The sideshows were swiftly dispensed with, and while the party seemingly emerged victorious against the shadowreaver, the true power of such a foe swiftly revealed itself. First emerging in the Spiral Pit, the party encountered it’s a lone shadowreaver in command of a host of shadows and ghouls. The shadowreavers had arguably become the official antagonists of this campaign (not by DM design, but driven by player reaction more than anything). Through each of the dark gates steps a shadowreaver, clearly unhappy at your disturbance. You recognise them instantly as being incredibly detailed depictions of shadowreavers.Īs you step inside, a gale whips up as a swirling dark vortex opens up within the space of each statue. Most noticeably, you see three statues set atop circular daises.

Sturdy double doors are set into the eastern wall. The floor is tiled green with abstract patterning. Several hours later and beginning to tire from this endless gamut of false doors yonder side of this bottomless pit or that bubbling caldera of lava, the party crawled through a twisting, claustrophobic tunnel and emerged into a fell temple of some dread, dark terror. Secret doors and hidden passages played a striking role as well: more than once, the party made its uninformed way through this lethal labyrinth of dead-ends and blocked passages, only to have to turn around and seek another way, more often than not dodging fireballs, lightning bolts, arrow volleys and various other triggered traps that punished them for both wrong turns and right. A lot of traps and none of them much less than deadly. Between this point and that, it wasn’t so much murderous creatures determined to not only prevent unauthorised trespassing through this gateway back to the surface world, but traps. If the first combat arose in short order, the next took a fair bit longer. ‘It stands to reason,' declared Drillig afterwards, ‘that this place being a sort of barrier and gauntlet in-one would be filled with non-living creatures.’ He couldn’t have known it of course, but the deep gnome wizard was quite correct. Hjalmar in particular took quite a beating and several spell slots were needed to help vanquish the deathless foes. The first combat of the Final Gauntlet was underway and while a comfortable victory for the heroes, the three death knights gave enough of a challenge to shave off some of the resources of the party. And from each of these strode a death knight. Three well-spaced egresses caught the adventurers’ eyes: two openings to the right and one to the left. Our group of seasoned adventurers did not have to wait for long for trouble to present. Will the group succeed? Will they make it home? It’s time – at long last – to find out… Something for over two years, everybody in Avernum promised (in good faith) didn’t even exist. Now, the group comprising Drillig the deep gnome wizard, Glide the fire genasi horizon walker ranger Hjalmar Shinsmasher the dwarven barbarian, Lady Asteria D’Arnelise the aasimar sorceress and Srallos Eciwt the dwarven cleric, enter the Final Gauntlet – the super-secret, almost impregnable Empire gateway that we’re told is the gateway back to the surface world.

Finally, for a very brief time, Valvento, a dubiously-moralled dueregar fighter teamed up with the party, before he too was slain. The latter disappeared shortly after Grah-hoth’s demise and his current whereabouts are unknown, while the former retired from adventuring and settled in Fort Emerald, where his services at repelling the undead tide was heartily welcomed. the un-named mystic of the alien vahnatai raceĪdditionally, Father Gehrman and Andar Greymane, human bloodhunter and barbarian respectively, exited the group but lived to tell the tale.

Sabriel the human sorceress (and twin of Horborin).

Osmanoglu the human warlock (he was a bit weird).

Captain Lambert the Black the human paladin.

Before the final episode’s events get underway, let’s pay our respects to those who didn’t survive up to this point. In almost all cases, some monster, villain or hideous entity was responsible for the death of our friends. In that time, we’ve said farewell to a host of characters that didn’t make it.

From early September 2017 until now: the last half of October 2019, the party in its evolving line-up has crisscrossed the underworld in search of a way home. So we come to it at last: the final episode of our campaign.

Avernum 6 honeycomb horrors