MAL Ep. 12

Using a combination of diplomacy, magical dueling, breaking and entering, and cathartic joint combat with a Cthulhoid monster, today the party succeeded at getting Jendarion to step down as leader of the Elemental Druids, removing them from Chavalk's League of Snakes. This leaves several issues for the party to deal with which may be better suited to email or Discord resolution.

1)  Discontent of the Sendor River. Zadkiel is very keen on permanently pacifying the angry river genius, but the druids inform you that they have been trying to accomplish this for years and that no matter what they do, the river always returns to rage. Liria tells Red that she considers the anger of the river spirit to have been a corrupting influence on Jendarion, one that Shyra was able to take advantage of.

2) Leadership of the Grove of Mendham Wood. Jendarion ceded leadership of the Grove to Red. The members of the grove uneasily accepted this arrangement once Red pledged to A) not persecute their elemental allies, and B) find another way to go after the dragon that attacked their people. She may or may not have the intention of fulfilling those campaign promises, but it's clear that sentiment in the grove will turn against her hard if she does not. Red suggested returning leadership of the grove to Jendarion, but Liria takes Red aside and tells her she considers that a bad idea. "Jendarion is in a difficult position. He is a good leader who has protected us many times, and I am relieved you convinced him to step down without bloodshed. But I think the anger of the river spirit has taken a great toll on his mind. He is suffused in its power, and that power is now volatile. I believe Jendarion ceded to you for a reason. Perhaps the suppression of his river magics gave him a moment of greater clarity, and he realized he was not certain of the path he was leading us down. In any case, I do not believe he is well enough now to be reinstated as leader. Perhaps once the river is restored."

There is no option of leaving the grove ungoverned. That would be a dereliction of duty severe enough to make Red lose her status as a druid. She can stay and lead the grove, return it to Jendarion despite Liria's misgivings, pass it on to Liria, or attempt to arrange a custodianship arrangement where she remains grovemaster while appointing Liria an acting manager. Discuss amongst yourselves.

3) Adriel issues. First, Jon is actively withholding the letter from Harasket to Jendarion regarding a planned attack on the Order of the Dragon by some ally of his called the "Hidden Ones," presumably fearing an irrational reaction on her part. The rest of the party needs to discuss this and decide if this is indeed their intent to keep this a secret from her. Jendarion did express to the group that he believed the river would not be healed until the slaughter of his family had been avenged, and that Chavalk and Shyra had a plan to do this which will probably no longer be put into action. However, Adriel is completely unaware that this is related to the Order of the Dragon (she has been actively denying that the Order of the Dragon had anything to do with what happened in Mendham.)

Second, the grove members are deeply mistrustful of Adriel. Remember that not only did Liria identify her as a knight of the Order of the Dragon back when you clashed with her the first time, but that Adriel actually stabbed her in the back as she was departing after parlaying with Red and Jon. Now she is waving her banner around at a politically tense time. (Yes, actions that PCs take after or between sessions still "count.") Basically, the council will tell Red that they want her out of the forest immediately. She has presented herself to the Elemental Druids as A) an enemy who hates them irrationally, B) violent and dishonorable, C) affiliated with the Order of the Dragon who committed war crimes against their community, and D) somebody who is failing to reflect on her behavior in any way, and is therefore more likely to escalate it than improve it. I realize you're doing this to roleplay, Scott, but if you roleplay your PC as a dangerous irrational loose cannon, that's how NPCs are going to treat her.

Third, she ended the session with a critical wisdom drain situation. The druids of the Grove were unwilling to do anything to help her for the reasons listed above, but Liria made her wisdom check and determined that it would be functionally impossible to reason with anybody with a critically impaired wisdom and decided to cast Restoration on Adriel herself. She told Red that the condition of her doing this is that Red convince Adriel to sit down with them at council tonight to discuss the situation, so that the druids can have a chance to assess who she really is and what danger she poses. We could do this by Discord.

4) Red's curse. Liria said she did not know how to remove it and that only Shyra or a fey caster of higher level than Shyra could remove it, but it appears to be gone now. Liria has no opinion on how that could have happened. Zadkiel suggested perhaps she had unwittingly fuliffled the built-in conditions that would discharge the curse.

5) Restoring Piper. Jon told Piper what Barken told the party about a necromantic solution to her impending demise, substituting another's soul for her own. Piper demurred, saying that she had seen enough of sacrifice that she could not accept passing the buck on to another person, even an enemy. Jon cryptically asked her if she would object to a "fully willing substitute," and declined to elaborate. Piper looks uncharacteristically confused for a woman whose mind is opened to the paths of prophecy. "Jon," she says slowly, "surely you... don't mean YOURSELF, do you? Because I--I wouldn't want to live without YOU."

They can discuss this further in private.

6) The Chaos Hound. Bay keeps her word to Aler and tells the party about her situation that night. She keeps herself carefully positioned with Aler between herself and Adriel, who she has already expressed fear of, and explains to the group "I still don't know exactly what they mean by calling me a Chaos Dog, but I think I can guess. I'm from a town called Jasker, in Norwall--or I was, I guess. The town was completely destroyed by some kind of chaos force nine years ago, when I was twelve. I was the only survivor. I passed out during the attack and when I awoke, everything around me was destroyed. I mean everything--there were not two things put together around me as far as my eye could see. Since then, there has seemed to be some of the entropy still residing in me. When I get stressed or frightened, or sometimes just when I'm sleeping, it comes out and things around me just start falling apart. I can direct it, a little, if I concentrate. But I usually just try to suppress it again. By the way, can I have my ring back because it kind of helps with that a lot. But anyway, I'm really not a demon or anything. I'm just a farm girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I swear."

Feel free to email or Discord this one.

7) Khirg's creeptastic wife, Tanya. She cheerily identifies herself as a Dullahan, or Headless Horseman. She is absolutely an extraplanar, from the realm of Fey. She is a warlock, and also has the ability to pass through the Veil (but only to the Fey lands, not to the Land of the Dead or ethereal planes-- she is not a planewalker, nor undead.)

There's nothing I need to do about her at this time, but Scott and Leonard may want to email each other. I don't know how Adriel feels about this, though by the enemy of my enemy is my friend rule, Tanya's opposing of Shyra does put her in the non-Chavalk camp.

8) Seven has some more news for you when you call her on the scry that night. “The dockworkers are still on strike. The Harbormaster brought in a bunch of half-orcs from Delsin as temporary replacement workers and people in the Docks district are not happy about it.  I shadowed the Harbormaster to the Citadel to see if I could learn anything else about the strike, but all he did was sign tax documents. While I was there, though, Lady Overton came in, the Ducal Ambassador?  And I overheard her quarreling with Captain Black about the vampire. Lady Overton wants her to make a public confession in the Tylden Commons. Captain Black thinks that’s stupid, because she might use her vampire powers to escape if she’s brought out of the Citadel. Lady Overton says she didn’t escape when the paladins escorted her in, so she won’t escape if they escort her out. Captain Black demanded a reason and Lady Overton refused to give her one. It got a little heated.”

You are welcome to email me follow-up questions for Seven, otherwise you can just ruminate on that one.

Anything else that occurs to you, feel free to contact me. I'll contact you later this weekend with XP info.

Onward!