SESSION 2 - Playlog - Corrhéo

Yes, again, we'll get into the details but:

Should I assume that you're going to read S1 Playlog and just drop you right into the mix and medley, or should I give some sort of backdrop?

Backdrop: Corrhéo is a country and a 52-hex project put together by myself and Clane that I am playtesting via a West Marches campaign over Discord with interested parties that include friends, family, and maybe you. 

The setting. Clane put it yesterday:

I didnt think we could pull off pod-capsule launching catapults, berrylmen balloonists and steampunk electric lords in the same world as Lovecraftian obsidian knights, wasteland prophets and casual undead liches & necromancers but it works

Here's a running Table of Contents, and then I'll drop in on Prep and Play of Session 2.

1. Working Player's Survey of Corrhéo
2. Session 1 - Corrhéo - West Marches - "To Bero's Boon"
   

Zeunt!

Wanting that exclamation to be a little more section-breaky than it is. 

Zeunt!

Alright. Session 2, scheduled 3-4 weeks after the first. 

All of my intentions were to have players leave HQ at the beginning of a session and return by the end of a session so that they could then post details about what they saw and experienced in the wild for other players to base their own decisions off where to go next. 

All plans laid to rest. All plans collapse, at best.

This team—

Maddeson, Clothchilde and Envoy of Genemene; 

Zugg Brunswick-Dax, adopted of the Brunswick farm collect; 

Taamog Peets, a rather young goblin;

Godfrey, a human fighter with long black greasy hair; &

Zahir, a tall, scrawny, half-orc priest

—never made it back to HQ.

And alas—

Maddeson, Clothchilde and Envoy of Genemene;  

—could not make scheduling work for them.

So I consulted with Maddeson a week or so post-session when it was clear that the group likely needed to start from where they were in the swamp rather than return to HQ.

Maddeson had been ... dainty regarding swamplife? Very opposed to Huguklah's various muck wisdoms (cover yourself in slime, mostly) to combat the rich ecosystem of insects. Maddeson had been ... a bit high on their horse. 

I wasn't keen to punish Maddeson's player for living life so figured since they'd admitted one of their major character motivations as take advantage of my time in Corrheo to find new herbs, and knowledge in herbalism, I would put forward: 'berry blight'— a blotchy fever that rocks the body with a wracking fever—buboes in the neck, armpit and groin. -3 to CON until reversed. 

Fix is gilfern salve.

The idea was to weave some landmark knowledge I'd recently provided Zugg Brunswick-Dax, adopted of the Brunswick farm collect, for his backstory.

C-03-03 Misnan Keep

 

or The Grey Misnan if preferred: a Corrhéonic outpost of mudworks and stove-edge fencing. Patrols are active, with two Reams actively patrolling, two resting, and two attending to keeply duties—repair, hunt, fortify.

The waist-high wall of yeglite is like a long cemetary. Interwoven, not solid, but built, planted, at intervals, to slow the thunderous approach of braeburn steeds which riders from the hills and mountains north of Corrhéo ride.

The land has been quiet though in recent years, so the Stand have become lax in routine. Suggestions that there is a massing to the north flood the mouths of those prone to believe the world a dangerous place. Others, the more bucolic-minded, are willing to believe in frontier peace—some have begun to even plant gardens, to retire or marry—the proliferation of gilfern in tandem with the shrubland stone wall has brought croppers and dryers and dyers and peddlers.

The grass here is tall and the hills golden.

So ZBD knows where gilfern is (a good ways away by map's reckoning), Maddeson of Genemene is sick with fever & buboes (thank you forever, Connie Willis, for buboes), and when M of G wakes up, the two can connect the pieces and have a new destination in mind. 

The plan anyway. 

Collapsing at best.

Let's Talk About Session Prep

I started same as last session: drawing a set of seven rinky-dink hexes on my paper. Checked the surroundings. 

And the surroundings provide further net for keeping PCs within a hex range anyway.

Much reduced from Session 1, I really only had to prep my knowledge of C-17 or C-14 as Session 1 gave me C-10 and C-11 (HQ). 

And in reading them, I'd clearly forgotten how nasty and strange Silt Coast hex landmarks were. The Tooth Taker... God. Silt fleas and bristle flies. I suspect players will want to stay in the green lands over time, but we'll see. The right fruit draws the tenderest eyes. 

Players are in Bero's Boon, with access to the Muddyhen Pickets, a six-node adventure site. C-15-01, neck-deep in night-time.

They'd admitted intentions to both stake-out the snipper of snares and also gather information from the NPCs they had access to: Huguklah and the Mado Family. 

Maddeson of Buboes was supposed to be on stake-out with Godfrey the Greasy-Haired. 

I knew Veel was in the swamp cutting snares. I had a d6 chart of his motivations, unrolled. I was excited for players to use torches. You'll remember Taamog Peets, Rather Young Goblin had spotted harpy's nests to the south. I had a harpy in mind. Black seduction of some kind? 

I made my list of Essentials:

• The Mado's
• Huguklah
• Coypu & otters
• Dusksong Passage
• Veel Mulgav
• Clinchin Fold middlemen
• Berry blight

The Mado Family

So we've got a collection of potential 'fellow trappers' in the swamp here at Bero's Boon. 

The Mado Family was an improv based on 'family who've lost their cattle', an encounter drawn last session from an anecnote in Clane's Wilted Hollow landmark:

C-10-03 - Wilted Hollow 

The Wilted Hollow is situated on the western edge of the vast silt-salt desert, where the winds from the desert have transformed an ancient forest into a petrified landscape. The terrain is characterized by blue-grey, barkless trees standing motionless in cracked, salt-encrusted clay. Delicate layers of silt are constantly blown in from the sea, coating everything with gritty dust. 

Deeper: Once a thriving forest, the Wilted Hollow has long since turned to stone. The trees, preserved by time and salt, form a petrified woodland. Over the centuries, the roots of these trees have created natural cavities and chambers beneath the surface, some large enough to be used as tombs. Great Lords of the Clinchin Fold know the naturally dry, stable conditions and have used these chambers for torpor tombs, where ideal conditions should indefinitely preserve their bodies and wealth. 

The first and most infamous burial site is the Tomb of the Lordless, a crypt hidden deep beneath the petrified roots of one of the giant trees. While the tomb has remained untouched for centuries, over the years, rumors of treasure and lost riches have drawn the attention of adventurers, robbers, and the curious to the Hollow.  

The Wilted Hollow’s dry, cracked terrain makes travel difficult. The silt and salt from the desert cause frequent dust storms, which can obscure vision and treacherous navigation. Additionally, the root chambers, while stable, are often hidden beneath layers of silt and clay, making them hard to locate. Some chambers have become unstable over the years and may collapse if disturbed. The Hollow is also subject to persistent exposure to extreme temperatures, with scorching heat during the day and cold at night. Adventurers should be prepared for the harsh conditions before venturing into the area. 

Recently, the Wilted Hollow has become a concern for the nearby villages. Strange animal tracks have been discovered near the Hollow’s edge, suggesting recent activity despite its reputation as a desolate place. Villagers have reported hearing sounds from the wind and the unsettling noise of shifting stones at night. Though the Hollow is largely avoided, these signs suggest that someone—or something—is digging among the petrified trees. Colossal moles have begun expanding their tunnels to the Hollows, opportunistic feeders feasting on helpless dreamers within the tombs. 

Additionally, several livestock have gone missing from nearby farms, leading some to believe that more is concealed than just old graves. Anxious lords will pay well for answers.

I made the Mados Dar sheep farmers. We have a random beast encounter called 'very aggressive sheep'. I'm assuming the two are the same.

Sheep farmers who lost their flock are now in the swamp trapping otter to make ends meet. A family of four (no names yet). 

They had to be farming somewhere though, right, in the Wilted Hollow landmark? 'Nearby farms'. 

We haven't written any villages. We haven't written any farms... 

So I wrote 'multiple villages?' and underlined it. Then I named them.

Carmaad.

Then Lynn.

Then Tunke.

Okay three villages.

I made another Bite-Sized Dungeon. (Marcia B, when will I pay off this debt?). It worked for the Pickets... Maybe I could just imagine the villages as sites, rather than things that needed whole-ass maps. 

Clane writes that the petrified forest is encroaching on the grasslands. The trees are stoney? Life must be tough there...

I place the villages in a row. After that, all is random. My entrance pops up down at the Hollow of Roots which is unexpected. I typically picture walking into adventure village-first. The Tomb of the Lordless is trapped. There's a treasure in the Abandoned Village, Overtaken by Sand and Stone), and both of my encounters roll in the villages themselves. 

Okay, I'm thinking: Carmaad is where I already had the Mado's farm pegged... who would they encounter...

I stop. I don't need to think who they would encounter. I'll just roll for it. That's why we made all these damn tables!

Roll. Ant army, eating.

Oof. So this is how the Mado's lost their sheep.

Roll for Tunke's encounter. Raki stickbug making territorial display. We don't have beast statblocks or descriptions written. Half the time our stuff is just 'sounds cool I'll write it someday'. 

It's someday.

I don't roll a number. I picture a forest of Raki stickbugs, petrified brown and huge. I go read about stickbugs for awhile: they curl up like scorpions to look strong and dangerous; they flash red hidden wing flaps vibrantly; worst case, they're spiny and grapple with those long legs. Fake ents. 

They'd hate to hear that. Sorry Raki stickbug. 

They've come out of the petrified trees and are shaking territorially. Maybe a hard breeze through bamboo. But with click noises. What, are they running their breath through their tiny mouths? Cicada, maybe? Like cicada plus the percussive clack of a stick on wood?

Who are they demonstrating to? NPCs of course. And NPCs with a reason to stay and take the territory right? Petrified wood, beautiful stuff. How about a stonecutter: Eyork Cool and his partner Kel. The treasure for the node becomes friendship with whoever the PCs help. Probably a petrified wood necklace either way...

The town of Lynn is empty so I choose it as my 'special interactable place that doesn't hurt but is actually scenery'. In this case it's the locked house with the raving lunatic inside repeating I AM LORD LOSS to exhaustion. 

Maybe I AM LORDLESS is the verbal password to enter the Tomb of the Lordless in node 5. Too tough?Might be too complicated. But I also don't have and won't have the prep done for the Tomb of the Lordless by game-time, so I'd rather they not go in quite yet. 

Woof! We are deep in prep, friends. Take a break. We haven't even hit harpies yet.

2

Huguklah 

didn't need much love. He'd been fairly fleshed out in the improv of Session 1, but I did add him a secret. I haven't transmogrified my How To Seed a Secret tables into something nice looking but I did type them up.

I'll deep dive on the table in an upcoming post but suffice to say it was 3 columns when I upgraded Huguklah's character background with a little spice, and now rather than a happy-go-lucky Happy Man in the Swamp With a Problem, he's also guilty about his passion for magic with such a luddite, common-sense family.

Coypu & otters:

 

These were what could be trapped and hunted. I just realized I hadn't made them prominent in the first session and had wanted, if the characters were inclined, for them to be able to make enough off of snaring and hunting to pay rent (I think they owe 150g, at 3g a pelt?).

I opted to just say there would be, with any reasonable attack or grab, 1d6 catchable in any of the passing rooms, and that they'd be very prevalent in the dark.

Then 

Dusksong Passage

Reminder, a highlight from Session 1 when Peets, Young Goblin, climbed a tree, got an encounter roll, 2 dusksong harpies. I opted to nest them far away because I think they'd kill him and his friends. 

He came in obsessed with the nests as I thought he might.

Dusksong Passage was a way of 

1) finishing Clane and I's commitment to 3 landmarks per hex

2) trying out a 'Bite-Sized Dungeon Attached to Another Bite-Sized Dungeon' and

3) making sense of the harpy-nest-encounter-that-was-not-an-encounter

As such, I followed the usual perscription on Bite-Sizers:

Got the same layout as I did for the Session 1 in Bero's Boon. Began to immediately worry: is this where dice-rolling for layouts goes wrong? 

No. Entrance got rolled right in the middle, in 4. Occupied hex also got rolled at 4 (unkeyed unfortunately I realize now) and in 3, up in the upper right. 

Well: plan had been a secret entrance found in Bero's Boon when our heroes discover Veel Mulgav's hideout, his 'hunter's blind'. But now that the space was occupied as well...

I took a page out of Johnn Four's Five-Room Dungeon which Clane has been considering in the dev room: the first room is a guardian of some kind.

Hadn't thought of that honestly; I tend to prefer deep lures. But I put the harpy in at 4 again. Sure. You've made it to the entrance to the Passage. She's the most powerful creature there. She'd be there to greet you. This is her lair (for now). 

Then of course there's two nests, spotted by Our Goblin Peets. I put them in 6. I'm prone as result of the nests to begin thinking of taller trees, and also prone to begin wanting any non-occupied rooms to still provide more world. Given Peet's tree-climbing attitude (and his desire to keep avoiding waterlogged boots), the view from 5 would likely give our Company some more landmark knowledge elsewhere. Not a treasure per se, but a broader scope. So a peek there if they take it, into the rather nasty C-17.

The treasure's in the nest. Or the nest is treasure: like crows collecting silvery things, I want a big old pot of coin and gleam up there high up. The real treasure is the egg, of course. Every Poke-catcher's heart is easily poked with an egg no matter how wrecked the beast that drops it. And we'll complicate emtions with a decomposing second harpy in the nest too, which probably got killed by the first. (But who knows: might actually d6 a 'why is there a second dead harpy in the nest or nearby tree' table later. Permutations are Queen!). 

North west in 1 & 2, I rolled trap, I'm setting the Geas there, a long buried colossus of a ship whose prow still points out, filled to the neck with decomposing matter. Time to start sewing in the science-fantasy.

It still has a special binding presence, so that oaths made thereon are reinforced. I'm not sure who'd be making oaths this deep in the Dusksong, but what's important is that the capacity is there and it's palpable so players might be silly and decide to make an oath. Then I'll be in a corner again and have to explain something wonderous that I don't even quite understand.

Right, a trap. I'll gas trap 4, in case anyone gets to tinkering with the strange 'tiki' torch like cannisters-on-a-pole which stick out from the swamp at hard angles. Not quite sure why they'd be stuffed with gas... but... I don't think it deserves a d6 tabbble. Okay fine. d6 table of why is there gas in the pressure cannisters that stick out of the Geas's main deck? later.

And stirges, in 3, because it's occupied, because I rolled them. Territorial display also! Buzzzzzz. And with a treasure? Well again, Arnold K says no coins and gives me an easy d6 table to avoid them as treasure:

...remember that treasure doesn't need to be treasure.  It can be:

• Shiny shit, such as boring ol' coins, or the jewelled brassiere of the zombie queen.
• Knowledge, such as where to find more treasure, or information you can use to blackmail the king.  Or even a sage, who can answer a single question honestly.
• Friendship, such as an amorous purple worm that follows you around and protects you when it's hungry and a little bored.  Occasionally, it leaves egg sacs laying around for you to fertilize (and it will get angry if you don't sit on them for at least an hour).
• Trade Goods, like a wagon full of tea (worth 10,000gp).  When I give out large parcels of trade goods as treasure, I give half of the XP now, and the other half of the XP when it's sold off.  (I just really like the idea of a mercantile campaign.)
• Territorial, like a tower the players can claim as their own, or an apartment in the nice party of the city (and the chances of being stabbed in your sleep are dramatically reduced).
• Useful adventuring shit, like a magic sword, scroll of blot out the sun, or a parachute.

I roll. 4. Trade goods. A nest made of fragrant patch moss & useful salt vine by the pound. Nice.

I think a landmark writing session is in order so that I have a more postable, palpating thing than this little six-node: what's the Geas, what's the power, etc. That artifact is what feels most potent about the space. 

Harpies, while fun, are simply an encounter roll away from being elsewhere, back in two blog posts with that.

Veel Mulgav

Shorthand notes: I gave Veel a secret too. Sure, he's out there cutting snares. I still haven't rolled on his d6 motivations. It'll come when they find him so I'm in the tightest corner I can talk my way out of. But I do want a bigger secret:

Ah, rolls prove that he has a guilt about career and family and it shows up in deep sadness / melancholy. Or song, in this case. I wager Veel left a career in Drek's Landing, a curse his mother sent him away with. She said something like your father wore his bones to the knees so you could have this and if you walk away from it, a ghost in your thoughts it'll be. 

She was no pirate. She was the wife of a printer or something, but Veel felt it like she was some sphinx of the sea. Now he's in the swamp, and cursed on nights when the harpy sings, to feel the echo of her song of loneliness in his own. He's easily located as a result, if that should happen. (On the encounter chart, for instance).

Last Thing, Bonus Thing

I went to roll that second encounter for the Dusksong Corridor, the stirges. 

I realized then and there that I'd sort of fucked up. 

We based so much of our encounter charting off of Hurst's Hot Springs Island. You'll remember that now. The thing that HSI did very well, among other things, was nest tables. The encounter chart is a 3d6 chart with 4 entries: (1) Probability of Encounter Type (2) Encounter Itself (3) Encounter Quantity and (4) Encounter Motivation. 

Well scramble back a post or two and find out that in my haste to flesh out encounters, I only included the final three. 

This meant that every encounter was a Beast encounter. 

Damnit. 

Well: we have 3 encounter types, as Hurst and Co. did. His were... Intelligent, Beast, and Elemental I believe. Ours matched, but our Elementals are a group called the Popolos (or the Populace?—dunno, made the word up; they are essentially 'the people before these people' and call themselves the Popolos).

Regardless: I needed to double back but a lot of our landmarks have different qualities to them—some of little access to the underearth; some are cities; some are ruins; some are great big fields of grass. Each is going to have a slightly different variation of possibility of encountering different groups. 

Now, I'd already gone through and separated out our factions into 'types of terrain they'd be in'—the Clinchin Fold gravitate towards dusty, hot, lonely places; the berrylmen love their muck and bog. 

And as I look at it now, I did include Popolos in here (see 'Alien'), but I'll adjust that, because this was the big work of Session 2: I made this d6 based chart that is applicable to individual landmarks, sorted by a gut 'type'. 

Decide on what 'variety' of landmark it is (maybe Bero's Boon is 'an outpost', roll a d6, you should get a 'type of encounter'; head to the encounter chart appropriate; roll as usual. 

Key would look like 'B is for Beast', 'F is for Faction', 'P is for Popolos', or in a final version, will likely be Intelligent, Beast, and Alien; though in our case 'Intelligent' is simply for 'groups with knowable motivations'. Not to get too finicky with definitions but there's plenty of intelligence among the beasts and plenty of motivations among the alien. 

Regardless, table made. Excitement had.

Enough prep, let's play please

Play. I was late. I got my East Coast mixed with my Mountain time. I got a note, 'Present' from Zahir. I was walking out to pull rocks out of the pond in the corner of the field.

5 minutes, I say, meaning ten.

Rush back, plug in. Sup guys.

Everyone's expectant. Quiet. Cool: I return us through last time's happenings to oh boy: stakeout is a bit sunk: Maddeson of Genemene has berry blight.

We all know this. I figure they know this as a way to pass the character through an absence of player. But nay. 

Two of us should stay and protect Maddeson. (Maddeson coughs from the tent). Two should continue the stakeout.

This from Zugg of the Farm Collect.

He and Zahir the Half Orc Priest will stay. Godfrey the Greasy Haired and Peets, YG, off you go.

Torch, no torch, torch, no torch. Peets and Godfrey opt for torch for now (tis but 8 milord) and wend their way into the swamp. 

I bypass a node to keep them walking. I noticed it in Session 1, that the empty space of Node 1 (sedge corridor) really only provided pause when written as 'decision point'. In this case though, even though I knew it was empty, I still talked them through it and it gave me time to narrate some sensory stuff. Get the swamp deeper into night that way. Improv, but reminds me to trust that all is there for a reason, or at least serves a purpose.

They stake out. Right beside the black pond. (Still a treasure in there). Peets the Goblin of course up a tree. Greasy Godfrey at its base. Gutter the torch.

Must teach a class. Back in a bit.

3

Back in camp, though he can't respond, Maddeson is being nurtured. Zugg Who Wishes to Be Paladin Though There Are None in Shadowdark has requested an audience with the sufferer of Berry Blight. He does a pretty comprehensive ritual description involving a pair of copper-coated mountain lion fangs and specific pressures—like a reiki ritual or somesuch—and I'm entirely won over. He's trying to ritualize lay on hands which he's snuck onto his character sheet somehow and I'm all for it, but I'm also a little bit of a rules kid, so I can't totally give it to him. 

Berry blight saps CON. Enough to penalize leveling up with it. To date, I had not imagined berry blight getting worse, but all the characters are imagining it will, so I'm along for the ride. After all, the Genemenian isn't responding (as I think he's traveling the East Coast or something).

So Zugg the Non Paladin gets CHILLED. -3 CON but Maddeson stabilizes. (Still has buboes, sorry Madd). 

Anytime a character goes to great length to cast a spell they're unsure of, or a 'blood gift' as Zugg prefers to think of it, I'm never going to 'duds' them. No one needs that embarassment.

Zahir falls in with Huguklah and starts chatting the Rot which is pervasive in Corrheo, and gets her own herbal info on how to fix the kid in the tent. 

Meanwhile in the swamp, the Stakeout Team is proper staked out. 

The harpy (encounter roll) flies overhead singing sweet song, melody pure and sweet. She heads south. Described as 'an elongated crow, as much serpent as bird'. 

Before the night's over, Huguklah reveals she's a harpy but in this moment and for another hour, the Stakeout Team is pretty obsessed. 

Back at camp, Zugg is integrating with the Mado's. We get the story about the ants that ate their sheep. Zahir is drawn into it. Huguklah starts drinking some black beverage no one else wants any part of and most of the work is cleaning boots and trying to make friends with people who aren't too happy about their plot of land.

In the swamp, otters are getting caught up in snares, exhaustion rolls are met with applause, and old Veel Mulgav skates by like a swamp king. 

We do not pursue, says Godfrey, like a soldier.

Characters do not pursue, though Peets the Rather Young Goblin reveals very shaky, young tendencies to start talking just as antagonist enters the scene of the stakeout. Thank goodness for some decent rolls. 

Mulgav's on alert though, I recognize. This ain't his usual swamp foray.

Meanwhile in camp, it's all about berry blight. We're trying to save Maddeson, we're trying to learn about how to salve Maddeson, we're concerned about the boys in the swamp. Everyone's going to bed. Is everyone going to bed? Yes, everyone but you are going to bed. Do you want to go to bed?

I feel a certain unease, says Zugg.

I'm checking on Maddeson again, says Zahir.

Veel Mulgav returns. 

The exhaustion rolls are tougher this time—we're four hours in the black and wet—and Godfrey's Greasy Eyes give out. He knows it too. 

Peets senses him going down and does what Rather Young Goblins do: drops down the tree and starts asking him what they should do now that the antagonist is 60ft away and they're on stake-out. 

Welp, I'm rolling d20's behind the computer screen every sentence that comes out Peet's mouth and by the third, a 20 hits. Yes, you've been noticed because yes, you dropped ten feet into muckwater in the middle of the night and started trying to make a plan with a guy who fell asleep on watch. And yes, there's a dog, too, this time, and it's barking.

Up wakes Godfrey, up goes a torch, twang goes a crossbow from Mulgav right into and through Peet's Young Shoulder but Godfrey's got a shield up and Peets is firing back from over it— — he's aiming at the man the man the man, but realizes he'd rather pop the dog (and I can hear the player take a breath at his own decision because it's a small white dog and its feet aren't going to down under the water; it's a levitating white dog, a kite hunter, I say.)

Misses. (Woof, because, dead dog otherwise, no hp). 

And away goes the swamp king into the night. Everybody breathing hard. 

Meanwhile in camp, the 'something's up' duck whistle Peets blows gets heard. Zahir the Half Orc is primed (and out of conversation points) and runs into the swamp.

Zugg is in full character. He will defend Maddeson the Unconscious. Stays.

All return, carrying two otter that Peets the Young Goblin keeps a cool head on and silences in their snares. 

A debrief occurs. 

What happened out there?

Godfrey reports
- a flying woman w/ beautiful song
- a man who moved like a crab in the swamp
- a levitating dog

Wow. They all say, and choose to sleep for a few hours.

The Mado's serve coffee before they head into the swamp for a day's trapping. Pretty unaware. Probably no one told them what was happening last night at the stake-out. I'm scrambling to figure out how interested Huguklah is in what the team has come up with; how pushy. Real time in my night is dribbling out the glass and I wonder if the PCs will pursue. I wonder: will I have time to let them.

I opt to let players decide. No HP recovered for Peets Bolt-in-Shoulder. Some CON loss again for Maddeson the Berryful. That point lost is returned to Our Zugg. Everyone's thinking maybe we should gtf out of the swamp for his sake. 

I see no reason to interfere. It would suit me. Time is running out. 

Zugg convinces the group to split and go out again. 

Peets and I will go investigate the homestead mentioned in Session 1. Peets will pretend to be a child and I will be his keeper. You two have fine rapport with Haguklah, perhaps you can drum up some information.

There was no homestead. I described a node as homelike, as it was a mangrove cluster rich in coypu and otter dens. It was a peaceful space.

Fine. I will draw in a building there so that he's not totally wrong. Bero's old hut, sagging and decrepit and now more like a shed infested with cats, but the cats are big fat coypu moms.

Faux-Paladin Zugg and Peets YG get there and have a Miyazaki / forest spirit moment among the mangrove weave. Peets finds the a quick treasure in wall-mounted black box because... no treasure so far: roll d100 on our Trinkets and Baubles and gets!

a saltglass lens.

He immediately set it to his eye, of course, to look over and see Zugg find the hidden doghouse, vacant now, but wherein sleeps the kite hunter.

Meanwhile in camp, Huguklah hear's about the dog simultaneously. Knows what it means. 

Veel Mulgav, he says, knowingly. 

And then I rolled on the d6 Veel Mulgav motivation chart from S1.

'Huguklah and Veel share a father, and it isn't pretty'.

I end the session as quick as I can.

Zugg sends me this by text shortly:

Post Game Thoughts

• I think that the ultimate fun of being a DM is pinning yourself in a corner and needing to explain your way out of it. I think that's what I find to be the way I play along with everyone else. Waiting somehow despite my desire to control, to commit, until the very last moment.
• It felt at first like I overprepped for sure. Two six-node Bite Sizers that I didn't even touch? But, this was four hours work? And their existence made conversation much more manageable—the discussion with the Mado's seemed to catch hooks as they explained they hadn't been back to their farm in weeks. And the harpy overhead did the same, elsewhere in the swamp.
  
• I did fall back on Justin Alexander's (or whoever he got it from's) 'faction clocks', which I'm treating a bit differently? I've got a 4-piece pie for harpy egg hatches so that regardless if the PCs are there, it hatches. And then I've got another 4-piece for Mado family return to their farm. I figure they'll try at some point, PCs or not. This helps me think of the landscape around the Company as changing, but only changing in ways that the PCs would care about or have knowledge of. The harpy egg I noted would also be one occurrence of several that would lead to harpy domination of Bero's Boon. Perhaps Huguklah ain't there the next time we come to try to trap coypu and otter for some coin. Wouldn't that be a trick.
• I was absolutely floored by how invested everyone was into protecting or trying to solve the problem of their downed friend, especially since their downed friend's 'reason to be downed' was a known quantity. It sold my on everyone's investment in the world and in the notion of quick companionship. I was moved.
• I am once again moved by ritual and the way people dig at magic in a world where they know it's possible. Several circumstances happened wherein characters acted with an intention that could not be summarized in any other way but 'something wonderous happens', and as I sat puzzling over some of the conversation at The Cauldron about 'providing wonder' for characters, it came to pass that they provided the wonder themselves. 
• Handing out skills is more fun than I care to express. Peets was being.. badgered? a bit, by Zugg. He has a tendency to be the most timid, but it's clear that he has stubborn opinions. He is the only character who sees slitting an otter's throat and turning it in for gold as a reasonable way to make rent. In fact, the other characters made him return the otters he had brought back with him since the snares weren't his. The next day, he immediately set about making his own snares. Zugg started badgering him again—'We have extra snares that were given to us, Peets. You don't need to make them'—further effort at control. I threw Peets what bones I had: roll Dexterity (I think I set DC 15 or 16)—and he made a snare immediately; in fact, learned basic snare setting in that moment, through imitation. Absolutely could. not. shake. the glow out of him after that. Just keep letting me learn things he said, as the session drew closer to end. I loved it. I loved that Zahir the Half Orc priest's prayers about balance resulted in temporary hit point blessings. Not a thing, but too unique a gesture not to honor with a blessing. I realize I just want to tack badges and stats on to everyone like a Scout Leader. 

Guess I'll need to play again.

(5 days til then, at Time of Posting).