A Phuulish Fellow

In order to catch up to the actual progress of the D&D campaign, I present you with another couple of sessions. These were actually held back to back, on a Monday and Tuesday evening.

Session XV

Alas, Goatslayer had another lycanthropic transformation… though this time, he ran off into the forest. Unable to find him for now, the party continued onwards… right into the middle of a giant Bandit Ambush. Which was represented on the table by a number of Mackintosh’s Toffees, and in our imaginations by a fierce skirmish within some closely-packed trees.

It turned out that these Bandits were both extremely numerous and extremely well-prepared. So well-prepared that it later became clear that they had been scrying on us from a distance. Saqua threw an obligatory Fog Cloud in their midst, but soon found himself afflicted within a zone of Silence in return. A Bandit Bard (with a lute) had magical spells at his disposal – and knew of Saqua’s own magical abilities.

Unfortunately for the Bandits, however, Saqua is no slouch at mundane combat – with his vampiric side, he is essentially a Combat Sorcerer. Cue, climbing a tree to take out a pair of crossbow-wielding pests. One of them thought to give the fingers as he fled down an escape-rope… but via opportunity attack, Saqua dealt with the Bandit first by sword, then by Fury Point-powered bite. Enough to kill, and thereby gain both health and another Fury Point. Our dear little Dhampir can very much keep going when surrounded by low-level enemies.

Droxl, Millie, and Khan were no slouches either. The Bandits were starting to flee en-masse into the forest now, but little did the party know, the villains had actually succeeded in their aim, specifically of making away with an item hitherto in the party’s possession. But Saqua did not know this. He had his own goal. He wanted that blasted Bard.

Now, the forest was treated as Difficult Terrain for the party (but not for the Bandits), so on paper, the Bard really should have got away. But Saqua’s accumulated Fury Points enabled him to turn into a mist and relocate 30 feet a turn… essentially teleporting his way through the trees. The Bard cast Invisibility on himself, only to then make the fatal mistake of casting an additional spell, which negated the Invisibility. Saqua wanted to take the fellow for questioning, and wheeled out Command – alas, a failure. And then the Bandit Bard’s head exploded, because it turned out the poor guy suffered under the effects of an external Geas, and these Bandits had been working for someone else the entire time.

Bugger. But Saqua wound up with the Bard’s lute as a souvenir, and the DM described the party as “Bloodthirsty.” And then Goatslayer turned up, back in his normal form.

The party was taking stock of the situation when an Owl then turned up. This Owl worked for the Forest Druid, and told Millie that some idiot had cut down the giant protective Snow Oak, thereby weakening the forest’s power. Yes, it turned out that that Druid we had met in a previous session was really a hag pretending to be a Druid, and we had done a terrible thing. Worse, the hag had imprisoned the real Druid. Millie then went and explained to the party what we had done.

Droxl’s response was to kill the Owl. But it was a Familiar, so it merely went back to its appropriate plane of existence. But there was the issue of what the party ought to do now. Saqua took the viewpoint that we really should correct our mistake, and help free the poor Druid. Goatslayer, however, insisted that his oath to King Bloodaxe took precedence.

In the end, the party agreed with Goatslayer. The Druid matter will have to wait.

Session XVI

So rather than more forest stuff, it was back to civilisation. The nearest town sported a very fancy inn (somewhat pricey, but Saqua has little conception of land-money), and a Church of Sune. Which served as both entertainment and religious sex-cult. Saqua purchased a nice bottle of wine at the inn, and a room for the night. But he actually wanted someone who could teach him how to play this lute he’d acquired… the innkeeper pointed him at the Church. All roads led to the Church of Sune, it seemed.

After making further enquiries, Saqua wound up finding an elaborate swimming pool. Inside were a single woman at one end, and two men at the other (one elderly and obese, the other a bit younger). Saqua went to the woman first, but she redirected him. So Saqua approached the elderly man, and asked about lute-playing. It turned out the fellow was a very accomplished musician… and Saqua got both useful pointers and a night’s fun. In fact, Saqua tried to add in some surreptitious blood-drinking, but (as per Constitution rolls) it took ages for the old man to fall asleep first.

Saqua was so impressed by the old gentleman’s stamina, that he made a later point of recommending him to the rest of the party. Especially to Goatslayer. But the party was generally less enthusiastic, and indeed the next morning, Millie found Saqua sitting with his legs in the swimming pool, an empty bottle of wine beside him, singing to himself. He was stark-naked too. Oh well. It’d been a fun night for our Dhampir. He even had a tune to practise on his lute.

(Millie had her own adventure, involving talking with mafia cats).

On leaving the town, we heard strange rumours of a monster attacking farm livestock (out of game, this was lycanthropic Goatslayer), and then ran into a pair of furriers. Alas, they wanted nothing we had, and their prices were too stiff for us. They weren’t remotely interested in the remains of a certain squirrel.

And then came what could have been very… problematic. You see, Droxl had wandered off, and the party – from atop some high seaside cliffs – noticed that he was fighting a killer whale down in the sea. Saqua thought it seemed excellent fun. He’s lived underwater, and has got experience fighting such beasties. So he went and jumped off the cliff, rolling a 2 on the dice for his Dexterity save.

Now, in fairness to Saqua, he’s jumped from 30 feet cliffs into seawater before. Of course he has. He finds it great fun. The problem is that he wasn’t aware that (at a certain height) water actually becomes nasty to jump into. Very nasty indeed. And these cliffs? 200 feet. Which mechanically translated into 20d6 damage. Saqua was knocked unconscious from full health, and needed Droxl to get him up again. In theory, the damage could have killed him outright. But since Saqua can breathe underwater, and can easily heal in combat, he was soon able to get his bearings. In fact, he wound up killing the killer whale himself, so there was a happy ending there.

More problematic is that Goatslayer also decided to make the jump. He was also knocked unconscious from full health, and unlike Saqua cannot breathe underwater. And he wears heavy armour. Getting the poor guy back to land was a tricky business. And there the session ended.

Time for another D&D update, concerning my Dhampir Sorceror.

Session XIII

The party departed the tavern, somewhat hungover. Thence we travelled into a forest – home, apparently, of both a fortune-teller and various formidable creatures. Saqua’s experience with forests is of the kelp-variety, so this was all new to him.

Then a manticore turned up. Demanding a toll to let us pass. The thing wound up making off with Goatslayer’s armour as its fee… which did not exactly endear it to our Goliath Monk. It became a matter of hunting it down to its cavern lair.

And there we found the puppets. Yes, animated puppets. A cleric, a soldier, and a hag – dressed up as each other. One of these, apparently, had the key to what lay beyond.

You see, this was a logic puzzle. We had to find out who was whom, with the knowledge that the cleric always tells the truth, the hag always lies, and the soldier can do either. The puppet dressed as the cleric said that the hag had the key. The puppet dressed as the soldier said the puppet dressed as the hag was the hag. The puppet dressed as the hag said “I’m the hag… kill me.”

Now, Saqua does not necessarily strike me as a logical sort of character, but this is one of those occasions where out-of-game reasoning becomes part of the game. So let’s run with it.

The hag always lies, so the puppet dressed as the hag cannot be the hag. But the puppet dressed as the hag is not telling the truth, so cannot be the cleric. Therefore the puppet dressed as the hag must be the soldier (currently in lying-mode). The puppet dressed as the soldier is lying too, therefore cannot be the cleric either. Therefore that puppet must be the hag. Which means the puppet dressed as the cleric must be the cleric. Problem solved – nice one, Saqua.

The hag was not amused by this, so attacked us. With the assistance of additional puppets, we were able to defeat her and gain the key.

Cue encounter with the manticore, unamused at our following it into its lair.

Here Saqua decided to experiment. His modus operandi had been to use Inflict Wounds, with sorcerous Distance Spell. But now, he dusted off a Wand of Magic Missile, with Bonus Action Hex. The result was appropriately spectacular, and while Saqua did not quite one-shot the manticore, he did sufficient damage that the party was able to make mince-meat of the critter very quickly.

After verifying that manticores were solitary critters, the party took advantage of its victory to do some minor looting. Goatslayer got his armour back.

Further on, we encounter a large and mysterious door, with the following written in the giantish tongue:

“A castle made of bricks and stone/takes twenty years to make/the bricks I need to finish it/how many does it take?”

Saqua might have a decent grasp of logic, but he isn’t the best with riddles. Luckily Goatslayer has a NPC Elven Squire – not Oryk, another one, called Pervin – who is more riddle-friendly.

• SAQUA: *Command on Pervin*: “Solve!”
• DM: *rolls.* “That’s a failure from Pervin.”
• GOATSLAYER: “What are you doing to my squire?”
• PERVIN: “It takes one brick to finish it.”

In fairness to Saqua, there are comparatively few situations where Command can actually be used in a non-combat situation, and this was arguably one of those. Getting the DM (via an NPC) to cough up the answer to their own riddle is a bit cruel though, and Goatslayer was not happy.

Goatslayer became a good deal happier when we wandered through the doors, to find a giantish crafting area.

But there was one on-going problem. Goatslayer was still afflicted with lycanthropic tendencies. Sure enough, that night some moonlight crept into the cavern… and Goatslayer transformed. Whereupon Saqua pulled out his Wand of Magic Missiles, and with Hex, let loose the nuke. That changed Goatslayer back into his familiar form.

The party was now making damned sure to keep Goatslayer chained up. But then we had the fortune to run into a mysterious forest Druid. This Druid offered us a deal – she would tell our fortunes, if we cut down a giant Snow Oak that was acting as a parasite on the forest. Which the party agreed (and wasn’t this the eventful session?).

Cue each party member getting a cryptic fortune told for them. Saqua is sure his fortune will make sense when the stuff starts to happen.

But the Snow Oak? That was a truly insane tree. The plan was to cut it so it fell in a direction towards a river. And with much time and effort, we eventually got it down. Saqua’s magically summoned goat helped a bit, at least prior to getting utterly vapourised.

The party then debated what to do with the stump and roots. Saqua pointed out that we only agreed to cut it down – nothing more. Which was the position the party eventually went with. None of the party rolled particularly well in terms of counting the tree-rings (the only conclusion? The tree was old).

Then, as the party camped beside the giant stump… a dragon flyby took a direct hit on Goatslayer. But not any direct hit. Our poor lycanthropic Goliath Monk was literally buried in a pile of dragon poo. And was suffocating at the end of the session.

Session XIV

After a truly monster session last time, this one was a bit lighter. Saqua resolved the cliffhanger – and the poo covering Goatslayer – via pulling out a Scroll of Tidal Wave. He is only third Level, so doesn’t have the spell slots to do it himself, but a Scroll worked just fine.

But really, the party had earned itself a break… and a hunting competition.

The party divided itself into three teams:

• Millie (Human Ranger) and Goatslayer (Goliath Monk).
• Khan (Goliath Barbarian) and Droxl (Lizardfolk Warlock)
• Saqua (Dhampir Sorcerer) and Oryk (NPC squire)

Millie ran across a Brontosaurus, and talked to it, even as Goatslayer was trying to figure out how to kill it. But in a bizarre twist for a hunting trip, our Ranger successfully befriended it. The Brontosaurus calls itself Biscuit, apparently. It agreed to meet the party down by the sea.

Saqua went chasing a giant lobster. But he needed bait to lure the lobster out. So rather than risk himself, he decided to literally throw a pig he’d brought along into the river.

It worked like a charm. Out came the lobster, and Saqua nailed it with his Inflict Wounds/Distance Spell combination. It rather affected the quality of the meat, but the party already has more meat than it knows what to do with. And Saqua and Oryk killed a Displacer Beast on the way back to camp, which more than made up for the lobster problem. And Oryk is now riding a Blink Dog.

(Meanwhile, the pig escaped, and ran off into the forest. It wasn’t ever coming back. Oh well. Saqua had only bought it for blood-feeding purposes).