Heroes of the 13th Age: Part 13: Darkness, despair and the light of heaven

On April 12, 2015, we picked up our game in the middle of a giant (pun intended) combat, continuing it from right where we left off last time.

The characters continued to be:

Cerise, the Spirit-Touched Cleric

Zip (as always, the name changes), the Half-Elf Rogue
Froodo, the Halfling Monk
Hey Watchit, the Half-Orc Fighter
Lief, the Human Bard
Delthen Eversoar, the Human Paladin, and

The following characters we present, but their players could not make it, so they played a different role in the session . . .

Indigo the Gnome Cleric
Rolen Stillwind, the Wood Elf Sorcerer

We picked up the game mid-combat, at the start of the fourth round.  Because Indigo and Rolen’s players could not make it, at the start of the round both of them collapsed, overcome by some demonic palsy that left them insensible.

Round 4 Escalation Die 4

The lately banished demonic spirit of Tamaich, the barbarian warlord, left his Vizier, a Despoiler Demon behind.  The Demon took it’s initiative to call upon more of Tamaich’s tomb guardians to join the fight.

Hey Watchit, the Half-Orc fighter launched another attack against the last of the wights, who had once been Tamaich’s wives.  He made a massive hit with his tree and crushed the last one.

Then it was the Giant Zombies’ turn to attack.  The first one went after the mysteriously unconscious form of Rolen the High Elf Sorcerer.  The  giant undead kicked him hard, sending him tumbling across the chamber.

The second Giant Zombie struck at Hey, hitting him for 22 points of damage, which he halved by using his Heavy Warrior skill.

Lief the Bard attacked, but missed.  However, he used a Battle Cry to allow Delthen to charge forward.

Delthen then attacked with his smite, and he issued his Paladin’s Challenge to the second Giant Zombie.

Froodo the Halfling Monk launched his opening attack, but missed.

Zip entered her Shadow Walk.

Cerise launched her Javelin of Faith, but missed.

The party now knew the downside of their last round’s tactic of holding initiative to overwhelm Tamaich, now they were all having to go last in the round, except for Hey.

 R5 E5

Four Earth Elementals from another part of the tomb, summoned by the Vizier, dropped from the ceiling and two moved to attack Cerise.  The elementals were not very successful in their attack and landed only one blow.

The Despoiler Demon Vizier then attacked Delthen, the Paladin Inquisitor of the Crusader, with his abyssal whispers, but failed in the attack.

Hey hit one of the Giant Zombies with his tree, then took a moment to quaff a healing potion [n.b. I think I ran potions incorrectly during the fight, and they got off using them as a quick action, when potion drinking usually takes a full action; well, at least I was consistent . . . ]

The first Giant Zombie rolled a miss on Delthen, but because of a special, it still did a large amount of “miss” damage to the Paladin, and an equal amount to itself as well.

The second Giant Zombie missed Hey.

Froodo, finally hitting his stride, attacked with his flow attack and damaged the first Giant Zombie.

Lief cast Bless on members of the party as a quick action, followed by singing a Soundburst, doing 34 points of damage to both of the Giant Zombies.  This also Dazed the Zombies until the end of his next turn.

Zip flowed out of the shadows to strike at the first Giant Zombie, but missed by 1, and did a small amount of miss damage.

Delthen struck again with his Smite attack, and then drank a healing potion.

Cerise drew her short sword and hit for minor damage on one of the Elementals.

R6 E6

All four attacks from the two Earth Elementals that could get to Cerise as she held the passage missed.

The Despoiler Demon rolled a 20 for his Whispers, doing 30 points of damage to Delthen.  This also caused the Paladin to be Confused.

Hey hit the first Giant Zombie again, and rolled a 1 for one of his damage dice.  He invoked his power to reroll 1s, and rolled another 1.  7 points total to the Zombie, which just seems to be built to absorb massive amounts of damage.

The first Giant Zombie then rolled a 20, critical hit on Delthen for 44 points of damage.  However, because of the synergy between Cerise’s Life Domain and Delthen’s Relentless Plate Armor, he was still up and fighting.

The second Giant Zombie then smashed Froodo, and the hit would have taken the Halfling Monk to -1 hit points.  However, the monster was still Dazed, and that made the hit a miss, and Froodo instead took no damage.  It had just been his life flashing before his eyes prematurely.

Delthen, because of his ability to make saves at the start of his turn, saved and was no longer Confused.  He then drank a healing potion [n.b. maybe the friendly unused Icon rolls were allowing the characters to turn drinking potions into quick actions, yeah, that’s the ticket . . .].  Then he attacked with his magic mace for a respectable 16 points of damage against the seemingly unstoppable Zombie.

Zip makes another attack, once again betrayed by her dice, but saved, because the Escalation die was at 6, and so she still hit.  A reasonable 10 point hit, that the Zombie took and kept on going.

Froodo then just managed to hit using his finishing attack in Mantis style, taking the first Giant Zombie down finally.

Lief began to sing his Song of Spilt Blood, and then wove in his Battle Chant attack, damaging the second Giant Zombie.

Cerise disengaged from the Elementals (one got an opportunity attack, but missed), and she cast her mighty Spirits of the Righteous attack, which sadly missed and did nothing to the second Giant Zombie.

R7 E6

The elementals surged forward into the gap left by Cerise’s retreat, and they struck at Lief.  He was hit twice, but also used his magic hood to cause two of the misses by the elementals to turn to fumbles.  The Elementals struck each other as much as him.  Another Elemental engaged Cerise, striking her.

The Despoiler Demon then exercised its will on Delthen, causing the Paladin to suddenly see Froodo as an enemy.  Froodo tried to avoid the attack and forced Delthen to reroll, but to no avail, and Froodo was hit.  The Despoiler then used its Whispers on Zip, but rolled a 1 and took 15 points of psychic feedback damage and itself became Confused.

Hey once again struck the second Giant Zombie, and the Giant Zombie returned the favor, for 22 points of damage.  Hey drank another healing potion.

Froodo took a moment to drink a healing potion.  He then launched two attacks, hitting with both.

Delthen hit the second Giant Zombie for 22 points.

Zip hit the Giant Zombie as well.

Lief concluded his Song of Spilt Blood and spent a recovery, and then he blasted an elemental with his Battle Chant.

Cerise, once again swinging her short sword, did minimal miss damage.

 

R8 E6

Lief was hit once by an Elemental, and three more attacks against him fumbled.  The Elementals were looking more like Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots.  An Elemental also hit Cerise.

The Confused Despoiler Demon then launched an attack on the last Giant Zombie, destroying it.  The Demon then snapped out of its confusion, but was unable to retreat.

Delthen then rolled a 20, and did 26 damage with his critical hit.

Froodo then jumped forward with a flying kick, and finished off the Demon.

Lief then destroyed one of the Elementals with his Battle Chant.  He also granted a temporary +2 to armor class for Cerise.

Cerise was left with miss damage again on her Elemental.

Zip launched her Flying Blade to hit for some damage.

R9 E6

Lief was hit once by an Earth Elemental, but induced another fumble.

The Earth Elemental attempting to smash Cerise missed due to her temporary higher armor class from Lief’s Battle Cry.  Another elemental managed to land a blow on Froodo.

Hey rolled 20 and critically hit one of the Elementals, destroying it.

Froodo also smashed an Elemental, destroying it.

Zip rolled a 20 for her Flying Blade attack, doing 32 points of damage to an Elemental, killing it.

Cerise stuck an elemental with her Javelin of Faith.

Delthen fired his crossbow, but missed.

R10 E6

One Elemental remained, mindlessly continuing its attack.  It landed two successful strikes on Lief.

Hey took a mighty swing with his tree, but he ended up just barely grazing the Earth Elemental.  It was, however, so damaged that the miss damage alone was enough to take it out.

 

End of Combat

Delthen made sure to take the skull of the Warlord, Tamaich, as a trophy.

They then carefully explored the tomb tunnels, looted and loaded up the treasure from the tomb, but then discovered two very bad things.

First, the way to climb out of this lowest level had been wrecked by the passage of the two Giant Zombies, so getting back up through the hole, high in the ceiling, was going to be difficult.  Of additional concern, looking up through the hole, there was an army of Zombies, all those cursed dead of the Lorai warriors who had been nailed to the ceiling of the upper tomb had been summoned to take vengeance on those who would try to escape the lower levels.

The solution, the group decided, was to empower a ritual to banish the undead.  The cast about for components.

Delthen offered up his trophy, Tamaich’s skull.

Zip found two purple gemstones that had appeared on her necklace (which is her One Unique Thing), and they placed these gems to help focus the ritual in the eye-sockets of the dead Warlord. 

Froodo used his philosophical understanding of Guardians through his practice of the Dutiful Guardian style to find parts of the three guardian Wights and their regalia to add to the ritual.

Lief sang a dirge of the dead, to help quiet the restless spirits.

Hey danced a mighty dance of transformation and freedom.

Cerise took all the elements and bound them together in her magic and the magic of Priestess, powering the spell with her Turn Undead Spell.

She rolled for the rituals success.

20!

BLAM!

A holy beam of light pierced the tomb, not only bathing all the tomb in purifying light, dismissing the spirits and cleansing all, but also a crystal staircase of light formed, allowing the party to ascend, not only out of the lowest level of the tomb, but to walk all the way up and out the top of the mound where the unholy place had been transformed to a place of the blessed.

Once in the open air, Rolen and Indigo revived, and each member of the group felt deeply and positively his and her connections to their Icons, felt restored in body and spirit and felt empowered to go forward to their destiny.

We concluded play to the receding sound of angelic voices pouring forth from the heavens.