Tuesday, the Prequel

So I’ve decided to do a slightly more detailed recap of my Tuesday game, as much of it won’t make sense on why they are doing what they are doing.

The party began the standard Mines of Phandelvin questline, eventually going to Old Owl Well to deal with rumors of undead. Of course, for any of you familiar with that module, there is a Red Wizard of Thay, specifically a necromancer, who is excavating the site for ancient artifacts of Netheril. When I read that, I got the idea for the campaign. So I changed some stuff up. Here’s how it changed:

The party, after defeating the necromancer and the zombies, having found the Netherese ring of protection that the necromancer had found, decided to check out the tower site more. One of them found an inscription. The druid/cleric, being an archeologist, immediately checked it out. The script was draconic, but it appeared to be gibberish. The gnome wizard in the group, with a sufficient History check, determined that it is actually Netherese, the language of Netheril (actually the lower Netheril, but they haven’t figured that out yet). Deciding to try pronouncing it phonetically, the member who spoke found themselves in a dark room. Unable to see, he stood there, doing nothing. The next was the gnome wizard, who tried to prank the earth genasai barbarian, without success. Next was the divination wizard. Meanwhile, those above were unable to figure out the pronunciation of the words and had no clue as to what is going on. Detect magic only shows that the whole site contains overwhelmingly large amounts of magic.

Below, a light spell is cast, and the three below see that they are in a 20′ x 20′ stone block room, with an inscription on the wall in the same language as the inscription as found beforehand above. There are also two large chests made of a strange metal they cannot identify, and a strange stone portal with draconic characters around the outer edge. Additionally, there was a staircase, although it was choked with dirt and rubble.

The group chose to ignore the archway in favor of the chests. The barbarian, in the absence of a rogue to detect and/or disarm any traps, opens the chest and falls like a stone (pun totally intended). The two wizards begin discussing what to do, as all examination shows that the barbarian is dead. In reality, he only appears dead, as an effect that causes one to mimic death hit him. Looking in the chest, there were thousands of 1″ diameter coins, shaped like a 4-sided pyramid, with runes along each edge. They were tarnished but still gold. The barbarian wakes up at this point, having no understanding of what just happened. The three realized that the air was getting mighty thin, and the barbarian began digging them out through the stairwell. The divination wizard, thinking something in the other chest may help, opened it and actually fell dead. Looking inside, as she was sort of useless for excavating the stairs, finding a rod, a wand, and a dagger. Seeing that nothing there will help, attempted to go about clearing rubble, eventually passing out from oxygen loss.

The barbarian enters a rage to increase his ability to dig.

The rest of the party was at a loss until Percell, the cleric/druid, cast a spell to communicate with digging and underground animals. The moles and other such advised him of the stairwell, so he and the other two got to digging. After some very narrowly good roles, they broke through to each other and those below did not die of asphyxiation. After identifying everything, they found that the rod is a rod of resurrection, the wand a wand of wonder, and the dagger is a dagger of returning. Using the rod, the party brought back Halen, the divination wizard, and took a long rest.

The party now had to find someone to translate the inscription…closest place to do that would be Neverwinter, but nobody wanted to go back there, so they decided to head to Waterdeep…

Well, that’s all I have in me to write today. I’ll post more of the prequel to Tuesday later in the week. I have my Discord game, Sunday, and Tuesday to do as they come, with these coming in between.