The Quest is finally underway!
Our, what I’ve come to call, Vagabond RPG Group have reconvened.
We were out a player last night but we managed. Seems the Gambler decided to stay behind and enjoy the town’s festivities.
Meanwhile, Yslen, Elgile, Boroth, Emris and Canhoreal were waking up and discussing things.
The decision that they’d all agree to sleep on was to possibly investigate the source of the music that had been luring people into the forest, search for the hidden treasure of the Royals or go in search of Osric, Astrid and Flora, the three missing young adults.
In the interest of finding the three missing young adults, the party decided to have a chat with The Village Elders, Hans & Sigrid only to find out that their daughter is among the three that have gone missing. Due to the duties to the town, they have been unable to break away to join the search. Instead, they hired a ranger by the name of Peregrine to track them and locate them. After speaking with them for an hour or two, the decision was firmly set for our party to seek out Peregrine and aid him in finding the missing campers. During the meeting, Hans also told them of a man named Gustav who had the idea to smelt bog iron at a far lower cost than the imported steel from a neighboring area. The result was Gustav’s entire smithy burning to the ground with Gustav trapped inside and that the entire forest was once owned by very unlucky Royals in which only the ruins of their stone hall remain.
In short, the village’s history of having a very haunted forest was well-established due to the facts involved. Stories, however, become legend and thus, gain some embellishments over the years.
The party ventured into the nearby forest, to the campsite at 8:30 that morning.
They arrived two hours later to find bedrolls that had been soaked, sets of muddy footprints moving in multiple directions and a canteen that still had water in it.
For reasons that are still unclear to me as a GM, our dwarf, Boroth, took a drink from it. Immediately, he could hear music compelling him to start walking east (He failed his Wisdom save on this one) and not one of the party was able to talk him down, verbally. Canhoreal had to wrestle him into place and the party had to physically restrain him and load him into the cart until the effect wore off. The party also found a note from Osric to Astrid, seemingly the beginnings of a rough draft of a love letter.
As Boroth tried and did not manage to continue walking east, that’s when the party noticed that most of the footprints involved either headed east or southeast. The party opted to continue east with the dwarf still in the cart.
As they traveled east, a fog rolled in, carrying ghosts playing music. The music was filled with harps and other instruments.
It was at this point where everyone had to roll Wisdom saves, which, only Yslen and Elgile failed. They began to follow the ghosts with the rest of the party giving chase, trying to keep them from harm but also, trying to find out where the hell these ghosts were taking them.
The fog was withdrawing, Elgile and Yslen disappearing with it. The rest of the party kept moving, trying to find (and succeeding) some type of signs along the way.
Meanwhile, Elgile and Yslen had been lured to a particular section of the forest where the fog and it’s ghosts stopped. They put on a concert, leaving Elgile and Yslen entranced.
Once the concert was over, Elgile and Yslen awakened and looked around. Six hours had passed and the party was only just catching up. With the party back together, they began to look around. They found the remains of an old furnace, lumps of bog iron were strewn all around. There was even a well that still functioned. Despite having such a strange time in the forest, the group decided that it was getting late and they’d have to make camp in the area now known as Gustav’s Folly.
By 9:00 pm, the party was sleeping but only a couple of hours later, they’d be awakened by distant voices. The locals that accompanied them, Emric, Elgile and Canhoreal, recognized the voices as belonging to Osric, Astrid and Flora but they all debated over whether or not it was wise to venture out into the dark to try to find them. Elgile noticed, something was very strange about their voices. Though familiar, something just wasn’t right. The party decided to keep watches throughout the night. Emric took the first watch of an hour while Boroth decided to keep watch the rest of the night.
By 5:00 am, Boroth noticed that the voices had stopped.
At 7:00 am, the party awakened and encountered Ruth The Bog Witch. She immediately ordered everyone to awaken. She had packed bacon around and was making her daily trek through the forest. She dismissed the questions concerning the hauntings, letting them know that even the dead must exist somewhere. She confirmed many of the rumors and gave them helpful advice. Though a witch living in the damp forest of Tannic, she proved helpful and assured them all that it was best to bed down and spend a moment or two at Gustav’s Folly because, perhaps Peregrine would return and find them and then, he would know which direction to take them.
This is where the session ended for the night. It was a short but action-packed session. One that I won’t soon forget. I had hoped that we would wrap that night a week ago, however, that didn’t happen. Still, we got some solid play-time in and one of our players was actively keeping notes with me. Notes that helped me write this today.
For the next two weeks, I’m working Saturday Nights so game nights will be out of the question until I can nail down another Saturday Night. Tonight was also supposed to be a game of Horde Wars but duty calls and it’s gonna be a long shift.
In any case, if you still haven’t read the first two entries in The Chronicles of Thrasamund, I recommend you do. I’m still working on it and will continue to work on it as time permits.
Play what you love, love what you play and make all gaming decisions carefully.