Gameplay

As the crew leaves Mossbeard’s forest near The Smithy, Jackal looks up and sees a Ratatosk in the trees. It jumps down in front of them and it’s wearing a uniform and has a cylindrical container on its back. It casts a verbal and somatic spell to identify which of the heroes is Appaluna. As she glows, he knows to give her the letter.

She reads the letter from her patron inviting her to the palace of Countess Levosu, mentioning that she needs to come right away, and it tells her to go via the River Styx and also includes the fare for 3 folks to ride. Appaluna finds a dwarf within The Smithy and asks how to get to the River Styx. She’s told to go to the Five Ways Bridge. When they get there they see a few piers on the banks near the bridge. There’s a robed man with a bluish tinge to his skin on a gondola-style boat. They pay for passage and find out his name is Thomas.

As the river flows into the River Styx it widens to be about a mile wide and it gets so deep that Thomas just steers within the current to avoid any obstacles. The party sees much larger boats sailing the river, including galleons. After a day of travel they stop along the banks to rest. Jackal immediately goes to sleep. The girls pull out their bedrolls to sleep.

After a bit, the girls wake up to see a Styx Demon eating Thomas. Appaluna intimidates the demon by manifesting her weapon via her patron’s powers. The demon recognizes who she serves and runs away with Thomas’ body.

Since they no longer have a boatwright to navigate the river they try to get the attention of a ship passing by. It’s too far away and when someone aboard the ship looks towards the shore they think Appaluna is dancing. Another ship passes nearer and Appaluna uses the Message spell to communicate with them to come pick her up. She shows them her invitation and they take the adventurers the rest of the way.

When they climb up from the docks they arrive at the gates to the Greater Hell of Tyver-Sarok. Appaluna presents her invitation to the demon at the gates. He calls for a carriage to take them to Countess Levosu’s palace.

They arrive and a demonic butler opens the door and escorts them to the chamber where Countess Leovosu (an Erinyes with golden skin and a floor-length, form-fitting red dress) lounges on what is not quite a throne. To her side is Appaluna’s patron.

The countess praises the patron, who she names Mr. Smith because his true name would cause trauma if heard by mortal ears, for selecting Appaluna for his patronage. She sees so much potential within her .She then explains why the hells don’t want the Servants of Nidhogg to succeed. The demons and devils are not so much evil as concerned with power. And there would be nothing to have power over if the Servants of Nidhogg were to reduce the worlds of the Labyrinth to nothing. She also says the reason Appaluna’s sister was kidnapped was because they needed someone with a connection to royal birth, but someone so low down the line of succession that it would be likely no one would come to save her. Spymaster Barrosh’s spy network revealed the location and purpose of the ritual. Countess Levosu says it will occur the next day so they should rest up.

The next day Appaulna’s patron sends them with a trusted Demon boatwright to the world where the ritual will take place. It is a world that has been drained of its vitality. The leaves on the trees have withered away. The sun barely has any energy to shine. The ground is cracked and dry.

The party spots a temple of the Servants of Nidhogg. Jackal begins sprinting towards the temple. There are two cultists on guard outside in green robes. From when they went to the Lost Tomb of Nargoth, the party knows the green robes the cultists are wearing denote that these are the second from the lowest level within the cult. One of the cultists spots Jackal and runs to set off a bell alarm. Ariana sets him on fire and he dies. Jackal kills the other by throwing his axes. Ariana dresses in the robes of the cultist they did not set on fire. Jackal and Appaluna use Disguise self to look like the people they killed. They enter the temple and Jackal uses his memory of the orientation of the previous temple to guess where to go.

They find another pair of cultists - this time in purple robes. (Meta: these are Fanatic Cultists) They convince those cultists to run out to the front to investigate the situation outside - saying that the bell is broken and that they thought they saw someone attacking. Jackal and Appaluna then once again change their appearance to that of the purple-robed cultists.

Ariana takes the lead and they arrive at the doors to the inner sanctum. They can hear a ritual going on within. But blocking the door is a Satarre and Satarre Destroyer. They lie to the Satarre Destroyer and he believes their lie, but also believes that the ritual they guard is too important to abandon their post. They leave the room and cast thaumaturgy to make the ground shake and come in yelling that someone or something is tunneling beneath the temple. The Satarre Destroyer sends the Satarre to investigate. Out of ideas, Appaluna uses magic to make the Satarre Destroyer fall asleep.

They open the door to the inner sanctum and find a Necrocraft Cultist performing a ritual over Orangeterra, who is bound laying on the altar. They also see a young void dragon near the altar. Unfortunately, he notices them entering. He bids them to leave because this ritual is too important to be interrupted. It will be completed in a mere half a minute.

Chaos breaks loose as Ariana and Jackal attack the dragon; Ariana using the Dragon Slayer that Mossbeard gave her. Appaluna interrupts the ritual by succeeding at using Command and interrupting the Cultist’s concentration. As the fight progresses the cultists that were earlier deceived come back and join the fight. A little later the two Satarre join the fight. Eventually, the party slays the Nerocraft Cultist. One of the Fanatic Cultists tries to continue the ritual, but keeps getting interrupted. Eventually Jackal lands the killing blow on the young void dragon. After that it’s not too hard to finish off the rest of the enemies.

Appaluna drops her disguise and unties Orangeterra. She realizes that her sister has been drugged and has no idea what is happening; she thinks she’s at a party. Ariana casts restoration and cures Orangeterra.

Ariana then uses her Portal Key to take the party to the Old Ring. There The Great Druid allows them to rest.

The next day Mossboard opens a portal that leads to the forest where Ariana’s friend got married. Appaluna takes her sister back to her house. Her father has to admit that her interaction with demonic powers was key to saving her sister. Appaluna’s status and original titles are returned to her and, in recognition of saving the world, she is given a dornitian barony.

Ariana chooses, for now, to live at Oakroot and provide her druidic services there.

As Jackal is at an inn somewhere in Midgard, a wizard enters. He mentions that his great-great-great-great grandfather invented owlbears. This wizard wanted to be famous for his own hybrid creations so he created Jackal. He buys Jackal a drink since his creation is famous for saving the world.

GM Commentary

This was originally supposed to happen over 2 sessions, but Scarlett wanted to try and intimidate the Styx Demon and she both gave me a great reason and also did a really great roll, so they avoided the Styx demon battle. So we took a quick break to level up the characters and update their spell lists.

The other really funny thing was that I was planning for the final battle to happen in stages. This would break things up a bit and give them a chance for a short rest. But they kept once again coming up with great persuasion rolls and great roleplay ideas that I kept rolling with (no pun intended). But except for the outside cultist guards, they weren’t killing anyone or disabling them permanently. So they all ended up coming back in the end for a gigantic fight. Sam’s character, Jackal, ALMOST died. He went from 104 HP down to 6 HP (with quite a few bouts of Mass Healing from Ariana). But they were able to actually kill a dragon!!

It’s been a very fun 13 months! The players had a ton of fun and it was my first ever homebrewed campaign. It wasn’t a full homebrew as I used Kobold Press’ Midgard and Labyrinth settings and a few of their adventure modules here and there, but the story was my own. It was a big confidence boost to be able to do this. It was also great to hear the players say they’d love to continue with these characters. We’re going to take a break to do some other campaigns, but it’ll be fun to come back and do some high tier play. I might do another blog post in the future looking back at this whole campaign, but I’m not 100% sure. We’ll see.

• Tales-of-the-Valiant