Jan 31.

On the 24th day of Eleasis, the party came into Caer Althone. The found a nice inn called The Mighty Hippogriff. It was run by Hamish, a young and excessively obese man. He was polite to them, and provided good lodging for a fair price.

The next morning they learned all they could about the area. Their greatest source of information was a ranger named Ian. He told them that there was a foot path to Loughatorick, and that the ruins of the keep there were haunted. To visit the Moonwell, they need only to stay to the north of lake and not bother with the haunted ruins. They also learned that there was a path up to Loch Forfar, though they would need to be careful about avoiding the firbolg named Tetley.

Then they met Osric the sage. This sweet old man was helped by a young Theo, and he was a font of information. He told them about Robin, the former High Queen of the Moonshaes who returned to Myrloch Vale upon the death of her husband, Tristan. He also tried to find some reason to search the moonwells, and all he found was an old prophecy that states of Jannath, the Earthmother - "She ends in the beginning, and the spark will dwell in the watery heart."

The rogue contemplated robbing the old man because he wasn't utterly poor.

The party decided to head north from Caer Althone along the river and up to the moonwell by Loch Forfar. They first encountered a band of owlbears, and the party was grateful for the experience and decided to train for a few days in a Firbolg and owlbear infested forest. They got lucky. They set out again and managed to avoid Tetley, but shortly thereafter they felt a disturbance in the pulse of the land, like a missed heartbeat. They could feel the agony in the land around them, though they could not identify it. The feeling came from the north of them.

When they arrived at the Moonwell, they discovered an old druid washing his feet. Rather than kindly introduce themselves, the rogue snuck up behind the man and scared him such that he fell into the Moonwell. This made him cross. The man's name was Dermot, though it took him a long time to remember this. It had been a very long time since he had had any visitors. He tried desperately to convince the party to stay with them. He did tell them about the two bodies he'd found nearby that had been ravaged by owlbears. He really wanted them to stay, but the party decided that leaving an old man alone was a great idea. He did tell them that he had felt a disturbance before, back when Bhaal was messing with moonwells and killing the children of the Earthmother.

The part considered walking through an unknown forest without clear direction except that they were sure to encounter more owlbears and Firbolgs they could not avoid. Eventually they decided that plan had some issues, and they returned south to Caer Althone. There they booked a ship called the Flaunty Princess with Captain Mungo that would leave the next morning.

They returned to the inn for one final night. Instead of returning courtesy, Marchosias commented about the girth of the innkeeper. This upset the innkeeper. It was so apparent that this upset the innkeeper that the rest of the party decided Marchosias could have a room to himself. At some moment during the night, someone came though and latched all the doors from the outside, and then four men came crashing through the window of Marchosias's room to kill him. Marchosias whipped our his wand of darkness, though, and moved silently away from them after taking only a few pricks. The rest of the party bashed down some doors and managed to come help him, though with darkness on his side the evil little bastard probably needed no help. Two of the assassins were killed, one was captured, and one got away. The one that got away, Nevan, was apparently their leader.

The party quickly learned that Hamish was gone, as were their horses except for Kirby, who was too old to be worth anything. They robbed him anyway, evacuated the guests, and burned the inn to the ground. Then they made it out to the ship and left town for Caer Corwell along with their ancient horse on the 5th day of Eleint. They arrived in Caer Corwell on the 8th day and met with Owain, the Chamberlain of the keep.

They learned some things. The disturbance was apparently that Bedwyr the druid, left in charge of the Corwell Moonwell while the other druids were fighting fires in the north, had been killed with his body thrown in the Moonwell. This had damaged the Moonwell somehow, and also they had knocked the stones down. No one knew who did this. The best trackers found no tracks out there.

They also found that two Llewyrr from Synnoria had arrived to tell the prince of humans who had found their way into Synnoria, evidently looking for the Moonwell. Humans who see Synnoria are so overwhelmed by its beauty that they never want to leave. Only the Llewyrr are immune, because it is their home. They rarely leave, but these two women, Alara and Saryn, were Knights of Synnoria and felt it was important to share this news.

The party decided that they would set out for Myrloch Vale to find Robin, the High Druidess and former High Queen of the Moonshaes. She is expected to be near a Moonwell on the east side of the Myrloch. The pass they will take is north of Freeman's Down.

To be fair, it was only Owlbear infested, there was one Firbolg to the direct north, and we knew his name. There may have been a chance at a Firbolg, but if it was significant the ranger probably would have mentioned it. Since owlbears are in this game a minor result of the actions of an evil diety, killing more of them seems like a good plan.



Far superior is the other option, taking him away from the moonwell that actually keeps him alive. I'm sure that would go well!



Well, I slept in the communal room because I thought Marchosias was going to go out rogueing that night, and should his dice not be with him it would be better if I could disavow all knowledge of his actions. He later decided not to do this.



FIXT 4 U




Slander! Kirby is worth something to me! If for no other reason than his Strength is greater than 8! Or maybe it IS 8, but he's a quadruped so he can carry my pack without toppling...



I'm sad no one attempted to seduce them. I'm sure it would have ended comically.



Horseless, I might add, so I have to check my possessions to make sure that they won't kill me should I decide to walk around holding them.


---

Thus far, our characters are honestly chasing at ghosts, and we know it. The most important antagonist we've seen was the doppleganger, and we still don't know who he was working for for sure- we have ample evidence that whomever is up to something has a full map of all moonwells (even the one in Synnoria, which is not even on any map), and is attempting to do something foul with them. Our best hint so far was received tonight, "She ends in the beginning, and the spark will dwell in the watery heart.", which we are tentatively interpreting to mean that someone is attempting to use the remains of the Earthmother for ill purposes. Whomever they are they have some kind of hierarchy that is difficult to chase down, and if the prize is some fragment of divine power then the fact that it's on an island doesn't even mean that the agitator is even local- "The Lady" herself is more likely to be another link in an evil chain, now more than ever. (Previously it was a reasonable guess that someone wanted political power, or at least to weaken lawful rule in the area- now we may be faced with someone chasing down something powerful that they can use for evil)

On top of all of that, this place is a primitive land full of superstitious fools, which is at least my opinion in character. Once we know more about whatever is being chased, we'll probably have to go somewhere with like, books- unless we randomly stumble into someone who has a clue, which seems unlikely- the enemy or enemies are nothing if not hella sneaky.

Way to set THAT ONE up for the follow-up. I notice the casual lack of mention of his being a member (in part or in gargantuan full) of one of Corwell's thieves guilds. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I should have used that opportunity to rouse my army.....errr, party members, lead an attack on the guild, kill Hamish (Ham? nice.) and anyone else aligned with him, then assume control of the guild and use it for my own dastardly.....errr, to the benefit of the party.

Well, he was a nice fellow. He has a thyroid problem, it's not his fault. If someone said something like that about you, you'd kill them too.


I would like some feedback in general. Throughout the campaign, what has been good and bad.

I'd likely kill anyone that looked at me sideways. Or, you know, if they accused me of being a spellcaster instead of using a wand of darkness.

Do you want feedback on a per-night basis? Or do you want to create a feedback thread?

Definitely stab accusing spellcasters. No one likes their kind anyway, and it's the best way to sort out differences.

Feedback whenever or however. I don't care.

We have a spellcaster? So far, "darkness" is the most impressive thing I have seen...

Oh snap!


....good luck tripping people when you're a newt.

Casting? Oh, I dunno about that. I'm suspecting spell like or supernatural. Maybe you speak DEEEEEEMON?



I think per thread will make a lot more sense if we look at this later.

Mark and I spoke about this a little. I had a wand; I didn't want to show it to you because I thought you'd try to charm me to take it, or cast Detect Magic or any number of other wizardly things you fellows who smell of bat guano do. We can assume I've showed it to you briefly, then I tucked it back away where all my my long pointy things normally live.

Ohhh! Fight! Fight! C'mon, kick some ass! Stab him in the eye!

Charming you to take your shit would not be very conducive to our long term relationship. The use of the charm spell is essentially psychological compulsion. It can be used in a subtle fashion, and it's not as grotesque as domination, but you'll notice that 100% of enemy casters who have access to charm magic have had their throat cut by me when they are on the ground. Not a coincidence!

I would assuredly have cast detect magic to make sure you had a wand and not a stick.