A while back I posted a thread on here asking for help trying to figure out how to bring a recurring villain back after a mishap with the party. After 8 months, roughly 16 sessions later, I was finally able to bring the whole thing full circle and I wanted to give the people who helped a follow up. This is a summary of last Saturday's session, so I'm putting it in a spoiler to avoid a giant wall of text.
Previous thread TL;DR: In the thread the players had just lost their pet dog North during an attack by giant skeletons. They had no idea that this dog was actually a shape-shifted Druid by the name Gazmon, who is a villain that had shown up and caused problems for the party. He managed to escape with a cursed item that stopped him from reverting to his true form, and it was also part of a larger artifact that he was seeking to rebuild for nefarious purposes.
Saturday's summary:
Since that time the party learned that they were in possession of part of the artifact, and have been keeping it on them, in secret. They had traveled a great distance to the Dwarven kingdom of Iron Haven. While there they received a letter from a family they had saved close to a month earlier asking them to return as they had terribly important news for them. It was also a thank you note from the boy, Garnitt, that they had saved.
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The group asked their new guild member, Perrin, to help them, being the only person they felt they could trust. He is a Divination Wizard and wanted badly to prove himself useful to the group. With a casting of Locate Object they all noticed as the bone/artifact started to act like the needle on a compass, pointing in 4 different directions. They knew immediately that the druid cult was near and Perrin confirmed saying that the spell could find an object so long as it was within 1000 feet of them. The group set off to find the druids, hoping to take care of the threat.
They made their way toward one of the locations, which happened to be leading them out of Iron Haven. They wandered through the busy roads and found themselves at the enterance, where all was quiet, no one was in the courtyard, nor at the doors guarding. In the center of the courtyard was Garnitt, motionless except breathing and blinking. Aloxyis used her Awakened Mind to communicate with Garnitt and he responded to her prompts by blinking or stepping forward as she had asked. Nivarrah and Karrana began to approach him in the courtyard while Mushu, Aloxyis's psuedo dragon familiar, scouted the area from above. Mhurren, with his eagle vision scanned the immediate area from his vantage at the mouth of the door.
Feeling something was very wrong with this situation the group tried to stay safe and figure out what was wrong with Garnitt. Vistra, acting on a hunch, cast Dispel Magic and to the entire party's surprise they watched as Garnitt dropped to the ground sobbing. Nivarrah and Karrana rushed toward Garnitt and as they got half way to him an Earth Elemental rose from the ground picking up Garnitt in is hand. As the two women rushed to save Garnitt the Earth Elemental descended into the ground part way and began to retreat with the engulfed Garnitt still in it's clutches. Nivarrah got of a shot with her bow and struck the elemental in what would be the elbow, trying to make it drop Garnitt, to no avail. Mhurren launched a javelin at the creature, striking true but doing more damage to the javelin than the elemental. The elemental sunk further into the earth, grasping Garnitt in both it's arms, engulfing all but his head in the ground now.
Garnitt called out "Don't attack, he told me he'd kill me if you attacked!"
As the group readied themselves for what may happen next, Aloxyis reached out and touched the mind of the creature with Awakened Mind and realized she had touched this mind before. With a shocking revelation she knew the mind to belong to North, their missing dog. In a rage she called him traitor and commanded that he let go of Garnitt. Vistra, having just learned that her Ocarina was an artifact of lore and had amazing powers, used it to allow her to fly, and she bolted toward Garnitt. Karrana, being closer, acted by casting Freedom of Movement on Garnitt telling him he was no longer trapped. Vistra arrived moments later and used Dimension Door to take her and Garnitt to safety. A moment later the elemental submerged completely into the ground and rose again, a good distance from the party. In one final and heart wrenching moment, the party already stunned from realizing their missing animal friend was attacking Garnitt, the elemental shifted into the form of the Black Dragonborn Druid Gazmon.
The weight of the betrayal, the shock of the infiltration, and the realization of how much they had to lose was enough to get the entire party angry. (in real life and in game) As they let the realization sink in; Gazmon told them, unflinchingly, that they hand over the relic or the boy will die. The party showed no desire to negotiate as they crashed down on Gazmon with a fury, unleashing everything trying to take him down. A moment later a swarm of locusts appeared around Vistra and Garnitt, their perceived safety being shattered. Garnitt fell to the swarm of insects as a Half-Elf Druid stepped out from hiding. The fight was in a frenzy now, the group separated by the Half-Elf and Gazmon, and most of the attacks being directed toward Karrana. Gazmon knew that she had held the relic and he wanted her dead so he could reclaim it.
The group fought with all their might, and they were doing well, keeping the Half-Elf at bay while doing significant damage to Gazmon. Then, in one last moment of fear a third person showed up, another Black Dragonborn, this one a female. She spoke to Gazmon calling him "dear husband" and asking to have the bodies when all of this was over. She struck down Garnitt with a lightning bolt and as she did Gazmon showed his true power as he turned into a Fire Elemental and started wading through the party. As the fight started to look grim for the party Aloxyis made a terrible decision and told the rest of the party via Awakened Mind. She ran, she had taken the relic from Perrin, Karrana was not in possession of it as Gazmon had thought. The party, not wanting to let Gazmon have the relic, distracted the three opponents as Aloxyis, in tears (in real life too), ran from the combat as fast as she could.
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The session ended with the Half-Elf Druid dead, Karrana failing her 3rd death saving throw, Aloxyis over 300 feet away, the rest of the party unconscious, and Gazmon and his companion standing over them.
I want to thank the people in the previous post for helping me figure out how to get to this point. It was a hard night for all of us, I've never felt so conflicted, but when the night wrapped up the players were not upset about the end result. They were simply overwhelmed by the emotions of the session. I have about a month before I can play again, due to the holidays, but in the down time I plan on doing play by text as I plan on the next session happening after 2 weeks have passed in game. *Spoiler* Karrana's not dead...it's worse...
A while back I posted a thread on here asking for help trying to figure out how to bring a recurring villain back after a mishap with the party. After 8 months, roughly 16 sessions later, I was finally able to bring the whole thing full circle and I wanted to give the people who helped a follow up. This is a summary of last Saturday's session, so I'm putting it in a spoiler to avoid a giant wall of text.
Previous thread TL;DR:
In the thread the players had just lost their pet dog North during an attack by giant skeletons. They had no idea that this dog was actually a shape-shifted Druid by the name Gazmon, who is a villain that had shown up and caused problems for the party. He managed to escape with a cursed item that stopped him from reverting to his true form, and it was also part of a larger artifact that he was seeking to rebuild for nefarious purposes.
Saturday's summary:
Since that time the party learned that they were in possession of part of the artifact, and have been keeping it on them, in secret. They had traveled a great distance to the Dwarven kingdom of Iron Haven. While there they received a letter from a family they had saved close to a month earlier asking them to return as they had terribly important news for them. It was also a thank you note from the boy, Garnitt, that they had saved.
---
The group asked their new guild member, Perrin, to help them, being the only person they felt they could trust. He is a Divination Wizard and wanted badly to prove himself useful to the group. With a casting of Locate Object they all noticed as the bone/artifact started to act like the needle on a compass, pointing in 4 different directions. They knew immediately that the druid cult was near and Perrin confirmed saying that the spell could find an object so long as it was within 1000 feet of them. The group set off to find the druids, hoping to take care of the threat.
They made their way toward one of the locations, which happened to be leading them out of Iron Haven. They wandered through the busy roads and found themselves at the enterance, where all was quiet, no one was in the courtyard, nor at the doors guarding. In the center of the courtyard was Garnitt, motionless except breathing and blinking. Aloxyis used her Awakened Mind to communicate with Garnitt and he responded to her prompts by blinking or stepping forward as she had asked. Nivarrah and Karrana began to approach him in the courtyard while Mushu, Aloxyis's psuedo dragon familiar, scouted the area from above. Mhurren, with his eagle vision scanned the immediate area from his vantage at the mouth of the door.
Feeling something was very wrong with this situation the group tried to stay safe and figure out what was wrong with Garnitt. Vistra, acting on a hunch, cast Dispel Magic and to the entire party's surprise they watched as Garnitt dropped to the ground sobbing. Nivarrah and Karrana rushed toward Garnitt and as they got half way to him an Earth Elemental rose from the ground picking up Garnitt in is hand. As the two women rushed to save Garnitt the Earth Elemental descended into the ground part way and began to retreat with the engulfed Garnitt still in it's clutches. Nivarrah got of a shot with her bow and struck the elemental in what would be the elbow, trying to make it drop Garnitt, to no avail. Mhurren launched a javelin at the creature, striking true but doing more damage to the javelin than the elemental. The elemental sunk further into the earth, grasping Garnitt in both it's arms, engulfing all but his head in the ground now.
Garnitt called out "Don't attack, he told me he'd kill me if you attacked!"
As the group readied themselves for what may happen next, Aloxyis reached out and touched the mind of the creature with Awakened Mind and realized she had touched this mind before. With a shocking revelation she knew the mind to belong to North, their missing dog. In a rage she called him traitor and commanded that he let go of Garnitt. Vistra, having just learned that her Ocarina was an artifact of lore and had amazing powers, used it to allow her to fly, and she bolted toward Garnitt. Karrana, being closer, acted by casting Freedom of Movement on Garnitt telling him he was no longer trapped. Vistra arrived moments later and used Dimension Door to take her and Garnitt to safety. A moment later the elemental submerged completely into the ground and rose again, a good distance from the party. In one final and heart wrenching moment, the party already stunned from realizing their missing animal friend was attacking Garnitt, the elemental shifted into the form of the Black Dragonborn Druid Gazmon.
The weight of the betrayal, the shock of the infiltration, and the realization of how much they had to lose was enough to get the entire party angry. (in real life and in game) As they let the realization sink in; Gazmon told them, unflinchingly, that they hand over the relic or the boy will die. The party showed no desire to negotiate as they crashed down on Gazmon with a fury, unleashing everything trying to take him down. A moment later a swarm of locusts appeared around Vistra and Garnitt, their perceived safety being shattered. Garnitt fell to the swarm of insects as a Half-Elf Druid stepped out from hiding. The fight was in a frenzy now, the group separated by the Half-Elf and Gazmon, and most of the attacks being directed toward Karrana. Gazmon knew that she had held the relic and he wanted her dead so he could reclaim it.
The group fought with all their might, and they were doing well, keeping the Half-Elf at bay while doing significant damage to Gazmon. Then, in one last moment of fear a third person showed up, another Black Dragonborn, this one a female. She spoke to Gazmon calling him "dear husband" and asking to have the bodies when all of this was over. She struck down Garnitt with a lightning bolt and as she did Gazmon showed his true power as he turned into a Fire Elemental and started wading through the party. As the fight started to look grim for the party Aloxyis made a terrible decision and told the rest of the party via Awakened Mind. She ran, she had taken the relic from Perrin, Karrana was not in possession of it as Gazmon had thought. The party, not wanting to let Gazmon have the relic, distracted the three opponents as Aloxyis, in tears (in real life too), ran from the combat as fast as she could.
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The session ended with the Half-Elf Druid dead, Karrana failing her 3rd death saving throw, Aloxyis over 300 feet away, the rest of the party unconscious, and Gazmon and his companion standing over them.
I want to thank the people in the previous post for helping me figure out how to get to this point. It was a hard night for all of us, I've never felt so conflicted, but when the night wrapped up the players were not upset about the end result. They were simply overwhelmed by the emotions of the session. I have about a month before I can play again, due to the holidays, but in the down time I plan on doing play by text as I plan on the next session happening after 2 weeks have passed in game. *Spoiler* Karrana's not dead...it's worse...