After ten days of waiting the party finally saw a group of travelers in the distance. Artus, Dragonbait, Eku, Tony, and Vinnie were accompanied by the macetail and the honker Chak'sa. As the other group approached, thick purplish black clouds began to form and descend on the field. From one cloud emerged four four-armed undying girallons. From another emerged a large bipedal reptile with a long horizontal tail and a massive tooth-filled head. Its mouth was filled with half-eaten humanoid zombies- and it was charging towards them!
CHAPTER 19, "THE QUEST FOR OMU"
THE EXPEDITION
- Bramble Wolf - a theran barbarian wise-man (Wildhunt Shifter Druid) searching for the legendary origin of his tribe.
- Apparently Jones - a blue-skinned demijin caravan guide and animal trainer (Air Genasi Ranger) from Akasa, the land of sky mountains. Having failed to find work in Port Nyanzaru as an animal handler, she has joined the expedition to the interior as a scout.
- Chak'sa - Apparently's honker (parasaurolophus) companion.
- Xoc-Wik - a b'alam warrior (Tabaxi Fighter) from the jungles of Bres, searching for those responsible for the destruction of his tribe.
- Zeynap Shiravadakar - a Eusebean smuggler (Human Warlock) bearing the spirit of a celestial unicorn.
- Argent Truth-Sayer - a golden azi knight errant of Bahamut (Dragonborn Paladin) in the service of Bahamut, sent on a holy mission to join the expedition to destroy the Soul Monger.
NPCs
- Eku - a mysterious shape-changing wise-woman from Chult, hired as a guide.
- Tony and Vinnie - rough and tumble dinosaur wranglers who wished to learn from Apparently, possibly from 19th century Boston on Earth.
- Artus Cimber - an explorer on a quest to reunite with his lost love.
- Dragonbait - a saurial from another dimension, friend and traveling companion of Artus Cimber.
Day 37 - The Clouds of Death
Argent fell victim to the Brain Fever and was left at the camp. Bramble, Apparently, Xoc-Wik, and Zeynap rushed across the plain towards Eku, Artus, Dragonbait, Tony, and Vinnie. The massive bipedal behemoth, a long-tooth, closed on them from behind while the undying girallons charged from the left.
The long-tooth opened its mouth and disgorged the half-eaten remains of its former victims - themsevles animated by the power of the undying! Bramble summoned two celestial bears which engaged the long-tooth, blocking its charge. Dragonbat drew forth a glowing greatsword and charged at the long-tooth emitting the smell of wood smoke and baked bread. Artus moved to help his friend, creating a magical ice storm behind the long-tooth.
Tony and Vinnie formed the beasts Chak'sa and the macetail into a defensive wall against the girallons. Unfortunately Tony was caught by a girallon and his head was bitten off. Xok-Wik and Zeynap directed ranged attacks against the girallons while Apparently drew her swords and engaged in melee.
Eku provided some healing to Apparently then transformed herself into a spike-tail behemoth and engaged the girallons, destroying them with her thrashing thagomizer.
The long-tooth defeated the bears but Bramble simply summoned replacements. The long-tooth was defeated by a magical blast of radiant energy from Zeynap while Dragonbait took care of the remaining zombies.
After the defeat of the zombie creatures the clouds of death moved across the plain and eventually dissipated.
The party, now reunited, returned to the campsite for the evening. The party was reluctant to reveal any information about Valindra Shadowmantle in the Heart of Ubtao with Eku or Artus. They kept their stories vague.
When asked about his magical power to generate ice storms, Artus revealed that he possessed an artifact known as the Ring of Winter. He had no memory of how he obtained it. All he remembered is that he had possessed it for over two hundred years and that as long as it magically prolonged his life he would dedicate his immortality to finding a way to free his beloved who was trapped in Mezro.
Argent fell victim to the Brain Fever and was left at the camp. Bramble, Apparently, Xoc-Wik, and Zeynap rushed across the plain towards Eku, Artus, Dragonbait, Tony, and Vinnie. The massive bipedal behemoth, a long-tooth, closed on them from behind while the undying girallons charged from the left.
The long-tooth opened its mouth and disgorged the half-eaten remains of its former victims - themsevles animated by the power of the undying! Bramble summoned two celestial bears which engaged the long-tooth, blocking its charge. Dragonbat drew forth a glowing greatsword and charged at the long-tooth emitting the smell of wood smoke and baked bread. Artus moved to help his friend, creating a magical ice storm behind the long-tooth.
Tony and Vinnie formed the beasts Chak'sa and the macetail into a defensive wall against the girallons. Unfortunately Tony was caught by a girallon and his head was bitten off. Xok-Wik and Zeynap directed ranged attacks against the girallons while Apparently drew her swords and engaged in melee.
Eku provided some healing to Apparently then transformed herself into a spike-tail behemoth and engaged the girallons, destroying them with her thrashing thagomizer.
The long-tooth defeated the bears but Bramble simply summoned replacements. The long-tooth was defeated by a magical blast of radiant energy from Zeynap while Dragonbait took care of the remaining zombies.
After the defeat of the zombie creatures the clouds of death moved across the plain and eventually dissipated.
The party, now reunited, returned to the campsite for the evening. The party was reluctant to reveal any information about Valindra Shadowmantle in the Heart of Ubtao with Eku or Artus. They kept their stories vague.
Artus looked around the campfire and saw that no one but Dragonbait was listening. Dragonbait emitted the scent of honeysuckle and patted his human friend on his knee. Artus sighed.
The Blessing of Restoration
On the night after the reunion, Zeynap took a deep breath and confided to Bramble that Zalindra Shadowmantle had placed a geas upon him. Zeynap gritted his teeth and took the hit. Afterwards, Zeynap called upon the Blessing of Restoration given to him by the Oracle of Orolunga to remove the geas.
The Blessing of Restoration
On the night after the reunion, Zeynap took a deep breath and confided to Bramble that Zalindra Shadowmantle had placed a geas upon him. Zeynap gritted his teeth and took the hit. Afterwards, Zeynap called upon the Blessing of Restoration given to him by the Oracle of Orolunga to remove the geas.
Day 38
The party traveled south-southwest. Rain showers and heavy winds during the day hampered their progress and they advanced only ten miles.
Day 39
The party continued south-southwest encountering only occasional rain showers. They advanced twenty miles.
Day 40 - Yellow Musk Zombies
Rain and heavy winds again hampered their movement. The party advanced only ten miles. They camped in some ancient ruins covered in jungle. Bramble stood vigil over the sleeping party when he spotted the silohuettes of ten shambling humanoids advancing into the firelight. Unlike the other animated corpses they had encountered in Chult these were covered in yellow vines and flowers. The zombies were accompanied by three large orchids which shivered in the night. Each orchid was adorned with three flowers - one purple, one yellow, one orange.
Bramble sounded the alarm and ran around kicking everyone awake. True to form Zeynap groaned and rolled over in his bedroll.
Artus, Dragonbait, and Xoc-Wik woke to find themselves being pummeled by zombies. They rolled to their feet and engaged the shambling corpses.
Bramble called upon the spirits of nature and summoned forth a storm. Lightning struck down many of the zombies. Eku transformed herself into a spike-tail. She waded into the zombies waving her thagomizer back and forth. Dragonbait cleaved through the zombies while Artus fired his pistol, a strange technological artifact from the Other World. After transforming himself into a bear and destroying a zombie, Bramble woke Zeynap with a forceful push.
The zombies were soon defeated and Zeynap finished off the three orchids with magical blasts of celestial glitter.
Eku transformed herself back into human form and explained that the orchids were known as "Tri-Flower Fronds", they were slow and easily destroyed, and the zombies were called "Yellow Musk Zombies", transformed by the pollen of a deadly vine. She warned that the camp must near the ceeper vine that spawned the zombies. They'd have to move the camp.
The group was forced to pack up their camp and move in the middle of the night. No one got any rest that night.
Bramble sounded the alarm and ran around kicking everyone awake. True to form Zeynap groaned and rolled over in his bedroll.
Artus, Dragonbait, and Xoc-Wik woke to find themselves being pummeled by zombies. They rolled to their feet and engaged the shambling corpses.
Bramble called upon the spirits of nature and summoned forth a storm. Lightning struck down many of the zombies. Eku transformed herself into a spike-tail. She waded into the zombies waving her thagomizer back and forth. Dragonbait cleaved through the zombies while Artus fired his pistol, a strange technological artifact from the Other World. After transforming himself into a bear and destroying a zombie, Bramble woke Zeynap with a forceful push.
The zombies were soon defeated and Zeynap finished off the three orchids with magical blasts of celestial glitter.
Eku transformed herself back into human form and explained that the orchids were known as "Tri-Flower Fronds", they were slow and easily destroyed, and the zombies were called "Yellow Musk Zombies", transformed by the pollen of a deadly vine. She warned that the camp must near the ceeper vine that spawned the zombies. They'd have to move the camp.
The group was forced to pack up their camp and move in the middle of the night. No one got any rest that night.
Day 41
The next day was sunny and the party advanced twenty miles. The night was windy and rest was difficult to find.
Day 42
The party continued south-southwest encountering only occasional rain showers. They advanced twenty miles.
Day 43 - The Ruined Gate House
The party trudged wearily through the rain the following day. During the afternoon they came across the ruins of an immense and ancient wall. The wall at one time had been twenty feet tall and ten feet wide. Now it was little more than a wide line of tumbled decaying blocks covered in trees. Eku noted that this was once the outer wall of the great kingdom of Omu - a sign they were nearing their destination.
They followed what remained of the ancient track to the ruins of an old gate house. The gate house was little more than a stone platform piled in stones and columns covered in vines, grass, and trees.
As they approached the jungle-clad ruins they spotted hunched humanoid forms scurrying over the debris. The ruins were haunted by ghouls! Two hulking skeletal minotaurs rose from the undergrowth, dirt and plants falling from their bones.
Zeynap directed spells at the fiends while Xoc-Wik loosed his arrows at the many undying targets. Dragonbait covered the right flank while Chak'sa and Apparently engaged the left flank.
The skeletons and ghouls were soon dispatched and the party continued on their way, covering twenty miles that day.
Day 44
The party advanced twenty miles through the rain showers of the day. Heavy rain and winds ensured no one found rest that night.
Day 45
The party traveled south-southwest. Rain showers and heavy winds during the day hampered their progress and they advanced only ten miles.
Day 46
The party covered another twenty miles despite the rain. During the day the party caught sight of an Akasan airship flying low under the rain clouds heading south. Apparently did not recognize the ship. Heavy rain during the night made rest difficult.
DM Commentary - The Problem with Artus and Dragonbait
All during last week's session I got the sense that the group didn't care much for Artus and Dragonbait. I don't know if it was general paranoia or a bit of jealousy but they never trusted them, they never included them, they never relied on their skills or powers, and more importantly they never interacted with them. As a result, there was never a chance to communicate the story details around these NPCs.
I didn't help matters any by buying into the distaste for these NPCs and making a joke about their story, "Oh, my backstory? Find out about it in the novel 'Ring of Winter' published by Del Rey books!" was the recurring joke.
I sent the following e-mail to my group AFTER this week's session.
Let's talk about Artus Cimber and Dragonbait.
DM Commentary - The Problem with Artus and Dragonbait
All during last week's session I got the sense that the group didn't care much for Artus and Dragonbait. I don't know if it was general paranoia or a bit of jealousy but they never trusted them, they never included them, they never relied on their skills or powers, and more importantly they never interacted with them. As a result, there was never a chance to communicate the story details around these NPCs.
I sent the following e-mail to my group AFTER this week's session.
I regret including them.
They are powerful NPCs who are included in the setting because of their prominence in novels and earlier adventures that were set in Chult. They are included so people who read those novels can say "Hey! I know those guys!"
However, they are overpowered compared to the PCs and deflect the spotlight away from the PCs.
They also add a layer of complexity to fights that I hate. I loathe two things about NPCs - roleplaying interactions between NPCs and NPCs fighting NPCs.
They agreed on all points and we made some future plans on how we were going to deal with these NPCs going forward.
However, the discussion led to some questions about Artus and Dragonbait and their story. This led to some retroactive interaction via e-mail that I will now insert into the chronology here.
Artus and Dragonbait
Artus and Dragonbait had remained mostly quiet and withdrawn during the journey from Orolunga to Mbala. They kept to themselves and made no effort to interact with the rest of the party. Artus made an effort to be more open after their reunion with the others under the Heart of Mbala. The others, however, remained aloof and preferred to stay apart from the newcomers.
As they approached Omu, Argent Truthsayer approached Artus and Dragonbait to engage the pair in conversation. He inquired about their motives and their intentions. He needed to know if these two deserved his help or his judgement.
Artus admitted that he was slow to trust. He had kept his secrets close to his vest at first. He also noted that after his attempt at friendship after the reunion was rebuffed he decided to keep to himself.
Artus told Argent that he was a "Watcher", an agent of the Erelim. He scoured the world collecting and destroying powerful magical artifacts to keep them out of the hands of those who would abuse them.
He said he was sent to Chult over two hundred years ago to find the Ring of Winter. He obviously found it but he wasn't sure how. He had tracked it down to the Temple of Ubtao in Mezro, "the Forgotten City", where it was being guarded by the bara named Dhalmass. At that time Mezro was protected from the outside world by powerful spells and wards that rendered it invisible.
He had planned to break in and steal it. He didn't remember what happened next but he woke up with the ring!
Artus waved his hand as if to make a long story short, summing up the part about him falling in love with a Chultan woman named Alisandre and the city being trapped on an inter-dimensional demi-plane.
It was then that he abandoned his quest to destroy the ring and decided to use the ring to keep himself alive long enough to find a way to free Mezro and save his beloved Alisandre. After that, he planned to destroy the ring.
He spent the last two hundred years traveling the world of Antara conducting research. He spent a lot of time in Akwa-Obio - the City of Scholars, researching Chult and looking for ways to bring Mezro back from its inter-dimensional limbo. There he met and became friends with the scholar Maara Ihe. He left that city about ten years ago.
He spent the last two hundred years traveling the world of Antara conducting research. He spent a lot of time in Akwa-Obio - the City of Scholars, researching Chult and looking for ways to bring Mezro back from its inter-dimensional limbo. There he met and became friends with the scholar Maara Ihe. He left that city about ten years ago.
Argent asked about the frost giants. Did Artus steal the ring from them like they claimed?
Artus replied that the ring didn't belong to the frost giants. If it ever did, it was thousands or millions of years ago. The ring was in Mezro for at least five thousand years. If the giants laid any claim to it, it was based on a very ancient and dubious claim. They probably only wanted it now for some byzantine political dispute between the giants.
Argent then asked about Zalma Haik and the Ysian merchants. Artus replied that he had never had any dealings with the Ysians. The closest he could think of was that Dragonbait used to be a Ysian slave.
That raised a few eyebrows.
Dragonbait nodded as Artus explained that Dragonbait, being a saurial from another world, was an oddity. He had been captured by Ysian slavers but Dragonbait had managed to escape. He met Dragonbait in Port Nyanzaru and the two became immediate friends. The Ysians probably only wanted to recapture Dragonbait and considered Artus to be a thief of their property.
Argent replied with great earnestness, "Very well. You have been honest with me. I will stand with you and help to see you through to your one, true love."
Day 47 - End of the Road
The party traveled ten miles before encountering a cliff on the side of a plateau. The two hundred foot tall cliff stretched to the east and west as far as they could see. They climbed the most accessible section of the cliff and made their way to the top of the plateau. The top was a wide rocky plain with few trees. The edge of the jungle lay a few hundred yards to the south.
The party cautiously crossed the clearing. As they neared its center there appeared a trio of ice giants about a hundred yards away at the edge of the clearing to the left.
One of the giants spotted the party in the center of the clearing and called the alarm. He bellowed at the party in Atlantean, "Artus Cimber! Surrender yourself and give us what is ours!"
Simultaneously about a hundred yards away to the right another group emerged from the jungle. It was the Ysian merchant Zalma Haik and his entourage of mercenaries and tribal warriors. He was accompanied by a unknown woman dressed in the robes of a wizard. They too spotted the party.
Zalma angrily hailed the party, "Artus Cimber! Give us back our property!"
Artus nervously looked at his new friends in an attempt to assess their mood. They did not look happy. He smiled and shrugged.
The party cautiously crossed the clearing. As they neared its center there appeared a trio of ice giants about a hundred yards away at the edge of the clearing to the left.
One of the giants spotted the party in the center of the clearing and called the alarm. He bellowed at the party in Atlantean, "Artus Cimber! Surrender yourself and give us what is ours!"
Simultaneously about a hundred yards away to the right another group emerged from the jungle. It was the Ysian merchant Zalma Haik and his entourage of mercenaries and tribal warriors. He was accompanied by a unknown woman dressed in the robes of a wizard. They too spotted the party.
Zalma angrily hailed the party, "Artus Cimber! Give us back our property!"
Artus nervously looked at his new friends in an attempt to assess their mood. They did not look happy. He smiled and shrugged.
No comments:
Post a Comment