Starring:
Adam as Ari/Beaver the Wizard – Why aren’t we heading straight to the spire?
Jake as Kroq the Fighter – I’m going to hit this sodding thing if I have to use everything I have!
Chris as Uffo the Bard – We have lost nothing by telling the truth!
Matthew as Cru the Cleric – The more Adam wants to go to the arch, the more I don’t want to!
Chapter 1 – Secret of the Sumber Hills
The main story so far:
– A rogue member of a cult dedicated to the worship of ‘elemental earth’ tried to gain control of the town of Red Larch. He was found to be in possession of some rare trade bars from the city of Mirabar.
– A trade delegation from Mirabar went missing in the area recently. Powerful organisations want them found.
– The delegation was heading to the abbey at Summit Hall and was last seen in the town of Beliard.
– The delegation left Beliard and were ambushed on the trail by the Black Earth cult. No bodies of the delegates were found, only their guards.
– Whilst travelling with the delegate prisoners, the Black Earth cult got into a fight with the Air cult. It isn’t known what the outcome of that was or where the delegates are now.
– The party were attacked by Air cultists and they found information on one of the bodies pointing them to the Air cult base at Feathergale Spire.
Once again, I’m throwing some flak around in this review. However, they actually did quite a lot right during this session but that stuff isn’t nearly as funny.
Beaver does it again
I didn’t actually realise this was all Beaver’s fault until I reviewed my notes and then it all made sense. Chris has specifically requested that it be noted he was late.
Oh, and that means none of this was his fault. Apparently.
The party are at Sighing Valley. There is a spire in the valley but the only apparent entrance to it is over a drawbridge from the cliffs. No way into the spire is visible from within the valley.
What the players don’t know is that if they go up the valley, there is a specific piece of intel that will help them deal with the situation at the spire, but it isn’t necessary to have that. If they go to the spire, they will level up and thus make clearing the valley easier. At this point, there isn’t anything else in the valley that makes it worth going there first.
At the start of the session the DM explained, in detail, how the spell Augury works. This spell, which can be cast by Cru without using a spell slot, lets the party petition a higher power (the DM) for an insight into how a particular planned action will turn out.
The DM explained how he would interpret the group’s needs as, in order of importance; 1) level up, 2) loot, 3) intel.
If the intended action would progress the main story line and level them up, the answer to the Augury would be ‘Weal’. If it involves either of the other two it would probably be ‘Weal and Woe’, and if they were going to go somewhere stupid, like Womford, the answer would be ‘Woe’. Simple right? Right.
Just to really nail this shit down, the DM also said that for major destination decisions he would let them ask two questions without penalty, specifically in this case of going to both the tower and going up the valley.
This is the way the DM envisioned the conversation was going to go:
Cru > I cast Augury, we intend to go straight to the spire
DM > Weal
Cru > I cast Augury, we intend to head up the valley
DM > Weal and Woe
Party > Hey ho! Hey ho! It’s off to the Spire we go!
DM > Good, you managed not to fuck that up
So how could you possibly fuck that up?
Because fucking Beaver appeared that’s why.
This is what the conversation actually was:
Cru > I cast Augury, we intend to head up the valley
DM > Weal and Woe
Beaver > THERE’S LOOT IN THE VALLEY!
Party > We head up the valley!
DM > …..
DM > …..!
DM > How the fuck did you manage to fuck that up?!
<sigh>
Oh well, shit happens. Things were going bad but it could have been worse.
And then the bard turned up.
Into the valley of death strode the four numpties
*Adam gets out a shiny new dice tower*
Party > Nice dice tower Adam!
Adam > Thanks! *rolls a pair of d12’s instead of d20’s*
Party > Shame about the numpty using it!
Adam > <sigh>
The party picked a fight with a Manticore. Uffo asked if it was wearing metal. The DM mocked Uffo and offered to put it in plate mail if they wanted. They declined because they have no sense of adventure. Uffo responded that he didn’t say armour, he meant like a necklace. It’s a beast. It’s a bit like asking “is that rhino wearing a crown?” No, no it isn’t.
The Manticore hit like a truck but they finished it off without too many problems. Kroq asked the DM if he could do a breath attack. The DM thought that was spectacular idea. Ari quickly pointed out that Cru was 10 feet away and in the line of fire. Curses, foiled again!
Griffons!
There are two griffons roosting in a cave part way up the cliff side. As the party approached, the griffons left the cave and took up defensive positions in front of it.
What the party don’t know is that the only things of note in the cave are two griffon eggs. Thanks to the milestone xp system, there is no need to murder-hobo everything for experience so the DM was interested in how this was going to play out. It is more of a morality test than anything else.
Ari, obviously, wanted to murderize everything. Uffo cast invisibility on himself and snuck into the cave. The DM made a mental note to award an inspiration for thinking of that one. Uffo then rolled a really shit perception check and only saw the two eggs.
Ari immediately said “steal the eggs”. This is the sort of shit that gets you into trouble. At this point there is absolutely no reason to steal the eggs unless it’s just because you are being a dick. Did you guys not watch Jurassic Park 3? <sigh>
These griffons are intelligent and if you steal their eggs they will hunt you down and ambush the crap out of you. If you go around this world killing and stealing for no reason, there are going to be consequences.
Uffo headed back to the party for the bag of holding to put the eggs in. The DM made a mental note not to give him an inspiration after all.
As the whole party were now aware of the eggs being in the cave, nature checks were rolled and they learned that griffon eggs are valuable but must be incubated for 18 hours a day. They are also rather large and won’t survive in the bag of holding.
There now followed an extended discussion about what to with the eggs and the almost absolute certainty that there was something else in the cave. All through this the DM was thinking “for fuck sake, just leave the fucking eggs and get on with it!”
Eventually Uffo stated that the eggs were too much trouble, not worth it and the party should just move on rather than risk a dangerous fight for no apparent gain. “Holy fucking shit Batman” thought the DM, “they might finally have got it”, and awarded Uffo an inspiration after all.
Gnoll trouble
The group continued to explore the valley and at one point Ari was somewhat put out by the fact that they weren’t heading straight for the spire. This was a bit rich as Ari/Beaver was the main reason they weren’t already in the spire by now.
Adam randomly slated the Firefly TV series and the DM swore by his pretty floral bonnet to end him and imposed a -5 inspiration penalty and then upped it to 6. He did ok, I think we finished the session on -3 so progress was made.
A couple of bands of Gnolls (dog-like humanoids) were hunting along the river and Uffo got to use his Heat Metal spell on the armour of a Pack Lord. The rest of the pack promptly ran over to the bard and beat the snot out of him until his concentration dropped.
The DM again dropped Uffo in the shit by bringing up the non-usage of the WoMM. In the ensuing argument Uffo basically said everyone else could sod off as it was his wand.
At some point the DM added 6 & 5 and got 9 because Maths is Hard.
Quite a lot of resources were expended unnecessarily with the confidence that a rest was imminent. The DM was somewhat miffed at this assumption. Ari wanted to rest on top of the large mesa in the middle of the valley. The DM pointed out that the valley was full of large flying nasties. They decided to rest in the manticore cave.
There are actually two manticores in the valley and there is a reasonable chance that one could ambush the group as they are sleeping in his cave. This was going to seriously hurt as the group had pissed away a lot of resources. The DM was looking forward to this!
And then he rolled to see if they got ambushed, rolled low and didn’t get to play 🙁
To the Spire!
Ari wanted to go across the valley to the canyon and investigate a shiny thing in an archway they had spotted from the top of the mesa. The rest of the party wanted to go investigate the base of the spire.
On the ground under the spire were some bone fragments being picked at by a giant vulture. The vulture flew off as the party approached. A rather impressive investigation check of the area showed that the bones were cracked and smashed from a fall from the spire and that a large amount of other people had been thrown from the spire over the last few months.
This was the rather important intel that they came up the valley for. The people inhabiting that spire are not good guys; they are regularly killing people by throwing them off a 500ft drop.
Kroq really wanted to make the difficult climb up the base of the spire under the watchful gaze of two riders on giant vultures. The DM really, really wanted to see what would happen when Kroq was 300ft off the floor and got attacked by the vultures. The party dashed the DMs hopes and climbed up the cliff wall instead.
Honesty really is not the best policy.
The players discussed how to approach the people in the spire. One thing I have noted as a DM watching these guys play is that at some point when they discuss this stuff, they often get the ‘right’ approach during the discussion but then go with something else. They actually hit on a few good possibilities and I particularly liked the one about looking for allies against the Earth cult.
Unfortunately, despite having been attacked by these guys on the road and then discovering they had been throwing people off the top of the spire and having found a warning in a camp set up to watch the tower that said ‘Beware elemental evil!’ they still decided to go with telling the truth <sigh>
So, they arrive at the raised drawbridge and ring the bell. A female knight called Savra asks them what they want. They tell her everything, that they were attacked by vulture riders, killed two of them, found the map and they are here looking for the delegates.
Well, that was one way of doing it I guess.
They were escorted to the top of the spire where they met the Lord Commander; Thurl Merosska. When they mentioned all of the above totally truthful naïve bollocks to him, he got unhappy and spoke about evil cults in the hills, then suggested they talk about it after the big feast that night.
Ari tried to look through a telescope that was pointed down into the valley but was blocked by two initiates.
The Hunt
The party rested up in the tower and were enjoying a full on feast with Therosska and his Knights when a sentry burst in and announced a manticore had been spotted in the valley. Therosska called for a hunt, invited the group to join in and offered a rather expensive ring as a reward to whoever brought him the beast’s head.
The group were given some quick instructions on flying and were provided with Hippogriff mounts.
As the hunt was forming, Uffo was heard to say “We have lost nothing by telling the truth”.
BWAHAHAHAHAH!
The hunt took place in the valley at night. During the night the wind in the valley dies down and a thick mist forms. The knights formed one group and the players chose to form a second group. Each group moved and then searched. A score of 18 was required to find and engage the manticore. The knights won the initiative and started first.
The players found the manticore on their second search and chose to engage it without signalling the knights for help. Kroq was very unimpressed with this.
As the fight takes place in foggy conditions, all ranged attacks are made with disadvantage. In addition, due to the unstable fast paced nature of this fight in poor conditions, there are no opportunity attacks. Some of the players quickly realised that a jousting strategy was effective if you had decent melee abilities.
The party blew through an enormous amount of resources trying to kill this thing. Uffo criticised Ari for using both divination rolls, to which Ari responded “they are my dice”.
Ooh, touché!
The manticore attacked not the players but their mounts; AC 11 & 19 HP. Yep, suddenly the fact that they were 300ft in the air became very important.
As Drikk Fra-Kar, six-time grand champion of the Luskan extreme arena once said “All that flying around is great fun, but just remember; if it all goes wrong gravity is like my second wife; a cold hearted, merciless bitch”
Uffo, having been very vocal about the use of resources, then blew a number of resources from the WoMM. Kroq landed the killing blow and the party returned to the Spire in triumph.
As they entered the spire, Savra pulled Cru to one side and said “Be on your guard” then left. The feast continued and the DM asked for perception checks to be made. The players noticed two of the nearby robed initiates had steel armoured boots showing under their robes. Something was afoot!
So they told Therosska about it. <sigh>.
All Therosska had to do to deceive them was to be nice to them. These are evil cultists. There are dozens of bodies on the ground outside the tower that have been sacrificed. There’s even a bloody signpost in the valley telling them to beware evil in the tower.
The party just rocked up at the front gate and started asking questions about the delegation. The cultists invited the group in to find out what they knew. They set up the second part of the feast as an ambush while the hunt was taking place. The party then told the boss dude that they noticed the incoming ambush <sigh>.
INCOMING AMBUSH!
That fight will have to wait until next week.
Next time on Yen-foot Squares:
– What unfuckupable choice will they fuck up next?
– Will Uffo remember the WoMM without being reminded (again)?
– Will Kroq regret wasting reactions at any point in this fight?
– What obviously important piece of intel will be totally ignored next session?
– If they survive, will anyone remember to go back and look through the telescope?
– What was that shimmering thing in the archway anyway?
Tune in next week to find out!