Session 4: "Chantrix, despite Norbith's protestations..."

The Plot:

The journey to Thunderbliss begins!

At the start, everyone has their weapons and armor (if they have it) from the peddler. These are on loan until the party takes him safely to Old Rock. The peddler - Beowyn - is also with his wife Sunna who is much more skeptical of the party than her husband.

The peddler told some tales about the roads in this area getting more and more unsafe. There is a large old tree he's used as a landmark for years that started turning black in the last couple of seasons. It started at the trunk and has spread out on the branches.

About two hours outside of town, the party met a rider on the road. The rider was a full blooded orc. He did not respond to Orcish but when Hori spoke to him in common he responded "Must go Benne." When spoken to more he simply repeated variations of "Must go Benne" and eventually "Must go Benne Windford.

When Voola got near to him he reached out and grabbed her arm, leaving a red mark behind. Voola got a distant look in her eyes and immediately rode off down the road to the Thunderbliss as fast as her horse could go. (DM Note: I asked that they let her go so the party did not follow, see more DM notes below.) The party tried to keep the orc and Hori used her sleeve to cover her arm and get the orc to grab her too. The orc left a perfect red handprint with a strange, shimmery sigil in the center of the palm. The orc was basically an immovable object and kept going and the party did not try to stop him. He rode south towards Startead.

On examination the following things about the sigil were discovered:

• The red stuff is blood
• It did not seem to have an effect on Hori. This could have been because it never touched skin or because she's not an orc, or any number of other reasons but those were the two the party focused on.
• The sigil looks vaguely like a dwarven rune meaning 'mine' or 'ownership' but also not really like that at all. It is not dwarven and was not recognized as elvish.
• Gigi cast detect magic and saw the last fading aura of magic and then it the sigil went quiet (no aura).
• The party told the peddlers that Voola was scouting ahead. Beowyn was more convinced that Sunna but neither questioned it. Gigi's detect magic spell does not show that any member of the party has any magical item on them although Beowyn, Sunna, and the peddler's cart all have various faint glows.

This is a rue from the Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Archives
which hit the right blend of elvish and dwarvish for me.

At lunch, Beowyn stops at the tree he always stops at but the tree is no longer there, just a burned towering spike of what's left of a tree in the middle of a large clearing. The peddlers insist on stopping but keep their distance.

The party did not.

Chantrix gets near the tree and sees a band of cloth embroidered with Infernal glyphs. Her vague translation gets (Infernal is not her best language): danger, warning, healing, avoid. It is sort of the equivalent of a marker that tells you how high a tsunami might go on the coastline. Or a "bridge out" warning.

There is also a bag tied to the tree embroidered with gold thread and pulses faintly and rhythmically when touched. Chantrix opens the bag to find a still beating pig's heart. Despite Norbith's protestations Chantrix touches the heart with her dagger. As soon as the metal touches the pig's heart it shrivels and turns black. The ground erupts with tree roots that immediately begin attacking the party.

I'm not going to blow for blow describe the fight but Gigi gets out early and casts Bardic Inspiration to help people still trapped in the range of the tree. Hori gets out next but gets caught again while trying to rescue Norbith. Both Hori and Gigi try to set the tree on fire but it doesn't work. Norbith asks Beowyn for help but all he comes up with is healing potions. Norbith and Hori get out and Chantrix gets out with the help of a rope thrown by Hori. Everyone takes some damage.

The roll20.org map we were using.
As my players are more inexperienced I included the circle showing the range of the tree.
As they gain levels, I'm going to up the generally difficulty by dropping these hints but that's not necessary right now and I think would hinder their enjoyment.

As soon as everyone is clear of the tree it stops moving and the ground returns to normal, as though nothing ever happened. There's no signs of the fight or that anything had erupted from the ground.

Beowyn offers the two potions at 3sp each. Hori argued that they got in a fight on his behalf and therefore he's agreed to supply healing. Beowyn argues that it was their own stupidity and curiosity that got them hurt, he and his wife were never in danger and in fact Chantrix is the one who caused the danger anyway. He offered to give a deal (4 healing potions for 10sp) that Hori accepts and pays for. Norbith attempts to steal the cart but it is enchanted in some way and tries to unseat him. When he tries to get the horses to go they kick the cart. Sunna walks over and he abandons the thievery idea.

Chantrix, despite Norbith's protestations, goes to look at the bag and heart again. She tests the ground and when it doesn't rise up goes to the tree and lightly touches the bag. There is no pulse. Satisfied, she returns to the party.

The party continues onward.

DM Notes:

I'm going to need to create a macro for "Chantrix, despite Norbith's protestations..." because Chantrix will poke anything and Norbith is like Cassandra off to the side yelling "Why are you poking the thing? Why are you even that close to the thing??"

The player for Voola and I spoke this week and he was not available to play again tonight. He and I also had some talk about the campaign and his character because he's not sure it's a good fit for him. Some of it is party based - they're goofier than he was expecting and doesn't know if Voola fits into that - and some of it was my own DMing. I've been giving role-playing XP for big character moments but Voola is a much quieter character and he felt she was being short changed because of that. Which is totally valid criticism. We are going to talk in person this week and see what is a product of my being a new DM and what is a function of the game itself and decide if Voola is staying. That's why she ran off. If he stays, they'll catch up to her in the next town. If not I'll continue that arc and she'll be written out of the game.

The plotline the party is currently following includes a sorceress who is enslaving and using orcs to feed her magic. That's why the orc they met was acting weird and he's ensorcerelled Voola to go to her. Because she is only half orc, if the player stays in the game I have an out to have her shake it off in the next town. Or not if he doesn't.

Picture from here and uncredited there.

The tree was a tree trap from the D&D essentials kit I bought with some modifications to what was attached and set it off to fit my story. Had Voola been there she would have recognized the pig's heart as orc magic and that it was not to be touched or messed with. This is a tree that is specifically setup to warn orcs about the sorceress and how dangerous these lands are to them.

I didn't realize until we started that the trap was intended for Level 5 or 6 players. It's not a full encounter so it wasn't a big deal, it was not grossly overpowered, but I did make some adjustments to AC and the damage done by the tree on the fly as the first hit nearly killed Chantrix outright. if she wasn't a barbarian it would have. It was also immune to all but slashing damage and as it was a construct could never actually be beaten, just escaped. It took a while for them to figure that out. They never did figure out that only slashing damage worked.

I really enjoyed the character interactions this week. There is a starting period I think is common of "I'm playing this character and can do all the things" that we're starting to move out of and into "Who am I and what does my character actually want?" Which is great. Hori is still completely incapable of being lawful good and Norbith's PC actually went over and tripped her off her horse to keep her from talking. Which is a very in-character thing for Norbith to do. But he's also pretty sneaky. There will be consequences in Thundernbliss for trying to steal the peddler's cart.

Norbith also has the (brilliant) idea to buy some lockable boxes in the next town that she can put a few copper pieces in and hide in places where it looks like Chantrix is going to start poking around. That was Chantrix can be curious and Norbith doesn't have to get attacked by trees all the time. I love this so much and it's so in character. For both of them.

Overall, this was an easy introduction to combat for my new players. They got some plot info (from the orc and the tree) and got some extra XP as well as me getting Voola out of the session for a bit. I am not confident enough in my DMing to be playing a character that long and DM effectively. I asked if they wanted another encounter before they reached town and we've agreed to start the next session on arrival in Thunderbliss that night.