Previously, the party explored the old Windler House.
Gunkuss the Grim: A purple wood-grue fighter, who travels to sate his curiosity and find treasure. Smells like cotton candy.
Dombo the Green: An unintelligent slacker Moss-Dwarf magic-user. Incredibly buff for a wizard. Can talk to birds. Smells earthy.
Episcopia the Judge: A nerdy human cleric of the church of the one true god. Kind of a nerd. Wants to FIGHT EVIL.
Boots Tippler: A grimalkin bard who looks like Garfield. An extravagant showman, desires Fame and Fortune and something else starting with an F.
Archibald Vantorez: A posh, upper-class human from a far-off Eastern land with dreams of becoming a cartographer. Is an Illusionist.
The party returned to town and began asking around for possible quests to go on. In the tavern, the barkeep, a woman named Saerlaith (ser-la) said that a group of bandits to the South had been waylaying their shipments of ale. The party, worried that all the alcohol in the town would dry up, agreed to help. Episcopia, who is really more loosely associated with the party than a member, agreed to go with them, based on a rumor that to the South lay a dungeon housing a holy chalice with the power to revive the dead.
Also in the inn, the party hired a new member, Archibald Vantorez, and a chef named Mannog (a level 0 NPC with 4 hit points).
The party road a few hours South where they found the road blocked by fallen logs. Figuring this was a trap and they would be ambushed by bandits, the party lay a trap of their own: they waited till nightfall and had Vantorez and Mannog stand around like lost merchants to draw in the bandits. Episcopia cast Detect Evil, which had the effect of illuminating the bandits when they got close enough, cleverly letting the party get the drop on them (since Detect Evil has a range of 60' and torches can only see 30').
The party got the jump on the bandits, only to find that the bandits had with them an immense Ogre. Dombo put the Ogre to sleep while the rest of the party fought them. Vantorez very narrowly survived.
The party brought back the supply of ale and the Ogre's head, earning a reward from the barkeep: 500 GP and free drinks. Vantorez, Dombo, and Gunkus all began drinking their heads off, while Episcopia left to go to the church and Boots only pretended to drink. The three drunkards blacked out.
When they awoke, Vantorez and Dombo found that all their gold had gone missing. They asked the barkeep and discovered they had given it all to a silver-haired elf in exchange for a unicorn, and she reported the elf had travelled South with several other elves, dragging large cages containing magical beasts.
Gunkuss awoke to find a tattoo of a stump on his arm, along with a ceremonial set of robes and a dagger. He had vague memories of joining a cult. He asked the wizard, Candleswick, who recognized the stump as the symbol of a particularly incompetent cult of short creatures living in a hole under an oak tree, the same dungeon fabled to contain the holy chalice Episcopia had heard of. While talking to the wizard, Vantorez noticed his icy-blue eyes. The party realized he was almost certainly a frost-elf in disguise, but left the investigation of that for another day.
* * *
A few hours South they found the swindlers sitting around a fire. They discovered they were actually illusionists, using magic to disguise themselves as Elves and cages of ordinary animals as magical beasts. They had one real magical creature: a basilisk, which had a helmet on its head that blocked its magical gaze from petrifying people.
Boots introduced himself to the con-artists as a traveling musician. The leader of the group was an elderly woman named Madame Laverna. Boots used his music to charm two of the four, and the rest of the party managed to overpower them.
They let the non-basilisk animals go free, then locked their foes in the cages and left them there with the keys on the ground, presuming someone would eventually come to let them out. Probably. They kept the Basilisk.
Notes
- The encounter with the con-artists was improved entirely as the story went along, inspired by the results in the carousing table. The illusionists were inspired by the Menagerie from Last Unicorn.
- The cult Gunkuss joined is obviously the cult from Hole in the Oak.
- I keep all characters at the same number of experience points because frankly, it's too damn complicated to have them all at different amounts.
Next Time: The party explores a dungeon under an old oak tree...
