The Greylands House Campaign - Session 8

  

Summary 

The party return to their base only to find it overrun with bandits, then they spend a good deal of downtime getting ready for the coming winter and for their next delve in the dungeons below. 

Party Members

• Verasha - Level 3 Druid 
• Pipam the Younger - Level 3 Thief
• von Plarf - Level 2 Elf
• Zoltan - Level 3 Dwarf
• "Rusty" the Talasum - Level 2 Fighter

Followers

Jaro (Verasha's war boar); Alois (Porter and Cook); Walter of Potsdam (Man-at-Arms); Grub (Verasha's other war boar); Baba Tonka (a brown bear) and 3 War Hounds

Session Recap

After spending the evening and next day visiting Verasha's people, the party decide to head back to town and get ready for a month of downtime, so that Verasha can focus on training her newly magically befriended bear. On the way back to the ruins of the boyar's manor, however, they noticed that there is campfire smoke coming from the ruins. Sneaking in through the southern entrance of the dungeon, the group ran into some of the talasumi and a pair of dead bandits. It was clear someone was squatting on their claim!

The state of the boyar's manor as the party found it. It currently is a bit more fortified.
Map is courtesy of Dyson Logos which I then edited myself.

Figuring they could get the drop on the bandits the group went back up through the spiral staircase and then proceeded to fight off the bandit gang, as well as a familiar (and ugly) face - the toady that managed to run away during their excursion into the tomb of Maximillian. As with most fights so far, the party was victorious due to their use of magic and animals. 

They managed to capture 3 of the bandits, with last living one running away somewhere. They brought them back to the town and while there started working through their list of downtime activities. They also learned that the town council had now recognized their claim to the Manor, mostly on the behest of the clergy of Greytown's church. 

Selling off some shockingly good loot that the bandits had on hand (they had done a successful breaking and entering job in town recently, and were hiding out in the ruins until the heat died off a bit), and giving their gear to the talasumi under their now legally recognized domain, the group also started doing some prep for further delves. Custom armor was commissioned both for Grub and Baba Tonka, as well as Rusty upgrading his armor to partial plate. They also hired laborers and bought construction materials in order to start slowly working on restoring the manor into a livable home.

One of these.

Currently their goal was to construct a big wood oven with sleeping space on top of it in the eastern tower of the ruins, as well as building a roof and adding a door to that place, essentially making it habitable even during heavy snow. They also closed off the wester tower where the dungeon entrance is, by putting in a heavy trap door and turning the tower into the personal space for their grizzly bear (while of course informing the talasumi in the dungeon of the changes). 

The rest of the month went mostly in training Baba Tonka some basic commands (as per the Animal Friendship spell) as well as going on hunting expeditions to try and stock up on food reserves. 

The group also met with the Bigger Boss, the talasum seemingly in charge of level 2 of the dungeon, who informed them that their Biggest Boss, who lived on level 4, had asked for their aid in slaying the beasts that roamed that part of the dungeon, and were killing the talasumi. The group of course accepted the task eagerly, seeing as that aligned with their plan of action anyway.

GM Observations

So this was another quick session. In many ways one can treat it as the second half of the last session, really. The players have been planning on taking a longer downtime in order to get a bunch of stuff done, and with the added excitement of a quick fight against some bandits, that is what the session ended up being. 

So, general observations...even with morale and all that, man animals are fucking brutal. War Dogs are already powerful as is, but once you factor Animal Friendship into the mix and you get fucking grizzly bears walking around following the party, things are getting serious. We'll see how well that helps the party against the terrors lurking deeper into the dungeon, of course, and Baba Tonka's size is also a downside since she often blocks passages due to her girth, but...still. A fucking bear! 

Quite earlier in the campaign as the players told me what their long-term goal was, we decided that 20k worth of coins was needed to fully restore the manor, plus they needed to clear and secure the first 5 levels o the dungeon. However, after reading through the dungeon again, I actually realized level 4 is the much more logical cut-off point, so I changed it to that. 

Further more, while the group is on friendly terms with the goblins/talasumi under the Manor, they are not quite at allies status yet. Helping them out with level 4 will do that though, and it feels like a very organic progression, not really something I as a referee necessarily needed to force to happen, but simply riffing on the stuff that is already in the dungeon as written.