Timekeeping
Player Characters Present
Session Report
River Dungeon Session #4 |
Dungeon floor, would you have spotted the oil? |
a narrow channel of oil connected the area between the goblins and the main room, simply waiting to be lit. |
dmg p64 |
River Dungeon Session #4 |
Dungeon floor, would you have spotted the oil? |
a narrow channel of oil connected the area between the goblins and the main room, simply waiting to be lit. |
dmg p64 |
DMG p 128 |
Good guy's forces |
Here is what happened with the mass battle (played according to the method used previously here):
Spoilers: the giants were a random encounter that happened to be rolled up as a lair when Sever went to check on Gimmelwald, and I intuited from some further die rolling that their lair was Gimmelwald. But why, were they working with someone? I rolled up Pilgrims with, as it happened, a matching Lawful Evil alignment, and I was scratching my head as to why they might be working together when I read this in the Giants MM entry: "It is not unusual for giants to agree to share in an undertaking with a group of creatures of similar alignment to that of the giant, for these huge monsters are eager for treasure." So it actually made sense from that perspective.
After two days travel Krellard arrives and opts to attack under the cover of the approaching twilight and overcast conditions. He also opts to approach on one front only, passing through the west gate. The mounted troops pull ahead, with the foot troops following in their wake trying to catch up as fast as they can.
The horses reach bottom of the hill before the town without incident; given the conditions and the position of the Giants, it seems unlikely you have been detected. The light cavalry stop and Slippery Pete examines the invitingly open west gate, incidentally allowing time for the foot troops to catch up a little.
"No traps guys!" he declares.
The medium cavalry take the lead and ride in. In the relatively narrow street they can ride 10 abreast, effectively in column formation. As you go you see the devastation visited upon the town by the Master of Winter and his army. More than this, strangely, there are sections of pulled up cobble stones and piles of dirt to be seen near some public buildings such as the church.
Again, Slippery Pete is called on to examine these for traps. "It's just dirt guys!"
The allies advance until the main square is in sight. The way widens here and through the gap in the ruined curtain wall, Giants can be seen casually throwing catapult missiles to each other; they don't seem to realise anyone is there. Krellard calls a halt to let the foot troops catch up. He wants the the archers and heavy foot in position at the front.
Sever's Ranger senses tingle, saving the army from being surprised when, suddenly, from out of the nearby buildings scores of strange figures, clad in red robes and bearing wicked looking daggers, along with a tremendous, fanatical fury, pour out and attack the army before the foot troops can deploy to the front.
It's on like Donkey Kong.
The battle starts with the allies in this formation:
Hvy Ft
Med Horse
Long Bow
Light Cav
Militia
Round 1
The enemy appears to number around 60, and they win initiative
Over the blood curdling shouts of the enemy you can hear the sounds of chanting, then you feel the negative effects of evil clerical magic blanketing the area. Those around Giuseppe feel some of his protection from evil.
Hold person spells rain down on the Heavy Foot, freezing one square in place, but it could have been worse as another somehow resists the effect!
Dagger wielding fanatics fall upon the held troops and find the gaps in their armour, taking out square 3 (Sheamus is in 2).
Another enemy square attacks the militia, hitting twice and destroying square 3 (Gurt and Deltacron are in other squares)
The longbowmen unit is hit for 3 hp, The Medium Horse unit is hit for 3hp, the Light Horse unit attacked but missed. Medium Horse are hit again for 1hp
Return attacks: The broadswords of the heavy foot destroy the unit of fanatics facing them. The militia miss their enemy. Med horse kill three enemy squares, freeing up the longbowmen to use their bows next round.
The Light Horse injure one square. Longbow injure one square with the help of Bumblebore and O'Malfoy.
Round 2
The heavy foot and militia make their morale checks, while the enemy don't seem to care about their heavy losses.
Oh boy, tied initiative, the fanatics are using daggers and so go first and get bonus attacks against the militia and light horse. Ok, do horses go even before the daggers? I'm going to say yes and some of the horses stamp the enemy near them.
The dagger wielding enemy attack was not coordinated with the Fire Giants, and so it takes a round before they notice what is going on. Then they use what ever is to hand, in this case catapult ammo. These smash into the Heavy Foot and destroy two squares, both Stafolo and Sheamus take 16hp damage and they move into the last remaining square.
The Irish start up their battle hymn (equivalent effect as a Chant Spell):
Armed for the battle
Kneel we before Thee,
Bless Thou our banners,
God of the brave
Ireland is living!
Shout we triumphant,
Ireland is waking!
Hands grasp the sword.
Who fights for Ireland
God guides his blows home,
Who dies for Ireland
God give him peace.
Knowing our cause just
March we victorious
Giving our heart’s blood
Ireland to free.
The spirit of freedom
Floats in the ether;
Souls of our heroes
March by our side,
Connor is our battle cry,
McGregor inspires us,
Those who for freedom fall
Never shall die.
Robed Guys breaking
Shout we exultant
Robed Guys beaten,
Ireland is free.
Charge for the old cause,
Down with the old foe,
Living or dying
Ireland to free.
Daggers miss the light horse and return hits smash the enemy square there. Daggers plunge down on the militia, but somehow the 3 remaining squares are undamaged and they return the attacks with interest, destroying the last enemy square with help from Gurt and Deltacron.
More Hold Person spells rain down from enemy spell casters in buildings; trapping the last Hvy foot, including Sheamus.
In the resulting chaos the Longbowmen fire at the giants and miss while the Medium Horse charge the Giants for 24 damage. Sever and Giuseppe combine with their lances and do 64 HP (scaled down to 6.4) damage.
Round 3
Fire Giant unit wins initiative and swings at the medium horse unit and misses! (A hit could have destroyed the whole unit). Again, the longbow fail to hit the giants at all. Medium horse riders get one hit in for low damage.
Now the Medium horse mounts and Bonecrusher and even the grounded Convess get their attacks and these are devastating; there's not a giant foot that hasn't been stamped on.
Giuseppe rolls 1
Sever rolls 19, switching from lance to 2hs he does a modest 14 damage but that finishes the score for the Fire giants (running them as a unit didn't do them any favours at all in the end).
The light horse dismount and together with the militia commence clearing the buildings, but these are protected by glyphs, causing further casualties.
Finally the last of the enemy clerics are killed, they proved to be as fanatical as the dagger wielders. It seems they were digging holes around the town searching for something. Maybe more investigation is warranted?
In any case the battered alliance, having retaken Gimmelwald, achieved their objective.
Proving Grounds Level 3 |
The party arrived at the Proving Grounds of the Chaz Overlord dungeon without incident.
As they methodically explored and mapped level 3 they found the place to be fairly empty, the biggest threat being a pit trap that caught Morphil for 1 hit point. Finally a one-way door led into a room with 10 Piercers (A). Given the way this party is travelling silently in the dark and using infravision, I figure they would have a good chance to spot the piercers in a normal dungeon room; however, my rule of thumb in solo play is that they have to encounter a situation at least once before they can develop counter measures, so, in this case, they went forward until a piercer dropped towards Ilphar. It missed and now they could look up and find the others (which I had randomly allocated to each of the 4 squares in the 20' by 20' chamber).
Beldroth dropped Sleep on the ones between them and the nearest exit so they could move out and take up a position to wipe the slow creatures out. They expended quite a few arrows, but the party prevailed before the slowly moving monsters could reach them.
A thorough search revealed a trunk hidden behind an illusion, with thousands of sp and cp inside. Too heavy for this crowd to bother collecting. A poisoned arrow trap in room (B) hit Voldar for 3 hit points, but he shrugged off the poison on it, and finally they found 3000 more copper pieces at room (C). So this level, with the exception what might be over the river (and there could be little beyond that feature given the configuration) seemed to be a bust after mapping just a quarter of the page.
Proving Grounds Level 1 |
They returned to level 1 and in room (A) run into group of 8 Orcs; disaster, the Orcs surprised the elves for 1 segment. It could have been worse; since Voldar and Morphil have high dexterity, they were not surprised (they were in front for precisely this reason). Since it was orcs vs elves I didn't roll for the monsters' reaction, they were in for a killing spree.
Now I had some thinking to do (this was probably the most interesting thing to happen this delve). Since two non-surprised characters held the entrance and were standing between the surprised characters and the orcs, I ruled that only missile weapon attacks to the surprised characters at the rear could happen during the surprise segment. Using the Monster Manual entry percentages I worked out that three orcs had crossbows; which now could fire 3 times each in the segment. So they could fire nine shots at Ilphar and Beldroth, really bad news for the magic user in particular.
However, again, since the non surprised guys were in the way, I wanted to treat them as partial concealment, I could also treat them as cover; but then that would imply that misses would count as hits against them, which makes no sense since they cannot be targeted in the surprise segment.
On the other hand, it also makes no sense that the non-surprised PCs can effectively block the surprised ones without the possibility of getting hit themselves. So, in the end I decided that the Orcs could only choose to aim at Ilphar and Beldroth, but who they actually targeted would be decided randomly as per DMG p.63.
On the other hand, the two unsurprised elves could have just jumped clear and left the other two at the Orcs' mercy, but I didn't think of that at the time.
Ilphar had 50% cover so a +4 bonus to AC and Beldroth, behind him, had 90% cover, so a +10 bonus to AC. Note that these benefits do not help mitigate against the weapon vs ac modifier of light crossbows (+3 vs the two PC's AC types of 10 and 8 respectively). Beldroth was then hit once for 2 hit points and Ilphar hit twice for 5 hit points. Voldar and Morthil also caught a hit each for 3 & 4 hp respectively.
Maybe this could be interpreted as the Voldar and Morthil using their dexterity to try and deflect the orcs crossbow bolts?
The surprise segment over, Beldroth went for broke and began casting Sleep, the others were going to lead with Fingar and the assassins using bows. The party then won a crucial TPK preventing initiative, and the sleep spell effected all 8 Orcs, whew! The party killed and looted the Orcs then called it quits, making it back to Elf Town safely. They rested for 5 days and then returned for delve 5 on October 7th.
- The Black Knight was roaming around challenging all comers, but was also maddeningly difficult to find. Similarly armoured figures were seen guarding the entrance to Castle Von Necro
- The fear gas in the Valley of Fear, below the Robopriest's fortress complex, had become inert following the PC's actions in Brovenloft. This allowed the Robopriest's men to find a route leading into the same lava tube the PCs had spent so much time exploring; was this a short cut to Lord Inferno's lair?
- The Dragon Cultists; they certainly exist, but further evidence is hopelessly mixed with hearsay and the superstitions of the common folk
- The Ice Pyramid, still sitting there unexplored by PCs since its discovery months ago
- The Hawkmen of the crashed Sky City were still in need of help recovering power crystal gems.
There was all this on offer and, as yet, they had no idea what was going on in Gimmelwald just that morning. However, by choosing to travel via Castle Irish to the the Valley of Fear, with a side trek into the area the Black Knight had been reported in, they were to going find out.
It was a cold clear day and they made good time to Castle Irish without any encounters, and then continued on south west. On this route they eventually ran into the first of many refugees from Gimmelwald; led by Staadtman Krellard (who they had rescued from Castle Von Necro in session #2) a group of sixty or so riders were pushing hard in their direction. Recognising the flags and such these riders were carrying, the party hailed them and got a brief run down of the events of that morning: Gimmelwald had fallen. However, Krellard was more interested in debriefing behind the walls of Castle Irish, so the PCs returned with him.
Once in audience with the lord of the Castle, Sir Trolland the Paladin, Krellard detailed the morning's disaster.
The enemy's forces included: Scores of Ice Toads, two White Dragons, and dozens of Ice Trolls. These latter monsters were immune to non-magical weapons. There were also normal human troops numbering around two hundred. The enemy had simply rolled into the valley from the south east, destroyed the palisade and watch tower there, then moved in and enveloped the town. At this point the defenders were too busy to be concerned with the identity of their attackers; but, when the enemy had broken through the eastern gate and threatened to run amok, something incredible happened. A monk, calling himself the Master of the East Wind, who had somehow being staying undetected in Gimmelwald, thwarted the breakthrough with the help of a Djinni; then bellowed a challenge to the Master of Winter. The Master of Winter, who up until then had stayed well out of the fray, accepted the challenge and flew into the town on his own White Dragon. While the enemy was distracted with this fight Krellard and a few supporters slipped out of the town and escaped.
Monk fight
not of lot of people know this |
Later a younger member of Krellard's entourage, who had managed to witness the entire fight and still escape, gave a blow by blow account of the duel.
"Hear tale of the battle like no other I witnessed," |
In summary:
Sever mounted up and flew over to investigate Gimmelwald, and found it looted and abandoned. It was easy to see that the bulk of the population had been rounded up and marched out of the valley to the south east. He followed and caught up with them; managing to approach the white dragon and its rider, who was directing the movement of the throng from the air, without being noticed, resulting in 3 segments of surprise. The encounter distance was 150 yards, and the ranger had come in well above the dragon in altitude. After some calculations I determined that, if his pegasus dived, the pair could cover that distance in two segments and still attack, with one further segment afterwards.
I was only egging him on a little (alright a lot), a bold strike certainly could have resulted in a significant loss for the enemy, but in the end Sever chose discretion and prioritised getting the information back to the rest of the party. By the time he returned they had intercepted the refugees and chosen to push on towards Castle Irish as evening fell.
With the information Sever brought with him, the party had plenty of options open to them. But they were also suspicious there might be dragon cultists within the group of refugees. This was great, since I had established already that this was the case and could simply adjudicate their efforts to find them.
As they trudged on towards the Castle, the party offered first aid to the evacuees and lined them up to receive it. Off to the side they had Giuseppe subtly employ his paladin detect evil ability. The idea was that eventually everyone would have been checked, but, just as the Paladin thought he was on to something, a wild scream of terror came from down the line; a group of Wights emerging from the darkness had decided to pick off some humans for their evening meal.
The players weren't about to stand by and let that happened, they moved to intercept the monsters. We had to ToTM the relative positions of the party with Giuseppe, then it was on. The PCs won initiative, which was crucial, and they got between the monsters and the humans. Godleve then successfully turned 4 out of 7 of the Wights, which the undead never recovered from (even though the remainder lasted a few more rounds and had a some level draining chances).
After this skirmish, the PCs returned to their original plan, but this time tried a different tactic and had Giuseppe ride down the line of evacuees and stare menacingly at them. Finally, one man suddenly ran off away from the paladin. He was a huge farmer type, nearly seven feet tall. In the dark he only had to get out of sight and he would have a good chance to escape. Sever heard Giuseppe's yell and charged across on Convess to overbear the human. Even though it was a huge man, the Pegasus hit him hard enough to knock him unconscious. Finally, they had a prisoner! The man had apparently been heading towards a cave entrance in the nearby mountain side.
They re-joined the evacuees and the group made it back to Castle Irish around 10pm, exhausted. The party focussed on their new prisoner and began working on a plan to interrogate him the next day while Sever went out to get an update on the Master of Winter's troops. However, the next morning a massive blizzard blanketed the area and made it impossible for the Pegasus to get airborne.
Unable to get much else done, there was a lot of interesting in character role playing from Godleve and the others with the locals. Players actually remembered some of the NPCs in this location, can you imagine? The next day the blizzard had faded to heavy rain, visibility was poor; but, Convess could fly, and so he and Sever went off in the direction of the Master of Winter's valley. Once there they found no sign of movement outdoors, and circled around trying to get an idea of the defences. Unfortunately for him, the main fortification, atop a mesa in the middle of the valley, was completely enclosed and so it was not possible to estimate how many defenders might actually be inside; certainly it looked big enough to hold up to 500 men. The nearby cave city was populated by around 2000 souls, many of whom could be seen through the large, glass like outer walls that were a feature of the place.
The Master of Winter's base |
Continuing south, Sever found that the prisoners from Gimmelwald and the army column were only a few hours south of their destination; somehow the blizzard of the day before had not slowed their progress and, in their confidence they no longer employed the dragon air support. Alas, any chance to bring a force to engage them outside of the valley was lost. Narrowly avoiding a random encounter with a Hieracosphinx, Sever returned to Castle Irish to report his findings; just as the interrogation was getting warmed up.
The prisoner was not answering any questions, but they had confirmed he possessed a tattoo under his right eyelid; of a red dragon. This was a sure sign they were not simply dealing with an evil villager, but a member of the dragon cult. Godleve, using detect magic, found that the tattoo was indeed magical. After this a Dispel Magic was cast in the hope of removing any charm and the like that might be preventing him cooperating. This did have the effect of removing the tattoo, but otherwise the huge farmer was uncooperative and gave them nothing.
Finally they called up the castle's magic user; Sarumin the Beast Master. He was known for his ability to use charm magic, and he was only too happy to oblige the party. The farmer, Baronik, was soon spilling his guts about everything he knew.
Contents of guts:
River Dungeon Level Session 3 Delve 1 |
Since this is a heavily Appendix A driven session, I'm experimenting with showing the party's route on the map.
The party beached the barge at the same spot and tasked two of the bargemen to keep watch, as usual. There was some discussion about how bright the light was out here and whether it would be a problem for any goblins that came along; but it was established that with the shear walls the light was only bright enough to bother them for about three hours around noon. The bargemen would have be on alert.
The party went straight in directly west, back to the room with the well (A) that was the highlight of their previous visit. The well had been filled in; I had given this room some thought as part of my overall idea of restocking that might have happened since the previous time the PCs had visited. However, my restocking roll turned up more than this; upon checking, it was only a trick! The goblins had fashioned a rudimentary trap door at the top of the well. When Lance gave it a wrap with his spear the ready goblins threw it open and achieved two segment of surprise. At first I didn't realise this as nearly every session we've had a ranger available, but not this time!
Even with this advantage, the goblins felt the effects of the Lance's Protection from Evil. They reacted immediately (word must have got around about this adventuring party). "Pal'din Pal'din Pal'din!" they cried, and retreated back down into the well. Thinking this might be a trap; rather than pursue, Lance closed the makeshift trapdoor and the PCs used Comfort Rod's rope and other items to secure it in place so that the goblins could not push it open again to follow them.
This done, they went through the south door and into uncharted territory; and immediately they found two small chests just sitting there undefended. This was actually a chamber; but as it had a two doors and no archways, how would anyone know? I found this bit of Appendix A trivia interesting enough to mention; but it didn't draw a response, I guess the prospect of two treasure chests was more compelling.
Larrinod cast Detect Magic, but found nothing magical in the chests or in the area nearby. Marty borrowed a spear and leveraged open one chest, finding and amazing 100 platinum coins inside, then followed up with the same result in the other chest. The coinage was supported by a certain amount of worthless dross, the meaning of which I have since forgotten. They spilled the contents out without touching the chests themselves, and this caution turned out to be justified when Larry found small needle tips, embedded in the chests' handles, that would have injected poison into anyone foolish enough to try and pick them up. It was then decided that although this coinage was quite a score, it was not enough to consider calling it a day.
Further exploring led first into a square room (B) with empty packing crates in the corner, the symbol on their sides was of an oil lamp; then into an empty trapezoidal room with a single exit in the south, that went far off into the unknown. Instead of going further that way they back tracked to (B) and went east. This led to a winding corridor, which eventually spilled into a small chamber; here the entire eastern wall incorporated an altar below a fresco of giant creatures worshiping even larger beings.
This display of paganism incensed Lance and Marty, prompting the later to smash the ledge-like section of altar that protruded from the wall. The stone was not as thick nor as sturdy as it seemed and Marty's mace made short work of it; but, within the debris was a hollowed out area containing hundreds of electrum pieces, which now spilled out onto the floor, and, a mace.
Marty, seeing this as a good omen, reached down and grabbed up the weapon; while Larry bemoaned his use of detect magic already, and Lance began to detect evil. The paladin did detect evil, but not from the mace; it was coming out of the wall, accompanied by a ghostly, spectral figure towering fifteen feet tall.
With three clerics in the party, the call went out to turn undead; but, Marty felt another urge, somehow coming from the mace itself. It wanted him to hit the Spectral being. Though he believed he could have ignored the urge, Marty decided to go with it. This was just as well as none of the three clerics had a chance of being successful at turning the monster. However, the party lost initiative and Marty would have to wait his turn.
The Spectre had his chance to draw first blood (and levels), but, given the room was so small, all the PCs were bunched up inside Lance's Protection from Evil 10' radius, so, given that the Spectre was both evil and summoned, it could not approach close enough to lay a hand on them. How this would have played out next round I leave as an exercise for the reader. Anyway, as it happened there was no next round; Marty stepped forward and laid into the Spectre with the mace (which at AC 2 was no easy feat) and the creature simply disintegrated. There was much rejoicing.
They gathered up the loose coins (at some point having picked up the 200pp from the earlier chests) and kept exploring south, finding behind a door a small 10' square room filled with goblin excrement, which for some reason they chose not to search. East they found, confusingly to those who had mapped previously, a triangular room just south of one they had explored before. This one had copper coins spread more or less evenly across the floor, which they avoided, and a heavy stone doorway in the south east corner. This proved to be trapped to fall outwards, which it did with a crash; but was of no danger when opened from their side.
Finding themselves in a familiar area, near where previously goblins had dropped oil from a concealed murder hole, they were careful to skirt it and and continued on until they reached the beach, and from there looped back to the barge to stash their loot before going back in. The bargemen reported no encounters (in fact I didn't roll a single random encounter all day).
Delve 2, this time with shoes on. |
Delve 3 |
They figured they had the resources for another combat, and Lance led them beyond the "tapestry room" and into the room with lots of empty crates and three south exits they had only partially explored. As they peered south down the middle passage their torch light just picked up that there were goblins entering the same passage from the west. Lance declared a charge and the others backed him up, Comfort Rod joined the front rank with Rowan, Marty stayed ready in the middle; and Larry stayed in the rear, casting Sanctuary. Although you can't go wrong with Cure Light Wounds, I really like it when clerics use utility spells. Would this one pay off?
I hastily had to work out what weapons the goblins had and their planned actions. Then the party won initiative and much of that was moot. Two goblins with spears would have set them against a charge but did not have time to, however weapon length might have still given them the advantage, if it wasn't for the fact that Lance and Rowen had spears of their own (human spears would be longer than goblin spears, right?).
The two sides crashed into each other and Lance put a goblin down instantly, and another was wounded. Return attacks from the goblins were miserably ineffective. At the end of the round the rear rank of goblins ran off west shouting "Pal'din Pal'din!"; but was there a different tone than before?
Next round it was tied initiative; with the mix of weapons both sides had, the attacks came first mostly from the goblin side; but they again missed their marks. Meanwhile Larrinod had moved down the corridor to stay close to his fellows. One more goblin was down and another injured; but then Larry saw that the ones that had run off earlier had simply circled around and were now behind the party at the other end of the corridor, and they had flasks of oil!
All four goblins wanted to throw their oil at the closest enemy, which was Larrinod, but he was protected with Sanctuary. I ruled that they were not smart enough to consider a different target and instead had them roll versus spells (as per the spell description); none of them passed so none of them threw their oil that round (though they might next round). Given the close proximity to four flasks of oil, even had the goblins missed, each PC would have had to make up to four saves vs splash damage; so Larry's spell probably saved a death or two. You love to see it.
Next round the party adjusted to this new threat; but, thanks to winning initiative and getting another kill in, the goblins had to make a morale check before they could attack again. They failed and fled, in the end only three of them got away. Rowan counted the goblin ears; and the party, having spent about five hours in the dungeon, now went back outside, loaded their loot on the barge, and pushed off. They made it back home safely, with their only encounter being Pegasus borne magical light displays over Minas Mandalf to welcome the Year of our Lord 2024.
Machodor |
Next morning they continued on and soon reached the river lock. The men-at-arms/bargemen reminded them that the river worked its way right through the mountains via locks such as these; built by unknown parties in the distant past, they were largely automated, although occasionally the merchant guild sponsored craftsmen to maintain them.
Having gained about 50 feet in altitude, they continued on up river, following the path many long years of weathering had carved between the mighty walls of the mountains on either side.
They reached the place of openings in the cliff wall to their right; and picked the same spot as last time to beach their craft, then assigned two of the men at arms to guard the vessel.
River Dungeon Level 1 |
The corridor, carved out of the stone but long weathered to remove any but its most basic features, went west, branching off to the north west after 10', and continuing on 50' before opening into a 40' square chamber. They went north west and found the room there, which previously some fire beetles had taken refuge in, was now empty.
They went west out of this room and soon found another chamber with packing crates stacked up in the middle of it. As they examined these, oil spilled out from somewhere in the ceiling, followed by goblin laughter. A dropped cinder then set fire to Lance and to the crates as well; which continued to burn even after they had seen to Lance.
The party continued on into a fresh corridor going west, at the end of which were a pair of skeletons in front of a door. I was very tempted to say "something has just come through the door" before I rolled what it was; I'm glad I didn't as the skeletons might have been guarding this spot for years as far as the PCs knew.The first round was decisive, with one skeleton getting turned by Marty O'Tool and the other was smashed by Lance (although, as he used an edged weapon, the damage was half normal). Follow up attacks finished the wounded skeleton and then the other one, having pushed open the door behind it, was off running (I think it picked up a hit as it did so). It raced through the next room and continued west, down a short corridor, into another room, then south.
Slapp Dashinton caught up to it here and gave it the coup de grace (see the x). As the corridor they were in continued south out of the range of their light, they decided to go back and examine the two rooms they had run through. In one were pallets of shipping material, apparently for tools; in the other was a large and dilapidated tapestry that ran all the way along a 30' wall. The image was faded; but appeared to show very large human looking creatures moving about these very same halls.
They pulled down the tapestry (which fell into rotten pieces) and searched the wall behind for secret doors, finding none. Having used up a fair bit of time here and having to light new torches (and a negative encounter check) they continued exploring down a southern exit, which lead to a long corridor.
Click to Enlarge |
After bypassing a side passage and noting another, they chose to investigate the latter and came upon...goblins! This was the special room. Within the 30' by 40' area, and only 10' from where the party were standing, was to the top of a well. Six goblins, stripped of their armour but still armed, were sitting around the rim of the well; apparently they were getting ready to jump in. Just past them were six more goblins still in their disgusting, smelly but quite effective armour.
Neither side were surprised and the party chose to move up and attack (since they were within 10' of the enemy this can be done without needing to charge), focussing on the naked goblins, who in turn engaged them while they armoured fellows closed from around the well. It was a free for all, goblins and PCs slashing left and right. The party had the benefit of Lance's 10' Protection from Evil, but that wasn't enough save Slapp from getting hit with a morning star for 2 hp.
One of the goblins fell in the well as he was killed, shortly followed by the sound of a splash and the disgruntled chatter of more goblins from below. As the enemy casualties hit 25% they narrowly failed their morale in the range of 1% to 15% "fall back, fighting". What does this actually mean? I ruled that they spent a round stepping back 10 feet to regroup, after which they could continue fighting.
The party advanced and re-engaged, as they passed the well they caught a glimpse of water and the movements and sounds of goblins down there. For two rounds they exchanged blows, with some minor damage taken on the party's side; though not minor for Slap who had only one hit point left and was hit by a 1d6 short sword, he again was hit for 1hp and lucky to be only knocked unconscious.
Even with the monk down, the goblins had lost more of their number which this time triggered a rout. Out of that rout only one got away, racing down the passage to the east which linked up with the beach.
Lance wasn't going to let that one get away; but as he finished him off, and Marty O'Tool was force feeding Slapp some whiskey, the voice of one of the bargemen rang out with a warning that Goblins were attacking the barge, "They're coming up out of the water!"
This was the cue to withdraw, but as they left the room they spotted a tell-tale glint of coins in some open crates near the exit. There was no time to collect it!
Once the party got back to the barge they could see what the man at arms was referring too; about thirty goblins were treading water around the barge and jeering obscenities, working themselves up to attack. There must have been some connection between the well and underground access to the river that the little buggers were using to swim out; maybe this was their method of stealing things from passing traffic?
Now there was a stand off as the the Paladin's intimidation kept the goblins at bay, but the party were loathe push off and leave without the treasure. Larry volunteered to return and get it, relying on his speed and luck to get in and out. So he ran back to the "well room", noted the gold and platinum coins in the crate, and got out a large sack. Now, as the only player this week that had not experienced my amazing "poisoned treasure" gambit from last session (and apparently not having poured over the session report where I went over it in detail) he then began scooping them into a bag, causing some disquiet among the other players whose characters couldn't do a thing about it.
Yes, just like last session, this treasure too was poisoned, with the same crude sticky contact stuff that had nearly done for Slapp; but, where as Slapp had noticed to poison, Larry missed his 80% change to detect it and so had to make a saving throw. To preserve the suspense I made these rolls for him and merely described was happened next over the 2-5 rounds onset time.
While this was going on, some of the goblins had reached the shore, untied leather strips they were wearing around their waists, and began to collect stones from the shore; clearly something had to be done.
Lance and Rowan went down on to the beach and dealt with four goblins that were just fitting stones to their slings. The others were fast learners and stayed in the water where they were safe, but if reinforcements arrived they would be able to join in with them.
The moments stretched out. With the luck of the Elves in his blood, Larry survived the poison and made it back in time for his comrades to urge him to wash his hands post haste.
Then they pushed out into the river until they could move past the goblins and set off for home, making it back to Minas Mandalf without incident to fight another day.
Timekeeping This session took place on 01/02/2024, and the PCs adventured for 4 days. Player Characters Present Lance Errant (Level 1 Pal...