Welcome to the only blog where a group outvotes the word of Talos. Yes, this is the Tomb of Annihilation. This week, we meet El Revolutionadad, we may hear a troll toll song, which is definitely not stolen from a TV show on FX, and memories of Macho Man Randy Savage may or may not come back to you, Dig It! My name is Kent, and I am your terrible host who posts YouTube videos, while Eric is the man who actually does the writing. One of us is slightly more important to the cause than the other. You make the decision. This week, the decision for the YouTube video felt relatively obvious, so thank you Eric.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDhAEmODyzw
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Tomb of Annihilation
Chapter 13 – 40 Miles to Harakmar
Upon slaying the dragon, Compassion pulled out a saw from his bag-o-weapons and proceeded to cut the dragon’s head off. As they were preparing to leave the mine, Xilix noticed that the mineshaft continued past the dragon’s den. Scouting it out, the party found some dwarven runes carved into the entrance at the first point where the tunnel split. As Hertz speaks dwarven, he translated the runes, which were directions through the tunnels to the underground dwarven city of Harakmar, approximately 40 miles away. Realizing that the soul monger might be located in that city, the party considered taking a detour to Harakmar.
Before making the decision, Hertz decided to consult Talos, who made it clear that continuing towards Harakmar instead of leaving the mines would be bad. Upon Hertz making his report to the party, Talos was quickly out voted and the majority of the party decided to push on to Harakmar.
Following the path, the party was soon ambushed by a pack of wild Kobalds that had become lost in the tunnels and were obviously starving. While one of the Kobalds successfully snatched Gryff IV out of the air and shoved the magical bird into his mouth, Xilix quickly put a firebolt through the monster’s chest before Gryff IV could be chewed up. The other starving Kobalds provided little threat to the party and were quickly dispatched.
After traveling for approximately eight hours, the party stumbled into a large cave. Before they knew what was happening, a troll emerged from a nearby crevasse and began to dance and sing. The party was informed via song that they needed, “to pay the troll toll, if they wished to continue down this underdark hole.” Xilix responded, “do you accept payment in fireballs?” To which the troll responded, “what?. . . no! . . . why do you ask . . . AHHHHHH.”
As the first troll melted, the party heard two more trolls around the corner. Padre, who had taken classes in advanced toll slaying at Heresy Academy, told the party to get back. In less than a minute, Padre had used all of the oil in his inventory to set up a number of intricate anti-troll fire traps. Once the traps were set, Padre asked Xilix to set up a distraction to lure out the other trolls.
Knowing it was troll mating season, Xilix used his powers to create the illusion of a sexy (by troll standards) harem of trolls. The illusion worked, and Padre readied his torch as the trolls came around the corner. “Well aren’t you a sexy thing, why don’t you come over here and . . . OH MY GOD I’M ON FIRE, WHY IS THE ENTIRE ROOM ON FIRE!!!!?” As the trolls were being incinerated in Padre’s traps, the party stayed at a safe range and finished them off with arrows and spells.
Once the room stopped burning, the party took the time to look around their surroundings. While they were easily able to find the path to Harakmar, they also found another path that appeared to lead deep into the underdark. In dwarven runes was written a warning to stay away. Just below it, written in undercommon (which Xilix can read), was a single word, “come.” Once again consulting Talos, the party was warned by the storm god not to follow this new path into the deep underdark. Once again, Talos was outvoted and the party decided to see where this new path would lead.
After spending a restful night in the caverns, interrupted only by the occasional ghost attack, the party awoke to find that someone, or something, had drawn a mustache on Xilix’s face as he slept. Looking around to see who might have done that, the party heard the sound of childish laughter down coming from further down the cave. After following the sound for approximately two hours, the party came face to face with a fairy dragon (a tiny mischievous dragon).
The fairy dragon was so impressed that the party followed him for so long, that he offered to answer three questions for the adventurers. After conversing, the party asked the following questions 1) what is the death curse, 2) who is responsible for the death curse, 3) where is the person responsible for the death curse. The fairy told them that the death curse is caused by the soulmonger, which sucks souls from the sky and eats them, the creator of the curse is the lich Azerack, and Azerack is currently hanging out with the “Atropaul” deep in the “Tomb of the 9 Gods.” Upon answering the last question the fairy dragon disappeared in a wisp of smoke.
With no way to pursue any of these leads, the party continued deeper into the underdark. While resting that evening, Compassion either had someone enter his dreams via magic, or he was haunted by a ghost. In either case, the ghost, dream, man appeared before Compassion claiming to be a member of the Order of the Gauntlet. Further, ghost-dream-man told Compassion that he had a special mission for him, to find his “progeny” named Progenegious (P-dawg for short), and to help P-dawg reclaim the drow (underdark elves) city of Sithmorkane from the fire giants that had invaded and taken it over.
Wanting to score points with the OG, Compassion accepted the mission in his dream without consulting with the rest of the group in any way, shape, or form. Upon waking from the dream, however, Compassion realized that they had no leads, so the party simply continued down the same path they had been following.
After a few more hours of travel, they came upon a Galeb-Dur (basically a walking, talking stone man) crying in front of a cavern wall. Hertz approached and gently asked if he knew anything about Sithmorkane. The Galeb-Dur introduced himself as Greck, and he explained that Sithmorkane was a drow city that had been taken over by Fire Giants. While he didn’t know the way, he told the group that the Stone Giants of the Sculptor’s Lodge might be able to help.
Upon merely mentioning the Lodge, Greck burst out into tears. Greck explained that one month earlier the giants of the Lodge suddenly became obsessed with their sculpting work. Any works of stone that were not perfect were either cast out or destroyed, which, unfortunately, included Greck. Greck had been aimlessly wandering the caverns since being exiled from the Sculptor’s Lodge.
Greck agreed to escort the party to the Lodge. Upon arriving they found themselves standing before massive doors leading into a massive compound. They knocked on the door and were greeted by a stone giant named Keld who welcomed them to the Lodge of Faces. The group quickly understood how the Lodge got its name, as the sculpting giants had sculpted nearly every inch of the room by carving faces into the stone walls. In addition to the thousands of faces, the party was also particularly interested in the room’s centerpiece, a 25-foot glowing purple statue carved from a single large crystal. Keld explained that the statue was of their god, Stonebones, and that all the giants of the Lodge had carved it together.
Upon interviewing the five stone giants of the Lodge and Xilix casting Detect Magic, it became clear that, 1) the giants were under some sort of magical compulsion to continuously cave stone faces at the cost of all other aspects of their social life, and 2) that the giant crystal god was the cause of the enthrallment.
Believing that “if something doesn’t work, hit it,” Compassion asked Padre to cause a distraction. This, in turn, led Padre to order Probie to create a distraction. Unsure what to do, Probie called the giants of the lodge together to lecture them on “modern techniques in sculpting design.” As Probie only had a passing knowledge of such things, he quickly insulted all of the giants by implying their work was “pompous garbage.”
As Keld hoisted his club and prepared to bash Probie’s brains in, the ground began to rumble as Compassion charged into the room riding Ducky. Compassion directed Ducky to charge head first into the glowing, purple statue. Upon connecting, Ducky got a concussion and the statue began to form numerous cracks. Seeing the damage, the giants turned from Probie and began focusing their attention on Compassion.
Knowing that Compassion didn’t have much time before he became Tiefling-paste, Xilix used ice magic to freeze the cracked legs of the statue. Once the legs were frozen, Tempest performed a mighty kick, taking out the legs and causing the statute to fall to the ground, pinning two of the giants. Hertz then called upon Talos and used thunder magic to break the statute into thousands of crystal shards.
With the statue gone, the giants were free of the madness that had caused them to single-mindedly focus on sculpting. As thanks for freeing them from the compulsion, the giants drew a map of Sithmorkane for the party. Also, at Hertz’s insistence, they allowed Greck back into the Lodge. Greck was so grateful that he agreed to escort the party to the gates of Sithmorkane.
As they continued on their journey, the party eventually met a traveling company made up of drow and dreugar (underdark dwarves). Despite some communication troubles, the party learned that the drow and dreugar were escaped slaves who had been forced to work for the fire giants after the fall of Sithmorkane. While warry of surface dwellers, the escaped slaves accepted the party’s help and asked to be escorted to a nearby tavern that was acting as the headquarters of the resistance.
Upon arriving at the tavern, the party quickly learned that the resistance was a mess and had broken into two factions. The first faction, led by a man calling himself El Revolutionadad, wanted to band together and retake Sithmorkane. The second group, led by a drow named Mersveas, wanted to retreat into the tunnels. As Compassion tried to intervene to make peace, he noted that Mersveas seemed to have a touch of the madness spreading through the underdark. He then proceeded to yell, “he’s got the madness!” and punched Mersveas as hard as he could in the face, knocking him out.
As Mersveas’ supporters didn’t care whether he was crazy or not, they armed themselves and prepared to attack Compassion and El Revolutionadad’s supporters. As the battle ensued, Hertz sought to end the fighting through his talent for showmanship. He began singing a beautiful song recounting how a dream-ghost had given them a sacred mission to take back Sithmorkane from the fire giants, and recounted all of their adventures from the dream until then, including their freeing of the stone giants.
Unfortunately, as Hertz did not speak undercommon, Xilix was forced to “freestyle rap” the lyrics as Hertz sang them. While not Hertz’s greatest performance, it was successful in suspending hostilities, at least for the time being.
Who will join the party in their quest to free Sithmorkane from the Fire Giants? What challenges will the party face when they enter the city? Find out next week, on Tales from the Plunderbund Consortium!
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Since the term “He’s got the madness!” was used, I had to post this video. What a treat this man was!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7SI_fLNo3c
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