Session 14: Siegfried’s Last Hoard
Session date: 2026-08-04 Campaign: Tip of the Diceberg Status: Canon summary with review flags
Previously on…
At the Soshenstar fork, Jacques LaFleur and Summer Mooneyham continued toward Shadowfang Keep while the player party diverted into Wyrmheart Mine. Bodius, Isilrod, Bonzo, Faf, Moghammer, and Clarky had destroyed the mine’s encountered kobolds and six dwarven specters, but the fortified lower chamber remained unlooted and the young red dragon still waited below.
Summary
The party chose sleep before plunder. They bedded down among the smoldering kobold bodies and completed the long rest they had only discussed at the end of Session 13. Bodius dreamed of his family roughly ten years earlier, before the fire: his father taught him the stars, his mother served Sunday boiled hot dogs, and they watched a ball game together until a rumbling scream woke him. Bonzo dreamed of Calypso, who repeated, “Trust the numbers.”
The rest also settled one piece of character business. Faf’s five-notch Debt Collector > Put to Fire was accepted as war-bonded after its trip through the previous battle’s flames. Everyone woke with the full benefits of the rest, though each character was assessed five damage in the sulfurous mine; whether that represents a continuing hazard remains unresolved.
The lower chamber finally gave up its spoils. The kobold inventors carried alchemist’s fire, a little gold, healing supplies, and five gold-plated fishing hooks. More importantly, the party recovered an Aldani grappling gun with a single cartridge and no known way to make another, which went to Isilrod. A locked chest held a dragon trap large enough to resemble an oversized bear trap. The mithral half plate found in Session 13 was assigned to Faf, bringing his armor class to 18.
Curiosity then made the descent harder. The party pulled a rope-tethered boulder loose from the central column, dropped it onto the rails, and watched it smash the track before falling into the chasm. Walking onward, Isilrod and Bodius triggered a hidden grenade and eight winged kobolds burst from the dark. The fight ended with all eight dead, after which the party stopped for a short rest.
A second cart carried the group to the mine’s bottom. A waterfall fed a pool of quippers, dwarven skeletons littered the floor, and an elevated rail branch disappeared into an unexplored opening. Isilrod’s identification candle also settled the nature of the three small purple worms collected upstairs: they were nonmagical infants of the enormous species, and their milk was said to be highly poisonous. The party discussed harvesting them but did not do so.
Bodius crept along the elevated approach and found the hoard first. Four red capes and four crude wooden dragon masks hung near a mountain of gold. Beneath it slept Siegfried, a young red dragon. He woke calling for an elderly kobold named Quigley. Clarky tried to bluff him with a story about Quigley’s sick mother, but Siegfried saw through the intrusion, demanded 5,000 gold, and launched himself toward the party.
The party’s improvised trap worked far better than it had any right to. Isilrod’s Stinking Cloud denied Siegfried his first attack. Faf struck twice with Debt Collector, toppled him, and fixed him with an Unwavering Mark. Isilrod followed with Dissonant Whispers, driving the dragon backward onto the waiting trap. Its jaws snapped shut on one claw, damaged him, and disabled that limb.
Bonzo added a bomb and later smashed the party’s mysterious hot orange goo across Siegfried’s face. Bodius layered Hexblade’s Curse and Hex before hurling the Jug of Living Lightning into the dragon’s flank. The burst of blue electricity badly wounded Siegfried, though the transcript never establishes whether the jug survived the attack.
Siegfried answered with fire. His first breath caught Faf and Bodius even after both dodged the worst of it. His second blast dropped Faf unconscious. Moghammer bounded in and stabilized his rider while Bonzo and Bodius kept the dragon occupied. Isilrod then threaded one last Dissonant Whispers through a narrow line across the cavern. The psychic strike hit the end of Siegfried’s tail, and the dragon collapsed dead.
The hoard held 4,000 gold pieces, though the party never settled a reliable final division. Its named treasures included an unclaimed black dragon-scale scabbard that reshapes itself for a chosen weapon, two greater-healing potions, a fire-resistance potion, a gold ship-shaped ornament, and a copper-and-jade mug that continually produces any chosen nonmagical liquid. Isilrod took the mug.
The strangest prize was a crystal-framed painting of Bodius’s family. It showed the same happy hearth, hot dogs, and reflected ball game that Bodius had seen in his dream only hours earlier. Bodius claimed it without hesitation.
Bonzo harvested a full jug of red-dragon milk and cleanly removed the Wyrmheart dragon heart. The milk is not the faerie milk required by Dr. Jack Aubrey, but the heart completes one of the three components needed to cure Mina Aubrey’s vampirism. The victory came with a cost to the larger quest: the party remembered too late that a red dragon might know the death curse’s location, and nobody could speak with the dead.
The session ended with the party divided. Bodius, Isilrod, Bonzo, and Clarky remained around the hoard while Faf, revived but furious that the others had rushed the gold while he lay unconscious, withdrew with Moghammer to the mine entrance. The quippers still churn below, the horizontal railway exit remains unexplored, and the final state of the bottom chests is contradictory in the transcript.
Outcomes
- The party completed the lower-chamber long rest and looted the Session 13 battlefield.
- Faf received the mithral half plate, raising his AC to 18; Debt Collector is now war-bonded.
- Isilrod received a single-cartridge Aldani grappling gun.
- Eight winged kobolds were defeated after a grenade ambush.
- The party reached the bottom of Wyrmheart Mine.
- Siegfried was killed by Isilrod’s Dissonant Whispers.
- Faf was knocked unconscious and stabilized by Moghammer, then later returned to consciousness.
- Bonzo harvested the dragon heart and a jug of red-dragon milk.
- Mina Aubrey’s ritual now has its dragon-heart component; tears of an angel and milk of a faerie remain.
- The party killed the red dragon before questioning him about the death curse.
- The hoard and its major items were found, but gold allocation, scabbard ownership, and several minor ownership details remain unresolved.
- The session ended with Faf and Moghammer at the entrance and the rest of the party at the hoard.
Open Threads
- Find another route to the death curse’s location through the medusa or eagleman clues, or eventually question Siegfried’s corpse.
- Preserve and deliver the dragon heart to Dr. Aubrey; find tears of an angel and milk of a faerie.
- Explore the horizontal railway exit and resolve the quipper pool at the mine bottom.
- Reconcile Faf with the party and settle the hoard division.
- Confirm whether the Jug of Living Lightning survived being thrown into Siegfried.
- Resolve the contradictory end-state of the bottom chests and the unclaimed black dragon-scale scabbard.
- Jacques LaFleur and Summer Mooneyham remain on the separate Shadowfang Keep rescue route.
- The death-curse clock, Watto raid clock, Balm Bitdoom debt, and owed truth to Flea continue.
Transcript: Full session transcript
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