Enlil-Zi-Shagal's Sky Tomb Finale

Cast

• Lydia (level 3 human bard)
• Hburdshur (level 3 dwarf fighter)
• Raynor (level 3 god eater-class thing)
• Savatar (level 3 vampire)

Session Highlights

Raynor's plan works: the prismatic spider slaughters all of the viscera wasps. Unfortunately it's still alive, and the party has no idea how wounded it is. But they've destroyed one already, and figure that they'll have better odds since it's not a swarm of literally blood-thirsty insects, plus it used up its color spray attack.

What they don't know is that it can drain the color from a creature simply by stabbing it, which allows it to quickly build up and release another color spray. Luckily (more or less) it only hits Hburdshur, partially turning him to stone, and they destroy it before it can unleash a third spray. Hburdshur gathers up some more shimmering shards, and Lydia turns into a bird, flies up the shaft, and drops a rope so that the others can climb up.

The shaft leads to what looks like a garden that, like the rest of the tomb, has been untended to for who knows how long. They find strange, clanging copper spheres floating about and dribbling thick, black fluid on everything. Unsure if or how the devices can "see" them, and assuming it won't be good if they get caught, the group sticks to the abundant foliage while they explore. They're detected by one, but compared to everything else they've dealt with they're thankful that all it does is bash into them, and occasionally discharge a weak bolt of electricity.

A few shots from Raynor's weapon knocks it out of the sky, but the party flees when it starts rolling and rattling around on the ground for fear that it'll attract more, or maybe even something worse. After some more wandering they eventually find a stone building with a couple entrances. The first one they try leads to a small chamber that contains gardening tools and a copper statue, arms outstretched and hands open, large enough to hold one of the copper spheres they encountered.

Assuming that, like the stelae, it will animate and attack, and since there isn't anything obviously valuable in plain sight, the party doesn't linger.

The other entrance leads to a short hall, walls lined with a total of six stelae guardians. They animate when the party approaches, reconfiguring into humanoid shapes, but Lydia manages to trick them into thinking the party are in fact pilgrims seeking to pay tribute directly to Enlil-zi-Shagal. The guardians return to their alcoves, allowing the party to proceed into a sort of treasury.

Paintings, tapestries, weapons, shields, and masks adorn the walls. A few carpets cover the floor, though most of it is occupied by a garishly decorated chariot and bed, and a griffon skeleton clad in chainmail barding. Tables and cases lined against the walls display jewelry and other trinkets. When one of the characters invariably reaches for something, the skeleton suddenly speaks, commanding them to look but not touch.

The characters obey, because heavily armored griffon skeleton, but they eventually anger it anyway by pestering it with lots of questions and trying to convince it to let them take some loot. It lunges at Hburdshur, tearing through his armor and flesh; some of his blood splashes on an urn that awakens a vampire. Apparently Enlil-zi-Shagal was responsible for burning him to dust, and now that he's finally better he eagerly assists them in destroying the skeletal guardian.

With that out of the way they begin examining the treasure, which includes a hammer bound in chains, strange gloves featuring slowly drifting clouds, a necklace made of seven brilliantly shining gemstones, a crystal rod that emanates a billowing curtain of light, a bottle containing what looks like a storm (complete with tiny lightning bolts), a carpet that floats just a few inches off the floor, and paintings of ever-changing skies. They suspect much of it is magical, but have no way of determining what it does or how to properly use them.

Once they fill their pockets and packs, load the rest on the chariot, and give Hburdshur time to recover from his wounds, they proceed through the last door. It opens into a vast hall. The walls are flanked with more stelae, and at the end is a sarcophagus made from white marble. It rests on a dais, illuminated by brilliant rays of sunlight. They approach and a voice asks them what tribute they bring; they try offering up the treasure they just stole, which unsurprisingly angers the voice.

After a brief and frustrating exchange, the sarcophagus opens to reveal a frail, mostly-complete skeleton, presumably Enlil-zi-Shagal. He demands to know who they are, and the party for some reason admits to both theft and destroying the griffin skeleton. This further enrages Enlil-zi-Shagal, and with a wave of his hand the stelae to shatter and encase him in stone fragments, transforming him into a giant, spiky stone monstrosity with massive stone blades for arms.

Savatar rushes into the fray, but is easily swatted aside. Lydia hurls the storm bottle at Stone-Shagal: it shatters, unleashing a roiling, black cloud that starts blasting everything nearby with bolts of lightning. Raynor charges into the cloud, focusing all of his power into his sword: he hews through much of Stone-Shagal's torso, but he remains standing. Already wounded by lightning, it only takes Stone-Shagal a single blow to finish Raynor off.

Some of the fragments Raynor hacked off of Stone-Shagal form into a smaller creature, but Hburdshur obliterates it with a single, surprisingly powerful whack from his newly acquired hammer. But, before he can use it on Stone-Shagal, Savatar leaps onto it and tears away a few slabs of rock, revealing Enlil-zi-Shagal's frail, skeletal frame: he only has a few moments to sputter out a few hollow insults before Savatar wrests the skull free and crushes it.

Stone-Shagal collapses to the ground, and Lydia runs over and stabilizes Raynor. They rest for awhile in the hall, and after Raynor regains consciousness Alepi (the zombie-lammasu head he'd been carrying around) reveals that he can help them escape from the tomb, but he wants to come with them. Raynor agrees, stating that he'd been planning on keeping him the entire time. Alepi explains that as long as the tower was functioning when they left that the portal will open again, it just needs time to recharge.

They return to the entrance, and sure enough after waiting for several hours the portal reappears.

Design & Development

All in all a good run. The latter half of the adventure was pretty solid, though there are some things I want to tweak, and I'm also going to change a section that they didn't even get to (which was good because I didn't have it fully fleshed out anyway). Definitely want to better define the treasure in the treasury, and maybe add/change some magic items because I thought of other stuff after the session was over.

Shane's still enjoying the vampire, and Melissa hasn't complained about the bard (she really digs that thunderwave talent). Fighter is awesome but then that's expected. Adam is going to change up his God Eater class, because he thinks being able to dump all of your Oracle Points into one big attack is too much, and I'm inclined to agree.

This is turning into another campaign. I'll be running most of the time I'm sure, but it'll let me test out all the crazy adventure ideas I have in mind. The Krampus adventure is undergoing closed feedback, and I still need to wrap up art for Appendix D. After that I need to do a few more pieces for Escape From the Flesh Catacombs, and then it's back to that other Delvers-based game I have in mind (until something else crops up to distract me).

Announcements

You can now get a physical copy of Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book in whatever format you want!

After months of doing other things, we turned our attention to and released The Warden. It's based on the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons class of the same name, but judging by the responses we did an excellent job converting it over.

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!

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