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Page 115 — The Best Waylaid Plans

Here's the other not-guest comic that I had set up before the sabbatical started.

This, much like the intermission page from Darths and Droids, is a sample of what the DM's session notes looked like before the game actually started. Instead of handwritten notes, though, it's slightly more modern — an open Word document on a laptop set up behind the DM screen.

Transcript:

{Screenshots of a Word document containing the DM's session notes. Portions of Page 92 are in the background.}
The Mare in the Moon
An adventure in the magical land of Equestria

Intro: Twilight Sparkle in the Observatory
Start from the perspective of Twilight and her familiar Spike. Twilight has just discovered The Mare in the Moon, which is prophesied to reappear at the Summer Sun Celebration tomorrow. Soon afterward, Twilight receives a message (through Spike) from Princess Celestia – she is assigned to oversee the proceedings of the Summer Sun Celebration in this year’s location: Ponyville. A private pegasus chariot arrives shortly to transport them to the town.

Ponyville: Twilight meets the Gang
After touching down and watching the chariot leave, Twilight sees Pinkie Pie coming down the street. They get introduced, and Pinkie Pie travels along with Twilight as she checks up on the proceedings. Spike, carrying the official checklist, leads Twilight to each location where she can find the other preparer-ponies.
1. Applejack at Sweet Apple Acres, preparing the food.
2. Rainbow Dash back in town, clearing the skies.
3. Rarity in the town hall, handling decorations.
4. Fluttershy on the outskirts, training her bird choir.
Since each player knows their role in the preparations, they’ll handle the introductions and character interaction themselves.

Partial Failure: The ponies get lost and stumble into a cockatrice’s nest.
Complete Failure: The group ends up at a cliff. Nightmare Moon uses her power to make the cliff crumble beneath them. (With two fliers and the combined Athletics/Acrobatics skills of the group, they should be fine.)

The Injured Manticore
After successfully navigating the first part of the forest (or surviving whatever failure they encounter), a Manticore attacks the party. It has been driven wild by Nightmare Moon without its knowledge, and believes the ponies are invading its territory.
The Manticore (Level 2 Solo Skirmisher) starts at 90 HP and becomes bloodied at 72 HP. When slain, the party will notice an unnatural black thorn – a wound the Manticore had been hiding the whole time.

Forest of Fear
The party enters a dark part of the forest unlit by the moon. The pony with the highest Passive Perception can notice Nightmare Moon’s ethereal form for a brief moment.
Shortly after, the trees glow with horrid, nightmarish faces and claw-like limbs. Each tree has an Aura effect that forces players to flee – but surrounded, they have nowhere to run and are paralyzed.
Nothing else attacks them until the trees are dealt with. It’s up to the players to come up with a solution to this – roll with whatever they come up with, e.g. dispelling the illusion or destroying the trees.

The River Serpent
The ponies come to a river. It’s churning rapidly and preventing the ponies from crossing it. A sea serpent crying upriver is causing all this – its mustache has been torn off, and he looks positively DREADFUL. If the flying ponies attempt to carry the others over, a great purple tail will thrash up to knock them back.
The goal is to calm the serpent down or otherwise incapacitate it. If attacked, the serpent won’t put up much of a fight and flee.

Nightmare Moon will create a whirlwind that teleports the Elements to a different building. The group can track her down with Perception. But when they arrive in the throne room, the Elements will be shattered, while Nightmare Moon cackles in triumph. She berates them for following her so foolishly, and declares herself victorious.
If the group attacks, Nightmare Moon will beat them easily, but leave them unconscious – they are hardly worth killing, and will be a warning to anyone else who attempts to cross her.
The session will end with the party unconscious in the ruined throne room. The next session will begin as they regain consciousness, with Nightmare Moon gone and the shattered remains of the Elements still there. Their quest, now, is to restore the Elements of Harmony, learn how to use them (including the mysterious sixth Element) and eventually use them to overthrow Nightmare Moon’s new empire and bring back the sun.

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Posted previously at: 2019-08-23T19:48:23