Bell’s magical light grows from a tiny mote upon a lamp perched on the central table into a lamp-sized little sun that illuminates the entire chamber, which is perhaps 15 feet by 25 feet. There are no other doors in the room. What can now be clearly seen: Two chairs flank the central table, upon which lie a ledger, some pens and paper, bottles of briny-smelling preservatives and a variety of tongs, what look like basting syringes, thin knives, and other tools whose uses one can only guess at. Glass jars of various sizes ranging from one foot to six feet tall are fastened to a low, narrow floor platform extending along each of three walls of the room. Each cylindrical jar bears a little inscribed brass plate.
Within each jar, something floats suspended in liquid. Not something from the natural world, but quite the opposite. In one jar, whose brass plate is inscribed "#6," you see a hideous hybrid of a bird, lizard, and bat. #8 holds a lumpy head-shaped gray-purple blob with a beak, tentacles, and no eyes. A two-foot long beetle with a bright red body floats in #9. What looks like fungus scraped from a tree with two lumps approximating eyes inhabits #10. Down the line, you see a miniature dragon with perfect red-brown scales. A two foot-long tadpole partly transformed into a frog creature, having grown two muscular legs. A corner cylinder holds four floating severed hands. Next to it, one of the biggest jars, #13, is the exception to the rule. It is empty. Except for -- in its bottom quarter or so -- several gallons of the yellow preserving liquid.
Erudisiaapproaches the large and conspicously empty jar. Amongst and beneath the overwhelming smell of brine there are other notes ... wet dog, cherry, oak, and cardamom. Though only three of them are to her preference she cannot resist kneeling to inspect the residue, placing one slender finger against it and bringing it to her tongue, gingerly. Most potions can be identified by taste, she knows. Perhaps this can be, too.
Bell finds one book on the desk, a journal written by hand, in front of the wooden chair facing the door. Its cover reads, A Catalog of Aberrant Creatures.
Erudisia, yes there is residue, very old. Perhaps the tiles comprising the tile floor in this pocket-dimensional mansion are less absorbent than tiles usually are, and perhaps evaporation doesn’t quite work the way it should either. There is a very thin layer of sticky goo, the dried-out remnant of liquid that splashed out of the six-foot cylinder. It must have happened some time ago. Years, perhaps. What was in the jar? Hard to say… but your investigation leads you believe it was a medium-sized monstrosity (“monstrosity”, according to the 5e MM).
“Hey,” says Rogi, tensely interrupting everyone’s explorations… “where did the hands go?”
Erudisia looks up from the floor where she is crouched to the cylinder next to her, while Meredith and Bell glance across at it. Empty. Erudisia hears a tiny “plop” sound. Sees a single drop of blood that has dropped onto her sleeve. She looks up to see where it came from…
The severed hands!! Bleeding at the wrists, clinging to the wall and ceiling above the half-elf!! They drop down onto her, sharp nails shining with formaldehyde!!
Everyone please roll initiative. If you beat a 12 (the hands), you may act.
(That is horrifying. This turns between whimsical and charming and horrifying on a dime. [This is not a complaint, to be clear. I enjoy the striking imagery])
Initiative: 16
Erudisia darts backwards as far from the hands she can. She has neither the presence of mind, nor the appreciation of the fixing and inflexible properties of formaldehyde, to consider trying to catch the grasping hands as they drop down with a gust.
Instead she casts a wroth-filled wrathful Eldritch Blast, with the indignation of her Patron’s thunderous ire carried along the streak of silvery force. ——
(YOLO! Erudisia, I will give you a choice. Given the circumstances and those fantastic rolls, you can destroy all four of the hands at once. However, I'm gonna say that if you do, some of the cylinders near you will shatter. The second choice is, according to the RAW, you can target one of the creatures only. So, choice 2: you take down one of the four crawling claws with no collateral damage. The other three claws will then take their individual turns and attacks. You can narrate the millisecond choosing of an option and the resulting effect of your spell.)
The blast bucks and spits as it leaves her chess piece, her eyes flicking between the four hands, her focus split. The spell is new, her practice limited.
There is a shattering as the blast arcs out across the hands and several jars also, shattering them.
The necrotic energy animating the four crawling hands is snuffed out almost instantly by Erudisia’s spell. They are batted away in various directions, one, like a discarded loose end at a butcher shop, thumping against Rogi’s chest and flopping to the floor. Its fingers curl tight in death, save one, which seems to offer a macabre, crude gesture to the artificer. Rogi grinds his heel into it. “Nope. You did not just do that.”
The tinkling crashing sound of several of the tall jars nearby crescendoes, followed by an explosion of preservatives as the glass jars shatter. Erudisia’s boots are soaked and everyone is splashed.
Simultaneously, you realize that another one of the jar occupants is now free following the shattering of its glass-walled jail cell: the two foot-long, two-legged tadpole! It hungrily snaps its unnecessarily large maw, leaping up at Meredith!
(Meredith and Bell may now act. The tadpole’s action will come later.)
Bell’s dagger flips through the air and thumps into the tadpole’s side in mid-air as it leaps at Meredith. The creature is thrown back, missing Meredith entirely and allowing her to exit the chamber. It skids, rolling, on the tile floor but spins up again with a flick of its thick green tail and with its mouth, yanks out the dagger. “Riiibbbittt!,” it croaks in a sound from the abyss as the weapon clatters to the floor.
It now leaps at Bell, but Rogi intervenes, batting the strange creature away with his shield then slicing it with his own dagger. But, though bleeding thick black blood, the creature springs again, snapping its maw shut tight on Rogi’s wrist (doing 5hp damage)! The artificer shouts in pain.
Erudisia is up. (The creature is down to 1hp, AC 12. If you hit it, you can narrate its demise.)
Erudisia came to Candlekeep to further her career, to see the world beyond the elven homeland, to mingle with scholars of many cultures and to offer the patron of her family many wonderful works of drama, to hone her craft, to be a diligent scholar. To escape the shadow of her father. To see something other than reproach in her graceful mother’s eyes.
She had come to Candlekeep to be in the greatest library in the world. Instead, she finds herself trapped in the abandoned extradimensional mansion of a clearly half-mad mage.
Imps! Animated swords and chains! Severed hands! This ginormous thing!
“Why aren’t you a miserly sage?” She hisses at the tailed frog creature. “I came here to match wits. To war with words. Not to be attacked by you!”
She brandishes her dragon chess piece before her and a torrent of wind and thunder spills force, a bolt that enters the mouth of the creature. The rumble of her magic is clear even through its skin. In a rupturing that traces across the tightest seams and wrinkles of its unusual anatomy, the frog falls apart into a gory mess of disrupted fluids.
(Erudisia, since the crit is rather wasted, I’m going to let it trickle over into a successful Arcana roll to identify the creature. It is — was — a slaad tadpole.)
Bell’s magical light grows from a tiny mote upon a lamp perched on the central table into a lamp-sized little sun that illuminates the entire chamber, which is perhaps 15 feet by 25 feet. There are no other doors in the room. What can now be clearly seen: Two chairs flank the central table, upon which lie a ledger, some pens and paper, bottles of briny-smelling preservatives and a variety of tongs, what look like basting syringes, thin knives, and other tools whose uses one can only guess at. Glass jars of various sizes ranging from one foot to six feet tall are fastened to a low, narrow floor platform extending along each of three walls of the room. Each cylindrical jar bears a little inscribed brass plate.
Within each jar, something floats suspended in liquid. Not something from the natural world, but quite the opposite. In one jar, whose brass plate is inscribed "#6," you see a hideous hybrid of a bird, lizard, and bat. #8 holds a lumpy head-shaped gray-purple blob with a beak, tentacles, and no eyes. A two-foot long beetle with a bright red body floats in #9. What looks like fungus scraped from a tree with two lumps approximating eyes inhabits #10. Down the line, you see a miniature dragon with perfect red-brown scales. A two foot-long tadpole partly transformed into a frog creature, having grown two muscular legs. A corner cylinder holds four floating severed hands. Next to it, one of the biggest jars, #13, is the exception to the rule. It is empty. Except for -- in its bottom quarter or so -- several gallons of the yellow preserving liquid.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith immediately looks disappointed that there are no feline specimens and then self-preservation kicks in...
" Do you think something got out of that jar?"
Bell looks around wide eyed. "Gosh, I hope not!"
This room is giving her the heebie geebies. That said, she will look about for any books that might be in this travesty of a laboratory.
Perception: 3
Erudisia approaches the large and conspicously empty jar. Amongst and beneath the overwhelming smell of brine there are other notes ... wet dog, cherry, oak, and cardamom. Though only three of them are to her preference she cannot resist kneeling to inspect the residue, placing one slender finger against it and bringing it to her tongue, gingerly. Most potions can be identified by taste, she knows. Perhaps this can be, too.
Erudisia kneels at the base of the six-foot empty jar. Please roll investigation.
Meredith, please roll perception. Are you remaining in the doorway?
Bell, I will answer your question in a moment.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Merediths curiosity already drew her through the doorway.
Perception- 12
Erudisia Investigation roll: 18
Bell finds one book on the desk, a journal written by hand, in front of the wooden chair facing the door. Its cover reads, A Catalog of Aberrant Creatures.
Erudisia, yes there is residue, very old. Perhaps the tiles comprising the tile floor in this pocket-dimensional mansion are less absorbent than tiles usually are, and perhaps evaporation doesn’t quite work the way it should either. There is a very thin layer of sticky goo, the dried-out remnant of liquid that splashed out of the six-foot cylinder. It must have happened some time ago. Years, perhaps. What was in the jar? Hard to say… but your investigation leads you believe it was a medium-sized monstrosity (“monstrosity”, according to the 5e MM).
“Hey,” says Rogi, tensely interrupting everyone’s explorations… “where did the hands go?”
Erudisia looks up from the floor where she is crouched to the cylinder next to her, while Meredith and Bell glance across at it. Empty. Erudisia hears a tiny “plop” sound. Sees a single drop of blood that has dropped onto her sleeve. She looks up to see where it came from…
The severed hands!! Bleeding at the wrists, clinging to the wall and ceiling above the half-elf!! They drop down onto her, sharp nails shining with formaldehyde!!
Everyone please roll initiative. If you beat a 12 (the hands), you may act.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Meredith Initiative- 4
Bell initiative: 8
(That is horrifying. This turns between whimsical and charming and horrifying on a dime. [This is not a complaint, to be clear. I enjoy the striking imagery])
Initiative: 16
Erudisia darts backwards as far from the hands she can. She has neither the presence of mind, nor the appreciation of the fixing and inflexible properties of formaldehyde, to consider trying to catch the grasping hands as they drop down with a gust.
Instead she casts a wroth-filled wrathful Eldritch Blast, with the indignation of her Patron’s thunderous ire carried along the streak of silvery force.
——
> Attack: 24
> Damage: 10 (8 force, 2 thunder).
(YOLO! Erudisia, I will give you a choice. Given the circumstances and those fantastic rolls, you can destroy all four of the hands at once. However, I'm gonna say that if you do, some of the cylinders near you will shatter. The second choice is, according to the RAW, you can target one of the creatures only. So, choice 2: you take down one of the four crawling claws with no collateral damage. The other three claws will then take their individual turns and attacks. You can narrate the millisecond choosing of an option and the resulting effect of your spell.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
The blast bucks and spits as it leaves her chess piece, her eyes flicking between the four hands, her focus split. The spell is new, her practice limited.
There is a shattering as the blast arcs out across the hands and several jars also, shattering them.
Oh no.
Bell gives a high pitched yelp/scream at the sight of falling, clawed hands.
The necrotic energy animating the four crawling hands is snuffed out almost instantly by Erudisia’s spell. They are batted away in various directions, one, like a discarded loose end at a butcher shop, thumping against Rogi’s chest and flopping to the floor. Its fingers curl tight in death, save one, which seems to offer a macabre, crude gesture to the artificer. Rogi grinds his heel into it. “Nope. You did not just do that.”
The tinkling crashing sound of several of the tall jars nearby crescendoes, followed by an explosion of preservatives as the glass jars shatter. Erudisia’s boots are soaked and everyone is splashed.
Simultaneously, you realize that another one of the jar occupants is now free following the shattering of its glass-walled jail cell: the two foot-long, two-legged tadpole! It hungrily snaps its unnecessarily large maw, leaping up at Meredith!
(Meredith and Bell may now act. The tadpole’s action will come later.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Bell yelps and yells, "This is insane. Everybody get out."
She pulls her dagger and throws it at the creature.
Attack: 13 Dmg: 6
bonus action: Bell commands the Unseen Servant to help distract any attacks aimed her way.
Meredith is astounded by the raw power bursting from Erudisias immaculate fingers....
....and now there's some sort of frog-thing attacking her.
She backs away towards the door desperately.
( Disengage- Move 30' through door.)
Bell’s dagger flips through the air and thumps into the tadpole’s side in mid-air as it leaps at Meredith. The creature is thrown back, missing Meredith entirely and allowing her to exit the chamber. It skids, rolling, on the tile floor but spins up again with a flick of its thick green tail and with its mouth, yanks out the dagger. “Riiibbbittt!,” it croaks in a sound from the abyss as the weapon clatters to the floor.
It now leaps at Bell, but Rogi intervenes, batting the strange creature away with his shield then slicing it with his own dagger. But, though bleeding thick black blood, the creature springs again, snapping its maw shut tight on Rogi’s wrist (doing 5hp damage)! The artificer shouts in pain.
Erudisia is up. (The creature is down to 1hp, AC 12. If you hit it, you can narrate its demise.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer
Erudisia came to Candlekeep to further her career, to see the world beyond the elven homeland, to mingle with scholars of many cultures and to offer the patron of her family many wonderful works of drama, to hone her craft, to be a diligent scholar. To escape the shadow of her father. To see something other than reproach in her graceful mother’s eyes.
She had come to Candlekeep to be in the greatest library in the world. Instead, she finds herself trapped in the abandoned extradimensional mansion of a clearly half-mad mage.
Imps! Animated swords and chains! Severed hands! This ginormous thing!
“Why aren’t you a miserly sage?” She hisses at the tailed frog creature. “I came here to match wits. To war with words. Not to be attacked by you!”
She brandishes her dragon chess piece before her and a torrent of wind and thunder spills force, a bolt that enters the mouth of the creature. The rumble of her magic is clear even through its skin. In a rupturing that traces across the tightest seams and wrinkles of its unusual anatomy, the frog falls apart into a gory mess of disrupted fluids.
—
(Attack roll Nat 20 - Critical!)
(Erudisia, since the crit is rather wasted, I’m going to let it trickle over into a successful Arcana roll to identify the creature. It is — was — a slaad tadpole.)
(Combat is over.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters // Eclipse Faraway in Gallows Dancer