Seven hardy men regained their calm. It was a weighty title to bear. But having just rescued a small boy from a collapsing building and a pack of vicious bloodmartens, the impromptu group might fairly be called heroes. Did they dare believe that?
“Well done,” a lone guardsman of Larkingwood congratulated
them. “Must be the storm throwing off their routines. We see one wander into
town on occasion—never a whole pack like that.”
Now as the early rays of dawn washed over them came the
usual sounds of morning; small birds chirped in the trees, the katydids and
cicadas rattled, and the first hints of bustle kicked up a background din.
This, as a low sunmother channeled the healing grace of Vitiniba, and all their
scrapes and wounds melted instantly away.
The sunmother called herself Thalquira. She did not
agree that the passing storm was responsible for marauding bloodmartens, and
insisted “something more sinister” must be to blame. But she did not wish to
elaborate, having quickly taken custody of the rescued boy and intending to
shelter him at the temple.
The boy said only that his name was Paq Aball, son of
Lashe Aball—whose room had been on the second floor. His departure with
Thalquira left the day’s heroes alone with the guardsman, a lean and wiry
fellow named Frelick Daus. “We’ll find him,” Daus called to the departing boy—a
promise the heroes found strange as Paq seemed already to know his father’s
tragic fate.
“Maybe his pop survived the collapse,” Daus said, as soon as
the boy was out of earshot. “You never know. But anyway the East Edge is where
the worst of the storm hit. Lots to do over there, undoubtedly.”
Inspecting the remains of the Aball residence more closely,
the shadowblade Twink’ discerned massive structural damage that would
likely make any attempt to enter the structure highly dangerous and any
prolonged entry borderline suicidal. Moreover a brief inspection though the
structure’s windows revealed near-total internal collapse, with a very low
likelihood that anyone on the second floor could possibly have survived. Meanwhile
Daus continued to discourage the group from dallying at the ruin, reiterating
that the East Edge was “hardest-hit” and that “all who can help are needed
there.” Weighing their choices, the party took up Daus on his suggestion, and
struck east along the Kitanomichi (“North Way” in Ecbano).
Several minutes later, an elderly, somewhat deranged-looking passer-by enjoined the party that “they will say the prophecy is fulfilled! That a great storm indeed has come.” This elderly man, whom the party would later learn is known by “Old Cal,” hunched and bent over cane. He offered little in the way of elaboration—other than to say that he read the intentions of the clouds while wandering the hillsides and that some greater disaster would someday be forthcoming. “The prophecy is not yet fulfilled,” Old Cal said. “But if shall be.”
The enchanter Tristan Pureheart took especial interest in Old
Cal, and stewed with frustration when her proved unable to deliver the details
Tristan demanded. Finally losing his patience, Tristan attempted to invoke the
arcane spell charm person to assist in his interrogations. But Tristan’s
mind was not pure, and his spell proved unsuccessful. Upon the young enchanter’s
failure, Old Cal cursed at embarrassed mage and stormed angrily off along the Kitanomichi.
On seeing this, an unknown man along the edge of the Kitanomichi
approached the enchanter and imparted the local disdain for the use of enchantments
and other such magic within the confines of town. Now Tristan turned his interrogations
to this man, but he was not having any of it. “It’s none of your business who I
am,” he told the enchanter. “I don’t need to answer your questions.”
Continuing east, the party came upon a darkly-clad hobbit making
repairs to the outside of a small cottage. Inquiring yet again, the party found
a warmer reception this time from Medard. “Well, perhaps I should accompany
you to the east,” he told the party. “The damage here is just minor.”
You arrived at the East Edge just moments later. Visibility
remained limited in the fleeting darkness and driving rain. But the first faint
glimmer of sunlight sneaking over the horizon, together with the flickering
fires and torchlights, illuminated your field of vision well enough to see that
an entire row of wooden buildings has been flattened, torn away by the passing
cyclone. A heavy debris field spilled out away from town, littering the broad,
grassy field locals call the East Green with wooden boards and stone wreckage.
It was a picture of chaos, as townspeople climbed and sifted through the rubble
in the pouring down rain. Some collected strewn possessions, some bolstered
flagging structures, some just wandered—calling out names of children and
relatives in anguished, desperate voices.
Medard led you straight to the senior guardsman of Larkingwood,
Artum Varan. Bald-shaven and severe-looking, Varan pointed and signaled
commands to townspeople and guardsmen alike. He had deployed a perimeter around
the area, and regretted being unable to spare guardsmen to check on the nearby
farms and outlying buildings. Varan had also “received a report the cyclone
lifted up a farm wagon and sent it flying toward the north woods,” Varan
related. “Horse and all, it seems.”
While the party took note of the ways they could be helpful,
Twink approached an afflicted man combing over the remains of his home, and
asked what he was looking for. “I’ve lost everything,” the man replied. But
when Twink pressed the issue, the man became hostile. He was clearly not searching
for a person, and did not care to reveal to a stranger what personal valuables
might be found beneath the rubble.
The party chose next to head north in search of the missing
farm wagon. They came quickly upon it, just inside the edge of the woods. The
poor draft horse lay dead in the field, while the shattered wagon rested in pieces
strewn amidst the trees. A troupe of dark-green pine goblins sorted joyously
through the litter of cracked wheels, smashed boards, and twisted metal wagon
parts—most conspicuously holding half-empty liquor bottles in their hands.
When the party approached they met Fervart, who seemed to the
spokesperson for the group. This may have been because his pidgin of broken
Sekaran and Plekkish as the most easily understandable, or possibly because he
was the least intoxicated—but either way, he proved amicable enough. The pine
goblins, all dressed as farm hands and bearing no visible weapons, proved to be
on an unscheduled holiday from the nearby Whiteflower Farms. Already they had
helped themselves to much of the farm cart’s whiskey that survived the cyclone—and
possibly some of its coin as well. But they hadn’t found all the silver, or the
intact light crossbow, and held little interest in the food.
Relieved that the party did not intend to report them to their
master, the pine goblins merrily “assisted” the party in packing up the onions,
carrots, spinach, and other surviving produce to be taken back to the East Edge.
Of course, given their state of inebriation, this assistance consisted mostly
of simply moving out of the way and doing nothing as the party members gathered
up the goods. But this was all that was needed, and the group soon returned to
Artum Varan with ample provisions to feed the hungry cyclone survivors for
several days hence.
Varan thanked the party for bringing back the farm goods,
and handed them a pair of silver-plated clubs the guardsman thought might be important
in their work. “With some of them big rodents—stoats is what I call them. Stoats,
weasels. Some of them, you can hit ‘em solid and even sharp steel just bounces
right off. But this silver now.”
Varam didn’t finish his sentence. Taking the clubs, the
party then proceeded to Whiteflower Farms, twenty minutes walk to the northeast.
Varan had warned that the farmer there, Arets Vitor, was “a little
different” and that the party should be careful. His pine goblins farmhands had
described Vitor as a “wizard,” though did not report any actual magical abilities
(but rather the ability to create a rather impressive corn maze).
On reaching the farm, the party noticed that Vitor’s farm—including
his crops as well as his house and outbuildings—appeared practically untouched
by the passing cyclone. This may have just been good fortune, of course. But
before the group could make any further inspection, they overheard Vitor bickering
behind the beanstalks with the foreman of his work crew. In summary, Vitor was
upset that the pine goblins were not back to work yet, now that the cyclone had
passed. The foreman, a stocky and barrel-chested pine goblin called Barchuk,
insisted that conditions were still too dangerous to resume the work. Dark
clouds remained in the sky, he said—and on top of that, tracks of “weasels and
beastmen” had been spotted along the road to the southeast.
Vitor scoffed at Barchuk’s objections. The party wasn’t sure
they believed them either, knowing Barchuk had to cover for his drunken colleagues
at the farm wagon site. But the argument ended without resolution when the party
stepped out of the brush and presented themselves to Vitor.
“No doubt Arjen Per sent you,” the old farmer declared.
“Him or his adjutant, what do they call him, Varan? Always ‘checking on me,’
they are. ‘Checking on my welfare.’ Hah! We both know why you are here.”
Jadearch the dwarf tried to assure Vitor that the party had truly
come to ensure he and his workers were safe following the cyclone. But the farmer
carried on with his accusations of conspiration and spying, before sardonically
requesting that the party deliver news of his neighbor Savu Bari, of Mistwood
Fields farm to the south. Vitor then instructed Barchuk to escort the party off
the premises, and disappeared inside his farmhouse.
After sipping a swig of whiskey with Jadearch, Barchuck confirmed
that weasel and beast-man tracks had truly been seen to the south. There were
several known beastmen, the pine goblin foreman explained, with those by the names
of Ordan, Delinda, and Arhein having been seen over the
past couple days. The beastment lived in a place called the “Rock Marsh,” but were
out and about under the darkened stormy skies.
Just minutes later, the party crossed onto the edges of Mistwood Fields where they indeed saw tracks of many bloodmartens and the unmistakable bipedal footprints of what could only have been such a “beastman.” The tracks were fresh and well-defined, flowing from east to west and then veered south along a protective line of trees at the edge of the farms, and so the party piqued their eyes and ears as they moved southwest toward a possible intercept point.
It was a good thing. For all of a sudden, another pack of
vicious bloodmartens came charging at them from the south. And behind them
stood a “beastman”—that is, a bipedal figure whose head that resembled those of
the bloodmartens, but who had otherwise man-like features and held a sword.
The party formed a skirmish line and quickly brought down
several of the attacking bloodmartens with their spears and blades. But bloodmartens
fought fiercely, raking their sharp claws into multiple party members and inflicting
grievous wounds. Worse, a perfectly-aimed arrow from the wood elf Vagar struck the
beastman right in the chest—and bounced harmlessly away. Taking stock of the
peril, Tristan Pureheart raised his staff and called forth a sleep spell
that promptly incapacitated all but a couple of the bloodmartens.
Tristan’s spell effectively ended the battle, as the lone beastman
turned and fled southward at superhuman speed. In the meantime, three robed figures
approached, bearing spears, from the heart of the Mistwood Fields farmstead. Safe
for the moment, the party members caught their breath. They knew not how long
this moment might last.
Adventure Notes
· The party encountered a number of pine goblins during this session, all of whom were farm hands hired on at Whiteflower Farms. Harmless and mostly peaceful, pine goblins are generally regarded as a nuisance in the Larkingwood region as their tribes are said to steal from outlying farms and lumber camps. Some dispute these claims, however, suggesting the tales of pine goblin mischief are just a lie spread by laborers resentful of pine goblins taking work from members of “higher ancestries.” You are not sure how representative the pine goblins you met might be compared with pine goblin warriors you might encounter in the wild, but you’d estimate them as having about 3-4 HP apiece and below average strength and intelligence.
Beastman (?)
·
Immunity to normal weapons
·
Very fast running speed (20), 14 DEX
· Ability to control, and possibly summon, bloodmartens
· You also learned that bloodmartens have a special ability to “bleed” their foes in combat on a high-enough hit roll. The bloodmarten bites the neck of their victim and remains attached, causing subsequent attacks to succeed automatically for an unknown duration.
From Tristan’s unfruitful encounter with “Old Cal,” you have discerned that attempting to charm or otherwise invoke hostile magic spells upon fellow residents of Larkingwood is at minimum a serious social faux paus—and potentially a matter calling for the town guard’s attention. Luckily nobody takes Old Cal’s rantings seriously, and nobody else saw it. Well, almost nobody.
Experience & Inspiration
- · The party’s interaction with Old Cal was perhaps not the most scintillating moment of the campaign to date, perhaps owing to insufficient backstory development by a DM out-of-practice with improvisation. There are many who say there is no such thing as failure, only learning experiences—but few of them role dice. 25 XP are awarded to help us all forget.
· The party made a good impression on Artum Varan, who seems like a rather important person in Larkingwood. Varan has already rewarded the party with two silver clubs; now, 125 XP are awarded.
· The party obtained valuable information from the drunken pine goblins gathered around the lost farm wagon, and smartly brought the recovered vegetables back to the east edge where provisions were sorely needed. 250 XP are awarded.
Session 2 totals: 935 XP
The total of 935 XP / 7 characters
works out to 133.57 XP apiece, so we will round that up; each of the following
player characters is awarded 134 XP:
·
Jadearch
·
Brodrath
·
Tristan Pureheart
·
Vagar
·
Twinkles “Twink” Dandypants
·
Ailier Solenight
·
Brin Corso
