Session 113: Griffin Uses His Head

[icastsword]

Time for Naughty Children to Roll Initiative. But actually our main goal here is escaping without hurting the wyverns.

ROUND 1

At the top of the order is Crimeny. There's a wyvern to the left and a wyvern to the right. Crimeny sits down. No. They tuck themself into some eggs and use a bonus action to hide. They roll Nature (Unnat 20) to determine whether the tunnel Wyvern 2 came from is a way out. They don't see any light. But considering that a full-grown wyvern was back there….they don't know. It's hard to tell. But also: With a 20 nature, this is a lot of eggs for a pair of wyverns. There might be more than two! Maybe let's not go down that tunnel. Crimeny may hold their action until they see what the others are going to do. They're going to lay down and think about their life choices. Actually - can they quietly close and lock the chest they found the lockbox in? Yes. They quietly close and lock it and slink into the eggs. The cog is still in the lockbox in Crimeny's pocket. They're not going to touch that cog, yet.

It's Wyvern 2's turn. Jericho is Right There. It looks at Jericho and narrows its eyes. How close is it to a full moon? It's pretty close. Jericho's wings fluff up and he hisses. They wyvern hisses back. This is goose vs. swan. They wyvern opens up its attacks with a Nat 20 to hit the goose. Jericho has to make a Con Save: 19. He saves. He takes 20 Piercing damage and 10 poison damage. While it's puffing itself up its spiked tail snaps forward and catches him in the side. It hits him again with a 26 and bites for an additional 12 Piercing damage. Goddamn, that's a painful opening play.

Nellie tells Griffin that the wyvern started out super small! What does that mean? They both roll Nature. Griffin rolls a 9 and wonders - hey, Nellie can do a lot of neat things, is turning into a wyvern one of them? Nellie rolls a 28. She sees the look Griffin is giving her. She tells him that changing size is not something wyverns can do. He rolls a 17 Insight and connects the dots of the cat murderer, the tree-walker, and now the wyvern enlarger. Someone may be around, but with a 4 Perception, he sees nothing suspicious. So he casts Darkness, centered on one of the Wyvern's horns, picks up Nellie, and runs the fuck away. He runs 30 feet north toward Shane.

Jericho casts Hideous Laughter on the wyvern. It has an INT score of at least 4, and fails its WIS save with a 13. It finds everything hilariously funny and falls into fits of wyvern laughter. It is incapacitated, has fallen prone, and is unable to stand. Jericho books it. Fuck this shit, I'm out.

Wyvern 1 is blind. It angrily stomps out of the water. It gets real close to Griffin and Nellie. Because it's blinded, it's still thrashing about angrily, swinging its head wildly. It screeches. Shane, Griffin, Nellie, Serra, and Crimeny all have to make Dex Saves. Shane rolls an 8, Crimeny rolls a 26, Serra rolls a 4, and Griffin rolls an 18 for himself and Nellie. Nellie gives Serra her 19 Portent. From the orb of darkness, a bright purple ray streaks out. Nellie and Griffin hit the dirt long enough that it passes over them. Crimeny just lays even flatter as it arcs over them. Then the beam streaks up into the ceiling and shears rock, dirt, and debris from above. With Nellie's portent, Serra sees what's about to happen and dives forward as rocks fall from the pathway we took in, barricading it off, and the beam streaks down and cuts right into Shane, who takes 17 Force damage. Serra picks herself up, looks at the rocks blocking our path back, looks at the wyverns, and just sighs.

It's Nellie's turn. Quick callback to high nature rolls on wyverns - Nellie, Jericho, and Serra roll Arcana. Nellie rolls a 28! Fuck yeah! Jericho rolls a 15, and Serra rolls a 23. Jericho is kind of in pain - also he's not an arcane spellcaster. Also he's too goosey for these particular dots to connect right now.

Serra and Nellie know Wyverns don't have breath attacks. Nellie has seen that sort of force attack before, only on a smaller scale. That "breath attack" looked like a large-scale Frieza Beam. Nellie yells out as loudly as she can: "Guys, this one's not a wyvern!" She casts a 5th level Mind Spike on Wyvern 1. It saves with a 19, and only takes half damage. She does 29 damage halved to 15. It shrieks in pain. That's her turn.

Shane rolls Arcana (22) and Insight (18) on Wyvern 1. Shane is also able to piece together a couple of things: He saw the footsteps leading to the roots upstairs, he knows that druids can use trees as a means of conveyance, and there are roots going right into the water. Then Nellie said this thing was small then got big. Shane casts Calm Emotions on the wyvern.

Calm Emotions (2nd Leven Enchantment)
You attempt to suppress strong emotions in a group of people. Each Humanoid in a 20-foot-radius Sphere centered on a point you choose within range must make a Charisma saving throw; a creature can choose to fail this saving throw if it wishes. If a creature fails its saving throw, choose one of the following two Effects.

You can suppress any Effect causing a target to be Charmed or Frightened. When this spell ends, any suppressed Effect resumes, provided that its Duration has not expired in the meantime.

Alternatively, you can make a target indifferent about Creatures of your choice that it is Hostile toward. This indifference ends if the target is attacked or harmed by a spell or if it witnesses any of its Friends being harmed. When the spell ends, the creature becomes Hostile again, unless the DM rules otherwise.

The Wyvern fails its CHA save with a 16. What will happen for the moment: It's not going to shoot any more beams, but it picks up its wings like it wants to flap them, like it's nervous. It's breathing heavily like it's freaked out and making gutteral hissing noises, like it's ready to do something. Shane moves away from his giant mushroom to hide under a large root, instead.

Serra's going to stay where she is. She requests a favor from Duke. She asks him to fly over to Jericho and perch on his goosey shoulder. Duke obliges. She uses Duke to cast Cure Dumbass at the third level, and gives Jericho 22 HP. She moves down into the cavern, away from the rocks.

ROUND 2

That sure was a hell of a lot of stuff that happened in the last 6 seconds. How difficult would it be to clear all the rocks that just fell? It would take a reasonably powerful spell, or a couple hours of the crew working together. Define reasonably powerful. Fireball? Fireball would either clear a path or make things worse. Scott's got it. Crimeny starts to move toward the cave-in. They move closer to Shane and as they move, they begin to prepare the propane tank.

Wyvern 2 has to make a WIS save to stop laughing: It rolls an 18, which beats Jericho's DC. It can't do anything, but talking is a free action. As it lays there and recovers, the cadence in the laughing bark it lets out changes. Jericho is tasked with rolling Perception. What do his goose eyes see? 18. Jericho stops in his rush towards the rocks because he realizes the hideous laughter ended, and he turns back to look at the tunnel it came from. Jericho has dark vision. He sees, scrambling along the walls and floor of the tunnel, a group of smaller wyverns. Like, juveniles. TEENAGERS. Four of these fuckers appear around the big mommy.

Baby 1 runs up and attacks Jericho. It beefs it with a 13.

Baby 3 runs out across the cavern toward the center of the cavern.

Griffin asks Nellie what to do??? Nellie tells him to listen to her very closely: She needs him to throw her at as many wyverns as he can see. So he does. He gets a running start west-ward and throws his good friend Nellie like the football: He only rolls a 15 Athletics to throw her like the football. So he's got the range, but not the control. She goes a little wide, but with a 19 Dex Save does a three-point landing. She looks super cool. Once upon the ground, she stands up and starts yelling, "Hey! Hey! Eat me!" She only rolls a 13 Persuasion, but this gets the attention of one of the babies.

Baby 4 catches Nellie's scent and runs toward her.

Now it's Goose Time. Jericho just has one baby on him. It tried to bite his ass and missed. He doesn't like Big Boy. Little Shit Head is Little Shit Head. As long as he doesn't have 90 of them up his asshole he's not super worried about him. So he thinks what he's going to do…He rolls Nature to determine the sex of the big wyvern. He rolls a 13. Based off its size, compared to the other one, he gets the feeling that this is the mom. That's fine. It's not really going to matter. Jericho needs mommy wyvern to make a Wisdom Save. She fails with a 15. Jericho Polymorphs Ms Wyvern into a box turtle.

A box turtle is a Tiny Beast with an AC of 17 and 2 HP. As a reaction the turtle can withdraw entirely into its shell and increase its AC by 5. Jericho uses his Bonus Action to give Bardic Inspiration to Nellie. Then he will take the attack of opportunity to fly 30 feet eastward. Baby Wyvern misses him with a 19.

It is Baby 2's turn. It looks down at where its mother used to be and sees a turtle. It doesn't recognize its mommy and attacks the turtle. It jumps down, picks the turtle up in its jaws, and bites down. There is the sound of teeth scraping on shell. Polymorph breaks, and Wyvern Mother explodes back into its big size. On a scale of 1-20, what is the severity of the damage? Ant rolls a 3, and the baby wyvern just breaks some teeth. It's also prone. Actually, you know what? It steps out of combat. It's done.

Wyvern 1 is blind and chill. It doesn't do anything.

Nellie was hoping for a better spread, but she can cast this spell a couple times. She climbs up on a root, and casts Fear.

Fear (3rd Level Illusion)
You project a phantasmal image of a creature's worst fears. Each creature in a 30-foot cone must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or drop whatever it is holding and become Frightened for the Duration.

While Frightened by this spell, a creature must take the Dash Action and move away from you by the safest available route on each of its turns, unless there is nowhere to move. If the creature ends its turn in a Location where it doesn't have Line of Sight to you, the creature can make a Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the spell ends for that creature.

Baby 3 and 4 have to make WIS saves. B3 fails with a 17, but B4 saves.

Shane doesn't know what to do. This is a fuckin' weird fight. He looks out upon the many, many eggs. Are they real eggs? Are they illusory eggs? He rolls Arcana on the eggs. He rolls 26 Arcana and 17 to Investigate. Shane looks at the nearest cluster of eggs. These eggs have speckled patterns on their shells. If he looks really close, it looks like there are a bunch of perfectly identical eggs scattered around. With that good Arcana roll, he realizes it's possible that a lot of these are illusions. In fact, it's a good bet. Shane rolls a 22 Nature - he's studied dragon eggs at warlock college. The fact that a bunch of these are identical, there's no way that's possible. There are illusory eggs mixed in here, and he can't tell which are which unless he goes up and starts slapping them. He tells the crew that some of these eggs aren't real! They're illusory! They're false! Hey wyverns, I'm on to you!!! The wyvern in the darkness bubble is displaying some guilty body language. It shuffles its feet awkwardly.

Shane moves westward and casts Banishment on two of the baby wyverns. Baby 1 fails its save with a 14, and Baby 4 super fails with a 4. Ryo rolls a d20 and Ant determines where they're banished to. She rolls a 16 and sends two juvenile wyverns to Zarekhen. Somewhere deep in the archives, two wyverns explode into existence and start running around wildly.

Crimeny asks Serra to summon her Spiritual Weapon near the cave-in rocks. She does that.

ROUND 3

Here's how this shit's going to go down. Crimeny uses their bonus action to dash up to the rocks. They take the propane tank and set it on the ground. From their bag of tricks they take the chest piece of plate armor - the armor Crimeny took from the Erinyes they forked in Lord Ozamuth's manor. Can Serra use her spiritual hammer to hammer down the neck and armholes of the armor? Crimeny wants to put the propane tank in it and create a charged shell. They have to wait for Serra's turn to get the hammer going. In the meantime they're going to be removing the safeties from the propane tank and rigging it to explode.

Momma wyvern just saw two of her babies disappear. It unfurls its wings in the large chasm and does a big flap. It flies up and immediately down, perching right in front of Nellie. Fuck. It hits her with a dirty 20. She needs to make a Con save: 21. She takes 15 Piercing Damage from the stinger, and 13 Poison damage, but shrugs off the effects of the poison. Now here comes the bite: A 21 hits. Because Nellie is a wee morsel, they're going to do an opposing strength roll. Nellie has Bardic Inspiration. The wyvern rolls a 22. Nellie rolls 17. Everyone looks on in horror as the wyvern rears its head back and chomps down, pulling up a large chunk of root, which is the only thing completely stopping Nellie from getting completely chewed on. However, she does take 15 Piercing damage from the bite.

Baby 1 is chasing a kenku librarian.

Baby 3 must take the dash action and move away from Nellie. It rolls a 3 to save on Wis and completely beefs it.

Griffin doesn't like what he just witnessed. He uses a bonus action to cast Jump on himself and rushes the wyvern trying to chow down on Nellie. He uses his 30 feet of movement and then leaps forward! He's going to use his momentum to slam his sword into the wyvern. Unfortunately, he rolls a 1 to attack. For some reason his sword gets stuck in the sheath and he can't draw it, so mid leap, he decides to do something else: He uses his head. Ant makes a joke about Griffin not being proficient in using his head. While this may be true in the academic sense, he is EXTREMELY proficient at horns. He headbutts the wyvern right in the chest, and does 7 damage. He lands on the root.

Baby 4 is ripping up some books.

Jericho is up. He can't fireball this wyvern into oblivion. He casts Hideous Laughter again. It saves with a 19 and does not fall prone. He gives Nellie another Bardic Inspiration. He moves to flank Mommy Wyvern.

Wyvern 1 is calm in his darkness bubble. He starts moving towards the water, and he submerges himself. Now Sekilos can spy on him. The wyvern disappears. It changes shape. We decide the darkness bubble is still stuck to it, so its floating underwater in its darkness bubble.

Nellie can peek out through the wyvern's mouth. She uses her lantern staff to summon a swarm of harmless insects. It now has a ton of bugs in its mouth. The wyvern starts thrashing its head wildly. Then she uses her bonus action to cast Expeditious Retreat. The wyvern is gnashing its teeth and thrashing as it chews on the log and is annoyed by bugs. Nellie has to make a Dex save. She rolls a 14, but thanks to Jericho's Bardic Inspiration, she bumps her save up to a 21. Ant rolls 1d8 to determine which direction Nellie fires off in. She gets jettisoned straight north. The bugs follow her. It almost looks like the wyvern spits her out in an arc. Nellie takes 17 Fall Damage. Wait, no, Nellie can use a reaction! She casts Feather Fall as she begins to descend. She wafts down like SSB Jigglypuff, surrounded by a cloud of moths, her harmless insects.

Shane casts Calm Emotions on Mommy Wyvern, but it saves with an 18. Shane wastes a spell slot and stays where he is.

It's Serra's turn. She joins Nellie in her bug cloud and casts a 2nd level Cure Wounds on her for 13HP. Now she rolls to attack the breastplate with her spiritual weapon. She hits with a 19 and rolls damage: 9. (2 on the 1d8) She's able to dent it enough that the neck is closed off enough, but the way the metal deforms leaves some opening on the arms. It's not completely closed.

ROUND 4

Crimeny sticks the propane tank in the breastplate. The ground is rock and dirt. Can Crimeny dig a small trench to brace the breastplate? Crimeny rolls Athletics to see how quickly they can do this. They roll an 18 on the die for a total of 17. Crimeny can dig the hole this turn, but they can't detonate the tank until the next turn. They take the gold plated arrow they got from the statue fight and stick it in one of the arm holes, to give Serra a very clear target for her hammer strike.

Mama Wyvern takes Griffin headbutting her personally, and rolls to hit. She misses with a 23 when Griffin casts Shield, but does hit him with a 26 to bite. She does 16 Piercing damage.

Nellie dropped concentration on Fear when she cast Expeditious Retreat, so Baby 3 gets to take its turn. It dashes up to Jericho.

Baby 1 has moved on from harassing a kenku and is now chasing a zombie. It's chewing on the zombie's arm.

Griffin uses his Action to Disengage, and moves North toward what is hopefully going to be our escape route.

Baby 4 has made its way onto an elevator and is going DOWN. Where is it going? Only it knows.

It's time for Jericho. He casts Bestow Curse and requires a Wis Save from Ms Wyvern. She finally fails with a 10. While cursed, she must make a Wis Save at the start of her turn, and if she fails, she wastes her turn doing nothing. There's a stinky baby next to him. Jericho retreats to the moth bubble generated by Nellie. He gives Bardic Inspo to Shane.

Wyvern 1 is in the water. We can't see it.

Nellie switches to Sekilos' senses to see if she can spy on the wet wyvern. Are there any signs of an invisible wet boy? Griffin's darkness bubble is still floating aimlessly in the water. She casts Fly on Sekilos. As Sekilos starts to float higher, Nellie can see a shadow at the bottom of the large pool - a large shadow that she couldn't see at first from Sekilos' angle on the shore, but as he goes higher, she can see a little better. She rolls Nature and Investigation. She rolls a 13 on each, despite her +10 modifier. Ant will tell Hilary what Nellie infers after Serra's turn.

Shane rolls Nature to know how intelligent wyverns are. He rolls an 18. Its Intelligence stat is 5. It has a -3 Int mod. He should absolutely cast an Int save spell on this critter. He casts Phantasmal Force on the mama wyvern.

Phantasmal Force (2nd Level Illusion)
You craft an illusion that takes root in the mind of a creature that you can see within range. The target must make an Intelligence saving throw. On a failed save, you create a phantasmal object, creature, or other visible phenomenon of your choice that is no larger than a 10-foot cube and that is perceivable only to the target for the duration. This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.

The phantasm includes sound, temperature, and other stimuli, also evident only to the creature.

The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If the check succeeds, the target realizes that the phantasm is an illusion, and the spell ends.

While a target is affected by the spell, the target treats the phantasm as if it were real. The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm. For example, a target attempting to walk across a phantasmal bridge that spans a chasm falls once it steps onto the bridge. If the target survives the fall, it still believes that the bridge exists and comes up with some other explanation for its fall; it was pushed, it slipped, or a strong wind might have knocked it off.

An affected target is so convinced of the phantasm’s reality that it can even take damage from the illusion. A phantasm created to appear as a creature can attack the target. Similarly, a phantasm created to appear as fire, a pool of acid, or lava can burn the target. Each round on your turn, the phantasm can deal 1d6 psychic damage to the target if it is in the phantasm’s area or within 5 feet of the phantasm, provided that the illusion is of a creature or hazard that could logically deal damage, such as by attacking. The target perceives the damage as a type appropriate to the illusion.

Now what is he going to make? Make a really sexy wyvern. Shane makes a sexual wyvern. No. He makes dinner. He creates a delicious animal that the wyvern wants to eat. He makes a goat with a t-bone steak tied to it. He makes the goat run down the tunnel. Well, the most delicious thing to the wyvern right now is Pippinella covered in steaks, with a skirt of bacon. She is riding a goat also covered in meat. Shane directs the goat to run down the corridor it came up from. He makes the phantasmal Pippinella yell, "Eat me!"

It's time for Serra to shine. But that's going to have to wait for next week since Guy fell asleep.

So we wrap up for the night, and Ant returns to Nellie's Nature & Investigation rolls. As Serra prepares to detonate the Crimeny Propane Bomb, Nellie is focusing on the shadow under the water. Sekilos continues to fly up the complete 60 feet allowed by the spell, giving Nellie the full picture of what's going on underwater. Nellie sees the full shadow of a wyvern laying on the bottom of the pool. Its wings are tattered and ripped up, and she gets the feeling that it's dead. As she's focusing on this, the water starts to bubble, and a sharp, almost needle-like tendril of water fires up, piercing Sekilos, killing him.

We will avenge both the daddy wyvern and Sekilos next week.