The Dragon of Icespire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 15 - Fractured Facktore Tales and the Amazing Blunicorn

The prep...

Crossbow machine to the north and wine room
of death to the east. Nice and safe.

So I had most of the material prepped already for this session. The big change was turning Fracktore, the gnome in room G7 from an insane scientist into a traumatized witness to the murders of the gnomes in the dining room. I took this idea from Sly Flourish and his excellent article about running this adventure. This allows the characters to use roleplaying to get more information out of her about what she witnessed. Her paranoia is fueled by the fact that she saw the attack, and realizes that the attacker is a shapeshifter of some kind. This gives the players another ally they can use as they work their way through the complex, one with a bit of knowledge.

I re-read about the rooms the trio hadn't explored yet, just to get a refresher about them. I was going to have the attack occur in the room G8, with the wine casks for sure. I also prepped the magical items that the characters would get from this excursion. I felt like we were good with ending this portion of the adventure tonight. I got my gnome voices ready and then we started.

The story...

The Rogue, Druid and Donnabella (magical unicorn) discussed where they wanted to go next. They were warned about the crazy gnome Fractore, in the room to the south, but they hoped that maybe they could get past her without things getting out of hand. The players were extremely cautious moving down the corridors. I described how this corridor was different. As they neared the room, torches were set up, as well as lamps.

Alternate crossbow machine, human made instead of
gnome made.

The Druid rolled a high perception roll and I told her that she realized that the positioning of the torch would cause her shadow to move in front of her as she walked down the corridor. They realized that Fracktore was using this as a way to determine when someone was coming down the hall. The Rogue used her sneaky skills to inch down the corridor, masking her shadow with clever placement. She was able to peek into the next room and get a good look at the room layout and the mechanical crossbow design.

The Rogue went back to the group and they discussed a little further. The machine could fire a crossbow in four different directions and was controlled by a gnome operator in the seat above the crossbows. They decided to try to talk to Fracktore and hopefully get the gnome to stay calm. They made a big production about going down the hall, and the gnome called out a warning. They responded that they were here to catch the murderer, and needed her help. She didn't trust them, saying any one of them could be the killer. The discussion continued, but Fracktore lost her patience and fired down the hall at them. She missed, and the Rogue used a well placed arrow to damage the machine.

"I swear it was supposed to do that... any data
is good data!"

This caused a break in the attack and made room for more talking. The group explained that they had talked with the kings and the inventors and were really there to help. Some high persuasion rolls (thanks to the Druid's awesome hat) were able to convince Fracktore that they were honest folk. The gnome described how she was in the dining room discussing how there shouldn't be two cutlery cabinets. She is in charge of work orders and if anyone is going to be building cabinets, they need to clear it with her. Suddenly the cabinet attacked! It had teeth and a horribly long tongue and messily devoured two gnomes before she was able to run away.

The group noticed that her tools on her belt were well cared for and very shiny. They reasoned that the shimmering the King saw during the attack could have been the sunlight from the nearby cave entrance reflecting off Fracktore's tool belt (I admit I had to stretch that a bit, but it got the group to stop obsessing over the "shimmering light clue"). The gnome explained how she had been hard at work on this machine for days and had little sleep. The group promised to guard her while she took a nap, and this boosted her trust in them. She vowed to help them out after a couple of hours rest.

The group took this time to talk about the possible shapeshifters this creature might be. They didn't roll all that well, and couldn't come up with anything. Once Fracktore was awake she joined them on their continued exploration of the complex.

To quote one of players, "Ewww, just... ewww."

Up next was the wine cask room, where the murderer was hidden. They walked in and I described how there were twelve barrels of wine in the room as well as a couple of gnome sized mugs on the wall. They asked Fracktore about the room, and she told them how they would move the barrels around using the crab contraption machines. She said that it was part of her job to keep an inventory over all eleven barrels. The Rogue was getting some wine at that moment, picking the barrel right next to the one where the mimic was hiding. I rolled a D12 and got an 11 for mimic placement. The Rogue was at barrel twelve.

The players picked up immediately that Fracktore said eleven barrels and there were twelve in here. The Rogue immediately backed away from the barrels. I rolled a 1D4 behind my screen: evens it attacked her, odds it did nothing. I rolled a 3. The group asked Fracktore if it was possible that someone added a new barrel. She said they would have to have a work order and no one had given her one in the past few days - because she was shooting at anyone who came down the hall.

The Rogue pulled out some ball bearings form her pack and then started to toss them at each of the barrels. She skipped the one she had pulled a drink of wine from, and went for the one next to it. I described how the ball bearing didn't bounce off but sunk in for a moment. Then we rolled initiative.

Donnabella in one of the pre-chosen forms!

It was a fun battle, with the mimic being a gross creature and its tongue being just plain disgusting to the players. Donnabella cast Firebolt and a wild magic effect occurred - she turned blue! At that moment the group dubbed her the Amazing Blu-nicorn. The Rogue took some shots at the monster, but it moved in close and attacked her, doing some serious damage. The Druid cast Moonbeam on the creature. This caused a wild magic effect of the Druid sprouting wings! But more importantly the moonbeam attack caused the mimic to drop it's disguise. They saw it as a puddle of translucent goo. More fire spells were unleashed and the moonbeam did a good amount of damage. The creature was finally slain.

With that accomplished the trio went back to tell the inventors and the kings the good news. There was much rejoicing, and the kings kept up their end of the deal. They ordered that their best magical inventions be given to these heroes. The characters received a Hat of Wizardry, a Wand of Pyrotechnics, a Clockwork Amulet and a Pole of Collapsing. I think the players were a bit disappointed by the bounty. Still they decided to accept the gnomish hospitality for the evening and sup with them and talk about their adventures.

The post...

Sometimes a barrel of monkeys is just a barrel of
monkeys and not a mimic.

This session was a bit strange because we only really had two encounters the whole night. They spent a lot of time around Fracktore, first trying to figure out how to approach her, next spending time discussing what she saw and how she could help them. It was some good roleplaying and I think the players really felt bad for the poor traumatized gnome. After that the whole sequence in the wine storage room was pretty suspenseful, especially when they realized there were too many wine casks in the room. They spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the best way to reveal the killer - if there was one and it wasn't just an extra barrel that was delivered without Fracktore knowing.

I did end up speeding through the bit at the end with the kings and the awarding of the gifts. We were running out of time for the session and I wanted wrap up the adventure and not leave any dangling for the next session. The players were having a good time, but I also go the feeling that they were ready to head back to Phandalin for the festival.

Up Next...

Session 16: Botched Bountyhunters