Home Campaign Combat and Battle in the Throne Room (Rime of the Frostmaiden)

Home Campaign

As you may recall, my family’s home campaign is the Curse of Strahd. After dealing with the fallen paladin’s of Argynvostholt and gaining their support with defeating the Devil Strahd, the party headed to the Amber temple to retrieve The Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, a unique holy symbol created specifically to help in defeating Strahd.

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The party found a side passage off of the main entrance that had several people speaking of evil things.

The party, thinking of getting the drop on them, headed inside hoping to flank them. The party entered into the main entrance, and found two guard rooms, where the gnome wildshaped into a bug to get into the room with a skeleton holding a wand.

After retrieving said wand, the party went into the temple proper. And all hell broke loose.

First was the 40′ tall statue with blackness where the face should be. Then all the doors and the arrow slits to the northwest with a green flickering light emanating from within.

Upon walking inside, a fireball was launched from the statue’s face region. Then, as the party attempted to regroup and figure out what was going there, those berserkers, for that’s what they were, came out of the room the party had earlier spied.

The battle was long and continually fraught with danger. At the end, there was only one being standing, and elderly Man who claimed to be the guardian of this temple. The party did not accept his excuse for attacking and attempted to grapple him, but the man showed uncanny strength for his appearance.

The man turned invisible and disappeared.

Taking stock of their surroundings, the party took a short rest.

Battle in the Throne Room

Xardorok Sunblight, the king of the fortress, stood at his throne, roaring at the intrusion of the party.

The party fought the quaggoths and duergar that flooded into the throne room, the ranger concentrating his fire on Xardorok, while the paladin/barbarian and the cleric/paladin held off the hordes. The gnome wizard lay down a spell to keep the enemy taking damage, sculpting the spell around his allies, preventing their being affected by it.

The battle seemed to take an eternity, with Xardorok falling during the melee.

Bloody but still standing, the party stood triumphant, their foe laying dead at their feet. They claimed his crown and spiked gauntlet, both made of chardalyn, and tended to the myconid sovereign. Communication was easy as it had telepathic abilities.

It told of its capture at the hands of the duergar, and of its desire to return to the underdark. It communicated that their lay a small squad of duergar with a captured umber hulk between its freedom and their current location.

Using a spell of invisibility, the party used mage hand to remove the sack over the umber hulk’s head, letting it wreak havoc among the duergar.

Using the ensuing chaos as a cover, they let the myconid sovereign run to its freedom.

Returning back to the main floor with Grandolpha, the party cut a deal for her to take control of Xardorok’s fortress and forces, clearing out back into the underdark.

Searching throughout the fortress, now absent of any enemies, the party found some decent treasure, enough to share around.

With that problem solved, the party headed back to Brynn Shander to rest and recuperate.

There, they met a woman called Vellynne Harpell, who claimed to be (after much interrogation) part of the Arcane Brotherhood, although not of the ilk of Avarice and her crew. She sought the Codicil of the White, a book she claimed could help end the Everlasting Winter…

She told them to look for word or clues at a tower that allegedly broke from the Netherese city of Ythryn, landing in the wilderness of Icewind Dale.

Wary of her true motives, The partying nonetheless headed towards the lost spire, beginning to explore its area, only to find that it broke off and landed upside down!