A Wild Sheep Chase V2

A Wild Sheep Chase (V2) (T1)
9/18/19

DM: Whitney

Players:
 * Ralatan (Firbolg Druid)
 * Cade (Rogue)
 * il Pappagallo (Lore Bard)
 * Kromax (Gnome Wizard)
 * Dailen (Human Cleric, rest in peace)

Premise
There's a noise and animal complaint coming from a tiny village north of Vigil called Cherry Creek. The villagers accuse Vigil of random bright lights, loud bangs, animal noises, and strange smells. Of course, Vigil had nothing to do with it. What's really going on?

The transmutation wizard known as Finethir, years ago, had (accidentally) discovered a way to create a wand of True Polymorph. However, his apprentice, Noke, had chafed at his teacher's tutelage and sought to usurp him. Noke transformed Finethir into a sheep one night as his master slept. He penned Finethir up in a small garden and began attempting to replicate the wand, to no success. Noke became paranoid that someone would steal the wand away from him, so he hired a contingent of guards, transformed them into dangerous beasties, and set them to patrol and drive away any approaching people. Since Finethir's old wizarding manor was located between Cherry Creek and Vigil, the villagers of Cherry Creek mistook Noke's experiments as Vigil's fault.

One day, Finethir seizes an opportunity to grab a scroll of Speak with Animals and flees his residence. He comes across the adventurers and begs for assistance. Can the party defeat Noke and take the wand to turn Finethir back into a humanoid shape?

Summary
"tl;dr: Party hired by the annoyed Vigil government to figure out why Cherry Creek keeps sending noise and animal complaints, party begins the trek to Cherry Creek, party attacked by patrolling panthers that turn out to be polymorphed humans, party captures one, captured panther leads them towards a wizarding tower, on the way they bump into Finethir in sheep form, promise to help him, they defeat Noke's defenses, Noke turns his furniture into attack creatures, party defeats Noke, wand of True Polymorph is damaged but they try to use it on Finethir anyway, Finethir explodes into a flesh monster and eats the cleric, party runs away posthaste and leaves the flesh monster to chew on the cleric."

Panthers and Promises
After being given their task, the adventurers set out towards Cherry Creek to question the townsfolk about their complaints. However, on the way, they are ambushed by panthers. They defeat the bunch, but as they realize that the bodies are turning into humanoids, they capture the last panther for questioning. The druid ritual casts Speak with Animals. The panther-turned-mercenary tells them that he was hired by a guy called Noke to patrol the area around Noke's residence. The pay was decent and being a panther wasn't too bad, so he went along with it. He promises to lead the party to Noke's place if they let him go alive (and as a human again). They promise to treat him nicely.

The trek towards Noke's gets interrupted as a fluffy white sheep sprints out of the woods and thrusts a scroll of Speak with Animals at the druid, which the druid quickly uses. The sheep babbles out that he's actually an elf named Finethir and he's been trying soooo long to find a person capable of using this scroll and Oh Dear, he's been followed.

Sheep and Stupidity
An orc, two wolves, and a bear standing on its hind feet approach. The orc, a poor simple man named Guz, demands the sheep back because the sheep is 'his master's property'. The party takes offense and attack. They defeat Guz and his crew, who turn back into humanoids. They question Finethir, who is a poncy git and offers them information in the midst of whining about his situation. The party makes out that Finethir used to be a powerful transmutation wizard that lucked into creating a Wand of True Polymorph. However, his evil apprentice stole it from him one night and transformed him into a sheep! He's been stuck as a sheep for years, and he needs the party to defeat his apprentice, Noke, take back the wand, and restore him to his proper shape. He says that the party would be welcome to some goodies from his wizarding tower if they succeed.

The party continues forward, guided by the panther mercenary and the wizard sheep, until they are stopped by a gate guarded by two weird looking footmen. They try to drive the footmen away, but all they do is bleat out "Stop right there! What's the password, criminal scum?" The wizard and druid get an idea to distract them, so the druid wildshapes into a panther and the wizard forms an illusion of the sheep. The druid chases the wizard's illusion, hoping to draw the footmen away, but they only react when the panther gets close, scampering away in fear and bonking themselves into nearby trees. The two footmen tumble over and then sedately begin to chew grass - the party realizes that they were two goats polymorphed into people. It takes a little bit of trickery to get by the gate and the wall, though. The gate is a polymorphed person who takes offense at people violating his purpose which is to keep trespassers out.

Eventually, they make it into Noke's property with the wizard sheep in tow and the panther mercenary tied up outside, but they are spotted.

Beds and Battles
A small group of apes (who are polymorphed guards) attacks them with greatswords in hand. The fight goes pretty well at first, but an outhouse door swings open to reveal a brown bear (another polymorphed guard) that had just finished with his business. The brown bear stumbles into the fray with his pants around his ankles. The party manages to defeat the group and steal their stuff, although the brown bear's goodies are unpleasant to smell. The wizard decides to send his familiar to scout the wizard tower's windows, but his familiar isn't as sneaky as it should be.

An upper window swings open. Noke, a stressed and disheveled human man, yells down, "What the heck are you guys doing here?" The party retorts that they are here to take the wand from him, and Noke responds with a ray of frost. The party retaliates with some arrows, but Noke slams the window shut and moves away. A few moments later, a...dragon's head??? forces its way through the tower wall. The party realizes that it's actually a Bed Dragon, as Noke had polymorphed his bed into a wooden monstrosity that breaths splinters and has wings made out of blankets. The rogue unlocks the wizard's tower with his tools, and the party rushes inside to take cover from the dragon and defeat Noke in order to reverse the polymorph.

However, Noke has been busy! He transforms his rug into a Rug of Smothering and his fireplace poker as a Flying Poker of Attack (use flying sword stats), and the party has to fend off these household-objects-turned-murderous while taking Noke down. They succeed and knock out Noke, but the household objects refuse to stop. The wizard grabs Noke's wand of True Polymorph and successfully reverses the polymorph on the rug, the poker, and the bed. However, the wand is badly damaged in the scuffle and begins to smoke.

Mouths and Murder
The sheep saunters in and demands that the party turn him back into an elf. He is aware of the wand's damage but is willing to take the chance.

Bad move.

The wizard tries his best, but the wand explodes and then the wizard sheep explodes...The former wizard turns into a jelly-like lump of flesh that grows mouths all over, and each of the mouths starts screaming - it's a gibbering mouther! The party decides to flee. Sadly, the cleric is not fast enough and is enveloped by the mouther and eaten alive as the rest of the group runs for the hills, abandoning the tower's treasures, their friend, and the rest of the polymorphed guards to their fate.

They go back to Vigil, say that they resolved (one of the) complaints of Cherry Creek and get their gold prize. Hey, the fact that there's a gibbering mouther still oozing around eating things only 5 or so miles north of Vigil isn't a big deal right?

Plothooks
to be entirely honest I was tired as hell and didn't want to prep anything original and ALSO it turns out John and I did the same thing ahahahahahah but here are some interesting things:
 * a gibbering mouther is loose in Finethir's wizarding tower that needs to be put down
 * there are still guards that have been turned into animals and now don't have a way to transform back
 * Wands of True Polymorph are possible and are horrifyingly powerful. What other powerful wands are there?