Here’s the write up from our 50th (!) Scarlet Citadel session. I really like the Black River – I think it’s my favourite level of the dungeon.
You can read earlier posts here. This post contains spoilers for Scarlet Citadel.
While the others wait outside on the raft, Tricksy explores the golden pyramids chamber. He studies the writing on the floor, realising to his horror that it is written in Void Speech and harmful to mortal minds. As well as taking 11 hp psychic damage, he has a vision of the tops of the golden pyramids meshed together with a spider’s web. He returns to the raft, shaken.
The characters drink potions of healing and discuss Tricksy’s vision. They speculate that the room might contain a portal to the infamous Plateau of Leng and decide to leave it well alone!
Yaffle scouts ahead, flying into a crystal garden with an immense humanoid statue standing in the middle. Two weird translucent worms curled around the statue. The owl flies back out again!
Next, he finds a chamber with a fountain shaped like a fish and room full of treasure beyond. The characters decide to head in this direction. As the raft travels towards the landing, rocks thrust suddenly from the water, damaging and trapping the vessel.
Before the adventurers can free the raft, a pair of scrags appear from the water and attack the group. Clairmont casts water walking on the party and Tricksy takes to the air. Maya is clobbered by the trolls but is healed by Tunde. Clairmont kills one scrag with scorching ray; Tunde kills the second with her eldritch blasts. Battered by the fight, the group drink more potions, then carry their raft over the rocks.
Yaffle flies ahead again, entering a flooded chamber with a stone sarcophagus. The characters investigate, and determine that the coffin contains an enemy of Vardesain, the Hunger God. They notice that the worm motif decorating the sarcophagus is missing a tooth….
The next landing leads to a shrine dominated by a hideous statue of a bloated frog. On the opposite bank is another landing with a blackened steel door marked with an immense worm crushing a skull in its maw. Even further on, there is blood-spattered chamber with a huge demonic statue.
The characters decide none of these chambers look appealing and make for the landing with the fish-shaped fountain. Tricksy spots muddy, webbed footprints on the floor, and finds fish scales in the basin and a silver whistle inside the fish’s mouth. He fills a vial with water from the basin.
After checking for traps, the group loot the treasure chamber to the east. When they return to their raft, deep ones emerge from the water. The priest of Dagon casts spirit guardians, giving the characters a taste of their own medicine! Clairmont casts wall of fire which proves effective at wiping out deep ones, but also sets fire to the party’s raft. Tricksy blows the whistle at the end of the fight but nothing seems to happen.
They repair the raft, and Clairmont casts water walk again so they can carry it back over the rocks. They set off for the Shrine of Charun but something weird is going on. The Black River stretches onwards but there is no sign of the shrine!
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Main image by David Auden Nash
Richard Green | Game Designer 