The Duke's Cattle Drive

From DQWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

Summary

Scribe Notes: Session - Spring 805
GM: Struan Judd
Level: Low.

Party:

Job: To travel with the Dukes cattle drive, travelling from Seagate to the Plains of Desai, to their Spring/Summer feeding grounds.

Payment: Standard wages plus any spoils along the way.

Other people of note

  • Hank - employer, Dukes head wrangler
  • Nightstalker - night guard elf
  • Justin - young boy of 13 or 14, family to Hank, learning the family trade
  • Cookie - caravan wagon driver, cook and Bo's owner
  • Bo, Cookie's big dog, which seems to spend all his time sleeping

Scribe Notes

  • Day 1, 1st of Thaw.
    • Equip for trip, buy riding gear, pack gear, have early night.
  • Day 2
    • Spend day at the base camp, meet the 1,000 head of cattle, other wranglers, get asigned horses. Get taught the basics of rope twirling/lassooing.
  • Day 3
    • First day of drive. Takes nearlly half an hour just to get all the cattle started. Travel with minor detours around fields of crops. Group rides ahead to check lay of land. Make planned camp spot.
  • Day 4
    • Second day of drive. Make it to the planned road we are to travel along to get to crossing spot, NW of Venture. We travel ahead to check things are clear. Encounter a caravan which warns us of a militia post up the road. We go warn them of cattle drive. Hear rumors of "something" coming out of Seacroft, maybe undead. Get advised to always be checking wagons, especially the undersides. Also get told about the goblin warbands out the way we are going. "There ain't no militia to come rescue ya". On trip back to drive, spot convoy of caravans on road, where the cattle will be crossing... while warning convoy, discover it is full of wounded from fighting, all heading for consecrated land before nightfall. Convoy speeds up. We warn drive, and the wranglers do some fine manouvering so drive slows enough so crossing doesn't snag the caravans.
  • Day 5
    • Third day of drive. Local militia from Guginir's Hope visit to warn us about rumors of solo undead in the area. We ride ahead of drive and check out travel path. Plan is for us to arrive at campsite early so we can kip before taking night watch. Early afternoon we reach the camp spot. While checking area we spot a farmhouse. Go and check it out. Abandoned, but horses are skittery. Check out 2 story building. Clear. Check ground cellar. Not clear. Disturbed dirt on floor. We dig. Zombie rises. We eventually kill the zombie but Sylvan gets infected by zombie goo, Eliza forgets she can cast spells, and Sylvan and Kelestra stop being able to talk. Lighting candles by magic is really tricky :) We head back to camp. Confab with Hannibal and Cookie. We need silver weapons and some healing, so head to Seacroft to organise gear. Arrange for weapons to be improved, borrow some, get checked out by local healers. Head back to camp.
  • Day 6
    • Fourth day of drive. We travel with wagon to new campsite which is over the border into Swithan's Pass. Once area is checked we head back to Seacroft to pick up silvered weapons. Come back, Eliza remembers she casts spells, do night watch.
  • Day 7
    • Fifth day of drive. Syvlan and Kelstra can talk again. Group takes a flank and help move cattle into the Pass. Make camp, find yummy bosenberries and big hole in the middle. Nightwalker thinks it's a bear cave, bear still sleeping. At night get woken to find there has been trouble. Arthur, one of the hands, has been knocked out by slingstone, and some cattle are missing. Help hurt Arthur, grab horses and follow cattle tracks into early morning of Day 8.
  • Day 8
    • On the path of whoever pinched a couple of the Dukes cattle. End up heading into a valley, spot house smoke fire. Get ambushed by the slingshot dudes. After much protecting ourselves in self defense, we subdue one of the ambushers but another dies. Take dude down to house, discover 3 families of settlers, duped into coming out here as settlers by someone that took all their money. They had pinched the cattle, as their promised settler stuff never had come. We warn them about the undead activities around in this area. They pack up and go home. We claim back the Dukes cattle and return them back to herd. Camp hasn't moved. Healer from Seacroft came to fix Arthur.
  • Day 9
    • Sixth day of drive. Travel more of the Pass. Boring day. Make camp.
  • Day 10
    • Seventh day of drive. Traveling along Pass. Eliza spots something in underbrush. We investigate. Goblins pop up in the brush. A shooting fisty-cuffs takes place. 4/5 goblins, 1 can do spells and 1 is very tall and wearing armour. Bo jumps into the fight after Cookie gets hit by a crossbow bolt and goes down like a sack of potatoes. Sadly the goblins wouldn't surrender so ended up killing all but 1. He we take for questioning.
  • Day 11
    • Eighth day of drive. We travel back to ambush site, let the goblin go, with stern warnings of leaving the cattle alone. Travel ahead of herd, check out possible dubious spots. Make camp.
  • Day 12
    • Ninth day of drive. Reaching the end of the Pass, and beginnings of the Plain of Desai. Make camp.
  • Day 13
    • Tenth day of drive. Head out in morning with wagon to go ahead to set up camp. Looking for suitable campsite. Around lunchtime we notice the area (ground, trees, grass etc) aren't looking so good. Hannibal checks the aura of the area and discovers someone has cast Scarring Terrain" on the area. Find only 1 suitable wet camp. Find one dubious spot and check it out. It's a cave leading into a natural reservoir of water, like a main downward tunnel/holding tank, with outcropping branch tunnels which funnel the water in to the main tank. Seems odd, each of the side funnels have landings so you can stand and look down, feels disturbingly not so natural... but we don't see anything suspicious so we head back and report out findings so it can be watched during the night.
  • Day 14
    • Eleventh day of drive. A special treat is planned. Herd travels and when we make camp Cookie digs a fire pit, kills a calf and starts preparing a feast. With the meat and other foods cooking, the smells draw a plains cat closer to the camp to check us out. Cat tries to take a swipe at the boy turning the spit. Cookie ends up giving Hannibal some raw meat, and he talks to the cat and draws it out of the camp and back into the trees. Hannibal does spend some time chatting to this talkative cat. Cat tells about a local group of cats which includes "She Queen" who can apparently summon cattle. This could be a problem. Feast, campfire songs, much fun. We head to bed early as we think the She Queen might cause trouble, and we were right. Cats spotted, we get woken, Hannibal does the "talk to felines" thing he can do, and finds where the howling comes from. This She Queen is summoning a cow. We try to snap the cattle out of it, but to no evail, and then we get jumped by cats. After much smack-down on the cats, they eventually run away. We retrieve the cow and head back. Seems there were other cats all around the herd, cat howling things like " hello silly humans, come out and chase me" distractions. The She Queen did have a lasting leaving remark, "I won't forget you!", to which Hannibal replied "and we won't forget you!"
  • Day 15
    • Twelfth day of drive. During breakfast Hannibal and I go have a chat to the talkative cat, Rawny, and ask if he will get into trouble about warning us... and through Hannibal ask if he would like to travel with us, and maybe be my companion/familiar. He says "yeah, cool!" and so when we leave there is a Plains cat trailing us :) We travel ahead, find a good swimming hole near a suitable camping site. Sit and wait for herd to arrive. I try fishing, lose 1 hook and catch 1 catfish. Rawny likes fish goobiles. I try the bonding spell but it seems there are too many distractions and doesn't meld properly.
  • Day 16
    • Wake up in the morning with 2 lumps keeping my feet warm. Seems Rawny has got friendly with Tinkerbell, Sylvan's companion "dog"... we head off to check route ahead, only travel for half an hour before getting called back. Seems something ran through the herd, scattering them every which way. We have to round up the herd and work out what the something is. Checking tracks and Rawny does some sniffing. It seems dogs ran through the herd, but they ran in a pattern, doing the most scattering, seems too organised for wild dogs. We circle around area and spot and overhang cutting, with old tracks leading into it.
  • Day 17
  • Day 18
  • Day 19
  • Day 20
  • Day 21
  • Day 22
  • Day 23
  • Day 24
  • Day 25
  • Day 26
  • Day 27
  • Day 28
  • Day 29
  • Day 30
  • Day 1, 1st of Seedtime
  • Day 2
  • Day 3
  • Day 4
  • Day 5
    • Back at Guild