Everybody Dies 3 - Everybody Dies Eating Mushroom Stew

Player Cast:

• Percival Proudson: A Changeling bard who travels far and wide performing shows and trying to gain the upper hand on his audience. If you’ve ever been wronged by him, no you haven’t. He changes his appearance frequently enough to outrun or hide from his troubles.
• Alphae Turnover: A Human fighter. While she is confident in battle, she quickly grows confused when taxxed with a mental battle.
• Satchamaphone: A Gnome rogue who hadn’t always been a criminal. He was an upstanding inventor, but then P-Tentroll Corp. found legal loopholes to steal his patents and the ownership of his lifes work.
• Sha Rizahd: A Brass Dragonborn monk. When young, his talent brought him to the most prestigious monistary where he honed his skill. Falling from grace due to his love of alcohol, he wanders trying to find odd jobs only to then squander the money on booze.
• Gem Kerry: A Goliath paladin, the runt of his clan his soft-spoken nature lead to torment. He was bullied by all those around him until a chance meeting with a paladin of “the faith”. He finally found something to believe in that also believes in him.

The Adventure

All five fell into a restless sleep at the same time, scattered across the realm. Each one tormented by a nightmare — and each one waking up standing in a cold forest clearing. An ancient hobgoblin woman sat before a fire playing a woodwind instrument, forest creatures of all kinds gathered around her listening. A cauldron of stew filled the air with a warm, pleasant smell.

The Warm Fire

The party moved cautiously toward the fire, scanning the treeline as they went. The hobgoblin woman stopped playing and beckoned them to sit — she had prepared the stew for their arrival. She serves The Winter Queen, a fey-lord and matriarchal ruler of this realm, who summoned them for their shared “spark of heroism.” As she spoke the party relaxed, and one by one began taking bowls. Gem was the last to hold back — until a small white rabbit bounded up to him and asked “are you the hero who has come to save us?” Gem stood tall, strode to the fire, knelt, and pledged himself to the denizens of the forest. Then he noticed everyone watching, went red, and quietly retreated to the outer ring with a bowl of stew.

As the party ate, the stew began to sit strangely in their stomachs.

• Satchamaphone and Sha stand taller, a confidence and arrogance settling over them that isn’t normally there.¹
• Gem feels a burning sensation as draconic features emerge — red scales crawling up his arms and legs.²
• Percival becomes keenly aware of those around him, a mental link forming with his allies.³
• Alphae feels invigorated by music, drawn to it in a way she wasn’t before.⁴

The hobgoblin woman smiles knowingly as the party feels their changes take affect. She explains they were brought here to save the animals of The Frostwood from a terrible beast named Gorgreth. He soars through the sky with a thundrous sound that can be heard as he approaches. “You’ll need some help” she says while pulling a rolled cloth from her robes. She presents the party with a series of charms, “Crush this in your hand and you’ll absorb its power”.

• Percival picks the Charm of the Pheonix ⁵
• Alphae picks the Charm of Frost ⁶
• Sha takes the Charm of the Northern Wind ⁷
• Satchamaphone takes the Charm of the Snowshoe Hare ⁸
• Gem is left with the Charm of the Fearless Fox ⁹

As the party scrambles to find the charm that they want, Gem sitting back and resigned to take whats left, the hobgoblin woman says “Oh, and Gorgreth is on his way”. She plays a note in her flute and vanishes from in front of the party. The animals begin to panic and scramble out of the clearing as the party is left alone save for the small white rabbit still by Gem. “Let me go get Nigel, I am sure he will help” and the rabbit runs off into the trees.

The Harbinger

The party took stock of their surroundings. An orange glow crept over the treetops in the distance — but the sun had already set, and the glow was coming from the wrong direction. Before anyone could dwell on it, twigs snapped at the edge of the clearing. Three Kobolds emerged, one at the front with his chest puffed out and a spear in hand. He introduced himself as Raz The Harbinger and began interrogating the party on their feats of strength and their purpose in the “Domain of Gorgreth” — all while building Gorgreth up as an unstoppable force of nature.

The party recovered from the shock quickly, and faster still realized they couldn’t let these scouts leave. Sha unleashed flame and a flurry of blows, Satchamaphone drove in with his daggers, and Gem cleaved through all three in one decisive swing. The scouts were down before they could run.

Thunder rolled across the sky. Hot wind gusted through the trees. Then rustling — and Nigel came bursting out of the forest. A portly, out-of-breath Satyr, he ran straight to the party and got right to the point: find Gorgreth’s true name, and The Winter Queen and Nigel could perform a ritual to banish him from the Frostwood — and the Feywild entirely. He had barely finished explaining when the ground shook and trees cracked. A massive shape landed in the forest nearby. With a yelp, Nigel bolted back into the trees.

Gorgreth’s heat melted the snow. Fog rose and blanketed the clearing. Percival shifted into Raz’s form, adopted his voice, and used his mental link to quietly let the party know it was still him. When Gorgreth called out into the fog, Percival answered — telling him the kobolds had dealt with the intruders but an enchantment had been placed on the grove, and Gorgreth would need to declare himself before entering. Gorgreth scoffed at the fey trick and declared: “I, Kindrath, claim the Frostwood.” He stepped into the clearing. In the trees behind him, the party heard the snap of twigs as Nigel sprinted off to begin the ritual.

The Destroyer

Gorgreth swept the fog away with his wings and pushed through the treeline. He saw “Raz” — and then saw the rest of the party, very much alive. He promised to deal with Raz’s disobedience later and turned his full attention on the others.

Fire erupted across the grove, scorching trees and blackening the ground. The party darted through the flames, striking when they could. Alphae crushed her charm and unleashed a storm of ice and cold against the Ancient Red Dragon. Satchamaphone crushed his, unloaded a flurry of blows, and melted into the tree shadows. Gorgreth turned on Alphae and hit her with focused beams of fire — she dropped, barely holding on. Sha charged in swinging wildly and Gorgreth barely acknowledged him, brushing him aside with one arm and dumping him on the ground.

Gem worked to pull his allies back up as fast as they fell — but Gorgreth was toying with them, and just as quickly struck them down again. He raised a massive front leg and brought it down on Sha. Then Alphae. Both gone.

Gem drew Gorgreth’s gaze long enough for Satchamaphone to move. The two of them slipped into the forest, the small white rabbit guiding them around loose sticks and debris. In the clearing, Percival held his cover — still playing Raz, picking through the fallen party members’ belongings like a scavenger.

Time passed. The surviving party members began to feel cold creeping into their fingers and toes. Small runic circles appeared beneath their feet — and in an instant, they were back in their beds.

In the Frostwood, Gorgreth raged, blasting fire into the sky. Then came the cold. Thunderous, icy wind swirled above him, a vortex tearing open overhead. He tried to run. The crashing winds and sheets of ice wouldn’t let him. With a final, explosive snap, Gorgreth was ripped from the Frostwood and banished back to the Dragonlands. The creatures of the wood began, slowly, to rebuild.

Reflections

This session was really fun! Everyone had a blast and we weren’t interrupted by a tornado!

We played this one much different than a normal D&D combat. There were no initiative rolls. I let each player go in any order each round of combat. Gorgreth would take legendary actions between each of my players and would then use his breath weapon on his turn. I tried to make it like he was an adult taking anger out on insects while displaying his power to fake Raz as vanity. In the end, my party came up with a great premise to trick him into giving his true name almost instantly. So they “won” before any combat even started.

One thing I am always afraid of in an encounter like this is the players just running. In this one specifically there are no walls or boundaries so once two of the party’s martial members fell, the rest went into self preservation mode instead. I decided to quickly end combat once Satchamaphone and Gem rolled well enough to maintain their hidden status after some searching by Gorgreth.

The three that survived were amped that they got to live and those that died were high-fiving the survivors. In the end the party dealt almost 100 damage to the dragon and burned all his legendary resistances. Could he have wiped the party in a single breath weapon? Yeah. Is it more fun to have minor illusion “trick” the dragon to waste his breath weapon and extend combat and RP? For my group it is!