Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Lia has Sabastian look aorund from the air.
Owl perception: 17
Assuming nothing is found...
"Let us get inside, I think I can actually feel eyes on me ever since that dragon..." Lia says, glancing to the sky again and again.
"Good question, I never bothered to ask about that" replies Don-Jon "but I see no houses out here, so I would expect 'em to be inside. I was lucky to get a map telling me how to get here, the inside is unknown to me."
Rhok checks the area near the entrance and finds no reason to worry. Sabastian flies over the area and returns, a bit tired, reporting no dragons nearby.
You walk into the mines through the main entrance. An oil lantern hangs from a peg on the wall, illuminating a 15 by 15 feet room, two guards stand inside. They have humanoid bodies, but their head is that of a giant rat, their forearm are unusually hairy and have long tails.
The guards turn to you. One puts a hand over the pommel of a shortsword in his belt and speaks in common "halt! State your business here!" while the other grabs a hand crossbow and stays silent. Don-Jon looks at them and smiles "easy there mates, I'm Don-Jon Raskin, the new overseer. I'm sure that ..."
The guard with the sword interrupts him "overseer? we already have an overseer, Zeleen Varnaster, we can take you to her now."
OOC: You are entering the mines from the west. The room you are in has two closed doors in the south east corner, one leading east and one leading south. I'll be updating a map here (painting in grey the walkable areas, each square is 5 feet wide) and describing the path in text too.
Rhok looks at Don-Jon, "they have an overseer eh? Hope you have some legit paperwork showing your claim to the place"
Rhok speaks dwarvish, and listens if they guards try to say anything
Perception check 13
Currently playing: Rhok Skatu - Another Dragon at Icespire Peak
Lia frowns at the guards. She doesn't really care who works the mines, just that she is out from under that open sky for a bit.
"Why don't you go ahead and take us to this overseer of yours." She suggests. "I am sure the two of them can clear this up between them, overseer to overseer."
She sends Sabastian to his sanctum for a much needed rest, feeling less nervous with some solid earth above her head.
Lothlién doesn't say a word, but his face is the definition of confused. He nods in agreement with Lia, though
The guards nod and open the door leading west, you notice that the lock is completely rusted and no key was used. "Follow me" says the one that spoke before, the other one waits for you to pass the doorway and then follows. The doorway opens to a 25 feet long hallway, there is a branch going north about halfway, which the guards ignore. At the end is a 90 degree turn going south, and after 15 feet you find yourselves in a large room.
Pickaxes and shovels are stacked against the wall, along with other mining gear. There are six human looking people in this room, five men and one woman which seems to be in charge. The guard snickers as she introduces you "this one here says he's the new overseer, Zeleen". The woman looks at your group, as if measuring your strength and speaks "that may be a bit of an issue, we just moved here and this place seems comfortable enough to be our new home."
OOC: the room you are in (marked X on the map below) is 15 feet from north to south, and 30 feet wide. You entered from the northern wall near the center. There is a passage going south on the south west corner and another going east on the south east corner. The north east corner opens to a 25 by 15 feet room where you can see a few giant rats among some bags.
"Seems like that is something you guys need to work out between you." Lia says with a nod to the overseer they had escorted here. "We are just his escorts, the oversight of this place is between those who call it home and him..."
"May I ask where you came from, and how you find the mines, lady?" Lothlién asks politelly, trying to hide his suspiscious about the woman.
Rhok becomes instantly suspicious of this overseer, and is trying to see if there are any signs of a fight between the mine workers and this group
Perception check: 13
Currently playing: Rhok Skatu - Another Dragon at Icespire Peak
OOC: I forgot to reply to this one.
Tthe guards don't seem to recognize the language Rhok is speaking, but Don-Jon nods in agreement.
Don-Jon smiles and introduces himself to Zeleen "I'm sure that we can reach an agreement that would benefit us all. But you all would have to understand that I expect to be in charge of this mining operation."
Zeleen retorts sharply "mining operation? we're just trying to find a safe place to live."
Zeleen sighs and replies in a resigned tone "we used to live in an old shrine, south of the Conyberry ruins. Then orcs started to attack us, we repelled the first few attacks, but there were too many of them. So we abandoned the place and started wandering around. We happened to find this empty mine and no orcs have bothered us here."
Don-Jon looks at her and raises an eyebrow. He leans to Rhok and whispers in dwarvish "that sounds weird. The Blue Fox Miners hired me to supervise the miners here and assured me that there were over a dozen of them living here."
Rhok takes a look around. The mining tools against the wall are in good shape, they have not been abandoned here long enough to rust yet. There are sharp marks on the walls and floor, but you are not sure if those came from a fight or are normal for a mine. Your gut tells you that this Zeleen is hiding something from you.
"Orcs, huh? It seems like they're causing more trouble than usual..." Lothlién thinks out loud.
OOC: Would Lothlién know if the orcs attacks may be related to the Dragon in the area?
OOC: you have heard that orcs attacked Butterskull Ranch too, and the ranch is also close to Conyberry. Everything is close to the hills near the Sword Mountains and it seems that this orc activity is unusual for the area. It's up to you to know Lothlién's mind :)
"Abandoned huh?" Lia asks with a raised eyebrow herself. She shrugs though, glancing to the others. "Our job was to escort the overseer to the mine, we have done so." She sighs though, glancing to the leader of the mine's occupants. "I worry though that we might be leaving him in a bad situation here..."
Insight on leader... 9
Looking at the rest of the party, Rhok attempts to speak just to them in regards to seeing if Zeleen and her people would be willing to leave the mines if the Orc issue was taken care of, since it sounds like form one of the posted jobs that some Orc hunting was in order.
Rhok agrees that it might not be a good idea to leave Don-Jon by himself with these people
Currently playing: Rhok Skatu - Another Dragon at Icespire Peak
Lothlién answers Rhok out loud, talking to Zeleen: "We planned to hunt some orcs after coming escorting Don-Jon here. Maybe those are the same orcs that caused you trouble. If we get your old place rid of orcs, are you willing to go back there and leave the mines to its former owners - and supervised by our Don-Jon here?"
While he makes this proposal, he keeps in mind that it is too weird that the mine was "abandoned", and he's willing to look further into that, too. However, he thinks it's a good plan to try to solve one thing at a time, and to try and keep the friendly appearences towards Zeleen and her followers.
Rhok nods in agreement and adds "You say you found this mine empty, there should be dwarves living here, have you found any traces of them, or notes regarding where they could be?"
OOC Rhok would be trying to gauge their response to see if there is any deception. Perception/insight check?
Perception check: 5
Insight check: 8
Currently playing: Rhok Skatu - Another Dragon at Icespire Peak
Lia is a bit unease at the rat headed guards, but believes that their leader is telling the truth.
Zeleen smiles at the proposal "having the old shrine would be a lot better than these tunnels. If you clear them out we will leave this place." Don-Jon relaxes hearing her answer "sounds good to me too, I'd hate to make some refugees leave with no place to go."
Out of the corner of your eye, you believe the guards are getting tense and holding their weapons tightly. Before you can turn to make sure Zaleen speaks "I said that there was no one in here, but there are some graves outside, marked with pickaxes. They are easy to find, just go outside and keep the mountain to your right as you circle around it, the graves are on the other side."
"Hmm, odd that dwarves would bury their own outside, rather than under the mountain, how many graves did you say?..." Rhok trails off in his verbal thought, in Dwarvish, Rhok tells Don-Jon about the guards tenseness and to be cautious, recalling that there were supposed to be 15 working in these mines
Currently playing: Rhok Skatu - Another Dragon at Icespire Peak
As soon as everyone seems done interrogating Zeleen, Lothlién will ask his group and Don-Jon to talk in private for an instant.
"I guess we should try and get rid of those Orcs, and than come back here to look further into the disappearance of the miners... these are weird people, but I don't think a direct conflict is the best way to go. However, we have Don-Jon here with us, and I don't feel like leaving him here is alright. But it's dangerous to come along too... What do you think?" he asks to all, including Don-Jon himself
Xarroth has kept quiet so far, keeping an eye out to gauge his surroundings. He leans in and talks quietly.
"In truth I don't think these rats innocently scurried into these mines after being shaken out of their own homes..." The dragonborn then flinches at an idea, "unless the orcs came here first...?" He rubs his chin as he lets out a low rumbling growl in thought...