Trollopulous Adjusted Session 120 (Machodor #71): Cat and Mouse with the Master of Winter

         

Player's line of march (200 yard hex scale)

Introduction

It is the time of the Summer Solstice, and the Master of Winter's valley is bereft of the protection of avalanches. It is the perfect time to for the player characters to risk an incursion, or is it? A coordinated plan of recruiting by several PCs culminated in an invasion and a theatre of the mind mass battle. But was everything as it appeared to be?

Timekeeping

This session began on June 26th, 2025, with the player characters adventuring for 1 day. Downtime for these characters begins on the 27th.

Player Characters Present

Sever the Wrathful (Level 9 Pegasus Corps Ranger of Machodor, wielder of Were'shbane and wearer of the Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength, rider of Mustang) 

with henchmen Rabbit (F4/MU3/T4) and Poindexter (M5)

Giuseppe (Level 8 Paladin of Rome, Brovenloft, wielder of the Dragonslayer and the Shield of Protection from Missiles, rider of Bonecrusher)

with henchmen Bishoy (F6) Tawadros (F6) Steelvien (F4) and Rhoikos (M4) Symeon (C2)

Sheamus (Level 8 Irish Fighter from Brovenloft, rider of the Rocket Cycle and wielder of the Drewblade) 

with henchman McScales (Lizardman F5)

Gurt the Green (Level 6 Paladin of Machodor, wielder of the Liberator, bearer of the Fabled Ice Jewel of Frigia, rider of Artax) 

with henchmen Anri (M4) and Cedric (C3)

Bumblebore  (Level 5 Magic User of Machodor, wielder of the Wand of Paralysation) and Firedrake Familiar O'Malfoy

Louie the Presto-tator (Level 1 Illusionist of Machodor)

Downtime

Giuseppe brought reinforcements from Guarda to meet with Sever's troops at the Ice Castle, while Sheamus brought Irish down from Castle Irish. They players had made their plans to meet up in the valley itself.

Session Report

The troops were made ready while Sever scouted the valley. He found: famers in the fields, a patrol riding about; also a unit of men in robes, with nasty long knives, doing some sort of military drill exercises. The stronghold of the Master of Winter, a cube shaped monastery built into a mesa in the middle of the valley, looked like it always did, with no sign of activity within. He also noted that the floor of valley was mostly covered in an unseasonal frost, with the only clear section being around the crops and the City of Caves with Glass Walls (known to have a population in thousands, made up of thralls who only know what the Master of Winter has told them to believe about the world)

The troops found that, other than being cold to walk through, it the frost presented little barrier as the army advanced into the valley through wider south eastern entrance.

As the player's force advanced, the patrol rode around to meet them, taking up a position at the base of the mesa and waiting; but the players chose to turn away from the mesa and head east, towards the city. What was this tactic, I wondered? The patrol made haste to cut them off. Its leader, one Garulon, spoke to them in the archaic fashion common to the valley's inhabitants:

The Master of Winter's stronghold

“Hail, wayfarers, who tread the frozen bounds of our lord’s demesne! I am Garulon, sworn captain of the Master of Winter’s guard, keeper of this vale’s sanctity. By what right or purpose dost thou venture into this realm protected from the eternal frost, speak true, for the ice heareth all, and our lord’s gaze pierceth the heart. Name thy intent, and let it be weighed ‘gainst the cold truth of this land. We offer parley, as our master bids, yet tarry not overlong, lest the wind deem thee foe.”

The party saw this, rightfully, as a chance to go all in on the speeches, and Giuseppe gave one of his best in his Italian accent. Gurt and others joined in; but the conversation ended in impasse, and Garulon raised one arm and rode away to the East. The party were scheming their next move when the patrol captain dropped his arm, the signal for the Trebuchets in the stronghold to let loose. Carefully marked, the party's army was within range of the weapons and soon huge, 2' diameter rocks clattered into their formation, killing and maiming man and dwarf.

Incidentally, Gygax somewhat perversely provides no guidance on the use of siege weapons in a scaled battle.

Thanks Gary!

With the party's army represented in 1:10 scale, I allow that such weapons apply their damage to the whole "figure" (10 men in this case), so a hit is a likely kill but one unit of 10 is as much as one shot can do. Clunky, but fair I think. Also, if a catapult or trebuchet miss occurs, the rules say to go to the GRENADE-LIKE MISSILES section to find where the missile struck; but this lists misses in units of feet, which if applied as written would mean a siege engine can't miss hitting someone in a formation, so instead I decided to interpret it as units of 1" instead. 

The shocked party consulted their artillerists as to the likely range and firing rate of the enemy, and then moved their army out of harms way asap while their enemies were reloading. It was observed that the trebuchet fire had come from near the top of the mesa, below the cube like monastery; and doors, similar to those known to allow entry at the bottom of the structure, were seen closing; presumably to protect the weapons while they were being reloaded. Was this an alternate way in..?

Party in black

Meanwhile, the retreating patrol met up with the fanatic knife-wielders, a decision was made to fight, and hundreds of men started pouring out of the City of Caves with Glass Walls. I had determined a roll for how many might do so ahead of time, and the results indicated a well armed 100 or so, and 200 more behind them with more rudimentary weapons. The patrol set up behind the front lines.

This lead to a fascinating bit of manoeuvre warfare using the 200 yard per hex map. I didn't know what exactly I'd be needing this for when I made it, but now I had it we were able display the movement without handwaving in typical ToTM fashion. With the party's army anchored to the heavy foot moving at 6" per round, significant time passed in this fashion as the distance between the forces dropped and orders were given on both sides.

Just before the kick off, Bjorn (Were-bear ally and Gimmelwald survivor who's sister is missing) threw in a wild card. Seeing that the attention of the city's entire populace was on the field of battle; he decided that now was his chance to mention that he had seen something he desperately wanted to go and investigate. Yes that's right, madman that I am, I left the door open for splitting the party at the outset of a mass battle. When some players went for it I had to run both actions at once. Thankfully those players are elite and coculd handle hastily typed chat on discord for a while.

In my defence, it's what my (N)PC would do.

Giuseppe acquiesced to his friend's idea (opsec requires that I'm vague as to the details), going so far as to allow Bumblebore and Louie to accompany him.

Now came the action.

      Combat #1: Defenders of the City with Glass Walls

Rounds: 35

Result: Party Victory

Highlights: Sheamus' charge of the light brigade terminated by a fireball from the patrol's magic user. The Irishman then fighting against 50 fanatics. Poindexter returning fireball for fireball. Giuseppe's annihilation of the farmers surprise attack from the crop field. Gurt's charge into the militia. Sever's forbearance. Anri catching 20 citizens in a Stinking Cloud.

While the foot stood just outside of missile range, Sheamus took his light horse around to hit the right flank of the fanatics, with him was Giuseppe and his medium horse, looking to counter any reinforcements from the nearby fields (which Sever had noticed from the air). Just as Sheamus and his men were about to make contact, a Fireball flashed out--from a magic-user with Garulon--and exploded, killing everyone but Sheamus himself (who managed to swerve in time to make his save). He ploughed into the enemy unit anyway and stayed there until he had avenged his unit by killing every last fanatic (with about 3 hit points to spare!)

A unit made up of farmers came out of the fields, but they were wiped out by the waiting Giuseppe, it was a slaughter. Then the two sides' footmen units engaged. Gurt detached from his unit and let loose with a Javelin of Lightning into the enemy force, taking out a commander, before performing a flanking attack on his own on the opposite side of Sheamus.

As the foot engaged on both sides the initial clash was about even, but in the wake of the Patrol leader retiring from the field, the militia unit failed a morale check and ran back into the volunteer levies behind, causing them--all but 20 who had been trapped in Anri's Stinking Cloud--to also check their morale and fail.

The remains of the patrol fled back into the city as the well trained militia was wiped out trying to flee. The remaining 180 or so citizens volunteers made a break for it and shut the main doors of the city behind them. 

With field now uncontested, the army advanced and Gurt tasked his henchwoman Anri with casting Knock on the city gate--a huge slab of the familiar ice-like material--but the spell was not enough to do the job. Seeing this, the people inside shrank back in terror, paying no head to the party's entreaties to talk it out with them.

For an unexpected conflict this went quite well, particularly having the 200 yard hex map ready allowed a lot of manoeuvring which is unusual for AD&D battles I've run. Some aspects (like artillery) have made me revisit my decisions about how to run these battles, going back to Swords & Spells for guidance and to re-assess from first principles. I'm still happy with my basic method, but I've decided to do away with the templates I have been using to track each unit; good as they have been, they are more unwieldly than I like when running a battle. Instead, I will expand the unit listing Brig has created in the character spreadsheet we use. On my to do list is a full write up of what I've learned running mass battles in Machodor.

In the aftermath of the battle, a dejected Bjorn returned with Bumblebore and Louie in tow. The Illusionist's face paled when he realised that his starting position on the back of the Rocket Cycle would have meant his death by Fireball. 

Did they return with useful intelligence? That's a tale for another time.

All this, and still there was no sign of the the Master of Winter's real forces much less the  man himself. Was this incursion so unthreatening that it was beneath him, or was he just so enervated in the summer heat that he could not rouse himself to action?

The players thoughts now turned to withdrawing while they were on top. They chose the narrower exit to the valley directly south of the battle site, and the army retreated to the Ice Castle with prisoners in tow. These were a fairly dejected bunch, particularly the ones who had been barfing up their breakfast in the Stinking Cloud; but all drew upon their last strength to resist leaving the valley. Once forced outside though, they wondered at the world beyond, which--being summer--was nothing like the frozen hell scape they believed it to be. Only time would tell if they stayed loyal to the Master of Winter or could be persuaded to see reason.

Session Statistics: 

Wilderness travel: 8 Miles
Downtime begins on: 27/06
Combats: 1
Rooms mapped: 1-ish
Combat rounds: 35
Killed: 20 Irish Light horse, 5 Dwarf Heavy Foot, 10 Human heavy foot.
Wounded: 5 Dwarf Heavy Foot, 10 Human heavy foot

Treasure & Items
453 Strange icy 'chips' (perhaps what they use as money in the city) 

150 chain mail (50% damaged)

50 long wicked ice daggers (these seem to be melting)

63 spears

Bjorn secretly awarded Bumblebore and Louie 50pp each for helping him.

Monsters

40 Farmers 400 xp

20 volunteers captured 200 xp

75 militia killed 750 xp

25 militia captured 250 xp

20 patrol men-at-arms killed 400 xp

2000 XP &  0 GP  Assignment

Sever (E) 222 XP & 0 GP

and Poindexter (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

and Rabbit (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

Giuseppe (E) 222 XP & 0 GP

and Bishoy (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

and Tawadros (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

and Steelvien (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

and Rhoikos (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

and Symeon (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

Sheamus  (E) 222 XP & 0 GP

and McScales (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

Gurt the Green (E) 222 XP & 0 GP

and Anri (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

and Cedric (E) 111 XP & 0 GP

500 XP &  500 GP  Assignment

Bumblebore (E) 250 XP & 250 GP

Louie the Presto-tator (E) 250 XP & 250 GP

Graveyard

Paul (Henchman Paladin level 3) Effected by the Imprisonment spell touch attack from a Styx Devil in session #117. Might not be dead, but is definitely at least six feet under for all intents and purposes.

Gurt the Green (Paladin level 6) killed by a poison needle trap in session #114 RAISED FROM THE DEAD (with a roll of 94!)

Solaire the Fallen (Henchman Fighter (paladin) level 3) killed by Stone Giants acting as catapults in session #114

Paul (Henchman Paladin level 1), reduced to 0 hit points by white dragon breath when climbing down a rope ladder in session #108. Killed not by the fall; but by the sudden stop at the bottom. RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Ignatius the Smiter (Cleric level 1), horrifically mutilated and killed by double hit from a Shoggoth in session #106

Domby (Henchman with Dex 5), double surprised and turned into a pin cushion in session #87

Luke (Half elf Fighter/Cleric level 1), tragically killed by a normal hydra while trying to cauterise one of its neck stumps in session  #86

Gurt the Green (Paladin level 3),  killed by a hydra bite in session  #86 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Pleasance (Footman level 0), killed by a phase spider bite in session #81

Siegward (Henchman Fighter level 1), killed by a phase spider bite in session #81

Tawadros (Henchman Fighter level 4),  killed by a phase spider bite in session #81 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Patria (Footman level 0), killed by a two headed snake bite in session #81

Deltacron (Dwarf Fighter/Thief level 1/1), threw his last flask of oil at, and was level drained to death by, a Vampire in session #76

Petrov the Prestidigitator (Magic-user level 1), wrong place, wrong time; killed by Sever the Ranger in session #72 RAISED FROM THE DEAD

Petrov the Prestidigitator (Magic-user level 1), killed again by the toxic gas of an Achaierai in session #72

Red (Paladin Level 1), always popular with the ladies, he was eaten up by a female Roc in the Pizza Slice of Doom during session #67

Jacques Ocular (Magic User level 1), a fat green worm burrowed into his head and turned him into a Son Of Kyuss in Brovenloft in Session #43

Pino (Dwarf Footman level 0), Killed by a Frost Giant axe in the head in session #39

Paro (Dwarf Fighter/Thief level 2/2)  Killed by Winter Wolves and frozen in session #39

Zabib (1/2 Elf Fighter/Magic User level 1/1), Killed by Frost Giant rocks in downtime prior to session #39