Scarlet Citadel Session 13 – Ooze Eruption!

Here’s the write up for our thirteenth Scarlet Citadel session. Hopefully these write ups will prove useful to others running the adventure. 

You can read earlier posts here. This post contains spoilers for Scarlet Citadel.

---

This session, we were down to three characters again (Allia, Dimitar and Torander) as the group decided to return to the Scarlet Citadel after a couple of sessions in Redtower and the pocket dimension containing the remains of Memoria. 

Before leaving, they quizzed Tymon, Gellert the Gruesome’s former apprentice whom they’d rescued last session, and learned that the Scarlet Citadel was built on the intersection of three powerful ley lines. Tymon also told the party that he’d seen goblins skulking around on level 2.

The journey through the woods to the Citadel was interrupted by a trio of doom boars; a fun monster from the Grim Hollow Monster Grimoire. These two-headed boars have the ability to curse their foes with a random effect when they hit with their tusks. After fighting these creatures and then a wight on level 1 of the dungeon, the adventurers felt they needed a long rest before braving level 2. 

After resting, the characters headed downstairs to level 2, being extra careful this time not to trigger the trap on the stairs yet again. Allia picked the lock to the Ooze Incubators chamber where several ooze mephits were buzzing around. It wasn’t long before one of the mephits freed the huge gelatinous cube/ochre jelly hybrid and we rolled initiative.

Luckily for the adventurers, the giant ooze caught a few of the mephits as well as the PCs with its Ooze Eruption attack, reducing the number of combatants in the room, although I did add a couple of (cute) gelatinous cubelets from Arcadia #10 under the bed and in the library nook. Torander’s shadow puppets kept the hybrid from attacking and eventually the characters were able to kill it. By this time the floor of the chamber was deep in acidic goo so the party used the furniture to get from one side to the other without stepping in it and were able to retrieve most of the potions. Torander couldn’t make any sense of Maksilov’s papers so he threw them into the goo.

In the storerooms to the south, Torander disturbed the disgusting suppurating ooze with mage hand, provoking it into attacking the party. Dimitar was struck by the foul “meat juice” ooze before it could be killed. 

Then, Allia discovered a secret door leading to the hidden storage room where Maksilov keeps her most expensive alchemical components inside a gelatinous cube. As the cube emerged, Dimitar was engulfed, taking a fair bit of damage before being freed. 

That’s where we ended the session. I’m looking forward to seeing where the characters go next….

---

If you’d like to keep up to date with my Scarlet Citadel campaign and other posts, please do join my mailing list – there’s a sign up form on the home page. 

---

Main image by David Auden Nash