Spoilers for the adventure follow…
After returning to kobold King Koto Crag-Claw’s palace with their prisoners and the rescued Rozalyn Turnyr, the adventurers were treated as heroes. Their efforts cleared Brik’s name and exposed the machinations of the Blood Kingdom against the city council of Zobeck.
In addition to their treasure reward King Crag-Claw provided them a place to stay indefinitely and they always were guaranteed free meals at the Rampant Roach. Straic was made to pay for the damages to the restaurant and he provided his daughter’s rescuers any smithing services they required free of charge.
They spent the rest of the spring and most of summer in Zobeck then, but kept busy. Korwyn spent much of his time finding and then refurbishing a river boat to use for travel on the river Argent. He found it through a halfling river folk named Ply Waterfroth, who put him in contact with a kobold named Skitter who gave him a great price for the boat. Rolan studied the apothecary tools he’d found, but couldn’t figure them out yet. He also assisted Korwyn with his boat. Frost had Straic make him a fancy set of silver knuckles, and was gifted a sturdier but more battered set of magical brass knuckles by the kobolds.
Rolan also received a note from a cleric of Valeresh who kept the shrine in Zobeck. He went to visit the shrine and conducted a ritual which resulted in a vision of two world trees burning in the Tomierran forest and in the Northlands. The old cleric assured Rolan that it was a vision of Ragnarok and must be averted. Rolan was more sceptical.
Korwyn received a note from an old shipmate telling him of how the Duke-Admiral of the Republic of Triolo was issuing letters of marque to attack the Mharoti Dragon Empire’s ships. The friend also sent him a magical ring of jumping to wear on his horn.
Finally, Frost met Dalinda Plainsfoot, an old friend from his time as a caravan guard on the Rothenian Plains. She told old stories and bought a few rounds until eventually sharing that Baba Yaga and the mysterious and fiendish Master of Demon Mountain were both more active on the plains. The master was sending his Tiefling children as emissaries to the Blood Kingdom and Mharoti Empire. Frost listened intently and also purchased supplies for her to take back to the Plainsfoot and Frostbane tribes to aid their wintering on the steppe.
Finally they all received a letter from Grigori, who has originally hired them to find his girlfriend, recounting how he had returned to his homeland, Krakovar, to join the rebels against the Blood Kingdom and their ghoul allies as revenge for the disappearance of his girlfriend, Illyana.
After conferring together, the adventurers resolved to go North to find the rebels in a city in the Grand Duchy of Dornig where Gregori had directed them. They prepared the boat and brought along Chitter, Skitter’s nephew on their journey up the river Argent. The heroes departed early in the month of High Summer. Autumn and Winter will soon follow. They cleared a trapper’s net blocking the river in the one major happening of the journey North towards the Freehold of Obertal, a two day journey up river from Zobeck to the point where they could no longer navigate the river on their boat, which they had named the Keister.
Tying up the boat on the seventh of High Summer, they saw two griffin knights circling over the ruined fort, possibly portending trouble…
GM Reflections
This was a really fun game. It was the first time this group has played in person. Additionally, everyone enjoyed the downtime activities from A Life Well Lived and the journey rules from Uncharted Journeys. I really opened up the aperture of the adventure, pointing them to corners of the world that relate to their character. They also have me some interesting backstory info that made it easy to create diverse quest hooks. It’s interesting that they are actually still kind of following the main adventure’s quest line. I think blowing this adventure out into a full sandbox is really cool though, because it allows us to explore so much of Midgard’s rich content. It was interesting getting to use the downtime rules not just mechanically, but to facilitate storytelling.
Everyone enjoyed the new systems, but we all agreed that Cubicle7 could have made them easier to present to players through better handouts, like creating a “menu” of downtime options, and the same thing with journey preparations, since it’s difficult to choose these without a list of options. These systems prompted lots of interesting and fun roleplay though, which leads me to my conclusion that Cubicle7 really has delivered on the social and exploration pillars of 5e that have been lacking for so long.
This also marked a major break with the established story in Empire of the Ghouls. I found myself so enjoying the lore of Midgard that I really wanted to simply turn the adventure into a sandbox facilitated by point crawling using the Uncharted Journey rules. Interestingly they still decided to go North, which means I can continue to use the source material. Since they’re going to Grigori and the rebels I’m going to have them do a few missions into Krakovar and the Blood Kingdom, and potentially obtain the Robes of St. Adelind (although they don’t have the quest hook, so that will be more organic). Then they may earn the chance to meet the court in exile and escort Duke Avgost to the Wolfmark. They’ll also have opportunity to investigate the world tree in the Tomierran Forest.
