Location: ???????
This week's session was hosted at my house on Monday the thirteenth from 1 PM to about 4:30 PM.
After traveling in a vaguely southerly direction for most of the day like the Red Wizard had told them about a few weeks ago, the party made a low-DC Perception check that I used to introduce the afternoon's encounter: two Flail Snails. These were represented by a small case of wood polish and a hair clip, because those conveniently took up 2 square by 2 square spaces on my "combat map" (a sheet of paper with inch by inch squares printed on it). Needless to say, I'm low on actual DM equipment like monster minis and a reusable map.
With all seven NPCs engaged, (although Dragonbait wasn't much use from the back of the herd and Artus Cimber missed frequently with his longbow) the flail snails were defeated with relative ease as the group ganged up on one snail (which Agile had put to sleep with the Sleep spell, and I have just learned we have been using it incorrectly) and then the other. The evening hours after the battle were spent with the party arguing how best to attempt to transport the 2500-gold-piece-each snail shells to the nearest port city. Notable and hilarious attempts included a) trying to reinvent the wheel, which I called as a Performance check, b) searching for branches so as to create a litter or a sedan chair and c) taking the previous two concepts to attempt a wheelbarrow-like design with the rounded part of the shell sitting on the axle connecting two wheels.
Counting their wheelbarrows a success, the party then set up camp for the night while Makenna insisted on setting up a nightwatch (because she's knew me when we were kids and she didn't trust the look on my face, which was correct of her). However, Marilla's Perception check in the dark hours of the night was exceptionally low, and her Passive Perception wasn't high enough either, and so with a sharp pain to the back of her head, she was knocked unconscious, and the party was stolen from their campsite.
Upon waking, Agile and Marilla's vision was obscured. Casamir, due to his tall stature, could see the state they were in: The entire party, animals excluded, were stuffed into burlap sacks and stowed in a covered wagon. Ashley made an argument about Casamir's height that I couldn't refute. Casamir's head was sticking out of his bag and he relayed what he could see to Agile in the tongue of Celestial beings, which according to Meagan, Agile had learned in college for kicks.
Marilla, who had on her the Lenses of Duck while she was kidnapped, put on the magical glasses. The concept of the Lenses is my own: once per long rest, a player may put on the glasses, and then immediately transform into a duck. The form lasts for 1 hour, and while a duck, the player takes no damage.
Upon Casamir making a deeper Perception check, I told him that the sound of movement outside meant that the wagon was guarded on both sides. Additionally, he could see the driver of the wagon from the waist-up, and from that view looked human-like. Casamir called out to the driver, who turned and rose a little in his seat, revealing his lower half to be that of a snake. Naturally frightened, Casamir rolled a performance check to pretend to be asleep still, which he succeed.
Agile attempted to use his claws to break out of his bag and Casamir tried using a prize tooth that he took from a snake, but to no avail. Casamir and Duck-Marilla then tried to cause a ruckus to wake Artus, Dragonbait, and their Tabaxi guides. Casamir only succeeded in triggering his Radiant Consumption transformation, tearing Dragonbait out from his bag and throwing him out of the wagon before the yuan-ti halfblood driver turned and rose from his seat again, instructing with his psionic powers for the party to "ssssit sssstill and be quiet."
I had the party roll Wisdom saving throws to gauge their ability to resist. Casamir, upon rolling a natural 1, sat down so quickly that the wood under him creaked slightly, but Agile and Duck-Marilla could not be swayed. Agile then decided that being singed was better than being kidnapped, and set his burlap sack on fire. The fire then spread to the rest of the wagon, burning up the party's packs ask well, and the next few minutes mostly consisted of Agile taking small points of fire damage and trying to shove his party members out of the wagon with mixed success, Casamir making repeated Wisdom checks to try to break the yuan-ti's influence over him, and Duck-Marilla quacking up a storm in an attempt to wake the still-sleeping NPCs.
As Casamir finally broke the psionic influence and jumped from the wagon, which was mostly burned splinters at that point. Duck-Marilla had rolled out of the cart while still in her bag, while Artus Cimber, River and Flask were all tossed out and summarily escaped. The player characters were then surrounded by five yuan-ti broodguards that increased on them threateningly. Duck-Marilla found a singed hole in her bag, and so she stuck her duck-head into the hole and willed herself back into her merfolk form, forcing the bag to rip apart. Casamir asked the yuan-ti why they were
Casamir tried to intimidate and then grapple the yuan-ti halfblood in an attempt to make him and his guards back off, but was ultimately unsuccessful, and the party was shackled together. Agile and Marilla attempted to escape the manacles placed on them through Sleight of Hand, but also were ultimately unsuccessful.
After a forced march until nightfall, the party were then double-chained to a stake in the ground to prevent their escape, and watched over by a guard that switched every two hours. Agile made use of the Sleep spell again to erase the problem of the guard, while Marilla and Casamir made repeated Strength checks against dislodging the pole from the muddy ground. The squelching noise from the pole eventually coming free alerted the yuan-ti, but a quick current of water from Marilla propped the guard up so fast that he seemed alert, while Casamir and Agile clustered around the pole to disguise the state it was in, and the yuan-ti went back to his tent.
The characters then ran full sprint out of the camp, to "a safe distance where they won't hear us" as said by Ashley when I asked exactly how far into the jungle they were running. Since they were disoriented from being unconscious during the wagon trip, Casamir flew up above the treetops to try to use his knowledge of the stars to try to estimate where their campsite had been, only to succeed with mixed results by knowing how far away the campsite was, just unsure of in which direction.
Marilla and Agile voted to immediately start heading toward the old campsite, but Casamir was intrigued by what the yuan-ti had said when he'd asked what they were being kidnapped for. The yuan-ti had said that they would be slaves and their bodies used for scientific experiments and Casamir, sure that he could eventually escape their clutches somehow, was curious to see exactly what they had meant by this, and why they were doing it in the Forbidden City. At this point, Marilla and Agile ditched Casamir, who then returned to the camp of the yuan-ti and willingly walked with them in the morning.
Around midday the next day, Casamir and the entourage arrived at the mostly-abandoned Port Castigliar, where remains of the undead and a large sailing ship were waiting for them. The captain of the vessel was a yuan-ti abomination, a fully reptilian yuan-ti with two humanoid arms. His officers were all halfbloods like the one that had captured the party, and as the captain was satisfied with the catch of an aasimar, he ordered Cas to the brig and for the ship to set sail. While in the brig, Casamir garnered the sympathy of the dwarven jailer Haley. In his attempts to bribe Haley into letting him out of the brig, Casamir learned that while Haley enjoyed being a sailor and liked the current crew, she wasn't too keen on her bosses, which prompted Casamir to suggest planning a mutiny to depose the crew of their tyrannical bosses and free Cas from the brig.
Meanwhile, Agile and Marilla headed in the direction of their old campsite, hoping to retrieve some of their things and to continue their mission to find and destroy the Soulmonger with or without Casamir.
As we have now split the party, I am going to run the two adventures separately; Meagan and Makenna's through a discord server to work around schedules, Ashley's in person since school is starting up again. This way, no one will have to sit through a storyline they aren't participating in.
After traveling in a vaguely southerly direction for most of the day like the Red Wizard had told them about a few weeks ago, the party made a low-DC Perception check that I used to introduce the afternoon's encounter: two Flail Snails. These were represented by a small case of wood polish and a hair clip, because those conveniently took up 2 square by 2 square spaces on my "combat map" (a sheet of paper with inch by inch squares printed on it). Needless to say, I'm low on actual DM equipment like monster minis and a reusable map.
With all seven NPCs engaged, (although Dragonbait wasn't much use from the back of the herd and Artus Cimber missed frequently with his longbow) the flail snails were defeated with relative ease as the group ganged up on one snail (which Agile had put to sleep with the Sleep spell, and I have just learned we have been using it incorrectly) and then the other. The evening hours after the battle were spent with the party arguing how best to attempt to transport the 2500-gold-piece-each snail shells to the nearest port city. Notable and hilarious attempts included a) trying to reinvent the wheel, which I called as a Performance check, b) searching for branches so as to create a litter or a sedan chair and c) taking the previous two concepts to attempt a wheelbarrow-like design with the rounded part of the shell sitting on the axle connecting two wheels.
Counting their wheelbarrows a success, the party then set up camp for the night while Makenna insisted on setting up a nightwatch (because she's knew me when we were kids and she didn't trust the look on my face, which was correct of her). However, Marilla's Perception check in the dark hours of the night was exceptionally low, and her Passive Perception wasn't high enough either, and so with a sharp pain to the back of her head, she was knocked unconscious, and the party was stolen from their campsite.
Upon waking, Agile and Marilla's vision was obscured. Casamir, due to his tall stature, could see the state they were in: The entire party, animals excluded, were stuffed into burlap sacks and stowed in a covered wagon. Ashley made an argument about Casamir's height that I couldn't refute. Casamir's head was sticking out of his bag and he relayed what he could see to Agile in the tongue of Celestial beings, which according to Meagan, Agile had learned in college for kicks.
Marilla, who had on her the Lenses of Duck while she was kidnapped, put on the magical glasses. The concept of the Lenses is my own: once per long rest, a player may put on the glasses, and then immediately transform into a duck. The form lasts for 1 hour, and while a duck, the player takes no damage.
Upon Casamir making a deeper Perception check, I told him that the sound of movement outside meant that the wagon was guarded on both sides. Additionally, he could see the driver of the wagon from the waist-up, and from that view looked human-like. Casamir called out to the driver, who turned and rose a little in his seat, revealing his lower half to be that of a snake. Naturally frightened, Casamir rolled a performance check to pretend to be asleep still, which he succeed.
Agile attempted to use his claws to break out of his bag and Casamir tried using a prize tooth that he took from a snake, but to no avail. Casamir and Duck-Marilla then tried to cause a ruckus to wake Artus, Dragonbait, and their Tabaxi guides. Casamir only succeeded in triggering his Radiant Consumption transformation, tearing Dragonbait out from his bag and throwing him out of the wagon before the yuan-ti halfblood driver turned and rose from his seat again, instructing with his psionic powers for the party to "ssssit sssstill and be quiet."
I had the party roll Wisdom saving throws to gauge their ability to resist. Casamir, upon rolling a natural 1, sat down so quickly that the wood under him creaked slightly, but Agile and Duck-Marilla could not be swayed. Agile then decided that being singed was better than being kidnapped, and set his burlap sack on fire. The fire then spread to the rest of the wagon, burning up the party's packs ask well, and the next few minutes mostly consisted of Agile taking small points of fire damage and trying to shove his party members out of the wagon with mixed success, Casamir making repeated Wisdom checks to try to break the yuan-ti's influence over him, and Duck-Marilla quacking up a storm in an attempt to wake the still-sleeping NPCs.
As Casamir finally broke the psionic influence and jumped from the wagon, which was mostly burned splinters at that point. Duck-Marilla had rolled out of the cart while still in her bag, while Artus Cimber, River and Flask were all tossed out and summarily escaped. The player characters were then surrounded by five yuan-ti broodguards that increased on them threateningly. Duck-Marilla found a singed hole in her bag, and so she stuck her duck-head into the hole and willed herself back into her merfolk form, forcing the bag to rip apart. Casamir asked the yuan-ti why they were
Casamir tried to intimidate and then grapple the yuan-ti halfblood in an attempt to make him and his guards back off, but was ultimately unsuccessful, and the party was shackled together. Agile and Marilla attempted to escape the manacles placed on them through Sleight of Hand, but also were ultimately unsuccessful.
After a forced march until nightfall, the party were then double-chained to a stake in the ground to prevent their escape, and watched over by a guard that switched every two hours. Agile made use of the Sleep spell again to erase the problem of the guard, while Marilla and Casamir made repeated Strength checks against dislodging the pole from the muddy ground. The squelching noise from the pole eventually coming free alerted the yuan-ti, but a quick current of water from Marilla propped the guard up so fast that he seemed alert, while Casamir and Agile clustered around the pole to disguise the state it was in, and the yuan-ti went back to his tent.
The characters then ran full sprint out of the camp, to "a safe distance where they won't hear us" as said by Ashley when I asked exactly how far into the jungle they were running. Since they were disoriented from being unconscious during the wagon trip, Casamir flew up above the treetops to try to use his knowledge of the stars to try to estimate where their campsite had been, only to succeed with mixed results by knowing how far away the campsite was, just unsure of in which direction.
Marilla and Agile voted to immediately start heading toward the old campsite, but Casamir was intrigued by what the yuan-ti had said when he'd asked what they were being kidnapped for. The yuan-ti had said that they would be slaves and their bodies used for scientific experiments and Casamir, sure that he could eventually escape their clutches somehow, was curious to see exactly what they had meant by this, and why they were doing it in the Forbidden City. At this point, Marilla and Agile ditched Casamir, who then returned to the camp of the yuan-ti and willingly walked with them in the morning.
Around midday the next day, Casamir and the entourage arrived at the mostly-abandoned Port Castigliar, where remains of the undead and a large sailing ship were waiting for them. The captain of the vessel was a yuan-ti abomination, a fully reptilian yuan-ti with two humanoid arms. His officers were all halfbloods like the one that had captured the party, and as the captain was satisfied with the catch of an aasimar, he ordered Cas to the brig and for the ship to set sail. While in the brig, Casamir garnered the sympathy of the dwarven jailer Haley. In his attempts to bribe Haley into letting him out of the brig, Casamir learned that while Haley enjoyed being a sailor and liked the current crew, she wasn't too keen on her bosses, which prompted Casamir to suggest planning a mutiny to depose the crew of their tyrannical bosses and free Cas from the brig.
Meanwhile, Agile and Marilla headed in the direction of their old campsite, hoping to retrieve some of their things and to continue their mission to find and destroy the Soulmonger with or without Casamir.
As we have now split the party, I am going to run the two adventures separately; Meagan and Makenna's through a discord server to work around schedules, Ashley's in person since school is starting up again. This way, no one will have to sit through a storyline they aren't participating in.
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