Exploring the chamber they were in the party noticed some murals depicting sacrifices and statues coming to life.

Further exploration of the chamber revealed a pool with a satchel in it. Upon trying to retrieve it the pool of water came to life.

The living water was in fact a water genasi called Samson, who seemed confused about where they were, or how they got there.

Further exploration of the caves lead the party to a chamber with two large pools of water.

After fighting some glowing fungi that temporarily blinded the party by emitting a bright flash of light, they came across a scene in the connecting chamber reminiscent of the cave art they discovered earlier.

The party seeing the living statue decided retreating was the better course of action to take.

The party was left making their way back to Adele’s.

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.

Work shifts meant that our D&D session was bought forward a day to the Friday.

I was still at work, but it was an early shift. So I’d been up since 4am. Tired? You bet.

We were unable to use the normal setup of two tables at our regular hosts. Which meant table space was a premium this evening. None of us had as much space as we’d have liked.

Tonight we added a sixth player to the group Jamie, who is playing a druid (?) water genasi called Samson.

I think the introduction of the new character went fairly well.

Having six in the group should mean having enough at a session to go ahead even if one or two can’t make it.

The encounter with the Strobing Fungus was surprisingly challenging for the party. I think being temporarily blinded didn’t help. Or the relative high hit points that the fungi had.

I’m glad the party took the opportunity I gave them to retreat instead of engaging with the Bloodstone Sentinel. With two cult fanatics and Shigmaa behind it ready to join in the attack. This would have been a tpk level encounter. I’m sure more than one of the party would have died if it had gone ahead.

The monsters the group are encountering I’m deliberately not naming as I want them to come up with their own names for them. Unless there is a good chance they would know about the creature then I’m happy to name the creature.

There wasn’t much chance to drop more than one of the secrets and clues. However there was the opportunity to at least forewarn what was ahead.

Luckily I think some of them can be used in the next session.

Which means we have a main story arc in progress potentially that is all about stopping the return of the demon prince Ibraxus from the realm of Choul. This will mean possibly a heist being done on Kartan, Tower of the Arcane and going deep under the city making their way to the second of the two lowest arches in the City of Arches, the Gateway to Choul.

In the meantime we have the Esme rival to Adele plot line to develop, plus the bounty hunter one.

Plus this ticking time bomb…

I don’t roll for initiative I shuffle up a “deck” of initiative cards and hand them out. Copying the initiative system used in such systems as the mutant year zero engine and Alien RPG.

I find it speeds up combat a little. It does have some advantages over rolling for initiative.

There was a comment made that they didn’t like this way of handling the initiative.

I need to think about this. I’ll probably switch to rolling for initiative with my monster initiative pre-rolled. A small speed up on my side.

As a whole this wasn’t a session that I got much from. It felt a bit flat. Maybe that was because I was tired.

Now to plan session 10.