Soar, the guard tells you that the home where Gwen is being lodged is on the edge of the village, and gives you directions how to get there. I assume that you will go there at some point in the day, and when you do, you can peek through a window and see Gwen playing happily with a group of elf children - they appear to be drawing lines to decorate flowerpots.
You will spend the rest of the day resting and acquiring some basic equipment. This is not a wealthy village, and this is not a good time, but there are plenty of grateful people who you rescued and brought back from the dragon's lair, and this is a strong community where they share their work and their debts.
So, there's no money involved, but they will give you each the equivalent of 150 gold's worth of equipment drawn from the Player's Handbook equipment lists for armour and shields, weapons, adventuring gear and tools. No magical items are available, and you can't pool your 'money' - you spend it on yourself only. You can find the lists here:
Separate to this, the village's herbalist has managed to prepare two common healing potions while you were away, and is willing to donate those to you at no cost, so decide who gets those.
Please post what you will take, with a total of 'cost' - remember this isn't actually money and you can't pocket the remainder! :)
Tangle scrounges and asks for and helps to fashion the following cobbled together equipment:
45 studded leather armor (she'll get someone to sew bars of metal onto leather armor) 10 shield 25 shortbow 25 rapier 4 2 daggers 1 quiver 1 20 arrows = 111 gp
25 thieves' tools (she'll cobble some together, work with people to fashion them, rather than find a kit for sale) 2 backpack 1 bedroll 2 clothes, traveler's 1 50' hempen rope .5 tinderbox .2 waterskin 5 10 days of rations = 36.7 gp
+111 above = 147.7 gp
If she can, she will try to find or fashion caltrops (she wants two bags of 20 each, for 2 gp for a total of 149.7 gp) but this is at DM discretion.
Soar does go right to check on Gwen. She asks if she is being treated well, and if she has remembered anything more about her life or how she got lost in the forest. She'll also ask the caretaker if they have learned anything about her background, or if anything odd has happened.
Otherwise she spends the day looking around, helping people clean up and go through old storerooms. She hits the jackpot when she finds the material possessions of what was once an orc raiding party. It has some severe, bedraggled, but functional chainmail, with an aesthetic that suits her but evidently none of the elves. Same with a shield that has a horrifying emblem featuring a skull that she spends (5gp worth of) time converting to a spell focus that aligns more with Kelemvor. The flail and battleaxe are also shoved at her to take away, and she suspects the raiding party's possessions prompts bad memories. She sees some bundles of arrows, also orc-made, and grabs them for Tangle, who is always counting arrows. She gets the rest from the warden's offices and other places the villagers take her to.
What you've all chosen is fine, I think. You can add to your equipment lists.
Please also confirm who's taking the healing potions.
Soar, Gwen is doing well, and says so. "It's nice here. People are kind. But I don't remember anything. Sorry." The adults around her haven't learned anything beyond what she likes and dislikes; she's a well-behaved, friendly child but they are concerned that she's hiding the unhappiness of remembering so little about herself, and one mentions that some of the children were talking about their families and Gwen became rather withdrawn - but only for an hour or so.
Soar at some point during the day, perhaps when they find some lunch or dinner, turns to Tangle.
“I am so ha-… well, I don’t know what I would have done if we couldn’t have gotten you back. This has been a bad time. I don’t want to return to Waterdeep with absolutely nothing. I see you want revenge, and for the first time, so do I. How do we get it without failing, or falling, again? I thought I knew so much, but it turns out I don’t. I’m kind of at a loss. You seem like you know what you’re doing. What’s your plan? Head to the lair again and watch? I don’t think we can take on a dragon again like this. But I think I could ruin the cultists’ day. I can locate object if we get close enough and confirm that something is there. Maybe I can convince my new pixie friend to scout things out to confirm the dragon is gone and the cultists are there… he seems sneaky. What else could we do?”
Tangle hesitates as Soar opens with some heartfelt words, but settles when she turns to tactics. “Could you use your magic to locate something the dragon would not leave without, to verify it is not in the lair? Something the elf would wear? Or something of ours they would prize. Perhaps your sword?”
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he). Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.
“The bag of holding, I have to think they would never leave without that. And inside it would be what the elf and the dragon prize. I don’t know if I’d be able to find anything inside the bag of holding. It’s, here and not here.”
Bazavur wanders the town in a haze trying to find suitable equipment. It takes a while to find armor that fits him but he does eventually manage to cobble together a functional albeit piecemeal suit of scalemail (50gp).
At one of the smithies in town he is offered a shield that wasn’t in good enough condition to sell but is told is still functional. As he takes a look at it, he notices what appears to be a sad face in the shield and is reminded of the one he lost. Bringing a small smile to his face. (Though the expression on the wooden shield doesn’t change) (10gp//60gp total) The blacksmith also offers him a variety of weapons that didn’t live up to the quality standards he has for goods he sells. He also acquires a glaive, great axe, pair of hand axes, and four javelins (with a quiver of sorts) (20+30+10+3(2+1 including quiver)=63gp for weapons//123 total)
Thanking the smithy for his time and generosity, Bazavur then moves on to find travel equipment. Finding a general goods store he is offered a rather battered and somewhat mildew smelling Explorers pack(10gp//134 total). The color wasn’t quite to Bazavur’s taste and the smell of course was… unpleasant, but beggars can rarely be choosers.
He also is given a pouch to hold the few things he needs to cast the spells he knows. (.5 gp//134.5) He puts a handful of candles in the pouch as well as a bit of mica (assuming that’s easy enough to find) and he acquires a set of playing cards. (I can’t think of anything else I want to add and that should be well under 150 gp. If anyone else wants to make suggestions for the remainder I’m open to them)
He is present for the conversation between Soar and Tangle though says nothing and has an absent/blank expression on his face as he idle shuffles the cards.
Soar looks up at Tangle and really peers into her eyes. She pauses, at a loss for words. She opens her mouth a few times and closes it a few times, and drops her fork. She looks down. “I… I don’t believe so. If I did, it wasn’t for but a minute. I fell, and I knew I’d fallen. Then things went black. Then I woke up, apparently a while later, in a cave in the back, relieved of everything except my clothes, next to Jalt, and with those elves looking at us, terrified. No. No. I didn’t die. I would know. I could have, and almost did. But I didn’t.”
She looks up. “What do you remember? You were dead for a day, at least.”
Tangle's face clouds up again, and the moment has passed. "Eladrin do not die, as mortals understand it. Our flesh ends, but our soul waits to be reborn. I do not remember it."
She gets up, dusts her hands off, clearly uncomfortable, and clears her place. "We should find Jalt and make a plan. I will be going back to the waterfall lair, leaving early in the morning. You are welcome to accompany me." She includes Bazavur in this. She holds up a hand to forestall comments, "I owe no allegiance to the council in Waterdeep and do not feel compelled to inform them of our actions. You may do as you like in that regard. As for the dragon, I plan to look for signs he has left. I am not fool enough to beard him in his lair again. Not... now."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he). Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.
Bazavur lets out a heavy and reluctant sigh as Tangle stands and makes ready to find Jalt. Clearly not enthusiastic about returning to the cave the group encountered the dragon, but is willing to go regardless.
Soar lets Tangle have the last word on the death conversation.
"I will be at your side, Tangle. A bit louder, and more cautious than normal, but I'll be there,"she says. She goes to find En (what have they been doing for the last day?) and asks what their plans are. She guilelessly explains her own, and would not deter them from joining, but she doesn't request it either. If they wish to join, she has a great scouting mission for them.
As far as a plan, she'd like to walk back to the area around the lair. She'd like to set up somewhere outside the cave, out of direct sight but with a view to the open canopy over the pool. She wants to be able to see a dragon come or go, but she doesn't want to be seen. Maybe in the rocks above the cave near the stream that feeds the waterfall, assuming there's a hillside of some kind, with some scrub and trees to screen them? So that they have a decent view of those coming in and out of the cave but aren't easily seen. That would be her preference, rather than chancing on a hiding spot in open view of the cave.
Once there, she'd cast locate object on the bag of holding. That would give more information and help build a plan of action. Goal is to engage the cultists there without the dragon. If they can observe the dragon leaving, confirm the dragon's absence with scouting, and/or use magic to confirm it's not there, then they either try a distraction/ruckus to draw cultists out in an ambush, or sneak in at night and try again.
(OOC: this was what Soar was hoping to do the first time, but the dragon was just inside the whole time we waited outside, so that was a failure. We know more now, but we have a lot less on our side than we did before. So being cautious is kind of critical here. Hence the tentative planning.)
Soar, you find En not far, never far from you, hovering and avoiding revealing themself to the elves. Successfully, or so it seems - no-one has mentioned that you have a pixie following you about.
"I'm going to follow. Perhaps I can find a way to help. Yes, I can make myself useful. I can't fight, but there are other things I can do. I think." They sound hesitant at first, as though trying to convince themself, but become more resolute as the words go on. "Yes, if you will have me, Lady Soar. And your companions, if they agree that I may join."
We will skip through the journey to the dragon's lair; you are able to retrace your steps with relative ease, and it seems the destruction you have wreaked - or perhaps something else - keeps enemies from your path. You rest overnight - the journey taking slightly longer than a single day's travel, and so Tangle and Bazavur each lose a single level of exhaustion.
It's mid morning when you approach the pool that guards the dragon's lair. There is no sign of anyone about; you haven't approached yet, but you definitely do not see a guard.
Soar casts Locate Object, revealing that there is no bag of holding nearby. Soar can make a Survival check to see what clues the surrounding area might reveal, with advantage as En will assist.
Soar does ask the group about En, if each one is okay with them traveling. She does try once, or twice, to see if En and Tangle might know anything related to the other about the Feywild. (The assumption being this is a total failure, among her cagey companions.)
She looks around and asks En for help to see what might be obvious about the area around the pool.
Survival (adv): 11 12
She also casts speak with animals to see if she can get a sense from the creatures that live around the pool what they've seen about a dragon or humans or elves coming in or out of the pool.
She asks En if they'd be small enough, or crafty enough, to remain unseen on a foray inside to see what they can see. She tries to get the group settled above the waterfall, out of sight of the pool.
“They are a pixie,” Tangle will say, with a shrug, nodding at En. “If they answer to anyone, it is only their queen, but seldom her. I do not know En.”
Arriving at the pool, Tangle watches was Soar and En look for tracks, or spoor, or something. Then she herself looks for signs the dragon has left, or that anyone has traveled through the pool recently.
Survival igl: 19
If she finds no sign, she will agree to settle and wait.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he). Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.
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Soar, the guard tells you that the home where Gwen is being lodged is on the edge of the village, and gives you directions how to get there. I assume that you will go there at some point in the day, and when you do, you can peek through a window and see Gwen playing happily with a group of elf children - they appear to be drawing lines to decorate flowerpots.
You will spend the rest of the day resting and acquiring some basic equipment. This is not a wealthy village, and this is not a good time, but there are plenty of grateful people who you rescued and brought back from the dragon's lair, and this is a strong community where they share their work and their debts.
So, there's no money involved, but they will give you each the equivalent of 150 gold's worth of equipment drawn from the Player's Handbook equipment lists for armour and shields, weapons, adventuring gear and tools. No magical items are available, and you can't pool your 'money' - you spend it on yourself only. You can find the lists here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/equipment#ArmorandShields and scroll down for the rest.
Separate to this, the village's herbalist has managed to prepare two common healing potions while you were away, and is willing to donate those to you at no cost, so decide who gets those.
Please post what you will take, with a total of 'cost' - remember this isn't actually money and you can't pocket the remainder! :)
Tangle scrounges and asks for and helps to fashion the following cobbled together equipment:
45 studded leather armor (she'll get someone to sew bars of metal onto leather armor)
10 shield
25 shortbow
25 rapier
4 2 daggers
1 quiver
1 20 arrows
= 111 gp
25 thieves' tools (she'll cobble some together, work with people to fashion them, rather than find a kit for sale)
2 backpack
1 bedroll
2 clothes, traveler's
1 50' hempen rope
.5 tinderbox
.2 waterskin
5 10 days of rations
= 36.7 gp
+111 above = 147.7 gp
If she can, she will try to find or fashion caltrops (she wants two bags of 20 each, for 2 gp for a total of 149.7 gp) but this is at DM discretion.
edit: woo! AC 18!
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he).
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.
Jalt will scrounge up the following...
chainmail 75 gp
shield 10 gp
warhammer 15 gp
holy symbol on shield by artisan 5 gold
Priest’s pack 19 gp
Hoard of the Dragon Queen - Jalt Rhogar - Dragonborn Cleric (9)
"Ive heard it both ways."
Soar does go right to check on Gwen. She asks if she is being treated well, and if she has remembered anything more about her life or how she got lost in the forest. She'll also ask the caretaker if they have learned anything about her background, or if anything odd has happened.
Otherwise she spends the day looking around, helping people clean up and go through old storerooms. She hits the jackpot when she finds the material possessions of what was once an orc raiding party. It has some severe, bedraggled, but functional chainmail, with an aesthetic that suits her but evidently none of the elves. Same with a shield that has a horrifying emblem featuring a skull that she spends (5gp worth of) time converting to a spell focus that aligns more with Kelemvor. The flail and battleaxe are also shoved at her to take away, and she suspects the raiding party's possessions prompts bad memories. She sees some bundles of arrows, also orc-made, and grabs them for Tangle, who is always counting arrows. She gets the rest from the warden's offices and other places the villagers take her to.
Chain mail 75gp
Shield 10gp
Emblem holy symbol on shield 5gp
Flail 10gp
Battleaxe 10gp
Whip 2gp
Javelin (2) 1gp
Arrows (4 packs) 4gp
Net 1gp
Backpack 2gp
Bedroll 1gp
Blanket 5sp
Caltrops 1gp
Chalk 1cp
Clothes 5sp
Fishing tackle 1gp
Flask (4) 8cp
Grappling hook 2gp
Mess kit 2sp
Oil (3 flasks) 3sp
Rations (10 days) 5gp
Waterskin 2sp
Silk rope 10gp
Hemp rope 1gp
Tent 2gp
Tinderbox 5sp
Torch 1cp
Vial 1gp
145gp 23sp 6cp = 147gp, 3 sp, 6 cp
(Let me know if this works and I'll add to inventory.)
What you've all chosen is fine, I think. You can add to your equipment lists.
Please also confirm who's taking the healing potions.
Soar, Gwen is doing well, and says so. "It's nice here. People are kind. But I don't remember anything. Sorry." The adults around her haven't learned anything beyond what she likes and dislikes; she's a well-behaved, friendly child but they are concerned that she's hiding the unhappiness of remembering so little about herself, and one mentions that some of the children were talking about their families and Gwen became rather withdrawn - but only for an hour or so.
(Soar will ask Jalt about the idea of casting greater restoration or remove curse on her, if he can.)
I think Tangle and Bazavur should talk potions, given they don't have as many healing options.
Will add those items to my inventory.
Soar at some point during the day, perhaps when they find some lunch or dinner, turns to Tangle.
“I am so ha-… well, I don’t know what I would have done if we couldn’t have gotten you back. This has been a bad time. I don’t want to return to Waterdeep with absolutely nothing. I see you want revenge, and for the first time, so do I. How do we get it without failing, or falling, again? I thought I knew so much, but it turns out I don’t. I’m kind of at a loss. You seem like you know what you’re doing. What’s your plan? Head to the lair again and watch? I don’t think we can take on a dragon again like this. But I think I could ruin the cultists’ day. I can locate object if we get close enough and confirm that something is there. Maybe I can convince my new pixie friend to scout things out to confirm the dragon is gone and the cultists are there… he seems sneaky. What else could we do?”
Tangle hesitates as Soar opens with some heartfelt words, but settles when she turns to tactics. “Could you use your magic to locate something the dragon would not leave without, to verify it is not in the lair? Something the elf would wear? Or something of ours they would prize. Perhaps your sword?”
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he).
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.
“The bag of holding, I have to think they would never leave without that. And inside it would be what the elf and the dragon prize. I don’t know if I’d be able to find anything inside the bag of holding. It’s, here and not here.”
Tangle shrugs, like she doesn’t care how it is done. “If the dragon is there, we should wait. But if it is not.” She leaves that hanging.
”Did you die, too?” That comes out of nowhere.
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he).
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.
Bazavur wanders the town in a haze trying to find suitable equipment. It takes a while to find armor that fits him but he does eventually manage to cobble together a functional albeit piecemeal suit of scalemail (50gp).
At one of the smithies in town he is offered a shield that wasn’t in good enough condition to sell but is told is still functional. As he takes a look at it, he notices what appears to be a sad face in the shield and is reminded of the one he lost. Bringing a small smile to his face. (Though the expression on the wooden shield doesn’t change) (10gp//60gp total) The blacksmith also offers him a variety of weapons that didn’t live up to the quality standards he has for goods he sells. He also acquires a glaive, great axe, pair of hand axes, and four javelins (with a quiver of sorts) (20+30+10+3(2+1 including quiver)=63gp for weapons//123 total)
Thanking the smithy for his time and generosity, Bazavur then moves on to find travel equipment. Finding a general goods store he is offered a rather battered and somewhat mildew smelling Explorers pack(10gp//134 total). The color wasn’t quite to Bazavur’s taste and the smell of course was… unpleasant, but beggars can rarely be choosers.
He also is given a pouch to hold the few things he needs to cast the spells he knows. (.5 gp//134.5) He puts a handful of candles in the pouch as well as a bit of mica (assuming that’s easy enough to find) and he acquires a set of playing cards. (I can’t think of anything else I want to add and that should be well under 150 gp. If anyone else wants to make suggestions for the remainder I’m open to them)
He is present for the conversation between Soar and Tangle though says nothing and has an absent/blank expression on his face as he idle shuffles the cards.
Soar looks up at Tangle and really peers into her eyes. She pauses, at a loss for words. She opens her mouth a few times and closes it a few times, and drops her fork. She looks down. “I… I don’t believe so. If I did, it wasn’t for but a minute. I fell, and I knew I’d fallen. Then things went black. Then I woke up, apparently a while later, in a cave in the back, relieved of everything except my clothes, next to Jalt, and with those elves looking at us, terrified. No. No. I didn’t die. I would know. I could have, and almost did. But I didn’t.”
She looks up. “What do you remember? You were dead for a day, at least.”
Soar also looks at Bazavur when she asks her question. Not expectantly, but with awareness.
Tangle's face clouds up again, and the moment has passed. "Eladrin do not die, as mortals understand it. Our flesh ends, but our soul waits to be reborn. I do not remember it."
She gets up, dusts her hands off, clearly uncomfortable, and clears her place. "We should find Jalt and make a plan. I will be going back to the waterfall lair, leaving early in the morning. You are welcome to accompany me." She includes Bazavur in this. She holds up a hand to forestall comments, "I owe no allegiance to the council in Waterdeep and do not feel compelled to inform them of our actions. You may do as you like in that regard. As for the dragon, I plan to look for signs he has left. I am not fool enough to beard him in his lair again. Not... now."
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he).
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.
Bazavur lets out a heavy and reluctant sigh as Tangle stands and makes ready to find Jalt. Clearly not enthusiastic about returning to the cave the group encountered the dragon, but is willing to go regardless.
Is there more to the conversation, or are you ready to head out? If you agree with Tangle's plan, that is...
Soar lets Tangle have the last word on the death conversation.
"I will be at your side, Tangle. A bit louder, and more cautious than normal, but I'll be there," she says. She goes to find En (what have they been doing for the last day?) and asks what their plans are. She guilelessly explains her own, and would not deter them from joining, but she doesn't request it either. If they wish to join, she has a great scouting mission for them.
As far as a plan, she'd like to walk back to the area around the lair. She'd like to set up somewhere outside the cave, out of direct sight but with a view to the open canopy over the pool. She wants to be able to see a dragon come or go, but she doesn't want to be seen. Maybe in the rocks above the cave near the stream that feeds the waterfall, assuming there's a hillside of some kind, with some scrub and trees to screen them? So that they have a decent view of those coming in and out of the cave but aren't easily seen. That would be her preference, rather than chancing on a hiding spot in open view of the cave.
Once there, she'd cast locate object on the bag of holding. That would give more information and help build a plan of action. Goal is to engage the cultists there without the dragon. If they can observe the dragon leaving, confirm the dragon's absence with scouting, and/or use magic to confirm it's not there, then they either try a distraction/ruckus to draw cultists out in an ambush, or sneak in at night and try again.
(OOC: this was what Soar was hoping to do the first time, but the dragon was just inside the whole time we waited outside, so that was a failure. We know more now, but we have a lot less on our side than we did before. So being cautious is kind of critical here. Hence the tentative planning.)
Soar, you find En not far, never far from you, hovering and avoiding revealing themself to the elves. Successfully, or so it seems - no-one has mentioned that you have a pixie following you about.
"I'm going to follow. Perhaps I can find a way to help. Yes, I can make myself useful. I can't fight, but there are other things I can do. I think." They sound hesitant at first, as though trying to convince themself, but become more resolute as the words go on. "Yes, if you will have me, Lady Soar. And your companions, if they agree that I may join."
We will skip through the journey to the dragon's lair; you are able to retrace your steps with relative ease, and it seems the destruction you have wreaked - or perhaps something else - keeps enemies from your path. You rest overnight - the journey taking slightly longer than a single day's travel, and so Tangle and Bazavur each lose a single level of exhaustion.
It's mid morning when you approach the pool that guards the dragon's lair. There is no sign of anyone about; you haven't approached yet, but you definitely do not see a guard.
Soar casts Locate Object, revealing that there is no bag of holding nearby. Soar can make a Survival check to see what clues the surrounding area might reveal, with advantage as En will assist.
Soar does ask the group about En, if each one is okay with them traveling. She does try once, or twice, to see if En and Tangle might know anything related to the other about the Feywild. (The assumption being this is a total failure, among her cagey companions.)
She looks around and asks En for help to see what might be obvious about the area around the pool.
Survival (adv):
1112She also casts speak with animals to see if she can get a sense from the creatures that live around the pool what they've seen about a dragon or humans or elves coming in or out of the pool.
She asks En if they'd be small enough, or crafty enough, to remain unseen on a foray inside to see what they can see. She tries to get the group settled above the waterfall, out of sight of the pool.
“They are a pixie,” Tangle will say, with a shrug, nodding at En. “If they answer to anyone, it is only their queen, but seldom her. I do not know En.”
Arriving at the pool, Tangle watches was Soar and En look for tracks, or spoor, or something. Then she herself looks for signs the dragon has left, or that anyone has traveled through the pool recently.
Survival igl: 19
If she finds no sign, she will agree to settle and wait.
ey/em/eirs, or they/them works, too (just not he).
Role-playing since that keep on those borderlands. I love it so.