Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8211933" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 33: In Which We Break Rule #1</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p>Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard</p><p>Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore)</p><p>Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge)</p><p>Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker)</p><p>Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)</p><p>Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p></p><p>21 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 82)</p><p></p><p>After dinner, but before people retired for the night, Joybell broke out the bottle of good wine that she bought before we left and poured everyone a drink in honor of Thneed being with us for a month. With apologies for being one day late about it.</p><p></p><p>We all got a little bit of wine (some more than others) to celebrate Thneed and to celebrate all of us.</p><p></p><p>Then we went into watches and nightly activities. The night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>22 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 83)</p><p></p><p>Mo had a brilliant idea in the night and tied a rope from the back of the Gellyan to his broom of flying, so he will be able to sleep in his combat hammock and get pulled along by the ship.</p><p></p><p>Shortly after lunch, Orryk and Fiona were reading on deck. Joybell, Taman, and Thneed riding in the bow talking about what they were seeing and passing through. Mo was riding on his combat hammock.</p><p></p><p>We spotted a dozen or so lizardfolk swimming out from the shore toward the boat. Mo cast a plant growth spell on the vegetation in the river, causing the river grasses and weeds to choke up the river bank and impede the progress of the lizardfolk. He left a strip of river wide enough for the boat to pass through unimpeded.</p><p></p><p>Then he asked the lizard folk what they were there for.</p><p></p><p>Lizardperson: We’re here to collect.</p><p>Joybell: What are you collecting?</p><p>Lizardperson: The passage your captain is going to pay at the wreck.</p><p>Captain Lamerin: We’re going to pay that at the wreck in a day and a half.</p><p>Joybell: We’ll pay then. Why are you asking now?</p><p>Lizardperson: Too many people are going by without paying.</p><p></p><p>During this conversation the ship was sailing on…</p><p></p><p>Mo: If you guys can catch us you’re welcome to try and kill us but otherwise…</p><p>Joybell (running to the back of the boat as we sailed away from them): Are you normally the ones who collect the money?</p><p>Lizardperson: We collect for the Green Lord, Tallyxtillon.</p><p>Joybell: Will Tallyxtillon be at the wreck? We can pay him then….</p><p></p><p>(We recognized Tallyxtillon as a draconic name.)</p><p></p><p>Joybell asked Captain Lamerin about the wreck. He told us that there’s a river ship, bigger than the Gellyan, that has been broken in two on a shoal in the middle of the river. The keel is broken and the ship set there as a warning. The Green Lord began collecting a toll to pass the wreck. There are often Lizardfolk there collecting the tolls and they say that the forest itself obeys the Green Lord, but Captain Lamerin has never actually seen him.</p><p></p><p>The captain said that he believes that the Green Lord broke the boat. The Lizardfolk are often on the wreck reminding people to pay.</p><p></p><p>Mo: Don’t pay the 100gp.</p><p>Thneed: I’ve never seen a dragon before.</p><p>Mo: That’s why I don’t want to pay.</p><p>Taman: We could not pay until the dragon shows up, then pay.</p><p>Fiona: I don’t want to meet a green dragon.</p><p>Joybell: I don’t think we’re up to fighting a dragon.</p><p>Orryk: We’re going to wind out fighting it, the way our luck runs.</p><p></p><p>We asked the captain if he knew what boat it was and he didn’t know. There were no reports of a boat going down or going missing and the nameplate on the stern is not visible the way the wreck is sitting on the sandbar.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: But what about all the people on board?</p><p></p><p>The captain hadn’t heard about sailors being missing either and had no idea what might have happened to the crew of the wrecked ship.</p><p></p><p>People just started paying when the wreck appeared and lizardfolk on and about the shoals demanded money. He said we’d get there the next day.</p><p></p><p>Thneed went off with Mo to teach him curse words in Draconic -- only she was teaching him innocuous words and telling him that they were curse words.</p><p></p><p>Orryk: Joybell, what if this is a druid, not a dragon?</p><p>Joybell, thinking: It could be.</p><p>Orryk: The lizardfolk say the forest obeys him. That’s not a dragon thing. It could be a druid thing.</p><p></p><p>We consulted with Fiona to draw on an additional brain with knowledge about dragons. Between Orryk and Fiona we knew that older, bigger and badder green dragons warp the forest around them. It’s not unheard of for them to get some spells, either innately or by learning some magic, which could be druidic magic.</p><p></p><p>Joybell agreed that it was a possibility. But an evil druid would still need to be stopped.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>23 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 84)</p><p></p><p>Late the next day, we saw the wreck on a sandbar in the middle of the river. There were clear shipping lanes on either side of the sandbar, each wide enough for ships the size of the Gellyan or even larger to pass by. On the sandbar was a ship, a bit larger than the Gellyan, broken in half. The bow half was lying sort of on its side. The stern half was standing on the stern, mostly upright. The two halves were completely detached from one another.</p><p></p><p>Mo detached his broom from its tether to the ship and flew over to get a better look at things. He started out looking for markings or any indication as to what the name of the ship was. Unfortunately, all he could really tell was that it was a broken boat.</p><p></p><p>Orryk got the bag of 100gps that Captain Lamerin gave him and gave it to Omnath, his awesome mephit friend.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: I could go over, Mo could use...look, he’s landing…</p><p>Orryk: If he needs us, he’ll scream.</p><p></p><p>Mo threw his rope down into the broken stern and cast rope trick. Then he started climbing down the rope. Orryk sent Omnath over with the bag, looking through his eyes.</p><p></p><p>Orryk, through Omnath, could figure out that it was a weird ship -- or it was a weird thing shaped like a ship. But there’s no way to move around in it, because the decks don’t line up correctly between the two halves of the ship.</p><p></p><p>Mo looked around a little bit, but didn’t see anything of interest inside the wrecked ship, so he climbed up his rope trick to get out of the vertical belly of the epicenter of this outbreak.</p><p></p><p>Joybell tried to wave for him to come back to the Gellyan and land. Mo, totally missing the message, waved back.</p><p></p><p>Orryk had Omnath poke around a little bit on the two halves of the wreck after he left the bag of gold on the island. He determined that someone had taken parts of two ships that were being broken down in shipyard.</p><p></p><p>Mo, still over on the island, cast polymorph on himself and turned into a giant ape. Joybell, hoping to be there for Mo if something went pear-shaped on the island, asked the captain if we could borrow a dinghy to row over to the island. When he said we could, she asked him to please stop the ship when he got a bit beyond the sandbank, so we could look around a bit and not have too far to row to catch up.</p><p></p><p>Then she got in the dinghy with Taman and Thneed and began to row. As we rowed over, Giant Ape Mo began (Magilla Gorilla) breaking up the wrecked ship, violently, throwing the pieces to the side of the river. He roared and tackled the standing stern of the boat knocking it over and breaking it into pieces. When those were thrown to the shore he turned to the bow-end of the wreck smashing it with his giant ape fists.</p><p></p><p>Orryk and Fiona stayed on the Gellyan watching the antics on the sandbar.</p><p></p><p>Mo finished breaking up the wreck about when we arrived at the sandbar and polymorphed back into himself. He grabbed the bag of gold that Omnath had dropped onto the sand, then climbed back on the broom and deployed the combat hammock as we pulled onto the bank.</p><p></p><p>Before we even got out of the boat, Taman noticed movement on the far shore of the river -- some of the foliage was moving and he heard an <em>elephant</em> trumpeting. Or someone mimicking an elephant trumpeting.</p><p></p><p>Joybell (with a bit of assistance from Taman and Thneed) portaged the dinghy across the sandbank and then rowed to the other shore. We found a little beach where we could pull the dinghy out of the water and look around. Omnath flew along with us and was there on the island, but none of us there could speak any dialect of Primordial, so he didn’t really have any way to communicate with us.</p><p></p><p>We looked for tracks around the beach. Joybell and Thneed also looked for elephant tracks -- because although it would have been very unlikely to see an elephant, it would have been awesome as well.</p><p></p><p>Taman and Thneed saw prints from big, clawed feet with tail drag-marks between them. They identified those as lizardfolk tracks. This was about where Taman saw the movement on the shore.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: Should we follow them?</p><p>Taman: Orryk and Fiona are on the boat.</p><p></p><p>He waved at Omnath.</p><p></p><p>Taman: Hi, Orryk!</p><p></p><p>Thneed shouted out a demand to parlay in draconic, but there was no response.</p><p></p><p>Joybell, to Omnath: Please ask Orryk to ask the captain if these lizardfolk have hurt anyone.</p><p></p><p>After a few moments, Omnath shook his head no.</p><p></p><p>Mo reached into his new Bag of Tricks for the first time and pulled out a Giant Hyena.</p><p></p><p>Mo, to the Hyena: Go get ‘em! Just hassle the lizardfolk. Have fun!</p><p></p><p>It bounded off into the woods.</p><p></p><p>We went back to the Gellyan discussing the fact that there were clearly a passel of lizardfolk running some sort of scam. Though that doesn’t explain how they got the boat halves at all, let alone how they got them placed convincingly on the sandbank.</p><p></p><p>As we got back to the Gellyan, Joybell reminded Mo to give Captain Lamerin his money back. Mo, without telling anyone, gave the captain his money bag, lighter by 25 gp.</p><p></p><p>Once back on the ship, we continued on our way.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>24 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 85)</p><p></p><p>The next day Joybell suddenly realized that we hadn’t seen a single other boat on the river the whole trip. Joybell asked about it and the captain said that it was the time of year when traffic on the river began to slow down because winter in Auriqua is unpleasant.</p><p></p><p>Mo asked the captain if he’d made a deal with the Tundra Queen.</p><p></p><p>Captain: I’ve overwintered in Auriqua and seen her there. I was not foolish enough to make a deal with her.</p><p>Taman: Administrator Alighieri tasked me with annoying her as much as possible.</p><p></p><p>Shortly after lunchtime, everyone topside on the boat (which was everyone) noticed a large group of lizardfolk (a dozen to eighteen) standing on the shore watching the Gellyan pass by. The shore was 60’ away and they made no attempt to contact us or to attack.</p><p></p><p>Thneed, to the lizardfolk (in draconic): Did you see those naughty words in that other boat tearing things up?</p><p></p><p>There was no response.</p><p></p><p>Mo, to the lizardfolk (in common): Did you come here to die?</p><p></p><p>Then he threw out a few of the choice swears that Thneed had taught him.</p><p></p><p>Mo (in draconic): Fishsticks! Mother fluffing!</p><p></p><p>The only response was perhaps a bit of stifled laughter.</p><p></p><p>The Gellyan sailed on by, moving at her usual speed (about walking speed). The lizardfolk did not move from their position on the shore.</p><p></p><p>Joybell, to Captain Lamerin: Is this normal?</p><p>Captain Lamerin: No. It’s really not.</p><p>Joybell, to the lizardfolk (in common): Your beef is with us, not the Gellyan or its crew. Don’t take it out on them…. That’s not quite totally true. Just talk to us.</p><p></p><p>We never stopped sailing by and they never responded at all.</p><p></p><p>Mo used the flute of scribing to write “Alighieri was here” on the bank. Once his back was turned, Fiona dispelled it.</p><p></p><p>Orryk: So the question is when we’re going to fight 30 of them.</p><p></p><p>That night, just before dawn, during third watch, Mo, Thneed & Taman noticed a green serpentine thing flying down the river. Mo used mage hand to wake everyone up.</p><p></p><p>As it flew over the Gellyan it waggled its wings in a mark of recognition, acknowledging us and our presence.</p><p></p><p>Mo, to dragon (in draconic): Fishsticks!</p><p></p><p>When we told the captain about it, he took the bag of gold that Mo had returned to him and put it next to the wheel on the top deck.</p><p></p><p>Captain: Next time anyone tries to collect passage, we pay.</p><p></p><p>Neither the boat nor the dragon ever stopped.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the night passed.</p><p></p><p></p><p>25 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 86)</p><p></p><p>We spent the day arguing political theory (is the dragon’s toll to pass along the river illegitimate, could it become legitimate simply by the fact of people paying it, is any toll really legitimate) in a non-heated way.</p><p></p><p>Around dinner time, we saw the first other ship we’d seen the whole trip. It was a merchant vessel sailing down the river toward Embernook. It was flying Auriquah’s flag. (When we noticed that we compared that to the colors the Gellyan was sailing under -- those of Embernook, the Zun family, and another merchant family we weren’t familiar with.)</p><p></p><p>The Gellyan’s crew furled the windsail and waited for the boat to draw alongside.</p><p></p><p>Captain of Other Ship: What’s on the way?</p><p>Captain Lamerin: There were hill giants, a hydra, and lizardfolk. The wreck got trashed.</p><p>Joybell: The wreck was fake. But there really was a dragon flying overhead.</p><p></p><p>Thneed taught the other captain how to greet the dragon in draconic (honestly and for real). Joybell taught him the dragon’s name: Tallyxtillon.</p><p></p><p>Then both ships unfurled their windsails and continued on their way.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: When we go back down this river, it’s going to be such a mess!</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and the night passed.</p><p></p><p></p><p>26 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 87)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, early, we sailed past a town pier (like the one at our village, Kalmarn) that had a flag out. This is how villages indicate to passing ships that they want a boat to stop. Captain Lamerin said that the flag was looking for a boat heading downstream to stop, so we sailed on by.</p><p></p><p>(Mo's player: Pier-to-pier communication.) ( <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" />)</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day passed. So did most of the night. Just before dawn, Thneed, Taman and Mo were on deck on watch. Joybell was sleeping curled up with Scooby on the deck.</p><p></p><p>Thneed was teaching Mo a “bawdy drinking song” in draconic. (In reality it was something like “I’m A Little Pork Roast”.)</p><p></p><p>Another, smaller ship heading downstream passed the Gellyan shortly before dawn. Because of the darkness, neither of the Gellyan nor the other ship had much chance to slow down to communicate before it passed.</p><p></p><p>Thneed and Taman noticed that the ship was flying Auriqua's colors (so leaving that city, not returning to Embernook) and that there was no cargo on the deck. There were also no people on the deck who were obviously not crew. They suspected it might be a charter, much like our trip on the Gellyan.</p><p></p><p>Thneed tried to warn the other ship about the perils we’d encountered.</p><p></p><p>Thneed: Giant Dragon Hydra</p><p>Mo, in draconic: Fishsticks!</p><p></p><p></p><p>27 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 88)</p><p></p><p>The next day we traveled without much incident. Around noon, we had to slow down because of a ferry that crossed the river, connecting villages on either side of the river. We asked if they’d been having problems with lizardfolk and they said they had never been bothered by them.</p><p></p><p>After the ferry crossed the river, we sailed on.</p><p></p><p>Mo, singing: I’m sailing away….</p><p></p><p>That evening after dinner we saw a boat docked at a pier going up river, the same direction we were. The captain slowed to ask how their trip had been going. Theirs had been uneventful (of course). We asked if they had paid at the wreck and they said yes. When asked if the wreck had looked legit to them they said that it had looked a little weird, but even if it wasn’t a real wreck, something had taken those boat halves there. So they paid the toll.</p><p></p><p>We continued moving on and the rest of the day and the night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>28 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 89)</p><p></p><p>As we got further into the plains, and the area of the Tundra Queen’s influence, the woods got looser and looser. Just after lunch, we noticed a circle of standing stones through the trees.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: Oooooh!</p><p></p><p>She asked the captain if we could stop the Gellyan and row the dingy over to look at the standing stones.</p><p></p><p>Taman did his special thing to check for planar portals nearby (within one mile). He detected one very near us and we guessed that it was most likely at the standing stones, though his ability doesn’t tell him where the portal goes.</p><p></p><p>We travelled over in two dinghies, except Mo who was on his broom of flying, to the shore and went to check things out. The stone circle was a few hundred yards from the edge of the river. The stones were something similar to bluestone (which is a form of sandstone, only blue).</p><p></p><p>As we got close, we could see that the circle hadn’t been used in months, but it was clear that it does get some use and it had been used some months ago. Some of the stones had carvings on them in Sylvan which indicated that this circle is a portal to the Feywild. The carvings go around all of the stones and said that the portal can be activated at any of the four festivals (for the solstices and equinoxes). The circle has to be decorated appropriately for the festival and then there is a call and response ritual to do in order to activate it. The ceremony is described in the carvings.</p><p></p><p>Joybell tried to talk with a little chipmunk to ask when people were last in the circle, but it wasn’t up for more conversation than just saying hi.</p><p></p><p>In the face of that lack of information, Joybell walked into the circle. The carvings continued onto the insides of the stones, but conveyed the same information about how to activate the portal to the Feywild.</p><p></p><p>She looked around at the space inside the circle and determined that it was set up for it to be possible to perform druidic rituals (like the ones she was familiar with from her youth) there, but that there was no sign that any had been performed there in at least the last several months.</p><p></p><p>Several of us marked the location of this circle on our maps of Urnod - then we returned to the Gellyan. It was going to be a couple of days before the circle could possibly be activated and we weren’t going to hang around waiting that long.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the day and night passed without incident.</p><p></p><p></p><p>29 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 90)</p><p></p><p>First thing in the morning, Mo pulled an animal from his bag of tricks so he could have a little furry friend. He got a Giant Weasel and named it Checkers.</p><p></p><p>Joybell immediately set about making friends with Checkers, giving it treats of jerky and plenty of scritches. Someone teased her that she was ignoring Scooby.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: I’ve got two hands. I can scritch two critters.</p><p></p><p>In the early afternoon, we arrived at the docks in Auriqua. As we left the Gellyan, we confirmed with Captain Lamerin that he’d be leaving on 4 Harfastin (Campaign day 96) if we haven’t returned before then (or paid him money to stay).</p><p></p><p>Before we left, Thneed gave the captain a bag with 100 gold pieces and a note in draconic that said that the Gellyan and its crew were not responsible for anything we did. She told the captain to use it to pay the toll when they head back downriver if we weren’t aboard.</p><p></p><p>It was the day before the Festival of First Fruits and the town was busy. It was also thoroughly decorated with ribbons and decorations in reds, oranges and golds. There weren’t a lot of leaves, because the tundra had thinned the forest almost entirely away, but gourds and fruit (apples and pumpkins) and sheaves of grain were common.</p><p></p><p>Taman tried to sense his favored enemy, Fey, within five miles and found that there were a large number of them to the north, a few miles away. We figured that was the fey we’d been told would be gathering to the north of the city outside the gates.</p><p></p><p>When we got off the boat, Joybell asked the harbormaster for a recommendation for an inn. The harbormaster recommended two for us -- the Dancing Otter in the New Walk and the Platinum Arrow in the Old Walk. The Platinum Arrow was the nicer and more flashy choice. Joybell pointed out that the Dancing Otter had the better name.</p><p></p><p>Taman: Part of my plan is to be super ostentatious. Staying at the fancier inn will help that.</p><p>Joybell: Couldn’t we be ostentatious at the Dancing Otter?</p><p></p><p>We agreed that we’d head to the Platinum Arrow. As we passed through the gate between Oldest Town and the Throat parts of town we saw that the gate was painted a beautiful light blue. This was the Blue Gate -- the gate where we’d been told the Tundra Queen was contractually obligated to appear during the Feast of Stars.</p><p></p><p>Taman told a person on the street that if he knew someone named Ildna to let him know that someone named Taman was in town looking for them. Confused, the person said he would.</p><p></p><p>Once in Old Town we went to Platinum Arrow. Taman paid for us to stay for one night at the inn.</p><p></p><p>Taman, to innkeeper: This is the party of Taman. I’m looking for a man named Ildna.</p><p></p><p>It was apparent that the innkeeper knew of Ildna.</p><p></p><p>Innkeeper: You probably won’t find him here.</p><p>Taman: Where will I find him? We have important business with him.</p><p>Innkeeper: People who have met him and survived have done so nearer to the mountains.</p><p></p><p>Mo made arrangements with the innkeeper to perform around dinner time in their roomy dining room.</p><p></p><p>We went out to look around Old Town a bit. Orryk was looking for magic shops. Joybell and Fiona were looking for a place to buy some warm clothes. Joybell bought some really fuzzy, furry pieces and put them on under her armor so that the fur was poking out between the plates of the armor. Then she promptly overheated and took it all off again.</p><p></p><p>Joybell, who had been looking at the decorations and commenting on them as we travelled through the city saw that there were decorations that included artificial or preserved fruits, grains, and ribbons in a combination of the blue of the Tundra Queen’s Blue Gate and a reddish brown color. Joybell stopped in a shop and bought enough of the characteristic festival decorations to decorate the stone circle we’d seen -- including some of those blue and brown ribbons.</p><p></p><p>Shop clerk: Why are you getting those two colors? You’re not from around here.</p><p>Joybell: Nope. We’re from around Embernook. I’m just getting the decorations because they’re pretty and we might want to decorate our house. What do those ribbons mean?</p><p>Clerk, looking really uncomfortable: It’s local.</p><p></p><p>Joybell got the feeling that she was treading on a local taboo and figured out that the ribbons perhaps had something to do with the taking of children to make them into dilyarli.</p><p></p><p>Joybell: Okay, I’ll just take these other decorations and a bunch of ribbons in other colors.</p><p></p><p>After we left the shop, Joybell started watching more closely the houses decorated with those brown and blue ribbons. She saw one with the ribbons and some kids playing in the yard.</p><p></p><p>She realized with dawning horror that all those fey Taman had sensed outside of town were going to come into town the next day -- maybe at night -- and take children. Except...the people didn’t look really distressed. They didn’t look like people to whom something horrible was about to happen. Joybell pointed this out to the others.</p><p></p><p>Orryk: You have to enjoy the good times as much as you can, because the next day is going to suck.</p><p></p><p>We got back to the Inn before dinner.</p><p></p><p>Mo performed a pretty standard set and performed it well. Toward the end of his set, he said that he was going to perform a Draconic song he had newly learned, a bawdy drinking song. He then played the special song Thneed taught him, “I’m A Little Pork Roast”. By the end of his performance, everyone in the bar was doing the dance and singing along.</p><p></p><p>After Mo’s awesome performance, we headed to our rooms. The night passed without incident.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8211933, member: 7016699"] Session 33: In Which We Break Rule #1 Dramatis Personae: Orryk - Forest Gnome Monk (Way of the Four Elements, variant)/Wizard Mo - Goliath Bard (College of Lore) Fiona - Half-Elf Wizard (Evoker)/Cleric (Knowledge) Taman - Human (variant) Rogue (Inquisitive)/Ranger (Horizon Walker) Joybell - Forest Gnome Paladin (Oath of the Ancients) Thneed - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave) GM - Everyone Else 21 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 82) After dinner, but before people retired for the night, Joybell broke out the bottle of good wine that she bought before we left and poured everyone a drink in honor of Thneed being with us for a month. With apologies for being one day late about it. We all got a little bit of wine (some more than others) to celebrate Thneed and to celebrate all of us. Then we went into watches and nightly activities. The night passed without incident. 22 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 83) Mo had a brilliant idea in the night and tied a rope from the back of the Gellyan to his broom of flying, so he will be able to sleep in his combat hammock and get pulled along by the ship. Shortly after lunch, Orryk and Fiona were reading on deck. Joybell, Taman, and Thneed riding in the bow talking about what they were seeing and passing through. Mo was riding on his combat hammock. We spotted a dozen or so lizardfolk swimming out from the shore toward the boat. Mo cast a plant growth spell on the vegetation in the river, causing the river grasses and weeds to choke up the river bank and impede the progress of the lizardfolk. He left a strip of river wide enough for the boat to pass through unimpeded. Then he asked the lizard folk what they were there for. Lizardperson: We’re here to collect. Joybell: What are you collecting? Lizardperson: The passage your captain is going to pay at the wreck. Captain Lamerin: We’re going to pay that at the wreck in a day and a half. Joybell: We’ll pay then. Why are you asking now? Lizardperson: Too many people are going by without paying. During this conversation the ship was sailing on… Mo: If you guys can catch us you’re welcome to try and kill us but otherwise… Joybell (running to the back of the boat as we sailed away from them): Are you normally the ones who collect the money? Lizardperson: We collect for the Green Lord, Tallyxtillon. Joybell: Will Tallyxtillon be at the wreck? We can pay him then…. (We recognized Tallyxtillon as a draconic name.) Joybell asked Captain Lamerin about the wreck. He told us that there’s a river ship, bigger than the Gellyan, that has been broken in two on a shoal in the middle of the river. The keel is broken and the ship set there as a warning. The Green Lord began collecting a toll to pass the wreck. There are often Lizardfolk there collecting the tolls and they say that the forest itself obeys the Green Lord, but Captain Lamerin has never actually seen him. The captain said that he believes that the Green Lord broke the boat. The Lizardfolk are often on the wreck reminding people to pay. Mo: Don’t pay the 100gp. Thneed: I’ve never seen a dragon before. Mo: That’s why I don’t want to pay. Taman: We could not pay until the dragon shows up, then pay. Fiona: I don’t want to meet a green dragon. Joybell: I don’t think we’re up to fighting a dragon. Orryk: We’re going to wind out fighting it, the way our luck runs. We asked the captain if he knew what boat it was and he didn’t know. There were no reports of a boat going down or going missing and the nameplate on the stern is not visible the way the wreck is sitting on the sandbar. Joybell: But what about all the people on board? The captain hadn’t heard about sailors being missing either and had no idea what might have happened to the crew of the wrecked ship. People just started paying when the wreck appeared and lizardfolk on and about the shoals demanded money. He said we’d get there the next day. Thneed went off with Mo to teach him curse words in Draconic -- only she was teaching him innocuous words and telling him that they were curse words. Orryk: Joybell, what if this is a druid, not a dragon? Joybell, thinking: It could be. Orryk: The lizardfolk say the forest obeys him. That’s not a dragon thing. It could be a druid thing. We consulted with Fiona to draw on an additional brain with knowledge about dragons. Between Orryk and Fiona we knew that older, bigger and badder green dragons warp the forest around them. It’s not unheard of for them to get some spells, either innately or by learning some magic, which could be druidic magic. Joybell agreed that it was a possibility. But an evil druid would still need to be stopped. The rest of the day and the night passed without incident. 23 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 84) Late the next day, we saw the wreck on a sandbar in the middle of the river. There were clear shipping lanes on either side of the sandbar, each wide enough for ships the size of the Gellyan or even larger to pass by. On the sandbar was a ship, a bit larger than the Gellyan, broken in half. The bow half was lying sort of on its side. The stern half was standing on the stern, mostly upright. The two halves were completely detached from one another. Mo detached his broom from its tether to the ship and flew over to get a better look at things. He started out looking for markings or any indication as to what the name of the ship was. Unfortunately, all he could really tell was that it was a broken boat. Orryk got the bag of 100gps that Captain Lamerin gave him and gave it to Omnath, his awesome mephit friend. Joybell: I could go over, Mo could use...look, he’s landing… Orryk: If he needs us, he’ll scream. Mo threw his rope down into the broken stern and cast rope trick. Then he started climbing down the rope. Orryk sent Omnath over with the bag, looking through his eyes. Orryk, through Omnath, could figure out that it was a weird ship -- or it was a weird thing shaped like a ship. But there’s no way to move around in it, because the decks don’t line up correctly between the two halves of the ship. Mo looked around a little bit, but didn’t see anything of interest inside the wrecked ship, so he climbed up his rope trick to get out of the vertical belly of the epicenter of this outbreak. Joybell tried to wave for him to come back to the Gellyan and land. Mo, totally missing the message, waved back. Orryk had Omnath poke around a little bit on the two halves of the wreck after he left the bag of gold on the island. He determined that someone had taken parts of two ships that were being broken down in shipyard. Mo, still over on the island, cast polymorph on himself and turned into a giant ape. Joybell, hoping to be there for Mo if something went pear-shaped on the island, asked the captain if we could borrow a dinghy to row over to the island. When he said we could, she asked him to please stop the ship when he got a bit beyond the sandbank, so we could look around a bit and not have too far to row to catch up. Then she got in the dinghy with Taman and Thneed and began to row. As we rowed over, Giant Ape Mo began (Magilla Gorilla) breaking up the wrecked ship, violently, throwing the pieces to the side of the river. He roared and tackled the standing stern of the boat knocking it over and breaking it into pieces. When those were thrown to the shore he turned to the bow-end of the wreck smashing it with his giant ape fists. Orryk and Fiona stayed on the Gellyan watching the antics on the sandbar. Mo finished breaking up the wreck about when we arrived at the sandbar and polymorphed back into himself. He grabbed the bag of gold that Omnath had dropped onto the sand, then climbed back on the broom and deployed the combat hammock as we pulled onto the bank. Before we even got out of the boat, Taman noticed movement on the far shore of the river -- some of the foliage was moving and he heard an [I]elephant[/I] trumpeting. Or someone mimicking an elephant trumpeting. Joybell (with a bit of assistance from Taman and Thneed) portaged the dinghy across the sandbank and then rowed to the other shore. We found a little beach where we could pull the dinghy out of the water and look around. Omnath flew along with us and was there on the island, but none of us there could speak any dialect of Primordial, so he didn’t really have any way to communicate with us. We looked for tracks around the beach. Joybell and Thneed also looked for elephant tracks -- because although it would have been very unlikely to see an elephant, it would have been awesome as well. Taman and Thneed saw prints from big, clawed feet with tail drag-marks between them. They identified those as lizardfolk tracks. This was about where Taman saw the movement on the shore. Joybell: Should we follow them? Taman: Orryk and Fiona are on the boat. He waved at Omnath. Taman: Hi, Orryk! Thneed shouted out a demand to parlay in draconic, but there was no response. Joybell, to Omnath: Please ask Orryk to ask the captain if these lizardfolk have hurt anyone. After a few moments, Omnath shook his head no. Mo reached into his new Bag of Tricks for the first time and pulled out a Giant Hyena. Mo, to the Hyena: Go get ‘em! Just hassle the lizardfolk. Have fun! It bounded off into the woods. We went back to the Gellyan discussing the fact that there were clearly a passel of lizardfolk running some sort of scam. Though that doesn’t explain how they got the boat halves at all, let alone how they got them placed convincingly on the sandbank. As we got back to the Gellyan, Joybell reminded Mo to give Captain Lamerin his money back. Mo, without telling anyone, gave the captain his money bag, lighter by 25 gp. Once back on the ship, we continued on our way. The rest of the day and the night passed without incident. 24 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 85) The next day Joybell suddenly realized that we hadn’t seen a single other boat on the river the whole trip. Joybell asked about it and the captain said that it was the time of year when traffic on the river began to slow down because winter in Auriqua is unpleasant. Mo asked the captain if he’d made a deal with the Tundra Queen. Captain: I’ve overwintered in Auriqua and seen her there. I was not foolish enough to make a deal with her. Taman: Administrator Alighieri tasked me with annoying her as much as possible. Shortly after lunchtime, everyone topside on the boat (which was everyone) noticed a large group of lizardfolk (a dozen to eighteen) standing on the shore watching the Gellyan pass by. The shore was 60’ away and they made no attempt to contact us or to attack. Thneed, to the lizardfolk (in draconic): Did you see those naughty words in that other boat tearing things up? There was no response. Mo, to the lizardfolk (in common): Did you come here to die? Then he threw out a few of the choice swears that Thneed had taught him. Mo (in draconic): Fishsticks! Mother fluffing! The only response was perhaps a bit of stifled laughter. The Gellyan sailed on by, moving at her usual speed (about walking speed). The lizardfolk did not move from their position on the shore. Joybell, to Captain Lamerin: Is this normal? Captain Lamerin: No. It’s really not. Joybell, to the lizardfolk (in common): Your beef is with us, not the Gellyan or its crew. Don’t take it out on them…. That’s not quite totally true. Just talk to us. We never stopped sailing by and they never responded at all. Mo used the flute of scribing to write “Alighieri was here” on the bank. Once his back was turned, Fiona dispelled it. Orryk: So the question is when we’re going to fight 30 of them. That night, just before dawn, during third watch, Mo, Thneed & Taman noticed a green serpentine thing flying down the river. Mo used mage hand to wake everyone up. As it flew over the Gellyan it waggled its wings in a mark of recognition, acknowledging us and our presence. Mo, to dragon (in draconic): Fishsticks! When we told the captain about it, he took the bag of gold that Mo had returned to him and put it next to the wheel on the top deck. Captain: Next time anyone tries to collect passage, we pay. Neither the boat nor the dragon ever stopped. The rest of the night passed. 25 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 86) We spent the day arguing political theory (is the dragon’s toll to pass along the river illegitimate, could it become legitimate simply by the fact of people paying it, is any toll really legitimate) in a non-heated way. Around dinner time, we saw the first other ship we’d seen the whole trip. It was a merchant vessel sailing down the river toward Embernook. It was flying Auriquah’s flag. (When we noticed that we compared that to the colors the Gellyan was sailing under -- those of Embernook, the Zun family, and another merchant family we weren’t familiar with.) The Gellyan’s crew furled the windsail and waited for the boat to draw alongside. Captain of Other Ship: What’s on the way? Captain Lamerin: There were hill giants, a hydra, and lizardfolk. The wreck got trashed. Joybell: The wreck was fake. But there really was a dragon flying overhead. Thneed taught the other captain how to greet the dragon in draconic (honestly and for real). Joybell taught him the dragon’s name: Tallyxtillon. Then both ships unfurled their windsails and continued on their way. Joybell: When we go back down this river, it’s going to be such a mess! The rest of the day and the night passed. 26 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 87) The next morning, early, we sailed past a town pier (like the one at our village, Kalmarn) that had a flag out. This is how villages indicate to passing ships that they want a boat to stop. Captain Lamerin said that the flag was looking for a boat heading downstream to stop, so we sailed on by. (Mo's player: Pier-to-pier communication.) ( :D) The rest of the day passed. So did most of the night. Just before dawn, Thneed, Taman and Mo were on deck on watch. Joybell was sleeping curled up with Scooby on the deck. Thneed was teaching Mo a “bawdy drinking song” in draconic. (In reality it was something like “I’m A Little Pork Roast”.) Another, smaller ship heading downstream passed the Gellyan shortly before dawn. Because of the darkness, neither of the Gellyan nor the other ship had much chance to slow down to communicate before it passed. Thneed and Taman noticed that the ship was flying Auriqua's colors (so leaving that city, not returning to Embernook) and that there was no cargo on the deck. There were also no people on the deck who were obviously not crew. They suspected it might be a charter, much like our trip on the Gellyan. Thneed tried to warn the other ship about the perils we’d encountered. Thneed: Giant Dragon Hydra Mo, in draconic: Fishsticks! 27 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 88) The next day we traveled without much incident. Around noon, we had to slow down because of a ferry that crossed the river, connecting villages on either side of the river. We asked if they’d been having problems with lizardfolk and they said they had never been bothered by them. After the ferry crossed the river, we sailed on. Mo, singing: I’m sailing away…. That evening after dinner we saw a boat docked at a pier going up river, the same direction we were. The captain slowed to ask how their trip had been going. Theirs had been uneventful (of course). We asked if they had paid at the wreck and they said yes. When asked if the wreck had looked legit to them they said that it had looked a little weird, but even if it wasn’t a real wreck, something had taken those boat halves there. So they paid the toll. We continued moving on and the rest of the day and the night passed without incident. 28 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 89) As we got further into the plains, and the area of the Tundra Queen’s influence, the woods got looser and looser. Just after lunch, we noticed a circle of standing stones through the trees. Joybell: Oooooh! She asked the captain if we could stop the Gellyan and row the dingy over to look at the standing stones. Taman did his special thing to check for planar portals nearby (within one mile). He detected one very near us and we guessed that it was most likely at the standing stones, though his ability doesn’t tell him where the portal goes. We travelled over in two dinghies, except Mo who was on his broom of flying, to the shore and went to check things out. The stone circle was a few hundred yards from the edge of the river. The stones were something similar to bluestone (which is a form of sandstone, only blue). As we got close, we could see that the circle hadn’t been used in months, but it was clear that it does get some use and it had been used some months ago. Some of the stones had carvings on them in Sylvan which indicated that this circle is a portal to the Feywild. The carvings go around all of the stones and said that the portal can be activated at any of the four festivals (for the solstices and equinoxes). The circle has to be decorated appropriately for the festival and then there is a call and response ritual to do in order to activate it. The ceremony is described in the carvings. Joybell tried to talk with a little chipmunk to ask when people were last in the circle, but it wasn’t up for more conversation than just saying hi. In the face of that lack of information, Joybell walked into the circle. The carvings continued onto the insides of the stones, but conveyed the same information about how to activate the portal to the Feywild. She looked around at the space inside the circle and determined that it was set up for it to be possible to perform druidic rituals (like the ones she was familiar with from her youth) there, but that there was no sign that any had been performed there in at least the last several months. Several of us marked the location of this circle on our maps of Urnod - then we returned to the Gellyan. It was going to be a couple of days before the circle could possibly be activated and we weren’t going to hang around waiting that long. The rest of the day and night passed without incident. 29 Rippenin 748 (Campaign day 90) First thing in the morning, Mo pulled an animal from his bag of tricks so he could have a little furry friend. He got a Giant Weasel and named it Checkers. Joybell immediately set about making friends with Checkers, giving it treats of jerky and plenty of scritches. Someone teased her that she was ignoring Scooby. Joybell: I’ve got two hands. I can scritch two critters. In the early afternoon, we arrived at the docks in Auriqua. As we left the Gellyan, we confirmed with Captain Lamerin that he’d be leaving on 4 Harfastin (Campaign day 96) if we haven’t returned before then (or paid him money to stay). Before we left, Thneed gave the captain a bag with 100 gold pieces and a note in draconic that said that the Gellyan and its crew were not responsible for anything we did. She told the captain to use it to pay the toll when they head back downriver if we weren’t aboard. It was the day before the Festival of First Fruits and the town was busy. It was also thoroughly decorated with ribbons and decorations in reds, oranges and golds. There weren’t a lot of leaves, because the tundra had thinned the forest almost entirely away, but gourds and fruit (apples and pumpkins) and sheaves of grain were common. Taman tried to sense his favored enemy, Fey, within five miles and found that there were a large number of them to the north, a few miles away. We figured that was the fey we’d been told would be gathering to the north of the city outside the gates. When we got off the boat, Joybell asked the harbormaster for a recommendation for an inn. The harbormaster recommended two for us -- the Dancing Otter in the New Walk and the Platinum Arrow in the Old Walk. The Platinum Arrow was the nicer and more flashy choice. Joybell pointed out that the Dancing Otter had the better name. Taman: Part of my plan is to be super ostentatious. Staying at the fancier inn will help that. Joybell: Couldn’t we be ostentatious at the Dancing Otter? We agreed that we’d head to the Platinum Arrow. As we passed through the gate between Oldest Town and the Throat parts of town we saw that the gate was painted a beautiful light blue. This was the Blue Gate -- the gate where we’d been told the Tundra Queen was contractually obligated to appear during the Feast of Stars. Taman told a person on the street that if he knew someone named Ildna to let him know that someone named Taman was in town looking for them. Confused, the person said he would. Once in Old Town we went to Platinum Arrow. Taman paid for us to stay for one night at the inn. Taman, to innkeeper: This is the party of Taman. I’m looking for a man named Ildna. It was apparent that the innkeeper knew of Ildna. Innkeeper: You probably won’t find him here. Taman: Where will I find him? We have important business with him. Innkeeper: People who have met him and survived have done so nearer to the mountains. Mo made arrangements with the innkeeper to perform around dinner time in their roomy dining room. We went out to look around Old Town a bit. Orryk was looking for magic shops. Joybell and Fiona were looking for a place to buy some warm clothes. Joybell bought some really fuzzy, furry pieces and put them on under her armor so that the fur was poking out between the plates of the armor. Then she promptly overheated and took it all off again. Joybell, who had been looking at the decorations and commenting on them as we travelled through the city saw that there were decorations that included artificial or preserved fruits, grains, and ribbons in a combination of the blue of the Tundra Queen’s Blue Gate and a reddish brown color. Joybell stopped in a shop and bought enough of the characteristic festival decorations to decorate the stone circle we’d seen -- including some of those blue and brown ribbons. Shop clerk: Why are you getting those two colors? You’re not from around here. Joybell: Nope. We’re from around Embernook. I’m just getting the decorations because they’re pretty and we might want to decorate our house. What do those ribbons mean? Clerk, looking really uncomfortable: It’s local. Joybell got the feeling that she was treading on a local taboo and figured out that the ribbons perhaps had something to do with the taking of children to make them into dilyarli. Joybell: Okay, I’ll just take these other decorations and a bunch of ribbons in other colors. After we left the shop, Joybell started watching more closely the houses decorated with those brown and blue ribbons. She saw one with the ribbons and some kids playing in the yard. She realized with dawning horror that all those fey Taman had sensed outside of town were going to come into town the next day -- maybe at night -- and take children. Except...the people didn’t look really distressed. They didn’t look like people to whom something horrible was about to happen. Joybell pointed this out to the others. Orryk: You have to enjoy the good times as much as you can, because the next day is going to suck. We got back to the Inn before dinner. Mo performed a pretty standard set and performed it well. Toward the end of his set, he said that he was going to perform a Draconic song he had newly learned, a bawdy drinking song. He then played the special song Thneed taught him, “I’m A Little Pork Roast”. By the end of his performance, everyone in the bar was doing the dance and singing along. After Mo’s awesome performance, we headed to our rooms. The night passed without incident. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #1) [Session 46: Making Deals with Devils is Stupid as well as Bad]
Top