S1 E11: Into the Viper Pit

General Summary

• At the entrance to the Old Yuan-ti Ruin, the three travelers meet two new adventurers:
• Callie, a halfling bard drawn to the call of adventure and treasure, and perhaps running from something as much as running to;
• Bakunne, a cloaked and facemasked member of an assassin society, at a place where he's supposed to meet someone who evidently hasn't arrived just yet.
• After introductions and when it becomes clear none of them are the person Bakunne is here to meet, they proceed around a stairwell leading down into the ruin proper, meeting up with a small group of heat beetles or Heatles. Managing to dispatch them without great difficulty, they enter a wide central area and find the first of a series of interlocked rooms where the missing Fangs of Dendar might have been hidden by Zelara after she stole them from Ssethis and the Zhis'kaas clan. A pack of Gnolls argues among themselves over how to get into one of several treasure cases inside the room, and leaps to attack as soon as they sight the party.
• The Gnolls - three raiders and a chieftain - are eventually beaten while a pair of others escape. Inside the room are a glass case filled with pristine Yuan-ti jewelry and a scroll case containing historical and religious documents as well as a few spells. 
• When Alistor attempts to open the jewelry case, he triggers an ancient trap, which the Gnolls had evidently noticed but not disarmed. His legs are trapped in two sets of giant metal bear claws, but luckily their poison injection had long ago lost its chemicals to time and flooding.
• They also find and Nyx partly unclogs some kind of scrying pool, which shows them much of the same imagery as they saw in the mirror at the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, with one significant addition; they see themselves from high above moving through the brush towards a pyramid, accompanied by three Yuan-Ti warriors; but the view from this height reveals additional creatures moving through the brush on the opposite side of the Pyramid, towards it and them.
• They decide to set up camp and take a long rest to restore their strength before going forth to the rest of the complex.

Rewards Granted

• 130gp
• 11 x gold Yuan-ti warrior necklaces studded with jewels worth 150gp each
• Jug of Yuan-ter
• Flail of Shielding: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/6922282-flail-of-shielding
• Historical and religious scrolls
• 11 silver rings engraved with Yuan-ti clan symbols and precious stones worth 60 gp each
• Scroll of Bestow Curse
• Scroll of Cloud of Daggers

Missions/Quests Completed

• Chamber of Serpent Relics

Created Content

• Flail of Shielding (https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/6922282-flail-of-shielding)

Notes

• The scrolls concerning Yuan-ti history contain myths about the ancient Yuan-ti Slavelands of Caetica, the East and the Prime Continent, and details that its kings and queens - named Sseth, Dendar, Mershaulk, etc - were so consumed with infighting that the Yuan-Ti empires collapsed from within rather than, as is commonly held, falling to the Elven kingdoms prior to the Second Elven War, but those royals ascended to godhood.
• One of those gods, Dendar, is credited as being the one primarily responsible for saving the world, her mighty coils of magical power literally holding the world together after the comet punched through the Orbis' crust and cracked the planet's mantle. Her motivation was said to be her desire to devour the world herself as a sacred rite, not to allow some profane elven meddlers to take her prize.
• Dendar is shown in these scrolls to be the enemy of Abaia in these scrolls called simply the Vilemother, a mighty Primordial whose domain is the Void itself; but for Dendar, the Orbis would have been annihilated and become one with the void. Though Dendar now dreams of ages to come, sleeping deep below even the Underdark, nevertheless she restrains the otherwise limitless depth of the Void, her existence acting as some kind of counterbalance or suppressor on the strength of Abaia, who yet seeks the annihilation of the world. Abaia is mountain-sized, but mighty Dendar, even asleep, is planet-sized (at least in these myths).

Report Date

15 Jun 2023

Primary Location

The Caetica Region

Secondary Location

The Viper Pit/Polmachis' Folly