Session 7&8: What the hell is that?

The Plot
Gigi and Norbith wake up once again in their respective beds in town. They have few memories of the night before but terrible hangovers. Norbith plays a prank on Burga that causes her to wet the bed. They meet up with the party near the well again and Norbith posits that iron is often used to break magic. While no one can verify this no one has a better idea either and they take a couple of iron hoops from one of Johnny's empty wine barrels out with them at nightfall.

Hori and Chantrix tie Norbith and Gigi to two separate trees. They then loop the iron around them to see what happens. Voola uses her druid form to turn into a dog and see what happens in town when the sun goes down.

In town - Voola watches the sunset and then, as though a switch was flipped, the town begins to attack each other. However, they ignore Voola in her dog form. She goes back to the rest of the party after verifying that one - everyone is dying - and two - they don't care about animals.

Back in the trees the, Hori and Chantrix  are sheltering up a nearby tree. When the sunsets, Gigi flexes and breaks the ropes holding her to the tree, only stopped by the iron which begins to emit a high pitched shrieking noises. Chantrix leaps gracefully from the tree, runs over, and twists the iron in the back which stops Gigi from escaping although she continues to struggle.

Norbith also began to escape his bonds, the iron around his waist falling to his feet as he struggles out of them. Hori falls out of the tree exactly as gracefully as a cat isn't and manages to get to Norbith in time to grab the iron and trap his ankles. Norbith is not pleased, spitting and snarling and cursing in Doridal dwarvish. Chantrix and Hori together manage to wrestle the iron up onto his chest and twist it tight. The sounds gets louder as they do.

Hori pokes at Norbith with a stick. Unsurprisingly, Norbith grabs it and begins trying to swing it at Hori and Chantrix. When Voole returns the three take turns sleeping far enough away to not be bothered by the noise until sunrise when Voola returns in time to see the townspeople's corpses disappear.

Encouraged that the iron seemed to do something, the party spends the next day finding more iron and making a cover for the thing in the well. Voola goes down to check on the thing to see if she can see anything different but it makes her so nauseous she can't get close. Hori agree to lower Norbith down and Voola goes as well, riding as a lizard in Norbith's pocket. Despite the lizard vomit on his shoulder, Norbith managed to put the cover over the sigil in one mighty hammer blow. There is a loud noise, a feeling of pressure on Norbith, and Voola changes back into her full form. After some scrambling, Voola turns back into a lizard and Hori pulls Norbith and her out. They reach the top and congratulate each other on doing.... well... something.

There's a crack of lightning and a figure appears in front of them. Its shape seems to constantly change but it is vaguely reptilian with sharp teeth and red glowing eyes. The creature admonishes them for disturbing its magic and tells the party they need to undo what they have done. Chantrix and Hori both attempt to attack the creature but are very unsuccessful.

That night, the party repeats the previous day. Nothing much has changed except that the loud noise that was coming from the iron around Gigi and Norbith now seems to be coming from everywhere at once and is utterly deafening. The villagers do not seem to notice. No one gets any rest.

Gig and Norbith compare notes that the sky in their dreams was bright and rainbow-like, like the surface of a washing bubble. Hori suggest that they try the cover again, this time while the town is in its rage state. Voola will wait at the top of the well in dog-form, Hori will lower Chantrix down with the new cover, and then Hori will wait outside the village where she can still see but will hopefully go unnoticed.

The sun sets.

Chantrix pulls the old cover from the sigil in one hard yank, pocketing it quickly despite the fact that it seems to warm and writher in her hand. She place the new cover and hammers it into place. There is a loud noise again and the rocks on the fall in front of her begin to cave in. One strikes Chantrix and she begins to try to scramble up out of the well.

Voola watches both Chantrix and the villagers. After the hammer blow every villager drops to the ground motionless. Voola returns to form to help with Chantrix and Hori arrives around the same time to lift her out of the well before the side collapses in on her.

The creature appears again and attacks on it are similarly rebuffed. It chides them again for disturbing its magic before disappearing.

Cautiously, the three approach the town where Norbith has had his face slashed open by Gigi. Both are alive and Voola immediately begins helping Norbith. The rest of the town are not so lucky. The party help who they can but those who were injured before the magic broke do not restore in the morning. Despite their best efforts throughout the next day, 14 people do not survive - including the town Mayor, Harim. Grief-striken, Gigi begins to play a dwarvish dirge, translated to common, about things being for the better and sacrificing yourself.

It does not go over well.

Harim's wife intercepts them before the villagers, slowly gathering pitchforks and torches, can corner the party. She tells them that while they may one day be grateful to be free of the magic, the cost was high and not all of the villagers are grateful now. The party finds Beowyn and Sunna and sneak out of town before they can be lynched.


Days spent in Thunderbliss: 5
Pranks Pulled: 3
Whiskey and Coffees drank: 7 
Thunderbliss residents at start: 45
Thunderbliss residents on departure: 31

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DM notes
This was interesting because I had some vague ideas of how to break the magic but left it open for players to think of something clever. When Norbith's player suggested iron it was funny because that's a fey folk legend - but considering the background of magics in this world and the other-worldly v. nature magics - I decided it would do something and I'd decide what when they decided what they were going to do. Seemed like a good compromise.

One of my new toys for these two sessions is snap camera which overlays snapchat filters onto any video stream. My players had no warning and when I showed up using the 'gorgon' filter they lost their shit in a most satisfying way. Lots of "no no no no" and "make it go away."

Got a long post about upgrading my roll20 account coming up. We also have another session tomorrow night.

Session 6: If we bury them alive they can't kill each other.

The Plot

Hori, Chantrix and Voola wake up to their cohorts gone. No blood on the ground where they were, just an impression in the grass and no one in sight. They cautiously make their way back towards Thunderbliss. When they get to town they see more than one person that they either saw die, or killed outright the night before. This is confusing.

When they get to the village green they see a vaguely dwarven shape near a cistern off in the distance. When they approach they find Norbith with a GIANT cup of coffee and Gigi mostly down the well. Norbith and Gigi explain that they only vaguely remember what happened the night before, it's very dreamlike. The others are quick to tell them exactly what happened to them. Gigi and Norbith let them know what they learned - the townspeople die every night and don't remember it the next morning. They also can't leave, no matter how far they get in a day, they'll wake up back in Thunderbliss the next morning.


Gigi also explains that there is magic of some kind down the well. The party decides to get some rope and lower her down to look at it. She uses her new 'identify' spell and finds out that this spike in the well is causing the events of Thunderbliss. And it will keep getting stronger and stronger the longer it goes on. To break it, they must overcome the baser nature of people which Gigi interprets as no one getting killed at night. Gigi describes the symbol on the spike - like the one on Voola's arm it sounds vaguely elvish, dwarvish and dunar all at once.

Back out of the well, the party confers. Hori posits that if they kill everyone before sundown then they won't kill each other at night. Curse solved. After some tweaking they consider just burying the townspeople up to their neck but realize that none of them have enough persuasion to achieve convincing people to do that.  A better idea is to get everyone drunk, but Johnny tells them he doesn't have anywhere near enough alcohol for that. Second idea is to put everyone to sleep. They try to convince Harim to help them but are not very persuasive. Voola and Chantrix go find Old Nan and ask about local herbs that might help with that and get directions to a nearby Tala treet where they can gather leaves that put people to sleep. Voola, Chantrix and Hori go off to do that while Norbith and Gigi attempt to convince the town to take the tea when they get back. Gigi is moderately successful - Norbith probably made more enemies.

They get back and brew the tea over a big bonfire. Gigi begins a performance and the convince some of the townspeople to drink, but not all of them. Burga, the somewhat racist merchant, starts telling people not to drink it because and orc made it. The party gets the town to turn on Burga. When the sun goes down, about half of the town has taken the tea, including Gigi and Norbith.

Voola, Hori and Chantrix leave well before sundown and make camp about a mile outside of town.

DM Notes

Most of this game was learning things and making plans. There were some opportunities to do some ability rolls in town (persuasion, medicine, acrobatics) and build up confidence in skills that aren't "let's stab that thing." I thought the tea idea was great and I am committed to giving them whatever they want to make their solution work (within reason of course) so of course there's a tree nearby that medicinally could work.

The range of things they talked about trying were great - although I had to do a whisper aside convo with Hori of "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE LAWFUL GOOD." I actually made a lot of use of the whisper function in roll20 to talk to Gigi about the spell since she did the identification. it was funny to watch everyone in the shadowed boxes start talking about why was God speaking directly to Gigi.

I had written the spell to be immune to being asleep (people will just wake up and go about their murdery ways), so this isn't going to work. But I like the theory! Just wondering how long it will take them to realize it didn't work.

Session 5b: Death becomes them

The Plot

Norbith awakens on a cot in The Blue Flask. He sits bolt upright and notes that while his clothes are ripped and torn at the neck and in various other places, there is no blood and he is completely healed with no scars from the nights before. Johnny is at the bar cleaning some dishware and sighs when he see Norbith. "If I'd known you were going to ignore us I'd have made up the bed for you."

Gigi awakens in a frothy pink room with lacy curtains. She calls out and discovers she is in the spare bedroom of Harim's home. He is downstairs making tea and offers her a cup. They speak for a bit and Gigi learns that the villagers don't remember what happens at night. They have some vague nightmares but as time has gone on they forget more and more.

Gigi and Norbith find each other outside. They also find Burga, the vaguely racist woman they spoke with at the tavern who turns out is kind of a lot of racist. She was traveling through about a week earlier and was the first stranger to be trapped in town. Now, no matter where she goes or what she does, she always wakes up back at the Blue Flask.

Beowyn wakes up confused and unhappy and goes to find his cart. Sunna finds Gigi and Norbith begins yelling about her dead husband. When Beowyn shows up she immediately faints and they carry her upstairs in Harim's house. Norbith gets a cup of coffee and he and Gigi go outside and cast 'detect magic'. Gigi sees a mist hanging in the air and condensating on all the humans in town - but not the animals like the horses and a squirrel.

Wandering around, Norbith and Gigi find a well on the edge of the green. Looking inside, Gigi sees a brighter spot about halfway down the well.

DM Notes

So I wanted to give the dead players more info about the world and sort of ease them into their new plight. So I did a special session with just them. This way they could explain what happened to the rest of the group and also have a chance to do some reconnoitering without everyone having to wait on that to happen.

A middle-school nerd finds Nirvana

This week we have our special guest post from Voola! Well, from the player who is behind Voola.

My friend, the floor is yours...

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When I was in the 5th or 6th grade, I remember my brother going to his first rock concert. While it was something terrible like Twisted Sister or RATT, mostly I just felt left out. I was a pretty shy kid and hadn’t made friends as quickly as my brother after we moved. My ever-thoughtful mom went out of her way to do something special with me after we dropped him off, taking me to a bookstore to buy a new book.

I’m not sure what movie or influence had come out that drew me to the Fantasy section, but that’s where I found--and became utterly obsessed with--the DragonLance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Those books led to other trilogies, and science fiction, and ultimately to a degree in Comparative Literature. But it all started with a young boy’s soap opera with elves and magic and monsters to fight.

Characters like the emo wizard Raistlin and the heroic barbarian priestess Goldmoon lit my imagination on fire. I’ve loved good characters ever since, and try to challenge myself with something new every time I create one.

A few years into my fantasy obsession, I came together with two friends and one kid’s dad as our Dungeon Master, and things got very, very interesting. I emulated Raistlin with my own Sir Deryck, a pompous and conniving magic user who probably was evil enough that he should have been booted from the group. My other character was Hobbit influenced: a halfling thief named PhoLiar who was as good and lucky as any character I’ve played. He also drank a magic potion that wasn’t meant for him and developed the ability to run at will at full warhorse speed!

I played throughout high school with a steady group of friends. We shared DM responsibilities in three different gaming systems: AD&D, Marvel Superheroes, and Gamma World. We played even when it started to cause friction with the prospects of dating. While at the time I was aware how this wasn’t what the cool kids did, it was good for me in many ways.

When I went away to college, I stopped playing abruptly. I guess I never got over how nerdy it all seemed, even though I was passionately obsessed with every detail. Even now, I can recite details from the monster manual about the Beholder and the Manticore and the Ki-rin. Always wanted to meet a Ki-rin dragon-horse.

In my early twenties, I found myself living in close proximity to my childhood bestie and we started a new two-person campaign in which my character had a fated importance in the goings-on of the world. It was great!

When that ended, I did not play again for over 20 years. Now all these years later I see kids just like us on Stranger Things and realize how cool all it actually was.

For the current game, I know the DM from Burning Man and think she’s pretty rad. When she mentioned the new game she was starting, I was intrigued to give it a go again.

Because I still love good characters, I wanted to start with an interesting disadvantage: HALF-ORC! A character immediately hated most people they meet. And since most of my favorite characters (and people!) are women, my character had to be female.

A young female half-orc then… but what was her character class?

I have played all kinds of characters, including mages, fighters, thieves, clerics, and bards, but I especially like users of magic. So the character, who quickly became known as Voola, suggested she would like to be a cleric! No, a druid! No, best yet, a dual class CLERIC-DRUID! Voola would be something like an orcish shaman following nature medicine and magic, with a deep love for animals and plants.

The new campaign started out differently than games I played in the past. The players interacted with more humor than I was used to, and also better-acted their character. I’m really digging having an all-female player group. At the last session, we joked that this should all be on TickTock because we’re hilarious. That I felt eager at the prospect shows me just how far that middle school nerd has come, and I’m excited to keep going!

Plot Hooks my Players Have Flatly Ignored

So, I knew when I started that unless I wanted to be the kind of DM that railroads my players[1] I would end up creating a lot of content that never got explored. So far the players have ignored or chosen not to follow-up on....

• The fact that all the dwarves have gone missing in this area
• The inn in Windford that has a spider problem
• The unrest in the southern kingdoms
• That there is a 500GP reward for Hori in the city of Rishaw
• There's a dragon sighting in the mountains
• Alfred's brother is missing at Butterskull Ranch
• Northern Dwarven Monastery problems
• Ensorcerelled Orc Messenger

Now, there are some things that I have that I've simply moved. The tree trap was going to happen to them as soon as they left Startead no matter which direction they went. I wanted them to be able to have a low stakes fight early on and it was a good one (although turned out to be overpowered but I fixed that on the fly.)

Thunderbliss is something that I likely would have used eventually as an idea but it came up now because of them running headlong into danger. 

I have a host of things in the traps folder I can use wherever I need to make some drama. So them ignoring ALL OF THE QUEST HOOKS is.... fine I guess. I should have known better. They managed to chase the person actually responsible for their memory loss which I think was as much dumb luck as anything but was also unexpected. (He was actually going to end up being trapped at the monastery and might end up there anyway at some point if they don't catch him before then.)

There were quest hooks relating to every character that could have been why they lost their memories. They found the actual one which surprised me.

What I'm learning from all of this is that some people will chase shiny things regardless of actual character motivations. And some people will stress a lot about if doing something is what their character would do. And until you know what type of group balance you have it will be a coin toss and you need to be flexible or you're going to have grumpy players.

I thought my group, because of being new, would be easily distractible by shiny things. But the reality is, and I think it's because we're all older (33-50), that the group is very interested in who their characters are as much as the story. So I'm tweaking and re-writing as we go to keep that in mind and knowing that if I need them to do something - like slow down before they get killed by an evil sorceress - I'm going to have to force the issue.

I still don't want to railroad them - for example the group getting stuck in Thunderbliss was a bit of that as I overwhelmed them until one died. Someone was going to died there is I had to comepltely fudge the dice rolls to make it happen. But it is a necessary stop for them. It's a chance to solve a quest, build XP, get to know each other, and have some fun and maybe fight if they want to. Help them bond and develop their group work before tackling a big bad. They need that. They need to get to know their characters and theirselves for a bit.

Also, and I forgot to mention this in the last post - if Voola dies in Thunderbliss she'll wake up in town the next day just like everyone else, but without the sigil. But she also has like 17HP so it's unlikely.




[1] The DM in the game I'm a player in is more like this. It's not the worst thing in the world but it definitely makes for a more story driven game than a character driven one. For example, he dropped a plot hook in the first session about people going missing and possibly being slaughtered way outside of town. My character has never left the city. She does not go outside the walls. She is not an outdoors kind of person.

There is no world in which my character goes to investigate that without some kind of prompting. I didn't get that so didn't volunteer to go along. Instead he had me find a key and while I was trying to return it to the party member I basically got kidnapped. It worked and got me on the quest, don't get me wrong. But there were about seven points in game my character would have turned back. I gave up on it because he skimmed over the time passage where she would have done that. But it's annoying because she would never be on this quest. Never. So I keep having to invent reasons on why she didn't turn back well before now.

Also her name is Mina and she is a prostitute and loves her job and is very trusting of all people (Why don't we just tell the town guards?) but also very very skeptical of anything even slightly scary (There's blood on the floor? Mina immediately leaves and waits outside with the pony).

I love her so much.

Session 5: Remember you trust me

Well that went as well as could be expected.

One of the problems I've had in this game is that my lovely players have ignored every quest hook I've dropped for them and have been running headlong into absolutely certain death at the hands of a level 12 Sorceress. They wouldn't even scratch her right now - in fact I've been trying to figure out what she could do to brush them off like flies that would have consequences without outright killing them.

(If you're wondering - she's the one who put the compulsion on Voola (although I was planning on it wearing off just before they get to Old Rock. Enough that they know "there's a big bad here!" without being drawn all the way into the sorceress's web.) She's also ultimately responsible for their memory loss as Gigi had stolen something from her and she'd one of her underlings to get it back.)

So here I have this party - all of which are going to either die or be transported to the other end of the world if I can't slow them down some. And then I thought - if they're so keen to die, let 'em die.

And Thunderbliss was born.

The Plot

We open with Voola being gently awaken by the soft nuzzling of one of her rabbit friends. The rabbit indicates someone is coming down the road and Voola spies the rest of the party. They meet up and exchange details of what they've been up to. Voola talks about the awesome tree she found that helped her break the compulsion on her. Hori is confused, "Wait, what tree?" They exchange their differing accounts of the encounter with the tree and Voola cautions them about stabbing orc magic Chantrix. Voola shows off her new sigil and by show off I mean resignedly allows Chantrix to touch it. Nothing happens to Chantrix.

The party stops for the night and everyone regains their HP. They travel onwards and arrive at the town of Thunderbliss about an hour before sundown. They are met by a tall human man who tells them they are welcome to stay and trade there but they must leave by sundown. Pretty much everyone protests this but the man, Harim, is clear about this. They MUST be gone by sundown.

Hori asks if its a full moon and after being told it's a half moon the party wonders about half-moon werewolves. The go to the tavern for info and immediately split off in five directions for five conversations.

Gigi talks to the Halfling who owns the tavern who is happy to sell her some pasties.

Hori makes almost no progress with the human woman she speaks to.

Voola is told by the human woman she talks to that Beowyn must be her master as all orcs have masters.

Norbith makes some progress with a human/elf man he speaks to but he's very reticent.

Chantrix convinces the halfing she speaks with to go with them.

As Gigi is collecting the pasties Harim bursts through the door and yells that they had to leave at sundown. The party rapidly exits the tavern just in time to see the last fading light of the sun drop quickly. The town goes eerily quiet.

And then the screaming starts.

From around the party and the nearby buildings every member of the town begins to spill into the streets. They are enraged, fighting each other tooth and nail. When they see the party they focus on them and begin rushing that way. Everyone goes back into the tavern after ascertaining that their animals are being ignored by the bloodthirsty killers. Gigi arrives in time to see Beowyn be brained by a tavern patron. His wife Sunna is screaming and seems unaffected by whatever is effecting the town. Johny, the halfling tavern owner, rushes down the top of the bar and snaps her neck. 

The aftermath, not pictured the 10 or so people the party killed.

The party get into a fight with the people inside the bar while also trying to keep the door barred to keep anyone else from coming in. Gigi is stabbed through the gut and falls to the floor quite nearly dead but is healed by Voola. The party dispatch the people in the bar with them but take heavy damage. The townsfolk are absolutely feral and seem to have only one thing on their mind - to kill.

The party head out the back door and into four townspeople who were fighting each other but immediately turn their focus to them. Gigi tries to hide in an alley and gets her head bashed in and falls dead. Chantrix takes out that villager with one blow of her mace. Further away, Norbith gets into a fight with a small girl who rips his throat out with her bare hands.

After conferring together, the party decide to leave the village and hide out in the woods for the night. Hopefully, they can stabilize their injured party members.

DM Notes

I joked in our group chat when this was over that this session started with bunny kisses and ended with two of them dead.

I knew this would be a risk. From the start, I held it in my mind that I was going to have to rely on my players trusting in me a lot in order for this to work. So, earlier in the day, I PM'ed each of them with "If things go as I think they might tonight something might happen to [character]. I need you to remember you trust me."

And so as people died I was frantically typing, 'Remember you trust me, remember you trust me.' But I was also getting messages from the nondead players who were like "I want to focus all of my attention to keep this thing from happening" and I would reassure them "I am talking to that PC, I promise this is okay. Do your in-character things but don't feel a need to be crazy."

And so 2 players died. I completely forgot about death saving throws but honestly for the purposes of my needing someone to die it wouldn't have mattered. They were dead, even if only for a minute.

Which means they are now a part of the curse of Thunderbliss - which they'll discover next session when Gigi and Norbith awake in Thunderbliss and will wake up there every morning for the rest of their lives unless they break the curse.

If anyone is wondering - the idea came from A Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. In it there is a village called Hinderstrap with this same issue.

My players were definitely very confused that after having one encounter with a tree (or hunter) they were now up against 45 opponents who were doing 8-10 points of damage when worst. I based the feral villagers on a wolf stat base.

I leave you with the playlist that Gigi composed for us after the session ended. She does this every time so I'm going to make a point of copying it over :)

Session 4.5: Special session with Voola

I spoke with Voola's PC last weekend and we worked on fitting her into the game as well as what some of his (the PC's) expectations were and what were him and what were on me. We're playing with Voola's class - she may turn druid or dual class druid/cleric - and fleshed out some of her story more. One thing I offered was to do a one-on-one session with him of "What happened when Voola left the party." He missed two session in a row so was behind on XP so this gave us a chance for him to make some of that up as well as give him some control of what is happening to Voola.

The Plot*

After being touched by the full-blooded orc Voola felt a wave of heat wash over herself. She took off along the road to Thunderbliss. Mentally, she could still think through but it felt as though her body was outside of her control. She fought the compulsion and after traveling for about a half hour managed to regain control of her senses and pull her horse up to a more reasonable pace - although she was unable to stop her northward journey completely.

Within an hour Voola arrived at a tall, black spire of a tree. Once she was in sight of it the compulsion lessened and a feeling of peace and healing emanated from the tree to her. She could still feel the compulsion but was able to ignore it. She approached the tree and read the warnings written there as well as touching the heart sigil. If she sees the person who wrote the warning she will recognize them on sight. The magic tied to the tree feels earthy to her - and obviously has the flavor or orcish doing. She recognizes the beating heart in the bag as powerful warning magic and knows better than to touch it.

Voola cautiously moves away from the tree. As she gets farther the feeling of peacefulness recedes and she can feel the tug telling her she needs to go to it. Trying to turn back is physically painful. She moves slightly further down the road and hears a noise in the trees.

Stopping, Voola investigates the noise. Unfortunately, it's difficult for nearly seven feet of orc to move stealthily and she makes quite a bit of noise. As she tries to sneak along the brushline she comes across a pair of boots that have snuck up on her. They are attached to a large man that is at least half elf. The man does not speak to Voola. 

Sigil on Voola

   

 

Sigil on the Elf

Voola attempted to speak to the man but he doesn't respond until he notices the sigil on her arm. His hands go to touch a sigil on his cloak - it is not the same. "You serve her?" Voola denies serving anyone. "You wear her sign." Voola tells him that someone put that sign on her. The man immediately attacks, pulling two hand axes and slashing across Voola who take quite a bit of damage. Voola defends herself, whacking him with her quarterstaff and knocking his senses loose. He ends up on the ground and Voola goes after him, hoping to tie him up and ask questions. He kicks out at her and escapes off into the woods on his horse, heading perpendicular to the road.

Voola spies a clearing slightly off the road and decides that as it seems like it is not a good idea to continue forward, and she cannot physically make herself go back, she will wait for the party to catch up. As she's settling her horse in she spies a rabbit who she begins to speak with. She asks the rabbit if he's ever seen a sign like the one on her arm and how to get it off. The rabbit recommends grooming it off like the rabbit would do to his fur.

Voola's investigation of the rune reveals a deep red color slightly raised on the skin that looks like blood but does not budge when she pokes it with a twig. The sigil feels warm on her skin, and even when she casts healing on herself and feels the cold wash of the magic, the sigil continues to feel warm. And make her skin crawl. She tries covering it with mud which does nothing and finally wraps a piece of her blanket over it to hide it from prying eyes.

She offers some oats to the now two rabbits who offer to watch out for her while she sleeps. The exhaustion of the hard ride, the fight, and the magic catch up to her and she falls asleep.

*I'm copying this verbatim from what I write up for the players so if there's weird tone changes that's why.

DM Notes

I'm REALLY glad I did this session with Voola. Having the PC for Voola added some to the story and gave her some agency back. We've had a lot of discussion of how Voola specifically, as an orc, fits in the world. She has a special relationship with this world's magic that the others don't. Making that balance out is difficult and we're still finding it. I think the druid/cleric dual class will be helpful. We may end up making our own class entirely for her.

I'm also really glad I talked to the PC. His biggest concerns were things I could easily fix. I also offered him a "way out" in that another mutual friend of ours is starting a game so he could play but maybe a more serious game. He chose to stay with us which I was very happy about. 

I am entertained that Voola and the rest of the party had such different experiences with the tree. Voola is going to have some choice words for Chantrix I think when they all get back together. Voola is being pulled towards a sorceress in the North. If something specific happens in Thunderbliss the compulsion could be broken.

I had a TON of fun playing the rabbits. They are helpful in their own way. When Voola asked about removing the sigil I thought "What would a rabbit do" and the look on the PC's face when I suggested Voola groom it off was priceless. And she very kindly thanked the rabbit who was very proud of himself. I love my rabbits.

Next game will pick up now just after the tree (which Voola slept through her friends being attacked, and the rabbits didn't think to wake her up) and they will have a long rest in the woods before moving on to Thunderbliss, arriving about an hour before sundown the next day. I hope I get to play Thunderbliss after sundown.

There is something very wrong in Thunderbliss.