In which our heroes trace various threads only to find that all trails ultimately lead in one direction…
After finding themselves openly in defiance of the Lord Protector, the Wildlings decided to retreat to the Forge base in the swamp to take shelter and sort out their next steps. They still wanted to help the People and the Giants, but they didn’t know where the Giants “Bad Place” was and they wanted to avoid the City and lay low for a bit before directly assaulting a Dominion Fort for the Priestess. Helping the Forge secure their position in the Swamp seemed like just the thing to do in the meantime.
Hasdrubal’s first request was to see what they could do about a Dryad Queen who had been attacking anyone who ventured too close to her territory in the swamp. He wasn’t sure what had set her off, but she hadn’t been a problem in the past. They asked if he intended them to kill her, and he responded that he just wanted to stop losing people.
The Dryad Queen’s domain apparently centered around a large, ancient tree. Anyone camping nearby never returned. Hasdrubal didn’t know of a way to contact her directly beyond setting camp in the area. But Will was a bit more versed in the ways of the Fey.Unfortunately, it appeared that this Dryad Queen – and her entourage – had been thoroughly corrupted and were quite insane. Will had met Badlands Dryads before – Dryads twisted by the chaotic magic of the Badlands. This seemed… beyond that. The Dryad Queen assaulted them with raging storms and lightning from afar, while her kin unleashed vines to tie them down. Glory, Dawn, and Will did their best to engage the Dryads at range while struggling against the magical assault.
Blaze, however, drew the ability to teleport from the deck of chance in this fight, and the Dryad Queen soon found that all her efforts to keep him at bay were quite in vain.
Hasdrubal sympathized. This wasn’t the ideal outcome, but there was nothing more they could have done. His next request was simpler. The Rebellion had made overtures to negotiate an alliance with the Forge. He wanted the Wildlings to escort a few of his representatives to a meeting to work out the details of final negotiations. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust the Rebellion.On the way to the rendezvous point they were ambushed by suspiciously well armed bandits. Bandits who appeared to know exactly where they were going and when they would be coming….
But well-armed or not, they had no backup sufficient to deal with the Wildlings burgeoning magical firepower.
The Rebels denied all knowledge of the ambush. The Forge’s representatives insisted the final negotiations happen at the Rebellion’s home base – as show of trust. Revealing their base’s location would demonstrate that they were serious. The Rebel representatives couldn’t agree immediately, but promised to take the proposal to their own leader.
After returning, they filled in Hasdrubal on what had happened. Afterwards, the Forge Quartermaster approached them to ask a for a favor. It seems a scouting party had not returned from investigating an old ruin, and the Quartermaster’s cousin was among the missing. They agreed to check things out and see what had happened
They initially ran into a raiding party of orcs led by a shaman in the entrance, but a quick examination found no other exits from the initial antechamber. But when they turned to leave, they found that what had been their entrance now lead into a twisting series hallways!They came upon a double doorway seemingly leading to two entirely different locations through the same passage. From one side it appeared to lead down to a river-side dock, while from the other it lead into a large library…They entered through the river side first, and were ambushed by skeletal sorcerers, knights, and archers. This initially caused some difficulty, as the heavily armored knights prevented them from reaching the sorcerer and archers ensconced behind heavy cover. Then Blaze realized that heavily armored skeletal knights are *terrible* swimmers…. and promptly started bowling them off the docks to sink into the waters.
“Hey Dawn-y, how come you never told me this shield thing could be so much fun?“.After clearing out the skeletons and discovering a runic “switch”, they returned to the room-with-two-gates and entered the library. In the library they were attacked by an archmage and his henchmen, but the close quarters made it easy for Will and Blaze to reach the archmage before he could do too much damage.The library stretched on in all directions seemingly forever, and they quickly found themselves coming upon the remains of their battle with the archmage from various directions even when making a concerted effort not to double back. Eventually Glory realized that some of the books were concealed triggers to manipulate the door portals, and they began to make more progress.They found the remains of the scouting party, which had apparently perished trying to find their way out… But the Wildlings were more fortunate and were able to find the combination of triggers to escape and return to the Forge outpost with the bad news.They were finally prepared to raid the Dominion fortress holding the confiscated food shipment for the People of the City. They approached under cover of darkness, but quickly saw that they would be unable to sneak out with that size cargo. So an assault it was to be.
They decided to try the same “strategy” that had evolved in their last outpost assault. Will would sneak in to be ready to disrupt from within, while Blaze charged the gates and Dawn and Glory besieged the battlements. As an actual plan rather than a last minute improvisation it worked quite well. The outpost was not heavily defended, and the supplies were soon secure.
Shortly afterwards Priestess Reya and some of her compatriots showed up to begin transporting and distributing the food. She had one more request for them. Apparently the Lord Protector had a secret compound to which some of his prisoners disappeared. He used to visit it regularly, but had not in some time. She wanted them to find the compound and rescue the prisoners.
Back at the Forge Outpost, they learned that the Rebellion had accepted Hasdrubal’s terms. They wanted to meet to formally to negotiate an alliance. Hasdrubal wanted the Wildlings as personal protection for this delicate mission. The negotiations were initially tense, as each faction had reason to suspect the other had been sabotaging operations. But upon hearing the accusations, and putting two and two together, Will had a realization. Samko Flint, the agent at the Forge outpost who had first sent them to meet with the Masks, had also been working for the Rebellion… They pointed this out to both leaders, noting that Samko’s true allegiance was likely the Masks – and that intentionally sowing distrust between other organizations would be just the Mask’s style.. This revelation helped cement the deal, and both leaders vowed to thoroughly investigate Samko…
When they returned to the Forge outpost, they learned that Hasdrubal’s scouts had located a heavily fortified Dominion facility hidden deep in the swamp. From the descriptions the Wildlings realized that this was both the compoaund Priestess Reya wanted them to infiltrate *and* the Giant’s “Bad Place”… Whatever was going on there appeared to hold many secrets… And that would be their next target.
6 responses to “The Lost Valley: Forging Alliances”
atcDave
A lot to like here, and wow you put up a lot of renders!
But the bonkers dryad was amazing, I also really like the orc shaman.
And I love how you show magical energy from your casters, the action scenes just scream massive amounts of magic at play.
Sometimes my process generates a lot of good stuff and I can’t narrow it down to just one good image. So I don’t. 😉
The dryad basically came from me feeding game art to ChatGPT image analysis and then giving that description (heavily edited) back to Copilot. That’s my go-to when I just can’t figure out how to get what I want.
I’ll have to do an AI page on magic at some point. This crew is more magic heavy than I usually run. And Glory is far more geared to fireworks than the control-geared casters I usually play. Even Dawn pulls out more offense than any cleric I’ve ever run. Definitely makes for a different style of play.
I’ve done something similar with OpenArt’s “enhance” feature. Is that ChatGPT or something else? Anyway, it’s funny, I’ve concluded it’s worthless when you’re working with a model. But it has some value for copying over to Co-Pilot!
And it told me this:
“A humanoid creature with a body resembling tree bark or hardened organic material.
The figure is slender, with an elongated and elegant form.
The head has sharp, branch-like protrusions extending backward, giving it a natural yet alien appearance.
The eyes glow a bright pink or purple, contrasting with the earthy tones of its body.”
Most fun was Blaze going skeleton bowling. Discovered it purely by accident because he has an optional knock-back effect. Then when he happened to be facing the right direction to toss that first skelly in the water he just cut loose do the others. Solasta”s environments really contribute to interesting combat sometimes – and not in forced ways. It’s not a “puzzle” where you have to do it to win. It’s just naturally available tactics falling out of having 3D mean something.
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