Session 28

Fact Sheet: plants vs zombies

Players present: Ecchima, Marty, Meinhart, Tuur and Vinnie. Dins was our GM.

Date: 30-08-23

Date in-universe: the morning of a fantasy Saturday!

Major developments:

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Previously: session 27 a dark path in the forest darkly

Up next: session 29 friendship is magic

Notes

As we wake up, we notice

Lutiel, Cedar and Daisy are already awake, they all need less sleep than we do. Cedar and Daisy loiter closely by Fyllion's tent.
the yeth hounds' bodies have disappeared.

In the dim light of Saturday’s dawn, we can only see the vines and thorns and trees of the forest.

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Daisy wonders why Fyllion wasted hours just lying in a bed - it doesn't seem to suit him much. In the past, as far as she knew, he kept busy with politics and arch fey business, as befits a demi-god! Fyllion figures maybe he used to be so grumpy because he didn't get enough sleep? Hali points out that he used to talk in the 3rd person to himself, as she reads out the text Fyllion found written on his body. El wonders if it's something like this mystical general of Thalm Samut legend who invaded a lot of countries & also used the 3rd person.

Cedar confirms that Fyllion was always one of his names, next to Skaravel (shortened to Skara) much like his father goes by both the moniker The Green Lord and the name Oberon. As far as Cedar knows, when an Arch Fey reincarnates, they don’t typically lose their memory… but Cedar hasn't really witnessed the process up close before. Cedar has no idea where the 3 rd person thing comes from.

Cedar explains that

his family members are faithful servants of the Spring Court. Cedar’s original master was Dahm, the patron of satyrs. Dahm is another son of Oberon’s and Titania’s, making him Fyllion’s brother
in the spring court, Daisy was originally part of the retinue of Verenestra, Fyllion's sister and the patron of dryads, nymphs, and sprites
Fyllion had some followers but being quite young, he wasn't a patron yet (except perhaps patron of himself, as Ezra mutters).

With a sigh, Fyllion wonders why his mentor Ifykon didn’t explain all this? Cedar wonders about that too: Ifykon was always weird, no one knows why Fyllion held him in such high regard? Inspired by their experiences with their mother Aashvi, Ezra muses if it's possible Ifykon was a double agent…? Keeping a powerful player out of the game is a good move for the gloaming court!

Cedar quickly reminds us that Arch Fey don't lie, so we shouldn’t slander his beloved nanny and mentor… but one of us adds the nuance that satyrs aren't Arch Fey, so who really knows? This starts a new discussion: El wonders if Fyllion is an actual Arch Fey because we've heard him lie. Storm throws a handful of salt in Fyllion’s face & when Fyllion sputters in surprise and indignation, Storm explains it’s an old wives’ test to see if Fyllion is a changeling. Fyllion starts crying, overwrought by his shaken sense of identity.

As Storm apologetically dusts off the salt from Fyllion’s face & shoulders, Ezra orders us to stop speculating & start marching towards Bog the Frog. El wonders if we should put Fyllion in a straight jacket, but Storm waves El’s suggestion away & gives Fyllion extra honey in his porridge as a continued apology.

Ezra confers with Daisy and Cedar on how to find Bog the Frog. Lutiel mentions he doesn't know this creature, there’s no guarantee a frog will be able to help us. El promises they'll kiss the frog if needed, but Ezra responds quickly that consent matters!

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As we're packing up, Daisy flutters over to Ezra. She explains she thinks she has an idea to make Ezra more effective in combat. She slashes off a tiny piece of one of the vines & as Ezra hands over their bow, Daisy restrings it with the vine and with magic. With a slightly insulting, slightly helpful "now you should be a bit more effective & I shouldn't have to babysit you anymore", Daisy hands the bow back.

Immediately Ezra feels that the vine sends out tendrils to suck blood, promising magical damage in exchange. Baaloo is a bit wary but doesn't reject the bow outright. El grumbles a little about everyone freaking over their mysterious sword, while it seems half the crew is now using blood magic...

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As we start walking through the forest, Storm asks Lutiel about Gwyleth, the magical elven smith in The Vale, but the only magic users Lutiel knows outside of the forest, are the Ghorann siblings, who keep a shop near the Lake of the Mother. Storm decides not to mention we met the Ghorann father and saw him die.

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Daisy leads us. Cedar keeps a close eye on Fyllion, making sure he can keep up. Lutiel finds the walk too exhausting, and changes into a bird to perch on Hali's shoulder. From there, he croaks at Storm about his sandals: he can sense the touch of Soliman in the golden light gleaming off the sandals. It leads to a trip down memory lane: Lutiel recounts how there were pantheist shrines in the forest, and everywhere elves roamed and lived. The elves built those as signs of friendship between complimentary gods, and between their worshippers. Here in the forest, the friendship flourished between Soliman of the sun and Taurillon of the green things growing!

Nowadays with the humans leading society and dominating culture, the pantheist point of view fell out of favour, since humans prefer hierarchies and have a tendency towards a transactional quid pro quo. “The result”, Lutiel scoffs from Hali’s shoulder, “is either temples dedicated to one god, or a pairing of gods in a binary dichotomy, as if the complexities of life, the universe and everything”!

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Near the end of the morning, we hear Daisy cry out: “What the hell is that”?

When we catch up to her, we see what the matter is: tied tightly to a tree by several vines, we see the body of a dead druid, staff still in hand. Ezra and Hali check out the body: it's been drained of all fluids and looks very desiccated. It probably was a young-ish man, wearing a pelt and some leaves. The red vines have drilled into the body; though he's tied tightly, he wasn't crushed to death, rather he died from several huge slashes along his torso. He's probably been there for several days. Ezra leans closer to the gashes, but can't really determine anything: the gashes could have been caused by any creature with claws, such as a direwolf, an owlbear, a giant eagle...

El and Storm keep an eye on the surroundings, wary of danger. The trees around the body seem more verdant and flourishing than the rest of the forest. Any tracks we can spot, are several days old. There are no signs of struggle.

Lutiel reaches out: “Mobay my brother, I'm sorry I wasn't here. It seems like your last act was returning your life force to nature, preserving the trees here”.

Hali gently shifts the body in a resting position: closing his eyes, giving him rudimentary funerary ablutions, infusing some nearby buds with druidcraft till they blossom in order to gift Mobay some flowers. Lutiel recognizes Hali as another druid in tune with nature & thanks her for her assistance.

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Daisy pushes us to carry on.

The closer we get to the Fey area, the better the trees are looking, but Hali still creates a gentle rainfall to feed the thirsty earth and the suffering plants.

After a while, we feel a sort of strange earthquake, but quickly we realise it's the thick vines we're walking on that are vibrating underfoot. It's the alarm signal that activated Körperwelten! Only it's not focused on us, Ezra and El point out there's a scuffle going on to the north-east of us.

Storm asks Bella Swan to scout ahead, while Lutiel guides his body: through her eyes, Storm sees a direwolf being crushed to death by a thick vine. Its struggles do nothing beyond activating the vine blights nearby. Bella Swan notices the wolf is wearing a delicately woven collar. It’s clearly not intended to control the animal, rather this is someone's sign of affection. Lutiel thinks it's the familiar of one of the other druids, although he thinks it's acceptable collateral damage in light of the larger picture.

That leads to a small discussion. Storm snaps, does Lutiel have no heart? How can he abandon his friend’s familiar, just like that? El tuts that of course Lutiel has a heart, obviously, otherwise you'd be dead, wouldn’t you, old man? Lutiel sighs his heart goes out the bigger picture, where our tiny temporary allegiance might carry the only hope for the entire forest, with every creature within it, up to and including this trapped wolf. Captain Ezra cuts the debate short: it’s good to combine different points of view, and it’s great to remember the bigger picture, only please, everyone just grumble less every step of the way.

We head towards the struggling wolf. Daisy is seriously pouting over this distraction from finding Bog the frog. Cedar attends to Fyllion who seems to lean more towards Lutiel's position of ignoring any random encounters. As we arrive in the turn of the path, we see one big vine beast and a few vine blights forming. We quickly respond!

Hali launches a guiding bolt on a vine blight & shifts into her starry form, shooting a starry arrow. Both hurt the blight! Hali seeks partial cover behind the nearest tree
Lutiel steps up to the same tree as Hali & sets up his bear totem, granting us temporary hit points, including the wolf. He turns into an eagle
captain Ezra figures attacking the vine holding the wolf might cause it to change targets & free the wolf... so they shoot an arrow into the cluster! They order the rest of us to also attack in order to free the wolf. The vine responds to the arrow, though it doesn't look like it's really sentient
El runs up to the wolf & can see how badly it's injured. The barbs of the vine clusters are jammed into the wolf & are drinking blood. Inflamed by its suffering, they attack the vine cluster with their sword. El also heals the wolf
Storm asks Bella Swan to fly up to scout for other danger. Storm hurtles a crossbow arrow into the vine cluster to help the wolf (and it's a NATURAL TWENTY). Storm tries to tap-dance as a variation on dancer's influence, but that doesn't work. The vines have no eyes and don’t respond to the tap-dancing vibrations. Bella Swan returns, with a clarion call that more danger lurks in the trees to the north! Storm warns the others.
the assassin vine throws the weakened wolf aside & lashes out at El who’s standing right in front of it. El is bruised: with a bitten-off swearword, they give a hellish rebuke... but El is also grappled and feels the vine's barbs piercing their skin and lapping up their blood!
Cedar backs away and hides, repeating to Fyllion this is a bad idea & they should leave. Fyllion agrees, but objects that leaving is not what the group wants. Cedar wonders how long the group will still be alive? Daisy turns invisible, we see her trail of pixie dust vanish into the treeline and then disappear
Fyllion calls out: as soon as El is freed, we should run, we have no stake in this fight. El feels their heart warming at this declaration of the importance Fyllion attaches to El's wellbeing. Fyllion torments the vine blight with dissonant whispers & the bloody plant is forced to slither away. Fyllion joins Cedar in the bushes but doesn't quite hide. The vine blight ends up next to El, who’s still wrapped in the assassin vine
the wolf clambers to its feet next to another vine blight. It slinks away to a safer place near the treeline
the vine blight lumbers forward & tries to entangle Lutiel, Ezra and Storm. Ezra manages to get out of it & Bella Swan flies too high, luckily. The second vine blight lumbers up to El and helps the assassin vine entangle them

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Hali and Storm hear the footfalls of more than a handful humanoid marching towards us. At our word of warning, Ezra and Storm can see it's 7 dried out husks of humans, still wearing shredded clothes, reminiscent of what a travelling merchant would wear, or pelts as a druid typically prefers. One of them even has the red and gold sash we recognize from the Gilded Blade. Their aura isn't really menacing, but their hands have been turned into claws.
Slightly panicked, Hali suggests we run. Before she can add we should first free El, Cedar bleats that that's her best idea yet! Ignoring him, she launches a guiding bolt at the vine blight, killing it. She circles around the entangling vines, with the intent to catch up to El. She shoots a starry arrow at the assassin vine, in the hopes that'll release El. It's a NATURAL TWENTY.
Lutiel manages to free himself & hides in a nearby tree
Ezra tries to free Storm, but with a NATURAL ONE it doesn't work! In their frustration their second attempt works, and they order us to free El & prepare for a fast retreat. They choose a new position
the assassin vine's barbs have injected poison into El. El feels woozy but pushes through with Fyllion's bardic inspiration. It's a horror show, with TWO NATURAL ONES and a NATURAL EIGHT. With a Hulk-like roar, El frees themselves from the assassin vine. Now they only have to deal with the vine blight glommed onto them.
Bella Swan scouts again. Storm manages to reach over to El and wedging a golden sandal into the branches for leverage, he manages to get El free!
the assassin vine winds its vines around Storm & starts crushing him, while the jagged teeth of its barbs jam into his skin
Cedar keeps hanging on Fyllion's coattails, trying to drag him into the bushes, so the plebes can handle the battle. Daisy concurs: these commoners are sure to be fine, they'll stall the enemies for us!
Fyllion takes stock of the situation: El lying on one knee & Storm restrained... Fyllion takes a step forward & flicks his coat of feather fall. As the light glints gold and green and purple off the celestial feathers, we all feel inspired. Hopefully this will help us to flee! El is able to scamper away, but Storm remains restrained. Fyllion whispers dissonant whispers again. The assassin vine lumbers away, dragging Storm with it. Cedar and Daisy feel a glimmer of hope that their master does still have power!
the wolf limps closer warily, unwilling to abandon the unexpected allies who came and helped. Alas, his injuries prevent his double bite attack from landing (due to TWO NATURAL ONES, poor Dins)
the vine blight remains hungry for the table scraps the assassin vine dropped & grapples El again

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4 of the husks surround the wolf, 2 seem to focus on Hali and the last one approaches the dead vine blight, it seems. Hali gets hit twice, but luckily, she can evade their second attack. The wolf gets hit once out of 4 attacks. Now they're closer, we can see that these are for real for real reanimated corpses. Lutiel twitters disconsolately when he spots the druids amongst the husks
Hali is left reeling from the attacks and hesitates a little. Then she tries to wash away the husks with a tiny tidal wave. One is pushed back & Hali sends a starry arrow hurtling after it (rolling a NATURAL TWENTY AND a NATURAL ONE in the same roll, but the natural one counts so) she misses. As Hali steps away, she feels another set of claws rake over her back
Lutiel lands and turns back into his human form. He sighs there are too many combatants and summons a grasping vine deeper in the forest & drags one of the vines away from El and Storm. He crouches into the bushes near Fyllion and Cedar
Ezra implores the carpet to hover over El and Storm to help where it can. They launch an arrow into the vine blight grappling El. The impact shoves the vine blight away, freeing El! Ezra hurries over to Lutiel and Fyllion
El shuffles under Bella Swan, closer to Storm. As soon as they move, the husk lunges and hurts them. El snarls a hellish rebuke and the husk is also hurt. El starts yanking on Storm, and with the favour of the gods (and a NATURAL TWENTY) they free Storm! They implore the carpet to pick Storm up and carry him away. As they start to run, the assassin vine lashes out and beats El unconscious!
fully stretched out, limbs akimbo over the edges, Storm whispers words of encouragement to the straining carpet. As the carpet swoops lower, Storm manages to grab our unconscious friend El. With an acrobatic roll, Storm manages to haul El onto the carpet in the same movement that sees Storm back on the forest floor (in order to avoid overburdening the carpet). With a grateful sob, Storm asks the carpet to carry El to safety near Ezra. With an elegant flourish, Storm starts to flee as well, exerting dancer’s influence on 2 of the husks. Over his shoulder, Storm implores Bella Swan to help the wolf if she can
the assassin vine animates roots near Storm and Hali, but they manage to evade them. The assassin vine lumbers after them. The husk does attack the vine, but misses
at Fyllion's insistent order, Cedar heals El, very reluctantly. When El complains they don't feel so well, Cedar bleats that’ll teach them to rush into battle for a dumb animal. How long does an overgrown dog live anyway? El is undeterred and asks what if it's a goat in trouble. Cedar huffs and refuses to reply. Daisy doesn't do anything beyond glowering at El
Fyllion roars the epic "today everybody lives" and inspires almost all of us to run. Ezra, Lutiel, Hali, Storm, Cedar and Daisy huddle around Fyllion. He pushes dissonant whispers at the assassin vine.

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As we scrabble to safety, we’re surprised see that the husks start fighting the last vine blight. When we're a safe distance away, the wolf drops to its side, wagging its tail at El and Storm.

Daisy: haven’t you played with that smelly animal enough now??
Ezra: Cedar also smells but you didn’t complain when we helped you both before we knew you, nor when we kept you around after we saved you

El just ignores the jabs and cheerily tries to teach the wolf how to give a paw bump. With a slightly embarrassed side-eye at his captain and his mentor’s brother, Fyllion decides to discretely use prestidigitation on Cedar.

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Lutiel now recognizes the direwolf for sure: Frauki is the familiar of another druid of the Circle. As the wolf recognises Lutiel, it growls with bared teeth and rushes off into the forest.

Because of Frauki’s reaction to Lutiel, El and Storm are a bit suspicious of the single surviving druid… Storm throws another handful of salt, but it doesn’t cause any reaction. With a dignified sweep of an old ropey hand, Lutiel brushes the salt away. He explains that changelings are a pretty rare species, so we probably shouldn't waste our precious cooking supplies by relying on this old-wives-tale anyway: how would some random grannies know how to deal with a changeling!? And besides, there are many magic users & magical entities who are able to change their shape, and neither salt nor iron would affect that. Unless we want to test his harpy eagle form, salt vs talons...?

After we mutely shake our heads, Lutiel grits his teeth as he turns to the more painful subject: “I understand why Frauki would be angry: my first loyalty wasn't to the circle, and thus his master was turned into one of the husks we saw. I laud you for your heart, but I also agree with your Fey friend: risking the lives of all to save one life isn't very useful, esp given the bigger picture”!

Ezra declares we’re not having this same debate again. They signal to Daisy and Bella Swan to lead us deeper into the forest again, on the road to Bog the frog.

Story line

Previously: session 27 a dark path in the forest darkly

Up next: session 29 friendship is magic

Images

none, I don't think