Session 46 — The Grey Man and the Last Druid

Session Recap

The party spends the night of the 17th wandering the half-built camp of New Halfwood, picking up the place's troubles one conversation at a time. The trinket-peddler Tony walks them through his entire stock (off-loading a dog-whistle, two grow-a-tree acorns and a big moonlight pebble, and buying Thalia's never-bending needle); the small, licence-flashing camp mage Humphrey confides the settlement's real crisis — its food came from the druid elder Stunghelm Elkheart, who conjured great-berries for them and vanished ~18 days ago, leaving the camp slowly starving. Up on the eerie cliffside camp, the war-veteran Golgain — who fought at the original burning of Old Halfwood four decades back — pins the undead's rise to a necromancer in the woods about a year ago, somewhere north-west, and explains the camp's grimmest fixture: the silent, grey-skinned Grey Man, an undead-slaying force-of-nature who predates the blight by 150 years. Thalia's Primeval Awareness reads the surrounding six miles as five times denser with undead than before (200–300 of them) — and reads the Grey Man as a creature-type not in any guidebook. She and Fenric secretly trail him by night: he avoids living camps, drops a zombie with a conjured ethereal flame-blade, and rides his horse across open water, convincing them he's a made thing set to a handful of instructions — kin to the reassembled tea-party woman from the crypt near Gravis's old haunt.

After a rest (and a third 3 a.m. Sending that terrorises the potion-man Wetzel), the party marches north-west toward the Druid's Grove with four blue-jacket bowmen, slipping past the capital's leisure-lake under a Pass Without Trace. On the road they meet Stunghelm Elkheart himself — alive, injured, and leading a horde of plague-spreaders away from the grove. The fight that follows is an attrition slog against a tougher new breed of undead (green-ichor corpses with their own spell-charge), won by Thalia's Entangle-into-Plant-Growth trapping nearly the whole horde while Silithane hurls his Shadow Blade, Jex looses flaming arrows and a Molotov, Salamandine flails a tail-mounted longsword, and Stunghelm calls down a hurricane. With the horde snared, the party jogs clear. Stunghelm — a genuinely high-level archdruid — fixes the camp's food crisis in one casting, lays a blood-trail to walk the horde in a wide circle, and Tree-Strides the party to the edge of the Druid's Grove. They arrive to gloom, dying nature, and skittering red-eyed tree-things: the grove has sealed itself under a dome-high thorn barrier, and no one knows whether that lockdown is keeping the horror out or in. The session ends on the choice of which way to circle the wall. Still level 7.

Key Events

• A night in the new camp. Picking up where Session 45 left off, the party explores New Halfwood by night — soldiers sparring in a ring, regiments drilling, gatherers under armed escort, a woman singing under a tree. Magra (Mia absent) repeatedly wanders off to chat up labourers and guards. The camp organiser Thanhold gives them the lay of it: rival knots of blue-jackets, scouts, a guerrilla detail "waging war on the capital," a food problem, the mage Humphrey, and two undead-killers up the cliff.
• Ten Trinkets Tony's full stock. The party gets the peddler Tony to walk his entire inventory: a once-a-day whisper shell, a "legendary" amulet that Fenric's Identify proves does nothing (but is certified legendary), a pocket acorn that grows a tree in an hour, a Houndmaster's whistle that summons fighting dogs, a phoenix-ash pendant that saves you from death once, a sailor's knot, a moonlight pebble (small and a tennis-ball-sized "fat" one), an investigator's magnaglass, and a don't-get-lost coin. His financing scam (12 payments of 40g to dodge Laewendas's "purchases over 50g" tax) delights the table.
• The food crisis, explained. In the shadows away from the crowd, the mage Humphrey admits the camp's food was conjured by the druid Stunghelm Elkheart and redistributed by Humphrey as if his own (he can conjure water, not food). Stunghelm's "great-berries" outlast a college druid's goodberries; he was due 4 days ago and was last seen ~18 days ago. Without him, New Halfwood starves and scatters. The party tells him they think Stunghelm split off from his apprentice Clover ~16 days ago.
• The postmaster rides again. Forbidden from doing "magic crime in front of a cop," Humphrey instead hires Thalia (flashing her postmaster sigil) to carry a letter; she sells him paper, envelope, stamp and pen for a gold ("keep the change") and he writes to "Druidsgrove," begging another druid for food-aid.
• The cliffside veterans. Climbing to the camp's creepy upper tier, the party meets four weathered blue-jacket vets and the burned, ring-eared warrior Golgain, who fought at Old Halfwood when "the bitch queen came to kill us all" ~40 years ago. He shows the neck X-tattoo the bitten wear (mark a corpse, burn it on death), tallies "~2,500 of them corpsey bastards" killed, and traces the blight to a necromancer-type in the woods about a year ago, coming from the north and west — not from Old Halfwood.
• The Grey Man. Golgain names the camp's silent fixture: the grey-skinned Grey Man / Greyskin, who does not talk or sleep, sits staring into the fire at night and rides out to kill undead by day. Get within 10 ft and you become one of the things he kills (Timothy ended "in 3 bits"; Gorblan too). He predates the undead by 150 years — Golgain's grandmother had a painting of him — and the army of Laewendas puts bounties on his head, to no avail.
• Sharpening the swords. Over the rest Lash sets up a smithing spot and sharpens two veterans' blades (Golgain's and Andross's), grinding Golgain's ill-fitting looted longsword down to size — earning each weapon +1 damage. Silithane sends a 3 a.m. Message to the potion-man Wetzel ("you can respond this time!"), getting a panicked, half-asleep reply — a third night of terrorising the man.
• The scan, and the unknown type. Thalia's Primeval Awareness of the six-mile hex reads 200–300 lesser undead (5× denser than the last hex), one dragon (Silithane), some fey, no celestials or true fiends — and the Grey Man as a creature-type that isn't in the guidebook, "a blob of a colour you've never seen." A Nature/Arcana check later floats golem / construct.
• Trailing the Grey Man. Five hours into the rest the Grey Man mounts and rides north. Fenric and Thalia secretly follow for ~45 minutes (a clean Survival + Stealth): he detours around a trapper camp rather than barrelling through, drops a charging zombie with a conjured ethereal flame-sword (Silithane's shadow-blade, but fire), and rides over a pond as if it were solid ground past the sleeping boatswain's cottage. The pair conclude he's a made thing — set to a few instructions like the reassembled tea-party woman from the crypt — and turn back.
• The Theseus teapot. On the lakeshore Thalia lays out her tea-party set and a History check dates it: most pieces are new, but the oldest cup is near-antique, its paint weathered through the ceramic. The tea-party woman has been there since before the crypt's bandits — "part of the crypt energy, not the bandit energy" — and the same workshop sits near Gravis's old country (Gravis), ~55–60 miles off. Fenric's half-baked theory: the woman was a proof-of-concept, the Grey Man a functional prototype.
• Out to the grove. After the half-time break, on a fine morning the party sets off north-west, a two-hex march, four blue-jacket bowmen along. Thalia's Pass Without Trace + huge stealth rolls get them past the capital's fishing/leisure lake leaving no trace at all (they even tidy foragers' tracks).
• Stunghelm, found and fleeing. On the Land Boat map they meet Stunghelm Elkheart — limping, injured, and running from a horde of plague-spreaders. Initiative is rolled; the fight is on.
• Stunghelm's true power. Mid-fight the elder booms his voice 10× with a cantrip, calls a hurricane from clear skies (10d6 bludgeoning, dragging loose zombies into the trap), and keeps flinging Silithane's healing-bird 30 ft up the road. He was never really fleeing — he was leading the horde out so he could slip back into the grove.
• The food crisis solved in a sentence. Once the horde is snared, Stunghelm conjures a tree-full of watermelon-sized great-berries for New Halfwood (the vet Borgish draws the short straw to haul them back; Andross, Golgain and Privet join the party). He examines Lash's moon pendant, is unnerved to hear it's from the Valewood, and reveals his goal: cleanse the Druid's Grove.
• Thalia almost flies. Stunghelm's original plan was to be flown into the grove and dispel the corruption. To make it work he casts an elder-grade Enhance Ability on Thalia (Strength set to 15, carry capacity ×4); she gets a running start and flies for ~20–30 seconds — the closest she's ever come — before gravity wins. Tears and an ear-to-ear grin.
• Tree-Stride to the grove. Stunghelm lays a blood-trail to walk the horde in a wide circle (buying hours), then opens a tree portal to a hardy tree at the grove's corrupted edge and ushers everyone through.
• The sealed grove. The party emerges into gloom and fog, dying and wilted nature, skittering half-dead trees with glowing red eyes, needle blights, and a distant chorus of pained groaning. The grove is sealed under an archdruid thorn-barrier — a Stonehenge-like stone fence gnarled shut, domed over the top ("they only do this if it's really bad"). Fenric's magic-sense confirms the barrier is potent and there's no easy way in; Jex can't slip an eye through without taking grove-defence damage. The session ends on the question of which way to circle — left or right — to find a weak point.

Combat & Encounters

• The Plague-Spreader Horde (with Stunghelm Elkheart). A multi-wave running fight on the road to the Druid's Grove, escalating from 3 chasing undead to a horde the GM jokingly calls "1,000" (waves keyed to combat rounds 2/5/8/11/14). The undead are a new, tougher breed: ordinary villagers' corpses of mismatched ages (one keeps a cobbler's tools on his belt), AC ~10 but ~31–34 HP — many times the 3–15 HP pushovers of Old Halfwood — bleeding green ichor, carrying a small spell-charge (spell slots Fenric can "claw out"), and dangerous to touch (Stunghelm's warning; the horse-style burst). The party's tactics carried it: Salamandine double-crits one dead with a tail-swat (then Lash ties an agile longsword to his tail so he can strike without contact); Fenric hacks with a hand-axe and destroys their magical charge; Thalia drops Entangle (restraining ~13 of 15) then upgrades to Plant Growth / Overgrowth (100-ft radius) to snare the whole horde; Jex lands flaming arrows (off Thalia's oil bowl) and a handed-off Molotov (and famously rolls a double natural 1, ~1-in-400); Silithane repeatedly summons-and-throws his Shadow Blade with Green-Flame-Blade and sneak attacks; the four blue-jacket bowmen volley every round (+1 damage from Lash's sharpening); and Magra (off-map, GM-run) shoots each turn, dropping two. Stunghelm anchors it with a booming-voice cantrip, a hurricane (10d6), and held actions. No PC was hurt; the party disengaged and jogged clear once the overgrowth held the horde.

NPCs & Factions

• Stunghelm Elkheart — met at last, and revealed as a genuine high-level archdruid ("Stungy," Clover's elder): conjures watermelon-sized great-berries, calls hurricanes, casts a cooked-up Enhance Ability, opens Tree-Stride portals, and treats feeding whole villages as one of many chores. Brusque, harried, self-important about his time. He fixes New Halfwood's food crisis in a casting and leads the party to the corrupted Druid's Grove he means to cleanse. Wary of the Valewood and the things that come from it.
• Humphrey (new) — the small, classically-robed camp mage of New Halfwood, licence-flashing and law-abiding; handles water and food distribution but cannot conjure food himself, so the camp depends on Stunghelm Elkheart. Hires Thalia to carry a discreet aid-letter to the Druid's Grove.
• Golgain (new) — a burned-faced, ring-eared blue-jacket war veteran of the cliffside camp who fought at the original Old Halfwood massacre ~40 years ago. Pragmatic and grim (the neck-X burn-tattoo for the bitten), a sharp head for the maths of war, ~2,500 undead killed. Sources the blight to a woods necromancer ~1 year ago, north-west. Joins the grove expedition (his looted longsword reground by Lash).
• The Grey Man (new) — a silent, grey-skinned figure who predates the undead blight by 150 years (four generations of local memory), camps among the cliffside veterans, never speaks or sleeps, and rides out to slay undead with a conjured ethereal flame-blade, crossing water as solid ground. Lethal to approach (killed Timothy and Gorblan). Thalia's scan reads him as no known creature-type (later guessed construct/golem); the party believes he's a made thing set to instructions, kin to the crypt's reassembled tea-party woman.
• Thanhold — gives the party the camp tour, naming its factions, food problem, mage and undead-killers; gestures to the drilling "esteemed leader" and the cliffside scouts.
• Tony — walks his entire ten-item stock; sells the party a Houndmaster's whistle, two pocket acorns, and a big moonlight pebble, and buys Thalia's never-bending needle. His "legendary" amulet Identifies as purely cosmetic ("a wizard said so, I have the certificate"). Down to seven, then eight trinkets.
• Clover — present at the camp's edge talking to Humphrey (and reported safe back at the village by Stunghelm); never went to the forbidden grove. Wandered off on her own this session.
• The cliffside veterans — Andross (lends his sidearm to be sharpened), Borgish (drafted to haul the great-berries home), Privet, and Golgain — guerrilla-trained blue-jacket bowmen; three join the party for the grove. Stefan, a whittling survivor of the original Halfwood attack, is named but not visited.
• Magra — GM-run (Mia absent): wanders the camp chatting up NPCs, and fights off-map through the road battle (drops two undead, hands out inspiration).

Locations

• Druid's Grove (new) — the long-referenced grove north-west of New Halfwood, reached at session's end via Stunghelm Elkheart's Tree-Stride. Found corrupted and sealed: gloom and fog blotting the sun, wilted and blighted nature, skittering red-eyed half-dead trees, needle blights, and a distant chorus of pained groaning. Locked under an archdruid thorn-and-stone barrier domed over the top — a "really bad" lockdown — that may be keeping the horror out, or in.
• New Halfwood — explored by night: its food crisis (dependent on Stunghelm Elkheart's conjuring via Humphrey), rival blue-jacket factions, the cliffside veterans' camp, and its undead-killers (Golgain, the Grey Man, and the whittler Stefan). The crisis is resolved when Stunghelm conjures a haul of great-berries.
• The capital's leisure-lake — a fishing/picnic spot above Cathalon on the grove route; the party skirts it under Pass Without Trace to avoid being spotted as armed troops.
• The boatswain's cottage — a boat-maker's home on a ponded river north of camp, passed when trailing the Grey Man (who rode over the water past it). One-scene.

Loot, Items & Rewards

• Houndmaster's whistle — Lash buys Tony's dog-summoning whistle for 100 gold (summons up to ~4 fighting dogs a day).
• Two pocket acorns — Thalia buys both for 5 gold each (grow a tree in ~an hour, no soil/water needed), gifting one to Fenric.
• The big moonlight pebble — Thalia buys the tennis-ball-sized pebble for 75 gold (absorbs then re-emits ~4 hours of moonlight in a 15-ft radius); she uses it to live off berries instead of meals.
• Sold: the never-bending needle — Thalia sells Tony a fine needle for 5 gold ("a needle for an acorn").
• Sharpened blades, +1 damage — Lash hones Golgain's (resized) and Andross's swords to +1 damage.
• No level / no pip noted — the party remains level 7.

Decisions & Open Threads

• Into the sealed grove. Next session opens on the choice to circle the Druid's Grove barrier left or right to find a weak point, then get inside to dispel the corruption — with Stunghelm Elkheart assigning roles: Fenric dispels, Thalia scouts the wall, Lash crafts a container for whatever is de-magicked, Jex clears the path, Silithane hides and steals the source. The horde will circle back in a few hours.
• The blight's source. Golgain's account firms the picture: the undead began ~1 year ago, spreading from a woods necromancer to the north-west — the grove's direction. The plague-spreaders are an evolved, tougher strain the closer one gets, implying the source is near (and strong: its reach is felt 60 miles out, per the Grey Man's range).
• What is the Grey Man? A 150-year-old, instruction-bound, undead-slaying construct of unknown make — and possibly a prototype of the same workshop that made the reassembled tea-party woman near Gravis's country (~55–60 miles off, toward Trevisk). The party flags him to "check out at some point" and resolves that a third such creature means walk away.
• Clover's elder, found. The search for Stunghelm Elkheart is resolved — he's alive and now leading the party. Clover is safe back at New Halfwood.
• The food crisis, fixed (for now). Stunghelm's great-berries feed New Halfwood ~4 more weeks; if he dies cleansing the grove, the camp starves again.
• Carryover: the caravan march to the Menagoles and the strike on Knucklebones at Lambert's Crossing; Eldrich the Elder's wish to visit the grove; the legendary trinket on Tony; the held soul candles, cursed mask, and cave symbiotes; Jex's deciphering tablet and legal non-existence; the imprisoned Caressa; and the eventual siege of Cathalon.
• Roster. On screen: Thalia (Cara), Fenric (Fantom — cooking a roast, absent the first half, present the second), Silithane (Johan), Lash (Kadie), Jex (Nat). Magra is GM-run (Mia babysitting/absent) but fights every turn. Valmora's player (Neko) is at the table and voices NPCs (Tony, Stunghelm Elkheart) but has no active PC; Ashlyn's player and Draak remain away. Still level 7.

Memorable Moments

• "A wizard said so. I have the certificate." Tony selling a legendary amulet that Identifies as doing absolutely nothing — and the financing scam of "12 payments of 40 gold" to dodge Laewendas's tax on purchases over 50.
• "You're not tricking me into doing magic crime in front of a cop." Humphrey refusing to hand Thalia an illegal letter — then buying stamps and hiring her to do the exact same crime himself.
• The Grey Man rides on water. Fenric and Thalia watching the silent grey figure draw a flaming ghost-sword to atomise a zombie, then trot his horse across a pond past a sleeping cottage — "so he's definitely not normal, huh?"
• Maths of war. Golgain computing his kill-count live — "6 days a week, ~10 a day, ~50 weeks… about 2,500 of them corpsey bastards" — to a table chorus of "this guy's good at math."
• Thalia flies. Jacked by Stunghelm's Enhance Ability, Thalia gets a running start off a tree and stays airborne for nearly half a minute — the closest she's ever come — landing in exhausted, grinning, silent tears.
• The double natural 1. Jex rolling back-to-back natural 1s ("I can't believe I got double Nat 1, that's 1 in 400") — and the GM's bit that a faking-dead zombie made him doubt and re-shoot the wrong corpse.
• The salamander's new toy. Lash strapping an agile longsword to Salamandine's tail so he can carve up touch-dangerous zombies without infecting himself — instantly spawning plans for a permanent blade-fin attachment.
• The retirement home heist. The GM's "Table of Silithanes" flavour for re-summoning the Shadow Blade: 800-year-old Silithane sneaking through an adventurers' care-home to rummage the weapon out of his own name-tagged suitcase.

SUMMARY: The party works New Halfwood's night camp, learns of the 150-year-old undead-slaying Grey Man, rescues the archdruid Stunghelm Elkheart from a plague-spreader horde, and Tree-Strides to the sealed, corrupted Druid's Grove.