I skipped a few of my actual play reports because I took some time off to go to DDXP, and then I missed another couple of weeks while I was travelling for work.

But we're back, as of last night...

These last two reports are kinda squashed together because what happened here was a slightly compressed dungeon crawl.

The situation: the group has recently returned to Evander, and is staying at an Inn called Wolfthorns. They have returned the Queen Esmerelda to the throne, and convinced the authorities there to allow the Elan Cabal to return as well and live in peace. They have also given up a party NPC: Kismet, allowing her to rejoin the Elan as well.

The characters:
Owyn: gnome arcane trickster
Ganex: elan psion
Bernie: goblin fighter/cleric
Vork: human ranger

The previous session ended when I was describing Evander,which the players have not spent much time in. Evander has - since the very first day of the campaign, been a city under a necromantic curse. Low-level undead spontaneously animate and wander around destroying things at night, so there are regular patrols fortified with clerics, and walled off "necropolis zones" throughout the city.

This was originally meant to be one of the first adventures the party had- I had a little dungeon map already made of the corrupting influence (located deep beneath Evander's catacombs), and a couple of vague encounters planned with low-level undead. However, way back when we started the campaign, the players chose the other starting location- a small town called Azenmir, where there was an infestation of puppeteer aberrations.

So I've still got this dungeon map of the lower catacombs of Evander in the campaign notebook. No encounters though. The original had a bunch of skeletons and low-level stuff,but at the end, the Cyst itself, which has to be channeled with positive energy.

Well, ok. Ganex had gotten it into his mind that they should fix the undead problem in Evander. (Having fixed a lot of other problems). The player of Ganex had sent some emails around earlier in the week ("hey guys, lets go fix that undead problem in Evander. This will solidify our base when we have to go up against Vincent later..")

The guys agreed and they started gearing up for a delve. So I revamped the encounters in that dungeon to bring them up to the EL12-14 range.

Here's how it went:

They geared up for a delve, while Ganex went and visited with the Elan who had already been inhabiting the catacombs. From a short roleplaying scene he determined the location of the catacombs where the cyst was most likely to be; An isolated zone somewhere near the spillway ominously called the Realm of Eyes. It had several 'eyeball' pieces of graffiti left by unknown persons.


From here we had a straightforward dungeon adventure.

The PCs entered the tunnels. Owyn was way out in front, using his arcane abilities and sneakiness. The rest of the crew hung back.

Deep down a passage, Owyn first encountered an ephemeral raven- a lookout of some sort. He tried to take it out with a magic missile, and succeeded in killing it quickly.

They regathered the group and tried scanning for scrying sensors. In this case, nothing registered. They were a bit too loud though. They continued forward, and right at the bend they blundered right into the creature that guarded the gate- a Vitreous Drinker.



This is what had been leaving the strange eyeball graffiti.

Anyhow, it was hiding in a side tunnel and trying to ambush them. It managed to blind Vork quickly, and was about to escape down the passage (stealing Vork's sight), when they rallied, blocked it off and took it down. This battle was fairly quick, but I was pleased to see them spending just a bit more of their resources than was necessary. The payoff would be two or three encounters down the road.

The creature held a crescent-shaped key that fit into the sliding floodgate a few feet away.

Vork's eyesight came back, but slowly. It was a harbinger of things to come.

Since Vork had missed out on the fun of battling the drinker, the players let him have the "honor" of opening the gate.

As the gate creaked open, first came a rush of water, that threatened to knock them over. (saving throws were made and everyone made it). Then, on the heels of that.. the Ephemeral Swarm. Deathly incoporeal drowned rats and vermin came swarming out directly on top of the party, now knee deep in the icy water.



Ok, now, if you know anything about D&D monsters, you may realize that a swarm like this is way waay under their CR. However, I happened to know that these guys had a tough time with swarms and incorporeal creatures, so this was fun in that it was a bit of both. And I figured it was such a low CR that they'd just munch it up and move on.

This battle turned out to be way better, despite the apparent CR mismatch. The water kept people from moving very quickly, and made concentration checks part of every spellcast. The incorporeality made the creatures very tough to hit. At one point, Owyn got very flustered and dropped a fireball onto the swarm area, and failed the incorporeal chance- a decision that would come to haunt him later. Bernie had a ghost touch weapon, and he and Vork waded into the room tearing away at the swarm. Ganex managed to use his psionics to good effect..

It was over in just a few rounds, but it took a lot out of them. More than they expected.

(okay, more soon)


Anyhow, it was a nice tactically satisfying battle.

After the battle with the Ephemeral Swarm, the party explored the room just a ways to the south and discovered one of the hideouts of Carthag, the necromancer responsible for the Corrupted Cyst, and (coincidentally) their arch-enemies old mentor. They turned over some things, including a book, and Carthag's trunk full of disguises and costumes.

They recognized several costumes of people they had dealt with throughout their adventures. They also turned up some minor treasures...

While they were searching, Vork noticed movement in the room just beyond- they were being watched, and possibly there would be an ambush, and soon. Using their group psionics character they feigned ignorance as they moved closer, than suddenly charged into the room as a group...

...directly into the beholder, Xomys.

This turns out to have been kind of a smart move- the best way to take down a Beholder is to overpower it quickly with a concentrated assault, and that's exactly what they did. Bernie was the first in the room, and managed to get a pretty good chop at it, right off the bat. Then Vork, moved in and made a glancing attack.

At this point, they had locked up the Beholder on the far side of the doorway, blocking off the spellcasters (Owyn and Ganex). The Beholder used it's eye ray and bite-combo on Vork, who managed to save vs disintegration, and shrug off a few other attacks with just some minor wounds.  

At that point Owyn and Ganex moved in and dropped some heavy damage spells on it, including an empowered lesser orb. The Beholder never got a chance for a second attack .

Okay, more later.

And?

Falling behind, Maw... this is 6 days old!

I'll get on this. Sorry, mang. We've already had another session (#46!)

Ok, check back a leetle later. I have to teach a class.

Ok, quite quickly now, since I'm so far behind:

The players made their way through more of the dungeon, opened another floodgate, and ran right intot he ending sequence of encounters.  

This was a specially-designed encounter; I had applied the half-golem (clay) template to hill giants. Clay golems had appeared earlier in their career at several points as well as a half-stone golem, so I thought it matched up stylistically.

It looked a bit like this:

I put in four of them, for a total CR of 13.

This turned out to be a bit of a burner. See, they had loaded up for undead. Constructs turned out to be too tough. Owyn used up his two de-animation rays' and the last of his orbs on killing one of the four.

The other three really thrashed the party, leaving Vork unconscious, and Bernie grappled. Ganex teleported across the room at one point. Owyn, wisely retreated-- but negelcted to cover for the evacuation of Vork's body. After two rounds the battle turned into a haphazard retreat, and it nearly ended up being their last.

Atthe end of it, Bernard distracted one giant, while Ganex performed the evacuation. Then they ran for it, slamming shut the floodgates behind them

The giants did not pursue.

Okay, there's still more.