Immolating inquisitors with runic chainmail sound neat.
A repentant Haddin, though, is very atypical. I think you might be the first GM to go that route. Most people play him as a right uncaring bastard.
I admit, I am personally fond of chubby Kazyk, but yeah (I role-played him with a voice like Tuco - the ugly one from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), yours is more menacing.
Immolating inquisitors with runic chainmail sound neat.
A repentant Haddin, though, is very atypical. I think you might be the first GM to go that route. Most people play him as a right uncaring bastard.
I admit, I am personally fond of chubby Kazyk, but yeah (I role-played him with a voice like Tuco - the ugly one from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), yours is more menacing.
They passed some high Charisma checks for Haddin, plus more than half my group has done IRL therapy for absent/jerk dads, so while no one had a line or veil for it, since the consensus seemed to want him to let go/repent/want redemption--even after an initally hard push back--I went with it. I believe Diogynes shows back up when/if they return to gate pass at a later module, so figured I would just replace him with Haddin since they still bring him up as being awful. My group is weird.
Yeah, this was the first character I've had my husband draw/redraw/modify and he missed the "short and chubby" part of the description I sent. He had worked so hard on him that I went with it. He now sends me mock ups before investing alot of time into a drawing.
I have to hand it to you for daring the redemption arc with Haddin. By the time they even sat down in Haddin's cabin, both of my groups wanted to kill him right then and there. Torrent was the voice of reason, whispering to people about guest rights and responsibilities.
Neither group killed him, but in the one scenario the assassins got into the upper floor and he ended up being pushed out of the window by one of the assassins.
The other group managed to slip away from him after the battle, taking an unconscious Crystin with them. She fought a bit once she woke up, but as they traveled further away and she was treated with respect, she started realizing how poorly she had been treated. They listened to her visions and helped her to rationalize them as they moved through the forest and into Dassen.
I gave her a few more trances foreshadowing events, which made them more memorable when events unfolded in future modules.
I have to hand it to you for daring the redemption arc with Haddin. By the time they even sat down in Haddin's cabin, both of my groups wanted to kill him right then and there. Torrent was the voice of reason, whispering to people about guest rights and responsibilities.
Neither group killed him, but in the one scenario the assassins got into the upper floor and he ended up being pushed out of the window by one of the assassins.
The other group managed to slip away from him after the battle, taking an unconscious Crystin with them. She fought a bit once she woke up, but as they traveled further away and she was treated with respect, she started realizing how poorly she had been treated. They listened to her visions and helped her to rationalize them as they moved through the forest and into Dassen.
I gave her a few more trances foreshadowing events, which made them more memorable when events unfolded in future modules.
I was proud of my group. They've come a long way from their murder hobo beginning, arguably maybe too far. haha. Its been cute though seeing my party adopt Crystin in these Forest sections and help lift her self-confidence up.
Session 12:
Cruelpigs party do not read upon paid of toad.
The session started out with Kazyk standing in the road, in a relaxed posture. Sorian is initially called out, as he is the one visibly wearing the bone-carved message from the Hellhound on his person. Kazyk demands the case, and all contents that had been inside it, which the heroes refuse. Kazyk explained that he took their accepting of the bone and accepting the terms (by wearing it) and he did not take kindly to their lack of repect for contracts. Suddenly, several imps spawned into the road and a fierce battle ensues. The heroes are all taken aback by the magical prowess the green-skinned man has over invisibility and his impervious to the fire damage caused by the teleportation spells.
Though after each side gets in a few good hits, the battle stops as quickly as it started, with Kayzk telling the heros he liked their spirit, but that prefers to work smarter, not harder...that they are not going to escape this forest without his help, so he'll be seeing them after the forest has broken them down ome.
Vic and Sorian checked in with Reshi and Torrent, the two who the brunt of the hits in the fight before setting back off down the road. While heading down the road, Torrent asked Sorian about his personal history, as they had both only known each other by reputation while in Gate Pass. Sorian recounted being a child refugee, and the mixed emotion that this forest is his anceteral home, but being back...it doesnt bring the same feelings of home that thinking of his Tarnesti district/slum in Gate Pass does.
Vic was walking with Crystin, trying to teach her some fundamentals of a new spell, though Vic became distracted by thinking she saw a stag made of fire walking along side deep into the burning forest. No one else saw what Vic did, and tried to tell her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Further down the road, the group came across an odd sight: a vase engulfed in flames burning in the middle of the road. Everyone approached it cautiously, except for Reshi, who, ever curious, decided to kick the piece of pottery over without so much as a cursory glance. As soon as his foot made contact with the vase, the mimic revealed itself by taking a massive bite out of the Brass Dragonborn and clamping down onto its kill…a this bite knocked Reshi unconscious and he wasn’t breathing!
With Reshi at risk of being eaten whole, the rest of the heroes rushed forward: Sorian tried to yank Reshi free, but the mimic bit down harder…not letting go of its fresh meat in decade. Following the failed yank, the mimic swallowed more of Reshi’s leg, up to his knee now! Grom came forward--and having seen Sorian fail to pull Reshi out and that it caused Reshi to be eaten quicker,-- had a quick debate about “do I hit the 'not-vase' or do I chop his leg off?”
Grom saw Vic coming up behind him and opted to hit the mimic, thankfully making purchase, though not enough to get it to spit out Reshi. Vic used a quick spell to stabilize Reshi before she and Torrent each landed a blow to the mimic, killing it….well, knocking it unconscious allowing them to free Reshi from it maw. Its remains did remain smoldering so after only pausing to quickly heal Reshi just enough that he could walk with only mild assisstance, they hurried on down the road. The session ended with an apt joke from Vic that she would have been able to fashion Rehi an awesome prosthetic leg as she tapped her own metal arm.
I wish I could say this helped my Dragonborn
PC learn that actions have consquences and maybe interact with the world just a little bit but it doesn't
Boa Constrictor
Oh, I'm being eaten
By a boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
A boa constrictor,
I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,
And I don't like it--one bit.
Well, what do you know?
It's nibblin' my toe.
Oh, gee,
It's up to my knee.
Oh my,
It's up to my thigh.
Oh, fiddle,
It's up to my middle.
Oh, heck,
It's up to my neck.
Oh, dread,
It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff . . .
Session started with a very debilitated Reshi being aided by Torrent and Grom as they walked down the Elf Road. Thankfully, after an uneventful 1/2 mile, Sorian pointed out a bridge looming before them and the bridge was a way to cross a surprisingly still-running river. A fort type tower on the bridge could barely be seen from their vantage point and Sorian had a distant memory spring to his mind that this was the "Tower of the Unicorn", a place for Clerics of Meilikki to tend to weary travelers.
Before they could get close to the bridge though, Crystin had a vision and shouted to Sorian that “Danger followed his footsteps”. Fearing for everyone’s safety Sorian rushed away from the group closer to the bridge. Crystin seemed to faint after coming to from her vision, Vic caught her before she fell and Grom left Torrent in charge of Reshi and swooped her up into his arms.
Then, 3 things occurred near simultaneously: first, a spear of fire lanced out from the woods, hitting the space Sorian had just been standing and second, an explosion rocked the woods before them collapsing multiple huge trees blocking their way towards the bridge and third a wall of fire sprang up behind those in the rear of the group (Grom, Vic, and Christin). Everyone held firm for a moment, trying to make sense of what had just occurred, until 3 burning stags walked out of the woods, stomping the ground and getting ready to charge.
Initially the heroes looked for a spell caster hiding in the flames who must be controlling these elemental stags, but with the fire encroaching them from behind and the stags seeming near impossible to hit with physical attacks,
My PCs were just rolling really really poorly, I kept the AC 13, after two PCs rolled <13 the whole group decided the stags must be incoporeal
the group tried to run for the bridge. Sorian came running back to the group, meeting them in the middle. He passed off the Scroll of Fireball given to the group by Rantle to Vic shouting that perhaps the spell could blast apart the trees blocking the path.
Sorian then steeled himself to distract the stags, he did attempt to shout at the stags in Sylvan, thinking they might be corrupted protector spirits of the forest. They did not respond to the call. Crystin finally came too and Grom was able to put her down and help Sorian.
Torrent healed Reshi a bit more and also came to join the two barbarians so the other 4 could try and make it to the bridge. The voice in Grom's head spoke a strangle langauge to him that he did not recognize, but then told Grom that "this was just thier unknown word showing off. Let loose and show them real power." Grom activated his Frenzied rage and when he did so, glowing symbols appeared on his face (they did not hurt, so Grom himself was unaware). Reshi did recognize the words for being an ancient Draconic language that meant "Propriety". With Grom and Sorian raging and Torrent channeling her divinity, the three of them finally found purchase in beating the stags down.
I am using Dovazhul from Skyrim to be my trillith language. I am having this not be true in-world Draconic, but an ancient form. English to Old English would be a good example. Reshi can read it and mostly understand it from his training to be the next village leader.
Right as the last stag fell a supernatural voice echoed throughout the area and soon a draconic face emerged from the fire in the trees blocking the path to the bridge. This demonic, draconic face soon morphed into a burning figure of a woman with a sword impaled through her body.
The spirit offered safe passage for the group in exchange for freeing it from being trapped. For a moment, Sorian felt that this might be a vengeful spirit of Innenotdar, driven mad by the destruction decades ago. In a haze, he asked directly if this entity was Timbre, but the spirit laughed and instead claimed to be "Indomitability," a being "larger than any forest."
Vic and Grom asked the next questions - where the spirit was and how to free it, respectfully: They learned it was trapped beneath the lake at the end of the river flowing before them and to free them, they must stop the curseded song that is keeping it trapped.
Ze called for a quick huddle to discuss their last question, but Sorian having too many memories of his early life whizzing through his mind and stepped forward and asked the spirit why they were trapped in the first place.
Indomitability explained that "small-minded Fey" had trapped her near 90 years ago. Sorian, who later explained that he had asked his question thinking this was some demon the Ragesians had summoned to set the fires, but this answer made Sorian remember the great hero Arielle (cause I paniked and couldn't figure out how to say Anyariel) and how she died felling a great fire beast a few years before the fires......though before Sorian could put together the implications of this memory and Indomitability plight, Indomitability offed to imbue everyone in the group with its power: granting them the ability to safely cross through the forest without a time limit. The only caveat, was they needed to agree and take actions to free them.
My games are going to be heavy trillith, I really like thier concept and the dyamnicness they bring as both potential allys to recruit and the ability to be both smaller and larger BBEGs, I have decided that you can only have one trillith boon at a time. I'll probably "fatten" some of the boons as we get to them.
Some like Vic and Reshi, immediatly told Indomitablity that they would help free them. While the other were discussing the pro and cons, the voice in Groms head explained that if he accepted Indomitabilies boon then he would not have access to his Rectitude and Arms of Rightousness for the time being, most likely until they left the forest. Grom did ask his voice if the fire lady could be trustsed, to which the voice just tactfully said "Oh, my dear Great Warrior....this forest is filled with anger and subterfuge; Deception’s playground. Misunderstanding was, is, and could be its downfall. Things need to be righted. Curses could still be remembered as a blessing, perhaps purgatory was better than hell". Which left alot for poor Grom to think about, and some big words to look up what they mean. (lol). After ensuring that the voice wouldn't leave him if he accepted, he decided it was better to not be under a time constraint and have this spirit be on their side.
With Grom accepting the boon, this lead Sorian and the rest to agree. They view Grom as a litmus test for good, given his knack for interacting calmly with things that should be near impossible (ie. the Celestial badgers and the hellhouse).
After being filled with the boon, the heroes--who could not be much wearier--pushed on to the bridge. They noticed the fort did not have much flame damage on it, so they figured it would be a good place to rest: safe from the fire and potentially any ability Indomitability had to eavesdrop through the flames while they discussed their next moves.
The heroes approached the tower door and saw a small blue rune on the door. Vic and Torrent approached to inspect it, while Grom and Sorian called out for Ze and her theieves tools to come forward and get ready for her time to shine. In a tired, confused haste, Ze did not stop to let the two ladies inspect the door and instead she sent her shadow under the door of the tower. The shadow got blasted backwards and this triggered the rune on the door and a spiritual weapon appeared and began attacking the shadow and Ze (and after a brief: this isnt BG3, spirit weapons don't have HP in 5e).
As everyone was near delirious from fighting the stags to the point of exhaustion, all the heroes decided to attack and literally obliterate the door rather than investigate the glowing rune. Finally though, they destroyed the door and were able to enter the tower.
I recognize now my group does better with our normal 2-3 hour sessions. We could all play later this night so we went for 4 and there was definetly major mental fatigue happening on everyones parts. It was a learning experience for what works well with our group!
It has been a long time since I've had the opportunity to run a session longer than 3 hours. Normally we start at 8 and break a little after 11.
But man, I miss the days of starting at 6 and playing 'til 2am or something. Of course, I also had a lot more time to plan ahead back then. And honestly, 3rd edition combat took way longer than 5e, so maybe it was kind of a wash.
Session 14: Cruelpigs party do not read upon pain of toad
Session started with the group inside the tower.
Immediately the heroes noticed a life sized statue of a female Elven warrior right as the entered holding a shield with a symbol of a unicorn on the front. There were runes on the ground that Torrent and Vic did not immediately recognize. As those two inspected the statue, Ze and Reshi cautiously explored the rest of the smallish first floor. Sorian after glancing around the room for another other spiritual traps, walked over to the statue, recognizing the unicorn as a symbol for Meilikki, said a small prayer and as he spoke the words the runes at the base of the statue activated and arcane energy whooshed through the room, the statue began to glow and was now holding a glowing rock in their formerly empty out stretched hand. A table appeared by right side of statue hosting a quill & ink, jar of dirt, a dagger, and a bottle of green paint. The shield had a ghostly script scroll across the front first in Sylvan, but then morphed into Common.
We had a two week break in between session and I changed this from a room trap to a reward for solving, I also spent HOURS perfecting my riddle, mish-mashing a few I found onlineand tailoring it to the setting. Also making sure it was a riddle that if my Grom PC figured out the anwer he could role play actually having his -1 Int character answering. (very on the nose) I play tested it on multiple people not in the campaign and most found it very difficult. Not one person I play tested it on figured out both parts solo. I was expecting this to take up a fair amount of the session (or them not care). My Torrent's PC figured it out before I even finished reading the dang riddle. It was demoralizing, but she IRL needed the confidence boost so it made me happy in the long run. I'll share the riddle in another spoiler below
Here we stood and here we fell
Our strength we saved for a hero for-telled
To gather such, a payment is due
From the river of life welling up inside of you.
Answer this riddle upon stone,
To prove ye friend and not enemy drone.
Every Dawn begins with me,
At dusk I’ll be the first you see,
And daybreak couldn’t come without
What midday centers all about.
Daises grow from me, and I am told
That when I come, I end all cold,
But in the sun I won’t be found,
Yet still each day I’ll be around.
Write the letter "D" in blood on the outstretched stone
Torrent, impressively and immediately knew the answer and after some discussion about how to answer, Sorian volunteered his blood as he was a child of the forest.Sorian cut his finger a littler deeper than he intended as Ze distracted him. Ze and Reshi had found the near mummified remains of two soliders, and with Ze's having seen the dead be used as risen combatants during her time as an Inquistor that she beagn to decapitate the remains so they couldnt be revived. After a brief argument about desecrating his people, Sorian wrote the letter D on the glowing stone and the Sheild began to glow and transformed into a real shield pulsing with arcane energy.
Sorian picked up the shield and felt immediately connected with it, its powers fully open to him. However, Sorian knew he could not use the shield effectively in battle and offered the shield to Torrent. She hefted it, but did not feel that her God Mercium would want her to attune to a magic item of Meilikki. Just as Sorian took the shield back, going to keep and protect it as a relic of his ancestors, Grom asked if he could have the shield, while he could not currently use it as he had given up his Arms of the Righteous in favor of the Indomitable Spirit boon for the time being, he saw the potential for the shield in the future.
With that that completed, the heroes gathered at the base of the stairs Ze began carefully going upstairs, sending her shadow ahead of her. Vic paused briefly to say a prayer for the two soldiers (and then took a chain shirt off one of them and the body turned to dust as she handled the remains.) cue a very dirty look from Sorian
Ze and her shadow cleared the second floor not finding anything mechanical that could hurt them and did not sense anything magical that wished them harm. The first thing that drew Vic’s eye was a religious carving of a sunrise on the far table. It had a faint glow and Vic immediately recognized it as a symbol of Lethander, a “rival” god of healing to her Mercium and the Aquiline Cross, but knew him to be a good God.
Vic was fairly certain the symbol was a glyph of healing and touched it and was filled with faint healing magic. Torrent, sensing the healing magic, came to see what Vic had found and also touched the symbol and happily found that it seemed reusable. They called over Ze and Reshi, the two most hurt of the party and had them touch the glyph as well. Reshi did take some conviencing that the table was not going to eat him before he would touch it. Unfortunately, after Reshi touched the symbol, it stopped glowing and offered no more healing.
Torrent went to stand with Sorian who was still by the stairs and noticed that while there was some cracks and holes in the stone walls due to disrepair and age, every 2.5ft there were man-made intentional divots in the stonework. On one of the divots, he could see the corner of a unicorn horn and realized that symbols of Meilikki used to adorn the walls, but they had been purposely defaced.
Reshi and Ze went to examine the bed and trunk on the far side of the room. Ze remarked on the amount of dust on the covers, and gingerly opened the pack that was sitting on the bed. She found bandages with runes on them and gloves that seemed to belong to a healer based on the delicate material they were made of, but the amount of dried blood splattered on them. Ze tossed them to Vic and she inherently knew if she wore them then she would do a bit more healing with her spells.
Reshi used this time to explore the trunk on the floor, which he found a small landscape drawing of a woodland village, a portion of dispel magic, and a jar of silver thick liquid that smelled sweet even through the jar. He could not identify it himself but chose to pocket it and investigate it further at a later time.
Vic went back to explore the table with the glyph and noticed two journals wrapped in twine, she could not read the language the were written in.
So, somehow when Sorian made his character sheet he thought he was getting Slyvan in lieue of Elvish. I didn't realize this until a campfire comment inbetween sessions when Sorian mentioned it. How he explained it was Elvish was the language of the high elves, and just another way they made the wood elves "other" but calling their lanuage "elvish" as if Slyvan wasn't the fey-elves mother tounge. Sorian made the comment that most of his people refused to learn Elvish out of spite. Honestly, it felt really apt and added another layer of Shalahasti vs Taranesti divisive layer. So I had to change all the books they found in the Tower to be written in Slyvan which really limited which characters could interact with them.
Sorian is obviously fluent in Sylvan, but Ze is intermediate. I figured that Decpetion would have learned about the song in searching for Indomitablity and woudl have advised Leska to instuct her Inquistiros in Sylvan to eventually come take the forest by force if it came down to that, and a way to control potential trilliths that would oppose Freedom's plot
Ze read through the first book with some difficulty, explaining the Cleric of the Tower was a healer named Bhurisavra, who attempted in vain to heal those afflicted by the fires in the forest. Unable to keep the flames from burning, this Taranesti healer lost faith in the Goddess Mielikki, to which Torrent pointed out the destroyed iconography. He wrote about leaving something behind at the shrine of Arielle, which Sorian stepped in to assist as soon as he heard the name "Arielle" brought up.
At this point, Sorian explained to everyone who Arielle was, to the best he could recollect, and her general significance to his people, and that her shrine was in the village just across the river. He had visited it many times with his parents and grandparents. He also explained his theory regarding Indomitability being the evil beast sealed at the bottom of the lake by his Elven heroine..
The second book appeared to be a log medical records and further experimentation regarding the fires. The healer also wrote about the goblins who helped had set the fires, and specifically he wrote about "Dream Seeds," these items distributed amongst the goblins to aid them somehow in burning down the wood. It was unclear who exactly was responsible for the Dream seeds, but as far as Sorian was concerned, it must be some old Ragesian plot to try and remove themselves from direct blame for burning down the Innenotdar.
Wanting to get rest, but needing to ensure the Tower was fully safe, the group pushed up to the top of the tower, where Torrent found a storage space and a closed door. Sorian and Ze assumed the door to be locked, and approached it slowly and cautiously. Grom, ever one for the simple solution, simply opened the damn thing and let everyone inside.
Past the door was more simple healing items and cleaning supplies and an interesting purple bag with goblin writing on it. Vic showed the group the bag, which Sorian guessed contained the "Dream Seeds" that the healer had written about. Vic investigated and sure enough, within were several of the dangerous little bear-seeds. Crystin became drawn to the seeds as soon as they were removed from the bag, and upon holding one she began reciting an odd phrase in Draconic. Reshi was able translated for everyone else's understanding, ("Return to the Mother, Captive in Freedom. Wake up, Wake up") and Vic, with Sorian's help, removed the seed from Crystin’s grasp.
After she came too, she expressed a desire to eat the seed, feeling that a prophecy was contained inside, which nearly everyone felt was a terrible idea. Sorian, not trusting Crystin's powers and worried about a magical lure on her diviniation magic, suggested that someone take the Dream Seeds and separate them from her. Crystin seemed sadden by the lack of support, but most everyone felt it was too late to embark on a potentially bad idea. Vic seeing see the girl struggling to speak her mind, and it was clear she was still finding the will to assert herself, reassured her that no one here was her father and they were all equals and encouraged her to speak her mind. Crystin doubled down on the helpfulness of her powers, and Sorian made an agreement with her - separate the seeds for the next few hours, allow everyone time to rest and recover, and when everyone could assist in a safe experiment, they would let her follow her gut feeling. This perked Crystin up immensly.
Torrent offered to take the bag and sleep upstairs behind the housekeeping door. Before passing the bag to Torrent, Vic was able to slip one seed out of the bag and into her pocket with no one noticing.
As everyone was setteling down for a well deserved long rest, the group discussed their next moves. There was clearly something important to explore at the Shrine of Arielle. On top of that, they still had an agreement to fulfill with Indomitability. Sorian expressed a distaste for releasing the spirit reiterating that last great warrior of the Taranesti had died to seal away a "great beast." If Indomitability was indeed this beast, releasing her back to the world felt like a massive betrayal to his own people.
Ze, Vic, and Torrent sympathized with Sorian, but recognized that Indomitability boon would help them leave the forest safely--and at all--and that there was a greater world to save than a forest Sorian has already grieved. Grom, with his literal mind, recalling a crypic whispher the voice in his head told him about curses being remembered as blessings in the annals of history, spoke a wise truth that perhaps Indomitability saved the forest, the trees were still there…they have not burned to ruin. Perhaps Indomitability could be reasoned with and they could find a way to save both. Sorian looked defeated and sad at Grom. Seeming to steele himself, he stated that "perhaps the legacy of the Taranesti was not something worth maintaining if it put Gate Pass--his home for much longer than this forest had been-- and perhaps the rest of the world, at risk".
. I did not see this logic as a possibility for Sorian and am now on the edge of my seat with the rest of the module and who they’ll eventually side with. I had already planned that if the forest gets destroyed then Sorian's totem--a peice of the forest--that he uses to call his ancestors will turn to ash and he will be cut off from them. He'll have to go to Ycglend forest for a new totem and connect with those spirits to gain that class feature back. Is it bad if I want to see that happen? GMing is weird.
The session ended with everyone going into a long rest, but there was an intense Campfire session that occured inbetween that I will post as a 14.5 write up!
If you want to provide an interim totem, should the Innenotdar one burn, maybe there's some (weak) woodland energy in the swamps near Seaquen he could bond to.
It sorta reminds me of old Castlevania games, where you could equip different Whips, but each one was a little different. One might be longer, or shoot fireballs, or you could spin it around you to knock away enemies who were coming in from behind, or whatever.
I think it'd be fun to let characters collect plug-and-play options like that.
My group is weird.
