[Petals & Thrones] Session 15: Frontier of Morality

Session XV

Thanks to their earlier attempt at recruiting, the players know where the leadership of the Zodiac Society are meeting. That night, their ambush makes very short work of the realm of depravity, followed by Morluck chopping up the bodies into artful poses with clues a 4th grader can solve leading to the Lunatic Court being the "culprits" for the Zodiac Society's membership to find. Aquilan puts his calligraphy skills to excellent use here. The next day, they ensure that the Zodiacs join the Lunatics, then get some intel on what the Lunatics know about the Free Mithrallavien movement and the Sormont rebels.

They meet with Wesker during lunch, arranging for him to meet with them later in the week in Karis to seize the dangerous Scepter from a rogue necromancer. Afterward, they make toward Sormont, running into the Red Maw Clan partway through. Morluck did well to extract their requirements for joining the coalition, but simply wished them a good hunt as they left, personally contemplating going after them like they did the Zodiacs.

The evening hunt with the regent of the Order of the Stag left them with a similar feeling in their mouth. Aquilan openly wondered if there were any good people in the Eastern Frontier.

Balthazar's requests are simple, but not necessarily comforting to Aquilan, as their intel of the Sormont's rebels indicates their grievances aren't founded on falsehoods. Regardless, that day they head out into the wilderness, using the wizard's familiar to scout ahead. They encounter the hags, attempting to start parley, but an Insight allows them a chance to stop their attempting flank; the counterspelling & resistances make them exceedingly worried, as well as the knowledge that manticores, chimerae, & winter wolves are nearby. Once they discover night hags can turn ethereal, they run.

Their encounter with Sormont rebels & Veyna go much more smoothly, initiating combat before Caspar can even see them fully, though he still recognizes her face. Stabilizing the naga, they bring her unconscious before Balthazar, allowing for questions about Caspar's familiarity to be made. Balthazar dismisses such concerns in a way that is eminently plausible with his personality rather than any kind of malice/deceit, also off-handedly killing her with a cantrip while commenting on how her kind are functionally immortal.

Caspar makes the personal request. The players make their shopping list with the Order of the Third Eye's quartermaster, then prepare for use of their portals to make the Hillsreach trip faster.

[Petals & Thrones] Session 14: Siege of Fort Briar

 Session XIV

The Battle for Fort Briar starts off strong, as the players go special forces on the reserve garrison inside its walls. Aquilan in particular does excellent work tanking the archers' shots. Once they take the fortress, they sneak in five patrols of the Lunatic Court, interrogate Vincent for likely strategies, and subsequently cause a rout from the counter attack. Their other 7 patrols waited for the retreating Lion forces in the entrance to the Great Forest, at which point, they caused another rout. All told, the players took out six patrols of the enemy, lost two of their own, and gained Fort Briar.

After situating their units in Fort Briar, they went to Rivermet to finish off the next part of Goldblum's quest, check out the the minor factions, and finding Wesker. After a short conversation with Brac & Orlac to get them part of Goldblum's network, they arrange for a meeting with Forktongue at the Lapis Tea House. His request for control of a place to raise his peoples' eggs makes them a bit uncomfortable, but they at least act cordial and somewhat consider it.

The meeting with the Martyrs goes less smoothly, apparently revealing that the players draw the line at bioterrorism. Afterwards, jokes are made that as a DM, I have more trouble doing the RP of a serial killer than a bioterrorist; but I give them a summation of the Zodiac Society. They consider recruiting them later once they realize the best way is to kill the leadership, allowing them to get rid of the flunkies through Operation: Human Shield.

The conversation with the leader of the Steel Company leaves a sour taste in their mouths, and their pocketbooks are a bit too lean to consider hiring them anyway; though they privately discuss the idea that if they were hired, they would need a chaperone just to keep collateral damage minimal.

At this point, they make plans for a big meeting with the leadership of the Zodiac Society, and we call it a night.

[Petals & Thrones] Session 13: Karis Kapture

Session XIII

Previously, on Petals & Thrones 12, our players had outright slain Bishop Cornelius and prepared to make a decision on what to do next in the war.

Round 3 With a +13 bonus, they get themselves another rout. Wanting to take out Dame Leona, they opt to do mop up.

Thanks to Colombina & the ranger hireling, they have a strong stealth advantage, and basically have their choice of forces to take on. This fight ends up pretty solidly in their favour, taking out a lone patrol, followed by a more prolonged mêlée. They almost had Dame by having her polymorphed into an octopus, but she falls off the roof, takes enough damage to "die", then climbs back onto her horse, & flees further into the city. With the sheer volume of archers where she falls back, the party takes their victory and falls back themselves. By this point, they personally took out four patrols.

Round 4 It would have been just a +3 bonus, but the casualties have shifted it to 36 vs 13 patrols, favouring the Lunatics. Therefore, this is a +8 bonus, and they roll a 4, resulting in a bloody mêlée (35 v 10).

Round 5 Due to the increased numerical advantage, they encourage Harlequin to press the advantage with their +10 to this roll, and get a rout. This outright takes out every single patrol on the side of the Order of the Lions without any further casualties on their side.

Having captured Karis, they recruit the Ba'alzamon Society, and begin the War Council.

Harlequin shows them the distribution of forces, and there's a fair bit of chatter as I establish the movement struggles and ability to recruit the various factions, which the party are assigned to handle while she handles the logistics of the war itself. After that is fully understood, they make some decisions.

Harlequin takes 35 patrols to attack Goblin Town. The party pays a retainer to the Raven Company to support the Ba'alzamon Society's forces and garrison Karis whenever the Lions send forces from Old March. The party themselves take 12 patrols for the attack on Fort Briar.

But before the war effort begins, they take their first long rest and head to Ramshorn to pick up Morluck's magic item order. Upon arrival, they Rinn Taylor, who explains that a caravan had been attacked/massacred by a group of trolls, to which Morluck responds...

After calming down, they get an understanding that they'll have the assistance of a militia to help deal with these trolls, and so make a promise to join in this hunt after the mass combat.

[Petals & Thrones] Session 12: Plenary Assault

Session XII

Having assembled the map & units for overland travel, the trip to Karis from Ramshorn is much less eventful. They find the adventuring corpses, and while passing by Lion Patrols, tell them of what they find and it seemed to be the work of dire wolves. Upon reaching Karis, they meet up with Harlequin, who informs them that the goal of liberating the Eastern Frontier from the oppressive Lions begins today. Morluck attempts to get a better idea of Harlequin's motivation & goals, which partially runs into my own limit of conversational political discussion; forcing me to give an outline of her goals and a "this is a long form debate that we don't have time for."

After a quick bit of deliberation, the party offers the advantage of their allegiance not yet being known, and perform reconnaissance on Karis. They buy some things in the market, repair the contact with Goldblum's supplier (bribing him to make his caravan guards stay at one of Ramshorn's taverns), figure out troop numbers/placement, chat up Bishop Cornelius in the local temple, and Aquilan goes super spy into their central area where contingency plans are stored. After everything is done, they return to Harlequin and begin the war.

The first round is a rout. Offering to improve things even further, the party opts to cut off one of the heads of the leadership, Bishop Cornelius. Surrounded by three Lion patrols in the streets of Karis, he isn't a simple attack; but Harlequin's animate objects provides ten flying knives that really absorb the blows of their counterattack, made all the easier by a fireball from Ribbles. The Bishop was seemingly rescued by an extra patrol that comes up and carry his unconscious body on a knight's steed in the fifth round, but Thoradin takes a ladder to a roof and uses a maximized lightning bolt from his wand (and class feature) on the Bishop. From there, they flee as two more patrols start moving forward.

This assassination assists the Lunatic assault greatly, and allows them to break the enemy line for even more casualties in the second round of mass combat. At this point, there's some debate whether to do yet another assassination, this time for Dame Leona. They retain access to a casting of pass without trace and Colombina's blessing grants advantage to Stealth checks to one person (nominally Thoradin).

It's at this point, we end the session and I prepare things for the next part of the Battle of Karis.

Combat Summary

Round 1 With a +12 bonus, the Lunatics routed the enemies solidly

Round 2 With a +6 bonus, the Lunatics had initially outflanked the Lions, but the PCs upgraded the results to breaking the enemy lines by outright killing Bishop Cornelius.

Round 3 Due to round 2's positioning bonus and the death of Bishop Cornelius, the Lunatics are back up to a +13, the results to be decided next session.

Current Force Disposition

Lunatics 37 patrols

Lions 28 patrols

[Petals & Thrones] Session 11: Troubles with Trolls

Session XI

Word spreads fast of the party's success with the saboteurs from the Clans of Tiamat, and the Lunatic Court hosts a party a day later to celebrate such. At this party, the heroes play the part of loners, occasionally asking questions as they hear about the growing shadow of war in the Eastern Frontier. Toward the end of the party, Morluck approached Harlequin to ask if he can join the Lunatic Court; getting a solid thumbs up of approval from her and a suggestion to meet in Karis toward the end of the week.

The following morning, everyone but Thoradin hungover from the party, they head downstairs from the Accidental Gryphon & see the mass of merchants and other NPCs ready to offer quests. They go back to their rooms, sleep an extra hour (mumbling "quest log full"), then come back down and begin to talk to the mass to learn of the various needs of the merchants and wizards of Ramshorn. Ultimately, they decide to escort Bruen & Hawk to Mithrallavien and hopefully rest for a few days before they head north to Karis.

The trip to Mithrallavien is quite eventful. As we're using the d20 encounter process, it proves to be pretty eventful as the party runs into five trolls. These galumphing giants are felled, but not before consuming four 3rd level, two 2nd, and two 1st level spells in a terrible mêlée of blood & tears & flame. After a quick rest and slaked thirst from their skins, they return to the trek to the elven village.

That's when the wyverns attack.

Fortunately, they are not ambush predators, so they have some time to gird their loins. Unfortunately, one wyvern descends down upon Morluck to the tune of 65 damage, knocking him out with a flash of blood and venom. After the clash of blade and song of spells are over, everyone takes two short rests to attempt to recoup some of their loss.

Elf town is passing pleasant, especially with two elves leading the group. Morluck cover's Hawk's 100gp tab to ensure the trade deal is made. Once this is done with, they return to Ramshorn and sleep in the Accidental Gryphon's familiar beds. After a few days, the day of the Battle of Karis is at hand, and they set out.

[Petals & Thrones] Session 10: End State

Session 10

Returning to their exploration of the goblin caverns, they find themselves in the meandering chamber with a number of hobgoblins. About a third survive long enough to retreat to the chamber with Sir Dagai, whom they nearly kill with a fireball from Ribbles, and is finished off with a rapier through the eyes by a surprise jester of the Lunatic Court. The rest of the fight in this room is essentially a rout, with only the goblins surviving to retreat further into the caverns. In an attempt to circumvent a more drawn out fight with cornered goblinoids, Morluck brokers a peaceful withdrawal (Persuasion 17), allowing all remaining goblins in the caverns to exit and seek to rejoin their brothers in the Great Forest without further death.

They get some information out of the thankful red jester, who mentioned working with the goblins against the Order of the Lion and was rescuing the new fiery hobgoblin who was trying to defect back. They sift through the treasure hoard, I presume Sir Dagai's spellbook has all of the spells he's got with his character, and haul it all back to Ramshorn. Morluck takes the long rest to go with Goldblum's next caravan to sell all of the arms and armor they've picked up during these past four weeks.

Upon his return, they hire one of the rangers as a hireling and start their breakfast just before dawn, and are approached by a tiefling they've seen walking around once in a while. She tells them she's found evidence of dragonborn from the North may be infiltrating the woods, and leads them to the woods for them to investigate and confirm one way or another (Deception 28, they fully believe her honesty). Once fully inside the woods, she asks if this is enough evidence, and four dragonborn pop up and begin their attack.

...and the ranger hireling crits the spellcasting dragonborn to death just before he can act, Morluck gets brought to zero by the paladin of Tiamat (having done some damage), and Thoradin manages to find a spot to blast a maximized lightning bolt. The threat of these foreign provocateurs was ended in less than a round. They rifle their pockets for loose loot, tie them up for interrogation, and we end the session with a level up and me preparing for the next module.

[Petals & Thrones] Session 9: The Cryptillion

Session IX

The Vlatla Clan has invited our players as well as the Order of the Third Eye to the crypt that had been cleared out. Morluck attempts to inject himself into the conversation between Balthazar & Petre, but the conversation proved to be sufficiently academic that he bailed swiftly. This left Ribbles to pick up the slack, who provided impressive insight toward their academic debate.

Morluck moved over to another conversation, convincing Lilith that she could still have fun among all the stodgy academics, which proved to be 12-year old giggle worthy when she interjected with innuendo during the next conversation about the vermin hives in the Great Forest. The entire party brainstormed quite a few ideas and suggestions for dealing with said vermin while keeping enough around for study.

On the way back to Ramshorn to sleep off the party, they run into a slew of spiders scaring the townsfolk, wandering through the main streets. They notice a Vlatla thrall applying a pheromone to one and demand answers, informed that they were providing free defenses of patrolling spiders to the town, especially since Morluck had very consistently talked about people getting together to help with the region. After calming down the citizens of Ramshorn, the PCs run back to the crypt to talk with Petre Vlatla, and convince him to coordinate with the local leadership before taking such actions. Their friendly relationship works in their favor, so Petre agrees to such a mindset going forward.

The next day, the PCs suit up and head for the goblin cave. As one of Goldblum's hirelings was taken out by a goblin raid on his caravan, and the spiders are shoring up local defenses, he goes ahead and hires all but Trym Tosscobble to protect his caravans this week. They take their route through the backwoods rather than the road, figuring they would be less likely to run into any ambushes (they're right) en route to the goblin cave. Once at the cave, they begin their systematic process of murder and surprise. However, the goblins continue to roll exceptionally well with their Stealth checks to run for cover and warn their hobgoblin friends deeper in the cave. Several well-placed hits certainly make them feel the pain. We end the session right after they find Sir Dagai's correspondence with an unnamed draconic-speaking ally (that it's a draconic-speaker that wrote to the elves is noted).