Campaign Journal: Homecoming

When we last left our heroes, they had just come over the hill to Neuforde, to discover smoke rising from the town...

The evening's crew:

• Frederick
• Slick
• Jax
• Orzu
• Fulvus
• Various surviving henches

We started the session by leveling a couple of the hirelings, who had managed to survive long enough to become 1st level henchmen.

Prior to session, I had rolled randomly what buildings were destroyed/damaged. Bad news - they got the halfling trading post owned by Evrard Hornwood and Angilbart Tunnelly, our party's confidantes and fences (and that of Elsa Siegmund, the town's cattle farmer). Damaged buildings included the White Badger Inn, Mayor Stroemen's house, as well as the tanner's and carpenter's houses. The party’s house is undamaged, thankfully.

rough scanned and sketched map, red is fire

The halflings were glumly salvaging material from their trading post and sent the party to talk to the mayor. Mayor Stroemen and his lieutenant, Gorman Burscogh, were looking over the body of a chitin drake, a chimera previously encountered by some members of the party. The party suspected these abominations were the cause of other reports of fire they had heard in their travels. While the town's forces had slain this one, two more had escaped, flying east.

Among the casualties were four militiamen and two civilians, including Bonk's buddy, Xusto Goyanes the half-elf fisherman. The party now has multiple causes for vengeance!

Trurok the ogre had been injured and had retreated to his cave to pout. Rondel and Henry Cee headed into the woods to cure and console him, and set up the gnolls as pickets west of town.

Elsewhere, the town was gathering to put out residual fires, clean up, and begin repairs.

Stroeman was most worried about loss of nearly half his militia. He was concerned that he may need to request Hougan Duchy assistance if he couldn't retain sufficient local forces. Especially since doing so would limit the town's autonomy. 

The party retired to the White Badger to drink and consider their next moves. As they drank, the sound of a heavy caravan was heard. Venturing out, they saw a string of heavy wagons that looked something like this:

Something like this, but full of dwarves

The group consisted of a large party of dwarves heading to the mountains in the northwest to reopen old mines and prospect new claims. Their leader regarded the damage and admitted that things looked a bit rough at the moment. The caravan discharged a few companion wagons and groups traveling with them and circled up outside of town. 

Among the travelers were a party of six that the PCs recognized as fellow adventurers. Through some careful questioning and proffered drinks, the party discovered that the group was also in search of the Barrier. One of the group's mages, Sándor Kálmán, revealed an old journal recording an ancestor's time as a guard at one of the Barrier watches. The journal revealed information about the qualities and use of the barrier, as well as details on the codes used to communicate between forces. The guard's station turned out to be the Vansho Reliquary. The party provided general information to its location, as well as a copy of the "Snake Map" and warned the group to watch out for spiders. One of the dwarves in the party assessed a shard of Barrier lens and confirmed that it could only be formed in one of a few forge-kilns operated by his kin.

The next day the party debated on which way to go: Chase the chitin drakes, find another node, visit other towns, recruit militia, or determine where the raid had emerged from. Jax cast the deciding vote, of "let's kill some stuff" and the party chose to hunt down the source of the raid.

But first, a talk with Victor Matui and Firmin Dyer at their fortification north of town. Firmin was found greeting an acquaintance, Mellia Saber, who had brought him correspondence from the Libraries in the east. Revealing a coded message buried among mundane news of a beloved dog's death, Firmin provided word that the Chained Library of Athenard contained information on the Barrier, but that others were also searching for intelligence regarding the network, and volumes had potentially gone missing... He could share little more, although in-person inquiries were a possibility.

Leaving their friends, the party headed west into the forest, choosing to investigate at the site of Brother Eustice's misadventures (noted above). 

Reaching the cavern, the party saw signs of coming and going. Always a good sign. Since a couple of the characters had explored here before, I just laid out the map. 

Taking the curving steps into the cavern, the party opted to head straight to the pools in the deepest cavern where they had previously encountered the critters (top right). Entering the cavern, Slick and Fulvus ducked into the shadows while Jax advanced. Sure enough, a chitin drake was lurking on the ceiling, and attacked.

This, again.

Thankfully, its flame only singed Jax' mohawk, and the party fired various weapons at it, causing minor damage. It got in a few bites, taking a chunk out of Fulvus, before Orzu blinded it with a light spell, and the party was able to finish it off.

They continued down to only find evidence of more of the creatures in an otherwise empty cave. Returning to the main level, they found one storeroom filled with empty reagent jars and other equipment. The second room was locked, with its lock jammed. After the thieves were unsuccessful, Jax booted it open to find a dying Chaos priest. In his last words, he told them that he had lost control of the beasts, and slid a device to them that he said may stun the drakes momentarily. With that, Fulvus sent him on his way. Notes found in the storerooms hinted of a school of magic not familiar to the party, one focused on the reforming of living beings.

The party collected a minor amount of loot and camped for the night, hoping to return to the main road and catch up with the dwarven miners and their fellow adventurers.

DM Notes:

As mentioned, I'd randomly rolled the damage and casualties of town. It was coincidence that few of the party's favorite NPCs were affected/slain. Really I'm not that big of a meanie. But having some personal skin in the game heightens the drama, now doesn't it?

Rondel's player was out of for the weekend, but we'd sketched out his doings via Discord prior to the session, so I could fill in Rondel's activities to the party.

I'd thought out a few pathways for the party to follow, but of course, in the end, they headed in an unanticipated direction - looking for the lair of the chitin drakes. I fortunately had the map on my tablet, so we just recycled the scenario. I had roughed up the NPC in my notes, as I was preparing for the party to discover a more established lab/complex at some point. So he just got moved up in the timeframe a bit. 

More to come...