Session 6 of Tomb of Annihilation, with a side trek to the Ruins of Matalo in the Mistcliff Mountains.
The PC's:
Sembian Sam (returned from a dalliance with Cormyran Candy) Rogue 2, Ranger 1, archaeologist, human, Harper
Shaun the Kobold Cleric (light of Kossuth) 4, Criminal from streets of Port Nyanzaru, Zhent
Adran, Wood Elf Bard (Valor) 4, Entertainer and Bagpiper from the cold northern forests, Zhent
Angry Agatha, Half-Orc Barbarian 4, Harper, bodyguard and long time associate of Sembian Sam
Varis, High Elf Wizard 3 (evoker), acolyte of Oghma
Rainy Day, Cat Person Monk 3, Chultan native
Associates:
Inete, Acolyte of Savras, god of divination, who joined the party after receiving dark visions of evil in the south of Chult
River Mist and Flask of Wine, quite capable cat person brother and sister who are associates of the Zhentarim, hired by party as guides for a share of treasure found on expedition.
Vorn, a Shield Guardian found in the jungle now under the command of Varis, who promised to eventually return the shield guardian to Wakanga O'Tamu in exchange for a spell book.
The Story Continues
After defeating the T-Rex zombie, the party is welcomed into the Camp Vengeance. Ord Firebeard introduces himself as the current commander, and shares that the previous commander took an expedition into the forest recently to establish communication and an alliance with a group of aarakocra in the Mistcliff Mountains who were concerned about some force coordinating the local undead in their attacks on the settlements in the area. Contact has been lost with the expedition, and Ord fears that he does not have enough troops to both defend the camp and search for the missing expedition, and hopes the party can conduct a search, and suggests that they might find some answers to their own questions as well. The party agrees, leaving Inete to help in the hospital tents the rest of the party pulls gear from the canoes and sets out overland.
Between Sembian Sam and the cat siblings, following the path the expedition took through the jungle is not overly difficult, and two days go by without incident. Shortly after setting out on the third day, the party is ambushed by Vegetable Men! They fail to get full surprise on the party but the chief charges forward and releases spores that hurt River Mist and Rainy Day. Then eight followers make sling attacks on the party. Shaun heals Rainy Day who proceeds to take to the trees and a general melee ensues. The party keeps dropping the Veggie people, but they keep getting up, unless knocked down by cold or fire, so torches come out and the plant people are defeated, nearly killing River Mist in the process. The party being a little beat up takes a short rest, also searching the plant folk and finding a very small amount of treasure. As the party starts to get up from their rest, Sam's whip of warning alerts him to a giant constrictor snake about to attack Agatha; the party kills it but not before it has a chance to constrict Agatha, seriously hurting her in the process. Cutting the snake open, the party finds a dead goblin and what turns out to be a horn of blasting! Adran excitedly takes possession of the magical instrument.
On day four, the party finds a small overrun encampment with a number of dead warriors from Camp Vengeance as well as a number of dead zombies. The zombies appear to have gone to the northwest while at least one survivor of the attack has gone east, back toward Camp Vengeance. That evening, the party receives a sending stating that the Camp's commander has made it back but wishes the party continue to follow the undead and discover the force that directs them.
Continuing on their way, the party starts ascending the foothills into the mountains. They make their way without incident, eventually finding their way to a ruined town, the scouts suggest it might be old Matalo, of which nothing has been heard for some time. Several collapsing structures are noted, and as the party makes their way into town they are themselves noted by a gigantic flying dinosaur that soars into the air and attacks, tearing a chunk out of Agatha. Sam whips it as it flies overhead getting a critical hit with his whip, hitting an artery and spraying him and Agatha with dinosaur blood. A half snake person pops out from cover and tries to hit Agatha with some magic but the magic fails; Adran runs after the dinosaur and uses his new horn of blasting on it, dropping it from the sky. The party continues into combat with the Yuan Ti Nightmare speaker and its Broodguard attendant, along with a couple zombies who make their way out of a ruined temple. The cat folk are more tentative now, using their bows from a distance now after getting seriously hurt in the last fight. Adran gets another blast of the horn in, harming multiple party members including the kobold cleric; in response, after using two scorching rays to drop the Yuan Ti and the broodguard, Shaun the kobold then drops Adran with the third ray as there are no enemies left standing. Adran is stabilized while Sam and Rainy Day cautiously peak into the temple, noting a sickly bird man and an unusually fit looking zombie. With the cleric having few spells left Adran is left under the protection of the cat siblings while the rest of the party charges into the temple. In the ensuing combat Vorn manages to draw the attention of the super zombie while the barbarian charges and grapples the necromancer bird creature who fails to drop Agatha with vampiric touches before succumbing to the combined attacks of the party, finally being obliterated by Shaun's second level inflict wounds attack that is the cleric's final spell for the day. The party finds a magical scimitar and a griffin figurine of wondrous power along with some gold and a set of magical pigments. They decide to take an extended rest in the temple they just cleared out and we end there.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Monday, February 19, 2018
Weekend at a Gaming Convention
Traveled to a Crown Plaza in Plymouth, Minnesota on the west side of the Twin Cities to attend the Con of the North. Wasn't able to go until getting my son to bed on Friday night but my friend from the local gaming group wanted to get an 8 AM start on Saturday in an Adventurer's League game so thought it would be best to get up there the night before and not have to rush there in the morning and deal with registration (I had issues with online registration this year). Got there in time to register at 11 PM or so.
Saturday and Sunday morning had coffee and a bagel at what is my favorite Einstein Bros. Bagels in Minnetonka just off of Highway 62 before it intersects 494. Not sure why it is my favorite, but was a regular almost 20 years ago while commuting from St. Paul to an internship in Minnetonka and have returned somewhat frequently since when I find myself in that area. It is right next door to a Caribou Coffee and just across the parking lot from another Caribou Coffee, and this state of affairs has persisted for quite some time despite all being part of the same coffee conglomerate. Keep expecting at least one of the places to close at some point...
Adventurer's League
Enjoyed my time at the convention. Played in an 8 AM tier 1 AL adventure about a midwinter festival in the tropics getting disrupted by a distressed elemental. Got to play Kanut, my new Celestial Warlock from the Inuit-themed culture from the Forgotten Realms. Not entirely sure how he got all the way to the tropics in Chult, but find I like playing this PC, personality starting to come together for me.
That night we played in the D&D AL Epic adventure that filled up with around 100 participants. Did one of these at the same convention last year and found it a very unique game experience with everybody sharing in the experience. These are pretty combat encounter heavy experiences, the one this year was "The Reclamation of Phlan" which involved liberating the city of Phlan from the forces of a dragon that had conquered it during 5th edition AL's Season 1. We were griffin mounted air support in this Epic, starting the evening going on a bombing run.
I used Wilbur, the half-elf great old ones warlock in service to Ghaunadar I'd created a couple years ago as my first AL character (oozes are misunderstood natural phenomena! Give the pudding some love!). Haven't played him a ton, but used DM rewards accumulated as I ran the first half of Out of the Abyss and also used him at the last two Cons of the North, including last year's epic (which also happens to be the last time I had played this PC). Finding that I don't have much of a personality or back story really sorted out, as I've mostly been using him to figure out the mechanics of the warlock class and earlier on 5th edition more generally. So not a great PC either in terms of role playing or in optimization. Do have a level of fighter along with 6 of warlock (pact of the blade, so there is some synergy, also focusing on dual wielding and Dex), not quite enough XP for another level after this but close, last year he picked up a Ring of Spell Storing so my goal is to get the fighter class to 3rd level to do the Eldritch Knight subclass and get some more spell slots so the Ring becomes a more useful item and for Wilbur to be all around more effective. I felt like I was spending most of the adventure running away, occasionally zapping something from the air with an eldrictch blast. Got into a melee once or twice and nearly died a couple times too; the adventure's constraint of only being able to take one short rest certainly impacted my warlock game play. Ended up with a griffin mount as a story reward though, so that was pretty cool. Imagine I won't break Wilbur out until the next time I'm at a convention AL event. There were two kobold PCs at our table and a human rival of one of the kobolds, so it fun watching the rivalry and bantering and attempts at upstaging the others between the three. As we closed on two in the morning, everyone was getting pretty loopy and unfocused (or maybe it was just me), would have been nice to get a little earlier start, the end felt a little rushed though our DM did an awesome job keeping things moving throughout the adventure, and I was quite impressed to see her running another game after I blearily came back through the convention Sunday morning around 10.
Other Games
We got to try out Starfinder, which our group hopes to include in our Sunday rotation soon. Basically the Pathfinder in space game that it promises to be, I see it as essentially a fantasy game set in a science fiction setting. Imagine that doesn't work for everybody, but I like having the familiar d20 rule set and they have done a lot of work to flesh out the setting. Some of it, like magic, feels pretty integral to the game - I wouldn't recommend trying to use the rule set to play a science fiction game without the fantasy elements, there are a lot of science fiction games and settings (some using the d20 rules as well) that would probably work much better for that. There are some rules about limiting access to powerful technology (treating it somewhat like how some fantasy games treat access to magic items) to certain character levels that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Why would people not use or buy the most effective equipment available, borrowing the funds if necessary? And I can't quite suspend my disbelief that wealth in any society would somehow scale in a directly proportional relationship with experience and personal ability, but all this serves of course to reliably make low level characters less powerful than higher level ones. Still, willing to give this a shot as a player if our group commits to a campaign.
Also played some Axis and Allies War at Sea naval miniatures yesterday. Really one of my favorite games of all time. Good to meet another player who felt the same way about this out of print game, got a lot of use of the A&A Forumini expansion decks, which were helpful with the early war year limits we decided to use, played two 1941 Pacific 100 point matches followed by a 1940 European theater match, my fleet with the two old Japanese battleships performed better than my US fleet with the USS Arkansas and Texas. Kirishima destroyed my opponent's USS Arizona with a vital hit while also being sunk itself in the first round of gunnery combat in the first match - fortunately I had a second battleship! Had a bunch of weak early war submarines with my cheap battleships in the second match. Narrowly lost that one (Arkansas held up to a great deal of aerial battering before slipping beneath the waves and my torpedoes failed to find the mark on the last Japanese carrier) and in the third my Italians struggled against a superior British battleship.
So all in all a good convention experience. Expect I will try to attend again next year.
Saturday and Sunday morning had coffee and a bagel at what is my favorite Einstein Bros. Bagels in Minnetonka just off of Highway 62 before it intersects 494. Not sure why it is my favorite, but was a regular almost 20 years ago while commuting from St. Paul to an internship in Minnetonka and have returned somewhat frequently since when I find myself in that area. It is right next door to a Caribou Coffee and just across the parking lot from another Caribou Coffee, and this state of affairs has persisted for quite some time despite all being part of the same coffee conglomerate. Keep expecting at least one of the places to close at some point...
Adventurer's League
Enjoyed my time at the convention. Played in an 8 AM tier 1 AL adventure about a midwinter festival in the tropics getting disrupted by a distressed elemental. Got to play Kanut, my new Celestial Warlock from the Inuit-themed culture from the Forgotten Realms. Not entirely sure how he got all the way to the tropics in Chult, but find I like playing this PC, personality starting to come together for me.
That night we played in the D&D AL Epic adventure that filled up with around 100 participants. Did one of these at the same convention last year and found it a very unique game experience with everybody sharing in the experience. These are pretty combat encounter heavy experiences, the one this year was "The Reclamation of Phlan" which involved liberating the city of Phlan from the forces of a dragon that had conquered it during 5th edition AL's Season 1. We were griffin mounted air support in this Epic, starting the evening going on a bombing run.
I used Wilbur, the half-elf great old ones warlock in service to Ghaunadar I'd created a couple years ago as my first AL character (oozes are misunderstood natural phenomena! Give the pudding some love!). Haven't played him a ton, but used DM rewards accumulated as I ran the first half of Out of the Abyss and also used him at the last two Cons of the North, including last year's epic (which also happens to be the last time I had played this PC). Finding that I don't have much of a personality or back story really sorted out, as I've mostly been using him to figure out the mechanics of the warlock class and earlier on 5th edition more generally. So not a great PC either in terms of role playing or in optimization. Do have a level of fighter along with 6 of warlock (pact of the blade, so there is some synergy, also focusing on dual wielding and Dex), not quite enough XP for another level after this but close, last year he picked up a Ring of Spell Storing so my goal is to get the fighter class to 3rd level to do the Eldritch Knight subclass and get some more spell slots so the Ring becomes a more useful item and for Wilbur to be all around more effective. I felt like I was spending most of the adventure running away, occasionally zapping something from the air with an eldrictch blast. Got into a melee once or twice and nearly died a couple times too; the adventure's constraint of only being able to take one short rest certainly impacted my warlock game play. Ended up with a griffin mount as a story reward though, so that was pretty cool. Imagine I won't break Wilbur out until the next time I'm at a convention AL event. There were two kobold PCs at our table and a human rival of one of the kobolds, so it fun watching the rivalry and bantering and attempts at upstaging the others between the three. As we closed on two in the morning, everyone was getting pretty loopy and unfocused (or maybe it was just me), would have been nice to get a little earlier start, the end felt a little rushed though our DM did an awesome job keeping things moving throughout the adventure, and I was quite impressed to see her running another game after I blearily came back through the convention Sunday morning around 10.
Other Games
We got to try out Starfinder, which our group hopes to include in our Sunday rotation soon. Basically the Pathfinder in space game that it promises to be, I see it as essentially a fantasy game set in a science fiction setting. Imagine that doesn't work for everybody, but I like having the familiar d20 rule set and they have done a lot of work to flesh out the setting. Some of it, like magic, feels pretty integral to the game - I wouldn't recommend trying to use the rule set to play a science fiction game without the fantasy elements, there are a lot of science fiction games and settings (some using the d20 rules as well) that would probably work much better for that. There are some rules about limiting access to powerful technology (treating it somewhat like how some fantasy games treat access to magic items) to certain character levels that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Why would people not use or buy the most effective equipment available, borrowing the funds if necessary? And I can't quite suspend my disbelief that wealth in any society would somehow scale in a directly proportional relationship with experience and personal ability, but all this serves of course to reliably make low level characters less powerful than higher level ones. Still, willing to give this a shot as a player if our group commits to a campaign.
Also played some Axis and Allies War at Sea naval miniatures yesterday. Really one of my favorite games of all time. Good to meet another player who felt the same way about this out of print game, got a lot of use of the A&A Forumini expansion decks, which were helpful with the early war year limits we decided to use, played two 1941 Pacific 100 point matches followed by a 1940 European theater match, my fleet with the two old Japanese battleships performed better than my US fleet with the USS Arkansas and Texas. Kirishima destroyed my opponent's USS Arizona with a vital hit while also being sunk itself in the first round of gunnery combat in the first match - fortunately I had a second battleship! Had a bunch of weak early war submarines with my cheap battleships in the second match. Narrowly lost that one (Arkansas held up to a great deal of aerial battering before slipping beneath the waves and my torpedoes failed to find the mark on the last Japanese carrier) and in the third my Italians struggled against a superior British battleship.
So all in all a good convention experience. Expect I will try to attend again next year.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Goblin Ambush and Trekking Through the Jungle
I thought I'd start a blog to track the Tomb of Annihilation campaign I'm running. Today was our fifth session.
Backstory
The first three sessions essentially took us through the Adventurer's League introductory adventure "City on the Edge" exploring Port Nyanzaru and foiling a plot by Yuan-Ti servants of Dendar the Night Serpent who were attempting to infiltrate the city and do something nefarious with a magical amulet. Before arriving in the city they ran into Amerag the Dragon Turtle while sailing through the Bay of Chult and contributed a donation to expanding its treasure horde. After defeating the Yuan-Ti the PC's were approached by Wakanga O'Tamu, a merchant prince of the city, and his friend the Archmage Syndra Sylvane of Baldur's Gate, dying of a death curse whose source she had tracked to the wilds of Chult. She sought to outfit the PC's to undertake an expedition to find and retrieve or eliminate this device or entity that is currently preventing resurrection magic from taking effect and slowly draining the life from those who were previously recipients of such magic.
I should also note that the PC's had an unusual factional split amongst themselves, with 2 Harpers and 4 Zhentarim finding enough trust in each other to work together in this foreign land. They also found themselves closely aligned with both Soggy Wren, the local Harper spymaster, and Poc-Marked Po, the Zhent agent.
After accepting and organizing their expedition, some of the PC's undertook a trip back across the Bay of Chult to Fort Beluarian to obtain an exploration charter from the Flaming Fist as well as to drop off the evil Yuan-Ti magic device somewhere in the Bay, ideally within the hoard of the dragon turtle. Sailing off with some traders from the far off land of Zakhara the PC's had another run in with the dragon turtle, and managed to unload the Yuan-Ti item on Amerag who appreciated adding another magic item to its pile. At the Fort the PC's gained a charter along with a commission to be paid for any ghoul heads they managed to retrieve while exploring Chult. The party took the name the "Band of the Green Dragonborn" after the member of their party who had achieved the greatest degree of notoriety during their time in Chult. They then found some fishermen willing to sail them back across the Bay to Port Nyanzaru.
Soon after they returned to the Port, the party set off up the River Soshenstar. Running into an actual band of green dragonborns serving as Zhent mercenaries heading off to guard a diamond mine at their first stop outside the city, the party lost the green dragonborn who had provided the name to their band (there may have been a lady dragonborn in that group, but in any case he left, as his player moved to another city). Paddling up river, the party was ambushed by goblins. Fighting them off, the party tracked them to the Batiri Goblin village of Yellyark. Fighting their way through the goblins, the party was shocked when the goblins reacted by using their tension device to launch their village a great distance away into the jungle as they made a fighting retreat. After obtaining a very small amount of treasure that included the control amulet for a Shield Guardian Wakanga O'Tamu had tasked them with finding. The party then returned to the river and their guides, the cat people River Mist and Flask of Wine along with the acolyte Inete of the Temple of Savras, who joined them to help uncover the dark forces in and south of the Aldani Basin, near the headwaters of the river they were traveling up. Soon after the party found a ruined and overrun encampment of the Order of the Gauntlet at the base of a native shrine carved in the form of a man carrying a crocodile on his back. By emulating Man and Crocodile, the human Sembian Sam and Shaun the Kobold were able to avoid most of the traps and the party retrieved and alchemy jug, quite a useful magic item for jungle exploration. Which ended the last session prior to today's...
The Player Characters
Sembian Sam (absent - he disappeared suddenly as the party prepared to exit the shrine) Rogue 2, Ranger 1, archaeologist, Harper
Shaun the Kobold Cleric (light of Kossuth) 3, Criminal from streets of Port Nyanzaru, Zhent
Adran, Wood Elf Bard (Valor) 3, Entertainer and Bagpiper from the cold northern forests, Zhent
Angry Agatha, Half-Orc Barbarian 2, Fighter 1, Harper, bodyguard and long time associate of Sembian Sam
Varis, High Elf Wizard 3 (evoker), acolyte of Oghma
Rainy Day, Cat Person Monk 3, Chultan native
Today's Events
Upon exiting the shrine between the feet of the man carrying the crocodile, the party found themselves facing a native Chultan woman surrounded by a dozen goblins. Rainy Day at that moment had just crossed the river from the party's camp on the other side of the river and was separated from the rest of the party by the ruined encampment. He was discovered by another goblin watching to make sure nobody came from across the river. The party's negotiations with the Chultan woman who disparaged them for coming from abroad and looting the heritage of her people (particularly without the blessings of the Merchant Prince Jobal concerned with expeditions to the interior) were not going well, and after the warning sign from the watcher goblin she told the goblins to kill the party and a combat ensued. But before the goblins could launch their arrows Adnan unleashed a sleep spell and Angry Agatha roared raging directly up to the Chultan woman, giving a wicked slash with her great sword. The Chultan responded with a blast of poison spray in Agatha's face before running, prompting Agatha to give her another slash. She retreated past Rainy Day who dashed across the encampment to discover what was happening, but he was quickly in combat with a couple of goblins blocking his advance. The wizard Varis, Agatha, and Adran all took damage from goblin arrows and scimitars but rays of frost from the wizard and two thunderwaves from the bard took care of a number of goblins while the barbarian faced off against the goblin's leader. Shaun the Kobold kept the party going with healing magic to the wizard and the barbarian and the handful of remaining goblins did not stick around after their leader died.
The party discussed chasing after the goblins and the mysterious Chultan but decided instead to next seek out the X on their map marking the location of Vorn now that they had the control amulet. After a run in with some crocodiles and a pause to wait out some mad monkey mist the party found a camp site by the river closest to the spot marked on their map. Leaving the NPC's guarding the camp once more, the party set off into the jungle. They quickly realized they greatly missed the presence of Sembian Sam, as Agatha was the only remaining party member with navigation skills, and those turned out to be somewhat underdeveloped. Fortunately, they were in a relatively well traveled area and a friendly weretiger on its way to visit his Aaracokra friends in the Mistcliff Mountains showed up and offered to escort them as far as the shrine of Vorn. While on the way they were ambushed by another group of goblins from a different tribe than the two they had encountered so far. The party expressed some frustration at the behavior of these goblins but the weretiger was philosophical about the nature of goblins. During their last couple hours of the weretiger's time with party the wood elf decided it was a good time to practice his bagpipes so the weretiger decided it was time to move on by himself, but he did leave the part at the Vorn shrine, which did indeed turn out to be a shield guardian which Varis quickly figured out how to operate, and this was surmised to be quite a helpful addition to the party, and his utility was quickly demonstrated on the way back as the party was stampeded and soon in a life and death struggle with a flock of Axe Beaks. Finding a 5 foot wide slime path, they party decided to avoid investigating what they thought might be a flail snail thanks to the copy of Volo's Guide they had bought in the Port but instead sought to rejoin their guides by the river. Again Agatha's guidance fell somewhat short, as the found the river but not the camp. Deciding, in any event, to head south upstream the party soon enough found their camp anyway and it was on to Camp Vengeance, the next location along the river.
Ruins of Matolo
Despite the party still being 3rd level, I like the introduction to Camp Vengeance in "Ruins of Matolo" so I decided to use that. A CR 8 monster would be tough, but it was by itself and the scenario included some assistance from the garrison; the biggest threat was the bite attack being enough to drop pretty much any party member with one hit.
Upon rounding a bend in the river, the party found the Camp under attack by a Zombie Tyrannosaurus. They leapt into action, the monk charging first into combat and hitting the beast three times and knocking it on its rear. Unfazed, the dinosaur spat out a zombie that moved to attack and then bit the monk - one hit being enough to drop the cat. Angry Agatha and the Adnan the bard both quickly also moved into combat while Shaun the Kobold and the wizard held off, using ranged magical attacks. The barbarian, raging, actually stayed standing after one bite from the dinosaur but there was now another zombie spat out and attacking. The kobold then attempted to turn undead, and the two humanoid zombies were driven off - but not the t-rex! Another bite nearly dropped the barbarian, but she held on only to drop following a hit from the third disgorged zombie. The shield guardian next waded in to attack, the second hit doing the trick, dropping the dinosaur. Inete and the catfolk were now inside the Camp and assisting the camp's archers, and between them and the party short work was made of the remaining zombies. We faded out, as Shaun rushed to throw a healing spell on the Cat-Monk, and the garrison of the camp cheering the heroics of the party...
Backstory
The first three sessions essentially took us through the Adventurer's League introductory adventure "City on the Edge" exploring Port Nyanzaru and foiling a plot by Yuan-Ti servants of Dendar the Night Serpent who were attempting to infiltrate the city and do something nefarious with a magical amulet. Before arriving in the city they ran into Amerag the Dragon Turtle while sailing through the Bay of Chult and contributed a donation to expanding its treasure horde. After defeating the Yuan-Ti the PC's were approached by Wakanga O'Tamu, a merchant prince of the city, and his friend the Archmage Syndra Sylvane of Baldur's Gate, dying of a death curse whose source she had tracked to the wilds of Chult. She sought to outfit the PC's to undertake an expedition to find and retrieve or eliminate this device or entity that is currently preventing resurrection magic from taking effect and slowly draining the life from those who were previously recipients of such magic.
I should also note that the PC's had an unusual factional split amongst themselves, with 2 Harpers and 4 Zhentarim finding enough trust in each other to work together in this foreign land. They also found themselves closely aligned with both Soggy Wren, the local Harper spymaster, and Poc-Marked Po, the Zhent agent.
After accepting and organizing their expedition, some of the PC's undertook a trip back across the Bay of Chult to Fort Beluarian to obtain an exploration charter from the Flaming Fist as well as to drop off the evil Yuan-Ti magic device somewhere in the Bay, ideally within the hoard of the dragon turtle. Sailing off with some traders from the far off land of Zakhara the PC's had another run in with the dragon turtle, and managed to unload the Yuan-Ti item on Amerag who appreciated adding another magic item to its pile. At the Fort the PC's gained a charter along with a commission to be paid for any ghoul heads they managed to retrieve while exploring Chult. The party took the name the "Band of the Green Dragonborn" after the member of their party who had achieved the greatest degree of notoriety during their time in Chult. They then found some fishermen willing to sail them back across the Bay to Port Nyanzaru.
Soon after they returned to the Port, the party set off up the River Soshenstar. Running into an actual band of green dragonborns serving as Zhent mercenaries heading off to guard a diamond mine at their first stop outside the city, the party lost the green dragonborn who had provided the name to their band (there may have been a lady dragonborn in that group, but in any case he left, as his player moved to another city). Paddling up river, the party was ambushed by goblins. Fighting them off, the party tracked them to the Batiri Goblin village of Yellyark. Fighting their way through the goblins, the party was shocked when the goblins reacted by using their tension device to launch their village a great distance away into the jungle as they made a fighting retreat. After obtaining a very small amount of treasure that included the control amulet for a Shield Guardian Wakanga O'Tamu had tasked them with finding. The party then returned to the river and their guides, the cat people River Mist and Flask of Wine along with the acolyte Inete of the Temple of Savras, who joined them to help uncover the dark forces in and south of the Aldani Basin, near the headwaters of the river they were traveling up. Soon after the party found a ruined and overrun encampment of the Order of the Gauntlet at the base of a native shrine carved in the form of a man carrying a crocodile on his back. By emulating Man and Crocodile, the human Sembian Sam and Shaun the Kobold were able to avoid most of the traps and the party retrieved and alchemy jug, quite a useful magic item for jungle exploration. Which ended the last session prior to today's...
The Player Characters
Sembian Sam (absent - he disappeared suddenly as the party prepared to exit the shrine) Rogue 2, Ranger 1, archaeologist, Harper
Shaun the Kobold Cleric (light of Kossuth) 3, Criminal from streets of Port Nyanzaru, Zhent
Adran, Wood Elf Bard (Valor) 3, Entertainer and Bagpiper from the cold northern forests, Zhent
Angry Agatha, Half-Orc Barbarian 2, Fighter 1, Harper, bodyguard and long time associate of Sembian Sam
Varis, High Elf Wizard 3 (evoker), acolyte of Oghma
Rainy Day, Cat Person Monk 3, Chultan native
Today's Events
Upon exiting the shrine between the feet of the man carrying the crocodile, the party found themselves facing a native Chultan woman surrounded by a dozen goblins. Rainy Day at that moment had just crossed the river from the party's camp on the other side of the river and was separated from the rest of the party by the ruined encampment. He was discovered by another goblin watching to make sure nobody came from across the river. The party's negotiations with the Chultan woman who disparaged them for coming from abroad and looting the heritage of her people (particularly without the blessings of the Merchant Prince Jobal concerned with expeditions to the interior) were not going well, and after the warning sign from the watcher goblin she told the goblins to kill the party and a combat ensued. But before the goblins could launch their arrows Adnan unleashed a sleep spell and Angry Agatha roared raging directly up to the Chultan woman, giving a wicked slash with her great sword. The Chultan responded with a blast of poison spray in Agatha's face before running, prompting Agatha to give her another slash. She retreated past Rainy Day who dashed across the encampment to discover what was happening, but he was quickly in combat with a couple of goblins blocking his advance. The wizard Varis, Agatha, and Adran all took damage from goblin arrows and scimitars but rays of frost from the wizard and two thunderwaves from the bard took care of a number of goblins while the barbarian faced off against the goblin's leader. Shaun the Kobold kept the party going with healing magic to the wizard and the barbarian and the handful of remaining goblins did not stick around after their leader died.
The party discussed chasing after the goblins and the mysterious Chultan but decided instead to next seek out the X on their map marking the location of Vorn now that they had the control amulet. After a run in with some crocodiles and a pause to wait out some mad monkey mist the party found a camp site by the river closest to the spot marked on their map. Leaving the NPC's guarding the camp once more, the party set off into the jungle. They quickly realized they greatly missed the presence of Sembian Sam, as Agatha was the only remaining party member with navigation skills, and those turned out to be somewhat underdeveloped. Fortunately, they were in a relatively well traveled area and a friendly weretiger on its way to visit his Aaracokra friends in the Mistcliff Mountains showed up and offered to escort them as far as the shrine of Vorn. While on the way they were ambushed by another group of goblins from a different tribe than the two they had encountered so far. The party expressed some frustration at the behavior of these goblins but the weretiger was philosophical about the nature of goblins. During their last couple hours of the weretiger's time with party the wood elf decided it was a good time to practice his bagpipes so the weretiger decided it was time to move on by himself, but he did leave the part at the Vorn shrine, which did indeed turn out to be a shield guardian which Varis quickly figured out how to operate, and this was surmised to be quite a helpful addition to the party, and his utility was quickly demonstrated on the way back as the party was stampeded and soon in a life and death struggle with a flock of Axe Beaks. Finding a 5 foot wide slime path, they party decided to avoid investigating what they thought might be a flail snail thanks to the copy of Volo's Guide they had bought in the Port but instead sought to rejoin their guides by the river. Again Agatha's guidance fell somewhat short, as the found the river but not the camp. Deciding, in any event, to head south upstream the party soon enough found their camp anyway and it was on to Camp Vengeance, the next location along the river.
Ruins of Matolo
Despite the party still being 3rd level, I like the introduction to Camp Vengeance in "Ruins of Matolo" so I decided to use that. A CR 8 monster would be tough, but it was by itself and the scenario included some assistance from the garrison; the biggest threat was the bite attack being enough to drop pretty much any party member with one hit.
Upon rounding a bend in the river, the party found the Camp under attack by a Zombie Tyrannosaurus. They leapt into action, the monk charging first into combat and hitting the beast three times and knocking it on its rear. Unfazed, the dinosaur spat out a zombie that moved to attack and then bit the monk - one hit being enough to drop the cat. Angry Agatha and the Adnan the bard both quickly also moved into combat while Shaun the Kobold and the wizard held off, using ranged magical attacks. The barbarian, raging, actually stayed standing after one bite from the dinosaur but there was now another zombie spat out and attacking. The kobold then attempted to turn undead, and the two humanoid zombies were driven off - but not the t-rex! Another bite nearly dropped the barbarian, but she held on only to drop following a hit from the third disgorged zombie. The shield guardian next waded in to attack, the second hit doing the trick, dropping the dinosaur. Inete and the catfolk were now inside the Camp and assisting the camp's archers, and between them and the party short work was made of the remaining zombies. We faded out, as Shaun rushed to throw a healing spell on the Cat-Monk, and the garrison of the camp cheering the heroics of the party...
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