You reach the trail without any additional complications, and march for the next two hours with 0 issues as the sun begins to set. Upon first thought of what exactly you are going to do to camp for the night, a nice-looking campsite magically appears in front of you, an evening meal already roasting on the campfire. Each of you has your own tent, decorated with symbols of your god and as you look inside of them, clearly you have been taken care of quite well, as the insides of each are quite lavish for a camp. Clearly, the gods want to ensure you are well-rested. As the sun sets and the night begins, the hills around you look serene and almost beautiful, despite the corruption and destruction you know has become a fundamental part of this land.
As you sit at camp for the night, what do you all do? Who stands watch for the night?
My rules about rests and watch:
Anyone not on watch takes a long rest
People on watch rest on how many people are on watch
1 person: No rest for that person
2+ people: Each person on watch takes a short rest
There's no immediate advantage to having more people than that on watch, although you can have more if you want
0 people can be on watch, but that could obviously have consequences if there turned out to be a danger and no one was watching for it. Still, 100% a risk you can take and could pan out if everyone really needs a long rest
People on watch roll perception. The exact number will only matter if there's some sort of obvious danger, but a Nat 1 will make that person incredibly paranoid and say up all night (get no rest) and Nat 20 will make that person feel incredibly relaxed even when on watch (get a long rest)
Any summons can only be on watch with the person who summoned them (mainly applies to Balthar and Koric at the moment). Balthar's perception can be used for the watch if Koric is on watch (i.e advantage on the roll)
Jade looks through the tent that is decorated with Tempus's symbol and is stunned by what has been provided for them. Once she gets her pack and everything settled, she joins others at the campfire, taking in the serenity of the scenery and enjoys the roast thoroughly.
"Has anyone traveled these roads before? Been anywhere near the mere? This is far from my home and anything I am familiar with. Though I must say, you all fought valiantly and I appreciate and look forward to our journey together."
When Soloth volunteers, she acknowledges him, "Thank you, I do look forward to a rest. Please wake me should the need arise." and with that, she retires to her tent.
Elandra check out the tent, and walks away with a smug smile on her face, "They certainly know how to treat a girl..."She joins Jade by the fire, pulling out her instruments again and occasionally breaks from the conversation to tune a string, or work at some part of the wood with the tip of her dagger. "As I mentioned, I've only passed it on the High Road... back when you could travel it without a boat. Though I've travelled the area a fair amount, it has always been between settlements, so I'm less than familiar with the mountain passes we must take."
"I'm happy to keep watch for the evening. I didn't have too hard a time in that fight, certainly came out of it better than some."
Liri looks around the magical campsite with a quiet sense of amazement. This was lavish compared to what she was used to, and she even felt a touch guilty at having been provided it, knowing how most people needed to scrape by these days. She stowed her pack in her tent and joined the others by the campfire.
At Jade's question she shook her head. "I travelled south from the Neverwinter woods with my people, but we kept much further to the east. I've not travelled this part of the land before now."
As Soloth and Elandra volunteer to keep watch, she nods. "Just wake me if you need me. I'm a light sleeper anyway."
Koric seems relieved at not having to stand watch. The night was never his friend -- at least, night in the wildreness -- though Balthar seemed to thrive in it. As he settles down to rest he suggests tells his familiar to keep watch and wake him if anything comes along.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
@All (assuming Lux will not be going on watch)
As Lux, Koric, Jade, and Liri rest calmly (long rest), Soloth and Elandra take turns watching over the camp for any danger. The landscape seems relatively calm at the moment, and you don't see anything that could obviously be a threat to the group (Elandra, still give me a perception check in case you get a nat 1 or nat 20). Both of you get a bit of rest (short rest) as you contemplate the highly eventful previous day and keep watch for any threats. Also, Koric, roll your new portent rolls for after the long rest.
As you all wake up in the morning, the lavish camp begins to vanish from beneath your feet, with the exception of breakfast neatly laid out for each of you near the now extinguished campfire. As you travel along the trail for the first part of the day, you notice the hills around you become rockier and more mountainous, and the grass becomes even more patchy than before. You've clearly come a long way from the Kryptgarden forest at this point, and you must be nearing the location of where the Mere was soon enough, although how far away that is exactly is unclear. Looking around, you all notice a large storm has formed over part of the mountains behind you. It seems oddly localized, its borders far clearer than you would expect for a naturally occurring storm. Whatever it is, it's pretty far off in the distance and you can't really make out anything going on in the landscape below it. There's also a large crag to your right, sticking out like a sore thumb among the much smaller hills that have populated the landscape thus far.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Koric rises from probably the best night's sleep 'in the field' that he has ever had. He was never particularly good at pitching tents nor cooking, and guarding usually just meant he ended the night feeling tired. But eight solid hours in a well-set tent, bookended by delicious meals...he didn't quite believe it. With a prayer of thanks to Mystra, he gets ready for the new day, and is ready to start walking early.
Koric Portent: 20 and 4
As they journey onward,he sends Balthar up in the air briefly to look at each of the areas of interest: the storm, the crag and to try to spot where the Mere might be.
As Bathar looks around, his eyes flash with pure arcane might for a split second, the power of Mystra flowing through you to him for only a moment, granting him sight far beyond just what his owl eyes can see normally. He looks out into the distance towards where the mere used to be, and while he can't see the location itself, he can see an aura of pure necromantic magic radiating across the landscape. The farther out he looks, the more powerful the aura gets. Clearly, the farther you travel the more undead forces you will likely encounter as the magic of what was once the Mere seeps into the hills
He then turns to the crag, flying higher in order to get a better look, and sees the ruins of a camp atop it. The same arcane power flashing through him for a moment, he can tell the camp is most certainly dwarven and that it was clearly ruined in some sort of combat, not just abandoned. What exactly happened here though is hard for him to make out without a closer examination, even with the incredible power he's been temporarily granted, but whatever did occur here appears to be relatively recent, although whatever the danger was has since passed
The pure arcane energy he was channeling for a moment then fades, and he turns to look at the storm behind you. To him, it looks not all that different from a normal storm, aside from the fact that it's almost as if it's been concentrated into a much more focused area and its power increased as a result. It's clearly magical, but any more information is hard to discern from this distance and without more magical prowess
Also, holy shit! Two nat 20's and one of them even also had a 19
As they sit their watch together, Soloth will hear Elandra murming to herself, strumming odd chords or small riffs on her lute, interspersed with a few notes on her pan flute. He hears a few of the words - "...though the ground did rumble and quake, the champions of the divine dis stand their ground, no fear in their hearts, weapons drawn without fumble, no nerves made them shake..." She is cleary composing a tale of their earlier enounter. Looking up she adds by way of explanation though in a far more solemn tone than you've heard her speak in so far, "We are walking towards the darkness, and every victory on our journey is a beacon of light that we should remember. A time will come when we might face more than we feel capable of surmounting, and that time may be different for each and every one of us. Remembering how we have got to that point and the difficulties we overcame to get there, in that moment, might be the difference between a heroic ballad, or a tragedy in verse."
As the morning breaks, the others rise to the sounds of Elandra's pan flute. Soloth will realise that they are melodies similar to the night before, though more formed, as though the pieces have been woven together into how they were meant to sound. "A fine morning to you all, Soloth and I should like to take credit for the plethora of options we have at our breakfast table, it does appear that we are the recipients of further divine offerings though. Kinda nice to be on the receiving side for a change heh? Might be that we won't even have to break camp and stow it all away."
Seeing Balthar fly back in from his scouting errand, Elandra waits to hear the report taking a moment to sit and drink some water. She rubs her calves and thighs, as used to walking as she was, the mountains took a lot more out of you with the steep slopes and craggy terrain forcing them all to work muscles that might have gone underused in recent times. Listening to Koric's report she pipes up, "I'd like to inspect this encampment. It might be that it was those gnolls we passed, or maybe there are other hostile forces in these mountains. Either way, I'd rather know more before continuing onwards."
... "I'd like to inspect this encampment. It might be that it was those gnolls we passed, or maybe there are other hostile forces in these mountains. Either way, I'd rather know more before continuing onwards."
Koric relays what he sees as he sees it to those nearby, then comes out of his trance. He looks around, getting his bearings again, before standing. It was always jarring jumping in and out of Balthar's mind. Familiar, yet still alien. He often wondered if he would ever get used to it.
He nods at Elandra's suggestion. "Aye; anyone who might be an ally in this land, is worth seeking out. They may know something of what has overtaken the Mere...or what lies ahead."
(( Yeah, two natural 20's is pretty amazing. Might have preferred them as portents tho! ))
As Jade listens to Koric's account and the idea of heading to the crag to investigate, she quietly eats her breakfast and takes it all in. Once finished, she gets up and says, "Agreed. Lets get a move on so we can figure out what is happening and get back to our agreed upontask."she then turns to Koric, "Can your little friend there lead the way?"
Lux wakes and exits the tent. "Thank you all for the rest to regain my spells. I will do my best to serve you all in the coming days." Turning to Elandra, "Agreed, we should investigate and seek them out."
As you sit on watch and slowly compose a song of the battle you emerged victorious from, you feel yourself grow more and more peaceful, feeling as restful as if you were laying back at camp sleeping peacefully. Due to that Nat 20, you get the benefits of a long rest instead of a short one
@All
Hearing Koric's words about the destroyed dwarven camp that Balthar saw, and spurred on by Elandra's advice, you all turn to try and find a way up the crag, which looks about 50 feet tall to all of you. As Balthar flitters around and looks for some way for you to get up, he finds a part of the rock face that has many more small outcroppings and handholds and therefore could likely be easilly climbed. Still, it is a hard journey to get on top of a crag this high up, even with this much more helpful pathway. Perhaps that's why the dwarves who camped here chose this spot in the first place. Anyone who wants to make it up needs to make a DC 10 Athletics check to make it up. Anyone who fails may risk taking fall damage
While waiting for you all to get up, Balthar flutters around the camp a bit more to get a closer look. He sees that the camp contains the ruins of two tents, and in the center is a large fireplace that has been long-since extinguished. Interestingly, although there was clearly some fighting going on at this camp and it has been mostly destroyed, there's no blood anywhere.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Looking at the climb ahead of them, Elandra drops her pack and pulls out pitons (4) and rope (50ft). "Maybe one of the more able climbers could lead the way and set these in place to help out. A nasty fall from that could do us some real harm, and we wouldn't want to spoil the day with something like that." She offers the equipment to whoever is willing to make the climb up. "There's always a good use for rope, don't ask about the pitons though." She winks at the last.
Elandra will let someone else take the lead, then make the ascent once the rope is secure.
Both of you climb up the trail with relative ease and arrive at the ruins of the camp. It looks pretty much the same as Balthar saw it: two ruined tents and an abandoned fireplace, and despite the clear signs of a struggle here, no obvious blood or remains. What do you do once you are up here? Is there anything specific you'd like to take a look at?
@All
You reach the trail without any additional complications, and march for the next two hours with 0 issues as the sun begins to set. Upon first thought of what exactly you are going to do to camp for the night, a nice-looking campsite magically appears in front of you, an evening meal already roasting on the campfire. Each of you has your own tent, decorated with symbols of your god and as you look inside of them, clearly you have been taken care of quite well, as the insides of each are quite lavish for a camp. Clearly, the gods want to ensure you are well-rested. As the sun sets and the night begins, the hills around you look serene and almost beautiful, despite the corruption and destruction you know has become a fundamental part of this land.
As you sit at camp for the night, what do you all do? Who stands watch for the night?
My rules about rests and watch:
Jade looks through the tent that is decorated with Tempus's symbol and is stunned by what has been provided for them. Once she gets her pack and everything settled, she joins others at the campfire, taking in the serenity of the scenery and enjoys the roast thoroughly.
"Has anyone traveled these roads before? Been anywhere near the mere? This is far from my home and anything I am familiar with. Though I must say, you all fought valiantly and I appreciate and look forward to our journey together."
When Soloth volunteers, she acknowledges him, "Thank you, I do look forward to a rest. Please wake me should the need arise." and with that, she retires to her tent.
Elandra check out the tent, and walks away with a smug smile on her face, "They certainly know how to treat a girl..." She joins Jade by the fire, pulling out her instruments again and occasionally breaks from the conversation to tune a string, or work at some part of the wood with the tip of her dagger. "As I mentioned, I've only passed it on the High Road... back when you could travel it without a boat. Though I've travelled the area a fair amount, it has always been between settlements, so I'm less than familiar with the mountain passes we must take."
"I'm happy to keep watch for the evening. I didn't have too hard a time in that fight, certainly came out of it better than some."
Bring out your inner chatacter class...
Liri looks around the magical campsite with a quiet sense of amazement. This was lavish compared to what she was used to, and she even felt a touch guilty at having been provided it, knowing how most people needed to scrape by these days. She stowed her pack in her tent and joined the others by the campfire.
At Jade's question she shook her head. "I travelled south from the Neverwinter woods with my people, but we kept much further to the east. I've not travelled this part of the land before now."
As Soloth and Elandra volunteer to keep watch, she nods. "Just wake me if you need me. I'm a light sleeper anyway."
Koric seems relieved at not having to stand watch. The night was never his friend -- at least, night in the wildreness -- though Balthar seemed to thrive in it. As he settles down to rest he suggests tells his familiar to keep watch and wake him if anything comes along.
@All (assuming Lux will not be going on watch)
As Lux, Koric, Jade, and Liri rest calmly (long rest), Soloth and Elandra take turns watching over the camp for any danger. The landscape seems relatively calm at the moment, and you don't see anything that could obviously be a threat to the group (Elandra, still give me a perception check in case you get a nat 1 or nat 20). Both of you get a bit of rest (short rest) as you contemplate the highly eventful previous day and keep watch for any threats. Also, Koric, roll your new portent rolls for after the long rest.
As you all wake up in the morning, the lavish camp begins to vanish from beneath your feet, with the exception of breakfast neatly laid out for each of you near the now extinguished campfire. As you travel along the trail for the first part of the day, you notice the hills around you become rockier and more mountainous, and the grass becomes even more patchy than before. You've clearly come a long way from the Kryptgarden forest at this point, and you must be nearing the location of where the Mere was soon enough, although how far away that is exactly is unclear. Looking around, you all notice a large storm has formed over part of the mountains behind you. It seems oddly localized, its borders far clearer than you would expect for a naturally occurring storm. Whatever it is, it's pretty far off in the distance and you can't really make out anything going on in the landscape below it. There's also a large crag to your right, sticking out like a sore thumb among the much smaller hills that have populated the landscape thus far.
Random Encounter Roll: 4
Koric rises from probably the best night's sleep 'in the field' that he has ever had. He was never particularly good at pitching tents nor cooking, and guarding usually just meant he ended the night feeling tired. But eight solid hours in a well-set tent, bookended by delicious meals...he didn't quite believe it. With a prayer of thanks to Mystra, he gets ready for the new day, and is ready to start walking early.
Koric Portent: 20 and 4
As they journey onward,he sends Balthar up in the air briefly to look at each of the areas of interest: the storm, the crag and to try to spot where the Mere might be.
Perception (storm): 15
Perception (crag): 14
Perception (mere): 13
@Koric
As Bathar looks around, his eyes flash with pure arcane might for a split second, the power of Mystra flowing through you to him for only a moment, granting him sight far beyond just what his owl eyes can see normally. He looks out into the distance towards where the mere used to be, and while he can't see the location itself, he can see an aura of pure necromantic magic radiating across the landscape. The farther out he looks, the more powerful the aura gets. Clearly, the farther you travel the more undead forces you will likely encounter as the magic of what was once the Mere seeps into the hills
He then turns to the crag, flying higher in order to get a better look, and sees the ruins of a camp atop it. The same arcane power flashing through him for a moment, he can tell the camp is most certainly dwarven and that it was clearly ruined in some sort of combat, not just abandoned. What exactly happened here though is hard for him to make out without a closer examination, even with the incredible power he's been temporarily granted, but whatever did occur here appears to be relatively recent, although whatever the danger was has since passed
The pure arcane energy he was channeling for a moment then fades, and he turns to look at the storm behind you. To him, it looks not all that different from a normal storm, aside from the fact that it's almost as if it's been concentrated into a much more focused area and its power increased as a result. It's clearly magical, but any more information is hard to discern from this distance and without more magical prowess
Also, holy shit! Two nat 20's and one of them even also had a 19
Perception: 25
As they sit their watch together, Soloth will hear Elandra murming to herself, strumming odd chords or small riffs on her lute, interspersed with a few notes on her pan flute. He hears a few of the words - "...though the ground did rumble and quake, the champions of the divine dis stand their ground, no fear in their hearts, weapons drawn without fumble, no nerves made them shake..." She is cleary composing a tale of their earlier enounter. Looking up she adds by way of explanation though in a far more solemn tone than you've heard her speak in so far, "We are walking towards the darkness, and every victory on our journey is a beacon of light that we should remember. A time will come when we might face more than we feel capable of surmounting, and that time may be different for each and every one of us. Remembering how we have got to that point and the difficulties we overcame to get there, in that moment, might be the difference between a heroic ballad, or a tragedy in verse."
As the morning breaks, the others rise to the sounds of Elandra's pan flute. Soloth will realise that they are melodies similar to the night before, though more formed, as though the pieces have been woven together into how they were meant to sound. "A fine morning to you all, Soloth and I should like to take credit for the plethora of options we have at our breakfast table, it does appear that we are the recipients of further divine offerings though. Kinda nice to be on the receiving side for a change heh? Might be that we won't even have to break camp and stow it all away."
Seeing Balthar fly back in from his scouting errand, Elandra waits to hear the report taking a moment to sit and drink some water. She rubs her calves and thighs, as used to walking as she was, the mountains took a lot more out of you with the steep slopes and craggy terrain forcing them all to work muscles that might have gone underused in recent times. Listening to Koric's report she pipes up, "I'd like to inspect this encampment. It might be that it was those gnolls we passed, or maybe there are other hostile forces in these mountains. Either way, I'd rather know more before continuing onwards."
Bring out your inner chatacter class...
Koric relays what he sees as he sees it to those nearby, then comes out of his trance. He looks around, getting his bearings again, before standing. It was always jarring jumping in and out of Balthar's mind. Familiar, yet still alien. He often wondered if he would ever get used to it.
He nods at Elandra's suggestion. "Aye; anyone who might be an ally in this land, is worth seeking out. They may know something of what has overtaken the Mere...or what lies ahead."
(( Yeah, two natural 20's is pretty amazing. Might have preferred them as portents tho! ))
As Jade listens to Koric's account and the idea of heading to the crag to investigate, she quietly eats her breakfast and takes it all in. Once finished, she gets up and says, "Agreed. Lets get a move on so we can figure out what is happening and get back to our agreed upon task." she then turns to Koric, "Can your little friend there lead the way?"
Lux wakes and exits the tent. "Thank you all for the rest to regain my spells. I will do my best to serve you all in the coming days." Turning to Elandra, "Agreed, we should investigate and seek them out."
D&D since 1984
@Elandra
As you sit on watch and slowly compose a song of the battle you emerged victorious from, you feel yourself grow more and more peaceful, feeling as restful as if you were laying back at camp sleeping peacefully. Due to that Nat 20, you get the benefits of a long rest instead of a short one
@All
Hearing Koric's words about the destroyed dwarven camp that Balthar saw, and spurred on by Elandra's advice, you all turn to try and find a way up the crag, which looks about 50 feet tall to all of you. As Balthar flitters around and looks for some way for you to get up, he finds a part of the rock face that has many more small outcroppings and handholds and therefore could likely be easilly climbed. Still, it is a hard journey to get on top of a crag this high up, even with this much more helpful pathway. Perhaps that's why the dwarves who camped here chose this spot in the first place. Anyone who wants to make it up needs to make a DC 10 Athletics check to make it up. Anyone who fails may risk taking fall damage
While waiting for you all to get up, Balthar flutters around the camp a bit more to get a closer look. He sees that the camp contains the ruins of two tents, and in the center is a large fireplace that has been long-since extinguished. Interestingly, although there was clearly some fighting going on at this camp and it has been mostly destroyed, there's no blood anywhere.
Jade continues up the path laid out by Balthar
Athletics 14
Lux follows up the path.
Athletics: 17
D&D since 1984
Looking at the climb ahead of them, Elandra drops her pack and pulls out pitons (4) and rope (50ft). "Maybe one of the more able climbers could lead the way and set these in place to help out. A nasty fall from that could do us some real harm, and we wouldn't want to spoil the day with something like that." She offers the equipment to whoever is willing to make the climb up. "There's always a good use for rope, don't ask about the pitons though." She winks at the last.
Elandra will let someone else take the lead, then make the ascent once the rope is secure.
Athletics: 8
Bring out your inner chatacter class...
@Jade and Lux
Both of you climb up the trail with relative ease and arrive at the ruins of the camp. It looks pretty much the same as Balthar saw it: two ruined tents and an abandoned fireplace, and despite the clear signs of a struggle here, no obvious blood or remains. What do you do once you are up here? Is there anything specific you'd like to take a look at?
Jade will gladly tie off the rope using the pitons and throw it down for the rest to use. (Would they now get advantage to their checks?)