Abyss Modified Session 1: Tower of Chaos
Greetings! My name is Rob and I have been running dungeons and dragons games for over twenty five years. Most of my campaigns take place in a homebrew world I have created and about 5% of my experience has been running pre written adventures. I do try to read the modules as they come out for story ideas and campaign arcs and pacing… as well as having a book addiction.
Back in 2018 I ran the Out of the Abyss campaign with a heavily modified rewrite to many of the portions of the book. I was running the adventure at a local game store where the attendance would fluctuate so any session could lead me to having anywhere from four to fourteen players, which we somehow managed to make work. It cost players five dollars per session to play, which went to the store and the Dungeon Masters would get points on our accounts based on attendance, they also would not turn anyone away if the tables were full… Most pre published game books are not situated for that many players so portions of the adventure were omitted or added upon.
Some of my players were newer to the world of role-playing games and I had a few old school style gamers, so I had to clarify a few of my changes. We were using the 5th edition rule set and I modified the starting Standard Array Ability scores, knowing it was a harder campaign and I enjoy the players making stronger characters. I asked them to avoid making any characters that were tied to the underdark, such as deep gnomes or Drow, but ended up incorporating some world hopping to rationalize why our drow gloomstalker did not recognize the underdark locals, he was from a different worlds underground labyrinthine corridors situation and via planar magic arrived here.
While this world is similar to the world of Toril, or the Forgotten Realms campaign world, in other adventures I would be simplifying certain aspects, such as timelines, it takes place after the Tyranny of Dragons adventure, so some NPC characters might reference it. Mystra the old goddess of magic is still talked about and her temples feature heavily in the second half of the adventure. More on that quite a bit later. I also started the party on the surface as an eventual rescue team for the Non Player Characters pile that is in the underdark prison, instead of having the party start as prisoners themselves. This gave them a little bit more agency and a bond before heading into the depths.
Our tables and expectations were set, but we had a bit of a delay for the campaign start and went with a one shot instead.
For our first session, I ran for a table of ten. The quest focused on a bar tab unpaid and the party was sent to collect. The group, consisting of Balasar the golden dragon born sorcerer, Cat the half elf druid, Theren the half elf shadow sorcerer, Fione the half elf princess druid, Vekirra the wood elf war cleric, Brelvern the human fighter, Godric the half elf bard, Orion the tiefling monk, Xanaphia the human wild magic sorcerer, and Sir Weirdo the Third the monk shifter, made their way to the Gorbel’s tower, near Baldur’s Gate.
They arrived to find the door locked and stained with blood and odd handprints. Brelvern, Theren, and Godric investigated the door, Brelvern knocking and shouting out to whomever was within the tower. The answer came from up above, the wizard Gorbel, who was quite mad in many ways, told them to go away and threw a rock at the party, hitting Theren. Theren cast sleep in response, which seemed to silence the odd mage. As the party stood and discussed making a humanoid pyramid to reach the top of the tower the bloody door slowly swung open revealing a well-lit interior and four zombie Thayan wizards. The party made quick work of them, having overwhelming numbers. They investigated the first floor finding stairs leading up, and three shut doors. They peered beyond each door finding an advanced kitchen, a possibly haunted music room, and a library of flying books. They shut each door as soon as they saw beyond and went up the stairs.
On the next floor they found three more doors and a strange self-playing keyboard with gems on the back. It resisted most magical prodding until Sir Weirdo the Third smacked it a few times and the gems fell off. The group prepared themselves and listened at each door, behind one door they heard a voice requesting help, and told the voice they would come back for it. Another door hid a cavern, which they did not trust and closed the door again. The last door had a small green demon that was inquisitive, yet still attacked them. While battle was brewing the handles on the doors started turning so the party grabbed them to keep whatever was inside trapped. The first door had multiple hands grip at the bottom of the door and started shaking it, the cavern room door stopped struggling when Theren shocking grasped the handle. The small green quasit only troubled the party for a few moments but was quickly snuffed out. The party opened the handy door to find four manes, gross worm ridden demons within a small chamber. They nuked the room and went to listen at the door again. They heard footsteps walking up stairs and opened to door to find three more manes with the one on a staircase. They ended up knocking one down and tied it up, it wept and was sad after Brelvern threw it down the stairs while looking around the next floor. The other manes were quickly dealt with.
As Brelvern popped his head onto the next floor he was clubbed by a spriggan, moments later the tied-up mane warned him there was a spriggan upstairs. The party swarmed up the stairs, mostly keeping their distance, but Brelvern was mad and charged the beast scoring a good hit against it. The rest of the group spent cantrips, pelting away at him with elemental damage until Brelvern got clubbed again and passed out. Vekirra was able to get him on his feet, allowing him to hit it again, killing it. In horror he watched as this giant figure shrank down to the size of a child.(Spriggan are fey creatures that can change their shape from small goblin to large giant, so no kids were harmed in this encounter)
After a few moments tending to wounds the group made their way up to the next floor to find a creature known as a nothic building a short barrier of broken furniture and weapons, almost like a nest. They talked with it, not seeing a staircase up and found it did not know the way, or was a really good liar. Fione took the opportunity to talk with him long enough to charm him, which Theren ruined after he remembered what spawned nothics, the dreaded Vecna. Combat ensued, tears were had, and the barrier started on fire. After the weeping nothic, who had just for the first time in its life had friends, died a horrible death at the hands of those friends, the invisible staircase appeared as well as a trap door to the rooftop.
Once the group climbed to the roof of the tower, they found what appeared to be the mage Gorbel, prone on the ground snoring. Vekirra had cast detect magic and was still concentrating on it and could tell there were two sources of illusion, the prone wizard, and something off the tower about thirty feet away. They demanded the wizard show himself and when he appeared Theren cast sleep on him again, failing to roll high enough to effect Gorbel. The rest of the group had prepared actions and spells filled the air. In response Gorbel used his highest-level spell slot and hit seven of the party members with magic missiles. He was able to land among the group and get off a few area spells but quickly fell prey to their numbers. Orion and Sir Weirdo the Third both unleashed a flurry of punches at Gobrel, Xanaphia, Balasar, Theren, and Cat blasted him with a multitude of magic attacks. His illusionary sleeping form started twerking at the party in an attempt to throw them off the scent but a mortal blow was struck. Gorbel attempted to take his last action to throw himself from the tower but he was prevented his last request by a timely grapple. On his body they found an amount equal to what he owed the bar so they were victorious?
It was a chaotic first session but having to bring ten characters into the action can have that effect.
With our first adventure, which ended up being an improvised prologue to the prologue, under our belts our story will continue next time.
