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Merric Blackman
Australia
Waubra
Victoria
Ramping up my reviewing.
Happily playing games for many, many years.
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Demon Queen’s Enclave – Session 6
DM: Merric
Players:
Greg – Shava, dragonborn cleric 15
Josh – Orthos, goliath fighter 15
Nathaniel – Lienatan, half-elf warlock 16
Adam – Underscore, eladrin wizard 15
NPC – Splug, goblin rogue 15
Descent into the Depths
Across the bridge lay a slaver complex - below the bridge, the group could just make out the auction block and slaveyard. The antechamber of the complex was clear, with a great mosaic of a surface elf, bloodied and in chains, and statues of similar elves. Splug confirmed that both sets of interior doors were unlocked, and that he could hear movement on the other side. Shava stepped up to the doors, and knocked.
This time, the strategy didn't work so well: the doors opened, all right: pushed open by drow ghouls ravening for the flesh of the PCs. Shava and Splug slew the first two, and then Shava stepped into the corridor beyond to see what else was attacking.
A number of things, it turned out: an abyssal ghoul and a Mithrenda (a spider-abomination created by Lolth from a drow who failed the Test). These two immobilised and captured Shava, and smote him heavily and with great effect. Meanwhile, the other door to the antechamber burst open, revealing a pair of spiderleg horrors (Chwidenchas) which jumped onto Lienatan and struck him hard - Lienatan went from full health to bloodied with those twin attacks!
Lienatan teleported away, and Splug moved around to help him. Orthos moved into the corridor to fight the ghouls and the mithrenda. Ghoul after ghoul minion arrived and was slain, and slowly the group managed to get the battle under control. Shava was hurt terribly, but she used her clerical powers to sustain herself and smite the undead she was fighting. Eventually, all their enemies were slain, but it had been a difficult combat.
The exploration of the compound found little of value, and soon the group turned to the next building compound: a noble's villa that appeared to have little damage.
Entering its portal, the group found several drow attendants standing silently behind gauzy curtains. The drow gestured towards a pair of open double doors leading further into the villa. When they approached, they discovered the mistress of the house: Lareen, a drow vampire lady. She commanded her minions to attack and all save Shava were surprised and slow to react. Good old high Bluff vs. Insight!
Banshees rose from a pool of blood, vampire spawn attacked from all around, and a sword wraith - one of the most dangerous creatures the group had yet faced - attacked, weakening Shava and greatly hurting the group's power against the undead.
The vampire spawn were little threat - Lienatan's ability to deal damage when teleporting and the scorching bursts of Underscore soon put paid to any threat from those minions (although they did get a few hits in). However, the rest of the undead were far more dangerous. Shava was preoccupied with the sword wraith, but Underscore proved to be the unlikely saviour, using a unusual spell called Soul Puppets. (link to D&D Compendium entry) This spell dominated undead it worked against and, by virtue of a natural 20, Lareen was soon dominated (and had little chance of saving due to Underscore's Orb of Domination).
A portal to some unknown place beckoned, and Underscore forced Lareen to go through it. That reduced the threat on the party significantly, and they could concentrate on aiding Shava. Shava did have one great advantage against the wraith: most of her attacks did radiant damage, which stopped its regeneration and dealt extra damage against this insubstantial foe with its weakening strike. Shava was bloodied but unbowed when it finally fell. The two banshees lasted only a little time later - one had been dominated by Underscore, the other dominated (via the Will of the Feywild) by Lienatan - and thus had been generally ineffective.
With the undead slain and Lareen not returning through the portal, the group now had to decide what to do next. And where does the portal lead, anyway?
Another short session, but two very intense combats. I really attacked Greg's Paladin (Shava) in both fights, and almost took him down. This was another Tuesday evening session; we're back to our fortnightly Sunday afternoon sessions next time. Both combats lasted about an hour, which is quite slow for this group. Tiredness slowed us down, along with a greater number of different enemies which had quite a number of attacks that inflicted conditions.
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Young & Lawful Good
United Kingdom
Redhill
Surrey
Support comes in many forms: community involvement, forum posts, submitting data, word-of-mouth advertising, financial donations... All of these are vital to this site, and you have my sincere thanks for participating in any of them.
Currently: banned as per http://rpggeek.com/article/9104203#9104203
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This article is a duplicate of: N/A. (Probably caused by pressing the back button in your browser following submission of the article - a very common mistake that is simple to make, so no blame pointed at you at all.)
You should be able to delete this post yourself, Merric.  Best to do so before two independent threads of replies start up.
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Merric Blackman
Australia
Waubra
Victoria
Ramping up my reviewing.
Happily playing games for many, many years.
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I was having time-outs, actually, when posting yesterday. I've deleted the other threads that got repeated, so this is now the original.
Cheers!
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Levi Mote
United States
California
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Great report, Can't wait to see how things go in the Dreadhold.
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Ramping up my reviewing.
