The party has laid Nononn to rest. On the way back to Gabby's Study, they were jumped by the hobgoblins. This is a two-fold problem, one for the party and one for the DM. From my DM's perspective, the issue with this combat is the hobgoblins simply lack the power to threaten the party. After a few rounds, the hobgoblins break and run. They couldn't stand against the magic or the missile fire.
Back in the Study, they debate the problem. At Session Zero, I suggested dropping the fog and the railroad aspect of the module. The party would like to resupply, but leaving seemed hostile to all that they have done so far. The DM in me doesn't want to force the party into actions, no matter how reasonable and safe, while they possess the ability to plan for themselves.
Khouri, Gronk, and Rety formulate a plan that was both reasonable and within the boundaries of the module, as it has been played so far. First, they retreat to the exterior of Castle Amber. There they can gather the Sybil's dog, some fresh fruit, and hundreds of sticks. They set up a series of fires to harden the sticks into arrow shafts. While this is happening, Parker and Warren use their slings to hunt larger birds.
I like this scenario because it's a case where the party only faces the threats they create. It's like the bit where the DM introduces "wild horses," and the party harms themselves trying to catch them. The party goes after wild turkeys in the woods. One is not any trouble, but in numbers, they are probably more of a threat than the hobgoblins. Wild turkeys can number in the dozens, and the party retreated when this happened. Turkeys don't really have "morale" in the traditional sense: they leave when they are done eating.
Now, they have some food, glue, sticks, and feathers. Given that they spent days and could have spent more time, I deem that they collected 200 shafts per day, but only half of them survive the fire-hardening process. That is 300 arrow shafts. It's a good thing they have 4 bags of holding; otherwise, they would be overburdened.
As the DM, I have not been idle. Although the party is out of reach of wandering monsters, I make the rolls anyway and use them to repopulate the cleared areas of the Castle. These creatures have moved into the empty rooms.
The party doesn't have arrowheads. Gabby and Rety have a solution. The party splits into 3 groups. Gabby leads one group back to the Indoor Forest, Rety takes her group to the Study, while the third, led by Jude, retraces their steps.
Gabby entreats the dragon and unicorn to help them. She means to sandcast almost all of the copper pieces they found into arrowheads, sling bullets, and a few other useful things. She needs the dragon to create a small fire for her to melt the copper down for pouring. Theoretically, they could have done this outside, but the party would have spent days or weeks getting the proper type of fire going. The dragon can do it in one go. They have thousands of copper coins to melt, so she pours out dozens of copper rods in addition to the arrowheads and bullets. These were easy to make, and they can be used as clubs or tools. They damage a few arrows by fitting the heads on the shafts.
Paying the dragon in gold also lightens the load. They kept the 2200 platinum pieces. Each character was given 10 of each type of coin.
Rety and her team made a mess working on the fletching glue. They completed the task, but are horribly frustrated. Hands and elbows were glued to tables and each other. They also processed the extra turkey meat from the crew's adventure outside. I am imagining the study has a fireplace.
Jude's team disrupted the railroad. They revisited Jean-Louis. With a real set of players, this could have been fun or a bloodbath. Jude was unable to pump him for information or treasure. So he continued to destroy the railroad. He led his team back to the Dining Room. Since they all knew the threat of this meal, they avoided all of the dangers while reaping the benefits.
Jude refilled the empty healing potion bottles with amber wine. He then ordered everyone to collect all of the beef. Being kind and grateful, he turned on the charm and asked the ghostly servers for raw green beans for the rabbit. His intent was to dry the meat while feeding the rabbit a treat of fresh green beans.
Jude's team was small: himself, Alexei, Belaphon, Lance, and Merry. They could only take 4 portions of food and 4 glasses of amber wine, since Alexei was a ghost. The party will return again to make the best of this trick. Alexei couldn't help, and he couldn't leave the castle, being doomed to play in the hall nightly. The party must return as a group to say a proper goodbye.
This matches Rety and Gabby's plans. They need 3 more days in the Study for the Magic-Users to exchange any copyable spells from the spellbook they took from Simon's spellbook.
AH! Railroads are bad because the characters can force them to run both ways, causing some events to repeat.
They tore through the Study, taking many sets of clothes, several large tents, a couple of 5-gallon barrels for water, and a few other items. They hunted for any bottle they could use to fill with Amber wine and came up with 2 dozen or more containers.
They make their final appearance in the Dining Hall to fill up on the wine, non-magical foods, and to make their goodbyes to Alexei.
The unhinged moment was when Sybil ate her salad, reached for a second helping, and was taken to the ground before she could get a third helping. Her damaged Wisdom went up by 2 and down by 2, which was a small mercy. Her Intelligence and Charisma went up by 1. The payoff for this stunt was that she can now speak French.
Here are the new digital character sheets which I should have done from the start. Each opens in a new window. The characters have their full equipment listed. Unfortunately, Sybil was in charge of the extra spell books and left them behind, having copied what she could read.
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