DND Blog

A place to keep DND session recaps, from various campaigns.

The Ninety-Seventh Session

February 3, 2024, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

We learn of the history of the Dereshars' curse, and upset the crew of the Nightmare. Then we sink the ship and return to Quadroads, where we revive Seamus and prepare to go save Bugfood.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. To Sea
    1. The Journal of Robert Dereshar
    2. Examining loot
    3. Curse Removal
    4. The rest of the day
  3. Morning
    1. Shopping
    2. Dreams
  4. Saving Bugfood
  5. Next Session

Last session

We rescued Salris from certain death, and he became captain of The Nightmare (necromancy), gaining telepathic connections to the zombies. He gains a coat, a sword (necromancy + illusion), a pendant (wooden compass, abjuration) and some Beads of Force.

To Sea

We get back into the longboats and return to the ship.

His brother died elsewhere, and is why the Nightmare came to Viper's Cove. We have Seamus' body and horn.

Salris queries the crew: "Do you know what this coat and sword do?" "Cut things?"

He asks the first mate for a refresher on the curse of the ship. "My brother told me a long time ago and we've gone through a lot before then."

All that can be told to Salris, all that is known:

He leads us into the captain's quarters, and cases the joint:

He commands the chest to open: nothing happens. No keys in his pockets.

The ledgers:

  1. Ryltar picks up the ledger: Running tally of the ship's cargo and loot and abrters.
  2. Salris picks up the journal: "Property of R. Dereshar."

The Journal of Robert Dereshar

The journal starts off as the daily journal of Salris' father. He rises through the ranks on the ship, comes in contact with the most-recent former captain, until Robert Dereshar becomes captain of The Grey Wind. One day, he finds a blade of bone and obsidian, which calls itself "Reaper". (The obsidian sword we found had no bone.) There are other entries, detailing how the sword searches for power and is sometimes uncontrollable, threatening those who Robert cares about if he doesn't seek out power. It searches for vaults, away from prying eyes. Next interesting entry: "Possible vault in Varunian ruins." Entries of the journey to Varun and its ruins, and discovers that the vault is compromised and another is needed.

"Possible vault in Viper Cove. Need more information."
"Ritual needed to lock and unlock."
"Ritual needs a taking of a life and the blood of the keeper, the one who can open it once closed. I do want to keep this secret. I will need help. Murtagh will come with me."
He describes the journey to Viper Cove and finding it. "Hope that this is the end of this nightmare." The next page, sloppily written: "It is done. To keep the Reaper sealed, I must never return. I am the Keeper, my blood is the key. My oldest Salris and my newborn Seamus: They are my blood, so they also hold the key. They must be safe, or they must be ready." Later entries are more violent and manic.

Eventually the journal switches to Seamus' hand, who writes that he is not ready and will never be ready. "Where is Salris? I think that there will be a mutiny." And then that's it.

Seamus never talked about the curse of the Nightmare, other than the details we already know.

Robert never was captain of the Nightmare.

Examining loot

The first mate knows that the chest is a matter between the captain and the "boarding leader". The boarding leader says that it is The Thieves' Folley, which takes five keys held by the high-ranking officials in the Thieves' Guild. With a 19 Persuasion, the boarding leader says that they have found one key, The Iron Key. Opposing Thieves' Guilds have to work together to open it, and no Guild knows which other Guilds hold which keys.

It'll take us 10 days to sail back to Greyharbor.

Salris decides to address the crew:

I am your new captain, Salris Dereshar. You can call me Salris; Mr. Dereshar was my father .We need to head back to Greyharbor as fast as possible; make it happen.

They hop to it.

Salris tells us that he really never expected to be on this ship; he's not actually good with boats.

We look at the map; it has the past sails of the ship marked on it. Nothing interesting marked in this corner of the sea.

Salris decrees no more raiding. "I will not be running things like my father." "So you will be running things like Seamus." "Yes. But I'm a significantly better warrior than Seamus, so don't get any funny ideas."

The crew has never tried resurrecting any of the undead.

Fun questions:

Salris tells the Party that if we go back to Setton, we'll need to take a free bounty job from A.R.N. from the monster-hunter job board.

In the brig there are four living people, who Salris doesn't know. The crew say that they're there for their safety and the crew's safety. Ryltar borrows the magic microwave, and goes down to feed them. He tells them that he doesn't have any authority, and the ship is under new management, but he's there to feed them.

  1. Traveling from Escala to the Cumberland Isles, and from there to Greyharbor

We take a short rest and heal up.

Ryltar spends some time examining the chest: 16" by 12" by 10", can't divine inside.

With a 22 investigation (DC 25), Ryltar and Vurguron determine that the box was designed to lock away something that only a culmination of Thieves could release.

We decide to Sending the Dean of Sky Diamond Academy:

Found Thieves' Folly chest; requires five keys from thieves' Guild. Is it important? Next destination: Arcadia Infinatum. How's the Forest? Rescued Salris, now captaining Nightmare.

The reply:

Thieves' Folly is a item of legend. Offhand, unknown to me. Encircling the tree ensues. This is unknown territory you are heading into. Godspeed.

We decide to try Salris's random iron key on the lock. But first, Salris wants to try out Remove Curse on himself.

Curse Removal

Salris' connection to the ship and zombies drops.

Salris says, "lock the doors. There's a problem. I might've just removed myself from captaincy and the zombies might attack us."

Jerry hears commands outside. "Ready yourselves!" And other calls to arms.

Ryltar says we need to go. He doesn't have another 7th-level spell slot, to cast Teleport, and doesn't want to use the spell scroll. He grabs the Thieves' Folly.

Jerry smashes the window, preparatory to throwing the folding boat out.

Ryltar grabs Jerry and Dimension Doors out; Salris follows with Misty Step, and Percival with Dimension Door and Vurguron. We open the folding boat.

  1. Round 1: Our boat sails away from the Nightmare, and we decide to fuck it up.
    1. Salris holds Flame Strike until someone appears in the window.
    2. Vurguron casts Protection from Evil and Good on Salris, to protect him.
    3. Jerry follows with Web, hitting the rear mast, helm, and two side boats.
    4. Percival releases his held Fireball. The web burns at 1 5' cube per turn for 2d4 fire per turn.
    5. The back half of the ship is now on fire.
    6. Multiple crew appear at the window. Salris releases the Flame Strike, and a vertical column of divine fire roars down, searing the back of the boat, dealing 4d6 fire and 4d6 radiant.
    7. We realize that Seamus' corpse is still on the boat.
    8. The crew take potshots at us, hitting several people with arrows.
    9. Ryltar casts Darkness on the helm, obscuring the whole back of the boat.
  2. Round 2.
    1. Salris pulls out his Robe of Useful Items and rips off the Rowboat patch. He kicks it off to the left, towards the shore, in the hopes that the boat will throw off the attackers. With a 15 it starts bobbing away.
    2. Vurguron casts another Firebolt on the ship, for 17 damage, breaking another window.
    3. Percival casts Mass Suggestion on the living crew (doesn't need to see, just to hear) and says, "This is Percival, your captain speaking. Your best course of action is to leave us alone." They have disadvantage from one of his effects.
    4. Jerry's web dealt 240 fire damage to the boat, destroying the helm, rear deck rear mast, and two longboats. And the ship is still on fire. She starts to set up the folding boat's mast, to take us to shore.

The ship's mainmast is slowly catching fire. And its rear end is listing. We see the crew begin to Water Walk to shore. They're charmed.

Ryltar wants to save the people in the brig. He has 24 sorcery points, which could provide 5 Dimension Doors, enough for 2 rescues. Percival suggests Bigby's Hand to carry people off; Jerry suggests Water Walk. The brig is at the back of the ship, already underwater; Ryltar can't cast stuff without speaking unless he does it subtly.

He gains 2 fourth-level spells and Dimension Doors into the brig, grabs one person, and comes back with a gasp of air. With two more spells, he does the same with the next person, the one who reaches out, and since there's no air, returns subtly.

The two people we picked up: merchants.

We should've put more thought into stuff; but we didn't think that Remove Curse would work. And Ryltar feels bad because he promised that he would try to save the prisoners.

Ryltar says that, with time and water-breathing scrolls, we could retrieve the corpse of Seamus. Or we could Polymorph, suggests Percival, and turns Jerry into a Giant Octopus. Ryltar drops the anchor.

She flops out of the boat and goes for a swim. She locates the wreckage. The Nightmare has sunk fully. It fell butt-first, then listed on its side, so the rear windows are accessible. She goes in through the windows. There are a lot of bodies in the room, rocking with the current. More than a dozen. Sixteen living crew now dead; only 8 survivors.

She can't really identify Seamus, so she starts pulling bodies out and bringing them back to the surface.

  1. Two bodies on the first trip, the first trip isn't fruitful. Ryltar starts going through their pockets as Octopus!Jerry returns. 50 gold to the merchants.
  2. One body, not Seamus.
  3. One body, Seamus!

Jerry goes back to try to find the brig. It was crushed.

Then she finds the chest, and discovers that it has broken. She retrieves 100gp of assorted goblets and dishes and loot, and that's it.

We sail south, towards Greyharbor.

The rest of the day

We find a small cave with a sandbar, and set up shop there for the evening. Percival opens the Magic Mansion, and we spend the evening there playing with the servants. The merchants are extremely out of their element.

Ryltar and Salris think that this is going to come back to bite us.

Morning

We Teleport to Quadroads, to the Temple of Ioun, without notifying them. We apologize and do paperwork.

We bid the merchants adieu, and apologize for the interruptions to their trip. They thank us for the assistance.

We go to the Irregular Inn, and Salris is overjoyed to see the kid.

We use Identify to identify the captain's sword: Acheron Blade, +1 to attacks and damage, immune to Turn Undead, action for +1d4 temporary HP, Disheartening Strike for disadvantage on attacks.

We have the Reincarnation Dust, but it can't be used, because 10 days have passed.

Remove Curse on the corpse.

Ryltar casts the Resurrection, Salris goes full mourning, tears, begging Seamus to return, to let Salris right the wrongs. The spell strengthens. Percival offers in Salris' Flametongue sword, and it crumbles to a gold powder and strengthens. Ryltar offers a speech, saying that he'd like to get to know Seamus more. He presses the broken horn back onto Seamus' head, tracing the seam with a finger.

Seamus draws breath.

Salris grabs his hand and says, "Oh, thank the gods."

"Salris," Seamus gasps.

Salris sits him up and gives him some hugs. "I fucked up, but now we're free."

"No. We're the keys to the Reaper."

"Let's not worry about that now."

"I heard you."

Shopping

Salris casts Scry on the captain. No results.

We stay the night at the Regular Inn.

Dreams

Jerry gets another Bugfood dream: "Hey, um. I need help."

"Are you still having problems locating your family?"

"No. Found them. Her."

Is it Belladonna?

"No, Miranda." Like we know who she is.

"Who is she?"

"My sister." Actual sister, but not a Tiefling? "She's seen something that she shouldn't've."

"What did she see?"

The dream has no background, just Jerry and Bugfood in an empty expanse.

"You remember the black stone things?" Yes. "That. The things with a lot of holes." The obsidian pumice. "This."

"We got rid of all the obsidian pumice. We threw it in another dimension."

"This is another one. People have been disappearing. Sometimes reappearing."

"When they reappear, are they okay?"

Noncommittal head wiggle. "Somewhat."

Jerry figures out that Maymoor is in the swampy areas to the west of the continent."

She asks what we need to be prepared for, and he says, "Something to deal with this," and the darkness opens to reveal that they are surrounded with flesh, eyes, teeth, tentacles.

She wakes up.

Saving Bugfood

Jerry decides to reattune to the Slayer of the Unnatural, from the Moon Scythe.

She tells everyone about the dream, over breakfast.

Salris gives Seamus 20 platinum and instructions to lay low.

Maymoor is all the way west of Easthaven.

We go to the Temple of Ioun, to ask them for a sigil for any teleportation sigils for East Haven. They don't have one; they say that the sigil there has been disrupted. We explain the communications from Bugfood, who, we stress, is a very qualified person to tell us.

They say that the disruption happened more than a hundred years ago, and everyone they send doesn't come back.

Up the road, there's the town of Cannerock. They have a Temple of Ioun, but their Circle isn't set up yet.

Ryltar asks them if they recognize the sigil on the scroll he has; they do not.

We Teleport to Maymoor, yeeting ourselves across the Material Plane. "Ya Yeet," incants Ryltar, with a 67, we're off target.

Thunk. We land in water, neck deep and freezing. Water Walk. It's very cold. Not snowing.

With Prestidigitation we make it to shore.

Next Session