DND Blog

A place to keep DND session recaps, from various campaigns.

The Seventy-First Session

August 20, 2022, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

The Party reconnoiters the Yuan-ti city, then waits for an opportune moment to sneak in. Under heavy rain, we enter the city, and blast our way into the temple, killing guards with overpowered magic, and finally we come to the open stone door. Inside is a dark room, and noises.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Planning
  3. The next day
  4. The morning of the rain
  5. In we go
  6. Next Session

Last session

We traveled out off the cursed and contaminated jungle. We encountered some of the forest's contaminated creatures, and came to find a Yuan-Ti stronghold. They have a 15' circular wall surrounding a small city and ziggurat, encircled by crops. A population of ~150.

We reconnoitered, using an invisible Salris equipped with a Rope of Climbing. He gets into the ziggurat and is able to climb it and enter it, descending a long staircase to find a square chamber at the bottom with four doors: stables, unknown, guarded by an abomination, and food stores. The room guarded by an abomination is a hallway with two other guards within.

Salris returns and reunites with the Party.

Planning

Ryltar thinks teleporting into the Yuan-ti base is probably a bad idea. He thinks that it's a prison in the ziggurat. And because the Lady of the Forest is really powerful, her captivity is probably stronger than Ryltar's ability to quickly break.

The village will move within two weeks, but we know where they're headed, roughly, and we'll have Jerry and the Lady of the Forest to track them. We need to get to Quadroads in 11 months, for the next fall equinox. It's not really the best option, but we could kill everyone.

Salris says that the west corridor through the pyramid smelled like a place of slaves and cattle. He thinks he could disguise himself as a new Yuan-ti, a slaver, and take us as new slaves down into the pen.

Jerry tells that it will rain in the next couple days. It'll mask our scent, more challenging to see us. And she can cast Lightning Arrow without suspicion. We can use that to see how the Yuan-ti respond to lightning strikes. Do their buildings contain civilians or noncombatants?

Jerry proposes killing one of the patrols, for armor and weapons. We don't have a longbow.

Percival and Ryltar know Dimension Door; Salris has Misty Step and Invisibility and can be fetched at a later date.

We rest for the night in Leomund's Tiny Hut.

The next day

We decide to spy on the village for the day, and take the lightning arrow route if the weather permits.

There are two entrances to the compound. Jerry climbs a tree a clock-face hour around the wall from one of the entrances. The rest of the Party hides, keeping. combat ready. She Passes without Trace, climbs the tree using her Cloak of Arachnidae, and creates a nice little sniper's nest with Hide in Plain Sight.

Jerry sees:

Ryltar keeps an eye on the weather, but doesn't see gathering clouds. After lunch, he passes the duty of cloud-watching over to Salris, who blinds himself looking at the sun.

After lunch, activity in the village dies down. The patrols return and do not leave again; activity in the town dies down. They appear to be observing a siesta during the hot, humid hours of midday.

Evening approaches. The clouds thicken.

Another cart enters the ziggurat. The carts entering the ziggurat have crossed the city, exchanging goods along the way. They entered the city from outside, but it's been a lot of change.

Dusk approaches; the patrols and outlying personnel return. Guards are still posted at the entrances of the city. The gates do not, cannot close. There's always guards posted but there's no way to close them. And there are still patrols outside the wall every few hours.

In this forest, there are plant creatures corrupted (or not) by the forest. Some trolls have been spotted. Creatures with six arms instead of the normal four.

The clouds continue to gather.

Jerry stays in the tree; the rest of the Party stay in another hut.

Besides the torches carried by the guards, the city is dark at night. No candles, no work lighting, no gatherings. They do have darkvision, but they're not doing much.

There is a trail of smoke coming from the very top of ziggurat, as well as a smoke cloud emanating from the east side of the city, just within the city walls. Jerry is unable to see the origin from her angle. She makes a note of where it was, and falls asleep in the tree.

The rest of the party takes the later watches. Ryltar sees nothing in the second watch; he sees the smoke in the third watch. In the fourth watch Salris sees the smoke extinguish.

Morning comes, and with it a low fog.

During her rest, Jerry feels little bits of rain. She wakes to flecks of water on her face.

The morning of the rain

Rain begins to fall.

There is a deep rumble, a distant gathering storm.

There's a conversation over Message between Jerry and Ryltar, and the rest of the Party.

Heavy rain sets in. The noise is near deafening. The crackle of lightning crackles the sky.

It's monsoon weather.

Jerry waits for a gap in the guards. The guards' torches are extinguished in the rain. There's no outside patrol guards right now; they're holed up at the gates, sheltering under tiny roofs.

Jerry casts Lightning Arrow. There's a lot of buildings within range, within 30' of the other side of the wall. But they're all artisans' domiciles. Further in, at the lobbing range of the bow, well, that's beyond the veil of rain.

Jerry sits up in her sniper's nest and fires at the building closest to the gate.

With a 16, she missed her original target of the building. It hits the gate's guard box; the our guards take 13 lightning damage. They're blown away. The building explodes into a cloud of wood. There's a little fire, but the rain fights it. The guards get up, woozily, to see what happened. There's scorch marks on the stone wall from the immediate blast.

In we go

Jerry slides down the tree, casts Pass without Trace on the Party. We sprint to the wall, use the Rope of Climbing. Jerry, Ryltar, Salris, Vurguron, Percival.

At the top of the wall, we see the scope of the affected city. There are more people coming out to take a look at the guards. Tending to them. Trying to put out the fires. Some Malisons.

We climb down the inside of the wall.

We make our way, stealthily through the alleys. Salris leads, having been in the city before. We navigate the back alleys, staying out of sight. The Yuan-Ti are staying inside, out of the rain. We go up the ramp. With the rope and magic, we make our way to the top, and peer in.

There are Yuan-ti standing on the ramps and at the bottom, looking around. probably speculating on the rain. 5 on the center, 6 on the ramps, the one guard.

We see some people start to go up the ramp. In this echoing hall, Jerry casts Silence leaving a 40' sonic void into which Ryltar drops a fragment of concentrated ice: Otiluk's Freezing Sphere. The room goes white. 10d6 = 39 cold, halved on a Constitution save. Four remain alive, that we can see. Ryltar follows up with Cone of Cold for 8d8=45 cold. They're all dead now, except the Yuan-Ti Abomination, the guard with a snake's body and arms.

Jerry pops Hunter's Mark on the Abomination and jumps down on top of him, leading with the Slayer of the Unnatural. Her attack roll is 28 and the damage roll is, with Savage Attacker, 1d10 (reroll) + 1d6 (Hunter's Mark) plus + 2d6 = 27; she fails an Acrobatics check and falls to the ground. She takes 26 fall damage.

Percival gives Salris inspiration. Salris does some Eldritch Blasting, and then rides his shield down the iced-over ramp. crashing into the wall at the bottom of the first straight-line segment for 15 damage.

The Abomination slithers down the corridor. Jerry stabs on opportunity and misses.

Vurguron is still at the top of the temple, facing out. He hears chaos inside and clattering.

Ryltar offers a Dimension Door to Percival; they go down to Jerry together. In the long corridor they see the two other guards. The stone door is open; the Abomination has gone through it into a cavern.

Jerry moves 20 feet towards the Abomination and casts Web in the sparkly-room corridor, which captures not just the Abomination but also the two ice-bound Malisons.

Percival casts Fireball on the group. This ignites the webbing, which burns for 2d4 fire damage per round. The Abomination passes the Fireball save and the Malisons fail. 8d6 = 34 fire. Then the web catches fire, dealing 30 fire to the 40-foot-long Abomination, who dies, and 4 each to the Malisons, who are still alive somehow.

Salris continues sliding, and has learned how to slide better. He makes it to the bottom of the ramp. He stands up, moves towards the corridor, and fires Eldritch Blasts at the Malisons. THe first dies; the second dies as well.

In the next room, we see a giant carving of a snake, and some movement. Jerry advances to the Stone Door, and looks around it. The next room contains pits with grates on top, full of snakes. There's a stone statue of a giant Go-Ruh. One of the carts from earlier today. A metal railing off to the right. She lights a torch and throws it under the statue.

There's a hissing reaction from several entities in the room. A large shifting of weight in the room, a rattling of chains. Snarls and growls. And a voice, in a guttural tone: a hushed command. There's a movement of something away from the door.

Percival casts Cure Wounds on Jerry for 2d8=19.

Salris moves up to stack behind Jerry. Vurguron finishes walking down the ramp and makes it to the bottom of the ziggurat column.

Next Session