Madness at Dovesong Abbey Part II

"They debated long on what was to be done, but they could think of no way of getting rid of Smaug - which had always been a weak point in their plans, as Bilbo felt inclined to point out." 

- The Hobbit

I was extremely excited for the next session of Dovesong Abbey.  So much so that I had built and constructed the vaults a weekend in advance (people had other life things going on, so we had a little bit of a break).  My biggest complaint about constructing the Vaults was that I couldn't do it with one set of "The Dungeon" dungeon tiles, so I had to borrow some tiles from other sets to complete it, with a little bit of my own tweaking.

Half of the ping pong table converted into "The Vaults"

The session started well, with a lot of roleplaying and character interaction in order for the group to win over the minotaurs.  Bastin lured a kobold to help him, which was promptly slain with several minotaurs to make it look like the kobolds were attacking the minotaurs.  Zaktis went and spoke with the minotaur's leader, who informed him to go and speak to the Shadow being in the upper rooms.  The group went, meeting with the strange shadow being who was a mixture of gnoll and minotaur.

The shadow being was strange and creepy, and my switching between different voices gave the players kind of a weird feeling/strange looks around the table (it was like switching between Ziro the Hutt and Heath Ledger's Joker).

Nobody wanted to deal with the Shadow, especially as he became angrier and angrier.  Eventually, he set his servants upon the party.  As the demonic minotaur and gnolls began to attack, the group realized that this might be a fight they could not win.  And so, all craziness broke loose.

Bastin fled.  Krenlor fled.  Zaktis did his best to flee.  And all the while, Oakley and Pog were trapped in the room.  Eventually, they both fell.  The Shadow devoured Pog's soul, while Oakley was impaled on the minotaur's horns.  This brought a strange quiet to my group of friends.  More from Pog's death than Oakley's.

Bastin was able to bring the kobolds to his aid, who began to swarm the monsters while the heroes made their escape up the stairs into the Hall of Glory.  The dragon had been out hunting when Bastin persuaded them.  Krenlor ran into the room to steal treasure as they fled, and the dragon returned, seeing the thief.  Roaring his fury, Mekkalath tore off through the tunnel, waiting for the heroes to emerge outside to he could have his revenge.  The session ended with the heroes inside the Hall of Glory, listening to the fury of the dragon flying overhead.

The kobold army comes to save the day.

At this point, the adventure has moved extremely far from what was originally written.  And honestly, that's what makes the game great.  This is going to be something that is talked about, not because of the adventure, but because of what happend and how we made it ours.

I spoke with Pog's player, and we already have a new character that we will be introducing next session.  He will have some good ties to Dovesong, yet he has quite the backstory, something that Pog really didn't.  I think he will be a solid character for our campaign, which will make the rest of the group become better players.

I think the most exciting part is that Mekkalath will become a great threat/character, as opposed to "that dragon in that dungeon".  It seems as though I am fulfilling my desire to inspire great fear of dragons and make them might creatures.