Rotvalan Reveries Ep16: Bloodmoon

 Run Date: September 15, 2024

PCs
Francisco: Lv1 Fighter
Lysalia: Lv1 Witch

Hench
None

Bloodmoon

A small turnout for today’s event: raiding Nota Rosa. I decided to try out Owlbear Rodeo to help track general positioning and troop movements. The map itself was made using one of the random generators and tacking on some labels, but I didn’t know the actual size so I couldn’t scale the hexes in any proper manner. For the battle itself, we used a loose version of the Battles rules in the Revised Rulebook. I learned that BR is relative strength so I could get the “minimum 6 units” by dividing the units into groups of 5 men and tacking on their usual BR (4 for Vet Heavy Infantry). In hindsight, however, we may have wanted to divide the settlement into Zones. Instead, I had a “free movement” situation and “encounter” spread throughout. So, how did the session go?

Without Helena to call the shots for Ryder, Francisco took the lead. During his downtime, he did a bit of recon to sow some discord and gather information in both Coxhaven and Nota Rosa. His coinpurse was stolen and he nearly got arrested, but he made it back safe. He then formulated the plan of attack for the Roughnecks. The goal was to strike the morning after the birth of a new pack of werewolves and take advantage of the chaos (the results of the infected prisoner exchange).

The Roughnecks traveled away from the Shrine and found a place to camp some ways from the road, and met with no encounters until night fell. The raiders spotted an approaching warband of Bugbears coming their way and Lysalia stepped in to speak with them. As luck would have it, the leader spoke the common tongue… mostly. Lysalia’s mystical aura managed to manipulate the leader and the beastmen were invited to meet with Ryder. After some negotiations, the bugbears joined for the coming raid.

I resolved the werewolf situation with a 2d6 roll and a comparison of average BRs. Nota Rosa has a roadhouse often housing merchant caravans, and their guards took the brunt of the losses alongside some of the garrison. This determined the numbers and starting positions of various units within the settlement.

What followed was a lot of time skimming and reviewing the rules and fiddling with Owlbear to get the tokens set up. This is the point where we realized we didn’t have zones and there’d be some clunkiness. Once we got everything set up, the Roughnecks, lead by their new Bugbear friends, pushed into Nota Rosa. Their first target was the roadhouse and Red Suns branch. They met with some resistance from the remaining caravan guards and a personal guard at the Red Suns, but overwhelming force (something like 90 vs 15 BR) quickly ended them. The Roughnecks sent their mobile crew to begin looting while the others sacked the Red Suns.

The next two engagements happened here. Near the Red Suns, some of the garrison had sallied forth. Lysalia noted that there were magical lights among them, but didn’t catch their Holy Blessings until shortly after. The few men from the garrison held their own, felling some of the bugbears and Roughnecks before eventually falling themselves. They died for their homeland as brave warriors. Meanwhile, the mobile infantry’s sacking was met with a mixed contingent that were still out in the streets because of the werewolves. This contingent stood firm against their enemy, but reserves soon came in to finish them. At this point, the looting continued without resistance.

Not wanting to waste time, Francisco encouraged Ryder to taunt Serif Georgio and try to goad him out of his walls. I looked up the earshot/listening ranges and found out that this taunt would be made with rude gestures. Serif Georgio’s not a stupid man, but the continued harassment to his character and now his domain played on his emotions. I rolled a Reaction to see his response, but even with his penalties he managed to stay his hand; not without throwing out his own gestures, of course. With that, the group weighed whether they wanted to take bow fire and try to sack the church. They decided against it and began putting everything to the torch as they took their loot and departed.

I resolved the return trip and spread of information (the Serif had sent some cavalry to Coxhaven about the werewolves) and began the fun part: calculating the spoils. Looting, Pillaging, Etc doesn’t scale to the levels we ran so we did some rounding and fractioning and estimating. It turned out that our estimated time for the raid was nearly spot on. Anyhow, aside from the various mix of GP value gained from looting, there was a bonus chest taken from the Red Suns. The Roughnecks broke the lock as soon as they returned to the safety of the Shrine and were immediately met with a huge cloud of poison gas. Some 12 more men died right on the spot. The good news? It housed nearly double what they got from general looting.

Oh right, Ryder was the commander so he decided how spoils were distributed. Given the levels of the characters, they were awarded a half share (same as hench). In addition, they received commendations for their actions: Lysalia for the bugbears and Francisco for the Recon.

Rewards (Totals)

1650 XP
1250 GP

Commendations
Lysalia: 250gp
Francisco: +1 Glassy Axe

Afterword

This took pretty much the entire session with a lot of chatter and faffing about. I’m unfamiliar with the rules and to be honest, found myself unsure how to adjudicate much of the situation. I also expect to have a variety of complications pointed out after this report goes up (if it gets read, anyway) because of ground considerations. For example, how big is the settlement actually? Why did the Serif hole up in the walls of his estate? Should there be walls around the settlement? Where are the peasants and other noncombatants strewn about? Why didn’t the Don of Coxhaven send reinforcements, or moreso, why wouldn’t the Don’s Recon have already been near or out there? Why were the Roughnecks allowed to trot back to the woods with no resistance? On and on. If I had to guess, my lack of knowledge and experience at what constitutes “a realistic town” is probably at fault; likely even more than my skill with the rules.

Rambling aside, I think the overall was solid. The game flowed well and resolved with little issue once we got going. However, I have two concerns. The first is that much of the session was myself and Francisco resolving mass rolls and throwing in a bit of narrative. The second was the PC’s level and group size. There were no Forays during all of this, nor do I think a small group could have survived one. Frankly, I don’t know if this would have been more fun with more people.

That’s all for now. Take care.