Traveled 5/28/22-6/14/22
PCs: John Redcorn III (Cleric), Gwendolyn (Bard)
Hench: Cemil (Gomer)
Our play schedule has a built in break every fourth week, leaving a two week gap of downtime. After our heroes successfully negotiated with Chad the Hill Giant and Daniel the Storm Giant, they were paid their due by Teutch the Alchemist and laid up to count gold coins and rest their weary heads on the fainting sofas in the Purple Tower. A Patron is rarely idle, however.
Taking advantage of Redcorn’s Beast Friendship ability, Teutch carts him out a few times to hunt animals. Of note, they find a flock? clutch? gaggle? of Hippogriffs, which Redcorn befriends and convinces to chill with Teutch provided the appropriate roost be built for them. This earns the young cleric a mating pair of them as his very own. Redcorn falls into a new asset. Teutch the Benevolent? Teutch the Giving? Who’s to say? It should be noted that Teutch had to be reminded of the agreement about giving up animals and the unfortunate servant who spoke up spent the next week sleeping with the goats.
Teutch, armed with the tactical knowledge provided by the party, then chose to fly out and destroy the Giant lair of Chads, hauling back the lair’s loot and dumping 25% of it out in the courtyard of his Tower, barrels and boxes and things flowing out of his Bag of Holding in a disorganized heap that he left the party to stack and count. Not a bad take, considering. Our heroes counted it a victory because Chad was a douche. Gwendolyn counted gold and wrote songs about goats.
Here the story takes a turn as Teutch rested, reloaded, and put Daniel the Storm Giant in his sights, with whom the party had previously negotiated a non-aggression pact on Teutch’s behalf and spent a lovely evening of food, hospitality, and song at his floating castle. Daniel was a gracious host and the party believed him to be a fixture in the local political and hexographical landscape for some time to come.
Daniel’s fatal flaw was having a piece of anatomy crucial to Teutch’s magical research, so Teutch destroyed him too, which caused his floating castle to crash into a nearby mountain cave complex and the Storm Giant’s considerable treasure to be strewn about a chaotic mess of rubble. Teutch zipped his sawbones out to chop out the fallen giant’s pituitary gland and notified the party of the events, offering them the opportunity to retrieve the treasure for a tax. Also offered them the services of Blacknose (hench) and loaner magic items for the endeavor.
Teutch’s disregard for the party’s feelings, strange attitude towards women, and overall bonkers behavior has led to some grumbling but he pays well and the party had chosen up to this point to endure. Apparently the immediately broken agreement with Daniel was an affront to their sensibilities. Notifying Barbinikus, Teutch’s apprentice and de facto butler, that they were off to town to trade, the party departed to hire a cart or something to move their goods from the tower to market and to get out from under the wizard’s eye and discuss their plans.
A bit of forced marching in between the Purple Tower and Rushford and bam, riches were secured. They determined to take a shot at another of Teutch’s diplomatic missions because, you know, gold, so they went back to the Tower and flew on butterfly wings to the Vault of Nekane, an ornery dwarf nestled in a heavily fortified dwarven lair to Teutch’s north. Here they were turned away at the door on threat of violence, because the dwarven guards absolutely hate Lockleaf and goats with butterfly wings scream elven bullshittery, apparently. No sweat, the party was convinced Teutch would just murder the dwarves anyway and didn’t want that blood on their hands, so they went back, got paid for the attempt, and left immediately.
They traveled to Rushford, Deinwick, Talston, and eventually all the way back to Newbridge, a kinder, gentler environment. Much shopping and rumormongering and henchmen hiring was attempted between A and B, the big hits being the acquisition of the party’s first henchmen, Cemil, and a kennel’s worth of war dogs that Redcorn has aims to breed into a puppy mill of murder or something.
Musings:
Creative Patron play demonstrates the validity of this playstyle in regards to world-building and all-around entertainment of the game. The reactions to Teutch’s behavior, the discussion of the moral implications for staying in “this purple fever dream” (one of my favorite quotes of the last few weeks), and the idea of the “safe haven” of Lord Issac’s domain have made for a great game.
This session the party got into a few mechanics a little deeper than they have so far, namely market availability by market size, hench hiring, and 1:1 time compression. The ability to work in the class III markets of Deinwick and Talston really opened up some opportunities to Rumormong and spend their gold. It also allowed them the opportunity to seriously cash in on some magic items for big wealth and xp gains.
They extended pretty far into the future, so time compression will be a factor for at least the next session and maybe the next two. This will be the first introduction of a second group of adventurers. What’s interesting is that they have chosen to “spawn” in Rushford, near Teutchland, presumably with character personalities that are more compatible with the purple fever dream. Stay tuned to see how Teutch offends welcomes these new tools adventurers to Teutchland!
XP from Kills: 0
XP from Treasure: 9,000
Total XP Pool: 9,000
Cuts: 4 total with PCs receiving 2 each.
PC Share: 0%: 4500 5%: 4725 10%: 4950
Hench Share: 0%: 0 5%: 0 10%: 0
No comments:
Post a Comment