Segev
2019-06-17, 10:12 AM
This post and thread will have largely-unmarked spoilers for Sunless Citadel and possibly for Tomb of Annihilation, as I've embedded the former into the latter.
Last warning!
Okay, that should bring us past the opening lines shown by the hover-over text in the thread itself.
I've dropped the Sunless Citadel about a day north of Firefinger in the non-undead-controlled bulge away from the Tiryiki. The lack of undead control is due to the thick presence of twig blights.
Two sessions ago, my players managed to fight past a few rats, have a mostly-peaceable encounter with Meepo (though the half-orc barbarian had to be admonished "A bit less chaotic, a bit more good" and really enjoys playing "bad cop" to keep him intimidated), and get a commission from Yudrayl (their winged queen) to recover Calcryx. Last session, they opened with a fight with the rats in Guthash's lair, which they used fire and lamp oil to drive them out of. Then, they had a much more frought encounter with the entrenched goblins behind their caltrop-laden hall and crennelated fortifications for archers.
One change I made to the Sunless Citadel is the relation and identity of one of the party that preceded them into it. Instead of the Hucrele brother, I had Tiryiki - the son of Ekene Afa - be in the party. Since the module didn't say where Hucrele's corpse wound up (only that Drunn killed him and stole his stuff), I had to make up where he was. I decided the baitiri were using his corpse in place of the center straw dummy in their archery gallery. So now the party's recovered the corpse.
I had wondered if they'd just leave, but they decided to persist with the dragon "rescue," so they bunked down in the room where the caltrops used to be for the night. (They'd had Meepo gather the caltrops.)
Of course, the baitiri know they're there, now. Being too cowardly to actually attack, they instead set up much more alert guards with ready positions to bring everybody to bear should the attackers come again.
So when eight goblins were waiting behind the walls for them, the monk in the party called out to offer to trade a large amount of crocodile meat (the bounty from an earlier random encounter in the jungle) for the dragon they'd captured.
Several good Charisma rolls later, the Baitiri has offered to accept the trade if they threw in "12 gems." (Specifically, a battle stack of two of them held out three hands holding up a total of 12 fingers demanding that many.) I figured, as bandits trying to subsist, the meat was far more valuable to the baitiri than the dragon who'd run loose and driven them out of the trophy room. But keeping Drunn from murdering them for just "giving away" the dragon meant appeasement. The party had barely more than enough gems to make the trade, and that meant they gave up about 150 gp worth of gems. About the only real favor the baitiri did them was warn them of the pit trap. (And that only because the party only gave the meat up front.)
The baitiri told them they'd have to get the dragon, themselves.
So the party once again sent the monk forward (whose plan this was), and he shamelessly flattered the dragon, offering the corpse of Guthash and his own pouch of gold pieces as tribute, promising her more if she'd come with him to inspect it. (They wisely kept Meepo well out of sight of her.)
She ate it up.
When she was rounding a corner in the shooting gallery, they attacked her, KOing her in the opening round before she got any actions other than to squak indignantly.
I'm not entirely sure how the kobolds will keep her contained after this, but that's their problem, and not the party's. I do feel badly for poor Erky Timbers; I have no idea if the PCs will think to open the door leading to the prison cell, and though at least one and possibly two of them have reason to pursue the mysterious red fruit, they also all want to return Tiryiki's body for resurrection and their reward. (The failure of the resurrection is what I plan to use to let the party know of the existence of the death curse.)
Drunn will be appeased enough by the gems not to take out any wrath on the baitiri, though he'll also be planning to get Balsag to help him retake the dragon, just to crush the invading kobold's morale even more.
Maybe I'll have Valkur hijack a dream spell that Eku uses to try to combat the smirking ethereal Widow Groat's efforts to give the barbarian nightmares. Said barbarian is looking for an alternative to Gruumsh-worship, and has an icon of Kubazan she's...contemplating...but the player seems to expect some sort of divine visitation saying "worship me, not that evil jerk," and Kubazan is...not in a position to do any such thing. But Valkur could answer his worshipper, Erky's, prayers (I'm changing his god, as I've made him a former sailor taken prisoner by the Jahaka Anchorage pirates who escaped in the Dragon Eye mutiny...and was caught again by the escaping captain and his loyalists on their way out; this is now Drunn's backstory), and Valkur will couple rescuing Erky with visions about the imprisonment of Kubazan and - due to some other shenanigans - the location of Wave.
I'm not sure about this part, but I know the party wants a cleric. They have Udril Silvertusk, who has agreed to help them on their current mission if they'll get her to Camp Vengeance immediately thereafter (she's found NO passage that way), but she's temporary and the half-orc in the party doesn't like her.
But anyway, enough rambling; I just wanted to share my players' creativity in bribing and tricking the baitiri and Calcryx (respectively) to achieve that bit of the dungeon's plot. They're planning to ask for the key to the dragon door (which is absolutely a prize that Yudrayle is willing to give for Calcryx's return), so they'll probably do that part next week.
Last warning!
Okay, that should bring us past the opening lines shown by the hover-over text in the thread itself.
I've dropped the Sunless Citadel about a day north of Firefinger in the non-undead-controlled bulge away from the Tiryiki. The lack of undead control is due to the thick presence of twig blights.
Two sessions ago, my players managed to fight past a few rats, have a mostly-peaceable encounter with Meepo (though the half-orc barbarian had to be admonished "A bit less chaotic, a bit more good" and really enjoys playing "bad cop" to keep him intimidated), and get a commission from Yudrayl (their winged queen) to recover Calcryx. Last session, they opened with a fight with the rats in Guthash's lair, which they used fire and lamp oil to drive them out of. Then, they had a much more frought encounter with the entrenched goblins behind their caltrop-laden hall and crennelated fortifications for archers.
One change I made to the Sunless Citadel is the relation and identity of one of the party that preceded them into it. Instead of the Hucrele brother, I had Tiryiki - the son of Ekene Afa - be in the party. Since the module didn't say where Hucrele's corpse wound up (only that Drunn killed him and stole his stuff), I had to make up where he was. I decided the baitiri were using his corpse in place of the center straw dummy in their archery gallery. So now the party's recovered the corpse.
I had wondered if they'd just leave, but they decided to persist with the dragon "rescue," so they bunked down in the room where the caltrops used to be for the night. (They'd had Meepo gather the caltrops.)
Of course, the baitiri know they're there, now. Being too cowardly to actually attack, they instead set up much more alert guards with ready positions to bring everybody to bear should the attackers come again.
So when eight goblins were waiting behind the walls for them, the monk in the party called out to offer to trade a large amount of crocodile meat (the bounty from an earlier random encounter in the jungle) for the dragon they'd captured.
Several good Charisma rolls later, the Baitiri has offered to accept the trade if they threw in "12 gems." (Specifically, a battle stack of two of them held out three hands holding up a total of 12 fingers demanding that many.) I figured, as bandits trying to subsist, the meat was far more valuable to the baitiri than the dragon who'd run loose and driven them out of the trophy room. But keeping Drunn from murdering them for just "giving away" the dragon meant appeasement. The party had barely more than enough gems to make the trade, and that meant they gave up about 150 gp worth of gems. About the only real favor the baitiri did them was warn them of the pit trap. (And that only because the party only gave the meat up front.)
The baitiri told them they'd have to get the dragon, themselves.
So the party once again sent the monk forward (whose plan this was), and he shamelessly flattered the dragon, offering the corpse of Guthash and his own pouch of gold pieces as tribute, promising her more if she'd come with him to inspect it. (They wisely kept Meepo well out of sight of her.)
She ate it up.
When she was rounding a corner in the shooting gallery, they attacked her, KOing her in the opening round before she got any actions other than to squak indignantly.
I'm not entirely sure how the kobolds will keep her contained after this, but that's their problem, and not the party's. I do feel badly for poor Erky Timbers; I have no idea if the PCs will think to open the door leading to the prison cell, and though at least one and possibly two of them have reason to pursue the mysterious red fruit, they also all want to return Tiryiki's body for resurrection and their reward. (The failure of the resurrection is what I plan to use to let the party know of the existence of the death curse.)
Drunn will be appeased enough by the gems not to take out any wrath on the baitiri, though he'll also be planning to get Balsag to help him retake the dragon, just to crush the invading kobold's morale even more.
Maybe I'll have Valkur hijack a dream spell that Eku uses to try to combat the smirking ethereal Widow Groat's efforts to give the barbarian nightmares. Said barbarian is looking for an alternative to Gruumsh-worship, and has an icon of Kubazan she's...contemplating...but the player seems to expect some sort of divine visitation saying "worship me, not that evil jerk," and Kubazan is...not in a position to do any such thing. But Valkur could answer his worshipper, Erky's, prayers (I'm changing his god, as I've made him a former sailor taken prisoner by the Jahaka Anchorage pirates who escaped in the Dragon Eye mutiny...and was caught again by the escaping captain and his loyalists on their way out; this is now Drunn's backstory), and Valkur will couple rescuing Erky with visions about the imprisonment of Kubazan and - due to some other shenanigans - the location of Wave.
I'm not sure about this part, but I know the party wants a cleric. They have Udril Silvertusk, who has agreed to help them on their current mission if they'll get her to Camp Vengeance immediately thereafter (she's found NO passage that way), but she's temporary and the half-orc in the party doesn't like her.
But anyway, enough rambling; I just wanted to share my players' creativity in bribing and tricking the baitiri and Calcryx (respectively) to achieve that bit of the dungeon's plot. They're planning to ask for the key to the dragon door (which is absolutely a prize that Yudrayle is willing to give for Calcryx's return), so they'll probably do that part next week.