DEADLIFT

Lovecraft In An Elevator

Here's a free adventure for Call Of Cthulhu. My payment is making you read those two puns.

The entire adventure takes place in an elevator where the investigators are stuck in a groundhog day style looping timeline until they figure out how to escape it.

On a rainy Saturday afternoon June 15th 2024, you are taking an elevator down in 105 Croshaw Tower, a skyscraper built in Manhattan in the 1980s.

Croshaw Tower's 94 levels includes office spaces, shopping malls, residential levels and entertainment arcades. It was state of the art in the 80s, now 40 years on, the glory has faded somewhat.  

PLAYER CHARACTERS

Feel free to make these characters your own. Everything about their backgrounds and backstory are suggestions, feel free to overwrite them. There are some changes to each linked character sheet, mentioned below.

Travis Maldonaldo 

30 year old Taxi Driver, born and raised in New York. Travis has been taking on Craigslist ads to assist in rituals for cash. His most recent ritual involved someone taking his blood in a copper bowl for $500. Travis is at Croshaw Tower to renew his taxi medallion.

Equipment

Credit-card style multi-tool

Penknife

Mobile phone (no signal)

Taxi receipt book

Skills

Set Brawl to 50%

Maxine Miller 

18 year old archeology student, born in Bangladesh and raised in Ohio. Visiting her grandfather's office at Croshaw tower. Last year Maxine was on an archaelogical excursion to Oman, and she discovered a strange tablet in the ruins that gave her visions of glowing multicoloured globules in outer space.

Equipment

Notebook

Mobile phone (no signal)

Skills

Replace Language (French) with Language(Sumerian) at 25%

Set History to 50%

Set Occult to 25%

Set Cthulhu Mythos to 5%

Damien Savary 

29 year old doctor. Born in Colorado, moved to New York two years ago. While at medical school, Damien participated in an occult ritual which gifted him with perfect scores on all of his exams. Damien swore off occultism when he started seeing the runes of the ritual inscribed in the organs of cadavers that we practising on. Damien is at Croshaw tower to play some digital golf on the arcade floors.

Equipment

Fancy watch

Fountain pen

Mobile phone (no signal)

Skills

Set Language (Latin) to 25%

Set Occult to 25%

Alternatively, have the players generate a random investigator here. One of the investigators should be in a medical field, another should have some fighting skill, and one must be considerably younger than the other two. If the any player feels their skills aren't as good as the other two players, boost their luck to 90

====KEEPERS ONLY PAST THIS POINT====

The investigators, and NPC's with them, have been trapped in the lift since 3pm, when the display panel went blank (at floor 70), the buttons became nonresponsive, and all phones lost signal.

THE ELEVATOR

The lift is on the larger side, 30 square feet, with mirrors on both side walls, a poster advertisment on the right wall, an emergency access hatch in the roof and faded dark blue carpet underneath. In addition to the investigators, there are 4 NPCs in the lift with them.

Hidden beneath the carpet of the lift, a magic circle has been scratched into the metal floor. There are various notes that the investigators left for themselves in previous iterations of the loop, hidden in the elevator and on their persons.

The control panel has been buckled inward and damaged, requiring a mechanical repair (hard) or strength check (extreme) to open. Hidden on the interior of the control panel, someone has scratched an arrow pointing upwards.

Investigators can attempt a hard electrical repair roll to restore some functionality to the lift. Regardless of whether they succeed or fail, they will find hidden amongst the wiring of the internal components, a note written in Travis' handwriting:

"DON'T GET OFF ON FLOOR 68"

If the investigators succeed on their electrical repair roll, the floor indicator will show floor 81, and they can send the lift up or down.

Sending the Elevator Down

Sending the Elevator Up

If both mirrors are intact, their reflections form an infinite tunnel of elevator rooms, slowly fading into green tinged darkness.

NPC's

ELVIS - mid 30s, SEO salesman, Strong, Claustrophobic, Arrogant

Elvis is doing his best to not fully panic after the lift malfunctioned.  He manages to keep it together until 4:18pm, when he goes into a rage and smashes the non-responsive control panel and one of the wall mirrors, after which he will go semi-catatonic. Elvis was here for an important meeting at 4.30pm.

Elvis is brash and arrogant, and very proud of his taekwondo brown belt.

KARIM - late teens, student, uninterested

Karim has his hoodie up, headphones on, head down and buried in his phone. He is largely uninterested in speaking with anyone else or attempting escape, saying "we just have to sit tight". If he's asked what he's listening to, he will mutter "hyperpop" and if asked what he's looking at on his phone, he will say "a book". Karim was here to play games at the arcade.

FLOSSIE - Late 70s/Early 80s, retired nurse

Flossie has an apartment here, bought by herself and her late doctor husband. Flossie is not coping too well with the extended wait and is sitting in the corner of the lift

Flossie actually remembers being trapped on the lift before with her husband in the 80s. Her memory is hazy, but she remembers eventually she got out. She vaguely remembers sharing the lift with an Olympic fencer, a toddler, her husband, and an old man.

LEA - Early 20s, artist/ store clerk

Lea has taken it upon herself to look after Flossie, protecting her from Elvis' outbursts and any strange behaviour the investigators might show. Lea has a .44 magnum concealed in her handbag, but will not draw and use it unless she thinks that herself or anyone's else's life is in danger.

WHAT'S GOING ON?

Karim is actually an ancient and powerful sorcerer (although he cannot remember that now) and the investigators were planned to be his sacrifices in an immortality ritual to Yog-Sothoth. However, the ritual went wrong when there was a catastrophic elevator failure, killing Karim and forcing the timeline to reset to the start of the ritual.

When the timeline reset, the investigators (his sacrifices) retained their memories and ended up rebelling and messing up the ritual further, eventually damaging the magic circle and causing Karim and everyone else to lose their memories (in a pop-culture science form of amnesia, where they retain general knowledge but not specifics).

The lift and all of its occupants has been transported to the realm/body of Yog-Sothoth, cut loose from the flow of time and the logic of cause and effect.

At some point in the multitude of loops, the investigators lost their minds/lost hope and decided to wipe their memories with the spells found in Karim's phone.

Karim at-Tawil was a powerful alchemist and sorcerer, who rose to fame in the second crusade for his quest for eternal life (successful history check once investigators have seen Karim's phone). In 1147, he wrote a letter to a colleague bragging he had discovered the key and the gate, and seemingly vanished from history (hard history check).

The mirrors of the elevator (if both intact) act as portals to alternate dimensions (successful occult check after investigating the mirrors), all mixed together in the timeless body of Yog-Sothoth. Doppelgangers will start to climb through the mirrors and attack the investigators as more loops are completed. 

If an investigator decides to travel through a mirror, or a doppelganger comes through a mirror into the lift, the NPCs' (including Karim) eyes roll into the back of their heads and they become fully nonresponsive, just standing there, mouthing "HE IS THE KEY, HE IS THE GATE" repeatedly like a mantra.

If an investigator decides to travel to the very end of the infinite tunnel of alternate dimensions, sinking into featureless dark green murk, they can briefly see Yog-Sothoth, before they are disintegrated by the lack of causality.

If an investigator opens the lift access hatch (extreme strength check or regular mechanical repairs check) they will find themselves on top of a lift hanging in what appears to be an infinite chasm. Millions of elevators spread in either direction, their cables vanishing into a blue fog that blankets both above and below. A version of Maxine's notebook is sitting on the roof of the elevator. Every page is filled with "I AM THE KEY I AM THE GATE" repeated ad nauseum.

DOPPELGANGERS

If an investigator is paying close attention to the mirrors, or with a successful spot hidden check, they will notice one of their reflections is not perfectly mirroring them. If they continue to study the reflections, they will catch the reflection glancing at them every so often to see if they're paying attention.

Give the players some time to stew before the doppelgangers escalate. In the next natural lull, call for another spot hidden check. If any of the investigators succeed, they spot one of their reflections climbing from a further elevator to a closer one. The rest of the doppelgangers will continue to act as a perfect mirror, but with one extra person in that particular elevator reflection.

If the investigators make it clear that they have spotted a doppelganger, the doppelganger will speed up, running through the reflected elevator rooms and leaping into the "real" elevator. They then may:

1) Attempt to kill Karim (resetting the loop)

2) Attempt to push their counterpart through the mirror

3) Try to kill first Travis, then Damien, then Maxine, in that specific order. If they succeed, the scenario is over.

The first attack will be a solitary doppelganger. Each following attack will include one more doppelganger (meaning there will be multiples of the same person attacking later on, e.g two Travises, one Maxine and one Damien)

Use the investigator sheets for the doppelganger's stats. 

KARIM'S PHONE

Your players may become suspicious that Karim is obsessed with his phone, despite nobody having signal. If they get their hands on the phone, they can discover the following information:

The phone appears to be factory-reset, with no apps, contacts, or anything to differentiate it from a brand new phone, except for:

1) Media File:

Karim is not listening to Hyperpop. He is listening to a recording of an old hoarse man chanting in a foreign language. Successful language (Sumerian) check will reveal it is "The Ritual of Crystal Lights" and implores a being called Yog-Sothoth to open the gate and show the key. "Accept three gifts and allow me into thy kingdom"

Without knowledge of Sumerian, the investigators will still pick up "Yog-Sothoth" as it is repeated many times.

If the investigators stop the media player (the file is playing on repeat) Karim will scream and age 80 years in 2 minutes, dying of old age and resetting the loop.

2) Text Files

Karim is reading a book. It's his spellbook, written in Latin, and uploaded to PDF. A successful language (Latin) check will allow the investigators to spend some time studying it.

10 minutes spent studying:

The book details construction techniques for a bizarre contraption, including diagrams for a magic circle. A successful mechanical repair check will reveal that the end result will be a small wooden platform that can raise or lower about 5 feet in height.

20 minutes spent studying:

The investigators will learn the name Ritual of Crystal Lights, and discover it grants eternal youth

30 minutes spent studying:

The investigators discover the nature of the ritual and the correct order of sacrifice

40 minutes spent studying:

Sanity check. If the investigator fails, 1D6 SAN loss, with the same D6 result gained in Cthulhu Mythos. The Investigator also learns a spell (rolled randomly)

3) Voicemail

The phone has thousands of missed calls, with corresponding voicemail messages. All of the missed calls are from a contact called "Me", the only contact on the phone. If the investigators listen to the voicemails, they will hear the voice of an old man, shouting as if very far away from the phone. Example voicemails include:

"You've forgotten who you are!"

"You have to kill them in the right order!"

"Kill the taxi driver first!"

"Kill the man with the fancy watch second!"

"Kill the girl last!"

"You are the gate!"

"They are the key!"

If the investigators draw Karim's attention to these messages, he will claim not to have noticed them.

If Karim listens to them, he will regain some of his memories and magical powers, and promptly finish the ritual (end of scenario).

THE RITUAL OF CRYSTAL LIGHTS

Supplicant and sacrifices must be within the 6th sacred circle, and ascending. In ancient times, this involved a laborious process of building a ritual elevator platform. The invention of commercial elevators has made this substantially easier for Karim.

Once the sacred words have been spoken, and while the chant continues, the supplicant is magically de-aged by the sum of the sacrifices' ages, but to finalise the ritual, the sacrifices must be killed in a specific order:

1) The Warrior

2) The Healer

3) The Youth.

Anyone with fighting experience or skill qualifies as a warrior.

Anyone in the medical field or with medical experience qualifies as a healer.

Anyone 10 years younger than the other 2 sacrifices qualifies as a youth.

If the supplicant is killed before the ritual is completed, the time stream resets to earlier in the ritual.

Once the youth dies, the ritual is complete and anyone in the magic circle is returned to the normal stream of time. The supplicant can now also die again.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

If your players think of another solution that makes sense, let it work. Here are a few ways to escape the loop:

1) Elvis, Fossy and Lea can be substituted as sacrifices

2) Karim can be a substitute for any of the sacrifices.

3) If the investigators break into an alternate dimension, and kill their doppelgangers in the correct ritual order, they can finish the ritual and escape the elevator (in a new alternate reality).

THE MAGIC CIRCLE

If the investigators pull up the carpet, they will discover a magic circle scratched into the metal floor below. If they tamper with it, they destabilise the ritual further, with the following possible effects:

1) They find themselves still trapped in the loop, but it is now the 90s. The elevator reeks of cigarette smoke. Karim now has a walkman + a notebook. Everyone except Elvis no longer has a mobile phone. Everyone is the same age, name, etc, its just as if this scenario has always been set in the 90s.

2) Globules of coloured light start to appear, growing into existence before shrinking into nothingness again. Eventually the elevator itself fades away, leaving them floating in the void of space. Roll Sanity or lose 1d6 SAN, before resetting the loop at loop one

3) Karim screams, and ages 80 years in 2 minutes. He dies of old age and the loop resets.

 

SENDING THE ELEVATOR DOWN

While this seems like the easiest way to escape, it goes against the flow of the ritual and will lead to he death of everyone in the lift, resetting the loop, when the elevator reaches floor 50.

On the way down though, the elevator will ding, and stop and open on Floor 68.

FLOOR 68

The elevator doors open on a busy arcade, with people playing at various games, laughing and having a good time.

The NPCs will attempt to get off here, and it will take an extreme success at persuasion, intimidation etc to stop them.

If the investigators stay on the lift they will see every person in the arcade turn to look at them as the doors close.

If the investigators get off the lift, they will notice pretty quickly that every person in the arcade is attached to the floor. They have no feet, their legs simply melding smoothly with the floor. These people also seem to be incapable of true speech, and will simply make laughing noises, or shout random phrases that you would expect to hear in an arcade ("high score!" "No way you cheated!" "I wonder how many tickets to win the Nintendo?" etc) If they are cut into, the investigators will discover they have no internal organs, and appear to be made entirely of a strange purple muscle. 

None of the arcade machines do more than flash brightly coloured lights.

Floor 68 is an extra-dimensional parasite of Yog-Sothoth and ambush predator, catching unwary mortals. Once captured, it feeds on its victims' timelines, trapping them in the false arcade until they die of old age.

If the investigators die this way, they take an extra 1d6 of SAN loss (no save) and the loop resets.

If Karim got off on Floor 68, have the investigators travel further down in the lift, to floor 50, before resetting the loop.

 

SENDING THE ELEVATOR UP

If the investigators send the lift up, they are playing into the ritual, and can stave off death for a little longer.

The floor numbers will continue to rise. Past floor 94, strange things start happening.

1) The elevator dings and the doors open on floor 101, which is apparently a small brooklyn apartment in the 1990s. Travis will recognise this as his childhood home. A baby can be heard crying in the next room.

2) On floor 122, the elevator doors will open on a college dorm room. A younger Damien has his back to the doors, pouring over an occult grimoire.

3) On floor 166, the elevator doors open on the side of a mountain. Investigators can see Maxine, manically laughing, as she rubs blood on her face in front of a weathered obelisk. Maxine recognises this as the site of her archeological expedition to the Middle East, but has no memory of this occuring.

4) On floor 193, the elevator doors open on a young couple dancing at their wedding in a large hall. It looks to be the 70's. This is Flossie and her late husband.

5) On floor 219, the elevator doors open onto desert. An old man in a black robe stands on a strange primitive elevator platform, with 2 men and 1 child chained to him. This is Karim in 1147 AD

6) On floor 342, the elevator doors open onto blasted, empty desert. The sun hangs impossibly huge and red in the sky. It is 5 billion years in the future, and our sun has gone Red Giant

7) The floor indicator simple shows the infinity symbol, and the doors open on the vast blackness of space. Globules of multicoloured light grow and shrink in the void. 

NOTES

The investigators have left notes to themselves. If the players search their pockets, they will find notes from their past selves. If they decide to leave a note, they will find one already there. Here are some example notes below. If a place for them is not specified, they can be found anywhere the investigators think to look

1) DON'T GET OFF ON FLOOR 68 - Travis' handwriting, wedged in elevator wiring

2) THAT IS NOT A BOY - Damien's handwriting

3) WATCH THE MIRRORS - Maxine's handwriting 

4) GET HIS PHONE- Travis' handwriting

3) YOUR CAPTOR IS ALSO IMPRISONED - Maxine's handwriting

4) YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE - scratched into the wall behind the mirror on the left wall

5) HE CANNOT REMEMBER HIS CRIMES - Travis' handwriting

6) WE ARE THE KEY - Maxine's handwriting

7) WE ARE THE GATE - Damien's handwriting

8) KILL ELVIS - Damien's handwriting

 

LOOP ONE

You come to, standing in a large elevator. It is 4:38 PM. Directly in front of you, you can see that the elevator control panel has been smashed in, the metal slightly buckled inward. The screen that indicates your current floor is blank. To your right, the wall is covered with a shattered mirror. To your left, there is another mirror taking up half the wall, with the back half being covered with an advert for Starbucks' latest offering of summer drinks, proudly displaying the Mango Fandango. Behind you, in addition to the other investigators, you can see the elevator has four other occupants. There is a big man in a cream coloured suit, panting and nursing a badly bruised and bloody hand. There is an old lady, sitting on the floor, with a younger woman in her thirties or forties standing next to her with her hand in her purse. There is also a teenager, hoodie up, headphones on, face buried in his phone.

The lights cut out, you feel a brief moment of weightlessness in the dark, and then you die.

All investigators make a sanity roll. Failure causes 1d6 SAN loss. Success causes 1 point of SAN loss

Whenever Karim dies, the loop resets, 10 minutes further into the past. Whenever the investigators die, they must make a sanity roll, losing 1d6 SAN on failures the first three times, 1d4 the next three after that, and 1d3 after that. Turns out you can get used to dying.

LOOP TWO

You come to, standing in an elevator. It is 4:28 PM. Someone is screaming and bellowing out a string of swearwords. Directly in front of you, you can see that the elevator control panel has been smashed in, the , the metal slightly buckled inward. The screen that indicates your current floor is blank. To your right, there  is a crashing noise as the man in the cream suit punches the mirror with all his might. The old lady is cowering in the corner, with the younger woman standing protectively in front of her, with her hand in her purse. The teenager has moved to the opposite wall but seems otherwise oblivious to the man's outburst.

The investigators now have 10 minutes before they die again.

LOOP THREE

 4:18 PM. At this point the investigators have a chance to prevent Elvis from melting down and damaging the Elevator control panel and smashing the mirror. If they successfully prevent him from buckling the control panel, it can be easily opened with Travis' Multitool, no roll needed. If they prevent the mirror from being smashed, they open up the possibility of dimensional travel, and open themselves up to doppelganger attack.

LOOPS FOUR TO TEN

From this point on, with each death, move the time back 10 minutes, and ratchet up the threat from the doppelgangers slightly.

at the 3:08 mark (loop 10) the doppelgangers will attack en masse (4 doppelgangers per investigator), strictly killing the investigators in the ritual order. This time the investigators don't wake up.

 

 

 

 

A Few Spells

 I'll be updating this as we discover and create more spells.

If you have learnt any of the spells below off a giant, black-violet toad, you also have access to all of the spells at the bottom of this blog post.

WIZARD SPELLS

SUM

You release the spell from your head, and it uses it's connection to parallel dimensions to influence the very probability of an event. You may add the [SUM] of the spell to any roll. If you are adding to another person's spell, you add the [SUM] + [DICE] to their roll.

You may cast this spell as a reaction.

(^This very well may be too powerful. We'll see how it feels in play)

CLERIC SPELLS

FUNGAL PLATE

Duration:1 hour or 10 minutes in extreme dryness

Shendormu has blessed you with a fungal suit of armour. Mushroom plates fruit from your skin, covering your body in a protective shell.

You have [SUM] Temporary Hitpoints. While you have these hitpoints, you:

• add [DICE] to your attack and damage rolls
• Have advantage on Strength checks
• Are immune to any inhaled poisons

WEBWALK

Shendormu opens the mycelium network to you and your friends for travel. You may teleport yourself and [SUM] people anywhere you name, so long as it is connected from where you are to it by fungal colonies. This means pretty much anywhere on the same landmass is open to you. Shendormu is the god of Mindlessness as well, so he will send you exactly where you ask to go, without checking or clarifying any details with you.

GLOG CLASS: HERETIC

 OK Quicksilver, here's the class:

Maybe you're an escaped human sacrifice. Maybe you were a scholarly priest who kept asking questions and exploring forbidden ideas until you lost your faith. Maybe you have seen the one true path and are determined to show the world.

Each level in Heretic gives you +1 to your save vs magic

TEMPLATE A - Disbelieve, Skeptical soul

Skeptical soul - you have advantage on saving throws against cleric spells

Disbelieve - Once per day, you can declare that a magical phenomenon does not affect you. 100% success rate against divine magic. 60% success rate against all other magic.

TEMPLATE B - Blaspheme

Blaspheme - Once per day, you may utter such blasphemies as to call the wrath of a god down upon yourself. Curse a god (e.g Zulin) and you and everyone within 20 feet (god's don't care to aim that precisely) will suffer the god's magical divine wrath (in the case of Zulin, sky execution or a big old lightning bolt). Thus the greater knowledge a heretic has of religion, the more varied effects he can create by calling on different gods (There are a lot of Fire Cults in Centerra , and players are encouraged to make up gods.)

TEMPLATE C - Seeker of Forbidden Knowledge

Seeker of Forbidden Knowledge - Both your Blaspheme and Disbelieve abilities are no longer once per day. They instead draw on a shared pool which is determined by the number of Heresies you know. (If you know 5 Heresies, you would have 5 points to spend) This pool resets at midnight.

 TEMPLATE D - God Slayer OR Gnosis (choose one on gaining D)

God Slayer - Your contempt for the gods has been honed and sharpened to a killing point. Your weapons, whilst wielded by you, can slay immortal creatures. They do not instantly kill them - it just makes it possible to kill them at all.

Gnosis- You know the deepest truth of the gods - they depend on mortals for their power. A weak god is nothing more than a strong spirit, and the difference between a god and a spell is just different ends of a gradient. You can use this knowledge to change a god's behaviour, through a campaign of altering rituals and sacrifices of the mortal followers, based on the types of changes to the god that you wish to make. The DM will run a mini campaign, where you can attempt to complete this goal. The more followers a god has, the harder it is to succeed. If you can successfully sustain your rituals amongst 51% of followers, for a full cycle of the moon, the god will be altered in the manner you wanted.

Centerra Recap, Part 1

 I'm running a pop-up campaign set in Centerra. The journal kicks off as the party successfully escapes from The Lair Of The Lamb. Rodney, a former sailor, ties off a rope around the large horn at the top of the tower, and the intended sacrifices for the Lamb of Vandoh climb down the side of the White Temple, retrieving their rope and retreating into an alleyway. Rodney and Esty, who both ate the glowing mushrooms they found underground, see a green glow to the northern side of the city. Quicksilver Twobells carries the Abacus of Vandoh, a magic abacus looted from the temple.

Akina, who they had rescued in the White Temple dungeon, leads them to her parent's house, assuring them they can lay low there. Upon arrival at Akina's house, alarm horns start to blow from the White Temple rooftops, as the followers of Vandoh have discovered their sacrifices escape, and their godling dead—crushed under a statue of Vandoh that had been pushed over by Quicksilver Twobells and Elizabeth. 

A strange couple answers the door and tells Akina that her parents have moved since receiving a large chest of silver from the White Temple. Akina crumples under the realisation that she was sold to the temple.

Mortarion and Esty take time to comfort Akina, and Elizabeth asks if she knows anywhere in the area they could lay low. Akina says she not sure but thinks there's a stable up the road. The group hurries there, and find the stable abandoned and hide in there. 

In their hideout, after quizzing Akina some more, they realise that none of them have very clear memories prior to waking up in white temple dungeon. It seems that one of the secretions of The Lamb has destroyed vast chunks of their memory.

Mortarion carefully goes out and steals himself an outfit off a clothesline, before going on to buy clothes and food, along with a lamp and a torch, for the rest of the party. Upon returning he is reunited with his trusty dog, Sicarius, who had followed his captors here all the way from his village. (This was the reward for the player who got the most character deaths in the lair of the lamb, a free dog hireling and access to the Really Good Dog class when he brings a new character in.)

The party rests in the stable, having their first proper sleep since they woke up in the sacrificial bowls beneath the White Temple. On awakening, Quicksilver Twobells finds an origami bird, upon unfolding he finds it is a letter from the White Temple.

As a chosen of Vandoh, he should never have been offered as a sacrifice to The Lamb. He should return to the White Temple, all is forgiven, as long as he returns and tells them what happened to the other sacrifices.

Quicksilver and Elizabeth go to a messenger. Quicksilver gets annoyed when the messenger tries to charge him for ink for a message to the White Temple. He then shows the messenger the orb of indulgence he stole from the temple. He then tells the messenger not to talk about their meeting and leaves.

Rodney and Esty go to investigate the green glow that only they can see. They find an enormous Red Temple, and enter to investigate. This is the Temple of Shendormu, the god of fungus, mindlessness, and community. They meet Striata, a priestess of Shendormu, who explains they received the blessing of Shendormu, and may become clerics of Shendormu if they so wish, and follow the divine geas' of Shendormu:

1) Never allow mycelium to come to harm

2) Never second guess

3) Protect and nourish your community (The Red Temple is part of your community)

They sell Striata the last glowing mushroom they had taken from the lair of the lamb. They also find out they are in the city of Lon Barago, and that the Red Temple and the White Temple hate each other.

Meanwhile, Quicksilver Twobells decides to go to the White Temple, unsure about what he was walking into, and what he wanted to do.

Upon showing the origami bird, the high priest is summoned. He asks Quicksilver to follow him, and Quicksilver asks that they not go too deep into the temple. The priest chuckles and says he understands, leading Quicksilver into a small office just off the main chamber of the temple.

Quicksilver and the priest trade questions, Quicksilver learns that Vandoh is depicted as feminine in public, and as masculine in the private, inner cult of the Temple. The priest excited and invites Quicksilver to meet the high priestess. Quicksilver agrees and runs the man through while his back is turned.

Quicksilver calmly leaves, closing the door behind him and exiting the temple.

He reunites with the party just as the temple horns start blaring alarm.

The party makes a madcap dash, with Elizabeth pausing to fire off arrows to keep the guards at bay, racing for the red temple, who send their guards to fight the white temple. While the battle rages outside Rodney and Esty join the religion of Shendormu as clerics, and Mortarion joins as a lay member. Rodney and Esty meet The myconid, who dwells below the red temple and anoint them as clerics by feeding him a piece of his mushroom cap.

Striata gives the party some rations and some directions. If they follow the river they will come to the plant kingdom of Mothmoria. If they cross the river they will come to the ruins of Tau Solen, and Tabernach, where smugglers and thieves hideout.

Godsgrave Finale Recap

The new gods returned from their meeting with death, tired and sore and ready for rest. Esmerelda retired to her lair to study the Wish spell, and Elda Gem took the Milkstar, the artefact milk jug created by Amun Khara, and began cooking wondrous meals.

Namjoon was training and sparring whilst Yugom drank, and Sol and Leorah were standing watch on the divine plane. Meena was winding down in her room when the angel attacked her. A great golden skinned figure of terrible beauty, the angel apologised through tears as he struck her with his sword. Meena fled and raised the alarm as the attack starrted in earnest.

Hundreds of angels were winking into existance around the temple of the well. Sol and Leorah, aided by Ubitysa, defended the well from an endless onslaught. As the rest of the new gods rushed to help them, Leorah called out and told them they had to go and kill the king of the gods now, as the angels would never stop coming as long as he was alive.

The new gods, minus Leorah and Sol, began to climb and fly up the goat-path that lead to the King of the Gods home at the summit of Cloudpiercer Mountain. Above them the stars were blinking out, one by one.

As the night turned into day, the gods saw the landscape below blanketed by the deadly silver mist, and the sky was overcast with dark grey clouds. The new gods saw what they first thought were meteors, falling from the sky, but on closer inspection, they realised they were dragons, falling through the clouds, with trailing lines of mist that they clawed and flamed at madly as they fell to the ground below.

The King of the Gods awaited them at the end of a trail, on the other end of a broken bridge, in an ancient temple of the same style as the well of souls. He was flanked by his bodyguard of angels.

They spoke briefly, and the king admitted his hubris created the fog, and offered them a chance to join him, and they would keep the people of Sorefoot Sanctuary safe as they waited for the fog to pass. He also told them they knew nothing about being gods.

The new gods were unimpressed with his plan to be vassals to a king in a dead land, and told him that it was time for the old world to die and a new world to be made in its place.

The king acknowledged their call to battle, and reached up and plucked the sun out of the sky, placing it in his lantern.

The battle was long and arduous, with the king being a masterful sorceror and warrior, and the lantern producing scalding radiance which took a heavy toll on the new gods. Eventually Yugom wrenched the lantern from the king, and placed the sun back in the sky, burning himself terribly.

Elda Gem used her potent healing magics to keep the gods alive, even bringing them back from the dead on several occasions.

Esmerelda released the imprisoned apocalypse beast, and Amun Khara leapt upon its back and wrestled it to attack their enemies.

Namjoon and Meena dealt death wherever they went. Meena's bow sang and Namjoon's flaming spear struck over and over again.

The King's bodyguard were slain, and the apocalypse beast fell into the fog below.

Eventually the new gods prevailed and struck down Orolt, the king of the gods. He instantly dissolved, leaving only his crown behind.

Looking around, the new gods realised the mist had enclosed the entire world. The site of their battle was a tiny bubble in an eternal sea of oppressive grey fog.

The crown lay between them, and when Amun Khara picked it up, it spoke of how he could slay his friends and become the new king. It was quickly dismissed, as the new gods had been friends for decades.

When the crown's manipulations were stripped away, it repeated two words endlessly: Belief, Sacrifice, Belief, Sacrifice, Belief, Sacrifice, over and over again.

The new gods tried to send message spells and scry Leorah and Sol, but received no answer. They were lost to the fog. They discussed what to do next.

They knew the fog was made up of the remnants of souls that the king had taken too much essence from, just fragments of personality, starved of life and identity.

Esmerelda was the first to act, taking her draconic form and flying into the fog, lowering her defenses. She felt the fog draining away her own divine soul - her life essence.

Understanding oblivion and death better than most, Esmerelda decided to turn back. But her actions inspired Namjoon, who took a leap of faith off the side of the mountain into the fog. Namjoon gave almost all of himself to the fog, sacing only a shred for himself. He landed on the ground in front of the injured and maddened apocalypse beast.

The new gods that remained, Meena, Yugom, Elda Gem and Amun Khara, gathered around the crown, and gave themselves entirely to the fog. They heard a million voices call out to them: "Everything was taken from us. And you have sacrificed yourselves to us willingly, and given it back. And now we return it once again to you, willingly, power returned a thousandfold."

So Meena, Yugom, Elda Gem and Amun Khara, were the first to achieve apotheosis. They destroyed the apocalypse beast and Namjoon joined them, then they appeared, with Sol and Leorah, around Esmerelda.

Yugom said:

"Esmerelda... Let go. Come Home""

And she did. And they were the new gods.

Godsgrave Session 10 Recap

The new gods set out to confront the god of death, who was on the edge of a small village in a mountain valley built around an ancient monastery where nobody would stay dead. The new gods teleported to the edge of the monastery and interviewed a death addict before meeting up with the village elder and discussing issues of the village and the god of death over wasabi tea.

The elder negotiated rescue for those who wished to leave, as the village was entirely surrounded by the mist. The gods began ferrying people through the faerie rings, back to Sorefoot Sanctuary.

In return she told them that the god of death had asked her to pass on that he wished to talk to the new gods.

They travelled to the rice paddies that the god of death was tending, and spoke with him. He confirmed their theories, explaining that the fog was created by the remnants of souls harvested by his new scythe. So much of the soul was taken and given to Orolt, the king of the gods, that all that was left was shreds of memories, accompanied by a strong desire to live, feel, or be whole again. Mortals in the fog died as tiny candles, snuffed by an ocean that desired to feel warmth. Gods survived, but as fractured, mad things.

The God of Death warned them that when he died, his scythe may turn on them, and quickly ceded his mantle to Esmerelda, dissolving into a star of Darkness. Esmerelda instantlty absorbed the star and became The Pyschopomp.

The scythe instantly cracked and fractured, leaving a whole in reality in the form of an enourmous cruel insect. Undead burst from the ground in droves, and the scythe would also reach into the fog, launched spears of the soulmist at the gods.

The gods prevailed, and returned home to plot their war with the king of the gods.

This Rule Sucks: Legendary Resistances

So my players fought The Tarrasque recently and I felt for my bard's player. He spent the first three quarters of the fight burning through the legendary resistances, then cast Otto's Irresistible Dance, which would have been an excellent strategy, if it didn't count as a charm effect, which the Tarrasque is immune to (I have an issue with immunities also, but we'll look into that later). His last few spells were resisted due to the Tarrasque's "advantage on all saves" effect.

My monk's player never landed a stunning strike, The Tarrasque never got stuck in the wizard's Mud to Rock spell, and so on and so forth.

Saving throws in general are just a reversed version of how attacks work in Dungeons and Dragons.
For regular attacks you have:

The attacker rolls a variable attack roll on d20 + modifiers =/> a static defense number (Armor Class)

For saving throws you have:

The defender rolls a variable saving throw on d20 + modifiers =/> a static attack number (Save DC)

Mathematics-wise, they are exactly the same thing. Some players seem to prefer attack rolls as they get to roll the shiny math rocks, and don't like saving throws as someone else is rolling the dice.

So saving throws are just attacks, expressed slightly differently. Now imagine you're attacking an orc and you roll a critical hit. You start to cheer, only to have the GM go: "Nuh-uh, he dodged".

When I was a kid and would play make believe, there was the one kid, you know the one. You shoot him with your laser, he has a laser proof shield. You shoot him with your machine gun, he has a bullet proof shield. You cast a spell on him, he has a magic proof shield. You hit him with a billion trillion infinity double gun, he has an everything proof shield.

That kid grew up to work at Wizards Of The Coast and he designed legendary resistances.

That's not really fair. Legendary resistances are an attempt to keep the big boss fights feeling interesting, if they didn't exist, players would spam their crowd control spells until something took hold, and then bypass the fight. But I always feel like the kid with the everything-proof shield when I use them, as i'm effectively just going "nuh-uh it doesn't work!" when the player has already succeeded.

The other thing i've always noticed with Legendary Resistances, whenever they're used at the table, the other players always console the player who's spell or ability got legendarily resisted.
"No that's good, he's only got two left now!"
"Good job, we've got to burn through these fast."
The very fact that players need consolation for burning through Legendary Resistances is proof to me that they are unsatisfying. Nobody ever needs to be consoled after rolling a critical hit.

So how do we make this more satisfying for players? Two options sort of stand out to me. One is from the truly excellent blog goblin punch which none of you should go look at because it's far too good and I don't need to be living up to those sorts of standards.

My first idea is to simply keep Legendary Resistances, but make them take a round to come into effect. You put the dragon to sleep. For 1 round. Then it wakes up. Simple, but I could see it completely invalidating Legendary Resistance as keeping a boss out of the fight for a whole round multiple times could make the Legendary Resistances effectively pointless.

The other solution is from goblin punch, and it's pretty simple and elegant. He calls them ablative saves, and it works like so: the boss fails a save, but chooses to resist. He then takes a flat 10 or 20 damage. Goblin Punch is an OSR blog, with much lower hit point totals than fifth edition, so I would simply tweak it to:

Legendary Resistance:
When the creature resists a spell effect, it takes damage equal to the spell's level times 10.

This means that you can still burn through with low level spells, but if a high level spell, gets resisted, it provides the consolation prize of a bit of damage.