Saturday, January 29, 2005

Me plus three

Wednesday 1/26 D&D session... Black-Eyed Bill (Carson's "nautical ranger," human, 5th level) and Bob (Phil's human paladin) joined Miss Princess (B's halfling barbarian), Aiko (P's npc dwarven monk), Nightsong Sharpfang (npc female kobold bard) and Captain Fergus Dowrimple (human evoker 6 rogue 2) to continue working with the natives of Horseshoe Island to liberate it from the army of hobgoblins and ogres.
Last week, Black-Eyed Bill was part of a small group that sabotaged the purple ogre navy's three sailing ships, removing planking from the two docked near the fortress and stealing a rudder from the one anchored in the bay. Hobgoblin halberdier formations attacked the natives in 4 square formations of 64 each. Though they were severely hurt by Fergus' fireballs and lightning bolts, they kept on coming, eventually driving the natives back. After the battle, 300 or so native warriors, poorly skilled, beaten and poorly equipped, retreated (along with the party, who served as officers in the operation) back to their small villages on the other side of the island. Knowing that captured villagers would eventually be eaten by the hobgoblins and ogres, a second attack on the fortress would have to happen soon. In the meantime, forces on both sides had a chance to recover and prepare. An early raid by the Merry Maiden gave the hobgoblins something to think about and some wounds to lick - two enemy ships were sunk, though the maiden was heavily damaged. After capturing a few of the enemy crew, a semi-successful prisoner exchange was made, with limited success and a lot of distrust on both sides, netting the party 400 gold pieces and 5 freed natives from the fortress.
Rivet (Robby's kobold alchemist/engineer, mentioned briefly as an npc for this weeks session), Nightsong and Aiko were helpful in directing the natives to dig traps and defensible pits with stakes for at least some cover and protection in the event of a hobgoblin attack, while longspears, heavy catapaults and other weapons were built and prepared. All told, five heavy catapaults were built for the land attack, along with one battering ram, a lot of shovels, and enough weapons to arm about 600 natives.
The attack was two-pronged, using the Merry Maiden along with a land advance to overwhelm the highly disciplined hobgoblins and their ogre overseers. The fortress was a typical stone walled structure, built on a rocky hill and featuring numerous crenelations for archers and catapaults on top, one large, strong square gate/door, and large enough to accomodate an army of 1,200 (though the exact number there was unknown). Signallers on the point would keep the Merry Maiden from again being caught by surprise by the enemy ships (as it had once before, nearly sinking it, and requiring a new mast and lengthy repairs). As it turned out, the Scythe made a poor showing, especially after Fergus cast Fly on himself, flew over and dropped a Fireball right on top of the enemy ship, burning much of the sails and rigging. One deadly tactic it had used in the past was to catapault a rain of caltrops, but this time the crew of the Maiden was ready. Fergus then continued to fly over to the fortress with his notorious wand of lightning bolts to make life miserable for the hobgoblins.
Seeing a block of 64 drop to 8 after a fireball, the hobgoblins opted for a looser formation. Fortunately for the villagers, this robbed the hobgoblins of the multiple attacks their reach weapons provided, as well as the tactic of a front line with tower shields to provide cover. But the hobgoblins had no choice, as they saw it. It appeared that Fergus too high up for any of their weapons to reach him effectively, and the villagers were also hammering the fortress and units with catapaults firing at perfect range from the cover of trenches they had built during the night. So far, the villagers are prevailing, ganging up on the scattering hobgoblins to face each one down two or three to one at a time, even though in total numbers, the villagers are outnumbered.
But the battle is not over yet. While the hobgoblin units appear to be broken, the officers at the core of each still stand and fight, often joining or leading other units. And what will be in the fortress? How will the ogres fight when cornered? That remains to be seen.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Temple of Transformation, Part 1

Today was pretty straightforward, a good game session. I had spent a bit of time preparing, and I was glad I did, though I may be under-estimating what the party is capable of taking on. Carson, Phil, Shane, Lance, Robby and Roddy all made it. Phil brought lots of pretzels, Roddy brought Coke-a-Cola and Doritos, Lance brought Bahls (an energy/caffeine drink that came in blue bottles and tasted like cream soda), and Penny brought Mountain Dew. Carson drew funny cartoons on the backs of most of the character name cards. So we had plenty of sugar, snacks, caffeine and salt. And bad jokes. Phil now has plenty of dice and a better attitude, which is good. His new character is a half-orc barbarian, which he says he's going to stick with.

So last session, the party captured two of Jaramon's minions, an elven sorcerer battle-mage and sorceress enchantress. Revan was able to persuade the enchantress to reveal the location of Jaramon's headquarters, the Temple of Transformation. After scouting a route out of the sewers below Moonmist, Flegal found a cave route through the Purple Moon Mountains, where the party fought rat-roaches and young flail-snails, dropped 200' down a saltwater geyser and to the edge of Jaramon's Valley. Upon further persuasion, the captured elf enchantress was convinced to cooperate with the party by using a wand of domination (party treasure from earlier) to get 12 elf guards to disregard the party (in hats of disguise as elves), so the party could stow away on a wagonload of 29 indentured servants bound for the pyramid temple, beyond the 20', mile-long crenalated wall with 4' rolling stone spheres on each side, through the zoolike valley/park/bestiary, past the giant Cube of Force, beyond the 20' lobster-men construction worker-guards, into the pyramid. Everything was done very carefully, every detail attended to. Forethought corrected a number of potentially bad situations. Even so, it would be tough. Henderson was left behind at the cave to guard the battle-sorcerer, who could not be persuaded to cooperate and had suffered some broken fingers as a result. Once the guards were secured and disarmed (they were armed with longswords, longbows and wands of Charm Person), the indentured servants were persuaded to help if they wished to, though a Dispel Magic was required to remove any remaining charms to guard against squeelers.

The stone sphere led the wagon in, opening the way before it and closing the way behind it, with 20' lobster-men guards close at hand at the temple entry, where shark-bats flew above. Through the valley, a dog wearing spectacles (dog-wiz) ran, and "crabbits" (bunny-crabs) bounded. But the weekly wagon shipment was proof against these things, and the party was unharmed. Unseen and unused were a few other of Jaramon's creations, including a wizard-squid and a number of assorted mongrelmen and mongrel-elves, willing and unwilling subjects.

Within the temple, the indentured servants were unloaded, and instruction began regarding their appointed tasks, starting with cleaning up after the strange horses, working in the temple kitchen, etc. The great cathedral-like entry was brightly lit by Continual Light, with a spiral stair visible up high, opening to an observatory on the top of the pyramid. The wagon was then loaded with one of the temple's exports, a special unit of ant-ogres (as a ogre, with better armor class from exoskeleton, and mandibles on head as natural weapons), and the wagon left, magical stone sphere rolling before it, opening and closing the way. The dark king of the Purple Moon elves would be well pleased, and his generous patronage of Jaramon's square mile of strange projects would continue. Enemies of the Purple Order would tremble.

Once the wagon had left, the depth of betrayal of his former minoin began to be felt as the party attacked the 12 elf "harrier" guards. Thinking the party were all elves (due to thier hats of disguise), the Harriers (also armed with swords, bows and wands of Charm Person) did not attempt to use the wands to charm the party, as elves are immune to such charms. The indentured servants, who had been armed by the party, also fought the elves, led by Taito, Zen, Flegal, Dante, Joseph, Revan, Geena, Mick, Telpin, and the recently converted elf sorceress. Henderson would have enjoyed the battle too, but he was back at the cave, on guard duty. Casualties were pretty low, just a couple of the indentured servants, due to the timing, planning and execution of the plan.

But this is just the main level, the point of entry. Wagons have been arriving on a regular basis for many weeks. There are several levels below, each with new encounters and surprises. Things are just getting going. The players and their characters HATE Jaramon, and would like to kill him more than anything, preferably as soon as possible. But he has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. Even though the party advanced further than I expected them to today, there was a lot of stuff I didn't use, and can throw at them later if I want to. I was happy with this adventure. There are plenty more levels, rooms, minions, and strange monsters for the party to face in the future.

I awarded 3,000 experience points, which might be a bit high, considering how easy all the encounters ended up being. But I have to give the guys credit for avoiding the tough encounters in the valley, especially those lobster-men. Note that a couple of 100 xp bonuses were awarded today: 100 each to Revan and Joseph for converting characters to their religions, 100 to Taito for Carson's wonderful cartoons. Treasure is being withheld until the end of next session.

I am considering writing up the sorceress as an NPC, because Roddy has conversion rules in the Exhaulted Deeds book, changing her from NE to N, and soon to NG. She could be a good fit for the party, though at this moment I can't remember what name I wrote down for her. She made her first Will save vs. insanity that I use in "alignment drift" situations.

Next month I am moving the session to Sunday, Feb. 13, 12-6, because I have a cello gig on Saturday, Feb. 12. Carson and Phil should be here for this week's Wed. group, though I need to give Carson a ride. Additional Wednesday players may be here in the future. We will also play Sat. Feb. 26, so that month is full of sessions. I'm also thinking about Magic, as well as Mordheim, either here or at the local hobby shop sometime soon.