Tyranny of Dragons Campaign Log - Session 4 - This one time, at Bandit Camp ...

Hello and Welcome!

We started this session with doing a quick Level-Up to Level 3. Dafnae choose Arcane Trickster as her archetype and Chard choose Eldritch Knight as his archetype and Torsion just continued his Cleric role. More on each of the Heroes in their own posts coming soon!

But then back to the Adventure, the Trio had to decide what to do and how to save Leosin!

They watched few more Bandits casually enter the Camp without any challenge so the three decided after discussion to chance it and sneak into the Bandit Camp. 

They tied up their Bandit Hostage (henceforth referred to as Dave) and tied him very securely to a tree. He was too much of a liability to take into the camp and Torsion wouldn't accept Chard or Dafnae to simply dispatch him so they settled on leaving his fate to the gods tied up to a tree.

So with the bag of loot in hand, the three made their way back and entered the Camp. Chard who is quite charming in his fiendish Tiefling way did caution Torsion not to say much as he is a bit of a grumpy Dwarf.

Initially it was easy going. Small bands of Kobolds yipping at their heels but otherwise no trouble. They continued in and came across the odd group of Bandits around the sporadic campfires and hanging out of tents, boasting about their thievery and what loot they captured, all for She Who Will Rise (or whatever the Cultists were going on about - the Bandits were really just in it for the coin).

The odd Bandit would catch the eyes of the infiltrators but in their revelry, they paid them no mind and Chard even engaged them with a call out or two to boast about their heist. One even questioned why they were so late getting back to which Chard just shook the bag of loot and then glanced over at the Torsion and chortled back about the short legs took them longer to make the journey back with the heavy bag of loot they stole! Luckily that group paid no more mind to the three.

They continued the journey and overheard various chatter but the Bandits were not particularly well informed. Some comments about taking the loot to the Cave and not being allowed in there as it was some sort of Hatchery. But no information on where they were heading next.

All was going well up until they made it halfway into the camp when suddenly one of the Bandits called out with an "Oi - I recognise you! You're the one that accepted Cyanwrath's Challenge and got beaten down!" All eyes and fingers started to be directed at Torsion. 

Chard's quick wit sprung into action and with a lucky Deception roll, he managed to partially deceive the surrounding crowd of Bandits that they have the wrong Dwarves confused with theirs. The Bandits were still suspicious so they called out that they need to take them to Frulam and she'll sort it out.

So quite a sizeable band gathered and then escorted the three to the main red tent and called out to the camp leader. She came out with Cyanwrath by her side and also a new black Half Dragon figure behind her. 

They explained what they found and indeed Cyanwrath further confirmed that indeed this was Torsion whom he had bested and was surprised to see him back so soon to get more punishment. 

Chard again got very lucky with his sly tongue and managed again with a very lucky roll to convince Frulam and the group that they were there to join the Cultists because they saw how weak the villagers of Greenest were and they wanted to join up with the powerful army here. Frulam conferred with the other figure behind her and they agreed and then commanded everyone get back to work and not to bother them.

One of the Bandits, this time Geoff, took the lucky Heroes and escorted them to the animal pen and tasked them with mucking it out to prove their worth if they wanted to earn their keep and join up.

They took the task and got to work. It was dirty work, but nothing they couldn't handle.

Afterwards they went to get food and they found their 8 terrified villagers cooking and serving up food.  They had only scraps left and the original crew had a good laugh at the hazing of the new recruits but then resumed their celebrations.

Once the food service was ended, the villagers were escorted to two camps near the cliff edge and the rest of the Bandits continued celebrating. The Cultists went back to their tents in the upper parts of the camp as they would not really busy themselves with such trivial matters.

As the evening drew on, the Bandits became more and more tired thanks to the food and drink and slowly the fires died down and the camp dwellers went to sleep. The three had managed to find some tents near where Leosin was being held captive and waited until the later hours of the evening.

Once all was dark and quiet, Dafnae set to work. She snuck around to have a look at the pool near where Leosin was tied up and tried to chat with him quietly in Elvish. He was quite battered and weak and Dafnae quickly said they were here to rescue him as they were sent on a mission by his Brothers. He declined and said he has work here to do still and to instead free the captive villagers. Dafnae at first disagreed and asked what good was he sacrificed as the execution was coming at dawn but Leosin pressed that the villagers were the important ones and that he was there serving his god and a greater purpose.

Not content to leave it be and also not wanting to get into a theological debate, she snuck in quickly to slice the restraints and slip one of her daggers into his boot and wished him luck and to consider that the three of them were sent there by his god to save him. Leosin did thank her but again urged her to save the Villagers.

Then she crept back to her tent area and waited a little bit longer to make sure there was no notice of what she had just done.

 Once happy that she had not been noticed, she very stealthily crept over to the tents where the Captives were. The streak of very high rolls continued thankfully and so she made it there unnoticed. 

In their hubris of not being challenged, the Bandits had not set up a sentry to watch over the Captives and the other Bandits nearby were sound asleep.

Very carefully, aided by continued high stealth rolls, Dafnae then crept to the back of the tents and slit the back flap open just enough to crawl in. Her Darkvision helped her see that the tent contained four of the Villagers with their hands bound. She roused one and luckily was able to calm them with a good Charisma roll to not startle them and quietly explained the plan. She would free them and they would escape.

Quickly she untied the first one and that Villagers then set to work to untie the rest. This allowed Dafnae to go to the other tent (again thankfully very lucky Stealth rolls) to repeat the process on the second tent.

Equally good success and once ready, she waited and helped guide the Villagers to climb up the wall (the cliff edge was not too steep and had adequate footholds for a slow climb up. Thanks to also high Stealth rolls by the Captives, they managed to safely and quietly climb out. The plan was that they would all go to the treeline and wait for the three of them to join them.

Once they were all safely out of the Camp, Dafnae continued her lucky streak of very high rolls and snuck back to her Companions. She motioned to them that they need to leave NOW and so they quietly started to make their way to the cliff wall near them to climb out. Or so they thought ... Dafnae and Torsion rolled again very high on their Stealth rolls, but Chard, while his tongue may be quick, his feet were clumsy and he failed badly. 

This alerted one of the Cultist guards by the main tent and they came to investigate but luckily they could not see anything out of the ordinary as the Heroes managed to hide by the cliff face.

They waited for the guard to return to post and then they made their climb out, this time successfully without being detected.

The Adventurers then made their way to where they told the Villagers to wait and managed to find them. They were ever so grateful to be freed and they started to make their plan on how to return to Greenest. While discussing, they were startled by a figure coming upon them who luckily turned out to be Leosin. He had seen what happened (thanks to his Darkvision) and he also made his escape after the Heroes.

Leosin advised that they need to make haste back to Greenest before the Camp realises what happened.

So the band of 8 freed Villagers, and Leosin made the journey back escorted by Chard, Dafnae, & Torsion. The journey was a little slow going as the Villagers were weakened and injured but they made the journey and managed to fill their waterskins  by the babbling brooks they came across.

The journey back to Greenest thankfully was uneventful and so everyone was led back to safety. The Governor was pleased and the Heroes gained their reward (250gp each!) and were finally able to have a much deserved Long Rest. It has been quite an eventful few days to say the least!

And this is where we ended the session. The Adventurers will discuss with the freed Villagers to learn what they can (we learned a bit about them during the journey back but will describe them in the next post). 

This is the fun part of Dungeons & Dragons. We managed an entire session without a single combat and this is fortunate as the three would have been greatly outnumbered. So it does go to show that things can be resolved by means other than using a blade or spell. But surely next session will likely resume with combat, and bring it on!

What of Dave? Well, he was still trying to escape from his restraints so let's see what he manages to do. Who knows, the heroes may cross paths with Dave again. 

And Cyanwrath will need to be challenged again and taken down. And we expect Frulam will be very upset for being so gravely deceived by the Tiefling (but realistically, it is hard to resist his charms!).

More great maps that Adam put together. They were created by Morvold Press (Morvold Press). You can see in the pictures below the minis for Chard, Dafnae, and Torsion, but we'll go into detail on them in their Character Bio posts (hopefully soon!).

And this was the end of Chapter 2, so let's see what's in store for the Adventurers in Chapter 3!

Happy continued gaming and painting!

-Pete (with Mitz & Simz & now also Torsion, Dafnae, & Chard)