Building Bhakashal - Session Report

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My Thursday group did not meet this week as the players all had a school commitment.

My Saturday group meets biweekly, and this was their week off.

My Friday group has been poking around the Bhakashal underworld on a quest, they have to slay 4 illithids and use their blood to inscribe a teleportation circle.

Easy peasy.

They had spent several sessions gathering intelligence and planning their attacks. Previous Session Reports:

1 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/11/building-bhakashal-session-report-my.html

2 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2024/12/building-bhakashal-session-report_6.html

3 - https://dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2025/01/bhakashal-session-reports-three-of-my.html

They had their first encounter with an illithid last session and it didn’t go well, they found out that mind flayers have magic resistance, and that wasn’t to their liking. They almost abandoned the project, but a reaction roll from a mind flayer changed things. The first flayer they tried to kill, Sogogg Brot, stopped them cold. I rolled for encounter reaction when he caught the party warlock, and it came out relatively positive.

I interpreted the roll, Brot reacted positively to their scheme to kill four mind flayers as he had a number of rivals he wanted removed, and they all knew him and his agents. A group of “useful idiots” from the overworld were perfect for his purposes. If they succeeded he would have four fewer rivals, if they failed there would be 5 more dead overworlders.

Win win for Sogogg Brot.

To start, he decided to give the PCs an advantage and see if they could pull off a kill, if so, he promised them more aid with the second attempt.

The advantage the flayer gave them was knowledge.

There was an Illithid, Yigeth, who was young and particularly violent and cruel. He had tried to overthrow a more powerful flayer and was beaten. His punishment was to do the lowest of the low tasks in Illithid society, "harvesting". He would round up “lowlies”, e.g., non-illithids who labored for the mind flayers in their city. Those he gathered were either directly made into slaves or they were taken to have their brains eaten! Yigeth was muscular and walked around bare-chested with a long kilt, his body openly tattooed. He would sometimes terrorize laborers but not harvest them, just for the cruel fun of it. Others were beaten and dragged away to a terrible fate, all in front of the others to maintain fear and control.

A real piece of work, and their first target. 

DM as Sogogg Brot – “Yigeth wanders the tent cities of the laborers, strutting about with several of his bodyguards, he will terrorize the laborers until he finds a group he wants, then he will have them netted and beaten. While he does this he wanders through the busy camps of the laborers, hundreds of them all around. They leave him alone as they fear his power, so here he is unlikely to be scanning minds, giving you a unique opportunity.”

Essentially, Brot gave them an advantage, their target was more likely to be surprised if they attacked him in public in an area with few if any other mind flayers around. Yigeth fit the bill. 

So they decided to go for it.

They disguised themselves as itinerant laborers who were in the camp looking for work, they pitched a tent and slept there while waiting for the flayer to show. In the last session he showed up and was terrorizing the locals.

The party cast various spells on themselves from inside the tent, the flayer was several hundred feet away, working his way through the crowds with his Ettercap henchmen. They figured they can’t cast spells at the creature, but they can cast on themselves. They buffed up the strength of several party members when the Necromancer cast Strength upon them (Necromancers get a few alteration spells, ones that alter the body, which makes sense as they can animate the dead). The party warlock cast The Terrifying Arms of Brugg the Cruel on the party Myrmidon as he was their best fighter.

He had 4 arms to attack with now.

He then downed a Potion of Frost Giant Strength, and the party Myrmidon and Spider approached the flayer and his guards. There was a huge crowd all around them, so they got fairly close without event, even though one of the flayers guards was scanning the crowd. They got very little resistance when they did these culling runs, as the flayer scared everyone, so they were on the lookout but not super vigilant.

When they got close enough I decided that a surprise roll was necessary. Only one of the guards was looking in their direction, so they had a chance as he might look away for any number of reasons.

We rolled, and unfortunately the dice did not cooperate.

So, when they bolted forward to attack, the henchman that was scanning the crowds spotted them and shouted out.

Things moved fast.

We rolled initiative, and the luck gods smiled this time, they got to act first.

The party Warlock cast Power Word Stun on one of the guards, took him out directly. The party Necromancer finished the poor fella off while he was stunned.

The party Spider tried to backstab one of the other guards, but rolled terribly, no luck.

The party Gyre (essentially an earth bender) had a rapid fire succession of rocks fly at another one of the Ettercaps and finished him off. Recall that this is a party of 7-8^th level PCs, they can do decent damage when the situation is right.

Then the party Myrmidon attacked the flayer.

He had 4 arms, so he got 2 attacks, he was wielding a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. With the Potion of Frost Giant Strength adding to his numbers, he was +4 to hit and +11 to damage with the sword, +3 to hit and + 10 to damage with the dagger.

He rolled one regular hit and one critical hit. The regular hit was a rolled 2 + 10 for 12 points of damage, for the crit he took double damage, rolled a 3, doubled to 6, added a bonus of +11 for 17 points of damage,  totalled to 29 hp damage.

I roll for monster HP on the spot, flayers are 8HD creatures, I rolled 34 hp.

Ref – “The flayer turns as its henchman shouts, too late though, as your blades arrive before it can react, your dagger slices through its side, spraying a vile ichor into the air, your sword drives through it’s shoulder and out the other side, its whole body shudders as you pull the sword back, twisting it as you wrench it out.”

In Bhakashal the first hit you take that reduces you below half your HP gets a Jack turned over, and you are then -1 on all rolls, -3” to movement and a 1 point AC penalty. The

The flayer responded with a psionic blast. Given the way the party was laid out, the blast hit the Myrmidon, the Spider and the Necromancer. The Spider and the Necromancer failed their saves and panicked, fleeing the scene screaming in total horror.

The Myrmidon shrugged it off.

That was all in round 1.

We rolled initiative at that point:

Warlock – 3

Gyre – 6

Myrmidon – 5

Mind Flayer - 2

Then we ended the session.

When we get back next week the mind flayer gets one attack before they get to respond. Barring terrible luck, at least one of them should survive the next psionic blast and be able to slay the thing, it only has 5hp left and any one of them could end it with one shot. Hell, even the party warlock could shoot his crossbow and finish off the creature.

Given the way they are spread out only two of them could be hit by the blast, meaning that their odds of winning are pretty good. If so, they will have to get the body and get out of there before any other flayers show up. I will also have to roll to see if any of the laborers around them get involved, I will weight the roll such that they are more likely to help, they all loathe the flayers, hell, this sort of thing could inspire a revolt!

Alternatively, the locals are pretty beat down, so they might just slink away, and there is always that ONE GUY in the crowd who thinks that he can curry favor with his oppressors by turning over wanted men…

But that’s for the dice to decide. One way or another, they have made their presence known, and in a place like this that’s not good. If they manage to slay the creature and Sogogg Brot sees that they can deliver, he will give them another advantage to use for their next target, who will be better protected, particularly now that the party has made themselves famous by slaying a flayer in public.

After several sessions of intel gathering and planning, things are about to get real.

Big fun.