The Autumn Wolves

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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 to "Kazalah". Probably just following cattle today - update, yep we are - we set up 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. The 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 the dark and gets no response. Kurt DA's the wolf standing 5 feet from it, nearly touching he lets us know it's a long-lived sentient wolf.

Mo studies the wolf in case we wanted to try to 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 its 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 its 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: Grete Wolff.

We wake up a bit late and speak to jeff, asking him for an ox and take it back with us to feed to a forest god. The Cattle is making its way over to hope and tonight we camp at the forest edge, then travel through the forest. We are planning to ride ahead and look for tracks, keeping an eye out for things like bandits. We all head out into the forest searching for tracks around the mid-morning mark. Arcadia, Kurt and Callie spend roughly an hour around the known path looking for things with all 3 rangers picking up a seriously wide set of prints, trailing south to north, boot prints that look a day or two old.

We are 3 to 5 miles into the forest now, there's some valley and hills to the north according to Kurt, we decide that we'll leave our horses at camp with Kurt's horse leading our horses back on its own, after sending them away we continue to follow the tracks south. Arcadia being a woods ranger leads us as we follow the boot tracks, they look small, as if they were from a smallish creature. Arcadia tells us there seem to be about 10 creature tracks. The terrain is fairly flat with hills on our sides, mo looks for signs of a marked path but it's not certain all he can work out is that maybe a hill giant or some creature had been breaking branches as semi-regular intervals. Kurt and Callie start clearing our tracks as we travel onward so we aren't followed.

Arcadia smells some smoke in the air - after pointing it out we all notice, Kurt suggests we leave the trail and walk around whatever campsite may be here. flair is our stealthiest and leads us around the side. we seem to be successful as nothing spots us yet, we enter a clearing with a half dozen very squat tents with fire, and roast pig above, Roughly a dozen figures of dwarf and halflings. We see a few tools but no insignias. Mo leans in and tries to listen to a conversation they are having, it's not halfling it's dwarvish Grimmuck confirms. Arcadia and Flair are on to it with some keen perception, they see a small child in the camp, not halfling or dwarf tied up, but a little human girl. Kurt DA's it, "short-lived sentient human".

We hatch a plan hiding in the shadows. Flair is going to try stealth and rescue the child whilst Kurt & Callie start running off to the trail to cause a distraction. The rest of us are going to be Flair's support team. Mo makes flair invisible for 25 mins, Flair races into the camp stealthily and steals the child. a dwarf notices the floating girl and yells an alert. Grimmuck sets a tent on fire as we all begin to flee. Flair removes the sack from the little girls head as we head back to camp. Kurt and Callie after a successful distraction head back to the found campsite only to find a burning tent and 2 guards on the lookout with the party nowhere in sight. In that moment we all realised we didn't account for what we would do after the distraction. oops. "we forgot to account for success". The two guards are quickly dispatched and left nearly dead with Kurt writing and leaving an ominous warning note left on their bodies for when the others return.

We start interrogating the child, who reveals she is an 8y/o who lives with her father who is a woodsman, she has no idea why she was taken, her name is "Grete Wolff". We're back at our grounds mid-afternoon with the group, Grete is an odd child, every animal walking past stops and she speaks to them. mainly talking to cows, occasionally insects and birds. She has spoken to the big black wolf, she can do it naturally apparently.

We decide to go find the woodsman, Grete's father, she leads the way, we find out that the Dire Wolves turned up when Grete was 3, she directs us to her house, it's just outside of hope, 4 miles roughly. Her father's name is "Reno", we all think it's unlikely that he's just a normal woodsman considering the girl's gifts. We arrive at a small wooden shack, 2 bedroom place. She was taken yesterday. There's a woodcutting stump out front, in a clearing, they have cattle. We spot smoke coming from the chimney with lights on inside. Arcadia knocks and we enter to see a mid to late 30's man, he looks at us and says thanks. Arcadia explains to Reno where we found Grete, we find out her mum could also speak to some animals. Flair DA's Grete and asks "What makes her able to talk to animals" - "blessing of nature", "What is the source of her blessing" - "Nature". "Best magical ability that isn't speak to animals" - "plant growth". we also ask the dad if Grete's mother had any other abilities like his daughter, but find out nothing new. Arcadia DA's the woodsman and asks "College of magic" - "no answer". Reno hands us what looks like roughly 4 rims of a birds nest with a moss-covered rock in each. We leave and go back to the campsite and pack up, heading back to the herd. We grab some more food, it tastes like rabbit. the group DA's the stew again, the main meat is pork this time. We go back to our camp, prepping for the night's oxen sacrifice.

Night watch goes uneventful, we find out over dinner that Kurt could have used his speed magic on the cows in lots, and we could have taken them a lot faster, we're gonna do that next time we get asked to do this kind of work. First watch nothing happens, Second watch spots the wolf and takes the ox we prepped over to the big wolf, Dark One. Kurt slits the ox's throat and we leave the wolf to its food. The last watch continues as normal with nothing showing up.

Session 5

Day 9: Bear-y the Bear.

Morning comes, we talk about the day's plan, we're going 20 miles ahead to the base of the hills to keep an eye out on the trail where we might have to cross a bridge sooner or later. We start riding ahead with the rangers taking point. Kurt and Arcadia notice wolf prints of standard size, about 5 to 6 miles out from our current cattle location, where the north forest meets the trail. it makes sense seeing as this is where the two forests nearly converge. We let the campsite know to stop the cattle before the wolf trail just in case. Arcadia spotted something unique, she finds a single set of bear tracks roughly a mile ahead of the wolf tracks, it seems to be following the wolves with the tracks seeming about 8 hours old.

The rest of the day is uneventful, so we head back. Arcadia tries to DA the stew and fails, Titanius tries also fails. Kurt asks "Rank of illusion" - "14". Cookie is far more powerful than we all expected.

Night watch begins again. The first watch is really boring, Second watch, Kurt hears wolves and keeps an eye out, they don't seem too close. flair spots wolves attacking the herd of cattle on the third watch and wakes up everyone. they're 150ft out from us. Flair being the animal negotiator goes to talk to the wolves. "how ya doing" - "grrrrrrr", "why are you growling" - "grrrrrrrr", "are you guys hungry?" - "murmurs and grrrrrr". Flair warns them to leave or we will kill them, they ignore it. Kurt fires a flaming arrow and misses by 10ft, "a warning shot". There are about 6-7 wolves attacking when we heard a yelp from the back of the pack, the wolves fled quickly. Oh, it's the bear from before.

Kurt controls and binds the wolf, we all freak out a bit and calm ourselves, everyone starts petting the bear. Arcadia tells a wolf it grabbed to stay still and we'll heal it. Arcadia speaks to the cows and asks if they mind having a new friend. She asks the bear for its name, "name is bear". he is a brown bear. The bear tries to cuddle Titanius after some bad Bear puns were said aloud and succeeded in talking him to the ground. We now have a bear pet and with that, we go back to bed as the third watch continues and ends uneventfully.

Day 10: Jeff's betrayal.

In the morning we notice curly coming up to us near dawn, he looks at us and notices the bear, doesn't seem to care much. Kurt mentions we could have Bear-y armoured by the end of the day jokingly. Apparently, TR and jeff lost 500 cattle. They're not around and can't be found, Curly admittedly didn't go looking, no obvious way that they vanished. We spend some time investigating looking for tracks and find some heading out of the camp. Looks like they were taken in groups of 10. Kurt DA's a few cows near the tracks and looks for last magic to impact, finds that some resisted summoning cattle. We decide to try to locate the missing handlers via Mo's magic.

After 10 failed attempts and narrowly avoiding a curse, mo casts locate and we follow the arrow to find TR up into the hills, mostly north-west - bearl-y follows alongside. We catch up to the magic arrow at the base of the hills and find TR. He's unconscious on the ground, already stabilized. Jeff is not there. Arcadia wakes him up and soothes him, Kurt asks what he remembers, we learn that he was awake before dawn, it's only been about 40 minutes since the cows vanished. He noticed cattle leaving and followed the trail as a half-decent ranger, he left Jeff at the camp alone. Jeff and TR take different watches. TR didn't see who knocked him out.

Kurt finds a single set of boot prints nearby that aren't TR's that follow into a bush nearby, he also spots tracks running off going east from where we are, we follow them with Kurt reckoning we should be able to catch them within an hour or two. We follow the tracks for roughly 500ft east and the tracks head back to the northwest, it looks like whoever we are following was trying to be stealthy, but failed. We also see some cattle prints and decide to run after them with Kurt's speedy magic.

We ready our shields and weapons and charge ahead full sprint, running for 10 mins, we spot someone over the horizon. hearing this guy ahead swearing out loud, we catch up and surround him. He is wearing a mottled green tunic, trousers and armour, carries a bow, sabre and a rock. It looks like he's still holding the rock he used to hit TR with. We interrogate him harshly, he was told to take out TR and that he was supposed to be receiving 500 cattle. Callie takes his armour. We find out there is a camp about a mile away, only for today. The guy who hired him was some bloke who matches Jeff's description. We try to interrogate him further, Mo suggests charming him, the others want to kill him. Kurt in the end makes Bear-y sit on him as we head off. We hear screams in the distance as Kurt leaves binding range and Bear-y mauls the guy to death. Kurt promises Arcadia her own bear when she gets beastmaster rank 4. Kurt says, "I never said I was nice".

We head on stealthily to the camp that was mentioned. We see Jeff, the cows and 3 other figures at the campsite. "we stole a pet rock". As we approach, we make a plan of attack. 4 of us are to walk in to talk, the other 3 walk around in the trees to hide and attack from the shadow. Mo, Arcadia, Flair and Titanius walk in and try to strike up a convo. Meanwhile, Kurt and co. Find a 4th guy taking a whizz and decide to kill him. They do so stealthily. The 2 who aren't Jeff look like the guy on the road, dressed similarly. One notices us and speaks to jeff hushed. The 4 negotiators ask Jeff what he was doing, apparently, these are Jeff's cows from his farm. He says to check the brand after we mention his very obvious theft. Everyone takes a look, while Callie loots a body in the distance. The brand doesn't line up at all, but he doesn't seem to care, still adamant they are his.

We DA Jeff, and find jeff is a long-lived sentient, looks like he should be human. An earth college mage. Kurt spots from a distance that he is currently prepping the spell tunnelling, after a call to action we kill him instantly and spare the 2 remaining men. DA'ing the corpse revealed GTN human. We speak to the two remaining mercs, Jeff's plan was to steal the cows and open his own ranch. They ask about the other 2 men we came across, "Harry ran into a bear and bob fell down a cliff". We strip Jeff and the mercs and begin looting the campsite.

Jeff has a bunch of stuff, we take it all. Rangers stuff, tents, bedrolls probably worth keeping were found by Grimmuck. Mo and Titanius find hidden coin pouches, a large amount of SP within. Jeffs tent has a few sticks with engravings inside. Titanoius DA's a stick, asking "what does it do?" - "strength of stone: earth mage spell adds strength/endurance on rank, needs divination". Jeff also has a few rocks, that look very similar to our new pet rock. Flair DA's really well and we learn that they are modified Saps', stones used to knock out a target, enchanted to make them more efficient.

Kurt notices a cave nearby and figures that's where jeff was tunnelling to, We tie up the two and go investigate the cave but have to tunnel to reach it, Kurt makes one for us to follow. We go for a wander and we find some crates, we pry them open after seeing no markings. Digging through them we find a bunch of cow food, one crate contains many more rocks, after DA'ing the new rock chest we find out they have no aura but can still be good Saps.

We head back to the 500 cows and tell them we have food, they should follow. Taking the tied up men, we head back to the herd and arrive around dinner and speak to Curly, explaining what we learnt, and tell him we killed Jeff. He's fine with it. We DA the 2 men and find one to be an illusionist who was disgusting the fact they were a Shiver. An awesome find, we spend a while discussing what to do with him. It seems like we will try to take his abilities and put him to work on Kurt's farm if the Guild agrees that is. His name is Melvin.

Session 6

Day 11: Drunk cook.

We have returned from chasing Jeff and slept the night, ready to set out again. Riding out today we decide we will circle around the herd extending our circle as it starts moving. Somewhere around midday we notice Cookie has been drinking a bit and is falling asleep while cart driving, so we substitute Cali in to drive his Wagon, and roll him into the back to sleep. We trust our new apprentice cook with dinner that night.
Overnight the Bear that has been following us acts even weirder, and Cookie emerges from his wagon with a full bottle of Whisky, sharing drinks with some of the party before he falls asleep drunk again.

Day 12: Wolf politics.

Our new cook handles breakfast in the morning, and we politely search Cookie's wagon for his stash eventually finding it concealed by both magic & a false door, and remove the majority of the stash to prevent too many more drunk episodes, while deflecting Curly's enquiries. The ride that day is uneventful with us travelling in the wagon train as Cali is driving again, we do discuss with Sebastian about our suspicions as to who may have been behind Jeff, and the possibility of Powers behind him, but decisions are made that this is something best left for another day and perhaps a more senior party or at least a better equipped party.
With the Fastness of Girwyllan to the south we camp that side of the herd in case we are visited by any of the Enchanted beasts that live there seeking an oxen snack, but instead we receive a visitor early in the night, of The Dark One, who wants us to resolve an issue with the wolf packs that politics and religion require they not handle directly. We discuss the problem of five of the wolf packs fighting over territory with the Forest of Arlynn being currently frozen and hostile to wildlife and it slowly edging over a fight to the death that will have significant repercussions once the problem in the forest is solved by another party, eventually coming up with the idea of challenging the packs champions and then win or lose we should be able to persuade them to work together for long enough for things to settle down.
We head off into the hills to the south, coming to near the source of the Unicorn River where we meet with about 50 wolves between all five packs, and talk to them for a while before we get some ground rules set up for the fight. Arcadia, Caliope, Flayre, Grimmuck, & Titanius will fight a collective group of wolves, comprised of the champion from each pack, in a fight to submission. We deflect questions about what we will win by simply saying The Dark One knows what we are after and the elder Silver accepts this for now. We get an hour to prepare for the fight as the Champions want to spend a bit of time getting to know each other before fighting, these Champions are clearly smarter and larger than a standard wolf but not so large as to be giant wolves.

Session 7

Night 12: Wolf fight.

We do some prep before the fight, it's a 5v5 situation. The plan seems to be that if we win, we use our influence to convince the wolves to work together instead of fighting. If we lose, then we use that as an opportunity to prove that the wolves function best when working as a pack. Timber is the wolf Milsci, Kurt suggests that we don't go after him first as we are likely to be swarmed. Before the fight, Arcadia asks the stars what the best way to damage the wolves are, and reads the reply "damage". Titanius follows suit and asks where the best place to land a sword blow would be, he gets nothing useful. The only major rule to follow is that we are not allowed to kill our opponents, they can flee and forfeit if they desire.

We enter the clearing, with fives wolves facing us. The dark one is going to mediate and watch from the sides. One of the other alphas, Silver (check this with GM) is going to also be making sure that everyone follows the rules. Kurt stays beside the ring, next to "Silver"? to help bandage and stabilise any wounded wolves or people. He DA's one of the wolves fighting and figured out it had been blessed by the forest, similarly to Grete. Kurt speaks with the wolves and asks if it's fair that they have a blessing and our team does not, it's ruled that the blessing is fair.

The fight begun and ended quickly, Arcadia lead the charge and moved slightly ahead of the group, she gets attacked by two wolves. Mo faces off against one, as does Callie, Titanius and Flair. Arcadia gets teamed up upon and goes down first, followed by 2 wolves who begin to start backing away. Titanius goes down next as the first wolf falls and the other is rescued. Callie and Flair both chase off the remaining wolves as the last remaining wolf keeps attacking Mo, trying to kill him and refusing to flee. As Mo goes down, the Dark One picks up the lone wolf, named Midnight and throws it against a tree. Midnight gets splattered and is killed instantly for breaking the rules. The fight ends with us being the champions. We give our inspirational speech, which seems to go according to plan.

We are thanked and recognised as champions of the forest, and are lead back to our campsite by the Dark One.

Session 8

Day 13: Rebuilding the Ford.

We find a gift at our campsite in the morning, a bundle of 12 blackened oak, 2ft long sticks wrapped in a vine with a tuft of black fur tied with a bow. We should be roughly 2 miles from Amber, with about 6 evenings left until we reach our destination. Flair and arcadia DA the sticks, they're magical and can do some mid-level healing magic once each.

It's gonna take a day plus a few hours to cross the upcoming river with cows, likely 2 days total. We're looking for an existing ford or making one from scratch if we can't find it. Curly hands us a few shovels used for the latrines and lets us know Sam and two others are joining us. We'll take our horses and grab a few horses nearby for the new guys. The boys make sure the horses are good to go as we approach them.

Donald and Ricky are the 2 people joining Sam, Kurt uses his magic to make our horses and bear go fast, Sam makes sure his scrolls are in order and leads the charge. We turn off the path about a mile from amber towards the coast, the ford location is roughly 2 miles outside of amber. We come out of the forest the river that flows northwest-ish towards the coast. Sam gives Donald and Ricky their orders and they head out to get a better look at the river to find the old ford.

We spend about an hour searching a mile of the path and banks. Arcadia, Callie and Donald find the previous Ford, it needs a bit of work done because it's eroded. Sam pulls out some scrolls, hands one to Kurt (wow many spells, big magic) "cant usually invest these". They seem to be some earth magic scrolls for helping us work much faster. Sam hands a few to Kurt, we're gonna sneakily keep a few modified binding earth scrolls. Sam might teach Kurt some magics. We ask sam if he has some kind of wall spell to divert / dam the water flow while we work, luckily he does.

We spend all day playing in the stream and get the ford rebuilt, and camp day 13 by the river. Night watch begins as ususal with nothing eventful happening.

Day 14: Cow Parking Lot and Training.

We make the holding pen for the cows to arrive at and Arcadia cooks us a nice meal. It takes us to the mid-morning to finish, and seeing as the cows are still a day away, we decide to spend the day training and drinking the remainder of Cookies whiskey.

Day 15: Magic Clouds and the World Goes Dark.

At Dawn, Arcadia sees a strange storm cloud above the fastness, we all wake up at our normal times and guess that the rain should be overhead within an hour. We pack down our stuff and figure that with heavy rain incoming the cow's aren't going to be crossing any time soon. With a quick chat with Sam, we go head somewhere dry, the upcoming town Amber. It takes us about an hour to get there, we get soaked along the way but end up at the inn to dry off. watching the river as we arrive it looks like it's starting to flood a bit, it's probably too dangerous for the cattle to attempt the crossing, and if it keeps up it might break the ford again.

As we all start to dry off in the "Warrior Inn", we put Kurt's bear in the stables, luckily still in his binding range. It looks like the whole town is crowding in the inn to escape the rain. A few Miners and workers. Around 10 am there was a massive flash of light, followed by silence the talking and rain noises stopped suddenly as if everyone went deaf for a brief moment. Everyone looked around us as all of our vision started to fade. Panicked we looked outside and could see weird black lightning above the fastness. It's still bucketing down with rain outdoors and the river is dangerously overflowing, it's getting close to washing away some houses so we rush outside to help try diver the raging waters.

Sam starts the ritual to make us work faster the further he gets into the ritual we see things start to move, it looks like 12 men are working in tandem. It takes a few hours but we save a few houses by creating some makeshift walls to divert water flow. We spend the rest of the afternoon in the inn, occasionally going out to keep the wall up. We get shouted rounds of drinks, Mo and Arcadia let some local kids play with the weapons. We hold up for the day in the inn, We take a room to share. Second watch sees the rains ease up, "the world goes quiet".

Day 16: Beavers and Debris.

The plan is to travel upriver and check for debris that could cause issues for the cows crossing, the rain probably dislodged some trees and debris. We'll travel 10 miles upriver to start looking, now that the rain has cleared we send Sam back to Curly. After searching for a bit we find a beaver's dam holding back a few logs that look close to breaking about 6 miles out from Amber.

Flair and arcadia speak to the Beavers and let them know we're there to help, Kurt uses a tunnel to make a divert for the water and Mo uses telekinesis to move some grapple hooks onto the logs, we tie them to the horses and move them out of the water. Arcadia and Titanius let the beavers know that their home can be fixed now and is safe.

In the afternoon, after lunch we head back to the cattle, Donald and Ricky are waiting at the edge of the river, We find the ford broken again and spent the day fixing it going into the night. After thinking about how much of a hassle it will be to bring Bear-y into the city, it's decided that we should let her go on her own from here on out. Titanius speaks to the bear and asks her to leave, but she refuses. After we finish the Ford we lay down for the night and pet the bear for a bit while discussing invisible death bears.

Session 9

Day 17:

Talk about what to do, we're not needed today

We talk about exploding people and bears, how we should let the bear go

Curly approaches and brings the illusionist melvin (shriver) and ranger herbalist, harry

We're gonna head to seagate and hand them both off to a large smithing house to train, hopefully someone kurt knows

We head off taking the whole day there and back

Mo and arcadia go get pastries while kurt gets them setup

Curly and co. Have managed to get across the river and about a mile out from the crossing

Night watches see nothing.

Day 18:

We spend the day doing loops around the cattle keeping an eye out all morning long

We ride ahead to gugnir's hope in the afternoon to check if the cattle stockades are ready

We arrive at the place and everything is fine

End of day - fast forward the game

Day 20:

Arrive at Gugnirs hope

We manage to get the rest of the cattle to where we need to go and wrap up all of our duties

We head over to the pub with the cattle hands, they are very keen to drink

Day 21:

Curly asks the party if we can take a msg to jeff's ranch to tell them he's not coming back

Eastern ranch - we're going to go out there to poke around to look into why jeff had some strange abilities

Go back to plains of Desai, roughly a day with Kurts manor

We travel the whole day to the destination - we buy a few oxen to feed to the nice wolves and arrive

We leave the horses at sams ranch to the north and travel 5 miles on foot to try stealth around

Nothing found on the hillsides

Nothing in the forests

The plan is to sleep until midday and arrive, we'll deliver the msg and investigate the inside of the ranch

Monty sees: Kurt left for a patrol and didn't return for the whole watch Monty tells third watch, arcadia DA's Kurt: Arcadia has a pending DA question on Kurt

Day 22:

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

SP & other cash value loot

Kidnappers Camp

  • Standard wicken amulets
  • Money
  • General other items

Jeff & companions

  • Bags of coins (approx 2,000sp?).
  • 5 people worth of misc gear.
  • Box of Saps
  • 2 Weeks * 500 of ox feed.

Significant Items

Jeff & companions

  • 1 Shrived Illusionist?
  • 1 Shrived Ranger?

Gifts

  • Unknown effect staves from the wolf, probably earth investeds.
  • Unknown effect Amulets from the woodsman

Purchases

Seagate

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

Minor Items

Jeff & companions

  • Several Earth mage invested wands/staves.
  • 5 * Ranger armours.
  • 5 * Sabres, Longbows
  • 3? * Sleep Rocks

Calendar

Words

Autumn
  Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
Lugnasad
Fruit (4)
  1 Guild Meeting 2 Preparation / Slippery Rock 3 Boat to Bolton Estates.
Attacked by Wolves.
4 First sighting of Dire Wolf 5   6  
7 Talk to Dire Wolf 8 Kidnapped child 9 Bear joins us 10 Jeff's betrayal 11 Cookie is unwell 12 Wolf politics 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