Episode 105 - Wild Ride

## Intro

**Episode description:**
Because why not name this episode after a Disneyland ride that closed in 1998.

**Opening Quote:**
*"Somebody think of the children!"*—Stephanie

**Player introduction:**
Sean - “Hello and welcome to another episode of the Tabletop Champions podcast. I’m Sean your dungeon master and with me tonight we have:”

Matt - “Where’s the beef?”

Lauren - “Halloo”

Stephanie - “Do as you will, I will do as I must” (interruption)

Ben - “Greetings”

Kyle - “I’m Barbie girl, in a Barbie world”

## Episode Summary

### d20 Rolls

* Stephanie = 14
* Kyle = 4
* **Lauren = 20**
* Ben = 1
* Matt = unknown

### Ben's recap

So last week, the party had a fun time at the Trenton Independence Day celebration. Ren got super drunk. Minos lost an arm-wrestling competition. And Alenia and Colin made some money because they bet against him, apparently smartly. (Sean: Hold on. Let’s be fair here. There were some metagaming there, they bet against Matt.) That’s true. (Kyle: And we won). (Stephanie: Life lesson). (Matt: Some friends you are). (Kyle: I bought you a couple of drinks). Minos found out, the guy he lost to is from his home and he thought he was the only one. He found out there is other people and now have a list of those people. Tried to sell Gerbo Namfoodle our Haven brewed ale. Apparently everybody drank all the ale in town except for some shitty beer that no one wanted. So we impressed him with it and convinced him… well Minos convinced him that we should set up trade alliance. And he agreed to do that and sent us some mercenaries to guard the fields so we could grow more stuff. After that we left to go back to Haven to give them the good news. Oh and Alenia is trying to blackmail the asshole from New Doladon. There were some weird unnatural storm, suddenly there was wind that was blowing all the small people over, but I’m pretty sure only the big people actually got blown over. And then we made our way into the woods to escape and tripped over some gravestones. (Sean: And that’s where we at).

### Summary

#### Graveyard

Players are standing on the cusp on the forest, when it starts hailing with hails as big as Gruck (a Grack puck, about the size of a fist). However the hail doesn’t reach the forest.

Ren starts to lead the players out of the graveyard and through the forest, but as she does so, she bumps into a gravestone. The gravestone tips over and the players hear a howling screech as three shadows starts to take form in the graveyard.

Minos attempt to communicate with the ghost and apologize, but the ghosts don’t seem to understand them. During the fight, Alenia gets her energy drained by a ghost twice (maximum HP gets reduced).

Every time the players kill one of the ghosts, a tendril of blue energy spring from the fallen ghost to one of “living” ghosts and the dead one gets revived. It isn’t until the players manage to kill all the three ghosts at once, that the killed ghosts stay dead.

#### Magic bracer

When the last ghost dies, it leaves a bracer behind. Alenia investigates the bracer and sense it contain abjuration magic. The players discuss whether they should take the bracer or leave it; in the end they decide that Elyron should bring it along.

As the players are walking away from the graveyard, the bracer suddenly comes alive. It flies out of Elyron’s pouch and lock itself to Colin’s wrist. Colin starts flying through the air toward the graveyard, however Minos manages to catch him before he gets too far away and Elyron hurry over to assist.

Elyron activates feat of strength and try to pull the bracer off Colin’s arm, unfortunately the bracer doesn’t move and Elyron accidently dislocates Colin’s shoulder. In desperation Minos decides to try cutting off the bracer with his axe, but before he does, Minos notices three locks on the bracer. He calls for Alenia’s help and she rapidly picks the locks and the bracer leaves Colin’s arm. The bracer goes flying off in the distance and burry itself in the ground. Now free from the bracer, Colin uses a secret monk technique to put his arm back in socket.

#### The Forest Guardian

After this experience the players hurry to continue through the forest toward Haven. As they are about to exit the forest the players notice a set of eyes staring at them from deeper inside the forest. Elyron and Minos recognize the eyes to dragon eyes and they realize that they must belong to the forest guardian Tode, who is a mushroom dragon.

Minos: “Would your name be Tode”

Tode: “Yes, of cause I’m Tode. What brings you to the Lost Woods today? ”

Colin: “Just making our way home”

Tode: “I felt a desecration to the west. I figured I would come see”

Minos looks at Ren and she bow her head and says: “Mister Tode, I’m really sorry it was an accident. I didn’t mean no disrespect”

Tode: “No, no, no, you must misunderstand me. There was a desecration and there is no longer a desecration. Are you the ones who have remedied this?”

Ren: “Yees… If you are referring to the graves yes”

Tode: “I have noticed you a good many times in my forest and you have never done anything but good here. And your folk live on the outskirt of this forest, yes?”

Everybody: “Yes”

Tode: “Word travel fast and I will tell you we have not been treated very kindly by the people of New Doladon”

Colin: “Same”

Tode: “The have found passage through our woods as opposed to the desolate swamps to the north. Would it be beneficial to you if we, say, stopped them returning through the forest?”

Ren: “Yes. Incredible so Mister Tode”

Tode: “All I ask in return is that you continue to treat the forest with the respect you have shown in the past and not tread on it too deeply with your people. I respect you, but the game belongs here. You have never taken too much, but you keep doing you and we’ll do us”

Ren: “We appreciate all the help you can offer us Mister Tode”

#### Wrath

Tode says, “I offer you this”, and as he does, a little pixie "poof" into existence. She is about three inches tall, with goth make-up on and black wing, and she says, “Ohh, hey…” Tode says “Wrath, this is the party, you should go with them and if they need anything from this forest report back to me. Any news, anything they know is coming we are out to assist them”

Wrath: “Okayyy. Byeee. So I guess I’m going with you guys, “sigh””

At this moment Tode disappear and Elyron introduces himself to Wrath, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Wrath”

Wrath: “Year, I’m Wrath (sigh), what’s your name?”

Elyron: “I am Elyron”

Wrath: “Hi Elyron. What are we doing?”

Colin: “We are going back to Haven”

Wrath: “Bored! All right, let’s go. Do you have somewhere I can, like, stay or live in? I don’t wanna fly all through here, like, could you guys, like, carry me or something?”

Minos: “You could sit on my shoulder?”

Alenia: “No Minos!”

Minos: “I mean come on. I think at least one time, all of you have sat on my shoulders”

Wrath looks at Minos and says, “You got a pretty sweet beard, bro. Can I, like, live there? (Minos: uhh) Like set up shop?”

Minos: “Okayy?”

Wrath: “Sweet I’m moving in.” A couple of bags appear out of nowhere and she fly in. Minos hear the sound of shuffling in his beard and Minos asks, “Do you have plenty of room?” and Wrath answers “I’m good, I’m good. You know, forest front-view. This thing is sweet man. Year, like, if you need me to report to Tode or anything I will just be here.”

Minos: “Uhh, thank you…?”

Wrath: “If you need anything, like, I can do a couple of thing, but you know we’ll talk about that later, it’s cool, it’s cool. Kk, cool bye”

Wrath disappears into the beard, leaving Minos with the biggest perplexed look on his face. Suddenly a few light appear in his beard and Wrath poke her head out to ask, “You’re totally cool if I, like, invite friends over sometimes, right?” Minos, “Uhhh…”. Wrath, “Okay, cool, cool, bye” and Wrath goes back into the beard.

Minos asks the other for help, but Alenia just says, "I told you to say no!" and she walks away flicking her hand at Minos. Colin just says, "Seems like a personal problem". Minos looks at Ren and ask, “What do I do?” and she answers, “Well, It’s like having a roommate. I guess you should probably start making rules and boundaries and things like that.”

#### Back in Haven

As the players crest the edge of the forest and see Haven in the distance, they hear the sound of work and tools being used. When they get closer to the wall, they see a lot of people working on the walls and the walls themselves look bigger and have extended about two extra acres around the city. The players also see a contingent of mercenaries standing around guarding the town. At first, the players are surprised by how fast everything was done, but then they slowly realize that it must have been because of the fay forest.

As the players get closer to the city, a bunch of children come out, running toward them. The children are yelling “Alenia, Alenia, people came”

Jade starts a conversation with the players about where they have been and that the council want to talk with them. As people are talking, Jade casually walk next to Alenia and slide a note slyly into her hand. Then Jade looks gruffly at Alenia, winks and puts a cherry smile on her face. Then she skips toward the city along with the other children. Alenia secretly reads the letter which says:

*You dare threaten me Alenia? We’ll see what comes of this.
Salis Writ*
When the players walk back to the city, they learn that the people from Trenton have been in the city for a couple of weeks. Everything has been fortified and everybody seems well taken care of. Inside Haven, the players go to the city hall where they find Shelia. She is very happy with the results of the player’s mission, and also a little surprised. While the players are talking with Shelia, they suddenly hear a “bump” sound from the door. Minos opens the door and finds an arrow with a letter stuck into the door. He opens the letter, which says:

*It appears you have reached some prosperity. That 4000 gold loan we are going to call back in now.*

Minos shows the note to the others and asks if the city still have the gold. While they are talking, they hear a new sound and somebody screaming outside. The players and Shelia rush outside, where they see Andrew, the blacksmith, lying in the center of the courtyard with a burning arrow sticking out of his chest. Minos rush over to pick up Andrew, who whispers, “Minos, avenge me” and he dies.

## Trivia

### New NPCs

* Tode - Mushroom dragon, guardian of The Lost Woods
* Wrath - Pixie, Assigned as messenger between Haven and the fay in The Lost Woods

### Fights

 Episode body count
 Total body count

Minos: Minos starts swinging his sword in an artistic way and with the last attack the sword seems to glow as Minos splits the ghost (blue) in half.

Alenia sneaks up on the ghost (red) and kill it with a sneak attack.

Minos kills the revived (red) ghost.

Minos: For the second time, Minos cuts down the same ghost (red) with his sword.

Elyron: Before he attacks Elyron casts Brute Strike. Then he proceeds to smacks the ghost (green) with his ethereal mace and the ghost goes down.

Alenia: As Alenia kills the last ghost (blue), a tendril of energy shoots out between the three ghosts. It vibrates almost out of control and then dissipates into sparkles as the ground consumes the corpses again.

Nobody was knocked out (even though Alenia got close).