Mediums and Messages

Eyes Unclouded - Session 38

The season finale of our Ghibli-inspired, heavily modified game of Cairn 2e! A few weeks past due, but better late than never.

The whole party found themselves standing on a teetering wooden platform, all that remained of the second story of Calvero Brightflame's townhouse. They were:

Through Wealdstone

As a weightless spirit, Nanaki could easily move off the platform. They quickly used their artificer skills to stabilize it with some loose debris before it could collapse.

The party was faced with an interesting dilemma: their goal was to head south either borrowing a ship here in Wealdstone or booking passage in one of the small fishing villages along the coast south of town. That meant either braving the dragon circling overhead here or teleporting back and taking the long overland road through the foothills of Mount Divergence to the east. From their elevated position, the party saw that the Mount Divergence Tunnel was swarming with powder-blue tents and banners - the Ducal Guard had arrived in force.

After a brief discussion, they decided to try to sneak through Wealdstone to the docks. Madrigal, an expert climber, led the party down from the platform and peeked out into the street. To their right (and towards the docks), they could see a purple wagon being stopped by Ducal Guard at the gate. The party decided that the wagon likely belonged to the Purple Stove Outfitters (who had reported them to the guards for theft, still unresolved) and decided it would be better to sneak out the back of the ruin.

Clambering through the remnants of the back wall, the party emerged into a small courtyard filled with rubble and the sagging remains of laundry lines. Madrigal and Flame had the idea of disguising their more conspicuous members, though Sir Percius grumbled at the indignity of it all.

Swaddled in tunics and hoods, the party scurried through the ruined Alfiann Quarter to the waterfront. They passed ruined stalls and a company of Ducal Guard busily conducting rescue operations on a collapsed building, but decided not to get involved. As they approached the docks, they heard a commotion - a crowd of angry locals trying to board a ship in the harbor.

Escape by Boat

Pivoting again, the party found a staircase down to the river below. It ran swiftly, but was clogged with chunks of rubble tossed carelessly by the dragon. Ambrose used their Polymorph spell to transform themselves into a sailboat and the party quickly clambered aboard. Their plan was to ride the current out of town before the crowd or the dragon noticed them leaving.

The first obstacle was a heap of rubble only a few feet away. Tobi, tiny in the material world, led the party in leaning the vessel so it could just scrape by without a collision. Nanaki cast Silent Image, disguising them as a heap of driftwood.

As the party picked up speed, they realized there was a harbor chain protecting the mouth of the river. It was thick as an arm and connected to a small lighthouse on the left bank. Sir Percius spied a winch inside to raise or lower it. Working as a team, the party managed to slow the boat just enough to avoid colliding at full speed with the chain. Sir Percius and Nanaki hopped out and pulled the winch release, dropping the chain away. They hopped aboard and the party escaped out to sea.

Etennu

This had not gone unnoticed, however. The party froze as the shadow of the dragon loomed closer and closer. Oddly snake-like with a snub-nose and bat-like wings, the creature was silvery white and scaled like a fish. It swooped closer to investigate the interesting, fast-moving driftwood that passed through its domain.

The party did their best flotsam impression, lying still and trying to avoid the dragon's attention. This bought them some time, but meant they only made slow progress as the dragon soared overhead.

Nanaki revved the Mal-Aqat drone they had recovered a few days prior and sent it careening away from the ship as a distraction. This backfired. The dragon inhaled tremendously, its breath vacuuming up air and surf and sending the drone hurtling wildly through the air. Then it decided to investigate more closely, plopping down into the water to walk on its winged knuckles for a closer look.

Sir Percius tried a desperate, self-sacrificial gambit. He stumbled out of the illusory wreckage, pretending to be a half-drowned sailor. His hope was to provide an explanation for all the weirdness that the dragon might accept and go about its business. The dragon sniffed at him, its head two times the knight's size, and murmured to itself in an unknown language.

Unknown to everyone except Tobi, who was quickly able to pick up the basics (a class ability!). He hopped out of the boat too and tried to engage the dragon in conversation. The wyrm introduced itself as Etennu, ancient and powerful. It boasted of its conquest of the region and enthused about the prospect of eating this damp knight. Tobi tried to charm the creature with friendship, but it claimed it already had "thirty thousand friends" and went to swallow Sir Percius whole.

Sir Percius grabbed his longsword and, as the dragon opened its jaw, stabbed upwards. He was instantly covered in the creature's silvery blood, and it writhed and shrieked, instantly backpedaling and hurling itself aloft. Nanaki fired an arrow, but it scattered harmlessly off its scaly hide.

The chase was on! Sir Percius and Tobi ran back to the boat, and the party opened up their sails in a bid to escape. Nanaki cast Illusory Terrain, causing the water level to look slightly higher in the hopes of throwing off the dragon's aim. The dragon circled once high overhead, then took a sharp dive, pulling at the tide with its suction breath, but it couldn't find the vessel.

Assuming the party's vessel had sunk or simply slipped away, Etennu flapped frustratedly back to Wealdstone to resume its watch.

GM Notes

So concludes our Cairn 2e game for the moment! After some discussion with the players, it seemed like folks were ready for a change of pace for a bit. This gives me time to tinker with the rules some before we return, allows us to let some time pass in fiction while they travel south to a new region, and lets us try another game as a group!

I used a modified Underclock die to represent the dragon's attention here. As the party moved from place to place, I rolled a normal d6 for encounters, then subtracted the result from a d20 in the middle of the table. When it hit 0, they had caught the dragon's interest with their antics. The party was pretty close to escaping unnoticed, but I am glad they got to have a climactic conflict to cap the season.

The dragon itself only had 12 HP, but nearly maxed out STR, DEX, and WILL. Its main advantage was being able to be out of reach at a moment's notice and, like many big creatures, I gave it two actions per round: one that could damage and one that telegraphed something in the next. I think the players did a better-than-usual job actually fending off the creature, perhaps having been spooked by how dangerous recent combats had been. Or maybe everyone was just dialed in because the narrative stakes were aligned with the mechanical ones?

The boat sequence was handled as a 4e-style skill challenge (an old favorite of mine). This format really worked for this group, which is both pretty large and prone to talking a problem over at length before taking action. I was a little bit more proactive in playing "auctioneer" this session: when I heard anyone propose a viable game action, I zeroed in and started processing that action. This helped move things along and kept the extended sequence feeling tense, I think.

We've had a bit of a pause while folks have traveled or had family in town, but we should be picking up this week with a new sci-fi game. I'll also probably write another post debriefing on the campaign so far.

#Cairn #Eyes Unclouded #session reports