OttD Session 27: Siege on Avernus

General Summary

We begin with Tornac and Izar running around Sigil. It seems that Tornac had gone a bit of a drunken binge, as he is riding naked atop Izar as he strolls through the market. After some brief shenanigans, Tornac acquires his pants and proceeds to the Church of the Broken Wing, where Penguin is giving some sort of speech in auran. Penguin waves him through one of the church's doorways. Meanwhile, Pestle, Adoven Woodsoul, Vun Roade, and Zerrof return to Sigil by way of a portal in The Cobalt Sanctuary. Instead of their expected destinations, all members the party (but not Izar) wind up in a plain gray room with no exit. After some time, five succubi appear and the voice of Vecna can be heard from all directions. She wants to "put on a show", and fool Zariel into thinking the party is somewhere other than they actually are. She is going to send five succubi in their stead, disguised as the party, to attend the planning sessions and make their way to Avernus, as part of the main attack force. Their body doubles go to Sigil in their stead and attend planning. The party does not play out this scene, because the plans are a lie anyway. After the main war party enters Avernus, we return to the actual party back in Vecna's demiplane. Vecna is going to use True Polymorph to turn the party into horned devils, and send them right to the outside edge of Avernus. They are to fly to the castle and pretend to be messengers so they can infiltrate the premises. From there, locating and confronting Zariel herself is their problem. This all goes fairly smoothly. The party makes it through the front door without too much difficulty, and find the throne room fairly easily after. Zariel is guarded by two pit fiends. They attempt to talk the guards out of the room, but are not having much success, so Penguin creates a tornado outside and she sends her guard out to investigate. With this, the party drops disguises and enters combat. Combat is very hectic, and the party wants to finish the fight quickly to protect their allies outside. Starting from the second round, we begin rolling on the Siege on Avernus Consequence table. Lucan Pavalur and Tyr both fall in combat. Tiamat also escapes from her chains, having and lays waste to a large portion of the armies outside. Some of her furious flames also flood into the room, inflicting considerable harm on the party. Adoven Woodsoul goes down, only to crit his first death save and stand right back up on his next turn. When the fighting concludes, Mazu joins Zerrof in delivering the deathblow. The corpse explodes, leaving only a crown behind, and Mazu explains that she was listening to Zerrof talk to Tyr(deceased) in the previous session and decided she no longer had any right to sit and hide. Zerrof replaces his divine intervention with the ability to summon mazu to help aid in combat once per day. After this, Tornac crowns Penguin king. Some small talk ensues, and then the session ends.