... okay? A brief pause as we wait for the player to create a new character. Then we're off to the Oak, again.
Spoilers etc.
The Session
The party heads to the Hall of Kings, run into the Ogre who tells them to bring some gnomes or leave him alone (low reaction roll). The party briefly discusses whether they should cast sleep on the troglodytes and kill them in their sleep, but decides against it. The only issue, unknown to the party right now, is that there's a troglodyte hiding in the corner of the room, overhearing this.
They decide against it, for now, and instead head to the strangling vines. They chop their way through and find themselves at an intersection. Hearing jungle sounds, they head that way. They've made it to area 29.
The statue is spotted and approached. Before Zordo, played by Robustus's player, grabs the chalice, the rest of the group finds a chest buried and starts frenetically digging. While they're doing that, Buffalo-Frans grabs the chalice and is bum-rushed by 10 Evil Tree Babies. The rest of the group is too far away to react in the first combat turn, and Buffalo-Frans goes down after killing 1 baby (oh good, look what this adventure made me type). Unwin, their man-at-arms, also goes down.
The babies rush toward the rest of the group, and Zordo, too, goes down, after killing 1 baby. Namuun, the torchbearer, goes down. Lafirth, trusted torchbearer, loses it and flees, which pisses off the group. August-Wilhelm kills a baby. Rodwulf's Sleep spell goes off, putting 12 of the remaining 9 babies to sleep. The babies are killed in their sleep (oh dear god what is happening to my blog), and the party looks after its wounded.
Both Zordo and Buffalo-Frans will live, bloodied and bruised. Unwin dies. The group unearths the chest and counts their newfound treasure (~400gp in total). They decide against taking the chalice and head back to town to lick their wounds.
On the way, they find Lafirth, strangled by the vine. They debate whether to run or try and walk slowly through, chopping at vines attacking them (how they got through last time). They decide to run. Zordo takes a couple of steps in and goes down. Buffalo-Frans makes it further but ultimately goes down.
August-Wilhelm, Namuun, and Rodwulf debate what to do. They decide on the slower approach, chopping at every vine attacking them. They make it through, and get both Zordo and Buffalo-Frans back (I rule it like so: vines rebuffed by a chop won't attack for a turn).
They head back through the Hall of Kings, and in the teleportation room they run into two gnomes carrying a third between them, with a sack over its head. The two groups stare at each other. Had there been fewer, the gnomes would have attacked (I rolled a 3), but as it is the other group is much larger (4 PCs and a hireling). One of the players asks the others whether they should take these gnomes and sell them to the ogre. The group starts discussing this, at which point I decide that the gnomes hear all this (you can't "pause" the game in a situation like this, imo). The gnomes, knowing they can't fight the characters right now, jump into the teleportation circle, knowing they might end up who knows where, but at least they'll end up on the same floor of the dungeon (they end up in area 4, which is fine with them; they make it back to their faction safely). The group thinks that the teleportation circle leads to the gnome faction, and might use it next time but for now, they need to heal up.
Back in town, they talk with some people about the missing children and learn that there's an evil spirit killing them. The spirit inhabits dolls (there's a great pdf out there about how to structure horror games, this is straight outta there), and that's why everyone's spiking them to trees. The group gets this confirmed by Baron Guste von Platen.
The group also talks to Mevverwen, a travelling saleswoman. She tells them about Slagvi, one of the richest wizards in Falbo, and his amazing fête where Esbjörn, another well-known wizard, turned up dressed in a meat dress. Talk of the town, I tell ya! Anyway, she (Mevverwen) got her hands on that meat dress and turned it into beef jerky, which she's now selling. Would any of the PCs care for a bag? No? How abouts this jewel-encrusted skull, used as a doorbell in Falbo? No? Pity! What? No, I've not seen a group of henches from Utböle going to Falbo, do ya'll know how big that town is?
Namuun leaves the party. Being asked to dodge a hallway of strangling vines after nearly being killed by Evil Tree Babies was too much for him. The party picks up more hirelings, though (and after this group, I'll up the cost of hirelings, if they even find any, because there's been a lot of dead hirelings now). First up is Ardo, a deserter (and man-at-arms) of the Falbo army; hired by Buffalo-Frans. Gyig, a heretic (and also an actual fighter), is hired by August-Wilhelm. Since August-Wilhelm's not chaotic, Gyig's loyalty is already low. Colmat rounds out the latest wave of recruits, being a man-at-arms with no remarkable features.
They decide against it, for now, and instead head to the strangling vines. They chop their way through and find themselves at an intersection. Hearing jungle sounds, they head that way. They've made it to area 29.
The statue is spotted and approached. Before Zordo, played by Robustus's player, grabs the chalice, the rest of the group finds a chest buried and starts frenetically digging. While they're doing that, Buffalo-Frans grabs the chalice and is bum-rushed by 10 Evil Tree Babies. The rest of the group is too far away to react in the first combat turn, and Buffalo-Frans goes down after killing 1 baby (oh good, look what this adventure made me type). Unwin, their man-at-arms, also goes down.
The babies rush toward the rest of the group, and Zordo, too, goes down, after killing 1 baby. Namuun, the torchbearer, goes down. Lafirth, trusted torchbearer, loses it and flees, which pisses off the group. August-Wilhelm kills a baby. Rodwulf's Sleep spell goes off, putting 12 of the remaining 9 babies to sleep. The babies are killed in their sleep (oh dear god what is happening to my blog), and the party looks after its wounded.
Both Zordo and Buffalo-Frans will live, bloodied and bruised. Unwin dies. The group unearths the chest and counts their newfound treasure (~400gp in total). They decide against taking the chalice and head back to town to lick their wounds.
On the way, they find Lafirth, strangled by the vine. They debate whether to run or try and walk slowly through, chopping at vines attacking them (how they got through last time). They decide to run. Zordo takes a couple of steps in and goes down. Buffalo-Frans makes it further but ultimately goes down.
August-Wilhelm, Namuun, and Rodwulf debate what to do. They decide on the slower approach, chopping at every vine attacking them. They make it through, and get both Zordo and Buffalo-Frans back (I rule it like so: vines rebuffed by a chop won't attack for a turn).
They head back through the Hall of Kings, and in the teleportation room they run into two gnomes carrying a third between them, with a sack over its head. The two groups stare at each other. Had there been fewer, the gnomes would have attacked (I rolled a 3), but as it is the other group is much larger (4 PCs and a hireling). One of the players asks the others whether they should take these gnomes and sell them to the ogre. The group starts discussing this, at which point I decide that the gnomes hear all this (you can't "pause" the game in a situation like this, imo). The gnomes, knowing they can't fight the characters right now, jump into the teleportation circle, knowing they might end up who knows where, but at least they'll end up on the same floor of the dungeon (they end up in area 4, which is fine with them; they make it back to their faction safely). The group thinks that the teleportation circle leads to the gnome faction, and might use it next time but for now, they need to heal up.
Back in town, they talk with some people about the missing children and learn that there's an evil spirit killing them. The spirit inhabits dolls (there's a great pdf out there about how to structure horror games, this is straight outta there), and that's why everyone's spiking them to trees. The group gets this confirmed by Baron Guste von Platen.
The group also talks to Mevverwen, a travelling saleswoman. She tells them about Slagvi, one of the richest wizards in Falbo, and his amazing fête where Esbjörn, another well-known wizard, turned up dressed in a meat dress. Talk of the town, I tell ya! Anyway, she (Mevverwen) got her hands on that meat dress and turned it into beef jerky, which she's now selling. Would any of the PCs care for a bag? No? How abouts this jewel-encrusted skull, used as a doorbell in Falbo? No? Pity! What? No, I've not seen a group of henches from Utböle going to Falbo, do ya'll know how big that town is?
Namuun leaves the party. Being asked to dodge a hallway of strangling vines after nearly being killed by Evil Tree Babies was too much for him. The party picks up more hirelings, though (and after this group, I'll up the cost of hirelings, if they even find any, because there's been a lot of dead hirelings now). First up is Ardo, a deserter (and man-at-arms) of the Falbo army; hired by Buffalo-Frans. Gyig, a heretic (and also an actual fighter), is hired by August-Wilhelm. Since August-Wilhelm's not chaotic, Gyig's loyalty is already low. Colmat rounds out the latest wave of recruits, being a man-at-arms with no remarkable features.
Post-session
A rule I had intended to introduce earlier was introduced at the start of this session. I dislike PCs with low INT being "stupid", and would much rather prefer them to be less "educated." Robustus's player didn't like that direction, and that's why their character took off. That particular player didn't have a good time at the table yesterday, and so I had a talk with them today about it.
They also didn't like that their new character, Zordo, started with only 2HP. Now, fighting isn't a goal but rather a failstate of the game, but they think that more HP means more to build on. I assume they have a point. I'd much rather see the group make tactical retreats, but they've not really had the opportunity to do so either. That's largely on me, too.
There's also some tension in the group that would've been good to clear with a session 0. Since I hadn't planned on this continuing past the first session, that session never happened. I've made note of it, and we'll have that talk before the next session. I'm talking about topics like Lines and Veils, conflict resolution, and similar. As the player said, sometimes it's better to leave before things turn to worse, so we'll see if they stay on or not. I've asked them to attend the session 0 (pre-4, now) talk, at least, and decide after that, but I can't fault them if they leave either.
In-game post-session
Furthermore, the PCs talking about kidnapping the gnomes and selling them to the ogre means the gnomes, so far a faction the PCs haven't run into, won't trust them. We'll see how it plays out, but they've certainly made their own life harder for themselves.
Since the group is actively playing in the town of Utböle right now, there are no events that happen outside regular play.
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