Session 6: The Fortress

This is a recap of a session from my “Goldcrest” 5th Edition D&D Campaign. The artwork for the main image is from JJ Canvas.

The Fortress

Session Date: February 4th, 2018

Session Recap:

The players level up to level 4 at the start of this session!

In the last session, the players were guided by one group of Gnomes (known as Greyvines) to another in the Feywild (made up of “Greyvines” and “Tinhammers”). The goal was to learn more about a mysterious Fortress recently discovered there that may be the same one appearing in the Prime, near a location they had been heading to earlier. Unfortunately, these two factions of Gnomes are in the middle of a crisis that has found them fighting among themselves while also facing the disappearance of large numbers of their kind.

The Tinhammers are the head of the military aspects of this “city”, and their clamping down on the community (a response to various issues) had only been causing more problems. The players came into the middle of all of this, taking in all of the information they could gather while waiting for the Fortress to make its next appearance.

The Sorcerer Alistair appeared to be recognized by some Gnomes, and the group was eventually called into the Tinhammer headquarters were they were left alone (seems they expected Alistair would have his own plans there). There was a mention earlier by one of the Gnomes that the tinkerer “Teepnuck” was working on something related to him (Alistair). So, once inside, the players made their way around the place, eventually coming to Teepnuck’s lab. Teepnuck seemed to recognize Alistair until the group passes a ward on the ground triggering a defense system (animated furniture), to which he yelled “Allard, the password!”.

Seems some people are mistaking him for someone else…

They defeated Teepnuck and rescued some soldiers held captive there who appeared to be from “their world” (the Prime) who were exploring the Fortress from that side, and ended up here in the Feywild. Seems Teepnuck was drawing the life essence from some of these captives.

When the Fortress arrived later that night, they discovered the majority of the population was being “called” to the Fortress, dropping everything they were doing/holding, and slowly making their way to the Fortress in a “trance”. Not all Gnomes were effected, but 99 out of every 100 were. At the Fortress, a creature appeared to be collecting Gnomes and pulling them into the Fortress. Once it had some inside, the Gnomes under this trance, turned and slowly made their way back to their homes. By the next day, these Gnomes appeared to have no recollection of any of it.

The players watched all of this from near the front of the crows, near the Fortress entrance. From there, a wall of water had pushed out from the entrance, and along with it a lot of debris. Among that debris they found body parts of humonoid figures made from wood and stone. Even full bodies were found.

They followed the Gnomes back to the city, but then returned to the Fortress in the morning. When they arrived they found Gnomes carrying away these body parts, mentioning that Teepnuck would be expecting them (unaware that the players had killed him).

Inside the Fortress, there were etched lines in the walls within which a red-ish light began to fill. A voice then rang out…

“…Allard Sitaire… so you DID survive… tell me, what is your plan now?”

“…Your false men have helped me immensely. Even now those tinkering fey dogs prepare to send more… I should thank you…”

“…Something is… different… I must take a CLOSER look…” [INTENSE Light] “…Oh… I SEE now… you are no longer Allard… my actions changed you… changed your grasp on magic… you have lost everything, but… some new things have been gained. Well this changes everything… I will return shortly, but do be careful… you are not alone here…” [LIGHT Fades/Disappears]

NEXT STEPS: The players push further into the Fortress!

Notes About the Session

As seems to be the case with my DM’ing, I planned less for this one than the last one and it turned out to be a better session. This was a pivotal session as it drew a connection to their world (the Prime) and also reconnected them to the mystery of what are now being referred to as “false men”, the human-sized figures of wood and stone whose origins seem to have come from Massone’s work.

Additionally, it seems now they have a name to connect this all to (including the kidnapping of Massone) in “Allard Sitaire” AND… it would seem one of the players was potentially this very man at one point.

Some background there, until even the last session, I knew the name “Allard” was behind this, but in the back of my mind he was at the fortress on the Prime side studying the fort and trying to gain knowledge and power from its mysteries. I had an idea of what his operations looked like and some other things, but it really was only during the prep for this session that I decided it would be fun to make a player this man. How did that work? This player (the Sorcerer Alistair) uses wild magic and had indicated (at character creation) that he could not recall his past at all, and that he figured it was through some kind of magical accident perhaps. He was leaving his background to me entirely.

Great session all around made even more fun in that the Sorcerer seemed to be very excited about this turn of events.

Let’s Chat!

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Next Session: Coming Soon!