Run Date: June 9, 2024
PCs
Spring:
Lv1 Nightblade
Anabelle: Lv1 Explorer
Sigfried: Lv1
Crusader (Shattered Soldier)
None
Poking the Bear
With the larger party still ahead in time and roaming the forests of the Greenwood, the shoddy side crew met up to discuss options. The church recently put out a 1,000 gold bounty to bring justice to pilgrims that were attacked by brigands; the same event that Anabelle had witnessed during her previous foray.
The group set out from Coxhaven with Anabelle leading the way. She attempted to follow her previous path, but after several hours of searching, could not locate the camp where the Barghest had slaughtered the band. What can I say? It’s been raining pretty heavily this past week. Since that proved to be a dead end, the group decided to do a bit of searching in the nearby woods.In my skimming for encounter distance, I did not discover anything regarding fires/wind. I’ll have to look again later for “large army” or something. The reason for all this is that I took the Encounter Distance from Forest and tripled it to simulate a) the party is on the hunt, and b) the cook fires, camp, palisade, etc should be easier to spot as the woods thinned out.
As the party arrived at the edge of their cover, they took stock of the enemy position and formulated a plan to return at night. They chose to venture out a little ways and camouflage themselves until then. During their idle time, however, they were harassed by the wind and branches. Spring had several acorns dropped on her head. Anabelle had her hair pulled and tugged. Sigfried had globs of (spitball-sized) mud shot into his face. All the while, the party heard high pitched whispers and giggles.
Spring is an Elven Nightblade. In this setting, Elves are fragments of a dream, whisps of thought that vanish from the world after their death. They are Fae, and capable of communicating with others of their ilk. She took the lead and called out to the invisible annoyances. The creatures were so excited that their leader revealed himself to them and struck up a conversation: imagine a tiny Peter Pan with crown and dragonfly wings.
As I am wont to do, I tossed on a shitty Irish accent and began the discussion. This tiny king knew of the brigands and other secrets of the area, and was more than willing to share (Nat 12 RR). Spring asked about “pulling some pranks” on the men in the camp, heavily suggesting belladonna be used for it. Alas, Spring had none and the Tiny King knew of nowhere they grew. GM Note: Since the area isn’t fully stocked, I checked for Terrain. When that hit Valuable, I had Spring toss the d12 for it. She got Hidden Settlement; so now there is a settlement of Pixie-kin here in the woods. No belladonna or other poisons, though.
The conversation went on for a little while until the party decided to stick with their initial plan. Before the TK departed, he offered two pieces of advice. The first was that his people could be found in the “darkest crevice of the deepest crack” (your momma joke here). The second he whispered to Spring: there was a weird rock on the east side of the brigand camp, and she should examine it. With that, they disappeared; laughs dancing on the breeze.
Night finally fell and Spring took recon duty while the other two remained hidden. She had some issues climbing the rocks the TK informed her of, but eventually managed to find a hidden hollow and crawl into it. This hollow lead underneath the camp and rose to a standing rock with tiny slit inside it. All Spring could see was the inside wall of the palisade so she lifted the top of the rock like a manhole cover and looked around. She was in a “back alley” that had been blocked off by the backs of several tents. She didn’t venture further into the camp and just eyeballed an estimate of how many were here (around 30-40)(I realized later that I rolled up 300+ for this camp so I guess everyone else was out briganding). Afterward, she ducked back into the rock and returned to her group.
Sigfried was very forward about his issues with his ring mail, “I’ll be trotting around like a man with a sack full of nickels.” The party decided to leave him as a rear guard/fall back while Spring and Anabelle took advantage of their ability to ambush. Spring would use her Shadowy Sense to guide them both through the dark so they’d avoid alerting the men on watch.
The ambush duo approached from the treeline and hunkered down when they were in Short Range (allowing bonus damage via Ambush/Backstab). They planned their targets and readied their bows. ACKS II has a Memorial Rule called something like “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” It represents a deeper intuition on creatures that are not surprised, but have not managed to identify a target. Of the four watchmen, only one managed this; and he quickly became their primary target.
As the suspicious watchman drew his bow and started scanning the darkness, he took an arrow through the throat. Anabelle had struck true and was already nocking her follow-up. The second shot didn’t kill. Spring fired her own and I believe missed altogether since the following round the alarm went up. The two ambushers knew it would take a bit before the enemy mobilized so they finished off the watchmen on the towers and ducked into the woods to regroup with Sigfried.
This lead to Evasion Shenanigans as Explorers are very good at it and they’d only fail on a Nat 1. Moreover, due to it being night and their small party, they were extremely difficult to track. The leader of the camp sent out several gangs to scour the woods, but the party managed to retreat to safety. They also set up an ambush on the off-chance that some of the roaming gangs came their way. No luck, though.
Once things settled, Spring and Anabelle returned to recon the camp. There were many more men on watch and their patrol patterns had shifted. Feeling catty, the two picked a new position and new targets. They were out for blood. Given the shifting situation, I ruled that the watchmen would get a bonus to their surprise (foreknowledge/on alert: there is something out there). This with the extra men made the second ambush go less smoothly.
Spring and Anabelle still had the initiative, and picked out prime targets with their shots. They managed to kill one of the men on the ground and wound another. The alarm went up and flaming arrows were fired into the wood. One revealed Anabelle’s position and the hunt was on.
I won’t go over the whole Evasion thing again, but this round drove the PCs further into the woods. This second attack riled the brigands up quite a bit and it took a while longer before they gave up. This lead to the party stumbling across a weird shrine with vine and moss-covered white stones. The place was crumbling and lost to time. At its center rose a small monolith shaped like a unicorn horn. After taking a breather for a few minutes, the party spotted torchlight coming their direction. The brigands had set out a tracking crew to try and find them proper! Spring continued to lead the other two around some of the stones and set them into positions. It was time to try their ambush a second time.
Round 3! Only half the gang’s men were surprised, but fatigue was wearing on the PCs as well. One of the trackers were killed and two wounded. The gang leader rushed to find the ambushers while Sigfried delayed the others. The gang leader was fast and managed to find Spring, but a shot from Anabelle drew his attention. She disappeared into the shadows to flank, but realized she couldn’t get a clear shot after the gang leader rushed Anabelle with his blade. Anabelle won her skirmish, but Spring had skulked back toward Sigfried.
Sigfried held is own as long as he could. Shield up, but surrounded, he tried to find openings to thin the enemy numbers. Unfortunately, their continued assault opened him up. Only Fate ensured his survival as he hit the ground. Spring sprung into action as Sigfried fell and cut one down. She continued to press the attack as Anabelle returned to assist. Soon, the last one was run through.
With Sigfried wounded and another slew of brigands dead, they took a breather then set out back to Coxhaven. The session did not end there, as I had expected. The party rested up and went shopping for another harassment run. As they were wandering the markets in the rain, they dodged a couple stampeding horses. Spring found herself covered in feces just after, though. Her time was spent in the bath after that.
Finally, after about 5 days total, this group of guerrillas set out for.. I guess Round 4? The mud made travel slow, but nightfall was their preferred time of assault so it didn’t matter overmuch. The party changed the direction of their approach a little bit in the hopes of throwing off any remaining guards. Since it had been a couple days, I ruled that the extra patrols had thinned out; dropping them from 6 men to 2 each. As expected, the ambushers took the bait.
Spring and Anabelle picked out a proper spot to take out one wing of watchmen. As they moved to their positions, however, Spring set off a snare trap rigged with a bell that rang loud and clear. She used her time to quickly cut herself down and avoid hurting herself any further. Anabelle fell back and fired shots at the men coming toward them with torches. What followed were a set of dominoes. Sigfried rushed through the darkness after hearing the alarm and landed in a snare. Spring and Anabelle managed to kill off a couple of their pursuers before regrouping and helping Sig down. Shortly after, Anabelle threw a military oil and struck true. This killed the lead man and the other was set aflame. The final one pushed through and killed Anabelle, but died shortly after. The flames finished engulfing the final ground scout, resulting in Sig and Spring running into the woods.
The wounded duo quickly got lost and found themselves surrounded by a thickening fog. Anabelle had told them about the Great Wolf that resided here, but Spring remembered that its coming was heralded by a significant drop in temperature. What could it be then, and why did they both have a bad feeling? They soon found out. Slithering out of the darkness were a pair of giant vipers! They struck hard and true, leaving only panicked screams of pain in their wake.
Thus ended this adventure.
Rewards (Totals)
None
Afterword
During the session, I dealt with inner conflict between what was realistic and what was fair. 3 vs the world, but the old storygamer in me kept wanting to “keep the adventure going.” In hindsight, I think the adjudications came out fine. The unexpected traps were a lot of fun for me, and well within the means of a camp of brigands. It certainly caught the others by surprise given their previous strikes had gone well.
I realized while writing this that I also made some mistakes regarding wounds and Fate, mostly that Anabelle had been wounded and couldn’t have thrown the military oil. Oh well, thems the breaks. The important factor that came up was: “Can you use Fate to avoid death even after you’re wounded?” RAW, getting another mortal wound while already walking wounded is instant death. Period. Fate can only intervene so much so I ruled that RAW would take precedence over Fate in such instances. That said, I believe we remain unfamiliar with the details of Fate because we often forget it exists. After all, what stops someone from consuming 2 points to “Rally” by dropping to 1 HP and immediately recovering 1d3?
That’s all for now. Take care.
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