Saturday 13 July 2024

OD&D Session 013-014: Playing Catchup

    Ran the Battle Braunstein today but I've been out of the loop on blogging my receipts so I wanted to do a little catchup, do a broad-brush account of what has happened since my last session report so that the next post (an after-action report of the Braunstein) has the necessary context. Since I last updated you all, the following things happened over the course of 2.5 sessions:

1. The party had a random encounter with a Very Young Green Dragon, and killed it. Having been flown over in a previous session by a larger Green Dragon, they deduced this was a progeny of the larger dragon and made a mental note to go looking for Lair Treasure at a later date. 

2. The Church arrested Lord Barotha, the Elf who was governing the colony, on suspicions of consorting with the Evil Wizard Siegfried, and detained him in the church. This made it incredibly easy (Compared to the Keep) for Han the Thief to don a ring of invisibility and slip in, smothering Barotha with a pillow while he languished in an interrogation room. The mercenaries, who answer to Barotha's coffers, showed up to demand his release, and it seemed to be the case that he died under "advanced interrogation". All of this occured while Figel Narage, a Neutral Cleric, held a political rally against the governance of the Old World Empire, "Why should we send our goods and bounty back to those elvish fops across the ocean?"

3. The Dark Lord Blony Tair joined the Snake-Cult, which was being headed by a mummy whose grave was disturbed by Han the Thief in a previous session. Blony decided to see about recovering the stolen Death Mask of the mummy, in hopes of rising the ranks of the cult. He brought along Olaf the unsuspecting fighter to seek it, hearing it had been taken North. They came to Pabal the Wizard, who impressed upon them that if the mummy should get his mask back, plagues, earthquakes, famine and fissures in the earth would proliferate as the mummy had a centuries-long feud with Ramsugra the Vampire. Blony had a change of heart and decided to instead seek to eliminate the Snake-Cult

4. Using intel from their undercover inside man, the Dark Lord Blony Tair, the party staged a raid on a New-Moon sacrificial ceremony being held beneath the city. Using stone-to-mud and liberal distribution of flaming oil, it was a massacre, over 70 snake-cultists butchered and the Mummy killed and defeated. His body disappeared shortly thereafter, nobody is sure where it went, but the cult lost all its momentum after this vicious strike. 

5. The party set out to find the dragon lair. They came across a camp of Berserkers who warned them to turn around and go home, but pressed on and found the cave nonetheless. They staked it out until the dragon left to go hunting, which is when they heard it cackle and jeer as it chased some deer. A talking dragon had them deeply afraid of potential spellcasting, so they decided to try and slip into the lair and steal some treasure and maybe run away back home after. However, I like it when the players roll for monster treasure. And Dobias (who came in clutch against a Medusa early in the campaign) rolled for a magic item. Against all odds: A wand of Polymorph, 2 charges. The plan changed rapidly. Lay low, wait for the dragon to return, and turn it into a kitten. 


6. In addition, the dragon's hoard had a Cursed Sword of Berserker. Seamus the Ambitious Fighter picked it up, extremely eager to wield what appeared to be a +2 magic sword. However, on their way home, random encounters brought up Berserkers yet again! Clearly they had trailed the party and intended to relieve them of their loot, and when Seamus drew his sword to fight the curse kicked in, immediately he started making his 4 attacks per round against the nearest living things, namely his own hirelings. Here I did a little Abduction, we have a group of berserkers living near a dragons cave with a Berserker sword in it? That thing is definitely a sacred relic to them. They start calling out "He has the Red Sword! The Blood King is returning!" and fall back to let his rage deal with the adventurers. Dobias makes an executive decision to polymorph Seamus into a hamster, the party fights off the berserkers, escapes with their loot and their lives. They are in Time Jail until the 24th, and when they return to town nothing is going to be the same...

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