COD 1: Session 28: The Resistance

 Pre-scene Notes

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Scene setup/conflict: 

Let’s follow Filli and Fido. I first rolled for a new scene to see if I would get ideas on how to start it, but no altered/interrupted scene. Considering last time they jumped off a cliff into a river, I would think the first question to ask at this scene is whether Filli had successfully escaped. Mythic rolled no… I guess as this cave dive started by wanting to test out more combat, I’m going to pit Filli against an eternal string of CR 1/8 Guards and see how far he gets before l activate the plot armour I have planned…

No altered/interrupted scene

Scene:

Fido paddled as best as he could with Filli down the rapids and even fell down a small waterfall, finally to a relatively calm and shallow lagoon where other waterfalls gathered. Filli gulped for air, finding his feet, but was dismayed at shouts that echoed around him. He tried to wade through the water, but not before the Empresses’ guardsmen arrived on the scene.

Nice waterfall map from neutralparty Flow https://www.patreon.com/neutralparty

The guards wasted no time in wading through the water, luckily being scouts and was armed with no more than a spear. The first one was already upon Filli, just in time for him to get ready to block the incoming spear tip with his hastily equipped shield. The other two guards were close behind, with unending echoes of other guards in the area.

“We’ve found him! He’s here!” One of the guards shouted to Filli’s misfortune, drawing three more to appear at the edge of the lagoon.

Basically I spawned three guards close to Filli to start with, and just rolled one turn for all the guards. Every time the guards’ turn ended, I’ll randomly place three more guards at the edge of the map. It should give Filli a bit of a fighting chance to manoeuvre. 

Understanding he could not be surrounded, and another pair of hands were essential, Filli did not mount Fido and allowed him to freely respond as an independent mount. He himself drew his old rapier at the guard that was upon him. As his rapier was not an enhanced weapon like his lances, but it found its target, severing a major artery. Fido tried to finish him off but it was not meant to be as the mechanical being mistook his steps in the water. 

Filli did not have time to lament on improvements he should have made to his Steel Defender for watery terrains as now all three guards thrust at him with their weapons. 

He was able to parry one and block the other, and just as the third bleeding guard got past Filli’s defence, Fido used Deflect Attack in reaction to narrowly turn the hit to a miss. Filli did not count that as lucky though as he spotted more guards were already appearing from the corner of his eye. He cast Heorism on himself as Fido tried again to finish off the hurt guard, this time succeeding. This left an opening where though for one of the guards to stab Filli in the arm before he just managed to blocked the other. The second wave of guards made into the  fry by now, signalled by a spear thrown from a guard unable to reach them, just grazing his scale mail, as Filli parried another blow.

Filli risked casting Heroism again as his concentration was lost when he was last stabbed, finally debating whether he should have actually mounted for combat, which at least would have allowed him to disengage quicker and attacking faster with his enhanced lances. 

His persistence in concentrating and recasting Heroism finally was about to make him recover a little from the guards’ onslaughts. He used his movement to mount Fido and his action to doff his shield, switching to the twin lance to try a change of tactics. Fido disengaged and at least  left the circle of guards temporarily. 

I decided then a guard had to at least to go the previously location to grab a thrown spear, and Fido’s 40ft movement meant even if they were surrounded again, guards would at least need to spend a dash action to catchup. 

It was however not meant to be as Filli ran into a fresh wave of guards, with the last batch hot on his heals, one of whom again broken his spell concentration with an attack. He was so preoccupied that another wave of guards were within throwing range. Filli fell as a last spear from behind a line of guards slash through his side. 

However, before the lights went out, he faintly heard the chanting of a Healing Word and he was brought back to focus on top of Fido. 

I was never going to let him die, and this is the old DM trick of having an unexpected calvary come in and save the party before they died. As Filli’s performance, to be honest, wasn’t that good only having lasted 3 turns and killed one guard, I don’t think he deserved any rewards. I would’ve had him get a +1 armour or something, but not now.

“Charge! Down with the Emperor and her vixen!” A battlecry vibrated across the valley as an unexpected mob charged out from behind one of the waterfalls and promptly cut down several unprepared guards.

“It’s the rebel scum! Retreat! Retreat!” 

It was not much of a fight as it seemed like the rebel’s reputation alone was enough to drive back the Empress’s guards. Filli picked himself up, checked Fido over, and was in time to see who seemed to be the rebel’s leader. 

“It’s a shame that our hideout’s location is leaked, but I guess it’s almost end game now.” A middle-aged charismatic man commented to the other rebels. Having spotted Filli’s approach, he good-naturedly offered his hand, “My name is Jovian. I know you. One of the most up-and-coming gladiators in recent times. Filli was it?”

Filli rolled an 11 on Insight. So Filli sees some of Jovian’s pretentiousness following. 

Filli could not help but be reminded of Nero from Jovian’s features, and he was more than experienced enough now to know  he should never trust someone who forged knowing his name by coincidence. However, considering he was saved by the rebels, he took the older man’s hand anyway.

“Yes, I am Filli. Thank you for saving me.” 

“Think none of it. I can’t possibly let my brother’s men kill an innocent at my doorstep.”

“You’re Emperor Nero’s brother?” Filli exclaimed, failing to stop his compulsion. To Filli, Jovian took no little delight in that fact despite the frown he’d put on.

“Unfortunately so. My brother had ran the Empire to the ground, and all I can do to stop it is summon this small rebel group. Saying that, the witch that he married should do him in soon enough, knowing what we know.”

“Knowing what? You mentioned the end game is almost here?” Filli asked. 

“Yes, the others may not know it, but the wizards in my group had been trying to find out what her plan was. The increasing gladiator bouts were certainly suspicious, so that was one of the threads we’d investigated. In one of the villages we’d came across in the process of this, we’d seen the Empress ordered the entire village to become gladiators. That was little less than simple sacrifice! Which is why on that thought, we started investigating whether indeed gladiators were just a cover up and imagine our surprise when we’d found strange magical runes painted all around the new coliseum. That excuse of an Empress was actually using those runes, treating any dead creature from the gladiator bouts within the coliseum as blood sacrifice.  Worst still, our wizards think it’s some sort of summon rune to another dimension, and it’s not long now until her ritual would be complete!"

“What? That’s abhorrent! How long do we have?” Filli gasped.

“Not how long, but how many. Our wizards believe her ritual would take a thousand souls to complete, and we may well reach that number in the very next fight!”

“That’s why she takes such in importance in the next one!” 

“I guess you have just confirmed our suspicions.” Jovian shook his head gloomily as one of his scouts ran up to him and whispered in his ear. “More unfortunate news my new friend. It seems like your ally, Zar, was seen being captured and transported back to the capital by the Empress’s guards. I would mount an assault at the convoy immediately to rescue a friend of a friend, but alas our forces are limited, and I’m afraid by the time we mobilised, the guards would already be back inside the city gates.”

As devastating as the news was to Filli, he nodded, “No, I understand. Stopping the Empress’s rituals must take priority, considering who knows what sort of monster she plans to summon! Please, let me help with anything!”

“What a noble ally we have saved today! We ride at dawn! Filli come, let me introduce you to our strategists. We have big plans for the gladiators’ fight!”

With that, Filli was led back into the rebel’s base behind the waterfall and indoctrinated into the rebel organisation.  

I took Filli rolling an 11 before, coupled with his relatively trusting nature compared to Weird Elf and Zar, plus having been rescued from the soldiers, as Jovian basically getting what he wanted from young Filli. The other two would’ve more than likely seen through Jovian having some sort of inside spy to have known so much about the three of them and what just transpired at the estate. Not to mention question his probable claim to the throne if he disposes of both the Empire and Empress.  

But anyway, time to move on to the next character. 

#

Weird Elf pulled another heavy tome from the royal library’s shelves, within which contains knowledge of what some would call cryptozoology. In the past day or two, he had mostly spent his time researching Xanthia’s history and influence of this world and the mysterious monster called the Aboleth. He cross referenced what he heard from Solomon the Warlock and Jasper’s patron, and…

This was going to be my info dump paragraph to end this entry and connect back to Cavesmuth, but Weird Elf rolling a Nat 1 didn’t help. Info dumps are a no-no in novel writing, but for a DND session, especially if assuming Weird Elf’s player had to be away for a week while others played, I think as a DM it should be ok to even send the info to player directly if his character had supposedly spent that time doing research while the other players did something else in the session he was away. In soloplay, I would’ve thought info dump is even more acceptable - although having a scene between the Empress and Weird Elf can lead to some interesting developments with Mythic, if you want to get on with the action and know the direction the plot has to go, I would just speed ahead.

Weird Elf was unable to find much different than what the party already knew but at least the downtime allowed him to summarise the information they had:

1. The Aboleth takes away or control people’s memories, which can be the cause for his own Amnesia, or indeed anyone else’s.
2. Jasper’s patron was around since Xanthia’s days before his religion faded into obscurity in this world. 
3. Zar’s patron can have something to do with Xanthia, but that was only based on Jasper’s patron’s exclamation before the party had to flee. Weird Elf knows Xanthia being god of war had many stories around legendary weapons, some sentient. 
4. This cave dive probably had something to do with an Aboleth.

Because Weird Elf rolled Nat 1, I think I can interpret that as extremely unlucky to feed him information, but with a consequence…

As Weird Elf returned to his room in the palace after another fruitless search, he came across a wizard and the Empress. He could hear every single word of their exchange, where the Empress had supposedly asked the wizard to set up a sort of magical rune constellation at the grand coliseum. From Weird Elf’s arcane understating (he rolled a 18 this time) the runes were to summon a creature from anther dimension. Knowing his and Zar’s infamous bad luck, he would bet it was an Aboleth (this is probably a meta guess from any experienced DND player at this point from the writing on the wall so far). Although Weird Elf had thought he was being discrete, the Empress knew he had been listening all along, but simply did not care.

Upon finishing her conversation with the wizard, she asked him to cast a hold person spell and summoned the guards on Weird Elf. 

The Empress patted the frozen Yankovic’s cheek and smirked, “Well if you’d really wanted to spy on me, let’s have you never leave my sight until tomorrow. It’ll only be until the ritual is complete before I erase your memories and turn you into my puppet!”

I.e. Consequence = Weird Elf starts next to her in the coliseum and no opportunities to do more library work.

Scene close-out:

• Chaos factor down to 5 now as really not too much tension and everyone is speeding towards the final gladiator fight.
• - party thread: Find out Empress’s plans for setting the Empire to Chaos (I’d basically given Weird Elf this)
• + party thread: Reunite party

Post-scene Notes

I have to say this session was a lot of exposition to round things off. I could’ve had Filli actually go on an mini- adventure like in Chapter 4, the Cultist cave, to find out the information or even Empress’s lackies getting more sacrifice for her ritual, but as I am trying to show in solo play, I think it’s ok to hurry things along if we wanted to. Obviously in Weird Elf’s scene, it was to the extreme. I guess it is sort of railroading, but in solo play, I think it’s ok up to a certain point. After that, you might as well write a novel. Considering Chaos factor went down again, if this was a novel, I guess this indication really helps identify the problem areas during edit. Anyway  I guess we’ll follow Zar next at this chapter’s climax. Thanks again for reading.