Dungeons & Delvers: Age of Worms Episode 801

Cast

• Humal (level 16 wrathful cambion wizard)
• Corzale (level 16 dwarf war cleric/druid)
• Sumia (level 16 elf rogue/ranger/wizard)

Session Highlights

(Gonna be a pretty short play report, as this session was done a few months ago and I've forgotten much of the finer details.)

The party carts Ilthane's skull out into the woods so Humal can use Speak With Dead on it. Due to Humal's level they're able to ask her quite a few questions: big thing they learn is that something bad is going on way up north, that she used to be an elf before being corrupted and transformed (and could use the Rootways), and that there's at least one more elven dragon working for Kyuss.

After helping the dwarves rebuild and Corzale gets her shiny, stylish new black dragon plate armor, the party heads back to Magepoint so they can fill in one of the Manzorians as to what went down, plus give Sumia a chance to pay off the rest of her debt...but as soon as she does, she immediately asks if it has something that will let her communicate with her owlbear. It gives her a pair of nails, and tells her to hammer one into each of their heads.

She does, it works, and after that she forks over a significant payment of dragon blood and flesh to an artificer, in exchange for fashioning one of Ilthane's teeth into a dagger that produces acid as needed.

Using one of Humal's teleportation circles, they briefly hop over to Dovin and leave Filge there to cook up a new batch of doppelgangers. While they're setting everything up, Sumia visits the elves and learns that the name of the elven dragon Ilthane mentioned is Lashonna, and that she currently resides in Alhaster, which just so happens to be the city where Zeech, Humal's brother two mothers removed, has recently conquered.

Just one more reason to pay a visit.

Manzorian is willing to teleport the lot of them, for a price, but they decide to just take the scenic route and save themselves a considerable chunk of cash (and dragon bits). It takes a few weeks to get there, but nothing especially bad happens en route. They're able to easily get into the city thanks to Zeech's invitation, and quickly realize that while the majority of the population is a mix of human and standard-fare demihumans, the laws are arbitrarily enforced by hobgoblins.

There are also numerous tall, black towers that they later learn are a combination of watchtower and nest for Humal's demonic cousins, the erinyes.

They manage to get to the gates of Zeech's palace without incident, and after much arguing and convincing the guards alert him that Humal has finally arrived. Zeech is very happy to see Humal, something that the latter finds somewhat...unusual. He offers the party a tour of the city, revealing that he's been working on a massive structure to honor their father: though it's a work in progress, it's very much looking like the ziggurat they inadvertently destroyed back in Kuluth-Mar.

Zeech informs them that despite Humal's considerable delay the celebration is still a week away, and recommends that they explore the city and take in all the sites. He knows that Humal has taken an interest in necromancy, and strongly encourages him to check out a nearby island where they perform mass executions, see if there's anything he likes. He also apologizes to Corzale that they ended up demolishing a temple of Bel-Amaranth during the siege, and grants her permission to comb through the wreckage for any relics and artifacts that might still be intact.

Design & Development

A big deviation from the original adventure, is that Zeech is related to one of the party members. This made it easy to give them an invitation, as well as rope them into going (it's a family thing).

I'm also not bothering with the Authority point mechanic, and will probably skip the hobgoblin minigames since it's basically just random die rolls to see who wins, and there is nothing to gain and everything to lose. Maybe if I can cook up one that is more skill-based and they can actually get some benefit from winning.

At this point the party suspects that Zeech is up to something, though they aren't sure what, but his hints get them to explore two of the key areas in the adventure without having to read about it in a journal, or just be flat out told to go by someone else. There's even more that I've changed, but that'll have to wait for future play reports.

As for the core game, we're grinding away at Red Book. The goal is to have the Kickstarter ready to go sometime in April or May. We want to get the text like 95% done, and are mostly being held up by the monk and paladin classes (specifically talents), as well as some monster descriptive text.

Announcements

You can now get a physical copy of Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book in whatever format you want! We've also released the first big supplement for it, Appendix D, so pick that up if you want more of everything.

The first issue of The Delver, a magazine featuring fungal-themed content for both players and GMs (including an adventure in which myconids find religion), is available!

Our latest Dungeon World class, The Ranger, is now available.

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!

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).