Here you go, a little Thanksgiving treat.
First, I must apologize for the tardiness of my updates of late. I started a new job in August, and it is taking a toll on me. Too much of my free time lately has been spent decompressing from the higher level of stress, and I’ve really had to cut back on extra-curricular activities in my life. But I am determined to see this campaign journal through to level 20; just be forgiving if the updates are late, and have a bit different writing style (I’ve taken to recording the game sessions on my phone, so I can write the update later, but that leads me to be a bit more verbose than I used to be, I think.)
September 15th was the 52nd session of the campaign. After recapping their newfound circumstances, and the battle through the defiled temple of Pelor, the party decided they needed to sweep through the rooms, but were worried that someone had seen them. There were two rooms yet that the party hadn’t entered (rooms “c” and “d”), so they decided to clear those out first.
Old link:
http://dnd.sendric.com/adventures/core/htm/images-sid/image14.jpgRoderick detects for evil behind the doors, and Davben detects for magic as well. Roderick senses there is Evil in both rooms “c” and “d,” and proceeds to open the door to room “c.” Davben had readied an eldritch blast, and hit one of the two hell hounds in the room.
Initiatives are rolled, and Værï fires through the door, hitting the flat-footed hell hound with an arrow for 22 damage, killing him. Jonmuir delayed his turn, while Davben fired through the doorway, while hanging up-side-down while spider climbing over the doorway, scoring a critical hit for 14 points of damage. The hell hound breaths fire, not knowing the party was buffed up against fire damage. Sir Roderick five-foot steps through the door, slashing at the hell hound for 17 damage, dropping the hound well into the negatives.
Jonmuir then hears a growl as something invisible starts tearing at his flesh. He is standing in the T-intersection near the door to room “b,” and the clawing attacks are coming from the direction of the main temple. Unbeknownst to the druid, a Hellcat has decided to use him as a play toy, pouncing upon him. Værï and Davben are further west up the hallway, and since both have See Invisibility active, they can see ghost-like cat paws clawing at Jonmuir. Lucky for the Small druid, I forgot about the hellcat’s improved grab here, when it hit the halfling with its bite attack.
Jonmuir ended his delayed action, five-foot stepping into room “b,” and Fiery Bursting into the squares from which the claw attacks came (since you know what square you were attacked from by an invisible opponent, so long as the attack was a melee attack without reach). The druid’s bear then squeezes through the door, following its master.
Værï steps over to attack the hellcat from the intersection, attacking with Sapphire Nightmare Blade, succeeding on the Concentration check, and getting a Nat 1 on the attack roll. Davben climbs over to peer at the hellcat from around the corner, identifying it with a Knowledge check, and learning that it is a devil, and is most susceptible to Good weapons. He then proceeds to fail to hit it with an eldritch blast. Roderick steps back out of the room with the hell hound corpses, moving over to the corner, standing below Davben’s Peter Parker-like perch, and sees his companions stabbing into the southern hallway, though he can’t see the hellcat himself. He swift-casts Bless Weapon and attacks into the visually empty square, striking true despite the miss chance and cover (which was counteracted by the fact the hellcat was squeezing), dealing 20 damage to the fiend, between his blade and his energy assault crystal.
The hellcat didn’t like getting hurt, and so it attacked Roderick from around the corner, but with cover and the hellcat squeezing, he was at a net –8 to hit over what he would normally be. Roderick feels paws bouncing off his armor, but that’s it; he can’t even see the hellcat five-foot step back (so it’s now straddling the doorway into the temple proper). Jonmuir pulls a little bit of a rules technicality approach, using his wand of Align Fang on himself (though he currently has no natural weapons), and also affects his Bear with it, thanks to the Share Spells ability, making its natural attacks Good. The bear squeezes into the hallway, through the intersection and to the east, since he couldn’t see the hellcat pull back, and it ineffectually attacks into the south hallway, not knowing the first five feet was empty.
Værï steps into the southern hallway, attacking with Mountain Hammer, hitting for a measly
8 damage on 4d6; at least it overcame DR… Davben fires an eldritch blast at the fiend, hitting easily, but failing to overcome SR… He also yells for someone to move up and make ready to heal Værï from the impending flurry of claws and teeth.
Sir Roderick debates how to move forward given the lack of room, choosing to sheathe his sword and draw Thaas. The hellcat hits Værï with one claw, then five-foot steps back, gaining space and no longer squeezing. Jonmuir then heals himself.
Værï drops his rapier and fires two arrows at the hellcat, hitting once for 8 damage that overcame DR (yay for the Fiendslayer crystal). Davben fires an eldritch blast, hitting the fiendish feline, but failing the caster level check by 1. Roderick saw where his companions were firing, and does the same, missing the first time because of concealment, and the second time just from a bad attack roll.
The hellcat is actually a bit beat up by this point, and decides to pull back, double moving around the column of hellfire, and disappearing from the PC’s line of sight, somewhere on the south side of the column of fire. Jonmuir has his bear break down the door to room “d,” which opens upon a kitchen. Neither Jonmuir nor his bear can see anything in the room. Questions about if there is still evil in the room are met with the need for Roderick to spend a standard action to once again concentrate on his spell-like ability.
Værï picks up his rapier and removes the Fiendslayer crystal from his bow. Davben moves southward, into the chapel, beneath the balcony, and despite not knowing how to speak Infernal, tries to taunt the hellcat in Common, then swift activates his wand of Updraft, which in conjunction with his Spider Climb ability lets him latch onto the underside of the balcony.
Two barghests appear on the west side of room “b,” and one moves to attack Jonmuir, who is still in the room, standing near the door. The barghest misses, and Roderick hears the snarling of the barghest through the doorway, and fires Thaas at the unidentified creature, missing because Roderick does not have precise shot. Jonmuir five-foot steps to the east, giving himself room to wildshape into a bear, and calls his bear into the room, which has to squeeze given the tight space. The bear lashes out with its claw, dealing 13 damage.
Værï puts his Fiendslayer crystal onto his rapier, then moves into the chapel, and starts moving around the column of fire, but doesn’t gain enough distance to see the hellcat. Davben double moves around the west wall of the chapel, and finds the hellcat (near the southwest pillar in the chapel.
The barghests five-foot step, and one attacks Jonmuir’s bear, hitting twice with its claws for six meager points of damage. The other hits Jonmuir with a bite and a claw. Roderick decides to follow the two arcanists out into the chapel, double moving and starting to move around the west side of the fiery column. The hellcat didn’t do much at this point, only repositioning itself in hopes of getting a good pounce attack next round. Jonmuir’s bear attacks one of the barghests, hitting with both claws, and pulling the barghest into a grapple. Jonmuir hits the other barghest with both claws, critting once, and kills one of the barghests.
Værï skirts around the east side of the fiery column, just starting to see the hellcat after moving 30 feet, but rather than attack, he decides to keep moving, placing the southeast stone pillar between himself and the hellcat. Davben moves 20 feet along the wall, and hits the hellcat with his eldritch blast, yelling for Roderick to attack where he fires. He hits the hellcat and overcomes SR, dealing 7 damage.
Seeing where Davben’s ray struck, Roderick attacks the correct square, hitting once with Thaas for 10 damage. In response, the Hellcat charges at Roderick, pouncing on the paladin, clawing for 14 damage and 8 damage, and getting a Nat 1 on the bite, but hitting with one rake attack for another 5 damage. The sole surviving barghest belatedly tries to get out of the grapple with Jonmuir’s bear, but rolls a Nat 1 and has no chances of succeeding. The bear grapples back, dealing 13 damage. Jonmuir drops the barghest he had killed, steps over and attacks the grappled barghest, hitting three times, but just barely failing to kill the barghest.
Værï charges at the hellcat, hoping to gain flanking, but forgetting that Roderick has his bow out. Without the flanking bonus, he just misses on the attack. Davben does a Healing Blast to heal Roderick and Værï, chaining 17 and 8 points of healing. The barghest would try to succeed on a Concentration check to use Dimension Door to escape the grapple (though even that would be a futile effort, since it is sitting at 0 hit points), except he cannot possibly succeed, since he has no ranks in Concentration. Instead he tries something equally futile, and tries to escape the grapple.
Roderick draws his longsword, attacking the Hellcat with a one-armed swing, missing, then contemplates moving out of flanking with Værï, but doesn’t after out of character exhortations not to do so. The hellcat attacks Roderick, hitting with an unconfirmed critical with the first claw, and a confirmed critical with the bite, dealing a total of 30 points of damage, but failing to start a grapple with the paladin due to a Nat 1. Jonmuir’s bear drops the dying barghest, and he and the ursine companion move into the main chapel, and continue on toward where the party is stabbing at an invisible foe, taking some fire damage for standing too close to the column of fire raging up from the floor.
Just as the druid joins up with the rest of the party, two devils teleport into the main chapel, arriving approximately where the “a” room letter is on the map. The party recognizes both of these fiends. The first is the Orthon that had teleported away last session. He sought out help and healing, and has returned fully healed and with the Bone Devil enforcer in tow. This draws cries of “Oh my God! No! We don’t want to face him yet!” I meet these cries with a comment that the party might want to “get out of Dodge.”
Værï decides that finishing off the Hellcat is important for the goals, as well as aiding in their escape (to avoid AoO’s), so he strikes with Mountain Hammer, dealing 22 Good damage with his rapier and fiendslayer crystal, killing the fiendish cat. The elf then moves to just before the doorway leading into the hallway at the south end of the chapel. The Bone Devil interjects with a boney finger pointed at Davben, still clinging to the wall; “Law-breakers!” it yells with a raspy voice. Davben casts
invisibility on himself, and climbs 20 feet along the wall toward the southern doorway, dropping closer to the floor so he can move faster next round.
Sir Roderick can see the Orthon standing slightly south of the door, but decides since the party is fleeing, he best flee with them. He double moves into the hallway, just passing Værï, planning to leave through the door through which the party originally entered (near room “f”). Jonmuir also joins in fleeing, moving himself and his bear into the hall, one reaching the intersection and one rounding the corner, but leaving a square open near the western exit door, so someone else can get to it and open it.
That leaves Davben standing alone along the west wall of the main part of the chapel. He’s invisible, but the Orthon has his
see invisiblity SLA active again. The Bone Devil tries to block off the escape of Værï by forming a
Wall of Ice across the doorway. Værï is adjacent to the doorway and rolls a Nat 20 on a reflex save to disrupt the formation of the Wall of Ice, but fails to identify the spell in question. The orthon can see Davben standing over by the wall, though the Eldritch Disciple is just outside of the distance the devil can cover to attack him. Instead, the orthon fires his hellfire crossbow at Davben, easily hitting the touch attack and dealing 9 points of hellfire damage to the reincarnated warlock.
Værï uses his anklets of translocation to move past Roderick and speed his way to the doorway at the west end of the hall, then uses his standard action to open the door for everyone. Davben moves into the hallway and past all his companions, using his anklets to add 10 additional feet of distance to the end of his double move, making him the first one to exit the building. Roderick also double moves out the rear door, as does Jonmuir and his bear, moving across the open space toward other buildings (roughly 40-foot clearance around this wing of the temple for streets, etc).
The party thinks it is a good time to retreat for the day, as they are starting to run low on resources. Værï tells everyone to group up around him on their next turn, as he is silently contemplating using a scroll of
Teleport to get the party out safely; they are somewhat strung out at the moment. The devils teleport out into the small courtyard and street to which the party has escaped, and the Orthon fires his hellfire crossbow at Roderick, hitting for 6 damage. The Bone Devil only has a move action, so he positions himself near the door, so he can attack Værï as he moves out the doorway and meets with the rest of the party lined out out the doorway.
Værï uses his anklets of translocation a second time to position himself outside and five-foot steps to position himself close to as many party members as he can, but is unfortunately still in the Bone Devil’s reach. He draws out a scroll of
Teleport and readies to cast it defensively once Jonmuir moves back into the range of Værï’s touch, yelling for Jonmuir to “get over here now!” Davben doesn’t realize that Værï has to touch him for Teleport to work, but players blurt that info out before I can have Davben make a Spellcraft check to know that about Teleport. Still, I have him make the check, which he fails, so I tell him to continue acting on what he was planning, as if he didn’t know Værï would have to touch him.
Davben moves in a way so as to provoke an AoO from the Bone Devil. He is invisible, but he knows at least the Orthon can see invisible creatures. He games the rules a bit and moves 5 feet (but NOT a 5-foot step), hoping to provoke the AoO while still staying adjacent to Værï. He moves, and the Bone Devil doesn’t attack him (Bone Devil’s can’t see invisible creatures), so he just tries to entice the devil by screaming at it.
This entire round was an exercise in getting players to shut up and not give information to other players, and players having to not metagame too much, and only act on information their characters knew. The party has never teleported before, so the specifics of what needed to happen were unknown to most of them. It was torturous trying to get them to act in character, and not speak spell info to non-casters who wouldn’t know they needed to move adjacent to Værï, etc. It did up the tension though, so in that respect it was a nail-biting winner.
Jonmuir squeezes up to the party, and has his bear follow him. Everyone is now in touch-range for Værï, but there are other complications. I have the bear-shaped druid roll a Spellcraft check, and he succeeds, realizing that Large creatures count as two creatures for what Teleport can affect, so Jonmuir ends his turn by reverting to halfling form. Værï succeeds in casting the scroll defensively, touching Roderick, Davben, and Jonmuir in that order; that maxes out the 9th level scroll, and the four party members Teleport away, leaving Jonmuir’s bear companion behind.
Værï decided to teleport the party back to Davben’s apartment, which Værï had spent about 20 minutes in just before the party headed off toward the Temple of Pelor, so I went with “seen casually” as far as the teleport miss chance, and rolled a 96, meaning they are off target in a “similar area.” Davben’s apartment is a little unique, having a summoning circle drawn on the floor of the back room.
So the party arrives in a different apartment that also has a summoning circle in it. This is me using the “background” info from the first half of the Speaker in Dreams module, which involved an evil cabal of half-insane sorcerers that were summoning creatures from the Far Realms. Davben doesn’t recognize this apartment, and this room doesn’t have any windows. So Davben uses his Hat of Disguise to make himself look like his old cleric half, and cracks open the door to look around. He sees a building landmark through a window in that room, so knows they are still in Brindonford. The apartment is empty of any occupants, though there is furniture about.
Davben succeeds on a Knowledge (the Planes) check on the summoning circle, recognizing it as a being used for Lesser Planar Binding, and other calling spells. Then he takes a better look out the window, and recognizes the part of town where they are now located. Davben’s cleric half lived in Silver Hill, the upper class neighborhood near the Baron’s keep and the Temple of Pelor. This apartment is in West Hill, a middle class neighborhood.
Old links/info:
The party debates heading back to Davben’s apartment, either now or after nightfall, or just staying here. The apartment is furnished, and certainly doesn’t look abandoned (the NPC adventuring party that took care of things prior to the Baron’s speech had killed the occupant of this apartment at another location), but the party doesn’t know if the owner will come back. It is empty though, so they are thinking of staying here.
With the pressures of battle no longer fast upon the party, I have Davben give me some belated Knowledge checks (both the Planes and Religion), as a means of providing some information about the column of hellfire spewing from the center of the chapel floor. He gets a 22 on the Planes check and a 17 on the Religion check. I ask Jonmuir to make a Planes check, and Roderick to make a Religion check. Roderick gets a 20. It’s been too long ago for me to remember what the exact DC was that they were shooting for, but I’m pretty sure it was a 23. Even allowing Davben’s roll to assist Roderick’s Knowledge (Religion) roll meant that both checks only got a 22. These rolls were for identifying the column of fire as a
gate of some sort (and possibly a clue as to where it led to). Throughout all the fiends they have fought, thus far Davben had only successfully identified the Hellcat, and I don’t think they as yet understood that these creatures were all devils, not demons.
Regardless of the failed rolls, I used it as an opportunity to remind Davben of what he saw: a column of fire roaring out of a broken pit in the floor of the church, and a creature (the Orthon) crawling up out of the fiery pit.
Though Davben failed his roll, this is a great place to tell you about that column of fire.
The adventure doesn’t go into much detail about the gate, and in typical WotC fashion, there aren’t any game mechanics reasons for how a cult containing no one higher than an 8th level cleric was able to open a seemingly permanent
Gate to an unspecified lower plane.
The whole contraption has three short paragraphs describing what is going on in the main chapel. First, “the presence of devils in the temple has … imbued it with a desecrate effect.” (Again, no mechanical justification for this, which always just peeves me.) Second, there are rules for getting close to or entering the column of fire (1d6 or 10d6 fire damage, and a
heat metal effect on metal armor). It also mentions, in an off-hand manor, that if a character falls into the pit, “[it] is a gate to the infernal plane the devils call home…” and goes on to note a character who falls through wouldn’t likely survive there very long. Lastly, it tells you how to close the gate, by using positive energy via a Turn Undead (having to turn it as if it were a 10-HD undead).
Turn Undead closing the
gate doesn’t make much mechanical sense either, but whatever; I suppose it was a precursor to the rules for turning in
Defenders of the Faith, which allowed sealing and unsealing doors (and
Sunless Citadel had a door like that, too). But more importantly, keep in mind that this adventure was intended for 5th level characters, though they would likely be 6th level by this point. Look at the Turning Undead table in the PHB; the highest it goes is Cleric’s level +4, and that’s only if you get a result of 22 or higher on a 1d20 + Cha mod roll (keep in mind this was a 3.0 adventure; 3.0 didn’t have the +2 synergy for 5 ranks in Knowledge (Religion)). A Paladin would be unable to do it (though more likely to hit a 22 to get the +4, in either edition they would only count as third level clerics as a 6th-level paladin). If your party didn’t have a 6th level cleric with a Charisma of 14, you would be completely unable to shut down the
gate.
In my eternal strive to have things in game make mechanical sense, I was puzzling out the problem and happened to remember incantations from
Unearthed Arcana. There’s even one (
Fires of Dis) that is intended to be used by cultists to open a
gate to the second layer of Hell, which luckily is quite fiery. However, the incantation is supposed to blanket the immediate area with fiery destruction, and open a short-lived
gate that is only open long enough to bring through a Pit Fiend, then closes. However, the rules for incantations have this wonderful little gem tucked away:
Most important among the drawbacks, an incantation rarely fades away quietly if the caster fails to perform the ritual correctly. Instead it reverses itself on the caster, explodes with a cascade of magical energy, or weakens the barrier between worlds, enabling hostile outsiders to emerge onto the Material Plane.
Perfect! The gate in the chapel is the result of a failed
Fires of Dis incantation. Though the cultists could not have anticipated this fortuitous result, the failure actually worked out better for them, creating a ‘permanent’ portal, and only sacrificing the cult leader, rather than consuming the entire cult in fire, as
Fires of Dis would have done. The odd-ball failure result also allows some justification as to why a
gate could be closed with Turn Undead; basically the realm of incantation failure is completely DM fiat anyway.
The background on the gate now making sufficient mechanical sense to me, the only other thing I changed about it was altering how high the effective HD of the gate counted as in order to close it with Turn Undead. I have a paladin and a multiclassed cleric in the party. They are both 10th level at this point, but would soon level to 11th. Due to the distribution of the cleric’s levels, he happened to mirror the paladin, and both currently turn as 7th level clerics, making 11 HD the most powerful undead that they could possibly turn. So to mimmic the difficulty the module would have presented to the traditional 5th and 6th level party it was designed for, I had the gate count as a 12 HD undead for this purpose. If they can turn the
gate as a 12 HD undead, it will close.
Alright, enough bloviating about the gate, and how I justified its existence. Back to the party.
The party was pretty tapped out at this point, and decided to just rest here in the cabalist’s apartment. A reminder that the previous week they had debated going to the church first, or going to talk to the halflings on the river flotilla first, was met with “we’re completely spent.” Deciding to spend the rest of the day and night here, Davben starts looking around for any books the owner might have on religion or the planes, finding nothing with an unfavorable percentile roll (I was making up this apartment on the fly). He also wants to find info about the owner’s political views (pro-Baron, anti-Baron) for info to use in Diplomacy with the owner, should he return. Later on he finds a journal while trying to determine where the apartment owner is, or what he’s been up to, and in the journal are notes about a shop called The Reality Wrinkle; Davben recognizes it as a book store in town.
They heal up, and Jonmuir feels a sense of horror, then a darkening of his heart (his companion was killed). They make plans to visit the Halfling village tomorrow, and discuss things through the afternoon and evening, bouncing ideas around. I actually encourage them to bounce ideas around the table as to what the column of fire actually is. Roderick immediately thinks it is a portal, and Værï agrees, thinking it either leads to Hell or the Abyss. Davben wants to make a check to know what plane would exude hellfire. I point out that I described the column of fire as “hellfire,” and the one fiend he identified was a “hellcat.” He finally puts together that the portal likely leads to Hell (“I didn’t realize that D&D was going to be so literal, here.”) Based on that realization, he makes a few Knowledge (the Planes) checks to know some general information about Hell and its denizens. A 29, assisted to 31 by Jonmuir, scores Davben information about people selling their souls, and being able to protest the terms of their contract after death, as well as the fact there are nine layers to Hell, the top layer being an eternal plane of war with demons, Hell is primarily populated by Baatezu, the plane itself is Lawful and Evil, each layer is ruled by Devil Lord.
Realizing it is likely a
Gate, Davben wonders if they have anything that could close such a thing. Maybe an earthquake to bring the whole building down on top of the gate… Could
Dispel Magic get rid of the
Gate? They do come up with the idea of using
Analyze Portal to gain information about the Gate.
The owner of the apartment never returns, and they make it through the night unmolested. They want to sneak back into the Temple of Pelor and let Værï use
Analyze Portal while under cover of invisibility, but first they plan to visit the halflings outside the town wall. They move through town disguised via wild shape, and with two hats of disguise; Davben had been disguised during their assault on the temple, so he lent his hat to Roderick, and just walked around as his new heterochromia-eyed self (that no one in town has ever seen before).
They approach the edge of the city, passing militia groups patrolling the streets. They stop in an alleyway and cast invisibility on Værï, Davben, and Roderick. A spider climb spell is cast on Roderick, and those three invisibly climb over the city wall, while Jonmuir just flies over in eagle form.
The party walks past the closed doors of the Old Ford Gate, and note there are no guards on the outside. Jonmuir reverts to Halfling form and leads the party into the flotilla village of boats and floating walkways. He looks around for a friendly “leader-looking” halfling, but ends up talking to a random passing halfling, who returns his greeting, and asks if they came for the fair… “because that got shut down…” Thinking the party are newcomers, the halfling recounts a few major events from the last couple days, from their perspective (no one comes to buy our fish anymore, etc.)
Jonmuir asks if anything else weird had happened lately, and the fact he is a halfling made up for his terrible Diplomacy roll, as the halflings starting attitude with halfling PC’s is friendly. The halfling villager relates to the party that there is some sort of monster in the river, a large serpent that grabbed several folk off the boats. When questioned for more details, the villager points them toward McGregor, another halfling who witnessed the serpent attack.
McGregor tells the party about how the serpent thing ate his brother just last night, and describes approximately how large its head was. Knowledge checks tell the party that there are snakes that large. They ask McGregor to show them where the attack happened, and as he is leading the party along the floating walkway of crate lids, the party hears a scream about 50 feet away. Sir Roderick detects evil in that direction, and there is indeed evil over in the area of the scream.
Initiative is rolled, and Værï sees a large serpentine form pulling a dead halfling off the walkway between a few boats. I placed a purple worm mini on the table to represent it, and that freaked them out a bit. The serpent is around a bend in the walkway planking, and so Værï decides to cut cross-ways over some of the boats, succeeding on Jump and Balance checks to do so. He pulls out his longbow, and identifies the monster as a fiendish elasmosaurus, then pelts it with an arrow for 7 damage. Davben spider climbs along the floating and bobbing walkway (to avoid Balance checks) and blasts the elasmosaurus with an eldritch blast, but fails to overcome SR. Jonmuir wild shapes into a Desmodu Guard Bat and flies up above the fray.
The elasmosaurus heads underwater to swim under the floating pier, then lunges out from between the boats near Værï, biting the elf with a critical hit for 45 points of damage, eliciting gasps from the party. Davben uses an immediate action to cast Close Wounds on Værï, healing 8 damage. Roderick used Battle Blessing to cast Fell the Greatest Foe, and shoots the elasmosaurus with Thaas for a measly 4 points of damage.
Værï tries to Tumble away from the dinosaur, failing with a 14. The elasmosaurus bites him for 19 more points of damage. Værï is convinced that he is going to die; without the previous Close Wounds spell, he would be unconscious and dying at this point. Once out of the dinosaur’s threat range, he casts
mirror image, which will significantly increase his chances of survival. Since
mirror image makes it much harder for Davben to heal Værï, the Eldritch Disciple’s planned action is altered to focusing fire on the big bad dinosaur. He hits with a 23 on the touch attack… and gets a 7 to try overcoming SR.
Jonmuir attacks the dinosaur with
splinter bolt, scoring a critical hit with the first splinter for 20 damage after DR. He hits with the second splinter as well, dealing 12 damage after DR. The elasmosaurus bites at Davben for 24 damage, and Sir Roderick steps out of the creature’s threat range and pegs it for 7 damage.
Værï heals himself with his belt, and Davben retreats to the edge of the dinosaur’s threat range with his anklets of translocation, but fails to withdraw from there, wanting to just move back, and provokes an AoO in the process. After taking 20 points of damage, Davben heals himself. Jonmuir swoops close enough to attack with
Splinter Bolt again, hitting twice for 3 and 15 damage after DR. The elasmosaurus attacks Roderick for 19 damage. Roderick activates Law Devotion and steps back, attacking with Thaas, and hitting the dinosaur’s low AC for 18 damage over two attacks.
Værï attacks with
lesser acid orb, hitting for 24 acid damage, bringing the damnable thing to 1 hit point. Davben wants to heal himself, but everyone noticed that the hit point total I wrote was a single line, so Jonmuir pesters him to “kill it!” But he knows he’s having trouble getting over the Spell Resistance, so instead he uses a Healing Blast on Roderick, and attempts to chain it to himself, but fails with a Nat 1. Jonmuir finishes things with another
splinter bolt, killing the murdering beast.
The halfing makes a stylish landing back on the floating pier, reverting to halfling form in front of McGregor, proclaiming “so, I killed it.” McGregor confirms that was the creature that killed his brother, and the party sees the more bulbous part of the dinosaur’s body floating just below the water’s surface. It didn’t disappear, so it wasn’t summoned. Jonmuir has never seen a dinosaur here on Oerth before, so this thing’s presence raises a lot of questions. (It also raises questions in the module, as it was supposed to have come from the
gate… several blocks away from the river…)
McGregor is ecstatic, having witnessed vicarious revenge for his brother’s death. The entire village is in awe of Jonmuir. McGregor asks if Jonmuir can “kill that dick of a Baron that stopped the people from buying our fish.” The party presses McGregor for info that is purportedly for working toward such a goal. Is there a secret way into town? At the party’s implied request for help, he says that the halflings will help them in whatever way they can, but none of them can do THAT (referring to the defeat of the elasmosaurus). Værï points out that information about the Baron and what has been happening in town is paramount. McGregor says they should talk with Dentheira, the leader of their village.
That is where we ended the session. Hopefully I can hammer some of these session recaps out a little faster. There will be some weeks off from gaming in December, so I will try to use that time to start getting caught up (though I’m still 7 sessions behind…)