Introduction

I previously posted some warts-and-all email summaries of the ‘Curse of Strahd’ campaign I ran in 2017-18, the ‘Tomb of Annihilation’ campaign I ran in 2018-19, the ‘Out of the Abyss’, a campaign I ran in 2020 and the ‘Phandelver’s Pact’ campaign I ran from 2020-2021. CoS was the first campaign I sent summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that), which is why I could use them for this column.

Here’s another campaign (some might say my last 5e campaign, if you don’t count all the playtest campaigns I ran and continue to run lol) that started out with a slightly skewed version of ‘Ghosts of Saltmarsh’, then merged with a doctored ‘Descent into Avernus’ and was prematurely cut short when WoTC stunned the community by deciding to be dicks about the OGL (remember that?), prompting me to run Pathfinder 2e campaigns instead.

‘Shadows Over Saltmarsh’ was set in Greyhawk, my childhood campaign world (created by the eminent Mr. Gygax, himself). Each session was approximately 4-5 hours (sometimes more) long. Most of the summaries appear here as they first appeared. If you’re a D&D fan you may enjoy them. And maybe even if you aren’t.

Steve 🙂

Session 39 – Going Down

The party fought the Infernal Knight, making short work of it in a battle that was much easier than the previous. Unfortunately, Fr’an’kk the nightmare was destroyed again. The party entered the empty chapel and made its way down the stairs to the ossuary below. Granak, dwarven ranger, felt a strange compulsion dragging at him. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he felt the need to keep going.  

Felix, human thief/wizard, opened the locked door at the bottom of the stairs, and the party moved into a workshop. Felix broke another of his mother’s picks on the next locked door, so Fa’aoa (human barbarian) busted it down. As Ser Keraston, the aasimar paladin and the barbarian stepped over the threshold, they felt their energies drained and their constant rage and constant aasimar state disperse, leaving them exhausted. Granak felt compelled to move onward, and as he crossed the threshold, he felt his accuracy diminish to normal levels. The same happened with Felix as he crossed.

A strange scraping sound could be heard in the darkness around the corner – metal being dragged on stone. The party moved cautiously forward. As they moved further into the ossuary, they found another set of stairs down. At that point, two Harvester Devils sprung out of the darkness, their three-pronged stinger tails and scythes flashing to deadly effect. The party funneled one down the stairs, eventually dispatching it, but the second hung back and used its long scythe to attack from a distance.

Ser Keraston was considerably damaged and withdrew to heal. Felix extended a column with minor illusion to more successfully snipe the creature. Granak was able to use his rapier for the first time in ages to deal some precision damage. Fa’aoa was knocked unconscious and, with poison surging through his body, came the closest to death he ever had. Felix managed to stabilize the barbarian and used silvery barbs to avoid a stinger attack. With the devil finally killed courtesy of Granak’s rapier, the party took a well-deserved long rest.

Keraston resummoned Fr’an’kk the nightmare, who kept watch while chain smoking cigarettes all night long.

The next day, everyone was miraculously healed (who knew 8 hours of sleep could be so good). Felix set to work opening an iron door discovered at the bottom of the stairs. Unfortunately, he missed the poison needle (ouch!), but was able to get the door open.

Inside was a pool of water, and Alyona, the party’s missing cleric, floated with arms extended a few feet above the surface. The waters were deathly still, despite the occasional arcing electricity that flowed between the suspended cleric and the surface. Alyona’s eyes flashed open – they were pure white, pupil-less. “So, you have come at last,” she said, her voice echoing throughout the room.   

“Not you,” said Alyona, motioning to the party. “Granak.” Granak walked slowly forward, transfixed on the floating cleric. As he reached the edge of the pool, his body rose and flew towards Alyona, who reached out her arms to receive him. She hugged the dwarf and his body dissolved into blue-white light. Alyona descended to the surface of the water, then walked calmly to the edge of the pool, her feet barely breaking its viscosity. As she stood on land, her eyes became the warm and familiar ones the party knew from before.

“Granak?” she said, answering their questioning eyes. “The book I found was not only a link to Hell, but a source of great power. It has been taken from me, but not before I bonded with it enough to draw on some of that fabled power. When I was brought through the portal, my consciousness reached out and created an avatar to lead you to me. Granak was that avatar.” She smiles. “What, didn’t you think a warrior skilled in fighting fiends just turning up on the spur of the moment wasn’t just a little too convenient? As to your additional powers – I provided that little boost. I left a mote of energy from the book near the portal. Unfortunately, it ran out when you entered the Ossuary.”

Alyona went on to explain what had happened to her when she was kidnapped by devils in Saltmarsh:

Alyona was teleported away by Bearded Devils. She arrived in a dark chamber, great pillars to the left of her, piles of rubble to the right; a ceiling of dark tiled stone 15 ft. above. Piles of bones surrounded a deep pit in the far corner of the chamber. A large circle of red glyphs was painted on the blue stone floor, not far away. The Bearded Devils were unflinching as she attempted to cast a spell. Three figures approached from the darkness.

Two Chain Devils used their powers to animate chains and truss Alyona up, bringing her to her knees. Another figure approached from behind them – shorter, broader in girth. As it emerged into the dim light, Alyona’s eyes widened as she recognized none other than Gellan Primewater!

“So,” he said, grimly. “It seems you have something we’ve been searching for.”

Alyona realized the devils couldn’t sense the book in the other dimensional space of the Bag of Holding on her belt, otherwise they would have taken it by now. More than likely Gellan didn’t know that either. It was safe, for the moment.

“Tell me where my ancestor Marcus Lynden is, first,” she said.

Primewater’s eyes narrowed. “I think I might be able to help you with that.”

He clicked his fingers and gestured to the red circle. The two Chain Devils slapped a binding around Alyona’s mouth and dragged her to the centre of the circle. There was a flash of light and the universe skewed around her – colours flashed before Alyona’s eyes and her stomach churned. In moments, the dark chamber disappeared, and she was kneeling between the two devils, facing rows of white buildings – some damaged, some not – on an island of rock, floating above a flaming plain. Alyona recognized this place as Elturel, the mysterious city in her book…

The bearded devils dragged her from the circle. A figure, dressed in antiquated waistcoat and britches, approached. It was a tall male human with long silver hair, dark eyes and lined forehead. “Hello, Alyona,” he said. “I’m Marcus Lynden.”  

“I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here?” continued Marcus. “It’s that book, you see. I was separated from it many years ago, when I was brought here in a portal accident that wrecked my house in Saltmarsh. At the time, I couldn’t get back to retrieve it, but was able to get enough resources together to create a small portal several minor devils could pass through. I garnered the attention of Asmodeus and several other arch devils, who longed to open a vast portal to Greyhawk, so they could invade. They offered me a permanent place here as a Lord of Hell if I could build the bigger portal. Firstly, the city of Elturel was retrieved from a planet called Faerun on another plane of existence – the souls of that city would serve as one of the ritual components for the major portal. I was able to use my magics to pass a summoning thread through the small portal I built previously, a tether of suggestion that would draw individuals touched by hellpower to Saltmarsh, the planar nexus – a weak point between Greyhawk and Hell. Once they arrived, I would harvest the various items I needed to perform the ritual: two hellish red pearls, the blood of an Aasimar and the blood of a king. And an ancestor of mine, who could recover my cook book and bring it to me. At first, I tried a few visions to draw you here voluntarily, but you didn’t take the bait. I thought minor devils might be able to recover it, so I tasked one of our worshippers – Gellan Primewater in Saltmarsh – to direct devils on his plane to find the book. They finally captured you in Primewater mansion.” Lynden paused briefly, eyeing Alyona up and down. “So, where is the book?”

Searching the captive, he eventually located the bag of holding and the red leather book within. As he opened it to the page with the regrown map of Elturel, the other torn out pages magically regrew, revealing the complete portal ritual. “Excellent. The book will provide most of the power for the ritual,” said Lynden. “And now the others will come after their friend. When they do, we can recover the components required to complete the ritual.” Lynden smiled slyly. “Take her to the ossuary below the chapel. We’ll harvest her friends when they arrive.”

Alyona was taken to the chapel, but before she left, she reached out mentally for the book and it responded, leaving a mote of energy for her friends hidden in the ground near the small portal. In the chapel, the light of her god somehow reached Alyona, giving her hope and sustaining her while she waited for her friends to arrive…

The party advanced to 9^th level!

Next Week: Let’s save the F&$@ing world…

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