I've redone this particular blog entirely. The original was incredibly morose and bitchy. That's not me and now that I'm not pissed off about the session anymore, I want the blog to better reflect the story, not the situation. With that being said, we're going to go sans-alcohol for future sessions and if a player can't make it, no worries, but their character will also be absent for whatever reason we can logically slot in. Now that the APL is 3+, it won't affect CRs as bad if someone falls a little behind on the XP gain.
This was my third iteration of this session. Originally, I had the party completing the Redbrand hideout, going to the wedding, learning about local politics (and picking up some side quests), before the masquerade wedding itself, and then after the wedding things happening. Then a few weeks ago, I started worrying that because I'm not really making most NPCs that memorable to anyone (most aren't even using consistent miniatures), I wouldn't be able to pull off the wedding as I wrote it. So I rewrote that the tower itself would be under siege but then, without our fourth party member, the rest had less motivation to do anything in the tower so we had this session...
We waited for a bit and when it became evident Laucian's player wouldn't be attending, we just went on. So I did a brief recap on the groups that the party encountered previously and then rolled into a bunch of undead attacking the encampments. I made sure the party was "sleeping," (elves just do the weirdo meditation thing) before going forward, in case anyone had some overnight shenanigans they wanted to pull. The wedding was to start at dawn, and during the predawn gloom when the sun was just beginning to crest the mountains, the sounds of human suffering alerted the party, camped closest to the tower. I didn't set that up to be such intentionally. Just when I was drawing the major groups, it was the only spot left that would reliably be party-sized.
Rather than break out a hundred miniatures, I used Zombicide zombies to each represent a "squad" of five undead a piece, ensuring that the encampment was completely outnumbered. But zombies aren't as big a threat in the Realms than they are in, for instance, The Walking Dead. It's magical, not viral, so bites aren't as huge a deal, though this also means stabbing them in the head isn't as effective. It was contentious but also logical and that's the ruling that stood. I gave the party a few minutes to try and lay out a plan.
Gabriel led Laucian to help the dwarven party, where the Dragonborn Grimfang and Sora were struggling against a wave of zombies. The Devkarin were holding their own and the goblins were easily evading. The entertainers were being devoured but Lenneth and Besiljka went for the tower either to warn Lezard or stop him if he was the cause of the whole thing. Which is one of the prevailing party theories. Plus the entertainers were dicks to Lenneth so they can all die.
Heading into the tower, the two ladies ran into a pair of zombies, and got a surprise attack on them. I described the gore on the floors and walls, as well as the pulsing magic of dwarven-esque runes on all of the walls of the tower. The gents outside were eventually going to be overrun so I started moving survivors towards the tower in the hopes that everyone would regroup. Both Dragonborn went DBNO, only surviving due to Golgari assistance.
The party came back together, and thus began a mad dash up the tower, ignoring searching anything, just going on up until hitting the top floor. They found Lezard's Spartan bedchambers but didn't actively search for anything. Then they found the zombie minotaur in a ritual room with the same type of runic symbol from the walls pulsing on the floor, and an altar. I had it as a whole epic level encounter after fighting through a bunch of zombies in the tower but since everything was rushed, it mostly turned into a whack-away until Lenneth's use of Chaos Bolt decimated the minotaur with fire. Eventually. It had a LOT of hit points. But turned into a t-bone nonetheless. When it went down, they were able to clearly see the bride-to-be's head on the altar, stuffed with a red and black spiked flower in its mouth.
Anyway... We were about to call it after the minotaur went down, with a last minute decision to go and check the basement. Down on the first floor, the dwarven and elven survivors were going at it, with the dwarves (rightfullyish) blaming the Golgari for the existence of zombies and the Golgari demonstrating that, when THEY raise the dead, it looks way different than what was on the field. The Golgari countered back with the glowing runes looking incredibly dwarven, to which the dwarven nobles and merchants had no defensible comment except shrugs. The party didn't interact with either group, so that is still something that will need to be defused next session, when we pick back up.
Making it to the basement, the party found gore-filled cages and some sick shit experimentation stuff. I didn't go into too much detail as to what is down there, since they walked in, glanced, and that was the end, but if they investigate further... They may find nothing of import.
There was a lot of ball-dropping in this session overall, both in my delivery and in the player's actions, that'll need to be addressed for next. I take my fair share of the blame - I was prepared for the session, like really prepared, like spending 20 hours a week on DnD stuff, but I got frustrated and stopped trying, and it showed. Plus, because of the rushed nature of the dash through the tower, the party was only able to loot two things, really - the minotaur's morning star, and the shortsword belonging to Lezard's guard captain, Erevan Siannodel. Because this session was split from last, a lot of little contextual detail was missed, and because I didn't spend any time talking about the top floor much, a big post-minotaur plot point was also missed, and I'll have to bring that back around as I can next time.
Not every session is going to be the absolute best session we've ever played, but the less the player's put into it, the less they're going to get out of it, and that's a point that I cannot stress enough. This was the first appearance of a massive zombie apocalypse, but given how prevalent the undead are (I mean, shit dies all the time in magic areas, even without the aid of a sorcerer), it probably won't be the last time they appear.
Big take-aways from the session - Lezard has not been seen since his "tour" the day prior. Status is unknown. Lady Analise Brokengulf is for sure dead, what with the head and flower in the mouth bit & all. It can be assumed that large numbers of Eroth and Brokengulf retainers are the victims strewn all over the tower, the zombies were mostly Chultan and in rags, so not likely any of the wedding guests were raised. Erevan Siannodel is assumedly dead as well, or is at least missing one of his two swords. The basement of the tower held secrets better left alone, but were they Lezard's? The Golgari, dwarves, goblins, and assorted others in the area will have to deal with the fallout of losing some people, as will the remains of the two noble families who weren't in attendance.
And the party, as of right now, has lost their patron.
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