Shrine of the Sea Hag Salthurax

 last week

we got 2000 gp total = 500 gp each for clearing out the rot eaters

this week:

the adventurers:

nimrod, dormin, nimbat

devora, hootie hoo

silvermist, princess

jax

Notes of Doings and Happenings

a hag in the sea water, rumored it used to be a female sailor/pirate.  lures victims into the water.

a troll and 3 goblins are working around a sea cave on a rocky beach

serpant carvings at cave entrance

nimrod studied while others rested.

Salthurax -- an old sea serpant that its sold powers 

nimrod heard about in unholy contract law class

its distinguishing features are extra long extra dark 

fangs and lion fish stripes

short rest

cave is faintly bioluminescent

3 goblins and a bloated venom troll

nimrod summoned dormin

a submerged chest with 5000 gp and 

a coin that belonged to someone who made a deal with a devil

"CALABRAN" was engraved on the coin -- the name of the party that 

dealt with the devil

nimrod took the coin

in the shrine, on a bowl in deep speech, on an alter

Veiled in shadows, a dance I sway,

Birth and destruction, my eternal play,

Endless whispers and secrets I keep,

In my cold embrace, the lost forever sleep.

a large black pearl was also on the alter

a glowing room

there are notes scattered about the room

12 unlabeled potions (all hazardous though)

2 potion of abyssal transformation

2 potions of deaths delirium

JAX gets a blue jar and 4 red jars from the pool of water.  

all had glyphs of binding

nimrod speaks with dead with a glowing skull

caldra is its name

"she destroyed me"

zylaria -- the snake gave her more power than she could find in a coven

nimrod picks up the skull

7 undead pop up  one is a wight.  rest are skeletons

the starry chamber

zylaria and other hag

nimrod killed the other hag

chumbawamba killed zylaria

zylaria wanted to kill calabran and his ship the Flensed Servant

calabran was zylarias first mate on her ship, the Flensed Servant

skull of the sirens song

Skull of the Siren’s Song

Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)

This cracked, barnacle-encrusted skull has 10 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast the charm person spell from it (save DC 15). For 1 charge, you cast the 1st-level version of the spell. You can increase the spell slot level by one for each additional charge you expend.

The skull regains 1d8 + 2 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the skull’s last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the skullcrumbles into dust and is destroyed.

Troll Bridge

 

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Silvermist Biggins: (she/her) half-elf/half-halfling drunken master monk.
• Princess the flying cat
• Chumbawamba the warg
• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. a Corporate Lawyer of Kas Enterprises, a charismatic male Varient human ("vuman") warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed

• Devora --she/her,  Valor Bard and Student Intern
• Hootie Hoo -- Devora's owl familiar
• Nimbat: Nimrod's bat familiar
• Dormin: Nimrod's summoned shadow ally.
• Jax the investigative rogue dhampir (she/her) 

The party is currently at level 7.  The is the team's 2nd level 7 adventure.

The Adventure

The team needed to travel on a dangerous road to their next destination.  They had heard caravans had been attacked with many being completely destroyed.  So the team accepted a contract to solve the problem of the caravan attacks in return for payment in gold.

The team came upon overturned and destroyed carts atop a bridge that spanned a ravine.  Closer investigation revealed a tunnel under the bridge leading deep into the cliff.

The team entered the tunnel.  Within the unlit interior they found a flimsy 40-50 foot long bridge that bridged a smelly toxic cesspool.  Nimrod teleported across the chasm and tied off ropes to allow others to follow.  

Shortly after everyone crossed, the party found a side tunnel that led to a very heavy secret door that would have allowed an easy alternative to the rickety bridge.  

Upon travelling a little deeper into the cave the party had its first encounter with the caravan raiders.  They were one troll plus three goblins.  Silvermist killed 2 of the goblins quickly.  The troll was brought down by everyone's focused efforts.  One goblin had an uncanny ability to hide nearly in plain sight.  Eventually zhe was found out.  Zher name was Aryx.  Aryx was allowed to live and leave on condition zhe did not cause further trouble.  

Nimrod cast speak with dead to interrogate the dead troll -- using Undercommon.  The troll revealed it was the camp cook and said there were several more trolls.  It also said the trolls wereckeeping their treasures in this cave complex.  It promised the team that its trollish brethren would be avenging its death upon the team soon.

The team travelled into another chamber and found another troll and some goblins.  It was a tough fight and both Devora and Silvermist took some hard hits.  One of the goblins escaped and ran around a corner to alert its kin elsewhere in the cave while the team was busy putting down the troll.  

Nimrod found some caravan loot in a side cave.  But everyone else wanted to pursue the escaped goblin.  Nimrod summoned Dormin and then they both followed Jax as she pursued Devora and Silvermist.

The team caught up with the goblin as it was alerting the biggest troll the team had met so far at a big heavy door.  Nimrod casted Hunger of Hadar on the area behind the door.  Devora casted Entangle immediately behind the door as well.  Chumbwamba and Dormin stood at the door's threshold to block  the room's occupants from charging toward Nimrod out of the Hunger Zone.

Silvermist, Nimbat, and maybe Jax had glimpsed another exit from the room in the brief time before the Hunger of Hadar obscured their view of the room.  They backtracked past Nimrod at a dash to block the troll's escape just in case it was not caught up in the Hunger of Hadar.

Nimrod and Devora heard the dying cries of the goblin in the hunger zone.  But they curiously did not hear any sounds of the troll.  But the spell casters kept their spells up just in case the troll trying to fool them into prematurely stop their spells.  However, Nimrod did periodically monitor Nimbat's observations through Nimbat's senses.  So when Nimbat and the rest of the team found another way into the troll's chamber Nimrod and Devora went to Nimbat's discovery while keeping their spells up.  Chumbawamba and Dormin maintained their positions on the door threshold.

The other entrance into the troll's chamber required a dangerous jump across a deep pit.  Silvermist and Jax easily crossed the pit to discover they were inside the troll's throne room that had many chests that likely contained the remaining caravan treasures.

The troll retreated through another door opposite the hunger zone as Nimrod and Devora reached the pit Nimbat found.  Jax and Silvermist told them the troll was in the chamber beyond the new door.  So Nimrod and Devora ended their spells to allow Dormin and Chumbawamba to enter the throne room.  Then Nimrod teleported across the pit as Devora intuited going down a parallel passage would allow her to intercept the troll.

Nimrod saw the troll clinging to the side of a chamber which had shallow pool of scummy water on its floor.  He casted Hunger of Hadar again to further erode the troll's strength.  The Hunger Zone filled the chamber and the troll was suffering.  Silvermist and Devora were on the other side.  So now the troll was surrounded.  Silvermist freed a halfling merchant hostage on the far side of the pool at this time.  Unfortunately this troll escaped the zone and started putting some serious hurt on Silvermist and Devora.

Nimrod dropped his new Hunger of Hadar and Jax tried to bound across the pool to help Devora and Silvermist.  This activated a poison fungus in that chamber which inflicted some poison damage on Jax before she retreated.  Dormin followed suit knowing he was immune to all poisons.  Dormin tried to attack the troll but could not land a blow.  Nimrod pelted the troll with eldritch blasts and mind slivers that the troll surely found mildly annoying.  Jax used something like flaming oil to further hurt the troll at this time.

Jax then shot the troll with a silvered arrow.  Luckily this was a killing blow since Devora and Silvermist were in dire peril at that time.

The team inventoried the items in the throne room and took a short rest.  They found:

10 gems worth 50 each

javelin of lightning  for Jax

pair of crystal lenses -- eyes of the eagle for Jax

adamantine chain shirt for Devora?

instrument of the bard -- a citern -- barkskin, curewounds,  -- for Devora?

The loot Nimrod found at the 2nd encounter site belonged to the now liberated halfling merchant.

The team then went into the last unvisited chamber of the complex.  It was adjacent to where they had their first encounter.  Within this chamber there was a vicious plant monster that was quite hard to put down.  But it lost in the end.  The team garnered a small gem from a filthy rusted knife from that chamber.

The team safely exited the cave back up to the road.  Nimrod used his floating disk and unseen servant spells to evacuate the loot and the hostage back up to the road to conclude the adventure.

House of Constructionist Necromancers, Part 2

 

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Silvermist Biggins: (she/her) half-elf/half-halfling drunken master monk.
• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. a Corporate Lawyer of Kas Enterprises, a charismatic male Varient human ("vuman") warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed

• Devora -- She had to leave in at the end of last session.  She had to take an exam for one of her classes at Strixhaven University.
• Nimbat: Nimrod's enthusiastic, ever-helpful bat familiar
• Jax the investigative rogue dhampir (she/her) 

The party is currently at level 7.  This is the part 2 of the first level 7 adventure.

The Adventure

The fateful continuation of their previous session saw the group standing in an office situated within the bowels of a foreboding Victorian mansion. This ancient residence was inhabited by a family of three necromancers, two of whom had already been vanquished by the determined adventurers.

Within the murky confines of the office, the group uncovered a plethora of mysterious items. These included a scroll of magic missile, a scroll of counterspell, a framed diploma from the Unseen University in necromancy bestowed upon Vohilde two decades prior, a draft of a dissertation that was marked as not yet ready, and a bottle filled with toenail clippings that exuded a dark aura of necromancy. These clippings were said to have been obtained from the reanimated undead, and they could have been either a spell component or a bizarre trophy of some kind. Furthermore, a broken shield maiden amulet was discovered, which was swiftly claimed by Silvermist.

However, their search was not yet complete, and a chest located within the room yielded several animated body parts, including two human hands, two human feet, the top half of a head that had been severed just under the nose, and an entire heart. Along with these ghoulish artifacts, the group also found an iron ring adorned with five keys. Among these keys, three were fashioned from silver and were believed to have unlocked a dark chest. Another was made of gold and was meant to open the door to the study, while the fifth key was forged from black iron. Additionally, a brass bow ribbon was also discovered, which appeared to have been broken off from some unknown item.

With their curiosity piqued and their sense of adventure heightened, the group descended further into the depths of the mansion, and eventually arrived at an underground laboratory located beneath the front yard. The iron key ring and a scroll of mending proved instrumental in unlocking the door, which had foiled their previous attempts to enter.

The group's luck soon took a dark turn as they were immediately set upon by two flesh golems, who launched a vicious assault on Silvermist. Despite her martial prowess, Silvermist was quickly overwhelmed and nearly rendered unconscious.  Fortunately, Nimbat flew to Silvermist's aid and administered a healing potion to revive her. Unfortunately, the golem used its next opportunity to kill Nimbat.  But Nimbat's sacrifice got Silvermist back into the fight.  Jax courageously intervened and gave Silvermist breathing room to stay in the fight against the golems. Nimrod, meanwhile, hurled eldritch blasts at the golems from outside the room.

In a daring move, Nimrod lured one of the golems out of the room and then teleported back into the lab, closing the door behind him. However, the golem was too powerful and quickly battered the door down, allowing it to continue its brutal assault. To make matters worse, necromancer Vohilde, the final member of the necromancer family, appeared from her nearby laboratory and launched a powerful fear spell at the group. Fortunately, their resolute wills saved them from succumbing to the spell's maddening effects. Nimrod, seeking refuge from Vohilde's malevolent magic, teleported out of the room and resumed his eldritch barrage on the wounded golem.

Vohilde, meanwhile, unleashed a barrage of animated scalpels to pierce and impale each member of the group, causing Nimrod to fall to the ground, writhing in pain as he was impaled several times. Silvermist and Jax fought back valiantly, their weapons and spells striking Vohilde and the golems with a fierce determination. But the necromancer was not so easily defeated, and continued her relentless assault, her scalpels flying through the air with deadly precision.

As the battle raged on, the room grew darker and colder, as if some malevolent force had descended upon it. The golems, made from the remains of the dead, seemed to draw strength from the darkness, their twisted forms lumbering towards the group with an eerie grace. Vohilde herself seemed to be imbued with an unholy energy, her eyes blazing with a sickly green light as she cackled maniacally in the ozone filled room.

Despite the odds against them, Jax and Silvermist fought on, their skill and bravery allowing them to hold their own against the necromancer and her cursed minions. Jax dodged and weaved, her quick movements allowing her to evade the golems' attacks and strike back with deadly accuracy. Silvermist, meanwhile, used her drunken mastery to evade the golems' blows and strike them with swift, powerful kicks.

At last, with the golems destroyed and Vohilde weakened, Jax delivered the final blow, her Knowledge is Power tome collapsing the necromancer's chest with a sickening crunch. As the life drained from Vohilde's eyes, the room suddenly grew quiet, the darkness and coldness dissipating as if they had never been there.

Jax quickly peaked into the laboratory to verify no further horrors were massing for another attack upon the party.  Then she hurried to Nimrod to administer life saving healing balm before he bled out.  She reached him in time.  But because his brief interval of lifelessness left him barely clinging to his sanity, he was still curled up in a catatonic stupor in the pool of his own blood when Jax left him to assist Silvermist with the thorough investigation of Vohilde's laboratory.

Jax and Silvermist found 500 gold pieces, various account books, and one potion of healing.  They also uncaged five miserable starving prisoners, many of whom had bizarre gangrenous wounds, mutagenic organ growths, missing organs, and transplanted body parts.  Many at first refused to believe they were liberated due to the mental tortures the three necromancers had inflicted upon them during their imprisonment.

One of the prisoners was shunned by all the others.  He was a tall, thin male mystic with wild curly hair named Rust Cohle.  Though he was nearly naked, his entire skin was densely covered with artistic tattoos, many of which were animated and self-applied. The other prisoners said he had been imprisoned longer than any of them.  Some of the other prisoners said he did not deserve to live because he sometimes helped the necromancers play mind games against his fellow prisoners as well as his captors. 

Rust responded slowly, angrily while foaming from the mouth as if on the edge of a seizure, "I'm ready to tie it off. I'm ready to go home. I'm ready to come home."

Jax and Silvermist were captivated as Rust continued speaking in his twangy drawl:

My life's been a circle of violence and degradation as long as I can remember. Ever since I witnessed the Yellow King take off his mask when I was a cop in Carcosa, I have known in my core that we are things that labor under the illusion of having a self.  

You think you are setting us free. But we are only escaping this prison to be in a universal prison overseen by the Great Old Ones. We are dust to them. When they notice us they annihilate us as casually we unconsciously crush ants while walking. That's why human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution -- our every use of arcane magics, new ideas, and ever greater technologies risks drawing the notice of the Great Old Ones and our destruction.  

There is an ontological fallacy of expecting a light at the end of the tunnel -- well, that's what the preacher sells. But I'm not the nihilist my accusers say I am. I'm just skeptical of everything.

The only thing I knew for sure when I persuaded Vohilde to imprison me here was that I wanted to be alone. I didn't want to be anybody's burden.  I just wanted a place to contemplate the moment in the garden, the idea of allowing your own crucifixion. Then they started bringing in more and more damned people.

We live in a world where nothing is solved. Before I was a cop, I worked in a pizzeria. Someone I worked with once told me, 'Time is a flat circle.' Everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again. 

Jax and Silvermist guided the prisoners to the surface with reassurances they would escort the prisoners to their homes where the prisoners would be able to sleep in safety.  Rust responded, "I don't sleep.  I just dream."  

Rust nimbly ambled past all slower moving prisoners as he walked to the surface.  But he paused upon meeting Nimrod, who was recovering from his catatonia and staring at the coagulated blood that was caked onto his prized displacer cat cloak.  Rust drawled to Nimrod,

I think about the hubris it must take to yank a soul out of nonexistence into this meat. To force a life into this thresher.  

I can see your soul at the edges of your eyes. It's corrosive, like acid. You've got a demon, little man. And that demon's name is despair. Don't get yourself down about that unicorn kicking your ass.  Try to learn from your well earned defeat.  You need to be introspective about your situation or it will consume you.

The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.

 

Jax and Silvermist looked at each other, their faces grim with the knowledge of the horrors they had faced. They knew that they had triumphed, but at what cost? The nightmares they would have of this place would test their sanity for months to come.  As they looked around at the destruction they had wrought, the greasy octoroon flames licking hungrily at the walls of the laboratory, they couldn't help but wonder what other terrors lay waiting in the shadows, waiting to be unleashed upon the world.

Possible Next Moves:

1. Go directly to Brightguard Academy (Golden Orchid Society base)

2. Track down the marked locations in Vohilde's books (possibly powerful mages or artifacts that Vohilde had connections to)

3. Follow the money (track down the evil financial institution where Vohilde and her siblings kept their money)

4. Seek out the rumors of deserters from the Golden Orchid Society

we chose path 2, with a priority on finding the mage called KM

3 more adventures before we level up.

House of Constructionist Necromancers, Part 1

 

This Week's Bad Decision Guild Adventurers

• Silvermist Biggins: (she/her) half-elf/half-halfling drunken master monk.
• Nimrod Crowguile, esquire. a Corporate Lawyer of Kas Enterprises, a charismatic male Vuman warlock of Kas the Bloody Handed
• Devora -- a sword of valor bard who is a student intern at the Bad Decisions Guild for college credit, she/her
  
  

  

  Devora

  
  
  
  
• hooti-hoot -- Devora's owl familiar
• Nimbat/Nimowl, Nimrod's enthusiastic, ever-helpful bat/owl familiar
• Jax the investigative rogue dhampir (she/her)
• Dormin -- Nimrod's trusty shadow spirit, who Nimrod did not invoke this time

The party is currently at level 7.  This is the start of the first level 7 adventure.

The Adventure

The team followed the evidence of their Orchid Society investigation to #3 Sto Helit Lane in the city of Welton.  They were looking for necromancers.

The Bad Decision Makers -- minus Silvermist for now-- were nearing the address with only a few yards left of their journey when they heard screaming on the street and saw a injured and legless flesh golem clawing its way towards them as ordinary people fled in all directions.  A battle ensued in which Devora and Jax fought the creature at close quarters as Nimrod inflicted psionic damage from a safer distance.  The team dispatched the golem quickly, but not before it managed a deadly swipe of hooti-hoot.

The team proceeded cautiously the suspected around the nearest corner to address of the suspected necromancers.  They first tried the front door.  Then they inspected the wooden deck in front of the front door.  There they found a trap door to a room under the porch.  Opening the trap door revealed steep stairs to a small underground room that appeared to be a workspace.  Therein they found

3 silver keys

1 wooden key

1 jar of elbow grease

a jar of glass eyes and a jar of real eyes

Closer inspection found a hidden door within the small room that had three keyholes: a central keyhole, wood & decorated with "M"; leftmost keyhole, brass, decorated with a V (key jammed in lock); rightmost one's black steel, & decorated with a "P"

In this room the team (mostly Jax, the professional investigator) also found notes or diagram detailing strange lightning-powered machine (called "the apparatus") and describing the process of its development.  This had two sets of initials: "M." on it, "P." as well

The front door of the house was locked and could not be lock picked.  So Nimrod used misty step to get inside while looking through a front window.  Then Nimrod took 20 points of fire damage from fireplace, which was trapped to expel a tongue of flame when intruders step in front of it.

When everyone was inside, they examined the family portrait above the fireplace.  It had a red haired woman and her two identical twin brothers.  Names on the portrait indicated the woman was Vohild, and the brothers were named Pravok and Mazus.

The team continued exploring the house's ground floor.  In the kitchen they found a flesh golem that the household used for preparing food.  It was not aggressive.  It started chopping onions while they were there.

The team explored the back yard.  There was a planter that had many buried bones.

The team re-entered the house through the kitchen and went upstairs.  There they found many doors, each marked with an initial of one of the three inhabitants.

They entered a bathroom first.  It had a strong putrid smell coming from the bathtub which was filled with red, cloudy water.  A clay golem sprang out of the water and attacked.  The team dispatched it with some difficulty as it was immune to some of the team's attacks and may have regenerated a bit since it was in a highly acidic solution.

Then they entered Mazus' room.  This small room had a rat on a bedstand next to a bed.  A child's corpse under was under a blanket. The corpse was a sentient composite flesh golem that called itself "Alex".  Under closer investigation the rat was found to not behave like a rat as it did not fear Nimbat and was unresponsive to Jax's telepathic communications.  "Alex", when Jax took the rat using her mage hand and was about to drop it into the acid bath slammed Jax for 13 pts of damage and gave up all pretense of being a harmless child corpse. Now "Alex" freely admitted to being Mazus.  Nimrod, Jax, and Dev attacked until mazus was dead.

In Mazus' room, the team found a wooden trunk containing 5000 gold pieces, 1 scroll of mending , and 1 brooch of shielding.  The group gave Nimrod the brooch since it afforded him resistance to force damage and immunity to magic missiles.

Silvermist caught up with the rest of the team as the team exited Mazus' room.   With Silvermist present, the team had renewed confidence in their ability to explore this house. 

A team member opened another door and found a small closet in which a marrionette was sitting on the floor.  Even though the doll appeared inanimate and perhaps harmless, Nimrod immediately blasted it.  But somehow the marrionette redirected the attack to its strings. The doll immediately retaliated with a charm spell on the party.  Nimrod, Silvermist, and Jax successfully resisted the charm.  Nimowl, Devora, and Jax succumbed to the charm.

An invisible necromancer chose this moment to silently bound up the stairs and attack the party.  Fortunately, Silvermist's true sight allowed her to see the invisible necromancer before he attacked.  But rather than immediately capitalize her true sight, she instead used a flurry of blows to slap Jax and Devora back into their senses so they could have a chance to defend themselves.  This was fortuitous because the necro's first action was a cone of cold and everyone was in its zone of effect.

Nimrod took full damage from the cone of cold.  Everyone else was able to dodge at least some of the damage.  But everyone except Nimowl survived.  

Silvermist fought the Necro with her martial arts as everyone else attacked and destroyed the marrionette.  The Necro used a poison spray to fight back against Silvermist.  But this kept his attention solely on Silvermist, which gave Jax the chance to land the killing blow on the doll.

Nimrod made everyone in the party except Silvermist invisible to gain some safety from the Necro. The Necro decided he would start speaking, perhaps to lure or goad the party out of the invisibility.  It turned out Provak was the Necro. Some trash talk between him and Devora gave Silvermist the clue to his identity. A cone of cold sent Silvermist back into blackness; but Jax poured a potion down Silvermist’s throat so she could rejoin the battle. She came to consciousness as Devora insulted Provak’s education & need for student loans.  The battle was fairly even until Nimrod casted bane on Provak.  Now that Provak was burdened with a bane, the fight quickly and decisively ended with Provak's demise.

Provak was carrying a collection of severed toes, a small brain in a jar, a class ring from the "Unseen University", and a spell book.  Nimrod eagerly clutched at the spell book with the intention of copying Provak's ritual spells into Nimrod's own book of shadows.  The spells Nimrod could copy were detect magic, find familiar, identify, and unseen servant.

The team then entered Provak’s room where a corpse that was manacled to a bed by a long chain immediately attacked. Everyone beat the corpse until it was weak enough for Nimrod's mind sliver to destroy it. In this room they found a key ring with 2 keys, 1 small manacle key, and 1 black steel key. The team also found Provak's journal and his notes about the mechanism.

Provak's Room at the end of the session