It’s taken a while but the characters finally dealt with the clacker beetles in this week’s session! I added a clacker beetle queen to the nest, reskinning the carrion beetle from Tome of Beasts 1 and replacing its Acid Spit with a more powerful version of the soldier’s Clack. We’re not quite done with the Clacking Caverns yet as my players are determined to figure out the two floating pools.
You can read earlier posts here. This post contains spoilers for Scarlet Citadel.
Before taking on the clacker beetles again, the adventurers decide to try and solve the mystery of the two floating pools.
Tunde orders her familiar Mab to assume the form of an anchor, then ties her to 150 feet of rope with the bronze hook at the end. Mab is lowered into the pitch black northern pool and immediately winks out as soon as she enters the water.
Next, the characters experiment by dangling first a dead beetle, then a live fish on the end of the hook which they lower into the southern pool. A few quippers nibble on the beetle, while the live fish frees itself and swims away. With assistance from the others, Maya puts her leg into the pool and pulls it back out again; she is unharmed. Finally, they put a dead fish on the end of the hook and watch confused as it is eaten by quippers.
Unsure what to try next, the characters decide to attack the clacker beetles in their nest. They drink the potions of thunder resistance they bought from Zula, then Tricksy turns himself into a bat and flies into the cavern. After spotting the large clacker beetle queen in the northern cave, he assumes his true form and casts web, ensnaring some of the beetles. Then, the other characters crawl into the cavern, surrounded by two sets of overlapping spirit guardians and wielding three spiritual weapons.
Tunde and Tricksy are attacked by swarms, but are partially protected from their constant clacking by their potions. More beetles appear, only to be blasted by the spirit guardians when they get too close. The beetle queen emerges from her cave and joins the fray but is also weakened by the spirits and by the clerics’ spiritual weapon attacks. When she bites Tunde, the warlock responds with a hellish rebuke, killing the giant beetle. With their leader destroyed, the surviving beetles disperse, allowing the characters to gather the treasure strewn around the nest including the Holly King’s missing staff.
Tricksy summons Professor Yaffle again and the owl is sent down the hole in the queen’s chamber. Below is submerged tunnel leading to a cavern covered in orange fungi to the north and one filled with large saber-toothed bats to the southwest.
The characters decide it’s time to return to Redtower but tidy up the caverns first by throwing the dead beetles into the southern pool. Clairmont skilfully removes a large section of the beetle queen’s carapace which he gives to Tunde to decorate the exterior of her hut in the forest.
Outside the owlbear tunnel, the adventurers meet a robin which leads them to the briar tangle in the forest they discovered six months ago. Zinsalor, servant of the Holly King, is waiting inside. Zinsalor takes the staff and suggests the characters look under a nearby holly bush where they find a necklace of prayer beads.
Back in Redtower, Clairmont casts remove curse on Tricsky so the elf can take off Gerhardt III’s ring.
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Main image by David Auden Nash
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Richard Green | Game Designer 