[April 24 and 25 – Watches and the hunt]
[This game uses the Hero System Fifth Revised Edition (FREd) roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened August 14, 2023.]
[This adventure takes place on the continent of Terik, two years after the appearance of the Sudden Sea due to the sinking and flooding of ~374,385 square miles of the Plains of Syrak.]
Player Characters
Sorvia of Stavros – female human ranger, local to County Modon (village of Stavros in particular)
Tharduk Lavabreath – male dwarf glassmaker from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom, had a glass shop in County Modon that is now underwater, literally
Kadruth Worldbender – male dwarf priest, serving He Who Protects, from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Anomin – female human shapeshifter, from lots of places, most recently County Modon
Islo Redgrass – male elf ranger, local to County Modon (village of Stavros in particular)
Via Roll20
Inserrant – female human musician, player of zills (finger cymbals) and singer
Spring
April 24, 56 I.C. (Imperial Calendar)
Evening
After setting up their camp in the space allotted inside the logging camp, the adventurers worked out a schedule for watches over the night. Inserrant and Islo took the first watch, Tharduk and Kadruth took the second watch, and Anomin and Sorvia took third watch.
First Watch
Islo and Inserrant climbed up onto the roof of the camp barn as it gave them a good view of the logged areas to the south, over the camp barrier. As all the attacks on the loggers had been to the south, this seemed the best area to watch.
Their watch was quiet. They observed that 6 of the loggers were patrolling the camp in teams of two. Two loggers would circle the camp perimeter, starting and ending at the gate, where the other four waited. After a brief report, the next two would repeat the circuit, followed by the last two.
Second Watch
Rather than use the barn roof as a watch platform, Kadruth cast his Wall of Force spell to create a platform for he and Tharduk to stand on. He placed this in the southwest corner of the camp, the point closest to where the last attack happened.
The two dwarves noticed that the human loggers on watch were starting to show signs of fatigue. Instead of patrolling in groups of two they started patrolling in groups of three with more time spent standing at the gate between patrols.
About half-way through their watch, Kadruth noticed some of the taller grasses moving out in the logged area, 18-20 meters from the camp barrier. He drew Tharduk’s attention to the moving grass, but neither could see what was causing the grass to move. Kadruth attempted to cast his Wall of Force spell in front of where he thought the creature was heading twice, to make it reveal itself. He failed both times. Eventually, whatever it was seemed to leave the area with Tharduk noticing grasses moving further away. The rest of their watch was tense if not eventful.
Third Watch
Kadruth reported what he and Tharduk saw during their watch to Anomin and Sorvia when the watch changed. Anomin went over to the logger guards to warn them she would be turning into a cougar to stand her watch, so they should not panic if they saw a cougar up on the barn. When they looked skeptical, she cast the spell on herself in front of them, transforming into a cougar. This woke them up some and they accepted her warning. Anomin then padded over to the barn to join Sorvia up on the roof. [This did nothing good for the mules in the barn who could smell a predator above them for the rest of the night.]
Anomin’s sharper eyesight [and Darkvision] allowed her to see a trail where the grasses had been disturbed during second watch. Something had moved by the camp and taken a look before leaving the area, heading south.
April 25, 56 I.C.
Morning
As the sky lightened and the camp started coming awake, Anomin shapeshifted into her human form and told Sorvia about the trail. [Anomin cannot talk in most of her animal forms.] When the loggers opened the front gate, the two women plus Islo exited the camp and circled around to the trail. Sorvia pulled a field breakfast from one of her belt pouches of a strip of apricot leather, 2 dried figs, then small amounts of deer jerky and ate it as she approached the tracks.
The trail of tracks was obvious [to the rangers and Anomin]. Something large had moved though the area, large enough that the dwarves should have seen it. The tracks led off in a southwesterly direction. The two rangers started following the tracks while Anomin flew back into camp in crow form to update the dwarves. [Her crow form can speak Koine, the local common tongue.]
During this time, Inserrant spent time practicing her singing and warming up her voice. [She was using a spell to boost her natural singing talent for the day.] Anomin found the dwarves and reported that she and the rangers were following tracks south. The dwarves agreed to follow after breakfast and catch up. Anomin rolled her eyes and flew off.
The dwarves went to eat breakfast with the loggers, helping themselves to large stacks of pancakes and bacon while promising to pay once they killed the animal attacking the loggers. The camp cook allowed this but charged their tab significantly more for their food as a result. [Blown negotiation roll happened on the players’ part.]
The tracks led southwest then west-by-southwest until they reached an unlogged section of the forest. The rangers were certain that the creature was alone, bipedal, and large. Neither ranger could think of what the creature might be. [Mostly as neither had an appropriate Knowledge Skill. I allowed Islo to make a roll on his Area Knowledge: Green Mountains as these creatures also live there, but he only had a familiarity and rolled high.]
The rangers sent Anomin back to see what was keeping the dwarves. When she arrived back at the camp, they were just finishing breakfast. Kadruth offered Anomin some pancakes, but she declined [all her forms are carnivorous, even the ones not normally]. Anomin reported what the rangers had discovered. One of the loggers, late to leave breakfast, overheard part of the conversation and asked if they knew what the animal was yet. The dwarves asked why and learned that the loggers had bets going on as to what the animal was. Both dwarves got in on the betting before leaving camp.
It took them 30 minutes to catch up with the waiting rangers. While waiting, Islo had hunted up some rabbits but had not cleaned or cooked them yet. Anomin, still in crow form, helped herself to the rabbit eyes. Once the group was together again, they headed into the wooded area the tracks led into. This area corresponded to Zone 3 on the logging map, an area further from the Ladon River and not yet logged.
The tracks then meandered a bit until they suddenly sped off, nearly causing Sorvia to lose them. She was able to follow the tracks as they zig-zagged a bit until they stopped at a large blood stain. Sorvia and Islo consulted and decided that whatever they were tracking had hunted and killed a medium-sized animal here. There was no sign of a carcass, and some blood drips along the trail where the tracks resumed heading south, suggesting that whatever it was was hauling the carcass. Sorvia suspected it had killed a deer. Sorvia also commented at this point that whatever they were tracking, it didn’t seem to bother hiding its tracks.
After a couple hours of tracking, the adventurers seemed to be in a deeper part of the forest. Sorvia had seen occasional marks on nearby trees suggesting the creature had three claws on its hands. The claws were at a worrisome height above her head. The adventurers could just hear loggers chopping down trees off in the distance to their left, suggesting they were in the new logging zone.
After a while the tracks stopped among a grouping of very large and old trees. Anomin flew up around the main tree. She found a deer head caught on a lower branch, but no sign of the creature itself. [The creature was in a concealed bed of leaves and branches and it made its Concealment roll by 7 and Anomin "only" made her perception roll by 6.] Anomin made a quick snack of the deer eyes before flying back down and reporting no sign of the creature or any arboreal trail away from this area.
The adventurers had a short discussion about what to do next. Sorvia and then Inserrant both suggested the loggers be brought in to cut down the big trees. This was declined as it would endanger the loggers. Sorvia suggested a snare to hold the creature when it descended. This sounded promising. Islo set up a snare with one of the rabbits at the base of the largest tree. He and Sorvia then concealed the trap. He them moved away a short distance and set up a small fire to cook the remaining two rabbits, hoping to draw out the creature with aroma.
With still no sign of the creature, the adventurers decided to conceal themselves and continue waiting. Kadruth cast his Wall of Force spell and created a ledge around a tree about 4 meters off the ground. He asked Anomin to conceal it and she did a good job of it, joining Kadruth in the blind. Islo and Soria hid themselves expertly [as rangers should] while Tharduk and Inserrant hid themselves as best they could [Narrator Voice: They were both totally visible.]
About Two Hours Later
In the early afternoon, something climbed down the immense tree it had been concealed on. The group did not notice its stealthy descent. The creature noticed the rabbit in the snare and contemptuously grabbed the rabbit, trapping one of its hands in the snare. It roared [and I totally should have done a Presence Attack here]. At this point, all of the adventurers knew something was in the snare, but only Islo could see it. It was very large, nearly 8 meters tall and 4 meters wide! It looked like some sort of troll or ogre, but with large, intelligent eyes.
Islo shot it in the chest with his bow, causing it pain. This angered the creature, which casually broke free of the snare and popped the rabbit carcass into its mouth while looking around for its foe.
It spotted Tharduk first.
End of session
Commentary
[Finally ran the numbers on the surface area of the sudden sea. It has a surface area of roughly 374,385 square miles. This puts it at 96% the size of the Sea of Japan or 64% the size of the Gulf of Mexico or 39% the size of the Mediterranean Sea, depending upon which body of water you are most familiar with. For those in the US, imagine Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska sank and were flooded by sea water – that is the effect of what happened.]
[Sorry this was so late. Work and life were super busy and distracting. I still plan on publishing another blog entry before September 2.]
[There will be a disruption of posting around the week of Labor Day as I need to travel to see my dad while he is as healthy as he will be for a while, possibly ever. I don't think anything is imminent, but I am now very aware he will not always be with us, a realization I was hoping not to have for at least another decade or more.]
Sudden Sea Adventures
Last session: Session 1
Next session: Session 3
UPDATE: Corrected date in second day heading from 24 to 25.
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