Something special for you all today.
I tend to map out most of my major encounter areas like this and post them after they’ve been conquered so my players can get a better mental picture of where they’ve been and the things they’ve done. This are in particular has some sentimental value to the group because this is where our first character death happened.
The scene: The party is exploring the personal library of a legendary wizard in an attempt to stop or at least slow the spread of a magical illness that has been plaguing a nearby town. They’ve stumbled upon some cultists who are taking advantage of an open planar gate to perform a ritual. The cult is one that the players have been dealing with since very early in the campaign, so there is already history here, and animosity on both sides. The group had managed to discover that the illness affecting the town was being caused by open portals in the library releasing extra planar energy that’s acting almost like radiation to living creatures, mutating them or causing them to fall ill. They’d closed all of the portals in the complex and have traced the leaking energy to the final portal hidden in a cave system underneath the library proper. After fighting their way to the end of the tunnel system they realized that they weren’t the first ones when they were met with chanting voices. Hiding at the mouth of the cavern, they took a moment to observe the ritual which I was very proud of them for because they usually just rush dick first into every encounter regardless of context. The apparent leader of the cultists dropped her robes to the floor at the height of the ceremony and began slowly walking toward the portal as the chanting was reaching a crescendo. I had decided I would let everyone take one action before she made it to the gate, but I didn’t want to prompt them to do so and give away that this was an important moment so I played it cool and asked them what they were doing. The only character who decided to attempt to interfere was the kenku rogue who shot an arrow at the woman. Unfortunately he rolled poorly and the cultists were alerted to their presence, causing the woman to sprint toward the portal. She leapt through and the party readied themselves for a fight with the remaining 4 cultists.
This is where things started going downhill.
Soon, the portal ring began to tremble and everyone was all eyes and something began to emerge from the gate. A leg, thick, chitinous, and prodigious. Then a second, and a third as a massive body drags itself into the room. Within seconds, a massive insect-like creature was filling part of the room from floor to 15 ft ceiling, and it didn’t look friendly. The cultists apparently weren’t prepared for this and one of them began screaming at the sight of the monster. A bad move it would seem at the thing quickly honed in on the noise and made for them, stomping it’s heavy legs and neatly pulverizing the hapless cultists in seconds. You should have seen the look on the group’s faces, it was fantastic. And so began a quick conversation amongst themselves about whether they were just going to get the fuck out of there and leave the town to its doom. Two of them wanted to bolt while three of them had vague ideas of some ill-defined plan, so the party became split while facing what was undoubtedly the most powerful enemy they’d yet to encounter. Ascertaining quickly that the creature was blind and was tracking them by sound and vibration, the kenku began a campaign of hit-and-run tactics with a bow to distract it while two of the others, a lizardfolk bloodhunter and a kitsune paladin, went to close the portal. Lucky for them, they succeeded, and the mission was complete. Unfortunately, they had to make a lot of noise to accomplish the task, and the bug-monster turned its attention to them. It was at the point that the last two members of the group (half-orc tempest cleric and half-ogre fighter), who were still standing a little back from the entrance and contemplating leaving, decided to make their return. Together with the kenku they drew the creature’s attention away from the lizard and the fox and toward the entrance of the cavern which it actually started tearing open to allow it to get to the members of the group that were harassing it just out of reach. Desperate the be out of the room and reunite with the rest of the group in the relative safety of the tunnels beyond the cavern, lizard and fox came up with a second death-defying plan: They would weave between the pounding rear-legs and tearing fore-legs of the monster and then they could all gtfo. I ruled it would require either athletics or acrobatics to avoid being trampled and then an attack from the creature with disadvantage because it was still busy tearing away at the walls which were now almost sheared away enough for it to advance. The lizard made it, but the fox wasn’t so lucky. Ritsuko, our voice of reason and party leader, managed to artfully weave through the gauntlet of pistoning legs but was reduced to a smear on the cavern floor by a blind swing, and it was honestly a little emotional. Take his player’s word for it:
(Note: The players like the make fun of the names of the character and NPCs by purposely saying them wrong, so Ritsuko often got called ricotta. Group inside joke)
Even with this unfortunate death, the group still managed to lay the insect-monster low and mostly escape with their lives. The town was saved and the party got some loot and a great story out of it. As a DM, these are the moments I live for, getting to orchestrate and share in emotional moments with my friends and the friends they’ve created.
I know that was long and a bit rambling, and if you’ve made it this far I applaud your diligence in deciphering my messy story telling. I know most of the people who follow this blog are here for the homebrew, but Vallonde is more than just its rules. Its the characters that exist in that world, the places they go, the things they do, and the people who play them. Players make the game, not the other way around, and I think that’s something that we as DMs forget too often.
