Let me start off by saying, I honestly thought I already wrote this up. I think I planned it out in my head but then got muddled up enough that I remembered writing it with words instead of just thoughts. Anywho, better late than never.
The session began with a four day delay. Monk and Brakken had both caught magical diseases during the long storm the party was caught in on their way to Snowborder, and the effects finally took hold on Monk the day after their battle with Count Wattle, and on Brakken the day after that. Fortunately, thanks to her studies and some good rolls, Poppy knew how to fix them, and while the remedies took several days each, there were no complications along the way.
After the extra four days, the party climbed into their vehicle and started heading out. During their stay, Fyotl (or was it Tyotl – I can’t remember) had told Brakken of a mysterious stone structure that no one ever returned from, deep in the Sea of Frozen Souls and approximately in the direction the party’s map indicated they needed to go. After some meditation, Monk also guessed that this might be the Temple of Dragons, a mysterious place that he knew little of, save that it was somewhere up in the north and that, of the many expeditions that set off to find it, the few that returned home did not do so having done so.
So, the party set off into the Sea, but they weren’t too deep in, still in what was a heavily snowed section, when the car was suddenly flipped over, mid-driving. As it turned out, they had run into a yeti, and while they actually dealt with it really quickly (damn you, Stunning Strike!) they weren’t quick enough to stop it destroying their car. Without anyone with the skill to repair it (if they even could have managed to out in the middle of a sea of snow) they had to resign themselves to continuing on foot.
The rest of the day passed without incident, until they found a relatively sheltered crater to set up their camp. Brakken took first watch, and it is also worth noting that the party hadn’t taken a rest at this point, so they were down a few hit points and, more importantly, some key abilities.
This is important, because less than an hour into their rest, the party was attacked by Ice Trolls. Three of them.
The party wasn’t surprised, as Brakken’s almost-but-not-quite high enough perception check was bumped well high enough by Poppy’s Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow, so as the trolls came charging in, they were able to respond immediately. That may have made the difference, since it ended up being a hard fought fight.
Things started with Brakken facing two of the trolls while Poppy and Monk fought the third. Brakken was hammered by both of the trolls, and thanks to their healing, he wasn’t able to do nearly the damage he usually dishes out. Suddenly I’m thinking about giving regeneration to all the monsters I throw at them from now on. So, by the time he was brought down to unconsciousness, healed up by Poppy, brought back down again, and repeated the cycle a couple of times, he had brought one of the trolls to the verge of death several times, but it had kept regenerating instead of dying.
Meanwhile, by a complete fluke (and something that I’ll admit I probably already knew but had not considered before choosing to use trolls) Poppy’s only two damage-dealing cantrips caused fire and acid damage. If you have never fought trolls before, their regeneration – and therefore their inability to be killed – is only shut down by those two damage types. Our group has fought trolls several times, but not in this campaign; luckily, my players are not the type to metagame (at least, not so blatantly) so you can see how lucky a fluke this turned out to be.
Also, by another complete fluke, Poppy kept rolling critical hits during the fight, meting out a butt-ton of damage to two of the trolls. She and Monk finished off the first one pretty easily, actually, with him dealing the finishing blow before the two of them went to help Brakken.
Unfortunately, Brakken was almost down by this point in the fight, and Monk, while he’s tougher than your average monk, wasn’t able to withstand the full might of the troll that turned to focus on him instead. He managed to finish off one of the trolls, after Poppy shut down its regeneration, but the other brought both him and Brakken down (again) and set its sights on Poppy. Luckily, she managed to avoid its attacks long enough to heal Monk and Brakken, and after the troll whiffed its attacks against her (after rolling a natural 20 to see if it was smart enough to realise she was the greatest threat at this point) she was able to shut its healing down long enough for Monk to complete his hatrick.
After this extended, brutal fight, the party was able to succeed on their long rest and as they awoke in the morning, they realised they could sense the telltale signs of a coming storm on the air. And we ended the session there.
So that was that. Not a lot happened, story-wise, but the party is back on track with their search for the first shard. And what about this Temple of Dragons, huh? That sounds interesting. I guess you’ll have to tune in next week to see how that goes – if the party doesn’t run into any more ice troll-shaped delays, of course…