Play Report: Aryngrave, Session 3
Here we are again! This group has switched days to something the players can generally do more consistently and now play weekly rather than fortnightly. Hopefully this helps us have games more consistently! Strap in folks, this one was a doozy.
The Characters
Ico - Cleric of the Court of Rot seeking to guide the Northern Sanction through this time of decay.
Owena - A Fighter with high-minded ideals and notions of chivalry, here to bring Law to a Chaos-ridden realm.
Part 1: Real Play
We picked up on a cold morning, sleet falling slowly from the sky. The adventurers rose and packed up their camp, ready to return to Adaran to heal, sell off their loot and do some research into the things they'd discovered beneath the great oak. They packed their belongings onto the mule, including the golden bowl they'd hidden near the camp overnight, and set off for the safety of Adaran.
Just a few short hours into their journey, the party heard a horrible cry that sounded like a mix between a hound and an eagle, and the beating of wings. They scrambled to get off the road; Ico hid behind one of the nearby trees, while Owena got the mule up against a tree, quickly removed its saddlebags and put herself between it and the road, loaded crossbow in hand. The screech echoed out again, closer this time, and the mule began braying and stomping its hooves in terror. Owena used the bags to try and blinker the mule, stroking its neck to try and calm it. But the beast had heard its prey, and descended to the road.
In size and general shape, it resembled a large wolfhound but with large wings and spines of rusting iron sprouting from rear half of its body. As it was about to turn and see her and the mule, Owena loosed a bolt from her crossbow which struck the beast just below its left wing. It howled and whirled round to see its attacker, revealing the face of a human locked in an expression of fear and weeping endlessly. At that moment Owena recalled folk tales of dogs grown malicious and hateful from abuse at the hands of humans, who steal the faces of their victims. Beasts known as Manticores.
A frenzied combat ensued as Owena and Ico seized the beast's momentary surprise and charged it. They fought valiantly despite their fear, landing heavy blows against the Manticore. It wounded Ico as it lashed out with its spines which slipped between plates of armour to find the soft flesh beneath. The Manticore struggled to find openings against the heroes' onslaught and decided to go what it saw as easier prey in the mule. It charged at the terrified donkey, which in turn took off into the woods, braying wildly as it did. Ico and Owena chased after the Manticore and put themselves between it and the mule, shields raised and blocking its chase. Owena let out a mighty battle cry "For Cair Balathur!" and drove her blade into the monster's chest, just as its spiked tail lashed out and inflicted a mortal wound. Though severely injured, the Manticore was emboldened by the death of one of its foes, now seeing its chance for victory once more.
However, try as it might it could not find purchase against Ico's defences, and after taking another heavy blow on top of already grave wounds the Manticore decided to cut its losses and flee. But in the wake of their comrade's death a red mist descended on Ico, who tossed aside his warhammer and took up Owena's crossbow. He gave chase to the beast, missing his first shot with the crossbow, but steadied himself and landed the second. The bolt pierced through the back of the Manticore's skull, killing it instantly.
Ico took a few minutes to catch his breath and process what had happened, and strapped Owena's body across the back of the mule which had been recovered by Atelaine. Before departing for Adaran, Ico made sure to remove the head of the Manticore and tie it to the mule's back, as proof of their achievement. Upon return to Adaran's walls they were met by Olivia Mulbreck, captain of the town guard. She recognised the Manticore immediately as a beast that had been terrorising travelers on the roads for some time, and informed the party that the Margrave had offered a reward for removal of this threat. Seeing Owena's corpse, Captain Mulbreck ushered the group to the temple in the hopes the priestess may be able to help.
As luck would have it, the priestess was a powerful cleric with the ability to perform a ritual to return the dead to life. At Captain Mulbreck's request she performed this rite, pleading that the stars see fit to rekindle the light in the fallen warrior. Owena, who had found herself on a boat along a dark river, heard these pleas echo out across the planes, and followed them to their source. Life returned to Owena's body, as did an all-consuming pain and exhaustion.
Owena quickly lost consciousness as she simply lacked the strength to stay awake. Captain Mulbreck had an escort of guards and horses bring the weary travelers to Margrave Blackwood's keep called the Mournhold, and they were put up in comfortable rooms. A short while later, Ico was brought before the Margrave, who thanked him for his efforts against the Manticore and requested his consent to have the beast's head removed from the mule and their bags brought up to their rooms. All this was done, and Margrave Blackwood made sure that Ico was well-fed before he retired for the night.
The next day, Ico and Owena rose, though Owena was still utterly exhausted and in a great deal of pain. They talked about what had happened with the Manticore before they presented themselves to Margrave Blackwood. Blackwood thanked them again, and provided the adventurers with a generous reward of 4200gp. They informed him of the dangers beneath the great oak tree and warned him that none of the townsfolk should venture there until it has been cleared out. The Margrave answered a few questions they had about the local history, revealing that long before the Utheran Empire ruled here, there was the Ursekondi Empire founded by Irduin the Bountiful and Separioth the Earth-Shaker. Before that great society, Blackwood knew only myths of reptiloids holding dominance, which he believes to be pure fantasy. Given what the players have seen beneath the oak, those myths may hold more truth than the Margrave thinks. If they wish to learn more of such things, Blackwood suggests they seek out the Witch of Eventide, a powerful sage who dwells in a tower shrouded in night, which stands on the south coast. He'd also heard rumours of sightings of Eld-Urai - an otherworldly race of people in my setting - in the Rhunewald, and they may be able to help if the party can get them on side.
We ended session with beginnings of a couple weeks of downtime while Owena recovered from her ordeal, and the group gained enough XP to level up (nearly twice)!
Part 2: Spoiler Talk
We started this session with the expectation of it being a pretty quiet game of travel back to town and research into lizard cults and ancient cultures. What we got was a hell of a fucking roller-coaster and a heroic narrative that arose from a series of incredibly lucky dice rolls.
When the players decided to stand their ground and fight the Manticore I thought we were headed straight for a TPK, especially given they were down one player this session. I roll everything in the open, as that transparency is important to me; I want the players to know that I'm not putting my thumb on the scales at any point and instead just let the dice fall as they will and have the world react accordingly to player actions. When they saw me roll 6HD+4 they knew they were in trouble and could see the writing on the wall. But as the Manticore I just kept whiffing over and over, a +6 to hit means nothing when you can't roll above a 10 and your players are decked out in plate with shields.
It was an incredibly tense back-and-forth, and the couple of hits the Manticore landed were pretty devastating for the party. The players were showing incredible bravery and surviving against all odds, and so when Owena rolled a Natural 20 on her final strike I ruled for double damage in this particular instance. It felt appropriate.
Owena's player was a good sport about losing their first old-school character and just set about rolling up a new one while we played out the rest of the fight. The round where Owena went down was simultaneous initiative - matched 6s on the roll - and so after that Natural 20 I was going to rule the Manticore would flee. But then it took down Owena and I figured that would bolster its resolve to stay and fight. When it eventually did flee, Ico's decision to chase it surprised me. "Take the win!" I thought, but like I said above, red mist had descended.
I'd put the Manticore on the regional encounter table with the intention that it could be a hunt one of the groups chose to take on later on, and have it active in the area before then. So when the party returned to town with the head of the Manticore, it was only fair they were rewarded! I rolled up the priestess who turned out to be max level and capable of casting Raise Dead; I rolled to see if she had everything she needed to perform the ritual and she did; and because I don't want resurrection to be this ubiquitous thing that can always be relied on, I ruled there was only a 25% chance of the ritual working. She rolled a 19 on a D20.
Everything just came together to form this crazy, heroic narrative that would have felt incredibly forced if I wasn't as transparent with my roles and rulings as I am. Damn I love elf games!
It is worth noting that I think I gave the Manticore too few attacks each round, I was using Luke Gearing's Monsters & as a basis, and so gave it an attack in both the melee phase and missile phase of combat. However, Whitebox itself says it should be using 6 spines per round - though I do think that's a little excessive, even for a 6HD monster - so I'm not sure it was really as dangerous as it should have been. But it still killed one of the PCs outright and nearly killed another, so I think they still got the idea it was an extremely dangerous foe and the fight was really tense.
For next session I need to restock my encounter tables since that encounter is no longer there; restock the Hole in the Oak dungeon since the party is taking a couple of weeks for Owena to recover and won't be delving in that time; figure out why there's a level 10 priestess here instead of leading the clergy in the capital; and stock the town with hirelings since this experience has made the players realise that as a small group they need to bolster their numbers.
That was one of my favourite sessions I've ever run, hope you enjoyed reading it! Until next time folks, take care.