We managed another online session this weekend. Sure Owlbear Rodeo was having some server problems but we worked around it.

So here’s a little recap. The party was hired to help one of the local nobles find his missing daughter. They soon find out that the local Temple of Set was also looking for a girl and quickly deduce that they are all looking for the same person.

After some shenanigans, the party finally gets an audience with the High Priest of the Temple of Set. Of course, he looks like this.

I couldn’t help myself. Here they learn that that temple doesn’t want to sacrifice her. They want to outright kill her. According to the High Priest, Kalia, the girl, is a gateway and will become the mortal vessel of the ancient evil serpent god Yig. The only way to stop it is to kill her. The High Priest offers to double the reward from the noble if they help. The little mercenaries agree.

They do a little more detective and find a tavern that seems to be under new management. They go in, they get suspicious, and the fight breaks out. Panicked bar patrons, brute guards, and oh yeah Serpent People. Spells and body parts go flying. The party’s henchman, Daryl, is killed in the fray. A pair of burly serpent man guards try to rush Kalia out of the tavern but the party prevails.

And things get more interesting now. The Druid was still in wolf form and quickly notices that the “girl” they are rescuing isn’t Kalia. The Serpent folk assassin drops her disguise spell, fails to stab anybody, and gets cut down quickly.

That’s when they notice one of the “dancing girls” hasn’t fled. She drops her disguise spell and it’s Kalia. Just evil green-glowing-eyes Kalia. She mutters, “You just can’t find good help. You can’t stop me, mortals.” She blasts the party with a spell, dominates the Barbarian and orders him not to let his friends leave this room, and she runs.

The chase is short. Only two characters manage to get passed the Barbarian, the Monk and the Courtier. Kalia with the use of a few spells easily looses them.

So the party got to confront the big bad of the campaign and they survived.

Well, we had another session of the 5E Sword & Sorcery game this weekend. I didn’t post about the last session but then I should have. So I’ll throw a little bit of that in here too.

The party had just rescued their favorite henchman, Bob, from being possessed by an ancient necromaner. This whole adventure was my own quick take on the Necromaner’s Knife from The Spider-God’s Bride and Other Tales.

After a bout of carousing, the party is approached by Lord Josef (a minor noble in the city). He needs to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Kalia. They haggle for even more money but in the end agree to help. Since this an investigative session, there was no combat at all and I’m only go to do the highlights here and not in chronological order.

Their first round of investigation they learned that that Josef has not received a ransom demand. They eliminated any actions my rival noble house. They also learn that the local Temple of Set is searching for a woman who bears the mark of the Serpent Star. It doesn’t take them long to figure out that the missing Kalia is the one who bears this mark (according to her handmaidens). They deduce based on the cult’s actions that they haven’t this out yet.

The party does a little research on the Temple of Set and the Legend of the Serpent Star. They learn that there are two factions within the Cult of Set. One believed that Set and Yig are just two names for the same god. While the “orthodox” view is that Set is the son/brother of the ancient serpent god Yig the Father of Serpents. Set tricks and imprisons Yig to steal his power.

The party questions Kalia’s hand maidens and searches her room. They learn that Kalia has been having nightmares the last few weeks. In the room, they find an ancient hold symbol of Yig, a small book written in an ancient language that no one in the party can decipher, and some pieces of the snake skin in her bed (as if a snake had molted). They also find the marks where a grappling hook was attached to her window and where one was used on the wall surrounding the villa. The party’s Druid changes into a wolf and literally begins snooping around. She tracks Kalia from her window across the courtyard to and over the wall. Kalia travels further into the city (in the opposite direction from the the Temple of Set) and meets a snake? And shortly after that the Druid lost the trail in the city.

The party takes the small book to a sage for translation. It’s short and the sage tells them to return the next day for the translation. They return and the sage has been murdered and the book is gone. Examination of the body reveals that while the sage did suffer wounds from a fight the main cause of death was from what appears to be an unusually large venomous snake bite. They also find a scrap of parchment in the sage’s hand. Written on it, “I shall return.”

Here ends this session. Stay tuned.