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