This week’s session was a lesson in choices.
First, the group had a bunch of core spawn crawler parts to sell, so I gave them some vendor choices. The Alchemist/Enchanter where they get a discount, a pawn shop of sorts, and an herbalist on the edge of town. They started with the Magic shop and presented their goods. She was interested in the heart, and offered a price. The party then gave me a choice. Asking if, instead, they could start a line of credit with her, for just a bit more, knowing that it would be spent with her. I, of course, accepted this interesting choice.
Next, they went to the Grand Galleria to see what was on offer. This is a ridiculous cavern of a shop I’ve created with all manner of knick-knacks and slightly used or broken magic items. The group had fun looking around and asking for stories of the various items. Lots of choices here. My inventors bought a schematic for an “Aoerian Time Machine” and a teensy tiny mechanical spider. The group traded the crawler bits, and first dibs at their next haul, for a masque charm that only disguises people as a red tiefling and a rope of mending that’s only 30ft long (the other 20ft is in the belly of a demon).
They did some more shopping before returning to the Take for another big choice. Contracts. They were eager to get more money and when two contracts were offered, took them both. Without really thinking through the second, a contract to capture two moorbounder cubs. Did some research on the first contract and headed off.
The first contract was six Skulks, invisible folk only made visible to children, in mirrors, or by the light of special candles. They made good choices in separating the candles up in the group, sending them to different points on the map. Keeping the battlefield well-lit. It was a tough fight, but they made good choices and kept everyone alive. I also chose not to throw my two extra skulks at them as people started falling unconscious, I had already powered up the first six a bit. They rested, looked around, nobody rolled a 20, so the last two evaporated into nonexistence. I called them Schrodinger’s Skulks – they didn’t find them, so they never existed.
Next up was the moorbounder cubs in the Sorrowseep Marsh. They made good choices in tracking through the marsh and got to the den quite quickly. I had a couple options then, but given their success at traversing, I went with the simplest choice, and had the den full of resting Moorbounders – four adults and the two babies. This is when they realized they had some Big Choices to make.
The pacifist bard and the animal loving ranger, decided to start by charming the two in front of the den and offering food. The ranger didn’t have good luck, but the bard’s song did the trick. Eventually charming the entire pack. They fed them, made friends with them, spent the night playing music while they slept. The next morning, tried to get them to leave with the party. But charm only does so much. They made friends with a pack, so the pack wanted them to stay. They weren’t going to leave their home for them, though.
The next big choice was what to do next. They had signed a contract, and would likely lose their place in the Take if they did not fulfill it. Those that had made friends weren’t interested in killing this family to steal their cubs. Others were surprised that they hadn’t realized it would come to this. They went round and round a bit, until one of them came up with the idea of putting them all to sleep with herbs. A good idea to solve their dilemma, so, one good herbalism check later, I went along with this new, peaceful plan.
They are all going to be a little more aware of the choices they make when taking contracts. And the biggest choice of all, they are also trying to decide on a group name. 🙂