Cloister of the Frog God Play Report #1

Get the adventure yourself here.

Seeking the lost Holy Cross of St. Yora, the party of Zanzarria Xallentus (Paladin 4), her brother Goll the Apollonian (Cleric 5), Audulfr (Magician 4), Baijata the Locksmith (Purloiner 4, think Cleric/Thief), Krysma (Illusionist 3), and a small group of Pictish longbowmen venture to the salt marshes of the Zangerios Islands in search of the Xathoqquite cloister said to have absconded with the relic.

Their first stop is the town of Silvash on the edge of the brackish marsh. Zanzarria makes the acquaintance of Baktlu, the aging chief priest of the obscure God of Murky Waters. There is no love lost between his dwindingly town’s congregation and the Xathoqquites that lie in the swamp’s heart, and the Paladin makes a deal with the priest to return with the ritual oil from the temple; in return Zanzarria’s party can make use of the “Rolls Royce of Rafts” to ply the waters of the swamp. The party has to bribe the longbowmen and their leader, the Serjeant X'átgu, to stay in the town - this mission will require a delicate touch, and a dozen men won’t even fit on the raft in the first place. Off they go.

The first leg of their adventure is filled with misery. Over a hellish day, the party has to fight off a combined ~16 dachshund-sized leeches as well of a pair of giant anacondas (Goll attempted to speak with this latter pair, but was not particularly persuasive, and they did not take the bait of an improved phantasmal giant frog conjured by Krysma…). 

They found two places of note on this long, arduous day. The first (and more hospitable) was the miserable village of Slimywater. The guards of the crappy little town had to be bribed with small jasper gems to allow the party to dock and enter (time will tell if this will soften or embolden the guards’ behavior). A gout-stricken Hyperborean named Xolusnek ruled attended by tittering women from the only notable building in town, a crumbling tower. The portly petty-lord was charitable, and in between making failed passes at Zanzarria gave the group some pointers: the Frog-God’s cloister was in the north, an enchantress’ tower lay somewhere to the west (though her tower was far inferior), and there were hellish brambles worth avoiding along the route.

The second locale discovered was a spire whose entry was wreathed with skulls whose eye sockets were filled by glowing, pulsing frog eggs. Stupidly approaching, the entire party save Goll were beset by visions unspeakable batrachian blasphemies hatching from and consuming their bodies. Goll had to drag everyone to the relative safety of the raft, as ominous croaking reverberated from the tower. The group fled to the west. The sun had long set. Tired, leech-bitten, and drained of curative spells, the party clawed their way through more leeches to an island with another spire, wreathed by soft purple flame. It was either sleep on the raft or brave this - the party took their chances and knocked on the door probably around midnight. An obsequious butler in purple livery named Hushuk told them that the lady of the tower’s beauty sleep could not be disturbed, but after being given a color-coordinated amethyst, his mood slightly softened and allowed them to put up their tent on the island (even offering a small tent separate for Zanzarria, the only woman in the party). 

In the morning, the group had an audience with Lady Lilian, the tower’s maven. She apologized for not receiving them the night before, and served them cake and tea. The party furtively first glanced at Audulf, an alchemist of little renown but poison taster of merit, who sipped the tea, and discovered it to be laced with a drug that loosened his mind. He informed Lilian the tea party was over. She frowned (“Hushuk, our guests don’t like the tea you prepared”), apologized (“you know how it is being a witch in somewhere so remote, with strange people showing up at your door at odd hours of the night!”), and in return for the group taking their hands off their steel, offered them a place to stay. The party understandably bailed immediately.

The group was luckier in their travels the next day as the swamp’s fauna did not come out to meet their Zangerossi steel. They discovered the paranoid palisaded town of Sackshore, and more importantly, the Cloister of the Frog-God! Tucking into a cove, the party gets to work. They were ready for an infiltration mission: thanks to scrolls they prepared the month before, the entire party turns invisible. Zanzarria activates the Sword of the Winds, a bastard sword found on a mountain peak in the dreaded Dragonscale Downs, and flies to get a perimeter. She finds several doors to the temple, multiple nearby cellar doors, and a nearby two-story stone fort. Figuring any holy oils or relics would be in the temple, the group decides to investigate that first.

It is at this time that Baijata the Locksmith earns his cognomen as he fails to pick any of the locks to the back entrances. The group has to go in the front - only with the cover of audible glamorous from Krysma’s wand of illusion does the party intrude undetected (the vestibule backs up to eating quarters, where praying monks in the front of the house were fooled by the illusion of laughter from the cafeteria). The DM reasonably rules that only Baijata can sneak under the curtains gracefully enough to not have a chance of ruffling them. Fair enough. The party is split for a short time (Baijata will explore for ~10 minutes before a devious plan concocted by Krysma is hatched).

Baijata finds a group of 8 acolytes eating a meal (they remark on the audible glamor seeming to come from the vestibule, there is nothing humorous in worshipping the Dread Toad, they must talk to the abbot later…). He finds a passage to a cellar, which leads to a split hall. 

The first branch takes him to a stygian nightmare: a blasphemous undertemple with shambling undead servitors flanking a bubbling cauldron beneath the slavering jaws and glittering gemstone eyes of a giant idol to the god of batrachian horrors himself. 

The purloiner decides to go the other direction.

He finds five prison cells on the other side. He lives up to his name as he fails to open four of them. The one he does open contains a captive Amazoness, a warrior named Vilis. After attempting to strike at the invisible voice of the purloiner with a knife hidden in her boot, she settles. The purloiner gives her his morning star as a token of good faith. Baijata learns from her these are holding cells for human sacrifice, and she has been made to watch as people have been sacrificed, boiled into hideous slurries in their cauldron. Baijata shudders as he realizes what the ritual oil old Baktlu seeks might be…the rendered fat of the sacrificial victims! He keeps his speculation to himself. He tells the warrior woman he’ll be back for her, he wants to look around and see if he can find any keys to open all the cells at once, but leaves her door unlocked so she’s free to brain whatever unsuspected acolyte comes for her and flee if something goes wrong. Baijata discovers an unfinished second floor basement and decides to brave the door on the opposite side of the undertemple.

Meanwhile, the party upstairs is not idle. Krysma decides it’s time to use the Wand of Illusion from his dead master to trick the baleful Xathoqquites: while invisible, he conjures a floating image of their god in the dining room, and has it cryptically utter “THE TOWER…” while hopping towards the front door. The rest of the group takes advantage of the commotion to open the curtain and enter the room. Krysma concentrates on his illusion, issuing nonsense cryptic commands while sending the frog out of the building. Audulfr takes advantage of the confusion to begin dropping acolytes with the sleep spell, while the phantasmal frog admonishes his disloyal followers for not feeding his commands and following him. This burns through almost all the charges of the wand, but hey, use ‘em or lose ‘em! The whole upstairs group is either comatose or rushing in a tizzy (“The abbot! We must send for the abbot!” “Ia Xathoqqua! Ia Xathoqqua!” “Which tower?!”), providing cover for the movement of the party’s mailed feet. 

Suddenly, from the staircase bursts a squadron of zombies blindly slashing in the air, helmed by a macabre toad of a man swinging a flail and flanked by a floating weird war hammer continuing to strike blindly. He’s shouting something about intruders! Wither comes this nightmarish man? To this we must backtrack to Baijata…

Baijata silently crosses the haunted chapel, making his way to a (mercifully unlocked) door. He finds an arcane laboratory, at the center of which is a hideous toad of a man in unmistakable robes of high religious office. The man whips around with shocking alacrity. The purloiner makes the foolish snap decision to retreat into the room. He is not silent enough (at this point, this marks only 1/10 of the thief skills to be employed this session as a success), bumping into a table and disturbing a nearby beaker. The Abbot conjures a weird war hammer and swings, shockingly striking the invisible purloiner grievously as he flees through the hoard of zombies now clawing wildly. He decides to repel the undead as he flees, succeeding and sending the hoard scrabbling back to their master for now…(the DM stated in the future that turn undead should drop invisibility, which is perfectly reasonable.). The purloiner flees with the abbot in hot pursuit.

Making it upstairs, the party reconvenes in a side hall and waits to get a bead on the abbot. They attempt to drop him with their enchantments: a Charm person from an enchanted dagger and a Wyvern Warden coalescing from smoke atop the portly priest. However, the abbot proceeds to roll exactly the bare minimum he needs to make both saves at the moment the cleric and purloiner drop from invisibility as a result of their conjurations. They only lock eyes for a second as Audulfr and Krysma finish reading from scrolls of invisibility to hide the duo again. Our heroes don’t like their odds in a straight fight - or even one where the party is invisible - so they flee. The Xathoqquites search for them, but it’s very hard to find an invisible group, especially when Zanzarria activates the Sword of the Wind again to fly around invisibly. The group watches grimly as the Xathoquites re-bar doors and improve their defenses. The purloiner, peeved as all the plans were foiled, espies an emerald-eyed statue of a frog by a tranquil pond. He informs the party he’s going to take its eyes. To the rest of the group’s horror, they see the eyes discharge a ray of magic as they move and hear croaking as fifteen fanged frogs leap from the pond’s depths. Unknown to anyone, the invisible purloiner has been turned into a frog. He is surely lost forever, if not for the cleric intuiting something horrible and magic has happened, and decides to cast dispel magic on the area by the statue. This makes the purloiner both visible and human again (luckily passing his trauma survival roll). 

Zanzarria picks him up and takes him to the roof to hide as she leaves a parting gift for the Xathoqquites - the Sword of the Winds lives up to its name, as she uses the blade’s awesome power to cast Control Winds. The devastating spell ravishes the swamp and environs. Mangrove trees are uprooted and fly through the temple’s windows, doors are smashed open, roof tiles are stripped, and most injuriously, the cloister’s vineyards are ruined (notably, the magic idol is completely unbothered, as are the frogs under its stony gaze…). Zanzarria herself is the eye of the storm, and she leads the party to the raft. Mercifully, the lashings of the party’s raft hold as they return to Sackshore to lap their wounds and plan the next day’s adventure…will they be able to return for the Amazon? Will the devastated temple provide a softer target, or will the paranoid toad-worshippers guard their lucre all the more fiercely? Will the purloiner open any fucking locks? We will wait and see.

Player’s Notes

This was a “duo game” where I controlled the entire party. The party had gone through two other adventures before this (“The Cult of the Crooked Tower” and an expanded version of “The Dragon Isle”). 

This game was played using tracked pound encumbrance automated with a nice spreadsheet. As a result, our “liquid capital” was all gemstones as I didn’t want to lug gold around. This led to some fun ludonarrative consonance within the sword and sorcery milieux, where petty guards’ greed was stroked with glittering jaspers, and the purple-loving enchantress Lilian’s favor was bought with amethysts. I personally am a slot inventory truther - in a game with multiple people I would forsee some difficulty getting everyone to track this with fidelity, but in smaller groups, it's great! It's lead to a lot of interesting choices being made.

"Uh, no, I don't have any change..."

I am somewhat satisfied with my performance. I did my best to leverage idiosyncrasies to Hyperborea to succeed, specifically with regards to the invisibility spell, which is only broken when the caster either attacks, makes an offensive action, or makes somebody roll a save. The DM had ruled in the past that sleep was kosher to cast while invisible, but for the future, Turn Undead would not be. This obviously makes this version of invisibility much more powerful! The Hyperborean version of dispel magic is almost much more powerful, with greater chances of success for foes close to the level of the caster.

I am happy with my usage of illusion magic. I burned through a LOT of my Wand of Illusions charges but I've also had it for approximately 4 sessions without burning a single charge. I elided some of the details of random encounters where I attempted to conjure giant improved phantasmal cranes to eat leeches, but this was a much more satisfying use of the spells.

My time spent making invisibility scrolls paid off, and even with the horribly bungled plan, it could have gone a lot worse. I made three big mistakes: #1 was not specifically preparing for infiltration after finding the cloister. I should have explored the swamp more and returned to Sackshore or Lilian’s tower to rest and arm myself with more fitting spells for infiltration - I had two characters capable of casting silence and did not enter the den of evil clerics on a sneaking mission with silence memorized. HURR DURR. Mistake #2 was grabbing the obvious magically trapped gemstone eyes as a “I want something to gain for my troubles”. Don’t make decisions while tilted! #3 was deciding to duck into the room with the abbot instead of ducking away. That possibly lead to the escalation of affairs. The module is very fun. The random encounters are hellish and taxing, the theming is solid and immersive, and social encounters enjoyable and tricksy without being assholishly punishing. It promises to be a massive adventure with the two-story fort unexplored and a two level dungeon to conquer on top of the swampy pointcrawl. Fomalhaut uber alles!

The probable highlight of the game for me was the failed confrontation with the Abbot. Multiple earlier failed lockpick rolls drastically changed my scope, and then he proceeded to fortunately make two back to back saves by the skin of his teeth. Luck was against me. Part of the beauty of the game is how with precautions you can mitigate the effects of RNG. This is a skill helpful for pretty much any game with an element of chance. Stack the deck in your favor (in this example, huge amounts of invisibility spells) ahead of time; leave as little as possible to chance as you can. Not flawless play by any means but full of good lessons.

Behold the breaker of men.