Session 5 Recap & Experience Points Awards

Resting in the heart of the Mud Cave after defeating the stone monster and recovering the prized nightweed cones, the adventuring company took stock of their surroundings.  Amid the vines and dark slicks of water trickling down the walls, several members quickly spotted a gleaming elven blade at the edge of a small puddle.  Remarkably undamaged despite untold years in this dank cavern, Greyndalf carefully retrieved the dagger and translated the elven runes etched into the steel.  “Kerlinala of the Quilderran,” the imprint read, no doubt identifying its previous owner.  How the weapon had fallen here was a mystery lost to the ages—but, Greyndalf declared, the group would do well to see the dagger returned to the hands of Kerlinala’s people.

 

On securing their find, the group huddled to plot its egress from the Mud Cave when suddenly a crack opened in the high ceiling, dropping clods of soggy underbrush to the depths below: sod, ferns, bushes, vines—and the diminutive form of the gnome Schlemeel, who’d no doubt gone picking through the woods and trampled on just the right spot.  By some great fortune, the gnome landed atop a tangle of soft vegetation.  He avoided injury in the fall, being only dazed—perhaps as much bewildered by his sudden new predicament as by the plunge itself.  But the dwarf Jowdain quickly dragged the gnome to his feet, and after a brief exchange of pleasantries, it was decided that Schlemeel would accompany the group on its march to the surface.

That march was rudely interrupted after just a short distance, however, when several more zombies and a pair of flesh-eating ghouls intercepted the group just as they’d ascended a flight of nearby stairs.  The cleric Gambol stepped forward and banished several of the creatures by invoking the holy name of Cygnival—but the remainder of the dreadful assailants, including one of the fearsome ghouls, surged forward undeterred.

The company hadn’t planned on venturing much further anyway, having previously noticed a soft ceiling in this region, accessible by a jagged cavern wall replete with ledges and hand-holds.  Indeed Jowdain had already scaled much of the distance, intending soon to drop a rope and pull his comrades to safety.  But with two undead foes still upon them, the rest of the party would need to fight their way out. 

The battle began inauspiciously, with the undead avoiding the worst of Greyndalf’s powerful burning hands spell and the ghoul then dealing a withering slash to Gambol that brought him within a hair of the afterlife.  But the ghoul did not paralyze the cleric, as such monsters’ attacks are known to do.  The cleric survived the blow—and then, with a little help from his (dare I say) friends, fled to safety up Jowdain’s rope.  Another of Greyndalf’s magical attacks then brought down the zombie, and the battle finally ended when the gnomish rogue Ossik delivered a vicious (and uncommonly proficient) dagger strike that cut clean through the ghoul’s rancid neck. 

Following the battle, Ossik retrieved a well-preserved scroll case from the ghoul’s back, before the company scampered to the surface along the impromptu exit Jowdain’s rope represented.  Opening the case, the group recognized the scroll as bearing a pair of magic spells, indecipherable without the benefit of a properly-invoked read magic incantation.  That evening, though it may have escaped his mention, the mage Greyndalf drew upon his talents of that persuasion and identified the spells as Disguise Self and Knock.

The adventurers there found themselves in the light woods just southwest of Horl, with the sun dipping below the horizon.  In their packs was an ample supply of the nightweed cone Mata Vuvu needed at the House of Opposition.  But the party had breached the Mud Cave, which the local warlord Soo-Kiru Kiru had sealed off years ago.   There could be no telling what manner of welcome the Lord Soo-Kiru might have in store of the group, were they to simply march across the town bridge into Horl.  So the company waited for the sun to complete its descent, and made its way a surreptitiously to the halls of Mata Vuvu.

There, without hesitation the Q’in priest set to work on the curative.  Quickly he ground the red cones into a powder and spread the same at the feet of Tawnica Morze—now barely recognizable with the trog rot much advanced upon her.  But the affliction proved no match for the elder cleric, whose vigorous chants and dances summarily purged every last trace of the contagion from Morze’s body. 

When the ritual ended, Morze revealed her true bearing as a magical elf of the mysterious Quilderran.  As a token of her gratitude, she bestowed a small pebble upon the cleric Gambol, whose resolute leadership in the flickering shadows of Camp Dorliff had brought her to this point much the same as Vuvu’s furious incantations.  The pebble was imprinted with an eleven rune meaning “ally,” which Morze promised would secure safe passage among her people.  Those people included the bard Sylvan Rao, evidently, as well as the ranger Tay-Wen Kiru—for when Morze then drew a shimmering dimension door in the midst of the chapel, both Sylvan and Tay-Wen followed her through.  Morze had a word about the dark rogue Ipplie Amie before taking her leave, however, describing him as a “hunted man” of dubious ethics—but with important secrets to tell.  With Morze’s departure, the book closed on Chapter 1 of the Curse of Xiogru campaign story.

And still the drama had not ended at the House of Opposition.  Not long after, the main doors swung open and none other than Mulder Vroso, with his familiar guffaw, trudged in.  After exchanging barbs with Mata Vuvu, the bombast woodsman revealed that he too had been tainted with the trog rot, and hoped the notorious crew who’d breached the Mud Cave had returned with nightweed cone to spare.  He offered information in trade—a secret treasure vault within the gnarled black trees of the shadow valley, west though the wood of the Quilderran.  This was enough for the company, though Vuvu’s ever unpredictable acolyte, Litaan Rigo, sweetened the pot by lifting for the party a potion of defense Vroso had supposedly plundered from some pine goblin foe three seasons prior.

The gnome Ossik did the talking with Ipplie Amie, and found the meeting tense but efficient.  From Vroso, the company knew the location of the treasure vault, but nothing of the wards.  Amie, it appeared, knew the wards but not the location.  Amie also evidently lacked the muscle to cope with what he called “the enchanteds,” supposedly a pair of animated statutes invulnerable to non-magic weapons.  He’d evidently divulged his purpose to the dwarf Carmore and the Issa brothers, undoubtedly in search of the latter commodity, and now his secret was out.  Not much liking his options, Amie accepted Ossik’s terms: an even share of the treasure and a bare promise of security. 

The company set off at noon the next morning.  A legion of Soo-Kiru Kiru’s finest had taken an interest in the party, yet not seen fit to approach—only look on, and attempt mildly to intimidate, from afar.  But they were soon avoided, and ere long the adventurers had exchanged the uneasy ambience of the austere logging town for the rush of the montane river and the chirps and creaks of enveloping woodland. 

Eschewing the rough hewn trail along the west bank for the cover and concealment of the east, the party made its way north several miles to the Compass Rapid without incident—only to find the channels had grown deeper and the currents much heavier upstream.  This forced a pair of perilous crossings under the watchful eyes of two hungry black bears.  This ordeal left the dwarf Jowdain a shivering mess.  But the crystal mountain water only seemed to energize the elf Greyndalf, who called forth a mage hand to carry a helpful rope to his vertically limited colleague, then led the group to the trailhead at the edge of the dense pines and into the heart of the Quilderran Forest.

Adventure Notes:

·      Ghoul.  The fearsome, flesh-eating ghoul plagues the nightmares of children throughout the realms—but very few ever stand face-to-face with this abomination.  Fewer still survive such encounters, for the ghoul’s jagged, icy claws strike with furious power and more often than not still their victims with cruel paralysis.  But you have stared down the ghoul and lived to tell—even felling one of the foul haunts upon your flight from the Mud Cave.  The beast is strong, agile, and devastating (causing 2d4+2 damage on a successful claw strike, plus inflicting paralysis on a failed DC 10 Constitution save).  The ghoul is also a more challenging target (AC 12) than its mindless cousin, the zombie, yet equally bloodthirsty and fearless.

·      The Quilderran. A tribe of wood elves known as the Quilderran can be found in the deep woods northwesterly from Horl—indeed, it is these elves from which the forest draws its common name.   The Quilderran are deeply distrusted in Horl, though this appears largely a product of prejudice based on the elves’ decentralized, tribal organization, matriarchal tendencies, and incongruent social mores.  The acolyte Liataan Rigo shared his notes on the tribe with you, for what they are worth.

·      Stone lizard’s head.  You left the head of the vanquished stone lizard with Mata Vuvu in Horl.  Vuvu and his acolyte, Litaan Rigo, promised to study the head and report their findings to you.  Vuvu only seems interested in exploring its potential healing capacities—but some of the greatest discoveries have occurred “by accident,” so they say. 

·      Potion of Defense.  According to Litaan Rigo, this navy blue potion turns the imbiber’s skin as hard as steel (granting an AC bonus of +5) for about an hour.

Experience Points & Inspiration 

DM’s experience award moderation note: In this campaign, experience points are awarded for overcoming obstacles, solving problems, and achieving goals.  Although experience points are typically awarded for defeating adversaries, note that (in this campaign) it is not necessary to actually kill an adversary to earn those experience points if the adversary can be defeated in another way.   Experience points are earned collectively and then divided among the player-characters.  In addition to experience points, individual players can earn inspiration for creativity, superior tactics, and especially strong role-playing.

Five undead monsters (two ghouls and three zombies) attacked the party on its flight from the Mud Cave.  Though the company only destroyed two of these foes, the cleric Gambol turned the remaining three and thereby created the necessary opening for the party’s escape.  Thus, the party effectively defeated all five of the monsters, and therefore receives the full experience value of the encounter.  This totals 650 experience points, to be divided among Greyndalf, Gambol, Jowdain, Ossik, and Schlemeel, with a sixth share divided between the non-player characters along on the adventure (Tay-Wen and Sylvan).  This totals 108.33 per share, which the DM will round up to 109 XP per character.

In addition, the party also earned experience for the following accomplishments:

·      Escaping the Mud Cave (125 XP);

·      Completing Chapter 1 (by delivering the nightweed to Mata Vuvu, enabling Tawnica Morze to be healed (1,200 XP);

·      Receiving the totem of safe passage from Tawnica Morze (100 XP);

·      Recovering the spell scroll (25 XP);

·      Healing Mulder Vroso in exchange for directions to the treasure vault (50 XP);

·      Securing Mata Vuvu’s agreement to study the stone lizard head (35 XP);

·      Persuading Ipplie Amie to accompany you to the treasure vault (50 XP);

·      Reaching the Quilderran Forest trailhead (25 XP)

The 1,200 XP award for completing Chapter 1 will be apportioned to characters commensurate with the extent of their participation in the events of Chapter 1.  Thus, full shares of are awarded to Jowdain, Gambol, and Greyndalf.  Ossik was not present for the initial battle at Camp Dorliff, but joined thereafter, and thus is awarded 5/6 of a full share.  Schlemeel entered only after the stone monster was defeated and the nightweed cone recovered; he will receive a token 1/6 of a full share.  Since the DM is satisfied with approximate calculations, these 1,200 XP are divided as follows: 300 XP each to Jowdain, Gambol, and Greyndalf, 250 XP to Ossik, and 50 XP to Schlemeel.

The remaining 410 experience points are divided among the player-characters only, for a total of 82 XP apiece.

The gnome rogue Schlemeel made a notable effort to impress his newfound colleagues by attempting to go Mulan on a limestone cavern wall armed with nothing but a standard bow & arrow.  As to be expected, the bowshot pinged harmlessly off the rock, triggering no avalanche but perhaps that of embarrassment in the chastened newcomer.  But the gamble did impressively mark Schlemeel as one unafraid to risk his companions’ very lives—or perhaps transformation into anguished, flesh-eating corpse monsters—for the glory of spectacular, if surpassingly improbable, victory.  And that, as they say, is entertainment inspiration. 

Final Session 5 totals:

·      Jowdain acquitted himself well in battle (well, spelunking) and earned 491 experience points. 

·      Gambol pleased his deity and gained 491 experience points.

·      Greyndalf remained a cunning and resourceful adversary, acquiring 491 experience points.

·      Ossik never saw a risk he didn’t want to take.  But his luck held true, and he gained 441 XP.

·      Schlemeel might actually be Yiddish for ‘honey badger,’ because Schlemeel don’t give a f*k.  But he did earn 241 XP and one point of inspiration.