First off, just a heads up, there’s not going to be a campaign diary next week (editor’s note- by “next week” I really mean “this week” since this was posted late. Whoops). I was very busy the last couple of weeks and wasn’t able to prep as much as I wanted and so the session has been pushed back, either one or two weeks depending on the players’ availability. If I think of something there might still be a blog post next week, but it’s probable that there won’t be. Anyway, on with the show.
You know the Ankheg the party found and avoided last session? Well, the behind the screen reason for that is that I just… forgot to print out the Ankheg stat block. I was super excited to run it, the players were super excited to fight it, and then I was looking through my stuff for the stat block and it just wasn’t there. The players were very gracious in having their characters decide to look through the rest of the area first.
One thing that I think has been missing from past games I’ve run that happened in this session is inter-party debate. I don’t quite understand why this was missing before or why it’s happening now, but twice now the players have spent quite a bit of time arguing over what to do about a particular situation. I love it! Maybe it’s happening because they have things in front of them that aren’t problems now, but represent potential problems in the future? And so there isn’t as much pressure to come to an immediate decision, and no one feels the need to act immediately before everyone has had their say? I’ll get back to you when (if) I figure it out.
An interesting thing about Allora being the only party member who can read Caerwyn’s journal is that it’s made Allora’s point of view about what’s in the journal the default point of view. I don’t know if it’s the player or the character doing this, but Allora is basically taking Caerwyn’s words at face value, and the thing is- she shouldn’t. Caerwyn has basically been driven mad by grief at this point, and he is not a reliable narrator or journaler.
Another thing about the journal that the players have assumed is that the journal – which is written in the present tense – is entirely about past events, which is not true. Most of it describes past events, but the third entry describes both past events and future plans. The human hovel isn’t something Caerwyn has already destroyed, it’s Hommlet, and Caerwyn was planning on destroying it. Depending on what the heroes decide to do once they capture him, he still might.
Going into the next session, there’s a good chance the players will finish out this adventure, but that depends on them. If they just grab Caerwyn’s unconscious body, kill the last ogre, and head back to Hommlet it could be done real quick, but that leaves 7 vine-zombie-humans and 1 vine-zombie-ankheg in the dungeon, plus a tied up Wode Elf in the moathouse. If the characters remember – I may or may not remind them – they might go handle some or all of those loose ends. They might also remember, and still just head back to Hommlet with Caerwyn. Depending on what combination of Caerwyn and his underlings survive, things could go very poorly indeed for Hommlet once the heroes depart. I suppose we’ll see how it goes.
Blog Steel! 
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