DND Blog

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

The Seventy-Fifth Session

October 15, 2022, Campaign: As the ground quakes, evil wakes

A Potion of Diminuation lets us carry the tree out of the Yuan-Ti stronghold, and we successfully replant the Lady of the Forest on her throne. Percival becomes her Protector, and we return to the Touched village. Jerry cures Majorie.

Table of Contents

  1. Last session
  2. Around the tree
  3. Running Away from the Yuan-Ti
  4. The Next Day
  5. The second day's travel
    1. The night's watches
  6. First morning post-restoration
  7. In the village
  8. Next Session

Last session

We found the Mother of the Forest.

We still have 9 former prisoners with us:

Bugfood's reply to our request for assistance suggests that we should provide water, good soil, and friendship to her

Around the tree

We spend a lot of time discussing how to improve the tree's health.

Jerry pulls some water and compost from the magic microwave and distributes it around the tree.

Should we try putting the sap back in the tree? Or sponging her down with it?

There are 10 jars, 12" in diameter and 16" tall. Each jar weighs about 80 pounds.

Her face has a mouth-shaped hole. Jerry pours some sap into the mouth, filling the opening. Nothing happens.

We discuss the option of using a potion of depetrification, and so Jerry wipes her down with one. Nothing happens.

Can we expose her to fresh air? How far is it to the surface? Ryltar thinks it's about 100 feet. And Jerry knows which direction the closest forest is in. Ryltar can take a shape of a badgermole, and dig 200 feet or more in a couple of minutes. We know that the plume of smoke near the edge of the city is coming from the Blood Room, which was right at the edge of the city. But then we're still relying on the weather.

Could we Teleportation Circle out of here? Well, it would probably take this unconscious tree with us. But where would we go?

Ren's house doesn't have 10' ceilings, but in anticipation of that, we carefully pull the Lady's upper boughs down and tie them up, making her smaller.

Might Sev know how to get her out? Ryltar ponders aloud. His insight shows that Sev thinks this decision is entirely out of Sev's hands.

So we share out the ten urns between the prisoners and us. Ryltar begins drawing the circle.

Before he casts, Ryltar says that we'll wait to see if the tree goes through first, and then we'll all jump into the circle afterwards. He's never done this before: never transported a tree, never transported a Larg Creature. Size is a constraint, so if there's a way to make her smaller….

Oh. We've got a Potion of Diminuation, to make the tree smaller.

We give Sev the choice to come with us or not; he doesn't answer. He's just smirking, tied up.

Ryltar applies the potion to the tree, and she shrinks down to the size of shrub, and flops sideways in the hole in the ground. Jerry picks her up, root ball and all, and ties the shrub on her back as a backpack. We have two hours.

Leaving:

We decide to leave on foot. Sev stays behind, in the mushroom room, still tied up.

We shuffle folk along the underground river with the boats, and exit through the temple. Salris leads. The temple is quiet.

We see the remnants of our battles: drag marks, bloody piles. We come to the bottom of the ziggurat, and the remnants of the giant freezing sphere are still there, clinking. Outside, the monsoon still pours, howling in the wind and rain.

We climb to the top of the ziggurat. Vision is limited by the squall. We can't cover the whole group with our secrecy magics, so we don't. We slip and slide down the 10-foot stairs. Ryltar Polymorphs as a Giant Ape, and carries all the urns down one by one, to avoid breakage.

At the very end, Salris and Ryltar get spooked, and the last two urns break. The monsoon rains quickly wash away the sap.

We head for the outer wall. The houses beside slip past. There are a handful of people looking out their windows, and flickering oil-lamp light from the windows show people peeking out. We have to backtrack at times, but eventually we reach the wall.

Ryltar's Giant Ape form easily bestrides the 15' wall, and he carries Jerry over to help handle the 8 remaining urns. But after the fifth urn, the rain lets up a little bit, and doors start opening. Jerry quickly pops Pass Without Trace on the party, and we finish ferrying urns over the wall.

As the rain quiets, the city begins to wake up. We hear murmurs of conversation, doors, foot traffic: Yuan-Ti beginning to head out of doors. It's danger time.

We continue moving the group over the wall. Salris can move himself; Vurguron can help pass people over the wall.

Vurguron and Ape!Ryltar are within the wall when people start attacking. Ape!Ryltar takes two critical hits and a regular hit, for 50 damage, 50 damage, and 20 more, but he's still good. His left side is porcupined with arrows, but Vurguron makes it over the wall, and Ryltar rolls down after him.

We make it across the clearing, into the woods, and the city fades into the wall of rain behind us.

Running Away from the Yuan-Ti

We run through the forest. The urns have been loaded into our Bag of Holding and Handy Haversack, leaving one to be shuffled between the Party members.

We navigate east for 2 hours, towards the center of the forest.

And then the tree on Jerry's back lets loose a creaking noise, and the one-shrub-sized Mother of the Forest reverts back into a full-size tree.

We elect to keep going. Ryltar once more Polymorphs into a Giant Ape, and carries her along. We take some exhaustion. The boy is put in a backpack and carried by the Goliath. We proceed at 30 feet per round for an hour: 2 miles and a little change.

Then it's night, and we set up the Tiny Hut. Ryltar and Vurguron and the Sailor Scouts stay outside, to do watch. The Tabaxi is a sad wet little cat inside.

The Next Day

We figure out logistics. We have enough food to bring them with us, but we're heading into danger, directly into the poisonous forest.

The Tabaxi speaks up: "The sister's city of Zennar, we could go there." It's on the south side of the desert, beyond the jungle, and we're not heading there right now. We're heading to the forest.

The Boy, Tavo, says he's from Harton, another town we haven't heard of. Sailor Quarterstaff introduces herself as Oloma, and says most of the group were traveling from Harton or Setton, along the river. The Tabaxi introduces himself as Pottery Shard, traveling towards Setton.

The consensus of the rescued prisoners is that they're going to accompany us, because they want our protection. We'll head east, take care of the Mother of the Forest, and then escort them back to Setton.

Ryltar becomes a Giant Ape again.

The morning light catches on the pale green leaves of the Mother of the Forest, which glimmer in the breeze. She's breathing the good air, healing.

We travel with good time. We burn six charges of the Abracadabrus and one ration from Jerry's bag to take care of food for the day.

We come to the edge of the poisoned forest, where the gnarls begin to appear. We lecture the former prisoners on safety, and decide to put them up in the Tiny Hut for the night, so they don't wander off into the poisonous forest.

We're on the right track. We're putting in motion the solution to the problem.

That night, Ryltar takes the first two watches. He watches from his trance. If what the tree needs is warm healing magic, what do we have with warm healing magic? Salris.

Jerry takes the second, waters the tree's roots, and talks to the tree about her daughter. She rolls a 4 on the d20.

Salris spends his watch channeling magic into the tree.

The second day's travel

This morning, the tree has taken a little root, and we gingerly dig it out. We carry it onward, in Ryltar's Giant Ape hands. He takes some poison damage from the tree branches that he's pushing aside. Percival sings a happy song. We pass into the Dark Forest, finding a trail of white and red flowers along the hedge bushes, like what led us to the Heart of the Forest before.

We follow it towards the Heart of the Forest.

Our beaten prisoners' morale stays bright, thanks to the song.

We come to the Heart of the Forest, and there's the same throne in the center, and the Ancient Elm at the edge of the clearing. Percival is now the Giant Ape, and Ryltar approaches the Ancient Elm to ask it what's up.

"We think that we have found your Lady," he says. A breath of wind blows through the clearing, like a sigh. "We think that she's wounded."

"She was."

"And we don't have power to do anything."

"Return her."

"Where should we set her?"

"She was taken".

So Ryltar gestures towards the throne, and Ape!Percival moves her towards the throne.

Her roots surge down into the throne, and there's an immediate burst of light. Flowers bloom in the branches; a vortex of leaves and lowers and light spiraling around the grove, and the sky above the grove is bright white. Something that has not been seen in hundreds of years is done again: The Lady is Home.

The Ancient Elm says: "My power fades, to give her life, and anew she can create. I cannot protect this forest anymore. The protector of the forest must be [made/bestowed/given]." The Ancient Elm creaks, and sags.

The Mother grows and grows, and the visage of the female humanoid fades into the tree.

"Something that needs to grow. A seed does not grow beneath its parent. We need help. Who shall give it?"

"They need a protector, and want to know who will do it," Ryltar says to the rest of the Party. "Someone to reinitialize the growth of the Lady of the Forest. If you're a protector of something of sufficient power, sometimes they give you boons. Someone who has walked the path of the Lady of the Forest…"

Percival volunteers. "As someone who has done it; I think it's appropriate that I do this last mission for her."

Percival is ordered to stand before her, and a branch grows out to embrace him, settling around his arm.

We've succeeded!

Ryltar raises, in a roundabout way, the topic of Jerry's daughter, petitioning the trees for the release of them. The Ancient Elm sighs. Ryltar presses: "How many do you need? How many can return home?" Silence. The creaking of branches. "If you have this one protector," gesturing to Percival, "do you still need other protectors?"

"The corruption still lasts, but we can fight," says the tree, slowing.

We can give those Touched by the Jimenju Tree the choice, to let them continue here as protectors, or return home.

We're discussing the wound in the Mother of the Forest, and the wound which has remained despite her regrowth. "Sister," says the Ancient Elm. "Belladonna, the Sister, poisoned, struck down". And the tree's last breath comes out, and it splits in half, remaining standing.

We know that Belladonna is another name for Nightshade.

We set up here for the night.

The night's watches

Salris, Jerry, Percival, and ??? take watches that night, and the Mother of the Forest gently glows, except for that wound. Salris ruminates on that face he saw.

Percival spends some of his watch trying to commune with the tree.

Ryltar asks the tree if she wants the Ice Heart of Winter. "This was once his. Do you want it? I do not offer lightly. It feels strange carrying something that was not mine, you are the only one who can carry it more." A warm breeze blows through, and it grows colder.

He gets the sense that the Lady knows that Wint trusts him with it, that she wants him to keep it. A hot jungle isn't a place for a shard of ice to thrive. The forces of nature keep them apart. Ryltar bows and takes his leave.

First morning post-restoration

Salris wakes up in the morning and is spun around violently to see Bugfood, with wide eyes. "You did it! I can't stay here long. Things are bad. Things are growing." His eyes dart around, looking at something unseen. "White, Red Blue Green White. White grows and grows and grows, burning, dashing away any darkness. Burning what you see." But it was a dream.

Salris proclaims: "Ryltar! We've did it. We've moved on to the next stage!" He recounts the dream. He thinks that the white might represent the Cloud Giant.

But first, we decide to head off to take care of Majorie's group. We traipse across the forest, and come to the edge of the corruption. We find ourselves near to the Jimenju tree, to leave an urn of milk. Through the brambles, we push into the clearing around the tree. The face fruits are still there, and the air of laughter.

"Oh, you've brought friends," says the tree.

"No, we didn't," we say, and push the prisoners out.

"We brought your lady back," Ryltar says.

"Congratulations," says the tree.

"We're married and I'm full of seed," says Percival.

The fruit keep a straight face.

"You've lost touch," says the tree to him.

So we're just dropping by to say that the Lady's back, and then we leave.

We leave the urn from Ryltar's bag at the edge of the thorn hedge. Some splashes onto a gnarl, and the gnarl turns into a flower, and releases a puff of white pollen, which lands on other gnarls and converts them to flowers.

We leave that one behind, and use another urn to sprinkle juice on the gnarls as we go. leaving unscarred trees behind.

In the village

Jerry goes to talk to Majorie; she tells Majorie that they've brought back something that will help the Forest. Jerry doesn't tell her what it would do, just that it would help the forest. "So drink this, and then we can go spread it on the gnolls."

Majorie drinks it without concern, and there's a moment when she realizes what is going to happen. Then the condition is lifted, and she looks at her mother, says, "Mom," and runs into her mother's arms.

Next Session