Meeting the Harpies

The characters, after leaving Susan, the now ex-cultist, and Clyde, back in the barn with Johann and Juli eyeing their boy eyeing the girl who lured him out to kill him. But - the town is desperate for families to keep the town going, so perhaps they can forgive her. As there are not a lot (or any really) other marital options in Bresselwythe. 

The halfling, Ezmirylda Rixile, shows up with some potions, and eagerly offers them to the wounded. Voilet takes one and is healed 4 points, and Hexis regains 1 point. These were my "big boy" potions I use that cost 4x as much and use a d4 in a bottle. The players need to shake the die out of the bottle though both oddly (well, to me oddly) took the die out and rolled it manually. The halfling seemed almost surprised that neither died (she used to be an expert poisoner but, to avoid arrest and probably a death sentence, she is trying to mend her ways and help people. Just don't look into that back cabinet). 

They head north a bit to see about the missing sheep. They travel a bit and find a herd guarded by two girls, around 12 or so, and at least 1 dog they see around the clearing. Talking to the girls, Dawn and Voilet, being the least threatening, try to see if they can find out what is happening. The girls say that something huge with feathered wings came down and snatched a lamb and flew back up the mountain. Looking around the two see the scuffled ground but miss the scat and anything else (both failed perception checks and no one in this group has woodsman to help with that sort of thing). Talking and planning the rest of the afternoon, they do find 1 large feather. Deimos recognizes it as probably being from harpy, and finally Marianne speaks up a bit about what she knows about them: they tend to be farther north, like living in caves where they can fly out of easily, and no one has ever seen a male harpy.  Marrianne and Sister Ishbarra walk back to Bresselwythe to collect the horses while Hexis creates a net trap (we found that the ropes in TFT are 100 yards. That is a LOT of rope!). 

The characters wait that night, but after the flock leaves (and the wee shepherdesses think it is funny that these adults don't know that sheep are a flock and not a herd. Adults are funny...) Somewhere along here Deimos summons the bear, who eats the fish and does not seem overly happy. I am giving +1 each time he does this, and soon as the player can roll a 12+ on 2ds, the bear will like him. Yep - using the classic Traveller reaction roll. Been using that since early 80s!) Marrianne and Sister Ishbarra return, horses collected. Axe (and still not spelling it correctly) has stayed with Ceteern Gur, the goblin head of the small village. They have things, Goblin things, to discuss. That and the player could not show up.

Deimos had cast an illusion of a bleating lamb, which wandered over the netting all night long. The next day the flock did not return as they were grazing elsewhere. But late afternoon, a dark-winged harpy swoops down and attempts to grab the lamb! Hexis pulls the trap and the harpy is caught!

"Mine! Mine!" the harpy cries out, clutching the illusionary lamb in her talons. While Dawn attempts to explain that the lamb and sheep belong to the people. the harpy is very resolute in that the lamb is hers. I was trying to channel those seagulls from Finding Nemo. Eventually they do tease out of her that she and her flock are here because food at home is becoming bad. But Laura (an odd name for a harpy perhaps but it is what I thought of at the moment!) cannot bargain for her flock - they must see Screea (which is a much better name for a harpy I think). As Deimos dispells the lamb, Laura is saddened but willing to lead the group up to the cave where her sisters are living.

the harpy cave and the "big boy" healing potion

Screea, an orange-winged harpy with a bit more sense than Laura, comes out surrounded by several other harpies. Our group finds that these creatures are from the north, but their normal food and environment is slowly getting poisoned. There is this crystalline growth that is moving from the Terror Lands and the Wizard's Mount. The Mount is at a nexus of ley lines, and one runs south through the Terror Lands towards Edge City, though it stops almost a hundred miles north of that city. But it became corrupted a few years ago, and bad magics are happening. Screea can "smell" magic, a sort of inborn detect magic similar to the gargoyles built-in levitation spell allowing them to fly with wings that are far too small for their dense bodies. She can smell the magic on Deimos. 

After discussing things, she agrees that if the group can do something about the ill magic, the harpies could return to their home and leave the human settlements alone. She is willing to send one of her sisters with the group north. And as it is the same direction as Stubboon's Final Stand, it works out well for them (amazing coincidence, right? 😁)

Being late, the group decides to wait until the morning. The first watch is quiet, but in the 2nd watch, the howling of wolves causes Dawn, who was on shift, to waken the others. 4 wolves attack the group, 2 of them heading towards Hexis, one to Marrianne and another to...dang. I did not write it down or take a picture! 

Dawn shoots an arrow and wounds one wolf, Marianne had moved out too far to be able to shoot her crossbow, Sister Ishbarra was making casting motions with her hands, Voilet was moving to the group and grabbed a burning branch from the fire. Dawn shoots again, as the wolves had charged and none had quite gotten to anyone other than our healing cleric. Whose magic failed her. Dawn shoots and kills one of the wolves attacking Hexis, and Hexis easily kills the other with a single blow. Marianne gets a shot off and kills the wolf attacking her. But Sister Ishbarra gets attacked and takes damage! Voilet throws the branch (and even gets double damage!) and while she hits the wolf, unfortunately the thick fur prevented the wolf from taking damage (and in hindsight, it would have taken 1 point of damage as there is a minimum damage of 1 if I recall). Sister Ishabarra now has her shield and hammer up as the wolf attacks again, causing more damage. But Hexis has pivoted and kills the wolf with a single strike again. The player was happy - like me he tends to roll badly but this time he did well! Deimos attempted to throw Noodles (her staff to snake) at the wolf, but failed and Noodles ends up 6 hexes behind Deimos, and never gets into the game until all the wolves are dead. Throwing spells...

The wolf is dead, Sister Ishbarra is now at half-strength. And she is the only one with any healing capabilities, but I've ruled in my house rules she can only do this for others. And of course no one has any health potions. They also notice that the wolf has some green crystals growing out of it, which may explain why the wolves attacked. Normally, outnumbered as they were, wolves will not attack groups. Screea comes out, and says yes, this is the green corruption that they are running from. Sniffing at Sister Ishbarra, she does not think she is infected. While they clean her wounds, they cannot heal her. 

And that is where we left the game. I gave out 150 XP for the afternoon play. I think people enjoyed the game, and I've made the stakes a bit bigger now. 

Behind the curtain

I am bringing in parts of a supplement (the green crystal growth and the corrupt ley lines). Going to have to re-read that and probably bring in more of it if I can make it work organically. And interestingly this is around where I put the Woodfall town, at the edge of the Terror Lands, so eventually they may find that on their journey to find the Orc's Fist. Which they may have forgotten about...

And I'll have to figure a way to get them some healing potions - I do have a travelling goblin merchant that shows up at opportune moments. Funnily enough the mini I based that character on is the one we are using for the goblin in the game.

And the corruption and rise of the cult are linked together: that corruptions has weakened the barriers between this world and the demon planes where Indhyna is from. Fix one and it may fix the other. Though I do need to re-read what I wrote, and make sure it all can fit together like I thought in the middle of running the game.

And I need to get Marianne's background and character set up. She showed up as I had just painted her, and the damage she was doing was 2d6, so I went with a light crossbow. As she was using it every round, she has at least DX of 14. But I have no idea what race she even is - she is a 5' rabbit!

Marianne