The chronicle record
Session recap
A frequently used map of Nirmathas bore hobgoblin attacks and troop movements.
It still showed hobgoblins holding two other forts.
After freeing imprisoned rangers and clearing more rooms, the party entered the main tower. Gundugar Herdtender reported recovering two sets of Handwraps of Mighty Blows, two figurines of wondrous power, and the map. Arsène found no traps on a small dragon figurine holding folded paper, and Gundugar pocketed both sets of handwraps. Finnetharyn Fimbleshanks unfolded the paper: an atlas page marked “the Blight,” north of the party’s position, with “Why here?” and calculations, all bearing question marks, for dragon flights from Fort Trevalay lasting twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six hours. A troll had falsely promised not to interfere upstairs; since then, the party had fought hobgoblins and dire creatures.
Gundugar and Finn climbed to a fog-filled tower level like a marshy cavern: fresh water fell into a deep pool, a concealed stone floor lay beneath it, stairs were flooded, and a large hole opened in the southern wall. Gold and silver glimmered underwater. Bruneg and Finn spotted a hobgoblin woman and her cat. She said she had hoped “he” would return before she had to kill them, dismissed the fort’s dead hobgoblins and trolls as Ibzairiak bastards, and said she led her own group. A dragon flew beside the tower, cast a spell that accelerated decay, and announced that a woman would reward him for killing the party. The cat attacked; Wren marked it as her prey, Gundugar’s vials set it alight, and Wren killed it. The dragon filled the area with toxic clouds as the woman cast spells at the party. Wren recognized her as Jang, a Fangwood druid reputed to disappear into the forest and return partly healed. After the party attacked her, Arsène killed Jang; the dragon’s breath was blocked from Wren and Finn by a wall.
Forest Six chose to keep fighting rather than retreat, with Gundugar arguing that the dragon’s lair and hoard were in the pool. Wren identified it as a bog dragon, unusually weak for a dragon, whose bite could transmit bog rot, and noted its rapid retaliation against nearby attackers. It vomited bugs and spiders toward Arsène, Gundugar, and Bruneg. The Party attacked with spells, arrows, bombs, and spiritual armament; Finn cursed the dragon with a wand. Bruneg drank Finn’s flying potion and attacked it in the air, but the dragon’s tail later knocked him unconscious and sent him into the river, where the fall further injured him. The dragon flew into the tower and demanded surrender. Wren killed it with an arrow. Arsène jumped into the water, injured himself, treated Bruneg until he regained consciousness, and helped him back to the tower.
The hoard held a spell scroll, coins, a broken lance, a shocking bastard sword, flying potions, and two wands, one of them a wand of Fireball. The lance’s point fit a scar beneath the dragon’s wing. Bruneg took the bastard sword and later the crossbow; Finn took the wands, and Wren kept a dragon scale. Gundugar took Jang’s striking scimitar, and Finn requested dragon-skin boots. Wren found and overturned a shrine to Sibbisukh, the Demon Lord of Fungus and Corruption; it displayed black scales larger than the dragon’s, mold, centipedes, slime, and a twig effigy. Gundugar warned that the chamber’s magically supplied water might weaken the tower over time.
Wren told roughly eighteen rescued Chernasardo Rangers that the dragon and druid were dead. The Party said the fort was theirs and planned to bring their people there, with rangers managing and guarding it. After a couple of days toward the caverns, Lirosa challenged them at bowpoint, then apologized and explained that a false visitor had arrived a month early claiming to bring their ordered deliveries. She also reported an attack by crawling gray humanoids. The defenders had kept one corpse, which Gundugar identified as a Morlock. There were no casualties, but some refugees had left a few days earlier to seek better conditions in the forest, perhaps near their old camp by Phaendar. The Party decided to pack, find them, and collapse the tunnel entrance to the dark ways. Lirosa agreed to prepare the remaining refugees to move to the fort. Wren showed Mira her dragon scale and gave her a fang necklace. Mira reported that the two wolf puppies had escaped, dug up corpses, and eaten from them. Finn proposed a song to teach them not to eat humanoids or cetaceans. After several days of packing, the refugees were ready to leave.
A surviving ranger and a militia representative then asked the party to investigate the western situation and report intelligence. Attacks were spreading across Nirmathas; refugees were arriving faster than the rangers could house and feed them, and reports said the Legion had secured the Nesmian Plains and pushed north of the Marideth River. Longshadow had not answered messengers, Kraggodan was believed besieged, and a local lieutenant had seized villages, including a mining settlement thirty miles west. The Militia Representative said the Fangwood fighting appeared to have diverted forces while the Legion operated in the west, where the rangers could not withstand a major offensive. He presented six golden-leaf brooches honoring the party and asked them to leave as soon as local responsibilities allowed, not as an order. Fort Trevalay had space reserved for their people and headquarters, with additional rangers protecting it; troops were moving into the three recovered forts. The Party was also asked to bring back information about Kraggodan. The representative departed after describing the conflict as a three-way fight involving hobgoblins and Molthuni forces. The refugees remain ready to move, the departed refugees have not been found, and the western situation remains uninvestigated.
Threads to Watch
- The refugees who left for the forest have not been found; the remaining refugees are ready to move to the fort.
- The western situation remains uninvestigated, and the party was asked to bring back information about Kraggodan.
- The Party decided to collapse the tunnel entrance to the dark ways; no outcome is reported.
Notable quotes
“I don't give a fuck about those bastards, they are Iron Fang. I run my own.” — GM-Pablo (GM)
“You try to sell them, I'm going to kill you.” — GM-Pablo (GM)