Our second session of the Greyhawk campaign in 2024 took place on Friday, January 19. The characters are all about tenth level at this point. I was using an adventure by Troll Lord Games, The Ebon Staff, as my basis for the session. The ideas behind the adventure are fantastic, even if I have a few issues with its implementation.

The characters are investigating a ruined city from the era of the Suloise-Baklunish war, which was once inhabited by fiend-worshippers. Either demon or devil worshippers, though I keep flipping back and forth in my mind as to which. Probably demon. They were looking for a priest of the Paynim people, who had led some refugees here. The signs weren’t particularly good for the Paynims: the heroes kept finding their dead bodies, often with goblin corpses nearby. It was obvious that many a battle had played out in this ruined city.

The main target of exploration was a great tower shaped like a tree, which was filled with demonic imagery. They’d tried climbing it, but it had been what lay beneath that was more interesting, but the goblins were also sending toughened veterans into the explore. After exploring the first of the underground levels, the party retreated to the surface and set up camp for the night.

In the morning, they heard the sounds of battle, and a voice calling for help. Quickly they moved in that direction and discovered the priest of the Paynims they’d come to find! And he was under attack by a warband of goblins!

The map is from Gabriel Pickard’s collection Critical Trails: Crumbling Ruins. I am collecting a large selection of his maps, which I throw in whenever appropriate (wilderness maps are always useful for my games!)

This fight wasn’t particularly hard, except… can you just make up a token in the top-left corner? That’s a goblin assassin, and he revealed himself when he shot Faylin as she flew above the battlefield. Sorcerers are not known for having lots and lots of hit points, and Faylin very quickly retreated towards cover.

The assassin probably could have escaped, but he misjudged the speed at which the party could move. He hid and then took the opportunity to ambush Breen as she was separated from the rest of the party, severely wounding her. But then was very surprised when Sir Tristan and the others moved in to take him down. The priest was saved! Hooray!

He introduced himself as Gaeta, and revealed that he and his followers had been searching for a holy staff that lay beneath the tower, only to have the goblins arrive and start hunting them down. He’d very much appreciate the party’s help in retrieving the relic.

And so, the party delved deeper into the ruins!

(This meant we were back to my poor, hand-drawn maps. They are probably an upgrade on those in the adventure module itself, though, which I found very unclear).

As the party investigated the carving of a demon in a small chamber, surprise! It’s a mimic!

It was a tenth level party. A regular mimic wouldn’t handle things well. So, delving into the monster search on D&D Beyond, I discovered that Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons had something called a hoard mimic. I quickly appropriated the stats, discarded its appearance, and had it spray acid all over the front line of the party. It then grabbed the party’s artificer, Zincelli, and started gnawing on him. The cramped quarters made it difficult for all the party to engage.

Breen scuttled away, Sir Tristan came up, and Faylinn and Brenshard sniped from the back. It didn’t survive too long. What a nasty surprise!

Deeper and deeper they delved. Coming to a secret door that barred passage to the lower levels, they looked around for a way to open it – nearby was a iron mass and it looked like a floor plate. With scratch marks between them. Placing one on the other, that opened the door, revealing the stairs down. But not revealing the swinging blade trap – that revealed itself as Zincelli and Sir Tristan descended. Some healing was required afterwards, and Zincelli took a savage pleasure in disassembling the mechanism.

Finally, they came to the room where the magic relic was stored: the Staff of Xan-Yae. It would allow the Paynims to call upon their goddess, restoring her connection to the Prime Material plane, and help stop the attack of the Great Horde of the West.

Why was Xan-Yae’s connection broken? Well, in our previous campaign, a war had started between Ket and Veluna. In the process, the group had summoned St Cuthbert and helped him defeat Xan-Yae (and banish her from Oerth). Which then led to the situation that the Paynims couldn’t resist the Great Horde of the West, ten years later – leading to the current situation.

Sir Tristan is a paladin of St Cuthbert. I’m going to be very interested seeing whether he’ll allow Xan-Yae’s connection to be restored!

In fact, it wasn’t the Staff of Xan-Yae. It was a trap! I eagerly awaited someone to pick it up and trigger all the destruction.

Except, they remembered the scroll they’d found last session, which described a ritual that needed to be performed to claim the staff. They gave it to Gaeta, who performed the ritual. And it revealed a secret passage behind the false staff, leading to the real one. They just completely ignored the fake.

The passage didn’t have a floor, though – instead downwards was a black void. Faylinn flew forward into the chamber of the real staff and discovered a Spirit Naga waiting for him. Meanwhile, an emaciated priest of the demonic cult who had once ruled here (he’d been in suspended animation and inadvertently awakened by the goblins) attacked from behind!

Why is Faylinn so far back? Well she retreated from the naga, only to have the evil priest take her down. The rest of the party then used healing word and other magics to restore her. The naga cast lightning bolt from the other side and similar spells to keep things interesting. The line drawn on the map is the rope Sir Tristan held – it was originally attached to Faylinn just in case she fell. Now it dangled into the pit.

Breen got hit by two lightning bolt spells and a blight. Gaeta used banishment to get rid of the naga for a while, allowing them to concentrate on the priest, only to have the banishment end when Gaeta was hit by a flame strike spell! But Brenshard critically hit the naga for 50 damage, and the rest were able to deal with the evil priest.

Finally, they claimed the Staff of Xan-Yae!

For their efforts, they gained 5000 XP apiece (for the combats and exploration).

But now would come the interesting part: What would they do with the staff? Would they return it to its shrine in the lands of the Paynims, or would they seek other aid in stopping the horde?

I guess we’d find out in two weeks!