Into the ruins beneath Eldermere....the party fleeing the blazing fire now engulfing the village above descend into the forgotten depths beneath the town. I had a few traps and encounters planned for the first level of this dungeon, but it was not overly large in concept. 5 rooms consisting of burial chambers and crypts of a long forgotten king. Each of the crypts set to provoke an encounter if messed with with a minor undead entity (skeleton) with the final crypt holding the champion of the forgotten king (skeletal warrior). Of course the group was out for the goodies so all of the crypts were disturbed, with final encounter with the skeletal warrior grinding their resources down a bit further. There was one last room remaining which contained the sarcophagus of the court wizard, along with the secret entrance to the second level of the dungeon....
I always love the dialogue that arises from a group debating how far to push their luck in a dungeon when their resources start to be consumed. This harkens back to the days of my youth running 1st and 2nd edition games...when those resources run out, death is not far behind for the player characters. They decided to push onward...the "boss" of this level was a specter which had beefed up a bit and included a mechanic in which only allowed the creature to be hit / damaged when exposed to direct light. The theme of light vs. shadow is something I wanted to introduce here and now, because it will be ongoing through the rest of the dungeon as well as the remainder of the campaign.
Have I mentioned how much I love undead, they are great creatures, I miss the danger of level drain, but 5E has some included the mechanic in their HP and stat draining abilities in some of the more powerful undead. My wizard-shadow specter could drain HP's and it made this encounter some lethal...the group was definitely caught off-guard by the shadow/light mechanic and I was able to drop the wizard before they could get their footing on the fight....he survived based on the death saving throws, but hey enjoy your new HP max of 4!
I digress....the group was pretty beat up at the point, but they did pick up this sweet sword off the skeletal champion...did I mention it was cursed? +1 to hit and damage, but if you do not spill blood every 24 hours for the sword to "drink" you take 1d8 damage that cannot be cured...have fun you murder hobo's! Have I mentioned how I love to reward my groups with cool, fun and usable magic items...this being my first campaign I had run in 5E, this turns out to be a bad idea in this edition, but more on that later.
The party decided to hole-up and take a long rest at this point, but I did have an encounter planned to foreshadow some of the shadows associated with the Book of the Shadowhorn.....don't forget, this is what they were here to find after all. The hope was to show that something truly evil, powerful and ancient was lingering here....this was the book. During the rest, I random rolled to see whose watch was affected...Petros, the warlock, he's evil by the way....during his watch, there in the darkness of the hallway something is moving swirling about, almost in macabre dance...risking a little more light, he reveals that innumerous shadows are floating and swirling about, too many to count as they withdrawal from the light. Mission accomplished as this set a sense dread upon the party, what were they actually up against here?.......
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