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Story Hour
(5e) Against the Idol of the Sun (high level, hexcrawl)
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<blockquote data-quote="J-H" data-source="post: 8328865" data-attributes="member: 7020951"><p><strong>Session 8: 4/11/21</strong></p><p></p><p>The ranger and barbarian’s players couldn’t make it again.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party decided to do a bit of fortifying on the old tower they found, using Stone Shape to close the roof hole and to (by gathering more rock) make a nice solid door for it. They explore the runes on the outer walls, and determine that they created an Unhallow effect with the Tongues benefit for any inside it. It could be reactivated, but they elect not to spend the time doing so. There’s a good bit of discussion, and the party heads due south and then slightly east. They travel for 3 days to reach their buried base in an abandoned fort. The dice are very in their favor with zero random encounters.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>While the artificer, Malamir, works on his pocket-plane workshop door, the monk (Ratel) and paladin (Teador, on griffonback) decide to explore the hex. There’s nothing else of specific interest here, but they are poking around, so I roll a couple of random encounter options. They spot some wyverns flying above the jungle and pop up to shoot at them. The wyverns attack, thinking they have easy prey at first. A round and a half later, one wyvern is dead and the other two flee. A very successful Nature check roll helps them butcher it, salvaging the hide, the skull, and the stinger. The monk later gets (roll) 8 doses of wyvern poison (7d6, Con DC 15 half) and pre-applies them to some arrows.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The group then travels southwest a couple of days (still with no 1s on the random encounter d6s) to reach a Yuan-ti village they had previously visited (hex 12.12). The monk gets his new clothes, sells the wyvern hide, and gets the skull boiled clean while there.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There’s a good bit of discussion and debate I’m skipping here, but they eventually elect to not show off Ssword to the Yuan-ti. They do ask questions, and get a short summary of each of the 5 Aaracokra gods, their city names, and what each god is generally about (domains/alignment) and the general activity known about their city/area. This includes typical garrison sizes (200, or 2000 for the capital city). They decide that they will need some allies to fight the Aaracokra due to the size of the enemy military involved; I do have a method for tracking combat power deployed to a fight and tell them so.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They decide (using knowledge from the absent Goliath ranger Helwyn) to go visit the giants in the southwest corner of the map, exploring along the way. They go one hex south and start searching it. I finally roll a random encounter, and it’s the toughest Aaracokra patrol (1 wizard, 2 clerics, 4 champions, 2 mid-rankers).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They hear or spot the patrol passing overhead. The monk dashes up a tree to see what it is, and tries to stealthily see from the top of the jungle canopy. He rolls a 23 or 24 for stealth. The Aaracokra roll a 16 and 17 on the perception dice, and the average perception score for most of them was +8…so they see him. Roll initiative.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This fight took the rest of the session and lasted for about 7 rounds.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ratel wins initative and burns some ki points to put two arrows into the enemy wizard (closest one/front of the air-skiff), dealing about 60% of the wizard’s HP in damage. That wizard goes Greater Invisible on his turn, and stays that way (moving around) until nearly the end of the battle. Nobody tries to track or target him.</p><p></p><p>Reybella (cleric) tries out her new spell (Firestorm) and deals 35 or 17 damage to 5 or 6 enemies, as well as blowing out the heart/power box on the air-skiff. I thought they’d try to capture it for mobility, but nope. Boom.</p><p></p><p>The enemy senior cleric opens up with Dawn, but since you have to <em>end</em> your turn in it for it to take effect, it’s pretty worthless.</p><p></p><p>We mis-read the Boots of Speed and think they give disadvantage on all attacks. Combined with the Artificer’s AC 24, he’s nearly un-hittable despite being the focus of a lot of attention at first. Magic Missile, Harm, Blight, and a Sacred Flame do connect over time.</p><p></p><p>The paladin and cleric are riding the paladin’s summoned griffon. It works pretty well, up until the Aaracokra start targeting it after a round or two of failing to hit the paladin’s AC 22. They do eat a couple of rounds of Spiritual Guardian damage in the process.</p><p></p><p>One of the enemy priests casts Cure Mass Wounds twice, as well as Cure Wounds once (on the wizard). Healing 5 enemies for ~22hp each is a pretty big battle-extender, especially when the party lacks AOE damage. This makes him enemy numero uno for the party.</p><p></p><p>The artificer, boosted by Haste and Boots of Speed, comes up with a combo plan with the monk (who has boots that give immunity to fall damage, and a high speed). The monk runs up a tree. The artificer picks him up, then flies up 100’+ (I don’t recall the exact number), then uses the monk as an improvised weapon to attack the enemy priest that’s done most of the healing. On a hit, the enemy takes fall damage, and the monk gets to take one attack. On a near miss, the monk can make a dexterity save to re-aim himself (this happens once, successfully). The first time it was 9d6 damage; the second time, the artificer went higher and it was 15d6 damage, plus some AOE damage from the boots. The monk then fell another 70’ to the ground, landing next to and damaging the cleric who had been grounded when the griffon was killed (oops!).</p><p></p><p>The wizard eventually drops his invisibility in round 5 or round 6 and hits the artificer (very high up, >200’ above the party) with Bigby’s Grappling Hand. Over two rounds, this drops the artificer to 1hp. The two weakest Aaracokra attack him while he’s grappled, but still fail to hit his AC 24. The remaining enemy priest says to just take one for sacrifices, and they start to fly away. The monk makes two shots at disadvantage, popping the priest’s death ward and then killing it with the follow-up. The artificer gets reduced to 0 by magic missile after being squeezed, but he’s a half-orc, so he stays at 1hp. On his turn, he manages to use his action to escape from the hand. He’s still Hasted (never failed a Concentration save), and uses his move and hasted action to dash/fly towards the ground super-fast.</p><p></p><p>One enemy wizard and two enemy warriors escaped.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The cleric went down to about 20hp at one point, but the paladin and monk didn’t take much damage from what I can recall. The monk completely negated a critical-hit javelin with Deflect Arrows, then threw it back at the enemy and did 13 damage… and he spent a lot of time under the jungle canopy and thus mostly out of sight.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>One of the enemies was carrying a potion of Supreme Healing, but used it during the fight. The party did acquire a new magical spear from one of the enemy champions:</p><p></p><p><strong>Skirmisher’s Spear</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Very rare, requires attunement</em></p><p></p><p>The wielder of this +3 spear’s speed is increased by 10 ft. If the wielder moves more than ½ his move speed during his turn, he may make an attack against an enemy as a Bonus Action during that move.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The monk wants it to make his speed even higher. I need to look up retraining rules to let him drop his trident kensei weapon (which he hasn’t used in 4 levels) for something else.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party chooses to head southeast into some mountains and long-rests, knowing that they have probably earned some specific enemy attention. This is their second run-in with a patrol in this area of the map with escapees, plus some of them were seen during the attacks they did around Tezcatlipoca’s temple.</p><p></p><p>I’ll have to figure out enemy reactions between sessions. There will definitely be some heavy patrolling and reinforced search parties for them. The wizard in particular can shed light on what does and doesn’t work on them. The party succeeded on saves vs blindness (once) hold person (twice) and a few other things during the fight. Lower-CR enemies are still a threat, but DC 12 or DC 14 is fairly easy for most of them to make (monk, paladin, artificer all have or grant save bonuses).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 9: 4/24/2021</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Our ranger player has dropped out due to the traveling/distance involved.</p><p></p><p>The cleric’s player could not make it tonight, leaving us with the barbarian, artificer, paladin, and monk.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The group decides to go ahead and detail-search the hex they are in (low mountains). They spend two days on it, nearly hitting the target # at the end of day 3, so I shift the encounter to happening at night. The Paladin (highest on the random Perception roll) spots some lights in the near distance that he can identify as <em>Dancing Lights</em>. The party decides to investigate. As they head up-slope, a few crossbow bolts miss them, but their foes stay well-hidden. They call out in various languages, but get no response. Ultimately, they get closer to discover that they are fighting against four drow warriors (the CR 5 kind from the MM). The only real danger comes from a lucky Faerie Fire hitting the artificer, who decides to come down to the ground anyway to try to disarm the drow. Thanks to the advantage, they land several hits, but thanks to his poison resistance, the damage is ultimately minimal.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Once the paladin and barbarian make their way up the difficult terrain, the fight is essentially over; the barbarian uses his thrown greataxe a couple of times, and then finally closes to melee, where he crits for 70-something damage against an undamaged 71 hp drow warrior.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They enter the cave that the lights had been in, kill the last drow (who was shooting up a vertical chimney in the cave), and end up meeting a pair of Triton warlocks who follow Oztalun, an elder aboleth who is one of the regional powers. After some discussion, the warlocks offer to take them to meet their Master (although without discussing who or what it is).</p><p></p><p>They travel across 2 hexes, then are shown an entry in an abandoned-looking stone hut located in a distinctive tree grove atop a hill.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>From there, it’s a ladder, a mile-long tunnel, stairs, and a 3 hour walk in a big cavern with some guard posts and mushroom farms to another stairway, which goes down another 400’ or so to a crafting village centered around a lake. This is just one part of Oztalun’s lair, which is a large underground complex that stretches for dozens of miles and would be a nightmare to take against a telepathically-coordinated defense team capable of using levitation at will to navigate all the vertical terrain.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party talks to the aboleth who meets them, Ekchuah, about weapons and armor and building a coalition against the Aaracokra. Ekchuah is very interested in Ssword and offers to buy it [the aboleths are against all gods and would destroy it, as it’s a fragment of a dead god], but the party declines. The artificer starts talking about making a flying vessel, and Ekchuah demurs in favor of having them make an appointment with Acat, another aboleth, who shows up the next day.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Acat gives me an opportunity to use knowledge of all the existing spells and items in the game when discussing options with them. After a lot of discussion, the party ultimately settles on Brooms of Flying as a cheap way to get flight for everyone – one that can be set up quickly. Uncommon = 500gp, crafting cost = 250, artificer half cost = 125gp; crafting speed 50gp/week on magic items… but all the Warlocks can cast Levitate at will, and there’s plenty of help around, so I call it 5 days for 5 brooms.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party also gets better information about who’s where on the map, including learning about the Scorpionfolk and the possible old Aaracokra stomping grounds, and the existence of the Death Knight’s Tomb near the cursed forest – although not what that dungeon is.</p><p></p><p>There’s a moderate-length discussion about AC-improving items, so one of the Tritons mentions that they’ve had some contact with someone who claims to be able to improve and toughen bodies – a Fleshcrafter.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party decides to head for him, so after spending a full 7 days underground in the (warded) lair), they head southwest on their brooms.</p><p></p><p>They start searching the next hex southwest, because they have figured out that searching is what led them to find out about the aboleth and a lot of good information and another regional power.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I roll a random encounter, and it’s the weakest possible Aaracokra patrol. There’s not much to hide behind, and their stealth checks were middling, so they get spotted. At this point, the party is pretty distinctive, as it includes the only dwarf for a few hundred miles and a flying iron man suit. They have been encountered multiple times, including by a wizard based out of the nearest city, and are known to be dangerous to the Aaracokra.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This patrol shadows them at about a quarter-mile distance. When the party splits, the patrol splits, using their speed advantage over the Brooms of Flying to keep at a distance. The monk goes northwest while the rest of the party goes southwest. After about an hour (3 miles each way) of distance passes, the group decides to pincer them. They coordinate via Sending, and herd the southwest group of followers north. A hasted griffin dashing moves 480’ per round all out, and so can reach them in about 3 rounds. The monk drops from above on one of them, and then they run down the other two from the split group – but by this time, they’ ve already sighted another Aaracokra patrol to the west.</p><p></p><p>They decide to head for the nearest jungle hex, which happens to be the one Bahadural the dragon lairs in … but he is cautious, and will only intervene if they use Sending to ask him to or something.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The air-skiffs withdraw as the end of the day nears, but most of the Aaracokra remain until replaced by fresh troops – always staying far from the party.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party flies under the jungle cover, takes a short rest, and then does a forced march flight for about 3 hours, before, saddle-sore, taking a long rest. This means they won’t be done resting until after sun-up.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>At this point, they are prime targets for a Scry’N’Die, except that the Aaracokra spellcasters are mostly clerical… so getting there will be more complex for them. I’ll have to look at options, but I think it may involve two high-level priests and Plane Shift. The Aaracokra could just fly in, but Scrying doesn’t reveal a large enough area to be great for navigation unless there are major landmarks around. It’ll be a caster-heavy strike force, as the non-caster Aaracokra have demonstrated that they struggle to hit… and they’ll show up buffed.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I have a couple of weeks to figure out what happens. If the enemy mis-jumps and/or arrives with only half their force, it’ll be funny (I’ll roll if they use Teleport and whatever happens, happens). If they arrive in full force, maybe they’ll kill some PCs or capture some, setting up for a prison-break-in-transit or something. We’ll see.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 10: 5/8/2021</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I pre-rolled to see if anyone would fail the Wisdom save against Scrying the next morning (someone did). I set up a strike force of 2 Champions with +1 Lances, 2 War Priests (melee) with macahuitls that do +1d8 damage (so their total hit is like 3d8+5) and who start with Spirit Guardians up, 2 Senior Priests with 15th-level clerical casting, and 2 Wizards with spells up to 5th level. They used Transport Via Plants (the nearest Aaracokra city is the nature/earth deity) and came in flying, except for the War Priests. One of the Senior Priests opened up with Earthquake, creating several major rifts (nobody fell in) and knocking people prone.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The fight was over in about 3 rounds, with the exception of one fleeing Champion who got chased down via hasted griffin. CR 5-7 opponents with +7 to +9 to hit can’t connect often enough to be a threat to most of the party.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ssword came into play for the first time, critting two or three times in conjunction with the Zealot Barbarian damage. I think there was one hit for exactly 100hp and another for about 90. Senior Priests count for two points, so it has accumulated 5 points in dead enemy divine casters.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The monk spent his time in a tree (passing all saves to stay in the tree during the earthquake) and using some of his remaining wyvern poison arrows to do 30-50 damage per hit when he hit. The life cleric cast Firestorm and hit 5 or 6 enemies (all but one standing) for 39 damage, with about half of them failing their save. The Paladin did his thing with Smite, but also at one point cast Hold Person, incapacitating one of the highest-level priests and causing him to fall (fall damage & accessibility to melee). The Artificer with the Skirmisher’s Spear +3 (bonus action attack if you move at least half your speed) plus Gauntlets of Ogre Power is now a pretty decent melee damage-dealer. The party having Brooms of Flying sure helps them reach their targets, despite the speed.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, Harm, Blight, Bigby’s Hand, etc. didn’t connect reliably, and not many clerics can pass a DC 35 Concentration save.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Loot:</p><p></p><p>Lance +1 x2</p><p></p><p>Macahuitl of Blood (+1d8 slashing) x2</p><p></p><p>Potion of Greater Healing x2 (the wizards even get a chance to chug these)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party moves on and out to the next hex to the southwest, searching it and eventually encountering a cultivated area in the jungle and a yuan-ti patrol, who curtly tell them to move on and go away. They do.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I roll random encounters in the next hex for the next day and get 3 1s, so I roll a few times and combine. The party gets attacked by two Dread Blossom Swarms (adapted from 3.5) with a Tendriculous on the ground below their brooms. The paladin and barbarian’s radiant & acid damage are most of what kills the two swarms off (65hp but lots of resistances). The paladin is paralyzed but on griffinback. Several players take some nasty Constitution damage, including the barbarian (it all comes back on a short rest). The monk runs up a tree, then drops onto a branch to deal thunder/shockwave damage to one of the swarms. The branch of course breaks, and he hits the ground within the sensing radius of the Tendriculous.</p><p></p><p>Next round, it attacks 3 times, critting on one hit, for a total of 99 damage. The round after that, he gets swallowed – but only after the cleric heals him for 40-something HP. The barbarian charges in and gets grappled, but never gets swallowed. The rest of the party stays at range, pelting the 280-something HP plant creature with Acid Splash (artificer), Toll the Dead (cleric), and Chill Touch (paladin). The creature goes down with the monk still having 10-20 hit points.</p><p></p><p>This combined encounter ended up as more of a threat than the Scry & Transport Via Plants force did, in terms of HP loss and potential for causing a PC death!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Proceeding south in search of the Fleshcrafter, the party finds a group of scarecrows standing in a crudely-hacked out meadow. They investigate, spotting a couple of dead rabbits that don’t appear to have been eaten. The monk spends a couple of hours hunting, eventually catching a live chicken. He flies far overhead and drops the chicken to see what happens. It dies on impact (1hp, 600’ fall, chicken rolled poorly to fly). The paladin starts to ride his griffin down, but it gets a bad feeling (Wis save barely passed) and suggests they not.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>After some debate, the party moves on. They end up encountering 3 unicorns and 2 dryads, and having a chat. The area has felt scary since a few days ago, after some sprites reported freeing some straw people, but they don’t know anything specific about it. They mention some druids to the west. The artificer asks “Got any” and the paladin’s player jumps in with “Grapes?” and everyone lost it for a bit. There was a bit more conversation, but I don’t recall anything super-important.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Long rest, end of session. The party is now using Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum to block scrying while they sleep.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 11: 5/29/2021</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Absent: Dmitri the Paladin, Reybella the Cleric. Party is temporarily dwarfless.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party heads south into the next hex, where they automatically find a giant (2 mile diameter) area of cornfields. The perimeter is guarded by groups of scarecrows, but there are some cleared paths to “something” at the middle. Two of the three walk down the cleared path. Teador the Paladin flies his broom over the cornfield (having told his griffon to circle around outside and stay out of sight)… scarecrows head towards him, and he joins the others on the path, at which point the scarecrows stop.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They reach a small compound encircled by a seamless 10’ high stone wall. A gate is half-open. They knock, and a <em>Magic Mouth</em> spell tells them to wait a bit. After a few minutes, Farlas Clerval, the fleshcrafter, comes out and waves them over to his parlor. Farlas is an eladrin elf with white hair in three braids (so the two eyes in the back of his head aren’t blocked) who wears a rust-red (dried blood color) lab coat and a large surgical knife at his belt.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>He has a homunculus bring them cookies, and lemonade fortified with corn whiskey. After a short discussion, the party gets the menu of available enhancements. He’s missing parts for the ones they’re most interested in, which are adamantine bone plating (immunity to crits) and a troll heart (regenerate 2hp/rd). Major operations also require substantial downtime to recover, and the troll heart implantation requires two surgical assistants, one of whom must be able to cast Heal twice per day, and a Constitution save at the end to not die.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ratel the monk ultimately opts for two enhancements (at a cost of 8 hours of surgery @ 500gp/hr, plus 2 days recovery time):</p><p></p><table style='width: 100%'><tr><td>Extra thumbs</td><td>You grow a second thumb on each hand, located adjacent to your pinky finger. You have advantage on all checks related to avoiding being disarmed or dropping something, and a +2 bonus on any checks related to climbing. Most gloves require modification to fit.</td></tr><tr><td>Poison jet sacs</td><td>You get a small, greenish sac implanted on the underside of one or both wrists. Each sac can be used once per day to squirt a 5'x20' line of poison dealing 1d6 poison damage per point of Constitution modifier, with a dexterity save for half damage (DC 8+Proficiency+Con). Alternatively each sac can be used twice per day as an object interaction to coat a weapon or piece of ammunition with poison dealing the same amount of damage.</td></tr></table><p></p><p></p><p>The party during this time explores the compound a bit, seeing the semi-automated (scarecrow+homunculus) corn processing and distillery. A lot of the alcohol is used for powering the giant walk-in cooler area (they didn’t see details on it), but Farlas also drinks a LOT. Nobody seemed to bothered by the surgeon drinking on the job as he didn’t seem to act drunk…</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>From there, they head west towards giantish territory. They search the jungle along the way and find a crystalline greatsword embedded in a stone. There are 5 bowl-like depressions on the top of the stone, and writing – but all of the writing is in Sylvan or Druid. Nobody reads either of those languages, and nobody has Comprehend Languages on their spell list. Malamir the artificer copies down the writing. They try to pull the sword out, but nothing happens. Malamir does cast Identify on it, discovering that it’s a+3 greatsword that can be used as a reaction to try to block a single-target spell with a Dexterity save; on a successful save, the sword absorbs the spell and casts it into the next target hit within 1 hour.</p><p></p><p>Without the ability to read what’s written, no progress is made, but they’ll probably come back to it later.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Heading west into the mountains, they then find some bonfire stacks of wood like old signal beacons (think LOTR). In the next hex west, they encounter a herd of about 20 horse-sized goats. Ratel wants to try to get one, but when they land, the goats charge at them with bloody sharp teeth. The party decides that fighting about 20 horse-sized goats with big sharp teeth is probably a bad idea, and flies away from the Eater Goat herd. There is discussion about getting the goats to chase them towards the Aaracokra cities, or maybe capturing and air-dropping them…</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Eventually, they find an abandoned giantish city with lots of collapsed tunnels. They explore, and explore, and get attacked by a purple worm. Malamir is swallowed, but the worm is killed. The monster manual specifies that purple worms usually have gems and gold in their gullet, so I roll and they get about 750gp (don’t recall exact amount), and they take the stinger. Nearly everyone is resistant or immune to poison, so the purple worm poison doesn’t ever land as hard as it should.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They long rest and then explore much of the rest of the city, eventually spotting some light through a pile of rubble. One Stone Shape from the cleric (who’s character is present when convenient when she’s out) and they end up finding a library that’s still partially intact and lit by Continual Flame. They search it, and roll near max on wizard scroll counts, finding: 2 9th level scrolls, 3 8th level scrolls, 2 7th level scrolls, and a Pearl of Power. I rolled on the wizard list and they got:</p><p></p><p>Finger of Death</p><p></p><p>Delayed Blast Fireball</p><p></p><p>Horrid Wilting</p><p></p><p>Feeblemind</p><p></p><p>Telepathy</p><p></p><p>Invulnerability</p><p></p><p>Psychic Scream</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They were not stealthy when searching through the scrolls, tablets, and metal plates… so on their way out, two purple worms attacked them. Again, the party buzzsawed through them. Purple Worms aren’t very smart. One was close to getting away, so Teador used Banishment on it (DC 18 Cha save vs d20-3) to keep it from running away while they dealt with the other worm. Boom, 2 worms dead, about 1500 more gold and 2 more stingers.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They exit the abandoned city and we ended there.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The 3 purple worms were technically 39000xp (CR 15), which is over 1/4th of what the party needs to go from 14 to 15. They are pretty close to leveling by XP total. I think the PWs are a bit over-CR’d, as all they have going for them is big numbers, and the numbers are dependent on landing poison, swallowing enemies, or being able to retreat into the stone without getting hit by 3 OAs including one from someone who has Sentinel and can shut down retreating.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They won’t get to level until they accomplish something substantially relevant to the plot. It may be a few more sessions.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I am now at the point on the calendar where we’re due for an Enemy Action. I’ll probably have the Aaracokra find and attack one of the hidden yuan-ti cities that the party has visited, so that when they go back for a visit they find ashes and ruins. The enemy gets a vote, and it needs to be something the party can see.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Between session enemy action: The Aaracokra village in 12.12 is found and attacked. (d100) 80% of the population is killed. The remaining 20% escape. This is the village that the party visited and bought clothes at.</p><p></p><p>Assuming 2-1 losses, the Aaracokra lose 10 war power (about 30-40 troops) non-recoverable casualties.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If the party goes to that hex, they’ll find the village a bunch of burnt ruins with scattered bones and broken javelins. Useful items will have generally been looted.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><strong>Session 12: 6/12/2021</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Dmitri the Barbarian’s player could not make it. Teador the Paladin’s player was late due to fighting Strahd in another campaign (the fight will be finished next session and 1 PC is dead, but it sounds like they’ll win).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The giant-inhabited mountains are somewhat safer, with random encounters being triggered on a roll of 1 on a d8 every 2 hours. I rolled over 20d8 this session and got zero random encounters.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The party continues exploring to find the giants. They explore a couple of hexes and pretty quickly locate two more signal beacon firewood stacks in the mountains. After this, they locate a small large hunting camp (ha) containing 4 stone giants and about 10 goliaths. They land, chat, and learn some things about where some of the giant cities are located (mostly to the west), and some basics about how the giants are governed. Quoted from my faction info section:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“The giants are long-lived, and consequently risk-</p><p></p><p>averse, prone to considering all risks.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Instead of the Ordning, adult giants are divided into</p><p></p><p>twenty-six different Clans, based on what astrological</p><p></p><p>sign they were born under (13 lunar months), and</p><p></p><p>whether the moon was waning or waxing during that</p><p></p><p>time. Each Clan head is elected by members of his</p><p></p><p>clan within the specific area or enclave, and rules for</p><p></p><p>two weeks, with the counsel of those who rule</p><p></p><p>immediately before and after him. Thanks to the</p><p></p><p>caution and consideration practiced by the giants, this</p><p></p><p>is actually a stable form of government, as no ruler</p><p></p><p>will take actions that he believes will be overturned</p><p></p><p>after his yearly term is ended.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The goliaths generally follow the giants’ lead and do things that require smaller eyes and hands. They haven’t had too many problems with the Aaracokra, and (this is developed over several NPC conversations) usually have battles mostly via missile fire – javelins from above vs. rocks and ballista bolts from below. The Aaracokra don’t tend to fare well in melee against goliaths and stone giants.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>One of the hunters in the camp is attending an archery competition soon, and mentions it. Ka Fareye, a very old and legendary archer among the goliaths, is looking for someone very skilled to get his powerful longbow. Ratel, our kensei monk, is interested in this. The party travels with some of the goliaths (getting some of the info above) overland to a couple of hexes away, where the archery competition is.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There are 4 phases to the competition over 2 days. I had picked out 6 NPC contestants as noteworthy , and had pre-rolled their results:</p><p></p><p><strong>Arxerx</strong>, Drow eldritch knight, hailing from the Rodanite village (12.09)</p><p></p><p><strong>Enele</strong>, Goliath arcane archer</p><p></p><p><strong>Ka’ena</strong>, Goliath Ranger (female)</p><p></p><p><strong>Aolani</strong>, Goliath Bard (female)</p><p></p><p><strong>Redleaf</strong>, Satyr archer (champion)</p><p></p><p><strong>Harenda</strong>, Yuan-ti abomination</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Here are the competitions:</p><p></p><p><em>Rapid Fire</em></p><p></p><p>At 150 feet, 5 targets are set up. Contestants have as many arrows as they need to strike the bullseye (AC 22) once per target. Scoring:</p><p>Starting point value: 20</p><p></p><p>-1 point per arrow fired</p><p></p><p>-1 point per round or partial round used to shoot</p><p></p><p>Highest point value places first.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><em>Long Distance</em></p><p></p><p>3 Targets are set up at 550’ (long range). The bullseyes are not much larger (AC 22), but most shooters will have disadvantage due to the range. A DC 24 Perception check gives +2 to the attack roll. Each contestant gets 6 arrows.</p><p></p><p>1 point is awarded for each bullseye hit. Highest score places first.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><em>Cover</em></p><p></p><p>Targets are set up at a range of 50’, 100’, and 150’, all benefiting from half cover (+5 AC). Targets are AC 20 + cover. Shooters with the Sharpshooter feat or other ways to negate cover do well on this one.</p><p></p><p>Each contestant gets 6 arrows.</p><p></p><p>1 point is awarded for each bullseye hit. Highest score places first.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><em>Power</em></p><p></p><p>A hardened target with a thin layer of iron is set up at a distance of 50 feet. The bullseyes are AC 20, but the targets have a hardness of 10. Any arrow which deals less than 10 damage will bounce off.</p><p></p><p>Each contestant gets three arrows.</p><p></p><p>1 point is awarded for each bullseye hit. Highest score places first.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>During the competition, they talked to several NPCs. The Yuan-ti warned that the Aaracokra sacrifices seem to be gathering power for something. The party also caught a couple of shenanigans:</p><p></p><p>-Aolani, a Goliath Bard, had been vociferously insulting people and talking the whole time. She got caught in competition 2 or 3 using Cutting Words. Teador the Paladin took her aside, and he and Reybella the cleric set up dispel/counterspell to counter Aolani if they caught her doing it again.</p><p></p><p>-Arxerx, the drow eldritch knight from the Rodanite village, got caught by Teador’s celestial griffin sneaking to competitors’ tents and casting <em>Dancing Lights</em> to make them tired. Teador told him to stop, and checked to verify it was nothing more harmful. 3 competitors suffered -1s on their total scores the next day as a result of this.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ratel ended up tying with Redleaf the Satyr champion in overall scoring. Contestants with the Sharpshooter feat did substantially better (of course), but his overall higher attack bonus and kensei extra damage ability helped out a lot with the Power competition, meaning he and Redleaf were the only two who even scored any points.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I had Redleaf (fey) ask what sort of bet or contest they should use to settle who was best. Ratel first proposed shooting at targets guarded by the other (deflect arrows), but the satyr didn’t go for this. Malamir the artificer then suggested moving targets. We ended up settling on an animated target (AC 26) at a distance of 150’ and 450’ (disadvantage), with the iron on it so it required at least 10 damage for an arrow to stick, scored like the Rapid Fire section.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There were then a lot of dice rolled. Ratel cleared the close range target quickly, but it took 11 arrows (IIRC) to score on the 2nd target because he was rolling with disadvantage. Redleaf could not use the Sharpshooter damage bonus against the target (+10 to hit becomes +5, vs. AC 26). Lots of arrows were blown on the short range shooting, and then he scored a critical hit during his action surged 6-arrow first round against the 450’ target. Final score: Ratel 6, Redleaf 7. It was pretty tense and close!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Redleaf got the Bow of the Quetzal +3, which gives 1 arrow per round a Chaos Bolt effect. Ratel was pretty happy with the runner-up prize, a Cragtop Bow +2. It doesn’t require attunement, and has double the normal range increments for a longbow. He’s talking about getting Sharpshooter at 16, shooting enemies from 1200’ away for lots of damage, and I think he’s pivoting from melee monk over to archer.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>During discussions, they got the fey riddle on the stone translated:</p><p></p><p><em>Useless to the blind,</em></p><p><em>A drinker, a spiller,</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Chains this crystal blade bind,</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Until offering is made in kind.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p> <em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Dryness of ocean,</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Melting of rock,</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Color of air,</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Flow of clock,</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Hair of the wielder,</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>Place to unlock.</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ka Fareye, the old goliath, also told them that he’s seen plenty of people say they would stop the Aaracokra or overthrow them, and they all fail. More than just words will be needed to get allies to take the risk of moving, and that the Aaracokra’s strength is their connection to their gods. Overthrowing their high temples would be a good start.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ratel wants to hire Arxerx (the drow) to sneak up to Aaracokra ships at night and light them up with Faerie Fire for bombing, but the drow is wary of losing his home with the Rodanites.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A bunch of discussion ensues about high-altitude bombing, making alchemical grenades, returning boulders, etc.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>After this, the party headed north and found another giant city. They get the book they found in the purple worm ruins (improvised last session as a giantish diary containing a reference to the library) turned in and find out what it is. Shopping-wise, they find someone who makes +1 steel armors, a sage who can cast Find the Path and record results for them, and a giant who makes +1 Returning Boulders…. That giant was put there over 6 months ago when I wrote this area up, and happened to show up less than 1 hour after boulder-bombing was discussed. Funny!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Session ended there. This is the first D&D session I’ve ever run that had zero combat.</p><p>Here’s a map of the party’s travels so far.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]139761[/ATTACH]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="J-H, post: 8328865, member: 7020951"] [B]Session 8: 4/11/21[/B] The ranger and barbarian’s players couldn’t make it again. The party decided to do a bit of fortifying on the old tower they found, using Stone Shape to close the roof hole and to (by gathering more rock) make a nice solid door for it. They explore the runes on the outer walls, and determine that they created an Unhallow effect with the Tongues benefit for any inside it. It could be reactivated, but they elect not to spend the time doing so. There’s a good bit of discussion, and the party heads due south and then slightly east. They travel for 3 days to reach their buried base in an abandoned fort. The dice are very in their favor with zero random encounters. While the artificer, Malamir, works on his pocket-plane workshop door, the monk (Ratel) and paladin (Teador, on griffonback) decide to explore the hex. There’s nothing else of specific interest here, but they are poking around, so I roll a couple of random encounter options. They spot some wyverns flying above the jungle and pop up to shoot at them. The wyverns attack, thinking they have easy prey at first. A round and a half later, one wyvern is dead and the other two flee. A very successful Nature check roll helps them butcher it, salvaging the hide, the skull, and the stinger. The monk later gets (roll) 8 doses of wyvern poison (7d6, Con DC 15 half) and pre-applies them to some arrows. The group then travels southwest a couple of days (still with no 1s on the random encounter d6s) to reach a Yuan-ti village they had previously visited (hex 12.12). The monk gets his new clothes, sells the wyvern hide, and gets the skull boiled clean while there. There’s a good bit of discussion and debate I’m skipping here, but they eventually elect to not show off Ssword to the Yuan-ti. They do ask questions, and get a short summary of each of the 5 Aaracokra gods, their city names, and what each god is generally about (domains/alignment) and the general activity known about their city/area. This includes typical garrison sizes (200, or 2000 for the capital city). They decide that they will need some allies to fight the Aaracokra due to the size of the enemy military involved; I do have a method for tracking combat power deployed to a fight and tell them so. They decide (using knowledge from the absent Goliath ranger Helwyn) to go visit the giants in the southwest corner of the map, exploring along the way. They go one hex south and start searching it. I finally roll a random encounter, and it’s the toughest Aaracokra patrol (1 wizard, 2 clerics, 4 champions, 2 mid-rankers). They hear or spot the patrol passing overhead. The monk dashes up a tree to see what it is, and tries to stealthily see from the top of the jungle canopy. He rolls a 23 or 24 for stealth. The Aaracokra roll a 16 and 17 on the perception dice, and the average perception score for most of them was +8…so they see him. Roll initiative. This fight took the rest of the session and lasted for about 7 rounds. Ratel wins initative and burns some ki points to put two arrows into the enemy wizard (closest one/front of the air-skiff), dealing about 60% of the wizard’s HP in damage. That wizard goes Greater Invisible on his turn, and stays that way (moving around) until nearly the end of the battle. Nobody tries to track or target him. Reybella (cleric) tries out her new spell (Firestorm) and deals 35 or 17 damage to 5 or 6 enemies, as well as blowing out the heart/power box on the air-skiff. I thought they’d try to capture it for mobility, but nope. Boom. The enemy senior cleric opens up with Dawn, but since you have to [I]end[/I] your turn in it for it to take effect, it’s pretty worthless. We mis-read the Boots of Speed and think they give disadvantage on all attacks. Combined with the Artificer’s AC 24, he’s nearly un-hittable despite being the focus of a lot of attention at first. Magic Missile, Harm, Blight, and a Sacred Flame do connect over time. The paladin and cleric are riding the paladin’s summoned griffon. It works pretty well, up until the Aaracokra start targeting it after a round or two of failing to hit the paladin’s AC 22. They do eat a couple of rounds of Spiritual Guardian damage in the process. One of the enemy priests casts Cure Mass Wounds twice, as well as Cure Wounds once (on the wizard). Healing 5 enemies for ~22hp each is a pretty big battle-extender, especially when the party lacks AOE damage. This makes him enemy numero uno for the party. The artificer, boosted by Haste and Boots of Speed, comes up with a combo plan with the monk (who has boots that give immunity to fall damage, and a high speed). The monk runs up a tree. The artificer picks him up, then flies up 100’+ (I don’t recall the exact number), then uses the monk as an improvised weapon to attack the enemy priest that’s done most of the healing. On a hit, the enemy takes fall damage, and the monk gets to take one attack. On a near miss, the monk can make a dexterity save to re-aim himself (this happens once, successfully). The first time it was 9d6 damage; the second time, the artificer went higher and it was 15d6 damage, plus some AOE damage from the boots. The monk then fell another 70’ to the ground, landing next to and damaging the cleric who had been grounded when the griffon was killed (oops!). The wizard eventually drops his invisibility in round 5 or round 6 and hits the artificer (very high up, >200’ above the party) with Bigby’s Grappling Hand. Over two rounds, this drops the artificer to 1hp. The two weakest Aaracokra attack him while he’s grappled, but still fail to hit his AC 24. The remaining enemy priest says to just take one for sacrifices, and they start to fly away. The monk makes two shots at disadvantage, popping the priest’s death ward and then killing it with the follow-up. The artificer gets reduced to 0 by magic missile after being squeezed, but he’s a half-orc, so he stays at 1hp. On his turn, he manages to use his action to escape from the hand. He’s still Hasted (never failed a Concentration save), and uses his move and hasted action to dash/fly towards the ground super-fast. One enemy wizard and two enemy warriors escaped. The cleric went down to about 20hp at one point, but the paladin and monk didn’t take much damage from what I can recall. The monk completely negated a critical-hit javelin with Deflect Arrows, then threw it back at the enemy and did 13 damage… and he spent a lot of time under the jungle canopy and thus mostly out of sight. One of the enemies was carrying a potion of Supreme Healing, but used it during the fight. The party did acquire a new magical spear from one of the enemy champions: [B]Skirmisher’s Spear[/B] [I]Very rare, requires attunement[/I] The wielder of this +3 spear’s speed is increased by 10 ft. If the wielder moves more than ½ his move speed during his turn, he may make an attack against an enemy as a Bonus Action during that move. The monk wants it to make his speed even higher. I need to look up retraining rules to let him drop his trident kensei weapon (which he hasn’t used in 4 levels) for something else. The party chooses to head southeast into some mountains and long-rests, knowing that they have probably earned some specific enemy attention. This is their second run-in with a patrol in this area of the map with escapees, plus some of them were seen during the attacks they did around Tezcatlipoca’s temple. I’ll have to figure out enemy reactions between sessions. There will definitely be some heavy patrolling and reinforced search parties for them. The wizard in particular can shed light on what does and doesn’t work on them. The party succeeded on saves vs blindness (once) hold person (twice) and a few other things during the fight. Lower-CR enemies are still a threat, but DC 12 or DC 14 is fairly easy for most of them to make (monk, paladin, artificer all have or grant save bonuses). [B]Session 9: 4/24/2021[/B] Our ranger player has dropped out due to the traveling/distance involved. The cleric’s player could not make it tonight, leaving us with the barbarian, artificer, paladin, and monk. The group decides to go ahead and detail-search the hex they are in (low mountains). They spend two days on it, nearly hitting the target # at the end of day 3, so I shift the encounter to happening at night. The Paladin (highest on the random Perception roll) spots some lights in the near distance that he can identify as [I]Dancing Lights[/I]. The party decides to investigate. As they head up-slope, a few crossbow bolts miss them, but their foes stay well-hidden. They call out in various languages, but get no response. Ultimately, they get closer to discover that they are fighting against four drow warriors (the CR 5 kind from the MM). The only real danger comes from a lucky Faerie Fire hitting the artificer, who decides to come down to the ground anyway to try to disarm the drow. Thanks to the advantage, they land several hits, but thanks to his poison resistance, the damage is ultimately minimal. Once the paladin and barbarian make their way up the difficult terrain, the fight is essentially over; the barbarian uses his thrown greataxe a couple of times, and then finally closes to melee, where he crits for 70-something damage against an undamaged 71 hp drow warrior. They enter the cave that the lights had been in, kill the last drow (who was shooting up a vertical chimney in the cave), and end up meeting a pair of Triton warlocks who follow Oztalun, an elder aboleth who is one of the regional powers. After some discussion, the warlocks offer to take them to meet their Master (although without discussing who or what it is). They travel across 2 hexes, then are shown an entry in an abandoned-looking stone hut located in a distinctive tree grove atop a hill. From there, it’s a ladder, a mile-long tunnel, stairs, and a 3 hour walk in a big cavern with some guard posts and mushroom farms to another stairway, which goes down another 400’ or so to a crafting village centered around a lake. This is just one part of Oztalun’s lair, which is a large underground complex that stretches for dozens of miles and would be a nightmare to take against a telepathically-coordinated defense team capable of using levitation at will to navigate all the vertical terrain. The party talks to the aboleth who meets them, Ekchuah, about weapons and armor and building a coalition against the Aaracokra. Ekchuah is very interested in Ssword and offers to buy it [the aboleths are against all gods and would destroy it, as it’s a fragment of a dead god], but the party declines. The artificer starts talking about making a flying vessel, and Ekchuah demurs in favor of having them make an appointment with Acat, another aboleth, who shows up the next day. Acat gives me an opportunity to use knowledge of all the existing spells and items in the game when discussing options with them. After a lot of discussion, the party ultimately settles on Brooms of Flying as a cheap way to get flight for everyone – one that can be set up quickly. Uncommon = 500gp, crafting cost = 250, artificer half cost = 125gp; crafting speed 50gp/week on magic items… but all the Warlocks can cast Levitate at will, and there’s plenty of help around, so I call it 5 days for 5 brooms. The party also gets better information about who’s where on the map, including learning about the Scorpionfolk and the possible old Aaracokra stomping grounds, and the existence of the Death Knight’s Tomb near the cursed forest – although not what that dungeon is. There’s a moderate-length discussion about AC-improving items, so one of the Tritons mentions that they’ve had some contact with someone who claims to be able to improve and toughen bodies – a Fleshcrafter. The party decides to head for him, so after spending a full 7 days underground in the (warded) lair), they head southwest on their brooms. They start searching the next hex southwest, because they have figured out that searching is what led them to find out about the aboleth and a lot of good information and another regional power. I roll a random encounter, and it’s the weakest possible Aaracokra patrol. There’s not much to hide behind, and their stealth checks were middling, so they get spotted. At this point, the party is pretty distinctive, as it includes the only dwarf for a few hundred miles and a flying iron man suit. They have been encountered multiple times, including by a wizard based out of the nearest city, and are known to be dangerous to the Aaracokra. This patrol shadows them at about a quarter-mile distance. When the party splits, the patrol splits, using their speed advantage over the Brooms of Flying to keep at a distance. The monk goes northwest while the rest of the party goes southwest. After about an hour (3 miles each way) of distance passes, the group decides to pincer them. They coordinate via Sending, and herd the southwest group of followers north. A hasted griffin dashing moves 480’ per round all out, and so can reach them in about 3 rounds. The monk drops from above on one of them, and then they run down the other two from the split group – but by this time, they’ ve already sighted another Aaracokra patrol to the west. They decide to head for the nearest jungle hex, which happens to be the one Bahadural the dragon lairs in … but he is cautious, and will only intervene if they use Sending to ask him to or something. The air-skiffs withdraw as the end of the day nears, but most of the Aaracokra remain until replaced by fresh troops – always staying far from the party. The party flies under the jungle cover, takes a short rest, and then does a forced march flight for about 3 hours, before, saddle-sore, taking a long rest. This means they won’t be done resting until after sun-up. At this point, they are prime targets for a Scry’N’Die, except that the Aaracokra spellcasters are mostly clerical… so getting there will be more complex for them. I’ll have to look at options, but I think it may involve two high-level priests and Plane Shift. The Aaracokra could just fly in, but Scrying doesn’t reveal a large enough area to be great for navigation unless there are major landmarks around. It’ll be a caster-heavy strike force, as the non-caster Aaracokra have demonstrated that they struggle to hit… and they’ll show up buffed. I have a couple of weeks to figure out what happens. If the enemy mis-jumps and/or arrives with only half their force, it’ll be funny (I’ll roll if they use Teleport and whatever happens, happens). If they arrive in full force, maybe they’ll kill some PCs or capture some, setting up for a prison-break-in-transit or something. We’ll see. [B]Session 10: 5/8/2021[/B] I pre-rolled to see if anyone would fail the Wisdom save against Scrying the next morning (someone did). I set up a strike force of 2 Champions with +1 Lances, 2 War Priests (melee) with macahuitls that do +1d8 damage (so their total hit is like 3d8+5) and who start with Spirit Guardians up, 2 Senior Priests with 15th-level clerical casting, and 2 Wizards with spells up to 5th level. They used Transport Via Plants (the nearest Aaracokra city is the nature/earth deity) and came in flying, except for the War Priests. One of the Senior Priests opened up with Earthquake, creating several major rifts (nobody fell in) and knocking people prone. The fight was over in about 3 rounds, with the exception of one fleeing Champion who got chased down via hasted griffin. CR 5-7 opponents with +7 to +9 to hit can’t connect often enough to be a threat to most of the party. Ssword came into play for the first time, critting two or three times in conjunction with the Zealot Barbarian damage. I think there was one hit for exactly 100hp and another for about 90. Senior Priests count for two points, so it has accumulated 5 points in dead enemy divine casters. The monk spent his time in a tree (passing all saves to stay in the tree during the earthquake) and using some of his remaining wyvern poison arrows to do 30-50 damage per hit when he hit. The life cleric cast Firestorm and hit 5 or 6 enemies (all but one standing) for 39 damage, with about half of them failing their save. The Paladin did his thing with Smite, but also at one point cast Hold Person, incapacitating one of the highest-level priests and causing him to fall (fall damage & accessibility to melee). The Artificer with the Skirmisher’s Spear +3 (bonus action attack if you move at least half your speed) plus Gauntlets of Ogre Power is now a pretty decent melee damage-dealer. The party having Brooms of Flying sure helps them reach their targets, despite the speed. Meanwhile, Harm, Blight, Bigby’s Hand, etc. didn’t connect reliably, and not many clerics can pass a DC 35 Concentration save. Loot: Lance +1 x2 Macahuitl of Blood (+1d8 slashing) x2 Potion of Greater Healing x2 (the wizards even get a chance to chug these) The party moves on and out to the next hex to the southwest, searching it and eventually encountering a cultivated area in the jungle and a yuan-ti patrol, who curtly tell them to move on and go away. They do. I roll random encounters in the next hex for the next day and get 3 1s, so I roll a few times and combine. The party gets attacked by two Dread Blossom Swarms (adapted from 3.5) with a Tendriculous on the ground below their brooms. The paladin and barbarian’s radiant & acid damage are most of what kills the two swarms off (65hp but lots of resistances). The paladin is paralyzed but on griffinback. Several players take some nasty Constitution damage, including the barbarian (it all comes back on a short rest). The monk runs up a tree, then drops onto a branch to deal thunder/shockwave damage to one of the swarms. The branch of course breaks, and he hits the ground within the sensing radius of the Tendriculous. Next round, it attacks 3 times, critting on one hit, for a total of 99 damage. The round after that, he gets swallowed – but only after the cleric heals him for 40-something HP. The barbarian charges in and gets grappled, but never gets swallowed. The rest of the party stays at range, pelting the 280-something HP plant creature with Acid Splash (artificer), Toll the Dead (cleric), and Chill Touch (paladin). The creature goes down with the monk still having 10-20 hit points. This combined encounter ended up as more of a threat than the Scry & Transport Via Plants force did, in terms of HP loss and potential for causing a PC death! Proceeding south in search of the Fleshcrafter, the party finds a group of scarecrows standing in a crudely-hacked out meadow. They investigate, spotting a couple of dead rabbits that don’t appear to have been eaten. The monk spends a couple of hours hunting, eventually catching a live chicken. He flies far overhead and drops the chicken to see what happens. It dies on impact (1hp, 600’ fall, chicken rolled poorly to fly). The paladin starts to ride his griffin down, but it gets a bad feeling (Wis save barely passed) and suggests they not. After some debate, the party moves on. They end up encountering 3 unicorns and 2 dryads, and having a chat. The area has felt scary since a few days ago, after some sprites reported freeing some straw people, but they don’t know anything specific about it. They mention some druids to the west. The artificer asks “Got any” and the paladin’s player jumps in with “Grapes?” and everyone lost it for a bit. There was a bit more conversation, but I don’t recall anything super-important. Long rest, end of session. The party is now using Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum to block scrying while they sleep. [B]Session 11: 5/29/2021[/B] Absent: Dmitri the Paladin, Reybella the Cleric. Party is temporarily dwarfless. The party heads south into the next hex, where they automatically find a giant (2 mile diameter) area of cornfields. The perimeter is guarded by groups of scarecrows, but there are some cleared paths to “something” at the middle. Two of the three walk down the cleared path. Teador the Paladin flies his broom over the cornfield (having told his griffon to circle around outside and stay out of sight)… scarecrows head towards him, and he joins the others on the path, at which point the scarecrows stop. They reach a small compound encircled by a seamless 10’ high stone wall. A gate is half-open. They knock, and a [I]Magic Mouth[/I] spell tells them to wait a bit. After a few minutes, Farlas Clerval, the fleshcrafter, comes out and waves them over to his parlor. Farlas is an eladrin elf with white hair in three braids (so the two eyes in the back of his head aren’t blocked) who wears a rust-red (dried blood color) lab coat and a large surgical knife at his belt. He has a homunculus bring them cookies, and lemonade fortified with corn whiskey. After a short discussion, the party gets the menu of available enhancements. He’s missing parts for the ones they’re most interested in, which are adamantine bone plating (immunity to crits) and a troll heart (regenerate 2hp/rd). Major operations also require substantial downtime to recover, and the troll heart implantation requires two surgical assistants, one of whom must be able to cast Heal twice per day, and a Constitution save at the end to not die. Ratel the monk ultimately opts for two enhancements (at a cost of 8 hours of surgery @ 500gp/hr, plus 2 days recovery time): [TABLE] [TR] [TD]Extra thumbs[/TD] [TD]You grow a second thumb on each hand, located adjacent to your pinky finger. You have advantage on all checks related to avoiding being disarmed or dropping something, and a +2 bonus on any checks related to climbing. Most gloves require modification to fit.[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Poison jet sacs[/TD] [TD]You get a small, greenish sac implanted on the underside of one or both wrists. Each sac can be used once per day to squirt a 5'x20' line of poison dealing 1d6 poison damage per point of Constitution modifier, with a dexterity save for half damage (DC 8+Proficiency+Con). Alternatively each sac can be used twice per day as an object interaction to coat a weapon or piece of ammunition with poison dealing the same amount of damage.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] The party during this time explores the compound a bit, seeing the semi-automated (scarecrow+homunculus) corn processing and distillery. A lot of the alcohol is used for powering the giant walk-in cooler area (they didn’t see details on it), but Farlas also drinks a LOT. Nobody seemed to bothered by the surgeon drinking on the job as he didn’t seem to act drunk… From there, they head west towards giantish territory. They search the jungle along the way and find a crystalline greatsword embedded in a stone. There are 5 bowl-like depressions on the top of the stone, and writing – but all of the writing is in Sylvan or Druid. Nobody reads either of those languages, and nobody has Comprehend Languages on their spell list. Malamir the artificer copies down the writing. They try to pull the sword out, but nothing happens. Malamir does cast Identify on it, discovering that it’s a+3 greatsword that can be used as a reaction to try to block a single-target spell with a Dexterity save; on a successful save, the sword absorbs the spell and casts it into the next target hit within 1 hour. Without the ability to read what’s written, no progress is made, but they’ll probably come back to it later. Heading west into the mountains, they then find some bonfire stacks of wood like old signal beacons (think LOTR). In the next hex west, they encounter a herd of about 20 horse-sized goats. Ratel wants to try to get one, but when they land, the goats charge at them with bloody sharp teeth. The party decides that fighting about 20 horse-sized goats with big sharp teeth is probably a bad idea, and flies away from the Eater Goat herd. There is discussion about getting the goats to chase them towards the Aaracokra cities, or maybe capturing and air-dropping them… Eventually, they find an abandoned giantish city with lots of collapsed tunnels. They explore, and explore, and get attacked by a purple worm. Malamir is swallowed, but the worm is killed. The monster manual specifies that purple worms usually have gems and gold in their gullet, so I roll and they get about 750gp (don’t recall exact amount), and they take the stinger. Nearly everyone is resistant or immune to poison, so the purple worm poison doesn’t ever land as hard as it should. They long rest and then explore much of the rest of the city, eventually spotting some light through a pile of rubble. One Stone Shape from the cleric (who’s character is present when convenient when she’s out) and they end up finding a library that’s still partially intact and lit by Continual Flame. They search it, and roll near max on wizard scroll counts, finding: 2 9th level scrolls, 3 8th level scrolls, 2 7th level scrolls, and a Pearl of Power. I rolled on the wizard list and they got: Finger of Death Delayed Blast Fireball Horrid Wilting Feeblemind Telepathy Invulnerability Psychic Scream They were not stealthy when searching through the scrolls, tablets, and metal plates… so on their way out, two purple worms attacked them. Again, the party buzzsawed through them. Purple Worms aren’t very smart. One was close to getting away, so Teador used Banishment on it (DC 18 Cha save vs d20-3) to keep it from running away while they dealt with the other worm. Boom, 2 worms dead, about 1500 more gold and 2 more stingers. They exit the abandoned city and we ended there. The 3 purple worms were technically 39000xp (CR 15), which is over 1/4th of what the party needs to go from 14 to 15. They are pretty close to leveling by XP total. I think the PWs are a bit over-CR’d, as all they have going for them is big numbers, and the numbers are dependent on landing poison, swallowing enemies, or being able to retreat into the stone without getting hit by 3 OAs including one from someone who has Sentinel and can shut down retreating. They won’t get to level until they accomplish something substantially relevant to the plot. It may be a few more sessions. I am now at the point on the calendar where we’re due for an Enemy Action. I’ll probably have the Aaracokra find and attack one of the hidden yuan-ti cities that the party has visited, so that when they go back for a visit they find ashes and ruins. The enemy gets a vote, and it needs to be something the party can see. Between session enemy action: The Aaracokra village in 12.12 is found and attacked. (d100) 80% of the population is killed. The remaining 20% escape. This is the village that the party visited and bought clothes at. Assuming 2-1 losses, the Aaracokra lose 10 war power (about 30-40 troops) non-recoverable casualties. If the party goes to that hex, they’ll find the village a bunch of burnt ruins with scattered bones and broken javelins. Useful items will have generally been looted. [B]Session 12: 6/12/2021[/B] Dmitri the Barbarian’s player could not make it. Teador the Paladin’s player was late due to fighting Strahd in another campaign (the fight will be finished next session and 1 PC is dead, but it sounds like they’ll win). The giant-inhabited mountains are somewhat safer, with random encounters being triggered on a roll of 1 on a d8 every 2 hours. I rolled over 20d8 this session and got zero random encounters. The party continues exploring to find the giants. They explore a couple of hexes and pretty quickly locate two more signal beacon firewood stacks in the mountains. After this, they locate a small large hunting camp (ha) containing 4 stone giants and about 10 goliaths. They land, chat, and learn some things about where some of the giant cities are located (mostly to the west), and some basics about how the giants are governed. Quoted from my faction info section: “The giants are long-lived, and consequently risk- averse, prone to considering all risks. Instead of the Ordning, adult giants are divided into twenty-six different Clans, based on what astrological sign they were born under (13 lunar months), and whether the moon was waning or waxing during that time. Each Clan head is elected by members of his clan within the specific area or enclave, and rules for two weeks, with the counsel of those who rule immediately before and after him. Thanks to the caution and consideration practiced by the giants, this is actually a stable form of government, as no ruler will take actions that he believes will be overturned after his yearly term is ended.” The goliaths generally follow the giants’ lead and do things that require smaller eyes and hands. They haven’t had too many problems with the Aaracokra, and (this is developed over several NPC conversations) usually have battles mostly via missile fire – javelins from above vs. rocks and ballista bolts from below. The Aaracokra don’t tend to fare well in melee against goliaths and stone giants. One of the hunters in the camp is attending an archery competition soon, and mentions it. Ka Fareye, a very old and legendary archer among the goliaths, is looking for someone very skilled to get his powerful longbow. Ratel, our kensei monk, is interested in this. The party travels with some of the goliaths (getting some of the info above) overland to a couple of hexes away, where the archery competition is. There are 4 phases to the competition over 2 days. I had picked out 6 NPC contestants as noteworthy , and had pre-rolled their results: [B]Arxerx[/B], Drow eldritch knight, hailing from the Rodanite village (12.09) [B]Enele[/B], Goliath arcane archer [B]Ka’ena[/B], Goliath Ranger (female) [B]Aolani[/B], Goliath Bard (female) [B]Redleaf[/B], Satyr archer (champion) [B]Harenda[/B], Yuan-ti abomination Here are the competitions: [I]Rapid Fire[/I] At 150 feet, 5 targets are set up. Contestants have as many arrows as they need to strike the bullseye (AC 22) once per target. Scoring: Starting point value: 20 -1 point per arrow fired -1 point per round or partial round used to shoot Highest point value places first. [I]Long Distance[/I] 3 Targets are set up at 550’ (long range). The bullseyes are not much larger (AC 22), but most shooters will have disadvantage due to the range. A DC 24 Perception check gives +2 to the attack roll. Each contestant gets 6 arrows. 1 point is awarded for each bullseye hit. Highest score places first. [I]Cover[/I] Targets are set up at a range of 50’, 100’, and 150’, all benefiting from half cover (+5 AC). Targets are AC 20 + cover. Shooters with the Sharpshooter feat or other ways to negate cover do well on this one. Each contestant gets 6 arrows. 1 point is awarded for each bullseye hit. Highest score places first. [I]Power[/I] A hardened target with a thin layer of iron is set up at a distance of 50 feet. The bullseyes are AC 20, but the targets have a hardness of 10. Any arrow which deals less than 10 damage will bounce off. Each contestant gets three arrows. 1 point is awarded for each bullseye hit. Highest score places first. During the competition, they talked to several NPCs. The Yuan-ti warned that the Aaracokra sacrifices seem to be gathering power for something. The party also caught a couple of shenanigans: -Aolani, a Goliath Bard, had been vociferously insulting people and talking the whole time. She got caught in competition 2 or 3 using Cutting Words. Teador the Paladin took her aside, and he and Reybella the cleric set up dispel/counterspell to counter Aolani if they caught her doing it again. -Arxerx, the drow eldritch knight from the Rodanite village, got caught by Teador’s celestial griffin sneaking to competitors’ tents and casting [I]Dancing Lights[/I] to make them tired. Teador told him to stop, and checked to verify it was nothing more harmful. 3 competitors suffered -1s on their total scores the next day as a result of this. Ratel ended up tying with Redleaf the Satyr champion in overall scoring. Contestants with the Sharpshooter feat did substantially better (of course), but his overall higher attack bonus and kensei extra damage ability helped out a lot with the Power competition, meaning he and Redleaf were the only two who even scored any points. I had Redleaf (fey) ask what sort of bet or contest they should use to settle who was best. Ratel first proposed shooting at targets guarded by the other (deflect arrows), but the satyr didn’t go for this. Malamir the artificer then suggested moving targets. We ended up settling on an animated target (AC 26) at a distance of 150’ and 450’ (disadvantage), with the iron on it so it required at least 10 damage for an arrow to stick, scored like the Rapid Fire section. There were then a lot of dice rolled. Ratel cleared the close range target quickly, but it took 11 arrows (IIRC) to score on the 2nd target because he was rolling with disadvantage. Redleaf could not use the Sharpshooter damage bonus against the target (+10 to hit becomes +5, vs. AC 26). Lots of arrows were blown on the short range shooting, and then he scored a critical hit during his action surged 6-arrow first round against the 450’ target. Final score: Ratel 6, Redleaf 7. It was pretty tense and close! Redleaf got the Bow of the Quetzal +3, which gives 1 arrow per round a Chaos Bolt effect. Ratel was pretty happy with the runner-up prize, a Cragtop Bow +2. It doesn’t require attunement, and has double the normal range increments for a longbow. He’s talking about getting Sharpshooter at 16, shooting enemies from 1200’ away for lots of damage, and I think he’s pivoting from melee monk over to archer. During discussions, they got the fey riddle on the stone translated: [I]Useless to the blind, A drinker, a spiller, Chains this crystal blade bind, Until offering is made in kind. Dryness of ocean, Melting of rock, Color of air, Flow of clock, Hair of the wielder, Place to unlock.[/I] Ka Fareye, the old goliath, also told them that he’s seen plenty of people say they would stop the Aaracokra or overthrow them, and they all fail. More than just words will be needed to get allies to take the risk of moving, and that the Aaracokra’s strength is their connection to their gods. Overthrowing their high temples would be a good start. Ratel wants to hire Arxerx (the drow) to sneak up to Aaracokra ships at night and light them up with Faerie Fire for bombing, but the drow is wary of losing his home with the Rodanites. A bunch of discussion ensues about high-altitude bombing, making alchemical grenades, returning boulders, etc. After this, the party headed north and found another giant city. They get the book they found in the purple worm ruins (improvised last session as a giantish diary containing a reference to the library) turned in and find out what it is. Shopping-wise, they find someone who makes +1 steel armors, a sage who can cast Find the Path and record results for them, and a giant who makes +1 Returning Boulders…. That giant was put there over 6 months ago when I wrote this area up, and happened to show up less than 1 hour after boulder-bombing was discussed. Funny! Session ended there. This is the first D&D session I’ve ever run that had zero combat. Here’s a map of the party’s travels so far. 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