out of character Heart of the Jungle

[Gregorotto]

Planning on posting tomorrow, to give Grendel time to recover from their trip.

[Gregorotto]

I announced this in Discord but announcing it here too: Hammerfist will no longer continue playing Cora, and Cora will be written out of the game at the earliest convenience for me, in whatever form that takes.

[Grendel]

Okay, I'm sort of back. I'm now at GMT+8 and so my activity schedule is out of sync to where I was before. Sorry about that.

[Gregorotto]

No worries, thanks for the update!

[Gregorotto]

@Grendel hey I wanted to make sure you saw that I'd posted and we've moved past the whole axe beak and rope thing and we've started combat, or if you intentionally are just using a perception check here.

[Grendel]

The perception check was to see what was beyond the axebeak, and then my internet died and I finally got someone out here to fix it. Will look at the game and post.

[Feuerrabe]

  

On 10/4/2023 at 4:02 AM, Spektor said:

(Mariposa:) " (...) Where should we go for our next adventure, then?"

  

6 hours ago, Grendel said:

"This place was not the final destination in your quest, was it?" Danuše asks though she is confident the answer is 'no.' "I suggest we rest as needed and then carry on towards the final destination." She doesn't say that she has no idea what that is, rather trusting that there is one.

 

This is a slightly confusing dialogue to me because, from our characters' perspective this is where we wanted to go. This is Camp Righteous. We're here.

 

Let me reflect on what we're doing here in the first place:

• Our overall quest is to defeat the necrotic "Death Curse", which spreads like a diseases and doesn't just kill those that are struck with it, it keeps their souls trapped, so that even the most powerful clerics cannot raise anybody who died from the curse, and they presumably don't move on to the afterlife; they're just gone forever, which isn't how the Forgotten Realms usually work. While I don't recall the curse turning anybody into an undead directly, the Jungle of Chult is also plagued by an infestation of undead, which is at the very least connected to the Death Curse.

• Our contact Syndra Sylvane, the woman who invited us to come to Chult, is herself struck by the curse (or so it would seem), but hasn't died yet. She asked us to get an item from the jungle: "The Soulmonger is presumed to be a metallic artifact of legend that is said to originate from this island, it is an item of necromancy said to enable great focus in its wielder. I do not believe any of the scripts include what it would .. taste like." We did do a lot of asking around to figure out that Soulmonger thing, but I don't think we figured out anything.

• In an interplay it was suggested that Syndra is in fact in league with evil. See: https://og.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=16128951#post16128951 Our characters don't know this, but we, the players, are supposed to know. She was a bit of jerk when we met her; I thought was because she was suffering at the time.

• The location we're in now is 'Camp Righteous'. It used to be the camp of the Flaming Fist. We know of the Flaming Fist from Wakanga, a powerful trade prince in Port Nyenzaru: https://og.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=16066204#post16066204. Apparently the Flaming Fist exerted some control over the jungle, but they were ousted from Port Nyenzaru, which they also used to control. Wakanga is xenophobic and passionately hates the Flaming Fist, I wouldn't consider anything he said to be reliable. Their goals remain unclear, it would seem they wanted to oppose the undead infestation. However, it's not a surprise that we found Camp Righteous abandoned (except for the goblins, I suppose), we spend a day running away from the supposed occupants' undead corpses. Let me present an excerpt from the post at https://og.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?p=16204545#post16204545:

Day 9: Bones of the Righteous

9th Day of the 3rd Expedition, 5th Cohort

29 Hammer, Year of the Star Walker's Return, 1490 DR
Jungles of Chult

The rain has finally let off: but it is instead replaced with extreme heat.

Not well rested and irritable, Story sings. His songs are bawdy, but not lewd, and never at the expense of anyone in the expedition but whoever they are about, it is unkind. He does not care. Eku does not stop him, but Story has sullened her mood some. As they progress, in the late afternoon, Eku stops the group suddenly, interrupting a song about priests of Lothiar and Ilmater getting into a back and forth, to which he growls. Then he hears it: the sound of armor moving towards them, a gradual step, not like a zombie at all.

No, it is much worse, perhaps.

The first to step through the jungle underbrush is a warrior, holding a scimitar and dressed in the clothes of a priestess of Red Knight. The next, a dragonborn paladin of Bahamut. Again and again and again, more priests, more holy symbols, all there, but all being held by armed skeletons. At the tree line of a nearby grove they pause, they wait. Mariposa and Cyrienne quickly count: sixteen in total. More than they can take easily.

Eku stares back at them, assessing. "Camp Righteous has fallen. Run!" She bolts, Story following but turning to linger, wondering if perhaps he should stay behind, looking at Najya. Diversions? Tricks? How can they survive this chase?

The skeletons erupt into runs as soon as Eku does, and unlike the zombies, they are not quite so slow.

The chase is on.

• Before we knew that its inhabitants are dead it made a certain degree of sense to go to Camp Righteous, it would have been a good waypoint to collect some information and plan deeper expeditions into the jungle. Now that we know that they're dead, the only reason would be to try and figure out what exactly happened, how they all turned from living people into skeletons at the same time.
• Conversations made it clear that parts of the jungle are way beyond our pay grade. Yeyide, the Heartwarden of the Temple of Sune in Port Nyenzaru, told us how she participated in a an expedition to the "Lost City of Mezro" during her days as young priestess, but the members of that expedition got their rear ends handed to them as soon as they as much as approached the city, even though they must have been considerably more powerful then than we are at the moment. Thus, we must be careful where we go. If we rush it, we'll be in over our heads.
• Even though the Adventure is called "Tomb of Annihilation", we have never heard of such a place so far.

We all have stated interests in the jungle, there is no clear path to progress in the adventure. The true reason why we went to Camp Righteous: Well, that's the only place we know of and that's where our guide went, we just followed Eku. Cyrienne would have preferred to make contact with peaceful natives, particularly elves and seelie fey that live in the forest, but she hasn't figured out how to do that. It clearly didn't work with the goblins.

So, in short, our best approach at the moment is to investigate the hell out of this place, even though preliminary investigation turned up nothing. There is no other lead we can follow, and while the jungle is full of opportunity, ultimately our job is to find an artifact, of which we don't know what it looks like, other than that it's metal, that could be anywhere in the jungle. And on OOC level we know that's a trap.

[Grendel]

Okay, whatever quest we are on to solve some sort of problem isn't resolved here, right? And I don't think it was ever the plan that arriving here would solve the problem. So there must be someplace else.

[emotionaut]

Seems that we need a new lead. We should investigate the camp thoroughly for clues. When I get a chance to post, I'll have Najya try Survival to look for undead tracks leading away.

Failing to find anything, our best option may be returning to the city and regrouping there. Maybe we can pick up some new leads.

[Feuerrabe]

2 hours ago, emotionaut said:

Seems that we need a new lead. We should investigate the camp thoroughly for clues. When I get a chance to post, I'll have Najya try Survival to look for undead tracks leading away.

Failing to find anything, our best option may be returning to the city and regrouping there. Maybe we can pick up some new leads.

Well, out of the back of my head, Eku mentioned an oracle, a mentor of hers. We could go there, but it didn't sound like the very first address to visit.

However, we came all the way here to figure out how the living garrison of Flaming Fists turned into mindless skeletons, seemingly all at the same time. Investigating tracks is a really good idea.

I'd really appreciate if we asked a few re-read the location description, ask questions and try to investigate a little. Just a few stray ideas for courses of action:

• The goblins probably don't have anything to do with the the things we're looking for, though Cyrienne might have a closer look at their masks; maybe they were instrumentalised by something else.
• We only had a brief look into the tents so far, I don't think we looked into all, and we most certainly didn't find a logbook of the commander.
• This camp used to belong to a militarised organisation, it must have a command tent or a staff headquarter somewhere.
• Maybe the curse/poison/whatever is in the water supply, so investigating that might be a good idea.

We may move on after we figure this place out, not before.

[Gregorotto]

As your DM and a person who knows how nasty sandboxes can be in play-by-post, let me throw a few leads you do have that haven't really been mentioned:

• Eku does know of an oracle who can maybe provide answers, deeper into the jungle. This was mentioned in passing before Camp Righteous was decided on, but I'm not going to hunt things down.
• You could always go hang out with the Flaming Fist at Camp Balduran, though they'd demand you all pay for a "charter," but they might have leads as hinted at in Chapter 1.
• Danuse does have a few leads in her backstory that are unrevealed, though I'd have to make sure I've bothered to mention those: they aren't necessarily pertinent to the quest yet, but may offer a destination.
• Mezro has been mentioned, but I continue to state it's out of your league: it's not officially part of the adventure but the DM's Guild has two different options for how to explore Mezro (the book offers nothing but ruins as-written): one is a full adventure from levels 1 to 12, the other is for level 12 adventurers. I've heard good things about both, and I'd probably go with the level 12 one.
• Camp Righteous does have survivors.
• I can provide divine guidance if divine characters ask nicely.
• If need be I can provide rumors and legends through Story, who is in the back burner.
• If Eku isn't enough we can always go back and get another guide, and there are some NPCs I can go ahead and introduce.

With the cut scenes, they are there to lead and mislead: take them as you will.

Finally, moving into the next phase of the adventure, we won't be going day by day like we have been and will focus on quicker travel, I think, to key locations.

[Feuerrabe]

1 hour ago, Gregorotto said:

As your DM and a person who knows how nasty sandboxes can be in play-by-post, let me throw a few leads you do have that haven't really been mentioned:

• Eku does know of an oracle who can maybe provide answers, deeper into the jungle. (...)

Well, technically, I did mention the oracle. The point is: It took all this time and effort to get here, why on earth would anybody want to wander off without a thorough investigation?

I would appreciate aid from the DM if we were stuck, but for now I would prefer if you gave us a chance to figure stuff out on our own.

[Gregorotto]

I wouldn't have it any other way. Just clarifying.

[Grendel]

On 10/9/2023 at 1:28 PM, Gregorotto said:

Danuse does have a few leads in her backstory that are unrevealed, though I'd have to make sure I've bothered to mention those: they aren't necessarily pertinent to the quest yet, but may offer a destination.

I am not sure to what this refers, may we discuss via PM? It could just be my memory is addled, an all too common problem these days.

I thought we had searched the tents and camp and found nothing more, but another search can't hurt. Neither I nor Danuse was here for Chapter I or most of Chapter II, so that is not within her knowledge for deciding how to proceed. Basing here in the camp and searching the surroundings is also not a bad idea.

[Gregorotto]

Posting this here as well: Amaryllis77 has decided to step away from the game, and Beacon will be written out with Cora. We'll miss you, Amaryllis!

With our group reduced to a Druid, Cleric, Monk, and Rogue, and arguably a Bard, we will be adding at least one new player, but not immediately. I'm open to suggestions.