Part 6 - Two Paths

Will the PCs go with the prankster twins, or the spore druid?

SESSION 5

ICYMI: Previous session, session 1

Expected play time: 2 hours

#of players: 3-6

Session goal: Scout ahead of the main body of gnomes with one of two different scouting parties. Report back to Tamir Monsoon with the results.

GM Prep: As the campaign progresses, more and more micro-choices of how to run your session should reflect the PCs choices. We’re trying to help you run a campaign here, so this is the blueprint. It’s up to you as GM to do the building and decorating. That is - have dialogue that reflects the PCs personalities appropriately, refers to campaign events, and incorporates other bits of your own meta that you’ve established in getting this far.

In the previous sessions, the party should have established relationships with several of the gnomes. Now they will choose who to go with based on those relationships.

You’ll want to take a look at everyone’s character sheet again so you know their passive perceptions. Don’t tell them that’s why you’re doing it.

The trickster twins, Seeler & Deeler, will head one scout team. The spore druid Marit Gloomglow will lead the other, with her second Fishback going with that group as well. 

The twins’ path will travel through Phase Spider hunting grounds, opening up potential side quests involving hunting phase spiders in the future. This is more bad news for the gnomes, as phase spiders hunt giant spiders. Think of them like the giant version of Portia spiders.

Phase spider, official 5e art.

Marit’s path will be “more of the same” of the campaign so far. The group will scale a nearby hill, hopefully using their stealth skills, eventually fighting some tougher goblinoids than they’ve had to deal with so far.

Both groups will garner the same key intelligence: There is a hill giant clan working with the goblins. This will necessitate rushing back to Tamir to launch an immediate assault on the giants’ positions.

This is from one of the fantastic Loke Battlemaps flip books. We use this map in the first branch explored here.

Paizo flip mat. This one is good for the second fork discussed here.

Official D&D battle map. This one is nice and clear, we have used it more often in the second fork here.

These are the maps we use for these paths. Notice that they are 3 different maps from 3 different publishers. If you find maps that work for you, these specific maps (as always) are not required. There are many places to find maps online, and theater of the mind, as always, is great.