Bounty Hunters - Session 16

Continued overland trek

• The group starts making a beeline to the East, over the plains
• Encounter time!
• Three barrels on the ground. A thirsty Whip moves straight for them, and they attack!
  • They are three mimics! Four intellect devourers jump from the trees and engage various members of the party while the mimics surround Whip and try to eat him.
  • One manages a hit and socks his brain with some psychic damage to boot, but he manages to resist being stunned.
  • The general strategy ends up being "target the surrounded fighter with thunder damage", which works out pretty well. Anto still comes within a hair of getting knocked down, and Bern does go down (with some solid 20-rolling action from the GM), but is picked back up before her brain can get eaten.
  • Once the devourers have been whittled down a bit, the tension decreases. Mop-up is straightforward from there.
• This is close to the end of the day, so they take a rest.
• Continuing, they see the shape again.
  • Based on its direction, they figure its territory is pretty close. They decide to make a detour South, through the woods.
• As the terrain transitions, they run into a band of orcs fighting three chuuls.
  • They help out, engaging from range. With their beast of a chieftan the orcs probably would have won the fight anyway, but with the party assistance they suffer minimal losses, and are grateful.
  • Party gets some intel: Chuuls are not a normal inhabitant, and while monsters have always been a feature of the area, they do seem to be getting weirder.
  • They avoid the flying shadow whenever they see it, although none have seen it on a clear day. They consider it a bad omen. It has only been making its rounds for the last couple of years.
• The party pivots to tracking the chuuls, continuing south (and a bit west).
• On they way they run into a house that has been burned down, and is filled with skeletons, pantomiming a dice game.
  • It was burned down with acid, rather than flame, which is peculiar.
  • The skeletons are all playing dice.
  • Madrin would like to put them all to rest, so they engage. It is less trivial than expected, but still goes relatively smoothly.
• Continuing, they run into a hill giant.
  • He is hiding behind a tree that is much too small for him, holding a rope to a box with bread crumbs leading to it and a small bag of coins underneath.
  • By reputation, hill giants are too stupid for negotiation. Hoping to rid any local townspeople of a threat, they engage.
  • Elian pretends to fall for the trap, while the rest counter-ambush. The Hill Giant dies before it can make any attacks.
• As they continue south, they eventually lose the chuul tracks among many, many tracks of small humanoids (kobolds).
• Elian notes a peculiar lack of large animals.
• They eventually hit a lake, which narrows to a river. They decide against attempting to engage the kobolds, and follow the river, knowing they will eventually hit a town.
• Their first encounter is with woodsmen as they pack up camp for the day.
• Talking to them, and accompanying them back to town (Oakhurst):
  • Kobolds have become quite numerous of late, and have begun exerting their power in the surrounding lands, demanding tribute. Villages that do not meet the demands find their woodsmen and hunters harried and their livelihoods threatened, so most acquiesce. They have been exclusively of meat and coinage, with the latter becoming a larger share of the demands as time goes on.
  • They are likely holed up in a big, sunken citadel from prehistory. Anyone sent to investigate has not come back.
  • They have seen evidence of elemental sorcerers among them in the wreckage of attacks.
  • Kobolds are notoriously tricky with their lairs, so any well-entrenched force will be very difficult to draw out.
  • This combined with the fact that none of the larger towns have really had a problem yet mean nobody is really spending resources on dealing with it as a threat.
• This is all very interesting to the Bounty Hunters. They decide the threat is above their pay grade for now in the context of their current objectives, but file it away for later.
• They spend some coin and a night, and traveling continues the next day.
• They come up to a town next, serving as a focal point for local villages and an interface between them and wider intraregional trade.
• They haven't had much to do with the kobolds, but have heard the stories.
• Also in the town are three very low-level Cultists, giving away books. The presence here is clearly not very robust.
  • Madrin warns the local religious leaders anyway, and they promise to send word to Crestence to try to verify some of the wilder claims before taking them seriously.
• The group presses on to Fort Torrents, keeping to the less-traveled side of the river. A few days' travel without incident, and they bump into a light cavalry patrol.
  • More chitchat.
  • They talk about the ruined town to the southeast, which is purported to be filled with Servitors, who have inhabited the vacuum caused by the Green Plague over a century ago.
  • They have also heard the rumors about the kobolds, but their presence isn't much felt this far East.
  • The session ends as the party decides whether or not to continue into Fort Torrents

Awards

• 725 xp to all for Intellect Devourers and mimics
• 350 xp to all for Chuul intervention
• 300 xp to all for the Hill giant trap
  • also some trivial silver that smells awful
• 150 xp to all for Uncovering the Sunless Citadel