It happened again. The Players in my Swords & Wizardry campaign got partway through a dungeon and then left. I adapted the Hall of Harsh Reflection adventure from the Age of Worms adventure path by Jason Bulmanhn. For the hook I had one of the NPCs in the group get captured by the doppelgangers but I made the classic error of making it possible to rescue him early on in the adventure. They rescued their friend and did not immediately find the Greater Doppelganger lair so they left. They did encounter the Mind Flayer on the way out but that did not seem to pique their interest. So I have a week to write up something for next week's adventure.
All of this being said the scene when the players were confronted by doppelgangers duplicates of their friends went very well and was quite amusing. The players spent about an hour trying to figure it out.
Session 63: Hall of Harsh Reflection
Lakima (human magic-user), Eathwund (human fighter), Alonso (human fighter), Aashdoshan (human necromancer), Domago (human cleric NPC), Lantosh (human fighter NPC), Fenris the Filch (human thief NPC), Vervork Merwin (human fighter NPC).
The Company of the Black Dragon is in a warehouse near the river looking for their missing companion Lantosh. Clues have led them here. Fenris has been sent to find Domago in the town. After an hour Fenris arrives with Domago. Lakima asks Domago to use the Book of Underwater breathing so they can investigate the shaft they found. Domago reads a page that is destroyed. Lakima feels the effects of the magic on him but the rest are unsure. Lakima tells Vervork to descend the shaft. Once Vervork gets to the end of the rope ladder where the shaft is filled with water he calls up, “What do I do now?” Lakima tells him, “Let go!”
With some reluctance, Vervork lets go and immediately sinks out of sight. The rest follow one by one down into the shaft and sink to the bottom. The bottom of the shaft enters a large brick-lined chamber at least forty feet under the water. It is lit only by Lakima’s magical Staff with an eerie blue light. In the distance, they can just make out a brick pillar rising from the floor out of sight above. There is a metal ladder on the side of the pillar. As they move toward it, a giant octopus appears out of the gloom and attacks. Alonso, Vervork, and Eathwund attempt to fend it off while the others make for the ladder. Alonso is struck by a tentacle but manages to twist free before it can wrap around him. After the octopus is stabbed a few times, it flees into a drain.
Lakima is the first to climb the ladder out into the air on a circular platform. A walkway leads to a doorway in a wall. On the platform is an enormous iron lever. Once everyone has climbed up on the platform, Lakima pushes the lever in the opposite direction. They hear some clanking noises and gurgling. Soon the water level in the chamber begins to drop. After a few minutes, the chamber is almost dry. The barrel that was in the shaft rests on the floor.
Fenris checks out the door and declares is safe, then he opens it and steps through. The door leads to a long hallway with double doors at each end. Four doors along the wall facing them and one beside them. Lakima asks Fenris to check one of the doors and Fenris loudly yells to Lakima that he will check the door. Fenris fumbles at the door for a few minutes then says he cannot get it open (the players did not know it at the time but Fenris has been replaced with a doppelganger). At that moment three doors swing open into the hallway and six identical-looking men rush the adventurers attacking them.
During the fight one of the men facing Lakima laughs and suddenly his appearance changes to that of Lakima! Several of the heroes shout out “doppelgangers!” at the same time. The fight is over fairly quickly and as the men fall and die their corpses turn into grey-skinned, thin, hairless, sexless creatures. although Lakima and Vervork are both injured. Domago uses a Curative prayer on Lakima. Lakima asks Vervork to crack open one of the skulls of the doppelgangers. Vervork is perplexed by Lakima explains that the brains of a doppelganger are an ingredient for potions of ESP. The other doppelgangers are all beheaded and the heads are tossed in the Bag of Holding as evidence for the Town watch.
Lakima tells Fenris to check the double doors at one end of the hallway. Fenris yells at Vervork to guard the doors at the other end of the hall. As Fenris bends over to examine a door, Vervork lets out a yell and falls through a trapdoor in the floor in front of the other set of doors. Everyone rushes over but they see an empty 10-foot-deep pit with smooth walls. Eathwund yells Vervork’s name but there is no answering yell. Lakima casts Detect Magic and discovers that the floor of the pit is an illusion. So, Alonso throws a rope down and it falls right through the floor. He feels a tug on the rope and soon Vervork climbs up passing right through the floor of the pit. Vervork questions them why they did not answer his yells for help? Lakima tells Vervork that he fell into a pit hidden by a powerful illusion.
Fenris announces that the double doors are safe and he pushes them open revealing a large meeting room. A pair of tables are covered in books, scrolls, and parchment. They see a large map of Edgerton on the wall. With just a brief glance through the papers, they find lists of guild members at the leather workers guild. Some prominent members are circled. They decide to gather up all of the books and scrolls and stuff them in the bag of holding.
The party leaves the chamber and heads down the corridor to check one of the last doors. Fenris nervously tells them that the door is safe. Eathwund opens the door and steps into a brightly lit chamber. Three torches of blue flame hang from the ceiling of an octagonal room. The walls of the room are lined with huge metal mirrors. In the center of the room, manacled to four chairs are Lantosh, Vervork, Fenris and Eathwund. Each has a gag over his mouth and is struggling to move and speak. Eathwund steps into the room and stops in surprise. The rest of the heroes walk into the room and all look in amazement at their fellow heroes. None of the four men chained to the chairs are wearing weapons or armor. All of them look exactly like their counterparts. Alonso looks to Lakima and asks what they should do. Lakima shrugs and thinks it over. Aashdoshan asks Domago if he can raise the dead (intimating that they kill the possible doubles). Domago looks at Aashdoshan in surprise and gives him an emphatic “NO!”
After a few minutes of discussion, they decide to ungag Lantosh. Lantosh immediately starts telling them what happened to him. That he was knocked unconscious in the street and brought here. The creatures taunted him by changing their appearance to look like him and like friends, members of the watch, and other adventurers. After he had been here for a short while they brought in Eathwund, Fenris, and Vervork one at a time and chained them to chairs. They asked him a lot of questions about the Company of the Black Dragon but especially about Aashdoshan. Whether the necromancer had a collection of body parts, where he came from, his background. Lantosh tells them that he did not divulge much, other than to say that Aashdoshan collected a lot of body parts. This statement gets a laugh out of some of the heroes.
The group of heroes is still puzzled about who to trust. Lakima tells his pet mimic to tell him who is a doppelganger. The mimic seems puzzled. It sniffs at the bound men but does not do anything. Lakima asks Aashdoshan if he has a mind-reading spell, but the latter does not. The other three men are ungagged and each insists he is the real hero. Aashdoshan tries questioning Fenris about things only the two of them would know but the bound man seems to know all of the answers. Lakima tells them that doppelgangers can read thoughts to they will not be able to discern who is real with questions.
Finally, Lakima tells Vervork to strip naked. When questioned by Vervork, Lakima says that he figures if he is a doppelganger the clothes will disappear if they are taken a short distance from his body. They cannot be sure the doppelgangers did not steal some of the duplicate’s equipment but he is sure that the underclothes are probably generated by the peculiar mimic ability of the doppelgangers. Vervork is finally convinced to do it and strips down. Then when nothing happens says, “See, now can I kill this double?” Lakima nods.
Vervork puts on his pants and picks up his sword. He advances on the chained version of himself in the chair. But as soon as he gets near the Vervork in the chair slips easily out of the manacles and defends himself. Lakima yells, “that’s the doppelganger, kill him!”
Then the Eathwund and in the chair also leaps up and attacks the other Eathwund. Eathwund faces off against Eathwund. The Eathwund double immediately duplicates Eathwund’s equipment and it is impossible to tell them apart. Fenris and Lantosh tied in the chairs struggle at the manacles but are unable to get out. Lantosh yells, “Look out behind you!” and Lakima turns to find Fenris attempting to stab him in the back. Fenris yells, “Die stupid human!” but misses.
The room with the mirrors is the scene of a brutal short battle. Several of the heroes are injured but after a minute there are two dead doppelgangers lying on the floor. Lantosh yells to be unchained. Now certain that they have worked out who is a doppelganger and who is human, they unchain Lantosh and Fenris. Fenris tells them he was ambushed at the Frozen Crow Tavern last night and brought here.
Lakima tells Vervork to start smashing mirrors. Vervork turns and smashes the one nearest to him and finds a secret passage. Fenris is given a dagger by Alonso and darts down the secret passage to a door. He declares the door safe. They tell Lantosh and Fenris to stay at the back of the group since neither has their weapons or armor.
Alonso opens the door and they find it opens into a chamber that appears to be a maze. The inner walls making up the maze are floor-to-ceiling metal mirrors. The exterior walls are brick. Vervork walks a short distance forward and is cut off from the rest of the group as a mirror wall suddenly springs up between them. Lakima tells everyone to pair up so they do not get separated and they head off into the maze looking for Vervork. They find him fairly quickly. The group continues into the maze. Lantosh is handed a torch so they have more light sources. As they get deeper into the maze, they are attacked by three doppelgangers who begin the attack looking like twin men but soon change their appearances to that of Alonso, Lakima, and Fenris. Two of the doppelgangers are killed but the third disappears behind a mirror wall that suddenly springs up. Aashdoshan pauses the group while he raises the two doppelganger corpses as zombies. They search for the third doppelganger but are unable to find it so they head on until they find another exterior wall. Checking for secret doors they find one that leads into the Meeting room they ransacked earlier. They then decide that since they have found Lantosh they should head out and report what they found to the Lawlord of Edgerton.
As Lakima and Eathwund step into the flood chamber they see a new hallway open on one of the walls at the same height as the platform (40 feet above the floor of the chamber). In the hallway are two male drow holding small crossbows. They immediately start firing bolts at the heroes on the platform. Eathwund grabs his short bow and fires back at the drow. After a quick exchange, they see a third figure in the hallway, a dark-robed humanoid with a squid-like head and tentacles around its mouth. Alonso shouts out, “Look out! Mindflayer!” Then the mind flayer uses its mind blast on all of the heroes. They feel a wave of pressure in their skulls but most of them fight it off. Vervork pitches over face first unconscious onto the platform. Lakima tosses a Javelin of piercing to Eathwund who throws it and misses hitting the brick wall. Then Eathwund throws the Javelin of lightning and also misses. Aashdoshan casts web into the darkness. Then Lakima casts Lightning bolt at the center of the darkness. The veil of darkness falls and they see two dead drow stuck in webs.
Vervork recovers the Javelin of Lightning and he and Eathwund clamber into the barrel. Lakima tells his mimic to form itself into a second barrel and Alonso and Domago reluctantly clamber into him. Lakima throws the lever and the chamber soon starts to fill with water. The heroes float in barrels or by treading water and slowly ascend back up the shaft to the rope ladder.
Back in the warehouse, they debate whether to summon the guard but Fenris tells them that there is not a lot of guards outside the town gates. So, they leave and report to the Watch Station, unconscious Vervork is carried along by Eathwund and Lantosh.
First, the heroes head to the Watch Station, but they are nervous to turn over their evidence to the watch. So, they demand an audience with Lord Brightmoor at the citadel. After a short wait, they are granted a meeting. Lord Brightmoor examines some of the books they found with concern. He sends for a Priest of St. John to pray to see if anyone in the chamber is evil (and possibly a doppelganger). Aashdoshan discretely steps just outside the range of the spell. Assured that no one is a doppelganger, Brightmoor asks what their next move will be. Will they descend back under the town to confront the Mindflayer. Lakima lets the lord know that this will be an expensive task. Lord Brightmoor is not happy by that and does not offer a reward. He tells them that he will hire another group to take care of the problem and then dismisses them.
Aashdoshan and Domago take Vervork to the Church of St. Aleena where the unconscious hero is revived with no ill effects other than a bad headache. Lakima takes the doppelganger brain to his wife Alayna. She is horrified by the mucky brain at first but once she is told what it is she eagerly grabs hold of it and heads to her workroom. The rest of the heroes settle down at the Chapter House for now. Lakima mentions that he might go do some research on doppelgangers at the Library of Antiquity.
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