This is an account of part 7 of my ongoing campaign set in my homebrewed wild west setting, Guns of the Western Kings. Get caught up with the previous parts here.
Previously, in Guns of the Western Kings, our heroes were trying to make their way back to Fort Crawdon and the Sunbeam Silver Mine after an unusual subterranean steamboat ride took them far off course. They fought off a bandit gang of coyote-folk who were trying to rob their train, only to arrive in Fort Crawdon and find they were wanted by the Deuclair Mining Company for failing to carry out their end of a bargain they had made earlier. They fled into the woods and encountered a group of elves that they had also tried and failed to help, but were interrupted by a patrol of Deuclair Co. soldiers. They fled deeper into the woods and were surprised to meet Heather's mom, a dryad, who told them that Heather's daughter was in grave danger.
And now:
Before Heather can absorb the fact that her mother is a dryad and her daughter is in the fey realm, the dryad has everyone link arms and pulls Heather, Theodore, Gudguníis, Face, and Rusty (and their horses) through her oak tree into the land of the fey. They emerge, slightly dizzy from the experience, in a majestic wood. The dryad introduces herself as Dervenn and explains that Heather's child, Annabelle (whose disappearance was Heather's reason for adventuring) has been living with her in the fey realm. Because time passes differently in the land of the fey than it does in the mortal realm, Annabelle is no longer a child of eight, but a girl of seventeen, and quite the favorite at the Seelie court. Unfortunately, her popularity has also made her a target; the goblin king Hizendis kidnapped her and took her to his lair - an ancient tower in the Forest of Twilight. The tower, built by the ancient Dark Elves long ago, is reputed to have a corrupting influence on the fey, so none from the Seelie court have dared try to rescue her. Hence why Dervenn had to reach out to the mortal realm.
Still reeling from the news that she is a changeling and her daughter has aged nine years since she last saw her, Heather heads off with the others across the fey realm. After trekking for some time, they come to a patch of woods where the sky is dim and a foul yellow mist hangs in the air. Above the treetops they can make out two towers. They advance, but are distracted by a commotion to the right - two unicorns have wandered into a nearby swamp and become trapped in the sucking mire. Suspicious of the trapped beasts, Face the pigtailed paladin detects their evil intent and the party simply walks away. The evil unicorns, loathe to let their prey slip from them so easily, teleport out of the swamp and gore Face and Rusty. They manage to fend them off, Face smiting them with her twin sawed-off shotguns and Rusty blasting them with fiery bombs, until the nefarious beasts are nothing but crispy, perforated corpses. Rusty seems to recall that shadhavar horns can be very valuable evil spell components, and Theodore is all for taking them, but Face and Heather overrule Theodore's business plans and have the black unicorns burnt, horns and all. Face makes camp there, unable to go further before she fully recovers from the shadhavars' poison.
The dark elf tower turns out to actually be two towers, sharing the same base but leaning slightly away from each other so that their top levels are connected by a thirty-foot-long bridge. The circular entry hall standing before the two towers is in ruins, with the gate blasted off its hinges and a huge tree fallen through its roof. While Rusty and Heather check out the front room, Gudguníis and Theodore check around the perimeter for other entrances. They decide to bypass whatever dangers might lurk within and simply climb up the outside of the tower. The half-elf rogue hurls a grappling hook up, which catches in the mouth of a gargoyle, and the two begin to climb. Once they are about fifty feet up, the gargoyle takes flight! It tries to carry them up higher, but struggles to even fly under their combined weight. Theodore scampers up the rope and leaps onto the gargoyle just as it drops the rope - and Gudguníis - to the ground below. Gudguníis shoots at the beast as he falls, but misses. The gunshot alerts the others to trouble; as they rush to join the fight, Theodore climbs onto the gargoyle's back, wrestling it in midair until he has pinned its wings. He rides it down to the earth, where it plows into the ground hard and tosses Theodore forward off of it. Gudguníis, meanwhile, takes a potshot at another gargoyle sitting motionless on the top of the tower. That gargoyle turns out to be alive as well and divebombs him. Now fighting two gargoyles, the adventurers are at a distinct disadvantage, with only half the party able to deal magic damage to the creatures with DR10/magic.
As the fight drags on, with both Gudguníis and Theodore taking some nasty hits, Rusty realizes the best course of action is to flee into the tower. He hops up on the tree and runs into the foyer, bombs at the ready. Gudguniis runs in after him, spies a small door off to one side, and opens it. Within he sees a small, comfortable looking-chamber, with a short man with red hair and a green suit smoking a pipe in a cozy chair. The little man leaps up angrily and shouts, "Doesn't anyone ever fecking knock?" Embarrassed and confused, Gudguníis shuts the door and leaves.
Outside, Theodore mounts Bucephalus and clambers atop the fallen tree, riding into the tower. The horse’s clattering against the log disturbs three giant centipedes, who rush out at Rusty. The disturbed alchemist throws a bomb at the one directly ahead of him, roasting it and singeing the others. Heather, beating a fighting retreat with her super-effective magic rifle, goes over the log and comes in the main door. Rusty feeds a bomb to a gargoyle and it explodes, taking out the last centipede, and Heather and Gudguniis finish off the last gargoyle together.
Theodore meanwhile, knocks on the door that Gudguníis shut and is greeted by a shout of "Go away! You can't have my gold or my magic sword!" Eventually, using his business negotiation skills, the cavalier convinces the leprechaun to let him in with an offer of whiskey. Once inside, Theodore plies the leprechaun with drink and tries to gather some information. The leprechaun explains, gesturing to a faintly glowing sword on the mantel, that he is in possession of a mighty goblin-slaying sword that the goblin king Hizendis fears and covets for himself. Theodore pours another glass of whiskey for the leprechaun, toasts, then grabs the magic sword and makes a break for it as the leprechaun is drinking. As he piles stones in front of the shouting leprechaun’s door, he explains to the party that the little man is pissed because Gudguníis didn’t knock earlier, and because Theodore gave him cheap whiskey.
The party approaches the main door to the tower, which is bound in bands of cold iron. Gudguníis unlocks the door and Rusty opens it, and they are greeted by a roaring green dragon! They understandably freak out and close the door, but a high-pitched voice calls out to them, "Hey, wait! Come back!" They open the door again and the illusory dragon fades, leaving only a small fairy dragon doing midair flips. As he proceeds with his aerial acrobatics, he introduces himself as Boscoe, and explains that the goblins pay him to guard the tower with his illusions, but it would be funnier just to let the party pass. They ask him about the leprechaun, and says “Oh the leprechaun! He keeps to himself mostly, but he plays some pretty good pranks. One time he threw a shoe at me!” They ask him if the goblins brought a young girl through here recently, and he explains, "Yes they did. The goblins live in the left tower, but they took her into the right tower, which I thought was weird, because no one goes in there!" They thank Boscoe for his information, and he flits away, then pops his head back in the room and tells them, "Oh, by the way, the password is 'Nilbog'!" before cartwheeling off.
Taking the right tower, the party enters the puzzle room I described in my post on expecting the unexpected. Four elven statues stand around the room, three of them with grotesque heads. The fourth has no head, and stands in front of the only other door out of the chamber. In the center of the floor is a pile of broken statuary. On a whim, Theodore climbs one of the statues to punch it in the face with his spiked gauntlets. The grotesque heads turn out to be vargouilles, and screech into attack mode. Most of the party is paralyzed by their screeching, only shaken out of it when the hideous beasts try to kiss them. Heather, however, spends the whole fight paralyzed. After the flying heads are shot down, the party tries to pull down the statue in front of the door, but it proves to be too heavy. Theodore calls Bucephalus in and they tie the horse to the statue, with the rope looped around Theodore's waist as an anchor, and pull it down with a natural 20, only to discover that the stone door has no handle and they can't make it budge. Rusty solves the problem the only way he knows how - explosions. He uses up the rest of his daily allotment of bombs, weakening the door enough for Theodore to punch through with his spiked gauntlets.
They crawl through the crack into the next room, and find a well leading down into a dank pool. A lilting female voice sings from deep in the well, and Heather yells down, "Annabelle, is that you?" and the voice replies, "Umm... Yes?" Heather and Gudguníis peer into the well, but they are not convinced that whatever is in there is Annabelle. The debased nixie in the well charms Gudguníis and asks him to help her out. The rogue grabs the rope still tied to Theodore's waist and leaps down the well. Theodore is pulled after him, and just manages to stop by bracing his legs against the edge of the well. He hauls Gudguníis back up, but the nixie is riding him and has drawn a dagger. Theodore wrestles the Nixie off of the half-elf and Heather, in full mama bear mode, slits the throat of the creature that tried to impersonate her daughter. As the blood flows from the frail body of the gasping nixie, Heather feels pangs of guilt for her deadly decision. Is this what the life of an adventurer has made her?
The adventurers follow a spiral staircase up to the next level, and find themselves in a circular room with four doors. Above one door is a stone face with hands covering its ears. Above the next, a stone face covering its eyes. The third door has a stone face covering its mouth. The fourth door simply has three keyholes. Theodore plugs his ears with candle wax, "But just enough so I can still hear things," and goes to the first door. Gudguníis goes to the second door, and Heather and Rusty take the third door. They open them simultaneously.
In the first room, Theodore sees a satyr and two fauns on a stage playing wild fey music to a crowd of adoring woodland creatures - grigs, black squirrels, top-hat-wearing crickets, and the like. Because of the wax earplugs, he gets a bonus to his save against their maddening song, but because he specified that he still wanted to be able to hear things, he is not immune. He fails his save and becomes confused. Lashing out in his confusion, he starts massacring the strange woodland creatures. As they flee, he starts striking himself with his own trident. The singers and pipers keep on playing their music, and he can see a silver key dangling from the neck of the lead singer, but through his madness he can do nothing to reach it.
In the third room, Heather and Rusty find only an antique brass oil lamp on a pedestal. They examine it and try to light it, but to no avail. Finally, Heather rubs it and a mighty red genie bursts out. He has a gold key on a chain around his neck. "I can grant you one wish," the genie says. "Anything your heart desires!" Heather opens her mouth, "I wish f-", but as soon as she speaks, the genie turns into a hideous ghul and attacks her with its raking claws. Heather falls under the furious onslaught.
As soon as Gudguníis opens his door, he sees for a brief instant a fabulously beautiful naked woman, but it is the last thing he sees, as he falls victim to the nymph's blinding beauty. Sightlessly he advances into the room, feeling grubby hands and claws brushing against him and grabbing at him as he passes. He asks the nymph if she is a prisoner here, and she says no. He asks if she can help them, and she explains that she cannot leave her place, but there is a key around her neck if he can take it. He feels around with his hands until he finds it, then leaves, strange creatures still grabbing at him with their clammy fingers. As he exits the room, still blind, he has a sudden realization about what he should have done. He goes to the next room, feels the stone face - hands over mouth - above the door, wordlessly enters and drags Rusty and the unconscious Heather out, goes back in and feels around the ghul's ribcage until he finds the key, then leaves. He explains what needs to be done to Rusty, who stops his ears with wax and enters the first room to grab the key and drag Theodore out. With all three keys together, they can open the final door, but first they decide it would be prudent to rest.
Face joins them after their rest, having recovered from the black unicorn poison. Gudguníis, still blind, takes his leave and waits with Bucephalus. They open the final door and find only a ladder going up to a trapdoor. Beyond, they find themselves in the top of the tower. Unconscious Annabelle rests in an iron cage suspended by a chain over a pit of acid. Other than the winch for the chain and a door leading to the bridge between the towers, there is nothing else apparent in the room. Heather cautiously calls out to Annabelle, who wakes up and is surprised to see her mother. Annabelle tells them that Hizendis plans to eat her on the full moon, and he is alway ranting on about how he will conquer the fey realm "with his 'fire corn' or whatever, blah blah blah." As mother and daughter catch up, talking about Dervenn and life at the Seelie court, the others try to find a way to get her down. Theodore uses his whip to climb up onto the rafters and explore, but they realize that without Gudguníis, they'll need a key to open the cage's lock. Annabelle says that her jailor, an ogre, should have the keys. Then Rusty notices three tiny atomies trying to turn the doorknob. They freeze for a minute, staring back at the crusty prospector, then slowly try to turn the doorknob again.
Theodore chucks his trident at them, badly grazing one of them. They finally manage to open the door, and one of them flies out onto the bridge, shouting an alarm. The other two fly at Theodore and try to stab him in the face with their tiny rapiers. Then the ogre pushes in through the door, looking like some extra from Aladdin in his striped baggy pants, purple vest, and curling goatee. He draws a flashing mithril falchion and cuts at Theodore as Rusty chucks a bomb at him and Heather and Face open fire with their guns. The fiery blasts finish off one of the atomies, and Theodore skewers another with his trident. Then the third one that had flown off to get the ogre reappears next to Theodore and tries to shrink him, but he resists their fey magic and strikes back. Face fells the ogre with a blow from her shotgun, and the last atomie turns invisible and tries to flee, but Heather follows the trail of pixie dust and takes it out with a precise shot.
Gathering the keys and giant falchion from the ogre (it will be a great falchion for a Medium-sized creature), Theodore whips up to the cage, unlocks it, and uses his whip to pull it toward a rafter so that he and Annabelle can leap to safety. Free from the antimagic cage, Annabelle tells her mother that she is a sorceress. Theodore, hefting his new falchion, passes the goblin-slaying sword he stole from the leprechaun to Face.
Determined to take out Hizendis, they cross the bridge to the next tower and kick down the door. Hizendis is seated on a throne, magic blunderbuss across his lap, two goblin snakes at his sides and an array of blunderbuss-armed hobgoblins in front of him. "You may have escaped, my pet," he hisses, leaping of his throne, "but after I've killed all your friends, eating you will be all the sweeter!" With that, he takes aim and his blunderbuss spits out a cone of searing flame at Theodore. "And once I have ascended, my armies will march across the fey realm and lay waste to all with firecorn!"
Dodging the blast of fire, Theodore sidesteps Hizendis and charges a group of hobgoblins. Rusty takes the other side, blasting away with his bombs. Face charges in and brings the goblin-slaying sword down on Hizendis' head, but just as it is about to strike, the sword turns into a live chicken, which squawks in panic as it flops into the goblin king's face. The leprechaun appears on the back of the throne, doubled over with laughter. "Oh, th' fecking chicken! Gets me every time!" With that, he falls behind the throne, out of sight but still laughing. Face lets the chicken free and draws her shotguns, but Hizendis growls and takes his true form - a barghest! He leaps and claws at the paladin. Face tries to duck past him, but his attack of opportunity sends her sprawling on the floor. Heather runs after her and heals her just as a goblin snake rears over them both and strikes.
Annabelle, meanwhile, has ducked into the room and taken out a group of hobgoblins and one of the snakes with a color spray. Hizendis, seeing his opportunity, lunges at her and badly wounds her, but Theodore steps in with his new great falchion to keep him from finishing the job. As Rusty takes out the unconscious enemies with another bomb, their 'firecorn' ammunition pops and crackles in the flames. Hitting Hizendis with a laughing touch, Annabelle slips past him further into the room. Hizendis shouts for more of his men to come up from below, and Annabelle runs to the stars and casts entangle on the goblins below and calls Rusty over. Rusty chucks a bomb down the stairs, igniting the goblins' supply of firecorn, which starts to cook off down below. Face cuts a goblin snake in two with a blast from her shotgun, and Theodore finishes off another hobgoblin. Rusty strikes Hizendis in the back with a bomb and the hideous barghest writhes and falls, fur still burning.
From down below, they hear a goblin shout, "I think we got the fire under control!" Then the tower shakes from a huge explosion. Searching about for loot, Theodore flips open a secret door in the throne and finds a treasure chest filled with mithral and gold. Rusty grabs all the blunderbusses and the few charges of firecorn that weren't burnt up, and the party beats feet back across to the prison tower. The bridge collapses behind them and the leaning tower full of goblins cracks and falls into the dark woods below. With Annabelle in tow, they run back down the tower, grab blind Gudguníis and Bucephalus, and head back to Heather's mother.
She thanks them profusely for their help and gives them each a gilded oak leaf from her hair that can create a mighty tree in an instant. Annabelle says she will keep on living with the fey, and offers her mother a place in the fey court, but Heather says there are still more people she needs to help out there. They say their goodbyes, and Dervenn takes them back through the tree to the mortal realm. They wonder for an instant if they will arrive back in the middle of the battle between the elves and the mining company, but they are surprised to find that the forest floor is covered with snow. How long have they been away in the fey realm?
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Heather was the only character in the party whose backstory had a time-sensitive element: her reason for adventuring was to find her daughter, who had recently gone missing. I had put it off for a while, but after that long trip down south I knew I had to address it soon or it would strain belief that a mother so worried about her lost child was wandering around doing unrelated things with a group of adventurers. At the same time, I didn't want to take the more pedestrian route and just have her kidnapped by orcs or something. Since Heather is a changeling (not the half-hag changelings of Pathfinder, but a half-fey changeling. My $3+ patreon patrons can find the complete rules for half-fey changelings in my playtest document) but she wasn't aware of her ancestry, I decided to work a trip to the fey realm in there. The conceit of a damsel trapped in a tower works really well in the fey realm, where fairytales are a way of life. Plus, it let me put a bunch of weird puzzles in there.
So why is the fey realm on a different plane? Well, in folklore, the fey are often from another world (called The Otherworld) where time runs differently and nature has different rules. Until 4th Edition, the fey realm was not traditionally its own plane in D&D. That's the one thing that I think 4th Edition got right in terms of cosmology. The fey realm should be its own weird plane, full of fey and all manner of strange beasts. For Guns of the Western Kings, I decided that the fey realm should have a sort of 17th and 18th century aesthetic, hence why the hobgoblins were armed with blunderbusses and not with double-barreled shotguns. The fey always feel a little out-of-date because fairytales often preserve the sensibilities of an earlier time.
The time-difference thing with the fey realm also let me do a few other things. For one, it let me age Annabelle so that she would be a little more independent, thus giving Heather the ability to continue adventuring after finding her, rather than returning to a life of motherhood. Second, it let me jump the timeline in the 'real' world ahead a bit. There are some things that I wanted to get to sooner, and only the timeline jump would let me do that realistically. What exactly those things are will have to wait for a later update...
-your asynchronous d20 despot
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