The party has now entered Cael Morrow, a sunken city below Ank’Harel. Quick describe: mages have created dry magic tunnels and cleared a few buildings of water, the rest of the city ruins are underwater. The entire module’s quest has been leading them here, and below here. My group, never one to go the way one expects, was immediately interested in the non-cleared areas. There’s a reason I prepped everything, including reading ahead to the next chapter before last night’s session.
This “dungeon” area is quite open. They have a map of explored and unexplored areas. Some towers, and tunnels, and one two rooms have been cleared. Aside from following the first bit of path, they immediately went out in the water to the underwater tavern to talk with the sea elf there. Not surprising at all. They “rescued” her, and now perhaps their other ancient rescue will have someone to talk to.
Their next objective was not to follow the path to the last open room, but to swim up to a connected tower and peer inside it, “because it hasn’t been cleared yet.” Finding fish, instead of going somewhere else, they go right for the fight. Having just finished off with some sharks, I thought they might pick something easier, but no. It was a good fight, though, one of our longest because I took previous advice and brought in a second wave of enemies. Blood in the water and all.
I encourage curiosity and exploration, so this is a fun map. There are a lot of areas on the map, and they are all dangerous. I’m just curious how much they’re going to try to do before reporting back to their superiors. Three of them don’t have much air left, especially if they take a short rest in the last air chamber. One of the party has already gone in, because there was a person in there, watching them fight the fish, but there was some disagreement at the end of the night about their next course of action.
There’s also a temple down here, that requires a particular faith to enter. I had to have quick Discord chats with half the party because this is the most irreligious group I think we’ve had in a fantasy campaign. None of them follow the needed god. It will be interesting to see how they deal with it. There is a solution, though it requires further exploration to find. Given the diplomatic bent of my party, I’m fairly confident they will find it. I just hope they don’t get too annoyed at it before they do.
I have some conversation prep to do with the person they just found. She has to be a bit wily and suspicious. I wonder if they’ll manage to avoid the fight. Time will tell.