Session XII - 13.08.2020

General Summary

• The characters find shelter in a relatively secure building in Elturel with Elaine Hunt and her three children. The group first takes a long rest to stitch up their wounds. During this long rest Barakas hears noises of hooves. He spies the area (together with Jo) and sees a heavily armored devil knight on a nightmare. Luckily, this knight does not find the resting group. Barakas and Jo decide to not attack the knight and instead continue the rest.
• Before the group discusses on how to continue, Barakas asks around what the motivations of each member of the group are to literally "go to hell". First goes Darius who explains that his angelic guide lead him to the Vanthampur manor where the rest of the group found him. Barakas then mentions that he was saved by mages of Candlekeep when he was still young. He is here to hunt down a very specific foe whose name he cannot tell the group right now. Darrak got into this by accident: He was drinking beer in a pub when he was abducted by the Vanthampurs. He recognizes the suffering of the people of Elturel and wants to help. Lastly, Jo explains that back in the days her best friend actually stole her most valuable possession which completely changed her life back then. He now follows a path of vengeance to strike down the people who stole this possession and this is somewhat linked to the Evil Dragon Queen Tiamat.
• Thereafter, the group discusses the general tactics in battle concerning positioning, abilities and healing capabilities.
• Lastly, the group discusses how to continue. Eventually, they make their way to the two bridges in the North of Elturel to see how heavily they are guarded after Barakas found that the ground below the apparently floating Elturel is filled with the blood of devils and demons fighting in the Blood War (see image below). The group decides that they would have to take one of the bridges to get to the Citadel of Elturel which would be their next destiny.
• While the Southern Bridge is intact and holds some divine shrine which apparently prevents devils from approaching it, the northern bridge is partially destroyed including the shrine which was once there. Importantly, the southern bridge is guarded more heavily (two Bearded Devils, two Spined Devils (Spinagons), and one bronze helmet creature with a long spear) while the northern bridge is less heavily guarded.
• The group is about to attack the devils on the southern bridge as suddenly some Chasme demons appear who kill a group a humanoid on the roof of the house in which the group was currently hiding. Then they make their way to fight the devils on the bridge while one of the Chasmes attacks the group in the building. A fight erupts and during this, the devils also attack the group in the building after realising that they hid there.
• The group manages to fight off the Chasme demons and also the devils while one Spinagon as well as one Bearded Devil can flee. Hence, the group makes haste to get to the other side of the bridge before reinforcements would reach the bridge. On their way over the bridge, Jo inspects the shrine which is devoted to Torm, the patron god of Elturel. Upon focussing on the divine powers within the shrine, a powerful magical barrier is apparently reinstalled which spans the bridge and covers it with a magical, protective barrier. The characters realize that they now need to make haste as this would have been seen by the legions of demons and devils below for sure. So they head for the Citadel of Elturel ...

Report Date

13 Aug 2020