Building Bhakashal – Session Report – Back to the Underworld!

My Friday group has been tooling around in the underworld, they spent the last campaign year building a teleport circle between Bhakashal and the underworld, and while they were back in the city a group of drow tried to commandeer the circle.

They were stopped by the circles guardians (a pair of purple worms and a group of chitin – insect folk) hunters), and when the party found out they decided they should track the drow back to where they came from and find out what sort of threat they represented.

They ran into a drow caravan a few sessions back and it was a disaster. They were used to fighting low level mooks with high level casters, or individual monsters, they were not ready for “mooks” who could all spell cast, had negative AC values and sleep poison to boot.

Several of the PCs were taken prisoner, but after a few days of travel with the caravan the drow decided to strip them of their magic and let them loose, as they realized that the party were well-connected and there would soon be a rescue party coming. They wanted none of that nonsense, so they let the PCs go and departed, knowing that by the time they managed to return they would never find them.

The PCs made their way back to the teleportation circle and back to Bhakashal with their tails between their legs. It was a near thing too, as they had to travel for several days with no weapons and limited spells.

Once they returned they refreshed themselves, rolled up a few new PCs to add to the party, mustered a House Ynris heavy patrol to join them, and headed back down to take care of business.

With 9 PCs, a 8^th level NPC Slayer (Bhakashal ranger) who joined to help them track, and 20 patrol members they were a big group.

I told them straight up that they were not going to be stealthy, LOL.

They hit the main caves and headed back in the direction they were originally heading.

Day 2 they rolled an encounter.

Now, as it happens, the warlock that came with the heavy patrol was 7^th level and had two magic items, a +1 sword and Eyes of the Eagle. This helped compensate for the fact that they had trouble seeing in the underworld. When encounters happen in Bhakashal you roll for surprise. They party gained surprise. Since their warlock could see quite far, I interpreted the roll by saying that he had his Eyes of the Eagle on and spotted something up ahead (he doesn’t wear them all the time, so this fit the roll and explained the surprise).

A 9-1/2 tall creature with horns and multiple limbs, surrounded by 3 lanky, filthy, oddly shaped humanoids were tearing apart and eating a group of kua-toa.

Since they had surprise, they got to act first.

I was curious if they would hold off, leave, wait, or attack.

They decided to attack.

The earth gyre in the party opened up a hole in the ground under the group, and they all fell in. The party approached a bit closer.

Then, a few moments later, the tall creature levitated up and out of the hole, and the 3 creatures crawled up and over the side.

The three creatures hissed and charged at the party, they were now recognized as ghouls (actually ghasts, but the party didn’t know the difference). The tall creature now revealed itself to have bat ears, a dog-like head, two clawed hands and two pincered hands. A type III demon.

The party warlock immediately tried casting Flesh to Stone on demon, unfortunately it didn’t work.

The party Theurgist tried an illusion, it also failed.

The party Necromancer cast Rajmuranji’s Cunning Appendage (which gives him a magical tail) on himself.

The party Spider (thief) snuck away into the darkness to maneuver behind the demon.

The party Justiciar (paladin) charged one of the approaching ghasts and almost killed it in one hit.

The party myrmidon charged a ghast and struck, it struck back and paralyzed him.

The party mercenary charged a ghast and slayed it outright.

The party conjuror conjured rats that occupied the ghast attacking the paralyzed myrmidon, to keep it from trying to eat him!

Faced with a battle force of 30 enemies, the demon decided to call for backup, and gated in a Type I demon to its side.

Game on!

Up until this point, they were fairly optimistic.

Then it got crazy.

The justiciar slayed his ghast and the one attacking the myrmidon. As an aside, the Justiciar has been an absolute BEAST in battle, nothing fancy, but he has mastered the charge and attack routine.

The warlock cast Power Word Stun on the demon, and it failed. The lads have little experience with magic resistance, they are used to dropping enemies easily with spells like this.

The Theurgist used detect intent on the demon, a Bhakashal Spell that tells you the intentions of the party you are casting it upon. I have no idea why he felt the need to do that, I thought it was pretty obvious what it’s intentions were, but whatever.

Now, the party Gyre planned to create a dome of rock over the demons, the idea being that direct attack on the demons wasn’t working (due to the magic resistance) so perhaps he could contain them. The problem is that other PCs were charging the demons to attack them and they hadn’t coordinated attacks or heard from the Gyre what they were doing. Depending on when they arrived in the sequence of events, they could either be caught inside or outside of the dome of rock. Luckily we have a crackerjack initiative system that sequences all actions, melee and spell.

The party Necromancer, Mercenary and Spider all arrived at the demons before the dome went up, and were sealed in with the creatures when it appeared.

The necromancer charged the second demon and attacked with his magical tail, but missed.

The mercenary attacked the type 3 demon and did some damage, unfortunately the demon then physically attacked the mercenary, it gets 5 attacks per round, and 3 of them were criticals.

He tore the mercenary to pieces, slaying him on the spot.

The type 1 demon attacked the necromancer, but I rolled terribly and did hardly any damage.

We stopped there

The party conjuror still has to act, but he can’t see anything as the creatures are in the rock dome.

The party Spider is behind the demons and still has to act.

I suspect there will be a few more fatalities next session, unless someone thinks fast, or gets lucky.

The underworld is a dangerous place, demons run around loose, they are discovering that high-level play has a new set of challenges, and that means they can’t rely on old tricks.

Adapt or die!