Session 34: Lycanthrapocalypse

 

PCs:

Korin Clubfoot, dwarf, F5

Mia the elf, T3/MU2

Norbor the half-orc, F3

PARTY'S HENCHMEN:

Cleon, F1

Xenop, C1

SESSION RECAP:

    The party is back in Scant and Xenop has good news. The arch cleric can perform raise dead on Korin for the regular price of the spell and Korin comes back to life! The party celebrates his return to the world of the living. Norbor and Mia begin their training to become even better while Korin rests, trying to pull himself back together.

    After 3 weeks, on Wealsun 8 the party has completed its training, Korin was back in action and the party decided not go after the pirate's treasure after all. Since they have grown stronger, they decide that it's time to explore the Temple of Elemental Evil. Through the wizard that Mia trained under, they secure passage via ship to Dyvers. They reach Hardby on Richfest 1 where they will stay for a few days until the ship continues its journey.

    On Hardby the group enjoys the festivities of Richfest. There many celebrations taking place and even more are about to follow. Nolbor is thrilled to meet the community of half-orcs in the city and realising that there is not much prejudice here he makes many friends. He also meets a female young half-orc named Sina that he falls in love with and marries! As a result, Sina's brother Mukaz who doesn't have much to do in the port of Hardby, decides to join his brother-in-law and the rest of the group in their adventures. The party equips him with armor and weapons and now they are ready to continue, promising Sina that he will see her again soon.

    From Richfest 5 to Reaping 9, the group reaches Dyvers. During their journey, they are approached by another group of adventures that shares with them that they are hired to do a relatively easy job in Dyvers and take care of a pack of wolf that might have appeared on Gnarley Forest. The group agrees to join them and share the reward.

    On Reaping 10 they are about to head to the forest with their new friends, however they suggest to equip themselves with belladona and wolfsbane in case there are lycanthropes involved. The other party at the beggining disagrees but since they insist they don't want to put our friends in more expenses and claim that they will buy them themselves. The party however suspects that something fishy is going on and Mia decides to follow them and see if they buy them. She realises that they just took a walk in the city's market and came back without buying anything. Mia buys it herself and informs the group that is now ready to face whatever the new guys have in store for them. Korin and Nolbor also visit the blacksmith who puts silver in their weapons for a big price.

    They begin their expedition and Nolbor throws wolfsbane in them to see how they react. One of them transforms into a werewolf and the group quickly attacks them using wolfsbane, belladone and silvered weapons and subdues. One of them manages to flee. The group goes back in town and informs everyone of what happened, creating signs so that the cityis aware of the face of the werewolf in case he comes back.

    The party rest for a couple of days and on Reaping 13 they find a ship that will take them to Verbobonc. From there, they plan to visit Nulb and then the Temple. However, just a few days before they reach Verbobonc, a group of 10 passengers reveals itself to be a gang of wererats that are trying to take over the ship. Luckily the party had already silvered weapons, wolfsbane and belladona but even with such a good preparations the wererats almost killed them all. The guards of the ship, besides not having weapons suitable to hurt such creatures, they managed to defend long enough for the party to beat the wererats and force them to surrender. Almost all of the ship's guards and crew were killed during the fight and the captain, named Lorco, offers the party free passage with the ship for ever!

    Finally, the group reaches Verbobonc on Reaping 20 where they heal and post sign to gather men-at-arms and head towards Nulb.

LOOT AND KILLS:

Loot:

silver crown worth 600 gp

24 gp

Kills:

2 werewolves

10 wererats

DECEASED PLAYER CHARACTERS:

Urikas the elf, F1/MU1, Readying 25, 576 CY, eaten by ghouls

Zyla the elf, C1, Readying 25, 576 CY, eaten by ghouls

Jack, F1, Readying 28, 576 CY, slain by the evil cleric named Lareth

Causticas the elf, F3/MU3, Goodmonth 14, 576 CY, burned alive by a red dragon

Yus, C1, Brewfest 6, 576 CY, Poisoned by a purple worm's sting

Trenaccatlo, F1, Ready'reat 27, 576 CY, devoured by a two-headed giant troll

Korin Clubfoot, F5, Flocktime 11, 577 CY, poisoned by giant centipedes / REVIVED

THOUGHTS AFTER THE SESSION:

    I thought that during the session where the players were attacked by the dragons the dice wanted to kill them and had a will of its own. But this was by far one of the most bizzare sessions I have ever been a part of.

    It's hard to believe that everything was randomly rolled, I am pretty sure that the players wouldn't believe me if I didn't roll them all open. If I wanted to plan a session to teach them how to fight lycanthropes for some reason, I couldn't have done it better.

    First they have the encounter on the ship. It was wolf in sheep's clothing were the suggestion is to have the party meet a group of shapechangers who will try to lure them to a trap. I rolled randomly between some candidates, I think I picked werewolves and doppelgangers and the result was the former. I think I roleplayed it obviously enough that something strange was going on here and the players handled the situation pretty well. We did some research on belladona and wolfsbane, I rules that even being in touch with these if you are a lycanthrope, you must roll a save or transform and start coughing. 

    When they realised that their new "friends" were lycanthropes (I think they even had the cleric cast detect evil on them) they easily surprised and defeated them. The good thing was that they had time to prepare their actions and they managed to equip themselves with everything they needed to hurt them.

    And after that it's the encounter in the ship that took them to Dyvers. I rolled wererats and I said WTF. Again lycanthropes? Anyway, I had some of them fight the guards and some the party, as soon as it attacked them. For the fight against the guards I just rolles a d100 each round to see what side is winning, with the bigger percentage being in favour of the wererats. However the guards were rolling surprisingly well, meaning that while they couldn't hurt them they were able to hold their ground and defend themslever.

    The party on the other hand was rolling terribly. It looked like they would go for a TPK until Mia decided to waste almost every charge of the wand of turn flesh to stone and managed to turn the fate of the battle. It was a great victory that costed them however many charges of their precious wands.

    The funny thing is that if the first encounter hadn't happen, the second one would be completely hopeless. They wouldn't have silvered weapons, they still didn't have any magical ones and only the wand would be able to do some damage. I guess that the wererats would try however to overbear Mia and stop her so there would be screwed anyway. And the crazy thing is I didn't fudge anything!

    It was one of the most fun sessions yet! We played more than 4 hours and the party was thrilled with all the action. Describing all these I even didn't mention Nolbor's marriage! Good for him, his roleplaying was a fun little break, especially for a campaign like this where such moments are rare and because of that they are considered cool and a breath of fresh air!

    After all this however, the party is back to where it started! Remember that the players in session 0 decided to play the Temple of Elemental Evil and after more than 30 sessions, they were getting close! Let's see what happens next!