Rise of the Runelords Recap # 72 [RPG]

[4 Calistril 4708 continued]

As the smoke clears from the furious fighting, Salma suddenly cocks her head as if listening to an unseen voice.  She announces that she has to leave on urgent business, but will return soon—and then teleports away!

But the surprises don’t stop there: a low rumble of words can be heard to the north—the stone giant’s equivalent of a whisper!  “I don’t have much time,” says the voice.  “But know that if you are here to slay Mokmurian, I am your ally.  Come with me to a place where we can speak in peace, for I would aid you in your quarrel here—without my assistance you might find only your graves below Jorgenfist.”  A brazier is ignited, and the adventurers can see that the speaker is an older female stone giant wearing heavy bearskins over her shoulders. 

Conna is the first ally the adventurers have

 found in Jorgenfist . . . if she can be trusted!

Although wary of a trap, they agree to follow her to a cave whose walls are painted with images of giants, mammoths, elk, deer, wyverns, and more.  A simple oil lantern illuminates a small altar, and a modest offering of antlers, hooves, and patches of fur have been piled in front of it.  “My name is Conna,” says the stone giant, the last remaining elder of the Kavarvatti tribe.  After having been cast out, Mokmurian returned to the tribe full of dark power.  He defeated the tribe’s other elder, Vandarrec and had his body blasphemously sacrificed here in this shrine to the Plateau People’s ancestral spirits.”  Conna goes on to explain that she’s been tending the shrine since Mokmurian’s rise to power, praying for the intervention of outsiders strong enough to defeat Mokmurian and keep him from leading the assembled tribes into a disastrous war against the city dwellers. After the adventurers pledge themselves to stopping Mokmurian before the invasion is launched (something that will happen in a matter of weeks, if not days), Conna says she asks only one thing in return for help—that as many of her kin be spared as possible.  She goes on to explain that Mokmurian spends almost all of his time in the library level below and that there are two different approaches that lead there, an eastern route that is heavily guarded and a southern one that is less so.  But, she says, a powerful knight was recently captured on the surface and has been taken to the “Sihedron Room” for branding and sacrifice!  Conna says that if the adventurers hurry, they might be able to add another ally to their side.

Before they leave, Conna mentions one final thing: she fears that Mokmurian has fallen under the influence of a powerful evil spirit—one of the legendary Ancient Lords who enslaved her people millennia ago.  She says she’s heard Mokmurian whisper the name of this spirit when he thought he was alone: “Karzoug.”  Kang remembers hearing this name before—as the figure responsible for binding the pit fiend to thousands of years of service inside Skull’s Crossing!

Lokansir, one of the legendary jotunblooded 

giants, was truly an imposing figure.

The adventurers decide their first priority should be to seeing if they can rescue the captured knight.  They follow a long, relatively straight corridor until they reach a massive set of stone doors carved with an immense seven-pointed star.  When they push the doors open, before them is a large rectangular chamber.  The floor is loose soil, into which seven fifteen-foot-tall tree trunks have been driven into the ground like immense stakes.  And manacled to one of them is one of the celestial-blooded: an aasimar!  Unfurling his dragonfly wings, Kang flies over to the aasimar, completely unprepared for what happens next: a truly gigantic hill giant covered in runic tattoos somehow emerges directly from the ground and swats Kang like a fly, using a warclub that’s larger than the victim!  Suffering cracked ribs, Kang manages to weave an evasive pattern and escape.  Undeterred, Jinkatsyu charges in and stabs the giant in the hand, forcing him to drop his club.  An amazing display of swordplay follows, as the dashing kitsune fills the hapless giant with so many bloody holes that it collapses with an echoing boom!

The unchained aasimar introduces himself as Whistin, Paladin of Ragathiel.  He says he worships the empyreal lord of chivalry, duty, and vengeance, and was captured in an attempt to destroy the growing evil within Jorgenfist because he was a firsthand witness to the destruction of his home—Turtleback Ferry--in the recent flood!  Kang quickly changes the subject, and explains that he and the others are here to stop Mokmurian.  Whistin is keen to join the crusade, and together the group moves back down the corridor.

Before long, they hear voices coming from the southeast, speaking a harsh tongue that Kang explains is Draconic.  “Sulaminga, I hunger!  When shall we have fresh meat?” asks one of the voices.  Ava panicks and says they should move quickly back to the deathweb cave to rest and recover.  The group makes it back there without further incident.  They rest for a little while before Kang announces he’s perfected a new recipe for his explosives.  The adventurers decide to press further on this day and clear more of the way to Mokmurian.  Instead of taking the “safer” southern path, they decide it would be better to secure the eastern approach so that nothing sneaks up on them from behind when they descend to the library.  The group returns to a spot near where they heard the conversation in Draconic.  The disgusting parasitic tumor on Kang’s back begins to move and wriggle erratically until it suddenly emerges from the back of his shirt and splits into two!  Kang gives one half strict instructions to go scout out the cave ahead, reassuring his allies that it’s perfectly expendable.  When the crawling, sluglike thing returns, it whispers in Kang’s ears: “Dragons, my lord, dragons!”

The surprised young dragons, charmed and enslaved

 to serve Mokmurian, were no match for the adventurers.

The adventurers decide to charge in and take the dragons by surprise—and the plan works perfectly!  Kang’s bomb knocks one of the dragons off its feet in perfect synchronicity with Jinkatsyu’s charge.  Whistin readies a polearm and flies in with a battlecry to attack the other.  One of the stunned dragons manages to breathe a gout of flame, but the experienced adventurers have no trouble taking down both dragons quickly.  However, there was one unforeseen flaw in the adventurers’ plan: the attack has given the inhabitants of the chamber directly adjacent to the dragons’ lair time to prepare their defences.

Jinkatsyu advances and sees a chamber filled with incense smoke, the walls of which are painted with angular symbols of a three-eyed, jackal-like visage.  The swashbuckler has stumbled into an unholy
shrine to Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters, and the shrine’s two priestesses cackle with malevolent joy to see new playthings.  Each of the priestesses is a lamia, and their magical defences prove strong as Jinkatsyu’s and later Whistin’s attacks often go awry due to illusory duplicates.  The two lamias quickly get on either side of Jinkatsyu and take turns touching him with an ungloved hand, each touch sapping him of his willpower.  In seconds, he collapses to the ground!  Kang shouts for Ava to get ready for a retreat and hurls another bomb, but the adventurers can’t get to Jinkatsyu before it’s too late.  With a euphoric evocation of Lamashtu’s name, one of the lamias decapitates him!  Ava’s command of trans-dimensional magics allows her to move in and teleport herself, Whistin, and Jinkatsyu’s body back to the deathweb cave.  Kang, for his part, flies away invisibly on dragonfly wings and manages to outrun and outwit the chasing lamias.

Inheritors of an ancient curse, lamias go out 

of their way to bring hardship 

to holy places and worshippers

In the cave, Ava sobs as she calls down the spiritual might of Sinashakti for the magical energies needed to bring Jinkatsyu back to life.  It works.  But for the first time since their arrival in Jorgenfist, the adventurers have truly met their match.  Will they be able to overcome the cunning and magical power of the Lamashtu priestesses?

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Director's Commentary (September 22, 2019)

Salma's player had to miss this session, hence the abrupt, mysterious exit at the beginng

I think Conna was good to help fill in some of the backstory, and there's not many NPCs to role-play with in this chapter.  I do wish her situation had been a bit more complex, because the conversation boiled down to "I want you to help me."  "Okay."  "Cool, bye."

Whistin was the new PC for the player who previous ran Nerissa.  As you will soon see, Whistin was not long for this world.

I thought Kang using his familiar (with a duplication spell) to scout was really cool and very smart.  It was one of the very few times the PCs actually scouted ahead (physically or magically).  It worked well, and I'm surprised there wasn't more of it throughout the campaign.

Man, these lamias!  They're treated as just another monster in the AP and not given much backstory or attention, but they were tough for this group of adventurers!  It's funny how a little thing like mirror image can stifle the best swordsman, and how they were able to use their own touch attacks to kill a PC (a bit of poetic justice, as eventually we'll have almost every PC doing touch attacks for the "I Win" button in a campaign full of creatures with natural armor).