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Updating this chart:
| Gather Information from Locals | Investigate Records and Literature | Expedition Planning | Parley with the Kami | LOCKED /2: Search the Mihrttal Expanse | LOCKED: Investigate the Cult | LOCKED: Disable the Cult | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DC | 12 | 14 | 19 | 19 | 25 | 19+2 | 19+6 |
| +2 to roll | Insight, Cha | Int, Perception, Survival, Thieves' Tools | Survival, Int, Cha | Insight, Perception, Persuasion, Nature, Arcana, History, Animal Handling, Medicine, Performance | Athletics, Stealth, Acrobatics, Survival, History, Cartographer's Tools | Dex, Cha, Investigation, Insight | Dex, Str, Int, Deception, insight |
| -2 to roll | Stealth, Investigate | Cha | Dex | Athletics, Deception, Intimidation, Religion, Sleight of Hand, Stealth | Str | Persuasion, Performance | |
| Successes | 3n: Insight found. 1 success for expedition planning. | 2n: -1 to DC for "Expedition Planning" | 2n: +2 to DC for "Expedition Planning". -2 to DC to "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" | 5: The Kami have begun to willingly show themselves to the party members. -2 to DC to establish relations with the Kami | n: The expedition moves further into the jungle. +1 to DC for "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" | 2n: -1 to the DC to "Disable the Cult" | 2n: Encounter with the Cultists |
| 4n: granted access to more records. -3 to the DC to investigate records and literature. | 2n+1: -1 to DC for "Parley with the Kami" | 3n: -2 to DC for "Expedition Planning" | 9: Party's reputation will prevent any kami immediately attacking them | 1: Encounter with a shikigami (See notes 1.) | 3n-1: -1 to DC of all Challenges | 2n+1: -1 to DC of all challenges. | |
| 5: Meet a cultist candidate named 'Roan Whitcall' who is willing to help the party infiltrate the cult. UNLOCK "Investigate the Cult" | 5: You've found an excellent reference for further investigation. -3 to DC to "Investigate Records and Literature" | 10: Ready to launch the expedition. UNLOCK ½ of "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" | 12: You have recruited a guide from among the kami. -4 to DC to search the Mihrttal Expanse | 3: Encounter with a clade of kodama (See notes 2.) | 5: UNLOCK "Disable the Cult" | ||
| 10: Unknowingly convert a cult officer. -4 to DC to "Investigate the Cult" and UNLOCK "Disable the Cult" | 9: Identified a potential location for the gate. UNLOCK ½ of "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" | 5: While scouting ahead of the expeditionary force, the party arrive at a mysterious town in the middle of the forest. See note 3. | |||||
| 7: Encounter with a Fire Yai Oni. See Oni stat block. Instead of cone of cold, it knows fireball. | |||||||
| 9: Encounter with a Toshigami (See notes 4.) | |||||||
| 11: The party find a wide open clearing near the river bank and the nearby kami are happy to let them and their expedition camp there. (See notes 5.) | |||||||
| 13: The party are suddenly attacked by a group of wild animal kami so ancient and removed from human existence that they are little more than wild beasts with supernatural powers. | |||||||
| 15: A permanent | |||||||
| Failures | n: Encounter with cultists. If the party takes any prisoners alive, UNLOCK "Investigate the Cult" | n: +1 to DC for "Expedition Planning" | n: +1 to DC for "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" | 1: Encounter with an offended shikigami. If the party harms it, +3 to DC to Parley with the Kami | n: Encounter with the Cultists | n: Encounter with the Cultists | |
| 3: Opposition to the expedition gains ground. +3 to DC to "Gather Information from Locals" | 5: +3 to DC for "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" | 7: Failure. The expedition has to be cancelled. | 2: Encounter with 5 Kodama | ||||
| 5: Upset the locals. -4 successes (no minimum) to prepare for the search as offers are rescinded and damages paid. | 3: Encounter with an Oni | ||||||
| 6: The locals want nothing to do with the party. LOCK "Gather Information from Locals" | 4: Encounter with a Binbougami. All kami encountered while exploring the Mihrttal Expanse will attack the party on sight, increasing the DC to search it by 5 and doubling the period between each | ||||||
| Events | 3: Word gets out that you're on a mission from Arcundus. -2 to DC to "Gather Information from Locals". +2 to DC to "Investigate the Cult". +4 to DC to "Disable the Cult" | 6: A major library in the university has caught fire. If any players successfully "Investigate Records and Literature" this round and subsequently defeats the 3 cultist arsonists in combat, then they prevent the fire from burning down the building. In this case, -3 to DC to "Investigate Records and Literature". Otherwise, the library burns down, in which case, +3 to DC to "Investigate Records and Literature". | 3n: +1 to DC for "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" | 0: The Kami are hidden from your party's sight. Only persuasion, performance, and perception checks can advance "Parley with the Kami" | n>10: Time is closing in. Bills rack up, employees become more weary. +1 to DC for "Search the Mihrttal Expanse". | 6: Cultist Leader attempts to convert PCs. UNLOCK "Investigate the Cult" | |
| 5: You're accused by a public official of "False Prophecy" and must attend court. +2 to DC to "Gather Information from Locals". +2 to DC to "Investigate the Cult". +2 to DC to "Disable the Cult" | 8: A significant scholar on the Mihrttal expanse, "Ser Anthony Brouggary," offers the use of his extensive personal collection. -2 to DC to "Search the Mihrttal Expanse". -2 to DC to "Investigate Records and Literature". | 11: The party and their company of 80 explorers travel 8 days north of Temble on warship, to the mouth of the Irnmar River, where they have been informed is an ideal location to set up base camp. | 7: Cultists take hostages | ||||
| 7: The outcome of the trial has become public knowledge and the people are satisfied with your relationship with Arcundus. -4 to DC to "Gather Information from Locals". | 12: The party are attacked in the night by a Void Yai Oni (Night Hag stat block). If the party have at least 9 successes in parley with the Kami, the Oni wakes them up by | 11: Cultists infiltrated the exploration team. -6 to search the expanse until next success. | |||||
| 14: A storm hits the players' base camp. Until the storm blows over in 2 turns, the DC to all challenges increases by 10. | 13: Cultists have acquired a key to the dungeon of the gate that the party must acquire. | ||||||
| 16: The storm passes by. In its wake, the forest has been disturbed. The DC to all challenges goes back down by 10, but is then increased permanently by 3. |
Notes:¶
- The shikigami watches over a long forgotten waystone that is about to fall into the Irnmar river. He offers to the party the chance to have it join them as a guide along the river, as that has always been its purpose. If they repair his waystone before the river claims it, the shikigami will automatically grant one success to the party once per turn on the challenge "Search the Mihrttal Expanse" Repairing the warding sigils on the waystone's face or building a weir downstream of the waystone can both solve the issue.
- The river has been blocked by fallen trees here, and 12 kodama sit upon the shore nearby. These kodama have been injured in the process of protecting their trees from "mysterious visitors like yourselves". At first, they refuse the party to pass, believing that they or others like them will be attacked by these intruding visitors to the expanse. If the party attacks them, they will fight. Each have the statistics of an assassin vine with half the normal number of hit points.
- The town is populated by the kami, but they don't leave their homes until night time. If the party arrive during the day, they will suddenly experience intense pangs of hunger, and they will find the food they have brought has been reduced to ghostly wisps. Food has been set out at food stalls, around the market and the party are preternaturally drawn to the sight and smell of it. DC 17 Wis save or Suggestion, as the spell: "go ahead and dine on the food, you can pay for it later". If you succeed the save, you will take 3 levels of exhaustion, which are removed as soon as the party member is able to leave the town. It turns out that the townsfolk are perfectly happy to provide food, lodging, even any other needs or comforts the party desire, so long as they pay fairly for the goods and services in gold, although those prices will be 20x higher here. They will refuse any other currency and, if the party cannot pay in full, the party will be required to work off the debt, at the rate of 5 gp / day (which will increase the DC of this skill challenge for each day spent here). There's a further complication. If any party member eats the food there, they will be physically unable to leave the town until they have Remove Curse cast on them, or they pay 500 gp for medicine to break the curse. Meanwhile, any party members that stay there for more than 8 hours without eating the local food will slowly begin to fade from world. At 16 hours, they will become incorporeal and at 24 total hours spent in the town over the course of two days, they will fade completely out of existence. Any who have eaten the local food are immune to fading from the world, even if they have been cured of the curse.
- The party comes across a bridge as ancient as the forest itself. The party members may attempt a gm hidden perception check against DC 17 to spot a toshigami. If any succeed, the one who rolled the highest immediately notices the woman made of wood, and are drawn to her. She locks eyes with them and they immediately feel the forces of fate pull them together. Before anyone in the party is aware, they are all standing atop the bridge, approaching a towering and ancient cherry tree at the base of which stands the toshigami. Her name is Mai, and she has heard of the party. She asks that the person who she locked eyes with takes from her a token. She hands them a large cherry bud from the truly enormous tree behind her. "This will prove your alliance with the Kami. It will also prove your dire and urgent need. Most of all, it will prove our need for you." Suddenly, the party are back in their barge. The bridge is out of sight, and they are continuing their journey upriver. If all party members fail the check, tell them that a cherry tree in brilliant pink blossom towers over the other trees around it comes briefly into view, but passes out of sight once you pass the bridge.
- The kami from the surrounding area are all somewhat uncomfortable when the party approach them. The kami call the potential campsite inhospitable, if questioned about it, and they aren't entirely wrong. The clearing is inhabited by a shinigami, though that shinigami's home is hidden from mortal eyes. The presence of the shinigami is what prevents plant life from growing here. The only way for a mortal to visit the shinigami's home is by performing a three part process:
- Circle around a specific but innocuous stone in the middle of the clearing 5 times in a clockwise direction by taking exactly 13 steps.
- Lift the stone, pass under it, and put it down in the same spot. Until the first step is done, the stone is preternaturally heavy, and cannot be lifted.
- Without turning away from the stone, walk backwards 5 paces in the direction that you first approached the stone from.