Tonight’s session was smooth sailing. We kicked off with a surprisingly intense one on one scene between Amrik Vanthampur and Granny Rose, while the rest of the party listened in, clearly on edge. The two went back and forth. Granny pushed for information, funding, and support. The party could’ve drawn steel, taken him hostage, chased him through the Low Lantern… but instead, they chose diplomacy.
Granny sold him on her orphanage pitch and brought the corpse of one of his brother’s imps as proof of loyalty. After multiple successful persuasion checks, she secured a loan and even got a hot tip: how to sneak into the Vanthampur Villa, provided she teaches Amrik’s brother a lesson for spying on him.
Then came another extended NPC scene, this time with the full party. Reya Mantlemorn flagged them down, gave her pitch as a Hellrider survivor of Elturel, and pretty quickly won the group’s hearts. We even paused for a solid five minutes as the party decided on a name, “Rose and Thorn,” which, incredibly, I’ve never had a party do before in all my years of DMing.
Combat followed, a quick, easy scuffle with the dragon cultists that let the party flex their new level-three powers.
Afterward, they went shopping. A lot. They pulled off more persuasion rolls and walked away with mundane but smart gear: grappling hooks, oil, rope, incense for Find Familiar. I improvised three shopkeepers: a dwarven garage seller, a goblin in a trench coat, and an elf with silver tipped ears.
And then came one of my favorite things to see: the party spent 45 minutes talking only to each other, fully in character, planning their infiltration of the Vanthampur estate. Things were chill enough that I even started this blog post mid-session. That’s the dream right there, players that care enough to roleplay without me prompting. Huzzah.