Daemonium - Brave Surviver!! Session 14: Adventures in Mirror Mountain

Characters:

Za'vak Al-Hadim - Level 3 Paladin/Level 1 Fighter
Gene Erikson - Level 4 Fighter
Vamp Testy, The Monkey Sympathizer - Level 4 Monk

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Huzzah! A session report! As I've just created my bodacious blog you, dear reader, must roll with the punches and jump right into this campaign with little context. The Emperor Regulus, leader of the Aeon Empire, is attempting to conquer the world. The party is made up of individuals that have, for various reasons, joined the Kingdom of Cashua's rebellion against Aeon. Will they manage to survive?

The game is run using 5e. In terms of rulings and play procedures, I take a lot from OSR games and FATE. I'd say there's a pretty good balance between gameplay and roleplay, with some players focused a little more on one or the other.

In our last episode, Za'vak the Paladin accidentally burnt a child to death in the city of Portia. While some gods may weigh intent as more important than results in terms of ethics, Torm prioritizes the latter.  Thus, Za'vak was stripped of his powers. While the party is supposed to escort Princess Hildebrandt of Cashua to the hidden Wood Elf Kingdom to negotiate an alliance, one of the player's couldn't make it so they opted to investigate Mirror Mountain. A priest named Egar told Za'vak that he could make direct contact with Torm at the centre of this mountain. Should Za'vak fulfill this quest, he will earn a level up. I'm a big fan of having a party with differing levels, so each character is entitled to earn up to two level ups by fulfilling personal goals in Daemonium. This idea came from a Matt Colville video, though here the Quest system takes on its own flavour.

Okay! The session begins and the party heads to Mirror Mountain. I needed to keep it contained to the session, so I skipped any preamble. No encounter rolls or anything on the way there. Mirror Mountain is right in the centre of Ambern, the western continent the party is currently on. The snow and wind chilled our heroes to the bone as they marched up the mountain.

Inside, they were faced with an ancient door with 7 runes written in the language of Giants. Way back when, Ambern was populated by Giants. Humans often lived under their thrall and, for some families that follow the old ways, Giant is still spoken. Gene, the only native Cashuan, is able to understand Giant for this reason. The runes provided no clues, however. Within the room the party found a boulder crushing a dead wizard, with a scroll trapped underneath. I had written that rolling this boulder out of the way would be quite noisy and cause the neighbouring orcs to investigate... However, Za'vak was quite clever and instead lifted the boulder just enough for Vamp to grab the scroll. It was a Scroll of Darkness! Nice, but none of the party can use it currently. I'm sure the party's Bard, Redmond, will find some devious way to apply it.

The room had another door to the east. Za'vak poked his head in and saw a large room populated by Orcs. The reaction roll was moderate, so the Orcs took defensive positions. From his past life as a caravan raider in his home of Aharas, Za'vak had learned to speak Orcish and so was able to negotiate. He paid out 100gp of Vamp's money, and demanded some collateral from the Orcs to ensure they wouldn't ambush the party. The Orc leader gave his son, Jerp (Or something... The player's purposefully mispronounced his name so much I've forgotten what it really was), and told them to return Jerp at the end of their journey. Importantly, Za'vak noticed that the Orc leader had stored Za'vak's coins in a Bag of Holding!! Anyway, Jerp squeaked and the party moved on.

In the meanwhile, Gene had translated a stone tablet found by a skeleton in the room that explained the solution to the runes on the door. One must speak them out in the correct order. Mechanically, this required an Investigation roll of 20 or higher. Unlimited tries were permitted, but each failure would cause an encounter roll (1 on a d6). Gene nailed it, and solved the puzzle in short order.

The party was faced with a fork in the road, a fancy door to the north and a simple wooden door to the east. They went north and, along the way, picked up some Oil of Slipperiness in an old jug. The door opened into a large temple with a domed ceiling made of crystal. Small stone seats, featuring skeletons still in prayer, sat below a large statue of Torm. In his left hand he held a torch which burned with a blue flame, his right arm was missing its hand. The light caused the crystal ceiling to shine brilliantly. Ledges with some stairs leading up to them sat to the left and right of the statue (Why? So archers could show up there, that's why!).

The party was wary of the obvious skeleton trap. Za'vak, in an act of faith, decided to strip himself of his armor and pray in front of the statue. This would've worked completely fine, but Gene and Vamp wanted to stay beside their friend, and advanced armed and ready. A voice rung out, bidding the two unfaithful ones to leave, and battle began against 7 Skeletons, a ghost enemy, and two Skeleton Archers.

The fight was pretty straightforward. Vamp's punches really walloped the skeletons due to their vulnerability to blunt damage, while Gene rolled very poorly and failed to hit for, like, the first half of the fight. The ghost was able to cast enlarge/reduce and hold person, and managed to grow a skeleton. Only Vamp had a magic weapon, the double sided blade Foe Slayer, and used it to take out the ghost before it cause too much havoc. Vamp was lucky to dodge its attacks, as it would have reduced his max HP until a long rest.

After a turn, Za'vak got up and was able to join the fight. This helped to turn the tide further, and the party emerged victorious. The best moment was when Gene made an Athletics check to add a special effect to an attack where he got boosted up by Vamp and then drop kicked the enlarged skeleton who fell backward and destroyed the ledge one of the Skeleton archers was on.

Jerp died in this fight and, luckily, the players did not have to deal with the Orcs on their way out (because the session ended... that's pretty much the only reason).

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While praying to the statue, I really emphasized the missing hand to Za'vak. The party correctly figured it was the key needed to advance. So, they headed down to the east from the previous, T-shaped junction and reached a long room that was narrow in the middle. The middle section was about an inch lower than the front and back of the room, and the walls of this middle section were covered in blood. Exactly in the middle, arranged in a thin line, was a pile of rubble that was difficult to identify. Behind the player, was a large tablet that said "Beware those who lack courage." So, this room is a Crusher trap. Once someone walks about half way through the narrow portion of the room, the walls quickly smash together. The party did not immediately identify this, so Za'vak decided to move cautiously to investigate the rubble in the middle. This was a mistake and he failed his Dex save to run back to safety. His hand got caught in the trap, and was crushed as a result. Za'vak poured a healing potion on it, which I ruled gave temporary use of the hand (I wanted them to finish this adventure lol).

Gene wanted to just try sprinting ahead, but Vamp stopped him. I'm glad this was the case, as Gene would've had to make a Dex Save or die to make it, while Vamp is fast enough to do without. Vamp got across and pulled a lever to deactivate the trap. Nice! In this room, the players missed a secret door. The stone tablet could be pushed to the side to reveal a hall that leads to the Orc room at the start.

Next up were two exits, one heading up stairs into the light, and the other leading toward a low mumbling. Gene walked toward the mumbling, and recognized Giant words. It appeared to be a Giant rehearsing love poems. After a positive reaction roll and some negotiation from Gene, they convinced the friendly Giant to help them out. In order to live in this temple, the Giant dug into the ceiling and made a space inside in which he could live. Using the hole in the ceiling, the Giant could see the end of a narrow walkway built into the side of the mountain which leads to the end of this portion of the dungeon. The Giant said that he saw previous adventurers who went through here get pushed off that ledge by living statues. So, the party convinced him to throw them to the large stone platform at the end of the walkway. The Giant did so, and bid farewell to his new friends.

After taking some fall damage, the party took stock of their surroundings. Only two features were present on this large stone platform: an archway and an extraordinarily old man kneeling in prayer. Za'vak approached and decided to touch the old man on the shoulder. He turned, looked at Za'vak with fright, and immediately turned to ash. Meditation, it seemed, was keeping him alive. At that, the sky darkened and a griffon flew down to the platform with a roar. It puffed its chest out, challenging the players. Za'vak made the correct decision and kneeled in reverence. At that, the Griffon started choking on an object, and collapsed to the ground. Za'vak reached down the creature's throat and pulled out a gauntlet with markings of Torm! Just the thing needed for the statue room. 

The trip back was uneventful. They took a short rest in the Giant's room and did battle with Rust Monsters. Gene managed to get one of the Rust Monsters in the crusher trap which was pretty cool. Putting the gauntlet on the statue caused it to move backward, revealing a hole underneath. The party ventured down and found a glittering cave made of pure crystal. The far wall was made of perfectly smooth crystal that made a perfect mirror. Za'vak looked into and saw a vision of his past as a Bandit: he saw his old self in the mirror wearing bloodstained robes and wielding two scimitars. A pitch black opening was created in the mirror and the party entered to find themselves face to face with a Shadow Za'vak. Boss time!

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Shadow Za'vak:
HP: 80 AC: 14 Atk +6 Dmg d6+2
Multiattack and Dual Weapon Attack (3 total attacks per turn). Bonus Action can also be used to Dash/Disengage 40ft away (Though this never came up).
Reactions: Warding Slash (Can use an opportunity attack on approaching foes. If hit, they cannot act)
Spells: Possess x2

On top of this, Shadow Za'vak had various special moves. Once he took 25 damage, he exploded into sand. A colosseum erupted around the players, and they had to search the colosseum for his location while being pelted with arrows from Shadow Za'vak's bow. At 50 damage, he entered a Blade Dancer stance which increased his AC to 16. Each time he dodged a melee attack, he used a spin slash that did 2d6 (Dex save for half) damage to everyone surrounding him. It also knocks down his foes on a failed save. At this point, the players had to stop surrounding and either use ranged attacks to avoid the spin slash or attack assists to gain advantage to make sure their hits landed. Za'vak, at this point, decided to attack anyway and got knocked out by the Spin Slash. Right at the end of the fight, Gene (The only one left standing) tackled Shadow Za'vak off the Colosseum and they both took enough fall damage to be knocked out. Gene ended the fight before S. Za'vak could launch his strongest attack, which cuts off a limb on a hit. 

The boss design worked pretty well! The player's probably would've won without cutting it so close if Za'vak didn't spend a few turns trying to grapple at the start of the fight. Grappling in 5e is, like, weirdly shitty and is mostly good for limiting movement. The only other big mistake was trying to attack the blade dancing Shadow Za'vak in melee even after identifying his pattern.

Had the party lost, no one would have died as this was a dream world of sorts. Instead, the consequence would have been that Shadow Za'vak would be unleashed onto the world and would begin haunting Za'vak.

After winning the fight, Za'vak got to communicate directly with Torm. Doing so revealed some story stuff (The emperor Regulus is plane hopping and eliminating the gods, oops) and gave Za'vak a shit ton of power ups. Namely, a +2 weapon, a level up, and the Dual Wielder feat (He remembered his old fighting style). Cool! 

For a dungeon I wrote up in about 40 minutes, Mirror Mountain was pretty fun. I think I should have maybe leaned into a cool mirror gimmick, in retrospect, but whatever. I tend to favour less linear dungeons, but thought that presenting it as a series of challenges for our Paladin to overcome made sense given the context. MVP was definitely Vamp, who killed the shit out of everyone, solved the lethal trap, and called Jerp by Gerp every single time (Vamp also wanted to use Jerp's body to activate the Crusher trap, and then run through while it reset which would have also solved the puzzle). Next session report will be shorter: this one has lots of detail so Redmond/Helmut, the missing characters, can catch up on the deets.

Session Notes:

- Monk is usually kind of underpowered, but they tear through skeletons due to punches dealing Blunt Damage. Also, being able to punch Rust Monsters is handy. This is also the first time the Foe Slayer's ability to act as a boomerang came in handy.

- I think I'll make Za'vak's +2 Gauntlet of Torm have some conditions tied to it so that he can't just bust it out all the time. +2 is really fuckin good at this point, and Za'vak already has an extra level on everyone else.

- Za'vak being out of Paladin powers was actually lots of fun. He's typically probably the strongest member of the party but the player did a really good job of running the Paladin without any special abilities. For the next little while, though, Za'vak's hand is going to be broken which blows.

- I'm surprised the party was just, like, not interested in the Bag of Holding.

- Skill checks in dungeon crawls are handled more like OSR procedures, just using 5e's skill system. Difficulty class is almost always 15 and rarely 20. I don't call for checks often in dungeons, unless the players have no way to describe their solution to problems diegetically. Otherwise, the main cost for most "interactions" within the dungeon is just time and an encounter roll. Light is not tracked, and it basically seems like the party just kind of glows lol. I could for sure be better about this kind of thing. Rations also don't really matter, though that will change when hex crawlin' begins.

- Combat in 5e takes too long lol. This is in part due to HP bloat but is, more so, due to the number of choices players can make. 5e guys are a lot more complicated than B/X guys! I think the HP bloat is actually largely countered by bounded accuracy and the higher damage character's deal. The "decision fatigue" is real though, and makes 5e a bit better as a set piece battle game than a dungeon exploration game.