Grandpa's Word

Hook:

A recruit promised his grandson he'd bring him back a dinosaur and, dagnabbit, he's going to try and keep his word to the young man!

034 - 250716 - Grandpa's Word

Date:

446 PC, Brightwane 30-32

Players:

Loot:

  • Dino scale [Garth]

  • Displacer Beast’s Body

After Actions:

Dev

Brightwane 30

The mood in camp is not good after Odett’s punishment. I found Ragnum in the mess tent, and we briefly contemplated whether there’s a way to get her out of the hole before her three days were up. We rejected the possibilities that occur to us as unfeasible.

Draylor came up to us cursing out Rector 9 for cutting off his drink tickets. It felt like it would be a good idea to get out of camp for a while. Ragnum agreed, and we headed off to Steve’s tent to see if there’s anything he has that we could lend our skills to. A blue mouse that could only be Draylor joined us on our way.

Steve was talking with one of the new recruits, an older man named Garth that I hadn’t met before. Garth is interested in finding dinosaurs, because he promised to bring one back to his grandson. Personally, I think a dinosaur would make a bad present, but what do I know? Anyway, it fit the bill – we wanted something to do away from camp.
While Ragnum was casting his augury ritual to find us a direction to search, Sarna flew into Steve’s tent with news that there’d been an escalation of the disobedience in camp. Someone painted graffiti on the ground outside the mess tent, and she suspected Draylor. She suggested that we make ourselves scarce, but she agreed to supply us for a 2-to 3-day expedition.

We ventured out northwest of camp, heading into an area that hasn’t been explored very much yet. Before we got too far away from camp, Ragnum spotted Sorrel. Sorrel had been missing for a tenday, and he looked the worse for wear. We offered him some food and a clean poncho and reassured him that people weren’t really talking about the explosion anymore. He decided to join our search for dinosaurs.

We made good time traveling along the road. We passed several waypoints before setting up camp at one about 9 miles away at dusk. We noticed mountains in the distance, but we couldn’t really tell if they’re close, or if they’re far away and huge.
Draylor cast his locate animal spell, a ritual which involves burning the hair of a bloodhound, and it smelled foul. But he felt the presence of something large and reptilian about five miles away.

Sorrel and I took first watch. He smelled a storm coming from the west before the rain started, and it was strong enough that it blew a board off of our shelter’s roof. Otherwise, the watch was uneventful.

At midnight, we woke the others and shared the stew that Ragnum had started cooking when we set up camp. We turned in and they kept watch for the rest of the night. At dawn, they roused us. Ragnum told us about discovering a frog that could mimic voices that had spooked them during the night, but their watch was uneventful too.

Brightwane 31

We continued the hunt for dinosaurs after we broke camp. The direction provided by Draylor’s spell made us leave the road and led us to a verdant forest. Unlike the Twilight Forest, the trees here look more natural. The thick undergrowth slowed our progress, and reluctantly we decided to leave our mule tied to a tree. Draylor set a snare spell, and I cast alarm just to give us some warning if anything tried to make Jon-e its lunch.

Draylor sprouted giant, spectral wings with majestic white feathers and flew up about 200 feet to scout. He reported back that the forest spread out for at least 100 square miles, and that the mountains were huge and very far away. He said that there was a section of black, reflective earth between us and the mountains. He noticed several carrion birds clustered in an area, but did not see any dinosaurs.

Draylor tried the spell to locate animals again and told us the dinosaur was about 4 miles into the forest. After about 2 or 3 miles, we found signs of a dinosaur’s passage. A very large bipedal carnivore.

We continued further on until we saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex about 90 feet away. Ragnum wanted to go fight it, Draylor wanted to go befriend it, and I wanted to get the hell out of there before we became lunch. Garth seemed disappointed, but was philosophical – he signed a 6-month contract, and there would be other chances when we were better prepared. Sorrel had some crazy suicidal plans, but was also willing to leave the fight for another day. As we retreated, Ragnum found a scale that the beast had lost and presented it to Garth.

When we got near the spot where we tied up Jon-e, my alarm spell went off and we heard a terrified mule screaming. Draylor’s snare caught a displacer beast, which we quickly dispatched. While he calmed down our mule, the rest of us rigged up a sledge to drag the displacer beast’s body back to camp. Our return took the rest of the day, but it passed uneventfully.

046 - 250910 - Larger Than Promised - Grandpa's Word II

Date:

446 PC, Brightwane 53-54

Players:

Loot:

  • Dino Egg

After Actions:

Dev the Wizard

Brightwane 53 – Larger than Promised

This was probably a mistake, Soph. 

Garth wanted to go looking for a dinosaur egg for his grandson, and Draylor volunteered to help him organize the expedition. I tagged along because I like them and don’t want to find out they committed suicide by Tyrannosaurus Rex. Fisher and Odett also joined us.

Fisher is making snares that he hopes will catch a dinosaur. Snares. May fortune favor the foolish.
Brightwane 54

Today’s the day. We’re going to head into the forest in search of a dinosaur nest.
Brightwane 54 – Later

Monkeys. Why did it have to be monkeys?

I managed to find a game trail in this crazy, hyper-real unnatural forest, but before we could really explore it we were attacked by glider monkeys. Our lookout somehow forgot to look up to see if anything was waiting to attack us from the trees.

Fortunately, we managed to route the monkeys before they really managed to hurt anyone besides Draylor, and Odett was able to patch him up. I used an illusion to convince the alpha monkey that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was coming to eat him, his friends, and us for breakfast.
Brightwane 54 – Later Still

We did it! Garth has his “dinosaur” eggs…although they’re from some type of monstrosity I’ve never seen or read about before.

We stumbled across a half-eaten carcass that was covered in some kind of crystalline goo, and we decided to set up an ambush. Once we saw the large, armored lizard, the flaw in Fisher’s plan became clear to everyone. 
The snares weren’t going to cut it.

Odett cast Moonbeam and surprised it, I used an illusion to make it think it was on fire, and everyone else got their attacks in. It went down without hurting us at all. 

Afterwards, we found its nest with eggs.
A successful mission, after all.

Unresolved Threads:

  • Dinosaurs are found in a ~100 sq mile forest north of the city

  • Plane of Black glass to the NW of the city

  • Large Mountains, including one very tall peak to the NW of city