The Copper Piece Gang

D&D Session Summary

This session began with the party still working their way toward the Scarlet Citadel, though not before Nucky handled some Red Tower business at the Cage tavern. He had already started turning the place into his personal branding opportunity. He negotiated some ownership-adjacent terms, built on his growing local popularity, and pushed further into the tavern’s bookkeeping mess by looking for the rumored second ledger. He did not find it, but he did make enough progress that his relationship with the tavern and its profits clearly remained an ongoing side plot. Once that business was settled, he rejoined the group as they headed into the woods toward the Citadel.

The trip out immediately felt wrong. The forest grew darker as they advanced, and the normal animal presence seemed thin or absent. The group got the sense that something unhealthy was moving through the land, like a dark ley-line pulse underground. They were not just traveling through ordinary woods anymore. They were walking into a region where the environment itself felt disturbed.

The first environmental obstacle was a nasty briar growth the party had already been warned about. Because they had prior knowledge, they got through it better than they might have otherwise, though Selganth still got snagged badly enough to remind everyone that the woods were not going to let them pass quietly. Beyond that came one of the session’s most delightful bits of problem-solving: a patch of vibrant flowers hanging from vines that bloomed in response to movement and released poisonous pollen when disturbed. To make matters worse and better at the same time, there was a beehive nearby with valuable honey close to the flowers.

Naturally, the group wanted the honey.

The solution they came up with was peak D&D. Jacob planned to use frost on the flowers to slow the release of the pollen. Selganth wanted to get an invisible creature or magical assistance in there to retrieve the honey. Nucky cast Friends on a bee. Somehow, through the combination of that social absurdity and Selganth’s teleportation or swapping power, Selganth successfully traded places with the now-friendly bee, grabbed the honey, and got moved back out before the poisonous flowers fully punished them. The result was three uses of dangerous poison honey, apparently nasty enough to force repeated endurance checks and eat away at healing surges if someone inhaled or consumed it. The whole scene felt like an elaborate heist built around bees, toxins, and one very cooperative insect diplomat.

From there the group pressed deeper and soon heard an owlbear. It sounded larger than the one they had dealt with before, which was exactly the sort of information nobody wants in a forest full of dark magic. Zarnak moved ahead to scout, climbed a tree, and spotted ruins through the woods. The ground around them suggested a larger structure beneath the surface, and the owlbear seemed to have made its nest in or near those ruins. The party decided to try a stealthy approach rather than charge straight into that problem.

That stealth plan almost worked.

They moved up carefully toward the ruins and circled toward a second opening, trying to avoid the owlbear’s direct line of sight. Zarnak used cracks in the wall and old arrow-slit style openings to watch what was happening inside. At one point he threw a rock over the wall to draw the beast’s attention away from the path the group wanted to use. Unfortunately, the nest was much closer than expected, effectively right at Zarnak’s feet, and the owlbear was not quite stupid enough to stay fooled forever. Between rock-throwing, movement, and general tension, the whole thing eventually slipped into open danger.

Once the owlbear was alerted, the plan turned into a desperate scramble. The group ran through or around the nest area trying to reach higher ground or the hidden access point before the beast caught them. Several failed athletics checks made that much worse. The owlbear nearly killed Zarnak in the rush and started mauling through the group’s plans with exactly the kind of enthusiasm an owlbear should have. Zarnak managed to get to a better position and shoot it. Rae brought down part of the ruined wall at one point, which altered movement and visibility in the area. Selganth tried speaking to the creature telepathically, making it clear that the party did not actually want to harm it. That seemed to matter, but only for Selganth. The rest of the party still looked like lunch.

The fight turned into a running, improvised retreat. The owlbear threw someone into a tree, grabbed Nucky, and generally made a case for why people do not usually choose to fight these things in ruined nests unless they are being paid well or are profoundly stupid. Zarnak used rocks from his crossbow or sling to blind and distract it. Rae got a rope to an ally trapped in a tree. Jacob shot the owlbear in the leg to slow it, which bought a crucial moment. Eventually the group found the only smart answer available: they escaped down a hidden hole into the ruins below.

Even that retreat did not come cleanly. The party jumped down while still shooting at the owlbear through the opening and arrow slits, badly bloodied it, and sent it into a full berserk rage. Once the beast could not reach them, it tore up the upper ruins in anger and would apparently stay enraged for a long time. That meant the group was safe for the moment, but trapped below with the knowledge that a giant furious owlbear still owned the upper exits.

The hidden route led the party into the Scarlet Citadel proper through what they quickly determined was the harpies’ old nesting area. The stairs stank of blood, feathers, and rot. There were harpy feathers everywhere, and the fortified door and dwarven carvings suggested this upper ruin had once been built to keep things out, not just hold things in. The harpies were not there right now, which the group accepted as a blessing, and they collected useful feathers on the way down.

The stairs themselves were trapped, because of course they were. One step was covered in extra bones and debris, and Rae managed to trigger a tripwire that launched bolts or arrows into the group. It was a nasty but survivable introduction to the interior. Once everyone got downstairs, they found a room with a battered shield, a blood-streaked sword, six candlesticks, and clear signs that someone had been tortured there. Fake drag marks led from the table toward a door, and the amount of blood and scuffing made it obvious that people had been tied down, abused, and dragged elsewhere.

The group explored cautiously from there. One room revealed hanging chains, dangling bodies, and the nastiest hook suspended over a hole, with only someone’s severed hands and wrists left on it. The party took one look at that and did the smartest thing possible by immediately backing out. Another hallway led them to a block of cells where they found two wounded prisoners: a female human and a man the party jokingly referred to as some version of Ichabod. Both had been tortured and were unconscious or barely conscious. Zarnak managed to unlock the man’s cage, but not the woman’s.

When the man came around, he told them enough to confirm what sort of monster they were dealing with. Something had jumped him, dragged him here, made fake tracks to hide its movements, and tied him to a chair. His captor spoke another language and beat him no matter how he answered. He was terrified, desperate to get out, and absolutely certain that the thing holding the dungeon below was a maniac. Unfortunately, because the enraged owlbear still controlled the upper route, the party could not safely escort him out. So they made the grim but practical choice to knock him back out and continue exploring rather than drag a screaming traumatized prisoner through an owlbear choke point.

That decision led them deeper into the complex. They found stairs that connected back up toward the owlbear nest and another room clearly used regularly by someone. There was a worn sweat-spot on the floor where something or someone slept, a key hanging on a peg, and a concealed cache hidden in mismatched stone. Inside the cache was wool and a delicate elven brooch made with silver, mithral wire, and only two of its original five gems still intact. The group correctly read it as a family or coming-of-age item, likely meaningful to whoever had been hiding it. This was their first solid hint that the dungeon’s inhabitant was not just a random brute, but someone with a life, history, and maybe even attachments.

The next chamber pushed the tone back toward pure ugliness. A jammed and sunken door led toward moisture, mud, and a partially collapsed area the group did not want to force open for fear of bringing the ceiling down. Nearby was a room with a pool of murky water and a long plank fitted with straps for waterboarding. Rae or another party member cut the straps to prevent it from being used again, which immediately triggered a watery creature erupting from the pool and launching a surprise attack.

That fight turned weird in a hurry. The first watery creature got embarrassed, shoved around, and bloodied in ways that made the table treat it almost like it had social damage on top of physical damage. After the first one went down, a second showed up, this one apparently icy or altered somehow, prompting jokes about “slippery baby” energy and more mockery while the group beat it down. The whole encounter had a very different flavor from the owlbear panic or the grim torture chamber. It was shorter, stranger, and weirdly comedic despite taking place in a literal drowning room.

Once the watery creatures were gone, the group could finally reach the chamber beyond the sunken door route. There they found a giant rat-shaped deity or demon statue, old candles, and large gem eyes set in the idol. Someone at the table tried to name the thing, mangling the name badly enough that the session more or less canonized the joke version for a while. The important part was that the room smelled of chemical fumes, strongly enough that the party backed off from stealing the gems right away. Between the gas smell and everything else they had already survived, they wisely decided not to poke that room any further yet.

By the end of the session, the group had crossed a darkly corrupted forest, pulled off one of the best bee-related honey thefts in tabletop history, barely escaped a larger owlbear by diving into the ruins below, discovered the Scarlet Citadel’s filthy upper levels, triggered traps, found evidence of torture and murder, rescued one prisoner but failed to free another, uncovered clues pointing to the jailer’s personal history, fought ridiculous water-creatures in a waterboarding room, and reached a rat-god shrine full of fumes and ominous treasure. It was the kind of session that started with poison flowers and ended in a dungeon full of hooks, prisoners, and eldritch rodent theology.

Quick Recap

• Nucky handled tavern business at the Cage, expanded his local influence, and looked for the rumored second ledger again.
• The party entered the woods toward the Scarlet Citadel and immediately noticed the forest felt wrong, with missing animal activity and a dark ley-line pulse.
• They got through a briar patch, then solved a poisonous flower-and-beehive obstacle by magically befriending a bee and swapping Selganth in to steal poison honey.
• The group ended up with three uses of nasty poison honey that could strip healing surges from anyone who breathed or ate it.
• Zarnak scouted the ruins ahead and discovered a larger owlbear nesting near or inside them.
• The party tried stealth, rock-throwing, and distraction, but eventually alerted the owlbear and had to flee through the ruins.
• The owlbear nearly killed Zarnak, grabbed Nucky, and forced a desperate retreat into a hidden hole leading below.
• The group escaped into the Scarlet Citadel while continuing to shoot at the owlbear, sending it into a berserk rage above them.
• Inside, they found the harpies’ old nesting area, trapped stairs, and a torture room with a blood-streaked sword, shield, and signs of dragged victims.
• One room revealed hanging bodies and a hook over a hole with only severed hands left on it.
• In the cell block, they found two tortured prisoners, managed to free only one, and learned their captor made fake tracks and spoke another language.
• The party found a hidden cache with an elven brooch and clues that the dungeon’s inhabitant had a personal history and attachments.
• They fought two weird watery creatures in a waterboarding room, one of which got mocked nearly to death.
• The session ended at a giant rat-deity shrine with gem eyes and chemical fumes, where the party wisely decided not to get greedy yet.