D&D 5e: The Portal

I eventually managed to take a few game shots of one of our D&D sessions.

Orianna the Warlock, Yulmanda the Druid and Xarron the Rogue (bottom to top)

This was a strange session because it revolved around a spell book that Orianna had found in a previous adventure, which had spells she wanted to learn, appropriate to her level (4) but that I didn't want her to get willy nilly. It was my fault to begin with as I had converted a WD scenario from the 90's and it had 3 spell books with loads of spells in. First off I restricted the number of spells to 5, then I had one of the spell books eat the other 2 whilst in Orianna's Bag of Holding, so only one book to deal with. Still a problem, so I made the book sentient, it changed each time she withdrew it to have a read, and I made it so she would need the help of a more experienced practitioner, enter Wizard Clapsteel, to learn from it at all.

So first attempt at learning a new spell saw the trio transported into the book itself where it set a series of problems and creatures to defeat in order to reach safety for Xarron and Yul, the spell for Orianna. 

First encounter was a flavour of things to come. I wanted the test to be a bit like a level in a game, so the PC's knew where they had to go, they could see the portal, but not what they would have to face.

Hence the globular creatures above, which were despatched reasonably easily.

The next island in the purple mist had a chest which contained a conundrum. as below on the card. Yul solved it in the end, a guess I recon :-)

Edit: sorry forgot riddle 

A rickety bridge threatened to toss them into the void..... well back to the previous island with 1D4+2 wounds for shock value if they failed their acrobatics saving throw. As they all held onto each other and only Orianna failed by one, I let then scurry across. I think thy thought they would fall to their deaths, I firmly believe in letting the players believe all sorts of misguided rubbish.

The penultimate island proved to be quite a challenge. The 3 globs at the front were as per the first bunch but the larger held back and fired blobs of goo as per a longbow.

Although Yulmanda cast Moonbeam on the group which really mucked them up the combat was a close run thing, Yul was down to 4 wounds and Xarron and Orianna not much better.

Several Moonbeams later.

Yulmanda changed into a bear, always good fun, but no more Moonbeams! However between Xarron's attacked from the rear, Orianna's Hellish rebukes and Yulmanda's claws the last creature was defeated.

The last encounter lay ahead of them, as did the portal.

Xarron and Yulmanda launched into a full frontal assault, while Orianna cast her remaining spells at the hugely terrifying beast. 

There a few touch and go moments, as this blob was very much like a Wraith, Xarron only just passed his constitution save to avoid instant death, and the creature was destroyed.

The three PC's passed through the portal and returned to the safety of Clapsteel's workshop.

Orianna had decided to learn a relatively simple spell, Detect Poisons and Disease, as a tester to see how well the sessions with Clapsteel would go, the other two recieved all the XP, which amounted to a fair bit. I had explained to the party all this before they had started, all agreed it was fair. Think it may have put Orianna learning any more from the book, but I have all sorts of other shenanigans  in the pipeline, which I can;t divulge just yet as they may be reading.

I think the next "Book" incident will be some way off as the group are involved in the scurrilous goings on at an orphanage next adventure.

Ta for reading :-)