Tabletop Fun

[Nunavut Pants]

Ah, the old double-post...

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D AL Waterdeep Dragon Heist--

The continuing adventures of my Shadar-kai Twilight Cleric, who may be a cleric, but is decidedly not a nice person. The DM and I both agree that while he might not be Evil, he's definitely not Good.

Previous session, we came across a bunch of skeletons that attacked us. This session, we ran into a couple of kenku thugs from the Xanathar Guild, who had taken a man in wizard robes hostage, having stolen the macguffin from him. They slice his throat and one escapes, while Pell (my cleric) used Healing Word to keep the wizard from dying. The other thug is killed and the rest of the party chases after the one who got away. I stayed behind to stabilize the wizard, and question him briefly, but found the wizard knew nothing about the macguffin, there was nothing to learn from him. Which led to this exchange--

Pell: "Those skeletons... were those yours?"
Wizard: (a necromancer) "...Yes?"
Pell: (casts Inflict Wounds)
Wizard: (dies)

The rest of the table was a bit surprised, but I pointed out, "Shadar-kai are blessed by the Raven Queen [the goddess of death], who notoriously hates the undead."

Later, as we caught up on the kenku who escaped, we were jumped by a bunch of Xanathar Guild thugs, who decided to taunt us while attacking one of our downed allies. Which led to me getting back-to-back one-liners.

Thug 1: "The Xanathar sends its regards."
Pell: (casts Spiritual Weapon)
Thug 1: (gets head knocked off)
Pell: "Run along back to the Xanathar."
Thug 2: "...The Xanathar--"
Monk: (punches Thug 2's jaw off)
Pell: "Never mind. We'll bring our regards to the Xanathar ourselves."

[Nunavut Pants]

I got into a four-player game of Settlers on BGA. I wound up starting with settlements on both of the 6 spaces, so naturally 6 didn't roll for the first third of the game. One of my settlements was on three wheat fields, a 6, a 3, and an 11. The others were rolled at least once before the 6 ever was... I was able to use some port trades to pick up necessary resources, as well as trades (usually unfavorable, two of my goods for one of theirs) with my opponents.

I picked up two dev cards, one early and one late. Both were VP cards. I was able to upgrade one settlement into a city at the point that I only had three settlements. I was able to expand, and eventually got to an 8 space. After about halfway through the game, 6es started rolling at a decent rate and I was raking in the resources. I had a 3:1 port and expanded to a 2:1 for one of the things I made a lot of. The battle for Longest Road was somewhat intense; it bounced between three people for a while. I got it once but lost it very quickly after that.

I was finally able to leverage my 2:1 port for enough resources to build 2 more roads in one turn--and it was the turn after I had drawn that second VP card, making my (hidden) total 8. Add two more for Longest Road, and I won my first try at on-line Settlers!!

[Ghel]

I played in a one-shot last weekend that will hopefully become an ongoing campaign. Our DM has been having trouble scheduling games, so she came up with this mercenary-type group that takes on jobs in the game. With that setup, players can be gone a session and it’s no big deal. Players can swap out characters, too, if one isn’t working out for any reason.

I played my goblin warlock (pact of the chain). She has a quasit familiar that stayed invisible most of the time. During our only real battle that session, I had my familiar attack one of the enemies. The other PCs had softened up the enemy already, so my familiar’s claws took it out. I described it hanging on to the creature’s tail with one clawed hand while it dug in with the other, becoming visible as it attacked, doing enough damage to kill it. One of the other PCs goes, “what was that!?” As my familiar disappears again. LOL

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

The current case our band of investigators are handling is less a mystery and more "you guys get things done" and "you prevented a major assassination attempt," so we've been sent to accompany this ironclad out to determine what happened to the HMS Terror, which had returned to fantasy!England a year prior, with all hands missing but for the captain, Sir Francis Crozier. In our setting, Crozier had family ties that went all the way back to the founding of fantasy!England, and there was this sort of reliquary that had belonged to the family forebearer, but which turns out to be more or less our equivalent to the infamous Hand of Vecna, a D&D artifact of massive evil power, severed from the archlich and minor divinity Vecna himself.

The past few sessions, we've been traversing rivers and lakes and such in fantasy!Canada. There's been some big roleplay moments. One of the more significant ones came when our psychic rogue/warlock Vash tried to offer some comforting words to the frustrated and angry church-raised fighter Beckett. Vash had previously gone dream-walking through the party's dreamscapes, including Beckett's, seeing some dream-memory of a younger Beckett and a young girl, and tried to assure Beckett that he'd see "her" again. Only for Beckett to reveal to her (the rest of the party isn't aware yet) that while he does love "her," he must sever all connection to her for her sake. I think "she" is supposed to be his sister, because Beckett told Vash that his deadbeat parents had sold him to the church, and he willingly gave up major memories of his childhood to forget about them. It was a huge lore drop that none of us saw coming. It also explained the anger Beckett seemed to be feeling, as his faith in the church (though not the gods it worships) has wavered some, and he weaponized it when he revealed that he'd multiclassed into barbarian, allowing him to use the Rage ability to further increase his damage output.

This week's session saw no combat, but a mystery to solve as someone had sabotaged the ship's engine with a bomb and we needed to work out who was responsible. Fortunately, my gunslinger has access to a spell called Clue which highlights footprints and fingerprints, and colorizes each to a different individual, allowing us to rule out most of the crew. Only, we still got conflicting information, as several clues (including the spell) pointed to the ship's craftsman (carpenter), but who had an alibi. And after clearing him, other evidence pointed at a different crewman. We finally narrowed it down to specific crewmate, but when Vash/Knives confronted him in a one-on-one interrogation, that crewmate suddenly turned out to be a changeling, a member of the Lightning Guild (a thieves'/assassins' guild behind several of our cases), and a cultist of an evil dragon god. And then the changeling bit down on a cyanide capsule in his tooth to kill himself.

Good plan, except our Irish fey druid has the Revivify spell that can bring someone back from the dead. Which we did, and then the druid had the changeling hauled off to the Feywild for "extraordinary rendition" in some prison run by the Unseelie Court, where they would eventually break him. Except one of the things the changeling revealed before being dragged off was the new head of the Guild (called the Thunderlord) is Vash's biological father, much to her shock. She admitted to being adopted, but had always believed her bio-father was dead.

Toward the end of the session, Vash admitted to feeling conflicted about her father, implying some kind of obligation to him. Charlie (me) and Caradoc (the druid) both put the kibosh on that, saying that he hadn't raised her or been involved in her life. "He might be your father, but he wasn't your Dad." (Mike the DM, after this line got dropped, just nodded and said, "There it is." He knew someone would go for it.)

But then the topic got on to our satyr Caradoc, who was exiled from the Feywild some 3000+ years ago, and has been serving as the Seelie Court's deniable quasi-diplomatic asset in the material plane. We knew he's been cursed so he can't get drunk-- he doesn't get to experience the fun side of drinking, as he would put it-- so we assumed that he had drank the wrong person's expensive/valuable liquor or something...

(paraphrased)
Caradoc: "I got exiled for doin' what a satyr does."
Charlie: "Ah, you fucked up and drank the wrong person's booze?"
Caradoc: "No, you had the first part right."
Charlie: "You.. fucked... up?"
Vash: "Wait--"
Charlie & Vash: "You fucked Titania?"
Caradoc: "Yeah. I cucked Oberon."
Charlie: "Oh."
Caradoc: "The King of the Unseelie Court."
Vash: "Oh."
Charlie & Vash: "Oh no."

So Caradoc's exile was less because he'd pissed off his queen, and more a political move, because if Oberon were to find out, and Caradoc had still been around in the Seelie Court, Titania would have had to make an example of him.

Still, finding out your party's druid once cucked Oberon was both hilarious ("So that's why he's always depicted with the antlers!") and terrifying.

[Nunavut Pants]

Just picked up a copy of Dominion (the Big Box set). Hoping I can find someone who will play it with me.

Still doing the play-by-mail-ish Splendor on BGA. It's kind of tedious; each player gets up to 2 days to make their move...

Still playing real-time Six Nimmt. Still doing poorly at it.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Forgot to add a bit from Mysteries of Albia last week--

The changeling (when he was still disguised, but captured) was set up to be a little too freaky for Vash to intimidate with threats of violence, sounding more excited than anything when she threatened to break his feet. I remarked on this above the table--

Me: "He's too much of a freak for threats."
DM: (smiles, nodding) "Yup."
Bob: "He's into that kind of thing."
Eric: "Oh no."
Me: "He 100% is on the list with Ashley Madison."
(table breaks down laughing)
Bob: "And he likes foot stuff."
Me: "Oh definitely."

Even Mike the DM had to laugh at that one.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

This week was largely a series of combat encounters in a cave I nicknamed the "Mouth of Evil" since it had a pervasive evil aura about it, and the DM specifically described stalactites and stalagmites as resembling teeth in the mouth of the cave as we were entering it. We still put big DPS up in spite of a lack of our Fighter-Barbarian (who I've dubbed both IC and OOC as "Saint Beckett, Slayer of Monsters") (Jesse has been out of the country the last few weeks, and joined when he could via Discord, but wasn't able to connect this week) thanks to a few NPC allies on side.

Among the encounters was a young white dragon and its undead kobold minions ("zombolds" I immediately dubbed them), but Caradoc the Druid cast a Wall of Fire around the dragon, scorching it every round and preventing it from getting involved-- it tried climbing the walls and looking over the wall, but we were all staying out of range of its breath weapon. In the last round, I landed with a critical hit from a flaming bullet, and the wall of fire burned it to death on its turn. I asked, for flavor, if it could be my shot that was the killing blow, and everyone seemed to agree.

Then we came to the source of all the evil permeating the landscape in fantasy!Nunavut-- a coven of hags, which had been kept sealed in the Mouth of Evil courtesy of the macguffin we were looking for. (Turns out the macguffin, a reliquary of a historical figure in-setting, isn't akin to the Hand of Vecna, but is in fact a Good-aligned artifact.) Only, the hags had just broken the seal courtesy of a willing sacrifice-- another Lightning Guild/Dragon Cult member, and the accomplice of the changeling we'd captured the previous session-- and taunted the party. Even offered out forecasts of the future for three of the party, but failed to charm them.

We got swarmed by zombies the hags summoned up, but that was okay, because Caradoc the Druid fell back on old reliable-- using his Summon Creature spell to summon a herd of elks to stampede all over them. He nicknamed the herd "the Elkridge Boys," but this week flavored it (since we were in fantasy!Canada) that they were caribou instead. ("Caribou Crew" I dubbed them) Between our NPC allies holding the line against the zombies, and Caradoc going ham with his Wildshape to turn into a big bristled saber-toothed panther (a moorbounder), we held our own. My gunslinger got the kill on the last hag standing with his flaming bullet again.

And now the Hand of Franklin artifact is speaking in Vash the Rogue's head, telling her to "touch, and remember" -- and that's where we'll pick up next time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Jay's Home Game--

Given how trying to prep has been tricky for me with our Waterdeep campaign, I told my roommates that we'd be instead switching to one-shot adventures, so we can keep things moving along, and get a mix of RP and combat and so on. I also sweetened the pot by telling them I'd bump them to Level 4, give them a magic item (either a +1 weapon or a +1 shield, or a class-specific item), and some gold for good measure. (Our cleric and paladin both were disappointed they didn't have enough gold to buy plate armor yet.)

I wanted it to be a fun, possibly silly, little game, so I chose one of the adventures I'd done with D&D Adventurers League, "The Peculiar Case of the Selptan Felines." I admit I wasn't expecting the cleric to suddenly be more bloodthirsty than the rogue, though I managed to dissuade them from just smashing any and all cats on sight.

It was a good call to run the adventure. They all had fun, and they agreed that the vaguely-interconnected one-shots idea is probably better. I'll have to provide a little advice to a few of them about spell choices, or how to properly use some of their class features. The druid didn't use her Wildshape ability very much, and the rogue completely forgot about Sneak Attack-- though using that would have required being able to land an actual attack. (The dice were not kind to him.)

[Ghel]

In the latest session, I was playing my goblin warlock, Ninny, again. The main part of the adventure was pretty standard - go to a place, fight a yeti, travel back, get paid. But at the end of the session, we did some shopping, which was far more memorable. I’m playing my character as fairly naive. She doesn’t really understand what money is, and she didn’t even consider bartering to get a better deal on the sparkly magic hat she wanted. So the rest of the party was giving her advice on how not to get taken advantage of or stolen from. Then I described Ninny’s ratty armor and cloak with the sparkly hat, and everybody decided Ninny needed better armor and a new cloak. I felt so welcome. 😁

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D AL: Waterdeep Dragon Heist--

So our party already finished the main "campaign," we found the missing hoard of gold and have been hailed as heroes of the city, enjoyed some celebrity, etc. But our DM is running a "bonus dungeon" for us, now all up at Level 10, as we are tasked by the city's leader with going into the Xanathar Guild's headquarters and taking out the Xanathar itself. (For those unaware, Xanathar is a beholder, a challenging enemy for even a group of Level 10 adventurers.)

We were still cracking jokes and similar throughout the session, as is our wont. I continued to maintain my character, Pell, and his reputation as "the meanest cleric in Waterdeep" with his lack of patience for people...

DM: "Your tavern has been seeing a lot of business, word's gotten around that you've got money, and there are all these people and relatives turning up asking for money..."
Me: "Yeah, Pell is like, 'What are you doing here? I specifically left the Shadowfell to get away from you!'"

Some time later, two of the party had been hit with gas spores and felt sick, not with any kind of mechanical detriment, but...

DM: "Yeah, if anyone with proficiency in Medicine wants to give me a roll, you could figure out what's going on..."
Them: (look expectantly at me)
Me: "I don't have proficiency in Medicine."
Them: "What?! You're a cleric!"
Me: "I'm also the meanest cleric in the city!"
Them: "...that's fair. 'Oh, you're sick? Sounds like a YOU problem.'"
Me: "Yup."

There was the gnomish jester we found, too, who Pell immediately took a dislike to (he doesn't like clowns), even as the others were waffling between finding him amusing or annoying. Eventually, we released him from our capture, and he promptly pulled off a Ninja Vanish (literally threw down a small smoke bomb and disappeared), which had Pell glaring at the others. "You know what's worse than a clown? A clown you can't SEE!!"

But things got a bit more serious toward the end of the session. We hadn't even reached the end of the dungeon yet, but we found ourselves facing off against a pack of fish-people, but as we were getting into position to drop some Fireball spells in their midst, a complication arrived-- a mind flayer. A mind flayer and four of its pet intellect devourers, which are basically little brains with legs. The fish-people had been taken out already, apart from one caster, but when the flayer and devourers showed up, things went wrong badly, and they went badly fast.

First, the flayer hit the party with its mind blast ability, which applies a stunned condition, and caught all but one of the party. Then one of the devourers ran up to Pell and attacked him, and then used its Devour Intellect ability. I failed the INT save, and lost 7 points to my INT score, dropping it from 10 to 3. I wasn't completely mindless, but it imposed a -4 on my INT rolls, such a to escape the stunned condition. So when the flayer's turn came back up, it attacked me to try to extract Pell's brain.

The DM rolled a Nat-20, critical success. Dealing enough damage to completely knock out the rest of my HP, and straight up killing Pell. Not knocked unconscious, no death saves, just full on D-E-D dead.

DM: "So... what are Pell's thoughts in these final moments?"
Me: "I think... even in his mentally reduced state, Pell is aware of what's about to happen, and he thinks, 'Raven Queen, I'm coming home.'"

The rest of the party were still stun-locked, but our monk/rogue was able to land a blow on the flayer, causing it to retreat out of melee range, and then our ranger/fighter/rogue broke out of stun and was able to get in position to kill the flayer in return before it could teleport away. The devourers were all taken out, as was the last fish-person... and that's where the session ended.

Per Adventurers League rules, Pell will be revived/resurrected between sessions, I just don't get any material rewards that came following the point Pell died. But since he died in the last encounter of the session, it means he'll get all of the gold etc. that we found, and will get the benefits of a long rest, which the DM specifically said the rest of the party won't.

So Pell, the Meanest Cleric in Waterdeep, will live again. But it was still quite the shock to all of us that one of us actually died.

[Nunavut Pants]

Went to a Bunco afternoon yesterday. Bunco is a simple dice game that goes in groups of six rounds, numbered one through six. Each player rolls three dice and scores however many dice roll the number of the round. If any dice score, you keep rolling. There are special rules for rolling triples. Players at each four-person table are teamed up in pairs, but the pairs must change every round. Anyway, I wound up with the "Biggest Loser" title (the second time I've gotten that, out of five times playing!). I won five and lost thirteen rounds. It was good for a prize, though.

My BGA game of Splendor finally ended. I won! This game, there were three of the four "nobles" (bonus cards) that required diamonds to get. Of course, diamonds were not showing up with much frequency on the tableau, and they were generally snapped up quickly when they did show. I was able to buy some mid-level gem cards that came with VPs on them, in part by not going too far out of my way to save up for diamond cards. That put me up to six VPs. I then grabbed the only noble that did not require diamond cards by buying a card with 2 VPs on it. With the 4 VPs for the noble, that put me at 12 total. One opponent was at 10, I think the other at 11. I then reserved a 5-point card (getting a gold coin "wildcard" by doing so) which I was able to buy the next turn, giving me 17 points. Since 15 is required to win the game, that meant we were on the last round. But I was first player, so each other player did get a turn. The second player had a three-point diamond card reserved, which also gave them a noble. That put them at 17 as well. The third didn't have as many points available to them; I think their total was 15 or 16. I had fewer gem cards that I had bought, which is the tiebreaker, so I won!

I am still not a fan of the very very long turns, though. I would like it better if the game was played in real-time or near-real-time.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

Forgot to mention last week's Albia session. In the aftermath of defeating the hags, Vash did indeed touch the Hand of Franklin and got a vision/memory from ages past, basically witnessing the trials as various pre-Albian knights and warriors tried to pull the sword from the stone, overseen by the four mortals-turned-gods that comprise the pantheon which Albia generally worships. Yes, there was a King Arthur-analogue that drew the sword, and we saw his first PM and first Archbishop step forward to become his chief advisors. (The PM is the Franklin-- Edward Franklin-- whose hand became the Hand of Franklin artifact.) There were prophecies and lore to be had, and when Vash related what she'd seen and what she'd learned the Hand could do, she attuned to it, so its magic could be useful to us later.

Charlie also got to talk to Vash about his own past, specifically mentioning that he never knew who his father was. His mother, Eliza Tyburn, had been a scullery maid that occasionally earned some extra coin "by arrangement," and one time she wasn't careful enough and got pregnant with Charlie. She never told him who his father might be. This is also part of the reason for his name; in the neighborhood he grew up in, children from unwed mothers sometimes did not use her surname and instead just went by a letter, so he was just Charlie T growing up, which only became Charlie Tango when he joined the army. He admitted that he had wondered a great deal about who his father might be, but eventually stopped caring-- he was too busy trying to survive-- and specifically told Vash, "If my father were to turn up tomorrow and have expectations of me, I'd tell him to fuck off." As he put it, his father had never been a part of his life prior to now, so he, Charlie, felt no obligations toward him at all, trying to tell Vash she shouldn't feel obligated to her father for the same reasons.

When she pointed out that he was the leader of the Lightning Guild, to which she had previously belonged and still felt some loyalty to, he replied by saying, "The same guild that's been trying to kill you?"

We also had to prep for a major operation that our detective agency (which was founded by analogues of Holmes & Watson) was going to undertake against the Guild (which is either working with or has suborned the Salvation Army analogue) and its stronghold in Albia. The first issue was that the agency (the Maculatum Society) could not take action without a vote from the full five-member inner council, and they were down a member since one had passed away a few months prior. The society wanted us to approach the Mycroft Holmes analogue to offer her membership on the council-- something she'd turned down previously-- and asked us how we would do so.

We threw the DM off when we pointed out that we had no plan for that, as this was the first we'd learned of it and of her, we had nothing to go on. Besides the fact that she didn't want the job, Charlie also pointed out a bad precedent it might set (and the resentment it may cause) to have someone be invited into the society and skip straight from rookie to the very top. Instead, we suggested promoting the Ambassador we'd worked with in a prior case (who had just popped up again), as he was already one step below the council in rank, he already had governmental connections, and he was willing to do the job.

What followed from there was a bunch of reconnaissance and surveillance on the enemy stronghold, trying to see what we could learn about its layout, its operations, etc. We confirmed that they were working with this uber-hag we'd heard of previously-- more or less described as Caradoc's "opposite number"-- and that the Guild/Army were planning on marching on London in the aftermath of an upcoming election, win or lose. (Also incidentally learned that Charlie's old bully/nemesis Macheath has been not only recruited by them, but that he's running their indoctrination classes.)

Looks like we're moving into the endgame, so the next couple of months should be interesting!

[Nunavut Pants]

Hosted a game day recently at the clubhouse for our condo complex.

We played Codenames, 3 vs. 3, boys against girls. I think the guys won two rounds and the girls one.

We then moved on to "Mexican Train Dominoes". The newest player to the group won that one. He started off well--on your first turn only, you are allowed to play as many tiles as you can, and he ran through most of his hand. I didn't have a "12" to match the seed tile, so I had to draw instead--and was not able to use that first-turn play-all-the-tiles as a result. I never recovered from that, and lost quite handily.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Mysteries of Albia--

Oh man. This session.

The majority of it was Annie's infiltration of the enemy stronghold, posing as a new recruit, successfully bluffing her way through introductory questioning, holding her own in a tournament to figure out who among the recruits would be among those chosen to join the elite guard and thus passing, and then finding a place inside the castle to place her half of the portal that would let the rest of us join her.

Except while she was in there, she spotted two servants that were familiar to her-- her wife and daughter, who were under some kind of enchantment and didn't recognize her. Annie still fulfilled the mission, we were able to get inside and stealthily get to a magic workshop, where we ganked a bunch of their magical supplies and found the evidence we needed connecting this group to the Lightning Guild-- evidence which would let the authorities come down on the fortress and castle. We bailed soon after to avoid being caught-- but Annie stayed behind, stashing the portal-half and stealthing back to her quarters inside.

She made contact shortly thereafter, explaining there were non-combatants that needed to be evacuated. So she went back to said wife and daughter, managed to get them to a private enough place where she could Dispel Magic on them to restore their memories, then got them to the portal to evac. While our druid flew them back to safety in giant eagle form, Annie then spilled the beans about herself. She had been working for an organization that had taken her family hostage, and had only just found out that organization was the Lightning Guild. Moreover, she had been the mole/leak within the detective agency-- the leak she had been assigned to find!-- and she had also obtained a strand of Vash's hair and turned it over to the Guild. Needless to say, trust issues were an immediate thing.

The DM revealed that Annie's subversion, status as the mole, and everything had been her player's idea, and that he'd been impressed at how smoothly she'd tricked Vash into letting her braid her hair, with no one being any the wiser.

Anyway, Vash's hair being obtained was a Bad Thing, since at the very least, it would allow the hag working with the Guild to scry on her, making Vash a potential security risk. But the authorities turned up, we prepared a plan to storm the castle, when a voice from the castle told us that they had their hands on Charlie's old scouting partner from his army days-- the same partner he thought had died during the war-- as well as on Beckett's sister.

On top of this, we as players found out that the Guild/militant group counted among their numbers at least three members of Charlie's old unit-- again, people he thought had died in the war.

Next week is gonna be ... hoo, boy.

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D AL: Waterdeep Dragon Heist--

This was it. The finale of our campaign, when we would confront the titular leader of the Xanathar Guild, the crazed beholder itself. Pell was brought back from the dead despite having had his brain slurped out by a mind flayer (I sort of jokingly said that Pell involuntarily burned his daily use of Divine Intervention, as he turned up in the afterlife and his god basically just yeeted him back to life), and our missing sixth player was back this week.

After a combat encounter, we came across what was effectively the Xanathar's "family crypt," which contained urns full of beholder ash, and three glass tubes containing dead beholders. We found a trap, as well, in the form of two buttons. Pressing one caused an eye beam to shoot out of a statue at the person who touched it. We thought that maybe it was just trapped so that both buttons needed to be pressed at the same time, so our Monk decided to test that theory, and failed the DEX save to avoid the beams. And he vanishes in a puff of ash. Uh oh.

As a cleric, Pell can cast Revivify, which can bring someone back from the dead if they just died, but that depends on there being a body to cast it on, and ash doesn't count.

We had to move along, and came to the Guild dining hall, as well as the kitchen, both of which were full of Guild members. (The latter had kobold chefs and two gazers.) We were debating our course of action, unable to make a decision, so the DM turned to Monk's player and described him finding himself in a wooden coffin, which he was unable to punch his way out of. But he did eventually spot a sigil of an eye on the side, which he pressed, and was sort of teleported back to where the eye beam had hit him. So we roleplayed a bit of humor when he casually walks back up to the party right as Pell is saying something like, "If Carnak were here, then we could [yadda yadda]."

Well, our fairy Bard (called Ned Zeppelin) decided to stealth into the dining hall to get the lay of the land, and they did it by using Disguise Self to appear as one of the kobold chefs. But when they tried to cut back through the kitchen, one of the other chefs spotted them. Which led to some bad rolls, and the Guild members all started to aggro. Seven kobold chefs and several thugs rushed Ned, but fortunately our Rogue, Mouse, got to the doors so he and Ned could hold them open to provide targets for Pell, who rounded the corner, saw them and threw a Fireball into the kitchen. Killing every hostile except one of the gazers, which survived with one hit point.

The fight against Xanathar and several of his goons was the fight which almost led to a TPK. The chamber we teleported into was more of an antechamber, and we discovered there was a lair action that happened every round-- Xanathar would cause spectral hands to emerge from the walls and grab at anyone within ten feet of them. This led to a few people getting caught, and Xanathar (who could turn invisible) would also focus its central eye from which it emits an anti-magic field in a cone. A lot of us were stuck in that antechamber for a round or two, caught by the hands or paralyzed by one of its eye-beams. And then Pell got caught by Xanathar's petrification eye-beam and I failed the save to avoid turning to stone.

This was bad. The only thing we had to hand that could turn him back is a 5th-level spell called Greater Restoration, and the only other person who had that spell was Ned. At Level 10, both Ned and Pell only had two 5th-level spell slots, and Ned's player had been hoping to save them for a big damage spell. Ned used their next turn to try to use Greater Restoration on Pell-- but they were still in Xanathar's anti-magic cone, so the spell slot was used up without taking effect. When the DM told us the spell failed, both Ned's player and I were furious. I was on the verge of packing up and leaving, as there was literally nothing I could do while Pell was petrified.

Fortunately, in a later round, Ned was allowed to get the Greater Restoration off, and then came one of the first great plays of the session.

I was worried that Pell would get grappled by the lair action again, but before the lair action came around in initiative, Burnie Cinders-- a Dragonborn Warlock played by our sixth player-- decided to throw a Hail Mary and asked the DM to have Xanathar make a CHA save. I had warned Burnie's player that beholders have a +8 bonus to these kind of saves, but he decided it was either this or a TPK. And he asked the DM for fair play and to roll the save in front of the screen, where we could see it. The DM told us that for whatever spell Burnie was casting to work, Xanathar needed to roll an 8 or lower. She rolled... and it came up 8.

And Xanathar got Polymorphed into a chicken.

We were cheering, but the fight wasn't over. I used my turn to use a shadar-kai racial ability to teleport out of the antechamber and within range of two downed party members, casting Mass Cure Wounds to bring them back up. We couldn't attack the chicken-- once the Polymorph's HP are depleted, the creature returns to its normal form-- so our plan was to try to grab the chicken and stuff it into a Bag of Holding we'd found. But when the goons' turn came around, every single one of them targeted Burnie with arrows. Burnie had to succeed on a string of concentration checks, or the Polymorph would break, and while he succeeded on several, he then rolled a Nat-1 and so Xanathar was restored to normal, albeit now grounded and not flying.

Our Monk ran up and tried to grapple Xanathar, to keep it from flying away, causing him to have to tank several attacks from Xanathar on its turn, but ended up getting downed by them. Our party's DPS mains-- Mouse the Rogue and our ranger/rogue/fighter Kyros-- unloaded as many attacks as they could on Xanathar before it could fly or turn invisible, but we had no idea how damaged Xanathar was, and there were still several thugs in play as well. By this point, we were running short on time, as well, since the store where we play was getting ready to close.

So then I threw my own Hail Mary. I didn't have a lot of damaging spells that I was confident would land, so I cast a 4th-level spell.

Me: Okay, I would like Xanathar to make a WIS save, please. DC 16.
DM: He fails.
Me: He is banished.

Banishment sends the target to another plane of existence for 1 minute. There's no way to break the banishment early, they're just stuck there.

The DM declared that we then won the boss battle. The thugs stood no chance against a party of Level 10 adventurers-- even after several of us had taken some bad hits-- and the DM revealed that when I landed that Banishment on Xanathar, it only had 20 HP left. So when it returned, the party would be able to get all the hits needed in to kill it.

It came down to the wire, and we were genuinely worried about a TPK, but we managed to succeed. And once again saved the city of Waterdeep.