We start somewhere else in the world where Valen the ex
pirate captain Aasimar (lots of backstory that I have worked into my overall
plot, don’t worry Austin) has awoken drunk in the woods. He was drunk in the woods because he had been
drunk in town because his crew mutinied and left him there and then he’d run
away when the Fire Nation Frost Giants attacked and then passed out in the
woods.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know where he was, since the party
was in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t a super logical easy way to bring
in a character who’s player had to miss the first session, Valen ran into a
goblin running through the woods. Yes,
that goblin. The one that got away from
the fight in the previous session. Valen
and the goblin both stopped, looked at each other, decided they were both cool,
and just went in opposite directions.
Due to a twist of fate/DM fiat, Valen wandered right into
the ruins of a goblin camp as a party of adventurers set up their bedrolls for
the night amid the wreckage. The party
and Valen traded pleasantries, and they decided he could come with them but not
have any of their cash. That was good
enough for Valen, as he was originally from Salas, and they bedded down. Charmagnus the Wild Magic Sorceror has the
Bad Dreams flaw, and fortunately Julius our Elven Bard rolled that he has a
nightcap that gives good dreams as his trinket at the beginning of play, so
they were able to have a neat little bonding moment. They set up watches, and we moved to the next
day.
The landscape started to change from deciduous forests to
swampland, and the proximity of the sliver of land they were on between
mountains and sea meant that most water they found was brackish. They had officially entered The Saltmarch,
the treacherous marshes at the southern ends of the mountains that blocked trade
to the south of Anchorheim. The party
had to deal with mud, itchy plants, and swarms of bugs (all in narration,
because I’m not a dick of a DM who makes people roll to swat mosquitos).
Imagine this for probably the next few blogs about this game...
As they passed by a muddy bog, they rolled for a random
encounter, and several globs of mud hit the party coupled with cackling from the mud.
Valen was stuck to the ground by mud, and the party discerned a pair of
Mud Mephits. They lured them out of the
bog with insults, but the pair landed in tree branches overhead just out of
reach. That led to a bit of an issue for
the ranged weapon deficient party, and Fechedette, the crafty Illusionist,
created an illusion of a sexy, female Mud Mephit to lure them off. It distracted one, but the other passed it’s
Wisdom Save, but was quickly cut down by a spear and some Firebolts. They then had time to disentangle from the
mud and deal with the second Mephit before moving on their way.
Mud Mephit
That little encounter out of the way, they found what
appeared to be a game trail that avoided the worst of the swamp, and followed
it. A few Perception checks later, they
noticed the fungus covered trees they were passing through seemed to be some sort
of mushroom farm. A little later, the
berry bushes appeared to be some sort of clandestine harvesting ground. They came around a bend, and found themselves
confronted with a little cottage.
Anyone who has read the backlog of my blog will notice
several similarities between what happened next and something similar I ran for
a group several years back. It is. I’m not sorry. I liked it, and that game didn’t go anywhere,
so I reused something I loved. I changed
bits, so nyah.
Anyways, the house was a little large for Medium sized
creatures, so Gilroy was pretty much at home, but everyone else felt
short. They noticed a really bad smell
from the nearby outhouse, and they discovered the rotting corpse of a Firbolg
clutching its chest. Clearly, the owner
of the house had a heart attack while taking a dump (a surprisingly common
occurrence, evidently). They were free
to loot!
Entering the house, they discovered a few items of
note. In the cupboards, they found some
potions, coffee (gives the benefits of a long rest after a short rest, but in
return, they need to take a long rest as their next rest), some gold under a
mattress, and a self filling and heating kettle. Also, there was a book about mushrooms and a
beginner book of Wizard spells on the bookshelf and some herbs on a herb
rack. In all, a nice haul for a first
level party. That was hardly the
best/worst part of it.
Remember, I shamelessly ripped off something I did in a
previous game…
There was a curtain against a wall, and when they drew it
aside, behind it was a small room that was not of the same dimension of the
house they were in. In that
extradimensional room, three poorly taxidermized heads were on the walls (a goat,
a lion, and a lizard) and there was a silver basin and large velvet bag inside
a circle carved into the floor. Inside
the velvet bag was a silver Athame and a gris gris necklace.
On the top an Athame, on the bottom, a Gris Gris (basically a small bag worn as an amulet full of gross spell components).
There was some argument over who should put on the necklace
or if it should be worn at all. Valen
and Gilroy were all about wearing it, and Fechedette skeptically sided with
them. Keeri Lo and Julius were
definitely against it (note that Keeri Lo’s player was actually in the game
where I did this the first time).
Charmagnus just wanted all the stuff and was just trying to get everyone
to give the stuff to him.
Eventually, Valen just put the necklace on, and discovered
that by wearing the necklace, he could speak with the three heads of the
taxidermized Chimera. It was named
Barry. The lion head was helpful and dim
witted. The goat was insulting and
intelligent, and the lizard/dragon head was so poorly made it just unintelligibly
mumbled. After some confusion over who
Valen was talking to and if the poor pirate had finally gone mad, Julius put
the necklace on, decided the level of crypticism that the chimera met his
questions with meant it was evil and plotting.
Fechedette thought things were fine after talking to Barry, Charmagnus
was cool with it too, and Keeri Lo sided with Julius against the beast
again. Gilroy just kept getting skipped
in turn order and when he finally got to talk to Barry, everyone was cross with
each other, the Chimera was annoyed and pleading to just be taken with them,
and Valen had taken the heads off the wall and put them back up at least
twice.
Team #cynic, aka Julius and Keeri Lo, wanted to alternately
burn the heads, leave them while hiding the necklace, take the necklace and
leave the heads, or just leave the lot.
Finally, Keeri Lo made a perception check and realized that the room was
not part of the house but was actually generated by the curtain, so if they
took the curtain down, they could just carry the lot. After some pleading from Gilroy and Valen,
they decided to relent and just take the lot with them as long as Julius and
Valen kept control of the necklace in case the Chimera heads were evil and
tried to negatively influence the less strong willed party members.
Now armed with some healing stuff, various potions, a few
new spells, a magical tea kettle, and an extradimensional room with talking
taxidermy, the party hit level 2 and decided to spend the night in the house,
thereby wrapping up the session.
*****Quick side note, I have updated the previous post's title to include the header 5E at the Citadel. I will include that designation in future posts from this game so that they can be easily differentiated from whatever else I post in the meantime.
*****Quick side note, I have updated the previous post's title to include the header 5E at the Citadel. I will include that designation in future posts from this game so that they can be easily differentiated from whatever else I post in the meantime.
