DM: Calmseeker
Characters: Gulu, Arwen, Brekker, Xozieg, Free, Lyn, Maej
The group accepted a mission to protect workers tasked with building a road. The first day was mostly uneventful, but after the night’s rest we found several carcasses, which I identified as dogmoles, near the camp. They were killed by a slashing weapon or claws, but the culprit did not kill the beasts for food. We left the carcasses alone and moved on.
In the evening we noticed a small forest fire, which Brekker extinguished with a magical gust of wind.
The workers started construction the next day. We found a long wooden pole stuck into the ground, with Elvish writing carved into it:
“Idea for a play. Elf guy body swaps with his girlfriend who is a water genasi. Hijinks ensues as they deal with that situation and figures out that it’s a curse that’s been in the girlfriend’s family for generations that has to do with a meteor. They end up having to understand each other’s perspective and deal with each other’s exes but end up finding out that their exes are decent people and have moved on with their lives. Then it turns out that there is a meteor falling on the girlfriend’s village that other people don’t believe so they have to convince the village chief who is the girlfriend’s father. It turns out that the village chieftain is trying to distract himself from the emptiness in his life after his wife passed away, and once he and his daughter come to terms with each other, the village is saved, and the couple swaps back into their original bodies and learn to value each other’s opinions more.” If you want to make this play and produce it with me, write your name below, and I’ll check it out once I’m sober.” – Berien the Bard
Unfortunately this didn’t prove too interesting to the party or rang any bells if it was a reference to something, so we paid it no heed.
As noon came one of the workers spotted a ruined house, and we went to investigate. Soot littered the floor inside, and the walls were covered in ash. There was a banner with “Congratulations! It’s a baby boy.” written on it. A table in the middle of the room was covered in blue powder and confetti. Intriguingly, there was also the corpse of a black bear in the house. While we attempted to investigate further, we woke the spirit of a man named Baronov, who explained he was a victim of a gender reveal party gone wrong, and eventually took his revenge on whoever was responsible. Before we could attempt to converse with the ghost, he summoned several undead to attack us. It took some considerable effort and one of the party getting possessed by the spirit, but we managed to defeat the undead.
On the last day of the road building, we were confronted by an ogre and various other monstrous beings, including a manticore and elementals. It demanded we hand them half of the workforce to be eaten, and when we refused they resorted to violence. This time, the monsters proved to be incredibly difficult foes and some of us came close to death. However, we prevailed in the end.
While on the way back to town, a band of hunters approached us. The leader claimed they were from a town ravaged by monsters, most likely the ones we recently defeated. Due to a lack of food they went out hunting but had no luck, and asked if we could spare them some rations. We agreed, and sent them on their way.
Later, we saw a few dwarves attempting to wrangle a giant toad. According to them they were capturing and selling beasts to afford succubus bath water. Gulu offered them some gold for the toad and then they were gone.
We came across another group of adventurers drawing water from a well. One of them claimed he could summon a tooth fairy by putting a tooth in water and adding ink to it. It sounded like nonsense to me, so I convinced him to abandon the thought. At night, we were approached by a modron. I suspected it appeared due to the presence of wild magic, and it disappeared again quickly after. The end of the journey was as uneventful as the beginning. We had lost one worker in battle, but I consider it a win we managed to keep most of them alive.