CoMT Update 16-30

The team: Seiken the elf kensei monk, Elyrin the human necromancer, and Ovin Snakestaff the eldritch knight-tempest cleric.

CoMT 16: Bleaksin was left behind when the team ended up in the Astral Plane, in a gith city, hiding in the shop of a gith tailor named Glacia; she gave the team headbands that made them magically look like githyanki – with Ovin’s making him look like a woman. She was actually a spy and recruited the team to help slay an illithid. Days later, the team was meeting the lich queen of the city and off on the adventure. The team killed a young red shadow dragon, slime creatures, and 3 mindflayers. Then they went to fight an elder brain…

17: The team fought the elder brain in the cave, but it teleported out. They brought the monster heads back to the gith and the lich queen at the cathedral. A week later, the team (still parading around as gith) became members on a planar ship to “engage in a raid” on the prime material plane – but really, they just wanted to escape and get back home. The raid took them to a dwarf city in the Sword Mountains, near Waterdeep. Elyrin had an epic airship battle while Seiken and Ovin took out the ground troops trying to kill the dwarf king. The invading gith were defeated and the dwarf king declared the team heroes.

18: The dwarves teleported the team back to the pillar city for their mission. Bleaksin was gone, but the team took out 2 mindflayers. They then used the rooftops to avoid the army of undead to get to the pyramid in the center of the city. They locked themselves inside, where they found Netherese murals.

19: Inside the magical ancient Netherese pyramid, the team fought off devils and golems. A team of 4 succibi tried to trap them in rooms; Ovin sacrificed himself to get Seiken out of a trap-room. Ovin ended up charmed once he was alone with a succubus (and he impregnated her – but it was assumed that she either killed him or left him to starve to death, where the team couldn’t rescue him). Elyrin and Seiken continued in the pyramid…

Note: That means Ovin only survived 5 sessions, after Mory who lasted 12 sessions, after Derv who lasted 2, after Fox who lasted 6 sessions. But don’t worry, my next character makes it to the end…

Backstory: Long ago the elf war cleric Keravel Ual (which means “Holy Spellsword”), had visions about the Netherese wizards bringing about an apocalyptic event that would destroy his home elf village. The people there kicked him out. While on his own, he was captured by the Netherese and put into a temporal stasis…

20: Seiken and Elyrin found Keravel and took him out of stasis, explaining that a long time had passed and his visions had been true – his elf village was destroyed along with most of the ancient Netherese. They also updated him on the mission, but Keravel warned that they might need to destroy the pillar when they found it (because it was evil ancient Netherese magic). They battled and destroyed a bunch of devils and golems.

21: After resting, the team took out a bunch of slaads, mummies, spectres, zombies, flame skulls, and a mummy lord. The team destroyed the ancient Netherese mummy heart and blew up the base with all of its chaos energy. The succubus that had taken Ovin taunted the team before they left.

22: With the ancient Netherese pyramid temple destroyed, the undead army was no longer attracted to the area. The team destroyed the straglers. Elyrin explained how the team was in the “reclamation business” (with what Mory told Elyrin about being the “Criminals of Many Things”). Keravel explained ancient history with the gem dragon that competed with Tiamat and Bahamut for godhood amongst the dragons – since it connected to the team’s story and the City of Many Things. Once they were back at the city, they were treated as heroes. They found out Parker was dead and Oozy had fled. The City Council that had formed had Bruth, Braylinn, and the leader of the Roaming Gold Caravan (in charge of the Merchant’s Guild). The team also fought a team of gnolls and fiends.

23: The team fought and killed more demons and gnolls. Elyrin hired an apprentice to help with his wizard tower. Keravel recruited an elf clerk of Corellon for his temple tower. Ten days were spent on town and maintenance stuff. Then the team took out all of the enemies in the Marilith’s district!

24: The team coordinated with two dragons to engage in a huge assault and take over the central gnoll area with the central building in the City of Many Things. The main team, along with Braylinn, took the Bell Tower while the dragons led the others in taking over the area with the churches. The team won the battle and the remaining gnolls retreated.

25: The city’s resources were depleted from the big fight last time. The central tower has a lich in it. The gem dragon “demi-god” had an underground tunnel that the team could use to get into the huge tower to try to defeat the monsters on the inside. Seiken, Elyrin, Keravel, and Braylinn took gifts to the gem dragon, who also gave them items to help in the coming battles. Raylin Sunsoaker even made an appearance to get an update from Seiken and encourage the team to finish the last push to clear out the city. The team used the underground tunnel and infiltrated the central tower, where some nymphs and fairies tried to seduce them (and failed).

26: Still in the tower, the team fought and destroyed a bunch of demons. In a magical library in the tower, an aracanloth recruited the team to deal with necromancers competing to be the main apprentice to the master lich Wulgreth. The team had to fight brain dogs, spirits, grell, and a lich. After the team won, they reported back to the arcanaloth, who congratulated them.

27: Bleaksin arrived at the team’s dungeon rest spot, to trade places on the team with Braylinn, who was needed back in the city. The arcanaloth then took the team to Wulgreth the demi-lich and introduced them. Wulgreth gave them the tour and explained his evil plan – he had captured hundreds of souls in a giant phylactery and would use it to free himself from this place; coincidentally, the gem dragon could replace Wulgreth and use it to escape – along with the heart of the balor demon on the top level of the tower. The team went up one level and killed some redcaps and yeth hounds, along with a purple worm and some wood woads.

Then the team made a touch decision – they recruited two of the necromancers and tried to use them against Wulgreth, but the plan went sideways after Keravel killed the arcanaloth. Wulgreth killed Bleaskin and Keravel. Elyrin used their Ring of Spell Storing revivify plan and brought Keravel back, but Wulgreth captured the souls of Seiken and Keravel. One-on-one, Elyrin finally destroyed Wulgreth and destroyed the gems – thus he released Keravel and Seiken. They, in turn, freed the other trapped adventurers in Wulgreth’s skull gems. Unforunately, there were still 5 angry necromancers outside the room casting spells…

28: The team and the rescued adventurers defeated the 5 necromancers and then destroyed the phylactery, freeing all of the trapped souls. The team went back to FOE Manor. Despite being brought back to life, Bleaksin was done and left the party. The team took 2 weeks downtime. Keravel paid the local bard to make contact with the local elves. Seiken, Elyrin, and Keravel each donated 5,000 gp for the fort at the mines (in hopes of getting 15% of the mine’s profits). When they went back to the tower, they defeated a bunch more demons and rescued a solar. They then spent a couple of days re-consecrating the ground.

29: The leader of the Roaming Gold caravan asked the team to help the people in Naeb, where he said there was unrest and people were in danger. One of the rescued adventurers encouraged the team to go back and clear out more of the tower demons since they couldn’t leave for Naeb until the next day. They went in and defeated a bunch of quasits, 3 nebasu, a goristro, and a marilith. A sibriex demon then feebleminded and transformed the NPC adventurers. Seiken was feebleminded, Keravel and Elyrin got him to safety and used greater restoration to save him.

30: Seiken, Elyrin, and Keravel defeated the sibriex with the rest of his minions; Seiken was killed, but then revivified. The team rested. The gem dragon offered rewards, to turn the team into half-dragons; Seiken and Elyrin accepted, but Keravel negotiated to instead get the gem dragon to help free the people of Naeb. The team made the final push up to the king’s level of the tower and up to the roof, where the Orcus-empowered balor demon waited with a bunch of cultists doing a ritual around a circle. The team was able to delay the balor demon long enough for the gem dragon to gain power and come join the fight – pushing the balor demon back to the realm of Orcus and closing the portal.

It worked! The gem dragon also sent his chosen dragons to Naeb and took out the evil leaders there, helping the people in their rebellion. Seiken and Elyrin became half-dragons, but representatives from Bahamut and Tiamat showed up saying they had made a mistake by bringing the gem dragon to power. The team argued that they were simply on the side of neutrality and balance, not trying to be enemies of Bahamut or Tiamat. The City of Many Things mission had been accomplished, as the team had successfully gained control of the city and driven out the monsters.