Session 38 — Tony the Anteater and the Guardian of the Woods

Session Recap

The rest of the 28th of Spring's End in Ponterford, picking up at the orc hunting lodge where Session 37 left off — a long morning of over-preparation, then the march into the woods, and finally the first half of the fight that has been teed up for two sessions. With no healer (Valmora stays behind to keep purifying the drake skeleton), the party spends ~9 AM stocking every "anti-" they can think of: Silithane burns a Lesser Restoration on the orc medicine woman's dying patient (it lifts the poisoned condition but not the deeper flesh-rotting venom), and the druid neighbour Horibus sells them antitoxins, antivenoms, and — as a joke that lands — a live anteater in a vial that Thalia names Tony. They pad out the war-band with allies: the Northern Trading Company's dwarven War Maiden Warmaiden Yngraf, two of Eldrich the Elder's caravan squires (Rowaine and Faethlyn), and the orcs Varg and Algrimmar. A vegetable-bouquet visit to the owl wizard Renforth identifies the quarry from Silithane's recovered memory as a mutated treant/dryad — a normally harmless plant creature that has somehow laced itself with mushroom poisons, its violence sparked by the war's one-sided lumbering.

Eight miles up a war-ruined road, at a collapsed-bridge crossroads beneath a 140-ft natural stone tower, the party meets a small family of fae-animated forest mushroom people, who reveal the truth: the beast is their Guardian of the Woods, the one thing keeping the "checkered men" (lumberjacks) from burning them out, and it attacks anyone who carries wood — the corpses of its kin. Refused an alliance unless they can promise the lumberjacks will stop, the party baits the Guardian out with wood-chopping sounds and is ambushed in a blinding dirt cloud. The thing casts Speak with Flesh to monologue its grievance, leaps into the middle of the band, and sprays a nova of venomous wooden needles — terminally poisoning Silithane (three days to live unless they harvest its venom sac). Fenric the Spellbreaker then severs two of the creature's spell slots and breaks its concentration, dropping the dirt cloud. The fight pauses mid-combat — to be finished next session, with Valmora hopefully back. Still level 6.

Key Events

• Morning at the orc lodge (9 AM). Picking up Session 37's cliffhanger, the party (no Valmora) preps to hunt the Beast of the Woods. Silithane casts Lesser Restoration on the medicine woman's dying patient: it removes the poisoned condition (so she stops rolling death saves at disadvantage) but cannot touch the deeper venom turning her skin to pustules — buying her a day or two while the party fetches the cure. Confirms Lesser Restoration will at least keep them fighting at full effectiveness if they're clawed.
• The druid's shop — antitoxins and an anteater. They find the green-robed, wooden-clogged druid neighbour (Horibus) and ask what to buy. With "zero medical training" in the party (failed Medicine checks all round), he hedges by recommending all three: an antitoxin, an antivenom, and — deadpan — an anteater ("it eats ants"). At 10 gold each they buy ~10 of each potion (Fenric haggles a buy-10-get-1-free, ~190 gold total, fronted on platinum), and a single anteater. The potions: antitoxin/antivenom each good ~1 hour; the anteater lasts ~15 years.
• Tony the Anteater. Thalia pours the house-cat-sized anteater out of its "comedy giant vial," waits for its first sound — "Tony!" — and names him Tony. He immediately begins hunting ants and whips anyone who isn't an ant with his tongue. Warmaiden Yngraf gets roped into buying a second anteater on a bet — which Salamandine promptly eats ("no refunds," the druid shuts the door).
• Recruiting the War Maiden. Silithane points out the Northern Trading Company security guard he wanted as muscle: a stout, strawberry-blonde dwarven War Maiden, Warmaiden Yngraf, in a couple-thousand-gold suit of full plate and a snapping wolf-helm, wielding a halberd-axe. Gold member Thalia persuades her; bored after "a couple of months," she signs on (and insists on buying her own antivenom to match — "better safe than sorry"), riding in the boat-cart.
• Ant spray (the gag). Inside the Company longhouse, clerk Ragnar sells them three "ant sprays" at 20 gold each — each can repels exactly one ant, regardless of size. Liv is found hanging around the Company, bonding with Warmaiden Yngraf as a fellow Nord. The Company, it's noted, mostly sells cupboards and barrels — its adventuring stock is "pure coincidence."
• Two squires from Eldrich. At the Speak Loudly, Silithane Sends a pitch to Eldrich the Elder (planning his war over a flag-pinned map of Rivalon, the scientist hidden and unseen): turning Ponterford against Laewendas by good deeds needs a few extra blades. Eldrich — "long past my fighting days… in my thinking era now" — sends two squires, Rowaine and Faethlyn, and asks the party to report which one fought better so he can reward one and punish the other.
• Renforth's diagnosis. Thalia brings the owl wizard Renforth a foraged vegetable bouquet (an accidental Druidcraft onion among them) and presents Tony. Renforth pours Silithane's memory-coin into a scrying bowl, watches Common get massacred, and matches the silhouette to a treant/dryad variant with thorned, barkish whip-arms — but insists "it should have venoms or toxins of no kind, for it's a humble plant creature." His theory: the Rivalonian woods teem with unusual mushroom creatures, and the beast may be lacing its own body with mushroom poisons; a mutation provoked because the lumberers, who once replanted what they took, now — with the war — "just take."
• The march north. A ~8-mile walk up a war-decayed road (a cobbled Roman-style road gone to dirt and overgrowth — "easier to control 20–30 isolated settlements than one connected Rivalon"). They pass the attack site (Silithane's memory confirms the road), then reach a striking spot: a Lord-of-the-Rings overgrown tree sheltering mushroom people, an eroded ~140-ft natural stone tower, and a breakaway river that has swallowed the road — a crossing that once linked Ponterford to northern Rivalon (Saltwater, Ornston Keep, Port Porro). Magra shovels open a clamshell and digs out a good ~1-inch pearl.
• Thalia's Primeval Awareness. A hex-wide Primeval Awareness sweep: no aberrations, no fiends, ~2–3 half-flagging celestials, ~4 "technical dragons" (long-dead draconic bones, incl. a worm-skeleton at the tower's 140-ft peak, like Ponterford's drake), a couple of elementals, ~20 fae, and plenty of undead. The two mushroom people read as fae-animated — brought to life by passing fey magic, not born.
• The mushroom people's bargain. Billy's Mom (a 4-ft mushroom matron with a torch-staff, who names herself for her child) and her son Billy's Mom Junior explain: passing travellers gave them the power to walk and speak, but others of their kind were burned in the lumberjacks' fires. The "checkered men" (the party works out: the lumberjacks, who all wear checks) come to cut the trees, and the Guardian of the Woods is the only thing that stops them. She will only help the party find the Guardian if they can guarantee the checkered men stop coming — which the party cannot honestly promise. The Guardian, she warns, attacks anyone carrying wood (the dead bodies of its kin) — all of them. Magra's "we just want to talk" reads as a deception; Lash offers a sincere "I'll stop them or die trying," but the mushroom mother won't risk her family on half a promise and urges them to go home. Thalia flags the stakes to the group: these two are fae-touched, and a promise made to the fae is binding — no empty words.
• Baiting the Guardian. The party debates (briefly) talking to it, then pivots to luring it: banging bonfire wood, Silithane Minor-Illusioning wood-chopping sounds and a rickety cart, and shouting "oh boy, do I hate trees!" — while staging away from the mushroom warren and laying Varg's spiked trap. (Lash, post-Renforth, refuses to chop a real tree.)
• Ambush in a dirt cloud. The Guardian answers exactly as it did the commoners: dirt erupts from the ground into a blinding, fog-cloud-like haze (everyone effectively blinded, the form of its surprise round). It casts Speak with Flesh so the party can understand its grievance, throwing its voice around the cloud — "Bark, players. I feel the weight of your sins in every ring of my aged being… you drape yourselves in the stripped skin of my kin… Taste my poison."
• Silithane's pink potion. Blinded in the dust and unwilling to wait, Silithane gambles on the mystery pink vial from Wetzel (the "drink-to-win-a-contest" potion): it shimmers like rose quartz and manifests the drinker's strongest emotion as a physical boon-and-bane. Asked what he's feeling, the table answers "anxiety" — so the "oh shit, I can't see" panic becomes 30 ft of blindsight (decaying to 15 after five rounds), letting him sense Fenric, the orc and the cart through the cloud. The complication: his terror also liquefies everything he's eaten in two days into a slurry — explosive diarrhoea to deal with tomorrow.
• The needle nova — and Silithane's curse. It runs up, leaps, and slams into the middle of the band, spraying hundreds of venomous wooden needles outward. Two saves follow: a poison save (DC 11, advantage with antitoxin) and a venom save (advantage with antivenom). Only Silithane fails the venom save (he'd drunk nothing): 28 necrotic and a 3-day countdown as his skin turns to spreading ulcers — curable only by powerful magic or the beast's venom sac. Everyone else who was caught takes 12 necrotic; Warmaiden Yngraf also fails her venom save. Lash's commoner Help-at-range and her Magic-Hammer rerolls keep saving allies all fight.
• Fenric breaks it. In the blind melee — Varg frenzying (two hits), Lash biting it (7), Magra hurling a lit torch and screaming "I just lit your kid on fire!" to intimidate it, Thalia Entangling the area, Silithane reaching through a time-portal to borrow his Shadow Sword for a ~27-damage Booming Blade — Fenric climbs the cart, lands two hits as a Spellbreaker, severs two of the creature's first-level spell slots, and on the second hit breaks its concentration, collapsing the dirt cloud. Everyone can see at last. The session pauses here, mid-fight, to give Valmora a chance to be in the rest of it.

Combat & Encounters

• The Guardian of the Woods (in progress). A mutated treant/dryad — ancient, intelligent, ~10–12 ft, with four spiked tendril-arms and a venom it shouldn't naturally have (likely mushroom-derived). Opening move: a self-made dirt cloud (a Fog-Cloud-of-dust that blinds the whole field and lasts the fight) for a surprise round, then Speak with Flesh to monologue, then a leaping body-slam needle-spray forcing dual poison + venom Constitution saves. The needles deal 28 necrotic on a failed save (12 on a success) and inflict a 3-day fatal venom that festers the skin into ulcers/pustules — incurable without its venom sac (beneath the neck) or powerful magic. It targets wood-carriers preferentially and disguises its footsteps so even tracking can't find it (Thalia isolates them by ear at ~50–80 ft).
• The party's prep paid off: with antitoxins/antivenoms drunk, only Silithane is left terminally poisoned (he held off drinking). Fenric sheltered behind the cart (no needles), Magra and Thalia behind the rocks. The Guardian's concentration broke to Fenric's second Spellbreaker hit, ending the blindness.
• No level-up, no bounty. The fight is unfinished; still level 6.

NPCs & Factions

• Warmaiden Yngraf (new) — the dwarven "War Maiden" and security guard of the Northern Trading Company's Ponterford longhouse (the plate-clad warrior Lash roused in Session 35, now named). Full plate, snapping wolf-helm, halberd-axe; from Baelheim. Recruited for the hunt; fails her venom save in the needle nova. See Warmaiden Yngraf.
• Tony the Anteater (new) — a house-cat-sized anteater sold "in a vial" by the druid Horibus and named by Thalia for the first sound he made. A comic party pet; eats ants, ignores everything else (a twin anteater was eaten by Salamandine). See Tony the Anteater.
• Horibus (new) — the pacifist druid/herbalist neighbour of the rented Falconer house (the Session 35 "druid neighbour," now named by the GM as Horibus). Grows and sells antitoxins/antivenoms/anteaters at a fair 10 gold each; won't be "legally liable" for a wrong choice. See Horibus.
• Renforth — the owl wizard scrys Silithane's memory of the beast and identifies it as a mutated treant/dryad poisoning itself with mushrooms, blaming the one-sided lumbering. Accepts a vegetable bouquet; meets Tony.
• The Guardian of the Woods — revealed at last: a treant-kind protector of the forest mushroom folk that hunts wood-carriers. (See its note for the full reveal.)
• Billy's Mom & Billy's Mom Junior (new) — a small family of fae-animated mushroom creatures living in a root-framed warren by the tower (distinct from the cave-dwelling Mush Mother). Their kin were burned by the lumberjacks; the Guardian is their only protection, so they refuse to betray it unless the "checkered men" can be stopped. A likely recurring face of the lumberjacks-vs-nature subplot. See Billy's Mom.
• Squire Rowaine (new note) — one of Eldrich the Elder's two caravan squires (the "Rowan" of Session 21), sent on the hunt; rendered "Rowaine"/"Ruin"/"Cathalon" this session. Grumbles at a 9 AM monster-fight but obeys. See Squire Rowaine.
• Squire Faethlyn — Eldrich the Elder's bodyguard, sent alongside Rowaine; holds an action to Bless the party. The two squires are an audition — Eldrich will reward the better fighter and punish the other.
• Varg Ralagrak Gro-Algrag & Algrimmar — the orcs from the lodge: Varg dual-wields axes and frenzies blind in the dirt; Algrimmar stays 30 ft back with a shortbow (and accidentally shoots Warmaiden Yngraf).
• Eldrich the Elder — lends the two squires and sets the "who fought better" test; still planning attacks on Laewendas's generals from a map of Rivalon.
• Northern Trading Company — clerk Ragnar sells the gag ant sprays; Warmaiden Yngraf is its guard; Liv befriends her there. Mostly sells cupboards and barrels.

Locations

• Ponterford — more of the residential district crossed: Horibus's vine-and-garden house (the middle of the three southern-hill houses), the Northern Trading Company longhouse-barracks across a river of stepping-stones, and Renforth's tower. It is ~9 AM and clear.
• The road north & the Guardian's woods — eight miles up a collapsed-bridge crossroads that once linked Ponterford to northern Rivalon (Saltwater, Ornston Keep, Port Porro), now severed by a meandered river. Features an eroded ~140-ft natural stone tower (a dead worm-skeleton at its peak), a mushroom-folk warren under a great root, and the site where the Guardian ambushes travellers. The battlefield for the ongoing fight.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• Cure stockpile — ~10 antitoxins and ~10 antivenoms (good ~1 hour each), bought from Horibus for ~190 gold all-in (Fenric's haggle); plus three "ant sprays" (20 gold each, each repels exactly one ant) from the Northern Trading Company.
• Tony (new pet) — Thalia's live anteater; a second one was eaten by Salamandine.
• A pearl — a hefty ~1-inch pearl Magra dug from a roadside clamshell; a "good little find," uncatalogued for now.
• No bounty, no pip; still level 6 (the hunt is unfinished).

Decisions & Open Threads

• Finish the Guardian — and save Silithane. The fight resumes next session; harvesting the venom sac is now urgent on three counts — the orc medicine woman's dying patient, Warmaiden Yngraf (failed her venom save), and Silithane, who has ~3 days before the venom finishes him. Preparation (and Valmora's magic) strongly wanted.
• Lumberjacks vs. nature. The mushroom folk will only ally if the checkered men stop; the party privately knows the real lever is the lumber mill, which arms Cathalon for Laewendas — but the Reclamation wants that mill, and openly killing it would invite reprisal. Lash has made a sincere try-or-die promise to stop the lumberjacks, and floats magic-growing ethical "fake" trees (via Renforth and Horibus) so the mushroom folk and the mill both have wood.
• The squires' audition. The party must tell Eldrich the Elder which of Rowaine and Faethlyn fought better — he will reward one and punish the other.
• Carryover: Valmora's ongoing drake-skeleton purification and her dead-gods quarry; Session 37's unkept midnight witch meeting and the frog-folk fence build; the dragon hand-in to Sheriff Jeremiah Falconer and Dominus (banked pip); Jex's legal non-existence and ultra-arrow; Otto's package and Thalia's oath; the imprisoned Caressa and the cave's deferred loot; the missing mothers; the longer heading to the Veilwood and the eventual assault on Laewendas.
• Roster. On screen: Thalia, Silithane, Lash, Magra, Fenric, Jex — plus Salamandine, Silithane's crow, and now Tony — and the NPC war-band (Warmaiden Yngraf, Varg, Algrimmar, Rowaine, Faethlyn). Valmora stayed in town (skeleton purification); Ashlyn is recalled to the Veilwood; Draak is gone. Still level 6.

Memorable Moments

• "It eats ants." The druid's straight-faced upsell of the antitoxin, the antivenom, and the anteater — and a party that buys all three, names the anteater Tony off his first squeak, and then watches the salamander eat the spare one.
• "Someone who has the answer, please stand up." Thalia asking how far the beast is — and Tony the anteater standing up, knowing nothing.
• One ant, any size. Ragnar's ant spray that "repels exactly one ant regardless of size — that is its benefit, of course," bought three times over against a non-existent ant threat.
• From "let's just talk to it" to staging a tree murder. The party deciding to lure the Guardian by faking the sounds of wood being chopped — "I love how quickly it flipped from we just want to talk to how do we simulate a tree murder."
• "Bark, players." The Guardian's grievance-monologue from inside the dirt cloud — the murdered forest given a voice to damn the people who wear its kin.
• "What if I food a little?" Silithane's Wetzel pink potion turning raw anxiety into 30 ft of blindsight — and the GM's grinning tax for it: instantly liquefying two days of meals into a slurry, an "insane choice" the table couldn't stop laughing at.
• The future-self sword, again. Silithane opening a time-portal for his Shadow Sword and finding it mounted as a trophy on the wall of an ancient, bedridden Renforth being spoon-fed soup 60 years on — "do you live 60 years? Did you just let him borrow it?"
• "I just lit your kid on fire!" Magra, blind in the dirt, throwing a torch into the brush and screaming the most unhinged intimidation of the campaign at a tree.