Time: 8/7/22-8/9/22, rest 8/10/22, active 8/11/22
PCs: Blair (Nightblade), Benjamin (Assassin), Bigtoe (Machinist), Bralen (Mage)
Hench: Johan (Fighter, Teutch)
Time compression had us back to Team B this week, adding Bralen the Battle Mage to the mix. They saw some Pegasi chillin’ by a pool of water on the way out of Rushford, but the flying horses fluttered away. The party worked out of Teutch’s (Patron) Purple Tower, taking on a diplomatic mission to speak with the dwarven Vaultguard Lord to the north named Nekane. It seemed Teutch was not ready to give up on Friendly status with the greedy and ornery dwarf.
The party made an effort to gather information about previous attempts to negotiate with Nekane, learning that the dwarves absolutely hate the flying goat steeds that Teutch’s magic can create, calling them elvish fairy bullshit and turning people away at spearpoint. So Team B just rode out there. They were met with yet another pair of grumpy guardsmen, but were able to bribe their way to speak to Nekane. They were brought inside the Vault, which was a big complex of tunnels and caverns carved into a spiral descending into the mountain.
They found Nekane himself dabbling his fingers in a big fountain outside of his palace. When he spoke with them he constantly preened and stroked his diamond-studded braided beard. After a brief conversation, the party learned that Nekane had about doubled his original cost of doing business with Teutch, which was already exorbitant, but Bigtoe was able to convince the greedy Vaultguard to accept a blueprint of the same value for something that would “assist the dwarves in mining”. Like a drill or something idk.
Upon reporting this to Teutch, the white-robed wizard flicked out his irritation at the stubborn dwarf’s constant bucking of Teutch’s rule over the mountains. He instructed Bigtoe to generate this blueprint, but sabotage it in some way so the dwarves may suffer for their insolence. He even offered access to his personal library, with an escort, for this singular purpose. The party agreed to tackle this endeavor, but needed time to work on it. Until then, it’s back to the Fallen Castle.
On the way to the Castle, they found the exact same number of Pegasi as right at the beginning of the session in a treetop nest (lair). This time the fabled creatures were less forgiving and bucked and reared and threatened the party until they left. I’m no mathematician but what are the odds of those two encounters generated that close together, that exactly? Love the random nature of the game.
They arrived safely at the castle, escorted by Johan and a platoon of veteran light cavalry due to Teutch’s recon of some flying hippogriffs that were lurking nearby. The flying creatures recognized Teutch’s colors and chose not to attack and Johan and the cav bivouacked to await the party’s return laden with riches and glory.
Blair was able to track around the entrance, where she found wolf tracks, pixie dust, a troll footprint and some other canine tracks that smelled faintly of farts. The dungeon had restocked significantly between delves. They entered and found the first room of the giant’s castle still cracked and askew, and starting to smell from all the corpses of previous battles. Five wolf corpses added to the scenery, burned and mauled in some battle with some other creature.
The party decided to reclear the first couple of rooms so they wouldn’t have enemies behind them. They found a trio of White Apes that were aping around a statue of a kobold that was not there previously. The apes were aggressive and the fight was on, but the party was able to dispatch them with relative ease due to heavy tanking by Bigtoe in his borrowed magic plate mail and sneaky plays by Ben and Blair. Bralen the Battle Mage even got into the melee, much to the panic of Bigtoe, and survived with only a bruised eye. Bigtoe knocked the head off of the kobold statue and deeper in they went.
They decided to try a new room that they hadn’t been to before, and Bralen had Mapping so they could now properly keep track of the dungeon, revealing Daniel the Storm Giant’s Throne Room, which had a dozen or so kobolds resting from the summer heat inside. Bigtoe was first in the room and immediately withstood a hail of sling bullets from the little dograt creatures. Fire was exchanged, then melee was joined, with Bralen the courageous battle mage falling to little kobold spears. Timely use of the Fate Point saved him from death and eventually the party was victorious. Unfortunately the loot in this room had already been accounted for in a previous session, so the battle was fruitless.
While they searched for any hidden treasure, a clutch of Pixies roamed into the room from the same door the party had entered from, chattering among themselves and tapping on walls and tapping on the floor looking for hidden trinkets. Startled by the party, all but one of them went invisible. The spokesman of the group answered a few questions and was trying to leave peacefully. But he was on Teutch’s monster part farming list, which doomed him in the eyes of Blair the Nightblade. She sprung at him with her blade out before he could disappear, surprised to learn that he was super agile and had really good AC.
The fight was on, with much grumbling about Pixies having permanent invisibility at will and the inordinate amount of 20s that I was rolling in order to hit Bigtoe’s absurd AC. Bigtoe was downed in the combat but saved by a Fate Point as well, and eventually the survivors killed the remaining pixies. They limped out of the dungeon hanging by a hit point and threw the bodies in the back of their wagon, Johan making some quip about how it must have been rough in there.
The party camped the night with no encounters and departed for the Tower. They were almost there when they came upon 5 aggressive lesser hellhounds. They debated trying to outrun them but they’d have to abandon the wagon. Johan knew Teutch wanted hellhounds so he wanted to fight anyway and charged. The cavalry dispatched 3 of them and were defeated in their own right, but Johan kept fighting with the party eventually joining in. They were able to defeat the final 2 with no further losses and after bandaging the soldiers they limped into Teutchland with a wagon full of corpses both monster and human.
Musings:
Teutch is bonkers and it’s always fun when someone new gets to meet him. This session brought to you entirely by Patron generated hooks, with decisions made based solely on how much the Patron has offered to pay. Even the new PC took Mapping and Knowledge History to account for Teutch’s historical mission offers. It’ll be fun to see if they’re able to capitalize on any of those choices. It’ll also be fun to see if double-crossing Nekane has any negative effect.
XP from Kills: 535
XP from Treasure: 2300
Total XP Pool: 2835
Cuts: 8 total with PCs receiving 2 each.
PC Share: 0%: 709 5%: 744 10%: 780
Hench Share: 0%: 5%: 10%:
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