2023-06-17 Witch Doctor in the Umbral Bayou

• Date: 2023-06-17
• Region: The Haunted Realm - The Umbral Bayou
• Session #: 40

Player Characters

• Wiznt
• Val & Soonie
• Tarhun
• Amartherui
• Malivette

Summary

Wiznt used an orange primal crystal and borrowed knowledge on his headband of intellect. The result was that it fused into his head.

The party began in Gurdabin and traveled northward around the Shadowglade to reach the The Umbral Bayou without resistance.

Within the nocturnal darkness of the bayou, a light appeared. Tarhun identified it as a mischevious will-o-wisp. When it fled, the group followed it for a moment, then left it.

After wandering further through the murky water, multiple will-o-wisps and shadows appeared around them and attacked. After only one round of combat, the undead all vanished, and the party began to hear drums coming from somewhere.

Ahead, illuminating the dark, the party saw the witch doctor's camp. Glowing tealight candles hanging from ropes reached from tree to tree around it, and a single large tent sat in the middle on land. Hundreds of woodcarved totems of animals hung all over the place, and seemed to watch them as they approached. Within the tent, the witch doctor sat waiting in front of a large wooden trunk, which he used as a table.

The witch doctor introduced himself as Doctor Jha'kri. He invited the party to sit and chat, which they cautiously did.

• Jha'kri told the party that he was impressed with their handling of the wisps and shadows. He claimed he had full control over the Umbral Bayou, including who may enter or leave, and that death could not claim him there. Anyone who enters the swamp must play three of his games, and if they fail, he adds them to his collection of woodcarvings.
• Jha'kri wore a necklace containing the Howlpeak key, which was smaller than the others. He refused to let them hold it.
• The shaman offered tea to the party, but only Amar accepted.
• The doctor claimed that he could live forever, even if the rest of the world ended, thanks to the power of the Haunted Realm and his own magic. He stated he had control over both arcane and divine magic, and that spirits and souls are "made from the same stuff."
• Jha'kri admitted that he was no friend to the fiends of the world, who would gladly kill him if they could. Demons and devils seek to collect souls to become more powerful, and he had a large collection in his camp.
• Jha'kri told the party that when a person dies, their soul vanishes after a while, presumably sent to oblivion. Wiznt and Jha'kri philosophized a bit about oblivion and uniformity. The doctor taught Wiznt the guidance cantrip.
• Tarhun and the shaman exchanged facts about the ancient ones. Jha'kri had been to the howlpeak laboratory, and traveled the world long before coming to the bayou, and he knew a few tidbits about the world, its crystals, and the orbs of power.
• Jha'kri analyzed the party from their conversation, considering what animal shape he would carve for their soul totems if they failed.
• Malivette caught up to the party.
• Before starting the first game, the witch doctor required each character to draw two tarot cards: one for a boon, one for a bane. They did so, with the option to swap one pair.
• Per a card-bane compulsion, Tarhun gave Jha'kri a purple primal crystal as a gift, which the shaman appreciated.
  • The first challenge was to collect a rare, entrancing prismatic lily. The party followed a trail of fireflies, which led them to a deep slough with the flower in the center. A totem pole with eight lizard heads sat next to the pond.
  • As Val & Soonie ran across the water to collect the flower, a powerful hydra sprang out of it, five vicious heads ready to chomp on the characters. They fought and killed the hydra while Amartherui collected a bouquet of lilies from the hydra. The prismatic lilies were magically distracting, momentarily stunning him.
  • They returned to the witch doctor's camp. Jha'kri gave the party a B-, stating that they had missed a bonus puzzle in the encounter.
  • For game 2, the PCs were sent to appease four spirits, one of each elemental type. They followed a trail of fireflies to a totem pole with four faces, one of each elemental genies. All of them looked unhappy. Four firefly trails led away in different directions.
  • They followed one trail to find an area with multiple skulls impaled on spears protruding from the ground. One skull contained two topazes in the eyes.
  • An unhappy earth elemental with cracks and holes in its frontside rose up to attack the party. Malivette spoke to it, calmed it, and asked what was wrong. The stony golem lamented that it was missing parts of its insides. Wiznt sensed that the topazes were the golem's missing parts, and returned them into place. The earth elemental was grateful. Malivette asked it to enter a magic emerald he had, offering to carry it to a new and special home: a spirit forge. It accepted and lept into the gem.
  • The party followed another trail to find a murky, muddy water elemental lashing out. As it swam toward them to attack, they noticed trash inside its form. As the elemental reached Amartherui, he rapidly grabbed one piece of trash after another, pulling all the refuse out of it in a single round. The water elemental calmed down, and returned to the swamp.
  • The group followed a trail to find a particular stinky area of the swamp full of rotting vegetation. A foul-looking air elemental floated in the air, clearly agitated. Val carefully and stealthily swam around the elemental's vicinity, collecting all the gnat-infested rotting moss. It seemed like the air might need time for the stench to blow away, so the party left.
  • They followed the last trail into an especially moist, misty area of the swamp. Sitting in a small brazier on a tiny mud hill was a pathetically small fire elemental, desperately trying to survive on what little fuel it had left. Val gave it the dry moss from the air area, which it gladly consumed. It still needed to move out of the area, so Tarhun lifted its brazier and they began to carry it back to the earth area. As the brazier became too hot with the flame's growth, Malivette donned Val's oven mitts and carried it further, until they set it in a place where it would be happy.
  • Returning to the totem pole, the party saw that all four faces were happy. They returned to the witch doctor's campsite.
  • Amar and Val went ahead of the group. Per a card-bane compulsion, Val attempted to steal Tarhun's purple crystal back. The crystal sat on the trunk in plain sight of Jha'kri, so Amar tried to distract him. The shaman caught her, however, and took the crystal back. She tried again to steal a card from the tarot deck, but was caught again. The witch doctor told her to draw a new bane card to replace the theft one, so she did.
  • The witch doctor offered tea to the party once again, and invited them to rest in his tent for a moment. They chatted about the doctor's collection of soul trinkets and the ethics behind it; Jha'kri believed that it was better to exist in the prison of the totems than not to exist at all, and the party disagreed.
  • The doctor game them their third game: to collect mind moss, which enhances a person's feelings tenfold. They again followed the trail to it.
  • They found the spore-flaking moss in the split bough of a large mangrove. Amar collected some carefully, and found that it was only effective when he was very close to it. Tarhun sent Junior to collect the moss.
  • While Junior scraped the mind moss off the roots, four beholders approached the party from all directions. The party quickly destroyed them, and discovered that the exploding beholders were actually just gas spores.
  • Right as Junior finished collecting the mind moss, the real fight broke out: two archdruids rose from the mud, and multiple treants animated from nearby mangroves. Many needle blights also sprouted around the area.
  • The party fled from the fight, outrunning the treants, needle blights, and blights transformed into perytons by the animal shapes spell. They escaped and returned to the witch doctor's camp with mind moss in hand.
  • Jha'kri complimented the party on their cleverness, and took the moss from them. He granted them the right to leave the bayou. This isn't what the party came for, however, and Malivette demanded the witch doctor's howlpeak key. When he refused, Mal grabbed the shaman to threaten him. A fight began.
  • Jha'kri began the combat with a mighty meteor swarm spell, which badly battered the party. It destroyed his campsite as well, but it merely seemed to turn into smoke and vanished away. After the first round of combat, the witch doctor allowed the party one more chance to leave; they reluctantly decided to accept.
  • The party led the swamp, and began formulating plans to return later to claim the key again.
  
  
  

  

  "Behold the prismatic lily, the most beautiful living creation in all of Archestria. Its scintillating petals can fascinate even the cruelest of monsters." - Jha'kri