Second Battle of New Hallownest
In the summer of 23 ARL, New Hallownest was attacked simultaneously by the forces of the lich beholder Dreadgaze, the undead army of an orc lich shaman, and a giant ethereal spider sent by Lolth. They were driven off or destroyed by the Shadows of Existence. Dreadgaze and his forces retreat mostly intact, but the shaman was destroyed and his forces wiped out, and Lolth lost her foothold in the drow farming community on the southern edge of the New Hallownest cavern.
The Conflict
Prelude
The attack on New Hallownest was preceded by some odd changes from the status quo. Strange monsters and one-eyed gremlins had been showing up near New Hallownest. The friendly drow in the southern farming community were acting suspicious. More undead had been appearing, mostly coming from lower down to the north. Suddenly, nightmare claws began attacking people from the shadows in New Hallownest. Attempts to find the source revealed that undead were marching from the north and east, and were at least a day away. The nightmare claws, apparently unrelated to those armies, seemed to be being channeled through the lifestream somehow, and Ba'alzamon Dreamender informed the defenders that Renedge wasn’t happy about it. Kuran Alvidar, a paladin who adventurers had revived some time ago after finding his corpse in the temple of Lolth south of New Hallownest, arrived to help fight the nightmares while the Shadows of Existence went after the sources.
Deployment
After the end of the Necropolis War, Alvidar had mostly withdrawn its militia, so the defenders were limited primarily to the city's permanent forces and a few adventuring allies. They began the battle within New Hallownest itself. Ngel Sfet was the exception, having established herself alone in a Black Hive below and southeast of the city. Her Void ants were focused at the hive and around a network of Void amplifiers hidden in caves in the surrounding area.
Lolth's giant ethereal spider had nested itself at the old temple to Lolth on the southern edge of the New Hallownest cavern. Dreadgaze's army was aiming for the northern entrance into the New Hallownest cavern. The unnamed orc lich shaman's army aimed for the southeastern entrance into the cavern.
Battlefield
The battle was mostly fought at the entrances into the New Hallownest cavern, where bridges across to the cavern's central plateau formed natural chokepoints. Fortifications had been erected by the defenders to make use of those chokepoints. Attacks by the undead also struck the Black Hive southeast and down from New Hallownest, a location with good constructed defenses but no natural ones.
Due to the mobility and reach of some of the attackers, fighting did occur throughout the city proper and on the southern ledge containing the drow farming village and the temple to Lolth. A counterattack by an elite group of defenders also struck at a separate cavern to the southeast from which the orc lich was commanding his forces.
The Engagement
Having been alerted by the appearance of the shadow claws within the city, an elite defending adventuring party consisting of King Knight of New Hallownest, Ba'alzamon Dreamender, Pele Firewing, Blythe Derguil, Avalon, and Bael went to check if the suspicious drow activity was responsible for the initial attack. They discovered that a giant ethereal spider supercharged by Lolth had puppeted the drow civilians in the farming community and had built a new altar to Lolth in the old temple. The party managed to quickly and fully clear that out (with Pele purifying the altar so hard Lolth felt it like a burning punch to the face) without any of the drow dying.
The shadow claw attacks ended, but Renedge was still unhappy about something, and the group still didn't know how the leylines were being accessed. Further investigation led the party to a hidden amplifier that was defended by a group of Ngel Sfet's Void ants. The shadow claws were being channeled through the lifestream via these amplifiers. Ngel Sfet had made no mention of such devices. At Ba'alzamon's prompting as the representative of Renedge, the party fought through the hostile Void ant guards and destroyed the amplifier, then made their way to Ngel Sfet's Black Hive to find out if she'd been plotting against them.
When the party found her in the Black Hive southeast of New Hallownest, she was starting to panic, as the hive was under attack by undead and they (as far as she knew) had destroyed one of her amplifiers. It turned out she had no idea the amplifier network even could be hijacked by others for nefarious purposes, nor that it apparently was disagreeable to Renedge itself. The party clarified the situation and evacuated Ngel to New Hallownest, where she continued controlling shadow ants to defend the city.
The other amplifiers were left active for the time being. The shadow ants proved extremely valuable in the defense, both before and after the first amplifier was destroyed.
By this time the undead armies had begun to attack the outer defenses. While Blythe stayed and used her great power to defend the city, the rest of the party went after one of the two artifacts they’d been pointed to as a source for the attacks. They found a cavern containing an orc lich shaman, Orby the death knight, and a small army of orcs and trolls. The fight was close, but with excellent magical enhancement, exceptional mid-battle thievery (including theft by Avalon of the shaman’s hat, his boots, and most of his teeth), and a final intervention by Blythe, the party emerged victorious. The lich and his minions were destroyed and Orby was captured and purified.
With the lich's death, the southern army collapsed. Dreadgaze's army in the north withdrew in response. The defenders elected not to pursue, and the battle ended as the last of Dreadgaze's forces disengaged.
Outcome
The immediate threat to New Hallownest was shattered. Ngel Sfet disassembled her amplifiers shortly after the battle under Ba'alzamon's supervision, removing the remaining cause of Renedge's discomfort.
An investigation into the drow revealed that one low-tier cleric of Lolth was among the refugees. She'd likely been the foothold Lolth needed to get the ethereal spider summoned and in place. Blythe took the cleric as a recruit rather than a disembodied soul after the cleric honestly pleaded her desire to repent.
Orby had been purified, but he was still insane and would need further specialized help. Pele and her friends made arrangements.
Aftermath
Ngel Sfet, with Knight's backing and Ba'alzamon Dreamender's keen supervision, would subsequently try to develop new amplifiers that didn't cause such discomfort for Renedge. This effort would lead Ngel to horrifying discoveries about the nature of the Void and her control of it, resulting in a soul-searching journey and her later desperate retraining as a Voidmage.
Dreadgaze would linger as an ongoing threat north of New Hallownest. Some plans were made to deal with him for good, but the city's offensive forces were limited mostly to adventurers, and these were constantly in high demand for more pressing priorities. Strange beholder minions would be encountered frequently in the north in the coming months.
Conflict Type
Battle
Battlefield Type
Land
Start Date
July 19th, 23 ARL
Ending Date
July 19th, 23 ARL
Conflict Result
New Hallownest held firm
Location
Belligerents
Strength
Casualties
Initial:
72 dead (~24 civilians)
73+ wounded
After resurrections:
9 civilian bugs
1 menderbug
5 Sentries
4 Mantis Warriors
13 militia infantry
Objectives
Defend New Hallownest
Capture or destroy New Hallownest
Maps
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New Hallownest map
A smaller-scale map of the city of New Hallownest.
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