Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 284701" data-attributes="member: 2205">Here's the second half of our first night of adventure.  Oh, and I have read Voyage of the Dawn Treader (since I grew up, even!) although I don't have a copy handy anymore.  That did have some good ideas for sea exploration: I might have to pirate some stuff out of there, if you'll pardon the bad pun.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />==============================================In the morning, things were clearer to the party.  A plan of action was starting to develop: our captive pirate could lead us to the pirate's hide-out, a semi-legit little place called Pirate's Cove, and we could try to find out what this attack was all about as well as hopefully charter a boat to take us to the city on Kaitain.  This meant travelling towards the mountains for a little while, but not actually going through them, while we also were able to avoid the dreaded North Coast -- apparently infested with undead.  But, of course, it meant we had to walk right into the teeth of the pirates.  DeLaine assured us that he could disguise himself at need with his magic, so we decided to go for it.Marching through the rain-forest on a narrow trail, our scouts (Falin and Bronwyn were at the front, Rurik stayed by me in the middle to make sure I didn't slit our captive's throat, or take down DeLaine to make him wear a real costume --  the gall of that dwarf!) found a narrow spot where two large rocks sat opposite each other over the trail.  On top of the rocks was apparently a goblin patrol.However, since we had the jump on them, we weren't too concerned.  Three of us (including myself and that pansy DeLaine stayed back initially as we weren't terribly skilled in sneaking up on folks, while Falin (the ranger), the Jillian (halfling druid) and Ledda (halfling sorcerer) went forward with the others behind them.The goblins turned out to be something of a non-event.  Four of them were sleeped right away, although Falin got caught in the backlash and let out a few big yawns himself.  The rest were dispatched before they even seemed to be aware of us.  We examined the goblins to see if any of them had peg-legs, eyepatches, parrots (or if they said "Rrrrgh!" to each other a lot) but we were unable to find any definite links to the pirates.  Our captive, however said that we were getting pretty close to Pirate's Cove.Sure enough, we soon came across a gaggle of orkish slaves working the fields with manacles on their legs.  We sent Bronwyn out to flirt with them, which she did quite successfully, and we found out that the doors to Pirate's Cove opened twice a day, once to let them out and once to let them back in.  Pirate's Cove itself was in a large cave that had a small tunnel entrance and then a large water entrance where ships could sail in and out.  Near dusk we waited along with the orcs for the door to open.  I even sent my pal Trevor under the door to listen and keep me appraised of any approaches.  Only one guard came to open the door, though, and he was quickly charmed to let us in.  He was very friendly at this point (at least to Ledda) and recommended an inn with some great lizard stew and possibly some information that we could use.  With that, we passed through the tunnel and entered Pirate's Cove.  The pirate's themselves were a motley bunch, mostly human and half-orc, so we didn't stand out too much.  DeLaine's brilliant costume amounted to little more than becoming a dandy elvish version of himself.  We all rolled our eyes at that one.The restaurant recommended by the gate-keeper turned out to not be that bad, although they took a dim view of my explaining exactly how I wanted my shark steak prepared.  We got some info on Lothar, the Captain (as he's more normally called) and his keep here in the cave.  Also heard rumors of a lord of Kaitain (who's initials were RKL, by the way) having blown through town yesterday.  Finally, we got some info on some of Lothar's buds; a female tiefling who nobody wanted to mess with, a yuan-ti abomination, and a blackguard --who was mercifully out of town at the time.Then we ordered dinner.  We also got rooms for the night (the non-entertainment kind) and I made it quite clear that any dwarf who slept without pants wasn't sharing a room with me.Amazingly enough, Lilley, the female tiefling came into the restaurant looking for someone.  Jillian, in a moment of insanity (in my opinion anyway) rushed up to her gushing and asking for her autograph.  She put an arcane mark on her forhead.  She left after that, but Jillian and Falin tried to follow her.  That ended up not amounting to much; she went into a shop a few doors down, they heard her meet someone through the door, but then they went deeper into the store and they couldn't hear anything of substance.  Meanwhile, a halfling err... entertainer started hitting on me at the inn, so I tossed her a few gold to get some more info on Lothar.  Seems he met with his "subjects" once a day, allowing anyone to petition him.  He met them alone, so we had a new plan: go to Lothar, confront him about his attack on us, and try to find out what gives.  Aren't we just the perfect model of subtlety?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />So, the next morning we go in, and we're the first one's there.  We're admitted to a big reception hall (which is empty) and we wait for just a few minutes for Lothar to arrive.  Lothar turns out to be a gigantic ogre.  He isn't terribly friendly, and threatens to give us to his yuan-ti to play with, but I -- employing my ever ready wit and charm -- explain to him that we aren't related to DeLaine in any way, and his incompetent help attacked us instead and were in turn either slain or driven off.  We will offer to take their place and do the job right for him (DeLaine has disappeared at this point, presumably turned invisible.)  After a pretty tense moment, he agrees, so we head down to the docks to charter a boat.We ask around the various ships, and find one that recently took a well-dressed and somewhat foppish elf as a passenger to Kaitain city.  We book passage as well, and blunder into DeLaine's room, talking loudly about how we know he's in there.  He isn't particularly happy with our lack of tact right now, but is pleased with the job we did in general in protecting him and finding out more about the RKL-Lothar conspiracy to kill him and force the anti-piracy treaty to not pass.From this point on, the journey is uneventful.  We sail to Kaitain, and other than finding it perhaps more lawless and tolerant in some ways than Pirate's Cove (seriously thinking about stealing tons of ideas from Freeport for this place...) we pass through uneventfully, chartering another ship that will take us (and DeLaine) to the Isle of Cuthbert where he can sign the treaty for the nation of Pellor. That's it, folks!  Looks like we'll likely play again this weekend, and this time I'm DMing, so we'll see what happens next!</blockquote>

Verification