Session 18: Domain Prep

Time: 10/16/22 - 10/24/22, active 10/25/22 

PCs: Gwendolyn, Max Bear, John Redcorn III

Surviving Hench: Amadayo, Mahin, Mushi

This week Team A got deeper into preparation for domain play by hiring a land surveyor to assess the quality of land near the Werewolf Tower. They traveled through Riverstride where they spoke with Cemil the Oftwounded. His spirits were low but not broken, especially after Gwendolyn promised to get him a restore life and limb spell cast to fix his missing leg, arm, and eye.

Once they got to the hex in question, they set to escorting the surveyor around. It’s more difficult to assess land value based on terrain type, but I didn’t catch that rule til the end of the session so he was rolling at normal rates. They determined there were 2 lairs there, which had to be dealt with before the hex could be considered “cleared”.

The first was a pegasus lair, which excited the lawful Redcorn as he’s always looking to add to the menagerie. Unfortunately they weren’t very excited to see the party and remained neutral. We discussed the option to become friendly with them and build them a nice nest to hang out, but reaction rolls weren’t going well so the party left them be.

The second lair was a wyvern lair with only one wyvern. This was discovered while Redcorn was flying with his griffons at like 18 yards or some silly close distance. Wyverns are notorious for defending their nests to the death so the fight was on. The aerial combat was fierce, with the griffon that Redcorn was riding being slain by poison. Fortunately my man had a gaseous form potion that kept him from splattering onto the rocks below. The other griffon defeated the single wyvern in the nest and that was that.

It took a few more days for the surveyor to assess the land value, which the party found to be insufficient for their needs, and so they went back to Headford to discuss with Captain Wicker what other real estate was available out there. They learned the hex directly north of Headford was a royal conservatory used for hunting by the Bloodletter, so they definitely left that alone. But there were plenty of other hexes to the west that were free to claim, so off they went.

Surveying began on this hex where they encountered a lair of white apes who were pretty aggressive. The party let out a little frustration on them and beat them down. Traipsing around in the woods and waiting on an NPC to give you info can be a drag, apparently. So can being stalked by Meowster Mittens the Magnificent, the Sphinx that they had run into near Issac’s stronghold. They saw him twice during this session, but both times he was flying high and didn’t harass them.

They ran out of time for that day and had to camp, the surveyor not having any information for them yet. It takes 8 hours and a roll of 11+ modified by terrain type (which I missed. Next time!) to assess the hex, but the poor guy kept rolling bad. While camping a random encounter hit and it was something none of us had seen before: Gargoyles.

They flew in pretty aggressively but the party was able to wake up before they got to them. Battle ensued, but they realized after the first round that they weren’t really hurting them. Gargoyles are only damaged by magic weapons and there was only one in the party. They fought for another round to see what they could do, but it looked pretty bleak, so Redcorn covered the team’s retreat using Protection from Evil Sustained and a screen of animals, many of whom were slain after their heroic stand. Max’s hench Bertilo was also killed. Gargoyles are nasty.

They escaped back to Headford to lick their wounds and plan for the next session. There was a little treasure gained but it was mostly about information this time around. Stretching into the land value assessment using RAW is interesting. We’ll see how it develops as they progress. 

Xp from Kills:    1540

Xp from Loot:    11230

Total XP:    12770

Cuts:    9

PC:    0%    2,838    5%    2,980    10%    3,122

Hench:    0%    1,419    5%    1,490    10%    1,561