Summary
I decided to run the excellent Slumbering Ursine Dunes by Chris Kutalik as a casual pick up game while I am busy with family stuff. We got another session in, with a third and possibly last session happening tomorrow!Party Members
- Landalf the Fragile - Level 4 Elf (Previously part of my Greylands campaign)
- Verasha - Level 2 Druid (Also previously part of my Greylands campaign)
- "Crunchy" - Level 3 Thief
- Danica - Level 2 Knight
Followers
Spyro (Landalf's longstanding porter and valet); "Mad" Mox (torchbearer and aspiring Chaos Monk); Gigurg the Man-Beast (Porter); Hedviga the Harridan (Woman-at-Arms); Tishomir (A level 1 War Bear), Jaro (A war-boar) and Milkshake (A giant lizard)
Session Recap
With 3 weeks of downtime, but also no money or food, the party ended up having to go back to Kugelberg, where they at least had free lodging and food (if you do not count Jaromir's endless stories a price to be paid). However, before they did so Verasha the Druid had gone back out to the magical wheat rye field to look for the giant lizards.
Luckily she did find them again, and with some food and an Animal Friendship spell one of them was put under her control and became a follower who she dubbed Milkshake. As such she also spent the 3 weeks of her downtime teaching Milkshake some basic commands, and also a "shake it!" command where it would very energetically waggle its long lizard tail everywhere.
With a not very successful trip looking for info in nearby Marlinko also not going anywhere the party ventured back into the Dunes once more. With a clear mission to find and kill Medved's second cousin Ondrej the party naturally....went in the absolute opposite direction, deciding to instead explore the western part of the Dunes.
Crunchy the Thief's falsified shell tokens apparently worked well enough as the party were not hassled by the centaur toll-takers, then proceeded to follow a waft of rotting meat smell coming from the south. They soon found a mysterious crack in the sandstone, apparently full of magical darkness and smelling like death. While they were debating going down inside anyway they ran into some beachcombers (not-so-secretly werebears in human form) who exchanged pleasantries and directions for various places in the Dunes.
Verasha used her Sense Danger spell to see just how bad the crack in the ground might be, and her brain nearly barfed in on itself with the overwhelming sensation of death and potential bodily harm.
Taking the hint the party continued onwards, eventually stumbling into a camp of very colorfully dressed pirates (Ondrej's Reavers). Landalf the Elf managed to cast Charm Person on one of them, and so they settled in for some "wild pork" stew and chatted with the pirate's bossman. However the pirates had had enough and decided to ambush the party and take them as prisoners to their leader.
They, then, proceeded to utterly fail all of their attacks and bumbling uselessly through the advantageous position they had over the party, eventually simply running away once most of them were killed. The party then went exploring again, running into a rocky outcropping overseeing the sea where they cut the ropes on the canoe the pirates had been using, and eventually stumbling into another rather more curious sight.
On another rocky shelf overseeing the sea, they met Sir Eld - a nobleman from the extraplanar evil elves, having a nice and pleasant lounge on a chair made out of a shellacked human peasant. The party exchanged pleasantries with Sir Eld (who was not in any rush to start a fight with several armed people, bears and assorted large angry animals). The conversation went some weird places, with Danica the knight asking for advice on life, to which Sir Eld simply stated "Kill yourself." and then proceeded to utterly demoralize the poor knight with a rather somber and predicable pathway of their future.
"Well..shit. Now I kind of am thinking about maybe just killing myself." mumbled Danica after all of it.
Showing some of his more sadistic side he used some of the plegrane teeth the party had gifted him to torture one of his attendants and then politely offering to do the same with Crunchy the thief, who bafflingly accepted, and then proceeded to have a pair of sharp teeth jabbed into the palm of his hand.
Not wanting to overstay their welcome (and Sir Eld's patience) the party decided it had gotten late enough in the day and headed back to Kugelberg. Luckily for them, the pirates they slaughtered had some treasure hidden in their tent and so the party now had at least enough money to afford food.
Luckily she did find them again, and with some food and an Animal Friendship spell one of them was put under her control and became a follower who she dubbed Milkshake. As such she also spent the 3 weeks of her downtime teaching Milkshake some basic commands, and also a "shake it!" command where it would very energetically waggle its long lizard tail everywhere.
With a not very successful trip looking for info in nearby Marlinko also not going anywhere the party ventured back into the Dunes once more. With a clear mission to find and kill Medved's second cousin Ondrej the party naturally....went in the absolute opposite direction, deciding to instead explore the western part of the Dunes.
Crunchy the Thief's falsified shell tokens apparently worked well enough as the party were not hassled by the centaur toll-takers, then proceeded to follow a waft of rotting meat smell coming from the south. They soon found a mysterious crack in the sandstone, apparently full of magical darkness and smelling like death. While they were debating going down inside anyway they ran into some beachcombers (not-so-secretly werebears in human form) who exchanged pleasantries and directions for various places in the Dunes.
Verasha used her Sense Danger spell to see just how bad the crack in the ground might be, and her brain nearly barfed in on itself with the overwhelming sensation of death and potential bodily harm.
Taking the hint the party continued onwards, eventually stumbling into a camp of very colorfully dressed pirates (Ondrej's Reavers). Landalf the Elf managed to cast Charm Person on one of them, and so they settled in for some "wild pork" stew and chatted with the pirate's bossman. However the pirates had had enough and decided to ambush the party and take them as prisoners to their leader.
They, then, proceeded to utterly fail all of their attacks and bumbling uselessly through the advantageous position they had over the party, eventually simply running away once most of them were killed. The party then went exploring again, running into a rocky outcropping overseeing the sea where they cut the ropes on the canoe the pirates had been using, and eventually stumbling into another rather more curious sight.
On another rocky shelf overseeing the sea, they met Sir Eld - a nobleman from the extraplanar evil elves, having a nice and pleasant lounge on a chair made out of a shellacked human peasant. The party exchanged pleasantries with Sir Eld (who was not in any rush to start a fight with several armed people, bears and assorted large angry animals). The conversation went some weird places, with Danica the knight asking for advice on life, to which Sir Eld simply stated "Kill yourself." and then proceeded to utterly demoralize the poor knight with a rather somber and predicable pathway of their future.
"Well..shit. Now I kind of am thinking about maybe just killing myself." mumbled Danica after all of it.
Showing some of his more sadistic side he used some of the plegrane teeth the party had gifted him to torture one of his attendants and then politely offering to do the same with Crunchy the thief, who bafflingly accepted, and then proceeded to have a pair of sharp teeth jabbed into the palm of his hand.
Not wanting to overstay their welcome (and Sir Eld's patience) the party decided it had gotten late enough in the day and headed back to Kugelberg. Luckily for them, the pirates they slaughtered had some treasure hidden in their tent and so the party now had at least enough money to afford food.
Observations
Not much deep to observe, except that this was a rather fun exploring and talking session, with a relatively big fight in the middle of it.
The whole thing took on quite a farcical nature (an expected thing for the Hill Cantons from what I gather) between the utter failure of the pirates to do anything in a fight, Milkshake the lizard distracting people by waggling its butt so hard it tail-whipped people, and then more or less the entire conversation with Sir Eld, during which the players who play Landalf and Verasha were more or less just on the edge of panicking, remembering what the Eld were like in my own Greylands campaign (brutal and efficient is what), while everyone else was just having a genuine laugh at Sir Eld's detailed and brutal explanation as to why the noble life is not going to end great for Danica, so the knight might as well just end it now while it's early.
Overall a great session and exactly the kind of low-stakes bullshitting that I wanted out of these filler games! We'll see how the next one goes, with only 3 players left. Probably not going to be doing any shark-fighting I suspect.
The whole thing took on quite a farcical nature (an expected thing for the Hill Cantons from what I gather) between the utter failure of the pirates to do anything in a fight, Milkshake the lizard distracting people by waggling its butt so hard it tail-whipped people, and then more or less the entire conversation with Sir Eld, during which the players who play Landalf and Verasha were more or less just on the edge of panicking, remembering what the Eld were like in my own Greylands campaign (brutal and efficient is what), while everyone else was just having a genuine laugh at Sir Eld's detailed and brutal explanation as to why the noble life is not going to end great for Danica, so the knight might as well just end it now while it's early.
Overall a great session and exactly the kind of low-stakes bullshitting that I wanted out of these filler games! We'll see how the next one goes, with only 3 players left. Probably not going to be doing any shark-fighting I suspect.
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