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Post by Lew - Drake on Nov 14, 2014 16:04:28 GMT
Session 4. At the end of the last session the group found itself is a desperate struggle for survival having been ambushed by a wolf pack as it slept.
Two member of the party had fallen and there were as many wolves as there are party members but then unexpectedly Roland the Halfling appears from out of the night and attacks one of the wolves from behind.
This seems to mark a strange time in the battle where Bobin finds himself with a wolf latched on to his back and from a distance looking like the pair are engaged in a deadly dance. As the battle progress Vadania & Hobin continue their journey towards death.
Roland finds out that attacking a wolf from behind sometimes comes with consequences and discover what life like a chew toy is like whilst Tharg shows what a dwarf can do when allowed to fly.
Whilst Bobin fails to detach his dance partner, Kendrick with the aid of Roland is finally able to despatch the wolf that he has been love tapping for most of the fight whilst Tharg convinces the wolf on Bobin that dancing really is not a good look for the wolf who decides that it will seek dinner somewhere else tonight.
Finding themselves still alive, Bobin immediately rushes to the aid of Vadania leaving his twin brother Hobin to bleed out. But Tharg realising the urgency of Hobin’s wounds calls upon his god for aid and revives him.
The group including their returned halfing companion settle down for the rest of night then feast on wolf for breakfast with Bobin taking a wolf tail as a trophy.
They then set out again on the trail and walk all day till they reach the abandoned town of Canberry from which they find the trail to the Banshee’s lair.
After an hour or so of walking they come upon the lair and it decided that Vadania and Roland will enter and seek to speak with the Banshee. (Often they did not push the weakest to the front.) As a feeling of dread settles the banshee appears and the pair humble themselves before her and are some quick thinking from Vadania are able to collect their prize and leave with the banshees laughter still ringing in their ears.
After spending a night in Canberry the party set out back the way they came but as they travel along the path Hobin propose that he thinks it would be quicker to leave the path and cut across the countryside. No one objects and off the group march, latter on as Hobin is finds there path blocked by a cliff face Bobin explains that he saw off to the East a path that looked like it wound around the cliff and over the hills, Believing this to be the path and with Vadania and Tharg both support this action as the intelligent thing to do the group march further east into the hills. Even Roland who knows this area a little sees no problem with this and the group march off into the gathering gloom.
Eventually they make camp by some convenient boulders and distracted by chores and constant sodden rain those on watch miss the approach of danger. They only manage to spot it moments before the attack is launched through the downpour giving them only a second to call out a warning before the camp is rushed by three roving Orcs.
The Orc’s quickly prove why they are so feared and score telling hits on the party members with one sweeping Tharg of his feet and down from the boulder he was standing watch on. Dazed by the blow from behind and finding out that his flying ability was not working Tharg would decide to fight the rest of the battle from a prone position.
Next the rest of the group found themselves having to somehow clamber to their feet as the Orcs lashed out at all around them. Bobin trying to assit his brother tried a flying rugby tackle only to wonder why he was laying back down a second latter.
Vadania then proved why those with arcane powers should not be taken lightly. Lightning bolting one Orc. As if this was a sign four of the group jump one Orc with Hobin somersaulting of the rock he had been standing watch on, over the head of the Orc who had been attaching him landing with catlike and then launching a round house attach with his great sword. Not wanting to be out down seconds later as the orc once again attached his brother Bobin jumped up and launched a blow designed to decapitate the orc but instead ended up resting his sword on the orc’s shoulder.
As other blows where reined on the Orc, Hobin took the opportunity to launch a mighty swing upwards and split the Orc from Crutch to head. As the two parts of the orc separated and slowly flopped to the sodden ground they revealed Bobin covered from head to toe in a spattering of Green Orc Blood.
Meanwhile throughout this battle the dazed Tharg had been madly trying to fend off the last orc on his own and now was nearing the end of his strength but help was on hand for whilst the rest of the party fought Vadania had noticed the one sided fight and comes to Tharg’s aid by casting sleep putting both the orc and Tharg in a magical slumber.
With that the din of the battle faded and the party found themselves victorious with a captive to interrogate. What Vadania undertook with great relish siting the hatred between Elves and Orcs the reason for her brutality. The Orc quickly started to talk and revealed the Orc’s where camped at the tower and their number. Realising that Vadania was not going to stop Bobin finished the orc off with an arrow to the head to bring the matter to a close.
Believing that the rest of the orc band might be nearby the group broke camp and headed into the hills following the Rood brothers lead. And Bobin believed that the best place to rest was on top of a exposed hill top.
The group made the best of it they could and in the early morning light as the rain lifted they could see in the distance an old watch tower partially in ruin surrounded by a small court yard.
As the session comes to a close the group are faced with a decision to either try to backtrack if they can their path. Advance an possibly face an orc band in the ruins of the tower or trying to make their way through the country side and hope not to become even more lost in the mountains.
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andy
Rank Trooper
Posts: 17
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Post by andy on May 31, 2016 16:33:09 GMT
The Story (if you want the Word document: The Story So Far.docx (45.49 KB)) (a brief summary of the first four or five sessions, before note-taking began): Hired by Gudren to deliver goods to Phandalin. Came across signs of ambush and tracked to cave full of goblins (and a wolf). Rescued Sildar, Gudren’s bodyguard. Gudren has been taken to Cragmaw Castle. Went to Phandalin and delivered goods, including some recovered from goblins’ cave that belonged to the Lionshield armourers who now give us a 10% discount on goods for recovering these items. Sildar takes up what seems to be a permanent spot at the Sleeping Giant inn. Sildar turns out to be a member of the Lord’s Alliance. He asks us to find a friend of his called Glass Staff or Iarno. A band of thugs called the Redbrands are terrorising the town (but not the Miners’ Exchange, run by Halia). The mayor, Weston, doesn’t seem to care about the Redbrands. Miner’s Exchange has various goods for sale and will buy stuff e.g. gems. Garaele, a priest of Oghma, asked us to deliver a jewelled comb to a banshee called Agatha and ask the banshee if she knew the whereabouts of a spellbook belonging to Bogentle. Surviving a rather awkward wolf experience en route, we found Agatha who said that she traded the spellbook to a necromancer called Tsernorth about 100 years ago. Said to remind priestess that they have the same blood but beware her might (I’ve no idea what this means!) On the way back from that, we took an unwanted detour to mountains (a.k.a. got very lost) and got into a tussle with orcs. Vad extracted some information from the survivor but was rudely interrupted by her squeamish boyfriend. Hunting for the rest of them, we met a necromancer called Umancost in a tower. After an initial misunderstanding we became friendly and so survived him. He gave us a map to the correct tower with the orcs: we killed them and there was apparently some incident involving ‘Kool Aid’ which we will never mention again. We took their heads back to Phandalin to claim a reward: if only we’d agreed on what reward we’d get first... Meanwhile, Roland’s aunt Quellin has a son who’s seen weird things going on around the ruined manor. Exploring it we find the Redbrands hideout. Various mayhem ensues in which we kill: a weird cyclops demon; 3 bugbears (ambassadors from Cragmaw); various Redbrands; and a wizard with a bad fireball habit who turns out to be Iarno Glass Staff, heir to the ruined manor and “protector” of the town. Another dwarf wizard got away. We adopted Tiddlesworth the goblin who was with the bugbears and he turns out to be a ranger (have they no standards?) We also rescued some slaves (the dead (?) woodcutter(?)’s wife and kids?) that Iarno was going to sell on (to Neverwinter and Waterdeep). Garaele, priestess of Oghma, offers Vad a position of ‘Watcher’ in the Harpers, an organisation that helps the weak. Lady Halia of the Miners’ Exchange, offers a mutual aid agreement to our two nobles. She’s part of an organisation called the Zhentarim. The nobles are now ’Fangs’ in the Zhentarim. We still have store credit with the Miners’ Exchange and Lionshield.
April session: Sildar, now in the town hall, seems to be running the place on behalf of the Lord’s Alliance. He offers the two dwarves a job to help him ‘clear out’ the area. Rewards mentioned, plus goodwill. Dwarves are now ‘Cloaks’ in the LA. We decide to go to Thundertree as Roland’s aunt Quellin has a friend called Readoth, a druid who knows the countryside very well and can probably tells us where Cragmaw lies. He left a week ago, going to the ruins of Thundertree, 50 miles NW of Phandalin. Also: one of the slaves rescued from Iarno has offered a reward of an emerald necklace, hidden under storage shelves in the SE corner of an alchemy shop in Thundertree. Thundertree is definitely where it’s happening. Quellin says Thundertree abandoned after volcano exploded there 20/30 years back. Volcano no longer active. Garaele recommends protection against undead if going to Thundertree as it’s been taken over by the undead. We decide to go via the longer road route (via Neverwinter) rather than getting lost trying to go across country (see, we can learn!). On day 2 (I think) our lunch stop was interrupted by a bugbear ambush as Roland rolled 1s 3 times in a row, setting a new personal worst even for us. We survived the attack and only one person died for a bit. Post-ambush, Tiddlesworth realises he’s near Grol’s place, Grol being the bugbear in charge of Cragmaw castle. We struck a bargain with Tiddles (including some ‘special time’ with the elf) and Tiddles agreed to lead us there. The ‘castle’ is a half-ruined manor house in a clearing with seven overlapping towers, some collapsed. Vad casts invisibility on Roland and he scouts things out. We all sneak in just before dawn, using a secret side entrance that Tiddles knows about, and find ourselves outside Grol’s room. Inside, Grol and a Drow are in an argument, possibly over Gudren and definitely over territory: “The Black Spider does not appreciate renegotiation” from the Drow. Gudren is tied up in a corner, possibly unconscious, maybe just asleep. A few of the party mug the guards in the chamber next to Grol’s room while the majority storm Grol’s room after Roland backstabs the Drow. This all goes surprisingly well and we kill Grol and the Drow while not killing Gudren: it turns out that having a plan really helps. As the session ends, one of the ‘floor rugs’ wakes up - it’s a wolf! (This will make Abe happy. Until we kill the wolf, at least, so I’m expecting tears.)
May session: We kill the wolf. Abe mourns. Gudren is unconscious, rather than dead, which is a pleasant surprise: either Lew is slipping or he’s luring us into a trap. Grol’s corpse has a nicely carved morning star and a punch dagger. The “drow” turns into (what we suspect is) a doppelganger after death. The body has various daggers and a ring with a black spider on it which seems a little worrying for the future. Isn’t there some drow spider god? We search the room and find some healing potions (shared out) and a total of 102 GP in various denominations. There’s also a rolled-up parchment that everyone assumes is booby-trapped (because, well, it’s Lew ...) Gudren still won’t wake up, so we drag him with us. Moving further into the ruin, past the guards’ chamber, we find a ruined chapel. While investigating, we’re attacked by a snake thing (a Grick) and then goblins jump out at us from all directions, including a rather awkward goblin shaman. After a certain amount of violence, we kill everything and catch our breath. The shaman has a symbol of Maglubiyet, the goblin god. During the fight, Kendrick (Louise) breaks his ancestral hammer (rolling a 1). Everyone is obviously very sympathetic and doesn’t take the piss at all. Behind the chapel is a desecrated altar of Oghma. This gets Vad all hot and bothered and not in a good way (down, Abe, down!). The altar looks as if it’s been rededicated to Maglubiyet and Vad insists on cleaning it up for Oghma. On the altar are a golden chalice, knife and censer. This seems like a good time for Vad to Detect Magic so we put all of the recent loot on the altar and she casts the spell. None of it glows (boo!) but something in the chapel next door does instead (hurray!). In the brazier is a gold statue of a Sun Elf glowing magically so we take it. We go further into the ruin. We find a stash of belongings: heavy crossbow, unsheathed longsword, chainmail (might have been a shield?) with the mark on Neverwinter on them. Someone had a bad day. We take the crossbow (Jim) and longsword (Nick), leave the chainmail. Gudren still hasn’t woken up yet, despite Abe’s ‘interesting’ attempts to help him regain consciousness. This is rather unhelpful, frankly, but if a dragon jumps out then he’ll be a useful distraction while we run for it. More exploring. More goblins provide some light entertainment (unlike our first session). How long would it take to get to (say) fifth level if we just killed goblins? We’re getting good at it.... We then meet some hobgoblins and have yet to finish dealing with them. Various people have used second wind and similar feats and Vad is almost out of spells but the clerics are still going strong and I think they have yet to use many spells.
June session: The fight resumes. Bobin (Abe) continues to sexually harass the still unconscious Gudren. Bobin and Tiddles aside, half the party is killing hobgoblins, while the other Rood brother (Nick) and a few like-minded (a.k.a. easily bored) people decide that’s now’s a good time to open a random door. His little group find an empty bedroom and an abandoned kitchen. While searching the kitchen they encounter another Grick-snake-thing and some more goblins. Kendrick (Louise) promptly dies, so losing the ancestral hammer in the last session didn’t turn out to matter very much in practice. Anyone else got a picture of Scooby and Shaggy hoping to find a snack but finding a monster in the kitchen instead, or is it just me? Bobin is still trying to wake the dwarf. In a stroke of ‘genius’ he decides to kick him in the groin and rolls a natural 20. This does the trick and the dwarf wakes up. Now Bobin has a new problem on his hands, despite trying to cast the blame onto Tiddlesworth. In the original fight, Jim (can’t remember the character name, sorry) chops the last hobgoblin in half. At this point, this little party hears more fighting going on and we run towards it. Meanwhile, Bobin is trying to explain things to Gudren and frankly making things worse, but the sound of fighting helps out there as well. So we finally all join in the same fight in the kitchen. There was already one goblin shaman in this little fracas, but (just for laughs) Lew has another shaman turn up and to tell them apart, this one’s mounted (no, Abe, not like that) on a boar. The boar tramples Kendrick and badly gores someone else (Bobin?). The boar thankfully stumbles on Kendrick’s body and throws the goblin shaman into the wall where it lies stunned until Vad kills it. This turns out to be the most useful thing Kendrick does all fight. Kendrick’s not having a good day. He dies, wakes up (Tharg’s magic healing), dies again, wakes up (more magic) and crawls away... Finally, the boar dies, the Grick dies, goblins begin to die en masse and the last one runs away. We start to give chase: this may be a mistake. Unusually for us, we stop and think for a moment. As we do, we hear a nasty screechy roar coming from up ahead. As we have almost no magic and lots of damage we go for plan B and run like hell back to the kitchen. A loud stomping noise comes towards us from the original direction so you’ve got to love plan B. One or two people want to stop and see what the monster is but we drag them along with us. We run back to the hobgoblin fight room, secure the room and hole up for a long rest to recharge. July session (a.k.a. not a lot happens, much to Lew’s frustration): We bravely hide from the big bad screechy monster in the bugbear room, nailing the door shut and generally cowering. Gudren beats up Bobin while we all watch (and offer a certain amount of encouragement). When he’s finished, or possibly just catching his breath, he gives us a very sketchy outline of being kidnapped and brought to Cragmaw to give information about the lost mine. The Bugbear Chief was hired by the ominously-named ‘Black Spider’, but he claims to know no more than us. You’d think he might have picked up a bit more over the last week or so, but I guess he was too busy being unconscious (until Bobin ‘helped’ him recover.) The parchment we found is a map to the mine, which Gudren promptly reclaims. He recognises the longsword (found with the crossbow and chainmail) as belonging to Sildar. Gudren is worried about the mine and decides to hire us to check things out for him. After a certain amount of negotiation, we settle for 3% of the profits and 25 GP each if we agree to “clear out the mine”. The mine is capable of making magic weapons so if things go to plan so this could be worth our while (although Vad is suspicious about whether the mine will make any ‘profit’, but we’ll let that pass.) Gudren says that this could be money for basically nothing but we take one look at Lew and we all know better than that. There’s a certain amount of goblin noise outside the door later on. Tiddles persuades the other goblins to leave us alone, proving to be useful for a change. Otherwise, we rest peacefully. After a long rest, we cautiously leave the castle, picking up Sildar’s chainmail en route. We set off for Phandalin, having to camp overnight. This goes peacefully until we realise that Tiddles has gone missing, but he turns up with chickens and rabbits for breakfast. So far, Tiddles is MVP. We make it back to Phandalin to find the old mayor in the stocks and Sildar in his place in the town hall. Sildar rewards us for rescuing Gudren and seems slightly grateful to get his kit back. We level up. As there’s a big fight coming up, this is definitely good news. We spend some cash! Wagon, draft horse and two ‘squires’ for the nobles to molest train up. Vad takes the gold elf statue to Gaerele who agrees that it’s magical (Divination?) and will try to work out what it does. She also informs Gaerele that the shrine of Oghma has been cleaned up a bit but some rededication couldn’t hurt. Gudren tells us to head straight off to the cavern as he’s concerned for his kin. He will join us there later as he’s got some things to do first (possibly a certain amount of quaffing of beer while we do the dirty work, but that’s why he’s the mine boss and we’re the penniless mercenaries). We get to the cavern and find (surprise!) dead dwarves. Part of the cavern floor has collapsed and there’s a rope hanging into the consequent hole so it would be rude not to investigate. We leave the wagon in charge of the squires (place your bets on whether they’ll be there when we get back) and go on down. It turns into a whole maze of caverns and we spend a bit of time wandering round and round until we find a large natural cavern with carved walls of dwarves and goblins at work. This potentially lovely room is a teensy bit spoiled by the orc and dwarf skeletons littering the floor, along with their rusty armour and weapons. We promptly get well and truly Stirged, with Jim being seriously sucked and not in a good way. We eventually kill off the stirges, with Jim and Tharg left unconscious. Tiddles heals Jim (note: this makes Tiddles at least a 2nd level Ranger so it’s about time he killed things for us). The session ends.
August session: We mostly survived the Stirges. Kendrick heals Tharg (eventually) while the rest of us search the room, finding ... nothing. There’s a lot of dust on the floor but ours tracks seems to be the only things disturbing it. There are a lot of exits so we go left, pretending that we now have a ‘system’. We find a corridor and a door with suspicious noises behind it so we open the door cautiously. Behind the door is the remains of a barracks and three ghouls (we spend a lot of time arguing whether they might be ghasts and whether Lew might be that sadistic: popular opinion is “Yes”). As is now traditional, they surprise us and attack first. Gronk is promptly paralysed. The clerics turn the first ghouls, handily moving them through Vad’s Cloud of Daggers. You may have noticed the word “first” - to keep things exciting, more of the little devils turn up through hitherto unnoticed doors! There’s a certain amount of necessary violence and the undead die again. We find the remains of dwarves and orcs in the barracks, with gnawed bones. The bones all seem quite old so we’re still missing the miners. We go on down a narrow corridor, so we’re in single file when Gronk wanders into a cavern full of ghouls. As the rest of us are stuck behind him, his life becomes rather busy as he valiantly plugs the entrance to our corridor. Roland does some impressive archery damage while shooting past him, killing 2 ghouls in the first 2 rounds and continuing to deal significant wounds almost every round. Some of the undead get bored and come at us from a different direction. They run into another Cloud of Daggers and a few cantrips. Sphelc mops up, while Tharg does such a great job boosting Gronk’s armour with magic that it bursts into light! This disturbs the ghouls attacking him, so two jump past him and land in the middle of the corridor where they die very quickly indeed. Tharg then barges one ghoul back through Vad’s Cloud of Daggers, while Vad and Bobin finish the others at that end of the fight. Back at the cavern, Kendrick gets paralysed and starts getting eaten but Tharg saves him with his Prayer of Healing. Sphelc kills the final ghoul, nobly. Session ends.
Most valuable player: Roland (Tharg and Gronk fighting it out for second place) Least valuable player: easily Hobin, who spent the entire episode in a side cavern, prying open barrels to see what he could find ....
September session: The ghouls have no treasure worth the name. Bloody ghouls. The rest of the room is filled with what might charitably be called useless crap. The room has two raised areas (at either end of the room) and corridors/stairs leading off at different places. Gronk spends some time failing to lift the brazier on one raised area, but he’s having fun and keeping out of trouble. While he’s there, he notices a green light at the end of one of the corridors. At this point, we decide it would be a really, really good idea to split the party into not two but three, with some people staying in the room and Sphelc and Roland taking different approaches towards the green light. Both end up in a room with a blast furnace and mechanical bellows driven by a water wheel (now dry), with lots of coal and ore scattered around along with some long-dead bodies of dwarves and orcs. Oh, and a green floating skull wreathed in flames, which you don’t usually get in a forge. The flames are a nice touch but no-one’s brought marshmallows so they’re a bit of a waste. There’s some gentle banter for a while with the skull trying to get a password from us, during which the rest of the team enters the room from different places. We try all sorts of persuasion and nonsense on the talking skull until Lew decides to stop playing cat-and-mouse with us, admits that we’d never get the password in a trillion years and attacks. A fireball engulfs most of the party and we retaliate, which would have gone more smoothly if all of the long-dead dwarves hadn’t decided to join in on the wrong side and so it really hits the fan. Sphelc dies, Tharg dies, Kendrick dies (and the sharper of you will go: so that’s both clerics dead?) but luckily Tharg Turns most of the undead before keeling over as a new corpse himself. Hobin and Vad desperately start feeding healing potions to the nearest bodies while they have a chance. Gronk, on the far side of the room, carves one undead dwarf in two as it Turns away from him. Tharg wakes up after being force-fed healing potion and does some general healing of his own. Gronk and Roland keep fighting zombies while Vad and Bobin start shooting and Witchbolting the skull. Vad eventually electrocutes the bugger so it explodes. (Unusually, no-one dies from this little event, so Lew missed a trick there). Bobin kills the last unTurned zombie and things look sweet. No, they don’t: Tharg hears fighting coming from one of the corridors leading further into the complex and runs towards it. He enters a cavern where bugbears are fighting zombie dwarves, with a drow overseeing the action. Some of the group follow Tharg and get jammed up behind him in the corridor. Meanwhile, back in the forge: the rest of us in the cavern are waiting to be told what Tharg’s doing but Louise decides to properly ‘roleplay’ Hobin as Nick would (oh, God, no) and so Hobin tries to open a random door leading off the forge. It gets shoved back in his face. He decides it’s a good idea to shout through the door to the (presumed) trapped dwarven miners that we’re here to rescue them. We hear stuff being moved from the door and Hobin is going to be very annoyed when the door opens to reveal more bugbears instead of grateful dwarves. In the new cavern: Tharg, Kendrick and Sphelc fight bugbears. Kendrick is poisoned by a drow dagger. Enraged, Tharg bodyslams one bugbear to death while Kendrick sets another on fire and Sphelc finishes it off. With bugbears dying all round, the drow runs for it. Session ends.
February session: Time stops ….. and restarts! After hibernating over winter, our party wakes from their long rest and finds itself scattered around in different places. Hobin is a tad surprised when the door opens and the bugbears charge out, but we try these odd things called ‘tactics’ and gradually the party reforms at the end of the corridor where the bugbears can only come at us one at a time. They start acting oddly, floating around and generally doing weird things, but we keep killing those within reach while the invisible creature polishes off the rest. Unsportsman-like, arguably, but some of us are elves and dwarves so ‘man-like’ is irrelevant. Tiddlesworth shoots Bobin for 11 HP in the middle of all this, which we all enjoy. Well played, Tiddles! When we’ve whittled matters down to a bugbear dissolving in ooze, we decide to run away withdraw and eventually we zap and shoot the ooze from a distance without losing any weapons or armour (a little to Lew’s disappointment, I think). We go back to the ‘floating skull’ cavern and look for loot but there isn’t any. Really? Floating head, green flames, fireballs, ghouls but no loot? Vad sulks for a bit. There is a potion of vitality on one of the non-dissolved bugbear corpses, and Gronk annexes this. We go through the back of the bugbear hidey place and find a pretty cavern with rooms coming off it. Gronk forces open the doors to a fire-damaged workshop, with a stone pedestal with a brazier with green flames… Lew starts looking too happy and everyone else gets a little worried. Next to the brazier is a floating spectral eyeball with stalks (everyone goes: ‘Beholder!’) and Lew looks even happier. There is a sporting chance that this room is the Forge of Spells, and if we live long enough then this might be confirmed. Unusually, no-one attacks the spectral eyeball. It seems that we can learn. The possible beholder asks our purpose. Vad hedges a bit and eventually we get told to go and talk to ‘The Supervisor’ in one of the lower rooms. In another wreck of a room is a spectral image of an old guy in a dress who seems very unhappy to see us. We try to bluff again, but he tells us that it’s ‘leave or die’ time so Colin tries to Turn it. Nothing happens, but a staff appears in its hand. Lew is now grinning quite openly. After some very fast-talking, Mormesc the Mighty graciously decides not to kill us but to allow us to kill the drow who might otherwise try to take over his realm. This may or may not be a smart idea for us, but it’s a really good idea for Mormesc. We are led to the area where the drow can be found in the temple of Demafeon (spelling?) where the fighters take the direct route and the rest of us are told to go by another route. So to summarise: we’ve let a potential enemy set us up to fight one of his enemies and allowed him to split the party…. anyone see an issue? The fighters kick in the door! There are pillars and a statue of the dwarf god Demafeon with emerald eyes (is looting a dwarf temple OK or not?). Importantly there are two bugbears and a drow kicking around a tied-up dwarf. Gronk throws his javelin and it all kicks off. The drow Webs the area in front of the door and then hides behind a pillar. The clerics start burning off sections of the web. Kendrick gets partway through the web when two spiders appear and Kendrick gets bitten but amazingly not poisoned (yet). The bugbears duck behind the pillars, leaving the spiders to take the brunt of the attack. The rest of the part is approaching the room from another corridor, so they may find it harder to hide in a moment! Session ends.
March Session: The drow casts darkness on the web, just to make matters interesting. Annoyingly, this also covers the side route from which the rest of the party are arriving and now can’t see what’s going on. In the pitch-black, sticky area of the web there’s a certain amount of fuss and bother with spiders but not much damage on either side. In the side route, the fighters dither. The mage decides to stop mucking about and charges through the darkness, taking two bugbears attacks on the chin (yay for Shield!) and powering through. Everything seems to be going swimmingly until the ‘tied-up dwarf’ stabs her in the groin: it’s another (female) drow. Luckily, Shield holds and she’s still moving around. Hobin grows a pair, follows Vad and as nothing’s prepared to hit him this routine works out well. Two more spiders arrive. Yippee! Gronk rolls a critical, cutting one of the original spiders in half. Bobin fires blindly into the darkness: (unusually) this doesn’t kill one of us but hits a spider. Everyone else does what might optimistically be called ‘fleshwounds’ to any enemy in range. The female drow stabs Kendrick and then a spider bites him as well, so Kendrick falls over and assumes his now customary fight position of ‘lying down for a rest’. We are very good at hitting enemies but very poor at hurting them, so more fleshwounds ensue. Luckily, they can’t seem to hit us at all, so after a couple of rounds Hobin whittles a bugbear to death and then action surges and criticals the drow! She immediately heals back up as he removes the sword and we all swear a lot while Lew grins. It then (to use a technical term) goes to shit. A spider mugs Hobin from behind and criticals him. The drow stabs him as well and he’s looking distinctly peaky. Another spider takes out Gronk entirely and he falls to the ground. The original drow appears from nowhere and zaps Vad who is left clinging on to a handful of HP. Roland then bursts through the darkness and kills one spider with a backstab. Sphelc kills another spider, action surges to the last one and …. fumbles! Twice! Bobin finally braves the darkness, criticals the drow, action surges and cricticals again! Tharg bursts out of the darkness, healing Kendrick and Hobin. The pendulum seems to be swinging our way. A bugbear then criticals Vad who falls over (she was down to cantrips so this isn’t the worst moment for this). Kendrick wakes up and heals everyone in his turn. Roland jumps over Hobin, sneak attacks the drow and massacres it. It turns into another doppelganger as it dies, explaining the shift from tied-up-dwarf to pain-in-the-ass-drow-fighter. Bobin shoots an arrow and fumbles twice, so this idiocy seems to be catching. He ends up getting really stuck in the web and is going nowhere for a while. Tiddles faithfully fumbles as well and they’re tangled up next to each other. Awww, isn’t that sweet? Vad gets back up and petulantly witchbolts the last bugbear a little bit. Kendrick is next to get stuck in the web. Hobin and Tiddles still can’t move. The remaining drow vanishes from sight. Roland tries to attack the space he was in and finds nothing. The last bugbear smashes the stuck Kendrick with a critical; Kendrick wobbles but doesn’t quite go down, winds up for his response and … fumbles. Twice. This is getting repetitive. He hits Tharg for 9 points of damage. We all laugh, except Tharg. Roland stabs the last bugbear and we then all fail to do anything, so he then kills it next turn. The last spider bites Hobin as he tries to help Tharg. Bobin is beginning to think that stabbing a dwarf would be fun…. looks as if the invisible drow is still in the room (and has picked on arguably the weakest-minded member of the party to play some mind games). Roland kills the spider before it does any more damage just as Bobin backstabs Kendrick who falls over. Again. Tharg heals Kendrick and then there’s various webby incompetence as we search in the darkness for an invisible drow. Bobin kills Kendrick again! Vad tries to work out what’s going on, rolls a 1, remembers the ‘teabagging incident’ and immediately assumes Bobin’s a speciest dwarf-hating monster and could never be allowed to be the father of her child! Session ends. MVP is Roland by a fair distance.
April session: So most of the party are in pitch blackness, hunting an invisible drow, who might not even be there. Okay, then.... There’s the usual hapless stumbling around, characters becoming tangled in the web and Sphelc getting things underway by rolling the evening’s first (but probably not only) 1 and ending up well and truly stuck. Gronk (tangled, like almost everyone else) hears an odd conversation from the entrance area and it doesn’t sound like any of the party. In the lit area, Vad is unsuccessfully trying to restrain the dwarf-killer, Bobin. Bobin hears Tharg in the darkness and goes into the web after his next dwarven prey. Obviously, Bobin is the only one rolling double-digit rolls and so makes his way successfully to his chosen victim where he ... misses, just about. Tharg hits Bobin “gently” with the flat of his axe while Vad gives him a love-tap on the head with her staff. Hobin (in the pitch black) assumes that Vad and Tharg are fighting the drow and so tries to gut Bobin; he misses, to Lew’s obvious disappointment. Roland burst free from the web and into the light. He’s a bit confused why Vad is beating up on Bobin from behind but assumes it’s something sexual. Tharg stops pissing around and hits Bobin with the sharp bit of the axe, so Bobin falls unconscious. Sphelc breaks free from the far side of the room and peers into the entrance corridor to find the drow fighting Mormesc! Sphelc twats (another technical term) the drow from behind (Sphelc’s best position). The web vanishes, thank God, and we can all move again. The drow turns around and Shocking Grasps Sphelc – who dies, nobly. Other members of the party move towards the sound of fighting. Tharg heals Kendrick who gets back up: a stopwatch is started to see when he’ll fall over again. Vad stops Bobin’s bleeding and pulls out some silk ropes to tie him up. She seems quite practised. Mormesc hits the drow who falls over and dies. Hurrah! He wants the drow staff and no-one seems to feel like arguing. The drow is also carrying a key with a head shaped like an anvil. Mormesc is looking a bit peaky and Lew is obviously trying to persuade us to jump him, but we have about 20 HP between us and no spells, so not even Hobin thinks this is a good idea right now. Roland finds a big bag of loot by the table in the main room and manages to hide this from Mormesc while Vad is doing some grovelling (and secretly plotting a hideous vengeance). This loot is quietly passed to someone big enough to carry it. Despite Lew’s increasingly obvious attempts to get us into a fight with Mormesc, we decide to carry the various unconscious party members back to the Forge area while Mormesc starts to raise some more undead minions from the bodies of our fallen enemies. We hole up in the Forge and rest up to regain health and spells. There’s some futile attempt to get the spectral Guardian to tell us something useful, but we eventually manage to figure out enough to enchant a few weapons. Mormesc is calling for us outside but we ignore him as it’s become obvious that the Guardian and Mormesc aren’t working together so we may have found a buddy. Mormesc’s ghouls and undead spiders kick in the doors! Our new weapons seem a little useful and we kick some undead butt with a little assistance from the Guardian. Once a path is clear, we charge Mormesc who was leading from the rear – is he a noble? Gronk criticals Mormesc who looks pissed and simultaneously hits both Kendrick and Gronk, ripping out parts of their souls .... ouch. Unusually, Kendrick doesn’t fall over and hits Mormesc with Sacred Flame in retaliation. Sphelc then finishes Mormesc off! Session ends, but Lew winds things up very quickly by stating that we find the missing dwarf (just the one?) who is alive and well (seems suspicious) and gets rid of the spectral eyeball/Guardian of the Forge.
May session = the mopping up: This was a post-campaign organising spot with no actual gaming.
The dwarf (name???) who we eventually rescued tells the spectral eye to bugger off and has enough authority with the Guardian that it does. Gudren turns up now the fighting’s over. The magic added to our weapons by the Forge wears off. Gudren says that the magic seems to have been weakened so they won’t be making any profit soon, if at all, so our 3% turns out to be of nothing (surprise, surprise).
Cash: We search the dungeon finding some loot: various coins, some gems, an electrum mug, some rings. Once sold off, this comes to 78 GP each for the readily disposable stuff (so the old D+D days of mega-wealth are no more).
Magic stuff: - Wand of magic missiles found on a skeleton at the bottom of a pool in one of the caves. 3 MM per round, d4 + 1 each, costs 2 charges for 3 missiles, wand has max 7 charges. Not sure about recharges – ask Lew. - Spiderstaff from the drow. Casts Web, Spiderclimb. Not sure about charges. As Vad can only be attuned to one staff, and likes her current Staff of Glass with its tanking of Shield. No-one else can use them and so we could try and sell these (if we can find someone to buy them, maybe in a big city?). - Mace from Forge of Spells = Lightbringer (brass head shaped like a sunburst). It’s a +1 mace that glows on command serving as a torch, doing an extra 1d^ radiant damage to undead. This goes to Tharg. - Breastplate from FoS = Dragonguard (gold dragon motif). It’s a +1 breastplate (medium armour) that gives Advantage on saving throws against dragon’s breath. This goes to Hobin.
Miscellaneous Some books in Mormesc’s lair, mostly history and geography. There’s a map hidden in one of them, setting us up nicely for the next campaign?
Loose ends: 1. We trade in 3 diamonds (100 GP each) for the deeds to the old manor house to use as a base, largely at Gronk’s insistence (his character will be retiring as he takes over as GM). The deal with Sildar is that we make ourselves available once in a while to help out with any trouble in the area. The manor house needs a LOT of work (it’s basically falling down above ground) but the cellars used by the Redbrands are in a liveable condition. Gronk will spend his “retirement” doing up as much as he can afford. 2. The magic statue found in Cragmaw Castle (see May) is a statue of Divination. It sees your future, once per person, only one foretelling allowed. We haven’t decided what to do with this yet (sell it??) 3. We still haven’t gone to Thundertree where the brothers Rood have a personal quest to fulfil. We’ve been warned about undead there but it might still be worth finding the druid and letting the clerics practice further with undead and gain XP. There’s a necklace buried under the corner of an alchemy shop as well. Hobin keeps mumbling about a dragon and this can’t be a good thing so we’ll obviously let him go first. 4. XP got confusing some time back and Lew will need to backtrack and work it out (but none of us has made 5th yet). Details will follow online.
The future: New campaign to start, run by Steve. Six players: Vad (Andy, mage); Hobin (Nick, fighter) and Bobin (Abe, fighter); Tharg (Colin, cleric); Fingers (??) (Lew, playing a new thief). Adam Carder will join us, playing a new cleric, name TBA. Kendrick (Louise) and Sphelc (Jim) to permanently retire. Gronk (Steve) to temporarily retire, for the moment at least.
Director’s cut - alternate ending Very little is heard of Roland but his aunt Quellin and her brood move off to the city where they buy a rather large townhouse with servants, so we can safely assume that Roland is doing just fine, thank you.
Several months later, Vad gives birth to twins: one fairly human-looking child with pointy ears, and one rather smaller and greener and – well – goblinish. Vad, Bobin and Tiddlesworth buy a little cottage near the village of Phandelver and live off the proceeds of the 3% from the mine with their ever-expanding family. A few years later, Bobin dies from a STD usually confined to the goblin community and is mourned by his widow and former pet.
Hobin continues his attempts to free Thundertree from tyranny by blundering around a lot and hoping it will work out. He is last seen charging a dragon with a cry of: “It will be fine, really. Follow me!”
Kendrick and Tharg continue adventuring together. Kendrick continues to have trouble staying conscious in battle but Tharg keeps pulling his cousin back from the brink of death, so the teamwork is solid. Kendrick becomes known to the goblin community as “weebly-wobbly” or “he who will not stay down”; young goblins are warned not to be naughty and go alone into the deeper caves or they might trip over him in the dark! Things are going very well for the dwarven pair until they return home on a long overdue visit and Kendrick’s mother beats the crap out of him for leaving the ancestral hammer behind. Kendrick never ventures outdoors again.
Sphelc rises higher and higher in the Lords’ Alliance. In the Peasant Revolt of ’08 he decides to try out his dictum of: “One noble is worth a hundred peasants” and turns out to be wrong by a factor of about four. The few surviving Alliance members make a renewed mental note on how effectively pitchforks and scythes can be turned into makeshift polearms.
Gronk keeps a low profile after the campaign. He eventually gives up on restoring the above-ground sections of the mansion, lives in the cellars and gradually becomes a pale and secretive recluse. He has trouble retaining staff in his service, especially the younger serving wenches, until one of the more ‘experimental’ young ladies of the village is taken on to their mutual satisfaction. They are married six months later and live happily ever after.
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