TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

Our sparsest session yet, with two out of seven busy with festivities and a third down due to medical emergency, leaving just four players present. This didn't seem to slow them down initially, with the flesh golems in room seven falling within a single round, although the final one did actually do minor damage jumping on them from its alcove. The escaped illihid prisoner in room 8 and the mind flayer guard in room 10 were similar experiences, the first dying before it could even react to invisible mind-shielded feral binder multiattack, the second surviving long enough to get one mind blast out thanks to her shield guardian. Then we hit the bodaks. Two save or die effects in one round, effective upon seeing them even if they can't see you. Our poor binder dropped to the floor and became visible, which obviously sent the rest of the group into panic mode. Thankfully both the orc and minidragon have powers to boost their saves, so they went charging in and unleashed their strongest attacks to finish the bodaks off ASAP. Then they had the quandary of what to do next. The priestess did have revivify memorised, which would have worked if she'd died from regular damage, but not death effects. Not wanting to press on and leave a player unable to do anything for several sessions, they decided to behave in a surprisingly un-evil way and head straight back to Tu'narath to pay for a resurrection. Since they were well into the mountain by now, this meant a three day round trip and several wandering monster checks. Things went smoothly on the way out, but when coming back in there was another svirfneblin band investigating what had happened to their destroyed settlement. The party made easy work of them though, drawing the session to a close as they reached the entrance to the prison again, ready to find out how things had changed in the intervening time. Will the defences be stronger or weaker this time and what new twists can I come up with the resources they'd logically have available?

A particularly messy session, with 2 people out due to festivities, one absent for half the session due to technical problems, and one player quitting due to work commitments after being one of the more frequently absent ones in the previous month. Despite that, we did still make some progress. Knowing that half the characters wouldn't be operating at full competence, the remaining ones were extra cautious, making full use of their invisibility and flight when returning to the prison entrance. Things had changed, but not in the way they expected. Rather than reinforced defences, they found the level of the gas in the chasm noticeably lower, the outer portcullis broken and the outer rooms taken over by the fungus-infested kuo-toa from Lord of the Scarlet Tide, busily proving they're not just a static menace, but an expanding threat these guys are going to have to deal with at some point if they're serious about the whole world-conquering thing. Initially it seemed like they would be another speedbump wiped out in a round or two by the group's massive damage dealing powers, but that was reckoning without their fungal regeneration capabilities, so after taking the first four down, they were surprised by the first one standing up again and attacking from behind. They also had to deal with the fact that while the hole torn in the portcullis was large enough for the regular PC's, our enlarged orc needed to spend several rounds further breaking it to fit through. In the end, they decided they weren't currently in a position to systematically go through all the various energy types to find their weakness and just picked up their bodies after reducing them to negative hp and threw them in the chasm. They also had to deal with the newly resurrected feral binder once again being the butt of the status effects and failing her save against fungal infection. This involved cutting the infected body part off. (don't worry, she'll regenerate it in a few days, but at least her number of attacks is slightly reduced for the moment. )

Having cleared the first defences and storeroom, they found that the sphincter doors were still broken after last time, but lots of crates had been hastily stacked behind them to keep the fish-men out. Since we have guys with superhuman strength, this was a tedious but solvable problem. There was a single flesh golem remaining trying to keep the defences maintained, but superior reach made that an easy target once a small hole had been cleared. They had a much bigger problem behind the next load of crates, as the illithid had summoned a Cornugon to replace the downed hydra. As soon as they cleared a small hole in the crates, they were zapped by a lightning bolt. Our binder did her usual trick of leaping in with all attacks going, but found she was only hitting on a natural 20 and each individual attack was barely affecting it due to DR. Thankfully there was only the one of it and all of them, so they still had the edge in action economy, but it was obvious even quite optimised 11th level characters were outmatched against a CR 16 monster. Everyone pulled out their very strongest attacks and barely managed to take it down, but once again had to deal with the fact that they didn't have the right kind of special powers to counter its regeneration and finish it off for good. After quite a bit of frantic discussion while bashing it to keep it in negative hp, they eventually scanned their spell lists and realised that casting Disobedience might be an option if it was summoned, freeing it from control and letting them negotiate with it to leave them alone while they went and got vengeance on the illthid who were responsible for putting it in this position in the first place. This decidedly risky gamble paid off, and it waived its SR check and teleported off as soon as it was back in positive hp. Now they have to venture down into the lower layers again and see what kind of other defences the increasingly desperate besieged guards have managed to cobble together. We shall see if next week goes a little more smoothly for them.

A full house for the first time in a while. The party headed down the massive spiral ramp into the depths of the prison again, cautious about what they might find. Heading through the reservoir and kitchen areas, things were much quieter than last time. The servants killed in the previous breakout attempt had been raised as zombies, making their attempts at cooking even less competent and pleasant to eat for the surviving prisoners. These were no challenge (or XP) at all and fell before they could even scratch the PC's. Then they got to the bodak room. The two illithid killed in the previous breakout attempt had risen as bodaks, but not being properly trained like the previous ones, they were chained either side of the big door so people who knew they were there could simply get through the room by keeping their eyes closed. Our feral binder had invested in another solution though, a blindfold that grants blindsight when put on, which meant this was also a trivial encounter once they got the courage to go down those stairs. They then progressed through the officers quarters, which was now abandoned aside from bits of paperwork and reached the main cavern with the cells. These were half-empty, with only 4 illithid and 3 non-illithid prisoners remaining. They efficiently slaughtered the illthid ones through the bars and questioned the others, debating releasing them but deciding against it for now, as a bunch of NPC's, even quite high levelled ones would just slow them down without the proper equipment. They didn't figure out how to open the room with the crushing walls without incident, but by this point they knew they could tear open the sphincter doors in a round or two, so that was another problem easily solved with brute force.

Heading down the stairs, the gelugon was a somewhat tougher fight. They led with casting Disobedience again, but having not properly explained what they were doing, it did not waive it's SR and resisted that before blasting them with a cone of cold. Like the cornugon last time, its damage resistance meant the binder's large quantity of little attacks was mostly ineffective, which meant it was up to the orc to bust out his martial maneuvers that did tons of damage to do most of the work of taking it to negative hp. To solve the problem more permanently, their githyanki leader summoned a cervidal and used its dismissing touch to sent it back to the nine hells. They spent enough time opening the various living quarters in area 16 for their buffs to expire, and experienced a similar pattern against the night hag torturer in area 17, with the binder struggling to make a dent against her DR and the orc & priestess doing most of the work. Fortunately, she still had more than enough power to shred the devourer in room 18 when it came to back up its mistress so it's not as if she's feeling useless this session. We shall see who gets a chance to shine next time.

A little bit of dropping in and out, but everyone was present for at least part of the session. The stone golem on the stairs was barely a speedbump for them at this point. The spectres in room 20 managed to get a few hits in from the walls with surprise and inflict some negative levels, but once the group formed a circle in the middle of the room and readied actions, they soon managed to catch them as they poked their arms out to attack and send them to eternal rest. They detected the Destruction spell on the room to the armory and let the orc tank it, since he would only have failed on a natural 1. They did detect and properly disarm the scythe trap in corridor 24, but this gave Ulliphion the head prison warden time to cast all his buff spells and then put a stinking cloud immediately behind the door, which then started seeping out as they discussed what to do next. Realising they couldn't just sit there, two of them charged through the cloud, but failed their saves and spent some time vomiting. It fell to the githyanki leader to save the day again with a well-chosen summon, calling an air mephit to blow the gas away, which let the kobold sniper get through and deal massive damage before the illithid could eat either of the nauseated characters brains. After that, the rest of the session was basically just cleanup, with the mohrg also presenting no real challenge and the symbols also failing against the orc's high hp and fort saves. They spent some time puzzling over the gas release mechanisms in room 23 before deciding it wasn't important anymore, since they'd cleared everything else already. After poking around the back entrance and determining it was well hidden from the other side, so they could rest safely here, they decided it was a good point to call it a night, which also gives them a chance to level up to 12 before next session. Next destination, the neighbouring illithid town itself. Can I manage to make that an interesting but not overwhelming challenge?

A relatively short session, with some people late and others having to leave early, but everyone was present for at least part of it. The first part was spent cleaning up in the prison, questioning the prisoners before eventually deciding to release them. The drow was sent on his way back to their settlement in the south-west to deliver the message that the lich-queen was coming and they should choose their side in the upcoming conflict wisely. Dyema the sorcerer decided to tag along with him as it seemed a quicker and safer way of getting out of the underdark than going with the PC's to attack the illithid town, while Thut-Hakh the bugbear assassin decided to stick with the team and get some revenge. They headed out of the back door of the prison to the hidden where it rejoined the main underdark map, and north again. They did roll poorly on their spot checks and the Binder wandered straight into a Cave Fisher snare, but just waited until it had nearly reeled her in before busting out the short range teleportation to get free and shredding it. The rest of their trip passed uneventfully until they reached the east entrance to the illthid town, where they found the fungus infested fish-men had got there before them, leaving the secret doors in wide open. As with last time, they were more than strong enough to beat them, but getting them to stay down was another matter, requiring some experimentation with energy types. Fortunately the kobold sniper was first time lucky when he zapped them with an electrical orb, which they soon noticed wasn't regenerating. (although I made it a bit easier than I should have, because I forgot that in his infinite sadism, James Jacobs had put a template that is weak against electricity on a monster with resistance to electricity, requiring lots of damage in one go to punch through it) This rapidly tipped the balance of power and they finished them off before heading into the main chambers.

There they found that although weaker than the PC's, the Scarlet Children had a relatively easy time against the illithid & their minions due to their complete immunity to mind-affecting powers and already taken the place over. The wererats were hiding behind the stalagmites in area D2, but the binder's blindsight let her head straight for them and start slicing & dicing. The sniper headed in a little more circumspectly and looked north, where he saw a whole load of infected mongrelmen in area D7 chanting. The rest of the session was another big running battle, with the gith summoning a couple of barbazu, who's wounding glaives proved quite effective at countering the scarlet children's regeneration until they could be finished off. They found that there were three more Kuo-Toa in D7 along with the mongrelmen, and more importantly, a severely wounded ulitharid pinned to the wall that was still in the process of being taken over by the fungus. The orc got infected by a volley of fungal gunk from the mongrelmen, but shrugged it off with Iron Heart Surge and everyone played their part in taking down the rest of the monsters. They decided not to bother questioning the ulitharid and threw it on the pile with everything else before giving them all a big AoE electrical zap to finish them off. That ended the combat and gave them a relatively neat point to round off the session, but there's still plenty on this map to explore. Will any of it give them any challenge next week, and more importantly, how much of the underlying situation they've wandered into will they understand by the time they're through?

Another busy session with a single absence that notified us well in advance. Having cleared the central area last time, they had lots of options of which route to explore next. First up, the large corridor directly north. The umber hulk in area D22 was another easy kill. They ignored the big locked doors to area D24 and the fresh cave-in blocking D26 and headed up the shafts leading to the ulitharid's chambers, which were now empty. Some of them stayed behind to investigate the treasure there while the more stealthy party members got bored and went back to the north-east tunnel. The ice toads in the freezer got a few shots off before being knocked down. They opened the door to the midden, but on getting a whiff of the contents, decided not to bother rummaging around in there and left the otyugh in peace. They had a slightly trickier time with the ogre mages, two of which which used invisibility and gaseous form to get into good positions to unleash their cones of cold while the third headed to the west to get the remaining kuo-toa and the illithid they'd managed to successfully infect. But despite some failed saves, the PC's continued to hold the upper hand and reduce their enemies to negative hit points within a few rounds. The githyanki summoned some wolves to gather up the bodies of the dropped enemies so they could finish them off using as few of their remaining spells as possible and were midway through that when the third wave arrived. But they once again only got a single attack off before being shredded and electrocuted into oblivion. They then headed northwest themselves, where they found a few more kuo-toa in areas D19 & 20 that hadn't left their posts because they were guarding an illithid and troll that were still in the process of being taken over. This fight was extended out over a few rounds because it was a narrow room, but some judicious use of flight and teleportation let them get more actions in than a less magically adept party and sort these guys out as well, killing the illithid but keeping its head for future questioning via Speak with Dead. There's still a few rooms to go, but this bit has become less about challenging the players and more about setting the scene for the next big menace they'll have to deal with. I shall try and move the plot forward next session as usual.

One of the longest sessions, but also lightest on combat, interestingly. Two people were busy for most of the session, but came in near the end. Having had a good look at the experiments in room 20, they then cautiously investigated the corridor to room D21. The binder went first as usual, which meant she once again became the victim of the nondamaging status effects as the ghost trapped inside possessed her and then tried to make a run for it. This ground things to a halt for quite a while OOC as the other PC's scanned their powers for anything that might help with this, and weighed the odds that she would TPK the rest of the party if they tried to fight her body. Eventually, the kobolds decided that using their diplomacy scores might be the best option. One roll in the high 30's later, they did manage to get through to the half-crazed ghost that the illithid were gone and they were the ones that had liberated the city. It could join them in vengeance against the illithid forces in general or go to its eternal rest, but possessing one of their bodies wasn't the polite thing to do. The ghost paused and agreed with them, but once it left her body, she decided she wasn't going to abide by any deals the others had made and shredded it from behind while it was still talking to the others. Deciding that damage control would be a good idea at this point, they promptly cremated the ghost's preserved body to reduce the odds of it coming back and haunting them some more.

Following that, they cleaned up the last few areas of the map. Areas 5 and 6 had some more kuo-toa and wererats, plus the mongrelmen who had been infected but not turned yet being kept hostage. They didn't even try to save them, but did at least give them a quick death along with the kuo-toa, although unfortunately the priestess did get infected in the process. Finally, they investigated the blocked off areas they skipped last session. The brainwashed drow in D24 was attacked as soon as he loudly declared his loyalty to the illithid cause, although he did last a couple of rounds. The beholder was a lot more complex. Initially the sniper used greater blink to get through the cave-in, then blinked back straight away when he saw the beholder floating right at the top of the cave beyond. This turned into another big debate about how to handle this. Why had it blocked off the way in? Was it infected? If so, had it already succumbed to the fungus? Could they afford to do a long rest and risk it turning overnight, given that they'd already expended most of their best spells? Watching the speed of spread on their own priestess, and making a few knowledge checks, they realised that waiting overnight would be a very bad idea. So they summoned a dove and teleported that through the cave-in as an obvious peace offering. Since beholders have a high spot check, it realised straight away that someone uninfected was out there and inquired about what was going on. Turns out it had indeed been infected several hours ago, managing to disintegrate many of the attackers but eventually being hit by one of their fungal shots in a place it's disintegrate eye couldn't reach and causing the cave-in to escape. Not being in a good position to negotiate, it would throw it's lot in with them if they saved its life. This led to another problem, that the priestess had already used up all her cure disease spells for the day, but eventually the PC's remembered that you can use heal checks in place of fort saves to fight off ongoing disease effects, and despite being a priestess of Loviatar, she does still know how to use that anatomical knowledge for good as well as evil. (plus flaying fungus off still isn't a very pleasant process, so it's all good roleplaying opportunities) And so this problem was resolved with another pair of skill checks to the great relief of everyone. The beholder then used it's disintegrate powers some more to cause cave ins blocking both entrances to the city so they could rest without worrying about wandering monsters, then disintegrated a path to the hidden treasure vault and after a little more roleplaying involving who gets to keep what, they all teleported back to the color portal where their astral ride was waiting. This led to a bit more roleplaying as the two new PC's got to see the expanses of the astral plane for the first time and the session then concluded with a load of OOC debate about their next move. Will they head back down into the underdark to see what other areas still remain once recharged, or report this mission cleared, since they did kill a bunch of illithid and ask for another assignment?

All but one present this time. Like last session, this one was both unusually long and combat light. Much of this was because they had the first chance in 3 months to actually identify the magic items and spend the large quantities of loot they'd been accumulating all through the underdark arc, leading to a lot of admin headaches about who wants what and which items they'd simply liquidate once they got to Tu'narath that went on through the week and the first half an hour or so of the session. Eventually we worked out that they had around 46k each to spend on crafting, with fairly free reign on anything that doesn't require 9th level spells or worshipping a specific deity to create, since the Githyanki capital city is an extremely high-magic place. This was not a simple process, because some of the items they got were hard to price, since I've been using a mix of 2e and 3e modules and a few of them have no 3e stats. Most significant of these was the book of infinite spells from the illithid town, which they decided to gift directly to the lich-queen in the hope that she'd reward them in turn. And so they got to go to the whispering palace and meet the lich-queen personally for the first time in the campaign. (using my best imitation of her voice in Baldur's Gate 3) She had been personally aware of their exploits since they secured the Kadtanach and was very interested in seeing what they would accomplish in the future. Most of the group were suitably obsequious when meeting her, except for the feral binder, which really lived down to the feral part of her build, flittering about the room using her wings and landing on the lich-queen's hand when she gestured at her. Not wanting to TPK the whole group midway through the campaign, I played Vlaakith as too surprised by the sheer audacity of this move to disintegrate her, but this has definitely marked that particular PC as someone the Lich-Queen is very suspicious of, and will give her a serious reputation in Tu'narath when the gossip of this move gets out. Since she has also just taken the Leadership feat, this will definitely result in her gaining fans in odd places.

That rather tense moment over, she gave minor plot-furthering magical items to two of the PC's and sent them on their way. They spent a couple more weeks engaged in shopping, retraining, regrowing lost limbs, etc, while considering their next move. They spent quite a bit of time coming up with good questions before using Speak with Dead on the Ulitharid head, to maximise the amount of info they could get on the fungus attack and the larger settlements deeper down in the mountain. Eventually they decided that their next course of action would not be heading straight back down to the underdark, but investigating the yak-folk monastery at the top of the mountain, see if they were aware of what was going on beneath their feet. A days uneventful trekking back to the color portal and another up the mountain and they hit their first obstacle, a mysterious stone garden. Three stone elementals and a yak-folk monk appeared in the centre and asked if they were pilgrims come to seek the wisdom of the Yikaria. They greeted it as equals looking for information rather than supplicants, which offended the arrogant monk, who set the elementals on them. Like most of their combats, this turned out to be a move he would regret, but not for long. The binder dived on him, but it turned out he was merely projecting an image and the real monk was watching from a ledge slightly further up the mountain. He rained magic missiles down on them while the elementals attacked hand to hand. Since the elementals have decent DR, this was a combat where the binder didn't completely dominate, giving the orc a chance to shine as the heavy hitter, while the githyanki summoned a couple of dire boars to serve as meat shields. Meanwhile the sniper turned invisible and snuck up on him, taking him to negative hp in a single blast with a sneak attack enhanced scintillating sphere. With their boss taken out, the elementals lost any kind of tactical acumen and were easily finished off in a couple more rounds, after which they tied up, stripped and stabilised the yak-man for questioning. Having shifted the balance of power, it was much more willing to answer their questions and confirmed their suspicions that despite seeming aloof, the yak-men had possessed agents ensconced in pretty much all the underdark settlements below save the illithid ones, which resist infiltration due to the casualness with which they can read minds, and were aware of the recent devastation of the svirfneblin & grimlock ones that the PC's had caused. (although they didn't know they were the ones responsible.) So the next course of action is pretty clear. What will they find at the top of the mountain and will they be able to have a civil conversation with the yak-folk up there or will it once again descend into violence due to the superiority complexes of the "enlightened ones"?

Some lateness, but everyone turned up this time. After finishing interrogating the yak-folk in the stone garden, they shoved him in the Binder's new extradimensional storage space and continued their way up the mountain. 9,999 tedious steps and one wandering monster check later they were at the Dread Pagoda of the Unspeakable Ones. (an issue I haven't posted yet, so no review link this time) Despite its name, the pagoda is set in a paradisical garden at the top of the mountain, the cold kept away with magical weather control and the grounds tended by human monks who worship the yak-folk. This time, since they had a bit more of an idea of the tone expected, they decided to roll their bluff checks and say they were indeed supplicants seeking the wisdom of the yak-folk elders. A few high rolls later, they had been sent around to the entrance to the pagoda, rang the gong and escorted by the Janni major-domo to the upper floors where master Xiang Ru was ensconced. ( a somewhat fiddly process because this map has lots of little diagonal walls, making only revealing the bits that they could see with line of sight along the way particularly tricky with the roll20 fog of war interface. ) When they got to the tea room and the major-domo knocked on the door to the master's private garden, a distinctly cranky voice replied saying he was busy. Nevertheless, they persisted, with the majordomo emphasising that these were clearly very important (read, heavily armed) visitors. Eventually, the door slid open, and there was another obvious reason why he didn't want guests, as he was partially infected with the scarlet fungus. (replacing the plant-based infection from the original Seeds of Sehan adventures with surprisingly few changes required) This only mildly surprised the group and the githyanki politely commented that this infection was dangerous, which set him off on a full-on maniacal villain monologue about how he would be the one to master the fungus, take over the hivemind from it's current controller, remove its weaknesses and TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!! They tolerated this for a while before deciding that they'd got all the useful information they were going to here and whether he was capable of achieving those goals or not, it would be a bad idea to leave him alive.

And so, about halfway through the session, things finally degenerated into combat again. As usual, the Binder was the most impatient one, shredding master Xiang in a single flurry of attacks. The major-domo rolled well on initiative and managed to call for help & make a single attack before suffering a similar fate, which meant they were in for another big running fight as the inhabitants of the various rooms converged upon them. First up, a hellcat lounging hidden in the corner attacked. (Yeah, both hellcats are supposed to start off in room 21, but this is another instance where two large creatures simply do not fit into the space provided, showing that the designers did not properly playtest this adventure using a battlemap) Next, Wulan Cheng & Chao Rong opened the door to their room, which took the binder by surprise as she had moved into position at the top of the stairs and was focussing on potential dangers coming from below. Next, the other hellcat came in from room 21 with the Rakshasa hanging back and casting buff spells on it, then switching to magic missiles. Around the same time, the Efreeti and Yak-men came out from the training dojo of room 23 and started lumbering towards the source of the disturbance. Several more rounds passed in which everyone was kept busy, the githyanki leading from the rear and summoning a couple of barbazu to suplement their numbers, the binder taking down Chao Rong and doing significant damage to Wulan Cheng, the sniper zapping the yak-folk & efreeti in the main hall with wings of flurry and the winged kobold heading out the window and flying down to the front entrance to attack anyone fleeing, while everyone else finished off the hellcats and rakshasa. As they realised they might be outmatched, one of the surviving yak-folk decided it was time to break out the wishes, trying to shrink all the PC's to tiny size. But somehow, every single one of the PC's managed to successfully make their save. Of course, there's still two wishes left, quite a few other enemies left to use them, and I have a full week to come up with other ideas that will boost the enemies or change the world around them rather than targeting them directly again. Let's see if I can at least make them sweat a little next week.

Two people absent this week, but their characters continued to participate along with everyone else in a full four hours of carnage. Before the group could act, Wulan Cheng used up the efreeti's second wish to restore her & her partner to full health. Realising there was only one wish left and that might be an even more troublesome one, they had to think fast. The githyanki polymorphed himself into a yak-man while out of sight, went into the balcony room and wished to undo the previous wish. (which he immediately regretted, thinking up much cleverer ways he could have used it in hindsight) Despite me putting a pretty hefty penalty on the bluff check, he still beat the efreets sense motive and so they had one less thing to worry about. The rest of the session was a relatively straightforward one for the guys up top as they dealt with waves of attackers, the yak-men, jann & zombies coming up the stairs, while the Gauth simply floated straight up from the library through the balcony. The efreeti was tough enough to last a couple of rounds more, but the beholders were easily dispatched with the help of a little glitterdust, and so most of the group moved downstairs to fight the enemies in the third floor library. The Jann managed to do a little damage by staying airbourne and peppering the group with arrows from above the bookshelves, but the yak-men and zombies proved very ineffectual. Still, there were a lot of enemies, so the battle was still ongoing when we ran out of time. (although the later rounds were going noticeably faster than the early ones as the number of enemies to keep track of went down)

Meanwhile, downstairs, our little winged kobold had a rather tougher time, reminding us once again that splitting the party is a bad idea. Wandering through the entrance hall, he was in just the right position to be caught when the Brass Golem came to life and cast Maze on him. It then followed him into the maze and got a couple of rounds of attacks in on him, reducing him to low HP before he got his bearings and skittered away at high speed. This gave him the time to make some more intelligence checks and get out just before the end of the session, where he found that the ogre mage guards had set up where he vanished with readied actions. Even closer to death, he used all his speed boosting powers, tumbled past them and dashed back up the stairs towards the others with the ogre mages & golem in hot pursuit, bumping into the fleeing monks along the way. With less than half of the enemies remaining, it looks pretty likely this fight will finish next session and then they'll get to uncover a little more of the dark secrets this mountain holds.