Campaign Diary
As the sun rose on the day before Spring Equinox, our heroes climbed the long flight of steps that led from the valley floor to Eresh, the Fragrant House, some 150 feet above. Along the side of the stairs ran the dry stream that used to carry the water from the sacred spring from its source in the Eresh to the lake below, and on both sides were huge terraces that once were gardens covered with exotic plants and fruiting trees.
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As they reached the portico of Eresh, they saw two startled jackals fleeing from them - on the floor laid two bodies, dressed as the other minions of the summoner they defeated. An examination of the remains showed that they had died but a few days ago; their bones were broken, as though they had fallen from a great height.
Entering the Eresh, they passed through its abandoned baths and many rooms that once upon a time must have served as consultation rooms for the patients who have come to seek healing. Ascending the stairs, they came to the the dome of the building, where the room was built against the rock from which the spring once flowed; now, only a trickle remained, barely enough to keep the pool below it filled.
The walls of the room were covered in bas relief, which depicted the founding of Essilim and how the god Utnapashtev created the spring by striking the ground with his staff. As they viewed the relief, they became aware of a clinking sound coming from the far corner of the room.
Approaching the source of the sound, Strigoi saw a bald old man sitting with his back to the party - he was carving the stone wall of the room with a chisel and mallet.
Introducing himself as Memm, he claimed to have created the bas relief, and told the story of the scenes depicted on them.
Our heroes explained their quest, and offered to help Memm restore the spring of Essilim. Memm explained that to do so, they must destroy Edu-Ellikinu, for it was said that Utnapashtev would not let the waters flow again until Edu-Ellinkinu was destroyed. But Edu-Ellikinu had the protection of the demon Tamtu, who gave him undeath, and set a guardian over him in the royal tomb. What is more, Eud-Ellikinu possessed a sceptre given to him by Tamtu, and for Edu-Ellikinu to truly die, the sceptre too must be destroyed.
To destroy Edu-Ellikinu, Memm said cryptically, took true hearts and sacrifice. Then he wandered off absent-mindedly, and returned to his carving.
For a while the heroes debated on whether to proceed to the royal tombs without the Medjani's knowledge, but realised they would need the keys to access the lower tombs as indicated in the summoner's map.
Arriving back at the Medjani camp at lunch time, they recounted their meeting with Memm (whom the Medjani knew nothing of), and sought permission to enter the tomb.
At first they refused, bidding Entana to return to Al-Madena and making his father's final days peaceful rather than making him grief the loss of a son, but our heroes were adamant.
The leader of the Medjani asked why they risked their lives so. Entana replied 'for family', Strigoi replied 'for loyalty', Percy 'to help those in need', and Gio replied 'for fame'.
Sensing their determination, the Medjani leader made them promise not to disturb any of the graves or grave goods within the royal tombs, and then handed them both keys to the tomb.
Our heroes once more ascended the northern slope of the valley, this time headed for the royal tomb. The tomb itself was cut into the rock of the hill side itself. On both sides of the entryway were statues of gods and fantastical beasts. Passing these, the party entered the main hall of the tomb, but where the map indicated was the entrance to the lower tomb there was a short corridor ending in a wall before of which stood a statue of Utnapashtev. On the walls on either side of the short corridor were holes, into which the keys fit, but they were occluded.
Following the clues on the summoner's map, our heroes eventually managed to insert the keys into the key holes, and after some experimenting found that when both keys were activated, the wall before them would rotate and allow them to enter the lower tomb; but there was a catch - someone had to be on the outside to activate the key again for them to return.
Finaz volunteered to remain behind, but reminded the party of their promise to let her have first pick of any magical items they found.
Entering the corridor behind the wall, they soon found themselves at a T-junction. The passages both sloped downwards, leading deeper into the ground. Strigoi led the party down the left-hand passage, until they came into a chamber. On the far wall were double bronze doors.
Examining the keyhole on the door, Gio thought that the lock was a simple one, and proceeded to pick it. But as he inserted his lock pick, a bronze door came down over the doorway which they just entered through, and sand began to seep in through the cracks between the stone slabs that formed the ceiling. They were trapped!
Strigoi and Percy strained to lift the bronze door, but it would not budge. The party searched frantically for a secret door or mechanism that would reverse the mechanism, but could only find a pressure plate on the floor which they could not activate.
As the sand from the ceiling covered their legs, our heroes huddled at a corner, and Entana began to cast up a dome of force, hoping that the spell would buy them enough time for the trap to run its course.
It worked.
The sand rose above the level of their heads, and soon completely buried the dome, but our heroes were safe within. After a while they heard a rumbling sound, and the sand began to recede. Looking through the dome, they found that the pressure plate had been depressed by the weight of the sand, revealing several holes which allowed the sand to flow out of the room.
Gio stepped out and continued to pick the lock to the bronze double-doors, only to find when he succeeded that they opened to a wall!
Pouring the sand out of their boots, our heroes turned back and took the right-hand passage.
The right hand passage led to a wide gallery, on the walls of which were carved in relief the deeds of the sorcerer-kings of Essilim. Our heroes counted 26 kings; on the last panel a name was inscribed, but no carving had been made yet...
At the end of the gallery the passage split into two, leading into two shorter galleries, one lined with statues of male gods, and one with statues of female gods. Passing these, our heroes came upon another set of bronze double doors; two doorways on either side of the corridor led to two similar chambers; within each were tiny sarcophagi, statuettes, and other grave goods. On the far walls of each chamber were mosaic, one showed a pair of scorpions flanking a metal piece in the shape of the stylised symbol of the sun, the other showed a pair of cobras flanking a metal piece in the shape of the stylised symbol of the crescent moon.
Examining the bronze doors, they saw that one side depicted a winged lion with the face of a human - one of its paws rested on a hollow that had the same shape as the sun symbol in one of the chambers, while the other side depicted a winged bull with a human face - and beneath one of its hooves was a hollow that had the same shape as the crescent moon symbol. It appeared that the metal pieces on the walls were the keys needed to unlock the bronze doors.
Taking heed of the warning posed by the venomous mosaic creatures on the wall, our heroes did not dare to remove the metal pieces with their hands, but Entana used his Force runebound shard to create an magical hand to do the deed instead. As the sun symbol was pried loose from its socket in the wall, one of the mosaic scorpions reached out with one of its pincers to strike at the magical hand, causing it to disappear - the metal piece fell to the floor. The scorpion then leapt out of the wall and took form on the floor - it was fifteen feet in length from head to the tip of its sting-bearing tail. Our heroes charged at the monster, which fought back with ferocity. Strigoi took the brunt of the combat, and suffered a sting at his neck where it was not covered by his armour, but the magical scorpion was soon defeated, and vanished as suddenly as it appeared.
Recovering the sun symbol, our heroes took some time to heal up, and then prepared themselves for the next combat. As predicted, a giant cobra materialised out of the mosaic, and attacked the party when they removed the moon symbol. Again Strigoi was in the fore of the fight. The giant snake coiled its scaly body around Strigoi's chest, and broke a few of his ribs with its massive strength. Gio leapt onto the hood of the cobra, and stabbed at it, while Entana hurled bolts of fire against it, and finally it was destroyed.
Once more the party rested, and Strigoi drank the last of their healing potions. Then, inserting the metal pieces into the hollows in the bronze doors, they heard a clinking sound as gears seemed to turn within the door. Then they heard two loud clunks, as the vertical and horizontal bolts which held the doors shut moved out of their positions.
They pushed the doors open...
Prepping and Running the Game
The report covers all but the final battle in the session we just played, which I will report in a separate post.
Much of the first two hours of the session was spent in role-playing and exploration.
As usual I spend quite a bit of time trying to give my players a sense of their surrounding and what the various rooms would likely to have been used for, and oftentimes they engage with the description.
The interaction with Memm was fun to role-play, as while the other players were cool with him, Strigoi's player remained sceptical, and had his weapon drawn all the time. In the original module the Eresh had two other factions which would have clashed with the party, but I decided to keep just Memm (who played an important role in exposition), and to signpost that he was not someone to be trifled with, I added the detail of the two cultists who were killed.
The interaction with the Medjani likewise gave the players a chance to role-play and announce their characters' motivations, but after that it was mostly exploration.
Once again the module provided a lot of art showing the various rooms of the tombs. Not all of these had any effect on the actual gameplay, but they did a lot in my opinion to help the players visualise the Mesopotamian style, which differs from the more commonly seen Egyptian style.
I enjoyed the trap room encounter very much. Once again Leomund's Tiny Hut came to the rescue. After the game we realised that it would actually have made more sense for the party to cast the spell while standing at the centre of the room instead of at the corner, which effectively reduced the volume of the dome (and thus air under it) by 75%. Afterwards I did some googling, and it seems there was in any case more than sufficient air under the dome, but it was nevertheless an interesting example of how panic could cause people to act less than rationally.
The two combats against the mosaic monsters were short but brutal on Strigoi, who took ALL the damage as I had the monsters attack whomever dealt them the most damage. I think Strigoi's player felt it a point of pride that he 'tanked' so well that none of the other PCs took any damage at all.
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