With some additional reinforcements from mercenaries that tried to plunder the ruins, the group continued their search for treasure.

This week’s characters:

• La Fleur (lvl 2), human wizard, 668 XP
• Roderick Clearwater (lvl 2), human rogue, 601 XP
• Tapio of Gareth, human fighter (lvl 2), 668 XP
• Dargoth the Daring, human fighter (lvl 2), 742 XP

First, they sent Jules into the tunnel entrance they found, but he only smelled rodents and found nothing else. Their next target was the barn, where the mercenaries Alrik, Torben and Perainos had seen a monster earlier. The group dispersed, taking vantage points up on roofs and walls, in case a monster storms out. Jules again was sent to scout the barn, but could only report a smell of decay.

Dargoth opened the door, but nothing dashed out and attacked. They started smashing barred windows and walls to let some light into the barn, and finally found the monster: a giant sowbug! It hid in the darkest corner of the barn. Discerning it probably was no threat if left alone, they gave it an opening to scuttle of, which it did.

I had them roll a Nature DC 8 check to safely route the sowbug off.

Afterwards they searched the barn intensly, but found only a couple copper pieces. Only when Dargoth took detailed measurements he found a trapdoor hidden under the hay. It took the group quite some effort, but finally with a lot of noise, they cracked it open.

And smashed the healing potion that lay beneath it. Such is life.

Beneath was a small tunnel where Dargoth barely fit into, and which caused a strange echo effect if shouted into. The group did that for some time, before Tapio decided to investigate (and stepped into a puddle of healing drought). Dargoth followed him.

The tunnel ended in a wooden grate, in the room behind it stood an ugly stone statue. Tapio simply threw the grate over, disturbing lots of dust, which temporarily blinded him. When the dust settled, the stone statue stood right in front of him, he immediately attacked, but his swords brushed the stone without any effect. In return, the monster grabbed him and gave him some nasty bites and shoves. Luckily, Dargoth managed to persuade the monster that he would be a more dangerous target, which let the rather winded Tapio go. After a harrowing back and forth, the monster finally crumbled.

Phew. That was a difficult fight – all fighters had to use their second wind ability, and Dargoth even drank his potion of giant strength as his early attacks barely caused any noticable effect. If Dargoth had not successfully intimidated the monster, poor Tapio would have probably been crushed in its grip. And all that by a well positioned standard monster.

Afterwards they searched the chamber and found quite a lot of loot among the rubble: Among other things, a throwing knife, an axe, a halberd, a morning-star, five potions in differently coloured bottles, and a little money.

I am really curious when they are going to test those and what they will make of them!

After having given XP for the successful fight, we stopped the session a bit earlier than usual.

This week the party faced an invincible swamp monster, and prevailed!

This week’s characters:

• La Fleur (lvl 2), human wizard, 556 XP
• Roderick Clearwater (lvl 2), human rogue, 489 XP
• Tapio of Gareth, human fighter (lvl 2), 556 XP
• Dargoth the Daring, human fighter (lvl 2), 630 XP

The party stood at the foot of a log causeway that was lined with willows. Dargoth noticed an owl sleeping in one of the willows, but otherwise, everything seemed calm. Of course, this made the group very suspicious and they set a marching order and prepared their weapons.

Dargoth went first, and when he came closed to the willows, he noticed its branches stretching and moving in his direction. He barely manages to step back, cutting a few twigs with his sword in defense. At the same time, Tapio (who was guarding the rear) is flooded with a black liquid over his shoulder, a gust of wind blows his hat on the swamp and when he turns around, he sees a horrible swamp monster coalescencing directly behind him! Furthermore, the owl opens it eyes and stares directly at La Fleur.

Frantically, the group attempts to fight the monster, but for naught, all their attacks are repelled: Arrows are just sucked into the monster’s muddy hide, other weapons get stuck and have to be retrieved, fire bolts are extinguished by the monsters watery surface, frost rays melt from the monsters composting heat. When La Fleur throws a Chromatic Orb, the monster simply swallows it, burps and licks its lips.

Grapping for straws, Roderick shoots and kills the owl, which he assumed was a proxy to control the scene, but it simply falls from the tree with a loud thud. Tapio attempts to run past the trees toward the ruins, but is grappled and lulled to sleep, losing his bow. Roderick gives up hope and runs for the shore, while Dargoth gets second thoughts and assumes this might be an illusion.

With Dargoth standing still and concentrating on what happens, but only figuring out that this makes him feel odd, the monster grabs muds from its stomach and throws it at La Fleur, who just barely keeps standing. Roderick meanwhile reaches the shore, turns around to support his comrades and sees … a rather odd scene: Dargoth stares at nothing, La Fleur attemps to brush of nothing from her rather clean robes, and Tapio leaning over a willow branch, sleeping. There is no monster!

When the group realized this, there was quite a lot of laughter as the tension was relieved. It was very much fun to run this scene and, according to the players comments, they enjoyed it as well. The poor owl was just an ordinary owl, sleeping in the willow, which wanted to know what all the ruckus was about.

Noticing Rodericks erratic behaviour at the shore, where he waves and shouts at them, the others are convinced that something truly odd was happening. Dargoth grabbed the sleeping Tapio, and dashed with La Fleur to the shore as well, where they all rested for a bit.

After the rest, the group simply walked over the log causeway and ignored the willows and monsters appearing. They safely reached the gatehouse, whose outer gate was torn apart by brute force and the inner gate was stuck at a low height, requiring the group to crawl beneath it.

Inside, there was a yard with four buildings, with the largest to the south-east, and a tower right next to the gatehouse. The group first investigated the tower, where they found three shadow-bats hanging from the roof. They attempted to roast them, but the bats evaded and dove for the shades beyond the buildings, with the group in pursuit. They finally found them in another tower, where they managed to burn one of them (which disintegrated as it fell down), and badly crippled a second one, which was shortly later nailed to a window frame by Roderick. When inspecting the bat, they found that it had purple fur looking like a collar beneath its head. The third bat escaped into a large building behind the first four buildings already discovered prior.

The group returned to the front yard, and decided to investigate the large building first. On their way toward the building, when passing between two of the smaller buildings, La Fleur noticed hushed voices within one of them, arguing about whether or not there was treasure in this ruins. The group assumes those are fellow adventurers and sends Tapio to introduce them, as he is the most charming of their lot.

Now, I had prepared for a nice little fight, but I made a reaction roll which showed an 11: Friendly and helpful. So, I had to quickly turn these plunderers into a group that was willing to somehow cooperate with our groups. Thus, a group of former mercenaries was born.

When Tapio enters, the opponents attempt to hide, but fail greatly, and are quickly overwhelmed by Tapio’s charm. They introduce themselves as Alrik (a Middle-Realmian), Torben (a Thorwalian) and Perainos (from Fairfields). They all worked as mercenaries for the Empire during the Orc Invasion, but when their units were annihilated, they got somehow stuck and tried to get rich quick somehow (but not very successful so far). It was Torbens superstition that kept them from the log causeway, and thus they never encountered the hallucination, but they report about a strange desk in the next building and strange noises from the fourth building.

Dargoth continued the search of the room the three had started, and quickly found a linen pouch with a few coins inside. In the house over, they found a strange tunnel that looked like it was dug by a mole, Jules reported that it smelled like rodent. Dargoth identified the wood as an exotic hardwood that was looked for by captains, and Roderick easily picked the desk’s lock. Inside, the group found a silver bottle filled with liquid (that La Fleur identified as healing potion), some coins and a gilded key (both non-magic).

I had always wrongly assumed a magic ritual in D&D5 takes an hour, but it only takes 10 minutes in addition to the normal casting time, as one player pointed out.

It was getting late at this point, so I stopped the session here. The group plans to investigate the stables next, where their three new sidekicks had seen a monster.

Once more, we played in Adventuria, this time, the group mainly recovered, was celebrated and earnt experience.

This week’s characters:

• La Fleur (lvl 2), human wizard, 536 XP
• Tapio of Gareth, human fighter (lvl 2), 536 XP
• Dargoth the Daring, human fighter (lvl 2), 610 XP

After their encounter with the catfish, the group arrived in Lowangen without further distractions. When they arrived at the Grey Stave’s quarter, they were welcomed with fanfare, Agdan was obviously a well liked commander. They were bathed, got fresh clothes and were invited to a feast were the whole order sang a hymn to praise their deed. Furthermore, they were invited to stay at the order’s quarters for free, including cost, and got 200 gold pieces and two magic potions of their choice for free!

The group tried to learn more about the Morgendornstrauch, but the order knew less about it than the swamp witches. They wrote to the sage in Ansvell to learn more about nymphs; even though they were not completely certain the witches were benign, they assumed it was probably better to stay on their good side. They assumed it would take about one to two weeks till the sage answered, so they decided to do something else inbetween. When they inquired about possible new goals, the order told them that a patrol recently discovered an old ruin the order had searched for quite a long time, and if the group wanted, they were invited to investigate it – the order just requested that the order would have drawing rights to anything the group might find in there.

With plenty of rations, the group set out to this ruin. On their way, during camp, they met a friendly band of Norbards, who told them that a great festival was to take place in Lowangen in about two weeks. Dargoth asked them about their customs and fairy tales, which they were happy to tell. Both groups left amicable the next morning.

Shortly afterwards, they entered the swamps near Lowangen once more, this time the Ödermoor to the north of the Svellt. It was every bit as inhospitable as the southern Svelltmoor, if not more inhospitable. The first night, they found an abandoned charcoal burner’s hut to rest in. During night, Tapio smashed his bed and found a box with 18 copper pieces hidden beneath it; he decided to leave them where they were.

The next day, the group found a large group of green apes (Sumpfrantzen) blocking their way, with some luck the group snuck past nearby. Dargoth’s made quite some noise, which agitated the apes, but they were unable to locate the source of the sound.

I gave the group the chance to give the Sumpfrantzen a wide berth, but they would lose half a day of travel. They decided to risk sneaking by closely instead. I had them roll a group test on stealth, and with both Tapio and La Fleur succeeding, Dargoth’s fail did not give them away.

After one more rest, the group passed a group of moss covered stones in the middle of a big circle of hedges. Dargoth attempted to rub the moss from one of the stones, which reacted with a chuntle. Dargoth then hailed it, after which the stone rose and turned out to be a bleary stone-creature in a foul mood. It did not answer any of Dargoth’s questions, and behaved very much like a grumpy owlish oldtimer being woken up by a larkish child. The group excused themselves before the stone-creature got violent, and quickly thereafter found the ruins they were looking for.

Thus ended this session.

This week saw a fight, where the group was chased off without lasting damage, some friendly witches and Agdan Dragenfeldt rescued.

Again it were the same players as last week, despite that, new players are welcome any time:

• La Fleur (lvl 2), human wizard, 449 XP
• Roderick Clearwater (lvl 2), human rogue, 469 XP
• Tapio of Gareth, human fighter (lvl 2), 449 XP
• Dargoth the Daring, human fighter (lvl 2), 523 XP

After their fruitless attempt to save Ilmbold’s live, the group did not waste much time to grief, but instead geared up and went into the swamp to save Agdan Dragenfeldt from the Bullywugs.

Thanks to the very accurate and recent directions in the patrol’s report, they navigated the swamp easily and without troubles. On their second night in the swamp, Tapio heard a strange chanting and woke the others. The group investigated and found two witches, that were happy their adventurer attraction spell worked so quickly.

The dice favoured the group today, as I had rolled an 11 on the witches reaction roll. This would continue for the rest of the game, which made for a rather smooth game.

They asked the group to retrieve a nymph’s hair for a binding spell, but were unwilling to say what they want to bind. In return they told the group that the Morgendornstrauch was cursed by Peraine, after she had scratched herself on the plant, and would now turn those that were scratched into horrible monsters. It is possible to save the accursed with a secret ointment only witches can create, and since La Fleur succesfully proved to be a witch, the two sisters taught her how to create it, as it was not possible to preserve the ointment which had to be applied fresh.

The rest of the group slept well in the witches hut, but woke the next morning on moss and stones. No sign of the witches!

They continued through the swamp, shouting for Agdan, passing some landmarks from the report, till they arrived near an ancient battle field. Dozends of corpses, fresh and old, littered mud and a small copse. Within the copse, the group spotted a horde of green apes, and one green ape with clothes! Might that be Agdan Dragenfeld turned into a Sumpfrantze? It did react to its name, albeit not breaking its lethargy.

The group came up with a plan: They would build a pile of corpses to distract the apes, and La Fleur would Disguise Self herself as a Sumpfrantze, approach the clothed Sumpfrantze and lead her to a safe distance, where she would attempt to break the curse.

Despite the apes throwing feces at the group, the plan worked. Luckily, Agdan’s little toe was still human, and thus he could be saved, albeit exhausted.

I rolled a CON save whether or not Agdan could still be safed, with each day reducing the change. This roll was succesful, returning Agdan to its human self.

Roderick built an improvised stretcher, as Agdan could not walk by himself, and the group started their way back to Lowangen. Now their luck had run out though: When they walked through a lake, a giant catfish attacked them!

Of all the random encounter rolls this session, even the ones with their chances doubled due to the group shouting for Agdan, only this one showed an encounter. Again I used the Hellbog random encounters from Elf Maids & Octopi.

Agdan looked like a tasty snack, but Tapio and Dargoth managed to lift him out of harms way in the nick of time, which left them in unsteady footing. Lucky for them, the fish got entangled in some reeding, which bought them some time.

I am usually a rather soft DM and dislike harming player characters, but I was slightly disappointed when the attack roll against Tapio, which were made with advantage, turned out a 1 and a 2.

The group started to race toward the shore. Just before they reached it, the catfish caught up to them and bit Dargoth in the tigh. The skin around his leg started to blister and felt nettle-whipped, but they reached safety alive. Roderick shot at the catfish, hitting it in the fin, which caused to fish to dive and swim away.

With two days of march to Lowangen remaining, we ended the game.