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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tolamaker" data-source="post: 8550906" data-attributes="member: 7031495">Session 21The party goes into the marshes, and meets the Head Chop tribe, a group of goblins with a well-cared-for guillotine in the middle of their village. Their territory is scattered with poles and skulls. When Aripos sees a alligator skull, he takes it, but jangles some bells. Soon they're surrounded, and Aripos reluctantly puts the skull back. In the village, they see a group of refugees who have been trussed up. The refugees say they were just traveling through, and have only been given water, not food. The chief and his translator say that the refugees have been breaking their territory markers, and scaring off game in the area. They demand spell scrolls, a packet of Dust of Dryness, and the heads of the witches Handrea in exchange for letting the refugees go.The group travels quietly, and are able to narrowly avoid an enormous crocodile in the marsh. Eventually, they find a number of huts clumped together, and Aripos goes to investigate. He finds a dead body chained to a wall, and with human-shaped bite marks all over his body. When he tries to leave, he is found, and the skeletons attack. Aripos is stuck by himself, swarmed by skeletons, as the rest of the party rushes in to the rescue. As they near, three witches emerge from a haze and begin working together to stop the party's progress.Mishka is targeted by the witches with spells galore, but manages to mostly decapitate their pet crocodile. Gruz gets up close and personal, counterspelling as many spells as he can, and Eluriah turns into a black bear, and begins clambering up their house. The fight continues next session.Post-session thoughtsI fetl kind of rushed with this, and am afraid I didn't do the goblins justice. I wanted them to seem creepy but somewhat justified, but didn't really back it up. It was serviceable I suppose. I did expect the party to haggle a bit more on the deal for magic items, but they seemed to find the deals reasonable (I just rolled three times on Magic Item Table A in the DMG). I figure that Hessilen is a burgeoning mage, and Ogatar wants him to have access to more spells.Once we got to the Handreas, I had a bit more fun. I rolled random encounters (hence the giant crocodile) and they were stealthing, so the Handrea's wouldn't have seen them with my perception rolls, so I figured the party would get the drop on them at their home. (I also couldn't think of how to make the party go to their home if they were ambushed). Also, they have the skeletons to back them up, so it wasn't a pushover.The Handreas are no joke. The party has been burning through their inspiration with this fight, with so many crowd control spells, the skeletons have been slowly whittling away at the heroes. I'm usually pretty bad at running spellcasting NPCs, but the makeup of the witches and the tactics in the chapter are very helpful in organizing what each Handrea does, whether that's control, support, or damage.Changes to the ModuleI wanted to make the Severed Head Tribe (They're Head Chop because I couldn't remember their name, but remembered the guillotine) a little more sympathetic. I've always had a soft spot for goblins, so I wanted their motivations to be a bit more nuanced than a bunch of bandits. I also made it so that the decanter of endless water was a gift from Simeon to maintain good relations, so the party won't be bringing it back with them.I also made Hessilen a man, because I had been thinking about how I literally never have gay characters. Because no one spoke Goblin, I just had Ogatar make very expressive gestures, and Hessilen would blush occasionally. Ogatar likes the idea that the party can't understand what he's saying.</blockquote>

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