Spelljammer Recap 7 Sunday January 26, 2025 @ 12:00-5:00 P.M.
<<WARNING SPOILERS FOR THE LIGHT OF XARYXIS! >>
CHAPTER 5: LIVING ON THE EDGE
Topolah guided them to where she had last seen the fleet. They found Astral Elf Star Moths and ships from Grimzod’s fleet destroyed. Topolah didn’t see any wreckage of Grimzod’s flagship, The Last Breath. The party didn’t go through the wreckage but went around it. They saw an elf being picked apart by three Gray Scavvers but decided to not intervene. After skirting the wreckage, a Wisp appeared and offered to guide them to Gargenhale. The party hesitated but eventually agreed. The party took a Long Rest as they traveled for a day looking for The Last Breath…
[Characters have leveled up to 7! We spent some time before the session started leveling up characters. To no one’s surprise, Tamayo selected Ice Storm as her first Level 4 spell. I told Summer Tamayo was ready to wild magic as soon as she cast a spell of first level or higher as she didn’t have a wild magic surge in all of Level 6.]
CHAPTER 6: GRAVE ALLIANCE
The party found Captain Grimzod Gargenhale and The Last Breath in the midst of a cosmic storm. Captain Grimzod Gargenhale was a Vampirate. His left hand had been chopped off and reanimated as a Crawling Claw that he called Lefty. He was the ex-lover of Topolah. Topolah insisted she broke it off with him and that he was still very much alive at that point. Commodore Krux told P40-X that he was leery of Vampirates when he was alive but he wasn’t sure if they could drain the life of a construct. P40-X took this to mean she was invulnerable to Vampirates.
[P40-X is not immune to Necrotic damage so this was not true.]
Grimzod Gargenhale boarded The Moondancer to parlay. They headed for Captain Elaina Sartell’s quarters. Tamayo and Topolah helped the party to easily persuade Grimzod Gargenhale to support their cause. Grimzod Gargenhale wanted to celebrate their alliance with a bottle of Champagne du le Stomp but as the party exited the Captain’s Quarters, The Last Breath was fleeing.
Agony, a Tiefling ghost, possessed one of the crew and informed Captain Gargenhale that his crew was mutinying. Agony left the crewman and a smell of sulfur and brimstone persisted. The crewman had no memory of his time being possessed by Agony. Agony started to fly back to The Last Breath before suddenly disappearing completely.
Grimzod Gargenhale convinced the party to try and get back control of The Last Breath or at a minimum, kill all the mutineers that they could. He promised them a weapon to fight the Xaryxian Empire inside the ship. Grimzod Gargenhale used his Vampirate Captain powers to make The Moondancer invisible. Tamayo navigated through the cosmic storm to pull alongside The Last Breath. Nebun poisoned his mace in preparation.
The party and Grimzod Gargenhale leaped over to the sterncastle of The Last Breath. Grimzod Gargenhale used his necrotic touch to injure the Ogre Zombie.
[Weird that Zombies aren’t Immune to Necrotic damage but it makes sense as the spell Chilling Touch is a low-level necromancy spell that is good against the undead. So weaker undead aren’t immune to this damage type to make it effective at those levels.]
Nebun turned two of the three Vampirates in the sterncastle. WuKong punched the Ogre Zombie. P40-X lunged with her rapier on a Vampirate and struck. Tamayo unleashed a Lightning Bolt. The cosmic storm twinned the effect and two thunderclaps hitting at once made for a large boom.
Grimzod Gargenhale hit the Ogre Zombie
again for big damage. Nebun hit a Vampirate with his mace but found out that
the poison didn’t work on the undead. WuKong followed up with a couple of hits
that felled the zombie. Two of the Vampirates ran away as five Vampirates from
the forecastle ran towards the stern but only got amidships. The other
Vampirate struck Nebun with its Necrotic touch. P40-X hit the Vampirate with
her rapier attack and faerie swarm with help from Tamayo’s Bend Luck ability.
Tamayo tried to cast the Ice Storm spell but pink bubbles erupted from her
mouth. She was muted and unable to cast spells with Verbal components for a
minute.
[This would have been a good time to have the Subtle Spell Metamagic ability.]
Grimzod Gargenhale pulled out his heavy crossbow. Holding it with his right hand, Lefty cranked back the nock to load the crossbow bolt and Grimzod pulled the trigger with his right hand. Nebun assisted by using his pseudopod to pull the crank to reload. The bolt struck a Vampirate and he exploded into Necrotic ash that hit WuKong, Nebun, and P40-X. Nebun climbed up on a crate to see amidships. Nebun casted Guiding Bolt on a Vampirate. WuKong ran down the starboard stairs and attacked the same Vampirate with his astral arms, trying to use his reach to avoid a second cloud of ash. His first attack hit due to the Guiding Bolt and left the Vampirate staggering but the other two attacks missed due to the awkward 60-degree downward angle. One of the Vampirates closed on WuKong as a second one climbed up the side of the starboard stairs and flanked him from behind. WuKong took necrotic damage from the Vampirate’s touch. The other three Vampirates took out their light crossbows missing Nebun and Grimzod but hitting WuKong with a bolt. P40-X cast Hunter’s Mark and then attacked the Vampirate behind WuKong. She managed to hit twice with her rapier and once with her faerie swarm. Tamayo drew out her light crossbow after going down the port stairs and missed shooting a bolt into the ship deck. Probably due to the fact that she was a sorcerer and not an archer. Curses would have been heard but were drowned in frothing bubbles spewing from her mouth.
Grimzod Gargenhale struck down a Vampirate with a bolt from his heavy crossbow. Nebun dropped his mace and fired his light crossbow, striking a Vampirate. WuKong used his Step of the Wind to disengage from the two Vampirates, then struck twice with his astral arms to destroy one of the Vampirates, avoiding the necrotic cloud with his reach. He then used his movement to climb up to the sterncastle next to Nebun. A Vampirate turned around and attacked P40-X. He hit her with his necrotic touch. A Vampirate fired at Nebun but missed. The last Vampirate fired at WuKong with his light crossbow and struck him with a bolt but he used his Hadozee Resilience to partially block the attack. P40-X got a critical hit with her rapier and the Vampirate exploded into a cloud of necrotic ash that P40-X used her faeries’ wings to flutter away from her. Nebun fried a Vampirate with another casting of Guiding Bolt. Tamayo moved a short distance and hit a Vampirate with her light crossbow. She tried to say yes in triumph but only bubbles came from her mouth.
Grimzod Gargenhale fired his heavy crossbow and killed another Vampirate. WuKong ran to the bow of the ship and then shoved one of the turned Vampirates off the ship. The second one he grabbed and hurled off the ship with a monk total body throw.
With the Vampirates defeated or driven off, Nebun used Mending and Cure Wounds spells to heal up P40-X and WuKong. P40-X also used a Cure Wound spell on herself. Tamayo could finally speak again after a minute had passed.
Grimzod Gargenhale entered the Spelljammmer’s quarters. He shot a bolt from his heavy crossbow that impaled the Spelljammer, Rutledge Wynn who was simply sitting in the Spelljamming Helm, a black, tall blacked, legless wooden chair with shackles bolted to the armrests. Red crystals on the underside of the Spelljamming Helm projected a pentagram on the floor that stabilized the helm and allowed it to swivel. With a mere 20 HP left, Rutledge Wynn cast Dimension Door to flee. He then cast Fly and fled.
The party headed to the cargo deck and found it stuffed with coffins and barrels of alchemist’s fire. The Tiefling ghost Agony tried to possess them all but failed. Her plan was to possess one of them and then use their body to explode the alchemist’s fire. Grimzod Gargenhale guided the party to the brig door where he said the weapon awaited them. Nebun opened the shutter and felt around inside with his pseudopod feeling a female humanoid before shuddering and withdrawing the slimy tentacle. WuKong disbarred the door and opened it. Inside they found an unconscious Astral Elf woman. Nebun looked at her body and found that she had been drained of almost all of her lifeforce by the Vampirates. P40-X grabbed her and they carried her back upstairs. Grimzod Gargenhale lamented being forced to leave his ship but Agony would not let them keep it. He grabbed the bottle of Champagne du le Stomp from the cargo hold. The party grabbed the Spelljamming Helm chair on the way out.
Once on the deck of The Moondancer, Nebun ordered the crew to fire at the hull of The Last Breath. A mangonel stone smashed into the weakened hull of the Space Galleon and the alchemist’s fire inside the cargo deck ignited. The Last Breath exploded as Agony shrieked in pain before vanishing out of existence forever, as her ghostly form was tied to The Last Breath. Without a place to haunt, the haunt ends.
CHAPTER 7: TRUST ISSUES
The party waited an hour and then the Astral Elf woman awoke. She introduced herself as Princess Xedalli, daughter of Emperor Xavan, and an heir to the throne of the Xaryxian Empire. She told the party that she had been betrayed by her evil twin brother, Prince Xeleth. She told them that she was supposed to share the throne with her brother after her father’s death but her selfish brother wanted it all to himself. Her brother had knocked her out, dragged her to the brig of a Star Moth, and sent her to die in exile on the planet Toril where she would be consumed by the Astral Blights that were hunting down all life on the planet. He had not anticipated that the Star Moth he sent would be boarded and disabled, his Astral Elf guards devoured, and that she would be captured by Vampirates instead. Unfortunately for Grimzod Gargenhale, this action brought about the wrath of Prince Xeleth who ordered Commander Vael to destroy Grimzod Gargenhale’s fleet at any cost. She vowed that she would have her revenge and pledged to help the party to defeat her brother.
The party took a Long Rest. Grimzod pulled out the bottle of Champagne du le Stomp and poured a glass for everyone to celebrate their alliance as he had promised. Flapjack the Flumph resumed his duties as Spelljammer after he had finally fought off the effects of the Jammerscream of the Esthetic. The Moondancer left the Wildspace system of Realmspace with its black and purple hues and entered the silver clouds of the Astral Sea.
The trip to Doomspace in the Astral Sea took 21 days. Nebun produced a basic poison vial using his alchemist’s lab room. Topolah gave a fishing rod to P40-X and she used it to hook a Gray Scavver and then shot it in the face twice with her pistol. The party played a dice game called Dead Hand’s Dice with Grimzod Gargenhale. Grimzod would sometimes roll himself and other times he would have Lefty roll instead. WuKong was the big winner of one hand, raking in 35 GP after an all losing hand for all players made the pot for the next game +15 GP. P40-X had a vision of doom, seeing a planet sucked into a black vortex.
The Moondancer arrived in Doomspace and was met with large fragments of smoky gray crystals. It took three days of travel to navigate around the crystalline shards. Once out of the crystalline asteroid field, the party saw a black vortex limned in dim light. The Doomspace system had two planets each with one moon, a moon near the black vortex, and nine outer moonlets.
Commodore Krux told P40-X about Warwyck Blastimoff, an old comrade that he had sent to Aruun to try and negotiate with the Aartuks. He had lost communication with Warwyck when he lost his sending stone a few days before the party had arrived at the Rock of Bral. Topolah used the Wildspace orrery to find Aruun and showed Flapjack the Flumph that it was one of the outer moonlets.
A few days into the journey, the moon closest to the black vortex was sucked inside, the only remnants being some shattered rocks. P40-X said, “I told you so!” It took four more days to reach Aruun.
When the party arrived at Aruun, The Moondancer hovered near a plateau and dropped ladders down the sides of the ship. The plateau had cliffs dropping down with a forest on the hilltop. After the party dropped down to the plateau, a shot rang out and a Giff in a military outfit holding a musket ran towards a ladder, but was tripped by Nebun. Nebun said, “You finish what you start.” Nebun handed him a mace.
Just then, seven Aartuks came out of the forest. They used long tongues to grapple and drag Warwyck towards them. After grabbing him, they used their spiked branches to bludgeon him. An Aartuk shot radiant pellets at Nebun but missed. An Aartuk shot radiant pellets at P40-X and they ripped into her metal exterior.
Warwyck got up from prone but couldn’t break the grapple. Nebun presented his holy symbol and charmed half of the Aartuks. WuKong summoned his astral arms and attacked an Aartuk three times. The hard wooden shell of the Aartuk protected it from all but one of the attacks. P40-X cast Hunter’s Mark and fired her pistol twice at the Aartuk that had hit her. Her bullets punctured the Aartuk and her swarm of faeries shredded it. The Aartuk oozed sap from its wounds. Tamayo cast Fireball, killing two of the Aartuks, and removing the charm from the Aartuk priest.
[Interestingly enough, they were all Hostile due to failed negotiations from Warwyck Blastimoff. The charm effect might have helped the party or at least Nebun negotiate with them. But this Fireball released their leader from charm and nearly killed half of them. So…]
Warwyck Blastimoff got out of the grapple and drew his longsword but missed the Aartuk who had grabbed him.
The Aartuk priest used its Rally the Troops ability as a bonus action to remove the charmed condition from its allies who were still charmed. The Aartuk priest hit Warwyck Blastimoff with one of its branches. The Will o’ Wisp suddenly appeared and shocked one of the Aartuks to unconsciousness. Then it started draining the lifeforce of the Aartuk, making it wilt and darken its wooden body to a gray ash color. The Aartuk on WuKong hit him twice with its branches. The Aartuk on Warwyck Blastimoff missed with its branch attacks. The last Aartuk shot radiant pellets at Nebun but missed. Nebun countered with a sacred flame that struck and caused sparks when it hit the Aartuk’s hardened wooden shell. WuKong backed up and struck the Aartuk on him with three attacks of his astral arms leaving the Aartuk staggered. P40-X moved her Hunter’s Mark and then shot her pistol twice. She hit an Aartuk once with her pistol and faeries. Tamayo cast a Fireball at three Aartuks and WuKong. WuKong nimbly dodged out of the way but the three Aartuks were incinerated. It also set the south forest on fire.
Warwyck Blastimoff charged the last Aartuk and felled it with some slashes of his long sword. Nebun came over and reclaimed his Mace from him saying, “Good job finishing what you started”. The Will o’ Wisp winked out of sight but another Aartuk withered on the ground.
Suddenly two Bulettes erupted from the ground, leaving it broken and unstable. They swallowed two of the dead Aartuks. The Bulettes seemed to tense while sniffing at the air realizing living prey were around.
The party prepared to face a new enemy as the terrain around them crumbled and burned…
[End of session.]
