Charon's DM Diary

[Charon]

I figured it would be fun to keep some info on the kind of shenanigans I get up to while DMing and who knows, maybe it will help other DMs with little tips and tricks or general ideas to steal as they go.

Some context to start. This is an ongoing 3.5e campaign with a loosely Stargate kinda vibe. The players have access to a mysterious keep buried in the plane of Earth, that has a magical portal. This is a magitech style setting with an emphasis on planar travel and high magic. The group initially began using the random portal function to go on some wacky adventures but soon realised they were in the footsteps of another group that had died fighting an enemy they came to know as the World Enders. The whole thing is very tropey (I mean that bit is practically Power Rangers) but also allows for intense wackiness, especially when the players discovered that, with caveats, the portal can also take them through time. They also quickly found out that Mystra is quite disapproving of any meddling with time and that should they overdo it, they risk drawing her attention and with it, her ire. At the moment, the only protection they have is their secrecy, protected it seems, to some degree, by Tymora, who has a vested interest in the project, having provided the luck that allows it to function.

Our party consists of Ori, a dragonwrought kobold warlock who has already caused a bootstrap paradox, being responsible for his own existence. With him is Hugo, a Zenythri Shadow Hand Monk. We also have a recently arrived druid in the form of Illia, an elf and worshipper of Silvanus. Fleshing out the group is an NPC, Cabot the halfling street fighter, a member of the original group who survived but was held captive and eventually rescued by the party.

The group have recently discovered that the World Enders are actually a cult seeking to free Tharizdun from his chains. They seek to hasten his release by increasing the amount of entropy in the world by destroying planets and their inhabitants. The party have met a couple of the World Enders, including B'hecki, daughter of the erratic wizard B'hin Bhaag and, if the crazy old man is to be believed, the result of a brief fling between himself and Mystra. They know B'hecki went to Carceri to seek knowledge from a prisoner there and have made an effort to follow in her footsteps. They made their way to Candlekeep and, curious to explore the basement, went back in time to its construction to build themselves a secret passage. This allowed them to meet (and free) the ghost of a dragon, Miiryum, trapped beneath.

There's been a lot more, including a delve through the Tomb of Horrors, but this is simply a summary. The last session was their first visit to Carceri, at a mere level 9. Well looted and armed with knowledge, I knew they could take a few beats in this trip, but didn't want to overdo it. Demodands are pretty high CR after all.

The actual place they're going is Skullrot Prison, lifted largely wholesale from Chris Perkins' adventure in the tail end of the Shackled City, with my prisoner simply inserted into the mix. Information on Carceri is fairly sparse and so this was the easiest way of doing things as I had already squeezed what info I could out of 2e Planescape. This module was designed for much higher level characters so I had my nerfing hat on, ready to bring things down to a more manageable level.

First up, I made it so they would have options on how to get where they need to be, meaning they could essentially teleport straight into Porphatys, the fourth layer, in the general vicinity of the Bastion of Last Hope. I didn't want this section to take forever, so rather than rolling 5d100 for the Plane Shift variance, I rolled 1d100 and plonked them 40 miles from the Bastion. This allowed for some good description as I painted a bleak and eerie landscape of Porphatys, based on an image I found online.

Spoiler

I had also planned a bunch of morale sapping sentences to feed to the party's warlock, via his eldritch whispers which he keeps permanently turned on. Unfortunately, he turned them off the moment the first one hit. There'll be more on that in a later post.
Initially I had hoped they might trek through the ankle deep ocean but Illia decided to rely on an eagle wildshape and so they took to the skies. This was fine as it gave me a good moment to unleash the acidic snow upon them. Described in Planescape as bitterly cold, I figured it would be more unnerving if it wasn't cold at all. They soon realised this was not only causing skin issues (for which they drank their prepared potions of energy resistance) but also eating away at the rope harness the eagle was carrying. Attempts were made to clamber onto the eagle's legs, but the monk took a tumble. A mere 40ft drop, not too much of an issue for a level 9. He was snatched back up with minor wounds and the journey continued.
I also didn't want to drag out the Bastion too long. The module makes it clear the items there are insanely overpriced so I described the place as essentially a black market of sorts, stuffed full of stalls selling all sorts of illegal and nefarious goods. Because it makes sense and would speed things up, I included an information broker, run by a group of demodands. A steep price of 2k was set in order to find the way to Skullrot which the group paid without any attempt to bargain. Social skills are not their strong point (both the party and the players, lol). A further 500gp was parted with to find out if anyone else had sought such information, which they hadn't, much to the amusement of the demodand. The party had been warned not to trust anyone. Still, as the broker pointed out, even that information could be considered valuable. Finally, as a cheeky way of hurrying things along (The players are notorious stallers) the broker advised they could follow two others who were just leaving. The players took the hint and scurried off to Skullrot.
The module has a random encounter table but the encounters are tough and nerfing them just makes them lacklustre. I didn't want this section to be too combat heavy as there's already 2-4 planned encounters and the ongoing adventure promises a lot of dungeon crawling coming up, so I ignored the random encounters and led with the thunderbeast, swapping out the behemoth in the module for one of the lesser beasts. It wasn't going to be a long fight, but the beast can dish out a bit of damage and has an interesting debuff to throw a wrench in the works. Cue one deafening roar and now Illia and Cabot are deaf for hours on end. Heh heh. That's gonna be fun. Anyways, some damage was dealt, Cabot spent most of the fight vomiting having failed his fort save against the beast's stench, healing resources were used and we left on a description of Skullrot Prison from the outside. Somewhere inside is the mad priest Venedict.

[Charon]

Ah Carceri. It's certainly going to be memorable for my players.
We pick up outside Skullrot prison in the wake of the fight with the thunderbeast. Healing is performed and much japes are had between Cabot (the NPC played by me) and Illia, the druid played by Pell (aka Cmdr Maxwell).
Lots of "What? I can't hear you!" as we slowly drive our other two friends nuts. Heh heh.
Eventually we get back on track and the group assesses how best to see the inside of the prison. Illia is sent to scout the roof, in eagle form, and this turns out to be a good idea.
Unknown to the players at the time, going in through the front is a bad idea. There are guards, unsurprisingly, and they ain't so keen on letting people wander into the prison. The roof however, has a central shaft that runs through the whole fortress, itself being a prison for an angelic looking creature, imprisoned in a sealed cage hanging from a winch and suspended 40 ft down this central shaft. We'll find out who that is a little later.
More importantly, we get our first glimpse of the maddening layout of this place. It's complicated, but basically it has four spiral staircases that run down the interior of the building like DNA helices. Inside, this means each staircase only gives access to a quarter of the cells, in alternating quadrants by floor. When Illia eventually ferried the party up and they explored this it soon became apparent that finding Venedict in this place is gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack. The 150ish cells have no windows or way to see inside and even if they could, they have no idea what Venedict looks like. It's almost like there must be some other method. Perhaps something thematically tied into the whole concept and the overarching narrative of the entire campaign. Hmmm.
The party spot an annis hag with two flesh golems that appears to be feeding some of the prisoners and they quickly figure out how to avoid her by slipping down another staircase. However, with no immediate ideas on how to proceed, they undo all the stealth they've achieved so far by proceeding directly down to the main chamber on the bottom floor to confront the demodand warden, Hexavog, hoping they can bribe him for information. Naturally, this doesn't work. Not just because this is a prison but because, like pretty much everyone else in this place, Hexavog is completely insane.
He sings, thanks Chris Perkins, so I had to break out my goddawful singing voice and deliver his melodic diatribe. I think I did a passable job as he bursts into song that quickly makes it clear he's mad and hostile and about to attack.
Now, this is a high level adventure, so I nerfed this CR 19 demodand down to a respectable CR9 for the group but he still has some nasty surprises. First up, the stench! Yeah it's back. Cabot immediately nat 1'd his fort save and began puking again. This time, Illia followed him with another natural 1.
2 out of 4 party members now unable to do anything but take a single move action. I was already panicking at this point as this has TPK written all over it. What's more, unbeknown to the players there's reinforcements coming in 8 rounds. On top of that, two more demodands arrive from the adjoining room at the start of round 2 (to act in round 3). For his first turn, Hexavog uses Summon Demodands to summon 1d4 more demodands. Luckily he has only a 60% success chance and I rolled a 78 so that's one bullet dodged. Still, it ain't looking great.
Thankfully, it didn't get that far. With the two tankiest party members out of action and two more demodands slithering into the room, Ori decides it's time to bail. Realising the two pukers are gonna struggle he runs over to them and touches them both and attempts to use his return bracelet to return to the Timeless Keep. Now, the party know they can take a person with them when they port back but have never tried with multiple. It turns out, it isn't possible. Only Illia is teleported back with Ori. Thankfully, Hugo beat Hexavog's initiative by 1 point and is going first. He attempts to manoeuvre around Hexavog to get Cabot outta there, drawing an AOO as he goes, but luckily his shadow stance concealment causes the AOO to fail. He activates his bracelet and arrives back with Cabot in tow.
Cabot and Illia spend the next minute puking their guts up until the stench of the demodand fades. Ori quickly pulls the return co-ordinates from the central computer, allowing him to calculate temporal co-ordinates for a portal so they party can return there (or potentially a little outside it) and they settle into a debate of whether to go there earlier in time. Hugo suggests they could cut out the middle man and simply go back in time and prevent B'hecki stealing the book in the first place but this plan has many flaws that are easily apparent. First up, directly interfering with B'hecki's timeline is bound to draw the ire of her mother, Mystra.
Second, preventing her stealing the book doesn't stop her finding some other way to get what she wants.
Thirdly, they don't know where B'hin Bhaag's tower was at the time she stole the book. They also don't know when it was, as B'hin Bhaag's tower teleports through time and space as well, much like a TARDIS.
Simply put, it's not simple at all. Finding Venedict and learning what B'hecki learned is still the best plan. It seems the party will be returning to Carceri next week... or maybe last week, from their perspective. XD
Time travel is wacky huh.

[Charon]

What a roleplay week. First up, we had the session zero for our first ever Fate game. Learning Fate is going to pretty handy when one of our group goes on extended vacation for a few months later in the year as we can easily run Fate with just the two remaining players. We're playing a game loosely based on the concept of the video game Alien Swarm, the game where three of us met nearly a decade ago. I've toyed with the idea for a while, attempting to cobble my own system twice, then trying to fit the idea in Gurps before realising a flexible system like Fate will be a million times easier. Basically the players are staff at a mining facility on a remote alien world when a swarm of hostile aliens attack. I've got some really fun ideas planned and character creation went pretty well. We have a hacker, a drone operator and a chemical engineer with an intricately entwined backstory tying the three together. The game will be happening mid April most likely so something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, in our Dnd campaign, shit got real crazy, real fast.
Outclassed by Hexavog, the demodand, the players came up with a convoluted plan to defeat him. Realising the shaft was 200ft deep they began discussing whether they could simply drop something on him from a great height. The Rulebook™ came out and it quickly became apparent that the heavier, the better.
The plan evolved. The Timeless Keep is on the Plane of Earth, after all, so the druid got transmuting. We figured out the weight of a five foot cube of sandstone. Hexavog is a large creature, so why not four cubes? These then rapidly became columns, to maximise the weight.
What's more, Ori has been fiddling with the Keep long enough that he's discovered the fact that's it's morphic, just like a magnificent mansion, or a god on his native plane, meaning he can mentally reconfigure it at will. The plan evolved further. Ori created a tower in the Keep, so they could drop the stone columns, building up the momentum here, then placed the portal at the bottom. The other end of the portal would open five foot above Hexavog's head, giving him no time to avoid the impact.
The group sent the death columns in, then moved the portal back to its usual place and teleported themselves to the roof of Skullrot Prison, at the exact moment their previous selves left and the columns dropped, squishing Hexavog. 2'928d6 later and the poor head warden had eaten 10'250 damage.
As four demodand guards rushed in, the party teleported out, sent four more columns in and squished them too, before tping back in themselves at that exact moment.
Quickly the party scurry down one of the helical staircases. Ori has his whispers on this time and has begun hearing his voices again, only now, one whisper is overshadowing the others. Not clearer, in terms of comprehensibility, as is usual for the warlock, it's incomprehensible babble, but it's so prominent in his mind. Despite me laying it on thick, the hint was lost on the group and they scurried down further. Soon they passed a specific cell, where the babbling in Ori's head grew so loud it drowned out every other whisper. Surely, this was it. Maybe it was the bloodlust roiling in the player's veins but they simply didn't bite. Ori switched his whispers off and they barrelled down the staircase, pulling up stealthily on floor four to keep a lookout for the hag. They soon clock her, outpacing her golem guards as she runs down to see what all the fuss is about. Seeing the opportunity to gank her alone, the party descend rapidly too. Hugo easily outpaces her, arriving at the bottom first and lying in ambush. As he unleashes a stunning fist in the surprise round, the hag is stopped in her tracks. Ori and Illia attack with magic from the upper floors as Cabot leaps down atop the columns of stone to land at her feet and engage along with Hugo. They just about take her down before she can recover from the stun, the flesh golems still shuffling down the upper staircases, but this fight is far from over. No sooner has the hag fallen than the doors opposite burst open to reveal an angry looking lich, the Overseer of this prison, Myrakul. This fight will continue, with Illia's Call Lightning Storm still active, next week. They won't know for certain until they're done here just how many chaos points they have accrued with these shenanigans, but it might not be much longer before they start seeing the effects.
Will they defeat the lich Myrakul? Will they figure out where Venedict is imprisoned? Will they come up with any more crazy plans? I can't wait to find out.

[Charon]

So this session was mostly a bossfight. We left our adventurers mid peril last week, ready to face off against the lich, Myrakul. Although he has a formidable stat block in the module, throwing a CR 23 at my players wasn't practical. A standard lich is CR 13 which is still a monster so I did some dynamic nerfing to bring him down to CR 11. First up, I dropped his one disintegrate. Given how bad the group has been rolling, I figured this was for the best. I dropped his DR down to 10 instead of 15 and replaced his lightning immunity with lightning resistance 10. I shaved 1 off all his spell DCs but buffed his fear aura to hit any creatures of 10 HD or lower, albeit with a lower DC of 18. I also removed some of his possessions like the ability to summon a monster in. The combat was made more difficult due to the many 15ft high stone columns obscuring sightlines (the ones the players previously dropped on Hexavog and his cronies). I knew the group would struggle to deal high damage to him, so he'd still survive pretty well. I kept his AC intact and as the prison is unhallowed ground, so that's AC 23 against Ori and 25 against the rest of the party who are good aligned. So despite having only 74 HP, he's quite the tanky boy. The fight was made easier for him when his fear aura immediately screwed Cabot over, essentially taking the halfling out of the fight, with nine rounds of cowering in a corner.
Myrakul biffed his initiative roll, coming dead last, even with the party's terrible rolls. Not the best start, but everyone but Hugo had to spend the first round getting into position anyway due to the columns. It quickly became apparent to the party that Illia's lightning bolts were barely getting through and Hugo's adamantine siangham was similarly ineffective. Ori's eldritch blast hits fine, but Myrakul is immune to the usual sickening effect he relies upon.
Myrakul opens up with a Mirror Image but rolls a 1, getting only 4 dupes to play with. The party manage to focus all the images down across the following round. The lich follows up with an ice storm, dealing a decent chunk of damage to Ori, but Illia's efforts to rake the lich in tiger form fail to bear fruit. Hugo switches to his sai and manages to penetrate the lich's damage reduction. Myrakul responds by hitting Illia with a vampiric touch. Sadly he only rolls a 21 across 9d6, damaging her and giving himself temp hp. Ori uses his Eldritch Gloves to boost the damage on his eldritch blast and tries to nuke the lich down. He deals a big chunk of damage, 29 hp, leaving the lich with only 21 hp left. Myrakul has a decision to make. He could try to kill Ori with Scorching Ray, but if he does, he's gonna have to hope that Hugo and Illia can't deal 21 damage combined. The gambit is that he has a teleport spell. A little DM thought later and I decide he'd hit the teleport rather than risk the chance that Ori survives the assault and kills him. He teleports out to a safe location, many miles away, there to plot his revenge. This left the party free to loot up and continue the quest, having defeated the guardians of the prison.

The first stop is the golem lab Myrakul came from where the party finds the last components they need in order to finish constructing the golem in the Timeless Keep. This golem was found in a partially built state, an abandoned side project of the wizard who built the Timeless Keep, Stephan. Once complete, the golem should be able to control the Keep's computer, able to calculate each portal without error, including opening portals to locations that the player's don't currently have co-ordinates for. Only one piece of that puzzle remains, how to bring the golem to life. Stephan abandoned the project after travelling to Eberron where he found the original creator of the warforged had taken the secret of their awakening to his grave.

Next stop is the adjoining room, Myrakul's office where the party find a treasure chest stuffed with loot and the records. Luckily for them, only Ori entered the room, as there was a magical trap that would trigger if anyone good aligned entered. Ori checked the records and soon discovered that, surprise, surprise, Venedict was in the room he had previously noted with his eldritch whispers! They took the key from the hag's corpse, Ori holding it after it burned Illia when she attempted to pick it up due to her being good aligned.
The party trudged up to Venedict's cell to finally find out what B'hecki learned. They opened the cell to find that Venedict has been here so long, he has long since become an allip. The babbling hypnotises Cabot, who is really not having a good time down here at all. Ori and Hugo are strong willed enough that they eventually manage to decipher Venedict's babbling, piecing together a riddle hidden within the insanity.

Beneath the darkest veil of all
Where earth is black as night
Where madness tunnels through the mind
And howling winds take flight
Where fire burns in evil hearts
And blood, the price of war
The skull-topped towers of Demogorgon
Where roiling waters roar

They peace out, back to the Timeless Keep to sell their loot and pick apart this poem, having picked up only the one chaos point for their time travelling shenanigans, for a total of three.
Have a go and see if you can make sense of the riddle. The answer is in the spoiler tags below.

Spoiler

Using a combination of player wits and in character rolls, Illia realises that each couplet contains one of the classic elements and Ori notes that each one points to a specific plane. Hugo identifies the Plane of Shadow and Illia recognises Pandemonium.
After some debate about whether the third is Avernus, Hugo eventually decides it must refer to Hades, the actual battlefield of the Blood War.
Finally, the party agree that Demogorgon lies on the 88th layer of the Abyss, known as the Brine Flats to Hugo and the Gaping Maw to Illia.
Illia wonders if there are elemental stones they need to retrieve on each plane?

Well, we'll find out exactly what the clues lead to next time. For now, the party decide to begin with the Shadow Plane. As a Shadow Hand monk, Hugo is well versed in this place, and warns the party to prepare for draining attacks. The group chip in for a partially charged wand of restoration and Cabot upgrades his armour with death ward. Hugo is also excited to enter the Shadow Plane as he is seeking a Weapon of Legacy, long lost to the Shadow Hand monks. Next week we journey into darkness.

[Charon]

Well, we meet once again, ready for adventure and gearing up to face the horrors of the Shadow Plane. Potions of Body Ward are acquired and Hugo, the party's Zenythri and planes expert racks his brains for info. We learn some flavour details of what to expect in the Plane of Shadow and that there is a portal that can be used to enter, hidden in the graveyard of Neverwinter. It's easy enough for most of the group to get to Neverwinter, but this exists within Cabot's timeline which means he can't use the portal to go to Faerun unless it's before he was born or after he dies, so he has to go the long way, to Sigil, to the Outlands, to Faerun. It's not that big a detour and he meets the party outside the gates of Neverwinter where it is 11pm and snowing. The party make their way to the graveyard and locate the portal, stepping through into the city of Evernight, Neverwinter's dark shadow.
A ghoul lounges on a gravestone, overseeing two ettin skeletons who are loading a wagon. Attached to the wagon is a second wagon, the kind with bars that holds prisoners, and two skeletal horses hitched up front. From behind the bars, a male Shadar-kai pleads with the party for his freedom, offering payment. The ghoul tries to deter them, pointing out the prisoner has no money and interfering would draw his master's ire. The party pick up on the context clues that the ghoul's master is a vampire and turn a deaf ear to the Shadar-kai's plight, abandoning him to his fate, to be hauled to Thay and sold as a slave.
Hugo knows that in order to find more information on the riddle and the artefact he is seeking, the group will need to locate a hidden library belonging to the Twilight Cabal, a cult of shadow mages. The best place he knows of to find information is Duskrift, a town hidden in a deep chasm on the seabed of this oceanless shadow of the Sword Coast. Duskrift is a haven for people who prefer to conduct their business here. Natives like Shadar-kai and Illumians, material humankin with the dark template and even everyday humans, drow, wizards seeking secrets of shadow or necromancy or difficult to acquire spell components, smugglers, slavers and other such ne'er-do-wells. The group march off across the seabed, lost in the mist of the Shadow Plane, barely able to see twenty feet ahead even with their light sources. A couple of hours later, veered slightly off course by Hugo, they run into a Greater Shadow and a couple of Shadow Mastiffs. It's a surprisingly one sided fight and the party manage to dispatch the group with relative ease. Illia casts Know Direction to help ascertain relative North and Hugo gets his bearings and leads the group to the chasm. They use their troll gut rope and an immovable rod to abseil down the sheer chasm, to the bottom, 150 ft down. From here they simply walk along for a few minutes til they find the dimly glowing globes that mark a secondary crack, leading to a vast hidden chasm beyond that houses the town of Duskrift. If this place had a sea, Duskrift would be a pirate port, the perfect place to buy or sell goods of questionable provenance and legality. A place where one can hide out and drink shadow wine, with inns, taverns, even a brothel, all in place to see to the whims of any shadow travellers. While the party is unsure where to begin, the decision is easily made for them, as the door to one of the taverns opens and out steps a familiar gnome, Jamna Gleamsilver, who recognises Ori from a previous meeting.

Sidebar. Jamna Gleamsilver is a gnome rogue and member of the Zhentarim from the 5e module Hoard of the Dragon Queen which is the first campaign I ran these dudes through. We played another 3e campaign after that and then in this one, I decided to bring back a few notables as this is essentially set a few years after the events of HOTDQ. This means Ori's previous character, a dragonborn bard, is currently the governor of Waterdeep, having taken over after Laeral Silverhand went into hiding after unleashing spellfire on the armies of the Cult of the Dragon in the epic Helms' Deep style army combat I ran near the finale. A couple of other NPCs made it through, Taern Thunderspells and Jamna Gleamsilver. The party have also ran into Laeral's sister, Alustriel. Anyway, Jamna was such a party favourite NPC the first time round that I brought her back. This party, or rather Ori, Firion and Krak Flak, ran into Jamna in Silverymoon where they hired her to lead them to the Tomb of Horrors. They tried to pay her to come in with them but she fancied living a few more years. Close call, as that module would see Firion die, to be replaced with Illia. Krak Flak would also meet his doom, being replaced with Hugo, who also died, though that death was ultimately prevented by Ori going back in time to leave a specific door unlocked, earning his first chaos point.

So meeting Jamna again is a matter of fortuitousness and naturally she claims she can guide them to the hidden library, being familiar with the Plane of Shadow as a Zhentarim agent, for a price of course. 700gp later and we leave the party, clambering back out of the chasm, following the diminutive rascal as she leads them onwards to the next part of their adventure just like she shepherded their first group from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep nearly a decade ago.

I would like to point out that right up until the party descended the chasm, I had no real idea what was going to happen in Duskrift. The idea had been rolling around my head all week but it was only at that exact moment that I realised it would make so much sense, and be such a great moment, for it to be Jamna who bumps into them. Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow.
We resume DnD in three week's time due to one player's real life plans, but we play Fate Core on the 18th so that will be the next update.

[Charon]

Well, the Fate game got cancelled due to player illness, so we picked up the week after with our usual DnD session.
Jamna has led the group to a seemingly impenetrable tower, rising monolithically from the ground with no obvious signs of entry. Atop a balcony, seemingly also lacking a door or window, stands an elderly mage in black robes, her hair divided into two equal ponytails, black, with a streak of white through each. She attempts to turn the party away, until Hugo makes his affiliation with the Shadow Hand known. The mage seeks proof that Hugo is who he claims and summons a Darkweaver which the party engage. They struggle to penetrate the Darkweaver's defences initially but a well timed crit from Cabot shreds the beast of its hit points. The mage was mainly interested in seeing Hugo's stances and accepts that he is of the Shadow Hand and offers them entrance to the tower of the Twilight Cabal. An entrance appears, a shadowy portal that leads them into the bottom floor of the tower, a vast library, as well lit as any place in Shadow can be.
Here the mage introduces herself as Kamala. Introductions are made, and, freed up to peruse the library, the group make two independent discoveries, leading them both to the same conclusions, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Hugo enquires whether Kamala knows the location of the dagger he seeks, Umbral Awn. The mage scries on the item with a black mirror, revealing that its current wielder is a medusa. An amulet around the medusa's neck carries an interesting triangular symbol.
Researching the symbol, Hugo finds it is the symbol of the Cult of Black Earth.
Meanwhile, Ori too has discovered evidence of the Black Earth cult's involvement in Shadow and has a way to find their temple.
The two share their info and put the pieces together. This medusa is the cult's leader, Marlos Urnrayle. All paths converge on this temple.
Before the group leave, they also find the names and a little background info on the other cults, The Cult of the Crushing Wave, the Cult of Howling Hatred and the Cult of the Eternal Flame (say my naaaame, sun shines through the raaaaaiiiiin - sorry, child of the 80s).
These cults/temples are initially from the Elemental Evil campaign and in this instance I've converted the 5e versions from Princes of the Apocalypse (which are infinitely more fun than the 3e version). Naturally, some changes have been made to fit my plot, but the bulk of it carries through.
Fast forward past some travelling until the group arrive at the entrance, which they find is subterranean. The passage into the earth is a cave/tunnel that soon gives way, emerging into ancient dwarven ruins, not that the party have any way of knowing that. A snaky path leads out over a chasm and as the party cross, they are assaulted by gargoyles who attack anyone not making the correct pass gesture. I did my best to shove someone off the bridge but it's pretty hard to do and the party managed to dispatch the gargoyles with only a few scrapes to show for it, Cabot delivering yet another solid crit and Ori managing to crit his eldritch blast.
Our sessions ends with the fight, leaving our adventurers ready to enter the Temple of the Black Earth proper, next week. Dungeon crawling time, baby.

[Charon]

Oh God.
So, let's start with a caveat. Part of the reason I moved my group from 5th to 3rd was that I could tell they preferred tactical combat over theatre of the mind and so, dungeon crawls have always been some of the more memorable sections of our campaigns rather than high drama RP. This session was no exception, with the full four and a half hour sesh dominated by one massive brawl.
It began innocently enough as Hugo, the monk, recced the area ahead and noted four hobgoblins, a human and a bulette in the room beyond. Plans were made to stealthily unleash a surprise Ice Storm, catching their foes unaware and picking them off from range and so Illia launched her Ice Storm, Ori tossed out an eldritch blast and combat began in earnest, with the party holding the doors as a chokepoint.
The hobgoblins pushed up, using pillars for cover and readying their javelins but the melee PCs stayed behind the doors with similar readied actions. Illia turned into a bear and faced the bulette in the doorway, managing to bring the creature down with a combination of claws and lightning. However, the PCs were unaware that reinforcements were arriving, drawn by the noise of spellcasting, Ori's Horn of Resilience and one of the Hobgoblins yelling for help. Mobs from the adjacent rooms began filtering in, ultimately giving us three clerics, two sorcerers, three fighters, a psion, a ranger, and a rogue to add to the mix.
Illia decided to divide the room with a Wall of Thorns which she managed to cast in such a way that it imprisoned the bulk of the reinforcements.
It turns out, Wall of Thorns is insane, requiring a DC 25 str check to escape easily, far beyond the capabilities of most of these mooks. The one free cleric set about casting Bull's Strength on the fighters to try and assist them but it was a massacre. Many died in the thorns, more were picked off by Ori's eldritch blast sniping. The one free cleric tried to keep up his side's morale as he provided healing, but the players began trying to counter him, tossing out threats and jeers of their own. I leaned into it, with the cleric basically giving the players lip and setting himself up as Werner the Magnificent. It added a truly comedic twist to the fight that helped with the slow pacing.
Hugo took the brunt, being on the other side of the wall to Werner. Werner taunted him and cast a Sound Burst through the gap. Huge responded by using his reach bracers to Dhalsim his arms through the Wall of Thorns and grapple Werner, attempting to tug him through the hedge. Werner fought him off initially but the grapple continued and eventually, much to my chagrin, Werner was pulled through to their side. In desperation, one of the other fighters loudly stated his intention to go fetch reinforcements and the bets were off. Illia dismissed the Wall of Thorns and Cabot chased him down to prevent any more people coming.
Free of the wall blocking LOS, the remaining reinforcements set about assailing the party, with the psion in particular dishing out some damage with his Swarm of Crystals and Energy Stun.
Hugo remained grappling with Werner as the two tussled, attempting to trade blows and hilarious insults with one another and eventually, Hugo won out, leading to a dramatic death scene for Werner.
The party mopped up the last of the mooks and we finally drew the session to a close. The first room has been cleared and next week, we'll see what else awaits our party in the Temple of the Black Earth. I'm not sure if it will be quite as memorable as Werner's quips, but I'll do my best.

[Charon]

It's been a while, we had some illness and a trip to Japan for one of our group, but we're back.
So last time. We had the megabrawl. I didn't mention at the time, but this is a prime example of how to throw lower level mooks at players and still have fun. Out of the 17 enemy combatants, the bulette was the highest at CR 7. Everyone else was CR 4. Some were initially meant to be higher (sor 7s and a couple of 5s among the second group), but I nerfed them a little as it already felt pretty intense. It turned out to be the perfect balance for the party who are two level 9s and two level 10s. The lower CRs with the staggered entry made for an interesting fight, with the comedy adding to the entertainment and, importantly, it caused the players to use resources. Chip damage adds up and most found themselves on around half health by the end and Illia burned a high level spell casting Wall of Thorns. The players may end up having to make a decision over what to do if they run out of spells as they haven't rested since they entered the Shadow Plane.
Point is, it's very tempting as a DM to see an Average Party Level of 10 and be looking only in the 8-12 CR range. Using some lower level mooks in number, especially if they have class levels, can be a memorable battle, just don't overdo it. We had a couple of really good moments like that in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. One was where the party had to defend a chokepoint against a horde of bullywugs as they retreated to a portal. Another was a fight against a dragon with I think around 100 low level cultists. The party were tier 4 at the time and got to toss AoE spells out with wild abandon, annihilating ranks of cultists as they also fought the aerial threat.

Ok, that's enough reminiscing. Onto this week's game.
Somewhat short, as one of our group was still jetlagged from the time difference between Japan and Canada. We opened up with a good old fashioned looting as the group catalogued everything from the corpse pile. From there, the party pushed on a little, discovering a huge statue of Ogrémoch, seemingly carved out of a different statue. Hugo and Ori have enough Knowledge Religion to get some background info on Ogrémoch and his relation to Earth. The party pushed on, discovering the galley. Well, it's not on a ship so I guess it's just a dining hall cum kitchenette. Either way, they caught a couple of mooks munching, and some more hanging out in the kitchen. Two fighter 4s for soak and two sorcerer 7s and a cleric 7. Not too hard a fight, but Illia's bear form clogged the entryway up so she took a bunch of damage and ended up in that rare edge case of having precisely 0 HP at one point.
It doesn't happen often and even I had to check the rules on being at 0 HP exactly. Anyway, she managed to cast a cure spell and get herself out of that situation and we wrapped up there. There's plenty of temple left to explore next week but in the mean time, Illia is low on HP and spells and Hugo is blind thanks to the cleric. A trip back to the Keep seems in order, returning at the exact moment they leave. Long time DMs may balk at this very idea. Free long rests at will?! Well, not only is that gimmick specific to this campaign but the more the players abuse it, the more I ramp up the threats they face. :) So, yeah, if they're coming back in fresh then I can toss more intense fights their way. It'll feel like they've really slogged through the gauntlet because they actually have. XD
What's more, unknown to them, each use of the portal triggers a check due to the number of chaos points they have and the more of those that accrue, the more likely the check is to succeed. What happens if that check passes? I guess we'll find out at some point in the future.

[Charon]

Busy week for me as we had our first ever session of Fate Core, our Alien Swarm themed game.
We opened on the planet Tycho-4, where our three characters find themselves at the Jeden Mining Facility. This place was built and is operated by, the Newman-Webb Corporation, and is currently under the supervision of Walton Webb Jr, an incompetent, arrogant nepo baby who is ostensibly here to oversee this important venture, but is in truth as far away in deep space as his father could send him to get him out of his hair and put him to work. The facility consists of a complex for habitation, a mining facility and a refinement facility, all built from cheap modular units acquired from the government for a low price, surplus from the great colonisation rush. Cheap is the watchword here as Newman-Webb have built this place on a shoestring, ready to cash in on mining Trixilite ore, to refine into Trixium, the fuel needed for interstellar travel and the substance that will see Newman-Webb transition from a mere petroleum company to a force to be reckoned with. The planet itself is habitable, with a breathable atmosphere and pleasant climate. The civilians are protected from the local wildlife by a small force of PMCs who also serve to guard the Webb scion.
We open with an overview of a regular day at the facility which has now been in full operation for a couple of weeks. We catch up with Elliot, played by Erkore, the systems administrator who installed and oversees the computer network at the facility. It's a dull slow morning for him and he spends it playing Minesweeper while keeping one eye on the rather basic security cams (note, not his job). The cams are few and low quality, black and white. This is Alien style retrotech so we're talking CRTs, pre mobile phone era, late 80s kinda vibe.
While he does that, Colt, the drone operator played by Pell, heads out to the mining facility where he remote pilots two mining drones. These are basically robots with caterpillar tracks, drill arms and claws, like something out of robot wars, designed to drill out the Trixilite ore from deep underground in toxic gas filled chambers. The centre of the mining facility is a wide bore drill, that occasionally deepens the shaft, allowing the drones to explore further.
We also meet Fred, played by Tommie, the chemist who works at the refinement facility across the river, where the Trixilite is piped into a sealed unit to be processed into a stable form that can be compressed into fuel bricks, with some being siphoned off for Fred to experiment with in the hopes of making refinements and new discoveries.

It's a slow morning for all, at least until mid-afternoon when the big mining drill comes to a jarring stop, moments after being spun up.
Colt and his fellow drone operator crack open the door when they hear raised voices and listen in to what's unfolding. It seems the drill has jammed up and the chief engineer wants to withdraw the drill bit and replace it, something that will shut the facility down for the day. On the grainy videolink, Walton Webb Jr isn't happy and accuses the Chief of being overcautious. He demands the drilling resume. Against his better judgement, the Chief complies. The drill starts back up and after some screeching, resumes drilling, albeit with occasional scrapes as it catches on something. Tentatively, everyone returns to work, but as they do, a smell drifts up from the drill bore. There's barely time to register what it is before the screeching drill ignites the flammable gas and the facility explodes!

We pick up with Fred, who was knocked over by the blast but otherwise unharmed. The refinement lab is dark, the power disabled and a quick vocal check only reveals one voice, one of the lab techs who reveals that he is pinned down by a fallen cabinet. Fred makes his way over in the darkness and feels out the injured man, revealing that his leg is broken and he's bleeding badly. Fred manages to lift the cabinet enough to slide the lab tech, Stephen, free, but he can't assess the guy's injuries in the dark and there's no response from the other lab tech or the other chemist. The PMC posted outside, Dutch, enters and uses a torch to survey the situation. He manages to grab the unconscious chemist and Fred drags Stephen outside. The remaining lab tech is found mostly unharmed and makes their own way free. No casualties, Dutch is able to perform some first aid on Stephen, though the soldier does note his radio isn't working. Or rather, the radio is working fine, but the signal relay between the facility and the complex isn't.

Colt awakes to find himself buried under rubble and subject to a harsh blaring klaxon. Worse, there's fire spreading through the facility. He manages to get free and locate a fire extinguisher which won't put out a blaze of this size but might let him create a path to safety. He sees an unconscious tech and tries to reach them but is driven back by the flames. He reaches the next zone and finds Sadie, another PMC, along with some other survivors. He manages to lead them out to a side exit. Out of the twelve people at this facility, it seems only six survived. The power being out means the fire suppression system can't operate. Colt decides the best thing to do is get back to the complex asap, stopping by the relay on the way to reboot the generator and get Sadie's radio working again.
Colt's group and Fred's group reconvene back at the complex, bloodied, bruised and covered in soot and rubble, they slip off to get showered and changed, while Stephen is hauled off to the infirmary.
Walton Webb Jr is less than pleased. His deputies tell him the fire will have to run its course, then a cleanup crew can be sent in to assess the damage, salvage parts, see what can be replaced from stock and catalogue what might need ordering in from Earth.
Meanwhile, Elliot has been looking through the computer logs and has pieced together what happened. He picks up some additional information. Magnetic disturbance meant that when the explosion triggered and the fire suppression system tried to initiate, it caused the overload that knocked out the power. He isn't sure what caused the magnetic disturbance but he also noted noise on the signal when Walton Webb Jr sent the initial video communications. Is this simply a sign of the crap, second hand tech or an indicator of some greater anomaly?

Wearied from a rough day, the players settle down to sleep, in separate rooms, some distance apart from each other.
The first to wake is Colt, to find a small creature atop his chest. Mistaking it for one of the complex's cats he throws it off, only to hear it scuttle. Hitting the lights he finds it is a large centipede like creature, about the size of a cat, that must have slithered in through the air vent. He manages to fend the creature off with his drill before grabbing his jacket and security keycard and heading out into the corridor where he runs into more of the creatures. He tries to fend them off with a fire extinguisher but is bitten and pushed back. He triggers the fire alarm and makes a mad dash for the canteen and grabs a frying pan which he manages to use to fight them off for a while. However, the creatures are too resilient and he succumbs to his wounds, slipping into unconsciousness.
Meanwhile, in Fred's room, he too is awoken by the sound of scuttling as another such creature slithers out from under his bed. He has an easier time, remaining in his pants, he manages to grab his keycard and slip out into the corridor, locking the creature in his room.
Meanwhile, in Elliot's room, his air vent is blocked. Knowing the air con doesn't work, he blocked it up on arrival at the complex (brilliant use of a Fate point). He is, however, woken by the fire alarm and slowly gets dressed and grabs his gear before heading for the nearest fire exit.
Fred and Elliot emerge through separate doors, with a small trickle of other workers, out into the cool night air. Before they can query what's going on, they hear screams from inside the complex and then a sudden silence as the permanent low hum of the complex's power ceases. The perimeter lights go out, plunging them into darkness...
I don't know when the next session is going to be, but I'm looking forward to it.

[Charon]

DnD was something of a short session this week. Well, not short exactly, three and a half hours, but we did spend quite a bit of that joking around. But hey, sometimes you need a session like that. So all we really had this week was some housekeeping and a fight.
First up, the party gathered up the loot from the previous week's fight and decided to return to the Keep to fix Hugo's blindness. This means leaving Cabot aside as he technically can't use the Keep's portal to return as this is home world during his lifetime (It's like the reverse Quantum Leap rule). It's true that the party is in the Shadow Plane, but given that it technically occupies the same spacetime, just out of phase, it still counts. The Keep was designed to prevent anyone travelling in their own specific world/timeline to avoid drawing Mystra's attention.
So, yeah, Cabot has to stay behind. But not for long because the party can simply return the second they leave, or at least close to it depending how well Hugo programs the computer.
So back to the Keep, over to Sigil, sell loot, cure booboos, stock up on some supplies. They weren't even gonna buy more remove blindness til I joked about how there couldn't possibly be any more cultists in this temple full of cultists with similar spellcasting abilities. Hint taken, they picked up a couple just in case. They sleep the night and return to the Temple the following morning, arriving 2 minutes and 27 seconds later than expected. Not that they know that because they didn't tell Cabot to count how long they were gone or anything.
Interesting science point. Cabot is now one day younger than he would be when he returns to the real timeline. Ori asked a point about how it works when they TP back to the Keep now. Does Cabot appear in the Keep the day before? I decided that the Keep tracks relative time. If the party leaves and spends a day in Faerun, when they return to the Keep, a day has passed there too. Now technically, for three of them the day has passed and for Cabot it hasn't, so I get where Ori is coming from, but the point is, that time still passed. Cabot might not have been present and might not have experienced it from his viewpoint, but the time did pass, so when they return back, they return to the later timeframe. And yes, if they think about it carefully there are shenanigans that can be done here. It's a bit like the twin paradox, where you fire a twin off into space at nearly the speed of light for ten years. When he returns to Earth, he is younger than his twin. But the time still passed. In this metaphor, the Keep is Earth, the frame of reference, and Cabot is the younger twin. He returns back at the same time as the others, even though for him, less time passed.
I guess this qualifies planar teleportation as faster than light travel?

Anyway, back in the Temple, the party poke their nose in another room, or rather Ori does by himself, stumbling across a sorcerer 7 and two fighter 4s. This sorcerer is based on the 5e stonemelder, but is essentially a 3.5e sorcerer with a death burst effect (10ft radius, 2d10 bludge, DC14 ref for half). The enemies are huddled around a table playing beyblades (sometimes you just gotta yes and it. It started as cards). The stonemelder notices Ori and they roll for initiative. Ori rolls a 24 and throws an Eldritch Blast, rolling a natty 1. His blast hits the beyblades, sending them into a spinning frenzy. He immediately nopes out through the corridor and into the previous room. The enemies give chase, running into the flatfooted Illia who gets chopped up by the fighters. The sorc buffs up with mage armour and then the rest of the party are rolled in. Hugo moves in and deals some damage, Illia takes some more chops and then the sorc throws out a Cloudkill. Con damage for everyone but Ori. This is a new spell for the players so they have no idea what it does. Combat continues and the sorc is pushed back into the room. She casts a Cone of Cold, catching everyone but Ori. Ori lingered in the previous room which means the Cloudkill moves, engulfing him, hahahaha. Con damage. Well, no surprises the party kill the sorc. Illia hits her with her staff for a whopping 1 damage and then Cabot rocks up and chops off her head with 30+. She explodes in a shower of pebbles, or beyblades if you prefer, and the fight is over and so is the session. Next week we'll loot those beyblades and continue exploring the Temple of Black Earth.

[Charon]

Well, one thing about this 5e dungeon is that the layout isn't perfectly linear, as the party found out this week as they discovered the boss after only exploring half the dungeon. Hugo discovered a heavily berobed cultist chatting with a shadow demon in a room filled with eerily lifelike statues. He managed to slip in unnoticed and lay in wait as the rest of the party planned how exactly they wished to breach this room. Eventually they decided that the room's dark nature was unappealing and so they opened the door and lobbed a stone through that had light cast upon it. The cultist didn't seem too miffed, and attempted to engage them in dialogue. Illia chatted briefly with Marlos Urnrayle, for t'was he, before deciding to blow this popsicle stand and initiate initiative.
Her opening move was to summon an air elemental and attempt to trap Marlos in a whirlwind. It failed to have the desired effect but did blow back his hood, revealing that Marlos is a medusa! Sudden dynamic shift! Now the light, which was benefiting the crew and nerfing the demon, is also making it much easier for them to fall victim to his gaze.
It's an interesting fight for this reason. Being in darkness nerfs the medusa but buffs the demon and vice versa. On top of that, I gave Marlos a lair action, as the party found out on his turn. An earthquake effect that collapses the stalactites from the cavern ceiling, dealing damage to Illia and burying Cabot under rubble. It would take two turns for the halfling to pull himself free, by which point Illia had summoned another air elemental and had successfully made three saves against the gaze. Hugo got involved, dealing some damage to Marlos and using his shadow hand abilities to debuff the demon. Marlos pulled out another trick, using his dagger, Umbral Awn, to turn incorporeal. It wasn't enough to save him and while some attacks missed, ultimately an eldritch blast finished him off. The shadow demon tried to put up a fight but the light was too draining for him and he failed to land any attacks to deal vile damage to the party. Finally freed from the rubble, Cabot was able to finish the beast off. The fight was over, no one got turned to stone, but resources have been used and the rest of the dungeon, including the reason for coming here, remains. For now, Hugo has hands on Umbral Awn, the fabled Weapon of Legacy that once belonged to the Shadow Hand monks. Its power is his for the taking, once he submits to the rituals that will unlock its abilities. The dungeon crawl will continue, though next session will be a return to the Fate Core game.

[Charon]

Fate Core!
So we picked up from last time where the group were huddled outside in the cool night air as the power to the complex went down. Gunshots sound and as panic starts to set in among the three nearby NPCS, one of the PMCs arrives. It's Dutch, wearing his fatigues and a white singlet and armed with a well equipped MK556 with a flashlight mount. He informs the group that the power is down. Larger creatures have been spotted outside the perimeter fence and he intends to go to the power substation to see if he can get the power back online. Elliot is quick to point out that it won't be a simple task. He suggests first heading to the server room to get some equipment. Once there, he unplugs the uninterruptible power supply from his terminal and uses it to bring one of the servers back online, pulling the logs for the power station to assess the damage.
He sees that the repairs will be complex. He can get some of the power back online using his diagnostic tool, but there's a faulty substation that needs isolating and some broken cables too, one of which will need bypassing. He checks the personnel files and locates the electrician's room and suggests they see if he's still alive.

Meanwhile, in the woods, Colt wakes up to find himself stuck to a tree by sticky goop. He fails his first attempt to escape and is bitten by one of the creatures and slumps into unconsciousness again. When he regains consciousness some time later he manages to use a sharp edge on his malfunctioning bionic arm to cut through the webbing binding him. He finds two more people stuck to trees, one male, one female. The woman is unresponsive but the man wakes up and starts to freak out. Colt manages to settle him down as he cuts him free, recognising him as the company electrician, Gerard. As Colt starts cutting the woman's bonds too, she also wakes up, but before she can panic completely, she begins choking and vomits up a heap of blood and baby centipedes which scuttle off into the underbrush. Karen from accounts is no more and Colt and Gerard freak out and run away, in opposite directions.

In Hab-block B, Dutch, Fred and Elliot are checking for the electrician when they find dead bodies and are ambushed by a couple of centipedes. Elliot manages to kill one with Dutch's sidearm, while the PMC's rifle makes short work of the other with a simple doubletap. Gerard's room is found empty, with signs that he didn't leave voluntarily, such as his keycard still on the table.

Colt runs in the wrong direction and finds himself at the damaged lab. He manages to perform some field repairs on his bionic arm and get it working again. He makes his way across the maintenance catwalk to the central island and gets the backup power working and then heads into what remains of the mining operation. The fire has mostly burned itself out by now, but bits still smoulder and the air is heavy with smoke. He manages to get his terminal online and access his drone, bringing it up to the surface. From there he operates it manually, driving it back to the main complex.

Meanwhile, Sadie radios Dutch to inform him that she just found Gerard, scuttling around near Hab-block C. Dutch tells her to meet up with the others. The group assemble and head out to the power station with Gerard, leaving the three NPCs safe in the walk in fridge in the kitchens.
At the power station, the group works together to try and bring the power back online. The swarm attacks and Dutch and Sadie attempt to hold them off as Fred, Elliot and Gerard try to reboot the system and bypass the damaged components. It's a tricky job and doesn't go well. Elliot has trouble with the diagnostics and Gerard gets electrocuted. Both PMCs are hit by acidic spit from a new variant of the creatures, but ultimately manage to hold their ground. As the power is finally brought back online, Gerard takes another shock and passes out, with severe burns to his hand. The group haul him back to the kitchens and pop him in the fridge with the other NPCS, which include Dr Reid, the company's medic.
From here, they discuss their plan and decide that they can use Fred's knowledge of chemistry to try to find some way of poisoning the creatures. But first, they'll need to capture a live one. Elliot sets off the SOS beacon now the power is on, a basic signal that will reach Earth in around 24 hours. Rescue is gonna take a while, so for now, the two players and Dutch go to try secure a live centipede.

Colt arrives back at base and heads for administration first. He logs into the reception computer terminal but doesn't find anything that is going to help him.

The other group attempt to capture the centipede locked in Fred's room but it's quick and manages to give them the slip. Before they can attempt again, there's some sort of impact on the facility. Dutch goes to investigate, leaving Elliot and Fred to catch a specimen. It takes them a while, but they eventually find another centipede and manage to capture it in a large cooking pot.

Meanwhile, repeated impacts hit Hab-block C. Colt arrives there in time to see some new variant of bug, essentially launching mortars at the hab-block. Dutch and Sadie arrive, with Sadie managing to dodge one of the mortars. The creature continues its assault as the PMCs open fire and as Sadie barely dodges another mortar hit, Dutch unloads his magazine, full auto, at the mortar bug, killing it. As he swaps out the magazine, he informs Sadie that this is his last. She checks her M4A1 and realises she is on a mag and a half. They collect Colt and head back to the kitchens.

Meanwhile, the other two had hauled their live specimen back to the kitchens, collected Dr Reid and headed to the medical office. Fred begins testing various common chemicals on the creature, soon realising it isn't affected by alcohol or common painkillers. Even opiates have no effect on it and other topical ointments don't seem to bother it. At this point he starts mixing some chemicals together to see what he can find that will hurt it, eventually coming up with a compound that kills the subject. They head back to the kitchens, meeting the PMCs and Colt and start putting their plan together.
The poison is toxic to humans too, so cannot be used as a spray. Instead, they will create a bomb, of sorts. The plan as it stands is:
Head to the lab and produce the chemical compound in large amounts.
Compress the substance into emptied out oxygen tanks.
Design some sort of remote or timed detonator that can be used to rupture the tanks and disperse the chemical.
Locate the nest and fight their way in to plant the bomb.
Get the hell outta dodge.

Back to DnD next week and Fate Core at the following session.

[Charon]

And back around to Fate Core in what is our penultimate session of this one-shot. This was largely a planning session. Lots of rolling, as the players put the pieces of their plan into motion, persuading the PMCs to offer up the armoury, limited as it is. They picked up a shotgun, a couple of sidearms and some flashbangs. From there to logistics to collect parts to produce the bomb and a flamethrower. Some shenanigans took place. Colt accidentally got himself locked in the mechanic's workshop and a rescue had to be attempted, but ultimately the group got the parts they needed.
Next up, they headed to the lab where they produced and aerosolised the poison, constructed their bomb and built a flamethrower. Noe all they need is a way to find the nest. The main plan floated around was to use Colt as bait and plant a tracking device on him, but the drone pilot took offence at this plan. A standoff took place, Elliott set off a flashbang and in the aftermath, Sadie managed to tackle Colt to the ground, disarm him and talk him down. A more sensible approach was agreed upon, the party just have to figure out what it is. They have two weeks to do so...

[Charon]

Missed out a DnD sesh so let me throw that in.

Picking up from last session's boss fight, the party loot Marlos' room and then push on through the dungeon. They find a mysterious chamber containing an immobile stone golem which seems to be guarding some sort of elemental wellspring. Deciding to come back to it later, they explore a little further and find another room where a group of cultists appear to have captured a gnome which they have manacled to a giant stone obelisk that is currently leaking a viscous black ooze. What's more, the gnome looks a lot like Jamna Gleamsilver. Wary and suspicious the group engage the cultists, beating them all on initiative, vaporising their leader and quickly retreating with the gnome, leaving the remaining cultists to their fate as a black pudding finishes oozing from the porous obelisk and starts digesting everyone left in the room.
Suspicious of the gnome, the group question her, soon realising that despite her claims, she is not actually Jamna Gleamsilver. When she tries to escape, Hugo holds her upside down by one leg as the party interrogate her. They learn that she is, in fact, Jamna's sister, Mobia Gleamsilver. She gives them some information about the place. She knows that Becky somehow used the stone golem to pull a crystal from the elemental wellspring, which Mobia claims is the raw elemental earth that the whole plane is made of. She also tells them that if anyone knows how the stone golem works it would be Marlos. When they explain that they've killed him, Mobia tells them that there are two others who might know. One is Marlos' second in command, an earth genasi named Miraj. The other is a Dao, an earth based genie. Hugo is aware that Daos are far from co-operative and so the group plans to find Miraj.
They keep exploring and find a barracks and burst in, finding two guards asleep and three more lounging around. We pick up from that fight next time.

---------------------

We had another DnD sesh before our long hiatus (we'll finally be returning to Dnd this sunday if all goes well)
So, Dnd was largely a loot offloading session. The party finally found the Earth Genasi, Miraj who it turns out, is quite a reasonable chap. In exchange for the players leaving him alone to continue his research he agrees to use the golem to give them one of the crystals of raw earth energy. With their hands finallyt on this crystal, which they figure was what B'hecki came here to acquire in the first place, the group return to the Keep and thenceforth to Sigil to offload their loot. The next session will involve a lot of planning. Research on the crystal, perhaps, and possibly into which location they wish to visit next.

-----

One of our group is going globetrotting for a year, so our DnD game is gonna end up on hiatus. I have alternatives planned. A couple of people who might be interested in joining us for a short 5e mini campaign, but the hut is still on for something easier to learn and balance for 2 players. While I think Fate is great, the players had trouble with being given so much agency, especially when it comes to character creation.
With that in mind, I picked up two alternatives we may look into.
One is Quest. A free RPG that has the DnD vibe, but with simpler, stripped back mechanics and easier balancing. All rolls are d20 but with no modifiers. Succeed on a 11+, crit on a 20. The lower failure range is split in 2 between fail and succeed with consequence. Simple item limits, and a set roster of abilities based on class that are activated using a pool of points that can be replenished by the DM for good roleplaying. It seems a wonderfully simple idea and should be fun to try out.
The other alternative is Risus, a setting agnostic system that allows you to build a character based on clichés with a pool of ten points. For example, an alien(3), skateboarding(2), shapeshifting(2) ninja(3). Each point represents a d6, so any action the player wants to commit that requires a roll, you simply decide if this involves being an alien, a skateboarder, a shapeshifter or a ninja and roll accordingly. It's a pretty interesting system that seems easy to pick up and play and I'm hoping to use it to bring the players into a more accessible version of Shadowrun, based in the north of England, where they play against type by being the law enforcement rather than the Shadowrunners in what is essentially a buddy cop scenario. How many of my plans will come to pass? We'll see. I also have a Call of Cthulhu one shot I put together, which needs a little polishing but exists as a pretty solid framework. Watch this space.

[Charon]

Also forgot the Fate Core finale. Christ I'm so busy at the mo.

Most of the session revolved around building the explosive device and strapping it to the drone and jury rigging a control system and remote detonator. The other big point of order was capturing one of the smaller bugs and essentially fitting it with a tracker. The party actually used the radioactive Trixium so cause the creature to leave behind a detectable radiation signature that the mining drone could follow using its existing sensor array.
Once the details were wrangled out it was fairly easy to implement with only a slight delay as Colt got himself locked in the mechanic's workshop.

When it came to driving the drone through the alien nest, it was relatively easy and when they finally got deep enough that the nest's sentries began to attack, Colt set the device off and the toxic gas was released into the nest. This seemed to put an end to the bug threat, but before rescue could arrive, Colt finally succumbed to his experience in the forest, throwing up a huge amount of small centipedes along with his liquified internal organs.
The remaining two players ultimately escaped back to Earth on the rescue ship where one remained with the company, using information he had acquired to blackmail his way into a better position, while the other took his knowledge of the Trixium mining procedure to the company's competitor for their own lucrative gain.

Our Fate game is at an end and if we do return, it will be in a pokemon themed hack in a year or so.

[Charon]

What a busy little bee I am.

Well another short sesh in terms of content if not time. This was more shopping and planning. Research on the earth crystal has revealed that, if the party can acquire what are presumably the other three in the set, there may be some form of combined effect. They've also noted that a sliver can be taken from this larger crystal and, presumably if merged with slivers of the other three, could potentially be used to power the defunct golem.
After that, the party researched the other three remaining planes in order to try and pick the least hostile to tackle first. Given that we have Pandemonium, The Abyss and Hades, it's no simple task. Illia eventually took the effort to Candlekeep where once again, she had to gain entry by offering up a unique book. She eventually rescued a slim volume from the "danger cupboard", the section of the Keep's library where the books are chained down and largely alive. This unassuming volume was the Maleficus Obnoxium, which she soon found, insults you in graphic detail if you open it up and continues to do so until it is closed. This forbidden bookshelf has been a constant source of hilarity in the campaign so far and the party are very wary of touching any of the books therein, so Illia got off lightly here. :P
Anyway, the group soon had a basic assessment of the locations and have settled on going to the Abyss to find the Temple of the Crushing Wave. Joy of joys. Now I get to have fun converting that section over to 3.5e and possibly waterifying some of the enemies (elemental templates in the Manual of the Planes, doncha know). We have four sessions I think before we go on hiatus for DnD, so enough to get our teeth stuck into that Temple. After that, we'll be looking at one shots in Call of Cthulhu, Quest and maybe Risus, and possibly some sort of mini 5e arc with a couple of stragglers coming on board, we'll see. I'm sure my sanity will survive, smileyface.

[Charon]

So it turns out we had another planning sesh as the group weren't quite ready to depart. They realised that they didn't actually know how to get to the Abyss. :O
Some research later and they settle on their best option being the gate town of Plague-Mort in the Outlands. Realising it's likely full of demons, they decide to grab a scroll of Tongues. Illia has also brewed up some helpful potions and completed her druidic ritual to replace her lost animal companion (who died in her opening scene as part of her backstory).
They think this will be sufficient prep (hahahaha) and next week we'll be heading to Plague-Mort. Just enough time for me to cook up some juicy encounters, huh? :)

I've also decided I'm gonna see about running the Paranoia adventure Stealth Train, either in Paranoia or in Risus, as I think it will be fun and, if everything goes according to plan, we'll have five players and could potentially record it. This is probably the next thing I'm gonna work on, though the Cthulhu one shot is in a usable place too so it may depend which of the two the group wants to tackle first.

[Charon]

So, we're back to some real DnD as the group set out for Plague-mort via the Keep's portal. They land 9 miles out, due to the Outlands being non linear and make the rest of the way on foot, arriving hot, bothered and sticking out like a saw thumb. They're immediately spotted by a night hag called Rancina who notices Hugo is Zenythri and casts Detect Law. Happy that she's found a mark she sidles up to the group, pointing out that Hugo sticks out and recommending he slouch over and scowl. She offers them assistance and despite their wariness they follow her. When they get to a quieter location, an apothecary shop, Rancina changes shape "revealing" that she is an Ysgardian (CG alignment) who is disguised as a night hag to infiltrate this place. She claims to want to overthrow the Arch Lector and is willing to trade the party information about the town in exchange for them sneaking into the Keep and stealing a protective ward from the Arch Lector, to render him vulnerable to her. This is partially true. He has a protective amulet that protects his human servants from Rancina's dream riding abilities. Getting that would be a huge coup for her, allowing her to further her own designs on the city. However, Hugo calls her bluff and the party politely decline and depart. Rancina doesn't fancy the fight against them, but has noted that Ori is chaotic and while she has let them leave for now, you can be sure the kobold will end up having some troubled dreams.

The party actually has little trouble finding the portal and it isn't guarded. This is a place of chaos, why would they have an established guard?
They step through the portal and arrive in the Abyss. Now, technically, the portal to the Abyss leads to another settlement on layer 1, Pazunia, and sure, each portal on the plains is most likely guarded by a keep or settlement, but we have Tommie going away in a couple of weeks and I didn't wanna drag it out too much, so we're using the totally desolate Pazunia, lots of random portals and the occasional iron fortress where one leads somewhere important. Because the group made no effort to figure out which portals go where I also decided that many portals have some indication of where they might lead. So the portal to the Demonweb Pits has spider webs in, for example, and the portal they need to the Brine Flats is rimed with salt.
Before they can enter, two demons emerge, an Armanite and a Zovvut. Think a demonic centaur and a fallen angel. It's a CR 7/9 pairing against an ECL 10 party, so not super tough, but the demons have DR that the party can't overcome because they didn't bother investing in Lawful or Good aligned weaponry. Still, not too difficult. I messed up slightly, because one of the monsters has a description that spans a page and I accidentally glanced at the other monster at one point and allowed him to do an 8d6 sneak attack that he shouldn't have actually had. Hey, sometimes DM make mistakes. I simply decided I'd pull the sneak attacks from any future attacks, as though it was a once only ability. As luck would have it, he missed all of his remaining attacks so it never got noticed and so he went down, and the players will think they took down one hell of a foe. Everyone's happy.
As it was, the fight was fairly swift due to the demons rolling poor initiative and the party managing, by accident, to lock the armanite down by preventing him using his charge/bullrush attacks. The party continued on, though the portal, to arrive in the jungles of the Brine Flats. Bit of a misnomer, huh, flats?
Here they meet the imaginatively named Tigrin, a tiger, and Illia's new animal companion. They have already dream bonded in the necessary ritual and Tigrin is here to lead the party to the river that will take them to the Temple of Water.
But that is a tale for next week.

[Charon]

I never did update this, but I probably should, so I remember where we were at.

The group were led by Tigrin through the jungles, until they found the entrance to the underground river that would lead them to the Temple of Water. Naturally they didn't think to bring any boats and nor did it cross their mind to create any as they instead just leapt in.
Sigh.
Well, naturally I had planned for this eventuality and so the troglodyte ambush hit them as they drifted through the darkness much later. The fight was an interesting one. Seemingly one sided to begin with, the troglodytes attacked at range from the bank, leaving the party struggling to act. Illia had the bright idea to raise the water level, flooding the underground embankment and putting the fight back on even footing. Well, kind of. Now no one was landing any hits. A lot of failing around and cursing at Illia until, as the fight wore on, it became apparent that the troglodytes were slowly drowning. Eventually the group managed to wait them out and then carry on their way back down the underground river.

They eventually emerge into the river that leads to the dock of the Temple of Water. There they find guards, led by Eyon, a mercenary employed by the cult. She's suspicious of the party approaching and they almost manage to convince her that they have come to see Gar Shatterkeel, the Cult Leader, as emissaries of the Black Earth Cult, but their effort is blown when the party claim to have spoken to Marlos face to face and she is suspicious given that Marlos is a medusa. A fight breaks out, the party's monk starts chucking people in the water and the group quickly overpower the guards without seeming to have drawn too much attention.

It will be some time until they infiltrate the Temple of Water as our group's Shadow Hand Monk has gone travelling for a year. The campaign is on hiatus and I remain working on a series of one shots. Paranoia, Cthulhu and maybe some Quest. If and when it happens, I'll let you know.