The first and most important thing to note, is that the party comp is fucked, because we’re ALL casters. [Me: Yasmin, goblin warlock. @spookywriters: Leum, tiefling/half-dragon sorcerer. Stumbleduck, the 102 year old gnomish wizard, and an unrelated gnomish artificer whose name I did not catch, and her golem Scraggle.]
Things began, as they are prone to doing, on the road, with the four of us in a cart en route to the town of Rivermoor. There’s an awkward silence, which gets awkwarder and silencer after Stumbleduck introduces himself.
Saving us from this social anxiety, however, the cart stops, on account of the driver being shot dead with arrows. We spend...too much time debaing what to do about this, and eventually, as we hear footsteps approaching, we spring[?] into action.
Leum swings open the door, to reveal a bandit! I loose a blast of eldrich energy at his face. Badly. I scrape his shoulder a bit but that’s it. The artificiar and Scraggle head out the other side of the cart, to discover two more bandits up the grassy bank armed with bows, and gets shot at, while Stumbleduck, hiding beneath the wheels, harrasses the closer bandit with frost rays.
Leum tries to push the closest bandit out of the cart with his quarterstaff, without much success, at which point Yasmin whips out her daggers and...cuts his head fully off, surprisingly.
Back at the other side, artificer and Scraggle take cover behind the cart, she using her crossbow to engage in a shootout with the bandits. This cut short when between Leum using fire bolt, and Stumbleduck using control flames, the cover the bandits are using is very much turned against them.
The immediate danger dealt with, the two gnomes take the place of our unfortunate driver.
Our next stumbling block on the way to Rivermoor comes as we arrive at a bridge, only to find there’s an 8 foot or so portion of it missing. Between the relatively burly tiefling, and Scraggle the golem, some large stones are eventually pushed into the river below to form a walkway part of the way across, and then Yasmin is able to tie a rope to the other side using mage hand, and everyone is able to cross, though we’re forced to abandon the cart and horses in the process.
Following the road on foot, we come across an injured deer. At the artificers’ behest, the party pauses her to tend to the deer, which has an arrow in it’s hind leg. Between her medicinal knowledge, and Stumbleduck using control flames to cauterise the wound, it seems the deer has more or less been tended to. At which point three hunters [or possibly bandits?] appear, mildly threatening as they inform us the deer is their kill.
A brief argument ensues, with the artificer and Stumbleduck both trying to appeal for the deer’s life, while Leum and Yasmin are not exactly eager to get into a fight over this deer. Before it can be resolved, however, these three hunters are shot dead by definitely bandits from the trees.
The party breaks for the trees, trying to get cover and hide, Stumbleduck using magic to put the deer to sleep so it doesn’t give us away, as Scraggle picked them up and brought them with us.
Now all hiding, the group spots three bandits. One short, one with a bow, and one who is muscular aka ‘Muscle Man’.
Yasmin attempts to distract the bandits by removing her bright, patchwork poncho and using mage hand to carry it off, feigning realistic motion as well as she can. This does succeed in distracting the short bandit, who is then absolutely floored by a quarterstaff blow to the head by Leum.
Yasmin attempts to eldrich blast the bow wielding bandit, but rolls the first nat 1 on the session [and thus, campaign], instead exploding the tree she was hiding behind, but avoiding injury from the shrapnel, though she’s knocked prone.
Stumbleduck uses his ray of frost to snipe muscle man from a distance, the artificer, likewise, shooting at the bandit’s knees. Though her shots aren’t quite on point, they’re at least in the general leg area, and together, the two manage to hinder his movement considerably.
Once Yasmin picks herself back up, an eldrich blast that hits true, combined with having previously hexed the bow wielding archer, just immediately obliterates them, while the short bandit is still on the floor from Leum’s initial attack. Between the rays of frost, and just getting surprise bodied by Scraggle out of nowhere, the muscle man falls, and when the short bandit does finally pick himself up, Leum puts him right back down again, permanently this time.
The group travels alongside the road by the cover of the trees with what little light remains, before setting up camp for the night, still some hours from the nearest built up location. Not Rivermoor, but an outpost on the way to it.
Morning comes, and with it, the group has reached Level 2! And uh...the deer left overnight. To survive, perhaps.
This close to the outpost, we’re at less risk of bandits, and the rest of the trip there is uneventful.
Upon arrival, the group splits up, the artificer heading straight for the nearest [and sole] alchemist’s, accompanied by Stumbleduck, while Yasmin and Leum head for the inn. Also, asking if there were any carts around was mishead as guards, which led to talk of cartwheeling guards and other such nonsense.
Finding the alchemists to be closed and showing no sign of anyone being home, the two gnomes rejoin us at the inn, Stumbleduck flirting[?] with the innkeeper[????] before getting up on one of the tables and loudly asking if anyone had any sidequests- I mean...if anyone had any jobs.
A very drunken farmer approaches us, babbles about how all his crops have been dying and then passes out. We find directions to the man’s farm from a friend of his, and go check it out. Both the artificer and Yasmin now being able to cast detect magic, we find traces of magic all over the field, concentrated in some spots, but after having Scraggle dig, all we find is that these spots are wetter than others, no physical object emitting the magic.
A further investigation finds a water barrel beside the farmhouse, that is ABSOLUTELY giving off the same magic. At this point, the most likely suspect is our missing alchemist.
There’s some back and forth between the outpost and the farm, getting information, and we find out the farmer gets his water from one of several nearby streams, and following the stream in question back to it’s source, we find the shattered remains of a bottle that contains the same poisonous magical essense, but has no identifying features. Strangely, he states he’s not the only one to get his water here, but there are a number of farms and only his has been struggling.
Returning to the outpost, we once again split up, the two gnomes seeing what the blacksmith and general store have to offer, while Yasmin enlists Leum’s aid in breaking into the Alchemist’s store via a back window.
Inside, I find my way to where they work, and find a locked door, borrowing Leum’s thieves’ tools, but am unable to properly use them, and am denied entry, opting to pilfer a couple of healing potions before leaving the way I came in, giving one to Leum.
The gnomes meanwhile, have heard from the various stores that bandit attacks are causing a shortage of supplies, and decide to go to the guards to enquire about the bandit issues. They’re directed to a man named Lead, seemingly the commander of the guards at this outpost.
Yasmin and Leum rejoin our gnomish travelling companions as Lead explains to them that the outpost doesn’t have enough guards to launch an attack on the bandits without leaving itself open to attack, but is eventually convinced that our magical talents may make the difference.
At this point it is...big Yasmin idea hours, as I point out that we have a barrel full of magical poison at our disposal. Collectively, a plan is hatched to have Stumbleduck ride out in a cart, the poison disguised in alchol barrels provided by the innkeeper, while the rest of us, plus Lead, trail behind. Stumblduck claims he can play dead, to which Yasmin is surprised by the idea that he can be quiet for long enough [as he’s quite talkative], prompting the artificer to ask him to demonstrate when he proclaims his talent at playing dead.
Little acting is needed, however, as when shot at, our wizardly ally is reduced to a mere 2 hp by an arrow. As the rest of the party trails the bandits, who fall for the plan perfectly and drive the cart through the woods towards their base, I use the healing potion I stole from the alchemist’s store to heal Stumbleduck, and we catch up.
Sadly, there’s only 5 bandits at the camp when we trail them there, but a plan is hatched to take care of them subtly, so that when more return, they partake of the poison, none the wiser.
Those present, at least, though disappointed to find they have stolen water rather than wine, still drink, 3 of the 5 taking sick. This is the best we can hope for, and we strike.
Stumbleduck opens the attack by manipulating the campfire one of the non-sick bandits is sat at to punch him in the face with it [removing the bandit’s facial hair] while the artificer commands Scraggle to attack the man, finishing him off.
Leum gets up close and personal with the trio of bandits currently throwing up, while Yasmin takes shots at them from a distance, dispatching one after a couple of shots.
As the [perfectly healthy] captain of the bandits comes back out from his tent, Stumbleduck and Scraggle engage him. Leum, meanwhile, has one bandit throw up on his pants, while another overcomes his nausea enough to swing at him with a knife.
The guard commander, Lead, joins Leum and contributes exactly nothing, all of his attacks missing, leaving Leum to shock this knife wielding bandit with shocking grasp over and over [and over] until he finally dies, it transpiring that he was actually the liutenant.
The captain, meanwhile, is doing fairly well despite fighting Stumbleduck and Scraggle at once, although the golem manages to knock him into the tent, tangling him up briefly.
At this point, Yasmin chooses to engage him up close, and when he takes the bait and lands a swing on her, he gets a fairly significant Hellish Rebuke for his troubles, which goes some way to softening him up.
A nat 20 from the artificer [her second of the fight, I believe] produces a powerful crossbow shot that takes out one of the captain’s arms, and looking quite rough now, he makes the not especially sound decision to attempt throwing his sword at her like a javelin.
This does not work, and she immediatly picks up the sword.
The other bandits now dispatched, Lead makes his way over to the captain. His first slash...misses! His second...hits! In his first successful strike of the entire fight, he takes the captain’s head off!
In a smart move, Stumbleduck has us load the bodies onto the cart, along with the bandit’s existing water supply, leaving them with only the poisoned water, and between some use of mending and general group effort, we tidy up signs of our fight as best we can, alongside retrieving some of the supplies the outpost was waiting on, and about 50GP worth of...I don’t know, stuff?
Yasmin also discovers the captain’s sword, now in the artificer’s possession, is magical, but it’s basically just a +1 short sword, so she’s not too fussed about it.
And so our first session ends, none the wiser as to who has poisoned one of the various nearby springs or why, but at least having caused considerable inconvenience to the local bandit population. And hey, only one of us got close to dying!
Uh, at least, that I know of. Scraggle was getting hit a lot. In any case, excited to see how this very squishy adventure unfolds.
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