeing. They watched as the drow with the spore cough jumped into the water, Jimjar started eating his own arm, Shuushar got smashed by an errant tentacle. The orc and the dwarf were oddly holding hands, but Telegar was able to get them to carry the paralyzed party members. They all fled, behind them hearing screaming and death, eventually finding a secret way out of the city, stealing some boats, and traveled down a narrow stream, and after a few hours of drifting they found a crystal lagoon. 

The lagoon seemed to have a few tunnels exiting under water as well as three unmarked exits on land. There were the remains of a small orc camp and the party collected some of the quartz crystals from the walls. The party decided they would attempt to wander and find Blingdenstone, the home of the deep gnomes. The other options were a kingdom of mushrooms, a drow city, or dark dwarves.

Abyss Modified session 6

OUT OF THE ABYSS SPOILERS AHEAD  

We picked up with the party having just seen their derro companion Buppido getting smashed by the metal barrel and Dinak taking aim and launching arrows at the four-armed giant, known only as Breaker. Fione and Slim Jim were in the chamber and could see the giant bellowing out foreign words and brandishing a chest that looked to be encased in metal just like the barrel. Slim Jim ran along the chamber wall while the survivors, the rescued characters from the drow fort, ran off to hide on the other side of the chamber. Annahatta launched fire bolts at the beast while Godric used Eldritch blast and got closer to it, Orion also getting into a better position, Fione just ahead behind a different pillar. Lady Hestia launched a bolt from her crossbow into the giants face, the bolt barely breaking through its skin. Breaker approached the group while securing his metal covered chest to his back, sniffing and huffing the air as if having difficulty breathing, the party noticed deep scaring on its body as well as magic runes in a strange language they did not know.

The giant looked around madly and struck one of the pillars with all four arms, startling the party. Cantrips, bonfires, and weapons were sent against the giant, causing it to scream out in pain. Slim Jim climbed up Breaker’s back and cut the supports on the metal chest, sending it crashing to the floor, denting the tiles. The group of survivors made their way further across the chamber, finding the only other door out of the chamber. Lady Hestia used her dissonant whispers to cause damage to the monster’s brain as well as send it running across the room, taking out one of the support pillars on the way and almost crushing Slim Jim. Breaker charged Fione for summoning bonfires under his feat, attacking but missing Orion twice on the way and hitting Fione twice with giant fists. Telegar turned around and cast slow on the monster, reducing its four attacks down to one. Lady Hestia finished translating the runes from what she found out was an ancient titan dialect and the only distinguishable words were “Cursed, Endless, Madness”, which made sense why he was slightly crazier than Buppido the stain. Fione kept creating bonfires and eventually cast heat metal on the chest that Breaker had picked up. The chest burned brightly, revealing to the group that both the barrel and the chest were solid metal, and without contents, and in a way unbreakable. Breaker burned, losing most the meat on one of his hands, he extended one of his limbs towards the barrel, stuck in the wall, and it jiggled a bit in the masonry, the party made forceful jokes and the barrel stayed tuck.

They beat on Breaker as he still tried to pick up his chest and eventually fell on top of it. They started rummaging through his stuff, finding only a small sized skeleton and rotten food in a sack, as his body shuddered in his death throws, but took a step back when he started getting up again, he was somehow regenerating. They attacked its prone body again and the body rotted rapidly, and a glowing orb of pulsating life from within it and started growing back the body. The group realized this horrible thing could not be killed by conventional means they had at their disposal, and fled the chamber. They eventually heard him yelling again but continued their path for a while until they had to rest.

As they were breaking camp Annahatta started weeping, Godric began talking gibberish, a few of their rescues began screaming. It only lasted for a few minutes but everyone was shaken for a few minutes. Once they collected themselves, they were greeted by a strange well dressed Derro that introduced himself as Y. He was a member of the Society of Brilliance and was trying to figure out why there were demons in his home. He showed the party strange purple vapors that were causing chaotic rifts in magic and marks left on the caves to warn of certain dangers. He had one of the party cast a dancing lights spell into the vapors and watched it turn from simple floating orbs into tiny giants and finally popping like a bubble. Slim Jim asked if the mist could be inhaled or snorted and Y gave him a terrified look and told him no and that it would be a terrible idea risking one’s own life. They also gathered drinkable water and more mushrooms, not wanting to run out on the way to Sloobludop. Y also put them on the best path for getting to Sloobludop. They thanked him for his time and headed out into the caves again.

After a few days travel they found themselves on a large underground lake, known as the Darklake. They walked along the odd sandy shore, keeping the cavern wall to their right. They could hear splashing in the water occasionally but could not identify the source. Dinak could see further than the rest of the party and could not see the other side of the lake. Eventually he noticed a group of duergar on a ship rowing on the lake. He shouted a greetings in dwarven and caught them off guard. Lady Hestia sent Penelope the pseudodragon to investigate but almost lost her to a heavy crossbow bolt, duergar don’t like flying things in caves. Dinak found out there were troglodytes along the shore up ahead thanks to some good diplomacy and the party made their way to the now ruined ambush.

They found a few strange statues on the shore and saw a few more standing in the water. As they approached the “statues”, troglodytes covered in sand and dirt attacked the party. The shaman of the troglodytes was hunters marked by Dinak, taking a arrow to the shoulder, and then turned invisible. Dinak could sense where it went, and it wasn’t good. The rest of the party made quick work of the other troglodytes and were surprised when the shaman leader appeared right next to Telegar and the other squishy mage types. the shaman tore tooth and nail into the party but the group was able to take him down as well, finding themselves standing amid the carnage and the end of the session. They have just reached level four. 

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Abyss Modified session 5

OUT OF THE ABYSS SPOILERS AHEAD  

Our session started with the party fighting the monsters pursuing their new allies, the survivors. Two vulture demons and a bug demon came out of the tunnel, attacking the pile of survivors. The party watched as the dwarf fighter was taken out in one hit by the bug and the vultures engaged Orion and the other flew around to cut off the two groups. Most of the party spell casters had spells dealing fire damage, which seemed to do minimal damage against the demons, causing the group to redirect their actions. they watched as the orc survivor ran up to the dwarf’s defense and also got knocked out by the bug demon. Dinak got off a few arrows at the monsters, Orion had difficulty connecting any punches or stabs, Godric made use of his booming blade cantrip, Hestia offered the survivors protection within the ranks of the party, Fione launched rocks at the demons, Slim Jim made use of his sneak attacks having found the party once again, Xanaphia blasted away with cantrips, and Annahata followed suit with cantrips. The demons attacked indiscriminately, slashing out at the survivors and the party, they even knocked out the poor koa-toa, but after hearing the worst sound any of the party had ever heard the demons fled back the direction they came from. The party picked up the survivors, healed the fallen, and fled down another tunnel, hoping to create some distance from the demons and the drow most likely close behind as well. Telegar the eladrin asked if the group had made parley with the kobolds and if the way was clear, the party told him, yes on the parley, but the way had been collapsed by a burrowing monster.

They found a rope bridge over a deep chasm a few of the party just ran across while other made preparations to slowly make a rope line across. The party eventually all crossed and cut the ropes once safe on the other side. Godric found more mushrooms gaining around twenty pounds of food for the party. They took some time to rest in a safe and oddly clean cave and took stock of who made it out of the drow outpost, what supplies they had or needed, and found a kobold child had stowed away in their bag of holding. His name was Root, he had eaten a day’s worth of beets from their provisions, and had fallen asleep working on one of the larger beets. His first moments with the party were full of fear as Lady Hestia intimidated him for information. Annahatta stepped in and gave Root motherly affection and attention, finding out he had climbed into the bag during the shaky time in the kobold warrens and wanted to know where his mother was. The party promised the child safety and they would help him find a place to live. Telegar, the eladrin, informed the party he had come down here to save these people before the drow could sell them off, but was captured as well. Fione summoned a nature spirit to make a campsite in the cavern for the party. They took watch and noticed the derro with them was mumbling to himself oddly while staring at a wall. The orc and the dwarf were keeping distance from each other, the deep gnome was quiet, the koa-toa kept quiet as well, and the drow kept coughing throughout the night. They noticed some odd scraping ahead of them in the tunnels during the watch but did not see anything out of place, even after throwing a fire bolt down the passage. Fione talked quietly with Root for a bit. After their rest the group counseled to find out where to head, and after learning the distances between a few of the options decided to head to the koa-toa town of Sloobludop. They feared going to the gray dwarven city or the drow city would get them all captured instantly. Their fellowship of now fifteen mouths to feed made their way into the tunnels that would lead them towards Sloobludop. The party asked Shuushar the Koa-toa if his people were like him, calm and collected. His response was no, his people had hundreds of gods, most of which they made up on the spot, the only stable god was the deep mother, they ate meat, sometimes it was people.

The party was concerned but found the air around them growing humid and moisture collected on the cave walls. They had found steam vents with odd beetles biting at the steam blasts. They watched as the creatures would flash different colors and made strange clacking noises to alert each other when a good vent for food was about to burst. Lady Hestia took the chance to learn their clacks and repeat them, seemingly offending their honor as bugs and they rushed at the party. The party was about fifteen feet up on a ledge and just started picking off the beetles when the walls and floor shook and a Hook Horror burst out and attacked the crew. The group worked well together to slay the hook monster as well as the rest of the beetles harvesting quite a bit of food for the road in the process. Root even threw rocks at the hook monster. They also got to see their new allies carry their weight in the battle, even seeing the weird derro swinging around a wicked hook on a stick.

The group carried on, finding long winding tunnels and eventually on odd almost hammer shaped chamber with large mushrooms along the walls. As Dinak, with shield and silvered sickle out, made his way into the room scouting the mushrooms all started screaming. Having raised the alarm piles of goblins wearing mushroom bark came streaming out of hiding and started attacking the party. Behind the lines of minions stood a bulkier goblin wearing a crown of fungus and was directing his forces to attack the intruders, he was hard to hear with all the screaming. Some of the party started focusing on the mushrooms to silence the screaming, others rushed the line of goblins. Orion made good work on the goblin minions after a few near misses, Slim Jim cast sleep on the goblin boss and the mushrooms behind him, knocking two mushrooms out of the fight. Fione and Root threw rocks into the melee hitting goblins, Godric became a mushroom slayer, Xanaphia was able to keep the wild bits of magic at bay to throw an ice knife wounding a swath of goblins, Annahatta shot a scorching ray swarm at the boss, taking him in the shoulder with one, the other two detonating on the back wall. Dinak was able to take out a few of the goblins as well, having also been hit with the ice knife. Their allies charged in, the Derro Buppido sinking his hook stick sickeningly into the skull of a goblin and slinking back into the shadows, Eldeth and Ront worked together to take out a few goblins and a few mushrooms, Jimjar, Sarith, and Shuushar watched behind to make sure nothing tried to sneak up on the group. Telegar threw a few minor spells into the fray as well, conserving magic incase the party had to flee. The boss finally fell and the party looted the goblin swarm after putting down the still screaming fungus. They found a magic short sword and a pile of sapphires. They also found that Buppido started field dressing the goblin boss, and once noticed hid in the shadows again.

The group gathered up again and Dinak took point, they found a large chamber with pillars spread about forty feet apart. He could hear bashing and banging and could see a very large creature bashing a metal encased chest or barrel against a pillar. He went back to the party to tell them what he saw and Buppido got excited and saying the “breaker was breaking”. Fione and Slim Jim went with him to investigate and Buppido ran into the chamber screaming “breaker is breaking” and they witnessed the metal encased barrel smash into him, making him a stain on the floor. We ended the session there for the night.

Abyss Modified session 4

OUT OF THE ABYSS SPOILERS AHEAD  

Our adventure started a little differently tonight. Dinak the drow ranger, Xanaphia the human wild sorcerer, Orion the tiefling monk, Fione the human druid, Fula Anahata the aasimar draconic sorcerer, Godric the half elf bard, Lady Hestia the tiefling bard, and the pseudodragon Penelope had finished up with their odd demon quest due to Dm combining two mini adventures into one adventure the week before. The party was rested, fed, and hanging out at a local road side inn and were approached by a stranger. Pale skin, human looking, fancy clothing of a mage of high station within Waterdeep or another similar local. 

“Greetings travelers, it seems you have been caught dealing with issues from beyond this world. You may call me Companion and I have a favor to ask of you, one of my agents, an eladrin ally named Telegar has been compromised and is in the hands of the drow. These drow have an outpost in the Underdark that I need you to investigate and if possible, liberate my ally and any other prisoners that are trapped there. The outpost is called Velkynvelve, shouldn’t be more than fifteen drow and their allies, but for a group like yours this should not be much of a problem. Just free the prisoners and you should have more than enough power on your side to return them safely to the surface.” They were given provisions to last the group about a week, a bag of holding full of adventuring gear for anyone they rescue, and a wand that should lead them to Telegar, having been keyed to a pendant he wore on his mission. The group was also guaranteed boons worthy of nobility if they could return Telegar to Baldur’s Gate. 

The party accepted his offer and made their way to an old silver mine abandoned by the humans that used to live there. They found the town broken and battered and full of kobolds. Their cover was blown when a cloaked kobold wearing cobalt colored robes saw them and four kobolds ran out of the mine and engaged the party while even more kobolds slung stones from the shrubs. Godric had been investigating the broken-down bar as fragments of the wall peeled off, revealing more kobolds using the wall chunks as shields. Godric was attacked by the ambushers but magically defended with a shield spell, and later escaping the bar. The party broke down into their ranged tactics, Anahata, Xanaphia, Fione, and Dinak launching attacks at the monsters while Godric and Orion taking on the melee chaos. Xanaphia also fell victim to her own wild surge, the energies of chaos and fate misread found her the center of a fireball of her own making. She distanced herself in the moment and the explosion knocked her out, also roasting a contingent of kobolds that were sneaking up on the party. Anahata threw a few firebolts into the kobolds as well as started the old bar on fire. When the last of the armored kobolds fell the other kobolds ran into the mines, giving the party a few moments to collect themselves and plan. 

The kobolds took this time to summon reinforcements and gird against this dire assault on their home. The group charged in, noticing terrible craftsmanship of the kobold engineering, crude leather straps reinforcing ancient pillars of rotten wood. The party slaughtered as many of the kobolds as they could until the kobolds made a strategic withrawl deeper into the mine. The party, headed by Xanaphia sued for a parlay, peace between them, only seeking passage. The kobolds had only attacked, thinking the party bandits or demon cultists. As peace was negotiated the ground shook, the kobolds shied away from the disturbance until the living leader proclaimed “it is as the prophecy foretold” as a huge sized bulette burrowing monstrosity came out of the cavern floor, starting a cave in. the party ran past the cowering kobolds, heading down into the mines. 

The party had to use their wits and abilities to make their way past the storm of rocks cascading behind them. Orion was able to leap and point out a series of traps the kobolds had in their tunnels, Xanaphia recognized the kobold religious iconography of Kurtulmak, the god of kobolds, and in a split second found a secret door in their temple that lead deeper into the mines. They came upon a group of zombie kobolds and Lady Hestia told them to bugger off and it took them a moment to process intruders but the party was already gone. They found further down a sleeping wolf sized brown scaled dragon sleeping and as they approached Fione started singing, lulling the beast back to sleep. They could still hear terrible things crashing behind them and came to a troll/kobold hybrid creature on a bridge and Godric told him “We have no time for riddles bridge troll” and it let them pass, fleeing the rush of stone and dirt, running down a different tunnel itself. Dinak attempted to sneak by burial urns in a tighter bit of tunnel, knocking most of them over and covering the party in bone dust and fragments. They made their way almost to the end, finding a solitary guard, who Anahata informed that they were in a hurry and he let them pass, fleeing as well. Horribly loud crashed filled the corridor they fell into, and when the dust settled, they found they were lucky, large boulders blocked the path they just came down. 

Bioluminescent fungi illuminated the tunnel they found themselves in faintly. The wand pointed them northeast, which appears to be solid wall. There was a southeastern path that might hook around, or a northwestern path that goes down and away from the blip. They chose to take the path to the southeast finding odd cubby holes in the wall, as if something eroded the path strangely and within the cubbies, they found more kobold skeletons. Eventually they stumbled upon a strange chamber with a domed ceiling and loose bones making up the floor. There were two ledges directly across the chamber from each other, one with the exit, the other with the tunnel they came in from. They were about a hundred feet apart. There was a strange island that rose ten feet out of the bones in the center of the chamber that looked untouched by bones or dust. The party decided to wait around resting and toss a few things in the pit to see if anything happened but only heard the sound of wind, but were unable to find the source. They also heard the sounds of bones shifting together, which was creepy enough to warrant caution. Once rested the group had Godric sprint across the bones with a rope tied around his waist. They used numerous ropes just in case, his run made a slight snag when his rope got stuck on a rib cage. The party tensed expecting something terrible to happen. Godric used eldritch blast to wreck the ribs and continued his sprint across, climbing the other side and holding onto the rope. Fione threw caution to the wind and sprinted across as well as Dinak. Xanaphia made it about halfway before her leg sank deeper into the bones and when she got across she could see fingermarks on her legs. Lady Hestia and Penelope made the run next, and again at the halfway point something happened, Penelope saw something and fainted. Lady Hestia looked up and saw a small girl, wispy and slightly gaunt sitting on the lip of the island, giggling. For a moment the party held their breath, the girl’s face was completely smooth and, on her neck, a series of strange gills, she giggled again and then screamed. The party was buffeted with sound, Lady Hestia, Dinak, and Orion fell down and started dying. Godric spared no time, blasting the small ghost child with an eldritch blast, driving her to dive into the stone and disappear. The party healed the wounded and fled the chamber, sending a few good blasts for good measure, and Lady Hestia left chalk and a beet for the girl, scolding her with a vicious mockery and giving her a time out. 

The group left that chamber quickly, finding the air getting more damp and the walls wet as they started traveling down. Anahata tried the wand again and the wand pointed what might have been northeast still but the blip came back as them being closer to the target. They found some bark like mushroom growing on the walls and took a few pounds for the road. The next chamber had a series of ponds within, the central pond had water dripping from a crack in the ceiling and an alarming amount of light rising out of it. Fione, not wanting to waste time walked right up and looked right into the pond. Below the water she saw a human sized creature with glowing eyes, she waved and it waved back and two more swam out from below it. She went to the second pool and looked in and the same creature swam up to her, the pools having underwater tunnels connecting them. It broke the surface and blinded her with its gaze. The three monsters started sniffing Fione and touching her clothing. Dinak rushed over to help, wondering if these creatures knew what a drow was. It turned out they did, they did not like drow one bit and all turned their gaze on him, blinding him and hissing. The party tied to figure a way out of the situation, the others were fanning out, both Godric and Xanaphia noticing the last pool was full of eggs and a rotten chest and chose not to tell the rest of the group, knowing they might force a fight to get treasure. Fione started singing and the monsters fled into the water and the party rushed over to grab their blind friends and flee the chamber. Once they got to safety, they found a nice side cave to hide in and heal up. 

Once rested the group made their way into a large multilevel chamber with a wide array of tunnels, an odd nexus of ways. One of the tunnels had loud booms and buzzing coming from within. Loud footsteps followed by a group of bloodied and battered figures limped out of a tunnel. A dwarf, a derro, a drow, a deep gnome, a koa-toa, and an orc being led by an eladrin scanned the chamber looking for threats. They looked like they have scavenged some gear from the drow but look like they have had some trouble escaping. The orc looked down and the gnome it was dragging and said aloud “Turvy died” and threw the body back the way they came. The party addressed them, the eladrin being their spokesperson asked who they were. Lady Hestia told them that a gentleman known as the Companion had sent them with gear and food to help them under promise of great reward, the rest of the party facepalmed, not wanting to give everything away. The eladrin said very plainly that he knew the Companion, and the buzzing from the tunnel behind them got louder. We stopped there for the night.

Epic level home session

A game was played! We were able to get four players together and do an epic game at twentieth level one Saturday night. We had an evoker wizard named Catra, Holy Mojo the firbolg oath of the ancients paladin, Train the kobold eldritch knight, and Sohai the earth genasi life cleric. The adventure was a simple one, the cloud giants the local town would trade with had gone silent. Having dealt with may odd threats over the years the party was sent to find out and take care of the cause of the cloud giants’ problems. 

They rode a small flight craft to the gate house among the clouds and mountain peaks to find a pit fiend waiting for them with an erinyes. The pit fiend’s fear abilities were nullified by Holy Mojo and his paladin anti fear aura supplemented by his holy avenger. The group started strong with good attack spells and the fighter having four attacks each round. The pit fiend got off a few good rounds of attacks as well as a fireball while the erinyes took shots at each of the party members, inflicting repeating poison damage. Train summoned small elementals known as dust mephitis, two attacked the erinyes and the other two blinded her by spitting dust in her face. The pit fiend fell to the party’s hands, yelling something about a master as he fell to ashes. 

A few moments later a gargantuan black dragon landed on a floating platform and threatened the party with a roar and taunts. He flew over to the group and caught as many people as he could in his breath weapon, a cone of corrosive acid. The party did not like this one bit and brought out more firepower. He did not last long at all. 

The party picked themselves up and traveled further into the giant city. They made an educated guess and found where the giants were being kept, the old giant prison under ground. They found an oversized many columned room with big metal double doors with a titan guarding them. They sweet talked the titan and he let them into the room with his master in it… a colossal sized red dragon lording over chained giants. 

The party took this moment to assess their options. Catra used the Staff of the Ancient Magus and turned her meteor swarm into a frost meteor swarm, bludgeoning the fire dragon in the face. The party got caught in the dragon’s breath weapon, taking massive damage and fear started creeping within the group. Everyone unloaded everything they had into the dragon, Mojo attempted to banish the dragon multiple times, Train gave the party advantage on most of their rolls to hurt the dragon or gave the dragon disadvantage on its saving throws, Catra dropped a frosty sunbeam as well as a few finger of death spells into the beast, and Sohai used mass healing word to save the day when the group and hit points were suffering. The beast succumbed to its many aggravated wounds to its tail and loins, falling and managing not to land on any of the party or surprised giants. They took the dragon’s head to the titan, and on seeing its master dead the titan fled, polymorphing into a dragon and flying away.

Abyss Modified sessions 2 and 3

This will be the first full length adventure I will be running in the Forgotten Realms and I am excited. We are beginning with DDEX3-01 Harried in Hillsfar by Shawn Merwin, one of the 5E Adventure League modules. After that we are weening into the actual Out of the Abyss storyline with modifications to make it work for the stores play style, so there will be spoilers if you plan on playing these adventures.

For this adventure we had Dinak the drow ranger, Xanaphia the human wild sorcerer, Orion the tiefling monk, Fione the human druid, Fula Anahata the aasimar draconic sorcerer, Godric the half elf bard, Lady Hestia the tiefling bard, and Slim Jim the gnome rogue. Our story began with the party meeting a strange old man who died in their arms after delivering a cryptic message, something dark was stirring beneath Hillsfar. They have been given five clues, they completed the first two in one session. Their adventure took them to a farm orphanage full of non-human children as well as odd ailments, it seemed the goat in the barn was having labor difficulty. A few of the party went out to make animal husbandry checks and were horrified as a blood red two headed goat as well as a swarm of smaller red goats were born. The party wiped their hands, said job well done and as they walked out of the cursed barn the goats suddenly grew to maturity and attacked. The other half of the party heard the commotion and helped thwart the goat incursion, taking a few dangerous hits themselves. They also saved a tiefling child from a pack of wild dogs and met a druid faction member that thanked them for helping restore the balance of nature, dark things were happening everywhere. 

The next mission took them to a beet farm where jerk thug guards were attempting to intimidate the young farmer and demanded too much dye for one night’s work. The party approached as the guards left and found out there was drama aplenty on this farm. They found bodies in the basement with fungal growths covering them and an injured drow. As they investigated the lights went out and two assassins attacked them. They defeated the assassins, freed one of their captives, and found out foul things were coming out of the Underdark.

For the second session we finished dealing with the beet farm and were able to come up with a solution to the underage owner of the farm and were given a sack of beets for their troubles. Slim Jim and the gnome secret agent stayed at the farm to help deter unwanted attention. The group made their way to the third clue, something about a sacred grove with a blessed spring. 

On entering the forest, they found a battered man named Rigel whose beloved had been taken into the grove by wild dog creatures. On further inspection they realized the beloved was not a dog as they assumed beforehand, but the poor farmers betrothed, Elinore. Rigel gave them a silvered rapier passed down from generations of his family to help, he only had known farming, not battle. Rigel proceeded to find a few pit traps and Penelope the pseudodragon noticed something watching from the trees flying around. They found two more battered humans and quickly learned they were jackalweres, shapeshifting monsters that prey on the weak, and most likely the threat talked about in the warnings. They met a fairy dragon in the woods that lent them aid in the final battle. After a few close calls the party defeated the jackalweres and were able to reunite the young couple. 

The party then made their way to an old supposedly empty church and found two cultists outside with two large undead oxen. Fione and Godric charmed the cultists and sent one away and brought the other one with them. Under the church they found a chamber with six statues. Their guide, the charmed cultist thought he knew the proper way across the chamber and defeating the trap, but they brought the wrong cultist. They watched as he very quickly turned to ash, never even giving them his name. The party did the opposite of what he did and made it safely into another room with multiple open demon mouths as doorways. They chucked beets with light on them through each one until the beet wither came back undamaged or not smoking. Within the final chamber they saw a large magical ritual with an ogre body with a bull head sewn on to it and pillars spitting out lesser demons known as manes. The cultist leading the ritual saw the group and ordered his brute squad of lesser demons known as Dretches to attack. Once the party was engaged the smaller mane demons kept jumping into the ogre body and getting absorbed and other mane demons formed out of the pillars and took their place. The party took action to late, fighting the dretch brute squad instead of killing the mane demons. The familiar of Hestia did land on the ogre and was absorbed into the ritual, as well as the ritual leader after getting wounded took his own life and fell on the ogre to add his life to the magic ritual. The ritual finished, a large blast shook the party and in the broken chamber stood a Goristro, a very powerful demon, it nodded to them and teleported away.

A new beginning, Abyss Modified Session 1

At the store we will be having three groups of players with three dungeon masters. This week I ran for a table of ten.  Our story focused on a bar tab unpaid and the party was sent to collect. The group, consisting of Balasar the golden dragon born sorcerer, Cat the half elf druid, Theren the half elf shadow sorcerer, Fione the half elf princess druid, Vekirra the wood elf war cleric, Brelvern the human fighter, Godric the half elf bard, Orion the tiefling monk, Xanaphia the human wild magic sorcerer, and Sir Weirdo the third the monk shifter, made their way to the Gorbel’s tower, near Baldur’s Gate. 

They arrived to find the door locked and stained with blood and odd handprints. Brelvern, Theren, and Godric investigated the door, Brelvern knocking and shouting out to whomever was within the tower. The answer came from up above, the wizard Gorbel, who was quite mad in many ways, told them to go away and threw a rock at the party, hitting Theren. Theren cast sleep in response, which seemed to silence the odd mage. As the party stood and discussed making a humanoid pyramid to reach the top of the tower the bloody door slowly swung open revealing a well-lit interior and four zombie Thayan wizards. The party made quick work of them, having overwhelming numbers. They investigated the first floor finding stairs leading up, and three shut doors. They peered beyond each door finding an advanced kitchen, a possibly haunted piano, and a library of flying books. They shut each door as soon as they saw beyond and went up the stairs. 

On the next floor they found three more doors and a strange self-playing keyboard with gems on the back. It resisted most magical prodding until Sir Weirdo the Third smacked it a few times and the gems fell off. The group prepared themselves and listened at each door, behind one door they heard a voice requesting help, and told the voice they would come back for it. Another door hid a cavern, which they did not trust and closed the door again. The last door had a small green demon that was inquisitive, yet still attacked them. While battle was brewing the handles on the doors started turning so the party grabbed them to keep whatever was inside trapped. The first door had multiple hands grip at the bottom of the door and started shaking it, the cavern room door stopped struggling when Theren shocking grasped the handle. The small green quasit only troubled the party for a few moments but was quickly snuffed out. The party opened the handy door to find four manes, gross worm ridden demons within a small chamber. They nuked the room and went to listen at the door again. They heard footsteps walking up stairs and opened to door to find three more manes with one on a staircase. They ended up knocking one down and tied it up, it wept and was sad after Brelvern threw it down the stairs while looking around the next floor. The other manes were quickly dealt with. 

As Brelvern popped his head onto the next floor he was clubbed by a spriggan, moments later the tied-up mane warned him there was a spriggan upstairs. The party swarmed up the stairs, mostly keeping their distance, but Brelvern was mad and charged the beast scoring a good hit against it. The rest of the group spent cantrips, pelting away at him with elemental damage until Brelvern got clubbed again and passed out. Vekirra was able to get him on his feet, allowing him to hit it again, killing it. In horror he watched as this giant figure shrank down to the size of a child. 

After a few moments tending to wounds the group made their way up to the next floor to find a creature known as a nothic building a short barrier of broken furniture and weapons, almost like a nest. They talked with it, not seeing a staircase up and found it did not know the way, or was a really good liar. Fione took the opportunity to talk with him long enough to charm him, which Theren ruined after he remembered what spawned nothics, the dreaded Vecna. Combat ensued, tears were had, and the barrier started on fire. After the weeping nothic, who had just for the first time in its life had friends, died a horrible death at the hands of those friends, the invisible staircase appeared as well as a trap door to the rooftop. 

Once the group climbed to the roof of the tower, they found what appeared to be the mage Gorbel, prone on the ground snoring. Vekirra had cast detect magic and was still concentrating on it and could tell there were two sources of illusion, the prone wizard, and something off the tower about thirty feet away. They demanded the wizard show himself and when he appeared Theren cast sleep on him again, failing to roll high enough to effect Gorbel. The rest of the group had prepared actions and spells filled the air. In response Gorbel used his highest-level spell slot and hit seven of the party members with magic missiles. He was able to land among the group and get off a few area spells but quickly fell prey to their numbers. Orion and Sir Wierdo the third both unleashed a flurry of punches at Gobrel,  Xanaphia, Balasar, Theren, and Cat blasted him with a multitude of magic attacks. His illusionary sleeping form started twerking at the party in an attempt to throw them off the scent but a mortal blow was struck. Gorbel attempted to take his last action to throw himself from the tower but he was prevented his last request by a timely grapple. On his body they found an amount equal to what he owed the bar so they were victorious?