We played our thirteenth session of The Shattered Obelisk on Monday, January 22, 2024. We were proceeding through Chapter 6.

It was an unusual session. One of our players (Vel’rali) had lost his voice. So, he communicated to us throughout the session with posts on Roll20 chat while the rest of us talked on Skype. It worked surprisingly well.

I will mention this here: I keep forgetting the goblins kidnapped townsfolk. The party had rescued a few in the last chapter, and it’s mentioned at the top of Chapter 6, which we were now playing. Upon review of the adventure, I’ve discovered why: It is never mentioned in the investigation in Chapter 5. Only once the players reach Zorzula’s Rest does the adventure start talking about kidnapped villagers and not in information presented to the players.

The overview of the entire adventure reveals that the goblins have kidnapped villagers, but somehow, once we get to Chapter 5, all the villagers care about is the damage to the town the goblins caused. (One villager mentions his missing wife during the abuse of the townmaster scene, but that’s it).

Surely Wizards of the Coast should be better at writing and editing adventures than this?

Back to the Wilderness, Briefly

The players decided to travel to the first of the locations marked on the goblins’ maps: Talhundereth. The adventure does not update the wilderness encounter tables despite the significant distances involved – and the original tables are now obsolete. I considered using Uncharted Journeys, but eventually, I hand-waved away the travel and took the characters straight to the dwarven temple.

Entering Talhundereth

Despite my problems with previous elements of the adventure and its structure, Talhundereth is pretty neat. My players very much liked several of its encounters. The characters entered a wide passageway ending at a set of double doors, one of which was ajar. Beyond the doors, they discovered several branching passageways and a great staircase, twenty feet wide, leading down. Statues of long-forgotten dwarves flanked its landings, and of course, the players thought they might be animate. For once, they weren’t!

Heading to the first of the eastern doors, they reached an old sparring room. As they investigated the ancient weapons and armour, three of the suits animated and attacked! (This surprised them. I guess the non-animating statues had lulled them into a sense of security). It didn’t take them that long to deal with the danger – 2 rounds, 13 minutes – but shortly after the suits lay in ruins, Syzoth the artificer realised what they were: Sparring partners!

It’s always fun when players have these revelations, even if they’re too late to do any good.

Into the training master’s quarters, and this time it was a special treasure: a greataxe whose shaft was an immovable rod. Once again, my players – especially the artificer – were charmed. This was such a lovely touch.

The ancient armoury had been looted long ago, but a wight and six dust mephits still lurked here. Dust mephits might be in the Basic Rules, but I haven’t used them in a long time. The players were delighted to discover they were vulnerable to fire damage. (It makes sense!) The battle took slightly longer – 3 rounds, 21 minutes – and was a touch challenging, with the mephits occasionally blinding party members. One or two had to check spell descriptions to see if it said, “a creature you can see”.

The final area in this branch of the dungeon was a locked vault. After removing the dust, the rogue (the artificer’s henchman) opened it and discovered a large hoard of unlooted treasure! This find was a great surprise – we’re pretty used to poor rewards in Wizards’ adventures.

Other Inhabitants

The back of the vault had collapsed, revealing a very narrow passageway to another section of the temple. No one was small enough to go through, that was, until the artificer reduced the rogue in size and allowed him to scout… an old bedroom. He could also hear conversation from a nearby room, but realising his danger, he quickly returned to the others, and they decided to continue exploring elsewhere.

Elsewhere meant west of the main staircase. Shortly, they came to a large area where the party saw a blood-soaked chair and the bones of a goat.

Unusual, they thought.

Checking the other doors from this chamber, they discovered several bedrooms, one of which contained a horribly mutated human. That mutate attacked the party, babbling about the Far Realm and about a stone that disgorged young. One of the small fleshy pyramids they’d fought earlier in Phandalin accompanied the mutate. It was a simple battle (2 rounds, 8 minutes), and the mutate and his companion were dead by the end of it. There was nothing in his chamber that gave a clue to his identity.

Heading south, they came to a ruined chamber where once mind flayers and dwarves had fought. The image of a victorious dwarf beckoned them to the west, but it was a lure by a new creature known as an intellect snare. I like this creature, and its lure worked well. It tried to eat Syzoth, but the party objected. (3 rounds, 12 minutes).

Vel’rali’s final guiding bolt with an attack roll of 22 for 22 damage was a nice moment!

Other Explorers

Investigation of a kitchen and pantry led to the discovery of a secret door, which slid up to reveal a pair of drow poring over old books.

In the resulting battle… no wait, they actually talked to each other! (I would have liked to know if the drow had a patron deity at this point, since the party did ask them if they worshipped Lolth). They were neutral guards of the Henlifel family, whose father had joined some of the crazed cultists that were living there. They would very much appreciate help getting him away from the cultists.

Just on information presentation: there are two rooms here, T14 and T15. Half of the information you need to run the encounter is in each room. Except my players entered T15, so I wasn’t referring back to T14 during the negotiation. While you may write your adventure in a linear form, it won’t be run that way, and DMs are concentrating on running the session and not trying to look for other places information might be stored, even if they’ve read it before.

These drow had an inferiority complex, believing the cultists too powerful, so they didn’t want to rescue their father themselves or accompany the party. (The adventure didn’t say they have an inferiority complex, but I’ve seen the drow’s statblocks. They’re not weak!)

I happily ignored this, and the drow ordered their retainers to stay behind while they accompanied the party and led them to the cultists.

Cult of the Obelisk

A mutate and four gemmules – the fleshy pyramids – were defacing a statue and barring the party’s way onwards. The battle didn’t take too long (2 rounds, 12 minutes) after Vel’rali fireballed the foes.

The next chamber held the main body of cultists. And guess what, the drow’s father was their leader! He lured them in, and the cultists attacked as the party looked on. It wasn’t great for the drow, and Vel’rali needed to step in and heal the one who took the most damage.

But with this ambush, the cultists had shown their hand and were soon slain – except for the drow’s father, whom Simeon carefully rendered unconscious. (3 rounds, 16 minutes). The drow rewarded the party with a periapt of health, and took their leave of the group. They now sought somebody to cure their father of his dangerous obsessions.

An Obelisk Shard

The party discovered a puzzle door they couldn’t unlock, so they bypassed it and made their way to the goal of their expedition: another obsidian shard.

They finally got to see what all the gemmules would become if allowed to mature: an encephalon cluster. It looked like a giant brain or many eggs stuck together. I would very much like a text description, as the image was unclear. The cluster was a CR 10 foe. It started the battle by spawning a lone gemmule near them. Three rounds later (11 minutes), it was dead. It has some nice attacks and effects, but the party were too much for it.

They retrieved the shard with some care. It was heavy, and the artificer took possession of it.

We finished for the night as it was now late in the evening. The party had explored most of the temple, but the locked puzzle door deserved further investigation!