Druid Group
The group make their preparations and (short) rest as best they can as the evening tracks onwards, daylight eventually fading to twilight and then to total darkness as the clouds build overhead and the promised rains begin to fall.
RULES: Darkness & Blindness:
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Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance. A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
A heavily obscured area—such as Darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the Blinded condition when trying to see something in that area.
If you are blinded (i.e. trying to see into darkness without darkvision; or see beyond the limits of your darkvision), the following conditions apply:
1. A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
2. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have disadvantage.
This will work both ways tonight, and affect your enemies in the same way as they will affect you.
Syli and Varsk spend the evening doing a spot of potion-making, taking their time to study some of the plants in Vaceran's garden and the surrounding area a little bit for supplies. Varsk manages to find a couple of good-sized nighshade plants and harvests the berries and roots, which should do just fine for the poisons he's after. Syli also collects a few ingredients from the garden, but spends more time checking the nearby woods for irritating and stinging plants that might be usefully moved or harvested. After a little searching she stumbles upon a small patch of Death's Touch fungus (which can make a potent contact hallucinogen), a clutch of poisonous spider eggs, and a few scattered hogsweed plants with their nasty, stinging leaves.
Mehriv helps as best he can by fetching components and vials as needed, and by keeping the old dragonborn from interfering with the process too much.
Between the pair of them, they manage to make 4 vials of a basic poison, one vial of a paralytic, and Syli manages to produce an extremely potent hallucinogenic. The fumes make the walls a little melty, before she manages to get it into a couple of vials and stoppered up. Vaceran looks impressed. After finishing his own work, he rummages around in his cupboards a bit and comes back with a final vial.
"This is a poison I crafted from the venom of a wyvern, at no small risk. It is highly potent and will burn your skin if you touch it without gloves. Also... I don't know if it will be much use given the amount of rain we're going to get tonight, but I also have this toxin that can be applied to surfaces and will cause an unlucky victim to fall into a stupor if they touch it. They are yours to use if you wish".
By late evening, Vaceran looks exhausted, but has finished making the complex blackleaf brew, and has managed to also prepare 2 vials of a decent paralytic.
Basic poison:
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Poison (Injury). A creature hit by the poisoned weapon or ammunition must make a Constitution saving throw or take 1d4 poison damage. You can use the poison in this vial to coat one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Applying the poison takes an action. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying.
The DCs are:
1 vial: DC 11
1 vials: DC 15
2 vials: DC 16
Hallucination poison:
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Death's Touch Fungus poison (Contact). A creature subjected to this poison must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or become poisoned and suffer powerful hallucinations. The poisoned creature is
confused. At the end of its turns, an affected target can make a Wisdom saving throw. If it succeeds, this effect ends for that target.
The DCs are:
2 vials (1 application each): DC 21
Paralytic Poison:
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Nightshade root poison (Injury). A creature hit by the poisoned weapon or ammunition must make a Constitution saving throw or become
paralysed for 1 minute. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. You can use the poison in this vial to coat one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Applying the poison takes an action. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying.
The DCs are:
2 vials: DC 15
1 vial: DC 18
Wyvern venom:
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Wyvern Poison (Injury). This poison must be harvested from a dead or incapacitated wyvern. A creature subjected to this poison must make a Constitution saving throw, taking 24 (7d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. You can use the poison in this vial to coat one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Applying the poison takes an action.
The DC is:
1 vial: DC 15
Finally, Syli spends a little of her remaining time creating some difficult terrain to the west of the house by rearranging some of the fallen branches into awkward, but natural-looking positions and adjusting a few vines to be at just the wrong height to allow easy passage through (it'll be a DC 15 for someone to spot the arrarangement; Marked as the brown shapes between the trees to the west of the hut). She doesn't have time to rearrange the stinging plants she found, but she at least remembers where they are (marked in pale green) and has mentioned them to the group.
Gwen spends a bit of time making a decoy humanoid in the shed, and pouring the four flasks of oil she found there onto the wood, and into rags that she then leaves around the place. It should burn quite readily if a flame is set to it (indicated by the red square). She and Varsk also set up some nail-board traps inside the shed, just inside the door and window. She also sets up three subtle snare traps (marked as Ss with the DC indicated in each case) and one larger, baited snare trap to the SW of the garden (marked So).
The group reconvene to make their last adjustments to their plans and divide up their new potions, before Syli scampers up to the roof. It's wet and slippery up there (will require a DEX save to move around up there, unless you do so at half speed), but dark at least, and the stone chimney provides some decent cover to hide against. A distant rumble of thunder announces the coming storm.
((Any last preparations or adjustments you guys want to make at this stage? I think I got everything you wanted to do, but it's a lot and it's complex, so shout if there's anything missing. Between the darkness and the rain, your battlefield is going to be in total darkness for this fight (for better or worse), so if there's anything you'd like to set up to e.g. illuminate the area a bit more, then you're very welcome to do so
Also, the image of inside the cabin doesn't quiiiite match the text descriptions, but only insofar as I put the bed in the wrong place. We'll stick with the map version if that's ok with you guys? It shouldn't matter)).
Cabin in the Woods (night map)
Inside the Cabin:
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The loose boards are in the NE area, and there's an (unshown) bench on top of them:
DC10 STR to push from below;
DC5 to move it from upstairs.
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The Lizard group
THe lizard group paddle back over to the west, and find wide, muddy slopes on the islands to the north and south where they could haul up the canoe. A tall, dead tree is visible to the west.
Map: