A Rambling Expedition
The party consists of Guts the Half-Orc barbarian, Celestia the Elven cleric, Talus the Half-Elf warlock, Geremiah the Human fighter, and Elrin the Elven monk. They'll attempt to recover the gem that Guts, Talus, Celestia, and Geremiah buried last time and then trek across the savannah to go to an ancient elven barrow Elrin has learned about.
Geremiah takes first watch and notices horsemen rapidly approaching from the northeast. He barely manages to wake the others before 3 centaurs corral them. They know of the wildfire caused by Guts' antics and they demand that the adventurers atone for this wrong.
Guts tries to downplay the seriousness of the fire but the Centaurs relate how blood demons have appeared and reaped quite the toll against the centaurs. Their culture demands that those responsible for a wrong do all they can to right it, or perish.
Guts is standoffish and in disbelief about the demons, Geremiah is in a confused stupor, Celestia and Talus are full of remorse but believe the blood demons are out of their league, and Elrin makes the decision: they will not atone for their sin.
The centaurs spit in the face of the party and gallop away- the next time they meet the party will be poked through with centaur arrows.
The party goes about their day and dig up the gem, deciding to try to sell it at the Gnomish Airstation or the port of gWrench.
When they arrive at the airstation they find it deserted and the tower closed up. They spend another couple days pressing through the Savannah to the port of gWrench, arriving without incident. In gWrench, Geremiah brings them to Gilmar Goodwrench who owns a pawn shop. While Geremiah drinks with old crewmates, Guts and the rest of the party engage in complex haggling with Gilmar. Eventually they do strike a deal so Guts and Celestia stay behind to see it through while the rest of the party heads North to the barrow Elrin wants to check out.
After 5 days they all meet up at the barrow and begin their delve.
The barrow has two entrances, one blocked by rubble and another without. Talus notes that the walls lining the stairway into the barrow are slightly chipped and that tiny coin-like debris litters the top of the stairs. Geremiah elects to throw caution to the wind and steps down the stairs, triggering a pressure plate that blasts tiny sawblades in an eviscerating spray. He is quickly yanked back by Elrin before he is torn to shreds.
After Elrin bandages up Geremiah, he and Talus hatch a plan to try and throw rocks from the other entrance to trip the trap. The rocks hit pressure plates but they reckon they'd spend hours trying to land rocks on each plate. Geremiah, with a stubborn huff, grabs Celestia's shield and rushes down the stairs: triggering the trap but shielding himself and eventually exhausting the trap of its ammunition.
They descend into the barrow finding themselves in a room of coffins on the ceiling and wisps hovering above the floor. One wisp heads to the west and the party elects to follow, descending stairs into a humid room resplendent with ancient elven art and chests. Elrin and Talus both notice that the center of the room has a bare patch surrounded by green algae. 4 wisps float around in this room, as they enter a wisp leaves and heads up the western stairs.
Celestia examines the art and Guts goes to open one of the chests, as soon as he does so the remaining wisps fly into the ceiling: from which a torrent of water appears, rapidly flooding the room.
With water rising around their feet, they ascend the western stairs arriving in another chamber with four paintings, each depicting a scene in a different season, and a ring of rune inscribed stones on the center of the floor. Talus and Elrin investigate the stones while Celestia looks at the paintings.
Talus and Elrin learn that the stones are some sort of inactive portal to the Fae while Celestia notices that the surface of the paintings ripple as if made of water. They notice that the wisp they've been following has gone down the Northern hallway and ascended a western stairway. They follow it further into the barrow.
At the top of the stairs the wisp heads south and then disappears in a chamber from which a loud rumbling snoring emanates. They investigate.
Their clumsy movement as they enter the rank chamber awakes it's occupant: a sleeping troll! Though unable to stand at its full height, it swings it's club at Guts. Guts dodges the blow and the club strikes the ceiling. Dusty debris begins to fall steadily. Uh-oh.
The battle is tense, with the party whittling down the troll and it's wild swings making the ceiling more and more unstable. Some of the party retreat when a wispy shield coalesces around the troll. Talus recognizes that destroying the giggling wisps around the room will rob the troll of its shield. With this knowledge, He , Elrin, and Guts deal a deathblow to the troll.
Guts loots the troll's greatclub while Geremiah rummages around in the refuse piles. For his efforts he finds a barbed wand that he grasps- painfully. They exit the chamber to the south, finding a stairway that ascends and then turns into an eastward hallway. The hallway ends with a a northern stairway that descends into a pool of water. The party has gone in a circle.
Geremiah proudly exclaims his swimming ability and orders a rope tied around his waist. He plunges into the water and begins looking for the exit, GETTING ATTACKED BY A FOUR EYED SHARK. The rest of the party quickly pulls him back and he is bandaged yet again (Geremiah is quite the worse for wear at this point).
Guts and Celestia go back to the Troll corpse and hack off a chunk of its flesh, planning to use it as bait for the shark. The plan works and the party is able to swim through the water and eventually exit the barrow.
When they arrive back in Bara-Kraz they find the city evacuated and a refugee camp set up outside the gates. Another earthquake struck and the city has been devastated. Guard captain Gerdan tells them that Lord Cholgan is believed to be still within the city.
It is Slate 17.
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A good session, the biggest takeaway has been that hex crawls can be a lot to manage. In some ways this is cool, it makes a journey feel like the slog they can be. On another hand I came home and talked to my girlfriend, who was playing Breath of the Wild, about my problem. Through our conversation I think that a pointcrawl where you discover new points by going to other points, like how you "fill out" the map in Breath of the Wild by going to the towers, would accomplish the sense of discovery and still make it feel like a journey.
I'm planning on the next session being the last session of the open table. I'm going to put out a survey to my players afterward and then put a post-mortem up on the blog when I've thought through how the campaign went.
Finally, I've been getting some painting done! I'll be posting what I've been working on at a later date, so, until next time!
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