Building Bhakashal – Session Report – Discovery and Play

My Friday group has been illithid hunting for a while now, and they finally got their opportunity this session. They got intel suggesting that a flayer was leaving the underworld illithid city and heading out through the main caves. They left a day ahead of it to prepare an ambush. Last session they saw off a group of Nareen cultists with a minotaur after an encounter that could have went south, but didn’t.

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

This session they just had to make it through the day until their quarry arrived. We rolled for random encounters, they were hiding at a watering hole, so things were bound to approach.

The first encounter was with a trio of gargoyles. The party is five members, all mounted on giant lizards, so three gargoyles are not necessarily going to jump right in. I rolled and they decided to fly off for easier prey. Because I use encounter reaction tables for all encounters, whether there is parlay or not, this can happen.

The second encounter came much later in that day, and this time it was with a small herd of rothe (pictured above). These underworld oxen from the Fiend Folio are generally harmless, the party chose to stay in hiding while they watered and then left.

They made camp, slept with no further encounters and then waited again.

In the Bhakashal underworld there isn’t really a “night” and “day”, however, there are certain things that mark the time. Luminescent insects are very common, and they all “wake” at the same approximate time and move around the environment. This is the unofficial ‘morning’ in the underworld, when thousands of luminescent insects, some as big as large birds, fly through the air in swarms heading about their business.

From under this canopy of shooting stars, emerged the flayer, he sat atop one of the largest Gess (giant lizards) the party had ever seen, the “saddle” was a cradle of sorts, filled with pillows, and the flayer sat back relaxed as they walked, with several pots to either side giving off smoke that drove away insects. He wore loose robes and carried no apparent weapons.

Beside him, on an Xixia (giant spider), rode a Chitin, the chitin was wearing harness and kilt, a bandolier with knives was complemented by a gladius on either hip. He wore rings, perhaps a wand and had belt pouches on.

In front of these two were a pair of ogres, each on a giant lizard.

To the side of the group was a pair of Yeth Hounds, each 5’ at shoulder, coal black in color with red eyes and human like faces.

This was the illithid Sogogg Brot, his associate, the chitin warlock Jaekar the Rust, and the two ogres Mimir and Choss. 

Since the party was laying in wait, and the flayer and his crew were traveling to the watering hole, I adjusted the surprise odds: party being surprised 1 in 6, flayer and crew being surprised, 5 in 6.

The party gained surprise.

This was the decision point, they had surprise, the flayer and crew approached the water, they were about 50 feet away when the party decided to attack. They were hiding in the mushroom trees across the stream from where creatures would stop to drink.

They decided to cast Power Word, Stun. The party warlock found and memorized the spell a few sessions back and had been making great havoc with it, a no save spell. All generic warlocks in Bhakashal have odds of successful casting, if you fail, there are odds of it backfiring on you. His casting odds are 82%, pretty good, and it had failed on him once. However, for a 7^th level spell, the odds of a harmful backfire are 45%. So the one time it failed, it also backfired on him, stunning him in the middle of an encounter.

Still, he liked the spell’s power and he had been itching to cast it on the flayer.

The party knew some things about the flayers they learned from asking questions, they spent  a whole session gathering information for this purpose. They knew four things:

1. “They can read minds, but not all the time, only when they focus” (ESP)

2.  “They are not strong, but they can subtly manipulate your mind when you try and strike them, minimizing the blow” Flayers have decent Hit Dice, Hit points are not all physical, it’s left to the referee to interpret, this is my interpretation.

3.  “They can overpower your mind” - Domination ability

4.  “They can slip out of space then slip back” – Probability travel

What they didn’t know about was the magic resistance.

So, he cast the Power Word, Stun.

I then rolled the percentage dice, 33%.

The flayer looks up and around suddenly, he calls out, “Where are you, show yourself”

The party were all looking at each other.

Grogs like me don’t often get to see it when players encounter things “for the first time”, most of them have read parts of the books, and many have went home to look up the monsters they find in session.

Apparently they hadn’t bothered to look up illithids.

The look on their faces was… priceless.

Thing is, after 4 years of play this was the first thing they had encountered with obvious magic resistance. They went up against a blue slaad a while back but it’s MR was low and never kicked in. For them, this was uncharted territory.

The party warlock, to his credit, walked out, across the stream and over to the flayer’s party.

Flayer –“Surely you must know that we are impervious to magic?”

Warlock – “I was misinformed”

Flayer – “A lone wizard, in the trees, seeks to ambush me?”

Warlock - “I was with a  party, but we became separated.”

Flayer – “We can also read minds, surely you knew that too”

Warlock – “GUYS, COME OUT NOW”

Flayer - “It seems your friends desert you, all four of them, why do you seek to take me on?”

Warlock – “Guys!”

Flayer – “No need, I took it from your mind, you need flayer blood to make a circle… yes, that could work”.

The creature turned and spoke, “Vog and Bayme, GO, Jaekar, now!”

The two Yeth Hounds bound forward through the reeds towards the trees, the tall chitin took out a small ball of material they could not see, flattened it between his palms, spoke words they could not hear, then pulled his hands apart around his body until they met behind him. As that happened, a ring of blue-white fire blazed into existence, forming a circle around the flayer and his allies.

Wall of Fire

The warlock took this opportunity when the flayer was ordering the hounds and his warlock to cast spells to cast one of his own, uttering the one word command of his Teleport Without Error spell, which takes him back to their tent in the market.

He rolled his casting odds successfully, so he was gone.

The party thief, necromancer, myrmidon and gyre all turned and fled from behind the trees. Each one can fly, the thief and necromancer by magic (wings of flying and spell) and the latter two as they are winged chitin (insect folk, they come in winged and non winged varieties).

The yeth hounds are as fast as they are in the air on foot, what they don’t know is that they can fly as well. Once they are in position they will.

We stopped there.

They are very much outclassed at the moment, all they really had was surprise. However, they now know that magic is almost useless against a flayer, at least directly. And they might still be able to talk their way out of this, as the flayer is a bit of an outlier (most never leave the city, content to dimension walk, eat brains and be entertained), and might want to leverage the party’s project against his need to eliminate some rivals. They might be useful to him.

Or he might just eat their brains.

We’ll see next week!