Alt title - Two Groups Enter, One Group Leaves
Looking at the date stamp on previous posts, it's pretty clear that there have been some large gaps in between game sessions, and because of this, I thought it may be beneficial to do an entire campaign recap up to the point where the party left off last session, safely ensconced in the Druid's Redoubt with Reidoth, the dour human druid from Phandalin who was watching over Thundertree and keeping an eye on the young green dragon taking up shelter there.
I did not, however, mention Lenneth and her Olive Garden date with the basement nothic -colors and sounds- at any point in my recap, which I got called out on lmao.
Once we established where the party was and what they'd already done, there was a good bit of discussion on where to go and how to proceed. Reidoth warned the party about the young green dragon in the tower, and they'd already experienced the twig blights and ash zombies. Having debt back in Phandalin & hungry for that XP, they continued their explorations eastward.
Popping across the road from the Druid's Redoubt into a ruined farmhouse, they were dismayed at not finding anything truly of value, but their disappointment was short lived as the farmhouse was soon surrounded by a group of eight twiggy bois. Besiljka could have stomped on them, and I kept mentioning fire after Lenneth used her "what are these guys weak to?" cantrip, but the party thought I was mentioning it "too much" and Gabriel pointed out not wanting to burn the entire area down (note - they made it through a bunch of rain coming up so it probably would not have burned the ruins too much). SO. They found some old jerky in the farmhouse and decided (I love my players) to cover it in blood and use it as bait to get the twig blights to follow it away from the farmhouse. Gabriel bled, and Lenneth was going to use her maulin to fly it off but Besiljka just chucked it instead, and rolled intimidation to kind of chase the twigs towards "weaker" prey.
I mean, it's not a dumb plan if it works, right?
With the blights occupied, the party trotted over to the ruined storefront wherein they'd found Mirna's Jewels, knowing that it was a relatively safe place. Note - my players have this habit of Googling shit so any time I'm utilizing anything prepublished or using maps that are out there somewhere, I gotta change up a LOT of stuff so, my Thundertree didn't exactly match up and some of my buildings were rearranged or modified.
I mention this because if a building looked mostly intact, the first thing the party wanted to do was knock on the door. It was an interesting approach in a ghost town. And I liked it. So after regrouping in the storefront, they moved southeast towards a good looking and fairly defensible structure. With a wide chimney and a rotted pile of firewood outside, it was described as some kind of smithy. To my players, this meant tools at the very least and maybe weapons. A knock on the door and some shuffling was heard within, but no answer. Peeking inside, with minimal light, two humanoid figures were seen standing stationary, and the party knew right away that it was more ash zombies. Stealth, always appreciated, was kind of an after thought since coming to town and Lenneth's Thunderwave from last session, so combat ensued with the zombies getting caulked "eventually." Even weaker zombies can take a lot of damage if it isn't fire related. Looting ensued, with some decent smith's tools recovered and Bessie finding a loose brick with a coin pouch behind it.
The party didn't necessarily split up at that point but Besiljka wanted to check out what looked like a "shed" and told the rest of the party they didn't have to come with. What was most likely some kind of workshop or store, the building was absolutely covered with spider webs and the signs of giant spiders were pretty unmistakable. As was an adventurer's corpse inside of the building. The only way to get in was to go through the webs, burning them or killing the spiders, but then Besiljka's player wanted to try some Tenacious D cock pushup stuff through the laser grid bullshit and maneuver into the room without disturbing the webs. She rolled amazingly well and I absolutely allowed her to get in to loot. But then she had to roll to get back out and I figured she'd be boned by the spiders but no, she did well on the exit roll too and escaped unscathed.
Getting back to the rest of the party, Gabriel and Lenneth wanted to go to the larger open area of the town, what appeared to be a town square and a reinforced barracks type building overlooking it. Like the smithy, the building looked like there could be survivors inside so the party knocked. And a slide opened, wherein the residents asked what Gabriel and Lenneth were doing there. "Were here to help you." "-laughter within-"
The door was opened and a half dozen individuals were inside the barracks. I may have played them up as kind of insane and really, really into dragons. Members of the Cult of the Dragon, they were in Thundertree to treat with the young green, before moving on to treat with the young white (wait, there's another dragon??). They were as oily as used car salesmen when their leader, Favric, spoke with a zealot's glee.
Gabriel didn't want to leave people obviously mentally touched and Besiljka's players kept looking up psychological effects of green dragons on humans. Favric, meanwhile, talked about the glory of Tiamat. The party was getting skeeved out by these guys and after a lot of back and forth amongst themselves (and at least one successful Charisma check plus Gabriel casting Blessing), they decided to say fuck it & go pay their respects to the dragon.
This could have been a solid and easy TPK. I almost never talk game mechanics or hit points or whatnot at the table, beyond what an attack does if it hits, etc but the breath attack of a young green can do a max 72 pts, or 36 on a successful save. Highest HP with the party is like 28 I think so... Literally OHKO possibility here. But the party approached Venomfang with respect and reverence, noticing right away that he had been recently injured (wing flaps were gouged and rent, overall he seemed weaker than he should have been).
His first inquiry, beyond anything else, involved the party and any involvement with "Cryovain." The group didn't want to risk pretending to be friends with them, and said they'd no knowledge of them. Venomfang was pleased, and proclaimed that he alone would be the one to slaughter "the white." The party picked up that Cryovain must have been the white dragon on the mountain of which Favric and the cultists spoke. I've never actually thought about how to play up a dragon but greens are very haughty and love to corrupt so I went with the prideful aspect. Clearly the white dragon had kicked his ass, or at least forced a stalemate. And if the cultists thought to recruit both of them for Tiamat's schemes, they were in for a rude awakening. After some good banter and wanting to stay on Venomfang's good side, the party offered to go and lead the cultists to meet him.
Now I know the idea of bringing some probably crazy cultists who have draco-boners to slavishly fawn over the local TPK-capable beastie might not have been the best play. Especially when they're shady as shit, but the party was 100% ahead of the curve when the cultists tried to tell Venomfang that they were actually in league with Cryovain. The dragon could have killed them all (or those in the AOE of his breath attack) with one exhalation, or it could have turned into a swirling melee of cultists & dragon vs party, but instead, Venomfang decided he would believe which ever side killed the other. Previously, Gabriel, being a paladin and all, had some moral quandaries about killing the cultists as they'd not be overtly hostile towards the party members. Here, he still had some of that, but it was a kill or be killed situation, even if the cultists were most likely under the dragon's influence, something Venomfang had denied being directly responsible for if so.
Lenneth took damage from Favric, and so was able to do Hellish Rebuke to fry him like bacon. It didn't kill him outright, but it chewed him down badly enough for Besiljka to finish him. Even being outnumbered two to one didn't slow the party all that much, despite the multitude of nicks and scrapes they received, and before too long, Venomfang had a buffet of fresh cultist meat. As a "reward," beyond not killing the party, he "allowed" Lenneth to cast a healing spell to mend his wings and beef his HP back up to max. However, he "chuckled" after she did so, displaying he was never all that injured. Or, so he said. His wings were too damaged to fly in either case, and with the spell, he was able to put wind back under them. Chromatic dragons, evil and duplicitous as they are, aren't really known to be beings of their words, but Venomfang did give the party his solemn vow - Phandalin would "burn last" in gratitude for getting him back into his feud with Cryovain. With a mighty beating of his restored wings, he flew up and out of the tower, intent on heading south.
But to where? My DM screen contains region and town maps for the players to use as a visual reference and Besiljka's player noticed a black down south of Thundertree, & was then adamant that Venomfang must have headed there. That's... Not what the mark was (turns out, it wasn't even ON the map, but on the plastic), but kudos for the outside of the box thinking.
Actually, much of this session was out of the box. And my players really kind of pushed harder into the "explore the whole area for fun & profit" aspect of DnD.
With Venomfang "dealt with," and time drawing short, the party wanted to head back to Reidoth and let him know the news, so that he could stop watching the town and help them with their Cragmaw situation. BUT WAIT, everyone give me a Dex check! Success, success, uh oh, failure. See, I had added something here last minute, but it was contingent on Lenneth using Thunderwave in the tower. Which I knew she would if the party had to fight the cultists (I'd written several other ways that could have gone, but party actions led to this outcome) since it is the only good AOE spell the party has access to thus far (she also hit Gabriel with it haha). So, Thunderwave works as a cube, but cubes also push downward, and by using it in the ruined space, it damaged the floor in the whole area. Part of which was over a....
Well, that's all the time we have for now. Tune in next time to find out what it all means.
(Really, I needed another half hour to finish up this session properly, but our pacing was slightly off because we were also hanging out and spending time together as friends for the first time in forever. Next time though. And there was a lot of actual note taking this session -kudos to my players whenever they do that-, plus my recaps never encompass the full experience or how much fun we have/how much laughter there is, but my main purpose is always just to have the broad strokes available for players to refer back to at any time)
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