The Cats
2019-02-10, 02:56 PM
Share it! (This is blatantly just an excuse for me to share the bat**** crazy session I ran last night while also getting to see how it compares to other groups' insanity)
The setup: The party was unwillingly transported to the arctic. To get back to their stomping grounds they made a deal with a powerful Bheur Hag: They'll destroy a device that has been trapping souls in her territory and she would provide them transportation as far south as her power would allow. (She wants the device destroyed so she can snack on all those tasty souls, but the party doesn't know that and I'm pretty sure they're amoral enough they wouldn't really care either)
In a previous session, the party had sneaked into an Ancient White Dragon's lair while it was out hunting and stolen a bunch of loot. This dragon had created a slave race of white dragonborn to serve it that were magically compelled to follow it, but one of them had managed to shake that compulsion and left with the party (this was a new player).
The plan: The party was to infiltrate the ancient Dwarfish stronghold that had been taken over by the Deurgar who had made the device. Stealth, bribery, full-on assault, whatever. They'd get in, find the device and figure out a way to destroy it.
To make things more spicy, the dragon, who was able to track her escaped dragonborn slave, would start assaulting the stronghold shortly after the session started, putting things on a stressful timer as the party is nowhere near the level to tangle with an ancient dragon.
Once they destroyed the device, they'd find some alternate exit, meet up with the Hag and get the heck out of there. The dragon might show up later on as a recurring baddie they could one day take down.
I was expecting to have to adapt and improvise a bit as they came up with wild plans but holy cow I was not expecting what happened.
What happened: They went for the full-on assault approach. Little unexpected from this group but OK. A couple rounds into the epic melee against dozens of enemies, the mountain starts shaking as the ancient dragon slams in to the huge main doors. The speedy rogue decides to duck out of the melee for a couple rounds to zoom back to the entrance chamber to see what the heck is going on.
While the rogue is gone, the cleric goes down with two death saves failed, then the bard goes down and straight up dies (due to unlucky rolls and some unwise tactics i.e. splitting up and the healers engaging in melee). Luckily the hag provided each member of the party with a 'powerful potion that will aid you in any way you need.' They didn't ask questions. They should have asked questions.
The fighter feeds the potion to the bard. The bards eyes open all white-walker blue style and she raises as a zombie as her soul is sucked in to the duergar device. Luckily, most of the bard's powers come from the soul of a powerful fey within her magical instrument who didn't like the idea of losing its servant so it granted the bard some of its power in place of the bard's soul. The bard wasn't a mindless zombie, but was still undead and lost most of her abilities.
Meanwhile, the rogue sees the ancient white dragon forcing her way into the stronghold. Cue me sitting there smugly thinking "Hehe, watch him panic. This is gonna be great."
Cue the rogue pulling out the magic lamp he had gotten over a year and a half ago I had completely forgotten about. "I wish to completely dominate that dragon."
...
I mean you can probably guess how the rest of the session went after that.
I can always tell how well one of our sessions went over by seeing how many doodles of cool moments our wizard posts in the party's facebook chat. Usually 3-5. We're at 15 this morning and I'm still getting regularly alerts.
The setup: The party was unwillingly transported to the arctic. To get back to their stomping grounds they made a deal with a powerful Bheur Hag: They'll destroy a device that has been trapping souls in her territory and she would provide them transportation as far south as her power would allow. (She wants the device destroyed so she can snack on all those tasty souls, but the party doesn't know that and I'm pretty sure they're amoral enough they wouldn't really care either)
In a previous session, the party had sneaked into an Ancient White Dragon's lair while it was out hunting and stolen a bunch of loot. This dragon had created a slave race of white dragonborn to serve it that were magically compelled to follow it, but one of them had managed to shake that compulsion and left with the party (this was a new player).
The plan: The party was to infiltrate the ancient Dwarfish stronghold that had been taken over by the Deurgar who had made the device. Stealth, bribery, full-on assault, whatever. They'd get in, find the device and figure out a way to destroy it.
To make things more spicy, the dragon, who was able to track her escaped dragonborn slave, would start assaulting the stronghold shortly after the session started, putting things on a stressful timer as the party is nowhere near the level to tangle with an ancient dragon.
Once they destroyed the device, they'd find some alternate exit, meet up with the Hag and get the heck out of there. The dragon might show up later on as a recurring baddie they could one day take down.
I was expecting to have to adapt and improvise a bit as they came up with wild plans but holy cow I was not expecting what happened.
What happened: They went for the full-on assault approach. Little unexpected from this group but OK. A couple rounds into the epic melee against dozens of enemies, the mountain starts shaking as the ancient dragon slams in to the huge main doors. The speedy rogue decides to duck out of the melee for a couple rounds to zoom back to the entrance chamber to see what the heck is going on.
While the rogue is gone, the cleric goes down with two death saves failed, then the bard goes down and straight up dies (due to unlucky rolls and some unwise tactics i.e. splitting up and the healers engaging in melee). Luckily the hag provided each member of the party with a 'powerful potion that will aid you in any way you need.' They didn't ask questions. They should have asked questions.
The fighter feeds the potion to the bard. The bards eyes open all white-walker blue style and she raises as a zombie as her soul is sucked in to the duergar device. Luckily, most of the bard's powers come from the soul of a powerful fey within her magical instrument who didn't like the idea of losing its servant so it granted the bard some of its power in place of the bard's soul. The bard wasn't a mindless zombie, but was still undead and lost most of her abilities.
Meanwhile, the rogue sees the ancient white dragon forcing her way into the stronghold. Cue me sitting there smugly thinking "Hehe, watch him panic. This is gonna be great."
Cue the rogue pulling out the magic lamp he had gotten over a year and a half ago I had completely forgotten about. "I wish to completely dominate that dragon."
...
I mean you can probably guess how the rest of the session went after that.
I can always tell how well one of our sessions went over by seeing how many doodles of cool moments our wizard posts in the party's facebook chat. Usually 3-5. We're at 15 this morning and I'm still getting regularly alerts.