Torchbearer
Cursed Lands

March 10, 2019

Rasotto and Billy are lead up, into the home of the an essentially a forest god by a creepy forest bush person. They call themselves Forest-kith. They are spirits which inhabit the woods and can possess the trees themselves. His face in the woods appears old and cracked in the bark. He occasionally drools black tar and coughs out smoke periodically throughout the conversation. He wants them to go on a journey to the first tree and find a dark effigy that is the source of this mysterious power. He suspects that is located somewhere in the depths of the tree. He believes it was put there by a man who turned his heart cruel in search of power.

The great forest spirit is the eldest spirit in the forest. All the others are young and not as powerful. He put his roots in and took a more permanent position as a tree to fight and contain the rot in the magic circle. He is waging a war with the cult and it seems now the castle too, all while maintaining the corruption from creeping and decaying the ole forest. He asked the party to travel to the first tree while he fights a forest fire set by the slavers at Liar’s Castle.

The other members of the party were already there and were present for the conversation. They agreed to travel the first tree and set off toward it, this is when they realized Billy the halfling wasn’t present and they lacked the map. Without a charted part, they were forced set off to make their way to the cursed grove, trying to follow the paths. They heard drumming approaching drum, drum, drum. Mad Jack set off to see what was causing the noise. There, hiding in the trees, sat Korben. He saw Mad Jack and yelled run! Barreling through the woods after him and chasing the party was a massive, twisted troll with beady eyes, coarse wiry hair and a huge puss filled nose. They ran and managed to escape and afterward were left breathing heavy, afraid, but alive. They set off once more and this time only made it partway and needed to reorient themselves in order to continue. They made it to the lost on, top of a hill and were unsure where to go next. Samson went to go look for a trail and fell down a ravine. His boots sliding and he landed unharmed but at the bottom of a steep 15-foot cliff, with only up as the way out. Mad Jack retrieved some dead wood and hurled it down the ravine. He told Samson to position it so he can boost himself up like 5 feet or more, with Samson’s reach around 7 to 8 feet and the boost of about 5, they were able to easily reach down and pull Samson up. Growing tired they rested. Mad Jack tried to sow together Samson’s pack but was out of rope, he’ll have to remember to restock when he goes back to market. The group rested and tried to steel themselves for the trials ahead.

Samson started saying how he can’t manage alone, and that he feels hopeless, and was comforted by his companions’ reassurances, but was unable to rest due to Korben’s insistence that if something were to happen that he’d take his friends bones. The dwarf Rasotto’s tough façade was lifted and he had a good messy cry as only dwarves know-how, which settled his anger, for now. Mad Jack sought refuge alone walking through the woods. But before the dwarf cried he had tried to make a meal out of a young rabbit he caught. His mouth-watering, but he lit it aflame in his haste, ruining it. Rasotto remembered he had water to share with everyone. But the subtle wafts of cooking meat would attract predators… next time.

Torchbearer
Cursed Lands Session 18

March 3, 2019

Running through the woods, Rasotto and Billy separated from the rest of the group. They were lost and as midday approached light from the suns rays directly above shone through and managed to dimly light the forest a bit.

They were in a small groove, with the trees vaulting overhead. In the middle of the groove standing batter and worn arch about the size of a doorway. The arch stood on a platform made out of concentric steps leading to the top. As Rasotto neared it, the hair on his arms and beard felt static in the air and as he passed through an audible pop. A small shock and that was all. Intrigued, he put his eyes real close and also listened to the stone. His mastery of stonework allowed him to ascertain that this was a magic portal and that to use it the secret phase and ritual must be performed and the magic will hurl you through space to a different location. Curious they cleared off the moss and felt the runes. They decided to bring the cleric back hear, once they found him to translate. So set off, looking for any trail leading from the portal. They found a long seldom used, slightly overgrown stone path heading back in the direction of the Cathedral. They followed it away and found a secret wagon trail, South would lead to the Cathedral and North, to the edge of the forest. Not wanting to have anything do with the wood and hoping their members of the group would assemble at the gates of Crowthorne they set off. Exhausted and run ragged they hunkered down to camp on the edge of the woods just South of Crowthorne, when small animals and other creatures starting moving real fast. A raging wildfire started in this section of the forest. They had to break camp immediately, this was going to be a long night. Wary they set off to the west, travelling for some time before entering the forest following their map circumnavigating the fire.

The sought the Forest-kith. And they found them, walking the ground started to give way, and Rasotto manages to throw himself aside, but Billy wasn’t so lucky. He was at the bottom of a near 20-foot pit. Rasotto was going quickly search for a branch or vine to extricate the halfling from the hole, but Rasotto instinctively scouted the area for danger, to which he saw the waiting eyes of the Forest-kith. They tree-like nature and leaf-like voice creepy and alien, started to accuse them of starting the fire. After a heated argument, both sides agreed that the blaze was the work of the beastmen, for Liar’s Castle and that they were searching the forest for the party and so they were responsible for mediating the punishment to the beastmen. Agreeing that the beastmen should die for the crimes, they helped Billy out of the pit and relayed a message that their leader wanted to speak with them.

 

Torchbearer
Cursed Lands Session 17

February 24, 2019

Billy and “Mad” Jack found the party.

Billy had woken up before dawn and wandered off. He found a waterfall and took a swim. By the time he got back, the rest of the party had left.

When “Mad” Jack awoke, he found himself alone with the body on the once sleeping man. He trudged after Rasotto the scout but tired and took rest.

Finally, back together, they decided to travel back to the Dark Cathedral. Billy successfully navigated back to the Cathedral with Rasotto and Samson’s help, with “Mad” Jack bringing up the rear carrying the body. When the group was discussing how to proceed to get past the guards, “Mad” Jack’s grip on the body faltered, and he dropped it with a thud.

As the guard called for reinforcements and started to search, Rasotto put on his robe that he stole early from the cathedral. He proceeded to attempt to convince them to get in, pontificating on the various positive aspects of being apart of the Dark Church of St. Viscous. Rasotto sacrificed himself, allowing himself to be captured but not before making a scene to allow time for the party to dig a grave. After a few moments of grave digging while Rasotto tried flipping pews and kicking candle down, he was restrained and chained to the wall. In the proceeding rescue, Billy snuck in and freed him from the chains while Samson and “Mad” Jack ran interference. Struggling to flee they managed a short-lived victory, as the adventurers once again found themselves lost in the woods.

 

Torchbearer
Cursed LandsSession 16

February 10, 2019

Rasotto and Samson found themselves alone, scouting out the trail to the Cathedral. After a brief discussion about whether they should turn back or scout out the Cathedral, they travelled there. They spotted a thin shirtless muscled man with tattoos running down both of his arms. He sat on the steps tending a small brazier for warmth while sharpening a dagger with a rock to a razor point. The two decided the best course of action was to sneak and check out the back.

The Cathedral of St. Vicious was a tall, imposing structure. White marble wall that was painted black with ash and tar, its stain glass windows glazed over with some red viscous liquid. They made their way to the side where there was a door barred on the ground level. A horizontal sliding latch adored the door.

The Initiate Samson recalled his days as a street urchin and decided to push the latch open peer inside and lower a fishing hook and release the bar from the inside. After stealthy freeing the latch from the catch, the way was free. They made their way into the red-tinted main chamber.

After spotting robes and quickly changing they made their way into the pews onlooking an altar, that was ringed with skulls and had a large red tapestry with a foreboding symbol on it. Behind the alter a mezzanine with a large organ with tentacle-like pipes softly played. The whimpers of a man in the corner could be heard, he was chained to the wall. They sat there and attended a black sermon.

A wizened old man called for the deaths of the adventurers that were disrupting their work in Liar’s Castle, and the importance of their work to attain a place in the Halls of Chaos and join the tables of the Lords of Shadow. After the sermon, the people who filtered in went to their own devices. Some gambling, others selling wares, while some disrobed and went behind tapestries. While others still went to torment the man chained to the wall. In amidst the chaos unfurling, Samson tried overhearing peoples’ conversations, but the most crucial thing he heard was, “Samson is that you?” To which he turned and walked back to the way he came in. While he was doing that Rasotto went over and talked up this man. After distracting the man until Samson left, Rasotto too left. They hurried away, exhausted and scared. They made camp, and while setting up, they realized they had some luck, a small stream nearby allowed them to fill their water skins.

 

Torchbearer
Cursed Lands Session 15

February 3, 2019

The grove was dimly lit by starlight. Making their way through the thinning tree line, they spotted in the middle lying down, a sleeping man. Rasotto and Billy stood on one end of the grove with the porters Ludolf and Sledgey, while Mad Jack and Bruick the other.

The party stomped over hoping the man would awake.

The guide Bruick heard rustling in the bushes and was scared. He said that he thought they had dealt with the forest creatures and that they wanted him dead for cutting down a tree. Rasotto told the forester that they liked making sacrifices to the forest creatures and so he would be next. Mad Jack in through confusing released the man from service and he ran as the soft rustle of laughing trees made there way after him.

They poked, kicked, punched and kicked the sleeping man again to no avail. Splashing water on his face to no avail. They made camp, Rasotto making a map with the help of Billy and Billy preparing the Rabbit as jerky for later, and Rasotto teaching Billy how to fight.

Rasotto decided to plug his nose and cover the man’s mouth. He slowly turned blue, then purple. Upon release, he was no longer breathing. They lamented not having a cleric there to help this man. They decided to leave this man now slowly losing colour in his cheeks, but not before checking his pockets. They found copper. Counting their luck, they set off to find the Cathedral. While simultaneously blazing a trail, Billy also searched the forest for signs of deer. He got turned around, but Mad Jack managed to find a rabbit to eat.

Rasotto ever the vigilant scout, was up ahead a bit and so was the first to hear muffled music floating through the trees. There was a man eating food, fat and sloppy, and another man, more creature than man, his goat legs tapping a beat and this slighting goat head was blowing into a set of pipes, whose music beaconed them to eat. Shrugging off the music Billy talked with the beast, and so struck a deal after talking about the nature of meaning and reality. The agreement was they could take the man out of here and the Sleeping man too, back to the lands of men, and to make sure that they never return to the forest. So, they set off after the man puked behind the bushes for quite some time. He came back a little lighter. They travelled again in the direction of the Cathedral, Billy leading still but this time not hunting, and paying close attention to the direction of travel.

Torchbearer
Cursed Lands Session 14

January 27, 2019

Billy and Rasotto discussed the next course of action a bit. They decided to go back to town, drop off the porters and get new ones to allow these ones some time for self-care while taking the goods back to get rewarded. But first, they decided to go to the first tree and get Rasotto’s bottle and iron spikes.  Since it was on the map, it was just an easy few days journey into the words.

Afterwards, they went to Crowthorne and gave the large sack full of goods to the merchant from Crossroads Keep. Of note, in Crowthorne, the stables had burned down. The merchant gave them a preserved ration which is accepted as trade-in Crowthorne. Billy used the gold to bribe the butchers’ guild for a job. They wanted a stag, and they will be waiting to cure the meat at the gates of Crowthorne. Rasotto used the preserved rations as trade to hire the porters Ludolf, a third-generation immigrant and Sledgy, an old farm hand with a coarse voice. Billy emotionally unloaded on Rasotto about not knowing his real parents, and one of the only clues is that St. Vicious might know more.

The next course of action was then to travel to St. Vicious’s Cathedral deep in the woods and see if anyone there knew anything. They set out and went to My Son Rock. As soon as the party sent out, Rasotto went out to start scouting and immediately ran into some beast-men on the prowl. The beast-men recognized Rasotto as the slave who was apart of the slave escape up near Liar’s Castle and so tried to capture them. A scuffle ensued, and it resulted in a buckle on Rasotto’s leather armour being torn, and the beast-men at weapons’ point. They realized these were the beast-men who the Forest-kith bargained the heads for. They broke their ankles and were planning on dragging then back to the Forest Place when the wind spoke with the voice of the children. They were to drag their bodies onto the rock and decapitate them. The beast-men were eyed wide as Billy and Rasotto callously discussed how they need to decapitate the body on the inside first since they don’t have a large blade. They pummelled the neck with a large wooden mallet. It was hammer time…

They quickly collected the porters, since they didn’t make it far in the dark wood, and they took off in the direction of the cathedral. After hours of travel, they came across a strange clearing in the leaves thinned, allowing rays of light through the canopy. The leafy pattern of light through the canopy danced wildly across the mossy ground. In the clearing lying face down in the moss, sleeping, was a man.

Torchbearer
Cursed Lands Session 13

January 20, 2019

The party went into the cave to check it out. It was a small animal cave with a chute at the back where dripping noises were coming from. Rasotto recalled some lore about animals and was able to determine that this cave was a hibernation cave of some larger animal used only in the Winter.

After looking around, they jumped into the chute, and with some quick pushing, Rasotto managed to get everyone down the shoot without incident. Deep in the cavern fog obscured a sizeable round figure. Their footfalls made a slight wet noise, the slippery watery covered floor. It spoke in a rich piping noise as if playing its vocal cords like a bagpipe. Its spindly arms ended in webbed hands, and the frog face stared back with coal-black eyes. Samson listened and determined that the language that the frog-man was speaking was old and not often heard by man and that he was a river spirit from the northeast near Alderport.

The runes that encircled it mention danger and eating people was the reason why he was imprisoned. Here and there woven into the story was the lock that the runes themselves were powering. The frog creature gesticulated and silently pointed at the rune lock. Unable to read and perhaps bored with the pantomiming of this weird, dangerous frogman Rasotto smashed the runes with a heavy pointed rock and freed the giant.

The frog spirit belched up gold and did a ritual and poured something on himself and turned himself into water vanishing. A little relieved but sure that they released something evil into the world, they started when they heard “Mad” Jack’s voice. He had tracked them to the cave, and with his help, they managed to easily extract them from the chute and out of the cave.

“Mad” Jack managed to find the trail of the bandit back to their camp where they saw the two brother porters standing on buckets with nooses around their necks. Mad Jack thought this smelled fishy and so circled the site but altered the bandit.

The bandit was ready and fired at the buckets beneath the porter’s feet, making them topple over. This let the party with the choice to free the brothers or immediately try and capture the bandit. They saved the brothers, and after picking up the trial, they pursued the bandit into the night. After a great chase, the bandit had managed to evade the group, disappearing into the darkness. The party was able to see the lights from Crossroads Keep far in the distance, in the direction the bandit was heading.

The party went back and camped near the Town gates and was spotted by a guardsman collecting weeds, thistles and grass for use in a tea to help sleep. During the camp phase, Billy added the route to the old tree to the map.

Torchbearer
Cursed Lands Session 12

January 13, 2019

A merchant heading along to Crowthorne from Crossroads Keep was ambushed. Bloody and barely conscious, when leaving town the merchant fell into the arms of Rasotto. Barely conscious, he whispers that his goods were stolen. Samson exclaims that it is the guards he should be after, but the guards respond that their duty is to the community and not to some merchant wanting to get rich off of their isolation. When leaving town again, the man promised a reward if they could recover his goods. So they decided to go after the bandits.

They travelled north into the badlands. The Badlands is an area of maze-like cliffs and scrub that separates Crossroads Keep form the wild Southlands. Scouting the ground and forging a trail into the cliffs, they hit a dead end and were surprised when the voice from behind them. Three bandits stood there.

“You killed my brother!” One of the bandits exclaim. “You murdered him, cut him near in half and left him for the buzzards! Prepare to die!”

The party steeled themselves to capture someone who didn’t want to be. They fought and with only a few injuries managed to capture the man who claimed his brother died. The other two managed to escape. After a brief civil interrogation, he wanted them to torture or even kill him knowing full well that it was against the law and that his friends would take the risk of returning the goods and claiming the party were the real criminals. After debating the chances of making him disappear, they decided to return him to Crowthorn.

As they collected their packs, they noted that the porters have gone missing, having run away at first sign of conflict. They tracked them to a cave entrance that they must’ve entered. Only a shoe and a fork was all the trace of them, and they would probably have to check out the cave. Deciding that it would be easier to do, they returned to town and delivered the man to the guards they did so.

When they got back, the merchant came to speak to them about the reward was for recovering his goods. A bag of grain. He suspected that Crowthorn was hungry, so he brought them in a handcart to try and trade. His guess was correct, with the town’s foresters unable to trek into the forest to hunt due to them continually going missing, they were forced to eat only grain and whatever the grass scrubs of the cliffs could provide.

The cost of grain had risen to such a level as to be worth their weight in silver. Laws had been enacted, making the theft of food punishable by the rest of your life in a Gibbet. The guards delighted to punish a food thief led the bandit away.

As they started to set off a second time, a traveller interrupted them and claimed to see a man leading two people described as short and tall, much like Tom and Dil the porters are. They had their hands bound and looked in trouble. The party pulled their packs tight as Rasotto lead them back, ruminating on the way, his honour left away, leaving him feeling cynical and Faded. He promised himself that he would no longer play by the rules.

Torchbearer
Cursed Lands Session 11

January 6, 2019

After getting their barrings, Samson led the party through the forest. Samson asked for Billy’s help, but he was unable to help due to stinking fear making him scared. He leads them to a fork in the road, and though not lost, they had some thinking to do to set out on the trail successfully. Those able to helped determine which way to go and they soon found themselves in front of the boulder that they had dubbed My Son Rock. Here both Samson and Billy threw up their sickness, sweating out the fever of pneumonia that set it.

Now back on the map, they travelled to Crowthorne. They made it to the gates and rested before entering. Samson made a poultice, and Billy added the trek from town to the old woman’s hut to the map. The Blacksmith’s Guild was on duty. This was a peaceful town, and Rasotto managed to find a lucky penny.

Rasotto ever the shrewd merchant managed to get a deal and the bow as it was considered a unique item, it was an elvish bow of legend. “Mad” Jack went and played Wizard’s Dice using the Bow as an Ante and won. The moment he bet everything, their most valuable piece of treasure was intense. The party watched on as he rolled his Wizard’s Dice. The dice failed to come up traitors and caused a reroll with victory; there was an audible cheer from everyone at the table. He secured two additional bags of silver coins. Samson bought a few bundles of torches and asked around and hired Bruick The Forester as his guide and Rasotto hired Tom and Dil, a couple of labourers.