25th day of Haelhold. I will have to come up with some sort of year, though could do something more regional such as the 17th year of King Axehold's reign. Or get sort today's date (12/15/2023) converted to the Mayan calendar:
Long Count Date: 13.0.11.2.11
13 baktun; 13 X 144,000 days = 1,872,000 days
0 katun; 0 X 7,200 days = 0 days
11 tun; 11 X 360 days = 3,960 days
2 uinal; 2 X 20 days = 40 days
11 k'in; 11 X 1 day = 11 days
Tzolk'in Date: 11 Chuwen
Haab Date: 19 Mak
Lord of the Night: G6
Which is an interesting way to tell the day based on the number of days past some point in the past. Sort of like Unix time, which is the number of seconds since January 1, 1970. All dates have some sort of starting point. Well, everything has some sort of starting point really! I just need to figure out what I want as a starting point. Though it may change from kingdom to kingdom.
Game Recap
Continuing their exploration of the cave, Enoki finds a few gems stashed in one of the smaller caves leading off of the main area. The ancient remains of the boxes and desiccated remains of food, along with old mouse and rat droppings, appear to be all that remain of what was once used as a cold room.
Sharn is harvesting parts of the dead ants while Enoki is exploring, and Baldur is keeping watch on what is going on. Quinby, getting bored, manages to cut off one of the mandibles, determined to make some sort of a weapon from it. He straps that to his back, and it is almost as long as he is tall.
Taking the lead, Quinby continues deeper into the cave. Where the ants came from, he notices something gleaming next to the candle he had thrown at the giant ants. There was various nuggets of gold, worth about 3000 gold pieces! Yes, there was a 30% chance and the players made that roll and the roll for the amount. And I cannot find where I had those ants described! I will have to go through the various books but it was not any at my desk (although thinking it may be one of the adventures that came with the OSE Kickstarter).
Even distributed out, that is a lot of gold. And it managed to get a second character to level up at the end of the session. Enoki, being a mushroom person, still has a way to go. But it will slow them down a bit as they move forward as I do need to re-read those encumbrance rules.
Seeing some glittering light, the adventurers see flickering blue lights in another cave. They are surrounding what looks to be a large, rough-cut ruby. About the size of a human fist, it seems as if it is glowing from its own inner light, but it could be the bluecaps surrounding it. A few of the dozen or so move towards the halfling, and a couple drop through the walls to look at Baldur, Enoki and Sharn. Other than their flickering light, they do not communicate.
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| Rembrandt style! |
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| Think this halfling is too young but I liked the flames |
Quinby, charismatic and clueless, starts to talk with the bluecaps. They seem to be sniffing around the pouch with the silver in it, and he first offers 50 silver pieces. The small fey huddle and guard the gem closer, apparently miffed at the offer. Quinby throws the entire bag of 1000 silver pieces to the ground, and the bluecaps leave the rock to hover about the silver. Seeing as the bluecaps seemed happy, Quinby takes up the moonstone and they start to leave the cave.
Seeing another side branch, but it is too small for anyone to fit through, Quinby decides that there must be something worthwhile on the other side. Fortunately, Baldur is prepared and does have a shovel. About an hour later they manage to wide it far enough for Quinby, with the rope around him again, to squeeze in. Getting partway into the next cave, he in confronted by a giant ant. Apparently, there is a nest of them here. The ant seems very guarded but not aggressive. After a few minutes of trying to get through, they decide to just leave the cave and head back to the clearing where their camp was.
Along the way, they spy two Kobolds to the north, the direction of their camp. Almost 200 yards off, they can see that the two lizard-folk did not want to be bothered and they seemed to dart off into the mountain scrub. Getting to where the pair of Kobolds disappeared, they could follow the trail for a bit before it petered out. None of the characters have any tracking skills.
Deciding to move on, they get back to their campsite. The cows are mooing, and they can hear some soft humming or singing from the fields. While Sharn collects more of the mushrooms and plants, Enoki goes back to the pool and is again guided by small, cold hands to some rich pond mud. This will give him a +1 on healing the next week or so. The others see a beautiful woman in a long dress and a large hat moving in the cow fields. Quinby jumps over the fence to pet the cows, and Petal Elmstrong introduces herself. Baldur starts to speak with the cows, and while everyone else just hears moos, he finds that Petal is a good caretaker and they have not seen anything untoward. But they mostly concentrate on eating so rarely see a lot other than the grass in front of them. Quinby notices the small holes from the glaistig feeding on her cows, and pours over some of the water from his waterskin, and the holes cure right up.
Petal recognizes water enchanted by Verey Ambervale, and now feeling that these adventurers are good people, tells them a bit more about herself, and reveals herself as a glaistig. She also lets them know Verey is a naiad, not a goddess. Petal has wandered this realm for almost 200 years now. Enoki asks about the ley lines, and when Petal points out where they are and that two cross at the magic circle, he sets up roots on one of the lines. When asked if she has seen any elves, she gives a bit of an info dump about how my fantasy world works (and that of course is always subject to change).
The Elves are fey who have lived here for generations. Fey like Petal, who was originally from the Old World from the Fairy Circle, hold on to most of their innate magic and power. Elves are slowly losing their magic and immortality the longer they live in this mortal realm. Each generation is a bit weaker and shorter-lived. The wild fey that only visit this world may still be innately made of magic but return to their home to keep up their magic. The Old World, like this, is made up of many kingdoms, some wonderful, others cruel places. Most of the Elves who have moved here are from cruel places and are willing to trade an immortal life of cruelty and pain for a life where there may be joy and hope, even if not forever. And fey from the Old World live by their own rules and magics that may often seem cruel or capricious, but those that live forever will think differently.
Finally, the moon starts to rise, and the group gets ready to place the moonstone into the fairy circle. When they hear a loud noise coming from near the mushrooms...
And yes, a lot of this is cribbed from various fantasy I have read over the years. I felt I needed to reconcile the High Elves of high fantasy with those that can be played in various RPGs. The Fantasy Trip makes Elves just people with pointy ears for the most part, and I feel that there must be a reason for the disconnect between the more ethereal Elves of various books and these. The same sort of thing applies to a lot of the various fantasy races in my world.
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