Mausritter Session 1 - The Crypt

General Summary

After a quick intro to their home village of Ruby Grove, I explained how all three were now approaching the ripe old age of four months, and as a result were almost done with their various apprenticeships and ready to make their marks on the world.
As one of their final challenges, they're required to take a group of younger members of the Nature Patrol on an overnight hike and camping trip. Bringing all the children back alive is a great indicator of how well you can handle stressful situations.
The first day out didn't go uneventfully as around midday they saw signs indicating owl has recently been hunting in the immediate area, as recent as 24 hours ago. Deciding they had relative safety due to the sun being up, everyone agreed it was probably best to carry on.
Honestly, overland adventures are one of my weak points, and it's a skill I need to develop further. I was having trouble getting them engaged with the story around this, so I decided it was probably best to move it forward. We jumped ahead to them setting up camp for the night, and I had them provide the logistics of who was where and who was taking which watch shift.
By random roll, it was decided that during Poppy's watch shift, she heard some rustling in the brush just outside of camp. She awakened her siblings, Vex announcing that White (who he was sharing a tent with) was not in the tent. Tristan said that Billy was missing, too.
Poppy called out those names to the rustling in the woods, and little White skulked into view. When asked what he was up to, and if he knew where Billy was, White responded hesitantly. "Well, um. Remember how, um, you know, like last night? Um. You said 'Don't wander off'? Yeah, well, Billy didn't not do that and now he's fell in a hole."
The whole troop headed to the hole, and the Thistlewise kids decided they and a couple of the bigger kids wielding spears carved by Wednesday would drop into the hole and try to find Billy. Quack had the great idea to shuffle all of the others into a tree hollow nearby to keep them safer.
Finding a hewn-stone corridor under the hole, the group proceeded carefully through the crypt until they found a group of animated skeletons attempting to get past a barrier on the other side of the room. The skeletons noted the torchlight, and turned to attack the party.
Their weapons not as effective against skeletons as the skeleton's spears were against them, victory was only achieved thanks to Billy sneaking from his barricaded safe place and knocking down the last skeleton before it attacked Poppy and took her out.
Everyone found the fight frustrating.  Their weapons not doing much damage played a large part of it, but it did make clear that a) getting into fights can be deadly and b) that Heal spell I told my wife would be invaluable proved its worth restoring the three children who'd been knocked out.
Once everyone was healed back up, we decided to call it an evening, so we left it hanging there. But, this provides an excellent role-playing opportunity for them as they return to town and explain what happened! Plus, they still need to explore and find all the treasures.

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Ruby Grove is part of The Vitacernis supplement from Brian Stauffer
The Crypt adventure can be found in Thistle Kingdom Issue #2 from  TTRPGDad

Report Date

04 Sep 2021