Tomb of Annihilation: Session 1

Our Heroes

Ahab: Barbarian and disgraced pirate. Seeking money for a new ship, and good people to crew it.
Amon: Grave domain cleric of Anubis. Appalled at the recent spate of undead, and determined to see it stopped.
Bruja: Lizardfolk druid/witchdoctor. A Chultan native who, along with Darkbeak, was hired to guide the foreign adventurers through the jungle.
Caden: Elven warlock with an eldritch patron. Communicates solely through telepathy. His true motives are unknown.
Darkbeak: Kenku ranger, outlander, and Chultan native. Hired alongside Bruja as a guide/bodyguard.



In Waterdeep, Ahab, Amon, and Caden have been summoned by a mysterious old woman for a purpose they don't yet understand. Arriving at the grand palatial estate, they are ushered into a somber chamber where the three mercenaries are given the biggest mission of their lives: they are to stop death itself.

The old woman, speaking from behind an obscuring veil, is dying — again. She had once been a wise and powerful sorceress, and her adventuring days brought her close to the grave on multiple occasions. Once, it brought her past it, and it was only through the grace of a local cleric that she was brought back. She retired from the work then, focusing her attention towards civilization and the continued prosperity of Waterdeep. But her body was failing; suddenly, rapidly, she could feel her very life force draining from her with each passing day.

She was not alone. All over the world, those who had undergone resurrection found themselves withering away at an unnatural rate. Councils of mankind's greatest leaders and wizards (most of them, too, suffering from what would be known as the Death Curse) were convened, and divinations of the most powerful order revealed that souls of the deceased were being drawn to a place deep within the jungles of the southern continent of Chult. That is where the three men are to go, the old woman says, to find and destroy whatever is causing the Death Curse. The trip will take two weeks by boat, and the old woman knows she will not live to see it dock. She urges our heroes to fight not for gold or glory, but to save civilization as they know it.

The men gather their things and spend a sleepless night in the local inn. Their ship departs at first light.

Upon the sea, there is little evidence of anything amiss. The voyage is smooth and bright, and even as they pull into the docks at Port Nyanzaru on the northern side of Chult they are greeted not by death and decay but by a thriving seaside metropolis bustling with people. Here, they meet their guides, Bruja and Darkbeak, whose decades of experience in the hostile Chultan wilderness make them all but indispensable. Introductions are short, for their is much work to do. The group splits up to make a preliminary sweep of the area, asking questions about the city, the people, and Chult itself. They learn that Port Nyanzaru is the only truly thriving city in the entire continent: their proximity to the sea makes them an important stop for trade routes both incoming and outgoing. To this end, Chult is ruled not by a governor or king but by a council of merchant princes, each presiding over a particular export: everything from food and liquor to boats and sellswords. Sellswords: for the time being, that was what they were. The party set to work fashioning a rudimentary advertisement for their mercenary company (Bruja turns out to be a surprisingly capable artist) and tack it to the job board in the local tavern, Summer Wine. They order drinks, toast to camaraderie, prosperity, and health, and begin to settle in when a shattering scream is heard from outside. The bar clears out, and they with it.

A gruesome sight awaits them in the market square: wrapped corpses are spilling out of a local temple, and the scream they heard was the dying gasp of the young maiden now bleeding out on the temple stairs. Port Nyanzaru guards leap into action, forming a shield wall between the feasting zombies and the citizens, but more screams can be heard from inside the building. Ahab is the first to break through the barrier, leaping forward and splitting a zombie's skull with a single heft of his mighty spear. The rest of the party follows suit, fighting their way through the undead and up the stairs. Amon elects to stay outside and tend to the wounded with his clerical magic. By his decree, there will be no more senseless death today.

Inside, more corpses are rising from the tables, in various stages of decay. It becomes immediately apparent that this temple serves as both the city's funeral home and graveyard. The remaining priestesses are huddled in a corner, futilely waving a torch at the advancing undead. But with the combined prowess of four veteran adventurers, the battle is over quickly, and with faces and weapons caked in congealed blood our heroes are finally able to catch their breath. Stepping gingerly over the splayed form of a ghoul, the head priestess approaches to thank them for their act of courage.

She explains that although Chult has always had pockets of undead, the past several weeks had seen an explosion in reports across the continent. Furthermore, there seemed to be no pattern as to when and where they would appear: fresh corpses would be found walking amongst skeletons buried centuries ago, and many of the zombies that just rose within the temple had been consecrated by her herself. It was deeply troubling, but her work is an important one, and after rewarding the party with several highly-potent healing potions distilled by her order, she bids them goodbye.

By the point the crowd had dispersed, and the guards were busy heaving the twice-killed corpses onto a large bonfire. The group returns to Summer Wine, and spends some time talking over drinks. As evening begins to set, Caden notices that a large, one-armed Chultan seated at the far end of the bar is glaring at him and his companions. The one-armed man stands and approaches the party, handing them a small note which reads, "Jobal requests you." Below is an address within the city. Wordlessly, the stranger departs, and after a brief discourse on the merits of blindly trusting cryptic messages delivered by creepy people in strange lands, the party heeds their request.

They arrive at a beautiful-but-cramped estate in one of the richest areas of Port Nyanzaru. The door before them is ornately carved into an image of a fat, laughing face, and they soon see why. Entering, they find themselves in an opulent parlor, dominated by the supine form of a tremendously large man smoking a hookah. On either side of him are seated tabaxi, collared and chained. The large man beckons for the party to sit, and they do.

He introduces himself as Jobal, merchant prince of guides, guards, and mercenaries. His smile never fades as he chastises the party for not consulting with him before deciding to set up operations in Chult. He sets aside the hookah, and produces a contract and a flintlock pistol from a small box by the sofa. The contract is handed to Caden; the pistol, leveled at his head. Jobal explains that nobody, native or otherwise, does business in Chult without his permission. Darkbeak protests, but his persuasion is hindered somewhat by the kenku's natural inability to form creative thought. After a few more rounds of not-so-thinly veiled threats and bargains, Darkbeaks' Escorts is formed, with the stipulation that 50% of all profits will be delivered to the merchant prince upon completion of any successful outing. Still smiling, Jobal dismisses the party, but not before granting them their first assignment: an escort job. At dawn of the next day, they are to report to the gates to ensure that a caravan loaded with wood and other supplies returns safely to Fort Belarian, a Flaming Fist outpost on the northeast side of Chult.

Exhausted but newly employed, the party heads back to the inn and checks out their room. Their sleep is well-deserved — though not particularly long — and first light sees our heroes once again donning armor and polishing blades, preparing for their first journey into the untamed jungle.

Jungle Boogie

Anyone following my blog closely knows I started a 5e ToA game recently. Well actually I started it back in December, but a combination of various family emergencies and the loss of a player (he didn't die, just moved away, the inconsiderate jerk) means we've only played three sessions. REGARDLESS, as this is the only game I have the time to run right now it's only fair I give it the same respect I did MotBM (though if the module deserves it has yet to be seen).

Luke Abbott

THE TOMB OF ANNIHILATION

"A death curse has befallen everyone who's been raised from the dead. Its victims are rotting away, and all efforts to reverse the decay have failed.

The souls of the dead are being stolen one by one and trapped inside a necromantic artifact. Only its destruction will free the trapped spirits and allow the dead to be raised once more.

All paths lead to Chult, a mysterious land of volcanoes, jungles, and the ruins of fallen kingdoms. Below them all awaits a deadly tomb. The trap is set. Will you take the bait?"

THE SET-UP

Tomb of Annihilation is a hexcrawl, and as such is 5e's first major attempt at an adventure that encourages old-school, sandbox, high-lethality play. An admirable goal: between hexcrawls and megadungeons, I prefer hexcrawls for their versatility and focus on expansion and world development. However, I take umbrage with a few aspects of ToA's design, and have tweaked them accordingly. Random encounters, for example, are almost exclusively combat or "huh look at that" meaningless distractions. Luckily, Scrap Princess revealed to me that the community has no shortage of random encounter tables for jungles, and with these I intend to make the journey through Chult a bit more interesting.

Aside from that, we're using the same old 5e that the module is built for, with a few house rules that I'll explain if they come up. Look forward to it over the next few weeks/months as I find time to record our sessions in between running them and working on my other projects.

THE PLAYERS

Amon: Half-elf Death Cleric. Intense hatred of the undead has led him to seek out rumors of the Chultan spellplague.

Darkbeak: Kenku Ranger. Born and raised in the jungles of Chult, hired alongside Bruja as a guide for the foreign adventurers.

Bruja: Lizardfolk Druid. Witchdoctor and Chultan native. Wears a large bird skull as a mask, hired alongside Darkbeak as a guide for the foreign adventures.

Caden: Elven Warlock. Quite and reserved, communicates entirely through telepathy. His true motives are unknown.

Ahab: Human Barbarian sailor. Disgraced at sea, he seeks fame and fortune on the land.

Maze of the Blue Medusa: Session 3

Our heroes once again stepped through the moonlit painting into the chambers of the former Ashen Chanterelle. It had been an eventful month. Their last excursion had led them straight to a powerful demon who could stop their heart or catch their breath in their lungs with a snap of fingers. They would have to be more careful if they were to survive this.

DMs Note: In this session, I implement a new downtime mechanic I've been working on. Because there's a solid month between each foray into the maze, I asked each player what their character did in that month, and gave them mechanical advantages for creative ideas.

The party had been busy. Kali, knowing their next journey was to a place known only as “the Dead Wedding," decided to spend the past month in Erebus, conversing with the souls of the dead [in-system: her summons' damage is rolled straight]. Eizen had been training, pushing his muscles to their limits for weeks on end [in-system: his STR score increased by 1]. Mr. Nancy, the dashing rogue, had been partying and spreading raucous stories about how Nemora romanced a vine. His tales became part of the collective consciousness, to the point that “screwing the plant" has become a common idiom for foolish behavior, though nobody knows quite where it came from [in-system: his carousing meant it was plausible that he would have seemingly-random items on his person]. Nemora, however, was hard at work in the smithy, crafting a pair of magical swords hewn from the very rocks that formerly trapped him [in-system: +1 swords, able to create a burst of bright light by hitting them together].

The heroes head to Lady Capilli's room, and from there to the Escher Stairs. Instead of heading north, as they had done previously, they use the key given to them by the dark lady to access the previously-locked East Wing. Stepping forward, they enter what appears to be a coat room, with capes, cloaks, and furs lining each wall. Nemora, wearing nothing more than the stony protrusions that maintain his modesty, decides to update his wardrobe. Reaching out to take a coat from the rack, he is startled when he instead finds a large peacock hiding amongst the clothes.

The peacock introduces himself as Zacchaeus, and immediately begins eyeing the party up and down with a discerning gaze. Nemora in particular is the focus of his ire, and he immediately demands the strange man clothe himself before he enters the wedding. Zacchaeus begins throwing random clothes at Nemora, who graciously adorns himself with a floor-length leather opera coat, velvet slacks, and a feather boa. It suits him wonderfully.

After the clothing situation is dealt with, Zacchaeus remembers his real duty and staunchly asks for our heroes invitation to the party, “presided over by Chancellor Sophronia Wort herself!" When pressed, the peacock refuses to give any more information, but luckily Mr. Nancy manages to fish a tattered ticket from his inner pocket and presents it. Satisfied that the group don't appear to be wedding crashers, Zacchaeus instructs them to head forward to catch the end of the ceremony.

The next room is a nightmare come to life. Burnt, desiccated corpses float between rows of empty chairs. Ash falls from their blackened skulls as they wordlessly converse. One floats to Eizen and extends his hand in a conventional greeting, but when Eizen takes it, the figure disintegrates. The party notices the buffet table on the side of the room, but upon realizing it is devastated -- with the exception of an eerily-pristine wedding cake -- decide not to fool with it. The four agree that this silent procession holds little prospect for them, and head south into a small side room.

In it is a table, and on the table is a small key. The key is attached to a string, which trails forth into a darkened room. From within, they hear childish giggling. Eizen, bright as he is, illuminates the room to reveal a crouching, sallow child with coal black eyes and a sadistic smile. Adorning the child's room are the skins of (presumably) other adventurers, stretched and pinned to the walls. The child lunges at the party, but Eizen manages to pin him with a well-executed grapple.

However, the wight will not be bested so easily. Its fearsome teeth dig into the flesh of Eizen's arm, and the son of Atlas feels his strength draining by the second (DMs Note: EXP drain). But the abomination can not long sustain the combined effort of four demigods with a purpose, and soon it falls. The party takes a moment to catch their breath before examining the strange display of skins. Each was pinned with several needles, and have what appears to be braile dots poked through. None of our heroes can read them, although they do make a note to return once they've done some more research.

Fishing the key from the dead boys hands, the party returns to the reception hall, where they immediately get the feeling they are being watched. They turn to see a small boy, translucent but otherwise identical to the one they just fought, staring at them. Mr. Nancy steps forth bravely, but the child is not here to fight. Instead, he simply holds out his hand, pointing further east. The party follows his lead into the next room.

They are led into a grand altar, empty save for two well-dressed, lovely figures They are caught in a timeless, frozen embrace, mere seconds from their first kiss in marriage. Dust specks lay motionless in the air, and a pebble tossed by Mr. Nancy slows, then stops before it even approaches the bride and groom. They are trapped in a bubble outside of time, and it's clear nothing can affect them until it is broken. The ghostly boy points up at the couple, and then sits down before them. He is unable to communicate further, but it's not long before the silence is broken by an unearthly shrill scream from ahead.

Suddenly, the party is confronted with what they can only assume are wraiths composed entirely of gold dust. What they had assumed was a scream was, in fact, the grinding of metal-on-metal as the forms flew around and through each other. They turned to our heroes, and we were in intiative.

Despite having first actions (in Godbound, players always win initiative unless facing other demigods), not much was accomplished in the first round. Mr. Nancy, the smooth talker, has next-to-no combat capabilities, relying on his foresight and manipulation of luck to see him through encounters. Eizen attempted to trap the wraiths in a cage of stone, but their gold-dust forms slipped effortlessly through any crack. Kali, with her dominion over death, managed to enslave a spectre, raising it as a solid-gold skeleton under her command. Ever eager to try out his new swords, Kellen attempts a strike. Though merely a glancing blow, the wraiths do recoil from the powerful magic contained within the blades.

The wraiths mount an unconventional counterattack. Two of the four rush towards Eizen's face, smothering him with a cascade of molten gold forced down his throat. His body spasms in the throes of his heroic resistance, but it is for nought. The spirits have possessed him, and immediately turn their attention to the rest of the party. The other two wraiths attack Kellen and Mr. Nancy with whirlwind-spins that strip flesh as easy as a sandblaster.

Beaten but not broken, Kellen realizes his friend Eizen has set his sights on the party. Kellen jumps to pin the giant to the ground before his mighty stone hands can close around Kali's neck. Kali in turn commands her skeletal guardian to attack while simultaneously reaping the very life from a wraith with her scythe.

Mr. Nancy picks up a stone and throws it.

Eizen's eyes and mouth are starting to bleed liquid gold as Kellen drives his fists into the titan's back. Kali looks to the remaining wraith, already weakened by her summons' attacks, and raises it as another. With a final push the last two specters are expelled from Eizen and he stands to join the party.

Mr. Nancy goes back into the wedding hall.

The combined efforts of three demigods (and two golden skeletons) makes short work of the last two wraiths. Victorious, Kali dispels her necromancy and Mr. Nancy strides forth to rejoin his compatriots. Sensing further danger deeper within the Maze, the party takes a moment to catch their breath and lick at their wounds before proceeding south.

This room is mercifully free of dangers. A single white swan floats lazily along a river of wine. The party exchanges glances and shrugs, but continues past it (making sure to disturb neither it nor the river) into a large room dominated by a brilliant crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Pushing past the broken and discarded gift boxes that litter the floor here, they enter another room that has been completely impaled vertically by a vine thick as an oak tree. Kellen drops a coin past the vine, but no impact is ever heard. Eizen volunteers to climb down, and is met with a familiar sight: he is standing outside of the Rat King's chambers, deep within the garden.

In heading east, they have ended up above where they started.

Ever the opportunist, Kali marks the convenient shortcut on her map. Eizen returns to his friends, and the party continues north.

The golden engine. Designed and built by Torcul Wort as punishment for an abstract crime, the very thing that gave the dead wedding its namesake. It stands in the center of the room, formidable even in its stillness. Its purpose is to turn anything its fed into gold. It is alive, and duplicitous, and hungry.

In this room is the biggest threat our heroes have faced so far. In this room, a demigod will die.

Actual Play: Tomb of the Serpent Kings

Several members of my usual MotBM group couldn't meet this week, so I decided to use the two that did show up as guinea pigs to test both my new system (Sugarhack, a The Black Hack spin-off I may release someday) and Tomb of the Serpent Kings, by Skerples. Now, these are experienced players, and I was more interested in seeing how the module stood up to a veritable speedrun, so the rules were simple:

1. This is a dungeoncrawl. I haven't prepped anything outside the tomb.
2. No retainers, hirelings, or livestock.
3. Three hour time limit.

Characters were rolled (Festa the thief, Lesta the ranger) and we jumped right in.

Suspicious from the start, both men refused to open the coffins contained within the first four rooms ("I ain't getting strangled by zombies 5 minutes into the session") and headed immediately forward towards the hammer door. It took two of them to lift the heavy stone barring the door, and as the hammer trap swung down, each character was faced with a choice: push the other into the trap to get an advantage on their dodge, or simply jump away...assuming their partner didn't sacrifice THEM.

I resolved this as a pseudo-prisoners dilemma: I had both players silently choose to either sacrifice the other or not, and write down their answers. When it came time to reveal, I was surprised to discover that neither of them had chosen "sacrifice." Honor among thieves, I can only assume.

Progressing into the next room, the duo's attention was immediately drawn to the three ornate coffins leaning against the north wall. Festa had the foresight to purchase a ten foot pole, and started poking them from a respectable distance. Immediately the coffins started to shake, rattle, and roll in a way not unlike a scene in the second-to-latest Game of Thrones episode, which we had watched together earlier that day. Our heroes weren't looking for a fight, but they were looking for burial gifts and other riches, so it was decided that the best way to reconcile those desires would be to hoist a coffin upon their shoulders and throw it into the hammer trap.

However, neither of them had rolled a particularly high STR score, and so they dropped the coffin halfway across the room, breaking it open and revealing the very angry snake-man skeleton inside. We rolled initiative, and the party won: a few incredibly well-placed stabs and arrows later, and the skeleton was truly laid to rest. A brief discussion followed, wherein I humbly asked how they could possibly kill a skeleton with arrows. We eventually concluded that Lesta had managed to hit it in an eye socket, exploding its skull. Metal.

The two decided against checking the other two coffins, and instead headed south into the small shrine room. I pointed out the obvious secret passage beneath it, long since revealed by the steady erosion of surface water dripping from the ceiling. The party dropped down into the second level, lighting a torch to reveal a long, darkened corridor lined with fearsome statues.

Festa noticed that one of the statues was on a swivel, not unlike a Scooby-Doo bookshelf. Rotating it revealed a secret room with a small silver icon and two hooked polearms, which they stole and piled under the hole they dropped down from. Progressing east, they entered another octagonal room with doors at each cardinal and primary intercardinal direction (I looked that up just now), dominated in the center by a large, murky black pool which they were immediately suspicious of. Taking care to skirt around the edges of the room so as not to trigger my obvious encounter, they entered the rooms in a clockwise manner: nearly avoiding a lightning trap (once again owing to the ten foot pole) in the first, completely avoiding the very angry skeleton in the second and the ooze in the third, and bravely running away from the stone cobra guardian directly to the east. If this review is doing a disservice to the module, it's only because my players are the most damnably intelligent cowards I've ever known.

The southeast room held little but some beds (they stole the sheets) and a nice piece of treasure, as the players were unable to decipher the writing on the scrolls lining the walls. Similarly little time was spent in the southern room, but upon discovering the room of statues to the southwest, the party decided to investigate a little further, correctly assuming from past experiences that these statues held a secret. They discovered the secret passage behind one of them, and headed down into floor 3.

Our noble graverobbers emerged in a large, pitch-black chamber, quiet save for the gently clinking of chains on stone coming from the east. Wisely, they decided to head west, entering a small hallway and turning south to come upon a large, barrel-like stone blocking their way. The stone had an indent big enough for two people, and rotated along the z axis to (presumably) grant passage to the other side of the hallway. Lesta wasn't convinced. He stuffed the stolen sheets into the hole and spun the great stone counterclockwise like he was on The Price is Right. When it spun back around, the rag was in tatters, as if pierced by a thousand tiny spears (it was). Replacing it with another sheet, they spun the stone clockwise, and it emerged unscathed. Thus, our daring duo with a combined intelligence of 14 narrowly avoided impalement. They climbed in, pushed off in a clockwise manner, and emerged on the other side, picking up a pair of gold bowls hidden in an alcove along the way.

This new area was hewn from natural stone and slick with a strange, fungoid goo, in stark contrast to the dusty-but-otherwise-well-kept areas before. After wading waist-deep through a room filled with feathers, rags, and bowls of fat, Festa and Lesta come across a strange sight: a decrepit throne room, with two creatures angrily fighting over a crown made of melted spoons. The monsters appeared to be goblins, but covered in fungal growths and oozing a disgusting, pus-like slime from every orifice. It was appalling, and only more so as they rushed up to the PCs, offering the crown to Lesta. He humbly accepted the title of Cutlery King without question. However, his reign was short-ruled: from behind came a sound not unlike that of tuna sloshing around in too much oil. The four citizens of Lestalia turned to discover a skeleton covered in orange goop coming their way. The fungus goblins were terrified, and fled immediately. Festa threw a torch at it, which fizzled out as it touched the slimy surface. Now trapped in the darkness with a weird bone jelly (Lesta tried to convince me he was also carrying a torch, but I killed that idea after reminding him he had been shooting arrows this entire time), our heroes panicked and attempted to run away. Lesta was caught by the creature, who's only method of attack seemed to be grabbing Lesta's head and shaking it violently like a felonious babysitter. Breaking free, L and F decided to retreat into the hitherto-unexplored room to the east, which was supposed to be a huge mass of goblins but was instead a farm, owing to me misreading the map I placed on the same page as the room description. DMing is hard.

Finally free from the murderous science display, Festa wisely lit another torch, and the party proceeded north to find a secret passage to the surface world. They rested, leveled up, and re-entered the tomb from the front door, intent on exploring every nook and cranny they had previously missed.

Inside the four rooms they avoided in their first excursion were discovered some trinkets and a lovely snake ring that Lesta put on his middle finger, turning his fingernail into a bifurcated, poisonous facsimile of snake fangs. The two let out a collective "huh" and proceeded down into the second floor(disabling the hammer trap along the way), stopping briefly to put Sparamantur the angry giant skeleton out of his misery. They attempted to fight the Snake Temple Guardian that they had previously run from, but decided to instead flee (forward this time) after it nearly one-shot the thief. Finding themselves in new territory, with an angry golem behind and an endless chasm ahead, the pair proceeded south with caution.

They shortly came across a large door not unlike the one that nearly squashed them two floors up, and they approached it with well-deserved apprehension. There was no hammer mechanism to be found, but Festa saw scuff marks on the ground that seemed to indicate somebody being flung over the chasm with great force. They decided to ignore the door for now, and continue south. Sadly, their path was blocked by a large procession of dungeon barnacles, which Lesta knew could strip and eat an adventurer in minutes, given half the chance. Lacking any other options, they decided to crumble up their rations and throw them at the creatures, hoping to satisfy their hunger if only for the moment needed to get past. This worked slightly (Lesta failed his DEX check and was trapped for a round) and shortly the pair found themselves in a small, branching hallway heading north and south. They went south.

The next room had the appearance of a torture chamber. Dried blood and other questionable fluids painted the walls, and a long-abandoned pair of manacles sat coiled in the center. Festa went forward to pick them up, but was ensnared by the magic cuffs, which seemed to tighten by the second. Luckily, the quick-thinking-when-he-thinks-at-all thief was able to pick the lock, and ran from the room into a conjoined chamber featuring a locked iron door to the west, a broken stone door to the south, and a plain door to the north. South led to a massive treasure hall, enough to set two hardened criminals on the straight and narrow for years to come. North led to a horrifying sacrificial flame pit, and more wanton death. They went north.

The flame pit was intriguing, but ultimately my players knew better than to slide down the curved floor to retrieve the meager trinkets that lay below. Instead, they went west, which led to a curved hallway flanked with two life-like stone statues of snake-men. These were summarily ignored, but the door they appeared to be guarding was opened to reveal a lovely woman shackled to the floor. She introduced herself as LaLiberte, a botanist from the nearby town of Bellacy. After conferring with me to determine if there was a town named Bellacy nearby (there was) and if they knew of any botanists there (they didn't) the players grew suspicious and turned to leave. LaLiberte begged them to help her, producing a ruby the size of her fist from a side pocket, claiming it to be her family jewel. She turned on the charm --

I'm going to pause here to admit that I suck at playing damsels in distress (and especially disguised succubi, as is the case here), for one because I find them kind of sexist and two because I play in a public game/comic store and the requisite begging/flirting/vague hints at sexual favors to come is really hard to play off when there's a ten-year old looking at green lantern comics right behind you. I did the best I could, though, and I got what I (she) wanted in the end, so everything's cool.

-- and eventually convinced Lesta to take it, along with a magical dagger that lay across the room. However, in retrieving the treasures, Lesta unwittingly stepped over the magic circle holding Baltoplat, the bound succubus, in place, allowing her to quickly strike and drain him of power (and Constitution!). With a giggled "see ya, shitlords!" Baltoplat grew wings and fled the tombs, never to return.

At this point Lesta had been shaken, chased, and partially molested. Through careful mapping he figured that the door to the west should connect to the large room with the secret passage to the second floor. They were correct, but upon stepping into the room remembered why they had not come this way before: the rattling of chains close by, and a pair of brilliant blue eyes staring back at them from the darkness. They had entered the basilisks lair.

Immediately they felt a twinge of numbness spread over their fingers and toes. After a few seconds, they noticed their limbs growing heavy and their skin beginning to turn grey, and that's when they finally realized the extent of their troubles. As the basilisk rushed forward, its jaws snapping hungrily, Lesta and Festa heroically passed their DEX saving throw, giving them enough time to hightail it back to the surface world.

They sold their ill-gotten wares and used the money to restock, drink, and carouse until dawn, wherein Lesta's middle finger fell off, turned into a snake, and slithered away. Easy come, easy go, Lesta always said. They headed back down for one final scan of the place, heading west again from the basilisk chamber but instead choosing to go straight forward into the living quarters of a very well-mannered snake-man lich.

"Greetings, bipeds!" boomed the desiccated serpent. It introduced itself as Xiximanter, royal sorcerer to the snake-man empire that by now must control half the planet. Our heroes side-eyed each other, but said nothing. Xiximanter had been hard at work for the past few months/years/centuries, attempting to perfect his immortality potions. They almost worked, in that they turned people into unkillable gummy skeletons described by Skerples as "too dumb to live and too stupid to die." The lich led the duo into his potion room, which contained some number of various potions, along with approximately 10 fungus goblins crammed into a cage and complaining miserably. After inquiring as to whether or not Xiximanter would be willing to trade any of his potions, the kindly undead smiled and presented several options: a potion of minor immortality, a potion of spell change, and several healing potions. However, Lesta was a man of discerning taste, and demanded to know about the major immortality potion; Xiximanter grew excited and, after rummaging through an ornate chest, brought forth a bubbling black ichor in a test tube, claiming it the newly-perfect immortality potion. Lesta immediately drank it, because he was an idiot, and he immediately died, because all of my not-so-subtle hints about skeleton jellies and failed immortality experiments apparently fell on deaf ears.

At this point, I decided to call the session, in part because they had explored the lions share of rooms and in part because we were the only ones in the shop and the friendly old grognard behind the register looked like he wanted to go home early. All in all? An enjoyable session that, had I made any attempt to develop, could be the catalyst for an entire campaign centered around the lost snake-man civilization. As it were, this session functioned more or less as a stress test: I took the dungeon, ran it strictly by the books under the worst conditions (only two players, untested ruleset, experienced dungeoncrawlers, time limit) and still managed a memorable, exciting session. Had I run it as intended, with several new players learning the intricacies of the dungeon over several sessions, there is not a doubt in my mind that it would have served its purpose wonderfully. Tomb of the Serpent Kings gets a gold star for ease of use, playability, flavor, and design.

Maze of the Blue Medusa: Session 2

Our Heroes

Kellen Nancy, child of Anansi. Words are Endurance, Luck, and Passion. Born of the spider gods dream, he has made it his mission to find and help the worlds most hopeless person. He has reason to believe he (or she?) resides within the maze.
Eizen, son of Atlas. Words are Earth, Might, and Sun. A thrill-seeker who has spent a lifetime travelling the world in search of fun and profit. His journey in the maze was sparked by boredom, and a lust for unique sights and experiences not found in our world.
Nemora, son of Apollo and an unnamed Titan. Words are Earth, Endurance, and Sword. Trapped in a cave by his parents at a young age, he befriended Gaia, who eventually freed him. Since then, he has wandered the lands, training in every style and stance. He has entered the maze seeking a sword with the power to kill his parents.
Kali, daughter of Hades and Persephone. Words are Death, Fertility, and Health. Born in Erebus, she knew her mothers touch only four months out of every year. After earning her freedom, she set out on a quest to find a way to give her mother the same. Missing her right leg from the knee down after an incident with the sun room, she has fashioned a makeshift peg out of vines.

A month later, the full moon rises again and the party enters the eerily still room of the former Ashen Chanterelle, now a corpse slumped against the southern wall. She hasn't begun to decompose yet, and the blisters on her arm stumps are fresh. Clearly time works differently within the maze.

Heading north, the party is surprised to find Lady Capilli is nowhere to be found. Traumatized by their last foray west ("the sun room," as they've taken to calling it), they decide to head north. This leads them to a long hallway, paved with stones forming a mural of a large blue serpent who comes to life as they enter. It whispers a cryptic poem insinuating that the fourth to cross the room will die, leaving the party with a choice: who will they leave behind? Kellen decides to sacrifice himself to the snake, but not before having Eizen chop off his arm. Kellen is devoured after the rest of the party crosses.

DM's Note: I love how this played out. Kellen sacrificing himself to allow the rest of the party to proceed is so evocative of classical mythological, and suits the tone of the dungeon perfectly.

The party finds themselves on the same rope bridges they crossed in the last session. Kellen's gambit has paid off, as his body begins to regrow from its largest part, the whole arm in Eizen's possession. This takes time, however, and meanwhile the rest of the party decides to head west and investigate the locked door. A puny non-magical lock turns out to be no match for the strength of Eizen, and soon the party is through.

In this room is a wheezing, tottering old man, and in this old man are three broadswords, run through to the hilt. Colored gas seeps from the wounds in his body and erupts from his lungs with every forced gasp. Nemora takes pity on the forgotten king and begins to remove the swords, but struggles as the gases, all that remains of the kings former knights, take corporeal form and attack the party. The knights are defeated, and the old man manages a meager "thank you" before fading to dust, and to a rest long deserved.

Investigation of the swords reveals that each was designed around a particular motif, and slid effortlessly into the scabbards built into the three thrones they found in an adjacent room. With a soft click, the lock to the door leading north from the king's chamber opened...or it would, had Eizen not crashed through it moments ago. At this point, the party decided to rest and let Kellen's form restore itself.

With the party reunited, they set out south into the sun room, making sure to go one at a time to avoid casting unnecessary shadows. This brings them back to The Gardens. Heading northwest, they enter a chamber completely overtaken by vines, twisting and weaving around a central form in the figure of a sleeping woman. As the party enters, the vines caress and slide over their bodies, leaving a trail of sticky, sweet sap. Nemora, that rakish charmer, embraces the female form which the party has christened "Vine Bae." He's been magically charmed, but doesn't know it yet. One of the other adventurers pulls him away, and with a heavy heart he and the rest proceed deeper into the overgrowth.

The room beyond Vine Bae's chamber is covered floor-to-ceiling with glistening spores that quiver with each movement the party makes. Kali takes point and, summoning her powers of fertility, withers them in seconds. Dessicated leaves crunch underfoot as the party enters the next room, a large octagon dominated in the center by a massive, beating approximation of a heart. It's connected to the ceiling and the floor by large vines, and as the party crosses the threshold three figures scramble over its surface to sit atop it.

The figures begin a verbal assault of the party. The first, a dog-like construct of twisted black thorns, accuses Eizen of leaving Kali to die in the Sun Room. Before Eizen can mount a counter-argument, the second creature chimes in. Sinister insinuations slither past its lips of dried grass; its body is that of a naked scarecrow. Nemora steps forth to defend his companion. The third monster, a dusty tangle of crushed vegetation, comes to the forefront making passive-aggressive jabs at Nemora and his friends. The combined fury of the three wears at Nemora's psyche, and he is forced to admit that, if it came down to it, he would sacrifice one of his friends to save himself.

At this revelation, the three monsters attack. Kali unleashes a plague on their plant forms that slowly strips away their very essence. The scent of burned and withered grass fills the room as Eizen summons a massive stone, swinging it with the fury and precision of an orchestra conductor. Kellen rushes forth to attack the heart, but its skin is toughened and every attack is like chopping at rawhide. Assailed by the thorn-creature, Nemora hardens his skin to an impenetrable degree and begins summoning swords from thin air to strike at the foes.

The naked scarecrow lunges at Kali, claws like razors. A nimble dodge from her is enough to avoid them, but a cloud of dust puffs up from the creature, and her head begins to spin. It seems like she can see the body of a human within the bundles of grass. She continues burning away their outer shells, but this image weighs on her mind. Meanwhile, Kellen's persistence has paid off, and he rips a large hole in the side of the heart. A viscous purple liquid begins to pour out and covers the floor of the room within seconds, rising slowly. Each of the plant monsters scream as the floracide melts them on contact. The vine creature attempts to flee, but a quick bodyslam from Nemora leaves no escape, and no survivors.

The party licks at their wounds as the poison laps around their knees. To open the doors at each cardinal direction would be to unleash a torrent of plant killer, and their past experience has shown that wanton destruction often has disastrous consequences. Eizen decides to erect a permanent thigh-high wall around the room to hold the poison, and the party continues through the door to the west.

The west door leads to a long hallway, overgrown like the rest of the gardens with thick tendrils of ivy. They weave between the cobblestones in intricate geometric patterns whose beauty is not lost on Kali. At the end of the hall are two doors facing each other, one to the north and one to the south. As Veronica's map was getting a bit crowded, the party decides to head north into a room filled with hissing pipes. At the other end is a massive, mangy rat with a twisted crown of iron and a massive pipe wrench. It cackles madly to itself and continually repeats the phrase "water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink!" in a childish lilt. The party gets its attention and it lopes over, presenting Kellen with a large sack of severed, shrunken goblin heads. It refuses to answer any questions about itself and seems to disregard the party, preferring to fiddle more with the pipes. Kellen slips a head into his pocket before leaving, intending to present it to Lady Capilli as art.

DM's Note: I changed this area quite a bit. I removed the nursery entirely, as it served no mechanical purpose, and indeed seemed to serve no purpose other than as shock value. I also changed Carnifex from a giant toad to a giant rat, both because I felt it fit more thematically with him as a plumber and also because one of the players has a terrible phobia of frogs. Remember, know your players and practice grown-up judgment.

Before that, however, they return to the hallway and peek through the opposing door. Beyond is a large sunken chamber, its floor nothing more than a bog of waist-high mud. Several rusted pipes lead into this room, but not a drop of water runs from them. In the center of the room is a tendrilled beast rooting around in the swamp. It looks up at the party, then fishes around under the mud before pulling up a perfectly preserved corpse. The beast wraps a tendril lovingly around the corpses' head, and the corpse begins to speak.

The monster introduces itself as No-Face, and speaks congenially to the party, occasionally pausing to scoop up another corpse that may have a better understanding of the current topic. No-Face is mad that the rat demon Carnifex has disrupted the Garden's water supply, and wants it restored. It explains that Carnifex has tremendous power over causality, to the point that it can explicitly forbid a creature within earshot from taking the same action twice; this was used to devious effect on one of a corpses companions, the goblin head that Kellen took, who was forbidden from taking another breath.

The party hatches a plan to distract Carnifex long enough to redistribute the water. Kellen slyly insinuates that there is an even greater source of water in the maze, which piques the demon's interest. His insatiable greed drives him to drop his pipe wrench and demand that Kellen show him the way to the other well. Carnifex grins slyly, and the party internally debates the merit of leaving one of their own alone with a creature of unspeakable power. But Kellen has faith in his plan, and with a wink turns and heads back down the darkened hallway, with the cackling rat not far behind.

Carnifex and Kellen loop back through The Gardens. The Rat King is wary, but his greed leads him on. Kellen strides forth into the Sun Room just as the light is passing in front of him. His shadow isn't big enough to trap the Rat King: he's too large, his body too misshapen. But Kellen's the avatar of luck, and as he moves forward his cloak and pack swing outward just far enough to eclipse the demon. He falls, and the pit closes above him. His last whispered words are unheard amidst his cackling.

Kellen returns to the party, who have successfully managed to reroute the water. No-Face is thrilled, and leads the party to a secret compartment where he has stored a brittle bonsai tree. No-Face claims the tree has magic powers, and with the water flowing freely it can be nourished back to health. The adventurers return to the central corridor of the maze, making certain not to inadvertently cast a shadow over Carnifex's prison, and come face-to-face with Lady crucem Capilli. With nothing to offer but the demon's pipe wrench, the Dragon Queen is less than pleased, but accepts it after the party regales her with the story as to how they acquired it. Lady Capilli then requests another piece of artwork from the east wing, but warns that the area was the site of great tragedy and is overrun with the dead. She hands Eizen a key that will open the locked door at the bottom of the twisted stairwell, and departs.

With that, the company returns to the painting, stepping back through to the real world and beginning their plans for the next foray. They have a month to do more research.

Maze of the Blue Medusa: Session 1

Our Heroes

Kellen Nancy, child of Anansi. Words are Endurance, Luck, and Passion. Born of the spider gods dream, he has made it his mission to find and help the worlds most hopeless person. He has reason to believe he (or she?) resides within the maze.
Eizen, son of Atlas. Words are Earth, Might, and Sun. A thrill-seeker who has spent a lifetime travelling the world in search of fun and profit. His journey in the maze was sparked by boredom, and a lust for unique sights and experiences not found in our world.
Nemora, son of Apollo and an unnamed Titan. Words are Earth, Endurance, and Sword. Trapped in a cave by his parents at a young age, he befriended Gaia, who eventually freed him. Since then, he has wandered the lands, training in every style and stance. He has entered the maze seeking a sword with the power to kill his parents.
Kali, daughter of Hades and Persephone. Words are Death, Fertility, and Health. Born in Erebus, she knew her mothers touch only four months out of every year. After earning her freedom, she set out on a quest to find a way to give her mother the same.

We began our session with the party having recently stolen the infamous painting, The False Chanterelle. The painting -- that of a naked woman chained from the ceiling in an opulent parlor room -- came with strange instructions: to explore the hallowed maze, touch this painting with a moonlit gaze. Under the next full moon, the party hangs the painting on the wall and flings open the shutter; in an instant, the painting comes to life. The woman turns her head and pleads for the party to touch the painting and rescue her. After briefly debating the relative merits of blindly trusting the words of an erotic drawing, the party decides that courage is nothing without a dash of recklessness, and steps forward to touch the canvas.

Inside the painting, the four interrogate the woman a bit more, learning that her name is Ashen Chanterelle and that she is being held here as a prisoner by Psathyrella Medusa, the warden of this place. She tells the party that she can open the locked door to the north, granting them access to the maze. However, Kali is a naturally distrustful person, and attempts to murder the prisoner nearly immediately. The other members manage to stop her from outright killing Ashen, but not before Kali has chopped off her hands. The rest of the party swiftly attempts to cauterize the wounds with a nearby torch, causing the woman to pass out due to shock. However, as the chains recede into small holes in the ceiling, they hear a click, and know that the door to the north is unlocked.

DM's Note: I deliberately changed this encounter from how it is written in the book (in which she is a treacherous backstabber who speaks nothing but lies). I knew my party would be suspicious of Ashen Chanterelle, so I decided to make her speak nothing but truths. In this way, I could foreshadow key aspects of the maze while still feeding into the players paranoia.

Ashen Chanterelle is still catatonic, however, and without the constant presence of Kali's stabilizing aura would perish in moments. Eizen hefts her onto his shoulders, and the whole party progresses through the northern door into a large, shadowy chamber. From deeper within they hear muttering, and upon approach they witness a very tall woman talking about destroying the maze. The lady, who sports midnight blue skin and a set of rams horns on either side of her head, introduces herself as Lady Crucem Capilli of Nyctopolis. After a short conversation in which she half-heartedly admonishes the party for nearly murdering an innocent captive, she requests the party bring her a piece of art from within the maze, alongside a detailed report on where it was found and what purpose it serves. With this, she fades back into the shadows and continues her conversation with herself.

Exploring the room, Eizen finds a trapdoor built into the east wall. He opens it, and immediately notices that something is wrong. The gravity inside this room has suddenly shifted, and Eizen finds himself falling sideways down a set of stairs towards the center of the new room. He swiftly rights himself and got his bearings: he is in a room with three staircases, each reorienting the gravity in the room to allow them to be safely traversed. Eizen attempts to open the door on the eastern side, but finds it locked. He motions for the other adventurers to follow him as he heads up the northern staircase.

The next room is even darker than Lady Capilli's, and the party halts before entering as they hear a light tune being hummed from within. Knowing that discretion is the better part of valor, they allow a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dark and walk forth to discover a strange, hermit crab-like creature cradling a malformed infant the size of a large dog. The shell lifts an arm to its mouth and whispers "shhh" before continuing its song, and the party heeds its warning and continues further north to a set of rope bridges.

Heading north from the bridges, the party enters a brightly-lit room dominated by half of a giant chessboard. The black pieces are all in place, minus both rooks, and on the other end of the room is a large, white, grub-like creature flailing spastically with a blunted toy sword. The party is speechless. After a spell, they attempt to make contact with the creature, but to no avail: the man-grub only babbles like a toddler and continues its forced, jerking movements. Nemora and Kellen get the idea to stand in the rook's position on the chessboard. As they do, they are immediately assailed by a psychic force. Nemora is overwhelmed and, with a forced flail, throws a sword at the grub. It misses by inches, and the spell is broken.

The players realize that something here is controlling the giant worm. Eizen moves closer to investigate and notices a strange bulge in what he assumes is the creature's stomach. With a mighty heave, he forces the grub to spit up its dinner: two stone rooks, slick with saliva. The forced flailings of the creatures limbs cease as the chess pieces are retrieved, and out of pity Eizen fashions a stone teething ring for the foolish child. Confident that this mystery has been solved, the party heads through the northeast arch to face the next challenge.

They step forth into a long room and immediately notice something is off about the floor. It's pitch darkness quivers slightly as they set foot on it, as if it were semi-solid. Several small disks float on its surface in random directions, but as the party enters they flip over to reveal large, dilated eyes and begin accelerating towards our heroes. Kali and Nemora make it across in time, but Eizen is caught in their gaze and is completely unable to move. As he begins to sink below the surface, a thorny vine erupts from Kali's hand, grasping and stretching through the room to wrap around Eizen's outstretched arm. The thorns dig into his skin, but he is pulled forth from the mire and successfully makes it across. As for Kellen, his godlike endurance renders him immune to the stony gaze of this room, and he strides across confidently.

However, all is not yet well. In the next room is a curious sight: a man with a crescent moon for a head, seated and drinking wine at a table alongside a giant hand and a mechanical fox. He sets his glass down and introduces himself as Mr. Torgos Zooth, chief servant of Psathyrella Medusa. He asks the party several questions: what their purpose is in the maze, how they are faring, if they've met anyone else here. As if under a spell, the party finds themselves unable to lie, and in their answers reveal the existence of Lady Capilli. This greatly interests Mr. Zooth, especially after Kellen mentions that Lady Capilli intends to destroy the maze. Torgos excuses himself, and his body fades away as the moon on his shoulders rapidly transitions from waxing to full to waning to gone.

At this point the party decides to head back to Lady Capilli's room and strike due west. The room they enter is a large and blindingly bright. A miniature sun rotates around the upper rim of the walls once a minute, casting long shadows on every object here. Eizen and Kali are the first to move through it, but as soon as Eizen's massive shadow passes over Kali she falls into it as if it were a pit. She sees the opening close above her, and makes an attempt to jump clear, but it's closing too fast. The light catches up to her just as her last leg is emerging from the pit, and it is cleanly removed below the knee.

Kali's screams echo through the silent maze. Eizen rushes back to help her, making certain that at no point do their shadows overlap. He manages to drag her into the next room, but she's losing blood fast. She demands that he cauterize her wounds the same as he did the Ashen Chanterelle's. Reluctantly he agrees, and thrusts a torch against the surgically-precise cleave. The smell of acrid flesh fills the air, and Kali passes out.

Nemora and Kali quickly rush across the room (one at a time, thankfully) to join their companions. Kali's scream has brought attention to the party, and from deeper within the Gardens a birdlike shriek is heard. Immediately, six dark, humanoid creatures emerge from the underbrush. Each wears an expertly carved bird mask, and communicate with each other in short chirps and whistles. They brandish their twisted rapiers and descend upon the party. The three standing party members form a protective wall between the bird men and the downed Kali. Eizen lifts his massive fists and immediately a stone cage erupts from the ground around the foes. Kellen subtly weaves fate to cause the creatures to stab each other in the immediate confusion, and Nemora begins stabbing his swords through the gaps in the cage. However, the bird men have another twist up their sleeve. The one farthest from the party begins to weave a magical cloud of darkness centered on the party, and the rest cast bolts of pure energy that rip through our heroes armor and force them on the defensive. With one member down and Nemora deeply wounded, the party decides that this is a fight that can be fought another day and retreat back through the Sun Room.

However, it becomes immediately apparent that the cloud of darkness surrounding the party functions in the Sun Room just the same as shadows. The entire room is now a pitch-black pit, and it's only through another twist of luck that the party manages to find their way back into Lady Capilli's room. Kali finally wakes from her catatonia, and immediately fashions a new leg out of fresh vines that sprout from the stump. Standing, she notices the sound of conversation from the other end of the room. The party moves to the origin of the racket and discover Torgos Zooth and Lady Capilli in a heated argument. Zooth is demanding that Lady Capilli forsake her purpose and leave the maze, but the daughter of dragons is unintimidated. Fuming, Torgos disappears, but not before warning Lady Capilli and the party that Madame Medusa will learn of their treachery.

After he departs, our heroes crestfallenly reveal that they have not found any artwork fitting the blue woman's high standards. She is disappointed, but not surprised. The party promises to further explore the Gardens in their next excursion, and with that, they leave the maze through The False Chanterelle.

Labrys Lamia

Simon Bull, 2006

The Maze of the Blue Medusa has always been a place for dangerous and unwanted things: in its halls exist malformed children of unholy unions, deadly art and architecture, and worse. Its mysteries beckon adventurers from all over; today, four have answered the call. These children of gods, brought together by chance, each seek their own answers within the maze. Little do they know that while many of its inhabitants were brought here due to the changing tides of culture, some of them are turning out to be quite deserving of their imprisonment...

I've been wanting to run this since it was released in 2016. Maze of the Blue Medusa, written by Patrick Stuart and Zak S., is a megadungeon set inside a massive labyrinth. It's a bit Stonehell, a bit Tomb of Horrors, a bit Painted World of Ariamis, and a whole lot of the weirdness I've come to expect from Patrick and Zak. Suffice it to say, I'm a fan.

The module is system-neutral, which I have decided to take full advantage of by running it in Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine's Godbound system. In it, the characters play demigods, and the sort of world-rending power usually associated with high level play -- resurrection, shaping earth, making oneself immune to damage -- are available from the start. In most other dungeons, this would be a disastrous upheaval of the power dynamic (there's a reason all the Godbound modules I found were sandboxes), but I've found it works incredibly well with the weird, pseudo-godlike nature of most of the creatures within the maze.

That being said, I have had to make some changes to allow for a tighter dungeoncrawl experience. For those familiar with the system, this is what I've done:

• Fray dice have been removed, as have Influence, Dominion, and the Apotheosis word
• Each character gains 1 HP from a short rest, taking approximately 10 minutes. Random encounters are rolled during this time as usual.
• The dungeon resets every night, so here is no sleeping within it. All characters must be outside by the end of the session or die (this is less severe than it sounds, as the dungeon is for the most part laid out on a single level).

During character creation, I asked each player three questions about their prospective demigod: who is their divine parent, how do their character normally interact with mortals, and what does their character seek inside the maze. With that, let us meet our prospective heroes...

Kellen Nancy, child of Anansi. Words are Endurance, Luck, and Passion. Born of the spider gods dream, he has made it his mission to find and help the worlds most hopeless person. He has reason to believe he (she?) resides within the maze.

Eizen, son of Atlas. Words are Earth, Might, and Sun. A thrill-seeker who has spent a lifetime travelling the world in search of fun and profit. His journey in the maze was sparked by boredom, and a lust for unique sights and experiences not found in our world.

Nemora, son of Apollo and an unnamed Titan. Words are Earth, Endurance, and Sword. Trapped in a cave by his parents at a young age, he befriended Gaia, who eventually freed him. Since then, he has wandered the lands, training in every style and stance. He has entered the maze seeking a sword with the power to kill his parents.

Kali, daughter of Hades and Persephone. Words are Death, Fertility, and Health. Born in Erebus, she knew her mothers touch only four months out of every year. After earning her freedom, she set out on a quest to find a way to give her mother the same.

Stay tuned for the next installment, dear reader.