DMDC 20 - Water Chill and Cauldron Bubble

Twitter: @dmdcpodcast
E-mail: dmdiscoursepodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Hey! It’s Darrell, aka Sunny, your resident dungeon master and host of the show.

Before I jump into the episode, I just wanted to bring up that it’s been some time since the last episode, well over a year and a half. For those of you who were listening to the series about the current campaign, Rime of the Frostmaiden, there’s no getting around the fact that the book took a backseat within the group and we didn’t touch it shortly after this episode’s recap. Busy schedules, unexpected life events - if you’ve been in the hobby for a while, you know how it goes. The usual things coming up in the face of weekly game night.

So the campaign lost momentum, between folks dropping and missing sessions, and we took a break - a long break, not as long as between episodes here but long enough that when we were ready to meet up again there wasn’t the drive to keep going with this adventure. Ultimately, that’s a shame because I feel like, as a DM, there’s a lot to sink your teeth into with Rime of the Frostmaiden, lots of sandbox fun just waiting for you to flesh out and your players to explore.

We did start playing again, however - thankfully, the group did not simply call it quits and move on. We brought back the campaign that brought our haphazardly assembled Discord server together in the first place - my homebrew campaign, What Lurks Below.

Of course, things still came up. As much as I’d love to say we got to spend hours playing every week, that wasn’t the case. But there’s a real joy in the homebrew game that kept us going, adding to that storyline all these years after the first group of player characters got together in the swamp town of Fenskeep.

That’s what this show will be returning I think. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought in the time between this and the previous episode, even with this episode’s script sitting around for months waiting to be recorded. There’s a lot of archive stuff I have for the game that, at one point, took up three nights of a week for me, and now that it’s been nearly five years since the first session, probably a good place to go for bringing up lessons and sharing the kind of experience that brings me back to the table.

Because that’s what I want to do with this show itself - pass on what I’ve learned from playing these games I love, with people I adore, spending time plucking characters from our imagination to craft stories that I know will stay with me… forever. I hope you’ll pardon the sudden burst of sentimentality.

It’s definitely been a while, and from wherever you are, whether you’re listening for the first time or coming back after my long hiatus - thanks for listening. I hope you’ll like what you hear, and stick around for new episodes coming up in the future. For those of you who were invested in the happenings of the Frostmaiden campaign, I hope those episodes about running Against the Cult of the Reptile God were at least decent enough that you’ll hang around to hear me gush about the homebrew game some more. In the meantime, I’ll do my best regarding this campaign’s abrupt, yet eventual, ending.
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“Remind me whose idea it was to accept this job in the first place?” Tessa said. The cold wind off the surface of Lac Dinneshere had gotten into her bones despite her best attempts and keeping warm. “Because I’ll never forgive you for saying we should come out here.”

Tivesk smirked. “Are you sure it wasn’t you princess? Chasing tales from that little bard at the inn about sunken treasure? What better way to add to stories than a pile of gold at your feet.”

The aasimar blushed, the reddest spot now her flushed cheeks. “I don’t think I should be the one getting fingers pointed at! After all,” she huffed, “the group of you were about to leave me to go off on your own.”

“A shame we didn’t,” Jorora said. Her head was all wrapped and there were many places in the Underdark just as frigid as here, but she had never taken a liking to it and it did nothing to assuage her tongue.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Jorora began, and turned to face Tessa. “That it was a shame we didn’t. You’re a lot more pleasant to deal with when you’re sleeping so we thought it better to leave you like that.”

Before a retort could come her way, John stood up in the boat between them. “My friends,” he said, “let’s not start the day off in a foul mood, at least not amongst ourselves. Whatever does await us in this cave will do a fine job of that. Please, let us all sit and prepare for the dangers ahead.”

The rest of the morning passed in silence until they came upon the first abandoned boat. From there, it was a short order to find the others along the store. It bobbed, untethered, in the water amid some small ice floes, not far from the eight-foot-high cliffs that abutted the shoreline. The mouths of four caves dotted the snowy cliffside, a short walk from the boat. 

Micah was the first to inspect the vessel, and confirm the set of oars in it. “This may belong to the fishers the captain had told us about,” she said, then turned to the caves before them. “There are no tracks on the ice, but I cannot imagine they would have gone elsewhere this far out from town.”

“Great,” Tessa said, and began to walk towards the caves at a brisk pace. “I’ve had enough of this weather for a lifetime.”

“Well bear with it a little longer,” Tivesk said, eyes cast upward to the sky. “Looks like we have company.”

The others looked to see where their hobgoblin wizard did, and saw a pair of harpies descending upon them. They drew steel and made ready for battle.

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The group left Easthaven early, before dawn if light was capable of piercing the Frostmaiden’s spell. For now it was another gloomy morning, all the same as when they retired the night before. They had accepted the quest from Captain Arlagaath to investigate the case of some missing anglers that had been last seen a tenday ago. This far out, it’s dangerous to be gone from the safety of town walls for so long so she figured it best to seek out a group of adventurers capable of handling such an encounter. Turns out the group who came in from Bryn Shander, the Rimebreakers as they were beginning to fashion themselves, would do just fine.

The first task would be procuring a boat. None of the party members were anglers themselves or just carrying a rowboat around in the inventory, so they made a quick exchange at the dock to procure one from a couple of early risers looking to get a jump on whatever fish were swimming in the waters at this hour. After all, angling required being out for hours in the stillness and freezing cold of the lake to net a fine catch of knucklehead trout. The group paid the anglers to use their boat, although I’m sure they could’ve just taken one if they wished - it wouldn’t have been hard to find one and sneak away with it. This group, though, were starting to grow more into heroes than scoundrels, and weren’t looking to tarnish their reputation any more than had transpired the previous night.

Tessa caught up with them along the water just as they were about to head out as well, but all that was just the player showing up a bit later in the session, unsure if they would even make it to the game. Again this goes back to my approach of not particularly wanting to run player characters during a game, and instead just giving them some kind of side task to busy themselves with off-screen. Funny enough I ended up having to run a player character ever since we got my back to my homebrew campaign, but I’ll tell you guys about that one another time.

So we were at full strength that night, which was great because I don’t believe I had any plans at all for rebalancing the encounters in the Cauldron Caves. The caves themselves ended up being a solid delve, both thematic and not too overpowering for a group of level two characters still making their rounds in the early part of the adventure. There’s some cool lore and a solid encounter at the end that gives them a few options for how they wish to handle it. However they had to deal with your usual entryway encounter - in this case, just a couple of harpies.

Always good to have some kind of encounter at the beginning of a dungeon, and I think there’s a couple ways you can handle it. If you want to lean into it being a more explorative dungeon, you could opt for a roleplay or puzzle encounter, but if it’s what I guess you could call a traditional dungeon then a combat encounter is a good way to go. Plus it can give you an idea of what your players are capable of throwing at you, which, I’m going to be honest, I have a terrible time remembering what my players are capable of and I play digitally so I can even look at their character sheets at any point!

They made short work of the harpies, which I figured would be the case anyway in a five versus two situation. Harpies aren’t even the most deadly of creatures, carrying just a challenge rating of one, but that wasn’t really the point of an encounter this early on - just a test of their resources and capabilities, maybe getting them to spend a spell slot or two. If you intend on just throwing them at a single encounter when they’re fully prepared you may want to have a phase two (or sometimes, three) planned in case it swings so heavily in their favor you find the gravitas of the moment undone by a single cast of the die. Of course, nothing wrong either with you letting the players feel victorious in the face of their adversary - your players intend to win in some capacity, and while I’m not at all advocating for a “players versus dungeon master” explicit style of game, I encourage you to take it as your solemn duty to bring joy to the table for your players to partake in.

I may have diverged from where the original narrative of this was going, but that may also have to do with spending months between this script. Getting back to the harpies, who were swiftly brought low, the party approached the cauldron caves before them. It was here that the evidence of the missing anglers had led them, and they were greeted by a choice of caves to explore. Three were along the higher ground, up twenty or thirty feet from the frozen ice to solid earth of the cave, and a fourth to the south, where the ice continued inward. The party chose this lattermost option, and took care whilst trekking the hazardous floor. Thankfully, for the group, there wouldn’t be any combat encounters along the ice, short of them dragging an enemy out from their hideout and into the open.

Except one, of course, since it does you well to always dangle the ax over their heads when hoping to encourage tension for your dungeoneers. Further up the frozen river, they came upon a small waterfall that held a dormant water weird beneath the thin ice. In order to bypass the creature lurking beneath the waterfall, each of them would need to make an DC10 Athletics check, otherwise the ice would break and the monster emerge - but their luck held. Each came over the waterfall with ease, assisting those behind, and continued their exploration of the cavern.

They went through a hall to their east, just above the waterfall, where the freeze gave way to ground, and went up a short, crudely carved staircase to a small ossuary. Fresh blood littered the floor, seen by the slatted light that shone through the fissures above the room, and it was spread amongst innumerable bones: trout spines, humanoid skeletons, and bones of smaller creatures, along with scraps of clothing and armor and a few rusty weapons.

As the party took to examining the various remains, another surprise waited immediately before them in the piles: a frost giant skeleton, partially encased in ice. This design is intentional. If the party realizes the danger, and chooses to retreat, the two rounds that the undead behemoth spends breaking from its prison should be enough time for them to retreat. If they’d rather face the danger though, as brave adventurers are inclined, that’s two rounds of asskicking the giant can do little to interfere with. While the creature is statted to be for a higher party level, the default 102 hit points it comes with are barely a challenge for those capable of dishing damage out in quick bursts.

The fleshless hunk of marrow was made into a silent pile in the first few rounds of combat. The party continued digging around the scattered bits in the room and put together what they suspected: the blood was that of the missing anglers, but it did not seem likely that it was the undead giant who caused their deaths. No, what led to their demise must’ve been a more sinister creature, and the party would find that to be the truth soon enough.

Before that could transpire, though, Tessa traced her steps back to the ice river and continued along it, finding that it met with the ossuary down a later shared corridor. A handy thing to notice, should things become more dire for them than their previous foe. She also took note of what appeared to be a submerged grave - bones of other frost giants entombed beneath the ice where the water grew deep enough to hold them. The pool shone a cloudy, bright blue under the light pouring in from an opening above, illuminating the spring’s silent partakers. From here, the river’s path went north, to an underground passage no longer navigable given the season’s events. At the other end of the area, another opening, whose other side would meet with the ossuary. The group came up with a plan to split themselves, a few behind and in front, so that whatever danger lurked behind could be caught unawares in part.

They were wise to do so. The sea hag, Maud Chiselbone had taken up residence in the caves to use as her lair, to prey upon whatever passerbys may come through. Her most recent victims, the anglers of Easthaven, had been butchered atop a stone block for her cauldron. Heaped around were rusty watches and the flayed corpses. She first attempted to greet the party in the guise of a decrepit old woman, a trick hags often employ to take advantage of a newcomer’s kindness. She learned quickly this would not work on the adventurers. She doffed the illusion, revealing her sickly grayish-purple flesh, unblinking bulging eyes, and stringy black hair interwoven with fingerbones. A terrible sight, but one the party would not cower from.

A fight ensued, and as mentioned earlier, their idea for a pincer maneuver proved invaluable. A will-o-wisp had hidden in the cavern, waiting for its mistress hag to call upon it, but with a steady stream of arrows from behind and the sword slinging before them, it was made short work of alongside Maud Chiselbone. There is one mention of her attempting escape, although I can’t recall if she was able to, given how long it's been. It’s a familiar trick - she offered the group a chest of gold from the bottom of the lake of Lac Dinneshire, the fabled gold the party had heard of the night before in the tavern from the halfling bard’s seance. “Let me live,” she says, “and the treasure shall be yours!” Her cries fell on deaf ears, however - Maud Chiselbone lay dead shortly after, selfsame with the victims of her cauldron.

And it was this cauldron of plenty that would, in turn, be a magical reward for the party. A handful of encounters, not all of them necessarily combat, a climactic finale, and an enchanted treasure to top off a day’s adventure. After clearing out the lumps of flesh and organs from the weighty instrument, the group rolled the cauldron back to the boat with intent to return to town. The cauldron itself is a neat artifact - the book describes it as made of a thick copper that has turned green with age. It sits roughly 4 feet wide, a mouth of 3 ½ feet in diameter, and about 50 pounds. Embossed on its bulging sides are images of satyrs and nymphs in repose, holding ladles. The cauldron itself comes with a lid, has side handles, and five clawed feet to keep it from tipping. It’s capable of providing a hearty, hot stew which can provide one nourishing meal for up to four people per gallon. This item can be used three times, resetting its function each dawn. A handy item, certainly, for any group traversing the snowy landscape of the Dale - but the party will soon find other uses for it in the days ahead, as they turn attention north along the shores of Lac Dinneshire, seeking quests elsewhere in the Ten Towns.

As always thank you for listening! You can find me @DMDCPodcast or send an email to dmdiscoursepodcast@gmail.com. If you like the show you can subscribe to it on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts, and if you really like it tell a friend or two to check it out. Love y’all, have a great week.