Session #68: Lair of the Fangs, Part 3 - Anathema!

This was a short session, which we also had to postpone from the original time due to some absentees.

The entirety of this session consisted of the party's battle against a yuan-ti anathema, a conglomeration of snake swarms around a massive yuan-ti, and a pair of snake swarms. The anathema was created by Vak'shasz the Sly Tongue, the high priest of Zehir and main public point of contact for those looking to hire the Fangs. Amnon managed to interrupt this ritual with a slide, and the anathema was summoned half-finished (causing it to start at bloodied). This turned out to be quite beneficial, as this was a difficult fight for the characters, primarily due to the snake swarms - when the anathema connected, however, it hit HARD, and it was more or less responsible for Vorgym going down. Deckard dropped as well in this encounter, leading to a healthy use of our new injury system.

Eventually, the characters won out, and decided they had to extended rest, so they left the lair and rested in the sewers. Fortunately Deckard was able to prevent their wounds from being infected, but 2 of them woke up feeling not all that well (Vorgym & Amnon) - as such, they are each one healing surge down. In addition, Vorgym now has to roll a saving throw every time he takes damage: if he fails this saving throw, he will begin taking 5 ongoing poison damage (or 10 if this happens while he is bloodied) until he saves, as the poison of the anathema now courses through his blood. Deckard has a less potent version of this, as the snakebites he took cause him to take 5 poison damage the first time he is bloodied in each encounter. We had to stop here, as time had run out for some players.

Session #67: Lair of the Fangs, Part 2 - Grasema & The Bridge

In this session, we finished up the encounter from last session with the characters winning out. They then built themselves a small army using the petrified victims in the statue garden.

Next, they faced off against Grasema, the Oracle of Zehir & leader of the medusas, along with her guardian naga. The fight proved pretty easy at first, and the naga didn't get to do much - until it turned into a bone naga and began dazing and doing heavy damage in a burst around it. Fortunately, the damage was dealt to Grasema as well, and this encounter proved to be fairly easy in the end - though Shivra was petrified as part of the fight.

The characters feasted here, regaining surges and a daily power, and headed to the eastern wing of the lair after shutting off the water flow into the main exchange. There, they had to cross a bridge with a side-winding viper etched onto one side of it, and a group of snaketongue cultists & a yuan-ti on the other. The assassins ambushed them here, as they tried to cross the bridge, which led over two pits of vipers; the bridge proved to be the most difficult part of the fight, as the illusions were difficult to detect and the party didn't figure out the trick at first. Vorgym & Deckard in particular were heavily damaged by the pit's vipers, but in the end the characters made it across. We ended the session there.

Session #66: Lair of the Fangs, Part 1 - The Statue Garden

This session ended up starting an hour late, as Traver was a bit late, and we had some pre-session discussion to have. Just to recap, our subscription to D&D Insider runs out September 26th; we will be splitting the new 1-year subscription 5 ways, so the cost should be $14.28 per person. I will be checking with the group weekly to see where we're all at on this, and once we've got it together I'll renew the sub. Our last session before the expiration is September 23rd, so we need to have the money together by then! Additionally, we talked about what we want to do with getting a new player (or players), and the possibility of starting a new campaign in my custom campaign setting after this adventure is done. I'll be sending out some info on that campaign setting this week so you guys can better make a decision on that.

Now, on to the recap - we started with the party heading toward the yuan-ti abominations after determining this was their only way in. Shivra failed a Stealth check, and as such the abominations knew they were coming, though they couldn't see them in the darkness; we roll initiative. As they approached the abominations, Cyrus set off a footchopper alarm trap, causing an alarm bell to be rung, and a scythe blade to sweep out and chop at Cyrus & Vorgym's ankles. Vorgym managed to avoid the blade, but Cyrus was taken down by it. Thereafter, the party engaged the abominations & their leader, a yuan-ti berserker named Uhlaash. This was a very easy encounter for the group, and Uhlaash never really got to take advantage of his powers due to his being dazed for the duration of the encounter. The party recovered a crank with a square-shaped peg on its non-crank end and headed inside.

Inside they found a large exchange, with raised drawbridges to the east and the west - each drawbridge appeared to be tied to a nearby dais. The dais by the western drawbridge had a square hole in it, so they put the crank's peg in the hole, and lowered the drawbridge. Inside they traveled through hallways of terrified statues (which were implied to be victims of the medusas that no doubt lurked here) until coming upon a larger room, a "statue garden" of sorts, well-lit by sunlight from the grates high above and with a large golden doorway shaped like a female medusa's head serving as its only other exit. The characters were not alone in the statue garden, however - a pair of medusa spirit charmers and four medusa bodyguards awaited them.

The battle began, and Cyrus was quick to charge ahead and engage the spirit charmers. The rest of the party dealt with the bodyguards, attacking according to their marks. The spirit charmers began to free their petrified victims and send them against the party, which they did out of fear more than any sort of loyalty or belief that they would be set free. The battle seemed to be going smoothly until a pair of yuan-ti assassins jumped the characters. These proved to be very nasty enemies, capable of dealing vicious strikes to enemies they are hidden from, blinding their targets to enable this vicious strike, and using blinded enemies as human shields against attackers. Matters were complicated by the fact that Cyrus was permanently petrified (at least, as far as the characters know at this point) by the spirit charmers' glare attack, and Vorgym was brought down by an assassin's death strike. Deckard expended life blood harvest, one of his major daily healing powers, to get Vorgym back up, and as it stands, the party has the enemies under control at the moment, thanks to Amnon's visions of avarice spell. Vorgym has managed to take down an assassin, Shivra has managed to take down a spirit charmer, and the tide of battle seems as though it may be turning, but with the ever-present threat of petrification by the spirit charmer, the characters are by no means assured victory...