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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tolamaker" data-source="post: 8601316" data-attributes="member: 7031495">Session 27The group decides that they want to go to the play. Though they are in the middle of an investigation, they feel like there are too many moving pieces to make a move yet. Aripos says that if Paradim is at the play, he’ll slip away to investigate his hut.At the play, Gruz goes aside to the beach, where a tearful Diashan explains why she was in the Fire Forest. She explains that her units attempts to convince the Taranesti of the forest to join Shahalesti were futile, and her commander brought them orders to disguise themselves as orcs, and set a fire to the north of the forest. She says the goblins were mercenaries, and she doesn’t know why they ate the seeds. She says the rest of her company fled to the north, while she ran south to warn the villagers, but the fire grew too quickly. Gruz offers support, and Diashan smiles weakly. She thanks Gruz for his help, and says that it convinced her to tell Laurabec whyshe had devoted herself to her. She says the Laurabec was “frustratingly forgiving.” After her outpouring, Diashan doesn’t feel like going to the play, and gives Gruz a rose to give to Tiljann.Going into the theater, the group sees that they are seated near the back, by Katrina, who warns that she likes to talk during plays. True to her word, she scoffs and grunts at the political allegories and other tropes that appear in The Spectacular Trial of Toteth Topec. The play tells the myth of Toteth, an orc geomancer who seeks to save the world. At the end of the second act, Aripos notices Giorgio leaving near the back. When he and Mechanicles follow him, Aripos finds the body of a Wayfarer, and sees Giorgio and two others breaking into the captain’s quarters. Before he can investigate further, he is jumped by a halfing rogue named Nira, and Mechanicles narrowly escapes being eviscerated to warn the rest of the party.As battle engages, Brothers Setales and Brutus work together to keep the party away from Giorgio, who is concentrating on a ritual of some sort that causes flashes of fire, and a map of Seaquen to appear in the air. Mishka kills Brutus, and begins taunting Setales, enraging him. Giorgio joins the fight as it goes south for his side, and yells at everyone to “light the barrels and jump overboard.” Nira runs up to light several, and Orwin spears her through with an acid arrow.The mutineers now outnumbered, Giorgio casts Shatter, causing a chain reaction among the barrels, hitting everyone with shrapnel, and setting the deck alight with alchemist’s fire. Gruz goes down, and the party deeply weakened. We find out how it turns out next week!Post-Session ThoughtsI didn't prep very much, because I knew I was going to be reading a lot of boxed text, but I forgot that I always rewrite boxed text in my own voice... So I called a break after the first act, literally just to rewrite the second act. I didn't even change the details, its just easier for me to read if I've written it down in the language I like to use. Part of me feels now that I should have stuck with the text as written, to give the feeling of being immersed in the play, but ah well.When revealing Giorgio slipping out, I only said that he had dark liquid on his hand, not blood. I have no idea why I didn't even say it was red, but that lead to a more interesting encounter, I believe. I don't think it would have been the end of the world if everyone came storming up at the same time, but it would have been a much quicker fight. Also, Aripos' player has a tendency to run off on his own, so maybe this will curb that impulse somewhat. The one issue is that due to me limiting the details, it almost led to the players ignoring it, and I didn't want to have Katrina give the game away, for both plot reasons, and I-don't-want-to-run-NPCs reasons.The battle has been going much better than I expected. I kind of expected the saboteurs to be outclassed, but a combination of Aripos being ambushed and the barrels on board evened up the fight.When I ran Curse of Strahd with most of this group the last couple of years, I felt like every fight after 5th-level became a narratively interesting cakewalk (until Strahd). I've been incredibly happy with the fights in WotBS, so kudos to [USER=6776887]@Tormyr[/USER]. I'm looking forward to the higher levels.Changes to the moduleReally, I changed how the barrels worked because I forgot about them at the beginning of the fight, and then decided to blow them all up at the end to let Giorgio escape. Though the book says one barrel is unlikely to cause a chain reaction, the reaction of the players being told that the entire ship was catching on fire was great. Each barrel is supposed to deal 2d6 piercing, 1d6 fire damage, so I simplified it to each character being hit by two barrels. Somehow, with 6d6 damage being thrown at everyone, they all made their saves, so it didn't go near as bad. Gruz took a beating, with the shatter itself knocking him down and making him use his Relentless feature, and then the barrels knocked him down again. Good Stuff.</blockquote>

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