Session 37

← Session 36 Session 38 →

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Combat Incoming

• At this point, it’s obvious that the changeling ship is gunning for us. It is 100 feet away.
• SHIP INFO
  • Our ship is a man-o-war, a 3-mast ship
  • The Changeling ship is a galleon, a 2-mast ship
• Upon Captain Seamus’s command - and calling everyone on deck - people make their way to their stations/on deck and begin lowering the sails
  • We have cannons
• BEFORE WE ROLL FOR INITATIVE:
  • Cal tells Cordelia that - as much as he knows that she loves to burn things down - that might not be wise on a wooden ship. To that end, he tosses her the Spellslinger and a children’s book of first-level spells
    • The Spellslinger is a stringless crossbow that allows her to load the entire book into it. For every page in the spellbook, she can cast Thunderwave as many times as there are pages in the spellbook
      • She can also create her own spellbooks preloaded with OTHER spells 👀
      • The spellbook currently has 20 pages
    • Normal crossbow range is 80/320. Because Thunderwave is a from self spell, minimum range 40 and maximum range is 160
• Quén casts Death Ward on Cordelia and Water Walk on the following people:
  • Quén
  • Cordelia
  • Kaya
  • Cal
  • Ozwin
  • Captain Seamus
  • Kade
  • Vallen

COMBAT BEGINS

• INITIATIVE
  • Cal (24)
  • Quén (17)
  • Vallen
  • Cordelia (12)
  • Kaya (11)

Round 1

• Cal
  • Holds his turn?
• Quén
  • Uses their movement to climb halfway up the middle mast
  • Uses their action to cast Control Water to create a whirlpool directly in front of the other ship
    • Ship succeeds on STR save (slowed but not stopped) and takes 5 damage
• Cal (Held Turn)
  • Dumps a keg of gunpowder (from his bag of holding from like, a million years ago)
  • Shoots at the barrel using his pistol
  • Causes hull damage to the whirlpool (they are now taking in water)
• Vallen
  • Holds his action?
• Cordelia
  • Climbs the mast near the back end of the ship (the one closest to the enemy ship) and climbs to the crow’s nest
  • Casts Invisibility on herself (enemy ship rolls a NAT 1 to see her 👿)
• Kaya
  • Holds her action to cast Earthbind if an airborne enemy comes within range

Round 2

• The enemy ship moves to within 50 feet of us

  • There are 12 figures currently visible on deck

• Cal

  • Forgoes his action to stand on the edge of the ship - one leg up on the wall - and take a swig from a bottle of rum
  • THE ENEMY ROLLS A NAT 20 ATTACK ON HIM
    • A PISTOL SHOT RINGS OUT. THEY LITERALLY SHATTER THE BOTTLE IN CAL’S HAND
  • Perception (24): Cal sees himself, wearing his exact clothes, ALSO holding a bottle of rum, and with his leg up just like Cal is currently standing
    • The other Cal puts his pistol away and casts Eldritch Blast, hitting two people on our ship with two bolts
    • One person doubles over in pain, and another one falls over, dead

• Quén

  • Jumps down and casts Revivify on the person who died, telling them to get below-deck and protect themself
  • Uses their movement to re-climb the middle mast

• Vallen

  • Grabs Cal and teleports to the other ship (space seems to stretch and bend around them as they do this)
    • Cal throws up
    • They’re surrounded by roughly a dozen pirates, one of which looks exactly like him
  • Decapitates a pirate!!! LET’S GO KING (Lily comes)

• Cordelia

  • Passive Perception: 15 (she doesn’t see anything)
  • Casts Firebolt on the enemy sails and deals 2 fire damage to the sails
    • An ember catches on the sails, and they begin to ignite
  • Invisibility goes away :(

• Kaya

  • Gets a running start and jumps onto the enemy ship!
  • She sees:
    • The enemies prepping the cannons to fire
    • Cal and Vallen standing on deck, surrounded by enemies (and one dead body)
  • Yells to the Fogstrider that the enemy is starting to load their cannons

Round 3

• Cal
  • Runs to the wheel and drops the enemy’s anchor (this will take a full round to take effect)
  • Uses his ring to call out to Quén, asking them to tell Captain Seamus to pull the ship in front of the enemy ship’s
• False Cal
  • Dips into the shadows and Shadowsteps to be directly next to Cal
  • He tosses the bottle of rum, grabs a sickle, and slashes across Cal’s left arm for 11 damage
  • Casts Eldritch Blast on Kaya, dealing 13 damage to her
    • Cal sees this and gets MAD (his neck twitches again)
    • He thinks to himself: I can’t let them attack my friends.
• Enemy 1
  • Attacks Vallen (who manages to deflect)
• Enemy 2
  • Runs up to Kaya
• Enemy 3
  • Prepares attack with bow
• Enemy 4
  • Prepares attack with bow
• Enemy 5
  • Charms Kaya
• Quén
  • Passive Perception (19): THEY SEE THE BLUE MAN
    • He’s in the crow’s nest, looking around and drawing something in his notebook
  • They use Control Water: Flood to create a 20-foot wall of water that slams into the ship, rocking it and (hopefully) making the cannons less likely to hit their shots
  • They call to Kade and toss him a Potion of Greater Healing, telling him to make sure nobody gets hurt
    • Immediately after that, they jump to the other ship (NAT 20 ATHLETICS) AND LAND USING AN ENEMY CHANGELING AS A CUSHION. THEY SKID TO A STOP RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE ENEMY SHIP’S MAST
    • Kade gives them a 👍 and is impressed by their feat of athletics (WE STAY WINNING!!!)
• Vallen
  • Teleports and hits False Cal with a spell that we’ve never seen before, dealing 10 points of damage as the smell of ozone permeates the air
• Cordelia
  • Asks Captain Seamus if the cannons are ready (they are): “Then ready them.”
  • Holds her action to cast Enlarge/Reduce on a cannonball once they fire
• Kaya
  • Punches Enemy 2!! One attack misses but the other hits for 5 points of damage
  • Looks around the ship for anything she can use, manipulate, or move (Perception 20)
    • She doesn’t see any unrefined materials that she can use her abilities on :(

Round 4

• Our ship is able to head off the other, (imagine the Fogstrider as the top bar of a T and the enemy ship as the vertical bar)

• The enemy ship is also starting to sink, with some water visible on the stairs leading belowdecks

• Cal

  • Dips down to grab the bottle of rum. As he stands back up, he transforms into Erin Thorne, breaking the bottle over False Cal’s head. “Pay attention to me.”
    • He deals 4 damage with the bottle!

• False Cal

  • In response to Cal’s attack, he locks eyes with him and pulls out his pistol, using it to FIRE TWO SHOTS AT KAYA
    • Kaya casts Shield, raising her AC to 22
    • Only one shot is able to tear through her shield, dealing 22 damage
  • He says “I’m better than you now.” at Cal, who currently looks like Erin Thorne

• Enemy 1

  • Keeps trying to attack Vallen, but his ass keeps effortlessly parrying his attacks 💀 lmao loser type shit

• Enemy 2

  • Tries to attack Kaya, but misses

• Enemies 3 & 4

  • Deal 9 points of damage as one arrow hits her left arm and another scratches it

• Enemy 5

  • Spins the wheel to make the ship turn

• Quén

  • Raises their hand and clenches it into a fist. As they do, lightning strikes and thunder rolls, and they use their Channel Divinity: In Loving Memory.
    • Everyone gets 5 temp HP, and Kaya’s healed for 13 HP
  • They also cast Healing Word on Kaya, healing her for 11 HP
  • They use their movement to run up and stand next to Kaya

• Vallen

  • A distorted space bubble envelops the ship — as it does, he snaps his fingers, and every enemy takes damage. They all look pretty bad now

• Cordelia

  • THE SHIPS FIRE. She casts Enlarge on a cannonball (the one from the middle cannon specifically), turning its size from Tiny to Small (4 FEET BIG)
    • SHE SHIPS A LINE STRAIGHT THROUGH THE SHIP!! THERE’S A HOLE IN THE FRONT AND THE BACK!!!
    • Because there’s no longer as many supports beneath the deck, the thing holding the anchor up (I don’t know the name of it 💀) collapses and falls into the ocean, leaving behind a MASSIVE HOLE and also no more anchor
  • She yells at Cal to “GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!” and casts Fireball on the middle of the ship (which she has a clear line of sight on because of the enlarged cannonball)
    • She specifically wants False Cal to be caught in the blast, since he’s drenched in alcohol
    • FALSE CAL CRIT FAILS
    • Vallen teleports Cal out of the blast range, so only False Cal is in range
    • THERE IS A MASSIVE HOLE IN THE SHIP. IT STARTS TO SINK.
      • Vallen teleports us all to safety (i.e. back to our ship) before it goes down!

Back on the Fogstrider

• It is raining.
• Back on the Fogstrider, we watch the enemy ship fully sink. A few remaining Changelings are left in the water, still alive
• PERCEPTION
  • All the people we killed float to the surface, and their bodies change from various races to all being Changelings
  • We do not see the body of False Cal OR the Blue Man.
• Kade is off to the side, feeding healing potions to injured crew members
• Cordelia asks Quén how they knew the ship was full of Changelings
  • Before they can fully answer, Vallen advises us to go somewhere where it isn’t raining

In the Bar

• We sit at a table in the corner, and Quén casts Silence on a majority of the room so we can speak in relative privacy
  • As we settle in, we hear Captain Seamus bragging to the crew about how he was able to whip the ship around and his ship driving skills
• What Quén shares
  • The Father spoke to them, and said that he offered the pieces of the Shapes
• Cal shares that the Diamond army has always aimed to make itself stronger, either by incorporating vampires or machinery.
• Vallen tells us that the story is that Ihys is dead, and has been since the beginning of time
  • Apparently, there were two cosmic beings: one embodying the concept of good (Iyes) and the other the concept of evil (Asmodeus)
  • Iyes made the Material Plane, after which Asmodeus killed her
  • As punishment for killing Ihys, Asmodeus was Nessus (the ninth level of hell)
    • The other gods decided to send Asmodeus to Nessus
    • Asmodeus can also not leave Nessus
• Quén theorizes that the Father wants to reverse Asmodeus’s imprisonment
• Cal wonders if we can contact Asmodeus
  • The gang is like D:
• Asmodeus can still sway people on the Material Plane through proxies
  • Kaya realizes that the Father might be a proxy for Asmodeus
• We theorize about ways to tell each other apart and how to tell Changelings apart from us
  • We agree to have a “call and response” type deal to check if we’re Changelings:
    • “Are you goonalooning”
    • “My changes of an Eiffel tower are slim but not none.”
  • We need to figure out what Changelings/True Changelings are weak to (kinda like how Vallen’s allergic to garlic)
  • False Cal was wearing a ring like Cal’s, but the insignia was wrong
    • Almost as if it was misinterpreted because it was viewed from a distance… 🤔 (looking at you, Blue Man 🫵👁️👁️)
    • Quén suggests that we turn our rings around (so the design faces our palms and not outward) going forward
  • Quén tells the party that they have a spell that they can cast (Hallow) that can prevent Fey and Undead (among other creature types) form entering a small, specific space
    • Vallen’s like ?? but we won’t be able to enter it?
    • Quén says that it could be a safe space for the crew to retreat to, or we could use it to test any new members or untrustworthy members of the crew
    • Vallen suggests that we get an enchanter to put a similar spell over the stairs leading belowdecks, and to get himself and Quén passes so they can still pass through
• Quén tells the party that they don’t trust Kade
  • “His laissez-faire attitude doesn’t inspire much confidence in the strength of his loyalty”
  • They argue that, if he’s willing to keep things from us for the sake of his agenda or someone else’s, they can’t trust him with information regarding our hunt for the Shapes
  • Kaya suggests that we allow Kade to speak and try and earn our trust. Quén agrees.
    • Vallen and Cal are of the mind that we can just kill him 💀
  • The gang agrees that we can figure out what Changelings might be weak to, and test it out on Kade

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