Session #17

 We had a full party this past week.  Two rogues, a bard, a paladin & a druid.

This session started off with the introduction of a new NPC--Padre Brendon--who asked the players for help with an outbreak of behemoths (dinosaurs) in the "Field Ward" of Waterdeep.  A T-Rex and flock of raptors are on the loose there, under the leadership of a mysterious "Dawn Age Pervert," who believes in the survival of the fittest, and the purification of Waterdeep through the destructive energy of the natural world.  The party told Padre they couldn't help out with his quest this week because they have too much else going on right now (it will be fun to see how long they leave a ward of the city to be ravaged by dinosaurs, lol).  But the Bard thoughtfully recruited the cleric to help the party in going after the "Necromancer," who they've been hunting down for a few weeks now.

Once the session got underway, the party first returned to the necromancer's lair in the sewers.  They found that it had been abandoned in the past week--and there weren't any good clues for where he might have gone.  At this point, they debated how to proceed, and ended up settling for going to the prison where the necromancer's evil goth gf is imprisoned.  It turned out that she is seething with rage towards the necromancer, so she told the party about their first lair--an abandoned tower in the Dock Ward slums.  The group headed down to the Dock Wards, where they found that a large group of halflings were already there confronting the necromancer about his need to supply them with more skooma--or else.  The party waited until the halflings moved off before attacking and subduing the necromancer (before he even had a chance to react).  They took him prisoner and stablized him before clearing out his hide-out of two more of the bone abominations that he had been making (which nearly killed the party last week).  this week however, they had Padre Brendon and Aoth the Paladin in tow, so they made much neater work of the bone abominations.

The party spent some time devising a method to interrogate the necromancer without allowing him to cast any spells (which was good for them because he still had all of his high level slots prepared to go off).  Specifically, they wanted information on the "Stone of Golor" an artifact which they believed the necromancer had possessed at one point.  The necromancer recalled the item, and told them that he had left it behind in his crypt lair in the City of the Dead.

At this point, the party headed to the City of the Dead--where they first explored the crypt lair (except for a staircase leading below.  The crypt had been cleared out, and the "Stone of Golor" was nowhere to be found.

Another discussion began at this point about whether the party should hand over the necromancer to the Baron of Blood (the Vampire Lord) dead or alive.  The Baron of Blood had offered them a reward of 5,000 gold for the necromancer alive--and 2,500 gold for the necromancer dead.  Ultimately, they were unable to resist the lure of the extra XP and gold which the higher reward would mean.  (One of the house rules i've adopted for this campaign--I award half XP for killing monsters, and 1 XP per GP earned from dungeoneering, etc.)

The party then headed with their prisoner in tow to the Baron's crypt.  This was one of their first dungeons they entered--but they haven't been inside for nearly two months.  They found that extensive renovations have been underway, with an entrance that has been fortified against potential future incursions by high level PCs looking for monsters to kill--AKA, the party.  It took several minutes before their knock on the door was answered--by a Medusa, a Flesh Golem, a hell-hound, and several shadowy figures who they didn't get a good look at (since the reception crew were all inside the crypt).

The party handed over the necromancer--who was at this point emitting muffled screams through his gag--and received the 5,000 GP (and 5,000 XP) reward.  Padre Brendon said that this seems pretty dark--and the Paladin agreed--and Padre Brendon left the party at this point.  The druid also called it a night.

The remainder of the party decided to follow the Bard into the sewers to set up an "Aboleth trap" which the Bard has been plotting for a few weeks.  Specifically, the bard's plan was to cast 10 "Glyphs of Warding" on a tunnel in the sewers, with explosive runes set to go off whenever an Aboleth goes past.  This work left the party with no downtime for this week--since they had to work on this Aboleth trap over the course of 5 days.  Beginning on Tarsakh 14 (April 14) through Tarsakh 19 (April 19).  During the course of a week in the sewers, the party had several encounters.  First, and perhaps most notably with the fabled gigantic albino crocodile of the Waterdeep Sewers.  According to urban legend in the city, the "King of the Sewers" was brought to the city more than a century ago as an exotic aquarium pet.  As his growth continued, his original owner set him free in the Waterdeep sewers where he has lived for many years and given birth to broods of subterranean crocodiles.

The party also encountered a vampire, a group of rust monsters, a rat--potentially a wererat, a group of ghouls or ghasts (who apparently work for the Baron of Blood), a Xanathar's guild patrol, and a group of Kuo Toa (fish people who work for the aboleth).  The party avoided fighting with all of these encounters except for the Kuo Toa.  And so their trap is now in place, and potentially ready to kill the Aboleth.  I don't think it's very likely that the Aboleth would haphazardly wander into a location where he knows the party has spent a week working on something.  So for now I have ruled that there is a 5% chance that he will move into range of this trap during the session next week (or during downtime if the party chooses not to sit in the same spot in the tunnels for another full week of in-game time).

After the party finished setting their aboleth trap, we ended the session and called it a night.