Session 16: Finders Keepers?

Time: 10/2/22 - 10/8/22, active 10/9/22 

PCs: Gwendolyn, John Redcorn, Max Bear

Hench: Cemil, Nona(deceased), Amadayo

Team A was back in the saddle for this wild ride, traveling to Headford and then to the werewolf tower they had recently cleared. They had left an evil altar in the basement of the large tower because they were all Neutral and breaking it gained them nothing, but John Redcorn had decided to choose a side. In downtime we discussed what it would take for him to change alignments to Lawful. A time investment and some gold, or he could break a chaotic altar and swear oaths to Law. The ramifications of running 1:1 time make time investment a serious consideration rather than just “skipping time”, so the party chose to break the altar.

They arrived and found the tower inhabited by not one, but TWO parties of NPCs, one smaller one chilling in the big dining hall on the first level and one serious one in the basement stuffing bags full of the library items left below. Team A nearly went murderhobo on the first group, but Redcorn’s looming Lawful transition stayed their bloodthirsty hands. They got a little information from the dwarf leader of the first group about the second group and made it clear that this was THEIR TOWER. The smaller NPC party was fine with that and intended to leave.

After a tense standoff with the sentries of the second party, they negotiated access to the altar to break it and did so, earning Redcorn his transition from following Neutral Obad-hai to taking a more active hand in the eternal battle against Chaos by swearing to Lawful Ehlonna. They found a strange tablet in the ruins of the altar covered in weird sigils and informed the basement party that this was THEIR TOWER. The cleric leader of that party, Margarida, was unimpressed but told them they’d make their way out sometime tomorrow maybe. 

Much talk was had about building costs and repairs and such for the tower, with Gwendolyn’s henchman Cemil able to add solid information using his engineering proficiency. Determining that they needed quite a bit of gold, they left for Riverstride to see what missions Lord Issac might have for them. On the way there they scared up a Wyvern Lair, inhabited by one angry lizardbird who dove on the henchman Nona and tore her to bits before being destroyed by the large party. I forgot to cleave with the Wyvern. Tsk tsk.

They chose to speak with Father Sebastian at Riverstride, who they passed off the weird tablet to and learned that Issac wanted previously cleared lairs kept clear across the river. They decided this was an opportunity for cash and set off into the wilderness between Riverstride and Northbridge, the recently conquered stronghold under Issac’s control.

They had been to these lairs before and had good directions, so it only took them an hour to search for each one at each hex. The first inhabited lair they found was their old friend Red Dawn and a few hundred Flan nomads who were just chillin’. The party renewed their good will with the tribe and advised them to keep their noses clean in regards to Issac and rolled out. The next lair they found the Hakim the Baklunish Merchant building some sort of merchants’ compound or trading post or something. The party warned him repeatedly that this was “Issac’s Land” but Hakim cited the age old law of “Finders Keepers”. They also floated the idea of home relocating to their fledgling tower area, but he wanted to scout the market and expected to be paid for his lost productivity in building so they noped out on that and moved on.

The next lair they scouted had nearly a 100 Ogres including females and young building a palisade around a stand of trees. They caught the Ogres by surprise so were about to avoid getting involved with them, but with such a tough force they decided that was best reported to Issac.

They made camp and then moved on to the next hex, where they found a lair of stirges that they easily ran off through intimidation and a lair of Rhagodessa, giant spider/squid things that were pretty tough but ultimately were dunked on by Max and Redcorn’s griffons. Time was pressing so they headed back to Riverstride to debrief and collect payment. Then they went to Talston in prep for downtime stuff.

Musings:

Fun session, a lot of action and tangible benefits, and an opportunity to potentially shift into conqueror tier with the acquisition of the tower. They’ve identified that they need to rebuild and secure it, it’ll be interesting to see what they do to make that happen. Until then, those restock rolls are real.

Xp from Kills:    2182

Xp from Loot:    24975

Total XP:    27157

Cuts:    8

PC:    0%    6,789    5%    7,129    10%    7,468

Hench:    0%    3,395    5%    3,564    10%    3,734