When Last We Left Our Heroes...
...they were fighting for their lives against pirate raiders as they tried to cross the Cut, the channel that separates the island of Ore from mainland Talavaar. The Company is bound for the Unclaimed Lands of Ngawe where they hope to find adventure and riches, but the damage to their ship means they have had to make port in the city of Pearl.
Doing Side Biz
Two of our players were away for this week's session, so rather than move forward with the main plotlines they had expressed interest in upon arriving in Pearl, this week was a casual bit of side action.
George, Russell, and Venena were left to explore the city, pursue their own desires, and get themselves into some trouble.
The Trickster
The session began with Russell. cleric of the god of tricks, disguising himself as the party wizard, Cornelius, and wandering the market district being a mild nuisance. He didn't want to do anything illegal or that would cause Cornelius physical danger, but he wanted to create confusion and chaos when Cornelius returned to the group.
If I was running for a group of random players this isn't something I would allow, but I've been running for this same group now every week for 7+ years, and have known the players for decades so have a good grasp on what each of them would be comfortable with, and know that Cornelius' player will take this as the good natured prank it is intended as, and it will likely spark a prank war between the two characters.
Imperial Might
While exploring the local markets near their accommodation, the company witnessed the might of the Dusk Empire first hand as an Overseer from the office of Imperial Security Overwatch (better known as the ISO, the empire's not-so-secret police) arrived in the market.
The chatter of the market grew silent and a wave of fear spread before the Overseer as his frightful presence preceded him. The company watched in silenced horror as he commanded a local vendor to approach and kneel before declaring the man a traitor to the empire who had colluded with a terrorist group. The Overseer drew a vorpal sword and severed the vendor's head as the crowd watch, motionless. He then approached the vendor's daughter and cast modify memory to make her believe her father had been called to serve far asway as a great honor and was still alive.
When the Overseer left, the aura of fear departed with him and the people of the market resumed their activities as if nothing had happened.
The heroes debated whether to go and speak to the vendor's daughter and involve themselves, but decided anyone that could commit such acts of state-backed violence in broad daylight without interference from a large crowd was probably too powerful for them to mess with.
The Greatest Fighter
Venena, the party fighter, longs to be the best sword fighter in Talavaar, and is on an ongoing quest to find the strongest opponent in each region to defeat, so the group took a trip to the local arena to catch a glimpse of the reigning champion.
At the arena they found a crowd of people set up under parasols watching Athalos Dawnseeker in the training grounds. Athalos is a towering, 6' 5" half-elf with shining golden hair, gold armor, and a cloak made from a polar bear pelt. It was immediately clear that this was a man beloved by his fans, and Venena tried to catch his attention, but when he didn't engage with her, she called to him to challenge him to a duel.
Athalos refused, insisting she work her way up through the arena like everyone else, but that was not good enough for Ven, and she jumped the fence and charged him.
Eighteen seconds later Venena lay in a shallow crater on the ground, near-dead - having been thoroughly beaten by Athalos who channelled the power of the sun goddess to smite her down. The champion carried her to the medical tent and left her there to recover.
George was immediately enamoured by the champion, and spent much of the remaining day talking about him.
As they carried the fragile Venena away from the arena, the company encountered a worker from a nearby construction site who told them of trouble in the area involving monsters and encouraged them to visit the site boss for more details.
Monkey Brained, Baby Body
The following day the trio set off for the construction site to investigate the reports of monsters. They met the dwarven site manager who told them aberrant creatures had been disturbed by the works and that several work crews had already been killed.
The manager told them where to find the creatures and warned them not to drink the water. . .
The heroes set off to the location they had been given and spent the entire journey arguing loudly, which alerted the monsters to their presence when they arrived.
They encounter a collection of Derro who seemed to be serving a being that they considered a god. As the players conversed with the leader of the group, it called for the "baby", and a servant brought forth a screaming blue baby in a cage.
This encounter was a lot of fun. The Derro Fetal Savant from Tome of Beasts 1 is a really interesting creature that can soul swap with another creature without triggering a save - but it's quite fragile.
However, most people have an aversion to attacking babies, which means to break the soul-swap they need to either reduce the friendly character who is possessed by the derro's soul to 0 hp, or cast a spell such as dispel evil and good.
The Derro Fetal Savant swapped souls with George the monkeyfolk monk and proceeded to start attacking the other party members.
During the course of the battle, I mainly used low-level derro to represent the changed workers, as well as the baby and a Dolgaunt from the eberron book to get more of that body-horror grossness into the mix.
The Dolgaunt has some interesting abilities but it never got to use them because it looks so gross that as soon as it was in-play the PCs prioritized killing it.
This is a tactic I will deploy quite often to protect the real MVPs of a combat. A spellcaster, assassin, or specialist character can often look quote visually unassuming so if you present the players with something obviously grotesque, it will often pull their focus, allowing the real threat of the combat to keep operating for a turn or two longer.
By focusing on the dolgaunt, they ignored the baby for a couple of turns, allowing it to use George's body to wreck havoc and chip away at Russell and Venena's hp.
Eventually the pair were able to reduce George's body to 0hp and restore his soul to it, and the combat was over, but it had burned through a number of the party's resources and forced them to take a short rest before they head into the structure and face the aberration within. . .
Wow! Awesome session. Sadly my group struggles with missing players and side quests as downtime activities. Do you create your NPC images yourself? How?