I accidently deleted most of this post without being able to restore it. I will therefor need to quickly summarize what happened after the fight at Cragmaw Castle:
While still resting the group was attacked by a returning warband of Hobgoblins, accompanied by the prisoners the party let go.
Download full Battle Report with all rolls and maps
The battle was not too demanding and Quillathe got to use her Hypnotic gaze for the first time.
After the fight the party rested, with Brandr leveling up to level 3. Quillathe, having successfully restored the shrine received a divine charm as a reward that will enable her to cast the "Borrowed Knowledge"-Spell three times without using a spell slot. The party also set the Owlbear free that was locked up in one of the towers and managed to stay out of its way as it headed for freedom.
The group returned to Phandalin without any problems and were paid by Sildar Hallwinter for their heroic deeds. Gundren, being weakened by his captivity needed some more rest before heading on to the cave and since all of them have other goals for the moment they decided on the following:
They'll take a trip Eastwards to Wyvern Tor to check out if there are any orcs there still and drive them off or kill them (for Sildar and the town), then continue to Old Owl Well, a tower that Daran Edermath pointed them towards because of possible undead activity there. After a visit to Conyberry to ask a banshee a question for Sister Garaele the party will head back Westwards, possibly through Neverwinter wood and head to Thundertree for Haunui who wants to try and free that forsaken town. After that they will return to Phandalin to check back in with Sildar and their other quest givers.
Download full Battle report with all rolls and maps
Rushing out of the cave, alarmed by the scout out front there comes a group of Orcs, swinging large axes and accompanied by the hulking shape of an ogre. The fight is fierce, but the group has the benefit of distance so that they can finish off several of the orcs before they get to them. A well placed spell of Quillathe's puts the ogre out of action as it rolls on the floor, laughing hysterically for a while and after the Orcs' leader has been killed, the rest try to make a run for it but are quickly cut down.
Each of the characters is awarded 250 XP for the fight as well as some perfume and coin that is divided equally amongst them. They spend a short rest here.
Quillathe uses her Arcane Recovery to regain 2 1st-level spell slots, Harbek uses his Channel Divinity: Preserve Life to heal everyone back up to full HP.
The party then - it is still morning - uses a few hours to trek Northwards through the hills towards Old Owl Well, where they arrive in the afternoon.
As you crest a low ridge, you spy the crumbling ruins of an old watchtower standing amid the rugged hills. The place is so old that the walls are only mounds of rubble enclosing a courtyard of sorts, adjacent to the broken stump of an old tower. A colorful tent has been set up in the middle of the courtyard, but no one is in sight.
As they come nearer, they smell the stench of dead and undead creatures start shambling out of the tower. But as they draw weapons a man in red robes exits the tent and inquires about their intentions. With no one serving any gods that strongly oppose undeath the group agrees to talk. The Necromancer introduces himself as Hamun Kost. He does not share much about his reasons to be here but when he finds out that the group has dispatched the Orcs to the South he tells them that he is doing research here and means no ill, as long as he is left alone. The group and he have no reason to fight each other and with the reason for the undead explained they leave Northwards in the direction of Conyberry.
40XP are awarded for each character.
The group needs to camp out in the hills a few miles South of Conyberry when night falls.
🎲Encounter Check, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 16, no encounter
🎲Arcana Check Quillathe, +5 to see how much she knows about Banshee's (DC 14): 6 (nothing)
The following morning they travel to Conyberry.
🎲Encounter Check, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 2, no encounter
At Conyberry, the party searches for a while until they find a trail leading them into Neverwinter Woods where, in a strange, woven domicile they encounter the Banshee Agatha. She is creepy and not very friendly, but with the silver comb that Sister Garaele has given them the party can easily win the Banshee over. She tells them what she knows about Bowgentle's spellbook before disappearing. There is no reason for this encounter to happen any differently than this.
40 XP are awarded for each character again.
After this somewhat anticlimactic day the group decides to head towards the ruins of Thundertree, traveling through the Neverwinter Wood. They head in a generally North-Western direction and camp for the night.
🎲Encounter Check for the night, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 12, no encounter
🎲Encounter Check for the day, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 2, no encounter
🎲Encounter Check for the night, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 2, no encounter
🎲Encounter Check for the day, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 11, no encounter
🎲Encounter Check for the night, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 13, no encounter
Two days the group travels through the Neverwinter Wood, and for all the stories of its dangers, they are unimpeded by wandering monsters. It is the morning of the third day when they arrive at the outskirts of Thundertree.
The group is advancing on Thundertree from a generally South-Eastern direction. There are multiple possible entry points into the ruins of the village:
🎲Entry point, 1d6 (1: North-East, 2: East, 3 or 4: South-East, 5: South, 6: South-West): 1 (North-East)
Having met the Neverwinter River and having camped there during the night the party follows the broad, green stream as it flows towards the West and after about an hour's travel they see the first shapes of building emerge from the underbrush. Before them lie the ruins of Thundertree.
Gradually, the trail becomes an old, overgrown lane winding between dilapidated buildings choked in vines and brush. Ahead of you, in the middle of the settlement, rises a steep hill, upon which stands a stone tower with a partially collapsed roof and an adjoining cottage. A dirt road hugs the base of the hill and wends its way between old stone houses, many of which are roofless ruins with interiors open to the weather. Other buildings appear more or less intact. The whole place is eerily silent.
Rather close to the river stand the former barracks, the first building they encounter.
The barracks appears to have weathered the years better than most buildings in town. Its rooftop features a simple battlement, and arrow-slit windows confirm that it was built to serve as a small keep in times of emergency.
Haunui has only faint memories of the place, but when they turn around the corner they find themselves on the former village square.
On the east side of town, the lane opens up to form a small square. Several ruined buildings surround the south side of the square, but a larger, intact structure to the north looks like a barracks. One lane leads southeast, another heads southwest around the hill in the middle of the town, and a third way meanders north. In the middle of the square, leaning to one side ever so slightly, is a weathered wooden statue of a warrior clutching a spear and shield.
🎲History Check Haunui, +2, adv (born in this town)(DC15): 16 (success)
Almost intuitively Haunui's lips form the name "Palien" when he sees the weathered statue, then he walks over to the barracks.
"I don't know what awaits us in this town, but this here seems like a good place to start, it's sturdy and might serve well as a location for a base camp of sorts.", he suggests. But when he tries to open the door, it does not budge immediately. It is swollen with the moisture of many years and needs some convincing.
🎲Strength Check Haunui +2 (DC 10): 7 (failure)
Somewhat ashamed Haunui steps back. "A little help here?" he asks, and tries again, backed up by Drusa:
🎲Strength Check Drusa +3, adv (help from Haunui) (DC 10): 15 (success)
The door bursts open and for a moment Drusa and Haunui see only the darkness of the interior of the old barracks, then a shape on the floor stirs and rises up.
"These are the undead!", shouts Haunui, drawing his Sword. "Be gone from my home, vile creatures!"
And he rushes inside to fight the zombies that shamble to their feet.
Download full Battle Report including all rolls and maps
The undead resist the party's attempts to slay them for a while, but they are more an annoyance then a threat for my weathered adventurers. They emit strange bursts of ash when they enter combat that makes the eyes water, but it was not a big bother to anyone.
The party searches the barracks but finds nothing of use. The building however seems to have weathered the erosion of time well enough. They collect the corpses of the ash zombies and, not wanting to leave them out in plain sight they take them to the next buildings that have largely collapsed where they stack them up.
🎲1d10 / 2 to see who get's the wrong ruin first (1: Drusa, 2: Haunui, 3: Harbek, 4: Quillathe, 5: Brandr): 3 => Harbek
🎲Stealth Check +5: 5 => failure to surprise Harbek.
🎲4x 1d100 (rounded up) to see how far away the others are: Drusa (50), Haunui (90), Quillathe (75), Brandr (85)
As Harbek throws down one of the destroyed zombies into the ruins of another house he suddenly hears rustling in the dried out bushes around him and calls out to his friends, just before he is jumped by many tiny creatures that look like they were made out of thin twigs and anger.
Download Full Battle Report with all rolls and maps
It is a short battle in which the small blight scratch up Harbek rather badly before they are all quickly dispatched. The group returns to the barracks to decide what to do now. Haunui wants to explore more, knowing that Mirna's family's Herbalist shop is nearby and wanting to explore a bit more.
🎲Stealth Check +1 (DC 14): 5 (failure)
As the group is talking they hear noise outside again and rush to a window just to see a man quickly rushing away Southwards in the direction where they just fought the blights. The group is suspicious and keeps an eye out but when the man does not return they leave it be for the moment, deciding to head to Mirna's shop where after a quick search they do indeed discover the necklace with a beautiful emerald pendant. Haunui pockets it for now, explaining that he intends to return it to her, since they have plenty of money as is.
From the herbalist's shop the group can clearly see the tower as well as the huge spider-webs covering a part of the road below it. There also is a building to the South-West, a former smithy that looks largely intact as well as the building in the South-East where the man fled to, apparently an old farm-house. These are three possible locations they could explore next.
🎲1d6 / 2 (1: Spiderwebs, 2: Smithy, 3: Farmhouse): 3 => Farmhouse
🎲Cure Wounds on self, Harbek, 1d8+6: 14 (back to full health)
The characters approach the house and knock on the door. Eventually the door is opened an inch,
reluctantly by a man in dark robes. He asks what the characters want and Haunui introduces himself as. He tells the man that he grew up in Thundertree and has now returned to free it from the zombies and make it suitable for human inhibition again.
🎲Persuasion Check Haunui -1 (DC 15 for some success, DC 20 for total success): 12 (failure)
The man who has opened the door does not seem conviced and tells Haunui to shove off before slamming the door. The group, not having a reason to think these people anything else but rude settlers with some dark past leave it be for the moment. If Thundertree is freed they can still try and talk to these ruffians about how to continue now.
The group heads to the old Smithy, that is the nearest building. The door is swollen and barred as well, so Drusa and Haunui try to force it open together.
🎲Strength Check Drusa, +3, adv (assisted check)(DC 10): 21 (success)
The door splinters and falls inward. Two slumped shapes inside this abandoned smithy slowly rise to their feet and attack.
Download full Battle Report (including all rolls and maps) here
The battle is short and within seconds the Zombies are destroyed. Harbek and Brandr, who breathed in the choking Ash that evaporated from the monsters' bodies are coughing for a while but manage to pull themselves together with no lasting harm done as it seems. The Smithy itself is intact, but there is nothing of use for our party here and they leave quickly.
🎲NPC Stealth Check +1 (DC 14): 14 (success) => not noticed by the party
The group moves Northwards to investigate and if possible remove the large webs.
🎲Monster Stealth Check +7: 24
🎲Perception Checks Haunui +3 (9) and Brandr +4 (13)
The group does not see any creature that might have left those webs behind and decide to investigate. There are multiple ways they can do this, ranging from stupid to smart. None of the characters is proficient in Nature.
🎲Quillathe Intelligence Check to make a plan +3, adv (assisted check), (10 for some success, 15 for more success, 20 for complete success): 11 =>some success
As the group talks about how to go about removing these webs, they decide not to touch them directly since they might be sticky. Instead of that, they pick up large branches and try and poke apart the webs.
As they do so, a skittering becomes audible and two monstrously large spiders emerge from inside the building, attacking the group.
Download full Battle Report (including all rolls and maps) here
The to enormous beasts spit webbing at the party but Drusa stands in front of everyone, takes two venomous bites and slays one of them with a single blow of her axe while the rest of the group pelts the other creature with spells and projectiles until it tries to run and is brought down by Quillathe and her magic missiles.
The group slowly and carefully cuts away the remaining webs and makes its way into the building. Here they find, entangled in more webs the dried out husk of the spider's last victim. The group lays the dead elf to rest and take the gold and potion he carried.
After the burial the group reconvenes at the barracks and takes a short rest.
With that out of the way the group debates whether to have a look at the tower or not. It is the highest vantage point they could get and probably a better base than the barracks. They head towards the tower, but as they start to climb the path up to the tower a grey squirrel emerges from the bushes and turns into the druid Reidoth. He warns them that a green dragon has taken over the tower, a fearsome beast that is not to be underestimated.
Reidoth ushes the group along the road to the South-Western part of town where he informs them about the state of the town. There are ash-zombies locked up in the sturdier buildings that he has not yet dealt with and the overgrown ruins are infested with Twig Blights. He is overjoyed when he hears of Haunui's plans to return the town to its former state. Reidoth does not know what the people in the Eastern part of town plan but they have been lurking around the dragon's tower. Reidoth would very much like to see the town freed of the monster, but he doubts if the group will be able to slay her.
Now this is a moment where some consideration is needed. Slaying a dragon at 3rd level is nearly impossible, and even reducing it to 1/2 health as the adventure states you should is a very unlikely situation. The group however might consider trying to do this if they have backup, so they will possibly talk with the dragon cultists or ask Reidoth to back them up. There is no statblock for him and the statblock for a standard druid offers neither offensive nor healing spells which is why I deem it rather useless here. Also, a green dragons breath will reduce each of our characters to 0 HP in an instant with no healing that will be the death blow.
Reasoning from the characters point of view I also don't think they would think themselves capable of defeating a dragon, especially since Reidoth does describe its capabilities. Haunui is the one with the most motivation to clear out the town, but it is not necessarily something he needs to do today. He'd rather come back another day once he has become stronger and live instead of fighting now and dying before achieving his end-goal.
The group returns to Reidoths house and talks about the situation. They decide on two things: They will clear out the zombies and blights today and then head to the people in the farmhouse and talk about the dragon, trying and gaging what their point of view is and if they would back them up.
Blighted Cottages, Download full Battle Report here
The Brown Horse, Download full Battle Report here
Blighted Farmhouse, Download full Battle Report here
Clearing out the three location proves no challenge at all. The group is a bit scratched up but have easily managed to defeat over a dozen of the little plant monsters and four shambling ash zombies in the former inn. There is nothing of value for them so they decide to spend the night at the Barracks to rest up. They talk about their plans and eventually it is Brandr who takes a spell scroll from his backpack and starts to read it out loud. For a moment his eyes flash bright orange and then he turns to the group and says calmly: "I serve a god of war and combat, a god who wants me to use my powers for battle and heroism, to defeat the dark creatures that roam this world."
"So?", asks Harbek.
"He says, we should not go and try to confront the dragon.", states Brandr, as the Augury-Scroll crumples in his hands.
That settles it. The next morning the group packs their things, ask Reidoth to keep an eye out for both the dragons and the people in the farmhouse and leave, promising to return as soon as they can. Deciding that they do not want to let Gundren wait any longer, that they want to report about their finished quests and that Thundertree is save enough for the moment - if you don't count the dragon - they depart in a Southern direction along the edge of the Neverwinter Woods.
🎲Encounter Check for the day, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 15 (no encounter)
🎲Encounter Check for the night, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 5 (no encounter)
🎲Encounter Check for the day, 1d20 (Encounter or 17 or higher): 5 (no encounter)
As the sun sets on the second day, after an eventless journey the group returns to Phandalin, where they have left Gundren, Sildar and - unbeknownst to everyone - a doppelganger.
No comments:
Post a Comment