On Friday, February 16, 2024, our World of Greyhawk continued with the party exploring a lost temple of Xan Yae at the foot of the Ullspurs. By this stage, it was an underground structure, with indications that the worship of Xan Yae was once more than just as the Mistress of the Twilight.

The exploration of the temple had begun with the players defeating bugbears in the upper level, but now they were descending into the second level… and discovering that it was deserted.

It’s fun when you have a few rooms that are purely exploration, especially when they have interesting features in them. The second level consisted of six rooms, the first few that were used to cleanse the faithful – first washing the feet, then a disrobing room, followed by room where the face and hands were washed, then a room where you bathed in holy water.

Why the adventure then puts a storage room in the main path (rather than as a side room) is beyond me. But that it had a clue to the threat that lurked below – a giant, shed snakeskin – made my players pay attention.

In the previous rooms, all the bathing areas were now dry, but magical script on the walls could be read (in Old Baklunish) to fill them. Not that anyone spoke Old Baklunish, but Brinn the Bard did have comprehend languages and so was able to activate the text. The party were quite intrigued by the holy water pool but lacked enough empty vials to take much of it with them. Faylinn joked that she could drink her potions of healing – despite not being hurt – and use those.

At least, I think she was joking!

Most of their investigations on this level were around the statue of Xan Yae that stood in the middle of the large trough used for washing hands and face. Give characters a statue in an interesting pose (she was feeding the animals depicted on the sides of the trough), and they’ll happily spend a lot of time trying to work out what its magical powers are. Or if it’s a monster pretending to be a statue. They placed real food in her hands, and then gold coins, but the statue stubbornly remained just a statue.

While it was just a statue, there are enough other examples in adventures of this not being the case that their actions were quite understandable!

Eventually they came to a room with a number of prayer wheels – correctly identified by Faylinn – and the stairs leading down to the next level. They descended.

Ogres and Bugbears

The next level was primarily distinguished by containing five ogres and three bugbears. Well, a fourth – since a bugbear from the first level had escaped from here and had awakened the sleeping ogres with news of the invasion. As the players entered the first chamber, it was attempting to explain to the single ogre there what was going on. And becoming frustrated at the ogre’s obtuseness. (It is entirely possible that the ogre was playing up its incomprehension for comic effect).

However, with the entrance of the characters, it was time for a fight!

You might be thinking that a bugbear and an ogre are no match for a tenth-level party! You’re right, they wouldn’t be. So, I used statistics other than the base for them, instead using the Bugbear Bruiser and the Ogre Skullcrusher from Monster Manual Expanded (a DMs Guild product). This was still heavily weighted in the players’ favour, but the fight would give them a taste of the increased strength of the rest of the monsters.

Yes, it was all over in two rounds.

They were able to take a +1 battleaxe from the bodies, though.

The noise of the fight did alert the rest of the monsters, and they took up positions of ambush, which Breen discovered as she entered the next room.

Breen was not greatly pleased with this, and scooted forward so that Zincelli and the rest of the party could enter. (Sir Tristan’s player was away this session, so he was guarding their escape on the top level).

Scooting forward may have been a mistake!

The party regrouped and Breen used her magic to rejoin the rest of the party – from there, they were able to defeat the monsters relatively easily. It wasn’t as easy as the first fight, but my rolling was incredibly terrible. Trying to grab characters and rolling natural 1s on Strength checks gets frustrating after a few failed attempts.

I also made a dreadful mistake when drawing the map: I basically replicated that in the adventure, with its five-foot-wide corridors. In a dungeon with large ogres. (Pick the adventure that was probably designed for Theatre of the Mind). And then I actually narrowed the entrances to the room – they should be ten-feet wide. All of this made the fighting a lot more cramped than it should be.

And it also demonstrates that you need massive spaces for fights against large creatures. At this point, I’m convinced that ogres should have a five-foot base. (They did in 3^rd edition, before the 3.5E revision!)

The players did use a confusion spell on the ogres once they’d regrouped, and that made the combat even more weighted in their favour. Resisting confusion? Ogres are naturally confused! It helps them along!

Most of the original furnishings of this level had been destroyed, but they did find a wax-coated scroll with a prayer to Xan Yae, and a room with many metal gongs, now tossed aside and broken.

The humanoids had been messy eaters – and poking through their things was not pleasant.

Finally, the party discovered the stairs down to the fourth level of the temple, but it was getting late. As the characters were now depleted in hit dice and spells, they chose to return above and take a long rest, and there we ended the session for the night. Everyone earned 3000 XP – a session that mainly featured exploration!

Resources Used

I used material from the following sources to run this adventure:

• M3: A Gathering Storm by Troll Lord Games
• Monster Manual Expanded by Dragonix