Welcome
In the last post, the party started pushing into the Sunken Citadel, a module taken from the "Tales From The Yawning Portal" Dungeons & Dragons adventure book. They had their first encounter with a kobold, a chained prisoner called Meepo, and ruthlessly slaughtered him. Then they ducked down a side-passage to avoid a kobold ambush and emerged into a great hall, and that's where we pick up the adventure...
I hope you enjoy my D&D campaign write-ups, and the commentary I add to them. Questions, comments and feedback are welcome !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
Avoiding kobold archers, our heroes emerged from a small passageway and found themselves in a great hall with pillars lining both the long walls. Their limited light sources meant that they couldn't see the far end. Not immediately, anyway.
But they could hear movement.
Drawing swords and readying spells, they charged the length of the hall, ready to attack anything they met. Pretty brave, considering they were still squishy first level characters !
That squishiness soon came back to bite them. Hard. The movement they'd heard was the kobold ambushers emerging into the chamber. Half let fly with a volley of arrows while the other half moved to counter-charge the characters.
The is where they realised they ad moved forward far enough that the lanterns they carried had illuminated the far end of the chamber. There, they saw an ornately carved altar in the shape of a dragon, with a short throne built up against it so that the rearing dragon formed it's back. On the throne was a wizened old kobold flanked by two bodyguards who (in kobold terms) looked pretty beefy.
The clatter of arrows against armour did only mild damage to the charging heroes. But the kobold on the throne turned out to be a mean spellcaster, and a Chromatic Orb spell stopped the charge in it's tracks, doing serious damage to Gorwin, the party's front line warrior.
At this point, the kobold warriors reached the party and a bloody melee followed. When the shaman's bodyguards joined the fight a round later, numbers started to tell and the fighting turned against the adventurers.
Garnet (the party's Aasimar sorcerer) cast a Magic Missile spell against the shaman, but it didn't kill her. A Ray of Frost came back in return, reducing Garnet to a single hit point. She wisely decided that hiding behind a pillar was a good idea at that point !
With Gorwin badly wounded, the party's battle priest Erioch had to take most of the heat, meaning he was too busy battling kobolds to cast any spells or use any healing. Even the party rogue, Reaswe, was caught up in hand-to-hand combat and unable to break away to make use of his skills.
A couple of rounds later, Erioch was slumped unconscious and bleeding out on top of Gorwin's similarly recumbent body. Reaswe had his back to a pillar, badly wounded and fighting for his life.
Garnet was cowering behind hers, as the shaman called out in surprisingly good common tongue to her. "Show your nose from behind your pillar. I'll freeze it off for you ! And if you don't, I've got archers working round both sides. You're as good as dead, just face your fate."
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio - I've put it in because although it wasn't right for the story, it's a wonderful image that I just couldn't resist adding 😁
This is where the book and this adventure started to part ways !
In the book, the kobold shaman (Yusdrayl) is clearly intended as an NPC the party should negotiate with, at least at first. The players had behaved like complete murderhobos so far, and avoided any options for negotiation. But at the same time I felt that although they richly deserved it, having a TPK (total party kill) on only the third session of the adventure didn't feel right.
Garnet's reply (totally in character...) gave me the opportunity I needed.
From behind her pillar, Garnet called out "Can't we talk about it ?"
Grinning as only a kobold with jaws full of tiny dragon-like teeth can, Yusdrayl responded, "Of course we can ! All you have to do is step out from behind your pillar with your hands in the air, and persuade your rat-like friend to lay down his sword, and we can talk."
With little choice, Garnet and Reaswe complied. naturally, the first thing that happened was that kobolds bound them tightly to prevent the battle re-starting.
They also bound the two fallen armoured forms of Gorwin and Erioch. These two were both in the middle of making death saves. For those who don't play D&D, this is a mechanic used by unconscious characters to determine whether they bleed to death or stabilise and can recover. Each round, the player rolls a D20, hoping to get 10 or more. On the third success the character stabilises, but if they hit three failures first, they die. Healing can stop this process and automatically stabilise them, but the kobolds offered no healing.
As luck would have it, both Erioch and Gorwin passed their death saves and survived.
Yusdrayl directed her kobolds to thoroughly remove all equipment and weapons from the characters, and to then place them in a guarded cell while she decided what to do with them.
Next time.... captives of the kobolds !
Previous posts in this series;
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-introduction
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-lets-meet-our-characters-
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-arrival-at-oakhurst
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-to-the-sunless-citadel
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-into-the-citadel