Rivals of Waterdeep Episode 1

Rivals of Waterdeep - Episode 1: “Deal with the Devil”

This is a prequel to their show at the Stream of Many Eyes (which can be seen here). The party is in Nightstone. They are all level 4.


Aram Vartian - Dungeon Master

(Surena Marie) Ashborne - Half-Elf Ranger
(Carlos Luna) Nocnoc - Half-Orc Fighter
(Cicero Holmes) Perrin - Halfling Bard
(Tanya DePass) Selise - Human Paladin of Tyr
(Shareef Jackson) Shaka - Tiefling Warlock
(Brandon Stennis) Rinn - High Elf Sorcerer
We start with Selise, who’s been having visions of Nightstone crumbling under a great darkness. She arrives at the Hall of Justice to meet with an old friend, Vera, to try and convince the church of Tyr to pay heed to her warnings. Vera can only offer a horse and a good word sent ahead to Waterdeep.

Rinn has been hired as the liaison between the human hunters of Nightstone and the elves of the Ardeep Woods. He meets Nocnoc while out on patrol. Rinn asks the half-orc how he got his name, but Nocnoc doesn’t trust him enough to tell that story. They suddenly hear bells ringing from the direction of Nightstone.

Sharavka (’Shaka’ for short) sits on a hill overlooking Nightstone. His warlock patron wants to know more about the mysterious obsidian obelisk for which the village is named. As he is planning a route to sneak into town later that night, Shaka realizes that there is no one on the streets below.

Ashborne stumbles upon Shaka. Her right hand is a claw, but she has been having dreams of herself with her old hand, standing in front of the obelisk in Nightstone. Ashborne is intrigued by Shaka’s map, but he doesn’t trust her. A fox kit named Chips pops out of her bag. Shaka starts crying because Chips is so adorable. They decide to team-up to study the obelisk together. They hear the bells as they descend the hill.

Perrin arrived as part of a traveling show run by Guthren Derthmore, an old dwarf strongman. He is admiring himself in a mirror, pumping himself up for the show in Nightstone, which he calls “suburban Waterdeep”. When he comes out to perform though, there’s no townsfolk. Guthren runs off towards the inn to try and drum up an audience. Perrin hears a guttural growl from behind him, and casts ‘Light’ to reveal... a hell hound!

Selise is galloping full-tilt towards the church, where the bells are coming from. Suddenly, there’s a girl in the middle of the road, and the paladin is thrown from her horse as she tries to stop. The girl raises her hand and Selise freezes in mid-air before slowly floating to the ground. The girl tells her that her “friends” are being hurt, and gives Selise a locket that surges with holy energy. The girl is an avatar of Lliira, the goddess of joy! She disappears.

Everyone converges on Perrin as he fends off the hell hound. Ashborne rolls a natural 1 and accidentally shoots an arrow into the back of Perrin’s leg, but it draws the creature’s attention. Shaka fires an ‘Eldritch Blast’ as it lopes toward them. NAT 20! Perrin casts ‘Shatter’, causing the hell hound to explode into fiery bits just as Selise, Rinn, and Nocnoc come around the corner. Selise heals Perrin. Lliira’s locket multiples on her neck--there’s one for everybody!

The bells stop.

There is a soft green glow coming from the obelisk. Two more hell hounds circle it. Ashborne tries to offer them jerky... THEY ATTACK! There’s a quick battle. Rinn hears faint music coming from the inn. Ashborne sees some kind of script etched onto the obelisk and reaches out to touch it. As she does, she sees a vision of a gargantuan form rising from the ocean--a Kraken! Slarkrethel?!

Rinn and Nocnoc rush to the inn. Every townsperson in Nightstone is inside, getting drunk! The mayor tells them that the party is for “him”--a hot dude in a loincloth who looks like Dorian Gray from Penny Dreadful. Nocnoc wishes him a happy birthday. The man laughs, and says it might as well be his birthday, because he can only be here once per year. Rinn asks him for gold, and the man produces a torrent of coins from his hands.

“You like gold? How much is enough?”

THE MAN SAYS HE IS GRAZ’ZT, “THE PRINCE OF ALL DEMONS”!!! (I screamed with glee)

Graz’zt touches Lliira’s locket, and it burns him. Graz’zt’s smile disappears. Nocnoc feels a wave of terror and runs away, telling everyone that they have to leave right now. All the doors and windows slam shut. Graz’zt glares at them. He says that they’ve ruined his party, and storms out of the inn, down towards the obelisk.

Graz’zt shoves a claw into the stone, and it bursts with green light. An oily dome rises from the obelisk to cover the town. Graz’zt disappears. His two cambion bodyguards turn and smile at the party, saying that they’ve doomed the whole town (”1000 souls exactly”) to a century imprisoned here, all because they angered Graz’zt on the one day of the year that he could have a party on the Material Plane. The cambions tell them that for every 1000 gold they bring to Nightstone, Graz’zt will allow ONE soul to go free. THEY’LL NEED ONE MILLION GOLD TO FREE EVERYONE!

They have enough money to save one person. They choose the mayor. Her memory is fuzzy, and all she can remember is that a charming stranger came to town a few days ago. If the party really want to save everyone else, the demons point them to Waterdeep, which is a town where lots of money changes hands.

The party take the wagons from Perrin’s traveling show and set out. The mayor accompanies them, as she believes she can set up a meeting with Mirt the Moneylender (as seen during the session at the Stream of Many Eyes). As they leave the dome around Nightstone, the lockets given to them by Lliira crumble into nothingness...