A Record of Play - Session 5
Man, another delay! Basically we did not game for a couple of months because of scheduling but we are back baby!
So, we left off with our party seeing a priest running from the ruins of the old caer in Caer Konig. This is not part of the module but something that I added as it seemed silly not to add something cool to this old ruin. They meet with the priest who is named Hivam, and worships Deneir, and is looking for information on the dale as part of their priestly duties. They had come to the caer with the idea of looking for any lost knowledge, when they were scared off by a ghost. They ask for help, mentioning that the ghost is bound to some sort of magical axe.
The party agrees to help and being smart, having almost died so many times, they decide to scout. Thyme has remembered that she has a familiar with her and sends the thing inside to scout. Unfortunately due to some good rolls by our ghost and some poor ones by the familiar, it is almost immediately killed by a rock. The ghost, now aware of their presence, moves to attack them.
The ghost uses the stats of a Berserker with the features of a ghost, making it a tough but doable fight. It is still an intense battle and I take full advantage of the ghost features, at one point having the ghost move through our barbarian Jesk to pursue the spell casters. Eventually though they succeed in defeating the ghost and are left with a magical axe which I describe in great detail. They then finally get to the inn in town and we begin a couple of days of downtime, which I will summarize by character for the first day.
Jesk our tiefling barbarian attunes to the great axe to find that it houses the spirit of Vokarr the Eyebiter who is raging within the magical weapon. Jesk and Vokarr fight for supremacy of the body, and an amazing natural twenty on Jesk’s part means he comes out on top. We discuss his new magical item, what it does, and how to best utilize it. Mechanically speaking, Jesk has just acquired a Berserker Axe that also had the abilities of the Orc Stone from the module. Because of the “partial melding of spirits” I also let Jesk learn Orcish because why not?
Zusa the human wizard spends the day working with the elementalism cantrip to make snow sculptures and just in general practice magic. He’s living his best life and I noted I liked seeing him act out his character practicing and learning more about his craft. It was a fun moment amongst his allies battling with otherworldly forces.
Thyme the Firbolg Warlock decides to make good on the deal with the Black Swords and sends them information about the Duergar outpost. She sends them a letter through messenger and gets a reply back the same day thanking her, and that if they can help they would appreciate it. Behind the screen I make a note that in a ten-day if the party hasn’t handled it, the cult with the militias of Caer Konig and Caer Dineval will take care of the outpost. Thyme also goes inside of her book that her patron gave her, going to a vast endless library and losing some time as she is trapped there. I based her patron from Hermaeus Mora of the Elder Scroll Series and The Eye of the Magnus archives. Very fun and freaky.
All that done, I let them know they have all leveled up to level three and thus need to pick sub classes. We take some time at the table to discuss and work their choices into their characters. Jesk becomes a Berserker barbarian which makes sense with him having an angry orc in him. Zusa becomes an Evocation wizard, which ties into his studies and is also useful for combat. And finally Thyme gets a Great Old One Patron which matches what she has done so far.
We still have a little time in the session so I bring up the idea of a healer sidekick, something I have offered the party previously. Having almost died in several combats I wanted to remind them of the offer in case it would be helpful. They agree that they want one and I let them know that they’ll get a healer, just tell me what they would like so I can flavor it. Thyme’s player looks me dead in the eye and asks.
“What about that polar bear we met?” I realize what I have done, as benign awakened it does speak a language. I tell them it would be hard to find that specific one so let’s roll a survival check to track it, Jesk succeeds.
So I then narrate the party spending the next day teaching a talking polar bear how to do magic. It is a fun montage of them doing just that, though struggling as the Healer sidekick uses druidic and cleric magic. Also it’s a polar bear and that might be a problem. But I am an entity of my word, and as such I decided to have Oyaminartok, the goliath werebear spirit, visit in the night bestowing upon them magic power and bear lycanthropy.
As a result, they find a naked and masculine humanoid in their room later on. Which starts a smaller quests for pants before we end the session.
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So not a whole lot of plot movement here. Most of the actual session time was spent leveling up as two of the three players weren’t familiar with the system and needed some help. But it was very fun to see them work their character choices into things and see them really playing their characters. With them at level three they end up much less likely to die.
The “Axe of Vokarr” quest was an addition by me when I saw a few things that needed to be worked on. It also was a good way to work in a magical item for the barbarian that would make him more powerful, but also not feeling like I was just giving him a magic item. The battle for it also was a ton of fun and all of them were really using their skills.