9/2/2021 and 9/3/2021, sessions 7 and 8 of my Chill Mist Valley playtest campaign.

The sessions took from 2/27/1261-3/4/1261 by the in-game calendar.

You can read the previous session report here.

Report

Alright, these sessions did not go terrifically well. The party set themselves upon a fey hollow, an unnatural cave structure which doubles as a lair for a noteworthy sylvan creature (though by no means are they necessarily the most dangerous creature within it). They set base camp outside the entrance, leaving a few hirelings (their cook and hunter) with an absent player.

The party entered the hollow, waltzing through a tunnel to come upon a door. Of sorts. it’s a set of interlocking vines, tied around a large glob of dew. The players poke the dew, the vines retract. Standard video game BS. I show you a thing, you interact with it, you see how it works at a surface level, and now I can place it anywhere. Now I can use it for puzzles, alterations, etc and the players know how it’s supposed to work.

They move into a new room; the floor isn’t flush with the walls, they can head the sound of running water and see a river is moving beneath the platform they’re standing on, growing out of the bottom. There are three more doors, only this time, the other two freeze up when one is poked. Normally I don’t do this kind of choose-your-path stuff, but when there’s a sentient being causing the effect (the lord or lady of this particular hollow) , I can get away with it.

Desmond crosses the bridge; the lights in the next room fade! They later discover they’re small illuminated dew globs hanging on vines, which retract into the ground when they detect the part approaching. Before Desmond can do anything, Karenna immediately walks up (not stealthing) with an active light cantrip. Desmond turns around to see Karenna, as Karenna brings the light up to see a black pudding fall from the ceiling with a loud schlop! The party is now surprised. Oh well!

Oh well was not the end of it. Karena keeps slashing at the black puddings, which splits them into smaller oozes. Said oozes have half as much health, which she thinks will make them easier to wipe out all at once. Unfortunately, they now have twice as many attacks as 4 turns to 8, all of whom are doing 20-30 damage per round. The (at least) two crits I got dealt even more damage. I’m not going to go into a ton of more specifics as to how the combat went, other than the party’s hitpoints were nuked with 1 or 2 exceptions, two players came within a bee’s dick of death, and poor Desmond died.

Luckily Deltannu has gentle repose prepared, a spell which suspends a body’s state of decay, thus extending the window to use life-restoring magic like Revivify. Deltannu has the revivify spell, but no 300 gp diamonds with which to cast it. So, Moss takes Desmond off on a Tenser’s floating disk, in charge of getting him restored to life and buying a few diamonds with the money provided to him. Both tasks are accomplished with haste, and the party goes back into the dungeon (now slightly rearranged. Pocket realm of a sylvan, they can pull shenanigans like this).

So, the party learned a valuable lesson about goofing around in the dungeon. So I thought, anyways.

The party has noticed during travel that the weather is very abnormal. Constant rain, constantly pouring. Floodwaters could get nasty. They’ve been keeping it in the back of their heads until now, when they reach a new room. It has a large obelisk with 8 pools around it, all at various states of being filled. A few knowledge checks later, it’s a weather control obelisk. Congrats everyone, now I wonder how the party will-whoops, everyone is dicking around.

“I’d like to do some blood magic since everyone else is distracted.”

Fine.

Out of the pools comes a marilith. Out comes another marilith. Out comes a nalfeshne(?) An hour into combat, it’s 1 am, and I’ve got a call waiting for me. So I declare the session ended, all remaining combatants retreat to their respective camps, and session over. Dissatisfying overall. I’ve since decided who “retreats” will instead be contingent on the losing party. I too, am mortal.

The next session is the next evening; everyone has agreed they’re dissatisfied, and wish to amend it. They all agree to go tackle the fey hollow again. This time, with passion, intelligence, and an implied (but nevertheless understood) intention to live through it. The party enters, once more through the opening tunnel, knowing the dungeon has likely undergone some minor restocking process (it’s only been a day, they don’t get everything back, but I liked their caution). They reach the vine-door; the dew in its center is frozen. A sylvan appears before them, similar to an elf in appearance and floating. The fey introduces herself as Hessian, and demands the players leave. What do my players do? These brave, determined souls? The height of courage personified? My titans of greed, ambition, and all other holy endeavors where adventuring is concerned? My darling players, upon whom I was about to lavish a gorgeous dungeon complete with dynamic lighting?

They walked out. Bastards.

We then did a whole bunch of procedural stuff regarding the settlement buildings. The nearby elves came to the players, and offered some diplomacy. If the party agreed to unite or compel the other elf cairns into resisting the coming invasion of winter fey (because that’s now ongoing), they’d become staunch allies and financial patrons. To sweeten the deal, they threw 2,000 gp and flying mounts at the party. Instantly sways them; the party now has a means of getting around quite a few barriers they’ve been facing in the exploration system.

Not that they dislike the exploration system, mind you. They love it! Too much, in fact. They get distracted interacting with it. I shouldn’t say distracted; they’re focused on optimizing their travels, and it’s a fine method of play. But you know what everyone’s obsessed with when it comes to exploration?

They fish. They fish! The party loves to fish! There are two exploration activities with nearly identical mechanics (hunting and foraging), along with their own suites of materials. Not interested, just fishing. Catch anything yet?

Just you, darling.

All that being said, this does have a happy end to look forward to; session 9 has (just, at the time of this writing) taken place, and it was fantastic.

Players

Deltannu
Notes: Deltannu’s downtime this week was to go back to the hollow with gifts for its ruling sylvan, and try to cast baleful familiar on it. He succeeded, by the way! He’s worried some of the allowances and advantages made for the mass combat system are easily exploitable, and I’d normally agree with him. Luckily, this module comes with a hand-crafted encounter manual designed to punish every build both conceivable and inconceivable by myself. There was a discussion about whether he could split up skeleton units to bring them in as henchmen. I’m okay with him doing this (many critters in the encounter manual are devastating the more people are involved in combat). At the same time, I told him at some number of skeletons I would transition to mass combat. It’s annoying to be told “you can’t take your individual turn”, but you’re not entitled to individual action resolution outside of situations it’s meant to resolve, whether you’re doing mass combat in a dungeon or a battlefield.

Ancestry: Dhampir (Halfling)
Class: Druid (Spore)
Secondary Class: Scholar
XP: 43740 (+4120 XP these sessions)

Desmond
Ah, poor Desmond. He’s had a rough go of things. Not terribly proactive, tried to be proactive in the dungeon by serving a role, and WHAM: another PC kills him. I’ll probably chat with him soon, just to make sure he knows he can take risks, do stuff, adventure, do stuff, chase loot, do stuff, etc without fear of it being a waste of time. Probably.

Ancestry: Halfling (Stout, I think)
Class: Rogue (Soulknife)
Secondary Class: Ley Keeper
43740 (+4120 XP this session)

Karenna Frosteye
As of last session, Karenna’s been made into an NPC (Warlord). Karenna’s player (we’ll call them Liberty) has created a new character, a Dwarf Paladin (Vengeance) and Herbalist, who you’ll meet in next week’s report.

Ancestry: Aasimar (I’m not aware of the subrace, though I think it’s scourge)
Class: Fighter/Barbarian (Eldritch Knight/Tiger Totem)
Secondary Class: Trailblazer
XP: 43740 (+4120 XP this session)

Moss
Moss has been very interesting to DM for. He’s intelligent, very keyed into min-maxing, but simultaneously very engaged with the game (as all min-maxers are, when not being dragged through an F-rate comic book someone is trying to run as a 5e game).

Warforged (Do these have subraces? I’ll ask)
Artificer (Artillerist)
Secondary Class: Craftsman
(+4120 XP, total XP)

Robin Goodfellow (Not Present)

Ancestry: Eladrin
Bard (Glamour)
Secondary Class: Minstrel
XP: 35,020

Henchmen

Olesm
Level 1 Lizardman Bodyguard
Relc
Level 2 Lizardman Bodyguard
515 XP
Seyls
Level 1 Lizardman Bodyguard
0 XP
Zevara
Level 2 Lizardman Bodyguard
515 XP (+515 XP)
Delramien (Not Present)
Level 8 Drow Mage
Delramien is a mage the players captured in the World Below and convinced to come to their side. He is currently back at Liscor preparing the construction of a mage tower. I told Karenna he didn’t actually need to be there for the majority of the construction, but I think she forgot he’s even present. Oh well!
Omari (Not Present)
Level 1 Anupine Tracker
Anupines are a folk with fine black fur and the heads of a very recognizable canid from egyptian mythology. They occasionally filter into Samheide for work and trade from across the sea, where they’ve made their homes in the desert. Similar to Karenna, I believe Desmond has completely forgotten about this NPC, so they’re chilling in Liscor.

Settlements

Liscor
Level 2 Settlement (Under Construction, will be complete 2/27/1261 in-game)

Unnamed Lizardfolk Tribal Camp
Level 1 Settlement
Seasonal Income: 50 gp
Seasonal Trade Value: 50 gp