Session 24: Salt on a Barley Wind

Lilia defacing some barley crops

Summary

Saran and Jochi

Sahuagin

Shambling Mound

At Phaulkon Manor, Drenn chose survival: after watching Shrieker scatter his Zhent guards, he reshaped a fallen githyanki's corpse to look like him with a Netherese transmutation, drank invisibility, and slipped past the stunned cooks.

Over stew, the party argued how to answer Lantil's death ("Blame the sahuagin," Glenn quipped) while Unit 137 drifted into Blood War recruitment. Lilia and Diedric met with Khan Temuj, who proposed an oath-duel with the Fankiang, stakes sworn and kept. Lilia pressed for future aid against Thay's slavers; Temuj agreed to carry it to Hubadai.

They flew out with outriders Saran and Jochi, trading talk of the Art, planes, and gods--the Red Knight foremost--and warning of sahuagin at the Lake of Mists. Crossing tented farmlands and latticework dikes, Lilia cast starlit fertility (Brian's nickname in college) into miles of barley crops.

Before dawn, Diedric's hammer thrummed at a dike: sahuagin were swimming past bearing murdered farmers. The party cut down two and found pearl bracelets that salt the water around the wearer. Racing north, they bombarded a tent-farm; and amid burning canvas, a necromantic vine-and-bone heap rose, draining Glenn and striving to swallow him as steel and spells surged toward it.

XP Award

• 600 XP for learning about Oath-Duels as a potential option
• 1000 XP for negotating a potential alliance with the Tuigan against Thay
• 600 XP for Lilia improving the next harvest
• 100 XP for dispatching a small group of sahuagin
• Total: 2300 XP
• Current XP: 39613 XP -> 41913 XP (Level 8)
• (Required for next level: 48000 XP)

Things That Happened

Interlude: The Drow's Decision

• Drenn, the drow wizard at the Phaulkon Manor, sighed as he hovered in the basement, lazily undoing Octavius's sabotage of the Zhentarim's foodstuffs with his own prestidigitation.
• Frowning at the scrape marks where the chest of the organization's gold used to be, he heard shouts coming from above.
• Still shielded, he hovered up through the trapdoor and looked out of an arrow slit.
• He bore witness to a dire bat knocking a ballista off a tower, then swirling into Shrieker as she booted one of his soldiers off the palisade (to a wilhelm scream) and lay into the others while dual wielding cudgels.
• Nodding to himself, decision made, he floated into the main hall, where the githyanki woman's corpse still lay.
• Using one of the many Netherese spells he learned while visiting the Elfmound, he transmuted her body into the shape of his.
• He then imbibed an invisibility potion, and fled out the front door as the two chef servants watched from the entryway to the kitchens.

Plotting Over Stew

• Date: 22nd of Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms, April), late evening, 1372 DR
• Left to themselves in the dining tent, the party discussed their options as to how to administer justice for the death of Lantil, the Hoar Paladin, who was killed as a consequence for Laash's death.
• Glenn suggested: "The Sahuagin did it." and to slap the corpse of a sahuagin on the back of a horse.
• The party discussed the nature of justice, with Unit 137 chiming in about how the Baatezu were superior to the Tanar'ri and that the party should join the Blood War.

Ideas and Negotation

• After a child flying a reed-kite pointed the way, Lilia and Diedric approached Khan Temuj's tent, politely shaking the tent flaps.
  • They discussed the matter with him, and he suggested that an Oath-Duel may be a viable option with the Fankiang tribe. A duel could be set with specific stakes that would be honored for the winner.
  • Lilia negotiated successfully, asking if their aid in this matter would earn the Tuigan peoples as an ally against Thay, especially given how Thay still practices slavery. Khan Temuj agreed to speak with Khahan Hubadai in Kourmira about it.
• The party went to sleep, their familiars watching the moon outside.

An Early Dawn

• Date: 23rd of Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms, April), early morning, 1372 DR
• The party awoke to Saran and Jochi, the two outriders who were heading to the Fankiang encampment to parlay, politely waiting for them.
  • Saran was lean, with short-cropped black hair, browned skin, half-plate with a purple tabard, a blue kite shield at her saddle, long lance and a side sword. Reed kites were tied to her saddlebags. A thin silver scar on her left cheek. She was good natured, quick to laugh, and marveled at Unit 137.
  • Jochi was broad-shouldered, with silvering hair and several horse-knots of hair tied at his belt, which he touched now and then. Wore chainmail and his lance had a purple rivulet hanging from it. He was more serious, and hyper-fixated on honor.

Journey to Parlay

• Unfurling their flying carpet (their "sky-horse"), the two outriders kept up as the party headed south-east toward the Fankiang tribe's temporary encampment north of the Lake of Mists.
• The party warned them of sahuagin in the Lake of Mists, showing them the scaled arrow.
• The party discussed much on the ride, including:
  • The nature of magic ("The Art"), and how those born with the gift could learn to harness arcane magic.
    • Octavius had never heard of requiring a gift to learn the arcane.
    • Saran and Jochi had never seen a spellcaster, although their tribe had "grass speakers".
  • It occurred to Glenn, almost a side thought, that perhaps he should start collecting curses.
  • Octavius tried to describe a plane. It was not successful.
  • They discussed the gods, with the Kubadai clan favoring The Red Knight, a goddess raised by Tempus during the Time of Troubles.
  • They also mentioned older gods, like Teylas and Etugen. The latter seemed like an analogue for Chauntea.
• The grasslands turned to tented farmlands, with irrigation dikes criss-crossing the landscape in a fascimile of Cormyrian agriculture.
• Lilia took some time away from her sleep to cast a ritual spell, creating a small crop circle in a field of barley. Starlight rained down into the soil in a wide radius, and she made the land increasingly fertile for the next harvest. Some crops grew before her eyes to near full maturity.
• The party set camp for the night, Diedric's Tiny Hut shielding them from view.

A Quiet Ride

• Date: 24th of Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms, April), early morning, 1372 DR
• The second day's ride was _[dice roll]_ completely uneventful, save for farmlands and seeing a child flying a reed-kite. Saran rode forward and gave the child one of hers.
• The party made camp for the night.

Rippling in the Dikes

• Date: 25th of Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms, April), early morning, 1372 DR
• Diedric's warhammer rang a brief warning, startling everyone awake, then went quiet.
• The party investigated the source of the noise, following it to a dike in the east.
• There, they barely spotted dark shapes in the water, swimming southward.
  • They were sahuagin, carrying the bodies of slain farmers.

Encounter: Grim Cargo

• The party very quickly dispatched the two sahuagin.
• They dragged the bodies, both sahuagin and humanoid, out of the waters and onto dry land.
• The bodies were a father and mother and two young sons, with slash marks across their throats from the sahuagin claws.
• Octavius noted two pearl bracelets worn by the sahuagin, and deduced, via minor pertubations in the water, that these bracelets turned the water immediately touching the wearer into salt water, allowing these sahuagin to survive outside of their native habitat, likely the Great Ice Sea to the north.
• The sahuagin were swimming south, away from a farm to the north.
• Warning Saran and Jochi of what they saw, the party left behind Unit 137 and Smokescale to guard them, and proceeded northward to the farm to investigate.

Encounter: Blood Harvest

• The party flew over the tent-farm, spotting a group of sahuagin taking bodies from a pile and swimming them away. Next to them was a strange midden heap of rotted plants.
• True bombardiers, Octavius opened with a fireball, setting two tents ablaze.
• Glenn lept from the carpet, sliding down a tent in frog form to face two confused sahuagin.
• As the party battled, the shambling mound stood, revealing it to be an aberration of necromantic energies binding vines and a dozen skeletal corpses together.
• Its tendrils snapped toward Glenn, sapping his life energy as its chest cavity opened up, trying to drag him into itself.
• The session came to an end.

(Green arrow denotes the party's start and end travel path.)

NPCs Encountered (or mentioned)

• Saran, the Tuigan Outrider
• Jochi, the other Tuigan Outrider

Memes

• Some sort of fixation on the tent flaps? I don't think I want to know.

DM Thoughts

• NPCs should start quaffing fire resistance potions and staying 60ft away from one another as their primary modus operandi.
• Nick: Hey, thanks for being so cool about [everything we've discussed in the past]. I appreciate Neribion not being in the campaign anymore, since it helps with my insecurities regarding anatomical differences between him and me.
  • Me: Of course! I'm here to help.
  • Nick: I was wondering, though, does B'ian Ch'k Ch'k also have a bi-
  • Me: Best for us to change the topic.
  • Nick: You're right, I'm sorry.