This was a slightly shorter session this time, as we’re in more of a general development section of the chapter.

The characters:

• Drystan Silverhart – Level 4 Aasamar Paladin (Knight of Solamnia)
• Yseult De Lorimar – Level 4 Human Warlock (Noble)
• “Fletch” Siannodel – Level 4 Kagonesti Elven Ranger (Folk Hero)
• Sabelina – Level 4 Human Cleric of Gilean (Acolyte)
• Sidekicks: Hrigg Roundrook and Tem Temble

At this point in the chapter, the GM is given a selection of little, shorter missions, generally, each involving combat, which will help develop the threat of the Red Dragon Army and that they’re encroaching around Kalaman. Rather than giving a specific assignment, because the adventure has Darrett serving as (sort of) the player characters’ handler, in addition to his other duties, I gave a general description of the three missions made available, and let the players pick.

The missions are:

• A group of scouts have not returned from patrol, and someone needs to go investigate.
• We need someone to go on patrol for the various farmsteads around Kalaman and check in, because there have been reports of attacks.
• There have been attacks on travelers on the roads to Estwilde – someone needs to go investigate to confirm if it’s bandit activity or the Red Dragon Army.

The party decided to investigate the scouts. This lead to me introducing the player’s version of the Overland Map to the group, giving an idea of the general region of play, and also giving a brief bit of the larger map of Ansalon, to give some context of where we are and the region we were focusing in. I lightly hecked up the overland travel distances, by having the trip takes just a day, when it’s about 20-ish miles – but to be fair, I’d been listening to Fellowship of the Ring earlier, and that’s described as a normal days journey in the book – and also this is a more traveled area.

This led to a fight against a couple of Baaz and a Kapak – this was their first time encountering a Kapak in combat (there had been one on-camera but not in combat in the Battle of Vogler), so it was fun introducing them to another Draconian – letting them see them glide (there was some fighting in a tree) – and them seeing their Death Throes ability (though in this case Hrigg ended up catching it).

After the encounter, we had some more role-play in town – which took up a bunch more of the session. Drystan checked in on the forges, and saw that some of the townsfolk have been working there. Fletch helped weatherproof some of the refugee’s houses on the outskirts of town, and Yseult talked magical shop with Wyhan. In particular, they talked about remote methods of communication – with Wyhan explaining why Tatiana Rookledust’s Fargab is such a big deal – because a lot of remote communication artifacts had been lost in the days leading up to the cataclysm when the Kingpriest had seized several of the Towers of High Sorcery, and other mechanisms need something to carry the message. I did drop a little lore about the Tower of High Sorcery at Palanthas as well, just because I like that story.

That ended up taking about an hour, hour and a half of the session, with another 2 hours before that for the lead-up to the mission and the mission itself, so we wrapped there.