2022-11-12 Finding Granny
Player Characters
- Green
- Grey
- Pocket
- Tarhun
- Balasar
Summary
The party followed Starn's cryptic instructions into the woods.
While following, they were interrupted by a lost owlbear cub. Green talked to it by casting speak with animals, and learned that its family was attacked and scattered by a tall clawed monster.
The party followed the cub back to its family's thicket, where its mother was found clawed and decapitated. The group followed a larger trail of pawprints and helped the cub find its father. The grateful owlbear father gave the group some treasure from past humanoid prey, and told them about the Beast: a tall, frightening monster that attacked the family in the dark of the night. He then left to find his other two lost cubs.
Night fell. Despite the warning about the Beast, the party set up camp near the owlbears' thicket.
The forest became silent as the Beast approached the camp. The party was awake and ready for it, but it quickly dowsed all of their lights and conjured shadows to ensnare them. When Tarhun faerie fired it, it tensed up and fled, leaving them disheveled in their camp. The party retreated into the owlbears' thicket to pass the night.
From what the party saw, the beast was tall and humanoid in form, with devilish horns spiked by smaller horns, a canine face, a muscular furred body, dramatically long claws, and goatlike legs. It destroyed Grey's crow familiar with just a wave of its hand.
The next morning, the party resumed their journey to Granny's house. They found a hexagonal hut in the woods, surround by a thick circular hedge with multiple openings. A brambled rope of roses dotted the hedge, and several flower mounds within the hedge contained different colored roses.
Balasar knocked on the door. A hunched old human woman with a friendly smile welcomed them in for tea, introducing herself as Granny Myrna. She was already aware that Starn was dead, and was happy to have company again. She told how he would visit her from time to time before his passing. After serving the party tea, she offered to share her fortune telling abilities with the party if they would first help her by slaying some troublesome ogres nearby.
Grey's crow familiar spied on the other rooms of Granny's home, discovering a cauldron, alchemy lab, and a collection of disturbing trinkets such as a shrunken head and a variety of body parts in jars.
The party agreed to help, and eliminated both ogres. They took an eye and a tooth as proof.
They returned to Granny's hut. Delighed, she offered them a great-smelling home-cooked stew. Grey's familiar discovered that the meat was harvested from a dead elf, however. Balasar requested a vegetarian stew, and while Granny went to make it, the others emptied their bowls into the bag of holding they had found earlier.
The party chatted with Granny for a while. She told them about her lack of connection to the world outside the forest, her general mistrust of other forest/fey denizens, Starn's kindness and gold-cracked silver vase gift, her research into fire resistance potions that she watered her garden with (hence the rose that survived the fire), her encounter with the Beast, and her divination abilities.
Granny brought out her crystal ball and gave each character a personalized reading, providing cryptic hints about their destiny.
The party returned back to Salmund. Grey picked one rose on his way out of Granny's garden. Balasar brought the fire resistance potion recipe to the apothecary.
Tarhun brought the fallen star he had found earlier to Quasar for research. Together they tested its properties, confirming it had antimagic and energy-resistant effects. Quasar mentioned that he had created an item from a similar red crystal brought in earlier, which had enlightening/divining effects, and a green crystal that he had gradually destroyed but couldn't figure out. Tarhun performed tests on the green crystal's dust, and when he consumed a bit of it, discovered that he could briefly read Quasar's thoughts (with some help from Pocket).
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