Berghawk Play Report: Growfest and beyond

 Because I'm once again behind I don't actually remember the irl date we played. But I know it was Growfest! This one is from memory so sorry to the players if I forget anything. 

*Growfest* 

 Growfest was in full swing. The party witnessed a local agricultural festival. Locals dressed as the various revered gods of the area (a mix of Flaan and Suel) Beory, Berei, Bralm and Allitur. Berei and Bralm are worshipped in equal measure as goddesses of the harvest. They are said to often quarrel and then make up and dance, like siblings. So the women playing the roles reenacted this as part of the carnival - alternating between mock fighting and then dancing arm in arm. This is the social memory of the fact that Bralm is a Seuo goddess while Berei is Flaan. 

On St Cuthbert day, Chiswell pay respect to the god of common sense even though he is not widely revered in the region (something the Paladin Hans the Just is trying to change). To represent this, the local who was dressed as Allitur (Kiril Serov, the head of the guard) handed a ceremonial "key to the city" to Hans who represented St Cuthbert. There was then a procession of St Cuthbert through Chiswell. As is custom, the children chased the adult with green reeds, playfully hitting them to symbolise St Cuthberts cudgel. The procession ended at a dining table where a symbolic cudgel was placed. A bonfire was burnt, and the worshippers made sure to keep it burning past midnight. Dozens of Chiswellites approached to convert to the faith, and all were welcomed to dine - especially the needy. 

Mads, the cleric of Norebo, not to be outdone held his own festivities. There was a lucky wheel that could be spun to win or lose prizes, and a large showing of jugglers and fire dancers.

Off-screen and OOC I'll add that I had planned to have the characters run into Raxiavarts Orgy if they left Chiswell on the 4th of Growfest. But the players were spared that experience. 

Being one of the four big annual festivals, the Growfest markets also had seasonal specialties on offer. Things that are not usually available - some of which command a high collector's price outside of town and season. A full list with in-game rules can be found here (!) but in broad strokes: special pipeweed that helps with heat stroke, Huul hounds, Cheer Coins commerating the day (the Chiswell coin has an anthropomorphic goat on one side, and the town elders on the other along with the quote "You real what you sow"), and friendship pipes depicting Bralm and Berrei.

Carousing and philanthropy (for the clerics) also occured. The two Hanses pooled their money to have a St Cuthbert house of faith constructed. The town Elder held the money for a future construction (in case it's not covered in the next set of notes I've now devised a system for tracking oconversions and the house of faith has been construced and is running. The other options faith players have is to create shrines and ultimately a church). Iirc this is also the session where Mads was sold a map of a potential treasure site: an abandoned bath house that may be home to a nyrad or a similar fey creature.

After all of that, the partystruck out towards the Keep on Adlerweg. But at this point it had become much hotter as the seasons were changing. As such, some days presented a new challenge: heat waves during which travelling all day in heavy armour meant one could become exhausted (CON check or gain a level of exhaustion). So the party decided to take day long breaks when this was a danger as they now have formidable fighters who do rely on their plate to survive the frontline. Fishing and hunting occurd. 

 *The Gargoyle Lair*

The party also took a slight divergence to help their companion the Monk Urquant. He had asked them to help him clear out the home of an allied sage. His home had been taken over by two gargoyles and he had been hanged from a tree nearby. The gargoyles were dangerous goes due to their mundane weapon immunity. But the Sentinel was a powerful counter as it defended the party from physical attacks by evil constructs (I ruled gargoyles count as such - it was a good chance for the players to cleverly use an item). Strangely sleep still worked on them (I must be going soft as an OSR DM!) and when they came plummeting from the sky to attack the party, one was sleep mid plummet and hit the ground for considerable damage. Confined to ranged attacks, the gargoyles were worn down and destroyed. Next the party had to solve a riddle in the sages lair. Special plants bred by the sages order, strangle weeds with leaves that can be used as papyrus, were guarding the inner sanctum if the sage. One could set them a blaze but that fire would destroy all of the sages books as well. A plaque on the sages table gave the party a hint as to how to pass the weeds unpurturbed: anyone holding a quill was not attacked by the plants as they were bred and trained to recognise that queue. 

Once in the sages inner sanctum, it became clear that the good Monk Urquant was as, if not more, concerned about retrieving the sage's writings as he was about laying his friend to rest. The party were somewhat disapointed in Urquant's lust for knowledge. But once they had established that the writings were lawful philoshophy (and dry at that) they were happy to hand the books over to the monk. They for their part found a book documenting some of the Sentinel's history. That evening the party burried the sage with his quil. After the processions, when sitting at the fire, Urquant told the party that his order (the Monsatry of the Grey Cowl) have a compund with the Sages of the Tower of the Heavens. The Sages of the Tower of the Heavens are able to scry into the future. Many generations ago they gave the Grey Cowl guidance that saved their order and since then the Grey Cowl have provided them with elite body guards. With that, the Stone Smashers and Urquant parted ways the next day, with Urquant heading North to his monastry, and the Stone Smashers heading east to the bridge crossing the River Lewyn. On their way to the Lewyn Crossing, the party encountered one more party of gnolls and hyenas who they dispatched.

*Lewyn Crossing*

At the Lewyn Crossing the Stone Smashers found that the bridge was taken by a company of the combined Berghof forces (about 30 men led by Peter Krokenburger). Peter told the party that the Duke's orders were to hold this bridge and keep the gnoll forces from spreading any further West. The Duke was being cautious and did not want to cross the river before understanding exactly what they were facing. The duke also issued a fee: 10gp per gnoll head, and 700gp for their leader Sarkaasa - an unusually large flind (DM note: a player who can't attend game sesions anymore is playing the Duke and giving me his orders). The Stone Smashers said they would scout out Gannaway (the town that had been ransacked by gnolls) and report back to the guard. 

At night the camp heard howling and laughter from the gnolls to the east. They spotted many red glowing eyes in the dark. Mads, stepped outside of the camp and threw a gnoll head towards the enemy in defiance. The gnolls sent a hyena forward to retrieve the head and Mads fought it 1v1 while the two camps watched on. It was a dangerous fight, but Mads' magical staff of striking eventually overcame the ferocious Hyena. Mads loudly proclaimed that the Stone Smashers were coming for Sarkaasa himself. This was accompanied by cheers from the duke's men whos moral was greatly boosted.  

And that brings us to last week's session. Hans the Just has written a summary of that one which I will post next! 

PS Mads told his retainers Emelio, Raven and Ouijie to stay behind in Chiswell and investigate the Swindler - a mysterious underworld figure. Albino with gold teeh in a red cowl.