Session 9: Insight and motivations, plus the training wheels come off.
The XP from last session puts the group to level 5, where the sourcebooks officially consider you seasoned adventurers and most classes get their first big power boost (here is where most melee classes get an extra attack per round, spellcasters hit level 3 spell access, etc), and the locals start to take notice of you, or at least start hearing some stories of your reputation. This huge surge in character ability also opens the Monster Manual up substantially, meaning it's time to break out some of the more interesting things, as well as some of the homebrewed stuff I have on hand. Our two melee muscleheads opt to stay focused in their primary classes, so we have Monk 5 and Barb 5. The assassin gets his wizard level, and the Ranger opts to do the same, leading to his true (and actually pretty interesting) background reveal. The thief's player also wants more in combat muscle after the previous showings and has been toying with magic ideas outside of game, settles on taking a level in Sorcerer, which ties into what I've already cooked up for his amnesia scenario pretty neatly. He gets his powers unlocked via a vision that I apparently subconsciously stole from the Lion King without realizing it until they pointed it out.
A young looking Elven girl appears as a large celestial visage with burning eyes and tells him to "awaken" as they alike in their powers. Contrary to immediate popular demand I decline to retcon her into Mufasa.
So picking up where they left off, I give the group the chance to either RP their way back to known locales, or if they just wanted to assume safe travel to get things back on track. They opt for the later and head back to the Cassan line to report to Desmond. Cut back to the capital, our Ranger has been summoned to the queen to discuss the current situation. She inquires as to why he didn't travel with them and reports her sources have confirmed they were taken captive. The rogue comes perilously close to crossing the Rubicon here, and it is only his blatant honesty (and to a lesser degree my extreme reluctance to kill PCs) that saves him. He flat out tells her he doesn't trust her, and thinks she has ulterior motives for her actions. Avernia simply stares him down, saying she doesn't take kindly to being insulted in her own home after she's shown them such hospitality. Advises him she could kill him where he sits. Shockingly, instead of defending himself or backing down, the Ranger simply acknowledges this is very true, and if she wants to do so, he can't stop her from making that choice.
The queen tells him to walk away while she still allows it and he's effectively confined to his room for the time being (OOG: so the player can finish his sudden brainstorm).
Back to our main party, they touch base with Desmond to see where the siege is at (spoiler: it's a siege, nothing has happened yet), though there are reports from scouts enemy forces are moving in from the east. The party decides to set out in that direction after a visit to the supply tent for some healing potions (which due to their utter lack of healing spell utility I've been liberal with handing out). While they are doing so, Desmond calls the Barb into his personal tent alone. The knights have established a bit of a friendship and Des is planning on testing that. He shows the barb the message he just received from Avernia detailing what just happened with the Ranger and laying out her concerns. The barb is upset with this, feeling they've been treated well by the queen (wee, innner party drama!). Desmond asks to keep the matter private unless he has absolute trust in the allies with him. He reassures Desmond of their loyalty and leaves. The monk and barb have really hit it off in character, so the monk is read into the secret but no one else is.
After reuniting they depart and encounter a small dispatch of dwarves, the remnants of that same merc crew, setting up a catapult in the hills *behind* the Atrus siege line. They took the long way around and now have the potential for a surprise attack. The party manages to overcome them with relative ease due to the lv5 power creep and burns the catapult. Easy win. Successful, they report back to the camp and are told if they wish to wait out the siege they are welcome to, but the queen could probably use their.... unique talents elsewhere more effectively.
They return to the castle and meet with the queen to report in. After doing so, they're dismissed, but the barb and monk ask to speak with her privately. She allows this, and the thief attempts to drop back and hide to listen in. He fails his disguise roll (because as a high level int/wis based boss her perception score is absurdly massive), and tells them she will grant them an audience in her study. As she walks past where the thief is hiding, she glances straight at him. He gets the message and waits his turn as he wishes to speak with her too. The barb tells the queen that Desmond showed him her letter and he wanted to be completely upfront with her. Him and the monk both swear their loyalty. She thanks them for their integrity and dismisses them. She then lets the thief come in, and he decides he's gonna shoot his shot and tell her about his vision and the knowledge of demons coming back. Guy rolls a 20.
OOC, my rule on roles outside of battle (where a 20 is an automatic crit) isn't "guaranteed success", or "you get exactly what you want from this scenario", it's "best possible outcome of the situation (ie, my own discretion of what that is). So for example, if a warrior went up to a tyrant king and said "give me your kingdom" and rolled a nat 20, the result would be the king thinking this jackass is hilariously funny. "What a brazen sense of humor. Come, eat dinner with me, tell me more jokes!" rather than being drawn and quartered, or thrown in the dungeon, or things of that nature a lower roll would result in.
So a 20 here, best possible outcome? Avernia drops all pretenses and tells him the simple truth - she knows. She's known for years. She starts to explain that everything she's doing is to build up preparations, when the thief jumps in with that conclusion himself. He correctly figures out she's trying to gather a strong army under unified leadership, as that will give the humans a best shot at surviving. Several of the players minds are blown, wait, she's a good guy? Avernia confirms this to be true, admitting she's not particularly concerned that history is going to remember her as the "evil Witch Queen" if it results in every country in the region being mobilized for war when the real monsters how up. They finish this conversation with her swearing the thief to secrecy. She is not ready to reveal this information yet (though she doesn't say why, it's because of the potential party schism, which will resolve itself in the next scene).
Later in the evening, the Ranger asks to speak to the queen again. He is granted an audience and is advised to choose his words very carefully. He then reveals the truth of his backstory, that he's effectively a higher level simulacrum. Created as an artificial "son" to a Elven king of Corelia (not sure if Star Wars homage was intended or coincidental, I opted not to ask), a ruler of... less than savory quality, he left his homeland to find his own path and plans to eventually return to kill his father. Realizing she could have killed what could now be a potentially valuable ally, Avernia is secretly pleased with her staying her hand earlier, and decides to, at least on the surface, put the matter behind them. In a show of solidarity, she confirms they would share patricide and regicide (patriregicide?) in common if that were the case, so at least one person now knows the rumors of her being responsible for her old man's death is true. She tells the Ranger that if he helps her accomplish her goals, she will return the favor and provide him with troops and aide for his mission. He thanks her and gets up to leave, but she leaves him with one last nugget in parting - a warning. To never disrespect her in that way again, and if he betrays her, she will see Corelia burned to the ground. At this point I get a very confused "wait... so she IS evil?" reaction, which is exactly what I'm going for, her being horrifically morally grey and making them try to figure out what side of the line she's on and what side of the line THEY are on is becoming much more fun than my original plan for her.
After being briefly challenged by the barb/monk pair, the ranger comes clean and reads everyone into his history as well. Yay, no party schism, no dead PCs, totally fine with letting this be resolved ASAP and not being a headache for GS! Hurrah!
The next morning, they're all assembled in the throne room. The queen, having slept on the matter and now that the party is all back on the same page, decides to not hold the thief to secrecy, and opens the information to everyone. She in fact requests them to head east to investigate sightings of unusual creatures appearing near farms and a village close to the border.
They encounter a handful of weak flying demons, one of the staples of JRPG lore, the flying/winged eye, a monster design I've always been very fond of (DnD also lacks in variety of demons, especially lower level ones, so I plan on blatantly stealing monster homages from some of my favorite games in the upcoming weeks). I statblocked these out before they hit the Lv 5 bump so my midfight adjustment, furthered by our new sorcerer/thief casting Shatter (which makes a deafening sound audiable for great distance), is to throw a boatload of them at the party. They ended up killing close to 2 dozen of them, in one of the most fun battles we've done so far. Fun demon facts: These things shriek when they die despite having no visible mouths ("creepy!" noted the barb), and dissolve into blackish purple mist immediately after death.
And that's where the session ended, and so far we're up to date on the main storyline due to the Covid Demon interrupting my plans. We've discussed moving online via discord or the like but we haven't been able to get everyone on board yet. HOWEVER, several of my players wanted to continue playing anyways, and after mulling about options, we decided to create a spinoff - same game world (because I just can't handle that many moving parts and usually with these games I wind up with a huge amount of note content I never actually USE, so it's easy to repurpose), different party. So up next, DnD: Coronavirus Detachment