Session 3 – April 16, 2025
Things Aren’t Kosher
As dinner comes to an end, King Caneius is comfortably sloshed, probably 2 drinks short of blacking out at this point. Caleroy Cruller is discussing some of the logistics of the upcoming trip to the King. The Imperial Army is going to meet the House of Saccharius halfway along their journey, and escort them the rest of the way. Commander Costando Grissini is the leader of the Imperial Army and will be their point of contact.
King Caneius and Lady Judith discuss Princess Cherry’s future—Lady Judith calls her “ambitious,” which King Caneius knows Cherry would consider a compliment, but it certainly was not meant that way.
Princess Cherry is stone cold sober, she’s a nerd! She’s freaking out on the inside—she wasn’t expecting the party to go so well—and she’s still mingling with the remaining guests. When she gets back to her room, the window is open, and a light breeze causes the curtains to softly billow. She knows she didn’t leave the window open, and as her mother’s Locket of the Sweetest glows she uses an Arcana check. As she opens herself up to some of her deeper senses, she notices that there’s a book on her desk with pages fluttering open. She can tell that the wind blowing the pages open is not blowing in the same direction as the breeze from the window.
She takes a look at the book—it’s an old fairytale book. The story it’s open to tells the story of the Fey in Candia. Before the Bulbian Church rose to power in Candia, there wasn’t much established religion. A lot of the beliefs present were more naturalistic, more “Mother Nature” and “Great Tree” type of stuff. She sees annotations on a page about the Sugar Plum Fairy, who was the guardian of the land that Castle Candy now sits on. The book never describes what the Sugar Plum Fairy looks like, but it does say that she is considered one of the Great Fairies, with powers beyond most other Fey. Cherry looks for information about how to appeal to the Sugar Plum Fairy, but she doesn’t find any. She’s more complicated and less understood than a common river fairy. She takes the book to bed to read and study further.
As a group is helping pack Forrest Black’s carriage, Sir Toby mentions rumors regarding the disappearance of Sir Rulean’s father, Wilton Rulean.
Sir Rulean is back inside the kitchen packing things up when Chancellor Lapin enters. Sir Rulean is more of a “shove stuff in the box” kind of packer, Lapin is extremely meticulous with his packing methods. Lapin says we have room for one more book, and he insists that Sir Rulean go fetch Forrest Black’s cookbook. She asks somewhat halfheartedly for it, but Forrest sends her away without it, annoyed at Lapin’s snooping.
Sir Rulean pulls Sir Toby aside to discuss formations and strategies for the general security of the House of Saccharius’ journey. She devises a formation with the miscellaneous guests in the front carriage, the royalty in the middle carriage, with Forrest’s kitchen carriage bringing up the rear.
Forrest Black pulls Sue Sheffield aside as well, telling her to keep an eye out for Chancellor Lapin’s snooping, and directs her to discuss possible security measures with Sir Toby or Sir Rulean so that he can’t get into the kitchen alone.
Queen Caramella has been baking dozens upon dozens of cookie dogs, a network of cookies that will allow Cookie to act as a messenger between the Queen and Poppy C. DeMuffin.
Princess Cherry talks to Ginger Snap, and they promise each other that they’ll write—Cherry is very concerned about the entire House of Saccharius leaving Castle Candy. Cherry also asks Ginger about the Sugar Plum Fairy and fairytales in general, she seems surprised by the question, and definitely doesn’t seem to be behind the fairytale book that Cherry found last night.
Cherry also makes an attempt at friendship with Lady Judith, thinking that they’re almost cut from the same cloth: two women in the castle who have been ignored and underutilized, and that they could perhaps form an alliance. She comes in with a bit of arrogance and condescension because she’s feeling like the hot new thing, and like she’s doing Lady Judith a favor. Cherry says that she wishes Lady Judith could see the world outside the castle—Lady Judith has never left Castle Candy’s walls as long as Cherry has been alive. Lady Judith recalls her father, Joren Jawbreaker, who lives deep in the Great Stone Candy Mountains, she looks out at the mountains in the distance, wistfully gazing toward a castle whose walls she hasn’t seen in decades.
Poppy C. DeMuffin is helping Queen Caramella with her last batches of cookies during the final preparations, Poppy pulls her in for a very deep hug, and says “I’ll miss you so much, my Queen. I think you’d make an excellent Empress.” Queen Caramella is shook by this, but displays a polite smile that doesn’t betray her surprise. Poppy says that the Candians have two excellent candidates for the throne, and she hopes it will be her. Caramella had not been considering her own chances at the throne.
We finally leave the purple walls of Castle Candy!
Forrest Black is studying his cookbook, looking for sections on the history of Calorum.
The carriages come to a sudden, screeching halt. The Tart Guard is reporting a fallen tree on the road. Queen Caramella invites Princess Cherry for a walk for some fresh air, but Cherry is convinced it’s a trap. Sir Rulean requests that they stay within the carriages until they figure out what’s going on.
A volley of arrows fly through the open door of the royal carriage, one of them hitting King Caneius for 13 damage, and another instantly killing his gummy worm mount!
| Init. | Character | AC | HP | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | Cherry | 12/12 | ||
| 21 | Sir Rulean | 15 | 20/25 | |
| ? | Caleroy Cruller | |||
| ? | Sir Toby | |||
| ? | Sue Sheffield | |||
| 10 | Queen Caramella | |||
| ? | Archers | |||
| ? | Lapin Cadbury | |||
| 7 | Forrest Black | 15 | ||
| ? | Tart Guard | |||
| ? | Marauders | |||
| 5 | King Caneius | 16 | 4 | |
| ? | Limon Long Halls |
We don’t actually see any combatants at first.
Princess Cherry takes cover inside her carriage—she’s so fragile that she wants to stay safe. She notices some movement in the trees to one side of the road, away from a nearby chocolate cabin. She hides successfully in the carriage, gaining full cover for the moment.
Sir Rulean was able to hear Princess Cherry call out the movement in the trees, so she cautiously begins to approach the tree line. She is able to see that the trees are concealing a band of marauders. Two of them leap in front of her, attacking her for 17 damage. Sir Rulean enters a rage and attacks the two marauders, but misses. The rage will blunt incoming damage, so that’s something.
Caleroy Cruller leaps into action, attacking but missing.
Sir Toby enters the fray, avoiding an attack and returning it with one of his own that hits for 10 damage.
Sue Sheffield is sent out by Forrest to administer a health potion to Sir Rulean, which heals 12 HP.
Queen Caramella observes what seems to be the leader of the Marauders, in the middle of the band. She addresses Cherry, is like, I’m about to do something and I promise we’ll talk about it later but please for now just cove me. She casts Detect Thoughts on the Marauder Captain, her eyes moving rapidly as she tries to sift through all the information that she’s receiving. It looks hella creepy. She hears an overwhelming amount of noise, including more Marauders drawing bows from somewhere. The Marauder Captain fails his Wisdom check, who is looking with utter focus toward King Caneius, and his thoughts are very clear: the image of Caneius’ head on a stake. She quickly relays to Caneius that he’s the target, orders Rue’s attention toward the hidden Marauders, she’s taking control of the battlefield through her mind.
Sir Rulean is assaulted in her mind by Queen Caramella, this is very new but she’s able to compose herself and devise a plan.
She also casts Hex on the Marauder Captain, which will deal extra damage and weaken a chosen ability score—he is a DEX-focused fighter, so she chooses DEX.
Free knowledge: these Marauders are not Candian, they’re Meat Landers. But they’re not speaking Carnish, they’re speaking Laccharine—the language of The Dairy Islands.
The Archers fire two more arrows at King Caneius, for 11 more damage.
Lapin Cadbury runs up to Caneius, placing one hand on his back, casting Shield Of Faith on him, boosting his AC by 2.
Forrest Black wards Caneius from attack with Sanctuary, a quick-setting jell-o bubble around him. He also throws a spicy churro Fire Bolt at the Marauder Captain, but it misses.
Two of the Tart Guard hit on their attacks, doing some nice damage to the Marauders. Most of them move in formation to protect the middle carriage.
Two Marauders make attacks, but they miss Sir Rulean and Caleroy Cruller.
With the Sentinel ability, Sir Rulean is able to react and take swings at the Marauders. She hits one for 7 damage, and another for 17 damage. She sees that the meat appearance is merely a mask, and that they’re really cheese! Dairy Islanders!
Another two Marauders move in on King Caneius, but the Tart Guard stands in their way and they both whiff on their attacks. Another Marauder moves past Sir Toby and his opportunity attack, moving closer to King Caneius but not near enough to attack yet.
The Marauder Captain darts back into the trees, going invisible.
On King Caneius’ turn—everything rushes back to him. This is not honorable warfare, this is an ambush aimed directly at him. He feels a rush, finding some twisted comfort by being back in the fight. He dusts a bit of powdered brown sugar on Sir Rulean, the Tart Guard, and Caleroy Cruller, casting Bless upon them. He looks around the battlefield, and sees fear. There’s a handful of people who have seen combat, but everyone else is either hiding or trembling. He thinks that if he were to move away from Caramella and Cherry, everyone would follow him, drawing them away and giving them some safety. Caneius also makes an Athletics check, succeeding in hoisting Chancellor Lapin into the nearby carriage to protect him.
Limon Long Halls laments his situation—he should’ve just stayed home—and asks King Caneius who he should aim his crossbow at. Caneius directs him to the closest Marauder, hitting for 9 damage and kills Marauder 2!
Princess Cherry throws one of her knives at a Marauder, missing, so she throws the other at it, hitting! It does 7 damage + 3 sneak attack, for 10 total. She’s running on pure adrenaline right now.