That was a lot.
The Plot
The party went down the stairs into the front room of the tavern tits out (no, for real) and discovered that they were not wanted for murder or owing money (Norbith's biggest concern) and in fact they had had a wild time the night before including various wagers and Hori's axes getting stuck in the ceiling. They then immediately went to five different corners of the room to have four conversations in three languages.
Help me.
Luckily because we were using slack for languages other than common I could (moderately) keep two text convos going and still try to talk to people in Common. But none of the conversations were any good. I barely got in any rumors or exposition that I needed to. After a while of this we managed to get everyone at one table with just the innkeeper - who told them some of what happened the night before and dropped a rumor about a quest up north.
An elf in the corner dropped hints about something happening to the south.
A dwarf told them about his missing sister last seen in the north but likely heading south.
They found out from a couple of halflings that Chantrix had shown up the day before with another Halfling man that has since disappeared.
I did not manage to drop any rumors really about the east or west.
The group did manage to all find their mounts which included this fun convo:
Gigi: "I slip through the slats of the fence and approach the friendliest looking horse."
Me: "So you're going into that stable yard - with three horses at least two of which do not know you - yes?"
Gigi: ......
Me: "Why don't you go ahead and roll a d20 for me."
Gigi: "You know what, I'm just going to walk up to the fence and see what happens."
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| I've had this beautiful horse photo for years. I have no idea of its provenance. |
Gigi and Voola also had a request to go check in on someone's brother out at a ranch. In the course of that, Gigi was slapped in the face by a young woman she was apparently supposed to run away with the night before but never showed up. Back at the inn, Norbith got innkeeper gossip about a spider problem in Windford.
This session was mostly finishing gathering people's things, getting their mounts, and getting some rumors and ideas of where they might want to go. They've decided to stay the night again in town and maybe they'll wander by the shop. I hope they do because a LOT of their weapons have been sold by townspeople to the shop-owner.
DM Notes
I got very worried about this session. Because everyone split up there was a lot of "Okay Norbith, you're doing this. Blah blah blah" while everyone else was kind of just sitting. It felt weird to me because I felt like they were being left out which is kind of the opposite of what D&D should be.
It was even worse with the convos in side languages. Sometimes there was just silence while I gathered my thoughts about what was going on and tried to respond to one person with more than one or two words. I'm going to need to either find a balance there or maybe not do this the way we have planned.
I know - I'm learning. I'm trying to be very kind to myself. Regardless of how I feel, my group seems to be having a very good time. I did manage to drop a couple more hints about who is responsible for getting all their memories wiped. So far one or more party members knows:
- Gigi was the only person whose stuff was ransacked overnight
- Norbith got a warning that dwarves have been going missing in these lands for the last year or two
- Chantrix found out that she had shown up with a friend who has disappeared without a trace
When Hori gets her horse back she'll find out her possible involvement (a wanted poster for her in her saddlebags). Voola, the orc, is my only current question mark. I'm trying to play this region as a place that's not particularly orc averse. Mostly because they hardly see them.
I did get a second monitor which made all the difference in the world to my ability to DM so huge thanks to Stephen for that.
No session next week so I'll try to find something else to blog about.
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