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Post by warlord476 on Feb 3, 2017 23:12:39 GMT -5
2.13: The descent in four parts Characters for this session
Fennec, L2 wizard
Cauleigh, L3 warrior
Jotunn, L5 warrior
Crompton, L2 rogue
Part one: faction down
Significant NPCs for the first stage
Lady Melissa, Duchess of Fingold: Autocratic, almost a force of nature when roused in her city’s interests. She loves her people, they love her.
The arch-mage: Dwarf elder with ice magic specialty. His power has fended off the besieging force for two years, allowing the city of Fingold to develop their Adventurers Guild.
Armouring up at the north barracks
News of the assassination (of the Captain of Kimelas - last ep) flies quicker than thought! Soon the whole city is discussing what it means. Cauleigh’s cunning master-plan of Lady Melissa wedding the Captain of Kimelas is over. He says to Fennec: we need to investigate!
More prosaically Crompton and Jotunn set off for the awl-prickers and to the north barracks to see if the armour ordered is finished. Crompton has had four separate trickles of healing to get him up and walking, Jotunn is relatively unhurt but has shed his armour – there’s nothing worth keeping.
[The door trap end of last crawl dished out 30 points. Crompton had 21 CON and maybe 9 to 11 points of armour at the time. He's walking around on 4 to 6 CON.]
Crompton orders another gambeson – there’s no doubt he’ll be needing it. “Keep the sleeves short” he commands. He wears a fancy bracelet on one wrist, which has a powerful enchantment on it.
At the north barracks Jotunn finds his status as hero has brought a benefit. Cauleigh placed an order for a breastplate for him and he has jumped the queue.
“I have to apologise Jotunn, given the urgency I simply cut down a fine cavalry breastplate. It’s near shot-proof, the latest design. If you don’t mind waiting I’ll just finish the last fitting and it’ll be ready. Oh, and your comrade’s breastplate should be done after that.”
Jotunn readily agrees to wait, secretly delighted, while Crompton heads off to see if he can find the Sveltes.
He can’t, and for the remainder of the day is kept busy enchanting ballistae off scrolls provided by the arch-mage. Apparently the hippogriff overflight requires defences to be kept up like this.
“By the way,” the master smith says approaching Jotunn again, “I converted this off a cavalry helm as well. I thought it would make a good helmet for you. There’s a second one as well, if you find it useful.”
“What do you call this?” Jotunn asks, turning the helm over in his hands. It has a short nasal, three crests or ribs – the central rib high like a morion’s – and round ear-protectors with gaps cunningly fashioned between the helm and protector.
“I don’t know… a morion-burgonet? A barbute-morion?”
Trying it on, Jotunn finds that styling aside, it works well, a good balance between clear sight and sound, and solid protection.
He returns to the Guild with the new armour by evening. He walks against a current of rumour: the east faction has surrendered! And in truth, there are a number of east-faction deserters being sworn in or assigned tasks around the citadel wall and gates.
The truth of the diplomatic coup
The truth of the matter, Crompton and Jotunn discover, is that Cauleigh (wearing good gear) and Fennec (wearing best wizard robe) accompanied Duchess Melissa, along with Bless (dressed as lady-in-waiting) and Gnat (dressed as maiden-in-waiting), and Melissa carried all before her and persuaded the besiegers, who were in disarray, that their best interests lay in changing sides.
“I don’t like to brag but my few well-chosen words did have a startling effect,” Cauleigh explains modestly.
“I don’t like to brag but I kept my mouth shut the whole time, even when Bless was creepily ogling Gnat in that blue dress thingy,” Fennec adds.
[Since Melissa is doing the talking I get the two characters present to roll on CHR and the two players not involved to roll for Bless and Gnat. Cauleigh DARO’s to level 8. Bless and Gnat hit L2 and 3 respectively. Fennec hits L1 with a bonus for being a wizard but has already specified that he is keeping mum.]
“How’s that staff?” asks Crompton, seeing Fennec with it now.
Fennec waxes lyrical. This replacement for his shattered staff is a swap from the Lefties. It is named the Staff of the Wizard, and has a number of properties. Cauleigh traded off his scimitar for it and just wants to get remembered in the next good drop.
With this change of direction for the defences – and the east faction soldiery is already being drafted to building bastions facing west and south – the Adventurers Guild Council is convened.
Part two: the die is cast, kind of, pretty much
Significant NPCs for the second stage
Two AKA demon in glasses, party leader for the heavy hitters, specialist in communications and conjuration
Gnat, party rogue/assassin/tracker for the heavy hitters
Bless, brains for the Lefties, has some private agreement with Two
Mother Hobb: party leader for the survivors, potion specialist, secretary to the Guild council
Mizva, inebriated survivors tank
The Council pretends to study calculations
There are a number of things to bring to the table. Foremost, the pressing need to fulfil the mission against the vampiress and to purge the shrine.
Crompton (with health much closer to normal now) quite rightly points out that the “shrine” is an assumption, not a fact. The great wet zombie cavern might have a shrine tucked away just off it. Perhaps this colours the decision-making later.
The great wet zombie cavern brings up the arch-mage’s response to Cauleigh’s proposal. It’s midway between Fennec’s guess of ‘too important to bother’ and what they hoped for. He’s provided Two with a barrage of calculations showing that in a wide cavern of slowly-moving water there’s no practical way of freezing widely-dispersed zombies.
The way zombies are replaced is discussed. The fall of the east faction probably means no fresh zombie supply. But no-one found how the fire-mage and the vampires communicated, so nothing’s certain.
And as to zombie maintenance, Two has made his own calculations, he says with a gleam in the glasses. His theory is that the statue-shrine on Level 3 is more important than originally thought. Scouting spotted seven statues and if each provides a maintenance battery that explains how such an enormous amount of necromancy mana is being spent to keep zombies moving day after day.
The side-quest he suggested to Fennec some time ago seems even more attractive.
But the side-quest will not go down well with QMGLC Saundra.
But, independent-maintenance batteries.
Cauleigh gently calls the wizards away from their collective drooling. “Speak flatteringly to the QMGLC using her titles, and present her with reasoned arguments. She will listen.”
Then considers going in with full force
The next item to consider is the effect that clearing levels is having. There is no mistaking it – at least not if you have been doing this for a couple of years – the response is fragmented, even accidental in the case of Level 4.
This means that there is a really valid argument for putting in a big effort on the great wet zombie cavern. Then, finish clearing Level 5. That will allow a real base to be set up, from which the assault on Level 6 can be made properly.
Two (and Bless, who is clearly on the same page here) sees no great problem with the secret tunnel the Dwarves found, as a means to introduce Righteous Filbard to Level 6.
“He’s got what, five sturdy veteran bearers? Just clearing back more of the rubble while we ready ourselves. It would work.”
The Dwarves opt for this plan, and the survivors throw in. Mizva is keen. “I get to swat zombies? Works for me,” he mumbles. Cauleigh catches Mother Hobb's eye and murmurs something about keeping Mizva dry.
Tucking away vital equipment
There’s a pile of holy water vials, one per person. Each Dwarf takes one.
There are three mirrors not counting the one Bless has already called dibs on. Each is larger than a tiny hand-mirror. They could be useful checking for vampires, illusions, etc. Jotunn takes one.
Mother Hobb has two healing potions per person. She explains:
“It’s slow-acting, using your mana to power recovery. Don’t expect to jump back into action – this is just the difference between dying and not.”
[Technically, over the course of an hour WIZ moves down 6 and CON up 6.]
The general dimensions are agreed
Then to the discussion of forces. The way Two (and Bless) see things, the Lefties and heavy hitters should hit the great wet zombie cavern from above.
“We know there are guard stations on the stairwell. We can deal with those, then use the height of the cavern to our advantage.”
So that means the non-fliers are creeping down and assembling at the other end, where the massive double doors are. The wizards will all be in communication with one another (using Two’s spell) so everyone will know when noise and light aren’t a problem.
Speaking of light, it’s an immense cavern so there’s some discussion there. Mizva has a “lantern shield” but Mother Hobb suggests spirit-boat paper affairs, with candles or the like.
The plan in summary
The Lefties and heavy hitters work down from the main Level 4 passage, knocking out the guard posts. The others are waiting. They team up to hit the great wet zombie cavern, clear it, sweep Level 5 again, then see whether the side-quest is something that can be presented to QMGLC Saundra.
The council breaks up to rally rogues (Soup is still out reading scrolls over ballistae) and gear up.
Part three: down among the dead men
A quick summary of the adventuring groups, in order of power
Heavy hitters: Three warriors of differing fighting styles, a powerful wizard quarterbacking them, and a lethal rogue to guard the wizard or assassinate stubborn opponents. The fighting members all have powerful melee weapons, so the caster is free to coordinate strong attacks or defences, and the rogue is reserve.
Dwarves: Two warriors with similar fighting styles, a strong L2 wizard in support, and a strong rogue supporting both ends. They rely on a mixture of spells and magic weapons to power-up melee, so once the casters are done they have little staying power.
Lefties: Three warriors with very similar fighting styles, a rogue in support, and a strong L3 wizard in support of all. They rely on spells to power-up melee, which limits caster options.
Survivors: One tank warrior, two missile rogues, and a potion-specialist strong L2 rogue in support of them.
On Level 5, Zombies are moving out
We rejoin our heroes as they walk away from the watercourse that splashes down to the great wet zombie cavern. And as Mizva’s brightly-shining shield activates, they notice a difference.
The zombies are moving in organised clumps, away towards what’s believed to be the exit. The nearest clump of zombies, half a dozen or so strong, are short in stature and armoured in grey fabric of some type, and bear axes and shields.
“Should’a whicked those heads off” Cauleigh curses. There’s a quick tactical session. “The other two groups are held up!” Fennec pitches in with, “the guard posts are stronger than expected!” [Fennec and Mother Hobb are both linked to Two through means of his spell]
“Can you LF me?” Cauleigh calls back, “Pretty please?” By this time he’s already jumped down and is forging through the knee-deep water. Jotunn is with him, while Crompton swings his arquebuss into line and leans into the monopod stand to get a steady shot.
Boom! To the zombies at large and anything nearby in the tunnels, Crompton announces their presence. The shot definitely strikes the group but not being a head shot, has no effect at all.
Nor does Fennec’s OGA: undead don’t react to normal stimuli.
Nor does Jotunn’s flaring torch: the sturdy short zombies are definitely the same group he helped kill, but don’t react to light in any noticeable way.
“Mmh, well, I guess we need something…” Fennec grumbles and speeds first Cauleigh then Jotunn.
Two LF, the OGA and some more grumbling later Fennec is pretty much tapped out. [It’s his choice though: he could have used two of his staff’s limited stock of charges up, and have plenty of mana left. The Staff of the Wizard reduces spell cost by 10, but there are only 17 charges left.] He (and Mother Hobb, on his arm) have splashed through the water to stay in support. Crompton calls tempus fugit and flanks around the warriors, getting to close range.
Cauleigh’s first foray is against the zombie-Morlocks and Jotunn takes the heads off two Cauleigh trips. They can hear one another quite clearly thanks to the new helmets. Then Cauleigh glimpses a huge splash over left.
Mizva is in trouble! The survivors’ fighting men have tackled another larger group of zombies, but one is whaling on Mizva’s shield with an immense polearm, pounding him down below the water’s surface again and again. Whitey and Burnley don’t have the stopping power to do anything about it.
Meet ferocious grinning dancing zombie-shepherds
The three Dwarves race through the water. They’ve got the rhythm of moving at twice speed now. Crompton pulls out the wand that Sharp forgot to collect back off him, levels it and yells:
“Fight for me!”
It hesitates.
Jotunn smashes his shield into the creature – which seems agile but is temporarily at a loss – and Cauleigh brings his billhook’s pole-end up and down in a leaping spike, pinning the thing’s head to the ground. Boom! Crompton’s shot shatter’s the thing’s head open and globs and bits begin drifting away to where a stream drains.
The larger zombie group ceases marching purposefully away, and begins swinging around towards noisy adventurers.
Cauleigh’s proficiency with billhook is accelerating! He trips two, even three zombies at a pass. Jotunn swipes heads off with athletic sweeps – though at one stage he ploughs through the water as he hits an unexpected deeper footing. Mizva pitches in again, his powerful mace shattering heads completely.
Crompton is acting as caller. He sees two dangers. On the far side of where they are, another zombie group has marched in from a side-channel. And towards the supposed exit, where the other groups are to appear, a zombie group has turned, and its shepherd is grinning and dancing, waving its huge polearm.
As they turn though, two of the crew topple into a deeper area. It’s worth marking out as terrain they can use.
“The other groups are just about here! They’ve finished up above!” Fennec calls. Indeed the lights from their advance can be glimpsed, dimly.
“Fight for me!”
Crompton’s tactic works again. Cauleigh feints the hesitating shepherd onto the wrong footing then between them the four butcher it apart. Its limbs join the drifting mess of zombie brains.
And finally, the delayed arrival of the flying teams! The heavy hitters have their approach all worked out: Gnat is flying high running interference against any bugs in the roof; Two is lower coordinating, and the warriors are flying just above zombie head height where they can comfortably whick heads off. The Lefties have a less-calculated approach: Bless is perched at ease on a floating bedroll casting VB at her leisure; Soup is towing her while casting VB as needed; Panic is using the magic scimitar they swapped off Cauleigh; and the other two warriors are using billhooks.
Crompton uses up quite a supply of shot, shooting zombies struggling up out of the sinkhole he spotted. He marks the side-passage down as a possible location of zombie shrine and rejoins the group.
Aside from a mouthful of water (Jotunn) and a lungful of water (Mizva) there are no wounded among “team sneak down.” The other team seems to have had a tough fight up in the guard stations. Snake-monsters, skeletal guardians, and a trap. But the wizards still have mana in reserve so they all bundle into the relative dry of the broad “workings” shaft.
Part four: accidentally, everything is go, OK?
The first ten minutes is spent explaining the layout, and cautiously checking the guard-chamber left of the entry gate is empty.
Mizva’s lantern shield is still shining bright, so with a couple of torches flung down as they go, the Dwarves form advance guard and check the next pair of doorways. These stand opposite one another across the broad shaft.
Jotunn is following bloody drag-marks – it’s obvious to his eye where the Morlock corpses were dragged way for preparation, and that other Morlocks did it – when he stiffens, alert to a new sound, or presence.
The warriors fall back and tank up with support warriors.
Almost anticlimactically, an ice lizard steps menacingly into the light, its head weaving in alarm. It does not seem to have a choice about its advance, though.
“It’s just icy. We Glued one and killed it quickly.”
“Oh. OK. Gnat, just get rid of it.”
There’s a blur, a scuff as Gnat kicks off from the roof, and a nasty thwoock sound as she dive-slams a shortsword down through the creature’s skull. It topples, dead. Gnat shakes the blood off her sword, sheaths it and wanders back through the shield wall to her post by Two. Fennec and Mother Hobb edge closer to Two.
But the pause has allowed Jotunn to sense more oncoming enemy. From the right scrabble a swarm of huge beetles! Their mouth-parts glow with ichorous fire.
Jotunn and Cauleigh leap atop a pair of them, Mizva just uses his shield to take the fiery spittle. With three down in short order the remaining few are quickly dealt with. Glowing paste sticks on the blades that hacked them apart.
Spriggan!
But meanwhile Crompton has been watching out carefully. It wasn’t bugs that drove the lizard on. There! In the left doorway! He swings the long arquebus barrel around on its stand and lets drive.
“Spriggan!” someone screams.
Boom!
In the doorway a Spriggan jerks, struck by the bullet. Its face snarls in a rictus of anger! It pulls a pistol from its belt! It levels the pistol at Crompton!
“Bang!” the Spriggan shouts.
It looks crossly at the pistol barrel then levels it again.
“Bang!” it shouts again. The other Spriggans around it snicker and begin attacking.
“Tank up!”
“Protect!”
“Shields!”
There’s a general movement of shield-carrying warriors forward to block the recess the Spriggans are emerging from. But the wounded Spriggan appears in front of Crompton. And grabs his arquebus by the barrel.
As Crompton wrestles the Spriggan for control of his precious, Jotunn hurtles in, swinging his axe laterally. By an inch he clears the barrel and Crompton’s fingers! The Spriggan stumbles back, an arm missing. It still looks very annoyed. Then Cauleigh hurls his kukri! It’s not built for throwing but he times its rotation perfectly: with a chwuck it takes the top off the Spriggan’s head, and it falls dead.
Cauleigh is after the kukri in a flash! Hunts desperately… can’t see it… then a small hand presses it into his grasp and Gnat vanishes back to the fight again.
Meanwhile:
“Giant up!”
A peculiar power of the Spriggan is to suddenly become gigantic. From behind the main line of shields Cauleigh yells:
“Fall back!”
But luckily there’s another yell:
“Tank up! Don’t let it past!”
Although the giant can and does lean over and deal massive damage, the line holds and the other Spriggan can’t get past to attack the weak rear!
[The combined attack surplus is dished out among the warriors and rogues. The Dwarves share 200. One of the great things about T&T combat is that tanks can tank, by taking a larger share of the damage. Cauleigh and Jotunn (52 armour each) take the bulk. Each is left on single-digit CON]
Crompton now has his arquebus back on its stand and loaded. Ignoring his wounds he aims the piece up:
Boom!
Can’t miss! A piece of its shoulder is torn away.
At the rear, where Fennec and Mother Hobb are sheltering, Two and Bless seem to be about ready to do something. Bless slides one of her four wands out of her hair.
Fennec’s own mana has trickled in, and he slams a TTYF into the giant. WHAMM! There’s a slight red tinge to his spell’s effect now, he’s interested to note.
Two levels his arm and white lights begin playing around it, and a noise like metal bolts slamming home begins in sequence:
Chu chu chu chu chu CHOOMMMM
[Accompanied by wanking motions from some of the players. Hey, if you can do it, why wouldn't you trick your spell up to look more lethal? But fun, I've been waiting for Two to throw a higher-level TTYF since he first partnered with the Dwarves]
A tremendous whitish-blue arc blazes from the wizard to the giant’s chest. It falls!
The warriors press forward, jabbing with swords and axes. They hold the remaining Spriggan, but only just. Then someone in the front rank makes the call:
“Now Two! Now Bless!”
And gestures the line back:
“Entangling thorns!”
“Plant destruction!”
In one sweep, the Spriggan are entangled then torn apart as the complementary spells take effect before they can escape.
A couple of nice drops are found and shared
The Spriggan seems to have recently arrived – there’s no lair as such. They had a chest, covered in stone dust. Later, Jotunn finds where they pulled it out of the rubble the Dwarves had been working on.
Aside from a nice collection of coin, there’s a red, two-blade shield in it. Magical. The Lefties and Dwarves begin dickering over it as though the other groups don’t count. Cauleigh agrees to surrender his kite shield, and gets the attack shield.
The rooms are checked again and pronounced clear. The path through to Level 6 is much as it was - though the space the chest came from is noticeable. On the other side, since the Sveltes just did a once-over, they look more closely. At the narrow end of the ancient forge-room where stone lies in a pile, Jotunn can feel a breeze from above. Shifting the stones quietly, they unearth a grapnel in perfect condition. It has a short length of rope attached.
One of the heavy hitters recalls such an item once belonged to an earlier group. The rope extends, apparently. The Lefties claim it. In exchange they surrender the plant control potion jug, and that weird powder that makes black ooze from under fingernails.
[I should also add that the Lefties get the two enormous polearms. They are simply too long for a Dwarf.]
Level 6 is a go!
Although Two and Bless are now significantly down on mana there’s a general feeling that this is the time to launch at Level 6. If the vampiress is bringing allies like the Spriggan in, delay can only harm.
Gnat is despatched ahead to shoulder-tap Righteous Filbard and Two and Bless, with a screen of four warriors, head back to Level 3 to await the cleric.
The remaining teams begin setting up camp, drying gear, and exploring. And the session ends.
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Post by warlord476 on Feb 5, 2017 22:08:15 GMT -5
2.14: Survive 5, Splatter 6!Characters for this session
Fennec, L2 wizard
Cauleigh, L3 warrior
Jotunn, L5 warrior
Crompton, L2 rogue
Crompton is caller
"Thanks for the save back there," Mizva growls to Cauleigh. "I was down but for you!"
"No problem," Cauleigh replies. It looks as though Mother Hobb is doing a good job keeping Mizva off the bottle. The survivors tank walks over to Crompton and pats his shoulder.
"Hey, you did great out there. Nice calling."
"Yes, just doing my job."
"Good spotting on those zombies and the terrain. Really good."
"Yeah, you did good!" Burnley and Whitey agree. And so Crompton becomes key decision-maker for the defence. [Also takes a permanent +1 to CHR]
From the darkness, danger stalks
The eleven left to solidify the foothold are in good spirits, especially when they find that given time, Mother Hobb can cover most of the healing needed. With blankets rigged up for the latrines, and closed doors double-checked, it's time to think about inspecting other areas.
These can be broken down to three. First, there's the immediate surroundings. Second, there's the side-cavern to the great wet zombie cavern. Third, there's all the unknown beyond the twin arches the rails (or channels) lead through.
As they discuss how much light might be needed Jotunn [IQ using hunting] senses movement.
Zombies attack, but the experience of the warriors tells: they are held at the arches and easily dealt with. Beyond away in the dark, Fennec glimpses a pair of yellow eyes.
They next check the rooms they already know of, ensuring nothing evil has crept in. Then warned by Jotunn once again, they rush to defend the arches. Beyond them, two mine-carts are being pushed forward!
Mizva the survivors' tank backs the rogues up with his lantern shield, and Damper stands ready to his flank. Fennec hurries over to the latter:
"Can you boost me? I need to see inside the carts!"
From the vantage of a tall human Fennec can see that the cart immediately to his fore carries two Morlocks. He'd imagined gunpowder. But he does spot those eyes again and lets drive with a L2 TTYF!
The Morlocks are easily dealt with by the bright light. There are but three. One is killed in the cart, two attempt to retreat and Cauleigh and Jotunn leap around the cart and into them. Each cart has been pushed by a zombie, and those are dealt with as well.
So far so good, though Fennec is tapped out of mana once again!
The wrong kind of drop! Desperate recovery of items!
Deciding not to split the party further, they hunker down to stand guard until Crompton feels the time is right to start probing further. There's a last room on this "north" side of the arches that has two doors leading "south" beyond. An enemy might use that room to flank them.
In the nick of time! For the eyes of evil - which they are beginning to think must be the vampiress - are spotted there. As light splashes into the room a bulky shape, perhaps half the size of an ogre, with sharp fangs, can be glimpsed.
Fennec is caught in mid-room without his support! He makes an extra burst of speed and out, but leaves his staff behind!
Cauleigh dashes in! Fennec's staff is too important! Whammm! A painful cascade of orange bathes him and he falls nose down, apparently dead.
But Cauleigh has presence of mind to throw up his magical shield as he dashes, and most of the damage is absorbed by it. [leaving him with a CON of 1 as his CON had not been at full at that point] He is awake but stunned.
"Oh fine, I suppose I can't abandon my meat-shield," Fennec grumbles and ducks in. Then glass shatters between him and escape, as something small is flung, and orange mist pools out and begins forming... something.
A weird bipedal dragon-like thing forms from the vapour and a vicious fight develops around the doorway.
Meanwhile Cauleigh rolls over to find a face grinning down at his. He whips his shield up, determined not to be hypnotised! Then rolls to the door and under the dragon-warrior.
Fennec's GlueYou does not work on the summoned creature! But, once the other warriors cut down its ability to move and breathe fire, Crompton shoots it with the enchanted arquebus, and Cauleigh chops up at it from below with his bladed shield, it slowly dissolves again.
Fearing yet more arcane blasts they use rope to hook Cauleigh's other gear and bring it back to him.
Another assault, weirder than the last
The next assault comes from the arches again where strange collections of bone creatures advance. They have only one thing in common: they all bear a weapon of some sort!
For this, the twin tanks Mizva and Damper excel, blocking the arches then pounding the bone creatures back to shards. Jotunn and Cauleigh use their athletic abilities to leap in around the flanks.
But behind the bone golems the bulking evil lurks - something weirdly feminine about it - and this time Jotunn is hammered by the TTYF. It fades back before Fennec can do more than hit it once with his own TTYF.
[I use TTYF here because it ties in with shatterzone Uruks using it. Curse You would have been a better fit. And there's something very scary about being cursed and that stat not coming back.]
Gnat says: we'll be ready soon, and would you like this wand to take the fun out of it all?
As they rest wearily, Soup confesses he has a wand that generates an illusion, but takes concentration. So they set torches and he rests by a doorway, watching his illusory warrior patrolling.
Resting and watching. Being healed. The hours tick by.
Then something blurs out of the dark near the entrance, kicks the illusion in the head -passing straight through - and bounces off the nearest wall.
"Hi Gnat, what took you?"
"Funny," Gnat returns in an unfunny tone. She joins them in their camp.
"I've been detailed off to let you know how things are going. It should take about three more hours. How's things going with... whatever?"
"We're holding things off... the vampiress has had one go at us already... we saw off zombies and bone things..." all these and more are pressed in on the diminutive heavy hitter.
"So you're held up... well I do have a gadget."
So saying Gnat hands over a wand that detects enemies. It has charges, she seldom uses it, because, not so much fun.
Crompton deputes Burnley, the nippiest rogue on his feet, as scout. He uses the wand like it's free magic. Using it, the teams move quickly through the remainder of level 5:
- One of the doors leading "south" encloses a set of luckless kobolds, slaves to work in the mines. The two sides have the Dwarven tongue in common. They feed Crompton some useful information about the side-passage off the great wet, including that there are more of their work gang there. Crompton frees them.
- The other door leads via Morlock living quarters - where a current Morlock pay-chest and a long-forgotten Morlock pay-chest are found - back to the main mine passage. Opposite that, the last processing chamber lies long abandoned. The end of the main passage is visible from there, one tunnel leading away from it.
- That tunnel definitely slopes down!
- The side passage off the great wet is duly checked by a sub-party of rogues. They free the kobolds there.
[/ul] Let the assault commence!By the time the rogues head back out, Righteous Filbard's bearers are wading the great wet, with the wizards and warriors standing guard. And so it's time to make some final decisions and speeches, and tackle level 6! "We and the Lefties will head down the main passage. Our job is to make a lot of noise and draw the defence. We'll be in touch for the hour my spell lasts. Your job is to guard Filbard and get him to the shrine and make sure he purges it."And can I make the point, this is the time when you all - please - I beg you - stop conserving gadgets and use them. And don't forget your holy water!"Gnat yoinks her Oh Dread wand back from Burnley, lifts her hand crossbow with the holy water vial bolt in salute, and smirks confidently. The survivors glance around at each other and nod to Crompton. They'll stick with the Dwarves. Skeletal guardians guard the forgotten wingOn level 6, all is as it was left, except that Crompton, who has placed himself in the lead and using a Cateyes, can pick up traces of small feet where Spriggans wandered in, found it boring, and left again. There are two doors right, one left, and one on the far end of this large chamber. The one on the left has elaborate decor around it, though, so does the far door. Cauleigh has confidently pronounced them to be of "religious significance." Crompton waves Burnley, who is now using a detect-traps wand, forward. Yes, the far door is trapped. "Can you undo a trap?"
"Sure. Knock-knock."Crompton leaps even further back as the door shifts a little and there is a faint hiss as displaced air seeps through. After a nervous ten minutes the door is eased open... A skeletal being, the size of a wolf, bounds out - followed by two more! Aside from these creatures needing magical weapons to harm them, they are not difficult to defeat. Especially once Mizva joins them from his rearguard position. The passage they guarded leads to a similar door, and it is similarly unlocked. At this point, Fennec breaks in with narrative: "The others are fighting creatures... big hag... wolf thing... Oh - one of the Lefties just tried to kill himself - they're piling on him"In response, Crompton pushes on ahead faster. The chamber beyond is strange, to say the least. Its roof is supported by a massive but ornate pillar, with strange runes boldly carved on it. A small thin pillar stands nearby each of the four faces. The floor is swept clean and an elaborate design, possibly mosaic, covers a wide stretch of floor left of the pillars from where they have entered. The only other possible exit ends in a broad dead-end, facing the design. But Crompton feels along that wall and finds eye-holes and a lever to unlatch a panel. Standing on his pack, he can see the other two parties finishing up from their combat, checking surroundings. He begins making creepy noises [ not true but trying to say 'hi guys how's it going' through concealed eye-holes counts as being creepy] then decides just to open the panel. But then: Trouble ahead! Dwarves to the flank!Gnat calls enemy ahead and the heavy hitters shake out again, Lefties supporting them. Crompton giggles - Lardo and Sprain are trying to use those huge polearms the zombie-shepherds were waving round, and they look out way of balance. [ STR burns quickly using too-heavy weapons, but if an enemy is put down in one round it's worth it] Cauleigh calls from the rear: "If they've got trouble we need to get through the other flank! Come on!" Shrine of the fallen falls to the righteousThe party order reverses as they all run back to the big forgotten chamber and move to the "main" door, the one with the most ornate decor around. Heaving it open they behold a mighty shrine to the dead! On the opposite side, but left of their door, a strange corrupt idol looms over misty, green-glowing lichen walls, where the dead seem to reach out from ledges. And on the floor, so many dead, some undead perhaps, but all awaiting the call to battle. Across the shrine they go, shielding Filbard. The chamber opens out even wider, and lower, leftward. Fennec catches a glimpse of something that way, quickly vanishing. On their right, they see a mighty Ogre, or Ogre-corpse, wielding a hefty axe like a willow switch, and beside it a slighter figure but still bulky with muscle, though unpleasantly feminine as well. [ This is the Ogre from the first assault into Level 3, and the second and final Night Hag] These two final defenders last until they are overrun by the heavy hitters and Lefties warriors. Moving left, the Dwarves see that the further chamber is blocked at its far end by masses of tumbled stonework and boulders. But this broad chamber, which is lower than the shrine, is part-filled with mist. There is a pause as Filbard begins purging the idol and temple. The other groups spread out. Two and Bless throw three Dispels between them, cutting a path through the mist. But there's no secret door, the rubble is really rubble. "I'm getting a faint reading - straight ahead," reports Gnat. After an hour, Filbard's task is complete. Fennec can feel a sense of mana powering down. The shrine is filled with dead, but they are really dead. The mist, too, begins dispersing. Silly vampire! We can detect you! Now fall!Cross-checking on the first reading confirms the danger really is beyond the rubble. A passage leads out of the lower chamber and through a few abandoned rooms to the vampire's lair. All that bars their way is an immense pile of bones at a doorway, and this is dispelled then pounded to shards before it can activate. Just in case. Bereft of allies and mana stripped down to her own supply the vampiress makes her stand. Crompton notices Lardo stepping behind Two, and warns the party quickly enough - the warrior is bundled to one side and the vampire approached. Gnat shoots her with the holy water, and at least two rogues fling theirs as well. And the vampire is overrun and dies. One more door... again... and disasterThe vampire's lair is decked with all manner of curiosities, but perhaps disappointed that there are no piles of gold, Cauleigh proposes a short extra search. Fennec and Crompton agree... The third room they try seems empty... then a strange shark-like form rises out of the stone floor, draws itself up on limbs and attacks! Cauleigh is smashed away into the opposite wall, Fennec is spun off his feet by Cauleigh's hurtling form, and Crompton's gunne misfires. The land-shark chows down on them... but the GM is soft and lets them go with damaged armour as they flee. It's a bittersweet discovery - the two doors off the first chamber they even came on in Level 6 are both treasuries. A salute to the re-founders of FingoldIt is the next day, perhaps, if time has been measured after healing and sleep are dealt with. The Dwarves, cleaned up and in what remains of their best, are in the citadel council chamber. They wear each a new gold token at their neck, denoting their status in the Guild. Duchess Melissa, QMGLC Saundra and the arch-mage stand. "A toast! To the four Dwarves who changed our fortune! We now have peace on our east, a gold mine with which to buy mercenaries, and a future!""Truly, the god Ikmal guided our footsteps!" Cauleigh responds, not to be outdone. The arch-mage smiles behind his snowy beard. Saundra purses her lips but nods: The gold and silver looted is pouring into her coffers as equipment is replaced and spells purchased. Melissa smiles radiantly and raises her goblet again: "To you four, the re-founders of Fingold!"Props
Dyson's Dodecahedron 2014 provided me with Levels 3 to 6, though altered slightly to enable connections between. &Magazine's generators provided room descriptions, monsters and loot, and needed relatively little alteration, just a few tweaks so it fitted together with mining and an ancient temple.
I also downloaded some dungeon themed noises from DriveThruStuff.com. I think that's the first time I have used 'ambient noise' and it certainly works as a signal that attention might need to be paid! A 'clanging noises in the distance' kind of track really enhanced the final Morlock attack.
Also, me! I crafted 2D versions of Levels 5 and 6 using black craft paper stuck to wargame boards or mats. Parts that players could not see were covered with throws or more paper. I think overall, it helped with the levels of paranoia. It did make set-up logistics an issue though.[/font][/font]
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Post by warlord476 on Feb 10, 2017 20:45:00 GMT -5
2.15: To the river
Characters for this session as they end the season:
Fennec, L2 wizard STR24 IQ21 LK15 CON26 DEX20 CHR13 SPD14 WIZ21. OGA value 49, Combat adds +25.
Cauleigh, L3 warrior STR27 IQ14 LK24 CON34 DEX29 CHR18 SPD29(+9). Combat adds 70 with ring of speed.
Jotunn, L5 warrior STR31 IQ15 LK20 CON52 DEX24 CHR8 SPD20. Combat adds 47.
Crompton, L2 rogue STR26 IQ12 LK19 CON22 DEX28 CHR12 SPD16 WIZ13. Combat adds 41.
Joyous summer beams upon their course
It is warm and still as our four re-founders of Fingold set off out the west gate and between two small bastions thrown up a bowshot from the walls. One directly guards the road, the other faces west-south-west. They swing around the latter and strike out along the well-beaten trail left by Chion’s regiment mere days since.
It makes for easy marching, and though Jotunn still ranges ahead he bears his full load. Animals and birds stay well away from the steady clanking progress of the four. Sweat stains the travelling clothes of Jotunn and Cauleigh in particular, though Crompton too sweats as he swaggers with heavy weaponry on his shoulder.
A slighted fortress offers a fine view of Hathlisveit
It is well through the second day of their march when Jotunn spots an unnatural line visible through the trees to his right. Perhaps fortification, perhaps siege weaponry.
Slipping his arquebus and some of his noisiest gear off and leaving the other three standing guard, Jotunn creeps [excellent DEX SR] through the young trees to discover the site of a slighted fortress. Here, a counter-castle and ruinous siege weapon are slowly decaying. Beyond, the broken walls of the fortress. Judging by the regrowth, it has been abandoned at least two years. There is no sign nor smell of human – not even the sour charcoal smell of an old fire.
A quick clamber up, and he can see beyond the woods to the siege lines around Hathlisveit, some six miles away. As far as distance allows him to judge, the siege is still being prosecuted and the lines are still not heavily occupied.
The view affords choices of shadowy paths where the party can slip close to the besiegers. From there it will be a simple matter for Crompton to sneak the party in.
And so it proves.
[And here I blank out and forget to place a set-piece encounter with a crashed hippogriff.]
Hathlisveit offers plenty of ways to spend money
At Hathlisveit they find they are welcome but the welcome comes with no great fanfare. They check into the Serpent once more (it is the only inn) and are greeted by Mukregard Distaff. Who approves of their choice to have separate rooms, and suggests they head to the baths.
Cauleigh has already confirmed that the inn’s common room has plenty of card players and hot Svelte women. After an adequate supper he and Crompton make up numbers for cards, and as they bring a devil-may-care attitude, lose comfortably.
But Cauleigh’s evening is far from over – Sveltes Scrumptious Sip and Harlotta are keen to get to know him much, much better. Over the next few days Cauleigh spends 200 gold in their company.
"Hey, is Cauleigh heading away with all those girls?" "It's an orgy?!" "Are we invited?" "Do you wanna be? Three's a crowd, four's even more fun..." "Uhh..." "The party that orgies together..." "...can't look each other in the face the next day." "No you are not invited! I have my own room! Let's go ladies..."
He partly reimburses the expense by selling his “chance division” of the vampiress’ loot. (She collected interesting valuables.) He has a steel, gemstone-decorated warhammer head, and sells it for 120 gold.
Jotunn – given a hint by one of the Chion’s regiment skirmishers – has saved his gold for Hathlisveit. He gains the ear of Sinofor Mes, master armourer and also vicar of Ikmal. Jotunn commissions a cuirass with magical protection. He pays up front: for some reason Mes believes there’s a good chance he’ll never see Jotunn again.
Crompton has not saved his gold at all, but does have one of the best “chance divisions.” He reaches out to Aussecur and soon sits down with the wily Svelte who examines his mithril coin collection.
Crompton wisely passes up Aussecur’s first two offers [I am so proud of Crompton, he is a very different Dwarf from the one that tried to bribe an urchin with a gold coin] but the Svelte leans in close and says:
“If not for money, how about I share my master-spell with you? If I teach you the Teacher spell you’ll be in the driver’s seat bargaining with any rogue you meet.”
This is a good deal, provided Crompton meets rogues that want the spells he has. So he hands over the coins and Aussecur begins teaching him.
Crompton and Cauleigh gain an interview with Berenger Aussi, gunsmith to Hathlisveit. His main concern is the siege so Cauleigh finds his usual charm not quite as effective. [makes L3 CHR but that’s not great in the circumstances]
The mood sours further when Crompton pushes his enchanted arquebus forward.
“Fancy, too fancy,” Aussi grumbles, though secretly impressed. “Hmm, not a bad little piece,” he says of Cauleigh’s caliver, “If you ask me it’s flimsy though. Look at that breech block and bore. I’d replace that…”
“How much?” Cauleigh asks striking while the iron is warmish, and makes a deal. It will take a significant number of days.
But then he makes the mistake of asking about an enchanted touch-serpent that would always burn when needed.
“Don’t take to none of that fancy charm stuff,” Aussi snorts. “My gunnes are fine pieces!”
“And uh, what about my arquebus stand,” asks Crompton desperately, “can you improve it?”
“Yes…” Aussi growls, gesturing for the stand.
He snaps it in two.
“Here,” he states, handing the pieces back to Crompton, “improved!”
(Later, Crompton contacts hand-gunners on Hathlisveit’s south defences and gets a replacement, free.)
Research too, though with slim results
Fennec has the treasure-map uppermost in his mind and having congratulated Righteous Filbard, asks about the roads there. He gets good advice on the best approach, which is to head roughly south through Greystand (capital of house Minas) to Edoras (of house Edoras), obtain mounts or a boat, and head up the golden river from there.
Cauleigh is interested in Ikkutas and what the supposed Ikkutas Dwarves here know about it. He talks to a beefy soldier who half-recollects a tale of a battle involving “Carloman” and some northerners, upriver.
Then at the end of their stay, Cauleigh attempts to get better information from an elder of the same kin, but strikes out. [Rolls a fail, the gaffer waves him away]
Jotunn joins the scouts, then everyone joins the fun
Having placed his order Jotunn finds himself easing through the forest south of Hathlisveit with half a dozen lightly-dressed scouts – mostly Sveltes – attempting to locate the enemy cavalry. His hunting skills are as good as ever and his legendary robustness enables him to at least keep up with the others.
Surprising a picket, Jotunn throws his knife away [rolls a fail] but uses his broadax, a nice magical weapon he got as loot from the shrine fight, to back the soldier off, and runs clear ducking the follow-through blow [just allowed to use his level dice plus adds to represent his experience, he ties].
Consul Haugri calls a war council. Hathlisveit must needs re-provision before the summer ends, so volunteers from Chion’s regiment, and the re-founders, will combine to exorcise the squadron.
The scouts set snare-lines in the forest where they intend the cavalry to flee, and the volunteers attack from one flank and the Dwarves from another. Thunder rumbles overhead: a summer storm is brewing slowly.
Crompton (Cateyes again) easily works his way close, but actually brings his comrades past pickets. As the alarm is sounded he wheels around, levels his arquebus on its stand, and sends a ball through the cheap plate cuirass. Another picket freezes is dismay, and Crompton uses tempus fugit to give himself time, drops the arquebus, draws two knives, and sends them into the picket’s head. Then bounds over, administers the coup de grace, and rejoins the fight.
Which is going well! Cauleigh aims at a silhouette and fires. The man crumples and falls face down. Jotunn fires his arquebus, the ball strikes a shoulder-plate and tears the victim’s chest across, and out the other side, leaving the unfortunate man screaming in pain.
Then Fennec who has been waiting to identify a choice target spots an officer’s gorget, and lets fly with a L5 TTYF:
WHAMMM!!!
A bright red flare with intense purple in its centre connects Fennec to the target: the victim glows ember-like: then there is nothing left save a gorget and boots.
Horses panic, pull their tethers, and flee. Fennec chooses one that hasn’t pulled free yet and fries that. More horses panic and flee.
Jotunn and Cauleigh set out for a struggling line of cavalrymen, but Jotunn slips in the dark. Crompton hastens to help him up then swivels his piece using Jotunn as a makeshift stand, and shoots another cavalryman!
Cauleigh uses kukri and shield to devastating effect. Attacked from their flank the cavalrymen flee as best they can into the trapped woods.
Loot is to be had. Cavalry get paid reasonably well, and these were dragoons: their carbines have been left on the field. Each Dwarf loads himself up as best he can (after a couple of attempts to persuade captured mounts they are pack ponies have left Crompton and Jotunn with bruises) and they tote the pieces back to Hathlisveit for the bounty. Cauleigh tucks the gorget away as well, perhaps as a memento.
A break in the weather requires shelter – welcome to Perryers Town
The re-founders slop their way through teeming rain towards lights. Unmarked on their map, this town seems to mark a border between Minas and Fingold.
If there is a gate-post they don’t see it, but what they do see is a bedraggled sorry looking group of four cavalrymen, lacking weapons or gear.
As the four Dwarves are hailed by a tout – “come in all, weather like this needs warmth and good ale – best ale gents – come dry yourselves” – Cauleigh turns back. He presses a dozen coins on the luckless deserters.
Having gained the Dwarves' custom, the tout ducks back out of the storm and encourages them to dry off by the fire, rest on a bench, and order ale. It is good ale. Just beginning to explain the town – “why this is Perryers Town, founded by Perryer a scion of a minor branch of Minas; trading betwixt Minas and Fingold, and many a bargain to be had” – the tout breaks off again to welcome the bedraggled deserters, who now have coins.
The Dwarves order a meal – which is sent for to next door and proves to be two kinds of meat and barley bread – and ask about Perryer and the war and peace-keeping.
“As to the one, he sometimes stops by, but he has made his pile and lives back with his family. As to the other, we are no warriors! Minas has not gotten involved in a war since they knocked the Dragon Tower over. This is a realm of peace. And as to the third, each village has a beadle and detachments can be called up if that’s not enough.”
The Dwarves encourage the deserters to seek employ at Fingold town, for they are hiring there. Feeling better about the slaughter in the forest, they pay for lodging but do not linger for any supposed bargain.
Greystand offers final deals before the push to Edoras
Greystand is both ancient – an ornate castle, sporting a gleaming tower, challenges the sky – and modern. The houses are mostly prosperous and build of stone and wood, but a business-like modern-trace rampart surrounds them.
Jotunn’s chance division is a black-pearl-decorated flagon made from some mithril-like metal, and he finally gets a buyer with the “collector” credentials that boosts the price.
“Do we want money or horse?” he asks the others. Edoras has the best horseflesh and the collector, Lady Minas’ nephew (and second cousin to Perryer) offers a scrip for buying them. Fennec’s research comes in useful at this point. They Dwarves take the scrip.
It is at this point that Cauleigh realises his ring of Freeze protection is missing. He can pin down the moment the theft occurred: it was while he was completely distracted by three of the Svelte girls. Ah well.
To the river
“So, next we march to the river itself, purchase a crossing, and buy horses,” Fennec confirms.
“And get riding training,” Crompton adds confidently. These days, a mere fall from a horse won’t kill him.
“So we ride up the golden river to Golarion…”
“That’s Colairion Cauleigh, and it’s the name of the wizard that left the loot, not the name of a place. Or maybe there is a place, but it would be a graveyard.”
“…then loot, swing north-west, and head for Sarnas and the chance to trade for magic gear.”
“And perhaps a trail to Ikkutas!”
“To Ikkutas!!”
So they all chorus, and with that the season ends.
Props
Perryers Town is inspired by a card in the rural locations concept cards(Coffey and Henzel). I'd originally thought to site it on the other side of Hathlisveit, between the siege lines, but the Minas-Fingold border makes more sense. The Universal NPC Emulator (Zach Best, Conjecture Games) helped me with Sinofor Mes and Berenger Aussi. The Vale is my own creation.
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Post by warlord476 on May 13, 2017 0:16:31 GMT -5
3.01: On the trail of a blackguardThe characters for this session
Fennec, L2 Wizard (specialist combat)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (townsman)
Jotunn, L5 Warrior (Apprentice Hunter, Tracking talent)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Roguery, Runebearer)
Sir Cully Lucas delegates
“I was going to send Bergamot and a couple of my younger, meaner lads but here you are, bounty-killers!” – Sir Cully Lucas, hard-drinking rough-voiced warrior
As the four re-founders of Fingold (and the rest of the tavern – Sir Cully not really having an ‘inside voice’) soon learn, Edoras needs some bounty-killer sort of help. Something to do with Earl Maradon’s daughter, but confidential. Sir Cully is bound back east – “to negotiate with Rothway over an expedition” – and takes himself off immediately, leaving a couple more silvers for the next round and some odd gossip about a bard’s tale of a randy dwarf and a Fingold wedding spoiled.
The Earl has a confidential mission for them
So having seen to bathing and tidying the four present themselves at the Earl’s court and soon gain audience with the Earl, his chamberlain and a few equally discreet lackeys.
The Earl married late in life and is much older than his daughter, lady Marda. He failed to note her interest in the dashing paladin, Sir Alintar the Just – until she left town under the paladin’s protection. Sir Alintar – if knight he truly is – has since sent word back that a bargain may be struck…
“I have no intention of paying him for my daughter’s safe return and inviting general scandal. Get rid of him – quietly – and bring Marda back safe.”
Leads are gathered, and reins too
Needing to finish outfitting – hastily-made Fingold gambesons suffer badly in teeming mid-summer storms – fits in well with some light fact-finding. And where would fact-finding be without at least one plot-twist or side-track?
[A number of CHR and IQ SRs are required for investigation. I'm summarising results and roleplay.]
Speaking to their urbane, observant bartender and following a few leads he puts them on reveals:
- A nondescript journalist from the Sarnas Tribune was asking about them; he has left town
- Periwinkle the ex-bouncer and manager of the HoofReady ostlery wants paying for Sir Alintar’s stabling; he gives them a good idea of what the paladin’s horse looks like
- Marda’s BFF Penny, desperately devoted to her ladyship, wants to go with; she is persuaded to wait but gives them a token, in pink
And using the leverage that working for the Earl provides:
- They exchange Jotunn’s scrip [TI2.15] for one good mount apiece and a spare for Marda, full tack and furniture and two days’ training to get them trotting without liking it
[Jotunn confirms his good ability with horseflesh but Crompton's pony affinity turns out to be a one-off]
- They gain a rough map which is as good as the Chamberlain can do, indicating that Baraloba and Upper Baraloba on the golden river will be worth checking through
[/ul] Edoras and environs Largesse for littleIt’s nine days since Alintar left the ferry to Baraloba, sheltering Marda protectively under his cloak. Something amuses the human ferryman but it’s over Cauleigh’s head so he accepts what the urukun ferryman has to say and Fennec tips him. This pattern is repeated in Upper Baraloba over a pie and ale – where Cauleigh and the Hobgoblin pieman share a rapport about human humour – and over a dusty construction site, and a town guard’s post. Silver and even gold coins flow out like water. The 2,000 promised for the kill is beginning to seem modest! Large for smallFinally at Old Smoak’s tavern on the way out to the Meadwood the Dwarves deal easily with three drunken bravos and (trying not to use their noses) enter the tavern and interview Old Smoak. Except Crompton, who sees the duty barmaid is a Trollbabe “I like everything I see” – Crompton, leering up
“Taking break early” – Barmaid, glomming hold of Crompton, slinging him over her shoulder, and retreating upstairsLater, risking a trot, Crompton loses consciousness. He’s had a bruising tryst. Jotunn ties him to his saddle. They have plenty of time left for the journey to the Meadwood, so taking time enough for the ponies to munch on sweet high-summer grass, they follow the cart-trail at a walk and make Meadtown with plenty of evening left. Small for largesseMeadtown reminds them of Hopespyre, at least in the way many of the folk dress. It’s sheltered under the very eaves of the Meadwood, is heavy with the smell and business of mead, and is open to traffic. There seem to be plenty of Hobbs here, and Connie, sturdy Hobb patriarch of a large family, invites them to stay. His kin cram into all or any old corners of a hall-like hostel. Fortunately for Crompton they are extremely hospitable, because when Jotunn cuts the binding Crompton topples off his pony onto his head! [ The 'loses consciousness' result is GM diktat after Crompton decides to trot the pony but the 'lands on head' was a fail LK SR.] Connie offers three conflicting yarns of the Witch’s Mansion at the heart of the Meadwood, but good news as well: he deliberately misdirected Alintar towards a different crumbling ruin, one haunted by prosaic bandits. Connie's map of the Meadwood With good healing broth Crompton recovers as much as can be expected. Fed thoroughly and well rested, the four don armour and boots once more, this time for a night march so as to avoid the giant bees of the Meadwood, and the session ends. [/font][/font]
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Post by mormonyoyoman on May 16, 2017 14:30:01 GMT -5
((completely out of context) I really like the background material for this.. All this. Are you planning on releasing it in source book or articles form? If not, may I steal - - er, ah - - keep notes of your opening posts which pretty much read like a sourcebook?)
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Post by warlord476 on May 16, 2017 19:51:33 GMT -5
I wish! I was hoping running this Vale adventure would motivate me to finally work on that Vale sourcebook I intended to write 20 years ago. It's given me a different perspective (source material needs to stand up to the march of time) but not much in the way of motivation. Feel free to crib steal or borrow.
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Post by mormonyoyoman on May 16, 2017 20:42:30 GMT -5
I wish! I was hoping running this Vale adventure would motivate me to finally work on that Vale sourcebook I intended to write 20 years ago. It's given me a different perspective (source material needs to stand up to the march of time) but not much in the way of motivation. Feel free to crib steal or borrow. (if I properly cut, paste, adapt, and format it while I live, I shall be sure to send it to you for proper vetting and approval) (dawdle, I?)
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Post by warlord476 on May 19, 2017 0:08:33 GMT -5
3.02+3.03: Crossplay and CavaliersThe characters for this session
Fennec, L2 wizard, as: Sabian (wolf mask) Indecisive, lonely, cruel Mathias (iron mask) Gullible, mean-spirited, defensive
Cauleigh, L3 warrior, as: Kethe (crow mask) Jealous, foolish, determined Ursula (lion mask) Friendly, manipulative, cunning
Jotunn, L5 warrior, as: Jost (horned mask) Melancholic, absolute, grim Demut (medusa mask) Fearful, impulsive, distractible
Crompton, L2 rogue, as: Josef (3-faced mask) Focused, proud, disdainful Ilse (no mask) Fiery, decisive, hopeful against odds
As you can see this is not a normal session! Our heroes have set out across the Mead Wood leaving ponies in the care of their host Connie the Hobb patriarch of Meadtown. They stick to their initial determination: to trek deep into the wood, and locate the haunted ruined mansion that (they guess) will certainly lure Alintar. By so doing, they hope to eliminate the gap between hunted and pursuers, a gap of at least nine days.
And now the weather becomes stormy and lightning bids them seek shelter – but not under lofty trees! In the nick of time Jotunn realises they are on the verge of a waterway, and Cauleigh catches the outline of a building. Can this be their destination?
The GM hands around handout B, showing the mansion, and to the background mutters of ‘Dark Heresy!’ asks for two LK SRs and on the basis of those (and certain other secret stuff) assigns two personas apiece.
Throwing themselves into the spirit of the moment
As the four Dwarves stomp up to the ruinous moat-house over the mire - once perhaps a mere or moat - they feel nostalgic, as though they had seen something of the sort before…
A strange, ruinous old servant welcomes them, speaking to them as though to lords and ladies fresh returned from the hunt. And sure enough a fresh-killed stag lies wounds still a-steam just behind them. Kethe strides decidedly towards the manor house:
“Have the servants bring it in, and fetch me mulled wine!”
Nine bells sound out: the hour is late.
The Dwarves fend off the horrid suitor
Somewhat impelled by Kethe’s sanguine impulse the others also straggle on, though Sabian hangs back at first and Demut timidly hesitates.
“URSULA! URSULA! URSULA!”
The call comes horrid on the sleeting rain as Kethe bustles over the slick stone bridge towards the main doors, Ursula Jost and Josef close behind. A blackened troll-like being hauls itself on ropy arms up over the stone parapet. Five man-size but equally befouled creatures clamber up after their master.
The fight is swift, fierce and decisive. Kethe and Ursula speed away to safety, Jost nimbly leaps around the fiend’s reach and cuts back at its tendon, Josef slices it asunder with his vorpalled rune-axe, and Ilse skewers one of the hench-things with a silver-headed arrow. As the large fiend slumps and falls back into black mere the four remaining hench-things are swiftly dealt with.
Enter the Illuminated Hall
Impatiently studying the door Kethe glances over the ill-omened relief then back to where Mathias has slipped in the slime and fallen into the mire. Ursula seems to be paying more attention to the accident, and her voice mingles with scattered others:
“Oh the gods know… someone will have to jump in… no tie a rope on first… hold the end you fool… up he comes… what have you found - Whoah! - Have a care – easy does it… a coffer?”
Jost scrambles back up as Josef hauls, and barely glancing at Mathias retching up black water sternly tells Josef not to open the coffer, especially since a humming, scratching vibration comes from it. By this time Kethe’s impatience has boiled over:
“Open for your mistress d**n you! Wretches… mulled wine!”
And so saying Kethe surges in past the opening doors, and glares around for traces of the roaring fire the seneschal croaked about. Not a trace! But it all does seem familiar, somehow…
Gaze on the tapestries of House Liis
The others join Kethe and Ilse in gazing at, then fondling, ruined tapestries. The GM hands round handout C. Most find one that somehow strikes a chord. The lofty foyer presents a once-gracious double stair to the upper floor, and double doors to the two ground-level wings. The center-piece tapestry is far from ruined and suggests an infernal wedding...
Josef and Jost agree to flip the coffer upside down so its weight holds the lid safe – though it is locked, to be sure – and leaving her chosen tapestry of a black-gowned, red-haired beauty Kethe strides athletically to the right-wing doors and thrusts them open. A ruined chapel, three altars thrown down at the fair dais, greets her lantern light.
Discover secrets in the ruined Oratory
Righting an altar rewards Kethe with a curious red-globe-in-a-clear-globe, found amid other more mundane trash. Jost and Josef, clearly electing themselves the muscle, right the heavier and find two more. Ursula, scrounging near the curious shallow dry pool in the dais, seizes a broad rusty iron ring and finds it fixed. Heaving up on it more determinedly reveals damp-slick but broad stone steps descending into a moldy smelling vault.
But standing well to the rear cynical Sabian has realized that in a chapel there ought to be a choir loft, and points it out.
Loft a Hand of Glory
Brushing the tattered but concealing black wall hanging aside Kethe shines her lantern over the stair up. A curious alcove, about elbow height, includes a sharp lever-like instrument, a brazier and a bowl full of congealed wax. Kethe strides up:
"Servants! A roaring fire! And where the hell is my mulled wine?!"
The blue phantasm of a woman kneels on the loft floor: one of her arms is severed and lies beside her: with the other she is futilely trying to spark flame onto tinder with flint and steel. Grotesquely, the severed arm is coated with wax. The phantasm glares round at Kethe hopelessly:
"Help! They're coming! Can't you hear?"
As the others begin to join her, Kethe impulsively unlocks the lantern's eye and exposes the naked flame towards the phantasm. As three angelic lads emerge through the wall the phantasm seizes her arm, and lights its fingers...
And the three lads, even as they open their mouths as though to sing, dissipate back into nothingness. With a look of gratitude mingled with pity the blue phantasm also fades... the Hand of Glory (as know-it-all Sabian names it) remains, though not appearing entirely real. The boyish mage Mathias sweeps it up.
Wade the flooded ossuary
The undercroft stair is broad, but at least half the gracious lords and ladies are cautious. Jost, Josef, Kethe with her lantern, then timid Demut and Mathias in the middle, then the others make their way down.
The vault is flooded and the black unwholesomeness suggests the mere or slough has penetrated here. (At this point, ten bells sound. Ilse excuses herself. She has flint, tinder and the coals from the brazier, and intends to go light a decent fire.) Sabian moves forward and reluctantly probes with his staff:
"Only about three feet"
But his staff encounters an object, and fishing around finds bones, first of horse, then of man. Then dozens of skeletons haul themselves, dripping out of the black, and rank themselves around the pillars of the vault. All point off to the party's right.
Solve the sealed circle
Since they are sodden, there is little to be lost by wading. Sturdy boot resist the muck. But 'three feet' seems to come right up to Kethe's chin, and poor Demut has to tiptoe along with nose in air. But she reaches an exit arch and higher ground and soon, she and her straggling relatives are gazing on a pit in the center of a pentagrammatical arrangement: candles that suddenly flare to life as they enter. And one of the taller men, Josef, thinks he can see a glowing gem that is the source of violet light that seems to glow up out of the pit...
The candles have formed a flexible but impenetrable shield. Old, dried blood stains are identified by Jost. The candles cannot be extinguished. As they test and probe, Mathias grows more shrill and scornful, though devilish voices can also be heard:
"We shall know our masters by their actions"
Ursula stoops her head near Kethe's ear:
"You know dear, he is a most irritating young man..."
Before Mathias can do more than try to defend himself Kethe's dagger slashes. Just like his tapestry Mathias dies bleeding from both wrists!
Wrest the Soul Stone from the infinite
"By their actions we know them" come the devilish voices again and Kethe is given access to the inner circle. Those outside the circle see Lady Kethe in her red-haired glory. It is an easy scramble down to a floating dark, faceted gem and she clutches it out of the air, tucks it to her (surprisingly unfeminine) bosom and emerges dictatorially triumphant, or one may say, more so.
Take up an heirloom mask
In the flooded vault the skeletons sink back, allowing exeunt but two masked phantasms remain. Sabian refrains from attempting to use the Hand and they step forward:
"Save us - Save yourselves"
And remove each their mask, revealing bloody skulls infested with worms. And fade, leaving the masks still visible in the mire. One of them appeals to Josef and wet or no he slaps it on. It is 3-faced, one laughs, one screams, one is inscrutable. Josef seems well-pleased with the result.
Behold the ghostly revelry
With nothing more to be dealt with or learned in this wing, the six remaining lords and ladies squelch back into the foyer, now a-bustle with shades of cavaliers, ladies, jesters and servants. Some call out welcome to Josef. But they are ethereal and pass clean through the flesh-and-blood visitors. Kethe has other things on her mind: a change of clothing, and that roaring fire!
"d**n this nonsense! I'm sure the master chamber is upstairs!"
There's a horrid crash as she wrenches the master doors open and tons of rock and dirt spill out onto the balcony. Kethe avoids certain death, then possible drowning, as the balcony collapses onto the main foyer and that floor collapses into the flooded vault.
Seize the swarm-guarded mask
The attention of the others on Kethe, Ursula takes the chance to right the coffer and wrench it open. Demut stands nearby and springs back as a flood of crawling biting insects covers Ursula! Then stomping on some, spitting and snorting others, Ursula emerges from the swarm and clutches a Lion mask triumphant! Like Josef, she seems well-pleased with the result once she dons it.
Fail to resist veiled ladies in the bower
And since the mezzzanine is a wreck that leaves the left doors. This time the battered Kethe is not right at the forefront. Jost and Josef thrust - literally - through the revelry and along a broad hallway, and along left again to a richly furnished boudoir, complete with feather bed and massive wardrobe. Three temptingly-curved but veiled ladies-in-waiting rise from the immense bed and bid the lords disrobe.
Avoid the flying heads!
As Demut Kethe and Sabian enter the women cry delightedly and pick up ornate rosewood boxes, bringing them to those three. Each has a severed head, each with its unique mask. Each head flies up out of the box and attempts to strike at the neck. As the three ladies lunge forward the surprised targets realize they have no head under that veil!
Demut and Kethe adroitly smash attackers back and dodge the head, Josef aids Sabian with an Alakascram and flung dagger that splits his attacking head apart, and one of the women is down. As the lords and ladies ready their wits for the next round, eleven bells toll.
Gain three more masks
The combat revolves around Josef Kethe Sabian Jost and Demut, allowing Ursula to peer about the chamber. It is not, as she first assumed, a bed-chamber. As the pealing of the eleventh hour fades the room's furbishing becomes brighter and clearer. This must be a withdrawing-room. The 'bower' the maids came from is a profusion of rich silk cushions. Dimly aware that only a minute ago she saw tatters and dust, Ursula makes her way to the wardrobe. Through the eye-slits of her lion-mask she can see a concealed door in the back of the wardrobe.
Meanwhile Sabian dextrously sweeps up a long-snouted mask in the coffer its head flew from; Kethe and Demut avoid flying heads: Kethe knocks her maid away and Jost and Josef put paid to the heads. The headless maids, still struggling to gain a hold, are dispatched. Kethe triumphantly dons her crow mask, Demut tucks her Medusa mask away, and Sabian watches to see no ill effect on Kethe then dons his wolf mask.
Brave the guardian spirits in the mezzanine
Jost joins Ursula, explaining that he too spotted something about the wardrobe, and with Josef crowding close behind, examine then ascend stone steps up to the next floor. They reach a ruinous hallway. None of the revelers are present: a relief: but noise through the left wall suggests that revelry is under way.
As Jost curiously investigates the festooned idols, prayer beads, and religious bric-a-crac along the walls the others are puzzled to see him suddenly fight - nothing. He replaces his mighty axe and explains that a pixie-like bug of some kind came out of an idol - don't touch stuff!
Skirting puddles and cobwebs Josef quickly investigates the hall and meets Kethe as he comes back. The hall leads to one blank wing hall and the part-blocked collapsed mezzanine. Kethe double-checks the blank hall, and rejoins the others as they skirt the rubble that once blocked the mezzanine entry doors.
Glancing down through the ruined gap towards the entry hall as they scramble, Jost and Demut see there are still a few lords, ladies and servants making their way in. But the others... they can see these are all devils!
The mezzanine hall leads to a final wing hall, where a ghostly white-dressed figure stands before a massive door. It is Ilse!
Rob that bridal tomb
Not pausing to congratulate the old hag on not being dead, Kethe sweeps inside across the luxurious carpet, and plays her lantern over the four-poster bed. Beyond the heavy hangings lies not a bed and mattress, but a stone bier and sarcophagus!
Ilse, still feeling the mixture of dread and longing that brought her here, bends to test one of the four locks that seal the sarcophagus. The stone step turns under her foot and spears slam down from above, impaling her. She shrieks and faints, and acid oozes down the spears and eats away the surrounding flesh.
"Well, now we have a good trap-blocker" says Sabian cold-heartedly and sad to say that is the final service Ilse rends, as the four locks are smashed away.
A black wedding band burns like hellfire
The linen that wraps the dry ancient corpse is wrapped in lead bands, each stamped with holy runes. Casually sundering them, the robbers reveal the mummified corpse of a woman dressed in bridal finery, her left ring finger bearing a black ring. Kethe strips it away and howls in pain as the hoop glows with hellish heat!
[Kethe is getting quite low on CON but Sabian cares not, pointing out that Kethe murdered young Mathias]
After some experimentation during which a valued silver spoon is burned through, Sabian uses a small gust of wind to pop the ring from the floor into a magic clay flask. He can't recall ever getting the contents identified so it's no loss. Kethe tucks the flask away.
The bell tolls midnight
That completes the search of the upper levels so the six lords and ladies of House Liis hurry back through the withdrawing-room along the lower hall and turn left to the unexplored hall. It passes the now merry great feasting hall, where lords (devils) and ladies (more devils) and jesters and servants (incubi and succubi) are already celebrating. At the head of the top table stands one great chair, currently empty. A fine blaze now burns in the fireplace behind that. Jost and Demut are almost swept away by other revelers who insist they must join them - but Kethe snarls:
"They're with me!"
and by repeating this effort every few seconds [only 1 CHR SR to represent this] they gain the quieter wing that leads to a bell tower. Demut gives in to the inevitable and dons her medusa mask.
Conscious that mere minutes remain they run a hasty gaze across a pentagram, two other doorways - one leading out to the storm-racked garden - and up a thick bellcord where dangles a masked corpse. Leaping mightily and slicing with his axe Jost at last gains his horned mask!
Skeletons rise as the corpse is disturbed but indeed the bell tolls not once but 12 times - it is midnight and the groom has come to collect his bride!
As the last few bone fragments scatter under massive blows all doors open onto the great feasting hall.
Devil takes the bride? To hell with that!
Howling with frenzy devils leap and cavort. Smaller fiends are crushed underfoot and even clumsier incubi and succubi are swept in never to be seen again.
The final bell ceases and the mob parts allowing the six scions a clear view of the great chair, or throne. A great grim black horned figure sits on it now and behind him, where a roaring fire was burning, a weird-colored portal pulses.
The house Seneschal bears the stag's bloody head and lifting it calls out:
"For the heir of the manor, maid of the ball, who claims the veil?"
The devil on the throne stirs, gestures with his gem-topped sceptre and declares:
"I have done all I was bid. I gave you a ring to rule the world with the wrath of a fallen god; none could usurp your power. Now surrender to me what you promised. Render unto me my winsome bride."
"I think we have a winner," Sabian declares, nodding at Josef: who pinions Kethe! Jost does likewise - but he murmurs something to Kethe unheard by the other two men. Ursula looks on approvingly - there is no need for her to manipulate things any further.
Kethe allows her self to be brought forward. Then Jost releases her and she flings both the flask containing the hellish ring and the soul stone into the portal crying:
"Khara Khang! I name you - and begone!"
[I ask for an aggregate L7 CHR SR from Kethe Jost and Josef, which is based on my call that Kethe has not 'mastered' the gem - she is just hurling it. And since she is not Ilse's replacement, hurling the ring means very little. Kethe is wearing the crow mask allowing her to burn LK and much against the player's inclination that is what happens. The three are 25 short so 5 LK is burnt. All of the characters get the 100ap the roll cleared.]
With a howl the devil hurls himself or is sucked into the portal and then:
Was it all just a dream? But who is this?
Josef falls and slides into the growing chasm but Kethe pulls him out, Ursula scoops gems and gold as she escapes and the others all scramble out any old how as the mansion collapses around them!
As they hustle across the stone footbridge to the moat-house things seem to fade....
Jotunn rubs his eyes and sits up: the four have spent the night in this long-abandoned moat-house, he recalls.
Then he notices he has been sleeping near two dead men whose features, bearing marks of a rough life, he does not recognise; and near them sleeps a large-chinned powerful man he does recognise; and on the other side of that man is a slender young lady, clothes still of enough quality to show her noble origin.
Fennec also wakes before Alintar [this is just based on CON - Crompton might be last awake though if based on current CON Cauleigh might be] and looks across at Jotunn. Jotunn points at wounded Cauleigh, then at Alintar:
"You fix the dying problem and I'll fix the living problem."
Followed by some meaty thwacks and rolling bodies over to hide the axe wounds!
Cauleigh is quite cross. Now he has to pick lady Marda up carefully, carry her away from the corpses, and wake her without greatly startling her. Still, it does give him time to don the Cloak of Plausibility! He also digs out the pink favour that 'Penny' gave him for Marda.
[Cauleigh gets a ridiculously good CHR result]
Lady Marda has seen enough of the world to satisfy her craving for adventure. She scoffs over Penny's concern but blushes as well, secretly flattered. And willingly accompanies the Dwarves home.
Final GM comments on Bride of the Black Manse
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Post by warlord476 on May 27, 2017 0:44:12 GMT -5
3.4: Demon's maw/The raiders are what? The characters for this session:
Fennec, L2 Wizard (Combat magic)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (Townsman)
Jotunn, L5 Warrior (Hunter, Tracking talent)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Runebearer, Roguery talent)
At leisure to travel or delve
The path back from Edoras is easy, they have traveled it once already with the same sturdy ponies. At Upper Baraloba they wave a casual farewell to the laborers and guardsmen and head away up the main branch of the Golden River.
Landings or hamlets dotted up the Golden River make for an easy routine of lodging for the night, exchanging gossip with the barge brothers who bring the iron ore down and local laborers. These hamlets are open to travelers and illkin alike, as long as they aren’t looking for trouble. Their comprehension of the lands around and beyond Ironbridge grows. Iron is mined from the Atharva plateau, it’s a wild country, badlands lie beyond it. Ironbridge is so-named for its iron bridge, possibly Dwarf-forged: it used to be named Summerford. And the area is sometimes named Atharva’s Point or just Atharva.
Investigating the odd ruin
Perhaps restless or perhaps looking to build funds, the Dwarves listen out for yarns of ruins, caverns or delves. There seem any number of choices – this area was settled, raided, conquered, reconquered, and is slowly being resettled – but at length they pick one in an easy ride of the hamlet. The locals know it’s a ruin, with caverns under it, and describe the path there fairly precisely. So a short ride later, the ponies are corralled in a makeshift bush camp and the Dwarves explore a stream leading to this supposed ruin.
The ever-reliable scout Jotunn gets them to a point where they can decide whether to explore the shabby skeleton of a large house, check out the smell of flame-grilled fish, or make their way round to the low earthen escarpment behind the ruin. They choose the latter and scale a ramp to where they can spy on the cook-fire. Two smallish wood-wise illkin, is their guess. But they also find an escape tunnel in the escarpment and decide to use this handy back door.
They are made to feel unwelcome
Two trap disarms later Crompton has them down the tunnel and below ground level and they reset party order. Jotunn (with Cateyes) takes point, Crompton rearguard. They move cautiously to where they overwhelm a couple of small grey illkin – some vague resemblance to a Brownie – then have a choice of two doors. The right door leads to a room or passage, but the puzzle-looking frame opposite the door discourages them and they choose left door. At which point some walking corpses emerge from a hidden niche, attack, and are dealt with by these veterans of zombie-fighting.
The left door leads to a passage that dog-legs around to another chamber door. Voices behind, perhaps goblinoid. Kicking the door open Cauleigh uses his glass globe as a grenade while Crompton and Jotunn fire their arquebuses. At this range the bullets chop at least one small hobgoblin down each, and the glass globe smashes to become a caustic bomb, dealing horrific damage to one unlucky victim. The survivors panic helplessly back against vertical bars.
“You have balls, I’ll grant you! To beard me in my very lair! Well… time to die!”
Fierce fighting seems called for
The Dwarves face a lesser demon, and to make it harder, can’t easily see it – the entrance it has spoken from is part-broken and it has an odd shape, being 4’ x 4’ with no head and speaking from a stomach-mouth. There’s a variety of SRs to either see it or get the hell back, the end result of which places Fennec pretty much front and centre, Cauleigh ready with his caliver, then Jotunn and then Crompton way back in rearguard.
From whence he is attacked by silent-footed, well-disciplined Hobgoblins with polearms. The demon has used his voice to distract the Dwarves, allow the younglings to escape, and size up his opposition.
As Crompton [L1 SPD SR] manages to not be killed outright and parries off voulge blades with his arquebus, Cauleigh fires, aiming under the shimmering shield-like barrier for the demon maw. The barrier shoots his bullet down.
“Is that all you’ve got? Well, you’re in a world of trouble”
Cauleigh ducks back as Fennec debuffs with a Dispell. The shield fails.
Jotunn and Cauleigh help Crompton but the Hobgoblins smartly allow them the upper hand, all the way back into the guard chamber where any number of voulges can be brought into play. The Dwarves (having suffered from Morlock tactics) fall back into the dogleg.
The demon stalks closer, pulling a scarlet tongue-like object from its maw, and tossing it down, from where it writhes towards Fennec. Seeing this the wizard clenches his buttocks, powers up his staff and delivers a L5 TTYF into the shieldless demon! [440 damage thank you very much] There’s an intense crimson blast and as his vision clears Fennec finds the snaky thing has gone and only smoking ashes remain where the demon was standing.
Plain dealing is common sense
Negotiations ensue. Aside from relatives of the dead youngsters, the Hobgoblins are willing to compromise. Their spokesperson, Speaker, and Jotunn (who has a few words of goblin-tongue in common with him) agree that treasure (that the demon had them searching for) can be recovered and split 50-50.
[Jotunn gains a +5 CHR temporarily with these Hobgoblins, while Crompton loses 5 CHR temporarily for not accepting an offered flask. Sometimes paranoia is healthy, sometimes not.]
Later it proves that more than one Hobgoblin knows a smattering of common, of the getting-by-in-a-tavern variety.
The Hobgoblins see themselves as soldiers, the youngsters are cadets of a sort. The demon had 'volunteers' down a shaft into a lower dungeon, but none have come back up.
[This information is not volunteered all of a sudden, there are a couple of increasingly chummy shared meals over the day to come. Jotunn carries the load with L1 CHR SRs]
The bereaved minority faction splits and arms a trap again behind everyone's back, but natural Dwarf paranoia averts any disaster there.
Beyond the puzzle-trap chamber, the shaft chamber reeks of dead bodies. A crude wooden mine-head and gantry-lift have been rigged up over a square-cut shaft. Volunteers are called for! Cauleigh finds himself sharing the gantry with Axl: armed for close-quarters, a gold piece under his tongue to pay the ferryman and the blessings of his tribe hummed behind him.
About six fathoms down the gantry sets down on the remains of Hobgoblins the boss simply flung down. The chamber it rests in is covered with snakes. To Cauleigh, they look poisonous. They aren't bothered by fire.
Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes!
After some thinking and experimentation and bargaining for labor the puzzle is solved with a bonfire which first clears away snakes from its immediate area, then is turned into a fire-walled path to the stone entry-slab across the chamber. (It's not that the snakes particularly avoid the fire, but they will die if they physically wriggle through.) Rotting Hobgoblin remains scattered among the snakes make this a noxious experience, later mitigated a little with fungus nose-inserts. With sturdy boots Crompton has little fear, and studies the slab, deciding its runes look ominous and it is a tomb-seal block, not a door as such.
A leisurely meal later the fire is rebuilt and Fennec disarms the magic trap with a Dispell, and Crompton disarms the non-magic trap. Levers, anyone?
This minor puzzle is solved only after Hobgoblins return with various tools. Jotunn and Cauleigh use voulge-heads as makeshift crow-bars.
The tunnel beyond leads to another seal-door. The relief and color on this are in good order and suggest that a demon pretty similar to the boss is buried here.
After another leisurely meal and fire-rebuilding the Dispell is repeated, Crompton disarms the tunnel trap and the door, and the muscles force the door in by ramming it with pick-axes.
And the wraith attacks!
There's a nasty little combat as the disturbed demonic wraith becomes more tangible and Crompton is part-poisoned by its vapour and Jotunn's magic shield is crushed. Magic weapons (including Crompton's arquebus) work though, and a Glue-You from Fennec decides the combat. After he performs an acrobatic and palm-burning rope descent! [L2 DEX SR]
[This wraith is more of a progressive damage gimmick but has a lot of undead CON so overkill is called for.]
The deal is fifty-fifty and once six burly volunteers lift the sarcophagus lid the next puzzle is: where's the treasure?
The mummified demon remains have a silver spike right through them; its belly-mouth has a jaw that features two enormous gold-and-gem-crusted teeth; four bronze holy relics guard its remains; and a holy circlet-chain with richly inset crystal is tucked in the winding-cloth.
Negotiations decide that the silver spike is left, the Hobgoblins get the bronzes, the Dwarves get the circlet, and each side takes one fang.
Bidding farewell to their temporary comrades the Dwarves collect their corralled ponies and head on upriver. Jotunn mourns his shield. He kept the spikes, and they might be useful. The others urge him to look forward to finding a town with a master smith.
A Hobb named Terry is town boss
Progressively the river-landings have gotten tougher and pit-fighting has become more evident. On this particular occasion, some three days from Ironbridge, the Dwarves walk their ponies into the village environs and stop to chat to guards.
It's not their first intimation of raiders but now, there's some shape and form to the story. Bounty-killers might get work here, because raiders have been attacking outlying homesteads. Maybe raiders off the plateau? Maybe dog-head or wolf-head raiders?
The town has a fighting pit and there's warning that the fighting is fist to fist, body to body.
But more interested in news of the area than fighting the four tether outside the tavern and head inside. Local barkeep, town Marshall and sometime Justiciar Terry the Hobb treats them to poor grog and a little news. But for news of raiders he refers them to his Sheriff.
The Sheriff is a human, or maybe half-Elf, of middle years, salt and pepper bearded, poised and confident. His anti-magic talisman sets Fennec's teeth on edge, but he Cauleigh and Jotunn sit down with the Sheriff. Over good wine he fills in some detail for them.
Fennec recognizes the description as a creature foreign to these parts until the Deathless Army brought them: Gnolls, brutal and blood-hungry. One eye-witness, though unreliable, describes a silvery snake coiling around one's neck.
They hit the road to Ironbridge
But the Sheriff plays down the idea of bounties, for how would any proof be valid? He passes on a yarn of another time and place that now throws a shadow over this region. It seems the white-armored Urukun may aspire to reclaim his lost falchion with the army he reportedly raises. It's Cauleigh's turn to clench his buttocks as he tries to keep dead-pan (that's the falchion he restored, he keeps it in his saddle-bags).
Crompton attempts to interest the Sheriff in learning a spell or two but he is too oblique, or the Sheriff too much of a warrior. He gathers that Ironbridge has a rogue's guild.
With a better description of Ironbridge's necromancer (a pleasant woman resident at the Olfoot manor) ruler (Lord Fabious Orctooth) and chief law officer (Sir Titus Lytera) the four Runaway Restorers set their mounts noses upriver for Ironbridge. And by dint of declining to intervene at sad Jacob's Spur and pushing on past haunted Fort Tenras they arrive at dawn the following day as the session ends.
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Post by warlord476 on Jun 4, 2017 18:41:21 GMT -5
3.05: Ironbridge The characters for this session:
Fennec, L2 Wizard (Combat magic)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (Townsman)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Runebearer, Roguery talent)
Ironbridge on arrival
The four Edoras Restorers walk their tired ponies along the well-founded road east of the river upstream towards the iron bridge itself, and get a good look at the town sprawled along the west bank opposite. Although it’s not long after dawn a hot breeze is rolling across from their left where the Atharva plateau rises. The main activity they can see is along the docks where river barges are moored. The rhythmic thumping of a big water-driven stamp-mill comes clear to them against the breeze.
Here and there among the clusters of two-storey houses charred gaps can be glimpsed – big ones that suggest numbers of houses burned down at once.
Jotunn stays out in the lead, Cauleigh draws rein and checks off with the other two what the main goals are. Crompton will trust to luck, Fennec would like to at least contact the lady necromancer at Olfoot Manor and Cauleigh himself wants to follow up the tales of hyena-headed raiders.
Fennec and Cauleigh and Jotunn and Crompton
Swinging west to the bridge approach they size up the guards and are quite happy with their predisposition to pay up. The guards look like veterans, perhaps mercenaries, and tucked just over the arch is a deck-sweeper swivel-gun. The older and more senior of the two the Dwarves talk to seems amiable and gives them general directions, the younger takes a cursory look at their saddlebags. No-one asks them to behave or observe any rule in particular.
They take lodgings – the quality is alright – and finding there’s no secure lockup there, take their bulky and/or expensive gear to the Merchants Guild Trade and Exchange, facing square on to the docks. Except Crompton who has noticed, crossing the little market en route, the way to the Rogue’s Guild.
Fennec and Cauleigh and Jotunn
There’s a queue of one: an important-looking Gnome. A polite clerk ushers them to a comfortable hardwood seat. Where there sits another Gnome. This is Sage, a member of the Herbals (or Herbal Teas), and most likely some sort of wizard. He’s here to negotiate on behalf of the Herbals about the bounty, 5gp/head, on kobolds plaguing the mine. He explains – apologetically – his group is staying at the Rusty Rapier Tavern and he invites them over, evening mealtime. He also shows them a broadsheet page from the Sarnas Tribune that is one part of ongoing serialisation of daring exploits around Fingold, starring the re-founders.
At this stage or shortly after, Jotunn excuses himself and heads further on along the docks, saying he’s heading to the hunters’ camp.
Fennec and Cauleigh
Master Erklen, Gnome and owner of the smelter and smithy, concludes his business and the Dwarves get their turn. They rent a strongbox, 12gp the week, and as it is 11ses and they have not eaten for many hours, pursue this idea as far as the Rusty Rapier.
The pair get a feel for the midday crowd – mine workers, barge hands and idlers – and chat to a barge bosun lodging here and get more of a feel for the issue around the mine and kobold-induced delays. He explains that barges are being held up as master Erklen does not have enough ore to process.
The food and drink are a shade on the expensive side but fair quality and sustaining. Equipped with fair directions to the wizards guild and the warriors guild the pair now split up.
Fennec
Somewhat conscious of his dusty gear Fennec heads to the Aether Thaumaturge Wizard’s Guild and is allowed in without any ‘prove yourself a wizard’ nonsense. Stowing cloak and boots Fennec spends a short comfortable time meeting fellow wizards Solar and Puon. He hears about the Easy Hostess Parlor (laundry extra). Then back to the inn to break out the good robe for his next call.
Back up Quay street, left onto Ironbridge – there’s no toll heading east – and right onto Boot Hill Lane brings Fennec through midday heat level with the graveyard on the slope above – no unearthed corpses or raving loonies – and a view of a pleasant stand of local-variety larches and a low-lying walled manor.
Dextrously tagging the bell-pull with his staff, Fennec alerts the gatekeeper – massive, polite – to his presence and is allowed in. A near-derelict and shaded sweep leads to the house, not much more than one storey and built in a dark-stained timber. Reflected sunlight throws shards of colour back down onto the weed-grown path.
A maid – pale, petite, perhaps once young – ushers Fennec to a waiting room then almost immediately to the library where lady Ezra Olfoot awaits.
And what a library! Shelves 15’ high fill the walls and all are crammed with books. Here the busts of long-forgotten Olfoots goggle blankly at what the young mistress spends the family money on. Fennec swims through the dense rich odour to the middle of the room where stands lady Ezra, white of skin and black of dress, and a book-lovin’ scholar.
They get on very well though the young mistress’ ways are not Fennec’s ways. She fan-girls over the demon fang but can’t afford it, estimates it could be worth 10,000 to the right collector. Promising to visit again Fennec takes his leave, and so off to the Rusty Rapier.
Cauleigh
Stepping out of the tavern Cauleigh accepts a visiting pasteboard card from a very pretty and very short little maid: “Easy Hostess (laundry extra).” He tucks it away, sets off for the Forgotten Circle, as the warriors guild is named.
By the time he reaches Bow Street Cauleigh is fairly sure he’s being followed. He swings left into a lane and abruptly stops, asking for directions. The tail swings in: she’s a lean-faced short-haired type, dressed for unobtrusiveness. She checks, then walks on by. Later Cauleigh learns she is one of the Rogue’s Guild, name of Adini.
The Forgotten Circle Mercenaries Guild is a ring of sparring-posts surrounding perhaps six gates set in a circle. As he heads west to the nearest Cauleigh beholds three women: a cunning crone, a strapping young uruk and a hollow-cheeked burning-eyed woman draped on the uruk. This is the matrona. They creep him out but he remains polite, and moves on without incident to the gate.
Passing through into shadow Cauleigh smells the ocean and feels braced as though a strong sea breeze has wakened him.
He sees standing before him in the strong sunlight a three-storey hall of traditional Vale design, a greybeard dozing over an axe on the steps. On waking, he proves something of an oracle:
“You have received the sea-god’s blessing. My name is Cormorant, for I spit up pearls of wisdom and I am bound to share this wisdom with you.”
Apparently he’ll learn something this evening at the Rusty Rapier. He heads on in and spends an hour or less chatting with much more normal mercenaries. They can be divided into two: those currently in the pay of Lord Fabius Orctooth and those expecting to be. They’re all similar to the bridge guards in terms of range of experience and standard of gear.
Naturally getting trail dust washed off, or something, is high on Cauleigh’s agenda and he soon finds himself at the other end of town stepping up onto the verandah of a substantial stone and wood house and presenting his card to the cigar-smoking cad or pimp there. Inside two pretty little maids introduce him to the pleasures of the port room and the reading room, and he meets Viriniana the house madam. Enquiring after her, he is reintroduced to Speck, she helps him remove his dusty gear, and she takes care of his other needs.
And so off back to the Rusty Rapier.
Crompton
Crompton has one romp after another! Calla, red-haired, pertly cute, quick with dice, is the Grey Cowl Rogues Guild greeter and gatekeeper. The guild can sell him spells but there’s no immediate rush to buy any from him. Vern, old, unkempt, sleazy, tempts him to an initiation rite that evening. Calla Vern and Binye win a lot of gold off him, then Calla tempts him upstairs for some other fun.
After a meal at the Rusty Rapier – at which Crompton does little more than wave across to the Herbals and recuperate – he rejoins Vern and half a dozen younger rogues and after a pub crawl at which something is slipped into Crompton’s drink he is ready for mischief.
Vern explains (muffled hilarity from the others) that the initiation is a panty-raid on the matrona. Crompton’s challenge is to return to the Rusty Rapier wearing Jorgagu’s panties on his head.
Boosted up to a possible entry window Crompton is promptly seized and pinioned expertly. His ribs creak as Jorgagu, the young Uruk, sits athwart him. Creepy crone Fay and snaky matron Jody menace him but as he wriggles Crompton gets a different reaction from Jorgagu…
“You like big snake?”
“Me got big snake!”
Crompton is hauled off to share Jorgagu’s mattress with a large green snake.
As he reels back from the matrona he bears one extra piece of equipment: Jorgagu’s panties worn proudly on his head!
He meets Fennec and Cauleigh who have just become worried enough to get Vern to explain what the joke was.
Fennec and Cauleigh and Crompton
Vern is there in the tavern with Adini (tailed Cauleigh) and yet another titch of a woman, Takido. Crompton, panties shamelessly worn, walks straight over:
“Mission accomplished Vern! What’s next?”
The Rusty Rapier is not a major inn but has a few beds, three of which are taken by the Herbal Teas: Trefoil a straight-talking, charismatic warrior, Heartsease a giggly short-haired Elf warrior, and Sage the Gnome wizard. Their fourth member Wolfbane (a Wulfan) is left out the back. Cauleigh listens to their kobold-hunting thoughts and gives them veteran advice.
Later in the busy tavern Gat the older bridge guard has a map to sell, of Atharva Plateau and a way up past ghoul-haunted Grey Dagon Hill. Cauleigh pays an even hundred for it. Will it match up with Fennec’s map? But that’s in lockup so will have to wait for the morrow.
After Sir Titus Lytera – tall, watchful, bears an Eastern sword – does the rounds the Restorers are ready for a little more restoration courtesy of Easy Hostess Parlor (laundry extra). Cauleigh expands on the facilities and Fennec scoffs at a mere two dozen books in the reading room. But getting laundry done does sound good…
Fennec literally gets his laundry done. [His player decides he is unworldly and doesn't 'get' what the parlour is for] As for Crompton, he gets laundry done, a massage and a happy ending as the session ends.
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Post by warlord476 on Jun 9, 2017 21:21:03 GMT -5
3.06: Plans made - to the plateau! The characters for this session:
Fennec, L2 Wizard (Combat magic)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (Townsman)
Jotunn, L5 Warrior (Hunter, Tracking talent)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Runebearer, Roguery talent)
In the Rusty Rapier the Dwarf heroes gather
For some it has been a long night. Crompton (despite that massage last night) is a little subdued. He assures the others he’ll catch them up then puts his head down on the pillow again. The other three walk down the alley, into the market and to the Rusty Rapier where decent grub is served.
Jotunn regales the others with his efforts to find hunters (they were all out hunting, I tried to find them, I found their traps, it took me hours to cut myself down) and they catch him up with events, broad brush of course, and then they all three lean over the two maps they now have.
They draw some tentative conclusions then pies arrive and maps are rolled away. Jotunn is still working on restoring his pre-Fingold waistline.
Cauleigh decides to talk to barge-men to see if they can add anything to his guesses about landmarks. He and three men sit to a hand of cards. They know about downriver, but a few wild ideas are offered about upriver.
Crompton arrives and joins the breakfast, still a little tired. Vern walks over and leans in and whispers in a gust of pungent breath that he has a job for the new guy.
Jotunn excuses himself, heads over to a buckskin-clad man slowly working on a jack of something that’s not house ale. On closer inspection this is an older man, affable, time-careless, and Jotunn sits down for a chat about the surrounding area.
Fennec is content to wait – lady Ezra is expecting him to make another visit and there must be some relevant books in that vast library.
The Uruk maiden's father introduces himself
Then a heavy booted foot falls on the tavern threshold and a massively built Uruk squeezes in. This is Adrok, senior in Lord Fabius’ mercenary guards, well-armored, silver-haired, proud father. He picks out Crompton, sits down with them, and lays a heavy hand on the Dwarf rogue’s shoulder:
“So, you are the Dwarf who robbed my sweet daughter Jorgagu of her maidenhead!”
“I think the snake got there first, to be honest” retorts Crompton.
There’s an uneasy pause. [CHR SR but I allow Crompton to use his BLTG charm which swaps LK for CHR - L2 made] Then Adrok bellows with laughter, slaps Crompton on the back with a blow that would level a human, and roars:
“You have balls, at least! Perhaps you will make a good son in law after all! But the skulls of my ancestors would all pucker up and make girl thingy lips if that happened! I must think on this!”
He kisses Crompton on both cheeks, levers himself up and heads out.
At this time Fennec concocts a righteous scheme, to make Crompton go through with the match. He will push this agenda to the point of no return, over the next couple of days. But in the meantime he and Cauleigh head to Olfoot manor afoot, Crompton heads to the Grey Cowl, and Jotunn and his new acquaintance Redtooth head to Wrongside, a dingy part of town where the last of the Redtooth fortune secured a sturdy house.
Crompton and Jotunn
To deal with Crompton in brief: he wants to get out from under, especially once he hears the matrona are looking for him as well. Vern has scut-work for him so he turns that down, but Calla gives him good advice, packs his provisions and passes a note on to the other Dwarves. The rest of the day and night following, Crompton hides across the river and downstream a little, uncomfortable but in no danger of being married.
Jotunn has mixed fortune: Redtooth shows him various maps of the region Fort Redtooth once stood in, advises Jotunn to register at the warrior guild, and asks him to look out for any sign of Ralph, his grandson, who went upriver with visions of revving the Redtooth fortunes. [Jotunn learns enough to cancel out any disadvantage he would have from not being familiar with badlands]
As he heads away up Rust Lane Jotunn is warned by a scornful loiterer that Redtooth is gaming him.
The Forgotten Circle gives Jotunn an eye to eye view of Adrok who wants to speak to Crompton again; and a weird experience involving a sleepy pessimist Dwarf and a minor drawback. [-1 on the next LK SR] He gets a reference to the best armourer in town.
Scholarly investigations are complete
Fennec and Cauleigh head up Quay street in time to see the Herbals depart: Trefoil wields a businesslike broad-bladed spear; Heartsease is making a little show twirling her Demilune around as the four cross Ironbridge. Off to the mine! She turns back, scratches a scrawny Wulfan on his shaggy nape, encourages him to keep up and swings out after Trefoil. They can’t see Sage, presumably he’s out of sight below the bridge parapet.
The pair finish their journey in Lady Ezra’s household wagon: it has provisioned and brings the lady of the house a fresh book delivery. Once she gets over her initial full-sensory book-lovin’ fangirling lady Ezra shares tea and advice as to which shelves to try for gazetteers. They stay some hours, skipping the noon meal in the excitement.
Towards the end of their stay lady Ezra opens a dusty tome and adds something to what she’s already recollected about a ‘destruction seed’ mentioned on one of the maps.
Then it’s time to head back in time to meet Jotunn, who brings Cauleigh with him [for the CHR SR, obviously] to the smithy to buy a new shield. While they wait Cauleigh adds some useful expedition tools.
A few final details and a quick-fire sale
An evening meal at the Rusty Rapier brings Fay, crone of the matrona, who casts a chill on the evening buzz, then not long later (to the accompaniment of 'I knew it - the mine is doomed! from grieving widow Tuburo) the halting steps of much-battered Herbals. They are all alive but Wolfbane is carrying Sage and Trefoil and Heartsease are supporting one another.
"I thought I was safe in the middle of the party" - Sage, shaking and limp
"Here, have a shandy" - Cauleigh, sympathetically
It seems most of the iron mine is reasonable head-height for a Gnome or Hobb, and the Herbals' planned tactics are useless. Fennec and Cauleigh counsel Sage how to use OGA and Fennec sends a slap-up meal out to Wolfie.
As dusk brings the wind from the north, Fennec makes his way towards the Grey Cowl. Tadiko, tiny female rogue, dark-dressed, meticulously formal, stops him. She has an opal to trade for a good rogue type spell. Taking a chance Fennec accepts the opal and imprints Hidey-Hole on her.
They are off!
Early on the morrow Jotunn Fennec and Cauleigh are ready at the Trader Hall entry. It’s time to get heavy gear out of storage. They rent an extra week for some remaining gear (such as the Uruk Falchion). Fennec takes the chance to get a price estimate on the opal. It’s lower than Tadiko’s value but above the minimum the spell would sell for. He’s satisfied.
Heavily laden with packs and extra tools, armour protected from the fierce heat by grey canvas surcoats, the trio exchange a quip and farewell with the bridge guards and head downriver. They collect Crompton who stretches, equips himself with the gear they brought, and swings into line, long arquebus over a shoulder.
A danger well avoided
They push hard and though their legs are short my lord they're sturdy. They give just enough, just enough and by nightfall are well past the ruined fort and wooded islet where a haunting was.
Fennec on first watch hears two men heading upriver, seeking mining work. One worries about the haunt, the other scoffs. Crompton on dawn watch observes their headless bodies floating downstream as he draws water.
Sad remnant of young homesteaders
By mid-morning they have decision to make, walk all the way in to Jacob's Spur for more news of hyena-headed raiders, or go with their map and explore up to the plateau. They opt for the latter and keep the plateau hard on their right shoulder, and near noon explore the fringe of a woodland below the plateau. The locals - possibly as far away as Jacob's spur - have felled and cut lathes here. But Jotunn finds a now-disused path that leads to a wrecked homestead. The skeletal remains of a young man are all that remains of the occupants: a woman's touch about the ruin and an empty once-hopeful crib speak of shattered dreams.
"So they've been taking young women for at least a year," Cauleigh comments.
A tiny rill of fresh water springs not far from the ruined walls and they top up water and make a noon meal of iron rations.
The gulch and a chance way in
Pushing forward against the wind off the plateau the four Dwarves find they still have most of the afternoon before them with a gulch, invisible behind the woods, forming a natural road up.
Midday heat bakes up off stone as they ascend. Some stone is reddish, some grey, both types are hot. The gulch walls seem here and there to be man-made, and shimmer in the heat.
Cauleigh at length spots a rounded tower rising on an eminence set back a little from the left wall of the gulch. They are all good climbers, and scaling directly upward will probably cut four hours off the journey.
[Crompton rolls a fail but I remind him he can claim a boon from pillow-talk with his Troll girlfriend. It's a +2 which I rule converts the 3 to a 5. The climb is made.]
Muttering "fists and wedges! I thought that was just dirty talk" Crompton saves himself from a nasty fall and he and Fennec are drawn up to the lead pair, joining them on a ledge.
"There's a cave, maybe a tunnel in under" Jotunn explains and they use a piton and rope to descend off the ledge down to a small natural cave-mouth. The footing is not good.
Bat-ghoul!
The glare of the outside - the silty rock here is whitish-grey - means a WoW will be no use so Jotunn takes the lead with a torch held in his Sopok-shield hand. Just as he is reminded of one of his earliest exploits, the goblin caverns where bats and spiders lurked, a gigantic bat launches out at him. It mad red eyes and foul odour mean only one thing: bat-ghoul!
Jotunn uses STR to block (meaning only his shield will be used) and Cauleigh uses himself as a living spear, ramming his kukri through the gaping maw and out the back of its skull.
[Between the two the combat total is 200+. I declare the kill without rolling]
The foul thing is an obstacle but Crompton has a nifty idea that turns it into a convenience. They shift it out past them -wincing away from the foul dead fur - and spread its wings out on the silty scarp. Now they can launch themselves back up the rope easily!
And as Jotunn flares his torch into a choice of two passages the session ends.
Props: op cit for Ironbridge. Once again Wizardawn's generators are a marvel, this session they gave me a quick-fire armourer along with goods for sale. As I noted a few session agao I've extensively used Dyson Logos' Dysons Compendia 2014 and 2015, running maps together and mashing up to suit my own idea of the Golden River. The Atharva Plateau and surrounds are to be found in the 2014 edition.*
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Post by warlord476 on Jun 16, 2017 23:07:12 GMT -5
3.07: Grey Dagon Hill The characters for this session:
Fennec, L2 Wizard (Combat magic)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (Townsman)
Jotunn, L5 Warrior (Hunter, Tracking talent)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Runebearer, Roguery talent)
For those who came in late:
A treasure map has taken our heroes up the Golden River, but tales of young women being seized by hyena-headed raiders sees them purchase another map of the area and set up the Atharva Plateau to clear Grey Dagon Hill of its ghouls (and/or ghasts).
Bats clear, a ledge up leads to a door
By the time they shuck packs and maneuver long gear through the tunnel left, all stray bats seem to have fled out into the broiling heat. Jotunn pushes his torch forward into a larger space and spots a ledge above on his left.
A few easy boosts and lifts sees Crompton carefully checking around a stone door, set flush in the ledge wall, and the other three heroically cowering as far to one side as the ledge allows. Crompton decides to activate the lever he finds and the door unlatches.
A hefty push, it swings up and away. Clearly some clever counter-balancing mechanism at work here.
And that up to a ghoul-haunted tomb complex
Soon, Crompton studies a desiccated wooden door, sturdy in its time but no real barrier to sturdy dwarves. He decides to uses a throw-knife to shave some wood away from the hinges. Ooops! That's not designed for wood-work, Crompton! [a fail Dex SR sees Crompton take a painful 12 CON damage] Blood drops freely from his hand and an eager snuffling and scrabbling comes from the other side of the door.
[Crompton is bandaged for now, and will have trouble with his right hand, limited to two-hand or left-hand use.]
Jotunn cracks the door with a hefty kick and he and Cauleigh defend the breach against four hungry undead, which tear at them with tooth and claw.
[Setting the tone for the whole session I'm using physical dimensions as part of the challenge, favouring mass attack here.]
With a LF each the pair first defend, then turn the tables and drive the ghouls back into a noxious room, slaying the last in the fourth combat round.
Sparing little time they move on to a fire-trapped vault
The ghouls quarters are too disgusting to search. The four move on within minutes, out to a large, clear-smelling, vaulted L-shaped chamber where packs can be piled clear of guano and ghoul-remains. The only real feature seems to be a chipped stone table just visible round the L. On it, a brown tankard and above it, writing on the vault arches. As Fennec decides it is Elven, he sets off a fire-trap and is badly burned!
And quite unexpectedly, a demon boss
As the wizard pats out flames [11 damage] and Jotunn knocks a few stray embers off himself [2 damage] Cauleigh notices a pair of eyes just visible over the tankard: without pausing to study the situation he hurls himself over the table - to skid to a sudden halt as he realizes that perspective has tricked him - he's looking at a 9' tall being much further back!
"I didn't really expect to get into this so soon... but, oh well..." so says the demon, as flames begin racing over his form, shaking out his immense flaming whip!
[Fennec makes a difficult IQ SR and works out this is a minor demon, speaking all-tongues - he passes this on]
In the combat that follows Cauleigh focuses on dodging [L7 SPD] and Jotunn and Crompton crank up the volume on their contributions, while Fennec goes for an awesome display of wizard power. His Dispel gets the demon's attention and he is hastily defended by the others; his L4 TTYF does not work, but the demon is tripped and Cauleigh whicks his whip-hand off!
As the demon dissolves back to hell (taking his whip with him) a costly amulet-necklace remains, and so does a silver comb of Elven design.
Ghouls! and a hasty retreat, and a gunne
The Dwarves are at first accosted by a number of ghouls, but block the arch with the stone table. [Good use of provided scenery, a bit slow on the uptake I thought] At first the ghouls are easily picked off with firearms as Fennec rests, then they get some direction from some boss-ghoul (ghast, presumably) and come through a different door. A hasty retreat!
They scramble headlong into an Octagonal chamber and Fennec yells DUCK as a large-mouthed gunne-like device goes off.
[Good reaction from Fennec, the pursuing ghouls wear 168 damage]
Up a tower - this keep is defended by gnome-ghouls!
Scrambling after the small gunner, Crompton expertly [L4 DEX] slides his throw-knife into the door-jamb in time to prevent a bar dropping.
The defenders are all small, not much larger than brownies. But definitely undeadish. But cunning!
[This is a tough nickel-and-dime style advance with plenty of damage being shared round]
Jotunn advances up to receive lead dropped on him, wriggles and is pushed through a narrow port, and he and Cauleigh begin doing real damage in a cross-corridor in what is clearly the main keep tower. Two ghoul-gnomes are slain and the others flee out a sally-port - which Crompton slams and bars. Safe - for now!
It's been fun, time to go
The ghoul-gnomes mount a hopeless ascent, then shelter in a lesser tower. Given the lack of potable water here the Dwarves decide, once Fennec and Crompton have restored their mana, that it's worth capturing. They've holed up overnight, they've made more bullets out of a bullet-mould and siege lead, time to make a move. A daring foray across the curtain wall and an assault down through the lesser tower puts paid to the last ghouls... maybe.
Watered up, they perceive the path away from the keep and since they have all their gear and really need a full rest-up away from ghouls, they take it.
The path to Jacob's Spur and an onrushing horde - time to be heroes!
There's still five hours of the new day left as they set out past the small woods below the gulch, for Jacob's Spur. It's closer than Ironbridge and doesn't feature the danger of a haunted keep.
Part way along, Crompton, who happens to be walking on the right flank, catches a sound on the hot plateau wind: he calls the warning.
They drop flat (Fennec in a HH and Cauleigh in one of the very few real hollows here) and their dusty cloaks and canvas are enough to fool Gnoll eyes as a raiding band runs past, flat-out, headed straight for Jacob's Spur!
[Cauleigh tries a 'read' on where the Gnols have run from but gets nowhere beyond 'somewhere around the plateau or thereabouts']
It's decision time! Fennec offers the though that they can easily set up an ambush by back-trailing. But partly based on chivalry and partly on the simple fact they all need rest, the majority vote for running after the Gnolls to mess up their raid.
The marathon and battle at Jacob's Spur
[I decide that since this is really a CON feat I'll let Jotunn set the bar. Admittedly Cauleigh has a SPD bonus and Fennec is lightly clad, but I'll adjust for that as we go. Jotunn hits L9 CON, so that's what I ask from Crompton and Fennec. Then based on the difference I ask if they want to keep up (negative at the end) or run at their own pace (arrive late). Based on the SPD difference I ask Cauleigh for a L5 CON. I should add, packs with heavy gear are shed as this goes down.]
Jotunn is nowhere near as fast as a Gnoll but he arrives as the fighting is still going on. Two women have been dragged out, men and youngsters are being killed out of hand. Cauleigh is on his shoulder, Fennec - gasping and unable to speak at all - nearby. The pair of warriors put fire to match and let fly at reasonable range. Two hits!
[The Gnolls are unwary, I make it L3 to hit at this stage]
Jotunn's Gnoll clambers to its feet as the others rally. A boss, wielding a rod or such like, grabs the captives and sends three Gnolls flanking wide around. The remaining six begin running for the Dwarves as they reload. The wounded Gnoll falls and does not rise. Five, and three.
Cauleigh's caliver fires true but his Gnoll runs on. Jotunn wounds one of the three angling out around.
Well back behind them Crompton gathers that the fun has begun, unlimbers his long arquebus and sets the monopod stand under it. He sights and shoots at the wounded Gnoll. A good hit! [This is Crompton's first use of his arquebus at farther than short range. I have previously said that it's better than Jotunns at longer ranges and he gets a +3, enough to bring the shot to L4.]
Then there's a tremendous crimson blast, red fire reflects off the nearby houses and the attacking Gnolls stop, shocked, as their boss disintegrates under Fennec's L5 TTYF. Then they run!
Cauleigh and Jotunn race back and help Crompton with the remaining pair of Gnolls. Victory! And as the villagers struggle with the fire and to comprehend their rescue the session ends.
Props
I'm well aware the Dodecahedron 2014 map marks this as Grey Dragon Hill. But Dagon seems so much cooler I went with my first instinct. I used Wizardawn's Area Builder for the dungeon furnishings, adapted as I felt fit. The Ghoul-Gnomes are pure personal whimsy because I wanted something smart enough to actually rig the traps my generator threw up. They are fun.
My main module, a certain classic OSR module, is successfully embedded, the lads will most likely back-trail the Gnolls next session. Look forward to it!
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Post by warlord476 on Jun 23, 2017 19:07:10 GMT -5
3.08: South of Atharva The characters for this session
Fennec, L2 Wizard (Combat magic)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (Townsman)
Jotunn, L5 Warrior (Hunter, Tracking talent)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Runebearer, Roguery talent)
Order restored the Dwarves take stock
Crompton decides to make sure the five hyena-headed corpses won’t be coming back as zombies – a good habit he picked up under Fingold – so he and Jotunn lug the corpses away and take the heads off. Treasure is minimal – of the polished rock variety. Jotunn notices each has collar marks on its ruff. But they were healthy warrior types, not mistreated prisoners, that’s for sure.
Meanwhile Cauleigh and Fennec assist in a minor way restoring order and organising bucket gangs. [Fennec tucks the silver metal collar from the boss-Gnoll* away] They realise a good part of the village is built over the inflow from the side-stream. After quite a delay, a spokesman boats over from the spur, the villagers note the arrival by saying ‘oh, Polecat’s coming.’ In a resigned tone.
This is Pelagius Ostarin, swart, well-dressed, probably half-redcap. And he smells like he rolled in skunk oil. He’s some type of overseer, acknowledges the Dwarf efforts, allows the villagers a half-day to mourn.
The Dwarves rest up that night and next day and next night, replenish food water and rope and attend the funeral rites. [Jotunn doesn't feel it's his thing, he does some early scouting] A little downriver, a little boggier lower ground. Then it’s off up the side-river, which they eventually learn is the Perrol, at crack of dawn.
[Some minor AP spend here] [*A Flind, but the lads don't know that and it makes no real difference.]
Set off up the trail up to Perrol
They are bound for a town named Perrol. By chance, the day of rest brought the first replenished ore-barge and a bargee Jotunn and Cauleigh both met. He has a vague story about a cousin of a friend, who went to Perrol and timber country beyond. Trouble was had. It’s slim but Perrol is marked on Cauleigh’s map and might get them closer to the Gnoll lair.
Just beyond the normal bounds of forage, giant magical spiders have spread their webs. A glint of sun on dew warns the Dwarves, two powerful TTYFs from Fennec [one at extreme close range] and a shot from Crompton’s magical arquebus deal with the attacks. Cauleigh is saved from spider venom by the thinnest of margins – that sturdy canvas aqueton makes the difference.
Keeping a very respectful distance from the river seems wise, and this choice is confirmed by a primitive sort of ex-pit-fighter at the bridge over a steep-sided creek. He mimes out lizardmen as he warns them of the path ahead.
[This is a toll-at-bridge encounter and the lads play to form by simply paying the small toll and using the encounter to gain a little local information. They would probably have tipped a barkeep more for the same info so it works out fine for them. Since Cauleigh is the prime force for deciding to pay, I award 10AP to him.]
Sheering back away from the river takes them by a ruined homestead. A pony or small horse takes fright and gallops away out of wild-grown grain. It’s harvestable grain and this seems a good early camp. They make crude camp bread, and Jotunn lures the young horse in and gentles it until he can throw a halter on it. Later, Crompton names it T-bone. They camp safely, refill water flasks from the still-intact water trough, and push on to find Perrol.
They are welcomed to Perrol!
Perrol’s wooden walls stand proud of a harshly barren brown crag, the first foothill of the broken lands. The fields about the town have been allowed to go fallow and no homesteads remain on the bare plain about. The walls have been made as strong as they can be – there’s a wooden bastion that does the proper things, with a high overset vantage, and a wrong-turning inroad, and plenty of concealed cover fire-points. If it was stone it would be impressive.
Inside, there’s a troubles-are-upon-us feel but optimism too. The womenfolk wear sturdy clothes, some with trews. There are plenty of children, but wearing the same workaday wear as their parents. People are lean, but not gaunt.
A matron directs them to the town rules, and they walk up a crisscross ramp to about midway up the town where three boards stand high and bright. Most scripts are written up, but not Elven. They learn that they have to check weapons with the town marshal.
The town law runs out of a half-barn, and its front right corner is the marshal’s office. Inside, a young woman has her feet up on the desk and a steel hat down over her eyes. This is Molly, blonde, energetic, pretty.
“Howdy folks! Welcome to Perrol on the Mount!”
Molly hustles away to find the marshal and when he saunters in Cauleigh is surprised to see he has a strong resemblance to the pimp, or shill, working out of Easy Hostess in Ironbridge.
Marshal Palweiss, tall, darkly elegant, a cigar smoker, is all courtesy. He rejoins them at the Barley Sheaf (the permitted drinking hall for travellers) and runs through the basics of the town’s plight. Then, he facilitates dinner with Judge Reiner who seems to be able to decide on authority to go to other places. Fennec, lacking decent clothes, treats Molly to a much plainer meal and gets the benefit of her local knowledge.
The bare facts gathered
About a year ago raids by beast-men began to be reported and outlying homesteads were targeted. These steadily occurred closer to the town. Among the earlier raids, a survivor reported night-eyed Dwarfs who killed everyone. Beast-headed raiders typically seize young women alive.
Also over the past few months, illkin raiders have grown in numbers and boldness to the point where the townsfolk stay inside the walls. They are not just of one breed or another, but include goblins and uruks at the least.
About three to four months ago Samuel of the Loam, accompanied by an older female adventurer and perhaps a guard or two came seeking bold adventurers or guards to accompany him. He only managed to recruit the town’s best guide. Later he is said to have called in on Dolem’s Spire. Dolem’s Spire has a Prince of some kind who notionally holds title to these lands.
As far as can be worked out Samuel’s target was the ape colony below the plateau, where ape heads mark a gate or delve entry, according to what they understood him to say. A beeline across the plain, cutting the headwater of Whitespur Creek, will lead the Dwarves to that colony.
[Recounting their exploits is the second chance to spend AP. Crompton and Fennec are both now on CHR 15. Jotunn lifts IQ to 15.]
And across the burning plain
T-bone is pack-beast for them [tack and horseshoes equipped now] and they slog through a morning made grey by ash-cloud from a distant prairie fire, enlivened only by sighting near two dozen illkin riders on the skyline. Fennec has a feeling one of them, seen up closer, might be a white-armoured Urukin riding a war-pig.
As they cut the Whitespur headwater in the early afternoon, Lizardmen ambush them! But our wary heroes are alert [Crompton and Cauleigh make L4 LK SR, Jotunn L3] and the Lizardmen are shot or cut down well before they can ‘set’. Except for one, which does get around the fighting ranks. Fennec announces his presence to the surrounding square miles with a L4 TTYF. In the fight, Jotunn loses his shield, but picks up the chain-blade that broke it. It has a minor enchantment on it. [+5 to DEX when stunting the blade at a specific target, +5 total adds for quality] And as the Dwarves ponder whether to search the area or press on, the session ends.
Props
Now we are safely past Grey Dagon Hill I can reveal I used Beneath the Lich’s Tower from Dodecahedron 2014 for it. Jacob’s Spur and Perrol on the Mount are localities marked in the Atharva Plateau maps from the same, but I just used my own imagination to describe and populate them. My feeling is that Jacob’s Spur is populated by folk descended from families that got disheartened and decided not to press on upriver. Perrol is full of hardy frontier families. I switched to full western drawl for Molly and Palweiss. That's probably why we took a full session for a couple of small stops and some hexcrawl. I enjoyed the settlements too much!
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Post by warlord476 on Jul 14, 2017 16:40:26 GMT -5
3.09: Against the hyena-men!
The characters for this session
Fennec, L2 Wizard (Combat magic)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (Townsman)
Jotunn, L5 Warrior (Hunter, Tracking talent)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Runebearer, Roguery talent)
At close of last session our four heroes stood triumphant over a small group of lizardmen. Jotunn lost his shield, but gained a fancy manriki-gusari, which he enjoys using this session. It permits a DEX SR in combat to target a particular location, and adds+5 to the SR.
The slain lizardmen also have pretty good spear-like weapons, such as tridents, spontoons and the like; these tie them to Uruk weapon-dealers, should the Dwarves wish to investigate, or think. The hypothesize that the Uruks may be trading weapons for territory, like a buffer zone deal. They don't take any long weapons, being keen to keep weight carried down, even though they would be handy against charging Gnolls.
So without much ado we move the march across the burning plain to the plateau and an ape-colony that marks the ancient ruin.
Past ancient stone guardians
The Dwarves check equipment as they march onward into the shadow cast by the Atharva plateau. They have marched through the heat of the day, eking out water, saved from real difficulty by cloth aketon or robe, and sturdy constitutions. And now, dusk gathers. The suggestive seam in the plateau’s flank toward which Jotunn has steered them, now resolves into an east-facing notch, and in it, a gate or stone door flanked by massive ape heads! It is the ruin they have sought in their quest to rid the world of woman-stealing hyena-men!
The ape colony that surrounds this notch is alive with family groups enjoying the cooler hours. For many miles around, the plain bears marks of foraging. Some of the adults are as tall at the shoulder as a Dwarf, and the larger males might be considerably stronger. And large or small, they all have long sharp canine teeth.
Jotunn pauses and studies the bare ground leading up to the door. Many hard-booted Gnoll patrols or raiding parties have come and gone here.
The open door is a single massive stone perhaps 8’ wide, well balanced, and with a keyhole visible in the centre. Beyond, steps lead down west. Cauleigh lights a torch and Jotunn ventures in.
Party order, as a general rule:
Jotunn, ready with axe and bladed-chain and scouting up down and around; followed only a short way back by Cauleigh carrying a torch in his shield hand and with kukri ready; then Fennec ready with staff and close behind Cauleigh; and a short way back Crompton ready with his long gun, keeping an eye and ear out behind.
As Jotunn pauses at a landing before turning south, Crompton notices a circular shaft a few inches across above shoulder height on the left stone wall at the entrance. He summons Cauleigh back and by the torchlight they can see a square steel shaft set further inside. Since neither of them wants to fool around and possibly lose a hand, they shrug and move on.
The stone of this dungeon is of some hard granite, extremely well finished and with virtually no seam in the blocks. There is no trace of abrasion on the surface, either from iron studded soles or steel armour. The tunnel they are descending is broad enough for three Dwarves to fight abreast if need be.
Down to a series of chambers and tunnels and many doors
Catching sight of a bloody hand-print at the arch through the west wall of the chamber below, Jotunn heads that way. It’s a tunnel, and from it nervous apes screech a challenge! As the Dwarves ready for battle the apes demonstrate, but are happy to sidle past, guarding their young, away up and out. The tunnel is clear – but it leads merely to another chamber and another choice of doors, south or further west.
The south door leads to a long east-west tunnel, just as broad as the descent. A number of doors are dotted along it. These doors are massive in construction, proof against anything less powerful than a demi-culverin. They typically open out into the tunnel. Which in turn veers south then straightens west ending at a portcullis.
Not wishing to make themselves easy targets the four pull back and investigate one of the doors. This and a second prove locked [actually Crompton rolls a fail on the second]. A third however is pulled open to reveal wreckage from a fierce struggle in times past. Amid the remains of a shattered bedstead, a shed snake-skin of great size is suggestive, as are goblin bones. An OTIS from Fennec reveals a spyhole in the rear wall. And therewith, the travails of the group begin!
Braving the hyena-men’s fierce defence
At that point Crompton’s sharp ears catch the sound of stealthy enemy and a fierce fight ensues, the Dwarves defending the shallow corner of the tunnel and a squad of at least five gnolls attempting to overrun them. Crompton’s shot into the melee with his long arquebus is decisive and the surviving gnolls beat a retreat.
The Dwarves follow up gamely and a full scale battle rages across the immovable stone benches of a common room or galley, reinforcements feeding in to the Gnoll defenders from the south and Jotunn and Cauleigh ably assisted by Crompton from the north, with Fennec strategically opening with LF then dropping into a well-chosen hidey-hole as five gnolls rush him!
Tired and scratched, aketons shredded, the three combatants collect Fennec and retire to the broken bed-chamber for a rest.
Enduring desperate battle
Two hours go by and just as Crompton heals Jotunn a little, the Gnolls mount a determined attack, led by a mighty leader-type with ceremonial club, silvered collar, and massive turret shield. Four apes vault over the shield to disrupt the defence. They are swiftly dealt with! As Cauleigh stunts in to take the leader down Fennec spoils his effort by blowing the leader apart with a L4 TTYF. Ten blood-mad gnolls trample over the shield – and Cauleigh – and go for the three other Dwarves!
Jotunn and Crompton share damage to defend Fennec then Cauleigh wrestles his way out from under the shield and pounces one-two, and the battle swings in the defenders’ favour! As Crompton picks himself up from a death-grapple with one Gnoll he notices a bone whistle. It must have rolled away from the scorched remnants of the leader. Eerie whistle notes have been heard in the tunnels, from time to time. He takes it.
And since it didn’t work the first time, forting up again
For their part Jotunn and Cauleigh are optimistic. The shield, which is rigged so as to lock onto the shield arm of a wielder, offers a defence-based tactic. Jotunn will tank, Cauleigh will stunt. Jotunn loans his comrade his precious coif of leaping. They turn to warn the other two that the hunt is up – then see Fennec and Crompton are lolling back, enervated and unwilling to move.
And as the warriors grudgingly decide not to split the party, more whistles are heard from the tunnels beyond, but the session ends.
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Post by warlord476 on Jul 21, 2017 19:06:46 GMT -5
3.10: Fort Cullis, or "dang nearly got 'em!"
The characters for this session
Fennec, L2 Wizard (Combat magic)
Cauleigh, L3 Warrior (Townsman)
Jotunn, L5 Warrior (Hunter, Tracking talent)
Crompton, L2 Rogue (Runebearer, Roguery talent)
Our heroes have barely avoided a party split! Now the four take stock of options other than “let’s get going right now!” with cooling Gnoll and ape bodies spreading their bodily fluids across their fort-up room, making those curious and unpleasant noises that settling corpses do.
First arc: exploration
It's a Dwarf's right to change his mind!
There’s a fairly involved discussion lasting a full ten minutes as Jotunn suddenly has the nasty suspicious conceit that Cauleigh has the better of an imaginary horse-trade. Finally he accepts that the loan of his coif is temporary, settles Cauleigh’s helm on his own head, and discussion turns to which weapon he might use from behind the tower shield – effectively a Dwarf pavise – that the Gnoll leader bore. Fennec has – on loan – two of Crompton’s zapped throw-blades, and eventually – after a further ten minute debate – a second is on loan to Jotunn. Crompton has Jotunn’s bladed chain (yes, on loan) and Jotunn of course has his own vorpalled Axe.
“Right, let’s roll!” Cauleigh exclaims joyfully, pushing the door. [LK SR] It does not move.
“Let me by,” urges Jotunn, stepping around the heap of corpses and getting his shoulder set. The floor underneath is slick with bodily fluids. [LK SR] His boots get traction in the ash or grit that is all that remains of the Gnoll leader, and with a huge heave he forces the door and its two-corpse block.
Jotunn finishes pushing the door open and catches a suggestion of movement off right. As the four edge out (Cauleigh and Fennec VERY close to Jotunn) they catch a muted ‘thunk’ away in the distance. Maybe there’s a centipede-size clicking as well?
Following the hyena-men trail - into danger!
However, they reach the refectory door unmolested. Crompton checks it routinely and using the shield to good effect (and again with significant caution) they pull it open. Jotunn (Cauleigh and Fennec VERY close) advances while Crompton brings up the rear, uneasy.
Whfft!
Fennec’s torch is extinguished as something flung or projected from his left narrowly misses him. Cauleigh leaps back and left and collides chest to chest with something or someone smelly and strong. It dodges away but not before Caueligh’s kukri takes a good slice through it!
There’s some ineffectual blood-trail-following before Cauleigh (who is no ranger) loses the fresh splotches among many other bloody pools from earlier, then rejoins Jotunn who is directing Crompton to examine the far (southern) door.
“I think we looked beyond here, before…” Crompton muses. The door opens away from him.
“Hang on! Why are we heading deeper?” Fennec expostulates, realising which way the party is facing. “Weren’t we busy leaving?”
Apparently not. Huffily he raises his now-burning torch high and watches Cauleigh kick the south door, which responds by moving a few inches. Jotunn leans his shield into it, and walks it open, revealing a left-right tunnel. There’s a suggestion of another tunnel opening, left and forward (that is, on the south wall of the tunnel); the door blocks sight to the right. Jotunn leans down, examines the stone floor, determines that most tracks lead left. As they swing out left, Crompton looks right, notes a door on that side.
“I thought our aim was to get out,” Fennec complains peevishly.
The others are still happy with their plan. As long as they have a clear run out, killing the things that would hunt them down in the open seems like a good plan. If they leave now it would be full night.
Fennec snorts irritably but speaks no more, allowing the warriors to investigate what proves to be an archway through to a very broad chamber or superior tunnel left and right. There’s a suggestion of ape-foot-shuffling in the dark off to the right. They move forward, Fennec close behind Cauleigh. Crompton uneasily bringing up the rear.
[IQ SR from Crompton and Fennec, Fennec makes L5]
Fennec is virtually certain that apes are off to the right. Beyond the arch, immediately off to the left, Jotunn feels that he can pick out the shapes of two Gnoll-size guards, though his view is not clear.
Sharp, discordant whistles come from far off. Crompton immediately sounds his pleasant natural G whistle, and no attack eventuates.
“Hey, why don’t we use that whistle to control the apes near us?” Fennec suggests. No-one takes him up on it. Instead Jotunn directs Crompton to bring up his long gun and monopod and try a shot at those guards!
The arquebus muzzle noses out of pavise cover then retracts.
“Hey – that’s not a clear shot – there’s another of those blasted portcullises in the way!”
Indeed the guards are a good 40’ back, and the portcullis offers them cover. As Crompton decides whether to insert the arquebus into the portcullis grid and use it as a rest, Fennec notices four apes approaching in a regular, non-ape-like fashion. They don’t seem aggressive so (with due caution) they are allowed to pass by and out the arch. Fennec, who has taken possession of the whistle, stands on tenterhooks until they are gone.
Along a winding tunnel into a sand-man lair
Lacking a wink-wing spell or mind control they can’t raise the portcullis so they turn, and head in the direction the apes came from. Some way down it narrows to become a regular-size tunnel, and that gives them the idea that the door Crompton previously spotted leads to the “viewing room” behind their last fort-up room. Ahead on the left another door beckons, so they take that, and Jotunn hauls it open and signals (vaguely) to Cauleigh that there are shapes beyond.
Two shapes, as Cauleigh discovers, man-size and shifting. It’s almost as though they are living sand, beginning to form weapons where hands should be! Fennec brings up a WoW so Cauleigh has better light.
Crompton’s arquebus and Caleigh’s kukri are enough to disembody the sand-creatures and they collapse back to sand again. Their chamber seems barren of all but sand, which partly blocks a far door. A search however turns up their first loot with monetary value – two cubic-cut amethysts, merchant-marked at 60gp apiece. Fennec considers using a spell to detect hidden things but Cauleigh talks him down from squandering mana.
A morbid ape-crypt
Jotunn scrapes the sand carefully back from the door, and they peer out into darkness. Jotunn and Cauleigh glimpse something smallish, up left, as though on a pedestal, in an irregular-shaped chamber. No door is visible and the WoW floating in confirms this. The pedestal is in fact a solid stone shelf set back in the solid stone of the left wall. And what seemed smallish is in fact the head and shoulder of the body of an ape lying flat on that shelf.
Advancing, they realise this body is a preserved and stuffed ape, its orifices stitched closed. Fennec tries a Detect Magic which reveals that everything is vaguely magical! Cauleigh prods the body with the sharp tip of his kukri, it sinks in as though into a stuffed preserved body, and the Dwarves move on – or back to the main tunnel – and then left and along, to the point where a small portcullis blocks the tunnel. Fennec floats the WoW through and Cauleigh reports there are perhaps two other tunnel-mouths visible – and two pair of Gnoll-yellow eyes can be glimpsed in the left-hand tunnel!
And yet another portcullis
“How about we name this Fort Cullis!?” exclaims Jotunn discontentedly.
“How about I force those Gnolls to charge then we shoot them?” retorts Fennec. As he manoeuvres his fingers and sight-line to activate the OGA spell at them, they yip in alarm and leap back out of his view.
Grumbling, Cauleigh and Jotunn decide to try some raw muscle on the portcullis. Their efforts seem to budge it! [STR SR combined, beginning with Jotunn, then Cauleigh. Jotunn DAROs to L7 and Cauleigh makes a fail-forward L5] Though not at all easily. Cauleigh’s remnant of aketon splits and falls off as he strains. Wedging solid items such as axe-hafts under it, Crompton helps [STR L4!] and they pull and push it to the point where the tower shield props it up. There’s a momentary alarm as some agent blows a series of harsh discordant notes, and apes off hard right around the corner screech and beat the floor, but Fennec has it covered with his open-G-chord whistle. The WoW expires and Fennec begins recovering mana again.
The four cautiously enter the broad chamber beyond the portcullis and find the pulley mechanism for it immediately back right in an alcove. Cauleigh winds it taut and up and Jotunn retrieves his pavise. The apes can be dimly seen off in a tunnel right, there are two more doors half-right (south and south-west) while through the other portcullis a t-junction or alcove south can be guessed. Finally, hard left, another door. They start with that.
A large chamber offers many options
It’s an unpleasantly mouldy smelling room with three preserved ape corpses on shelves, the nearer ape furred with a scum of mould. Wisely they decide to not investigate. [Cauleigh makes a good LK SR which covers the risk of yellow mould spores]
Fennec staves off yet another attempt to incite apes. He’s beginning to draw some conclusions about the whistles:
“I believe each has only one purpose. The apes are not controlled in any subtle way. Luckily, I have a “return to your business” pacifier!”
The two other doors lead to storerooms, one via a short tunnel. That will prove useful, later. Each store contains petrified spars, and steel items that might be spares for dungeon gear such as pulleys and windlass gears.
Leaving that for the time being they turn their attention to the second portcullis. Crompton spots a small being, far back, peering round a corner, and with a fine shot wings it – or simply makes it duck back. The arquebus’ muzzle-flash shows that there definitely is a T-junction right beyond the portcullis.
An incautious step drops half the party
Jotunn sees a use for the spars. Three Dwarves are soon heaving at the closed portcullis [not such an impressive STR SR from Jotunn means Crompton is needed] and Fennec wedges a spar under. Finally, the tower shield once more. Cauleigh moves boldly towards the T-junction, Crompton beginning to fumble under his breastplate for his Missile Dismissal arrow while trying to use the shield as cover. Both are hit solidly by hurtling axes! The sheer force spins Cauleigh around and drops him face-first, while bright arterial blood spurts through Crompton’s clutching fingers as he is struck where a gorget should be!
Cauleigh is allowed double armour but not allowed his shield, since he makes a fail on SPD. His CON drops below 0 but not to -10. Crompton makes L1 SPD which allows some cover from the shield; then a L3 fail-forward LK SR to test how dead he is. From the SPD SR he takes the best of either halved damage or 12 protection from the shield. The fail-forward is some uncertainty about how many Poor Baby points he needs to stop him bleeding out.
Second arc: Escape
Forting up in the dark
Half an hour later Fennec and Jotunn are forted up inside the south-west storeroom off that chamber, bulks of petrified wood acting as a barricade along the short tunnel to that chamber, in the dark, the deeply unconscious bodies of Cauleigh and Crompton beside them. Bloody skidmarks along the outer chamber suggest the two wounded were dragged rapidly along on their breastplate.
The maths of PB are confusing and though we went through them twice I still did not get it right. This is partly because Fennec's Ring of the Sorcerer has not been defined well.
PB face cost: Level 2 spell, no power ups, 2 per 1 CON.
Cast by a wizard using a staff: deduct Wizard level, minimum 1 cost.
When Fennec waits 10 minutes and accumulates 1 WIZ he can cast a 2-point PB, costing him the minimum of 1. It is a 10-minute-per-1-CON process.
Ten more minutes pass. Fennec mutters – possibly kind words, possibly “I told you so” – and Crompton [who is reserve healer] drifts closer and closer to consciousness.
Jotunn extends his arquebus and shoots! He’s spotted a small, perhaps goblinoid, head, outlined by some vague source of light beyond the barricade. There’s a squawk, and after short pause something barks the small body is dragged away.
An unexpected visitor
The pair pass the time wittily joking about a dragon being next, then there’s a distinct barking – as though to attention – a tramp of booted feet – slithering as of a great snake – and a human male voice pronounces:
“This is Samuel of the Loam! Who am I addressing?”
“Jotunn the wilder!”
“Jotunn the wilder? I admire your defence of your comrades so far, but you must see that resistance is useless. Throw down your arms and surrender and you will be well-treated… as I have been.”
[LK SR to catch an outline of the speaker – Jotunn makes L5 and works out he is talking to a giant man-snake. Now, he wants a target]
The two Dwarves fall to loudly discussing how best to shoot this guy!
“Are you going to use that f**king big gun?” Fennec asks, to which Jotunn half-assents then re-levels his own trusty arquebus. Fennec floats a WoW out the door and through the barricade.
“You anger me!” cries Samuel.
Jotunn fires, but the shot merely glances off stone [L3 DEX is not good enough against a form mostly in cover and hard to see through the barricade!]
“Dispell!” calls Samuel and the light is extinguished.
Fennec hopefully preps another WoW as Jotunn waits for another shot, but it merely shines on an open tunnel. Whoever Samuel’s bodyguard were, they have withdrawn.
With life there's hope, and new decisions
After perhaps forty or fifty minutes, and occasional healing, Crompton rouses and clutches his neck. Dried blood thickly covers his doublet and breastplate, but the wound is a mere scar. Now, he can heal himself as his own mana rises.
After perhaps an hour Cauleigh too is healed enough to scrabble up, fetch his pack, and quaff a healing potion. [It’s old, from the shatterzone, I turn it into a 2d6 roll of 7+ means ok, use the lowest d6 of the two as the actual CON gain. All healing potions are officially gone – though both Fennec and Jotunn still have Mother Hobb’s short-term d6 potion recorded.]
In his truffling for healing potions Crompton has recollected that he has a potion of plant control. It colours decisions made later.
All four Dwarves are now abreast of the situation and the unexpected appearance of Samuel of the Loam.
“Samuel of the Loam was a human, as I recall…” Cauleigh muses.
“And his mission was to rescue the women and deal with the hyena-men” Fennec adds.
“So he’s done a turnabout,” Crompton concludes, still scrubbing dried blood off his breastplate.
“Well they’ve gone, what say we move out quietly?” Jotunn suggests.
Fennec decides to search deeper
The barricade is shifted quietly and they creep out, don packs and set up party order again. A half-dozen apes stand about placidly. Fennec’s torch reveals that the open portcullis north is still open, and that the huge shield is missing. Jotunn hands Cauleigh back his helmet.
“You know,” Fennec says wryly, “now that we’ve got this far and I have control of those apes, it would be crazy to not check down their tunnel. We can still retreat under the portcullis if need be.”
[I make this a CHR check at +10 since this is such a 180 degrees by Fennec, Jotunn and Crompton find his argument convincing. Cauleigh goes along with it.]
A water source and a swift retreat
With G-chord whistle at the ready the four Dwarves shift west along the tunnel and into a large northward chamber. Three or four apes stand in the northeast corner. A large shallow relief of a maternal ape suckling adorns the entire south. Another tunnel or perhaps arch leads west. The music of trickling water reminds them all they are all very thirsty.
Investigating the apes’ corner Cauleigh finds a fontana style drinking bowl, and beside it a deeper relief of a maternal ape holding out a bowl: the bowl itself juts from the wall. Inspecting it Cauleigh detects a few grain-like motes. He makes an offering of a corner of trail ration, and moves on to the fount. It is fresh rock-filtered water, clean and cold. He drinks deep and fills all three of his canteens. The others, thirst assailing them, follow suit.
Crompton returns Jotunn’s bladed chain and collects a throw-blade from him. Cauleigh hands a torch to Jotunn and he thrusts a torch through the arch. Three more apes stand placidly – one looks exceptionally like a Dwarf, old and battle-scarred.
Cauleigh’s curiosity catches fire and he retrieves the torch and looks at the “Dwarf” at close range. [IQ SR, he makes L1] No – it’s an ape, old, scarred, bearded and handless to be sure, but an ape nonetheless.
Cauleigh retreats hastily!
“Aaaugh! If we stay here too long we turn into apes! Let’s get out of here!”
Regardless of the rational objections raised by Jotunn and Fennec he sticks to his story. The four discuss options.
“We either fort up here and hope not to be turned into apes; or head out NOW because if we delay the ape colony will be foraging.”
Third arc: At bay
The retreat's first leg against the dawn
And the four retreat. Cautiously. It takes half an hour, and pre-dawn is giving way to dawn. The sun is yet to kiss the plain but they have plenty of water.
Crompton and Cauleigh are by no means healthy so they set out at best march. A few minutes in, Fennec breaks stride:
“How much time is it going to take, Jotunn, if you disguise our trail?”
“Aye, well, if you can think of a way to make our boots look like ape pugs I’ll try. But I got the impression those hyena-men can sniff us out,” Jotunn growls. “Best I can offer is veering off right of a true course, to where we spotted some kind of scarecrow affair. The ground is harder there.”
They agree with this – then insist that he head the party direct for Perrol, after all.
The wind of yesterday has picked up the smoke and flung it into crazy streamers banding the sky. Half an hour of brisk walk later, a banner of smoke filters the sun which is no longer dazzling. Looking back, Crompton catches sight of at least half a dozen Gnolls, perhaps ten, bearing bows and running towards them!
Archers! Take cover!
A quick debate – there is no vantage point – Crompton sets his monopod and aims while Jotunn too tries a shot. Fennec waits to identify the leader. [He makes a fair roll, it will be 2nd combat round before he is sure] Cauleigh, having merely a caliver for range work, casts about for a buffalo wallow or similar dip.
Crompton touches match to powder – and the match fizzles out. [LK SR, he DAROs above 20 picking up a boon] Adroitly he tips the piece to Jotunn who relights the match – and the gunne misfires.
[Two fails on the shot convinces me – the gunne has a damp charge and will need to be shot cleared.]
The bows must be longbows! From some hundred yards or so, the Gnoll archers loose accurately.
“Missile dismissal” yells Crompton, brandishing his talisman-arrow, and four shafts are blasted out of the air. Fennec is by now some yards distant, beside Cauleigh in his “shallow grave,” and the warrior uses his small shield to good effect, knocking away a couple of arrows. A few others get close. Altogether, eight Gnolls loose.
Jotunn fires a second time and a second Gnoll is hit [he’s only making ‘group’ size hits but I roll a couple of threes for their saves!]
With a CHUFF Crompton clears his damp charge and begins reloading. And now, Fennec has identified a leader. Who is well back behind even the distant Gnolls, out of normal spell range.
The Gnolls loose again – they seem disciplined – and again Cauleigh knocks a couple clear. Four others are knocked down and the other shafts miss.
Since it is relevant here – because Cauleigh asked to find prone cover and Crompton and Jotunn were already engaged with gunnes, I have mentally placed Caueligh and Fennec quite some distance from the other pair. The missile dismissal will not help Cauleigh in any kind of priority.
Fresh danger and a desperate course
Fennec pushes some healing into Cauleigh. But luck cannot last forever. Cauleigh’s third attempt to deflect arrows fails. A long shaft slams through Fennec’s robe – and pins it to the ground, without harming the wizard. [Cauleigh rolls high, and finally recoups the LK he lost in the black manse. Fennec’s boon token is used up here]
Crompton drops a third Gnoll archer. He looks about: cover?
[L4 LK SR for Fennec at this point.]
Crompton decides to compromise by kneeling by Jotunn who has hunted up another dip in the ground.
[Fennec has DARO’d up to L5]
“There are pincer forces on our flanks!” Fennec cries. Dust has alerted him.
Now things are desperate. There are six archers left, two unknown sized pincer forces, and no real cover.
“I’m going to ram them!” Jotunn calls – in Dwarven – grabbing up his own and another pack and Crompton readies his own pack to do the same but is persuaded not to do that.
“Little Feets!”
The battle and its outcome
Jotunn already has packs as shield and charges the hundred yards with élan. Crompton aims along behind him and takes a Gnoll down! [L4 DEX is a clean hit from the long gun] Five archers remaining!
Cauleigh, caliver ready, runs swiftly behind Jotunn. Fennec follows at a more sedate, wizardly pace. BZEOW!! A powerful longbow send a shaft true at Cauleigh [SPD check again – no fail this time] and the force of it spins him round as his shield knocks it clear. Fennec [IQ SR] marks the shooter for future pain!
A clothyard shaft slams through one of the packs Jotunn is using, along his vambrace and stops at his breastplate. As he gets within handy heave-range the bulky hunter hurls both packs [STR SR, DAROs to L7] knocking a Gnoll off his shot: and closes with the other three.
WHAMM! A crimson-tinged blast rips the right-hand Gnoll off his guard. [Fennec sends this TTYF at L2, using a staff charge since he is already low on mana] It grunts and draws a useful-looking short cutlass.
BAMM! A caliver shot, fired at the run, takes Jotunn’s left-hand opponent. Whether by chance or design [DAROs up plenty!] the shot takes the Gnoll in its gaping mouth, punching through and out, taking brains with it. The Gnoll collapses like a wet sack. Jotunn is against one fit Gnoll, and the wretch that took Fennec’s TTYF. He unleashes his bladed chain at the fit Gnoll, a perfect hit round the ankle, allowing a virtually free shot against the exposed flank. The axe sinks deep, ribs show white and guts spill from the gaping wound, and the Gnoll is killed outright.
Jotunn’s battle experience comes into play. He ignores the wounded Gnoll to his right and simply sprints on at the leader – who is surprised! [I don’t roll a fail but a miserable 5 does not allow leeway]
Crompton is busy reloading. Fennec is backing up but with no mana and well behind. Cauleigh, not long delayed, now joins the battle line and feints the now-ready wounded Gnoll onto the wrong foot [good L3 CHR SR] and his kukri rakes through the ribs, cutting a kidney, and with a dreadful tittering howl it dies. Cauleigh too ignores the two Gnolls to his left and races to help Jotunn.
Who is in very close combat! The bladed chain catches the leader’s flail but it becomes a tug o’ war [L9 SR demanded by the Gnoll’s excellent STR roll, Jotunn makes L7 with DARO]. Jotunn is drawn into a hug and the leader champs down on the Dwarf’s shoulder with its massive teeth. But Jotunn has a free hand and deals a massive stab with his (loaned) magical throw-blade as he is drawn in.
As Cauleigh runs and jumps, Crompton fires an excellent shot [just shy of L5] and removes the last ready archer from the field. Two surviving Gnolls flee as Cauleigh leaps, stabs, and finishes the leader.
And a new course set, at the run!
Retrieving their gear, decision are made swiftly. Cauleigh ruefully shakes out his damaged pack, tucks the cape of plausibility under his breastplate, stows the odd piece of equipment and his canteens, and is ready. Jotunn retrieves his own pack and walks back for his arquebus. Crompton tosses it to him:
“Which way now?”
“Suggestion! We could retreat to that line of trees you were talking about earlier,” Fennec suggests, tucking away a couple of items away he’s looted off the leader. [Belt, gewgaw, bone whistle]
“Aye then be ready to run,” Jotunn comments grimly. “We’ll scurry away along the tracks west there.”
[L3 SR on CON from Crompton sets the bar. The others make it easily. Jotunn gets to choose LK or IQ+Hunter for the decision about direction and makes L3.]
“First of all, it’d be the last thing they expect. Second of all, judging by the smoke of yesterday, there be trees.”
And as Jotunn hefts a second pack and shadows Crompton, the session ends.
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