Sessions (Lost Lands)
This page serves as a log for all campaign sessions for the Lost Lands campaign. Important details for each session will be recorded here. It exists as an easy reference for players and the DM, and also to prevent them from forgetting what happened during a previous session. Important information will be recorded, but minor details, character-specific events, and secrets might not be recorded here.
This page serves as the final arbiter of what actually happened.
Session 0
Shortly after character creation, various players had small initial one-on-one sessions with the DM to establish their characters, familiarize themselves with the setting, and help the DM playtest the online format. These sessions will not be recorded here.
Session 1
The party attended the Spruce Gala aboard the Hollow Swallow. After mingling with key NPCs and confronting old rivals, they witnessed an assassination attempt against Edwin Spruce, prompting a chaotic brawl.
The session began on the morning of the yearly Spruce Gala, a yearly event held by the Free City of Westport to impress foreign dignitaries. This year, the gala was held to celebrate the imminent departure of the Hollow Swallow, a sailing vessel, for the unknown Lost Lands at the center of the world, on a "fact-finding" mission for Edwin Spruce, the mysterious vampiric Lord Protector of Westport.
Practicant Marius, Edwin Spruce's majordomo; and Whiskey Bob, the captain of the Hollow Swallow, summoned the party to the Piss and the Whistle tavern for departure that afternoon. The party all met at the tavern, then took a gondola to the Westport Grand Harbor, where the event was held.
At the harbor gates, a boisterous dragonborn named Malleus Kaab and his half-tiefling, half-orc companion were engaged in a dispute with the event security, who were guarding the outer walls to the harbor. Kaab was trying to bring small velociraptor dinosaurs into the harbor, as gifts for Edwin Spruce, while the guards were not obliging. The party successfully negotiated entrance into the harbor for both themselves and Kaab. During this dispute, the party learned about Kaab's vast wealth, his influence in the Azure Empire, as well as his love of dinosaurs. Kaab also recognized Hythlodaeus as someone who once performed in an arena owned by him.
After entering the harbor, the party boarded the Hollow Swallow, which was docked and equipped as a luxurious venue. They then mingled with the Spruce Gala invitees. Hythlodaeus went belowdecks to prepare for his bardic performance. Roderick got in a fight with a drunken Valamir Ulric de Spruys, a boyhood rival now serving as Helskari Ambassador to Westport, who later fell unconscious. Nyx looked for plunder and attempted to meet the Governor of the Moragan Islands, who was rumored to be in attendance, and Anubis just watched the show go down.
After the sun set, Practicant Marius announced Edwin Spruce's arrival, and he floated out of the ship. Spruce gave a speech congratulating the crew, the ship, and the spirit of discovery, before leaving the stage. Hythlodaeus then gave a musical performance to the partygoers while dressed in the robes of an elderly mage. During the performance, screams were increasingly audible from below the deck of the ship.
Nyx, Roderick, and Anubis all rushed below the decks of the ship to find the source of the screams. In the hold, they saw Edwin Spruce being attacked by bladed assailants as velociraptors swarmed around him.
Session 2
The party fended off the attackers of Edwin Spruce, taking two prisoner. During the fight Anubis transformed into Furio, his kitsune alter ego. Nyx revealed herself to be an aasimar. Practicant Marius locked the ship down, preventing anyone from entering or exiting, and began to investigate the attack on Edwin Spruce.
The session began in combat, with Furio, Nyx, and Roderick facing off against three assassins and two velociraptors, with Hythlodaeus joining soon afterwards. Anubis transformed into his Kitsune alter ego, Furio, for the first time during this combat. Edwin Spruce, prone on the ground and surrounded by assailants, stood up, thanked the party, and disappeared, revealing himself to be an illusion. The party then took on the assailants, with Roderick using his warhammer as a golf club to launch one of the dinosaurs at an assassin. Whiskey Bob entered the room and joined the combat, becoming briefly overwhelmed before the party was able to fend off the attackers.
One of the attackers was killed, and the remaining two surrendered. After combat, Nyx revealed her aasimar form to the party for the first time before interrogating the ringleader of the assassins alongside Roderick, Furio, and Nyx, which rapidly turned into an impromptu torture session. The party learned that the assassin was hired by the Seraphai, a powerful order of the Ochre Flame religion that has influence within the Republic of Carcola.
While this was ongoing, Hythlodaeus investigated a glowing magical buoy on the rear deck of the ship. Whiskey Bob then revealed to him that the buoy was known as the Vampire's Kiss buoy, and was personally designed by Edwin Spruce to repel the krakens that lurked in the waters between Westport and the Lost Lands.
Practicant Marius then summoned the party to the deck of the ship into the captain's quarters. On the way, they saw several partygoers from earlier detained on the ship. He asked each one of them what they knew about the assassination attempt on Spruce, and that they were to help him identify who was behind the plot. He notified them that Spruce was anxious to see the ship depart in the morning, and his investigation into who ordered the attack on Edwin Spruce would end come morning. Until then, he said, no one would be allowed to enter or leave the ship, on the orders of Edwin Spruce.
Session 3
The party investigated the ship for clues on the attempted assassination of Edwin Spruce to find a suspect before the morning broke. A fight broke out in the lowest deck of the ship between strange creatures and the party. The party confronted a cagey Practicant Marius, and accused him of incompetence in equipping the Hollow Swallow. Edwin Spruce reappeared, and took Marius into his custody.
The session began with Practicant Marius detailing that Edwin Spruce wanted the ship, now empty of partygoers, to be investigated by the party, and have a suspect produced by morning. The three primary suspects, Kwarteng Lewis, Valamir Ulric de Spruys, and Malleus Kaab were taken off the ship by Practicant Marius for interviews, as well as the surviving saboteurs, giving the party free rein to investigate the ship.
Hythlodaeus remained sequestered in the captain's cabin drinking with Whiskey Bob. Nyx and Anubis Furio encountered an Intellect Devourer, and a strange, tentacled crab in the holds of the ship, which were oddly empty for a ship on the evening before its maiden voyage. After a brief possession of Anubis by the Intellect Devourer, and the intervention of Roderick Kenneth Williamson, Practicant Marius rearrived, and beckoned the crew to go to the top deck to conduct formal interrogation of the suspects. Anubis, transformed into his Furio alter ego, was restrained by the rest of this party, and was under suspicion by both them and Marius for his rage, as well as Roderick's ignorant prejudice against kitsune, whom he viewed as uncivilized barbarians who have bladders in their heads. Additionally, it was discovered that Spruce's Anti-Kraken Buoy was damaged.
However, upon examining Marius' reactions to hearing about the Intellect Devourer, the crew's skepticism shifted to Marius, who was accused of incompetence in preparing the ship for departure. He attempted to play to Roderick's ill will towards his old rival, Valamir Ulric de Spruys, into suggesting Valamir as the suspect, but Roderick did not bite. The party formally accused Marius of incompetence, if not specifically malicious intent, in his conduct as quartermaster of the Hollow Swallow to the apparition of Edwin Spruce, which reappeared to them.
Edwin Spruce took Marius into his custody, thanked the crew, and delayed the expedition for another week, providing the crew with a reward of 100gp each, some magic items, and lodgings in a manor in Westport. He also provided them with a Sending Stone to update him directly on their status during the journey to the Lost Lands.
Session 4
The party boarded the ship, received jobs, met old and new allies, and learned their immediate destination in the Lost Lands. Midvoyage, the crew fought an intellect devourer, which summoned sahuagin and attempted to summon a kraken.
A week passed since the last session, and the party rested up in Westport in the meantime. The session began on the eve of the Hollow Swallow's departure, as the crew boarded the ship. Whiskey Bob said that the journey was projected to take three days to reach Port Suthermarck, a trading post in the outer Lost Lands established by traders from Westport some decades ago. Captain Whiskey Bob assigned several open roles to the party, with Hythlodaeus to serve as the ship's musician, Roderick to serve as the ship's purser, Nyx to serve as the ship's quartermaster, and Anubis to serve as a guard for the Vampire's Kiss anti-kraken buoy. Anubis' old partner in travelling to Westport, Syve Draifly, was revealed to be ship's the guide to the Lost Lands, and Grimsby Markov, Roderick's undead manservant, was also to board the ship and serve as a guard.
After boarding the ship, Whiskey Bob showed the crew a magical recording of Edwin Spruce, who demonstrated how to work the Vampire's Kiss anti-kraken buoy. Upon entering the Kraken Belt, he told the crew how to work the buoy to repel krakens, as well as telling the crew that they are to meet Practicant Leona upon arrival at the Trading Post.
As the ship departed, a storm began, and the party engaged in their requisite tasks: Hythlodaeus played music to calm the crew on the decks; Anubis guarded the buoy; Nyx conversed with the crew belowdecks; and Roderick ran through the ship's ledger in Marius' old room. After spotting a chest that moved and a key, Roderick opened it, releasing an Intellect Devourer. This Intellect Devourer summoned sahuagin from the depths of the ocean, who jumped aboard the ship, as well as attempting to summon a kraken outside its native range. Hythlodaeus and Nyx were able to activate the buoy, repulsing the kraken, and defeat the sahuagin: killing one and taking the other prisoner, after Roderick brawled the sahuagin with his fists and a dagger. Anubis activated his chainsaw for the first time around the party.
At the end of the session, the party met some of Nyx's old crewmates, now serving aboard the Swallow: helmsman Helmut "Leggy" Henderson and Daniel "Bonechops" Worthington, serving as co-surgeon alongside the dutiful executioner Marc Ravenstone. Roderick realized that the spellstone that was said to be in Marius' old chambers by the ledger was not there.