Showdown At The Lepiditia Vault

The party have braved the jungles, the cenotes, and the ruins of Lepiditia. Now, with all the pieces of the vault key they need, they have entered to pursue the goal of their quest. However, they are unaware that the vault's final guardian remains to test them - an echo of the one who locked the vault all those years ago, and whose mantle one of the party now hope to obtain...

Apologies everyone for the long delay in posts - in order to keep this boss monster a surprise from my party I wanted to hold off on publishing until they had seen it in all its glory!

Today's post features a special stat block, in that it is not one stat block but two! The Echo Of The Brightwing Empress was the final boss in our current story arc, a spectral guardian left behind by the last ruler of Veridia to guard her civilisations most important treasures - most notably her own winged cloak, symbol of her station, that one member of the party was honour-bound to recover. The Echo was left behind both as a guardian, but also as a test for anyone who managed to enter the vault to ensure they were worthy of taking the items within. In order to make it a particularly notable battle I went with a strategy that I've seen floating about in several places within the Daggerheart community, which is to split the stat block into phases that allow the battle to evolve and keep the players on their toes!

As you enter the vault, the walls shudder as the energy that has pressed upon you during your journey through these ruins intensifies and pools in the centre of the room. From this coalescing energy a faceless spectre in a tattered yet ornate robe rises, hands glowing with scintillating druidic energy. As your foot hits the floor on the inside of the threshold, its featureless face snaps in your direction, and you feel an intense stare, almost as if you are being tested...

The Subdued stage of the fight was mainly focussed around raising a group of minions to protect the Echo, and allowing the players to discover the Crystal Chrysalis/Scintillating Swarm mechanic. In the version of this stat block I used in the real combat, Crystal Chrysalis was a reaction on being damaged - however this did become quite frustrating for the players as the higher difficulty led them to use up the session's tag teams early, which left them few resources for the more powerful version later, so in this published version I've updated it to be an Action (which combined with Relentless should be a more balanced change).

Once the Subdued version is defeated, you can narrate a suitable epic boss fight power-up moment as it transforms into the Resplendent version - here's an example you can use or modify to fit your scene:

As your final attack punches a gaping wound in the spectral creature, you hear a piercing cry as the lights in the room dim. You see the energy that permeates the ruins drawn down through the roots in the walls and gather into the creature, as it begins to emit a multicoloured iridescent glow. The energy courses to its shoulders and back, forming into beautiful patterned wings that spread out as if unfurling from a chrysalis, its feet hovering off the ground as it takes flight above you...

The tactics with the Resplendent Echo change dramatically - it is now significantly more mobile, so swoop around the field picking different targets and marking as many with the Aura condition as possible, so the Wrath Of A Thousand Eyes can pack a suitably terrifying punch. A caution to go along with this stat block, it proved a tough challenge - two members of the party went down to it, one suffering a wound as a result (although in fairness it made for a good story moment!). I think this is probably OK balance for a boss fight, but its definitely not something to throw casually at players, and make sure to telegraph the different abilities so they have a chance to counter them (especially the way to destroy the Chrysalis, I probably didn't do this enough!).

I was really happy with how this turned out on the whole - a few lessons learned to balance for next time, but a fun encounter to run and I hope a satisfying victory to culminate our first story arc. If you want to find out more about the setting this was part of, I plan to do a post on Veridia next - and include some items and other things you can use either in that setting or your own game!

This all forms just one part of my overall Eonalon/Merithaya setting, with much more to come, so subscribe to see the next location that the party venture to and the foes they face there!

Find the stat blocks from this article on Heart Of Daggers here - the Subdued version and the Resplendent version!