Baldur's Gate II (5e campaign log)

[Amnestic]

Sounds like no one's going to get to use the Flail of Ages :(

[J-H]

There's only one set of Gauntlets of Dexterity.
The following is a (probably) complete list of strength-boosting items:

Mauler’s Arm: Increase bearer’s strength by +3, max 18, when wielded (original: Set to 18)
Gauntlets of Ogre Power: Increase wearer’s strength by +4, max 19 (Original: Set to 18/00)
Girdle of Hill Giant Strength: Increase by +4, max 1 above character’s max (was 19)
Girdle of Stone Giant Strength: Increase by +6, max 3 above character’s max (was 21)
Girdle of Frost Giant Strength: Increase by +7, max 4 above character’s max (was 22)
Girdle of Fire Giant Strength: Increase by +8, max 5 above character’s max (was 23)
Crom Faeyr: Sets strength to 28. (was 25, absolute max)
Angurvadal: Increase strength by +4, max 4 above character’s max (was 22)

Two of them are available for purchase pretty early on... The ranger in particular can bump his strength up easily.

With Fire Giant Belt and +1 str from the Machine of Lum the Mad, a 20th level barbarian could hit Str 30.... but not in this party.

I will need to come up with a bit more for Viconia to do since we have a cleric of Shar in the party. I figure they'll probably try to find her someplace to stay, but I'm not sure where yet. I think I'll just go with whatever they come up with. Copper Coronet or Ribald Barterman are likely to be good choices.

[J-H]

Session 0.5:
Between-session changes:

Mergand: Player has switched background from Faction Agent to modified Guild Artisan, trading language stuff for Leatherworking proficiency. His character’s hobby is making saddles, tack, and related items as a way to focus, disconnect, and calm down / control himself. He says there’s small stuff that can be worked on on the road… RL interests coming into play here.
If he gets too upset or out of focus, he may accidentally find himself carving skulls into things, making whips, etc. Before they hit the bridge district, I’m going to have to figure out a better clue for the human flesh leather quest line than that ridiculous “my last name is the third letter of the fifth word, and you have to buy a certain book” stuff for the “if you want to make it” end of it. Open to ideas. I can probably tie it in with the Twisted Rune enclave in the Bridge district, and also vaguely with the Guarded Mansion in the Temple district, which ties back to the slavers, as there’s a tentative link there. We’ll see where it goes!

Ludwig: Background is Spy/Criminal. I asked what he’d done to gain the attention of the Harpers or with him, and gave a few examples. He just said “All of those, plus I punched a bank robber.” So here’s what he’s done:
-Exposed illegal slaving by a noble
-Helped stop a necromancer who tried to kill and take over a village.
-Contributed to the exposure, tar, and feathering of a corrupt tax collector in your home village (this may have been how you got the Harpers attention?)
The first one ties in with the Baron Ployer quest.
His physical stats are Str 14, Dex 14, Con 16.

Cormak: Switched to Cleric of Mask. He didn’t like the nihilism of Shar.

Leon: Background is Hermit. A half-elf, he grew up in the Forest of Tethyr (south of Amn, not too terribly far from Suldanesselar, not that the player knows that. If the Coran/Safana/Werewolf encounter thing happens, it’ll be on his home turf). He had violent impulses and outbursts, and killed his mother when he was around 15-16 in one of them with a spontaneously cast Inflict Wounds after discovering a journal she had kept. She was a Priestess of Bhaal, but ended up running away from the temple rather than giving birth to him and having him sacrificed there. Full of regret and fear, he has isolated himself in the forest and avoided social interactions by living the life of a hunter/gatherer/scavenger. His favored enemy is beasts.
Leon started with the Skill feat as Vuman and has +7 Perception. This came in handy several times.

Here’s the Harper Pin conversion.
Lesser:
• Shields from magics that detect thoughts, lies/truthfulness, and alignment.
• Telepathic communication with you only happens if you allow it.
• Advantage on saves vs. Charm spells and effects

Greater: as lesser, but also
• The bearer is shielded from divination spells
• Resistance to electricity
• Advantage on Intelligence saves
• Immunity to Magic Missile
• If attuned to by an evil creature, turns black and constantly produces loud and discordant jangling sounds, like a metal harp being played badly

I added the advantage vs. charm to the Lesser one to make it more useful for early on. It will also help against vampire charm.
The Greater pin then stacks on the mental protection by giving advantage on INT saves, which should help against illithid and spells like Synaptic Static.

NPC Notes:
Anomen is going to start as a Cleric 5-ish, and hopefully hit Paladin around level 9… depending on what life choices he makes, of course. We already have two other Paladin options, Keldorn (obviously a Watcher paladin) and Mazzy. Mazzy’s game abilities give her Remove Fear, a Strength Boost, and self-Haste. Oath of Glory Paladin gets Heroism, Enhance Ability, Haste, and a CD that lets her wrestle even big folk with a good chance of success, so it is a great fit for her. The high end abilities aren’t bad either.

Nalia will probably start as a Rogue 2/Wizard 2. It puts her a level behind, but Cunning Action isn’t bad for supporting a wizard! War wizard school gives her some defenses while letting her be a generalist, and her spell list will be slanted towards troll-killing (fire/acid). Given her background, I just don’t think it makes sense for her to start as a higher level character, compared to Anomen who at least has been on campaign against giants and a few other things.

The big one that I haven’t figured out yet is Aerie. Cleric/Wizard? Arcana Cleric? Divine Soul sorc? Open to ideas. What best fits her character and background? She ends up as a cleric of Baervan the gnomish deity thanks to Quail, but why is she a Wizard? There’s no discussion of spellbooks or study or arcane magic in any of her conversations that I recall. Despite having pretty good mental stats, she certainly never possessed the confidence or magical power to just explode her way out of slavery in a circus cage (also, I don’t think her story would get written in today’s climate, especially since she never even gets any justice for it). She’s squishy and vulnerable, and is kind of a damage/healer mix… Lore bard?
I don’t expect the party to take her with them.

Session 1: 5/28/2023
Here’s what I sent to each of them this morning via Discord:

Cormak (Priest of Mask / Tainted Mind):
You were captured from... wherever (undecided), and placed in a cage that seems to prevent spellcasting. Everything immediately before and after that is a mystery. You know you woke up with a headache, and there's a massive scar on your head (you pick where). You still have headaches from time to time.

Your captor has been by a few times, but he mostly just seem to do some type of diagnostic spell before walking away. "Will you heal and do more? Or are you another failed...experiment?"

You feel like whatever happened to you hasn't done what he wanted. You haven't seem him much recently.
In addition to the tall form of your captor, you've seen some goblins who sometimes clean and bring food, and a 7' tall golem with manacle-like hands that moves you the few times you've been out of your cage.

In the distance, there's the thump of heavy footsteps. A deep, guttural voice lacking intonation calls out. "More intruders have entered the complex, master." You hear your nameless captor respond.

Time passes... you don't know how much. You don't even know how long you've been here for. The complex is rocked by a vibration, or explosion, of some sort.... (and that's where we'll pick up)

Mergand (Bhaalspawn sorcerer):
Mergand has been captive for a while... you think over a month, but it's hard to keep track of time. Your cage prevents spellcasting, somehow... You initially thought you were captured as some sort of retribution, but your captor, who doesn't usually bother talking to you, seems entirely clinical. His "tests" often seem to involve injuring you, or pain. There's something he's looking for, but you're not sure quite what.

You've seen only him, and some goblins who sometimes clean and bring food, and a 7' tall golem with manacle-like hands that moves you the few times you've been out of your cage. Today...or tonight...or whatever time it is.... he comes in to see that you've awakened.
"It is time for more...experiments."
You black out for a moment after he casts something at you.
"The pain will only be passing. You should survive the process."
Does he really care if you don't?
There's the thump of heavy footsteps outside. A deep, guttural voice lacking intonation calls out. "More intruders have entered the complex, master." H
e turns with a sneer on his face. "They act sooner than I had anticipated. No matter, it will only prove a slight delay."
He motions the golem away, and steps out to the hallway before disappearing with the pop of some sort of teleportation...

Leon: Ranger/Secretly Bhaalspawn:
Leon has been captive for a while... you think over a month, but it's hard to keep track of time. Your cage prevents spellcasting, somehow... You don't know why or how they came after you, but you have some suspicions by now.
Your captor, who doesn't usually bother talking to you, seems entirely clinical. His "tests" often seem to involve injuring you, or pain. There's something he's looking for, but you're not sure quite what.

At one point, he brought you to another room and had you watch while he killed someone with knives, taking him apart in a way you found oddly fascinating. [this is Khalid]

You've seen only him, and some goblins who sometimes clean and bring food, and a 7' tall golem with manacle-like hands that moves you the few times you've been out of your cage.

Today has been quiet, but you hear the thump of heavy footsteps in the distance. A deep, guttural voice lacking intonation calls out. "More intruders have entered the complex, master."

You hear your captor's voice in the distance, hard to make out, followed by the pop of teleportation. Something is going on. Some time passes...


Ludwig (Rogue/Harper Agent):
After your capture, you've been mostly left alone once your captor, who seems to be nameless and uninterested in talking to you, established that you are not what he is looking for. Your small, jail-cell like room goes ignored for days at a time, and meals have been skipped occasionally.

In addition to Mergand, you were traveling with another Harper, a warrior named Khalid. You haven't seen or heard him in weeks.

In addition to the tall form of your captor, you've seen some goblins who sometimes clean and bring food, and a 7' tall golem with manacle-like hands that moves you the few times you've been out of your cage. You've saved some eating utensils and made a few slivers that you think will work as lockpicks, but the door is too well-made to pick with what you have.

Today, there's some noise in the distance. The complex rumbles and vibrates, as though some great spell were cast in the distance. One of the walls of your cell shifts, and the door creaks and shifts under pressure.
You think you can pick it now... (that's where we'll pick up with you tonight).


Ludwig breaks out, lockpicks Cormak out, and then checks the other door in their hallway. It contains a golem and a table with a pile of weapons. They back out, and check the other halls. One leads to a portal, another to more cells, and the last is better-lit. They turn a corner in that one and surprise a goblin. Having nothing but rocks to throw at it, they fail to stop it from fleeing and yelling about escaped prisoners.

The two then go back to the hall with more cells and free Leon. Ludwig has travelled with Mergand, but almost doesn’t recognize him at first. Unfortunately, his cage-within-a-cell’s keyhole apparently requires some magic. The other three go back to the room with the golem. It tells them to go back to their cells, but doesn’t act. They search the room, getting some weapons and some armor. I include a generic “wand” so that Mergand will have a spell focus. Leon’s high perception helps him spot that the painting on the wall is too big, and also that there are a couple of concealed buttons that have to be pressed when it’s opened. They get the +1 dagger and the healing potions, as well as the key. There are no bows or ranged weapons in this room.

Having the key, they free Mergand, and proceed to the lightning crystal room. Leon gets zapped and they kill a mephit, then roll high enough on an arcana check to figure out how to turn it off before it spawns more mephitis. Proceeding on to the crystal room, they meet a djinni of some sort, who recognizes and questions Mergand with a hypothetical moral dilemma. Mergand immediately picks the noble and self-sacrificing answer, so they get to face the consequences of nobility: The djinni gives them each 10 temporary HP (like from the Aid spell) and conjures an ogre. The ogre gets off only one attack, and it’s dead. The djinni returns, and tells them to seek the trees for answers. (I cut the Rielev stuff and extra tank room).

They explore one of the exits, and find that it’s a muddy hallway ending in a door, so they go on to the next one. There’s an eyeless sewer golem in the room, and a table with some stuff on/around it, including more healing potions. Everything is dusty, but when Leon goes over to investigate it, the dust turns into a Dust Mephit and attacks… they kill it. They attempt to get information out of the Sewer Golem, but he’s not very informative. They do get a shortbow, which Leon grabs, and a second shield. I moved the +1 longsword to Ilyich.

Proceeding into an area with zig-zagging dark corridors about 50’ long, they trip an ambush by goblins. Half the party has no Darkvision, and the Light cantrip was cast on Mergand’s belt instead of something they could throw ahead. The 5 goblins just keep readying attacks for whoever comes around the corner first. Cormak has a shield and chain shirt for a total AC of 17, but 5 attacks still hits… and Leon has disadvantage some of the time due to darkness. When the goblin caster blocks half the corner with Cloud of Daggers, they decide to maybe move in. Ludwig the rogue charges in all by himself, two-handing his longsword. Everyone else stays at range for another round, until Cormak moves in to help proc sneak attack. They kill 3 goblins, and the others retreat, ending up around a corner. Eventually the goblins are dead, but Leon, Mergand, and Cormak each have one level of exhaustion from going down, and everybody has lost their 10 temp HP. The goblins rolled well, and it took the group a long time to move from shortbow range (1d6+1 damage) to dagger range (1d4+1). Cormak used both his spell slots, on a Guiding Bolt that missed and on a Bless spell. They loot plenty of arrows and more shortbows from the goblins, plus a bit of gold, and check the doors ahead.

One leads to a room where two smaller clay golems are just standing and waiting. They very quietly close that door and move on to the library.

Two mephitis (ice and dust) attack them in the library, after which they search it and find the sewer golem activation stone and some scrolls and still more healing potions, plus some money. Somewhere in there, they’ve also found a 100gp pearl (material component for Identify, not that anyone has the spell yet). Backtracking to the sewer golem, they follow it to the sewer crossroads area.

In the game, this is guarded by a fully-fledged Otyugh, but this is a 1st level party… so I describe an Otyugh as something they are familiar with, and then reveal that this appears to be a young one (I give it 45hp and d4 damage dice). They try to sneak past it to go out the exit, but roll something like 24, 9, 8, and 5, and end up just running away and slamming the door on it, hoping it can’t open doors. There’s a brief discussion where someone says “We’re not going back there, at least not on purpose.”

They find Irenicus’ bedroom and successfully deal with the traps, which I had fun describing (2 holes by the bookcase, a fruit bowl set to tip, and a rug with a very faint line where a tripwire runs under it). Ludwig wants the Helm of Balduran, but nobody else wants to take an hour to short rest and attune right now. They also get more scrolls and two of the trap keys for the next level. I deliberately cut the loot from the Otyugh area as it doesn’t make sense for it to be there, and I don’t want them having “Darkvision solved!” immediately for another party member with the Helm of Infravision (Darkvision). I describe one exit as being an archway with some more natural light…and a few leaves.

After a couple of seconds, Mergand’s player jumps on this, rembering that the djinni said to seek the trees. He goes up to one of the three trees in the faux-sunlight-lit cavern and tries talking to it. They talk to the dryads, and get the name of their captor: Irenicus. I go ahead and let those who speak Elvish (3/4) translate it as “Shattered One,” and use their descriptions of him as hollow and empty, etc. They plead with the party to get their acorns so they can be rescued, and are swiftly promised that it will be so. They also say that “Her” room is beautiful, but dangerous, but to not go there… but that a key may be needed there.
Leon and Ludwig go to investigate the room, Leon’s high Perception letting him spot a big area covered with almost-invisible runes near the door. I don’t like the “You must trigger this trap and fight golems” in the original, so their checks let them hop over it. Working together, they get over 15s in all three pieces of furniture, retrieving potions, the Pommel Jewel of the Equalizer, and a portal key.

They return, and the dryads again ask them to not leave before retrieving their acorns. The party heads back to the sewer area… ha ha. Ludwig opens the door with the other 3 having readied attacks. Leon then tries to run past the Otyugh, but gets hit by an OA, and then since he’s the only one in the room, it follows him and bites him, causing his second “drop to 0” so far. The party kills it and dumps a healing potion on him after 1 failed death save.

It’s late enough to stop at this point, and I comment that the Ilyich fight could be over very quickly, or it could take a while, so we decide to stop. Mergand’s player is aware that if he can get his scroll of Fireball to go off, that would end any one encounter at their level… I think they will probably do that. They short rest in the library, and everyone goes up to 2nd level. Any new spells/spell slots are immediately available, as they are regaining capabilities now that they get to move around and can get their blood flowing again. This gives Cormak one 1st level slot, and he rolled on his Tainted Mind table and can cast Jump once per day (one of the lowest possible results). Mergand gets two (2 sorc points and nothing else to spend them on but a 1st level slot). Mergand has used both of his slots on Hunter’s Mark, which pairs very well with Chill Touch. Leon also gets 2 1st level ranger spell slots, and I’m saying that the Metaspell Amulet gives a 1st and 2nd level slot… he put it on when they found it, even though it was unidentified. Ludwig will be attuning to the Helm of Balduran… so everyone gets something from this. All of them except Ludwig rolled for HP.

Leon is using two scimitars or his shortbow (usually the bow), Ludwig is using the shortbow or longsword, Mergand is using his quarterstaff (he actually scored a crit on a mephit with it), and Cormak is using short sword and shield.

[J-H]

Session 2: 6/4/2023

Leon’s player was out sick. Mergand’s player attended via Discord as he is still recovering from a stomach bug. I had enough advance notice to figure out what I wanted to do.

Without consulting the recap, I asked where they were short resting, and 3/3 were quite certain they short rested with the dryads rather than in the boring library. After their short rest is over, they hear footsteps coming from the other door in the trapped (Irenicus) bedroom. They take cover behind the trees, except for Ludwig, who readies his sword and stands next to the door (Stealth: 18). The person in the bedroom rolls active Perception (21) and detects him, so doesn’t walk through the door.

“So, are you more creatures trying to kill me, or is there sanity amongst all this madness?” When questioned on whether they are working with the evil that runs this place, Mergand steps out from behind a tree and shows off his bruises and burns. After a short conversation, the great Yoshimo (You’ve never heard of him? Disappointing.) relates how he was kidnapped from Athkatla and awoke here, and how he stumbled into a room with mephitis and portals and fled, ending up going through a portal that he does not have key to return through. He agrees to work with the party, as they have numbers and a way out.

Ludwig’s player gets handed the character sheet… he’s playing a rogue and now he gets to try out a Swashbuckler for a bit.

Spoiler: Yoshimo

Show

Yoshimo, V. Human Swashbuckler
Medium Humanoid
Armor Class 15 (Studded Leather)
Hit Points 24
Speed 30 ft.
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
16(+3) 16(+3) 14(+2) 12(+1) 10(0) 12(+1)
Saves Dex +5, Int +3
Skills Deception +5, Insight +2, Investigation +3, Perception +4, Sleight of Hand +5, Stealth +5, Thieves Tools +5
Senses Passive Perception 14
Languages Common, Thieves’ Cant, ??
Proficiencies Light armor, simple weapons, longsword, shortsword
Fancy Footwork. If he makes a melee attack against a creature, that creature cannot make OAs against Yoshimo for the remainder of his turn.
Rakish Audacity. +1 (Cha) to Initiative. You don’t need advantage an the attack roll to use Sneak Attack against a creature if within 5 feet of it, no other creatures are within 5 feet of you, and Yoshimo doesn’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.
Slasher. Once per turn, when he deals slashing damage to a creature, that creature’s speed is reduced by 10’ until the start of his turn. If he scores a critical hit, the target has disadvantage on all of its attack rolls until the start of his next turn.
Sneak Attack. +2d6
Actions
Katana +1 (melee). Melee Weapon Attack, +6 to hit, 5’, 1d8+4 slashing damage.
Dagger (thrown). Ranged Weapon Attack, +5 to hit, 20’/60’, 1d6+3 piercing damage.
Shortbow. Ranged Weapon Attack, +5 to hit, 80’/320’, 1d6+3 piercing damage.
Bonus Actions
Dagger (if TWF). Melee Weapon Attack, +5 to hit, 5’, 1d4 piercing damage.
Dash. Move up to his speed.
Disengage. Become immune to OAs for rest of turn.
Hide. Make a Stealth check, if enemies can’t see him.
Bio
When asked about his past, Yoshimo seems disheartened that you are not already acquainted with his reputation. By his own account, he is apparently well known among people in the know, both as a daring rogue and as a dashing man about town. While the story sounds impressive, he seems ungainly for such exploits, possibly a bit more hapless than debonair. He wears it well, however, and perhaps even capitalizes on it. He seems to know that his kind of good-natured humor is well appreciated by most everyone he meets.
His katana is a Longsword +1 especially attuned to him. In anyone else’s hands, it is a non-magical but well-crafted longsword.
Levelup
At level 4, increase an ability score by 2 and add 8 hit points.

They go towards Illyich’s area and roll stealth. 21, 20, 8, 5, or something to that effect. Ludwig pokes his head around the corner and sees, down a hallway, a kitchen and dining area with 5 duergar in it. One of them is looking towards the hall, but Ludwig had one of the good stealth rolls and pulls his head back before being spotted. I used the Duergar Guard statblock from the A5e MM, with Ilyich getting about double HP and a bit more AC from the Mail of the Dead (AC 17 or 18?), and the wizard being slightly lower HP.
Initiative is rolled and Mergand goes first. He steps around the corner and uses the scroll of Fireball. He has advantage on the Cha check to use it, as he could cast it back when he was higher level…before the torture and deprivation and all that. Ka-fwoosh, 32 damage, and Ilyich was the only Duergar to pass the DC 15 Dex save and survive. He turned invisible and ran towards the party, causing some people to ready actions. Mergand charges forwards, and Ilyich managed to score one hit for 6 or so damage before his last 8 hit points were knocked off.

Everyone eats some food (Yoshimo not so much, not as starved). They loot the room, finding acorns, a scroll of Identify, a magic longsword, a magic quarterstaff, a scroll of Grease, and some gold. Exploring the hallway leading out of the kitchen, they discover that the air elemental statue can be used to trigger a portal with a slight breeze. They can’t see through it, and decide they don’t trust it. Instead of risking their necks exploring down the hall, they return to the dryads with the acorns.

Wanting to stay no further, they depart through the portal into the (15x15) portal room, and open the door to the mephit room, where initiative is rolled band it becomes side initiative with the mephits going first (I split them into two groups, then rolled 19 for both mephit groups). They get bottlenecked for a round or two, and Cormak actually starts making a run across the room to just try to run past/away from them. They kill 1-2 mephits per round, but they just keep respawning! Eventually, they break the bottleneck and two or three get into the room. I give a little nudge when they’re not sure what Yoshimo would do, and I say he goes and attacks one of the gate things that keeps summoning them. He rolls really well and destroys it, causing a dust mephit to vanish without exploding. It takes another couple of rounds to kill the other gates. I used Dust, Magma, Spark, and Rainbow mephits, with Rainbow being an on-the-fly addition. None of them used their AOE attacks except Dust. 3 or 4 healing potions were drunk and at least 12 mephits died.

They examine the room in more detail, and discover that the body they glimpsed on a table across the room is… oh no, that’s Khalid! He was a Harper warrior who traveled with Mergand and Ludwig for several months, and helped them in Baldur’s Gate. His body is desecrated beyond any hope of resurrection. (Leon watched this process, but his player wasn’t here).

They find fabric and cover the body. Leon takes a few pieces of Khalid’s belt as a souvenir. They say a prayer to Khalid’s deity (Harper, I didn’t recall who) before moving on. Searching the room, they find 3 keys, some gold, and a couple of scrolls and healing potions.

There are two doors out of the room. The one on the left leads somewhere, and they can hear yelling. The other hall doesn’t have yelling, so they go down that one. They find a bridge over a short sewer area, and this is where I start introducing dead thieves… this tips them off to the trap, and they move the body around and inspect under the bridge, then move the body back to trigger the trap, and say they’ll hop over. There’s only room for one person between the body and the next door. Before they move the body back, Mergand takes the boots of the dead guy, so now he has an oversized pair of boots to go along with the green silk bedsheet toga he made from Irenicus’ bedcovers. Everyone else at least has armor.

Ludwig opens the door and the duergar down the hall spot him immediately and aim their crossbows at him. It’s a long hall, about 25’ wide. There are large, colorful mosaics on the floor, each with a plinth against the wall on the left side.
It only takes two people walking across the Magic Missile line and eating Magic Missiles to learn that they don’t want to pass the mosaics on the floor. Healing potions are drunk, and this fight takes a while. I think the first round of combat, 4 attacks landed and all of them did only 2 damage. In retrospect, I’m not sure how that happened given stat mods, so maybe that was some player error. It took 4 or 5 rounds, and eventually Cormak used his Jump psionic ability to hop the danger zones to get next to him, while Ludwig did the same to get into melee with the last one. Yoshimo was injured and stayed in the side hall popping out and sniping but not hiding well. Mergand stayed on the bridge at a distance and used Chill Touch, which did prevent one of the duergar from using his healing potion.

The secrets figured out, they take stock of the keys they picked up today… I know they got one or two last session, but those were on a piece of paper with Leon’s player. They retrieved wands of Scorching Ray, Cloudkill, and Summon Beast (1 charge each). Ludwig’s player examines the statue at the end, finding the Ring of Protection +1. They use the Scroll of Identify, but aren’t going to take a short rest to attune to it currently.

Mergand gleefully takes the daggers and light crossbows off the duergar, while Ludwig takes their short swords and decides to dual-wield for now. I review the dual-wielding rules and options with him.

We stop there.

DM notes: I am questioning whether regular +1 gear really has to be identified before use or not. It’s kind of fun that they have to keep going “and my magic weapon, whatever it does,” but it’s also a bit of a drag. I will make sure that they can get Glasses of Identification at the Adventure Mart. The store in Gaelan Bayle’s home doesn’t really make sense anyway.
Ludwig and Cormak’s players are starting to get the hang of hand-filling out the character sheets and how stuff is really calculated… also, Cormak’s player remembered that they have a PHB and says he’s going to read through it this week. I think DND Beyond was a bit too much hand-holding before. Lower-level characters are also easier to play.

Loot missed: Sarevok’s Sword of Chaos, a +1 sword on a trapped demon, magic missile wand key, about 300gp in gems, and some scrolls. Too bad, I was hoping they’d keep his sword until ToB.
Battles skipped: some mephits in the air demiplane, trapped demon, Ellesime clone. It’s so long from now until Suldanesselar that I don’t think running into her would stick anyway, and if it was really important lore it’d be placed in their path instead of off to the side.

It’s entirely possible that they’ll follow the trail of dead thieves out the closest hallway and skip Frennedan and miss the Girdle of Bluntness as well. They want out, fast, and are not interested in maximizing looting. I’m glad they at least got some wands and the Ring of Protection.

There’s definitely less completionist-ness going on versus a computer game playthrough where no loot is missed, and they’ll end up with a bit less gold than I expected. I’ll probably have some on the thief corpses to compensate. Or not. They can be poor for a while.

Yoshimo did some decent damage (extra sneak attack, +1 weapon). I wonder if they'll like him enough to keep him around instead of getting one of the tanks like Anomen or Korgan?

[Batcathat]

Loot missed: Sarevok’s Sword of Chaos, a +1 sword on a trapped demon, magic missile wand key, about 300gp in gems, and some scrolls. Too bad, I was hoping they’d keep his sword until ToB.[/I]

If you want (and is handling the endgame more or less as in the game), maybe you could have the Sarevok in Hell drop the sword? It would presumably technically be a copy of the sword and it's basically right before ToB anyway, but still.

[Ionathus]

Plot hooks sound great! It's really cool to see how new players confront these challenges that I've grown so accustomed to.

Spell Drain. Any spellcasting creature whose space the Nishruu also occupies loses one random available spell slot (roll a dice of the appropriate size to determine which level). The Nishruu heals for 3 x the spell slot’s level.

Is there an attack roll for this, or is it just an auto-hit if the Nishruu floats over a spellcaster? Auto-hit for such a powerful feature feels against the spirit of 5e.

I think if a CE needs Misty Step, He's likely to DDoor out and return with four more.

Even if we fall, our numbers are many. You would be overwhelmed.

I think I am going to skip Rielev and the things in the tanks near the beginning... they don't ever play into anything later, just provide hints about the 1st level, and are pretty dark. I also am a lazy DM and don't want to deal with them trying to re-enter Irenicus' dungeon later to "free" or "save" the tank people, who otherwise just get left to die as the systems run down over the following years. There's enough darkness going on without adding that.

Woof, I never even thought about Irenicus's dungeon still continuing even after it's inaccessible. Those poor, poor tube people Hopefully the power runs out soon...

It’s entirely possible that they’ll follow the trail of dead thieves out the closest hallway and skip Frennedan and miss the Girdle of Bluntness as well. They want out, fast, and are not interested in maximizing looting. I’m glad they at least got some wands and the Ring of Protection.

This was me on my first-ever playthrough. I was so young and unfamiliar with game mechanics that when the magic missile wand started blasting, I just ran. Followed the dead thieves to the exit and missed the rest of that room. Weirdly, even though I've played it through 20 times since then, the rest of those rooms still feel so much more "new" to me. I don't know if that's just the power of a first playthrough or what.

Sidebar: thank you beyond words for not making katanas magically more powerful for no damn reason.

[J-H]

If you want (and is handling the endgame more or less as in the game), maybe you could have the Sarevok in Hell drop the sword? It would presumably technically be a copy of the sword and it's basically right before ToB anyway, but still.

I could, but there are lots of other good greatswords and halberds.\

Is there an attack roll for this, or is it just an auto-hit if the Nishruu floats over a spellcaster? Auto-hit for such a powerful feature feels against the spirit of 5e.

It's an 'auto hit if in the space' thing. They should be a bit scary. This is good for the CWs because it means enemy spellcasters are trying to kill the Nishruus instead of them.

Woof, I never even thought about Irenicus's dungeon still continuing even after it's inaccessible. Those poor, poor tube people Hopefully the power runs out soon...

Yeah, it's pretty dark. Tube people, experiments left to rot, dryad "concubines," and continual clones of Ellesime, and I think the demon in the machine is a power source? Darkest part of the game IIRC.

This was me on my first-ever playthrough. I was so young and unfamiliar with game mechanics that when the magic missile wand started blasting, I just ran. Followed the dead thieves to the exit and missed the rest of that room. Weirdly, even though I've played it through 20 times since then, the rest of those rooms still feel so much more "new" to me. I don't know if that's just the power of a first playthrough or what.

Sidebar: thank you beyond words for not making katanas magically more powerful for no damn reason.

Nippon steel folded 10,000 times? They get a better base damage dice, but there are only 4 good ones: Valygar's, Celestial Fury, Dak'Kon's Zerth Blade, and Hindo's Doooooooom.
The other rooms have entirely optional encounters that do nothing with the plot aside from introduce that there are vampires. I don't think we even see any doppelgangers the rest of the entire game.

[Ionathus]

Yeah, it's pretty dark. Tube people, experiments left to rot, dryad "concubines," and continual clones of Ellesime, and I think the demon in the machine is a power source? Darkest part of the game IIRC.

I would honestly play an entire game with the tighter narrative focus of Chateau Irenicus. I recently played BG2 after my longest-ever time away from the game (4 whole years!) and for whatever reason, I noticed the dialogue in the first dungeon a lot more. Because the game *knows* that your only options are Minsc, Jaheira, Imoen, and Yoshimo, all of the dialogue is actually calibrated to have 3+ participants, and they have honest-to-god conversations together instead of mostly one-off banter exchanges or interruptions.

Imoen's trauma particularly stood out to me and it really sank in how demented Irenicus was as she reacts to all of his different rooms. Making you explore and escape the main villain's dungeon (which is dripping with his memorabilia, evil deeds, and shattered psyche) was such a neat way to introduce him.

Oh, speaking of: you're doing a David Warner voice right? Right??

I don't think we even see any doppelgangers the rest of the entire game.

The only other place they show up is in the first god trial in Throne of Bhaal if you're Good, which always puzzled me as a player because I had no idea why all these doppelgangers were showcased in a boss rush. I never played BGI until two years ago, so on every other playthrough I was so confused. Was it just because of that one dude in Irenicus's dungeon? Weird.

[J-H]

Everyone got their introduction over Discord, so I haven't done his voice yet. I'll certainly be trying to copy it. I'm going to have to change up the exit battle of course, since I can't just force them to stand there and watch, and there's no Imoen to be kidnapped. I'll do some version of the Bhaal dreams, and if they work with the CWs at all, they'll get to have a description / narration of his sentencing to Spellhold.

[J-H]

This isn't dead, but we've had a couple of weeks off due to family things, a major regional power outage, etc. Not sure if we'll get back to it next week or if it will be 1-2 weeks later.

[RandoMan]

Eagerly anticipating the next session write up!

Are you/your players excited for Baldur's Gate 3 to be released?

[J-H]

I don't have much interest in it, as it doesn't continue any storyline I'm invested in.

I haven't specifically said Baldur's Gate II to my players, but I know none of them have played it. I don't want them to get tempted to go look stuff up.

[J-H]

Session 2: 7/30/2022

Mergand’s player attended via Discord due to back problems. It slows things down and inhibits communication, but I get why he does it. It took a little while to get set up as I had some computer issues and had to re-find where I had put some info, but I think we still got about 3.5 hrs or so in.

We’re in the mosaic room. Inventories are checked, and nobody has written down any other keys. There is a door and 3 corridors, leading to 3 different encounters with loot, and the exit. They pick the exit corridor. Perhaps I should have flipped things around to prevent this? Oh well. Leon the ranger scouts down the corridor and finds a door. He opens it and sees a main raising a longbow at him. “I want the longbow.”

Attempts at diplomacy are dismissed with comments about shapeshifters, not trusting anyone coming out of the dungeon, and nobody crossing the Shadow Thieves and living. Arrows are exchanged, and at the end of the first round, hidden thieves attack the two who’d stepped into the room; one had been above the door, and the other in the corner, and they had a good stealth roll. The battle takes a couple of rounds, but after two good hits in the first round, the three Shadow Thieves are dead. Mergand kills the last one with a critical-hit Inflict Wounds for 48 damage against 27hp.

They loot the bodies (longbow, 70 gold, some arrows), and move on to the exit as the tunnel shakes around them. They emerge into the welcome glare of daylight, just in time for the tunnel to collapse behind them as a section of Waukeen’s Promenade is cratered. Irenicus kills seven thieves with two spells, talks to them briefly, and then is interrupted by Cowled Wizards. Lacking a cutscene holding them still, they exit stage right at speed when spells start getting flung around. After about a half-minute, the explosions and flares of magic stop… they don’t look back.

Finding themselves in Waukeen’s Promenade, they sort their priorities out. Over the next little while, they:
-Level up to 3 (Leon picked Gloomstalker; Ludwig picked Arcane Trickster; Mergand took Detect Thoughts as his 2nd level spell; Cormak took Spiritual Weapon as his, for now). I don’t like to do this mid-session, but level 3 is an important level. I had to answer questions for 3/4ths of them related to subclass choice, spell preparation, and reading a chart correctly to determine spells known. When you’re used to DND Beyond for everything, you skip learning how stuff works.
-Go clothes shopping for mid-quality durable clothing and boots. Mergand goes for moccasins and something more like Jedi robes. During the clothing shopping there’s some discussion of inns in the area, as well as a few comments about the earlier explosion and how it’s bad for business, how magic is bad and the Cowled Wizards handle things like that to keep everyone safe, etc. The party disclaims all association with the events earlier.
-There is extended discussion of “We can just sleep out in the woods” and “I have Prestidigitation.” Eventually they settle on “Our characters want a bath and a real bed after being imprisoned” and overrule “sleep in woods” and “use magic to not stink” from Leon and Mergand respectively.
-They go to the Den of Seven Vales and buy a night’s stay with baths and food (2gp each), paid in advance. Mergand’s player tries to flirt with the innkeeper a bit more, and she tells him she’ll double his price if he talks to her again that night. He goes back later trying to ask about magic shops nicely. -2gp from the party coffers.
-The next morning, they go to the Adventurer’s Mart and meet Ribald Barterman. He mentions Lady Yuth upstairs but nobody bites. They seem to like him, as he’s a very chatty fellow and offers advice and even suggests purchases like the glasses of identification he uses. He also makes it clear that he keeps his stock someplace safer than just under the counter, just in case…even though the Shadow Thieves know not to mess with him. Ribald also makes some kind of comment about wizardry and having his permits from the Cowled Wizards in order, but I’m not sure anyone picked up on that. The party sells the Air Elemental statue (pocket plane key), which he pays 800gp for (rolled), then gets the Mail of the Dead identified and sold, and the Amulet of Metaspell Influence identified. They price a few things but not much, and Cormak buys a burglar’s pack.

Leaving, they notice that the scene around the circus tent is odd. They chat with the guard (who I may have to name) and the little boy outside, and decide to investigate. They throw a rock on a rope in, and the rope gets sucked in. Then Leon pushes Ludwig in, and they decide after a minute that he’s probably not dead, so they go in. It’s much bigger on the inside than the outside.
They cross the bridge, get the riddle, and it’s late and nobody wants to answer it right now. It’s in Discord chat for them to figure out before next week, I hope.

I’m glad they bit on the Circus, as there had been talk of going straight to plant the Dryad acorns and they are not ready for the Windspear Hills yet! The Circus also guarantees some gold (I think 400-600) and the Ring of Human Influence and Belt of Piercing, which help them out some. They’ll need to do at least one more quest after this before leveling to 4. I’ll probably just have them pass through the slums district and encounter Gaelan Bayle, which should point them at the Copper Coronet. That then unfolds to the Planar Sphere (maybe), the Slaver Stronghold, the Windspear Hills, the De’Arnise Hold, and I’m sure at some point Mergand is going to cast an arcane spell outdoors, which will point them at the Cowled Wizards in the Government district. Whenever they do leave the city, the gates district includes the pointer to Trademeet. I feel like I have a lot of options to help point them in interesting directions.

[J-H]

Session 4: 8/6/2022

Mergand’s player attended via Discord due to back problems. Leon’s player was out sick. I’d say we ran about 2.5 hours due to a late start and trying to end a bit early.

We return to our heroes facing a genie who has posed them a math question:
A princess is as old as the prince will be when the princess is twice as old as the prince was when the princess' age was half the sum of their present age.
How old are they?
After a few minutes, I swap it to multiple choice as in the original format. I wish I had started it as multiple choice, and had the genie give them a piece of paper with four circles to pick from, and instructions to fill one in with a pencil (standardized testing). That’s what this ended up feeling like. Bleh.

They eliminate the two most wrong answers, and then settle on the incorrect choice out of what remains. The genie gives them a second riddle, about the poor having it, the rich not lacking it, and both dying if they eat it. What is it? It doesn’t take too long to arrive at the correct answer of “Nothing.”

The genie says that Kalah respects those of wit and intellect, and allows them to proceed. I should have made the genie more sarcastic. Playing through this I realized more and more how he’s just egging them on to go find Kalah and kill him. Kalah made a bad deal.

Crossing the bridge, they enter the tent and encounter Aerie, a young elven woman turned into an ogre. She asks for help, and they go looking for the sword/key. There’s a giant spider in the way (it’s actually a harmless woman)… it looks like they’re going to attack it, but Ludwig says he just walks past it … so they don’t.

They then find the “commoners” they were warned about. I give them big dumb orc voice, and they don’t answer questions too well. Eventually they decide that Ludwig’s questions are making their heads hurt, so they attack. I just used the CR ½ Orc statblocks, and they got a couple of good hits in. Nobody in this group wants to stay in melee! Eventually they go down. As they’re walking back and freeing Aerie, somebody comments about the spider and she speaks up “Well, I didn’t want to get killed” and explains about her son being outside. Ludwig BS’s some answers about him being fine and doing great, and how they will totally reunite them, etc.

I don’t recall what prompts it, but Ludwig’s player has had a bit of fun with Yoshimo’s “The great Yoshimo, whom people have heard of” thing. He made a comment about “We’ll always remember Yoshimo.”

I hope they take him to Spellhold.

Spoiler: Aerie

Show

Aerie, Elven Arcana Cleric of Baervan
Medium Humanoid, 4th level
Armor Class 12
Hit Points 19
Speed 30 ft.
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
10(0) 15(+2) 9(-1) 16(+3) 16(+3) 12(+1)
Saves Wis +5, Cha +3, adv. vs. charm
Condition Immunities magical sleep
Skills Arcana +5, History +5, Medicine +5, Perception +3, Performance +3, Religion +5
Senses Passive Perception 15, Darkvision 60’
Languages Common, Elven, Gnomish
Proficiencies light armor, medium armor, shields, simple weapons, longbow/shortbow
Actions
Quarterstaff (melee). Melee Weapon Attack, +2 to hit, 5’, 1d8+2 bludgeoning damage.
Channel Divinity. [] 1/SR
Regain 1 spell slot, of up to 2nd level
Arcane Abjuration One celestial, elemental, fey, or fiend within 30’ who can see or hear Aerie must make a Wisdom save. On a failure, it is turned for 1 minute or until damaged. During this time, it cannot take reactions, and must use its action and move to move as far away as possible. If unable to move away, it Dodges.
Turn Undead, Undead within 30’ must make a DC 15 Wis save. On a failure, they are turned for 1 minute or until damaged, using their turns to Dash away, and being unable to willingly move within 30’ of Aerie. If unable to Dash away, they Dodge. Undead of CR ½ or lower are automatically destroyed if they fail this save

Spellcasting. DC 13, Spell attack +5
[] [] [] [] 1st level
[] [] [] 2nd level
Attack
Cantrip: Fire Bolt (120’, ranged spell attack, 1d10 fire)
Cantrip: Sacred Flame (60’, Dex save or 1d8 radiant)
Cantrip: Shocking Grasp (5’, melee spell attack, adv. vs. targets wearing metal armor, 1d8 electric dmg and target can’t take reactions)
1 Magic Missile (120’, 1d4+1 damage x 3 force missiles)
Buff
Cantrip: Resistance (C up to 1 min, tgt has adv. next save)
1 Bless (C up to 1 min, 3 allies within 30’ roll +1d4 to attacks and saves, upcast 1 target/level)
Control
2 Hold Person (C up to 1 min, Wis or paralyzed, re-save end of each turn, upcast 1 target/level)
Heal
1 Cure Wounds (Touch, 1d8+4, upcast 1d8/level)
2 Lesser Restoration (Touch, cure various ailments)
Utility
Cantrip: Mending
Cantrip: Light
Cantrip: Prestidigitation
1 Detect Magic
2 Magic Aura
2 Magic Weapon

Bonus Actions
1 Healing Word (60’, 1 target, heal 1d4+3)
1 Sanctuary (30’, 1 min, Wisdom save required to attack target until it attacks in some way)
2 Spiritual Weapon. 60’, melee spell attack, 1d8+3 force damage, move 20’ and attack each subsequent round, up to 1 minute.

The 3 PCs + Yoshimo and Aerie move on to the next area (I didn’t like the Pleasure Slave conversation, which is distasteful and pointless), and, having been reminded about illusionary enemies, don’t fight.
There are 4 illusionary werewolves, and two very real Shadows. The Shadows each open by casting Fear… on Ludwig, who wears the Helm of Balduran and is immune to fear.

I think it takes about 5 rounds of moving around, looting scrolls off desks, etc. for everyone to reach the exit. During that time, the two Shadows flub every single attack roll except one near the end.
The werewolves also “just miss” because they haven’t been interacted with and thus aren’t real. Me rolling 5, 5, 2, 1, 5 doesn’t help… but it’s a great excuse to keep up the illusion/reality divide, especially when the “they’re just illusion” Shadows actually do land a hit and drain 4 points of strength.

Eventually they tell the Genie they are ready to proceed, and go fight the spellcasting ogre (Kalah). He rolls terribly on initiative and takes over 20 damage before he can act. One Shadow does succeed in Fearing Yoshimo, and then the player running Yoshimo forgets to roll to save to end it multiple times.
Everyone’s happy, and then at the end of the first round of combat, all 6 enemies from the previous room follow them in the door. Kalah tags two players out with Hypnotic Pattern, although one gets knocked out of it by being hit by a Shadow.

The party ends up split up and chased by Shadows, with Mergand’s player being worried they’re going to die… except, out of 4 spellcasting characters, the only spells being used are Chill Touch, Spiritual Weapon, and cantrips. I go full Illusion and have Kalah cast Mirror Image the next round. The player running Aerie brings that down with Mirror Image. A couple of more Shadow hits land, and Kalah goes down, ending the combat.

At the tent, they loot the body, chat with Quayle, try to figure out what happened, see the woman rush out to find her boy, etc. Quayle asks if Aerie can travel with them, after checking their immediate plans (Dryad acorns to Windspear Hills). I remind them that they’ll have to pick next session and drop either Aerie or Yoshimo… but they take her for now, with plans to “help her get some experience and training” as one of them said.

Outside, the guard thanks him, and they chat for a bit. The Cowled Wizards come up again, and they learn that there’s an office in the Government District, but their real base is secret. The guard takes their names to pass along to his bosses as a “These guys helped us” for their records. I have no official system for it, but +1 Reputation with the Athkatla city guard.

With some more gold and a bunch of scrolls, they head to the Adventurer’s Mart. Ribald identifies the Ring of Human Influence (Attunement; Cha to 19, Charm Person DC 15 1x/day), which of course goes to Mergand as a sorcerer. Cormak the cleric takes the Girdle of Piercing (Attunement; DR 3 vs. missile weapons). They have just enough gold to buy Glasses of Identification, which lets them identify items 3x/day for free. This puts them down to under 100gp, although they sell a scroll of ID to Lady Yuth upstairs. On the way out, they see a poster advertising an interplanar merchant who visits every two weeks, with powerful items like the Armor of Balduraan and the Robe of Vecna, but at very high prices.

Three people have strength drain, so they take the rest of the day off to Long Rest at the Den of Seven Vales. Mergand does not attempt to flirt with the proprietor this time, so they aren’t charged extra.

In many playthroughs, I finish the circus and end up with just enough gold for the Glasses of Identification, and that’s what they did. They could have sold the load of scrolls they’re carrying for 500-1000gp. I doubt they’ll ever use most of them.

Next time, they plan to head to the Government district. The route for that takes them through the slums where they’ll meet Gaelan Bayle, and quite likely get distracted at the Copper Coronet with the other intro quest. The hand-and-a-half sword you get from there, the +3 vs. shapeshifters that grows warm in their presence? It’s usually vendor trash, but in a tabletop game, there are applications for it against vampires, Firkraag, and the Rakshasa in Trademeet.

In the Slaver Stockade, there are trolls (fine) and there are usually a couple of Yuan-Ti abominations. The Yuan-Ti also show up in the De’Arnise keep alongside trolls. I really don’t see them fitting in anywhere else…they are just “generic monsters” rather than intelligent plotters. Any suggestions for what I could sub in?

I want to do the Bhaal dreams for those players, but I want to do them with the voice… but without just sending a video link. Are there any non-complicated ways to extract the audio clips from the cutscenes so I can just send those over?
Wait, I think they’re probably in Shadowkeeper….

[J-H]

Session 5: 8/13/2023

The player for Leon (played Teador in the last 2 campaigns) is dropping out due to RL being too overwhelmingly busy. I am down to three players unless/until we find a replacement.

The party proceeds towards the government district to check with the Cowled Wizards about things. As they pass through the slums, a man with a strange way of talking approaches them. “Coo! Your name be Mergand, right?” Yes, it’s Gaelan Bayle. A little suspicious, they follow him to his house, where he says that for the price of 20,000gp, they can get help finding the wizard the Cowled Wizards had captured with so much trouble. Of course, the party only has 150gp at this time.

Looking at who’s there, he mentions that Renal Bloodscalp is looking for some help in the docks, the big sphere thing that phased into some buildings is of interest to wizardly-type folk, and of course that they can probably find some work at the Copper Coronet…and if it gets cleaned up a bit, that’s not his problem.

They decide to go to the Copper Coronet first, and Brus, Gaelan’s nephew(?) takes them there. They go inside, look around a bit, and get some food. Ludwig goes up to meet the heavyset bartender, and (Perception) notices a stain on his apron that looks suspiciously but deniably like the Harper symbol. Ludwig orders a drink whose name is a Harper recognition code, and they have a brief discussion. Bernard, the bartender, mentions that he hadn’t made any in a long time, and subtly refers to chains and slavery and keeping an eye out in the back.

The party reunites and has a brief and quiet discussion before trying to go into the back rooms they’ve seen others go into. The guard doesn’t let them in, but they’ve noticed Lehtinan up by the bar giving guards the nod to let others in. Mergand and one of the others go up to meet him. Mergand mentions being interested and being sure there’s entertainment, and wanting to take a look even if he can’t afford it.

Oops. He also made a roll of some kind and got an 8. They ended up paying 50gp for admission to the back rooms.

On their way back, a big armored man with a shield bearing the symbol of Helm briefly waylays him. Their answers, in particular Cormak’s about “keeping things even” between good and evil, do not please the man, and they in turn do not care for his arrogance despite his obvious alignment with law and good. It’s too bad, but I’m not surprised that they bounced off Anomen.

They go in and find the arena, where booze is flowing and betting is going, and decide to see what it’s about. After watching a Winter Wolf tear apart a mostly unarmed man, and a troll slaughter 3 barely-equipped gladiators – to the glee of the crowd – Ludwig the Harper says “I really don’t like this and think we should do something. Also, we really should do something about this.” They did see the slave gladiators come in one door, and the animals come in the other door from the back of the arena.

They exit out the side door and find another hall leading in the direction the gladiators came from, but the guard won’t let them past. They need a diversion.

I was out of the room for part of the discussion, and there were some questions to establish details, but here’s what happens: There’s a heavily armed and armored dwarf (yes, it’s Korgan), deep in his cups, in the front row, next to an expensively-dressed human man. Ludwig buys a beer, then uses his invisible Mage Hand to move it over and toss it on the two of them (Sleight of Hand: 25). When Korgan turns to complain, Mergand uses Prestidigitation to make it seem as though the human had flatulated, prompting a “smelly human” comment. Ludwig then uses his Mage Hand to shove the drink again, getting a success on his second try, which Mergand boosts using Prestidigitation to increase the volume and smell of the liquid. At this point, Korgan thinks it’s deliberate and pulls out his axe. He starts going after the nobleman, and spends his next two rounds rolling 4, 5, 1, and 1 not killing the man, as the man tries to back off and run away and people start yelling and trying to fight or escape the fight, or (if drunk enough) join in.

They go back out the side door, the noise of a drunken brawl with weapons clearly behind them, and inform the guard that there’s a fight. “Oh no, not again…” as he leaves his post. They go down the hall, spot a troll in chains being led by 4 men through a double door, and can smell when they reach it that it’s a sewer route. This also removes the troll from the field of battle, and lets them know that if they go after the slavers later, they will be fighting a troll.

They reach the jail cell room and are challenged by two guards. There’s a brief attempt at bluffing, but they make too many flubs, like not having the key from the Beastmaster for the prisoner transfer, so it goes to a fight. The guards go down reasonably fast but score a couple of hits. The gladiators want to be freed, but the locks are beefy and well-reinforced against picking. They need the Beastmaster key.

Cormak (Trickery cleric) uses Disguise Self to look like a guard, and walks across the back of the arena to the animal door, hoping to go unnoticed as the brawl is still going on. He finds the hall leading to the Beastmaster’s bedroom… there are caged animals on both sides, and a big panther (I used the Lion statblock) sleeping in the doorway at the end. Apprehensively, he decides to move forward and eventually steps over the panther, as she wasn’t attacking him…just watching. He tries to bluff the Beastmaster into giving him the key, but a prisoner transfer during a riot when the guards are tied up is a really bad story to lead with. Realizing he’s blown his chance, Cormak runs towards the arena. “Tabitha, catch!” He gets hit and proned by the Tabitha the panther in round 1.

In round 2, he uses a scroll of Blindness, which she fails to save against, and makes it almost to the arena door. The Beastmaster makes it to the hall and fires 3 arrows at him. 2 hits, including 1 crit. The Girdle of Piercing comes in really handy here, as it reduces the damage from projectile weapons by 3. 1d6+2-3 sometimes gets turned to 0, and even the critical hit only ends up doing 9 damage.

He spends the next couple of rounds running across the back side of the arena, with the Beastmaster and panther in pursuit before reaching the others. There’s just enough time for Ludwig to take up a position hiding on top of the doorframe (Acrobatics: 20: Stealth: 25). The panther runs in and spends the short rest of her life missing for 2-3 rounds. The Beastmaster puts enough arrows into Cormak to knock him to 0, but starts taking damage – although Yoshimo and Ludwig are mostly moving into melee, missing, and disengaging instead of crowding him. 3 attacks per round adds up.

With Tabitha down, he starts to retreat, and the rogues use their speed to catch up. Cormak drops a Hold Person, which Ludwig follows up with a crit for 36 damage, instantly slaying the Beastmaster. They loot the body for gold, the key, and the bow, and then try to drag the corpse out of the arena and hoped nobody noticed (Stealth: 11). I feel like this ended up an appropriately tough and mobile fight. A number of spells were used on Guiding Bolt, Inflict Wounds, etc., but with some misses.

They free and swiftly arm the gladiators, and start down the hall, only to meet 3 guards going the other way. I free-form the rest of this, with a “what are you doing to help?” They take out a couple of guards, and a couple of the freed slaves died as Ludwig and Yoshimo were the only ones in front. Cormak was still in back healing himself, and Mergand just used Chill Touch.

Hendak, the gladiator leader, kills Lehtinan and takes the Copper Coronet for himself. Ludwig had briefly considered using Burning Hands to try to light the entire tavern on fire, but I reminded him of what Hendak had said earlier, and the rest of the players talked him out of it.

They get 4800gp and identify their loot, a gift from Hendak and the bow.
Kondar +1: Longsword +1, grows warm in the presence of shapeshifters, +1d6 damage to shapeshifters.
This applies to all natural shapeshifters unless it’s from a spell, so it’s good against vampires and druids, not just doppelgangers. Ludwig will take this, as it’s a straight upgrade.
Tuigan bow +1: Shortbow +1 of speed.

I briefly go through the good stuff Bernard has for sale, but they don’t jump on any of them immediately. Hendak also gives them enough clues to figure out the location of the Slaver Stockade.

Mergand looks around and sees the same armored dwarf from earlier, who had just watched the gladiator revolt and enjoyed the show. They talk and bond over the idea of bloodshed and killing being the only way to really find the truth, and I think he wants to recruit Korgan… even though Korgan was watching and enjoying people getting murdered in the arena earlier. They aren’t sure they want to take on his graveyard quest, though.

Everyone levels up to 4. I tell them that they need to narrow it down to just 1 NPC. I think Yoshimo is going to get cut :(
I really liked "We should start a riot" as the go-to for sneaking into the back rooms. Very fun.

DM notes: I found out mid-session that Cormak’s player had not updated his AC or saves to include the Ring of Protection +1. He also did not know that upcasting was a thing once he'd run out of 1st level slots. I told him flat out he needs to read the PHB. He has a copy. Argh.
I had the creatures for a fuller Beastmaster encounter, but the way they did it was fine. End of the day nearly all spell slots were expended and someone had been knocked to 0, so it didn't up too easy. Lots of dice swinginess.

[Amnestic]

Not surprised they didn't listen to Anomen, his intro's a bit whack.

Are you saving Nalia for later? I guess with all the gladiator/slavery stuff adding her in too could be a bit overloading all at once.

[J-H]

Yes, and I don't think they are ready for a castle full of trolls. During the discussion of the arena, Mergand's player had him interested in joining, until it was made clear that these are not fair fights... he said OOC he was nowhere near ready to handle a troll. He is still using his crossbow because 1d8+2 is better than 1d8. At least, I think that's why he's using it. He has used Chill Touch a few times, like when there was a big crowd of freed slaves running down the hall and he was near the back.

I want them at the point where they are just barely willing to take it on, rather than being too weak, or too strong and steamrolling it.
Still not sure what I'll sub in for the yuan-ti wizards. I could do a troll shaman, but I don't think Castle of Trolls needs More Trolls. Whatever it is needs to be monstrous. I feel like a hag is too much of an independent entity... but maybe. Isaea probably wouldn't mind dealing with hags.

Jierdan Firkraag also makes an offer at the Coronet, but I don't think the party has made enough of a splash for him to be aware and ready to set up his thing. They did bring up going to the Windspear Hills a couple of sessions ago, and I'm not going to remind them of it until they have at least a chance of surviving it. Even toned down, there are a lot of attrition ambushes there.

They really need a front-liner, and ideally someone strength-based. We'll see if I can land a 4th player. I'm going to stat up Hendak as a barbarian (Ancestral Guardian, TWF) to give them a more good-aligned option in case they don't find Keldorn for a long time.

[J-H]

Session 6: 8/20/2023
Everyone made it in person! Levelups were completed at the table. The choices were…interesting.

Ludwig the Arcane Trickster raised his Intelligence to 12, leaving his Strength and Dexterity at 14. Thanks to the Tough feat and his high Constitution, he has 43 hit points.

Cormak the cleric of Mask used his ASI to raise his Intelligence by 2, and then rolled on the Tainted Mind table and got the Telepathic feat, which raised his INT by another 1. I think he’s at Wisdom 16/Intelligence 15 now. His psionic abilities do trigger off of INT, but none of them have saving throws yet. He did read through the PHB some this week and only needed help with spell selection. He’s starting to get the hang of things somewhat.

Mergand the Bhaalspawn sorcerer put his ASI into Dexterity, comfortable with the Ring of Human Influence boosting his Charisma to 19. His cantrips are Chill Touch, Fire Bolt, Create Bonfire, and Prestidigitation. Early in the session, I’d asked, since it came up. I thought “He’s never used Create Bonfire. I wonder if he’ll get rid of it?” Ha ha. He took Dragon’s Breath as his 2nd level spell, leaving him with Detect Thoughts, Dragon’s Breath, and (from Bhaalspawn sorcerer Invisibility/See Invisibility) in terms of 2nd level spells.

They have me recap some of their options for where to go because note-taking was sub-par. I warn them that I can’t remember everything, but list what I can remember. They decide to deliver the dryad acorns to the Windspear Hills. They don’t know where that is, but Ribald Barterman is happy to provide a map for 5gp. He says he thinks they belong to someone named Windspear, but hasn’t heard much about them in years.
They also stock up on rope, grappling hooks, and some travel rations. I don’t point out “Do you have tents or bedrolls?” until their first night out in the woods.

The party heads out through the City Gates district. Cormak notices a cart driver bribing a guard to be let in without an inspection. As they pass the line of people waiting to get in, a man steps out and flags them down because they look like fighting types. His name is Flydian, and he explains that he’s from a town called Trademeet (on their map), and they’ve been getting attacked by animals and druids and need help, and can pay. They are interested and get more info; Flydian mentions the genies but only in passing.

The party travels for 2.5 days to reach the Windspear Hills. Aerie is the only one who got a full “X pack” of gear, so she’s the only one with a bedroll. Good for her. I roll a few d8s for encounters but get no low numbers, so the only attack along the way is a single Ankheg. The Levelup 5e monster book says Ankhegs attack the biggest target. It turns out that Mergand is the tallest and possibly heaviest of the adventurers, so it pops up and attacks him, and nat20s the claw attack for 26 damage on the level 4 sorcerer. He’s instantly hurting.

It took a couple of rounds of combat to bring it down, but the Ankheg missed its followup bite attack. I know Mergand used Cure Wounds on himself (Bhaalspawn power) and then quickened Create Bonfire to damage the Ankheg. Ludwig used his sword(?) and I don’t recall what Cormak did. Megand landed an Inflict Wounds, and then Ludwig hit it with a sneak-attacking stab for close to 20 damage, killing it. They take the big plates, which can be used to make armor, with them. Not sure if it will be for sale or crafting.

I call for a survival check to find the dryad grove, and Ludwig rolls high, so he successfully climbed one of the rock dolmens and spotted it. They enter the grove and feel like they’re being watched. Mergand explains their intentions in elven. When they reach the spring in the center, the Queen of the Grove appears behind them. They end up giving her the acorns, which she replants. They get a solid, safe long rest there, although they do hear howling to the northwest, and she warns them that there is evil about.

This will make a nice place to visit when they return to the Windspear Hills under less auspicious circumstances later. Right now, Firkraag is just starting to hear that they’ve surfaced.
Note to self: I need to send Mergand the first Bhaal/Irenicus dream this week.

They walk away with no coin or magic items, just the knowledge that they did something good with no expectation of repayment… and a one-time Faerie blessing that lets each of them roll 1d10 and add it to a charisma-based check, once.

They arrive at Trademeet near the end of the next day. A short wall with a damaged gate is being defended by 3 guards. I never fully stat them out, but they have an AC around 14, around 30hp, and attack once for 1d8+2 with bows, or 1d6+2 in melee. The attackers are a giant constrictor snake, a giant spider, a giant elk, and a panther (Lion statblock). 2 CR1s, 2 CR 2s.

The party swings into action. Both clerics drop Spiritual Weapon and some cantrips that miss. Mergand uses his crossbow, and moves off to the side. Ludwig uses his Rogue speed to dash forward and blast 3 of the 4 animals with Burning Hands, dealing 14, 14, and 7 damage.
The giant spider climbs the wall and starts meleeing with the guard up there. By the end of the battle, the spider kills the guard up there (goes down, fails 3 death saves before the party can help). The panther continues to fight the guard at the door. The constrictor snake goes after Ludwig the rogue and grabs him, where he will remain for a couple of rounds before escaping.
The giant elk…has no target, except for the glowy magic people behind it. It charges Aerie, ramming her for a lot of damage and knocking her prone. The fight stretches out over 4-6 rounds. Aerie gets knocked to 0, brought back by Cormak, and then casts Sanctuary on herself. The elk then takes Cormak to 0 over two rounds of hoof attacks; Aerie brings him back. The elk is finished off by Aerie’s Magic Missiles, while Ludwig escapes the snake on about round 3. The panther gets killed at some point, and the snake goes after the gate guard, but is shot by Ludwig. I think the spider on the walls was the last to go down, only after zeroing out the second guard on the walls.

This was a tough fight, and I think I got the difficulty just about right given their strange tactics, overall squishiness, and how it’s supposed to be a fight where the city guard gets slaughtered without the party’s intervention.

The party heads in, healing a bit, and Mergand manages to save the second guard who hit 0. The gate guard is the watch captain, and in addition to being injured, he’s also exhausted and run ragged. Trademeet can’t hold out for long unless they start putting armed merchants and artisans on the walls.

They go to see Lord Mayor Coprith, and of course agree to help. He has them visit the druid in the basement, Cernd. Ludwig’s sword warms in the presence of a shapeshifter. Although Cernd seems very open, Mergand and Cormak are both talking about using Detect Thoughts, and Mergand catches a though that “They’re worried enough that I’m a druid; they’d surely freak out if they knew I’m a werewolf.”
They tell Cernd that they want to question him more in the morning before leaving.

That night, they stay at the inn. Mergand goes to order some food, and a guy he’s never seen before recognizes him, freaks out, says something about “another Bhaalspawn!” and “oh no, it’s happening again” and then vanishes in a pop of teleportation. Hello Viekang. Goodbye, Viekang. I might have him show up sooner than Saradush. We’ll see. Nobody is running around with any sort of fear-blocking magic or powers.

A rich halfling named Lord Jermil Holt approaches them and has them speak outside the tavern (I couldn’t find/remember his real name). He offers them a bottle of poison to put in the sacred font of the druid grove, in an honest and straightforward attempt to eliminate the druids entirely and allow more economic expansion and profit. The party takes the poison, but decide they probably aren’t going to do what he wants.

The next morning, they question Cernd under Detect Thoughts, and I verify that he did not seem to have been lying. They give him a normal cloak to conceal his appearance, and head out. I checked, and they specifically chose not to check out the djinni tents, so they’ll be back unless they happen to run afoul of that naughty Rakshasa in some other way. Aerie stays behind. Trademeet’s not a bad place for her to settle down… light on clerics, relatively safe, not as smelly and crowded, etc.

We stop there with them approaching the druid grove area, as it was getting late, combat would probably be next, and I don’t have a Cernd sheet written up to hand to them yet.
I had prepared for the sewers under the Copper Coronet and the slaver stockade!

Next time: More giant spiders, trolls, different trolls, loot they’re going to skip because it’s with trolls, evil druids, and maybe some variant myconids. They’re going to have to short rest some.

[J-H]

Session 7: 8/27/2023
We have a potential 4th player joining, who doesn’t have much experience with D&D. She says she wants to play a druid. The party will be still more squishy if so. We’ll see.

As the party approaches the area of the druid grove, they see that to their right, it’s more lowlands with a lot of water and kind of swampy, and to their left, it’s more hilly and forested. They choose the hill route. Near the edge of the grove, they notice a cottage. It’s small, but appears occupied, with a small curl of smoke from the chimney. They cautiously knock, and an elderly lady bids them to enter.

The cottage has a single ground-floor room, plus what is probably a bedroom loft space upstairs. Herbs and dried plants hang from the rafters, and the tables along the back host what appears to be an extensive setup for processing herbs, brewing potions, and the like. Several of the tables are overturned, and the crates lying around are a bit messy, but this doesn’t bother the frail-looking older woman, who introduces herself as Adratha.

The party is a bit suspicious, especially since I pass Ludwig’s character a note that his sword is warm (he has Kondar, the sword that grows warm in the presence of shapeshifters) – which is partly negated by someone pointing out that Cernd is right there with them. Adratha has a variety of potions for sale, and they buy two potions of lightning resistance. She claims that none of the druids have bothered her, but that she has noticed less traffic recently, and that her boy Sadat helps keep her safe in the swamps when she’s harvesting herbs. Sadat is not in the room, and she says he’s probably out back working or something.

When the party leaves, they don’t notice anyone out back. Whenever they meet the Djinni in Trademeet, they are going to know EXACTLY where to come.

They head into the druid grove, quickly finding a broad path to follow. Ludwig’s player says “From everything I’ve heard about enchanted forests, let’s not wander off the path.” They also discuss not investigating hearing your name called in the distance, the sound of distant screams, experiences with bobcats, etc.

Taking the hilly path, they happen upon 5 giant spiders (medium sized). At a distance of about 60’, they discuss what to do until Cormak says he’s going to cast Mirror Image. That has a verbal component, so that lets the spiders know they are there. One of them is a Phase Spider, which disappears and later re-appears behind Cernd, then rolls 1, 1, 4, 6 or something similar and never lands a hit. Really scary.

Cormak moves to the front and takes a couple of hits that Mirror Image stops, then falls back and he, Ludwig, and Cernd form a line that the spiders engage. Cormak ends up taking a couple of hits anyway due to the dice, as does Ludwig and Cernd. Mergand stays in the back sniping with his crossbow or Chill Touch and I think Hunter’s Mark.

They push on, not stopping to heal, for a while. The map says Sword Spiders, but I pull up my statblock and it’s CR6, so it’s only one Sword Spider. Unfortunately for them, its Stealth check was a 24 and even rolling active Perception, nobody spotted it until it dropped out of a tree in front of Ludwig. I think it missed with its first hit.
Here’s the sword spider statblock:

Spoiler

Show

Spider, Sword
This spider’s legs resemble spiny swords. They are extra-long, and even its body appears armored. The spider moves extremely quickly.
Large beast
Armor Class 18 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 90
Speed 50 ft., climb 50 ft.
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
14(+2) 20(+5) 14(+2) 3(-4) 11(0) 4(-3)
Skills Stealth +7
Senses Blindsight 10 Ft., Darkvision 60 Ft., passive Perception 10
CR 6
Spider Climb. The spider can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
Web Sense. While in contact with a web, the spider knows the exact location of any other creature in contact with the same web.
Web Walker. The spider ignores movement restrictions caused by webbing.
Actions
Multiattack. The sword spider rears up on its two back pairs of legs, and stabs and slashes with the two front pairs for a total of four leg attacks, plus it uses its bite.
Bite. Melee weapon attack, +8 to hit, 5’, 2d8+5 piercing damage + 2d8 poison damage. The target must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save the target takes the poison damage, or half as much damage on a successful one. If the poison damage reduces the target to 0 hit points, the target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, even after regaining hit points, and is paralyzed while poisoned in this way
Sword Legs. Melee weapon attack,+8 to hit, 5’, 2d8+5 slashing damage.

I realized pretty quickly that it was a bit much, and dropped the Bite from its attack routine. Ludwig commented that he had a lot of HP, and would take the risk of staying in melee to tank it. It hit with 3 attacks doing 6d8+15 damage and dropped him to 0hp. I hinted that Cernd, their NPC, would recognize this as dangerous and would probably turn into his werewolf form. He does, and basically tanks it until they do over half its HP in damage. I roll a morale check, telling myself it’ll retreat on a 5 or lower, and get a 5. It backs off. They briefly discuss pursuing it, but decide it’s too dangerous.

By the way, here’s Cernd.

Spoiler

Show

Cernd, Moon Druid
Medium Humanoid, 6th level
Armor Class 13
Hit Points 45
Speed 30 ft.
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
13(+1) 14(+2) 15(+2) 11(0) 18(+4) 10(0)
Saves Str +2, Dex +3, Con +3, Int +4, Wis +8, Cha +1
Skills Animal Handling +7, Insight +7, Nature +3, Persuasion +3
Senses Passive Perception 14
Languages Common, Sylvan, Druidic
Proficiencies Druid weapons
Shapeshifting Druid weapons
Actions
Staff of the High Forest. Melee Weapon Attack, +4 to hit, 5’, 1d8+2 bludgeoning damage.

Spellcasting. DC 15, Spell attack +7
[] [] [] [] 1st level
[] [] [] 2nd level
[] [] [] 3rd level
Attack
Cantrip: Produce Flame (30’, ranged spell attack, 2d8 fire’ can also hold as a light for 10 minutes)
Cantrip: Thorn Whip (30’, melee spell attack, 2d6 piercing and drag creature 10’ closer)
1 Thunderwave (15’ cone, 2d8 thunder dmg & 10’ pushback, Con save half)
2 Moonbeam (C up to 1 min, 120’, 5’ radius cylinder of dim light; when enter or start turn, take 2d10 radiant damage, Con save half; shapechangers have disadvantage, and revert to normal form if they fail; can move the beam as an action on following turns; upcast 1d10/level)
3 Call Lightning (C up to 10 min, 120’, 60’ radius cloud; on casting & as action, 5’ radius bolt, 3d10 lightning damage, Dex save half; if outdoors during storm, +1d10 damage; upcast +1d10/level)
Control
1 Entangle (C up to 1 min, 90’, 20’ square difficult terrain; those in area when cast must make Str save or be restrained; Str save as an action vs spell DC to end restraint)
1 Fog Cloud (C up to 1 hr, 120’, 20’ radius heavily obscured cloud; upcast +20’ radius/level)
2 Hold Person (C up to 1 min, Wis or paralyzed, re-save end of each turn, upcast 1 target/level)
2 Spike Growth (C up to 10 min, 150’, 20’ radius becomes difficult terrain; every 5’ movement does 2d4 piercing damage; anyone who can’t see the ground when spell is cast has to make Perception check vs spell save DC to spot before entering)
Heal
1 Cure Wounds (Touch, 1d8+4, upcast 1d8/level)
Utility
Cantrip: Druidcraft
Cantrip: Mold Earth
Cantrip: Produce Flame (30’, ranged spell attack, 2d8 fire’ can also hold as a light for 10 minutes)
1 Goodberry (create up to 10 berries; each heals 1hp when eaten, and nourishes for 1 day)

Bonus Actions
2 Flame Blade (C, 10 minutes, self; create a flaming sword, can use action to make melee spell attack for 3d6 fire damage; can let go and then resummon as long as Concentration is maintained)
Werewolf Transformation Transform into a humanoid werewolf form, or a medium-sized wolf. Wolf stats are identical to Werewolf, except the wolf form lacks claw attacks, and instead forces a Str-based save-or-prone when biting (DC 8 + PB + STRmod). [] [] 2/Long Rest

Werewolf Transformation (current)
 New AC: 17 (Dex 4, Cloak 1, Natural 2)
 Natural AC +2
 Gain 5 x PB temporary HP on transforming (currently 15)
 Strength & Dexterity set to 12+2*PB (currently 18)
 Gain resistance to non-magic/non-silver bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
 Attuned items remain active in his new form, if appropriate. Cannot cast spells or speak.
Multiattack. Bite once, claw once.
Bite. Melee weapon attack, +7 to hit, 5’, 1d8+4 magic piercing damage. In wolf form, DC 15 Str save or prone.
Claw. Melee weapon attack, +7 to hit, 5’, 1d4+4 magic slashing damage.
Werewolf Bonus Action
Claw. Make one additional claw attack.
Change Back.

Items
Staff of the High Forest +1 (attunement): Regenerate 1hp/rd in human form only.
Cloak of the High Forest (attunement): Cloak of Protection +1

Bio
"Cernd declares in a steady and modest tone when you ask about his past, that it has been his honor to serve nature in whatever capacity she did call upon him. It is clear that he is a dedicated servant, and though his demeanor is contemplative and well measured, you are certain that he would not hesitate to risk himself if it would best serve the greater balance."

Levelup
Add 7hp, 1 spell prepared, 1 4th level spell slot

At higher levels:
10th level: Greater Werewolf: Resist fire & cold, Natural Armor +1

14th level: Werewolf Lord: Advantage on Athletics checks when shifted, resist non-magic damage even in human form, bonus to saves vs. magic equal to PB, natural weapon dice increase to 1d10 and 1d6.

The werewolf features look powerful, but they are roughly equal to what a regular PHB Moon Druid can do.
Defense
2x per long rest Cernd gets 15 temp HP (total 30) and also resistance to non-magic/non-silver weapon attacks. If we assume no poison, fire, or other damage sources, his total hit points are (45+15+15 = 75)2 for resistance = 150. If magic weapons or damage are being flung around, his effective HP goes down as he doesn't resist that. A regular moon druid can wildshape into a Polar Bear 2x/short rest, so probably 4x per day. They have no resistances, but base HP of 45, plus 442 = 213 effective hp.
Offense
Cernd's melee damage is at +7 for 1d8+4+2d4+8, average 21.5 Polar bear form druid is at +7 for 1d8+5+2d6+5, average 21.5

The only place Cernd pulls ahead is in AC, as his AC ends up at 17 vs. 12 on the polar bear. Considering the HP gap, that's fine. He also has less flexibility for shifting in and out due to fewer uses/day. Of course, Moon druid is also extremely good at low levels. Not so great at high levels, and I think the werewolf scales better there, at least in terms of defenses.

The group takes a Short Rest after this. Cormak doesn’t heal all the way up to full. At this point, he’s used Spiritual Weapon on the Sword Spider and Mirror Image on the spiders, and has no 2nd level slots remaining. There’s a brief discussion of why Cernd doesn’t need to heal (staff) and I read them the descriptions as though Cernd were talking about them. He’s a bit mono-focused on nature, nature, nature.

During their short rest, Pauden, a druid, comes up. After a little while, Cernd switches back to human form so he can converse. They learn about the new leader, a Shadow Druid named Faldorn, and that not everyone is happy, but that she’s basically untouchable outside of a formal challenge. Mergand’s player says they ask Cernd if he’s planning to make the challenge, and if he thinks he can win.
“A mighty oak may withstand many storms, but none can predict when a tornado might uproot it.” I thought I did a pretty good job making Cernd be annoyingly nature-y.

Pauden says he’ll make sure that enough people are there that Faldorn can’t flout the challenge, and warns them of trolls and a probably attack before they reach her. The challenge can’t be ignored, but the party has to get Cernd there alive to deliver it. They decide that Cernd needs to save his other use of Werewolf form for the day for this.
They actually want to short rest, but it’s like 1pm… so no.

They roll okay on perception vs stealth and spot and bypass the single troll (decided to not do “magic troll” after the last beating), and then very much circle and stay away from the obvious troll lair. They are pretty sure there’s treasure there, but don’t want to mess with it.

After this, they come to a narrow neck where there is water on both sides and a 10’ wide path connecting it. On the other side wait three druids in hide armor, bearing quarterstaffs. One is accompanied by a brown bear, and the other two by panthers. Cernd recognizes one as Kyland, who he describes as “impatient and rash.” There are some threats back and forth, and Kyland accuses Cernd of taking the side of the city-dwellers, asking if his wife begged him to or something. Cernd angrily responds that he has no wife and that is all long behind him.

It is obviously going to a fight, so init is rolled and two Shadow Druids get to go first, opening with Entangle (restrained: Cormak) and Call Lightning (Cernd, Cormak) followed by I think an Ice Knife at the same two targets. Nobody remembered the potions of Lightning Resistance. Cormak goes to 0hp.
The Call Lightning caster gets disrupted. Cernd and Ludwig both get hit with Hold Person. The animals stick pretty close to their individual druid masters as bodyguards. Ice Knife is used a few times, as there aren’t many good long-range non-concentration spells.

It looks pretty bad, as the party is lacking in sufficient ranged firepower and nobody has any good AOEs. TPK is mentioned. I ask about consumables and Mergand re-finds his wand of Cloudkill, dropping that right on the entire group of druids. Most of them take 24 damage from starting their turn in it, killing one panther and leaving another fleeing at 1hp with its master dead. Two druids and the bear advance as fast as they can to get out of the cloud.

The player running Cernd then has them get Thunderwaved them back into the cloud, where they take more damage. The battle ends with one Shadow Druid running away at 30% hp (morale failure). The party short rests, uses a healing potion, and Ludwig picks up a +1 Studded Leather off of Kyland, which brings his AC up to 15.

I mention that this is more of a typical D&D adventuring day with multiple short rests versus the one-encounter nova of the last campaign. Ludwig’s player says he is adjusting. Mergand, meanwhile, still has almost all his spell slots, having cast nothing aside from Hunter’s Mark and cantrips/crossbow attacks. He has no crowd control and almost no non-attack roll based spells. I think he forgot he could quicken stuff for more damage, too.

Overall, I was happy with how things went. It was definitely difficult, but manageable for them as long as they rose to the challenge. There was more discussion of how squishy EVERYONE is and how they really need someone who can take some hits and stand up in melee.

[J-H]

Session 8: 9/3/2023

With the party low on resources and pretty beat up, they continue upwards out of the swamp. Not too far into the forest, Cormak’s +5 Perception score notices that a heap of brush up ahead looks awfully regular and brown. After some discussion, the party, about 50’ away from it, decides to back off and circle around. Some of the Blights get up and pursue them, but with no good ranged attack, limited vision, etc., the party gets clear pretty quickly.

Blights are a really lame monster. They are a <1 CR threat with minimal ranged damage, and are slow enough that 2/3 of them can be outrun by any player character who isn’t Exhausted or Encumbered. They have no stealth skills to support being ambush predators, their senses are too limited to let them hunt, and the slowest and most powerful of them relies on enemies getting within 15’ of it. There’s really no way to use them in combat unless the party is forced to approach them by narrow terrain. Even attacking the party at night is risky given the sub-par Perception and lack of stealth. Bleh. I think I see why a5E didn’t even bother making a version for their Monster Manual.

Moving onwards, the party starts sees some Stonehenge-style standing stones heading up towards the top of a higher hill. At the base of the closest stone wait two shadow druids; one with a staff, and the other with a club and a hawk. I thought starting at about an 80’ distance would give room for the Shadow Druids to do some spellcasting, but the club-wielder ended up built as a Beastmaster with a great magic club and no gap-closers. His Beast of the Air was too fragile and never got to attack anything. That said, the players spent the whole battle spread out, there was a lot of using trees to break sight lines for defensive purposes, and Cormak and Cernd ended up in melee with Dalok (the club user) anyway. They took some hits, and then the druid got close enough to do Erupting Earth under them for 3d12(!) damage, which totaled out to a disappointing 8. One of the places druids get mistreated is in damage dice. Erupting Earth would be better if it was 6d6, and Call Lightning would be better as 4d8 than 3d10. I had Dalok use his +7 Athletics check to try to shove and grapple Cormak over a few times, but the dice meant it never happened successfully. So much for demonstrating how knockdown+grapple is handy.

After they took him down, it was a matter of chasing down the druid who had been calling down lightning on them for a while. They broke CL concentration so he summoned a beast next to Mergand who used Shield, then they broke Concentration on that… he went down. Cernd was down to 13hp, and the rest of the party was beat up. They let Cernd regenerate and drank some potions, then went to meet Faldorn.

Loot:
Club +1: Gnasher
Makal of the Pine, a devious druid, carved this club and bonded it with the
spirit of his wolverine companion. Like that tenacious creature, Gnasher is
a dangerous weapon in the hands of a skilled user. When the club strikes,
sharp spikes dig into the victim's flesh, causing extreme pain.
Makal used the club successfully on several occasions, earning the anger of orc loggers
threatening his forests.
It deals +1d6 piercing damage on hit.

They also found a bag containing 20 turquoise gems worth 100gp each. I subbed these in for the really weird sword in this encounter.

Faldorn gave her arrogant speech, and they pretty much just pushed Cernd forward and said “Here, you deal with it.” Nobody really wanted to argue with her much or grandstand for the audience of a dozen or more druids (including Pauden and some others). I narratively described the fight as starting off with a swarm of insects from Faldorn and lightning from Cernd, then a big cloud of fog that obscured the battlefield as lightning crashed down regularly, until Cernd walked out holding Faldorn’s head in his bloody claws.

The druids say that with Faldorn dead, those who were kept in check by fear of her challenging and killing them (really weird tradition for vegetarian hippie wizards) can work on fixing things. They give the party her old staff, a Staff of Thunder and Lightning +2. I stick with the 5e version on this item, as it’s better and easier to use. Cormak takes this, as the +2 makes it as effective as his non-magic shortsword, and it gives him some extra options.

Long rest.

They head back to town and talk to Lord Mayor Coprith (or, as their notes say, “Mayor”). He thanks them and pays them 7500gp (found later that it should have been 10k, will make it up). He asks if, since they seem so competent, they could help with the genie problem as well. They tentatively agree, nervous about fighting genies, and proceed to the tent outside of town.

Also, somewhere in here they decide to keep Cernd with the party, and let Aerie stay in Trademeet. It’s a nice place to live and she’s been able to help patch up the town guards who got injured.

The one standing outside returns Mergand’s greeting. “Greetings to you… human male, correct? You mortals all look so alike.” There’s a bit of back and forth where Mergand clarifies that he’s half –elf (“Elves, the short ones, right?”) and eventually they go in to meet Khan Zahraa. He explains that the Dao djinn are holding the trade in Trademeet hostage because their quarry, a Rakshasa named Ihtafeer, is somewhere near here. They’ve been chasing her for month and would rather the townsfolk or whoever do it as they are bored of the chase. Ludwig says something about them being good at finding and killing things.
“Excellent.”
“Wait, did we just make a bargain with this guy?”

There’s an extended discussion about how to search town for shapeshifters, including walking around for a bit seeing if Kondar, Ludwig’s sword, heats up. For a “vendor trash” sword in the game, I’ve gotten a good bit of mileage out of “heats up around shapeshifters!” They try to figure out if there’s anything worth stealing in town, as the rakshasa was described as a thief. They talk to the mayor, but he doesn’t have any good ideas, although he does give them some background about a couple of noble families who bicker over prestige. He can’t think of anyone else strange, except that one guy who yelled something about Bhaalspawn and teleported away from Mergand.

The group eventually decides that a group of magic users who can shapeshift, the druids, might be a place where a shapeshifter would hide. They head back to the druid grove, and I ask which way they want to go, the swamp route or the hill route. They say hill, and then Ludwig’s player goes “Wait a minute… what about that potion lady and her cottage?”

Ding ding ding

They decide to be super cautious, and wait until midnight before spying on Adratha’s cottage. Cernd takes this time to talk to Mergand about him looking like a duck, walking like a duck, and quacking like a duck, but not being a duck (drawing from an in-game conversation). Mergand admits that his father was Bhaal, and that violence seems to follow him around, but that he’s doing the best he can. He asks a bit about how Cernd controls the werewolf transformation.

Cormak casts Pass Without Trace and accompanies Ludwig to the cottage. They peer in the front doors, but it’s dark and nobody’s on the first floor. The sword is warm, indicating a shapeshifter is present. They circle around back. Ludwig easily climbs up to the second floor window to peer in, but it’s still dark and he has no Darkvision. Cormak makes it up with less stealth, but PWT saves him from waking them up (which would have been “fun”). He can make out two medium humanoids, but no other real details. He checks the back yard, but his Investigation roll of 12 isn’t enough to find the human bones in the compost bin in the dark while sneaking around.

They go in the next morning after breakfast to ask about potions, but Ihtafeer immediately smells the magical stink of the Djinni on them. Despite her having advantage, the party has THREE players with init over 20, and they start going after her. Cernd drops a great 3rd level Moonbeam on her, but Rakshasas are immune to such low-level magic. On Ihtafeer’s turn, the rakshasa drops Stinking Cloud, and almost everyone spends the next two turns failing saves while she claws at them with disadvantage due to the cloud’s opacity.

A few notes here:
Ludwig took the Lucky feat instead of increasing his INT or anything else at level 4.
I used the book Rakshasa, except Ihtafeer got 40 extra HP. I did not use most of the book spells as they didn’t fit with the feel of the encounter, but did keep Stinking Cloud from BG2. Fly, Plane Shift, and True Seeing are nice but not really relevant. I dropped her spell save DC from 18 to 16.
Sadat used a +2 Quarterstaff instead of his claws, and was more a melee foe when he showed up.
These could take the CR down a bit, but this is still a party of a 6th level NPC and 3 4th level PCs taking on a pair of enemies in the CR 10+ range.

Ludwig is the only one consistently saving, and scores a few hits, but Ihtafeer’s Concentration rolls are consistently high. Around round 3 or so, Cormak manages to take an action, and uses his scroll of Dispel Magic to get rid of the Stinking Cloud. Everyone starts attacking, and then on Ihtafeer’s next turn, she casts a spell. Ludwig fails a wisdom save.

On his next turn, she orders Ludwig, who is the victim of Dominate Person, to kill Mergand. He rolls a nat20 with sneak attack (Mergand is next to Ihtafeer using his +1 quarterstaff, as he has no spells that will get through her defenses), and instantly zeros out Mergand from full. Mergand Nat20s on his death save (the 3rd nat20 death save in 2 sessions) and uses his turn to go Invisible. Cernd pumps out damage. Cormak uses the Staff of Thunder and Lightning; Ihtafeer saves vs stun but takes some damage. On Ludwig’s next turn, he’s ordered to try to kill Cernd, and does score a couple of hits. This goes on for another round or two, and a second Rakshasa, Sadat, enters the building through the 2nd floor window and hops down to the ground floor, joining the battle. Eventually, Cernd breaks Ihtafeer’s Concentration, and Ludwig finishes her off. Sadat swears vengeance and targets only Ludwig. Cormak does some battlefield healing to keep Ludwig and Cernd topped up, and Sadat gets brought down.

I fudged one dice roll in this combat, just to make Sadat miss once when he would have hit because Ludwig and Cernd were both into single digit HPs. Cormak was the only one who didn’t end up under 5hp at some point!

Loot:
Quarterstaff +2
Periapt of Proof Against Poison (attunement, immunity to poison damage and the poisoned condition) – goes to Mergand.

It’s late, so we stop there. I tell them that they have more gold coming, and to start looking at the list I’ve provided of what’s for sale… they will have close to 25kgp and can afford one really good item or some medium-tier stuff. They do not feel ready to go after Irenicus yet in terms of power level, so they won't be paying Gaelan Bayle off yet. If they walk around town with a lot of money, Valen may pay them a visit, though.

I have the first Bhaal dream queued up for when Mergand's player is ready to respond via Discord PMs.

[J-H]

Session 9: 9/10/2023

Having just completed a knock-down, drag-out fight with a pair of Rakshasas, the party rests for a bit and then travels back to Trademeet. When they approach the genies, Khan Zahraa immediately senses that they have the head of his quarry, Ihtafeer. He talks to the head briefly, telling Ihtafeer that she was very naughty. As promised, the genies leave Trademeet, but Zahraa also rewards the group with a scimitar from his personal armory… Belm +1, Scimitar of Speed.

The BG2 Rashad’s Talon sword has nothing special to recommend it, and seems duplicative. Ludwig the rogue takes the scimitar, and now is attuned to the Helm of Balduran, the Tuigan Bow of Speed, and the Scimitar of Speed. He doesn’t need Steady Aim, as he can always make two attacks per round. Too bad his AC is still just 15 because his Strength and Dex are at 14.

They go on to visit the mayor, and are asked to stick around as things are put in motion for a ceremony the following day. Representatives of the druid grove have already been in communication about reparations.

Before the ceremony, the Guildmistress of the merchant guilds approaches them and gives them a bag with a reward from some of the traders:
2x 1500gp emeralds
5x 100gp pearls
1x 500gp diamond
1x 300gp diamond
All of these are spell components for various spells, including material components for Revivify and Raise Dead.
And a Shield of Harmony +1: Attunement, wearer is immune to Confusion and the Paralyzed and Charmed conditions.
Cormak the cleric, the only shield-user, claims it. Since his attunement slots are full, he retains the Girdle of Piercing and Staff of Thunder & Lightning, and hands off the Ring of Protection to Mergand. No net change in his AC, but he wants the immunities. This is when I find out that he never increased his saves by the +1 of the RoP.

They stay and are recognized at a ceremony attended by the town notables, and asked to pose for statues that have been commissioned to adorn the city center. They get 12,000gp. Two different noble families approach them to do “a job” for them, acknowledging that both want the same thing, and that both claim to be the founding family. The Mayor tells them to step carefully, and they end up deciding that they just don’t want to get involved.

They look through the stores list and have 26,000gp + items to sell, but buy nothing. I think they are having trouble with goal-setting for items.

The group leaves for Athkatla, traveling for a couple of days. As they head into the slums, they realize they’re being tailed. As there is some discussion instead of an immediate reaction, they end up with a half-elf ranger named Suna Seni in front of them, backed up by an armored fighter and a low-level Cleric of Cyric, and three thugs behind them. Suna references Lehtinan and that she’s been hired to take them down for what they’ve done.

Ludwig basically challenges her to a sword fight. Cormak drops Spiritual Weapon, which doesn’t do a lot. Eldarin uses the Interception style to block damage done by Ludwig to Suna, while she scores at least one hit per round with Hunter’s Mark up. The Cyricist hits Mergand with Bane, then trades Toll the Deads with Cormak. It doesn’t look great for the party for a bit, until they start casting spells. Mergand uses Dragon’s Breath on himself, catching two thugs in the AOE for 20 damage, then Cernd knocks them back with Thunderwave. Cormak uses his Staff of Thunder and Lightning, triggering its daily 9d6 DC 17 Lightning Bolt. Eldarin (the fighter) and the Cleric of Cyric both fail their save and are instantly killed by 36ish points of lightning damage. Two of the three thugs break and run when reduced to single digit HP (morale check, low D20 result = run away). They try to get Suna to surrender, but she says she holds to her contracts and has already paid off the priests anyway.

Loot:
Splint +1 (AC 18, equivalent to full plate)
Longsword +1
1350gp
Arbane’s Sword +1 (Attunement, immune to paralysis, 2x/day can haste for 1 round with no downside – Suna used both charges for today).

Late in the fight, a Cowled Wizard shows up and gives the group their one warning about arcane magic use. Mergand replies that he understands and he’ll just use Daddy’s Magic. The wizard isn’t happy about this, but Dimension Doors off after a final warning. Enforcing the rest of the law isn’t his job, and the fight in the alley isn’t killing a lot of people who aren’t involved.

Having finally encountered their warning, the party heads off to the Government district. En route, on the bridge across the river, they encounter some people standing around at a scene where some bodies were recently removed, and hear rumors of a guild war taking place in the shadows.

They reach the government district and notice someone preparing to get burned at the stake near the prison. They approach, and find that it’s a female drow. There is some substantial discussion about intervening or not. At one point, it’s 2:1 in favor of walking off because it’s just a drow and they’re pretty much all evil anyway. I do put them under some time pressure of not taking too long to decide. Cormak uses Detect Thoughts and verifies that she was just shopping and not doing anything malicious, and is really iffy about leaving her alone. Finally, Ludwig decides to use his invisible Mage Hand to untie her. She jumps down and the Cleric of Beshaba and his two minions move to attack her.

There is a crowd around, represented as cover and difficult terrain.
Mergand cast Shield of Faith (Bhaal spell) on Cormak.
Cormak cast Blindness on one of the Beshabans.
Ludwig slipped through the crowd, shoved the blinded Beshaban prone, and then the next round, did the same thing to the leader… shove and withdraw/Hide in the crowd.
The blinded Beshaban got up ready to fight. Due to the noise, I rolled a d12 for direction, and then an attack roll at disadvantage, and he brained someone in the crowd for 5 points of damage, at which point people start running away.
Viconia (the drow) took a couple of hits and cast Sanctuary on herself. After an entire round of the Beshabans failing to hit her, she Dashed off without disengaging. The group is iffy about helping her. Cormak is very wary of being obvious with all the guards around. I do have to clarify for the player that, as a cleric of Mask, he is quite aware that City Guards have specific things they are supposed to do, and things that they are sometimes paid to not do, and that the stuff in between depends on who their immediate boss is. Breaking into a noble’s house? They’re all over it. Pickpockets knifing each other in an alley? Who cares. They are not a modern professional police force.

She is the only drow running around the city, and she has no disguise, so she’ll be easy to track.

The party follows and ends up giving her a cloak, gloves, the Leather Armor +1 they took off a druid, and an escort back to the Copper Coronet.

Mergand and Ludwig go to the government building, and get pointed to the room containing the Cowled Wizard representative. He mentions that Rayic Geythras, another CW, needs someone to chase down a murderer for him. Ludwig says they’re good at that… they will probably get a message from him soon 
They inquire about the magic license and are told that they need to prove that they will use magic responsibly. How do you prove this? With a suitable financial investment of 5,000gp.

They are warned to use magic responsibly, not endanger large groups of people, etc., and that violations can result in their license being revoked. They say they only use magic in self defense, and the CW brings up that guy last week who blew up a chunk of Waukeen’s Promenade…. After a bit of inter-party discussion, they decide to ask what happened to him.

“How curious are you?”
“Very curious.”
“Do you have any extra money left?”
“Sure, like 1,000 gold?”
The wizard walks across the room, opens a cabinet, pulls some papers out, and then sets them on his desk before announcing that he needs to leave the room for a couple of minutes to stretch his legs.

Reviewing the papers, I give them a brief version of the transcript of the “trial.” Irenicus is in Spellhold. The documents don’t say what that is… but given the size of their bribe, they ask when the wizard gets back, and are told that it’s a secure location far away – you can’t walk there - where they put deviants, crazy people, those who won’t go along to get along, etc., and that nobody has ever escaped.”

Ludwig’s player, OOC goes: “Until now. I bet he gets a message right now that Irenicus has escaped.”
I laugh internally.

They return to the Copper Coronet without event (it’s still in the afternoon – I want to start having the vampire/shadow thief interactions, but those have to be night-time) and level up to 5! Leveling up goes a bit better this time as I know to babysit it a bit. I ask if everyone’s happy with their character.
Mergand isn’t sure what spell he’ll take yet.
Ludwig picks up 10 more HP and Uncanny Dodge.
As I expected, Cormak’s player isn’t. He’s tried the Trickster cleric thing and it just doesn’t fit him well. He’s looking at options and will get back to me, but is thinking Light cleric looks appealing.

No game next week. I reminded Mergand’s player to check his Discord DMs, with the goal of getting the first Bhaal dream rolling.

Thoughts on how to build Viconia? Trickery doesn't fit, and I don't feel like Twilight, Grave, or Death do either. Life? Some sort of custom hybrid for Shar?
I think they are more likely to pick up Hendak or Korgan.

[GeneralVryth]

This is a fun read, especially as someone who will probably never play BG1/2 (don't like RTwP games), but is kind of curious about what the various things that are clearly references in BG3 lead back to. I will make a note to check in on it in the future.

Also, I am kind of jealous of your players being in between games myself, I hope they appreciate their luck on the DM front.

One thing that does amuse me though is knowing that 5e was built to be "magic item optional" how common they end up being in normal games, and how you can be drowning in them in anything even remotely video game related.

[Amnestic]

He’s tried the Trickster cleric thing and it just doesn’t fit him well.

Same as it ever was.

Thoughts on how to build Viconia? Trickery doesn't fit, and I don't feel like Twilight, Grave, or Death do either. Life? Some sort of custom hybrid for Shar?
I think they are more likely to pick up Hendak or Korgan.

Shar's 5e domains are Death and Trickery, though that was before Twilight was printed. She had Knowledge in 3e/4e, and that sorta gels with the whole "memory manipulation" stuff she has. Were Twilight not so busted I'd vote for that, but if that one doesn't work for you then Knowledge works too.

[Batcathat]

This is a fun read, especially as someone who will probably never play BG1/2 (don't like RTwP games), but is kind of curious about what the various things that are clearly references in BG3 lead back to. I will make a note to check in on it in the future.

I agree, despite coming from the completely opposite perspective, having played the games countless times, the last time being just earlier this year. As I know the plot by heart, it's quite interesting seeing the changes caused by either the GM or the players.

[J-H]

This is a fun read, especially as someone who will probably never play BG1/2 (don't like RTwP games), but is kind of curious about what the various things that are clearly references in BG3 lead back to. I will make a note to check in on it in the future.

Also, I am kind of jealous of your players being in between games myself, I hope they appreciate their luck on the DM front.

One thing that does amuse me though is knowing that 5e was built to be "magic item optional" how common they end up being in normal games, and how you can be drowning in them in anything even remotely video game related.

Thanks!
I've said it in plenty of other places... magic item frequency helps martials / non-casters have a more even playing field. Very few magic items are truly unbalancing.
That said, they really don't know what they want to buy. They can afford some really good stuff but can't seem to decide. It would help if they'd consider things outside of game time....

Shar's 5e domains are Death and Trickery, though that was before Twilight was printed. She had Knowledge in 3e/4e, and that sorta gels with the whole "memory manipulation" stuff she has. Were Twilight not so busted I'd vote for that, but if that one doesn't work for you then Knowledge works too.

I'm typing this part before the game... I waited to reply because I've seen the recent discussions around campaign logs and am wary of getting slapped with a warning over double posting, so this way I can be not double-posting. It looks like I'm hitting over 1000 views per campaign log post and getting some interaction, so I don't think it's an issue, but I'd rather not be wrong.

I agree, despite coming from the completely opposite perspective, having played the games countless times, the last time being just earlier this year. As I know the plot by heart, it's quite interesting seeing the changes caused by either the GM or the players.

Mostly the players, I think. So many "assumed" magic items are just not happening. I've got to lay a trail from the Slaver Stockade to the Guarded Compound to the Twisted Rune, and I have yet to figure out how the Lich in the Crooked Crane relates to anything at all. It's just there behind a secret door...how? why? I don't think they are going to be interested in some big social check, or likely to succeed, to figure out that the innkeeper is secretly covering up a Lich's hideout behind his wall.
Maybe if they go Planar Sphere and get the CW quest to Imprison someone. idk.



Session 10: 9/24/2023
Mergand’s player is not feeling well and attended via Discord. Still waiting for him to pick up the thread on the first Bhaal dream.

We took some time to verify everyone’s levelups. Cormak’s player needed a bit of help, but is now a Tempest cleric. He has not currently swapped his stats around, so he’s still running medium armor. The party decides to do recon on the Slaver Stockade, which is suspected to be in a long-grounded ship nearby that has been turned into a building. The ship is about 3 stories high, with what looks like a building built on the deck as well. There are no ground-level entries… only stairs leading up to deck level and a sturdy door there guarded by a single guard.

They climb up onto the Copper Coronet’s roof (which has several buildings). Their Stealth checks are bad, but the guard across the street also rolls poorly. They watch for several hours. A bit before noon, a couple of City Guards pass on patrol and stop to wave at the guard atop the ship. One of them bends over and picks something up off the ground (I rolled, the Slaver guard got a nat20 on his Sleight of Hand check to toss their daily pay-off down). Ludwig does ask if he can make anything out as the guards walk off, and his Perception vs. their Sleight of Hand lets him see one of the city guards shaking coins out into his hand and then handing them off to the other patrolman.

There’s some discussion, and they consider stealing the next payoff, I think maybe to try to turn the city guard against the slavers? They also discuss stealing city guard outfits and trying to impersonate them, but then talk themselves out of it because the slaver guards would probably know the faces of the guards they’ve bought. Ultimately, they decide to try the sewer first.

Telling Cernd good luck, and that fair winds blow him someplace nicer, they instead recruit Korgan Bloodaxe for the party.

Ludwig checks back with Bernard and gets his replacement Harper Pin.

Spoiler

Show

Lesser:
• Shields from magics that detect thoughts, lies/truthfulness, and alignment.
• Telepathic communication with you only happens if you allow it.
• Advantage on saves vs. Charm spells and effects
• Resistance to lightning damage.

Spoiler

Show

Korgan Bloodaxe
Medium Humanoid
Armor Class 19 (Splint+Shield), DR 3 B/P/S (now AC 20)
Hit Points 65
Speed 25 ft.
Str Dex Con Int Wis Cha
16(+3) 12(+1) 18(+4) 11(0) 10(0) 8(-1)
Saves Str+6, Con +7, adv. saves vs. poison
Skills Athletics +6, Intimidation +4, Perception +3, Survival +3, +6 on History (stonework)
Damage Resistances poison
Senses Passive Perception 13, Darkvision 60’
Languages Common, Dwarven, Undercommon
Proficiencies All weapons/armor, smith’s tools
Dueling. +2 to damage when wielding a melee weapon in one hand.
Heavy Armor Master. Reduce damage from B/P/S by 3.
Improved Critical. Crits on a 19-20.
Slasher. Once per turn when dealing slashing damage, reduce target’s speed by 10’. On a crit, target has disadvantage on all attack rolls. Both apply until the start of Korgan’s next turn.
Actions
Battleaxe +1 (melee). Melee Weapon Attack, +7 to hit, 5’, 1d8+6 slashing damage.
Handaxe (thrown). Ranged Weapon Attack, +5 to hit, 20’/60’, 1d6+5 slashing damage.
Bonus Actions
Second Wind. Regain 1d10+6 HP, 1/SR
Free Actions
Action Surge. Take an extra action, 1/SR

I point out that he’s wearing only splint armor, and they decide to go shopping. Korgan gets a set of full plate armor (4000gp), and Cormak gets a Shield +1 (2200gp), and they consider getting Bracers of Armor for Mergand and possibly the Stonefire axe for Korgan, but decide against it. Mergand also sends me a long list of adventuring gear that he buys, including things like darts, chalk, a grappling hook, fishing line and tackle, a mirror, rope, cord, an herbalist kit, 3 pints of whiskey, and 3 pints of oil. Spot the person who’s played since some time in the 1980s. 

While at the Adventurer's Mart, Ribald gives them the name of Cromwell, an expert smith in the Docks who works with exotic materials. He should be able to turn the Ankheg shell into full plate armor, for a price. This gives Cormak a full plate option, albeit one without an upgrade path as they run across better armors.

Hendak leads them to the semi-hidden exit to the sewers, which he has had barricaded shut and rigged with alarms. He asks, and the party says to go ahead and block it up after them, but not to rush. As the door opens, a sour smell wafts upwards… and they descend into the sewers.

Ludwig does not have Darkvision, and decides to have Cormak’s Light spell placed on his right boot. They go down the hall, with Ludwig in the lead. At the first T-intersection, the party’s total lack of stealth checks and the light has drawn the attention of the Otyugh that occupies the room to their right. Roll initiative! I used the A5E otyugh, which has a bite that can cause a lingering disease, and which grapples on hit with its spiked tentacles and can use them to slam grappled creatures together or into walls for damage and stuns, and generally seems like a really fun melee bruiser. It never rolled higher than an 8 on the dice, so 9 attacks in 3 rounds all missed.

Mergand hit it with Lightning Bolt, and Cormak used his staff to Lightning it again. Korgan chopped it up, Ludwig shot it, and it died. The two Ochre Jellies in the room did more, as they scored a total of 2 or 3 hits against Cormak. One of them got split a couple of times, which is always fun to spring on unsuspecting players. However, oozes are still easy to kill, so they fell.

Cormak healed himself some, and the rest of the party explored the room. They found a desiccated hand clinging to the metal drain grate in the middle of the room… just a hand. Ludwig the rogue eventually uses Mage Hand to pick it up and sticks it in a belt pouch without ever touching it. He asks if there’s anything else, and I say “No, nothing else, unless you want to cut open the otyugh to find out if it has anything in his stomach.” He decides to cut open the cow+ sized monster and examine its stomachs.

If an otyugh carries a disease in its bite, wouldn’t that also be present in its stomach? He failed his Constitution save and is now diseased, which gives him the Poisoned status, with a re-save every 24hrs and a very slow max hp loss on failure, or full cure on a single success. I asked, and nobody seems to think they have anything other than regular healing potions. The cleric does not have cure disease prepped.

They proceed on and find a more cave-like room that includes two skeletons half-embedded in the walls in an eternal embrace. One has a ring on its finger. Ludwig takes the ring with his Mage Hand.

In the game, the sewers have 3 or 4 groups of Hobgoblins in them. We don’t know if the Hobs are working for the slavers, where they sleep, what they eat, or why they are standing around. From the skeleton room, if the party had turned left, they would have encountered a fortified goblin outpost (a la Goblin Defense) that consolidates these and also puts them in a setting that makes a bit more sense. The slaver stockade has 2-5 combat encounters (depending on what mashes together) and the party successfully bypassed 2 traps and skipped the goblin camp, so I’m not too worried about it from a pacing perspective.

They turned right instead, and came to a longer open area with walkways on both sides of the flow of sewer water. The obvious bridge is a large door that’s been laid across, and the less trustworthy bridge is a pair of planks nearby. Everyone except Cormak decides to take the planks. Cormak goes for the door, but I roll a Perception check for him and get a really high number, so he spots the tiny runes on the door. Everyone rolls terribly on Arcana checks, so they don’t get to know that it’s a petrification trap… just that “it does something when you walk on it.”

They follow a couple of twists and turns, with Ludwig spotting and bypassing some pressure plates, and end up in a room with a dirty, skinny older man who says he might be called Quallo, and his “friend,” a carrion crawler. Quallo doesn’t seem to know much and is kind of glassy-eyed, and he assumes the party is there for a blade. He won’t tell them much, but tells them to look for the area where the city’s filth drains to find clues, and that he might be able to help with clues.

They leave him be and proceed, finding the stairs up to a fortified wooden door that they believe is the slaver stockade (it is). Ludwig has the Light spell removed so he doesn’t give away his position, then sneaks his way up the steps. It’s dark, and he has no Darkvision. The door is locked.

He decides to pick the lock… except he has no Thieves Tools. The party has been shopping a number of times, but if he bought some, he didn’t write them down! I feel like maybe he did, but if they aren’t on the character sheet, oh well.
The group decides to just go through the door the hard way, with steel and perhaps a Thunderwave to blow the door off suddenly once it’s close to falling apart.

This is quite obviously going to lead straight into a battle that will be a bit longer, so we stop here. I think I’m going to use the Gladiator statblock from a5e for Captain Haegan (bonus action shield shove), then some Veteran type statblocks for 3-5 guards, and a Trickery Priest block for the priest of Mask or Cyric. We’ll see in two weeks...

[J-H]

Session 11: 10/8/2023

The party goes in loud, giving the opposition a bit of time to buff. The opposition:
Captain Haegan, Gladiator (PHB 346, AC 17, switched to longsword instead of spear).
3x a5e Thug (CR 1, AC 14, 32hp, 2 attacks w/ shortsword)
1x Order Priest of Cyric (from a PDF, around 6th level, 64hp and slots up to 3rd level but mediocre spell selection)
1x Archer (PHB 348 Scout, upgraded to 24hp and +6 to hit via a +1 bow and +1 arrows)

They emerge into one side an area about 50’ wide by 70’ long, with the area in front of them blocked off from the far side of the grounded ship by a big stack of crates and barrels. At the back of the area is a well-built troll pen containing two doors. A kid is tied up near the door. I end up kind of regretting this because I don’t like kids getting killed, even if there’s no detail.

The Priest has pre-buffed Haegan, the archer, himself, and one thug with Bless. Korgan immediately breaks left and starts dealing with two and later three of the thugs, while the priest tries unsuccessfully to Command him twice and Sacred Flame him once. The dice and his high AC are in his favor, and he only gets hit perhaps twice in the whole battle.
Cormak gets shot a couple of times by the archer and ends up going down. It turns out that he did not heal up in the sewers before they decided to fight a lot. Mergand has decided to put his extra Bhaal power point into his Cure Wounds, which is now cast at 3rd level, so he helps the cleric stand back up “by the power of the god of Murder.” Very helpful. Ludwig swordfights with Haegan, but as he is still suffering from otyugh disease and has the Poisoned condition, he has a hard time doing much. Steady Aim just lets him sacrifice his bonus action to attack once without disadvantage – although he still does manage to add a couple of sneak attacks. Haegan’s +7 to hit for 2dx+3 is much more consistent, although the only time he lands a knockdown with his shield is against Cormak.

Cormak ends up placing Fog Cloud right behind Captain Haegan, cutting off line of sight to the archer. Arounds this point, Korgan has almost finished wiping the floor with the thugs. The archer yells to Haegan asking if he should release the trolls yet, with a “no, I think we’ve got this” type answer back. Ludwig, low on HP, disengages, runs into the fog, and chugs a healing potion. The next round, he uses Disguise Self to make himself look like Captain Haegan and say no to releasing the trolls, and asks the Priest of Cyric for healing.

Unfortunately, this is right around the time when Haegan, pursuing Mergand down the stairs a bit (Mergand has been using Shield and took nearly no damage at all), gets hurt enough that he decides to retreat. He also goes into the fog and uses a healing potion, and then emerges, so there are two Haegans yelling at each other about one or another being an impostor, and giving conflicting commands.
That was pretty fun.

The priest of Cyric can’t tell who is who, so he uses another Cantrip, and then eventually loses Bless and instead hits Korgan with Hold Person. Haegan is low on hit points and most of his minions are dead, so he runs over, shoves the tied up kid in front of the troll doors, and then pulls the level that opens the troll cage, yelling “Here’s a snack, now go kill everyone who’s not me!”

I roll d20s for troll obedience (they aren’t very obedient) and both do. Unfortunately, the kid dies. Nobody had prioritized getting anywhere close. The Priest of Cyric retreats, hopping over the space at the bottom of the stairs (my players noticed me do it with the token and quickly decide that there is a trap there…. There was). The next round, I roll obedience for the trolls again. One goes and smacks Cormak around, knocking him to 2hp. The other one rolls a 6, and, being quite hungry, decides that Captain Haegan is stinky and a good snack, and knocks the slaver to 0hp. He spends a couple of rounds eating the slaver. Cormak uses Stinking Cloud to block off the stairway and prevent anyone from escaping.

The other troll pursues Cormak, grabs him, and tries to hurl him at Mergand, but misses. The fall damage knocks Cormak back to 0hp (2 levels of exhaustion), which ends the cloud. Mergand feeds him a healing potion, and Ludwig uses Tasha’s Hideous Laughter to temporarily disable the troll. They manage to kill the Priest of Cyric with a thrown axe as he’s fleeing up the stairs, and then follow. Mergand puts a Bonfire on the stairs, and they watch… the troll doesn’t know about the trap. After triggering 4d12 of acid damage from the trap, the troll pursuing them decides it’s not worth it.

Left behind in the basement: +1 longbow, +1 studded leather, +1 arrows, misc stuff worth a couple of hundred gp. They are, as of the end of the session, trying to figure out how to get it. Burning the entire ship has been discussed, although starting a major fire in the slums would be an issue.

They check over the store-room they’ve ended up in. There are several chests and barrels, one of which is locked. Ludwig fails in his first attempt at unlocking it, but does manage to trigger a poison-needle trap that does some damage (very bad perception rolls). With locks like this, I say if you take an entire minute instead of 6 seconds, and go slow, eventually you’ll get it…

They find some fire arrows (+1d4 fire damage on hit, 20), several scrolls, half of which are fire spells, some gold, several Greater Healing potions (Ludwig and Cormak consume one each), and a couple of Potions of Neutralize Poison. Ludwig chugs one. It doesn’t cure disease, but does free him of the Poisoned condition for an hour.

They hear noises from one of the doors out of the room. Mergand peers under the door and sees someone putting on boots, so he uses a couple of pitons to wedge the door shut. They go check out the other door, and find a narrow hall and two rooms containing more captive kids. They start picking the lock and trying to reassure the kids that they’re there to get them out, but not quite yet. Ludwig isn’t very persuasive. They do wonder who had the key, and speculate (correctly) that it was probably the guy in charge that they last saw being eaten by a troll.

The door that had someone behind it gets knocked open eventually, and a Berserker (PHB) charges out. Seeing a blood-spattered Korgan holding a bloody axe, there is no viable attempt at misdirection. Battle ensues, and the reckless berserker is cut down swiftly.

Mergand goes invisible and sneaks up the stairs to recon the next floor. On the next floor, he finds what appears to be an eating area. Some of the tables have been overturned and face towards the stairs. There are 3 men visible with bows, as well as two dressed in wizard’s robes. One of the two is a gnome.

They don’t know it yet, but there are also some ball bearings on the floor covered by a minor illusion (unless I forget them by next week).
They say they’re low on resources. Ludwig has cast 2 spells. Cormak’s player forgot he had 3rd level spells until reminded, and still has one of those and both CDs left. He’s still having trouble managing the full range of Cleric abilities, partly because character sheets are terrible at helping organize all the different things you can do. Mergand has both 3rd level slots and at least 2 2nd level slots left, and they have a number of healing potions. They’ll be fine.

I mean, there’s a Fireball in the near future, but they’ll be fine, even if they don’t feel like it.

[Amnestic]

partly because character sheets are terrible at helping organize all the different things you can do.

Could be worth suggesting they make like 'action cheat sheets' or something like that, that they can mark off resources spent but gives them quick glance of what they can do each turn. A kinda condensed character sheet.

Though it would rely on them updating it when they level up...

[J-H]

Yep, like this one:

Spoiler: what I made

Show

[J-H]

Session 12: 10/22/2023
Someone’s an hour late. The other two learn how to play Go and get partway through a game.

The opposition:
2x 15 AC/32hp wizards with 1 3rd level spell each and some lower level spells
1x pugilist NPC (a5e)
2x thugs (a5e, swapped brass knuckles to short swords)
From prepared positions behind tables

I did forget about the illusion covering the ball bearings, but that’s okay. Mergand goes up first, invisible, and flubs his stealth roll (6), so everyone knows there’s an Invisible person in the area. He runs behind the wooden wall around the stairs to get out of sight. The two thugs ready shots from their heavy crossbows. One wizard readies a Fire Bolt, while the gnome illusionist casts Grease, targeting the area he can see, which lets it extend to partway behind the stairs. Mergand the invisible goes Thump as he fails his dexterity save.

Ludwig makes his stealth roll vs. passive perception and fires a shot or two out of the stairs without being spotted, hitting, I think, the pugilist. Said punchy guy runs behind the stairs and starts hitting at the grounded and invisible Mergand, who uses his last 1st level slot to cast Shield. Korgan charges out, taking the readied shots, and goes to the closest enemy to melee him. Cormak moves up the stairs and I think uses a Cantrip. I don’t remember what the Evoker-style wizard did, but it wasn’t very effective. Mergand moved away on the ground and stood up. The pugilist backed up, then ran and jumped over the Grease to reach and hit him. Mergand dropped invisibility to cast Create Bonfire at the back of the room, but the fire didn’t spread very fast.

I do not recall the exact order of what happened next, but Ludwig scored a stealthed critical hit and one-shotted the evoker with a fire arrow and sneak attack, and the other wizard Greased the area in front of the stairs and at the top of the steps down, causing Ludwig to fall prone. Cormak ended up using his psionic Jump ability to give himself the ability to leap past most of the obstacles, and moved into the room. He spent a round or two just setting up a table as cover for himself, even though by this point there wasn’t much going on in terms of ranged attacks.

Mergand disengaged from the pugilist and used his Bhaal power of Expeditious Retreat to move to the far corner of the room, behind the illusionist. The pugilist moved over to Korgan, who had been trading blows with one of the thugs, and grappled Korgan, then dragged him over and put him onto the Grease, where Korgan failed his “On entering the greased area” Dexterity save and went prone while grappled. Korgan stayed that way for at least two rounds, failing to make moderate difficulty Athletics checks (DC 15 I believe) to break free. The pugilist has 3 attacks per round, but the damage was effectively 1d6+3-3 due to Heavy Armor Master, so less than 10 damage per round was being dealt. It was a pretty neat melee combo to pull off, though.

Mergand hits the wizard with Chill Touch for 18hp, provoking a casting of Mirror Image. Ludwig eventually moves into the room and into melee. One round, the pugilist stuns him; the next round, he knocks him to 0hp; the following round, Ludwig gets healed by Cormak (using a healing potion, as spell slots are GONE), and then the pugilist hits him once and crits, knocking him to 0hp again. Mergand gets dropped to 0 by a crossbow bolt. Cormak heals him as well, leaving the party nearly out of healing potions.

The gnome illusionist flees under cover of Invisibility, Korgan finally breaks free and stands up, and the pugilist gets finished off. Mergand uses his See Invisibility to pinpoint the location of the fleeing gnome, and they barely manage to finish it off in time.

The party puts out the fire they started and loots the room, getting a Wand of Fear and Cloak of Protection +1, plus over 1000gp and scrolls of Acid Arrow, Charm Person, and Sleep. Mergand goes and gets the kids from the floor below, and they go over to the stairs up to the top level. He does not see the trap, and triggers two poison darts on the first step, but it’s only 8 damage out of 4d8 rolled. On the top floor, which is full of crates and supplies to look like a normal storage operation in case inspectors come, there are no enemies (“whew”). They go to inspect the shelving, and Mergand does spot the lightning bolt trap. Ludwig, at a disadvantage due to 2 levels of exhaustion, takes two tries to disable the trap, almost triggering it on the first one. They retrieve a scroll of lightning bolt.

Opening the locked door, they meet a final slaver guard who doesn’t recognize them. Mergand still has both of his 3rd level slots back. “I lightning bolt him in the face.”
The guard dies while running away at 5hp. They kick his body off the stairs, and notice as they go down that one of the freed kids is trying to surreptitiously loot the body, and gets something off his belt.

They return to the Copper Coronet, where Hendak gets down at the kids’ level and starts talking to them in his language, which about half of them speak. The party takes two long rests to clear exhaustion. Ludwig loses 5hp during the first long rest, and so Cormak memorizes Remove Disease to clear it on the second one. He didn’t recall that he could change spells every time he long rested. To be fair, my cleric spell loadouts rarely change.

Ludwig the rogue drops Belm in favor of the Cloak of Protection +1, so he now has an AC of 16 and +2 to all saves. They give Belm to Korgan. It’s not an axe, but 3 attacks for 1d6+6 are better than two attacks for 1d8+6.

There’s some discussion of shopping, but all they ultimately buy are 8 healing potions. Hendak will join the party if they want them, but I think they are going to do Korgan’s quest in the graveyard next. I’ll have to bookmark the 10 different kinds of undead. Too bad they don’t have anyone who can use Azuredge.

They may visit the Docks first to get the Ankheg shell turned into plate. Maybe one of these days they will go somewhere after dark so that they can encounter a vampire eating shadow thieves…

[J-H]

Session 13: 10/29/2023
They go to the docks to find Cromwell and get the ankheg shell turned into full plate. Heading out from the Copper Coronet fairly early, they reach the Docks, an area along the coast that slopes down from the city wall through several tiers of houses, buildings, a small temple of Oghma, wharves, and warehouses. They knock on Cromwell’s door. I roll… no answer. They knock again, louder. Cormak starts walking around the building to peer into windows. A slot in the door opens, around mid-chest level for Ludwig, and the conversation starts with a very grumpy dwarf who previously wasn’t awake.

He is interested in the commission, though, but says they’ll have to wait until he’s eaten breakfast before he’ll start – but throws coal in and tells them to start pumping. The party stays for 8 hours to help work the bellows as he takes the shell and heats it almost like metal, bending it and shaping it into pieces of armor. At the end, the sun is down and Cormak has ankheg full plate, which he can wear even though his strength is 10. Between that and the Shield +1, he’s now at AC 21.

The party heads towards the graveyard district, as working the bellows in shifts isn’t quite the same as a full adventuring day. As they head up and out of the docks, Ludwig hears a thump, like a body hitting the ground. He slips off to check, and sees a partly blocked alley where a woman is fighting 3 hooded men about 40’ away from him. He has no Darkvision, so that’s all he can tell. He tries to slip closer, and the rest of the party follows. One of the three men gets his throat slashed open. They do nothing. She grabs another one and bites his throat open. The last hooded man turns to run, but she calls to him, and he turns around and walks back in a daze. They don’t say anything, so they watch as she kills him. At that point, someone speaks. I don’t recall the exact conversation, but she says “This isn’t for you. At least, not yet,” and then turns into a cloud of mist and disappears. They loot the bodies and find about 470 gold pieces. They are pretty sure that these were Shadow Thieves. A religion check confirms that they did just probably see a vampire. Shades of things to come…

The graveyard district of Athkatla is within the city walls, but set a bit farther from everything else. Nobody wants to live too close, so a small greenbelt separates it. It’s in a small hollow or valley. Built-up mausoleums, probably for the wealthy, line one part of the slope. There are areas with conventional tombstones, as well as various other buildings. A few stand out; one looking like a small pyramid, a building off to the side, and another one that has some pillars around it. They decide to go to the one off to the side, but as they go, Cormak notices a small ghostly figure approaching. Talking to the ghost, they learn that it’s a child named Wellyn, and he wants his Littleman (a bear) back, but when he goes to the Silver-something (earlier in the evening someone had mis-named the Copper Coronet, so I ran with that) the guy gets scared and won’t give it back… anyway, they promise to find and return the bear.

Ludwig picks the lock for the building they’ve picked and they step in. Their light source is the Light spell cast on a torch Ludwig had pulled out. Coffins line the sides, and a large sarcophagus at the back’s lid opens as they enter. A glowing blue stick emerges, and then a 9’ tall skeletal warrior stands up, using the stick as an aid. It engages the party, targeting Ludwig first as he had the light source. It attacks twice per round at +9 for 2d8+6, and also makes a shove attempt. It lasts two or three rounds, and I think knocks Ludwig down to about 15hp. The party identifies the weapon as a Staff of Curing. Attunement, +1 quarterstaff, +1 to AC when held, possesses 10 charges, each healing 3d6+3hp and curing disease/poison. When the charges are gone, the magic is gone. They take a short rest and Cormak attunes to it. When he’s holding it instead of the boomstick (Staff of Thunder and Lightning), his AC is now 22.

It now being close upon 9pm, they try the pyramid building. Ludwig fails to pick the lock several times, but finally gets it as the others start walking towards another building. They go down some musty stairs, deep down. Korgan says they’re on the right track, and that these tombs are bloody old, and dangerous. There are some large clay jars in the corner. They check them. My random rolling for scrolls page won’t come up, so I scroll up and down blindly in my 5e spell reference app…and end up with them getting scrolls of Haste and Fireball. Maybe a bit too good… They check the others and find a few gold pieces, dust, some kind of goo they know not to mess with, and something that makes Mergand make a Constitution save (he passes).

Moving out of the room, everyone flunks their Perception checks and they trip a trap. They have Cormak in the lead (highest AC). He fails 3 Constitution saves in a row and is turned to stone. Mergand tried to use a scroll of Dispel to stop the effect, but rolled a 3 on his caster check. The group lugs the statue up the stairs and camps out near the monument to Kelemvor, long resting. Ludwig is pretty sure he sees a figure hopping from roof to roof in the graveyard, but whoever it is doesn’t want to be found.

In the morning, one of them goes and hires a wagon, driver, and mules, and they truck the 500+ lb. statue over to the Temple district. They notice the guards in the Bridge district on edge as they pass through.

The temple district has temples to Lathander, Helm, and Talos, as well as a number of well-to-do residences. Everything is divided by well-kept pools of water with fountains in them.

Mergand goes into the temple of Helm, while Ludwig guards the statue and Korgan mutters about goody-goody busybodies who say you can’t take this or have that…but at least they can fight. A deal is struck, and the party is soon 600gp poorer (5th level spell + 100gp component) and Cormak is back among the living. They recap what happened for him. Before they leave they shop a bit. Last session they bought 8 healing potions…now they buy 8 more.

As they leave, they come across a blind man named Gaal addressing a crowd of people. Some call him mad, others are interested; unfortunately I couldn’t locate the original text to replicate it. He leaves, and heads down to the underground / sewer areas under the temple. They start talking about it, and Oisig, the cleric from the temple of Helm, interjects as he was standing behind them. They want to know more, but need someone who can believably infiltrate this cult, which is probably up to no good. Keldorn, a paladin, is supposed to be coming soon to help. The party may take it on later.

They head back across the bridge to the graveyard. This time, they see a body being carried away in a very, very bloody sheet.

They return and descend into the old tomb, this time avoiding the petrification trap. Down the hall is a table with a scroll on it and a stone bowl containing a continual flame. They do spot the pressure plates on the floor, and use Mage Hand to retrieve the scroll (Blight) without tripping it. Proceeding around the corner and on, the old tomb tunnel opens up to a huge open area that is now bridged by massive chunks of spiderweb around a central ball-shaped core. These are huge, like 10-20’ wide bridges.

Spiders attack. I flat out cannot locate Phase Spiders under P, S, or Animal in my book, so the first fight is 4 Giant spiders (3 of which are just at Medium size) and one Sword Spider. Korgan gets critted and knocked down to around 10hp after Second Wind, as the Sword Spider hits pretty often and hard. The party wins, and moves on. They go to the right, and come close to an intersection where they can go right into more of the old tombs, ahead to curve around the room, or left to the big ball in the middle where there’s an entry. But first, there are more spiders… 3 large and 3 medium this time.
Battle starts. Cormak tries a cantrip and it doesn’t hit, and then the player running Korgan goes “Wait, he’s at 10 hit points. Oops.” A healing potion and I think later a charge from the Staff of Curing are used, as apparently magical weapon charges that can’t be replaced are better to use than spell slots. Most of the spiders approach. This time, the spiders throw webs on their approach, although none of them hit thanks to Cormak’s AC being 22 (this fight he had 3 21s against him that would have hit). I run the Phase Spiders (eventually found them) a bit different, with a Bonus Action Teleport (60’). They emerge near the back line of Mergand and (temporarily) Korgan. Mergand uses spell shots instead of HP, successfully blocking 3 hits with Shield. The spiders do a bit of damage, but not very much, and die.

The party decides to take the stairs down to the old tomb, and we’ll pick up next time there.
It felt like not much was accomplished, but writing it up, that was actually quite a lot for 3 hours in terms of different interactions, quest hooks, foreshadowing, etc.