After tying up the two Children of Ibraxus cult members that they had captured to the alter in the crypt entryway. Our party of adventurers headed off to find a safer place to have a short rest.

The party decided to rest by the arch in the Sunset Grove.

At the end of the break Quintus Harrowtoes disappeared through a door in the base of the arch.

The party followed after him, descending into the sewers below the City of Arches.

Quintus was moving too fast for them. All they heard as he disappeared was “this way”.

Jeb shouted very loudly to try and get Quintus to come back to them. But it was to no avail. Although it did seem to alert the inhabitants of the sewer to their presence down there.

Whilst looking for Quintus the party came across a web column dotted with cocoons in the middle of the central chamber that lead down to the lower level.

As the party descended down the spiral stairs Babs was attacked by a Giant Spider. Battle ensued, and the eventual defeat of the Giant Spider.

On the lower level the party ignored the fleeing swarm of rats to stumble upon the liar of a Giant Crocodile.

It was here they discovered the torso of Quintus amongst the remains of other prey moments before being attacked by said Giant Crocodile.

Things weren’t looking good for the party. They were most certainly looking at a very brief future. That is until the timely appearance of the wizard Tantalos Whitetail. Who sent the Giant Crocodile back to slumber in the depths of its lair.

After introductions and a brief admonishment about waking up the Giant Crocodile, Tantalos gave the party directions on how to find their way out of the sewers into the Lower Reaches.

And that’s where we left our party.

Post Mortem

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

I’d like to say I was writing my session notes this morning whilst drinking my usual hot mug of caffeinated liquid. But I wasn’t. I was writing my session notes whilst my coffee sat next to me forgotten. It was so cold by the time I’d remembered.

Once again my morning before the session sees me at the library printing stuff out. This time it was the following:

• Sewer Lair map from Lazy DM Workbook A3 x 2
• Location descriptions for Sewer Lair map from Lazy DM Workbook A4 2 pages
• Secrets and Clues page from Lazy DM Companion A4
• Points Crawl page from Lazy DM Companion A4
• Annotated map of City of Arches A4

I’d printed a copy of the city map for Mark. His character grew up in the City of Arches. So they should know their way around. I also said Mark’s character should also know one area of the city really well. Mark was told not to share this map with the others.

I did two copies of the Sewer Lair because I wanted to annotate one with the notes for the session, and have the other to use whenever.

Being early to the session gave me time to finish off my notes for the session whilst sitting outside in the sunny but cool breeze weather. Which was basically coming up with the secrets and clues. Then when our venue was open I was able to get our play area set up.

As you can see above the warning cards giving valuable advice to the players are back. They should be there every session. However that can only happen if you remember to take the index card box with them in to the session.

Today there was no nice A3 printed map for the players. No 3D terrain or battle map. Instead I was drawing sections of the map on small dry erase boards (see photo below). This seems to have worked ok.

I could have killed the party today, it was very close. The Giant Crocodile was way too over powered for the party. Made more deadly I think because they were not recovered from the run in with the Giant Spider. Maybe I should have used a regular crocodile or two instead.

As you may have guessed from the rather dull dramatic retelling of the sessions story. I did indeed intervene to save the party by having an NPC turn up and rescue them.

I did try and warn the party that there was something dangerous ahead with the fleeing swarm of rats. But as you gathered that subtle warning was ignored.

Although the Giant Crocodile made story sense. At CR5 it was way way over powered for these none rested or healed level 2 characters.

I did hand out an inspiration token today. But not really as a reward for good roleplay etc. More to help counter none optimal decisions.

The Creature and NPC, and Monster cards really do work well for me. Having just what I need for the session plus some “favourites” that are campaign related to call upon does cut down on what I have to carry with me to a session. I’d love something like these for the Tomb of Beasts 2.

Right now to start working out how to get the party out of the sewer alive!