Tomb of the Lizard King

In this session, the Tomb of the Lizard King was completed in my campaign. I took the storyline from the original adventure published in 1982 and parts of the dungeon complex. Basically, a slightly modified lair of the Black Dragon Aulicus (see my last post on how that fight went) and the final tomb of Sakatha. In between, I placed a small Lizardfolk lair. It was designed to soften up the player's characters before the final fight. It worked perfectly. The characters were pretty well exhausted before they could reach the final boss fight against Sakatha. Amusingly, they decided to rest to recover spells in a chamber right next to the throne room where Sakatha waited. Sakatha, of course, has been spying on them with his crystal ball. Sakatha would not let them get any rest before meeting them in battle and the players actually had to retreat from the Lair to return later. In the end, they managed to "kill" Sakatha.

Session 56: Sakatha the Lizard King

Lakima (human magic-user), Eathwund (human fighter), Alonso (human fighter), Aashdoshan (human necromancer), Vervork (human fighter), Domago (human cleric NPC), Lantosh (human fighter NPC), Fenris the Filch (human thief NPC).

The adventurers settle down on the hard, damp stone floor of the alchemist chamber deep in the Tomb in the swamp. Everyone except the magic-users is badly injured and needs rest. Lakima and Lantosh agree to take the first watch. A table is pushed against one door and Lakima casts Hold Portal on the other.

After about 2 hours, once most of the heroes have drifted off - Lantosh shouts a warning and points at one of the doors. A greenish mist is drifting into the room from the gap under the door. Lakima begins to wake everyone. Lantosh shouts and points at the other door. Mist is seeping in under the other door as well. Then two lizardfolk materialize in the room. One is a little larger than most of the lizardfolk they have fought earlier and wears a golden crown on its head. The other is smaller and looks like it might be a female. Both bear long fangs at the heroes and move to attack.

Eathwund and Lantosh find themselves fighting off the female lizardfolk and Alonso and Vervork the male with the crown. Fenris backs into a corner and readies his crossbow. Aashdoshan unleashes several magic missile barrages from his wand at the male Lizardfolk. During the fight, they notice that the wounds on this pair of lizardfolk do not bleed and they seem to slowly close up as if regenerating. The lizardfolk are gradually overwhelmed and are put on the defensive. And then they turn to mist and vanish under the door.

The heroes debate what to do. Run from the dungeon or continue to search for the missing villagers. Domago and Vervork argue for searching. In his head, Lakima hears a voice taunting him to come out. They decide to stay and try to rest again despite the constant danger. This time three will be on watch at all times.

Lantosh, Fenris, and Lakima take the first watch. But moments after the injured heroes start to relax, the door that is supposed to be magically held shut slams open, and they are confronted with the cackling visage of a nine-foot-tall winged bird-like demon. Alonso immediately recognizes it as a Vrock demon and his demon-slaying sword Nuldrang calls out in his mind to attack. The demon is hovering in the entrance so it can bring its clawed hands and feet to bear in an attack. Alonso rushes to attack swinging Nuldrang the demon slayer in a sweeping arc chopping deeply into the demon. Eathwund also strikes the demon while Vervork finds his strikes hit but do no damage. Alonso shouts that it can only be harmed by magical weapons and Lakima hands a magic dagger to Vervork.

The demon strikes Alonso twice but is also again hit. Flames burning in its eyes it says something in the abyssal tongue and the chamber is plunged into absolute darkness. Alonso runs through the darkness and out into the light in an empty hallway. He shouts for everyone to follow. They head down the corridor and find a chamber full of wooden coffins. As they move past - the lid flies off one coffin and the female lizardfolk they were fighting earlier leaps out and attacks. They are able to strike it a few times and it retreats to its coffin. Aashdoshan tells them they need to stake it through the heart quickly. Unable to find a handy wood stake - Lakima chops up the 10-foot-pole he has in his Bag of Holding. As the stake is pounded through the heart of the creature a rush of blood erupts from the heart and the creature cries out once before going limp.

The adventurers at this point are almost all badly injured. Fenris is barely able to stand and is being helped by Domago. Lantosh is bleeding badly. Almost all of their spells have been cast. They decide they must leave the tomb. On the way back to the surface they do take the time to search some side chambers and find a small amount of treasure. Once reaching the outside they clamber into lizardfolk canoe and paddle away to the ruin they stayed at the previous night.

At the ruin on the island, they recover and rest. Watches are set in case of more Lizardfolk attacks. As the sun begins to drift lower in the afternoon they take stock. Domago lets them know he can now cast two healing spells. But looking about he sees many in need of healing. Domago suggests he heal Alonso who will need to be at the front of the battle against the demon. He states that Fenris and Lantosh are just too injured to continue. Fenris is happy to agree. But Lantosh takes some convincing. Once it is explained to him that he needs to stay to guard Fenris he agrees. Lakima casts Read Languages and reads through the notes from the alchemist lab. He learns that the lizardfolk were creating potions of human control. The three potions they found in that chamber match the description of what is in the notes. The final ingredient of the potion is a liquid derived from “the green flame of the tower”. Alonso hands Vervork his magical longsword for the coming fight.

Rested and hopefully ready the heroes set out by canoe for the tomb again. They descend through the upper works without incident. It appears that nothing has changed. All of the lizardfolk in the upper levels must be dead. Aashdoshan asks for a pause while he animates two of the dead lizardfolk as servitor zombies. Arriving back in the lowest level they make their way down the corridor past the alchemist chamber. At the end of a hall, they find a locked door and they can hear sobbing coming from behind it. As they talk before the door they are heard and human voices cry out asking for help. There is an argument over whether to rescue the prisoners immediately or to continue to search for the Vampire Lizardfolk. They decide it is too dangerous to rescue the prisoners now. As they walk away the voices behind the door desperately cry out for help.

They find themselves in a throne room next. A wooden throne with human skulls decorating it sits before a stone platform with a wooden coffin resting on it. They cautiously approach the coffin and lift the lid but find it is unoccupied. They do find that a layer of wet dirt lies on the floor of the coffin and they find an iron ring with two keys on it. Lakima searches the south wall of the chamber and triggers a secret door leading into a passage.

Alonso takes the lead and they head down the passage. They find a dead end. Checking the walls they find another secret door. This one leads into a small, square chamber. Alonso walks into the chamber and a trap is revealed. The floor opens up and he plunges into a pit landing on metal spikes on the floor ten feet below. Badly injured he is pulled out on a rope by the rest of the heroes. Seeing that this is a dead-end they return to the throne room.

Lakima checks the north wall and finds another lever for a secret door. This one opens in the north wall of the room, but as it slides back a circle of absolute darkness begins to slowly move into the room covering the opening. Nuldrang shouts a warning in Alonso’s mind that “the demon is here!”. He charges into the darkness, raising Nuldrang in a mighty swing that connects with something and he can hear Nuldrang crying out in joy. The darkness drops even as a mist pours into the chamber and the Lizard King Sakatha appears right beside Vervork. Sakatha leaps and tries to bite Vervork in the neck but he is beaten back. Eathwund rushes across the chamber and joins Vervork in attacking Sakatha. Aashdoshan strikes the vampire lizard with his staff of withering but it appears to have no effect. Lakima casts Aztazibar’s Acrid Finger and burns a line across the vampire's body. Aashdoshan unleashes a blast of magic missiles. Eathwund slashes Sakatha with his elven long sword and it again turns to mist and departs the throne room.

The heroes check the chamber where the demon emerged and find another wooden coffin. But this one is also empty. Figuring that Sakatha cannot heal or rest without his coffin they spread out looking for him. Returning to the chamber where they heard human voices, they find they are able to unlock the door with one of the keys from the coffin. Inside they find a large number of human captives clad in rags and in very poor condition. Suddenly they hear screaming from further in the chamber and see Sakatha appear and grab one of the villagers. He bites down into the villager tearing open his neck and drinking his blood. Vervrok and Eathwund try to push into the chamber to get at Sakatha but a flood of humans running from the chamber makes it difficult. Vervork gets past but Eathwund is knocked down to the floor. Lakima decides to try the potion of human control. Drinking it down he orders a crowd of humans out of the way directing them into the throne room. The humans stop rushing and walk calmly into the chamber. This allows Eathwund to get to his feet and aid Vervork he is fighting Sakatha on his own. Eathwund arrives and strikes the killing blow. A wooden stake is produced and is pounded into Sakatha’s heart.

The adventurers take time now to search Sakatha, taking a necklace and his crown. Alonso chops the heart out of the demon and removes its head. Lakima heads back to the chamber with the pit trap and discovers a keyhole in the wall. Using one of the keys they found he is able to open another secret door and close the pit trap. Cautiously stepping over the floor where the trap resides he steps through the door into Sakatha’s treasure chamber. Gold and silver coins are strewn about the floor in unmanaged piles, along with several other items of interest including javelins and a simple gold ring. The heroes pack what they can - unloading some of the silver they got from the dragon’s chamber to make room for more gold. Aashdoshan gets the idea to drop a few hundred gold coins down the mouths of the two zombies he animated.

The heroes lead the thirty or so villagers they have found to the surface. There they make use of all of the lizardfolk canoes and the rafts they arrived on earlier to make their way across the swamp. They pick up Lantosh and Fenris who report no problems in the few hours they were left alone. The huge flotilla of canoes and rafts makes its way across the swamp for the rest of the day.