Bree-yark! was a pretty much a running gag all night, because one of the players, the Wizard, had gotten the false rumor that Bree-yark! was Goblin for "we surrender" back at the Keep during session one but at this point two members of the party, the Rogue and the Bard, I believe, spoke Goblin (this speaks to how enormously the assumptions about D&D have changed since Keep was written). Gary had "Bree-yark!" truly translating as something like "Hey, rube!" but considering everyone I was playing with was too young to know what "rube" means and there's sort of been an inflation of offensiveness since the late 70s, I decided that the precise translation of "Bree-yark!" was "'ey, douchebag!" combined with a bad Jersey accent and a rude gesture.
Lol.
Minor note of clarification, but the province of "hey rube" is much older than that, and probably no one younger than Gygax knows this without looking it up, but "Hey, rube!" is Carnival person slang for a Carney in danger and in need of immediate violent aid. The cry of "Hey, rube!" means to the goblins, "I'm in danger, come help!", or at least that's how Gygax intended it.
Next part takes some set-up. As I mentioned up-thread I replaced the hobgoblins in the cave complex to the west of the goblins with svirnfeblin because reasons I explained up-thread. This meant that the room that connected the goblin caves with the deep gnome complex was guarded by a clay golem (the leader of the svirnfeblin, Chief Zook, she's a Transmuter 10 with a manual of golem creation) specifically instructed to obliterate all Small, non-gnome creatures moving through the area. Knowing this from their svirnfeblin guide, Movezig, they got really creative. The bard
disguise-self'd himself into a goblin. He lured away about six goblins from the common room, leaving six left, with his "brilliant plan" to get past the golem, which more or less amounted to running straight at it. He actually talked them into this, I think I called for three or maybe four Deception rolls and he did not get a result under 20 on any of them. Also, goblins be dumb. So at this point, we're intercutting between the party, in a pitched battle with the goblins that were left behind, and this tragic farce downstairs. The golem pulped four goblins, the disguised bard and two goblins escaped outside. At that point, the goblins started trying to kill him with their scimitars. Not because they saw through his disguise or anything--they still thought he was a fellow goblin--but because he was an idiot that had gotten four of their friends killed. Bard casts
suggestion, with a suggestion of "it was his idea" (meaning one of the two goblins fighting him). Goblin failed its save HARD, promptly decapitated the other goblin. Then the bard skewered it with his rapier.
We're a long way from being able to cast light once per day and flinging flasks of burning oil, boys and girls.
Upstairs in the common room, the party had (with some difficulty) triumphed in the closest thing they'd had to a fair fight with the goblins, four PCs on six goblins. They all hear armored footsteps marching towards them from the far exit. It's the goblin boss and his four hobgoblin bodyguards. Party resources are pretty depleted at this point and in general hit points are low. Everyone's wanting a short rest, or a long rest. (The party is a random scattering of characters from Levels 1 through 4 by the way; the Level 1 survivors definitely earned enough XP to be Level 2 now). Goblin boss emerges. "Parley?" he calls out. He wants to cut a deal. The punchline:
Wizard responds with: "BREE-YARK!" (accompanying rude gesture).
Much violence ensued.
All of my players knew that "Bree-yark!" (or so they say) was in the Monster Manual in the goblin entry. Now they know why.[/QUOTE]