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The A-Team have arrived at Biel, the capital city of Iounin, to seek a wizard’s assistance identifying a mysterious goblin artifact. As the party arrived at the city gates, Shadyboi attempted to forge a duplicate of the contract they found after killing some mercenaries pursuing a peaceful goblin tribe. The gate guards’ were suspicious, taking the forgery to validate with the Grand Chancellor of the Hearing House, but still allowed them entrance into the city. Meanwhile, the party agreed to stay at The Fisherman’s Inn until their contract could be validated. Instead, the party rented rooms at The Dragon’s Hide in the seedier part of Biel where it would be easier to go unnoticed.

The party, sans Brottor who stayed behind for undisclosed reasons, eventually made their way to Maloo’s Magnetic Marvels where they met a gnome artificer named Pisa Lightsteel who was running the shop with his mechanical automaton Clankybones while Maloo was out. The party was unable to afford the 200gp price of Identifying the figure, but Pisa was willing to waive the fee if they agreed to fetch some spell components for the shop instead.

The party set out early the next morning to Sochet Lake, and once again Brottor declined to join them, stating he had important matters to attend to elsewhere. They traveled for 3 hours, finally arriving at the shores of the lake around noonish. Sochet Lake turned out to be a medium-small lake—actually more of a gulf or swamp that connected to the ocean. Weeping willows surrounded the lake, and toward the center, a small island could be seen. On that island rested a small ziggurat-style structure.

As the party investigated for a way across, they drew the attention of some lizardfolk guarding the ziggurat. A conflict ensued, with the party fighting not only the guards, but also crocodiles that emerged from the murky waters. Shelby, growing frustrated with the situation, decided to take the fight directly to them, swimming to the shores of the island. Upon slashing one of them with her sword, however, she was surprised to see that their wounds began to heal, as if her blade had no impact at all. However, when she struck them with her fists and channeled her strikes using ki, she was able to land some damage.

While the rest of the party dealt with the crocodiles and lobbed ranged attacks from shore, Shelby took on the four guards. One managed a lucky strike and bit her while she was distracted, the wound instantly becoming inflamed and infected looking. One of the guards, after being killed, collapsed to the ground and transformed into a human corpse. It was then she realized these weren’t lizardfolk at all, but werecrocodiles.

After defeating the guards, Shelby crossed the lake again to assist the party in harvesting teeth and crocodile skin to sell later. Exhausted, and with Shelby worried about her bite-wound, the party decided to take a rest and plan their next move. They now had more than enough crocodile teeth needed, but the giant crocodile could be hiding anywhere…

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We moved our game from Wednesday nights to Tuesday nights due to some scheduling issues that were coming up. It doesn’t affect much, it just means my wife and I are busy two nights in a row each week–we have another game night on Monday nights with some friends from college. We liked having that day off in between games, but it doesn’t really matter.

Originally, the ziggurat was going to be a large tree and the party was going to crawl in under the roots and discover an underground labyrinth. The more I thought about it, though, the more I wanted to do something with crocodiles. I googled “werecrocodiles 5e” and learned that while there’s a homebrewed werecrocodile enemy/npc, there wasn’t one in the official rules. So, I reskinned the wererats. Same thing, basically.

The werecrocodile thing was mostly impulse, but it got me thinking…what are these werecrocodiles doing here? Why was this structure built? What is their purpose for being out here? Did Pisa know about this before he sent the A-Team on this quest? I didn’t have all the answers when I first had everyone start their way out there, but I do now. I won’t be able to talk much about it until the full mission is over since I don’t want anyone (particularly my wife) to read this and get spoilers, but I think I’ve got some fun answers.

I’d been dropping hints about the true nature of these guards throughout the fight, especially once Shelby actually swam across the lake (motherfuckin’ tortles, y’all) and got a better look at them. I said things like, “These don’t look like normal lizardfolk; their faces are longer, more crocodile-like.” After Shelby’s first attack with her shortsword didn’t work at all (lycanthropes are immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage), I had her make an arcana check to see if she, with her scholar background, might be able to deduce what these creatures were. She rolled well, so she realized they were lycanthropes. When she was bitten and had to make a constitution saving throw, Stephanie was literally shaking she was so worried for Shelby. It was sweet to see her so invested in this story and the consequences.

I have the actual layout of the dungeon already done because I used an automatic dungeon generator online, but I don’t have a lot of the specifics yet. I’ll get that fleshed out before next time. The only thing I’m sure of at this point is that they’ll be fighting a giant crocodile. I’m excited for them to experience a good-old-fashioned dungeon crawl.

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