I misspelled the title- should have been "Recap"

Vaniel Kosh is the sponsor who hired the group, which included Tyvraxus (a young tiefling warlock), Aeron (an elven ranger), Vonshu (a half orc rogue), and Clockwork (a warforged warrior). Vaniel is an Eladrin scholar who works at the Lady's College in Silverymoon and Everlund, but (from what you can gather) has secret ties to the Harpers and may be an agent of the Harpers. Insight checks revealed he wears his cloak in a style more suitable to the rustic port of Everlund, and Vonshu pickpocketed a coinpurse with a symbol of the harpers, before returning it, so they somewhat figured out who they were working for.

The mission was described as finding the location of the Vault of Xammux and it's connection to a series of vivisection murders that took place hundreds of years ago. They had the name of an ancient eladrin priestess in Sundabar and some scraps of clues including a pair of 1000 year old vivisection calipers, used by the Xammux cult... and an identical pair that was found on a recent murder victim.

After a brief meeting with Vaniel, Omerae the Unseen (drow assassin) struck- her goal was stealing one of the pairs of vivisection calipers that Vaniel was showing the party. She managed to kill two guards, crash through a window into the teahouse where the meeting took place.. and snatch the calipers.. but she was brought down by Vonshu while making her escape.  Omerae was revealed to be a high ranking assassin from the Nightspiders.
 
The party conferred with Vaniel and determined that they would keep Omerae as a prisoner. Vaniel suggested she be dropped off at a place in Everlund (actually a Harper safehouse) and the party concurred.

They took a river ferry from Silverymoon and headed towards Everlund, but were attacked on the boat by more Drow including a pair of trained Deathjump spiders. They successfully fought them off. They dropped Omerae off and continued on to Nixie Pier- a fishing village located at the split in the Nether Mountains. There, they set off on foot to Sundabar.

After the battle on the river ferry, there was a visit by the Ghostly Six. Only Aeron was able to communicate with them (due to some unlucky rolls..who said you shouldn't put points into endurance and perception!). The Xammux is a 6-part entity, bound in a vault that at least touches the Far Realm. It is not a benevolent or kind being, but rather, the Xammux represent a distant alien intelligence that can be corrupted into horrific unspeakable acts of evil. The divine power of a mysterious tendril seems to keep them asleep in their tubes. Asleep, the Xammux is harmless. But the vault is slowly being hacked open by something very powerful..

Aeron woke up from her communication with the Xammux... spellscarred.  

The group travelled to Nixie Pier (right where the river crosses the Nether Mountains) and then northeast to Sundabar, where Aeron met with Sister Sylvara Hanathiel (whom she realized after the meeting was over had been dead for sometime- she was speaking to a ghost). Sister Sylvara described the tendril as an eyelash of the sea god, Deep Sashelas, and provided a magical tome with a map. None of the group have read the entire tome.

They set off into the wilderness, armed with the tome and the calipers and eventually made their way to the hidden ravine of the Xammux. When the group reached the vault itself, they battled a group of dretch and evistro (Carnage demons) and discovered that the vault had already been opened.
 
 The battle with the demons was difficult and Tyvraxus was unconscious by the end of it. So an extended rest was necessary. The group made camp a ways away and tried to decide what to do (technically they have fulfilled Vaniel Kosh's mission by securing the map that locates the vault).

Part II is next week!

Part II!

One of the things I had to figure out with this series of adventures is that there was bound to be some player turniver between sessions (it's open signups). Nevertheless, I only lost one person Vonshu (he got tapped to DM a 1st-4th game)

so I still had Tyvraxus (tiefling warlock), Clockwork (warforged fighter), and Aeron (elf ranger).. and added on three new players: Torgal (a Deva Invoker), Aron (kalashtar pacifist cleric), and Chase (shifter warden).

We started out with a brief explanation of the events in between: after the battle with the demons, the players returned the map (what they had contracted for) to Vaniel (whom they met in Everlund.) They were asked to stay around and consider leading a larger expedition (at this point Vonshu presumably had to leave).  

Meanwhile, the new players (Chase, Torgal, and Aron) were recruited in Silverymoon. Since Torgal and Aron were both good aligned divine characters, they were seen as good choices by the Harpers. Chase was picked for his experience traveling overland in the High Forest.

The new group set out, with instructions to meet with the rest of the expedition at the White Raven in Everlund. During the trip, all three noticed that they were being followed and eventually figured out it was drow (more members of the Nightspiders drow assassin clan had the group followed).

The Ghostly Six appeared again to the new group this time: the two divine characters with high insight were chosen in case the "elven girl faltered". So there was a little roleplaying scene with the Xammux.

Once they reached Everlund, they were asked to take part in a prisoner exchange- they had Omerae the Unseen (drow assassin captured in session I) still imprisoned at the Harper safehouse, and behind the scenes the Harpers had conducted negotiations and agreed to exchange her for "someone important to the Harpers".

The PCs were to conduct the exchange, (which was handled as a skill challenge- they had to take their prisoner to a dilapidated footbridge north of Everlund). During the skill challenge Omerae attempted to escape a few times, got into several veiled threats against the PCs (who attempted to calm her down and when that failed.. intimidate her) and there was a foiled attempt to ambush the group by the same group of drow shadowing them out of Silverymoon.


The exchange took place.. Omerae walked across the bridge casually vowing to kill them all. The drow shoved their the mystery prisoner forward across the bridge still tied.. it turned out to be.. Amarel! Amarel is an NPC who was captured and taking to Menzoberranzan during another LFR MyRealms adventure I ran back in September (she's one of the other PCs mothers and teaches at the adventuring company/school where many of the PCs in my regular gaming groups are based). Only Tyvraxus (in character) recognized her, although several of the other players have alternate characters that know her.

The harpers agreed to "hospitalize" the badly shaken Amarel, and the group set off the next morning for the demon ravine where the Vault of Xammux was located.

Eventually they located it, and set up a small camp outside the vault. They made their way in carefully, discovering (amongst other things) some traps that had been set off.. and then a trap that had not been set off - a dead end passage with a triangle shaped pressure plate that caused buzz-saws to criss-cross the hallway. They found the secret door without setting off the trap and moved in.

Inside- a niche-filled room filled with hundreds of smashed and rotting brains kept in glass and metal jars. Most of which had been destroyed: here the original minds of the cult of Xammux had been kept as a sort of living library.

In the center of the room- a sort of plug of semi-translucent frozen green ice (actually frozen acid) with a massive chain descending through the center of it. A hole bored in the far corner of the ice plug descends into darkness. Stairs (seen dimly through the ice) also disappear into infinity.

In reality, the PCs stand at the very top of a vertical egg-shaped chamber. A plug of frozen acid takes up the top 1/3 of the chamber. The demons that invaded the vault have already melted a passage down through the ice and have gotten to the bottom of the shaft. The chain suspends 200' down into the vertical shaft and holds an elevator-sized cube made of lead- the safe chamber of a lich's phylactery.

Stairs (covered in ice) spiral around the inside of the chamber down to the bottom.

The players detected a rattling from a few of the less-obliterated brain-jars.. and three of the brains in niches lurchingly telekinesed themselves out of their niches. A group of silvery skittering constructs (like crossbows on spindly mechanical legs) crawled out of the hole in the ice at the far end of the room.

But most importantly, the Neldrazu demon with a stealth check of 31 descended on Aeron from above (it had been sticking to the ceiling above the entry hall) . It missed, but the real battle began.

So this battle was complicated and very cool:

The Neldrazu hasd the power to teleport with a PC- in this case, Chase the Warden.. some 10 squares. In this case, it teleported him out of the room and onto the pressure plate, which set off the buzz-saw floor.. and isolated him from the rest of the group.

The brains-in-jars had the power to dominate their opponents.. and started out by taking control of Clockwork and then Tyvraxus, and forcing them to attack fellow party members.

The arbalesters (the spindly construct thingies)  stayed on the frozen acid and launched missile after missile at the group.

Eventually Aeron acrobatically braved the outer hallway (avoiding buzzsaw after buzzsaw) and helping Chase fight the Neldrazu. Chase got slashed up but was able to handle it. On the round the Neldrazu finally got killed, Aeron stepped into a buzzsaw and got hurt, but managed to make it back into the room. Chase followed and got slashed by a buzzsaw as well.

Meanwhile, the brains were forcing Clockwork (and then Tyvraxus) to fight the rest of the group, but still getting pounded on, especially by Torgal's invoker powers. Aron was using his pacifist abilities to power down the defenses of the creatures inside. Clockwork shook off the influence eventually- but Tyvraxus was firing elritch blasts until the brain that controlled him finally dropped. When arbalesters were killed, they set of small reactions that "melted" the area around them into real acid puddles.

Later, both characters that had been mind-controlled reported flashbacks of the controlling brain-- these were the brains of the vivisectionist cultists of Xammux- kept here for nearly an eon. So they got a bit of the backstory of Xammux.

The group took some time to try and figure out how to make their way down into the vault. The opening chamber- they decided not to try and melt the ice, but to take the shaft the demons had melted through the plug. Using their ropes they tied it to the top of the chain at the center of the room (the one that holds the lich's phylactery. They messed with the phylactery-safe (eventually one character got on top and searched it) but decided not to try and open it. Which was probably prudent.  

Down, down they went and got to the base of the chamnber where the stairs had collapsed 30' from the floor. Carefully they all jumped across a 10' wide gap.. except Aron who fell. But in falling, Aron discovered a new tunnel had been bored in- the drow had broken down the elemental protections of the tomb and made their own breach- they had not given up. He discovered several dead dretch demons.. and the telltale handcrossbow bolts of drow scattered in the area.

The group reunited at the base of the chamber and set about collapsing the drow tunnel and re-emplacing the elemental sigils that make the vault secure.

They made their way to the next chamber- a massive dome shaped room with a 30' pulsating black egg hung from the roof like a wasps nest.

As they started to explore the egg suddenly detached from the ceiling and splatted on the ground, erupting with thousands of fetal dretches. - It was a dretch swarm! It immediately scuttled over and engulfed Chase, and the rest of the party fanned out to attack it. It was also spitting out/dropping more dretches every round. At one point I nearly got Chase and Tyvraxus engulfed. It was chawing the group up and squirming around the room....

Eventually they killed that, and the game ended at the endchamber- there were three doors including one set of large double doors.

Xammux Part III... not for a couple of weeks. See you at DDXP!

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;354025The divine power of a mysterious tendril seems to keep them asleep in their tubes. Asleep, the Xammux is harmless. But the vault is slowly being hacked open by something very powerful..

Would that very powerful something have... something to do with the High Forest itself, or rather, what lurks beneath?

Cool write-up by the way. I enjoyed the read.

Quote from: Benoist;366435Would that very powerful something have... something to do with the High Forest itself, or rather, what lurks beneath?

Cool write-up by the way. I enjoyed the read.

The tendril thing ( I guess I can say now.. I haven't kept up with play reports but it has been revealed) is/was an actual eyelash of Lolth.

To the elves who sealed the Vault- the lash was merely a source of great divine power- strong enough to keep the vault sealed and the Vestige of Xammux locked down. Only a few know it's true origin, and the Harpers have been trying to keep it a secret.

Unfortunately the nearby (well, 8 miles underground, but not otherwise too far) drow of Menzoberranzan recognize the lash as a major holy relic, and they want it back. They've wanted it back for centuries, so when the Xammux resurfaced, the SpiderQueen sent a sisterhood of assassins known as the Nightspiders to retrieve it.

The Eyelash of Lolth.

LOL. Awesome.

Nah, it's an eyebrow hair. Someone that vain definitely plucks them.

The point of that, is that it layers an extra complication over the adventure- that is the drow are in the same dungeon, at the same time, looking for the same thing, and they don't particularly care of the Xammux vestige returns to ravage the surface world.

Once the PCs actually figure out what they've got-- they have to make decision #2- was it a good idea to have a stolen drow relic used as the power source for the Vault's ward?

Anyhow, some ideas I had running from this adventure (it's multi-part and I've run pieces of it for three groups so far) and collaborating with another LFR DM led to the creation of the all-Drow adventuring company I am involved with now.