Kingmaker: Stolen Land, Session 1

A motley band of 1st-level characters has been assembled by agents of the Swordlords of Restov to map the Greenbelt to the south, and to bring the bandits of the area to justice! The groups consists of:

* Iofur, a human druid of Gozreh, the child of a pair of (non-evil) bandits who once plied their trade in the area

* Satampra Zieros, a human rogue, a boastful swordsman from a far-away land

* Travaris Stone, a half-elf cleric of Cayden Cailean, the bastard son of a Brevoy nobleman

* Halas Halasin, a human Inquisitor, scion of a noble family who helped their halfling slaves rebel

* Salar, a halfling ranger, a scout and hunter and one of the aforementioned slaves

* Mestinous, an elven wizard, about whom not much is known

The PCs met on the road and made their way to Oleg’s Trading Post, the lone bastion of civilization in the Greenbelt. At the trading post, they met Oleg and his wife Svetlana, and listened to their tale of woe. Bandits come every month to steal all of their trade goods and money! The group resolved to help, which is lucky since the bandits were scheduled to arrive at the next sunrise!

After some brainstorming, they decide to poison Oleg’s wine, let the bandits take everything, and follow them back to their camp. Iofur identifies a local herb that, when added to alcohol, will make the imbiber drowsy. This obviously called for some DM adjudication – it was a cool idea, so I wanted to encourage it, even though the rules don’t really cover harvesting poisons from the landscape. I had Iofur’s player roll a Knowledge (nature) check, and he got a 19 when I had set the DC in my head at 20. Instead of saying no, I downgraded what I was planning on giving them (a poison that would put the drinker to sleep) with something that had a lesser effect. And so wolf thistle was born!

As evening approached, the group split up. Travaris and Halas went out into the fields surrounding Oleg’s to look for some wolf thistle, while the rest of the group struck out blindly in search of a hermit herbalist who, Oleg had told them, lived nearby. They thought he might have some, and weren’t sure how far away he lived. While the hermit was not found, that group did find some wolf thistle on their way back to Oleg’s, which was fortunate, since Travaris and Halas had no clue what they were looking for.

Next: the bandits attack!