Into the Desecrated Temple (City of the Dead - session 8, part 3)
As I've written a few times now, wy City of the Dead D&D game sort-of wrapped on Friday night. The final piece of the evening's session, our 8th play session, was the PCs entering a fallen temple in Graymount to retrieve the dead body of an allied cleric.
Earlier in the session the group had cleared its path through town- meaning they rousted the spies and triggered the undead ambushes one day so they'd have a smoother path the next day.
Solving a Puzzle
Why did having a smooth path on the final day matter? Ah, that was because the time of day mattered. The party spent a few weeks regrouping in their home base of Durendal because they all were going up a level.
In going up a level (to 7th) the party's cleric, Terence, gained the very useful Divination spell. With it the caster obtains a short piece of advice from their patron deity on how to succeed at a relevant task. Terence asked, "How can we most safely recover Baynor's body?" I provided the answer in the form of a written clue-note:
How to Recover the Body? (Divination)
Open the doors of the fallen temple neither early nor late, and above all be quick; else the evil within may grow.
Yes, the response is in the form of a riddle. That's kind of a trope in the game for how Divination works. It's always been part of the challenge and the fun of the game for the party to decode such riddles. But it's not supposed to be a hard riddle. So I prepared several additional clue-notes in case the group needed hints. It turned out they didn't need more hints! They figured out on their own, from things they'd already seen and remembered:
Forming a Plan
The group did more than just pat itself on the back for figuring out they should go at noon. They scribed a few additional spells on scrolls while in Durendal, spent time buffing up with defensive spells at the steps to the fallen temple, and made a plan about who'd go where once they entered.
That all took more prodding from me than I wanted. Ideally they would've thought of more themselves. I let them sit-and-spin for a bit then prompted with increasingly specific suggestions to help them converge on a reasonable plan. Ultimately they went in with a solid plan. But you know that saying about plans & first contact with the enemy....
No Plan Survives First Contact with the Enemy
The boss wraith was not the only challenge they had to deal with inside the fallen temple. Baynor's body- and the wraith determined to destroy anyone trying to retrieve it- were in the inner sanctum of the temple, past the entry chamber. The sun barely penetrated there. And there was a trap on the doors to the inner sanctum. And there was... a vampire... sneaking around the foyer when everybody's attention was elsewhere!
But that's the other thing about plans. While even a good plan tends to fall apart upon first contact with the enemy, having that plan is crucial because it represents all the challenges the team knew it had to prepare for. Among these challenges were protecting themslves from a wraith's ability drain.
Astrin and Herran, both warded against the wraith's most feared attack form, strode forward into the temple's nave. They were the strikers. The other three hung back near the door, in the light, prepared to support them with spell casting and whatever else was necessary.
The wraith was ready for them. It knew they were coming. It felt their presence as soon as they stepped onto the stones of the plaza outside. And in the deep shadows of the cursed temple's inner sanctum, they were in its demesne.
The wraith rose from the crypt beneath the main floor, its incorporeal body passing through stonework as if it weren't there. It enveloped Astrin (the first to enter) with its enormous size, wrapping its shadowy arms around her in death's embrace, fingers like tendrils of darkness going for her face to draw her life force out from her... and ⛔️ DENIED! ⛔️
Terence's Vitality spell blocked the creature's deadly attack. Its shadowy arms still pummeled Astrin and left her bruised, but her life force was untouched.
"Oh, you wanna play?" Astrin snorted. "Let's do this." With sword in hand she called for her god's blessing and delivered a Holy Smite.
"You're Stuck in here with Us"
Herran, also in the nave by then and similarly warded, waded into the combat at her side. He had no particular god to pray to but he'd studied the undead enough to know how to hit them hard. The two of them took the shadowy horror to task, harming it way harder than it was able to harm them. In two combat rounds the dread wraith retreated.
Astrin heaved Baynor's body over her shoulder, her strength augmented to that of a linebacker by Terence's Bull's Strength spell. Herran, moving with surprising speed due to another magic effect, speedily gathered Baynor's dropped possessions from the floor. The two exited to the plaza, laid Baynor down in the sunlight, then... went back in.
Yes, they went back for more.
They understood that when you have the advantage, you press the advantage.
Or as they said to the lurking wraith when they went back in to its shadowy lair, "We're not stuck in here with you, you're stuck in here with us."
It was a great shout out to a classic line from The Watchmen but, alas, this wraith was smarter than the criminals in the movie trying to beat on Rorshach. It knew when it was outmatched. It tried one more go at combat then retreated again the crypt. The party realized correctly they didn't have the strength to chase it down so they took their partial victory, walked out into the sunlight, loaded Baynor's body on their horses, and rode home.
Earlier in the session the group had cleared its path through town- meaning they rousted the spies and triggered the undead ambushes one day so they'd have a smoother path the next day.
Solving a Puzzle
Why did having a smooth path on the final day matter? Ah, that was because the time of day mattered. The party spent a few weeks regrouping in their home base of Durendal because they all were going up a level.
In going up a level (to 7th) the party's cleric, Terence, gained the very useful Divination spell. With it the caster obtains a short piece of advice from their patron deity on how to succeed at a relevant task. Terence asked, "How can we most safely recover Baynor's body?" I provided the answer in the form of a written clue-note:
How to Recover the Body? (Divination)
Open the doors of the fallen temple neither early nor late, and above all be quick; else the evil within may grow.
Yes, the response is in the form of a riddle. That's kind of a trope in the game for how Divination works. It's always been part of the challenge and the fun of the game for the party to decode such riddles. But it's not supposed to be a hard riddle. So I prepared several additional clue-notes in case the group needed hints. It turned out they didn't need more hints! They figured out on their own, from things they'd already seen and remembered:
- Father Baynor was killed and raised as a wraith; therefore, presumably, he was killed by a more powerful wraith.
- Wraiths are powerless in daylight. (Terence knows this from his studies)
- Baynor's body is in the fallen temple of Morgarath. (Terence already used another spell that revealed this.)
- The temple faces due south and has large wooden doors at its front.
- The area is in the northern hemisphere, and the season is approaching the winter solstice when the sun will be low in the southern sky at midday. (Meraxes knows this via astronomy and Herran knows via nature skill.)
Forming a Plan
The group did more than just pat itself on the back for figuring out they should go at noon. They scribed a few additional spells on scrolls while in Durendal, spent time buffing up with defensive spells at the steps to the fallen temple, and made a plan about who'd go where once they entered.
That all took more prodding from me than I wanted. Ideally they would've thought of more themselves. I let them sit-and-spin for a bit then prompted with increasingly specific suggestions to help them converge on a reasonable plan. Ultimately they went in with a solid plan. But you know that saying about plans & first contact with the enemy....
No Plan Survives First Contact with the Enemy
The boss wraith was not the only challenge they had to deal with inside the fallen temple. Baynor's body- and the wraith determined to destroy anyone trying to retrieve it- were in the inner sanctum of the temple, past the entry chamber. The sun barely penetrated there. And there was a trap on the doors to the inner sanctum. And there was... a vampire... sneaking around the foyer when everybody's attention was elsewhere!
But that's the other thing about plans. While even a good plan tends to fall apart upon first contact with the enemy, having that plan is crucial because it represents all the challenges the team knew it had to prepare for. Among these challenges were protecting themslves from a wraith's ability drain.
Astrin and Herran, both warded against the wraith's most feared attack form, strode forward into the temple's nave. They were the strikers. The other three hung back near the door, in the light, prepared to support them with spell casting and whatever else was necessary.
The wraith was ready for them. It knew they were coming. It felt their presence as soon as they stepped onto the stones of the plaza outside. And in the deep shadows of the cursed temple's inner sanctum, they were in its demesne.
The wraith rose from the crypt beneath the main floor, its incorporeal body passing through stonework as if it weren't there. It enveloped Astrin (the first to enter) with its enormous size, wrapping its shadowy arms around her in death's embrace, fingers like tendrils of darkness going for her face to draw her life force out from her... and ⛔️ DENIED! ⛔️
Terence's Vitality spell blocked the creature's deadly attack. Its shadowy arms still pummeled Astrin and left her bruised, but her life force was untouched.
"Oh, you wanna play?" Astrin snorted. "Let's do this." With sword in hand she called for her god's blessing and delivered a Holy Smite.
"You're Stuck in here with Us"
Herran, also in the nave by then and similarly warded, waded into the combat at her side. He had no particular god to pray to but he'd studied the undead enough to know how to hit them hard. The two of them took the shadowy horror to task, harming it way harder than it was able to harm them. In two combat rounds the dread wraith retreated.
Astrin heaved Baynor's body over her shoulder, her strength augmented to that of a linebacker by Terence's Bull's Strength spell. Herran, moving with surprising speed due to another magic effect, speedily gathered Baynor's dropped possessions from the floor. The two exited to the plaza, laid Baynor down in the sunlight, then... went back in.
Yes, they went back for more.
They understood that when you have the advantage, you press the advantage.
Or as they said to the lurking wraith when they went back in to its shadowy lair, "We're not stuck in here with you, you're stuck in here with us."
It was a great shout out to a classic line from The Watchmen but, alas, this wraith was smarter than the criminals in the movie trying to beat on Rorshach. It knew when it was outmatched. It tried one more go at combat then retreated again the crypt. The party realized correctly they didn't have the strength to chase it down so they took their partial victory, walked out into the sunlight, loaded Baynor's body on their horses, and rode home.