Our Dungeons & Dragons game got off to a late start last night, but jumped straight to the action. We had cliffhangered last week after the first round of combat between the party and a pair of Erinyes (Furies) with a pair of Hell Hounds in tow and Bayla, the succubus that has been plaguing the bard, Calvinus, with thoughts of betraying his comrades, sex, and murder. (How’s that for a sentence..?)

The first round saw the Legate Quintus Marcellus Quadius attack with minimal effect Poena (Indignation), who then gutted him and dropped to near dead. The poisoned blade cut through his armor like butter and was killing him quickly. Invidia (Malice) had injured the monk, Icio, badly, as well. Calvinus had managed to slow the hell hounds with shatter, doing enough damage to stun them. Augustinian had cast a cure wounds and a lesser restoration on Marcellus to prevent his death. Carrus the dwarf had found himself using a bench as a shield, and found his sword almost useless.

I quickly realized that we were looking at a TPK (total party kill for the uninitiated) within a few rounds. Over the week, I was thinking of how to save their butts, and decided i would throw a character in that I had crated, should they need more firepower.

We started with round 2: Marcellus woke from his near death experience to the awful sensation of his guts dragging themselves back into his body from the healing and restoration combo. Calvinus distracted Poena long enough for her not to attack Carrus, then crawled under the table to get away. Augustinian hit Marcellus with protection from evil. Carrus realized he didn’t have anything that would really hurt the fury, so he used his sword — with an excellent throw — to cut the candelabra over her head, which with Calvinus’ action lost her an action. He then whipped a large silver serving tray, discus style, into her face. (Which then ricocheted into the back of the recovering Marcellus’ head.) The hell hounds snapped out of their stupor but wouldn’t have an attack until the next round. Icio and Invidia were locked in a battle, flying above the others’ head and damaging candelabras, walls, and other things while wailing away at each other. With some lucky rolls, he was able to avoid dying, but used his reaction to attempt to call on his angel, Michael, to aid him.

Bayla the succubus made a last attempt to win over Calvinus, then switched from the carrot to the stick. That was when she and the furies noted the arrival of a new figure — a tall woman in a hooded leather dress and leggings, pale skinned with eyes so light blue or white they almost seemed to glow, and a long barbed tail, similar to that of a nephalhim (the damned or what we’re calling tiefling.) They exclaimed with disgust the appearance of “the Anathema.” With a few graceful moves and contralto utterances, she generated an eldritch spear that when throw broke into two and injured the furies.

The next rounds saw Marcellus and Icio battling the two furies with limited effect using the broken-in-two blesse and silver-tipped quarterstaff of the monk. Calvinus was able to use his songs to try and throw the furies off their game, and the hell hounds — unleashed on the Anathema by Poena — cut loose with their fire breath, singing Carrus’ beloved beard, his eyebrows, and the left side of his hair off, not to mention the clothes not covered by his centurion armor. Tables and walls were set alight. Augustinian was cuaght by Poena in a rope of entanglement, which almost broke his concentration on the protection spell…

…and that’s when Michael arrived. The angel was written up as a solar with a few tweaks. He burst through the window, shot flaming arrows into the furies and succubus (driving the latter to disappear and run for it.)  The furies responded and soon the room was awash with flaming swords, daylight cast by the Anathema, and then falling husks of armor and discarded weaponry as the Erinyes were taken down by Michael and Icio, wih the aid of the Anathema.

While normally, it’s a good idea to make sure the PCs, the heroes, are the ones that get the spotlight for fights like this, the fact they were hugely outclassed seemed to make this a good time to use a literal deus ex machina (which is, to be fair, build into the aasimar character, Icio.) Additionally, it set the stakes dramatically higher, and created an air of awe and fear. They were no longer fighting small armies in Germania; they are taking on gods and angels.

MIchael then confronted the Anathema, who doffed her hood to reveal the pale white coloring of an aasimar, but the horns, along with the obvious cloven hooves and tail or a tiefling. When Icio asked why she aided them, she told him, “My mother thought you would need my help, brother…”

Michael informed her she should stay clear of them, but she told him she could not. She had been tasked by the Lord of the Underworld, her master, to assist them. All the while, she waited, arms wide, for Michael to smite her…but he cleared off. Calvinus was the only one to hear her say, “I thought not, father.”

Icio was still in shock by the whole affair — the furies, Michael finally intervening, and this new creature. “Are we related?” he asked her. “Of course we are, brother.” Not brother as in his being a monk, but her brother. “How are we related?” he asked. “We come from the same seed.” “Who is your mother?” “She who stands at the crossroads and sees all possibilities.”With that, she left, telling them, “You’ll see me soon.”

But his father is Zaccharius, a carpenter! Calvinus informed him of her father comment, which has left him stunned…could this be a trick of Satan? He knows the Adversary has taken an interest in him. Yet, Michael did not smite her when he had the chance.

We ended there, with Carrus the dwarf shaving forlornly, and taking an interest in the weaponry and armor the furies left behind when they were killed(?)

This episode had some great reveals and managed to start tying Greco-Roman and Christian myth together. I’ll be doing a lot of reading on the Chaldean Oracles and Julian the Apostate this week, which will link Yahweh/Jehovah, the “Shadow” that supposedly keeps the various planes separated to protect the world of Man from the gods, and the Anathema’s mother. It also fleshes out more of Icio’s backstory with Michael, hints at the nature of angels vis-a-vis the old gods, as well as that of the barukhim (aasimar) and nephellhin (tiefling.)