The session started out with Kharim and Medea getting accosted by a pair of wererats and Tiny the werebear, who dragged the two of them down into the sewers. There they were met by The Us, one of the cranium rat hive minds vying for control of Sigil's underbelly. The Us explained that Kharim had offended them by harming one of its rats when he was testing out his dragonmark cantrip. The hivemind said the only reason he wasn't dead was because Tulany gave them some bread, and sparing Kharim's life constituted paying back the favor. However, this meant that Kharim now owed the hivemind a favor, or else Tiny was going to start breaking kneecaps. The Us also knew about Soraya, and said it would be very unfortunate if something were to happen to her. Kharim got the hint. He agreed to help the hivemind as long as it left his little sister alone. The Us instructed him to go to the gate-town of Excelsior, and to meet with Vaimish Crasad for further instructions. Kharim agreed, and The Us had Tiny escort the two knights out of the sewers, saying that it wanted to conduct no further business on the day of its daughter's wedding.
Kharim walked Medea back to the barracks, then hustled to meet with the rest of the group at the Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts. Everything was right with the world again.
Daegan and Eirik did a bit of last minute research about the Plane of Fire, while Aurelius did some artificer tinkering with Daegan's armor. After the group was rested and ready to go, it was off to the Mortuary to finally explore the Eternal Boundary and put a stop to the Illuminated plot! The group used their stash of
Potions of Invisibility to sneak through the Mortuary, since they were still on bad terms with the Dustmen after their last trip there ended in multiple dead faction members. They made it most of the way to the portal before a pair of Dustmen heard the heavy armor lads. Aurelius broke his invisibility to distract them with some grade A flimflam while the rest of the party hustled through the portal. As soon as they were through, he used
Misty Step to slip past the Dustmen and jump through the portal.
The party found itself on a skull-shaped citadel floating in the raging fires. They were almost immediately attacked by a group of dwarves and hobgoblins, mercenaries hired by the Illuminated to protect the portal to their secret lair. It was a pretty quick fight, as the mercenaries were no match for the party. The party took an enemy priest captive and dragged him through the citadel to get directions. Eventually, they found their way to a white marble chapel which contained a brilliant green gem radiating waves of cool fresh air. It didn't take long for the party to realize the jewel was the source of the safe atmosphere in the citadel. The jewel was also guarded by an ogre-sized brass warforged, who politely introduced himself as Ben Birdland.
Rant time!
This is where I deviated from the prewritten module, as the original calls for a
Stone Golem to be at the beck and call of the captain of the citadel. That's an absurdly powerful enemy to throw at a group of 5th level characters, so I replaced it with Mr. Birdland. He's a warforged juggernaut bumped up to large size and given a few levels of War Hulk. However, he's fighting unarmed, so his high strength modifier is only riding on a 1d4 unarmed strike, so while he can do some interesting things (like swing at three targets simultaneously), his damage output was something the party could handle without struggling
too much.
/rant.
The party chatted with Ben for a bit, and he told them his job was to protect the jewel. He was a pleasant giant robot, so the party left their captured priest with him and headed for the captain's quarters, which were hidden behind a secret door. However, Aurelius thought that meant an illusory wall, so he confidently strode forward and smacked his face on the solid stone. Once they found the secret door, they then proceeded to trigger the trap in the hallway, but a bit of poison gas wasn't going to slow them down now! They made it through and busted into Captain Imogen's office, where she was busy questioning Toranna, who had been brought back from the dead. Captain Imogen humored the party and explained the plan to the PCs like any good Bond villain should. The Illuminated wanted to plant sleeper agents inside each of the factions to subtly steer them and influence Sigil politics. After all, the Illuminated creed did say to control what you can't rule. The party didn't like this one bit (especially Kharim, since he had
just joined a faction, and didn't want sleeper agents in it), so the inevitable battle broke out. Toranna died before she even got a turn, but Imogen put up a reasonable fight (she was an Abjurer/Eldritch Knight). Ben Birdland also came rocketing down the hall for the assist, which was greatly appreciated since Imogen's mercenaries were pretty useless in every encounter they had been in. The party eventually battered through Imogen's magical defenses, and kept Ben busy long enough to mop up the rest of the baddies. Once he was the last one standing, Ben surrendered without much fuss, and the party seemed keen on trying to adopt him into the group. Players are strange like that
The party looted the room, triggered a poison dart trap on a chest that nearly dropped Aurelius, and rescued a group of people that were halfway through Imogen's "reprogramming" process. However, the group noticed a sudden increase in temperature, and raced back to the jewel room just in time to see the priest they had taken captive swan dive off the ledge and into the fire while holding the air jewel and screaming "Illumination!". With the jewel gone, the air bubble around the citadel began to collapse. The party raced for the portal back to Sigil, but their escape was halted by a mysterious figure clad in a hooded green cloak. Kharim attempted to use
Charging Minotaur to get past the guy, but the hooded figure intercepted his charge with a headbutt and nearly knocked him prone. Though he didn't reveal his face, the cloaked figure claimed to be Green Marvent, and said he still had some use for the party. He then used
Plane Shift to escape before the party could try attacking again. They didn't have time to ponder about their new enemy, as the citadel began to collapse around them. They hustled through the portal, and scared the daylights out of the two Dustmen just trying to do their jobs. They were escorted out of the mortuary by Boris the zombie minotaur, and Kharim (trying to ice his forehead) wondered if the zombie was the only minotaur encountered that day.
The group took the rescued barmies to the Bleak Cabal for proper treatment, and left Daegan there for Daria to tend to him, since he had gotten pretty banged up in the fight with Imogen. Daria doesn't know anything about curative magic, but she bandaged his wounds, made him some chicken noodle soup, and put him to bed. The rest of the group headed back to the BSIL. On the way there, they bumped into a red-skinned goblin who wore a lot of knickknacks and piecemeal armor. He introduced himself as Zada, and he just wanted to wish Tulany luck in the upcoming tournament. He explained that the
tournament bracket was posted at the Great Gymnasium, and that Tulany was his first opponent. He looked forward to the fight, and said that win or lose she should come to the potluck dinner that the Free League was hosting after the first round. She tentatively agreed, and the friendly goblin sauntered off. Once the group returned to the Brothel, Soraya and Sharwyn were relieved to see them safely back. The party spoke with Bendon Maul, who was rather cranky about them taking so long, but he wasn't going to back out of the deal with them. He made them promise to accompany him to the Isle of Black Trees first thing in the morning, to which the party was more than happy to oblige. After Bendon and his bodyguard left, the party settled in to relax and enjoy themselves for the rest of the evening.
Originally Posted by JadedDM
Re: Planescape Campaign Journal
Reply With Quote