Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2476711" data-attributes="member: 1210">Parlay with the GoblinsThe treacherous ambuscade reinforces Jorgen’s growing dislike of goblins.  Lurking in the brush, a group of nearly a dozen goblins, with six riding dogs with them, bursts out and waylays the group.  The engagement is very dramatic, with the plants suddenly coming alive to grasp the dogs’ and goblins’ legs, preventing them from carrying the attack forward.  They struggle and squirm, trying to get free, but they are now fatally divided.  As Sir Cedric rides past them again and again, hewing goblin after goblin down, Dahlia draws her scimitar (acquired at the beginning of the winter) and rushes to the attack as well.  Kyle springs in, jabbing with his shortsword, while Cara sings and fires her bow.  It is the dogs that prove deadliest, rushing in, barking and growling.  Frightened, Kyle attempts to tumble away and use a goblin for cover.  Unfortunately, his foot snags on a root and he tumbles down to the ground.  A dog leaps in, savagely biting him into unconsciousness and then, mercifully, turning away to deal with Hrar, Dahlia’s badger.But the dogs are no match for a concerted effort by our heroes, and Jorgen and Cara end up side by side against a wall of dogs, parrying bite after bite and occasionally getting a telling slice or stab in.  Then Dahlia somehow manages to calm the dogs, and the party manages to regroup for a moment.  Cedric slides off of Thunderpuss and swiftly binds the worst of Kyle’s wounds, using his healing skills to good effect. But, though several goblins remain in the entangle, two of the ones that are free of it prove to be able skirmishers, moving and hurling throwing axes at Cedric and Cara.  Both suffer wounds, though Cedric’s armor stops the worst of his.  Then our heroes press forward.  It’s only another moment before there are only two goblins left, and they surrender (though a third manages to make his escape).  “We should kill them, my lord,” Jorgen tells Cedric.“Perhapth.  But perhapth they can tell uth thome utheful informathon.”“Can we speak to them?” wonders Cara.“Cur speaks goblin,” remarks Dahlia.  The group spends a few minutes trying to communicate with the goblins, but they deduce that it will have to await Cur’s presence.  They do discuss the possibility of finding someone else in town who might speak the language, but they don’t really know who to talk to about it (though they suppose Tad Ranger is a good bet).  For the time being, they take their pair of prisoners to the Whitewater estate’s dungeon.  Jorgen also manages to rope an entangled dog, and the group drags it along as well.  After delivering their prisoners, the group splits up.  Sir Cedric visits the town’s cleric, Ovina, in the hopes that she will be willing to heal him.  Dahlia warns him that Ovina made her and Cara work 20 days in the fields in exchange for a healing previously, but Cedric merely shrugs.  He shoulders Kyle’s unconscious form and heads to the church of Belthizar.  When he reaches the place, he asks Ovina if she might be able to aid in the tending of his wounds (and those of his companion) so that they might pursue the goblins besetting the community, and she gladly does so, asking nothing in return for her prayers of healing.  Kyle is still sorely wounded, but between the goodberries that Dahlia fed him earlier and Ovina’s prayers, his eyes flutter and open. Meanwhile, the others go to visit Tad Ranger.  He is at home, and when they tell him that they just fought some goblins, he nods.  “I’m not surprised,” he grunts.  “There is a large group of them not ten miles from Whitewater.  My sons and I have been keeping an eye on them.”  Unfortunately, as it turns out, he does not speak their tongue.  “I don’t talk to them much,” he admits with a wolfish grin.  By now night is falling.  Our heroes meet for a quick drink at the Fat Mallard and decide to meet in the morning at the Honest Man (Whitewater’s other tavern).  “We shall seek out and destroy these goblin brigands!” announces Jorgen.“We thall have to thee, theriff,” replies Sir Cedric (who is in his cups yet again).The band is still largely wounded; Cedric attends to everyone’s bandages, making sure that their injuries are treated as best he can.  His father and his mother’s nurses have trained him well.  After he tenderly re-bandages everyone, he murmurs, “I hope my bandageth are thoothing to your thucculent thkin, Kyle- er, ahem!” he abruptly coughs, as if caught thinking out loud.“What does that mean?” wonders Jorgen aloud.  (But then again, he thinks out loud as a matter of course.)***In the morning, when the group meets at the Honest Man, Sir Cedric makes a point of buying a delicious glass of wine for Cara.  He begins to woo her over breakfast, and she smiles prettily for him.  Beneath her tunic is the necklace his father gave her- a token of familial affection, surely. The group heads north after breakfast.  Dahlia takes the lead, leading the party towards the goblin camp the Ranger family has been keeping an eye on.  She keeps an eye open for signs of the trail of the raiders and their stolen goats, and sure enough, here and there she spies droppings.  The party follows her over the rolling plains, moving around low hills and winding between scrub oaks and manzanita bushes.  The group manages to avoid hazards of all sorts as they travel across the fields, and finally, early in the afternoon, after an 8-mile trek, they come upon a large group of bandits. “How many are there, do you think?” asks Dahlia.“At leatht two dozen, perhapth more,” Sir Cedric replies. “We should charge and kill them all, my lord,” Jorgen snarls.“There are a lot of them,” Cara points out.“They are goblins,” the sheriff sniffs.“So what?  They think and eat and breathe, just like us,” Dahlia opines.  Jorgen just snorts again.Cara suggests, “Maybe we could parlay with them.”“Yeth, I think tho,” Sir Cedric says.  “I will approach them under a flag of truthe.”  He dismounts.  “What do we have that ith white, to uthe for the flag?”  The group digs around for a few moments and ends up empty.  “Well, I will thimply go forward open-handed.  They will thurely thee that I mean to negothiate rather than to fight.”“I can’t let you go out there alone, my lord,” Jorgen chokes.  “I will come with you to guard against treachery.” So it is that, instead of a white flag, Sir Cedric brings forward a bottle of liquor.  Once he and Jorgen are detected approaching, a good dozen goblins eventually surround them, and there is some jabbering while they search for a common language.  One of the goblins turns out to speak Pellinsian,* so the two negotiators manages to hold a dialogue that eventually leads to the coming of a much larger goblin, obviously a leader-type, and a painted, shaman-looking goblin of more typical stature.  The big fellow- looming twice as tall as the 3’ goblins- is introduced as “the great and powerful Brart” by the painted fellow, and the negotiations begin in earnest.The goats, meanwhile, are chewing the grass obliviously amongst the goblins.The problem seems to be that the goblins have had their crops destroyed and have been driven from their home.  It seems to Sir Cedric that the best solution would be to help them go home again, but first there is the issue of the goats.  When Brart offers 4 cp for the 16 goats the goblins took, Jorgen shakes in outrage and cries, “They insult you, my lord!”  He nearly draws his sword right then, but Cedric’s cooler head prevails (aided by having shared a hefty shot of liquor with the goblin leader).  Obviously, that is not an acceptable price for the goats.  After some reasonable discussion, it turns out that what the goblins are really worried about is living through the next winter; with no crops, and nowhere to plant any new ones, they are going to starve without help.  Cedric definitely sympathizes, while Jorgen simply points out that the goblins all starving would solve problems in the future.  The goblins eventually offer to return the goats and serve as protection for Whitewater for the winter as long as they are fed through the winter, but neither Cedric nor Jorgen think much of that deal.  “They are cowards, my lord!” cries Jorgen, and Cedric has to admit to himself that this is true.  Besides, they are hardly trustworthy even without taking the cowardice into account.  In the end, as a gesture of good will, the goblins return half of the goats to the party, who promise to convey their demands to Sir Martin and return on the morrow.  Then they return to Whitewater, reaching the town just before sundown.  They return the eight goats to the Cookers, who rail against Jorgen again, suggesting to Cedric that “you and your father should consider replacing the sheriff!”Jorgen bites his tongue, but his face turns purple.  For once he doesn’t think out loud.Afterwards, Sir Cedric invites the others to dinner at his estate.  When they reach it, they have a good meal and most of them drink quite a bit.  Sir Martin joins them for a report.  Upon hearing the goblins’ demands, he snorts.  “Impossible,” he states.  “Tell them that we will sell them chickens for a penny each.  That way they can have eggs as well as meat.  And offer to let them keep the remaining goats for a silver each- if they agree, return the money to the Cookers.  If they object, tell them that it was my decision.”The discussion continues for a few more minutes before Martin hies himself off to bed.  Then our heroes retire, with Cara and Cedric going to his room together. She passes out, but wakes up again as he fondles her.  Despite the fact that the thighs of young boys keep flashing before his eyes, he manages to find his way with her.  Well!  Neither of them have ever done that before!Next Time: Will our heroes manage to make a deal with the goblins, or will it turn to open battle??*Pellinsia was the kingdom that the Barony of Kamenda was a part of; Pellinsian is sort of a mother tongue to Kamendan and several other languages.  Pellinsia is now pretty much defunct, alas.</blockquote>

Verification