Serpentine

Serpentine

View all episodes in season three.

Episode 4

The pyramid’s heart beats with venomous devotion. Deep within the Tomb of the Ancients, rival cults cling to forgotten gods. At the heart of the pyramid lies a monstrous guardian—a god-serpent born of ancient blasphemy. To survive, the players must navigate faction politics, uncover ancient secrets, and confront the Spawn of Lotan in order to release the “living waters”.

• Dining with Serpents: The session begins as the heroes prepare to dine with the serpent cult, and Vasha motions them to sit on the floor. Simbiscuit, a companion who had befriended the chefs, serves the appetizers of crushed centipede pâté.
• Activating the Second Statue: While the party was seating, Ralph secretly poured diluted lotus water into a snake statue’s bowl in the hallway, causing its lapis lazuli eyes to glow, confirming its activation. The first course served by Simbiscuit was found to be a terrible stew of rat or vermin.
• Realizing Imprisonment: Serpent cult members began positioning themselves, wielding Khopeshes (swords with a curved hook) and flanking the doorways. The party learned through snippets of conversation that the cult was cautious, believing the heroes were sent by the priestesses to trick them, and were instructed to keep the party contained.
• Coordination and Bridge Manipulation: W00t used Mind Speak to coordinate with Simbiscuit, instructing him to take a flask of lotus water to the final statue. W00t snuck out and manipulated a lever to rotate the canal bridge north/south, allowing Simbiscuit to cross and activate the statue.
• Escalation with Urine: When Vasha’s guards blocked Cort’s attempt to leave, Ralph (a Goliath Paladin) stood up and urinated directly on one of the guards in an act of powerful intimidation, causing the guard to flee to the kitchen.
• Vasha’s Ultimatum and Combat Start: Vasha became furious over the insult, demanded they surrender their weapons, and threatened to kill the priestesses if they refused. Bang shot Vasha in the face with his blunderbuss, initiating combat, and flipped the dining table for cover.
• Clearing the Serpent Cult: The party rapidly eliminated the cult members: Bang downed Vasha, Cort used Divine Smite, and W00t used a sneak attack to eliminate another enemy, causing the remaining chefs to flee.
• The Snake Abomination: After the final statue was activated using the lotus water, a low groan echoed through the pyramid, and a monstrous entity—a sickening mass of dozens of fused, writhing serpents—erupted from the revolving room floor. Ralph ran to the canal switch and rotated the lever, severing the snake abomination and causing it to break apart into tiny pieces. This action revealed a staircase descending below.
• Long Rest and Descent: The party decided to ascend to the first floor to take a full eight-hour long rest, restoring their health and spells, as it was a safe location near the priestesses. They then descended the newly revealed staircase into a vast chamber scattered with piles of bleached skulls.
• Undead Corpse: They found a desiccated corpse that lurched up and attacked Cort. The party dismembered the undead creature (ripping off both arms and cleaving off one leg), realizing it required burning for full destruction, and left it prone.
• Water Trap Puzzle: The party entered a chamber that with a door and six tablets. The room began to be flooded after touching broken tablets. They solved the puzzle by correctly arranging six carved panels illustrating the Queen’s life cycle (Birth, Coronation, Ruling, War, Death, Afterlife), which drained the room and opened the tomb.
• Queen’s Tomb: The next room contained a large sarcophagus carved with the visage of the lion-headed deity Sekhmet (the powerful one, known for destruction). By pulling on the loop (scepter accessory) of a Sekhmet statue, a hidden wall opened.
• Raided Treasure Room: The hidden room was a desecrated treasure room. W00t found a small golden scarab (a magic item that boosts artificer abilities), and Bang found an ordinary bottle containing invisible liquid, which turned out to be a contact-based invisibility potion.
• Undead Cobras: Entering the chamber to the east showed much older stone and masonry. The party discovered and opened rotten baskets, accidentally triggering a trap and releasing two undead cobras. Cort pinned one cobra to the wall with a javelin, Ralph held one down with a Khopesh, and Court used Divine Smite to destroy it.
• Following the Water Source: While viewing murals, the party noticed a large section of the wall was wet. The water compass urn confirmed that the water source was coming from this wall, which investigation revealed was a bricked-up doorway made of older masonry. Through a collective strength effort, the party broke down the bricked-up wall. A humid, petrichor-scented air rushed out, revealing a dark, dusty passage beyond, ending the session on a cliffhanger.

Act I: The Contempt of the Serpent Cult

Dining with Serpents

The adventurers began this episode deep within Level 2, surrounded by the zealous followers of Lotan, the primordial serpent of chaos. The cult leader, Vasha, served dinner in a spartan room, with Sin Biscuit acting as a reluctant assistant chef. The appetizers were appalling: “crushed up centipede”, which most of the party struggled to suppress, though the Orc Cleric, Ralph, found it delicious, claiming it “reminds me of my parents cooking back home”. Meanwhile, War, who understood Draconic, caught whispers: the cultists believed the party was “sent by the priestesses from above” to trick them.

“The centipede reminds me of my parents cooking back home!” -Ralph (Cleric)

Ambush and Ceasefire Fails

The fragile truce shattered quickly. Vasha, seeing the party as a threat to Lotan’s dark domain, trapped them within a back room. Cort, the Paladin, demanded release because nature’s call: “I need to go to the bathroom do you want me to go on your bed?”. When the guards blocked the doorway with their large, curved Kopesh swords.

“I start urinating on the guard on the guard right on the face!” —Cort (Paladin)

Combat with Serpent Cultists

The urination incited retaliation. Vasha, livid, confronted the party: “It’s unbelievable you come here you threaten us we give you food but then this beast urinates on the guard!”. The final words of diplomacy failed (“It’s too late to parlay”), and Bang initiated the attack, firing his blunderbuss and flipping the dinner table for cover. During the chaotic melee, Ralph, despite being a cleric, cast Channel Divinity on a wounded enemy, before killing it. Woot snuck around the kitchen looking for opportunties to sneak attack others from behind.

Act II: Unlocking the Depths

The Shrine Volumetric Puzzle

The true focus of the session was unlocking the next level by filling four snake statues spread across the level with the water. Wark realized the water must be mixed with the fragrant Lotus Water, which was colored red. Sin Biscuit was tasked with the crucial mission: using a flask of water to activate the statue in the far corner past the Revolving Room.

Distraction and Snake Abomination

The challenge was traversing the bridge in the Revolving Room, which was guarded by archers and spanned a pit of “writhing mass of serpents”. W00t, successfully used stealth, rotated the stone bridge while Sin Biscuit snuck across. However, after the final statue was activated, a “low persistent groan” echoed through the stone, and the pit erupted.

“A sickening mass of scales and writhing muscle erupts from the center of the revolving room! Dozens of venomous serpents, from slender cobras to thick-bodied vipers, are fused together, their individual heads striking and hissing as one monstrous entity. The Snake Abomination lunges forward…” -Robert (Dungeon Master)

Descent via Spiral Staircase

Ralph realized that the rotating bridge could still be used. He risked exposure to flick the lever, causing the cantilever to rotate and severing the Snake Abomination in two. As the monstrosity broke apart into hundreds of tiny snakes, the ground beneath the pit gave way, revealing a passage:

“As the stone bridge retracts, a newly revealed spiral staircase descends into the darkness, its ancient steps slick with a fine mist and echoing with the distant, slithering whispers of unseen things below.” -Robert (Dungeon Master)

Act III: The Queen’s Tomb

Undead Corpse

Descending into Level 4, the air grew heavy, and they found a vast chamber scattered with bleached skulls. In the corner lay a solitary figure. As Cort approached, the figure—a desiccated corpse—lurched upward, revealing itself to be an unkillable ghoul. The Paladin restrained the Ghoul, and in a brutal confrontation, the party successfully dismembered the creature, severing both of its arms and legs but failing to kill it due to its regeneration trait.

Embalming Room

The Embalming room was a chamber where the “air hangs heavy,” faintly scented with ancient dust and death. It was a room dedicated to preservation, dominated by a massive stone slab that served as a central table, flanked by shelves laden with rows of small, perfect alabaster jars. These were Canopic Jars, each one “cool and smooth to the touch” and sealed by an ornate stopper shaped like a hawk, a jackal, a baboon, or a human—the “silent custodians of forgotten anatomies”. A faint, earthy scent, “mingled with the lingering aroma of ancient preservatives,” emanated from them. The hieroglyphics on the walls, though “muted by time,” were “still vibrant with the stories of a forgotten civilization”. Here was the history of the Khetan people, “the golden people,” in their sun-drenched glory. Panel after panel illustrated their mastery over the desert, showing scenes of “bustling markets, advanced irrigation systems drawing water from what is clearly the ‘Golden River’ known as Khet-Nakor.

The Water Trap Puzzle

The adventures headed south and reached the ornate door leading to the Tomb of Queen Sekhmet. This room was a Water Trap that filled rapidly when triggered. To unlock it, they had to correctly sequence six panels depicting the Life of the Queen: Birth, Coronation, Rule, War, Death, and Afterlife. After successfully ordering the panels, the water drained, and the door opened, leading to the sarcophagus of Queen Sekhmet.

Queen’s Tomb

Once the floodwaters drained, the immense door opened to reveal the Sarcophagus of Queen Sekhmet in the next room. It was carved from black granite, depicting the “serene, lion-headed visage of Sekhmet in repose”, a testament to the fact that the goddess of destruction was not merely divine, but a mortal queen. The lid sat “slightly askew, hinting at a disturbance long past”. Crucially, the party discovered a hidden loop on an adjacent Sekhmet statue; pulling down on the loop caused the wall to open, granting passage to the final chamber.

Raided Treasure Room

The chamber beyond the secret wall was not a vault, but a scene of wanton desecration. The entire treasure room “lies in ruin—alabaster jars shattered, gods defaced and broken”. A toppled statue rested “amid splintered furniture,” confirming that others had plundered the site first.

Despite the ruin, some magical artifacts remained:

1. The Split Scarab: A golden scarab that grants an artificer ally extra bonuses to rolls.
2. Invisible Potion: A bottle found that “appears to be empty”. When liquid poured out, the party realized the contents were invisible, an invisibility potion that works on contact.
3. Blue Hand: Hidden in a small, ornate chest, they found the most compelling—and chilling—relic: a severed blue hand. The skin was “smooth and waxen, veins like threads of dark ink running beneath it”, suggesting it was the hand of a blue-skinned humanoid.”

Undead Cobras

This chamber was a profound lesson in the tomb’s true age. Unlike the cleaner masonry of the upper levels, the walls here bore carvings “much cruder and older than the other parts of the pyramid”. They were a vast, morbid library detailing the land’s history of blight: the tale of Sekhmet, the lion-headed deity, unleashed in her bloodlust, who was ultimately tricked into drinking red beer and entombed here, causing “damage to the life-giving waters”. Further panels depicted the “grim story of the serpent god Lotan,” eternally battling Ba’el, whose chaos “brought drought and blight to the land”. However, the history lesson came with a terrifying price. Scattered across the floor were “simple wicker baskets,” deceptively placed. When disturbed, they revealed not living serpents, but Mummified Cobras: a “sharp hiss cracks the air as snakes explode from the weave—cobras, hoods up, fangs bared, tongues flicking”. These undead snakes, though dry and preserved, sprang from the stone to defend their ancient secrets.

Following the Water Source

Following the moisture and the water compass, the adventures tore open a wall. A collective effort was mounted, the Paladin’s great strength uniting with the raw force of the other adventurers. Warhammer and mace struck the ancient masonry again and again, peeling away the painted mural that depicted Lotan’s chaotic creation. The effect was instantaneous and profound. The air that rushed out was suddenly humid and carried the unique, damp scent of Petraor—a smell of damp rock and ancient rain—promising life. But that promise was overshadowed by the ominous vibration that seized the entire pyramid.

“With a collective effort,” the log reads, “you break away the stones of the wall rending down a portion of the mural and the section of the wall falls inward revealing a dark dusty passage beyond.” -Robert (Dungeon Master)