Want to help? Consider becoming a Patreon.

• Adrian Silverstrength (Human Paladin)
• Morsus Firebeard (Hill Dwarf Cleric)
• Sephrenia (High Elf Cleric)
• Ragnaroc (Aasimar Warlock)
• Don Kannin (Half-Elf Ranger)
• Korra (Air Genasi Rogue)

Current NPCs traveling with the party:

• Pren Flintrock
• Gor Hammerstine
• Bran Homeforge
• Dran Homeforge

Connected Adventures: Adventure 14, Adventure 15, Adventure 16, Adventure 17, Adventure 18, Adventure 19, Adventure 20 and Adventure 21.

The party had reached the mouth of the Basilik cave (better known as The Crystal Caverns) where they speak to Pren Flintrock, Gor Hammerstine, Bran Homeforge and Dran Homeforge and learn that the crystal caverns were once mined by the Dwarves, since smelting the crystals down (once crushed to powder) would add a noticeable protective sheen to the weapons and armors that they forged. However, several basiliks took interest in the crystals – which was odd – since Basilisks are normally territorial creatures – and despite the best efforts of the dwarves, the Basilisks, once they began devouring the crystals seemed to reproduce at an incredible rate, and before long the majority of the cavern was overrun by what the dwarves called “a slaughter of basilisks.”

• Don Kannin is able to surmise that the Basilisks were drawn to the crystals and that fighting multiple basilisks is going to prove extremely dangerous
• The party devises a plan to try and lure one of the basilisks out and use Korra’s knowledge of poisons to try and give the party a much needed edge
• Korra manages to make a cure to paralysis first, before attempting to make one to cause it; manages to make it, and another poison, but fails to make two others
• Morsus decides to send his bat into the cave to see what echo location might reveal; after a considerable amount of time, the bat finally returns and reveals it sees “several large reptiles, some small reptiles, and still humanoids”
• Morsus comes up with the idea of using an Unseen Servant spell and break off a crystal it could use to carry inside and try to lure the Basilisk out
• He hammers away at a crystal, making considerable noise, then begins Ritual Casting (10 minute casting time)
• Don Kannin goes scouting around the area, and upon returning – the party sees a young Owlbear cub following him around.

• The party is rather surprised by Don Kannin’s new “friend” who seems to be infatuated with Don Kannin
• Adrian keeps an eye out – and spots something move up along Death River

• Emerging from Death River are humanoid frogs (known as Bullywugs)
• Ten in total appear, the ones in the front holding nets, while the ones in the back throw spears and shoot arrows

• Adrian draws everyone’s attention to the approaching frog people
• Pren, Gor, Bran and Dran all recognize the frog people as “bullywugs” having encountered them numerous times during the mining excavations of the crystals before the basilisks took over the cavern and a fight immediately breaks out
• Ragnaroc launches an Eldrich Blast hitting one, while Korra moves along the thin shoreline and finds a show to strike from, throwing her dagger, striking another one
• Not wanting to move too far from Morsus, who was still entranced casting his ritual spell, Adrian attempted to intimidate the bullywugs; but the bullywugs, generally not speaking Common did not know what Adrian was saying, and they still had all their numbers, so they were still feeling… froggy, if you will.
• Don Kannin launched a volley of arrows using Hoard Breaker striking almost all five targets – except in his haste misfires one shot (Critical Fail on the last hit), and ends up misfiring, grazing Adrian on the neck (1 point of damage) who was standing in front of him
• Pren jumps in after the bullywugs, with no fear and manages to strike one (but in his haste, he wasn’t able to get a good grip on his handle due to it being wet now, and only manages to deal 1 point of damage) – but goes on to cheer how finally, with a Dwarven Crafted Weapon in his hand, he can finally hit something again!
• Sephrenia targets two with Acid Splash, but the bullywugs are able to make their Dexterity Savings Throws and avoid damage; but she then summons her spiritual hammer which resembles her goddess’ symbol – a floating, glowing tree with hundreds of roots, that slams one of the bullywugs for considerable damage!
• One of the Bullywug archers does manage to land an arrow into Sephrenia’s shoulder, having seen what she did to one of its tribe members
• Seeing that these creatures were not going to back down, and Gor, Bran and Dran seemed determined to not go in the water (and had no distance weapons), they would remain behind and defend Morsus should something come for him – so Adrian charged into the water, with his sword and shield and cut deeply into one of the bullywugs, once again trying to intimidate them, but they don’t seem to respond
• Don Kannin fires off an arrow and kills one of the wounded bullywugs
  • The owlbear cubling, seeing Don attacking the bullywugs, decides to swim out into the water and attacking the bullywugs as well!
• Sephrenia lands a critical hit, crushing the skull of one of the bullywugs, killing it
• Korra goes to throw a dagger, and slips on the edge of the embankment and accidentally misplaces her aim during the fall, striking Sephrenia – grazing her neck now, for only 1 point of damage
• Don Kannin fires a few more shots, landing hits each time, one of those strikes hitting for maximum damage
• The battle continues this way with the party clearing having the advantage, and Adrian again intimidates them, as they turn to flee when there’s only two left
• Adrian coming up with the idea of trying to lure them out by imitating a female bullywug (rolls a high nature check, 17) and “persuades” the bullywugs to return – however, what comes out of the water isn’t the two that are fleeing – but a larger, stronger, clearly more powerfully bullywug

• Immediately, Pren voices his concern when he says, “Oh no, it’s King Battletoad” indicating he was familiar with the large bullywug
• However, King Battletoad didn’t seem interested in fighting – seeing Adrian as the source of the “sexy female bullywug in distress” – King Battletoad wrapped his (loving) arms around Adrian (successfully grappling him)
• Adrian, seeing one of the nets of the dead bullywugs attempts to get his arm loose and throw it on King Battletoad, but in the process manages to tangle the net on the scabbard of his sword (beneath the water), then around his head, further entangling himself (Critical Fail on the “Attack”)
• Things begin to fall apart here, as Don Kannin fires an arrow – missing King Battletoad and striking Adrian in the back for 7 damage (Another Critical Fail)
• King Battletoad manages to successfully pull Adrian underwater, where he fails his first Constitution Check/Savings Throw and begins, officially drowning!
• Adrian attempts to jab King Battletoad in the eye, and ends up elbowing himself in the nose (Another Critical Fail)
• Calling upon her goddess, despite being at Disadvantage – Sephrenia lands a hit (both meeting the armor class – but one dealing maximum damage!) with Guiding Bolt, hitting King Battletoad for 18 points of damage! King Battletoad releases his new love interest and quickly swims away, allowing Adrian to resurface and catch his breath
• Adrian quaffs his last healing potion, healing for 6 points
• Morsus, now done casting the spell, and a bit surprised to see party members wet and wounded heals Adrian for another 8 points
• Sending the Unseen Servant in to scout along with his bat familiar, the Unseen Servant is only able to go a limited distance – and it does not reveal the presence of any basilisks

• Ragnaroc explains he will keep guard outside the cavern in case he spots the Drow Alchemist making his way back he can try to warn the party (Chris who controls the character actually had to leave so we decided to have him guard the outside of the cave)
• The party decides to move inside the cave to get a better view with the bat familiar Morsus has as well as the Invisible Servant. In doing so, they do manage to spot a strange pillar with runes on it.

• Don Kaninn checks for tracks and sees fairly recent tracks – based on the knowledge provided previously by Korra is able to deduce that it’s the Drow Alchemist – Goarus Doomsilk that Korra had spotted previously
• The party decides to approach the odd pillar – and takes not that the foot prints lead to one part, but seem to come out another.

• Sephrenia examines the runes and immediately recognizes it as the same runes she and Adrian had deciphered from the parchments – and quickly is able to discover, the pillar is a teleporting device. (Natural 20 on the Arcana Check!)
• Sephrenia is the only one who can successfully work the portal, so she will need to trace the runes correctly on the pillar, then the person who teleports will touch where she tells them to touch the portal – and she will have to teleport herself last
• The party debates on how to go about doing this, before Adrian finally volunteers to go through first
  • Note: From this moment on, I begin directly messaging the players who step through giving each of them a chance to look around and do things – but since these are direct messages, the rest of the party is unaware what’s going on – this was an excellent way to build suspense.

• Adrian immediately notices that there is remnants of a portal that’s been destroyed here, meaning there was no way from here to teleport back. Plus side, there were no basilisks around – but there was feces – some old, some fresh. Adrian attempted to check to see if he could tell if it was Basilisk feces, but his Survival check is too low.
  • Fun side note, since the rest of the party has no idea what’s happening since this is all done through direct messages, they simply see Adrian doing a Survival check (which was to try and identify the feces, but they don’t know that!)
• Don then appears through the portal – and Adrian tells Don, “Hey man, we’re screwed. There’s no way to teleport back. And there’s poop all around us.”
• Don states, “Calm down. Aren’t Paladins supposed to be brave?”
• Don then attempts to try and identify the poop – and he too fails – but the players now see him making a Survival Check (this was simply too fun, as a Dungeon Master!)
• Korra then appears through the portal and Adrian and Don fill her in on the busted portal back and the feces.
• Korra does a Survival Check and successfully identifies it as basilisk feces due to the crystal fragments found in the feces (learning from the dwarves earlier that the basilisks have been feeding on the crystals)
• Adrian says a simple, “Hrm” while screaming with his inside voice
• Morsus comes through next, and the others explain the busted portal and the basilisk feces
• Sephrenia picks up Don’s owlbear cub, traces the runes and teleports herself and the cub with the rest of the party
• Pren, Gor, Bran and Dran watch as she shimmers away, and says, “What about us?”
• At that exact moment Adrian asks, “Where are the dwarves?”
• Realizing she had forgotten to teleport them before her, she assumed they’d return to the mouth of the cave and hang out with Ragnaroc (this was such a hilarious moment, by the way!)
  • Now with the party reunited, everything resumes in the normal discord channel – but this was a lot of fun (for me!) to do
• The party tries to weigh their options; to the east they see quite a few basilisks, some sleeping, some slumbering along, some mating, some eating crystals – but it’s nearly nine of them, which would prove a large threat to the party
• They spot a way they can try to go around and use a wall and some other things to keep out of the basilisks view; however, those in heavy armor would be disadvantaged at moving stealthily – which would mean Adrian, Morsus and Sephrenia. With half the party at disadvantage, they decide it’s not worth the risk – though to the south east is where the young basilisks are, and could be much easier to kill and get a heart from
• Deciding to keep put for the moment, Morsus sends his familiar to scout around, and it eventually reports back –

• Curious what kind of “snake thing” might live in a cave full of basilisks, they come up with the idea of putting a ration in the Unseen Servant’s hands and going to area 1, to try and lure it through area 2, to area 3. But then decide, that’s going to prove too dangerous.
• They sent the bat to scout south of area 2 to see what’s there, since none of this cavern area looks familiar
• With that, they see the familiar mining shaft that was near the entrance, and where they’d spotted a few basilisk adults

• They develop a new idea of rather than going from the snake to the adult basilisks where they’re in their mating ground; to better go for one near the mining shafts that is out there simply eating crystals
• The first attempt has the Unseen Servant dropping the ration at the “snake creature’s” feet (or lack there of, considering it’s “snake like”) and returns to Morsus (Critical Fail on Animal Handling – just thought this would be fun)
• Morsus does it again – this time it lures the “snake creature” to where “area 2” was marked and drops it there, once again returning to Morsus (Critical fail on Animal Handling again – this is turning out funnier than I had intended, I admit!)
• A third attempt has the Unseen Servant leading it to a basilisk that’s off on its own; the snake creature lunges at the basilisk and begins fighting it! The party moves south near the rocks to observe the fight

• From here, the party has a clear view of the “snake creature”

• Don Kannin is able to identify the foul beast as a Grick, and knows these sightless beasts are nearly impossible to spot in a stone environment, and are considered incredible ambushers! The Gricks here have learned to feed off the basilisks, since they’re immune to their gaze, and their ability to camouflage perfectly against stone allows them to easily ambush and kill a lone basilisk usually.
  • Note: Rather than roll “to hits” on a monster vs monster fight, I had the party decide who would represent the Basilisk and who would represent the Grick, and whoever rolled higher won the fight. Mike, who plays Adrian said says he doesn’t always roll well he will take the role of the basilisk and Korra could take the Grick. Unfortunately, Basilisk representation rolled a 12 and the Grick representation an 8, meaning the Basilisk won the fight. I then had Mike roll a d10 – and he rolled a 7. What I didn’t let them know what that represented a % dice – so the basilisk was down 70% of its maximum HP from the fight with the Grick.
• The party decides to attack the wounded basilisk, which I mentioned was bloodied

• Don Kannin rolled a Natural 20 on his Initiative (as did Morsus), but with Don having the higher Dexterity – he goes first, using his Sharpshooter feat (which -5 to hit, but +10 damage) he rolls a total of 26 – so with the -5, a 21 – landing a hit with some bonus damage due to Hunter’s Mark. His second attack (house rule for Natural 20’s on Initiative get two actions) he lands a Natural 20 – Critical Hit slaying the Basilisk!
• The party rushes over – and now – they must make a successful Survival check to remove the heart without damaging it! After debating who should do it, Don, who is the best equipped to handle Survival checks does it – and successfully removes the heart, gathering another component needed for Nor’Orn’s cure to the Drow poison infecting the waters!
• The party, worn and tired from stress, meet Ragnaroc and the Dwarves (Pren, Gor, Bran and Dran) just inside the cave.