Characters
- Hoot (Owl Primal Chaos Worshiper)
- Varg (Wolf Troglodyte)
- Borg (Ogre Shock Trooper)
- Mortaron (Ogre Bogatyr)
Session Recap
Last session the players agreed to assist the bogatyr Brainimir to help him hunt down the Basilisk of the Deep Forest. They recruit a pair of beefy ogres including Mortaron, another bogatyr and Borg, a former soldier and shock trooper. Stepping out of the comfort of the
Domovoi Camp, everyone feels a sense of unease. It is as if the dungeon
itself was darker, more hostile and on edge. The group head out to the crevice in the caverns to the east of them, which is the only certain entrance into the forest they know of.
Descending down the ropes used by some of the hunters, the group find themselves in the Deep Forest - a strange place even the standards of the dungeon, with large vast rooms filled with all manner of twisted trees and plants. Having gotten some quick directions from the hunters in the cave above, they head to the second hunter camp down in the forest. Along the way they find a lost a John the Opossum (who had joined the hunting expedition a few sessions back) and helped him back to camp, where they boasted to the hunters about their victory over the Goat cultists and recruited two hunters to come join them in finding and killing the Basilisk. The hunters provided them some more directions, but the truth is they try not to roam too far off camp as the Deep Forest has the habit of sprouting entire new branches and rooms and so it's easy to get yourself turned around.
Returning back to the hall with the crevice in it the group then got their bearings a bit better, finding a suspicious pile of heavy stones but decide against trying to move them. Branimir also points out that it is unlikely a large beast like the Basilisk would be hiding its lair behind the rocks.
Finally making their way to the witch's cottage the party seem to aggravate...something. An invisible snorting animal of some kind charges towards them, smashing right into Hoot and knocking the poor owl unconscious. The commotion draws the witch Agata out who calls off her guard pig (named Dancho) and apologizes for its behavior, invites the party in and heals Hoot. They exchange information and small talk, she says she's willing to trade with them for various things, and the group heads out.
Continuing south Agata catches up with them again, having completely forgotten to talk to the two hunters and they figure out some deal of their own, before she heads back out. Exploring the room the party find a hole in the ceiling, seemingly leading up into the dungeon (it does!), and also find another passage way hidden by thick vines. Deciding to investigate the group find a room with a giant oak tree and a camp full of people. Varg sneaks in and discovers some dangerous looking armed men. Bandits!
Deciding that 12 guys with rifles are likely more than the party can handle right now, he sneaks back and the group proceed east, trying to make their way back to the hunter's camp. Along the way the poor wolf gets assaulted by strangling vines, and eventually the group make it to familiar (to the hunters) territory. A part of the forest overgrown with mushrooms and fungi and lichen of all kind. Gathering some of them, Varg discovers a passageway overgrown with a strange puffy type of mushroom. He decides to cut one of those off, but doing so releases a cloud of spores right into his face and he starts to choke, his muscles aching and convulsing.
Everyone rush north back to the hunters camp, Varg barely alive as the poison from the spores spreads through his body. Luckily for them, the hunters have a potion from Agata the witch which can cure him, and it ends up saving the wolf's life. They share their adventures with the hunters and decide it is time to head back to safety.
The way home is slow, but mercifully uneventful, until the group are almost at the Domovoi Camp. A small old man dressed in scintillating green robes seems to be waiting for them near the staircases of the dungeon. Varg tries to distract him by summoning another illusion, but the old man is unimpressed and simply dismisses it, approaching the party. He introduces himself as Valvirian the Green Death. Hoot, still mostly out of it from his encounter with the invisible pig, tries to hide behind Mortaron but it is of no use. Valviran had sensed that magic was flowing through his bronze orb and kindly asked the party to give it back. Not willing to pick a fight with a powerful wizard the group handed the artifact back. Valviran, for his part, decided it was fair to repay them for finding his lost property and offered two spells of his impressive repertoire and as well as an engraved pesoglav skull which he had been using as a temporary magical focus. He then leaves down into the deeper parts of the dungeon, and the group finally make it home.
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| Map of the Deep Forest explored in the session, provided by one of the players. |
Observations
A lot ended up happening this session. I only had two players, so each ran two characters each (plus Branimir who is a fairly beefy NPC). They decided that even with reduced numbers it was important to honor their word, so off they went into the Deep Forest.That part of the dungeon I actually structured like a point-crawl rather than the typical detailed rooms. The spaces and size of the place are bigger, each node on the map taking 3 turns to traverse or to explore and each connection also taking 3 turns just to cross. While it didn't matter as far as encounter rolls (which happen once per node and once per transition), it did matter in terms of the light the party had as they managed to go through the entire large bottle of lamp oil the camp gave them, plus some of the batteries on their newly acquire flashlight. Luckily for them a good chunk of the Deep Forest actually has a bioluminescent shimmering light in it, providing enough light to at least navigate on.
For this session random encounters happened on a 2-in-6 rather than 1-in-6 chance and it definitely showed. Despite the session being only about 3 and a half hours, the party had five encounters, though to be fair not all of them hostile. The reason Agata ended up following the party for example is that she was rolled as the random encounter, and while I could simply just pick a different one if that made no sense, I thought it was kind of funny that she had ended up following the group when they left the node her house is in.
Overall the deep forest pointcrawl worked quite well, I think, and the upside of this over a more precise dungeon is of course it is very easy to just pile more and more stuff on there. The Deep Forest does have an effective depth of 3, which matters for Saving Rolls and general challenges to the party, but honestly they seemed to be doing quite well for themselves.
The Basilisk deciding to ambush the characters was also purely a random encounter roll. The fight with him was quite short and brutal. It is likely the only thing of the session I found rather disappointing. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with it, but this has been the first fight using T&T that I felt just ended up feeling a bit flat. The players utilized their abilities and spells quite well and it lead to their victory. I had been worried the Basilisk had very low monster rating (85 in this case), but it also made no sense to have it be stronger. The fact is, concentrated ranged and magic attacks should, in fact, neutralize a singular enemy pretty well and they did. The illusion I thought was a brilliant way to give the party a chance to skip their surprised turn and let them act. Had Branimir and Varg failed their rolls (which both were very tight successes), the whole situation would have likely ended up much, much different. The Basilisk would have likely killed Branimir outright, likely also taking out at least one of the PCs too.
While I do still enjoy T&T combat a lot, this was the first time I felt like this could have been a more entertaining battle using some version of classic D&D instead.
Session Stats
Rooms Explored: 8
Enemies Defeated: 1 - The Basilisk
Characters Dead: 0
