I’m going to handle this in much the same way I did the Strange Aeons backlog. We’ve been playing the North Watch Campaign for about a dozen sessions. That’s too much to do a session by session break down. Besides, I don’t really remember what happened in specific sessions anymore. So, without further ado…
The party are all current residents of Fallcrest, the largest town of the North Watch region. They are approached one day by Banner, the leader of The Riders of the Watch, an independent group of messengers, scouts, and troubleshooters that roam the Watch. Three of his Riders had gone missing while investigating some missing cattle and damage to property near the Kalton Wood. His other Riders were all out and unavailable. He wanted to hire the group to find and rescue his missing Riders.
The party headed south and near the White Rock River just north of the Kalton Wood they met a homesteader named Kuiper. He let them know that he had seen the three Riders several days earlier crossing the river and entering the woods. He followed their tracks for a short while and figured they were heading towards the ravine a few miles into the woods where the goblins lived. The goblins had lived there for a while but had not really been more than a minor nuisance. With the recent goings on, that seemed a reasonable starting point for an investigation.
The party followed Kuiper’s instructions and soon found the ravine. When they climbed down they found the following:
- There was a sunken fortress that seemed to be dedicated to a dragon cult at the bottom of the ravine. The goblins had apparently taken up residence there some time ago.
- Kobolds had recently invaded and the goblins and the kobolds were currently engaged in a war with each other for control of the fortress.
- The goblins had an ally, a demented druid, that cultivated and tended a strange tree that grew in the caverns under the fortress, despite the lack of light.
The party allied with the kobolds to eliminate the goblins. In the process they found one of the Riders they were looking for dead from an attack by giant rats. Delving deeper they eventually confronted the crazed druid and found the remaining two Riders. The Riders seemed to be under some compulsion and aided the druid in attempting to capture the party. The druid wanted to sacrifice the party to the strange tree that he called The Gulthias Tree.
The party fought and won, though it was a close thing. They managed to subdue the two Riders unharmed and burned the Gulthias Tree in the process of the fight. Under the tree was a stone sarcophagus. Kvothe investigated and opened the sarcophagus and in the process a rose from it, turned in to a mist, and then flew away. The party is sure that will never come back to bite them in the butt.
The party returned to Fallcrest and delivered the two Riders to Banner. They were paid as promised and then asked to join the Riders. The group thought on it and then accepted. While selling some loot at Thornapple’s Marvelous Marvels, an eclectic shop, the proprietor, a halfling named Thistle Thornapple, offered to partner with them on an expedition to the Barrow Downs. He had inside information that a barrow entrance had been uncovered by some rains and he wanted to be the first there to explore it and perhaps find treasure. The party liked the sound of that so they went.
During the trip they also met Arrowhead and Assassin, two of Thistle’s cousins. One night they watched a contingent of The Iron Circle, a mercenary outfit, march by on the nearby road. They looted the barrow and returned to Fallcrest.
Soon after, Banner assigned them to deliver some missives to Harken and guard a caravan that was going that way while they were at it. There had been more than the normal number of bandit raids and attacks in recent weeks and the Riders were attempting to help by acting as guards. The first night out from Fallcrest the caravan shared a camp with a group of Iron Circle scouts.
The next evening the caravan was attacked by bandits that seemed to come from the Spiderfell Forest. The party killed the bandits and tracked them a short distance into the wood but went back to the caravan instead of continuing on.
The next day they arrived at Harken where the caravan and the party parted ways. The party delivered their messages to the Baron Raes and then found lodging at the Hungry Hound.
While staying at the inn they overheard a conversation between the innkeeper and a young man named Andren. Andren’s fiancé, the innkeeper’s daughter, was missing. She had not been in her room that morning when Andren had gone to check. The bed was made and didn’t look slept and all her personal belongings were gone. Andren was convinced that something was wrong while the father thought perhaps Jaylyn, the missing girl, had simply gone back to Fallcrest at the behest of Septarch Voren. She was the mage’s apprentice after all. The party agreed to go back to Fallcrest for Andren and see if Voren knew where the girl was.
On the way back to Fallcrest, the party decided to attempt to track the bandits further into the Spiderfell. They followed the tracks for several hours and entered the thickest part of the forest where large silk spider webs spanned the branches. They end up being ambushed by spiders and things are going fairly badly when a young, female druid named Oleanne shows up with her two wolf companions and helps them drive the spiders away.
Oleanne takes them to one of the safe places she slept and talked with them a bit. It seems there was a ruined keep at the center of the Spiderfell. A large group of bandits had taken up residence there. They had some sort of agreement with the goblins and ettercaps of the forest. The bandits returned to the keep with some frequency with kidnap victims. Some they gave to the ettercaps and goblins. Some went into the keep never to be seen again. The bandits were numerous, well equipped, and had spellcasters.
The party felt like Jaylyn might have run afoul the bandits and that they should deal with them. However, they wanted to check with Voren first and also see if they could round up some allies to help assault the keep. Oleanne agreed to meet them back at her safe place in a few days time.
On the way back to Fallcrest they came across an itinerant priest of Erastil named Leander. He was concerned about Jaylyn, as he knew her family. He agreed to go to Harken and do some investigating of his own and then meet them again in a couple of days to help assault the keep. Bandits in the Spiderfell didn’t sit well with him.
Back in Fallcrest, Voren hadn’t seen Jaylyn since she had gone to visit her family in Harken. He was concerned and offered what help he could in the party’s efforts to find her.
The group recruited Sharwin and Braford, the two Riders they previously rescued to join them in dealing with the bandits. Thistle Thornapple had a cousin, Booger, that was interested in joining in against bandits as well. With 3 extra allies and expecting Leander and Oleanne later, the party thought that was sufficient force to bring to bear and headed out.
Leander failed to show up where they had agreed to meet. Not certain of what to make of that, the party headed in to the Spiderfell to find Oleanne. They found the druidess and followed her to the ruined keep, avoiding goblins and spiders along the way.
Once at the keep they quickly made a plan to sneak up to the wall of the keep without attracting attention for as long as possible. However, Zarah fell into a pit trap on the way towards the wall from the tree line and the guards were alerted.
And that’s where we start next session…
