Tl;dr: A group of adventurers help a young woman try to find her missing mother and sister. Sadly the mother was killed in a coach accident, and her ghost was captured for the use by a cult. The sister was saved by some lizardmen and they had a happy reunion presumably, as the adventurers fled before this was discovered.
Future Adventure Notes:
• Cultists worshipping Vongrimath activity in the area.
• Other cultists worshiping Urital activity in the area. Unclear if they are working with or against each other.
• A ghost was trapped in an amulet, the purpose of which is some ritual to open a doorway somewhere.
• A lizardman enclave was discovered.
Session Title : The corruption of Chris Miller
Session DM : Geokhan
Session Date : 03 Nov 2021 @ 23:00 UTC
Characters:
“Cartographer”, “Leader” and “Trailblazer” Barley (Druid 4) (Unofficial “Chronicler”)
Christiana Perkins (Scholar 2)
“Scout” Karthis (Wizard 3)
ZuggZugg (Barb 3) (temp.)
Recovering from a recent adventure after some sound knocks,
~Barley
A few days prior to this adventure I been in the Potted Plant when a young woman, in distress entered. Her name was Kristy and she was seeking assistance. The gist of our discussion was that her mother and sister had left their farm two weeks prior in the company of a man named Chris Miller, none of whom had been seen since. Kristy was asking us to go and try to find her mother and sister. She mentioned near the end that she had heard Chris Miller muttering a chant with the name Vongrimath the night before they left. Some research in the logs connects this entity with cultist worship.
We assemble those we could find and set out from Port Mirandia the next day, Kristy accompanying, something she had asked to do, saying she had recently started exhibiting magical power. As we passed the bridge, in the silt by the river was a struggling beast. I spoke to it after a brief ritual and it was old and dying, stuck upon the sand. We moved it back into the water so it could finish its life naturally.
We continued on to where Kyle, Kristy‘s secret boyfriend and his family had a farm. We spoke with the farmer for a bit. He knew Chris Miller, who had arrived a month ago and was not a good worker. The farmer said Miller also gave him a bad feeling and when Miller disappeared he was glad to be rid of him. Round about here it occurred to me to ask what Kristy‘s sister and mother’s names were. The mother’s name being Martha and the sister’s Samantha, with the family name being Brewshezden.
We found tracks of a coach that could possibly be how they left Port Miranda, Kristy did not know. We followed the tracks along the road until they left it, then followed the tracks off the road. We found the coach submerged into a river, having fallen off a bridge, or perhaps breaking the bridge when it went over.
As we approached the coach, some mysterious tentacle eye creature floated over to us, exploding with noxious cloud when killed. Those in the cloud resisted its effects. We could see that two people had left the carriage, and I summoned a sea horse to few the inside. It was clear that the mother had not survived the coach going over as her body was still in there. When we got closer with intent on moving her remains to a better place than a waterlogged coach, a spectral for arose from them, attacking us.
In addition to this, we were beset by some goblinoids and some giant wasps. It was pure chaos. The ghost seemed to possess various members of our group until Kristy was nearly killed by a wasp then she seemed to be our ally against the wasps and the goblins. Some of the goblins were focused on presenting amulets to the ghost and trying to affect her in some way, possibly succeeding, I don’t know, not my area of study. The ghost disappeared and one of the amulets started to glow eerily, and after that the wasps and goblins began trying to run away.
From comments made by the rest of the group, I believe the glowing amulet was thrown to someone invisible who was watching the fight, and then subsequently absconded with it. I did not see this. I managed to corral the one remaining goblin in a spike growth, causing it to throw down it’s scimitar and stand there. The goblins had been speaking something the whole fight but none of us could understand them. After the fight ZuggZugg tried speaking another language, possibly orcish, and they seemed to be able to communicate.
It’s always a bit confusing in these situations getting translations and what not so I’m not sure I have this part correct. I believe the goblins were cultists of a different being, one named Urital. They were trying to collect the soul of the ghost to open a portal of some kind with the spectral energy. The invisible figure, I’m not sure which faction it belonged to, but it’s possible it was a Vongrimath cultist who ended up with the amulet. The goblin also knew that some lizardmen had taken the surviving girl to the east and said they were going to sacrifice her.
We let the goblin go, quickly searched the area for, finding an unusual object, then asked Kristy if she wanted us to try to follow her mother’s ghost or try to rescue her sister. She said rescue her sister. We knew the lizardmen were fairly close, but we had little resources left for this day. We took a short rest to recover ourselves before setting camp for the night.
During the night there was a moment when a large eye like creature was spotted, flapping around. We then heard the loud cries of a large creature and then eating. With help from a summoned owl, I saw that the creature was feasting on a T-Rex that it must’ve killed nearly instantly. We wanted nothing to do with such a force, so huddle down and dimmed the fire hoping it would let us be. That seemed to work. Later in the night I spoke to a camel who had lost its heard and had wandered by, warning it of the dangerous creature. Day arrived
We approached the lizardmen area as quietly as we could, and attacked just as we were spotted. In retrospect, a good hello would’ve been better. A ferocious fight ensued, everyone but Christiana Perkins nearly dying, thankfully I had made and handed out goodberries before we left camp. Kristy‘s magical powers seemed to grow during the fight. I think one or two of the initial group of lizardmen ran, but we decided now would be a good time to investigate the hole they had crawled out from. I’m not sure why we thought that seeing how injured and out of resources we were, but that’s what we did.
As we enter this hole, there is light coming from sources. We go through one room, to a larger room, to a mausoleum. We can hear chanting north of us and our goal is to try to sneak in and take Samantha and run before we get noticed. We open the door to the chanting and see row upon row of lizardmen, looking worshipfully at a human woman. Seeing ourselves vastly outnumbered, we decide egress would be the best choice. Kristy refused to follow us, saying she needed to save her sister.
As we left the lizardman temple we were curiously unmolested. We didn’t question why, being just happy they let us live. We ran as fast as we could, took a short rest near the road and then began our return to Port Mirandia. We stopped by the farm to let them know the mother had died and that the sisters had been taking by the lizardmen for some purpose we didn’t know, but couldn’t stop. We proceeded to the bridge where we were hailed by an incoming, exerting lizardman.
It was a curious moment for everyone. We peacefully allowed him to approach and told us there had been a great misunderstanding. The lizardmen had protected Samantha from the Vongrimath cultists and were keeping her safe. They thought we were cultists ourselves at first, which is why we had the first fight. Apparently it was after we abandoned Kristy there that this confusion was discovered. The sisters were safe and would be returning to town in a few days.
We popped back to the farm to update them with this new information and then rushed back to Port Mirandia to finish our day.