Session Notes: The Shield of Kirtin (Paladin) player is out for this session on no notice. As is practice the only way that PC would perish is through an absurd TPK. There’s a near-zero chance of that. Present were the Goliath Commoner (Tinker) and the Human Mundane Ranger from coastal Daoud. Both are 1st time table-top role-players.

The Three last were in the ruins of a farmhouse in the Stench of Sheljar. At night they’d faced a few skeletons and zombies that rose from a bog and into the crumbling home where the Three took refuge. It was on the edge of these Sheljar lands. In the morning they work their way into a city that has been destroyed.

Abandoned homes and shops line the improved roads. There are pits of acid, pockmarks from various bolts, fire damage throughout. Few skeletons are about and everything stinks. The bog land and little islands have bridges connecting paths and larger spots of firm ground tend to have docks and piers.

Caution takes the group as they wander through this abandoned place. They know there may be skeletons and zombies. As they follow a main path they start to here a loud noise. It is a chink-chink-chink KACHUNK thing, clearly mechanical. Not knowing where to look they try to get closer to this, winding through large paths and small roads from stable ground to stable ground.

Reaching a structure with a kind of permanence in this forsaken place they investigate. The ground floor is former in, with tables in disrepair, but some level of cleanliness that is surprising here. The Shield stays in this space with his faithful horse. The other two checkout the kitch…

A HUGE RUMBLE comes from the southwest.

Everyone but the animal companions are on their asses. The Tinker rushes to a window with a view to that part of the world and sees a volcanic eruption. A huge cloud is forming with its rain of rocks and ash to come. The chink-chink-chink KACHUNK noise stops.

The Ranger gets a view towards the noise and there is a fire beyond a building across the way, and then streaming out of a passage are a set of humanoids setting up a bucket brigade. They are of varied sizes, with the largest making her Goliath friend seem a bit small. Their bucket brigade slows downs every time the smaller humanoids get one of these huge barrels of water. Eventually they leave and a couple more of the immense, tusked creatures can enter the line.

The sky falls dark and towards one of the branches of the river there is a waterfall like noise. One of the large creatures gets swept away, the Three move to the second floor. They can’t see the other group now. The slush grey river is a horizontal water fall, but that fire is out.

An hour later, as the river dies down to a rapids rather than horizontal waterfall, the chink-chink-chink KACHUNK sound returns. Beyond the building they start to see a bladder-like structure appear. It is ribbed. It continues to rise with a rib filling at every KACHUNK. Twelve times that KACHUNK sounds and then a huge ship hangs underneath the ribbed bladder. Dozens of those various humanoids board.

A ladder is thrown down to three of the largest types with two climbing up to the safety of their vessel. The last falls when two rungs fail. He is left behind.

The Three are cautious with the river and it is late in the evening. They settle in, keeping watch towards that lost soul. A few times in the evening they hear a clash of weapons. After those moments they see brighter fires.

In the morning the Tinker and Ranger cross the river to investigate, leaving the horse and Shield behind, in safety. Crossing this river, since the bridge was washed away, is difficult enough without armor.

They sneak around the warehouse-like structure that blocked the view. A Large frightened creature with a repeating heavy crossbow as large as a siege engine opens fire on the group. They weren’t sneaky enough. The Ranger orders her panther to attack as she tries to use piles of rubble for some cover. The Goliath takes cover and tries to fire back.

Session note: this was a couple weeks ago, so the pbp of the battle is impossible to recreate. Here’s the quick version.

They survive, but cannot take this creature alive, because the panther’s last command was to attack. It makes a killing blow on a critical. There will be no interrogation. They make it back to the Shield and let him know that they saw a couple other of those vessels leave. They also have a nicer map than the one they scrounged earlier. Those vessels they see seem to be leaving from spots marked on the map.

The statue in the harbor looks like the smallest of the creatures they saw. The Tinker thinks that those creatures, and that stature, all look like what the god Nok is reputed to look like.

End Session.