Dice, Camera, Action Episode 89 - Tomb of Annihilation

Episode 89: Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

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I really liked this one! A little awful crew, Sewn Sisters, crazy deals....

 The Party

(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard
(Chris) Umpox - Imp

Last time, the awful crew (evil clones of the waffle crew) got into a fight with dinosaur trainers. Strix rode an allosaurus and started lighting things on fire. She got knocked out and is bleeding to death. Two successes, one failure.

Like last week, Anna is the DM!

We get descriptions of the evil characters. My favorites:

• Evil Paultin: Strahd poseur.
• Evil Strix: Feral trash pile.

Strix rolls a death save. She rolls an 11. She's stable. Umpox is invisible, flying near Paultin.

Someone claps and steps out of the shadows. She's made of wood and metal, colored black and gold.

She looks the group up and down. She touches Diath's face and goes, "Aren't you just a tall drink of something strong?"

She likes their style. She asks them if they're going to finish the waitress off. Diath stabs Martha

She tells the group they can be her followers. Evelyn wants to be the leader. A fight breaks out.

In the chat, glados comes up with a great name for her axe: Nightfall.

Evil Paultin's name might be Nit Luap.

Umpox disengages, flies 80 feet into the air. Diath throws some daggers at him, and he dies. He was holding an eye (a hag eye), which gets squashed.

Evelyn tells Paultin to swear fealty to Shar. He does, obviously lying. So does Paultin.

Evelyn heals Strix. She says, "Let's douse the flame of hope and rule with an iron fist." The awful crew has been assembled.

That's where the Awful Crew stops.

The Sewn Sisters

Chris takes over in the DM seat.

The group had made a deal with the hags.The heroes will give them hair (so they can make more clones). In exchange, the hags will give them:

• Fox's spectacles
• Resurrection scroll
• X the Mystic book that was allegedly stolen from Shemeshka

The hags are about to speak, when something appears in the cauldron. It's the evil little girl that the awful crew put in the bag last session.

The hags want to eat her. The group stops them. The hags put the little girl to sleep a place her in a cage.

There's discussion of further trades.

Strix tries to polymorph Baggy Nana into a chicken. She makes her save.

The adventurers are quietly talking amongst themselves. The hags overhear the group mention Shemeshka. Later, they hear Strix mention Gutter. The hags are very interested. Two of the hags leave to obtain the items. This will take 1 day. The group will have to wait here. The hags split up their tasks:

• Peggy: Goes to get the spectacles and the book.
• Baggy Nana: Goes to fetch the scroll.
• Widow Groat: Stays with the group to keep an eye on them.

She asks Strix asks what her coven is called. Stix blurts out that it is the chicken foot coven from the Feywild.

Groat says, "We are the Sewn Sisters." She pulls out some red thread. "Snip snip." "Stitch stitch."

Something else appears in the cauldron. It's John Cena! The dinosaur trainer from last session. His corpse, anyway.

Widow Groat says to the group, "You've stepped into an arcanaloth rivalry. Mr. Fox vs. Shemeshka. All arcanaloths want is magic and knowledge."

She tells them about the plane of Gehennea. Then she tells them about the Books of Keeping, tomes that contain the truename of every yugoloth in existence. The group has an awesome idea. They want to find the book that has Shemeshka's truename! With it, they can have power over her.

Strix asks Groat if she knows any truenames. The hag offers some for another trade. What can the group offer? They go through their stuff. Some of their ideas:

• Lightfall's parts
• Strix's arm
• Paultin's 4 candles

Groat comes up with a crazy idea. She wants Strix to carry a child for her. Diath hates this idea. Strix seems open to it. Diath begs Strix not to do it.

Strix asks Groat if she could stop Shemeshka. Groat says that she could.

Widow Groat shares a secret. Widow Groat whispers to Diath that when Shemeshkia mediated the deal between the Skizzixes and the Lorcathas, Shemeshka kept a piece of his valuable, ancient soul. It's locked in a box in her house.

"Would you like me to bring you the box?", she asks.."The Box for your womb."

Strix thinks about it for and says yes.

Widow Groat gives them time to discuss it.

Paultin goes over and watches Groat chop up the corpse of John Cena.

Suddenly, the hag reels. When Umpox was slain, the hag eye was destroyed. It is linked to her, and thus she is temporarily blinded. 

Evelyn's Dad

Meanwhile, in "heaven"...

Evelyn's in the domain of Lathander. She asks around, hoping that Simon's soul is here.  His soul must have went somewhere else.

Evelyn says all she ever wanted was to be wanted. She thinks Simon felt the same way, so she's hoping Simon to give Simon that feeling.

Evelyn realizes she can talk to her dad, who passed a way long ago.Evelyn flies to a glittering temple on top of a hill.

There's people cradling spectral babies. A 12 foot tall green angel. A planetar.

The babies transform into young adults. One of them is Evelyn's dad. Evelyn can cry now. She hugs him. She learns that her mother is in one of the great temples of the Morninglord.

Her father tells her, "It doesn't look like you may be here very long. ...you're just here for a short visit."

She flies around with her dad. She asked him why he never came back. She never knew what happened.

He explains that he went into Undermountain, the giant dungeon underneath Waterdeep.There's a family that has fallen into the dark service of Shar. They infiltrated cities.

While in Undermountain trying to bring light to the darkness, Evelyn's father was killed by a vampire named Karesta Delvingstone. It sounds like his body is still down there.

Evelyn's dad wants to go tobogganing (sledding). Evelyn is up for it.

The Deal

Back in the Material Plane, Groat's eyesight is returning.

The group notices a strange, giant door. I'm pretty sure they're in the bottom of the Tomb of Annihilation.

After day, Baggy walks through the wall. She has a blackened scroll tube. "One resurrection scroll, she says.

While the group is in the Waffle Hut, they hear the two hags having an argument about the destruction of the soul bag. They are angry at the awful crew.

The group overhears the hags scheming. They get the sense that all three hags are plotting against one another.

The third hag returns. Widow Groat starts talking about the baby again. Diath takes Strix's hand and tells her not to do this. He says they'll make it through this, like they always do.

Paultin, Diath and Strix hand over their hair. In return, the hags give the group the items. Each hero takes one:

• Diath: Spectacles. 
• Paultin: Resurrection scroll. It is very warm. It was stolen from a cleric in the bowels of the Nine Hells.
• X the Mystic's Spellbook: Strix.

Diath slyly starts talking and pointing out that the hags have been talking about ousting each other. They start fighting.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Diath frees the kid and looks for a secret door. Strength check to open it. Paultin: 17. He makes it.

They appear in the outskirts of Port Nyanzaru, emerging from a ruined ziggurat in the old city section of Port Nyanzaru.

Strix wants to use the bomb to collapse the tunnel and block the exit. She realizes that the blast radius is too big, and backs off the idea.

Strix unpolymorphs Waffles from her hat.

The little girl that they freed thinks the group is the awful crew. She steals the spectacles from Diath and runs into the city!

Overall

I really liked this episode! Tons of stuff happening.

Evil Evelyn: I was hoping to see an evil Evelyn and we got it! She's awesome. I figured she would be a paladin of Dendar, but Shar makes more sense in the big picture.

Diath's Soul: Shemeshka has a piece of Diath's ancient soul in a box?! In her house? That is really crazy. What exactly would happen if Diath's soul became whole again?

The Deal: I was surprised that Strix was up for having a hag baby. How would that work, exactly? What a crazy idea.

Undermountain: I was a little thrown by the mention of Undermountain. Is the group going there? Evelyn's dad mentioned families infiltrating cities. This sort of keys up with what Mike Mearls said on a show a while back - a storyline about the devils infiltrating cities and causing the blood war to spill into Faerun.

Nate has a new D&D show!

It's fun to see the players develop more stuff.