Game Report: The Many

The party settled in among the abandoned ship and slept, waking to travel by twilight to avoid being seen. Their plan fails spectacularly when the reach a tall dune, and the rogue rushes to the top, only to be surprised by a bearded devil teleporting in and declaring, “The Many have chosen you.” It takes a swipe at the rogue and then his companions also teleport into the area.

The party has trouble getting up the dune to the bearded devils and their legion forces, and burn many of their teleporting skills getting into position next to the devils. Once everyone is positioned, a new threat in the form of assassin imps appear to aggravate the spellcasters. The party just shrugged and cut down the minions to allow to them focus on the larger creatures.

The devils’ abilities proved horribly dangerous, however. The imps caused poison that would eventually put the players to sleep, while the bearded devils caused bleeding with their glaives. These effects combined with horrible luck on the party’s part caused three characters to fail unconscious and susceptible to the imp’s deadly finishing attacks, and it was only through the use of their limited resources that they managed to keep everyone alive and defeat the devils.

Exhausted, the party fell asleep on the dune, setting up defenses to prevent such a sudden incursion again. They managed to survive a day on the sands and continue north, promising to stay close to the furrows that cuts across the Sandsea.

Later, they come across a boat that seems in perfect condition, perched atop the sand and apparently magical enchanted to chop through the sands as if it were water. They encounter a halfling on the boat, who seemed stubborn in his negotiations in allowing them access to his craft. He also stated that Alreta had burned to the ground, which still didn’t deter the party in their pleading.

At one point, the warlock suggested soft-spokenly that they should just kill the halfling and take his boat. Suddenly, a cloaked figure behind them said that they should continue with that strategy. They turned to see the mysterious stranger, and when the stranger pressed the issue, they tried to walk away, only to discover this stranger was a sadistic undead who summoned three ghosts to his side.

The party was hit by some powerful area attacks, which immobilized and dazed some of them, but after a few turns they managed to spread out to prevent such wideswiping attacks. The party was stunted by these debilitating effects, but they focused their fire against the primary undead, knocking him down quickly, and it didn’t take much longer until the three ghosts were defeated, with the assistance of the halfling in the boat.

Lessons Learned: Sometimes the dice hate you. The first fight of the evening was the worst example, as the dice hitting the table simply refused to go above a 10, making the party’s best attempts fall flat and what should have been an easy encounter, with low-damage enemies turned into a nightmare, with two characters coming really really close to death and everyone going bloodied at some point. The morale killed the table, and they were looking for payback as they went into the second encounter, that went better, but by no means well. Sometimes a fluke is a fluke, and no amount of strategy can protect you from the dice, but luckily the party managed to get through this.

Also, I don't know if it was the atmosphere or failure to read beforehand, but more prep time is still on the agenda, due to a major flub I made when revealing the sadistic undead. To the eye, he was obviously a skeleton in a cloak, but in my description, I managed to say, "He has a bone head, no wait, a bear skull, no I mean..." All seriousness the mysterious stranger had at that point was instantly lost.