Session 9: The Road To Paradiso

Preface - Before we begin I need to make something clear about the last session log. After writing it I realized the dungeon I sent the party to was located nowhere near where I told them it was. I was celebrating Halloween pretty hard and mistakes were made. Anyway, if you read last time and noticed the discrepancy, now you know why. I told the party and said i am just chucking it up to some crazy Brovenloft mist shenanigans.

Player Characters:

Dr. Bright - Level 1 Human Illusionist Lawful Evil

The Scuba King - Level 1 Half-Orc Fighter/Thief Lawful Evil

Anyway, we were unable to play this weekend so some of the guys wanted to play an online session mid week. They just needed a little more XP to level. The session was quick and there were not as man encounters, partially because the mists are now gone, so I am no longer rolling a d10 for encounters. Beginning of month also means upkeep and parasite/ disease rolls. Nothing was caught this month.

11/1/23 As the sunrises the mists, that have coved the colony since 10/13/23, dissipate. The citizens are excited and are no longer frightened to travel, or leave their homes. Dr. Bright is going to need some training and their are no magic users, let alone illusionists, located in Brightoni. He asks his partner in crime, Scuba King, to join him on a trip down South to Paradiso. Of course Scuba King is in for some adventure.

Dr. Bright wants to find a druid to join them. There is a druid in town, Little Jacob. Since he is one of the PCs alts, he can not join the party. He can however inform them about what he knows regarding the location of some other druids. He knows that they live somewhere South of the large gold mine in the Mountains West of Paradiso. They have been spotted by sailors. They claim that the druids like to surf in the bay. Enough information to go on. The party hires a MAP and take the road to Paradiso. There are no encounters.

11/2/23 Around 10 am the party runs into a group of 120 dervishes. They are heading North after being hunkered down during the mists. They have some items and livestock for sale. The Scuba King buys 2 chickens and 1 goat. He now will get 2 eggs a day and a small bucket of milk. Too bad he doesn't have a way to keep it from spoiling, but he can drink it instead of his waterskin.

Then he asks if they have a cart for sale. They have one they are not curranty using but don't want to sell, unless they get more than what they paid for it. For 250 gold pieces, they will sell the cart. King accepts and the party continues South.

They arrive at a stone bridge where MSC guards are standing by. They make small talk with the party, mainly how they are happy the mists are gone. The party keeps moving forward, not being friends of the law with no more encounters for the rest of the day.

11/3/23 The party arrives at the small farms outside of Paradiso. They need to head West to find the druids. Dr. Bright wants to bring an acceptable peace offering to bring with them for the druids. Scuba King points out that druids love odorous smoking herbs. They sell some high quality herb in Paradiso. The party heads into the city and searches the ally for someone sketchy. They find a homeless man in an ally, at least that is all they thought he was. He points them to a local "coffee shop" named La Kush and the party secures the bag. They stay at an inn for the night.

11/4/23 The party is heading West to find the druids. Sometime in the afternoon they finally get a combat encounter, with 4 bandits. The party wins surprise and gets 2 segments. They see the bandits sitting by a fire talking about how they are totally going to get the jump on the next adventurer party they encounter.... The party decides to engage. Big Black and Meaty charge after Scuba King goes for a backstab. Scuba King and Meaty take out 2 bandits, then initiative is rolled. The party wins again and they annihilate the remaining 2. They search the bodies and find 19 gold on them. The party has no more encounters.

11/5/23 No encounters as they continue West, the mountains are now visible. They will change direction tomorrow.

11/6/23 The party has arrived North of the region they need to search. They need to head South however there is no longer any road for them to safely travel along through the jungle. This means 2 things: they now can only travel 1 hex instead of 2, and they must abandon the cart Scuba King just spent 250 gold on less than a week ago. Big Oof... This is due to very rugged terrain classification on page 51 of the DMG. There are no encounters for the party.

11/7/23 The party continues South through the jungle. They have no encounters during the day. At night, my PCs will split the long rest into shifts incase of encounters. It usually consists of 3 watches depending on party size. During the second watch Scuba King and his men at arms. They win surprise on an encounter role, and get 4 segments of surprise. A lone savage is seen walking along the tree line. Scuba King decides to tail him alone and not wake Dr. Bright. He wants all the XP, and all the glory. He sneaks up and backstabs the savage (Caveman - Tribesman) and one shots him. Scuba King returns victorious and decides he want one of those pre-rolls they bought for La Kush. Being the thief he partially is, King snatches one off the sleeping Dr. Bright without him realizing anything. No more encounters for the rest of the night.

11/8/23 The party heads South and around 9 am, they spot smoke and a small bungalow hamlet which wafts a skunky odor into the air. This has got to be the Drews' village. The party approaches with weapons put away and smoking herbs in hand. Some savages armed with spears and clubs fallow a druid to parlay. They accept the party's peace offering and start smoking.

The Drews tell the party they all are not native coming over from the Old World. They didn't like the religious persecution by the church dominated regions. Here in the New World, they are allowed to be within the cities, yet the Drews prefer to keep to themselves. That being said they do not trust the oligarches running the colony. They categorize all the natives as savages and take more and more land as they expend. They also mine all the valuable resources from the area robbing it of its precious resources.

The party then determines its time to talk business. They say that the boys need a healer and they don't want one associated with either church. They are willing to pay 500 gold to make a druid Dr. Brights's henchman. The Drews accept and they are allowed to take a level 1 Druid named Badman. The Drews also tell the party that they will give them some gold back if they map some of a nearby dungeon that is the tomb of a powerful Drew by the name Michael Zendada. The party accepts and heads to the tomb.

They confidently enter the tomb with Scuba King and Meaty up front, whilst Dr. Bright lights up his staff with continual light. They bravely walk down a 50 foot hallway which ends with an open portcullis facing West. Scuba King checks for traps on the portcullis and fails his roll. He believes it is fine and walks through. Unfortunately it was trapped with a 40 foot flooded pit trap. I have him roll a save vs paralyze and he fails. Both him and the dog plumet down the pit head first taking 15 points of damage, SPLAT!

Dr. Bright absolutely shocked by his partners death decides to make the most of his death. He takes his 50 feet of rope and had Big and Badman lower him down to recover Scuba King's items. He doesn't have much, but he does still have the #1 gold pin worth 900 gold pieces. The party then returns to the Drew's village.

11/9/23 Br. Bright wishes to return to Paradiso so that he may train. Badman suggests they travel North along the coast instead of the jungles. It will be faster and safer. They leave bright and early and face no encounters.

11/10/23 Travel along coast heading Northeast, no encounters.

11/11/23 Travel East along coast then straight into Paradiso, no encounters.

Treasure and XP: All treasure and XP goes to Dr. Bright except XP from Tribesman.

19 Gold Pieces - 19 XP

4 Bandits - 52 XP

Rankings:

Dr Bright - E - Used magic for light, plotted.

The Scuba King - D - Dead, He played role extremally well especially being the first to play a multi classed character at any of our sessions.