Dungeons & Delvers: Dryad Adventure, Pilot Episode

Cast

• Lydia (level 3 human bard)
• Hburdshur (level 3 dwarf fighter)
• Raynor (level 3 god eater-class thing)
• Savatar (level 3 vampire)

Session Highlights

The party, burdened with a treasure-laden golden chariot, freshly stolen from the tomb of a now dead dead sky god-like being, had to figure out how to haul their haul to Helorus, an actual city where they could hopefully figure out what was magical, what the magical stuff did, and pawn off whateveer they didn't want to keep.

Savatar and Hburdshur manage to cart it back to Dioscae (the village that gave the original party the harpy job), where they eventually traded in a heap of silver for a horse (took some time figuring out what they could give the villagers, since no one could make change on ancient artifacts). Not wanting to take the time transporting it over the mountains, they decide to follow the range south, and once they hit the coast just head west until they reach Helorus.

By the end of the day they reached a small village called Taphos, nestled along a river. They need food, but don't want to roll into town flashing their loot around. Lydia is adamant in her belief that, if they leave the chariot unattended something will abscond with it, so Hburdshur and Savatar offer to remain behind while she and Raynor head into town.

While purchasing food and a sheet of cloth large enough to conceal the chariot, they're warned by a man named Damalis to stay out of the forest. So of course when they return to the chariot and relay this information, after night falls Savatar and Hburdshur decide to venture into the forest in search of fire wood. Savatar transforms into a wolf, hoping to also find something to drink, but his heightened senses pick up a strange scent.

It doesn't take long for them to find the source: a massive, roughly bear-like jumble of earth, stone, and wood lumbering towards them. Savatar calls out, hoping that it understands wolf and will listen to him, but it just freezes in place. He continues speaking to it, but it doesn't respond, and after a few minutes he's unnerved enough to want to leave. This is when he notices another one creeping up behind Hburdshur.

Savatar shouts out a warning as he charges towards the creature. His teeth barely do anything, and it swats him away with a stony claw. Raynor and Lydia hear his pained yelps, though only Raynor rushes to his aid because, according to Lydia, nighttime is the perfect opportunity for someone to show up and somehow run away with their treasure-chariot, and I guess a dirt-rock-bear thing is the perfect distraction to lure them all away.

Savatar continues fruitlessly scratching and gnawing on the creature, but Hburdshur's occasionally thundering hammer is far more effective; after a few blows what remains of the creature collapses to the ground. Figuring that there might be something shiny and/or valuable in the rubble (like there were in those tomb guardians), Hburdshur decides to rummage through the mess, but he only gets a few stones in before a nude woman crawls out.

She curses someone named Zarek, promising to "get him", before fleeing into the forest. Savatar gives chase, but she easily matches his speed, and vanishes after touching a nearby tree. Obviously none of them know who Zarek is, but figure that maybe this is what the village leader was cryptically warning them about, so they grab some wood from the woman's smashed up monster-suit before heading back to Lydia.

Since Savatar doesn't need to sleep, everyone takes turns keeping watch along with him. When it's Lydia's turn they hear screams coming from the village; they wake Raynor and Hburdshur, both of whom want to go to their aid, but Lydia insists that someone remains behind. Savatar volunteers since he's still pretty beat up, and they just barely get there in time to see another one of those rock-wood-bear-creatures fleeing, carrying a woman off in what could be considered its mouth.

Damalis is surprised to see them, and demands to know if they went into the forest. Raynor admits that they did for firewood of all things, but they didn't get the chance to even touch anything before a similar creature ambushed them. He further explains that a woman, or something that looked like a woman, was inside the one that they destroyed. Since she escaped he believes that she might have also been in the one that attacked the village.

All signs point to dryad, but Damalis is confused because there's a saw mill up the river and he's never heard of a dryad going on a rampage. Raynor mentions that the dryad said something about "getting" someone named Zarek, to which Damalis explains that Zarek is a woodsman and kind of nature mediator that lives in the forest. He visits the village regularly to sell herbs and animal skins, as well as offer up his services as a guide.

Unsure why a dryad would want Zarek dead, Damalis urges the players to find him and figure out what's going on. He believes that the dryad will keep coming back, and offers to pay them if they can prevent further attacks, whether it means making peace with the dryad, or killing her. They agree, and he suggests heading up to the saw mill: the workers there often deal with Zarek, so someone there should know where to find him.

Designer Notes

Another adventure I've been working on. Trying to go with something with less combat, more mystery and exploration. Never really done an adventure like this before, so fingers crossed my players enjoy it.

Vampire is still going strong, as is the bard. We'll give it a few more levels and see how it goes.

For some reason Melissa got it in her head that their chariot was going to get stolen. No clue why, as I've never pulled that shit with my players before, but every time something happened she insisted on someone staying with the chariot no matter what.

It's because of this that, when they went into town the second time, leaving Savatar to guard the chariot, I told him that a cyclops just walked out of the forest and up to the chariot. It picked it up, chuckled, said "gold", threw everything into the ocean, and then walked away.

I wish we were playing with web cams, because Melissa's face was priceless. Of course I was kidding, and she quickly realized it, but for a few seconds you could see the shock and despair on her face. It was priceless, just like this picture Adam drew to immortalize that stupid cyclops who loves throwing gold for no reason:

Announcements

You can now get a physical copy of Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book in whatever format you want!

After months of doing other things, we turned our attention to and released The Warden. It's based on the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons class of the same name, but judging by the responses we did an excellent job converting it over.

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