Farraginous Cogitations

The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford Session 6 Recap

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

Our Heroes:

We rejoin our party in the throne room of King Hogboon. He has just ordered them to capture and bring the dragon before him as he intends to charm it and use it to assist him in taking over the rest of the area. He has even provided a token force comprising Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to assist them as well as giving them the Rope of Unburdening to facilitate it's capture and delivery.

The party step back into the common room outside the throne room to confer and plan. The party debates whether or not to obey the king or kill him to take his ring and the consequences of each. They ask for more specifics about how he became king, how he rules the goblins, his schedule, etc. They also speculate about what the green glowing ring he wears does and whether or not reading Lives of the Saints will affect him and his retinue of guards. They briefly entertain the notion of stuffing their ears or their goblin friends' ears with something to prevent the King's ring from affecting them and reading from the holy book from affecting selective goblins (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego).

Finally, the coalesce around a plan: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are ordered to stand guard in the common room at the door to the throne room. The rest of the party re-enters the throne room, which irritates King Hogboon. "Why haven't you left yet? My orders were clear!" he spits and snorts at them. Gunther read from Lives of the Saints and King Hogboon and the other goblins in the throne room immediately clasp their hands over their ears, double over as if in pain and start groaning and wailing. It is then a simple issue of a single, clean killing stroke and King Hogboon is no more. Gunther elects to take the green glowing ring and is acclaimed the new King of the Faerie Goblins. Long Live the King!

Warden's Note: Additional context for the ring - If you kill the wearer of this ring and take it as your own, you become the new Goblin King. Goblins from Faerie will obey you unquestioningly. While you have the ring, you will also be hunted by the agents of power-hungry fairies who want the ring for themselves.

Gunther immediately promotes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to act in his stead and charges them with cleaning and fixing up the castle. After noticing a clover patch with inordinately green clovers, Meshach is dispatched to get a shovel and dig to investigate. A pot of gold is discovered buried under, and is the source of, the bright green clover. It contains 500g pieces.

Warden's Note: This was the Clurichaun's pot of gold from session 1.

The party them makes use of the armory in the castle to acquire some additional armor in the form of helmets the goblins have been decorating with goblin flair (feathers, horns, bones and spikes). The party then resolve to head north towards the mountains. Along the way they encounter forested area that looks like it has been damaged as if by acid or chemicals, though it is regrowing. They also happen across a party of 7 Elvish Hunters dressed in extravagant furs and looking typically haughty and beautiful. Initially alarmed, the party is surprised when the elves genuflect to Gunther and respectfully address him as 'Lord'. When asked about the dragon and the dwarves, the Elves reveal the dragon's cave is to the west while the home of the dwarves is to the east.

The elves take their leave and the party moves west, coming across a barren area of the mountains. Here they find a lonely cave at the base of the mountains flanked by blackened trees. The darkness within is pierced by the sparkling gold and jewels piled inside. Streamers of yellow smoke rise from the cave mouth, and the stones shake with its deep, rumbling breaths.

The party, realizing they need a plan, move away from the cave to the south, re-entering the cover of the trees. Here they take steps to insure they can defeat the dragon. They capture and kill an opposum, inserting a flask of the feywine received from the Faun's Grove. Their intent is to leave it in front of the cave and hope the dragon consumes it and becomes incapacitated. They also announce a plan to coat their weapons in more feywine for similar purposes.

They move back toward the cave, first securing their mules and carts in the trees where they'll be safe. As they approach the cave a second time, they notice that there are no streamers of yellow smoke rising from the cave and no deep, rumbling breaths. Understanding the dragon has left the cave, they all move to the mouth of the cave while Wolf goes into the cave and investigates.

Wolf sees a massive pile of gold along with some other treasures (rings, a jeweled skull, gems). Sticking out of the pile is a jeweled cutlass. Grasping the handle, Wulf hears a voice in his head say "If you take the Dragon’s treasure, it will find you". Undeterred, he withdraws the cutlass from the mount.

Outside, the dragon has suddenly and unexpectedly returned. The beast moves like a fat alligator, dragging its bloated belly along the ground with each lumbering step, but with the potential to strike in an instant. Strings of spittle hang from its teeth, thick with foul poison. It's sudden appearance leaves Akshara too surprised to attack and Wulf inside the cave, unable to attack. Gunther quickly grabs the oppossum corpse and attempts to throw it into the dragon's mouth while Hilda target it's eyes and Malzazerick the Magnificent looses an Arcane Arrow in the form of a green bolt of energy.

Warden Note: Gunther's attempt to throw the opossum into the dragon's mouth requires a DEX save, which Max fails. In the fiction the oppossum corpse sails considerably wide of the mark.

The dragons Scales of Glistening Black are immune to normal weapons, but anything without scales (the eyes and mouth) can be damaged normally, precisely where the party struck. It bellows and a spray of yellow sulfurous gas emerges from it's Throat Full of Brimstone striking the party, staggering them, including Wulf who has just emerged from the cave. Wulf and Akshara join the fight against the dragon. Wulf, with his feywine coated blade, joins Gunther and Hilda in striking at the dragon's mouth and eyes while Akshara circles behind it and strikes at it's tail. All seem to damage the beast again except Akshara who is striking the beasts impenetrable hide. In response the beast attacks Wulf, crushing him in it's Jaws Dripping with Poison.

Warden's Note: Wulf had already lost some hp from the first round breath attack. The damage of the second round attack is first mitigated by his armor, the remaining dmg goes through to his hit protection, reducing it to exactly zero. As his hp is reduced from 5 to 0 exactly by the remaining 5 points of damage, this elicits a lookup on Cairn's Scar table:

After crushing Wulf in his jaws, the dragon releases Wulf who flees into the immediate safety of the cave. Akshara leaps on the dragon's back and tries to stab the beast in the side. Again, this fails due to the dragon's impenetrable scale hide while Gunther, Hilda and Malzazerick attack as before, again successfully causing damage to the beast through it's unarmored mouth and eyes. The beast again releases a spray of yellow gas as it bellows in pain. This time both Malzazerick and Gunther take the full brunt of the noxious cloud. Both collapse into greasily smoking heaps. All their supplies and gear that isn't precious is dissolved by the sulfurous breath.

Growing desperate upon witnessing two of his comrades fall, Wulf makes a mad dash for the oppossum carcass. Upon reaching it, he picks it up and immediately hurls it directly into the mouth of the dragon.

Warden's Note: This required Wulf to make a DEX save to accomplish such a risk, daring feat. Adam rolled a natural 1 and I decided to reward this in the fiction thus...

The powerfully thrown opossum carcass and it's internal flask of feywine arc gracefully through the air, disappearing directly down the dragon's throat. The beasts eyes widen in surprise and confusion. It's eyes then roll back and the beast slumps to the ground, utterly senseless. Directly on top of Gunther's body. Wulf approaches, pries open the comatose beast's jaws and rams Brandon's Holy Sword straight into it's brain.

The dragon dies, its black scales melting away into steaming ooze, leaving behind the skeleton of a dwarf.

Now safe, the party tend to their wounded and investigate the contents of the cave...

The dragon’s hoard built upon the once buried treasure of Carmelo the Cursed. The treasure is piled under the upturned chest it was originally buried in.

The hoard contains:

► A nest of 9,000 gold coins

► 6 golden rings (on severed fingers, 200 GP worth)

► Garnet earrings still attached to a decaying human head (142 GP) ► A skull with ruby eyes and a rainbow of gemstone teeth (pop out the gems for 800 GP worth, or sell the whole thing to a collector for 1,600 GP)

► 1 diamond (463 GP)

The party retrieved their mules and carts and loaded up what treasure they could carry.

Warden's Note: We ended here with next steps/session to be determined.

This ends Session 6.