This is fifth season of Interesting Times campaign.
Following the defeat of Ambassador Xert, the party realised they have too many goals to accomplish at once, and thus it would be smarter to split up. While his companions settle their affairs in the once-glorious Elenport and the Elven city of Valathan, Wincent turns north, towards the monastery which holds the Lantern of Desna - and many other dangers.
Protagonists in appearance order:
Wincent: A scout with much more experience and harder (literally!) skin than when he arrived in Illyrium earlier this year. Intends to work for a good cause, but his methods may be... unorthodox. Seems to attract supernatural beings and their praise.
Palamon: A monk with a chip on his shoulder and an as of yet unexplained grudge towards the monastery. Very proud of his powers, though not undeservedly.
Rikkan: A young Ratfolk alchemist who followed Wincent on his journey without asking first. He's not just here as a mascot, though; his main purpose is to find out what happened to his kin who traveled north. Had some dealings with Xert, who he looked up to as a sort of a parental figure, but later felt betrayed by.
The Kazan (Yurika): A mysterious woman the party met while travelling up to the Monastery. Lives in a secluded hut and is revered by the locals as a seer-like entity, supposedly being the spiritual protector of the local mountains. Yet her constant lack of knowledge about things that should be obvious to her and her odd remarks about the lands far south constantly put her backstory into question.
The tropes that appeared in this campaign:
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The pecking order in the monastery correlates with how difficult different monks, acolytes, and such are to fight. Stands to reason that the Great Master is in a league all of his own.
- Big Bad: The Great Master of the monastery has all the markings of one.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Yeti were encountered several times, and though at first they didn't pose much trouble, things changed...
- Caper Crew: What the party turned to, with mixed success.
- Death Mountain: The location of the campaign. Ransara is enormous, beautiful, and full of deadly surprises.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: One of the ultimate goals of the group - for some of them, he stands in the way of the objective. For some, he is the objective.
- Stealth-Based Mission: During the "trips" to rob the monastery. Not what the group expected, but they did not have much choice.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: who else would you expect inside a Tibetan-style monastery ?
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Session 5. 01 - If You Don't Change Directions...
- First-Episode Twist: Accidentally. The group ended in the highest section of the monastery much earlier than expected, and what they found there greatly changed their plans.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The duel with the Great Master.
- Tranquil Fury: the Great Master's default fighting style.
- Plummet Perspective: The party was very, very keenly aware of the height they would fall.
- Race Against the Clock: Figuring out the riddle to recover the Lantern of Desna before the monks would be back from their prayers.
Session 5. 02 - If You Think You've Reached Rock Bottom...
- Continuing is Painful: While nobody in the party actually died in the battle, their health and all sorts of resources were almost exhausted, forcing them to proceed in an almost humiliatingly careful manner.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: The heroes were cursed at some point of the fight, and as such, cannot fully recover from their wounds until the curses are lifted.
- Patrolling Mook: once the team got out of the underground caverns, they were confronted with these. A lot of these.
- Blind Weaponmaster: complete with an acutely developed sense of hearing and capable of detecting even the slightest tremors of the wooden floor. Just the type of enemy you want to encounter when your health is low and the only option you have is stealth.
Session 5. 03 - The Greatest of Weapons Is...
- Holding the Floor - Palamon convinced a few errant monks to leave the house the group was robbing with the help of some impromptu teachings.
Session 5. 04 - Not A Single Snowflake...
- Children Are Innocent: Discussed in-game, when a fight involved several of them.
- On-Site Procurement: By this point, the team was used to finding useful items like potions or weapons they could use during their small heists.
Session 5. 05 - If You Remain Unbendable...
- Hypnotic Eyes - the group encounters a jade snake which promptly begins to hypnotize whoever looks at it into walking off a cliff.
- Weak-Willed - Wincent during the encounter with the jade snake.
- Literal Cliffhanger: First the Kazan, then Wincent, after encountering the jade snake.
Session 5. 06 - From One Thing...
- Paper Talisman: Used during the ritual to recover the Kazan's familiar.
- Swallowed Whole: Wincent got swallowed during the battle with the giant frog. Luckily Rikkan's well placed bomb managed to induce vomiting in the giant amphibian.
Session 5. 07 - The Greatest of All Enemies Is...
- Cool House: the underground compound the group came across. It apparently served as Ismael's vacation home (one of at least three). One could argue that it's more of an Elaborate Underground Base but where one would expect world domination devices one finds coat hangers and/or toilets so it's clear the purpose of this compound is more recreational.
- Deadly Gas: parts of the compound are filled with a pleasantly smelling lavender perfume. As it turns out - it's highly poisonous.
- Elemental Embodiment: the apparitions summoned by the magic circle were representations of earth, fire, water and air.
- Genie in a Bottle: encountered at Ismael's mountain sanctuary. He's trapped there as punishment for some unspecified crimes and serves as a shopkeep of sorts, trading items and knowledge for money. Presumably was Ismael's assistant.
- Geometric Magic: the trap which decimated the group was a summoning circle of this exact kind.
- Total Party Kill: narrowly avoided with a tactical application of the Dimension Door spell. The party is still completely unconscious, but at least they're outside of the underground compound.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Rikkan and Wincent's plan to avoid the elementals' attention and rescue their fallen teammates involved Wincent turning into a rat.
Session 5. 08 - ... Your Enemies Will Know Where You're Heading
- Giant Flyer: the team simply hid as soon as anything even resembling a big bird appeared on the horizon. To this day we don't really know what it was, but we're alive and that's what matters.
Session 5. 09 - ... Make Sure No One Knocks From Below
- Censored Child Death: At the hand of monsters the party is unaffiliated with, of course.
- Mirror World: the alternate version of the chapel.
- Mundane Utility: Wincent's comment that the sleep-warding bell used by a monk would make a good substitute for coffee.
- Pocket Dimension: a possible explanation raised by the party.
- Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity: thankfully, the fight finished before the party took too much Wisdom damage.
Session 5. 10 - ... Teamwork
- Retired Badass: one of the villagers Rikkan and Wincent talked to turned out to be a former adventurer himself.
Session 5. 11 -
- Bears Are Bad News: they took out the team's newest member before he could even move and then proceeded to tear into the team. It was a tricky fight.
- Camping a Crapper: could be just coincidence, but three polar bears attacked the team's newest member exactly as he was relieving himself.
Session 5. 12 - Not our blood...
- Kill the Cutie: the team fights with an adorable Shocker Lizard
- Snake People: the cultists the team met at the very end / bottom of this dungeon.
- Villainous BSoD: after the team killed the Drake, the Kobold leader broke down crying next to the corpse of his former idol.
Session 5. 13 - Footprints in the snow...
- Freeze Ray: the older Kazan seems to have access to magic that can freeze a person inside a block of ice. Wincent was on the receiving end.
- Snowball Fight: on the way to the village, to the exasperation of some.
Session 5. 14 -
- Bears Are Bad News: as if the last fight with them wasn't enough to prove this. This time they almost killed the entire party.
- Recurring Boss: those friggin' Polar Bears are starting to become this. Each time there's one more and they seem to be getting progressively better at wiping out the whole team.
- Harmless Freezing: the team was able to thaw Wincent without much harm, freeing him from his icy prison.
Session 5. 15 - The cavalry arrives...
- Demonic Possession: probably why Wincent started playing with the huge stone seal. Probably.
- Didn't See That Coming: [META] when Wincent's player surprised the DM by unleashing the Sealed Evil.
- Greater-Scope Villain AKA the Sealed Evil
- Oh, Crap!: realizing what happened when the Seal broke.
- Unwanted Rescue: Kazan (Yurika) actually saving Wincent from the blizzard
- Sealed Evil in a Can: what apparently was hidden beneath the stone slab that Wincent broke.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Wincent probably unleashed some sort of apocalyptic level threat on the world. The best part is that there was no villainous manipulation involved - he just did it by accident.
Session 5. 16 - Corridors of Silence
