Session 9: Fangs and Flames
New in the handouts section, that map the party obtained from Odym's hoard in Session 2!
In the last session, the party hunted a massive terrorbird then came back home with a terrorbird of their one. This one can lay eggs and be ridden!
Sartorii found a guy who said he and his boys could build a fence for them, then corrected himself to say he would do it himself.
Gregor Cartwright is currently building the fence. The party can do the favor for him afterward.
The party loads up in the cart to head toward adventure!
(DM aside: "Hold on let me check something before I just throw y'all into the deep end.")
About the time the party's winding down to make camp for the evening, the party comes upon some dudes, two fur traders starting to make a fire.
Cautiously suspicious, the party pulls the cart up and asks if the traders are open to company.
The traders introduce themselves as Reggie and Fen.
Sweet hisses.
Reggie checks the meat he's roasting, then offers to share his meal with the party.
Reggie offers to take first watch while the party sleeps. The Sprite muses that with so many people here, why not have two people on first watch. Reggie says sure, sounds great, he and Fen will take that first watch then.
Clarence isn't tired yet though, so he will take first watch with Reggie.
Rutana does some percepting to see what vibes these guys got.
Clarence and the Sprite are very distracted by mmm delicious meat smell.
Rutana and Sartorii do pick up on a vibe, they think something might be up, but they don't really know what. Just a slight unease.
Sartorii makes small talk, asks what these guys are up to.
They're hunters, out hunting elk to bring back meat and hide. They say they're from Restov, which is pretty far to the south.
They share their meal, spiced meat. It's tasty!
Rutana and the Sprite will sleep in the cart, while Clarence and Reggie take first watch.
Sartorii takes a spare canvas to put over Sweet then takesthe tent.
Sartorii and Fen will take second watch, Rutana and the Sprite third.
About an hour and a half into first watch...
Clarence notices nothing awry. Just a nice, easy evening.
When it's close to watch change, Reggie gets up and tells Clarence to rouse Sartorii. Reggie says he'll watch the road...
Clarence turns just in time to see Reggie transform. His face elongates, his hands split into claws, and he grows a thick coat of black wolf fur.
Reggie descends on Clarence in a flurry of claws and teeth, taking out a good half of Clarence's health bar.
Clarence yells, waking up the rest of the party.
Sartorii sees a werewolf outside her tent, wearing Reggie's clothes.
"Ayo Reggie what the fuck?"
"Hungry!"
"We ate a whole meal together! Ah, whatever."
With a mighty flap of her wings Sartorii leaps over Reggie's head! Now flanking, she whips out her rapier and gets to stabbing.
Rutana clambers out of the cart and appraises the situation, rolling a lovely 23 on her esoteric Exploit Vulnerability. Time to bust out the silver shavings!
Oh but also a werewolf crawled out from under the cart, nailing a near-crit against Rutana.
Fen bites into her calf, dealing 8 damage.
Rutana rolls a 13 on her Fortitude saving throw, pocket sands Fen with her shortsword. Unfortunately, distracted by the chunk missing from her leg, she misses.
The Sprite flaps out a window to safety.
"You assholes shoulda just eaten the nuts! Now eat deez nuts, then!"
He casts Electric Arc at Fen, getting a crit, and zaps Reggie on the side.
Reggie turns to claw at the bird stabbing at his back.
Fen squeezes out from under the cart and runs for the Sprite. He gets a couple vicious swipes in, but Rutana raises her amulet to turn away some of the damage.
Clarence joins in on the claw party, nailing Reggie twice, and Sartorii continues the stabby.
Rutana limps over to flank Fen and also joins the stabby party.
"This is what you fucking get for biting me!!" she snarls as she nails her own crit.
The Sprite tries some more zappy, but succeeds only in making everyone a bit staticy.
Reggie flails around, missing everything.
Fen has better luck, clawing Rutana for another 9 damage.
Sartorii, Clarence, and Rutana miss everything too.
The Sprite zaps Fen again, and Fen skedaddles, Reggie following shortly after.
Sartorii nails Reggie in the back with an arrow as he flees, and the Sprite gets one last zap.
Once out of combat, Clarence goes around healing whoever he can. Rutana sits, bandaging her leg and staring at nothing, that 13 Fortitude saving roll weighing on her mind.
The next day, the party continues toward their destination. They see the tower before the walls coming over the hill, and atop it they see motion and campfire smoke.
The party parks their cart within the treeline, some distance off, and approaches from the north at early morning.
So, goblins!
They're small humanoids with green or grey skin, weirder if they do magic. Large heads, wide ears.
Some are civilized, working hard to be upstanding members of society. Most, however, are chaotic little bastards who play malicious tricks on longshanks. They have great awe of magic and fire.
They despise vegetables, but consider pickles a delicacy.
These goblins seem pretty normal. Little goblin dudes with swords and thrown-together armor.
One, however, looks a bit different. This one wears robes and necklaces of animal-teeth. Their hands and the sides of their face are scarred from burns.
They definitely do not look civilized.
The party starts sneaking through the trees. Sartorii steps on a twig, alerting the mageblin.
The mageblin steps around his tent, but is stopped by another goblin.
"Was just big rat!"
The mageblin sets the hem of his shirt on fire, then orders Toasty Tummy to go investigate.
"It's a fucking bird! I told you!"
"You said it was a rat!"
"Who cares! It's an animal! I'm going back to bed!"
The Sprite uses Messageto inform the party he's going to start a fire. He then does exactly that, and sets the leader's tent on fire.
The mageblin walks through the tent, takes the burning scraps, and stuffs them in his mouth.
W I D E
The Sprite points at the scout.
"You, Toasty Tummy, behold! My fire is better!"
He produces flame straight at the mageblim. He starts taking off his flaming clothes and shoving them in his mouth.
"So, you think your magic is better than Pyromancer Neeble?"
Neeble invites the Sprite to join him.
His name is Chuck, actually.
The gathered goblins start chanting "Goblin grease."
He holds his hand up and conjures a haze of grease, coating the whole area around himself and the Sprite.
The trial has begun. The Sprite and Chuck both cast Produce Flame at each other. Each takes 5 damage.
After a few Fortitude saving throws, Chuck does Burning Hands and drops the Sprite down to 0.
The Sprite falls unconscious in the fire. The surrounding goblins dump a chalky powder on them to put out the fire at the same time Rutana and Clarence step forward to grab the Sprite.
Chuck exclaims the party is now part of the camp of Neeble, and invites them over. They will have use for the party.
Chuck explains that Neeble is an ogre.
Chuck guides the party inside, except for Sartorii who remained hidden in a tree. The partyis left in a room and the goblins fuck off.
Sartorii tries to climb the wall, but crit fails, falls and takes 4 damage. Her second attempt is a crit success.
The party has, with questionable success, infiltrated Fort First.