My Players Did NOT Disappoint.

Auroria December 13th Day 1170

The secret Druidic order, known as Those Who Hunger, bears a heavy burden. They know the truth: Ky’Thanos—The Slumbering Wurm, The Star Spawn, The Insatiable—sleeps at the core of the world. Auroria itself is Its prison. Ky’Thanos sleeps, but not forever. Their task is simple yet complex: The Insatiable must be fed to keep It locked in a dream state. The earth itself hungers for blood. The greater the sacrifice, the longer It sleeps. If It ever wakes, Ky’Thanos will break the world open and destroy all life.

Toris Mal discovered that ancient dolmens have been sighted in a vast ruined city of giant people. The origins of this city have been lost to time, and no one dares learn more, for most who travel there never return.

Their mission was twofold: 1. Find the standing stones. 2. Sacrifice a humanoid with a soul to feed Ky’Thanos and maintain Its slumber. Now, the party did what every party would do when given a long leash by their DM: they planned to hire an NPC torch-bearer and sacrifice them. This is truly boring and contrary to the entire premise of this campaign. The directive of the campaign is clear and needed to be reiterated during the session: Focus your plans, downtime, and actions toward interacting with other players. So, I told them no. They had to either choose another PC (and give me a heads-up about their plans so I could coordinate with that player to ensure they were present in session) or choose a beloved NPC affiliated with another PC (retainer or faction leadership).

After some deliberation, they settled on the hero of the campaign: a soldier named Relgar. If you have been following the blog, he is the soldier who has saved Harald the Handsome on two separate occasions. Harald loves this soldier and wanted to convert him to a leveled retainer soon, but the Druids had other plans.

Relgar was under the Aggencourt bridge teaching his only son, Christoff, how to fish. With previous experience with Toris Mal and a favorable reaction check, the party was able to snatch up Christoff and knock out Relgar, but not before the guards were called. The guards spotted the party, but some great use of Entangle and a difficult choice of leaving their old lives behind allowed them to escape into the nearby swamps to the north.

They arrived at Hot Sally’s Swine Farm and, using Speak with Animals, uncovered a dark truth. These were once men; Hot Sally had changed them into beasts. The party unhooked the latch to their pen and told the pigs to escape once they saw the mob that was hot in pursuit. This distraction worked well, and what followed was the luckiest random encounter checks that could happen: zero encounters over six checks per day for two and a half days. They should have been frog food.

They found the massive city on December 14 and entered it on the 15th. They quickly discovered that the street signs were written in Druidic and, after a bit, found the Twelve Dolmens at the foot of a giant ziggurat. There, they lit the igniting incident in a war between the Lawful Good faction and Those Who Hunger. Following the rituals passed down through their ancient secret society, they slit the throats of Relgar and Christoff. The magic of the dolmens transferred the blood through the soil and fed Ky’Thanos. They were gifted with enough gold and experience to level to 2 as a blessing from The Slumbering Wurm.

They all handled this in different ways. The brutal reality that they needed to kill to save lives did not settle well and is a burden that they carry alone. The Wurm will sleep for the next six months. June 1st will be the next required feeding, but they can sacrifice others before that to prolong the slumber even further. The impact of this attack on the lawful citizens of New Leptos will ripple through the campaign and will certainly bring consequences down on them. This is Total Nonstop Braunstein.

That was the most exciting session we’ve had in a long while. Think of how forgettable this session would have been if they had just sacrificed Nameless Torchbearer NPC #2.

Player Grades:

I have absolutely no notes. These guys took the steering wheel of their faction and are driving the Braunstein bus. Great use of spells. Incredible play.

Toris Mal Level 1 N Druid - Exceptional. XP: 1467, GP: 3,500

Saorbreathach Level 1 N Druid - Exceptional. XP: 2000, GP: 3500

Bella Donna Level 1 N Druid - Exceptional. XP: 2000, GP: 3500

Stalvan Level 1 N Druid - Exceptional. XP: 2000, GP: 3500