Session 47 — The Last Druids of the Grove

Session Recap

Picking up inside the sealed Druid's Grove, the party works its way through the gnarled thorn-dome one crawl-space at a time. Lash torpedoes through a Lash-sized tunnel to scout (taking a face-full of brambles) and reports the inside is as dead as the outside — desiccated soil, stagnant water, felled trees crawling with needle blights, and a large body of water with corpses floating in it and something big moving beneath. Fenric and Thalia lap the wall and find two better gaps: a cobwebbed crawl-space and a goat-sized hole plugged by a near-dead giant goat snared in the brambles. Stunghelm Elkheart heals the goat; Thalia uses Speak with Plants to negotiate with the lockdown-minded thorn wall, which spits the goat free and lets the party rush the 15-ft gap before it reinforces. Inside, they Speak with Dead to a pair of 11-ft skeletal "tombmates" in ancient ceremonial half-plate — Ulda Golgain of Clan Helmnack, a mountaineer who insists the year is 826 and that the real secrets lie under the tors — and they map the grove's sacred features: a stone-stack nemeton (a spell-amplifier, with a lone egg in its nest) and a long-dormant teleportation circle beside a battered cabin.

In the cabin hides a weedy, robed teenager calling himself "Tim Bimson," patting needle blights and pleading trespass. When the boy refuses to do a stitch of druid magic, Stunghelm Elkheart elbows him unconscious and Sunbeams him to dust — and the party, horrified, learns he was right: the kid was an evil undead. In the ashes are an arcane focus and a necromantic ritual-book; the cabin diary, the Annals of Dreadweaver Corpsefortune, reveals the boy infiltrated the grove and used the corpses beneath it for necromancy. Then the lake erupts: all forty-two druids of the grove, fused into one 55-ft monstrosity, lurches ashore. The brutal boss fight is decided when the amalgam slams the fire-shielded Lash and immolates itself a heartbeat before its kill-everyone hymn can land. In the long aftermath the party destroys the book, gives the dead back their individual bodies, identifies the slain archdruid Vedanis the Evergreen, and accepts a courier's burden: two orated tomes to deliver to two distant groves. The dome stays up. Still level 7.

Key Events

Breaking into the grove. The party circles the dome's thorn-and-stone barrier looking for a weak point. The leftover stealth/averages (~18–19) carry them past hissing needle blights with glowing red eyes (a Nature check confirms these blighted trees shouldn't have eyes); Thalia intimidates two back behind a rotting tree.
Lash scouts the tunnel. Lash, small and slick, shimmies through a Lash-sized gap (an Acrobatics check; 7 piercing from the inward-facing thorns) and reports the interior is as corrupted as the outside — cracked dry soil, stagnant pools, felled trees, blights, and a large pond with floating bodies and something big stirring under the surface. She backs out rather than press on alone.
The lap of the wall. Fenric and Thalia complete a near-full circuit and mark two better entrances: a cobwebbed crawl-space (room for more than Lash) ending under a mushroom, and a goat-sized hole stopped up by a huge, nearly-dead goat caught in the wall when the dome went up.
The goat rescue. Stunghelm Elkheart presses his forehead to the goat's, "talks" to it, and heals it 8 HP (dying → injured). Thalia casts her once-a-day Speak with Plants and parleys with the wall itself — voiced as a jobsworth on "high-security druid lockdown" waiting for the Archdruid's all-clear (estimated lifespan: 7 years). It agrees to spit the goat out if everyone backs off 20 ft; the goat bolts free, and the party sprints the 15-ft gap as the vines re-knit, Stunghelm Elkheart diving in last.
The tombmates. Inside lie two 11-to-12-ft skeletons in ancient, knee-bend-less ceremonial half-plate (greatsword, shield). Silithane Speaks with Dead to the first: Ulda Golgain, fourth of Clan Helmnack, who "died as he lived, mountaineering the tors," believes the year is 826, and — for a 29 persuasion — reveals his clan's charge: the mountain's secrets are under the tors, and he extracts a promise that nobody digs on or beneath them. The second skeleton bears the same clan crest (a 17 History): same family or burial site. The armor is ~600 years old, non-magical, not worth salvaging.
The calendar gap. Ulda Golgain reckons it has been 826 years since "the woman killed the emperor" — the god-slaying emperor who killed all the gods, whose death rolled the calendar into the current era (party guesses the killer is Euphemia / the Autark). The party notes Rivalon/Orathos "never had an emperor," reviving the theory that bodies (this skeleton, the earlier worm-skeleton) are being dropped here from the far north.
The nemeton and the egg. On a stone-stack island in the pond sits a nest with a single egg. Fenric (mage-hunter, advantage vs. druid-lore) identifies the stones as a nemeton — a sacred site that multiplies the effect of spells cast by multiple druids at once (10 druids casting Plant Growth might yield 100 years of bounty), almost certainly what keeps the dome up; its natural counter is to kick the stones over, which permanently breaks their bound magic. The egg (later IDed as a giant moorhen's) needs warmth, and its parent can't reach it through the dome.
The teleportation circle. Lash finds the cabin set in a magic circle; Fenric instantly recognises a teleportation circle linking to other groves. With a borderline-impossible 30 Arcana (Silithane's Guidance), he reads that it hasn't been used in ~2 years, with throughput of maybe one druid in or out every 2–4 years — proof the druids did not evacuate by it. They are simply gone.
"Tim Bimson." A weedy, malnourished teen in dirty green-brown robes hides in the cabin cupboard (alongside a mimic — "there's nobody in the cupboard, the cupboard says"). Flushed out by Lash's "the house is on fire," he claims trespass, gives the fake name "Tim Bim, Tim Bimson," and fondly pats a needle blight. Fenric's magic-sense (60 ft) reads him as a spellcaster carrying a powerful magic item.
The Sunbeam. When the boy refuses to sprout an acorn or cast Druidcraft, Stunghelm Elkheart elbows him unconscious (17 dmg) and Sunbeams him to dust (~50 sun damage, clipping himself in his own radius) — then gives a cheerful thumbs-up: "I got him. The day is saved." To a horrified table he explains he first cast Detect Evil and a spell that only harms evil undead; it worked, so the boy was an evil undead. He warns: "give it two rounds and you'll see."
The diary and the book. In the ash: an arcane focus crystal (Lash pockets) and a necromantic ritual-book in a charred protective case. Silithane's Arcana (a 27) reads it as a spell-instruction tome whose power lives in the book itself (uncopyable) — including how to fuse body parts into monsters. The cabin's wet-inked diary — the Annals of Dreadweaver Corpsefortune — Thalia speed-reads: the boy infiltrated the grove, used the corpses beneath it for necromancy, built "a giant mass of bodies," and meant for "intruders to witness the success of work."
The amalgam rises. As predicted, the pond erupts: all ~42 druids of the grove, melded into one 55-ft necromantic monstrosity of many heads, mouths and giant arms, shouldering aside 80-ft oaks. The party had braced behind tree cover; the boss fight is on (see Combat).
Stunghelm's insurance. Mid-fight the archdruid buffs hard — Sprout (a safe tree-ring for Thalia), an upcast Fire Shield on Lash (48-damage melee retaliation) — then, fearing a TPK against the doubling hymn, casts Stone Shape on himself and turns to stone, vowing to revive everyone in three hours if they all die.
The clutch kill. Whittled to 4 HP, the amalgam slams the fire-shielded Lash; the 48-damage Fire Shield ignites its arm, the flames race across all the screaming druids, and the party finishes it before the lethal hymn can resolve — Lash surviving the slam (18 dmg vs. 25 HP). Fenric then rounds an Arcana check up to dispel the Stone Shape and wake Stunghelm Elkheart three hours early.
Destroying the book. Fenric spends ~24 hours "finger-punching" the necromantic book; because it was holding the concentration on ~1,000 zombies (the loose plague-spreader horde), each torn page drops a zombie dead. The book finally crumbles.
Giving back the dead. Magra takes the cabin's garden shears to the amalgam, grimly separating it back into 41–42 buryable bodies (a Charisma save; Thalia and Fenric can't stomach it, Lash quits when her Sun-God rage fades — there's no loot in it). Mixed-together limbs are guessed apart.
Naming the archdruid. Silithane casts Identify across the bodies (~8 hours, dozens of d40 rolls through the jumbled parts) to find the grove's archdruid, Vedanis the Evergreen. Speak with Dead on him: he won't reveal how to lower the dome (his last protection for his people), his Reincarnate of a body fizzles (>10 days dead), and he lectures that bodies must be preserved, not destroyed, so the dead can one day be raised.
The courier's burden. Over 16 hours Thalia transcribes two tomes Vedanis the Evergreen orates (running out of paper, writing the second between the first's lines), to deliver to two groves: the Site of the Ancients (archdruid Kerri, already on the map where Red Group went) and Maelor's Grove (archdruid Maelor Sings to the Rivers, south of the Atollia border).
Clover's answer. Thalia reads out Clover's sealed aid-letter as a third Speak-with-Dead question. Clover asks why she isn't good enough to join a grove; Vedanis's verdict is three words — "because of Stunghelm Elkheart" — no grove of his kind would take a druid trained by the man who Sunbeamed a boy to dust while they let themselves be murdered one by one.
The dome stays. Stunghelm Elkheart is firmly pro-dome and refuses to "claim" the dead grove ("no people live here; there is no grove here"), promising only to evacuate the cabbages. With no living trees inside for Tree-Stride, the party plans to grow an exit from a pocket acorn in the morning, possibly carrying the moorhen egg out. They tidy the cabin and bed down for a long rest. Still level 7.

Combat & Encounters

The Druid Amalgam (the grove's 42 druids, fused). A session-defining boss: a ~55-ft necromantic monstrosity built from all the grove's slain druids (heads, torsos and arms protruding everywhere, sharing "one giant set of lungs"), risen from the pond at the necromancer's death. Its threats: a multi-arm slam action (several 15–21-damage bludgeoning hits per round, 30-ft reach), and Hymn of the Ancient Ones — a DC-15 Wisdom-save psychic hymn that doubles every round (5 → 10 → 20 → 40 → 80) until it "sings you all to death." It is immune to psychic (41 brains), holds 41 druids' worth of spell slots (so near-immune to Fenric's spell-breaking — each hit drains a trivial fraction), eats a one-time 100 Goodberries to heal, and can graft a downed creature into itself (it absorbs Silithane's 1-HP familiar bat for blindsight 60). The party's answer: Magra and Jex crit with Take-Aim sharpshooter volleys (and Jex's special arrows, incl. a "final" arrow named for one Fenegilius); Salamandine lands a held tail-swat; Silithane hacks with Shadow Blade + Booming Blade + Sneak Attack (psychic-immune, but the sword still cuts) and his silvered short sword; Thalia Hail-of-Thornses with her silvered whip (silver cutting its resistance); Lash rages under her Kiss of the Sun (triple-fire eyes/head, advantage intimidation, a crit hammer-blow); and Fenric claws it and the book. Stunghelm Elkheart buffs (Sprout, Fire Shield) then petrifies himself as a fail-safe. Resolution: at 4 HP the amalgam slams the fire-shielded Lash; the 48-damage retaliation immolates it and all its druids, killing it before the next (40/80) hymn could go off. No PC died; Lash ate the killing blow and lived (18 of 25 HP).
Needle blights & the cabin mimic. The grove's red-eyed needle blights mostly flee the hymn once combat starts (the first verse halves them); a mimic posing as the cabin cupboard is noted but never fought.

NPCs & Factions

Stunghelm Elkheart — the archdruid shows his ruthless edge: he Detect-Evils and then Sunbeams the disguised necromancer to dust without warning, buffs the party lavishly through the boss fight (Sprout, an upcast Fire Shield, flinging healing-birds), and turns himself to stone as a guaranteed-revive insurance policy when he fears a wipe. Afterward he is immovably pro-dome, refuses to claim or steward the dead grove, and is revealed (by Vedanis the Evergreen) to be the reason no proper grove will accept his apprentice Clover.
Vedanis the Evergreen (new) — the slain archdruid of the Druid's Grove, found among the amalgam's bodies and questioned via Speak with Dead. A doctrinaire elder: he refuses to reveal how to lower his dome, preaches the preservation of corpses for future resurrection (destroying a body is "the worst thing that could happen to anything"), and tasks the party with delivering two orated tomes to the groves of Kerri and Maelor. His Reincarnate of a fellow druid fizzles for lack of power. His blunt judgement of Stunghelm Elkheart explains Clover's rejection.
Dreadweaver Corpsefortune (new) — the teenage necromancer who infiltrated and destroyed the grove, posing as a malnourished commoner boy ("Tim Bimson"). Attuned to a powerful necromantic ritual-book, he raised the grove's dead, fused them into the amalgam, and his book held the concentration on a horde of ~1,000 zombies. Sunbeamed to dust by Stunghelm Elkheart; the strongly-implied source of the woods' undead blight (Golgain's "woods necromancer").
Ulda Golgain (new, deceased) — a ~600-years-dead mountaineer skeleton of Clan Helmnack, Speak-with-Dead'd inside the grove. Believes the year is 826; guards the secret that something is hidden under the tors; extracts a promise that none dig there. His and his "tombmate's" presence — like the worm-skeleton before — feeds the theory that ancient northern bodies keep turning up far to the south. (Shares a surname with the living New Halfwood vet Golgain.)
Clover — absent, but central to the epilogue: her aid-letter to "Druidsgrove" is read to Vedanis the Evergreen, who answers that she is barred from groves because Stunghelm Elkheart trained her.

Locations

Druid's Grove — breached and explored: a corrupted, blighted interior of stagnant water, dead soil and red-eyed needle blights, holding a sacred stone nemeton (spell-amplifier, likely powering the dome), a dormant teleportation circle to other groves, and a battered cabin where the necromancer lived. Its forty-two druids are all dead — fused into the amalgam, now slain and re-separated for burial. The dome stays sealed, Stunghelm Elkheart refusing to lower it.
Site of the Ancients (named) — a druid grove already on the party's map (Red Group visited it), home to the archdruid Kerri; destination for the first of Vedanis the Evergreen's two transcribed tomes.
Maelor's Grove (named) — a small grove south of the Atollia border, home to Maelor Sings to the Rivers; destination for the second tome.

Loot, Items & Rewards

Arcane focus crystal — a palm-sized crystalline gem, Dreadweaver Corpsefortune's spellcasting focus; pocketed by Lash.
The necromantic ritual-book — a body-fusion spell-tome that held the horde's concentration; destroyed by Fenric over ~24 hours of page-tearing (each page dropping a loose zombie dead).
The Annals of Dreadweaver Corpsefortune — the necromancer's wet-inked diary, kept by Thalia (the evidence of his work).
Two transcribed druid tomes — Thalia carries them for delivery to the Site of the Ancients and Maelor's Grove.
No level / no pip noted — the party remains level 7.

Decisions & Open Threads

The blight's source, found. The grove's corruption — and very likely the woods' whole undead blight — was the work of the teenage necromancer Dreadweaver Corpsefortune and his ritual-book. Both are destroyed; whether the loose plague-spreader horde fully dies with the book (or who, if anyone, sent/taught the boy) is open.
The sealed grove. With the monster dead but every druid lost, Stunghelm Elkheart keeps the dome up and refuses to steward the grove. The nemeton (and the egg, the cabbages, and the moorhen) remain inside; the party plans to exit via a pocket acorn tree in the morning.
The two deliveries. Thalia now owes two druid groves their tomes — Kerri at the Site of the Ancients (on the map) and Maelor Sings to the Rivers at Maelor's Grove (south of Atollia) — a fresh courier thread that may open both groves to the party.
Clover's standing. Clover is rejected by proper groves purely for being Stunghelm Elkheart's student; what she does with that (and whether the party tells her) is open.
Under the tors. Ulda Golgain's dying charge — that something is hidden beneath the tors and must not be dug up — adds to the Elder-race / tor-mine thread and the recurring mystery of ancient northern corpses appearing in the south. The 826-vs-1396 calendar gap and "the woman who killed the emperor" are flagged in Canon Questions.
Carryover: the delayed caravan march to the Menagoles and the strike on Knucklebones at Lambert's Crossing; Eldrich the Elder's wish to visit the grove; the Grey Man's nature; New Halfwood and its blue-jacket vets; 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 and all player-run: Thalia (Cara), Fenric (Fantom), Silithane (Johan), Lash (Kadie), Jex (Nat), Magra (Mia — present this week), with Salamandine fighting as Lash's companion. Valmora's player (Neko) is at the table and voices the NPCs (Stunghelm Elkheart, the necromancer boy) but has no active PC; Ashlyn's player and Draak remain away. Still level 7.

Memorable Moments

"I got him. The day is saved!" Stunghelm Elkheart Sunbeaming a pleading teenager into a pile of dust and turning to the appalled party with a double thumbs-up — then casually clarifying he'd Detect-Evil'd the kid first, so it was fine.
"There's nobody in the cupboard, the cupboard says." The cabin cupboard held both a hiding boy and a mimic; Lash flushing the kid out with a fake "the house is on fire!"
The fire-shield finish. The whole table holding its breath as the 4-HP amalgam swings at the fire-shielded Lash — a miss would have been a TPK, a hit kills the boss — and the monster cooking itself alive a heartbeat before its doubling hymn could wipe the party.
Druids don't bend their knees. Lash realising the tombmate skeleton's ceremonial half-plate has no knee-joints, so he couldn't possibly have died mountaineering in it — he was buried in it.
Mail to Maelor. Vedanis the Evergreen — after 24+ hours of lectures — being assigned, by pun, to send his second tome to the grove of Maelor Sings to the Rivers: "deliver mail to Maelor."
"Because of Stunghelm Elkheart." The gut-punch three-word answer to Clover's heartfelt letter asking why she's never good enough to belong.
Magra's reverse jigsaw. Magra grimly powering through cutting an amalgam of 42 melded corpses back into individual buryable bodies "to give them their identities back" — while everyone else loses their stomach for it.

SUMMARY: Breaching the sealed Druid's Grove, the party finds its 42 druids murdered and fused into one monster by a teenage necromancer (Sunbeamed to dust by Stunghelm); they kill the amalgam, destroy his book, and take up an archdruid's last requests.