Shattered Star: The Werebear Stare

Game Date: 8/29/2015
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 34
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Elf Ranger/Cleric/Rogue
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard
Tai Lindro (Angela) - Human Monk/Warlock

The Session:

I missed last session, in which they unlocked the Doomsday Door, fought a bunch of skulks, and cleared out several rooms in the dungeon below the abbey.  Today we continued exploring the level.  We searched several empty rooms before finding one with an ice-covered door.  The room contained four ice-covered statues.  As Slancio inspected one of them, they came to life and attacked.  Tai quickly teleported Slancio farther down the hallway, then joined Bjertha at the entrance.

This battle looked pretty grim at first.  Tai and Bjertha thought they could keep control of the fight by blocking the entrance to the room.  But the statues hit hard and could cast "Cone of Cold", and soon Bjertha and Tai both found themselves at zero hit points.  Slancio healed Tai for a few hit points, and she teleported down the hall.  Then Slancio healed Bjertha, but she played dead for a couple of rounds as the statues left the room.

This is where the fight really got interesting.  The party was now scattered around the various hallways, and was able to use hit-and-run tactics to fend off the statues.  Slancio managed to hit two with a wand of lightning bolts, causing a good amount of damage.  Tai teleported Bjertha around to help the much slower dwarf get into a better position.  Eventually the final statue went down, leaving us hurting for hit points.  We took a short rest and used up a lot of hit dice.

We went down one hall, which turned then stopped abruptly at a dead end.  We didn't trust this, so we tapped on the wall until we were sure we heard the distinctive hollow echo of a room on the other side.  Bjertha attacked the wall until she made a hole big enough to see through.  The hidden room was the spiked bottom of a pit trap.  Tai teleported inside, and forced her way through the ceiling trap door.  The trap was located in the ruined cathedral above us.  Somehow we'd actually failed to set off a trap when we were up above.

Satisfied that we'd now explored every inch of this level of the dungeon (except for another Doomsday Door), we peered down the stairs to the next level.  Tai went on ahead, using her great speed and stealth to see where all the hallways led.  The rest of us stayed at the top of the stairs, waiting for a signal to join her.  It wasn't long before Tai triggered an encounter with a pair of Water Elementals.  They chased her back to the stairs, where the rest of us joined the fight.

Digging through his pack, Slancio found a pouch full of "Dust of Dryness", a magic item he'd been holding onto for a while.  It was super effective against the Water Elementals.  Best moment of the battle:  After the DM told us one of the Elementals looked close to death, Tai said, "Wanna see a trick?"  Then she stepped back one step, deliberately provoking an OA from the Elemental... and when it attacked her, that provoked an OA from Bjertha's Sentinel feat, which finished the Elemental off.

The other Elemental engulfed Slancio, but he managed to kill it not long afterwards.  The sounds of our battle attracted a group of Werebears.  Tai attacked one of them, but felt bad about it later.  With more time to plan this battle might have been avoided, but once we started it we felt it was best to keep going.  Soon a Shoggti (big pale tentacled monster) joined the fight, followed by a second one a bit later.  Tai charmed three of the Werebears and had them attack the first Shoggti.

Slancio hit three of the Werebears with Lighting Bolt, and soon there was only one left.  The Shoggti were resistant to our weapons, even though the weapons were magic.  Meruca figured out that they could be harmed by cold iron weapons, so those of us who could switched out our arms.  Bjertha finished off one Shoggti, and Meruca killed the other.  We spoke to the final Werebear, who was friendly to us despite our having just killed his family. Turns out they'd been hostile because they were under the control of the Shoggti.  A pity.

We offered to help the Werebear in any way we could, and we took a short rest in a nearby temple.  Not wanting to get caught up in any more long battles this late in the day, we ended the session there.

XP Reward: +8850

Reminder: There is no game next week.  Our story will resume 9/12.

Shattered Star: "Sorry, Bjertha"

Game Date: 8/15/2015
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 32
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Carlie Nackle (Chere) - Gnome Wizard
Fellany Mertien (Cliff) - Human Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Elf Ranger/Cleric/Rogue
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard
Tai Lindro (Angela) - Human Monk/Warlock

The Session:
We had a long rest, leveled up to to nine, and resumed clearing out the abbey.  We went up the stairs, briefly splitting the party but reuniting in the upstairs library.  Scrawled in the back of a book we found this poem:

Two to left for annis hag.
Three to right for banshee nag.
One to west for greenie crone.
Two to east for spinster lone.
Two to dusk for wife in tears.
Three to dawn for witch's leers.

...yeah, we got nuthin'.  But hopefully we'll figure it out when we need to.  We kept searching the upper floors.  We opened some doors and entered a large room, with twenty-one chairs arranged in a circular pattern facing a fireplace.  Sitting on one of the chairs was an undead monster named Luthask.  Three mummies also wandered the room.  We had a brief conversation with Luthask, in which he revealed that he was going to kill us, but was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to enjoy it.  There was probably a deeper story behind that, but really, that seemed like his problem.

The mummies weren't too bad.  They had pathetically low AC, and the biggest threat they presented was the risk of catching mummy rot.  Luthask was a bit tougher - he could hit three times a round for a lot of damage, but luckily he had a lot of bad die rolls.  Bjertha delivered the killing blow to Luthask, finally doing her share of damage thanks to the Undead Bane Longsword we picked up three sessions ago.

 In the next room we fought a pair of Vrock Demons.  After the rest of the party finished making bad Vrock puns, Tai finished off both demons.  We opened the next door to find a nice-smelling room with a round bathing pool in the center.  But before we could go hot tubbing, we had to deal with the room's occupants:  a hill giant, a redcap, and a Medusa cleric named Sufestra.  A statue stood nearby, which we guessed was a victim of Sufestra.

Tai ran into the room, past the giant and the redcap, and tried to pull a bag over Sufestra's head.  Failing that, she tried to use magical darkness, but Sufestra dispelled it.  As Tai continued to solo Sufestra, the other two baddies left the bath house and fought us in the previous room.  Slancio used his favorite Heat Metal spell on the redcap.  After a couple of rounds, Carlie cast a fireball that killed the giant, and left the redcap hurt enough for Bjertha to finish him off next turn.

We joined Tai's fight in the bathing room.  Now outnumbered, Sufestra tried casting Mirror Image but Slancio dispelled it.  Tai finished off Sufestra, and put her head in a bag.  Then we turned our attention to the statue.  We recognized her as Koriah, one of our Pathfinder Society associates.  We restored her using an item we found on Sufestra.  Koriah filled us in on some details.  She also identified a key we'd found as the "Doomsday Key". 

Koriah told us her father Casamir was holed up in the lighthouse, defending it from the abbey's attackers.  She led us to to the lighthouse, and her father let us in.  Casamir thanked us for rescuing Koriah, and told us where to go next.  Next stop, the "Doomsday Door".  He also told us we could use the lighthouse as a safe place to rest.  He even gave us our own lighthouse key.

We planned to clear out the kitchen first, then come back for a long rest, then head for the Doomsday Door.  In the kitchen we saw a lot of sausage.  From one large sausagey mass burst another Nyogoth, the gross intestine monsters we fought last week. Slancio got sickened by the sight of this creature, and kept failing his saves, keeping him out of the fight.  Bjertha once again borrowed Tai's club so she could avoid piercing the Nyogoth, then stood against the creature to keep it from the rest of the party.

Then we played a few rounds of a game we call "Sorry, Bjertha."  Since Bjertha was the only one standing next to the monster, she was the only one to get hit by the acid damage that occurred whenever other party members hit it with piercing damage.  At one point the Nyogoth cast Cloudkill, but we dispelled it as soon as we could.  Bjertha delivered the killing blow.

We healed up a little and ended the session.  Next week we plan to clear out the rest of the kitchen area, then take a long rest, then head for the Doomsday Door.

Shattered Star: Intestinal Distress

Game Date: 8/8/2015
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Shattered Star, Session 31
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Bjertha Brawlbaker (Matt) - Dwarf Fighter
Carlie Nackle (Nate, subbing for Chere) - Gnome Wizard
Fellany Mertien (Cliff) - Human Fighter
Maruca (Daniel) - Elf Ranger/Cleric/Rogue
Slancio Brioso (Thomas) - Human Bard
Tai Lindro (Angela) - Human Monk/Warlock

The Session:
We left off having just barely defeated a party of Redcaps in Windsong Abbey.  We started this week low on hit points and ready for a short rest.  Unfortunately, we had just started getting ready to relax when more Redcaps appeared.  Four swung down on ropes from the upper floor, and their boss, "Roy", came running down the stairs.

Early in the fight, Fellany was hit by a fear spell, and spent a couple of rounds cowering under a table.  When he rejoined the battle, he got his revenge by cutting one of the Redcap's ropes.  Meanwhile, Slancio cast Heat Metal on the other Redcaps' steel boots.  Tai went down at one point, but Meruca healed her.  Once Roy went down, the battle got a bit easier.  Slancio cast Dominate on one of the Redcaps, making it attack another one, and at that point we knew we were going to win.

Once all the Redcaps were dead, we looted the area and investigated the upper floor.  From Roy we got a garnet eye and a key ring.  Upstairs we found a treasure chest filled with gold, silver, gems, and silverware.  Satisfied that we were safe, we took a long rest.  Then we continued exploring the abbey.

In one hallway, we encountered a pair of Nyogoths.  These creatures were flying masses of intestines with fangs, somewhat resembling the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  This fight got off to a rocky start.  These disgusting creatures bled acid, damaging anyone who attacked them with cutting weapons.  They were also resistant to spells, leaving us with few options.

Early on one of them cast Cloudkill, which Slancio quickly dispelled.  Their Horrific Appearance caused Meruca and Tai to flee the battlefield.  Tai returned quickly, but Meruca missed most of the fight.  Eventually we figured how to make the most of bludgeoning attacks, and things started to turn around.  Tai landed the final blow, and we tried the next door.

The next room held four Ettins, the leader of which was named "Kob".  Tai started things off by hitting one with Fear, causing it to run out of the room.  Slancio managed to hypnotize one of them, but Carlie followed up with a Fireball.  The fire did a decent amount of damage, but it annoyed Slancio by wasting his hypnotism spell.  Tai attempted to solo Kob by using her Darkness spell.  Tai managed to get Kob's hit points down, but Carlie finished him off.

The Ettins had pretty low AC, so Fellany made the most of it with power attacks.  Once the final Ettin was down, we looked around.  Tai found a crown in the next room, but accidentally set off a glyph trap which took her down to zero.  Then Slancio fell into a pit trap trying to retrieve the crown.  Eventually we managed to grab the item without killing ourselves, and went to find a safe place for a long rest.  We ended the session there.

Reminders:
We received enough experience points to bring us to level 9.