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| The door out of the Ice Castle into the depths below |
Timekeeping
This session took place on 27/02/2025, and the PCs adventured for 1 day.
Introduction
Having taken the Ice Castle in the previous session, and then having weathered the worst of the Bandit Mountains' winter months there; the party was now ready to explore the mysteries beneath the castle beyond the Wizard Locked door.
Player Characters Present
Slippery Pete (Level 9 Thief, wearer of the Hat of Disguise and wielder of the Black Dagger)Sever (Level 8 Pegasus Corps Ranger of Machodor, wielder of Were'shbane and wearer of the Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, rider of Mustang) with henchman Rabbit (1/2 Elf F/M/T 1)Giuseppe (Level 7 Paladin of Rome, Brovenloft, wielder of the Dragonslayer and the Shield of Protection from Missiles, rider of Bonecrusher) with henchmen Bishoy and Tawadros (F5)Sheamus (Level 7 Irish Fighter from Brovenloft, rider of the Rocket Cycle and wielder of the Drewblade) with henchman McScales (Lizardman F3)Gurt the Green (Level 5 Paladin of Machodor, wielder of the Liberator+3, rider of Artax) with henchman Solaire (P3) and Anri (M3)Bumblebore (Level 5 Magic User of Machodor, wielder of the Wand of Paralysation) and Firedrake Familiar O'Malfoy
Downtime
Session Report
For some time now the guards assigned to it had reported a strange sound emanating from the other side of the Wizard Locked door at the back of the castle. A sort of 'tinkling' sound, as though icicles were falling onto a solid surface and breaking.
Slippery Pete wanted to listen, and I took a moment to calculate if he was Keen Eared, which I should have done long ago but better late than never.
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| DMG p.60 |
Amazingly, Pete has keen ears after all, which as a thief I interpret as being a +10% bonus to his normal thief skill, Hear Noise. However, at this time, even he could not hear anything.
The players took this in and then formulated a marching order, with all the henchman there was quite of bit of jostling. When they were ready Bumblebore cast Knock. The door opened to once again reveal a cylindrical passage which was also made of the strange ice that composed the castle itself. Previously they had mapped the passage for about 1800 feet, heading mostly straight with a slight downwards incline. Since they had done so they could retrace their steps at 5 times mapping pace.
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| This image would have been handy to have ready during the session |
They moved in and down the tunnel for some distance until their Continuous Light spilled onto a figure ahead of them. The medium sized creature had wings, looked to be constituted of a icy substance itself, and was apparently biting off and eating chunks from the conduit that ran along the side of the tunnel. large parts of the conduit had been torn down already; was this the source of the 'tinkling' sounds?
At their approach the elemental creature looked up and noisily spat out its "food" and said something unintelligible; accompanied by a gesture that rendered its meaning easy to guess.
Combat #1: Ice Mephit
Rounds: 1
Result: Party Wins
Highlights: Neither side was surprised, but the party won initiative and had the creature beaten in one round before it could react. However, he was not alone, and the PCs saw another one taking off at speed down the tunnel away from them.
The players figured that the flying creature was too fast to catch regardless of their actions, so they cautiously continued down the tunnel, prepared for another fight if it should appear. Bumblebore snatched up a piece of conduit the dead ice mephit had been munching on, wiped off the drool and pocketed in within his robes. From here the party ended up going all the way to the end of the tunnel without further incident. As they approached where it spilled out onto a high cliff, they could see that the icy walls had begun to deteriorate to the point that a natural rock tunnel within which it was set was party visible. Atop the cliff they could see they had reached a vast icy cavern that stretched well beyond the limit of their vision. Near the cliff edge was a flat section of ground like a angled terrace running back and down in the opposite direction that soon disappeared into an icy mist that enshrouded the whole area.
Suddenly they saw ahead of them, hovering beyond their reach past the cliff edge and out over the abyss beyond, was the Mephit. The creature was gesticulating in their direction but was also apparently directing other creatures to attack. Looming out of the mist flew for white dragons!
Combat #2: Ice Mephit and 4 White Dragons
Rounds: 1
Result: Party Flee
Highlights: The party were not surprised, but they did lose the crucial first initiative. The dragons swooped by in pairs, one pair casting Fear while the other used breath weapons. Before the part could react they had done their damage and flown on back into the cover of the mist. Several party members failed their Fear save, which I incorrectly declared meant that they were off and running before the breath weapons landed, but according to the spell description you don't actually run away until the next round. The breath weapons were not very damaging though so I don't think this made a difference to anyone.
When the ice dust had settled the players found that Rabbit, Sever's first henchman, was unconscious and within a whisker of death. The non-feared party members grabbed him and headed back up the tunnel to catch the others. They ended up going all the way back to the castle to regroup and get Rabbit stashed away for healing. Once this was done the party returned to he site of the ambush and carefully peered about. I described how the conduit from the tunnel continued up to and over the cliff edge. Slippery Pete peered over and found that it went down and down out of sight in the mist, but there was a small cave entrance visible about 30 feet down and 15 feet away from the conduit.
Bumblebore made Pete Invisible and the thief climbed down and examined the place, finding that indeed it was a lair of some kind and barely making it out with his life (and some treasure, a suit of halfling sized leather armour). He reported back to the party that there were indeed 4 dragon looking creatures in there, but they were much smaller - just babies - compared to the ones they had seen earlier. They had been alert enough to wake up and hit the invisible thief with a breath weapon on his way out, so he wasn't keen to go back in there by himself.
So, a lair, treasure, and dragons (of some kind). What to do?
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| faster than Roll20 anyway. |
Here we had a bit of a ToTM fail, and so paused while I drew a crappy picture which helped give everyone a better grounding in what was going on. Such things are crucial if players are to be able to make meaningful decisions, and, as always, what might be clear in your DM brain is not necessarily easy to convey over discord. Probably also I was a bit rusty after the Christmas break.
Combat #3: Lurker Above * 4
Rounds: 3
Result: Party Victory
Highlights: The leathery mass completely engulfed the small thief, who immediately begun trying to reach his dagger while holding his breath. But this wasn't the only problem, another section of ceiling dropped on the exposed Bumblebore; and, two more sections were moving towards the other players. Next round Bumblebore was also engulfed, but he was holding his Wand ready and managed to Paralyse the Lurker in position, which meant he was still stuck in there. Both guys needed immediate help, but with the melee types free to move, and aided by a breath attack from O'Malfoy, the party emerged relatively unscathed from the battle after just a few rounds.
The party were taken aback by this and very suspicious, but in the end were content to let Slippery Pete pull out the valuables while they stood nearby, ready for anything. After this was successful the party were ready to mess with the tree, but Pete had other ideas.
It turned out the tree could talk!
It described itself as the Tree of Knowledge, and offered information if the party could offer it something in return. There was now much back and forth over what to do, if this thing could tell them about the dragons it would be well worth their time, but in the end the party left without extracting much knowledge first. Maybe next time?
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| Talking Tree of Knowledge |
Session Statistics:
Wilderness travel: 1/2 Mile
Combats: 3
Combat rounds: 5
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