Daemonium - Brave Surviver!! Session 18 & 19 & 20: Chillin With The Wood Elves

For the first session, our characters are the following:

Redmond Frionbarr - Bard
Za'vak Al-Hadim - Paladin/Fighter
Gene Erikson - Fighter
Cadillac Monteau - Ranger
Helmut - Druid

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These session reports will be written somewhat tersely, as I have many to write. My RPG time has primarily been spent on fleshing out the world and fillin' hexes. 

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Session 18 began with a funeral for Vamp Testy, the first dead player character. The traditional Cashuan funeral is meant to be a time to air your grievances regarding the deceased, and also remember the good times. Before the funeral there were some little character moments: Redmond prayed to a statue and got lectured by a priest, Gene got grumpy and Za'vak tried to comfort him, and Cadillac chilled out and drank beer.

During the funeral, a bunch of individuals gave lil speeches. Gene's player actually wrote out their's beforehand, which was a nice touch. Redmond gave the most impassioned speech and, contrary to everyone else who praised Vamp's sacrifice, basically said that there was no reason that Vamp had to die. Which was basically true, but no one really wanted to hear it. The tragedy of the funeral from my perspective is that almost everyone, except the young boy Tomlinson and Redmond, perverted it toward political ends. Za'vak led the group in prayer, which was kind of uncomfortable for most whose religion differs. Cadillac did not give a speech because he was 'too embarrassed'. 

The party made final preparations and met up with Petunia, the leader of the small but potent Wood Elf Scouts (The entire military of the Wood Elves). The Princess, obviously key to the negotiations, travelled with the group. The agreement was that in exchange for returning the Staff of the Woodland the party would be able to meet with the king. The journey to the Wood Elf Kingdom was without major incident. On the way there, Petunia informed the party that an Aeon airship had landed on island outside the Wood Elf kingdom, though the Aeon representatives within the airship had not actually entered the kingdom. The presence of their main enemy made the party a bit more tense. 

Once there, the party was greeted by a lavish banquet. Despite the isolation of the Wood Elf Kingdom, many within the court were curious about the human guests. The 2000 year old King Tulip was particularly gregarious. The party was immediately suspicious of them, and both Za'vak and Cadillac are definitely prejudiced against Elves. The King in particular rubbed the party the wrong way: he was crowded by his 20 concubines, and one particularly gorgeous wife was sitting on his lap smoking opium with him. The Queen, meanwhile, looked quite uptight behind the nearly naked, squat King. During dinner, the King ate pineapple. This is his favourite food, and he has an entire greenhouse dedicated only to growing pineapple. It is not native to the region, and he tasted it long ago when he travelled the South Seas as a Prince.

During the feast, I rolled randomly to determine where everyone sat. Za'vak and Gene sat near Prince Poppy, while Redmond and Cadillac sat near the King's advisor Holly Begonia. Za'vak, Gene, and Prince Poppy hit it off. The Prince told them lots about Wood Elf culture: Pixies are used as servants, the society is based on a strict caste system, and things have pretty much stagnated entirely under King Tulip. The King basically just does drugs all day, and leaves it to his courtiers to run things. Prince Poppy exclaimed "I wish he were dead!"

Redmond and Holly Begonia had a more measured discussion about Wood Elf culture, the coming negotiations, etc. Cadillac felt very uncomfortable and looked down the entire time. 

After dinner, King Tulip prepared some drugs and invited the players to smoke Elf Opium with him. The King tried his best to pressure the party, but most refused. Everyone in the party turned him down, save for Redmond and the Princess. Princess did so only for the sake of negotiations. However, she failed her constitution save and pretty much immediately threw up. Prince Poppy, upon being asked, proclaimed that he was straight edge and left. Za'vak followed after him. Redmond, high on drugs, talked with the King and his favourite, and youngest, wife Planta Maria. The Queen sat at the side, sobre. Eventually, Redmond decided to show off his gun and shot the King in the face blowing off his lower jaw. The Queen screamed and asked for help, while Planta Maria laughed her ass off. She grabbed Redmond's hand and ran off with him to the King's pleasure pods. She invited Redmond in and, afterward, brought him to Holly Begonia's house to hide him for the time being. 

Note: Redmond's player did this of his own volition. I decided not to mechanize the drugs at all, and instead left it in the hands of the player. I thought this was truly excellent.

During the above affairs, Helmut assiduously took notes.

Meanwhile, Za'vak got shown the lower regions of the Wood Elf Kingdom by Prince Poppy where the lower castes labour in green houses and fields for the upper classes. Prince Poppy took Za'vak to an underground rock concert, and they played a sick show together. Za'vak's drumming was only mediocre, but his heart was in the right place. It was pretty funny to have the Paladin go to a rock concert, haha.

Before we closed the session off, Petunia stormed into the room were the party was staying. With the king shot, he figured this whole thing was an assassination attempt. Redmond had gone missing, so he hoped to get to the bottom of things by confronting the party. Gene and Petunia had a brief battle, and Cadillac hid in his room. Gene and the Princess were shown to the king, who really did get shot in the face, and were briefly interrogated.

During this session my internet kept cutting out. It was really annoying.
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Next session! Unfortunately, Redmond's player could not make Session 19. Normally, due to his importance in the scenario, I would not have run it without him but he only informed after all the player's had gathered and play was set to start. His schedule is especially busy right now, so these things happen. I decided that, given the fact that he shot the king in the face, he'd be thrown in prison for the time being. Petunia, the head of the army, really wants to execute him but is only being stopped by the ever generous King.
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Session 19 & 20:

Za'vak Al-Hadim - Paladin/Fighter
Gene Erikson - Fighter
Cadillac Monteau - Ranger
Helmut - Druid

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That night, Cadillac Monteau decided he had had enough of this shit. He opted to just walk right out. Due to the attempted murder of the king, guards had been placed outside of the room. Luckily, Gene heard Cadillac leaving (1-in-6 chance). Gene went out and helped make an excuse for Cadillac: they're lovers going for a stroll.  While holding hands, Gene slipped Pixie Dust into Cadillac's hand (This allows temporary flight). The guard followed them and, in the middle of the walk, the two pretended to have a lover's quarrel. Gene went up to the guard and stopped him, and Cadillac went and jumped out of the Wood Elf Palace and floated down to the forest floor thanks to the Pixie dust. Interestingly, the main reason Gene helped Cadillac escape is because he didn't trust him. The palace guards went out to search for Cadillac, and Gene was escorted back to his room. From here, the party split into two. I'll start with Cadillac's journey.

Cadillac went south at a rapid pace, taking on exhaustion to journey through the night. On top of regular encounter rolls, I was also doing rolls for the Wood Elves trying to follow his tracks. Cadillac was totally lost and had to follow the first river he ran into until he was oriented. After a rough sleep, he went south and ended up finding the Old Fort with the Ettin inside. He found a corner, and slept there. This wasn't enough to recover exhaustion. The next day, he travelled at top speed and was only briefly stopped by a giant talking squirrel that charged him a toll to use the forest path he was on. When Cadillac said "no" a bushel of acorns fell onto his head from above, dealing 2 damage. Cadillac relented and paid the toll ("I respect your game").

From there, it was a straight shot through familiar territory to get to the village of Homble where, in the next session, Cadillac will try to steal the body of Vamp Testy.
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Meanwhile, Za'vak, Helmut, and Gene are taken by boat to the Scarlet Isle. The rules for the negotiations are as follows:

- No weapons allowed, they are all confiscated.
- All there must wear special robes
- If magic is cast, a special fog encompassing the island will explode. This will probably kill everyone.
- The negotiation simply requires a majority to vote in favour. The five voting members are: King Tulip, Queen Tulip, Holly Begonia (Advisor), Prince Poppy, and Petunia (General of the Wood Elf Scouts). They will continue to meet for as many rounds as it takes. Wood Elves live for a long time, so they are patient.

When the party arrived on the island, they were greeted by Harvey Odallus. He is the 2nd Division Leader of Aeon, former friend of Redmond Frionbarr, and a rival that they had encountered previously. He is here to negotiate for Aeon. King Tulip, very flippantly, decided that if the Cashuan princess can come to negotiations then he ought to allow an Aeon representative to come as well.

Gene spoke with Harvey, and the two got on pretty well. Nice. Holly and the Butler prepared dinner for the group, making special care to blend up the King's pineapple so he could eat without issue. After dinner, and some more chatter, negotiations began. Cashua wants the Elves to be neutral, and to open trade relations so that they can get Living Wood. Aeon wants the Elves to allow Aeon to land in and march through the Fae Woods, but otherwise be neutral. The first round of votes were as follows:

- King Tulip: Abstain
- Queen Tulip: Cashua 
- Petunia: Aeon
- Prince Poppy: Cashua
- Holly Begonia: Abstain

The Queen voted for Cashua because, based on intel gained by Petunia when he interrogated Gene and the Princess, she thought that Redmond and Harvey were in cahoots. Basically, she believed that Redmond was planted to assassinate the King to make Cashua look bad. Thus, the court would obviously favour Aeon and the Cashuans wouldn't even be allowed to negotiate. This was erroneous, but the party (Particularly Z'avak) considered using this to their advantage by throwing their buddy under the bus. In fact, Za'vak explained Redmond's tendency toward trickery to Petunia after a brief sparring session.

With the court divided, everyone went to bed. In the middle of the night, Planta Maria's scream woke everyone up. When the party ran in, she was crying and shaking the King. With his Opium pipe in hand, the King had died. Murder mystery time was engaged!

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In short order, everyone except the Butler gathered in the drawing room of the manor on the isle. Petunia and the players went out to look for the butler. Planta Maria, the Queen, and Prince Poppy were hysterical due to the death of the King, so Holly stayed to look after them and Harvey sat back to watch for funny business.

The players couldn't find him downstairs. When they went up to the balcony, they saw the Butler walking back from the garbage room. They were highly suspicious and apprehended him. The party decided to tie the Butler up, and put thought he was suspicious. 

After this, they decided to do a search of the island. Za'vak found a collection of letters belonging to the royal family in the shed outside. Gene, in the garbage shed, found a small, empty vial. Additionally, the shed looked like it had been in frequent use, unlike the rest of the manor. Downstairs (On a 1-in-6) Holly Begonia found an Aeonic dagger belonging to Harvey. 

When the party met upstairs, they had the Queen read the letters. The letters belonged to various members of the royal family. Most shockingly, there were love letters exchanged between Holly Begonia and Planta Maria! As for the dagger, the party figured that the Butler, who handled the confiscation of weapons, must have hidden on the island. At this point the Butler was under even more scrutiny. Holly Begonia then took a look a the vial and told everyone that, yes, it did contain poison.

From here on out, everyone set to work figuring out who was guilty. The party figured that someone must be working with the Butler, because he was one of the only ones on the island with no motive to kill the King. At this point, the party (+ Harvey and the Princess) managed to convince Petunia and the Wood Elves that the outsiders coming to negotiate had no real motive to kill the King. 

Right before bed, Za'vak had the idea to use Divine Sense. He did so and discovered that the Butler was undead, but did somehow have a living soul. This was bizarre, and made things more confused. Some suspicion was put on Holly Begonia in light of this, but everyone remained unconvinced.

I'll do my best to recall the specific mindsets each non-player character had. Over the next day, the party talked to almost everyone save the Queen and Planta Maria:

Queen: Initially, when the king was found dead, she thought it was the work of Harvey and Redmond. Her first thought was that, with the failure of the first attempt, Harvey tried again. However, she later changed her mind and blamed Planta Maria. She knew that Planta hated the King and the Queen was jealous of her anyway and would be happy to get rid of her.
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Petunia: Petunia wasn't really sure what to make of things. Without any solid evidence, he thought the best course of action was just to kill Planta Maria and get on with it. She was just one of the king's many wives, and her death would hardly effect the Kingdom proper. Additionally, he made sure to take a commanding role of the preceding to make no one suspected him. This worked pretty well, actually.
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Prince Poppy: The young Prince was, at this point, just going to abstain because he was unsure and didn't want to condemn anyone to death. However, this lack of decisiveness meant that he would be easy to convince during the voting process. Throughout the various meetings and discussions through the next day, Petunia would try to convince him to vote for Planta. 
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Holly Begonia: Holly Begonia was the one who killed the King. When preparing his pineapple smoothie, she slipped a vial of poison in and threw it out. The Butler, weird as he is, was unaware. Because he is undead, he doesn't need to sleep, and does chores through all hours of the night. The murder of the king was disconnected to the Butler. During this process, Holly made herself useful by revealing the Butler's dagger that she happened to find (Which had nothing to do with her, anyway) and by explaining how the poison worked. She insisted that the love letters were totally disconnected, and also private. She was planning to vote for whoever had the most suspicion placed on them. She killed the king to free her lover, Planta Maria, from being a concubine. Planta had no idea.
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Harvey: Harvey, after the letters, was pretty much convinced it was Holly. Firstly, he thought that the bizarre case of the Butler smacked of magic intervention and Holly was the only magic-user around capable of that. Secondly, he figured that that Holly and Planta worked together to kill the king so that they could be free to love one another without dealing with the King's nonsense. He thought it awful convenient that Holly identified the poison so easily, and figured that Planta must have put the poison into the King's drugs.
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Princess: The Princess chose to abstain, and did not share who she thought guilty (She was suspicious of Petunia, though she couldn't figure out how he would've killed her unless the Butler was under his thrall, which seemed impossible). She didn't think it right to interfere in the affairs of other people, especially not for politcal gain. This would become a point of contention between her and Gene.
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After taking watch, getting some rest, and thinking things over through the night Petunia decided it would come to a blind vote. He decided that they would execute the one determined guilty and, upon returning to the Wood Elf Kingdom, would say that the Butler was guilty for both murders. They would then execute the Butler in publc, and neatly wrap the affair up. What happened on the island would stay on the island. At this point, I allowed the players to talk to the NPCs (In private or public) and do whatever they would. My memory here is not perfect, they talked to a lot of people and had lots of discussions. These are some of the main ones:

Gene: Gene heavily suspected the Queen. He thought the Butler was working for her, figured the dagger was planted to blame Harvey, and thought that her constant blaming of others was suspicious. He decided to discuss things with Harvey: Harvey let Gene know his thoughts frankly. Gene told Harvey about his suspicions of the Queen and also let Harvey know that killing the Queen may be convenient: Prince Poppy would be the most amenable to foreign influence, and maybe the most competent, of the potential new leaders of the Wood Elf Kingdom. Harvey found this convincing, and agreed to vote for the Queen even if he thought Holly was guilty.

Gene then spoke with the princess, and asked her opinion. Gene chafed at the Princess's choice to abstain, and things got a bit personal when the Princess brought up the history of their two people's (Cashua, the kingdom of the Princess which Gene belonged to, basically conquered the Woodfolk people but also liberated them from slavery to Giants. It's a somewhat confused history, some Woodfolk see the Cashuans as liberators while others resent them for holding most of the power. Most Woodfolk are shepherds or farmers). Basically, the Princess thinks that it was a mistake for Cashua to have conquered the Woodfolk in the first place. I'm not sure what Gene's feelings are (Or if he's sure himself). Gene spoke rudely to the Princess, basically calling her a coward, and she reminded him that she is ultimately the authority here.

Gene told the Princess he would abstain from voting, but voted for the Queen anyway. This lie worked out much better than it could have.

Za'vak: Za'vak is a Paladin of Torm, a God of Justice, and basically found this expedited process of justice disgusting. Thus, while he was suspicious of the queen, his thoughts were toward abstaining. After some discussion with others, he decided to pray. He received visions of the priest Egard telling him that he can forge his own path, and make his own justice. Za'vak took this to heart and talked to Prince Poppy. He basically said that, if the Queen dies like this, it's a morally repugnant way to start your reign as king. Poppy was inspired by this. 

Za'vak then talked with the Princess and asked her to support him in ending this fraudulent justice. While she sympathized with him, she did not want to doom negotiations by acting out of turn. This is their land, so they ought to sort things out their way. 

Za'vak went inside the drawing room, and called out Petunia. He also insulted him haha. When Petunia started threatening Za'vak (And insulted him back), Za'vak punched him in the face and gave him a bloody the nose. The two began to fight each other, tripped over furniture and began to roll around the ground striking at each other. Harvey and Gene moved to intervene and Holly Begonia yelled that she would cast a spell and blow the whole place up if they didn't stop acting like children. Gene pressed Holly to make a decision, and she said that Petunia's decision making makes sense and we've all already agreed. There's been enough talk: let's vote.

Right before voting commenced, Za'vak put together a case against Holly. He laid out his logic, and was extremely impassioned. This convinced the impressionable Prince Poppy (Who was also extremely impressed with Za'vak punching Petunia in the face) and Harvey (Who suspected Holly anyway, but Za'vak's actions reminded him to the Do The Right Thing) to vote for Holly.

Helmut: Helmut basically just went with Gene, and was more preoccupied with the mystery of the Butler than anything else.

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The voting commenced:

Petunia: Planta Maria
Queen: Holly Begonia
Prince Poppy: Holly Begonia
Planta: Queen
Holly Begonia: Queen

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Harvey: Holly Begonia
Gene: Queen
Princess: Abstain
Za’vak: Abstain
Helmut: Queen

Za'vak, in a highly principled move, decided to abstain so as not to participate in what he thought was a nonsense form of justice. Ironically, this is ultimately what killed the Queen. Additionally, Helmut was quite quiet during the scenario and did not really ask others about their motives or seek his own answers to the murder. Ultimately, Za'vak's principles and Helmut's complacency killed the Queen.

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Petunia executed the Queen, despite her protests, and the group went back to the Wood Elf Kingdom. They all talked about what happened and Gene got in a debate about religion with Za'vak. The argument actually got a little heated, but Gene ultimately apologized. Gene and Harvey also had a discussion about Aeon: Gene seems to be seeing the evil empire in a more positive light. Is it as evil as it seems? Is Regulus' goal of ending the dominion of Gods over man an evil one? Do the ends justify the means? 

Prince Poppy and the group also briefly ruminated on what he should do as the New King. The fate of the Wood Elf kingdom is up in the air (I'm gonna roll for a couple of different possibilities, heehee).

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Notes:

Really interesting and fun sessions! I'm bad at write ups, and these certainly don't do justice to the gameplay. It was really fun and dramatic. This was also the group's first time moving away from 5e as a system (No dice rolls were made for the two sessions on the Scarlet Isles) and I think it was to the group's benefit. If a player could just 'Insight check' Holly or whatever, then it would be pretty hard to handle a mystery like this (I mean, I'd just say 'No' but you get what I'm saying). Generally speaking I erred on the side of giving more information than less, but the NPCs had conflicting motives and stories which complicated things nicely. When searching was rolled for, it was just done on 1-in-6 odds. Searching could be repeated as many times as one wished, however.

I wish Redmond could have been there, but last minute cancellation meant that the show had to go on. Redmond's deeper insight into Planta Maria and Holly Begonia would have certainly changed things somewhat. Besides that, Redmond's player is in many ways the best equipped to handle a murder mystery scenario.

The character expression here was fantastic, and the scenario landed better than I guessed it would. The issue with something like this is is that it required multiple sessions of set up to work. The hex crawl allowed the players to get some sense of the Wood Elf kingdom via conversations with the pixies and the ettin and the environment itself. Then, the first session of meeting the Wood Elves was all set up. The players got to meet the main personalities, forge connections, find out about their motives. There was lots of foreshadowing, too (Prince Poppy almost immediately said "I wish my dad were dead" lol).  Then, the negotiations created a bottle scenario and provided political stakes as a red herring for what was really a crime of passion, decided on the spur of the moment.

Something funny about the way the players performed in this scenario is that they were very selective with who they chose to speak with. No one took the time to interact with the Queen or Planta Maria (No one even comforted her, even though the King died in front of her haha). Holly was only spoken to when she did something. Instead, the players tried to form factions with the character's they knew. I wonder if they would've been able to put the pieces together differently (Or better) if 

No one figured out that the king was killed via poisoned pineapple, even though I constantly mentioned him eating it lol. After his face was shot, despite healing magic, his mouth was hurt enough that pineapple had to be specially prepared for him. The night of his death, Planta Maria and the King were sharing a pipe. If the pipe was poisoned, both would've died. When Gene initially suspected the pipe was what killed the King, the Queen pointed out this incongruency but this actually made her more suspicious in the eyes of the player. I think if the players put just a bit more time into reconstructing how the murder went down, and more firmly eliminated impossibilities (Like the pipe killing the King) it would've helped.

Za'vak's player was glad that we didn't initiate 5e combat procedures when he punched Petunia in the face, haha. We already knew Petunia was the better warrior, so in an all out fight he probably would've won (He was also armed, haha). Za'vak's punch was purely out of spite, and was also such a classic move from his player. I (And Prince Poppy) loved it.

Gene and Za'vak clashed a lot these sessions, but did so in a respectful and productive way. In the debate about religion, Za'vak just fully shut down the conversation. Nice. The Paladin is the most powerful class, but its role as an avatar for a deity really does complicate things.

The biggest mistake I made as Ref was that I ought to have provided a thorough review of the known facts at the start of session 20. That's a bit of a whoopsies for sure. Players! If you ever need a review please ask! This is definitely an important note, however. You gotta make sure everyone is on the same page.