Monastery of the Shadow Sorcerers 5E D&D Adventure Walkthrough

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Күн бұрын

A full walkthrough for The Arcane Library's 8th-level D&D adventure, Monastery of the Shadow Sorcerers!
Beneath the blood moon, a dark monastery appears for one night atop a high plateau. Inside its walls, the mighty black lotus flower reaches its full bloom. Can the characters steal inside the monastery, defeat its sorcerous guardians, and claim the blossom before the sun rises?
Get a copy of Monastery of the Shadow Sorcerers in Legends of the Library, Vol. 1: www.thearcanelibrary.com/prod...

Пікірлер: 29

@actrealationalist Жыл бұрын

First video I'm coming across. Time to invest in Arcane Library.

@thedogcalledno 3 жыл бұрын

I love your adventures. I've run several for my group and they are a massive hit. I love the extra mechanics that through the players for a loop. Keep up the great work.

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! I'm thrilled to hear they were a massive hit! :)

@Audiotrocious 3 жыл бұрын

Monastery of Shadow Sorcerers? Anyone else getting wonderful flashbacks to the Turncloaks podcast?

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

Oh I gotta scope this out! :D

@Audiotrocious 3 жыл бұрын

@@TheArcaneLibrary 5E Grimdark “low” magic setting podcast. One of the characters is from a monastery of shadow sorcerers, and of course due to plot, returns there.

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

No way!! I gotta scope that out! 😯

@johnsikking4891 3 жыл бұрын

Get these published on the MCDM Arcadia outlet. I believe their platform will bring you more well deserved attention.

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! MCDM Arcadia is a new thing to me, but definitely excited to scope out what they're doing. :)

@alejandrofernandez1324 3 жыл бұрын

@@TheArcaneLibrary x 2

@vnavone 3 жыл бұрын

Just to follow up: we finished the adventure last weekend and had a great time! I re-skinned the Ras-Godai and a lot of their lore and imagery to fit the Elemental Chaos them of our campaign. This included liberal use of Wild Magic surges for all magic employed by both sides. SPOILERS: I was able to redirect the party away from shortcutting to the final encounter, at least long enough to meet the traitor Amara and enlist her help. Sadly, they still skipped a lot of encounters and the lore I created, and never met Janu. They were able to lure the acolytes training into the main hall out into the courtyard, where they had set up an ambush, and quickly dispatched them. Instead of an anti-life barrier around the Black Lotus, I made the barrier require a possession or piece of Manazusa to pass through, forcing the party to visit Manazusa's shrine and get the Demon Lash. I adjusted the final battle for difficulty as such: When they arrived at the final chamber, a Ras Godai Demon Blade was performing the resurrection ritual. I replaced Manazusa's Spirit with a good old Ghost, and swapped out the aquatic Oni for Water Weirds. The players snatched the Black Lotus, barely escaping with their lives, and Amara abandoned the monastery as well (she has another part to play in the campaign's future). I recommend this adventure!

@TheArcaneLibrary 2 жыл бұрын

All awesome hacks to get the adventure to fit the situation! :D

@carldanescd 3 жыл бұрын

Very very cool

@Kermit_the_frog 2 жыл бұрын

Love this! How many hours do you think this adventure will take to complete, Kelsey? Please, if others have completed this, comment in this thread :) Thanks!

@TheArcaneLibrary 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! :) It’s designed to run about 4-6 hours, but it can certainly fall outside that depending on how direct or how explorative your group is. Combats are generally what take the longest, so you could always skip or complicate a combat if you want to control the timing a bit! :)

@Kermit_the_frog 2 жыл бұрын

@@TheArcaneLibrary Thanks, Kelsey!

@peronne17 3 жыл бұрын

Hi! Question for ya - My players are digging this adventure so far, and have very excitedly collected 22 lotus blades! These things do a ton of damage - 2d6, and they can be dual-wielded, so I guess they're light. They're so powerful compared to other non-magical weapons. Are they magical? I also wasn't sure if they are more like shortswords or scimitars or what. Finesse seems reasonable because the Ras-Godai are very Dex-y. Trying to decide what to do with this horde of awesome blades!

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

Hahahahah awesome! Wow, they've been collecting them like crazy! They're blades the Ras-Godai sorcerers specially train with and channel their magical ability through, so I didn't put them in as magic items for that reason (they're ordinary, well-made swords to non-Ras-Godai). However! I think it's fantastic that your players want to gather these blades together, and they totally deserve some kind of reward for that. The Ras-Godai do use their Dexterity modifier to attack with them. I'd say that a character who receives training with the blades (which Roga could provide) could start to use them as proficient weapons, and I'd pin them as finesse short swords that deal 1d6 damage. However, they do 2d6 damage for a round each time the caster expends a 1st-level spell slot. You could spend a higher slot, too -- the blade deals an additional 1d6 damage for each level of spell slot expended (still lasts a round). I would also say a character that attains mastery of the Ras-Godai combat techniques can wield any Ras-Godai blade as a +1 magical weapon going forward. That's how I'd balance it out!

@peronne17 3 жыл бұрын

@@TheArcaneLibrary Thanks so much for the quick reply! So helpful. This adventure has been so much fun and my players are loving it!

@vnavone 3 жыл бұрын

Hi, I love Arcane Library's adventures, and I'm looking forward to running this one for my family! Quick question: what will happen if the BBEG (spirit of Manazusa) actually gets resurrected? That's the whole point of the monastery appearing, but it seems like the text assumes the Ras-Godai will fail at this, even though the Black Lotus has bloomed. It would be cool to have an indication of the stakes if Manazusa gets revived, and possibly a stat block too. Any suggestions?

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

An excellent question! I think if Manazusa gets resurrected (meaning the characters and Amara's dissenting faction aren't able to intervene), he'd come back to life as a corporeal, tiefling (half-demon) version of his ghost form. I'd remove his resistances, immunities, fly speed, incorporeal movement, and Life Drain attack, but replace it with doubling his HP, giving him a 15' climb speed, and giving him a Demon Blade attack like the Ras-Godai Demon Blade. He'd retain his spellcasting abilities. I believe his CR would remain 12 with those alterations, although I didn't fully crunch the numbers. In my mind, his chances of coming back were slim with the PCs' and Amara's (sometimes conflicting) attempts to thwart it, so I think his return would only happen under the conditions of Amara being defeated and the PCs either suffering a TPK or fleeing the scene before getting the Black Lotus. Definitely possible, but ultimately not something I banked on as being common!

@vnavone 3 жыл бұрын

@@TheArcaneLibrary Cool, thanks for the quick response! What would you say the Ras-Godai's overall goal is? Beyond resurrecting their leader, do they have plans that threaten the material plane? I'm looking for some more hooks into our larger campaign, and I thought maybe they could be a recurring faction.

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

@@vnavone I think Manazusa does indeed have plans to threaten the material plane, so if he comes back around (or an ambitious successor takes his place), they will probably figure out how to use the Black Lotus to help them get more permanent residence in certain planes so they can expand their domain! :)

@vnavone 3 жыл бұрын

I just started running this adventure for my family this weekend! Of course they are doing things I completely did not anticipate. SPOILERS: They have flown up onto the roof of the monastery, and entered the courtyard with the pit, bypassing the gatehouse completely. They are getting ready to either use Dimension Door or Stone Shape to bypass the Wall of Force that covers the pit and go directly to the final encounter! Of course I want to reward them for ingenuity and not railroad them, but at this rate they'll be skipping 80% of the adventure. More importantly, they'll be missing out on a bunch of important lore and NPC's that relate to the rest of the campaign. At this point they don't even know who Manazusa is or what the Ras-Godai want. At the minimum I feel like they need to encounter Amara. Any advice?

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

Hi Victor! Hahaha sounds like they're going wild! That's totally okay, I figured there would be some groups with enough dimension door spells to get 2-4 people through the wall of force (it's 2 people per casting). Facing Manazusa with only two people would be awful, so I pity those who split the party in that way, and it might encourage them to flee if that's what they do. Also, if they end up doing that and somehow have 4th-level spells leftover after the fight with Manazusa (which you could beef up with a few extra HP or oni), they'd still have to contend with Amara on the way out, who will have been watching them. She'd want to take the black lotus from them and will likely have brought a lot of her companions with her. They may also need to do the trials on the way out if they're all out of dimension door spells, which would be likely! I'd turn it into a race to escape at that point with a lot of the Ras-Godai aware of their presence (they'll fight from hiding/the rooftops/and Amara might even pursue the players into the Material Plane, becoming a long-term enemy...).

@vnavone 3 жыл бұрын

@@TheArcaneLibrary good ideas, thanks for the quick response! I was also considering buffing the anti-life barrier around the lotus, so that the party needs some possession or remnant of Manazusa to get through it. This could force them to locate Manazusa’s shrine and steal his demon lash, for example.

@TheArcaneLibrary 3 жыл бұрын

@@vnavone Also entirely possible with the whip, that could be a cool hack! 👍 This adventure in particular was interesting, I wrote it under the assumption that some groups would find a way through that wall of force and essentially play the adventure in reverse. The wall of force well is there to tempt them into getting creative. So this adventure is very much a situation of where the players want to use their resources and on which problem. For example, it's fantastic that they've been using flying resources to enter past the gatehouse -- if that was a fly spell, then it's just one more 3rd-level spell they don't have to overcome other obstacles. As long as there's time pressure which disallows a long rest (the monastery only being on the Material Plane for one night in this case), they'll run out of resources eventually and things will get hard. So front-loading the adventure with the big encounters first isn't bad at all since they'll be diminished while trying to then fight their way out!