Session 52 - Nuts Deep and the Turnip Wagon Ambush (2026-07-12)

Summary

With Luskan cured and the Arcane Brotherhood belatedly grateful, Deez Nuts set out south for Waterdeep — on foot, in the company of Maccath the Crimson and two other Host Tower wizards, and with Carl, the luckless bosun whom Captain LaRustah ordered to accompany them "to ensure that Deez Nuts are successful." (His muttered reply, under his breath: "God damn it.") On the first night of the road, Baelgrum and Shade dreamed vivid dreams of what they had become since their souls were dragged back — the shield and the arcane storm — and woke with their Tempered Soul deepened into Aspects. By session's end every member of the company had been so deepened. See Tempered Soul/Usage Log for all eighteen spends.

Three days south they came on a cluster of homesteads burned to rubble. A red dragon had dropped out of the sky a fortnight earlier with four cultists on its back, demanded the settlers' valuables, and burned the homes the moment they refused — and then the cultists walked through the ashes and drew the gold out, as though they could smell it. Baelgrum, who lost a chunk of his own family exactly this way, spoke to the survivors with raw grief and got the truth: the cult is simply working a list, gathering a god-sized hoard for Tiamat. Maccath — coldly, notebook out, more interested in the logistics than the people in front of her — reasoned the list must be randomized, so that no attack predicts the next.

Further down the road they found a guard outpost manned by the Bronze Blades, granted to them by the Council of Waterdeep on the strength of the party's own recommendation. Over ale, Thistle pressed a magical Doss Lute on Shade in tribute to her song — a gift she could not use, being no longer a bard, and could not refuse: she gave the song away instead, and kept the lute for a shadowbox. Neither did anyone mention that the Blades, riding north to Luskan that week, are walking into a city Shade personally convinced to strip-search them. Through the Harper teleportation circles at Neverwinter and Waterdeep, the party reached Marshal Ulder Ravengard at the Honorable Knight — who confirmed Arauthator dead, set them on the trail of the Wyrmspeaker Varram the White, and handed them a fort: a ruined choke-point outpost outside Elturel, once home to the Hellriders who rode into Hell itself. "So if you've been to Hell and back, you're going to fit right in." The party took ownership, and named it Nuts Deep.

On the road east from Baldur's Gate they met a broken-down turnip wagon and a friendly dwarf. It was bait. A six-strong hit squad — purpose-built to kill this specific party, its members having already made peace with dying forever — sprang the ambush, and greatly underestimated Deez Nuts. Four of the six died; the wizard Morrow stabbed himself to trigger a Contingency and blinked away with Vex. The tabaxi Rook Blackstring was killed, revivified, tied up, and interrogated beneath a polar bear with her head in its mouth — and revealed that the Cult of the Dragon watches Deez Nuts constantly, has sent squads before, and has specifically identified Gootcha's ability to end a soul permanently as an operational problem. The session closed with the company walking the empty halls of their new fort.

Detailed Chronology

Out of Luskan

The session opens in the aftermath of the red-coin affair, with the DM recapping the cure of Luskan and its cost: "It's a living world. Things that you do change the world." The Arcane Brotherhood is dispatching Maccath and two other wizards to Waterdeep to meet the Council and plan a counter to the Draakhorn's call, and the party elects to travel with them — five days on foot from Luskan to Neverwinter. Captain LaRustah lends the party Carl, who is explicitly given no choice in the matter: "You're free to say no. Uh, Carl, you're not free to say no… you're ordered by the City of Luskan to do everything in your power to ensure that the Deez Nuts are successful."

The dreams on the road — Aspects awaken

On the first night's camp, Baelgrum and Shade dream. Baelgrum sees what he has been to this company: "You were recalling how you would… been sort of the shield for the party, taking on damage so that they didn't, being able to heal people or, uh, help and bless people with your power." Shade's are visions "of this sort of new, powerful, arcane power that you have… throwing fireballs and chromatic orbs, and just the power of the destruction that you're able to wield."

Both wake changed. The DM replaces the Tempered Soul feat with Tempered Soul Aspects: in your Aspect's domain you roll a d6 instead of a d4, spending from a pool of charges (d4 costs 4, d6 costs 6; ten charges with one Aspect), refilled fully on a long rest and half on a short. Baelgrum's Aspect is protection and healing; Shade's is Arcane Certainty. Aspects climb d6 → d8 → d10 → d12 → d20 with continued focused use, and the DM lays out the choice plainly: "do you want to focus in one area, or do you want to branch it out so that you have broader domains?" He nudges Keyleth toward a nature-and-survival Aspect, and the whole table spends the travel legs feeding their souls. (Full mechanics on Tempered Soul; every spend on Tempered Soul/Usage Log.)

The burned homesteads

Three days out, at the midpoint to Neverwinter, the road passes a cluster of razed farmsteads. Two weeks ago a red dragon none of them had ever seen landed with four cultists, demanded everything of value, and burned the homes when the settlers refused. Worse, and unexplained: "They seem to have some way of finding our valuables. After the homes were burned down, the cultists went right in through the ashes and pulled out the small amount of gold and jewelry that we had." Baelgrum flags it — "Their ability to sense the treasure is interesting. We may want to ask our other contacts about that" — and the thread is dropped. Shade: "Somebody's got a spell."

Keyleth's Insight picks out the most talkative survivor; Baelgrum, standing "off to the side clenching my fist in anger," takes the persuasion with advantage and spends his Tempered Soul on it, telling them the truth: "where I'm from, this exact thing happened. This is how I lost… chunk of my family, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing, so this is particularly personal." They open up, "because they see that you may actually be able to help. You're not just random travelers." What they give him is the Cult's method: "it sounds like they just have orders to hit specific areas and they're just working through their list. Collecting more and more gold and treasure for their dragon god." Baelgrum: "Dragon KPIs, huh?" The DM: "ABC — always be culting."

Maccath's read is bleak and entirely unsentimental. The Cult will hit small isolated settlements first, then escalate to defended towns or push further into the wilds — "probably doing both." The dragon is two weeks and untold miles gone: "a dragon can cover more than 100 miles in a day." And if she were running the operation, she would randomize the target list "so that knowing where any specific attack happened, you wouldn't be able to predict the next one." She pulls out a notebook and begins muttering to herself, "more interested in the academic aspects of how you would go about collecting such a hoard" than in the people standing in the ashes around her. The party, none of them builders, can do nothing here, and moves on.

The Bronze Blades' outpost

Further south the road bends past a wooden fort where two figures flag the party down — the Bronze Blades, granted this checkpoint by the Council of Waterdeep to catch cultists moving the roads. Sir Cedric Lightbringer is delighted: "Hey, well met, Deez Nuts." (Shade, mercifully not out loud: "How's your dumb ******* face?" — the DM has his face fall anyway: "Well, it's… I have the face that I have.") Cedric is unguardedly generous about the source of their fortune: "we got to say a lot of it is thanks to you guys," and hearing that Deez Nuts killed Old White Death, "you're giving us, like, inspiration that we can go and do the same thing."

Inside, Thistle comes out of his tent to find Shade. Her song — "Ah Dang Venom Fang" — is his favourite; the Blades sing it almost every night; and he has a gift. It is a Doss Lute, humming with magic (fly, invisibility, levitate, protection from evil and good, animal friendship, protection from energy) — and attunable by bards alone. Shade died and came back a wizard. She takes it anyway, and gives away the only thing she can: "This is a fine gift, and I'm glad you love the song, for I shall never sing it again. Because… I died. It's a long story. But I'm not the shade I once was, but I'm glad that my song lives on." And then: "Yes, please consider that song your song now." Thistle promises the Blades will perform it in her honour. Baelgrum's suggestion for the lute — put it in a shadowbox at the castle — is adopted on the spot. Out of character, Sarah: "Shade's grappling with some complicated feelings. I think it's guilt."

The Blades mention, in passing, that they are riding north to Luskan later that week to collect items and speak with the Arcane Brotherhood — a city where Shade has personally convinced both Ship Kurth and the Brotherhood that the Blades carry cursed red coins and should be searched thoroughly. Xanphina does what she can to soften the landing without confessing: "I wouldn't take it personally if they are extra interested in what coins you have when you're up there. That's just they're checking everybody." Maccath rolls her eyes. Baelgrum delivers, with a straight face, a small sermon on the dangers of cursed items to the party that his own company cursed: "You never can tell when something's cursed… The mark of a good adventurer is really digging in and doing the research." The party rests, and rides on.

Neverwinter, Waterdeep, and a marshal with a fort to give

At Neverwinter the party reaches the Harper Guild Hall and its teleportation circles, meeting Eric — one of three identical Harper brothers (Eric in Neverwinter, Balderick in Waterdeep, Derek in Baldur's Gate) who are, the DM confirms, each other's simulacra and do not appear to know it. "I feel like they all thought they were the first one." A step through the circle puts them in Waterdeep. Shade, having now walked these circles, permanently adds Neverwinter, Waterdeep and (shortly) Baldur's Gate as destinations for her own Teleport.

At the Honorable Knight they find Leosin Erlanthar, and behind the second door on the right, Marshal Ulder Ravengard of Baldur's Gate, with a map of the whole region under his papers. He has heard the rumour and wants it confirmed: is Old White Death truly dead? Gootcha: "I mean, it required us to go to hell and back, but yes, that was us."

Ravengard has three things for them. First: the Cult's high Wyrmspeaker Varram the White is moving in the northeast — "if you can go and track her down, that'll be a pretty big blow against the cult" — a target of Rezmir's rank, just below the Cult's leadership. Second: the Arcane Brotherhood's help is welcome, "we need all the help we can get." Third, and largest: High Overseer Thavius Kreeg of Elturel wants an old choke-point fort on the eastern road renovated, and Ravengard is giving it to Deez Nuts.

The fort's history lands on the party like a joke told at their expense. Five hundred years ago the Hellriders of Elturel opened a portal and rode into Hell to drive the devils back, and this fort was their home; the portal's residue made it uninhabitable for long stretches, though that has long since dispersed. Ravengard, cheerfully: "So if you've been to Hell and back, you're going to fit right in." The fort sits a mile outside Elturel's gates on the main eastern road, within sight of the city and its Companion — the great floating orb of light that pushes back darkness, undead and evil, and makes a direct assault on Elturel impossible. The Cult's threat is not a siege but infiltration, and this fort is the pincer.

(Retroactive date correction: the Hellriders' ride, given at the table as "five hundred years ago," has since been fixed in the record at 1354 DR — see The Ride of the Hellriders and the Timeline.)

The party will hold "ownership or lordship"; Elturel will garrison it once the barracks are fit. Ravengard is explicit that they are not to be garrison troops: "I don't expect y'all to be manning the towers and running the catapults. What we need is leadership and the ability to think strategically… You're much more useful as sort of the mobile strike force that you have shown yourselves to be." Gootcha, whispering: "Guys, rebuilding this structure sounds like peasant work, not… Deez Nuts type of work." Baelgrum asks the question that changes everyone's mind — "would this fort be, once we had it up and running, would it be considered a bastion for the crafting mechanic that you've set up?" The DM: "Yep, yep." Forge, alchemy lab, arcane study, research facility, teleportation room; hired experts; discounts on cost and time.

Then Keyleth, riffing on names — "Fort Nottingham… or Nuts Keep… Nuts Deep" — detonates the table, earns super inspiration (her next inspiration is simply a 20), and renames the map. Welcome to Nuts Deep. Baelgrum, immediately: "We have to brainstorm the flag situation for that."

Maccath, before parting for the Council, lays out her counter-Draakhorn plan: magic items placed at strategic points along the Sword Coast to suppress its call — "it won't do anything to help the dragons that they've already called, but it should prevent any more dragons from answering" — for which she may need "something that represents the power from each of the chromatic dragons, from each of the colors." She takes a sending stone so the party can reach her. She also reveals that the Arcane Brotherhood already held the text of the Prophecy of the Thorn-Born Star and never knew what it referred to; now, knowing it concerns this company and this moment — and knowing of Xanphina's ancestors and Gootcha's bond to the Raven Queen — they are digging into related prophecies and into divination of the future.

Baldur's Gate and the squires

Through the circle to Baldur's Gate, where each PC's faction assigns them a level-1 squire: Gootcha gets Will from Derek's Harpers; Shade a human named Henrietta from the Zhentarim near the gates ("I love that my ward is just a human… I don't like humans because they tend to be pretty terrible to tieflings. So I feel like this is like reparations"); Keyleth Spurt the Kobold, a name she refuses to change; Karma Diana; Xanphina's will come from the Order of the Gauntlet in Elturel; and Baelgrum, who has no faction, will find his among Elturel's light-temples. Squires roll their own initiative, are not directly controlled, and will mostly be parked at Nuts Deep — "we're not just going to have a party of 12 or 13 characters. That'll be ridiculous." Ravengard stands the party fresh horses for the ride east.

The turnip wagon

Two days east of Baldur's Gate, the road bends around a corner: a horse and wagon stopped, a heavily armoured dwarf and an unarmed human milling about. Xanphina calls it instantly — "It's a trap" — and then rolls a natural 1 on her Perception. (The DM, dryly: "you aren't raging, so you don't have that anger energy to empower you.") The wagon is not visibly broken. Baelgrum hails his fellow dwarf; the dwarf waves back — "That's quite the large party y'all have got there" — and would very much appreciate it if they kept moving.

Gootcha slips into the trees and hides on a Stealth of 26. She is the only reason the ambush fails.

The squad of six was assembled specifically to kill Deez Nuts:

• Vex — dwarf, heavy armour, hammer, Goading Attack; a tap of his shield is the squad's signal
• Morrow — human wizard; invisibility, Fireball, and a pre-cast Contingency
• Keith Sorrowmere — tiefling caster, casting without visible verbal or somatic components
• Garrick — greatsword and Divine Smite, with a frighten rider
• Sera — archer with shadow arrows (2d6, and blindness on a failed save)
• Rook Blackstring — tabaxi, invisible, feline agility, bow

Combat triggers when Morrow starts casting from full cover behind the wagon. Gootcha opens with the assassin's shortbow at Vex — a 14 that misses until she spends her Tempered Soul, and the DM rules that very spend crystallizes her Aspect, retroactively upgrading the die: 19. The arrow strikes an invisible tabaxi standing in the line of fire, and Rook's invisibility pops. Gootcha stays hidden.

The fight turns on save DCs. Sera's shadow arrow catches Shade from behind and would have blinded her — "That's a ******* cheap shot considering I have one eye" — but a tempered Wisdom save (13 → 16) throws the shadows off; Shade answers with a fourth-level Hellish Rebuke out of pure spite and later finishes Sera with magic missiles. Morrow drops invisibility to Fireball the clustered party; Xanphina's Restraining Ward, its DC pumped from 15 to 17 by her Tempered Soul ("I am feeling angry that he is trying to fireball me"), catches him on a roll of exactly 15 — "So you did need this to ensure that he failed" — and the chains pin his arms; the Fireball never goes off. Baelgrum upcasts Command to fourth level and spends his new Aspect die: a DC 21 "Halt" on Garrick, Vex and Keith at once. The DM: "Jesus." All three fail. Karma lines up a Cone of Cold on four of them, tempers the DC from 16 to 17 — turning one enemy's 16 from a save into a failure — and all four take it full in the chest. She wild shapes into a polar bear.

Baelgrum burns both his reactions on Warding Flare to keep Shade standing ("Not my wizard"). And Carl — conscripted, miserable, hitherto useless Carl, revealed here as an Arcane Archer — puts a shadow arrow through Garrick and drops him. It is the first time anyone has seen him hit anything. The table erupts: "Carl! First blood!" / "Carl did a murder." / "I knew you could do it, Carl." / "One of us, one of us." / "We're getting him drunk tonight."

Baelgrum kills Keith with a third-level guiding bolt, and the DM asks a question he now asks routinely — was any specific part of the body targeted? Baelgrum: "I identified that he was a caster, and I went for his head." The DM: "his head is basically blown open. So Revivify is not going to work on him." Xanphina's returning trident brings down Rook. Morrow, cornered, stabs himself to trigger his Contingency and dimension-doors away, taking Vex with him. Baelgrum: "Cowards." A later medicine check confirms the wound was chosen with care — "a stab that, while it kills him, is easy to heal and recover from, if you get help immediately."

The interrogation

Will is volunteered to search the wagon ("Send Will in. What do we have interns for?") and finds barrels of turnips and two bodies: the aggressors killed a pair of turnip merchants and took their wagon for bait. Gootcha's investigation (a natural 20) reads the scene cold — "this is an assassination attempt, this is how you would assemble a party to take out a party like ours; it just turns out that they greatly underestimated Deez Nuts, and have paid the price for it." Shade's finds no infernal residue: Keith was a tiefling, but this is Cult of the Dragon work, not devil work — which lays to rest Keyleth's specific worry that these were tied to "the war we might be drafted into." They travelled light and carried only what the job required.

The party revivifies Rook, ties her up first, and questions her with a polar bear standing over her, her head in its mouth. What she gives them is the shape of the enemy's intelligence apparatus: the squad never meets cultists directly — "we've got layers of information control in place… a sending stone that will send us instructions… a process of call and response… each of us have a part of it. So if we don't have the whole party, we're not able to create the right response." The Cult watches Deez Nuts constantly: "there are resources everywhere trying to collect as much information as possible on you. Some, their only job is just to listen." And it has sent squads before: "We know we've had other groups like ours that have been sent after you, and they've not been able to resurrect them. So we know it's a problem, and we expect that it's due to her" — meaning Gootcha. Rook knows that dying to Gootcha is true death with no way back, and so has no reason at all to talk. Why take the job? "The perks and benefits package with the cult is pretty good these days."

Baelgrum tries to force the location of their camp with a Command: "Truth" — the DM rules it doesn't work that way; Command is not a lever for making someone do whatever you want. Gootcha floats disguising herself as Vex, and the party talks itself out of it (Vex would know everything she'd be asking, and why would he be standing here while Rook is tied up?).

They had all made peace with dying forever before they came — "we knew what we signed up for; we know that if we fall, we can die forever when we face you." Keyleth, to a prisoner with nothing left to trade: "you have nothing to offer us then. No, nothing worth your life." Gootcha executes Rook with the Shadowfell Crossbow — a crack of thunder, and the soul goes straight to the Raven Queen. The DM then reveals a mechanic she didn't know she had: as a warlock with a pact weapon, Gootcha can turn any weapon into it, and it will carry the same send-to-the-Raven-Queen effect — the crossbow does not need to be wielded. ("I'm gonna dagger him now, now that I know that!") Only creatures who have previously been resurrected yield a Soul Token: Rook and Keith qualify. The company's count rises to four.

The Gray Watch

The rest of the road to Elturel passes without incident. The last squires are assigned — Keyleth's and Karma's from Emerald Enclave cells out in the wilds, Xanphina's from the Order of the Gauntlet HQ in Elturel, and Baelgrum's from among the city's light-temples, beneath the Companion.

An administrator of Thavius Kreeg walks them out about a mile northeast of the city, up onto a rise, to the Gray Watch. It is derelict — bare rooms, mice, spiderwebs, unused for centuries, nothing left behind — but the walls need no repair at all. "The bones of the building. Bones are still strong." They walk it: barracks, stables, an armory and forge, an administrative hall built for war councils, a mage tower where arcane energies still linger from the mage who was always posted here, and a siege tower still holding the old signalling gear for talking to Elturel when magic fails. Baelgrum: "Oh, f*** yeah."

The DM lays out how bastions will run at this table — one facility per character, level-gated, staffed by hired specialists, with squires as the starting help, and no bastion turns: everything is made through the campaign's crafting system instead. Clean the barracks and Elturel will send soldiers.

The session closes with the fort renamed, every character's Aspect confirmed, the level-3 faction boons retconned onto the road-trip faction visits, and Baelgrum musing that his own boon might come from the Companion itself — "Is mine the glowing ball in the sky now?" The last word goes where it should: Baelgrum — "This was awesome. Good job, everybody. We kicked that party's ass." Shanna — "F*** yeah. Even Carl stepped up." Baelgrum — "Yeah, Carl! We're getting Carl drunk tonight."

Notable Characters

• PCs: Xanphina (Amber), Keyleth (Patty), Karma (Shanna), Baelgrum (Richard — this session his Zoom account is labeled "Baelgrum"), Shade (Sarah), Gootcha (Ashley). All six present and playing.
• Allies: Maccath the Crimson (travelling companion; counter-Draakhorn plan; coldly academic in the ruins), Carl (conscripted escort, Arcane Archer — first kill: Garrick), Marshal Ulder Ravengard (patron; grants the fort), Leosin Erlanthar (Harper contact, Waterdeep), Eric / Balderick / Derek (the Harper simulacra), Captain LaRustah (seconds Carl to the party), Thavius Kreeg (High Overseer of Elturel — first met in S35; not present this session, his administrator shows the party the fort) (name garbled in the recording as "Fabius Krieg" — spelling settled by usage).
• Bronze Blades: Sir Cedric Lightbringer, Sister Alira, Thistle (gives Shade the Doss Lute), Whisper, Boomer.
• Squires (new): Will (Gootcha), Henrietta (Shade), Spurt the Kobold (Keyleth), Diana (Karma); Xanphina's from the Order of the Gauntlet in Elturel, Baelgrum's from Elturel's light-temples.
• Enemies: the hit squad — Vex (escaped), Morrow (escaped), Keith Sorrowmere (dead, head destroyed — unrevivable; soul taken), Garrick (dead — Carl), Sera (dead — Shade), Rook Blackstring (killed by Xanphina, revivified, interrogated, executed; soul taken). Two unnamed turnip merchants, murdered before the scene began.

Locations

Luskan (departed) • the burned homesteads on the Neverwinter road (unnamed) • the Bronze Blades' road outpost • Neverwinter (Harper Guild Hall) • Waterdeep (Harper Guild Hall; the Honorable Knight) • Baldur's Gate (Harper and Zhentarim contacts) • the River Chionthar road • Elturel (and the Companion) • Nuts Deep — the party's new fort, formerly the Gray Watch, formerly the Hellriders' home

Factions

• Cult of the Dragon — the war becomes personal and procedural: a randomized target list, a treasure-sense the party never explained, layered information control by sending stone and call-and-response, standing surveillance of Deez Nuts, and repeated assassination squads. They have identified Gootcha's soul-taking as their central problem.
• Arcane Brotherhood — allied and mobilizing; held the Thorn-Born Star prophecy all along; now researching related prophecies and divination.
• Council of Waterdeep — via Ulder Ravengard: grants the fort, sets the Varram hunt, and had already rewarded the Bronze Blades with an outpost on the party's recommendation.
• Bronze Blades — hero-worship, a gift, and a completely un-warned ride into the city Deez Nuts taught to search them.
• Harpers, Zhentarim, Emerald Enclave, Order of the Gauntlet — all deliver squires and the next Renown package.

Items

• Gained: the Doss Lute (from Thistle — magical, bard-attunement only, unusable by Shade; destined for a shadowbox), a sending stone (from Maccath), fresh horses (Ravengard), the hit squad's gear (they travelled light; DM to write up the loot list), and 2 more Soul Tokens (Rook and Keith — total now 4).
• Gained (property): Nuts Deep — a fort, and a crafting bastion.
• Rules note: the devil-gifted items run on charges only — they cannot be upcast with spell slots.
• Permanent: Shade adds Neverwinter, Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate as Teleport destinations. Keyleth's Worm Reaver gains the versatile property (so she can use Dexterity with it — a DM concession so Vaylin's gift isn't dead weight). Keyleth holds super inspiration (her next inspiration is automatically a 20). Gootcha learns her pact weapon carries the Raven Queen effect — any weapon, not just the Shadowfell Crossbow.

Creatures

No new creature kinds — the ambushers were humanoids (dwarf, human, tiefling, tabaxi). The red dragon that razed the homesteads is offstage and untracked. The party learned that dragons stay dead: "dragons in general, when they die, they die." The Cult's historical business of raising dracoliches was repurposed by Tiamat's followers toward her return; and the twins of the Mere of Dead Men have bespoke "twin magic" so that one can always raise the other.

Quests

• ADVANCED: Find Varram the White — Ravengard places the Wyrmspeaker in the northeast; a target of Rezmir's rank.
• ADVANCED: Stop the Summoning of Tiamat / Recover the Draakhorn — Maccath's plan: magic items placed along the Sword Coast to suppress the Draakhorn's call (it won't recall dragons already summoned). She may need "something that represents the power from each of the chromatic dragons, from each of the colors." She carries a sending stone.
• ADVANCED: Investigate the Cult of the Dragon — method confirmed (a randomized list of soft targets, feeding a god-sized hoard); surveillance and assassination squads confirmed.
• ADVANCED: Prophecy of the Thorn-Born Star — the Arcane Brotherhood had the text all along and never knew its referent; now cross-researching related prophecies, weaving in Xanphina's ancestors and Gootcha's Raven Queen bond.
• ADVANCED: Report Findings to Council of Waterdeep — reported to Ravengard; Maccath and the Brotherhood are Waterdeep-bound.
• OPENED: Restore Nuts Deep — renovate the fort; stand up facilities (forge, alchemy lab, arcane study, research facility, teleportation room); hire staff; Elturel garrisons it.
• NEW LEADS: the Cult's treasure-sense (noticed, never followed up) • Morrow and Vex escaped, still holding the squad's sending stone and call-and-response key • the Bronze Blades ride into Luskan un-warned • the Cult has sent hit squads before and will again.

Quotes

• "You're free to say no. Uh, Carl, you're not free to say no." — DM (and, under his breath: "God damn it.")
• "Their ability to sense the treasure is interesting. We may want to ask our other contacts about that." — Baelgrum (the thread the party dropped)
• "Dragon KPIs, huh?" — Baelgrum / "ABC — always be culting." — DM
• "This is a fine gift, and I'm glad you love the song, for I shall never sing it again. Because… I died." — Shade, to Thistle
• "If I were trying to set up a method to create such a hoard, I would send dragons into areas with a list of targets, but I would order the list so that… you wouldn't be able to predict the next one." — Maccath the Crimson
• "So if you've been to Hell and back, you're going to fit right in." — Marshal Ulder Ravengard, granting the Hellriders' fort
• "Guys, rebuilding this structure sounds like peasant work, not… Deez Nuts type of work." — Gootcha
• "Nuts Deep!" — Keyleth (super inspiration awarded on the spot)
• "I identified that he was a caster, and I went for his head." — Baelgrum (→ no Revivify)
• "Carl! First blood!" — Baelgrum / "One of us, one of us." — Gootcha
• "We know we've had other groups like ours that have been sent after you, and they've not been able to resurrect them. So we know it's a problem, and we expect that it's due to her." — Rook Blackstring, on Gootcha
• "The perks and benefits package with the cult is pretty good these days." — Rook Blackstring
• "you have nothing to offer us then. No, nothing worth your life." — Keyleth
• "Even Carl stepped up." — Shanna (Karma), closing the session
• "It's a living world. Things that you do change the world." — DM

Session End

Deez Nuts stand in the empty halls of the Gray Watch — now Nuts Deep — a mile outside Elturel, under the light of the Companion. Every member of the company carries a crystallized Tempered Soul Aspect and a squire they didn't ask for; the party holds four Soul Tokens and a fort to rebuild. Two assassins are loose with a working sending stone and a description of every one of them, and the Cult that sent them has been listening all along. Ahead: stand up the fort's facilities, hunt Varram the White in the northeast, help Maccath build the Draakhorn's silencer — and, eventually, answer for the Bronze Blades.

Attribution & Uncertainties

• All six players were present. Richard's Zoom account appears this session under the label "Baelgrum" rather than "Richard Cooper" (the roster's listing) — attribution is otherwise mechanical.
• Varram's gender — resolved: the DM consistently said "she" and "track her down," and confirmed it directly (2026-08-09): in this campaign Varram is a woman. The wiki records her accordingly.
• Thavius Kreeg is rendered "Fabius Krieg" / "Davias Krieg" in the recording; the reconstruction rests on his being High Overseer of Elturel. Flagged as uncertain.
• Elturel is variously "Eltarel", "El Toral", "Delta Rail"; Maccath the Crimson is "Macbeth", "Makith", "Maca". Reconstructed against existing wiki pages.
• The Emerald Enclave sub-orders that assigned Keyleth's and Karma's squires ("the Talons", "the Scales of Eldath") are almost certainly garbled and are not asserted here.
• Shade referred to a familiar possibly named "Big Puss"; heard once, unconfirmed, not recorded as canon.