Dragon of IceSpire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 22 - Stinky Fortress

The prep...

Lots of adventure potential in here.

I vaguely remember the Axeholm adventure from when I read it last year. I specifically remembered the banshee haunting the upper floor. I thought there were other undead creatures, but I couldn't remember for sure. So I pulled out the book to review the location and damn! This place is huge, containing lots of empty rooms and when you do run into monsters, they nearly all have the power to paralyze the characters. OK, this will be challenging.

I did like how part of the challenge was getting inside the building. I knew my player had a few tricks up her sleeve, but I was curious to see what she would come up with.

Once again, I took the Dungeon Dudes advice and printed out a copy of the Axeholm map, and then made notes on the same paper. This place had so many rooms, it forced me to write very small, but I focused on keeping my horrible handwriting legible. I made note of the treasure and monsters, but there was an element I wasn't fond of.

You can try to 
escape... but no.

According to the module, the banshee must be fought to the death. In addition there is an interesting story of how the elf that turned into the banshee was imprisoned here. I guess some my come out in dialogue with the banshee, but the way the encounter is set up the characters aren't going to hear it. Now if my player brings along Inverna again (and I think she will since that is her favorite of the companion sidekicks) then we will have two female elves that I think the banshee may want to communicate with. 

So I decided to include another element to the haunting, one where the characters don't have to kill the banshee to end the haunting and get something cool out of it if they follow this path. Besides my player is a big fan of scary movies, ghost stories and spooky podcasts. She will love the challenge of solving the mystery to help a ghost. Luckily I don't have to change too much. 

Future banshee?

I will have the banshee explain that her beloved amulet of the god Corellon was taken from her by the Castilian, who imprisoned her in this place to have her beauty with him at all times. She cursed the whole fortress in her rage and this transformed all of them into undead. If the characters slay all the dwarf ghouls and bring her back her amulet she can finally know peace. Of course the characters are tasked with clearing the fortress out anyway, so that was already in the cards. I hid the amulet in the secret treasure chest that requires the signet ring to open. Once the Banshee has this, she will vanish, leaving the amulet behind, but now it can cast Bless once as a bonus action.

Now this location has an interesting social encounter as well as the exploration and deadly combat. I think this will work well.

But I also needed to prep for the rest of the session which included the aftermath of the siege on the Hunting Lodge, traveling back to Phandalin to get the new job and seeing if they could find a dwarf who could decipher some of the information on the map they will find on the dead body of the orc druid. I got all that prepped Lazy Dungeon Master style and was ready to play.

The story...

We started in the immediate aftermath of the battle at the Hunting Lodge. The ladies helped Falcon find his two assistants and the animals. They also stuck around to clean up the place a bit (moving bodies and restoring the palisade to a semi workable version. They did a little looting of the bodies and found a couple of gems worth some gold. This took a couple of additional days in the world of the game. 

Falcon gave them a letter he wanted them to send to Neverwinter. He seemed to know Haylia and told them that she would be able to get the message to Neverwinter quickly. He gave them a couple gold pieces to cover the delivery. He also said he would help them out if they ever needed it.

Still watching everything in 
town.

Next the pair headed toward Phandalin. I had my player roll for the dragon again, and she saw it lift off from the area of the Shrine and head further north (Neverwinter). They weren't too worried and continued on without going full stealth like they did at the last dragon sighting. Arriving in Phandalin they met up with Haylia to get that letter sent to Neverwinter (that may come into play later if the Druid revisits Falcon). I also reminded them that Haylia had a dwarf working for her, and after they found out where he lived they visited him.

The dwarf reviewed the map they found on the body of the dead anchorite. I mentioned that there was dwarven runes scrawled on the map in certain key areas. The dwarf revealed that they appeared to be names (names of the anchorites in those locations). One showed the tower in the sea, one showed the manse, one showed the Circle of Thunder and one showed the Shrine. By the Shrine the word "Rats" was written. He also found a faint scribble near IceSpire Peak that said "old home". Just some hints to the players at what was going on with these orcs. They did ask about Axeholm and he said he had heard of it, but never been himself. He told them that any good dwarf fortress would be very difficult to get into if it was sealed properly. He did mention that there may be chimneys in the cliff around the gates, and some may be large enough to sneak into. 

Last stop in Phandalin was a visit to Townmaster Harbin. I do love roleplaying as the pompous Harbin and his interaction with Mr. Whiskers, his cat. It was quite a bit of fun having him talk a bit about Axeholm and how it was haunted and how it was in a very mountainous region. This was a not so subtle hint that they characters may need climbing gear... but my player wasn't worried. She had something up her sleeve.

The Druid then confirmed that Inverna could come along on this next adventure. Inverna accepted, but was a bit disappointed that she didn't get to kill more orcs, either at the tower or this broken circle spot on the map. The Druid promised they would head to one of those locations next. So after a good night's sleep they headed southeast to the location of Axeholm.

Rolls for random encounters went well for the characters. They were left alone on the journey. I did mention they passed Umbrage Hill, but I should have reminded them that they could purchase Healing Potions there... something I think we might all regret before this adventure is over.

Spider... did someone say spider?

Upon arriving at Axeholm I described formidable gate, the closed portcullis and the general feeling of unease in the area. The ladies decided to climb the up to one of the chimneys that looked big enough for them to enter (she rolled great on perception). Inverna is strong and athletic so climbing wasn't going to be a problem. And the Druid used a potion of Spider Climb and the two scuttled up the cliff face, and squeezed their way into the upper levels of the gate house.

Since this building is haunted by a banshee, I decided to do some spooky antics in the empty rooms on the second floor. The room she entered (the West Upper Barracks) has a lone shield on the wall. As the ladies got ready to explore I had the shield rattle a bit on the wall. Just a little tapping to startle them, but nothing else. I made it clear that there was no wind in the room, maybe a tremor?

I won't detail all the exploration and slow methodical search my player performed. I will tell you about the battle against the Giant Spiders, because that was nuts. It happens in the Upper Bastion and for my session it was four of these monsters. I described the area as having a strange mist in it (the webs). As she moved forward to examine I had her roll a perception check. She got a 10, so she only discovered at the last minute that the mist was webbing, and then initiative got rolled. The Druid immediately set the web on fire hoping to catch some of the spiders in the flame. I figured half of them would take 1d4 fire damage and she rolled a 4 so that was a good start. But soon enough the bite attack started and she was paralyzed. 

Ok, so I really wanted to avoid a TPK here. Like I said, this is a casual game for fun. It isn't fun to have your character paralyzed and the NPC doing all the work. The Giant Spider does not allow you to attempt to break from the paralysis on each turn, like a grapple. I modified the venom so that it was weaker and she could attempt a Con save each round to try to break out of it. Yeah, it isn't Rules as Written, but for this player and this type of game I think it was fine.

Oh so that is where the smell is coming from.

So she was able to break out of the paralyzed state, but she still had the Poisoned condition on her. So she still used spell Lesser Restoration to remove that. Soon enough Inverna suffered the same fate, being paralyzed for a round and then breaking out. The Druid cast Lesser Restoration again, and eventually the two defeated the four spiders... barely. They were both low on hit points. So they retreated to the Barracks and had a short rest.

At this point I was getting worried. This adventure is balanced for 5th level characters. She is 4th. So I was already wondering if I should maybe drop some of the numbers for the ghoul battles coming up. But then again elves are resistant to ghoul's paralyzing touch... so maybe it isn't so bad after all. I'll have to play it by ear.

The pair explored the northern half of the upper hall. I told them about the smell of death coming from the tunnels below. I had them hear a strange moan coming from across the vaulted ceilings of the Gathering Hall. Eventually they went down to the Lower Halls and explored. They ran into a single ghoul feeding in the West Hall. At that time I forgot that ghouls could not paralyze elves (for some reason I didn't remember that transferring over to 5th edition). So Inverna did get paralyzed, but they made short work of the creature before it could do more damage. I was careful to describe how it was obviously a dwarf that had been warped by some hideous curse or magic. Needless to say the player was disturbed.

We stopped right before they entered the throne room, which should prove very interesting. 

The post...

Payment, one coin at a time.

All in all it was a solid session. The first half was role-playing heavy but a lot of fun as we got things sorted after that last battle and prepped for the new adventure. Getting to play Harbin again is always a treat for me. The second half ran pretty smooth, but it felt a little slow. Much of Axeholm is empty rooms, so it really falls on the DM to build on the dread of the place. Really give the players a feeling that this place is cursed and dangerous. The smell of decay coming from the ghoul nests should drift up tunnels and down open corridors as the players get close to them. Make sure the banshee leaves some ghostly clues like rattling the shield, leaving footprints that disappear as you focus on them, or just moaning in sorrow. The module doesn't really give you those tips, but I think they make this setting come a bit more alive. 

Even so it feels like there should be a little something else to find in here. My player did miss out on an encounter with a Stirge, because she didn't mess with a chimney. And they also didn't go any deeper into a ghoul's nest that they found the entrance to. She'll need to do that at some point, but as a whole the second half felt a little less exciting then I hoped. Still I am looking forward to meeting with the banshee and seeing where that goes.

Up Next...

The Haunting of Axeholm

Dragon of Icespire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 21 - Dueling Druids and a BIG Ham

The prep...

When druids attack!

I was excited to prep for the boss battle of Granoc the orc druid vs. the Druid in front of the burning tree at the Woodland Manse. It was a very cinematic set up. I went over Granoc's stats again, and added a few more druidic abilities that I might use, including the spell Lightning Lure and reskinning it to be blood vines that do bludgeoning damage. I got the boar stats ready, since I figured it would be wild shape against wild shape (the player's Druid was already in the Black Bear form). I also prepped the Twig Blights to keep Inverna's sword occupied.

At the end of the Woodland Manse section there are two recommended follow ups you can add. One was to have the boars and anchorites in the pumpkin patch attack the characters as they leave. I knew my party would be pretty beat up and low on resources after the battle against Granoc, so I decided to have the pumpkin patch party run away (and retreat to the Circle of Thunder). But there was a suggestion of having an attack at Falcon's Hunting Lodge. This made perfect sense to me, so I prepped that.

It would be a group of 20 orcs and their giant spirt of thunder - Gornok the Thunder Boar. This thing is scary as all hell, with multiple lightening and thunder based attacks, a whole bunch of hit points and power. Combined with 20 orcs it seemed like this would be deadly. But I reviewed Falcon's stats, and he was pretty damn skilled with that bow, so I figured it might work out if my player decided to defend the Lodge against Gornok and the orc army.

Two many orcs? Make them minions.

I decided to use the minion concept for the orcs. I gave them two hits a piece. So any successful hit against an orc would drop him to half, and a second hit would kill him. A roll of a natural 20 would be an automatic kill. This would keep combat moving faster and be less fiddly for me to track all the HP for each orc. Since Inverna rolls a critical hit on 19 or 20, that gives her better odds for one shotting some of these orcs. I made twenty boxes on a piece of paper and would track the orcs this way. One slash would be one hit and an X would be a death.

I pulled up all the stats on D&D Beyond in separate tabs and was ready to run these two encounters. Let's face it, this session was back to back boss battles.

The story...

Orc druid is about to monologue.

The session opens with Granoc demanding to know of Falcon sent them. Unfortunately the Druid was in Black Bear form and couldn't answer. And Inverna was just in the mood to kill orcs, "Shut yer trap and let's fight!" was the only answer he got. He declared that even if they defeated him, there were two more dedicated to Talos and it was hopeless to fight them. Yeah it was villain monologuing, but my player got a kick out of it and of course noted the fact that there were two orc "bosses" in the area. After completing his classic nemesis rant, he transformed into a boar and attacked. 

The boar has a powerful initial attack when it charges at an opponent, and that did some damage to the Druid who was already injured because of the fight against the vine blights. But she held her Bear form for a while, putting the smackdown on Granoc. Meanwhile the twig blights burst from the Manse, four in total, and swarmed Inverna. They didn't hurt her too much, but it kept her from helping the Druid during her battle.

Eventually the orc shaman was forced out of his boar shape, not once, but twice! He attempted to strike back with his spells, like Thunderwave and even my adapted Bloodline Lure spell. This caused the Druid to fall out of Wild Shape, but she got her quarterstaff all shillelaghed up and continued the beat down. Inverna joined in and Granoc called out to Talos for aid even as he was slain and the tree burned to ash in the well behind him. Victory!

Not exactly the most fashionable.

As I estimated both ladies were beaten up pretty good and low on resources. They completed the search of the Manse, and didn't find any other enemies. They briefly discussed burning the place down, but decided against it. The returned to Falcon's Hunting Lodge. He met with them and they discussed what they found. He gave them the Boots of Elven Kind and thanked them for their help. They decided to stay the night and get a good rest.

Unfortunately the morning brought with it a massive thunderstorm. It was pouring rain and the lightening was fierce. The ladies decided to stay until the storm broke and avoid the mud and rain (and possibly getting lost in the Neverwinter woods). As they were enjoying warm cider by the fire, the stablehand Pel raced in looking for Falcon. The boy saw orcs on the march! The adventurers hurried up the stone tower attached to the Lodge and saw a mass of orcs and something huge behind them, marching toward them. Falcon joined the ladies and explained that they needed to decide now: defend the Lodge or escape.

The héros were in the tower on the
east side of the map.

The Druid pondered this and asked Falcon how skilled he was with the bow. He smiled and said, he's been known to be a fair shot (and she could tell he was attempting to be humble). The trio decided to defend the Lodge. They had little time. Falcon had Corwin and Pel try to wrangle the animals and get them out of the lodge before the orcs arrived. He also told the noble guests to leave. The guests were outraged, "I did not pay for an orc invasion Sir! I demand a refund!" But they fled back to Neverwinter as fast as their horses could carry them.

I told the player that they had to hold off the attack for three rounds. It would be enough to allow Corwin, Pel and the animals to escape the lodge confines. Then the attack began. The trio of heroes use the tower as defense, giving them a +5 to their AC for 2/3 cover. Both Falcon and Inverna had longbows with plenty of range (Falcon firing twice per round). The druid had a mess of spells at her disposal, but knew that orcs were strong and had a high constitution. Entangle wouldn't be nearly as effective against them... but Web would work great once they were in range. Falcon and Inverna rained arrows down on the orcs, who started throwing javelins back at them. 

Then Gorthok the Thunder Boar emerged from the rain, the orcs parted and the giant boar bathed in lightening hurtled toward the palisade. The orcs held their ground using javelins to attack, and waiting for Gorthok to punch through the defenses so they could pour in. As Gorthok hurtled forward, the Druid cast Web on the ground in front of it, guessing correctly that its Dexterity score would be one of it's weaker stats. She guessed right, Gorthok was ensnared by the web and Inverna and Falcon took shots at it. But they quickly realized that normal weapons weren't doing nearly as much damage as they could. 

Elemental boar spirit on the rampage!

The Druid told them to stay focused on whittling down the orcs (they had killed a couple already with Falcon rolling crits a number of times during this battle). She focused her magic attacks on Gorthok. Now the giant boar may be strong but he is not bright. I rolled a Wisdom check and once he broke free he just moved forward into the palisade, but without the running start he did little damage to it. So he turned around and raced back to the orc line to attack again. The Druid cast Moonbeam in his path, so he took magical radiant damage as he charged through it. She then kept moving it on her bonus action and casting Produce Flame at him when he was close enough as an action. She was doing enough damage to the creature to really make a difference. 

Not to say the trio didn't take their own hits. A few times orc javelins managed to hit Falcon and Inverna, and those did hurt. In addition Gorthok got mad at taking so much damage and not managing to crush the pallisade on the first or second collision. He called lightening and it struck. But all the heroes made their dexterity saves and only took half damage. Gorthok kept rolling to recharge that magical attack, but kept failing.

By the time the wall was breached, half the orcs were dead and many were wounded. Gorthok burst into the compound and started bashing things up, still unable to charge his only ranged attack. The Druid moved her Moonbeam directly over the breach so the orcs had to move through it to enter the compound. I kept rolling Wisdom saves to see if any of them would retreat or try to go around. But these guys were so filled with confidence that Gorthok would save them that they ran right at the Moonbeam. Four were killed instantly and the six remaining ones took damage going through, and were easy for Falcon and Inverna to finish off. 

The Druid continued to focus on Gorthok burning him with tiny flames, even as he trashed the compound. Eventually he started ramming into the tower they were in, but it was too little too late. The remaining orcs were killed, so the Moonbeam was moved on top of Gorthok, arrows rained down and he couldn't recharge his attack. The Moonbeam finished him, and with a terrific thunderclap he exploded into a mass of power, shadow and energy. The Druid was disturbed... what was this creature? As soon as Gorthok was destroyed, the rain stopped and the sky above them started to clear. That is where we ended the session.

The post...

Definitely the hero of the siege.

This was a wonderfully fun session, but also a bit exhausting. Back to back boss battles is exhilarating, and the Druid player really handled the whole siege so well. The first battle was a lot of fun with the two druids using their Wild Shapes to defeat each other, and the burning tree as the backdrop made for some fun descriptions. I was tracking the damage for the tree the whole time (telling the player to roll higher and higher damage dice the longer the tree burned). This increased the excitement as the damage numbers got higher and higher. And having the climax of the tree finally being destroyed just as the orc druid perished was a cinematic ending to the Woodland Manse adventure.

I admit right off the bat that I could have played the siege a little harsher. The orcs could have been smarter and climbed over the palisade as Gorthok was attacking and made a run at the characters in the tower. I could have had the pouring rain impact all the ranged attacks. I could have had Gorthok attack the tower immediately upon breaching the pallisade instead of destroying the flimsy barn first. 

But I know my player pretty well. I know what is fun for her, and that this is a game being played to relax and enjoy some adventures. She wants challenge, which this siege certainly delivered. But she also wants to feel like there is some possibility of victory. She never lost hope as a player or character during the siege, and with all the crap the past year threw at us, I love that this game allowed her to hope. So yeah, I fudged things a bit, but she had a blast. She was exhausted but all smiles at the end of that massive battle. Her Druid was the hero who almost single handedly defeated this elemental spirit. She felt like the fantasy hero she wanted to be - that is why we play.

Using the minion rules for the orcs worked perfectly for this encounter. It kept things moving so quickly, and yet never let the orcs feel ineffective. Those javelins hit enough times to remind the player that the orcs were deadly and only the stone walls of the tower were keeping them from getting destroyed. Inverna got real low on hit points after only two javelin hits. Anyway, as a whole this session just flew by, and we played for nearly five hours because it was so much fun. We are both looking forward to the next session.

Up Next...

Stinky Fortress

Dragon of Icespire Peak Campaign Diary - Episode 20 - Orc Webbing and Black Bear Brawlin'

 The prep...

Time to smash some elves.

In light of how I felt during the last session, I headed over to one of my favorite Dungeons and Dragons YouTube content creators: The Dungeon Dudes. I remembered that they covered running a game based off a module, so I decided to give that a rewatch and see if there were any tips they had. Sure enough, the Dungeon Dudes had some great advice.

They suggested printing the map out and then making some quick notes right on the paper. This way you don't have to keep flipping to the section in the book as much. I did this (but I admit right now, my handwriting is pretty dreadful. Hopefully I'll be able to read my notes). I also used sticky note tabs to flag the places in the module where the monster stat blocks are located (I'll also try to remember to open tabs on my tablet in D&D Beyond before the game. But this is a good back up in case I forget to). 

The Dudes also suggested creating a roster of main NPCs and villains so you can keep it all straight. Now Dragon of Icespire Peak is a bit unique in that it is fairly short (for an official campaign) and that it doesn't really have an antagonist that directly interacts with the party that much. Cryovaine is just a menace tormenting the people around Phandalin. He doesn't have an active plot or design. He's just hungry, bored and enjoys terrorizing folks.

But the orcs worshiping Talos... I could do something with them. I went over the sections of the module where they appeared and found three named Anchorites of Talos. I essentially made these the sub-antagonists for the campaign. These three would be coordinating the orc takeover of this area. The party would learn more from the first encounter with one of the three: Grannoc the shaman. Grannoc is the big bad guy at this location. So I would have him do an evil monologue about how he was one of three and defeating him would only strengthen the other two.

But digging up these named half-orcs and having them handy I will be able to foreshadow events later. I kinda wish I did this from the beginning, but hey, I got it down now and hopefully it will make the later adventures against the orcs feel a bit more planned.

I did some minor work with the other two half-orcs seeing them as a cleric and a paladin of sorts for Talos. I might tweak with their stat blocks to give them some abilities of those classes (clerical spells and smites). We'll see how it goes with this one.

After that, I gave everything a review going by the Lazy Dungeon Master material. Not a lot to change form the last session, just a few more notes about the three anchorites. I felt ready to run the session.

The story...

Is your kitchen rated for shape changing
druids?

So we picked up with the pair of heroes exploring the Manse and seeking out a way to clear it out. The Druid reverted back to her elf form and with Inverna the two decided to go upstairs. Unfortunately the stair were trapped and the Druid failed her Dexterity Saving Throw (a trend to continue through the night). After taking a bit of damage, she used Misty Step to teleport to the top of the stairs. She had Inverna hold the lower level. They each had Sending Stones from early on in the campaign, and they could use these to communicate.

Now I did screw up a bit here. There are Stirges hiding at the top of the stairs, and I forgot to have them attack right away. I ended up using them later, but just something I should have been more mindful of. The Druid did great on her perception checks, and found foot prints leading to where a group of orcs were hiding out. She also explored the Master Bedroom and found all the magic items inside the loose stone in the mantle as well as finding the magic item vault. Of course my description of the secret door was pretty obvious (hidden behind a tall painting of a waterfall). The Druid recognized the Cloak of Billowing and got a kick out of it (it featured in a D&D live play she watched). But she was unfamiliar with the other items. 

Repulsive little beasts.

The Druid then used the Sending Stone to communicate to Inverna to come up using the vine covered balcony. The warrior did this and felt she was unobserved. The two then made their way back to where the orcs were hiding out. They burst in and attacked. The Druid cast Web and nabbed two of the five. One was slowed but not restrained and the other two attacked. These orcs were rolling really badly to escape the webs. But they did hit the heroes a few times, nearly killing The Druid again (she keeps refusing to Wild Shape). Finally she torched the restrained orcs in the web, and they looked for a location to take a rest. Here is where I unleashed the Stirges on them. But a well timed Moonbeam  spell took out most of the vile creatures and Inverna rolled a natural 20 on her shot with the bow, so they were not a threat.

The two went to the magical vault and took that short rest to get some hit points and spell slots back. The player also took some time to look at the strange metal rod they found. After playing around with it, she realized it was an Immovable Rod. The concept delighted the player and she started thinking up all kinds of ways to use it. Then they continued exploring (using the rod as a makeshift stepladder to climb from a second story window).

Those orcs were hiding upstairs.

They had seen the strange tree growing out of the well in the central courtyard from the windows above. So they made their way down. Now this whole time I was rolling behind the screen to see if anyone was going to be looking for the Black Bear that the magical Boars saw wander in the kitchen. But luck was on their side, and they weren't looking in the right rooms.

So the elves examine the tree and find that it smells like blood, has an oily texture to the bark and is just generally gross. The Druid assumes that some evil magic is at work (she's right of course) and declares that the tree must be burned down. She decides to her combo of Web and Produce Flame to burn the tree down. The minute she webbed the tree the two Vine Blights hiding in the tree emerged and attacked. 

The battle was going poorly for the Druid as she kept failing her Strength and Dexterity saves to avoid being entangled by the grasping vines. They were both taking quite a beating, and this forced the Druid to finally wild shape into a Black Bear again. With the added strength and extra attack she did more damage to the cursed vines and the elves won.

The tree burning was bound to attract attention and soon the Anchorite of Talos, Granoc the Druid emerged from the ruined laboratory. Enraged at Inverna for burning down his tree and seeing the black bear he was warned about running amok, he took matters into his own hands. With a sinister threat he prepared to attack... next session.

The post...

Evil on the vine!

So this session went a lot smoother than the last. My description makes it seem short, but there was a lot of careful creeping around the manse, as well as lots of conversation and pondering on how to best explore and what to do. Also role-playing the two characters messing with the Immovable Rod was a lot of fun (and a nice slow point between the combat encounters). It was a solid balance of exploration, roleplaying and action. I will say that they nearly got overwhelmed by those orcs. Those axes hit hard and it was only through bad saving throws for the two webbed ones that they were able to hold their ground.

Printing out the map and making notes right on the paper was a HUGE help. I only opened the book to check the monster stats. I was using my laptop to show the player the map of the manse, otherwise I would have had the laptop displaying the monster stats and would have barely opened the book at all. I also prepped the magic cards early on, but I should have prepped my combat information on paper ahead of time. I usually write down AC and HP for the monsters head of time so it is all in one place and I don't have to keep referring to it. 

All in all it was a fun session and leaving it as a cliffhanger for facing the boss of the area is going to be exciting. Probably the first Boss Battle of the campaign. I'm pondering having him wild shape into a boar to attack them to start for a real battle royale. And lets not forget there are still some Twig Blights hanging around. Looking forward to the next session.

Up next...

Dueling Druids and a BIG Ham

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