So this session turned out to be kind of interesting. Some things happened. But also, finally, officially, the players left the Wastes. Let’s get into it.
We began with the party leaving the Temple of Mists and beginning their journey north to find the first shard. However, due to their horrific dice rolling, they ended up getting caught in a three day magical storm, with nowhere to shelter from it. On top of this, thanks to the lump of arcanite now serving as his heart, Brakken discovered that he was now something of a magical lightning conductor, and further still, getting struck by a bolt of magical lightning had the profound effect of supercharging him. Basically, once struck he started going and just wouldn’t stop.
The party ended up driving for almost the entire three days, with Brakken not even resting in that time (but not needing to either). Monk also didn’t rest over that period, but not by choice. Meanwhile, on the one occasion they did stop, while Brakken spent his time running laps around the car Poppy tried to experiment with some arcanite by casting Call Lightning and attempting to harness the storm. It worked, insofar as she managed to tap into the raw magical energy of the storm and call down a lightning bolt to strike the arcanite, but the lightning was so powerful it exploded the stone into about fifty pieces, some of which punctured the members of the party and the car. So we’ll call it a mixed success.
Eventually the storm passed, Brakken finally ran out of energy, and the party finally got a good night’s sleep. Poppy awoke the next morning feeling poorly once again, but otherwise the party had made good time and were within a couple of days of the north coast, where they were heading towards the Sea of Frozen Souls, the apparent location of the first shard. To this end, they also realised that they had finally left the wastes, and were now in the tundra that denoted most of the north.
However, their troubled journey wasn’t done yet. That evening, they were attacked by a Living Cloudkill which had somehow stowed away within the car. The poisonous fog that the living spell generated not once but twice managed to do a decent amount of damage to the party, but once Brakken and Monk got to grips with what was going on they made short work of it. Once the air was clear once more the party were able to complete their rest.
The following morning, the party drove to the “mountains” running along the coast, where they entered the town of Snowborder, sitting nestled in a valley and marking the last civilised place before one left terra firma and entered the Sea of Frozen Souls itself. The town, due to its placement, was still very much in a pre-War style, in this case, Eastern European Gothic would be a good analogue. Complete with few, dour villagers and, as Brakken noticed, no children about.
The party made their way to the only tavern in town, the Hanged Crow, where they met the dwarf bartender (whose name they later learned was Tyotl). After Poppy tried and failed to offer the party’s services to the three unconscious drunks that made up the only other patrons at the time, the party got chatting with Tyotl and were eventually directed to the graveyard to meet a certain Mister White. Evidently the town did require assistance, though Tyotl was quiet about the details.
On their way toward the graveyard, the party stopped at Fyotl’s Loot, a store owned by Tyotl’s brother, in order to buy some winter clothes for Poppy. It was here that, thanks to the abundance of children’s clothing for sale, Brakken first realised about the lack of children. Fyotl, though friendlier than Tyotl, was similarly vague about the details and agreed that Mister White was the man to speak to.
The party found Mister White at the graveyard. He turned out to be an albino elf dressed all in white clothing, very hard to miss, and after accepting the party’s help, he explained that children below the age of fifteen had been periodically going missing from the town for some time. He had come to solve the mystery and was staying at the castle, where he invited the party to join him for dinner and very likely to stay while they were in town, depending on the count’s most likely favourable word.
The party accompanied Mister White to the castle, which you will imagine perfectly if you merely conjure the image of Dracula’s castle. There, they sat down to feast, and just as they met the count, a drow dressed all in black with salt-and-pepper hair, we ended the session.
I’m quite excited about this. I freely admitted to my players that I took a lot of inspiration from having recently watched the BBC Dracula limited series, and from having been to Bran Castle, the castle that served as inspiration for Bram Stoker, earlier this year on my travels. However, I also told them to toss out any notion of vampires, since that would be way too obvious. Or would it?
In either case, I’m looking forward to what comes next. Who or what is making the children disappear? Will the party find the answer before the answer finds them? And when will they be able to get back on track about finding the shard? Tune in in two weeks time, since we have to skip a week due to unavailability of players, to find out.