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<blockquote data-quote="Fuzzybear" data-source="post: 9024384" data-attributes="member: 6917259"><p><h3>The Rest of the Fire Forest</h3><p>Searching through the tower, they found the dream seeds as well as leads to head both directions, up and down the river. Jack tried a dream seed first, but being an elf, he is immune to the effects. Winry took one secretly later on against the party's wishes and passes out. She sees a vision of her troupe fighting and dying, then a storm brewing over the Monastery while her parents (who live nearby) watch in fear. I wanted to mix prophecy with fears here as much as I could, so this seemed a good compromise to serve as foreshadowing. The fight scares the group, but is defeated easily in the end. As they consider what happened, a familiar devil strolls up the bridge and calls out to them to bargain. After a lot of consideration, the group refuses Kazyk politely, who then backs off into the forest to be confronted again later.</p><p></p><p>While taking their rest in the tower, they play a team building game which reveals some interesting information - Rayland used to have a tattoo (but no longer does?), Jack had a relationship with his rival's sister, and Myetharia had a longer term romance with a thief. In the morning, they stash Torrent and Crystin with Diashan (mostly to make it easier for me) before heading up the river. Winry nearly is kidnapped by a fire salamander before they can fight it off. Then they meet up with Nelle at the river mouth and learn more about the forest's condition. Interested, but a little disappointed, they head back down the river and find Tiljann being attacked by the other seela. They do kill one of the attackers in rescuing her, but she forgives them and offers to bring them to her village.</p><p></p><p>They decided to pop one of the flight tokens here as they were concerned about Kazyk and their dwindling supply of heat resistant potions and flew down to the Seela village. They learn of the two main options listening to Vuhl and Tiljann, and while they initially liked Vuhl's idea, they soon grew concerned about the brutality involved. I tried to make him reasonably believable, but with Myetharia's condition, I hoped they wouldn't take up this path as it would mean her death. Instead, they head down to Gwenvere with a sacrifice. It seems to be going well at first, but upon seeing the hideous creature, Jack cannot hold back and attacks her. He even ends up with the killing blow in melee (a true rarity for a caster bard!) and repeatedly stabs her, seeming to snap. </p><p></p><p>Their flight continued on to Timbre where they got the last piece of the puzzle, learning of the sword in the lake. They decided to bring Timbre back to the village, worrying about her safety alone, before making plans to pull the sword and fight the beast. I considered greatly having Vuhl sneak attack her in the village and kill her, but decided that I still wanted my players to not hate me, so I waited for his inevitable betrayal for a more opportune moment. </p><p></p><p>The next morning, their last of potions, Winry draws the sword out and bonds with it. I made the decision here that it could take any form, including a monk weapon augmenting her unarmed strikes, because it felt bad to force it upon a specific person when someone else wanted the burden instead. It also helps that monks are notoriously underwhelming at scaling, so I figured this might help bring her into more balance (it does make her very strong at lower levels though). The battle was turning scary with Kazyk killing Singers and Vuhl's group being problematic, so Jack made the decision to get them to stop singing. He couldn't convince Papuvin though, so he ended up having to resort to terrifying him. The singing stopped, Indomitability agreed to cease attacking and retreated, along with Vuhl having completed his objective, leaving Kazyk suddenly alone and in danger. Finishing him off, Rayland and Myetharia receiving the first Trillith boon from Indomitability, the group celebrated success in their first major trial.</p><p></p><p>As the singing turned joyous instead, Myetharia's scarred body heals as the trees burn briefly before sputtering out. The group meets back up with their companions and flies out of the forest, finally free and able to continue their journey south. </p><p></p><h4>Personal Thoughts:</h4><p>I enjoyed this adventure a lot. It was convoluted, I made a lot of mistakes, but in the end it all made sense and worked very well to be compelling. I think it helped a lot that one of the PCs got their fate intertwined with the forest even though I screwed that up as I had talked about before. I think my group would have wanted to just leave with the bird token instead of staying involved if they weren't forced to stay around for Myetharia. They always had this feeling that this was secondary to the mission to Seaquen and a distraction, so I am thankful for my mistake. I do feel the combination of the trillith and burning forest was very complicated and nearly impossible to figure out if a "solution" was going to work, so I didn't always love how the adventure felt like it was leading to one answer. Tying someone permanently to the life of another species is pretty intense for such low levels as well, so I understood my party's reticence to take that responsibility. Thankfully Winry stepped up (and is rewarded with a really cool weapon), but it is quite the mantle. The fights were pretty well done and there were a lot of options in this adventure to make their decisions matter (Kazyk for example) which I loved. The party really responded well to those as well.</p><p></p><p>Overall, very enjoyable and a solid continuation from the start, though it does feel a little out in left field in terms of the opening plot. I understand it introduces a lot of important items and is supposed to act as a little more contained adventure after the first, but it does only have very light ties to the overall plot. The players reported loving it, especially how complex, unique, and interesting the setting was, how real the timer and danger felt, and pleasing the resolution felt. What is really interesting for me is how different this feels from the next few weeks across Dassen and to Seaquen passing in a near blur.</p><p></p><p>On towards Seaquen!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fuzzybear, post: 9024384, member: 6917259"] [HEADING=2]The Rest of the Fire Forest[/HEADING] Searching through the tower, they found the dream seeds as well as leads to head both directions, up and down the river. Jack tried a dream seed first, but being an elf, he is immune to the effects. Winry took one secretly later on against the party's wishes and passes out. She sees a vision of her troupe fighting and dying, then a storm brewing over the Monastery while her parents (who live nearby) watch in fear. I wanted to mix prophecy with fears here as much as I could, so this seemed a good compromise to serve as foreshadowing. The fight scares the group, but is defeated easily in the end. As they consider what happened, a familiar devil strolls up the bridge and calls out to them to bargain. After a lot of consideration, the group refuses Kazyk politely, who then backs off into the forest to be confronted again later. While taking their rest in the tower, they play a team building game which reveals some interesting information - Rayland used to have a tattoo (but no longer does?), Jack had a relationship with his rival's sister, and Myetharia had a longer term romance with a thief. In the morning, they stash Torrent and Crystin with Diashan (mostly to make it easier for me) before heading up the river. Winry nearly is kidnapped by a fire salamander before they can fight it off. Then they meet up with Nelle at the river mouth and learn more about the forest's condition. Interested, but a little disappointed, they head back down the river and find Tiljann being attacked by the other seela. They do kill one of the attackers in rescuing her, but she forgives them and offers to bring them to her village. They decided to pop one of the flight tokens here as they were concerned about Kazyk and their dwindling supply of heat resistant potions and flew down to the Seela village. They learn of the two main options listening to Vuhl and Tiljann, and while they initially liked Vuhl's idea, they soon grew concerned about the brutality involved. I tried to make him reasonably believable, but with Myetharia's condition, I hoped they wouldn't take up this path as it would mean her death. Instead, they head down to Gwenvere with a sacrifice. It seems to be going well at first, but upon seeing the hideous creature, Jack cannot hold back and attacks her. He even ends up with the killing blow in melee (a true rarity for a caster bard!) and repeatedly stabs her, seeming to snap. Their flight continued on to Timbre where they got the last piece of the puzzle, learning of the sword in the lake. They decided to bring Timbre back to the village, worrying about her safety alone, before making plans to pull the sword and fight the beast. I considered greatly having Vuhl sneak attack her in the village and kill her, but decided that I still wanted my players to not hate me, so I waited for his inevitable betrayal for a more opportune moment. The next morning, their last of potions, Winry draws the sword out and bonds with it. I made the decision here that it could take any form, including a monk weapon augmenting her unarmed strikes, because it felt bad to force it upon a specific person when someone else wanted the burden instead. It also helps that monks are notoriously underwhelming at scaling, so I figured this might help bring her into more balance (it does make her very strong at lower levels though). The battle was turning scary with Kazyk killing Singers and Vuhl's group being problematic, so Jack made the decision to get them to stop singing. He couldn't convince Papuvin though, so he ended up having to resort to terrifying him. The singing stopped, Indomitability agreed to cease attacking and retreated, along with Vuhl having completed his objective, leaving Kazyk suddenly alone and in danger. Finishing him off, Rayland and Myetharia receiving the first Trillith boon from Indomitability, the group celebrated success in their first major trial. As the singing turned joyous instead, Myetharia's scarred body heals as the trees burn briefly before sputtering out. The group meets back up with their companions and flies out of the forest, finally free and able to continue their journey south. [HEADING=3]Personal Thoughts:[/HEADING] I enjoyed this adventure a lot. It was convoluted, I made a lot of mistakes, but in the end it all made sense and worked very well to be compelling. I think it helped a lot that one of the PCs got their fate intertwined with the forest even though I screwed that up as I had talked about before. I think my group would have wanted to just leave with the bird token instead of staying involved if they weren't forced to stay around for Myetharia. They always had this feeling that this was secondary to the mission to Seaquen and a distraction, so I am thankful for my mistake. I do feel the combination of the trillith and burning forest was very complicated and nearly impossible to figure out if a "solution" was going to work, so I didn't always love how the adventure felt like it was leading to one answer. Tying someone permanently to the life of another species is pretty intense for such low levels as well, so I understood my party's reticence to take that responsibility. Thankfully Winry stepped up (and is rewarded with a really cool weapon), but it is quite the mantle. The fights were pretty well done and there were a lot of options in this adventure to make their decisions matter (Kazyk for example) which I loved. The party really responded well to those as well. Overall, very enjoyable and a solid continuation from the start, though it does feel a little out in left field in terms of the opening plot. I understand it introduces a lot of important items and is supposed to act as a little more contained adventure after the first, but it does only have very light ties to the overall plot. The players reported loving it, especially how complex, unique, and interesting the setting was, how real the timer and danger felt, and pleasing the resolution felt. What is really interesting for me is how different this feels from the next few weeks across Dassen and to Seaquen passing in a near blur. On towards Seaquen! [/QUOTE]
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