WotBS Fuzzybear's Burning Sky

[Fuzzybear]

Blatant title theft.

Since we are releasing remastered versions of our episodes now on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Youtube, and I was going to listen to them all over again anyway, I thought this might be the time to jump on the train of session comments and summary. These will be more retrospectives due to them having been recorded more than a year ago now (our live sessions are episode 43), but I hope the distance and time has made my impressions better not worse.

Episode 1 - A Very Warm Greeting​

The title comes from our bard Jack's catchphrase that he had planned prior to knowing anything about the setting or path. It does however happen to fit very well. Very fortuitous in my opinion. He is also the one who names the episodes, so I hope you enjoy his puns.

While it is a cliché opening, I actually found it to be really well drafted. It has just enough happening to not feel like the info dump that it is. Torrent is meant to pull the group together and set the stage for the opening section of the story, but I liked being able to play it out more naturally so it doesn't just feel like bullet points.

I did do a session 0 with them together to give them a general idea of the themes, tone, and other expectations, as well as individual session 0.5s that gave the characters a bit of backing in their individual situations in the city. Bryn had some interactions with her family as well as some moon and stars reading that foretold vaguely about what was to come. She also was thrown into the mission unexpectedly when a member of the Resistance had to pass along his job to her. Jack comes from the Eralore Hall, expanded in our game to be an alternative school for more subtle magic users, and did some assisting with a Resistance group. He was given the task to join this mission by the president of the Hall and just so happened that his bodyguard, Myetharia, a much more official member of the Resistance, was looking to take up the same mission. Rayland was told to wait for "a torrent" after being sent by Lyceum after learning of news from far away lands, while Winry's caravan of performers were setting up a show until the army news put a damper on all expectations. She was also kicked out due to a small miscommunication on the definition of ownership.

The fight itself was perfectly frantic despite being probably too slow, but learning new characters and wanting to show off is always a thing early on so this isn't a surprise at all. I really appreciated how the scene was chaotic and felt dangerous to the players while being very in control for me. They were never in danger, but it allowed for them to be creative and feel as though everything was happening all at once.

I didn't have to change much of anything in this session, which is nice being the very first one, though I did introduce some character relationships and prior knowledge as it became relevant.

Next session, a sprint to the tower!

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 2 - Deception in the Depository​

The flight to the depository tower was really fun. I wanted to keep it high energy and feel a bit frantic, so I tried not to allow them much time to breathe as events were occurring fast and furious. I think they really landed well, even the wyvern was noticed due to the extended dark vision from the shadow cleric Bryn. All of the players agreed afterwards that it was scary, some of the details were terrifying, and they were feeling the panic of the city as they went. I did something of a mix between the narrated journey and individual events, trying to make them really quick hitting.

I gave out a few names to NPCs because I knew my players would search for them and want to hear them. It also helps to be able to bring them back up again in the future when we return to Gate Pass! I can see the wounded that Bryn stopped to heal as well as the woman saved from the burning building both making a comeback then.

I mentioned this in another thread but I totally forgot to bring back Kiki the giant weasel. The party was interested initially, though not enough to stay around, and I completely forgot to bring it back up at the safe house! This was a sad miss for me because I thought it was really funny.

At the tower I had probably the biggest change to the adventure as written - I had to rename Rivereye Badgerface. We use WorldAnvil for our world building and note taking and I made the mistake of posting a page for Rivereye before the first session. I made it private, but the way that our pages were set up then, everyone could see the secrets that I wrote. Oops. So, I hastily changed the name (Funzbar Biteknee) and made the best of it. In the moment, none of them realized it was the same character as they had already forgotten the majority of what it said weeks later, but I wonder if it helped Jack pierce the veil quicker or not.

Regardless, Jack (though really everyone) was the quickest to notice that Funzbar called the party the wrong names and seemed to not understand what was going on well enough, and while he wasn't quite right in how it was being done, he was right enough to set off the panic from Lairon and begin the escape portion. We play on Roll20 and the dynamic lighting for this section was both great and awful. It worked really well for keeping people isolated and in the dark of what was going on, but it led to me having to repeat instructions and directions multiple times in the combat. It was still really memorable and again had very little threat to the party, which is a bonus for the first couple of sessions of a new game.

One of my players, Rayland, has a real love for improvisation at the table. As such, he wanted to play a thief that was constantly looking to grab things from people. This is one of my favorite things for this adventure path so far - I don't have to come up with random stuff! All the major players have inventories that can be looked at and taken. It really feels rewarding for him to be able to deny spell casters some of their spells, nick a potion from Lairon in this event, or something similar without me having to feel overwhelmed all the time trying to make it interesting. Kudos there for sure.

In the end, Lairon escaped with his potion of fly, Rayland having stolen the spider climb one instead, so the chase continues into the streets and towards the school. Overall, I enjoyed this episode a lot and I think it does a great job of setting the tone for the opening of the campaign.

Next episode, some fiery butt kicking.

 

[Tormyr]

The great regret of one of my player's character was that she returned Kiki to its rightful owner. Of course, by the end of the campaign she had a talking celestial giant eagle, a Ragesian wyvern, a pegasus...

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 3 - Mercy and Fireballs​

Oh boy, this was quite the learning episode for my party.

The episode started with the group heading on to Gabal's school chasing Larion. The first thing they come across is the wyvern rider holding the family hostage. They deal with this quite well through a combination of aggressive diplomacy and combat, getting the man to believe he was safe before being knocked out and tied up. There was a bit of a moral dilemma about what to do with a prisoner of war, Jack being relatively passivist while Myetharia and Rayland are much more on the practical and unforgiving end of the spectrum. In the end, they left the man tied up in the street for guards to find. This comes up again briefly later on as an aside mention in a later episode what happened.

Then they arrived at the school and had a lesson to learn for sure. They talked with Diogenes but only briefly. They seemed to think him more an obstacle than a place to learn, so once they got past him and into the compound to continue their chase, it seems they mostly ignored him. They also had the bad fortune of pretending to be on Shealis' side which did put his back up a bit. I tried a couple of times to get them to realize he had information but they were determined to get to the root of their problem and after spiting out the most necessary information (she's a well qualified blaster mage) to try to get them to be careful, he left them to it.

It didn't go very well for them. Rayland did steal her component pouch, which did slow her down a bit but didn't get rid of all of her threats at all, but they were overmatched with Larion there as well. His sneak attack nearly downed one, Shealis' Fire Orb damaged everyone as they came in, and in the end she threatened them with a massive fireball. When they continued to press the attack, she dropped it, downing multiple members and very nearly ending the battle right there. The next turn, after Larion was killed which nearly set her into a rage of vengeance, she readied another and gave her ultimatum - let her go now or they all die. Jack gave in and the party lived to see another day but not without a truly chastening experience.

I'll give a little explanation for my party here. We had most recently finished a 4e adventure path (Scales of War) which was okay but needed a lot of help to make it more than a series of dungeon dives. I say this because they were used to a certain pattern of play, get obstacle, overcome obstacle, kill baddies. So when this came up, they resorted to their previous norm even though I had warned them may get them in trouble in this campaign - they say a baddie who had something they wanted, so they took the path to get to them, overcame the obstacles to get there, and fought. This was probably the most dangerous option they could have come up with, but it was a great experience for them to get my point across.

They took this session to heart as we will see going forward. Even the next episode they were much more circumspect and considering with their actions. While this was a nasty session and a tough spot to leave things for the week, I think it was a necessary reminder that we were not playing the same campaign anymore and that things have changed. I'm really proud of my players for not being too salty about it in session 3 nearly getting TPKed by a stacked force. I felt bad about it and gave them some of my thoughts on what happened in post-game. In the long run this was a really great experience for them, but I could see this breaking players and groups apart in a new game.

Next episode, securing the case.

 

[RangerWickett]

I like having OP threats in intro adventures. It teaches players to be creative and not always assume the best option is a fight. I really appreciate when they remember that lesson throughout a campaign.

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 4 - Rats, Badgers, and Imps​

I think this may be our best episode of the first adventure. I mentioned this in the last episode heavily, but I think this episode really shows the growth and progress of my players to the differences in this adventure path from our previous one. They did a great job in this session of viewing options, weighing pros and cons, and making informed decisions. I am quite proud of them and how quickly they took that message to heart.

This section does a lot of things very well, but perhaps what it does best is plays off expectations and reverses them. This is especially true in juxtaposition with what just occurred to my party in nearly getting burnt to a crisp by Shealis. They came in expecting danger and trouble this time, but the dangers in this section only come up if they didn't trust themselves. The door puzzle is not too hard (especially with some help defining what the creatures and plans were), the role play convincing not too difficult (as the elves don't expect them), and Kurychek is more comedy than actual threat to a prepared party. But they all come at a time of intense suspicion and threat that they are taken seriously and enjoyed. It made each of them really land well and reward the players for good decision making.

Now I don't think this episode is always entertaining, perhaps too simple for a group that didn't struggle with Shealis for instance, but in the wake of what happened in the previous one it was a well deserved breather from a difficulty standpoint without being too much a breather in the tension.

The other thing that this episode really landed well is the changed mindset for some of my players that morality is not binary. Being good doesn't mean people are helpful to the heroes just as much as being evil means they are obstacles. Loyalty and morality are complicated, like an evil imp who is not really out to get you but instead chaffing at the rules of his deal or a divine archon attempting to sear the party to allow its companion to escape. It also helps to see that the enemies are not perfect. The pact was not perfect, it could be exploited. It gives much more credence this way when the party slips through and outsmarts enemies if all other aspects are not unexploitable. While it feels good to outsmart something and find the one path to success, it feels better (in my opinion) for the enemies to be real and make mistakes so you do not have to force the group to find the one path you allow them to take.

In terms of plot, this episode consists of the group heading into the elven ghetto, ignoring Kurychek and getting into the woodshop, tricking the elves to giving them the case, avoiding Shealis in the streets, taking Kurychek hostage, and then making a deal with the imp to delay the inquisitors from their trail. Very little combat was in this episode, but that does not mean it wasn't successful. It was one of the favorites of my players as well (at least until Winry's ice breaker party games!) and I would say that their excitement shines through in the audio as well.

Next session, time has come to escape Gate Pass!

 

[RangerWickett]

Episode 4 isn't on YouTube, but Ep 5 is.

 

[Fuzzybear]

Oh, it wasn't in the playlist! I will have it added tonight. In the meantime, here is the direct link if you'd like -
Thanks for letting me know!

E: It is added to the playlist now!

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 5 - Leaving Town​

While the title was a bit presumptuous, the party set the ground work for leaving town in this episode. A fair amount of this episode is devoted to following up on backstory characters and items. It was actually quite useful for me though as it allowed me to sprinkle in the various options for escaping Gate Pass without having them feel forced.

Jack's backstory was with Eralore Hall, which we built up to be a more Hogwarts-style secret academy for mages less blaster inclined. We gave it a front of a bar with illusory patrons that would actually serve patrons if they came in. Behind the bar was a staircase that leads down into the true academy. While we didn't get much into the rest of the academy due to not needing to, we did get to meet a more with it Gratanus Helicomb. I tried to model him a bit more after Dumbledore than perhaps the text would have been inclined towards, so he was secretive and a bit strange, but also strangely gregarious and likeable. While he seemed to have a lot of strings to pull and knowledge you wouldn't expect, you felt almost as though you could trust him anyway.

We also got a bit of a glimpse into Myetharia's pre-game session with Krach and Petra. This fleshed out the One-To-Go Tavern as a bit less seedy, still rundown though, and more as a haven for the Resistance and Thieves' Guild. Krach was Myetharia's contact, Petra a co-worker, so there was some pre-existing trust there. They were able to discuss options, going to the mage guilds for distraction or charm help, making a stealth escape attempt, or talking to a councilmember for help. In the end, the group chose Councilman Menash, perhaps because I found him fun, but also because it felt the least committed to start.

Meeting with Menash and Helicomb briefly, we got to have some fun showing off some ridiculous wares. Winry loves this sort of knick-knack, both the player and the character, so I didn't have much doubt that it would land with the players. I struggled a bit in the moment to come up with more ideas than the 3 or 4 that I had pre-written, a bit of a disappointment to not have more variety, but I think they enjoyed the mix of technically useful but crazy that his goods were. Beyond that, Winry got her paws on a thieves' tool kit that she so desperately wanted after attempting to break into the lockers in the Depository tower.

Leaving with a couple of letters to meet with Captain Herreman, the group finds themselves being followed. While they tried to get away, I really wanted to have the encounter happen and Rantle to be introduced here. Rayland gave it a solid effort to elude pursuit (humorously this just happened again live some 40 episodes later), but the group was drawn into combat.

Next session, a back alley brawl!

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 6 - Magic, Money, and Mages​

The back alley fight took up a large portion of this episode, as well as a bit of a makeshift interrogation of a member of the Black Horse Head gang. While the majority of the conflict was straightforward, as the ruffians are rather simplistic to run, there were a couple of really bright moments that brightened things up.

First, I had the grunts intelligent enough to recognize a healer, and caster, when they saw one happen in front of them, so they all dogpiled on top of Bryn as soon as she was revealed. This was thematically interested, as they are interested in hunting out casters for the reward, as well as being different from most other conflicts where the front lines can end up more defined. Things were a mess quickly and the healer being struck hard. At low levels though, Shadow cleric's aura of temporary hit points is pretty brutal to try to get through without ganging up. They did their best, but they only ended up leaving a couple of scratches. It wasn't meant to be overly taxing though, more a point to show off fun things happening in town, so no worries from me here.

Second, I got to mess around with Rantle a bit. I am fully admitting that aggressively smarmy and charismatic is not the most comfortable in my acting portfolio, but I did get to have some fun with him even if it was more eyerolling than truly charming. I wasn't sure how it was supposed to be written, but I likened him to Westley from the Princess Bride in terms of being over the top and obvious. I know that Winry, who is played by my wife, found it insane, but I liked that Myetharia and Bryn both were willing to play along a bit. It was a running gag in our last campaign that I had to play the NPC part of relationships with both of our male players, so this was a bit of a joke within the party as well.

This is not the first time it has shown up, but it is something that came up again this episode. Jack's player in the previous campaign took a more leadership role despite not being the face. He listens to a lot of D&D, as well as a lot of 'How to be a better player/DM' Youtube videos. As such, he has a pretty large voice for the party in terms of what or how to do things. He also likes to spend time jumping in to have character introspections and conversations. I say this not to be demeaning, but to try to understand a bit more what is happening. In this episode we have a second time where Jack is very fine taking a prisoner, but unwilling to take any action to clean their tracks afterwards. While this is not uncommon as a trope for a character, he is quite aggressive about it trying to force everyone to go along with his no killing mentality at this point in time. This is something to watch as the episodes play out as I believe this is something he wanted to explore with the character - the loss of innocence and becoming numb to the horrors of war. I don't think it was intentional, but I think it really does fit well with the campaign's themes. We shall see how he reacts later on the campaign as the stakes continue to get higher and the costs of similar actions are greater.

Either way, after learning very little beyond story and fluff about the state of things in Gate Pass, the party returned to collect up Torrent and start heading out of town.

Next session, a game and a gauntlet!

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 7 - Pursuers​

This episode starts with a planned game time with the players! Winry will a few times in the campaign start up an icebreaker style game for the party to play in order to get to know each other a little bit better. These have been really fun for the players, as well as opportunities for me to poke them a little bit for secrets that I may know that the party does not yet. This is the first of those occasions and it goes over very well each time.

A lot of really interesting items were brought up from people's backstories, including Bryn's child and husband as well as Jack's family, but the thing that I enjoyed the most about this was poking at how important names were for this group. We have a couple of nobles as well as a more shrouded backstory, all of whom have interesting last names that tie into them. Jack is from a noble family but hiding his past as he does not want it to define him. Myetharia similarly is nobility, and while she doesn't actively try to hide it, she doesn't like that aspect of herself. Rayland on the other hand has a lot of his secrets attached to his name. It made sense once it came up organically for me to prod this sensitive topic a little bit and see who wanted to break and share. I also got to make up a last name for Torrent! No big issue, but I decided on something light and reminded me of water. It is fairly Elf sounding, but I don't mind that.

The other thing of note here would be Winry's past with the Monastery. She wanted to be a monk, but didn't love the idea of the lightning aspect that the Player's Guide gives, so we did some slight modification to it. Instead of being trained formally, we decided that it would fit her snow leopard looks to have her powers be cold based instead. As there are a pretty similar number of cold spells, I decided that we could make it works just change the damage type from the guide and keep everything else pretty much the same as the class. But having changed the theme, I didn't want to change the Monastery itself too much and re-flavor the encounters there, so we decided that she learned on her own by watching the monks. Her style is similar, but just a bit different as she attuned to a different element. Because of this, she was denied entry by those she looked up to and led her to adventure instead.

After story time, we get to combat instead. The group currently has a bit of a play for triggering traps and watching the results, and this is the first time we get to see it in action. They notice the ambush, but don't understand it. So they try to trigger it and get the jump on them instead. The ambushers instead are waiting for a full group to go past, not just Jack on foot, so they don't spring the trap yet. It turns a bit silly, but evolves into a fun combat anyway.

I did change a few things about this combat. First the party rolled so incredibly badly at the start (count the 11s and 12s) that I didn't want to overwhelm them too much at first. I made the reinforcements take a few rounds to arrive in order to allow them to deal with things a bit more first. This episode cuts off in the middle of combat, but I really didn't want Kathor to arrive too early and start cutting people to shreds or die.

I also played Renard a bit more fun. Instead of making him overly serious, I took his penchant for overly complex plans to a more fun way and made him more of a comedic character in his delivery. This did not blunt his potential danger, but made my players have a bit more fun than the typical hardened bad guy. I like to have some levity in fights that are not "boss" level encounters, so this allowed me to have more fun knowing that the Inquisitor was around the corner.

The encounter itself did not go anything like how I had imagined it. As Renard says, "You're ruining it all. You were supposed to have kept riding!" Instead of getting into the gauntlet and having a chaotic horse riding battle, we get a brawl in the canyon. It all works out well either way, it just missed some of surprise and chaos that could have occurred instead.

We also get to see the origin story of Jack the horse killer. It has been a running joke at the table now every time we see horses that Jack is going to torture or kill it. His smart but terrible casting of Heat Metal on the horse's bit to toss Renard off is where it all begins.

Next time, finishing a fight and meeting a medium.

 

[emeraldbeacon]

We also get to see the origin story of Jack the horse killer. It has been a running joke at the table now every time we see horses that Jack is going to torture or kill it. His smart but terrible casting of Heat Metal on the horse's bit to toss Renard off is where it all begins.

Is Heat Metal ever not a horrifying spell?

And for the record, I hope your monk chose to name his fighting style the North Wind style, just to thumb his nose at the pretentious east/west wind monks of Ostalin.

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 8 - Ceasefire Before Forest Fire​

We led things off by continuing the conflict from last time. Since we only play for a couple hours at a time, this happens every now and then where we have to stop in the middle of a fight. It is an annoying part of being grown up and having kids I guess for all of us.

Jack continues his attempts to murder horses, though he does attempt to heal and care for the horse afterwards, his comments along with everyone else's laughter has cemented his fate as the horse killer. On the other side of the coin, Bryn has become known as somethin of a horse whisperer. Here she has the brilliant idea to use the horse itself for combat. Now there was no way she had any idea how well it would go for her, and you can hear the surprise in her reactions the whole time, but that horse packs a wallop when it hits at this level. Renard was hurt a bit at this point, but the horse just brutalized him.

It turned out to be very fortuitous for them that they finished off Renard right around the time that Kathor is charging up the canyon and into the fray. As he rounds the corner after being summoned by the blaring horns, he sees the final grizzly action. This allows him to be able to step in immediately and ask for a ceasefire as opposed to it being after some fighting had already occurred with him. I think this gave him a bit more credence in my players' eyes because he had never actually attacked them to this point. He was there at the inn, but never had to get involved. He wasn't at the ambush in the alley that his men took part in. He was here, but by the time he gets there the boss is dead. It worked well as the party stopped without further violence.

They didn't trust him enough though to follow up to the camp. I prodded it a little bit, but I didn't want to force it. As such, they missed their first big magic item of the campaign and a little bit of fun. Nothing huge of course, but something to note. I do think if they had wiped them out, they may have gone to the camp to survey their rewards more, but as it played out I think they were more afraid of an ambush than rewards.

Getting to the Ja-Laffa farmhouse, the party has the first awkward encounter with Crystin. They bit on this a bit, but what really stuck in Jack's mind was Haddin's past. While I can't say this for sure, I think the fact that he was prepping for his own Curse of Strahd game at the time really impacted his views as a player. He is often fairly careful and cautious, but I feel like he was taking it a step further around this time and I wonder if that might be why. You can only see so many traps and evil setups before everything looks like one. I probably undersold Crystin a bit, but they were so suspicious and certain that she was being manipulated heavily that I decided to lean into it and let them have fun.

I got to bash Jack a couple of times verbally though, and Haddin was certainly disliked by everyone, so that went all according to script. They weren't sure what they were supposed to do during this part though, as we will see in the next episode, so things went a little more off the rails. I think this was a positive though, as it encouraged them to do something weird and take some chances. What were those chances? Well, you'll have to wait for the next episode to find out!

Next time, subterfuge and an ambush!

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 9 - Snatch and Scourge​

Sorry that it has been a few weeks. I normally listen to our episodes while mowing and I just haven't had to do as much of that recently. I'll have to figure out another time to listen since that very soon won't be a task and I'm already another episode behind.

This episodes featured a bit of player frustration actually, though I don't know that is necessarily a bad thing. The players spent a lot of time on the side chatting about what they were going to do with Haddin, specifically whether they were going to kill him, leave without him, or try to take him with. In the end, the decision was made to try to just take Crystin if possible... at least until night fell and Winry with Rayland decided to take things into their own hands.

Normally I try to discourage players from acting independent from the group's decisions, but every now and then it can be fine. I don't like to create animosity that can quickly fester towards the sneakier members of the group if they consistently disobey group direction, but as long as it is infrequent and everyone knows it is in the name of fun, I won't stop it. In this case, both of them had some ideas about knocking Crystin out and carrying her away in the night, abandoning Haddin.

I felt a little bad because of how efficiently they did this - infiltrating the manor house, locating the correct room, knocking her out swiftly, and extracting her through the window - but I knew that their efforts were mostly a way for me to figure out how the coming battle would play out. I was not going to skip the battle as I think it is very necessary to keep the knowledge in their heads that they are being hunted and Ragesia's arm is long. It also is the first encounter with an Inquisitor, so seeing him up close was important. In particular, this frustrated Rayland as it felt like no matter how well things went, it wasn't going to matter. I would say it did matter as it got them a jump and options they may not have had previously. I will also say, as I did to them afterwards, it was always an option to just ignore the Scourge and head into the forest, abandoning Haddin to his fate instead.

Instead, the party fought tooth and nail against the Inquisitior (and especially Smiley) in an effort to keep anything they could from Ragesia's grasp. I will say that I really thought it was funny how the goblin rogue walked right into them. I did roll for their stealth and happened to roll a 1. So I had a really sheepish looking goblin freeze as they all swung around to stare right at him after stepping on a stick. The Inquisitor bellows, Haddin scrambles away nearly dead instantly from the skeletons inside (since they got the full jump, they had the door ready to go before anyone was noticed) and falls out the window towards the party. I did like that he tried to Command Bryn as well just to rub it in to the player's a bit that he's a jerk who will use anything and anyone he can to save his own skin.

They were very worried about how they were going to spin events to the Ja-Laffa's, but I thought their story was actually very reasonable. As far as Haddin knew, the Scourge arrived and nearly killed him. Crystin saw nothing, so it is very reasonable that was also party of Ragesian ploy. I wasn't going to have that be a sticking point unless they really flubbed things. I also really enjoyed the scrambled aspect of the fight. While my group has very little problems with dark-vision, the limited points of view did provide differences in opinions as the party split up a bit. Rayland went guerilla fighting in the home, which was really nice, while Winry and Myetharia tried to hold the line against Smiley. He carved them up (he's a killing machine at that level), but the party responded just well enough to outlast the Inquisitor and force them away. A roll here or there, Smiley surviving for one more turn or Bryn not stabilizing Haddin, could have seen the outcome changed dramatically.

As it was, they now have to collect themselves, bloody and downed, before deciding what their new course of action will be regarding the pain in the neck Haddin and his poor daughter.

Next time, into the inferno!

Post-adventure thoughts:​

As this was the end of the first adventure (effectively, though there's some clean-up in the next session regarding the Ja-Laffas) I thought that I would give my overall thoughts a moment before moving on.

I really enjoyed this adventure as an opener. I will admit while reading it through initially that I was worried about the lull between the first night and the ending, but I think it played out better than it read for me. Parts 3 and 4 felt bare in the book, but playing them out was required to really appreciate that the breather was needed and allowed the characters a moment to settle in and find their footing in the world before it is pulled away. There were a number of times so far where the players have had to learn lessons; first with Shealis and now here in this last session as well. Sometimes, discretion is the better play, and be ready to pay to choose the goodie path. Coming from the previous campaign we played, which was much more black and white, 4e dungeon crawling, these were excellent lessons and a proper start to the campaign. They learned their lessons well in my opinion and we have been really enjoying our time.

Hopefully you've enjoyed listening to our first arc as we head into the fire forest and beyond. Let me know if you have any thoughts as well for us!

 

[Fuzzybear]

Is Heat Metal ever not a horrifying spell?

And for the record, I hope your monk chose to name his fighting style the North Wind style, just to thumb his nose at the pretentious east/west wind monks of Ostalin.

I never responded to your second bit here. She named it with me not quite as a thumbing their nose at the Monastery, but they were turned down due to their incorrect forms and inability to learn the proper ones. Winry is effectively the same as the lightning monk from the player's guide but with everything cold themed instead for her connection to that element. I don't think it was a conscious insult, but it may have a similar effect in a bit...

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 10 - Into the Inferno​

I don't think I have ever unnerved my party as thoroughly as this episode did for them. From the moment they entered the fire forest, they couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening. It was really enjoyable for me to watch them struggle along to figure things out. I have to also commend the couple of flavor text blurbs early on in the adventure for really setting the tone well. Even one of my players commented on it being really well written.

The episode starts off though with the party trying to reconcile what took place last episode with kidnapping Crystin and the Inquisitor attack. A lengthy debate later and the party decides to rest and leave Haddin behind, taking Crystin along with partially against her will. I decided not to give them too much guilt over this or have her overly resist for a couple of reasons. First I didn't want that to be the focus of the upcoming bits, but instead wanted the forest itself to be the focus of the section. Second, after they debated on it so long, I didn't want to belabor the point that it was a tough decision that may have future ramifications as I thought they already had gotten the point by then.

It was a shock to me though the way that they left. I first did not expect Rayland to be so aggressive in preventing Jack from freeing Haddin (though this totally makes sense to me). Normally the party is much more willing to allow party members to make small bad decisions in the name of roleplay, but this time it was deemed to be too much of a risk. Then I was even more surprised with Myetharia ends up being the one to do it anyway. For the record, there was no bad will about this; in fact I think people really enjoyed the moment. From what is known about Myetharia to this point, it feels very out of her nature, but from the perspective of more time I would say that it fits in with who she truly is inside, not the exterior we've seen until now.

From here we head into the forest and we start up the atmosphere straight away. The players really felt the intimidation and alien nature of the lands that they were heading in to and lived it well. They picked up very early on that there was something weird going on, as they should have, but there were numerous ideas as to what it was. Jack was especially paranoid, going so far as to think that the effect might spread to them on touch (foreshadowing?), but everyone was freaked out by it.

While both of the encounters of this session are walkovers, I absolutely loved them for what they were. Between the bodies of the travelers and the mephit/fire bats encounter, the party is really exposed to what this place is and how crazy the denizens are as well as the costs of mistakes. I should mention, my party loved the mephit. He was adorable and memorable in his very short cameo. Regardless, they see very clearly from the burned corpse the penalties and they learn about the rekindling effect of the monsters here. The bats themselves are simple with little HP and little threat, but they are creepy and wrong. Perfect set up.

Then we get to the bridge. By this point they were very paranoid. Enough that they didn't even consider heading off the path towards the cart as a real option. They took the bridge exceedingly carefully, taking pains to go one at a time on the far side, stealthily, and with a rope for safety. As such, they avoided any further bat encounters or potentially falling bridge sections, though I really did not expect them run into troubles here. As Jack mentioned, this encounter was more to mess with their minds and continue the atmosphere than to provide any real challenge. Sure they could have headed off and gotten a few more supplies if they wanted, but they were too concerned with the cost by that point to take any risks.

The final points in the episode is the first sighting of Kazyk. I again played this mysteriously and wanted the party to be more confused than learn anything of substance. Again, I think this episode was almost entirely window dressing, preparing for the future with atmosphere and foreshadowing. It worked perfectly. Winry saw Kazyk momentarily, though I gave no real descriptions of him, before he pops further away. He'll return in the next couple of episodes to continue intriguing the party.

Next time, the first encounter with Kazyk, the devil in the forest!

 

[Fuzzybear]

As it has been a 10 posts now, I feel it is within limits to plug our episodes again on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Youtube.

Episode 11 - Devil in the Fire​

This episode is going to open strangely for the audience as it occurred before we considered the product for our recordings much. We always used to move the plot along a bit outside of sessions in a mini play-by-post style in our discord server between live sessions. We didn't do this all the time, but we did do it for a lot of roleplaying and discussion previously. We have tried not to do this anymore or, in the cases where we still do, give a more solid recap of events by playing them out again quickly. Here, however, we neglected anything of the sort and just pretended that everyone know about the encounter with the wolf holding the femur with the message from Kazyk.

We pick the story up again with the party having gotten the message, considered what they were going to do with it, and ready to move forward. They decided to try to outplay Kazyk a bit by bringing the bone with them but not intending to bargain at all. Instead they were planning on trying to trick the devil and delaying any decisions with him either way with the intention of ignoring him completely if possible and running. I decided that I wanted them to still have the encounter with Kazyk and I didn't want him to seem foolish, so I had him able to tell they were not coming in good faith because the book was not out and visible, and just move to prod for openings instead right away.

The combat itself was the first time they had experienced a hit-and-run style attack with teleportation. I think it took them a while to get used to the flow and how the assaults were going to take place. They landed a few good blows, taking out one of the imps, but Kazyk ran them wild in this combat and had them in danger quickly. Almost perfectly to the text, once he had effectively everyone poisoned and in danger, he smiled and said "Good battle" before jumping back off into the forest and away. This confused my group like crazy who had never had someone attack them and look for the kill when in the advantage. It was interesting, and I considered having him stay back (though he was actually close to half health, so it was starting to get dangerous for him) to keep up the pressure first, but I liked the idea of someone just battling for fun sometimes when it suited them to have longer plans. In this case, Kazyk wants to succeed without having to kill any of them in my head canon. So instead of pressing the attack when in the advantage, he tries to bank that good will for the next time he comes to bargain with them instead.

I found this combat very fun to run, but looking back at it, I was shocked by how capable and effective Kazyk was here compared to in later combats.

Spoiler: Spoilers for a later episode...

Kazyk is involved again in the battle with Indomitability later on and ends up feeling just worthless in that combat despite no change in party level. Very interesting to me how effectively my players figured out how to neutralize him, or perhaps just how poorly I ended up using him in the later situation.

Once they recovered from that event, they pressed on towards the river. I should speak briefly about Crystin at this point perhaps. I greatly downplayed her involvement during this adventure because of how the party ended up effectively kidnapping her instead of freeing her. I wanted it to be unclear afterwards if the control over her waned due to time, distance, or something happening to Haddin later on. I also didn't want it to be immediate and sudden recovery, so I had her more confused and trying to figure out herself as she breaks through.

Spoiler: Don't read this players of my game

I thought this was more symbolic of her connection with the trillith inside her manifesting to slowly overpower the bond rather than something snapping.

In any case, I had her take a backseat during this time. A couple of times I mention her talking quietly to Torrent on the side, but I wanted to let the party be the main contributors here, not the NPCs taking control.

In one moment of breaking through her stupor though, Crystin shouts to Rayland to move. He listens as the flaming spear comes and slams into the ground where her stood. I mumble my way through a mixed bag of descriptions that I really fumbled badly and repeated myself a few times, but eventually the situation is clear. A fire wall behind them is approaching, fire elemental stags are appearing, and the path is blocked by flaming tree branches ahead. They are once again in danger.

Next time, they first speak with Indomitability.

 

[Nod_Hero]

As it has been a 10 posts now, I feel it is within limits to plug our episodes again on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Youtube.

Of your 326 'Tuesday Knights' Youtube subscribers, I am one of them. I can't watch them yet, per my own WotBS campaign DM's request, but I wanted to let you know you have my support!

 

[Boundless Creation]

Episode 9 - Snatch and Scourge​

Sorry that it has been a few weeks. I normally listen to our episodes while mowing and I just haven't had to do as much of that recently. I'll have to figure out another time to listen since that very soon won't be a task and I'm already another episode behind.

This episodes featured a bit of player frustration actually, though I don't know that is necessarily a bad thing. The players spent a lot of time on the side chatting about what they were going to do with Haddin, specifically whether they were going to kill him, leave without him, or try to take him with. In the end, the decision was made to try to just take Crystin if possible... at least until night fell and Winry with Rayland decided to take things into their own hands.

Normally I try to discourage players from acting independent from the group's decisions, but every now and then it can be fine. I don't like to create animosity that can quickly fester towards the sneakier members of the group if they consistently disobey group direction, but as long as it is infrequent and everyone knows it is in the name of fun, I won't stop it. In this case, both of them had some ideas about knocking Crystin out and carrying her away in the night, abandoning Haddin.

I felt a little bad because of how efficiently they did this - infiltrating the manor house, locating the correct room, knocking her out swiftly, and extracting her through the window - but I knew that their efforts were mostly a way for me to figure out how the coming battle would play out. I was not going to skip the battle as I think it is very necessary to keep the knowledge in their heads that they are being hunted and Ragesia's arm is long. It also is the first encounter with an Inquisitor, so seeing him up close was important. In particular, this frustrated Rayland as it felt like no matter how well things went, it wasn't going to matter. I would say it did matter as it got them a jump and options they may not have had previously. I will also say, as I did to them afterwards, it was always an option to just ignore the Scourge and head into the forest, abandoning Haddin to his fate instead.

Instead, the party fought tooth and nail against the Inquisitior (and especially Smiley) in an effort to keep anything they could from Ragesia's grasp. I will say that I really thought it was funny how the goblin rogue walked right into them. I did roll for their stealth and happened to roll a 1. So I had a really sheepish looking goblin freeze as they all swung around to stare right at him after stepping on a stick. The Inquisitor bellows, Haddin scrambles away nearly dead instantly from the skeletons inside (since they got the full jump, they had the door ready to go before anyone was noticed) and falls out the window towards the party. I did like that he tried to Command Bryn as well just to rub it in to the player's a bit that he's a jerk who will use anything and anyone he can to save his own skin.

They were very worried about how they were going to spin events to the Ja-Laffa's, but I thought their story was actually very reasonable. As far as Haddin knew, the Scourge arrived and nearly killed him. Crystin saw nothing, so it is very reasonable that was also party of Ragesian ploy. I wasn't going to have that be a sticking point unless they really flubbed things. I also really enjoyed the scrambled aspect of the fight. While my group has very little problems with dark-vision, the limited points of view did provide differences in opinions as the party split up a bit. Rayland went guerilla fighting in the home, which was really nice, while Winry and Myetharia tried to hold the line against Smiley. He carved them up (he's a killing machine at that level), but the party responded just well enough to outlast the Inquisitor and force them away. A roll here or there, Smiley surviving for one more turn or Bryn not stabilizing Haddin, could have seen the outcome changed dramatically.

As it was, they now have to collect themselves, bloody and downed, before deciding what their new course of action will be regarding the pain in the neck Haddin and his poor daughter.

Next time, into the inferno!

Post-adventure thoughts:​

As this was the end of the first adventure (effectively, though there's some clean-up in the next session regarding the Ja-Laffas) I thought that I would give my overall thoughts a moment before moving on.

I really enjoyed this adventure as an opener. I will admit while reading it through initially that I was worried about the lull between the first night and the ending, but I think it played out better than it read for me. Parts 3 and 4 felt bare in the book, but playing them out was required to really appreciate that the breather was needed and allowed the characters a moment to settle in and find their footing in the world before it is pulled away. There were a number of times so far where the players have had to learn lessons; first with Shealis and now here in this last session as well. Sometimes, discretion is the better play, and be ready to pay to choose the goodie path. Coming from the previous campaign we played, which was much more black and white, 4e dungeon crawling, these were excellent lessons and a proper start to the campaign. They learned their lessons well in my opinion and we have been really enjoying our time.

Hopefully you've enjoyed listening to our first arc as we head into the fire forest and beyond. Let me know if you have any thoughts as well for us!

Please don’t stop doing these episodes, the way you go about writing them is a whole other level of intrigue. Thank you for doing these!

 

[Fuzzybear]

Episode 12 - Indomitability​

This episode certainly went differently than I had expected coming in. In none of my preparation did I consider the idea that they might try what they did, so I had to improvise on the fly what would happen and how it would work. I do think it went very well though!

They did take some time on the side to consider what they wanted to do coming into the session I knew as there was some questions being thrown out about what 'not angering the forest' meant previously. With the trees falling and a voice seeming to emanate from the forest, Jack especially thought that they needed to atone for something they had done to the forest. This is very obvious on the first turn as instead of attacking with the advantage, the group decides to instead do nothing. Jack even kneels to the fiery stags hoping that a show of deference and atonement would stop the fight before it even had a chance to be begin.

Little did they know, but it wasn't the forest that was attacking them. And this wasn't because of a breach of conduct, but instead sent as a test of the player's power.

Once it became clear that the deer weren't going to let them go for free, the party decided the next best course of action was to run for the river, despite the flaming trees between them and safety. This is what I never considered in my preparation, so the details of how that would work, how much damage they might take, the effect of cold based spells on the flames, these were all items that I was not prepared for. Some of the encounters of the previous adventure put the idea in their heads that not every fight is there to be fought. They learned that lesson more effectively than even I had meant to teach it, but that doesn't make it wrong!

As the fire approached, and every gasp as it quickly closed in behind them, Winry made it to the trees first (being a tabaxi monk this was always going to be the case) and tried to blast them with frost fingers. Her subclass being cold based instead of the lightning based one from the player's guide popping up again here for interesting results! I decided that the fire would go out briefly but not permanently when coated by cold magic, so for the next round it would leave a path that would quickly close back up. This made it action (and ki point for Winry) expensive for them to go through this way, but possible. Between Jack and Winry, they were able to make it most of the way through.

The other part for going through the trees was defined in the adventure, but the majority of the party is pretty solid with Dexterity making most of them have only a few troubles making their way through. They do take some burns on the first 4 characters through together, but it was more of an annoyance than a real problem for them. It did make things very tense, but I think it did annoy them a bit instead.

The real problem is that Myetharia was last. She stayed behind intentionally the first round to slow down the chasing enemies, but then got in a situation where she couldn't just run anymore. By the time she tried to make her break for the trees, she was already in trouble. And before she could make it there, she was down.

Now here is where things get interesting. I got a little over-excited to have downed someone because of the effect that comes with and failed to realize that it shouldn't have affected her right away. I will admit that I skimmed it a bit beforehand but didn't think much of it until later on in the adventure as most of the early encounters are not meant to be deadly. As such, in the heat of the moment (heh, pun), I made a mistake and treated her as though she became keyword Indomitable. While this was technically a mistake, it made the rest of the adventure so much better. I think I would even encourage other DMs to strongly consider trying to down a PC to get this out there and let the group play around with the effect more. It added a lot more enjoyment and depth to the forest.

Myetharia sparks back to life, flaring and determined, then climbs through the downed trees as though no trouble. The rest of the party is left shocked, spooked, and scared, and that's before the giant flaming face appears and starts talking to them! Ryan, who does the mixing for our remastered episodes, had some fun with the voice here which is really good along with the fire crackling noise. They had some good questions (which surprisingly the adventure did a good job of having answers for) and started butting heads with the mysteries of the forest.

Next time, a search, a sack, and a secret!
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@Nod_Hero and @Boundless Creation , thank you both for the kind words and support! They are definitely appreciated. The remastered episodes may be coming to an end soon, just too much work for little reward for Ryan, but the unedited ones are there all the way through the end of the 4th adventure on our channel! Here is the playlist for the uncut versions instead. We have them on Spotify as well I believe, though I'd have to ask for the playlist link there if it is wanted. I'll continue posting my reviews, but they may come in groups of episodes instead of each one.