Gnome Way Home

Scribe Notes

Summary

(Captain) Dunbar Stormkinder

Lorcan Skyratchet

Egan Firehand

Tawnie Lodestar

Tulla Goldhand

Sterling "Splinge" Cogsprocket

Balthazar "Pongo" Wogglebottle

Adventure: Gnome Way Home
GM: Martin
Season: Spring 823 wk
Night: various weekends
Level: Low-Medium

Party

1. Dart - Halfling Bard - Alex
2. Roxanna - Human Mind Mistress - Paige
3. Mattin - The Murder Hobbit - Kyan
4. Kassian - Elven Druidic Cheesemaker - Grey
5. Tharlin - Dwarven Air Mage - Conal PL
6. Duvon - Dwarven Druid (m) - Dean MilSci
7. Ari - Human Namer - Stephen Scribe

Employer

By way of an urgent request some days after the Spring Meeting asking for a Guild party for a rescue and recovery operation in a location the employers cannot operate due to events dating back to Autumn 790 WK (See Against ze Flying Nomes).

Mission

Find, secure, assist, and recover a valuable lost asset and several VIPs.

Pay

Yes... definitely... probably quite good.

Scribe Notes

Into the woods

Frysday 18th Thaw

We're gathered for work in the early hours of the morning, a late and urgent request has come in from Gnomes to rescue a flying ship and crew that have crashed in Bowcourt south-east of Mure.

We gather equipment, do some rituals and head out.

• Greater Enchantment rk 20 on Magic for the season
• 6 x Restoratives 10/20
• 6 x Expired Healing Potions 2D10
• 6 x Special Potions
  • Stoneskin
  • Slow Trollskin
  • Heroism
  • Spider Climb
  • Gullibility
  • Vitality
• 6 x Oils
  • Mending
  • Sharpness
  • Hair Restoration
  • Barkskin
  • Sharkskin
  • Willowshade

We walk into Seagate to Seacliff Estate near Castle Chilton, there we are admitted to an enchanted Garden Gazebo.

At midday there is a lurching sensation, fortunately we're all inside, and then we're in a rose garden.

An elderly man (William of Mure, twin brother of Baron Henry) greets us, we're expected. It is a busy, well looked after estate in Armagnac.

William has gathered supplies for us, a lot of supplies: Food, tree clearing tools, mechanician tools & ropes, and more food. William's nephew Anton will take a ship with most of the supplies to Stormstout Brewery while we fly ahead to try to find the crash site.

The flying vessel is about 50' long with double that in wingspan. Our tracking device is pointing towards the Lupine Woods.

We have lunch, cast some spells (SoS & Flying), then take flight south-east for the Lupine Woods. Following the tracker as we get close, we land nearby on a bare hill with a magical circle of standing stones at the top - a barrow?. Counts as a Druidic Place of Power, associated with a power - Romulag. Ley lines flow around the barrow, it looks like this is probably a fey wood.

Rox picks up something watching us, sitting in trees, small with large heads and bodies but no apparent limbs. Plant-like, Tree Spirit (Kodama), Fae but not associated with any of the courts, Health/Growth ability. Kass talks to them, they are sad, trees were stolen, taken, drained. The rocks contain/seal un-life, rot. They have a friend, ???, not a false-friend. The friend checks on trees after big storms, last visited in winter.

About an hour through the forest, we come to the Gnomes and their crashed craft, feeling a bit sorry for themselves, hungry, & hurt. Sky Gnomes, recently affected by soft-fall magic.

1. Splinge (Sterling Cogsprocket) has metal legs and feet. Extra long moustache & pointy beard. Was stuck in a tree - "easier to go up than down".
2. Dunbar Stormkinder, pilot/captain, walrus moustache.
3. Lorcan Skyratchet, peacemaker/leader.
4. Eagan Firehand
5. Tawnie Lodestar, engineer, built the ship.
6. Tulla Goldhand, severe haircut.
7. Pongo (Balthazar Wogglebottle), poisoned (ate red berries and toadstools when they got hungry), hydraulics engineer.

They saw a beacon light (coming from the barrow), came in for a landing, crashed into the trees.

During the night someone barefoot & invisible approached enough to see us before withdrawing, their tracks show them deviating to check us out while travelling north of us, east to west.

Reapsday 19th Thaw

We walk back to the barrow.

Long ago, a great spirit/god of the forest became rotten, fell and was entombed/contained here. The circle syphoned & flared off (growth/life) energy from the barrow to keep it from building up. Many millennia old (Ancient Elven Empire or older). Broken 3 days ago, restoring the stones to their position won't fix it. The circle was built by great mages of the Elves and powerful Seelie Fae.

We see the prepared smoke signal rising from the Gnome camp indicating they need help.

Fae Hags or Ladies?

We race back, prepared for anything to find 2 gnomes arguing, 1 watching, and Tulla is throwing green leaves on the fire. 3 Gnomes are missing.

Splinge went east to feed the gremlin (beezly)

Pongo went north to find a river, he left just after we did

Egan went north to look for Pongo

We find Splinge fairly quickly, the Gremlin got spooked and made his legs fall off. After carrying him back to camp, Tharlin picks up the scant trail and we follow the other two north.

The two Gnomes have managed to go in different directions so we split up too.

Pongo somehow avoided an area infested with giant spiders that we find by touch. We find him by a small stream talking with a Fae, near-avatar, Green Lady, Seelie Court, Woods Guardian, centuries old. The lady offered to help get the Gnomes flying cart free of the trees, if we help her by getting rid of some unseelie to the north-east who are troubling her. Less than a dozen of them, like dark, twisted Satyrs.

We discuss the mound, it is from before her time but she thinks it may be reborn now that its containment is breached, this is not necessarily a bad thing (from her point of view).

Tharlin, Dart & Tulla find Egan fleeing through the forest, chased by wood animates, made of sticks, bone and rune stones (non-college, spirit binding, dark ritualistic magic, a couple of hours to make each one. Sacrifice animal, binding spirit to its own skull to create the animus, made by a Black Hag). They engage. Tulla fires a fire-crossbow, Dart & Tharlin engage in melee, the fight is quick and one-sided. They then return to camp.

Several times today we have seen yellow-eyed ravens watching us, someone possessing them that withdraws when we pay attention (the eyes reverting). The Green Lady is intentionally vague, she says they are several beings it could be.

After lunch we hike north-east to where the Dark Satyrs are supposed to be, we're followed by moving trees. Clearing around a magic well, faun archers, we try to chat, one of them shoots (elbow jogged by an awakened tree), the fight is on. Hands (of earth and brambles) from both sides are effective, melee damage, spells, arrows. One of the fauns is killed by an awakened tree, one tree killed by fire arrows, one de-animated by the well. We capture:

2 x Faun - mostly Seelie court.

2 x Cervitaur (Faun-Deer style Centaur)

Chapter 3

Tharlin's Special Takeover of the Scribe Notes

After the battle, the walking tree was de-animated and we had three agendas

1) Talk to capturees

2) Investigate the moving trees

3) Investigate the pool

We find out from one of the fauns (Sorrel) that the lady they're working for is Flora Halfelven. They being Sorrel and the other faun Kale and the two Cervitaurs Sage and Bramble. They said Flora had gone to retrieve a patrol of real fighters and we only fought basket weavers. After precognition, some recitations and divinations of the trees, we find out that the trees were awoken by the Green Hag and instructed to eat the evil satyrs. The flavour of magic seems to be similar to that of the shoulder sigils from the guys Dart and I fought while rescuing Egen. Another recitation from Dart tells us that the pool here is clean water brought over with the fae when they entered the plane. Some of the spirits that came over with them dozed off over time because "the wild has left" basically meaning the forest is a mere shell of an the old great one that was here.

We decided to wait until Flora came back and she arrived with a woodland-fairy-y folk music played on the flute. For some reason Duvon put moss in his ears then him, Cass and the murder hobbit went glazy-eyed. We noticed archers coming in from both sides and next to Flora there were two ladies behind Flora (one with back Antlers who looked vaguely elvish named Feralia. Another playing the flute was Pomona). We figure out with them that not everything we've heard is true. The Green Lady could secretly be the Green Hag. There are three hags, the green, black and one we haven't encountered. Feralia, Flora's sister, is often referred to as 'tree friend' and the Green Hag could be 'false friend'. Lots to discuss and think about later. Flora and friends also told us they could get us into the corrupted area to challenge the corruption and they could get their druid friend Hawthorne to get the aircraft out from the trees.

We walk back to the gnome encampment and run into some wolves who don't look quite right. As they get closer, we form up and find they look more like Zombie Dire Wolves. There are about a dozen total around us. Rox took two of them out, using mind magic and we picked off the rest. I clobbered one and smashed its hip making it fall over prone then beat it to a pulp (I'm not cruel, it just kept getting back up). I became the stand-in Mil. Sci as the normal ones are engaged and I'm quick. Both undead re-deads cumpled apart and billowed out green smoke similar to that of the grassy guys Dart and I pummeled earlier but these ones have no sigils. Duvon was bitten and as we finished off our individual wolves, Dart and I ran around helping everyone else. Cass got his first 'kill' and we finished off the rest followed by some investigating. We find out these guys were animated by the Black Hag and their spirits have been bound into their skull pulling along the rest of their body. We head the rest of the way back to the gnome camp and as I got into the clearing I almost had my head speared by wooden stake from a ballista-like contraption made by the gnomes. Luckily they missed and that's the end of the day, Tharlin signing off.

Calendar

Spring: Thaw 823 (10)
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
		Candlemansa	1	Guild Meeting	2		3		4		5		6	.
	7		8		9		10		11		12		13
	14		15		16		17	Urgent request arrives	18	Party assembled/depart	19		20
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28		29		30		1		2		3		4
Spring: Seedtime 823 (11)
	5		6		7		8	Rites of Thunor	9		10		11
	12		13		14		15	Equinox	16		17	Eostre	18
	19		20		21		22		23		24		25
	26		27		28		29		30		1		2
Spring: Blossom 823 (12)
	3		4		5		6		7		8		9
	10		11		12		13		14		15		16
	17		18		19		20		21	Floralia	22		23
	24		25		26		27		28		29		30	Walpurgisnacht