Temple of Elemental Evil Session 9

DM Notes:

Well I am having to work on our game days so we have to put the game on hold for a bit.  Also with the new 5e Adventure and Encounters starting we will be having a group get ready to run those adventures.  This week our 2 extra DM was out of town so that meant 1 DM (me) running a MASSIVE table.  Again I hate sending people away so this week was less on RP and more on hack and slash.  Here is the group…

Chris - Oeridian Druid, Merc from Furyondy

Marshmallow - Warforged Paladin of St. Cuthbeth, Protector of Gran March

Peep Marsh - Oeridian Rogue, Spy for the Gran March

Who Hootsalot = Sylvan Druid, Guide from the Gran March

Kurana - Dragonborn Cleric kicked out of order for being drunk

Anderron - Dwarf Cleric of Mordin looking to help the Church of St. Cuthbeth in Hommlet to push back the evil

Ardeshir Roshani - Apprentice to the Circle of Eight Mordenkainen.  Looking to gain more magical power.

People from the other table:

Nazoj - Human Cleric

Thaedrad - Human Wizard

Roxanne Rose - Human Rogue

New Player

Thundrunn Thougunn - Dwarf Cleric (this was his first week)

We pick up where the last battle was just ending.  The group was able to fight though the last of the Gnolls and get organized.  That battle lasted about 15 min not no major damage from the Gnolls.  Since the casting of Thunderwave last week Lareth the Beautiful and his men knew they were there.  He used his connection to Lolth to take over the mind of some of the party and draw them to him.  The rest of the part was not sure what was happening as their fellows headed down the corridor in the dark to a new area.

I laid out a new map and placed the possessed characters about 100 ft ahead of the other and heading up a corridor into an ambush.  The possessed could try to break out at the end of each of their turns otherwise I would control them to move deeper into the room.  The rest of the party could not figure out what to do so we rolled initiative and started the final encounter.

Again with such a large group this battle took about 2 1/2 hours to complete.  We had 12 Soldiers, 2 Sergeants, 1 Lieutenant, and Lareth.  The possessed group was Thundrunn, Who, Kurana, Anderron, and Chris.  The battle started off with the possessed people walking through the dungeon toward a voice that was so beautiful.  It kept calling them and telling them to join him and his army.  At the end of each of the players turns they would get a save to break the spell.  Anderron ran forward and made it almost to the end of the hall but broke out of the spell.  The others were not lucky and continued to move down the hall.  Anderron  worked to stop the others but they just kept moving.  The rest of the party ran to catch up with the group and kept looking around for traps, but Roxanne ran fast and quickly caught up with the possessed people.

People started to slowly come too and after 2 turns only Chris and Who were possessed.  Who moved forward and around a corner but at the end of her move she shook off her possession and her vision cleared.  She found herself surrounded by 3 soldiers and a sergeant.  The sergeant attacked and called to take her down.  She was shot multiple times and taken to 1 hp.  Roxanne quickly ran in and hurt the sergeant bad with some beautiful sword work but was left in the open.  Thundrunn and Anderron quickly ran in and damaged the people and killed off the sergeant, while Peep quietly snuck into the room and to a back way to get behind the enemy.

Lareth the Beautiful appeared with his guard (Lieutenant) and looked at the heroes attacking.  He pointed at them and said 'SILENCE' and quickly all noise was removed from the area.  He then directed more of his soldiers to take down these heroes.  His lieutenant and a lot of soldier shot at everyone except for peep.  Roxanne was bloodied, Anderron was bloodied and Thundrunn was hurt.  The other started pouring into the room but the silence spell stopped all their spells and they had to get out of the spell radius in order to heal and attack.  This put a lot of the heroes into bad spots that would mean a target rich environment for the enemies.

Who fell back to heal herself while Peep stayed in the shadow trying to sneak to get to Lareth.  Kurana moved out of the silence spell and healed Roxanne while attacking a soldier and taking him down.  Ardeshir ran into the room and stopped in front of 6 enemies and cast his powerful Thunderwave.  Ardeshir's spell was so powerful that it killed 3 soldiers and pushed the Lieutenant to the wall, it did miss the one soldier standing next to him though.  Marshmallow moved forward and quickly finished off that one soldier next to Ardeshir.  Lareth healed up his Lieutenant and ran away to get away from the heroes.  Nazoj and Thudrunn moved deep into the room and took on the last Sergeant and some more soldiers.  Peep moved in and decapitated the Lieutenant (rolled a nat 20 on her primary attack and max damage on her secondary attack dealing a total of 27 damage).  She then moved back into the shadows and hid again.  Who came in and shot down another soldier and then moved to search for Lareth.  Roxanne again was taken down by the sergeant and needed to be healed by Anderron (with a healing potion).  Most of the group moved on to find Lareth while Marshmallow, Anderron took on the sergeant.  All their attacks laid out the Sergeant and left only Lareth left.

Who, Thundrunn and Ardeshir quickly went looking for him and Ardeshir cast a dispel magic which broke the invisibility spell that Lareth had cast on himself.  Who shot Lareth and Thaedrad shot magic missiles but the Mirror Images stopped all the attacks from hitting him.  Everyone concentrated on Lareth and started to break down his defenses and hurt him.  It was Peep that almost finished everything off with her slash across his neck leaving him holding his neck as blood flowed on the floor (again rolled 2 natural 20s on her Primary and Secondary attacks causing 31 points of damage (5d6 + 5 for her total damage), this took Lareth down to 1 HP).  Thundrunn tried to cast Cause Wounds on Lareth but missed.  Lareth used his Divine Smite against Thundrunn (only character still in base contact) and critical hit him.  A portal opened up to the Spiderweave and sucked Thundrunn into the web for Lolth to play with (Lareth did 43 damage to him and he had 11 HP max).  Who shot one of her magical arrows and it pierced Lareth's eye killing him (she rolled a nat 20 too).

The party grieved for Thundrunn and quickly searched the area and the bodies.  They found a lot of notes to Lolth and about a town called Nulu.  They also found some magical items and a lot of money and gems.  Off of Lareth they found Black Ring Mail +1 and a Mace +2 with symbols of Lolth on it.  The party quickly gathered up as much as they could and started back to town knowing that the Moat House was now theirs…

DM Notes:  Well I almost killed 4 people this week and was successful once (which was just back luck for him).  A total of 6 potions of healing and every spell was used.  This was a powerful battle and one that could of gone against them without some great timed critical hits that laid out some of the most powerful threats.  I did enjoy this a lot and they all enjoyed the Moat House.  For the next couple of weeks I am going to be swamped with work so we will not be running the Temple of Elemental Evil but a different GM (the player of Ardeshir) will be running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen for the store while I am away.  I am going to be giving updates on how that is going as I get back on track.

Another thing is that with the Players Handbook now coming out and with all the changes we will be doing an overhaul of the game.  No more Warforged and with the new Variant version of Humans I will be taking out the specialties that I have for humans and add in inspiration.  I might allow people to use Tieflings but I am not sure about that yet.

Also I might take the into a home game with a smaller group so things will be smoother and more roleplaying then the last few weeks (with all the new people in the game).  Overall seeing the new documents that Wizards has released and the way they are handling magical items and treasure I can't wait to see what they add in with the DM Guide and Monster Manual.