DND Blog

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

The Hundred and Thirty-Second Session

January 17, 2026, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

Merrill in Peril. We go to Lanthet, and discover it beseiged by tribal summoners and Earth, Fire, and Lightning Elementals. We decide to attack the elementals.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Morning
  3. To Lanthet
  4. In the sewers
  5. Next session

Last session

We went to South Haven and caught up with Vurguron. We helped him conduct a show of force with a rogue temple, and discovered that the Cult of the Burning Tree was scheduled to poison the entire city. We cleaned house. Then we checked in with the places that we weren't able to travel to:

Today's goals:

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We discuss what to do about the Fifth House; Vurguron decides that the Third and Second Houses will go have a conversation with them.

We discuss going shopping; it turns out that the Sixth House is in charge of potion brewing and is also very friendly with Vurguron. We go talk to them, to get some healing potions. A carriage out of the central ring of South Haven, to the arcane campus. Vurguron is intimately familiar with potion-sellers here, and we go to the Alchemist's Guild.

At Vurguron's ("Lord Third") request, the head of the guild takes us to the potions warehouse, and walks through the library-size warehouse to a set of shelves full of healing potions:

"We'll take the lot", says Jerry, but she's cut off by Ryltar who suggests 10 regular, 5 greater, 2 superior. We also get 2 potions of climbing.

Then we go back to the Third House, eat dinner, and go to bed.

Morning

Percival messages his sister:

This is Percival. Please, please reply. I need to know you're OK.

25 Persuasion. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat, waiting.

I'm alive.

Nothing else. She's pissed, but she's probably fine. If she needed help, she would've said more, says Percival.

We load up on breakfast, and put more in doggy bags in the Bag of Holding.

To Lanthet

Teleport. We appear in the middle of Jerry's kitchen. Ryltar grabs a new piece of silverware. Jerry looks around and determines that the home was hastily vacated, but not tossed.

We look out the windows. The Falone house is on The Old Road, which the town grew out of. Looking out, we see no hustle or bustle. A tumbleweed rolls down the street — no, wait, that's a stone elemental, grinding its way down the street.

Out a window on the other side of the house, the back wall of the town, is the amphitheatre dedicated to Mellora. The trees between the house and the amphitheatre are cinders. Three fire elementals circle above the amphitheatre, and there are a handful of people standing there. There's also a stockade visible at the amphitheatre. We know that Merrill said that she was being held hostage, as bait for any rebellion attempt.

So we cast Pass Without Trace and begin heading north, towards the warehouse. We roll very low on our stealth checks; lowest is `12. As we go along the back sides of houses, we still hear/feel the churning of earth from the elemental. We jump house by house.

Then we stop hearing the churning of earth. It diminishes.

The Earth Elemental emerges from the ground fist-first, punching Embersia into the sky.

  1. Round 1
    1. Jerry tells everyone to back up at least 40 feet from it. Hunter's Mark, two attacks: 24 damage. back up 40 feet.
    2. The Earth Elemental pulls a jagged shard of metal out of its back, and swings at Ryltar. Embersia's Warding Flare takes that from a crit to a natural fail, and then it hits a second time, which Ryltar Shields.
    3. Ryltar rolls a critical hit and deals 41 cold damage with his cantrip Ray of Frost.
    4. Percival casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter on the elemental. It falls on its back and begins laughing in a deep, booming sound, like gravel in the garbage disposal. It's laughing in Terran, and also incapacitated.
    5. Embersia does some damage
  2. Round 2
    1. Jerry's gauntlets glow, mysteriously. She attacks twice, then bonus-actions Hide.
    2. The Earth Elemental continues laughing.
    3. Ryltar begins to feel a rush of air coming into the area. He's in the shadows; he does extra damage.
    4. Percival damages it harder.
    5. Embersia finishes it off.

Electricity in the air runs up the back of Percival's neck, and Jerry's.

Jerry recasts Pass Without Trace and everyone goes really high, except Embersia. A mass of cyclonic wind and electrical discharge passes by, with metallic protrusions in the ball, and then it zips off to the north. We're headed South. Another one comes over and then moves away. Percival and Ryltar hear them chatter: "What happened? What happened? Master will be displeased. What goes on? Ooo. Must tell Master."

We make it to the road with the sewer grate. Another rumble approaches. We use an abandoned cart to sneak over to the grate, and insert ourselves into the sewer.

In the sewers

Jerry listens carefully: The drips and sounds of water, soft trickles, and splashing.

We stealthily move through the sewers towards the sounds of the splashing. We come to a junction, and hear another distant shadow pass over the grate. Another round of listening. Hushed voices come from one direction.

Jerry had previously established some whistle codes with her wife, so she mimics a very specific bird call, and hears back a rough imitation in reply. We head in that direction, and find a hole in the wall, very softly lit from inside, and there's noises in there. Ryltar passes along a Whisper, and it's Umara and Majorie and 15 other employees and kids. We are reunited.

They tell us: Something shattered on the far side of the city, and then trees were on fire. There were people wearing "these tribal markings", directing elementals. The markings were caked mud on heavily-tanned skin, or ash on the body, some had yellow striations within the body. (Probable summoners?) Lanthet is not prepared to defend itself.

We talk plans, and decide to start picking off the summoners. Majorie and another local, Lewin, lead us through the sewers to the cistern at the center of town. We'd killed a giant bug there; now the sewer is full of sewage. Turns out that the bug was their waste-treatment plant. Oops. We turn north, and find the north gate sewer entrance. There's a grate going up, and on top of it there are two tribal shamans talking among themselves. An Earth Elemental approaches, rumbling all the way, and one of the shamans orders it, in Terran, "Continue on." It continues on its way.

Jerry punches the grate out of the ground, and with a 14 it goes flying.

Next session

Combat! Fighting some dudes.