OttD Session 40: Game of Boats Part 2 - An Almalgamation of Confrontation

General Summary

Adoven Verdonnet, with his player still absent, is still asleep in Barry the Airship. He cannot be roused by any means. A medicine check reveals he has an elevated heart rate and his muscles are tense. Zerrof does some analysis on the arcane crystal they found earlier. It is an arcane device but appears to have divine origins. He and Vun Roade hook it up to Barry the Airship. This does not restore the capability of flight, but it does provide enough engine power to effectively turn Barry into an oversized motorboat.
The group has consumed a day's worth of food, and currently has five rations remaining. They set sail again, still in raging storm waters. Pestle is training Zerrof in the ways of boating as they go. After a few hours, Pestle spots movement under water and Zerrof goes to investigate. There is a small clownfish in the water, which Zerrof interrogates. The fish directs them westward, towards other boats.
The party therefore sails westward, and find two ships stopped nearby each other. As they approach, they gradually learn more information. One ship is The Crescendo, (Penguin's ferryboat), and the other is The Greyhound. Both have green flags raised, and two humanoids can be seen negotiating on the deck of The Crescendo. Zerrof dives underwater to make a stealthy approach while the others slowly sail towards them.
As Barry the Airship approaches, the two negotiating figures are revealed to be Mama Bear and Aria. The party debates what to do at length.  While an alliance would be great at some point the party will have to fight both parties, so it might be advantageous to attack Aria while her father is still sleeping below decks.  The following conversation ensues:

Tornac: I don't think attacking Aria is in our best interest
Pestle: I think you're going soft, Tornac.

Eventually they settle on a plan.  Zerrof spots another clownfish underwater and convinces it to help serve as a lookout.  The plan is to hold peaceful negotiations while Zerrof casts a fabricate ritual to produce giant holes in one of the ships as they depart.  As the party approaches,  Mama Bear is seen drinking blood from Aria in exchange for some food. The party is spotted just as that negotiation is completed, and Aria trains a gun on them. The party quickly hoists a green flag, which seems to placate the others, and they are allowed to approach.  Upon arrival, Pestle notices that both Aria and Mama Bear are now associated with teams.
After a fair amount of back and forth, the party agrees to trade Mama Bear two pints of Adoven Verdonnet's blood for two rations worth of food.  She boards Barry the Airship and Vun Roade hauls the sleeping bard up so he can make his "donation" to the cause.  (mechanically, this results in Adoven Verdonnet losing six hit dice). 
While this is happening, Tornac puts his axe down on the deck of The Crescendo and goes to talk to Aria.  With some persuasion he manages to board The Greyhound, where he tries to make small talk and pick her pocket.  The pickpocketing fails spectacularly, so Tornac explains that Penguin has commanded him to obtain her music box.  Tornac also claims not to know why he needs it.  He tries multiple times to convince her to part ways with it, but when this proves unsuccessful he draws his other axe and attacks Aria.
It is at this point that all hell breaks loose.  Mama Bear extricates herself from Barry the Airship and begins rushing towards The Greyhound.  Tornac and Aria trade blows.  Nihilo, having beaten an earlier stealth check from Zerrof, uses dimension door to appear adjacent to Zerrof and promptly clamps Aliquid onto his head, rendering Zerrof stunned until the grapple ends.  It turns out he and Aria have teamed up.  Pestle persuades Mama Bear to assist in the fight against Aria, but she insists on obtaining the same music box that Tornac is after.  Edward DuThane, a vampire on the same team as Mama Bear, comes up on the deck of The Crescendo and rushes to assist the attack on Aria.
During the next round of combat, there is another "new arrival".  The clownfish Zerrof had previously convinced to take lookout reveals itself to be Sconce in wild shape, then attacks both Zerrof and Nihilo.  Another round after that his wife Madani arrives, having cast shapechange to turn into a Leviathan.  She creates a massive tidal wave, dealing massive damage to everyone above water.  This results in over 200 damage spread across the many combatants.  
Aria is in terrible shape, and Tornac insists she not be killed until he retrieves the music box.  Pestle flagrantly disregards this request, and kills Aria by dragging her through a wall of thorns with a grasping vine.  This enrages Tornac, who attacks Pestle on his following turn using eldritch blast before Mama Bear shouts at him and snaps him out of it.  Aria's death also causes Nihilo to disappear, since he was on the same team, thus freeing Zerrof to engage in combat again.
The party, with assistance from Mama Bear and Edward DuThane, eventually manage to defeat Sconce, although this takes considerable time and effort.  The tipping point is when Mama Bear uses divine intervention to banish Madani from the fight so that she stops throwing heals on her husband.
After the fight, the party parts ways peacefully with their newfound allies.  They rest for some time as the storm subsides, only to spot The Crescendo approaching in the distance, with a green flag raised.  It seems that, even though they departed in opposite directions, the The Crescendo has turned around and is rushing back towards them.  They debate this for some time, but as they begin to form battle plans two massive tentacles emerge from the ocean and obliterate The Crescendo.  Zerrof immediately recognizes the aggressor: it appears to be a Kraken, the same creature that destroyed Neprius.  The session ends there as the party attempts to flee.
A little extra flavor text is provided during post-game chatter, since Zerrof would know all about krakens.  They are massive primordial beings, and the monster manual describes them thusly:

At the beginning of time, krakens served as fierce warriors of the gods. When the gods' wars ended, the krakens shrugged free of their servitude, never again to be bound by other beings. Whole nations quake in fear when the kraken emerges from its dark demesne, and even in the middle of the deepest oceans, storms rise or abate according to its will. The kraken is a primeval force that obliterates the greatest achievements of civilization as if they were castles in the sand. Its devastating attacks can destroy ocean trade and halt communication between coastal cities.

Report Date

12 Mar 2020