Continued from: [https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1slhahf/first\_daggerheart\_campaign\_hounds\_of\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/daggerheart/comments/1slhahf/first_daggerheart_campaign_hounds_of_the/)

This recap will contain spoilers for the published adventure “A Tale of Two Farms”, by Alan Tucker. It came with my copy of “Incredible Creatures”, and I felt it was just the inspiration I needed to get the main plot back on track **\[1\]**. I had to make a few changes and additions to fit it within my campaign frame and plot, but a lot of it remains intact.

Wasp and Kevin left the colonial capital early in the morning and started along the road to Newcastle, another “hub town” that collects the resources from neighbouring villages and prepares them for transport back across the ocean. They decided to take their time: dawdling along the road, stopping to fish, and generally enjoying the peace and quiet of the journey after all the chaos of the previous few days. The arrived in town around midday and went straight to the Starshine Tavern (where the job notice told them to find one of their contacts). Their contact, a young man named Walter Dizna, was not there, so they struck up a conversation with the tavern’s galapa bartender. They got some information about monster attacks in the area attacking nearby farms, as well as some general tidbits about Newcastle itself. Then the PCs crossed the street to the Seven Clouds Inn to look for their second contact – a person named Bim Nort. The inn was full of patrons having their afternoon meal and engaging in cheery conversations. Kevin wanted to get them a cheap room, so he made a Presence roll to convince the owner to give them a discount - he got a critical! Since Wasp and Kevin were a pair of tough monster hunters, the owner was willing to let them have the room for free if they would be willing to entertain the other guest with stories of action and adventure. There is not much Kevin enjoys more than telling people about all the different types of monsters he and Wasp have fought, so he agreed. The two Hounds spent the night regaling their fellow patrons with stories of their victories and earned a few handfuls of gold to boot.

Waking up the following morning, the PCs headed downstairs to the inn’s common room to find a crotchety-looking galapa seated at one of the tables. It was Bim Nort, and he quickly filled in more details about the contract he was offering: his family farm was being vandalized during the night, and he was afraid it was monsters encroaching closer to the village. Wasp and Kevin agreed to check it out, but they also wanted to talk to Walter. Upon hearing this, Bim got extremely upset and told them that if they did any business with those, “thrice-damned Diznas”, they wouldn’t be doing business with him. Wasp and Kevin shrugged, left a generous tip for the inn’s staff, and headed to the Starshine Tavern once more. They met with Walter, a goblin-halfling and the only child of the Dizna family. His family’s farm was also suffering from random attacks, some of their prized ducks have gone missing, and strange noises sometimes come from the barn. Looking forward to a mission where the fate of an entire city was not on their shoulders, they agree to the contract and the payment of a bag of gold. Walter led them to his cart and horse, and they headed further south towards his farm on the outskirts of the village of Rickham.

On the way, the players asked Walter about the source of the animosity between his family and Bim Nort. Walter did not go into many details, but he did let slip that one of the things that was causing tension was the budding relationship between himself and the Nort’s daughter, Ginny. Wasp zeroed in on this and wanted to know all about it, badgering poor Walter the whole way back to the farm (I gave myself a Fear, it got so bad) **\[2\]**. Luckily(?) for Walter, they were distracted just before reaching the farm as Kevin spied a pair of young wyverns streaking towards them through the sky. Since he saw them first, Kevin started with the spotlight. He shoved Wasp off the cart and behind cover and ran to calm the horse and keep it from running off, succeeding with Fear. We decided having him mark a Stress was reasonable given all the chaos that had erupted. The spotlight passed to one of the wyverns, and seeing as Kevin and the horse were the largest targets and so close together, it dove on them. Using its Rend and Tear ability, it ripped into Kevin but only rolled for minor damage. Wasp took the spotlight and marked the wyvern with Ranger’s Focus, punching it for major damage. Keeping the spotlight, Wasp used Conjure Swarm to give themselves beetle armour and then passed it back to Kevin. He tipped over the cart to give Walter some cover and again succeeded with Fear, marking another Stress as a result. The second wyvern sent a glob of Poison Spit at Kevin and the horse, and they both resisted its effects. I spent a Fear to spotlight the first wyvern which attempted to bite Wasp but could not overcome the ranger’s high Evasion. Wasp got the spotlight again and struck back for more major damage. I did not want the wyverns to get wiped out at this stage, so I made a note to remind myself to get them out of there if at least one of them took more than 50% damage. Since Wasp succeeded with Fear, I used the spotlight (plus two more Fear) to have them disengage and fly away. Wasp had used Ranger’s Focus, so they were still able to track them as the creatures fled south. The players made a note of this in case they would need to hunt them down later.

They then arrived at the Dizna farm and met Walter’s parents, Elias and Flora, a halfling and goblin respectively. As Wasp once again failed to grasp why there are goblins living above ground and not in “proper” warrens, Kevin tried to make friends with the family’s ducks. A preliminary scan of the property showed fences broken through and claw marks gouged into the ground. The PCs believed that the same wyverns who attacked them on the road were responsible for the damage here. They were then called in by Flora for some soup, and Wasp spent the time studying their bestiary while Kevin tried to find out more about the family’s friction with the Norts.

After dinner, the players investigated the breach in the fence further. Wasp then noticed that, while it did appear that wyverns broke into the farm through the fence, the chaos of the tracks reveals that they were actually driven away before getting further into the yard. “Something” seemed to have chased them off. The PCs moved to check out the barn: Kevin flew up to look at the roof, and Wasp went inside. Once inside, Wasp’s medallion started reacting, revealing evidence of a magic source nearby. They sat down and tried to attune to the source with a Spellcasting Roll and getting a critical! Since Wasp’s spellcasting trait was Agility, we kind of described them following the flowing path traced by whatever the magic was: something graceful and ethereal.

They reported back to the Diznas and did their best to reassure the family that things were under control, and the issues they had been experiencing would be dealt with. Walter, to his father’s annoyance, started to worry about Ginny since the Norts’ farm had also been attacked recently. Wasp and Kevin promised to travel there tomorrow to check on things. It was getting late, so Wasp went back to the barn to set up their sleeping gear while Kevin went to say goodnight to the ducks. Walter came in to talk with Wasp to let him come along to the Norts’ tomorrow. Wasp kept trying to talk him out of it, and he kept getting more agitated. In the end, Wasp made it *very clear* that: a) he was not coming with them, and b) he was absolutely not to sneak off in the middle of the night. Walter stormed off angrily, and Wasp went back to getting ready for sleep. They then noticed their medallion reacting again, and turned around to see a glowing, floating spirit staring at them. As Wasp tried to think of something to say, its face contorted into a furious expression, and it lashed out to attack! (Think of the “opening the Ark” scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark).

**GM Stuff:**

**\[1\]** I was really looking forward to finally adding a little more direction to the campaign, and the last few sessions were pretty anemic in terms of stuff going on. A lot of stuff planned and improvised happened in these sessions, and it was much more fun for me. The players let me know that they were enjoying the random “monster-of-the-week” adventures however, so I need to be careful not to cut those out completely just so I can push the story along.

**\[2\]** I like how the Fear meta-currency can be used to send a message to players without needing to waste a lot of time talking. Wasp’s player likes to play them antagonistically in certain situations, and sometimes it comes on a little strong. Rather than have the NPCs get worked up and possibly cause a fight, or have to explain that they might want to take it down a notch in sensitive situations, I just let the player continue but announce that I’m gaining a Fear. It’s a nice shorthand for, “heads up - the temperature of the scene is starting to rise”, and the player tends to wrap up her comments shortly thereafter.

First Daggerheart Campaign [Hounds of the Commonwealth] - Sessions #21 - #22 - A Tale of Two Farms, Part One