Run Date: April 11th, 2023
Last week's session was canceled due to... interesting circumstances. The entire library staff walked out, and the place is still closed. Today, I decided to host a small BBQ with my players so they could wind down, and if we had some time to play we'd play. Though the session was only a couple of hours, we managed to hit a few fun notes.
PCs
[Pa]: Dalinar (Lv1 Asn); Corvus Lv 1 Ftr, Amaram Lv1 Dw Cp
[Sa]: Amethyst (Lv1 Dw Vg); Rue Lv1 Cleric, Hatty Lv1 Mage
Navigation's Weal and Woe
Since we paused time on session one, we picked up where we left the group last time: Trying to track down the raiders of a small wagon and their prisoners. I ruled that the party had little issue following the trail up until the edge of the Viaspen Forest, where they'd need a bit more skill to follow suit. Unfortunately, nobody is skilled in tracking and seemingly even worse at navigating (low rolls ahoy).
The first hurdle the party hit while working through the forest was a dense wall of strange fog. It seemed unaffected by the breeze and quickly consumed the group. They spent a bit of time wandering in a random direction until they broke free, but they'd wandered off course and had to settle for the night.
In the early morning hours, the character on watch (Amethyst?) spotted a light coming toward the camp. The party had chosen to avoid building a fire and making their position known given the situation with the raiders, but something had somehow stumbled upon them. After waking the others, the party prepared for an ambush while Hatty sent her cat to do a bit of scouting. The light spotted the cat and threw out a "Who's there?" After the cat found its way back, it informed Hatty what it saw: A ragged old man with a glowing stick and a sack. Hatty decided to respond.
As the old man staggered through the brush and discovered a few of the members (with others in hiding just in case), Hatty introduced herself and struck up a conversation. Apparently the old man was a bit of a weirdo, a hedge mage of sorts, that was searching for mushrooms through the night and got lost. Once the group realized how friendly the guy was, a few came out of hiding. They offered to assist the man with trying to find his way back home or to a trail which launched a long discussion between Hatty and Dalinar regarding payment. Dalinar had heard the heavy jingle of coin from the old man's sack and wanted to gut him and take it. He was already sick of being lost in the woods with nothing to show for it.
Hatty managed to talk Dalinar down and the party waited for sunrise. I used the rules for discovering a lair in L&E, ruling that knowing the general direction (east) would give them a bonus of +2. Why is a Lv2 Mage hanging out in the woods? Don't know, don't care. Maybe something will eat him later.
The party took 4 hours to locate the mage's home (Arthur, btw). Dalinar scouted the area first to ensure it wasn't an enemy camp, and discovered a scenic cottage, stream, garden, etc nestled into a little hollow. Upon relaying this to the party, they headed toward the mage's home. He rushed in to clean up his clattered home that's probably never had visitors and quickly offered them some mead (he kept bees) and mushroom stew (from the ones he foraged). Hatty noted that some of the mushrooms he had set aside were of a strange sort, and he explained that he believed they contained motes of magic within. "They are extremely rare, but not difficult to spot. They glow faintly on moonlight nights."
After resting for an hour with Arthur, Dalinar reminded the group of their objective. They almost left without a proper reward, and the old mage tossed them a handful of silver. Dalinar and Hatty got into another argument about the value of their time. Dalinar conceded a second time.
The group tried to navigate back west. The mage had noted that he'd seen a lot of raiding parties out and about, and they always seemed to return westward when their packs were full. Unfortunately, the party failed yet another navigation and veered off course. The bright side is that the next hex ended with a Truly Unique result.
In a clearing of picturesque tall grass was an ancient willow on a mound, its leaves a curtain of white dancing in a constant breeze. The party spotted an archway of sorts where the branches naturally parted, and Hatty started marching toward it. Amethyst followed suit, though none-too-happy about the grass in her face. As they neared the mound, Hatty spotted smooth stones placed in a large circle that surrounded it. She hesitated for a moment, and could here a strange deep song or tone on the wind. She stepped into the circle and toward the archway where she found another smaller circle of stones and a face.
The ancient willow's face appeared to be carved with thick brows and long beard. Hatty, being the "cute and quirky" type, started talking to it. It animated and began speaking back. It was at this time that Hatty decided to use one of her language slots to understand this "Primal Treespeak." She spun a thread about having learned from a tree back in her academy during her time as an apprentice. Needless to say, others thought her mad.
The rest of the party joined up under the willow while Hatty spoke with it and acted as a translator. Dalinar was still annoyed about the treasure and told her to ask about that. It thought for several moments before telling them about an evil citadel, temple, or ziggurat full of riches to the north. Dalinar was on board for raiding the place, but Hatty wanted to continue the conversation. She asked if she could return the favor and the tree spoke of a pain within its branches.
Dalinar was the one who climbed the branches and discovered a strange sack chained to the willow. The chains were knotted and the willow grown into them, making for a very difficult retrieval. Dalinar returned to the ground to retrieve a hammer and started chopping away at the chain. He dodged the quick snap as the chain's pressure release, and snatched up the dense bag. Inside was a lining of dense metal plates (lead), and three carved runestones.
Upon returning to the ground and showing the willow, Hatty asked what the items were. He called them evil and harmful, and the source of his pain. Dalinar shrugged and stated it was just the chain, but the willow didn't seem convinced. The party then thanked the tree and headed northward.
Todays session was only a couple hours due to how the day worked out. The party managed to work their way north and spot a massive granite dome that seemed to swallow the sun. Unfortunately, we had only a small chunk of time left and I wanted to avoid another pause. Dalinar was disappointed, but marked the map. The party then decided to head back to town the following day and try to find the value of the runestones and sell them off. Just before nightfall, however, the group hit an encounter with 12 Small Rocs. They both surprised each other, and the reaction was uncertain. The party packed up their camp and slowly moved elsewhere while the rocs stared down Dalinar. Luckily, nothing came of it.
With their last few minutes, the group navigated back to Türos Tem, rested a day, and hit up the chapterhouse apprentices. Reaction Rolls were more neutral than negative this time around, but revealing the runestones piqued enough interest for one of the apprentices to introduce the party to the local Master (whose name I forget now). He was little interested in speaking with them until they flashed the stones again, and agreed to attempt identification under the condition of receiving 20% of their value. Dalinar wasn't having it and tried to bargain down, but the Master was hardheaded and not in the mood to haggle. With that, the session wrapped up.
Afterword
I had hoped to figure out the ACKS identification system and sales setup before the players had to go so they could log their XP and gold for this session. The Master (whose name I still can't remember) doesn't have Magical Engineering, but does have access to a library and a workshop, as well as a slew of apprentices. I imagine someone there should be able to figure it out or at least attempt to identify the stones and their value, but I'll need to read more into it. For posterity; each runestone is the equivalent of a Lv1 Reversed Spell. Which specific spells I haven't sorted yet, but I imagine the value (in GP, anyway) would be the same. Given how esoteric they are (and the Truly Unique Terrain encounter), the value should probably be increased by 25-50%.
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