Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack99" data-source="post: 5115560" data-attributes="member: 53135">Session 6The Warlord was in Sweden on conference this weekLordday 25th Zeptambor, Year 599After the last few weeks of excitement, The newly named Fallcrest Dragonslayers decided to take a couple of days relaxing and deciding whether they should go find out what was behind the treasure map, look for Mistress Adele or hunt some goblins.In concert with the Lord Warden, they decided to go find the goblins that sporadically attacked the farms south of Fallcrest. While they waited, they were approached by River, an elven ranger, who had been sent by the Lord Warden. Maybe he could be useful in tracking down the goblins.[sblock=Thoughts and comments]The party gained a new member today, since Tokiel, the sorcerer died the last time. The player had rerolled a ranger. He was initially quiet annoyed over losing his sorcerer, but after making the ranger, or rather, making the background of it, he came around and after playing it for just one night, the sorcerer was already forgotten, more or less.What started out as a delicate situation was quickly turned into something very positive. At first, right after having lost the sorcerer (and a couple of days after), he was ranting a lot and was really not up for making another character, claiming he didn't want to play anything but sorcerer, but on the other hand, he didn't want to make a carbon copy. Had I stepped in and tried to move him along with making a new character, it would surely just have annoyed him even more. Instead I let him rant himself out, and he eventually got around. I also made sure that we got to work on a great background, since that is one of those things that appeal to this player, as well as make him a couple of items that tie in nicely with that background. I also incorporated his background into the new map, so that he would early on feel his character's thumbprint on the campaign. And it worked. It's all about knowing your players really. Some will care they die, some won't. But in order to handle a campaign where players die, and do transitions well, you need to know how to deal with your (usually) very different players.[/sblock][sblock=New Map]<img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_jQ3Oy5xjtnQ/S4Or_jldGHI/AAAAAAAACxQ/rOL65HGDSyg/s1600/Second%2BAge%2BCampaign%2BMap%2B230210.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />[/sblock]As they were leaving the south gate, they were stopped by a small group of children who wanted to know what the famous Dragonslayers were up to. One of them, a young boy, also had a pie from his mother to the famous adventurers. Kavaki thanked the kid for the pie and told the kids some story about dragons big as mountains, and then the Dragonslayers were on their way south, towards the farms who had been suffering from the goblin attacks.[sblock=Thoughts and comments]Because their name was only mentioned once in the summary of the previous game session, I wanted to stress it early on, so that they could get used to it. Of course, they aren't forced to adopt the name (although some have already) but they would have to chose to not want it and do something about it. If they didn't this was what they would be called henceforth.[/sblock]They hadn't traveled for many miles when smoke in the horizont indicated they were heading the right way. When they arrived at the scene, they found a farm and barn which had been burnt down, with most of a family who had been killed. The fighter had died fighting, with scythe in hand, the son of the family had been locked up in the barn while it was burned down and the mother had been suspended up in a tree, and then used as a human piñata. Kavaki also found a doll amongst the destruction, which indicated that there was a little girl somewhere, and since they found no body, they decided she had probably been kidnapped. River recognized the arrows as those used by the Green Warrior Goblin tribe, one of the larger goblin tribe of the Silent Forest.After a couples of hours in the forest, tracking the goblins who they figured had a 12 hour head start, they suddenly spotted a goblin caster hiding behind a rock, some 60 feet ahead. As River tried to circle around to get a shot, the others hovered back, waiting for the ranger to be in place. Before he got that far, the goblin called out to them, demanding to know where they were going and what they were doing here. As it turns out, he wasn't really all that interested, it was merely a ruse to lure the Dragonslayers a bit closer to him, so that his 9 friends hidden in small holes dug in the ground could spring up and surprise them. Little good did it do the goblins, since the Dragonslayers were way too big a mouthful. Soon enough, the goblins were dead, and although especially Dobukan took quite a few hits, it was not a big challenge.With the goblins dead, the Dragonslayers tracked on, heading further west into the Silent Forest. They didn't get far though. About 2 hours later, while traversing a clearing, Dobukan suddenly found himself with a couple of crossbow bolts in the gut. 4 goblins were hiding in the bushes and trees, and had caught the Fallcrest heroes in a deadly crossfire. Luckily for the Dragonslayers, River proved that he too was very adept with a bow, and the first goblin went down to his first double-shot. Slowly but surely the tide of the battle turned, although for some, it consisted mostly of trying to hide from the arrows coming from the edge of the forest.[sblock=Thoughts and comments]This was a nasty n+1 encounter, in a 20 square wide clearing, where the goblins were hiding and snipping at the party, who were caught in the open middle, with no cover. The invoker was bloodied during surprise, and only a quick initiative saved him from dying before even acting. Of course, the ranger opening  with 38 damage on a twin strike did even things out, taking one level 2 goblin from full hp to dead status.[/sblock]After a short break, the Dragonslayers of Fallcrest continued onwards. Towards evening, they spotted a wall (of a ruin) standing next to a hill. River tried to snuck over to the wall to see what was behind the wall, but no sooner had he started to move, before his foot caught a hole full of dry leaves, alerting the goblin behind the wall that something was up. He fired a quick shot at the elf, and jumped down from the wall, out of sight. Kavaki immediately took up pursuit, but when he realized that the goblin had run down some stairs to a crypt beneath the hill (which was the only thing behind the wall), he decided to not follow the goblin in. Instead he took up place over the entrance/exit, while motioning the others to come in view of the stairs and hide behind some trees.They didn't have to wait long. A couple of minutes later, a goblin head came in sight and Kavaki made short work of it, by cleaving the poor creature with a single stroke of his longsword. No sooner had he done that, before 5 goblins rushed out to defend their lair. The battle was pretty fierce, with especially Kavaki taking a beating from the goblin crossbow archers. Down he went, and things were looking fairly bleak for a while, but the Dragonslayers managed to turn things around. Except that the goblin voodoomaster arrived as well, and really made the Dragonslayers work for their pay. Kavaki was first blinded, then downed for the third time, and since River was running around blinded as well, it definitely looked like the end of a short career there. Luckily for them all, River broke his blindness just in time to help Dobukan kill the voodoo-goblin and end the battle. Which was just in time as Kavaki was hovering on death's door..[sblock=Thoughts and comments]This is just one of those things that did not go at all as expected. I always run our combats on the tic-tac tiles we have. But I do actually own most of WotC dungeon tiles, I have just never used them. For this encounter, I had built the entire dungeon out of tiles, had brought them, and was actually looking forward to seeing how they would react to those tiles. The plan was that they would see the goblin minion which was keeping watch, kill him and the proceed down, exploring a bit, before encountering the goblins, which would then start a battle in several rooms at the same time. But, since the ranger decided to roll a 1 on his stealth-check and the warden decided not to pursuie the goblin down the stairs into the "dungeon", it was all for nothing. There was no way the goblins would not come out to battle (IMO anyway), since they could in theory be smoked out or worse. Luckily we still had a great combat, although it once again got very close, with the warden going down 3 times and being at 2 failed saves for a round or two, before he could be saved by what was the very last healing potion in the party. Having the leader away on a conference does make things even more lethal at times.The players leveled to level 3 at this point[/sblock]Down in the crypt, which turned out to be several rooms, they found some treasure (gold and rituals) and the kidnapped girl, an 8-year old called Melissa. After searching the place thoroughly to see if there were any leads that would connect the goblins with Mistress Adele or to a fellow named Krusk which had been mentioned by several goblins ("Kill me all you will, Krusk will deal with you" and things like that), they decided to move outside and rest for the night..[sblock=Thoughts and comments]Krusk is indeed one of the goblin leaders, in fact he is the hobgoblin who has taught the Green Warrior Goblins to fight with discipline and smarts.[/sblock]Sonday 26th Zeptambor, Year 599In the morning, as they prepared to leave, they were attacked by 3 dog-sized spiders, but that didn't even break a sweat for our favorite Dragonslayers. After dispatching the spiders with ease, the Dragonslayers decided to head home and deliver the news of their success to the Lord Warden and the girl to someone better suited to help her.The trip home was fairly uneventful, as nothing hostile was encountered. The only thing approaching drama was when Melissa started to ask about her parents, and, when figuring out that her parents were dead, if Kavaki was her new dad. His hesitation made the rest of the Dragonslayers pretty loud - they apparently did not want him to say yes...Once they got to Fallcrest and reported their news, they decided to strike out again after gathering some intelligence. They had gathered that kobolds and goblins rarely worked together, except under the leadership of some powerful figure, usually a dragon, giant or the like, and they were convinced that Krusk, whoever he was, would have the information they would need to uncover this mystery.Mansday 27th Zeptambor, Year 599Before heading out again, after taking a good night's sleep, Kavaki had a talk with Kama, the owner the Blue Moon Alehouse, and convinced her to take care of Melissa..[sblock=Thoughts and comments]In case some have missed it amidst all the info, Kama is a silver dragon, living in Fallcrest to protect an ancient evil artifact. I am not sure how this will affect Melissa and her story, but it is certainly something that should be milked significantly[/sblock]</blockquote>

Verification