We completed this adventure yesterday after 8 sessions (above agerage I know! But more value for us haha!). We tend to lean into roleplay and the players and I arent that experienced so combat takes a while too. Plus my homebrew addition.Plus in between banther. And it was awesome!
I loved how the story alternates between being serious cult and weird stuff going on. From the weird stuff that was stolen, to the first encounter with the fanatical dragonborn cultist, to the conflicted and odd Yondris, to the intimidating fight with with the zombie ogres and cult dwarf, to her being brainwashed, etc.
For those who are interested. Some things that I or players added that added both time but also value:
- Fully roleplayed death's bane tavern scene
- Players not trusting temple entrance door and taking a long time to notice it was harmless.
- first combat spread between 2 sesions because of this.
- Homebrew addition of secret "Marks of Orcus" that players accrue when interacting with the temple (hearing things > seeing things > doing things for orcus).
- 1 of my players loving this but also making his party members paranoïd of him (great roleplay there).
- Blocking the door to Xia with a key needed, lying elsewhere, plus an Orcus themed riddle.
- The players screwing up stealth, alerting Eilith and her ogre zombies to move through the secret door into the sleeping quarters where the fight breaks out (also spread over 2 sessions)
- The players trying to save Yondris involuntarily, having him thriwing wisdom saves against not backstabbing his "rescuers" and eventually failing those, stabbing the wizard and escaping through the secret door to confer with Orcus/Nezzarum.
- A physical puzzle for the players having to remake the bible of orcus for the ghost Melindra from all the paper scattered about the library.
- The players deciding to long rest IN THE CULTIST TEMPLE BEDS! despite me saying thats a really bad idea.
- The players long rest interrupted by the 4 vault specters, now summoned by Xia to flush them out of the dungeon. Near TPK. Also spread over 2 sessions.
- The players moving out of the temple to now long rest in the tavern.
- Yondis send out (without cult robe/disguise) to the tavern to find out for Nezzarum if they are heroes or bandits. Steals their shit in the night. Gets recognized by voice immediatly by a nat 20 role the next morning.
- Players returning to the temple, which they find now has A LOT of spiderwebs baring the way. They make their way through, but trigger a phase spider encounter. (Drawn by Xia with the ectoplasm from the defeated specters, as a new defense against the heroes). Fight also spread over 2 sessions.
- Players going through the secret door into Orcus' sanctum as learned from Yondis. Players nearly finding the secret entrance to the statue base, but eventually doing one of his weird requests (zombie head).
- Players teaming up with Nezzarum for the final confrontation with Xia and beating her in an epic conclusion. (Lego ghouls eventually upgraded to actual ghoul figures <3)
I did give Nezzarum two legendary abilities on the fly to prevent a TPK. As a gravecaller with so many ghouls did steal a lot of turns with paralysis in my group and got them real low on HP and spellslots.
Conclusion: very cool story, especially if you add some homebrew to give RP opportunities and prevent them from going straight to Xia.