Spelljammer Recap #3

 

Spelljammer Recap 3 Sunday May 19, 2024 @ 12:00-4 P.M.

 

<<WARNING SPOILERS FOR THE LIGHT OF XARYXIS! >>

CHAPTER 3: TREACHEROUS SALVAGE

      During a long rest, Blackbird again couldn’t find an armory on the ship, disorientated on a space ship in the depths of wild space. Nebun performed alchemy to make a vial of basic poison and a jar of poisonous gas.

      As the group approached the Rock of Bral, The Moondancer came upon a Nautiloid wreck in an asteroid field. A human pirate covered in bloody, tattered clothes appeared on the battle prow. He waved frantically at The Moondancer. Captain Elaina Sartell ordered Flapjack the Flumph to pull alongside the vessel. Flapjack the Flumph became a brown shade, displaying emotions possibly confusion, anxiety, and/or fear, and told the Captain he didn’t feel right about this ship. Captain Elaina Sartell, Blackbird, and Nebun went to investigate the husk.

     The human pirate introduced himself as Benoto Kralazar, a crewman aboard the Lucent Edict. He told the group he had four friends who were hurt on board during a Neogi attack. Nebun told Benoto to lead them to his hurt friends. The group headed up to the battle deck and then the bridge area.

      P40-X then entered the battle prow after they left for the battle deck and investigated the area. She found the ballista destroyed with several broken bolts around it. She used her diminutive stature to sneak down to the cargo deck. In the cargo deck, she found the remains of eleven human corpses and a Neogi. Despite having scimitars and crossbows around them, she found their bodies had circular bite marks instead of slashes and punctures from the weapons. She also found 23 gp, 117 sp, and a bloodstone ring worth 50 gp that she pocketed and never told anyone else about.  She brought out her rope from her explorer’s pack and cast mage hand commanding her metallic faeries to attach it to the battle deck. She then climbed up to the battle deck save her some time maneuvering around the ship’s ramps and stairs.

      Meanwhile, Benoto Kralazar took the group up to the battle deck. Captain Elaina Sartell was ambushed by two worm-like creatures with three fingered hands and four feet ending in hooves looking like a bizarre worm-centaur. Blackbird summoned his eldritch cannon in the form of a flamethrower. Nebun cast Wind Wall hurting the two worm-like creatures attacking Captain Elaina Sartell. Captain Elaina Sartell drew her scimitar and dagger and then counterattacked, killing one of the worm-like creatures. Then Benoto Kralazar screamed, “I brought to save my friends, not kill them! You are supposed to feed them!” He then stabbed the surprised Blackbird with his dagger. The actual cut was not very deep but a psychic emanation accompanied the blow that hurt him much more.

       P40-X ran up to the bridge deck and cast her Hunter’s Mark on one of the worm-like creatures.

      Blackbird used his flamethrower to singe Benoto and a hiding worm-like creature and then he retreated to the corner. In the corner, he was attacked by two of the worm-like creatures with their savage bite and Benoto with his daggers. Blackbird was severely injured. The other worm-like creature tried to use telepathy to make P40-X come to them, but she refused the Suggestion.

[Small creatures can’t pass a Wind Wall. Which means the Autognome couldn’t actually reach them, but she would have to try and just keep getting thrown back by the Wind Wall…]

    Captain Elaina Sartell fought through the Wind Wall and killed the worm-like creature on the other side. Nebun poisoned his mace and swung at one of the worm-like creatures causing a bone-crunching sound but the creature didn’t seem affected by the poison. P40-X drew her rapier and slashed twice at the worm-like creature, severely wounding it.

    Blackbird used his flamethrower and singed one of the worm-like creatures. The worm-like creatures attacked Blackbird with their bites and claws leaving him in critical condition. Captain Elaina Sartell ran over and stabbed Benoto and he crumpled. Nebun cast Healing Word on Blackbird while smashing his mace into the worm-like creature.  P40-X used her rapier to finish off the wounded worm-like creature and then moved her Hunter’s Mark to the last worm-like creature before lightly wounding it.

     The worm-like creature used a psychic crush against P40-X but she held onto her Hunter’s Mark. Then the creature tried to run away but was severely injured by opportunity attacks.       
      Blackbird ran after the creature and finished it with his flamethrower. Blackbird then healed himself.

    The group explored the nearby Captain’s Quarters but found nothing of real value. Nebun took a robe embroidered with Mindflayer tentacles. The group then split off and explored the ship. Blackbird and Captain Elaina Sartell found themselves in the Captain’s Chair room. Blackbird saw a decapitated Mindflayer corpse covered in strange, green-covered maggots. Blackbird approached and was attacked by the maggots but used his flamethrower to incinerate them. Blackbird looked around and found a secret compartment with a metal case and a spell scroll inside. He swore the Captain to secrecy about the scroll in exchange for curing the Captain.

     Meanwhile, P40-X explored the ballistae area and found them all broken as well.

    Nebun made his way down to the cargo area and found the dead bodies. He determined that the human corpses were three days old and the Neogi corpse only a day old. Nebun also took a picked brain from the cargo supplies. Nebun then found manacles in the security room and a prison cell master key. P40-X, Blackbird, and Captain Elaina Sartell made their way down to the cargo hold. Blackbird continued further down to the prison deck. P40-X, Captain Elaina Sartell, and Nebun found a mess hall. Nebun leapt over the serving bar and counter. He found a kitchen and pantry filled with pickled brains in jars. He took a spicy pickled brain with paprika floating inside and started carefully stowing it while P40-X and Captain Elaina Sartell were acting as lookouts.

[The spicy floating brain was a joke from one of the drunken pirates as he poured paprika into the top of a jar before resealing it and shaking it. “Here fishy fishy!” were his last words before a creature attacked him.]

     Blackbird found manacles and a master prison cell key in the security desk downstairs. Blackbird found a headless dead Mindflayer underneath three white-blue fur covered monsters in the middle of the prison room. In the cells, there were the beheaded corpses of three humans, a dwarf, two puddles of a Plasmoid, and a Hadozee.

      Blackbird made his way to a storage room near the bottom of the ship when a horrific smell hit his Dragonborn nostrils. He ran backwards but a white-blue fur covered monster ran at him. The creature missed him and Blackbird opened a cell door but failed to push the creature inside. Then the creature’s claws rent him to near death. His screams reached the ears of Captain Elaina Sartell and P40-X and they ran to try and save him. By the time they arrived, Blackbird was wide-eyed and lying on the floor, incapacitated. P40-X attacked with her rapier while Captain Elaina Sartell flanked the creature and attacked with her scimitar and dagger. The creature howled into a rage. The screams reached the ears of Nebun who hurried down to the prison deck. He arrived just in time to see P40-X finish the creature. P40-X healed Blackbird and then Blackbird healed himself.

      Blackbird went into the storage room and found five of the worm-like creatures with egg-casings inside of them, the source of the horrific stench.

     Exploring the prison level further, Nebun found Crew Quarters. Blackbird explored all the way to the end and found a strange barred door. A person inside the sealed door claimed to be a human called Jasper Graves and that the worm-like creatures had sealed him inside the room. He begged Blackbird to free him and Blackbird attempted to do so. Nebun, sensing danger, tried to persuade him to stop but he kept cutting the seals. P40-X hit him in the head but he just kept breaking seals. Nebun grappled him to get him to stop, but Blackbird tried to stab him but missed. P40-X then grabbed rope from Nebun’s pack and tied him up. Blackbird pleaded with Captain Elaina Sartell to release him but she refused trusting the judgment of her crew over the person she met a day ago.

    The group left the screaming human to his fate by walking away. They returned to the ship, threw Blackbird into the brig, and returned with crewmen to collect the stones on board the Lucent Edict for ammo as well as food and water.

     However, when they returned to the ship, they found they were not alone, as a Neogi Nightspider came out from behind an asteroid, a mere 250 feet away from The Moondancer…

[End of session.]

    Thus ends Part 1 of the Light of Xaryxis and characters all level up to Level 6 before next time.

Spelljammer Recap #2

 

Spelljammer Recap 2 Sunday May 5, 2024 @ 12:00-3:00 P.M.

 

<<WARNING SPOILERS FOR THE LIGHT OF XARYXIS! >>

 

CHARACTER BIOS

Player Name: Shaune

Character Name: Nebun Underfrocker

Race: Plasmoid

Class: Cleric

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Subclass: Nature Domain

Background: Sage

Personality: I am willing to listen to all sides in an argument before making my judgment.

Ideals: Emotions must not cloud our logical thinking.

Bonds: My life’s work is a collection of times related to biology lore.

Flaws: I speak without thinking through my words.

Character Appearance: A Plasmoid bearing a holy symbol of Beory, a goddess of nature from Greyhawk.

Character History: Originally from the Greyrealms.  Nebun joined the crew as a healer in order to visit more planets to study their biology. Ironically, it was his desire to see other planets and their wildlife that had them visit the planet that P40-X is from. Nebun Underfrocker acts as the medic of The Moondancer.

PART 1: SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION

CHAPTER 1: ASTRAL RAIN

[Flashback]

    The crowd of panicked people pushed Captain Elaina Sartell, P40-X, and Blackbird from the docks and back into the city streets. More of the plant creatures shambled forward towards them. Captain Elaina Sartell threw her daggers at the plant creatures, P40-X shot at them with her pistol, and Blackbird shot his light crossbow at them. Only one of them made it into melee engagement distance but it delivered two powerful critical hits to Captain Elaina Sartell, leaving her chest burnt with the radiant damage and her skin pale from the heat drain. Captain Elaina Sartell countered with her scimitar and dagger and the last creature fell. The trio returned to The Moondancer at the Waterdeep docks and directed townspeople to help raise the gangplanks again.

 

[I decided upon a little flashback fight to give Shaune some time to create his character and to give Tristan a first taste of DnD combat.]

CHAPTER 2: ATTACK OF THE STAR MOTH

    Captain Elaina Sartell healed her wounds during the short rest. Blackbird tried to find an armory but couldn’t as he was disorientated while on a ship in space for the first time. P40-X had visions of the destroyed husk of the planet Toril after the crystalline vines had finished their work. She did this in front of Flapjack the Flumph and he took on a red and black color. P40-X asked the Captain about it and she said that those were colors of anger and fear. Flumphs are good creatures and the sight of such destruction and loss of life must be nearly unbearable for them.    

    Suddenly a star moth came into view from behind an asteroid in the Tears of Selune and started chasing The Moondancer. Captain Elaina Sartell ordered Flapjack to do a hard about and charge them since they could not outrun them and their mangonel would outshoot them at such distances. In the ensuing ship battle, P40-X and Blackbird fired The Moondancer’s ballistae at the star moth and the star moth fired back with its mangonel and ballista. The star moth looked much worse than The Moondancer before they closed the distance. In short range, Blackbird fired his eldritch cannon at one of the astral elves on board. He countered by firing his longbow twice. The second arrow with a streak of light behind it struck Blackbird and he winced in pain.

    Once the two vessels had joined their air bubbles together and stopped side to side, the three astral elves on the deck of the star moth jumped over to The Moondancer and demanded Captain Elaina Sartell’s surrender. She politely declined and told them to get the hell off her ship. They responded by dropping their longbows and brandishing their glowing long swords.

    P40-X fired her pistol and Blackbird fired his eldritch cannon at the astral elves as they rushed up the sterncastle stairs to attack them. Captain Elaina Sartell and the lead astral elf went toe to toe in a deadly dance of blades. Suddenly a Plasmoid in green robes appeared. The Captain called out, “Nebun you still alive?” Nebun asked where the thugs were that had knocked him out. “Traevus is taken care off, different enemy fighting us now, trying to take the ship!” Nebun unleashed a spray of poison but the astral elf dodged it. The sailors took control of the ballista while the enemy Hadozee on the star moth fired their ballista trading shots. One of the few hits on The Moondancer struck home on the starboard side.

    Forced into melee, P40-X drew her rapier and Blackbird drew his spear. Unfortunately, P40-X had her rapier parried by the astral elf and it struck Blackbird instead. However, she used her shield and metallic faeries to push the astral elf back down the sterncastle stairs. The astral elf got back up and ran towards P40-X. Meanwhile, the other astral elf fighting Blackbird stunned him. Nebun’s hands cracked with necrotic energy and he severely wounded the astral elf fighting the captain. Captain Elaina Sartell was badly wounded by the astral elf but managed to finish him off with a slash of her scimitar. She then ran up to the sterncastle. Nebun followed her up. The sailors struck the star moth with the Hadozee hitting The Moondancer with their ballistae.

     P40-X took a severe wound from the angry astral elf fighting her. The astral elf on Blackbird knocked him out. P40-X delivered a severe wound with her rapier after a feinting first strike. The Captain finished off the astral elf on P40-X. Nebun lightly wounded the astral elf on Blackbird with a touch of necrotic energy. The last remaining astral elf disengaged and jumped for the deck of the star moth. The star moth disengaged from The Moondancer and started to flee.

    Nebun woke up Blackbird with a light cure wounds. Blackbird grabbed is eldritch cannon and fired at the enemy astral elf but missed. Nebun cast a guiding bolt and struck the astral elf which knocked him unconscious. He drifted into the void of space and presumably died of asphyxiation. The star moth fled.

    The group looted the two astral elves and found 20 gp that they split as 5 gp each. They also found 4 potions. Nebun managed to figure out they were Potions of Healing x 2 and Potions of Climbing x 2 with his alchemical expertise. Blackbird took a long sword but it no longer glowed with radiant light in his hands.

    Nebun woke up one of the astral elves after the rest of the group bound them in ropes. They removed his helmet and visor. They asked him about the seeds that had struck the planet of Toril. According to the astral elf, the process was irreversible once begun. The crystalline vines would consume all life and heat from Toril and leave it a barren husk of a world. The Xarxyian Empire had ordered Toril’s destruction. The Dark Star, a star moth, had carried out the order by seeding the world with the crystalline seeds which had burst forth from the ground sprouting as crystalline vines. The Xarxyian Empire was in Xaryxispace. The astral elf refused to tell the group how to get their beyond entering the Astral Sea and finding it for themselves. “You are in Realmspace by the way.” he said sarcastically. The group resorted to torture, removing his fingernail from his index finger, and then Blackbird slipped a long sword between his shoulder and neck. He didn’t survive the severed right carotid artery.

     So Nebun woke up the other astral elf. He introduced his rank as Lieutenant and his name as Zanth. He rehashed the information given by the other astral elf.  The group decided to let him live in case he might be useful later.

   Captain Elaina Sartell bade Flapjack the Flumph to head for the Rock of Bral. During a long rest, two of the sailors who had participated in the battle resigned in protest of the torturing of an unarmed man, leaving the party with only three crew left beyond the party.

[End of session.]