Harkoth's Legacy

Harkoth's Legacy, known early in development as the Villain Campaign or the Willain Campaign, is the twelfth campaign held by the members of Flafa. It is the fifth campaign DM'd by FennekinGalaxy, and features Deeto as Kohtalo Paha, Lord of the World as Billy Ochard, Chris-tian Mothman as Faust, Ding Dong as Xotal, and Grey as Venzorwyn Greynore. This campaign is notable for being the first sequel to a prior campaign.
Harkoth's Legacy is the second installment of the Realm of Ikarion series, being preceded by Houses. This notion makes it the first sequel to any prior campaign.
== Storyline ==
=== Session 1: A New Legacy (5/14/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Kohtalo, Venzorwyn, Xotal
The party opens in Theo’s bar in the town of Old Mirefield on the outskirts of the Grimwood Isles. Theo looks over the party’s shoulder as they are plotting with him to steal a relic of magical power from the local Baroness, upscaling their previous activities to gain a further profit. They seek the Baroness’ amulet of invisibility, and Theo remarks that this should be fun. The party looks over a map of the city, with the Baroness’ manor circled in red, and Theo offers his wares to help. He tries to draw attention away from the box of wares labeled not for sale. Xotal asks Theo what is in the box, and Theo says he can’t tell him. This soon leads to a back-and-forth between the pair, piquing Faust’s suspicions about the box’s contents.
Kohtalo asks for a discount for Theo’s wares, not knowing Theo already put one on. Theo puts his hand on the box of not-for-sale wares and reaffirms they’re not for sale, as Kohtalo and Xotal both prod, the latter of which using his “puppy eyes”, despite not having eyes. Theo gives in to the puppy eyes, showing off the Sanguine Slinger and the Sanguine Slasher. He tells them they give great power, but use your life force to do it. Xotal soon bombards Theo with questions he should already know the answers to as Kohtalo asks what the curse is. Theo doesn’t know for sure what the curses are, but knows they use blood, offering to let him buy it. Kohtalo reels away at the price, trying to haggle down lower, having to compromise for 12 gold, Theo’s final offer. Theo reaffirms how long Kohtalo had been at the bar with his friends: two months.
Venzorwyn asks Theo if he can take a look at the Slasher, and the latter agrees to let him look, but not touch. Venzorwyn inspects it, seeing an aura of magical or perhaps cursed energy, but he does not know the source or function. Theo tries to explain the function of the Slasher, saying that it siphons blood from your enemies for its power. Xotal asks Theo for food, the latter offering Xotal some cheese, due to him knowing he likes cheese. Theo goes into the back room, leaving his wares unattended for a moment as he returns with blocks of cheese. Xotal refused the crackers and ale, only eating the cheese. Kohtalo asks if Xotal will share, and Xotal refuses, saying he ate it all. Kohtalo asks if Theo has more food, and after being told the options, Kohtalo takes some more cheese, due to being “allergic to ham”. Venzorwyn haggles with Theo to buy the Slasher and a rope hook for 15 gold instead of the normal 17, and as such was able to buy both. Theo soon realizes that the fifth member of the party, Billy Ochard, was missing, and he wonders where he went as Faust struggles to remember who Billy is. Venzorwyn and Theo have faith that Billy will return unharmed, as Theo asks for the party’s plan to take on the Baroness.
Kohtalo, completely unprompted, asks if the rest of the party are virgins, knowing Faust wasn’t, being scoffed at by Venzorwyn and met with a scared Xotal, due to not knowing the context of the question. Kohtalo leaves to pee for a moment, and as the party plans more, he returns with some disgusting questions about pee streams. Theo reaffirms that the party is after the Baroness’ amulet of invisibility, to which Faust asks if Theo knows where it is. Theo tells them that the amulet is almost always on the Baroness’ person. Kohtalo suggests disguises to get in, but it is shut down by Faust and Venzorwyn because Venzorwyn is huge and not remotely human, and Faust is “green and smelly”. Kohtalo soon remembers that he’s the only one present that could disguise as a human, except for Billy, who he claims is too arrogant to do it.
Xotal wants to go in, but Venzorwyn shuts him down quickly due to his unpredictable, uncontrollable childlike nature. Venzorwyn puts his trust in Faust and Kohtalo to sneak in. Venzorwyn plots to fly them to the manor, restraining Xotal to prevent his intervention. He and Xotal will stay above the manor, flying in to help when Faust makes a signal with his lyre. When asked by Venzorwyn about balconies, Theo responds that there are multiple. Everyone agreed with Venzorwyn’s plan, adapting around the balconies.
Soon enough, at the manor, the plan begins to go into motion. Kohtalo tells Faust to not drop his lyre, prompting the latter to tune it. Kohtalo then wants uppies from Venzorwyn as Xotal climbs on Venzorwyn’s back. Faust is grabbed by Venzorwyn’s tail, and Venzorwyn easily carries them above the manor. Venzorwyn lands on the roof, hitting the anti-bird spikes but being unfazed, setting Faust and Kohtalo down, underestimating the steepness of the roof, watching the pair slide down and fall onto the balcony below. Xotal asks if the pair is okay, finding out that they are fine. He yells this, however, so Venzorwyn has to shush him and cover his mouth. Kohtalo and Faust slowly open the door with a slight creak, ending up in the Baroness’ parlor. As Kohtalo and Faust plot to divide and conquer, they hear a guard doing his routine path, walking up the stairs. Kohtalo bolts out the door they came in from, and Faust hides behind the curtains. The guard soon arrives, taking notes of Faust’s smell, not knowing it was him, regarding that the curtains needed washed due to them smelling like a corpse before continuing his patrol, going into the next room to check on the Baroness.
After coming back in, Kohtalo decides to go down the stairs the guard came from, ending up in the den. He eyes the gilded goodies atop the mantle of the fireplace, inspecting them to see if any of them are the Baroness’ amulet, not remembering Theo’s instructions from hours prior. As a result, his time is wasted as he returns to the parlor to reconvene with Faust. Kohtalo soon suggests the other door in the parlor, leading into the study. They enter, finding the guard from before, being immediately spotted. Upon sighting Faust, the guard asks if Faust is the source of the smell, the latter hurriedly replying “no”. The guard calls Faust a liar due to him knowing that he is the “stinky one”. Faust immediately drops limp, playing dead on the floor, Kohtalo following suit. The guard believes it, kicks them to make sure they’re dead before dragging them by the ankles. The Baroness yelled in disgust at Faust and Kohtalo, asking why they were dead. Kohtalo uses one of his Cursed Techniques, Boogie Woogie, to switch places with the Baroness in an instant, freeing himself from his shackles. As Faust reaches for the amulet, the Baroness yells about the zombie reaching at her as the guard takes notice. He drops his Baroness, letting her go while further restraining Faust.
Kohtalo tells Faust to play the music as loud as he can while he rushes to tackle the Baroness, signaling to the others to enter as he knocks the Baroness to the floor. The guard lets go of Faust, rushing to the Baroness’ aid. Kohtalo pantomimes strangling the Baroness to threaten him, but the guard, unfazed, draws his sword. Kohtalo instead pulls off the amulet, prompting the Baroness to recoil as she wants it back. Seeing the amulet gone, the guard swings his blade at Kohtalo, knowing he is up to no good, prompting the latter to use Boogie Woogie again to put the Baroness in the path of the swing. The Baroness dodges as Kohtalo compliments the Baroness’ bosom. This disgusts her, prompting him to get slapped.
As Venzorwyn descends, he uses Xotal as a battering ram to break down the door, and Xotal immediately wants to be thrown at the guard to cling onto the guard’s face like an angry cat. He shrieks as he flies at the guard. The guard pulls Xotal off of his face shortly after, shortly before Xotal uses his shit breath to force the guard to back away, due to his odor sensitivity. Kohtalo tells Venzorwyn to look at the Baroness’ tits, prompting Venzorwyn to tell him to be serious for longer than 5 minutes. Venzorwyn knocks out the Baroness, prompting them to have an escape route, but the guards are rapidly approaching. The party gathers in the same setup they were in before, Venzorwyn particularly calling Xotal like a dog to get on his back. On the way back from the manor, Kohtalo notices that the amulet is wrapped in a strange roll of paper, wanting to look at it when they get back to Theo.
Theo soon congratulates the party on their success, and offers to buy the amulet off of them if they so choose. Kohtalo unwraps the amulet, finding that it is wrapped in a story scroll, a story telling the tale of a group of adventurers defeating an evil king, but numerous passages have been obfuscated, stained and decayed beyond recognition over time. Kohtalo chooses to keep the story scroll, and upon finding out what the price Theo was offering to buy it for was, he tries to pressure him to increase the sale price by asking Faust if his wife would’ve liked the amulet. Faust says that his wife would’ve loved it if it wasn’t cursed, but this doesn’t work on Theo.
As night falls, a loud banging is heard on the door of Theo’s bar, and Theo tells the knocker that they’re closed. Theo tells the party to get down. Kohtalo and Venzorwyn hide behind the door on both sides, with Xotal greeting the Constable as a distraction. Faust sets the mood with a suspenseful song from his lyre, and as the Constable enters, kicking down the door, he remarks that the door’s broken. Upon Theo telling the Constable that he doesn’t have the amulet he is after, the Constable calls him a liar, telling Theo that his friends were there earlier in the day. The Constable raises his gun at Theo, prompting Venzorwyn to grab his wrist and bend it backwards painfully. He calls for his guards, which soon flood in. Venzorwyn pushed the Constable back into his guards, doing the same with a whip of his tail to one of the guards.
Faust flings one of the stools at a guard using a mage hand, hitting him with it as Venzorwyn attacks the downed guard with Toothy, defeating him and giving the Constable room to reenter. After that, the two guards near Kohtalo and Xotal try and swarm the pair, missing both narrowly. Faust soon unleashed vicious mockery on the guard he threw the stool at, saying that he “smells so foul that not even a corpse wouldn’t want to smell him, his mother wouldn’t want to smell him, and if she dies, she wouldn’t wanna smell him”, and this was so effective that it hit for nearly quadruple effectiveness. Venzorwyn soon uses his powerful tail to throw one guard at another, and launch both of them into the table nearby, then hitting the Constable with Toothy’s back end. Kohtalo lands a precise blow on the Constable’s nose, prompting the Constable to fall over, soon fleeing with his guards after Faust followed up with a slap to the face of one of the guards, knocking him out.
After Theo thanks them for saving him, he tells them that it’s not safe for the party in Old Mirefield anymore, as the Constable will keep pursuing them for as long as the Baroness lives. He offers to help them find a boat deeper into the Isles to escape the city. Faust thinks it is a good idea, seeing as they can’t rent an inn room due to being known criminals. Theo tells them that he will tell Billy to meet them there. He allows the party to bunk upstairs for the night, as it should be safe. Xotal is very excited about bunking with his friends, saying that they can share stories, have fun and do makeup as Venzorwyn shuts him up, asking about what happened with Kohtalo and Faust. Before this happens, however, Xotal hijacks it, telling them their side, with Xotal seeing a bird, wanting to pursue it on the roof, but Ven grabbed him so he could not retrieve it. Venzorwyn spent most of his time in the intermediary carving runes into Toothy. Kohtalo compliments Venzorwyn’s craftsmanship.
Venzorwyn finally gets to hear Kohtalo and Faust’s side of the events at the manor before the party tries to get some rest, leaving Faust to stare longingly into space, thinking about his wife. During this, Kohtalo has a schizophrenic episode, during which Xotal whispers to Faust that he thinks Kohtalo is crazy, to which Venzorwyn says it’s rude for him to point out when someone has mental faculty issues, demeaning Xotal like a child. Kohtalo loudly snores as he heads off to sleep, Faust having to suffer through that the whole night.
The next morning, the party heads to the dock, reuniting with Billy, and hearing rumors about Harkoth's Blade, a weapon of immense power that no one has been able to retain control while using, but there has to be someone who can control it. Maybe the party! As they leave for the mainland of the Isles, they think it’d be a good idea to pursue it, but shortly after their boat is swallowed in a storm, prompting them to fall under the waves.
The party soon awakens deep within a dark forest, their backs scratched and dirty from being dragged and their maps ruined. They have no idea how they got there, with Billy being missing again, but the only sense of a guide they have now is the sweet, sing-songy humming of a nearby woman. Faust re-tunes his lyre, playing along to the tune of the humming, but not before tilting his head to the side and draining the black water out of his head. Kohtalo wants to run after the voice, thinking a hot honey is responsible, but Venzorwyn is able to restrain him. Due to this, he is unable to stop Xotal from scrambling on all fours towards the source of the humming, prompting the party, angered, to follow him.
The party happens upon a small cabin in the woods, finding the woman who calls it home about to leave. She was a young, beautiful red-headed woman dressed in black and orange. She is surprised to see the party alive, stating that she was going to harvest their organs, but now that she knows they’re alive she’s more than willing to help them get out of the forest. Seeing the party’s disgusted reactions, the witch clarifies that she only harvests from the dead, prompting Faust to look around nervously. Xotal scrambles up to the witch and looks at her like a lost dog, prompting her to say hello as he tells her she smells nice. Venzorwyn asks her name, being interrupted by the sudden re-arrival of Billy, who had just been fishing nearby. Venzorwyn asks again, allowing him to learn her name, Netilla. He introduces the rest of the party, and he asks Netilla where they are, being told that they are deep within the Grim Thicket. She tells them that it is home to very dangerous, toxic Grimwood trees, and that it’s very scary there, but not that bad once you get used to it. When Netilla reveals she dragged them off of the shore, they complimented her strength due to, despite the presence of her cart, the fact she was able to carry the cart with them a whole kilometer by herself with no visible stress. She tells them that she carts her potions to Elmwood every week, so she needs to be strong.
Venzorwyn takes interest in the mention of potions, and learns she is working on a new batch. Venzorwyn asks them if she knows the area, and she highlights a scary house down south, and the village of Elmwood not far from her. The party offers to help Netilla finish her potion batch, prompting her to explain the remaining ingredients: Asporion Mushrooms and a Forest Pearl. The party splits in twain, leaving Billy to his salmon grind, Kohtalo and Xotal going on a mushroom quest, and Venzorwyn, Faust and Netilla going to search for the Forest Pearl. After Venzorwyn, Faust and Netilla left, Kohtalo immediately asked Xotal if he wanted to raid Netilla’s house, making Venzorwyn immediately regret his decision. As he tries to convince Xotal to enter, he suggests that the mid-twenties Netilla might be a “pedophilist” before having another schizophrenia episode. Billy wonders how the other players are doing as the party moves to collect potion ingredients.
The trio finds a gnome village further south, with them talking in a familiar gnomish dialect, looking at the party and questioning their desire for their hard-earned pearls. After calming them with a tune from Faust’s lyre, one of the gnomes lets out the familiar “ABAGOOBY”. The dedicated Common liaison speaks to the party, asking what they want. Venzorwyn wants to make a trade for their pearls. They do not want the offer of services that he offered, the gnomes wanting to defend their treasures. When asked how she normally obtains the pearls, Netilla says she steals them, finding her own flowers. The gnome liaison wants something of equal financial value to the Pearl. The gnome suggests gems. When asked how much money the gnomes want for the Pearl, they tell Venzorwyn that they want 200 gold, but Venzorwyn vehemently declines after that. The gnomes refuse to barter unless they can give them money or some kind of high-monetary-value item. When cryptocurrency was mentioned, they did say they would accept Gnomecoin. Faust uses Distort Value to turn his three copper coins into ornate golden Gnomecoin that they eagerly accept for the Pearl.
Meanwhile, Xotal and Kohtalo had not left for their mushrooms until after the trio returned with the Pearl, prompting Xotal to follow the pretty lady’s orders. Soon enough, they found a gaggle of mushrooms, but Kohtalo sucks at identifying them, so Xotal took a look, perfectly identifying them as the Asporion mushrooms they needed. As they return, Netilla compliments their work before heading inside and finishing the process, offering them one of the potions. Xotal asks what the potion does, and she tells them that it’s a strength potion. Kohtalo eagerly takes it, but Netilla jokingly warns that it’s poisonous. Hesitant to drink it due to that, Kohtalo takes a whiff, finding it harmless. The party wants her whole stock, but she refuses, needing to take it into town to get paid, but she promises to go with them and she can brew more as she accompanies them.
Kohtalo asks Netilla about how she got her ass, and she thanked him for the compliment, but she says that she worked for it, due to having strong legs. Kohtalo says it’s hot, prompting Netilla to strike a “funny pose” and slap Kohtalo. Venzorwyn soon has the party and Netilla climb on the cart as he picks it up, getting ready to fly them to Elmwood. Far above the canopy, the party is unable to see any malpractice or misdeeds happening below. Soon realizing that they forgot Billy, the party had to turn around, and witnessed just how many fish he caught while on his salmon grind. He joins them with his nineteen pounds of fish, joining them on the trip to Elmwood.
Billy soon goes to the Elmwood market’s fishmonger to sell his fish, finding a rare marlin. He receives a large quantity of gold, splitting it evenly with the party except for Kohtalo, who he only gave one gold coin to. Faust enters Elmwood’s cartography shop, finding a man named Baxter, who eagerly sells him a map of the Isles. Kohtalo searches out in the market for some food, having another schizophrenia episode outside of the beef stand. He tries to buy some roast beef, but can only find slabs of beef. Kohtalo is disgusted by the price of five slabs of beef, instead downgrading to one, having to open his pockets and watch the moths fly away as he requests them to cut it in half. Venzorwyn offers to give Kohtalo more money to buy beef, but he refuses. Heading to the cookery, he takes his half-slab of beef and makes a sandwich out of it, wallowing in his economic squalor and massive skill issue for buying a gun he would not use. After claiming his sandwich, Kohtalo prayed to whatever god he believed in that he wouldn’t trip on a rock with his sandwich. Xotal and Billy go to the antique shop, finding Xotal a very nice straw hat after Kohtalo has yet another schizophrenic episode.
After this, screams are heard in the distance, with a band of gnolls raiding the town, led by Trokk the Red. He commands his men, telling them they have fresh meat, and showing just how hungry they are as the party readies their arms.
=== Session 2: A Hunger for Glory (5/28/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Kohtalo, Xotal, Netilla
Facing the Red-Skull Raiders, their leader, Trokk the Red, personally approached Kohtalo to try and steal his sandwich after Xotal tried to say hi to Trokk. Kohtalo has a schizophrenic episode as Venzorwyn and Billy has left the scene, pursuing a salmon grind. Kohtalo comically shakes his fist as Xotal questions where their friends are going. As Kohtalo is distracted, Trokk takes the sandwich. Xotal, in retaliation, swings at Trokk with his big stick, missing and demolishing a nearby market stand. The shock of this destruction made Trokk drop Kohtalo’s sandwich, soiling it, and prompting Xotal to blow a raspberry at Trokk. Trokk called Xotal a cunt for this, telling the party that it was his sandwich.
Faust soon imprisons Trokk with Hold Person before Xotal unleashes his shit breath against Trokk, catching Kohtalo in the crossfire. Kohtalo soon picked up Trokk and flung him into the market stand to his left and lands his very first Black Flash, prompting Trokk to take heavy damage. Netilla pulls a red brew off of her belt, intending to hit Trokk with its incendiary contents, but missed horribly, and after being chastised by Kohtalo, she says she’s not used to throwing them. After escaping his magical prison, Trokk immediately flees behind his men, not wanting further damage. One of the snipers aimed at Kohtalo, missing horrendously and being called retarded in response. Xotal unleashed another volley of shit breath, but it unfortunately did not affect anyone in range. Kohtalo has a schizophrenic episode shortly after this before drinking the strength potion Netilla gave him. He used its power to pick up Xotal and attempt to throw him at one of the ravagers, missing and tossing Xotal on top of one of the market stands. After the Raiders reposition, aiming for Xotal, Kohtalo tells them about the butchery in town, and Trokk responds by claiming that they don’t want that, and want something fresher. 
After this, the party soon comes to a consensus that they need to flee. As this happens, Kohtalo sneakily whispers to Faust, saying that on Faust’s cue, he would use Boogie Woogie to swap Xotal with Netilla and everyone could run, leaving her to the wolves. Faust soon unleashed a Vicious Mockery on one of the gnolls, claiming that he has more maggots in his stomach than Faust does, eating what he does, claiming he likely eats shit, and that’s why women don’t love him. Shortly after being damaged by the gnolls beneath him, a crack emanates from Xotal, and black goo begins to pour from him. He unleashes a powerful magic attack from the crack at his attackers, attempting to shatter them. While fleeing, Kohtalo picks up some rubble, finding a pebble, and somehow making an extremely precise throw with it to hit Trokk on his head.
Soon, the party gains the idea to overthrow Trokk and become the new leader(s) of the Raiders, but first Kohtalo tries to win them over with words but is unsuccessful. Faust gains a reckless idea, climbing atop the broken market stand and dancing for the gnolls, trying to distract them long enough to get the party to leave, using it to taunt Trokk. Faust doesn’t dance good enough for Trokk to be convinced, but he does convince one of the snipers to follow. Kohtalo becomes embarrassed at Faust for this. Xotal soon goes full “feral rabbit mode”, getting on all fours as he blasts his attacker away from him with an eldritch blast. Kohtalo conspires to use Netilla’s body as a distraction, but instead uses himself as a distraction, joining Faust on top of the broken market stand and dancing with him, enthralling them. Seeing Kohtalo’s superior dance moves, Faust instead plays a song on his lyre to amp up the performance. Netilla saves Xotal from his attacker by hitting him with a fire potion, immolating the gnoll.
The gnolls swarm Kohtalo and Faust, attempting to hit the former, but all miss due to their incompetence. Faust attempts to use suggestion to convince Trokk the Red to boogie with the pair, but fails miserably. Netilla soon picks up Xotal, and runs him to a safer location, readying some ingredients for a new potion. Trokk attempts to grab Kohtalo by his ankle, only narrowly missing due to Kohtalo’s smooth moves. Faust soon uses Mage Hand to pull one of the bars out of the booth next to Trokk, causing part of it to collapse on top of him, handing the bar to Netilla to use as a weapon. Trokk, realizing the party isn’t playing anymore, flees from the scene, calling for his men to do the same, fleeing east, and trips into the fountain on his way out.
On the remaining gnolls, Xotal casts Shatter, prompting Kohtalo to use Boogie Woogie to evade its radius and bring another gnoll into the mix, but unfortunately the wave was centered right next to Faust. This puts him on the brink of death but clears all but one of the remaining gnolls. Kohtalo immediately rushes to his friend’s aid, and thanks him for the sacrifice as he enables Faust to kill the last Raider by plunging his rapier into the gnoll’s skull.
With the raiders completely cleared, the town thanks their heroes for their service. Kohtalo seizes the opportunity, immediately making unprompted demands of the townsfolk, specifically saying “Give us gold and a free night’s stay at the hotel”. After the raiders were run out of town, Kohtalo feels a new Cursed Technique given to him, something he never has had before, Shrine. Given the freedom of choice as to their direction, the party decides to take a rest at the inn, reconvening as Netilla makes more potions.
After settling in at the inn, Xotal asks Faust why the Raiders did what they did and why they wanted to eat them, and Faust gives Xotal an ethics lesson about caring how other people feel and about remorse for one’s action. While this happens, Kohtalo gives Faust a side-eye, claiming it was due to his smell, but the verity of this statement is unknown. Kohtalo asks the innkeeper about any issues the town has had, namely bandits, and is told of The Ashen Hand, a bandit troupe that routinely strikes the town to steal things to appease their god. She tells Kohtalo that the Ashen Hand claims the power of fire from their god. Kohtalo makes the executive decision for the party to raid the Ashen Hand outpost just north of the town but asks the party for their opinion anyway. Kohtalo asks if the town can give them food for their journey upon successfully kicking out the Ashen Hand, and the innkeeper says that they will give what they can as a reward.
Before leaving, Kohtalo decides to ask around and see if the town has any problems and finds that the fishmonger keeps having his boat harassed by a large fish in the water. The party promises to help him, and the fishmonger offers to give them free fish, due to not having much money left after buying Billy’s stock of fish. Xotal tries to jump into the water to chase after the fish, but falls in and begins to drown. Kohtalo decides to save Xotal with Boogie Woogie, swapping Xotal for one of the local fishermen, almost at the fisherman’s expense, to save Xotal. Faust makes some illusory fish in the water to prompt the fish to breach, allowing Kohtalo to swap the fish for another fisherman with Boogie Woogie. Kohtalo and Xotal try and pick up big rocks to beat the fish with, Xotal grabbing a comically large one he should not have been able to lift, quivering underneath it as he drops it on the fish’s head, splattering it immediately.
The fishmonger is amazed at their process, and, as a man of his word, gives back half of the party’s fish that Billy had sold them, including the marlin. Xotal tries to eat some of the fish but is dragged away by Kohtalo, who claims that the fish is his, despite Xotal doing all of the work, including the killing. Instead, he gives Faust 10 fishes, claiming Faust did all the work, telling him to eat them, and Faust tells him to eat them instead, due to Faust not needing to eat. Xotal carnally eats the raw fish in a graphic display, biting into the skull of one and watching its brain matter spill out. Using the uncooked fish as a way to test out his unknown Cursed Technique, he releases a fire arrow dubbed Fuga to almost perfectly cook the fish, which he’s pretty content with. After their meal, Kohtalo asks Netilla to retrieve the cart before the party makes their way to the Ashen Hand’s outpost.
At the outpost, the party watches as a man hurriedly pulls a cart full of jars of an unknown substance into the outpost, with the door locking behind him. Netilla knows what the substance is, identifying it as dangerous Grimwood sap. After a short moment, Kohtalo manifests a Fuga in front of them, trying to convince them that he is a disciple of Pyros just like they are. He tries to get them to let them in, but the guards refuse. Xotal begins pestering the guards while Kohtalo tries to convince them to let him enter. One of the guards at the gate activates his Pyrrhic boon and tries to use it to humble Kohtalo’s airheaded ego. Eventually, Xotal’s pestering and performance work well enough to get Xotal and only Xotal behind the gate. Xotal tries to show off his mastery of fire, accidentally unleashing a scorching ray on one of the barrels inside this wooden base, gaining him the ire of the members of the Ashen Hand as they pat down the fire with sand. Xotal tries to play it off as a mistake and begins to cry when put under the pressure exuded by the members, and as Archers are trained on Xotal, the Party begins to pressure the outside guards. Kohtalo tries to convince the guards that he is Pyros’ disciple, but he bluffs too close to the sun, and they point their weapons at his face. Kohtalo pulls out his Sanguine Slinger and shoots a guard in the face, draining a bit of his blood. Kohtalo then swaps positions with a nearby archer and lands a Black Flash upon the secondary archer, providing immense relief to Xotal. As Kohtalo deals with the archers, the rest of the party is allowed in by Xotal blasting the gate open from behind, knocking the standing guards unconscious. The Party rushes in and holds the line against the vagrant guards who were lounging around the Ashen Hand Base. Back to the Archers, Kohtalo lands a hit on the remaining soldier, which seems to prove ineffective, provided by the taunting by the Archer. This pisses Kohtalo off and lands another Black Flash, eviscerating the Archer’s upper half. On the ground, enemies are about to land a huge multi-attack on the Party, but they instead hit the third Ronin, named Toshiro, due to Boogie Woogie. Due to their unknowing of Boogie Woogie, Toshiro feels betrayed and begins to attack the enemy squad after being convinced to by Xotal and Kohtalo.
Within a few more quick decisive moves, the Party has defeated all of the other Ronins and now are presented with a large wooden door blocking their path to the rest of the camp. In a stroke of genius, Xotal charges up his Shit Breath while Kohtalo uses his Fuga to result in a humongous explosion, sending shrapnel everywhere, killing the nearby Ronins, and destroying a large chunk of the secondary Archer Tower’s foundation. The resulting explosion also makes Toshiro admit that Kenji, assumedly his boss, has no clue what he’s doing when it comes to Flames. The Party bursts into Kenji’s headquarters, using Kohtalo’s Boogie Woogie to quickly swap him into the middle and taunt him. Kenji, being forced to take his own kunai, got covered in the oil coating the blade as Kohtalo attacked him. The Party, who has a collective intelligence over 2, uses their brain cells and lights Kenji on fire, who screams out in agony. For a last attack, Kenji charges at Kohtalo and tries to kill him, but he figuratively flies too close to the sun and perishes before even getting his blade close. 
In the final few moments before the Ashen Hand base is destroyed, The Party rushes throughout it and gains all the stored treasure they can carry in the cart, along with finding a few wagons’ worth of Grimwood Sap, with the name Alistair being written on it, presumably meant to be shipped to him. As they collect their goodies, they ride off into the forest, leaving behind the fallen Ashen Hand.
=== Session 3: Crimson Pressure (6/4/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Xotal, Venzorwyn, Billy, Kohtalo, Netilla, Toshiro
The session starts with the party officially leaving the charred remains of one of many Ashen Hand bases, with Venzorwyn flying down from the clouds and landing in Netilla's wagon, returning from his side quest which has no name. Kohtalo originally tries looking at the map to suggest where to go, but is scared away when Faust puts his toes down and exclaims "I look at the map!". Kohtalo, feeling inferior because of Faust's statement, suggests traveling back to Elmwood, claiming the rewards, and getting a long rest. Xotal, before voting, asks who should be the leader, to which he and Faust agree since Kohtalo is the only one with any initiative, he should be the leader. Kohtalo humbly (he was kicking his feet like a schoolgirl) accepts the role and thinks of a name for his team, initially proclaiming them as The Campaigners, before getting bullied by the voices in his head, and his team. Kohtalo then renames the group to the Harkoth Hunters, which everyone seems to enjoy a lot more. Kohtalo commands Netilla, the designated driver, to escort them back to town. Although initially challenging the idea, she gives in and goes into town. 
The townsfolk celebrate the Hunters once they enter, being given food and a free night's stay at the Elmwood Motel. Kohtalo, underestimating his reserves and rationing ability, tries to cash in the voucher for the Motel, but overhears the party planning to leave him broke and stranded. Instead of sleeping, Kohtalo hands over all the items he stole from Kenji's corpse and gives it to his Ronin friend, Toshiro, making him essentially a knock-off of Kenji, but cooler. The Hunters then decide to get their run back with the gnolls and chase after their footprints. They're led to a bridge that connects the isle they stand on to another, halted by the gnolls themselves. They have set up a large amount of explosives to set back the Hunters, but it's too late, as Venzorwyn picks up Kohtalo and Faust by their scruffs and launches them at the enemy. Kohtalo's trajectory wasn't perfect, intentionally or not, as he scrapes his face along the wooden planks of the bridge, but gets up to see that both sides have rushed to the end of the bridge, battling on the new isle. 
Wanting to strike fear inside of the enemies who had tarnished his party, he hypes up Venzorwyn, who is by far the most physically strong of the party, saying "[Venzorwyn] has the strength of 10,000 men!", with Venzorwyn roaring as loud as his vocal cords can. Trokk wasn't intimidated, calling their bluff and forcing his army to attack. Venzorwyn rushes in and wounds one of the charging soldiers, while Faust is hyping up Kohtalo, soaring his ego to further levels. He hands Faust his Sanguine Slinger before rushing beside Venzorwyn to take down another opponent. Xotal and Toshiro cover their flank, holding back the army from touching Billy and Faust. The snipers come out and attempt to shoot Venzorwyn, but with a string of misfortune, their tuning snaps and requires them to replace them before further firing. Trokk's army slashes both Xotal and Kohtalo as they are trying to hold their ground. Venzorwyn quickly takes back the advantage as he slams two enemies together like cold beers and thrashes their corpses off to the side, prompting more soldiers to come out of the large thicket of men. Kohtalo, following Venzorwyn's momentum, snipes four of the soldiers in a row with Piercing Blood, heavily wounding them and slowing their assault. The soldier who fled behind enemy lines tries to attack Xotal once more but is swapped with Kohtalo as Toshiro takes his place in the front line. Sensing no end to the onslaught, Xotal throws out some fish to hopefully distract the enemy, which surprisingly works out. Kohtalo uses the Town's large fish supply they were given to make a deal with Trokk's army: Stand Down and become our ally in return for food.
Trokk, hesitant at first, agrees and says that he and his army will always be ready to fight for the Harkoth Hunters. They'll just need to blow into a trumpet that's reminiscent of their natural war cry. Faust was given extreme priority, being the one who controls the Magic Conch. As the two parties disperse, the Harkoth Hunters continue on their travels, stumbling across the fabled Hall of the Crimson Furies. It's represented by a large praying lady, but a large iron gate protects the main dungeon. Venzorwyn, protecting his title as the Perfect Specimen, lifts open the iron gate, shouting "I'M ALWAYS STRONG ENOUGH!!". To the amazement of the party, he lifts it open halfway, providing plenty of space to crawl across. The Hunters pass the gate, with Kohtalo attempting to play Limbo, before falling on his ass and quickly trying to play it off. When inside, they see a large arena surrounded by 3 walls, each wall having a closed door. Alongside those walls were statues, each with red, glaring eyes. The floor comprises 14 different runes, only one being identified as a Barrier Rune. Kohtalo, rushing to get to the doors, flops a fish onto the plate in front of him. Although nothing seems to happen at first, besides the plate turning red, he quickly notices that a statue is glaring directly towards him. Before he knows it, it projects a large fireball at him. He quickly ducks for cover as the fireball rings against the iron gate behind him, hitting with such force that it shakes its very foundation. Although not intentionally, the statue had provided a massive warning to the other members besides Venzorwyn, who has a natural heat resistance.
Through brute force and unexpected intelligence from Xotal, the party can quickly walk past the first door. Kohtalo decides that because Faust and Xotal had made such important contributions, they shall get the chests first, and Billy will get the next one because of his minor contributions. Inside the room lays two chests, which Xotal agrees to take the left, while Faust gets the right. Xotal opens his first, unboxing 10 gold and a Cloak of Billowing. Xotal's not interested in currency, so he gives the 10 gold to Kohtalo as proof of their friendship, which is very well received on Kohtalo's side. Faust hurries and opens up his chest, excited for the great loot he'll find. He looks inside and sees a cursed brooch and some gold, but notices that the chest is incredibly moist. As he looks at his hand, he's viciously grabbed by the chest's tongue, turning out to be a Mimic. Venzorwyn, who already struggles to feed two mimics, calls dibs on the chest and rushes away to go feed it. Although Faust is pissed, he's happy he's not dead and proceeds with the rest of the Hunters to find the 2nd path, which takes considerably less time because of their experience with the first. They quickly get to the 2nd door and let Billy get the chest's reward, which turns out to be 20 Gold and a Forest Pearl. Kohtalo seems confused by what a Forest Pearl is, and is berated for not knowing even though he wasn't the one who traded with the gnomes, and neither was Billy. Venzorwyn returns after devouring some nearby wanderers, properly naming his new Mimic: Chester. Kohtalo notes he would've named it Woody, but Venzorwyn replies saying that Kohtalo should shut the fuck up and not recommend more names. Faust then remembers he didn't empty the chest, as it had groped him in various ways before he could. Venzorwyn plops out the loot from Chester, seeing the loot it had before. Venzorwyn gives the Brooch to Kohtalo, as he senses Cursed Energy lurking inside of it, and the Gold to Faust.
When Kohtalo puts it on, he can feel a surge, both in his physical abilities and his ego. He confidently walks onto the plates, stepping on a few wrong ones and dodging the fireballs before finally getting onto a correct one and taking the Brooch back off. Before the Hunters can start planning their pathway toward the door, Billy decides he's very low on his Salmon Grinding Etiquette and leaves with the Forest Pearl. The Hunters, even faster than before, figure out the path and walk inside the last remaining door. Venzorwyn opens the chest and takes out 20 gold and a Clockwork Amulet. He pockets the Amulet for himself and gives the 20 gold to Xotal, who then gives it to Kohtalo, who appreciates the gesture. Before they leave, they feel a surge in their powers once more, with Kohtalo re-igniting an old Cursed Technique he used for travel, Enveloping Shadow. Kohtalo uses it and summons his shikigami connected to the technique, named Oz, who waves towards the party. As the sun falls behind the large plains of the Isles, our Hunters return to Elmwood and cash in the voucher for a free night's stay.
Before Kohtalo falls asleep, he notices skeletons playing in the Motel's lobby and gives him a Gold Coin to play Wonderwall. They ask for him to play an example, as they've never heard of Wonderwall, which he quickly does. They understand the gist of what he played and fill the lobby with a soothing tune to let the weary travelers and hunters who've chosen the Elmwood Motel to rest.
The Session Ends with everyone falling asleep in their room, relieving themselves of the continuous pressure they've felt throughout the day.
=== Session 4: Stoking the Flames of Adventure (6/11/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Kohtalo, Xotal, Netilla, Toshiro
Starting in the Elmwood inn once again, the party discusses for a brief while as to where they should go next, debating whether to head east to Imitra, north to the Boreal Ridge to handle more of the Ashen Hand, or west to investigate the spooky house Netilla discussed previously. Xotal laments their lack of haste in helping the people further north, but agrees to follow along. Venzorwyn and Billy do not, however, and stay behind for unknown reasons.
Descending deeper into the Thicket, the party hears hissing roars and thunderous noises, before passing through the darkest parts of the Thicket. After this, they find a house within a clearing just past the darkest point. Netilla reaffirms to Kohtalo that this is the house she had mentioned days prior. The party decides to have Netilla enter the house with them due to her supposed knowledge, and tell Toshiro to stand guard, due to thinking that he would piss himself due to the frights inside the house. Faust uses his magic to unlock the front door, granting the party access. When entering the house, vines creep over many of the doors and objects within, preventing access to what’s behind them. In an instant, Xotal screams to the “ghosts” in the house, alerting them all of their presence and asking them not to kill them because they’re cool. Kohtalo, immediately eyeing a chest, desires to open it, not being able to cut the vines holding it shut due to not having a proper implement to do so. Xotal tries to cut them with Scorching Ray, but the plants seem to be reinforced by magic. Mere moments after this, Kohtalo decides to summon Oz and use him to steal one of the loveseats from the room, fumbling to get it out the door, but successfully doing so.
Not noticing the unlocked door beside them, Xotal and Faust investigate the furniture to find clues as to their next path, finding nothing. Soon enough, Faust creaks open the door slowly, finding a guardroom fill of walking flowers. Kohtalo immediately grabs the head of one of these flowers, tearing its head off in an instant. Netilla rushes forward, beating one of the thrashers over the head with her broom, killing it. Enraged, the final thrasher whips Kohtalo with its head, and is soon beat to death by the rest of the party, the killing blow being done by another whack of Netilla’s broom. Netilla heals Kohtalo with a potion before Xotal steals the playing cards on the table, stuffing them into his cloak.
The party soon proceeds further into the wine cellar, wherein Kohtalo and Netilla team up to try and steal a keg of wine, moreso for the former than the latter. Failing to get it out the door, the cork pops off, and Kohtalo, instead of letting the good wine go to waste, puts his mouth up to the cork hole and guzzles the entire keg somehow, with little ill effect other than being incredibly drunk. He stumbles really loudly through the next door, finding the main hall of the house, noticing the lion statues on either side of the stairs. Xotal grabs Kohtalo by the arm and the pair exit through the back door, finding the owner’s greenhouse.
Peeking inside the door, Xotal witnesses a very frightening fungal monster with a large eye and even larger claws, holding the magical shears they need, prompting Xotal to start running away from fear. Kohtalo drunkenly enters the greenhouse, remarking the party to be cowards as he throws up from the ugliness of the monster in front of him. Kohtalo asks if the monster has an extra pair of shears, but is met with no response other than a piercing stare. Xotal uses Comprehend Language to speak with the creature, listening to a dried-out, whispery voice telling him to save him. After asking if the creature is in pain, Xotal is met with more and more nonsensical responses, learning that the creature isn’t exactly of sound mind. Xotal offers the monster wine, wanting to help, and tells Kohtalo to help him get more, but Kohtalo does not spare such mercy, wanting to kill the beast and claim the shears. After idling too long, the carnivorous plant behind Kohtalo licks its lips, and upon telling the plant that it’s not a tall cup of water, he immediately lights it on fire. Xotal, in response, spits an impossible amount of saliva to put out the fires on the plant, becoming its friend and naming him Audrey. After learning that their only way out would be to fight the beast, the party readies their arms and fights the fungus monster before them.
The creature barrels towards Xotal, pushing Kohtalo out of the way, ready to strike. After Xotal is slashed by the beast, Kohtalo uses Boogie Woogie to switch with the Conjoined, to back up his friend, an uncharacteristically selfless move. Trying to punch the Conjoined, Kohtalo hits its eye, but his fist is absorbed into the eye jelly. Faust heats the shears, forcing the Conjoined to drop them. The Conjoined soon grabs Kohtalo by the legs and tries to pull him into its gaping maw, but Kohtalo is successfully able to prevent him from doing so and free himself. He swaps places with the Conjoined to avoid a slash, disorienting the creature. Faust unleashes a vicious mockery, roasting the fact that the creature shouldn’t need shears with its gaping maw, and telling it that with its ugly mug it wouldn’t need shears and can do the job itself. Netilla gets over her shaky hands, and precisely throws a healing potion directly into Kohtalo’s mouth.
Soon, Venzorwyn returns from his unknown objective, arriving at the manor. Kohtalo evades a swipe from the Conjoined once again using Boogie Woogie, soon having one of the red flowers shoot a fireball at him. Kohtalo soon pierces the monster’s eye with a Piercing Blood attack, putting it to rest, and Kohtalo sentimentally tells the eye man to rest easy. Faust claims the shears and is ready to use them. After this, Xotal de-pots one of the plants, using the pot to put Audrey in so that he may carry his new plant friend wherever he desires. Kohtalo is not happy with this engagement, and Audrey asks if he can take a bite out of Kohtalo.
Heading back into the main hall, Faust cuts the vines connecting to the foyer, creating a shortcut, and cuts the vines tying the chest shut. Faust is petrified by his fear of treasure chests, and allows Xotal to open it, finding gold coins and some leaves. He gives the leaves to Audrey for fertilizer, and Faust opens the way to the manor’s dining room and kitchen. Opening the chest in the dining room, Kohtalo finds a miniscule amount of gold, a plant encyclopedia and a collection of china plates. Venzorwyn soon begins using the kitchen to cook the fish the party had, and, while stealing several of the owner’s ingredients, made about a dozen Hasselback potatoes, bringing Toshiro in to enjoy the meal. Cutting the vines to the upstairs region of the house, the party splits into three groups to check the other rooms not blocked by vines, with Xotal, Audrey and Venzorwyn going in the northwest room, Faust and Netilla going into the southwest room, and Kohtalo and Toshiro going into the northeast room. The party resolves that the vine-protected room should likely be saved for last, as it is likely defending something important.
Kohtalo and Toshiro soon enter the room to the northeast, finding the owner’s music room. Inside, Kohtalo and Toshiro duet on the piano for a brief moment, playing a nice ditty before Kohtalo smuggles the gramophone out of the building. Netilla and Faust enter the southwest room, finding the owner’s washroom. Seeing the open clean tub, Netilla remarked that she could go for a good bath, but that she doesn’t want to do it there, making Faust uncomfortable as she moves to the mirror and fixes her hair. After Faust looks behind the mirror and claims a pocket watch, Netilla strikes a pose in the mirror as they leave back to the main hall. Heading northwest, Venzorwyn, Xotal and Audrey find his master bedroom, finding a chest by the bed and a flower. Inside the chest lies a loving note from a woman named Priscilla addressed to a man named Sylas, and tells him that the flower shall be her final gift to him before she passes. Xotal takes a moment to talk with the flower about why she’s here alone, and he thinks that the party may have killed her husband, thinking that the monster was him, leaving rapidly to evade the awkwardness. Venzorwyn commands Chester to carry Priscilla’s flower with them, leaving the room. Venzorwyn sits in the library for a moment, finding a book that is an authored collection of notes and scribbles made by Morticia from Xenoz, collected by an unknown third party. Moving forward, Faust does the honors of opening the vines to the next and final room.
Finding a man in a wood-bark mask in his study, Venzorwyn wants to fight him, but Xotal convinces the party not to due to knowing that this must be Sylas, Priscilla’s husband. Xotal greets him and brings him his flower wife. He asks the party why they have come in during his time of study, and Xotal mentions the Conjoined that they killed. Sylas tells him that that was his groundskeeper, a gift from Cedric of Imitra. Sylas asks again the party’s reasoning. Xotal asks if he can keep Audrey, and Sylas seems rather hesitant to let Audrey go, but seems uncaring. Sylas is working to do research on what happened to people like his groundskeeper, knowing there are more of him, and knowing the rumors that they used to be human. The party tells them that they killed him, and Sylas questions them, before remarking that Harkoth would’ve liked to see what was going on with those things, and hearing the name recurring, Xotal asks about Harkoth’s Blade.
Sylas tells the party that he used to work with Harkoth, knowing that the blade was his source of his greatest power, but it drove him batty. It made him lose everything about what it meant to be a ruler, being driven by his power, greed, and lust, making questionable decisions. Sylas and Cedric left Harkoth out of fear of what he had become, and formed their own separate organizations. When Xotal asks about Harkoth’s grave, Sylas tells them that his grave is likely within his former kingdom. Sylas tells them that he cannot allow the party to pursue the blade, and Xotal lies to Sylas’ face, telling him that they’re not after the blade, despite Kohtalo literally asking if he knew where to find it. Sylas questions Kohtalo’s desire to destroy the blade, having an inkling that the incarnation of evil is lying to him about his intentions. Sylas is reluctant to trust the party, namely Kohtalo, but soon sends them on a quest to see if their intentions are pure. He tells them to leave him to his studies, but if they really want to pursue the blade, he needs to prove they are worthy. Kohtalo thinks he has to fight Sylas, but the remainder of the party does not agree. After this, Sylas asks the party to speak with Cedric, and find out his progress on his experiments, and find out what is going on in the Isles, and what needs to be done to contain the power of the Blade. Sylas does not wish to fight the party, but if they fight him, he will spare them no mercy. After the party discusses the quest amongst themselves, Sylas reaffirms to the party that he is a scholarly figure, and he values knowledge.
As the party is ready to leave, Sylas affirms to them that he knows what has gone on within the manor, knowing about the wine and the couch, and upon being questioned about how shocked he was at their entry, he tells them that he wanted to know their intentions, citing his curiosity, as he has used it to learn about the plants and organisms of the Thicket. He tells them that he even worked to help Cedric figure out what his groundskeeper really was, and tells the party that the groundskeeper isn’t the only one of his kind, and that there are more waiting to be discovered. Sylas tells the party that he wishes to go back to his studies, and upon Venzorwyn telling him about the potatoes, Sylas tells him to bring more potatoes back with him, as he does not wish to go back into town today. The party, against Sylas’ wishes, takes the couch and Audrey anyway. After flying them away from the manor, Venzorwyn reveals what he and Billy had been working on, as they had built a house for the party within the Grim Thicket, on an enclosed island.
Despite having their new quest from Sylas, the party decides to not go east to Imitra, where Cedric lies, instead going north to fight more of the Ashen Hand. Venzorwyn flies the party to the Boreal Ridge, but does not follow, instead going back to the house. Inside the Boreal Ridge, the party witnesses the horrors of the frozen land, every person, building, statue, and item is covered in a thick layer of ice as though frozen in mere moments. In the meantime, the party finds a puppy rooting through the garbage that they immediately befriends thanks to Xotal’s affinity for animals. They find the tagged collar on his neck that reads “Fenrir”, and the party notices that Fenrir has a fire in his belly and a warm heart. The story scroll soon fills in another passage about a friendly fluffball with a dormant power. As the party proceeds earlier, they find puddles around, as though someone melted the ice, something that should be impossible with the raging blizzard overhead. 
Soon, they find the Ashen Hand, once again, led by another of the leading siblings, Aoi. The party sends Toshiro in to try and make peace with them, confusing Aoi. She sees Toshiro wearing Kenji’s mask, and is questioning him due to Toshiro telling them that he was captured by  the party and forced to wear his fallen master’s gear as part of a sick game, but Toshiro’s knowing betrayal of the Ashen Hand’s code of honor attracts the ire of Aoi. Toshiro’s cover is blown, and he yells for Kohtalo to aid him, with Kohtalo sending him in in Toshiro’s place thanks to a clever use of Boogie Woogie. The party brings Fenrir into battle with them.
Toshiro utilizes Kenji’s kusarigama to attack Aoi, further cementing where his allegiance lies. After this, multiple of the ronins attack Toshiro, knowing him to be a betrayer, bringing him near the brink of death rapidly. Inspired by Faust, Fenrir attempts to spit fire at the Ashen Hand, failing and running behind Xotal, but being reaffirmed by the party. Kohtalo lines up some of the enemies through some shenanigans, soon lining up a critical Piercing Blood attack on several, killing all of them except for Aoi. Toshiro succumbs to his injuries, being incapacitated and requiring the party’s aid. Angered by his friend being felled, Fenrir unleashes burning claws on one of the ronins, killing him immediately. This opens up enough time for Kohtalo to help Toshiro up to his feet and for Faust to heal him. Reinvigorated and standing by his allies, Toshiro strikes down Aoi, dealing the killing blow to her heart. Kohtalo, bombarded by the archers, gets up in a last-ditch effort to win, and caves in the skull of one of the archers, knocking off his head. Toshiro is soon brought down to near-death by another Ronin, bringing an angry Fenrir to slaughter the ronin at fault. With the battle won, and roaring from the mountains, the party returns home with the help of Oz, and readies themselves to head to Imitra.
=== Session 5: Family Matters (6/25/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Xotal, Kohtalo, Billy, Netilla, Toshiro, Fenrir
Finally acknowledging Sylas’ quest, the party approaches the scholarly wizard kingdom of Imitra. Before entering, they find a group of 5 adventurers, who are entering the kingdom to see Cedric. Kohtalo approaches the adventurers to attempt to bully them, while Faust, Xotal and the others hang back. Kohtalo scares them from behind, and the group turns around. The cleric of the group asks who Kohtalo is, and is met with a witty remark from Kohtalo before she asks him what he’s doing there. He vaguely says that he’s on a quest, to which the cleric annoyingly asks what kind. Eventually, his patience runs thin, calls the quest epic, and says it’s for Cedric. The barbarian of the group is unsure about Kohtalo’s intentions as to being there, but ultimately gives him the benefit of the doubt, and if the party doesn’t mess with them, they won’t mess with the party.
Inside the town, the party is amazed by the magical wonders before them, soon approaching the town armory. Kohtalo calls the town crippled, in the face of the man running the store, and he is mighty offended by this claim, saying that they can do the work plenty fine without magic, but use the magic because it helps them reach a higher standard. Replying to the comment, the man asks what town to which Kohtalo was referring after the latter claims that he wasn’t talking about Imitra. Kohtalo responds with the classic “fucking your wife”, prompting the man to strangle Kohtalo and slam him into his counter, bringing the attention of a nearby guardsman. The guard, knowing the man is normally calm and non-confrontational, knew that Kohtalo was the aggressor, and trapped him in a magical bubble that silenced his magic while he carried him into the constable’s office. The guard lets Kohtalo off alarmingly easy, knowing that Kohtalo is inebriated, and tells him not to try anything. Meanwhile, on his way back, Kohtalo spotted the constable from Old Mirefield on a nearby bench, reading the newspaper, but Kohtalo runs before he can be spotted.
Coming back, Kohtalo apologizes to the shopkeep, and the shopkeep tells them that he overreacted. The shopkeep allows Xotal to try a receptacle glove before allowing Faust to buy a new rapier. Kohtalo asks about a cursed item appraiser, to which he says that that’s beyond his capabilities. He then asks for armor, to which he is presented with light mail that “wasn’t his style”. Xotal tosses his stick into the air, trying to catch it with the glove, but it pulls it back down faster than before, and it scares Xotal, prompting him to give the glove back, being narrowly missed by his own stick. Kohtalo wishes to see the armorer’s newest ware, seeing a brand-new gilded warhammer that does not pique his interest. Billy decides in absolute insanity to sell the one Forest Pearl they have, depriving Netilla of essential ingredients. Xotal looks around for magic books, trying to find spells about souls, finding not much, but finding incantations for Thunderwave and Chromatic Orb, claiming neither. Flipping further into the book’s pages he spots the incantationn for Imprison, which he is unable to use at this moment.
As the party lingers in the town, Netilla grows nervous, not thinking she’d be back here. She tells the party she has history here, and does not want to talk about it. In the bookstore, the party is underwhelmed with most of the books not being magic, likely due to strict regulations within the kingdom. Kohtalo, looking for books on religion, he finds a book about Pyros, learning him to be a creator god and a destroyer, and with what happened with the other gods, Pyros’ devotees offer to him to stave off his wrath. Billy looks for any book, finding one on horseback riding, but reeling at the price, instead finding a fishing brochure that he buys from the bookseller. Xotal asks about soul books again, learning that he might have to take that up with the Great Thinkers. Kohtalo looks for pornographic books, breaking down crying in the middle of the shop due to the lack of booba material. The bookseller approaches him and offers a book from his restricted section, Hot Vixens from the Moon, and the desperate Kohtalo accepts regardless of the price, being met by a left-handed handshake from the seller.
Leaving the bookstore, the party stands in front of the Spire, witnessing a man creep out of the front door. He looks around, sniffing the air for a moment, before spotting the party and Netilla and approaching. Netilla is uncomfortable as the man approaches. He thanks the party for bringing his daughter home. Xotal asks who he is, and he introduces himself as Netilla’s father, and that he’s sorry for everything. Netilla is doubtful, thinking that her father Abel isn’t really there, and that it’s a trick by “that THING”. Abel tells Netilla that she doesn’t understand, and that he finally has control over it. He says he won’t let it hurt her, never again. Netilla snarkily remarks that she’ll see about that. Heartbroken by his daughter’s disdain for him, Abel still holds his arms out open for his daughter. Kohtalo asks Netilla why she hates Abel, claiming that he looks like he gives good hugs. Abel stops Netilla, wanting to tell the story himself. He explains that the Great Thinkers experimented on him, giving him a really bad curse that made him need to feed off of curses or become an incredibly aggressive monster, and to test his control over his actions, the Great Thinkers put his daughter in front of him, and, being able to see through his eyes but not able to control his body, the form that Abel calls “the Beast” tried to kill Netilla, prompting her to run as far as she could from him, leading her to calling the Grim Thicket her home. He was heartbroken by this, lost, not knowing what to do, not knowing if he’d ever see Netilla again.
After this story, Xotal makes the connection that the Great Thinkers aren’t as good as they’re made out to be, to which Abel confirms this, bringing special attention to Cedric. He reaches out to Netilla with his voice, saying that he’s alright if she doesn’t want to talk with him or even be around him, but he wants her to know that whenever she needs it, he will always be there, and she’s always welcome back at home. Kohtalo rallies Xotal and Abel to kill the Great Thinkers and raid their Spire, prompting the rest of the party to want to enter as well.
Before entering, Kohtalo asks some probing questions about Abel’s affliction, seeming to want to use this information in case he has to weaponize it, asking if cursed energy was like his drug in the context of addiction. Abel reaffirms that it’s all he needs to prevent himself from going batty, and that he will not hurt the party while he’s in control. Abel tells them that if there’s any cursed items he needs to remove the curses from, he will be more than happy to do it, but wants to wait to do it to stretch out his reserves. Regardless of this, he cleanses the Berserker’s Brooch and Sanguine Slinger for them. After their preparation is complete, the party elects Netilla to come with them and Abel inside the Spire, leaving Toshiro and Fenrir to guard them.
Inside the tower, the guardsmen of the first floor stop them in their tracks, asking them to state their purpose. Xotal asks the first guard if he has any books on kicking their asses, promptly starting battle with the guards. After taking a significant hit from one of the guardsmen, Abel showed his control over the Beast as he used a portion of its power to liquefy himself out of the way of an attack, further weaponizing this ability later on. With Kohtalo manipulating the battlefield, Billy and Xotal laying on the damage, and Faust, Netilla and Abel supporting their team, the guards are swiftly dealt with, allowing the party to bring their attention to the trapdoor beneath the staircase. They attempt to pull it open, finding that something or someone is holding it closed from the inside. When they try to stab through it, it rapidly regenerates, unfortunately being something Abel cannot remove.
Ascending the stairs to the second floor, the defenses of the Spire have fully begun to put themselves into place, as a labyrinthian set of portals have rearranged the rooms of the next floor, prompting clever planning to work to the escape. Xotal runs towards the button in front of him like a feral animal, pushing it, and finding its function to be swapping the places of the yellow portals. Knowing this, he ran more through multiple portals, finding another button and swapping one of the brown portals into place, Kohtalo doing the same with the other, granting them their exit. Billy is eager to find the treasure, soon finding a series of portals and buttons that allows him to find a room with a sole chest, finding a small sum of gold and the Riftwalker’s Boots. Putting them on, he finds that he becomes intangible, save for gravity, but prevents him from interacting with anything in the normal plane. Unfortunately the boots have many laces, prompting it to take a long time to take them off or put them on. Billy figures it out and soon figures his way out of the puzzle while the others regroup in front of the ladder to the next floor.
On the next floor, the party finds themselves in an empty library, but Kohtalo’s yelling prompts one of the books to fall, making them learn that the library is not, in fact, empty, as the Pagemaster rises from the book, an inky mass that is made from papers, inks and books. Two guards apparate onto the scene, prompting Billy to run into the corner and puts on the Boots, hiding like a little bitch. Xotal uses his cloak of billowing to scare off the guards, leaving the Pagemaster by himself to be spat on by Xotal. Kohtalo uses Boogie Woogie to bring Billy back in, forcing the Pagemaster away from them. He then summons Oz, and brings him in to lay into the Pagemaster. Billy soon approaches the Pagemaster, bravely taking off his boots to fight the Pagemaster himself. He makes the Pagemaster hate him, allowing him to use his copy ability to gain some of its powers. He tries to liquefy and enter the Pagemaster’s mass, failing to control it and making it stronger, but soon being able to break free. Kohtalo and Netilla light the Pagemaster on fire, allowing the party to deal heavy damage to the monster, with Xotal dealing the killing blow with Eldritch Blast.
Ascending to the next floor, Billy puts the boots back on, anticipating danger, only to be met with another puzzle room. In front of them lied 9 pillars, and 8 had a dedicated energy signature and a trough beneath them. One of the tomes that made up the Pagemaster planted itself on the central pillar, giving them a new riddle to solve: “At once, eight ways, our gifts were torn. With the right knowledge, a new gateway is born.”. To their side was a pile of junk items, made up of a shield, a mask, a mirror, a ball of clay, a rose, a tome, a shackle, a candle, a disembodied liver, a single Gnomecoin, a crucifix, a skull, an inkwell, a broken sword, a golden egg, and the shell to one of Morticia’s constructs. Xotal rampantly digs through the trash, identifying the items. Asking Netilla, she does not give them much help, only knowing potions, but Abel clarifies that the riddle must refer to the eight schools of magic, not wishing to help much further other than disclosing said schools later, figuring that the party might know the solution. Eventually, Kohtalo figures out that the mirror belongs to the purple trough, representing Illusion, until the party proceeds to brute-force the puzzle for a moment, being met with countless rejections at the hands of the pillars, eventually watching the liver detonate due to being a dummy item not intended for any solutions. Billy takes off his boots, stealing the shield and claiming it as his own, before planting the skull on the cyan trough, discovering it representing Necromancy. Faust plants the golden egg on the yellow pillar, activating the Conjuration trough. The party brute-forces the Gnomecoin, watching it detonate before successfully putting the rose on Enchantment’s representative pink pillar. The tome and construct shell both later detonate, alongside the mask, being put erroneously on the brown and blue pillars respectively. Faust puts the candle on the red pillar, successfully finding its ties to Evocation, and puts the clay ball on the brown pillar, successfully finding its ties to Transfiguration. The shackle detonates, as the one pillar remaining did not work, but Billy finds that the shield he stole was the solution, donating it for the greater good.
Billy soon exits the Spire, meeting with Toshiro and Fenrir as the party enters the top floor, meeting with Cedric. Xotal asks Cedric if he has a book about ancient dark and eldritch gods, and upon being told that Cedric can’t leak it, Xotal wishes to kill him. Kohtalo tells Cedric that Sylas sent them, and Cedric asks for their purpose, due to Sylas’ normal nature to appear in-person. The party asks about his experiments, and Cedric tells them that they’ve been going fine, and they have a response to Titan’s Blood. Cedric aims to control the powerful force that is the Corrupted, to use them to protect the kingdom, but he hasn’t found the factor that can control them. Kohtalo, unfamiliar with the substance, does not know what Titan’s Blood is or why it’s important, prompting Cedric to fill him in. Kohtalo asks if the Titan’s Blood could make him immortal, to which Cedric warns that it could have wildly unpredictable effects and likely could kill him on the spot, but if he were to survive, it may allow him to live forever. Cedric has samples of Titan’s Blood with him, but desires to keep them safe and out of the wrong hands.
Xotal slowly approaches Cedric, claiming he wants to look at Cedric’s clothes, using it as a distraction to punch Cedric in the penis, steal his magical key and the samples of Titan’s Blood on his desk, and run out with the others. Quickly, they descend to the first floor, entering the basement through the trapdoor now that they have Cedric’s magical key. Xotal opens the door, and the party finds a laboratory underneath. Kohtalo leaves Oz to stand guard at the trapdoor. The scientists within the laboratory seem distressed, not only because the party has entered, but also because their experiment has escaped. The scientists were working with the Corruption to analyze them, see what makes them tick, and try to either control them or cure them, but the Corrupted within seem antsy. They seem to be fighting to break free of the Great Thinkers’ capture, trying to seek out whatever controls them. The party finds Experiment 307 in front of them, a large Corrupted Fistwalker, having broken free of its cell and amongst cells of other Corrupted, namely Angels and Conjoined. 307 grasps the scientist trying to get it to back down, crushing his insides and popping him into a red paste. Kohtalo, feeling particularly heroic, decides to fight off 307, lighting it on fire with a Fuga and using Piercing Blood to pierce its eye. Xotal and Faust soon enter with him, fighting off the creature. Faust holds him in place for a moment, allowing Kohtalo to finish him off by using Piercing Blood on the mushrooms growing from its eye, killing him instantly. The scientists were mad at them for killing 307, arguing about the scientific progress that could be made for good if they could control him, disillusioned by Cedric’s fallacies. Kohtalo, angered by the scientists’ lack of ethics, kills them both immediately with a Fuga as alarms break out above. Looking in the room 307 broke out of, Kohtalo finds a chest full of jars of Grimwood sap, furthering suspicions about the intentions of the Thinkers. They may have been making more of the Corrupted for their own purposes.
Bolting out of Imitra before they could be caught, the party takes a brief pit-stop in Elmwood to buy Sylas’ missing potatoes as they meet with him about Cedric. Sylas is glad that Abel was alive and broke free. In mere moments, the party knows something is wrong as Kohtalo starts convulsing. His har loses the dark parts, growing fully blonde as the voice in his head regains its body.
Whoever the voice was condemned the party for aiding Kohtalo, claiming to be Von Arthach, the original host of the body. Sylas kicks the party out of his house to prevent further damages, wanting them to sort themselves out. Von realizes he does not have much time, but wishes to make it quick. Abel darts forward, losing his composure at the thought of losing his friends, becoming ooze once again and trying to imprison Von in a pool of black ooze, before attacking him with a serrated fist made from his curse. Abel wants to protect his new friends and especially his daughter, and doesn’t want the innocents being attacked because they aided Kohtalo. Von grabs Abel and throws him into the ground, prompting him to return to his standard form. Abel refuses to let Von kill Kohtalo’s friends, as regardless of Kohtalo’s morals, his friends have good hearts. Abel is hit with another Fuga from Von, tanking it in full and being incapacitated. Netilla rushes to him, trying to help her father, knowing that it really is him, as Xotal readies an Eldritch Blast and Faust tries to stab him, both doing heavy damage as Netilla comes to beat Von with her broom, calling him a bad man. Von breaks his composure, desperate to succeed before his death, activating his final stand. Von uses this opportunity to heal himself to full health, using his final attack to throw Netilla at her father, telling the party he will see them again before he reverts. Sylas rushes out to help them, seeing Abel in pain and Kohtalo dazed. Kohtalo needs filled in, and the party explains that they fought him, and he introduces Von as the voice in his head. Kohtalo reveals that Von is angrier than normal now that he’s back inside his own head, and Kohtalo scoffs when he learns that the party struggled with him.
Regardless, Sylas happily claims his potatoes and takes the sap, promising to be safe and study it, try and figure out how it does what it does, and he tells the party to stay safe when re-entering Imitra, as Cedric will be pursuing them.
=== Session 6: A Shocking Weak Point (7/2/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Xotal, Venzorwyn, Kohtalo, Billy, Netilla, Toshiro, Fenrir, Abel
Kohtalo suddenly grows very sleepy and decides to take a rest at Sylas’ house, with the other party members joining him without Sylas’ permission. After Venzorwyn returns from working on the party’s new house, he reveals that he has rediscovered several new runes.
The Hunters return to Imitra to attempt to press forward, finding themselves facing off against multiple of Cedric’s guards due to having stolen Great Thinker property. Kohtalo is able to scare off multiple of the guards, and goes up to one of the remaining ones, intending to crush his throat, but this was unsuccessful due to the guardsman’s heavy armor. He flipped around the guard to allow his allies to gain a better advantage on him. After Venzorwyn approached a guard, Fenrir tried to bite the guard’s ankle, but was unsuccessful, reacting as though he bit something crunchy. Kohtalo’s intimidation was soon for naught as one of the guards sounded the alarm, bringing multiple new guards in and casting an anti-magic field over the scene. Kohtalo uses this opportunity to throw the guard he was restraining into one of the new additions, hurting them both. Venzorwyn swoops up at the guards atop the wall, throwing one off the ledge after flying even higher, tossing him into the two on the ground below, allowing Fenrir to clean two of the three up, receiving a kick from the guard in response, angering the party. The party encroaches upon the guard who was responsible, soon beating him to death as Venzorwyn defeats the other guard. Billy makes his grand re-entry at the end of the battle, getting off relatively scot-free.
After the party escapes Imitra, they decide to go off the beaten path and make their way to a nearby cave, being met by a warning sign warning of a snake. Faust recalls his fear of snakes, being hesitant to go in, but follows the party inside after being consoled by Kohtalo. After entering, Kohtalo confuses the goblins mining within for the goblins he fought when he first came to the Isles, quickly slaughtering the first group he finds in cold blood. As soon as one of the goblins fought back, he tried to back away and weasel his way out of it as usual, being allergic to the consequences of his actions. Regardless, he still is stabbed by the goblin, taking heavy damage before immediately undoing it by using RCT. Kohtalo calls the goblin filthy, reaffirming to the party that Kohtalo is quite racist towards goblins for an as-of-yet unknown reason. He slams the fourth goblin’s head into the dirt and killed him before continuing his bloodlust-fueled rampage, much to the behest of Billy and Xotal, who stop him from going any further and encourage him to consider another avenue.
After Xotal speaks to Kohtalo about his racism, Faust and Xotal have a very passionate duet about the foul thing that is racism and why he shouldn’t be racist, using an elegant parody of Don’t Be Racist, I Am a Building. Kohtalo, instead of outright killing the goblins, instead gives them a deadly ultimatum: either to join their army or to die right there, and the goblins joined out of fear. After this, Kohtalo progresses further to try and steal a gem, finding loose rocks attached to it. Xotal detonates the wall, running inside to claim the riches within the cave beyond it, finding a strange orb. Xotal discards it immediately, not wanting to take it, instead letting it fall into Kohtalo’s hand, who doesn’t like it enough to use it, instead telling Venzorwyn and Billy to make their cases as to who should get it, with Billy trying to bribe Kohtalo with gold, and Venzorwyn trying to convince him to let him feed the orb to Toothy. Despite both of their arguments, regardless of how compelling they may or may not have been, Kohtalo decides to give the orb to Faust to give him a bit of a power boost. Kohtalo enters the next tunnel, being outpaced by Xotal who blows up the next rock wall as well, trying to enter the next room. Before descending into the hole in the cave, Kohtalo backtracks to a different tunnel, finding a broken egg in front of a small pond. He can tell it is reptilian in nature and warns the party. Kohtalo presses on into the final tunnel, finding nothing, before he and the others gather around the mysterious hole and enter in.
Down beneath the first level of the cave, the dripping of the cave and the quiet atmosphere are soon interrupted by the loud rattling of a snake. Faust is soon crippled by his fear of snakes, and almost everyone in the party is taken aback by the frightening visage of the Voltaic Viper. Kohtalo summons Oz to help gain even more of a numbers advantage, and Billy soon realizes that his tinted glasses make it incredibly hard to see. He tries to throw his fishing book at the Viper, missing horribly due to his lack of darkvision. Xotal, after launching his volley of attacks at the Viper, tucked behind Venzorwyn to ensure his own safety. Unfortunately, this was to no avail, as the Viper bit Venzorwyn, paralyzing him with its electrified venom. When the Viper descended beneath the ground, Billy preemptively gave Faust the Riftwalker’s Boots to save him from harm, and after it emerges, Billy uses his power to give himself the abilities of the Viper, which are unfortunately useless against it. After learning this, he intentionally tries to attack Kohtalo in an attempt to farm hatred that he can use to copy Kohtalo’s powers, but this was unsuccessful. After this, Kohtalo is soon bit by the Viper as well, becoming paralyzed as well. Billy was soon the next target of the Viper, getting hit with incredibly devastating bites but enduring the venom’s effects.
After this, the Viper begins to rattle as a warning, trying to create the illusion of others of its ilk being nearby, but this was unsuccessful. After Venzorwyn broke free from his paralysis, he angrily charges at the snake, and with the help of some Bardic Inspiration from Faust, Venzorwyn deals the killing blows to the Viper. The party finds a nest of three eggs similar to the one Kohtalo found prior, and despite Faust and Xotal’s desire to smash them, Venzorwyn, Kohtalo and Billy each take one of the eggs, with Venzorwyn sending his egg to his kobold clan, Billy putting his in his pocket, and Kohtalo holds onto his as he commands Oz to help them escape from the cave.
Thanks to the power boost killing the Viper gave the party, Kohtalo restored one of his Cursed Techniques, Cursed Storage, and used it to manifest seven cursed items: the Cursed Battleaxe, which he gave to Billy, the Golden Mask of Beauty, which he gave to Faust, the Ancient Guardian, which he gave to Venzorwyn, the Dragon Bone, given to Toshiro, the Charmful Locket, given to Xotal, the Sawtooth, which he keeps, and the Eye of Expansion, given to Abel. He then reached into the bag one last time, grabbing the Slaughter Demon, which he gave to Netilla.
=== Session 7: Viva La Revolution (7/9/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Xotal, Venzorwyn, Kohtalo, Billy, Netilla, Toshiro, Fenrir, Abel
After resting in the cave where they had defeated the Voltaic Viper, the party emerges and continues exploring the isles. Although the Harkoth Hunters intended to head north and inspect the Stricken Lands, they received a bad vibe, and decided to instead go south to the isle known as Death Grove, coming across a treacherous roaming Fistwalker shortly thereafter. The frontliners go in for an attack, allowing Faust to shout out an insult at the beast, although due to its unoriginality, it doesn’t have much of an effect on the beast. Abel shoots out covering fire as he produces a fire bolt. Billy focuses on trying to make the beast hate him, as he begins to fully realize the potential of his Copying powers. Since the beast is barely sentient, he just goes to hitting the beast with Kohtalo’s gift to Billy, the Cursed Battleaxe. His attack deals a massive amount of damage to the Fistwalker, leaving a huge wound on its body. Kohtalo follows suit with a Piercing Blood, slicing the Fistwalkers stubby right arm off its body, recoiling in the mass pain. In an attempt to defend itself, it releases spores that infect Kohtalo, making him cough. He shoots another Piercing Blood to cut off the other arm, but it manages to get away with having a large wound.
Xotal provides a large burst of fire to hinder the Fistwalker's movements, as it raises its remaining arm onto Kohtalo and Billy. Kohtalo quickly swaps places, leaving Billy to get hit, tanking the attack like a champion. Faust, being unable to distinguish two humans, confuses the perfectly conditioned Kohtalo for the battered Billy and heals Kohtalo. The Hunters prepare for another barrage of team attacks, but a lady emerges from the trees and stabs the Fistwalker in the heart, instantly killing it. Kohtalo applauds the lady but starts to rescind it after getting insulted for using what his momma gave him: magic. She introduces herself as Jacqueline and invites the party to one of her clan’s many villages. The Hunters agree and venture further down south, talking about Jackie’s reasoning for being in the Death Grove. Amid their conversation, they are confronted by a large gathering of knights, who tell the Hunters to get down. Everyone obliged except Kohtalo, who just had to be different and ask why. As the arrows fly over their head, they see they aren’t the targets, but instead a massive horde of Corrupted heading towards them. The leader of the Guard, Kieran, tries apologizing by bringing the Hunters inside of Stonefall's walls, but they appear to be betrayed and locked out. In a gambit to save everyone’s collective skin, Kohtalo barters with the Royal Guard to work alongside them to defeat the Corrupted, and in exchange for their help, the Hunters would kill the leaders that left the Guard to die. The Guard agrees, letting Kohtalo take charge of preparations. He orders Faust to signal their army, Red-Skull Raiders in tow, to halt the moving wall of Corrupted from moving any amount forward. He then elects Fenrir as their Flagbearer.
Xotal charges in first to attack some enemies, dealing with a couple of strays. Kohtalo swaps into the front of the war with a Conjoined, allowing his allies to jump an enemy. While his allies lick their lips at the fresh meat in the middle of them, Kohtalo launches a Fuga into the crowd, changing its already unique properties into something new, an explosion of flames. Clearing a fair change of Corrupted, he prepares the process of creating another, but a memory not his flashes, and like the strike of a match, the Hunters are met once again by the emergence of Von Arthach.
Xotal asks Von to not attack them, and despite briefly questioning them, he knows he shouldn’t be trying to take control of his body if he is going to sacrifice innocent lives just as Kohtalo does, so he agrees. He’ll help the party, but the next time he emerges, they’re done for. Knowing the method to Fuga better than anyone, he launches another one into the crowd, killing even more than Kohtalo. Billy finally finds someone who truly hates his very being, and gains access to Von’s Cursed Technique: Shrine. He spams the technique onto the enemy that Kohtalo had earlier swapped next to him, damaging himself and some of his allies with the destructive power of Fuga. Billy keeps shouting out loud, causing Von to correct him saying its proper name is Furnace. As the battle rages on, Venzorwyn comes back from his mission with a large appetite for battle, easily decimating any Corrupted that made contact with himself. The Guard assists the Hunters, adding their forces to the stalemating frontline and encouraging their side’s morale even more.
As the battle devolves into a slugfest, Von appreciates his understanding of Cursed Energy and hits two black flashes onto his enemies, relishing in the immense pleasure they give. Billy regains his composure after falling to a large Fistwalker and prepares his second wave of Fuga. As his body is so untempered with Shrine, he has experienced Cursed Energy Exhaustion, being unable to use anything besides the resistance Shrine gives. Von laughs at him, but Billy cuts him off as he slays more Corrupted. Due to the shrinking forces, the Corrupted’s commander comes out and prepares to fight the Hunters and their comrades, but Xotal, Abel, Trokk, Toshiro, Jackie, Fenrir, and the Knights have done such a good job clearing the rift-raft, Von and Venzorwyn quickly apprehend him. Von tries going in for a finishing blow, but he’s stopped as he loses control of his body, Kohtalo entering back in more smoothly than last time. He catches the fleeing cloaked man and attempts to kill him, before being stopped and dragged along in the air because of Venzorwyn’s shitty excuses for intimidating. He tries telling Venzorwyn to not drop him because he was holding on, but it is far too late. Kohtalo falls on his feet and doesn’t take any damage. Before being dropped, the cloaked man warns that Alistair and the Cult of Cleansing would come for them in due time, and the evils of the Isles would be cleansed.
Since the battle was won, the Hunters agree to the other side of the deal and go into the castle to kill King Godfrey out of revenge. Venzorwyn and Jackie stay outside and talk, perhaps Venzorwyn is Venzorizz? Regardless, Xotal, Billy, Faust, Kieran, and Kohtalo sneak in, with Oz providing a distraction for the standing Guards outside the castle. The Hunters & Co climb into the second story of the main castle, snooping as usual into the final moments of the King of Stonelden Ring. They enter in an attempt to steal the kill, but it’s too late, as the forgettable but evil Thaddeus Coldstone kills Godfrey and blames the Hunters. Kohtalo persuades the entering guards to believe that Thaddy has slain their king, and to his credit, they believe him. So, with the backing of the guards, he appointed himself as Executioner and chopped off Thad’s head. The Hunters then feel sad about killing all potential successors to the throne and, in a gesture of good will, make Billy the new king, Kohtalo placing the crown on his head. Billy, not in a long overdue conversation about it, elects Kieran as his standing advisor to rule over the kingdom while he continues the search for Harkoth’s Blade along with the Harkoth Hunters. Kieran agrees to rule in Billy’s absence, and promises to send his men whenever the party may need it. The Hunters say their goodbyes and meet back up with Jackie and Venzorwyn, who finally get them to head to Jackie’s home village.
After landing at the Rustborn camp, Venzorwyn and Kohtalo took quick note of Jacqueline’s fat ass and fat tits that flew around like feathers in the wind.The Rustborn soon greeted them, asking for their help in killing the Steel Falcon that had been ravaging their village, and in exchange, the Rustborn promised to build them a boat after the storm subsided. Knowing it wouldn’t take long, despite the lack of a useful reward, Kohtalo sent himself, Venzorwyn, and Jackie to deal with it. Venzorwyn flew them into the icy mountains of the Boreal Ridge to deal with a large bird with metal plates all over its body. Kohtalo starts off the attack strong but lets Venzorwyn show off to Jackie as he decimates the bird, which impresses Jackie a lot. She compliments his technique, and says that she would like to learn more from him. As they bring the corpse back to the village, Kohtalo realizes Jackie is just biased against magic users and curse users, just as he is to goblins, which puts into perspective how he treats them. He doesn’t care and asks the village leaders for any fine women, which he’d use as bait for villains, but is thought to want them for sex. He’s tired of his mischaracterization and goes to sleep, with the rest of the party following suit.
=== Session 8: A Worrying Web of Things to Come (7/16/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Xotal, Kohtalo, Netilla, Toshiro, Fenrir, Abel
Instead of pursuing the Stricken Lands and what lies within, the party’s worries about what may loom in there overtook them, prompting them to decide to enter Weaver’s Call, a fallen temple infested with spiders, bringing Fenrir with them. Netilla complains about her fear of spiders, refusing to enter. Immediately, within the cluttered room, Kohtalo touches one of the web-covered pods and pops it open, being covered in dozens of spiders. Xotal quickly splats all of the spiders on Kohtalo’s body as Kohtalo burns the other two pods in the room, rendering them inert. Traversing the clutter and rubble brings the party into a room overlooking a large pit bridged by spiderwebs. Instead of entertaining the idea of the webs being able to hold them, Kohtalo summons Oz to alleviate the task, bringing them safely to the opposite end. Finding multiple swarms of spiders awaiting them, Kohtalo commands Oz to smash all of them with a large fist.
Moving into the next room, Kohtalo has to slowly push the door open due to a heavy weight behind it, but fails to do so, requiring the use of Xotal as a battering ram (with the help of Oz) to open the door, knocking over a fallen pillar and shattering it, alerting all of the spiders in the room. Xotal instinctively tries to smash one of the spiders with his big stick, missing horribly, prompting Kohtalo to kick the same spider in the eyes and cut into its abdomen with the Sawtooth, then slamming its head into the ground before commanding Oz to “smear it into the other spider”, meaning for him to drag him along the ground as he prepared to throw him at another one, killing the spider in an instant. Upon his friends being attacked by the Weavers, Fenrir launches himself at the last spider, killing it immediately and setting the remaining webs on fire, revealing a chest. Due to this expression of power, the party lets him open the chest, and he finds a large bone inscribed with strange swirling runes.
After this revelation of the flammability of the web sheets, Xotal takes Fenrir back to the pit from before to clear the webs, revealing a basement crawling with spiders. In the next room, opened by Faust, the party finds a dead body crawling with spiders that quickly disperse to attack the party. Kohtalo soon pulls another item out of his Cursed Storage, finding the Bank-On, getting scammed out of the money he put into the machine, being slapped by it in response. Faust pulls out the Thunderous Orb, using its power to attempt to zap the spider, missing.
Fenrir uses his newly-acquired bone to smash the skull of one of the Weavers in, making the room safe and granting the party access to the stairwell. Faust and Xotal wish to go downstairs, convincing Fenrir to come with them, while Kohtalo and Oz move upward. Once in the room, the trio notices that the room they have found themselves in was the bottom of the pit from before. Faust and Xotal wish for Fenrir to set the webbed flooring ablaze, but he is too preoccupied chewing on his bone to care, prompting him to express to Faust and Xotal that he wishes to play. When Xotal gives him belly rubs and plays with him, Fenrir drops the bone and follows the command, burning the floor and the Weavers with it, but not killing any of them as of yet. As the battle ensues, Venzorwyn enters Weaver’s Call, meeting up with Kohtalo and Oz. After a long-winded battle with the Weavers, the trio is victorious, feeling reinvigorated as they return to their allies upstairs.
As the trio reconvenes with the others upstairs, Billy appears behind them, following his allies up to the roof of the temple, overtaken by the Weaver Queen. Kohtalo opens by using Boogie Woogie to place himself near the Weaver Queen atop the webs above, attacking its eyes and receiving multiple Black Flashes, dealing heavy damage and scaring her minions as they approach to defend their queen. With suppressive fire from Xotal to allow him an opening, Venzorwyn is able to fly up to the Weaver Queen, unable to get much closer at the moment. He uses Toothy to fire several rune-infused teeth at her, dealing heavy damage. Kohtalo watches the miracle of birth as the Weaver Queen spawns a swarm of spiderlings from her abdomen, which promptly attack Kohtalo. Faust holds up the back lines, attacking the spider that Kohtalo swapped places with, preventing further harm to his teammates that were close. After this, Fenrir immediately eats the spider, which is about the size he is, while it’s still alive, and is reinvigorated by having a full stomach. Due to Venzorwyn using fire runes prior to attack the Weaver Queen, the web begins to destabilize, and Kohtalo quickly summons Oz to his aid to prevent him from falling and harming himself. The spiders on the web are not as lucky, falling to their doom, including the Weaver Queen. The remaining spiders are cleaned up by a team effort from Billy, Kohtalo and Oz, after the former coaxes the back-line spiders to approach him due to his intoxicating dance moves.
After clearing Weaver’s Call, the party leaves back to their humble home, wherein Kohtalo pulls multiple additional items from his Cursed Storage, namely Binding Mask, Gauntlets of a Frozen Soul, Slayer Destory, Playful Cloud, Six Bullets, and Prison Realm. Shortly after this, Faust goes on his own to talk to Abel.
Faust starts by having Abel cleanse the Six Bullets he had gotten from Kohtalo, and after this, he wants to ask Abel a few questions. Faust asks Abel about the mother of Netilla, presumably his wife, and he learns that Netilla’s mother had died a long time ago, long before Abel was taken by the Great Thinkers. He asks Abel if, by some means he were able to bring her back, what he thinks she would think of who he had become. Abel says he isn’t sure, that part of him thinks she’d love him anyway, part of him says she’d think she’s a monster, and that he can only be optimistic. Faust reaffirms that he and Abel both know that the pair are not, in fact, monsters, and Faust divulges his worries to Abel. He explains his quest, and the objective at hand, and that he is worried what Miriam would think of him if she found out what he had done to get her back. Abel tells Faust that that is a chance he will need to take, that on one hand, she will commend him for his efforts and the lengths he went to save her, but on the other hand, the task that he had to do and what he’s become since might scare her. Faust asks Abel what he should do, and he tells Faust that he needs to follow his heart. That if he really wants to get her back, he should go for it, as if someone bests the Ferryman in his rigged games, he is a man of his word and will dole out the prizes as promised. He claims that the Ferryman will be busy soon enough, as the eclipse happens in three days, meaning he will likely try something.
The eavesdropping Kohtalo enters upon mention of the eclipse, prompting Faust to sit alone in the corner to ponder his wife as others enter as well. Kohtalo is frightened by the rapidly-approaching eclipse, exclaiming that he thought he had longer. He initially is hesitant to tell Abel what happened, but Abel catches on quickly, presuming that Kohtalo had cheated the Ferryman in some way, and the Ferryman wanted his penance. Abel reaffirms Kohtalo that when he comes knocking at their door through whatever proxies he might have, that they will be ready to fight back. He tells Kohtalo that the Ferryman cannot be killed as long as he lingers in the Underworld, as Kohtalo explains the Ferryman’s use of his sister to get revenge on him, explaining the powers he bestowed upon her. Jacqueline soon chimes in, stating that she has Kohtalo and the party’s back, calling the Ferryman a freak of nature, promising to restore the natural order. Billy asks what Kohtalo’s sister hates, and Kohtalo says she hates him, being sure that if anyone defends him, she will hate them too. Trying to ease Kohtalo’s anxieties about the oncoming storm, Abel says they still have plenty of time to prepare.
Kohtalo, trying to raise his spirits, asks Xotal to do a cute little dance. Xotal, not knowing how to dance, flops headfirst on the floor and starts flopping around, amusing Kohtalo. Meanwhile, Fenrir chews on his bone happily, prompting the runes upon it to spark. Billy asks Abel to cleanse his Gauntlets of a Frozen Soul as the rest of the party visits Audrey. Xotal visits him happily, seeing how he likes the house, watering him with spit. Xotal asks if Audrey would like to be wrapped around Xotal’s head and carried around, and Audrey likes the idea of getting out of the stuffy house air. Xotal quickly haggles together a pouch made of rope and twine, filling it with soil and planting Audrey inside. Netilla is disgusted with the idea of taking Audrey with them, being upset that Netilla called him nasty. Xotal reaffirms that Audrey is cool, and eats stuff like him, calling him basically a brother, prompting her to lighten up due to Xotal’s cuteness. Xotal confides in Netilla that he doesn’t know how to raise a plant, and Netilla suggests asking Sylas for help, learning that Xotal is scared of Sylas and doesn’t like him.
Kohtalo soon approaches Netilla, interrupting a second one-on-one interaction and asks about a potential haste potion that increases his actions-per-minute. She tells him that she does not know how, and suggests maybe using a material component from something with multiple limbs. Jacqueline pipes up, telling Kohtalo that he really needs to start scavenging from the creatures he kills before the latter leaves to Weaver’s Call to reclaim some of the spiders they killed. He gives the bodies to Netilla, having to fight off Xotal’s attempts to feed Audrey with them. Netilla reaffirms that she only needs the legs as Jacqueline offers legs to Xotal, being refused by Xotal due to not being fresh enough, despite being collected at the same place, until Xotal realizes the quality is identical. Xotal claims the legs and feeds the eager Audrey. Netilla plucks off the legs from the spider, putting it into the broth, telling Kohtalo that she needs a catalyst, like a mushroom or a pearl or something as well to make the potion work. Kohtalo remembers the Forest Pearl Billy sold, and is upset, trying to use his Cursed Items as a catalyst before Netilla necessitates that it needs to be a biological component, prompting him to offer up his Viper egg, but backing out shortly thereafter.
After Kohtalo asks about spider eggs, she tells him that he shouldn’t use two ingredients from the same source, as it doubles up on the effect but doesn’t make it any stronger. Frustrated, Kohtalo goes outside and finds a mushroom, later identified as a Tempest mushroom, which Kohtalo offers to Netilla. She puts it in the brew, turning it a pale blue, and she stirs it. When she finishes the potion, Kohtalo eagerly runs and gets bottles for her to pour the concoction into, and is the first to try it when it finishes. He takes a swig, and feels sticky as small micro-hairs grow on his palms and on the soles of his feet. He realizes that, at least for as long as the potion lasts, his hands and feet have become adhesive, allowing him to climb walls and other surfaces with ease. Netilla says that while it may not have been what he wanted, it was still a breakthrough, and Kohtalo divides them among part of the party. Kohtalo tries to cartwheel on the roof, failing it but not sliding off the roof, unfortunately being unable to do it properly due to his shoes not being affected by the potion, only his feet. Kohtalo wants to take credit for the potion he inadvertently created, and calls it the Stickalo potion, a name which none of the party, Netilla included, are fans of.
Kohtalo, once back inside, realizes that enough is enough, and wishes to burn Audrey to a crisp, stealing him and bringing him to the roof, aiming a Fuga at his head, but Billy is able to snatch Audrey out of Kohtalo’s sticky hands before anything can happen, leaving sticky residue on Audrey’s stem. After doing this, Billy returns Audrey to Xotal, and willingly goes up to the roof, trips off of it, and purposefully lands on his foot at an odd angle, breaking it.
Kohtalo leaves for a bit to talk with Toshiro, checking in on him due to his absence from the antics at Weaver’s Call, but Toshiro explains that he was hiding in the shadows to keep guard of them. Kohtalo asks if Jacqueline’s magic hatred applies to Cursed Items, and she clarifies that she treats curses as a form of magic. Kohtalo taunts her, pulling another couple of cursed items, the Cursed Revolver and Jackal Mask, and has Abel cleanse the Jackal Mask, giving it to Jacqueline as a “wedding gift” for her and Venzorwyn, asking her to wear it while Venzorwyn “blows his back out or something”, immediately going to sleep after. Xotal introduces Audrey to Jacqueline, and she seems to like Audrey and how odd he is, an example of nature’s beauty. The party soon joins Kohtalo in slumber, Faust still awake, pondering his choice and his quest to win against the Ferryman.
=== Session 9: A Fallen Spark (7/23/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Xotal, Kohtalo, Billy, Venzorwyn, Netilla, Toshiro, Fenrir, Abel, Jacqueline
With the Temple of Pyros overlooking the Hunters, Kohtalo decides the best course of action would be to commit to the bit and find Aoi’s frozen, preserved body in the Boreal Ridge, and rough up Toshiro to send him in as a double-agent, using Aoi’s body as a bargaining chip to prevent himself from having suspicion drawn on him. Toshiro initially questions the plan, but goes along with it anyway. As he enters, Toshiro, true to the plan, is let in to have an audience with the Ashen Hand’s leader, Koga. He enters, and not long after the Hunters hear him scream. Concerned for the safety of their friend, the main Hunters and Abel use Xotal as a battering ram to enter the Temple, presuming Toshiro to be dead.
At the entrance, Xotal and Abel bring up the rear by blasting both of the archers, giving Venzorwyn the safe coverage to charge at one of the ronins guarding the inner chamber, crashing him through the wall and into one of the torches in the main chamber before keeping the aggression on with Toothy’s help. In the meantime, Billy and Faust fought off the remaining ronin guarding the inner chamber while Kohtalo runs inside to aid Venzorwyn with a critical Piercing Blood, using it to dispose of two of the guards within. After realizing Billy could handle the ronin guarding the gate, Faust moved inward, seeing the sole lit torch in the room and realizing what needed done. He, in a fit of desperation, used his map of the Isles to light his own “torch”, but soon stamps it out when he realizes he can use the torches to light the other torches. Soon enough, the guards are cleared, giving Faust the time he needed to light the remaining torches. Almost like magic, doing so reveals the staircase to the next floor, where Koga awaited them.
Not seeing Toshiro anywhere within the room, the Hunters assume the worst as they stare down Koga and his men. Kohtalo immediately interrogates Koga, asking where his friend is, and learns the grim truth that Toshiro has been taken care of. Kohtalo taunts Koga with the idea of the bodies of his siblings, being met with the idea that Koga wants to end Kohtalo’s reign of terror. Somehow, Kohtalo is able to convince Koga to duel with him, and the other guards respect this notion, soon becoming the target of the remaining Hunters. After being attacked by him, Koga charges at Kohtalo with his claw, being met with a prompt Boogie Woogie, as should be expected. Koga soon produces a mystical flame, using it to mend all of his wounds, rendering himself unharmed. Xotal brings one of Koga’s men to fall to his doom by knocking his feet out from under him with a well-placed Eldritch Blast. In the meantime, Abel questions the unlit torches in the room, questioning their purpose. With each attack Kohtalo dealt to Koga, the flame returns to mend Koga’s wounds. Faust continues Xotal’s trend with a clever use of Mage Hand, bringing another morsel for Audrey.
Billy soon desires to enter the fray, trying to take a shortcut by jumping to the banister overlooking the stairs, missing terribly. Kohtalo, sick of Koga’s bullshit and thinking Koga’s hands were the key, tried to tear his hand off, only being successfully able to dislocate it. The flame is even able to mend this, much to Kohtalo’s annoyance. Venzorwyn, angered by his allies’ incompetence, tries to light the torch on fire with a rune, watching it catch and then immediately get snuffed due to being the wrong flame. Faust uses his Mage Hand to light the torch he was using on fire from one of the ones on the floor below, using it to light one of the ones above. The task of carrying the torch, so to speak, was passed onto Billy, who ran until he was met by another guard, who he quickly dispatched. As Abel approached Koga and Billy returned the flame, Koga’s weakness was revealed, allowing Kohtalo to finish the job, piercing his head with a jet of blood.
Shortly after the defeat of Koga, Kohtalo loots Koga’s body, claiming his claw, and within moments the other two guards remaining are dealt with. After the battle was won, the Hunters hear rattling from one of the cabinets along the back wall. Venzorwyn looks in a different set of cabinets, finding many weapons to feed his mimics with, and Kohtalo, thinking the rattling is a creature within, shakes the cabinet violently, and considers dropping it forward, but instead opens the door slowly, allowing the contents to fall face-first on the floor. Kohtalo watches in horror as he realizes that Toshiro was in the cabinet, with a strange metal rig attached to his face, that dug further when he was shaken. Toshiro falls to the floor, flat on his face, being impaled by the trap laid by the Ashen Hand to prevent his escape. Kohtalo, distraught with the notion of killing his best friend, questions why he feels the way he does, realizing he might not be as soulless as he thinks.
Kohtalo picks up Toshiro’s body, wanting to give their friend a fallen funeral. He and the Hunters bring Toshiro’s body back to the house Venzorwyn built for them, making a hole in the ground for their friend’s coffin to lie within. Kohtalo gives a heartfelt eulogy, something extremely out of character, before apologizing as he lowers Toshiro’s body into the coffin. Kohtalo places Kenji’s gear around Toshiro’s coffin, as Billy remorsefully is glad that he did not make Toshiro his advisor in Stonefall, being worried that something worse would have happened. Xotal pushes Audrey to make a statement at Toshiro’s funeral, and Audrey is oddly quiet during this when he says what he has to, seemingly knowing the somber vibe of the event. Faust, realizing how little of a connection he had with Toshiro, still gave a fateful goodbye to him and referred to him as a great warrior. Kohtalo asks Netilla to help him find flowers for the grave site, finding orange daffodils that he asks her to place around. Before the party turns in for the night, Billy asks Faust for the Riftwalker’s Boots back, as the party lays in their beds, silently pondering what had happened that day.
=== Session 10: Life, Death and Rebirth (7/30/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Kohtalo, Venzorwyn, Netilla, Fenrir, Abel, Jacqueline
Against Kohtalo’s wishes, the next place that the party traveled to was Aquevive, wherein the civilians were celebrating in a festival, not perturbed by the rain. They seem to be celebrating a deity not known to the party. Kohtalo asks the reason behind the celebration, and learns about the Queen of the Rain, whose cleansing rain falls upon their land, and the rest of the Isles, and has returned their land to fertility amidst a long period of drought and famine. The civilians celebrate with a plentiful harvest, a large feast and dancing throughout the town. Venzorwyn asks for the nearest alehouse, and Kohtalo follows, challenging the former to a drinking game. Venzorwyn unsurprisingly wins the competition due to his heavyweight status because of his height, and both of the duo get heavily drunk. Kohtalo, seemingly hating the buzz of beer and drinking it only for the taste, uses his Reverse Cursed Technique to remove the effects of the alcohol from his body. Venzorwyn, unable to do the same, becomes extremely horny for any humanoids, and instead decides to go with Jacqueline to… absolve his urges.
Shortly thereafter, a thunderous swarm of Corrupted charges up to the gate, stopping suddenly. They serve as the escorts for a tall, elven man in a white cloak, who stands at the gate across from the remaining Hunters. He tells them to relax, and that he does not wish to fight them. He wishes to participate in the festivities being held here, as he respects the Queen and loves what she has been doing for the Isles. Faust looks over to Kohtalo to confirm that neither of them believe the man’s words, but reluctantly go along with it anyway. Faust asks for the man’s name, learning that he is the Alistair that they had heard about before, and that he is one with the Cult of Cleansing, but unlike the others, has no malice towards the Hunters. At least, so he says. Kohtalo leans back to Faust, suggesting that they might have to kill this guy. Oddly, Kohtalo asks for Alistair’s last name, learning that his full name is Alistair Blanchard.
After this, Kohtalo and Faust awkwardly back into the festival, Kohtalo waving at Alistair as he does so. Alistair wishes them safe travels, and claims that he might know a thing or two about the queen. Kohtalo, upon seeing cows towards the back of the town, invites Faust to join him in cow tipping. Kohtalo finds a bull and Faust can only find a calf. Kohtalo successfully tips the bull, and the display makes Faust refuse to tip the calf. This display of kindness disgusts Kohtalo, and he decides to pick up the calf and throw it, and manages to throw him around 10 feet, saying “you’re welcome” to Faust. Soon, the farmer who owns the cattle comes out and berates Kohtalo and Faust, the latter of which immediately turns invisible to leave Kohtalo to take the blame. Kohtalo remarks about an invisible friend to the man, grabbing Faust by the invisible scruff, but this does not break the invisibility. The man notices the grass underneath Faust’s feet moving, questioning what Kohtalo is doing. After this, Kohtalo grows bored of the man, and he and Faust leave the scene immediately.
Moving back into town, the party finds Alistair once again. Kohtalo asks him about the Queen, to which Alistair tosses him something that might help: a heart-shaped locket. Kohtalo opens it, finding a picture of a pair of lovers, a blonde man and a dark-haired woman. The inscription of “E + A” on the back makes the party believe Alistair is one of the people in the picture, but cross-referencing him and the picture inside proved that impossible. Kohtalo connects the dots and figures out that the woman inside the locket must be the Queen, and Alistair confirms that he suspects the same thing. He remarks that he’d love to visit the Queen sometime, but he has plans to attend to first. Kohtalo asks about where the Queen is, and Alistair says he does not know, but recommends looking around for clues. Faust asks about Alistair’s plans, learning that Alistair wants to destroy Harkoth’s Blade and cleanse the Isles of its evils, wanting to make sure that “that demon in human skin’s legacy is cut short”. Kohtalo feigns agreeing with him. Alistair tells the Hunters that he would love to help them more, but he intends to stay here for a brief respite in his plans before he keeps his travels going.
Venzorwyn then reunites with the party, claiming he had a good time. The Hunters leave to the barns to find clues, finding a shred of paper flowing in the wind. Kohtalo snatches it, finding a shred of a map of the Isles, finding it to be centered on the Skerry of Sorrows. Shortly after, Alistair and his Corrupted leave the village, thanking the Hunters for the warm welcome. The Hunters wish to travel to the Skerry, but upon realizing they must enter the Stricken Lands to find it, became incredibly intimidated. As such, they left to train some more, finding themselves in the gladiator-ridden town of Murmillia.
Inside Murmillia, they see that a gladiatorial show, and Venzorwyn and Kohtalo wish to enter the show, but due to the event already taking place, they cannot participate. A man in a golden mask commentates the match, finding the executioner’s efficient kills quite entertaining. Upon finding out through the commentator that the next event is tomorrow with Garloth fighting again, Kohtalo and Venzorwyn both fight over who would get to fight Garloth. The pair want to make a 2v2 match against Garloth to fight him, much to Faust’s dismay, but Garloth does not wish to fight at the moment. He is tired, and wants to sit at the bar and have a beer. Kohtalo promises to buy Garloth’s beer if Garloth wins a fight with them, prompting him to reluctantly fight anyway. He and Giorno teamed up to fight Venzorwyn and Kohtalo in a gladiatorial non-lethal match, with the loser buying the winner’s beer. Faust decided to be the announcer in Giorno’s stead.
Shortly after the fight began, Kohtalo felt unlike himself as Von soon made his grand return at an inopportune time after Kohtalo attacked Garloth with Tear Down. Giorno asks what is wrong with him, not realizing that Von is his own person. Von immediately turns on Venzorwyn, and seeing this display of poor sportsmanship, Giorno and Garloth focus their efforts on subduing Von. The trio overpower Von, prompting Final Stand, and Von is able to cling onto life amidst an assault of many attacks and spells from the trio. Venzorwyn questions whether or not to kill Kohtalo, wanting revenge for a past event, perhaps in another life, but decides to be the better man and not to do so. Von tries to snap Venzorwyn’s neck, failing miserably. In retaliation, Venzorwyn grabs Von by his neck, using him like a bat to hit Garloth with, then headbutting Von. He decides to forgo any measures that would prevent him from killing Kohtalo, and picks Von up, flying as high as he can and pile-driving into the cloud of daggers laid by Giorno moments prior at full speed.
Somehow surviving this, Von is even more pissed off, questioning what Kohtalo did to his body to make it so weak. After this, Kohtalo returns to normal, immediately demanding a potion from Netilla like she’s a slave or something, being met with ridicule by Netilla before she gave him a healing potion anyway. Returning to the 2v2, Venzorwyn grabs Garloth and charges him into a wall before attacking him with Toothy, prompting Giorno to follow his friend to aid him in the battle, stabbing Venzorwyn with his shortsword. After a critical Piercing Blood, Giorno and Garloth yield, wishing to join the Hunters on their adventure for a new experience and to get out of town. Upon smelling the slightest whiff of his moneymakers leaving, Murmillia’s mayor storms in, saying that they can’t leave suddenly like this. Kohtalo instead uses Tear Down to kill the mayor instantly, shredding it to pieces.
After leaving Murmillia, the Hunters leave to an abandoned training building, finding the Phantom Feller inside. Venzorwyn claims the blade before feeding the Sanguine Slasher to Toothy for him to gain its properties. He feeds the armors around the room to Toothy, Bonny and Chester. In the next room is a rest room with mats for the party to sit on, which Kohtalo refuses to indulge in. The rest of the party take a brief rest before reuniting with Kohtalo, being met by a room of training dummies.
After several minutes of trying to brute force the dummies down, Kohtalo realizes the significance of the colored segments and figures out how to break them. He takes out three of the dummies while Faust, Venzorwyn and Jacqueline take one each, eventually clearing the room of its dummies, opening the door, and summoning the first wave of Phantom Knights. During the battle, the majority of the Knights don’t have the time to do much, but one is able to scream souls at Faust, dealing heavy damage. Accidentally, after clearing one of the Knights, Kohtalo runs over its dead body, killing the pile of bones left behind. After having an episode of sheer mediocrity, Kohtalo is able to land a critical punch to one of the Knights, blasting him with cursed energies through a Black Flash to kill him instantly. After clearing the remaining Knights, Kohtalo claims one of their helmets as the Hunters head further in, finding another training room.
Inside the training room were multiple targets, a spinning dummy and several traps, all of which are dwarfed by the giant spectral lion-dogs staring the Hunters down. Them, alongside more Phantom Knights, were ready to battle. Kohtalo quickly got to work, trying to trip the traps to fight off the Knights before Venzorwyn picked one of them up and threw them at a target, triggering the spinning dummy, hitting both Kohtalo and one of the Knights for moderate damage. Venzorwyn, seemingly knowing something the rest of the Hunters didn’t, used the Phantom Feller on one of the Shadow Lions, dealing critically heavy damage due to the blade’s anti-Undead properties. Kohtalo soon becomes the target of the other Lion’s ire, using a quick Boogie Woogie to make it hit both of the Knights nearby. Netilla attacks one of the Lions with her broom, watching in horror as her broom phased through the beast. Jacqueline attacked one of the Knights to support her team. Kohtalo, watching in horror as his punches phase through the Lion, realizes that only Venzorwyn can beat the Lions, due to possessing the Phantom Feller.
Venzorwyn goes to town on the Lions with the sword, stabbing one and killing it, but thrusting through to the other Lion, allowing Netilla to pull the blade out, hit it with the absolute minimum force she could’ve, and allowing Jacqueline to finish the job with a lethal blow. After this, Kohtalo eagerly heads into the next room due to seeing a chest, finding Fenrir inside. Fenrir looks… different, and he has fire swirls on his body similar to the Shadow Lions, having ascended to a more powerful form. Kohtalo pats Fenrir on his head, and he spits out a little bit of fire that he rapidly forms into a sword in his mouth.
Back at the house, before going to bed, Jacqueline tells Venzorwyn that she knows she is pregnant with his baby.
=== Session 11: A Menagerie of Tragedies (8/6/2024) ===
Starting Characters: Faust, Kohtalo, Venzorwyn, Billy, Netilla, Fenrir, Abel, Jacqueline, Giorno, Garloth
Before setting out to the Stricken Lands, Garloth suggests to Kohtalo and the rest of the Hunters that he knows someone that might be able to help them: his former executioner buddy, Balder. He suggests looking at the bar in Murmillia that the pair would frequent. Entering Murmillia, the party encounters the Wanderers again, attracting Jacqueline’s ire. She yells to the artificer of the group, calling her a betrayer. The Hunters want to diffuse her anger, with Venzorwyn speaking with Jacqueline about her hatred. She tells him that her sister Maya betrayed the clan, going against the oath and being “enlightened” by magical gifts. Venzorwyn questions the double-standard of anti-magic, but Jacqueline claims it is different because of the Hunters not being part of the Rustborn clan.
Venzorwyn is able to stabilize Jacqueline before Kohtalo decides to break the silence amongst the other Hunters, addressing Maya directly and telling her that her sister is moody due to the pregnancy. Maya is elated to find out that her sister will bear a child, and this attracts Elara’s attention, who is perhaps even more excited than Maya. Hearing Elara’s voice for another time made Kohtalo want to kill the shrill-voiced woman, but Faust threatened to turn Kohtalo into a rat if he tried. The Wanderer’s wizard calls everyone lame, trying to dissociate from the happenings. Kohtalo tries to discover what the sisters have in common before Venzorwyn offers to take the pair on a hunt with him and Netilla as the rest go with Garloth to find Balder.
Venzorwyn soon spies a large leviathan in the water, using Toothy to cut his hand to draw the fish out with blood, and flailing around to look like prey. As soon as the leviathan grew close, he grabbed the fish and threw it out of the water and onto the coastline behind him. Jacqueline and Maya both try to go for the kill, with the latter using a flame rune that softens up the hard skin for Jacqueline to cleave. Seeing the sisters hunting again like they used to when they were young makes the sisters soften towards each other a bit, realizing that Jacqueline’s hatred may have been unfounded.
Kohtalo needs to be reminded of where the bar is, and Garloth leads him there, and they look around the bar for clues of Balder’s location. Kohtalo asks the bartender, and learns that Balder hasn’t been around for a few years, not knowing where he went after he stopped showing up. Garloth’s next idea is to search for Balder at the old camp they used to share, and upon arriving there, he is met with a grim sight: Balder’s mangled corpse sitting within the broken remains of their old tent. On the tent is a note from an unknown source, saying “Fear ye, those of Harkoth’s Court. We are coming for you.”, not mentioning who wrote it. Inside the tent, alongside Balder’s body, is a white banner. Seeing the banner, Garloth realizes it must have been the Cult. He notes about a camp nearby, and suggests they go on a slaughtering spree to avenge Balder.
Soon, the Hunters on that mission arrive at the camp, being met with a crowd of members of the Cult of Cleansing. Kohtalo immediately dispatches three of them with a volley of Piercing Blood attacks. Garloth immediately barrels at one of the Cultists in a fit of rage, cleaving him but not doing the lethal blow, instead getting an assist from Fenrir’s flaming blade. Kohtalo suffers a critical stab from one of the Cultists as Billy dodges a stab from another. Kohtalo slits the throat of his stabber, knocking him to the floor to allow him to bleed out. After the last of the Cultists were cleared, Garloth asked the Hunters for a favor: Giving Balder a proper funeral out on the water when the storms subside. The Hunters eagerly accept, promising their friend to do so.
Before heading out into the Stricken Lands, Kohtalo uses his newly-unlocked Ten Shadows technique to perform a series of rituals while the party takes a brief rest, unlocking several of his Shadows for use, needing a healing potion from Netilla after the fact.
Approaching the Stricken Lands’ front gate, the podium made more sense to them, and Kohtalo realized that the locket was meant to be slotted in. After he slots the locket in, the gate opens permanently for them, and they don’t need to go over the barrier anymore. The party notes the large castle along the back end of the kingdom, but soon sees a large armored man sitting in front of the castle, kneeling. The Hunters approach, with the man asking what they are doing here. Kohtalo, assuming he’s a baddie, claims that the man is tired, and he reciprocates, saying that anyone would be tired if they went through what he has. The man asks their purpose for entering this land, and Kohtalo, not wanting to say it himself, tells Faust to initiate with the man, telling him they are in pursuit of the Queen of the Rain. The man tells them that they do not want to enter the web of tragedies that entrap him and the Queen. He claims that it is very dangerous, involving forces they would never understand. He states that if they wish to see the Queen, they must get through him, as he will test their resolve. If they pass, they may go to the Queen, but if they fail, they will not deserve to know what has happened. As they engage in the fight, the man introduces himself as the Duke of Nothing.
Venzorwyn immediately goes on the offensive, being stunned by his first hit not piercing the Duke’s armor, but landing the second hit no problem. Kohtalo enters the fray, being retaliated on by the Duke, instead flinging the retaliation onto Venzorwyn by using Boogie Woogie. Kohtalo gives Abel the directive to protect Faust, to which Abel launches a fireball at the Duke, being mortified as the Duke catches the fireball and flings it aside, negating the damage completely and showing no signs of wear. Faust uses Six Bullets for the first time on the Duke, being able to do noticeable damage to him with it. Billy decides that his best course of action would be to use his boots, instead noping out of the fight for an extended period. Venzorwyn attempts to taunt the Duke to only target him, but this is undone when Kohtalo summons Piercing Ox, prompting the Duke to shake the Ox off by almost killing him in an instant.
Running behind, Xotal arrives at the battle, getting to watch Abel dive in with a weaponized arm. Following him, Xotal learns the hard truth about the Duke’s blessing, watching in horror as his scorching rays do nothing. Kohtalo soon de-summons Piercing Ox to prevent further harm before summoning Round Deer for some support. Venzorwyn, Xotal, Abel and Kohtalo then swarm the Duke, of which the Duke can only handle so many at once. As the battle rages on, Faust and Billy do their best to support the frontliners, with the former landing a critical shot from the Slinger. Kohtalo decides to “dap up Venzorwyn”, boosting both of their morale and allowing Venzorwyn to finish the job.
As the Duke falters, he deems the Hunters ready to go further, deeming them all honorable warriors. Kohtalo takes the Duke’s mask for a moment, wanting to claim it as a trophy, but rescinds this when he learns of the mask’s significance to the Duke, being a mask his mother used to use to play with him when he was young. After leaving the Duke to his own devices, the Hunters move to the Skerry, and upon seeing the rough, harsh waves and rocky terrain, Kohtalo summons Oz to cross it to the final island. The Hunters see a dark-haired woman sitting along the isle, who was either crying or had been. Giorno and Garloth stop in their tracks for a moment, realizing who it might be. They might know her.
Kohtalo goes up to the lady, who turns to him. He observes the tear streaks on her face and asks what’s going on. She asks what Kohtalo and the others are doing there, not understanding why they’d want to come here. Xotal asks who the woman is, and she introduces herself as Aria. The name rings Giorno and Garloth’s bells, and they immediately recognize that it is, in fact, their former queen. She is elated to see the pair, and thought they were dead. She wonders what they’re doing there, but before they can say anything, Billy asks how they know her, and who she is. She tries to deflect her backstory, claiming it to be long, but Kohtalo reassures her that they have the time.
She presumes correctly that the Hunters are here because of the storms, of which she denies to stop until “that bastard”’s venom is out of the Isles, thinking Harkoth still lives. The Hunters reaffirmed that he is dead, and Aria is confused. She claims that Harkoth could’ve used the Blade to live forever, and questions why he’d let himself die. She explains herself, telling them that Harkoth was her husband. The blade had changed him as soon as he got his hands on it, and was no longer Edric Larrean, the man she loved. Edric was a bastard to the Larreans, cast out of the royal family and exiled to Aquevive. He held no malice to them, and he fell in love with Aria, raising a farm with her as she sang for the townsfolk. His lack of a desire for vengeance melted away when he heard about Harkoth’s Blade, and he devoted every minute to it, ignoring his wife and son. He claimed the blade by a miracle, and was consumed by its power, renaming himself Harkoth. His first act with the blade was to take vengeance on the Larreans, slaughtering all of them and wiping the kingdom’s life; all except for one, Elias, Harkoth’s half-brother, the Duke of Nothing.
She tried to protect Lupin from what his father had done, but it was no use, he was too good of a son for his father, and went with him to help Harkoth claim Rookpoint for himself, not wanting to claim the Larrean land that tormented him, instead trying to slay the Corvus clan. Unfortunately, Lupin was killed in the battle, and it broke Harkoth. He instantly wiped out everyone on the battlefield in bitter rage. This disgusted Aria, but she stayed with him, wanting to help him return to who he was.
Later on, as Harkoth moved into his new kingdom, he slowly drove everyone away from himself: Cedric, Sylas, Giorno and Garloth, everyone except for Aria. She stuck by him because she loved him, but was turned away when she came home one night to find her husband sleeping with another woman: his high priestess. Disgusted, she fled and faked her death, leaving for the Skerry and meeting Elias, who took solace with each other due to their witnessing of Harkoth’s scornful sting, and Elias devoted himself to protecting her from whatever Harkoth may throw at them. She sat at the Skerry to mourn, for Lupin, for the Larreans, for the Corvus clan, and most importantly for the life she wasted with him.
Aria promises to stop the rains, as long as the party agrees to help her stamp out the remainder of Harkoth’s evils, allowing the sun to return to the Isles once again. As Kohtalo looks to the skies, a pit in his stomach sinks as he realizes that the moon is erring closer and closer to the sun. The eclipse is imminent.
== Notable Memes ==
* Xotal
* Faust being smelly
* Shit breath
* Kohtalo having schizophrenia episodes
* Kohtalo's love of a good gyatt and good skibidies
* Billy's salmon grind
* Gnomes
* Gnomecoin
* Kohtalo being dead broke
* Rollin' Bones
* Wonderwall
* Official Flower Business
* Audrey
* Fenrir
* Lean
* Venom
* ORB
* Goblin Lives Matter
* Snide Month
* Don't Be Racist, They Are Just Goblins
* Gyatt Levels
* The White Condom
* Venzorizz
* Spider Eggs
* The miracle of birth
* Spider-Man
* The Drunk Table
* Barnacles
* Mario
== Trivia ==
* Harkoth's Legacy is the longest campaign created by FennekinGalaxy, and the second of his campaigns to not end on the 6th session, the first being Bitter Creek, which ended on its 3rd session.
* Harkoth's Legacy was not originally intended to be a sequel to Houses, but became such after theorycrafting about the campaign being a Houses sequel prompted Kaiju to develop his now-scrapped character as being from Yrven, made all of Ikarion canon to Harkoth's Legacy. As such, it is not a direct sequel, but is later in the same timeline.
** FennekinGalaxy has said that if there is a third Realm of Ikarion installment, it would be a direct sequel to both and take elements from both.
* Harkoth's Legacy was the first campaign to be recorded in full, using said recordings to write down its events more thoroughly instead of playing off of memory and bullet points like the campaigns prior.
* Inkunn, C.D and RottenDoll were going to join Harkoth's Legacy, but Fenn cut them late into the campaign's development due to the player quantity and the fact that neither of them had made their characters for the campaign by that point. Kaiju had also intended to play, but left, offering his slot to C.D, but his slot went unused due to scheduling conflicts.
* FennekinGalaxy had intended for the campaign to be centered around villainy at its earliest stages in development, but as the campaign was developed, it focused less on villainy from the party's perspective and shifted to focusing on an overall corrupt world. Multiple of the party members, instead of being outright villainous, were either morally grey or motivated by revenge or noble causes, the only true villain left being Kohtalo himself.
Category:Campaigns
Category:Harkoth's Legacy
Category:Realm of Ikarion