Clebsch GM Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path (Inactive)

Game Master Clebsch73

When Raine got within 20 feet of the banner, she stopped, peered intently around the corner, studying the banner, the framework holding it up, using all her experiences with traps to check for anything that might be a trigger, both magical or otherwise. The others behind her did the same. Nobody could see anything to indicate any kind of trip.

The group could also see across the room to the large alcove. It was a shrine dedicated to Deskari, including a lifelike statue of the insectoid demon lord.

In a hushed voice, Tauni called out to Raine. "There," she said, pointing to the southern alcove. "Behind the statue of Deskari. Is that another passage?"

Raine glanced over at Tauni's whisper. "Good question. I'd have to get across to have a closer looksee. Guess I can though, thanks to your spell." The redhead briefly grinned.

Hands and knees flat to the stone, she scurried up to the ceiling, then headed for the alcove Tauni had indicated.

"I don't see no traps or nothing on the banner itself. It seems too easy, but maybe the goodly gods are smiling on us, huh?"

I'll make my way across the chamber using the ceiling, and approach the alcove Tauni's indicated, looking for traps as I go. showing my movement path in Roll20. If nothing stops me before then, I'll keep moving into the alcove and look for what Tauni is talking about.

If others want to keep going for the banner while I do that, feel free.

When Ellena receives the all clear signal on the banner, she moves for it. She couldn’t believe her luck, that such a goodly item was left unguarded. She had to retrieve it and get it away from that awful Deskari shrine. So, she climbed down and grabbed it.

Avelina laughed to herself as she crawled down the wall. ”Oh how delightful! I would have gotten up to such mischief as a little girl with magic such as this.” She hopped down to the ground, she glanced about. ”Mayhaps the demons presumed that we would presume that it is a trap and thus be frozen by indecision? Or mayhaps they are lurking in aforementioned secret passageway.”

Raine got to the alcove containing the unholy shrine to the demon lord. Indeed, there did appear to be a place in the wall designed to function as a well-disguised door.

Ellena moved toward the storied relic, Avelina right behind her. It seemed there ought to be an orchestra present to play momentous music to commemorate the accomplishment of the goal so many gave their lives to achieve. Instead the room was silent as a tomb, except for the distant drone of a group chant.

Before we go on, everyone please check your location on the map and indicate if you are on the wall, ceiling, or floor. If on the wall, indicate how far up. If you cannot move your token, indicate the position using the letter and number grid reference.

After scurrying across the walls to get there, Anarya let go of the wall, floating aloft on the silvery clouds from Terendelev's scale. She watched with anticipation as Ellena reached for the relic they had come here to retrieve.

Anarya is floating with levitate, adjacent to the wall, at the same level as the secret door in square U2 as shown on the map.

(Stuck on phone so short post, sorry.)

Raine was torn between watching Ellena approach the banner and her curiosity over the secret door. With a moment of hesitation, she focused on the door.

(Check for traps then try to open it. Raine will stay on the wall 5 feet up if possible. Will descend to ground if she has to to use her hands.)

Tauni shifted her position so that she could see over Raine's shoulder as she moved towards the secret door.

Position moved on the map. She'll be 10' up the wall.

Ellena will be on the ground, or as high up as she needs to be to grab the banner.

Karas, still amused by the spider climbing, crawled up to the ceiling to follow Raine and stopped halfway through the room to watch everyone.

move me straight down to grid 3 please

Avelina is exactly where she is on the map on the floor, in case that wasn't clear

correction: please move me to grid V4

Sorry to keep you in suspense. I've had some posting issues and need a little more time to post a decent start to this encounter. Will have something up soon.

Ellena reached out to touch the banner. As her hand touched the faintly glowing fabric, it dissolved. Simultaneously, the painted forms of Deskari depicted in each of the five murals, plus another from the Deskari shrine, stepped out of walls on which they were painted and took three dimensional form, each about thirty feet tall and fifteen feet wide. Each had the body of a giant grasshopper, with a humanoid torso, two arms holding an enormous scythe, a mantis-like insectoid head, with wings made of thousands of locusts. The sound of voracious buzzing filled the room as each deskari began to scuttle toward a hero. The two at the north end of the room approached Avelina and Ellena. The one from the alcove to the right of Anarya and Tauni passed them on its way toward Karas. Two from the south end of the room headed right for Anarya and Tauni.

See your character's spoiler for details of what she/he sees and the save available. Roll your first save and consult another spoiler for your character in the next post. This will detail what happens depending on the result of the first save. To preserve the suspense about what happens to everyone, make your save beneath a spoiler.

GM

I'd like to wait for Anarya to roll, but I'll roll for her if no post by tommorrow evening.

The menacing demonic creatures that a moment ago had seemed so real, faded to a memory--a memory that would live on in nightmares for some time to come. Looking around, each hero saw all the others recoiling from their own personal visions of death. Only Tauni and Raine seemed to have suffered any harm, as evidenced by blood around their mouths and ears. They were in pain, but alive.

Looking back at the banner, it was no more, an illusion meant to lure would be heroes to their deaths by phantasm. They had not expected heroes with such will power and fortitude, however.

There are three doors from the room in addition to the secret entrance. Moving around allows the heroes to locate the source of the faint chorus of chanting to be coming from the doors at the southwest corner of the room.

I apparently messed up the links to images in my Google drive. The following are the corrected image files. Sorry.

Anarya
Avelina
Ellena
Karas
Raine
Tauni

Ellena opened her eyes and the threat vanished. Along with the banner, unfortunately. She made sure the rest of the group was good enough to proceed. ”What fell magic was that?! The powerful trickery cannot stand. I say we go pay a visit to the chanting cultists sooner rather than later,” she declares and moves toward the doors at the southwest corner of the room.

Based on the geographical relationship between the forge room and this room, the doors Ellena suggested would lead back to the area beyond the forge.

Raine wheezed for breath, her heart pounding hard in the aftermath of what had just happened. She stared down at her hands as if expecting to find them charred, then shook her head to clear away the sensations and fear..... not that they were so easily cleared, but at least it made her feel better.

"Let me--" her voice shook, she paused to clear her throat, "Let me find out what's behind this secret door before we get into another fight, aye? And maybe a touch of healin'?"

Raine moved to open the door they had detected.

"Illusions... I saw a horrifying creature of disease and death. Is... everyone alright?" Anarya asked, particularly concerned about Raine and Tauni's more severe reactions. The apparition had been terrifying, but the sight of it vanishing before her gave her strength. Her companions' wounds began to flow into her, and she channeled forth her light to heal each of them.

Channel Energy: 7d6 ⇒ (4, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2) = 25

Anarya's channel should be easily enough to get everyone to full.

"If we're prepared to press on, I'm ready," she announced, though she fervently hoped she wouldn't face an illusion like that again.

Raine wiped at her bloodied nose as Anarya's soothing power soothed over her.

"Thank you," she mumbled. "Felt like I was burnin' alive. That's better though, now."

Anarya's channeled energy healed all as it proved that--so far--the righteous light of goodness was stronger than the evil power of darkness.

Opening the secret passage took Raine into a small connecting room to another door that opened out into a new area. This door would be hard to see from the inside of the room into which it opened, suggesting it was not meant for interlopers.

This new room was roughly cylindrical, with a pit in the center and a very high ceiling. A five-foot ledge ran the length of this circular pit. A second elevated ledge stood above the ledge with a short series of steps rising to a small platform ahead of it. To the southeast, a giant statue of a six-armed woman with a serpentine body rose out of the pit. It loomed over each ledge with outstretched arms bearing an intimidating array of exotic weapons.

There appeared to be two ways into and out of this room, not counting the secret door through which Raine was looking. One was at the south with a set of double doors. That entrance was at the lowest level. The central pit was ten feet below the first ledge, which was ten feet below the highest ledge. The secret door was thirty feet above the highest ledge. There was set of double doors on the east side of the room.

It was not immediately obvious what the room was for. Perhaps it was a ritual chamber where cultist gathered to pay homage to whatever demon the statue depicted.

Will post more this afternoon. A DC 15 knowledge (local) check will identify what the statue appears to depict. Map is labeled G12 in the header.

Kn Local: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (10) + 13 = 23

"Big damned statue-- hang on, I know what she's supposed to be, that's..."

Karas began to cry out "MOTHER! reaching out before the image faded from his vision and he visibly shook before looking at his hands then up to the rest of his companions.

"I... Yeah... Illusions. Nasty ones." he coughed and wiped a tear from his eyes. "Yeah, lets um. let's carry on. After you Ellena once Raine clears it."

He stood near his angel for a few extra moments taking in her light before moving back to his spot in the formation.

The statue in the chamber depicted the marilith general, Aponavicius, armed with a katana, a shotel, a falcata, a khopesh, and a kusarigama.

While she was careful not to crowd Raine, Tauni crept up behind the ranger to use her own Abadar blessed gaze to peek into the room. I believe extended see invisible and extended arcane sight are still up and running for her.

"....Aponavicius-- got a lot of fancy weapons on her. One of those mariliths. Guess I can see if it's trapped."

Raine edged further into the chamber, and looked about for any signs of traps.

+23 to look for traps on the marilith statue, and I was just double-checking and she can also detect magical traps if those exist.

Knowledge (local) w/heroism: 1d20 + 5 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 5 + 3 = 14

The name of the marilith was just on the tip of Avelina's tongue when Raine got to it first. "Oh, right. The general. Who does she think she is impressing with all those weapons?" She held up her longsword. "The Inheritor only needs a longsword! For Faith is the sharpest blade of all!" She patted the flat of the blade against her palm. "I told you that even if it was a trap, we would be protected. The Inheritor would not let us succumb so easily. I am certain that the demonic obscenities will be quite shaken when they hear how little power it had against us."

Spots marked on the map.

Having withstood the image a little easier than Karas, Anarya took her love's hand and held it for a long moment, meeting his gaze before the group moved on to the next chamber.

"Here, look at these two spots on the floor..."

Raine moved to the spots, careful of her footing still, and poking at them with her bow first and then her fingers.

However, the nimble archer easily kept her footing.

"Oh my Goddess!" Avelina rushed forward as she saw her cousin about to fall, grabbing onto her before she even realized that Raine was in no danger of falling. "Ah, I am glad you are alright, Cousin. That looked liked quite a fall."

Ellena pulled her sword, looking for an invisible enemy to flay. Seeing none, she decided it must have been magic. ”Hiw do we make our way past that then?”

"Dunno," Raine said, only slightly shaky as she stood upright again. "It was like some hand I couldn't see wanted to knock me down a few pegs. Got to be some magic on it..."

(Could I take twenty to search for a traps at the spot I got whapped, or does Raine feel that wasn't a trap, but something else?)

She looked a bit wry at Avelina's hurried grab, and shrugged off the hand. "I'm alright, calm down..."

The spots detected appear to be designed to push someone down to the next ledge or perhaps cause zirm to fall over both ledges to the floor of the pit.

The trap could be deactivated with the proper disable device action. Or the spots could be avoided by walking around them. The strange thing is that a fall of five or ten feet is not usually fatal, so it's a mystery why the trap was installed at all.

Whether you deactivate the traps or merely avoid them, you have a choice: go back the way you came in, or try one of the sets of double doors, one to the east, one to the south. Yet another option is to explore the bottom of the pit.

Raine studied the set-up for a big. "It's like it's designed to funnel you to the center... but I don't know what happens there. Some other trap? The statue comes alive to kill you? Well, we can just walk around those spots. Here, look where I point-- don't go there."

With that said, Raine looked back to the others. "We got those double doors, two sets. I'm glad we didn't get a horde of trouble coming in when we .. when that... the illusions. The fire."

She shook her head. "So: east, or south?"

As she spoke, she picked a copper coin from her belt pouch and lightly tossed it onto the bottom of the pit.

The coin vanished without a sound when it should have hit the floor. A long second later, there was a faint sound like the coin fell into something wet.

The interaction revealed that the floor that appears to support the statue just ten feet below the lower ledge was an illusion hiding a floor thirty feet lower. That floor is covered in something green.

Anarya whistled, impressed. "A clever trap... I wonder what's down there?" she observed. "Although perhaps we'd be better off not finding out... Let's avoid the trigger areas at all costs."

Ellena shrugged. Either direction was fine with her. They had to be close to the banner now, so she didn’t intend of waiting. ”How about we start with the East then,” she asks Raine. ”We are getting close now…I can feel it!”

"East works for me," Raine nodded, and took up her position a bit back of the front line, bow at the ready, after checking to be sure the door didn't appear trapped.

(Are the weapons the statue is holding part of the statuary, or removable?)

The weapons in the statue's many hands appeared to be solidly embedded in the statuary stone. They were, in any case, huge sized--not fit for a normal sized humanoid.

Navigating around the trap triggers, the heroes reached a set of double doors. They did not appear to be trapped or locked. They pushed open to reveal total darkness.

The room is under the effect of deeper darkness. Map is G13.

Anarya's daylight spell suppresses the deeper darkness, and her halo projects light as a normal light spell, I believe. Those with darkvision can see to their normal range.

Anarya's daylight spell and halo suppressed the darkness spell and illuminated part way into the room. The room was huge with high ceilings. It was thirty feet north to south at the west end, and gradually got wider as it went east. Even those with darkvision could not see the easternmost side of the room. Six alcoves were carved into the north and south walls. Each contained a large, jagged purple crystal on a pedestal. The alcoves, pedestals, and crystals became progressively larger toward the east. Crystals are size small, medium, and large.

As the group was taking in this sight, something pushed very hard on Tauni, knocking her back and off the ledge into the pit. Before anyone could react, Anarya was also pushed back and fell into the pit.

Initiative order
Round 1
Karas
Raine
Tauni
Avelina
Anarya
Ellena

Note: Karas, Raine, Avelina, and Ellena no longer benefit from the Protection from Evil effect, as that is limited to 10 foot radius circle around Anarya, who is now more then 10 feet away from everyone.