The hatchling dragon they found last session in the abandonned dwarven brewery is now officially a member of the party. The adorable beast is horse-sized, with wings too weak to fly for the moment and it eats like ten men. How fast does a dragon grow is now a subject of heated debate over here…

2 hours session

Featuring Path of Glory’s main dungeon: The Gates of Power.

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

• Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
• Jedri, Ratman Thief, rather likes his curse (Isaac)
• Bumwild, Gnome Mage, wants to become a summoner (Isaac)
• Torch, Goblin Knight, fanatically loyal to Forka, (Edmond)
• Letraquan, Human Necromancer, has a talking, evil sword (Edmond)
• Brondrack, Hatchling Dragon, rescued from the dungeon (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

• Green Imps: info gathering in Longfelt
• The Protectors: leisure in Longfelt
• Widowmakers: training new recruits in Gunderholfen
• The Musers: training in Longfelt
• The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

Main Goal for this session: explore the area beyond the Halls of Council in the Gates of Power.

Gunderholfen

• Dragon in tow, the Battle Brothers leave the City of the Stonemasons and the dungeon altogether to get back in town. Travel through the swamp and farmlands is uneventful.

Longfelt and Cyril’s farm

• The city guards at the gates are alarmed when they see a dragon, young or not. The Battle Brothers try to convince the captain to let it in but to no avail.
• Still outside the gates, they see some refugees, peasants displaced by the expanding Ganfal Swamp. There’s one they know, Cyril, with his family. This gives an idea to Aracyne, he offers to purchase Cyril’s farm. Cyril is overjoyed with this opportunity, even at discount price as he had written off his property entirely.
• The Battle Brothers split up, with some of them going with the dragon at their newly-purchased lot.
• Aracyne hires lumberjacks to cut trees and build a palissade.
• He talks a bit to Maeve at the Hare & Hound inn to get recent news about rival guilds.
• Grimoire trains his healing magic at the Temple of Persephone, helping and learning at the same time.
• Trimbo goes to a locksmith for the metal chest they found a bit earlier. It takes several hours to open, the lock was good – there’s five pink potions, an headband and ruby inside the chest.
• Some more shopping and item identifying and they’re good to go. They all join up at their newly-acquired Dragon Ranch, make themselves home and then the next day, leave for Gunderholfen.

Ganfal Swamp

• They encounter a Calydon, a fire-breathing dire boar. Aracyne hurts it with two good arrows. Jedri evades the charging monster. Grimoire hurts it further with a supecharged Fire Blast (half damage) and Letraquan, protected from a tusk attack by Torch’ shield, slashes the Calydon’s flank with his evil 2-h sword. Brondrack the dragon jumps on the boar monster and finishes it with savage claw attacks on its neck. Calydon meat seems to please the dragon very much. (two fire breaths per stretch/combat until next day instead of one).

Gunderholfen – Gates of Power

• The Battle Brothers go through Level 1 without any incidents. They reach the dwarven elevator and go inside the Gates of Power to the City of Stonemasons once more, going through the Halls of Council to reach the stairs at the eastern end.
• They go down (sub-level) and enter a vast room with Grimoire’s light spell not reaching the ceiling and only revealing a small part of the place it seemed. There’s two set of double-doors and also close by, a whole building that fitted easily inside the room.
• They approach the building and see two corpses near a door. Hobgoblins with several jagged spikes piercing their bodies.
• They enter the building, it’s a dilapidated library with the content mostly ruined. Someone’s been there recently-ish though and has left a paper among unfolded maps, a drawing of subterranean lake with notes on inhabitants and dangers and, on the other side, a drawing of the Scepter of Harvest.
• Leaving the library behind, the party sees some debris and statues further south but now hears something too far to be seen by torchlight, something heavy with claws clicking on the stone ground. At the same moment Jedri, whom has superior low-light vision, spots a large shape above gliding towards them from the east. The ratman yells just before a volley of spikes falls among them. The ratman’s awareness saves the group from the brunt of the projectiles attack, with only the dragon being hit (and making its save vs poison).
• The Battle Brothers dash to the stairs behind them, that’s only a strategic retreat of course!

Closing comments:

• I like the idea of the Dragon Ranch that the boys came up with. A good solution for keeping a dragon pet with them.
• The Calydon monster isn’t a weak monster at all and they dispatched it in one round. Didn’t have time to do its more dangerous attacks.The party is quite strong now (even without a dragon), I have to revise what I thought early on about characters scaling up in Dragonbane.