Beneath the Missing Sea Episode 10

The Sea Speaker's Tower

Episode 10, finally spotting the dead Leviathan and sneaking into a wizard's tower.

Played November 14, 2023

The Party for Episode 10

• mtb playing Manqoba
• CaptainSabatini playing Esgorman
• igneous playing Fiske

The original Crab Wranglers reunited after many weeks apart and quickly decided to leverage their fame to put together a warband to deal with some larger issues they'd yet avoided. In addition to hiring the usual Hemmingway the porter and Albert de Manc the hedge knight, they rehired Two-Toes Brostchild, the chainsmoking guttersnipe, Kerc Longarm, a brutish former dockworker who'd been working as a bouncer for Ogden, and Therma Fineore, a viscous dwarf with a pickaxe. With the three Crab Wranglers leading that meant that eight people headed out onto the seabed together.

Traveling east towards that hill in the basin's center, they passed uneventfully through the dunes east of the settlement and along the slopes of those heights. Tacking south, they were startled to come over a rise and find several locals carrying a dingy. They were immediately recognized and warned about heading south towards the giant corpse, but thanked them and headed that way anyway.

Cresting a final dune, they came across the titanic bulk of the monster, where tiny folk were scrambling around in a camp beneath it, and watch towers ringed in every direction. The party mused about how they might approach it but decided to leave it for another day.

Continuing southeast, they began to spot the towering lighthouse in the distance when they came across three dwarves wearing green cloaks with silver pins doing surveying work out on the seabed. Manqoba approached and learned that the famous mercenary band, the Silver Blades, were encamped to the northeast and were doing their own salvaging operations, including sending out teams to find oil beneath the sea floor. The two parties parted amicably.

East they approached the sea stack with the Sea Speaker's Tower perched atop it, now high above them. They considered the stack itself as a potential climb and also noticed block-like seams within the face of it spiraling upwards around it, but unable to find a way to make them anything but flush with the face of the cliff. So they spent a day hunting around the base of the stack before finding a ravine that led into it and found deep within a very tall cavern filled with brass pipes heading upwards. 

They decided to leave Hemmingway and Two-Toes behind and began to climb the pipes, judging them an easier climb than the exposed sea stack. High above, they found catwalks but no exit, for the pipes, continued upwards. They emerged into a watery cavern after two more climbs and a set of metal stairs. They put down some zombies easily before finding a brass elevator that led upward into an antechamber divided by a wooden bridge suspended above evil green water. They ignored it and went up the nearby stairs.

Above they entered a labyrinthine library. Shelves that reached the ceiling created winding paths in each direction. A vast moving mural of a sea monster eating a ship covered the ceiling. The band spread out to start investigating shelves and I eventually rolled that one person fell into a hole in the loose flooring but Fiske and Manqoba were near enough to rescue the henchman. Meanwhile, Esgorman had found a filigreed conch that he immediately pocketed. Then they heard the booming footsteps from somewhere within the stacks.

They realized that they'd split up and so started looking for each other. Esgorman blew the conch and was surprised to hear the sound ring from somewhere else within the library. The two groups were able to hone in on its sound where they found the matched twin to the conch they'd found, which magically transmits sound between them. But those loud footsteps were approaching so they fled towards any exit they could find.

Here's how I handled this situation: The party faced three problems: finding a way out, avoiding the heavy footsteps, and avoiding holes in the floor. I asked them for the priorities on avoiding these problems, and they said that they first wanted to avoid the holes, seeing them as deadly or potentially dividing of the group, and to secondly to find a way out and were willing to risk coming across the creature stalking them. I then had the three of them roll wisdom checks since the obstacle was primarily one of navigation. CaptainSabatini mentioned that his PC had a background involving lots of time spent studying in libraries, so I let Esgorman use his higher intelligence instead. I adjudicated in order of their priorities: first avoiding holes if they got one success, then finding a way out with a second success, and avoiding the monster with a third. They rolled three successes and so effortlessly escaped. 

They began to head up the steps into the lighthouse proper but time was running short so we adjourned for the evening.

Statistics 

Days Passed: 70

Kegs Recovered: 9
Total Party Members: 8
Hexes Explored: 23
Caves Explored: 4
Dungeons Explored: 1
Players Participated: 8
Megafauna Captured: 2
Skirmishes Survived: 9
Foes Vanquished: 1 feral dog, 6 anglergoblins, 1 anglergoblin shaman, 1 albatross, 4 sea-plagued, 1 sea monk, 3 waterlogged revenants
Treasure Obtained: 3746 previously + 2 communicative conchs
Tragic Deaths: 1 (crab friend)

Map

The map after 10 sessions

Notes

Finally into one of the notable dungeons of the module...and it went a lot more poorly than I expected. It's not my own DMing or the players letting me down. Instead, I found the maps and description of the tower to be simply bad. Keys would mention things that clearly didn't exist in the rooms (like multiple stairs). The maps would show doors that led nowhere described or didn't make sense. There's a mechanic to randomly determine which pipe they exist from while climbing, when it was both unclear that they were supposed to be inside a pipe, and the map doesn't have any numbering for that number to be meaningful, And in any case, how would it even matter on which side of a single room they start on?

While I initially noted the flaws and brushed them aside as incentives for me to get more involved in the creative side of DMing, I'm starting to sour on this module a bit. I've been thinking about re-desiging one of the other dungeons because it seems very boring and I may have to do so now. I'm still having fun and am not looking forward to how the holiday season is already screwing up scheduling but I'd recommend this module less now than when we started.

Upon spotting the Leviathan I checked off one of the deeds that contribute towards leveling, seeing a once-in-a-lifetime sight. Unfortunately for Manqoba and Esgorman, they'd not caroused like Fiske had so while he immediately leveled up, they ended the session still away from town.