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.
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| 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 :)
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