We had a new record for participants this week: 22 people were playing in our Dead in Thay session – 18 people playing at tables, 3 DMs, and one co-ordinator (me). It was nice to get back to co-ordinating between the tables, especially because, as the season progresses, I’m enabling more and more interaction between the groups.
This was quite apparent in this scenario, as the table which Ben was DMing (Shane, Josh, Danielle, Troy, Jesse and Rich) had a problem: most of them were cursed. Disadvantage on all initiative checks as well as mental saving throws. Oh, and as I discovered very quickly into the session, three of them were blind, thanks to too much exposure to one of the sources of healing in the dungeon. This was hilarious. None of their group were able to cast the lesser restoration spell needed to cure the blindness (well, Rich’s paladin was, but they were reluctant to use his last spell slots or return to the Chamber of Seclusion). What they really wanted was someone to cast Remove Curse. Contacting the NPCs back at the gatehouse was little help – Shalandra, Jekk and Hadarr were unable to cast the spell, as was Syranna. However, inquiries through the circlet of limited telepathy did discover that both the other groups had one scroll each with Remove Curse.
However, the other groups couldn’t just give them the scrolls – they were rather busy themselves. One group was being stampeded by pigs, the others were trapped in a chamber where magic was preventing them from leaving. Shalendra did what she could, talking to the other groups and encouraging them to give up the scrolls. Matt was quite happy to give up his scroll, although he was disappointed to learn that they couldn’t come and aid him get out of the chamber where he was trapped. Tim wasn’t so accommodating, requiring a payment of (roll d6) 400 gold. So, that caused a slower process – Rich’s group had to get to Shalendra and give her the 400 gold, then Tim (once he finished with the pigs) had to return to the gatehouse and exchange the gold for the scroll, and then Shalendra had to ferry the scroll back to Rich’s team.
Along the way, Shalendra managed to make a master glyph key that could enter any gate the parties had reached – which proved to be quite a large number of gates! This was in aid of having better communication between the groups, something I really wanted to encourage.
As Tim’s team returned from the gatehouse, they were accosted by Lumalia, an angel (which Jason’s group had released last session). She demanded to know what gods the group served, and the team was smart enough to not conceal the truth, despite having this wide-eyed angel pointing a sword dripping with blood at them. They were quite intimidated, actually. Lumalia stalked off after a brief discussion, as she was convinced they were not working with the Red Wizards. (Callan, upon hearing this, told me that Lumalia had used up all her spell capabilities healing Jason’s party, and thus no longer had the Remove Curse spells that Rich’s team needed!)
Tim’s team had taken quite some time to clear out the swine pen, and then had to deal with insects before they reached a barracks with a lot of sleeping Red Wizards and their apprentices. Harry’s bard used a silence spell to ensure the Red Wizards would not be alerted and awake as the others killed them in their beds.
Jason’s team finally got Matt out of the prison, and moved around the Golem Laboratories, destroying those constructs and wizards they found.
The real amusement was coming from Rich’s team, however. Jesse was walking through chambers on his own and blind – just the luck of the gods was allowing him to survive, mostly untouched. The group found a great beholder, imprisoned in the Doomvault by the Red Wizards, and they were persuaded by his wish to destroy the Red Wizards and released him. In addition, they used one of their precious scrolls of remove curse to dispel the magic preventing him from moving through Glyph Gates, thus causing more problems for the defenders.
Continuing onwards, they discovered a chamber where the traps blinded people – however, with Jesse entering the chamber already blind, he was able to move through without incident. We were quite impressed and surprised by this. Despite the slow start, Rich’s team were now getting through the encounters at a more rapid rate.
Unfortunately, time is the enemy of us all and we had to bring another session of Dead in Thay to a close. Rich’s team still had a scroll of remove curse, but hadn’t used it and were heading towards the Chamber of Seclusion so that Rich could heal the blindness that three of them were suffering. Tim’s team had cleaned out the first few chambers around the mine, and were looking forward to fewer interruptions. And Callan’s table were doing pretty well, at least they were after escaping the cage trap!
Rich’s group discovered a couple more clues about the Doomvault, so they getting closer to breaching the Temple of Extraction. There’s still a lot of play left in this adventure, and the groups are enjoying it immensely.