Dragon of Icespire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 19 - The Falcon and the Pumpkin Patch

The prep...

"My friends call me Falcon."

So I was a caught off guard by the next session. My Druid player wanted to jump right in a couple of days later. I was good with that. However I didn't realize that the session could contain possibly two locations. One was Falcon's Hunting Lodge featuring at least three non-player characters (NPCs) the Druid may want to interact with. The other was the Woodland Mance, which was a two story house filled with dangerous monsters and a mystery of sorts. Two very different locations with a lot to wrangle in a short amount of time.

I skimmed over the section on the Hunting Lodge, focusing on the NPCs. I made some notes on them and how they would interact with the player. I also went over Falcon's motivation for hiring the adventurers in the first place. This guy is a bad ass former adventurer himself and the section points out that he has killed orcs recently. So why isn't he hunting down the source at the Woodland Manse himself? I decided that he couldn't go because he had guests staying for a lengthy amount of time at his home. He needed to entertain these nobles (and get paid). This means that I had to cobble some additional noble NPCs together as well. Nothing too detailed, but if the Player wanted to meet or chat with them I had to come up with something.

I got that done and then really gave the Woodland Manse my attention. Skimming again to get idea of the key monsters, treasure and secrets within. I didn't really focus on the rooms and where stuff was placed. I figured I could use the book as a guide to trigger my memories as we played. I probably should have done a bit more.

Last I went through the Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master tips. I reviewed the characters, created a strong start (pulled my random encounter idea from the previous session to be the opening encounter of this session), plotted out possible scenes (focusing mostly on the Hunting Lodge and Pumpkin Patch around the Manse) and then pulled together some secrets and clues for the session. 

I felt pretty prepared, but that was my first mistake. 

The story...

Plenty of adventures in the area.

I asked the Druid if she had anything else she wanted to prep for the journey to Falcon's Lodge. She got directions from Barthen, and he asked her if the creatures at the Logger's Camp might have been in league with the dragon. She didn't think so, but it seems like the idea never occurred to her. Pondering this, she left Phandalin with Inverna and started on their way down the Triboar Trail toward Conyberry. The idea was to travel about a day, and then find the game trail leading to the lodge.

One thing I forgot to do in the last session was roll for the location of the dragon, Cryovain. So I did that and turns out he was on his way to the Shrine of Savras - which near Conyberry. This means he has to fly over the Triboar trail. The Druid freaks out! She grabs Inverna and the two take cover in the trees as the the creature flies by. They didn't do well on stealth rolls, so Cryovain saw them, but he is much more interested in the tasty ogre hanging out at the shrine. The two waited there for a while, and then continued following the trail but staying much closer to the forest. They camped for the night and didn't light a fire.

The next day they started on their way along the trail, heading toward the Hunting Lodge. Here I placed the undead orc encounter. They found symbols of Talos the storm god carved into some of the trees. They'd seen these symbols on many of the orcs they faced before. So immediately they were ready for anything. They came to some slaughtered forest animals, and then to an orc pinned to a tree by a stag's antlers. Both were dead. As the Druid examined the scene the undead orc moved and battle began.

I threw another one into the mix to face down Inverna. The Druid was trying to conserve her spells and not draw attention using anything too noisy. So she repeatedly tryied to use Frostbite on the zombies. But they kept making their Constitution saves. Eventually she used a combo of Web and then Produce Flame to catch and burn the horror. Inverna made short work of hers, and helped finish off the other. The ladies then hurried away from the scene, worried that they might attract a dragon or more zombies. And yes, the Druid made sure she put out the fire. She wasn't about to burn down Neverwinter Woods.

Lodge or palatial estate?

Eventually they came to the Lodge, which is more like a small fortress. This confused the Druid, and I admit it does seem a bit strange to have this massive sprawling place as a "lodge". As a DM I know why the writers did this based on later story events. But I was able to explain it away as needing to be impressive looking for Falcon's noble clientele. The thing was, the fortress looked deserted (there are only three people running the place and two guests).

So the Druid was super cautious and transformed into a mastiff and along with Inverna the two tried to look like they were out hunting in the area, while surveying the building. As a mastiff, the Druid could smell the livestock inside the compound, but still not hear anything. Eventually the two went to the back door and knocked. 

I had Corwin the cook answer, and let the ladies in (the Druid dropped her mastiff form). They explained they were here to help with the orc problem. He lead them into the lodge itself, and the met the stablehand Pell. Soon Falcon came down and chatted with them about the job. He explained that if they could clear out the Manse he would give them some magical boots that would help with stealthing around. He gave them directions to the Manse and invited them to stay the night and enjoy a meal. They did just that.

So many pumpkins so little time.

The next day they traveled to the Manse, which was about a half day's journey away. They kept quiet and eventually came upon the pumpkin patches around the Manse. There were boars feasting in the patch, and the Druid rolled high on her perception and recognized one with a chipped tusk as the boar they encountered in the previous session. She cast Detect Magic and sure enough the three of the nine visible boars glowed with magical powers - as did the pumpkins! Puzzled by this, the ladies crept around the home getting a good look at it from the outside and noting the doors and windows. Unfortunately there were boars all around, and no way to get by without being seen.

They retreated into the woods and the Druid wild shaped into a cat. She then snuck forward through the pumpkin patch and past the boars. The door in the back was broken, and so she was able to get in that way. She explored the kitchen, and the pantry which had a roof that was caved in. She climbed up the walls and out the hole in the roof. Up there she could peek into windows and found a bathroom. She climbed down and peeked into one more window to see the dining room - and the strange twig dolls of both her and Inverna. Creepy, especially since the dining room was covered with scrawled blood symbols of Talos.

She went back and talked with Inverna about what she found. They chatted a bit more and decided to see if they could distract the boars and allow Inverna to get inside. So the Druid wild shaped again, this time into a black bear. The normal boars were terrified and two fled, but one of the magical boars just backed up and watched the bear carefully. The Druid played the bear as if it was just hungry for pumpkins and trying to find the best one. Inverna took the initiative and snuck into the Manse easily. Then the Druid pretended to sniff something on the air of the kitchen and go lumbering inside. The magical boar watched her and went racing to the front of the house.

Now they were inside and ready to explore a bit more. We ended there for the evening.

The post...

What is really growing in 
the pumpkin patch!

So there was quite of bit of exploration in animal forms this time. This kind of stealth reconnaissance can feel like it slowing down the game, but my player seemed to enjoy it. She always plays pretty cautious and it usually works out for her (especially since it is just the two of them). The only thing I screwed up was not have a firm idea in my head of the layout of Falcon's Lodge and what was in the rooms for the Manse. I ended up referring to the adventure book A LOT. I really try to avoid doing that, because it slows the pacing of the game down.

I realized I had gotten so used to creating my own material and therefore knowing it so well that this kind of thing didn't really happen. But here it was tricky because the Druid was a cat and therefore could climb all over the place pretty easily. So any idea of prepping for the probable order of exploration would have been wasted anyway.

I asked the player if she felt I was dragging the pacing with my constant reference to the books. Either she was being kind, or it just felt like it was taking way longer than it really was. In any case, I need to really read those room descriptions a bit better before our next session. 

I think the rest of the session went well. The roleplaying at Falcon's was fun. The encounter with the zombie orcs was surprising to the player and just dangerous enough to keep things exciting. And I'm so glad I remembered to roll for the dragon. That whole sequence with them hiding was really intense and brought back the reminder that Cryovain is always around. Looking forward to the next session when we dive deeper into the dangers of the Woodland Manse.

Up next...

Episode 20: Orc Webbing and Black Bear Brawling