Dungeon World Campaign: Scurvy - Adventure 9

Adventure 9: The Halfling Pipeleaf Tourist Trap

Campaign Notes

Recap

Player Characters:

Mike as Z - the swashbuckling scoundrel vampire

Stephen as Geralt Darkstar - the cursed pirate alchemist

The party arrived at the village of Jungdella, known for it's vast Halfing pipeleaf farms, and were immediately greeted by the sight of an immense market filled with all kinds of useless gris-gris, pushy salesmen, and dazed sailors stumbling about paying far too much for everything.

"We're on a mission to stop a god," Z says, as he pushed his way through the market, "An ex-lover of mine named, Famn, lives up around here someplace. I think she works out in the fields though. Did I ever tell you about the seasons I spent here, Geralt?"

"Only every night when you lit up after dinner since we started heading toward this island. I'll be grateful if you get some new stories out of this adventure." Geralt said shaking his head, memories of the fiasco with Z's last ex-lover still fresh in Geralt's mind.

Z took Geralt on a tour of the village on the way to the fields, showing him the residential area where he'd stayed at one point and commenting about how nothing had changed, at least he didn't think it had, but he couldn't remember exactly.

"Onward! HuHA!" Z shouted as they arrived at the edge of the fields.

The party passed rows upon rows of plants in various stages of growth. Each stage had a group of farmers tending it exclusively, passing plants that moved to the next stage on to the next group of farmers.

"She worked on the big plants, so she'll be in the back," Z said as they headed down the rows. They questioned the first farmer they saw in the area and he directed them down a row of tall and dense plants.

After a short trip, Z stopped them both mid-step, "Don't move. I saw that cluster of vines move."

The two looked down to see they had walked into the tangle of a sleeping assassin vine.

"Don't worry I got this, " Geralt said, and almost immediate stumbled, he managed to fall into the  plants instead of on the vine.

Z laughed quietly at Geralt's blunder, "HuHA!," then immediately tripped on the vines , before launching himself into more of the rows plants to ineffectively avoid waking the creature.

It rose as a tangle of vines and leaves that formed a center mass with countless thorny tentacle like branches that moved as it's limbs. It slashed out an attack at Geralt, who dodged narrowly. 

Geralt poisoned his blade and launched a return attack at the viney mass. He barely scraped it, but the poison slowed down some of it's tentacles. He tried for another attack, but missed and opened himself to the creature's wrath. It tore his arm from his cursed body as if it hadn't been attached in the first place; throwing the arm in one direction and Geralt in another.

Z watching this, called on the power of his silken sister tattoo to turn his saliva into a sleeping venom. He vaulted off the nearest tentacle, grabbed a viney growth, bit it to deliver his poison, back flipped between Geralt and the beast, and slashed wildly at it with his sword. Chopping anything that didn't fall asleep and then chopping the parts that had fallen asleep.

Geralt spots an approaching crowd. He gathered up his still living arm and tied it to his back for safe keeping. The people all speak a language that the party doesn't understand.

"You didn't pick up any of their language while you were here all those seasons?" Geralt asked as he warily eyed the growing group of angry farmers that seemed very upset about their plants being demolished.

"It never came up. I was distracted," Z said as he shrugged and began to reach slowly for his blade.

"Z? What are you doing here?" a woman's voice from among many of the angry farmers.

"Famn?" Z said relieved, "Oh you know, just saving the farm from a deadly assassin vine, then getting accused of stuff I didn't do. You know the usual."

Famn looked at him slightly confused, bark still around his mouth and in his teeth from biting the vine. Z explained the party's quest and mission to stop a cult from waking a sleeping god. The farmers all dispersed after a few quick words from Famn.

She lead the party back to her hut to be healed, but they politely turned down her offer. Explaining they were fine, despite Geralt's arm having been removed and strapped to his back. If it weren't for their history together, she would have let the farmers deal with...whatever they were.

She took them to the village witch doctor. A strange man who lived in the bow of an old pirate ship that had been planted in the ground near several similar, but far less impressive than the witch doctor's. He had two dwarven helpers that mostly kept his large hookah packed with the Halfing pipeleaf and showed guests in to see him.

Through a cloud of smoke he had a dark vision about their quest, but Famn urged him to aid the party for her sake. The sleeping god could not be allowed to wake and they were the only ones volunteering to try to stop it form happening. He made them swear on whatever was left of their lives that they would follow through with this quest or suffer dire consequences. He marked them both with his smoke magic to keep them honest in their quest. Reluctantly he finally agreed to help and gave the party instructions on how to find the lost village and suggested they set out at dawn.

The first thing the party did was tried to rally the villagers to help them in their quest. They went to the market early and tried their damnedest with fiery speeches about evil destroying the world. No one in the village seemed to care though, only Famn volunteered to go with them to help them in their quest.

They set out with Z in the lead. Confident he could lead them there. Midway through the day they not only realized they had been going in circles, but ran across a pack of blink dogs. Small, but vicious with heads that moved so quickly they seemed to be in a constant blur of teeth and fur. They didn't notice the party.

Geralt steps up and immediately opens fire on the unsuspecting blink dogs, killing one of the dogs and sending the others into a frenzy. Z and Geralt were able to drive off the remaining blink dogs, but took some heavy hits themselves.

"Come, let's make camp. You must need healing," Famn said as the battle subsided.

Will the party be open about their curses and how they now must recover their injuries? Will they hide their curses from Famn in hopes of keeping their curses a secret? Will the party be able to find the keystone before the cult does? Will they be able to convince the witch doctor that their intentions are pure?