Well, it was a very short session, but we got into it. First of all, this was the third session of the campaign. The first mini adventure took place in Ragesia, establishing it as an orcish nation, rough and powerful. Much was said of Coaltongue's dominance. The heroes were hired by the Merchant Menash, which I have renamed.
The party consists of : Drow Cosmic Sorcerer, Human Fullblade Fighter, Wilden Seeker, Half-elf Cleric of War, and a human Bard (occasionally)
As we started, I gave them alot of backstory, saying that they barely made it back to their home city of Gate Pass before the news came of Coaltongue's death, and with it, the Scourge. I described the grim winter in Gate Pass with the imperial armies at city gates, and of course, the first thing the wanted to know was if there was a resistance. "Why sure," I said, "In fact they just contacted you to meet them at the Pub."
So they went for it and made a spectacular perception check outside the bar, but I ruled that the Black Horse were all out of sight, except for a wagon, which I mentioned very quickly... hoping he wouldn't investigate.
The roleplaying with Torrent went well. She gave a lot of exposition as well, some I had already given, but I was able to impress upon the party the urgency of the mission and the need to go through the Fire Forest.
Then the Black Horse attacked and were annihilated. They heard footsteps over head and positioned themselves near the stairwell. Then the battering ram crew burst in, perfectly positioned to take out the squishy sorcerer. Of course I rolled terribly for initiative, and the combo of Drow Cosmic Sorcerer and Wilden Seeker decimated the minions immediately. The thug did not fare much better. The explosions and burning room were cool. I added a chandelier from DMG2, which fell on the sorcerer.
The result was that the party burst onto the street and made short work of Kathor and his dogs. I described Kathor as very ambivalent to fight, giving up actions and calling on them to surrender, and finally throwing a net over one character, but he was doomed. Luckily all his talk and offer of a truce impressed fighter enough to subdue him rather than kill him, so I will get to use him another day.
That was as far as we got. The fight was really easy, but that was fine with me because it was interesting. I particularly enjoyed the setup of getting the players impressed with the idea of this threatening all powerful warlord emperor, and then immediately killing him off and telling them that the whole city is under attack by firebombing dragonriders. Very cinematic.