Scarlet Citadel Session 61 – The Frightened Fungi

Here’s the write up from our 61st Scarlet Citadel session, in which the PCs returned to the Black River on Level 5 to explore further.

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

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Tricksy blows his magical whistle and the Boatman appears. The characters pay his fee and ask to be taken to the “mushroom cavern”. As the boat floats towards the rocks in the middle of the river, the Boatman waves his hand and the rocks disappear beneath the surface of the water, allowing the craft to continue west.

After travelling some distance through the dark caverns, the boat docks at the mushroom cavern and the characters disembark. Clairmont and Maya can sense the telepathic presence of the fungi and realise they can communicate with them. The pair talk to the mushrooms, learning of their fear of the deep ones and the presence of something even more evil to the east.

Meanwhile, Tricksy sends Yaffle to scout the ledge that overlooks the cavern. As the owl flies up into the darkness, he immediately winks out, killed by the deep ones lurking above. The deep one priest casts ice storm, triggering the mushrooms’ collective anxiety; this means the characters and deep ones have to make Charisma saves each turn or become frightened.

The adventurers attack the deep ones. Tricksy casts Tasha’s hideous laughter which has a deep one writhing around on the floor in hysterics; another one flees, diving into the river, terrified by the mushrooms’ screaming. The priest defends himself with spirit guardians but Maya soon breaks his concentration and Clairmont kills him with four scorching rays. 

With the deep ones defeated, the character search the ledge where they find some treasure and a bound and gagged captive, a man called Renry Lofulthur. He says he was captured near Triolo on the coast by deep ones and brought here. He agrees to fight alongside the party until they can return to the surface.

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After a short rest, the party cross a stone bridge over the river to a shrine dedicated to the sea god Nethus. As they examine the god’s statue, more deep ones appear in the water below and attack. To make matters worse, the statue’s missing head (an idolic deity from Tome of Beasts) floats into the air and attacks Tricksy, reducing him to 8 hp.

Clairmont fireballs the deep ones in the water. The survivors climb up and attack the characters and Renry on the ledge. Then, the statue’s head causes Clairmont’s faith in Khors to waver and he fails to explode into radiance twice. Tunde casts power word fling on the head, propelling it into the wall. At that moment, Clairmont recovers his faith and casts guiding bolt to kill the deep one priest. Renry finishes off the floating head and the characters smash the rest of Nethus’s statue. 

Returning to the mushroom cave, the group settles down for a long rest. Clairmont promises the mushrooms that he will seal off the cavern entrance with stone shape so they are not threatened again.

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Main image by David Auden Nash