Session 47: Gold and Glory
In the aftermath of the carnage, the former King Steppengard is trussed up, and the lords and ladies of the lands confer on what they must do. Except for Lady Timor, who is up to her elbows in the guts of the trillith alongside our heroes. They determine, through a combination of science and
speak with dead they determine that the real Nina Glemmer was killed about a month ago, and her body inhabited by the being known as Madness. Gruz tries to use Nina to clear his name of killing the queen, but Nina's spirit was gone at that point, so she is unable to answer. They similarly question the dead inquisitor, who repeatedly tells them to piss off.
The lords and ladies acknowledge the need for a new ruler, with Gallo especially in a hurry to return to Nasham to protect the Alydi Gap. As Gallo moves to make Iztorun king, Eluriah and Gruz interrupt, and make a rousing case for Gallo, listing his heroism and restraint when faced by accusations from his own king. The nobility of Dassen agree, and one by one, the lords and ladies cast their votes for Gallo, who is grinding his teeth. He reluctantly accepts "for now," and promises to make the heroes pay.
As a reward for saving the kingdom, the party is led back to the secret archives, and are presented with a book from the library. It is the Coldcreek Culinary, a halfling cookbook with stories from a far off land. It supposedly was written by one of the Dawnbringers. In its cover, it has two spice jars which can be used to fortify a meal (cast heroes' feast). They are also awarded 1000 gold each.
Except for Gruz. Pulling the half-orc aside, Gallo tells him that while he stands by Steppengard's decision to strip him of his rank, Gallo does not see why he cannot hold some position of importance. "And I want you near the border in case Ragesia decides to try its luck." He grants Gruz the title of Count, and the land upon which his family's farm is on. Gruz happily accepts, though it means he must say goodbye to his friends. Aripose and Mishka make him promise to return someday.
Before they leave to return to Seaquen, Mishka hears chilling news. Gate Pass has finally fallen to the Ragesian legion. Though the news is grave, they are hopeful as they leave, as the first signs of spring finally begin to show.
Post Session Thoughts:
Though this was mostly a wrap up session, only about an hour and a half long, it was still fun to give Dassen a send-off. Gruz's player fully decided to leave, so I figured the minor nobility would be a perfect exit.
The rest of the session was filled with me answering questions about the campaign. For one, I got to reveal the title of the adventure, and most of their questions were what would have happened if X had happened instead. I used to spend much more time pretending I knew all of these answers, and now I'm more honest: I don't know, because I planned based on what you were doing. I honestly spent more time telling the what I cut from the adventure, or changed.
Post-module Thoughts:
I didn't really make any changes in the wrap-up, so I'll skip that for today. Overall, I really enjoyed this adventure. Though it was about 3 sessions shorter than the Storm module, it felt like so much more was going on. Even as I was getting a little tired of the campaign, it was more in the meta sense of needing a break, because the actual goings-on of the adventer were wonderful. I was a little worried about the more courtly aspects of it all, but my players really grabbed onto it. Honestly their only problem was they were too familiar with Gallo, so they were constatnly telling him he'd make a good king. He had to shout at them to shut them up, which was fun.
I honestly dont think I'd change much for this module. Even though Madness doesn't show up until the very last moment, it doesn't feel unearned, or surprising (in a bad way at least). There were so many theories going on around the king's madness, whether he was in control or if someone had found a loophole in the protection of the Book of the Eight Lands, the way that the moment they met Gallo they were whispering that they wished he was king, it was all great. Upon ending it, the players also repeated their praises of the campaign. It's all been said before (world-building, plot, action scenes), but jit's always nice to hear, isn't it?
I don't know if I'll be keeping up anything here while I'm on break, but I'll be around. I'll definitely be checking in on
@RangerWickett 's MIssion update, as it looks very cool. We'll see how productive I'm feeling in a month or two.
EDIT: I totally forgot about the one change I made to the module! The Coldcreek Culinary is the first in a line of magic items I plan on introducing to the party, all based on previous characters they've played in my campaigns. Lydia Coldcreek was Mishka's old character, a halfling fighter who gave up her ability to speak her mother tongue in order to gain access to the Amber Temple in Barovia. Every time we were in a kitchen, or around a campfire, Lydia was searching up spices to make the meals better.
All of the items are going to be consumable. When I first came up with the idea, I was going to just have each item grant a minor ability that the old character had, but then I realized that was A. boring, and B. maybe a bit powerful. So instead, everything will be a consumable item that gives a bit of a glance at the possible futures of their old characters, without completely throwing everything out of balance.
