Last time on Crown of the Kobold King, Scarab leads the two bird brains through the forest following the tracks of a hunter and their prey.
The Colonel willingly falls into a spike trap and finds a dead hunter.
After that, the large rooster tries to kill himself again by bumbling into a wolf den.
Jock and Scarab are able to distract the wolves and save the Colonel.
Traversing the forest again, the group saves a fox from a trap, but then they are ambushed by a hobgoblin.
The heroes stomp the hobgoblin and take pity on him, sending him on his way with some food.
As they travel deeper into the forest, they find a large, terrifying bipedal wolf that speaks with its mind.
Our story continues and probably ends now!
As you find yourselves on the edge of a great tree line opening up to a grand clearing, you see a building long crumbled to ruin, overtaken by new trees.
As you begin to dig in the surroundings, a massive creature begins to stir and move out from behind one of the walls.
A great lumbering wolf.
Its body heavily scarred, axes embedded into its flesh as it lumbers towards you, shoulders rolling.
It snarls back its lips, baring its teeth and in your minds you hear a great voice call.
Why have you come here?
Don't worry guys, I've got this!
What was the name of the person we're looking for?
Oh, let me look at my notes.
It was a...Durin Ga, I believe.
Hello, friend!
We mean you no harm!
We have come in search of a Durin Ga.
Does this name ring a bell, oh great beast?
And he puts his hand...he grovels before the great wolf.
Jaxxie's scarab grovel and he just kind of like bows.
Uh, roll me diplomacy.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
It's gonna be a 15.
The creature's snarl relaxes as it regards your words for a moment.
It seems almost amused by your groveling.
No. I suggest you take your search elsewhere.
Well, you heard him. We should go.
Hm?
Scarab sir, mister scarab sir.
There was another name, I think it was Drowscar.
Maybe...maybe you could try that one.
It's a scarab with his back facing the great beast.
Riley turns his head over his shoulder.
Drowscar! Ring a bell!
Drowscar!
Fucking oh, like oh, Drowscar.
Drowscar!
A dwarf? Anything?
Roll me another diplomacy.
Come on.
21? Oh good.
He's showing you his butt.
Like a dog would.
You find me in a favorable mood. Leave now.
Leave the loggers to their fate.
Oh.
My good sir.
Colonel Cobcorn, nice to meet you. Retired.
What have the loggers done to you?
Is there anything we can do to assist?
We have no true affiliation.
I'm not even sure why we're in these woods to be terribly honest.
Forest. Trees. The tree of the cops. I'm not sure.
I tire of your questions.
We'll be going!
No!
Yes sir, nice to meet you. This way, this way.
As you pull back from the clearing, you see he lumbers back towards the ruins, and as he crosses the threshold of the wall, two wolves take his place and stand guard.
Assuming different wolves.
Much smaller. Standard.
But from before?
You don't see name tags.
Could we do like a perception to see if like, they look different?
Sure. Maybe like a different color?
To be a nature check.
Smaller or whatever?
Yeah, I'm rolling for that as well.
I got a 21.
Man, yeah, I really don't want to-
I got an 11.
Don't want to make this guy mad.
21 is definitely enough to know. They- you can't be positive, but they do look at least the same as the two if they're not the same two.
So they just look like standard run of the mill wolves. Things you would expect to find in the woods.
It is unusual that they seem to be obeying this larger creature.
In fact, roll me an arcana or a nature check.
I could get that arcana.
Roll nature.
Nature.
Oof.
Nine.
21 arcana.
16 nature.
Jacques and Cobcorn.
The moment of contact with the creature was a bit startling, but thinking back on it now, you realize the large one is no wolf at all.
That is a warg.
Wow.
You know, thinking about it, thinking about it logically, rationally, I don't think that I've ever spoken to a wolf.
I mean, I didn't necessarily speak to that one either, but you know.
Very true. It's a warg.
Yes, creatures of the forest don't usually speak with their minds.
There's something different at play here.
Well, you know, we gave it our best shot. I think maybe we should just go on back to town and have a nap.
Maybe some tea.
You know, it's about close to lunchtime. I'm a bit hungry if I'm being honest.
I don't want to be in the woods anymore, Cobcorn. Let's go. Let's go, please.
Yeah, I'm trying to remember what we're supposed to do with this wolf man.
Maybe calm him down. He didn't want to tell us what's going on. He's got something against the loggers.
Now, we could go talk to the Mr. Lumberjack Man. Maybe he can do something about him so we can pass on through without any trouble at all.
And that would be just as well, if you ask me.
It's true. I do like to avoid bloodshed.
But yeah, seriously, it's like, why do we...
What are your current objectives?
I do remember also when we spoke to the barkeeper, whatever their name was, didn't catch it.
They did mention a monastery as well that maybe they could help us there.
Or there was also this medicine man, I believe, that they mentioned.
He might know something about the woods.
It's true.
About creatures in the woods.
Ah, yes, I was hoping this would be easy, but perhaps we do need more knowledge.
Yeah, better than picking a fight.
So, I guess what we're doing out there is trying to find Duringar, right?
Mm-hmm.
So far, the three objectives that you have.
Baseline is to locate Scarab's missing cart and Pig Lightfoot.
The second objective given by the sheriff was to locate Duringar, who disappeared ten years ago,
looking for Drosgar's crucible.
The third objective was to hunt down a missing hunter who passed through the logger's camp.
Just, I believe it was a few days prior.
Which we presumably found him in the pit.
Sorry, I do have notes, but they're really not great.
Which is why I just set all of that random stuff with no real anything.
It's been a minute.
Yeah, we're having to... we've gone a bit.
It's okay, we have to recollect. Recollect.
And then missing hunter. Because I have all of those in my notes, but just in random spots.
So, maybe... maybe we could go around town and maybe find out a little more about this Drungar man.
Get a better idea of what we're actually looking for.
Or if anyone knows about a hunter.
We don't have anything of Drungar's, do we? Duringar.
No, just his name. And it is a Druingar.
You know, you should have asked that warg about your cart.
Didn't want to step on too many toes.
He could probably handle one more question.
Or not.
I don't think it'd be terribly painful if you stepped on my toes.
How much do you weigh, do you think?
Well, since I lost my cart, I've been feeling pretty heavy.
He skulks.
I think we should go talk to the lumberman.
We should go.
Yeah, let's go let him know that we found this warg's location. That might help.
Okay.
Roll me a survival check.
20.
Nice.
As you retreat back into the woods and make your way forward, you travel for a few hours, heading back towards Falcon's Hollow.
However, something seems a little different.
Maybe you took a wrong turn at a tree or got turned around in all the commotion, but you don't recognize this particular part of the forest.
Maybe you do. No, no, that's not right.
You realize you're a little lost.
As you come to the edge of what you assume to be the exit out of the forest, you instead find yourself in another large clearing.
It's like a crazy magical forest or something.
Do you hear that?
Something about these woods make me feel lost, like I could call them the Lost Woods, almost like I hear a faint music in one direction or another and I don't know which one to follow.
You take it easy on that sleepy time, T. Son.
As you point out the sounds of the forest around you, you suddenly become aware that it becomes very quiet.
Almost like there's a dead silence in this opening.
It opens to a small, almost perfectly circular glade.
The nearest strands of pine, fir, and dark wood twist away from the clearing as it bent by some impossibly strong wind, or perhaps in an attempt to turn away from the clearing itself.
At the glade center squats an ugly cottage, a little more than a pile of twigs, shoots, and ivy stacked upon mud walls.
From the thatched wood dangle bundles of gnarled roots, old animal bones, and knucklebone bangles all clattering together like a gruesome wind chime.
A dozen small thatched fetishes, each shaped like a tiny person or an imp, or a rearing serpent stand propped in the yard, keeping guard before a rickety plank door.
You also notice off to the side what appears to be the remains of a recent campsite set near the northern portion of the clearing opposite you.
So a little cottage and a campsite further away from it?
Yeah, cottage is in the center, campsite on the northern part of the clearing.
Uh, weird.
Scarab with his small pig next to him has his pistol ready, pulls his hood up over his head above his eyes.
We should go to that campsite. Stay quiet. Something is off. Keep your eyes on that house.
Oh yeah, is there any light coming from the house? Or is it too middle of the day?
It doesn't seem so.
If anything you would suspect the house may itself be abandoned just from its dilapidated exterior, lack of light within, no smoke.
Um, is there any sort of check I can make to, I guess, tracks and or strange signs? Like signs of struggle, signs of life?
Uh, sure. Give me a perception check.
22.
As you make your way towards the small campsite on the northern end of the circle, you do in fact see what looks to be signs of struggle.
The tent is still mostly propped, however partially caved in as if something tumbled over it.
The fire was not doused and so you can see scorch marks along the edge of it as if it burned until it died.
And most notably you see tracks and what appears to be something dragged away from the campsite.
Hmm. Something I was going to mention earlier. We may have found the hunter, maybe, but we never found his camp. Good hunter always has a camp.
Ah, this is his place.
Maybe.
You know, I think it'd be terribly rude for us to, uh, join in unannounced. Don't you think maybe we should continue looking for down that is where we were trying to go in the first place?
True, well we could check this cottage really quick. Wouldn't hurt a thing, right? Colonel starts walking towards the cottage.
Cause what do we have if we go back to town other than we've seen the creature you told us about?
Yeah, it's pretty far.
Roll me another, actually roll me a survival check.
Okay. I was gonna ask about like what time of day? Sorry if you already said it.
I believe at this point, traveling again you're looking just after midday, I'd say probably one or two o'clock.
Okay.
And you think that though you are lost, the distance traveled will probably take you the remainder of the day to get back to town. Word.
Okay. 16 on survival.
The tracks around the campsite appear to be cobalt tracks.
What?
There are a few human footprints as well that are indicated around the scuffle of the drag marks and there appears to be two sets of cobalt tracks on either side of the drag and the drag leads off to the east.
How many sets of human?
Just one.
Ah tracks, tracks of kin.
Can I recall knowledge to possibly know what kind of cobalt?
Yes.
Like would I be able to maybe know what tribes live around here?
Roll me a society check.
Ooh, can I roll a society as well?
I do have a special lore, mercantile.
If it's higher, go ahead, because you are familiar with the peoples in this region, as you've been a trader here before.
It is higher.
Because I want to, you know, lowering some veil here.
He was part of an army.
So I feel like he would maybe at least know names of other tribes or absolutely such as got a 19 society.
Bad roll, 11, mercantile.
Cob corn, you recall while in town, there was talk of an upsurge in cobalt activity in which there have always been cobalts in the area, but they become more aggressive, almost like they're attacking anyone who comes into their territory, whereas before they would typically flee in fear as they are cowardly creatures.
Lending this information to scarab scarab, you would recall that the primary clan in the region is known as the true scales.
True scale true scales.
Cowards.
They're dragging somebody off.
No, they're not dragons.
I'm sorry.
I misunderstood.
We should be careful.
This is strange.
Whatever happened here.
Do these footprints go near the cottage?
It doesn't seem so.
It seems that whatever happened here resulted in a struggle that then led to someone or something being dragged away into the woods.
And you can clearly see where those go.
So they could be followed.
The cottage itself seems to be just on its own.
Before we follow those tracks, I do want to check the cottage and since this is a trapper, we should probably look for traps.
I don't see any reason for us to check the cottage.
I'm going to be honest with you, Colonel.
I just don't see when we clearly have tracks that we can follow.
I'm going to need two more rolls.
Let me get a society from cob corn and an arcana from Jacques.
My cart might be in that cottage.
Eight.
Roll the two.
Twenty two.
Oh, good. Jacques, you recall from y'all's brief stint in town.
Maybe it was in the tavern overhearing other people speak, but they used to have a witch problem in these parts.
You recall the name Ulysse or Ulysse Milla.
You recall that some time ago a rather notorious witch coven held up in these parts.
It's rumored that they'd long since abandoned the Darkmoon Vale, though many in the town still believe their otherworldly influence still remains.
Something about this feels very witchy and I don't know if you know anything about witches cob corn, but they're a bit tricksy.
Well, if there's witches, there's magic. I think magic's pretty cool.
Cob corn, I don't think that you understand what you could be stumbling into.
I mean, if they're particularly skilled witches, we could step through that door and end up on a different plane altogether.
Witches, witches, witches. It's fine as long as you have an offering.
Looks down at the fox.
Oh, little guy's been following us.
You haven't noticed?
No.
He's been nipping at your tail the whole time.
I don't think that's how witches work.
Hey, little guy.
Scarab.
How many have you seen?
I've just heard many a rumor of witches.
Some in town, too, if I recall correctly. It was a rather tall, red-haired woman.
I think that she was eating a pie.
Doesn't matter. I think that she was talking about something of witches here.
Now she did say that they've been gone for a long time, but that doesn't matter. They could still be here.
I don't know. I don't know. Could be scary.
Cob corn, proceed.
Oh, dear.
Want me to check it out? Okay, we can vote on it. I do want to check it out. Scarab, you want to check it out?
Here, here.
All right. Everything will be fine, son.
Don't tell me, son. Just call me Jacques.
I'll go walk up to this door and check for traps as I'm walking up.
Scarab will be checking for traps as well.
Jacques will follow behind.
It's a natural one, perception.
He'll also look for traps.
You failed your perception!
I got a twenty perception.
Oh, nice.
Jacques got a twenty five.
Oh, good. Oh, good.
As the three of you make your way towards the cottage, the grass beyond the campsite is waist high.
Scarab, you struggle to keep your head above the the whistling throngs.
Whistling? What the fuck is that word?
I hate tall grass. It sucks. Itchy.
Scarab, as you walk through the tall grass, you struggle to keep your head above the wave of green.
As you pass, however, the only thing that stands up above the grass are these almost scarecrow like effigies.
Woven together bits of vine and bone, feather and other accoutrement make up these bizarre and almost haunting looking effigies.
Fourteen of them, you count, scattered around the yard as you walk, though Cobcorn feels unnerved and suspicious of them.
They don't seem to do anything aside from rot away.
As you all approach the cottage, you don't spy any traps, but you do see that the door has long since molded and rotted off its hinges and appears to be wedged in place.
Like somebody wedged it there in place or like it just kind of like it rotted in that frame.
So it doesn't seem like you'd be able to swing it open.
Probably have to give it a shove.
Let's give this guy a shove.
Give me an athletics check to force open.
It's not updated, it's trash. We don't need to be here.
Natural 20.
Hey.
For a 27.
Cobcorn, with ease, you brace yourself against the door and lift it straight out of place.
It gives a...
Here, Jack, hold this.
It's shock. I don't know how many times.
It gives a great heaving creak as you remove it from its frame and a fair cloud of dust kind of settles off of it as you move it away, revealing the opening to a dank and reeking cottage filled with shadows.
They attack.
Just kidding.
Haphazardly hung shelves line the wall covered in all manner of clay jugs, clouded bottles, strangely cut rocks, rotted bunches of herbs, and a museum of other crude curios and remnants of bone grinders artifice.
Of a bone grinder's artifice.
You also see a rusted iron cauldron with hinged lid built to resemble a frog's jaws.
It seems to have a depth of maybe about three feet, and it sits in the center of this hut's single room.
Its ash-covered surface is shaped with the relief of capering fiends and leering devils.
There's a high black chair that stands against the far wall across from the door made of wicker, the gigantic curved tusks of some strange monstrous beast, and thousands of humanoid teeth.
Okay, we've seen it. We can go.
In the chair sits what looks like a corpse, wrapped in filthy burial linens, its form padded with pungent herbs and sprouting patches of thick white mold.
This ominous shape is actually only a bundle of branches, mud, and linen left behind by some unknown occupant.
Witches are weird. Why do they do all this? Weird.
You may wish to hold your breath if you touch anything.
You find yourself standing at the doorway to this hut. What do you do?
Oh, yeah, Colonel will walk in. Get a better look at things.
As you make your way into the hut, you hear a sudden screech like metal on stone.
Also, you look towards the center of the room and you see the cauldron itself slowly begins to move.
Its great hinged lid opens before clamping down with a loud throng, and it lunges at you. Roll for initiative.
Yes.
Here we go.
Alright, Cobcorn, what'd you get?
Got a ten.
Ja?
Thirteen.
And Scarab?
Twenty.
As the cauldron begins to creak and clang to life, you see a flame stoke within it and smoke billows from its flapping lid.
It begins to charge, but Scarab, your reactions are quick. What do you do?
First things first. Oh, you also get that ten paces during initiative if you wanted to do that.
Oh, frick, thank you so much. I would like to run away.
So yeah, fight starts.
Cauldron is clanging. Scarab runs back ten feet as a free starting action, and I will bite the bullet and do a knowledge check.
Eighteen. On this creature.
Does this thing contain the spirit of a witch, or is it the witch's familiar?
Could be a familiar.
Had to be an arcana check.
Okay. So arcana, that'll be a fifteen.
Fifteen is enough to know that this is some form of animated construct, presumably left behind as some form of guard dog to this long-abandoned shack.
One thing that you know is that they tend to be, as constructs are, immune to bleed, death effects, disease, doomed, drained, fatigued, healing, mental effects, necromancy, non-lethal attacks, paralysis, poison, sickness, or...
sickness or unconsciousness.
You can also surmise by gazing upon this thick steel creature that it must be very hard, and you'll have to do a significant amount of damage to penetrate.
I can also elaborate and say on that, because it is an animated construct, you know it is an object, which means it likely has a broken threshold.
Yeah. Oh, boy.
It looks as though we'll have to smash it!
Scarab raises his gun arm and fires.
Natural one.
Oh, no.
You failed your perception!
Sorry, wrong fucking button.
Uh-oh.
You're gonna blow it.
I rolled a one and drew a card. Here's what happens.
Uh, Scarab goes to fire his weapon. It pops off in his hand.
And he is, he now has a 1v4 persistent bleed.
Oh, no.
Which sucks.
That's really, uh...
Do I take that immediately?
Uh...
I believe it happens at the beginning of your turn, and then you check at the end of your turn to see if you can end the effect.
Yeah, word.
Okay. Ah!
With his final action, he's going to, uh...
Empty out the, uh...
The busted bullets and add a new one in. He's gonna reload, that's it.
That's not what it went last time. Really sucked at the beginning, but we prevailed.
Ah, no. It's just the way.
Oof.
As your errant shot misses the cauldron, it lunges forward undeterred, and it attempts to clamp its lid around Copcorn.
Yeah, I had a feeling that was gonna happen.
Hey, what are you doing? Get away from me!
Ooh, boy.
Oof, that's a 24 to hit.
That's a hit.
Does 11 points of bludgeoning damage.
Oh, yeah.
And you are now grabbed.
Then that is its turn. Move, attack, grab.
The lid clamps around one of your legs.
Ow!
Almost dead.
It's really starting to smell amazing in here.
11 damage, right?
Uh, Jacques, it's your go.
Okay, um...
So, so...
So, Jacques will...
Pull out his amulet.
And... um...
Attempt to exploit vulnerability.
So it's a recall knowledge on it.
Okay, arcana.
Well, I use my esoteric left.
Sure.
For my exploit.
Gotcha.
That is... a 14.
Now, perhaps it's the frenzy of Cobcorn being attacked so ferociously, but your mind scrambles in the moment and you don't seem to recall.
Killed by a cauldron.
Cooked alive.
Yeah, that'd be even scarier.
Just thinking about what Matt said, and the fact that it starts to smell really good.
Yeah, smells like chicken.
This abandoned house, empty clearing that smells of rotisserie chicken.
All the beasts of the forest start gathering around.
Oh, we're screwed!
You're howling in the woods. Eyes glow from the dark.
A bunch of cars pulling up next to the house.
How wide is the door?
Y'all get out of the tent, please.
The door... uh, the door is five feet wide, but you could squeeze past Cobcorn.
Yeah, he'll get in there.
And that's... that's his round.
All right, Cobcorn, let him have it.
I'mma let me have it first and uh, take a bite.
Lay on hands.
Get myself... what is it, six? Yeah, it's six.
Ahhhhhhh!
You're just like massaging your thigh, like deep tissue massage while this thing is clamping on your leg.
Really hurt.
Uh, he's gonna draw his...
How do you say this thing again?
Yao huan... Yao huan dao.
I'm probably saying it wrong. Yao huan dao!
Yu huan dao.
And then his third action, he's going to try to break from this grapple.
Uh, 19 to escape.
With a loud clang, you wrench your leg free from the cauldron.
Nice!
Heal, draw weapon, break free.
Colonel's done.
Scarab...
Uh, Scarab goes to pull the trigger on his pistol and his injured hand bleeds for four damage.
Four...
Damn. Ouch!
Yu huan dao.
Ah! Yu huan dao.
He shakes it off and he fires!
Get it.
14 to hit.
The bullet ricochets off the side of the cauldron.
Killing Cob Corn.
Ah!
Oh bother, bother, bother!
Um...
Yeah, he's just like shaking his hand. It hurts, it hurts.
He points at the cauldron and says, go pig!
He's gonna use his final two actions for his little pig to run up and strike.
Get it piggy.
Come on pig.
Ooh! 20 to hit.
20's a hit?
Yes!
God damn.
10 damage.
Oh good.
Um, let me see, it's piercing though.
Damn.
Strikes out with its little tusks.
That's a good damage.
Yeah it is.
It's a d8. Plus three.
As your perky porcine pal punctures the cauldron with its tusk, you notice it leaves a small dent.
Okay.
Something, something.
Good pig!
That's my turn.
Having been knocked slightly off balance by this pig, the cauldron turns, flapping its jaw ferociously as it lowers down and attempts to bite the pig.
Um, as that, as Jacques sees it like, rotate towards the little pig, he raises up his amulet and it starts to let off a black mist.
And he uses his reaction amulet to dance.
So the pig gets a, you are a target ally within 15 feet, gains resistance to all damage against the triggering damage. The resistance is equal to two plus your level.
So three plus three resistance to the damage.
Very nice.
Cool!
Okay let's see if this hits.
Same as before, 24 to hit.
That's a crit.
Uh, AC 14.
Damn.
That would be 11 points of bludgeoning damage altogether, minus three, eight points of bludgeoning.
Hang on there little pig! And Colonel's gonna use his liberating step to take away three more damage.
Oh nice.
So five damage.
Bring it down to five?
Oh!
Huge.
And if it-
Scarab starts crying.
Did it grab the pig?
Uh, it spends its second action to grab the pig.
Yeah, he's gonna use part of liberating step as you now get to try to get out of it.
Escape the grapple.
Ooh, and what am I- what's pig rolling for that?
Athletics against-
Athletics DC.
Ooh, that's a wriggly pig! A 21 to escape.
Hell yeah dude.
You see that it was beginning to tilt back and the flames inside of it stoked higher.
But you wriggle free and the cauldron bounces in place angrily.
Thank you, thank you friends.
That's very good.
One of those resistances that you listed off, did you say fire?
You said like 15 resistances, I can't remember if you said fire.
It does not- I listed off immunities.
Immunities.
I'll read them again real quick. Bleed, death, disease, doomed, drained, fatigued, healing, mental, necromancy, non-lethal, paralyzed, poisoned, sickened, unconscious.
Oof.
Jacques, it's your go.
Jacques is- now that he's closer to this cauldron, he'd like to try and exploit vulnerability again.
Natural one, so.
Critical failure, couldn't remember the right-
Um.
Well it's not an attack, it has a critical failure thing.
He couldn't remember the right object to use and become distracted while rummaging through his esoterica.
He becomes flat-footed until the beginning of his next turn.
So he's like rummaging through his different bags and he's just dropping stuff and he's like, and then he will draw his, I guess unsheath his sword cane, sword.
And attack.
And you are flanking the cauldron with the pig.
Um, that is a 25 to 8.
Oh good.
Your sword clangs against the side of the cauldron, but the brief moment of defeat you thought you would feel is gone as you see a crack form, critical hit.
Yeah.
Ooh.
Okay.
14 damage.
Very nice.
Oh yeah.
As the clang of your blade hitting the cauldron rings out, that crack begins to widen and you can see the glow of the flames within showing through, a powerful hit.
Um, and that is, he's round.
Which means it's the Colonel.
The Colonel.
Oh boy.
Ten turkey fried.
He's slapping his leg from the burn.
Fire catching on his leg.
Oh no, no.
And he's holding his Yao Huan Dao.
And he does the whole Dark Souls thing where he holds it above his head and he runs his hand across the blade and the thing just gets shinier and sharper.
He is also a Magus.
Champion Magus.
Doing a spell strike on this piece of shit.
And I'm gonna turn in my PP.
Roll twice, take the higher.
Come on, I don't want to miss this.
He's using a spell called Gouging Claw on his weapon.
I'll keep that, it's a natural 20.
Woo!
Yes, finally!
Oh my god.
I think you get to, do you get to choose magic from the critical deck?
I don't know, are we drawing up here or facing you?
Yeah, facing you and then you put it in the back.
Do do do, slashing.
Yeah, there's slashing or there's bomb or spell, I don't know.
Choose between slashing and spell, whichever you prefer.
I like bomb or spell because it's triple damage.
Not bomb.
Don't take bomb.
Yeah, it's just called bomb or spell.
Oh, I got you, I got you.
Triple damage?
Okay, this is...
What's it say?
Power Surge.
Okay, this is a lot of shit to add up right now because the way spell strike works is you do the damage of the spell and the damage of your weapon.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
So...
So you're going to triple your weapon damage, triple your modifier, triple your spell damage.
I'd say triple the spell and then add that to your critical.
Double weapon.
Yeah, true.
Okay.
Yeah, I like that.
So we'll do the spell, which is going to be 16 slashing damage from the spell alone.
And then the weapon.
God damn.
32 damage from the weapon.
So 48 altogether?
Yeah.
God damn.
Cob corn as your weapon comes crashing down with a thunderous sound, the cauldron explodes.
It shatters into shards of iron that scatter along the floor and the last spurt of flame goes out leaving you once again in the dark.
Sheesh.
I feel like after that, like as that happens, Jacques is just standing there holding his sword cane in one hand and his amulet in the other hand.
And then he just like stands there like when you get like a puff of smoke in your face and he's like, I told you we shouldn't have come here.
I told you we shouldn't have come here and like wipes off the little like lenses of his mask.
And then Jacques would like to pull out a little dustpan and a tiny little broom, hand broom and collect some of the iron dust.
And you do so.
Enough to fill a small pouch.
That was intense.
Didn't know we'd be fighting cooking utensils.
But I agree.
I know it's a little dangerous, but information is power.
I felt like leaving this place, we'd lose a little bit of what we're looking for.
Stop poking around a little bit.
Clearly someone else was here.
I need to get rid of this bleed. I forgot to do it at the end of my last go for it right now.
Oh, no.
DC 15 flat check or until healed.
I rolled a six.
Okay, so you do not recover immediately.
You will need to be healed.
Lay on hands.
Six points of HP.
Yeah, well, sadly, it didn't break into my HP, but that would stop the bleeding.
Or would it be better to try a treat wounds?
I don't remember when we.
Well, that's oh, yeah.
I mean, there is a you can do a medicine check to stop bleeding.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't want you to lose any spells.
It's too late.
It's too late to fall.
We should said that sooner.
Oh, real rock, buddy.
Yeah, there's you can do treat or administer first aid for two actions.
Which Colonel can't do.
He's not trained.
Are any of you turning medicine?
I am. Yes.
Jacques is.
But I guess it's been long enough.
It's been over an hour.
No healer's tools over here.
You traveled for a couple hours.
OK, yeah, I can I can do that.
Or actually, a mod, if you wouldn't mind putting that healing towards my pig.
Sure. Yeah.
He got stamina.
Six points for a little piggy boy.
Fully healed.
I rolled a 22 to administer first aid.
Max, I would do it.
Yeah, so you stop bleeding.
He reaches into his pouch and pulls out surprisingly clean gauze.
He just kind of shoves it in your wound.
Nice.
Good job, little pig.
Now, if only you could see your mother, she is much better than you.
Soon enough, I'm sure I won't be disappointed.
Anything left on this big old cauldron that busted?
Start sifting through the ashes.
Yeah, can we can we take some time to dig around this room?
Absolutely.
Carefully.
You realize that with the volume and disorganization of this hut, that it probably take you about 10 minutes or so to siphon through and see if you can find anything.
I'm in.
Yeah, since we're here, Jacques would like to rummage around and take some stuff.
May as well take all these baubles that would go very well with the things that I already have.
Colonel will pray for 10 minutes while you guys are doing that.
He can't find anything.
As the two of you spend your time rummaging through whatever is left in this hut, you join together to show your spoils.
And together you find a collection of semi-precious stones and unique wood carvings.
You estimate they'd be worth about three gold pieces altogether.
I could probably shoot that up a bit.
What about like weird things?
Effigies. You said there were effigies.
I mean, you got the you got the little carvings.
There's also the strange thing that's on the chair opposite the room, the humanoid mummified looking thing.
Yeah.
You don't want to touch it. Just tell Colonel he'll go touch it for you guys.
Heard that.
Is there like a check I can do to see if there's like any importance to that thing in the chair?
Give me a perception check.
Twelve.
Okay. And Scarab, give me a survival check.
Thirteen.
The two of you inspecting this fake body, for lack of a better word.
It seems almost like it was meant to be a distraction.
Seeing as its position across from the door you surmise was meant to entice others to investigate long enough for the cauldron to ward off any would be intruders.
However, Jacques, while overlooking this strange thing, you do notice on the back of the chair dangling from it is a interesting but disgusting shrunken head.
Oh.
Yeah, Jacques, walking around this like old thing is kind of just like, you know, like running his finger along the shelves and tables like, oh, and looks at the back of the chair and like, disgusting, and he takes the head and puts it in the bag.
You, you surmise that this item is actually a trinket of sorts.
It could be known as a soul speaker.
Uh huh.
A grotesque amulet like shrunken head is said to hold a shard of its owner's psyche.
The head is often that of a humanoid but any creature capable of speaking in life can provide the grisly component needed for this magic item's creation.
The head can contain a short message whispered to it and can then be commanded to repeat the message later.
While a soul speaker carries a message, the eyes of the head open and they close as soon as the message is delivered.
The one you hold has its eyes closed.
Okay, so there is no message.
Correct.
You can spend two actions to cast message but instead of it being transmitted directly to a person's ears, it is stored inside of the soul speaker.
Its eyes open and the next time somebody spends two actions to activate it, it repeats the message you spoke with a rasping whisper before its eyes close again.
That's pretty cool.
No leftover recordings in this thing?
Not on this one.
Could have been helpful.
Yeah.
Damn.
Well I guess if we're done in here, we can move on.
Yes, perhaps we can follow those tracks.
Yeah, see we're...
You might find some buddies out there.
Said they were kobolds.
But you don't like them. You said they're cowards or something.
No, you shouldn't judge people like that until you meet them, you know?
Give them a chance. They're probably nice.
We walked into this cottage and you don't even want to see if there's anything at all in the tent?
Oh, I thought we did that already.
No.
Oh.
Yeah, let's continue searching then. Sorry.
No, no. We walked right past the tent after saying that a hunter must have a tent into this witch's cottage.
Gotcha.
And yes, kobolds are cowards. Let's go.
As you make your way out around the back of the hut towards the campsite again, roll me a nature check.
Everybody?
Sure. Anybody who's got it.
14.
19.
Jacques, you spy a small outcropping of what you know to be iron bloom mushrooms growing on the south wall of the hut.
More mushrooms.
Strange.
He'd like to attempt to harvest them.
Well, first, can I do a recall knowledge on the mushrooms, I guess?
Probably shouldn't just go grab mushrooms.
The poofs in your face and your die.
Your nature check's enough to know.
Iron bloom mushrooms are just small fungi that grow in dark places that have lots of metal or metals around them.
They're a favorite meal for dwarfs and an ingredient used in remedial cures.
Oh, me.
Yeah. Can he attempt to harvest them?
Yeah. Nature check is fine.
12.
That's enough. You're able to harvest the small mushrooms and you store them away safely.
Does anyone else find it a bit strange that we found another little patch of unique mushrooms?
These ones grow where metal is found.
And where were the other ones?
Before we found the wolves?
Underneath a rock outcropping early into your foray into the forest.
And those were a glow mold, a bioluminescent mushroom that retains its light if harvested properly.
And these you just found, you said that dwarfs like to eat them? Aren't we looking for a dwarf?
They've been gone for 10 years.
Perhaps if we put them in the cage where the fox was, a dwarf will come and take him.
Good idea. That's right.
Come back a couple days later.
Hey, little buddy.
Call your girl.
Professor Oak.
I'd rather not say.
Let's see.
Are they growing off of anything especially metal or are they just growing?
Nope. They seem to be growing on the back wall.
Let's continue on to the campsite again. It looks like whatever else that the hunter might have had on them in the tent seems to be gone with them.
Presumably whatever happened here. If the kobolds took and dragged someone or something away, you would guess that they probably took anything else of value.
As they would, picked clean. Messily.
Yeah, I would definitely want to study the study of the tracks. So I, you know, don't just blink and oh, they're gone.
I'd like to be able to follow this thoroughly.
You think that these tracks would be even easier to follow than the wolf prints you followed before seeing as how they they drag something unwillingly away from where you are.
You can see a clear path even through the undergrowth that leads towards the edge of the clearing.
Well, I suppose anything's better than here.
Yes.
Agreed.
You gonna eat those mushrooms, Jack? I'm a little hungry.
You have rations, Pearl.
I don't.
Well, maybe you shouldn't have given them to the hobgoblins.
I was checking my inventory. No more rations.
Here, take all of my food, you creature that tried to kill me.
You never know, he might come in and help us. Book seven, right?
Meanwhile, in a dark corner of the woods, it's a very fat hobgoblin, unable to move.
Fat level one hobgoblin.
Oh yeah.
Pudgy little arms just waving in the air.
Yeah, scarabs ready, ready to roll.
So which way y'all wanna go? Are y'all still trying to find your way back or are you gonna follow tracks?
Scarab votes to follow the tracks.
Tracks.
Concur!
Okay.
Several times as you venture through the woods, you almost lose sight of the tracks you're following.
At one point, you even come to the edge of a river.
But you find a narrow crossing that on the other side has clear drag marks in the mud and you continue to follow.
Further and further you go, until you hear something in the distance.
Roll me a perception check.
Oh boy.
18.
22.
Five.
You're right, you can just stick to hitting.
I mean, you know, when you do well, you do very well.
I'm really curious, what did you roll?
A two.
Okay, I've got a plus three perception.
What's yours?
Plus seven.
Why two?
All of you can hear the heavy rhythmic beating coming from above you that sounds like...
Oh no.
But, Scarab is the only one who looks up in time and between a gap in the trees, you only very briefly see the distinct blue scales of a wyvern soaring through the sky above you.
Oh my god.
Yeah, in that moment,
Scarab will grab at Pig and dart next to or behind a tree, just out of sight.
He won't say anything either.
He will just run off to the side.
You guys could see it for yourself.
I think seeing, seeing Scarab do that, Jacques will like start looking around in a panic and then scurry over to a tree himself.
It's like those wonderful videos of some people sitting on the couch and one of them just gets up and goes, ah, and runs.
Have you seen that shit?
Yes, where people pretend like something scary is happening just to get the reaction of other people.
I saw one where someone just started running down a hall in a college and then people just started following them.
Like that's messed up.
Everyone starts running.
Damn sheeple.
I mean, in a college, I think I might start running.
Yeah.
I'd be terrified.
Any kind of educational establishment.
By the end, there was like a whole crowd of people just like running out of the building.
Like that.
That's fucked up.
Yeah, it's messed up.
God.
The Scarab will run, try to get his composure.
You hear the wingbeats getting further and further away.
Damn.
Which direction was this heading compared to us?
Overhead in the same direction.
But it seems...
You know what?
Go ahead and give me another perception check.
He's a little rattled.
That's a nine.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to make out through the canopy of the trees exactly where it's going.
But you have a general sense of the direction.
Assuming you're not still turned around, you think that it headed northward.
Yeah, he steps out of the brush, knocks the leaves and twigs off of his cloak.
Well, should we continue?
Yeah, that was a quick bathroom break.
Colonel was just standing there.
He didn't go take cover or anything.
Jacques is by the tree cowering down, covering his head.
Like holding his cane and looking around.
It's okay, son, we won't look.
Scarab, turn around.
Give him some privacy.
Now don't mind me.
Let those who cower cower.
Okay.
What was it?
Oh, what?
Nothing at all.
I just had to pee.
I heard like a whew, almost like maybe like a pendulum was coming through the trees sort of deal.
And it was very scary.
I don't know what it was, but I saw you run.
So I ran.
I ran away.
Oh, wow, man, that's crazy.
Puts a hand on Jacques' shoulder.
Don't touch me.
I didn't say it wasn't okay.
I feel like it was a smart move.
Puberty is different for everybody.
It's okay.
I am an adult.
Come, come.
We should stay quiet, very quiet.
Get as quiet as you can.
Forward.
As you continue eastward by northeast, you see on your right, the river is bending back your way.
Go ahead and roll me a perception check.
Everyone?
Mm-hmm.
Don't worry.
I got this.
Twenty-four.
Seventeen.
Fourteen.
Nice.
Scarab, you note that as the dragging path was heading along what would be the river's edge, it suddenly veers sharply north.
And Cobcorn, while he's investigating, you can see near the riverbed on the side there is the appearance of something else that seems to have been dragged or some sort of drag mark.
But these are very different markings.
There are two large sets of, or sorry, one large set of prints on either side as if something with large clawed feet was dragging something heavy beneath it that is coming out from the river's edge and heading due north.
I think we found some big bird tracks.
Perhaps a wyvern.
What made you think it's a wyvern?
I think those are your tracks.
I can see them myself.
I've been following you and I see.
Look, look, look, look.
We must be getting close.
Where there's water, there's things as we see.
Wait, did you say wyvern?
We should go.
We should leave.
We should go back.
We should leave.
There's a wyvern that flew above us.
But if it's in cahoots with these kobolds, we might be fine.
The kobolds that carried someone away against their will.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good, good.
Carried them away far, far back where we were.
We're not being carried, so we're fine.
Yeah.
If they were going to carry us, I'm sure they would have done it already.
That's how these things work.
Oh dear.
I just want to go back to my room, to my crafts.
Look, you still have a chance.
I know I hired you and you signed on to help me find my cart, but if you're going to chicken out.
Hey.
You've done amazing.
You're awesome.
You're great.
But no, I'm not going to ask you to go into danger and excitement and riches and possibility.
I would never ask you.
You expect me to go all the way back by myself?
Just carry on.
Yeah, we'll be fine, Jack.
You almost said it right that time.
That was pretty exciting, I guess.
He didn't hear that.
He's still walking.
Now the question is, do we follow the river or try to stay out of sight?
Is it still pretty covered or no?
Are we in a clearing right now with the river?
On the river's edge is fairly clear, but you guys are the tracks from the cobalt were still underneath the trees.
Yeah.
And just to clarify, those tracks were heading in a more northeastern direction and the large dragging mark that corncob saw,
popcorn, sorry, was going due north. Could we surmise that this due north leads back to the war?
Or are we way off of that now?
Because I know we were like, we went down and we're going back another way.
Yeah, it's you know what?
Give me a survival check to see if you can orient your direction.
13. Yeah, because Scare would be trying to piece this out, like unless it clearly looks like something different.
I guess he just doesn't want to believe that there are multiple giant creatures here, even though he did see the Wyvern.
19.
19 is enough to know that the direction that you're already heading with your set of tracks seems to be heading towards the war,
or at least the war's general direction. These, this large swath cut out of the dirt that is heading in a true north direction seems to be heading away from there.
You're actually not 100% sure where the Wyvern went aside from a general north direction.
Yeah, the only thing we know for sure are these tracks here. Could be the hunter that we're looking for.
Definitely Cobalt. Perhaps a Wyvern.
It was blue. It flew over us. That's why I ran into the woods. I'm sorry.
Oh, oh boy. Oh, we should stick to your people. Maybe we'll have better luck with them.
Looking down, you can see the the sharp veering off that the Cobalt tracks did. It seems like they kind of dragged whatever they're dragging almost in a circle, like they were panicking for a moment.
But it seems like they spent a deal, a good deal amount of time here before they resume their journey.
And eventually it looks like they actually cross over those other tracks.
And now I don't have to if it's too much, but no, I'm forgetting. I just forgot what tribe it was.
True Scales. Would I remember if they are a certain, like a certain color or mixed?
Basically, would they happen to be blue as well? Because I can only imagine he can only imagine in some cases, like if it was blue and they are blue, then they could be in cahoots.
Otherwise, big possibility that they were in fear of said big thing and were like, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
You know that there is always that admiration for their draconic bloodline. But while it's a possibility, there's nothing that you've seen so far that confirms that they are working with or worshipping a drake.
Yeah, but they were definitely scared. Yeah, they're afraid of it.
I say we keep following these tracks. Did they drop anything?
Not that you can see. Probably safest bet to follow these tracks here.
Stay quiet. Got you.
Righto. Let's go.
You're both very loud.
Once the tracks have gone far enough east, they begin to slope and veer north again, going further and further into the woods and away from the river.
The sounds of rushing water fade away behind you as once again you find yourself in the dark and chirping woods.
Once again, the tracks begin to veer sharply and you can see the direction opposite from whence they veer.
There is what appears to be another clearing to the northwest of you.
So they're definitely trying to stay hidden.
It almost seems like where the edge of that clearing is or what you surmise to be a clearing as it seems lighter over there, the tracks seem to circumnavigate that spot.
Still trying to head north, but rather than going through the clearing, they're going around it.
Jasper. You hear a wild cat asking for dinner.
Baby boy.
Yeah.
Hi.
We do a perception on the clearing, see if there's anything of note.
Yeah, I'm super curious.
You want to just like venture up to the edge and peer in and see what you see?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
How are we doing this? Just going to walk up? Anybody want to try to stealth up?
Definitely stealth thing.
Colonel will stay back. He won't go up.
Okay, then I'll need stealth checks from Scarab and Jacques.
Not a good one. I got a 14.
I did want to, just in case, hunt prey on that wyvern.
Okay.
Massive tree.
Big tree.
Can I do like a...
Sure, do a nature check.
I too would like to.
21.
23.
Beautiful.
Both of you recognize this to be an elder dark wood tree.
Apparently an ancient one.
And from what you know, Scarab, this would be the most ancient of its kind in the Darkmoon Vale.
You recall an old legend passed down by the druids who long ago dwelled in this region.
The stories say this tree was carried as a sapling from the First World and planted here in a distant past by Deerzeer, the eagle of the First Way.
The story goes on to claim that all of the Darkmoon Vale grew from this one tree alone.
That's pretty cool.
Does that mean we're in the center of the forest or something?
This is hallowed ground.
Yeah, Scarab actually kneels down when seeing it out of respect.
He closes his eyes, mutters something to himself, and he looks at the tree and all around it, any signs of life?
Give me a perception.
18.
You notice very, very high up in the tree's upper limbs, you see three bodies that are hanging.
Oh my god.
Hanging from the limbs.
Not necessarily by a rope or anything, just bodies dangling from the branches.
Jacques seeing this tree, he lowers his head, and the anime thing of the shing happens on his lenses, and he just mutters,
I need some bark.
You want to go up and gather some bark?
I'd like to sneak up to the tree.
Where are you going?
I need some bark.
Not from this tree.
There's nothing else like it.
Then you wish for death.
I wish for knowledge.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
You're going to walk up and collect some?
Sneak.
Sneak. Okay, well, let me just self-check.
Scarab ducks away into the wood.
22.
You see that, Cobcorn?
He's nowhere near you guys.
Unless you came back to him, because he's still on the trail.
How far back are you on that?
Miles.
As soon as you guys started sneaking, that's how far he is.
Not too far from the clearing.
Where you could see it from the tracks, you were probably, I know I said not too far, probably 40 feet away from the clearing's edge.
Cool.
Because it was enough to kind of see it.
Well, then Scarab would call you over to where he is, like on the edge of the clearing.
Oh, we're clear?
No, he's still, he's just like, shh.
Get over here.
Clang clang clang clang.
Just in case something happens.
Yeah, Colonel comes up.
You see this tree?
It's huge.
What's my boy doing?
Probably something stupid.
That's why I called you here.
This tree.
Oh, he's one of the smartest people I know.
Nature, nature comes from this.
All that's around us comes from this tree.
It's a special, special place.
I fear your boy might be getting into trouble, so we'll watch.
Go ahead and roll me a nature check to harvest some of this.
Oh my god.
The lager's back in town.
24.
Beautiful.
I'm rolling so well right now.
As you place your hands on a rather nice looking piece of bark, you give it an experimental tug and it comes free in a large chunk.
It's something you could easily strap to your back and you imagine it's large enough and a clean enough piece potentially you could have something made from it.
You could just add Elder Darkwood slab to your character sheet.
Well, while he's there, can he do a perception check on the bodies?
Yes.
Those lumberjacks back in town, if they come close to here, wrath of the gods might come upon them.
14.
Oh, scare up.
There's only one true god.
Typhane, of course.
Tell me about him.
Peering up, it's a little difficult from where you are to see the exact details, but you have a fairly decent vantage point.
You see what appear to be three hunters dangling from the tree branches above and their flesh appears to be mangled and gnawed, although it does seem like some of their possessions remain around them.
And looking down, you notice a few older broken arrows just at the base of the tree.
And you hear a low hissing rumble as from behind the edge of the tree above you.
Sorry, behind the trunk wrapping around it comes a large serpentine head followed quickly by two claws.
And it lunges.
So I will say, yeah, we're going to wrap that.
Sorry.
That's it.
Bye.
Get out of here.
Oh, no.
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It's a very little town.
Looks like a red dead town.
Sure. Everybody knows everybody here.
Oh, yeah. You'd think not if I lived here.
Yeah. You'd never see me.
Same. I want to live here.
My neighbors probably think when I go to work, there's that fat bearded guy that doesn't mow his lawn.
I've never talked to my neighbors.
I've been there for years. I talked to your new next or new across street neighbors.
Why?
I went out to get a shirt for Cody or whatever.
And while I was doing that, one of the people went to go drive away and they had stuff on top of their car.
And so I stopped them to tell them they had stuff on top of their car.