The short version; with a few days to kill until the party needs to pick up something and eager to test out a magical item that was alleged to make their draught-lizard faster, they set out to hike back up to a landmark they had seen. They sensibly navigate around hazards then spot something interesting, "Squirrel!" off the plan and end up wrestling with a wild-magic surged flying reptile mount in a session heavily driven by the wild-magic surge table.
Characters
Herb - Firbolg "Alchemist" (artificer)
Eggie - Goliath "Wizard" (wild-magic sorcerer)
Cortez - Dwarven Fighter
Plus minions
Clarabelle - tabaxi, small, servant
Fabricator Technician #207 - insectfolk, small, observer
Cedric - big lizard beast of burden
Session Recap
Starting at the Goblin Market, last trades are completed and the party hikes back to the base village of Ashley, retrieves their giant lizard mount 'Cedric', hang the magical nomads plaque they just acquired on it and then set out on a long loop towards where they needed to be a few days hence.
A string of mostly great encounter die rolls (6, 6, 2, 5, 4, 6) sees them make smooth progress toward and into goblin blowpiper territory, slowed by working their way through carnivorous plants, before making quick work again past snail cultivation, spotting where the territory of a tiger they had hunted had been taken over by a terrorbird (4) and then remembering in time as their mount barreled through the jungle that they were coming up on the top of a waterfall.
Divering down through the staked-out dead cultists that marked the goblin-cultist territory border they arrive in raccoon country - and a wild magic surge yields a 'see invisibility' and a brief glimpse of some strange bright light to the north. They haul the nose of their big lizard around and weather the first of a few peltings from the raccoon inhabitants of the region as it pulls a big turn. With night deepening they hobble the big lizard and investigate the 'invisible light' - finding a crevasse with strange metallic bees bumbling around. Some investigations and a serious wiggins from the alchemist leads them to decide to leave the bees alone. They camp up in the canopy, above the giant insect hives, having an uneasy night - finding on the second watch that their big lizard had wandered off and found a hive to plunder. Leaving it as a problem for the morrow, they stay aloft.
The next morning, they track their lizard to the orchards at the heart of raccoon territory and decide to engage the pesky raccoons once and for all. In a matter of moments the 'wizard' Catapults a flask of alchemists fire, trips a wild magic surge, imbues 'fly' on the big lizard and suddenly they have a scramble to hang on when it leaps to snap at one of its raccoon tormentors, realises it can fly and soars off into the sky.
The big lizard soared off into the sky with the firbolg alchemist aboard while the dwarf fighter, goliath wizard and the dwarfs hirelings - a small tabaxi and an insectfolk - scramble to hang on to the broken end of the hobbling rope. The 'wizard' Misty Steps up to the lizards back and trips a minute worth of wild magic surges which go off while they try to haul the dwarf aboard and then rescue the tabaxi who managed to grab onto the big lizards thagomizer.
Soaring up through the sky the goliath tried to convince the big lizard to go back down, then spots a distant dragon a-wing and hauls the reins, banking the lizard and tipping all the passengers free once more. After some more effort to secure themselves they skim through the forest canopy - a 'dashing' flying big lizard covering significant ground - around the rim of a volcano and plunge back into the forest once more after shouldering past a giant terror bird that had been imitating a tree. The session ended as their lizard touched down on the forest floor once more (a victory?) with the crashing of a outraged terror-bird drawing closer...
Observations
As before this was run using an overloaded encounter die
1. Setback
2. Fatigue/delay
3. Expiration
4. Locality
5. Percept
6. Advantage
This was very much a session of three parts:
First with a significant amount of map consultation as they tried to recall all their knowledge of what was where and plot a course that avoided their most feared local denizens (the harpy coven). This I was very happy with as they were interacting with the map, using knowledge and judgement to make in-world calls about what they wanted to do and what hazards they were willing to put up with. Harpy country was to be avoided, the goblin blowpipers were judged safe to intrude upon, raccoon country a tolerable risk.
Second was the investigative piece around a small hive of atomic bees, straight out of Veins of the Earth. This was a deeply random encounter, triggered by the wild magic effect enhanced senses and the very good perception roll (to provide the clue of the mysterious invisible light) which the party then decided to scrap their original plans to investigate. After dusk. In the hex they knew contained giant insect hives. But that they rolled a 6 on entering the giant hives hex, this would have gone very badly for them. Even then, they poked and fiddled with the atomic bees quite a bit (with the bees making morale checks to be sufficiently irritated to get hostile) before a decent lore roll by the alchemist got the oral swamp-history equivalent of 'this is not a place of honour' and they decided to bail. Not before the dwarf caught one in a glass vial but then let it go, dodging the infuriated bee as it escaped. Again, good rolls avoided a very bad outcome.
Thirdly was the flying lizard nonsense. This was entirely driven by wild magic and ridiculous dice rolls. The magic surge got 'something nearby can fly' - all the party and their minions and the lizard got a spot on the d10 with 4 spots being random forest creatures - and they rolled the lizard. The lizard was granted flying just as a thing up a tree was harrassing it, making the normally placid beast interested in the 3rd dimension in a very unusual way. And the trailing rope from its broken halter meant that there was some way for the party to stay with it after it bolted for the skies. Attempting to stay on board the lizard and keep their minions from plunging to their doom took up the whole back half of the session.
This was a hugely dice-driven session, with improbable rolls combined with a player willingness to poke and pry leading to a session I would never have foreseen. An uncareful wild magic sorcerer drives a lot of events which is a boon for this kind of open sandboxy campaign where it would be a de-railing nightmare in other circumstances.
One thing that I am intrigued about - I have continuously described Cedric the big lizard as having a thagomizer, a big humped back with a double row of plates on it, hippo-like feet and a teeny pointy snout but I am not convinced that the players have realised he is a stegosaur. Even with a significant bit during the flying where the tabaxi had to be rescued from the spikes on the end of its tail I still suspect that if I ever showed them a picture the reaction would be 'omg, dinosaur' - you can describe things and describe things but until it is *named* people will not twig.
Practically, very little got achieved and they have managed to potentially attract the attention of a dragon and definitely attract the hostile attentions of a terror bird - yet the players thought it a resounding success.
Session Stats
Stats I am tracking for this campaign:
Treasure Acquired - nil
New hexes explored - 14 2.5 mile hexes traversed, 3 were new
Enemies vanquished - n/a
Foes Bypassed - Raccoon hordes, twice
Carousing XP - nil
And for the purposes of this session - they ran from the Raccoons once, fought/disengaged from them once, messed around with Atomic Bees and traversed three new hexes - not a huge amount of XP accrued this time.
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