lördag 24 mars 2018

Play Session 01, KotB 01 - Arrival at the keep, some scouting and a lession in the value of surprise

Today we had our first session of our Dungeon Fantasy game. Three players were present:

Boerge the Beef, Human Thug, 250 points
Father War, Human Inquisitor, 250 points
Honest Ernst, Human Ranger, 250 points

Boerges two allies, one guard and one weapon caddie were also present but their character sheets had not yet been finalized so I ruled they were there and could help out with mundane things but not participate in actual fighting, the trade off being that they did not need any upkeep or share of the loot for this session.

First off I gave them a short background, explained a thing or two about the setting and the area surrounding the keep and the caves, had the players introduce themselves and then let them loose. The characters (along with the missing PC, Amore) had hitched a ride on the same caravan and decided during the course of the two week ride after weighing the pros and cons about sharing the loot contra strenght in numbers to band together and head for the Caves. First of they had to sleep one night in town to recover and gather some information about the dungeon.

When they arrived at the gates of town they were greeted by a sign saying "No Elves!". Luckily none of them were although Ernst still decided to camp outside of town. A wood elf sat outside the gates begging for money to make is trip back to his home village in a swamp to the north but was shrugged off, Börje threw him a ration of food but he was otherwise ignored.

Father War had sent a message preparing his arrival and he was duly greeted by the town Curate and invited to sleep at the Chapel guestroom. When asked about the sign outside the gate, the Curate explained that it was put up by the keep Commander, why he does not know but it was not a big deal since no elves lived permanently inside the walls of the keep and noone had much approval towards elves anyways. Boerge spent the rest of the day in the tavern, where he met an old miner that once worked in the strip mine that is now known as the Caves of Chaos. He told of evils contained within the rock, making curious miners go mad, come out of the mountain lethally ill or disappear without a trace.

Amore and Boerge were sent to the Commander the following morning (only Boerge went, Amore were nowhere to be seen) for a request to recover a custom made shining plate armour that was stolen off a caravan a couple of weeks ago.

After that they met up and decided to do some scouting and maybe go into one of the caves. Under perfect conditions the trip could be made in a day if you rush it but the party was in no rush. They followed the trade route east during the first day only meeting the occational riding guard and spotting a curious crow watching them from atop a firtree. They set up camp where the road split northward towards the caves. From there they had only a few hours of travel the next day to reach the caves. During the night Boerge heard loud snarling and growling noises and almost instantly decided to wake up the others and prepare for battle.

He made some noise waking up the others and when he was going out to meet the threat he saw four gnoll shadows approaching about twenty yards from the camp. He felled one instantly by throwing a mace straight on the knee while Father War was preparing to light things up with a Sunlight spell... which he critically failed! A beam of total blackness hit the earth where the sunlight spell was supposed to go which meant noone saw anyone else anymore. Ernst aimed his bow through the blackness toward where he last saw the enemy but the arrow appeared to miss. When Boerge ran around the blackness the next turn big darkpurplish worms had started to appear along the edges of the blackness and all gnolls except the one on the ground and one more had disappeared, their superstition getting the best of them. Two spears flew out from the woods a few yards further back  though, one hitting him on the side of his helm but without him taking any damage. He threw another mace and then went into close combat with his flail. He bashed the head in on the other gnoll with his first attack, supported by arrows and a sunbolt from the other PC's. Another volley of spears flew out of the forest before the gnolls decided to make a run for it. Boerge wanted to follow them but was convinced not to by his companions. Before the blackness faded a cloud of ravens flew out of it toward the night sky.

The next day they travelled the last bit and set up a new camp about a half hours travel from the caves while Ernst scouted ahead. He saw a watchtower on the far side of the small valley but no activity around it. One entrance straight below it had a number of different sized rocks and gravel outside of it, indicating that it is currently being excavated. On the near side he saw some tensed up hides and a fireplace down the slope and heard some faint snarling from that direction. The group decided to wait the night out, realizing that most of the caves inhabitants are probably night active, and head in at dawn the next day. Ernst made another scouting round and saw that indeed there were more activity during the night. The fireplace on the near side was lit up and a group of gnolls exited, the watchtower also had a lit fireplace beside it and there were light coming from another entrance further down the slope on the near side aswell as another entrance on the far side. One entrance on the far side was unlit during the night though, the PC's decided that must be the easy one and went for it after camouflaging the small cart they had brought along for the ride.

By the entrance they were hit by an awful stench and two out of three PC's started retching and the cleric had to Stop Spasm them before they could continue. Ernst also spotted what looked like bear tracks outside the cave. Once inside they found an alcove with an assortment of old bones and carcasses which they of course searched through without finding much more than a few coins. During their search they heard scratching noises both from inside small holes and crevices in the wall of the alcove aswell as from deeper inside the cave, Ernst could swear that the noise in the back of the cave was snoring though. Boerge prepared to run in and Ernst had to once again convince him to take a step back and let him sneak ahead first. Ernst confirmed that the noise was snoring when he spotted a sleeping owlbear in the next widening of the cave. They made some noice appoaching the owlbear but it failed to wake up and they had a chance to ambush it. It took them about seven turns to kill it though but it never really got to it's feet, but defending vigoriously, confused and surprised before it was felled, aiming for the head with a flail seemed to do the trick. After a quick search they found a nice bone-container containing a holy scroll but nothing else of value. When resting after the battle Ernst went ahead to search another alcove only to fail his perception-roll and in turn be ambushed by four giant rats!

The rats gnawed and clawed at Ernst, crippling one of his arms and hurting one of his legs before he had a chance to turn and run, only to collide with Boerge running into the entrance of the alcove and slam into the cave wall, hurting his hand in the process. Father War got a chance to try out his healing spells on Ernst while Boerge made short work of the rats who were unable to bite through the chainmail on his arms and legs.

After this battle we were short on time and wrapped up pretty quickly. The ranger with the crippled arm tried to skin the owlbear and made a pretty lousy work of it, then they had a short look in the last part of the cave, only to find a hole in the floor with water running down it's walls. Then I ruled they made it back to the keep without incidents. The group got a point each for exporation and another point just for the awesomeness of getting through their first session. The loot was pretty meager, they sold some gnoll spears and leather armor parts aswell as the scroll they found in the owlbear cave, it was enough for two people to get a point each and the third got MVP which equals three points each. They forgot to sell the owlbear hide but I don't think it would've been enough for another CP anyways. They will most likely do when we start the next session though.

Inga kommentarer:

Skicka en kommentar