Scarlet Citadel Session 53 – Return of the Shadow River Lord

Here’s the write up from our final Scarlet Citadel session for 2023, in which the PCs faced Llagfel, then freed the Shadow River Lord, and did it all over again. We ended the session for the Christmas break on a massive cliffhanger!

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

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As green smoke wafts out of the braziers, Professor Yaffle flies out of the room and the characters shut the door. After a brief discussion, they decide to go back in and attack the armoured skeletal figure – Llagfel the hierophant lich. 

Tricksy casts mirror image and enters the chamber, but is blasted by a toll the dead spell from the lich. Next, Llagfel cast spirit guardians to protect herself as phantom wights emerge from behind their paintings on the walls. Clairmont joins Tricksy, casting dawn to surround Llagfel in bright light. Meanwhile Tunde and Maya cast eldritch blasts, healing spells, and guiding bolts from the doorway. 

Llagfel casts flame strike, and Clairmont loses concentration on his dawn spell. He responds with fireball, and Llagfel loses concentration on her spirit guardians! 

As Llagfel continues to attack with toll the dead and the green miasma inflicts necrotic damage on Tricksy and Clairmont, Yaffle bravely flies close to Llagfel, distracting her, which allows Tricksy to run in and steal the large tooth hanging around the lich’s neck. 

Llagfel doesn’t seem to notice the theft, casting banishment to send Clairmont off to a demiplane. Maya casts flame strike and the lich falls to the ground dead, so Clairmont returns. While Tricksy flees using misty step, more phantom wights appear and the cleric of Khors is almost surrounded. Tunde casts solitary fireball to destroy the wight in the doorway but others takes its place. Then, Maya turns the undead and the wights retreat. Clairmont makes a run for it and Tricksy slams and locks the door!

Battered and bruised with reduced hit point maximums from the wights’ life drains and the green smoke, the characters steer their raft to the crypt with the stone sarcophagus and have a much-needed short rest. 

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Refreshed, Tricksy inserts the purple worm’s tooth into the sarcophagus, freeing the Shadow River Lord and flooding the chamber. As the water level rises and the Shadow River Lord’s skeletal servitors swim into the room, Clairmont casts water walk on the party so they can stand on the river’s surface. 

The Shadow River Lord is determined to destroy his enemy Llagfel. He tells the characters the lich “cannot be destroyed while Vardesain’s abomination exists. To slay it requires the staff and the light from the shrine. I cannot touch them, but you can. Open it with your wits, not your flesh. With the staff, unlock the chained thing’s cave. With the lamp, kill Vardesain’s curse.”

Reluctantly, the shadow river lord agrees to wait while the characters have a long rest before going to confront Llagfel. 

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Once the characters have rested, they cast death wards to protect themselves, then follow the Shadow River Lord back to Llagfel’s crypt. Tunde casts expeditious retreat, then runs in to examine the door in the west wall, spotting the glyph of warding. As the Shadow River Lord, the lich,and their undead minions battle against each other, Clairmont casts sanctuary on Tunde and Tricksy to keep them safe from being attacked. 

Tunde casts dispel magic to remove the glyph of warding, then Maya casts a second spell to get rid of the arcane lock. Tricksy enters the room and grabs Vardesain’s ghastly staff from the defaced statue of Charun using mage hand; Maya takes the ghoul light…..

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Main image by David Auden Nash