DM notes: In August 2021 we started the Adventures of the Hellbenders and yesterday, 27th March 2025 we have reached the end of their journeys at level 16.
Together we told a 45 chapter long story spread over 5 distinct, but connect campaigns. This is the summary of the final chapter of the Hellbenders.
Our heroes had entered The Tower of Castle Rostak, the inter sanctum and private chambers of King Thaddeus Rostak know also know as The Iron Lich.
Ahead of them was a large chamber with two statues in the centre, a large ornamented double doors at the opposite side and four unstable pillars carrying the ceiling.
The grey stone statues were of King Thaddeus and his lost Queen Adelyn. Him with a golden crown, her with golden hair. the statues were familiar to the Hellbenders as they had seen similar statues of the two rulers scattered around the castle.
As Pestilence the Warlock Tabaxi approached the statues, Thorga the Dwarven Artificer Paladin cast an invisible Faithful Hound near the statues ready to attack any hidden foes while Kaari the Human Ranger readied her bow to add further cover to Pestilence.
Pestilence investigated the statues and noticed they each had a golden necklace with a key hanging. Curiously, he grabbed the key of the statue of Thaddeus only to awaken the statue that attacked the Tabaxi.
A short but brutal fight later, the heroes had dispatched the Golem and to prevent a similar incident with Queen Adalyn’s statue, they broke the statue in half before taking the necklace.
With the keys they unlocked the double doors.
The stairway to the top
On the other side of the door was a 140ft high round tower with stairs and torches running up the sides.
Kaari confirmed that the Iron Lich was indeed at top by casting Locate Creature.
While there were no visible dangers in the stairway, the party was still wary and Thorga had the idea that rather than the heroes climbing to face the Iron Lich, they could potentially bring the Lich to them by smashing the four unstable pillars in the previous room.
Come here!
With a combination of a summoned golem, a construct and some spells, the party destroyed 3 of the 4 pillars triggering a cascading effect where one floor after another came crashing down including the top floor.
This brought two of the menacing Helljacks down as well as a statue of Sol the Dawnfather.
While both heroes and foes were gathering their feat again, the Iron Lich himself came floating down on his Winged Boots and cast Globe of Invulnerability and opened a portal from which mechanised skeletons flooded through.
The fight was on!
DM notes, since starting DMing in 2018 I’ve avoided using heavy spell casting boss monsters, so running the list was a hard but fun challenge. Remembering spells, legendary reactions, lair actions etc was tough and frankly I don’t remember the battle in details so here are just some highlights:
The wounded Helljacks went on the the attack and as the first mechanised skeletons attacked the heroes, Pestilence found to his surprise that his shadow also came alive and attacked him.
The treacherous shadow curse had been the payment he had unknowingly paid for the Mouse House magic item he had picked up at Brimstone Bargains.
After a barrage of spells and arrows, Polly the Owlbear companion of Kari, took down the mighty Helljack for good!
Thorga, dispatched of the other Helljack and crushed the portal the Iron Lich had opened. No more aid would come to the King.
With a combination of Oil of Sharpness and casting the Hunter’s Mark and Lightening Arrow spell, Kaari did a substantial amount of damage to the Lich with each of her lethal shots.
However, the Iron Lich was not defeated yet. Far from it and he casted Mirror Image on himself to confuse the heroes.
“Oh no! We are going to die!” shouted the exasperated Pestilence (or was it his player, Anna Maria? We were not sure).
Meanwhile, Kaari made it over to the fallen statue of Sol the Dawnfather and to her surprise, Sol himself spoke to her and offered assistance he could provide if she would accept him as her god henceforth, which she did.
Meanwhile Thorga had disspatched the Mirror Images by identifying which one was the true Lich.
This gave the Sol powered Kaari the target she needed and with two magically and god-enhanced arrows, she brought down King Thaddeus Rostak The Iron Lich for good.
The clock strikes 13 and the undead army moves on Dragonskeep
But the will of the Iron Lich was not done. In his craving for revenge over Grindrax the Dark Wyrm, the Black Dragon he suspected having taken his queen, he had put a magical failsafe over his undead army that put them into motion in case of his final death.
Time was against our heroes. not only did they have to find a way to stop an entire undead army with no obvious leadership, they also had to find The Book of Vile Darkness for Pestilence’s patron the Archdevil Belial.
Hurry, get the book
To optimise time, our heroes rushed to the Churh of Sol to speak to the eternal priest Cyron, who now that Iron Lich was gone, was visibly aging fast.
But as a final advice he suggested the party search private library of King Thaddeus at the top of The Tower.
The Hellbenders rushed back and up the stairs only to find arms coming out of the walls grabbing and pushing. Fortunately, all three now had the means of flight and quickly rose to the top of the stairs, crossing the room where the floor had once been.
And they found themselves in front of the private library.
A room devoid of life
As they entered the library, they were all cut off from their connection with their chosen patrons.
As Kaari searched the table with the model of Dragonskeep and Kaari looked through the bookshelves, Thorga approached the desk but the sheer foul evil that he felt from the book on the desk was too much for the good-hearted Paladin and he fled the room.
Pestilence hear Thorga flee and immediately approached the desk. While he was almost overtaken by the same terror, he fought it and took the foul looking book on the desk.
With the book secured, the hero rushed out of Castle Rostak out in the beautiful morning to hunt the undead army.
A well-deserved rest
As night came the exhausted heroes collapsed not even bothering setting a guard for the night.
In the morning Pestilence offered the offensive book the Belial. Pleased with his minion Belial offered to release Pestilence from his service, but Pestilence asked for Belial’s help to defeat the undead army instead.
Being in a good mood (and appreciating the chance to keep Pestilence in his services) Belial snapped his fingers and awoke a tremendous force the heroes were aware of, but had not fully considered as a piece in the final war at Dragonskeep.
As they rushed over the hill to help Dragonskeep defend itself, they were stunned by the sight in front of them:
To the right they could see the Dwarves from Mountainhold coming to the aid of Dragonskeep.
And to the left the good-hearted but lethal clan of Water Witches from which Kari came, were flying over the undead dropping bombs of explosive flames.
And to the heroes surprise, their old foes the Dark Elves had also risen in aid recognising the undead would destroy anything living.
But it was clear the undead forces were still gaining on the walls of Dragonskeep.
Golden hair in the sun
Then the mighty gates of Dragonskeep opened.
For a split second the heroes expected… hoped… and army of devils under Belial’s command would appear, but it didn’t.
Instead a single figure appeared. A woman dressed in a red dresss holding a dragonheaded staff with hair of gold shining in the sun.
She pointed her staff at the undead and a wide burst almost 100ft long and wide disintegrated the undead in front of her.
The appearance of this new destructive reinforcement brought new energy back in the allied forces who combined finally destroyed the entire undead army.
Queen Adelyn Rostak
As the heroes approached the woman they recognised her as Queen Adelyn Rostak, who should have been dead hundreds of years ago,
But the Queen looked around confused and exclaimed: “What is this castle doing on my home? Who are all these people? I don’t want them here? You can all leave now”
The heroes tried to reason with the Queen explaining what had happened and little by little it dawned on her how long she had been asleep.
Recognising that Dragonskeep was now home of many people, she agreed to take residence back in Castle Rostak.
And to the surprise of all, two mighty leathery wings sprung out from her back as she herself grew in size until a mighty black dragon stood before them.
As Queen Adelyn—also known as Grindrax—flew towards Castle Rostak, her scales changed from black to gold until she had been returned to her state as the Golden Dragon that had fallen in love with King Thaddeus all those centuries ago.
A time to say goodbye
It was finally over.
The heroes gathered at their local tavern for a final dinner before they parted ways.
Kaari returned to the Water Witches to settle down. In time she became the leader of the tribe.
Pestilence, still in the service of Belial, decided to venture down to Phlegethos where he joined the rank of Belial. His experience and skills were quickly recognised and before long he rose the ranks until he was appointed General leading Belial’s armies against the Demons who came to fear Pestilence as the bringer of doom.
Thorga reunited with Ms Gentlefeet and their two kids nad having said goodbye to his companions, he retired to a life as shopkeeper of a workshop selling Ms Gentlfeet’s handywork.
And with that,
and even with the three heroes staying in touch,
The Hellbenders were officially no more.
The end.
Epilogue
“We are not suppose to be here!” said Thorga’s daugter to her older brother.
“Don’t worry! Daddy chased the dragon away years ago”, say er brother.
As the two half-dwarven, half-halfling children went deep and deeper underground following the ancient pathways, they ended up in a huge underground cave completely empty with only a few rats scooting around.
In the middle they found a statue of a dark elf woman dressed in ancient formal dress marking her as an official ambassador of a drow empire of yore.
She was had a dynamic pose capturing her in a terrified condition.
The children quickly lost interest in the statue after running around it a bit.
After that they left the huge cave and never told anybody about what they had found.
The petrified remains of what once was Ambassador Baltana Ilalal Lover of Thaddeus Rostak was left to stand forever alone in a silent scream alone in Grindrax’s abandoned cave.
