To start off, a little housekeeping. The Blue Fern’s player has had to pull out of the campaign due to those annoying real life responsibilities that got in the way last week. It’s possible she’ll show up again down the line, but for the foreseeable future, the Blue Fern is MIA. In a similar vein, Clourc’s player wasn’t able to make this session, so he won’t feature overly much. He should be back next week, though.
The session began with mostly everyone waking up from a restful sleep. Mostly, in that Poppy had a less than pleasant night. As she dreamed, in her weird, spiritual dream world sort of thing, it was intruded upon by Ma-Ma, who just so happened to also be a cloud of black smoke. This was quickly chased away by a unicorn made of dusklight and moonbeams, because no one said D&D needed to make sense or not be nuts, and Poppy enjoyed the rest of her night in peace.
Once everyone but Clourc had come downstairs and was enjoying their breakfast of a massive bowl of brussel sprouts, they discussed their options. They wanted to find Ma-Ma, because collectively they felt like the kind of person that chooses to create a business model turning people into pies needs to be stopped, and they also wanted to look into their pins and their mysterious gathering. They also also wanted to figure out what the hell was going on with Clourc, because, while Poppy didn’t understand what the big deal was, the rest were slightly weirded out by the fact that he no longer had a heartbeat.
When they were just about rounding up their conversation, they heard a loud rumbling coming from outside, and quickly getting louder. Upon leaving the hotel, they discovered an armoured golden retriever standing in the middle of the street, facing off against a group of bandit-type individuals disembarking from some kind of armoured dirt buggy with spikes and a harpoon. The party quickly moved to intervene, and after a brief and unsuccessful bout of negotiation, killed the dog.
Just kidding. They soundly walloped the bandits. The only one that gave them any trouble was the leader, who bludgeoned Brakken down to his Relentless Endurance before he was killed. In the end, Monk had knocked three of the bandits unconscious while the other four, including their leader, were dead from a combination of Borfel’s arrows, Brakken’s axe, the dog’s bites, and Poppy’s magic stones, thrown by her from where she had immediately mounted the dog’s back upon seeing him. Once it was over, they discovered the dog was called Duck, and that the armour he was wearing was marked with the symbol of the Leviathan, a giant sea serpent.
After taking a short rest to recover themselves, the party went and interrogated the surviving bandits. They discovered that they were trying to recapture the dog for a person called Cousin Dirkolai, the leader of a place called Castletown. They also learned, from speaking to the sheriff, that this Dirkolai was the leader of Castletown, a lawless town about three days to the north. The sheriff also recognised Duck, and mentioned that he was the companion of a Father Tid, a priest that had passed through Foot some ten days prior. Coming to the conclusion that Tid must still be in Castletown, the party resolved to go with Duck to find him.
Taking the spiked up buggy, which Brakken discovered he could more or less drive, the party began their journey north. Their first day of driving went by uneventfully, but early on in the second they got caught in a magical storm. As rainbow clouds and purple lightning and upside-down rain lashed all around them, the buggy got a speed boost and its fuel was totally refilled – as it was magical and ran on arcanite – and, at Brakken’s suggestion, Monk held up the shard of arcanite they had found in the Wailing Mines. It was struck by a bolt of lightning, and while Monk took some damage, the stone began to glow faintly. The party resolved to investigate this later, but forgot to, so those questions will have to wait until next time.
Also, after the storm, Borfel and Poppy both failed Constitution saving throws and each had to roll a separate d20. The results of those rolls haven’t come up yet, but will at some point. I just thought I would make a note of that.
That evening, as Poppy and Monk took the first watch, the camp was approached by a gnome with a set of panpipes. He introduced himself as Piper and joined the fire, where Poppy told him all about the dream. Waiting until the opportune moment, Piper threw a snag back about dreams becoming nightmares and cast Inflict Wounds on her, bringing her down to a measly 1 hit point.
Before being completely walloped by the rest of the party, who awoke at Poppy’s cry and attacked. As the Piper mentioned working for Ma-Ma and melted into black smoke, a trio of rat swarms attacked, but were beaten as well after doing minimal damage, because rat swarms suck. The only things left in the aftermath were a bunch of dead rats, that most of the party ate, and Piper’s pipes, which turned out to be Pipes of the Sewers, a magic item that went to Borfel. Upon using Detect Magic to determine their nature, Poppy also discovered that the pins glowed very slightly with magic as well, another thing worth investigating.
The following morning, the party finally reached Castletown, a cobbled-together scraptown built around an old, stone castle. They scoped it out from the hills outside of town before hiding their ride and proceeding on foot. As they entered through the gates, unchallenged, the session ended.
All in all, a solid session. No one was in danger of dying, and the party have managed to make some small amount of progress on their quest for answers. Okay, so their answers might have led to even more questions, but they’ve got a cool car now too.
For those that like to keep track, the party also levelled up to level 3 at the end of the session. For subclasses, Borfel chose Scout, Brakken chose Champion, Monk chose the Way of the Astral Self, Poppy had already chosen the Circle of Dreams at level 2, and Clourc was not present to level up, but presumably he’ll go with what he was last time, Path of the Totem Warrior, specifically the eagle totem. But watch this space.
I have to admit, I’m excited about what’s coming next. Castletown is the first proper town in this campaign (Foot is far too small) so it’ll be interesting to see what the party make of it and its inhabitants. I’m also very excited about some of the consequences that are due further down the line. Some of the fruit that I planted in the seeds of this campaign is blooming much faster than I anticipated, and it is wonderful. So, make sure you tune in next week to see how everything gets on.