The Dragon of Icespire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 12 - Tempestuous Negotiations

The prep...

So the last four sessions have had a lot of combat and planning on how to execute that combat. That's all fine and dandy, but I wanted to shake things up a little bit for this session. The party hasn't had a real exploring/puzzle solving session since the Dwarven Excavation site. So I figured I'd have the shrine be a little more complex than it was in the original adventure.

First things first, I wanted to have the characters have a bit of interaction with the orcs. I came up with a few questions that the leader of the orcs wanted answered. If the party answered in the right way (and made a few charisma rolls) then they could maybe get past this without a fight.

"I came to eat cheese and kick ass,
and I'm all out of cheese!"

Because of some of the backstory contained in the adventure. I knew that the orcs scared away wererats from the Shrine. So I knew there would be remnants of the wererats' habitation. I also wanted to guide the players to the lighthouse, as well as give them something else to puzzle out. Since this was a shrine to a god of divination, I came up with a few little touches to imply that the player's arrival was predicted by the old order of monks.

I did the most work on coming up with the illusion trap inside the alter room. I thought it would be a fun puzzle to have the room trapped with a magical illusion. I gave them a hint of getting past the trap, but also kept in mind that they could break through the illusion using skills or physical feats. I also modified the vision that the alter grants, to give them a bit more of a pointer toward the lighthouse (and the magic weapon within).

Other than that, I transferred the stats of the remaining monsters (3 orcs and one ogre), reviewed the map one more time (hey there are holes in the main shrine structure that the characters can use), and got ready for the evening.

The story...

The leader of the orcs had the Unibrow look going, so that is what we referred to him as during the game. Because the Wind Wall was still up from the previous session, the orc was unable to communicate to the party. So he motioned to the druid that he wanted to speak. He motioned for his companions to step back, javelins ready, but to not attack until he had finished his parlay with the party.

"I wouldn't believe you, but you've got
that fine fine hat on, so..."

The Wind Wall finally ran out and Unibrow approached. What followed was a tense conversation, as Unibrow tried to determine who sent the party. Since these orcs were followers of Talos, the storm god, the party used that knowledge to their advantage. The druid put on her green charisma cap, and did some quick talking. She claimed to be a follower of Talos as well, and that she had been sent to the shrine by the god.

She rolled really well, and Unibrow believed her. He asked if she could succeed where his shaman failed. They were convinced that the Blessing of Talos was in the shrine, but had been unable to secure it. He told the players that if they could retrieve this information and share it with him, he would let them enter the shrine unmolested. Of course he wasn't completely trusting, and one of his fellow orcs argued against the idea (in orcish). As for the party, the Rogue was fine with a bit of trickery, but I made sure that Inverna voiced her displeasure.

So the group entered the ruins of the Shrine and started exploring. Instead of entering the front doors, the group entered through one of the cracked walls on the Eastern room of the shrine. As they examined the room, The Druid noticed that the mantle around the hearth had the image of the All Seeing Eye upon it. But the eye seemed to be looking slightly askew. Following its gaze, they found something carved to the right of the doorframe. The Druid examined it, but was unable to read the writing. Because it was in Infernal. The Rouge, being a Tiefling, could speak and read Infernal. It said, We knew you would come. Beneath the holiest place. I added this entire bit into the adventure to give them another clue, as well as pulling the Rogue's character directly into the story. It creeped the players out to think of these priests predicting that the Rogue was going to come here at some point.

The characters carefully moved into the next room, the main audience chamber of the Shrine. They did plenty of investigation in this area. They noted the belfry rising up to the sky and the huge copper bell looming above them. But there was no easy way to reach it. I did tell them that based on their exploration of the outside of the building that the Rogue figured she could climb up there easily enough. There was a bit of discussion about the bell, but they decided to peek into the room on the west side.

"Rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist."

This whole time I'm describing how the rooms smell of rat urine and how it looks like nests were made here and there. The Rogue rolled a high investigation check and I told her that there were claw marks in some of the softer bits of stone that showed these were not regular sized rats, but big ones. Many Princess Bride ROUS jokes ensued. The West room contained more of the same rat evidence, but nothing else.

Finally the group went to the doors of the alter chamber. The Rogue made a thorough check of the door and found the magical trigger on the floor under the door. She wasn't able to make out what it was exactly, but knew it was some kind of trap mechanism. The Druid has a very high Arcana  score, and she rolled really well. I told her she was able to determine that it was either Illusion or Enchantment style magic. Armed with this knowledge the pair discussed how they wanted to proceed. I also mentioned that on the lintel above the doorway were the words Illuminate the Future. The Druid commented that this sounded like the Eyes of Mara from the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland... which yeah it kind of was.

"Don't look into the eyes of Mara!"

Finally the Druid decided to use her quarterstaff to open the door. As she did so, they caught a glimpse of the next room, the altar and columns within. Then the whole room erupted into flames, and a powerful gust of wind slammed the doors shut. The ladies were surprised, but then started to talk it over. So either the flames were an illusion, or they were enchanted in some way. The Rogue remembered that as Tiefling, she had resistance to fire damage. This meant she would only take half damage from an inferno. She also reckoned that with a good skill roll, she could leap into the room before the doors shut. Her acrobatics skill was pretty darn good.

So the Druid and Inverna prepared to open the door, and the Rogue readied herself. And they all rolled great. The door was forced open, the Rogue propelled herself inside, just as the gust of wind shut the doors behind her. I described how the flames were like a curtain. She could see them as she moved through them, but once past them, she was in a dark cold room. In fact the flames gave off no heat at all. Even the gust of wind was cold night air. The doors slammed shut behind her, so that even her Darkvision didn't work.

The Rogue told the other two that she was fine, and opened the doors of the altar room from within. Doing that caused the illusion trigger to cease functioning. The other two walked inside unscathed. They searched the room, with the Druid paying special attention to the altar. She noticed how it wasn't sitting on the stone floor directly.

As the group attempted to slid the alter back, the Rogue had a vision upon touching the alter. I tweaked this slightly to have her rise up out of the temple in daylight, seeing the bell in all its golden glory. Then they flew out to the coast and saw the lighthouse rising up out of sea and lighting flashing and touching the lighthouse with a strange metallic sound. Then the Rogue flew back through the mountains and saw IceSpire Castle and heard a fell voice shout Cryovaine! And then she was back pushing the alter. The Rogue was stunned by this, but told the rest of the party of her vision. This caused some conversation as they attempted to determine what it all meant. Then they went back to the task at hand.

I has to open something... right?

The group slid the altar back and found a little cubby hole within. Inside were a pouch and a scroll case. The pouch contained the mystery key, an item that may open any lock with a 5% chance. Once it succeeds, the key crumbles to dust. Within the scroll case was a message in Infernal that said Talos' Blessing is at sea. There was also another spell scroll, this time for the wonderful utility spell Dispel Magic. The Rogue took the key and the Druid the scroll. And yeah I added the scroll, the other one was a big hit with the party, and the Druid was very excited to have this utility spell at the ready.

As the group headed back into the main room, they discovered that one of the orcs was watching them from the East room. He hurried away after being spotted and soon unibrow came back. Now the druid had never taken off her charming hat, so she continued to roll really well with the charisma checks. She was able to convince Unibrow that the message from Talos was that his true blessing was far to the north past Neverwinter. Unibrow was skeptical, but since he couldn't read Infernal, he couldn't prove otherwise.

His companions wanted to fight, but he was still convinced that the Druid was some kind of minion of Talos. He dared not battle her, especially after seeing what she did with Wind Wall. So he told them to leave and quickly. Inverna grumbled, but the group headed out of there taking their magical treasure and knowledge with them. The Druid's awesome role-playing and quick thinking earned her an inspiration token.

DRAGON SIGHTING!

It was starting to get late in the session, but I wanted to start the next session with the crew arriving in Phandalin. So we did a quick three day travel sequence. I had them roll on the random table I created a few sessions back, and they got a rainstorm one night, but dragon sightings two other nights. I actually fudged one roll which would have put them in an orc combat. If we were playing a typical four hour session I would have run it (because they didn't get much loot on this run). But I wanted to move things along. Luckily dragon sightings are intense, so that did a good job of reminding the players of their main objective, as well as making them realize that the dragon could show up anywhere or anytime. They saw the creature fly up from the Neverwinter Woods and then back... so they pondered at that meaning.

The post...

Illuminate the future?

So I think the puzzles in the shrine offered a nice break up from all the intense action we've had in the last few sessions. My players didn't figure out the answer to the puzzle, but made their own answer. I had put the hint Illuminate the Future in the hopes that they would use a Light spell, or light a torch or lantern. If they did that as they entered the altar room, then the illusion would not have activated. But they used their skills to enter and that was just as fun.

They also enjoyed negotiating with Unibrow and feeling like they outsmarted him. But now that they've left some enemies behind, I'll have to make sure they come back later. I get the feeling Unibrow is going to feel betrayed and thirst for revenge from the knife-ears that tricked him.

I think they vision sequence threw them for a loop, but they talked a bit about it after the game and pondered going directly to the lighthouse instead of Phandalin, but decided against it. They want their reward from Harbin as well as maybe trading in some of the gems to pay off the Rogue's debt.

Sounds like next time, that debt is going to be reminded.

Up Next

Session 13: Of rewards and reminders