Blood Ties

Deo’s protective growl wakes Fortu and alerts him of the repetitive tapping on their second story window of the Knot wave inn. Rolling slowly out of the comfortable bed, Fortu draws back the heavy curtain to reveal the tip of a broomstick gently rapping against the thin pane. Directly below, standing alone in the rain, is the broomstick’s mistress. Dressed head to toe in black, the old woman beckons him, unsmiling, down to the courtyard.

Shaking his roommate; Rifkin awake, the two of them quickly pull on some clothes and knock for the others. Once gathered, bleary-eyed, all seven of them make their way down the stairs, through the dark hall and unbolt the back door. 

Shuffling out, they stand ranged in a line, under the shelter of the eaves, while the Witch stands ten feet away, seemingly unfazed by the cold rain, her scraggly black cat curled around her ankle. Fortu, Liga Bur and Rifkin recognise her as the fortune teller from the Scarborough fair, but her ‘costume’ is very different now and along with it, her attitude. 

Rifkin opens his mouth to speak, but Megarna rudely silences him with a raised palm.

“I’m here to speak with Fortu. The rest of you have no immediate interest to me, but I promise; no harm will come to any of you today… unless you wish it.”

As she speaks, she gestures upward and, despite the darkness, the distance and the rain, you can clearly see the silhouettes of six similarly clad Witches, circling overhead.

Fortu raises his chin but doesn’t move forward. Instead, Megarna steps towards him, even as she summons her broom down from the window above.

“Against my advice, my Mistress has requested that I offer you this final chance to give up this pointless quest against her. I thought you seemed familiar when I first met you in my tent half a year ago. Hetzabah sniffed you out though, as soon as she first smelt you. Your blood is our blood. Demon blood. The blood that grants Witches their mystical power and connection to their Dark Lord. Blood you gained through our coven sister…Your Mother. If you join us, I’ll even tell you where you can find her.”

Unable to fully deny his interest, the unarmoured Fortu answers, low but steady.

“I’ve no time for your lies. Get away from here and take your stinking coven with you.”

Taking another step forward, Megarna pulls out an ornate silver box from under her black cloak and, with the click of a tiny switch, music like tiny bells, rings out in the courtyard. 

Before Fortu can say anything further though, the bristling Dwarf; Banal, grips his holy symbol and barks.

“You heard the man. Begone Witch!”

Unshaken, Megarna, grabs hold of the broomstick floating beside her and, almost provocatively, turns her back to the adventurers. As she scoops up her black cat, she deliberately places the expensive looking music box down in its place, before allowing herself to be slowly pulled aloft by her magical broomstick.

Danté’s Poisonous Legacy

After using up every healing spell he had on his Halfling and Human friends, Rifkin watches Banaal drag back the lead assassin’s corpse. Up close, the man looks close to seventy, despite his recent movements seeming to be that of a much younger man. His black, leather armour is weirdly oily to the touch and obviously magic of some sort… Probably the reason why Liga Bur’s entangling spell was so ineffectual. Likewise his dagger; the twin of the one Fortu had already retrieved by the waterfront. This one’s a lot cooler though; temperature wise. There’s also, several vials and a translucent glass-like wand. Both of which, because of what he’d seen, the Bard can guess at.

Human sized Leather armour +1 (slick improved)

Two +3 medium sized magic Daggers

Five vials of Blue Whinnis poison

Wand of Webs

160gp

Plus:

Twenty-six +1 ‘Flaming’ Crossbow bolts

Fourteen Masterwork daggers and 140gp combined taken from the Assassin corpses.

The Gods Above and Below

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Disadvantage of Superior Action Economy

Arowe, Fortu and Liga Bur. Having the Party made up of three Fighter class Player Characters posed a few problems for me as your Dungeon Master.

Easily solved problems though.

An Elven Archer, a Human Gladiator and a Halfling Tracker (plus his hound) actually made creating combat encounters pretty easy. All I needed was a way to divvi out healing when needed. Potions, plentiful and freely available would have done it but it also gave me the option of shoehorning in a suitable Non Player Character.

Rifkin; A Bard who could both bolster the Party and heal you during and after battles. He also allowed me to offer advice within the game when needed. He worked well for me because his Bardic ‘inspiration’ and personal cowardice made him super-easy to handle during combat encounters. 

This meant three/five characters vs whatever monster/monsters you were facing sped by quite quickly in round by round combat.

Then, thanks to David/Fortu’s moment of mercy, you also acquired three more melee based henchmen. Henchmen that I hadn’t planned on giving you.

Henshaw; a defensive based but intelligent Fighter, Doberman; a mindless chop-monster and Barbella; the slightly more complicated sort-of-thief-back-stabber.

So now, with seven/eight ‘heroes’ vs whatever monster/monsters I threw at you. Combat became twice as slow…

Half as fast?

Then Scott ‘evolved’ Liga Bur from Ranger to full Druid and added extra healing (if he ever selected it) and several more options in combat, not least of which, was the ability to summon multiple more combatants during the battles. 

He also rescued the flaming executioner/prisoner; Dijonn and had him bound to a magical staff. Another, potentially independently acting, morally dubious, member of the team!

Seven/nine (plus) ‘heroes’ vs whatever monster/monsters I throw at you.

Then Assif ‘retired’ his quick-on-the-draw, archer; Arowe and brought in a Dwarven Cleric and his fantastically well trained Mule; Murmul.

Seven/Ten (plus) ‘heroes’ vs whatever monster/monsters I throw at you.

More combat options to be sure and yet another healing opportunity but in Banaal’s second combat encounter, he summoned an Air-elemental. A pattern he’d oft repeat!

Now combats are running at around three-times slower…

A third as fast?

I did ‘cancel’ your evil trio of Henchies recently but I almost immediately replaced them with the (much more dependable and untreacherous) good triplets.

Given the current numbers, it can still work but it’s gotten progressively harder for me to plan and run the adventure, the more wheels are simultaneously turning. More player options mean more planning for me and more combatants, perversely means much, much, much longer combats.

In addition, the larger and more powerful the Party, the tougher and more numerous the enemy needs to be to compensate. The obvious additional consequence but pertinent to the speed of combat.

I’m guessing that ( unless they’re easy-peasy walk-overs) this slows the ‘average’ battle down to about one combat per session.

The last Mar-Gin river crossing combat encounter involved sixteen 4th level Rogues, a 5th level Witch and a 9th level Assassin verses 8th level; Fortu, Liga Bur and Banaal, 6th level Rifkin, three 4th level Fighter triplets; Locket, Chape and Ringo, a 5th level Captain Lynchin, four of his 2nd level guards plus the dogs; Mir Hundur and Deo, five riding gee-gees, the massive Night Fever, Dijonn and two divine summoned creatures; the Celestial Hippogryph and the giant Squid!

Plus poor innocent bystander (boat-stander?); Jane!

Forty-two (weird cosmic coincidence?) pieces simultaneously on the board!

To be honest, confusing as it is, I kinda-sorta love it, but it does potentially create two (four-hour) session combats. 

Ultimately, this is the bloated (despite only having three player-characters) situation we’ve created for ourselves and if you can live with it, so can I.

:)

Kicking Ass(assin)

EVERYTHING’S GONE WRONG!!!

Old-man Danté can barely believe his own eyes!

Somehow his entire plan had collapsed, like a crooked house of cards, in less than a minute!

After seemingly defeating the Halfling Druid, his air-support Witch; Mallophor had fled, due to the concentrated crossbow fire of the Zinerian guards. 

The same local guards that had miraculously beaten four of his invisible Assassins!

Then the big, heavily armoured Fighter had somehow managed to swim from the mid-river moored barge to his shore, undetected before chopping down half-a-dozen of his men!

Still, Danté felt confident.

All but two of the adventurers were marooned onboard the sinking barge and of the other two, one was dead (or hiding) in the water and the other was being worn down by his remaining men. A flapping, summoned Hippogryph had been a distraction but his men had made relatively short work of it.

Then though, when he’d committed to dispatching the Fighter himself, the man hadn’t fallen! Despite cleverly slipping his enchanted blade through a small gap in the warrior's octopus-styled plate-mail. Despite his hard won skills and murderous intent, the darkly armoured man had somehow managed to twist away, just enough, to save his kidneys from the killing stroke!

Danté couldn’t believe it!

Even his precious poison had failed to affect the bastard-sword swinging annoyance!

After evading another flaming pillar, Danté steps back into his conjured fog bank and, from his wand, casts a net of thick, sticky webs as he passes. If the Fighter is confident enough to enter this obscured area, he’ll be caught up and stopped regardless.

His men are lost now, but no matter; he can always recruit and train more. The priority now is to escape. Turning invisible, despite the slash he’d gotten from the Fighter, he smiles. No-one can stop him now…

Suddenly root-like tendrils wriggle from the ground, trying to grab at him, but despite his agility boosting buffs being, somehow dispelled, he’s still fast enough to tip-toe through this new impediment. It might actually slow the wretched Fighter down even more.

As he clears the end of the fog-bank, Danté glances back over his shoulder. No-one’s following. Unseen now, he makes his way up the slope and into the mountain pass. Eighteen seconds and he’ll be out of the accursed adventurers’ reach.

Suddenly a crossbow bolt creases his invisible shoulder!

Spinning around in disbelief, just for a moment he sees the Dwarf Cleric, crossbow raised, clear of the fog-bank, behind him, before he disappears from sight!

How’s the Dwarf seeing him? How’s he moving through the grabbing weeds? Why wasn’t he caught by his conjured webs?!

Danté tries to run but the traitorous ground continues to drag at his heels!

Then the Dwarf; Banaal reappears, even closer now and shoots him again!

This time the bolt draws blood!

Looking back over his shoulder, the invisible Assassin feels ice-cold fear trickle down his old spine.

His feet are clear now and he’s just six seconds from the turn but, with a sinking feeling, he knows he’s not going to make it.

This wasn’t fair! 

He’d worked so hard! 

Waited so long! 

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go down!!!

Subotage

Coordinating their actions with the sudden snagging of the barge mid-river, the two young Assassins screw their time-release devices directly onto the underside of the Spinning Jenny’s hull. It’s a difficult underwater task, but the Witch bestowed ‘water-breathing’ potions make it eminently possible and they’ve drilled for this mission in more ways than one. The very act of securing these two delayed release items in place, alerts the passengers above but all they need is about half a minute.

The small screw holes consequently allow river water to seep up onto the barge’s flat bottom but at a rate unlikely to alarm or much reduce the ferry’s buoyancy or speed. The screw holes though, are merely a precursor of what’s to come.

After a thumbs up gesture to each-other, the two Assassins release their grips from under the hull and allow the current of the river to carry them clear of the boat. Although still underwater, they can see their Witch air-support exchanging magical bolts of energy with an eagle. An eagle who’s obviously the Halfling Druid shape-changer they’d been forewarned about.

Flaming crossbow bolts also continue to rain down on the barge from their teammates on the Agentian side of the river. Their plan is working, despite a few wrinkles…

The armoured knight is in the water but somehow not drowning and striking surprisingly fast towards the far side, where their leader; Danté is standing.

Exchanging looks, the two submerged young men gesture frantically to each other. Should they continue to drift to safety or chase after the man they know as; Fortu?

Just then a terrific splash pulls their attention. The Druid-eagle; Liga Bur has taken a flaming bolt from one of their teammates’ crossbows and fallen into the water.

Then, just as the timer was set for, the two bombs under the barge explode! Their upward facing charges, momentarily lifts the barge up off the water and blasts two huge holes in the flat hull, sending wooden splinters into everyone standing nearby. 

The horses shriek as they rear and strain against their tethered reins, the two dogs struggle to obey their master’s instructions and Rifkin and the Ferry-woman; Jane are injured. Only the sturdy Dwarf-priest; Banaal, his stubborn Mule and the huge, black Warhorse seem unfazed.

The two submerged Assassins grin and high-five each-other.

Nothing could go wrong now!

D&D is Confusing and Difficult to Schedule

Last weeks session ended up mostly being about finishing off the complicated, multiple combatant, river crossing encounter. Good fun but exhausting. It ended with Fortu, Liga Bur and Banaal doggedly hunting down the badly injured but invisible and cunning; Danté. Fortunately for the Party, Banaal’s magical cloak gives him the ability to become ethereal and therefore see other invisible, ethereal creatures. I took that to mean that he could therefore see ALL invisible creatures.

After reading the rules however, I discovered that it doesn’t actually allow for that.

So, as a group, do we decide to double down on my error and allow all invisible characters and creatures to see each-other for the remainder of the campaign or accept Banaal’s observation of Danté was just a strange (possibly god given) glitch in our shared fantasy?

As for the next session, are any of you, all of you free for the morning of any of these weekend dates?

July

Saturday the 4th

Sunday the 5th

Saturday the 11th

Sunday the 12th

Saturday the 18th

Sunday 19th

Let me know if and when you’re available in this month as soon as you can and I’ll get to work building the next set of glue and cardboard traps encounters.

Thanks boys for the quickie response. Sunday the 19th of July is our mutually selected game-date. Now, will it be another massively complicated and overblown combat encounter or maybe just a talky-talky one? I’ve got four weeks to think about it and then four days to actually write something down!