Spoilers warning! This session actually reminded me of my Ptolus 4E campaign, with a difference of things happening instantly instead of calculating helpless villain's hitpoints from thousands to zero. But let's start from where the heroes ended the last session, running away from a horde of snake men in the ruined city of Quollaba. They ran down the hill and hid in a building, and everyone was able to jump to the roof of an adjacent building from the balcony when the creatures finally found them. Some climbing over a wall-like barricade composed of rubble and the heroes were closing a tower, where Unoch, the eunuch who had found them, was clearly taking them. Arrows shot from the tower started hitting the snake men behind the heroes.

Technical note: I mixed my own chase rules with the customized chase of B&B and I'll have to say that I'm still not happy with these rules. I might have to try the new official chase rules after all... or use modified dramatic tasks.

Tower of the Widow

The heroes make it to the tower, and monsters withdraw away from the arrow range, but start a siege on the tower. Tired -looking Queen Zamira welcomes the heroes with a few eunuchs and harem -girls and tells that something horrible spawned at the temple, and that she has found out that the curse is true, and if all involved in the assassination will be killed, manifested god will gain tremendous power and will be able to stay on earth permanently. Zamira is the last conspirator left.

The tower was Zamira's late mother's, and there's a large collection of books upstairs. The heroes spent some time resting (with the girls) and some of the heroes were also searching library. They found out that if the demon's vessel is destroyed, he will be banished, and that he will try to seduce people to follow him but will ultimately devour them; they also found a prayer of protection against the dark god. Just after finding the prayer, an eunuch shouted an alert because of closing snake men. Godzul had rested all the time and was able to recover a benny - lucky for him, as he had already used his bennies!

Terrain: Two cake-backing molds... No, I wasn't able to make round tower terrains to this session either.

The battle ended quite fast; Most of the heroes were downstairs where a large snake man was trying to crush the gate, and devised a plan with the eunuchs; they opened the gate before the large snake man was about hit the gate again, and it stumbled in; Tereis and Würful made an assault, that after double fumble on soaking lead to fast decapitation of the leading monster. The rest of the pack panicked and fled. But when the heroes downstairs celebrated, two winged snake men appeared upstairs from the windows; Godzul and Falchor got rid of one of them, but the second one flew off with the Queen.

Godzul's player got to control the harem girls and decided that they are just adoring and caressing Godzul during the combat. When the snakeman's body turned into a body of a priest, Wurful found the fang -amulet he had brought to the temple to be identified a few sessions earlier.

To the temple

The snakeman had flown towards the temple so the heroes travelled there. The temple was surrounded by a horde of snake men in partial slumber, but the heroes used the rope they used the last time to enter the temple. The temple was quite ruined from the inside, entrance fallen as well as one of the walls and part of the pillars. The large snake -statue was gone, slate below it broken, and a large hole was in the ground where the altar had been. The heroes climbed down from the balcony and went to the hole in the ground, which turned out to be descending tunnel. Coincidentally, when heroes were sneaking to the temple, my playlist decided to give us the song that played when Conan was sneaking to the temple of a snake god in the movie...

Miniatures note: I had no huge snakes. My options were to use a Behir or Purple worm, or a large snake which I chose to use even if it looked too small.

The heroes soon arrived to a large cave filled with stalagmites and stalakites, shining dimly in light of crystals. There was a huge snake in the cave, coiled around Zamira. The heroes tried to sneak to the creature, but appeared to be awake after all. It opened it's three eyes - forehead eye revealing to be the tyrant's head! It started hissing to the heroes, promising to take them as apprentices if they surrendered. Having read warnings from a book in the widow's library, everyone was able to resist the demon's lure. Then everybody agreed that there's been enough talk.

The devourer started with a joker, interrupting tereis that was charging in. Unfortunately for it, it hadn't seen Tereis's fighting skills and it missed badly. And the fear spell by the tyrant wasn't much more successful, although I might have forgotten the joker bonus. Too bad, it could have made a big difference. Tereis bumped the creature's head to the adjacent altar and godzul summoned two primitive -looking creatures next to the snake. Things started looking worse when 4 winged salesmen (er, snakemen - funny enough bad correction by my mobile to be corrected!) appeared, harassing the heroes, dragging Doris and one of the summons towards the dark roof if the cave. But then Wurful charged the beast, swinging it twice. Even if it could constrict the Queen to suck lifeforce from her, hits dealing 25-35 were too horrible to soak. The devourer was left with 2 wounds. And when Wurful began the next round with a joker, there's not much to tell about the next round but no-one was interested in saving the Queen from sure death by strangling. Except that the wild card was able to stabilize herself with a benny reroll.

After fleeing the collapsing cave, the queen was healed to consciousness. She was first very annoyed of the heroes not trying to save her, but realized then that she was awake, and she needed someone to send a word to nearby settlements that here's jobs available and that moneyless adventurers (their crystals had turned into 3-eyed snakes) were likely to make trouble, so she gave them a bag of gold, large enough for months of carousing (except that the heroes are quite capable carousers) and they left with a caravan that was heading towards Kyros. Luckily for the heroes the queen had survived, otherwise the heroes could have left with very little loot.

To Kyros

The caravan master told that he had lost to the desert for a week, even if he knows the desert very well! In the caravan Wurful also met his cousin he had last seen as a kid, as big as him but also very handsome. The heroes were also work as guards, but they decided to enjoy the trip for once.

In Kyros, it was time for carousing. While the Legend of Steel's table is likely to grow old much faster that b&b's own card system, everyone wanted to roll on that this time as they heard they can wake up owning a tavern - which is exactly what happened to Doris and Godzul that were partying together - in addition to being arrested for hooliganism (again). Wurful and Tereis got beaten up and robbed - I believe they must have been REALLY drunk! They start the next session with a wound. Falchor in turn ended up owning an exotic mount - still haven't decided yet, but it's likely to be a camel.

Here ends this session, giving an interesting setup for the next session. In kyros, owning a tavern and a camel. Although citadel of winged gods is about Kyros, I really want to run my own adventures again, and I already have an amount of b&b adventures waiting in Beasts of the Dominions!