Episode 78 Mortal Coils
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Someone sent Anna a doll that utters Evelyn quotes. Amazing!
The Party
(Rachel Seeley) Miranda- Elf Druid
(Anna) Evelyn - Human Paladin of Lathander
(ProJared) Diath - Human Rogue
(Holly) Strix - Tiefling Sorcerer
(Nathan) Paultin - Human Bard
Last time, the heroes befriended Miranda, who commands an army of vegepygmies. A baby triceratops named "18" is following the group around. The heroes entered the yuan-ti dungeon. Ras Nsi appeared on a teleportation circle. There's a pool of coagulating blood.
Miranda is on the balcony facing Ras Nsi, the villainous yuan-ti leader. Miranda casts thunderwave! She knocks him back into the circle. Smart! Flash of light and he disappears.
Miranda sees that the blood in the pool is assuming a form. It's the face of a woman.Ummm....
Strix is hit by a ton of arrows and falls into the blood basin. The face in the blood opens its mouth. The face has... BLADES! What!? The Lady of Pain!? In real life, Holly goes and gets some alcohol.
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| The Lady of Pain |
Paultin makes a mighty leap and thunderwaves a big pile of yuan-ti, sending them scattering in all directions.
Simon is right next to the gong. Will he gong it?! Nate wants to hit that gong very badly and Chris keeps dangling it in front of him.
The vegepygmies, Miranda's allies, rush into the room and throw themselves on the yuan-ti, stabbing them with spears.
Diath disengages his foes and backflips over to the blood pool. He is going to try to reach in and pull Strix out. Eep... he's getting pulled in. There he goes!
Miranda tries to follow, but the portal is gone.
Then.. the giant, stone Dendar statue comes to life! Uh oh. It is going after Evelyn.
Strix is in "effluvium". What a fantastic word. No.. it's not effluvium. It's quicksand! She's pulled out by a short, portly dark-skinned man with puffy cheeks and a wreath on his head. this sounds exactly like an old DiTerlizzi drawing of a Nightshade from the 2e Monstrous Compendium annual 1.
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| Ubtao? |
This strange guy says that he's... Ubtao?! Ubtao is the deity that abandoned Chult. He's the Dinosaur Father! The trickster gods took over once he left. This guy says he used to own a shop in Sigil...?
The players hold up their creepy dolls that they have in real life. Those things are awesome.
Evelyn ends up inside the serpent statue! What's in there? A magical conduit! Evelyn tumbles through it and ends up sitting in a hall.
Three people are lying nearby - Strix, Diath and Paultin. Three little lights come up out of their bodies and are drawn away. They're all dead. What?!!?
Evelyn feels like she only has a little bit of time to save them. Wow. She's in the tomb of annihilation! Alone! Sounds like Area 7 (page 134 of ToA).
Evelyn has.. the EGG! The explosive egg! She flies down, looking for the Soulmonger. Ohh man, is she going to blow it up?!
Paultin is alone in the temple, among the battling yuan-ti and the vegepygmies. He shrugs. He uses bigby's ice hand rings the gong. That is hilarious. The group dies laughing.
A portcullis drops. Miranda and Paultin are trapped in there with all of the yuan ti.
Paultin hears a weird hissing noise calling to him. Paultin says it's a good day to die.
Waffles is trying to smash through the bars. The players are getting emotional now.
Diath falls somewhere cold and wet. He's lying in snow. There's torn off wings.. his wings! Diath's an Aasimar? That's been a fan theory that apparently has leg to it!
Snow is falling. He's in Waterdeep. Someone is in an alley. It's a man wearing a cloak. The man's eyes glow cold winter blue. It might be Strahd.. but Strahd's eyes glow red.
Diath approaches someone wearing Strix's cloak. It's... cranium rats wearing Strix's cloak. Their brains pulse. They say "We are many, you are one." This is Many as One, an entity described in the 2e Faces of Sigil supplement (Chris has said that this is his favorite Planescape product).
Diath starts demanding to know where she is. Jared is awesome in doing so.
Back in the temple, Miranda casts hidden pathways to send Paultin to the other side of the gate. No wait.. he won't go through. Simon's over by the gong.
Miranda spots Typho, a halfling ally of hers. He sneaks into the room. He's trying not to be seen. His eyes are serpentine. He's become a yuan ti!The yuan-ti can turn people into yuan-ti, it's a whole thing.
Typho is coming to kill Paultin.
In the maze, Ubtao tells Strix that all of her experiences are fake. She's been here the whole time. Strix remembers that the first time he saw the Ubtao statue was on the bridge.
Paultin's doll is drinking.
Strix asks Ubtao who the skizzixes are. Humans who made a pact with devils who transformed themselves into tiefling. Ummm. OK. We learn a lot. The Skizzixes are a clan linked to the devils. The Lorcatha clan is linked to angels. They were at war.
Some sort of deal kept the two families in some kind of cease fire/non-interference pact. One of the terms of this pact is that members of the two clans can't have anything to do with each other or the multiverse might be destroyed!
Also, the Lorcatha had to give up their souls... all except one. Strix is going to poop on the floor.
So..! You see where we're going here?! Diath is a.. maybe, THE... Lorcatha. Strix is a Skizzix. Their pairing could potentially destroy the entire multiverse.
In the tomb, Evelyn swoops down. She flies into the cogs (page 169 of ToA). Area 58.. Area 59.. Area 61. This room is complicated and she's all alone. There's a panel and some diagrams. Here's the handout image that portrays this room:
Back in "Waterdeep", Diath starts to wander around. The blue-eyed guy calls out to him. "We're friends! Aren't we?"
Chris tells him that "this version of you has the ring of winter.." Chris says that Diath rules Waterdeep? WHAT?!
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| Fenthaza |
A door in the building next to him opens. There's a woman there. She whispers, "come with me." She has dark skin. She says she can save his friends. Some snakes slither out of the building
She tells Diath that he and his friends are trapped in Dendar's nightmare. Aha! Dendar's prison. Dendar the Night Serpent is a serpent goddess who is trapped in some kind of prison. The yuan-ti are trying to figure out a way to break her out. If she does so, she's going to eat the sun.
This yuan-ti woman is wearing a golden bracelet. She has long, black fingernails. The lower half of her body is serpentine. It's Fenthaza! An NPC from chapter 4 of Tomb of Annihilation.
She tells Diath that he can replace Ras Nsi. "Command us." he tells Diath he is special because of his "ancient soul."
That's where we stop.
Overall
Fantastic episode! Maybe the best one of all of them!
We were fortunate enough to get to talk with Holly on Waffle Talk right after this episode ended. It's right here: