A single, if somewhat large, room with living bones and living spirits. The elementalist wipe out the living spirits with a well-timed vengeance. We can then focus on the immediate goal of slaying 10 living bones (they keep popping up each round).
Once it’s done (not a big feat), the Hungry Soul manifests itself. Oddly, the Hungry Soul is no big deal as it’s just a slightly stronger elite living bones (with a strong shield that diminish the more living bones there is). So all in all, an anticlimactic end to the Fall of Man thread.
Victory!
All three of us can now retire our characters, that’s pretty awesome!
We’re supposed to investigate a dragon sighting in the copperneck mountains, but more frivolous adventurers the world as never seen. We’ve sidetracked at the first occasion, in this case after seeing some odd writings on the walls of a cave mentionning a “voice”. Or rather: The Voice.
We start the scenario with our first encounter with drakes (of the rending variety) and oozes. The soothsinger immobilize the whole lot before the elementalist softens them up. I then finish the two leftmost drakes with a devastating swing of my battleaxe. The way is clear (mostly).
In the next room floats 4 living spirits with their annoying shields and all.
But they’re promptly zapped into oblivion by the elementalist.
Living spirit: “I think it’s our cue!” Living spirits in unison: *anguished wail*
3 more drakes. We manoeuver so that they’re bunched together and:
Boom! They’re disintegrated, just like that.
Things are so smooth & easy, we’re swaggering our way deeper into the echo chamber. We will pay the price for our overconfidence though…
Only one door to open to win the scenario, but at least one of us must survive the round and it now seems far from certain…
The elementalist goes down too but the soothsinger survives to win the day. With 1 hp!
That was an incredibly close call!
Upon verification, surviving the final round isn’t mandatory but that would have felt like cheating…
The drakes are hard-hitting but not very durable, glass cannons essentially.
I think this scenario should be fairly easy, with a sound plan, on most play
We’ve cleared the oozes without much sweat but the ancient artilleries in next room are another matter. The mindthief takes control of the Elite and make it move in the first room just as we release the pressure plate, trapping it behind the door! Nicely done!
Next, we had to manoeuver uncomfortably between stone golems, oozes and artilleries. Add to this living spirits, once we got to open two more rooms (with treasures!). The Elementalist stood ready to step on the last pressure plate as we’re finishing a last xp & gold grab.
Our first encounter with forest imps and aren’t they lil’ motherfuckers?! Ranged attacks that do curses? Annoying. Anyway, with the first few rounds that seemed like we weren’t doing anything useful, we managed to cut down the tree in the central area. I then split off to get to the tree to the right, as the Elementalist had mostly cleared the way for me, while the rest of the group went for the tree to the left.
Borborygm, joyfully swinging his axe at the oozing tree
Hey, we’ve unlocked a scenario with vermlings, at last!
The hounds facilitate our job by getting all bunched togetherElementalist: I’ll leave the rats for you, I swear! *Kill 2 vermlings” Mindthief: “GrrrRRRrr”Brute: “Hey, I need some back up!” 6 attacks later with a grand total of 4 damage “Oh, nevermind.”
The completion of Vermling Nest unlocked Payment Due. We have to find tokens dissiminated in two areas, one with damaging difficult terrain, and the other full of obstacles and deep terrors. Meanwhile, flame and earth demons keep popping up in the hallway so, no fooling around…
Scoundrel: “I’m melting!”
Our new member, the fast-moving scoundrel, takes on her to get the 3 tokens in the acid-filled room.
Brute: “What the hell are those things?!”
Deep terrors are brutal monsters. They’ve got range, annoying effects, and have retaliate to boot. The large room is difficult to navigate: rocks, columns, puddles, traps… The Cragheart would have done marvels, ahhh… The nimble Soothsinger gets the 2 tokens in the back while I get the other, not without taking many hits. Damn those tentacles!
Scoundrel: “Huh, guys?”
Once we got the tokens, we could open the hallway’s door and fight the Prime Lieutnant. This fight was a pushover, really. He wasn’t even a true Boss, c’mon! It’s not even deserving of a pic (my phone’s battery died just before the final fight, oops)!
The thing with dead people is that there’s so, soooo many of them. You just can’t take a wrong turn without stumbling upon a crypt. I mean, could they not just disappear or something? If at least they could stay dead dead but then, do they ever? They don’t! The stinking wretches just keep going on… Living Bones, Living Corpses, even Living Spirits. Living Spirit… What the hell does that even mean? Oh well, as long as I can hit them with my axe…
The soothsinger’s melody is so angst-filled that even the dead feel depressed…
The soothsinger’s immediate crippling chorus gives us time to prepare. I push the lone living corpse to get it in a perfect cluster for the elementalist’ next attack:
Soothsinger: “I’ve got first kill! I’ve got first kill!”
We mostly ignore the zombiesliving corpses that are oozing disgusting fluids everywhere since the elementalist’s ice-spiked them.
Three more living bones and three living spririts behind in the next room.
I jump in the middle of the living spirits to slash them with a devastating hack while the elementalist attacks the living bones with a (successful, yay!) chain-lightning.
Elementalist: “Could you help us finish those, please?” Brute: “I can’t hear ya! There’s too much moanin’ and singin’!”Brute: “For the Blood God!”
As I open the next door, a living spirit, a particularly dreadful one, blasts me with a necrotic ray that stuns me. That’s bad. Every damn monster in the room wants a piece of me. When I regain my senses, bleeding from many wounds, I lift my axe one last time and slay a living corpse before falling down on my knees. At least, the Blood God is pleased.
Elementalist: “Noisy, you’re still here?” Soothsinger: *Hit living bones with his lute* “Yes!”
With so many monsters left, the situation looks dire. But then the elementalist quickly kills 2 living spirits with a spell and then turns his attention to the stronger one:
And make it explode!
soothsinger, 5 rounds later: “I swear, this thing won’t f**cking die!”soothsinger: “Unless…”(bottom) “Get into this trap will you!”
Frantic lute-playing Victory Tune!
We did not reveal the other part of the crypt as there was no need
I burned through my cards waaaay too fast this time
the lvl 5 elementalist has been very, very efficient and saved the day
the soothsinger swamped the monsters in curses, we felt almost invicible, no kidding
(turn 2) Lets stir up the hornet’s nest…(turn 3) Is that it?(turn 4) ahh now we’re talking(turn 5) sun demon 2x damage OUCH!(turn 6) arent’ we a bit crowded now?(turn 7) dumbass flame demon puts a trap(turn 8) Brute: piercing battle-axe (huh?)(turn 9) Brute: “the Blood God is pleased, last round for me!”(turn 10) soothsinger: “crippling chorus for the win!“Elementalist: “I’ll jump head first into the spike trap and see what happens…”Soothsinger: *singing*” The demons are sucked in! Everyone’s dyin’. But me, I’m still standin’!”
Frantic lute-playing victory tune!
should not have put gold coins, the demons are spawns
the soothsinger’s crowd control did a lot for the last few rounds
the elementalist was unlucky again with his chain-lightning, needs eagle-eye goggle?
the elementalist commited suicide (sort-of) to help the soothsinger’s Life Goal…
we did a good job to protect Hail, she was attacked one time (or two?) and did not took any damage with the help of the soothsinger’s disorienting dirge
I left my tribe… What? Yeah Okay Fine. I was kicked out of my tribe- longstorydontask- and now I give strength of my arms for payment. I am Mer-Cy-Na-Ry. Got that?
Okay so nobody wants lone Inox, too troublesomy they say, so I found lil’ fellows to be reaver-band with. One a Quaetryl, his name Noisy Lucky-Charm. The other, a Savvas, name Rainbow Poof.
No, not true names you dimwit. Names I give. Suitable names.
Now understand that is first mission for me. One day I be Hero-Chief. But before that, lots of work, lots of killing and many scars to appease the Blood God .
But now first mission is us three walking with Ghost-Lady to bone-collecting place. She wants to find a magic censer that someone stupidly left there because they’re dead.
We have to protect Ghost-Lady , her dead means a bad name for us, the lil’ fellows tell me. Best way to do it? Kill everything in the way!
Where’s the Elementalist? Huh. Could you wait a moment please?Brute: “Pssstt… I’ll rush forward and skewer the 2 gloomy-stabbies with one thrust!” Cultist: “We’re right there, we can hear you…”Soothsinger: dliiiing dliiiing dliiiing “two coins for me”Soothsinger: “and two moooore!” Brute: “wut? leave some for Borborygm you lil’ bugger!”
Rainbow Poof opens the third room and wants to roast his foes with lightning but all he gets is a feeble spark (3 curses for his Chain-Lightning!).We all laughed at that, everybody, except annoyed Rainbow Poof…
Soothsinger to Hail: “Don’t worry, I’m here!” *adjusts his lute*
As me and Rainbow Poof fight Dead-Fleshies, Ghost-Lady is a little behind and followed close by the non-living. Noisy Lucky-Charm says he will protect her: “I will change tempo suddenly and the monsters will be immobilized”. I mean, what the hell, but it worked…
I push a dead-fleshy into a trap as Rainbow Poof blasts the other with magic and the way is clear for the altar room.
Soothsinger: “there’s too many of them!” Brute: “the Blood God will be pleased”
My battle-axe cuts great chunks of dead flesh and Rainbow Poof joins the fun as fire spews forth from his fingers toward the baddies.
Hail finally gets to the altar and takes Stonecrusher’s censer
Frantic lute-playing Victory Tune!
this escort mission was a lot of fun, nice change of pace
the soothsinger stacked our decks with bless cards and cursed the monster’s: incredibly useful
I did A LOT of damage with those bless and could kill elite living-corpses easily
his main song, his level 4 card, gives disadvantage to all attacks from the monsters, that’s amazingly strong
at one point we considered doing more vs the monsters behind but we didn’t (except the soothsinger a little) and it proved unnecessary
I have to be exhausted for my new Life Goal, I did it but we had to block Hail for 2 rounds (to get the treasure too)
the soothsinger looted 9 coins the greedy bastard :p
My ongoing D&D campaign is set in the jungles of Chult. I have the Tomb of Annihilation adventure book and while I don’t use its main plot *shudders*, I love the setting. I mean, I could very well have done the same thing with the old Isle of Dread module, but I didn’t know of its existence when I bought ToA. Anyway, I feel like ToA grafted a sandbox to something that wasn’t exactly meant for it. The PCs must find a specific location (the tomb duh) and have no real incentives to explore the fantastic locations on their way (not that there’s much of it tbh). More so, the players have this bigass map with the blanks… well unless you have a really dedicated cartographer player, it doesn’t see much use in my experience. Which is a shame.
In retrospect, what I would have liked is stickers. I’ve discovered the fun of it in my recent experience with legacy-type boardgames (gloomhaven, betrayal legacy).
As the Cragheart and I are discussing our upcoming retirement, it came to our attention that we will be remembered mostly as thieves and murderers. In a last-ditch effort to help our successors disentangle the mess we’ve created, we thought it would be a good idea to finally get some advice. Or rather, a sage in town will give us information if we go retrieve some kind of magic orb for her. So here we are, at the frozen hollow…
I remembered the hounds (from the diamond mine) to be faster that I could ever be and planned my actions accordingly but, maybe those are a little stiff from the cold or something, they weren’t fast at all.
Spellweaver: “Get up you lazy mutts, my plan depends on it!”
We had to get to them, how inconvenient. Well a Chromatic Explosion ought to wake them up a little! The Elementalist gleefully syphon away elements to craft his own powerful magic and he too blast away.
The Cragheart bullies the hounds a little while I try my newly acquired Living Torch on those hard-to-hit living spirits. My attack is blessed by the gods and one wraith disappears permanently and the other is damaged.
Cragheart: “RaaAaah, you icicles will serve the purpose of my battle goal nicely!”
Our tanky Cragheart left us with two hounds as he gets further in the lair. One hound, that just wouldn’t die (damn curses), savaged the hell out of me before the Elementalist finally killed the vicious beast.
A Song of Ice and Fire and Boulders
Meanwhile, the Cragheart has astutely created a blocus with boulders, but he took a few big hits nonetheless. I hurry myself to patch him up and also summon my Burning Avatar to melt those dangerous frost demons.
Once again Craggy is on the move and he opens the final area, revealing 2 hounds, 1 Elite frost demon and 4 living spirits.
He manages to slay 3 living spirits, but the hounds attack him and are relentless.
Cragheart: “Must… Lay… Down…”
Well it’s up to the squishy duo to finish the damn thing, isn’t it? The 3 remaining monsters offers me a straight line for my Impaling Eruption, killing the hound and softening up the frost demon, and yet more with a Flame Strike.
The living spirit is impervious to my attacks but the Elementalist jumps in and Chain-Lightn…
-No, no, wait, says he, I can’t do that… I need time to loot the treasure!
Halfassed Chain Lightning!
With only one monster left, it’s now officially time for treasure-hunting! It takes a while, as the Elementalist has to step into a stun-trap to get it while being pursued (albeit slowly) by the frost demon. As for me, I’m smoking a cigarette in the back, of course.
Victory!
We played this scenario at hard difficulty (by mistake) and we managed to win. Now, we’ll see how it goes with 2 new characters next session…
Hounds and Frosties have retaliate, better to have good ranged attacks (or a lot of hp)
Living spirits with 3 or 4 shield (but low hp) can be hard to deal with. I used my piercing bow with the first 2. Fortunately, the Cragheart was here for the 4 in last room.
Speaking of which, the Cragheart was an all-around efficient and versatile character, in Math’s hands at least. We’ll miss him.
Killing the Colorless in the Temple of the Eclipse has boosted our confidence and we’d decided to try our luck at retrieving a powerful artifact from yet another temple.
The altars are as far to each other as possible and each one gives strength to the temple’s demonic guardians (with 4 altars: +4 hp, +4 att, +2 mov, +2 range). As if demons weren’t dangerous enough…
But demons aren’t the only inhabitants, there are pesky cultists too.
If they’re not very dangerous by themselves, we can’t leave them alive as they can quickly fill the place with an army of summoned living bones. However, with the situation mostly in control in the center, I decide to open a first altar room. And if that isn’t 2 Flame Demons, right there!? Even more powerful than usual with the altars’ power. Well dammit, I hurl fire orbs at them and I’m not messing around: piercing bow, eagle-eye goggles, minor power potion; with a satisfying result (6 and 8 to FDs and 5 to altar).
Spellweaver: “Burn FLAME DEMON! Huh, as long as it works I guess…”
I lose 2 hp because of the annoying ranged retaliate, which bypasses my frost armor. The Cragheart throws a boulder and finish one Flame Demon. He kills the remaining cultists with the Elementalist, who then moved to open the treasure chest but all he got is a magical explosion in his face.
The two then go to the next (upper left) room while I finished cleaning the room I’m in. They find a lone but dangerous (very rangy) Wind Demon. The Cragheart deals with it, as the Elementalist briefly helps me in the third room occupied by a Frost Demon.
There’s two Earth Demons in the last room. The Elementalist is exhausted but the Cragheart is fooling around to get more xp. I indulge him before finally destroying the last altar.
The artifact is retrieved and… is sad. No, really, it is. But it’s not our fault (this time!) as it has been corrupted by evil, and being kinda sentient, well, it knows it… So, uh, that’s not very useful to us but, hey…
Victory!
The cultists must be dealt with as quick as possible.
The demons are not numerous but very lethal in this scenario, cards to prevent damage are incredibly useful.
We’ve recently avenged our defeat at the hand of the city’s guards military’s lackeys. Triumphant, we now aim at correcting another setback, less our reputation stays tarnished forever…
Taking out the demons… Huh, can’t remember for the life of me what we did exactly in the first room. I know we took our time, like 4 rounds, but without spending “loss” cards and we rested before opening next room’s door, knowing what we’d find behind.
Die! You moderately inconvenient demons!Spellweaver (for the seventh time): “Now, remember what we said. We jump over them.” Elementalist: “Not even a lil’ chain-lightning?” SW: “No! No attacks! Just jump dammit!”
I used my ride the wind to go all the way up to the 3 ancient artillery. They happily fire in my face but, no worries, my frost armor deflects the cannon balls! The Cragheart has a moment of self-doubt as for once the Mindthief isn’t there to convince him that he too can move fast…
Stone Golem: “Give me 4 more rounds and I’ll get you!”
Time to boast!
Spellweaver: “It worked! I told you it would work, didn’t I!
Cragheart: “Yeah, yeah, shut up already.”
Ahhh we’ll miss the Cragheart’s boulders when he’ll retire…Actually, we should be called “colorless”, not him!
Half-remembered Victory!
Did I mention that jumping over the stone golems was my idea? :p
I used the bottom of my 5th lvl chromatic explosion to help the Elementalist, but I was sad that I did not play the top (infuse all elements at once)
The Elementalist got exhausted first again, he needs to buy energy drinks!
I used the bottom of Frost Armor for the first time and I liked the feeling of not worrying if I’d get attacked.
Streets & Spores 