We’ve started playing earlier on a Sunday afternoon so that we have more leeway if we get caught up in the action and so that there’s a chance to wind down afterward without needing to dive straight into bed. As a result, I’ve got a chance this evening to write up today’s session – which is just as well as a lot happened to a very split group.
We’d left the group resting overnight following the major revelations of the last session, and they woke to make breakfast and try to decide on what to do first to gather the local scattered survivors to begin the fight to reclaim Amberhammer Hold. Karkanna was willing to gather together the werewolves hiding in an abandoned village a few hours away, so Caeluma offered to accompany her and support her in that effort. Rather than backtrack around various crevasses and rivers, Caeluma used her wings to slowly carry Karkanna across. This was hugely exhausting, but took a long time off their journey.
When they arrived, they found a cluster of hovels near a dilapidated shrine, so Caeluma entered and prayed briefly, re-emerging to find that nearly a score of disheveled and beaten-looking dwarves in tattered clothing had emerged from the ruins and were gathering around. Much to Caeluma’s alarm, Karkanna gestured that they should speak, which took Caeluma very much out of their comfort zone.
In a halting voice, that slowly grew in confidence, Caeluma was able to appeal to their community, their shared fates, the trust in each other and might together in the face of the invaders who had overrun their home. Faced with a beaten and resentful group, Caeluma was able to rouse them and bring hope and a new sense of purpose. And so the werewolves were recruited
Meanwhile, Arwan, Thorin, and Valenia travelled by foot, crossing a ravine across the rusted sword and remains of a truly titanic warforged colossus from years gone by. Local predators in the form of aggressive dinosaurs attacked them, but despite the precarious footings of all concerned, the group was able to fight through with only minor injuries and eventually made it to a fortified village called Flower Town. In happier times this village grew staple crops for the Hold on carefully maintained terraces cut into the mountainsides, but it was now surrounded by barricades and bore signs of recent fighting. Many of the refugees from the Hold had been taken in here, and they now lived in a state of constant night-time siege.
Thorin, also unused to public speaking and unsure of how to win people round, produced the Heirloom Axe and began to speak. The process was rocky at first. Many held Thorin with fond memories, but his long absence and the actions of his sister counted against him in the face of what they had suffered. Valenia tried to demonstrate that those with lycanthropy could be trusted by transforming into her new hybrid form, and back again – but this was not well received. In the end, an impassioned speech by Thorin about reclaiming their lands together, leading them to push back the dark, and seeing a land free again for all of them – a chance to end the Last War once and for all – broke the impasse.
And back at the camp, Kerne continued to research for ways to break the werewolf curse – reaching out to her sister by way of the magic book that they could both write in – and was able to convince Faye to share a recipe stolen from the Hags that trained her that could cure someone bitten by a werewolf. If she could gather the ingredients, or finish finding the rituals required, there may be another way to end the plague without putting everyone infected to the sword.
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