In this session, the party followed Maccath down below the castle and raided the original lair of Old White Death on Oyaviggaton, barely making it out in time.
The dragon’s fall
- The session picked up right where the previous one left off..
- Above the party, the dragon’s body turned and fell, Pliny’s arrow striking true.
- As the body touched down, there was a blast of energy.
- The party saw white. The brightest white they’d ever seen. And cold. The coldest cold they’d ever felt. They felt that energy in their very souls.
- <They leveled up. They got a long rest.>
- They were invigorated, like the greatest ice bath in the history of the world.
Silence
- There was the blast of energy. Then silence.
- Eerie silence.
- The frost settled, leaving nothing but a small whistle of wind.
Crack
- A few moments later, they felt, more than heard, a cracking. And rumbling.
- Over the next few moments, they realized that the giant iceberg, below them, which was as solid as an island just moments ago, was slowly beginning to break apart.
On the run
- It took Maccath about fifteen seconds, before she put two-and-two together: “The books! We need to save the scrolls!”
- She started running, the swirl of her unseen servant following, heading for the staircase to the caves below.
Following
- The party took their time shrugging and deciding what to do. And then followed.
- Down the stairs, they looked for Maccath. They burned time but found nothing in the main vault where Maccath’s books and the dragon eggs were originally kept.
- A smart check for footprints made them realize that she had not been there recently.
- The party backtracked and continued down the spiral starcase.
Ice stairs
- Below, the steps were cut into the wall of the chute, creating steep, icy stairs that dropped down 100 feet in a tight spiral, that became increasingly obscured by frost as the party descended.
- First one, then another, slipped, causing Aegar and Pliny to fall ass-over-teakettle down the stairs and past the sturdy 20’ ladder to the icy bottom of the rectangular chamber below.
- While at the bottom, the iceberg shook with another tremor, dropping ice chunks and frost from the ceiling. The party managed to avoid damage… for now.
Exploring
- The lower caves were huge, and carved of ice, the floors glass-smooth and slippery.
- The passages were at least 15 feet wide, and ceilings 20 feet high or greater.
- Vapor rolled along the caves and pooled into fog at the low points of the caverns., limiting and obscuring visability.
- The walls were intricately carved with draconic imagery, pillars, cornices, filigrees, buttresses, leering dragon faces, and other decorative flourishes, though the quality varied widely.
- The interior of Oyaviggaton was filled with dim light by whale-oil lamps, presumably kept filled and lit by the denizens of the caves.
- Once leaving the entryway to the lower caves, the party circled left and down.
- The iceberg continued to tremor periodically, with increasing ferocity and danger from the ice chunks above.
Kobolds
- The party passed a cave of kobolds to the right of the tunnel unnoticed (using the rumbling of the breaking ice to cover their sounds)
Trophy Hall
- To the left of the tunnel, a grand chamber was filled with fog, limiting visibility.
- Upon inspection, trophies of Arauthator’s many battles were displayed in this chamber.
- They party ovserved, frozen in death, two remorhazes, a trio of behirs, five abominable yetis, and a giant squid of jaw-dropping size.
- A complete longship with sail raised was also on display at the far end of the room.
- As they approached Pliny could see that it was a reconstruction of some sort, with mistakes in the rigging and hull planking.
- Atop the deck was an open chest, apparently filled with gold and jewels.
- The party chose to focus on finding Maccath and did not risk any traps.
- Ironically, exiting the room, Pliny leaned against the frozen wall, and brought down a sizable part of the ceiling and wall. It was not immediately clear whether the breaking iceberg had weakened the wall, or if this was a trap set by the dragon against intruders.
The Chute
- Continuing down the hall, the air began to feel far colder, with the next passage to the right clearly being the source of the cold.
- The cold issued from a yawning pit in the floor that twisted down into darkness, and above which a heavy iron hook was anchored in the ice of the ceiling. A five-foot-wide walkway extended around both sides of the pit, connecting this entrance to an exit across the room. Carved into the ice of the walls were images of white dragons in flight.
- With Maccath’s footprings continuing on, the party did not investigate.
Maccath’s shelter
- Passing through another huge room, the party found that the empty ice floor of the next chamber held a most unexpected sight. A large shelter, seemingly built of scraps, and in the style of the tents used by the desert nomads of Calimshan, some two thousand miles to the south.
- The shelter was made from huge tapestries and carpets draped across a frame of whale ribs, and stood 8 feet tall, 20 feet wide, and 30 feet long. The bottoms of the walls draped down onto the ground, leaving no gaps underneath. The tent had no obvious entrance.
- The party pulled aside a flap and entered. The interior of the shelter was surprisingly warm, thanks to a small stove and simple lamps burning aromatic whale oil. Carpets were heaped on the floor in thick layers, and tapestries from every culture in Faerûn hung suspended from a sturdy frame of whale ribs.
- A bookshelf and reading stands made of hide and whalebone sat empty. The only furnishings in the shelter not made from these natural materials were the carpets and tapestries, and a portable writing desk that appeared to have been taken from a sailing ship.
- This was clearly Maccath’s living quarters before the castle landed and provided more hospitable accommodations. But she was nowhere to be found.
- Rustling in the next chamber sent the party racing.
Scriptorium
- Though this chamber is deeper than the adjacent caverns, no mist hangs in the air here.
- Three shelves stood in this otherwise empty cavern, cobbled together out of salvaged wood, whale bone, pieces of giants’ armor, and even the frozen limbs of yetis. A number of scrolls, books, parchments, and folios were carefully arranged on the shelves, all bearing the markings of magical writing.
- Maccath was there, organizing the writings.
Negotiation
- A complex negotiation ensued, with Maccath threatening to not leave until all of the writings were saved, and the party insisting that they would all die if they stayed.
- In the end, the party ended up with the writing in Pliny’s bag of holding and allied with the ice toad Marfulb and 11 of her clan in a quest to gather the horde of The Old White Death, while Maccath ran up to get the castle ready to fly along with a promise to wait for the party.
Ice trolls
- In the process of allying with Marfulb and the ice toads, the party successfully snuck past some nasty looking ice trolls.
Taking risks
- The party balanced the risk of posed by the increasing tremors with the value provided by collecting from the horde.
- In the end, they chose to escape having taken quite a beating from the breaking ice, but with a substantial total of Aurathor’s horde, both in Pliny’s bag of holding and in the arms of several ice toads (including the chest from the longship above)
The session ended with the castle lifting off, the iceberg below crumbling into the ocean…
Loot
- The horde of the Old White Death
NPCs Interacted With
- Maccath the Crimson
- Marfulb (the ice toad leader)
- ice toads
Locations Visited
- Skyreach Castle and caves on Oyaviggaton
Experience Per Character
| 68 |
Kobolds |
TBD |
600 |
600 |
600 |
600 |
| 68 |
Negotiating with Maccath |
TBD |
600 |
600 |
600 |
600 |
| 68 |
Looting |
TBD |
600 |
600 |
600 |
600 |
|
Total |
Total |
1800 |
1800 |
1800 |
1800 |
End