Argonloft Adventures, session 1: The Wild Sheep Chase

Played sometime in 2020. An adventure starring:

- Brelekath (Paul) - cowardly, conniving human merchant/bard whose musical talents are well-known.

- Denethor (Kye) - polite, cunning changeling wild magic sorcerer, keeps his changeling nature secret. Other identities adopted: Fara, a female elven dancer.

- Thane (Harvey) - human paladin of non-violence and de-escalation.

'The Wild Sheep Chase' is a setting-neutral third party one shot adventure published by Winghorn Press. I invented the town of Argonloft to give players some fun improvised downtime before the pre-written adventure kicked in, and I invented the shop 'The Warriors Wonderland Emporium' for the first encounter to take place because I wanted to see players use the aisles and the weapons/potions on the shelves to their advantage.

After winning a flute-off against the bard Galileo Figaro at the local tavern, PCs stopped by the Warriors Wonderland Emporium to browse the magic items. Suddenly a sheep burst in and started looking for something - and then an imposing Orc barbarian flanked by wolves kicked in the door, demanding to know where the sheep was. While Thane grabbed the sheep and hid at the end of the furthest aisle, the shopkeep and the others were interrogated at sword-point. Brelekath and Denethor tried to de-escalate the Orcs violent approach, but Denethor was forced to summon a stream of burning hands - which immediately went wild and turned into a fireball centred on himself. He and Brelekath were severely injured, the shopkeep immediately killed, and the Orc was blown through the collapsing shopfront. A fight ensued in which Brelekath escaped to fetch the village guard, Thane was chased out a window by the oddly intelligent wolves, and Denethor fought an enraged Orc, spells against greatsword. When the fight was won, Thane grabbed a scroll of "Speak with Animals' and translated the sheeps current crisis.

The sheep explained that he was an Elven wizard named Finethir Shinebright, true polymorphed and held captive for many months by his vengeful apprentice Ahmed Noke. After a long rest, the three heroes, the sheep and the two guards set off to Shinebrights residence that had been claimed by Noke, a treehouse that seemed to defy the laws of physics. With invisibility, fireballs and wild magic shenanigans, the group methodically took out the security staff of hired mercenaries polymorphed into dangerous jungle creatures, and chased a paranoid and unstable Noke into his home, where he polymorphed the massive king-sized bed into a wooden dragon with bedsheet wings and a splinter breath attack. Before he could attempt to ride it, he was killed with a fireball. The dragon, charred and paralysed by spells, was calmed down by Thane and convinced to forget Noke’s influence and follow its own path. It blew a hole in the wall and flew away.

The group earned 200gp to split among themselves for the quest, as well as a wizard in their debt. As Shinebright started the arduous task of identifying and fixing whatever clumsy ‘upgrades’ Noke had done to his wand of True Polymorph, so that he could safely revert himself and Noke’s other prisoners back to their various true forms, the party started walking back to town, and were greeted by the wooden dragon, who indicated it would like to travel with Thane from now on. Thane nicknamed the dragon Hypnos, after one of the gods of sleep.