Phew. That's a tad more powerful than I thought at first but that's probably a good thing. I'm notoriously bad at encounter balance and I don't want to kill an established PC in a one-off.
Jherala hasn't been doing much adventuring recently. Mostly living off her riches and doing some meager work day-to-day to support a comfortable, if modest, lifestyle. Today, she wandered down to the local market to get some groceries, and noticed an interesting job posting.
"Help wanted! Strange Happenings in abandoned shack on outside of forest! Search party sent three days ago; has not returned! 15gp offered for information on going-ons, more negotiable if difficulties arise." The ink is still wet; this was posted sometime today. The contact written at the bottom, a portly dwarf woman, is nearby, in fact."
It's a portly dwarven woman, just as the post said. A scholar, it seems, if a bit clumsy. Ah, she just dropped a full mug of ale. She looks up at you, taken by your stature, and utters with a hint of awe, "Are... you here about that job posting?"
*Jherala nods "Indeed I am ma'am. Princess Jherala Rakursha, at your service. Is there anything else I should know before setting off to investigate what is going on in that abandoned shack? Perhaps you can tell me something about the previous search party?"
"Ah, yes." She looks down with a hint of sorrow. "Two men with a few scruples. Half-elves, I believe. Good with daggers. They seemed like the sort who would sell their mothers for a silver; so I figured they'd be more likely than anyone to return with their findings for a decent purse. Well, they never did, so I'm worried."
"I know little else, just that there have been a lot of dead livestock found near the shack."
*She nods "Guess I'll have to be careful then." and heads out, then prepares for the trip (p.s. she also has a hunting knife on her person, and the obligatory holy symbol)
You know the shack, it's pretty close by. Maybe a mile or so. After maybe ten minutes of walking, you find two rogues laying in an unused path, with blood everywhere. It seems there's a few fellows in robes, too -- all of them are dead of stab wounds. The robed men must be cultists; there's a bounty for them. Two silvers for a robe with those markings. Three of them are in the road. There might be other things to find, too.
She examines the bodies to see how they died -- were they sacrifice victims, or was this a battle? She is keeping one wary eye out for trouble while she's doing this, though...
Well, there's remarkably little of note. They're all pretty cut up; probably a battle. If you took all their things, you could probably walk away with five gold crowns easy. But hey, do you really want to disturb the bodies?
*She makes a mental note of the bodies "Seems like they went down fighting" and looks around warily for more before approaching the shack further, sword out
Nothing else is of note in this area. About fifteen minutes more, and you find the shack. Yeah, there are indeed a lot of goat corpses here. Probably twenty. But remarkably little blood on the ground. The smell of all these rotting animals is overpowering, th-- hold on. There was a muffled voice coming from that shack just now. Somebody sounds pretty frustrated.
*She listens closely to the voice, trying to listen in on whoever's talking and probably not paying that much attention to their surroundings out of frustration
On occasion, there's a second, more timid voice. Nearly impossible to hear. Is this just some hermit gone stark raving mad and talking to himself? Or is there a second person? Both seem pretty likely at this point.
*She thinks to herself "Hrm...at least one, good chance of two being in there. Only one way in or out though, unless someone were to make a door that is." and switches to her maul, trying the door, and readying a Command spell to Grovel at whoever has the more confident of the two voices if she gets in...
_You open the door with a loud creak. Two robed men are standing around a rusty-red circle on the floor -- and staring at you. Looks like one's been yelling at the other. He looks a good deal bigger. He begins to walk towards you, face concealed by the hood of the robe, while the other focuses on the circle, frantically. Roll initiative.
*Jherala, as soon as she enters, lets her eyes lock with the bigger and bolder of the two cultists, raising her holy symbol and speaking several words in her native Draconic followed by a simple "Grovel!" in the common tongue.
Jherala laughs with mirth at his attempt at contempt "And you think all that groveling is going to get you anything besides a collar around your neck with a chain leading to the hand of some fiendish master, walking you around like their pet dog, why?"
"Please, I'm a hell of a lot smarter than that! I know how to deal with them. I've dealt with a hell of a lot more than what this runt could." He's really mad now. "Boy! Hurry it up!"
(OOC sidenote -- this sort of thing would be far more...interesting with a higher-level Jherala as she'd be able to pull out her own Feylock stuff at about this point ;)
(sorry, SRD doesn't have all the stuff on her list)
*She then decides to go for broke here, chanting in Draconic again as her hammer writhes itself in vines (Ensnaring STrike) while she steps in, then goes for a swing at the bigger cultist
Jherala steps back and looks to the other cultist, then back to the first one "Pray tell just what are you trying to accomplish with your little summoning rite here?"
The cultist collapses to the ground. "HURRY UP, DAMMIT!" A curse under his breath, and he falls to the ground. The timid cultist collapses to his knees and slams his fists to the ground. The circle flashes and glows. Two demons rise! They stagger a bit from the strain of being summoned. Dretches!
New init: Timid Cultist > Jhelara > Dretch A > Dretch B
*Jherala falls back to the entrance, chanting in Draconic again as a faint aura radiates out over her from her holy symbol (Protection from Evil and Good)
The slightly tougher-looking dretch barks something at the other. They rush towards you and emit a fetid cloud. The larger one lunges at you, teeth gnashing and claws swinging!
*Jherala tries to block the bite with the haft of her hammer but is bit on the hand instead, letting out a low, draconic growl from the back of her throat (29/31 HP)
*Jherala hacks as the fetid air fills her lungs, gasping for breath as she is forced to poke her head outside mid-fight. She gets a lungful of fresh air though and steels herself, holding her holy symbol high as she chants in Draconic, symbol glowing brightly (Channel Divinity: Turn the Faithless)
The smaller demon rises and turns towards you. It holds a defensive position, anticipating another blow, as the larger limps back towards the circle. The cultist takes a quick but anxious swing.
*The aura begins to fade away as she loses her focus on the spell, growling from the bottom of her throat as she sidesteps, trying to line up as many foes as she can...(she wants at least 1 demon in line with the cultist if not both)
The cultist continues to nervously edge backwards, scimitar aimed at you. He remains silent, as far as you can tell, but his face momentarily catches the light and is revealed to be wincing in fear.
At this lack of reply, Jherala rears her head back in much the way you'd expect a dragon to, and then opens that big, toothy mouth wide, aiming straight for the cultist and the summoned dretch behind him. Several thousand volts crackle through ionized air as her body lets fly kiloamps of current into that channel with an accompanying BOOM!
The cultist, sword still pointed at you, takes the bolt like a lightning rod, leaving the demon behind him unaffected. He drops to his knees, arm outstretched and sword clattering on the floorboards, and falls forward. He is dead.
The larger dretch hurries its limpings to the circle. It grapples for the scattered herbs on the ground in a hurry. The smaller wretch, seeing your distraction, begins to charge!
@Papayaman1000 (I'm used to doing it in a rolled-tabletop context because a) most of the tables I'm at are fairly open about HP inference anyway, and b) most folks I play with don't RP out combat effects either)
The smaller dretch finally takes a hit! It's not bright, but it sees you're quite strong, even if a bit weakened. It starts to run towards the circle in apparent surrender.
*Jherala looks around at the bloody scene for a bit, trying to process things [and I checked it a few times -- an Oath of the Ancients Paladin would know a thing or two about demons, after all]
*Jherala then proceeds to erase the summoning circle carefully, scattering the herbs to the four winds before hanging her hammer back at her hip and taking the cultists' robes and valuables "To the victor go the spoils..."
"Both dead, felled in battle against the cultists. Took three of the cultists with them though. I can go back and fetch their bodies if you wish them a proper burial, at least."
"Oh, that'll be unnecessary. Here, I'll give you 30 gold crowns for your troubles -- er, could you accept some of that in Electrum? -- and send you on your way. You did a great service for this town. In fact... BARKEEP! Give this fine woman a room for the night and a warm meal on me! She took care of that shack on the edge of the woods!"
The barkeep swivels towards the woman, and looks at you. He nods gladly. "I'll see to it she's treated tonight. Go sell those robes and I'll have something waiting for you on your return."
[alright -- feedback? thoughts? concerns? I can definitely tell that your playstyle as a DM is a bit more entropic and opaque than mine -- I'm probably one of the most transparent DMs most folks will meet, as I go as far as forgoing the DM screen when in-person even. I want the table on the same page regarding game-state.
The scenario was fairly well thought out for a basic minor-demon-cult-knockdown. The NPC reactions were fairly well played, too
@Papayaman1000 You could have avoided that if you played the cultists to delay Jherala until the demons were summoned. Dodge, Disarm, Shove, just delaying tactics
Another thing about not rolling for Command: 1. There's this big buff --- cheeto puff --- self-confident pissy cultist who don't take no orders 2. In that situation the command would probably be pretty directly harmful
@Papayaman1000 idk? See, I'm summoning some demons, took hours to summon before those meddling rogues came in and disrupted us, took down half our group. Now this happens... I don't want the summoning to be interrupted again. Upon trying to simply murder the guy, it turns out he's not a wuss, he's actually really strong, if I'm stubborn and don't change tactics I'll die.
@Shalvenay I like that bit, but that's just me. Personally like it when in my games, I describe how the creature makes the attack, and the player narrates how it hits/misses.
@daze413 Yeah, I kinda like how the Timid one turned out. I was trying to hint that he didn't want this fight but was to scared to say anything, but hey whatevs [if I really wanted that to be uber-apparent I'd have just said it]
@Papayaman1000 I feel like in a real game, players would be trying to talk out of this fight. Or at least intimidate the timid one after the bold one dies.
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