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Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!

Thundertree part two!

As I anticipated this session was much like last week’s. The PCs explored the Eastern half of the ruined town, going building to building and fighting more twig blights and ash zombies. Dare I say it might have gotten a tad repetitive, and I should’ve found a way to spice up a few of the battles and scenarios.

This was a war of attrition, as the PCs couldn’t take a Long Rest during the druid’s cleansing ritual. They took their second Short Rest after a small zombie fight, then found themselves nearly overwhelmed by the half dozen zombies in the barracks to the North.

I also finally hit a string of good rolls with another twig blight ambush, scoring high rolls for surprise and initiative, as well as nailing most of my attacks during the first round. The Paladin was forced to drink a potion, and both he and the monk had to use their final hit dice during the Short Rest.

The overall combat felt very well balanced. Nobody died but two of them came close, and the party definitely needed to trudge back to Reidoth the druid in desperate need of a Long Rest. First, however, I had them meet with the cultists in the Southeast.

The dragon cultists are an interesting side plot in Thundertree. I can’t expound on them too much lest my players actually read this. They did provide some fun bits of role-playing in an otherwise completely combat-heavy session. Kalinaar the paladin attempted to banish them from the area nonviolently, but failed the persuasion check. The cultists weren’t interested in a straight up fight, however, and both parties agreed to stay out of each other’s way.

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Having killed the last ash zombie, the PCs saw a light emerge from the druid’s cabin and spread out over the area, lifting the malaise and fog from the ruined town. Mission accomplished!

They walked past the tower in the North on the way back, noting the giant spider corpses outside. Kalinaar listened in at the door to the attached cottage, and picked out a conversation in draconic between the cultists and a dragon. Since only he understood draconic, I whispered the translation to him directly, and what he heard made him hilariously tell everyone to run like hell.

The party made it back to the druid’s. Reidoth congratulated them and told them the location of Cragmaw Castle – the base of operations for the goblin tribe and the best lead they have on Gundren and the map to Wave Echo Cave. But the dragon is now metaphorically clawing at their minds, and they were forming a plan to talk to it when I called the session for the evening. Should be interesting how the PCs decide to approach this potentially dangerous scenario. Tune in next week!

Watch our sessions live on my YouTube channel every Sunday night beginning at 9:30pm Central. Subscribe and catch up on previous episodes!