Background: The party still faces being wanted by an entire kingdom, as well as two lycanthrope party members and a demon stalking the party sorcerer. They headed south and then to the west, down the long and poorly maintained King's Highway. After receiving a desperate plea via a sending from Scarlet Roze, the party left the highway and headed south along the coast to the Tiefling stronghold of Buthhazel.

Beginning: The party has been tasked with finding the sisters of Scarlet Roze, a retired member of the party. The party arrives to do this during the "Firefestival", a celebration that occurs during the Waning Harvest season, whether or not the Dragon's Tear comet passes low over the Firestorm Peak for which the festival was inspired by. This year however, the comet appeared and the gates Firestorm Peak did open, and two of the many sisters of Scarlet Roze went scouting on behalf of Buthhazel. What happened to SHE and HER are unknown, but it doesn't take any deep analysis to know where the two have ended up.

Underway: The party first stocked up on a huge amount of festival food and headed for the mountain forest towards the peak. Nearing a point for a rest, the party encountered six giant scorpions that were taken out with minor damage (random Encounter). Victor then used his newly acquired Daern's Instant Fortress after backing down the mountain a bit to find a clearing. After a long rest, the party went back up to the mountain during the day only to find the gates to the peak entrance impassable. They retreated back into the woods, only to return at night and find the fogged, yet see-through metal gates wide open.

The Outer Complex: Four of the group cautiously went inside the open gates and into the complex. The sorcerer magicked up on the grey dwarf constructed wall, while the barbs stepped on some practically invisible caltrops. All hell broke loose after that, and I actually got some good rolls, but the party had better and made a big mess of the ambushers. They proceeded through the mess, but were unable to access the duergar guard posts, so they took the long walk down the trapped corridor that lead to many more traps. The party found a nice hidden stash from a dead bard, but then blundered through many traps. To their credit, they managed to avoid two of the more nastier ones (purple worm acid / giant skeletons), but later, a Crypt Thing ported the group into a pit containing four wraiths, which turned from a battle into a life or death run-n-gun event. In this module, the author offers the option for a faction of the grey dwarves that are sick of the current boss, to back the players if a named duergar priest finds the party formidable enough to kill the current boss. I used a point system for this, and though the party had achieved getting the backing of the rebel dwarves, they then got a bit too curious about a shiny object in a scorpion den and two party casters were eviscerated. They party recovered, but the help offer from the rebel dwarves went from backing them in a fight with the boss to getting the party safely to the mining colony bazaar and the rebellious guards hanging back while the big baddie and his goons fight the party. Upon entering the bazaar, the rebels took a walk and the party was confronted by the boss and his minions, and thanks my garbage rolls and two back to back natural 20's by the minotaur barbarian... my hopes of downing and/or capturing the party for extended play in the outer complex were killed off. The party picked up some sweet magic items including a battle axe that can flat-out heal the wielder on command!

The Twisted Caverns: With the blessing of the duergar mining colony leader, the group was lead to the last gages of protection from the insanity of the Twisted Caverns. They moved ahead cautiously and almost immediately ran into three gibbering mouthers... and my shitty rolls which quickly lead to no gibbering mouthers. After some more dungeon crawling, Victor found a very tall carver where he could command his Daern's Instant Fortress. Unfortunately, this attracted unwanted attention. Many denizens of the caverns were attracted to the fortress and all were repelled with the party suffering varying degrees of damage, but the attention later drew in multiple gibbering mouthers whose confusion attacks had the range fights pump arrows and bolts into the poor paladin. To make matters worse, the fighting drew in a much larger opponent - a troll amalgam whose power and height made the creature a living seige engine. The party did overcome the beast, but the tower was damaged by 20% and the group was a mess. It was at this point that Victor the sorcerer told me he had to depart from the campaign, so I used the "form corruption" mechanic in the module to have Vic succumb to mutations and become a gibbering mouther inside the fortress, and be as big a pain in the ass as he was prior to his death. I gave the party a one time 22 intelligence check to remember the fortress password and all failed. So, Victor's most precious magic item became his tomb. From this point the group wandered. They came across two dying bodies that produced gibberlings that were defeated and Wilhelmina gained the famed longsword Bloodfear. After more travelling the group defeated a deepspawn who had been known as the "lorde of the caverns, and then blundered into some traps created by a tribe of myconids. These mushroom folk were grateful to the party for slaying the deepsawn and allowed them to temporarily gain the ability to sleep safely. It was during this respite that Jude the Paladin was call by a fey deity to get a free holy avenger that loves to kill demons, but unfortunately the rest of the party followed him and gazed upon her and everyone either dropped to zero hit points or were beguiled. It was a shitshow, but Jude managed to keep everyone alive. After more rest, the party finally entered the inner sanctum.

The Inner Sanctum: After losing the player who portrayed Suroh (RL schedule changes), his character died attempting to pull one of Scarlet Roze's missing sisters from the horror of a conjured Living Wall. I did not tell the party that we had lost Suroh as a player, and because I only stated he was out this session, the party debated heavily on what to do after seeing Suroh yanked into the wall by Scalet's former sister. They were using kid gloves against the living wall until half of Suroh emerged from the wall, screaming for help while firing arrows at the party as the wall attempted to dispatch them. So the group went full HAM and destroyed the wall as I told them the truth about Suroh which they already suspected. Suroh's now de-powered wolf survived and was adopted by Willhelmina, but the vast majority of Suroh's gear did not. They salvaged what they could and quickly moved on.
This session unfortunately took place without the Pally or Minotaur Barbarian, so their characters became the rear guard to deal with emboldened gibberlings and gibbering mouthers out on the hunt now that the deep spawn mini-boss is dead. The active team took a short break and then arrived in a room with a large pool of blue goo with a small path to cross it without contact. Above them, small black and white globules slowly roamed the ceiling and seemed to be creating the goo. Vashnov the warlock attempted to fly across the goo and was attacked four tapeworm like aberrations called Wystes. These were defeated and after some caustic burns from the goo the party stumbled into a long hallway. They picked up a viewing orb and a dragon cigar lighter as they slowly moved through an ankle high layer of dust, eventually arriving a field of silver grass with a big mushroom in the center. They tried to tread through this grass stealthily, but despite the grass being benign at fist they managed to piss the sentient aberration mushroom off. A fight then ensued with the mushroom being cut down, allowing the group to reach a door that the local aberrational fauna and flora seemed to shun. They picked the lock, and succeeded and broke in. The hall was clean and clear except for a dim line of light that periodically moved up and down the center of the floor. The remaining warlock and the pally explored a long abandoned cavern that turned out to be a cesspool, while the rest of the party failed at picking a very complex lock, blew up a light powered magic engine and found a hall leading to...
World Gate Omega: After searching out the vacant complex, four of the party members (both barbs, ranged fighter and wizard) approached this gate that was locking something in, instead of keeping the players out. Upon unlocking and entering they discovered an ustable gate to another world, using a technology unknown to all.

The Vast Gate: Upon entering, the party immediately found themselves confronted by Madreus with a hostage situation. The mad alienist had captured party member (now NPC) Vashnov, along with Henrietta (Scarlet Rose’s sister) and two duergar children. It was Damien who saw past Madreus’s ploy as the villain’s assistant Nigel was chanting a vulgar ritual, but unfortunately Damian decided to attempt to interrupt Nigel by blanketing the target area with an icestorm spell. Damion's spell failed to stop Nigel, but did end the lives of the hostages! As shock washed over the party, Nigel caused two shoggoth to spew from the Vast Gate. The Shoggoth shifted into different forms and moved to attack, one of the Call of Cthulhu type and one of the Tomb of Beasts 1 type (yes I know they can become anything). Right after the summoning, the elven barbarian was dominated completely by Madreus and immediately began beating the crap out of the pally. The druid then attempted to engage one of the shoggoth as the rest of the party attempted to kill the duergar that pelted them with arrows (though it as more of an annoyance than damaging). The druid shape changed into a carnivorous dinosaur and received a big painful smack from the shoggoth, which sent him in fast retreat towards the party range fighter. She failed her perception check to see the druid as an ally and parked an electrified bolt to the head, and that was the totality of the druid's contribution to win the day. The necromancer summoned a spirit of death to aid against the two shoggoth, while the barbarian managed to free herself as the pally was devestated from Madreus and one of the shoggoths. With a concerted from the party (minus the druid who was casting create water for an unknow reason), Nigel was killed and control of both shoggoths was lost. One began eating a troll corpse and the other began converting a dead gray dwarf into a small table while the bloodied pally took a potion of healing and discovered through a cantrip that Madreus was no longer protected by globe of invulnerability. In the same moment, the barbarian used her iron flask (which was undelivered to Lorde Helfig) and unleashed a grateful Mezzoloth that made very quick work of Madreus, With Madreus's lenses shattered upon his rending, the duergar and trolls under his control became whole again and retreated quickly. It took the group sometime to figure out the three gate gems insertion and control of the vast gate, and then move the destination to a known place on Grage, all the while knowing they would probably end up in Buthhazel. They grabbed the corpses of the innocent and departed.

Postmortem: I stuck to the module for the vast majority of the encounters with the exception of adding Crusader, the holy avenger from module H2 The Mines of Bloodstone. I know this module gives out some incredible items for the level range of players, but this was just some strength and flavor I wanted to add to the paladin since he is surrounded by crew of deplorables. Despite some of us playing together for years I wouldn't put it past any of this party to got rogue and kill the good guy - in fact I am hoping one of the party tries being alpha over this pally in particular because the humiliation would be severe. The players were already at the high end of this module's level limit, so while I did not bolster the numbers of enemies per encounter, I did keep all of the special abilities afforded to them directly from this module (such as 16ft high duergar in addition to bumping up the HP and AC. My rolls were extremely awful at every key point of every fight, trap and diversion, with the exception of the party ranged fighter who took a deadly poison dart to the head, but seeing two casters get slaughtered by giant scorpions did make up for it. When it came to the final battl, I did not want to have a confusing shitshow of summoned "demi-shadpw monsters" (2nd edition illusionist spells) so I had Nigel summon two powerhouse shoggoth to instead of having a summoning frenzy. In addition, I got rid of the gibberlings and mycanoids and doubled the duergar while keeping the trolls which was a relief to my VTT. I think the party would have wiped if not for the freed mezzoloth (via an iron flask)that got to Madreus before he could misty step. I would have to say that my favorite battle was the wraith trap in the outer gates. The party running and gunning along the edge of the pit home to four wraithsmade the situation desperate and party were hanging on the dice rolls which made it fun. If you are a fan of lovecraftian creatures and still want to have some roleplay on the lighter side, but with no side quests then this module can be played without any major changes except converting creatures to 5e. Your players will be happy with the loot (though a few magic items will have to be altered, especially if the defeat Madreus... no way the players were going to get their greedy paws on lenses of utter domination.

Cartilage: The party used the control crystals gained throughout the module to create a stable gate to Sharpspire in Chauntless. This of course, would not be the actual destination since all gates are redirected to Buthhazel.

Keywords: Aberrations, Humanoids, Undead.