DnD summary, part 6

Welcome back to another episode of our DnD campaign summaries. All events fictional.

This blog post is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

The next morning, all of my headmates were merged into me, and Alice was in fox shape. After only a short breakfast, I had Ploop cast the Tongues spell on me, and then lead me to the house of the archpriestess of the Deep Father, his daughter Blopp. She seemed hesitant to accept an audience with me, however I assured her of my harmlessness, and that the prisoner would be left unharmed if she would let me in. Meanwhile, she seemed to not mind the fox or the big felid following me too much.

Once in her personal chambers, as my dreams had predicted, she immediately succumbed to the enchantment I cast upon her. I told her she should denounce the Deep Father, treat me as her new goddess, and inform her cult about the news. She seemed skeptical about being able to convince all the other Kuo-Toa of this, especially since I wanted to abolish the life sacrifices, but under my spell, was still determined to try.

Back outside, reactions were mixed. I was a bit unsure of what Ploop thought. Rob was not so amused, while Alice, back in humanoid shape, seemed excited over the prospect of me yet again casting powerful magic, and perhaps being a goddess, or at least leading a cult. Blopp assembled every one of her followers on the central square and told them that the Deep Father had deceived them, and in fact, I was their new goddess. As I introduced myself as the "goddess of magic, power and compassion", some seemed disappointed over the lack of sacrifices, and one even openly voiced criticism (I quickly silenced them by warning them with a fire spell cast just in front of them), however, overall, they seemed to trust Blopp on the matter.

As I learned, they had been holding a prisoner for purposes of sacrifice, a duergar called Hemeth. Still somewhat skeptical of most of the Underdark inhabitants' intentions, I claimed my headmates were my "angels" as I had them unmerge from me, and let Cookie cast a truth spell on Hemeth. However, my distrust was unfounded, apparently; he had no intentions of harming us, he had only come here to sell some of his weapons (Tanith noted he seemed quite racist, however, given that he believed the Kuo-Toa would only be interested in "primitive" weapons). He even offered to take us to their home city of Gracklstugh if we released him, which, of course, I did promptly, and, since he had been dissatisfied with the food here, I had Tanith share one of her rations with him (after all, thanks to Laura's berry spell, we had more than enough).

While I had no intentions of using my newfound power for anything but helping the village and our party, Alice took it one step further and told all the assembled Kuo-Toa to bow down to their new goddess, at which point Rob stepped away from the group. Tanith ran after them; apparently they were dissatisfied with how we might have introduced instability to the village, even if we did so with good intentions. Whether we could still remain friends was "pending".

The Kuo-Toas' worship did not leave me untouched. I had researched that some creatures, such as Kuo-Toa, might manifest deities through power of belief alone. Since I was already manifested, all of their belief went directly into increasing my power. For now, this manifested in a rather limited way, and I was not sure how long it would last, nevertheless, for the time being, it might be helpful. I commanded them to tear down the statue and meanwhile went to chat with Hemeth as he was preparing his boat.

As I returned, some Kuo-Toa near the water were being bitten by creatures that seemed a bit like mantas, but spoke Abyssal. I tried to negotiate an armistice with them, however, they kept on attacking, saying I should wait for the arrival of their prince to negotiate. Left with no other choice, I started casting spells on them while Alice fired arrows. Meanwhile, Tanith, Laura and Moriko engaged using their swords and claws, respectively. Cookie tried to heal some of the wounded Kuo-Toa as Rob also ran towards the harbour, attracted by the combat noises.

Their prince, as it turned out, was a colossal demon emerging from the water with two heads and several tentacles, who referred to himself as Demogorgon. He was entirely unwilling to agree to an armistice, as he was upset how we had disrupted the Deep Father cult, which, apparently, he had orchestrated in the first place in order to sow discord in the village. While Ploop managed to deal with the manta-like creatures by both creating maelstroms and parting the water, Demogorgon was rather unimpressed by even such powerful magic and proceeded to mind-control one of the nearby Kuo-Toa, turning them against their allies. In the last second before the carnage would have started, I managed to gather enough power from the surrounding Kuo-Toa to temporarily banish the demon from this plane, however, it was clear to me this would only last for a few minutes.

The others, unaware of this time pressure, seemed relieved at first, however, I ordered everyone to evacuate immediately, carrying those who could not move by themselves (such as Blopp, who had fallen into a stupor upon witnessing Demogorgon). I also asked if we could have a boat for ourselves, which we were quickly provided with, and, combined with the capacity of Hemeth's boat, offered ample space for our entire party, especially after Tanith and Cookie merged into me. Ploop asked if we wanted them to lend us a navigator, however, we figured we could just follow Hemeth, and if any Kuo-Toa were to come with us, they might have trouble catching up with their community afterwards, as there was no agreed upon place to evacuate to. Rob, meanwhile, opted to stay behind, trying to distract Demogorgon when he returned, and while Alice, Laura and me questioned that decision, we had little time to argue as we had to leave immediately (since, if Demogorgon returned and saw our boat as we were leaving, he could likely easily catch up with it). So, saying goodbye, I opened the Sunshade of Concealment, obscuring our boat's passengers, as Laura and Alice started rowing in the tracks of Hemeth's boat (which also carried Moriko, Sarith and Eldeth, while Derendil was with us).