Session 04: The Fall of Sloobludop

[Intro]
Drip-drop, Sloobludop,
try to say it, don’t you stop.
Fish folk chanting on the dock:
“Ploop said, Blopp said, mind the rock!”

[Verse 1]
Ploopploopeen was the priest of the Sea,
very holy, very damp, very hard to spell for me.
He said, “Blibdoolpoolp will guide us through,”
and honestly, mate, I hope that’s true.

Then in came Bloppblippodd with a staff and a stare,
with lake-mist robes and alarming hair.
She said, “Leemooggoogoon has chosen me!”
And Edric said, “I dislike this socially.”

[Pre-Chorus]
Glooglugogg went, “Mum, this is bad.”
Gloogor held the weapons we wish we had.
Morgan the smith said, “Gold? That’s fine,
but clams are lunch and lunch is mine.”

[Chorus]
Ploop said, Blopp said, Glooglugogg too,
Gloogor took my sword and my backup shoe.
Blibdoolpoolp went bubble-bloop,
Leemooggoogoon went scoop-de-loop.

Sloobludop, don’t stop,
fish names falling like a bucket of slop.
Ploop said, Blopp said, somebody run,
the Deep Father party has got out of hand, son.

[Verse 2]
Edric got spat on, right on the cape,
so he threw a Web spell — bold escape.
But the Web went wide and the priestess ducked,
then the guards moved in and Edric got thwucked.

Varang went booming with temple voice doom,
“Touch us and ashes will fill this room.”
Iragon said, with elegant grace,
“Flee or die,” to a very wet face.

Dose looked calm in the worst kind of way,
like “this is data” at the end of the day.
Nettle stood ready with poison and bite,
while Ront made a doorway by losing a fight with a wall.

[Pre-Chorus]
Stool went wobble, Jimjar bet,
Eldeth said, “Not dead yet.”
Sarith had headaches, Derendil had stress,
and Shuushar picked the worst day to come home, I guess.

[Chorus]
Ploop said, Blopp said, Glooglugogg too,
Gloogor took my sword and my backup shoe.
Blibdoolpoolp went bubble-bloop,
Leemooggoogoon went scoop-de-loop.

Sloobludop, don’t stop,
fish names falling like a bucket of slop.
Ploop said, Blopp said, somebody run,
the Deep Father party has got out of hand, son.

[Bridge]
Say it quick now, don’t be slow:
Ploopploopeen, Bloppblippodd, Glooglugogg, Gloogor!
Say it twice and earn a clam:
Blibdoolpoolp and Leemooggoogoon, thank you ma’am.

Say it backwards? Absolutely not.
That’s how the village summoned the plot.
One more chant by the altar stone,
and Demogorgon says, “Who called my phone?”

[Breakdown]
Ploop!
Blopp!
Glooglugogg!
Gloogor!
Morgan!
Clams!
Hand table!
Run faster!

[Final Chorus]
Ploop said, Blopp said, Glooglugogg too,
Gloogor took my sword and my dignity too.
Blibdoolpoolp went bubble-bloop,
Leemooggoogoon made a demon go “boop.”

Sloobludop, don’t stop,
unless the lake starts to bubble and pop.
Ploop said, Blopp said, too late, run—
the Deep Father party has summoned someone.

[Outro]
Drip-drop, Sloobludop,
never trust a chanting dock.
If a fish priest says, “It’s fine, don’t flee,”
check your weapons, grab the map, and disagree.

[Intro]
Black water breathing,
lanterns in the mist.
A thousand mouths were praying,
and the lake began to twist.

[Verse 1]
We came to the shore with hunger in our bones,
with drow horns fading far behind.
We came for a map and a road through the dark,
for a name the water might find.

The village was whispering through fishbone and rope,
through shell, through net, through mud.
The Sea Mother wept in her crayfish crown,
while the Deep Father drank in blood.

[Pre-Chorus]
Ploopploopeen cried warning,
but the drums had learned to crawl.
Bloppblippodd raised her broken faith,
and the black lake answered all.

[Chorus]
Demogorgon, rise from below,
two heads crowned in undertow.
Red eyes burning where no stars shine,
madness walking out of brine.

Demogorgon, hear them scream,
tear the prayer out of the dream.
The Darklake opened, the village was gone,
and the deep sang Demogorgon.

[Verse 2]
Shuushar stood where his people knelt,
peace in a world gone wrong.
He had walked us home through stone and fear,
but home did not last long.

The roar split faith from flesh and breath,
and silence broke its spine.
Some ran in terror, some laughed and bled,
some died without a sign.

Glooglugogg fell in the shadow of scale,
Ploop’s grief was dragged through mud.
Bloppblippodd called a god from the deep,
and found only teeth and flood.

[Pre-Chorus]
The altar cracked, the lanterns swung,
the nets became a snare.
No priest could bind what rose from the lake.
No prayer could hold it there.

[Chorus]
Demogorgon, rise from below,
two heads crowned in undertow.
Red eyes burning where no stars shine,
madness walking out of brine.

Demogorgon, hear them scream,
tear the prayer out of the dream.
The Darklake opened, the village was gone,
and the deep sang Demogorgon.

[Bridge]
Run with the corpse, run with the map,
run with the names of the dead.
Run with the ash-priest dragging the broken,
run where the black waters spread.

Run with the myconid, run with the gnome,
run while the old docks groan.
Run from the thing that answered the call,
run, but you are not alone.

Because far in the mist,
where the lake has no shore,
one head is laughing,
and one head wants more.

[Final Chorus]
Demogorgon, rise from below,
two heads crowned in undertow.
Red eyes burning where no stars shine,
madness walking out of brine.

Demogorgon, hear them scream,
tear the prayer out of the dream.
The Darklake opened, the village was gone,
and the deep sang Demogorgon.

[Outro]
Black water breathing,
lanterns drowned in foam.
We came to Sloobludop seeking a road,
but the deep thing followed us home.

🪐 Campaign Arc

• Campaign: Out of the Abyss
• Dungeon Master: Reuben / Rewrock
• Session Number: 4
• Session Title: The Fall of Sloobludop
• Date: 2026-06-17
• Setting: Sloobludop, the Darklake shore, and the Underdark around the kuo-toa settlement

The party entered Sloobludop after days of danger in the Underdark, hoping the kuo-toa settlement might offer trade, food, shelter, boats, and guidance. Instead, they found a village split between the faithful of the Sea Mother and the rising cult of the Deep Father. What began as cautious diplomacy and supply gathering collapsed into religious violence, ritual sacrifice, and the catastrophic emergence of Demogorgon from the Darklake.

🎬 Previously On...

After escaping Velkynvelve, the party and their fellow fugitives travelled through the Underdark under constant pressure from hunger, exhaustion, hostile creatures, strange fungi, faerzress, and drow pursuit. Aeris received a vision from the Circle of Root and Star warning of a blackening disease connected to something below. The group survived fire beetles, a deadly crevasse chase, ancient spiral-carved ruins, and an umber hulk ambush before finally reaching the outskirts of Sloobludop, guided by Shuushar the Awakened.

By the time they reached the kuo-toa settlement, the party carried a strange collection of useful and questionable survival assets: the recovered chest from Velkynvelve, an ornate key, an Elvish diary, fungus wine, umber hulk parts, fire beetle glow sacks, and the burden of a large group of former prisoners still trying to survive the dark.

🧭 Overview

The session opened not in Sloobludop, but in memory. Varang dreamed of the Cinderborn, the hidden tiefling enclave of ash, heat, basalt halls, and hard healing. In the vision, Varang was shown learning that healing was not gentle mercy but violent discipline: pressure, heat, bone, ash, and the refusal to let death take what still had work to do. Varang recited a ritual over a dying elder and watched life return. Later, faced with a fevered child whose healing carried risk, Varang chose to push the rite further rather than let the child pass. The vision ended with broken death marks, black sap, and strange fungal growth seeping into the ashen tunnels near home.

Back in the Underdark, the party rested near Sloobludop before making the final approach. Shuushar warned that he had not returned to his people in a long time and that his welcome was uncertain. Vorgrath had also noticed that Shuushar tended to step away from danger rather than toward it, a detail that would become painfully relevant before the night was done.

At the settlement’s edge, the party was met by kuo-toa guards and required to surrender their weapons. Most complied, though Vorgrath successfully concealed his great axe with the kind of subtlety only a giant orc and half-blind fish guards could make possible. The group entered Sloobludop and saw a crowded settlement along the Darklake shore: fishnet fences, mud-brick huts, dim lanterns, canoe-like boats, packed docks, and a powerful smell of rotting shellfish.

At the shrine of the Sea Mother, the party saw a grotesque nine-foot idol: a wooden female body fitted with the severed head and claws of a giant albino crayfish, lashed together with gut and surrounded by shells, colourful stones, mushrooms, rotting fish, and offerings. Edric placed one of the umber hulk eyes as an offering. Glooglugogg, son of Ploopploopeen, recognised Shuushar and helped guide the party toward trade and a meeting with his parent, the archpriest of the Sea Mother.

The party traded weapons and armour at the smithy, receiving gold marked mostly with the Sea Mother’s symbol, though a handful bore an unfamiliar sign. They then navigated Sloobludop’s clam-based economy, buying dried fish, waterskins, cloth, fishing supplies, and a wooden “hand table” shield while learning that gold meant little where food was the real currency. At the general store, the merchant treated the umber hulk eyes less like rare monster parts and more like snacks, which was unsettling but efficient.

The group then met Ploopploopeen, archpriest of Blibdoolpoolp, the Sea Mother. Ploop explained that Sloobludop was divided: Ploop’s daughter, Bloppblippodd, had declared herself archpriest of Leemooggoogoon, the Deep Father. Blopp had stolen several valuable objects, including a vital Darklake map built up over generations of Sea Mother archpriests. That map could mark safe routes, dangerous waters, and places to avoid. For a party trying not to die underground, it was exactly the kind of thing worth chasing.

The meeting deteriorated when Blopp and her followers arrived. After Blopp spat at Edric, Edric responded with Web. The spell missed its intended target, and the kuo-toa guards answered by beating him with spear hafts. The settlement’s religious schism turned openly violent. The party was surrounded, pushed, dragged, and swept into the heart of a ritual gathering where hundreds of kuo-toa chanted around a horrific altar: two flayed octopuses spread across a flayed manta ray, bleeding into a bowl, with three duergar bound before it as sacrifices.

Blopp proclaimed the coming of the Deep Father. The Darklake answered.

Oily tentacles rose from the black water, followed by two monstrous heads, tusks, red eyes, and a towering body shedding lake water as it emerged. Demogorgon roared, and the village broke. Heads burst among the gathered kuo-toa. Madness and bloodlust tore through the crowd. Shuushar the Awakened died in the roar, killed in the very village he had hoped might offer refuge. Glooglugogg was also killed in the rampage, leaving Ploop stunned and weeping over the loss of both child and village.

In the chaos, the party fought to survive rather than win. Ront smashed through a hovel wall to open an escape route. Iragon fought with his pact weapon and offered enemies the chance to flee rather than die. Dose and Nettle struck where needed, but Dose chose not to cut down fleeing guards. Edric used magic amid the panic, including Shatter against part of the Deep Father altar. Aeris used Longstrider to get away and Healing Word to keep allies moving. Varang used booming intimidation, Bless, and grim battlefield command while helping drag Ploop from the ruin of the ritual.

Dose also recovered Blopp’s corpse, hoping the stolen map might still be on her body. At the end of the session, the map itself had not yet been confirmed recovered. The party escaped the immediate slaughter with their former prisoner allies still alive except for Shuushar, but their surrendered weapons remained at the entrance, Sloobludop was collapsing behind them, and Demogorgon’s madness had turned the Darklake into something far worse than a travel problem.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Party Members

🎭 NPC Tracker

📍 Key Locations

• Cinderborn Enclave: Seen in Varang’s dream. A hidden volcanic settlement of basalt halls, ash rites, and harsh healing traditions. The vision ended with broken death marks, black sap, and fungal growth near Varang’s home.
• Sloobludop Outskirts: The party approached after a long rest and a final two-to-three-hour journey around the Darklake shore.

• Sloobludop Entrance: The party surrendered most weapons here before entering. Their surrendered weapons remain at the entrance, with Vorgrath’s hidden great axe as the major exception.
• Sea Mother Shrine: A nine-foot idol with a carved wooden female body and the head and claws of a giant albino crayfish lashed on with gut. Surrounded by shells, stones, mushrooms, rotting fish, and offerings.
• Smithy: Where the party traded scavenged armour and weapons for gold rather than clams.
• General Store: A practical kuo-toa shop selling food and supplies. The party learned that clams function as food-currency and that gold has limited local appeal.
• Ploop’s Quarters: The meeting place where Ploopploopeen explained the schism, Blopp’s theft, and the missing Darklake map.
• Deep Father Ritual Site: The centre of Blopp’s ritual, marked by a flayed manta ray, flayed octopuses, a blood bowl, and bound duergar sacrifices.
• Darklake: The black underground water from which Demogorgon emerged, turning the settlement’s religious crisis into a catastrophe.
• Hovels and Escape Route: Ront smashed through a hovel wall during the chaos, opening a route for the party and allies to escape the mob.

🎞️ Key Scenes

The Ash-Borne Dream

Varang stood once more among the Cinderborn, where healing was taught as pressure, heat, pain, and command rather than comfort. Over a dying elder, Varang recited the rite: flesh and bone were not ash, breath was not spent, death could wait because the living still had work to do.

In the Cinderborn enclave, Varang pushed the rite further, choosing fire, pressure, and will over surrender.

The Crayfish Shrine

Beneath the dim lights of Sloobludop, the party stood before the Sea Mother’s idol: a wooden female body with an albino crayfish head and claws lashed on with gut, surrounded by rotting fish, shells, stones, and offerings. Edric placed an umber hulk eye before it, which was either piety, pragmatism, or wizard impulse control failing in public.

Gold, Clams, and the Hand Table

The party learned that Sloobludop’s economy cared less for shiny coins than edible barter. Weapons became gold, gold became clams, clams became food, and a wooden shield became a “hand table,” because every settlement needs one phrase that refuses to leave the campaign.

The Map That Started the Trouble

In Ploop’s quarters, the party learned that Blopp had stolen a map of the Darklake, a precious record of safe waters, dangers, and routes built across generations. For a party stranded in the Underdark, the map was not just loot. It was a possible way forward.

Edric Gets Spat On

Blopp’s insult pushed Edric into action. His Web spell erupted toward her but missed, and the guards immediately surrounded him and beat him with spear hafts. It was not diplomacy’s finest hour, though to be fair, diplomacy was already face-down in a bucket of fish.

Iragon Offers Mercy

In the middle of Sloobludop’s collapse, Iragon gave the guards one clean choice: flee or die.

The Deep Father’s Altar

Hundreds of kuo-toa gathered around the flayed manta ray and octopus altar while three duergar waited bound before the blood bowl. Blopp proclaimed the coming of Leemooggoogoon, and the Darklake began to answer in shapes too large to be prayer.

The Roar That Killed Shuushar

Demogorgon rose from the Darklake and roared. Kuo-toa died in waves, heads bursting amid the crowd.

Shuushar the Awakened, the party’s peaceful guide back to his people, died in that roar as Sloobludop collapsed around him.

🧵 Ongoing Threads & Plot Hooks

• The Stolen Darklake Map: Blopp’s corpse has been recovered, but the map itself has not yet been confirmed found. This remains one of the party’s most important practical leads.
• Weapons at the Entrance: Most of the party’s surrendered weapons are still at Sloobludop’s entrance with Gloogor / Gloogurg or wherever the chaos left them. Vorgrath’s hidden great axe is the major exception.
• Shuushar’s Death: Shuushar died in the destruction of his own home settlement. This removes the party’s kuo-toa guide and marks the first major former-prisoner ally death since the escape.
• Ploop’s Survival: Ploop survived but lost both Blopp and Gloog as Sloobludop collapsed. Whether Ploop remains useful, broken, or both is unresolved.
• Demogorgon’s Madness: The party has now witnessed a demon lord’s manifestation and the mass madness that followed. Psychological and supernatural consequences may not be finished with them.
• Sloobludop’s Fate: The settlement has been torn apart by cult violence and Demogorgon’s emergence. Survivors, factions, and usable supplies remain uncertain.
• The Deep Father Cult: Blopp is dead, but the cult’s influence, symbols, and corruption may not have ended cleanly. Cults rarely have the decency to stay solved.
• The Unknown Gold Symbol: Some of the gold coins received from the smith bore a symbol the party did not recognise.
• Varang’s Cinderborn Vision: The broken death marks, black sap, and fungus near Varang’s home suggest a personal threat or omen connected to the deeper Underdark.
• Aeris and the Blackening Disease: Aeris’s earlier vision of blackened roots and pale fungus remains active, and the repeated fungal corruption imagery around multiple character threads may matter later.
• Former Prisoner Allies: Stool, Jimjar, Ront, Eldeth, Buppido, Sarith, Prince Derendil, Topsy, Turvy, and Nettle all survived Sloobludop, but keeping them alive remains an ongoing problem.
• Ilvara’s Pursuit: The drow pursuit remains a background threat, even if Sloobludop’s disaster has created more immediate concerns.
• The Recovered Chest: The party continues carrying the chest from Velkynvelve. It has served as a water vessel, but its larger significance is still unresolved.
• Prince Derendil’s Curse: Derendil remains alive, but his dreams, fears, and claimed royal identity still need answers.
• Sarith’s Headaches: Sarith remains alive, but his condition and headaches remain concerning.

🗺️ Quest Status

💰 Loot & Discoveries

Noteworthy Items

The Darklake Map: The most important unresolved object of the session. Ploop described it as a map built up by generations of Sea Mother archpriests, marking nearby Darklake routes, dangers, and places to avoid. It may be the party’s best chance of navigating the waters ahead.

Blopp’s Corpse: Not exactly loot, but currently treated with loot-level urgency. Dose dragged it away because the map might still be on her. If it is not, he may have hauled a dead fish cultist through a demon disaster for nothing, which would be embarrassing but very on-brand for the Underdark.

Vorgrath’s Hidden Great Axe: The only major party weapon confirmed to have bypassed the entrance surrender. This may matter immediately if the party cannot retrieve the rest of their weapons.

⚙️ Rules & Mechanics Notes

• Long Rest: The party took or confirmed a long rest before entering Sloobludop, recovering key resources.
• Clams: Local barter currency, but also food. Perishable, impractical, and somehow still more useful than gold in Sloobludop.
• Dried Fish Rations: One dried fish was treated as one day’s ration. The party purchased 27.
• Wooden Shield: The wooden shield / hand table provides 1 AC rather than a standard shield’s 2 AC.
• Web: Edric cast Web at Blopp after being spat on. She avoided it, and the guards retaliated physically.
• Thaumaturgy: Varang used the booming voice effect to intimidate the chanting mob.
• Shatter: Edric used Shatter against the Deep Father altar, damaging part of the structure and breaking one octopus head.
• Jump: Dose used Jump during the escape chaos, helping with movement and corpse retrieval.
• Infused Strikes: Nettle contributed extra damage through Dose’s drake companion feature during combat.

💬 Memorable Quotes

• Varang: “Flesh and bone is not ash. Breath is not spent. Seal what is torn. Burn what is foul. Death may wait. This one still has work to do.”
• Vorgrath: “So you’re a coward.”
• Shuushar: “I couldn’t hurt a fly. But I can hurt a fish, because they’re good, tasty.”
• Edric: “I suppose I’ll put one of the umber hulk eyes. That’s a little sacrifice to the goddess of this place.”
• Dungeon Master: “Clams are just food.”
• Dungeon Master: “Gold doesn’t fill my tummy.”
• Ploopploopeen: “My daughter... believes she has had a vision, and that she is now the archpriest of Leemooggoogoon, the Deep Father.”
• Dungeon Master: “This is two octopuses flayed out on a manta ray, bleeding into a bowl of blood.”
• Bloppblippodd: “He comes. He comes.”
• Vorgrath: “We need to get the fuck away from the thing. He just stomped three people and killed them.”
• Dose: “Dragging the priestess’s body away. Deep Father. Hopefully she’s got something on her, otherwise I’ll feel very foolish.”
• Edric: “This is the response to someone spitting at me.”
• Vorgrath: “Hiding my giant fucking axe at the entrance.”

🧰 Next Session Prep

• Confirm whether the Darklake map is actually on Blopp’s corpse.
• Resolve whether the party can recover their surrendered weapons from the entrance.
• Track immediate escape positioning after fleeing the ritual site and Demogorgon’s rampage.
• Update NPC roster: Shuushar dead; all other former prisoner allies alive.
• Track Ploop’s condition, usefulness, and whether Ploop can still guide or advise the party.
• Track food, water, clams, dried fish, spell slots, hit dice, exhaustion, and any madness effects.
• Clarify the fate of the hired kuo-toa lookout.
• Confirm final inventory after the chaos, especially supplies purchased in Sloobludop.
• Determine whether Demogorgon remains an immediate chase threat, a background catastrophe, or both. Bad options buffet.

⏳ Cliffhanger

Sloobludop fell into screams, blood, and madness behind the party. The Deep Father’s ritual had called something far worse than a local cult victory. Demogorgon rose from the Darklake, killed with a roar, and left the kuo-toa settlement collapsing under terror, bloodlust, and grief.

Shuushar the Awakened was dead. Glooglugogg was dead. Bloppblippodd was dead. Ploopploopeen survived, but only as a shattered witness to the ruin of family, faith, and village.

Dose had Blopp’s corpse, but not yet the confirmed map. The party’s surrendered weapons remained at the entrance. Their former prisoner allies, except Shuushar, were still alive. Somewhere behind them, Demogorgon still towered over the Darklake.

The party had come to Sloobludop hoping for rest, trade, and a route forward. They left with a corpse, a grieving priest, missing weapons, one dead guide, and the sound of a demon lord’s roar chasing them into the dark.

The map might still save them. If it exists. If it is on the corpse. If they live long enough to read it.