After the death of Ethyl and the disappearance of Trixie, two new people showed up in Beggar's Hole: Elvira Jinx, a Hexblood Ranger from the Feywild, and Laura Babbage, a Human Druid and anti-piracy activist whose origin hasn't actually come up yet, now that I think about it. With these two new people having moved into their house (and Lilith refusing to pay for repairs to the room her bomb blew up), the group set out to Jaerelyx's fortress to finish things with the "Black Dog of the Sea" once and for all.
On their way to Jaerelyx's island base, the crew and their small fleet came across a sinking Galleon captained by Corbo Greenbriar, scion of the wealthy Greenbriar merchant family. After a short interaction with the crew, Corbo and his nine remaining crew members came aboard the party's ship as their own sank.
In the process, Laura Babbage suggested ransoming Corbo, as well as referencing Raping and Pillaging, which led to her being brought into an HR meeting with Johnny Boats and his first mate Zoya regarding when and how it was appropriate to say things that might be taken as "representing the company", a lesson that Laura would arguably take to heart given events to occur later in the session.
The fleet eventually reached the island that Jaerelyx's base was situated on, a rough, rocky island shaped kind of like Sicily. On the Eastern side of the island, the fleet found a massive cave entrance hundreds of feet across with three dragon skulls hanging from the entrance. Inside, the remains of an ancient Dwarven city lay submerged in ocean water save for the upper reaches of the city carved into the cavern's walls, and a large central island.
After several minutes of discussing potential plans, the crew split up: Laura and Elvira went off (without anyone who had met Jaerelyx before) to negotiate something. I think it was a distraction? I don't actually totally know because I was prepping for combat. Elvira ripped out a tooth and used it to make a one way radio to Johnny Boats, and the two set out to find Jaerelyx.
Eventually, the new party members reached the "shore", and alongside a guy they had convinced to lead them to Jaerelyx, they went to meet him. In a weird conversation, they met with a tiny nerd accoutant to negotiate protection payments. Rather than pay the 1,500 gold/month that "the accountant" demanded, Laura demanded that Jaerelyx pay 2,000 gold/month to the party as a protection payment, putting the two parties at a bit of an impasse.
As negotiations came to a standstill, Johnny Boats and Lilith decided to kick off seaborne combat, coordinating their fleet to strike at the largest and most isolated of Jaerelyx's ships, his galleon. Despite a surprise round, the three sloops of Johnny's fleet couldn't sink the galleon before a single half-strength broadside was returned, holing the lead sloop of JBJC LLC, and threatening to sink the entire fleet before the party could accomplish their quest.
With Jaerelyx, Elvira cast Charm Person, effectively preventing Jaerelyx from leaving his meeting with the two new crew members, and also instigating perhaps the most important event of this, our heretofore longest session: Jaerelyx's brief infatuation with Laura and her promises of restorative, sustainable forestry.
While Johnny Boats boarded Jaerelyx's galleon, eviscerated its captain, and intimidated its crew into his service, Lilith continued directing broadsides even from the sinking sloop. This culminated in a coordinated attack by the galleon and the sloop fleet against the next largest of Jaerelyx's ships: a brigantine that tried to move to reinforce the flagship. In a single volley of broadsides, the brigantine was nearly completely shattered, leaving behind a quickly sinking hulk, and completely demoralizing Jaerelyx's remaining fleet (now reduced to just three sloops). Rather than fight a losing battle against a Galleon that could certainly sink them in a single volley, the sloops surrendered, and the battle at sea was over.
Meanwhile, things were heating up (at least in Jaerelyx's mind), and he was increasingly smitten with Laura, revealing his true form as a tiefling and coming around to restorative agriculture as a way for him and his crew to survive without worrying about the bigotry of the broader world. As Johnny Boats and Lilith made their way towards this fateful meeting, Jaerelyx said the fateful line "your friend needed magic to charm me, but you charmed me au natural".
Then Jaerelyx went outside to turn into the accountant I think? I don't totally remember why he was outside, but he definitely came back in as the accountant, agreed to pay 2,000 a month for Laura's expertise as he and his boys transitioned to an agricultural lifestyle. As "the accountant" went outside to transform back into Jaerelyx, he ran into Johnny Boats and Lilith approaching. They confronted him, and he begged for just five more minutes because he was "about to close" with the "hot antifa supersoldier".
Jaerelyx went back inside, and finally made his near-fatal mistake: Thinking he had seduced her, and sure of his incredibly suave nature, Jaerelyx asked to "seal this agreement with a kiss", causing Laura to pull up her sleeve and reveal a "fuck the patriarchy" tattoo. Notably, her "fuck the piracy" tattoo had been visible the whole time without any issue.
What ensued was a truly depressing display where my scary, honestly quite capable, genuinely pretty good at fighting boss just got curb stomped by laura turning into a giant snake and grappling him. Honestly I think the biggest problem with my encounter design is that I think I can make one guy pretty scary, and then you fuckers find a way to give them permanent disadvantage. The Deep One will be more powerful, by god.
Anyway, Jaerelyx got curb stomped, but using his very nice "feign death" ability, he was released from Laura's coils and looked like a corpse for a round before jumping back up and sprinting away. Johnny Boats had a big character moment and deided to spare Jaerelyx's life, and though Elvira managed to get two shots off on him and bring Jaerelyx to two failed death saves, Lilith spared the dying and Johnny talked the party down from killing the man.
Laura spit in Jaerelyx's mouth, and he replied "so that was a no on the kiss?" And that's where we left off, Johnny's apotheosis and turn away from becoming another "The Boss", Laura and Elvira both hungry for Jaerelyx's blood, and Lilith mostly neutral in the middle. Everyone got a nice chunk of XP, and now I need to figure out what kind of loot you guys got from defeating and supplanting a pirate lord.
Komentar