Burning Witch Session #71- Ghost Gulch

 It took a lot of labor but the treasure hunting quartet of Crannoc, Fancy, GaWoosh, and Phasmo were able to get out cart loads of treasure from the Tomb of the Third Warden. To recuperate from delve into the Tomb (here in Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4), the group spent some downtime in Soot Hill where they stayed at the old Woosh Stead. Crannoc and Phasmo tried their hand at mushroom hunting in the nearby hills with mixed results. Fancy trained Phasmo's horse Cadmium to come when called with a special whistle. GaWoosh began to study the song written on the blade of his magical dagger with his father, PaWoosh. During this time, the party came into the company of a local druid named Hirsch who decided to join them in their travels south from Soothill.

The group decided to travel by the old imperial road that runs through Sourwood Marsh to avoid possible run ins with the blood drinking raiders that plague the region's water ways. They quickly found out from the locals of Soot Hill that ghosts plagued groups of travelers headed that way. PaWoosh reported that the haints' activity centered around the nearby Ghost Gulch. The group decided to leave the retainer Lirazil and the hireling Palla behind with Fancy's two dogs and their continent of crossbowmen to guard the treasure. The remaining group that rode out to Ghost Gulch included:

• Fancy Jean-Yves Beauvollier (Level 5 Bard)
• Peaches (Level 3 Thief retainer)
• Freedom (Sapient Cat)
• Smokey Proag (Level 2 Halfling hireling)
• GaWoosh (Level 4 Gnome)
• Hirsch (Level 1 Druid)
• Journeyman Crannoc (Level 4 Magic-User)
• Uscha (fey servitor)
• Spike (war dog)
• Phasmo (Level 4 Magic-User)
• Cadmium (Horse)

I will let the entry from Fancy's journal written by his player Josh take it away from there:

Now that our party, consisting of myself, Fancy, and Phasmo, Crannoc, Gawoosh, Peaches, Lirazel, and introducing Hirsch the druid, (and others) has concluded our (very profitable indeed) map-quest, we find our selves with a new dilemma; how do we haul all of this bulky loot back to Orm?

During our moving preparations we were reminded that transportation may not be the most difficult of our problems to tackle as there remains rumors of vampiric river-raiders and “jealous ghosts” that assail travelers attempting to leave Soothill with loot. We decided that the river could be avoided but some ghostbusting may be in order.

After some discussion of various duplicitous plots designed to draw out or misdirect the faux spectres, we decided instead to investigate their rumored haunting grounds, Ghost gulch. Approaching the gulch, we found gnomish footprints, freshly minted, so Hirsch and Peaches were turned invisible by our party and crept into the gulch, avoiding and marking traps while scouting ahead. They shortly discovered a campfire surrounded by shortly-statured humanoids whitened with flour; a dozenish gnomes and a dwarf with a weird eye. As it turns out, the dwarf could see the invisible scouts with his weird eye so Peaches and Hirsch fled while they were stymied by Hirsch’s entanglement spell. The pair led the little rascals back to the rest of the party whom lay in wait.

The bandits tragically charged into the worst possible situation imaginable; a party full of magically capable adventurers that have been itching to cast an assortment of mind-effecting spells after being denied the opportunity to do so in an undead filled dungeon for the last month. The battle was over instantly as the entire gang of miscreants found themselves comatose, entangled by flora, and bound by magical forces before they could react. With the exception of the dwarf, whom wore a red beard as well as his weird metal eye and bragged about being wanted for murder (aren’t we all kinda wanted for murder), but he fell victim to the backup sleep spell. After the brief altercation. I made friends with the goats they were riding and they are now helping to pull a wagon back to Orm as I write this entry.

Afterwards, we entered their sweaty cave-hideout and retrieved an assortment of trade goods to add to our pile of booty while clearing out the remaining hoodlums and the bound bandits were delivered to the gnomes of Soothill to face “gnomish justice”, whatever that means.

P.S. The redbearded dwarf seemed to stir some sort of memories for some of us… maybe some relation to Bors Redbeard?

The party returned with surviving bandits in tow. They turned the outlaws over to the gnomes of Soothill. As a reward, local Crimson Cast allowed the party to keep the trade goods found in the raider camp rather than returning them to their owners. In addition, the party has given the Soothill Shovel (which can be presented in Soothill for free room and board whenever visiting Soothill). The group then purchased two carts and 4 mules from Soothill for 320gp before heading south. Along the road, they only encountered the remains of a raid. The rest of the two day trip back to Orm was uneventual.

Treasure

• 6,000sp
• 10 sq. yards of wool worth 60gp
• 100 moonchook mushrooms worth 100gp
• 50 lbs. of coal worth 500gp
• A case of Soothill Shine worth 300gp
• 5 domestic goats worth 1gp ea.
• 12 lbs. of silver worth 60gp
• A scroll in a bone case
• The 'Steeleye"
• The Shovel of Soothill (made of silver) worth 500gp

Experiences Points

• 2125xp from treasure
• Steeleye Redbeard captured 125xp
• Ralf Borrower killed 20xp
• Ruff Borrower captured 20xp
• Gnome bandits defeated 8 x 16xp
• Wargoat mounts charmed 6 x 25xp

Player Character Cut

• 1,000sp ea. (500sp to Peaches)
• 513xp ea. (256xp to Peaches)

All the trade goods except the silver can be sold with the use of a Find the Right Buyer downtime. Write-ups, drawings, or maps from the session are worth PC Level x 100xp. Let me know of any other downtime activities anyone would like to make.