Crimson Sands of Time

Trisk will cast Chill Touch on the shadow-shifting monster that is sometimes a T-rex (or even one of us).

Attack: 23 Damage: 14 necrotic damage, and it can't regain hit points until the start of my next turn. Until then, the ghostly, skeletal hand clings to the target.

If you hit an undead target, it also has disadvantage on attack rolls against you until the end of your next turn.

Addressing the lich once more, "We have both spoke words but actions speak louder than words! Now is the time to prove with your actions if you seek an alliance or not! She is a lich who has come to plunder and destroy! Will you oppose her?"

Persuasion: 10 

Randy cries out in anguish just before he could attempt to disable the sepulcher, but then he reshifts his anger onto it as he follows up with a drive of his bayonet into its throat. Like his brother beforehand after getting critted, his eyes suddenly glow bright orange in anger as he drives his bayonet into its throat hard. (19, 11 Slashing, 11 Thunder and extra 9 thunder if it moves)

When he hears the sea hag pop out however, Randy tries to catch her off guard with a sniper ballista to her head. "HEY BOZO!" He yells out.

Ballista Sharpshooter (At the sea hag): Attack: 18 Damage: 28

<Sorry I didn't post the map. I uploaded it a day ago to imgur, then forgot about it.>

Since then, a pale wild dwarf followed the elf lich and jumped on the pedestal in the center of the pool, attempting to turn undead, but Valindra (lich elf) resists.

<I'll adress the actions above next.>

(For Cha!jil, (I think the DM is merging a few games together in a nexus thing)

You see a tiny 3 ft girl, dirty face and legs , dressed in a plain tattered dress. She has pointy ears, hoofs for feet, and carries a tiny woodwind instrument. She might be 6 or 7, some sort of fey or sprite, no armor or weapons, just a small bag on her waist. Her eyes are quite large. She seems frightened but makes no sound, yet, there is some sort of inner power about her.

then she plays her tiny instrument, the music seems to convey images

(musical telepathy: you see an image of Valindra,which rapidly melts into the withered face of undeath, her pale shriveled skin revealing her lichdom, her face plagued by rot. then it transforms to a terrible lich! You feel… DANGER and FEAR!) Then you see other humanoids…and see an image of the peculiar triangle chambers, and you feel…FRIENDS)

Ethan: <I'm ignoring the fact that the box thing woukd put him in the dark pool. It seems important, and I didn't have the map updated and posted so let's just pretend that spot he's standing on isn't in a pool.>

Ethan deals loads of damage to gargoyle 1, sending bits of chipped stone flying from the creature. It's surface is badly cracked, but it continues to fight.

Trisk: the arcane apparition of a disembodied hands grabs hold of the Tyrant shadow, sending necrotic energy coursing into the creature. It resists the attacks, clawing feebky with its undersized forelimbs, but the necrotic energy has no apparent effect. 

Considering carefully Trisk's words, the lich responds, "Valindra fights to defend these phylacteries. She is loyal to a fault and just one of countless powerful wizard's in Tam's thrall.  If I stand idly by, she will challenge my loyalty and I will die the everlasting death.  You force my hand, Shadar Kai."

...

Randy's bayonet splits the gargoyle's skull as it attempts to grab tbe weapon, but proves too slow. The elemental crumbles to the floor. 

<regarding the sea hag. 1, she's out of sight in a black pool of who knows what, so unseen tsrget DA, and 2. She is a powerful creature summoned by your ally to kill something with loads of hit points using a single action, so maybe don't try to kill her?>

<quick note. Valindra's lich nature is revealed to all. She dropped the living elf disguise when she used the fear-inducing ability.>

Kazit Gul flies toward Trisk and when within 60ft of him creates an antimagic field around the elf, which follows him until the start of the next round. [Lair action]

Cha!jil looked around and yelled out, " For the Deep Jungles sake someone tell me who I should be killing!!"

Again the little child’s woodwind sounds and Cha!jil sees images and feels emotions: she sees an image of herself joining a Simic white haired young man with a club, another similar man with missile weapons , a pale elf man with braided hair, and the little girl. She feels as if the music conveys joining together, not singleness.  She feels the girls fear at the enemy nearby, a Lich of great power.  

(Oh wait what? We have a new player?! I didn't notice that! Welcome Damian!)

Randy realises his mistake and withdraws a little with embarrassment. "What the- Crap! Don't just come out like that and scare us all! Tell us whose side you're on so I don't blow up the wrong person!"

He points to lich. "Kill that hideous thing! Not us! You'll make a big mistake if you decide to hinder our plans to stop this threat!"

" Kill the dead things. Ok, so just like home then.", the wild haired dwarf grins with wickedly sharp teeth.

Koselig steps through the portal following on Cha!jil's heels.

"Where in all of creation are we and what is this fresh nightmare?"

Piccolo wonders if all of these new people are chosen, and why they are all appearing in the area.
Koselig and Cha!jil see a tiny 3 foot tall, disheveled little 6 year old girl, wearing nothing but a plain dress. She carries a tiny woodwind instrument and is shaking in fear at the Woman/lich next to hear. 

While moving, she played her little piccolo, and her notes sound like (Musical Telepathy: you see an image of yourself running from the Lich and joining the other living people in other triangular rooms, you also see three portraits but they seem animated, and get the feeling they are allies, and for some reason, you hear their name in the music

Piccolo (Frightened condition) will ( cunning action)dash away from the lich, running to join Trisk. (If Lich is within 5 feet of her, she will use bonus action to fey step.

<foe players to be in the know, this is the Phylactery vault where Szazz Tam and other high ranking information Tbayan liches keep their phylacteries. It's an extra-dimensional space accessed via the Doomvaukt, a dungeon. Built around a portal nexus by Kazit Gul, the demilich at the center of the room, closer to players, now.>

(ooc: seeking some clarification: the anti-magic field around me is 10 feet radius and lasts until the start of the next round... is that the top of the initiative order, the beginning of the lich's turn, or the beginning of my turn?)

Picollo dashing away from Valindra would be directly toward the Tyrant Shadow.  It Misty step to tbe floor with Trisk is also possible, but the Lich is 10ft from her at the start of Picollo's turn. I'm guessing she still uses misty step, but will wait for confirmation.

The AMF is a lair action: it's initiative 20 on both counts.

Honestly, I'm losing track of initiative.. more like losing interest in initiative. It's all side initiative, anyhow, after round one. Either the effect goes after you went and it holds until your next turn is over, or it goes before your initiative and holds until your turn is over. There is no scenario where it ends before your turn is over thst I can think of.

Monster initiative probably changed by now, it's dictated by highest CR creature, but I'd normally be inclined to ignore it shifting when new monsters enter the fray. I think at one point I said I was just going to roll everyone's, but like a lot.of things, I forget if we agreed to that or not. We certainly didn't do much of it, either way. Maybe we just roll initiative again every round if I'm rolling it anyway?

<I checked, it didn't >

Because so much of it is legendary action here, 90% of what I'm keeping score of is just how many they've used before all the players have gone.

Combat tracker in DDB works, but fails at side initiative and requires rhe monsters to be avaialable or substitution. Owlbear has one, bit nobody ever signs into it, so I've not had much luck there. Maybe another dedicated app might work. I don't know. There's also the practice of just having monsters act on 12. I think that number is off though, since the principle is a distribution of player initiatives and I think it would fail there, but if it was derived from player initiative bonus statistics instead of monster statistics, with a simple.modifier. that might work. I still don't know. It's a topic that vexes me.

While I'm rambling, I am set on employing the luck mechanic from Tales of the Valiant to replace inspiration. It's just better in every possible way.

After all that head scratching, I'm inclined to just roll the sides again, now that three new entities have entered the fray. Unless anyone else wants to volunteer to keep track of things.

I can just build rollers for all the pcs in a note and paste it any time we roll initiative. Like this........

Initiative 

Monsters 22

Ethan 6

Picollo 18

Randy 6

Trisk 9

Cha!jil 11