Game log 27 August 2023: I've been through the woods on a Tonfa Guy with no name, and I bet his back hurts

Personae dramatis

Honsou, thief and item smasher
Tonfa Guy, doesn't speak or have a name but has a tonfa
Felcanis, elven cleric
Grignok, handsome orc druid

Quid occurrit

The next morning the heroes all wake up from the floor of the Scarlet Harlot. Suddenly with them is a guy with a tonfa and a hood who says nothing. Honsou pickpockets the tonfa guy but the tonfa guy is broke, so Honsou gets lint. Mateo finds the Tonfa Guy to be bothersome so he takes off.

The heroes chat among themselves about the spiders. Honsou gets the idea to find a sage, and after asking some blokes over breakfast, he learns there are two sages in town, Dénnos and Prainêr.  

They go to Dénnos's cottage amid the gathering storm clouds, and a middle-aged man opens the door. A middle-aged, middle-class man opens the door, and Honsou says  Honsou says the Tonfa Guy is hungry. The man at the door says, "Oh, good gravy! Your friend should go to a tavern!" Tonfa Guy looks over at Honsou and narrows his eyes. The man with the twisted ear raises his eyebrow. "Well, good gravy, why have you come here?" Tonfa Guy holds up his fingers to Honsou rubbing them together to indicate the sign for money, but Honsou, Felcanis, and Grignok tell the man about the spiders.

The man raises an eyebrow. "All these giant spiders! Where are they? I'd like to see some." Honsou says they're in the Eldalîvā Woods outside of Bóllā, and the man lights up. "You guys should be thrilled that I have had some light enter my life again and I want to get out and further my studies." He introduces himself as Dénnos, and the heroes tell him who they are. Dénnos shrugs. "Well, first meeting, I guess. Never heard of any of you." Dénnos goes to hit his books to find out about giant spiders, especially in the Bóllā area.

Honsou looks around for things to steal, and Dénnos scowls when he sees Honsou looking over his house. "Watch it!" Dénnos's lip curls, then he pulls something out of a book. "Well, I have this letter from this wayfarer coming from the woods, and it seems there's something humanoid with the spiders, at least from what hints the survivors saw. Ettercaps do often live among spiders. I'd like to study ettercaps. They're like giants, which is my area." Honsou tells them there were indeed ettercaps there. "Oh, what kind of traps did they have?" Honsou tells him about the sticky floor. "Oh, the webbing in the den is sticky? Very interesting." They leave and agree to meet up the next morning, a downpour having started while they were outside.

The next day is clear so they set forth. Dénnos has a pack and some gear, including armor and a sword, and brings along with a horse and mule. "I've kept it up from my time in the Reapers. Let's go."

The day is uneventful, and they. make it to Bóllā by nightfall. The lookout there scowls then cackles madly. "You'll be sorry again!" Then he yawns and leans back and sleep.

Dénnos wants to visit the lord of the manor, so they go to the manor, and Lady Savendótē lets them inside. "Let me guess, the spiders again, right? I hope you weren't the one who took the cow." Tonfa Guy looks at Honsou quizzically. Lady Savendótē smiles. "Oh, yes, Honsou loves the livestock. A little more than most, from what they say." She giggles. Tonfa Guy gives Honsou a friendly elbow, and Honsou says at first that he didn't take the cow, then that he sold her. Lady Savendótē says, "Don't worry, we know the spiders got your date."

Lady Savendótē says, "I do hope you don't mind picking out a campsite for the night." Honsou asks if they can stay in town again, and she says, "No, Honsou, we do not want you in town again. And you'll be able to better monitor the spiders if they show up."

Honsou sees the cheese and jerky from their rations on the ground when he goes outside after Tonfa Guy rifled through them. Grignok sets up camp, and Honsou finds that the cows are inside the serf hovels, so he cannot use one as bait. The night passes, and no spiders come along. Well, none of the big ones. There were a couple of smaller ones that spun webs on Honsou's bow. The spiders don't carry off the jerky and cheese the annoying vegetarian tossed on the ground.

Grignok leads the group into the woods. He doesn't always pay the best heed to the path, and they get to the same green glowing tree as before. Honsou checks out the tree, and hears a rattle coming from inside. Honsou steps back and throws a stick inside, and the rattle gets louder, and a hiss joins the rattle. He hears a twig break behind him as he steps from the tree.

They turn, and there are five hobbits with hobbit-sized spears behind them. Tonfa Guy waits to see what they do. One of the hobbits hisses, "Go away, and take your pet with you!" pointing at Grignok. Honsou hints at killing at all of them, and the lead hobbit moves for the others to step back. "Watch it, we're a clan. We have others." The hobbits once again step back, then step back again and again. "We don't want any trouble."

Honsou suggests they wander off, and they look at each other, then wander away unusually fast. The rest of the day is not too thrilling. Bill steps in a trough filled with badger dung not long before they stop and camp. At the end, Felcanis sets up camp.

Res aliae

Nope, Tonfa Guy has no name. Right now his character sheet is in flux (ninja, if someone wants to make a pitch), but the name "Tonfa Guy" will survive any tweaks. 

Game log 2 July 2023: Along came an ettercap

Personae dramatis

Mateo de Leon Garcia, stylish red wizard

Grignok, orc druid often in panther shape
Felcanis, elf cleric
Honsou, larcenous bowman

Quid occurrit

The next day, they wake up, and Grignok tracks the giant spider. He points to the broken branches in the trees. "It came through the trees." At about mid-morning, they reach a thick patch of trees where the tracks stock. The trees have big slashing marks on the bark that go up. Grignok says the irregular slash marks are obviously from the giant spiders.

Grignok sticks his head the grove. "I don't see much. The trees here must be really thick up top."

Honsou climbs up the tree. After several minutes, he sees some webbing in the trees. He can stand on a branch up. He cuts a window into the webbing, and sees a passage inside. He calls down, and Grignok and Mateo make it up. Grignok points out the webbing is sticky and they will go through slowly unless he turns into slime.

Suddenly, a long, slender arm ending in a two-finger claw comes out and tries to grab Mateo but he gets out of the way. Honsou whips out his bow and quickly loads an arrow, and points it at the hole, while Mateo casts a small fireball. The claw comes out and just gets a grip on Mateo, and Honsou shoots it, but the arrow bounces off harmlessly. Grignok will try to grab the hand right back, but it pulls its claw away. Mateo lobs the Fireball inside, and the claw pulls back.

Mateo casts Ignite Fire and Shape Fire and starts burning a hole through the webbing. The look through and do not see the ettercap. Grignok asks, "Why are you trying to destroy Nature? We can kill the Ettercap, it is not Nature, but we do not want a forest fire."

The climb down, and Felcanis asks, "Did you take care of whatever was up there?" They rest, then start back to the village.

Along the way, they pass under some trees, and two man-sized spiders drop on Bill. Honsou and Mateo shoot but miss, while Grignok casts Beast Speech. "Do not harm the mule, for he did not harm you!" The spiders start to step back. Honsou shoots one of the spiders, and Mateo is drops his crossbow whips out his longsword. Grignok kicks the spider and it falls. The other one flees as Honsou shoots the foot of the hurt one, stapling it to the ground. Grignok kicks the spider again and it passes out. Felcanis casts healing spells on Bill while the others kill the spider.

That night, they eat on twigs from Felcanis's Create Food spell. The next day, there are storm clouds overhead. They set forth, then after some walking, they hear some growls behind them. They turn to look, and see a pack of six wolves. Grignok casts Beast Speech, and after some barking, finds the wolves want the heroes to stay away.

At the end of the day, they make it back to Bóllā. Nobody seems to care much about the heroes and Lady Savendótē lets them stay at her manor. Honsou tries to steal a cow for some reason, but it makes a loud moo when he tries. A serf calls Honsou, "Stupid like a shoe," and, "A ball-less imp."

After that, they walk for a day and make it back to town.

Game log 27 November 2022 and 22 January 2023: Ain't we lucky we got 'em?

Personae dramatis

Mateo de Leon Garcia, stylish red wizard

Grignok, orc druid often in panther shape
Felcanis, elf cleric
Honsou, larcenous bowman

Mēnévē, broken-nosed fighter (NPC)

Quid occurrit

Mateo de Leon Garcia is a red wizard from the city of Pumšássun in the Duchy of Suslópnis who is coming to the town of Mīstássun in the County of Mīsarkēnê to make a fortune in the boondocks. He was with a caravan, but bandits hit it as it passed by the Outpost of Swords, and he got off the road in the fight. He wound up in the woods, where he runs into some redneck murderhoboes.

Honsou, Felcanis, Grignok, and Mēnévē see a well-dressed man step out of the woods. After some pleasantries, Mateo agrees to link up with these redneck murderhoboes, and Honsou shows Mateo the sword. It shocks him, and Felcanis heals him. As it happens, Felcanis is the only one who can touch the sword without it it hurting her.

They go west towards Mīstássun. There are storm clouds on the horizon. Around midday, they wander into woods with some trees chopped down, and hear a craggy voice. "Hey, haven't you bothered me enough?"

They turn, and see a dwarf with no earlobes. Honsou asks what they have done to bother him, and the dwarf says that they took his treasure and wrecked his home. Honsou asks for more details. "I've done like five of those this week."

The dwarf sighs. "You and your nasty elf friend wrecked my home! Your orc was the most well-behaved of you!"

Honsou says, "Oh, yeah. Good times."

That night, not long after bed, the dwarf shows up at the mist around the camp while Honsou is on watch. "Hey! You all in there! I wanna talk to you!" After some banter, the dwarf, whose name is Zurâg, says he wants to get back to town to sell some lumber. "I wanna get back to town! I have some lumber I wanna sell. You all owe me! Can I come with you all?" Honsou tells him he needs to talk to the others, and the next morning, Zurâg shows up, dragging some logs in a makeshift truck. They agree to let him come along.

That night, they make it to the village of Káddrakos. Zurâg splits from the group. "Thank you, for once! Sorry about your friend. She must have opened her mouth one too many times!" He trades with the gnomes for supplies, and the group spends the night in the Winking Friar inn. Honsou picks some pockets and gets eight copper.

In mid-afternoon the next day, they are walking along the road, and should make it to Mīstássun that night. Honsou sees some movement in the trees. He looks, and sees some men, who somehow think they are hidden. A buck-toothed man steps out. "Hey, we've been robbed!"

Honsou asks, "Why are you staying in the bush?"

Bucky says, "We thought they were coming back for more! We were gonna get 'em on the rebound!"

Honsou eyes them, knowing fellow bullshitters. "Why would they come back for more if they already robbed you?"

Bucky says, "We still have our weapons!"

Mateo asks which way they went. Bucky thinks for a moment, then points to the west. "They went that-a-way!"

Honsou nods. "Let's go that direction. I'm the only one around here allowed to steal from people." So, they keep walking west as before, towards town, which they reach that evening.

In town, Mēnévē splits from them group. Honsou tries to sell a painting, and has trouble finding a buyer. Mateo finds someone in the market who is looking for a big but bland painting and buys it for 400 copper, of which Mateo takes a fifth. 

Next up is selling the longsword of hurts-everyone-but-Felcanis. They look around for someone who can identify it, and they find a older, stocky, out-of-shape man named Praidīvós. "I'll cut you a deal. I identify it and help you sell it, and you give me a thousand farthings out of the sale. You in?" Mateo says nothing upfront, and wheedles him down to 900 farthings, but with a cut of a tenth of the sale. They haggle more, and Honsou takes the first offer: a thousand farthings, payable upon sale.

Praidīvós takes the sword to a back room while his apprentice, a young woman with short hair and slightly crossed eyes named Kôštē, makes tea for Mateo. "Enjoy your fucking tea."

Praidīvós sticks his head out of the room. "Watch your language, Kôštē!"

An hour passes, and Praidīvós comes out, eyes wide. "I—I need to check my books. Kôštē, stay with them for a bit. Don't touch the sword. It will damage anyone who isn't pure of heart. Which describes none of us." He goes back into the other room, then comes out again after several minutes. "Well, I should use my connections on selling this. Give me another thousand out of it; trust me, it's worth it. And definitely don't touch the sword. I'm almost certain the sword is Seft, and I should be able to get a few hundred gold pieces for it. It won't like you. I won't like any of us. It likes people who give alms to the poor, and it makes sure you do so."

Honsou agrees, and Praidīvós says to give him a week. After a week, Praidīvós hands over 750 gold pieces. "Believe me, this was a pleasure doing business with you." Mateo takes 120 gold, while Honsou hands over 200 gold to each of Felcanis and Grignok.

The town gets the gold right back. Honsou buys a fine, balanced composite longbow, and Light, Impenetrable Fine Light Leather Armor of Warding. He swaps his old armor and bow for 96 arrows. Felcanis gets Light Elven Light Mail of Invulnerability (and Redundancy) and a Light Fine Medium Shield of Warding, selling her old armor and shield while doing so.

Over that week, they look for work. The talk of the Scarlet Harlot this week is that someone brought back some truffles from the woods in the southeast, and said the boars there gored his buddy to death. The guy who tells them this raves about the truffles. 

Mateo gets drunk with a guy from the village of Bóllā in the east, on the edge of the woods. Big spiders have been known to come to this village and have even taken away a couple of villagers now. The size of the spiders varies each time he tells it. He's pretty wasted.

Honsou is picking pockets, and overhears a guy complaining about losing all his loot while in the hills to the north. Some bandits hit him pretty good, and he barely managed to get away with his life. Since the guy looks beat up, Honsou chooses to pick a different pocket.

After some chatter, they choose to go to Bóllā. It sits on the edge of the Eldalîvā Woods, and they has passed through there many times on the way to Dībités Rock. They can make it to the market village of Ōndrûnks on the road, then walk to Bóllā from there, a trip of about thirty miles. The next day, the first of the month of Párūs, they set forth for Bóllā in nice May weather.

On the road to the Ōndrûnks area, a one-armed elf male waves at them. With his good hand, of course. "Greetings! What brings you fellows and lady this way?" Honsou asks to trade with him. "Well, good sir, I deal in masonry! You humans are always building homes out of mud and cow shit, but I have bricks!" He points to the wheelbarrow he is dragging behind him, a rope to it around his waist.

Honsou asks for a brick. "I want one brick, if I have to send a death threat through a window."

The elf chuckles. "I like the way you think, son! I'll let you have a brick for a farthing. Be sure to let everyone know where you got it unless you're dealing with one of those death threats! Then I didn't know you." And so he sells Honsou a brick for a farthing.

That night, they make it to Bóllā, and widow Dáklā puts them up for the night for twenty farthings. She squints and fidgets often. "Eh, don't get too close to the children. What brings you here this time?" Honsou says the giant spiders do, and she shuts up fast. "I don't know what's up with the spiders. Because there are no spiders."

Honsou scoffs. "I've been arrested plenty of times so I know you're lying straight to my face."

Dáklā says, "Well, did you get hit—what? Arrested? For what?"

Honsou says, "Let me see … It was robbing, more robbing, throwing a brick into someone's house, and defiling a church. But that one wasn't my fault."

Dáklā glares at Mateo. "You seem like a nice young man. Control your friend. And don't go looking for spiders. They carry off cattle. We don't want them coming back. Now, go to bed." She tells Mateo to go to Lady Savendótē the next morning if he wants a reward for killing the spiders.

Dáklā's oldest son, in his early teens, watches them all night. Especially Honsou. The next morning, Dáklā throws them out at first light. 

The manor house is pretty easy to find. Honsou knocks on the door. An attractive woman in traveling clothes opens the door. "Yes?" This is Lady Savendótē. Mateo brings up the spiders, and she gazes at him for a second before telling him, "They can get over the wall, and they come from the east, in the woods."

They walk out of the village, through the east gate. The watchman cackles as they pass. "They'll get you! They always get you!" Then he falls asleep.

Game log for 22 March 2020: Virtual travel

Dramatis personae

Horace, wizard
Felcanis, elf cleric
Jiro, swordswoman
Lucdalen, elf-hating elf wizard
Kurt, hobbit fighter

Quid occurrit

They make it to the Magog tavern in Ōndrûnkš. There, Jiro buys a book from a peddler with one ear called Traces of the East, which is about the elves of the east of the Eldalîvā Woods. (Odd place, but the peddler is there having a drink.) She finds nothing special in the book, then she lets Horace read it.

Horace finds out that the book does have a few remarks about the Curious Cairn of the Collector:

“The evil sect near the western edge of the woods has a big library. Alas, it has only one spell book, and even that book, The Revealed Great Exploits of the Engineer: For Which He Was Burnt, has only two spells in its selection, as an add-on: Mind over Matter and Vision of Doom.” As Horace knows nothing about these spells, this makes him interested.

Nothing happens at night, and the next night they spend in a peasant hovel in Bóllā, the last village before the woods. The next morning, they set forth into the woods.

The first day of the trip is unremarkable, though they don’t get far as nobody knows much about trips through the woods. Indeed, they were lucky that Kurt chose to buy a compass from a peasant in Bóllā.

That night, a thin snake comes to the camp when Lucdalen is on watch, though when they at last spot it, it flees, with Jiro and Kurt uselessly trying to hit it in the dark.

Res aliae

Not much of a session in the logs, but the players did have a lot of roleplaying banter in the tavern. The big after-action discussion was about travel, which folks had a hard time following in Roll20.  Part of the issue was that this was the first wilderness trip with the new characters, and the new characters do not include wilderness stud Mayhem. Mayhem has points in three Survival skills, and knows them at a level of about 18, and generally gets more wilderness awesome from there. Anyways, I did make sure to spell things out for them, which somehow are more understandable in person.

Roll20 worked alright. Right now I'm fiddling with maps; if/when they make it to the dungeon (it's never assured to get there), I'll have to have maps, and I'll have to split things so that they're loadable.  They're not quite at the level I'd like, but I have to have something. It's different to prep these things than to worry about Weirdness Magnet.