Last time, the party's wizard, Armond, had just died and was reborn as a puppet. That player decided to switch his class around to reflect this. So now he's a multi-classed Warlock/Wizard.

The Spring of Midnight Oil

The Party made their way through the Ashfens. My favorite way to run travel is as a skill challenge. If you're unfamiliar, the synopsis is you think about how to fail forward and ask your group to pick what skills/spells/class abilities they want to use to accomplish the task. So in this case, I thought of a couple of monsters they could encounter and if they fail the skill challenge, they'd have a bit of a fight, but still get to the destination. Turns out I didn't need to think about fail-cases since they aced the challenge.

The Ashfens grow quiet as you approach your destination. Ahead, you see a clearing at the center of which is a circular pool surrounded by stone monoliths. The pool bubbles and hisses lazily as cold black liquid occasionally laps at the mundane world. Mist gathers at the edges of the clearing, like shy party-goers awaiting an invitation to dance.

The party debated what to do with the pool for a long time. I think they'd forgotten a few things Mother Leondra had told them last time. That she believed it was a portal to the Sea of Midnight Oil in the Fey Wild, and that Iron, Fire and Salt repel Fey influences. So they threw torches at the oil (which would sit just above the oil and sputter, floating in the air as if suspended by magnets). Small pieces of iron would float and spin (they thought about using the Forge Cleric/Artificer's ability to pray a cage for the oil into existence). Salt would sizzle like a snail. As they were messing with the pool I would roll for it to occasionally geyser, and they got splashed a couple times (Winora was notably splashed, but was cured of the effects before they became much of anything).

The key that I think they forgot and I realized I needed to remind them about was that Fey Portals require a circle. Most commonly a ring of mushrooms for small portals, but more permanent portals can be made. Once they remembered that, Armond cast shatter, broke the stone monoliths and made enough sound that Old Jed heard them.

Mother Leondra described Old Jed as a "scion of death, and a particularly un-neighborly one." This is his area of the swampland. Until he was exposed to the Midnight Oil, he could be reasoned with (especially after his tea-time meeting with the aforementioned witch), but the Oil twists the psyche (some inspiration was taken from Phyrexian Oil from Magic: the Gathering) and makes them more rabid. It is possible the party could have removed curse/lesser restorationed him back to his old self and perhaps gotten a reward for returning him to his better self, but that wasn't what happened.

Mechanically he was a Bodak. Originally I was going to drop its hit points a bit but the party managed the fight very well and I didn't have to do that. They took some decent damage, and managed to bully my monster and kill it in I think 3 rounds.

The one snag in the encounter was the wizard cast a new spell: Flock of Familiars and assumed that I would be fine with Grinning Cats as the creature choice. Normally I default to let the player do the cool thing (and maybe talk to them after combat if that's not how the spell or ability is actually written), the problem was this added 3 level 4 Fighters swinging greatswords with some extra hitpoints on top to the encounter. Which wasn't going to work. We talked about what creatures were okay for find familiar, and settled on any creature that has rules for "if this creature is your familiar." The problem I had wasn't them spanking my scary monster, I honestly don't care. The problem comes from how can I balance any future encounter for the party. I need a monster that can deal 135 points of damage in 2-3 rounds (typical monster lifespan) to compete with that spell. That just means my monsters have to be so deadly that unless you cast flock of familiars, you're going to die, which makes combat more deadly and less fun.

The Return to Anton's Mill

After rudely beating my fun-scary Bodak to redeath and breaking the portal to the Feywild (making sure to collect a vial of oil on the way out), the party headed back to the happy (if troubled) town of Anton's Mill. We short-cut a lot of the travel sequence. Destin's player and I hashed out what exactly it means to "give your dreams" to a witch. Basically he doesn't dream anymore, so there's a slight chance each night that he doesn't fully rest. The chart may get a rework if it turns out to be more annoying than it is fun.

The party was taking a well-earned rest at the inn when Finbar Hane (the blacksmith's son, and well-known to the party) dragged in a colorfully dressed vagabond, claiming he'd lost his animals and they were wreaking havok on the town. I had decided to run my recent favorite one-shot adventure Wild in the Street if we finished up in the Ashfens early. I've gone over it in another article (here) so I won't go over it in great detail here, it's quick to run, you can find it for free in Dungeon Magazine #062 and it's a great adventure without relying on combat. The quick synopsis is: this party decided not to return the animals. Armond kept the displacer kitten (so he can ride it around), the anklyosaurus is going with Winora to eat the apples in her druid grove, and the rust monster will happily gnaw on Destin's magically reinforced armor and whatever scrap metal he produces at the forge.

Lessons Learned

I should have maybe reinforced the Fey portals need circles, might not have been an issue if we'd played week-to-week.

I think I could have done better building Old Jed. Like make his area of the swamp clearly marked in some way (probably by the local lizardfolk, who do not go there). I also could have maybe found a way to draw the players into the possibility of curing the madness of the Oil.

I think talking with Armond's player about the find familiar spell and that it isn't "all creatures CR1 or lower are good to be familiars" ahead of time would have been wise. What threw him off is that Imps are included as an option and are CR1.