CMV Session Report 3: Four Beams at Midnight

This report will unfortunately need to be truncated, because it’s taking way too much time to produce.

First Two Sessions

The first two of these sessions were not terribly impressive, nor were they content rich. The first was cut short by another game I had to get to, which was the fault of my poor prep. The players flew up past the frost wall, to journey inwards and attempt to locate another sun shrine. This was after the party learned from their wizard liason Corrigan that the sun shrines he “located” on the map were actually just things which could stop the frost; there could be more than just the shrines out there!

• Maia and Sierra on a cobalt dragon

• Jaster and his Warden on a white dragon

• Jaster’s mage and mage apprentice on a white dragon

• Perra and Gunther on a white dragon

• Morgan on a white dragon

• Zhianna on a white dragon

While searching, the enchanted golden plate these party’s been using to find sun shrines begins vibrating, but not glowing, as it has in the presence of sun shrines. Diving beneath the cold mist, the party finds an underdark spire, collections of rock reaching up from where the surface has sunken into the World Below. But something’s different about this particular spire; it’s covered in coral, an

Within the coral spire is a chamber with 4 small doors, 1 large door, and an additional chamber (no door). This additional chamber holds a colossal organic structure resembling a heart, made of the same coral as the spire. It beats irregularly, at most once per minute.

Jaster Sokolov, the party bloodhunter, uses a a rite to turn himself ethereal. When he enters the first room small chamber, he can see signs of seawater, even through the ethereal plane. There’s a tremendous pressure he can feel in this state, the sign of something supernatural.

“Like pressure from the bottom of the sea?”
”Precisely like that. The hairs on your arm are practically transparent, but you can feel them stand on-end nonetheless.”
”I’d better not go back to normal in here.”
”mhm.”

The rest of the sesison was uneventful; the warden came back with a suggestion (Lord above I love hirelings).

The second session was slightly more eventful; the party decided to track the beams of light impacting the coral spire. What’s more, their Deep Elf allies from House Kreilus wish to tag along. They send a unit of wyvern riders along, allowing the party to coordinate their efforts. Because the wyvern riders are actually quite sneaky, they prefer to operate alone; the party agrees, and sends them to follow a different beam of light. The implication is, the party will cause some noise, and give the wyvern riders a better shot at dealing with whatever they expect to find.

Speaking of which, the riders are expecting to find more deep elves. They’re not aware of which house is (in their words) “starting trouble”, but they’re happy to make introductions with a show of force.

The party moves on, and discovers a 10-story tower embedded at the edge of the underworld spires (the edge of the 24 mile-wide hole). From its bottom, a beam of light is streaming out towards the coral spire.

I’ll be real with you folks, I really screwed the pooch on encounters here. The party found nobody in the opening foyer, nobody in the hanger (except for a sick wyvern), nobody in the mess hall (except for a single, whistling cook the party decided to spare and didn’t pick up until later), and everyone in the barracks were sleeping. Morgan activated an elemental ley tap, doubling all elemental damage vs anyone. The party then started slicing throats, some of the guys wake up, and the party tosses fireballs too potent for any of the deep elves to survive (along with a dawn spell).

The party goes up the next level to find an observatory, another level up to find a room of total darkness, and up another level to find the command room (which has been cleared out). They travel back down to the 0 floor, and progress to the tower’s sub-levels. The first floor beneath is a checkpoint; the party is fireballed by 2 drow mages upon coming out of the elevator. Due to the still-active elemental tap, the drow immolate themselves and nearly wipe out the party. If you take enough damage to equal your current hitpoints and maximum hitpoints combined in 5th edition, you die instantly. A few of the party got uncomfortably close to this threshold, and would have died if not for successful Dex saves. The second floor beneath has a teleportation circle. The third floor beneath has holding cells, in which a summer sylvan, winter sylvan, and merchant are being held. Nothing of import happened here, because this tower (and session, by extension) were ill prepared. The party freed these 3 captives, and perhaps they will make an appearance in future sessions. The party ventures to the 4th level, which is a control room for the room housing a massive crystal beneath.

While examining the controls, the party hear’s a large explosion echoing from far away. Maia at this point receives a missive from her diplomat’s pouch. It’s signed by the commander of wyvern riders from House Kreilus, who accompanied the party here. He tells the party of a way to overload the crystal, which brings the tower down (along with two of his men). A short missive appears a few seconds later, to follow up: it reads “three men”. Perra decides she doesn’t want the tower to detonate, and has a different solution in mind. She (using an artifact recovered many sessions prior) casts teleport on the crystal, sending it to one of the artifact’s teleportation circles. The beam instantly shuts down, and the party returns to the coral spire, successful.

Change

This two sessions got me to declare no creature under CR 7 in the game should have more than 50 hitpoints. I chose CR 7 because creatures of a higher CR tend to be more exotic. Most of the critters below that CR (especially between the CR 4-7 range) are suitable to deploy en masse, were it not for their ridiculous hitpoint bloat.

Session 3

We’re going to speedrun this session, because it lasted 6.5 hours with a ton of encounters. This was the most fun I’ve had in the campaign up to this point. The party started this session intendeding to visit another Drow tower. Ever since they shut down the previous two towers, the coral spire has been growing outwards. Gone is the dead and pumice-like ashen coral. Renewed are all the colors of the rainbow and more, shimmering as they feed on dust and floating algae through the air. Two of the primary chamber’s doors opened as well, containing a small horde of gold (10k) and one of the Dreaming artifacts (which the party learned about ages ago). This one is a compact boat that turns into an airship. It’s magnificent! The coral animals are also returning to the spire. The party sets off, and I have them all make intelligence saving throws. Half the party fails, and follows what they think is the beam of light. The rest of the party sees them fly off towards nothing. They’re indecisive, so by the time they actually follow their party, they enter our first battlemap at a different end!

Amethyst Dragon

Our very first encounter was an amethyst dragon being ridden by a drow favored consort. Both are nasty on their own, but the spellcasting focus of the drow and the unique attack options of the amethyst dragon were stunningly complimentary. Remember, the party is riding dragons; this was a dogfight between the massive pillars within the underdark. The party quickly resorted to spells of their own in hope of defeating the pair of baddies as fast as they could, which was much appreciated on my end. The number of combat encounters I include in a given night usually depend on how fast the first encounter goes. If it takes longer than an hour (if it’s a relatively simple/straightforward encounter), I’m likely to not bother with any more. The party managed to chase off the dragon (and its rider), before running the amethyst dragon down and killing it. Thanks to invisibility and dimension door, the consort got away. Harvesting the amethyst dragon netted an egg from the dragon. I can’t wait to see where that goes!

Landing at the Tower

The party arrived at the tower, and (correctly) assuming it was fortified and its guards were active, attempted to draw the combatants within outside. One of Landie’s characters (I can’t remember which) cried for help and crawled up to the door. A guard opened the door, failed his insight check, and indeed believed there was a human woman on the tower’s doorstep, crying for help!

This was the opposite of “task failed successfully”. The deep elf laughed, and closed the door. Combat started off, and the party quickly got one of the ranking officers to surrender. Once the grunts had barricaded themselves inside another room, they killed the officer, and moved on to an alchemy storeroom. Inside was a green hag and another deep elf officer, and a gelatinous cube the party didn’t notice (which was currently levitated above the doorway). During this combat, Maia (one of Landie’s characters) took the elevator to the top floor.

The Matriarch

The party ventures up the elevator, going straight to the top. Nobody’s seen nor heard from Maia since the previous encounter started. When they arrive, they see Maia bound in dimensional shackles. There are 6 deep elves in the room with her, one or two of which is dead, and another of which is badly injured. Maia is at half health, sitting between a drow matron and her favored consort (which escaped from the party earlier).

The matron has a simple proposition for the party; help her kill the matron of House Marda, and she’ll shut off both remaining towers. The party gets some information from their allies in House Kreilus via diplomacy pouch, and while Kreilus was initially quite willing to investigate who was stirring trouble up north, they don’t want to get directly involved in a war between House Caene and House Marda, if it’s just about to pop off. Unfortunately for them, the matron of House Marda isn’t the real target, and the party is none the wiser.

Betrayal!

Normally, gate doesn’t work on the same plane as you. But as the matron of House Caene knows, Sierra (and her allies) have quite the haul of unicorn horns. These horns can be used to bypass spell restrictions, if used as components. They can even serve as diamonds for the purpose of resurrections! The matron pulls through the supposed matron of House Marda. I have all the players make history checks; they’ve never met the matron of House Kreilus, but they are allied with the faction. I figured a history check would serve as a nice proxy for recognizing any identifying creatures of House Kreilus. All of my players rolled low, and didn’t recognize the What follows is a round of beating on the new matron, until her turn comes up. Matron-K casts gate herself! Matron-C casts counterspell, Matron-K counterspells her counterspell, and the gate goes off successfully. Enter a pit fiend, just in time to watch the last of Matron-K’s hitpoints fall. One of the remaining deep elf inquisitors takes a few swipes at the pit fiend, and even manages to crit until I’m reminded the pit fiend has a fear aura, which the inquisitor fails their save against. Most of the damage is restored, and the pit fiend murders the inquisitor in about half its turn.

The remaining deep elves run for the elevator, along with Jaster’s hirelings (Jaster’s player has turned in for the night at this point). All except Matron-C and her consort, that is; the consort casts dimension door with his matron, making a swift and smug exit.

The players meanwhile spent 9 full rounds trying to not die vs this pit fiend. The module of Chill Mist Valley roughly doubles player resources off the bat (thanks to secondary class progressions and exploration abilities, not to mention the greater presence of magic items and companions), and the party was still almost completely tapped out just at the start of this encounter! The players immediately attempted to corner the pit fiend, with martial characters surrounding the pit fiend, and Perra using one of her last available slots to cast guardian of faith. The martial characters opened up with a decent salvo of damage, so the pit fiend decided to avoid eating the guardian of faith’s damage in favor of focusing down the monks and druids in front of it. About half way through, it made the fight even more intense by casting wall of flame, to counter the players attempting to box it in. Several party members got yo-yoed up and down, just narrowly missing death by failed saves or massive damage. Additionally, the pit fiend’s bite is poisonous! You can’t be healed while poisoned by a pit fiend, and the save DC is quite high (even for 10th level characters)! Perra attempted to cast darkness on the pit fiend with her artifact-cloak, but pit fiends have truesight; this resulted in the pit fiend getting several advantage attacks (and several critical hits) before Perra remembered she could drop concentration on the spell between turns.

The fight ended with everyone on their last hitpoints, and permitted the players a single round to resurrect what they now assumed to be the matron of a different house than what the matron of House Caene said they’d be fighting. Using some consumable resources, the players searched down the druid spell list until they found an appropriate spell to solve their problem (with not a moment to spare), casting revivify on the matron.

Saliel, Guardian of the Reef

When the party returns to the coral spire, they find all 5 doors have been opened (one of which they didn’t actually investigate), and watch as the heart contained here bursts open. The whole chamber is filled with salt water that tastes like taffy, and they have no trouble breathing in. The creatures calls themselves Saliel, Daughter of Kalinne (the previous Queen or Consort of the Clover Court). In one of the adjacent rooms the party finds Iscarious, Outcast of the Hyboreal Court, who stopped by for some fishing (and to see the birth of his implied relative). Saliel gives them a bunch of information, and warns the party she’ll be attacked by Baenassus, Lord of the Chained Runnel, Hunter of the Hyboreal Court soon enough.

XP for this last session was 18,450 xp per character.

CMV Session Report 2: The Great Horn Heist

The Backdrop

The player who owns Maia (from last session) is Landie, who has two other characters in the campaign. The character relevant to this session is Sierra, who owns a keep and has spent the majority of her downtime preparing for mass combat and managing trade with a nearby faction of deep elves. Prior to this session however, Sierra went looking for new jobs for the party! There’s always the idea of going into the frost up north, but Landie also inquired as to whether a heist was possible.

Now normally, every West Marches I’ve ever run (along with every campaign I’ve ever run) has opened with a heist. This campaign is the only exception. So I gave Landie a few different options to make up for it! He could loot the following:

• A tuatha cairn

• A mage college (of which there are 3 in the area)

• A port city

Landie chose the port city, and had Sierra engage in the Research downtime action. I’ve done a video on research as downtime, and I have a handouts entry for it as well.

If Maia completes the heist successfully, it’ll count towards “confirming” the bits of information Sierra collected. Having multiple characters in this game means they can more or less net each other additional experience and progression, rather than one character consistently falling behind! Sierra nets plenty of info by stealthing around Marellan, listening in on criminal affiliates and their private lives.

• There is a shipment of unicorn horns coming in.

• The shipment will accompany an expeditionary force from 5 mercenary companies, all traveling to Samheide in search of work.

• The shipment of unicorn horns will be confiscated at the docks as suspicious cargo.

• There is a decoy shipment.

• The horns are actually already in Samheide, but they’ll be arriving by boat to Marellan.

The mercenary companies are:

• The Red Hand of Doom, the remnants of a wider hobgoblin dictatorship.

• The Order of Veils, a elite group of psions and seers dedicated to containing extraplanar influences.

• The Knights of Lylivyn, a collection of high elf dragon tamers in search of legendary dragons across the worlds.

• Mercy’s Chapter, a collection of pilgrims here to visit sites of religious significance (and defend them against desecration).

• The Powder Horn Legion, a military force of hobgoblins from the continent my players are usually adventuring on. I think Landie recognized them, but I’m not sure.

Arc 2, Session 2

The players have their first session in Marellan, the port city at the very bottom of Samheide. I started my prior test campaign here, but found it ill-suited for the module’s scenario.

Prep

For prep, I told the players they had 3 days until the shipment supposedly arrived. To give them clear guidelines on what was possible within those 3 days, I decided my downtime action procedures would work well for a shorter time scale with fewer rewards. Research was a fairly obvious pick, but I went through some examples of using the other downtime actions to represent the party’s preparation. Using Taming to represent recruiting animals, meditation to have a hard think on the info collected so far, or pray for visions.

Perra went around with a locate object spell. She got 1 ping while in the city, which she narrowed down to a run-down tavern called the Running Goat. The ping disappeared after awhile, and Perra filed this away in her memory.

Maia sneaked into the various dockhouses to check up on shipping manifests; out of the 5 merc companies, only one item was circled red. The Order of Veils was bringing a shipment of dry ice. The item is so different from the others being carried, and is marked as alchemical ingredients; something the Order usually doesn’t deal with, according to notes.

Zhianna engaged in carousing; she made a charisma check (to roll on the table of better results), and got a perfect result for me to improvise.
From the classier carousing table:

On the third day of Zhianna’s carousing, some random thug in a drunken state takes a liking to Zhianna, and starts asking her for help on a job. He offers her a flying carpet in exchange for a small favor; he needs a distraction the next day around a bar called Trilly’s Tavern. Zhianna agrees, and tries to pry for more information, but her questions are too pointed and direct to avoid setting off the thug’s alarms. This works in the party’s favor later on! The thug closes out the conversation, but their deal is still on.

Morgan decided to take notes from the Taming downtime action, and sought out critters who could case out the boat without drowning. He comes across a large number of nutrias! These water rats are roughly the size of a possum, and I only saw them recently for the first time in real life. A few successful checks later, he builds up a small swarm of the critters.

Morgan’s secondary class is ley keeper, someone who collects ley taps and takes advantage of the various ley lines around the world for power. Both of the ley taps Morgan currently holds are from a forecast line, a ley line keyed into the weather. With the taps, Morgan can make the weather more or less severe, or make the weather magical. Lucky him! He decides to increment the already unpleasant weather within 24 miles of the docks twice, conjuring a powerful storm cell right over them.

Action!

It’s go time, and the 5 merc companies are just visible over the horizon. They anchor as the storm cell passes over them, lighthouses are activated, and the many escort karves are sent out to help them reach shore. Bands of stabilizing energy wrap flow out from the Order of Veils’ ship, wrapping around the other vessels in an effort to keep them from smashing into one another. Two mages from the Red Hand of Doom and Mercy’s Chapter begin casting a spell; the party correctly guesses it’s a Control Weather spell.

The party gets into position! Morgan sends the nutrias in to case the boat, and turns into a giant crawfish himself once they give the all-clear. Maia hops onto the crawfish and rides along; being a dhampir, she doesn’t need to breathe. On the way, several of the escort craft are taking on water. One of them speeds past Maia and Morgan, taking no heed of them.

Perra is watching over the docks to see if anyone brings cargo in.

Zhianna sets up at Trilly’s Tavern, and chats with the barkeep. The barkeep tells Zhianna her reward it waiting for her as soon as the job’s over, but the thug wants to talk with her. Zhianna goes into the alleyway, and hears the thug calling from around the 4th floor. They chat back and forth, and the thug wants Zhianna to come up to his room! He drops the flying carpet down, stating she can’t be seen coming up the stairs.

Maia and Morgan arrive at the boat Order of Veil’s boat. Maia has magical x ray goggles, and uses them to peer through the ship. There’s a lead box in the hold; jackpot! Maia enters while Morgan remains latched to the boat’s underside. Maia sneaks up to the crate, labeled dry ice. She pries it open silently, then picks the locked lead box. Peering inside she finds…a large collection of dry ice.

Remember, the party was told the horns were already in Samheide. A few minutes before Morgan and Maia return, a karve pulls into the docks. They unload a single crate before getting stopped by Port Authority. Around this time, a creature much larger than the incoming ships begins attacking the merc companies. Steam vents erupt from the bay’s surface, and the boats are battered against one another. The party takes this as their cue to run.

At Trilly’s Tavern, Zhianna’s conversation is interrupted by shouting from the thug’s room. He calls down after a short commotion, telling her to get ready.

Double Cross

Perra contacted Maia and Morgan at this point, I believe by way of a sending. They catch up quickly, because the Port Authority has found themselves in an argument with a Knight of Lylivan. Curious that the knight has arrived ahead of their expeditionary force; the party notes this and continues following. The knight unsuccessfully argues some procedure by which he must takes authority over the crate, and store it in their recently developed embassy; I roll for the Port Authority’s reaction, they’re having none of the knight’s nonsense. Some vague threats do nothing to advance his cause, so he relents. The Port Authority moves on to the same street as Trilly’s Tavern.

The thug shouts down to Zhianna; “Now, distract them now!” Zhianna goes out into the streets, shooting fireballs and scorching rays about, putting on quite the lightshow. The Port Authority is equal parts threatened and confused. Before they really have a chance to react, thugs burst out of Trilly’s Tavern, and knock overt he Port Authority. Perra casts darkness, and the thugs make off with the cart. Zhianna turns invisible before running after the thugs, and the rest of the party follows!

Triple Cross

The party tracks the shipment to a warehouse, and what do you know! That same Knight of Lylivyn is waiting for the thugs.

'“You know, unicorn horns can be used for more than just war and impressive spells. They’re potent curatives in their own right. For instance, all poison is rendered inert when drunk from a unicorn’s horn. “

The knight takes out a vial, and commands the other two thugs to grab their boss. The knight menaces the the boss for about a minute before the boss breaks, threatening to make the boss drink poison from (what the knight assumes is) a fake unicorn horn. The boss “confesses” the real shipment is over by the other side of the city. The knight is satisfied, and leaves. The party leaves as well, but Perra overhears the thug boss on the way out.

“He was tellin’ the truth y’know! Watch, I love doin this! “

The sound of a clattering glass follows.

“Tastes just like banyan preserve! Let’s get outta here.”

Perra gets the party to stop, and fills them in. They go back to the warehouse, just in case. What do you know! There’s no dead thug, and an empty vial sits on the floor. The party realizes what the knight (having failed an insight check) did not. The thugs did have the real unicorn horns! A chase ensues, but visibility and the winding streets (combined with the thug’s head-start) sees the party fall far behind.

Perra casts locate object. The party knows the horns are being kept in a lead box, but they’ve seen the cart it’s carried in. Perra targets the cart, and the party follows the spell’s ping. Perra notices they’re closing in on the Running Goat tavern; circling once or twice confirms the cart is probably below the first floor. Zhianna enters (still invisible, causing some brief notice by the tavern’s scant customers) before the rest of the party. Zhianna notices a staircase behind the bartender, and starts creeping down while Maia distracts.

The three thugs are in the bar’s basement, arguing about whether to leave now. The “sea dragon” has made them afraid, but they’re apparently on a clock. Zhianna can’t see the thugs from her current position, and she moves further down. This triggers an alarm spell, and the thugs panic, trying to get (what Zhianna can now see is) an arcane engine strapped to the back of a dingy ready. The barkeep upstairs goes nuts, screaming and pointing a threatening-looking (if scrapped together) wand at the party. Initiative is rolled, Perra casts darkness before a finger of death spell ruins the ceiling, and Maia knocks the barkeep out.

Zhianna casts hold person on the Thug Boss and the fellow manning the engine. There’s a brief confusion as the underling freezes up, and the boss notices Zhianna. A brief discussion follows, in which the boss makes it clear he’s delusional, thinking Zhianna wants to join him in his newfound wealth. He even shoves “Frank” (still paralyzed) into the grey/brown water face first, urging Zhianna to hop in. Zhianna kills him with a scorching ray spell (nearly missing all of her shots), and instructs the other underling (Tony?) into the corner. The rest of the party gets downstairs, recovers “Frank”, and instructs him to get into the corner as well. A brief, funny conversation (in which Tony keeps turning around to ask Zhianna questions (where can we find you, we don’t know what to do for work, etc etc) ensues. They inform the pair of thugs they should get to Bronloch, and the party teleports out with their crate.

This is the best compliment I’ve ever received as a referee, I love it!

Resolution

The party teleports back to Sierra’s keep, with 64 unicorn horns. This is a prize too impressive to actually sell (at least all at once), and they recovered it with some degree of ease. It’s a massive amount of wealth, desired by many different factions, held in one place.

What fun!

Players and Settlements

Rewards

64 unicorn horns, maybe 2 new hirelings (we’ll see if they make it to Bronloch), and a flying carpet.

Characters

Maia

Maia’s resources and planning kept this session from dragging, making sure folks had a good handle on their objectives and complicating factors!

• Ancestry: Dhampir

• Class: Monk (Shadow) Rogue (No subclass yet)

• Secondary Class: Minstrel

• XP: (To be filled in)

Morgan

Morgan didn’t have too much to do this sesh, after the initial boarding action was finished. But he had a good time nonetheless, and upon recovering the unicorn horns, it’s clear he has ideas on how to use them.

• Ancestry: Human

• Class: Barbarian (Bear Totem) and Druid (Moon)

• Secondary Class: Ley Keeper

• XP: (To be filled in)

Perra

Perra also didn’t have too much to do this sesh, but it seems like she also enjoyed herself! Clever use of her magical cloak (which provides neat things like darkness and teleportation spells) is really keeping campaign momentum up, and I always appreciate her presence.

• Ancestry: Kobold

• Class: Cleric (Life, of Tweiflangr)

• Secondary Class: Herbalist

• XP: (To be filled in)

Zhianna

Zhianna was the star character this session, collecting plenty of info, managing social encounters, and making this a perfect heist session!

• Ancestry: Half Elf (Dragonmark)

• Class: Sorcerer (Divine Soul), Warlock (Celestial, Tome Pact)

• Secondary Class: Scholar

• XP: (To be filled in)

Settlements

Unnamed Keep
Level 1 Stronghold

Will have more details in the campaign catchup.

• Owner: Sierra

• Income: None

• Resupply: 1 unit per season

CMV Session Report 1: Trickery and White Dragons

Hello all, it’s been far too long since I’ve posted a session report (or anything on my main feed), and it’s a new year! 2022 may have been filled with financial chaos, couch surfing, and roommate troubles, but this year is shaping up to be secure, successful, and fun (with quite a bit to write about).

I’ve been running Chill Mist Valley since around October of last year. The campaign has gone through a number of sessions, roster changes, and world events since then. I’m not going through a full campaign history in this post; the first “arc” of the campaign will be summarized in a separate post for catching up.

Just to get everyone on board, here are the spark notes.

Campaign Background

Chill Mist Valley occurs in the valley of Samheide. Samheide underwent a terrible calamity around a thousand years ago, which drastically altered the topography of the surface world and the World Below.

Shortly thereafter, the valley was blessed by a now-forgotten deity of the sun. The sun rises and sets between two twin peaks at the region’s northern edge, rather than the east and west (in this valley). This completely changed the natural climate, led to the introduction of a massive fey population, and increased the local natural magic ten-fold at least. The valley repelled invasions, made pacts with the fey, and its inhabitants have enjoyed unparalleled prosperity in their quiet slice of paradise.

That is until now; the local fey have largely fled, and the wildlife are growing increasingly aggressive in this points of light region. The twin peaks, from which the sun rises and sets, have begun freezing over. Frost has begun spreading from the twin peaks, ruining the local environment. The players have discovered High King Zephain of the Hyboreal Court (the local collection of winter fey) has begun freezing over the valley to return Winter to its rightful place.

The players (and some NPCs have successfully stalled the frost by activating Sun Shrines, which banish the frost from their local region. It’s only able to spread slowly along the Valley’s flanks, letting the player roster focus on other tasks and adventures.

Arc 2, Session 1

The wizard Corrigan, who first tipped the party off about the sun shrines of Samheide, recently purchased a shipment of young white dragons (of the not-sentient variety). The frost is dangerous, and while he’s happy the frost has been stalled, he’s not taking time off to relax. A trustworthy party of adventurers could surely use the dragons as mounts, flying into the frost and bypassing a great number of challenges.

But alas, the shipment is late! Corrigan lost contact with the ferry carrying his shipment around three days ago, and is guessing the many lakes and deltas near the town of Oarton may have seen the ferry lost or worse. From the time Corrigan brought this to Perra (official cleric of all adventures in the realm), around two weeks passed in-game (thanks to 1-1 time). Still no word! Corrigan sends our adventurers (a cleric, a warlock, a monk, a bloodhunter, and a druid/barbarian multiclass) out to find his missing shipment of dragons. He lends the party a ferry, staffed entirely by Unseen Sailors.

Exploration Segment

We begin our session with the party buying a few supplies (rations and travel packs), as the party prepares for the exploration system. The party chose their exploration roles. These are specializations for character during travel and exploration, things the characters are in charge of during travel. Furthermore, all classes have unique benefits for selecting exploration rolls. Was developing 104 boons for 13 classes annoying? A little. But it was fun! When the cleric takes up the role of tracker, a star guides them to their target at night, whereas a moon on the horizon guides them during the day. It’s a less reliable GPS, with which weather (and the providing deity’s will) may interfere.

Thanks to their successes, the party has no encounters to worry about on the way (and net additional experience during travel).

Morgan the druid/barbarian is a ley keeper, a secondary class which allows the detection and manipulation of ley lines. While on the way, he detects a Forecast Line, which indicates the current weather, and is filled with signs of impending weather. The current weather is magical; an eerie calm, during which no animals may be found. On top of that, the Winds of Magic are approaching in 3 days. Morgan knows the violent, magical thunderstorms will cause any spell to be cast 2 levels higher, or fail completely. The party has their time limit!

Shipwreck

Splitting off the main river, the party travels through the various creeks of the local area. They discover a bunch of geysers, springs, and other sources of fresh water filling this area. About an hour of travel leads the party to discover the original ferry’s wreck. It’s over a short waterfall, only 10-15 feet high. A few rocks are keeping the wreck steady in the water. Two cages are sitting in shallow water, holding some (non-sentient) young white dragons. Zhianna investigates the wreck, and concludes it’s taken far more damage than its minor fall.

Zaibatsu and Morgan approach, calling out to anyone inside the wreck. To their surprise, the entire crew is alive, and has (apparently) just woken up. The party interviews the crashed ferry’s crew, who keep insisting the crash just happened. Zhianna continues investigating in response; several clams and mussels have wedged themselves into submerged portions of the hull, and algae has taken to the hull as well. She’s able to conclude the ship has definitely crashed earlier than the crew testified. Zaibatsu even takes to questioning the captain further, and concludes the captain isn’t lying.

To my surprise, the party filed this in their back pocket, and resolved to recover as many dragons as they could. I was quite happy with their decision! They recognized a more pressing, time-sensitive objective was in front of them. The party probably figures they can investigate additional leads later, during downtime, and that standing around wondering for too long will cut down on how much they accomplish. Excellent decision, and an example of good play. It’s a perfect counter to groups which waste time on randoms slices of dungeon dressing!

Dragon Hunting

10 dragons are missing. Two are within line of sight. There are 3 hours of session time remaining. How is the party going to fare?

One of the downtime actions available to the party is the Mini-Adventure. We do a condensed play-by-post to handle additional objectives in downtime (with reduced XP and treasure gain). I’ve had trouble clarifying exactly what’s possible in the context of mini-adventure, and without an explicit upper limit, players are likely to avoid the activity. It makes perfect sense; the upper limit might be far lower than your intended goal, or it might be so high as to make you feel like you’re getting away with something.

I improvised a rule in this session, and will maintain it going forward:
A mini-adventure may accomplish only what was accomplished in the prior session.

If the party manages to acquire 4 dragons in a given session, they can reasonably be expected to catch another 4 dragons in the mini adventure. While the rule can be interpreted in a variety of ways, I think it serves to narrow the downtime’s scope. The party sets their goal at catching 5 dragons during the sesh. They can devote enough time per dragon to ensure success, while ensuring their mini-adventure snags more dragons.

The party starts off by recovering the two dragons nearby. They’re basically a freebie; no special effort beyond pulling them via the ferry’s winch is required. Another star begins guiding the party north; they follow, and happen across a nearly-sunken cage. The dragon within has accidentally set itself afloat by way of its breath weapon, forming an awful lot of buoyant ice around the cage. The party correctly guesses its muzzle has been knocked off or removed since. Without skipping a beat, Jaster (the campaign’s bloodhunter) jumps into the water to try and rescue it. Seeing as though Jaster has been killed in a comparable manner (and later had to be resurrected) in his second session, the party elects to enjoy some popcorn and watch. Jaster deftly swims under the water, and removes the lock from the cage’s rear. The dragon takes a minute to notice before it lets itself sink, and swims out.

For situations like these, I like to use the mentzer reaction roll table.

I roll a 4! Possible attack, the dragon looks agitated. The party is in stiches at the thought of Jaster dying again to a dragon. I roll once more, and get a 7. The dragon leaves, and the party stops laughing.

“Maybe we should’ve helped him.”

There’s always next time. The party moves on, to the next spot of divine guidance on the horizon!

Medusa Cave

Arriving at a cave, the party sees animals for the first time in a day! Before the ferry, slithering through marsh and creek, are snakes. Lots and lots of snakes! Morgan casts animal friendship, then speak with animals on one of the snakes, making friends with it. The snake helpfully informs him (in the impression of Jerry Seinfeld) two white dragons were dragged in.

I make the players aware of a condition unique to this lair: any creatures attacking a surprised PC will hit automatically. I’m debating whether to put this in an update to Chill Mist Valley’s encounter manual, but broadly, I liked its results. It shaved the party’s hitpoints down to the danger zone a little faster than typical combats would. One other note; I didn’t reset the intiative order this entire session! I just maintained places and had the party keep going. I think it allowed us to move through combat faster, but the jury’s still out. I’m going to do a comparison with by-side initiative, and see how 5th handles it.

The party travels inwards; there is a large cage in the first room, along with a small horde of flying snakes (which were quickly dispatched). All of the harnesses and restraints are there, but there’s no dragon. Only a mess of piled blankets remains. The party thinks nothing of this, and moves on! They fight snakes, spawn a a small horde of secretary birds, and fight basilisks before they find a second cage. And look! There’s a white, reptilian creature within the cage! Alas, it’s a giant constrictor snake, and the party fights vs it (and yet another basilisk) before they finally discover the medusa. She’s standing before a white dragon, spread eagle and chained to the ground above a magical glyph. No words are exchanged, it’s initiative.

A fight with the medusa and her 5 gargoyles ensues! Morgan turns into a bear and begins raging, but the medusa uses wall of stone to keep him at bay. None of the enemies are terrifically effective. Their saves suck, their attack bonuses suck, and the gargoyles have no special abilities relevant to the fight. It mostly just takes awhile, and I’m ashamed to say the snake fights appeared to be more entertaining. Who knows if my internal compass for these things was in working order, though. We did have a few weeks of hiatus.

The medusa tries to flee, but a fireball and assault from Maia see the foul creature slain. Her head is taken, loot is counted, and the party prepares for their mini adventure. The mini-adventure sees them capture 2 white dragons, a stray cobalt dragon (also non-sentient), and 2 white dragons again. The last pair was severely wounded, having been attacked recently. Perra teleported them to a safe locale in Eshauraus, their primary base of operations, and all was well. No word on the reward from Corrigan as of yet.

Loot and Rewards

Loot was only recovered from the medusa’s lair this evening. It was a sizable amount of loot, far outstripping the proper amount for a medusa and some gargoyles. In fact, this entire session (and the resulting mini-adventure) has been all too easy.

Something’s going on in Oarton.

• 2k gold in jewelry.

• Bloodhunter's Compass: Crimson Rite damage is changed to 10 for every die. This benefit extends to all bloodhunters within a mile.

• The Operator's Crossbow: A self-loading +2 volley crossbow, can be wielded as a light weapon.

• Hearthwand of Stone: Casts wall of stone, stone shape, erupting earth.

• Petrichory Rapier: +3 rapier. Can turn misty weather, fog, or rain into pleasant weather.

Players and Settlements

Characters

Maia

Maia acted as caller for the exploration activity, organized everyone, and did great in combat! I loved running for Landie (Maia’s player) as always. One of Landie’s other characters spent this week’s downtime using Research to spy on some criminal activity in the map’s southern region.

• Ancestry: Human

• Class: Monk (Shadow) Rogue (No subclass yet)

• Secondary Class: Minstrel

• XP: (To be filled in)

Morgan

Morgan performed great as always, though I loved teasing him in combat. Druids are (turns out) vulnerable to the ever-reliable wall of stone spell.

• Ancestry: Human

• Class: Barbarian (Bear Totem) and Druid (Moon)

• Secondary Class: Ley Keeper

• XP: (To be filled in)

Jaster

Jaster had a rocky start to the campaign, but he made up for it this session. His exploration role was well chosen, he improvised in session, and did a great job in combat. I hope he enjoyed his loot!

• Ancestry: Dhampir

• Class: Bloodhunter

• Secondary Class: Scholar

• XP: (To be filled in)

Perra

Perra might have been MVP this session, on account of her exploration role. Additionally, restoration and healing spells restored both dragons and injured party members to fighting shape.

• Ancestry: Kobold

• Class: Cleric (Life, of Tweiflangr)

• Secondary Class: Herbalist

• XP: (To be filled in)

Zhianna

Zhianna has only played a few times as of yet, but I adored her willingness to tackle investigations for the party, as well as her combat participation. Whenever players step out of their shell a bit, I try to reward them quickly for doing so!

• Ancestry: Half Elf (Dragonmark)

• Class: Sorcerer (Divine Soul), Warlock (Celestial, Tome Pact)

• Secondary Class: Scholar

• XP: (To be filled in)

Settlements

Unnamed Keep
Level 1 Stronghold

Will have more details in the campaign catchup.

• Owner: Sierra

• Income: None

• Resupply: 1 unit per season

Play Report: The Eels in the Keep are Free

You can take them home

I tagged along in Prince of Nothing’s B/X game, run in Aaron the Pedantic’s discord server. It’s the first game I’ve been able to enjoy in a month or so, on account of no internet access.

This play report is filled with descriptions of play without context. I was dropped into the middle of the game without context, and to convey the experience, it’s quite appropriate to detail what happened without a massive introduction to setting lore, mission details, etc. Any context I provide is done as I learned of it.

As a final note regarding the game’s context, I found dropping in without it ideal. I wanted to focus on the game’s mechanics (or lack thereof).

Prince first suggested I play a henchman, but then considered a PC was absent; one of the campaign’s only two level 2 characters. Isildur the Thief was available, 50 XP away from becoming the only level 3 character this campaign had seen. Obviously, getting this guy killed would’ve been awful. It’s my first B/X game, too. Will I walk in the wrong door and extinguish the last flickering hope of anyone progressing in this campaign?

I Have 475 Eels

We begin the game in a corridor, within a partially flooded keep. Apparently a Castellan wants an enchanted horn here, which (according to legend) has the power to summon armies. We come to a Dead Soldier, add loot to the list, and continue down the corridor. Not much happens as we bumble along, it’s empty rooms.

We met up with some Friendly Bugbears, giving us a pittance of information and a potential resource for a future encounter. Not much happened there, just some talking.

We continued on to a tower’s spiral staircase. Our treasure was likely on the lower levels, either the first or the basement level. Unfortunately, the basement was completely flooded, and the first floor was covered in 2 feet of water.

Edit: while in the tower, we discovered a nest with threevery large eggs, and a smattering of gold and silver coins. As Prince points out, we wisely ignored it for the time being, both to avoid an unnecessary encounter and to hurry in finding the horn. We weren’t the only ones looking for it!

Someone other than me asked if we could bring the party’s canoes in, which was a brilliant suggestion I was immediately in favor of. This is where the session turned; from here, it was action all the way through to the end of the session. It’s about 2-3 in the afternoon, the canoes aren’t all that far away, and we could have all our extra supplies, men at arms, wounded PC, and canoes inside the keep for any use we could think of. Whoever suggested we use canoes was expanding the future space of possibilities.

Traveling down the corridor, we came across a room with some schools of fish (a nearby river was feeding the flooded levels, keeping the water relatively fresh). A backpack was floating in the corner, and playing the thief, I couldn’t resist. Not resisting turned into an eel encounter. They dealt a small bit of damage, and inflicted a save vs -2 to hit poison on hit. The thief I was playing had a net in his inventory, so I spent my first round of combat recovering it. Another party member threw a ration out to distract the eels, which worked on one of them. Nicely done! I asked them next round to help me spread out the net, back the party into a corner of the room, and hold the eels at bay. Prince updated our AC to 2, attacks were rolled, two eels were killed, and the rest fled. We tried catching the ones which hadn’t died, to no avail. Oh well!

I collected the two remaining eels. The next room had a few kobolds fishing, who were adamant we leave. I handed them an eel for safe passage.

Lovely.

The most exciting portion of this game was the arrival of a barge carrying roughly two dozen cultists. This conveniently took place as we sought out our canoes, having finally reached the keep’s exit on this side! Two men of arms (heavily armed archers) the party had left to guard the canoes were pointing and shouting, and grabbed a wounded PC from his makeshift canoe bed. The MAA made it into the keep, dragging the PC behind us.

I tell everyone to retrace our steps through the keep, ignoring the kobolds we passed earlier and running into the southeast tower. We flee to the second floor, where I and another party member were split on whether to explore the second floor, or retreat into the third floor. The party had ostensibly cleared the floor in a prior session, and I wanted to bottleneck the enemy as much as possible.

After brief argument, I was declared the Caller, and we moved on to the top (3rd) floor. I asked the magic user to pick up one of the eggs, prepare to 1) smash the egg onto the staircase and 2) cast sleep. The magic user failed successfully; he shouted while holding the egg, directing the cultists to our position. After some clarifications on what he’d be throwing the egg at, the MU finally egged the steps. A great shriek, like that of an eagle was heard, and my heart soared at the prospect of success.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party smashed oil flasks at the stair’s top, at my instruction. The magic user refused, instead wishing to wait to see who was coming up the stairs. This was a mistake, and quickly got him killed by a griffon, coming to avenge its friend.

My hope for how this would’ve gone is detailed in the next section.

The griffon continued its rampage against cultists coming up the stairs, and so we were given brief reprieve to plan at the other side of the keep. I directed the fighter to take his potion of invisibility as I did the same, and we progressed down the stairs. We found diseased Kobolds (whom the party had befriended prior), armed and waiting by a barricaded door.

The second group of cultists were beginning to bust down the barricade, so I took out a grappling hook and escaped to the water. I then swam to the barge, plan in mind, while the party was stuck trying to decide on what to do. They did nothing for about four rounds, listening to the sound of whimpering, yelping kobolds and the clang of metal on metal. Some stripped in preparation for a jump, while others attempted (and succeeded) in setting the barge on fire.

The party spent then swam, sunk, and drowned their way in my general direction. I had boarded the barge (still invisible), looted the captain’s quarters, tossed a strongbox out the window (with a silk rope attached, for later retrieval), swam back around to one of our canoes, swam it out to the back of the barge, retrieved the strongbox, and started rowing.

This was more or less the end of my participation; I was escaping. The surviving two PCs caught up to the canoe and started rowing back. The character I was playing began suffering ill effects of plague, but was saved (barely) by a cleric back at home base (which of course charged us out the nose for it).

The Elites Don’t Want You to Know This

Common among boomers is the assumption their having grown up with books, and inability to use cellphones must translate to the reverse; young people, being able to use cellphones, must not be able to read books!

This obviously stupid position, which is in no way defensible by anyone with two brain cells to rub together, is nevertheless the subject of smug chortling, which you may hear echoing through retirement homes and fishing clubs across America. The truth of the joke is of no concern to boomers, who are enjoying an imagined lead in a pissy status game no one else is playing.

Similarly, average fanboys of the Old-School Renaissance assume their tactical stupidity, bafflement at classes with more than one character ability, horror in the face of feats, and (most importantly) inability to get past New School character creation must translate to how new players would react to a game like B/X.

I don’t think this position describes anyone I played with, and among the players was another 4e enjoyer, pictured below.

Cheers, Adlyn

Folks who play New School games (and to a far lesser extent Legacy Games) are to some extent judged on their tactical skill with regards to encounters, meaning they have to think, plan, react, and make good decisions to do well. Your game has an OODA loop, and your success is measured by how far and quickly you progress. Obviously, this skill can be translated to Old School games. In lieu of granted character abilities, you focus more on practical uses for equipment and the occasional spell, especially as they pertain to your environment.

It’s not that difficult, especially since all of the stumbling and bad play OSR types have already done for 50 years is out in the wild and easy to learn from. Not only that, I found New School strategy and tactics were easily applicable to situations in game, where OSR players were more inclined to scratch their heads.

The Tower

Here’s how the tower encounter was supposed to go.

1. Cultists approach up the tower’s spiral staircase, a bottleneck which is easily filled with hazards and bodies (literally their purpose).

2. The egg of a presumably large creature is smashed upon the stairs, hopefully luring whatever laid it through the tower’s open roof, back to its nest.

3. Oil is poured upon the doorway leading from the staircase’s summit, keeping whatever creatures and cultists coming from the towers from exiting it.

4. When the cultists approach, the MU may cast sleep, bottlenecking the cultists further and keeping them at bay to escape.

5. If a creature then returns to the nest, it may fight the cultists, preventing an entire encounter’s worth of combatants from approaching.

This almost went as planned. Had it gone as planned, we would’ve retained a magic user. This magic user would’ve provided a Charm Person spell, several pieces of treasure, use of scrolls and potions on their person, and an additional warm body’s worth of hitpoints to be expended in the name of powergaming.

New School players think this way; the OSR apparently has catching up to do.

The Barge

This was the second encounter with a host of rather hideous mistakes, the majority of which could’ve been avoided merely through acting in any fashion whatsoever.

To recap:

• There were 6 armed and diseased kobolds waiting by a barricaded door.

• The enemy gave us ample (accidental, via shouted order) warning they’d be breaking the door down.

• The other invisible player informed the other players of this, while I went down to sabotage the barge and secure our escape.

Rather than help the kobolds, or act, or do anything, the remainder of the party fumphered about and took off some of their armor, as they listened to the sound of kobolds valiantly fending off cultists for about 4 rounds (very impressive on their part). To the party’s credit, they did eventually decide after the moment of opportunity to set the barge on fire from afar. It helped my character alive, but we missed out on a great deal of loot and men to carry it out. Additionally, an enemy force remains at the keep, with far more men than needed to live. This forced us to leave the area entirely, rather than doubling back to finish off additional cultists and hauling off even more loot. A charm person against the cleric would’ve been tremendously handy as well.

The party had three options to make this set of encounters go more smoothly, suffer less losses, and keep more strategic possibilities open for future sessions. This was the key; the party’s decisions in this last section of the game narrowed possibilities for future sessions (with these characters) substantially.

1. The party could’ve themselves continued doing nothing by and large. However, the two men at arms could’ve been sent into the lower level to assist the kobolds in their defense, softening up the enemy will well defended archers, and making their future decision (whether to fight the cultists or jump out the window) far easier.

2. The party could have (again) done nothing, but had their hired archers shoot at the cultists guarding their barge.

3. The party could’ve traveled down, prepared with the kobolds for forced entry, and used them as meat shields to (again) destroy cultists trapped in a bottleneck, at little or potentially no cost to the party (certainly not compared to the cost of players drowning immediately afterwards).

Option 3 produced the most backlash when I mentioned it to the party afterwards, but seriously; they had the opportunity to prepare, trap or reinforce the barricaded door, fight at ranged at no cost to themselves, give themselves a better chance of breaking the enemy’s morale, etc etc etc. What’s a heavily armored fighter going to do in the water anyways? Drown, that’s what! Might as well kicks some ass on your way out. The archers also died pointlessly, might as well have them shoot before the no-win scenario.

Final Notes

1. I’d like to thank Prince of Nothing for letting me attend on short notice, adjudicating fairly and quickly, responding well to my improvisations, and performing well in a long list of ways being a good DM.

2. You can find his recount of the session here.

3. I’m going to attend next session if possible, with a character of my own. Might as well flex the RPG muscles, be the example of #EliteLevel play, and lead other players to powergaming.

4. My thoughts on B/X:

B/X, on first impression of playing it (as opposed to observing it), is a Role Playing Activity (or has a culture of playing it as such). Its specific focus (or again, culture of playing it as such) is to practice deciding, communicating, and negotiating actions with a given referee. Because it has little to no structural elements to make it an actual game, the only potential subject of focus is the character's equipment and how they relate to the environment.

For some folks, this is perfectly entertaining and will keep them sated as far as RPGs go.

Remember folks, play to win!

Session Report 1: Chill Mist Valley

8/27/2021, Session 6 of my Chill Mist Valley playtest campaign. Five of our current six players were present.

The session took place from 2/15/1261-2/20/1261 by the in-game calendar.

I’m not really sure how much information to post on the prior 6 sessions we’ve had, to be honest. I’ll probably do the equivalent of a clip show, but if you have a specific question just drop it in the comments. I’ll get the hang of this in another essay or two ;)

Report

We’re playing through the Chill Mist Valley module I’ve been designing with my cowriter Knight and a host of freelancers since last December, and tl;dr? It went really well!

To understand the events of this session and those prior, there are a couple things you need to know.

1. We’re using 1-1 time rules. That means the world progresses 1 day in-game for every day that passes in real life. Given we meet on a weekly basis, players usually have 7 in-game days between the events of each session.

2. Players have a list of downtime activities, along with a few they tend to improvise. Given the average 7 days of free time the characters have, this list is put to use on a weekly basis.

Our party’s wildling Karenna went searching the local area around their in-progress settlement Liscor (the second person to do so). She was in search of dungeons specifically, and managed to do so; she also found two dangerous monsters on her way! One was a mercury dragon, the other a strange looking metal spider. We can’t well have monsters threaten a settlement just as it’s being built, say the players, so they go off to hunt it down. They travel a few days, do a bit of fishing, and find a wrecked wagon along the way. It looked like claws or forelegs were raked across it, the axel was broke, and something had broken the carriage inwards. There was quite a bit of blood, but no bodies. The players investigate for a hot minute, and find a note addressing House Naius; it says the summer fey are leaving, High King Zephain intends to take the valley by freezing it over, and the elf cairns should make ready for war or subjugation. They move on, after one of the characters (I think Moss) explains elf cairns are not burial grounds nor markers, though the name was chosen for symbolic purposes. They’re castles or cities hidden in small realms of their own. Samheide is dotted with them.

So the players move on! After a little while, they come upon another wagon, this time with several elves wounded and scattered about, along with a giant metal spider currently 1 (one) away from tearing an elf a new one. The players leap into combat, giving the elves time to scatter!

Truth be told, the retriever performed poorly for its CR. The paralysis beam failed, which would’ve been fine had the damage been more impressive. A legendary action or special reaction of some kind would’ve really brought it together, but alas, that’s the trouble with 5E monsters. I can’t be too unfair to it though; by the time the manticora joined the fight, it was on single digit hitpoints. Oh well! It did manage to plane shift out though, to my delight. I’m a sucker for recurring bad guys.

The manticora on the other hand performed more than adequately. The variant I used (native to Samheide) has a gecko’s body, butterfly or pixie wings, and an elf’s face (rather than a man’s). They had a regular claw-claw-bite, which they largely didn’t use in favor of their tail spikes. The tail spikes were made of the jade-like glass, which drained Dexterity on a hit. Ability drain (or damage, depending on your play history) isn’t super common in 5e. I can’t remember it outside of the Shadow, truthfully. But I remember reading the shadow entry and thinking “it kills you if you reach 0 STR? Too cool.” 5e could desperately use some death spirals, given the present alternative is yo-yoing players up and down because they never fail enough death saves to actually die.

For dexterity drain, I decided reaching 0 would instead permanently paralyze the character. They would then need to regain their dexterity by way of potions, restorative magic, etc. Beyond that, if a creature was reduced to 0 hp by the jade, they detonated with the stuff in a 5 ft radius.

And this could chain. In fact it did chain; Moss, the party artificer, has a cadre of awakened shrubs at his command. He’ll use them to toss magic stones at enemies, doing impressive damage! Alas, they have only 10 HP, and a single shrub going down caused a chain reaction which killed the rest of Moss’s retinue and damaged Moss heavily. This also happened to Deltannu and his retinue of lizardfolk bodyguards; all but one guard was knocked, as were several elves hiding behind a berm.

Three of the 5 manticora facing them had additional abilities; two were glass-makers, who could fire back when attacked as a reaction. They proved exceedingly effective! The other manticora was a glass heart, which could raise a 10 ft radius, 20 ft high spike of glass from a surface (provided it was on the same aforementioned surface). Also quite effective! The players all grouped up so Deltannu could could place a wall of fire around them, forcing the manticora closer. Walls of fire are opaque, thus inflicting disadvantage on any ranged attacks. We saw a lot of great tactical decisions from the players this session, actually. It only came to bite them when the glass heart manticora repeatedly spiked the wall’s (formerly safe) center.

The players managed to give as good as they got, and the encounter wrapped up. It took sliiiiiiiightly longer than I wanted, but this was our first major combat in the game (along with 5 players, 4 hirelings, and some NPCs to work through). I have total confidence our next few are going to resolve faster, and the player will pick up the pace insofar as their other activities are concerned. It’s a reasonable assumption as far as I’m concerned; we’re headed to a fey hollow next session as players look for riches with which to fund their armies.

The elves the players rescued were actually from the nearby elf cairn, and were able to provide more information, along with an introduction to the cairn itself. It’s where the players have spent their downtime for our upcoming session, with quite a few interesting results.

Players

Deltannu
Notes: Deltannu’s been a blast to DM for. I retained him from my Lancer campaign, which was largely a disaster, but he was my favorite part of it. As a 3.5/Pathfinder player, he’s the most interested in managing the more minute mechanics, extra modes of play, and providing direction to the two other original players. Liscor was largely his invention, as was the plan to gain an army. I’m looking forward to sending him the new spells available.

• Ancestry: Dhampir (Halfling)

• Class: Druid (Spore)

• Secondary Class: Scholar

• XP: 39,620 (+3,090 XP this session)

Desmond

• Ancestry: Halfling (Stout, I think)

• Class: Rogue (Soulknife)

• Secondary Class: Ley Keeper

• 43740 (+4120 this session)

Karenna Frosteye

• 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 this session)

Moss

• 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 (+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 recognizeable 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