The Prophet of Fire

The Prophet Of Fire (2x17) is the seventeenth session of the second campaign (as well as the fourth chapter) of Concord Hall D&D. Here, the party investigates the two leaders of the Eternal Flame, and the choices they give.

Summary
After coming across the resting quarters of the Eternal Flame residents, Gardrin suddenly found himself the target of a significant number of aggressive cultists. It took only a few moments for his allies in the next room over to come to his aid. Soon, a significant amount of the party was alongside Gardrin, helping defend him from the cultists.

While the battle was mostly similar to past ones, a significant change to the party’s typical style of combat was Cassius’ use of Banishing Smite on Aleryn’s spear. Unbeknownst to Aleryn, this would cause any enemies struck by her spear to be banished to another plane, likely after dying due to the spell’s potency. Aleryn found this out after attacking one cultist, causing him to disappear in an agonizing flash of light, and terrifying the few survivors into submission. This caused Aleryn significant distress, but otherwise ended the fight.

Tekir used the cultists’ fear to question them, allowing him to discover that Bastian was in a nearby room. They also learned that the cultists served the prophets, such as Vanifer, but didn’t have motives of their own beyond setting things on fire and fighting people. The cultists also claimed not to know Vanifer’s intentions, the identity of the Weeping Colossus, or what was in Area 14, the strange part of the map near the forge. Finally, they explained to the party their thoughts on the other cults; the Crushing Wave were cowards (a statement that drew Aleryn’s ire), the Black Earth were indecisive and slow, and the Howling Hatred were “alright”.

The questioning came to an end when Aleryn sharply turned to speak to her companions, only for the tip of her spear to barely scratch one of the surrendered cultists, causing him to be painfully banished. Aleryn, visibly horrified, suddenly left the room to try and calm herself. Gardrin took a moment to block a nearby room full of Eternal Flame priests with a chair before he and Fie made their way over to the nearby lava dam.

Meanwhile, Tekir and Ezra made their way to Bastian’s office. Here, they discovered that Bastian was surprisingly civil and calm given the situation. He claimed to be uninterested in fighting the pair, given how boring such a thing would be. Despite this, he offered to answer any questions the group had.

Upon being asked, Bastian claimed that the Weeping Colossus was exactly as it sounded, noting the Eternal Flame’s lack of interest in metaphors or riddles. He then said that Vanifer didn’t care for her followers, considering all of them (including Bastian himself) equally disposable, but that he could make deals whereas she could not.

And so, this led into Bastian’s proposal: the group would kill Vanifer and take her dagger, Tinderstrike, and give it to Bastian. Upon doing this, Bastian would take over the Eternal Flame and disappear from the area. The group would be able to take any rewards they see fit for such a thing. Ezra seemed unsure, asking what benefit there was to letting Bastian live, to which he was told that the other cultists would leave the party alone, claiming that they wouldn’t be able to deal with what was near the Colossus. He offered to explain what this meant if they could claim Tinderstrike, and told them that Vanifer could be found in the Temple’s chapel.

Tekir agreed to Bastian’s terms, so long as Bastian had the remaining cultists leave their party be. Bastian said he would tell the members of the cult to leave alone any group that had Ezra or Tekir among them. After leaving the office, they explained their deal to the rest of the party. Aleryn seemed uneasy, as this change of plans meant the azers would face the efreeti alone, but she eventually gave in and told the azers that the party would join them in battle from the other side of the forge, telling the elementals to go ahead without them. They did so gladly, and the party used the dam’s walkway to move across the Temple. Around this time, Tekir’s spell to locate the Black Hand ceased working, pointing in the direction of east-southeast (or, qwerp).

After crossing the dam, the party split up. Fie, Gardrin, and Aleryn made their way to the west, where they found a circular chamber filled with a deep pool of water. Aleryn dived into the pool to see what was inside, but found nothing. After getting out, she let Gardrin and Fie wash themselves off before they rejoined the rest of the party, heading into a large room to the south that housed a number of cultists relaxing near anvils and fire pits. After seeing Tekir and Ezra, they let the party move through the room. When asked if Vanifer was in there, a cultist explained that only Bastian, Elizar, and “Lizzie” ever enter the chapel, and Vanifer rarely leaves. They then let the party enter.

The party made their way through a short hallway that led into the chapel. Here, they met a tiefling woman that introduced herself as Vanifer, a worshipper of Imix, the deity that granted her power. Vanifer tried to make a deal with the party, but Tekir rejected it, claiming he was already following a deal with Bastian before summoning his Spirit Guardians to attack. Immediately upon being attacked, Vanifer summoned two fire elementals and a Wall of Fire, which was met by Aleryn’s tritonic Wall of Water spell as the battle began in earnest.

Eventually, the party managed to weaken Vanifer enough that she was forced to flee. She summoned Darkness and used it to hide herself long enough that she could escape to a secret room of hers nearby. The fire elementals bought her the time to do this, as the party needed time to defeat them. Once the elementals were gone (one through Tekir’s Banishment and another through Ezra drowning it), Aleryn led the group to Vanifer’s study to track the lost prophet.

The party quickly learned that Vanifer had disappeared. After discovering an open drawer containing two magic scrolls, one of Wall of Sand and another of Melf’s Minute Meteors, Aleryn noticed that there was room for another scroll and guessed that Vanifer used one to teleport away. This was supported by Ezra learning that the cultists outside the chapel saw no sign of Vanifer leaving the area. Eventually, Ginger asked her Magic Eight Ball where to find Vanifer, and it responded by pointing the party to her location.

The group rushed to follow the Eight Ball’s direction to Area 14, the location that the group had continually failed to find information about. Along the way, they saw the effects of the azer’s battle, finding that only one of the group had remained, and only did so for a moment before disappearing back to the Elemental Plane of Fire, confirming that the efreeti had been killed.

The party continued to the east of the forge, where they found Area 14. Here, they found a wooden drawbridge-like platform extended into a large, hovering stone disk over a deep pit, lit only by a faint light far below. The party, knowing that Vanifer had escaped below, prepared themselves for the next stage of their plan...

Quotes

 * Ezra: “I don’t really trust that guy as far as, you know, Gardrin could throw him into a burning building, but I think for the time being, that was the right decision.”



Trivia

 * The banished Eternal Flame cultists are confirmed to have been sent to Terminus.
 * When discussing that Hercan has the body of a crab, Carter clarified that he only has a crab’s arms, “and not by choice”, specifying that Hercan was not a willing subject to becoming a Simic Hybrid.
 * Hercan’s claws were specified to be crusher claws, and that they are capable of using items that most Simic Hybrids are unable to use their claws for.