OSRealms -- Session 76
Session map
I had a plan. It was a good plan.
We would hire a group of mercenaries. Two groups, really. All of them would be armed with missile weapons. One group would take the new entrance into the sewers, and set up on the west side of the pool room where a small platform offered space for three or four archers or slingers. The other group would take the canoes to the east side of the pool room, where a larger platform could support up to six. It’s not entirely clear, but the map suggests the pool itself is about 50 feet across. Even slings have a range of about that much. If we have lanterns on both sides, both groups of mercenaries can fire on the creature whichever group it chooses to attack. When it gets within melee range of either group, they can retreat, forcing it to either leave the water to follow or attack the other group. I suspect it can’t leave the water at all, and we can safely run the creature from one side to the other while slowly whittling it down to size.
OSRealms -- Session 75
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We put together a small group to explore the sewers, looking for the missing children. I engaged two bodyguards, Stria brought herself and her two favorite daggers as usual, and u-Heury recruited the young Thomas, a street urchin and apparently the first member of the Ice Skulls, a new tribe of urban barbarians. I’m looking forward to watching u-Huery explain this to his ancestors or shamans or foster fathers or whoever is theoretically in charge of him.
OSRealms -- Session 74
Seasons passed. I had greenleaf tea with Selaena on the regular, after a chance meeting in the woods outside Eastdale. She was talking to the farm cows, which I found charmingly naive. (What could they possibly say that would be interesting?) Turns out they actually did have something interesting, complaining about giant frogs eating their friends. Maybe we will look into that later.
Yes, about that, she talked me into getting up off my log in the forest to actually make a difference in the world. The tales she told – second or third hand, about the exploits of her friends Ygnis, Oscar, Bern, Feverborne, and u-Heury – caught my interest, and I signed up with the Glorious Blades. Of course, I immediately wandered off for a few months. It’s going to take some getting used to, working with humans and their ticking life-clocks on the regular. I suppose I can understand their frustration by remembering the time I pestered my father to teach me how to use a sword. It took him nearly 30 years to get around to it!
OSRealms -- Session 73
Session map
We took a few days to heal. U-Huery provided some strange tea that helped a little. Despite going over what we had available, we weren’t inclined to sell anything else right away, and the mysterious elf Landon reappeared, eager to adventure. Perhaps his purse was as flat as mine. We chose to head to the Grotto, as it was close by and there were sections we hade not yet explored. The place to start was the altar room, now that Oscar had managed to remove the gibbering mouther from its position.
OSRealms -- Session 72
Ygnas got bored and left to pursue her newfound obsession with the language of the fire creatures. She contacted a friend of hers, a druid named Selaena, to help us out. Selaena was not impressed with any of us. Also, it turns out the bugbears are actually hobgoblins.
Upstairs was more of the same: filthy goblin trash mostly picked clean. Nothing but bits of copper and a few silver. We did run into three more goblins in the process of looting a crude prison facility. They fled, leaving behind a few coins and a set of manacles. Shit treasure. But the prison had an orc in it, still alive, named Throk. After some discussion, we let him go after he agreed to help us explore and kill the hobgoblins to the east, the ones we had already met. We agreed, figureing they had already told us to fuck off and we were weak at the moment. Even a single ally could be useful, and if he lived, he could introduce us to his tribe of orcs for more possible allies. These monsters seem more than willing to turn against each other, which seems likely to be to our benefit.
Out of the Abyss -- Session 11
Alamar
Alamar
We didn’t really remember the questions we were supposed to ask the derro Drogi. Well, I mean, mostly I didn’t, because I’m not used to handling that stuff. The boss told me to go find Drogi, I found Drogi. Creg remembered a little. Mostly I remembered that the dragon, the dragon priests, and the guard captain all wanted Drogi, but for different reasons. The rest of the group really had no idea of any of this, but they wanted out of the city and out of the underdark, so they were following my lead. Which is weird, and I’m not used to it.
OSRealms -- Session 71
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Ygnas approached the burning tree portal and tried to speak with the fiery beings surrounding it. She didn’t say what they talked about, but the creatures seemed to respect the holy symbol of Zuul she presented and when we left the area, the fire was spreading to the northwest. The next day brought rain, and Ygnas seemed disappointed.
We arrived at the caves of chaos and investigated the entrance where other members of the Glorious Blades had previously encountered goblins and ogres. The cave system was almost empty; no ogres, their cave clearly abandoned, and only four goblins. Those four were evasive and sneaky, preferring to attack from just outside the torchlight and then flee. We chased them throughout the complex, in the process exploring more of the place, and found a larder to the west. We killed a goblin there, and shortly afterwards met hairy, red-furred creatures who emerged from a secret door. I’m no beastiary sage, but I would guess bugbears. They seemed amenable to peaceful conversation and offered to pay us for exterminating the goblin vermin. It wasn’t much – 6 gold – but it was something we were doing anyway and getting paid more wasn’t bad.
OSRealms -- Session 70
Me and Barbarian Boy whispered together, trying to figure out how to get Feverborne out. Or whether to leave him there. Ultimately, we decided to try to get him out, but we couldn’t see any way to get his gear from by the leader’s tent. Definitely not the sword, which was strapped to the lead centaur. The kid can be sneaky. I wasn’t willing to take off my armor and try to sneak into the camp to get the gear, risking getting attacked without my armor on. And the timing would be tricky. Someone could notice the gear gone before Feverborne was freed, and vice versa.
OSRealms -- Session 69
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We decided to do some nice quiet exploring on the way to the Caves. Famous last words. Somewhere in the first day of travel, the kid “lost” the bloodthirsty spear while hunting. Kinda think he did it on purpose, and I don’t blame him a bit. On one day, we got up and noticed our waterskins were empty. All of them. And Feverborne and Barbarian Boy have a lot of waterskins between them. They were empty one day after we got out of the barrow too. So, whatever was pulling pranks in the barrow followed us out. I’ll burn the bastard alive when I catch it.
OSRealms -- Session 68
We made out way to the wagon, which had of course been pilfered. Finally, we camped. I healed Feverborne. Our supplies in the wagon now gone along with one of the mules, we decided to head south to the closest town for supplies. After more rest and prayers and healing along the way, we were all almost as healthy as we were going to get. We had a disturbing day during the trip huddled in my tent under both tarps, waiting out acid rain. I prayed during the whole thing, because it wasn’t natural, but I had a niggling feeling Zuul was testing me, and I shouldn’t have cowered away from it.
