DND Blog

A place to keep DND session recaps, from various campaigns.

The Fifty-Eighth Session

January 8, 2022, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

We interrogate nine captives about the death of the carpenter's mate, Xaban, but get no useful answers. A baby manticore is discovered in an unmarked crate in the hold, and exonerated of the murder. Its owners, two crewmembers, are chastised. An aquatic beast approaches the ship, and the murderer is revealed.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Clue
  3. The mysterious scratching noise
  4. Attacking creature? Attacking missionary!
  5. Next session

Last session

Clue

Salris, Jerry and Ryltar are on deck, next to a 20-foot-high mess of webbing. In the first-deck below, there are many people sitting below the grates, listening to the sail-repair business. In order of closeness to the steps, there are the following people:

The captain is at the helm, and is alarmed by the web. And more alarmed by Jerry's announcement of the dead crewmember with the slashed throat.

Ryltar decides to go down to look and gets stuck immediately in the webbing. The people below attempt to wriggle free, but cannot; Jerry's web is strong. Jerry goes down and takes a census of people. Ryltar succeeds in following, and together they identify the following other people:

Ryltar can't find the murder weapon with magic, neither can Salris.

Jerry goes down to the hold to check for the knife near the hold. With a 15 she doesn't find it. She reexamines the wound and sees that the cut throat is three clean cuts across the neck, like might be dealt with a paw.

So now she goes up to the trapped people and looks for blood: none on hands or weapons or clothes. Ryltar proposes that someone used a magic weapon or Polymorphed into something.

There's a lot of discussion that I'm not going to be able to capture here, so here's the highlights:

Jerry describes the corpse, and it is identified as the carpenter's mate, Xaban. Ryltar thinks that someone is trying to get the ship to arrive at its destination more slowly.

But they're all held by the web so that they're looking at the grate above them; they might not have seen anyone behind them.

The front of the ship is full of cargo; Jerry with a 9 doesn't find anyone hidden among the small boxes. Ryltar casts Fairy Fire to see if anyone is in that area. Jerry is illuminated, and … no one else.

Jerry asks the captain how he wants to handle this? He says to throw them all in the brig. So she does that for the next 15 minutes, intimidating the captives with the threat of leaving them in the webbing until the ship docks at its destination.

Ryltar notices that the nobleman is perturbed; he's presenting a regal look but is indignified.

So Jerry puts them in the brig:

She gets the last person into the brig just as the web's 1-hour once-per-day duration expires. The spell expires, and who do we find but Percival!

Percival explains his presence thusly: "I wondered what it would be like without threat of death, and got bored." He teleported into the webs.

Ryltar notes that if someone cast a spell to alter their shape, they would need a casting focus, probably. No one in the brig confesses to having a casting focus. Percival goes over to persuade the brig. Ryltar successfully stifles his laughter; Percival is very persuasive.

Ryltar casts Message to Xander, locked in the rearmost cell: "Who do you think it is?" "I don't know; I was not paying attention. Trying to look away and not be seen."

Ryltar pulls nine silver pieces from his pocket, and hands each person in the brig a silver piece.

So with no reactions, and no sign of being a were-anything, Ryltar leaves them in the brig and goes to help the carpenter upstairs. Jerry rests against the brig bulkhead; the captain orders a crewman to watch the brig that night. But the captain is not open to keeping them in the brig more than one night.

The short missionary insists that the tall missionary could not have done this murder; their vows prohibit it. So we pull the tall missionary out of the brig for questioning, and put Salris back, disguised as the missionary. Percival returns the spellcasting focus to the missionary.

Time passes.

Salris makes a constitution saving throw to stay awake, and succeeds in staying awake. Ryltar keeps an eye abovedeck. He wants to make sure that the carpenter doesn't die.

The deceased doesn't seem to have any religious affiliation that Ryltar can find; he was curious about whether the deceased and the First Mate shared a religion.

Jerry keeps an eye on the body and an ear on the brig.

Percival gets a good night's sleep. Vurguron didn't wake up.

Work continues through the night; the carpenter isn't assassinated. Ryltar helps with construction.

The mysterious scratching noise

Jerry sits there, listening. The guard walks back into the brig, and all Jerry hears is the rocking of the ship. And a light scratching.

She Passes Without Trace and moves towards the scratching. With a 24 stealth, she follows the sound. There's a squeak, coming from a cargo box in the front starboard hold, against the wall. A squeak and a purr noise, and a little growling. The crate is nailed shut, but she pries it open, and a soft paw hits Jerry's arm, and retracts. She pushes the lid shut.

Ryltar is now upstairs, looking after the nobles' daughter.

The crate has scratches outside the crate, like it's been opened and closed before. Its shipping label is gone. Jerry hears the door of the brig open, as the guard returns. The guard asks what Jerry was up to; she tells him about the box and the noise. They ask the quartermaster about the box. He doesn't have his records with him in the brig, so Jerry grabs the ledgers and the captain, and they investigate. There is no record of this box.

The box does not answer to the question "Are you a Tabaxi?" with anything other than a sad growl.

And no one in the brig says the cat is theirs.

Jerry swaps positions with Ryltar, and he investigates the box to see whether it can be opened. It's got airholes. He sends a Dancing Lights through the airholes. There's a fluttering, flapping noise, and then the light shows a tail with all these spikes coming out of it. With a Nature check, Ryltar recognizes that it's a manticore.

Ryltar thinks that the manticore did the deed, and none of the 9 people in the brig could have been responsible, because they had no opportunity to nail the crate shut. Either the manticore can get in and out of the crate by itself, or someone else set it loose to do the murder.

Manticores are usually bigger, thinks Jerry. This looks like a baby manticore. She suggests to tell the captain; Ryltar says that it shouldn't be thrown off the ship quite yet. It's 2 a.m. Someone is letting it out and getting it back into the box.

Ryltar polymorphs into a cat, and hangs out on the cargo nearby.

Night passes into day.

Morning comes; no one in the brig has died. We let them out. The nobles embrace, reunited with their daughter.

We continue to keep an eye on the manticore.

The ship limps onwards; after two days' travel, we're one fifth of the way to the destination town.

We have a quiet discussion about what to do with the manticore. The cook reports no food theft.So someone's feeding it on the sly. We decide to tell the captain.

The captain says that he's unaware of of the manticore. He calls down the crew. "This crate is not in our records. Not part of our crew, not part of our vessel." He pulls out a sword. "If there's nothing in it and no one cares about it, this sword will drop in." And he counts down. "Three. Two."

"Stop!" shouts someone: Bunkyl, the Dwarf gunner. He runs up, with Vinzo Goldheart, a Halfling deckhand. "Don't kill it! Don't kill it. We had it, we took it, we bought it, we couldn't let it be caged up there. We were going to set it free at the mainland, rather than not be able to hunt properly at the island." They're rescuing it from the Cumberlite Isles.

The two crew think that the baby manticore wouldn't be able to get out of its crate; it's a baby with its eyes barely open. They reveal that its name is "Valros", and at that name it yowls a little bit. They want to set it free on the mainland.

The captain is debating what to do with it, but now the alarm bell rings out, and the lookout cries out for the captain. Everyone rushes up to the deck, as something approaches the boat fast, and dives under the water.

Attacking creature? Attacking missionary!

Jerry casts Water Walk on the Party, the captain, the quartermaster, Bunkyl the Dwarf gunner, Xander. For the next hour, they won't sink.

The mass circles under the water. It's a gargantuan creature, a 15-foot square. It dances in the ship's slow wake and disappears downwards.

A scream comes from belowdecks. It's the noblewoman, on the first deck down. The tall missionary holds a dagger to noble daughter's throat.

The noble parents are aghast; everyone else in the hold is watching this play out. The tall missionary backs towards the kitchen, dragging the daughter with. "This is not how this was supposed to — I want to see the captain, now. Any funny business, I will have another body."

Ryltar had gone down to investigate the scream. "And you want to the captain, now?"

"Alone?"

"Alone."

Next session