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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6690628" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 3: GARRISON DUTY</strong></p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 29 August 2015</p><p></p><p>This adventure was designed as pretty much one big encounter. I used the "Hill Country" Pathfinder Flip-Mat Logan had given me last Christmas, and placed a small cardboard tower keep I had made for one of the adventures in our previous campaign at the very top of the hill. Along the road at the edges of the map was a cliff with trees below; I explained to the players that we were going to ignore the cliff and assume the trees were at the same level as the road. The trees were part of the Vesve Forest, which marked one of the boundaries of the Kingdom of Kordovia.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>The six members of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild were finally making their initial foray out of the Kingdom of Kordovia, taking one of the roads that led south. The vast and mysterious Vesve Forest stood to their left as they traveled down the winding road, still about a half mile from the edge of their kingdom. Ingebold sat in the front of the wagon, holding the reins of the party's two mules, Franco and Tantrum. Binkadink sat by her side, glad not to be walking - for the little gnome would find it difficult to keep pace with even the relatively slow speed at which they were plodding along. Castillan and Gilbert sat in the back of the wagon, watching the scenery go by. Darrien walked ahead of the wagon, scouting the road ahead, while Finoula rode alongside the wagon on her pony.</p><p></p><p>Rounding a curve, a stone garrison tower came into view on a small hill just off the road. There was a winding road leading up to it. Finoula waved to the two warriors on duty at the top of the small tower; they smiled down at her and returned her wave. The garrison tower had been built some 11 years ago, about a year after the first wave of orcs and goblins, attacks which had occurred every 6-12 months ever since. The attacks always came at night - no doubt due to the orcs' dislike for bright sunlight - and always from somewhere in the depths of the Vesve Forest. Due to these recurring attacks, the garrison soldiers generally slept during the day, doing their patrolling of the borders of the Vesve Forest during the night. As the last wave of attacks had been a mere three months ago, the general feeling in the kingdom was that there were still several months before they could expect their next attack.</p><p></p><p>However, Finoula's waving to the guards on duty was a fortuitous event, for she was looking up at them when they both suddenly froze and fell behind the battlements of the tower's rooftop.</p><p></p><p>"Guys!" she called out to her companions. "The guards are under attack!"</p><p></p><p>Castillan reacted almost immediately. Leaping off the side of the wagon, he began racing up the hillside road winding its way up to the garrison tower. Darrien, looking up from his position in the lead, turned and bolted back past the wagon, then followed the elven bounder up the hillside.</p><p></p><p>Ingebold pulled on the reins, bringing the mules to a halt. She had seen the narrow trail leading up the hillside, and there was no way the wagon - small as it was - would make it up there, as the path was carved into the hill, with steep walls on either side. There simply wasn't room for the wagon, so she tied the end of the reins to a projection on the wagon intended for just that purpose. Then she, Binkadink, and Gilbert jumped down from the wagon as well, the wizard following up the path in the wake of Castillan and Darrien.</p><p></p><p>Finoula gave a sudden cry and almost toppled from her pony. Looking forward, Binkadink saw those responsible: four sneaky goblins who had stepped out from between the trees of the forest and put their slings to good use against the elven ranger. Grabbing up his glaive in both hands, Binkadink charged forward as fast as his little legs would take him.</p><p></p><p>As he raced forwards, though, the rest of the attack force stepped out from the forest: a fifth goblin riding on the back of a worg and seven orcs. Binkadink swore silently to himself but continued charging forward, slicing through the neck of the nearest goblin with his glaive. The nearest orc raced up to attack the gnome, but Binkadink swung his glaive around and cut him down as well.</p><p></p><p>Hearing the fighting behind him, Gilbert spun around and started back down the hill, pulling out a potion from his belt and swigging it down as he ran, glad that they had earlier decided it made sense for the adventurers to distribute Winkidew's potions among themselves rather than have Binkadink carry them all in the little chest they had been stored in. The wizard felt the now-familiar itching sensation on his skin, which immediately changed hue to a bright blue. But it also gave him the equivalent of a <em>mage armor</em> spell, so the wizard didn't mind so much. In the meantime, Castillan and Darrien were too far up the hillside to have heard the sounds of combat, and continued up the winding path, each pulling out his bow as he ran.</p><p></p><p>Finoula forced her pony to race ahead, catching up to Binkadink just as the enemy forces reached the two of them. An orc swung at the little gnome and another threw a javelin at him; he found it easy enough to duck under the thrown weapon but at the expense of being hit by the swung falchion. And then up raced the worg-mounted goblin, who tried spearing the elven ranger with his javelin, wielding it like a spear. But Finoula slid off the other side of her pony, using it as shield - a rather terrified one, at that - between her and the overly large wolf baring its fangs at her.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink was the first to fall, slipping into unconsciousness after several hits from the stone weapons of various orcs. Ingebold raced up to heal him, while Finoula did her best to keep the others from reaching the unconscious Binkadink or get past her to reach her companions and the mule-cart behind her. A bright blue Gilbert Fung came running up behind Ingebold, beginning the words to a spell but not wanting to finish it until he was in the proper position.</p><p></p><p>Ingebold staggered back under the power of a thrown javelin, unable to reach Binkadink's prone form from the pressing advance of the orc forces. One particularly savage-looking specimen bent down and picked up the gnome's glaive, raising it over his head in a pumping fist and snarling out words in his own guttural language. Finoula, who had studied the Orcish language, mentally translated his yell as "I claim this steel as mine!" But then another barrage of orc attacks overwhelmed her, and she fell to the ground beside Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, by this time Castillan and Darrien had reached the top of the hill. The bounder leaped up onto a jutting rock, from which he could see the entire combat field below. He sent an arrow screaming down at the orc that had just reached down to grab Finoula's longsword from her unresistant grip, and the brute staggered under the assault but didn't fall. Darrien followed suit with an arrow of his own, hitting the worg-riding goblin and toppling him from his lupine mount.</p><p></p><p>The worg snapped out at the pony, who, although terrified beyond belief, was penned in by fighting bodies on all sides and unable to escape. In desperation, it struck out at the hungry worg with its hooves. It didn't connect, but it kept the worg's attention focused on it rather than any of the adventurers. Another bite from the worg and the pony went down, jets of blood pumping from its throat.</p><p></p><p>Finally getting himself into position, Gilbert cast a <em>color spray</em>, catching three orcs and the worg in its range. One of the orcs resisted its effects completely, but the other two and the worg were blinded and stunned, with the orc who had grabbed up Finoula's longsword as his own crashing down onto his vanquished foe's prone form as he succumbed to spell-induced unconsciousness.</p><p></p><p>Ingebold finally was able to cast a healing spell amidst all of the melee - but unfortunately, she was forced to cast it upon herself, realizing that if she were to fall the group would lose the majority of its healing abilities. Gilbert reached over to Finoula's belt and grabbed up a potion vial stored there. He unstoppered the top and poured the liquid down the elf's throat. Finoula sputtered but sat up, pushing the unconscious orc off of her and grabbing her sword back up.</p><p></p><p>Another orc had raced up and pulled Binkadink's sword from its scabbard, and while the longsword was scaled for use by a gnome, the orc didn't seem to mind the size difference - it was a bladed weapon, and it was made of steel; he'd gladly claim it for his own.</p><p></p><p>Up at the top of the hill, Castillan and Darrien continued their barrage of arrows down at the remaining enemies, but they also saw an unnerving sight: three goblins and an orc were scaling up the side of the hill. In less than half a minute, they'd no longer be the only ones up here on the higher ground.</p><p></p><p>Ingebold finally was able to heal up Binkdink, and more than a few of the heroes down in the midst of the battle were forced to avail themselves of Winkidew's questionable healing potions. It was then they discovered another of the gnomish potion-master's infamous "shortcuts" - the healing potions were so vile-tasting it took a considerable act of will to swig them down, and those without a suitably iron stomach were forced to spend a few moments immediately after imbibing the liquid upchucking the contents of their stomachs. Ironically, Ingebold and Gilbert both managed to hold down the nasty potions, and it was Binkadink who first started violently puking after being healed. The gnome felt weak from the sudden, violent upheaval and fervently wished it hadn't soaked into his beard; mentally, he upgraded himself from "Farty-Gnome" to "Barfy-Gnome."</p><p></p><p>Darrien shot the first goblin to make it up the steep side of the hill smack into his ugly face, and the creature toppled back down the hill at a much greater rate of speed than he had managed to ascend it. But the other two goblins climbed up with success, as did the orc. The trio advanced upon the two archers, who up until this point had enjoyed virtual invulnerability by dint of their distant perch. Darrien backed up and managed to drop the nearest goblin, but the others continued advancing. Soon they found themselves in melee combat, trading their bows for swords - longsword for Darrien; short sword for Castillan.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately, by that time most of the enemy combatants down below had been dealt with. Gilbert and Binkadink started slaying those who were still immobilized by the <em>color spray</em> spell, while Finoula battled feverishly with the wounded worg. The worg, much smarter than the normal wolf, had several wounds by this point, knew it had no chance of winning this fight, and was determined to sneak back into the safety of the forest where it could easily outrun its foes. But as it turned to speed away, the gnome, who had been watching the worg out of the corner of his eye, swung his glaive around and slit open the beast's side, spilling out a loop of intestines in a gush of bodily fluids. It fell and did not rise again.</p><p></p><p>Darrien and Castillan managed to finish off their own group of foes, and then the adventurers below gathered up their weapons and started up the hill. The group reconnoitered just outside the garrison tower.</p><p></p><p>"You hear anything?" asked Darrien in a whisper, as Castillan pressed his ear to the wooden door. The half-elf peered through one of the two arrow-slits flanking the door, seeing a darkened room containing what looked like crates of dried foods and barrels of water, with a narrow stairway leading up along the eastern wall. He had already tried opening the door; it was barred from inside.</p><p></p><p>"Nothing," admitted Castillan. "But we saw those guys at the top fall over, right? I'm going up there. Somebody give me some rope, and I'll drop it down to you once I'm up there."</p><p></p><p>Darrien passed his silken rope to the bounder, who put one arm and a head through the coils, wearing it diagonally across his torso. The he backed up a couple steps and sprinted at the wall of the tower, leaping up at the last minute and running up its vertical surface, the toes of his boots catching on the smallest irregularities between the stones of the tower's construction.</p><p></p><p>"That don't look like it even possible," commented Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>Reaching the top, Castillan crawled over the upper wall and tied off one end of the silk rope around a stone crenelation, then threw the remaining length down to the others.</p><p></p><p>"I'll go next," offered Finoula, scampering up the rope like she was born to the role.</p><p></p><p>"I don't think I want to climb that," admitted Binkadink. The tower's 30-foot height was even more impressive-looking when you were only three feet tall.</p><p></p><p>"Me neither," replied Gilbert. "I go through front door."</p><p></p><p>"You have a <em>knock</em> spell?" asked Ingebold.</p><p></p><p>"I no need <em>knock</em> spell," scoffed Gilbert. Then, imitating Castillan's actions of but a moment before, he backed up several paces then raced toward the tower. However, instead of leaping up the wall at the last moment, the heavyset wizard slammed into the door with his shoulder. His cry of pain upon impact was hidden by the sound of wood splintering as the bar on the other side snapped in half and the door itself followed suit, sending the wizard barreling through the remains of the door and through the empty room to slam into the opposite wall. The others followed him in, but at a much slower rate of speed - all but Darrien, who took the opportunity to scan the hillside around him to ensure there were no enemies coming up from behind them.</p><p></p><p>Up on the roof, a quick examination of the bodies showed Castillan that the two guards had been killed by a sharp implement - probably a javelin - having been thrust up between their legs and deep into their torsos. It was a particularly nasty attack, but one that made sense if you assumed goblin attackers, goblins being no taller than a gnome. As Finoula climbed up onto the roof and announced the others would be coming up from the ground floor, Castillan pulled open the trap door on the floor of the roof and cautiously stepped down the stairs just below. Finoula followed.</p><p></p><p>From the light spilling in through the open trap door, the two elves were able to see the three bunks stacked along the walls of the upper floor, two being three beds tall and the other holding only two. Each of the eight beds held a slain human warrior, his throat sliced open. Finoula winced at the loss of life, and then the two approached the stairs leading down to the second floor.</p><p></p><p>Down below, another figure stepped quietly down the stairs, this set leading from the second floor to the ground floor. The goblin rogue, upon reaching the bottom floor, threw his blood-tipped javelin at Ingebold. But Darrien, still outside the tower, saw the motion through the arrow-slit at the side of the broken door, and although the arrow-slits had been designed for those inside to shoot outside, they were equally effective going the other way. The goblin got quite a surprise when Darrien's arrow pierced the back of his head. He dropped where he stood, his stone dagger clattering to the floor.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink raced up the stairs, carefully maneuvering his lengthy glaive up the narrow stairwell before him. Upon reaching the second floor, he took a strike from a <em>magic missile</em> spell cast by the goblin sorcerer who had masterminded this plan. <strong>Gribblestack</strong> giggled in pleasure as the gnome staggered under the magical onslaught, but then the little fighter gritted his teeth and swung his glaive at the goblin spellcaster. The blade ripped into Gribblestacks' side, and the goblin's giggles turned to growls of incoherent rage.</p><p></p><p>At Gribblestack's side, the second of the goblin rogues - and the third of the trio Gribblestack had hand-selected to scale up the back of the garrison tower, invisibly, to slay the guards on duty and then make their way through the sleeping ranks - hurled his javelin at Binkadink. He did this as he raced past the gnome and up the stairs to the upper level, where he was met by Castillan, who had just started down the stairs. The elf swung his sword at the goblin, but the rogue ducked and the blade swung harmlessly over his head.</p><p></p><p>Down below, Ingebold and Darrien raced up the stairs to join the combat. Gilbert, out of his most powerful spells and armed with only his dagger, opted to stay where he was and try bluffing the goblins upstairs by pretending to deploy imaginary troops. "Ah, there you are, Captain!" he said in an overly-loud voice. "You get here just in time! Have your men surround the tower, so there no place for goblins to escape!"</p><p></p><p>But this final subterfuge was unnecessary, for the heroes on the floors above cut down Gribblestack and the sole remaining goblin rogue. Then they desperately searched the remaining bunks, hoping to find some survivors of this wicked attack, but they were without luck: the goblins had already slit the throats of every sleeping warrior in the garrison keep. It was with heavy hearts that they dragged the goblins outside, to be thrown into a heap of bodies alongside the orc and the other goblins Castillan and Darrien had slain earlier.</p><p></p><p>After a quick consultation, Finoula was sent back down the hill to the wagon, with Castillan as an escort. They steered Franco and Tantrum back the way they had come, back to the castle to report the unexpected assault upon the garrison tower and the slaying of the guards stationed there. The others, under Ingebold's direction, carefully carried the bodies of the slain human warriors out of the keep, to be placed carefully in ranks along the ground. The dwarven cleric positioned their arms across their chests and said the last rites over each of them. They had been denied the opportunity to be slain in battle, as befitted warriors of their kingdom, but she was sure Moradin would look down upon them with favor nonetheless.</p><p></p><p>It was the group's second real adventure, and they still hadn't made it past the outskirts of Kordovia.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>This adventure raised some questions, which the players discussed among themselves after we finished playing. Why the sudden decrease in the span of time between orc and goblin attacks? Why the stone weapons (except for the javelins; they seemed to have been made of fire-hardened roots of some type)? There was speculation that the orcs and goblins might be running short of weapons after a dozen years of constant waves of attacks. There was also counter-speculation that this group of orcs and goblins might be a completely different group than those who had attacked in the past. But despite the speculations, there were no concrete answers.</p><p></p><p>The PCs down at the bottom of the hill each spent a lot of time being unconscious during this adventure; we got a lot of use of the "roll to see if you stabilize" rules. The PCs went through Winkidew's healing potions at an alarming rate - so much so that if they hadn't had them there would likely have been a PC death or two. Now they're all out of healing potions altogether, and will need to rely upon Ingebold's spells and the 5 charges left in her <em>wand of cure light wounds</em>. But they're also second level, so they each have a bit more hp to lose before dropping into unconsciousness. (Incidentally, we use the variant rule where a PC doesn't die at -10 hp but rather at -[Constitution score] hp. So Binkadink, with his 20 Constitution, had quite a lot of opportunities to stabilize before he was in any real danger of bleeding out.)</p><p></p><p>This adventure took us about three and a half hours to run, after which the characters had each reached second level. So we did something we've never done before: we upgraded each PC there at the kitchen table. Fortunately, I had made some changes to my adventure preparations for this campaign: now, at the end of each adventure as I write it, I tally up the total XP and the share of XP each PC gets. Since everyone started out at 0 XP and have all adventured together since, I'm able to project ahead how much XP they'll have at the end of the adventure, and whether they'll level up as a result. (This is something I was never able to do in our previous campaign, when most players switched out between two PCs of different levels and I never knew ahead of time which PCs would be going through any given adventure.) So I was able to have updated "Class Abilities and Feats" sheets printed out and ready to be placed into the PC folders. Similarly, I had an updated PC tracking sheet prepared for my own use; I only had to enter everyone's new hp totals before I was ready to go. (Since I had no way of knowing which new spells Gilbert would learn ahead of time, I had to jot down his spell choices so I could print out an updated spell sheet for him between this game session and the next. Incidentally, he chose <em>grease</em> and <em>feather fall</em>.)</p><p></p><p>But, since we had determined we could game from about noon to 6:00 or 6:30 this session, we went ahead and jumped straight into the next adventure after everyone had leveled up. And I guaranteed everyone that in their fourth adventure, they'd <em>finally</em> make it out of Kordovia. (They'd only make it as far as the next kingdom over, but I didn't tell them that.)</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: I don't have any orc or goblin T-shirts (well, not exclusively: I do have a D&D Silver Anniversary Tour T-shirt with various D&D monsters wearing party hats and carrying birthday presents, and I'm pretty sure there's an orc and a goblin among them), but I do have one with a wolf's head in the center, a US flag in the background, and a pack of wolves at the bottom. So I wore it to represent the sole worg among the goblin forces. It had the advantage of also being thematically appropriate for the next adventure, so it pulled double duty.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6690628, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 3: GARRISON DUTY[/b] Game Session Date: 29 August 2015 This adventure was designed as pretty much one big encounter. I used the "Hill Country" Pathfinder Flip-Mat Logan had given me last Christmas, and placed a small cardboard tower keep I had made for one of the adventures in our previous campaign at the very top of the hill. Along the road at the edges of the map was a cliff with trees below; I explained to the players that we were going to ignore the cliff and assume the trees were at the same level as the road. The trees were part of the Vesve Forest, which marked one of the boundaries of the Kingdom of Kordovia. - - - The six members of the Kordovian Adventurers Guild were finally making their initial foray out of the Kingdom of Kordovia, taking one of the roads that led south. The vast and mysterious Vesve Forest stood to their left as they traveled down the winding road, still about a half mile from the edge of their kingdom. Ingebold sat in the front of the wagon, holding the reins of the party's two mules, Franco and Tantrum. Binkadink sat by her side, glad not to be walking - for the little gnome would find it difficult to keep pace with even the relatively slow speed at which they were plodding along. Castillan and Gilbert sat in the back of the wagon, watching the scenery go by. Darrien walked ahead of the wagon, scouting the road ahead, while Finoula rode alongside the wagon on her pony. Rounding a curve, a stone garrison tower came into view on a small hill just off the road. There was a winding road leading up to it. Finoula waved to the two warriors on duty at the top of the small tower; they smiled down at her and returned her wave. The garrison tower had been built some 11 years ago, about a year after the first wave of orcs and goblins, attacks which had occurred every 6-12 months ever since. The attacks always came at night - no doubt due to the orcs' dislike for bright sunlight - and always from somewhere in the depths of the Vesve Forest. Due to these recurring attacks, the garrison soldiers generally slept during the day, doing their patrolling of the borders of the Vesve Forest during the night. As the last wave of attacks had been a mere three months ago, the general feeling in the kingdom was that there were still several months before they could expect their next attack. However, Finoula's waving to the guards on duty was a fortuitous event, for she was looking up at them when they both suddenly froze and fell behind the battlements of the tower's rooftop. "Guys!" she called out to her companions. "The guards are under attack!" Castillan reacted almost immediately. Leaping off the side of the wagon, he began racing up the hillside road winding its way up to the garrison tower. Darrien, looking up from his position in the lead, turned and bolted back past the wagon, then followed the elven bounder up the hillside. Ingebold pulled on the reins, bringing the mules to a halt. She had seen the narrow trail leading up the hillside, and there was no way the wagon - small as it was - would make it up there, as the path was carved into the hill, with steep walls on either side. There simply wasn't room for the wagon, so she tied the end of the reins to a projection on the wagon intended for just that purpose. Then she, Binkadink, and Gilbert jumped down from the wagon as well, the wizard following up the path in the wake of Castillan and Darrien. Finoula gave a sudden cry and almost toppled from her pony. Looking forward, Binkadink saw those responsible: four sneaky goblins who had stepped out from between the trees of the forest and put their slings to good use against the elven ranger. Grabbing up his glaive in both hands, Binkadink charged forward as fast as his little legs would take him. As he raced forwards, though, the rest of the attack force stepped out from the forest: a fifth goblin riding on the back of a worg and seven orcs. Binkadink swore silently to himself but continued charging forward, slicing through the neck of the nearest goblin with his glaive. The nearest orc raced up to attack the gnome, but Binkadink swung his glaive around and cut him down as well. Hearing the fighting behind him, Gilbert spun around and started back down the hill, pulling out a potion from his belt and swigging it down as he ran, glad that they had earlier decided it made sense for the adventurers to distribute Winkidew's potions among themselves rather than have Binkadink carry them all in the little chest they had been stored in. The wizard felt the now-familiar itching sensation on his skin, which immediately changed hue to a bright blue. But it also gave him the equivalent of a [i]mage armor[/i] spell, so the wizard didn't mind so much. In the meantime, Castillan and Darrien were too far up the hillside to have heard the sounds of combat, and continued up the winding path, each pulling out his bow as he ran. Finoula forced her pony to race ahead, catching up to Binkadink just as the enemy forces reached the two of them. An orc swung at the little gnome and another threw a javelin at him; he found it easy enough to duck under the thrown weapon but at the expense of being hit by the swung falchion. And then up raced the worg-mounted goblin, who tried spearing the elven ranger with his javelin, wielding it like a spear. But Finoula slid off the other side of her pony, using it as shield - a rather terrified one, at that - between her and the overly large wolf baring its fangs at her. Binkadink was the first to fall, slipping into unconsciousness after several hits from the stone weapons of various orcs. Ingebold raced up to heal him, while Finoula did her best to keep the others from reaching the unconscious Binkadink or get past her to reach her companions and the mule-cart behind her. A bright blue Gilbert Fung came running up behind Ingebold, beginning the words to a spell but not wanting to finish it until he was in the proper position. Ingebold staggered back under the power of a thrown javelin, unable to reach Binkadink's prone form from the pressing advance of the orc forces. One particularly savage-looking specimen bent down and picked up the gnome's glaive, raising it over his head in a pumping fist and snarling out words in his own guttural language. Finoula, who had studied the Orcish language, mentally translated his yell as "I claim this steel as mine!" But then another barrage of orc attacks overwhelmed her, and she fell to the ground beside Binkadink. Fortunately, by this time Castillan and Darrien had reached the top of the hill. The bounder leaped up onto a jutting rock, from which he could see the entire combat field below. He sent an arrow screaming down at the orc that had just reached down to grab Finoula's longsword from her unresistant grip, and the brute staggered under the assault but didn't fall. Darrien followed suit with an arrow of his own, hitting the worg-riding goblin and toppling him from his lupine mount. The worg snapped out at the pony, who, although terrified beyond belief, was penned in by fighting bodies on all sides and unable to escape. In desperation, it struck out at the hungry worg with its hooves. It didn't connect, but it kept the worg's attention focused on it rather than any of the adventurers. Another bite from the worg and the pony went down, jets of blood pumping from its throat. Finally getting himself into position, Gilbert cast a [i]color spray[/i], catching three orcs and the worg in its range. One of the orcs resisted its effects completely, but the other two and the worg were blinded and stunned, with the orc who had grabbed up Finoula's longsword as his own crashing down onto his vanquished foe's prone form as he succumbed to spell-induced unconsciousness. Ingebold finally was able to cast a healing spell amidst all of the melee - but unfortunately, she was forced to cast it upon herself, realizing that if she were to fall the group would lose the majority of its healing abilities. Gilbert reached over to Finoula's belt and grabbed up a potion vial stored there. He unstoppered the top and poured the liquid down the elf's throat. Finoula sputtered but sat up, pushing the unconscious orc off of her and grabbing her sword back up. Another orc had raced up and pulled Binkadink's sword from its scabbard, and while the longsword was scaled for use by a gnome, the orc didn't seem to mind the size difference - it was a bladed weapon, and it was made of steel; he'd gladly claim it for his own. Up at the top of the hill, Castillan and Darrien continued their barrage of arrows down at the remaining enemies, but they also saw an unnerving sight: three goblins and an orc were scaling up the side of the hill. In less than half a minute, they'd no longer be the only ones up here on the higher ground. Ingebold finally was able to heal up Binkdink, and more than a few of the heroes down in the midst of the battle were forced to avail themselves of Winkidew's questionable healing potions. It was then they discovered another of the gnomish potion-master's infamous "shortcuts" - the healing potions were so vile-tasting it took a considerable act of will to swig them down, and those without a suitably iron stomach were forced to spend a few moments immediately after imbibing the liquid upchucking the contents of their stomachs. Ironically, Ingebold and Gilbert both managed to hold down the nasty potions, and it was Binkadink who first started violently puking after being healed. The gnome felt weak from the sudden, violent upheaval and fervently wished it hadn't soaked into his beard; mentally, he upgraded himself from "Farty-Gnome" to "Barfy-Gnome." Darrien shot the first goblin to make it up the steep side of the hill smack into his ugly face, and the creature toppled back down the hill at a much greater rate of speed than he had managed to ascend it. But the other two goblins climbed up with success, as did the orc. The trio advanced upon the two archers, who up until this point had enjoyed virtual invulnerability by dint of their distant perch. Darrien backed up and managed to drop the nearest goblin, but the others continued advancing. Soon they found themselves in melee combat, trading their bows for swords - longsword for Darrien; short sword for Castillan. Fortunately, by that time most of the enemy combatants down below had been dealt with. Gilbert and Binkadink started slaying those who were still immobilized by the [i]color spray[/i] spell, while Finoula battled feverishly with the wounded worg. The worg, much smarter than the normal wolf, had several wounds by this point, knew it had no chance of winning this fight, and was determined to sneak back into the safety of the forest where it could easily outrun its foes. But as it turned to speed away, the gnome, who had been watching the worg out of the corner of his eye, swung his glaive around and slit open the beast's side, spilling out a loop of intestines in a gush of bodily fluids. It fell and did not rise again. Darrien and Castillan managed to finish off their own group of foes, and then the adventurers below gathered up their weapons and started up the hill. The group reconnoitered just outside the garrison tower. "You hear anything?" asked Darrien in a whisper, as Castillan pressed his ear to the wooden door. The half-elf peered through one of the two arrow-slits flanking the door, seeing a darkened room containing what looked like crates of dried foods and barrels of water, with a narrow stairway leading up along the eastern wall. He had already tried opening the door; it was barred from inside. "Nothing," admitted Castillan. "But we saw those guys at the top fall over, right? I'm going up there. Somebody give me some rope, and I'll drop it down to you once I'm up there." Darrien passed his silken rope to the bounder, who put one arm and a head through the coils, wearing it diagonally across his torso. The he backed up a couple steps and sprinted at the wall of the tower, leaping up at the last minute and running up its vertical surface, the toes of his boots catching on the smallest irregularities between the stones of the tower's construction. "That don't look like it even possible," commented Gilbert. Reaching the top, Castillan crawled over the upper wall and tied off one end of the silk rope around a stone crenelation, then threw the remaining length down to the others. "I'll go next," offered Finoula, scampering up the rope like she was born to the role. "I don't think I want to climb that," admitted Binkadink. The tower's 30-foot height was even more impressive-looking when you were only three feet tall. "Me neither," replied Gilbert. "I go through front door." "You have a [i]knock[/i] spell?" asked Ingebold. "I no need [i]knock[/i] spell," scoffed Gilbert. Then, imitating Castillan's actions of but a moment before, he backed up several paces then raced toward the tower. However, instead of leaping up the wall at the last moment, the heavyset wizard slammed into the door with his shoulder. His cry of pain upon impact was hidden by the sound of wood splintering as the bar on the other side snapped in half and the door itself followed suit, sending the wizard barreling through the remains of the door and through the empty room to slam into the opposite wall. The others followed him in, but at a much slower rate of speed - all but Darrien, who took the opportunity to scan the hillside around him to ensure there were no enemies coming up from behind them. Up on the roof, a quick examination of the bodies showed Castillan that the two guards had been killed by a sharp implement - probably a javelin - having been thrust up between their legs and deep into their torsos. It was a particularly nasty attack, but one that made sense if you assumed goblin attackers, goblins being no taller than a gnome. As Finoula climbed up onto the roof and announced the others would be coming up from the ground floor, Castillan pulled open the trap door on the floor of the roof and cautiously stepped down the stairs just below. Finoula followed. From the light spilling in through the open trap door, the two elves were able to see the three bunks stacked along the walls of the upper floor, two being three beds tall and the other holding only two. Each of the eight beds held a slain human warrior, his throat sliced open. Finoula winced at the loss of life, and then the two approached the stairs leading down to the second floor. Down below, another figure stepped quietly down the stairs, this set leading from the second floor to the ground floor. The goblin rogue, upon reaching the bottom floor, threw his blood-tipped javelin at Ingebold. But Darrien, still outside the tower, saw the motion through the arrow-slit at the side of the broken door, and although the arrow-slits had been designed for those inside to shoot outside, they were equally effective going the other way. The goblin got quite a surprise when Darrien's arrow pierced the back of his head. He dropped where he stood, his stone dagger clattering to the floor. Binkadink raced up the stairs, carefully maneuvering his lengthy glaive up the narrow stairwell before him. Upon reaching the second floor, he took a strike from a [i]magic missile[/i] spell cast by the goblin sorcerer who had masterminded this plan. [b]Gribblestack[/b] giggled in pleasure as the gnome staggered under the magical onslaught, but then the little fighter gritted his teeth and swung his glaive at the goblin spellcaster. The blade ripped into Gribblestacks' side, and the goblin's giggles turned to growls of incoherent rage. At Gribblestack's side, the second of the goblin rogues - and the third of the trio Gribblestack had hand-selected to scale up the back of the garrison tower, invisibly, to slay the guards on duty and then make their way through the sleeping ranks - hurled his javelin at Binkadink. He did this as he raced past the gnome and up the stairs to the upper level, where he was met by Castillan, who had just started down the stairs. The elf swung his sword at the goblin, but the rogue ducked and the blade swung harmlessly over his head. Down below, Ingebold and Darrien raced up the stairs to join the combat. Gilbert, out of his most powerful spells and armed with only his dagger, opted to stay where he was and try bluffing the goblins upstairs by pretending to deploy imaginary troops. "Ah, there you are, Captain!" he said in an overly-loud voice. "You get here just in time! Have your men surround the tower, so there no place for goblins to escape!" But this final subterfuge was unnecessary, for the heroes on the floors above cut down Gribblestack and the sole remaining goblin rogue. Then they desperately searched the remaining bunks, hoping to find some survivors of this wicked attack, but they were without luck: the goblins had already slit the throats of every sleeping warrior in the garrison keep. It was with heavy hearts that they dragged the goblins outside, to be thrown into a heap of bodies alongside the orc and the other goblins Castillan and Darrien had slain earlier. After a quick consultation, Finoula was sent back down the hill to the wagon, with Castillan as an escort. They steered Franco and Tantrum back the way they had come, back to the castle to report the unexpected assault upon the garrison tower and the slaying of the guards stationed there. The others, under Ingebold's direction, carefully carried the bodies of the slain human warriors out of the keep, to be placed carefully in ranks along the ground. The dwarven cleric positioned their arms across their chests and said the last rites over each of them. They had been denied the opportunity to be slain in battle, as befitted warriors of their kingdom, but she was sure Moradin would look down upon them with favor nonetheless. It was the group's second real adventure, and they still hadn't made it past the outskirts of Kordovia. - - - This adventure raised some questions, which the players discussed among themselves after we finished playing. Why the sudden decrease in the span of time between orc and goblin attacks? Why the stone weapons (except for the javelins; they seemed to have been made of fire-hardened roots of some type)? There was speculation that the orcs and goblins might be running short of weapons after a dozen years of constant waves of attacks. There was also counter-speculation that this group of orcs and goblins might be a completely different group than those who had attacked in the past. But despite the speculations, there were no concrete answers. The PCs down at the bottom of the hill each spent a lot of time being unconscious during this adventure; we got a lot of use of the "roll to see if you stabilize" rules. The PCs went through Winkidew's healing potions at an alarming rate - so much so that if they hadn't had them there would likely have been a PC death or two. Now they're all out of healing potions altogether, and will need to rely upon Ingebold's spells and the 5 charges left in her [i]wand of cure light wounds[/i]. But they're also second level, so they each have a bit more hp to lose before dropping into unconsciousness. (Incidentally, we use the variant rule where a PC doesn't die at -10 hp but rather at -[Constitution score] hp. So Binkadink, with his 20 Constitution, had quite a lot of opportunities to stabilize before he was in any real danger of bleeding out.) This adventure took us about three and a half hours to run, after which the characters had each reached second level. So we did something we've never done before: we upgraded each PC there at the kitchen table. Fortunately, I had made some changes to my adventure preparations for this campaign: now, at the end of each adventure as I write it, I tally up the total XP and the share of XP each PC gets. Since everyone started out at 0 XP and have all adventured together since, I'm able to project ahead how much XP they'll have at the end of the adventure, and whether they'll level up as a result. (This is something I was never able to do in our previous campaign, when most players switched out between two PCs of different levels and I never knew ahead of time which PCs would be going through any given adventure.) So I was able to have updated "Class Abilities and Feats" sheets printed out and ready to be placed into the PC folders. Similarly, I had an updated PC tracking sheet prepared for my own use; I only had to enter everyone's new hp totals before I was ready to go. (Since I had no way of knowing which new spells Gilbert would learn ahead of time, I had to jot down his spell choices so I could print out an updated spell sheet for him between this game session and the next. Incidentally, he chose [i]grease[/i] and [i]feather fall[/i].) But, since we had determined we could game from about noon to 6:00 or 6:30 this session, we went ahead and jumped straight into the next adventure after everyone had leveled up. And I guaranteed everyone that in their fourth adventure, they'd [i]finally[/i] make it out of Kordovia. (They'd only make it as far as the next kingdom over, but I didn't tell them that.) - - - T-Shirt Worn: I don't have any orc or goblin T-shirts (well, not exclusively: I do have a D&D Silver Anniversary Tour T-shirt with various D&D monsters wearing party hats and carrying birthday presents, and I'm pretty sure there's an orc and a goblin among them), but I do have one with a wolf's head in the center, a US flag in the background, and a pack of wolves at the bottom. So I wore it to represent the sole worg among the goblin forces. It had the advantage of also being thematically appropriate for the next adventure, so it pulled double duty. [/QUOTE]
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