Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#27) - The Spire III

Day 61 - continued

After waiting a minute or so at the ready, the threat did not materialise. Confused, at the no-shows, we set about returning to the entrance room to see what had happened to those that set off the silent alarm. We advanced cautiously, but when we got there we found nothing but footprints in the blood from the previous fight.

We decided to carry on with our scouting mission as we didn't have nearly enough information yet, but headed south this time. We entered a large room with two sub-chambers to the north. The main room was an armoury of some sort as it contained a large array of weapons (at least 120 spears, tridents and war hammers) and benches upon which to prep for war. The two northerly rooms were full of other war accoutrements; belts, buckles, straps and so on, along with hides, leathers and studs for making armour.

As there was not much in the way of loot (except a bit more of that glowing blue seaweed and some more shells - which we pocketed just in case), we headed south again into a very large chamber with a few extra rooms in it. There were several pillars holding up the vaulted ceiling and all the walls, and floors, like the rest of the complex, were made with quality stone. The three smaller rooms contained what looked like accoutrements for leaders - there were fewer beds and benches in them, but all were in complete disarray. These side-rooms were also, strangely, not as good quality as the main rooms.

Again, finding nothing of interest, we decided to complete the circuit back to the room with the sledge hammer and caskets of seaweed. Whilst milling around trying to figure out what was going on, Drakkon, our fighter on look-out duty, thought that he heard a groaning sound coming from the southern corridor.

Navda investigated the sound and returned to us saying that there was a room to the south with several Sahuagin milling about; including a couple of types we had not encountered before, and the room had three arches leading out of it. From his vantage he couldn't see much more. We decided to go and investigate and also maybe try to find out what the groaning noise could be.

We were spotted as we got towards the end of the dark corridor, and arrows and magic began to flow in both directions. One of the Sahuagin priestesses cast a Spiritual Weapon at Gladreth, which annoyed her royally. Not messing around, she Fireballed the entire room. This had the desired effect and we were able to mop up the survivors in short shrift.

Map of the dungeon under the spire

A Prayer of Healing or two returned most of us back to full strength, so that we could explore our new surroundings. We scouted each archway to see where they might lead and followed the sound of the groaning into the northern chamber via another portcullis system.

This opened out into a long room supported by four large pillars, behind one of which was a chained up human. There was a bowl of some foul smelling brown gruel in front of him, and upon investigation we found a huge trough of the stuff in the south corner of the chamber. The man wore spectacles and had ripped trews. It turns out that he was a member of one of the previous adventuring bands sent to investigate the tower but he had been captured and tortured. We tried to Heal him so we could get him out of there, but none of our spells or potions seemed to work. However, it did take him out of his trance-like state enough to answer a few of our questions.

Apparently to the south-west there was an underwater city with hundreds of Sahuagin inhabitants led by a powerful priestess. It would need specialist underwater equipment to get there, but his comrades had managed to acquire some to which he gave us directions. Unfortunately, the rest of his party were captured or killed there.

As we felt bad for the man, we freed him from his chains and tried to move him to his feet, but a gush of black-red fluid erupted from his mouth all over Navda. The man fell to the floor - dead.

Gaming Weekend 2 - Alien and D&D 5e

This weekend just gone, I was invited for a second weekender gaming session with my fellow D&D Thursday Nighters. This time round we got to play a couple of different games away from the ongoing Saltmarsh campaign. First off, we immersed ourselves into the sci-fi genre with an Alien RPG/boardgame, before returning to the fantasy realms with the first section of another D&D 5e adventure; but this time with some pre-generated characters.

For both games we had a GM and six players, although towards the end of the D&D adventure we lost two of the players and had to continue on without them. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a list of the character names, so I will have to refer to them either by their class or player's initial in this summary write-up. Hopefully, the DM can supply me with a list of the characters in each game and I will be able to add them to the after action reports on these soon; right after the write-up of last Thursday's Saltmarsh outing.

The Alien RPG/boardgame was called something like Hope's Last Day, and it involved a bunch of terra-formers trying to make sense of what happened to their home base when they returned from an aborted mission to the out. They returned to Hadley's Hope a few days before the colonial marines arrived on the scene; they are the last survivors (other than those in the Aliens film), and this is their last few hours. We each played a character that had their own agenda for the final few hours of the colony's existence.

Hadley's Hope LV-426 is the scene for this RPG/boardgame

The Alien game's characters were all pre-generated handouts:

G : Science Officer

J : ?
K : Chief mechanic
M : Samuel Sung (Mechanic)
R : Base team leader
W : ?

The D&D adventure was the first part of the Waterdeep : Dragon Heist campaign. Our characters were all 2nd level for this game. If we take this forward, we will most likely rename, or at least amend, the names of our characters.

Waterdeep - a new D&D 5e campaign

The D&D game's characters were also pre-generated:

G : Wizard - (had to leave early)

J : Fighter - (had to leave early)
K : Ranger
M : Rexius Trannyth (Bard)
R : Zorrion Oakwood (Rogue)
W : Cleric

Next up should be the latest Saltmarsh campaign session, followed by write-ups of the Alien and Waterdeep adventures.