Session 79: Portal Allergies

 Session 79: Portal Allergies

8/4/24-8/8/24, rest 8/9, active 8/10

PC: Valda, Zektel, Brumdor, Cracaryn, Vidimir, JP

Hench: Nicky, Crom, Zero, Taco, Bazam, Rich, Ricky

#ACKS

Our, ahem, heroes continued their quest to clear the swamps near Issac’s stronghold at Newbridge. They added two new members to the group in Vidimir the Paladin and JP the Venturer. They also spent valuable session time recruiting henches and soldiers. I prefer to handle tedium in downtime so they can roll stats and such for henchmen and then be ready to go at session, but if they want to spend precious adventuring time doing it during the game that’s ok, too.

The group and their small army of mercs departed for the swamps and got to work, finding a nice little safe haven spot to camp in, a short encounter with some dire wolves, and a strange shining metal spire in a large shallow bowl. This would end up taking most of their attention during the session.

The bowl was dry but scummy from exposure. The spire itself was tall and thin, with a slight widdershins twist to it. JP, with the boldness of a first level PC with nothing to lose, approached and searched it over. He could find no doors or symbols, but discovered that the bowl and spire appeared to have no seams as if they were one piece. 

The rest of the party got the courage to search around, clean off sections of the bowl, and experiment with some spells. They found a strange script that appeared to be instructions but they couldn’t parse them. Zektel also discovered that the bowl hummed in response to the rhythmic chanting of his Shaman spells.

JP got the idea to sing, which revealed a faint outline of a doorway on the spire. As more of the party joined in his inspiring rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the door became more pronounced, eventually fading away to a rectangular opening filled with bright white light. Valda moved to inspect it carefully but was a little put off by JP just brushing by and walking into the light.

Maybe I lean on the trope of portals too much. We see a lot of them in this campaign for whatever reason. I like them as a tool to introduce different elements to the setting by traveling to other parts of the same world or even other worlds, but the players are wary of them and rarely (never?) engage as a group. This was no different.

Zektel and his henchman Bazam followed JP into the light, but no one else did. The two bold adventurers found themselves in a hilly forest of unfamiliar trees. They realized the wildlife was different here in subtle ways and knew they weren’t in Kansas anymore.

Much discussion followed about what to do with the portal, ending with the main group retreating to Newbridge. They needed a mage high enough level with the right repertoire to cast scry and teleportation to find and retrieve their missing comrades. Yeah right no way that happens. I left it to my trusty 2d6, which maxed out in their favor. Vidimir’s perfect Trump impersonation (and solid charisma) recruited the mage, True Patriot, into aiding the party.

Vidimir the Paladin, probably

The group escorted True Patriot back to the spire. Meanwhile, the spire side group explored a little and cast some spells, with JP eventually just marching off in a direction. The venturer was not accosted by any random encounters but he did discover an old battlefield gravesite. He searched around but didn’t find anything so kept it moving. When the mage arrived through the portal, Zektel turned into a giant hawk and retrieved JP, despite his protest, and delivered him to the spire.

There was some confusion from the mage when JP refused to accept his help, but he had already been paid so whatever. He teleported Zektel and Bazam back to his sanctum and returned himself. The party linked up and after a brief discussion about JP decided to write him off and keep on their quest. I chose to determine just how the 1st level Venturer would fare in a strange land in downtime so as not to slow the primary group with split party shenanigans.

Random encounter tables are so interesting. The next encounter I rolled a lair, with a unique terrain feature, with a portal. Again. I don’t know the statistics of how likely that is but it seems low. Anyway, I knew from 2 years ago that there was a specter lair in this hex. I also knew that I wasn’t going to have two portals right next to each other, but I could add something portal affiliated. So the head specter wore a crown of silvery metal similar to that of the spire.

The undead rose from the swamp at the rear guard of the marching army and moaned threateningly. The mercs, knowing they could not fight spirits without magic weapons, fled. The party engaged and defeated the undead, including the PC Bralen who had been killed and turned years ago, after a long fight. Most of the group was enervated, the replacement mechanic for level draining in ACKS II. It’s now a slow death of lost HPs over time unless they can stack Death saving throws together. A race to the grave.

They found a mausoleum with treasure but it was too late to let them roll it all at the table so I’ll do that in downtime. It was a great session with weird twists and I’m eager to see what happens next.