Hard to Bard - Soft kitty, warm kitty, Little ball of violence

Not five minutes pass when Grizelda regals the Band with another story... and Lemmog falls asleep on the path.

Soft kitty, warm kitty

Little ball of fur

Happy kitty, sleepy kitty

Purr, purr purr

Sister tries in vein to convince Grizelda not to keep retelling her stories, as they sent the band to slzzzzzz

and down goes Heironymo and Sister both snoring on the path.

Ekam kicks them awake, and is pissed of with "That F'in Cat"

Hydrica and Lemmog suff their ears/helmets with well anything to deafen themselves.

But Hydrica tries to reason with the cat, and hearing the response falls to sleep.

Heironymo and Ekam back off out of hearing range, and shout to the Sister, that the cat is a "F'in liability, and no amount of help is worth this crap"

So Sister sends the cat on its way.

As they band now move further down the path, the forest grows thicker, and Sister is sure she saw a shadow stalk into the forest a way behind them.

Stay on the Path!

The forest grows thicker save for a narrow furrow that looks to have been carved by centuries of footfalls. Around a bend, an eight foot post seems to appear out of nowhere. It is covered with signs in a dozen languages. The red paint is faded and worn in spots, but the words are still clear: “Stay on the path!”

As the band venture further down the path, they get an overwhelming sense of dread.

Suddenly Hydrica over came with the urge to run, and headed as fast as he could into the forest.

Heironymo chased after him.

Sister overcome with the same feeling ran as well

Lemmog chased after them

Ekam revealed himself and flew over the forest 

Lemmog tries to grapple Heironymo, but Heironymo runs further into the forest

Ekam drops candles with light spell cast on them into the forest to try and see into the deep forest.

Sister regains control over herself and rans back to the path

Where she levitates, and then suffers the urge to run, but is just running on the spot in the air.

Within a short time, with loads of running back and forth, Hydrica bursts out into a clearing where the forest is less dense.

Where he is surrounded by five Displacer Beasts

With a well timed, and extremely lucky Hypnotic Pattern, Four of the Five Displacer Beasts are immobilised.

This gives the rest of the band chance to get up to Hydrica and start despatching the Beasts one by one, making sure to only wake one at time, ensuring that the big horrible physic damage that was about the befall the party did not occur.

Approaching the City

As the band emerge from the wilds, they see a towering structure of stone akin to that you’d see on the Material Plane. The city and land around it lie in a globe of winter.

As they head into this winter wonderland(?), Sister and Hydrica become exhausted, the further they head in the more the rest of the band become exhausted due to the cold, with Hydrica becoming doubly so.

There are three main gates into the castle. Each one is guarded by two human guards. 

The band approach the middle gates, and they are apprehensive about letting strangers into the city because of their strange circumstances, more so due to the band consisting of and Orc and Goblin. Ekam convinces the guards at the middle gate to let them through, showing they have been invited by the Queen.

The characters can convince the guard to let them in with a successful DC 12 Charisma (Persuasion or Deception) check. If they have a letter from Queen Madeline and present it to the guards, they have advantage on this check. If the character making the check is native to the Feywild or has the Fey Ancestry racial trait, they have disadvantage on this check due to the distrust the humans of Richester have of fey.

The Streets of Richester

The city is dreary. Townsfolk seem to have low spirits and are certainly not accustomed to the new climate of Richester. Most wear summer clothes and cannot afford to dress properly for the weather. Most of the farmers and ranchers are completely out of work and who had to abandon their homes when the city was transported to Nevernever. There are a lot of people that are homeless and subsequently freeze to death on the streets. Most folks who do have homes within the city have opened their doors to as many people as they’re able to take in and live in dirty and cramped conditions.
Despite the hardship, the people of Richester believe in their queen. They believe that they were spared a horrible siege that would have surely killed them all. They speak highly of Queen Madeline and her kindness, and when asked about King Henry they scoff, proclaiming that he was a fool that would have led them to war.

The band seek warmth and refuge and head to the tavern

The Gilded Lotus Tavern

Upon entering this decrepit Tudor-style building, the band are greeted by a warm hearth and cheery folks that toast their queen. The air smells distinctly of cinnamon here.

This tavern is one of the few safe havens where a commoner can take refuge from the bitter cold of the outside. Spirits rise as folks spend their hard-earned gold on alcohol. No one in this tavern is singing or partying, but the sounds are reminiscent of a crowded restaurant. People talk about their dreams for when the endless winter is over and how their hopes for the new leadership of Richester.

The band head to the bar and speak with a stout and dark-skinned halfling with braids that are held in a ponytail Sean O’Malley the owner of the Gilded Lotus.

Sean explains that the The Gilded Lotus offers the following services:

• meals are available for
• Squalid 9 cp
• Poor 1 sp and 8 cp
• Modest 1 gp and 5 sp
• Rooms
• Modest 2 gp a night
• Comfortable 4 gp a night

Drinks

• Beer is 1 sp a pint
• The House Special “Dwarven Fire Water” is 20 gp a glass

Lemmog enquires on what the difference is between the meals. To which Sean states, Modest has meat in it, Poor has had meat near it and Squalid knows not what meat is.

Ekam enquires on what the difference is between the rooms, to which Sean says is simple one has beds and a floor the other only has the floor.

Sister pays 100gp for the homeless to sleep in the barn, but then needs the party to pay for her bed in the room.

Most of the band head off to bed, but Heironymo and Lemmog stay about and chat with the more rumbunctious locals.

They find out talking to the locals

• Bianca Griffin-Herder, a slender and elderly human female with gray hair that she doesn’t bother to brush or keep out of her face, she is a loud and rambunctious scout.
  She has since retired in Richester to live out the rest of her days.
• For 50 gp a week Bianca will guide the characters through the woods, but wont fight, leaving that lark to the young uns.
• Bianca was an adventurer during her youth.
• King Henry was assassinated, and the new King Consort Gerald was also assassinated shortly after arriving in Nevernever by agents of the neighboring kingdom that tracked Richester.
• Richester was transported to Nevernever to prevent war with a neighboring kingdom.
• Wearing rugged, battle-worn armor is Spit, a dragonborn male mercenary with dull silver scales who was passing through Richester when the place was transported into the Feywild and is bitter about his situation.
• Spit will offer to join the characters and assist them in combat if they commit to taking down Madeline and leaving the Feywild. He asks for an equal cut of any treasure that they find during their travels.
• King Henry is not dead, that was an imposter
• Haggard and dirty, his hair is overgrown hair and matted and has become one with his scraggly beard, is the human Scoop McGuffin
• Scoop McGuffin spends his time in the tavern drinking himself into a stupor day and night. How does he afford to be drunk, let alone stay drunk at these prices.
• The city wasn’t always shrouded in winter. It began about a month after arriving in Nevernever.
• The magic of the Feywild is turning people into beasts.

With a belch right up the nostrils of Lemmog, Scoop catches Lemmog trying to go through his pockets, and loudly proclams that this Orc owes him a drink and his next drink is on the Orc, “Hoo-wee!” 

With that the band head up to bed and rest for the night out of the cold.