Here’s what happened in our 29th Scarlet Citadel session, in which the adventurers finally made it down to the dwarven barracks on Level 3.
You can read earlier posts here. This post contains spoilers for Scarlet Citadel.
After escaping from the ogrepede last session, we began with the party standing at the top of the infamous spiral staircase down to Level 2.
Tricksy goes ahead, leaving the rest of the group further up the stairs, safely above the sluices that unleash the acid. At the bottom, the elf leaps over both pressure plates and deliberately triggers the trap so that the acid drains into the grates. Next, he wedges the pressure plate in the antechamber. With the trap disabled – at least for now – the characters are safe to join him.
The party head west through the distillery where Maya shouts at Tricksy, stopping him from fiddling with stuff on the desk to avoid disturbing the ink guardian ooze.
As the rogue continues to scout ahead, he blunders into a pack of deinonychuses, brought into the dungeon by the time construct. I used the stat block from Monsters of the Multiverse for these guys, but gave them Pack Tactics to make them more of a challenge. This worked well as Tricksy ended up dropping to 2 hp and having to use his Cunning Action to escape.
Once the deinonychuses had been dealt with and the clerics have given Tricksy some much needed healing, the group carried on towards the stairs to Level 3.
Another dinosaur – a confused and angry ankylosaurus – is crashing around in the summoning chamber. Grabbing a barrel of olives from the storeroom, Clairmont manages to distract the huge beast by rolling a natural 20 on his Wisdom (Animal Handling) check. As the dinosaur chows down on the spilled olives, the characters are able to get safely past. After reaching the stairs, the group has a long rest in Cagoth-Ze’s study.
The adventurers head down to the dwarven barracks on Level 3. Tricksy uses his cloak of the bat to fly ahead in bat form, making a circuit of the entry hall. Not wanting to feel left out, Clairmont and Tunde send their familiars ahead to look around too.
Unfortunately, Pop the spider is spotted by the dire owlbear in the next chamber, and a small band of trollkin and the owlbear attack the party. Farthrum attacks the owlbear as the trollkin grunts follow it into the room. Both Pop and Professor Yaffle are killed – poor Pop is incinerated by his own master’s fireball – but the characters are victorious. There’s no time to celebrate, though, as reinforcements are on the way. Maya readies a guiding bolt and Tricksy casts fog cloud in the direction of their foes.
Clairmont, Farthrum and Maya all have enough experience points for 6th level, but they need to get safely back to Redtower first…
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Main image by David Auden Nash
Richard Green | Game Designer 