DND Blog

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

The Ninety-Eighth Session

February 17, 2024, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

Having teleported to the area near Maymoor, the Party sets out to find Bugfood. Finding him, the Party then sets out to find Miranda. We enter an underground base of some sort, kill some Thieves, and are flushed out when they flood the base. We did not find Miranda, but we did capture a Thief, who gives us directions to where 'The Brigade' can be found.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Finding Bugfood
  3. Finding Miranda
  4. In the underground base
  5. Next session

Last session

Rescue Salris and Seamus' corpse, sink the Nightmare, return to Quadroads, resurrect Seamus, do some shopping. Jerry received a dream from Bugfood, and we set off to find him. We teleport onto a cold tundra.

Finding Bugfood

We're lost, so Ryltar pulls out his Giant Housefly to carry Jerry up to an altitude where she can see where we are. Jerry sees that to the north, along the coast, is a town, and it looks like it's probably Maymoor. There's a clear drydock, a wharf, and a lighthouse. The usual amount of smoke trail.s And there's a large elk to the east of us. She lands the fly.

We decide to go see the elk. It grazes on what little vegetation remains. Jerry dings the Magic Microwave and pulls out a cube of alfalfa. It eats. "Do you know where we can find Bugfood?" It continues eating. We discuss how to communicate with it.

A sparrow lands on Jerry's head, and we keep talking.

The sparrow turns into Bugfood, who says hello. He had seeded the area with animals to guide us to him, but then we didn't ask the elk to take us to him, and we were making a bunch of noise, so he came here.

Finding Miranda

Bugfood says that the people in the village have been acting weirdly. His sister, Miranda, found an obsidian pumice, and got kidnapped, and is now secluded in a cell somewhere.

We ask about the stones; Ryltar asks if Miranda found something like his Far Realms shard, which was found at the center of the previous obsidian pumice infiltration. Ryltar doesn't know what he wants to do with it, but neither does Bugfood. We walk and talk until we're in the general area of a harvested forest.

Speak with Plants lets Bugfood talk to grasses and other things. The plants complain that they are cold. And someone stepped on some of the plants. Jerry looks around, and the foot tracks are very easy. There are multiple, including animals and humanoids. There's a slender female footprint and heavier boots, heading east.

We follow the tracks to the west, riding on summoned beasts and the fly in haste, to find the spot where Miranda was taken.

We find an area with a scuffle, and evidence and remains of some obsidian pumice. Same three sets of footprints. There are drag marks going north, too. We follow them. Within 30 feet, the drag marks cease, intentionally.

Ryltar casts See Invisibility on himself, and Bugfood casts Detect Magic, there's nothing outside of the group that is outstandingly magical. Bugfood uses his hat to Disguise Self as Miranda, a human woman a little older than Bugfood, with black hair, blue eyes, waifish, hardy.

Jerry casts Locate Creature on Miranda: off to the north-northeast, and underground. Ryltar uses his Wand of Secrets to check for doors and traps within 30 feet. Jerry pokes around with a 16 Investigation, and finds a hollow stump. It has a nail, which when wiggled, reveals a hatch. Bugfood casts Pass Without Trace and Jerry leads the way.

We climb down into the stump, and find a maze of tunnels.

In the underground base

"By the way, Bugfood," says Ryltar, "I found this," and pulls out the Deck of Many things.

"Get that thing away from me," chants Bugfood. "You can't make me draw the card."

We round a corner, and see a Dwarven man in studded leather armor.

Jerry says, in Dwarvish, "Excuse me; we're lost."

  1. Round 1: Surprise!
    1. The Dwarf shouts something and runs away. He's shouting in Theives' Cant.
    2. Bugfood casts Polymorph on him, turning the Dwarf into a tortoise.
  2. Round 2
    1. Jerry does some exploring, and Dodges, which means that the Thief who shoots at her misses.
    2. Ryltar Mage Hands the Turtle out of the way of combat.
    3. Vurguron moves up, taking another angle of the path.
    4. Percival follows Vurguron.
  3. Round 3.
    1. Bugfood advances to near Jerry
    2. The Thief runs.
    3. Jerry follows, and gets shot by the White Thief. She takes 4 piercing and 18 poison despite her resistance. Then she gets shot again for 4 piercing and 22 poison. She closes on the Thief, who looks Elvish. She loses concentration on Locate Creature and pops Ensnaring Strike, restraining the Elfish Thief and cutting twice for 16 + 7 = 25 magical slashing.
    4. Ryltar runs up another branch of the corridor.
    5. Vurguron dashes up the corridor, coming up behind Jerry.
    6. Percival comes up behind.
  4. Round 4.
    1. Bugfood picks up the tortoise and follows everyone.
    2. The White Thief takes 6 damage from the vines. He pulls out a piece of obsidian pumice, cracks it, and disappears.
    3. Ryltar, in his own corridor, sees a heavily-armed man pop out of the wall, and runs towards him with a maul. Ryltar shouts, "Guys, you started this!" The first swing misses; the second he blocks with Shield
    4. Jerry advances up the hallway, passes some cross doors, and finds herself behind the guy who just attacked Ryltar. She attacks him for 26.
    5. Ryltar casts Psychic Lance on the guy, incapacitating him.
    6. Vurguron comes up behind Jerry.
    7. Percival and Ryltar and Bugfood meet up.
    8. There's a hidden door in the wall, and someone shoots at Vurguron, for 6 piercing and 14 poison. And 13 piercing and 7 poison. The tunnel walls are lined with wood panels now.
    9. Jerry stabs the incapacitated Maul Thief with Ensnaring Strike and restrains him, dealing 23 damage.
  5. Round 5.
    1. Some other stuff happens.
    2. Bugfood does some Stoneshape to made an oubliette for the tortoise, and entombs it. Then he catches up with Percival.
    3. The Mace Thief cannot escape the vines. He lands 1 hit on Percival, who becmes Frightened.
    4. Jerry kills the Mace Thief. Then she moves up to Vurguron, and bashes in a wall that he saw was a trapdoor.
    5. A thief pops out of the wall behind Vurguron, and misses two attacks.

We move around some more.

Another Thief appears from a cross tunnel and attacks Percival, missing every time except once, taking 68 damage.

  1. Round 6.
    1. The thief that attacked Vurguron disengages, closes the door, opens another door, and runs. Ryltar sees him run.
    2. The Thief who attacked Percival retreats. Percival hits him with Tasha's Hideous Laughter on his way out.
    3. Jerry smashes through her next door, and enters another corridor. She sees Brown Thief, misses her attack, and Hides.
    4. Ryltar runs after Black Thief, and attacks with Psychic Lance.
    5. Vurguron moves up.
    6. Percival attacks prone Brown Thief. 9.
  2. Round 7
    1. Bugfood does guiding bolt on Brown Thief.
    2. Black Thief attacks Ryltar, dealing 10 piercing and 16 poison, 10 piercing and 27 poison, disengages, and jumps back through a door.
    3. Jerry stabs Brown Thief twice.
    4. Ryltar moves back through the doors to catch up.
    5. Vurguron explores in the direction we don't want to be going.
  3. Round 8
    1. Bugfood Balm of the Summer Courts Ryltar for 10, then advances a bit and Dodges
    2. Red Thief appears in front of Bugfood, and runs.
    3. Brown Thief continues to be affected by Tasha's Hideous Laughter.
    4. Jerry stabs Brown Thief twice, moves up to an intersection, and hides.
    5. Vurguron moves back to the group.
    6. Percival stabs Brown Thief twice.
  4. Round 9
    1. Bugfood turns Red Thief into a turtle. What happened to the previous tortoise in its oubliette is left unsaid.
    2. The turtle bites Bugfood's ankle, and fails.
    3. Jerry returns to Brown Thief and kills him. She encourages Percival to loot the body.
    4. Ryltar advances.
    5. Vurguron advances.
    6. Percival loots the body of Brown Thief. Nothing of use, except a shortsword, a shortbow, and a vial of poison.
  5. Round 10
    1. Bugfood picks up the new turtle, and explores down another hallway.
    2. Ryltar hears voices chanting, "Wessu, wessu, wessu!""
    3. Jerry catches up with Ryltar, but can't tell where the sounds are coming from. Dashes to catch up with Vurguron.
    4. Ryltar runs further ahead.
    5. Vurguron runs ahead.

Vurguron, Jerry, and Bugfood hear a massive amount of pressure, and hear the sound of waves from a hallway. Jerry takes 5 bludgeoning from a wave of water. Ryltar manages to stop the flow with a Wall of Ice. Bugfood runs back to the passage where the water is coming from, and he uses Stoneshape to cut it off.

Jerry recognizes that the air pressure is continuing to increase, so we party back up and

Ryltar casts Teleport to take the Party to the stump: 64. Offtarget.

We land outside the stump. The White Thief is present, sees us, and runs off.

  1. Round 1.
    1. Percival casts Hold Monster on the Thief,
    2. Jerry runs over and starts disarming him by ripping his shirt off. He has many scars.
    3. Ryltar removes his weapons.
    4. White Thief escapes Hold Monster, and tries to run.
    5. Vurguron troops up.
    6. Bugfood summons eight wolves. He wants to ask the Thief some questions.

We tell the Thief that we want to know what happened to "the girl." He doesn't know what we're asking about, even after Bugfood takes the face of Miranda. He also doesn't know where his friends went, or what the base was for.

Ryltar expresses that he is bored, and would really like it if the prisoner gave us some information.

Bugfood directs one of the wolves to remove the man's hand and eat it. The man curses. He's loyal to "The Brigade."

Percival casts Mass Suggestion on the Thief, and suggests that he lead us to The Brigade. "Yeah, I could do that. We may need to go into town."

There's a lumber mill at the edge of town, with massive piles of wood. Town is a place with many oceanic motifs and tiled roofs, but still very snowy. We follow our guide through the streets; people are all bundled up. Most people go about their ways, though they keep an eye on these underdressed foreigners.

We see the Sand Dollar Bar, and the White Thief says, that the destination "is just over there." Ryltar Polymorphs him into a turtle and throw him into a well that we saw. The Thief untransforms at the bottom of the well.

It turns out that this sort of thing is not that weird in this town.

We take a short rest outside the bar, keeping an eye on the bar.

A man of the cloth passes by, in light blue-white robes with puffy white collars, like a wave. These are the priests of Umberlee, the evil sea goddess of storms. There are two types of Umberlee followers: those who appease her, and those who exert her wrath. These are the appeasing priests, making collections.

Ryltar walks up, deposits 10 gold in the collection plat, and asks if the priests know of anything known as "the brigade" here. The priest says nothing. He puts a platinum in. The priests still don't know anything. But if Ryltar is looking for someone, many people attend the service tomorrow evening.

We debate whether to send Percival into the tavern with Glibness.

Next session