Dungeons & Delvers: Age of Worms, Episode 606

Cast

• Humal (level 10 wrathful cambion wizard)
• Corzale (level 10 dwarf war cleric)
• Sumia (level 10 elf rogue/ranger)

Session Highlights

Once they finished resting, the party makes it to the top of the ice tower, where they end up speaking with an ice weird named Sionsiar, who had served Icosiel before they were both slain during the Worm War.

Initially wary of Humal due to his heritage, she became more amiable after he surrendered the Apostolic Scroll—which she immediately and effortlessly destroyed—and learning that Corzale, a worshiper of Bel-Amaranth traveled with him: apparently Bel-Amaranth's followers were pivotal to their success against the worms.

The rod of seven parts came up: the party learned that the fragment contained within Icosiel's true tomb had the power to heal any and all physical and mental ailments. This didn't explain why Humal's father wanted it so badly, until Sionsiar explained that as the rod is reconstructed it gains additional powers.

Sionsiar grew hostile when Humal revealed that his siblings were looking for it (and were in fact waiting for them at the bottom of the tower), but calmed when he stated and confirmed under magical compulsion that he did not wish to surrender it to them. He wasn't sure they could stop them, but Sionsiar agreed to help them if they returned from Icosiel's tomb with the fragment.

She then transformed the tower into a sphere, and within moments they were transported an unfathomable distance across an unknown course to the true tomb's location: it was a great stone sphere, completely surrounded by churning storm clouds. In addition to the powerful winds and lightning, countless rocks of varying sizes and shapes tumbled throughout the clouds.

Sionsiar stated that this was as far as she would take them, before transporting the ice-disk away, leaving them floating just beyond the influence of the storm's winds. After discussing various methods by which they could reach the tomb's surface without being blown apart by lightning or pummeled by rocks, they settled on Humal encasing them in an illusionary box and slowly ferrying them through the storm.

The illusion wasn't strong enough to move against the force of the winds, but it managed to remain intact until they were nearly at the center where it was much calmer. A rock struck the box, unraveling the illusion and—since everyone had oriented their gravity down before beginning their descent—causing everyone to plummet to the tomb below.

Sumia was able to reorient her gravity such that it halted her descent, but no such luck for Corzale. Fortunately Allustan and Humal could fly: the former caught her and softened her landing, while the latter towed Sumia down because she wasn't sure how to (safely) get down.

The surface of the tomb featured numerous holes, but before they could investigate bones rained from above and assembled into six excarnated harpies: after considerable effort (and many failed rolls) they destroyed the harpies (though several were still intact enough for Humal to reanimate). They had finally arrived at the true tomb: now they just had to pick an entrance and see where it would take them.

Design Notes

In the original adventure you're supposed to go down this blood-red river/waterfall, fight some more flying suits of armor (leveled up versions of the ones fought in the first adventure), run into a ghoul I think, and then go through this room with floating pillars and beat up some air elementals before finally arriving at the true tomb.

I think last play report post I already mentioned changing the ice hall to an ice tower (and if I didn't well then now you know). The ice weird was referenced in the original adventure but didn't actually appear, but I figured it would be nice to have its I guess spirit be around for the party to talk with (and give them information), and ideally transport them to the true tomb.

(Otherwise I figured Humal would use his teleportation circle, plus some speak with dead to wrangle the details out of Sionsiar and just beam them over there.)

The other really big change is the tomb itself: it's now a stone sphere protected by lightning, wind, flying rocks, and harpy skeletons. Don't want to spoil what's inside, though (not air elementals that's for damn sure).

The I guess "default" method for getting through the storm-sphere was to try and float, grappling hook, or even jump (if the ice disk was still there) to the rocks as they zipped by. You'd then have to leap frog from rock to rock, dodging lightning bolts and fighting off excarnated harpies before finally getting through, and then either falling or floating the rest of the way to the tomb (distance would have done like 5d6 bludgeoning damage: hurts but survivable for 10th-level PCs).

Flight would also have worked, which both Humal and Allustan had access to: the winds, depending on which way you go, would either slow you or double your Speed. Probably faster than the leapfrog technique, though you'd have to dodge rocks, lightning bolts, and fight/flee from excarnated harpies.

Announcements

Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book is out (and you can pick it up for 25% off during DriveThruRPG's Christmas in July sale)!

It's our own take on a D&Dish/d20 game that features (among other things) simple-yet-flexible classes, unassumed magic and magical healing, a complete lack of pseudo-Vancian magic, and more mythologically accurate monsters.

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).