Session 2: Arcadian Boogaloo
Melantha, Meredythe, and Amara emerged from The Underworld to find themselves in a dense, forested wilderness, with no signs of civilization in sight apart from a haphazard trail of crushed underbrush and broken trees. The party, unsure of how to proceed, chose to follow this trail and soon found a small cavern with a goatskin draped over the entrance. A horrible shriek sounded from within, and while Meredythe was unaffected, Amara and Melantha each heard noises that sent them into a state of panic—for Amara, the bellowing of a dying beached whale, and for Melantha, the sound of a mob out for blood. Once the noise subsided, the three travelers ran away from the cavern.
Shortly after, all three party members heard chanting from a group of cultists headed in their direction. Amara and Melantha, hearing the name "Dionysus" among the cultists’ utterings, correctly guessed that these were maenads, followers of the god of wine. Meredythe, however, misheard this as “Denny’s,” the name of a tavern from Meredythe’s home realm of Albion.
The maenads—one satyr and three human women, one of whom carried a staff entwined with ivy and topped with a pinecone—approached the party and expressed confusion, as they were expecting to find a lone musician. Amara told them she was a bard, but the party quickly figured out they were looking for Orpheus, whom they had left in the Underworld. The maenads offered the party some of their wine, and when they refused, the maenads got a wild look in their eyes and began to chant, “Sparagmos! Sparagmos!”
Amara informed the party that sparagmos is the Dionysian cult’s ritual dismemberment of outsiders who get in their way, and the three travelers prepared for a fight.
Amara cast Sleep on two of the maenads, removing them from the fight. Meredythe fended off the satyr’s drunken attempts to headbutt her, while Amara and Melantha fired arrows at the lead maenad with the ivy staff. Melantha landed the killing blow, pinning the maenad to a tree with an arrow straight through her heart. Amara intimidated the satyr into running away, then hastily grabbed the ivy staff and the party’s stray arrows before the three of them left. The other maenads awoke and mourned the murder of their leader, but they did not pursue the party.
The god Dionysus then appeared to the party, the killing of one of his followers having caught his attention. He had a languid, elegant manner, in stark contrast to his frenzied followers, but upon closer inspection, the pupils of his eyes were widely dilated. Meredythe, still under the impression that he was connected to Denny’s Tavern, asked him for a Two-for-One Grand Slam, which amused him greatly. “You three have the sweet smell of death on your breath,” he told them. “Somebody’s been to the Underworld. Why?”
Correctly guessing that the Fates were using these mortals to attempt to overthrow Zeus, Dionysus told them that only objects of power, created by Olympian gods, had the ability to kill an Olympian and that the party should try and amass these from as many deific allies as they could find. He told Amara that the staff she had was called the thyrsus, a spear that also granted the ability to cast Wall of Thorns three times a day. Amara gave it to Melantha, as she already had a walking staff.
Dionysus questioned Amara for a bit, occasionally calling out gods’ names, much to Amara’s confusion. Dionysus cryptically replied that he was “guessing.” Meredythe asked what Dionysus wanted in return for the thyrsus. Dionysus made some vague comments about wanting a say in who the next ruler of the gods would be, and also asked Meredythe to spread the word of Dionysus to the cultist nuns who raised her. He then mused, “That Grand Slam you mentioned… sounds like a great meal. Some barley cakes, roast hog, and plenty of wine… I’ll think about it.”
After Dionysus vanished, Melantha looked at the underbrush and determined that the path they had been following was made by a rampaging giant boar, and that some fresh tracks indicated that a young woman was following the beast. The party followed these tracks and encountered Atalanta, a tall, muscular young woman whom Amara and Meredythe immediately felt attracted to. Atalanta asked if they were “with the hunters.” Thinking that she meant the Huntresses of Artemis, Amara and Melantha both answered “formerly,” and learned that they had a shared past. Atalanta clarified that she meant the hunting party chasing the Calydonian Boar, then adding that the all-male hunters had kicked her out for being a girl and that she was going to show them up by killing the boar first. The party members enthusiastically joined her in the hunt to stick it to those chauvinist pigs... and the big pig, too.
As they tracked the boar, Atalanta explained that as an infant, she was left on this mountainside to die, but that Artemis had sent a mother bear to nurse and raise her, though the huntresses frequently stopped by to teach her human behavior and language. She and Amara bonded over the mutual desire to hibernate during the winter.
Soon the Calydonian Boar came crashing through the underbrush, charging straight at the party. Atalanta hit it with an arrow, claiming first blood. After the other party members attacked with a flurry of arrows and swings of a battle axe, Atalanta eventually hit the boar in the jugular, killing it. They brought the boar back to the city and asked to be brought before King Lycaeon of Arcadia.
The king praised them for killing the boar, but soon became fixated on Atalanta’s resemblance to his dead wife. Atalanta told him that her real name was “RAWR” and that she was raised by bears after being abandoned in the wilderness. King Lycaeon threw open his arms and greeted her as his long-lost daughter, whom he had “accidentally abandoned” on the mountainside. Amara, Meredythe, and Melantha confronted him as to how one “accidentally” abandons a child, revealing King Lycaeon’s sexist worldview and wolfish, lying nature. After declining an offer to stay at the palace, the party and Atalanta left the king, each of them 100 gold drachmas wealthier than they were before, as reward for killing the Calydonian Boar.
Relations
Protagonists
Amara, Melantha, Meredythe Maegwund
Allies
Neutrals/Bystanders
Adversaries
Maenads, the Calydonian Boar
Plot type
Session
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