Blackmoor: Running Blog Pt. 2 – Trek to Stoney Marsh

This is a continuation of my campaign blog of Blackmoor. Click the button to read the first blog, and click the second to go to the latest post.

Blog 10: 3/2/2024 – Session 8

Rhaegar and Baccaro entered the room and were met with two sets of glowing green eyes. They lit a candle and revealed Perzyk and Ramlis waiting for them. Rhaegar slumped on the bed, weak from the dark moon ritual.

“How was the ritual?” Perzyk asked his brother.

“It went well,” Rhaegar replied. ” It took a lot out of me, but I think I found out the right sigil to channel Silmar’s energy, similar to the way druid’s channel Wode’s.”

A slight look of tired satisfaction creeped across Rhaegar’s face.

“That’s good I suppose,” Perzyk replied. He asked Baccaro to leave which he obliged, tired from the ritual as well. the two brothers shared the room in silence until Perzyk broke it with a question. “Did you come with me when I was exiled because you wanted to be with me or because you wanted to do research?”

“I don’t see why it can’t be both?” Rhaegar replied.

“Well it seems like that’s what you care about most. Is that why you want to stay with these people? To further your own goals and to seek power?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Rhaegar protested. The people we travel with are knowledgeable and strong, and Sir Damon is a famous knight.”

“Then it is why you want to stay around these people? Because you think they’re strong and knowledgeable? Is that why you spar with Moarte in Fellagrove? Why you handed a Hollowmancy research book to that fraud, Baccaro, as opposed to even asking your own brother? Channel the same lunar magic that killed me?”

Perzyk was rage incarnate.

Rhaegar was consumed in silence.

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings… I hadn’t really thought about any of it. Baccaro had been talking about Hollowmancy so I thought to hand him the book first; Moarte was around and said he wanted to spar, so we did; and Silmar’s magic gave me more power than I’ve ever known, and more yet to come.”

Perzyk looked deep into his brother’s soul.

“I still think you’re a fool for trifling in those magics.”

Perzyk and his automaton Ramlis left the room.

The next day when the crew awoke, they congregated at the bottom of Bort’s for some morning gruel. Baccaro came downstairs and was eyed by a beautiful half-elven woman, flanked by a beefy human and an imposing warforged. Baccaro recognized her from Seaman’s Wet Dream as his hired entertainer.

As Baccaro sat down with his food and joined Rhaegar and some of the others, the woman pointed at Baccaro and the group of three approached the cleric.

The human introduced himself as a member of Beauty’s Blades, a confraternity dedicated to protecting sex workers. The man set a bag of 10 gold coins down on the table, all with the mark of the Dredge from the Bolges. One of them was scratched at its surface and revealed a dull, lusterless metal underneath.

The Blades confronted Baccaro, accusing him of paying for services with faulty coinage. He protested at first, not wanting to be just shaken down, but it was clear after a while it was his coins, and he sheepishly paid 10 normal gold pieces. The Blades and the escort warned him to be careful of the Bolges, because they target new faces with same schemes.

This prompted Baccaro to go on a wild goose chase trying to talk to the Bolges’s manager like a 50 year-old wine mom, demanding full compensation, but all he ended up with were a few gems with some type of value. I included this encounter to really just stir up hate for the Dredge even more and sew small seeds of distrust.

While they were out and about, Uro and Rhaegar stopped by the central market where a huge crowd was gathered for a royal announcement.

A speaker on large platform and bureaucratic attrite with a large ribbon was being prepared to give a speech using thaumaturgy:

“Hear ,yee, hear yee. A message comes from King Uther to his subjects on this day, Inmar 9, but first be sure to grab all your painting, dying, and plastering supplies from Dilmont’s, beating the Dyer’s Confraternities prices guaranteed (on select items)  – sponsor of The Lone Banneret! Now, a word from King Uther III: Salutation honorable subjects of Blackmoor. Lend me your ears as I have word and therefor I bring you the law of this land. It’s come to my attention that our roadways are not nearly as fair and safe as I had hoped, nor are some parts of our northern border as well padded diplomatically as we’d like. For this reason, Dantredun will be sending posies of knights to the Duchy of the March to aid in our shared goal of holding our rightful land, further, all tolls and escorts now have a price ceiling which will be at all times  be imposed and guaranteed a fair rate by local knights. Tolls will be maximumly set at 3 gold per group member and spaced minimum 50 miles away from each other, while escorts will be handled on a case by case basis, but is top priority for the King’s Petition and the Mindscribes. It is an honor to serve you brave and vital Blackmoorians as King, and much as you have given me your ear today, so I, too, I give you mine always.”

The crowd dispersed and the two listened close to passersby to gage the sentiment. A lot of people were happy military forces were sent to the North due to fear of the Cosero and the tribes, further a group of merchants were thankful for the announcement on the tolls and escort pricing investigations. Overall, the citizens seemed happy.

After Rhaegar did some shopping for Perzyk, the group convened with Sir Damon outside of the Carpentry Confraternity Guild hall that evening to talk about the next job.

Sir Damon told them first that Caoimhin was no longer joining them, as he’d be returning to Dantredun. Meanwhile tomorrow, the rest of them would depart to Stoney Marsh to deliver to huge barrels of sand.

The group asked Sir Damon about the announcement, and he said he had heard it yesterday and was expecting less trouble on the road from the Dredge because of it.

Damon told them their projected course, planning to hug the coast for more temperate weather and to path through Godsdell.

Godsdell is a believed to be the home of several known Green Gods and where many of them can be seen in physical manifestations. Damon, being a pretty superstitious fellow, told them that he always feels a bit more different in the area (in a good way), and it’s one of the most beautiful places in Blackmoor and it should be so.

the group slit, and with plans to meet at the Mason’s Confraternity hall the next morning.

The following ay was a peaceful ride down the coast. Damon wanted to travel through and camp on the road as opposed to stopping in a town. He liked camping by the coast to see the stars and the shore.

As they came upon ridge, Damon was ready to top the cart and set up camp, but as he looked down a rocky cliffside to a nearby beach, he balked.

Damon pointed out a stone spire about 50 feet out into the water. He said he didn’t want to really travel at night, and would rather stay here but was suspicious of the tower and if anyone was trying to hide or potentially ambush them from it. He also couldn’t remember the tower being there the last time he was here. The group volunteered to go search it while Moarte and Sir Damon stayed by the carts and set up camp.

Perzyk, Rhaegar, Uro, and Baccaro descended the nearby hills and and eventually reached the beach. Uro swam around investigating the tower. Its form was archaic, the top of it was either unfinished or had crumbled, but no mosses or signs of extreme weathering plagued the tower. He moved some of the sand beneath the water and noticed the little of it packed around the base and that the spire kept extending into the ground, possibly to some type of bedrock.

Uro then climbed the spire and peered over the walls to the inside where he found some sort of strange nest littered with rocks, gemstones, large pieces of wood, and old bones. He looked for a place to anchor the rope and after looking through some of the debris found a small stone handle jutting from the ground in the shape of an upside down ‘U.’ he tied the rope and draped over the opposite side of where had climbed (the sea side, not the beach side).

As the other three (and Ramlis) waded into the water to climb the rope, not far from the tower they saw a weird sight: an amalgamation of jellyfish sitting atop the water. The crew was cautious about it, but the group of closely packed and unmoving creatures stayed atop the water.

Th group cleared out debris, and revealed next to where they had tied off the rope, two other handles in the ground surrounding a divot–a bowl. With an immense pull, Uro, Rhaegar, and Baccaro activated the mechanism. The bowl tilted and revealed a metal plate with strange, abstract etchings. Rhaegar found them similar to the artistry by Layan the Necrealain, the artist of the painting in Sir Damon’s room at Fellagrove and the Royal Painter.

After finding this, they looked for clues, until Uro pulled out a mirror and peered through it, behind him was a floating script written in his own home tongue:

In a tower tall, where secrets lie,

I stand in silence, watching by.

I guard the treasure, hidden ‘way,

In service to Wot, night and day.

My form is strong, my gaze is serene,

To solve my riddle, you must be keen:

I see without eyes, I speak without tongue,

I guard the secrets, forever young.

Rhaegar quickly put together that the answer was “Statue” and grabbed some pieces of bramble and started whittling it down, tying some off and creating small effigy. He placed the wooden figurine into the bowl and the party hoisted the handholds. Behind them, a portal opened, black and descript.

My plan for the Spire of Wot is to first and foremost be a dungeon crawl–my players have been given just one combat encounter a day and have been able to go supernova every time (which there’s nothing wrong with; I like it for everyone to be able to showcase their characters and understand what others do). This will be a first dive into managing resources for them which will be a fun challenge and change of pace. Secondly, the Spire is an opt-in engagement. A lot of this will be the heroes being tested and is supposed to have noticeable jumps in difficulty and lethality that they can potentially revisit later if need be or find some creative solutions. Because it is opt-in, I plan on giving them some ways to leave rather easily or “saferooms.” They can’t long rest in the saferooms, but they can short rest and lick their wounds and figure out a gameplan undisturbed. Underscoring the importance of those things are really important, even when dealing with veteran players, and I think is worth breaking the fourth wall, or giving them a peak behind the curtain to insure everyone knows what risks they are taking.

Blog 11: 3/14/2024 – Session 9

The session started right where it ended with the heroes facing down the black portal. They asked Sir Damon if they could go in which the knight answered yes, but warned them it was an extremely dangerous affair. They asked if the knight was joining them, but the old dwarf dragged his feet, and explained he’d like to enter the Spire, but wasn’t keen on exploring it.

“Some’s got to watch the carts,” Sir Damon reminded them, “and I’ve already claimed my valor.”

With that, the party entered the Spire of Wot.

In the first room the crew found the following:

You enter through the hole and drop into a circular room with a large statue’s head half into the wall. The statue is roughly humanoid with extremely exaggerated eye, ear, and nose.

More script appeared in front of the characters, each read it in their home language:

“In a cavern deep, where shadows play, Stands a stone servant, night and day, Guardian to treasures, hidden away, For Wot, the god, deals in shadows grey.

Pass the challenges pass the tests pass the gamut pass the trials.

Seek what shrouds, seek what keeps, seek the secret, know no denials.

Claim that which moves, claim that which appears, claim that disappearing, claim that which always moves.

One knows, one senses, one is aware, one knows the tower true”

Rhaegar looked around the room and with his torch in hand, as he searched, he found nothing. He shielded the torchlight with his hand and in the shadows saw an image of a ghastly visage:

A depiction of Wot.

While they were in there, they whispered into the face’s ear a secret, and when they did so, two portals opened, one a black and the other a midnight blue.

At this, Sir Damon took his leave. They asked him why, and he said someone had to watch the cart, and with news from the king sending posies of knights to the March, he thought it best not to endanger himself, even if the group he is in is mostly or retirees, he could still be called on by King Uther III. With that he bid them goodbye and good luck.

They opted to go down the black portal and not check the blue one, citing that the portal that they had taken into the portal was black.

The party entered into a hall, Rhaegar’s torch their only light. Written on the walls were tiny words. Upon investigation, many of them were compromising, though anonymous, confessions–secrets. Some loathed their job, worried about money despite flaunting new jewelry, killing their sibling, cheating on a spouse, etc.

They continued on for almost an hour, reading these secrets, the hallway unending.

They sent a mage hand to carry the torch above them and found the walls stretched high above, still etched with words.

Some of the characters tried to close there eyes, none wanted to snuff out the torchlight. Meanwhile, Baccaro remained reading the secrets. They traversed farther, undisturbed, but still the pathway was unchanged. Finally they all decided to close there eyes and after several moments of walking, those in the front, Uro and Rhaegar, who had guided themselves with their hands touching the wall, felt it disappear. They opened their eyes, and in the same instance, the negative space was filled with more words and stone.

They tried once more, only this time, everyone knew what to expect and held close to their comrades. The negative space appeared again. Rhaegar steered silently to the left, pulling Moarte in-tow before Uro exclaimed he found something and went right and took Perzyk and Baccaro with him.

Rhaegar and Moarte were met with a massive, dark cavern and stood firmly on strands of giant spider silk. They could hear skittering along the ground, and in the distant, they could see strange shadows toting large weapons.

Half scarab ghouls came out of the woodwork and assailed the two heroes.

The ghouls scuttled and tried overwhelming the heroes and send them tumbling down the layers of webs. Rhaegar was knocked off the edge quickly and ended on another level.

Every time a player failed a contested Strength (Athletics) check against the ghouls they would tumble 1d10 levels of the Web of Lies. Whatever level they landed on, they would be compelled to tell a secret regarding that type of secret until they reached the bottom and suffered a mania that caused them to lose a core memory along with a large but not lethal bit of psychic damage.

The secrets I used were based on this chart I transcribed. Obviously each one of these isn’t going to apply to every player character, but if it didn’t I would skip to another one nearby.

Moarte stood his ground and invoked the sigil on his pauldron and summoned The Black Duke. Moarte and his echo cut through the enemies while Rhaegar concentrated on his moonbeam and tried to meet Moarte to find an exit. As he ascended to another level, he was compelled to tell another secret.

As the enemies fell, they died with a shriek, each one yelling some secret held by someone in the world.

As they cut through the horde, they found a yawning portal, deep black not far from where they entered and found themselves back in the hallway.

This is the Web of Lies. I set this up as a mix between roleplay, skill challenge and light combat. I think in the brief stint, it was pretty successful, but I think it would be extremely hard to run due to massive verticality differences. Best to keep it simple and narratively driven I found, and I’d suggest that to anyone unless you wanted it to be something way bigger and more intricate like some type of campaign capstone against Lolth.

As this was going on, the other three party members were in a plain dungeon room occupied by a statue with its back turned to them facing a blank wall. They poked around and eventually, the statue stirred. Its voice was deep and craggy like the tumbling of rocks.

It told them that its name is Wymeld and that it had a wager for the group: for every two rooms they bested in Wot’s Spire, they would receive one Truth as a reward. The adventurers asked how they could get the greatest reward from this place, and Wymeld said they’d need a key rom Jok’Dol the Guardian of the Spire who can be found either through the the Forest, or if they were to defeat all of Wymeld’s challenges, it could send them to Jok’Dol itself. However, if they at least passed on of Wymeld’s challenges, it would allow them passage to the Forest’s Antechamber.

The setup for this was to have the players be able to set their difficult and have choice as to how they get somewhere as opposed to which way they go to get somewhere. In my mind, tactics like these give more tangible options to players as opposed to picking directions in a dungeon. Traditionally, we see this as “Do we go through the front gate, or do we try to sneak into the castle.” These types of conversations are deeper for players and more meaningful I’ve found, while simultaneously allowing for roleplaying and slowing down to ask what characters would think not just their players.

The players agreed to Wymeld’s terms and told the statue they were ready for their first challenge. At this time, Moarte and Rhaegar tried to go down the Hall of Secrets with their eyes closed in search for the others.

Wymeld summoned a creature comprised of water, fire, air, and stone and held together by tethers of starlight and nebulous gases- a Wild Magic Elemental.

The elemental is almost identical to an earth elemental statwise, except for every time it hit with its slam attack it had a chance to roll on the Wild Magic Sorcerer table from the Player’s Handbook. If it rolled a 20, it would roll on the table, if it hi, but didn’t critically succeed, the range on its special ability would increase by 1 (from just 20 to a 19 or 20 at the start). A wild magic surge would reset its requirements to a nat 20.

This was particularly tough because some of my players have magic / magic weapons but not all of them. This was probably the hardest encounter they could have had to start off, and there was only three of them there at the jump.

The Wild Magic Elemental sensed Uro’s wild magic abilities and went for him first and immediately crit. 4d8+3 and a roll on the table. The thing clobbered the barbarian before he could rage dealing impressive damage and turned all beings in the room invisible.

Perzyk went next and cast Faerie Fire onto where the elemental had last stood and revealed it, turning the tides slightly in their favor. They fought the elemental and staved it off until the others found there way to Wymeld’s domain. The reinforcements helped fell the monster.

A portal opened to the Forest Antechamber.

Afterward, the adventurers swapped information and caught each other up to speed.

Determined not to go into the forest, they decided to take on another trial from Wymeld. They postured and got ready for battle.

Two gems, diamonds, landed softly on the ground next to the statue. Moarte and Baccaro went and picked them up. Each one of them made a charisma saving throw against possession. Baccaro saved but he was given an inspiration to succeed on a DC 20. Moarte however, failed and was told to do his best to fell the party.

Some of the party members tried different tactics: Perzyk stood in a corner far away from Moarte, Uro entered into melee, Rhaegar stood at range and fired at the warforged to try and knock him to his senses, but though his arrow hit true, it had no effect. Instead, Moarte had his turn and then made increasingly easier saving throws to break free. During that time, Baccaro and Uro put themselves in harms way, attempting to fight and subdue their friend, but Moarte landed some crucial hits on the party, knocking Uro critically low.

When I ran this I wanted two things to be true: first was to make sure everyone had control of their characters. I trust my players to try and beat down on each other when the time comes, and sidelining them for failing a save is unfair, and second was that the challenge was surviving not team killing someone to solve a problem.

After Moarte came to his senses, Perzyk was noticeably annoyed. He mentioned that the party was being illogical and trying foolish solutions to martial problems.

Wymeld congratulated them and offered them to up the ante. It told them that if they want to, they could try doing two challenges at once, which as opposed to counting as 2 success, would count as 4.

This really tempted the party and they agreed to Wymeld’s terms.

In preparation, Perzyk casted invisibility on Uro.

The next thing that that the statue summoned was a familiar face to two of them: A giant scarab ghoul along with two yellow gemstones.

The crew sprung into action, now careful to avoid the gems and battered the gian ghoul. On the ghoul’s turn, it picked up the gems, crushed it in a gruesome, spectral hand and grew giant, supercharged by the gems’ power.

The battle raged on.

This ghoul was a suped up wraith with about double its HP after it claimed a gem and a life drain attack that did an extra 2d8 of necrotic damage. It attacked once with a halberd as well, dealing a d10.

As the battle ensued, the crew struggled in the fight but as they got it to bloodied, it summoned a clone to rampage the backline.

All this time, Rhaegar, Moarte and The Black Duke, and Baccaro tried piecing up the Scarrab Ghoul. With its hand, it tried rending Rhaegar’s soul from his body, but Luck was on Rhaegar’s side, for now.

Uro meanwhile in his invisibility was trying a longcon of the ages. In what I can only describe as hopefulness, Uro spent 3 turns trying to corral the ghoul with a rope.

After failing proning or toppling the ghoul, Uro Baccaro who had been down for 2 turns next to him.

As things got down to the wire, Perzyk had enough, and from the corner he shouted to Wymeld, “It’s done. It’s over. We forfeit. Take this away Wymeld!”

In which case the statue banished the ghoul. I explained to them that if they did this, they could not reach Jok’Dol through this lair and they accepted, and it still counted as besting a room.

The party reconvened and got everyone conscious. Perzyk was furious. He yelled at the parties for being foolhardy imbeciles and requested Wymeld to teleport him out of the Spire.

Rhaegar looked at the others and departed as well.

When they returned, they were in the aerie. they climbed down from the Spider and were surrounded by new guts and splatters. As they descended, they saw the body of a large spider upside down and floating as if it had been consumed by jellyfish (an ocean spider). The two brothers swam to shore and climbed up the hills they found Sir Damon beaten and bruised with Ramlis at his side.

They asked what happened, and Damon described that a giant spider had surprised him as he came out of the Spire and he was able to keep it at bay with his Dwarven Thrower, but with still a scratch on him. The two described the others staying in the spire. Perzyk went to his journal and scribbled furiously.

Sir Damon said they’d wait to see if the others came out while they licked their wounds, but if they don’t emerge they’d have to assume the worse.

As he finished giving his direction, in the distance, a caravan under the Duchy of the Lakes standard marched toward them. As they got closer the knight greeted them, followed by a hefty brigade of men at arms and spellcasters. On the Knight’s shield they saw the following crest, the crest of Sir Wenat:

Sir Wenat greeted the vaunted Sir Damon and asked to make camp next to him, for they were at their destination–Wot’s Spire. H told Sir Damon he had intentions of claiming the Spire for himself and had caught wind it was going to be here by purchasing a highly coveted Truth from the Yelir Market. They readied to descend into the Spire.

Simultaneous, Moarte, Baccaro, and Uro (two of whom despise Sir Wenat) journeyed deeper into the Spire and went into the Forest’s Antechamber.

In hindsight, I should’ve had the ghoul pick up just one of the gems and toss it to the clone if the party hadn’t picked it up yet. I also could’ve done a better job describing the gems as crackling or buzzing first as opposed to unassuming gems similar to the diamonds that they had just encountered.

Talking with one of my players, it may have been better to give the secrets one at a time as they completed the rooms, not just wait to see their final progress. The player mentioned that if the secret was something inconsequential, they would be less likely to go through and risk their neck in the dungeon, but if it were some crazy secret, it could definitely be enough to get the gang going and try to push through to another room.

I agree with these points and I think if I were to do it again, I would give them secrets one at a time to motivate them to keep going, but at this point, I don’t think I want to retcon.

We’ll see where things end off next time.

Blog 12: 3/22/2024 – Session 10

We picked up where we left off with three heroes (Moarte, Baccaro, and Uro) inside Wot’s Spire and two outside (the brothers Rhaegar and Perzyk) resting with Sir Damon and waiting with for the exit of their friends. Tensions at camp were tight after Rhaegar made a snide comment regarding Sir Wenat and Perzyk not using the knight’s proper title, which required the dwarf to save face in front of his fellow knight.

Next to them, Sir Wenat and his posse made final preparations before going into the Spire.

Rhaegar approached Sir Damon as he took a long draw from his pipe. The tobacco left was low and charred.

“Sir Damon,” Rhaear started, “I wanted to apologize for what I said earlier regarding Sir Wenat. It won’t happen again.”

“You have to be careful,” Sir Damon replied. “Many take their titles extremely seriously–as they should.”

Sir Damon and Rhaegar looked out onto the east coast of Blackmoor–the east coast of Godsdell.

“I had a question for you, Sir Damon: do you think just because someone has a title, they deserve your respect?”

“If someone has a title like lord or lady or duke, they start at the very least with my respect–especially in courtly pursuits and politics. As for keeping it, well, that’s a different story. I’ve met finer people with no titles, no land, and who after I die, no one will remember. That said, just because someone has a title doesn’t mean they are a twat. Baron Cadaneus, Duke Manuut Crieswick–those are men of mettle, and finer than I’ll ever be.

The dwarf took a long hit from his pipe and sighed exasperatedly.

“Sometimes I feel guilty that history won’t carry on these names of all the brave people I’ve known. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering their names. It pains me.”

“Well, I’ll always remember the people you spoke about back in Fellagrove, about the Behir of the Plateaus, and the group of you who fell it,” Rhaegar responded. “I won’t forget them.”

“Thank you, Rhaegar; it means a lot.”

“Of course. I did have something to tell you by the way. Earlier you referred to me and Perzyk as Gyrdorions, but I don’t think Perzyk holds onto our tribe’s name that closely, and I don’t think he appreciates being called one anymore.”

“Right then,” Sir Damon said and nodded. “I’ll do my best. Speaking of Perzyk, I saw him earlier scribbling down in his journal as soon as he got back to camp and was going to talk to him. Do you think now would be a good time?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, I guess there is no time like the present.”

Sir Damon walked over to Perzyk who sat toward the ledge, on the roadside. Sir Wenat’s troops passed him and marched toward the beach and toward the Spire of Wot.

Damon stood next to Perzyk.

“You seemed angry when you returned from camp; I saw you scrawling in your journal. Anything wrong?”

“Just frustrating, working with people who are trying to get themselves killed. Trying to get me killed.”

“How do you mean?”

“Those left in the Spire just made stupid decisions. They put their lives at risk and my own. I don’t like it.”

“Then I challenge you to do something about it. A lot of people in this world do what they think they should do not what they need to. You see what people need to do all the time I imagine. You need to be more of a leader in that situation–don’t be afraid to tell people, because it could save your life and theirs.”

They together watched Sir Wenat and his group of spellcasters enter the Spire.

Moarte, Uro, and Baccaro sat in the Forest Antechamber and rested for an hour. After licking their wounds, they studied the murals and area they were in.

Around the room here is a continuous mural, each with small stone bowls with etchings in the bottom of them.

• A naked man covering up and scolding a naked woman
• The glassy outline of a featureless body next to -a beggar on a busy street
• A picture of man with a card in his pocket and a fiddle beneath him
• A painting of a baby
• A woman curtseying and bowing
• A picture of a being floating, covered in robes and cloaks
• An old man speaking to a young person
• A person gossiping to several different people, each time pointing at a different person
• Queen in a small defensible castle with little art
• People passing by each other in a busy street, heads down and faces neutral, glazed over eyes

On the far wall there was an archway that with text next to it that reads: “THE ONE THAT SEEMS.” The text glows and is gilded.

As they got closer to the large exit to the Forest they also saw a huge smudge mark. Uro erased it you erase the smudge revealing text that says “THE ONE THAT DOES NOT SEEM” and a few seconds after he cleaned it,  the smudge returns, and after it covers back up, written in white and veined with jagged red lines like an irritated eye says “THE ONE THAT KNOWS.”

A second piece of text appeared next to them on the wall: “The One That Knows Senses All living things In The Forest. It knows One that Seems and One That Does Not Seem and It knows even You. Gather each of the Three Aspects of Wot’s fractals, gather their meaning, bestow them to each deserving walled figure, gather knowledge, gather a reward by placing their essence on those deserving.”

After their rest, the heroes lost no time getting into Wot’s Forest.

Wot’s Forest was home to large shrubs and plants and towering, ancient trees. The Soil was soft and the shadow dwelled in every branch, under every leaf, and in every breath. Spanning over gulfs and blocking paths were fallen trees. Their exteriors were petrified, pure stone, and they were left completely where they were at the time of being uprooted. Some lay flat across the forest floor, and others jutted at 45 degree angles, their roots shallow, jagged and exposed.

On their path the group reached a group of trees. Crystalline webs spanned from trunk to trunk. Baccaro at point tried to maneuver under the web, but saw that the crystals were not connected, rather hovering in place in a web shape. He stopped and investigated further and saw that each crystal had a vision or some type of memory captured within it.

After some deliberation with the group, Baccaro decided to grasp one of the crystals.

These are called memory webs and they are probably one of my favorite monsters in D&D history. They originate from the module When a Star Falls (UK4)and are ripe with storytelling. I make a table for each web and fill it with memories of those who had ran into them or chosen to touch the web.

When Baccaro touched he saw a woman running through the forest, turning around being chased by several people with torches.

He probed deeper and went to a new memory: a woman hugging a beaten warrior in the forest before slipping a dagger through his heart.

He probed one last time and saw a man dressed in old druidic clothing and a gnarled staff running toward dancing lights.

After, he took a shock of psychic damage and was no longer stunned in his trance.

I think there is some more malicious uses for these memory webs during a combat, for example if they were reflavored to be souls or a memory from a bad guy that was really important, they could cause the other players to try and protect the person stunned by the web. For now, I just like them flavor and to be able to communicate information in an neat way.

They continued further into the forest, marching over giant petrified trees which acted as causeways and bridges between the forest’s undulating surface.

They halted as they reached a small clearing up ahead and noticed bits of their torchlight bent in weird shapes up ahead. They paused only for a moment before continuing on. As they grew closer, they heard a rustle of the leaves and were assaulted by The Descented, a group of giant invisible men.

Uro at point took one of the assailants attacks, while Baccaro in the middle took two. I think its good to change up who exactly is taking the brunt of the damage, but skew it towards the people in front taking most of it on average, otherwise it feels like a bit of middle fingers to the players who are tying to strategize and position.

This encounter was built so that if someone with infravision was in the party, they would be able to see the people as normal, but in this case, there was no one, so the party was fighting a 3v3 versus invisible savages.

After taking a brunt of damage, Bacarro retreated, keeping his light close by. Meanwhile, Moarte summoned the Black Duke to help them in the fray. As the Black Duke stabbed into one of the invisible men, it fell, dead, and its body turned to visible ash and black dust.

I’ve been wanting to experimenting more with what happens when creatures are defeated. I was hoping one of them would use the ash to throw at one of the other Descented to make them visible, but they didn’t. Oh well.

The battle raged on and after felling another, and having the last escape into the forest, the three deliberated as to whether they could continue. After going back in forth, they decided they could continue a bit longer. The allure of the prize was too much.

They marched onward, low on health but high on resolve, determination, and hope. After long, they reached a a wall of rocks. They took turns climbing to the summit and saw something new and alien.

Far in the distance, shards of sunlight pierced through the forest. The beacon was bright beyond radiance.

As the light moved, they saw a glassy looking deer with a diamond shard between its crystalline antlers: The One That Seems.

They climbed up a few more shallow cliff faces to the same level as The Tne That Seems. To their left was a tall spire of rock. To the left, more craggy plateau.

The One That Seems was timid but slightly trusting of the players, but as they approached it, darkness loomed nearby. The wall of darkness stalked closer and closer across the rocks.

After several moments, Uro mustered enough bravery to go into the darkness, rope attached to his waist. Inside he groped around for anything of substance. He prodded around with the bunt end of his glaive and eventually tapped something crystalline. He didn’t know what he had hit but he decdided he need to capture it. He rushed forward and grabbed blindly at the creature and grappled The One That Does Not Seem. The darkness disappeared and magical silence consumed the area around Uro, revealing The One That Does Not Seem.

After a lot of deliberation and prodding, they tried to get the deer-like aspects to touch each other, ideally one consuming the other, but both became skittish and eventually broke free from the players.

In frustration the group went back to rock spire and Uro climbed it, clenching the torch in his mouth. He summitted and wasm et with a giant creature perched at the top. It was four legged, had giant, pixie-like wings, and an oval face with multiple sets of eyes and noses, a huge set of ears, and bristles covering its head. The One Who Knows.

Next to the creature was small squat plant like creature. Its tough exterior formed a pot-shaped body and it was capped by a fleshy flap. Uro stared at the creature and then at the weird pot.

He opened the flap and inside saw a bunch of small baby hands grasping fractal, crystal eyes. The One Who Knows stared at Uro intently.

Losing his nerve, Uro left, afraid of the consequences from taking from The One Who Knows. He descended the spire and at this point the group was spent. They had spent hours in the Forest to little avail and decided to pack it up.

But as they turned around, they saw torches in the distance.

The group huddled, trying to hide, but between their armor and their weapons, they were too noisy and the group of people approaching knew their location. As the other group neared, they saw Sir Wenat and his entourage.

“Come now, don’t be shy,” Sir Wenat barked. “We know you’re there.”

Moarte grasped Uro’s shoulder and whispered, “Don’t fight. Don’t do anything we’d regret. Let’s just leave.”

The heroes climbed down the steep walls to be close to Sir Wenat. Sir Wenat gave a passing look at Moarte, a clear look of recognition, but obviously didn’t know who the warforged was.

“Well, don’t you look a bit worse for wear?” Wenat continued. “You ,must be some vassals of esteemed Sir Damon. If you’re on you’re on your way out , maybe you’d care to stick around and watch me claim Wot’s Spire? It’d be a great honor for you, and it shouldn’t take too much longer.”

“No,” Moarte said, walking past them, “we’re leaving.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stick around for the show? Well I assume the Toter has his little schedule to run. If not that’s fine, spread the good news of my triumphs on the road for me? It’s a great place to get the word out.”

“Oh, the Trail will know,” Moarte responded.

Baccaro and Uro soon followed Moarte and the three left unmolested out the Forest. They returned to Wymeld and it teleported the gang out back to the top of the Spire.

This is encounter and puzzle was a little bit frustrating for the players because for most of it one of the key aspects of the puzzle was unknown. I think if they had climbed the tall outcropping faster, they would’ve had a lot more success or at last have it be a lot less frustrating, as this took over an hour of plotting and trying to figure out. But it is extremely difficult. Perhaps they will revisit the Spire.

Uro immediately went into a fit of rage, beating his glaive against pile of bramble and tossing over the Spire wall into the ocean.

“We gave that stupid, slimy knight the Spire! Who knows what he’s going to do with it?”

The group went back to shore, head hung low and met up with Sir Damon who welcomed them back.

Sir Damon let them have their rest and told Perzyk and Rhaegar to pack up camp so they can get on the road for a short while. They traveled a few hours before stopping at the the settlement of Townton.

Finally, with Wot’s Spire in their wake, the three who initially made a deal with Wymeld soon found the following secret lodged into their psyche: “The 9 Elemental Swords have returned to Surat.”

Blog 13: 3/22/2024 – Session 11

The party woke to rain pounding a thatch inn roof in the town of Townton and forming puddles outside. They had licked their wounds from Wot’s Spire and looked to get back on the road. When they saw Sir Damon in the early morning readying the carts, he warned them that they may only travel a few hours today due to the weather. No only was the rain already at a steady downpour, but he hear from a local that there was a good chance it was a wild magic storm.

Wild magic storms are common in a lot of places in Surat, but they are especially common in Blackmoor and even more so in the region of Godsdell, where they are now. It is believed to be more common due to the presence of Green Gods there.

The party set out and after a couple of wet hours on the road, the storm strengthened, the sky morphed from a deep gray to purplish and red. The strikes of whitish lightning in the south had turned to yellow and pink as a wild magic storm brewed in front of them on the roadway.

They approached a small town with a ziggurat on a small hill that overlooked the coast to the left. Also on the left, closer to the trail was a large wooden mansion, and on the right side was a sizeable turnip farm.

“Keep pushing through, lads!” Sir Damon barked. “Get to a tavern and we’ll shack up here ’til the storm blows over.”

They pushed through over a bridge that spanned a river to a far more dense part of town. There, Sir Damon ordered everyone except for Moarte inside, and for him and the warforge to park the carts somewhere dry and safe.

The rest of the party quickly entered the Greenfoot Tavern soaking wet, with puddles dripping at their feet. The tavern was one of the largest buildings in town, and had several large brewing apparatuses manned by a family of halflings.

Rhaegar and Uro walked up to the barkeep, a jolly looking, middle-aged man named Gladwick.

Rhaegar secured each of the companions a room and opened a tab for Sir Damon.

“Perfect,” Gladwick said, “and can i get you boys anything to drink. The road has a way of working up a thirst even when it rains.”

“Yes, what do ya have?” Uro asked.

Gladwick described several craft brews, and the dragonborn ordered a sampler platter with 8 different ales.

Gladwick wrote down the order and nailed it to a board nearby and calledo ver to his son, Flad, to get it filled.

Flad took the order and before he got the mugs asked Uro, “You didn’t order one of my Blackmoorian Pale Ale’s bro? They’re all the new rage with a young brewers like myself. The flavor profile isn’t anything like my old man makes–it’s a lot better and a more adventurous brew. You should give one a try.”

“Erm, fuck it why not,” Uro said. “Add it to the order, I’ll try your whatever you called it.”

“Righteous, you will not be disappointed!”

Flad went and grabbed several mugs and filled one with beer from a small cask at the very end of the bar, and then filled up the other cups while looking at the order slip. When he returned he named each one of the beers. Nutty, sweet, warm aromatic scents played together and teased Uro’s and Rhaegar’s nose.

Uro first tried the vanilla hazelnut stout, a beer that filled him and made him feel warm and homey.

“All right, now cleanse your palette and give my BPA a try.

Uro took a sip of what could only be described as the trashiest version of your local brewery’s newest IPA.

Uro took a sip and choked it down. Flad looked at him expectantly.

“Well, what do you think? Pretty good right?”

“It’s uhh, pretty bad, kid,” Uro said.

“Wha-what.”

“It’s shit. You should listen to your old man; he could teach you a thing or two. Keep trying, but this is not good.”

Flad’s lip trembled and he retreated to what was obviously a broom closet and started crying.

Sir Damon and Moarte returned from outside, drenched.

“Don’t know how long this storm is supposed to go on but it seems like a big one so don’t be afraid to get comfortable.”

“Do you have anything you want us to do in the meantime?” Perzyk asked.

“Not really. If you can, maybe get a lay for what the road looks like ahead of us from either locals or fellow travelers, but other than that just stay dry.”

Uro asked Gladwick about the building atop the hill, and he told him that it was an old temple where Fresta the Mystic lives.

Even with the storm raging on, the party decided to brave the elements to talk to the mystic.

They climbed to the top of the steep hill which was crowned by the church with even steeper walls. Outside, to the side of the temple, and close to the overgrown road that lead to the temple was a statue that looked roughly humanoid, but weathering had taken its toll on the stonework. The rest of the ziggurat was covered in ivy, some of the walls had fallen, but it was mostly intact. As they went to the front entrance, they found the doors fallen, which left the main chamber exposed.

Sitting inside in front of bowls of different colored paint was a small halfling woman in robes. She dipped her fingers in some of the paint and dragged it across the stone interior, adding to the abstract mural on the wall.

The party got the woman’s attention and she continued to paint the wall. and welcomed them in from the rain.

She introduced herself as a mystic who moved here over a year ago and now resides in the temple. She enjoyed it because it is so scenic, looking over the ocean and the waterfall that feeds into it. She also enjoys being in Godsdell because of its connection to the Green Gods. She also added that, “Godsdell was the only place where you could walk right past a god and not even know it.”

The party asked which Green God the temple was dedicated to in which Fresta responded “Gad the god of petrification.”

“Why worship Gad?

“I’m terrified of being prettified, it’s my greatest fear. I left the Northern Coast because my husband there got petrified in a wild magic storm. I made pilgrimage to this temple to honor him and be in safety.”

The party had suspicions about the women and some of her statements. Mentioning that you could just pass a Green God on the road or that they were hidden in plain sight some found off-putting. Additionally just being devoted to such a strange god or having a weird phobia was also strange.

Rhaegar tried to discern whether the “Fresta” was a green god he had heard of or an alias for a Green God, but he couldn’t find an answer. Some of the others shared his suspicions, but they mostly left her to paint.

After they turned the corner, Perzyk turned invisible and watched the woman work. She gave no signs of doing anything weird or magical in that time, just painted the wall. In which afterward he left.

On their way back from town, the storm firmly raged overhead. Uro felt energized and went off on his own to brave the wild magic storm that harbored the same energy that he did.

As he raged, he felt no end to his magical reserves and additionally, several strange happenings occurred such as teleporting in place and having a thunderstorm over his head.

I created this table almost three years ago, and while maybe pridefully I think it is improvement over the current wild magic table for the sorcerer, you can make that judgment for yourself.

This is the wild magic table that I made:

1. A 5x5x1 foot stone wall appears in front of you
2. Your move speed increases by 5 feet for the next turn
3. Your move speed decreases by 5 feet for the next turn
4. Roll on this table each round for the next minute
5. For the next minute you see any invisible creature in line of sight
6. Giant dandelion petals sprout from your head and stay for 2d4 hours
7. Fresh Water spouts out your ears for 1d6 days
8. Anti-magic field surrounds you in a 5 radius for 1d4 rounds
9. Swap places with any creature of your choice within 30 feet
10. Your eye sockets extend from your skull for 1 minute. You gain advantage on perception and disadvantage on persuasion
11. Next spell you cast you have to say the spell name out loud and backward 
12. You forget all but one of your known languages for 1d3 hours (Chosen randomly) 
13. Your  character can only speak in haikus for 1 day
14. The jump spell is cast on you and the nearest ally
15. The jump spell is cast on the the two nearest enemies
16. You become extremely stretchy and gain 5ft reach on all melee attacks for next minute
17. You go into a level 1 barbarian rage
18. Grease is cast at your feet in 5 foot square 
19. Thaumaturgy is cast on you and everything you say is “super loud”
20. Reversed d20 scale for 1d8 rounds
21. You grow fangs and can use them to attack as a bonus action and deal 1d4+ str mod piercing damage
22. you have to say ‘gig em’ whenever anyone in your party gets a kill for a day
23. Sunlight and running water deal 1d8 radiant damage to you per round you’re exposed to it. You also have to be welcomed in to any establishment before entering.
24. Silence spell is cast centered you for 1d4 rounds
25. A random, mundane weapon appears in your hand
26. A random trinket made of adamantine  appears in your hand
27. The light spell is casted on an object you are wearing or holding
28. You can communicate telepathically with any creature within 30 feet of you for a day
29. Ice flakes surround your body and give you resistance to fire and cold damage for 1d10 rounds
30. Roll a d6. On an odd number you’ll subtract 1d10 years to your age, and on an even number you’ll add 1d10
31. Wild shape into a CR 1/2 beast of your choice for  1 hour. If you hit 0 hp in this form you revert to your regular form.
32. A shield of faith spell is cast on you for 1d6 rounds
33. Your spell range is doubles for 1d4 rounds
34. Your spell range is halved for 1d4 rounds
35. Summon a simulacrum of yourself for 1 round
36. Lightning flows around your body. Each melee attack you hit within the next minute causes an electrifying jolt in a 10 foot radius and deals 1d6 lightning damage to all units (not including yourself) in range
37. Your vision hyper focuses. You cast the true strike cantrip on yourself.
38. Your head continually pivots 360° for 1d8 hours. During this time you cannot be surprised or flanked and have advantage in dex saves, but in your dizziness you have disadvantage on attack rolls.
39. Your leftover magic forms into a mount. You cast the find steed spell
40. You grow a mighty beard
41. Arcane winds slice your limbs off. You suffer no damage but fall prone. One limb grows every round. Roll a d4 to determine which. 1 for right arm, 2 for left arm, 3 for right leg, 4 for left leg. If you roll the same number multiple times, reroll until a new ones rolled. You suffer from the prone condition until you have both of your legs back
42. Your home country’s national anthem plays in your head
43. Gold envelops your hand. Gain the Midas touch for 1 round
44. A cup of coffee pours itself for you at the conclusion of each long rest for 1d10 days. If you don’t drink it, you die.
45. You grow gills and can breath underwater for 1d2 days
46. Grow a face on the back of your head and an arm on your back. For 1d8 hours the new face and arm can shotgun any potion as a free action on your turn. Doing so destroys the vial/ bottle.
47. You smell like springtime flowers for 1d4 days.
48. A thundercloud appears above your head and rains on you (and only you) for 2d8 hours
49. A boulder unearths from the ground and orbits you. The rock will intercept the next attack that hits you, but explodes in the process and deals 1d4 piercing damage to anybody (including yourself) in a 5 foot radius.
50. A golden spatula appears in your hand. It is imbued with one use of staggering smite. When you hit a target with the spatula it deals 1+str mod bludgeoning damage, and immediately expends the staggering smite. You do not have proficiency in using the spatula (unless you have tavern brawler feat or cooks utensils proficiency). The spatula exists for 1 hour. When an hour passes or you hit someone or something with the spatula, the magic dissolves and you’re left with a mundane spatula 
51. Your mouth turns dry and tastes like chalk.
52. You have to move 5 feet in the opposite direction of where you want to go before you move that direction for 1d6 rounds
53. You say everything like it’s a question for 1 day
54. A plant sprouts from the top of your head and yields 1 goodberry a day for 1d4 days
55. Your facial features turn upside down
56. 1d4 eggs pop out from your butt. The eggs can be thrown at a range of 30/60 and deal 1d6+str mod. The target must make a DC 14 con saving throw or be poisoned. If the eggs aren’t thrown they can be eaten as normal or incubated into normal chicks
57. Teleport 5 feet in a random direction. if you tp into a wall, take 1d6 bludgeoning damage. If you you tp to a square occupied by a creature, you’re both banished (per the spell) for one round
58. You switch clothes and armor with the nearest person
59. Magical floating brooms follow you and up to 5 people of your choosing. The brooms meticulously cover any tracks you leave for 1d8 hours
60. A one time use portable hole appears on the nearest vertical surface
61. Your leftover magic forms into a mount. You cast the find greater steed spell. The steed exists for 1d4 days
62. If you don’t already have it, gain 60 feet dark vision for 3d4 days. If you do already have darkvision, lose it for 3d4 days
63. A magic missile manifests and strikes a random creature in range.
64. The sound of a glass pane shattering crashes loudly
65. You and the nearest creature are compelled to shout vows of commitment and love at each other. The creatures are bonded in arcane, holy matrimony and benefit from the ceremony spell‘s wedding feature
66. A black cat with three legs pops out of a portal and runs in a straight line across the floor. The cat disappears once it touches a vertical obstacle
67. A boxing ring 20x20x5 appears centered on the caster. The nearest enemy teleports to one of the corners. A Phantasmal bell rings, and announcer yells “fight”
68. For 1d6 rounds you can use the a second level Dragon’s Breath per the spell. Roll a d6 1= acid, 2=cold, 3=fire, 4= lightning, 5= poison,6=reroll 
69. Everything goes as planned. Nice.
70. For 1d4 hours you are enamored with the closest creature to you.
71. You get a vision of the farthest person from you on the planet.
72. Magic wraps around one of your hands and they transform into  crab claws. As a bonus action you can snap a creature with the claw and deal 1d6+str mod piercing. The attack counts as a magical weapon. While you have the claws, using magical items becomes more difficult and the person must make a DC 15 dexterity check to use the item properly. The claws last for a minute.
73. A detect magic spell is cast on you.
74. Invisibility is cast on everyone except the caster within a 60 foot radius
75. You have an insatiable urge to drink. The character drinks the nearest available liquid.
76. Massive amounts of arcane energy surround your body. The next spell you cast within a minute does maximum damage
77. Magic swirls around you in a protective shield. You have advantage on the next spell that requires a saving through that affects you for the next minute.
78. Magic blinds you and weakens your body. You have disadvantage on the next spell that affects you that requires a savings throw
79. Magic force is sucked out of your body. Gain a level of exhaustion for 1 minute
80. A magical spade hovers around you. If you fall unconscious it will dig a grave in one round and topple you into it in the next. If you aren’t removed from the grave it will then bury you in the excavated material.
81. A magical easel and paint set depict the scene nearby on a 12inx9inch canvas. 
82. Gain a fly speed equal to half your move speed for 1d4 rounds.
83. You barf up a collection of marbles which make the area within 10 feet of you difficult terrain. If a creature wishes to move full speed through this area it must make a dc 13 dex save or be proned
84. All temporary hp within 120 sphere is depleted
85. Divine light imbues your body. Heal for 2d10 hp
86. A wall of force appears in front of the caster
87. 2d4 snakes shoot from your hands and slither about the ground
88. The target of spell and the caster exchange places of the spell, before the spell completes
89. Spell functions as normal. If applicable target cannot make saving throw
90. Spell aoe range shrinks by half
91. Spell aoe range doubles
92. Gravity reverses under caster for a round
93. Caster suffers same spell effect as target
94. Caster’s hair grows one foot
95. A dark circle unleashed around you. Every creature, except the caster, within 30 foot sphere takes 1d10 necrotic damage. The caster heals for the sum of damage taken
96. You’re reoriented 180° around
97. Your footsteps leave dinosaur-sized footprints until dispel magic or removed curse is cast on you
98. Bubbles blow out your mouth instead of words. For 1d4 turns, you cannot use spells with verbal components.
99. Caster is reduced for 1d4 rounds
100. Caster is enlarged for 1d4 rounds

I encourage others to make their own wild magic table. I like this one a lot and especially that there is 100 different outcomes, not ~50.

Moarte and Uro left the ziggurat, across the way, a bolt of blue, pink, and yellow energy struck the turnip field. As they walked to the main road, the heroes could see exceedingly large turnips unburrowing from the ground and congregating and chanting in weird voices.

They made for the front door of the farm house in front of the field and banged on the door. After several seconds a shrill voice called out from inside and said, “I’m coming hold on, hold on.”

Several locks from within the door unlocked in quick succession and an older man peered out from behind.

“Who are you?” the man asked, eyes darting between Rhaegar and Moarte.

“You have to get out of here. Your turnips are animating. Your field just got struck by the wild magic storm. What is your name?”

“My name is Turner the Turnipmeister.”

“Right, Turner, we think its best if you leave–“

“That’s Turnip the Turnipmeister to you! I worked hard for my title.”

The party let out a collective sigh.

“Turner the Turnipmeister, will you please join us to safety. We’ll investigate your fields and make sure everything is okay.”

Turner the Turipmeister looked around cautiously as if someone or something were watching.

“Okay, but just know I know exactly how many turnips are in my field! If this is some sort of ruse, then you’ll pay!”

The party walked Turner the Turnipmeister to the tavern and explained to Sir Damon what was going on. Sir Damon at this point was blissfully buzzed on Gladwick’s craft ale. He told the party not to be stupid, don’t get hurt, and be weary of the storm, but he understood someone needed to help and he thought they were capable.

Rhaegar and Moarte met outside, and not long after, Perzyk and Uro convened with them.

“This storm is fucking awesome,” Uro yelled over the gales.

“This storm just struck the turnip fields over there,” Moarte said, pointing across the bridge.

As he finished the sentence and the crew looked over, mounting an offensive toward the town was an army of large, overgrown, and slightly anthropomorphic turnips, lead by a king turnip riding a turnip mount.

Combat ensued.

For the turnips I used the vegepygmy from Volo’s Guide to Monsters as well as the vegepygmy chief and the thorny for the king and mount. I modified them slightly to be able for them to toss one another across the bridge and also give them pack tactics because why not.

The party sliced through the enemies and with them being a fully rested, they were able to go freely use spells.

Every time someone cast a spell while in the wild magic storm, they rolled on the table above. Every time Uro raged, he rolled three times.

This made for a pretty lighthearted and fun encounter. I thought it was nice to have since they had a rough time in Wot’s Spire and also we were missing Baccaro.

The party thwarted the turnips. At one point, Rhaegar casted a spell and ended with the Midas touch and transmogrified one of the turnips into pure gold, so now they have an 800 pound statue of a very ugly turnip.

After the battle at the bridge, the the party returned and got Turner the Turnipmeister from the Greenfoot Tavern where he was being given a pep-talk by Sir Damon.

The party pressured Turner he Turnipmeister into talking about his fields as to whether they were already cursed, or magic, or if he had planned this and after pressuring him, revealed that Turner the Turnipmeister had made a deal with the Black Stag, a minor Green God who transported other Green Gods quickly around the world, and is often associated with coincidence and simultaneousness of like experiences in far away places.

Turner the Turnipmeister had exchanged continual but random bounty of turnips for magically growing field. He said he met the Black Stag in the forest behind his lands. He also insisted people call him the Turnipmeister but at no point had the party ever felt magically compelled to ever use this title.

The group escorted the man back to his abode to claim some pay and that’s where the party split ways. Perzyk ventured into the forest behind the turnip fields but didn’t find anything, Rhaegar went to dry off and rest, and Moarte and Uro, as they were bringing turner to his house, saw the wooden mansion across the way levitating 50-feet into the air.

Moarte and Uro asked Turner the Turnipmeister who lived there.

“That awful wooden mansion is inhabited by none other than Miss Malinda Montesquieu Maird. Old broad had that massive mansion made here about a year ago and moved in recently.”

Moarte and Uro marched across the way and as they neared the house, they felt lighter and lighter until they levitated upward, leaving The Black Duke on the ground in case Moarte needed to swap places and teleport.

After they got to the top near the entrance, they saw a small halfling woman freaking out, worrying about floating knickknacks, paintings, sculptures, money, and furniture all around the house.

The two offered to help her down and tried securing a bunch of her stuff as best as they could, but as to how to get the house to ground, it was beyond them.

After several trips back and forth, they eventually got as much as her stuff down as they could with Miss Malinda Montesquieu Maird to safety. They went and got her a room and the lady paid them for their services.

As the storm waned, and the winds calmed, the exhausted adventurers went to sleep, only to be awoken by the faraway crashing of wood to the ground.

This session was overall a great success and very lighthearted. Next session, they’ll be on to Otterport perhaps with an ugly golden turnip in-tow.

Blog 14: 3/22/2024 – Session 12, 13, 14

They left Mythhaven in the early morning. Over the night, the group took the golden turnip and broke it down into smaller, carriable pieces, while also entrusting a portion of the gold to Gladwick the bartender and brewer to distribute amongst the community.

They traveled several hours until the afternoon when they crested a hill that gazed over Otterport.

The settlement was built on a slope that carried down from tall bluffs carrying forests to a sandy shore. On one side of the town, a wide river sliced through the tall buildings.

Sir Damon, driving the front cart told the group to halt and gathered them in front of their first beast of burden.

“All right, we’re almost into town, and I just wanted to let you know that I…erm… might have to make a stop while in town to see the local Banneret–politics and all.”

The group nodded and Damon continued.

“Also, one rule of Otterport: don’t hurt the crabs. If you see a crab endangered by some gull or stuck under a bucket, help it out, but watch where you step because those scuttling animals will try their best to crawl right under your foot. Do not step on ’em–specially you Moarte, watch out for the horse’s hooves.”

The party members, a bit confused, nodded their head.

After the briefing, they rolled into town and several pedestrians waved at them, noticing Sir Damon’s standard. As they approached the middle of town, all foot traffic had stopped and people watched the main thoroughfare. Peeking through the crowd, the party saw a cast of crabs flowing through the streets. Salt or crystals coated their shells and they glistened on the coastal rays. The townies watched in reverence.

After the crabs passed through the street, people bolted to where they needed to be and Sir Damon led the party over the river and to the barracks.

The barracks hosted the town militia made up of monthly volunteers and also acted as quarters for the knights and squires of Otterport and the nearby areas.

Sir Damon urged them to park the carts and join him. They knocked on the door and were greeted by a slim mariner–Sir Daxus Knight Banneret of Otterport.

Sir Daxus greeted Sir Damon with a hug that enveloped the old dwarf and then introduced himself to the party. The barrakcs was largely empty except for two other knights.

“It is wonderous to have The White Raven of Busterbrook and his entourage here in the lovely town of Otterport,” Sir Daxus claimed, “and also exceptionally fortuitous.”

“It’s always a pleasure to stop by this township,” Sir Damon replied, “but I’m afraid we may just have to pass through today ; the shipment is already behind due to some unforeseen circumstances.”

“Oh, that is such a shame. I thought we were in luck with your arrival.”

“That’s twice now you’ve mentioned it,” Sir Damon said. “What do you mean by it?”

Sir Daxus explained to Sir Damon and the party that they have had problems with the Sea Kings, a far-off group of raiders who have been pillaging Blackmoor–specifically the Duchy of the Coast– for the past couple years. They’ve been raiding the local seaboard and trade routes especially, hurting Otterport as a large exporter.

“And not only that, they’ve been spilling Blackmoorian blood on its own soil. I was hoping luck had grasped the day when you arrived, because we set a plan in motion before King Uther called troops to the Duchy of the March.”

“I thought he only called for Dantrdunian Knights to be sent to the March?”

“Aye, but most all of my retinue wanted to go. When the King calls, they’re inclined to answer, and I couldn’t deny them despite threats in the area. They volunteered to go with to the North, so I kept my two best men, and sent the rest of the knights north. I’m sure they know we’re in a weakened state; they have a network of falcons which spy and on us and intercept notes, but it may be an opportunity. I know you’re a busy man , Sir Damon, but if you and your men would at least hear me out I’d appreciate it.”

Sir Damon mulled it over for a split second.

“Let’s park the carts if you have room in your stables, and I’ll have me and my men listen.”

Damon rallied the group outside and basically told them “hey, I don’t know what we’re getting into, but Sir Daxus is always coming up with some scheme. We’ll hear him out but we may be on our way from this place soon. We’ll spend a few hours here regardless.

Sir Damon and Moarte pulled the cart and cargo round back of the barracks to the stables , which at present had just a few horses. and was mostly empty. two stable hands helped them and when they entered the barracks again it was at a meeting room.

Sir Daxus bid them to take a seat and described how a week ago he had sent a false note toward the south with the plan of it being intercepted by the Sea Kings. The note was a manifest from the Metalworker confraternity that promised a large shipment to the city of Stoney Marsh in the south, but mentioned specifically to dodge the raiders they would be leaving past midnight.

Sir Daxus hadn’t dated it, but he knew the Sea Kings would be on the watch. The plan was to carry out a caravan loaded with men at arms–a bit of a Trojan Horse–to surprise the Sea Kings.

“They’ll catch on if we don’t do it soon, and you and your men may be enough to allow us to do it,” Sir Daxus said. “These people are not only threats to commerce, but threats to our fellow Blackmoorians–honest people on the coastline trying to survive. Dealing this blow would show them who they’re messing with and think twice about any raids in the future. additionally, Baroness Janessa is possibly helping us out by sending a ship that can help capture or sink the raider’s vessel. “

Sir Damon turned to his posse. They threw around ideas, but ultimately they said it was Sir Damon’s call.

“I can’t sit here and go on my merry way knowing others who can’t afford an entourage of capable fighters are in danger and dying. We’ll help, but we need some more information on who we’re dealing with.”

“Sea Kings are a strong people,” Sir Will said. “They look like normal men but they don’t die like ’em.”

“I’ve seen a Sea King take a blow that would’ve killed a Thonian a hundred times over, keep fighting, and slay two more men before his guts spilled to the ground,” Sir Tom added. “Their falcons are damn well trained, too–vicious birds they are.”

“I’ll get them briefed on everything they’ll need to know soon,” Sir Daxus said. “Sir Tom, make ready to the Barony and let them know of our plans. Tonight we strike.”

Sir Daxus gave them a rundown of the battlefield and what to expect from the Sea Kings. Afterward, he told them to rest up for tonight and get whatever they need in town.

The party dispersed. Uro got some crossbow bolts, Moarte got some new plate armor and got it gilded.

Baccaro inquired about any teleportation circles and Sir Daxus told him that they were making one on the outskirts of town by the cliffs but it isn’t finished. Baccaro and Rhaegar went to investigate it and found and old man standing by the cliffs named Darius the Clairvoyant. Darius was a bit crotchety and told them he wasn’t done with the circle but he had the schematics and runes at his house up on the bluffs by the forest. The two followed him and he gave them the schematics to copy down for Lady Rezana of Fellagrove.

As they copied it down

“Darius did you invite guests over?” the woman screeched. “This place is a mess, and you don’t lift a finger to ever change a thing.”

As she finished her yelling, a mage hand rolled a glass ball around the corner. Inside of the ball was a woman.

“Oh look at you busting my chops from the safety of your glass castle. Listen I can take you back or just sit on you and you wont be able to do a thing. Also, I’m straight off work trying to earn some coin while you bowl around all day. You don’t have anything to do in that glass ball of yours so you tell me why this place is a mess?”

The two bickered for several minutes while Baccaro transcribed the runes.

Darius, in the name of getting rid of some clutter, also offered them some common magic items to buy at a discount: Hat of Wizardry, Magic Key, and a Quill of the Stenographer that writes for him.

Later in the night, Moarte and Baccaro visited the Dead Cave of Ranina, which the mystic Fresta from Mythhaven had told him about. Ranina is the goddess of life and rebirth.

When they went there, they found a cave which overlooked the town. Around the natural cave were walls erected to resemble a ziggurat. As they got closer, they found several ascetics praying and looking at a group of ten pools.

• Surat – this pool is covered in green algae and is host to Bright Anchors, a phosphorescent sponge that is known to populate salt water and gives off soft illuminations.
• Wode: small stalagmites coated with pricklemoss coat the small stone spires giving them an appearance of a small evergreen tree. The water is a deep brownish green and home to pilgrim crabs who regularly march to and from the sea to collect sand and food
• Silmar- Archbouys – a floating plant with spherical spores that dissolve in the water. The seeds are routinely broken down by petite seed fowls that crunch the seeds.
• Vinat – Salt-crested pool occupied by the earthen salt toad.
• Whelm- an unnaturally clear pool with smooth sand at the bottom entranced trout follow currents made in the pool.
• Gale – bubbly pond with flying toads who use nearby stalagmites to float above the pond.
• Xercozun- clay bottom, uninhabited
• Crag – an extremely shallow pool with a series of bumps, mounds, and stalagmites. Little
• Pyre – Boiling pond

Moarte communed and put his sword into the Sol pool and as he did, an amber glimmer surrounded the blade and a black arc of static lurched from Moarte’s darkness-imbued pauldron to the weapon.

This is the start of Moarte’s warlock dip. Moarte is a character deeply concerned with rebirth and new beginnings. I had originally wanted something to happen in Wot’s Spire but I’m pretty happy with this as it is more lightly inspired and really connects with the essence of the character. Moarte is actively pursuing redemption and rebirth through the Duke and the Black Trail.

Meanwhile, Baccaro communed with Ranina in front of the Surat pool, and following Moarte’s actions, dipped his Warhammer into the pool, enchanting it to be moontouched until it leaves the region of Godsdell.

The two returned to talk to the party and catch up and told them about the Dead Cave. The rest of the party decided to pay a visit to the cave.

As they walked in an ascetic rushed up to Uro and shoved him on his rump. Uro, ever cantankerous, went to yell at the priest, but before he did a crab scuttled by right where his foot would have fell.

The priest said sorry to Uro and Uro understood. The party went back into the cave. Night was low after the long day of trekking and gathering preparations.

Uro visited the Crag pool and as he circled around its perimeter, became entranced and when he next looked up, outside of the cave he saw a landscape of rock. Mountains piled toward the heavens and pillars of earth bored down from a rocky sky. After a bit the vision faded. No one else saw it.

Perzyk investigated the Surat pool and the Bright Anchors pulled at his fingers and played in the grooves of his hand. He laid his spear in the pool and it became moontouched.

Rhaegar was last and he made round to Silmar’s pool, to no one’s surprise. He dipped Seeker, his blade, into the pool and as water whelmed the weapon, the blade turned invisible. Its thorny grip still prodded its wielder’s hand. As it disappeared, a single ping sounded and reverberated in his head. It beckoned him to the Northwest—the direction of his home.

Rhaegar left the cave as the others either left to rejoin the barracks or stayed to commune. He climbed up the bluff, went out into the forest and marched northwest until only trees surrounded him.

Another ping sounded from the northwest still. Rhaegar, thinking of his tribe back home (a stationary people who worship a tree of dark energy) decided to stab seeker into the nearest tree. Immediately, his vision was not his own. He looked overhead onto a scattered forest. Night was deep. In the distance he saw people—hobgoblins—moving in the forest around a village surrounding an impressively ancient tree.

A large, floating, inky visage occupied the middle of stone quad, cracked and eroded by powerful roots. Rhaegar didn’t recognize it. He could see from his far-away view the outlines of people who looked like village elders or spiritual leaders but he wasn’t sure.

This lasted upward of 30-40 minutes scrying on his kin before the prickles of grass hit his ears. The steps grew louder, closer, and as Rhagaer took his blade from the tree, Seeker thrusted Rhaegar’s arm upward to block the sweeping axe of a sea king berserker.

The two struck at each other. Rhaegaer took half his health from just a couple rough swings, but ultimately won the day by shooting a bolt of necrotic energy through the sea king’s throat.

Hacked and haggard, Rhaegar sawed off one of the uniquely tattooed arms of the barbarian as proof of their presence and as potential part for a future Perzykstein’s Monster.

When Rhaegar got back to the town, keeping a bloodied arm in his hand, he showed Sir Damon, Sir Will, and Sir Daxus. The latter was worried, claiming that the Sea Kings were never spotted alone. He was even more bewildered why they were in the woods and surmised they had already landed and planned to strike a flank from the woods.

Sir Damon pressed Sir Daxus as to whether they should continue with the scheme. Sir Daxus argued they could if no word of the Sea Kings being spotted got out to the others. If they were not warned, the Blackmoorians could use the information to their advantage, and meet the flanking woodland forces head on. Plans within plans.

Will reminded them it would be difficult to know whether more Sea Kings were nearby since they don’t have burial rights and it is taboo for them to move a body in accordance with whatever barbarous religion or code they adhered to.

The Party, Sir Damon, and Sir Will hurried back to the scene of the assault. The body was still there, and they searched around for tracks. They found recently pressed grass going further into the forest and treaded that way.

As they stalked through the trees, they came across a small camp with a few figures surrounding a fire. One of them was a falconer who carried a large staff, the other were undoubtably berserkers. The falconer scribbled a letter with a quill and some ink.

As they broke through the tree cover, the falconer finished jotting a note and gave it to the falcon. Uro stormed from under the canopy, slid to a knee, and with a precise shot from his new weapon, clipped the bird and sent it and the note spiraling to the ground.

The ambush was a success with all the Sea King fighters slain. They found the camp was rather sparse with supplies. The party grabbed the note and headed back to Otterport. Darius the Clairvoyant translated the note by tracing the weird language with Barbink (Magic item that is unreadable to people who understand the language and readable to those who don’t understand the language).

They told Sir Daxus of what happened. Sir Daxus wagered that was the first note they had sent out since he had never seen a falconer with more than one bird, so the plan was still a go.

The night was still before their plan. As they mobilized they split into two groups. People with the caravan and people who would try to take the wooded hills on the flank.

As they got to the battlefield, the wind picked up. It howled. The water rose from the beach all the way to the road. Horns blew in the near distance. The Sea Kings were here.

This fight had a lot of moving parts. The PCs were given a decent amount of NPCs to help: Sir Daxus, Sir Damon, Sir Will, and a slew of militia townies. They squared off against the Berserkers who had Rage, Reckless attack, and Rage Beyond Death which allowed to make a continually increasing constitution saving throw to stay conscious at 1 hp every time they would drop to 0.

The falcons and the falconers were where a lot of the dynamism in the fight was. The falconers controlled the well trained falcons (who could peck and gouge (blind) people for modest amounts of damage). The Falconers were also spell casters who could cast windwall, featherfall, and if three of them were alive after an allotted number of rounds, could summon an air elemental.

They met the assault head on and the flankers battled on the bluff. Moarte weaved through trees along with Rhaegar and one particularly brave (foolhardy?) townsman to match the Sea Kings’ fury. Uro eventually peeled off to help Sir Daxus. Meanwhile on the backside of the fight Sir Damon was locked in a compromised position against two of the berserkers. Eventually Rhaegar, Perzyk, Baccaro, and Sir Will took the flank and broke their morale.

As the tides of the battle turned Cheers and horns sounded around Otterport as a giant ship ripped down the river. Its sails were giant leaves and a tree trunk acted as the main mass. Large weird flowers filled the sails with wind and the Blackmoorian ship rolled around the bay, trapping the Sea King’s raiding skiff.

Later in the fight, the falconers on the shore summoned a air elemental which put a dent in the front line, but all were eventually thwarted.

The fight was pretty close with Baccaro and Ramlis getting knocked out/ disabled. A decent amount of townies died but a few lived as did the knights.

When they headed back to town. Will greeted his brother Tom whoregailed them with how the Sea Kings chased him through the forest on the way to the Barony. He got Baroness Janessa’s blessing to use her vessel to win the martine battle. He planned to send a report of the battle to King Uther.

Baccaro lobbied for a detailed list of names be included on the report. Sir Damon backed him up, stating all Blackmoorians who fought should reap their due honor, not just the knights. Tom gladly agreed—the King will know their names soon.

After this, the party rested. Sir Damon was quick to remind them though now it was around 2am or later, they still had an early morning.  

Blog 15: 5/31/2024 – Session 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

The party woke in the morning with the sun well above the horizon line. Sir Damon was up and talking to Sir Daxus, Sir Will Stoutly, and Sir Tom Stoutly and he welcomed each of the members as they roused.

“Morning,” Sir Damon said, “thought our work last night deserved a little bit more shut eye, so we’re leaving a bit later.”

The party was thankful for the reprieve.

Not long after, they set to the road and after a half mile, and while marching south along the strand they saw a body washed on the beach. Baccaro was first to go over to the body, he wielded his shield and cudgel defensively.

As he neared, a man covered in tattoos, soaked furs, and jewelry shivered in the morning sun. Water whelmed over his lower legs. A sea king berserker was feebly died before him.

Baccaro called over to the party and reported what he saw. Uro, Rhaegar, and Perzyk joined him, and after investigating some tattoos and the person’s vitals, they decided to put the man out of his misery. They looted his body of coins, jewels, and some sort of magic stone Baccaro identified with his ultravision. The rock was dark and had spikes and bumps and jagged edges near the middle and smoothed toward the rim. After Uro glanced at it, he determined it had small traces of abjuration magic.

The others walked away, and Perzyk executed the Sea King, and left the corpse exposed on the beach.

Not long after, they traveled through a particularly hilly, though heavily vegetated path. As they did, Sir Damon called Baccaro to his cart, as Moarte led with the other.

The last time Sir Damon had a talking to with Baccaro and specifically called him over was when they had first fought against Emerian’s Few, and told Baccaro that his actions were foolhardy and would get him killed. Baccaro approached with dutiful reluctance.

“Baccaro take a seat,” Sir Damon said. He scooted over opening a spot for the half-elf. “I wanted to let you know that I really appreciated what you did last night—advocating for all the people who fought the  Sea Kings, not just those with a title. Blackmoor was built and freed by people without land, without title, but with more bravery than most anyone can muster. There were a good few civilians of Otterport who died last night, good Blackmoorians, and it is only right that they get their acknowledgment.”

Baccaro hesitated to respond but answered humbly. As he finished, the cart approached a bend, the wind blew and the leaves around them rustled. Water splashed against pebbles on the close-by beach. As Moarte led the cart around the bend, the horses whinnied, and the group was met with a ban of Sea Kings rushing from a longboat. With them were a few hounds who sniffed at the wind and snapped their jaws wildly.

They fought a few Sea King Berzerkers and some a falconer, but this time I threw in a couple of coin hounds. They hadn’t seen the hounds in the first fight. Mechanically, the falconer and the zerks were the same, but the hounds were quick, struck decently hard, and had special targeting: the hounds focused on the character with the most amount of money physically on them. I think that stuff like this is pretty nice. It justifies target selection while making it semi-random.

As a general rule of thumb, I like to target player characters’ strengths when possible. Attacking Moarte and Uro when they take either reduced damage or have high armor classes is fun because that’s their job and the fantasy the players have. They want to be the dude who can take 100 hits and still get back up to cleave some enemies. Simultaneously, it feels bad to just hit the backliners when they should be shelling out damage. In essence, if a character is meant to be the tank, or the damage dealer, or the sneaky rogue, or the skill monkey, give them situations where they can live out that fantasy and try overall to avoid opposite scenarios. That said, this is fun and putting one of the enemy types up to chance. The Falconer, as a backliner, will largely focus on other backliners, zerkers will focus the frontline or whoever is closest, while the dogs are led by the scent of avarice.

 To make them a bit more fearsome I gave the dogs pack tactics similar to wolves, so whoever was targeted was immediately endangered and hopefully got some help from companions.

The hounds focused Baccaro and were quickly dispatched between him and some of the other party members.

The fight was over after a few rounds, in which after, the party looted with a great bit of success, as these sea kings had a particularly large amount of coinage on them, all of blackmoorian make, it seemed.

This was a nice injection of money for the group and meant to switch up the pace of the session I had planned which was otherwise very roleplay and adventure/discovery heavy.

The party continued south for several hours until finally in the distance, steep hills jutted from the ground and towering trees, some over 400-feet-tall, crowded the horizon. Godsdell was in their sight.

Godsdell is the heartland of the Green God’s influence and believed to be the origin of most of the Green Gods known in Blackmoor. It is made up of very dense and diverse biomes. Most of these biomes exist due to the large influence of similar gods, or dead gods, who shape the domain around them for miles.

There are six different major areas in Godsdell: Crowntree Hills, Crystal Caverns, Barbed Gulch, Coral Highlands, Undulating valley, and the Rattling Bog.

They entered through the steep hills. Solar radiance pierced through high-above canopies and draped the forest floor in an amber glow. IT was just afternoon. They rounded a bend and high above them, a person glided overhead on a giant maple leaf. Weird plants sprang from the bases of trees, and after a while, a chorus of joyous voices swerved through the maze of trees.

As they continued on the trail, they saw a large opening in the base of one of the giant crowntrees populated by dozens of people.

“Finally, a good thing to meet on the road,” Sir Damon said.

“You know these people?” Rhaegar asked.

“Strings of Veradia,” Sir Damon said simply. “They’re an offshoot of one of the druidic orders around here but I can’t remember which. Very hospitable folk. Think of them as the greeters for this area of Godsdell. We’ll likely stop here for about an hour to rest up and sample their hospitality, then be back on our way. I’s like to make it to the Barbed Gulch by nightfall.”

The party neared and were greeted by the enclave. Sir Damon told Moarte to park the carts and come along inside, these people were to be trusted.

My idea for these guys was basically a rest stop tat you’d see on a highway: if they wanted to get a brochure of the area (information) they could, they could enjoy some of the people, short rest, or just explore around the local area for the next hour.

The crew sat down and after getting settled in with some food and drink they talked to one of the women, a member of Strings named Frasm.

“Is this your first time in Godsdell?” she asked.

“For most of us, yes,” Uro answered.

“Do you know much of the local area, what’s in Godsdell?”

“Some,” Perzyk answered, having read the botany book Rhaegar had gifted him in the Purple Towns.

“Well, we can let you know about each region of Godsdell! Would you like that?”

“Sure.”

“Okay! I’ll go gather some people for the medley.”

Frasm went and got together 6 other members of the enclave and sang their first song, The Rattlin’ Bog.

I queued this song in Roll20 then left to do laundry and fill up some water. I went to the bathroom, too.

The performance went on for about 30 minutes of similar songs that gave information about the 6 environments. Afterward, the group disbanded a bit. Moarte, Baccaro, Uro and Sir Damon stayed with the enclave, while the brothers Rhaegar and Perzyk went out.

Perzyk was in search for some of the rare plants of the crowntree hill, specifically a Jealous Pitcher. While out searching through bush and bramble, he found a clearing in the trees. An extremely large golem with vacant eye sockets stood in the middle of the clearing. Vines strewn about its form, its exterior was smudged by green and brown, and a small demi-human stood on its craned neck. The rider held two hooks that were driven into the golem’s eye sockets and stood gibbering to themselves. Nothing else was around with the exception of Flying Ray Flowers which mutualistically feed off the divine aura of gods and demigods.

Perzyk inched closer to hear the creature’s hurried whispers.  As he neared, the golem turned to him but didn’t move otherwise. Perzyk continued and finally got within earshot to hear a chant:

“An egg in the center of the world. A crack in the egg. Rupture. Storm. A key locks and the ever moving freeze. Away I go. Castle far face fears to go to lands not yet known.”

Perzyk jotted down the words and gathered some of the Flying Ray Flowers for future alchemical research, before returning to the others.

Meanwhile, Rhaegar was curious about the temporal aspects of Godsdell—did time work the same here as everywhere else in Blackmoor?

He flagged down another one of the people on the large, flying leaves and asked who they were and if they would be willing to take him to the top of the canopy.

The flyer explained they were a member of the Crowntree Guard, a druidic society dedicated to maintaining balance in the Crowntrees and making sure people could traverse the area safely—a sort of volunteer neighborhood watch.

The druid said they would, on the condition of payment. Rhaegar thought for a bit at what a druid might want for payment and offered a thorn from Seeker.

The druid looked at the thorn curiously before ushering Rhaegar onto the leaf. For all intents and purposes, the leaf is just a druidic magic carpet.

They ascended through giant tree limbs, and in doing so found saw more creatures and people in the treetops, maneuvering from branch to branch, climbing trunks, and vaulting from flexible twigs. At the top Rhaegar looked out onto the horizon and saw no discernable difference in time passage. While at the top, he plucked one of the crowntree leaves for his brother to possibly use as an alchemical ingredient.

The brothers went back to the Strings of Veradia.

At the same time, Baccaro, Moarte, and Uro stayed put and talked to Frasm. She told them more explicitly about Godsdell.

“Do you see gods often here?” Baccaro asked.

“They’re not uncommon. Many of the Green Gods and their offspring reside in Godsdell; it isn’t uncommon. Sometimes you’ll see river gods, spring spirits, demigods most commonly, but we may see several gods in a day and not know it.”

Rhaegar and Perzyk returned. Perzyk asked Frasm about the two figures he saw in the clearing.

“That must’ve been Itaruch and Doldromm,” she answered. “They’re always together. Itaruch is a demigod with second sight—cursed often by prophetic visions. Doldromm is the god of golems—or at least believed to be the first golem to be created and is exceptionally powerful. They roam around these parts often, but they’ve been seen all over Godsdell, particularly the north and northwest near the crystal caves and undulating valleys.”

“Itaruch was rambling about something.” Perzyk repeated the gibberish. “Do you know anything about it?”

“I’m not smart or wise enough to puzzle together his premonitions,” Frasm admitted. “What he sees is beyond me.”

I think prophecies are an awesome storytelling tool in general, but in TTRPGs they’re really hard to pull off. Matt Coleville has a video about this, which is at the very least an interesting listen. In written stories, prophecies can outline things right under people’s noses which I like and find a lot of fun with. To savvy people, they may even figure out a reveal before it happens because of a pieced together prophecy. The only thing that I’d say especially in a D&D game is keep it vague, because this isn’t a pre-written story or one a GM has full dominion over—players are dynamic, people are dynamic, so your prophecy has to be flexible.

After talking with Frasm and discussing amongst themselves what gods do in their free time, what does a divine day-to-day look like, and readied the giant crowntree leaf to be used as an ingredient for a Potion of Flying they readied to head out, hoping to make more progress through Godsdell.

They bid the Strings of Veradia goodbye and set off.

About thirty minutes after their departure, giant insectile wings rattled deeply from the trees. The buzzes camee from high above and in front of them. Finaly, a hurried yell pierced the trees. On the path ahead of them a group of people struggled against some terror—the lunaga.

The lunaga are a croup of celestial-touched giant insects. They have a long-range beam attack (Guiding Bolt) which they shoot from long, pink, scythe-like claws which shimmer with starlight. The lunaga have a normal attack with their claws, but if they have either advantage (from the Guiding Bolt or by some other means) they do an extra die of slashing damage (not bonus, making the damage double on a crit).

I combined two concepts from video games I’ve been enjoying: the Ga-Mangetsu from Lunacid and Kha’Zix from League of Legends.

This combat had a few parts, the most significant thing was a timer and the map.

There were three different options players could use to go farther up the road: the cutback, through the thicket, or the path.

The path was the long, but unimpeded section of the map. People could move through this like normal, they just had to go around a big thicket of terrain. Even with stuff like Expeditious Retreat or Misty Step, it would have taken them two turns to get to the far side.

The thicket was the most direct path but required a DC 15 Survival (Wisdom) or Athletics (Strength) check to get through. I like giving options on these different skill checks.

The Cutback was a bit behind where the party started and required a bit of movement, but it was an option for a possible flank. This three-lane setup worked really nice.

On the other side of the thicket, four travelers held up a magical barrier which the lunaga blasted at with their starlight flares (i.e. Guiding Bolts). Next to the travelers I wrote a timer with the number 2 on it. This is how many rounds until the barrier went down if the Lunaga were not stopped. PCs could use their action to do a DC 15 Arcana check using their casting modifier to add 1 round to the counter if they themselves were in some way magic. Luckily for me all my players have some sort of magic, but I think if there was someone who had none, like a champion fighter or assassin rogue, they could sacrifice a bit of lifeforce like 5 HP after succeeding the check to make it work too.

Uro and Moarte rushed through the thicket and tag teamed one of the lunaga. Shortly after, Uro imbued some of his wild magic into the barrier.

 With this, others could see there were a bunch of enemies on the other side. The rest of the party tried going through the thicket, but failed, leaving them to either take the cutback or go the path. No one took the cutback, which made me extremely sad because I had planted a hidden Lunaga there who was ready to gank anyone who tried to come through alone.

Rhaegar , Ramlis, and Baccaro marched up the path. And that sprung two more lunaga. Thankfully due to Expeditious Retreat they were separated from each other. Baccoro was fully isolated, while Ramlis and Rhaegar were close just a few feet away from each other.

Baccaro got smoked with a lethal starlight flare + scythe rend combo (which may have crit?).

Meanwhile after another round, the hidden lunaga from the cutback blitzed the remaining backline of Sir Damon and Perzyk.

The fight was a real brawl, and the heroes were able to fell most of the lunaga and save the travelers.

The travelers thanked the party and hailed them as warriors. As Sir Damon joined them from around the bend, the travelers didn’t speak to him or give him much attention.

They described themselves as Galag Rangers. They had come from the Barbed Gulch, their homeland, to here in search for volunteers who get help them with a powerful foe.

The party relayed the info to Sir Damon who said it may be nice to bunk with these people for the night, especially if they’re natives. He mentioned also if he could get trade relations with these people it may serve him well in the future.

On their way to the Barbed Gulch, the Galag talked to those they had seen in combat, but again avoided talking to the old knight.

“You seem to avoid talking to Sir Damon,” Baccaro mentioned to one of the rangers. “How come?”

“He’s of different caste,” Tadrazar answered. “He is Elder. We are warrior caste.”

“Don’t let the old geezer’s looks fool you,” Uro said.  “He can still hold is own despite bein’ old, and besides he’s always good for a tale of his old battles and exploits. You should ask ‘im to share.”

Tadrazar timidly looked to Sir Damon, still not wanting to commit taboo despite the party’s assurance.

“These men say you are warrior,” Tadrazar said finally. “Have you story of battle?”

“Tell us one you haven’t told us before,” Uro said.

Sir Damon mulled it over a bit.

“When I was much younger, some 300 years ago, my tribe lived out in the hills, far, far south from here, in now southern Thonia. The first time I had ever seen the Thonian’s it awed me: they sent a brigade of soldiers to our encampment—all in the same uniform, with the same polished weapons, same shields, even their faces and demeanors were uniform. It was surreal and intimidating. Today, in common, we’d call it a unit—something made up of several different parts, working in ensemble to a common goal. Us dwarves were organized and worked well together so we thought, but had never seen anything like this.

“They told us we were now part of Thonia and members of the empire, as part of joining Thonia, we were to make a township on the lands we claimed for generations, in name of The First Empire.

“We really thought that was a crock of shit, and though these new folk and whatever their empire was where an intimidating sight, we thought we could subdue them-scare’em off and not make them fuss with us again.

“A few weeks later, the same brigade returns, and every person in the clan has a place. We hid in the foothills, holding our breath. No one made a sound until a horn blasted through the sky and five groups of dwarves collapsed on the Thonians, smashing all but a few who escaped.

“It was victory and it called for jubilation, but the revelry was short lived…”

Sir Damon took in a deep breath and steeled himself.

“Just a week later, I saw something I had never seen before in my life, and seldom saw afterward even in the revolt from Thonia: the sound of thunder marched across the planes. When we looked out from the hills we saw thousands of footmen and dozens of cavalry marching toward our homeland. Some pleaded to leave, others fought to stay, but as a tribe we knew to hold our ground.

“The army surrounded us. When our leaders met with their officers, they said we could either build the city, or the whole clan would die. No survivors regardless of how young, old, or feeble.

“To our chagrin we worked, and they worked us night and day. Family died making those damn walls and flattening those hills—uncles, grandfathers, cousins, siblings, parents all gone.”

He dried tears from his eyes. His normally gruff and commanding voice faltered.

“They made us move the bodies to form staircases, so they could step on us throughout the city; so we had to do the same. To this day in Thonia those hills are named the Dwarven Steps. Once we were finished, I left that city—my homeland, and never returned. I couldn’t stand what it had become.

“Looking back it was all the workings of the unit, of the Thonians working in ensemble toward goals of building themselves up and demoralizing those who didn’t willingly join their ranks.”

The group marched on and stamps of the horse hooves in the nearing night filled the air.

 Uro leaned over to Tadrazar and whispered, “Sorry, usually they’re a bit better than that.”

For the next few hours, they exchanged stories until they reached the Galag Ranger camp where they were split into different areas based on their caste.

Sir Damon was ushered to the Elders section, despite also being a warrior, while the others set up camp with the other warriors.

Baccaro asked if it were possible to be part of more than one caste, in which the nearby warriors answered yes, explaining the elders were part of two castes inherently, but there were some few people who were part of two, there are hunter-gatherers, warriors, healers, priests, and god.

“Well, I’m a healer!” Baccaro said. The Galag were astonished. “How can I prove to you I’m part of that caste too?”

Several Galag escorted Baccaro, Perzyk, and Uro to the healers’ area and gathered a small audience of the caste to access the adventurers, careful not to talk directly to the other caste members.

Baccaro showed them some healing magic on Uro while Perzyk displayed some alchemical supplies and did some healing of his own. At this active proof, the company of healers nodded in agreement.

“It is wonderful to confirm you to our caste,” an old, human woman said. She had a short stout body less than five-feet-tall with a square jaw. “I am Golba.”

“And I’m Bosbos,” a middle-aged man said. He wore a graying bun with matching salt-and-pepper mutton chops.

Baccaro and Perzyk talked to Golba and Bosbos and got a lay of the land socially for the tribe. Golba also disclosed that the “healer” is the common term they use, but it more closely means potioner or herbalist.

In their talks, Golba and Bosbos showed them a new recipe for a type of salt or sugar cube looking ration that allows the user to stave off exhaustion for a short time period—used frequently during night watches by warrior castes.

The group spent the rest of the night fraternizing with the Galag before going to sleep.

In the morning, Sir Damon rallied the troops and gave them some information—they were to help a group of Galag fight a Manticore named Mirax whose cunning had recently given them more trouble than a normal manticore. They joined Tadrazar and three other Galag Rangers: Rettafex, Gostra, and Dalot).

The group departed and made quick work of the Gulch due to the guides’ adroitness navigating their homeland.

“What exactly does this manticore do that others don’t? Why are you having such a problem with it now?”

“Manticores are natural enemy of Galag—they hunt human,” Tadrazar said, “but usually stupid and fall for trap easily. Mirax is smart. Silverheaded. Has different power and organize manticore—makes him dangerous.”

“This one very evil,” Rettafex chimed in. “It kill people with thought. If we kill, it will be good day, no matter how many Galag fall.”

“What tactics do you typically employ” Rhaegar asked.

“Usually shoot from faraway,” Gostra said, motioning toward his bow. “We have scimitar incase things get into melee, but ideally not. Our marksmanship is better than manticore. We can also use group magic as warriors which help. Since we have you, we can use group magic to ground Mirax and leave manticore vulnerable to another warrior.”

“Do all the Galag use group magic?”

“No priest make spell on their own—you call them, hmmm… wizard. Or mage.”

The party nodded, now understanding a little more of the distinctions.

They slid down a long slope and faced a wall. The wall had several fissures they’d be able to crawl through to get to the other side.

“Through here is spring,” Gostra said. “Oasis. After that we see forest of rocks and Aery of the Dead Tribe, where Mirax will be.”

The group nodded and paired off, each one sure to follow one of the Galag guides. They shuffled and squeezed through the slim cracks. They studied the Galag adept movements. Rettafex was the first to breach through to the other side, leading Uro.

A loud scream pierced the sky, a roar deafened the Gulch, and a slam cracked sandstone and dusted the adventurers and their guides with dust.

The rest of the group hurried through to the other side, filing into the open oasis one at a time until finally they all looked on in tense horror.

A manticore wearing a silvered diadem clutched Rettafex in its paws, and pressed piercing barbs up to his neck. Rettafex grunted. His neck veined and strained.

<Ah, I knew you putrid Galag never roam alone> a posh voice echoed in their minds. <In fact, I could smell your awful stench a mile away. I see you brought friends! Too many Galag die trying to catch me that you need help?>

“Kill him,” Rettafex pleaded through gritted teeth. “Who cares if he kills me. Kill this evil bastard.”

The other Galag and the party stood and looked on intensely.

<Or we could settle down and think for once. Give me something of value and I’ll spare his pathetic life.>

“Don’t deal with this ugly beast!” Rettafex snapped. “Just kill him now.”

The Galag talked to each other in their tribal tongue, a variation of celestial. They didn’t know what to do; their group magic would have little use if Rettafex died.

“We can kill him,” Rhaegar assured.

Rhaegar channeled his sorcerous power and conjured an Earthbind on Mirax using subtle spell. Mirax failed the saving throw, and initiation commenced with Mirax ripping out Rettafex’s throat.

This is a pretty precarious scenario as a DM. If you put a bad guy out on the board, it is likely they will die or (if they’re a nasty enough bad guy) the party will. Mirax was the bad guy of the day for this session, so it was a real risk (especially to the other adventuring stuff I had planned) to dangle him in front of the party like this, but he had a decent number of tools for escape. That being said, the best one was just taken away by earthbind.

The fight starts Uro lunged into battle, splashing through the spring to where Mirax stood, covered in dark tendrils and negative energy from Rhaegar’s spell. As he got into range, a psychic pulse hit ripped through the battlefield as Mirax focused their skull toward his assailants and used a Mind Blast, stunning several party members and felling Tadrazar immediately.

Mirax rushed off, still impeded by the earthbind, and rushed into a maze of rocky spires.

Rhaegar, Perzyk, and some two of the Galag pursued with projectiles, putting a dangerous amount of damage into Mirax, but not enough to kill.

The Manticore escaped and after a minute, vaulted through air toward the Aery of the Dead Tribe.

After the dust settled, Baccaro rushed to Tadrazar whose ears and nose bled profusely. He was not breathing.

Baccaro invoked a prayer to Zini, Goddess of Fate, Ambition, Alternate Fortunes, a new god which he had come to appreciate since departing from Blackmoor. He had for so long prayed to Fora, Goddess of Chaos, and Sharilla, Goddess of Seasons, on a more transactional basis. Now he invoked a goddess for a change of fates and convinced her it was not his time to go.

In a miraculous display of divine energy, Tadrazar’s eyes opened. His heart beat.

Gostra and Dalot observed in awe. Tadrazar thanked Baccaro profusely.

I really liked this moment from Baccaro. Not only was it a cool “I saved someone’s life” moment, but invoking a different god that he had been feeling more as the campaign went on, as opposed to the ones he honored before we started was pretty great, and very Blackmoorian, as clerics often devote themselves to several gods, creating their own personalized pantheons.

The Galag thanked Baccaro for working his miracle, and Tadrazar said he wanted to continue to make sure Mirax fell.

With the help of the Galag, the party weaved through the forest of stone and eventually reached an extremely tall plateau. On three sides of the landmass, the gritty sandstone was covered in a strange glaze. On the fourth side, a concave cliffside made room for a vertical city carved from the rock. Buildings connected at odd angles and created a spire of abandoned buildings that reached to the top of the plateau—to the Aery of the Dead Tribe.

The Galag led the party in small groups. For this I had the party do a skill challenge best of 5, but the first few checks had to be Athletics, Dungeoneering, and Perception, and the last two could be whatever they wanted. I think this gave some character to the climb, as they needed strength and endurance while also scoping in the surrounding, while also being able to put their own personal flavor on it. I n the future, I may make the required checks less than 50% (e.g. just Dungeoneering and Athletics) so that way the party members can dictate more of the climb and play to their individual strengths. A failure of the skill challenge made the character suffer one level of exhaustion.

Halfway up the climb, I had them roll perception but not for climbing purposes. Perzyk spotted in the distance a band of Dredge agents combing through the rock spires and going toward the Astrafisus ruins.

They tried to guess at the reason they’d be there. They asked the Galag if they had seen the Dredge before. They said they personally hadn’t but other people in the Galag had.

Once they got to the Aery, they saw Mirax licking their wound. Next to him, a spherical creature with weird tendrils and eyestalks floated. It was copper in color and its body was roughly the shape of a medicine ball. Tough, dried barbs of wood adorned the walls and a cave mouth yawned behind Mirax. Between Mirax and the cave mouth was a group of pink, purple, and white crystals.

This encounter was overall pretty simple except there was some verticality options and CC from the gauth and manticore mind blast. After the first round, the crystals began to glow and a similar gibbering noise to what the gauth made. The crystals pulsated, but before anything could happen, Baccaro shattered them with a spiritual weapon.

The party worked well to strike the targets and eventually felled both of them. This combat I think becomes a lot scary without allies like the Galag sharing a bit of agro and doing damage each round. If you run an encounter like this, be mindful of the crowd control because it can be irritating to deal with as a player and also potentially tip scales for the baddies. A dangerous encounter could turn lethal.

After the dust settled, Perzyk started harvesting from the Gauth while the Galag harvested barbs from the manticore. Rhaegar took the diadem from the manticore and took an hour to study it, figuring out it was a mundane headband of intellect.

The party was curious about the cave mouth. After a short rest, they tied a rope to Ramlis and sent him down the cave. After the initial entry way, the cave dropped down a well-masoned pit about 50 feet. At the thirty-foot mark, there was an off-shooting corridor. Ramlis couldn’t really report anything, so Uro volunteered to take his spot. As he went down the rope, at thirty feet, he looked to his right, and a large spherical creature shrouded in the large 15-foot-square corridor floated toward him.

Uro yelled and climbed up the rope as the party hoisted the barbarian up. Just behind Uro, a beam shot through the rope, severing it in half and burning it at the end.

The party ran from the cave and the Galag followed in pursuit until they reached a landing far away from the cave mouth.

After catching their breath, they decided not to enter the cave, but they also wanted to avoid the Dredge. Perzyk cast Featherfall on the party members. The Galag said they’d be fine to climb down and avoid the interlopers.

They descended and by the time they reached the oasis, the Galag had caught up to them. They gathered Rettafex’s body and journeyed back to the Galag camp, arriving at dusk.

Through the Valley of the Manticore by Jacob Fleming inspired this small quest. I watched a Questing Beast video about it about a year ago and liked the idea, so I plopped it in here. I’ve never played it but found the pitch compelling.

They stayed as guests with the Galag as Dalot, Gostra, and Tadrazar sung their praise and valor.

While in camp, Baccaro and a few others wanted to see the god of the tribe, Lytudrot.

When they went to the elder area, they found a large tent, where inside they found Lytudrot, who was surrounded by exceptionally old elders. Black vines weaved into the god’s skin and small barbs protruded from flesh. The deity wore an old, decrepit, somber face.

Baccaro ed the group and asked Golba about the deity.

“Lytudrot is in mourning of the Astrafisus and their god still. Their god, Kyrdora, Lytudrot’s sibling, has disappeared.”

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. The next morning they roused and bid the Galag farewell.

They traveled from the Barbed Gulch to the Coral Highlands, a region chiefly occupied by Wellahid, god of landsea and amphibians. Large megacoral creates lively reefs of every color, fish dart through the air, octopi, sharks, eels, whales, dolphins all circle and swim unperturbed overhead.

In this region of Godsdell, due to air acting like water, every creature has a fly speed equal to either their swim or walking speed.

Not long after crossing into Godsdell, they reached their immediate destination: The Wattairway (said like “Waterway,” sorry Carter). The wattairway is a series of structures which create air currents for people to get across the Coral Highlands quickly, unimpeded by clunky floating or the varying troughs and peaks of coral hills.

As they approached, Sir Damon cursed under his breath.

“Something’s wrong lads,” Sir Damon said. “There’s no portal thing.

A group of engineers stood far from the structure’s grandiose entrance. The doors were large, metal, and about 20 feet tall, with the structure itself peaking at the 60-foot mark.

Sir Damon and Moarte guided the horses to the bottom of a hill to the engineers.

“There’s nothin’g to be done,” a gnomish woman said.

“Well, we have to get the gate back on somehow!” Another gnome said.

“If we go in now, it will be certain death,” another chirped.

“Hail,” Sir Damon shouted as the party approached.

“A knight from Blackmoor,” one of the engineers cheered. “They may be able to help.”

“What’s the problem?” Rhaegar asked.

“The Wattairway is down because we didn’t replace the electric heart,” Dwarmot the engineers explained (this dude was supposed to be named Balthazar, because I asked my brother-in-law to choose a name, but I forgot in the moment. Sorry Joe). “Now the place is crawling with lightning elementals and golems!”

“Sounds like a tough spot…”

“If you could help us out, we’d be very grateful.”

“Well that sounds like pretty dangerous work,” Uro said. “We’ll need some compensation.”

“Oh of course, of course,” Dwarmot said, flashing a fake smile. He convened with one of the gnomes who acted as the treasurer. “We can offer 1000 gold pieces.”

“This is dangerous work,” Perzyk said flatly. “You expect us to risk our lives for 1000 gold pieces when you won’t even go in there yourselves?”

“That’s all we can really muster,” Dwarmot said.

“Then I guess we’ll just walk.”

“Wait, wait,” Dwarmot said. He reconvend with the treasurer again. “If you can get it done in 1 hour, we’ll give you 1500 gold pieces—if you restore the electric heart and make it safe inside.”

“1500 for the job and we’ll take our time,” Perzyk countered.”

Dwarmot shook his head.

“1500 is all we have. If you finish it in an hour, you can have it, otherwise 1000 gold. That’s all we can give.”

The party accepted this deal. I wanted a ticking clock of some sort and there’s also a mechanical aspect tied to the challenge of an hour (short rest) which made it more of a challenge, but I kinda screwed up on the timing/ encounter balance for this challenge in which I’ll explain why later.

The party had a few objectives outlined by Dwarmot:

• Find the Heart Gloves in storage
• Find prods, which help defending themselves
• Clear the elementals
• Switch out the dead Electric Heart in the basement for a new one to turn the power back on

They entered and tried tracking down the Heart Gloves first because it was a prerequisite for switching out the Electric Hearts.

I think that theming mini-dungeons is pretty important and in my opinion makes the design aspect easier. This one was themed around “energy.”

The first area where the Heart Gloves were was locked by a puzzle. The exterior of the door had a ledge with a few vases at the top. The door was guarded by abjuration magic. On the ledge it read, “Let one with the greatest potential stand alone at the top.”

This one was pretty simple, as the group had to put their member with the biggest body at the top of the ledge alone, because they’d have the most potential energy. Rhaegar pieced it together quickly, and Moarte swam up to the top. The ward dissipated and the group was able to enter, after a quick search through a bunch of scrap, spare prods, and tool kits, they were able to find the Heart Gloves. One objective down.

They decided to try to go back around and find the prods, as they went to the other side of the structure, they turned a corner and saw a collection of lightning elementals.

These four elementals I wanted to be a pretty good challenge. I took the air elemental stat block as reference for AC, HP, Damage per attack etc., but I made them able to shoot lightning arrows once (just a ranged slam attack) and gave them a self-destruct ability. I didn’t want to punish the party for killing the opponents, but I still wanted them to play on a knife’s edge. Once the elemental got to half HP, on their next turn they would blow up for however much HP they had left, causing dex saves. This could be up to 45 lightning damage, which is a lot for a level 4 party, so I also made it to where the party could distribute the damage in whatever way they wanted. This led to good teamwork and resource management, while still maintaining a bit more fairness to the party. It also added a bit of roleplay for the party as the self-destruct hit, and one party member could tank most of the shock for the others.

The party ended the encounter pretty beat up (which is good considering the one-hour wager, keeps the heat on them), but this is also where I messed up. I should have made another obvious encounter that was opt-in or possibly avoidable through stealth or magic. This would’ve given them a choice: take the chances to sneak around or some other outside-the-box solution, fight, or rest but concede the 500-gold bonus. I didn’t do that however, the next things to encounter were a exploration, a puzzle, and a skill challenge that would get them to all their objectives.

They opened a giant door by using combined efforts to move a giant wheel. Inside they saw a slaughter of merchants and pilgrims huddled inside a large stationing room. There was a garden outside the stationing room with a hole in the glass. This offered an alternate entrance if the party had looked for one—a new way to experience the dungeon possibly—but they didn’t search for it, which is fine.

They looted some of the bodies and then headed off farther down the hallway. At the end of the corridor, there was another large, locked door. To the right of it was a smaller hallway. They went down the hall first and found an office, a few bunks, and a storage closet full of prods. They each got a prod and went back to the large door.

There was a puzzle which read “Energy comes in many different forms. What do you bring?”

The idea was for each character to have a different type of real world energy (light, kinetic, elastic, radiant, heat, sound, nuclear (???), etc.) they also got through this pretty quickly but it was still fun to see what the gang came up with.

I’ve found that ideally mini-dungeons are best if they last a session or so, otherwise, they can kinda drag. This also kills me to admit because I like large and megadungeons.

After they presented a type of energy, the door disappeared, dispelling an illusion.

They descended to the basement and went down a slope to a hallway with two rooms: the storage facility and the generator room, both were locked with standard locks. If you have a person who has thieves’ tools in the party, give them locks to try to open. It’s fun.

Perzyk opened up both the doors. The party looked for a new Electric Heart in the large storage unit, while Perzyk and Rhaegar investigated the generator room which had 4 columns and a central tube in which sat a dead and inert electric heart.

Uro and Moarte and Baccaro helped bring the electric heart to the generator room, meanwhile, Perzyk tried to figure out the machinery and switch board to help them swap the two electric hearts.

Perzyk and Moarte worked together to switch out the hearts. As Moarte went to switch, he fumbled a bit, but Perzyk was able to rig the machine to reset the timer and successfully switch the heart.

The new heart rested in the main generator, and the room hummed. The four columns zapped and sizzled with electric energy, and the party left the basement and the building after about 25 minutes.

This would’ve been another opportunity for an encounter or a wandering monster from the Coral Highlands, to test them, but we were wrapping up session.

When they got back, the engineers were impressed. Sir Damon collected some coins from them too, betting on them to come out in less than 30 minutes.

“Well done,” Dwarmot said. “Now, time to get the gate activated and take on those golems!”

“You never mentioned fighting any golems.”

“Well, we need them to activate the gate. You’ll help with that won’t you?”

“Another thing that sounds dangerous. Extra work is going to have extra cost.”

Dwarmot consulted the treasurer whom whispered to him sheepishly.

“We erm, don’t have any extra money to spare I’m afraid… but you’d be doing a great service, and we’d get the wattairway on for you!”

“If you’re not willing to pay, we can walk,” Uro said. “Only adds a few hours for us. Meanwhile, you’ll still have a problem.”

“Listen,” Dwarmot pleaded, “we really would like to pay you for clearing helping with the golems, but we don’t have anything to spare.”

“Then you’d better find something to barter with,” Perzyk stated.

“All we have is some extra scrap metal and some spare parts!”

With this, Perzyk got an idea.

“Give us some scrap, an electric heart, and a pair of the Heart Gloves, and you have a deal. Give us an hour to rest and we’ll be ready to go.”

Dwarmot consulted the other engineers and agreed to the terms.

As they prepared, Dwarmot gave them instructions. There are two types of golems inside: Kinetic Golems and the Electrogolem. They were practically indestructible, but they were stoppable. He explained the kinetic golems can be stunned using the prods (if one person used an action to hit it with a prod it caused the golem to have disadvantage on attacks and dex saves and halving its move speed; if two people hit it with a prod at once, the golem would turn rigid with its arms locked into the air, stunned). The electrogolem was similar to the kinetic golems in how it moved but the prods were useless against it. All of them were dangerous but specifically the electro golem. All the kinetic golems had to go into their spots first, then the electrogolem had to go in its place last. Once there, Dwarmot and one other would need to be ready at the control panels to lock the electrogolem in place. Once this was achieved, all of them would be locked and the gate would activate.

The party and Dwarmot marched into the structure and into the Channel Room.

Below is the set up. They entered a chasm-like room. Flanking them were two slopes along the wall which created a bridge 60 feet overhead. There were four bases which were being electrically charged by the heart and a spot in the middle surrounded by several, heavy duty mechanical hands.

On the back wall is a workstation with control panels on the right side wall deep in the room was a cage with extra prods.

I positioned the electro golem offensively and the first two golems close to the front. The Kinetic golems had to go into the blue boxes and the electrogolem in the red one. The electric bases were highly dangerous for player characters. The kinetic golems could be shoved or moved by spells like lightning lure, and thornwhip but if they were being prodded it was a danger to the characters. The main way to move the golems was by doing damage. The golems can’t take damage in the traditional sense, but for every 1 damage dealt, the energy from the attack stores in the golem for a short time. At the end of the attackers turn, the golem shoots away from the assailant for a number of feet equal to the damage dealt, rounded down to the nearest 5 feet. For example, if Uro did 17 points of damage with his glaive, the golem would be knocked away 15 feet at the end of the Uro’s turn. This also worked with the electrogolem.

The combat started slow with the heroes needing some goading by Dwarmot to attack the kinetic golems, once they did, they got to work. Moarte baited a kinetic over to him and Perzyk seized the moment to thornwhip the kinetic into the first base, causing the golem to be permanently stunned by the constant electric current. The second one took a while, as Baccaro, Uro, and Rhaegar tried maneuvering into the slot closest to the door. In this time, the electro golem, which had a chaotic barrage attack (DC 20 lightning damage on a random target in range dealing 1d10 lightning damage, half on save, if kinetic gets hit by it, it counts as being prodded once), a static pulse where it pushes people 10 feet away possibly knocking prone (strength save 2d10 lightning) , and a slam attack which did 4d10+6 bludgeoning. The Duke and Ramlis were the first victims of the electrogolem attack, which was great considering it displayed the lethality of the slam attack. Ramlis got absolutely decked for 38 damage in one swing, shattering the organic robot to chunks.

Uro went to stun the second kinetic on a flank but provoked an opportunity attack from the electrogolem. He got the stun off, allowing Rhaegar to move it into the second base on the right using Telekinetic feat, but took an opportunity attack. The electrogolem crit and did 65 damage to the (raging) barbarian. Uro was knocked unconscious.

Baccaro and Rhaegar tried an evacuation plan as they could feel the tide of battle starting to turn. Multiple members had been swatted or crunched by the kinetic golems, but the axis of the fight had changed. The party and Dwarmot had now made it toward the back of the room, luring in the remaining two kinetics and the electrogolem. Through some close calls and heroics from Moarte and the Duke, quick thinking setting up for catapults by Rhaegar, the final two kinetics snapped into place, leaving just the electrogolem left who recently downed Baccaro with a mighty smack. Baccaro bravely rallied from death, and the rest of the group combined their efforts to shifting the electrogolem into place where it was then grabbed by Dwarmot and Perzyk, neutralizing all the golems and turning on the wattairway.

This was a combat where the objective was to not just out damage and out health the other side, it had an objective. While I tried doing these in other encounters like the lunaga, this one really was trying to outlast the fight and get creatures where they didn’t want to be, and I was really happy with it.

The heroes collected their rewards, and they went off on the wattairway to fast travel through the Coral Highlands. On the jet stream they saw coral temples and a fortress within a giant sea anemone. They carried on out of Godsdell, and onward to Stoney Marsh then Dantredun.

This was the final session in the first arc of the campaign (19 sessions in all). I talked to my players and while we could keep going on the road, we’re all ready to move on to the next stops in the campaign. They’re getting to a level (they just turned 5) that requires a bit more than just roadway encounters.

The group is fast forwarding the trip and taking a month of downtime to do whatever they want in Dantredun, then we’ll be picking back up in the capital.

Some perspective on this arc:

I think this first arc on the road was a good and authentic way to show the players what the setting had to offer. They went to a bunch of different locations, met a lot of cool people, and it really set the scene in a pretty literal way. I think this is important in a campaign that is world-driven. If you have a city campaign or politics campaign, it can be a little less imperative to have a good idea of the backdrop and setting, but with Blackmoor being such a big map, the map being important, and the possibilities of players owning land in the future and playing in politics, it makes it a lot more important to know what is around.

I was very happy to have a tour—a sampling—of what the setting had to offer.

I am glad o be on to something new. Being on the road gave a nice tour but was limiting in combats. That not to say limits don’t drive creativity, but it seemed unreasonable to put a dungeon in front of the players and have them take two days to explore it while Sir Damon just sits there and twiddles his thumbs. This next arc will have a lot more variance and I’m excited for the next level of play.

Looking forward I wanted a few things, the first is to have my players be able to interact with the Hollowmancy system (creation of hollowcubs and hollowweapons). These are pretty expensive magic items, but they do have a lot of money due to a certain Midas-Touched turnip. We’ll be picking up with those likely when we get back along with some fresh plot and story developments.