z# Episode 11 – Session Notes

Party present

All seven party members were active this session:

• Derfel (Elf, Beast Master Ranger) with Brave
• Her (Mul, mute) – frontline
• Kit-Chac (Thri-Kreen, Open Hand Monk)
• Pterrence (Pterran)
• Anselem (Fire Urokite)
• Salt (Water Genasi, Psion)
• Tchk'Tchk Gulbadani (Thri-Kreen, Psion)

NPCs encountered

Factions

Locations visited

Combat: the Sand Elemental, successes and failures

The party descended the outer well expecting to set an ambush on pursuing Templars in a tight corridor. Instead, three failed skill checks during the slums crossing told the Dregoth Cultists that someone had gone down. Rather than send soldiers after an unknown quarry, they dropped a skull into the central shaft, sealed both wells, and left it to do the work. The skull pulled stone and sand into itself and rose as a huge sand elemental between the party and the refugees. It would have been larger still had the party been slower to descend.

The creature's defences reshaped the whole fight. It had earth instability (it could not be knocked prone or pushed), it was immune to the stunned condition, and it was largely immune to Web. What it was not immune to was Command, and that single gap decided the encounter.

What worked

• Cloud of Daggers (Pterrence, upcast to 3rd level) was the engine of the fight. Sixteen slashing damage every round to anything inside it; well over thirty damage banked across the combat. Everything else existed to keep the elemental standing in it.
• Command (Tchk'Tchk Gulbadani, repeatedly, with Anselem assisting) was the win condition. Because the elemental had no resistance to it, Tchk'Tchk spammed Command to lock the creature in place inside the Cloud of Daggers turn after turn. Pterrence credited him directly: "well played with the command, you won us this fight pretty much."
• Telekinetic Propel (Tchk'Tchk Gulbadani) was the standout combo. He teleported the elemental to five feet above the Cloud of Daggers and dropped it straight in, forcing maximum exposure to the slashing field.
• Ray of Frost (Pterrence) cut the elemental's speed by ten feet, making it far harder for the creature to walk clear of the Cloud of Daggers.
• Searing Smite (Derfel) added 1d6 fire each round the elemental acted. Derfel deliberately kept Searing Smite running rather than swap to Hunter's Mark.
• Tasha's Mind Whip (Salt) opened the fight: 14 psychic damage, no opportunity attacks, and a turn where the creature could take an action or a bonus action but not both. Pterrence's Portent helped land it by forcing the elemental's save to a 10.
• Cure Wounds (Salt) pulled Derfel back from the edge for roughly 16 to 19 hit points when he was about to drop.
• Healing Word (Anselem, cast several times including a 2nd-level version on Her) kept the front line upright through the elemental's multi-attack.
• Guiding Bolt (Anselem) missed on the first attempt but connected on the second for radiant damage.
• Animal Handling (Derfel, earlier, during the slums crossing) was a quiet success: he gave a Templar Enix lizard its "you are free" command word, the lizard rolled over and lolled in the dust, and its confused handlers were drawn off the column's path. The DM's words: "you are so lucky."
• The ceiling collapse (environmental) dropped a section of the aqueduct roof onto the weakening mass and helped finish it.

What did not work

• Web (Pterrence) – the elemental was largely immune and walked through it.
• Stunning Strike (Kit-Chac) – immune to the stunned condition.
• Flurry of Blows with Tavern Brawler (Kit-Chac), trying to topple it – earth instability meant it could not be knocked prone, no matter the result.
• Command: HALT (Anselem, first cast via Magic Initiate) – the elemental made the save that time.
• First Guiding Bolt (Anselem) – missed, and worse, the elemental bent the webbing to drag Her into the path of its own movement; Her took 27 damage to the back across that exchange.
• Hunter's Mark (Derfel) – never applied. It would have meant dropping Searing Smite (both need concentration), so Derfel kept the fire going instead.

Outcome

The elemental's mass collapsed under sustained slashing, fire, forced movement, and the falling ceiling. It fragmented: a medium sand elemental split away and dispersed, and the original skull dropped free. Her moved in and took The Skull. The party survived, heavily wounded, in the dark, with the refugees intact behind them.

Tactical note for next session: Pete confirmed the next fight is built specifically to shut down the engine that won this one. The enemies will be high-Wisdom and "all wearing circlets of immunity to Command." The Cloud of Daggers plus Command lock will not save the party twice.

Her at the table (she is mute)

Her does not speak. Her Roll20 chat and her actions are the whole of her voice in a session, so they are worth recording in full. Episode 11's moments:

• Shook a downed body so Anselem could search it, and his roll turned up the goods. ("I pick up the body and shake, Anselem finds the things.")
• Floated a plan in chat: send the rescued children out with the fleeing crowd. ("send the kids with the fleeing people?")
• A quiet ":(" when her bone shield's condition check came back and the DM told her it was weakening.
• A "high five" to Tchk'Tchk Gulbadani amid the table banter, and a ":D" the moment Brave barked.
• Deadpan in the middle of the elemental fight: "I just need a short rest," answered by Tchk'Tchk's "just a lil nap."
• Took The Skull from the wreckage at the end, wordlessly, as she does everything.

Rolls and dramatic moments

• The session's first roll was its luckiest. Right after Her shook a corpse, Anselem rolled a natural 20 on Investigation and found the loot on it.
• Salt's opener was rigged to land. Salt cast Tasha's Mind Whip (DC 15 Intelligence save) and Pterrence spent Portent to fix the elemental's save at a 10, guaranteeing the fail: 14 psychic (3d6) and no opportunity attacks.
• The DM turned the party's own Web against them. On one of Anselem's Guiding Bolts, the elemental used a limb to bend Pterrence's webbing and drag Her into the blast, hitting her in the back for 27. The single nastiest moment of the fight.
• Cloud of Daggers carried the damage. Pterrence's upcast Cloud of Daggers did sixteen a round and had banked over thirty by mid-fight; it was the primary kill source.
• Command was the unlock. With no defence against it, the elemental ate Command after Command from Tchk'Tchk Gulbadani, who used Telekinetic Propel to drop it back into the daggers when it tried to leave. Pterrence credited him with the win.
• Kit-Chac's luck ran cold. Kit-Chac's topple attempts were dead on arrival against an enemy immune to prone, and a Tavern Brawler re-roll turned a 1 into a 2.
• Clutch heal. Salt extended his reach five feet to land Cure Wounds on a near-dead Derfel for roughly nineteen. An earlier heal landed for seventeen, "almost half" of what had been taken.
• Wear and reward. Equipment checks: Anselem's mail came up 12, Her's bone shield 72 (weakening). End of session: 1,243 XP and 82 cp each.

Resources expended

• Multiple spell slots across all four casters (Pterrence, Anselem, Salt, Tchk'Tchk Gulbadani)
• Water skins to Leviath for the refugees: Kit-Chac donated 2, Salt donated 2. Salt noted his water-genasi summon produces slightly less per day than the party drinks, even before it is halved.
• Her's bone shield is weakening (rolled 72 on its condition check); still serviceable, many chips.
• Pterrence's Obsidian Warhammer cracked at the head (a -1 to damage, higher break chance on crit fail or crit success), then he mended it with Mending.
• Anselem's Sout mail is holding up; he fights mostly with fire and has never swung his glaive.

XP and loot

• Base: 943 per character
• Encounter bonus: 200
• Skill check bonus: 100
• Total: 1,243 XP each
• 82 cp per character from the gang loot tallied earlier

Open threads

• Korno is a prisoner of The Templars; a rescue is unresolved
• The Alliance is ahead in the cisterns; a formal alliance is to be secured
• The Skull is in the party's possession; its origin and significance are unknown
• The Dregoth Cultists know someone descended the well; they do not know who
• Next encounter teased: high-Wisdom enemies immune to Command