The Autumn Wolves: Difference between revisions

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The Wilderness
The Wilderness
* The Dark One - A pure black Dire Wolf, co-leader of a local Dire-Wolf pack, follower of the Moon Goddess, and guardian of some of the local wolf packs.
* The Dark One - A pure black Dire Wolf, co-leader of a local Dire-Wolf pack, follower of the Moon Goddess, and guardian of some of the local wolf packs.
* Silver - Respected senior wolf.
* Timber, Willow, Phantom, Midnight, Lightning - Champions of five of the wolf packs
* Timber, Willow, Phantom, Midnight, Lightning - Champions of five of the wolf packs



Revision as of 01:03, 22 April 2021

Scribe Notes

Summary

GM: Anne
Season: Autumn 821 WK
Night: Wednesday
Location: Massey
Level: Low

Party
  1. Mo - Bunny EnE Played by Michael
  2. Arcadia - Bunny Celestial Star Played by Kita
  3. Caliope - Bunny Bard Played by Helen
  4. Flayre - Celestial Dark Played by Annuskha
  5. Grimmuck Fire Mage Played by Beth
  6. Kurt - Earth Mage Played by Bernard
  7. Titanius - Bunny Celestial Solar played by Liam
Employer

The Bolton Bay Estate on Behalf of the Plains of Desai Cattle Ranchers

Mission

To aid in the safe travel of a Cattle drive through currently wolf ridden trail

Pay

3,000sp each

Scribe Notes

Significant People & Places

The Ranchers

  • Samuel - Son of Derrick, owner of a Northern Ranch - Earth Adept
  • Curly - Trail Boss
  • Jeff - Senior Trail hand - Cattle Thief and Earth Adept with special abilities.
  • T.R. - Senior Trail hand
  • Cookie - Trail cook

The Wilderness

  • The Dark One - A pure black Dire Wolf, co-leader of a local Dire-Wolf pack, follower of the Moon Goddess, and guardian of some of the local wolf packs.
  • Silver - Respected senior wolf.
  • Timber, Willow, Phantom, Midnight, Lightning - Champions of five of the wolf packs

Session 1

Day 1: Starting our journey.

We arrive in Guild Meeting Room 3, a burly man in black explains to the party that; The Lady knight of Bolton manor, Lady Thorn, in charge of the Planes of Desai cattle ranch has tasked the party with dealing with Wolves due south. They are attacking cattle during migration, The ranch hands and cattle handlers have Rangers and Beastmasters to deal with Wolves regularly, but new large numbers in the past 2 weeks mean that they require aid. We are going to help move cattle to market, they need help escorting to ensure the cattle's survival. He presents the party with our guild contracts and introduces us all to a well-dressed man looking very upper class, adorned in a blue and green tabard featuring the Bolton manor crest, who gives us further details as to what to expect and who we will be working alongside. Flair is designated the party leader.

We are going to be guiding roughly 1 to 2 thousand cattle, moving them to winter ranch for market sale. All cattle are going to be moved at once and we will receive help driving them. Our job is to protect the cattle, as the boys who usually do this job are being overwhelmed. They are usually moved via ship or portal, not possible this time due to the dangers. The payment offered is 3 thousand SP each, additionally, we will also be provided reasonable payment for "accepted prep" which can cover the cost of Greaters or Lessers if they don't cost too much. The party is expecting a boat to Bolton manor wherein we can take our own horses. Horses can be covered via the workers and ranchers but will be needed to be returned. We opt. instead to rent horses from the Guilds' stables. The well-dressed man Bolton manor man will be in a high-end inn by the docks. We will be sailing in 2 days and depart in the morning, he will meet us there.

Roughly mid-day we head to the stables, where we find 3 boys running around. An older looking stablemaster greets us, Kurt takes the talking lead and 6 warhorses given without issue, paid for by the Guild. Four are mottled brown, one is black and the last is red-ish brown. Seeing as some members were still a bit new to riding and horse prep, we were given a crash course in applying a horse bridle and saddle. With the rental horses acquired, Kurt casts speedy horse magic and we depart heading to Kurt's place. Along the way, Grimmuck falls off his horse suffering a few scrapes and bruises. After roughly 3 hours of travel we arrive.

Kurt has a forest and a farm to himself, he offers the party a good meal and a place to sleep. After he sacrifices a pig, we end up exchanging a few stories by the fireside, the most interesting being how Kurt briefly became a god before our current Wolf hunt. After explaining how he currently has limited use of his magics without causing some crazy side effects, we also discover that he may be being tracked by a Demonic Bard and will need to obtain Hypericum Amulets from "Slippery Rock" for safety, it should only be an hours travel there.

We rest for the night.

Day 2: Supply run.

We travel an hour on horseback from Kurt's farm to get amulets for everyone, and from there another 3 hours on speedy horseback to collect silvered weapons from the Guild blacksmith. Although we had some silvered weapons amongst the party it is decided that we should all have our main weapons silvered for ease of use in combat. As well as some General provisions for our journey.

New things:

  • +1 Hypericum amulet to each party member, sans Kurt who already had one.
  • +1 silvered weapon to each party member.

After obtaining our supplies we rode back to Kurt's farm and rested for the night again.

Day 3: The Cattle Cookie.

Some time around 4 am Kurt heads off before the party to go to the Guild docks as the sun rises. the rest of the party awake soon after and follow behind him. Kurt arrives at the docks and spots the shop we are to embark upon - the "Cattle Cookie", captained by Earl. We all group up dockside as morning sets in and meet up with the well dressed Bolton man, handing him the supplies bill to parse onto the Guild accountants.

We set sail on the Cattle Cookie, which wreaks of manure for roughly 3 hours across the waters. travelling at a good pace thanks to a water mage on board the journey is quite fast. We arrive at the Bolton bay docks and walk up a hill towards the small township. Continuing through a secondary township surrounded by walls, the castles small interior town.

We are guided to a mess hall by an escort, who fetches us a representative to clarify some more details and explain our job in more detail. We are told what we will be taking the cattle around the south of Hope, towards the mountains in the forest. The cattle move roughly 5 to 6 miles per day as a herd. We will be travelling in a caravan lead by the Trail Boss; Curly, an older and grouch man who gets aggravated easily, two senior Cattle Hands; Jeff and TR, and Cookie the caravans cook. 20 other Ranch Hands will also be accompanying us from the various farms of the area. We also learn that the wolves are only usually a problem for the nights and are rarely seen during the day.

The party is going to be travelling in-between the cattle and the forest as to not let them wander into difficult terrain, Kurt offers to give those who need it in the party a form of night vision magic as the non-celestials cannot see without it. It should be 4 days travel to Hope followed by 10 or so days to Amber. 2 weeks minimum travel time, but more likely 3 weeks total. After guiding cattle through hope we will take them around the forest for safety as there are wild elves that may attack. We get warned about venturing too far out and not to follow any cattle that stray into the forest area.

We meet Samuel, son of Derrick owner of the norther ranch, he will be travelling with us and is 1 of the 4 hands looking out for the northern cows, Samuel has apparently seen groups of 15 or more Wolves coming to attack the herds with many groups of Wolves spread across the journey route. After introductions conclude we set off to meet with the remaining caravan members.

Riding for 2 hours we arrive at the campsite, 3 caravan carts make a "U" shape surrounding a stewpot and the chef, Cookie. We all get some stew a Flair got curious about the contents of the stew and DA'd the contents, it was a mix of all sorts of meats and veg. Kurt climbs atom one of the carts and starts looking for a place for us to camp for the night the party follow onto the rooftop and start a discussion as to how to defend the cows, there is some talk about getting some sharpened wooden sticks and build a spiked wall (faint possibility of arming the cows like large hedgehogs) to deter the wolves attacking. We get interrupted during our discussions by Curly who is pissed about us climbing where we shouldn't Kurt tries to justify that it's for a better line of sight but Curly has none of it and storms off. Arcadia after climbing down from the roof DA's Samuel to find: "Short-lived", "Sentient", "Earth mage".

After eating some more stew we head to our campsite and bed for the night.

Session 2

Day 3: Night watch wolf fight.

Night watch: it's eerily quiet, Kurt notes "it's not deathly quiet, but it's quieter than expected". The first watch goes by without issue, Grimmuck doesn't spot anything of note. Titanious (player not being present) decides to camp out with the caravan. During the second watch, Kurt notices some faint howling while Mo plays with the cows we have at our campsite, another hour goes by with Kurt and now Mo on higher alert and we spot some movement in the grass, wolves are starting to approach. Mo and Kurt wake the party and get everyone to prepare to defend/fight. Both Mo and Arcadia get a bit distracted by cows as Kurt mounts his horse, Callie and Kurt both notice that the wolves seem to be less keen on fighting the more of us that they can spot and they start to fan out slowly. Kurt mentions to us that that's not very normal behaviour for wolves. We ready our weapons as the wolves try stealthily to surround us.

Flair says hello to the wolves in wolf tongue, they growl back as she notices they are murmuring to each other but can't make out what's being said. Trying to keep the peace Flair apologises to the wolves, saying we don't have any food for them as they creep closer. 3 small groups of 4 wolves approach us.

A fairly brutal fight ensues, Kurt on horseback moves to keep the wolves off the cows, while the group forms a defensive line around the campsite, we manage to slash a few wolves to pieces as Kurt and Grimmuck use some fire magics to keep the wolves at bay. Arcadia, Callie, Mo and Flair all manage to fend off the wolves with blades. A few of us get teamed upon by the wolves grouping together, Callie had to fight a pyramid of 3 of them. Flair, Grimmuck and Callie move together to fend off the pyramid as Arcadia come to help save Mo who got stuck in close combat without a useable weapon. The final group of wolves was dealt with by Kurt and a few of the braver cows. (Anne: "the cows demonstrate they are more efficient at wolf killing than the party") The cows flee (Anne: "Cow-ards"). Callie manages to grapple the final wolf and kills it with a blow between the ribs.

A fair amount of damage taken, we catch our breath. Kurt started to skin a few wolves as the party join him. Someone notices a strange freezer burn spot on the hide of one of the wolves, it looks like it had been hurt by some kind of ice magic. Arcadia DA's the wolf (rolled an 11) and asks "what caused the frostbite" she gets the answer "ray of cold". The party sits for a bit in confusion having seemingly stumbled upon a new mystery, we decide to mention it to the caravan in the morning, it's very late. We spend a few hours getting everyone healed to a manageable level - Mo was close to dying. As we heal, Arcadia and Flair read the night sky asking more details about the ice magic but aren't able to get anything fruitful.

Feeling drained we all head back to bed to finish our rest. The night finishes uneventfully.

Session 3

Day 4: Ghost wolf.

As the sun rises and the morning starts, Kurt collects the hedgehogs - spiked wall pieces, mo tries to help out. The caravan is packed onto wagons by the time we walk to the campsite, we hear Cookie calling for last breakfast as we all rush to grab some after sleeping in a bit. We also notice the sounds of Curly, who is beating a cattle hand in our peripheral behind a caravan. Apparently, they were taking a break instead of working.

Kurt speaks to Jeff About the wolves and their behaviour, both note that "yeah it is odd", "animals don't fight into endurance", "sounds like desperate wolves", we all agree it seems signs of magic are driving them this way. We have some wolf meat we got from our fight, Cookie suggests it's probably a bad idea to toss the wolf meat into the stew seeing as magic is present.

We head back to our horses, from Hope the forest goes north to west, from "gugnar's hope" we have to travel through some forest. We head off with the now departing caravan, leading the charge and will alternate between leading and following. It's slow-moving as expected we manage to move 6 miles and bed down again.

We set up camp like before a few miles out from the forest, the forest itself seems like it's roughly 50 miles across according to Kurt. We set up the spikes again, make sure to secure the post that ties the oxen up and after more stew, we start the usual night watch. We start the night watch; Grimmuck was a bit distracted, nothing bad or deadly going on it's just quiet. The second watch was a bit more active with keeping an eye on things, nothing new or changing from the first watch. The third watch, Arcadia and Callie see nothing, Flair, however, sees an outline of a wolf sitting at the edge of the forest, it seems much larger than it should, she guestimates it was about 3 miles away and could still be seen at night. Flair points it out to the remaining watchers but it's so far away that the others can't notice it. Flair decides to keep an eye on it for the remainder of the watch, the wolf vanished roughly an hour before dawn. Flair tells us what happened and we decide to head to the forest edge to check for prints after some breakfast. The rest of the night ends without any incidents.

Day 5: Real wolf.

We eat after a quick chat with Cookie and head back to the edge of the forest by our campsite. Mo picks some flowers and flair watches the fog cautiously. We spend an hour looking for tracks, Kurt, Callie and Arcadia are looking as they have actual experience in tracking things. Arcadia decides to join mo for a bit collecting some flowers as the search progresses. We find no obvious signs of the large wolf where Flair spotted it, it seems like it's probably something magical. After some discussions about if the wolf was just hallucination, we decide to keep moving for another 3 or so miles investigating for any signs of tracks.

A few signs of small wolves are found roughly 2 miles from where we started. About a mile further we notice a tuft of fur high up in a tree it looks to be above six feet in the air caught on some bark. Titanius DA'd the fur and got "GTN wolf" with "weird subtext". We don't find anything else and apologise to Flair for not believing it was real. We head back to the caravan, Flair goes to have a chat with Samuel and explains our findings.

As Mo and Arcadia join alongside to listen, they see Sam and Fredrick exchange a knowing glance, Mo and Arcadia notice that it seems like they know something we don't about this mystery wolf. We step away and Mo tells Flair about the glance he spotted, Flair doesn't feel like she can drop it and goes back to find them mid-conversation where they quickly hush and look at her sheepishly.

Flair interrogates them and discovers out that there's a local myth of a giant wolf guarding the edge of the forest, they emphasise the fact it's a "dumb, local myth". The wolf is said to watch over a wolf pack that will eat wandering children who venture too close to the woods. Ardacia remarks that "it doesn't sound like very much of a myth". "thats where myths come from darling" sam says back to arcadia sarcastically, she scowls and replies, "don't say that again, and ill let you live". We have a small chuckle, get some food and head back for the rest of the day.

The watch begins again as the sun sets; the first watch sees nothing again. In the second watch, Kurt notices the wolf, appearing at the edge of the forest. The third watch begins where they all can see the wolf too, luckily it seems like it didn't have an interest in attacking. Arcadia and Flair look at the stars and ask them about the wolf. The rest of the watch goes uneventful and we get a good rest.

Day 6: Questions and supplies.

We go get breakfast and have another quick chat with Cookie, Flair and Arcadia talk to us about what they learnt from the stars. apparently, the wolf pack guarded by the mythical wolf seems to be strong and thriving, contradicting the assumption that all the wolves are leaving the forest to search for food. We also learn that the big wolf seems to be intrigued by the party. We have a pretty long discussion of summoning some huntable animals like pigs or boars to try lure the big wolf, we're only doing this if it's spotted again. Mo zones out a bit as it's not something that he can help with, only catching a few sentences. Arcadia says, "can we use the cow as a non-mage to see if it can also see the wolf, that way we can maybe determine if it's a magical illusion or if it's just a big wolf." Kurt suggests we should ride ahead of the cattle to hope and ask if they have seen any wolf incursions recently. We pack down the campsite and start riding, It takes an hour to travel roughly 10 miles to hope, it's a relatively small town with a stone wall surrounding, it looks to be about 1000 people large, they have a large fortified stone building, most likely the meeting hall and some stone cattle pens. We ride through the gates and head to the meeting house.

Mo and arcadia speak to an urchin and a guardsman outside about the wolves and fog but learn nothing new (the urchin was pretty rude). We let the town know about the large wolf and that we will be travelling past soon. The party joins Kurt and gets some horse feed, we head back and camp and set up again for the night. As we unpack, we notice a few smokestacks above the forest, we assume it must be another guild party on a quest in the forest, but we don't know for sure.

Watch goes uneventfully, Flair and arcadia read the stars again, and ask more questions about the wolf. Flair: "How likely is the wolf to attack us" read the reply and got "unlikely". Arcadia: "What is it about us that intrigues the wolf" and got no reply.

Session 4

Day 7: Night-time wolf chat.

We get our daily mystery stew, we're gonna be camping near Hope tonight. Tomorrow we'll camp near the forest, followed by 5 nights there, followed by another day in the plains before we get out the "Kazalah". Probably just following cattle today - update, yep we are - we setup the caravan roughly 1 to 2 miles southwest of Hope. Lots of talk about the plan for the day and night, Mo's not sure what's going on. The plan we all decide on is to go up to the wolf and try communicate if we see it at night again.

Night watch begins, both first and second watch see nothing. Third watch spot the wolf again and wake us all up. Kurt casts "people go fast" on everyone and we start looking about, Mo notices nothing at all, we jog over to where the wolf was seen. As we get closer, Kurt spots it too and the 3 guide us. We wind up about 160ft away from the wolf and the wolf stands, now tall enough to be seen by everyone? Kurt mentions offhand that it might be some illusory thing. The wolf is huge, he looks at shoulder height to be above all our heads easily. We walk towards the wolf cautiously, the wolf walks about 50ft towards us and sits again now we're roughly 40ft apart.

Flair says "Hello" to the wolf in wolf tongue due to her ability to talk to creatures of dark and gets no response. Kurt DA's the wolf standing 5 feet from it, nearly touching he lets us know its a long lived sentient wolf.

Mo studies the wolf in case we wanted to try locate it at some point. Kurt asks if the wolf is cursed out loud, he hears something telepathically in return, "No." Kurt lets us know to move closer and that it speaks telepathically, so we all move up to 20ft away And start talking to the big wolf. We find out the wolf's name, "dark one" and that it's male (judging by its mind voice). Kurt asks if there is a light one jokingly and we get told, yes. We find out the names are in fact titles. "Why watch us?" we ask, "It's not often large volumes of cattle moves, its not often adventurers are hired" it replies. "Do you want to eat the cattle?" - "No".

It tells us "There are dark things going on in the forest, Demons in the forest, named demons.", "Wolf doesn't meddle with 2 legged folk, that's elf business, I have no need of stealing oxen". We offer a boar to the wolf to help feed it's pack, Flair tries to summon one but it fails. "What does the title 'dark one' mean?" we ask, "Nothing, it is just pack specific" it replies. The pack has few members, all are big and telepathic, they exist to protect the smaller wolves acting as special protectors under the orders of the Moon goddess. Some of it's Dire wolf pack come out of the fastness on occasion. "How can you speak to us?" Arcadia asks, "A mind trick belonging to mind mages" the wolf replies.

Flair asks about the myth we heard earlier, the wolf knows nothing, she and Arcadia try to DA the wolf but can't get it to work. she asks if the wolf is pacted to something, the wolf didn't seem to understand. We learn the wolves are born under the moon goddess and are centuries old, we also learn that the 'Dark one' was born a Dire wolf and not modified by magic like we guessed earlier from its fur. Arcadia tries to summon a deer for it to take, and fails. Flair asks when it next wants to hunt or how often it eats and we get the reply, "I have no concept of hunger". "There is lots watching the oxen, all are very hungry, trouble in the forest is causing much problem". "Food is being corrupted, it smells rotting". "Cold magic is coming from whatever is killing off the food sources". Mo asks about what else may come after the cattle, the wolf doesn't say anything explicit.

Both Flair and Arcadia apologize about not being able to summon any food for our new friend, it understands. They both mention that if we see it again that we'll bring it an oxen to take for its pack. We head back to camp and rest for the remainder of the night.

Day 8: .

Session 5

Day 9: .

Day 10: .

Session 6

Day 11: .

Mil-Sci

Daily pattern

  • 8 Hours travelling
  • 3 Hours meals
  • 2 Hours making Camp
  • 1 Hour breaking Camp
  • 2 Hours Rituals
  • 8 Hours Sleeping

Travel Magics

‘’What travel magic options does the party have, how far per cast/or per day if duration is longer than usual travel time.’’
‘’Can the party eat/sleep/etc on the mode of transport.’’
Horse go Fast; +7 miles / hour to Horse or People overland speed. Reduces Ft / hour by 3 to minimum of 0.

Watch Order

Day Watch. ‘’Used when stationary, or on a larger transport such as a ship’’
As per night watch.

Night watch
First - Grimmuck, Titanius
Second - Kurt, Monty
Third - Flayre, Caliope
Cook - Arcadia Third watch if cooking not required such as when using Cooky's cooking

Travelling Order

Melee Front; Flayre, Titanius, Monty, Arcadia
Ranged; Grimmuck (Ranged Dismounted), Kurt
Melee Back; Caliope(Semi Ranged)

Healing & Ft Recovery

Daily

  • 8 Hours sleep = 24 Ft for most people overnight.
  • Herbalist meals - 3 Ft Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

Healing Options

  • Healers - Arcadia (2), Flayre (2)
  • Earth Healing - Kurt (10 minutes, 13 points)

Buffs

General Buff Notes

Buffs listed in the table don't need to be detailed, other buffs not on the table must be mentioned at the time they are cast.
Y means always on, N/- means never on, 'Sit.' means when the party has time for buffs before a fight.
Weapon Spells which weapon/s it is going on normally should be noted also


Long duration buffs

Magic Rank Effect Duration Ar Mo Gr Ca Ti Ku Fl
Greater Enchantment (Mo) 5 +5% Resistances/Combat 2 Days Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Lesser Enchantment (Ku) 12 -1 to percentile rolls 3 months Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Cat Vision (Ku) 11 See in Dark to 160' 12 Hours N Y N Y N Y(Night) N
Name (??) ## ???? ? Hours ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Short duration buffs

Magic Rank Effects Duration Ar Mo Gr Ca Ti Ku Fl
Name ??? ?? ???? ? Mins ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Name ??? ?? ???? ? Mins ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Name ??? ?? ???? ? Mins ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Loot and Expenses

Unsorted

Kidnappers Camp

  • Assorted valuables.

Jeff & companions

  • Several Earth mage invested wands/staves.
  • Bags of coins (approx 2,000sp?).
  • 5 people worth of misc gear.
  • 5 * Ranger armours.
  • 5 * Sabres, Longbows
  • Box of Saps
  • 2 Weeks * 500 of ox feed.
  • 3? * Sleep Rocks
  • 1 Shrived Illusionist.

SP & other cash value loot

Significant Items

Gifts

  • Unknown if Wolf gave us anything lasting.
  • Unknown effect Amulets from the woodsman

Purchases

  • x6 Hypericum Amulets
  • x7 Silvered weapons for the party
  • x6 Warhorses (x1 black, x1 red-ish brown, x4 mottled brown)

Minor Items

Autumn

  Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
Lugnasad
Fruit (4)
  1 Guild Meeting 2   3   4   5   6  
7   8   9   10   11   12   13  
14   15   16   17   18   19   20  
21   22   23   24   25   26   27  
28   29   30    
Harvest (5)
  1   2   3   4  
5   6   7   8   9   10   11  
12   13   14   15 Equinox 16   17 Seagate Autumn Fair 18 Seagate Autumn Fair
19 Harvest Moon 20   21   22   23   24   25  
26   27   28   29 Michaelmas 30    
Vintage(6)
  1   2  
3   4   5   6   7   8   9  
10   11   12   13   14   15   16  
17 Blood Moon 18   19   20   21   22   23  
24   25   26   27   28   29   30 Beerfest