Dramatis personae:
- Divarus, kobold male Gloom Stalker 6/Assassin 3/Life 1/Divine Soul 1 – basically kobold Doom Slayer from a homebrew crystal sphere. One mechanical arm powering his antimatter rifle.
- Vali, human male Twilight 3/Chronurgy 8 – stereotypical Vistani i.e. master thief
- Violet, human female Peace 1/Chronurgy 10 – from Krynn
- Wikipedia, mind flayer nothic CR 2
- Xerxes, lawful evil dhampir male Divine Soul 1/Twilight 1/Undead 9 – guy who conquered Barovia
I was minding my own business, doing the same stuff as usual, when suddenly… actually, let’s rewind a bit. I’m sure you’re curious just what I managed to accomplish during ten short days of downtime. Surely I didn’t manage anything too impressive…
- Every day, I prepared sending via Cartomancer and sent messages to several important NPCs.
- Using the consume mind spell, I obtained four secrets from our recently slain enemies. Thus far I remain the only person in the party who has actually gained any.
- I interrogated the last remaining nothic and managed to convince it to help me. It is now my assistant.
- I sent my wife and cat on a quest to kill goblins and train a bit.
- I went fishing twice with a skeleton horde, my army of gremishkas and my imp. This yielded fish equivalent to 228 days of rations, an ender pearl, a potion of transforming into an ancient topaz dragon for 1 hour and a few minor pieces of equipment.
- I bought three spellwrought tattoos of spike growth and one of locate object
- I looted the dungeon in the prequel oneshot
- I harvested the bodies of the monsters we killed in Evernight, obtaining several thousand gp worth of materials. For context – our game values monster body parts based on a roll on the treasure tables by CR in the DMG.
As a result, at the end of my downtime I was sitting on nearly 13,000 gp. And there I was, about to start a new day (recently having applied my death wards and the like)when there was this blinding flash of ultra-annoying light.
I attempted to extinguish the light with prestidigitation, but it was unfortunately not a torch or a small campfire. Nor was it a surface that I could recolor to black. When the stupid light ended, I was standing in a room with my fellow adventurers from last week, as well as three incredibly goofy-looking people.
The Vistani wizard and I laughed because Mordenkainen was one of them, and that guy’s hilarious defeat at the hands of Strahd was just meme-tier. The other two were Tasha (creator of the awful otherworldly guise spell) and Alustriel Silverhand (chosen of the goddess of magic).
My first response was looking to see if my wife and cat were here with me. After experiencing a major disappointment, I yelled out “What in the name of Karsus is going on?!”
They attempted to explain that they cast wish (yes, they’re so stupid that this required the efforts of all three of them) to stop Vecna, and that apparently summoned all of us to Sigil. What is Vecna doing, you ask? Gaining power through obtaining secrets. You heard it, guys. The multiverse is in danger because a god is doing the thing that’s literally his job. WOW. And now that I come to think of it, we’re also able to get more powerful by obtaining secrets because that’s what the module does. Am I a multiverse-level threat? I mean, probably – I am a fullcaster who knows what he’s doing.
After this brief explanation, they then told us that Vecna’s plans were a really big danger to reality and stuff. Incredible, but right now they’re the ones who put me an infinite distance away from my wife so I’m more of a danger to them.
We learned the following information:
- There is an item capable of stopping Vecna. It’s called the Rod of Seven Parts. It’s named that way because it’s in seven parts. These parts can cast spells. We apparently need to obtain this magic spellcasting focus that restores order to the multiverse. Alarm bells are ringing in my head, as Vecna isn’t a chaotic god to begin with.
- This item conveniently has the ability to look for the location of the next piece – part 1 looks for part 2 and so on. What an incredible plot device.
- The first part is in the hands of the cult of Lolth, who are vibing in a place called Web’s Edge.
We searched a bit through Alustriel’s library, and I found a book about evolving from a ceiling fan into a ceiling enjoyer.
Before sending us to Web’s Edge, we were given a silly bell that casts banishment once per day, along with one Rare item of our choice each. I selected a +2 amulet of the devout and gave my +1 one to Violet.
And then we teleported, landing in a random spot in the Underdark somewhere near our destination. Heading down to the centre of the map, we noticed shapes burrowing through the earth. It took less than half a moment for us to determine what those things were. Very soon, they fell upon us, and initiative was rolled.
Encounter – 2x Purple Worm CR 15
Default encounter – nothing
Tactical commentary – We default killed this encounter with a web and my nothic assistant’s Mind Blast. A DC 19 web makes it impossible for the thing to pass its Dex save, and with a -5 INT the worm stood no chance against the DC 12 save vs stun.
The sound from our battle attracted the attention of another enemy.
Encounter – neothelid CR 13
Default encounter – nothing
Tactical commentary – Rolled good init, default killed. This was easy.
I spotted a stone giant at the top of the map and went over to talk to him. He was sculpting a tree and didn’t want to talk, but I managed to get his attention with a message cantrip. We had a brief chat, and my nothic used its power to steal his secrets.
He informed us that the cult of Lolth was located somewhere in the tunnels south of our current position, which was indeed useful information. And when we went down there, we found some giant enemy spiders.
Encounter – 4x demonfeed spider CR 8 (one of them has a secret – he collects teddy bears)
Default encounter – nothing
Tactical commentary – We shot them and they died. They really did little to us. Surprising them helped a lot, to be honest.
Killing the spiders cleared the way to the tunnels, of which there were three. Before we could explore them, we decided to approach the east edge of the map, which contained a vast ocean from which a single fish kept watching us.
Turns out it was an ancient deep dragon. We had a brief chat with it, but it told us little of note. It was on neutral terms with the cult and had a great deal of treasure it was willing to trade.
Encounter – Drow Priestess CR 8 in the act of summoning a balor
Default encounter – mage CR 6 in the act of summoning a glabrezu
Tactical commentary – instant kill with cantrips.
Encounter – Marilith CR 16, 4x Drow Favored Consort 18, 2x Drow Inquisitor 14, Drow Matron Mother CR 20, Drow House Captain CR 9
Default encounter – Assassin CR 8, 3x Mage CR 6, 2x Grimlock CR ¼, Erinyes CR 12, Hobgoblin Assassin CR 5 (we pulled two encounters)
Tactical commentary – the matron mother opened with a flame strike that injured several of us. We dropped a web in the hallway, though, blocking the enemy advance. Then a sleet storm when they removed our webs. Familiars spammed ball bearings, all was good… then the house captain attacked my nothic. Flanked by two favored consorts.
The northern half of the map was cut off from us by the marilith, whose body blocked the enemy from going through the sleet storm-filled hallway. Ball bearings helped a lot too, effectively ruining the enemy’s chances of ever reaching us. My fear spell removed the southern half.
When the marilith finally broke through, it wasted all seven of its attacks on killing my CR 2 will-o’-wells. We then killed it.
The rest of the encounter was just a slaughter. The inquisitors fled and tried to release some more enemies.
Encounter – Glabrezu CR 8, 2x Phisarazu Spyder-Fiend CR 13 hostile to everyone.
Default encounter – a bunch of nonhostile lizards
Tactical commentary – The demons were hostile to everyone, so we locked the door and the demons finished off the drow. We then went in to clean up and that was it.
We headed over to the last part of the dungeon, which had a bunch of enemies waiting for us behind a locked door. We decided to split up, with one wizard talking to them to distract them while the rest of the party attempted to attack through another door. Unfortunately, we fought a rather annoying encounter over there.
Encounter – 2x Nalfeshnee CR 13, Goristro CR 17, Drow Inquisitor CR 14
Default encounter – Nalfeshnee CR 13
Tactical commentary – shooting is good and sleet storm is awesome. I took 50 damage from the goristro due to standing in the doorway (a bearable sacrifice to prevent the nalfeshnees from teleporting out), but apart from that it was just a simple one-sided bloodbath.
Two rounds later, the other encounter attacked.
Encounter – 6x Harrow Hound CR3, 2x Yochlol CR10, 3x Spiderdragon CR11, Undead Unicorn CR 5, Dullahan CR 10, Arasta CR 21, 2x Skeletal Knight CR7, 2x Warhorse Skeleton CR ½, Nightmare CR 3, 3x Demonfeed Spider CR 8, Grim Champion of Bloodshed CR 20
Default encounter – Spiderdragon CR11, Yochlol CR 10
Tactical commentary – this would have been way easier if we weren’t split up and fighting on two fronts. However, it was still only mildly challenging. Vali forced the enemy into a chokepoint using wall of force, holding them off until the Grim Champion teleported past it. Nova from my danse macabre with a wand of magic missiles brought down the foe in one short turn, leaving us free to deal with the other threats. The Biggest Threat Medal would have to go to the pair of spiderdragons, who blasted us with high-damage AoEs (6d10 piercing and 6d10 poison), bringing me down to two remaining death wards. We then removed them from existence, and once we managed to lock down the tunnel leading to us with a sleet storm and transmute rock (which notably brought the roof crashing down on Arasta’s head), the encounter became a default kill. Special thanks to our wizards whose chill touch prevented Arasta’s second phase.
The inquisitor from the previous encounter surrendered and we interrogated her, ultimately reaching an agreement where we would pay for the resurrection of her fellow cultists (buying diamonds from the aforementioned dragon) in return for their assistance. For as it turns out, the Grim Champion’s bird already claimed the piece of the rod and took it… somewhere. And that bird has plane shift, so it could be literally anywhere.
Our next goal will be to hunt down that bird and obtain the missing piece of the rod. We don’t trust the Wizards Three, so we’ll do it ourselves. Hopefully.
Form of Dread - D&D Tactics 