Thursday, December 29, 2022

Session 19: Swamps are Spooky

Time: 10/29/22 - 11/4/22 active 11/5/22

PCs: Gwendolyn, Max Bear, John Redcorn III

Surviving Hench: Amadayo, Mahin, Mushi (Cemil starting 11/1/22)

The group chose to run Team A again in order to finish what they started in scouting the hex near the Werewolf Tower. They trudged out there again with their hired Surveyor. They also hoped to find the site of their battle with the Gargoyles from last session to recover the relatively expensive barding lost when the animals were slain.

They saw a lone traveler who avoided them due to the lions tigers and bears or whatever that Redcorn’s always rolling with. The hunting dogs were able to track down the old battle site. They found the animal bodies ripped apart and the barding missing. They also found Bertilo’s body (hench Max) laid out respectfully, but relieved of his valuables. Some conjecture was made that the traveler they passed probably stole all the stuff, but some more tracking indicated two separate cases of looting. The traveler probably only had Bertilo’s meager belongings, so they decided to let him be. “Finder’s Keepers” is the law of the land.

They spent the remainder of the day tracking and surveying. The Surveyor let them know that there were 3 lairs on this hex, but he still wasn’t sure on the land value. They were unable to locate any other lairs so they camped for the night.

The next day they continued to search for the 2 unknown lairs, having already cleared the white apes from the first one. They came across a crevasse with Ogres and Orcs guarding the mouth of it but the distance was extreme so they took off when they saw the orcs run to get reinforcements from inside. Lair 2 had been found but looked a little big for Team A’s britches.

The search continued and Team A ran across a large band of goblins rooting around in the bushes and hills looking for something. Max was not surprised, but certainly surprised them and everyone else by charging directly at the 50ish little goons. The battle was fierce, some wounds were taken, but ultimately the party prevailed with no casualties. They interrogated Bok the Goblin about where the warband’s lair would be, but they didn’t have one. Then Bok didn’t make it. So sad.

The final lair was still avoiding detection, but at the end of the day, the Surveyor was able to price the land value at 7, which is 1 above the national average. Much cheering at the table. 

They were unable to find the 3rd lair and decided to report back to Captain Wicker at Headford to let him know about the Orc lair that was only a few hexes from him. The surveyor was released from his employment and the party wanted to head to Riverstride. Gwendolyn planned to take Cemil to a bigger market to get Restore Life and Limb cast on him, a plan that Cemil was super excited for having lost a leg, an arm, and an eye in service to the A Team.

They had a rough time of it on the road through the swamp, scaring up all kinds of undead. First was a whole cluster of zombies milling about, which they dispatched pretty easily. Clerics are pretty good at the whole undead thing. They determined there was a deep deep pool with something evil at the bottom, but they didn’t want any part of diving 40 feet into swampy water. So they felled some trees to mark the location and bounced, intending to let the local paladin Lord Issac (patron) know about it. 

Next the party found 4 wights dressed like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but no one got my subtle reference and I was sad. The Wights attacked the party, probably due to their embarrassment over the missed costuming, but were easily defeated thanks in large part to the silver weapons the party still carried from the werewolf battle. The group found a small tomb with treasure in it, apparently much more than the dead were originally buried with. The treasure included a suit of shiny scale mail and a sword that gave off a musty fungal odor and had exotic fungus growing down its fuller. 

A request was made to retcon like 4 hexes and a day of travel but nah bruh. So they backtracked for Redcorn to check on his hippogriff investment which was on the other side of Riverstride from the swamp. He found that the hippogriff eggs had hatched so he scooped them up to try to sell them in Talston. On the trip back they saw some gargoyles way off that they avoided and then rested, preparing to try their luck with the swamp road again the next day.

Three wraiths, the wights’ bigger badder cousins, attacked the party from the roadside. These were dressed like the Three Amigos which the party recognized, but no one was laughing as they zipped very fast towards them. Max engaged and stuck one with his silver spear and Redcorn got with the turn undead, but they had a lot of HD so it was gonna take a while for the turn undead easy win button.

Redcorn turned one, but was attacked by another, narrowly avoiding the hit. Max was not so lucky, getting swiped by the wraith which did a little damage but crushed morale because wraiths drain a level each time they hit with an attack. Silver weapons finished off the one that Max had already damaged and Redcorn turned the other, but the party was unable to destroy the fleeing ones because they fly super fast.

The grapes were awfully sour on the remainder of the trip to Talston. Max was almost to his next level, so a level drain was particularly impactful in terms of total xp lost. He’s also a barbarian, a class with a pretty steep xp gap between levels, so definitely a tough hit to the party’s morale. They made it safely to the larger market and made some moves to buy and sell and identify things, most notably Gwendolyn having Cemil restored to his full self by a powerful cleric of Pelor. They discussed mostly economic and downtime stuff, with Max planning to hit up Teutch (Mage Patron) for guidance on how to get his xp back.

Before Cemil (BC)

Xp from Kills:    220

Xp from Loot:    0

Total XP:    220

Cuts:    9

PC:    0%    49    5%    51    10%    54

Hench:    0%    24    5%    26    10%    27

After Drain (AD)

Xp from Kills:    1032

Xp from Loot:    1338

Total XP:    2370

Cuts:    10

PC:    0%    474    5%    498    10%    521

Hench:    0%    237    5%    249    10%    261

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