Meet 85, Adv 5, 6/20/15

Repercussions.

The party was associated with the death of what to all intents and purposes appears to be a elven woman in town AND the death of another elven companion - with ties to one of the 13 ruling families of Woodhelven. Elves have a longer worldview on things so they are not going to run people out to to Bumfuck Podunk Shakun and rough up the party for getting their scion kilt...but this is going to shake things up "next year" in game time/terms and I will enjoy doing it.

There are also 3 "threads" for endgame floating around this campaign - I am officially dropping one of them as unnecessary and superfluous - too many spices in the soup so to speak.

Write up follows:

Avidius and Erd ran ahead of the rest of the group to get to the gates before the rest of the party. The idea was one of them would take over Westgate and the other would go to Southgate, inform the guards of Scarene’s presence and description, and help out by staying there until we could guarantee she was in the town and not going to make her way out the doors.

The rest of the party was 20 minutes or so behind and Steiner did his duty by watching Northgate. Geld took Marcus to the Hospice for rest and recuperation. This left Curufin to go to Pelis, Flimflam to go to Baron Taugis, and Tranis to go and report to Captain Thragriel as well as Marshall Westwinter.

Pelis was informed and at Curufin’s prompting, sent out his birds to gather information on Scarene and where she might be. They played chess in the meantime. Flimflam gave the copper common piece story to the Baron as well as reporting about the goblin drums and the possibility of Goblinwater. The Baron reminded Flimflam about “we’ll get to it” problems and how they can snowball – ie: what the Duuk Tsarith problem eventually turned into.

Captain Thragriel and his people were instructed and happy to get the information. There is a system now (there have 8 or 9 “goblin” blamed thefts so far this month) where distant Homesteads use bells to report a goblin attack – 2 long rings, 2 short rings. As for Marshall Westwinter, Tranis spoke to Caladis (his assistant) and was then shunted to one of other deputies, Belamy, where the info was reported and thanked for.

As for Avidius’ gate (Southgate), no issue, no problem. Steiner was also no issue. Erd had a different series of interesting facts. The blond woman with the grey eyes was last seen going into the Helax home, next to the Brandone’s. Master Helax’ wife had passed away a month ago. Guards thought it was a hoot and that she must be a gold digger since Helax was over 60. When we all got back together, we noted the situation but did not want to go there now in our scattered and weakened state.

Lastly, Scarene, information was that she had been staying near the granary on the south side of town (near the millhouse and Southgate). We had the guards there on extra duty and then the group went to sleep.

We went first to Master Helax’ home and he was happy to see us. Remembering us an our efforts 7 months with the strange sleeping hex as well the moving of his couch downstairs that his wife wanted he was easy to talk to. His health has been declining and her elder manservant, Bradwell, did his best to keep us from knocking over the hoarder mess the house had turned into as well as to keep us from fucking the place up.

He did mention the girl and that she was happy to come to his house and sleep with him last night. She was gone when he woke up. The upstairs grandfather clock had stopped working so Avidius and Curufin volunteered to go up there and check it out. There were some strange crystals inside the clock, like quartz, but they weren’t doing anything. Suspicion was that the clock was drained of magic.

We eventually left Helax and made our way towards the granary – where the guards at Southgate had already been detaining Scarene and looking for us. What we were doing wasn’t illegal, but it was pretty close to it. So we got Captain Thragriel involved and he brought two of his deputies. So then it was, where do we do this? Goin to cells wasn’t going to happen and we couldn’t lure her someplace like that – but what we could do is take her to the Town Hall – which had only 3 ways out, and two of them would be locked – the guards watching the front door.

Questioning did not reveal anything at first and she was firm in her story and tale. It was only after Marcus was gotten and a charm spell was cast that we got more information – primarily that she knew WAY too much about drum patterns and communication over distances. The cover was blown.

We lunged for her and she managed to draw two arrows (makeshift daggers? Maybe) and was in combat with Curufin  - but before it could go any further Tranis took aim and fired – and she whirled Curufin in line with the arrows – hitting him in the chest and killing the elven thief! A hold person spell followed and then it was knife across the throat.

So, we are in the Town Hall, Captain Thragriel and two of his men are there, Scarene has been killed (murdered after being ensorcelled into submission), Curufin has been killed in the crossfire, and Marcus is still woozy and pretty bad off.

Meet 84, Adv 5, 6/06/15

The battle took too long.

I like to tweak, change, alter, and add - it's part of the hobby roots for me and I've never forgotten it. One of the most poignant memories I had from the early early days of me playing (30+ years ago) was sitting down after we had first learned how to play and the DM did something that wasn't canon in the book. So I called him on it, he nodded his head, flipped through the DMG, and then tossed it behind him and said, "It's a guide. Read it. Don't live it."

I never forgot it and have let that incident shape the way I play and DM ever since.

But, I have 7 around the table (soon to be 6 - sniff sniff) plus myself and the battle was big and long and I didn't like it.

Initiative was the culprit, followed by the general chitchat that we do.

Roll D6 - the round is split into 4 sections: Flee, Missile, Back Rank weapons, Melee/Spells. Improved initiative moves you up a rank. Dex has no impact.

I think I will try for a going forward on being more mindful of the time constraints - when I started it - it was 1 minute to get your shit together and then battle commences. I'm going to add that back. Gonna pick up a big assed digital stopwatch thing and hang it from the DM screen - see how that works.

Write up follows:

The party discussed the matter for some time and eventually decided they were going to try and get out of the cave and run back to town. We didn’t know how many were out there, if any of the invisible ones were nearby, and what our chances were. We were going to need some information.

We moved the bound up goblins we had captured further back into the cave and went over plans. Curufin was pretty sure there was a goblin up the slope and listening, hidden in the shadows or possibly invisible. How to verify? We decided to use Marcus and his ESP spell. The elven wizard and the two thieves went up the slope, talking the entire time about the goblins and how many and what not while Marcus had his ESP spell pushed ahead – and then he encountered goblin thoughts but there was no one there visibly. He gleaned all the surface thoughts and we then went back to the cave where he let us know maybe 6 or 7 goblins invisibly were here, there were over 20 other goblins in the area, and more were coming. At sunset they were going to storm the cave and capture us/kill us.

So, we had a plan – it was going to be bust out and run for Shakun as soon as the way was clear. Short, sweet, easy. Also, keep the fire to a minimum.

So we slit the throats of the 5 worker goblins, left the goblinwater fucked up druggy one alone, and cut the bonds on the one who had helped us. Then at 4:30 PM we lined up and stormed our way out – Erd and Tranis taking the lead, shields lowered and the rest of the party racing with them. The invisible goblin got tangled up and was expelled from the cave and the group immediately started fanning out.

There was a 5 or six count right near the entrance, with another 20, two sets of 10, bow users further down the hill in the grasses. We hit the local spear and axe guys full on, and the group did their damndest to take the combat to them.

Arrows fell about the party and even though many of us were armored up, the tall grasses gave us further cover. Our side had a bless spell go off, followed by a fairy fire spell to illuminate the closest goblins.

More withering archer fire fell about the group but an entangle spell neutralized about half the archers. The enemy had a spell caster as well and tried to take it against us but Steiner used his staff of fear and the shaman turned and ran.

Invisible goblins kept appearing, back stabbing the party all over the place. Marcus was getting pretty hurt and the group then tried to clear the goblins up over the cave entrance (3 or 4 count there). The combat was fast and furious but we eventually broke the goblins assault and sent many of the bow users to run. However, we were in no position for a protracted battle, goblin drums were in the distance and closing, Marcus was down and was going to need Hospice care to be of any use, and our stores of arrows and spells was depleted. We needed to leave and leave now.

The trip back to Shakun took over 4 hours, with the party switching off on toting Marcus along as well as keeping a weather eye on the land before us. The goblin drums stayed with us for hours until we left them further behind (but never quiet). And it was almost 8:30 when we saw the lights of Shakun growing closer and we knew we had a half hour or so to go before making it home.