In this action-packed episode, our heroes engage in a brutal struggle with the inhabitants of the mausoleum of Ormad Tesch: a horrible half-living abomination known as a dolghast and a pair of bugbear skeletons. While the skeletons fail to do much besides occupy Plug and Castafior, the Dolghast minorly injures Kestrel, and severely wounds Lucretia, who falls victim to its vicious dissolving touch. Kestrel and Castafior perform admirably against the creature, in spite of its overwhelming stench, and Linnea shows that she's not entirely useless with a weapon, performing a coup de grace on the dolghast before its flesh can knit back together and restore conciousness.
After tending to people's wounds, the party spreads out to investigate the rest of the mausoleum, turning up Staden's mutilated body, some of his possessions, a small collection of coins left as tokens by ancient well-wishers, a scrollcase, and an ornately ornamented stick of some sort. Also found is the tablet which Duurkat sent them to locate in the first place.
Following the quick construction of a cairn overlooking the ocean, and a few brief words from Linnea, the party lays Staden to rest, and makes haste back towards Sharn.
| Name | Description | Encounter |
|---|---|---|
| Staden | Lecturer Duurkat's late researcher | Dead, shoeless and maimed within the mausoleum. Buried by the party on the nearby seaview cliff. |
Dolghasts hurt. I was honestly kind of worried after Lucretia took a full attack routine from the thing, but everything ended up alright. I kind of screwed up, rules-wise, as far as readied actions are concerned (you're supposed to declare what you're going to be doing in addition to conditions regarding it), and ended up fudging the dolghast's coup de grace save because I couldn't locate the rules (obnoxiously located under 'helpless creatures' in the SRD instead of anywhere sensible like 'combat options') in a timely fashion. Not that it would've mattered much: at -9 HP, it was definitely dead before its next initiative pass.
Additionally, roleplaying a combination of irritation and grief is really hard when you're tired and sick. I feel like the evening ended on too much of a low note, but that's hindsight for you.
For a full log, see http://www.niloc.net/eberron/eberron-2006-02-16.html.