In our fourth session, we continued Chapter 1 Dread Chambers of the Undercity by Chris Lockey. Here’s the write up which contains spoilers for the campaign.
7th High Summer, 92 FY
Joined by Bubbles, the characters return to the catacombs. En route, Kalo, Penumbra’s new pseudodragon familiar, hears a noise from a side passage. In the room beyond a caged ice mephit is keeping several dead bodies cold. The compassionate Zygmunt smashes open the cage to release the little creature.
The adventurers kill two ghouls in the catacombs, then enter the passage that the Red Priestess fled down. Zygmunt and Louthin spend an hour clearing the rubble from the collapsed roof trap so the party can get through.
Bubbles follows the Red Priestess’ tracks, leading the characters to the entrance of the Hidden Temple of Marena. Penumbra sends the human guard to sleep and they dispatch the ogre ghoul. Waking the guard up, they interrogate him, learning that he is a member of the Cult of Forbidden Ecstasies, led by Felixia Bael-Sheth, the Red Sister.
he characters open the door into the main temple where a perverted ritual is taking place: Rozalyn Turyr is chained to a pillar and being tormented by the bewitched consul Melancha Vendemic, as Felixia and over a dozen masked cultists look on. Bubbles and Penumbra sneak into the hall and attack with surprise.
The adventurers kill Felixia and the other cultists in an epic battle, rescuing Rozalyn and capturing the naïve Zobeck citizens mixed up in the cult. Melancha ran off during the fight after the spell that had enchanted her was broken, so they set off in search of her with Rozalyn and one of the cult members in tow.
Searching the bedchambers and pleasure rooms of the temple complex, the party find incriminating letters to Felixia, revealing more about the plot to divert Zobeck’s attentions away from its northern borders. They battle a red glass golem and a rug of smothering, before finding Melancha hiding under a bed. The consul reveals she had been seduced by the cult, who were pressuring her into voting for Zobeck to increase military support for the Magdar Kingdom to the southeast.
Back in the city above, Louthin gives a speech in the marketplace, proclaiming Zobeck’s kobolds innocent of the recent kidnappings, as Rozalyn is reunited with her father and husband. The characters go to the Blue House with their three witnesses and report the cult’s activities to Lady Marack.
Richard Green | Game Designer 