March 4, 2026
Up a creek
March 4, 2026
Up a creek
Off to Thither!
Off to Thither!
We had our most recent D&D sesh about a week or two ago, so here's how that went! This'll be the last session update for this campaign for a lil bit, since a couple of my players need to take an irl hiatus for a bit, but hey, that's how life goes. We had a nice time pre-session chatting and celebrating, since it was roughly my birthday at the time. Lots of cake and snacks and chatting, so that was real nice. Anyway...
Our party now had the head of the scarecrow Clackerclaw in hand, and headed back to Downfall to hand it over. After chatting a bit and finding out that the king of Downfall had been added to the wall of former king frog-heads, they secured Clackerclaw as a guide to getting to Thither. They procured a balloon from the balloonworks in town, and lifted off into the wild blue yonder. After a little turbulence and some time had passed, they touched down in Thither for the first time, and secured themselves their 4th level up!
Clackerclaw let the party know that he couldn't direct them to Loomlurch directly, but he could point them in the direction of a certain hermit who could provide some assistance. The party decided to follow that advice and headed for Nib's Cave, where the hermit Nib lived. Along the way, they came across a very rude circle of mushroom-men, who jeered at them and called them names like stinky, scaly, fatso, etc. Red scared off a few of them, and some other from the party tried to see what would happen if they stood in fairy ring, but nothing of note happened when they did. Moving right along, they came upon Nib's cave, and met the hermit Nib. He explained that he was cursed by Granny Nightshade to spin his ill-gotten wealth into helpful items for anyone who came to visit, as a result of some creative interpretation of a contract he signed with her. He made everyone some helpful magic golden items, and explained about Will of the Feywild, a child that's been antagonizing Granny Nightshade who the party might seek out for assistance with their heist.
Learning that Will would likely be found in a grove far to the north, the party headed that way pretty immediately, since it was possible Will knew where to find the portait that they were contracted to Bavlorna to steal. Along the way, they came upon a mysterious lake that seemed to always be just out of reach, no matter how they approached it. Deciding to not waste too much time, they continued their journey north. They came upon another fairy ring, but this time with much friendlier mushroom men. They made some mushroom friends, but hurried along to the grove where Will could be found. Just before they got there they happened upon a trio of fairies sitting around a small doorstop, having tea. They were arguing about what the purpose of the doorstop could be, seeing as how they had just stolen it from the material realm. After some silly suggestions from the party, the fairies thanked them and granted them a day's worth of truesight as a reward, and a one-time calling reed that could summon them to help out the party in a time of need.
After a long trek across Thither, they eventually found themselves at the favourite grove of Little Oak, Will's gang hideout. As it turned out, Will was the leader of a band of kids that have been trying to free a bunch of other kids who had been enslaved by Granny Nightshade. So, they were coming up with a breakout plan that the party would be able to help with. In exchange, Will could provide some intel on the location of the portrait gallery in Loomlurch (Granny Nightshade's hideout). Will's crew would "cause a distraction", and the party would break in and help free the kids who were being put to work for Granny Nightshade. Not much of a plan, but apparently Will liked to play it loose. He also let the party know how to get closer to that mysterious lake from earlier. It was actually the lair of a powerful unicorn, and only other unicorns could approach it. Luckily, Will's crew had found out that simply pretending to be a unicorn via a pantomime unicorn costume (or just sticking a stick to your forehead) was enough to fool the spell. Some of Will's crew thought the unicorn might also be able to help, so the party headed back to the lake to seek it's aid.
Climbing into a makeshift unicorn costume after making it back to the lake, they were able to pass the magic spell's barrier. This only got them as far as the shore of the lake, so they had to swim over to the island in the centre of it too. On that island was a small hill with an unlit brazier at the top. After lighting it, the unicorn appeared on the far shore. Approaching it, it telepathically began speaking to the party, and identified itself as the unicorn Lamorna. She explained that Prismeer was once the sole domain of the archfey Zybilna, but that the Hourglass coven had usurped her. They did this by taking her mate's horn and using its magic to imprison Zybilna in her castle, the Palace of Heart's Desire. Before they could chat more, they were ambushed by an assassin!
Lucky for the party, the assassin was relatively inept, and Lamorna vanished almost immediately. Seeing he was outnumbered, he tried to drink an invisibility potion to make his escape, but the truesight that some of the party had from helping out the fairies earlier that day saw right through it. One failed attempt at negitiation later, the assassin was slain in short order. With that out of the way, Lamorna returned to explain more about her lost mate and some useful information on how to approach Loomlurch. In real life, it was now getting pretty late, so we called it for the night.
I had a real nice time this session. It's always nice when my players get to level up, and I got to do a lot of very good silly voices this time. It'll be a bit until we can have our next session with the full party, so it looks like Red's player might take a shot at DMing Rime of the Frostmaiden at some point in the semi-near future for a slightly different friend group. It'll be weird not being the DM for once! I've got a bunch of character ideas, but I'll get to that when we get there.