Run Date: May 19, 2024
PCs
Gwendolyn:
Lv2 Fighter
Dex: Lv1 Thief
Helena: Lv2 Bladedancer
Hench
Mercedes Lv0
Eduardo Lv0
Lothor: Lv1 Vaultguard
Adjudicating Chaos: Securing the Shrine of the Golden Sun
Our Occultist, master of Mane and Merc, was out this session; but the teenager from the original crew returned. The players had decided they wanted to begin securing the Shrine of the Golden Sun. Due to their numbers, however, their MO was to favor scouting over warfare.
Before everything got going, they needed to actually return to Coxhaven from Rotval (the city). Given the distance, this would be a lot of encounter checks (like 14). I had the group give me an overall MO for their travels and slowed down only to cover anything that was potentially risky. To this end, they came across a rotund fisherman walking down the road. He had a giant pole and heavy basket on his shoulder. The group were immediately suspicious of him (per their MO: “Super paranoid and anti-social). They gave him a wide berth and wave, and kicked up their horses as they passed him. Fat man was none too happy, but rolled well enough on his RR to not care. The next couple days were mostly merchants, a group of shepherds, and some farmers.
One would think grassland and prairies are easy to navigate. One would be incorrect. A natural 1 after stepping out resulted in the party walking straight into Porco Rosso’s watchtower. The players, ego inflated because they’re Lv2, considered whether or not they wanted to attack the lair. Porco Rosso spotted them and started marching their way with his cleaver which was enough for them to reconsider and Evade. This lost them a couple of hours. The benefit to being close to civilization is that getting lost toward it means you realize much quicker.
After regaining their bearings, the party returned to their march. They passed through a copse of trees and spotted a swarm of bat-like creatures hanging upside down. Eduardo, being an Apprentice Sage, delved into his mastery of Lore and noted they were: Striges. Sleeping Striges. The group chose to veer away and let them sleep. After this, they arrived at the edge of the Greenwood and set up camp. Good news for them, the Striges did not come to feast.
The following day the group worked their way through the forest. They followed their old path and discovered the crumbling well; an old Fountain result on the Terrain table. While passing it, they noticed the stones and ground around the well were wet. Nobody thought much of it except Gwen, who kindly informed the others that something or someone must have passed through here recently.
As the march continued, the party spotted streams of smoke coming from above the trees. I’m not sure if ACKS’s encounter distances account for foliage plus fires. Nonetheless, the party was alerted that something was camping a little ways out and decided to hang back. The camp was along their path to the shrine, but they wanted to know if the residents would be a threat. Helena, being a pretty lady that serves the Waste That Walks, hoped for potential allies. They decided to send Dex in to do some Recon while the others waited.
Dex’s trip was short, and he quickly got caught. The Reaction Roll for the wildman was quite high, as they often are, and Dex played the role of “lost old man wandering the woods.” After the wildman looked through his sack and found no gold or interesting trinkets, he tossed it back and kicked the prostrated Thief out. Despite the failure, Dex did learn that the camp wasn’t full of beastmen. So that’s something.
Meanwhile, the group back at the rendezvous point heard a deep humming noise. At first they thought it was just the insects of the wood, as summer is coming and they’re out in full force. The deep hum soon became louder to nearly deafening. A swarm of Giant Dragonflies landed on the trees and branches around the party. Helena stayed her hand and suggested the same from the party. If you haven’t guessed already, the Reaction Roll was high for this as well. The party decided to marvel at the beauty of these creatures; described as having rainbow wings of stained glass, the kaleidoscope of colour reflecting on the party as the dragonflies danced in the sky. Ghibli would be jealous.
Dex soon returned and apprised the party of the situation with the camp. Helena decided to try her luck and do some “scouting” of her own. She hopped onto her horse and left while the rest continued to watch the sun dance.
Helena’s luck was better than Dex, though she was still surrounded and ambushed by the camp’s scouts. She flirted a bit and noted that she’d like to speak with their leader. It took a bit more (gold, of course) to convince them to set up a meeting. After showing her to the communal fire near their leader’s grand tent, the scouts vanished into it. A few minutes later, Ryder, the unexpectedly young and handsome leader of the Roughnecks, came out of his tent. He was in the middle of planning an assault on “that building under the sun.” As they got to talking, Helena learned that Hobgoblins had set up shop in the shrine, and the Roughnecks were having issues breaking the enemy’s defenses. She explained that her party had been inside the shrine several times and had a vested interest in having it cleared out and protected. To this end, they formed an alliance.
Helena returned to gather the party and work out the details: The PCs would be treated as Hench/Mercs, meaning they’d get half of any spoils to split between themselves. In exchange, a gang of Roughnecks would accompany them. There were ulterior motives that went unspoken, but we’ll get to that later. After settling on their agreement, the group headed out to do some Recon.
The first step was avoiding the barricaded front door and checking the hidden side passage. To their luck, the secret room and path had gone unnoticed. Dex sidled up to the secret door and gave it a listen; hearing nothing but horrible retching and coughing. They decided not to open the door just yet and head back to camp. Ryder noted his luck in having such an advantage and the camp organized itself for a noon assault the next day (recommended by Helena who believed the Hobs were nocturnal).
I’ll go over background details later, but I wanted to note that this entire setup was a mess for me. I had no idea how to adjudicate all these moving parts finally meeting, especially since I wanted to keep the game flowing quickly. Anyhow, I had to roll and stock the Hob village (the person who was supposed to slacked off), as well as the Raider camp (done pre-session while familiarizing myself with the new PDF releases: layout time baby!).
The assault’s plan was simple: Ryder would lead his men to harass the barricade at the front and draw the enemy’s attention while the PCs and their Roughneck allies would infiltrate and form a pincer attack. I decided to “ignore” the battle outside and focus on the “delve” half with occasional rolls to gauge the progress of the battle outside.
The infiltrators set themselves up in the secret room and listened. The noise and shouts blended into a din of undefinable detail and Dex couldn’t gauge much of anything from it. They decided to just push in, and opened the door just as a group of Hobs were rushing down the northern hall; the party caught their feet and shadows turning the corner. Ezpz.
The group was in a hall that lead south toward the spire room and north to a T intersection leading both outside and further in. They recalled there was a shallow pool in the outside area with rusted weapons sticking up. They favored checking the spire room first, and soon discovered it was being used as the sick room. A bunch of the Hobs were laid out in their own filth hacking and coughing while a Shaman tended to them. He and his Cave Gorillas didn’t expect invaders and were surprised.
The advantage from this surprise cannot be understated. The PCs and Roughnecks charged in with reckless abandon. Impact on Spears dealt significant damage to the gorillas and slew the Shaman. Gwen came in with her morningstar and began crushing skulls. The last gorilla managed to live long enough to deal out some chip damage, but otherwise fell in a slump as it was surrounded and butchered. The group promptly killed the sick and returned to the hall.
They decided to hit the outside area next and discovered a Hob matriarch organizing the drudges for battle in case their front line failed. There were a pair of gorillas in this room as well. None of them expected the infiltrator group (forever surprised). The initial charge and volley slaughtered a third of the drudges, but the gorilla soon became wall. They couldn’t drop it to continue their slaughter. Worse yet, the absolute audacity of the PC group resulted in a mad frenzy from the lair’s denizen: Victory or Death!
The drudges begin surrounding the engaged melee group while the gorillas entrap the frontline. Lothor holds as best he can and goes down to exactly zero a couple rounds later. The ranged Roughnecks and other two henches kill the matriarch and a slew of drudges with arrows and firebombs. One of the gorillas finally gets run through but the other spits in maddening fury and rips out one of the Roughneck’s throats. He soon pounds Lothor down and attempts a pushback. The absolute ferocity of this assault lead the party to consider retreating. Dex called out a rallying cry himself, and the fight continued.
Slaughtering the final gorilla was the domino that started the chain. The drudges continued their desperate strikes but the party’s cleaves finished the job. Combat Ferocity doing more work today.
With the area cleared, Helena immediately tended to Lothor who stood up and laughed. “Barely a scratch!” Meanwhile, the others looked over the lair’s mess. They spotted some chests and sacks of coin as well as a bunch of supplies. Helena convinced the Roughneck gang leader to take what they could carry and fall back; arguing that they’d dealt a heavy blow to the Hobs and they’d likely flee. She then added that those at the front wouldn’t have to put themselves at anymore risk. Turns out this was quite convincing.
They worked back through the secret door and regrouped with Ryder. There was a repeat of the argument here, but Ryder was already becoming infatuated with Helena so he let it slide. The horn was sounded and the Roughnecks fell back. Some scouts were left to watch the shrine while the rest of the host returned.
Back at camp, the cash was counted. It was certainly a lot less than they were expecting; predominantly coppers. There were a few pieces of jewelry mixed in, and to my surprise, Helena didn’t attempt to take a particularly pricey one for herself. At this point, Ryder likely would have taken the hit. After divvying up the loot and cleaning themselves up, the raiders began readying themselves for a celebration. It only got better when the scouts came back to inform everyone that the Hobs had indeed fled into the woods (shattered morale) and left some barrels of beer behind. Drunken revelry began; the barrels were cracked, some of the treasure (saffron) was used by Mercedes (a cantinakeeper and cook) to improve the communal stew, and the whole began singing. Late into the night, Helena solidified her place by Ryder’s side… in his tent.
The following morning, the party decided to head back. There was some discussion regarding the sickness, potential work, and the “wealthy mage.” Ryder intended to set up camp at the shrine after burning the sickness out and use it as a base. Helena, keeping with building rapport, offered to take the exposed Roughnecks to town and pay for their treatments. Ryder thanked her and the group began their trek back to town.
On their return trip, the party discovered a strange trap. Dex spotted a miniature bear trap with stones in the teeth. It was an oddity, to be sure, and appeared to follow a blackened rope toward a cask. The group decided to try and retrieve the cask, and lassoed it. They walked as far as they could away and gave it a yank, but Dex accidentally pulled too hard and set off the trap. Sparks flew from the flint as the bear trap snapped and lighted the rope. If you’ve ever seen a western, you know what comes next. Thankfully, nobody was damaged. Still, what an odd trap to find. What other mysteries does the forest hold?
The session ended with the party back in Coxhaven. Helena and the Roughnecks are considering visiting the Benevolent Hand for treatment as they’ve started to spike a fever.
Rewards (Totals)
310 XP
190 GP
Afterword
Where to start? I had issues deciding how I wanted to adjudicate everything today. The hobs were supposed to be rolled up by the pseudo-patron that discovered them. Said person was also the reason they were infected. The timing made for something extremely fun, and severely weakened the Hob forces. However, this was followed by the encounter with a Raider camp. The power of Abduction and BS resulted in the war over the shrine and more or less set up this miniature battlefield the players stumbled across. Of course, I had to stock everything and that took a bit of time (I also shortcutted the treasure rolls later on).
The main issue was that there weren’t enough units to use the Battles system offered in the Revised Rulebook. For myself, I tend to prefer to keep NPC situations running as smooth and quick as possible. This is the reason I focused on the delve element and avoided messing too much with the outside assault. In hindsight, I could have split the situations into something semi-cinematic: each Players is a Raider Gang Leader and controls their “Unit.” Add in a swap back and forth between the two every “hour” or so and you’ve got a full scale battle where I don’t have to make all the rolls.
Anyway, the joining of multiple background threads that I didn’t really control was a lot of fun for me. I’m not quite no prep, but I enjoy being surprised just as much as the players. However, I need to step up my own game; descriptions, game flow, et al. Practice makes perfect.
That’s it for now. Take care.
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