DCC DotSK: Act 1-3

Mar 19, 2024 3:17 pm

The night was full of terror for Dufgal. As soon as he fell asleep, he dreamt that the townsfolk had caught him unawares and surrounded him. They towered over him in judgment and his father was there too. Just when he thought his father would defend him, it was actually he who ordered the hounds to attack. They all watched as they ripped his flesh from his body. It lasted all night until he felt his life drain from him. Morning came too soon.
He stumbled through the tasks of readying for travel and grunted his approval at Anora’s suggestion.

OOC:

Health and luck added. Stamina subtracted

Last edited March 19, 2024 3:22 pm

Rolls

Dufgal: Stamina - Roll - (1d20+1)

(5) + 1 = 6

Ty

Ciriaco

Mar 20, 2024 1:44 am

Ty looks quite ratty to begin with, so it's hard to tell whether the night of hard sleeping has taken any toll upon him. Here in the wilderness, he keeps his blindfold pushed up on his high forehead and cants his hat on the back of his head. His weird, almost insectile eyes seem to be focused on the backpack that he ties up and shrugs under his cloak.

"You must be a morning person, Madam Blue," the elf mumbles. Clearly he's less eager, or perhaps less able, than she to pluck the fruits of the day.

Last edited March 20, 2024 1:47 am

Rolls

Stamina Check - (1d20+1)

(4) + 1 = 5

Mar 20, 2024 2:57 am

OOC:

Rolling now, will try to update soon!

Spells: Darkness, Detect Magic, Resist Heat or Cold, Word of Command
Stamina check failed, stamina down to 11/12
One 5cp ration consumed (fudging inventory as we speak)

Last edited March 20, 2024 4:06 am

Rolls

Spells - (1d11, 1d11, 1d11, 1d11)

1d11 : (9) = 9

1d11 : (2) = 2

1d11 : (4) = 4

1d11 : (11) = 11

Stamina (DC 10) - (1d20+0)

(4) = 4

Anora the Blue

KCC

Mar 20, 2024 3:16 am

"Better to be a morning person in places such as this, so that we may avoid having to spend another night." Anora says, with a nod to confirm the elf’s suspicion.

"Are you quite ready?" she asks the cleric, as she studies his face. She thinks him peaky and haggard looking. More than usual, at least…

Mar 20, 2024 6:55 am

LATER THAT DAY (ALL)

As the journey continues, the group finds their pace and makes good time. It is beyond lonesome, this road, and this wood, so they are glad for their own company as the hours and leagues go by. Fog and mist comes and goes throughout the day, leaving hair and cloaks damp, and skin clammy. The smell of a wet wood pervades -- the earthy fumes of rot, of fungus and of pines. The forest is eerily quiet as dusk approaches, and the quartet begins to talk about finding a suitable place to make camp.

And that's when they spy, perhaps a hundred paces away, something lying, unmoving, in the middle of the unkept road. A slightly closer look suggests there might be several somethings, perhaps four or five...

OOC:

Several somethings on the path about 100 yards ahead. Maybe the size of raccoons? Hard to say. It's getting dark, the shadows are long. What do y'all do?

Mar 20, 2024 4:28 pm

Aldric rises, aching and groaning, bracing himself against the oar for support. His hair is wild like tangled seaweed, his clothes disheveled like rolling waves, and his skin is still tinged blue. He looks up to Anora the Blue's impatient face. He places his hands on his hips and arches his back until he fills the camp with a loud series of cracks, and finishes with an unceremonious fart.

"Quite ready, Anora the Blue."

The walk is mostly bearable for Aldric, for the group encounters no large bodies of water and Aldric draws a measure of peace from that. The smell of dampness still manages to drive enough fear in him to keep his half-drowned corpse moving forward, though his breathing is laboured, and all taking is accompanied by painful wheezing.

When they come across the somethings on the road, Aldric's measure of peace goes cold. He raises Pelagia's symbol of the twice-crested wave in preparation to turn back these creatures, be they mundane animals. He also starts steps back behind Dufgal and Ty.

"Rodents and vermin of unusual size. Best be on our guard."

[ +- ] Turn Undead Rules

Last edited March 20, 2024 4:31 pm

Mar 20, 2024 4:38 pm

Without a word about strategy, Dufgal slips off the road and into the brush. He circles around to the flank of these creatures and readies his dagger.

OOC:

Does the new vantage point give him any clarity about what he’s looking at?

Mar 20, 2024 9:23 pm

Slipping off the road, his bulk seeming to never impede his ability to move quietly, Dufgal creeps through the woods proper, up the right hand flank of whatever was on the road. It doesn’t take the man long to see, once the distance is cut in half, and in half again, that these are not dead critters on the road, but pieces and chunks of one larger animal.

Spotting a trail of gouged moss and disturbed forest litter, of trampled ferns and broken brush, the big thief thinks the animal on the road came this way before some predator caught it in the open. The now-dead creature came from the north, and at some speed.

The trio on the road move closer as well, and see that, indeed, these are meaty, red hunks of fur, flesh and bone scattered all across the road. There’s something vaguely recognizable as a haunch, there’s a hoof, there’s the tongue and lower jaw of some elk or huge deer, and there are broken ribs protruding like white fingers from the poor creature’s headless and limbless ruined torso. From that sizable mound have spilled — or been pulled — innards, intestines... all sorts of unidentifiable viscera.

It takes a moment, but eventually the group spies the largest part of the thing’s head, complete with its rack. Indeed — an elk, and a big one. One eye has been torn out, but the other, glassy and black, is wide with terror.

OOC:

Dufgal is in the woods still; presume the other three have come up to within ten or fifteen feet of these animal remains.

Mar 20, 2024 10:08 pm

The thief approaches the carcass and assesses whether jerky could be made from the elk meat. Then, as a precaution, swivels his head around to examine if there are any signs of the predator that did this carnage.

OOC:

Prints? Broken branches, drag marks? Anything to give us a sense of where it came from and where it went.

Mar 21, 2024 6:46 am

OOC:

Sounds like tracking... which would be like a profession skill rather than a general adventuring thing. I've been waiting to make a call like this! Make an INT check, Dufgal, with a DC of 10. The rub? You're rolling a d10 for being unskilled in wilderness tracking.

Anora the Blue

KCC

Mar 21, 2024 7:16 am

Anora wrinkled her nose at the unsightly seen, and yet isn’t surprised:

"Well, we can hardly expect much else. The land has been surrendered to the beasts, so why not the roads too." she says, with no small amount of confidence.

"We’ve likely passed several such scenes already, though they may have been further off the road."

Mar 21, 2024 2:38 pm

Dufgal sees the mess and tries to make sense. So much bloody carnage. He can’t tell if it’s natural or unnatural.
it musta hap’n recent cuz no carrion here peckin at it yet

Last edited March 21, 2024 3:55 pm

Rolls

Unskilled tracking - (1d10)

(7) = 7

Ty

Ciriaco

Mar 21, 2024 5:20 pm

Ty peers into the woods north of the road. The recurrent mist will make it hard to see much, though, so he listens as well. Something large enough to bring down an elk couldn't move through branches and underbrush and forest litter without making a sound. Could it?

"We should be on our way," he advises. "Lest we suffer the same fate."

Mar 21, 2024 11:45 pm

"Most sensible, Ty. The smell of a fresh kill will no doubt attract animals with sharp teeth."

If the rest of the company agrees, Aldric will make a wide berth around the carcass and resume the journey.

Mar 22, 2024 6:33 am

Dufgal finishes stripping some meat and quickly readies to leave. He stretches it across his backpack hoping that the air is enough to dry it out. If the sun doesn’t come out, he may have to feed it to the dogs.

OOC:

He’s ready to strike out and cover more ground.

Mar 22, 2024 7:24 am

Leaving the dead creature behind, the foursome continue on their way, determined to put a bit of road between them and whatever did that before they stop to search for a suitable campsite.

Dufgal is last to leave the scene of the butchered elk as he cuts pieces of meat from it, and something about the state of the animal bothers him. Bothers him beyond the violent means of its death. There are no vermin swarming the thing, no flies buzzing, no birds even eyeing the red chunks of mangled corpse.

Strange.

Almost another league on, it begins to rain heavily, forcing the party off the overgrown road and into the woods. The sound of the downpour at dominates the senses as the sun goes down, and it's almost as hard to hear one another as it is see one another beneath the dark, dripping evergreens.

OOC:

Alright, presuming all four of you look for a suitable campsite, I'd like a Luck roll from everyone, please. If at least two of you make it, you'll find a place where you can pass the night. You're at -1d in the twilight, and that means you're rolling a d24 instead of a d20 for the Luck check... unless you use a light source, spell or the like. If you do, roll the d20, but cross one one use of the light source.

Dufgal, roll a d3 to see how many rations of dead elk you manage to grab, and put those in your inventory, please.

Anora the Blue

KCC

Mar 22, 2024 1:41 pm

The others being so skittish around a dead deer didn’t inspire confidence that they would draw blood, if the time came for it. Only Dufgal had proven himself willing so far, and seemed by far the least disturbed by some bog-beast’s kill.

When the rain starts, she pulls her robe up around herself all the more, keeping out the wet and wind if she can. She supposed the elves eyes must be better suited to searching for shelter in these conditions, but the woman searches nevertheless.

Rolls

LUCK 7 - (1d24)

(22) = 22

Mar 22, 2024 6:03 pm

Aldric curses the lack of light. Has Pelagia blessed him with any magical ability that might assist? No of course not! In fact, in accordance with her dry sense of humour he can only use her power to make things darker!

OOC:

Failure, alas.

Last edited March 23, 2024 5:25 am

Rolls

Luck in the dark (7) - (1d24)

(16) = 16

Mar 23, 2024 2:19 am