I wanted to have this up yesterday, but covering everything in the session took more work than I expected. The session went mostly according to plan and my players hit all the main beats I had plotted. I was surprised that they didn’t try to squeeze a reward out of these random villagers (adventuring does cost after all) but I think I conveyed that these are simple farmers and they aren’t worth shaking down.

I also thought that these battles would have been one the hard side, but no one went down. Except to stop, drop and roll.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Dusk settles over Hillfoot, a small village in the north of Duchy Ursa. It’s a quiet evening. The villagers do not speak to each other as they go about their business. A few go to the Bear’s Paw Inn to enjoy a quiet drink. Around their arms are black bands of mourning. There has been a death in the town.



In small groups, our heroes arrive. A tiefling paladin with purple-red skin and shocking white hair, Justicar, has been sent by his temple in Port Arcadia to investigate a disappearance.

At his side, a halfling walks, plucking at a violin and humming a tune as he composes a song about his companion. This is Linchor or Link and he has been accompanying Justicar for about a month now, composing tales about their heroic deeds.

A human, middle aged with salt and pepper hair stops for the night at the town. His name is Solomon Thule or Sual and he is traveling to Port Arcadia from the north, where he has been exploring and mapping the mountains. He works for the Temple of Aloth, Goddess of Knowledge as a cartographer. He is delivering his reports to the big temple in Port Arcadia.

From the same direction comes a dwarf, Doric Veldaban. All his life he has lived in the ancient dwarf city of Kragg. But the constraints of dwarven society caused him to leave the city and seek out honor and glory. He wants to find the Dragon Forge, a forge said to be eternally heated by dragonfire.

They go into the Bear’s Paw Inn. Through investigation checks and talking with NPCs, they find out some interesting things.

The missing persons case has turned into a murder, hence the black armbands. Varen Moondancer, half-elven son of a cleric, has been found in the river, his throat cut. Justicar goes to talk to Bran Feirmore, the man everyone suspects. Solomon learns that there are caves to the north and the person to talk to about that, is Steph, the town’s half-elven Hunt Mistress.

Bran reveals that he had no love for the Moondancers. He thinks they’re too big for their britches, don’t do anything to help him with his disappearing sheep and that they wronged Steph. Turns out Steph is the bastard half-sister of the dead man. Bran claims that the Moondancers just “threw her out into the woods.”

They also investigate Varen’s body which lies in repose at the village temple. A good investigation check reveals that his body is black and blue not only from being in the river for so long, but also from bruising on his wrists and torso. The party determines that he was grabbed by something larger than a human, but smaller than a giant.

They go to their room at the inn (bought at half price thanks to the bard giving some free entertainment) and discuss their next move which is, head to the caves at dawn. They don’t bother to keep their voices down, and there’s a knock at the door. Justicar answers and sees it’s Steph. The party is brusque with her, thinking that she’s a suspect in their investigation. She huffs and says she was going to help them, but if they’re going to be like that…

The party changes their tune. Steph says she’ll help them to the caves which she’s been to. If they will help her rid the forests of spiders. Turns out, it’s been giant spiders killing sheep. They’ve been pushed out of the caves by… something. Something probably not human. The party agrees to help her.

The next day, they set off towards the forest and the caves. Around noon, they stop for a meal of delicious rations. The players roll for a random encounter. They get one.

A chuckle comes out of woods and a draconic voice rings out. None of the players speak Draconic so Steph shouts out for whoever it is to come out of the shadows and speak in Common. A green dragon wyrmling emerges.

Cue player freak out.

But Link, the bard, starts to strum on his violin. He manages to impress the dragon, who says it’ll consider letting them live IF they can identify what manner of creature is tramping through the forest, encroaching on the dragon’s territory. The cleric pieces together, based on the dragons’ descriptions and his own knowledge that orcs have been stomping through here. The dragon says to bring the orc corpses or else he’ll eat them all. It flies off, ignoring the players asking how the hell they’re going to contact it.

As they keep moving through the forest, they notice the spider webbing getting thicker and thicker, but they don’t see a giant spider yet. Justicar feels something climbing up his leg and looks down. A swarm of spiders is crawling up his armor.

THWOOP

A net of webbing comes out of nowhere and nearly entangles the cleric Saul but he dodges out of the way. And it’s initiative. The dwarven fighter Doric charges in and takes a swing at the spider, but misses, Steph takes a shot, but misses. Justicar manages to shake off the swarm of spiders, but they move onto the bard, who stops, drops and rolls to try and squish them. The cleric Saul shoots a sacred flame but it hits the webbing. The spider attacks Doric but only gets a mouthful of armor. People were rolling low all night.

Finally they kill the spiders. There’s a surprising amount of stop, drop and roll to kill the swarm. But just when they think they think they’re safe, Steph hears something. This time, they are not surprised to see another spider come out of the shadows, dragging home something wrapped in webbing. Dorric gets the final kill on this spider.

The players start looking around for signs of the orcs. They manage to find a bear bag, a sack with food stuffs and other nasty smelling things hung up high in a tree so predators can’t get at it and stay away from the main campsite.

Luckily, as they’re discussing what to do next a group of orc scouts comes to inspect the bag. Ever the diplomat and the arm of the law, Justicar tries to negotiate, pointing out that the orc scouts are encroaching on others’ lands. If the orcs leave, there would be no need for violence. The orcs say to tell that to big boss and charge.

I expected this encounter to be hard. The orcs are modded for first level PCs, but they’re still wearing chainmail and have high attack rolls. But the best laid plans of DMs often go awry.

Link the bard rolls the highest on initiative. He steps forwards, towards the charging orcs. He claps his hands once and a wave of thunder rolls out, flattening three of the orcs. Justicar takes out the final one with a javelin, to the consternation of Saul, who wanted to interrogate one.

They loot the bodies and find some gold, but more interestingly they find a note written in a language none of them can read.

Steph leads them to a rocky outcropping so they can get some cover while they rest and prepare to enter the Orc Caves.