Bleak Generation

That night, M’narr was jolted awake by an intense pain racking his body. Stood over him in the darkness he could just about make out the stocky form of a half-elf. Crying out, 12-Bar and Ragados ran to his aid. 12-Bar cast barkskin on the half-naked Ragados, who’d just managed to grab his spellcasting tools as he’d leapt out of bed. A furious battle of spellcasters ensued, with Gremmith slowly retreating back through the narrow hallway and down into the restaurant below the apartment. The assassin detonated a fireball at the top of the staircase and pelted the heroes with acid arrows; M’narr and 12-Bar both briefly went down in the onslaught. But in the end, the assassin was thwarted. After an interminably tedious interview with the Harmonium, the trio finally went back to bed. The next day, the heroes levelled up! Then the downtime began. M’narr spent a week working for the Guvners in return for access to the faction’s famous spell library. The second week he spent working in cour...

  The session was going to start with a fight with an assassin who’d ambush them in their sleep. This could be seriously nasty, so I told the players at the end of the prior session that they’d be attacked in their beds. It’s a cliff-hanger, and it gave them loads of time to prepare a strategy. Or not. One keen player had drawn a floorplan of the PCs’ apartment before the session. The Mage statblock in the MM is good to use for Gremmith, just lose the 5 th -level spells. I also kept most of the spells he has in the adventure, though I added shield. To fix Phantasmal Killer, the spell needs to deal its damage at the start of the victim’s turn, with the save repeated at the end of the turn. Encounter: Gremmith rolls one stealth check for his break-in, and attacks the nearest character with his magic blowpipe and poison. Consider doing it in advance, and rolling the PC’s CON save for them (M’narr started with just 3HP).  Gremmith prefers to use quieter spells like Phantasm...

  The players had wrung their leads dry at this stage, and they’ve done fairly well I think. Ivth Nanright is the coolest antagonist of this section so I can’t not use him. And throwing Jason Scott in as the damsel in distress also seemed fun. Here’s the rough encounter notes: Ivth vs Jason: The players are alerted by a cry for help in an alleyway. Ivth uses the priest statistics from the MM, but has lots of wind-themed domain spells prepared in addition. I used this spell set: 1 st : Fog cloud, zephyr strike, command, cure wounds, inflict wounds, shield of faith; 2 nd : Warding wind, levitate, silence, locate object; 3 rd : Thunder step, fly, dispel magic, spirit guardians. Two barghests is more than enough for three PCs given they’re CR4 in 5e, so I reduce the HP a bit. Ivth has already cast fog cloud if/when the players join in. In the first round of initiative, Jason Scott is on 1HP. If healed from unconsciousness, he throws himself back into the battle. I used the ...

                      The players awoke in the Ubiquitous Wayfarer for the last time, and arranged to meet Mazatl later that evening. By now, all three heroes were thoroughly sick of the Lower Ward, its pollution, and its lawlessness. Trekking across to the Lady’s Ward to find a pony cab home, the party heard a cry from a side street. Wherever the cry had come from, it was obscured by a cloud of unnatural fog, but it sounded like Jason Scott!                 The party rushed in, with Ragados using his armour to magically double in size. Fumbling through the thick mist, spellcasting was almost impossible. But 12-Bar was able to charm the Wind Duke with Hypnotic Pattern, and the fog dispersed. The barghests were taken down, and Jason Scott was saved from death, despite his near-suicidal determination to fight. M’narr tried to handcuff the charmed ...

  I realised at this stage the characters were likely to run out of leads before they ran out of time, so I slipped them a sending stone via their NPC retainer when they went home. Otherwise, this was going to be a fairly by the book session. I made the players aware they could visit the Athar or Signers HQ, as they hadn’t discussed either much as a possibility. The Athar ambush is kept up the sleeve for when the players could do with a release.