Run Date: August 20th, 2022
Every step forward seems to come at the cost of several steps back. I’ve found myself falling into some bad habits and tunnel-visioning on learning mechanics over keeping the game flowing. LFG doesn’t have a CR system or “the party should be fighting this sort of stuff” lever, and my initial random hooks ended up being above the group’s pay grade by every standard (as seen in previous reports). I don’t wish to rain on their well-earned victories, but it does act as a reminder that my priorities need a bit of a rebalance. With that out of the way:
PCs
Rebel(Sa): Lv2 Monk
Richard(Sh): Lv1 Fighter
Baldur(Pa): Lv1 Barbarian
Weebury Wanderers
Rebel returns from her training as a level 2 Monk, choosing to continue randomizing the skills she obtains and earning an ability that would’ve helped with all the ghosts she’s been dealing with. Between training sessions, she also picked up a ghosteel dagger and some ghosteel tips for her staff. Richard, having been upgraded from henchmen to PC, settled his work for the week and met with the others at the Red Tankard. Finally, Baldur, a big idiot louder than a blowhorn, stepped in.
When I was first setting up the game, I rolled up some random events for a variety of hooks. One such event was a group of Giant Ants that attacked one of my patron player’s merchant caravans. Since then, this group of ants have hunkered down in the town of Weebury. Now, a month and a half later and after many forays into the Oldtown Graveyard, the party decided to regroup and follow another job. It helps, of course, that the Riversmeet Trade Council put out a 500gp bounty for the group that dealt with the Weebury problem.
With the goal of recon in mind (deja vu), the party hits up some of their old henchmen and hires a new one; a beast of a Laker woman used to working the plows in Grünville. With a solid group and a bit of prep, they headed a half day out to Weebury. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned, but I tend to use our session start time as the starting point for the adventure; meaning they headed out at noon and arrived at nightfall. Under torchlight, the group fell into ranks and skirted the edge of town while doing some introductory scouting. They found a distinct lack of vegetation; no grass, no crops, not even a tree. Around the northern side they noticed some old irrigation ditches dug toward the center of town (where a well presumably resided), and found a mound of old wood and junk.
Baldur, being the point man alongside Avenius (the plow lady), started digging into the mound and found a variety of splintered junk from carriages, wagons, and farming implements. To his joy, he found a small purse with 5gp worth of coin inside. As he was about to celebrate, however, his foot sunk into the dirt. Quick action from Rebel kept him from being pulled into the earth while the hole quickly filled with the refuse from the mound. After a quick discussion and some concerns about having alerted the ants, the party headed toward the center of Weebury where they hoped to find an entrance via the well.
Passing around the inn and onto the main road, Baldur suggested a quick detour. The buildings they’d been passing had been intact, though clearly abandoned for a good few weeks. He suggested they hit up the inn and see if there was anything of interest or value. Knowing the well was right across the way, the group agreed. Baldur gave a solid kick to the inn’s entrance and shattered the bar that had been holding it shut. The door’s swing was cut short by a bunch of dirt and debris, and as the torchlight poured into the room it revealed what the group had been searching for.
Before them was a formerly open common room now piled with dirt that lead to a volcano-shaped mound. Instead of lava, however, giant red ants began to skitter forth. Into the first round of initiative and Baldur suggests heading toward a neighboring building to set up combat lines and avoid any potential flanks from the road. Unfortunately, only half the party won their initiative roll. The losers were left to fend off the first few ants as the lines crashed. Avenius held her line with some ferocity, but took a couple hits in the process. Richard tried to dive in for a rescue, but didn’t make it in time. Side-by-side, however, they held the door.
With the other half of the party more or less heading elsewhere (with the torch no less), the second round began. Avenius tried to break the surge after spotting another set of 3 ants coming down from the mound. She reached over the little buggers and slammed the door shut on them). It was 2v1 in favor of the inn door crew and they quickly downed it. Unfortunately, the ants moved quick and shattered through one of the nearby inn windows and re-engaged. 2v2. Meanwhile, in the neighboring building (it was a smithy) the group was setting up their battle lines and calling to the others to join them. Calling loud enough, in fact, that they didn’t hear several more ants enter the building. It wasn’t until the backline got nailed that they wheeled around to defend themselves.
Now stuck in a pincer attack
(figurative and literal), the party fought hard. Avenius and Richard
ended their 2v2 match instantly with a crit and max damage hit before
heading toward the smithy door and shouting “there are more
following!” Smithy group was tied up in their own mess; Rebel
having been knocked prone and desperately fighting off a pair of
flaring red mandibles and Vance (ex-pirate with a deathwish) going
into a rage and obliterating his adversary. Rebel quickly retaliated
with an eye-gouging stab and kicked the creature off. Between
Vance’s frothing mouth and bellows and Rebels pin-point stabbing,
the ant’s fled back into the hole they’d come from. Baldur hauled
an anvil over it, crushing another ant and sealing the tunnel the ants had come from.
With their rear covered and the party regrouped, they slammed shut the smithy door and hunkered down. The few ants still outside shifted from a chase to a circular pacing. This standoff lasted long enough for the players to take a breather and formulate a plan: tie up some dead ant bait, light the forge, and split out the side door. They acted quick as they could, and managed to organize everything just as a larger, rust-colored ant started to approach the main door. So it began, a quick and butchered chase. LFG has rules for handling a chase, but I’m far from familiar with them. Instead of mathing everything out or spending 10 minutes or so breaking it down, I just went around the table and had the group roll events. This actually worked pretty well since the events tied up the story without me needing to resort to measurements, legs, leads, et al.
Torch light leading the way, the party slipped out the side and booked it away from the oncoming soldier and posse. Ants are pretty damn fast, and as they were beginning to nip at the heels of the party they found a second wind and a burst of speed. This quickly followed up with both an obstacle and major hazard. Ruling on this given the area was a bit tough, but thankfully we’ve had some rough rains the past week. Rain during drought equals flood, but where I live has something a bit more destructive (other than tornadoes, anyway).
The scene is set: Giant Ants rushing the party’s tail, a single torch being all the light on this night, and a field of unknown territory ahead. Just as the ants were about to catch their prey, the party tumbled down a steep hill of rock, sand, and stone into a cold pit. A few reacted quickly enough to tuck and roll, but several of the others suffered some damage and light injuries. The good news, however, is that the ants did not follow. The party was safe.
Rebel had dropped the torch while falling, but found it sputtering and fighting for life on some wet rocks. The party had landed in a sinkhole and found themselves in a large chamber. Behind them was the hill they tumbled down, and in front was a moss-covered wall with a tunnel. As the torch flared up, the shadows danced and the temperature in the chamber dropped several degrees. One of the party members even mentioned that the moss looked like it was moving.
Sufficiently paranoid of overstaying their welcome, the group worked together to climb their way out. They had a plan of attack ready for when they reached the top, but found nothing but an open field of grass with many small animal paths twisting here and there. Cue several discussions of time travel and suspicious Faerie magic. Baldur quickly decided to test a theory and slid back into the hole where the party watched his torchlight vanish. Rebel, meanwhile, started searching for familiar constellations and found only the Moon and Bride (this world’s north star). Other than that, the party was paranoid of moving too far for fear of potential… anything, really.
Baldur arrived back at the bottom of the chamber, his torch nearly being snuffed out again by the moss. He headed straight up the hill and accidentally grabbed onto an ant’s leg, and promptly threw it over his shoulder. At this point, he stepped back onto familiar ground and tried to figure out what to do. Cue references to shows I don’t watch. Baldur began writing in the dirt, hoping it would somehow find them.
This is the part where I hit my usual mix of “wtf am I even doing” and “you started this train wreck now finish it.” So it was, I had Baldur roll on the DDM table (madness trait) and he began “conversing with his party through the veil.” Back in not-Weebury, the party decided to take a few steps and explore the ground for human remains or similar absolutely terrifying and evil things. What they found was a cryptic set of black clovers in an otherwise consistent and beautiful field of grass. They puzzled things out for a few before I said that the markings looked similar to letters in the common tongue. “What does it say?” they asked as I slapped my inner self for the BS I was about to pull. Point of note: I tend to keep a small dry/wet erase board and some markers in my box of GM stuff. I chose to write it out as faithfully as I could: “JUMP DOWN THE HOLL.” It was a good chuckle and helped pull me out of my spiral a bit.
With the new plan sorted and no desire to get lost in Faerie realms of unknown danger and chaos, the party started their return down the hole; but not before Rebel decided to cut a sopping sample from the black clover plants. Baldur, who was back in Weebury still conversing with his new imaginary friends, saw a light pop into existence and immediately called out (quietly) to them. Before they went to rejoin him, Rebel hesitantly looked at the “thing” she had carried into the world. To her surprise, it wasn’t a fleshy mass of Lovecraftian goo monster, but a miniature vase with a clover motif.
Between a rough fight and abject fear of “the hole,” the party headed back down the road. They didn’t run into anything else on the way, and found some respite at a shanty camp set up for traders avoiding the direct route through Weebury (causing a half-day delay one way). They did a bit of chatting and decided to head back to Riversmeet to begin planning for next week.
So ended the actual session, though we had about an hour left. We went ahead and rolled up all the downtime costs and plans, and rolled up a few extra henchmen to add to the pool (something else I should have prepped ahead of time). Richard will be recruiting more henchmen for another foray into ant hell, Baldur wagered his entire cash value in the fighting pits (losing it all to a fluke), and Rebel is going to see if the vase has any value while trying to figure out if making a giant ant poison is feasible (Spoiler: It is).
Rewards
4 XP
Black Clover Vase (140gp
5gp sack of coin
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