Session 7: A Tale of Two Entities
General Summary
The party plans to bring the city within riding distance of Thywicket. They want to be close enough to travel there but far enough where Thywicket will not notice the city. A few days away from the city, they will come across the first signs of Thywicket's territory. When they are in Thywicket's range, the grass before them grows tall- tall enough to hide a man on horseback. But cutting through the thick grass are numerous swathes where the grass has been cut low and trampled flat. The paths intersect haphazardly, forming an inscrutable maze leading to the great caterpillar. They will come upon the territory at night, with three of the crescent moons forming an eerie light across the grasses. Behind them, they can have a chance to see the faint pinprick of a huge fire in the distance (the great war bonfire of Bristlebelly), and ahead of them they can see the faint, pulsing light of Thywicket's lamps.
As they begin travel, by nightfall they will come across a pellet from Thywicket. The condensed corruption has drawn a pack of Black Rongo's mutated hyenas, and set the grass into a full predatory state. Many of the hyenas have three eyes, mouths that stretch too far back, humanoid hands, or other unnerving corruptions.
Hyena tactics: the hyenas will choose 1 person to try to kill, others will distract and separate the rest of the party. The hyenas attack downed characters.
Going into tall grass gets you attacked by the grass. A successful hit restrains characters, and begins to siphon off their life force. At the start of a restrained character's turn, they must pass a DC 15 Con Save or have their maximum HP reduced by the amount they failed by. The Escape DC is 15, with advantage if wearing metal armor. A character escaping or being rescued from the grass has a chance to spawn a Shambling mound or other evil plant from Creature Codex.
After 6 rounds, Black Rongo makes an appearance. She will target someone semi-randomly, using a d6 but with Kestrel being the target of any leftover numbers. At this point, there will be some strongly given hints that the party needs to flee.
After a chase, the party will be rescued by the Chapel of Light. After welcoming them aboard, the priest Othol Clemont will tend to the party, asking where they are headed. By all appearances he is kind helpful, but dismissive of implications that Night Antelope is one of the followers. In reality, he is the doppleganger lure, made to look like the real Othol Clemont. He is patient, and waits for mentions of Burrhenge to come to him rather than seek them out.
______________________________________________________________
After some time chatting with Orthol and Steps, the party will have the chance to make a perception check. On a 20+, the character can hear a muffled scuffling from behind the pulpit. This is the real Orthol, being killed. The struggle continues for a bit as his memories are extracted, giving two more chances to hear, at DC 18, then DC 15 as he gives his last gasp.
When the party figures out what is wrong, they will need to flee again.Orthol will seemm unfazed by attacks, but he will bleed as appropriate to the damage. Doing enough to “kill” him will knock him unnaturally far back as the Chapel of Light Finally takes notice.
____________________________________________________________________
Party encountered Black Rongo after their rounds with standard and giant hyenas. Most of the hyenas were tied up in a casting of Stinking Cloud, causing them to retch and allowing Khashayar to escape being dragged away. When Black Rongo arrived, Kestrel decided to try to fight her alone instead of running. Were it not for a natural 20 on his second death save and some lucky escape rolls, he would have died. Both Kestrel and Hodari went down at different points during the fight, but were revived. Black Rongo now has reason to target Hodari and Visayan. The party were given their chance to flee when Steps arrived with the Chapel of Light, firing a moon beam that incinerated several hyenas and hurt Black Rongo. As they finally fled to the Chapel, Black Rongo told them she had their scents and would return for revenge. Upon entering the church, they were able to meet steps, and were soon joined by Orthol Clemont. They quickly picked up the fact that something was off about the dragonborn, but they decided to stay the night to heal and recharge. They tried to discreetly check out the Chapel while Orthol was fetching food and bedding from the back rooms, but were able to discern little about the place. They failed all checks to find out about the real Orthol before he was killed. During the night, Visayan cast Tiny Hut to sleep in safely. They failed most extra chances to hear or investigate, but did not want to leave the protective dome. On the third watch, between flashes of lightning Kestrel saw Orthol pressed up directly against the dome, staring straight at Visayan's backpack and licking his lips, despite the dome being opaque from the outside. During the final watch, most were able to hear the real Orthol's final scream as the church finished extracting his memories, followed by a crunch as his body was consumed. In the morning, they were confronted by the newly formed lure of the church, who demanded the book. When they defied him, he lost his composure as his eyes individually fixed on the locations of different pieces of written information. Orthol lashed out, slashing open Visayan's backpack and spilling the book, and Visayan's personal journal. Visayan chose to save the book, and Orthol pinned the journal under his scepter. Kestrel tried to pull the journal out and accidentally tore the journal in half. Kicking the other half away (DM gave in, rather than sticking with ruling), they tried to escape. Hodari attacked, doing minimal damage. Steps attempted to retrieve the top half of the journal. After a few attempts, Orthol activated his abilities. With Steps's speed magically reduced, he just barely managed to grab the other half of the journal and escape the black hole. Hodari lost most of his health to a single attack, but kept trying to fight Orthol. Tendrils of flesh started connecting from the church to Orthol and pulled him up like an anglerfish lure, and the party finally decided to run. The session ended there, as the fled the rest of the way to Thywicket.
Comments