Berghawk Play Report: quick and deadly catch-up post (A Greyhawk Campaign set in Berghof)

I foolishly forgot to keep notes on the adventure I'm about to update on. So I'll just keep it very topline as a matter of record! The events are a little jumbled in my memory but here we go.

It must have been around the 12th to 14 of Coldeven. A gloomy day. The party made their way into the Lakside Manor again. This time, they finally found the Skulks. Or rather the Skulks found them! The party had wisely spiked the two main gates before going to sleep. What they didn't know was that the skulks had a secret entrance via the "garbage" room that Mads had been so desperate to burn down eariler. They skulked in at night and strangled David to death before the party could respond. RIP David - he was so close to graduating from a torch bearer to a fully fledged retainer.

In the ensuing battle, the party wounded one skulk and charmed the other. The wounded skulk got away but the charmed skulk told the party all about the villa, special entrances etc and told them that a third Skulk (the one weating the glove) was hiding downstairs in a cave and was no good anymore because he refused to kill anyone and just whimpered in the corner. The charmed skulk was called He Who Smother Bubs in their Crib - or Bub for short. When he overheard the Sturm talking about the moral need to kill anything evil, Bub bolted! But not before showing his "good friend" Magnus the MU where the secret entrance to the skulk lair is. 

The adventurers finally found the whimpering skulk with the glove. It turns out the glove is The Sentinal - a powerful magical artifact that had taken control of this skulk - and destroyed its mind in the process. The intent was to send a message to powerful heros so the Sentinal could fullfill its quest of destroying The Guantlet a powerful evil artifact and the Sentinal's arch nemisis. The Sentinal awoke when it sensed that The Guantlet had also awoken. The Sentinal chose Sturm as its bearer and stopped the other from killing the now harmless skulk. Roland and Konrad both took umbridge with this but the Sentinal used its powerful magic to get its way.

And yes, this is the end of UK2 The Sentinal in case people were wondering. The party had now officially unlocked the UK3 module The Gauntlet and could (at their leisure) begin the journey to Adlerweg. But the party (by a narrow vote) decided that they needed to kill the evil cloud first. They were convinced that the evil cloud (The Presence) was what was causing evil to gather here, and that it needed to be destroyed for the good of the community.

The party had identified that the Whisps whisps which the presence emited were more dangerous and mobile than the Presence itself and that the best bet was to bypass the whisps and go straight for the Presence itself. They had also (with some DM nudging) identified that the whisps by-pased armour anyway, so they might as well just drop their armour and use the speed advantage that this granted. 

I'm not going to lie. This was a pretty brutal fight, and the party were at a disadvantage just based on how powerful The Presence is. I think, because it's immobile, and the whisps can only go up to 50 feet from it, the game designers wanted to make it an optional battle. The party could have just run past the whisps, or now even taken the secret entrance instead. But for RP reasons they were locked in on killing it. There was an interesting conversation as well, where to party members (Sturm and Feuersicht) expressed their misgivings and concerns that it might kill them... Well it did! The Presence killed both Stum and Feuersicht. And it almost killed another party member too. But the party's plan did work. They eventually hacked the Presence to death with all of their magical weapons and largely ignored the whisps. As the DM, I have a bit more information that the players and it feels a bit glib to pontificate on what they could have done better - particularly because two beloved characters died. 

But that said here's what they probably could have done differently! The first thing is: AVOID! The Presence and its whisps were very clearly a major threat but a static one. No need to fight everything that you encounter. The party has since discussed the battle and come to this conclusion as well.
But since they decided to attack, I think they could have also tactically done a few things. Firstly, relatively ineefective characters or characters with low HP could have stayed out, or at least hugged the parimeter of the battle where they knew the whisps couldn't get them. The two clerics do also have access to special clerical cantrips that allow them to give a minor ammount of extra HP. They did not take advantage of this. Granted it was only 2-3 HP each. But it may have made a difference given how close things got. I think also they could have retreated and exploited the fact that the whisps can only move 50 feet more. Somthing the party didn't know (and would have a hard time identifying tbh) is that the whisps and the Presence actually share a HP pool. So theoretically they could have picked off the whisps in a more tactical way and slowly drained the presence. But that's not really something you can figure out in game, unless the DM adds a whole layer of description that isn't in the original material. 

Anyway I've gone on enough. Sturm and Feuersicht were replaced by two new characters Right Hans the Fighter and Just Hans the Paladin. The Sentinel chose Just Hans as its new bearer and the saga continued!

OOC people were pretty gutted about losing these characters - everyone had invsted a lot in them in term of time and story telling. I think that character death can actually improve that investment but I get that it sucks. There was some discussion of not wanting to start at level 1 - a sentiment I eventually caved to. New characters start at level 2 now (as long as there's a high level character in the party. I need to formalise that at some point in my house rules). 

The session ended with the party meeting Merriot a powerful ranger and his entourage. Merriot offered to take the task of destroying the Gauntlet but the party said they wanted to do it. This was my way of giving them the option to pursue other things rather than being railroaded because it is a Sandbox after all! I'm lowkye glad they didn't give him the Sentinal though because I've wanted to run this adventure for years. 

It was clear that the party would need to level up and load up on some items if they wanted to be up to scratch for UK3 so I decided to have Marriet give them the items that UK2 says he gives them if they *do* hand over the Sentinal. This included an 8k bracelet. So I predict the party will sit arond levels 3-4 by the time they get to the module. I'm actually a bit sick of low level adventuring!