The Tarak D&D Campaign - Boom !

Welcome to the next (and epically final) post in a series where I describe the adventures during a 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign I ran a little while ago.

In the last episode, the party were sent on their special mission under the geyser field at Wadi Al Naffatiyun while battle raged overhead as the army of the living tried to hold back an overwhelmingly strong undead horde led by animal-headed demons. They had to get to a central cavern under the geyser field, but the undead were in hot pursuit !

Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio

Into The Final Cavern

After giving their undead pursuers a bloody nose in a quick but bloody underground skirmish, the party took the opportunity to rush down the tunnel indicated by arrows scratched on the wall. This led them to their final objective.

The final cave was dominated by a glowing lake of sweet-smelling naphthalene. Over this volatile liquid was a stone arch forming a natural bridge. Around three sides of the lake was a shore, wider towards the entrance passage, narrower where the two arms of the shore formed the footing for the bridge.

Our heroes goal was to get to this cavern and read the three scrolls they had been given, in sequence. The first was Earthquake, which was intended to split the cavern allowing the lake to link to other underground channels of volatile chemicals. The second was Delayed Blast Fireball, which would hopefully ignite the lot. Finally, the third was Teleport, which they could hopefully use before the Delayed Action Fireball detonated. They'd all need to be within a ten foot radius to be successfully teleported.

The Enemy Arrives !

Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio

As the players started to pull out the scrolls and get ready to read them, the pursuing undead arrived. First, of course, was a wave of zombies, just to pin the players down and keep them busy.

But the real danger were two named foes, Anaksethis, a Lesser Avatar of Sutekh, and Sutekra, a Semi-lich.

Anaksethis was a re-skinned Bone Devil, using the same stat block but armed with a staff-spear. His job was to close with the party in melee combat.

Sutekra was very much a homebrewed creation. The undead needed magical support, but a full lich would have been far too powerful for the level they were at. So I created something that was a kind of significantly de-buffed lich; powerful enough to be an incredibly dangerous enemy, but not so powerful as to be automatically lethal.

I've put his full stat block below;

Semi-Lich - Sutekra
Medium undead, lawful evil
Armor class 17 (natural armour)
Hit points 68 (9d8 + 27)
Speed 30 ft.
STR..... DEX.... CON.... INT.... WIS..... CHA
11(+0) 16(+3) 16(+3) 20(+5) 14(+2) 16(+3)
Saving throws Con +6, Int +6, Wis +5
Skills Arcana +9, History +6, Insight +5, Perception +6
Damage resistances cold, lightning, necrotic
Damage immunities poison; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Condition immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned
Senses truesight 120 ft., passive Perception 19

Legendary resistance (1/day). If the semi-lich fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Rejuvenation. If it has a phylactery, a destroyed semi-lich gains a new body in 1d10 days, regaining all its hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears within 5 feet of the phylactery.

Spellcasting. The semi-lich is an 7th-level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 20, +12 to hit with spell attacks). The lich has the following wizard spells prepared:

Cantrips (at will): mage hand, prestidigitation, ray of frost
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, magic missile, shield, thunderwave
2nd level (3 slots): acid arrow, detect thoughts, invisibility, mirror image
3rd level (3 slots): animate dead, counterspell, dispel magic, fireball
4th level (1 slots): blight

Turn resistance. The lich has advantage on saving throws against any effect that turns undead.
Actions

Paralyzing touch. Melee spell attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 6 (2d6) cold damage. The target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be paralyzed for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Legendary Actions
The semi-lich can take 1 legendary action every 2 turns, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The semi-lich regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
- Cantrip. The lich casts a cantrip.
- Frightening Gaze (Costs 2 Actions). The lich fixes its gaze on one creature it can see within 10 feet of it. The target must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw against this magic or become frightened for 1 minute. The frightened target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a target’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the target is immune to the lich’s gaze for the next 24 hours.

The Final Battle

The party had mere seconds to get into position as the zombies arrived, and found themselves backed up against the lake.

As fighting erupted, the figure of Anaksethis could be seen pushing through the fray. The party's paladin, Morson, moved to intercept him. Probably a good move, Morson was certainly the character best suited to deal with an evil outsider, but he could expect little support from his comrades, who had problems of their own.

With all of the party fighting to deal with zombies (admittedly not a huge threat, but it pinned them in place and tied them down), Sutekra revealed his presence, protecting himself with a Mirror Image spell and then casting Acid Arrow at the party's designated scroll-reader Nairo Akshal in order to break concentration.

It was clear the party were in trouble. The zombies weren't that dangerous, but Morson was struggling to contain Anaksethis, and Sutekra's spells were causing problems. They hadn't realised at this stage that Sutekra also possessed formidable hand-to-hand combat abilities as well.

But for once they worked well as a team, thinking tactically and organising a fighting retreat to one side of the bridge.

Morson got incredibly lucky at this point, using his last second level spell slot to add Divine Smite to his swing at Anaksethis. He rolled a critical hit ! We house rule that crits double everything, but allow damage to be rolled twice separately (it reduces the odds of just doubling minimum damage). He rolled spectacularly well, and because his target was an evil outsider added and additional 2D8 damage to the 4D8 damage he was getting out of the Smite. Split down the middle, Anaksethis disappeared back to whichever hell he had come from.

The party (just !) weathered a Fireball spell that Sutekra threw at them as they drew together in a compact mass, shielding Nairo as they read the Earthquake scroll.

The result was shattering; no-one in the party knew that I'd designated the cavern as being the critical junction of a series of underground faults, although they probably could have guessed if they'd thought about the briefing more closely. The roof started to collapse, the lake split open and started flooding, and the arch over it collapsed (yeah, I admit it... I set the thing up as a trap for the unwary....😁)

Nairo then read the Delayed Blast Fireball scroll, and started the Teleport as Sutekra charged through the falling boulders at the party. Barrow and Roland stepped into his path, with Barrow almost immediately succumbing to a Paralyzing Touch attack. Roland pulled his comrade back as the Teleport took effect.

As they faded out, the last thing they saw was the look of horror on the Semi-lich's undead face as the Delayed Blast Fireball went off, incinerating him completely.

Aftermath

The Teleport returned the party to the rear of the army.

They were just in time to see the whole geyser field erupt in a massive, shattering explosion. Burning petro-chemicals incinerated huge numbers of undead at the same time as underground tunnels and caverns collapsed in the earthquake. Most of the undead who hadn't already been torched were swallowed by churning rock and earth.

The battle had turned in a moment; King Gortig's army went from barely holding the line to just having a bit of mopping up to do.

The battle was over, although the war would go on. But that was a story for another party, as this one retired to enjoy the fame and wealth heaped upon them after their heroic and dramatic mission.

That's the end of this adventure - I hope you enjoyed the ride !

The party retired to enjoy their gains, and shortly afterwards we began a new adventure with a new party, but also starting off in Tarak. I'll probably write that up as well, in due course....