Here’s the latest write up in which the PCs returned to the Scarlet Citadel on a mission to deal with the Chained Thing and close the portal to the Dry Lands. We only had the three cleric players for this session – Tricksy the river elf rogue was missing.
You can read earlier posts here. This post contains spoilers for Scarlet Citadel.
The characters return to the Scarlet Citadel via the owlbear tunnel armed with ropes and carpenter’s tools so they can build a raft and travel down the Black River.
In the owlbear stables, they check that the ladder down to the Bat Caverns is still pulled up how they left it. Next, they check that the traps in the corridor to the north haven’t been repaired. Clairmont listens at the door to the Great Hall and hears trollkin voices. Tunde summons her familiar Mab who wriggles through one of the arrow slits into the Great Hall where it spies a group of trollkin warriors sitting around a fire playing mumblety-peg with their daggers.
Clairmont charges in and casts fireball, and soon finds himself surrounded. Maya rushes in to help while Tunde attacks from range. All three clerics summon their spiritual weapons. When Bjrnyar the trollkin leader manoeuvres round to attack Tunde, the witch beheads him with her spiritual sickle!
With their leader dead, the other trollkin surrender. They tell the characters that a deadly construct that glows blue, has no legs, and flies is marauding through the dwarven halls and they blame the adventurers for releasing it. The trollkin try to persuade the party to deal with the creature in exchange for raft building materials, but the characters refuse and take the timber they need anyway.
The characters have a short rest, then spend the next few hours building a raft by the Shrine of Charun on the banks of the Black River. It seems reasonably river-worthy so they travel upstream (west). After half an hour, the group is attacked by a pair of cipactli demons. Tunde is grabbed and pulled into the water to be devoured by the demon’s many mouths. Clairmont blasts the fiend with scorching rays, killing it, and Tunde is able to get back on the raft but suffers the effects of the necrotoxic water. Maya also falls in, but the characters are able to slay the second demon and continue upstream.
They spot a landing ahead of them where an armoured figure is standing. The faceless construct asks in Elvish “How far have you descended along the steps from above?” The characters say they don’t know how to answer the question, and the figure waves its hand and the group are teleported.
They appear inside the skull circle inlaid in the floor of the Bat Caverns in front of Imortra the Debased and her barbed devil companion! Maya banishes the barbed devil back to the Eleven Hells, while Clairmont attacks Imortra. The mage doesn’t feel like sticking around and vanishes. Meanwhile, two mindrot thralls appear from the prisoners quarters and vomit spores over Maya and Tunde. The clerics all cast spirit guardians and the thralls are soon dispatched.
Heading north and then east the group come to a door they think might lead to where Imortra is hiding. Tunde tries to open it, triggering a glyph of warding, then Maya tries and fails to bash it open. Next, Clairmont heads north to the crystal chamber and is attacked by an invisible assailant that blasts him with crystal shards. He withdraws back down the corridor to join the others.
Perhaps Tricksy will be able to open the door when he rejoins the party?
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 and subscribers receive a free Parsantium supplement.
Main image by David Auden Nash
Discover more from Richard Green | Game Designer
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Richard Green | Game Designer 