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cursewoodrecap · 4 years

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The Hunt for the Teal Deer

Due to some changes in our player lineup, I figured our party’s newest member might want a tl;dr of the Campaign So Far without having to read the enormous bricks I put out on a highly irregular basis. HENCEFORTH, A SUMMARY. (Contains spoilers for stuff I haven’t properly recapped yet. I mean...I’m pretty sure this blog is mostly read by the players? But fair warning nonetheless.)

It’s still kind of a brick but here have a couple thousand words instead of fifty billion.

ARC 1: THE WITCH OF OVRUCH

Near the tiny Valdian trading village of Ovruch, four adventurers meet:

1. Kyr Valeria Argent, a paladin of the Order of the Rose, who is here to investigate a Beggar Knight going missing. Silver dragonborn Paladin, Oath of the Crown.

2. Sgt. Clementine Haxan, a former soldier of the Kevan empire turned soldier-of-fortune who is investigating a Beggar Knight going missing. Drow Fighter, Battlemaster.

3. Gral “Joybringer” Omokk’duu, an orc bard who serves Duke Shieldeater, here because he’s trying to recruit translators to help Orc/Valdia relations. Orc Bard, College of Whispers.

4. Shoshana bat Chaya, a local who’s been outcast from her village since a close run-in with the curse that left her with dark powers and a mildly inhuman appearance. Half-elf Sorcerer, Shadow Magic.

The three foreigners interrogate the young witch, who was interrogated yesterday by the Beggar Knight. They realize the Beggar Knight, Ser Balderich, went to investigate the place where Shoshana had her Curse accident.

They are interrupted by the village being attacked by a group of bandits and wolves, led by a werewolf, who seem to want to capture Shoshana as some kind of Chosen One. They defeat the bandits and head into the woods to find Evil Wolf Guys HQ.

In the spooky dark ravine of Wolf Guys HQ, they find a) the imprisoned Ser Balderich, who they free; b) a shadowy nasty guy who has direwolves, who they beat up; and c) a trail of corpses and some diary fragments from a mysterious huntress who had been one of the evil-wolfguy leaders before she rebelled against them. The letters clearly indicate she had some kind of close relationship to Shoshana before Shit Went Down.

Shoshana is like, “alas, they shall believe I am forever tainted by evil magic and it’s only a matter of time until I turn evil, they’re probably going to execute me” and the rest of the party is like “wtf no we’re not gonna do that. Stop being emo.”

ARC 2: THE MISTS OF HOLZOG

The party heads to the town of Holzog to meet up with Ser Quentin Morozov, a Cursebreaker Knight who’s a friend of Ser Balderich’s. On the way, they meet Flynn and Fiona Fairgold, a dramatic, theatrical knight and his practical, mute sister. They also find out that in Holzog, strange mists come out of the lake every couple of weeks, filled with strange noises and creatures.

Gral recognizes that shit and tells his backstory: Duke Shieldeater’s son, Bullbreaker, led an expedition into the heart of the wood to try to defeat the Curse. Gral was part of Bullbreaker’s party. Strange, warped creatures seemed to appear out of nowhere and attack, and most of the orc battalion vanished into the mists, no bodies ever found. The takeaway: Gral believes that the Curse isn’t random; it’s coordinated and it has leaders and commanders.

Our investigations lead us to a former artists’ colony on an island in the lake. Turns out the artists had been tempted by some strange power to open a portal to a weird space between dimensions. The portal keeps closing and opening, causing the mists. Like idiots, we hurl ourselves into the portal, and find Weird Shit inside. Doors to other dimensions that are different story genres! Weird eyeballs everywhere!

We find out Gral’s old commander Bullbreaker has been lost in one of these other dimensions, and is trying to Samurai Jack his way home.

Most importantly we get some info: The Curse is caused by four entities, who are Prisoners. We’re unsure what imprisons them. We’ve figured out two so far: The Hunt, which is the werewolves and bandits and murder and stuff; and the Key, which is the pursuit of knowledge and the bending of reality.

Anyway we escape and close the portal. Also we met some mad scientists from Sturmhearst University, which was fun.

ARC 3: THE DEAD OF MORNHEIM

Our Cursebreaker friend hires us to investigate why a squad of elven war veterans seemed to turn to the dark side while fighting the curse in Mornheim, a city which is experiencing a zombie apocalypse. Turns out the squad is Clem’s old unit! Drama!

Mornheim is really Tim Burtony. It used to be a place where undead could not rise, so everybody buried their dead there. And then the Curse happened, and now ALL the dead are rising. Welp, fuck.

We meet up with Lady Aubrey von Mornheim, Ser Balderich’s daughter (there’s family drama there), who gives us the inside scoop on the local lore.

We fight through the catacombs and investigate the old manor house. We find three important things: 1) Lady Aubrey’s mom, who’s haunting the shit out of the place; 2) a SECRET WIZARD LAB with a MYSTERIOUS SPELL SCROLL; and 3) some cultists.

The mysterious spell scroll, which is weirdly druid-y, seems to be a ritual for purifying a water source. The local lore implied that the undead curse began/stems from the source of the local river. HMM.

Meanwhile, there’s cultists, led by...A MEMBER OF CLEM’S OLD UNIT. One who she hates; she accuses him of getting their beloved Captain killed. He’s like “it’s cool we’re gonna bring her back from the dead!!! The Pale King says we will get eternal life if we serve him!!!” and Clem is like “okay that sounds terrible” and stabs him. We kick his wight ass and the ass of another of their squad, who “came back from the dead” but was actually possessed by a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit that takes over corpses and impersonates them.

Seems like this “Pale King” is Prisoner #3, in charge of Undead Shit.

We fight some other cultists and find an aaaancient corpse that indicates some kind of ancient collaboration between the old Aquilian Empire and the Valdians, which is a Fun Lore Mystery.

Clem’s old squad also has an assassination plot going against their former commander, who they hate.

Valeria the paladin really wants to do the spell scroll ritual to protect the town, but we need several rare plants as spell components. We decide to go to Bad Herzfeld, where we hear there’s lots of plants.

ARC 4: THE ROOTS OF BAD HERZFELD

Our concerns going into Bad Herzfeld:

1. We need spell component plants.

2. We know about this evil fungus that infects people and makes them into Evil Fungus Monsters.

3. We hear there’s about to be a huge gathering of trolls. Valdian trolls are generally peaceful, but, like. A fuckton of trolls + evil brain fungus that makes you evil = BAD.

We fight an evil circus, but that’s more of a side quest.

We get to Bad Herzfeld and it’s a jungle out there, folks. We manage to get all our spell components even though we have to fight various angry plantmonsters and hallucinogenic fungi. We also meet a very nice troll who is a Doctor for Trolls, he is one of our favorite NPCs.

We have a brief encounter with one of the reclusive druids who resides in the forest. The druids seem to be fighting the Curse as well, with sporadic guidance from the old gods of the Greatwood, but it turns out they don’t have many more answers than we do.

A former druid, however, has become the spiritual leader of the local farming community. Which is a problem because she has turned it into a cult that infects people with the Evil Fungus Spores. It’s a very “Insiders Good, Outsiders Evil” mindset. They are planning to wait until more trolls show up for the big troll gathering, then infect them all with fungus. This is Prisoner #4, The Growth.

We burn down their temple with extreme prejudice. Unfortunately, guarding the temple is a plantmonster that was once Valeria’s beloved mentor, Kyr Marius. We destroy him but it’s tragic.

The trolls are like, “oh evil fungus? Aight we’re out.” Also we met more of those mad science doctors, but botanist ones this time.

ARC 5: PENITENTS SUCK

On the way back to Mornheim we go through the crossroads trade stop of Three Oaks Junction, which has been taken over by Penitent Knights, who are very into inquisition, and self flagellation, and persecuting the hell out of anything that even blinks the wrong way. Sinners must be purged from among the faithful!!! Anyway they’re violent jerks and we free the town. Penitents suck.

ARC 6: THE TROLLSTONES

Back in Mornheim, we go to the source of the River Morn to do our fancy ritual. Turns out there’s an ancient troll-king buried there, who rose as an undead. His demigoddess mother blessed the waters there so that no undead would ever rise. That blessing is gone now, of course. Problem is, there’s ancient Aquilian ruins that indicate the blessing was later used as a Containment Zone for something super evil, and whatever evil thing was there has now escaped. Hella lore, though.

We do our fancy ritual, which doesn’t restore the No Undead blessing but does provide some protection for the citizens. Yaaay!

ARC 6: HOESKA

We jet off to Hoeska Castle, HQ of the Cursebreaker Knights, because we have hella knowledge about how the Curse works now and we should probably, like...let the experts know? Turns out Hoeska Castle is owned by an ancient vampire, who has teamed up with his longtime nemesis - the vampire hunter Ser Brigid Koenig, who is now trying to solve the dang curse and has founded the Cursebreakers. We share our information and also fight a big nasty wolfmonster who’s been eating the knights. There’s a professor from Sturmhearst the Mad Science University, who confides in us that the Dean keeps vanishing and leaving strange otherworldly gifts. Sounds like Key nonsense; we’d better go check it out!

Clem’s player decides to leave the campaign at this point; in-story, Clem has gone to prevent her former unit’s assassination plot while we confront threats closer to home.

~AND THAT’S WHAT YOU MISSED ON THE CURSEWOOD~

#lore #tl;dr #the campaign so far

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