Play Report: Drought in Sulindal – Session 2 & 3


Cast
Jack – Level 2 Changeling Rogue
Lucius – Level 2 Human Mage


Summary (session 2)
After the party briefly mourned Dulin they decided to keep going forward and explore the next room but not before encountering another living spell, this time made out of acid rather than fire. No one attempted to communicate with it–something living spells are able to do (although not very good)– and decided to fight it. Once the party dealt with the threat they moved into the next room where the found four chests. The rogue decided to try and open one of them but failed, a floating metallic gauntlet of large size appeared gesturing it wanted to play rock/paper/scissors, Jack found this hilarious and decided to play along but the laughs stopped when Tibaldo (Jack) lost against me and the gauntlet punched Jack dealing a great deal of damage. Unwilling to give up, jack played a few times until he won and got regarded with a magic item. Then, jack decided to try its luck with another chest but this time he failed his roll and the chest turned out to be a mimic. The encounter did not go very well as Lucius failed an abjuration spell to try and stop the mimic and instead ended up with nailing his own mouth shut, the nails digging in deeper with each failed attempt to remove them. While Lucius struggled, Jack got eaten and failed his last breath. At this point Lucius decided to run outside towards Kolbert’s house and seek help before the nails killed him. He managed to reach Kolbert’s house in time and there he explained what happened. Jack was definitely dead and now Tibaldo was looking at what he would play next.

Conclusion
This session was even shorter than before since we got to play very late that night. Tibaldo asked if he could play Kolbert arguing that seeing another human being die partially due to his fault, it would trigger some emotions about how his wife died and it would move him to take up arms once again. Tibaldo fleshed out Kolbert’s background and decided to try Awful Good Game’s Swordmage.



Cast
Kolbert– Level 4 Human Swordmage
Lucius – Level 3 Human Mage

Summary (session 3)
When he was ready, both Lucius and Kolbert headed to the tower where they found that Dulin’s body was missing, the mimic destroyed, and Jack’s body was no where to be found as well. They climbed the spiral of stairs to a room where some wererats were ready to ambush them, of course the rat’s plans failed as the party to be too powerful for them. One of the wererats pleaded for his life and eventually attacked them out of panic when he say Lucius was not so willing to let them go. Once they cleared the room, they noticed four doors; in one of them they found what remained of Jack who was still wearing the magic item he previously gained. Two other rooms held a wererat each which refused to come out, the last room had Dulin’s body but the party did not bother to check the door since their attention moved towards the pleading wererats. One of the rats managed to escape through a window while the other blamed everything on the rat king and managed to escape the party’s grasp.
The party did not bother to loot the bodies and decided to keep climbing up the stairs until they reached the pinnacle of the tower where the rat king was supposed to be. When they arrived at the top it was already dark, the floor was unusually dark. It took them a moment to realize they were actually standing on grass and that the dark floor was actually countless of rats tightly moving about. The group found the rat king on top of a gargoyle statue and was already waiting for them and surprisingly enough had a deal for them. The rat king told them that it was thanks to him and his kin that there were no goblin raids and no necromancers. When Lucius heard the word necromancer he became curious, he already suspected something about Nil, Minerva’s assistant at the cemetery. The rat king continued explaining that since Farabrout no longer buried their dead and brought them here (to Halkorn), the necromancer would eventually follow. He also mentioned that he did not plan to stay there for long and if left alone and well fed he would keep “protecting the village” and not harm any villagers. It fell upon Kolbert to make the decision and after much debate and a serious of bad rolls to see if the king was lying, Kolbert agreed to the deal and the group left the tower to the rat king as they prepared to travel the next day to Vidreng village and meet with Inuben.
Since they were previously bitten by the wererats several times on the previous sessions, I decided to come up with some mechanics for diseases using D&D 4e’s rules for them, both of them gained the wererat fever disease. This was the result:

Resist Disease
When you make camp while afflicted by a disease and make and try to resist the effects, roll +CON
✴ On a 10+, the disease stage is reduced by 1.
✴On a 7-9+, the disease stage remains the same.
✴On a miss, the disease stage is increased by 1.
A disease normally starts at stage 1. If the disease enters a new stage, the effects of the new stage normally stacks with the effects of the old one.

Wererat Fever [Disease]
Stage 0: You are cured of the disease
Stage 1: Gain the sick debility which is ongoing until the disease is cured.
Stage 2: The fevers kick in and your appearance begings to change to that of a wererat, gain the awkward tag ongoing.
Stage 3: You change into a wererat.

The party reached the village after 3 uneventful days of travel.  As they moved around the village Lucius noticed that Vidigern was withering away and it wouldnt take long for the tree to succumb to whatever illness it was affecting it. Inuben greeted them there and suggested to move to the town hall where they could speak in private. There Inuben explained that he was one of youngest druids in Vidigern’s circle and is now the last druid of the village as the rest have taken their final druid sleep. He also explained the history behind Vidigern and how she ended up being a giant oak tree and what was needed to at least restore her health, ff she was cured, she could produce a cure for Runea. Although it was best for him to tell the party that was the only way, he did suggest that Runea has a brother that is now part of a cult known as The Cult of the All-Knowing and that they could choose to try and find him and get him to tell them how to get inside Smitheim where Uguthos is (which is something contemplated by the adventure). The party decided to try and face Mudwart, the troll king who once wounded Vidigern and retrieve her totem in other to heal her since it would save the most amount of lives. Before leaving, Lucius and Kolbert decided to leave offerings to Vidigern and prey for their disease to be cured which was granted with a successful roll.

With the help of Lucius’ arcane familiar the party reached the troll king’s lair and proceeded with caution. After a while, they encountered two giant doors; one appeared to not be guarded while the other was protected by a large frog with a tentacle on its back. This was Krognor, Mudwart’s pet. Lucius secretly casted a divination spell to see which door led to the troll king faster. The roll failed which led him to believe the unguarded door was the best option when in reality it was the sleeping quarters of 3 trolls. Lucius opened the door with confidence leading to the trolls awaking and rapidly attacking them. After a few bad rolls, Lucius got his act finally together and dealt with two of the trolls while Kolbert used his held Magic wisely and was able to deal with Krognor and one of the trolls.

Conclusion
This session I got to see more of the mage being used and the comments by Martin about the class’ flexibility without feeling overpowered was good to hear since that was what I was thriving for. Overall the session went pretty smoothly, the players seem pretty interested about the plot. Particularly it was pleasing to see how they were trying to piece everything together; the drought, the dwarves of smitheim closing the dam, and Runea’s condition.

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