And I'm playing on your fears
I'm a trickster smiling underneath this mask of love and death
The eternal lie I've told
About the pyramids of gold
I've got you hooked at every turn, your money's left to burn
The next adventure kicked off in January of 2022. Been given the message from the monk in the Temple of Elemental Evil, they are surrounded by fog and then... returned to a harbour in Barovia together with Madam Eve. A ship appears with Vistani colours on the sails, captained by a vistani crew. From behind carts carrying goods of wheat, wine, furs and furnitures to load upon the boat and they all board and sail away. Through the magical mist they enter the world of Toril and the continent of Faerûn and sails toward the city of Waterdeep, the City of Splendor and the Crown of the North.
Arriving at the docks Madam Eve sends them to the Yawning Portal to meet someone. There they observe the people in the tavern and a fight breaks out between a half-orc and five people dressed in black. During the scuffle a troll appears from the well with 9 stirges and all people erupts in panic. A short scuffle with the involved fighters it's over and the players are introduced to Volothamp Geddarm, Volo to his friends and in need of some help since his friend Floon Blagmaar has been missing for two days. With ten gold coins each as down payment they go out looking for this missing person.
Walking through the streets they encounter the fall out of a gang war between two fractions of the underworld. Dead bodies and city watch walking all around. No one caring for the missing person beyond our heroes. They find some curiosity shop where they learn that the owner watched two people being abducted and dragged away by five people. They walk over to the inn that Volo last saw Floon. After bribing the patrons with some gold and ale they inform them that Volo and Floon was here, but after Volo left another person appeared and joined Floon and as they left five other men left the tavern. The five people the patrons recognized from a magazine by the docks.
They arrive at the magazine and enters it, finding another scene of dead bodies. Looking through the bottom floor they find a noble by the name Renaer Neverember, son of the former open lord of Waterdeep who was the target of the kidnapping, but since he and Floon looked alike they both were taken by the Zentharim, the thieves guild. And here the Zentharim was attacked by the Xanathar Guild who got away with Floon who they mistook for Renaer. They also finds a secret room with stolen goods, but before they can do anything else the house is overrun by city watch guards that have been alerted by passers by some strange activity. The captain takes control of the place and after some questioning of the three lets them go. Renaer joins with the players to look for Floon since he feels guilty for the events that have transpired. They investigate and finds tracks to a manhole into the sewer and delve underground.
And here we come to the problem with sending level 8 characters into a first level dungeon. The first monster is a gazer, a small beholder pretty much. They just hit it once and it's dead. Next enemy is wererat that they don't actually have any problem with since the rouge alone made 37 damage, insta-killing it if they wanted to. Of course, Immeral the monk had a bit of bad luck and got bitten before anyone could do anything, failed the con saving throw and was now affected by a lycanthropy curse. And they found the secret door toward the boss room, skipping the most of the dungeon. They kill the goblin keeping watch and continues in to face the orc torturing Floon together with the mind flayer and an intellectual devourer. Hope the rouge attacks the orc and kills him in one hit. The big boss they encounter is a Mind Flayer. Immeral attacks the mind flayer that just shrugs at the damage and walks away, putting a dominate curse on Renaer that attacks Hope. And the intellectual devourer jumps on Immeral missing the strike, but is able to get off the brain drain and Immeral losses the saving throw and I rolled higher than Immerals Int ability score so Immeral is out cold.
Which was lucky for me that they still could pose a threat for the players even though they are 7 levels higher than they are supposed to. Hope uses the spell protection from evil and good to wake up Renaer. The mind flayer escapes into a magic portal and Renaer and Hope kills the intellect devourer before it take control of Immerals brain (which I wouldn't even dare try since the luck of the player would mean that would have been the end of Immeral). They leave with Immeral's unconscious body and return to the Yawning Portal. Volo is relieved that everyone's back, but is a bit worried about the state of Immeral. So they send a message to the temple for a cleric to restore the intellect. Meanwhile payment is discussed. He don't have much money (the sales of Volo's Guide to Monster doesn't seem to be that high), but offers a deed to a house in the Northen ward. Taking a look Hope accept and add it to their growing list of real estate that lies in the hand of Hope and Immerals Emporium. Hope returns to the Portal, the cleric Parker Bronzebeard have arrived with a Greater Restoration spell and is able to cure Immeral on both the wererat curse as well as the damage done by the intellect devourer. Renaer pays for their stay during the night since they can't expedite the take over of the deed until noon the next morning. And here the session ends.
That was fast. We got through the first chapter in one sitting, I actually thought it would take two at least. Could be that I bumbled the magazine scene by accidentally skipping the check on opening the door so I had the kenku assassins already be gone. I also messed with certain rolls. For example I made the mind flyer go before Renaer in the last battle and I forced him to lose the dominate monster spell so that the ilithid could get away. Other adjustments was that I forced them to start with 625 gold each since keeping it all would wreck the economy (which it still does, but it will speed up certain aspects, but since they want flour and other things imported from Barovia they need to get some clearance from the right authorities and that might make everything equal).
I also plan to change a lot in the end. First of, the keys are kinda underwhelming. Just 3 random things that can be found anywhere? And if you play it as written, then you would have 3 "dungeons" unused? Well, first instinct was using three statues that would open the door to the treasure. I got the idea from an old TaleSpin episode I watched as a kid, "Molly Coddled" it was apparently called. There the villain used a statue (or doll) to open a chamber where a ruby version of that doll was. Neat right, my only problem was what the statues would look like, and I thought gods would work, especially one would be Asmodeus. Then I watched "The Phantom" from 1996 and thought, skulls it is, of gold, silver and jade.
So each villain gets one key so that you can do all of it. Plus watching a couple of Jönssonligan-movies made me think about performing the perfect plan, planed into the smallest detail... or rather, the players gotta figure it out while I play the music from the movies. This gonna be fun.
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