Drink Talk Roll Extended #30: Raging Bull

Session Recap

Once again picking up exactly where the last session ended, the party began their confrontation with the adult salamanders in the Fire Temple. One of them hit Khorr with a few attacks from its spear but the halfling rogue proved too slippery to be constricted by its tail. The other one tried to hit him with a ranged attack from the other side of the room but Khorr was able to react in time avoiding any damage from the rain of magma.

Sirocco did as he always does and started buffing everyone before sitting down. Jedah brought the firepower and was able to take down the one in melee with Khorr by using his Action Surge and scoring a critical hit on the final blow. This egged Amra on into using his abilities against the other salamander but he wasn’t so lucky. Amra’s streak of bad luck continued with the salamander scoring multiple hits against him and grappling him. But, as it prepared to drag him into the magma with it, Jedah once again was able to kill the creature with a well-placed bullet.

The party decided to forgo a rest and continued through the doors at the back of the magma chamber where they found another set of stairs that seemed to climb upwards forever. The steps here were even more destroyed than those in the previous set with only Khorr having an easy time find footholds.  

At the top of the stairs, the party found a mostly empty room save for a pile of metal in the background and a pool of magma in the center in which sat an altar. The Fire Ruby Jedah was carrying started pulling him towards the altar even more fiercely than it had been since they entered Mt. Lohi. Unable to cross the magma, the party decided to try to using mage hand to place the stone on the altar but when the hand found a barrier preventing it from doing so.  

At the time, a light blinked from the pile of junk…and then, that pile stood up revealing the great mechanical bull designed to guard this altar. It immediately started charging around the room.  The party moved quickly to fight this raging bull but it seemed to barely notice them as it made rings around the pool.  

The one thing it did take notice of was when Amra activated his crane sword’s transformation. The bull picked up speed and charged straight into Amra and kept going until it hit the wall.  This also caused some rocks from the ceiling to fall down into the pool causing the magma to expand further out. Jedah and Sirocco were nearly caught in it but managed to move out in time.   

After seeing the bull repeat this process with Amra and Sirocco on its second lap of the magma pool, the party decided that the way to defeat this thing was to have it run into the magma and hope it would disintegrate. Seeing as he was the only one capable of flight, Amra was forced to take the lead on that flying over to the altar and daring the bull to charge at him. Sadly, the dice weren’t in Amra’s favor with his attacks not dealing enough damage and the bull scoring a few good hits on him. However, on the next round, after the rest of the party had taken their chances to put in some last bits of damage, he was able to slay the beast flying it around the altar until it finally cut a turn too close and ended up slamming straight into the barrier around the altar.

With the boss defeated, the magma pool and the barrier around the altar disappeared allowing the party to return the Fire Ruby. The night sky appeared above them and from it, the constellation of the Crane formed. It manifested into Hyashi the Guardian Beast of Fire and descended to the Mortal Plane to address the party. Hyashi thanked them for their deeds and wished them luck in returning the other two gems.  

Amra told the Guardian Beast of his devotion to both it and the God of Wind, Favel and asked it Hyashi would be able to empower his sword further. Hyashi told him that there was indeed more power to be unlocked but Amra would also need to prove his devotion in times both good and bad. Amra tentatively accepted the guardian’s reasoning and with that, Hyashi returned to the Divine Realm.

With that, the party returned to the entrance of the tower in the Forge of the Gods where the held a mild celebration before heading to sleep. The next morning, the returned to the palace in Emberfell where the royal family held a feast to celebrate the party’s saving them from Darius and his mother. They were joined by most of the Leaping Lemure’s crew and the royal family also awarded them with a few pieces of treasure from their vaults. After two days of partying though, Captain Ren noted that they still had to depart for Hozumi. The celebration ended and the party returned to the ship to begin the second stage of their trek to revive Ulrich. They also leveled up to 11. And that’s where our session ended.

Who’s the Boss?

Even if you haven’t caught all of them, I’ve made it clear multiple times that I’ve…. let’s say, “taken a lot of inspiration,” from the various media I’ve watched/read/played over my life for this campaign.

This specific boss fight was inspired by two bosses from The Legend of Zelda series: King Dodongo from Ocarina of Time and Goht from Majora’s Mask. Very specifically, I wanted to have a fight that escalated as it went along. That’s where I got the idea of combining a shrinking battlefield with a giant boss who could take up the entire width of it.  It was intended to force the party to either keep on the run or look for ways to stop or divert the bull.  

The last time that I ran this campaign, I only had the idea of a rampaging bull enemy made of metal to fit the theme of being forged in fire. The party also had more magic capabilities which allowed Dr. Skye, then a member of the party and a high-level psionic wizard, to create barriers that made the fight a lot easier than I had intended.  

So, with all of this in mind, I went back to the original version I had for that last campaign. That was based on the Gorgon from the 2014 rule book. I mostly picked it because it had the closest picture to what I imagined the boss would look like and started working from there. Since it was a boss the would be working alone, I gave it Legendary Actions and Legendary Resistances so that it essentially had as many turns as the players did. This was especially useful in making it much faster than its base speed because it could keep moving out of its regular turn. I also raised its AC and doubled its health so it would survive longer than a turn against these characters.

Some of its characteristics were improvisations on my part. The way it reacted to Amra activating the sword was the big one. I thought that as a guard against the return of the crane, seeing something that looked like it appearing right before its eyes, the boss would rush at that. Also helped that it played into the “bulls charging at the color red” stereotype. It let me get straight to the point where it charged into something causing the expanding pool to come into play and had I had more time to prepare it, I think it could have served as an effective marker of the different phases of the fight. Well, I guess the third time’s the charm.

I’m not sure how much help this would be for anyone else but I think it’s a decent look into my process for creating a boss monster going from concept and execution to revision and a second attempt. This is a vital part of designing for TTRPGs and games in general. Maybe I’ll take notes about this time, revise and have an even better report for next time.

Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.