Daggerford: Mistcutter Isle (Part 3)

Game Date: 4/17/2021

Location: Roll20
Campaign: Daggerford, Session 14

System: D&D 5e
DM: Mike

The Party:
Azul (Cliff) Dragonborn Fighter
Khemed (Rusty) Half-Elf Wizard
Neven (Steve) Elf Monk
Sylvester (Steven) Drow Warlock/Doctor
Vanya (Matt) Half-Elf Bard

The Session:

Last week we left off right before the boss fight.  We decided to take a long rest next to the creepy well.  A few hours into our rest, we started hearing some loud noises, and saw some eyes watching us from the dark.  A small monkey stood in the hallway, holding something in its hand.  We gave it some food, and befriended it.  It was holding what looked like a small doll made of sticks.

We saw a second monkey peeking out from farther down the hall, and came to join the party.  More eyes glowed from the distance.  Eventually we had a full monkey party going, with a variety of different types of monkeys.  

They all held similar stick objects, with a skull on one end and a triangle on the other.  The objects looked similar to an iron key Sylvester found earlier on the island.  Sylvester pulled out his key and showed it to them, and the monkeys swarmed him.  

Khemed cast Sleep on the swarm.  We realized there was an arcane eye watching us from the ceiling, and Sylvester destroyed it with Eldritch Blast.  Then he set the sleeping monkeys on fire, and we attempted to finish our long rest.  More loud noises interfered with our sleep, but we waited it out.

We proceeded to the giant room at the end of the North hall.  The room had an open ceiling.  Three trolls were feasting on a dead Allosaurus.  We rolled some bad stealth rolls approaching the room, but they were too occupied to notice us at first.  As we approached the room, they started taking cover.

We engaged them, but they seemed more interested in hiding than fighting at first.  Khemed cast Enlarge on Azul.  Neven stepped into the room and was attacked by all three trolls at once.  We concentrated our attacks and used Sylvester's "Create Bonfire" spell to keep them from regenerating.

We used some good strategy, but it still wasn't easy.  Azul, Neven, and Khemed each went down at least once, but Vanya healed them.  Azul finished off the final troll, and we moved back into the hallway to assess our damage.

There was a raised platform in the room, surrounded by four statues of scaled beings.  In the center of the platform was a dark pit.  Sylvester couldn't resist investigating the pit.  He tied a rope to the statue.  With Neven's help, Sylvester started to climb downward.  At the bottom was an altar made of bones.  

Neven and Sylvester were hit by blasts of pollen and gripped by vines.  Khemed enlarged Azul, and Vanya used Featherfall on him so he could jump down to help his friends.  Sylvester was drugged by the pollen by this point, and resisted Azul's attempts to rescue him.  

A vine monster in the pit implanted some seeds into Sylvester.  Those of us at the top of the pit stressed to find ways to help our allies.  Vanya tried a Shatter spell, which helped a little.  Azul's breath attack proved fruitless, as the creature was immune to lightning.  Neven hit the creature with a powerful set of punches, finishing it off and causing all the vines to come crashing down into the pit.

Sylvester dropped to 0 due to the spores.  After Vanya revived him, he used a potion of gaseous form to remove the spores from his body.  Still at the bottom of the pit, Azul and Neven searched the area and found some loot:

A white pearl (worth 300 gp)

A blue/green pearl (value unknown - might be magical)

A silver statue (worth 100 gp)

They also found a keyhole on the altar.  They decided to try the key from earlier - the one with a skull on one end, and a triangle on the other.  Which led to one of those classic DM questions: "Which end of the key are you going to stick into this thing?"  Eep.  They picked triangle.  

A secret door opened up.  Everything started to glow and we could all feel waves of magical energy emanating from the altar.  They started climbing the rope, but took some radiant damage as a beam of magical energy shot past them.  Neven couldn't survive a second blast, so dropped back down and ducked into the secret door.  

In the secret chamber, an evil being revealed himself to Neven, and thanked him for activating the device.  We ended the session on that cliffhanger.

Additional loot from the secret room in the pit:

Staff of the Python

Sword of Life Stealing

Two does of Oil of Sharpness in a clay amphora

900 gp primitive jewelry and assorted trinkets

An axe

Unearthed Arcana: Draconic Options

There's a new UA out today, "Draconic Options".  It includes alternate versions of the Dragonborn and Kobold races, as well as some new dragon-themed feats and spells.

Overall, I like it.  It splits the Dragonborn race between Metallic, Chromatic, and Gem.  Chromatics get a power that lets them make themselves temporarily immune to certain damage types.  Metallics get a second breath weapon.  Gems get telepathy and spectral wings.  

Kobolds get one of three "Draconic Legacy" abilities, and a roar ability.  I like the new Kobolds better than the previous one; in fact, I might even consider playing a kobold now.  (It's still pretty low on my list, though.)  

One of the spells is named after a Dragonlance character, giving hope to those who have been waiting for a 5e DL campaign setting.  

I do wish they let Dragonborn players pick whether their breath weapon is a line or a cone.  As it is, Chromatic Dragonborn get lines, while Metallic and Gem get cones.  I really don't think it would break anything if the player could choose line or cone every time they use the power.  It's not a big quibble, it just seems like the kind of thing that Dragonborn would learn through practice (like learning to whistle), rather than determined by the type of their scales.

I don't have much else to say about it, but I'm a big fan of the Dragonborn race, so I might use some of these options in the future. 

Candlekeep: Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme

I'm only about six chapters into Candlekeep Mysteries, but I wanted to throw out a special mention of chapter 5: Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme.

I love this one.  It feels like a Doctor Who episode (specifically, "Midnight").  The adventure features a small cast of characters, confined to a basement beneath Candlekeep.  The party and the NPCs are all afflicted with a killer earworm.  Everyone gets the same nursery rhyme stuck in their heads, and they self-quarantine so it doesn't spread.  

It's the kind of story where things just seem a little off at first, only for the weirdness to escalate to disturbing levels.  Like Midnight, it's the type of story a TV series might pick when they need a low budget episode to flesh out the season, only to find it becomes one of the most beloved episodes of the series.

Unfortunately, it needs the right kind of DM to pull it off, and maybe the right kind of group to enjoy it.  Hack-and-slashers need not apply.  This is a story that requires the proper use of tension, and players who enjoy investigation.  

Candlekeep Mysteries has already proven worth the money, and I'm not even a third of the way through it.  I hope it has at least a couple more stories of this quality.