Farraginous Cogitations

The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford Session 5 Recap

Spoilers for "The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford" are included in this recap...

Our Heroes:

We rejoin our party of adventurers who have just liberated the Holy Sword of Sir Brandon from his crypt and who are suddenly facing a 7’ tall browned skeleton wearing rusted armor and a mustachioed electrum death mask, dragging a broken greatsword behind it emerge from the secret passage to the north. Their erstwhile goblin allies flee in terror to the west. Thinking quickly, Gunther runs into the Tomb of Sir Brandon and lays out his twine bauble across the threshold. "Undead" he mutters and a barrier of magical protection stops the advance of the undead creature. Wulf quickly utilizes his new relic and attacks the undead creature with the Holy Sword of Sir Brandon. His powerful strokes with the holy relic thwart the creatures defenses. He sunders the greatsword, armor and the viscera beneath, destroying the creature.

After Gunther retrieves his twine bauble, the party decide to follow the path taken by the goblins and move to the west door. In the otherwise bare room beyond they see nine statues lining the walls: stone warriors standing at attention. The shadows on their faces are deep and dark, stretched longer than they should be. Akshara foolhardily decides to rush through the room. As he steps into the room, the shadows drain from the faces of the statues lining the wall, coalescing into a shade-like form in the middle of the room. The shade gestures quickly and one of the statues moves with great speed towards Akshara. It shatters upon impacting the wall after narrowly missing Akshara. Wulf and Gunther also decide to risk it and make a mad dash across the room. The shade again gestures and another statue animates. Again it narrowly misses the two running adventures before destroying itself upon colliding with the wall.

The party quickly continues heading west, hoping to outdistance the shade. They enter a long room with painted walls that are chipped and flaking. Eight stone chairs sit around the room, two against every wall. At the center of the room is bronze pitcher set on a short stone table. Seeing nothing of immediate value and sensing the shade following, they elect to rush through the room to the opposite exit.

The next room is in ruins. A sparkling layer of spiderwebs covers the piles of broken shields and weapons on the floor. With some breathing room, the party pauses to look around. Deciding the burn away some of the webs to investigate the detritus on the floor reveals a giant spider, who attacks. The party split their focus. Gunther and Akshara fight the spider, while Wulf moves back to the east door to confront the shade.

Warden Note: Cairn initiative is handled by the PC's all making a DEX save to act the first round. Gunther and Akshara make their DEX saves, Wulf fails his. This means Gunther and Akshara are free to attack while Wulf cannot. In the fiction, this is explained as Wulf being initially hesitant and possibly fearful of this powerful undead creature and the creature, in turn, being able to attack him first. In Cairn combat, there is no 'to hit' roll. Instead, all attacks hit and all players roll their weapon damage die. If two or more actors are attacking a single target, only the highest die roll counts.

Gunther and Akshara attack the spider, striking it but they don't significantly damage it. It attacks and strikes Akshara but does not do critical damage. Wulf is shocked and frightened when confronting the Shade and in that moment of hesitation, the Shade reaches out and touches him with the power of undeath, which ignores his armor. He manages to avoid taking critical damage but only barely. Akshara drops his staff*, reaches down and quickly picks up one of the rusted weapons on the ground, a longsword. He thrusts at the giant spider and the sword plunges deep into the spider. Viscera and fluids erupt from the wound and that creature slumps to the floor, dead. The acidic fluids and innards react with the corroded weapon, the rust sloughing off revealing and ornately jeweled weapon with exquisite tooling.

Warden Note: I felt this was a clever and unique act by Kevin and decided to reward him with the loot table for the room combined into the sword: 6 tiny amethysts (25 GP each) and 1 emerald (300 GP) socketed in the high quality weapon.

Overcoming his initial fear, Wulf lashes at the Shade with the holy relic, dealing a devastating blow. The shade disintegrates into wisps of ethereal matter.

The party continues south and finds a room lined with diamond shaped scroll shelves. At the southwest corner is a desk next to a rotting wooden footlocker. On the desk lays a thick holy book entitled Lives of the Saints. Vellum pages decorated with painted margins and gold leaf.

Wulf breaks the lock on the rotting wooden footlocker and finds several fist sized rocks with odd shapes chiseled into them.

Warden Note: These are rune stones. I let each player roll twice on a D20 table of possible stones. I also awarded them a specific rune stone. These are single use per day items and take up one slot each.

While the party is debating how to adjust their inventory so they don't have to leave any of these powerful items behind, they are somewhat sheepishly rejoined by their three goblin friends. They retreat out of the barrow mound and bid farewell to their new goblin friends.

After a brief stop at Vivian's house, the party return to Brandonsford for a much needed rest. The party does a minor bit of shopping, acquiring another mule, Stumpy, and cart as well has hiring the services of Lady Hilda and Malzazerick the Magnificent. As they also plan on locating and investigating the home of the goblins and talking to King Hogboon, they acquire some of the ale from Quinn at the Golden Egg Tavern, to possibly barter or bribe with.

Warden Note: Downtime activities include Akshara reading from The Wild Tongue but Kevin again failed his WIL save. Gunther spends the next morning looking for herbs again and since Max rolled a Nat 1 on his WIL save, he finds exactly what he's looking for.

The party heads north. As they are about to cross the river, they encounter two dragonhunters: Gill’s sons Tad (short, fat, four teeth total) and Zach (tall, dopey, big Adam’s apple). They are planning to bait the Dragon with a dead pig and then throw a net over it. Quickly realizing the ill-conceived plan concocted by two idiots won't work and they won't survive the encounter if it does, they continue on their way.

They again encounter the fauns in their grove and offer them some of Quinn's ale. The fauns shiver with delight upon consuming the brew. Gunther offers them the locket and Ingrid's love letter and the fauns given them two small kegs of feywine.

After an otherwise uneventful trip north, the party finds a skeletal remains of a structure, little more than crumbling rocks and ivy. A ruined temple dedicated to a forgotten wild god, evidenced by images of flowering vines on columns and weathered leafy faces on the stonework. This is the 'castle' of Hogboon, the Goblin King. They are greeted respectfully by the goblins and brought before King Hogboon, a boar-headed man dressed in a dashing nobleman's frock.

Snorting and spitting when he speaks, he is imperious and egotistical. The party discuss his need to find a more suitable 'castle' for his troops as well as his desire to control the dragon. He demands the party bring him the dragon, saying, "Drug it, lock it in a cage, I don't care what you do just bring it to me!". He gives the party an item he says will assist them in this endeavor.

While talking, the party notices a ring with a glowing green gem he wears. When they mention it, he quickly hides his hand and attempts to distract them from it by also offering them a pot of gold for the kegs of brew. The party counters by asking for some of his troops to assist. Hogboon orders the same three goblins (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) the party befriended in the barrow mound to accompany them on their foray to capture the dragon. While Wulf and Akshara engage in a bout of competitive drinking with Hogboon, Gunther discreetly asks one of the goblins about the ring. The reply is "He is king BECAUSE of the ring".

Warden Note: We decided to end at this point because we had reached our time limit.

This ends Session 5.