The Sudden Sea –Session 11

[April 30 - May 2 and 3 – Cyclopses and bears and...what is that!?]

[This game uses the Hero System Fifth Revised Edition (FREd) roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened October 30, 2023.]

[This adventure takes place on the continent of Terik, two years after the appearance of the Sudden Sea.  The PCs are refugees seeking a better life through adventuring.]

 

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

May 2, 56 I.C. (Imperial Calendar)

Just After 3:00

Trying to discuss the cyclops sentry on the other side of a bend in the ravine without being heard, Sorvia and Tharduk were “arguing” in hand signs.  Tharduk had no idea what Sorvia was trying to convey and was miserable at conveying that he did not understand.  

With no resolution in sight, Islo decided the group needed to retreat back to a place they could actually speak.  He quietly walked back around a previous bend in the ravine.  The rest of the adventurers went to follow when the cyclops sentry finally noticed they were there, spotting Anomin (in crow form) and the two dwarves out in the open.  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?” he called out.

Tharduk answered, stating that they were trying to not be threatening, which confused the cyclops.  Then Sorvia spoke up from a concealed position, agreeing with Tharduk.  The cyclops saw her and asked what she was doing hidden down there.  She replied, “Mapping.”  The cyclops stated he did not want to appear on the map.  Kadruth explained that since he is not a natural landmark, he and his sheep would not be drawn into the map.  This satisfied the cyclops.

The cyclops warned the adventurers that there was a big lion in the forest that was responsible for the death of his favorite sheep, Irwin.  Tharduk asked about whether or not the cyclops traded or sold wool.  The cyclops said they did but his brother was better at that stuff.  He also introduced himself as Nunya and said he would be right back with his brother to trade.

While the cyclops was away, Sorvia and Anomin went back to where Islo was to bring him up to date on the conversation.  Kadruth also used his Force Wall spell to create a ramp so he and Tharduk could negotiate with the cyclopses at eye level.  [That was not an intentional pun.]

When the two cyclopses returned, the second one introduced himself as Inna and that their third brother, Auda, was watching their camp.  Inna and Tharduk then start negotiating the price of the wool.  They eventually agreed on a cost of 2 gold coins to purchase 6 cloves (42 pounds) of wool.  [This was a good deal for Tharduk as a clove of wool usually went for half a gold coin each.]

During the negotiations, Kadruth spoke with Nunya about the lion, trying to get the cyclopses to agree to a bounty for killing the lion.  Nunya wasn’t interested as the cyclops just gave it a hit and it left them alone.  Kadruth did learn that cyclopses had been in this area about a year and the lion first showed up during the recent winter.

Once the trade was done, the adventurers backtracked a bit and then worked their way around the cyclops camp.  Islo and Sorvia discussed what kind of lion the cyclopses were reporting but came to no definite conclusions.  [Neither really had an appropriate Knowledge Skill for this.]  They reached the western edge of the hills late in the afternoon and made camp.

Night

The night passed quietly.

May 3, 56 I.C.

Rain clouds moved in from the east and it rained lightly most of the day.  Kadruth used his Force Wall spell to provide protection from the rain for Sorvia so she could continue mapping the forest as the group explored.  Anomin kept a look out specifically for lion tracks but saw none.

During the day, Anomin and Kadruth noticed that the group had passed the same set of trees three times and called out Islo on it.  A quick tree-climb later, they worked out where they actually were, corrected Sorvia’s notes, and resumed exploring, having only lost an hour or two of time.

Mid afternoon the rain started letting up and gradually stopped.  At the end of the day Sorvia found an excellent site for a camp and the adventurers made camp there.

That Night, First Watch

Early in the watch, before it got too dark, Islo heard something moving through the underbrush.  He fired an arrow at it, hoping to scare the creature away.  Instead, the creature bellowed in response, allowing Islo to identify it as a bear!  The bear's bellow awoke Sorvia and Anomin, but barely stirred the dwarves.

Islo waited for the bear to appear.  When the angry, shaggy, brown bear marched into the camp, Islo tripped it with a trick shot.  Sorvia notched an arrow and shot the bear, hitting it with a glancing blow to the head [she very rolled low damage].  Anomin shifted into her cougar form and charged the bear, nastily raking its forelimbs [lot of Body, but light on Stun].  At this point Tharduk woke up, but Kadruth continued sleeping.

Islo shot at the bear, piercing both of its forelimbs [again, lots of Body, little Stun].

Tharduk readied his axe and shield.  The bear got up off the ground and stood on its rear legs and roared [Presence attack], impressing Sorvia.  It then clawed at Anomin, injuring her significantly.  The noise finally woke Kadruth up, but he was still groggy and complained about all the noise Anomin was making.  Sorvia sank an arrow into the bear's torso, killing it.

When Kadruth stumbled out of his tent, he found a very hurt cougar whining at him.  He immediately set to healing her with his magic.  Islo and Sorvia set to skinning and butchering the bear carcass.  Once his watch is done, Islo cooked some bear meat steaks.

That Night, Second Watch

Midway through the watch, Kadruth was at the edge of camp collecting some wood for the fire when he saw two large gleaming golden feline eyes staring right at him from a distance of 10 meters!

End of session

Commentary

[I had not planned on having the lion show up here, but I rolled two random encounters for the night and after Islo cooked bear steaks, it seemed likely the lion might get a whiff of it and come investigate.]

Sudden Sea Adventures

Sudden Sea Landing Page - Links to all the write-ups for this campaign 

Last session: Session 10 

 

Next session: Session 12 [Not yet typed up]

The Sudden Sea –Session 10

[April 30 - May 2 – Start scouting the Mikro Dasos]

[This game uses the Hero System Fifth Revised Edition (FREd) roleplaying game.  Game sessions happen once a week.  This session happened October 23, 2023.]

[This adventure takes place on the continent of Terik, two years after the appearance of the Sudden Sea.  The PCs are refugees seeking a better life through adventuring.]

 

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 30, 56 I.C. (Imperial Calendar)

Day

The adventurers forded the Mesta River after a quick breakfast and then entered into the Mikro Dasos, the small forest along the border between County Modon and The Shires [home of the Tolk].  Once inside the forest they started exploring and mapping it.

While exploring they found several areas of damp soil that held very large footprints.  Islo estimated the beings that made the footprints were 10 to 12 feet tall and walked on two feet.  There was no continuous path and the tracks ranged from days old to weeks old.  This seemed to suggest the rumors of sheep-stealing giants they heard in Nomi might have some truth.  Islo and Sorvia made suggestions what the source might be, thinking very tall ogres or actual giants.

As the trees of the forest were much taller than the footprint makers, Anomin flew up above the trees in her crow form to look around.  The only treetops in motion she saw were likely from the wind.  She flew back down to the ground and reported this.

Night

During the second watch, Kadruth and Tharduk heard the sound of a very large cat making a kill further to the south.  Tharduk checked inside the tent to verify Anomin was there and asleep.  The dwarves decided the forest had at least one big predator and stayed quite alert the rest of their shift.

May 1, 56 I.C.

Day

The group resumed exploring and mapping the forest.  More giant footprints were seen off and on through the day.  Anomin also found a sheep carcass that was several days dead and eaten by animals, leaving bones and some wooly pelt.  No one was certain what had killed and eaten the sheep, which was worrying.

During the afternoon, Tharduk noted that the ground was getting softer and wetter with some of the tallest trees clearly leaning.  This told the adventurers that they were getting near where the forest approached the coast of the Sudden Sea.

Anomin flew up above the trees again to look around.  She could see that the forest thinned out to the east and beyond that was part of the Sudden Sea.  To the southeast she could see the Dowr Gwernan, the river that was the border with The Shires.  What really caught her eye was smoke from a campfire somewhere in the hills to the west.  The forest wrapped around the northern half of the hills and the hills were scheduled to be scouted the next day.  She flew back down to the ground and reported what she saw.

The group shared what they knew about giants.  This came down to “Giants tend to live in mountain or hills, don't like plains, and tend to have cattle or sheep.”  Giants were rare in the plains so none of them knew very much about them.  [None of the group had an appropriate Knowledge Skill.]

Night

During first watch, some raccoons infiltrated the camp and attempted to steal food.  Islo and Inserrant noticed the pilfering.  Islo shot two of the raccoons with his bow and the rest of the raccoons fled.  The remainder of the night was quiet.

May 2, 56 I.C.

Day

The day dawned cool and damp with a lot of fog.  Anomin flew up above the trees again to relocate the smoke in the hills but it was too foggy and she could see nothing.  [Failed her Perception roll.]

The adventurers moved into the hills, exploring and mapping along the way.  Mid-afternoon, while the group was walking through a narrow ravine between some hills, Kadruth quietly told the party to stop.  Up ahead he spotted a very tall sentry with one eye keeping a lazy watch on the ravine the adventurers were moving up - a cyclops!  He quietly pointed out where the cyclops was and the rest of the adventurers located it.  Sorvia stopped her mapping, put away her notebook, and readied her weapons.

The group started sneaking up on the sentry with Islo several paces ahead of the rest.  Once the adventurers were close enough to attack the sentry if they wanted to, Anomin flew ahead to see if there were any more.  She kept low, along the floor of the ravine.  This worked, and she was able to fly around a bend and then past the cyclops.  She noticed he had two extra spears, a large haversack, and a stack of very large throwing rocks.  He also seemed to be very bored.

Further up the ravine, Anomin discovered a side gulley containing two very large tents, a low campfire, and a small herd of large sheep.  Anomin snooped around a bit.  One tent was laid out for sleeping but had no cyclops in it, the other did.  Anomin entered that tent and looked around.  The cyclops feet were the right shape and size for the footprints seen in the forest.  In addition to several spears and a haversack, Anomin saw a large sack full of something.  While investigating that sack, the sleeping cyclops woke slightly, turned over, and then went back to sleep!  [She just made her stealth check.]   

After resuming breathing again, Anomin looked in the bag and found it was full of spun wool.  Under the bag was a spinning wheel.  Anomin snuck back out of the tent and then flew back to the other adventurers.

While Anomin had been away scouting, the rest of the adventurers decided to sneak even closer to the cyclops sentry and conceal themselves as best they could.  This made it slightly more difficult for Anomin to find them once she returned.  Luckily, the dwarves were not very good at concealment and she found them.

Anomin landed near the dwarves but not in the cyclops’ line of sight.  As close as they were to the sentry, Anomin had to use wing gestures to try and inform the dwarves there were two cyclopses.  Kadruth understood her intent and turned to relay the information to Sorvia.  Sorvia understood Kadruth was warning her of a second cyclops, but pantomimed “Where?”  Kadruth pantomimed a bird.  Sorvia understood and quietly crept back to where the dwarves were.

Meanwhile, Islo had observed the hand gestures going back and forth but did not understand any of it.  On his own he decided to sneak back to the dwarves to find out what was going on.  He found Anomin just around a bend, using a twig to draw a map in the dirt.  From the map, Islo and Sorvia understood that the cyclopes had a camp and there was a second cyclops there, but Tharduk completely failed to understand any of it.

End of session

Commentary

[There was a small bit more at the end, but it was me dictating how a PC acted and that was very wrong on my part.  NEVER take away player agency just for a funny bit.  I apologized when the player called me out on it - I was clearly in the wrong.  At the beginning of the next session I retracted the last bit and we resumed from the point above.]

Sudden Sea Adventures

Sudden Sea Landing Page - Links to all the write-ups for this campaign

Last session: Session 9

 

Next session: Session 11

Status Update - Beginning of 2024

December was busier than November at the Day Job (plus the holidays) and I'm just now coming off that busy period in January.

After reviewing the AdSense results I removed the ads from this blog.  I never met the minimum amount for payout, in fact I barely reached 5% of that number in the time I've had the ads running.  No real loss.

The Monday Group (a.k.a., Super Rat) has continued playing and we just did Session 17, so I'm 8 sessions behind.  I will resume writing up the session summaries this month and try to catch up a session every two weeks.

My clone of the OD&D rules is still progressing, although slowly.  I've done what should be the final editorial pass on Books 1 and 2, finishing Book 2 last week.  Next is Book 3, which I want to have done no later than the end of February.  After that I will put the PDFs up on DriveThru RPG for sale and then create a POD version because I want physical copies to show for my effort.

That's it for now.  My next regular post should be early next week.