And the last voyage of Friendly and Ghoti, as it turned out. Yeah, I’m not even going to beat around the bush this time. I died again, and I didn’t go alone. We were lucky to avoid a TPK, actually. Came real close, as you’ll see.
We started with being asked to investigate the lizardfolk and the purpose behind why they were expecting a shipment of weapons – peacefully, if possible. We met our new crew (and named our ship the ‘Eternal Ham’, after dear, departed Hamiota) and sailed to the spot where we believed we would find the lizardfolk. When we got there, we hopped in our rowboat and made our way towards a cave. Our sea elf friend went in first to scout it out, but after he didn’t return for a while, we followed. Emerging into a cave system lit by torchlight, we were ambushed and arrested by a bunch of lizardfolk.
They took us to their queen, who explained that this was a temporary home as their actual home had been taken over by sahuagin, and the weapons were needed to take it back. We offered friendship, and she responded by challenging us to spend 24 hours in their lair in order to prove that we (and through us, the people of Saltmarsh) were worthy of friendship. We accepted her challenge, and began making our way around the lair, meeting various folks.
Our wandering, chatting and helping out ended up with us joining a patrol out into the swamps. Shortly into it, we discovered a group of dead and partially eaten lizardfolk – victims of the Big Bad Crocodile of the swamp, according to the patrol. They explained that they couldn’t kill it because crocodiles are sacred to them, but they (and the queen) would be more than grateful if we could kill it for them. Naturally, we agreed.
Along the way to the Crocodile’s lair, we encountered (and killed) a troll, and then encountered (and convinced to leave) a pair of ogres. Then we found the Crocodile’s lair. There was no sign of the beast, so I waded into the water to try to bait it out. Still no sign, so I turned around and held out my hands, and that’s when it burst from the water right behind me, lunging for my back.
The fight began with the mother of all wallops. The crocodile got a natural 20 on one of its attacks and ended up taking out 42 of my 49 hit points in its surprise round. So that wasn’t a great start.
On the first official round of the fight, I got brought down to unconsciousness before Cass healed me back onto my feet. Then things got worse, when Ghoti and Cass were ambushed by a pair of giant snakes that had also been hiding. With the lizardfolks’ help, both snakes were taken down, but not before I got brought down again and the Crocodile took Cass and our sea elf friend down as well. Then Ghoti tried to keep at a distance to it, but it was damn fast and she couldn’t, and eventually got taken down too. Cass and the elf managed to stabilise (though it was close, with Cass on two death saving throw passes and fails before his final roll), I managed to die (because of course), and Ghoti rolled a fail and then a natural one, also dying.
RIP Friendly and Ghoti.
After that, the lizardfolk managed to distract the Crocodile long enough to recover Cass and the elf, and then we ended the session.
So there we go, the curse strikes again. Honestly, I’m not surprised at all. As soon as I took that first round of damage, I knew it was over, because there was no way we could outrun the croc in the swamp. For a while there it looked like it might be a TPK, with all of us making death saves simultaneously, but two out of three is still pretty bad. On the plus side, Cass got just enough XP out of it to level up, so at least we’ll be on a par with our new characters in terms of levels.
Anyways, it’s time to go back to the drawing board yet again. What new character will I be bringing into the campaign next? I guess we’ll find out next week.